b 
 
 ^F.P.BAGLEY,^ / ' M 
 
 7 
 
BOM'S STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 
 SCHLEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 
 
 AND 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. 
 
THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 
 
 AND 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, 
 
 IN A 
 
 COURSE OF LECTURES, 
 
 BV 
 
 FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. A. J. W. MORRISON, M. A. 
 
 L ON D O IS : 
 
 BELL & DALDY, 6 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, 
 AND 186 FLEET STREET. 
 I860. 
 
LONDON : PRINTED B If W CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STRFJBT. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 These fifteen Lectures on the Philosophy of Life are intended 
 to give, as far as is possible, a clear and succinct exposition 
 of the following subjects. The first five treat of the soul, 
 1, as the centre of consciousness : 2, as the centre of moral 
 life : 3, as co-operating with mind in the acquisition ot 
 knowledge : 4, in its relation to nature : 5, in its relation 
 to God. The next three investigate the laws of Divine 
 Wisdom and Providence, as manifested in the system of 
 Nature, the World of Thought, and the evidences of History. 
 The subject-matter of the remaining seven is the unfolding of 
 the spirit [or spiritual nature] of man, in consciousness and 
 in science ; in external life and its great social relations ; in 
 its struggle with the age ; and in its course of restoration 
 through the several grades of human development, until it 
 arrives at the end and aim of perfection. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, 
 LECTURE T. 
 
 Of the thinking Soul as the Centre of Consciousness, and of the false 
 procedure of Reason 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Of the loving Soul as the Centre of the moral Life ; and of Marriage 23 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Of the Soul's share in Knowledge, and of Revelation 44 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Of the Soul in relation to Nature 67 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Of the Soul .->f Man in relation to God 93 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Of the Wisdom of the divine Order of Things in Nature, and of the 
 relation of Nature to the other Life and to the Invisible World .. . 114 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Of the divine Wisdom as manifested in the Realm of Truth, and of the 
 Conflict of the Age with Error 141 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Of the divine Order in the History of the World and the Relation of 
 States 163 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Of the true Destination of Philosophy ; and of the apparent Schism 
 but essential Unity between a right Faith and highest Certainty, as 
 the Centre of Light and Life in the Consciousness 187 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Of the twofold Spirit of Truth and Error in Science, of the Conflict of 
 Faith with Infidelity , 209 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 Page 
 
 Of the Relation of Truth and Science to Life, and of Mind in its 
 application to Reality 236 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 Of the symbolical Nature and Constitution of Life with reference to 
 Art and the moral Relations of Man 261 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Of the Spirit of Truth and Life in its application to Politics, or of 
 the Christian Constitution of the State and the Christian Idea of 
 Jurisprudence 282 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Of the Division of Ranks, and of the reciprocal Relations of States, 
 according to the Christian Idea: — of Science as a Power, of its 
 Constitution, and of the right Regulation of it 306 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 Of the true Idea of a Theocracy; of the Might of Science, and of the 
 final Restoration and Perfection of the Human Consciousness 326 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 Preface of the German Editor 349 
 
 Lecture I 351 
 
 Lecture II 373 
 
 Lecture III 392 
 
 Lecture IV 413 
 
 Lecture V 435 
 
 Lecture VI 456 
 
 Lecture VII 482 
 
 Lecture VIII 506 
 
 Lecture IX 528 
 
 Lecture X , < 552 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 OF THE THINKING SOUL AS THE CENTRE OF CON- 
 SCIOUSNESS, AND OF THE FALSE PROCEDURE OF 
 REASON. 
 
 "There are," says a poet as ingenious as profound,* "more 
 things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our phi- 
 losophy." This sentiment, which Genius accidentally let 
 drop, is in the main applicable also to the philosophy of our 
 own day ; and, with a slight modification, I shall be ready to 
 adopt it as my own. The only change that is requisite to 
 make it available for my purpose would be the addition — 
 " and also between heaven and earth are there many things 
 which are not dreamt of in our philosophy." And exactly be- 
 cause philosophy, for the most part, does nothing but dream — 
 scientifically dream, it may be — therefore is it ignorant, ay, 
 has no inkling even of much which, nevertheless, in all pro- 
 priety it ought to know. It loses sight of its true object, 
 it quits the firm ground where, standing secure, it might 
 pursue its own avocations without let or hindrance, when- 
 ever, abandoning its own proper region, it either soars up to 
 heaven to weave there its fine-spun webs of dialectics, and to 
 build its metaphysical castles in the air, or else, losing itself 
 on the earth, it violently interferes with external reality, and 
 determines to shape the world according to its own fancy, 
 and to reform it at will. Kalf-way between these two 
 devious courses lies the true road ; and the proper region 
 
 * Shakspeare. Hamlet, Act I. Scene V. 
 
 " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' ' 
 Schlegel seems to have read our, which is the reading of the folio of 
 1263.— Tram. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 PLATO COSMOGONIES OF THE IONIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 of philosophy is even that spiritual inner life between heaven 
 and earth. 
 
 On both sides, many and manifold errors were committed, 
 even in the earlier and better days of enlightened antiquity. 
 Plato himself, the greatest of the great thinkers of Greece, 
 set up in his Republic the model of an ideal polity, which, 
 in this respect, cannot bear the test of examination. His 
 design indeed finds, in some measure, its apology in the dis- 
 orders and corruption which, even in his day, had infected 
 all the free states of Greece, whether great or small. His 
 work too, by the highly finished style of the whole, the vivid 
 perspicuity of its narrative, its rich profusion of pregnant 
 ideas and noble sentiments, stands out in dignified contrast 
 to the crude and ill-digested schemes of legislation so hastily 
 propounded in our own day. Still, it will ever remain the 
 weak point of this great man. One needs not to be a Plato 
 to see how absolutely unfeasible, not to say practically absurd, 
 are many of the propositions of this Platonic ideal. Accord- 
 ingly it has ever been the fruitful occasion, not only among 
 contemporaries, but also with posterity, of ridicule to the 
 ignorant and of censure to the wise. In this respect it cannot 
 but excite our regret that such great and noble powers of 
 mind should have been wasted in following a false direction, 
 and in pursuit of an unattainable end. The oldest philo- 
 sophers of Greece, on the other hand — those first bold ad- 
 venturers on the wide ocean of thought, combined together 
 the elements of things, water, or air, or fire, or atoms, or 
 lastly the all-ruling Intellect* itself, into as many different 
 systems of the universe. If, however, each in his ow r n way 
 thus set forth a peculiar creed of nature, we must ever bear 
 in mind that the popular religion, with its poetical imagery, 
 and the fabulous mythology of antiquity, as affording not only 
 no sufficient, but absolutely no answer to the inquiring mind, 
 as to the essence of things, and the first cause of all, could 
 not possibly satisfy these earlier thinkers. Consequently they 
 might well feel tempted to find, each for himself, a way to 
 honour nature, and to contemplate the supreme Being. Since 
 then, however, the world has grown older by nearly twenty- 
 
 * The vovs of Anaxagoras. A brief, but characteristic sketch of these 
 earlier philosophemes is given in ThirlwalFs History of Greece, vol. ii. See 
 also Ritter's History of Philosophy, vol. i. — Trans, 
 
OBJECTS AND LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 five centuries, and much in the meanwhile has been accom- 
 plished by, or fallen to the share of, the human race. But 
 when philosophy would pretend to regard this long succession 
 of ages, and all its fruits, as suddenly erased from the records 
 of existence, and for the sake of change would start afresh, 
 so perilous an experiment can scarcely lead to any good 
 result, but in all probability, and to judge from past ex- 
 perience, will only give rise to numberless and interminable 
 disputes. Such an open space in thought — cleared from all 
 the traces of an earlier existence (a smoothly polished marble 
 tablet, as it were, like the tabula rasa of a recent ephemeral 
 philosophy) — would only serve as an arena for the useless 
 though daring ventures of unprofitable speculation, and could 
 never form a safe basis for solid thought, or for any permanent 
 manifestation of intellectual life. 
 
 In itself it is nothing surprising if young and inexperi- 
 enced minds, occupying themselves prematurely, or in a 
 perverted sense, with the grand ideas of God and Nature, 
 liberty and the march of thought, should be wdiolly over- 
 mastered and carried away with them. It has often hap- 
 pened before now, and it is no new thing if youthful and 
 ardent temperaments should either yield to the seductive 
 temptation to make, not to say create, a new religion of their 
 own; or else feel a deceitful impulse to censure and to 
 change aD that is already in existence, and, if possible, to 
 reform the whole w T orld by their newly acquired ideas. 
 
 That this twofold aberration and misuse of philosophical 
 thought must prove universally injurious, and prejudicial 
 both to education and the whole world, is so evident that 
 it can scarcely be necessary to dwell upon it. Its effect has 
 been to cause men, especially those w T hose minds have been 
 formed in the great and comprehensive duties of practical 
 life, to view the thing altogether in an evil light, although it 
 must be confessed there is much injustice in this sweeping 
 condemnation. In several of the great statesmen of Home 
 we may observe a similar contempt for Grecian philosophy as 
 useless and unprofitable. And yet, as is happily indicated by 
 its Greek name, this whole effort was assuredly based upon 
 a noble conception, and, when duly regulated, a salutary 
 principle. For in this beautiful word, according to its ori- 
 ginal acceptation, science is not regarded as already finished 
 
 33 2 
 
4 
 
 FORM AND METHOD OF TRUE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and mature, but is rather set forth as an object of search — of 
 a noble curiosity and of a pure enthusiasm for great and sub- 
 lime truths, while at the same time it implies the wise use 
 of such knowledge. Merely, however, to check and to hinder 
 the aberrations of a false philosophy, is not by itself suffi- 
 cient. It is only by laying down and levelling the right 
 road of a philosophy of life, that a thorough remedy for the 
 evil is to be found. True philosophy, therefore, honouring 
 that which has been given from above and that which is 
 existent from without, must neither raise itself in hostility to 
 the one, nor attempt to interfere violently with the other. 
 For it is exactly when, keeping modestly within its proper 
 limits of the inner spiritual life, it makes itself the handmaid 
 neither of theology nor of politics, that it best asserts its true 
 dignity and maintains its independence on its own peculiar 
 domain. And thus, even while it abstains most scrupulously 
 from intermeddling with the positive and actual, will it operate 
 most powerfully on alien and remote branches of inquiry, and 
 by teaching them to consider objects in a freer and more 
 general light, indirectly it will exercise on them a salutary in- 
 fluence. Thus while it proceeds along its appointed path, it 
 will, as it were, without effort disperse many a mist which 
 spreads its dangerous delusion over the whole of human 
 existence, or remove perhaps many a stone of stumbling, which 
 offends the age and divides the minds of men in strife and 
 discord. In this manner consequently will it most beauti- 
 fully attest its healing virtue, and at the same time best 
 fulfil its proper destination. 
 
 The object therefore of philosophy is the inner mental life 
 (geistige Leben), not merely this or that individual faculty 
 in any partial direction, but man's spiritual life with all its 
 rich and manifold energies. With respect to form and 
 method : the philosophy of life sets out from a single assump- 
 tion — that of life, or in other words, of a consciousness to a 
 certain degree awakened and manifoldly developed by ex- 
 perience — since it has for its object, and purposes to make 
 known the entire consciousness and not merely a single 
 phase of it. Now, such an end would be hindered rather 
 than promoted by a highly elaborate or minutely exhaustive 
 form and a painfully artificial method; and it is herein that 
 the difference lies between a philosophy of life and the philo- 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCHOOLS UNINTELLIGIBLE. 5 
 
 sophy of the school. If philosophy be regarded merely as one 
 part of a general scientific education, then is the instruction in 
 method (whether under the old traditionary name of Logic 
 or any other) the chief point to be regarded. For such a mere 
 elementary course, passing over, or at least postponing for a 
 while the consideration of the matter, as possessing as yet but 
 a very remote interest for the student, and, in the default of an 
 adequate internal experience of his own, incapable of being 
 understood by him, concerns itself rather with the practice 
 of methodical thought, both as necessary for the future, and as 
 applicable to all matters. But the preliminary exercise in 
 philosophical thinking is only the introduction to philosophy, 
 and not philosophy itself. . This school-teaching of philosophy 
 might perhaps be rendered productive of the most excellent 
 consequences, if only it were directed to the history of the 
 human intellect. What could be more interesting than a 
 history which should enter into the spirit, and distinctly em- 
 body the various systems which the inventive subtlety of the 
 Greeks gave birth to, or which, taking a still wider range, 
 should embrace the science of the Egyptians, and some Asiatic 
 nations, and illustrate the no less wonderful nor less manifold 
 systems of the Hindoos — those Greeks of the primeval world ! 
 But this, perhaps, would be to encroach upon the peculiar 
 domain of erudition, and might, moreover, fail to furnish equal 
 interest for all ; and at any rate the history of philosophy is 
 not philosophy itself. 
 
 Now, the distinction between the philosophy of life and the 
 philosophy of the school will appear in very different lights 
 according to the peculiarity of view which predominates in the 
 several philosophical systems. That species of philosophy 
 which revolves in the dialectical orbit of abstract ideas, ac- 
 cording to its peculiar character presupposes and requires a 
 well-practised talent of abstraction, perpetually ascending 
 through higher grades to the very highest, and even then 
 boldly venturing a step beyond. In short, as may be easily 
 shown in the instance of modern German science, the being 
 unintelligible is set up as a kind of essential characteristic 
 of a true and truly scientific philosophy. I, for my part, 
 must confess, that I feel a great distrust of that philosophy 
 which dwells in inaccessible light, where the inventor in- 
 deed asserts of himself, that he finds himself in an unattain- 
 
6 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE INTELLIGIBLE. 
 
 able certainty and clearness of insight, giving us all the 
 while to understand thereby, that he does see well enough 
 how of all other mortals scarcely any, or perhaps, strictly 
 speaking, no one, understands or is capable of understanding 
 him. In all such cases it is only the false light of some 
 internal ignis fatuus that produces this illusion of the unin- 
 telligible, or rather of nonsense. In this pursuit of wholly 
 abstract and unintelligible thought, the philosophy of the 
 school is naturally enough esteemed above every other, and 
 regarded as pre-eminently the true science — i.e., the unin- 
 telligible. 
 
 In such a system a philosophy of life means nothing more 
 than a kind of translation of its abstruser mysteries into a 
 more popular form, and an adaptation of them to the capacity 
 of ordinary minds. But even such popular adaptations, though 
 evincing no common powers of language and illustration, in 
 spite of their apparent clearness, when closer examined, are 
 found as unintelligible as the recondite originals. For inas- 
 much as the subject-matter of these abstract speculations was, 
 from the very first, confused and unintelligible, it was conse- 
 quently incapable of being made clear even by the most 
 perspicuous of styles. But the true living philosophy has 
 no relation or sympathy with this continuous advance up to 
 the unintelligible heights of empty abstraction. Since the 
 objects it treats of are none other than those which every 
 man of a cultivated mind and in any degree accustomed to 
 observe his own consciousness, both has and recognizes within 
 himself, there is nothing to prevent its exposition being 
 throughout clear, easy, and forcible. Here the relation is 
 reversed. In such a system the philosophy of life is the chief 
 and paramount object of interest; while the philosophy of 
 the school, or the scientific teaching of it in the schools, how- 
 ever necessary and valuable in its place, is still, as compared 
 with the whole thing itself, only secondary and subordinate. 
 In the philosophy of life, moreover, the method adopted must 
 also be a living one. Consequently it is not, by any means, a 
 thing to be neglected. But still it need not to be applied 
 with equal rigour throughout, or to appear prominently in 
 every part, but on all occasions must be governed in these 
 respects by what the particular end in view may demand. 
 
 A few illustrations, drawn from daily experience, will per- 
 
UIGHT USE OF PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD. 
 
 7 
 
 haps serve to explain my meaning. Generally speaking, the 
 most important arts and pursuits of life are ultimately based 
 on mathematics. This science furnishes them, as it were, 
 with the method they observe ; but it is not practicable, 
 nor indeed has man the leisure, to revert on every occasion, 
 with methodical exactness, to these elements, but, assuming 
 the principles to be well known and admitted, he attends 
 rather to the results essential to the end he has in view. 
 The economical management of the smallest as well as of the 
 largest household, rests in the end on the elementary princi- 
 ples of arithmetic ; but what would come of it if, on every 
 occasion, we were to go back to the simple " one-times-one" 
 of the multiplication table, and reflected upon and sought for 
 the proofs that the principle is really valid and can con- 
 fidently be relied on in practice ? In the same way the art of 
 war is founded on geometry, but when the general arranges 
 his troops for battle does he consult his Euclid to satisfy 
 himself of the correctness and advantages of his position ? 
 Lastly, even the astronomer, whose vocation is pre-eminently 
 dependent on accurate calculation, when he would make us 
 acquainted with the phenomena of the sidereal heavens, con- 
 fines himself almost entirely to them, without wearying those 
 whom he wishes to interest, with the complicated reckonings 
 which, however, in all probability, he was obliged himself to 
 go through. With all these arts and pursuits of practical life, 
 file intellectual business of thinking — of such thinking at 
 least as is common to most men — and of communicating 
 thought, has a sort of affinity and resemblance. For, unques- 
 tionably, it is one among the many problems of philosophy to 
 establish a wise economy and prudent stewardship of that 
 ever-shifting mass of incoming and outgoing thoughts which 
 make up our intellectual estate and property. And this is 
 the more necessary, the greater are the treasures of thought 
 possessed by our age. For, in the highly rapid interchange 
 of, and traffic in ideas, which is carrying on, the receipts and 
 disbursements are not always duly balanced. There is much 
 cause, therefore, to fear lest a thoughtless and lavish dissipa- 
 tion of the noblest mental endowments should become preva- 
 lent, or a false and baseless credit-system in thought spring up 
 amidst an absolute deficiency of a solid and permanent capital 
 safely invested in fundamental ideas and lasting truths. As for 
 
8 
 
 MATHEMATICAL FORMULAE INAPPROPRIATE. 
 
 the second simile : I should, by all means, wish to gain a victory, 
 not indeed for you, but with you, over some of the many errors 
 and many semblances of thought, which are, however, but 
 cheats and counterfeits which distract the minds of the present 
 generation, disturb the harmony of life, and banish peace even 
 from the intellectual world. And as respects the third illus- 
 tration : I should indeed rejoice as having, in a great measure, 
 attained my object, if only I shall succeed in directing your 
 attention to some star in the higher region of intellect, which 
 hitherto was either totally unknown, or, at least, never before 
 fully observed. 
 
 But above all, I think it necessary to observe further, that 
 in the same way as philosophy loses sight of its true object 
 and appropriate matter, when either it passes into and merges 
 in theology, or meddles with external politics, so also does 
 it mar its proper form when it attempts to mimic the rigorous 
 method of mathematics. In the middle of the last century 
 scarcely was there to be found a German manual for any of 
 the sciences that did not ape the mathematical style, and 
 where every single position in the long array of interminable 
 paragraphs did not conclude with the solemn act of demon- 
 strative phraseology. But it is also well known that the 
 philosophy which was propounded in this inappropriate form 
 and method was crammed full of, nay, rather, was hardly any- 
 thing more than a tissue of arbitrary, now forgotten, hypo- 
 theses, which have not brought the world at all nearer to the 
 truth, — not at least to that truth which philosophy is in search 
 of, and which is something higher than a mere example of 
 accurate computation. 
 
 And even in the present day — although, indeed, the appli- 
 cation is made in a very different way from formerly — 
 German philosophy is anything but free from those algebraic 
 formularies, in which all things, even the most opposite, admit 
 of being comprised and blended together. But, be it as it 
 may, this elaborate structure of mechanical demonstration can 
 never produce a true, intrinsic, and full conviction. The 
 method which philosophy really requires is quite different, 
 being absolutely internal and intellectual fgeistige). As in 
 a correct architectural structure it is necessary that all its 
 parts should be in unison, and such as the eye can take in 
 easily and agreeably; so in every philosophical communica- 
 
UNITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 
 
 9 
 
 tion, the solid simple basis being laid, the arrangement of all 
 the parts and the careful rejection and exclusion of all foreign 
 matter, is the most essential point, both for internal correctness 
 and external perspicuity. But, in truth, the matter in hand 
 bears a far closer resemblance and affinity to natural objects 
 which live and grow, than to any lifeless edifice of stone ; 
 to a great tree, for instance, nobly and beautifully spreading 
 out on all sides in its many arms and branches. As such 
 a tree strikes the hasty and passing glance, it forms a some- 
 what irregular and not strictly finished whole ; there it stands, 
 just as the stem has shot up from the root, and has divided 
 itself into a certain number of branches and twigs and leaves, 
 which livingly move backwards and forwards in the free air. 
 But examine it more closely, and how perfect appears its 
 whole structure ! how wonderful the symmetry, how minutely 
 regular the organization of all its parts, even of each little leaf 
 and delicate fibre ! In the same way will the ever-growing 
 tree of human consciousness and life appear in philosophy, 
 whenever it is not torn from its roots and stripped of its 
 leaves by a pretended wisdom, but is vividly apprehended by 
 a true science, and exhibited and presented to the mind in 
 its life and its growth. 
 
 Not only, however, the arrangement of the whole, but also 
 the connexion of the several parts of a philosophical treatise 
 or development, is of a higher kind than any mere mechanical 
 joining, such, for instance, as that by which two pieces 
 of wood are nailed or glued together. If I must illustrate this 
 connexion by a simile from animated nature, the facts of 
 magnetism will best serve my purpose. Once magnetically 
 excited, the iron needle comes into invisible contact and con- 
 nexion with the whole globe and its opposite poles ; and this 
 magnetic clue has guided the bold circumnavigator into new 
 and unknown regions of the world. Now, the intrinsic vital 
 coherence of the several thoughts of philosophy resembles this 
 magnetic attraction ; and no such rude, mechanical, and in 
 fact mere external conjunction of thought, like that lately 
 alluded to, can satisfy the requirements of philosophical con- 
 nexion. 
 
 But the supreme intrinsic unity of philosophical thought, or 
 of a philosophical series of ideas, is quite different from every 
 thing hitherto mentioned. It belongs not to nature, but to 
 
10 
 
 UNITY OP PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 
 
 life ; it is not derived from the latter by way of figure or 
 illustration, but is a part and constituent of it, and goes 
 to the very root and soil of the moral life. What I mean is, 
 the unity of sentiment — the fixed character, remaining ever 
 the same and true to itself-^the inner necessary sequence of 
 the thoughts — which, in life no less than in the system and 
 philosophical theory, invariably makes a great and pro- 
 found impression on our minds, and commands our respect, 
 even when it does not carry along with it our convictions. 
 This, however, is dependent on no form, and no mere method 
 can attain to it. How often, for instance, in some famous 
 political harangue, which perhaps the speaker, like the rhap- 
 sodist of old, poured forth on the spur of the moment, do we 
 at once recognize and admire this character in the thoughts, 
 this consistency of sentiment ? How often, on the contrary, 
 in another composed with the most exquisite research and 
 strict method, and apparently a far more elaborate and finished 
 creation of the intellect, we have only to pierce through the 
 systematic exterior to find that it is nothing but an ill-connected 
 and chance-medley of conflicting assumptions and opinions 
 taken from all quarters, and the crude views of the author 
 himself, devoid of all solidity, and resting on no firm basis, 
 without character, and wholly destitute of true intrinsic unity ? 
 
 If now, in the present course of Lectures, I shall succeed in 
 laying before you my subject in that clearness and distinct- 
 ness which are necessary to enable you to comprehend the 
 whole, and while taking a survey of it, to judge of the agree- 
 ment of the several parts, you will find, I trust, no difficulty 
 in discovering the fundamental idea and sentiment. And 
 further, I would venture to entreat you not to judge hastily of 
 this sentiment from single expressions, and least of all at the 
 very outset, but, waiting for its progressive development, to 
 judge of it on the whole. Lastly, I would also indulge a hope, 
 that the views of an individual thinker, if perspicuously enun- 
 ciated, may, even where they fail of conviction, and though 
 points of difference still subsist, produce no revolting impres- 
 sion on your minds ; but, by exercising a healing influence on 
 many a rankling wound in thought and life, produce amongst 
 us some of the fairest fruits of true philosophy. 
 
 Hitherto we have been considering, first of all, the object 
 and proper sphere of the philosophy of life ; and secondly, its 
 
MODERN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY CONDILLAC. 11 
 
 appropriate form of communication, as well as all other 
 methods which are alien and foreign to it. Of great and de- 
 cisive importance for the whole course and further develop- 
 ment of philosophical inquiry, is it to determine, in the next 
 place, the starting-point from which it ought to set out. It 
 will not do to believe that we have found this in any axiom 
 or postulate such as are usually placed at the head of a system. 
 For such a purpose we must rather investigate the inmost 
 foundation — the root out of which springs the characteristic 
 feature of a philosophical view. Now, in the philosophy of 
 life the whole consciousness, with all its different phases and 
 faculties, must inevitably be taken for the foundation, the 
 soul being considered as the centre thereof. This simple 
 basis being once laid, it may be further developed in very 
 different ways. For it is, I might almost say, a matter of 
 indifference from what point in the circumference or peri- 
 phery we set out in order to arrive at the centre, with the 
 design of giving a further development to this as the foun- 
 dation of the whole. But in order to illustrate this simple 
 method of studying life from its true central point, which is 
 intermediate between the two wrong courses already indicated, 
 and in order to make by contrast my meaning the plainer, I 
 would here in a few words, characterize the false starting- 
 point from which the prevailing philosophy of a day — whether 
 that of France in the eighteenth century or the more recent 
 systems of Germany — has hitherto for the most part proceeded. 
 False do I call it, both on account of the results to which it 
 has led, and also of its own intrinsic nature. In one case as 
 well as in the other, the starting-point was invariably some 
 controverted point of the reason — some opposition or other to 
 the legitimacy of the reason ; under which term, however, little 
 else generally was understood, than an opposition of the rea- 
 son itself to some other principle equally valid and extensive. 
 The principal, or rather only way which foreign philosophy 
 took in this pursuit, was to reduce every thing to sensation 
 as opposed to reason, and to derive every thing from it alone, 
 so as to make the reason itself merely a secondary faculty, no 
 original and independent power, and ultimately nothing else 
 than a sort of chemical precipitate and residuum from the 
 material impressions.* But however much may be con- 
 
 * Schlegel is here alluding to Condillac and his theory of transformed 
 sensations. — Trans, 
 
12 MODERN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY ATHEISM. 
 
 ceded to these, and to the external senses, and however great 
 a share they may justly claim in the whole inner property of 
 the thinking man, still it is evident, that the perception of 
 these sensuous impressions, the inner coherence — in short, 
 the unity of the consciousness in which they are collected — 
 can never, as indeed it has often been objected on the other side, 
 have come into the mind from without. This was not, how- 
 ever, the end which this doctrine had exclusively, or even princi- 
 pally, in view. The ultimate result to which they hoped to come 
 by the aid of this premise, was simply the negation of the supra- 
 sensible. Whatever in any degree transcends the material 
 impression, or sensuous experience, as well as all possible 
 knowledge of, and faith therein, not merely in respect to a 
 positive religion, but absolutely whatever is noble, beautiful, 
 and great, whatever can lead the mind to, or can be referred 
 to a something suprasensible and divine — all this, wherever it 
 may be found, whether in life or thought, in history or in 
 nature — aye, even in art itself, it was the ultimate object of 
 this foreign philosophy to decry, to involve in doubt, to attack 
 and to overthrow, and to bring down to the level of the 
 common and material, or to plunge it into the sceptical abyss 
 of absolute unbelief. The first step in this system was a 
 seeming subordination of reason to sensation, as a derivative 
 of it — a mere slough which it throws off in its transformations. 
 Afterwards, however, the warfare against the suprasensible was 
 waged entirely with the arms of reason itself. The reason, 
 indeed, which supplied these weapons, was not one scientifically 
 cultivated and morally regulated, but thoroughly sophistical and 
 wholly perverted, which, however, put into requisition all the 
 weapons of a brilliant but sceptical wit, and moved in the 
 ever- varied turnings of a most ingenious and attractive style. 
 Here, where the question was no longer the abrogation of any 
 single dogma of positive religion, but where the opposition 
 to the divine had become the ruling tendency of philosophy, 
 it is not easy to refrain from characterising it as atheistical — 
 what indeed in its inmost spirit it really was, and also histo- 
 rically proved itself by its results. 
 
 The other course adopted by French philosophy, in the 
 times immediately preceding the Revolution, was to lay 
 aside the weapons of wit, and to employ a burning eloquence 
 as more likely to attract and to carry away minds naturally 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY KANT. 
 
 13 
 
 noble. It had consequently, if possible, still more fatal results 
 than the former. The reason, as the peculiar character of 
 man in a civilised state — so it was argued — is like civilised 
 man himself, an artificial creation, and in its essence totally 
 unnatural ; and the savage state of nature is the only one 
 properly adapted to man. As the means of emancipation 
 from an artificial and corrupt civilisation, the well-known 
 theory of the social contract.was advanced. Our whole age has 
 learned dearly enough the lesson, that this dogma, practically 
 applied on a large scale, may indeed lead to a despotism of 
 liberty, and to the lust of conquest, but can as little effect 
 the re-establishment of a true civilisation as it can bring 
 back the state of nature. It would be a work of superero- 
 gation to dwell upon the pernicious results or the intrinsic 
 hollowness of this system. It is, however, worth while to 
 remark, that, in this theory also, the beginning was made 
 with an opposition to reason. Starting with a depreciation 
 of it as an artificial state and a departure from nature, at the 
 last it threw itself, and the whole existing frame of society, 
 into the arms of reason, and thereby sought to gain for 
 the latter an unlimited authority over all laws, both human 
 and divine. A somewhat similar phenomenon may every- 
 where be observed, and the same course will invariably be 
 taken when philosophy allows itself to set out with some 
 question or impugning of the reason, and, in its exclusiveness,* 
 makes this dialectical faculty the basis of its investigations. 
 
 Modern German philosophy, wholly different from the 
 French both in form and spirit, has, from its narrow metaphy- 
 sical sphere, been of far less extensive influence ; and, even if it 
 has occasionally led to anarchy, it has been simply an anarchy 
 of ideas. And yet, notwitstanding its different character, a 
 similar course of inversion is noticeable in it. Beginning with 
 a strict, not to say absolute, limitation of the reason, and 
 with an opposition to its assumptions, it also ended in its 
 investiture with supreme authority — not to say in its deifica- 
 tion. The founder* of the modern philosophy of Germany 
 commenced his teaching with a lengthy demonstration that 
 
 * Kant. For a full and systematic view of modern German philosophy, 
 see Michelet's Geschichte d. letsten Systeme d. Phil, in Deutschland, 
 Berlin, 1837 — 8. Some able and ingenious essays on its errors and abuseg 
 are to be found in Fred. Ancillon's Essais de Philosophic de Politique, 
 et de Litterature. — Trans. 
 
14 GERMAN PHILOSOPHY JACOBI, PICHTE. 
 
 the reason is totally incapable of attaining to a knowledge 
 of the suprasensible, and that by attempting it, it does but 
 involve itself in endless disputes and difficulties. And then, 
 on this assumed incompetency of the reason for the supra- 
 sensible was based the doctrine of the need, the necessity 
 of faith — nay, faith itself.* But this arbitrary faith appeared 
 to have but little reliance on itself ; and, when closely viewed, 
 turned out to be the old reason, which, after being solemnly 
 displaced from the front of the philosophical palace, was 
 now again, slightly altered and disguised, set up behind it as 
 a useful but humble postern. Dissatisfied with such a sys- 
 tem, the philosophical Me (Ich, Ego) chose another and a 
 new road, that of absolute science,! in which it might, from 
 the very first, do as it pleased — might bluster and fluster at 
 will. But soon it became plain, that in this idealistic doc- 
 trine there was no room for any but a subjective reason- 
 god devoid of all objective reality. In it the absolute Ego 
 or Me of each individual, was substituted for and identified 
 with the divine. Against this certainty of the " Me," there- 
 fore, there arose first of all a suspicion, and lastly the 
 reproach of atheism. But, in truth, we ought to be ex- 
 tremely scrupulous in applying this term in all cases where 
 the question does not turn on a rude denial of the truth, but 
 rather on a highly erroneous confusion of ideas. At least, it 
 would be well if, in such a case, we were to distinguish the 
 imputed atheism by the epithet of scientific, in order to 
 indicate thereby that the censure and the name apply in 
 truth only to the error of the system, and not to the character 
 of the author. For with such a scientific atheism, the sternest 
 stoicism in the moral doctrine may, as indeed was actually 
 the case here, be easily combined. Quite weary, how- 
 ever, of the transcendent vacuity of this ideal reason and 
 mere dialectical reasoning, German philosophy now took a 
 different road. It turned more to the side of nature,^ in 
 whose arms she threw herself in perfect admiration, thinking 
 to find there alone life and the fulness thereof. Now, al- 
 though this new philosophy of nature has borne many noble 
 fruits of science, still even it has been haunted by that 
 
 * Jacobi, in his Glauben's-Philosophie. — Trans. 
 f Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. — Trans. 
 J Schelling's Natur-Philosophie> — Tra?t±. 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY SCHELLING, HEGEL. 
 
 15 
 
 delusive phantom of the Absolute, and it is not free from 
 liability to the reproach of a pantheistic deification of Nature. 
 But properly and accurately speaking, it was not nature it- 
 self that was set up as the supreme object of veneration, but 
 this same phantom of reason, which was taken as the basis 
 and fundamental principle of nature. It was, in short, no- 
 thing but the old metaphysical one-times-one* in a somewhat 
 novel application and more vivid form. Here, therefore, 
 also did the system commence with a seeming disgust at the 
 reason, and with a subordination of it to nature, in order to 
 conclude with the absolute principle of the reason. 
 
 Viewed, however, as a philosophical science of nature, it 
 has rather to answer for some occasional errors and perverse 
 extravagances, than for any thoroughly consequent and 
 systematic carrying out of the ingrafted error into all its 
 parts. Moreover, a broad distinction must undoubtedly be 
 drawn between its different advocates and promulgators. In 
 these last days German philosophy has, in a measure at least, 
 reverted again into the empty vacuum of the absolute idea.f 
 The latter, indeed, and the idol of absolute reason which is 
 enshrined therein, is no more a mere inward conception, but 
 is objectively understood and set up as the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of all entity. But still, when we consider how the 
 essence of mind is expressly made to consist in negation, and 
 how also the spirit of negation is predominant through the 
 whole system, a still worse substitution appears to have taken 
 place, inasmuch as, instead of the living God, this spirit 01 
 negation, so opposed to Him, is, in erroneous abstraction, set 
 up and made a god of. Here, therefore, as well as elsewhere, 
 a metaphysical lie assumes the place of a divine reality. 
 
 Thus, then, do we everywhere observe a strange internal 
 correspondence and affinity between the several aberrations of 
 
 * Schlegel is alluding to. those systems which suppose a primary and 
 original essence, which, by its successive spontaneous developments, pro- 
 duces every thing else out of itself. This absolute original of all things 
 was by Schelling, after Spinosa, called natura naturans, while, by a 
 phraseology which happily indicates the identity of the self- developing 
 subject and its objective developments, the totality of the objects derived 
 from it are termed natura naturata. — Trans. 
 
 f Hegel. For a view of his philosophy see the Article Hegel, in the 
 Penny Cyclopaedia, and Morel's Speculative Philosophy of Europe in chc 
 Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 131. — Trans. 
 
16 BYRON'S CAIN FRENCH PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 our age. Here the remotest mental extremes, which ex. 
 ternally seem to repel each other, suddenly converge at the 
 same point of delusive light, or rather of brilliant darkness. 
 Instances of this correspondence startle us where we least 
 expect to meet with them. An English poet,* perhaps the 
 greatest, certainly the most remarkable poet of our age, in 
 his tragic delineation of the oldest fratricide, has pourtrayed 
 the prime mover of this deed, the enemy of the human race, 
 and the king of the bottomless pit, as the bold censurer of 
 the divine order of things, and the head of all discontented 
 spirits, and leader of the opposition of the whole creation. 
 In this light he has painted him with unparalleled boldness, 
 and with such moving and astonishing truthfulness, that all 
 previous descriptions by the greatest poets seem but arbi- 
 trary and unreal phantoms when compared with this portrait, 
 which was evidently a favourite sketch, for the author's secret 
 partiality betrays itself in the skill and pains with which he 
 has lavished on this dark figure all the magic colours of his 
 fancy. Thus, then, in this poetic creation, the same hostile 
 principle — the same absolute, t. e., evil spirit of negation and 
 contradiction that forms the consummation of the errors of 
 German philosophy, notwithstanding its abstract unintelligi- 
 bility— is enthroned amidst the disordered system. And so, 
 by a strange law of " pre-established harmony/' the anti- 
 christian poet and these anti- christian thinkers unexpectedly 
 meet together at the point of a spurious sublimity. In any 
 case, however, this last instance forms the third stage of idea- 
 listic confusion, and certainly the last grade of scientific 
 atheism. 
 
 Now, briefly to recapitulate my own convictions and my view 
 of the relation subsisting between the philosophy of life which 
 I propose to set before you, and the prevalent philosophy and 
 science of the age, the following few remarks will suffice. I 
 honour and admire the discoveries so pregnant with important 
 results which natural philosophy has made in our days, but 
 especially the gigantic strides which the study of nature in 
 France has taken ; so far, at least, as they contain and have 
 established a real and solid advance of human science ; so far, 
 too, as I am acquainted with them, and in my sphere under- 
 
 * Schlegel is speaking of Byron, and his Cain, a Mystery. — Trans. 
 
GERMAN PHISIOLOGY THE SOUL. 
 
 17 
 
 stand them. On the other hand, I cannot but take exception 
 to that admixture of materialism which has been infused into 
 them by the ruling philosophical system of a previous age, 
 which in France has still so many followers. I honour too 
 and love German science, with its diligent and comprehensive 
 research. Nay, I value the natural philosophy of Germany 
 even still more than that of France, since, while it adopts 
 the same great discoveries, it views them in a more spiritual 
 light. As for that idealistic jargon, however, which runs 
 parallel and is interwoven with it, on which, indeed, it was 
 originally based, and from which even now it is anything but 
 clear ; this I cannot regard in any other light than, what it 
 really is, an intellectual delusion of the most pernicious kind, 
 and one which will inevitably produce the most destructive 
 and fatal consequences on the human mind. 
 
 What has been now said will suffice for our notice of the 
 opposing systems of philosophy. Henceforward we shall have 
 no need to turn our looks to this side, but shall be able to 
 give our attention solely and calmly to the development of 
 that which I have already announced, and have now to commu- 
 nicate to you. Previously, however, to entering upon this 
 subject, it seemed to me advisable, by contrasting the false 
 starting-point with the true centre of philosophy, to set the 
 latter before you in a clearer and distincter light, 
 
 The dialectical faculty of abstraction is naturally the pre- 
 dominant one, and the most completely evolved in the think- 
 ing mind. Accordingly, most thinkers have set it up as the 
 basis of their speculations, in order to arrive the more rapidly 
 at the desired end of an absolute science ; or, if the habit of 
 mind be more disposed that way, at an absolute not-knowing, 
 and the rejection of all certainty ; which, in the main, is quite 
 as false, and, in this respect, identical with the former. But 
 it is not sufficient to follow any such a partial course, and to 
 start from any one side merely of the human consciousness. 
 On the right and sure road of a complete and thorough in- 
 vestigation, our first duty is to study the human consciousness 
 in its fulness and living development, in all its faculties and 
 jjowers. And then, in the second place, when, by thus 
 assuming a position in the centre, man has enabled himseli 
 to take a complete survey of the whole, he may unquestionably 
 proceed to inouire what kind and what degree of knowledge, 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 MAN COMPARED WITH SPIRITUAL BEINGS. 
 
 with such a consciousness, he is capable of attaining, both 
 of the external world and of the suprasensible, and how far 
 the latter is conceivable and its existence possible. Now, 
 iust as generally the soul is the principle of all life in nature, 
 so is the thinking soul the centre of the human consciousness. 
 But in the thinking soul is comprised the reason which dis- 
 tinguishes, combines, and infers, no less than the fancy which 
 devises, invents, and suggests. Standing in the centre be- 
 tween the two, the thinking soul embraces both faculties. 
 But it also forms the turning-point of transition between the 
 understanding and the will; and, as the connecting link, fills 
 up the gulf which otherwise would lie between and divide 
 the two. It comprises also all sorts and degrees of concep- 
 tions, from the absolutely necessary, precisely definite, and 
 permanently unchangeable, down to those which arise and 
 pass away half involuntarily — from those in no degree clearly 
 developed up to those which have been advanced to the 
 highest clearness of the understanding — those which are 
 witnessed with a calm indifference, and those also which 
 excite a gentle longing or kindle a burning resolve. The 
 thinking soul is the common storehouse where the whole of 
 these conceptions are successively lodged. Indeed, to describe 
 it in general terms, it is but the inner pulse of thought, cor- 
 responding to the pulsation of the blood in the living body. 
 
 This general description, it must be confessed, is very far 
 from being an adequate explanation of the matter, and at 
 best does but imperfectly convey our meaning. But perhaps 
 a different line of thought, however bold and hazardous it 
 may seem, may bring us far more simply to the point at 
 present in view — a more accurate description, namely, of 
 the peculiar property of the human mind, and of the cha- 
 racteristic feature which distinguishes man from other beings 
 equally finite, but endowed in the same manner with conscious- 
 ness. That the rational soul, or the reason, distinguishes him 
 from the brutes, is a remark common and trite enough. But 
 this is only one aspect of the matter : and must we always 
 cast our looks downwards, and never upwards? What I mean 
 is this : supposing that there are other created spirits and 
 finite intelligences besides men. might not the comparison 
 of their purely spiritual consciousness with man's serve, 
 perhaps in an eminent degree, to elucidate the distinctive 
 
THE HIGHER SPIRITS INCORPOREAL. 
 
 19 
 
 properties of the human consciousness in that other aspect 
 which is too commonly neglected ? I am for from intending 
 to make this matter a subject of investigation in the present 
 place. I take it merely as an hypothesis, warranted indeed 
 by universal tradition, and solely as an aid to elucidate the 
 matter in hand. Universal, however, I may well call this 
 tradition, since, agreeing in the main with what Holy Writ 
 asserts, the oldest and most civilised nations of antiquity 
 (among whom I need only mention the Egyptians, and espe- 
 cially the Persians and the Hindoos) have admitted, as a 
 well-established fact, the existence of such finite intelligences 
 and created spirits, invisible indeed to man, but not altogether 
 alien to him. And as for the Greeks and Romans, if occa- 
 sionally they allude to the genius of Socrates as something 
 strange and singular, this was only because the wise Athenian 
 spoke of this subject in peculiar language, and referred to it 
 more habitually than was the wont of his countrymen and 
 contemporaries. Otherwise it was the general belief, botli 
 of Greeks and Romans, that every man has his guardian 
 spirit or genius. Now this hypothesis being once admitte d 
 to be possible, let us inquire in what light were these 
 ancients accustomed to regard, and what ought we to con- 
 ceive of the peculiar nature of these spiritual beings in con- 
 formity with the representation of so universal a tradition ? 
 
 Now, in the first place, they have always been thought of as 
 pure spiritual beings, having no such gross terrestrial body as 
 man has. At least if they were supposed to require and possess 
 a body as the organ and medium of their spiritual operations, 
 it was considered to be of a special kind ; an ethereal body of 
 light, but invisible to the human eye. But this incorporeity 
 is little more than a negative quality. A more positive and a 
 profounder distinction lies perhaps in this, that these pure 
 spiritual beings are wholly free from that weakness of cha- 
 racter, or frailty, which is so peculiar to man. That pervading 
 internal mutability, that undecided vacillation between doing 
 and letting alone, that reciprocation between effort and relaxa- 
 tion — the wide gulf between volition and execution, the thought 
 and the carrying into effect — nothing of all this admits of being 
 applied or transferred to these pure spiritual beings without 
 contradicting the very idea of their essence. It is thus only, or 
 not at all, that we can conceive of them. Coming and going 
 
20 
 
 FANCY, MAN'S DISTINCTIVE PROPERTY. 
 
 like the lightning, and rapid as the light, they never grow 
 weary of their endless activity. They need no rest except the 
 spiritual contemplation which constitutes their essence. All 
 their thoughts are marked with unity and identity. With 
 them the conception is at the same time a deed, and the pur- 
 pose and the execution are simultaneous. Every thing, too, 
 in them has the stamp of eternity. This prerogative, how- 
 ever, has, it must be confessed, its disadvantages. When 
 once they have deviated from the true centre, they go on for 
 ever in their devious course. 
 
 But still all this is little more than a description of the 
 whole idea which I have allowed myself, merely with a view 
 of employing it as a passage to the point which, is at present 
 in question. That purpose was, on the supposition of the ex- 
 istence of such superior beings, accurately to indicate which 
 of man's powers or faculties of mind and soul may rightly be 
 attributed to them. Now, to my mind, the distinction is very 
 strikingly suggested in the well-known sentiment of one of 
 our famous poets. Thus he addresses man : " Thy knowledge 
 thou sharest with superior beings — superior, for in the 
 clearness of their eternal science, they undoubtedly stand far 
 higher than men — and then he continues, " But art thou hast 
 alone."* But, now, what else is art than fancy become visi- 
 ble, and assuming a bodily shape or w r ord or sound ? It is, 
 therefore, this nimble-footed, many-shaped, ever-inventive 
 fancy, w T hich forms the dangerous prerogative of man and 
 cannot be ascribed to these pure spiritual beings. And as 
 little justifiable would it be to ascribe to them that human 
 reason, with its employment of means, and its slow processes 
 of deduction and comparison. Instead of this, they possess the 
 intuitive understanding, in which to see and to understand 
 are simultaneous and identical. If, then, in an accurate 
 sense of the terms, neither fancy nor reason belongs to them, 
 it would further be wrong to attribute them a soul as dis- 
 tinct from the mind or spirit, and as being rather a passive 
 faculty of inw r ard productiveness and change and internal 
 growth. Briefly to recapitulate wdiat has been said: The 
 existence of the brutes is simple, because in them the soul is 
 
 * " Dein Wissen theilest du mit vorgezogenen Geistern ; 
 Die Kunst, o Mensch, hast du allein." 
 
 Schiller's Kunstlehre. — 
 
 ■Trans. 
 
MAN'S TRIPLE NATURE BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT. 21 
 
 completely mixed up and merged in the organic body, and is 
 one with it ; on the destruction of the latter it reverts to 
 the elements, or is absorbed in the general son! of nature. 
 Twofold, however, is the nature of created spirits, who besides 
 this ethereal body of light are notliing but mind or spirit: but 
 threefold is the nature of man, as consisting of spirit, soul, 
 and body.* And this triple constitution and property, this 
 threefold life of man, is, indeed, not in itself that pre-eminence, 
 although it is closely connected with that superior excellence 
 which ennobles and distinguishes man from all other created 
 beings. I allude to that prerogative by which he alone of all 
 created beings is invested with the Divine image and likeness. 
 This threefold principle is the simple basis of all philosophy ; 
 and the philosophical system which is constructed on such a 
 foundation is the philosophy of life, which therefore has even 
 " words of life." It is no idle speculation, and no unintelli- 
 gible hypothesis. It is not more difficult, and needs not to 
 be more obscure, than any other discourse on spiritual sub- 
 jects ; but it can and may be as easy and as clear as the read- 
 ing of a writing, the observation of nature, and the study of 
 history For it is in truth nothing else than a simple theory 
 of spiritual life, drawn from life itself, and the simple under- 
 standing thereof. If, however, it becomes abstract and unin- 
 telligible, this is invariably a consequence, and for the most 
 part an infallible proof of its having fallen into error. When 
 in thought we place before us the whole composite human 
 individual, then, after spirit and soul, the organic body is the 
 third constituent, or the third element out of which, in com- 
 bination with the other two, the whole man consists and is 
 compounded. But the structure of the organic body, its 
 powers and laws, must be left to physical science to investi- 
 gate. Philosophy is the science of consciousness alone ; it has, 
 
 * That by geist, spirit, and not mind merely, is here meant, will be 
 doubted by no one who considers the scriptural basis of these Lectures. 
 Schlegel seems to have had in view 1 Thess. v. 23. In the German, 
 geist stands both for mind and spirit, which, however, in English are 
 equivalent neither in use nor meaning. Whenever, therefore, the trans- 
 lator is compelled by the English idiom to translate geist and its deriva- 
 tives by mind and its cognates, and it is essential to keep in view the 
 identity of the matter by the sameness of expression, he will indicate it by 
 adding the German original in a bracket. 
 
22 
 
 MAN'S FOUR-FOLD CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 therefore, primarily to occupy itself with soul and spirit or mind, 
 and must carefully guard against transgressing its limits in 
 any respect. But the third constituent beside mind and soul, 
 in which these two jointly carry on their operations, needs not 
 always, as indeed the above instance proves, to be an organic 
 body. In other relations of life, this third, in which both are 
 united, or which they in unison produce, may be the word, 
 the deed, life itself, or the divine order on which both are de- 
 pendent. These, then, are the subjects which I have proposed 
 for consideration. But in order to complete this scale of life, 
 I will further observe : triple is the nature of man, but four- 
 fold is the human consciousness. For the spirit or mind, like 
 the soul, divides and falls asunder, or rather is split and 
 divided into two powers or halves — the mind, namely, into 
 understanding and will, the soul into reason and faney. These 
 are the four extreme points, or, if the expression be preferred, 
 the four quarters of the inner world of consciousness. All 
 other faculties of the soul, or powers of mind, are merely 
 subordinate ramifications of the four principal branches ; but 
 the living centre of the whole is the thinking soul. 
 
 END OF LECTURE I. 
 
23 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 OF THE LOVING SOUL AS THE CENTRE OF THE MORAL 
 LIFE ; AND OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 The development of the human consciousness according to the 
 triple principle of its existence, or of its nature as compounded 
 of spirit or mind, soul, and animated body, must begin with 
 the soul, and not with the spirit, even though the latter be 
 the most important and supreme. For the soul is the first 
 grade in the progress of development. In actual life, also, 
 it is the beginning and the permanent foundation, as well 
 as the primary root of the collective consciousness. The 
 development of the spirit or mind of man is much later, 
 being first evolved in or out of, by occasion of, or with the 
 co-operation of the soul. But even when thus developed, the 
 mind (under which term we comprise the will, as well as the 
 understanding) is neither in all men, nor always in the same 
 individual, equally active. In this respect we may apply to 
 it what has been said of the wind, which imparts vital motion 
 and freshness to all the objects of outward nature : we ,k hear 
 the sound thereof, but we cannot tell whence it comes, nor 
 whither it goeth."* The thinking soul, on the contrary, is, 
 properly speaking, always, though silently, working ; and it 
 is highly probable that it is never without conceptions. Of 
 th se, indeed, it may either possess a clear or an almost totally 
 indist' ct consciousness, according to that principle of un- 
 conscious representations propounded as a fundamental axiom 
 of psyc ology by a great German philosopher f of earlier 
 times, with whose opinions I often find myself agreeing, 
 ai d with whom before all other men I would most gladly 
 ct ncur. 
 
 Applied to the alternating stntes of sleeping and waking 
 in the outward organic lite, this would merely mean that in sleep 
 
 * St. John iii. 8. — Trans. 
 
 f Leibnitz. — Trans. 
 
24 UNCONSCIOUS CONCEPTIONS REASON AND FANCY. 
 
 we always dream, even at those times when our vision leaves no 
 traces on our memory. The great majority of dreams, even 
 those which in the moment of awakening we still remember, 
 are absolutely nothing but the conjoint impression of the 
 bodily tone and the ever- varying temperament of life and 
 health and of the disorderly repetition of such ideas as pre- 
 viously to sleeping had principally engaged the attention. 
 Now, since every opposite comes near to its correlative in one 
 or more points of contact, which, as they establish, also 
 serve to maintain the relationship between the two, so the 
 state of the soul in dreaming will serve strikingly to illus- 
 rate its waking action. Of the great multitude of dreams, 
 jfhich are for the most part confused and unmeaning, some 
 occasionally stand out from the rest extremely clear and well- 
 connected, in which the feelings oftentimes discover a profound 
 significance, or which, at least, as significant images, interest 
 the fancy. And just in the same manner in the state of waking 
 there passes before the soul no inconsiderable number ot 
 obscure and vague conceptions, which are not much if at all 
 clearer or more methodically disposed than the train of images 
 which in a dream succeed one another without the least intrinsic 
 order or connexion. Still we should greatly err were we to 
 assume, that like the latter they leave no trace behind them 
 on the soul. On the contrary, in these undeveloped beginnings 
 of thought there often lies the germ of very definite ideas, 
 and especially of the various peculiarities of mental character, 
 as also of the impulses and determination which, at first slowJy 
 and spontaneously formed, eventuate in some definite suscepti- 
 bility or direction of the will. Now, as the external life of 
 man alternates between the waking activity and the state of 
 repose in sleep, so, too, the thinking soul is divided between 
 the abstracting and classifying Reason and the inventive 
 Fancy.* These two are, as it were, the halves, so to speak, 
 or the two poles of the thinking soul, of which the one may be 
 regarded as the positive, the other as the negative. In re- 
 
 * It is clear from what follows, that Schlegel used the term Fancy in a 
 wide and general sense, which embraces, first, its original use in ancient 
 philosophy, as the faculty of conception ((pavraala), which reproduces 
 the images of objects whether present or absent ; secondly, imagination, 
 which is essential to all authors ; and thirdly, fancy, in a narrow sense — 
 or the poetic fancy. It is in this wide sense that the translator employs it 
 
FANCY THE POSITIVE, -REASON THE NEGATIVE POLE. 25 
 
 spect to the inner fruitful cogitation itself — to the origination 
 and production of thoughts — the imagination, as the reproduc- 
 tive faculty, is the positive pole. As for the fancy, properly 
 so called — the poetic fancy, or that which plays an important 
 part in the inclinations and passions — it is only a particular 
 species and operation of this faculty, which in its general form 
 also manifests itself in many other directions and spheres of 
 human thought and action. To it belongs, for instance, that 
 talent of extensive combination which distinguishes all the 
 great discoverers in mathematics. Opposite to this pro- 
 ductive faculty of thought. t!.«e fieiratlve pole is formed by the 
 classifying faculty ui reason, wnicn further elaborates, closely 
 determines and limits the materials furnished to it by the 
 fancy. Thus, then, the place which the fancy — with all the 
 powers, emotions, and impressions which belong to it — assumes 
 relatively to the external world, is subordinate and ministerial, 
 since it is only within certain prescribed limits that it can 
 duly make use of its rich productive energies, realize its inmost 
 ideas, and act upon them. 
 
 Here, therefore, the first place belongs to the ordering and 
 determining reason, and which here ought to hold the helm. 
 In this respect it may justly be called the regulative faculty. 
 And yet, since the reason is, so to speak, only one-half of the 
 soul, it must not pretend to exclusive authority ; while, on 
 the other hand, it is but little likely that that which we may 
 have set before our mind and imagination as the innermost 
 wish of our hearts, will simply on that account prove inva- 
 riably a real and lasting good. 
 
 I called the understanding and the will, the reason and the 
 fancy, the four principal branches of the human consciousness, 
 
 after Milton, who uses it, as more extensive than imagination, when he 
 says of fancy, 
 
 " Of all the external things 
 Which the five watchful senses represent, 
 She forms imaginations, aery shapes." 
 
 Par. Lost., Book V, 
 Indeed the whole of the speech of Raphael in this fifth book contains a 
 striking affinity of thought and idea with Schlegel. We have there man's 
 triple constituents, body, soul, and spirit — reason and fancy in the soul, of 
 which reason is the being or essence — while discursive reason is appro- 
 priated to man, but intuitive reason is made the prerogative of the f 1 purest 
 spirits" — " the pure intelligential substances." — Trans. 
 
26 
 
 FANCY THE SENSES AND INSTINCTS. 
 
 of which all other mental powers or faculties of the soul, 
 usually ascribed to man, are but so many offshoots. These 
 other powers however cannot with perfect propriety be called 
 subordinate, since in another point of view they may per- 
 haps be entitled to assume a higher rank. Assigned* faculties 
 is, therefore, what I should prefer to term them. Now of 
 such faculties belonging to the domain of the combining and 
 distinguishing reason, the memory and the conscience are pre- 
 eminently to be mentioned. For the memory also in another 
 way is a combining just as the conscience is a distinguishing 
 faculty; the latter, however, being so not only in another 
 but even in a far higher sense. But we must postpone for 
 the present the further consideration of this matter, and con- 
 sider rather those faculties or functions which are under the 
 influence of, or at least immediately connected with, the fancy. 
 These are the senses, and the inclinations or instincts. With 
 regard, then, to the senses : in the first place, I would simply 
 call your attention to the fact, that the triple principle of human 
 existence — according to which the latter consists of a spirit or 
 mind, of a soul, and of a living body or a bodily manifesta- 
 tion — is repeated as it were in miniature in every smaller and 
 narrower sphere of man's consciousness. This is especially 
 the case with the external senses. Thus viewing them, how- 
 ever, we should have to reckon but three senses instead of the 
 usual number of five. This can be managed easily enough 
 by taking the three lower and counting them as one, since 
 they constitute pre-eminently the corporeal sense, as contra- 
 distinguished from the other two, which are both higher and 
 more incorporeal. For to the three lower senses, not only 
 is a material contact indispensable, but also, as in the case 
 of smell, a sort of chemical assimilation with matter. No 
 doubt, in the act of seeing and hearing there is likewise a cer- 
 tain but imperceptible contact of the nerves of the eye and 
 ear with the waves of light and the undulations of the air ; but 
 still this contact is of a different kind from the former, and of 
 another and indeed of a higher nature, producing the relations 
 of tone, colour, and shape. Now, in this classification, the 
 eye is the mind or spirit's sense for beauty of form and grace 
 
 * In the original zugetheilte, said of a matter assigned for investigation 
 to a particular judge, or of the judge appointed to examine and report 
 upon it. — Trans. 
 
INFLUENCE OF FANCY ON THE SENSE. 27 
 
 of motion. It is so in truth, not merely in those who are 
 endowed with a taste for the arts or the artistic eye, but 
 far more universally, being diffused in a greater or less degree 
 through the whole human family. Special gifts of it, or 
 rather higher though varying endowments, are to be found 
 in some highly-favoured individuals ; and in the same way 
 the ear for music is not imparted to all who possess the 
 general organ of hearing, which we very properly term the 
 soul's sense. The external senses man shares, indeed, in 
 common with the brutes, in some of whom they are found of 
 an exquisite and highly developed susceptibility. But these 
 higher endowments of eye and ear, and above all the natural 
 artistic feeling for beauty of form, and the musical talent, are 
 the prerogatives of man, conferred upon him by his peculiar 
 faculty of fancy. On this account they, like that faculty, 
 are distributed unequally among men, though they are not 
 on that account less real and undeniable. 
 
 The brutes, I said, do not possess them. No doubt there is 
 a certain melodious rhythm perceptible in the songs of birds. 
 Some also of the more eminently docile and sagacious of ter- 
 restrial animals do indeed evince peculiar signs of pleasure 
 in the music of man. Still I would call this but so many 
 single, unconnected echoes or reverberations of fancy, since 
 everything like free choice, further development, or intrinsic 
 coherence,' is wanting to them — all is broken, abrupt, and 
 incapable of being formed into a whole. In the same man- 
 ner the artistic instinct and skill of some animals exhibits no 
 doubt a certain likeness in its operations to the rational works 
 of man, but still it ever remains a resemblance at best, and 
 is for ever divided from reason by a wide and impassable 
 gulf. It is, as it were, the indistinct trace of a weather- worn 
 and nearly obliterated inscription — the dying notes of some 
 far-off music. And hence the agreeable, but at the same 
 time melancholy impression which such things make upon 
 our feelings. A something human seems to be stirring in 
 them. They appear to revive a faint but nearly forgotten allu- 
 sion to an originally close and intrinsic relation between 
 animated nature in its highest developments and man as its 
 former master and as the divinely appointed lord of the 
 whole earthly creation. But if the influence and the opera- 
 tion of the fancy on the external senses be thus indistinct and 
 
28 INFLUENCE OF FANCY ON THE PASSIONS, 
 
 difficult to be traced, it is far more apparent, as also far 
 greater and more decided, on the inclinations, instincts, and 
 passions, which form the second class of the faculties subordi- 
 nate to the fancy. It can easily be shown how even the sim- 
 plest instincts of self-preservation, and the gratification of the 
 most natural wants, are in man perceptibly affected by the 
 working of fancy, so as to be manifoldly diversified thereby. 
 But still more is this the case with the higher impulses and 
 instincts, as confirmed and strengthened by use and indul- 
 gence, especially when, in their most violent and intensest 
 development, they become passions. For in this shape, both 
 by this excess and by the false direction they give to the 
 mental powers, originally designed for nobler and more exalted 
 purposes, they form so many moral perversities and faults of 
 character. I would here, in the first place, call your attention 
 to the fact, that in all the passions, when by their intensity 
 they become immoral, the fancy exercises an essential and 
 co-operating influence. And in the second place, I would 
 remind you that in the same way as in the external senses 
 generally, so also in all the principal phases of ill-regulated 
 passion, the threefold principle of human existence manifests 
 itself once more, and is even repeated anew in all the several 
 forms and subdivisions of these special spheres. 
 
 Now the first of these false tendencies and moral infirmities 
 — unbounded pride and haughtiness — is essentially a mental 
 blindness and aberration ; and vanity, with its delusions, is the 
 same disease in a lower and milder phase. And all will 
 admit that the source of this moral failing is an overweening 
 love of self. But in self-conceit the co-operating influence of 
 fancy is easily and distinctly traceable. As to the second of 
 those infirmities which distract and disturb life : I should 
 also be disposed to consider the sensual passionateness or 
 passionate sensuality as a disease indeed, but of a brutalising 
 tendency — an inflammatory habit, a fever of the soul, which 
 either spends itself in acute and violent paroxysms, or with 
 slower but certain progress secretly undermines and subverts 
 all man's better qualities. In either case, the true source of the 
 evil — the irresistible energy and the false magic of this 
 passion — lies in an over-excited, deluded, or poisoned fancy. 
 The natural instinct itself, in so far as it is inborn and agree- 
 able to nature, is obnoxious to no reproach. The blame lie? 
 
PRIDE SENSUALITY AVARICE. 
 
 29 
 
 altogether in the want of principle, or that weakness of 
 character which half- voluntarily concedes to the mere instinct 
 an unlimited authority, or at least is incapable of exercising 
 over it a due control. The third false direction of man's 
 instincts which, after the two already noticed, involves human 
 society in the greatest disorder, and most fatally disturbs the 
 peace of individuals, is an unlimited love of gain, selfishness, 
 and avarice. No doubt, in a certain modified and lower sense, 
 the hope of advantage or profit is the motive that prompts 
 every enterprise ; at least, according to the judgment of the 
 world, nothing is undertaken or transacted without a view to 
 some object of a selfishness more or less refined. But when 
 we look to the worst and most violent cases of this disease 
 — an insatiable avarice and a morbid love of gain, then we 
 at once see the baneful effects which the fancy, dwelling 
 exclusively on material property and chinking coin, has on 
 this moral disease, where, with the golden treasure, mind and 
 soul are shut up and buried, and both completely numbed and 
 petrified, in the same way that, by certain organic diseases of 
 the body, the heart becomes ossified. 
 
 By these pernicious passions, the higher moral organ of 
 life is in different ways attacked and destroyed. In the 
 first case, that of the blinding of the mind by pride and vanity, 
 the moral judgment is perverted and falsified. In the second 
 case, where the soul is brutalised by a life of sensuality, the 
 moral sense is clouded, loses all its delicacy, and is at last 
 totally obliterated. In the third instance, that of a 
 thorough numbness of the inner life produced by selfishness 
 and avarice, the idea of moral duty is in the end totally lost, 
 dies away, and becomes extinct, while the dead Mammon is 
 regarded as the supreme good of life, and, being set up as 
 the sole object of human exertion, is substituted for the best 
 and noblest acquisition of mind and soul. The three passions 
 which we have already examined, are founded indeed on a 
 positive pursuit, however false may be the extent or per- 
 verted the direction in which it is carried out. We might 
 now proceed with our speculation, and progressively de- 
 veloping it from the same point of view, extend and apply 
 it to the aggressive passions, which are based on a merely 
 negative pursuit — the attack, annihilation, and destruction of 
 their objects. I allude to the passion of hatred, in its three 
 
30 INFLUENCE OF FANCY ON THE NOBLER FEELINGS. 
 
 different elements or species, viz., anger, malice, and revenge. 
 But to enter further upon such investigations would be inappro- 
 priate in the present place. Generally, indeed, in touching 
 upon matters so universally known, my object has been 
 merely to consider and exhibit them from their psychological 
 side, in order to show partly how the triple principle of 
 human existence, according to mind or spirit, and soul, and 
 the third element, wherein the former two conjointly operate, 
 finds its application, and is repeated, as it were, in miniature, 
 in the narrower sphere of the natural inclination, both good 
 and bad, and also in that of the external senses. At the same 
 time it was also my wish to call attention to the fact, that the 
 dominion of the fancy over its subordinate faculties, whether 
 of the external senses or the instincts, manifests itself like- 
 wise in the pernicious passions, as exercising over them a 
 very baneful influence, and, indeed, as being the principal 
 source of the prevailing aberrations. 
 
 These three passions and leading defects of character, which 
 destroy the inward peace of individuals, and disturb the 
 order of society, may be regarded as so many Stygian floods, 
 so many dark subterranean streams of lava and fire, which, 
 bursting from the crater of a burning fancy, pour down 
 upon the region of the will, there again to break out in law- 
 less deeds and violent catastrophes, or perhaps, what is far 
 worse, to lie smouldering in a life frittered away in worth- 
 less pursuits, without object or meaning, or in the frivolous 
 routine of an ordinary existence. 
 
 Having thus fully set forth the injurious influence of a 
 disordered fancy on the deadly and pernicious passions of 
 man, we shall be more at liberty to consider the other and 
 better aspect of this mental faculty. For fancy, which, as 
 his peculiar prerogative, distinguishes man from all other 
 intellectual beings, is a living and fruitful source of good no 
 less than of evil. Accordingly, in the higher aims of his 
 good instincts, noble inclinations, and true enthusiasms, fancy 
 gives life and stability to his exertions, and arouses and calls 
 to his aid all the energies of mind and intellect. 
 
 But here I must make the preliminary remark, that in the 
 ethical domain generally, and in all moral matters and re- 
 lations, nothing but a very fine line divides right from, wrong. 
 The fault lies not unfrequently in the undue exaggeration or 
 
HONOUR INDUSTRY LOVE. 
 
 31 
 
 false application of a right principle. Pride and vanity, for 
 instance, are the commonest subjects of the world's censure ; 
 but who would banish from existence a true sense of honour, 
 and a noble thirst of fame. And how would society lose all its 
 tone and its true ring, if we were to withdraw from it all 
 those precious metals ! Avarice and the love of gain are, no 
 doubt, fruitful sources of evil, and bring into society a thou- 
 sand — nay, we may rather say, without exaggeration, ten 
 thousand times ten thousand woes. They are the occasion of 
 countless feuds and endless litigation ; so that the prevention 
 and settlement of these numberless commercial quarrels and 
 disputes about property, occupy the chief part of the atten- 
 tion, and absorb the best energies of domestic government. 
 But a gainful industry, directed to utility and even to private 
 utility — labour and assiduity which have no other end in 
 view than a lawful gain and a fair profit, which not merely 
 does not violate the rights of others, but even pays a due 
 regard to their interests, will be universally recognised as an 
 essential part of the frame of society. It forms, indeed, the 
 alimentary sap of life, which, as it ascends through its differ- 
 ent vessels, diffuses everywhere both health and strength. 
 
 Lastly, we will now consider that other instinct of our 
 nature, which, even as the strongest, most requires moral regu- 
 lation and treatment. By all noble natures among civilised 
 nations in their best and purest times, this instinct has, by 
 means of various moral relations, been spontaneously asso- 
 ciated with a higher element. And indeed, taken simply as 
 inclination, it possesses some degree of affinity therewith. 
 Such a strong inclination and hearty love, elevated to the 
 bond of fidelity, receives thereby a solemn consecration, and 
 is even, according to the divine dispensation, regarded as a 
 sanctuary. And it is in truth the moral sanctuary of earthly 
 existence, on which God's first and earliest blessing still rests. 
 It is, moreover, the foundation on which is built the hap- 
 piness and the moral welfare of races and nations. This soul- 
 connecting link of love, which constitutes the family union, 
 is the source from which emanate the strong and beautiful 
 tics of a mother s love, of filial duty, and of fraternal affection 
 between brethren and kindred, which together make up the 
 invisible soul, and, as it were, the inner vital fluid of the 
 nerves of human society. And here, too, the great family 
 
32 INFLUENCE OF FANCY — LOVE, MARRIAGE. 
 
 problem of education must be taken into account— and by 
 education, I mean the whole moral training of the rising 
 generation. For, however numerous and excellent may be 
 the institutions founded by the state or conducted by private 
 individuals, for special branches and objects, or for particular 
 classes and ages, still, on the whole, education must be re- 
 garded as pre-eminently the business and duty of the family. 
 For it is in the family that education commences, and there 
 also it terminates and concludes at the moment when the young 
 man, mature of mind and years, and the grown-up maiden, 
 leave the paternal roof to found a new family of their own. 
 In seasons of danger, and of wide-spread and stalking cor- 
 ruption, men are wont to feel— but often, alas! too late — 
 how entirely the whole frame both of human and political 
 society rests on this foundation of the family union. Not 
 merely by the phenomena of our own times, but by the 
 examples of the most civilised nations of antiquity, may this 
 truth be historically proved ; and numerous passages can be 
 adduced from their great historians in confirmation of it. 
 In all times and in all places a moral revolution within the 
 domestic circle has preceded the public outbreaks of general 
 anarchy, which have thrown whole nations into confusion, and 
 undermined the best ordered and wisely constituted states. 
 When all the principal joists of a building have started, and 
 all its stays and fastenings, from the roof to the foundation, 
 have become loose, then will the first storm of accident easily 
 demolish the whole structure, or the first spark set the dry 
 and rotten edifice in flames. 
 
 Next in order and dignity to this soul-binding tie of a noble 
 and virtuous love, which promotes and preserves the intimate 
 union of all the parts of social life, another species or form of 
 a lofty, a good, and a beautiful — nay, even of a sublime endea- 
 vour — shows itself in what we call enthusiasm. The latter 
 has for its positive object a thought which the soul having 
 once intellectually embraced, is ever after filled and possessed 
 with. But the mere inward idea does not suffice here, how- 
 ever it may in the case of the simple conception or admira- 
 tion of a noble thought. The distinctive characteristic of en- 
 thusiasm is rather the untiring energy with which, even at 
 great personal sacrifice, it labours to realize or to preserve in 
 realisation the idea which has once fully possessed the souL 
 
INFLUENCE OF FANCY— ENTHUSIASM, PATRIOTISM. 33 
 
 The commonest form or species of this enthusiasm is patriot- 
 ism or the love of country, which best and most plainly 
 manifests itself in seasons of national danger or calamity. 
 As the daily life of the individual alternates between labour 
 and rest, and the refreshing sleep of the night renews the 
 strength which has been exhausted by the toils of the day, 
 so is it on a larger scale with the public life of the state in 
 its alternations between peace and war. For although peace 
 is justly prized and desired as the greatest of public blessings, 
 still it is some comfort and compensation for its unavoidable 
 absence, to know that the presence of war, and the struggle 
 with its dangers and hardships, first awaken and call into 
 being many of man's best energies and noblest virtues, which 
 in uninterrupted peace and tranquillity must have remained 
 for ever dormant. But, as is everywhere the case throughout 
 the moral domain, a spurious enthusiasm stands close alongside 
 of the true and genuine species, and requires to be carefully 
 distinguished from it. Forced to speak of the love of country, 
 and to paint its genuine traits, .1 rejoice that I am standing on 
 one of its chosen and most familiar scenes, where my hearers 
 will understand me at the first sound, when I declare that the 
 true enthusiasm of patriotism reveals itself most plainly in 
 misfortune — in the midst of deep and lasting calamities. 
 Another characteristic is, that it does not arbitrarily set uj) its 
 object, or capriciously make its own occasion, but at the first 
 call of its hereditary sovereign rushes to the post of danger. 
 The second mark, therefore, of a true patriotism is obedience, 
 but an obedience associated with the forward energies of a 
 fixed and prepared resolve, which far outruns the exact requi- 
 sitions of duty, and gives rise to a true and real equality — the 
 equality of self-sacrifice, wherein the high and noble vie with 
 the poor and lowly in the magnanimous oblation to their 
 country of their best and dearest possessions. 
 
 Another generally known and admitted species of enthu- 
 siasm, viz., a taste for the arts, has not so universal a founda- 
 tion in the constitution of the human mind as the feeling 
 of patriotism, but implies a particular mental disposition 
 and certain natural endowments, and consequently the sphere 
 of its operation is far narrower. But here also, as in the 
 former case, enthusiasm manifests itself as a property or state 
 of the soul which is far from being contented with a calm 
 
34 LONGING FOR THE ETERNAL AND DIVINE. 
 
 philosophical contemplation or admiration of its inward 
 thought, but which, longing eagerly to realize and exhibit 
 externally the idea with which it is possessed, knows no rest 
 nor peace till it has accomplished its cherished object. And 
 such an ideal enthusiasm is not confined to the sphere of art 
 alone, but even in the calmer regions of science is its influ- 
 ence felt. It is, in short, the animating impulse of all great 
 inventions, creations, and discoveries. Without it Columbus 
 would never have been able to overcome all the dangers and 
 obstacles which beset the first design and the final consum- 
 mation of his bold conception. But in the latter instances the 
 object of enthusiasm is no longer a pure ideal, like that which 
 animates the artist, but something great or new in the region 
 of useful science or of practical life. In every case, however, 
 enthusiasm has for its object a something positive and real, 
 which, even if it be not one which captivates the soul with 
 its transcendent beauty and excellence, yet, at least, by its 
 exalted nature fills it with wonder and admiration. Quite 
 otherwise is it with a longing; — an indefinite feeling of pro- 
 found desire, which is satisfied with no earthly object, whether 
 real or ideal, but is ever directed to the eternal and the divine. 
 And although it presupposes, as the condition of its existence, 
 no special genius or peculiar talents, but proceeds imme- 
 diately out of the pure source of the divinely created and 
 immortal soul— out of the everlasting feelings of the loving 
 soul — still, from causes which are easily conceivable, a pure 
 development of this species is far rarer than even of the en- 
 thusiasm for art. No doubt, in certain happy temperaments, 
 under circumstances favourable to their free expansion, this 
 vague longing is peculiar to the age of youth, and is often 
 enough observed there. Indeed, it is in that soft melancholy, 
 which is always joined with the half-unconscious but pleasant 
 feeling of the blooming fulness of life, that lies the charm 
 which the reminiscence of the days of youth possesses for 
 the calm and quiet contemplations of old age. Here, too, the 
 distinctive mark between the genuine and the spurious mani- 
 festation of this feeling is both simple enough, and easily 
 found. For as this longing may in general be explained as 
 an inchoate state — a love yet to be developed — the question 
 reduces itself consequently to the simple one of determining 
 the nature of this love. If upon the first development and 
 
INFLUENCE OF FANCY ON ALL MAN'S EMOTIONS. 35 
 
 gratification of the passions, this love immediately passes over 
 to and loses itself in the ordinary realities of life, then is it 
 no genuine manifestation of the heavenly feeling, but a mere 
 earthly and sensual longing. But when it survives the youth- 
 ful ebullition of the feelings, when it does but become deeper 
 and more intense by time, when it is satisfied with no joys, 
 and stifled by no sorrows of earth — when, from the midst of 
 the struggles of life, and the pressure of the world, it turns, 
 like a light-seeing eye upon the storm-tossed waves of the 
 ocean of time, to the heaven of heavens, watching to discover 
 there some star of eternal hope — then is it that true and ge- 
 nuine longing, which, directing itself to the divine, is itself also 
 of a celestial origin. Out of this root springs almost everything 
 that is intellectually beautiful and great— even the love of 
 scientific certainty itself, and of a profound knowledge of life 
 and nature. Philosophy, indeed, has no other source, and 
 we might in this respect call it, with much propriety, the 
 doctrine or the science of longing. But even that youthful 
 longing, already noticed, is oftentimes a genuine, or, at least, 
 the first foundation of the higher and truer species, although, 
 unlike the latter, it is as yet neither purely evolved nor re- 
 fined by the course of time. 
 
 One general remark remains to be added. This beautiful 
 longing of youth, a fruitful fancy, and a loving soul, are the 
 best and most precious gifts of benignant nature, that dis- 
 penses with so liberal a hand, — or rather, not of nature, but of 
 that wonderful Intelligence that presides in and over it. They 
 form, as it were, a fair garden of hidden life within man. But 
 as the first man was placed in the garden of Eden, not merely 
 for his idle enjoyment, but, as it is expressly stated, " to dresg) 
 it and to keep it," so here also, when this law of duty is 
 neglected, the inmost heart of the most eminent characters 
 and of the most richly endowed natures becomes, as it were, 
 a Paradise run wild and waste. 
 
 In the consideration of these three forms of man's higher 
 effort — viz., longing, true love, and genuine enthusiasm — I 
 have throughout silently implied, what no one can possibly 
 deny, the co-operating influence of fancy. As in the evil 
 passions it exercises an injurious, inflammatory, and de- 
 structive effect, so also it co-operates beneficially with the 
 longing which is directed to the good and the divine, and 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 THE POETICAL FANCY. 
 
 imparts to it its animating ardour, and its highest energv. 
 In the pure longing, indeed, the inventive fancy is dissolved 
 in what has ceased to be an earthly feeling, and has become 
 completely identified with the loving soul. But in the love 
 and enthusiasm which are directed to some actual object, it is 
 the sustaining flame of life, and of all loftier aspirations which, 
 as they spring from the source of fancy, attest its co-operation. 
 It may be that the pure spirits are filled and pervaded with 
 that loving veneration of the Deity which makes up their 
 blissful existence, simply by means of the intuitive under- 
 standing and the pure will, without even any admixture of 
 fancy. A human love or enthusiasm, however, which should 
 be totally devoid of fancy, and free from its influence, will 
 very rarely, if ever, be met with, and is but barely conceivable. 
 This, however, does not involve any reproach or censure 
 against man's love and enthusiasm, as though they were un- 
 real and founded on an untruth. For nothing can be more 
 erroneous than to suppose that the fancy must invariably be 
 untrue and deceiving, or at least self-deceived. Such a sup- 
 position is derived merely from one species of it — the poetical 
 fancy. And yet even this, in its genuine manifestations, con- 
 tains beneath its privileged and permitted garb of external 
 untruth, a rich store and living source of great and profound 
 verities, of a peculiar kind, and belonging to an internal truth 
 of nature. Or, perhaps, this misconception of fancy in general 
 may have its origin in that abortion or corruption of it which 
 operates so powerfully in the evil passions, which is undoubt- 
 edly in the highest degree deceptive and delusive. In and 
 by itself, and taken in its widest signification, this faculty of 
 fancy is, generally speaking, the living productive thought — 
 the faculty of internal fertility — and which also with its out- 
 ward organs, both of an earthly and a higher sense, apprehends 
 the whole external world. It enters, therefore, with a living 
 interest into every good as well as base pursuit of man, and 
 giving new shapes of its own to all that it has once repre- 
 hended, labours to invest it with a living form, to apply and 
 to realize it. In itself, therefore, and in its pure and uncor- 
 rupt state, far from clashing with the divine truth (which, 
 however, is not in every case identical with the ordinary 
 reality), fancy, as we shall show more fully in another place, 
 admits of being easily reconciled with it. But of human 
 
LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 37 
 
 things we must always judge by a human standard, and with 
 due allowance. Even supposing that in the case of a true 
 love and a genuine enthusiasm a passing thought may be de- 
 tected, a momentary excitement or manifestation which goes 
 beyond the exact line of the actual truth ; even in such a case 
 this love and this enthusiasm would not therefore be less real 
 and genuine — still would not all be exaggeration that might 
 seem so to the unsympathising and unenthusiastic intellect. 
 At all events, it must ever remain undeniable, that emergencies 
 occur in human life which are not met by the rigorous and 
 mathematical formularies of ethical science, and where by 
 nothing but a noble sacrifice of love far transcending all the 
 common and general requisitions of the practical reason — by 
 nothing but a lofty energy and resolute enthusiasm — can a 
 man extricate himself from his perplexities and arrive at a 
 happy result. At least, it will not do to overlook or misre- 
 present this element of human life, even though it must be 
 admitted that it is not exempt from those traces of human 
 infirmity which are also but too apparent in the other aspect of 
 it, the one, viz., in which the formal reason decides every 
 thing, and is supreme. 
 
 As, therefore, the thinking soul is the living centre of the 
 human consciousness, so, on the other hand, the loving soul 
 is the middle point and the foundation of all moral life as it 
 shows itself in that soul-bond of love, which, while it consti- 
 tutes marriage, is tied and completed therein. On this union, 
 then, which, as historically represented, appears to be the 
 true commencement of civilised life, it will be necessary to 
 say a few words. And the present seems the most appropriate 
 place for them. Now, both in philosophy and in all general 
 speculation, there are many reasoners who would derive every 
 thing from material sensations, and seek to degrade all that 
 is regarded as high and noble by mankind. So here, also, in 
 the world's mode of judging of this union — which, however, 
 all publicly acknowledged principles regard as holy — it, and 
 all th?"- belongs to it, is accounted for by some evanescent 
 passion, some sensual impression, or some interested view or 
 other, while the existence of anything like true and genuine 
 love is absolutely denied. But in the first place, in the case 
 of an union which embraces the entire man — his sensuous as 
 well as his rational, or, as I should prefer to say, his earthly 
 
88 
 
 GENUINE AND SPURIOUS LOVE. 
 
 no less than his spiritual nature and temperament— it cannot 
 fairly be urged in objection to it, that both the elements of 
 his mixed constitution are present in it. On the contrary, 
 it is obviously most unjust, in our estimate of it, violently to 
 separate what, even in the least corrupted disposition and 
 purest characters, are most closely interwoven, or rather fused 
 together, and to subject them to an invidious and destructive 
 analysis. This is not the way to determine the characteristics 
 of a true and of a false love. The distinction between them 
 must rather be sought by a simpler method, similar to that 
 which we followed in the case of longing and enthusiasm— 
 by considering merely the total result. A feeling of this 
 kind may appear at the beginning never so violent ; it may 
 even amuse itself with a thorough mental hallucination, which 
 betrays itself in its very outward aspect, with the profoundest 
 veneration, nay, deification of its admired object ; but in 
 married life this intense admiration soon gives place to satiety 
 or indifference, and embittered by mutual distrust and mis- 
 understanding, it terminates in incurable discord. In such 
 a case the feeling, even in its ardent beginnings, was no true 
 love, but simply passion. But in those happy unions, where 
 the first passionate ardour of youth yields only to an ever- 
 growing and still purer development of mutual good-will and 
 confidence — while self-sacrifice and patient endurance, both 
 in good and evil fortune, do but cherish the same deep affec- 
 tion and calm friendship — here, from the very first, it was 
 true and genuine love. For, however much the outward 
 appearances of human life may seem to contradict it, there is 
 not in nature, and even in the higher region, any love without 
 a return. And as all true love is reciprocal, so also is true 
 love lasting and indestructible; or, to "speak as a man," 
 even because it is the very inmost life of humanity, it is, 
 therefore, true unto death. 
 
 Moreover, in the case of an union which extends to the 
 whole of life, it is quite consistent that a due regard should 
 be paid to the other circumstances and relations of existence. 
 Only no general rule can be laid down in this respect. This 
 is a matter which has been left to the discretion of individuals, 
 even by the divine laws, those sacred guardians of wedlock, 
 which, however, rigorously insist on the absence of all com- 
 pulsion, inasmuch as the free consent of all parties is an 
 
THE THREE CONDITIONS OF WEDLOCK. 39 
 
 essential condition of this union. And as we should be justi- 
 fied in taking for granted that this reciprocal act of free will 
 must not be any inconsiderate or extorted assent, or one 
 induced by other interested feeling or consideration ; so is 
 this expressly asserted by the fact that, according to the spirit 
 of these holy laws of matrimony, this union must be founded 
 on mutual affection, and regarded as an indissoluble bond of 
 souls, and not as a mere civil contract or deed of sale and 
 transfer of rank and property. The latter, as well as all else, 
 are mere subordinate matters. Three things, according to 
 God's moral government of the world, are indispensable to 
 and required by the essence and spirit of these holy laws. 
 In the first place, there must be a mutual consent of the will 
 — a reciprocal fondness and liking, to which the will, when- 
 ever it is left free and unshackled, gives an appropriate utter- 
 ance and expression. In the second place, these laws require 
 that unison of temper which is indispensable to its permanence ; 
 while, thirdly and lastly, they provide that this union, so 
 sacred in the sight of all civilised nations, should be indis- 
 soluble. In perfect harmony with this last condition is mono- 
 gamy — the fundamental law of Christian wedlock. And even 
 among the heathen nations of antiquity, though without the 
 sanction of law, yet, nevertheless, under the influence of an 
 instinctive sense of what is morally right and noble, mono- 
 gamy had practically become the almost universal rule. 
 Highly important to the welfare of the human race is the in- 
 violable maintenance of this sacred law of marriage. So 
 incalculable are the disasters which follow from its violation, 
 that I can safely venture to assert, without fear of exaggeration, 
 that a religion which would venture to desecrate or pull down 
 the venerable sanctuary of wedlock, and consequently to ex- 
 pose the weaker sex to degradation and oppression, would 
 even thereby bespeak its own falsity, and renounce all pre- 
 tensions to a divine origin. Wherever, on the contrary, this 
 noble institution and woman's dignity are acknowledged and 
 respected, there this union of souls in consecrated love operates, 
 by the means of lasting personal intercourse, a reciprocal 
 mental influence of the most diversified, salutary, and beauti- 
 ful kind. And this influence tends to promote the develop- 
 ment not only of the soul and character, but also of the mind 
 or spirit. Accordingly in this, the first and the most inti- 
 
40 
 
 MARRIAGE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 mate of all unions, all the three principles of human existence, 
 body, soul, and spirit, or mind, alike meet together, and par- 
 take of a common evolution. And the result of this mutual 
 influence relatively to the different characters of the mental 
 capacities and consciousness of the two sexes, and the de- 
 velopment of each produced thereby, forms, merely in its 
 psychological aspect, a remarkable and pregnant phenomenon. 
 Consistently, therefore, with the law I have proposed myself 
 in every case, to set out in my investigations from life itself, 
 and from the very centre thereof, I cannot well avoid, while 
 treating of the several grades of the development of man's 
 consciousness, to give some, though it must be but a partial 
 consideration to this interesting topic. 
 
 Congeniality of mind and temper forms, it is confessed, the 
 sole basis of domestic peace and contentment, and of a happy, 
 t, e., of a well-assorted marriage. But to determine on what 
 this depends, in each individual case, is a problem which, 
 considering the extremely great and infinite varieties of human 
 dispositions, admits not of a precise or particular solution. On 
 this point the closest observers are not unfrequently deceived 
 in their predictions. How often do those agree very well 
 of whom previously it would not have been supposed possible ? 
 On the contrary, those frequently live most unhappily together 
 of whose blissful union the judgment of society and the ordi- 
 nary estimate of human character had led to the most favour- 
 able anticipations. Nevertheless, for the latter fact a general 
 reason may be given. It is not so much the similarity of tastes 
 and pursuits, as rather the want in one of some mental quality 
 possessed by the other, that forms the strongest source of 
 attraction between the two sexes, so that the inner life or 
 consciousness of the one finds its complement in that of the 
 other, or, at least, receives from it a further development and 
 elevation. For in the same way that a certain community of 
 goods and property, even though not complete nor enforced 
 by law, yet still, in some measure and by daily use, does 
 practically take place in wedlock — so, also, by the constant 
 interchange of every thought and feeling, a sort of com- 
 munity of consciousness is produced, which derives its charm 
 and value from the very difference in the mental character 
 of the two sexes. When I would attempt to give a more 
 precise determination of this difference, I feel how difficult 
 
MAN AND MIND "WOMAN AND SOUL. 
 
 41 
 
 and incomplete must be every attempt generally to define 
 the varieties of mental character. And this is especially 
 the case when men take in hand to paint the characters 
 of whole ages and nations, and by contrasts endeavour dis- 
 tinctly to limit and sharply to define them. Thus, for in- 
 stance, the predominant element in the mental character of 
 the Greeks is usually said to be intellect— comprising under 
 this term every form and manifestation of it, the scientific 
 as well as the artistic, profundity not less than acuteness, 
 and vivid perspicuity, together with critical analysis — while 
 energy of will, strength of mind, and greatness of soul, are 
 assigned to the Romans as their distinguishing peculiarity. 
 No doubt these descriptions are not in general untrue. How 
 many nicer limitations, however, and modifications must they 
 undergo, if we are not to rest contented with this historical an- 
 tithesis and summary— which no doubt are correct enough, as 
 far as they go— but desire rather to form in idea and to set down 
 in words, a full and complete image of these two nations in 
 their whole intellectual life. So, too, as a general description 
 of the middle ages, it might be said, with tolerable truth, that 
 in them fancy was predominant ; while in modern times 
 reason has been gradually becoming more and more para- 
 mount. But how many particulars must be added in the 
 latter case, if the truth of life is not to be swallowed up in a 
 general notion. But in a still higher degree does this obser- 
 vation apply, when we come to speak not merely of nations 
 and eras, but of the mental differences of the two sexes. 
 Such mere outlines must be given and taken for nothing more 
 than what they really are, mere sketchy thoughts. However, 
 they may often lead us farther, giving rise occasionally to 
 useful applications, or at least serving, not seldom, to exclude 
 a false and delusive semblance of a thought. To attempt, 
 therefore, something of the kind, I would make the following 
 remark, in which most voices will, I think, concur. Of the 
 several faculties or aspects of human consciousness previously 
 described, soul appears to be most pre-eminent in the mental 
 constitution of women; so that the prophet who said that 
 women have no soul, proved himself thereby a false prophet. 
 For it is even this rich fulness of soul which manifests itself 
 in all their thoughts, and words, and deeds, that constitutes the 
 great charm of the social intercourse of civilised nations, as 
 
42 
 
 MARRIAGE™— RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE, 
 
 well as tlie winning attractiveness of their more familiar con- 
 versation, and in part also the harmonising influence which 
 they produce on the mind in the more intimate union of wedded 
 life. Nevertheless, I think we should altogether miss the truth, 
 if, from any love of antithesis, we should go on to append the 
 remark, that in like manner, mind (geist) generally predomi- 
 nates among men, and is commonly to be found in a higher 
 degree among them than among women. For, in the first 
 place, the measure both of natural capacity and also of 
 acquired culture, not only in themselves, but also in the 
 manifold spheres and modes of their application, are so ex- 
 ceedingly different in different individuals, that it is not 
 easy to form therefrom any general and characteristic esti- 
 mate of the whole sex. And just as it would be a most 
 false exaggeration to deny to man altogether the possession 
 of a soul with its rich fulness of feeling, since it is only of its 
 preponderance among the other sex that it is allowable to 
 speak, so can we with as little justice refuse absolutely to 
 attribute mind to woman, or at best ascribe it to her only in a 
 very limited degree. For even if the subtler abstractions of 
 scientific reasoning are very rare among, and little suited to 
 them, still sound reason and judgment are only the more 
 common. The understanding which women possess, is not so 
 much dry, observant, cool, and calculating, as it is vivid, and 
 intuitively penetrating. And it is exactly this vividness of 
 intellect that, when speaking of individuals, we call mind or 
 spirit. 
 
 Another line of thought will perhaps lead us more directly 
 and nearer to the end we have in view. The external influ- 
 ence of women on the whole human community is for the 
 most part (for here, too, there are great and memorable excep- 
 tions) confined to a narrow sphere of the immediate duties 
 of the affections, or to similar relations in the wider social 
 circle. So, too, is it inwardly as regards the consciousness. 
 All the faculties of woman and their several manifestations lie, 
 if I may so express myself, close together, and, as it were, in a 
 friendly circle around the loving soul, as their common centre. 
 With regard, then, to the comparison of the two sexes and their 
 mental differences, I would venture to observe, that on the one 
 side it seems to me that a certain harmonious fulness of the 
 consciousness is the preponderating character; and, on the 
 
MARRIAGE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE. 43 
 
 other, its eccentric evolution. Not that I mean that in the 
 sex which is pre-eminently called to outward activity, the mind 
 loses its grand centre in the inner life, or, comet-like, delights 
 to wander in vast, irregular orbits, as is indeed commonly 
 enough asserted. My meaning is simply that the masculine 
 mind will ever dare, as indeed it ought, to move in wider 
 circles than the feminine. The extremes of the consciousness, 
 if the expression be allowable — the farthest poles both of 
 reason and fancy — are, so to speak, the property of the more 
 active sex, while the harmonious union and contact of both 
 in the soul belong to the more sensitive. All such general 
 and characteristic sketches, however, must always be most 
 imperfect. Still I believe it may be safely and truly said, 
 that, with highly favoured dispositions and noble natures 
 (and these must be always supposed and taken for the 
 foundation of such general remarks), the gain to be derived 
 from this intellectual community and influence, in which one 
 individual consciousness completes the other, must be sought 
 in the one sex in a greater development of mind and eleva- 
 tion of soul, and in the other, in a more harmonious adjust- 
 ment and softening of the mental powers, and in a far more 
 sensitive excitement of the soul's susceptibilities. But in this 
 most intimate of unions, when regarded as divinely blessed, 
 and when in reality it appears to be so, then on either side 
 both mind and soul are, as it were, twice combined and joined 
 together in closest association, and, if we may so say, even 
 married and wedded together. Consequently, while external 
 life derives from marriage its moral foundation and origin, 
 the internal life of man is, as it were, mentally renewed by 
 it, or fructified afresh and redoubled. 
 
 END OF LECTUBB II. 
 
44 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 OF THE SOUL'S SHARE IN KNOWLEDGE, AND OF REVE- 
 
 LATION. 
 
 In the first Lecture our attention was directed to the think- 
 ing soul as the centre of the whole human consciousness ; 
 while in the second, I attempted fully to set before you, and 
 to delineate, the loving soul as the true middle point of the 
 moral life. The object of our present disquisition will be to 
 ascertain the part which the soul takes in the knowledge to 
 which man is able to attain. The general element, indeed, 
 which the soul furnishes as its contribution to human know- 
 ledge, is not indeed very difficult to determine ; but when we 
 come to details, there is much that requires to be well weighed 
 and pondered. 
 
 Now, the soul furnishes the cognitive mind with lan- 
 guage for the expression of its cognitions; and it is even the 
 distinctive character of human knowledge, that it depends on 
 language, which not only forms an essential constituent of it, 
 but is also its indispensable organ. Language, however, 
 the discursive, but at the same time also the vividly figura- 
 tive language of man, is entirely the product of the soul, 
 which in its production first of all, and pre-eminently, mani- 
 fests its fruitful and creative energy. In this wonderful crea- 
 tion the two constituent faculties of the soul — fancy and 
 reason — play an equal and co-ordinate part. From the fancy 
 it derives the whole of its figurative and ornamental portion, 
 and also its melodious rhythm and animated tone. And 
 moreover, its inmost fundamental web and the primary 
 natural roots belong also to man's original deep feeling of 
 sympathy with outward nature, and therefore to fancy, 
 unless perhaps some would prefer to ascribe them at once to 
 the soul itself, as still more profoundly and intimately akin to 
 nature. To the reason, on the other hand, language owes its 
 logical order, and its grammatical forms and laws of construe- 
 
LAN GrUAGE HOW PRODUCED. 
 
 45 
 
 tion. Which part is the more important, or more highly to 
 be esteemed, is a question whose solution will vary according 
 to the point of view which in any case may be adopted as 
 fundamental, or to the different relations under which the 
 whole shall be considered. Both elements, however, are 
 equally essential and indispensable. In all the instances 
 already considered of the reciprocal relation of reason and 
 fancy we found almost invariably a decided preponderance of 
 one or the other ; but neither there nor elsewhere will reason 
 and fancy be found combining in such harmonious propor- 
 tions, or working so thoroughly together, or contributing so 
 equally to the common product, as in the wonderful pro- 
 duction of language, and in language itself. And this is the 
 case, not only with language in general, but also with all 
 its species and noblest applications. Now this dependence 
 of the cognitive mind on its organ of language, discursive 
 indeed, but yet almost always figurative — this close and 
 intimate connexion between man's knowledge and his speech 
 — is even the characteristic mark of human intelligence. But 
 the fault of most of the mere speculative thinkers lies even 
 in this, that they abandon the standard of humanity, by seeking 
 to wrest, and to conquer an unhuman, if we may so say, i. e., a 
 wholly independent and absolute knowledge, which, however, 
 it is not in their power to attain to, and in pursuit of which 
 they lose the certainty which lies within their reach, and so 
 at last grasp nothing but an absolute not-knowing, or an 
 endless controversy. If, as we cannot but suppose, a com- 
 munication does take place among those spiritual beings, 
 who in intelligence are preferred to man, then must the 
 immediate speech of these spirits be very different from our 
 half-sensuous half-rational, half- earthly half-heavenly lan- 
 guage of nature and humanity. For, even as spiritual, it 
 cannot but be immediate — never employing figure and those 
 grammatical forms which human language first analyses, to 
 form again out of them new and fresh compounds. According 
 to the two properties which constitute the essence of mind 
 (geist), it can only be a communication, a transmission, an 
 awakening or immission of thought — some wholly definite 
 thought — by the will, or else the communicating, exciting, and 
 producing by the thought of some equally definite volition. 
 It may be that something of this, or at least something not 
 
46 LANGUAGE THE ESSENCE OP REASON. 
 
 absolutely dissimilar, occurs in human operations. It is pos- 
 sible that this immediate language of mind, as a secret and 
 invisible principle of life — as a rare and superior element— is 
 contained also in human language, and, as it were, veiled in 
 the outer body, which, however, becomes visible only in the 
 effects of a luminous and lofty eloquence, in which is displayed 
 the magic force of language and of a ruling and commanding 
 thought. Taken on the whole, however, human speech is no 
 such immediate and magically working language of mind or 
 spirit. It is rather a figurative language of nature, in which 
 its great permanent hieroglyphics are mirrored again in 
 miniature, and in rapid succession. And it retains this 
 natural and figurative character even in the ordinary form 
 of rational dialogue, which must observe so many varieties 
 and details of grammar, of which superior intelligences have 
 no need for their immediate intercommunion, but in which, 
 as in all other human things, many greater or less gram- 
 matical oversights creep in and give rise to important conse- 
 quences in science and thought, and also in life itself. But 
 in the next place, language is intimately connected and co- 
 ordinate with tradition, whether sacred or profane, with all 
 the recorded fruits of human speculation and inquiry. And 
 as the word is the root out of which the whole stem of man's 
 transmitted knowledge, or tradition, has grown up, with all its 
 branches and offshoots ; so, too, in the eloquent speech, in the 
 elegant composition, and even in all lofty internal meditation 
 —which form, as it were, the leaves, flowers, and fruits of this 
 goodly tree of living tradition — it is again the word by which 
 the whole is carried on and ultimately perfected. 
 
 But now, in order to develope still more completely, and 
 more accurately to ascertain the part which the soul, as the 
 creator of language, contributes to human cognition and 
 knowledge, it will be necessary to examine nicely the essence 
 of reason, and especially in relation to its collateral and 
 closely connected, but subordinate faculties. Above all, it 
 will be advisable to determine as accurately and carefully as 
 possible, the difference between reason and understanding. 
 For otherwise its proper share in this common fruit and joint 
 product of human knowledge cannot be ascribed to each power 
 of mind and to each faculty of the soul, nor their proper places 
 and due limits in the whole be severally assigned. 
 
REASON — MEMORY — AND CONSCIENCE. 
 
 47 
 
 • The faculties, then, of the soul which stand in the same close 
 relationship to the reason that the senses and the instincts 
 or passions do to the fancy, are memory and conscience. 
 Now, memory may be considered either as a gift, according 
 to its greater or less power of comprehension and retention, 
 or as an art to strengthen and facilitate its operations by 
 artificial means of every kind, or as a problem to determine 
 how far the exercise of it constitutes an essential part Ox 
 man's intellectual culture and development. But it is not in 
 any of these points of view that we have here to considei 
 it, but simply in its essential conjunction with the reason 
 and rationality, which appear to be dependent on this 
 union. 
 
 In other words, we have to regard the memory principally 
 as the inward clue of recollection and of association in the 
 consciousness, in the ever-flowing stream of thought and inter- 
 change of ideas. We may, or, I might rather say, we must, 
 forget infinitely many things. But this connecting thread of 
 memory being once broken, or destroyed, or lost, the reason 
 invariably suffers with it, and is injured, or its exercise limited, 
 or lastly, is rendered totally confused and extinct. Whenever, 
 in the extreme decrepitude of old age, memory fails, reason 
 ceases in an equal degree to be active and energetic, and is 
 supplanted by more or less of a foolish doting. In sleep, no 
 doubt, consciousness is regularly interrupted, but still it is 
 immediately restored again on awaking. If the contrary 
 were to take place, if, as is the foundation of many an inge- 
 nious story among the poets, when suddenly awakened we 
 could not recall our former memory and our knowledge, then 
 should we be continually falling into mistakes about ourselves 
 and lose all identity of consciousness. Some such violent 
 interruption or rent in the inward memory of self-conscious- 
 ness is invariably to be found in madness, and is a leading 
 symptom of it. And here I would merely call upon you to 
 observe a further illustration of what has been already more 
 than once pointed out. The triple principle of body, soul, and 
 spirit is again repeated and manifested even in this sad state 
 of mental alienation, and in all its different forms and specie*. 
 In true lunacy or monomania — wliich is generally harmless 
 and quiet — a radically false but fixed idea is often associated 
 and is not inconsistent with an extraordinary shrewdness on 
 
48 
 
 MEMORY ESSENTIAL TO RATIONALITY. 
 
 all other points. Nevertheless, this fixed erroneous idea, 
 being made the centre of all other thoughts and of the 
 whole consciousness, produces that confusion and that disor- 
 ganisation of the mind which characterises this form of a 
 disordered intellect. But in true madness, or frenzy, the 
 seat of the disease is in the soul, which, having broken loose 
 from all the ties and restraints of reason and rational habit, 
 appears to have fallen a prey to some hostile, wild, and 
 raging force of nature. In idiotcy, lastly, especially where it 
 is inborn and conjoined with the perfection of the external 
 organs of sense, we must assume the existence of some faulty 
 organisation, some defect in the brain, or whatever else is the 
 unknown but higher organ both of thought and life. The 
 source of the last is altogether physical and corporeal, whereas 
 moral causes often co-operate in the highest degree to 
 the production of the former two. The deaf and dumb, if 
 left wholly to themselves, would, in all probability, belong 
 always to the third class, since, with the loss of speech, they 
 are simultaneously deprived of a leading condition of ration- 
 ality. And, accordingly, the first object with those who 
 undertake the difficult task of training these unfortunate beings, 
 is to furnish them with another language by means of signs, 
 instead of the ordinary audible speech of which the accident 
 of birth has deprived them. This instance, therefore, is only 
 a further confirmation of what I have already advanced, that 
 the intellectual character is, in every respect, most intimately 
 dependent on the faculty of speech. A more minute exami- 
 nation of these matters belongs to physical science. Never- 
 theless, our passing remark on the triple character of this 
 psychological evil, or misfortune, will not, I hope, be found in- 
 appropriate here, as affording, even in this narrow and special 
 sphere of a disordered intellect, a further illustration of the 
 general principle of our theory of the human consciousness. 
 
 Now, the outer and especially the higher senses may, by 
 reason of the supremacy of the fancy to which they are sub- 
 ordinate, be termed, with propriety, so many applied faculties 
 of imagination. In the same way we might give the same 
 designation to the inclinations and impulses — the good as well 
 as the evil — if, perhaps, it would not be more accurate to name 
 them an imagination passed into life. In a similar way the 
 memory may be considered as an applied reason which in the 
 
MEMORY REASON CONSCIENCE. 
 
 application has become quite mechanical and habitual; for 
 jnquestionably the logical arrangement is the chief quality in 
 memory. From this it derives both its value and scientific 
 utility. On the other hand, there are certain acquired mental 
 aptitudes which, though originally they cannot be formed 
 without the voluntary exercise of memory, become at last a 
 completely unconscious and mechanical operation — the faci- 
 lity, for instance, of learning by heart, or the acquisition of 
 foreign languages, or catching up of musical tunes. In all 
 these the reason has become an instinct, just as the instinct of 
 animals, their artistic impulse and skill, may be designated an 
 unconscious analogy of reason. 
 
 In this subordinate faculty of the memory, the reason, 
 agreeably to its specific character, exhibits itself as an useful 
 and ministering agent. In conscience, on the contrary, as its 
 highest function, it assumes a somewhat negative character. 
 But in both relations, whether as a ministerial or negative 
 faculty of thought, the reason, in its place, is of the highest 
 value. If occasionally we have seemed to detract from and 
 to limit its importance, such remarks have been called forth 
 by the undue and overweening authority which the present 
 age would claim for the reason. This is the sole end and 
 meaning of our opposition, which is directed exclusively 
 against that spurious reason which claims to be supreme, 
 and arrogates to itself a productive power ; whereas, in truth, 
 it ought not to be the one, and can never be the other. The 
 thought which distinguishes, divides, and analyses, and that 
 also which combines, infers, and concludes — which, as such, 
 make up the faculty of reason — may be so carried on in 
 indefinite and infinite process, as ultimately to get entirely 
 rid of its object-matter. It is this endless thinking, without 
 a correspondent object, that is the source of scientific error, 
 which, as in all cases it arises solely out of this vacuum in 
 thinking, can only lead to a thinking of nothing — a cogita- 
 tion absolutely null and false. Far different is the case where 
 a memory, stored with the rich materials of intellectual ex- 
 perience, forms the useful basis of man's studies and pursuits, 
 or where, as is the case with the apperception of the con- 
 science, the object, even while it is less extensive and manifold, 
 is the more highly and more intensely important. Now, as 
 the reason generally is not only a combining and connecting, 
 
*0 MEMORY REASON CONSCIENCE. 
 
 but also a distinguishing faculty of thought, so likewise the 
 conscience is a similar power of drawing distinctions in the 
 thought and in the internal consciousness, though in a higher 
 and special degree, and also in a different form from that 
 which, in all other instances, is discursive reason. For it is 
 by a simple feeling and immediate perception that the con- 
 science, in obedience to the voice within man, draws between 
 right and wrong, or good and evil, the greatest of all dis- 
 tinctions. This voice of conscience, while it makes itself 
 heard among all nations, nevertheless, under the ever and 
 widely varying influence of ruling ideas of the age, and of 
 education, and of custom, speaks in different times and places, 
 in differing tones and dialects. But these differences extend 
 only to subordinate matters. The primary and essential point 
 remains unchanged and never to be mistaken ; the same 
 dominant tone and key-note sounds through all these vari- 
 ations — the common tongue and language of human nature 
 and of an untaught and innate fear of God. This fact has led 
 many to regard the conscience as the principal source of all 
 higher and divine truth ; with whom I can readily concur, so 
 long as they do not mean thereby, that it is the only source, to 
 the exclusion of every other. 
 
 Now it is surely significant that in German — and all 
 languages furnish numerous instances of such significant 
 allusions — the word and the name of reason* is derived from 
 that internal perception of the conscience which constitutes its 
 highest function. What, then, it may be asked, is perceived 
 by this wonderful perception, that before it the will inwardly 
 retires and withdraws even its earlier and most cherished 
 wishes ? The warning voice it is called, in every age and 
 nation. It is, as it were, one who within us, warns and re- 
 monstrates. It is not, therefore, our own Me, but as it were 
 another, and, as a vague feeling would suggest, of a higher 
 and a different nature. And now by its light that earlier and 
 retiring will appears in like manner as another self — a lower 
 false and seducing Ego — an alien power which would hurry 
 away ourselves and our proper Me. But between the two — 
 this higher warning voice on the one hand, and this con- 
 straining, compelling force on the other — there stands a 
 power which is free to decide between them. And this, as 
 * Yernunft, from Vernehmen. 
 
DISTINCTION BETWEEN REASON AND UNDERSTANDING . 51 
 
 soon as the decomposing process is finished, which in the as 
 yet nndecided will, or its mixed states, separates and dis- 
 tinguishes between the good voice and the evil inclination — 
 remains to us as our own Ego and our proper self. This inward 
 voice, and the immediate perception of it, is an anchor on 
 which the vessel of man's existence rides safely on the stormy 
 sea of life, and the ebb and the flow of the will. In other 
 words, it is a divine focus, or a sacred stay of truth. But 
 further, it must be observed, that the understanding of this 
 inner perception, as I have just painted it, does not belong to 
 the reason, to which alone the perceiving can itself be ascribed. 
 The true intelligence thereof — its higher interpretation, and 
 explanation, which adds to it, or recognises in it a reference 
 to the divine — must, even because it is an intellectual act, be 
 ascribed to the understanding. 
 
 The present, therefore, is the place for a close and accurate 
 investigation of the difference between reason and under- 
 standing — a question of the highest importance for the whole 
 theory of the consciousness, and its true philosophical inter- 
 pretation, as well as absolutely for every branch of science. 
 For this purpose I shall follow a line of thought somewhat 
 unusual, perhaps, but which on that account is even the more 
 likely to carry us quickly to the desired end, and to place the 
 distinction in a full and clear light. I lately employed 
 the somewhat hypothetical comparison between man and a 
 superior order of intelligences, as a means of illustrating the 
 faculty of the fancy as the peculiar property of the human 
 consciousness. And now I would go a step higher, and from 
 the acknowledged characteristics of the divine intelligence, 
 derive the means of determining the different functions of 
 the human consciousness, and of settling the relations they 
 stand in, not only to one another, but also to a superior intel 
 lect. In this course, however, I shall take nothing for granted 
 but what is well known and generally intelligible. That God 
 is a Spirit, is the concurrent voice of all men, wherevei a 
 belief in the one God is professed, or the idea of a Divine 
 Being is diffused. God is a Spirit, and therefore an omniscient 
 intellect and an almighty will are unanimously attributed 
 to Him. This axiom, with which a child even of the most 
 ordinary intelligence can associate some kind of meaning, is 
 at the same time the fundamental principle which is involved 
 
 £2 
 
52 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AS APPLIED TO GOD. 
 
 in all that the deepest thinker can know of God. The same 
 faculties, therefore, that make up the essence and the two 
 functions of created spirits — understanding and will — may, 
 without hesitation, be attributed to the uncreated Spirit ; and 
 although this attribution must be understood according to the 
 exalted standard of the infinite distance between the creature 
 and the Creator, still it is made properly and not merely by 
 way of figure. 
 
 But now, in Holy Writ, and in the language of pious adora- 
 tion and prayer, among other nations as well as the Jewish, 
 a multitude of properties, faculties, and senses are ascribed 
 to the Deity in perfectly anthropomorphic descriptions and 
 imagery. Thus mention is even made of His eye, His ear, His 
 guiding hand, His mighty arm, and the omnipotent breath of 
 His mouth. In so far as these are admitted to be mere images 
 there can be no objection to them, and it is not easy to see 
 how they can lead to any abuse. And this is equally the 
 case even with such expressions as it is plain can only be 
 applicable to the Deity in a figurative sense — for instance, 
 when human passions are ascribed to Him — since, if employed 
 properly and literally, they all involve more or less of imper- 
 fection. And in the same way, where no forgetfulness is 
 possible or conceivable, it can only be in a figurative sense 
 that it is allowable to speak of memory. And with still less 
 propriety can- the faculty of conscience, in its human sense, 
 be ascribed to God. His balance of justice — His regulative 
 thought — is something very different from our mere sense of 
 fight. To ascribe conscience to the Deity would be to con- 
 round the judge on the bench with the criminal at the bar. 
 Even the first man, as long as he was yet innocent, knew not 
 conscience. For the sense of guilt, and the faculty of per- 
 ceiving it, must at the very earliest have come simultaneously 
 with the transgression itself, if it was not, rather, consequent 
 upon it. In the application to the Deity of such figurative 
 language, great licence is of course allowable. The question, 
 however, which concerns us in a philosophical point of view is 
 whether, in the same proper sense as understanding and will, 
 so also the other faculties which are so peculiarly distinctive of 
 man — reason and fancy, or the soul — can be attributed to the 
 Divine Being. Now it is at once evident that, far beyond all 
 other figurative expressions, it would be perfectly unsuitable 
 
THE DIVINE NATURE. 
 
 53 
 
 to ascribe fancy to God. We feel clearly enough that by so 
 doing we should be leaving the safe ground of truth for the 
 treacherous domain of mythology. That inner mine of in- 
 tellectual riches which man in his weak measure finds in the 
 faculty of fancy, is in the case of the Divine Being furnished 
 once and for all by His omnipotent will ; which of itself creates 
 and produces its object, and unlike created beings is not con- 
 fined to any limited data or to a choice between them. Here, 
 then, the Almighty will itself is the full fatherly heart — em- 
 bracing, nourishing, and sustaining all creatures — or even the 
 living maternal womb of eternal generation, and requires no 
 new and special faculty for this end. In the next place, as to 
 the soul: the expression of the soul of God does, indeed, 
 occur in some of the less known Christian writers of the first 
 centuries of the church, but it soon fell into disuse — from a 
 fear, probably, of its leading to a confusion of idea, and being 
 identified with a mere soul of the world. But however that may 
 be, the soul is simply a passive faculty, and therefore, on that 
 account alone, is highly inappropriate as applied to God. 
 That third property which in the Divine nature is associated 
 with an omniscient intelligence or understanding, and an 
 omnipotent will, cannot be called the soul of God, but is even 
 the spirit of love, in which both understanding and will unite 
 and are one. And if this third property be added to the 
 axiomatic definition of the Deity already alluded to, then in the 
 proposition: God is a spirit of love, the double predicate in its 
 essential import involves all that man in general, and even the 
 profoundest thinker, can properly know of God. All besides 
 is a mere expansion or elucidation of this primary and funda- 
 mental thought. Moreover, if it is not allowable to ascribe 
 fancy or a soul to God, so neither can He be spoken of as 
 possessing reason as an essential faculty in the same proper 
 sense as understanding and will are attributed to Him. God 
 is indeed the author of reason ; and the sound reason is even that 
 which adheres to the centre of truth, as lie, in creating it. 
 designed and ordered. But from this it does not by any means 
 follow that He is himself the reason which He has created, or 
 that He is even one with it. Were it so, then the advoeate.s of 
 absolute science, the rationalists, would be in the right ; in 
 such a case, the knowledge of God were in truth a science of 
 reason, inasmuch as like can only be known by like. 
 
54 UNDERSTANDING AS COGNIZANT OF THE DIVINE, 
 
 But now, if it be not reason, but rather understanding, 
 that, with the co-operation of all the other faculties both of 
 soul and spirit, is the proper organ for acquiring a knowledge 
 of the divine, and the only means by which man can arrive 
 at a right apprehension thereof; then is the knowledge of 
 God simply and entirely a science of experience, although of 
 a high and peculiar kind, by reason of the finiteness and 
 frailty of man as compared with such an object. As the 
 fancy is the apprehension or seizing of an object, the reason 
 a combination or distinction, so the understanding is the 
 faculty which penetrates and, in its highest degree, clearly 
 sees through its object. We understand a phenomenon, a 
 sensation, an object, when we have discerned its inmost 
 meaning, its peculiar character and proper significance. And 
 the same is the case even when this object be a speech and 
 communication addressed to us — a word or discourse given 
 us to extract its meaning. If we have discerned the design 
 which is involved in such a communication, its real meaning 
 and purpose, then may we be said to have understood it, even 
 though some minutia3 in the expression may still remain un- 
 intelligible, which, as not belonging essentially to the whole, 
 we put aside and leave unconsidered. There are, therefore, 
 many steps and degrees in understanding — very different 
 phases and species of it. A familiar instance will, perhaps, elu- 
 cidate this matter. We will suppose the case of an extremely 
 rare and remarkable, or perhaps hitherto wholly unknown, 
 plant, brought to our country from a foreign clime. The natu- 
 ralist, having examined its structure and organs, assigns it 
 to a particular class of the higher botanical genera, where 
 it either belongs to some lower species or forms an exception. 
 The chemist, again, when the plant is brought before his 
 notice, conjectures, from certain other characters, that it is 
 formed of such or such elementary parts ; while the physician, 
 on other grounds, concludes that in certain diseases it will 
 probably serve as a remedy, equally if not more efficacious 
 than other herbs or roots previously employed for that pur- 
 pose. Now, if the two last have judged correctly, if their 
 conjectures be confirmed by trial and experiment, then will all 
 the three have understood the plant, and each in his own de- 
 partment have learned and discerned its intrinsic character. 
 Again : how slowly, step by step and gradually, do men 
 
SLOW P RC GUESS OF ALL TRUE KNOWLEDGE. 55 
 
 attain to the understanding of some ancient, foreign, and 
 difficult language. It commences, perhaps, with the long and 
 difficult deciphering of a manuscript or inscription, with an 
 alphabet incomplete or imperfectly known, and after much 
 painful labour the final discovery of its true meaning is made 
 perhaps by some fortunate accident which all at once throws 
 a full light upon it. A remarkable instance in our own days, 
 will both elucidate the matter, and serve at the same time to 
 prove how a higher Providence regulates even the progress 
 of science. For more than a millennium and a half had the 
 hieroglyphics of an ancient race remained unintelligible to and 
 undeciphered by a posterity of aliens, when at last, amid the 
 recent commotions and tempests of the political world, a happy 
 accident brought the secret to light. Who can forget the 
 brilliant and dazzling expectations which hailed the departure 
 of the French expedition for Egypt? How was all Europe 
 electrified at the bold project of planting at the foot of the 
 Pyramids a colony of European art and civilisation. The 
 enterprise itself failed, and was soon forgotten amid still 
 more important events and greater revolutions ; and the 
 humble monument with its triple inscription, which was 
 carried away from Egypt, is all, if we may so speak, that 
 remains of it. But that has unquestionably founded a great 
 epoch in the peaceful empire of science.* For a whole genera- 
 tion the learned laboured to decipher it with but slow and very 
 imperfect success, when at last a happy coincidence presents 
 itself, and suddenly the key is found. And although of the 
 seven hundred secret symbols, scarcely more than one hundred 
 are as yet made out, still even these have opened a wide vista 
 into the spacious domain of the dark origines of man's history. 
 And this was effected at a time when man had just learnt to put 
 together a few characters of the great alphabet of nature, and 
 here and there to decipher a word or two of its hieroglyphical 
 language, while at the same time streams of historical know- 
 ledge began to flow down from the remotest antiquity of the 
 human race, confirming and setting in the clearest light the 
 best of all that we had before possessed, and exciting a hope 
 that we might, perhaps, be also able to understand the obscure 
 
 * The Rosetta stone, which led to the hieroglyphical discoveries of Young 
 and of Chanipollion. — Trans, 
 
56 RAPID GROWTH OF v ERROR THE ABSOLUTE. 
 
 hieroglyphics of our own age, and the fearful war of minds 
 which is commencing in it. 
 
 Such is the course of things, or rather, the higher Pro- 
 vidence that rules therein ; and it was to this, chiefly, that I 
 wished to call your attention by this digression. Thus slow 
 and gradual, but permanent, are the progressive steps in the 
 growth and development of true human science, which is 
 founded on experience — the internal as well as external, the 
 higher as well as the lower — and on tradition, language, and 
 revelation. But on the contrary, that false, or, as I termed it at 
 the outset, that unhuman and absolute knowledge, as it pre- 
 tends to embrace all at once, and by one step to place us in full 
 possession of the whole sum of human knowledge, so, ever 
 fluctuating between being and non-being, it soon dissolves into 
 thin air, and leaves nothing behind but a baseless void of absolute 
 non-knowing. Ill would it fare with the knowledge of God 
 and of divine things, if they were left to be discovered, and, 
 as it were, first established by human reason. Even though, 
 in such a case, the intellectual edifice were never so well built 
 and compact, still as it had originally issued out of man's 
 thoughts, it would be ever shaking before the doubt whether 
 it were anything better than an idea, or had any reality out of 
 the human mind. 
 
 For this doubt is the foundation of all idealism, to which, 
 often recurring under differing forms of error, it does but give 
 a fresh creation and n ew shape. Even from this side, conse- 
 quently, it is apparent that no living certainty and complete 
 reality is attainable b y it. Easy in truth were it from this 
 position to evolve the ideas of the illimitable, and the infinite, 
 and the absolute — and of such developments there is no lack. 
 But they are at best but pure negations, which do not serve 
 in the least to explain that which is most necessary for us 
 to understand. Curious indee d should I be to see the process 
 by which, out of this pet m etaphysical idea of the absolute, 
 any one positive notion of God — His patience, for example, 
 and long-suffering — is to be deduced. Strange, too, must be 
 the way in which alone it could carry out the proof that the ab- 
 solute Deity, or as man prefers, it seems, to say, the Absolute, 
 cannot dispense with the possession of this attribute of patience, 
 on which, however, before all others, it is important for man to 
 insist. Moreover, this character of a bsoluteness is applied to 
 
DIVINE JUSTICE AND MERCY LIMITED. 
 
 57 
 
 the Deity in a manner which is altogether false and erroneous. 
 That God, in the mode of His existence, is unlimited — that 
 the First Cause is not dependent on, and cannot be qualified 
 by any other being, is self-evident, and is nothing but a mere 
 identical proposition. But this character does not admit of 
 being applied to His inner essence, or His essential attributes 
 in relation to man and the whole creation. Woe to all men, 
 nay, we might rather say, woe to all created beings, if God 
 were really absolute — if, for instance, His justice, which, 
 however, is the first and principal of all His attributes, were 
 not manifoldly modified, limited, and conditioned by His 
 goodness, His mercy, and His patience. Before such a 
 justice of God, if it were at once to make such an uncon- 
 ditional manifestation of itself, the whole world in terror 
 would sink in dust and ashes. But it is not so : man does 
 hope — he must believe — ay, we may go on and add, man 
 does know, that the divine justice is not unconditional, but is 
 in an eminent degree limited by His fatherly love and good- 
 ness. 
 
 No doubt, too, it must not on the other hand be forgotten, 
 that the divine love and grace are also conditioned by the 
 attribute of justice, what, however, in a certain effeminate 
 theology of a recent day, seems to have been totally over- 
 looked. However, this grave error of a too sentimental view 
 of divine things is now pretty generally recognised as such, 
 and for the most part abandoned. Moreover, it does not 
 properly lie within the scope of our present disquisition. 
 Now, the position that the justice and the grace of God mutually 
 limit each other, involves nothing unintelligible, or, in this 
 sense, inconceivable, as, however, is the case with the base- 
 less phantom of the absolute, where the empty phrase becomes 
 only the more unintelligible the more frequently it is re- 
 peated. How much more correct in this respect, were the 
 definitions and distinctions of the great philosophers of 
 antiquity, especially the Pythagoreans. With them the 
 limitless and the indeterminate were even the imperfect and 
 the evil, and the former they regarded as the characteristic 
 marks of the latter, while the fixedly definite and positive, 
 which forms the very heart and core of personality, was with 
 them identical with the good. And unquestionably, God's 
 personality — the fundamental notion, the proper and universal 
 
58 POWER TO UNDERSTATE I REVELATION GOD'S GIET. 
 
 dogma of every religion that acknowledges the one true God- 
 is the true centre around which the whole inquiry revolves. 
 For the question is, whether philosophy, while it allows this 
 idea to stand indeed externally, and apparently — for even in 
 Germany one only has been found bold enough to deny it 
 expressly and without reserve — intends all the while to put 
 it quietly aside, and secretly to entomb it by refusing to see in 
 it anything more than an illusion of the natural feelings. 
 The point at issue is whether, by so teaching, philosophy is 
 to come into direct collision with one of man's most universal 
 and deeply-rooted feelings, and to produce an eternal schism — 
 an irreconcilable discord — not only between science and faith, 
 but even between science and life. For to unsettle life, is 
 even the necessary result of rationalism. 
 
 But let us now turn from the " Absolute''' of reason to the 
 personal God of the believers among all peoples and times. 
 If now, the knowledge of God be not a discovery of the 
 reason, whose proper office is to analyse and investigate ; if on 
 the contrary, we are only able to understand of Him so 
 much as is given and imparted to us, then the matter as- 
 sumes quite another aspect. If God has conferred a know- 
 ledge of Himself upon man — if He has spoken to him, has 
 revealed. Himself to him — as is the common tradition of all 
 ancient nations, the more unanimously corroborated the 
 older they are— then is the power to understand this divine 
 communication given together and at the same time with it, 
 even though we should be forced to allow that this intellec- 
 tual capacity be limited by human frailty and extremely 
 imperfect. To take our estimate of it as low as possible, 
 we will conceive it to be something like the degree of intelli- 
 gence with which a child eighteen months old understands its 
 mother. Much it does not understand at all, other things it 
 mistakes, or perhaps does not fully attend to, and its answers 
 too are not much to the purpose — but something, never- 
 theless, it does understand — this we see clearly enough. On 
 this point we should not be likely to be led astray, even though 
 the theorist should wish to raise a doubt on the matter, by 
 attempting to prove that the child could not properly under- 
 stand its mother, since for that purpose it would be necessary 
 for it to have previously learned thoroughly and methodically 
 the elements of grammar. We believe, however, what indeed 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD A SCIENCE OF EXPERIENCE. 59 
 
 we see, that man's power of understanding divine things is 
 really very imperfect. For the relation between the child 
 a year and a half old and its mother completely represents 
 that of man to God, with the more than half imperfect organs 
 that are given him for this purpose — with his so manifoldly 
 limited mind or spirit, which is a spark of heavenly light, 
 indeed, but still only a spark — a drop out of the ocean of 
 the infinite whole — and, moreover, with his half- soul. For 
 half-soul we may and must call it in this respect, since w T ith 
 the one half it is turned to the earth, and still wholly 
 fraternises with the sensible world, while with the other it 
 is directed to, and is percipient of the divine. But such a 
 childlike and humble docility will not satisfy the proud 
 reason, and so it is ever turning again to the other absolute 
 road of a false, imaginary, and unhuman knowledge. Funda- 
 mentally, however, those two words,* which alone man can be 
 certain of with respect to God, would, since God invariably 
 imparts to every creature its due measure, be quite enough, 
 if only man would always rightly apply and faitlifully pre- 
 serve them. 
 
 Now, to this first hypothesis we might append the further 
 question : — supposing that God has imparted a knowledge of 
 Himself to mankind— has spoken to them, and revealed Him- 
 self to them — is it not highly probable that He has ordained 
 some institution for the further propagation and diffusion of 
 revealed truth, and also for the maintenance as well of its 
 original integrity as also of the right interpretation of it ? But 
 I must content myself with merely advancing this question. 
 I cannot attempt to prosecute it in the present place, for its 
 further consideration would carry us out of the established 
 limits of philosophy into the domain of history, and it involves 
 moreover the positive articles of faith. 
 
 But the previous question, whether the knowledge of God, 
 which we either possess or are capable of possessing, be a 
 science of absolute reason, or rather an understanding of 
 given data, and consequently a science of experience, and 
 resting, ultimately, on revelation — this certainly falls within 
 the scope of philosophical investigation. Indeed, it forms the 
 chiefest and most essential problem of philosophy, inasmuch 
 
 * " God is a loving Spirit," page 53. — Trans. 
 
60 REASON NOT PROPERJA ATTRIBUTABLE TO GOD. 
 
 as it is properly the very question of being and non-being — of 
 a true and human, or of an empty and imaginary science — 
 that is here to be decided. On this account, a precise and 
 correct phraseology is of the utmost importance towards a 
 right solution of this leading topic of philosophical inquiry. 
 Now, it is a fact deserving of remark, and well calculated to 
 arrest our attention, that nowhere in Holy Writ, nowhere in 
 all antiquity, or in any of the great teachers and philosophers 
 of olden time, is there any mention made of God's reason — 
 but universally it is intelligence or understanding, an om- 
 niscient intelligence, that is ascribed to Him. The wrongful 
 interchange of the two w^ords w r as reserved exclusively for our 
 modern times, and for the epoch of the absolute rule of rea- 
 son, and of the worse than Babylonish confusion of scientific 
 terms w T hich has arisen out of it. The only exceptions from 
 the previous remark, which may be found in antiquity, are 
 confined to one or two of the Stoics. But when we reflect 
 how greatly their whole chapter on the Deity labours under the 
 evil influence of that doctrine of an inevitable necessity and* 
 blind fate, which forms the reproach of the whole Stoical 
 theory, this apparent exception serves to confirm the general 
 rule, that a wrong use of language invariably has its source 
 in a rationalistic basis of speculation, or perhaps is itself the 
 spring and occasion of that erroneous point of view. God is 
 unquestionably the author of reason. If therefore any one be 
 disposed to call the divine order of things (which, however, 
 is not the Deity himself), a divine reason, this is a mere matter 
 of indifference. Only in such a case the question to be agi- 
 tated would not involve the mere expression, but rather the 
 meaning which is associated with it. But for my part, I 
 should prefer to avoid a mode of speaking which might give 
 rise to great misconception. And this is the more desirable 
 the more needful it is at all times carefully to distinguish 
 between the true and sound reason and its contrary. God is 
 the author of the sound reason, i.e., of the reason which fol- 
 lows and is obedient to the divine order. But the other, the 
 rebellious reason, has for its source that spirit of negation 
 which everywhere opposes God, and has drawn so great a part 
 of creation after him in his fall. For, having lost his true 
 centre, and finding none in himself, that evil spirit, with 
 indescribable desire and raging passion ateness, seeks to find 
 
REVELATION FOUR-TOLD. 
 
 61 
 
 one in the disordered world of sense, and in its noblest 
 ornament — even in the soul of man, the very jewel of crea- 
 tion. And this is even the origin of the rebellious reason. 
 And it is rebellious even because having wandered from its 
 centre in the loving soul, which again has its centre in God, 
 it has thrown off the obedience of love, that holy bond which 
 retains the soul in subjection to the divine order. How far 
 in the present day, amid the fermenting rationalistic medley 
 which constitutes the spirit of the age, that sound reason 
 which willingly follows and observes the divine order, or 
 that rebellious reason which is absolute in itself, has the 
 upper hand, and forms the predominant element, is a question 
 easy of solution. It is one which I am content to leave to 
 the decision of all who are in any degree acquainted with the 
 prevailing tone of science and of life. 
 
 The philosophy which I have here undertaken to develope, 
 setting out from the soul as the beginning and first subject of 
 its speculations, contemplates the mind or spirit as its highest 
 and supreme object. Accordingly, in its doctrine of the Deity, 
 directly opposing every rationalistic tendency, it conceives of 
 Him and represents Him as a living spirit, a personal God, 
 and not merely as an absolute reason, or a rational order. If, 
 therefore, for the sake of distinction, it requires some peculiar 
 and characteristic designation, it might, in contrast with those 
 errors of Materialism and Idealism which I have described 
 and condemned, be very aptly termed Spiritualism. But 
 our doctrine is not any such system of reason as the others 
 pretend to be. It is an inward experimental science of a 
 higher order. Such a designation, consequently, bespeaking 
 as it does a pretension of system, is not very appropriate, and 
 is, at all events, superfluous. It is best indicated by a simple 
 name, such as we have given it in calling it a philosophy of 
 life. 
 
 Moreover, the revelation by which God makes himself 
 known to man, does not admit of being limited exclusively to 
 the written word. Nature itself is a book written on both 
 sides, both within and without, in every line of which the 
 finger of God is discernible. It is, as it were, a Holy Writ 
 in visible form and bodily shape — a song of praise on the 
 Creator's omnipotence composed in living imagery. But 
 besides Scripture and nature — those two great witnesses to 
 
62 REVELATION "WRITTEN AND UNWRITTEN. 
 
 the greatness and majesty of God — there is in the voice of 
 conscience nothing less than a divine revelation within man. 
 This is the first awakening call to the two other louder and 
 fuller proclamations of revealed truth. And, lastly, in uni- 
 versal history we have set before us a real and manifold appli- 
 cation and progressive development of revelation. Here the 
 luminous threads of a divine and higher guidance glimmer 
 through the remarkable events of history. For, not only in 
 the career of whole ages and nations, but also in the lives of 
 individuals, the ruling and benignant hand of Providence is 
 everywhere visible. 
 
 Fourfold, consequently, is the source of revelation, from 
 which man derives his knowledge of the Deity, learns his 
 will, and understands his operation and power — -conscience, 
 nature, Holy Writ, and universal history. The teaching of 
 the latter is often of that earnest and awful kind, to which we 
 may, in a large sense, apply the adage, "Who will not learn 
 must feel." How often does it show us some mighty edifice 
 of fortune, which, having no firm basis in the deep soil of 
 truth and the divine order, owed its rapid growth and false 
 splendour to some evil influence, falling suddenly in ruins, as 
 if stricken by the invisible breath of a superior power. On 
 such occasions the public feeling recognises the hand which 
 sets a limit to every temerity in the history of the world — to 
 every extravagance of a false confidence — and appoints it its 
 ultimate term. And the olden notion (which, with men of 
 the day, had become little more than an antiquated legend,) 
 of God's retributive justice, resumes its place among the 
 actuating sentiments of life, with new and intense signi- 
 ficance. The sublime truth, however, is only too soon forgot- 
 ten, and the temporary alarm subsides but too quickly into 
 the habitual calm of a false security — that old and hereditary 
 feeling of human nature. 
 
 The volume of Holy Writ, as it is transmitted to us, and 
 was first commenced about three-and-thirty centuries ago, 
 does not exclude the possibility of an earlier sacred tradition 
 in the twenty-four centuries which preceded it. %r, 
 indeed, is the supposition of such an original revelation from 
 being inconsistent with Scripture, that, on the contrary, it 
 contains explicit allusions to the fact, that such a manifold 
 enlightenment was imparted to the first man, as well as to 
 
HOLY WRIT ANTE-MOSAIC REVELATION. 63 
 
 that patriarch who, after the destruction of the primeval 
 world of giants, was the second progenitor of mankind. But 
 as this divine knowledge, derived immediately from the primary 
 source of all illumination, flowed down in free and unconfmed 
 channels to succeeding generations, and to the different 
 nations which branched off from the parent stock, the original 
 sacred traditions were soon disfigured and overloaded with 
 fictions and fables. In these, however, a rich abundance 
 of xemarkable vestiges and precious germs of divine truth 
 were mixed up with Bacchanalian rites and immoral mys- 
 teries. And thus, amid a multitude of sensuous and stimulating 
 images, the pure and simple truth was buried, as in a second 
 chaos, under a mass of contradictory symbols. Hence arose 
 that Babylonish confusion of languages, emblems, and legends, 
 which is universally to be met with among ancient, and even 
 the most primitive nations. In the great work, therefore, of 
 purification, and of a restoration of true religion (which we 
 may call a second revelation, or at least, as a second stage 
 thereof.) a rigid exclusion of this heathenish admixture of 
 fable and immorality was the first and most essential requisite. 
 But those older revelations, imparted to the first man and 
 the second progenitor of mankind, are expressly laid down as 
 the groundwork of that evangel of the creation, which forms 
 the introduction to the whole volume of Scripture, and fur- 
 nishes us thereby with a key to understand the history and 
 religion of the primitive world — or to speak absolutely, the 
 true Genesis of the existing world, its history and its science. 
 This double principle, expressly recognising on the one hand, 
 an original revelation and divine illumination of the first pro- 
 genitors of the human race, of which the olden and less cor- 
 rupted monuments of heathendom still retain many a trace, 
 and on tne other, strictly rejecting the additions of a corrupt 
 and degenerated heathenism, with all its tissue of fables and 
 false godless mysteries, must be kept steadily in view in exam- 
 ining the earliest portions of the sacred Scriptures. For the 
 neglect, or imperfect consideration of it, has already led, and 
 is ever likely to give rise to many complicated doubts and 
 perverted views, which imperil not only the simple under- 
 standing of the whole body of revealed Scrip ture, but even the 
 right conception of revelation. 
 
 It would seem, then, that not only philosophical, but abso- 
 
64 SOUL THE RECEPTIVE OHOAN OF REVELATION. 
 
 lutely every higher species of knowledge is an internal science 
 of experience. For the formal science of mathematics is not 
 a positive science for the cognition of a real object, so much 
 as an organon and aid for other sciences, which, however, as 
 such, is both excellent in itself, and admits of many useful 
 applications. We may therefore on this hypothesis consider 
 each of these four faculties of man, which I have called the 
 principal poles or leading branches of human consciousness, 
 as a peculiar sense for a particular domain of truth. For 
 all experience and all science thereof rests on some cognitive 
 sense as the organ of its immediate perceptions. Now the 
 reason, which, in its form of conscience, announces itself as 
 an internal sense of right and wrong, is, as the faculty for the 
 development and communication of thought, usually named 
 the common sense. It constitutes the bond of connexion 
 between men and their thoughts, which is dependent on and 
 conditioned by language and its organ, and may be called the 
 sense for all that is distinctively human. In this respect it 
 forms the foundation and first grade of all other senses for, and 
 immediate organs of, a higher knowledge. Fancy, again, being 
 itself but a reflection of life and of the living powers of the natu- 
 ral world, is the inward sense for nature, which, as will hereafter 
 be more fully shown, first lends and assures to natural science 
 its due import and true living significance. And inasmuch as 
 the perfect intellection of a single object results from the 
 totality alone — the significance and spirit of the whole — there- 
 fore the understanding is the sense for that mind (geist) 
 which manifests itself in the sensible world, whether this be 
 a human or natural, or the supreme Divine intelligence. 
 
 Now, if we may venture to consider the fourfold revelation 
 of God in conscience, in nature, in Holy Writ, and the 
 world's history, as so many living springs or fertilising streams 
 of a higher truth, we must suppose the existence of a good 
 soil to receive the water of life and the good seed of divine 
 knowledge. For without an organ of susceptibility for good 
 to receive the divine gift from above, no amount of revelation 
 would benefit man. Now the soul, so susceptible of good on 
 all sides, both from within and from without, is even this 
 organ for the reception of revelation. And this function of 
 the soul, together with its creation of language as the outer 
 form of human knowledge, constitutes its contribution to 
 
DIALOGUE THE NATURAL FOKM OF PHILOSOPHY. 65 
 
 science — and especially to internal science. And even with 
 the understanding, as the sense which discerns the meaning 
 and purport of revelation, the soul is co-operative — since no- 
 thing divine can be understood merely in the idea, and of and 
 by itself alone, but in every case a feeling for it must have 
 preceded, or at least contributed towards its complete under- 
 standing. The soul, consequently, which is thus susceptible 
 of the divine, is ever informing itself about, or co-operating 
 in the acquisition of a knowledge of the Godlike. And this, 
 the soul's love and pursuit of divine truth, when, mifolding 
 itself in thought, it comes forth in an investiture of words, is 
 even philosophy — not indeed the dead sophistic of the schools, 
 but one which, as it is a philosophy of life, can be nothing 
 less than living. And the soul, thus ardently yearning for the 
 divine, and both receiving and faithfully maintaining the re- 
 vealed Word, is the common centre towards which all the four 
 springs of life and streams of truth converge. In free medi- 
 tation it reconciles and combines them. 
 
 On this account the oldest and most natural form of phi- 
 losophy was that of dialogue, which did not, however, exclude 
 the occasional introduction of a simple narrative, or the con- 
 tinuous explanation of higher and abstruser questions. Phi- 
 losophy, accordingly, might not inappropriately be defined as 
 a dialogue of the soul in its free meditation on divine things. 
 And this was the very form it actually possessed among the 
 earliest and noblest of the philosophers of antiquity — first of 
 all really and orally, as with Pythagoras and Socrates, and 
 lastly in its written exposition, of which style Plato was the 
 great and consummate master. But it was only to the noblest 
 and best of all ranks, though without distinction of age or sex, 
 that these the greatest men of antiquity communicated their 
 treasures of philosophical wisdom. In this course Pythagoras 
 first set the example, which, on the whole, was followed also 
 by Socrates and Plato. For, in general, the latter confined 
 their philosophical teaching to a select circle, and imparted 
 it, as it were, under the seal of friendship, to such only as in 
 the social intercourse of life they admitted to close and familiar 
 intimacy. Occasional exceptions were perhaps furnished by 
 their disputes with the sophists, in the course of which they 
 were constrained to adopt, not only the weapons, but also the 
 method of their adversaries — a licence of which Plato, per- 
 
 F 
 
66 PHILOSOPHY IMPROPERLY CONFINED TO A SCHOOL. 
 
 haps, has too often availed himself, even if he has not some- 
 times abused it. For about this time the sophists introduced 
 a practice as erroneous as their doctrine was false. Publish- 
 ing their philosophemes to the whole people, they treated it 
 and quarrelled about it in the market-place as a common 
 party matter. Such a procedure was in every sense per- 
 nicious, and one which must have brought even truth itself 
 into contempt. Lastly, Aristotle comprised in his manuals 
 the collective results of all earlier philosophical speculation, 
 and entrusted this treasury of mature knowledge and well- 
 sifted and newly arranged thoughts to the keeping of a 
 school. Now, we should be far from justified were we to 
 make this a reproach against this master of subtilty and pro- 
 foundest of thinkers ; for at this time all true intellectual life 
 had, together with public spirit, become extinct among the 
 Greeks, amidst the disorders of democracy, or under the press- 
 ure of the armed supremacy of Macedonia. Still it must ever 
 remain a matter of profound regret. For philosophy, as stand- 
 ing in the centre between the guiding spirit of the divine 
 education of man and the external force of civil right and 
 material power, ought to be the true mundane soul ( Weltseele) 
 which animates and directs the development of ages and of 
 the whole human race. Deeply, therefore, is it to be deplored 
 whenever science, and especially philosophy, are withdrawn 
 from this wide sphere of universal operation, and from human 
 life itself, to remain banished and cooped up in the narrow 
 limits of a school. 
 
 END OF LECTURE III. 
 
67 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 OF THE SOUL IN RELATION TO NATURE. 
 
 ** We know in part," exclaimed with burning zeal the 
 honest man of God in Holy Scripture, " We know in part 
 and we prophesy in part." How true the first member of 
 this sentence is even in the case of that knowledge of God 
 which alone deserves the name of knowledge, or repays the 
 trouble of its acquisition, the previous Lecture must in many 
 ways have served to convince us. The second member, which 
 will chiefly occupy our attention in the present discussion, is 
 in an eminent degree applicable to physical science. For 
 what, in fact, is all our knowledge of nature, considered as a 
 whole and in its inmost essence, but a mere speculation, con- 
 jecture, and guess upon guess? What is it but an endless 
 series of tentative experiments, by which we are continually 
 hoping to succeed in unveiling the secret of life, to seize the 
 wonderful Proteus, and to hold him fast in the chains of 
 science ? Or is it not, perhaps, one ever renewed attempt to 
 decipher more completely than hitherto the sibylline inscrip- 
 tions on the piled-up rows and layers of tombs, which as 
 nature grows older convert its great body into one vast cata- 
 comb, and so perchance to find therein the key to unlock and 
 bring to light the far greater — nay, the greatest of all riddles 
 — the riddle of death ? Now there are undoubtedly even in 
 nature itself, occasional indications of, scattered hints and 
 remote allusions to, a final crisis, when even in nature and in 
 this sensible and elementary world, life shall be entirely 
 separated from death, and when death itself shall be no 
 more. Gravely to be pondered and in nowise to be neg- 
 lected are these hints, although without the aid of a higher 
 illumination they must for ever remain unintelligible to man. 
 Thus considered, however, the universe itself appears replete 
 *ith dumb echoes and terrestrial resounds of divine revela- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 NO PHYSICAL SYSTEM IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 tion. It is not therefore without reason and significance, 
 if in this beautiful hymn the ancient prophetess of nature 
 lends her concurrent testimony to the promises of the holy 
 seer of a last day of creation, which nature shall celebrate as 
 the great day of her renovation and towards which she yearns 
 with an indescribable longing which is nowhere so inimitably 
 depicted, so strongly and so vividly expressed, as in Holy Writ 
 itself. Holy Scripture could not and cannot contain a system 
 of science, whether as a philosophy of reason or a science of 
 nature. Nay in this form of a manual and methodical com- 
 pendium of divine knowledge, it could not inspire us with 
 confidence either as revelation or as science. Condescending 
 altogether to the wants of man both in form and language, it 
 consists of a collection of occasional and wholly practical 
 compositions derived immediately from and expressly de- 
 signed for life, — in a certain sence it consists of nothing but 
 the registers and social statutes either of the prophetic people 
 or of the apostolical community. Accordingly its contents 
 are of a mixed nature : historical, legal, instructive, hortatory, 
 consolatory, and prophetical, together with a rich abundance 
 of minute and special allusions, while it enters everywhere 
 into, and with watchful love adapts itself to, individual wants 
 and local peculiarities. And the form of these writings, at once 
 so singular in its kind — and in such marvellous wise, but yet 
 so eminently human — is so far from being inconsistent with 
 the divine character, that the very condescension of the 
 Deity constitutes a new and additional but most charac- 
 teristic proof of genuine revelation. Only the first founda- 
 tion-stone and the key and corner-stone form an exception. 
 Embracing within their spacious limits the beginning o* 
 nature and the end of the world, they form, as it were, the 
 corner-rings and the bearing- staves of the ark of the covenant 
 of revelation. And whilst on the one side as well as on the 
 other, in the opening no less than in the closing book, which 
 contain almost as many mysteries as words, the seven- 
 branched candlestick of secret signification is set up, still all 
 else that is inclosed within the holy ark, receives there- 
 from sufficient light for its perfect elucidation. In all other 
 respects the style is that of a plain narrative couched in very 
 appropriate and simple words, and if the masters of criticism 
 in classical antiquity have quoted a few passages from the 
 
NO PHYSICAL SYSTEM IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 69 
 
 beginning of Genesis as the most exalted instances of the 
 sublime, still it was in the very simplicity and extreme 
 plainness of the language that they recognised this character 
 of sublimity. From these two ends moreover — from this first 
 root as well as from the last crown of the book, there pro- 
 ceed many threads and veins, which running through the 
 tissue bind it together still more closely into a living unity, on 
 which account, although consisting of so many and such divers 
 books, it is justly considered as one, being called simply the 
 " Book," (Bible). Consequently it would, as already said, be 
 foolish to look for a system of science in the divine book for 
 men. Nevertheless we do meet here and there with single 
 words about nature and her secrets — hints occasionally dropped 
 and seemingly accidental expressions — which giving a clear 
 and full information as to much that is hidden therein, fur- 
 nish science consequently with so many keys for unlocking 
 nature. These, indeed, are not scattered throughout in equal 
 measure, but here perhaps more thinly, and there again more 
 thickly. In all these passages, and especially those of the 
 Old Testament, which not only depict the external beauties 
 and visible glory of nature, but also touch upon its hidden 
 powers and inmost secrets of life, we may observe a kind 
 of intentional, I might perhaps say, cautious reserve and 
 heedful circumspection, amounting at times almost to an 
 indisposition to speak out fully and clearly, lest the abuse 
 or probable misconception of what should be said, might 
 give encouragement to the heathenish and wide-spread deifi- 
 cation of nature. 
 
 In the New Testament (if we may venture to speak of these 
 things in the same natural and human fashion that Scripture 
 itself employs) the Holy Spirit uses language far more pre- 
 cise and clear. On the whole, the relation in which Holy 
 Writ and divine revelation stand to nature itself and the 
 science thereof is a peculiar one. It is eminently tender and 
 wonderful, but not indeed intelligible at the first glance, or 
 broadly definable according to any rigorous and established 
 notion. It is one, however, capable of being made clearer 
 by means of a simile borrowed from Scripture itself. Those 
 guileless men whom the Redeemer chose as His instruments 
 for carrying out His great work of the redemption of the 
 world, were endued with miraculous powers, which it was and 
 
70 KNOWLEDGE OF DIVINE THINGS ILLIMITABLE. 
 
 ever will be apparent, were not of their own strength, but of 
 His. Now of the first of these apostles it is narrated that a 
 healing power and as it were an invisible stream of life pro- 
 ceeded from him, without his being conscious of, or at least 
 without his regarding it, which healed the sick who were 
 brought out and placed within the range of his shadow as he 
 passed by.* In the same manner the fiery wain of divine 
 revelation as it passes on its way scatters in single words and 
 images many a bright spark. The radiant shadow of the 
 word of God as it falls is sufficient to kindle and throw a new 
 light over the whole domain of nature, by means of which 
 the true science thereof may be firmly established, its inmost 
 secrets explored and brought into coherence and agreement* 
 with all else. 
 
 I have already more than once called your attention to the 
 method which all the philosophers of reason without exception 
 pursue. In different ways according to the special objects they 
 have in view, they all alike presume to set certain absolute and 
 impassable limits to human reason (which, however, by some 
 slight turn or other, they soon dexterously contrive to trans- 
 gress) in order to bring within their system of absolute science 
 — which is at best but a dead semblance — all that it will hold, 
 and even what it cannot contain. Quite different, however, is it 
 with the truth and with that living science which we take for 
 the basis of our speculations. For from it it appears that the 
 soul of man, however liable it may be to manifold error, is 
 nevertheless capable of receiving the divine communications. 
 Since, then, man can possess as many of these higher branches 
 of knowledge, and can learn as much of divine things as it 
 is given to him to know, and since at the same time it is God 
 Himself who is the primary source from which all man's know- 
 ledge flows, and his guide to truth, — who shall determine the 
 measure and fix the limits — who shall dare to say how much 
 of knowledge and of science God will vouchsafe to man ? — 
 who shall venture to prescribe the limits beyond which His 
 illumination cannot pass? This, it is evident, is illimitable. 
 It may go on to an extent, which at the beginning man 
 would not have believed to be possible. In a word, though 
 of himself, and by his own unassisted reason, man is inca- 
 
 * Schlegel is here alluding to and adapting to the purpose of his illus- 
 tration, Acts v. 15, 16. — Trans. 
 
PHYSICAL SCIENCE IMPERFECT. 
 
 71 
 
 pable of knowing anything, yet through God, if it be His 
 will, he may attain to the knowledge of all things. And yet it 
 is true, though in a very different sense from that intended by 
 these philosophers of reason, that man's knowledge is in 
 reality limited. No absolute limit, indeed, is set to it. Yet 
 because it is a mixed knowledge, composed of outward tradi- 
 tion and inward experience, and is founded on the perceptions 
 of the external and internal senses, therefore is it made up of 
 individual instances, extremely slow in its growth, and in no 
 respect perfect and complete, and scarcely ever free from 
 faults and deficiencies. Consequently, when considered in 
 its totality and as pretending to be a whole, it is invariably 
 imperfect. But this character of imperfection belongs in fact 
 to all real science, as derived from the experience of the 
 senses. Seldom indeed is the first impression free from the 
 admixture of error; numberless repeated observations, com- 
 parisons, essays, experiments, and corrections, which must 
 often be carried on through many centuries, not to say 
 many tens of centuries, are necessary before a pure and stable 
 result can be attained to. In this way all truly human 
 knowledge is imperfect, and " in part;" and although, on the 
 contrary, the false conceited wisdom may parade itself from 
 the very first as fully ripe and complete, yet in a very brief 
 space indeed will its imperfection and rottenness appear. 
 
 And, indeed, the character of imperfection shows itself, as 
 in all other human things, so also in the science of nature. 
 From its birth among the earliest naturalists of Greece to its 
 boasted maturity amongst ourselves, it counts an age of two 
 millenniums and a half of unbroken cultivation. But now if, 
 looking beyond the explanation of single isolated facts, we 
 consider rather our knowledge of nature in its universal sys- 
 tem and internal constitution, can we say that physical science 
 has, during the time, made more than, perhaps, two steps and 
 a half of progress ? And this slow and toilsome advance which, 
 in a certain sense, never arrives at more than " knowing in 
 part," is the law of every department of human science. Con- 
 sequently it may be justly said of the development of man's 
 science, that with God a thousand years are as a day, and one 
 day as a thousand years. * All knowledge drawn from the 
 
 * 2 Peter iii. 8. 
 
72 
 
 FANCY AS A "FACULTY OF SUGGESTION. 
 
 senses and experience is bound by this condition. It may, no 
 doubt, apply immediately and principally to external expe- 
 rience, which, is dependent on the lower and ordinary senses, 
 whether we reckon them according to the number of their 
 separate organs as five, or as three in compliance with a more 
 scientific classification. But it also holds equally good of 
 those which we pointed out and described in the last Lecture 
 as being the four superior scientific senses, the organs of a 
 knowledge founded on a higher and internal experience, the 
 sense, viz., of reason, the sense of understanding, the sense 
 for nature or fancy, and the proper sense for God, which lies 
 in the inmost free will of man. Not merely as the faculty of 
 suggestion (Ahndungsvermogen), is fancy to be regarded as 
 the higher and internal sense for nature, or because it is from 
 this side that the affinity of man and of man's soul with 
 nature is most distinctly revealed, but it also exhibits itself 
 as such in the scientific apprehension of natural phenomena. 
 That dynamical play of the inner life, that law of a living 
 force which constitutes the essence of every phenomenon of 
 nature, is a something so fleeting and evanescent that it can 
 only be seized and fixed by the fancy alone, since, as is now 
 pretty generally allowed by all profound observers of nature, 
 in the abstract notion life eludes the grasp, and nothing 
 remains but a dead formula. 
 
 The apprehension of a living object in thought, so as to 
 seize and fix it in its mobile vitality and its fluctuating and 
 fleeting states, is an act of the imagination, which, however, is 
 naturally of a peculiar kind and entirely distinct from artistic 
 or poetical fancy. It is, in this respect, worthy of remark, 
 that all the most characteristic and felicitous terms which are 
 employed to designate the great discoveries in modern times 
 of the profounder secrets of nature are, for the greater part, 
 boldly figurative and often even symbolical. Here therefore 
 also we have a manifestation of that affinity which subsists 
 between nature and the faculty of fancy, by which alone its 
 ever-stirring vitality is scientifically apprehended. 
 
 I formerly observed that, in the outer senses, as faculties of 
 the soul subordinate to the fancy, a higher intellectual 
 endowment, as a special gift of nature, is occasionally found 
 to exist, namely, the sense of art, or the eye for beautiful 
 forms, and the ear for musical sounds. But even the lower 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF MAN. 
 
 73 
 
 sense, the more purely organic feeling, is often evolved to 
 higher degrees of susceptibility, which, however, do not fall 
 within the sphere of the feeling for art, but form, as it were, 
 a peculiar and special sense of nature. To this class belong 
 those indescribable feelings of sympathy and inward attrac- 
 ; tion — the many vivid presentiments of a strange foreboding 
 — traces of which may be observed among many other animals 
 besides man, just as, in the case of musical tones and emo- 
 tions, a light note of remote affinity seems to bring the soul 
 of man in unison with a correspondent nature soul in the 
 higher members of the brute creation. Numberless are the 
 instances of such forebodings (among which we must reckon 
 | also the significant vision or dream) recorded of all times, 
 countries, and spheres of life. No doubt, from their strange 
 nature, and from the manifold difficulties with which man's 
 mode of observing and narrating these phenomena perplexes 
 the consideration of them, it is anything but easy, in any 
 individual case, to arrive at a pure result, and to pass a final 
 and decisive sentence. Still, on the whole, the fact cannot 
 well be denied, as, indeed, it is not even attempted, by any un- 
 prejudiced and profound observer of nature in the present day. 
 But now, if such an immediate feeling of invisible light and life 
 does freely develope and clearly manifest itself as an indubita- 
 ble faculty and a perfectly distinct state of the consciousness, 
 then assuredly we have herein a new organ of perception and 
 a new natural sense Though not, indeed, more infallible than 
 any other of the senses, it may nevertheless be the source of 
 very remarkable phenomena, which, perhaps, above all others 
 require investigation, in order that their distinctive character 
 may be precisely and accurately determined. It is however 
 necessary to remember that the latter is not to be determined 
 by any side blow of caprice, any more than the electric phe- 
 nomena of nature and the atmosphere, when they are actually 
 lowering there, are to be got rid of by any such expedient. 
 
 It is only just and right, and not inconsistent with true 
 human knowledge, if physical science should commence with 
 the study of man. Still, if we would contemplate man from 
 the side of nature, it seems the safer course to endeavour, 
 first of all, to obtain a clear and leading idea of the whole of 
 his constitution in this respect, rather than to lose ourselves 
 in the contemplation of the special phenomena of a particular 
 
74 JETHER OF THE NERVES THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 
 
 sphere. Now with regard to the whole of man's organisation, 
 the organic body as the third constituent of human existence, 
 I will merely remark that, just as the triple principle of body, 
 soul, and spirit is repeated in the special and narrower spheres 
 of the senses, the instincts, and the passions, and even in the 
 different forms in which a disordered intellect usually mani- 
 fests itself, so also it admits of a further application to the 
 organic body in general. That most wonderful organisation 
 the marvellous structure of bones and muscles, the outward 
 organic frame, is, as it were, the body in a narrower sense, 
 the pre-eminently material constituent of living bodies. The 
 soul of man — here consequently the organic soul — is in the 
 blood and in the five or six organs whose functions are first 
 of all to elaborate the blood and afterwards to provide for its 
 circulation — or perhaps by maintaining a perpetual inter- 
 change of the breath and the external air, to keep the vital 
 flame constantly burning on the hearth of life within. A third 
 element — and, indeed, the principal one of the three, though 
 only noticeable in its effects on the brain — exists within the 
 higher senses and functions — in short, in the whole nervous 
 tissue. But it lies not in the nervous filaments themselves : 
 anatomy cannot detect it, for it is not visible to the eye. On 
 this account some have called it the sether of the nerves to 
 indicate its incorporeal nature — incorporeal, i. e. , relatively to, 
 and in comparison with, the other two constituents of man, — 
 the blood-soul, and the external frame — as being the spirit 
 of life in the organic body. Strictly and sharply enough does 
 Holy Writ distinguish this spiritual body (as it calls it) of 
 man from the body of the soul, or the organic blood-soul, 
 considering the former, as it were, the seed of the resurrection, 
 even because at the moment of death this ethereal body-of-light 
 leaves its terrestrial veil to be in due time re-united to it after 
 a more glorious fashion. And death itself is even nothing 
 else than its total departure and painful emancipation from 
 the organic body, on which the features, one might almost 
 say, the physiognomy of corruption stamps itself, imme- 
 diately that the immortal Psyche, the invisible seed of light 
 and eternity, has put off the tabernacle of this body. 
 
 This internal, invisible body-of-light (Lichikorper) is also 
 the organ and the centre of all the higher and spiritual powers 
 of the human organisation. For it is easily conceivable that 
 
MEDICINE A BASIS OF THE SCIENCE OE NATURE. 75 
 
 a partial projection of this life of light which is latent in the 
 sound organic body should produce such phenomena, while its 
 complete projection, or rather total separation, would have 
 death for its result, or rather woidd itself be death. A truly 
 scientific view of nature can easily enter into or allow the 
 legitimacy of this idea. The true rule, however, and stand- 
 ard for the right decision of phenomena of this kind can only 
 be found in a higher region, even because they themselves 
 lie on the extreme limits of nature and life, and in part also 
 pass beyond them. 
 
 We therefore prefer to follow the more slow but sure course 
 of development pursued by physical science itself, as com- 
 menced nearly twenty-five centuries ago by the Greeks . On the 
 whole it began even there with the cognition of man — of his 
 diseases and their cure. The naturalists indeed of the present 
 day are in general disposed to laugh at the ideas of nature 
 which were advanced by the first philosophers of Greece, and 
 to despise the hypotheses of water, or air, or fire, as being the 
 essence of all things, which nevertheless, as the first beginnings 
 of a clearer contemplation and of a higher view of nature 
 greatly recommend themselves by their extreme simplicity. 
 But however modern observers of nature may be ready to 
 hand these systems over to fancy as so many purely poetical 
 cosmogonies, yet, on the other hand, the present masters 
 of medicine, with greater gratitude and fuller acknowledg- 
 ment of his merits, reverence Hippocrates as the founder of 
 their art. For, indeed, as such and not properly as a science, 
 or at any rate as an art far more than as a science, was 
 medicine regarded by its founder and the great masters 
 who came after him. They looked upon it as the art of the 
 diagnosis and treatment of disease, in which the unerring tact 
 of a practised and happy judgment is of primary importance, 
 and where the rapid and searching glance of genius into the 
 secret laboratories of life or into the hidden sources of disease 
 is, and ever will be, the principal and most essential point. 
 The mere historical acquaintance with the different forms of 
 diseases and their remedies, with botany, and the anatomy of 
 the human body, with the number and structure of its organs, 
 forms merely the materials, the external sphere of medical prac- 
 tice ; while the essential qualification is even this penetrating 
 glance which searches out the inmost secrets of the bodily 
 temperament But now those who have been most richly 
 
76 
 
 INNATE IDEAS. 
 
 gifted with this peculiar gift have ever been the last to believe 
 themselves possessed of a perfect science. And yet, inas- 
 much as that physical knowledge which by attaining to a com- 
 plete understanding of life shall be able to comprehend and 
 explain the mystery of death would alone deserve the name of 
 the science of nature ; — inasmuch also as the searching glance 
 of the true physician arrives the nearest to such a point, 
 penetrating, as it does, deep into the manifold fluctuation and 
 struggle between the two, and into the secrets of their con- 
 flict, this, therefore, is perhaps to be considered as the first 
 germ of life for a future science of nature, which, however as 
 yet undeveloped, has for more than twenty centuries been 
 slumbering on, hidden, as it were, in embryo, in the womb of 
 medical art and lore. The physical, geographical and astro- 
 nomical observations of this whole period of gestation, form it 
 is true a rich treasury of valuable materials, but they do not 
 give us that profound knowledge, of which alone the physician's 
 penetrating glance into life and its constitution furnishes the 
 first commencement and essay, however weak. 
 
 With respect to natural science in general, and the possibility 
 of our attaining to it, the case stands thus. If nature be a 
 living force — if the life which reigns within it be in a certain 
 though still very remote degree akin to the life of man and 
 the human soul — then is a knowledge of nature easily con- 
 ceivable, and right well possible (for nothing but the like, 01 
 at least the similar and cognate, can be known by the like) 
 even though this cognition may still be extremely defective, 
 and at best can never be more than partial. But if nature be 
 a dead stony mass, as many seem to suppose, then would it be 
 wholly inconceivable how this foreign mass of petrifaction 
 could penetrate into our inmost Ego ; then at least would there 
 seem to be good grounds for the idealistic doubt whether 
 ultimately this external world be any thing but a mere phanton, 
 having no existence save in our own thoughts — the outward re- 
 flection of ourselves — the pure creation of our own Me. 
 
 The question of innate ideas has been often mooted in phi- 
 losophy. As, however, the essential functions and different 
 acts of thought, together with its several notions, are, properly 
 speaking, nothing but the natural division of man's cogitative 
 faculty, it is not on their account necessary to suppose such a 
 preliminary intercalation of general ideas into the human mind. 
 And as little necessary is it, in order to explain the universal 
 
AN INNATE IDEA OE DEATH. 
 
 77 
 
 belief in the existence of a Deity, to suppose that there is in 
 the minds of all men an implanted idea of God ; for this would 
 lead to the purely arbitrary hypothesis, of that which is so 
 difficult to conceive — the pre-existence of the spirit or soul of 
 man. And as no created beings can have an idea of God, but 
 those to whom He vouchsafes to communicate it, and to 
 accord a knowledge of His existence, so can He bestow this 
 privilege the very instant He pleases, without the intervention 
 of any innate idea expressly for that end. And yet I am 
 disposed, and not, I think, without reason, to assume that 
 man, as at present constituted, does possess one, though only 
 one, species of inborn ideas : viz., an innate idea of death. 
 This, as a false root of life, and a true mental contagion, pro- 
 duces a dead cogitation, and is the origin of all dead and 
 dead-born notions. For this idea of death, whether here- 
 ditary or inoculated in the soul, is, as its peculiar but funda- 
 mental error, transferred by the mind of man to every object 
 with which it comes in contact. And thus, in man's dead 
 cogitation, the surrounding world and all nature appears to 
 him a similar lifeless and inert mass, so long as sitting be- 
 neath this shadow of spiritual death, his mind fgeistj has not 
 sufficient strength to work its way out of its dark prison-house 
 into the light. For not at all without higher aid, and even 
 with it only slowly and tardily, does man discover that all 
 that is really and naturally dead is within himself, or learn to 
 recognize it for what it truly is, a something eminently null 
 and naught. Another species of this false and dead concep- 
 tion of nature presents itself under the form of multiplicity. 
 In this view nature is represented as forming something like 
 a vast sand-hill, where, apart from the pile they thus form 
 together and their aggregation in it, the several grains are 
 supposed to have no connection with each other ; while, how- 
 ever, they are so diligently counted, as if everything depended 
 on their right enumeration. But through the sieve of such an 
 atomistic, which would break up the universe into a number 
 of separate and absolute individualities, the sand will ever run, 
 however often and painsfully man may strive to reckon or to 
 measure the infinity of these grains of nature. Mathematical 
 calculation and measuring hold the same place in physical 
 science that is held in every living language by conjugating 
 and declining and other grammatical rules, which, in truth, 
 
78 
 
 NATURE S TRUE MATHEMATICS. 
 
 are but a species of mathematical formulae. In learning a 
 foreign and especially a dead language, these are indispensable 
 and necessary aids, which greatly promote and facilitate its ac- 
 quisition ; so also mathematics furnish indispensable helps and 
 a most valuable organon for the cognition of nature. But with 
 them alone, man will never learn to understand even a word, 
 not to talk of a whole proposition, out of nature's strangely- 
 sounding and most difficult hieroglyphics. 
 
 Somewhat different is it, when man seeks to understand the 
 true living geometry in nature herself: L e., attempts to discover 
 the place which the circle and the ellipse, (passing from these 
 up to the spheres in their sidereal orbits,) or which the triangle, 
 the square, the hexagon, and so forth, assume in the scale of its 
 creations — or when, in a similar spirit, he investigates and 
 ascertains the really dominant rule in the arithmetic of life ; 
 those numbers which the physician observes in the periodic 
 developments of life, and which, in the fluctuating states of 
 an abating and heightening malady, enable him, under certain 
 conditions, to predict the moment of its crisis. Of a still 
 higher kind is that spiritual, we might almost call it divine 
 chronology, which, in universal history, marks out definite 
 epochs of the mental development of the human race, and 
 traces therein the influence of certain grades of life, or ages 
 of the world, and the alternating phases of disease in whole 
 communities, and those decisive moments and great critical 
 emergencies in which God Himself appears as the healing 
 Physician and Restorer of life. It was, in all probability, in 
 reference to such an arithmetic, or in some similar sense, that 
 Pythagoras taught that numbers are, or contain, the essence 
 of things. For such an arithmetic of life and geometry of 
 nature do afford a positive cognition and a real knowledge. 
 As commonly understood, however, mathematics are nothing 
 more than a formal science — in other words, they are simply a 
 scientific organon, rather than a science. But now, if nature 
 be not regarded as dead, but living, who can doubt that it — 
 or, as we are now speaking of man's nearest neighbour — that 
 the earth is akin to man ? Was he not formed out of the 
 dust of the earth, and is he not therefore the son, nay, in truth, 
 the first-born of the earth ? — does he not receive from it food 
 and nourishment ? and when the irrevocable summons goes 
 forth from above, does he not give back again to its bosom the 
 
man's affinity to the earth. 
 
 79 
 
 earthly tabernacle of his flesh ? Do not chemists tell us that 
 the principal constituent of the purest wheat- corn has a great 
 affinity to the substance of man's blood ? and does not the 
 blood, moreover, derive one of its ingredients from iron — the 
 principal among the metals of the earth ? And are not gold 
 and other metallic substances either wholesome medicines or 
 deadly poisons ? And is there not also an inexhaustible store 
 of both in the wonderful varieties of herbs and plants ? Do 
 not invigorating and healing springs burst from numberless 
 rocks and fissures of the earth ? Is not — to speak only of the 
 heavenly bodies nearest to and immediately connected with 
 our globe — is not the sun's heat so specifically different from 
 every other kind of warmth, the quickener of all that lives and 
 moves, and for man under a milder clime, as it were, a soft 
 renovating bath ? And is not the other and lesser light — 
 earth's mighty satellite and companion, the moon — the cause 
 of all those changes in the weather and atmosphere, which 
 from the earliest times have been acknowledged to be most 
 serviceable and highly beneficial to agriculture ? Is not the 
 great pulse of the ocean, in its ebb and flow, measured by it, 
 as well as many periods of the development of life ? And is 
 it not, when its operation is too powerful or violently exciting, 
 the cause of a peculiar disease among men ? As, therefore, 
 the musical unisons in the melodious songs of birds, both find 
 and wake a concordant echo in the heart of man, so too in a 
 larger scale, the blood-soul of man, with its living pulsation 
 and organic sensibility, is most nearly akin to and sympathises 
 with the earth and the whole earthly frame. And is not, in 
 all probability, this sympathetic influence between the earth 
 and man reciprocal ? Must not, for instance, the respiration of 
 nine hundred millions of human beings have affected the atmo- 
 sphere ? Has not the very air degenerated with the human race, 
 and like it become corrupt and deteriorated ? Are not cer- 
 tain pestilential diseases propagated by the air alone, being 
 carried in fixed telluric directions, without material contact or 
 pollution ? And if, in answer to the inference which we would 
 draw from these facts, any one should sit down to calculate 
 the number of cubic miles in the atmospheric belt, and argue 
 that the breath and evaporation from ever so many myriads 
 of human beings would be insufficient to have any effect, 
 thereon, we might easily retort upon him the equally vast 
 
80 MAGNETISM INVENTION OF THE COMPASS. 
 
 reckoning of the millions of seconds which make up a hundred 
 and more generations, and by which these respirations must 
 be counted. But, however this may be, it does appear that 
 the air must, in primitive times, have been far more pure and 
 balsamic, and more vital and more nutritive, than at present 
 For before the flood men required neither flesh nor wine to 
 recruit their strength, and yet, in duration of life and bodily 
 vigour, and above all in energy of will and powers of mind, 
 they far surpassed the sons of a later age ; and it was even 
 by the misuse of these great gifts and endowments that they 
 brought down the divine vengeance on their sinful genera- 
 tion. And, lastly, if the earth were wholly without life, how 
 could it, at the creation of the animals of this planetary world, 
 have yielded obedience to the behest of the Creator, as it went 
 forth on the sixth day, " Let the earth bring forth the living 
 creature after its kind"? Highly important, moreover, as re- 
 gards the true estimate of the whole realm of nature as con- 
 templated by the Divine mind, and deeply significant, is the 
 wide interval which, in the Mosaic history of the creation, 
 separates the bringing forth of the beasts by the earth at the 
 command of the Almighty, from the making of man, whereof 
 it is written, " Let us make man in our own image," 
 
 Physical science having thus sluggishly advanced through 
 a definite period and number of centuries — having lived 
 through almost two millenniums in little better than an 
 embryo state, made at last the few steps of progress that it 
 has as yet taken. By a more rapid march of time, it hastened 
 to suit itself to the riper age of man, and to come forth itself, 
 as it were, mature, although, in many respects, this is even 
 yet very far from being the case. The principal of these ad- 
 vances of physical science, is the invention of the compass. 
 For, in the first place, the phenomenon of magnetism pre- 
 sents a remarkable manifestation of the universal life of the 
 world, which eludes all mathematical calculations of magni- 
 tude, while the little piece of this wonderful iron balances 
 by its living agency the whole globe itself. And in the 
 second place, the results to which it has led have been no 
 less important and marvellous. The magnetic index pointed 
 the way to the discovery of the New World, and to a more 
 perfect acquaintance with the figure of the earth, and thus, 
 through an enlarged observation of geographical and astro- 
 
LEGEND OF ATLANTIS MODERN ASTRONOMY. 81 
 
 nomical facts, opened out a grander and more extensive view 
 of the whole planetary system. Of the new world in the 
 other hemisphere, a trace unquestionably is to be found in 
 antiquity in the legend of the island of Atlantis. The gene- 
 ral description of this island, as equal in extent to both 
 Asia and Africa together, agrees remarkably with the size 
 of America. But the fable contains the additional circum- 
 stance, that having existed in the Western Ocean in very 
 ancient times, it was subsequently swallowed up by the 
 waves. From this circumstance I am led to infer, that the 
 legend did not, as is generally supposed, owe its origin to 
 Phoenician navigators, who, even if it be true that they did 
 succeed in sailing round Africa, most assuredly never ven- 
 tured so far westward. Like so much besides that is equally 
 great and grand, and indeed far grander, the main fact of the 
 legend seems to be derived from an original tradition from 
 the primeval times, when unquestionably man was far better 
 acquainted with his whole habitation of this earth than in the 
 days of the infant and imperfect science of Greece, or even of 
 the more advanced and enlightened antiquity. A vague tra- 
 ditionary notion of its existence lived on from generation to 
 generation. But afterwards, when even the Phoenician sailors, 
 however far they penetrated into the wide ocean, were unable 
 to give any precise information about, or adduce any proof of, 
 the fact, the hypothesis was advanced, and finally added to the 
 tradition, that the island had been swallowed up by the sea. 
 
 Modern astronomy, at its first rise, was extremely revolting 
 to man's feelings, which had become, as it were, habituated 
 to the olden theory of the world's shape. The system of 
 Ptolemy indeed, with its narrow egoistic conceit of making 
 man the centre of the sidereal universe, was as unsatisfactory 
 as it was absurd, and little was lost when it was exploded. 
 But, on the other hand, it was startling, and still has a stag- 
 gering effect on our minds, to be told, that when measured by 
 the mathematical standard of the vast distances and periodic 
 times of the planetary system, the earth, for which the Al- 
 mighty has done such incalculably great things, and on which 
 He has bestowed such high and precious gifts, is, as it were, 
 but a little and insignificant splinter in the vast regions of 
 infinite space. A true and profound science of nature, how- 
 ever, does not allow of the validity of mathematical magnitude 
 
 G 
 
82 SEVEN THE TRADITIONARY NUMBER OF THE PLANETS. 
 
 as an exclusive standard of the value of things. Whether 
 in a greater or less sphere of existence, it sees and discovers 
 in far other properties the true centre of life. If, even in our 
 globe, the living magnetic pole does not coincide with the 
 true mathematical north pole, but lies a considerable distance 
 on one side of it, may it not, without prejudice to modern 
 astronomy, be also the case with the whole planetary system? 
 The first conceptions of nature are rarely, if ever, free from 
 mistakes, and oftentimes, together with great truths, contain 
 also great errors. And while the first fresh impression, the living 
 intuition, ever recommends itself to the general feeling of man- 
 kind, and takes deep root therein ; the notions, on the other hand, 
 which new discoveries of nature introduce, not unfrequently do 
 violence to the prevalent views as to the shape and form of the 
 old world. Often, indeed, the former run directly counter to 
 what we might call the old family feelings of mankind, which, 
 transmitted through generations from father to son, have be- 
 come, as it were, a custom of life, a holy habit. Afterwards, 
 however, as the new scientific discovery is more perfectly 
 developed, it gradually conciliates the old hereditary and 
 customary feeling of nature. The two at last fall into friendly 
 relations with each other. 
 
 Now, in the article of the stars, the cherished creed of 
 nature, professed by all ancient peoples, insisted perhaps on 
 no one dogma so earnestly as that there are seven planets. 
 That this deeply rooted and habitual feeling of men was not 
 uninfluenced by the general consideration of the number seven, 
 is only natural to suppose. For not only does it comprise the 
 three dimensions of time, together with the four cardinal 
 points of space, but it is also found entering, under a variety 
 of combinations, into the life, the thought, and history of men. 
 And in the new astronomy, though the sun and moon have 
 been ejected from the number of the planets, yet the earth has 
 entered into the list, and the deficient member of the system 
 having been discovered, we have again seven planets, as in 
 the olden belief. For it is, to say the least, highly impro- 
 bable that any new planetary body will ever be discovered 
 beyond Uranus,* and as for the small bodies which are situate 
 
 * These words were uttered scarcely twenty years ago, and now beyond 
 Uranus another planet, whose " vibrations have been long felt upon 
 paper,' ' is added to the heavenly choir. On the other hand, if Sir Win. 
 
PYTHAGOKEAN SYSTEM OF ASTRONOMY. 80 
 
 between Mars and Jupiter, it is pretty generally acknowledged 
 that they are not properly to be counted as planets, from which 
 they are even distinguished by their very names by some 
 astronomers. 
 
 And as little ground is there to take exception or offence 
 at modern astronomy, even on that side of it where difficulties 
 were originally most felt and mooted. For Holy Writ was 
 neither written exclusively nor designed pre-eminently for 
 astronomers. In these matters, therefore, as in all others, 
 it speaks the ordinary language which men employ among 
 themselves in the business of daily life. 
 
 Now we know that in the pulse of the organic body its 
 regular beating is occasionally interrupted by a hurried cir- 
 culation or a momentary stoppage. Is it not in the same 
 way possible that the pulsatory revolutions of the great 
 planetary world do not observe, like a piece of dead clock- 
 work, a mechanical uniformity, but are liable to many de- 
 viations and irregularities? If, then, a similar stoppage to 
 that which sometimes occurs in the pulse of man, be here 
 also supposable, as produced by a superior power and ex- 
 ternal influence, then in the case of such an extraordinary 
 interruption, it is a matter of indifference whether it be said 
 of this wonderful moment that the sun stood still, or (as seems 
 to be the fact), that the earth was held in check and rested in 
 its orbit. And, in like manner, for the changing phenomena 
 of the astronomical day, the common expressions are equally 
 true with the scientific, and equally significant. The sun's 
 rise, the morning dawn, is, for all men, a figure, or rather a 
 fact of pregnant meaning, while the setting sun fills all hearts 
 with a melancholy feeling of separation. Equally true, how- 
 ever, is it, and in a symbolical sense it conveys perhaps a still 
 more serious meaning, when we say in scientific language, — 
 " The earth must go down before the sun can rise ; " or " When 
 the earth goes up, then is it night, and darkness diffuses itself 
 over all." Or if, perhaps, in the new and quickening spring- 
 instead of the old phraseology, " The sun has returned, has 
 
 Hamilton's hopes are realized, will not the discovery of the centre around 
 which the solar system revolves, establish another point of resemblance 
 between modern astronomy and the Pythagorean system with its central 
 fire ; and also, as Schlegel subsequently implies, that the former has yet 
 further advances to make ?- -Trans. 
 
64 
 
 PYTHAGOREAN SYSTEM OP ASTRONOMY. 
 
 come near to us again/' we were to say, " The earth, or at 
 least our side of it, is again brought nearer to the sun," 
 would it not be as beautiful and significant a description? 
 And happy, indeed, are those periods of the world, wherein, to 
 speak in a figurative but moral sense, that earth-soul which 
 rules in the changes of time — the so-called public opinion, has 
 declined towards, and approached more nearly to, its sun. 
 
 It is a remarkable, not to say wonderful, fact, that in ancient 
 times, the Pythagoreans held the same system of the universe 
 which modern astronomy teaches, though, perhaps, they were 
 not acquainted with the mathematic calculations of its dis- 
 tances. But still more surprising is it, that while they were 
 thus perfectly acquainted with the number of the planets, and 
 even arranged them in the same order that they are placed by 
 modem astronomers, they admitted into their system two 
 stars which we have not. One of these, as the sun of the 
 gods (Geister- sonne),* they placed high above the visible 
 sun. The latter, which they named the " counter- earth," 
 (avTixQotv) was placed directly opposite to the real earth. It 
 would seem, therefore, that they regarded these two bodies as 
 the invisible centres of the whole sidereal universe, and, as it 
 were, the choir-leaders or choragi of the apparently orderless 
 and scattered host of heaven. Are these two stars now ex- 
 tinct ? or is their light too pure and ethereal to penetrate our 
 dense and thickened atmosphere ? or, like so much besides, was 
 it little else than a still surviving tradition from the primitive 
 world? This, however, must ever remain conjectural. As for 
 the fact itself: that the Pythagoreans did so teach, and under- 
 stood by these names, not merely figurative symbols, but real 
 stars, has been placed beyond doubt by modern investigations 
 into the Pythagorean doctrines. At any rate, their knowledge 
 of these stars must have been acquired by some other means 
 
 * Or the central fire, according to Boeckh, around which the whole 
 planetary heavens revolve, and which is also the source of light, which 
 being collected by the visible sun, is transmitted to the earth. By the 
 avrlx^cov or counter-earth, whose revolution is parallel and concentric 
 with that of the earth, Boeckh understands that half of the terrestrial 
 globe which, as turned away from the sun, is in darkness. See August. 
 Boeckh " de Platonico systemate ccelestium globorum, et de vera indole 
 astronomige Philolaicse," or his " Philolaus," pp. 114 — 136, and Ideler 
 " Ueber d. Verhaltniss d. Copernicus zum Alterthum," in the Museum d. 
 Alterthumswissenschaft. Bd. ii. St. ii. § 405, &c. — Trans, 
 
RESULTS OF MODERN CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. 
 
 85 
 
 than the telescope of modern astronomy, with which, in fact, 
 they were not acquainted, and nothing but some new obser- 
 vation or phenomenon in the sidereal heavens can ever throw 
 light on this matter. And who shall say that even our pre- 
 sent astronomical science shall not advance still further, and 
 that it has not closed too soon, and been in all too great a 
 haste to sum up its doubtless most elaborate and complicated 
 calculations ? 
 
 Thus did the mind of man advance the first step towards 
 the maturity of physical science, by attaining to a more 
 comprehensive survey of the mundane system, and a more 
 accurate knowledge of his own habitation, of this earthly 
 planet. The next step in this sluggish progress was made by 
 the chemical discoveries of modern times, and especially of 
 the French chemists. In a merely negative point of view, 
 these have been important, as establishing the fact, that the 
 old elements, water, for instance, and air, which had long been 
 regarded as simple, are themselves decomposable into other 
 constituents and aeriform parts. And, indeed, that such great 
 powers of nature as these are, and must ever remain so 
 long as the present constitution of the world shall last, 
 could only subsist in the reciprocal dynamical relation of 
 several conflicting forces, a profounder glance at nature 
 would of itself have conjectured and presupposed. But in a 
 positive sense, this second step has carried us very far towards 
 the understanding of the hieroglyphics of nature. Those 
 primary elements of things discovered and numbered by that 
 chemical analysis which has subjected to its experiments 
 almost every form and species of matter, constitute, as it 
 were, the permanent material letters and consonants of the 
 natural world around us. On the other hand, the vowels of 
 human language are represented by the fundamental facts of the 
 magnetism of the earth, together with the phenomena of elec- 
 tricity, the decomposition of light, and the chemical chain of the 
 galvanic pile, in which the inner life of the terrestrial force, and 
 of the eternally moving atmosphere, as well as the soul whose 
 pulse beats therein finds an utterance, like a voice out of the 
 lowest deep. And thus, by means of an alphabet of nature, 
 which, howevei, is still most imperfect, we may hope to make 
 a beginning, at least, and to decipher one or two entire words. 
 But modern chemistry has made a more important advance 
 
86 
 
 NATURE A SYSTEM OF LIVING FORCES. 
 
 towards a right understanding of nature as a whole. By 
 analysing and decomposing all solid bodies, as well as water 
 itself, into different forms of a gaseous element, it has thereby 
 destroyed for ever, that appearance of rigidity and petrifac- 
 tion which the corporeal mass of visible and external nature 
 presents to our observation. Everywhere we now meet with 
 living elemental forces, hidden and shut up beneath this rigid 
 exterior. The proportion of aqueous particles in the air is so 
 great, that if suddenly condensed, they would suffice for more 
 than one flood. And a similar deluge of light would ensue, if 
 all the luminous sparks which are latent in the darkness were 
 simultaneously set free ; and the whole globe itself would end 
 in flame, were all the fiery elements that are at present dis- 
 persed throughout the world to be at once disengaged and 
 kindled. The investigation of the salutary bonds which hold 
 together these elementary forces in due equilibrium, controlling 
 one by the other, and confining each within its prescribed limits, 
 does not fall within the scope of our present inquiries, as 
 neither does the question, whether these bonds be not of a 
 higher kind than naturalists commonly suppose? More 
 immediately connected with, as also more important for our 
 general subject, is the result which chemical analysis has so 
 indubitably established, that in the natural world every object 
 consists of living forces, and that properly nothing is rigid 
 and dead, but all replete with hidden life. This colossal 
 mountain range of petrified mummies which forms nature on 
 the whole — this pyramid of graves, piled one over the other, 
 is therefore, it is true, a historical monument of the past — of 
 all the bygone ages of the world in the advancing develop- 
 ment of death ; but nevertheless, there is therein a latent 
 vitality. Beneath the vast tombstone of the visible world 
 there slumbers a soul, not wholly alien, but more than half 
 akin to our own. This planetary and sensible world, and 
 the earth- soul imprisoned therein, is only apparently dead. 
 Nature does but sleep, and will, perhaps, ere long awake 
 again. Sleep generally is, if not the essence, yet, at least, 
 an essential signature and characteristic of nature. Every 
 natural object partakes of it more or less. Not the animals 
 only, but the very plants sleep ; while in the vicissitudes of the 
 seasons, and of their influences on the productive surface of 
 the earth, and, in truth, on the whole planet, a perpetual 
 
SLEEP AN ESSENTIAL LAW OF NATURE. 87 
 
 alternation is perceptible between an awakening of life and a 
 state of slumbering repose. Whatever consequently partakes 
 in, and requires the refreshment of sleep, belongs, even on 
 that account, to nature. Painters, indeed, have given us 
 pictures of sleeping angels or genii ; but the pure spirits 
 sleep not, and stand, in truth, in no need of such rest, ancf 
 their activity is not subject to this necessity of alternate 
 repose. 
 
 The comparison of a sentence in the Mosaic history of the 
 creation, with a passage in the Hindoo cosmogony, somewhat 
 similar in kind, but most different in the application, will 
 serve, perhaps, to place this fact in the clearest light. In the 
 former it is said, " God rested on the seventh day." Now, in 
 this expression there is nothing to startle us. In explaining it, 
 there is no need to have recoru-se to a figurative interpretation. 
 It does not allude to God's inmost nature (which admits not 
 of such alternation of states or need of rest), but simply to His 
 external operations. For in every case where an operation of 
 the Deity takes place, whether in history or nature, an alter- 
 nation between the first divine impulse, and a subsequent period 
 of repose, is not only conceivable but actually noticeable. For 
 the divine impulse or hand is, as it were, withdrawn, in order 
 that this first impulse of the Creator may fully expand itself, 
 and that the creature adopting it, may carry it out and deve- 
 lope his own energies in accordance therewith. But instead of 
 this correct statement, we have in the Hindoo cosmogony, that 
 " Brahma sleeps." While he thus slumbers the whole creation, 
 with its worlds and mundane developments, is said to collapse 
 into nought. Here, then, a single word hurries us from the 
 sure ground of truth and divine revelation into the shifting 
 domain of mythology. Of Him indeed, who is higher than 
 the angels and created spirits, it is no doubt assumed through- 
 out the New Testament that, while on earth, He slept like other 
 men. Once, too, it is expressly stated, that during a great 
 storm, while His disciples were filled with alarm, He was asleep 
 in the hinder part of the ship ; but that when He awoke the 
 winds ceased. But here also, the case is different. While 
 implying many a great object and instructive lesson beside, this 
 passage, like several others, seems designed to prove that our 
 Lord's body was no mere phantom ; but that He took upon Him 
 a real human form, and was, in truth, a man who stood in need 
 
88 NATURE INTELLIGIBLE TO THE SPIRITUAL ONLY. 
 
 of sleep. And from this we may infer, that sleep is so indis- 
 pensable a condition of natural existence, that even God Him- 
 self, as soon as He condescended to enter its limits by taking 
 upon Him a human body, became subject to nature's essential 
 law of sleep. 
 
 The important part which sleep plays not only in nature, 
 but also in man, her first-born son, appears from the earliest 
 event that is recorded of his history, even in Paradise. God 
 caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and out of his opened 
 side took of his vital substance to invest it with a bodily veil 
 and shape, and to present it before him on his awaking as the 
 gentle helpmeet of his existence. Extremely significant also 
 is the difference in the accounts of man's and of woman's 
 material formation. Man is formed of the dust of the earth, 
 and therefore shortly after invested with the dominion of the 
 whole earthly globe as the deputy and vicegerent of Him from 
 whom cometh all lordship and authority. But woman is 
 taken and created out of the bosom or heart of man. Would 
 human wit have ever invented, or even conceived the possibility 
 of this great marvel of creative ommipotence. 
 
 This was in Paradise — but with the loss of it man was de- 
 prived in a great manner of those higher powers of life and 
 those secrets of nature which he had previously possessed and 
 understood. For even in the body of his earthly tabernacle 
 which had fallen a prey to death, he had become deteriorated, 
 and his organic constitution, as is expressly intimated, fell con- 
 siderably lower in the scale of sensible existence, and sunk nearer 
 to the level of the brute creation. On this account the cherubic 
 sentinels, with the flaming sword, were placed at the gate of 
 Paradise, that man might not stretch forth his hand to seize 
 again the rights and privileges which he had formerly enjoyed. 
 For now they would only have led to more mischievous abuse 
 and deeper corruption. But since then, many great days of 
 creation have come and gone. Again has the great relation 
 between God and man been restored, and that also between man 
 and the sensible world with the spirits and forces that rule 
 therein, has changed and become new. And now that the be- 
 ginning is made, and the foundation laid for the Redemption 
 of the world, no man, no one at least who will loyally join the 
 banner of the Redeemer, is forbidden, but every one has freely 
 offered to him the divine, flaming, two-edged sword of the Spirit 
 
NATURE INTELLIGIBLE TO THE SPIRITUAL ONLY. 
 
 89 
 
 — or of the Word, and of the thoughts of the heart united to 
 Him, enlightened by Him, and emanating from Him. This fact 
 of itself furnishes at once the answer to the question concerning 
 the secrets of nature, whether, since they are no longer to be 
 kept close from man, impure and wicked hands may drag them 
 to the light, or whether it be not better that they should 
 be touched by the holy and conscientious alone, and faithfully 
 guarded with a pious reserve and religious delicacy. 
 
 And here the very context suggests naturally the considera- 
 tion of the last of the three steps which, following the course 
 marked out for it by God, the human mind has at last made 
 in very modern times towards a true physical science, and a 
 right understanding of the most inmost secrets of nature. It 
 consists in a closer observation and a commencing recognition 
 of a sacred thread of ensouled life — of an internal soul-like 
 link which holds together the whole frame of nature. The 
 thing and force itself are as old as the world and every sphere 
 of existence — all the leaves of tradition and history are full 
 of its manifestations and effects. But the methodical obser- 
 vation and treatment of these phenomena (in which alone the 
 true scientific character consists) dates its commencement 
 within little more than half a century ago. To speak, there- 
 fore, agreeably to the measure of time in the slow development 
 of science, it is of yesterday or the day before. And it is 
 even on this account also that I have been constrained to count 
 this third and last advance towards a higher science of nature, 
 as nothing more than a half- step. For it is only a beginning 
 which as yet has gained no firm footing in the minds of men, 
 and, moreover, besides the right and direct road, it has 
 already opened many bye-paths of possible error. This only 
 direct road, that higher standard of correct judgment which 
 at the very commencement we alluded to as the guiding rule 
 in these matters, must be sought by philosophy in that divine 
 sword of the Spirit which pierces even to the marrow of life, 
 dividing soul and spirit, and which also is a discerner of spirits. 
 But if another standard and a higher tribunal is to be set up, 
 then I must leave it to others who perhaps know more about 
 the matter than I do, and are better qualified to decide upon 
 it. This spiritual warfare at any rate cannot be much longei 
 eluded or avoided. Oh that men would take therein Holy 
 Writ exclusively for their guide. For it indeed regards the 
 
90 
 
 PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES OE THE FALL. 
 
 whole of life and every important moment of it as a conflict 
 with invisible powers, as also it tacitly implies or expressly 
 intimates that the whole sensible world is to be looked 
 upon as nothing else than an almost transparent, and at all 
 events, a very perishable veil of the spiritual world. To the 
 leader of the rebel spirits the Bible ascribes so great an in- 
 fluence in creation, that it calls him the prince, nay, even the 
 god of this world — the ruler of its principalities and powers. 
 And in order that this might not be taken in a mere figura- 
 tive sense, and be understood only of a race of men morally 
 corrupt and depraved, these spiritual potentates are in other 
 places expressly called the elementary powers of nature — 
 powers of the air, which in this dark planetary world of 
 ours is compounded of light and darkness, and ever strug- 
 gling between life and death. The true key and explana- 
 tion of the whole may, however, lie in the simple sentence — 
 " Death came into the world by sin." As, then, by the death 
 of the first man, who was not created for, nor originally de- 
 signed for death, death has passed upon the whole human race ; 
 so by the earlier fall of him, who had been the first and most 
 glorious of created spirits, death passed upon the universe — 
 that eternal death whose fire is unquenchable. Hence it is 
 written : — " Darkness was on the face of the deep, and the 
 earth" — as the mere grave of that eternal death — " was without 
 form and void ;" but the " spirit of God moved on the face of 
 the waters," and therein lay the first germ of life for the new 
 creation. We here see the difference between all heathen 
 systems of natural philosophy and a divine knowledge of 
 nature, i. e., one acquired in and by God, and also the key for 
 a right understanding of the latter. 
 
 If now the dynamic play of the living forces of nature, which 
 is unquestionably a living entity, and has a life in itself, 
 though not indeed of and from itself — if this dynamical alter- 
 nation between life and death be regarded as a simple fact, 
 and man is content to rest there, without seeking to explain 
 it by a higher principle, then will he have ever the self-same 
 One — ran all-producing, all-absorbing, ruminating monster, 
 whether we express it poetically, as in mythology, or in the 
 scientific formularies of physiology. Quite different is it, 
 however, if this great pyramid has been built upon the foun- 
 dation of eternal death. Then is the whole creature of this 
 
FINAL EMANCIPATION OF NATURE FROM DEATH. 91 
 
 earthly planet and sensible world merely a commencing life 
 which, so long as the pyramid is still unfinished and incom- 
 plete, is, in parts, perpetually relapsing into death — into 
 actual death, or at least into diseases and fractures of various 
 kinds, which are only so many principia or germs of death. 
 Then is nature itself nothing less than the ladder of resurrec- 
 tion, which, step by step, leads upwards, or rather is carried 
 from the abyss of eternal death up to the apex of light in the 
 heavenly illumination. For, understanding it in this sense, it 
 is impossible to think of nature without remembering at the 
 same time the divine hand which has built this pyramid, and 
 which, along this ladder, brings life out of death. This view, 
 moreover, accounts for the fact, that a state of slumber is 
 essential to nature — and furnishes an explanation why that 
 perpetually-recurring collapse into sleep, which to us appears so 
 near akin to death, should be nature's proper character. And 
 just as the consuming fire of death appears in the more highly 
 organised beings to be somewhat subdued and restrained — 
 mitigated or exalted into the quickening warmth of life, so 
 also sleep is only the more than half enlightened brother of 
 death. And indeed as such, and the lovely messenger of hope 
 to immortal spirits, was he ever regarded and described by 
 the ancients ; but that which for them was little more than 
 a beautiful image of poetry, is for us the profoundest of 
 truths. 
 
 An exalted view and understanding of nature consists, then, 
 in its being contemplated not merely as a dynamical play of 
 reciprocal forces, but historically in its course of development, 
 as a commencing life, perpetually relapsing into death, ever 
 disposed to sleep, and only painfully raising itself, or rather 
 raised and lovingly guided through all the intermediate 
 grades into the light. But beneath the huge tombstone of 
 outward nature there sleeps a soul, not wholly alien, but half 
 akin to ourselves — which is distracted between the troubled 
 and painful reminiscence of eternal death, out of which it 
 issued, and the flowers of light which are scattered here and 
 there on this dark earth, as so many lovely suggesters of a 
 heavenly hope. For this earthly nature, as Holy Writ testi- 
 fies,* is, indeed, subject to nullity, yet, without its will, and 
 * Romans viii. 20. 
 
92 FINAL EMANCIPATION OF NATURE FROM DEATH. 
 
 without its fault : and consequently in hope of Him who has so 
 subjected it, it looks forward in the expectation that it shall one 
 day be free, and have a part in the general resurrection and 
 consummate revelation of God's glory, before which both 
 nature and death shall stand amazed — and for this last day of a 
 new creation it sighs anxiously, and yearns with the pro- 
 foundest longing. 
 
 END LECTURE TT„ 
 
98 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 OP THE SOUL OF MAN IN RELATION TO GOD. 
 
 A divine science of nature — one, i. e., which is ever looking 
 to and has its root in God — unlike the old heathen physio- 
 logies sees something more in nature than a mere endless 
 play of living forces and the alternations of dynamical action. 
 Contemplating it rather as a whole, and in the connexion of 
 its several parts, it traces it from the first foundation on which 
 it was originally raised, up to the final consummation which 
 the Almighty has designed it to attain. Now, to such a mode 
 of studying it, nature appears to be in its beginning, as it were, 
 a bridge thrown across the abyss of eternal death and eternal 
 nothingness. And in perfect agreement with this origin 
 or foundation, it exhibits itself at the outset as a house of 
 corruption, a character which, to a certain degree, it subse- 
 quently and long afterwards retains. After a while, however, 
 this house of corruption is transformed, by the omnipotence 
 of the good Creator, into a laboratory of new life, and finally 
 is raised into a ladder of resurrection, ascending, or rather is 
 made to conduct, step by step, to the highest pitch of earthly 
 glorification, in which nature too has a promise that she shall 
 partake. This was the subject of the preceding Lecture, and 
 it naturally enough suggests the further question, whether a 
 similar scale of gradual exaltation exists for the human soul, 
 which, even while it is in many respects akin to mother earth 
 and to nature generally, is, nevertheless, far more excellent, 
 and by its innate dignity claims to be regarded as the very 
 head and crown of this earthly creation. The inquiry then, 
 whether the soul of man, gradually rising out of the depths of 
 this perishable existence and the bondage of corruption, up to 
 God, can approach nearer to, and finally be totally identified 
 with Him ; or at least, whether it is capable of being united in 
 a perfect and lasting harmony with the superior powers of a 
 
94 
 
 INTRINSIC DISCORD OF THE MIND. 
 
 higher and a diviner region — this will form the theme of our 
 present disquisition. In discussing it, however, our atten- 
 tion will be directed principally to its psychological aspect 
 — its relation, i. e., to the theory of consciousness. For the 
 moral examination of this subject, even if it be not allowable 
 to assume that it, at all events, is well known, belongs to 
 another department of inquiry. 
 
 Now, on this head, the following remark immediately and 
 naturally suggests itself to the reflecting mind. Unless the soul 
 be at unity with itself it cannot hope ever to be one with, or to 
 attain to an harmonic relation with that Being, who, as he is the 
 one source and principle of all and on whom all depends, is in 
 himself a pure harmony. But so far is this condition from 
 being fulfilled in the actual state of the human consciousness, 
 that the latter appears rather to consist of pure and endless 
 discord. Fourfold, I said, is man's consciousness ; and I 
 called its four conflicting forces, viz., understanding and will, 
 reason and fancy, its four poles, or chief branches, or even 
 the four quarters of the internal world of thought. How 
 seldom, however, do the understanding and will agree together. 
 Dobs not each of them prefer to follow an independent course 
 of its own? How seldom do men really and perseveringly 
 will and desire what they clearly see and acknowledge and 
 perfectly understand to be the best ! And how often, on the 
 other hand, do we understand little or nothing of that, which 
 yet in the inmost recesses of our hearts, we most desire and 
 wish, and most ardently and determinedly resolve upon ! 
 Reason and fancy too, both in the inner thought and in out- 
 ward life also, are, on the whole, in hostile conflict with each 
 other. Reason would wish to suppress or at least to dispense 
 altogether with fancy, while fancy, caring, for the most part, but 
 little or nothing for the reason, goes its own way. The will, 
 moreover, unceasingly distracted, is never even at peace with 
 itself, while the reason, standing alone in the endless evolution 
 of its own thought, entangles itself at last in a labyrinth of 
 irreconcileable contradictions. The understanding, again, has 
 so many grades and species, and divides itself among so many 
 spheres and functions, that in this respect we might be justi- 
 fied in saying :-— This one understanding understands not 
 the other, even though it be equally correct both in itself and 
 in its mode of operation. And thus, too, in the individual : 
 
INTRINSIC DISCORD OF THE MIND. 
 
 95 
 
 his understanding, the sum, t. e., of all that he understands, 
 consists, for the most part, but of rags and fragments of 
 truth, which often enough do not match very well, and 
 seldom, if ever, admit of being made to blend harmoniously 
 together. And so, too, is it in all that belongs to, and is under 
 the influence of fancy. The subjective views, for instance, and 
 conceits of man — the delusions of his senses, the rapidly 
 changing meteors and unsubstantial phantoms of human 
 passion, are things only too well known, self-evident, and 
 universally acknowledged. 
 
 So profound then, even in a psychological point of view, and 
 apart from the multiplied phases which the moral aspect pre- 
 sents, appears the discord which reigns in our whole mind as 
 at present constituted ! Dissension seems to be interwoven 
 into its fundamental fabric. Instead, therefore, of saying the 
 human consciousness is fourfold, with equal if not with greater 
 correctness we might and ought to say, it is divided or rather 
 split into four or more pieces. It is common enough to speak 
 of facts of consciousness. And yet how seldom among philoso- 
 phers is anything more meant by this expression than the mere 
 thinking of thoughts, in the eternal repetition of the same 
 empty process in which the thinking Ego thinks itself, and by 
 means of which the Me is as it were seized in the very act, 
 and then, as the first beginning, the imaginary Creator and 
 Demiurge of the ideal world, this Me is nung out like a gilded 
 pennon from the top of the whole artificial system.* The only 
 fact of the consciousness that really deserves to be so named 
 is its internal dissension. And this discord not only reveals 
 itself in thought between the Me and Not Me, but pervades the 
 whole and all its branches, or parts and forms, its species and 
 spheres, in mind and soul, understanding and will, reason and 
 fancy, which everywhere manifests itself, and of which the 
 thousandfold material discords of man's outer life is only the 
 reflection — its natural consequence and further development. 
 From this fact of the manifold and ever- varying dissension of 
 the human consciousness an exposition of philosophy might 
 not inappropriately set out, in order from this point to seek the 
 solution of its peculiar problem and the rigth road for the attain- 
 
 * Schlegel is alluding to such principles as the " Cogito ergo sum" of 
 Des Cartes, and especially to the cognate axiom of Fichte : " Das ich setzt 
 sich selbst." " The Me posits or affirms itself." — Trans, 
 
 v 
 
96 THIS DISCORD A. CONSEQUENCE OF THE FALL. 
 
 ment of its end. For the problem of philosophy as contem- 
 plated from this side would consist in the restoration of that 
 original, natural, and true state of the consciousness in which 
 it was at unity and in harmony with itself. It is a leading 
 error of philosophy that it views the present state of the 
 human consciousness as even its right one, which requires 
 only to be raised to a higher power in order to be cleansed 
 from the taint of commonness of the ordinary way of thinking 
 which clings to it among the ignorant and unphilosophical, 
 and thereupon to be comprised in strangely artificial and 
 seemingly most profound formulae. But by such an involu- 
 tion to a higher power the error is not got rid of, but rather 
 the evil itself is aggravated, since it is contained in the root 
 itself, and is to be found in the inmost structure of the con- 
 sciousness. Besides it cannot have been the original consti- 
 tution of man's mind to be thus a prey to manifold dissension 
 and split as it were into pieces and quartered. This discord 
 is undoubtedly in the true meaning of the word a fact, the 
 only one which every individual can without hesitation vouch 
 for on the immediate and independent testimony of his own 
 experience. For the cause of this well-authenticated fact we 
 have only to look to that event which revelation has made 
 known, of which each man must perceive the sad traces within 
 his own heart. It began with that eclipse of the soul which 
 preceded and commenced the present state of man, and was 
 occasioned by the intervention of a foreign body between it and 
 the sun which gave it light. But if the soul, the thinking as 
 well as the loving soul, be the centre of consciousness, then in 
 this great and general darkening of the centre, the entire sphere 
 in its whole essence and structure must have been altered. 
 And consequently in its philosophical aspect, and apart from 
 all special moral depravity in the independent actions, evil 
 habits and passions of individuals, the soul is no longer what 
 it was originally, as created and designed by the Almighty. 
 
 Thus, then, the whole human consciousness is filled with un- 
 mitigated discord and division, not merely in its mixed rational 
 and sensuous or terrestrial and spiritual nature, but thought 
 itself is at issue with life. And moreover while in the thought 
 the internal and the external, faith and science, are involved in 
 a hostile contrariety, disturbing and destroying each other, so 
 is it also in life with the finite and the infinite, the transitory 
 
RESTORATION OF UNITY IN THE MIND. 97 
 
 and the imperishable. In such a state of things, therefore, and 
 from this point of view, the problem of philosophy, as already 
 remarked, cannot well be any other than the restoration of the 
 consciousness to its primary and true unity, so far as this is 
 humanly possible. Now that this true and permanent unity, 
 if it be at all attainable, must be looked for in God, is at all 
 events an allowable hypothesis. For it will not be disputed, 
 except by one who holds both this unity itself and its restitu- 
 tion to be absolutely impossible. But this is a point on which 
 much may be advanced on both sides, and which therefore, 
 since mere disputing can avail nothing either one way or the 
 other, can only be decided by the fact — the issue of the attempt. 
 On this hypothesis then, even philosophy must in every case 
 take God for the basis of its speculations — set out from Him, 
 and draw in every instance from this divine source. But then, 
 considered from this point of view and pursuing this route, 
 it is no idle speculation and simple contemplation of the 
 inner existence and thought alone — no dead science — but a 
 vital effort and an effectual working of the thought for the re- 
 storation of a corrupt and degraded consciousness to its natural 
 simplicity and original unity. And this is the way which we 
 ha\e marked out for the course of our speculations, or rather 
 the end which we must strive, however imperfectly, yet at least 
 to the best of our abilities, to attain to. And accordingly each 
 of the four preceding Lectures, although in free sketchy out- 
 line, contains an attempt to put an end to and reconcile some 
 particular schism among those which are the most marked 
 and predominant in the consciousness, and which in essential 
 points most disturb the whole of life. How far in these four 
 introductory essays this problem has been satisfactorily or 
 completely solved and happily settled, is a question which 
 will be best and most fairly tested by the idea of philosophy, 
 as having its true end and aim in the restoration of this cor- 
 rupt consciousness to its sound state — to its original unity 
 and full energy of life. 
 
 The discord between philosophy itself and life was the first 
 that I attempted to get rid of. But now, if in the place of 
 abstract thought and the dialectical reason, we are entitled to 
 look to the thinking and loving soul for the true centre of 
 man's consciousness, then the imaginary partition- wall be- 
 tween science and life at once crumbles away. Our second 
 
98 
 
 RESTORATION OF UNITY IN THE MIND. 
 
 Lecture was occupied with the discord which subsists between 
 the finite and the infinite — the eternal and the perishable; 
 and, because this involved a problem which can only be solved 
 by life and reality, I therefore confined myself to pointing out 
 the way in which we may hope to discover their unity and 
 equation. With this view, I attempted to establish a vivid con- 
 viction that there is a true enthusiasm wherein the illimitable 
 feeling manifests itself as actual, and that even the earthly 
 passion of love assumes, in the holy union of fidelity and 
 wedlock, the stamp of the indissoluble and eternal, and be- 
 comes the source of many divine blessings, and of many moral 
 ties, which are stronger, and furnish a firmer moral basis to 
 society, than any general maxims, or than any ethical theory 
 which is built upon such notional abstractions, far more than 
 upon the pregnant results of the experience of life. And 
 lastly, in pure longing, I pointed out an effort of man's con- 
 sciousness directing itself to an infinite, eternal, and divine 
 object. But, as this longing can only evince its reality by the 
 fruits it brings forth, I reserved, to a future opportunity, the 
 more precise determination of this question. The theme of 
 our third Lecture was the existence and the reconciliation of 
 that schism which, both in thought and life, divides the internal 
 and the external worlds. If all knowing be a mere process 
 of the reason, then must this discord between the inner and 
 the outer be for ever irreconcilable, and we should be utterly 
 at a loss to conceive how a foreign and alien body could ever 
 have found entrance from without into our Me, and become 
 an ooject of its cognition. But if every species of knowing 
 be positive, — if, also, the cognition of the spiritual and divine 
 be nothing else than an internal and higher science of expe- 
 rience, then the idea of revelation furnishes at once the key 
 to explain, while it establishes the possibility of a knowledge of 
 the divine. And this remark admits, also, of application to 
 nature itself, when we consider it in its totality and internal 
 constitution, and speak of a knowledge of these things — of 
 the vital force which rules in it, or its animating soul ; for this, 
 indeed, eludes our grasp, but yet speaks plainly to us — to him, 
 at least, who is wise to understand nature's language. For if, 
 in attempting to understand nature, we isolate her, as it were, 
 and exclude all reference to Him who gave her being, and 
 has assigned, also, her limits and her end, — if, in short, we 
 
SECTS AND PARTIES IN SCIENCE AND LETTERS. 99 
 
 I disturb the two poles of a right understanding of nature, 
 then, most assuredly, will the effort be fruitless, and all our 
 labour unprofitable. Man, however, has gone still further, and 
 by transferring the innate discord of his internal conscious- 
 ness to outward objects, has forcibly rent asunder God and 
 Nature, — he has thus divorced the sensible world and its 
 Maker, and set them in hostile array against each other, and 
 thereby brought physical science in collision with the know- 
 ledge of divine things and with revelation. Our fourth Lecture, 
 therefore, was consecrated to an attempt to effect here, also, a 
 reconciliation, or, at least, to lay the first stone, and to mark 
 out the road by which alone we could hope to arrive at so 
 desirable a result : and this is a problem which is even the 
 more important the truer it is, that this discord is not 
 confined to science and the scientific domain, but extends, 
 also, to real life, where these discrepant views and modes 01 
 thinking are arrayed against each other in so many hostile 
 and conflicting parties. And although, as differing merely as 
 to the form and direction of thought, they do not come for- 
 ward in so distinct a shape, or under such characteristic names, 
 as the parties in religion and politics, still this dissension is 
 not, therefore, less real and universal, or its effects and influ- 
 ence less noticeable. Of these parties the first, and by far 
 the most numerous, is the sect of the rationalists, who doubt 
 indiscriminately of all things, and test every matter by the 
 standard of their own scepticism. The second class is formed 
 of the exclusive worshippers of nature, and has many mem- 
 bers among scientific men; while, lastly, the third con- 
 sists of those who derive, from the positive source of a divine 
 decision, the law of their thinking and the standard of their 
 judgment. Now, this last party, if it would only go a few 
 steps further, and draw still deeper from this source, would 
 be able to assign its appropriate place and value to every 
 potence and truth in the other species of thought aoid know- 
 ledge, and even thereby might qualify itself to dissolve and 
 reconcile the all-pervading discord. But inasmuch as they 
 do not adopt this conciliatory attitude towards natural, his- 
 torical, and even artistic knowledge, so far as they are true, 
 but, on the contrary, in a spirit of animosity, attempt to cir- 
 cumscribe and set negative limits to them, if not absolutely to 
 reject them as worthless and profane, — then, when they least 
 
100 
 
 man's mind originally simplek. 
 
 wish it, they really sink into a party no less than the other 
 two. And thus, while they might occupy a far higher position, 
 they fall to the level of the rest, and contribute, on their part, 
 an element to the intellectual strife, and tend to promote 
 and perpetuate it. The three parties, then, which by their 
 ruling ideas divide life and the age, are the rational thinkers, 
 the worshippers of nature, and those who, in all controverted 
 questions, appeal absolutely to a higher and divine authority ; 
 for inasmuch as the sentence of the latter is only of a nega- 
 tive import, it is therefore insufficient to meet all the requi- 
 sitions of life. 
 
 Thus, then, have I led your consideration to four different 
 points, in order to seize and exhibit, in as many different 
 forms and spheres, this great fact of the dissension in man's 
 consciousness, as it exists at present. In a similar manner, 
 too, a fourfold attempt has been made to remedy its hereditary 
 disease, which has been inherent in it since the original darken- 
 ing of the soul at the Fall, and, by appeasing the discord which, 
 as it is all-pervading and universal, assumes manifold shapes 
 and forms, to make the first step of return and approxima- 
 tion towards the original harmonic unity. Having considered 
 the matter in these four special points of view, it will not, I 
 hope, appear premature if I now propose the question in a 
 more general point of view, which will embrace the whole 
 human consciousness itself, but, at the same time, limit our 
 consideration of it exclusively to its psychological aspect. 
 
 Now it is in nowise difficult to conceive of the human soul 
 as much simpler than it is, and apart from that division of it 
 into several faculties, which is at most, and properly, but an 
 accident of its existence. One of the first among the modern 
 philosophers of Germany, says somewhere of the soul, that 
 the supposition of its existence is superfluous, and that it is a 
 pure fiction.* But this statement was the result of his having 
 abandoned in his system the true centre of life and conscious 
 ness ; whoever, on the contrary, adheres steadily thereto, will 
 never concur in a position which simply, as contradicting the 
 general feeling of human nature, requires no elaborate refuta- 
 tion. But as regards the two parts into which the soul is 
 divided, viz., Reason and Fancy — these, at any rate, are no 
 fiction, but exist really and truly within the consciousness, 
 * Schellirig. 
 
man's mind originally simpler. 
 
 101 
 
 where, as in life itself, they often stand confronting each other 
 in hostile array. This division cannot well be called super- 
 fluous, but yet it does not admit of being considered absolutely 
 necessary, and belonging to the soul's original essence. If all 
 thinking were a living cogitation — if the thinking and the 
 loving soul had remained at unity in their true centre, then the 
 external methodical thought and the internal productive think- 
 ing, meditating, and invention, would not be separate and 
 divorced — at least they would not come into hostile conflict 
 with each other, but would rather be harmoniously com- 
 bined in the living cogitation of the loving soul. The several 
 forms, too, of a higher love and a higher endeavour, aye, every 
 lawful earthly inclination, would be blended in this harmony 
 of the soul, and no longer stand out as a separate and isolated 
 faculty, occasionally conflicting with all the others. Even the 
 conscience would no longer appear as a special act or func- 
 tion of the judgment, of a distinct and peculiar kind, but would 
 oe absorbed in the whole as a delicate internal sensibility and 
 the pulse of the moral life. 
 
 As for sensation and memory, they are in any case but 
 ministering faculties, which only appear distinct and inde- 
 pendent under the influence of the prevailing tendency to 
 separation and disunion, but on the supposition of a simpler 
 and more harmonious consciousness, would be counted merely 
 as bodily organs. If, then, the soul had not suffered an 
 eclipse — if it had remained undisturbed in the clear light of 
 God — then would man's consciousness also have been much 
 simpler than it now is, with all those several faculties which 
 we at present find and distinguish in it. In such a case, it 
 would consist only of understanding, soul, and will. For if, 
 according to the three directions of its activity, any one should 
 still be disposed to divide it into the thinking, the feeling, and 
 the loving soul, still this would not be founded on any intrinsic 
 strife or discord, but they would all combine harmoniously 
 together, and in this harmonious combination be at unity 
 among themselves. As for the distinction between under- 
 standing and will, that would still remain, since it is essential 
 to mind or spirit, and may, in a certain sense, be ascribed 
 even to the uncreated spirits. But in this garden of the soul 
 of inward illumination— on this fruitful soil of harmonised 
 thought and feeling— they would walk amicably together, and 
 
102 THE ESSENCE OF MIND IN THE PUKE SPIHITS. 
 
 work in common, and would not, as hostile beings, turn aside 
 in opposite directions, or as is mostly the case in actual life, 
 be divided from each other by an impassable gulf, and never 
 meet in friendly contact. 
 
 Thus nearly, or somewhat similarly, must we conceive of, 
 and attempt to represent to ourselves, the human mind in its 
 original state, before it was darkened, rent asunder, and con- 
 demned to lasting discord, but was as yet eminently simple 
 and perfectly harmonious. 
 
 And now as regards understanding and will, as a division of 
 powers essential to the mind or spirit, which, however, as such, is 
 not necessarily inharmonious : the expression already touched 
 upon of another of our modern German philosophers, will serve 
 as a transition to and commencing point for my remarks. 
 According to this memorable assertion with regard to the mind 
 fgeistj, and which will serve as an appropriate pendant to 
 that last quoted about the soul, the essence of mind or spirit 
 in general consists in the negation of the opposite.* Now I 
 cannot stop at present to inquire what sense this would give, 
 if applied to the uncreated spirit, and the Creator of all other 
 spiritual beings. But as concerns created spirits ; their essence, 
 contrariwise, consists principally in an eternal affirmation. 
 But this, however, they have not of and from themselves, but it 
 is the affirmation of the one to which God has exclusively 
 destined them. But it is not of themselves, but of God and 
 His energy, of whom these created spirits are, as it were, but 
 a ray — a spark of His light — therefore in this ray, not only 
 sight and understanding, but also thought and deed, will and 
 execution, are simultaneous and identical. And it is in this 
 respect that they are so totally different from men. Now this 
 ray of light, imparted to them from God, is nothing less than 
 the thought of their destination — of the purpose of their being 
 —in a word, their mission, if we may speak after a human 
 fashion, and in the prevailing phraseology. And, indeed, in 
 all ancient languages, the pure created intelligences have these 
 names from that mission which constitutes their essence ; for their 
 essence is even perfectly identical with this divine mission or 
 inborn eternal affirmation. To the fallen spirits, on the other 
 hand, the maxim above quoted applies truly enough : their 
 
 * Hegei. 
 
FOUR SOURCES OF HUMAN ERROR. 
 
 103 
 
 essence consists, not in the divine affirmation, or the mission 
 which they have abandoned, but rather in the eternal, though 
 bootless, denial of their opposite, which is even nothing less 
 than the divine order. For to their ambitious intellect and 
 perverse wills, the latter, in all probability, appeared far too 
 loving, and therefore unintelligible ; while, to their censorious 
 judgment, it seemed deficient in rigour of consequence, and 
 not unconditional and absolute enough. 
 
 All that has hitherto been said, reduces itself to the follow- 
 ing result. As by the first obscuration and eclipse of the 
 human soul, the very body of man was deteriorated, and 
 having been originally created with a capacity of immortality, 
 fell a prey to death, and received the germs, or became liable 
 to many diseases, as roots of death — which is not guilt itself, 
 but the natural result of guilt, so in his consciousness there 
 was then implanted, and has ever since been propagated, a 
 germ of intellectual death and manifold seeds of error, which, 
 however, are not a new sin, but merely the natural conse- 
 quences of the first sin and the original corruption of the soul. 
 In four different forms, according to the four cardinal points 
 and. fundamental faculties of the human consciousness, does 
 this inborn error and fruitful germ of erroneous and false 
 thinking show and develope itself. We have already spoken 
 of this futile idea of the deadness of all external life, which has 
 taken such deep root in the centre of all human thought — in 
 the dead abstract notion and the empty formula, and which 
 clinging as an original taint to the human mind as at present 
 constituted, renders it so difficult for all those who, not con- 
 tent with merely observing nature, wish really to understand 
 it in its living operation, and moreover, to imitate in thought 
 its dynamical law, and the inner pulse of its vital forces. For 
 in the abstract notion all this evaporates, and when confined 
 within such dead formularies, the true life of nature quickly 
 becomes extinct. This, therefore, is the primary source of 
 error — the leading species of barren and futile thinking in the 
 abstract understanding. But now this dead and lifeless cogi- 
 tation of abstract ideas, with its processes of combining and 
 inferring, or of analysing and drawing distinctions, may be 
 carried on into infinity, as being that wherein the essence or 
 function of reason consists, and also as giving rise to inter- 
 minable disputes and contradictions. Consequently this form 
 
104 
 
 FOUR SOURCES OF HUMAN ERROR. 
 
 of the reason, which is ever pursuing dialectical disputations, 
 or else sceptically renouncing its own authority, even because 
 it never allows itself to proceed in what alone is its legitimate 
 course, becomes thereby a second source of error and false 
 thinking among men. And, indeed, this erroneous procedure 
 of the dialectical reason, which is incessantly working out or 
 analysing its abstract notions, is the effect of the present con- 
 stitution of the human mind; so that no individual can in 
 justice be blamed on its account, nor can its perverted con- 
 clusions and corrupting results be fairly imputed to ulterior 
 views and principles of an immoral character. 
 
 In considering the imagination as a source of error, we 
 have no need to select the instance of a fancy satanically 
 inflamed to passion, or satanically deluded, or even one of 
 a purely materialistic bias and leaning. For fancy, even in 
 its greatest exaltation and purest form, is at best but a subjec- 
 tive view and mode of cogitative apprehension, and conse- 
 quently as such is ever a fruitful parent of delusion. How 
 very rarely an imagination is to be found which is not predomi- 
 nantly subjective, is shown precisely in the very highest grade 
 of its development — in the creations of imitative art. Of 
 the exalted geniuses who in single ages and nations have 
 distinguished themselves from the great mass, and attained to 
 that rare eminence — the reputation of the true artist ; — out of 
 this short list of great names, how few can be selected of whose 
 productions it can be truly said and boasted : — Here in this 
 picture we have something more than a mere general view, or 
 the peculiar fantasy of an individual ; here, life and nature stand 
 before us in their full truth and objective reality, and speak 
 to us in that universal language, which is intelligible to men 
 of all countries and all times ! And the same remark applies 
 to the whole domain of scientific thought in general; but 
 especially to physical and historical science. 
 
 In like manner, in the sphere of the will, it is not merely 
 immoral volitions, which, as such, must ever be false and 
 wrong, that are exclusively the source of erroneous thought. 
 The spring of those errors which we are at present consider- 
 ing, lies in the very form of the will itself, t. e., in the absolute 
 willing, even though its object and end be, in themselves, 
 perfectly legitimate and unexceptionable. That this absolute 
 willing— or to speak more humanly, and in ordinary lan- 
 
FOUR SOURCES OP HUMAN ERROR. 
 
 105 
 
 guage, self-will and obstinacy — is a fundamental and hereditary 
 foiling of the human character, as at present constituted, 
 which shows itself in the very youngest children, with the first 
 dawn of reason, and requires to be most watchfully checked, is 
 but too well known to every teacher and every mother. But not 
 in infancy only, but also in the most important and compre- 
 hensive relations of life — nay, even in the history of the 
 world — this same absolute willing proves the most pernicious 
 of all the sources of error and corruption in the soul and life 
 of man, even when its object is not unmitigatedly bad, or 
 when, perhaps, it may even deserve to be called great and 
 noble. It is through this absolute willing that the sove- 
 reign with unlimited authority, even though he be gifted 
 with a strong and comprehensive intellect, and possessed of 
 many estimable qualities and moral virtues, becomes, never- 
 theless, the oppressor of his people and the merciless tyrant. 
 Through it also, in states which are not monarchical, but 
 where the supreme authority is divided among several estates, 
 views and principles which, calmly considered and duly 
 limited by opposing principles, are true and beneficial, by 
 being advanced absolutely, and without qualification, are 
 converted into so many violent factions, which, distracting 
 the minds of men and inflaming their passions, produce a 
 wide-spread and fearful anarchy. 
 
 The dead abstract notions of the intellect, the dialectical 
 disputes of the reason, the purely subjective and one-sided 
 apprehension of objects by a deluded fancy, and the absolute 
 will, are the four sources of human error. Considered apart 
 from the aberrations of passion, special faults of character, and 
 prejudices of education, as well as the false notions and wrong 
 judgments to which the latter give rise — these four are the 
 springs from which flows all the error of the soul which 
 makes itself the centre of the terrestrial reality, and which, 
 springing out of this soil, is nourished and propagated by it. 
 To what then are we to look to dispel these manifold delusions 
 but to a closer and more intimate union of the soul with 
 God as the source of life and truth ? 
 
 What, let us therefore ask, is the organ by which such closer 
 union with and immediate cognition of God is to be effected ? 
 Plainly not the understanding, even though as the cognitive 
 6ense of a revelation of spirit, and of the spirit of revelation, 
 
106 CONDESCENSION OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE. 
 
 9 
 
 it carries us through the first steps towards a right 
 understanding of ourselves and the Creator. For so long as 
 we confine ourselves to the understanding, which, at most, is 
 but a preparatory and auxiliary faculty, we shall only make an 
 approximation. It is only when the divine. idea, passing 
 beyond the understanding — the mere surface, as it were, of 
 our consciousness — penetrates into the very centre of our 
 being, and strikes root there, that it is possible, with a view 
 to this end, to draw immediately from the primary source of 
 all life. Now, the organ which essentially co-operates in this 
 work is the will, which, in such co-operation however, divests 
 itself entirely of its absoluteness. On this account I called 
 the will the sense for God, or the sense which is appropriated 
 to the perception of Deity. 
 
 But before I proceed in my attempt to define and elucidate 
 the nature of this reciprocal action, and show how it is 
 possible or generally conceivable, it will be necessary to 
 premise one essential remark. I have already attempted to 
 discover and to establish a special and characteristic mark 
 for every sphere of life, and its highest and lowest grades. 
 Thus, the proper and distinctive signature of nature, and all 
 that belongs to it, is a state of slumber or sleep ; the charac- 
 teristic property of man, which distinguishes him from all 
 other intellectual beings, is fancy ; while the essential pro- 
 perty of the pure created spirits is the stamp of eternity 
 which is impressed on all their operations, by means of which 
 they perform, with untiring energies, their allotted duties, 
 without the alternation of repose or the necessity of sleep, and 
 by reason of which they remain for ever what they once begin 
 to be. Applying the same line of thought to a higher 
 region, I would now attempt to discover there some cha- 
 racteristic sign, by observing which man may perhaps be able 
 to find his true position. Proceeding then in this line of 
 thought, and preserving a due regard to the weakness of 
 the human capacity, I would observe as follows. The 
 characteristic — not indeed of the divine essence, for that is 
 too great for man's powers of apprehension — but of the 
 divine operations and His influence on the creation and all 
 created beings, consists in His incredible condescension to- 
 wards these His creatures, and especially towards man. 
 Incredible, however, it may, nay, must and ought to be called, 
 
CONCURRENCE OF MAN'S WILE IN FAITH. 107 
 
 inasmuch as it transcends every notion, nay, all belief, even 
 the most confiding and childlike, and the more it is contem- 
 plated, appears the more inconceivable and amazing. Only 
 it admits of question, whether the expression be sufficiently 
 simple and appropriate, and, consequently, well-chosen ; for 
 the fact itself of this divine condescension is affirmed in every 
 line and word of revelation. And by revelation I mean, not 
 merely the written revelation, but every manifestation more 
 or less distinct of God, and His divine operations and provi- 
 dence — history, nature, and life. Now on no one point are 
 
 j the voices of all, who on such a matter can be regarded as 
 authorities, so perfectly concordant and unanimous, as on this 
 wonderful attribute of the Godhead, which, on the suppo- 
 
 I sition that the belief in one living God is universal, may be 
 
 | considered as placed beyond doubt or question. 
 
 In order to demonstrate how essential is the co-operation 
 of the will to that living intercommunion with God, which is 
 
 I something more than a mere understanding, we advance the 
 following assumptions. Supposing that in the incredible 
 
 j condescension of His love, God has made Himself known to a 
 man, just as in the first books of our Holy Scripture He is 
 
 I described as conversing with Moses, and as familiarly as one 
 friend talks to another; supposing also that He revealed to 
 him all the secret things of heaven and earth without reserve ; 
 
 I that He at the same time laid open to him His will and hidden 
 counsels, and that not summarily and in a general way, but 
 definitely and in details ; expressly making known to him His 
 gracious purposes, both in what He at present requires of him 
 and designs for him hereafter ; that He has also pointed out 
 to man the means which will enable him to accomplish His 
 will, and moreover has added the highest possible promises 
 for his encouragement ; supposing all this, is it not evident 
 
 | that it nevertheless could not help or profit man unless he 
 consented to receive it ? The whole divine communication 
 would be in vain if man obstinately continued in his old Ego- 
 ism, mixed and compounded of evil habits, fears, and sensual 
 desires, and, unable to tear himself away, still clung close to 
 the narrow limits of self and his own Me. 
 
 Now it is nothing but this intrinsic consent and concur- 
 rence in the will of God, this calm affirmation of it, that can 
 help man, who is now left to his own free determination even 
 
108 SELF-DENIAL AS BRINGING US NEAR TO GOD. 
 
 as regards the Deity, and that can lead him to God. On this 
 account I called the will, rather than the understanding, man's 
 sense for the divine. But all that is here required is the 
 internal assent, and not the power of actual performance ; for 
 that varies even according to the standard of nature, or rather 
 of that which is imparted to him from above, since of himself 
 man has no capacity for that which is higher and more excel- 
 lent, nothing being man's own but his will. Now this internal 
 assent and submission of man's own will to the divine is 
 clearly inconceivable where it has not, to a certain degree, 
 withdrawn from the sensible world which surrounds him with 
 so many ties and allurements, and where it has not loosened 
 and set itself free from the narrow domain of self to which 
 his Ego so closely clings. 
 
 Here then naturally arises the question, how far a renuncia- 
 tion of the world and self-sacrifice, on which even the Platonic 
 philosophy so greatly insisted, is necessary, if we would ad- 
 vance one degree or at least one step nearer to God, as the 
 supreme good and all-perfect Being, and what are its true and 
 proper limits ? In obedience to this idea of the renunciation 
 of the world as indispensable to communion with God, the 
 Hindoo fakir will sit for thirty years in one spot, with his 
 eyes fixed immutably in the same direction, so that he not 
 only surpasses all the limits of human nature, but also erases 
 and extinguishes all traces of it in himself. Or perhaps, in 
 spite of the simple principle and rule of sound reason, that 
 man, as he is not the author of his own being, has no right to 
 terminate it, he follows a false idea of self-sacrifice, and mounts 
 the flaming pile in order to be the sooner united to the Deity. 
 In the fundamental idea of these extravagances there is 
 doubtless a germ of beauty and of truth, though in the per- 
 verse application and gigantic scale of exaggeration that we 
 meet with it among the primeval nations of Asia, it is distorted 
 into monstrous falsehood. A simple illustration, taken from 
 the different ages of man's life, will perhaps serve to set in a 
 clear light the point on which everything turns in this matter 
 of the assent of the human to the divine will, and to deter- 
 mine the sense and the degree in which man ought not to 
 give himself up entirely to the world, or to revolve closely 
 round the centre of self, if he would yield a sincere and hearty 
 submission to a higher voice and that guiding hand which 
 
SELF-DENIAL HOW PAR NECESSARY. 109 
 
 conducts the education of the whole human race, and watches 
 
 I with equal care the development of individuals and of ages. 
 
 ! The child may and must play, for such exercise is wholesome 
 and even necessary for the free expansion of its bodily powers ; 
 but at its mother's call, for to the child hers is the higher 
 voice, it ought to leave its play. Youth, again, ought to be 
 
 ! merry and enjoy the verdant spring ; but when honour and 
 duty summon to earnest action, then must he be ready to lay 
 
 j aside all light-hearted amusement for sterner avocations ; or 
 
 I to take another view of the youthful temperament, should its 
 joyousness touch too rudely, not to say overstep, the bounds of 
 morality, then at the first hint of warning it must abandon its 
 treacherous pleasures. The full-grown man, too, having to 
 
 I make his way in the world and to fight with fortune in the hard 
 
 | struggle of life, has little leisure for idle feelings and medi- 
 tations ; only he must not renounce all higher and nobler sen- 
 timents, nor dismiss from his mind the thought of the Godhead 
 and the divine (which indeed for its mere preservation requires 
 no outward ordinance or loss of time), as belonging to the boy, 
 
 v and suitable only for the unripe years of youth. Or to regard 
 life under its passive aspect, let us think of the happy wife by 
 the side of a husband she loves, and living only in her chil- 
 dren, and possessing of worldly good as much as she wishes 
 or requires : suddenly, by one of those changes and chances 
 which prevail in this transitory life, she is bereaved of all — the 
 partner of her joys and cares, the children of her bosom, and 
 perhaps, too, of her rank and consideration, while beneath the 
 repeated strokes of affliction her very health sinks. Who 
 
 J would check her tears or blame her natural sorrow if she feels 
 and tells her woes ? No one : for holier eyes than man's look 
 upon her with compassion. One thing, however, may fairly 
 and reasonably be expected of her, — that she do not give way 
 entirely to despair, nor murmur against Providence. More, 
 therefore, than man requires of man in the ordinary relations 
 of life, God requires not of the human will ; and on that alone 
 does He make any requisition, in respect to that free assent 
 
 j and internal concurrence which alone can bind us in personal 
 union with the Godhead, and bring us near to Him ; a consum- 
 mation which no mere intellectual apprehension of all possible 
 revelations, whether writt en on the pages of inspiration, or on 
 the open tablets of nature, or engraven on the imperishable 
 annals of history, is sufficient to bring about. 
 
110 mail's faith not sufficiently childlike. 
 
 So much and nothing more is required for this essential 
 concurrence of the human will with the divine, in the general 
 relations of life. But, in the case of any special vocation and 
 profession — if, for instance, a man feels himself disposed to 
 become a minister of the revealed Word, an instrument and 
 messenger of the divine communications — then, no doubt, 
 higher and sterner requisitions must come into consideration. 
 To men of native courage, what vocation can be more uni- 
 versal than that of a soldier and defender of his country ? but 
 does not it require, besides undaunted courage and contempt 
 of death, the patient and enduring fortitude which bears up 
 under countless hardships and privations? What vocation, 
 again, can be simpler and more fully founded ^n nature, than 
 that of the softer sex to become a mother ? but how many 
 sufferings, and fears, and dangers, compass it about, and how 
 infinite are the great and little anxieties to which a mother's 
 love — that purest and truest of all earthly affections — is ex- 
 posed? And it is even herein that human love most betrays 
 its weakness ; it may suffice for some one determinate direc- 
 tion, some transitory period of life, for some single effort of 
 magnanimity or self-sacrifice, but it rarely survives the changes 
 of time and fortune, and its faith and ardour too often are 
 extinguished amid the petty trials of every-day life, and its 
 numberless cares and anxieties. 
 
 And as with the love, so also is it with the faith of men : 
 it enters not sufficiently into munutise ; it is not personal 
 enough, nor sufficiently childlike and confiding ; it is not 
 made to refer enough to ourselves. Most men, indeed, have 
 only too high an opinion of their own worth — an over- ween- 
 ing confidence in their own powers ; at least, the opposite 
 fault of extreme diffidence is a rare exception. But yet, 
 it is true, men generally take far too low an estimate of their 
 true vocation and proper destiny ; they believe not in its high 
 dignity ; and as viewed in its place among the vast universe, 
 they hold it and themselves as comparatively insignificant. 
 But this a total misconception. Every man is an individual 
 entity — an inner world of his own, full of life — a true micro- 
 cosm (as has been already said in a different sense) in the 
 eye of God and in the scheme of creation: every man has 
 a vocation of his own, and an appropriate destiny. Could 
 men's eyes be but once opened to see it, how would they be 
 
man's longing aetek, the eternal and divine. Ill 
 
 amazed at the infinity which they have neglected, and might 
 have attained to, and which generally in the world remains 
 neglected and unattained. But of the many thousands whom 
 this remark concerns, how very few ever attain to a clear 
 cognition of their real destination ! And the reason of this 
 is simply the fact, that the faith of men is all too weak, and, 
 above all, that it is too vaguely general, too superficial, too 
 little searching or profound — not sufficiently personal and 
 childlike. 
 
 A childlike faith, and a love that endureth unto the end,— 
 these are the true bonds to hold the soul of man in intimate 
 union with God. But it is in hope, such as is at present 
 found among men, that the chief defect lies ; for hope ought 
 to be strong and heroic, otherwise it is not that which the 
 name expresses. Few men, perhaps, are entirely devoid of 
 faith and love, only they are not sufficiently carried into the 
 details and trifles of life, as human wants require ; for it 
 is exactly to these that all that is divine in men's thoughts 
 and deeds ought to be directed. In hope, on the contrary, 
 the inner man must raise himself and ascend up to God : it 
 must therefore be strong and energetic, if it is to be effi- 
 cacious. On this account we might well expect it to be far 
 more rare, comparatively, than faith and love, considered 
 according to the human scale of reasoning; on the other 
 hand, probably, there are many men who, internally, are 
 almost totally destitute of hope. 
 
 The longing after the eternal and divine, which has been 
 already described, is the seeking of God ; but this calm in- 
 ward assent of the will, whenever, with a childlike faith and 
 enduring love and in steadfast hope, it is carried through and 
 maintained with unwavering fidelity throughout life, is the 
 actual finding of Him within us, and a constant adherence to 
 Him when once we have found Him. As the root and prin- 
 ciple of all that is best and noblest in man, this divine long- 
 ing cannot be too highly estimated, and nowhere is it so 
 inimitably described, and its excellence so fully acknowledged, 
 as in Holy Writ itself. A remarkable instance of it is the 
 fact that a prophet who was set apart and called by God 
 Himself to his office, and was for that purpose endued with 
 miraculous gifts, is expressly called in Holy Writ the man of 
 
112 FAITH ALONE CAN RESTORE UNITY TO THE MINI>. 
 
 longings. * And yet this longing is nothing but the source, 
 the first root, from which springs that triple flower in the 
 lovely symbol of faith, hope, and charity, which afterwards, 
 spreading over every grade and sphere of moral and intel- 
 lectual existence, expands into the richest and most manifold 
 fruits. 
 
 Now it is very possible in some serious and intellectual 
 work to feel a pleasure in this triple union of holy thoughts 
 and sentiments, as with any deeply significant picture in gene- 
 ral, without duly entering the while into its precise requisi- 
 tions and profound meaning. But from one particular end of 
 a philosophy of life, i. e., of a thorough knowledge of the 
 human consciousness, the psychological aspect of the subject 
 assumes a peculiar importance, and essentially demands our 
 attention. With this view, I venture to assert that the 
 human consciousness, whioh otherwise and in itself is entirely 
 a prey to discord, and split into irreconcilable contraries, is 
 by faith, hope, and love, redeemed from this dissension— is 
 raised from its innate law, of an erring and dead thought, and 
 of an absolute will, which is no less dead and null, being 
 restored gradually to a perfect state of unison and harmony. 
 Under the influence of faith — and by this term I understand, 
 not the cold and heartless repetition of a customary formulary, 
 but a living and personal faith in a living and personal God 
 and Saviour, — under the influence of such a faith, the living 
 spirit of truth steps into that place of the consciousness 
 which before was usurped by the mere abstract thinking of a 
 degraded understanding. And whenever, on the other hand, 
 a refined goodness and love have in patient endurance become 
 the soul of existence, there is no room for the stormy ob- 
 stinacy or passionate wildness of an absolute will. Even 
 in the will itself all is now life ; discord is banished from it, 
 and all the threatening elements of strife are for ever ap- 
 peased. And in that trusting confidence with which the 
 loving soul leans upon God — in the strong god-like hope 
 which takes its stand upon the Eternal, the reason, with its 
 ordering, regulating, and methodical processes, and the fancy, 
 
 * Daniel ix. 23. In our authorised translation it stands " greatly 
 beloved, " but in the Hebrew it is as given in the margin, " a man of de- 
 sires in the Septuagint, dvrjp eVrttfu/AtW. — Trans. 
 
HOPE THE VITAL FLAME OP FAITH A. NT) LOVE. 113 
 
 with its dreams of the infinite, are again completely recon- 
 ciled, and thereby the harmony of the hnman consciousness 
 restored. Fancy, I remarked formerly, is the characteristic 
 property of man, as distinguished by it from other spiritual 
 intelligences ; for reason, as a mere faculty of negation, affords 
 only a negative distinction of his nature as compared with 
 irrational creatures. But now, in a more comprehensive 
 view, and, at the same time, with profounder significance 
 and greater truth of description, we may say of man, in the 
 same sense and in the same relation, hope forms his charac- 
 teristic property and his inmost essence. 
 
 Here, then, in this holy hope, is longing, that marvellous 
 flower of the soul, expanded into its perfect and noblest fruit. 
 If, in judging of the three, man looks to the end to which he 
 is to attain, — if, in thought, he places himself at this point 
 of view, then assuredly will love appear the highest and the 
 best ; for hope ceases when fulfilment comes in, and sight 
 enters into the place of faith, but love abideth for ever.* 
 As long, however, as man has not yet attained unto that 
 which is perfect, and is still in pursuit of it, hope must be 
 regarded as the greatest, for it is even the true vital flame of 
 faith, as well as of love, and of all higher existence. 
 
 This divine hope is even the fruit-bearing principle and the 
 fructification of the immortal soul by the Holy Spirit of 
 Eternal Truth — the luminous centre and focus of grace, where 
 the dark and discordant soul is illuminated and restored to 
 unison with itself and with God. 
 
 * 1 Cor. xiii. 13. 
 
 END OF LECTURE V* 
 
114 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 OF THE WISDOM (JF THE DIVINE ORDER OF THINGS IN 
 NATURE, AND OF THE RELATION OF NATURE TO THE 
 OTHER LIFE AND TO THE INVISIBLE WORLD. 
 
 The highest and loftiest language would fail us were it our 
 purpose to speak of the inmost essence of the Godhead, since 
 He is that which no thought or conception can comprehend, and 
 which no words are sufficient completely to describe or ade- 
 quately to express. On the other hand, when we reflect on 
 God's work in creation, and of His superintending providence 
 which rules the course of this earthly world, our thoughts 
 cannot be simple enough nor, to judge by that principle of the 
 divine condescension which formed the nucleus of our remarks 
 in the last Lecture, too familiar or affectionate. In a general 
 way this is commonly enough admitted, but practically it is 
 neglected. Men do not clearly present to their minds all that 
 is involved in it, and the remote consequences to which it 
 leads. And so, in spite of their better convictions, they insen- 
 sibly adopt a high-sounding and solemn strain, when the tone 
 of a childlike reverence is alone the suitable and appropriate 
 style for expressing the relation between the benignant Crea- 
 tor and His creatures, and man especially, as simply and as 
 naturally as it is in reality. 
 
 I said as naturally, because it is implied in the very nature 
 of things that if God did originally create free beings like 
 men, He would give them all things needful, keep them con- 
 stantly in His regard, and everywhere lend them a helping and 
 directing hand. But from time to time He might, it is not 
 inconsistent to suppose, withdraw as it were His guidance ; for 
 otherwise they would cease to be free beings. In this respect 
 the divine Providence may be likened to a mother teaching her 
 child to walk. Having chosen a clear spot, free from all 
 things likely to hurt the infant in its fall, she places it firmly 
 on its feet. For a little while she holds and supports it, and 
 
NATURE A LIVING REPRODUCTIVE POWER. 115 
 
 then going back a few steps, she waits for its love to sets its 
 little limbs in motion and to follow her. But how watchful is 
 her eye, how outstretched her arms to catch her babe the in- 
 stant it begins to totter ! Such nearly, and equally simple, is 
 the relation of God to man ; and not to individuals only, but 
 also to the whole human race. For in the divine education and 
 higher guidance of mankind we may trace the same degrees 
 and natural gradation of developments as form the basis of 
 the education of individuals, and may also be observed in all 
 the processes of nature. 
 
 Now we take it for granted that God has willed the creation 
 not only of free and pure spirits, but also of the natural world ; 
 for that He has so willed is a fact that as it were stares us in 
 the face. If, then, along with the free spirits He has also created 
 a nature, i. e., a living reproductive power capable of and de- 
 signed to develope and propagate itself, it is plain that we can- 
 not and ought not to think of such a nature as independent 
 and self- subsisting. For first of all it had not its beginning in 
 itself. Moreover, it would move as a blind force, and as such 
 manifest itself only in destruction and desolation, if its Maker 
 had not originally fixed and assigned to it the end towards 
 which all its efforts were ultimately to be directed. Nature 
 indeed is not free like man ; but still it is not a piece of dead 
 clock- worK, which, when it is once wound up, works on me- 
 chanically till it has run itself down again. There is life in it. 
 And if a few abstract but superficial thinkers -have failed to 
 discern or even ventured expressly to deny this truth, the 
 general feeling of mankind on the other hand bears witness to 
 it. Yes, man feels that there is life rustling in the tree, as with 
 its man) arms and branches, its leaves and flowers, it moves 
 backwards and forwards in the free air ; and that as compared 
 with the clock, with all its ingenious but dead mechanism, it is 
 even a living thing. And what the common feeling of man- 
 kind thus instinctively assumes is confirmed by the profounder 
 investigations of physical science. Thus we know that even 
 plants sleep, and that they too, as much as animals, though 
 after a different sort, have a true impregnation and propaga- 
 tion. And is not nature on the whole a life-tree as it were, 
 whose leaves and flowers are perpetually expanding themselves 
 and seeking nourishment from the balsamic air of heaven, 
 while, as the ^ap rises from the deep-hidden root into the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 GOD THE ALTHOJR A.ND PRESERVER OP NATURE S LAWS. 
 
 mighty stem, the branches stir and move, and invisible forces 
 sweep to and fro in its waving crown. Most shadow and super- 
 ficial in truth is that physical science which would consider the 
 system of nature, with all the marvels of beauty and majesty 
 wherewith its Maker has adorned it, as nothing more than a 
 piece of lifeless clock-work. In such a system the almighty 
 Creator must appear at best but a great mechanical artist who 
 has at his command infinite resources ; or, if we may be allowed 
 so absurd an expression, as the fittest to expose the absurdity of 
 those who would regard the divine work both in its whole and 
 in its parts as dead, an omnipotent clock-maker. If, however, 
 to meet the needs of men's limited capacity, we must, when 
 speaking of the Creator, employ such trifling and childish 
 similes, then of all human avocations and pursuits that of the 
 gardener will serve best to illustrate the divine operations in 
 nature. Almighty and omniscient, however, He has Himself 
 created the trees and flowers that He cultivates, has Himself 
 made the good soil in which they grow, and brings down from 
 heaven the balmy spring, the dews and rain, and the sunshine 
 that quicken and mature them into life and beauty. 
 
 If, then, there be life in nature, as indeed observation 
 teaches, and the general feeling of man avouches, it must 
 also possess a vital development, which in its movements ob- 
 serves an uniform course and intrinsic law. In truth the 
 Creator has not reserved to Himself the beginning and the 
 end alone, and left the rest to follow its own course ; but in 
 the middle, and at every point also, of its progress, the 
 Omnipotent Will can intervene at pleasure. If He pleases 
 He can instantaneously stop this vital development, and sud- 
 denly make the course of nature stand still ; or, in a moment, 
 give life and movement to what before stood motionless and 
 inanimate. Generally speaking, it is in the divine power to 
 suspend the laws of nature, to interfere directly with them,, 
 and, as it were, to intercalate among them some higher and 
 immediate operation of His power, as an exception to their 
 uniform development. For as in the social frame of civil life, 
 the author and giver of the laws may occasionally set them 
 aside, or, in their administration, allow certain special cases 
 of exception, even so is it, also, with nature's Lawgiver. 
 
 Now, this immediate operation, and occasional interference 
 of Suoreme Power ** r ith the order of nature, is exactly what 
 
MIRACLES TILE DELUGE. 
 
 117 
 
 constitutes the idea of miracle. The general possibility of 
 miracles is a principle which man's sound and unsophisticated 
 reason has never allowed him to deny. But, on the other 
 hand, it is evidently essential to their very idea that they 
 should be thought of simply as deviations from the usual 
 course of nature's operations ; if they were not exceptions 
 to the laws of nature, then were they no miracles. Such 
 miraculous exceptions, however, it may be observed, need not 
 invariably to be contrary to the course of nature, though above 
 nature, and far transcending its ordinary standard, they always 
 are. Exceptions, therefore, they are ; but such, at the same 
 time, as do not permanently disturb the natural course and 
 flow of the vital development, which, on the whole, continues 
 unchanged. For it is only agreeable with Creative wisdom to 
 maintain the world so long as the present state of things sub- 
 sists, and the final consummation has not yet arrived, in the 
 order originally prescribed to it by His omnipotence. 
 
 To this an objection might be made in the opposite sense. 
 Taken then in their principle, the laws of nature, no less than, 
 those exceptions to them which are usually called miracles, 
 are one and the same ; they are alike from the Creator of all 
 — and the laws themselves, therefore, are equally miraculous, 
 This remark is quite true ; but it only teaches us that we ought 
 not to be too ready to see a miracle in every extraordinary 
 event. But still, there will ever remain an essential difference 
 between an immediate operation of omnipotence and the Crea- 
 tor's original production of a living force, implanting in this 
 creature an inner law, and thereupon leaving to it the furth v 
 evolution of its powers in the course marked out for and 
 assigned to it. 
 
 Now, if such a creature, like this terrestrial nature, be of a 
 mixed constitution, composed of a principle of destruction as 
 well as of a principle of productive development and pro- 
 gression, — if its life be a constant struggle with death, then 
 it is manifest that only by the same hand which first formed 
 it, gave it laws and prescribed its order, can its wise and 
 divine economy be preserved, and the permanence of the 
 organic evolution of its whole system be secured, and the 
 outbursts of elementary dissolution, which are perpetually 
 menacing it. held in check and averted. If this restraint be 
 once relaxed, if the destructive energy of the wild element ; 
 
118 NATURE NO BLIND NECESSARY EORCE. 
 
 be once let loose, and free scope given to their fury — and this 
 globe presents the manifest traces of one such catastrophe at 
 least — then this too must be regarded as an exception, and 
 is only explicable by the higher principle of divine per- 
 mission. Viewed, however, as the retribution of divine jus- 
 tice on a guilty world, it forms an exception and a miracle of 
 a peculiar kind, and must be distinguished from those other 
 extraordinary operations properly called miracles, wherein, 
 with some saving or quickening purpose, the Almighty, as it 
 were, raises nature above herself, and takes her out of her 
 usual course. 
 
 In this way then we ought unquestionably to refer every- 
 thing in the world to its author and preserver, whether it be 
 conformable to the usual course and order of nature, or, as an 
 extraordinary phenomenon, bespeak a higher and more imme- 
 diate operation of divinity. But, at the same time, we must 
 never forget that nature itself is a living force endowed with 
 a capacity of self-development. Nature, indeed, is not free 
 in the same sense that man is, possessed and conscious of a 
 power of self-determination and choice ; but as all life contains 
 in itself the germ of a free movement and expansion, and while 
 it expands itself a hidden and slumbering consciousness begins 
 to stir and awake, so also in nature, an initiatory or preparatory 
 grade of it, if not fully out- spoken, is at least indicated. In 
 this respect it may be regarded as the vestibule of that tem- 
 ple of freedom which in man, the crowning work of this 
 earthly creation, and made after the divine image and like- 
 ness, stands forth in its full dimensions and proportions. 
 Considered from another point of view, the sensible world 
 may be looked upon as a veil thrown over the spiritual world 
 — the light-flowing and almost transparent robe, and, as it 
 were, in all its parts the significant costume of the invisible 
 powers. But in no point of view can we rightly consider 
 nature as properly self- subsisting or independent of its Crea- 
 tor, and therefore in no case as isolated by itself and apart 
 from all reference to a superior being. Bather is it a living 
 force, and one, too, doubly significant, both from within and 
 from without ; to which property an allusion is contained in 
 the simile already employed, of a book written both on the 
 inside and the outside. These two ideas, then, of the free will 
 of man and of the living development of nature, must be taken 
 
THEODICEE ITS PEKPLEXITIES. 
 
 119 
 
 as the basis, and serve as the fixed point of every attempt to 
 ascertain the divine order in nature. On this account we have 
 placed them in the foreground of the present Lecture, which 
 will, in the main, be consecrated to such an investigation. 
 
 If, now, this demonstration of a divine order in nature seem 
 to contain nothing less than a kind of Theodicee^ (so far as 
 man can establish a justification of God s ways), I, for my 
 part, must confess that I would much rather have before my 
 eyes a Theodicee for the feelings, conceived in the very spirit 
 of love, than any purely rational theory. For such theories, 
 founded in general on far-fetched hypotheses, subtilly introduce 
 into nature numberless divine purposes and designs, of which, 
 however, we are able neither clearly to understand, much less 
 to prove that they were intended by the everlasting counsels, 
 or even that such vestiges of a divine purpose are really dis- 
 cernible in the universe. In this province of speculation we 
 must not be too rigorous in our determinations, and especially 
 we must guard against systematising. But, above all, we can- 
 not be too watchful against the fault which so many reasoners 
 fall into, of transferring into the realm of nature, or of God, that 
 logical necessary connexion which is a part of and connatural 
 with our rational constitution, and an indispensable aid to our 
 limited intellectual powers. Such a way of thinking would 
 inevitably lead us to that most mistaken notion of a blind 
 fate — the phantom of destiny. 
 
 On the other hand, how many are the questioning feelings 
 and perplexities which arise in the human heart at the sight 
 of certain natural objects. And these even, because they are 
 far from amounting to doubts and objections, or at least 
 from assuming a definite expression or a scientific dignity, 
 seem, on that account, only the more loudly to demand an 
 
 * Theodicee, or justification of the ways of God in the world. The 
 word originated with Leibnitz, who, in his " Essai de Theodicee sur la 
 bonte de Dieu, la liberte de Thomme et l'origine du mal," published in 
 1710, maintained that the existence of moral evil has its origin in the free 
 will of the creature, while metaphysical evil is nothing but the limitation 
 which is involved in the essence of finite beings, and that out of this both 
 physical and moral evil naturally flow. But these finite beings are designed 
 to attain to the utmost felicity they are capable of enjoying, which each, as 
 a part, contributes to the perfection of the whole, which of the many worlds 
 that were possible, is the very best. On this account it has been called the 
 theory of Optimism. — Tram. 
 
120 
 
 THE SOUL OF ANIMALS. 
 
 answer. The mournful cry of some helpless and innocent 
 animal when killed by man — or in a different category — the 
 hissing of the venomous serpent; the loathsome mass of 
 maggots in the putrid corpse : all these are but so many 
 dumb exclamations which, as it were, do but keep back the 
 question : Are, then, these the productions of the all-perfect 
 being — of the supreme intelligence ? 
 
 The sufferings of animals are indeed a theme for man to 
 reflect upon ; and I, for my part, cannot concur with him who 
 would regard this as a topic unworthy of his thoughts, and 
 expel from the human bosom all sympathy with the animal 
 creation. The consideration, however, of this subject, natu- 
 rally enough gives rise to the question as to the soul of 
 animals. Now, it certainly would do no discredit to phi- 
 losophy, if it should succeed in giving a satisfactory answer 
 to this question, and enable us to follow a middle course ; 
 as remote from the exaggerated assumptions of ancient 
 nations with regard to animal existence, on the one hand, as 
 on the other, from the unfeeling conclusions of modern science, 
 which refuses to regard or to sympathise with any pains, 
 and absolutely is unable to conceive the sufferings of any 
 being which does not possess the character of rationality 
 exactly in the same manner and degree as man. As greatly 
 on the other side does the Hindoo theology err. Its dogma 
 of the metempsychosis not only ascribes an immortal soul to 
 animals, but it also further teaches that human souls are 
 imprisoned in animal bodies, as the penalty of a guilt incurred 
 in a previous state of existence. Beautiful, however, as is the 
 compassionate sympathy with the sufferings of the brute 
 creation, which this theory has occasioned, and confirmed by 
 the sanction of a religious duty, still the assumption on 
 which it is founded is wholly arbitrary, and the extension of 
 the immortality of the soul to these creatures of our globe, is 
 an unwarrantable exaggeration, and has no foundation in 
 observed phenomena. Moreover, the hypothesis of such a 
 migratory state of departed souls is inconsistent with every 
 notion of the divine government of the world ; inasmuch as 
 such a temporary punishment can produce no salutary effect, 
 either of purification or of preparation, and consequently 
 would be wholly motiveless and absurd. 
 
 Very questionable moreover does it seem, whether, with 
 
CREATURES OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 121 
 
 propriety, an individual soul can be attributed to animals. 
 With those that are most closely domesticated with man, 
 there does undoubtedly arise, as it were, by a sort of mental 
 contagion, the appearance of individuality and difference of 
 character, just as the artistic structures of certain species 
 form a kind of analogy to human reason, and as the melo 
 dious intonations and feelings of some others seemed to me 
 entitled, in a similar sense, to be termed reverberations of 
 fancy. In all those kinds, however, w T hich remain undis- 
 turbed in their natural state, the whole species possesses the 
 same character, and have, consequently, the same common 
 soul.*' The species itself is only an individual ; and conse- 
 quently, the several species must be considered as so many 
 living forms of the general organic force of animated nature, 
 since an immortality of individual souls can, in the case of 
 animals, neither be assumed nor allowed to be assumable. 
 
 Among those perplexities, or, as I termed them, questioning 
 feelings about nature and its animating principle, I turn now 
 to the consideration of the last instance, that of the maggots 
 of putrefaction. Is not this one of the clearest possible 
 proofs that all nature is animated ?f So much so, and so 
 
 * Does not this appearance of a common character among brutes of 
 j the same species, arise rather from the imperfection of our observation ? 
 not every sheep an individual to the shephe.a ? — Trans. 
 f Schlegel appears to have believed in the theory of equivocal generation, 
 i But microscopic research and experiments forbid us any longer to believe 
 that fermentative or putrefactive matter spontaneously gives birth to living 
 creatures. Such matters do but furnish the necessary circumstances for 
 hatching the germs or ova which are present in such immense numbers 
 in the atmosphere. The doctrine of equivocal or spontaneous generation 
 seems conclusively refuted by the experiment of Schulze, detailed in v 
 lume 23 of Jameson's Journal. " I tilled a glass flask half- full with dis 
 tilled water, in which 1 had mixed various vegetable and animal substances. 
 I then closed it with a good cork, through which I passed two glass tubes, 
 bent at right angles, the whole being air-tight. It was next placed in a 
 sand-bath and heated until the water boiled violently, and thus all parts 
 had reached a temperature of 212° Fahrenheit. While the watery vapour 
 was escaping by the glass tubes, I fastened at each end an apparatus 
 which chemists employ for collecting carbonic acid ; that to the left was 
 filled with sulphuric acid, and the other with a solution of potash. By 
 means of the boiling heat, everything living and all the germs in the 
 flask or in the tubes were destroyed, and all access was cut off by the 
 sulphuric acid on the one side, and by the potash on the other. I placed 
 this easily moved apparatus before my window, where it was exposed to thti 
 
122 
 
 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 
 
 eminently is this the case, that even in death and corruption, 
 in foulness and disease, it still livingly operates and produces 
 life — the lowest grade, undoubtedly, of life — or, if any so 
 prefers to call it, a false life — but still a life. Now, can such 
 morbid productions of nature, the worms, e. g., (entozoa), 
 which in certain diseases are engendered in the bowels, be re- 
 garded as real creatures ? Nought are they but the dissolving 
 and crumbling matter of life, which even in dissolution is still 
 living.'* And this fact is not confined merely to organic 
 corruption and disease. Even the element — the fresh water 
 from the spring — is full of life, and it is the more so the clearer 
 and the better it is and the purer from the microscopic animal- 
 culse, which swarm in it more and more the longer it stagnates 
 and becomes foul, until, at last, as frequently happens when it 
 
 action of light, and also, as I performed my experiments in the summer, to 
 that of heat. At the same time I placed near it an open vessel with the 
 same substances that had been introduced into the flask, and also after 
 having subjected them to a boiling temperature. In order now to 
 renew the air constantly within the flask, I sucked with my mouth, several 
 times a day, the open end of the apparatus filled with solution of 
 potash ; by which process, the air entered my mouth from the flask, 
 through the caustic liquid, and the atmospheric air from without entered 
 the flask through the sulphuric acid. The air was of course not altered 
 in its composition by passing through the sulphuric acid into the flask ; 
 but if sufficient time was allowed for the passage, all the portions of 
 living matter, or of matter capable of becoming animated, were taken up by 
 the sulphuric acid and destroyed. From the 28th of May until the 
 early part of August, I continued uninterruptedly the renewal of the 
 air in the flask, without being able, by the aid of a microscope, to perceive 
 any living animal or vegetable substance, although, during the whole of 
 the time, I made my observations almost daily on the edge of the liquid ; 
 and when at last I separated the different parts of the apparatus, I could 
 not find in the whole liquid, the slightest trace of Infusoria, Conferva?, or 
 of Mould. But all the three presented themselves in a few days after I left 
 the flask open. And the open vessel too, which I placed near the appa- 
 ratus, contained on the following day, Vibriones and Monades, to which 
 were soon added larger Polygastric Infusoria, and afterwards, Rotatoria." 
 — Trans. 
 
 * Although, in the case of the entozoa, the induction is not very large, 
 still, of some of them it is an established fact that they are generated 
 from ova, and it is therefore a fair presumption that such is the general 
 law, and that these parasitical beings are, in every case, hatched from 
 ova, which are everywhere present, but remain undeveloped until they 
 meet with the necessary nutriment and heat for their development. — 
 Trans. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE EVIL SPIRITS ON NATURE. 123 
 
 has been kept long on shipboard, with the growing foulness of 
 the water they increase in size, and swim about as worms of 
 visible magnitude. Many other instances might be adduced 
 in proof of this origination of worms and vermin out of 
 corruption, and testifying to it as a general principle of 
 nature. And are not those swarms of locusts which in 
 Asiatic countries are a general plague of the lands over 
 which they sweep with their thick and dark migratory hordes, 
 a sickly proof that the atmosphere, that has engendered them, 
 is passing, or has already fallen into corruption beneath the 
 influence of some other contagious element ? 
 
 That the air and atmosphere of our globe is in the highest 
 degree full of life, I may, I think, take here for granted and 
 generally admitted. It is, however, of a mixed kind and 
 quality, combining the refreshing and balsamic breath of 
 spring with the parching simoons of the desert, and where 
 the healthy odours fluctuate in chaotic struggle with the 
 most deadly vapours. What else, in general, is the wide 
 spread and spreading pestilence, but a living propagation of 
 foulness, corruption, and death? Are not many poisons, 
 especially animal poisons, in a true sense, living forces ? 
 
 Now, may we not give a further extension to this mode 
 of view, and apply the fact of a diseased propagation of 
 a false life, as in the worms of putrefaction, to other unsightly 
 productions of nature. May we not, for instance, consider 
 serpents and snakes as the entozoa or intestinal worms 01 
 the earth ? That the evil spirits are not without some influ- 
 ence on our terrestrial habitation, and that in many places 
 their malignant influence is distinctly traceable is, at all 
 events, undeniable. And accordingly, some have supposed 
 the monkey tribe not to be an original creation of the Deity, 
 but a satanic device and malicious parody upon man, as the 
 envied favourite of God. That the " Prince of this world'' — 
 which expression, in its latter half, is surely not to be under- 
 stood exclusively of man's fallen race, but very evidently 
 and expressively alludes to the existing fabric of nature and 
 the corrupted world of sense — that the Prince of this world 
 can exercise a certain degree of pernicious influence on the 
 productive energies of the natural system in its present 
 corrupt and vitiated condition, and that also, there is in nature 
 itself a power to produce evil, are facts which do not admit 
 
124 
 
 DOCTHINE OF FINAL CAUSE* 
 
 of denial, and are noways inconsistent with revelation. Only 
 we must not suppose that this baneful influence is not con- 
 fined within certain limits. He to whom the Prince of this 
 world, no less than the world itself, is subject, has, in His 
 infinite wisdom, set a definite limit both of quantity and 
 duration to this pernicious influence, as in general He does to 
 every permission of evil. 
 
 At all events we must not for one moment suppose that in the 
 book of nature we have a pure and uncorrupt text of God, and 
 such as it originally came from the hands of its Author. It is 
 of the highest consequence, for a due and right appreciation of 
 the divine economy in nature, that we give full consideration to 
 this fact. On this account it is important to keep in mind the 
 distinction implied in that expression already quoted from the 
 Mosaic history, — 46 Let the earth bring forth." For according 
 to this it does not seem indispensably necessary to ascribe imme- 
 diately to the good and wise Creator everything that the earth 
 brought forth ; no, nor everything that is produced by a nature 
 now so imperfect — so diseased, too, in many parts — and visibly 
 constrained to submit to hostile and foreign influences. 
 
 Many writers who, with the best intentions, undertake the 
 task of indicating the divine wisdom in the existing order of 
 things, and of defending the ways of Providence against the 
 objections of human presumption and conceit, generally err 
 by taking too narrow a view of their subject, and rigorously 
 insisting on some one general principle, which, by means of 
 very hazardous assertions, they succeed in finding in the whole 
 and every part of the system of the universe. They leave out 
 of sight altogether that Mosaic distinction already alluded to, 
 which in appearance indeed is trifling enough, but yet in 
 reality most essentially important. Consequently, the good 
 work which they take in hand, instead of producing that 
 general concurrence and conviction that it otherwise might, 
 gives rise rather to fresh doubts and objections. The best 
 solution of all such doubts — the most satisfactory answer to 
 all such or similar questions or questioning feelings — lies in 
 the final cause of the present constitution of things, considered 
 as a whole and in general, and judged of from a regard to its 
 triple character and triple destination. Now, according to this 
 triple principle, we have, as already shown, to regard the pre- 
 sent system of nature as being primarily a tomb- stone raised 
 
THE PRE AD AMITE WORLD A PARADISE EOS, ANGELS. 125 
 
 by Almighty benevolence — a bridge of safety thrown across 
 the gulf of eternal death — a bridge, however, which we must 
 not think of as quite so simple, broad, and straight as a 
 bridge made by human hands, but an animated and ensouled 
 bridge of life, and multiform, with many arms and branches, and 
 presenting in some parts nothing more than a narrow footing, 
 where the first false step precipitates into the abyss beneath. 
 But secondarily, according to this view, nature is grounded 
 on and devoted to progress ; — a wonderful laboratory of mani- 
 fold, diversified, and universal reproduction; and lastly, a 
 glorious scale of resurrection, ascending up to the last and 
 highest summit of terrestrial transfiguration. Now this labo- 
 ratory lies in the hidden womb of nature, while in the noble 
 outward structure of its organic formations this gradational 
 scale manifests itself with a warning, a prognostication of the 
 height of excellence to which it eventually leads. But now, 
 if nature — as, judging from its original design, we may and 
 must assume — were a Paradise for the blessed spirits of the 
 previous creation, for the first-born sons of light, then most as- 
 suredly has it not continued so, any more than the first man 
 has remained in the; garden of Eden. No doubt, over a few 
 favoured spots of the existing globe, a rich fulness of ravishing 
 beauty still hovers, awakening in the heart, as it were, the 
 fleeting images of Paradisaical innocence — dying strains of a 
 primal harmony — mournful reminiscences of the happy infancy 
 of creation. For the powers of darkness and hostile spirits 
 broke in upon the fair beauty of primeval nature, and laid it 
 waste and wild. The garden of the earth in which the first 
 man was placed, " to dress it and to keep it," is no doubt 
 called Paradise ; and assuredly it was infinitely more beautiful, 
 more wonderful, purer, and fuller of life, than the loveliest 
 scenery which meets the eye in the fairest spots of the earth, 
 and seems to be of an almost celestial beauty. But this is said 
 only of the immediate enclosure, the immediate habitation of 
 >ur first parent ; the spot chosen and blessed by God — the 
 garden watered and surrounded by the four streams. All the 
 rest of nature, the whole of the world beside, must have ceased 
 at that time to be a Paradise ; for, otherwise, whence could the 
 serpent have come? So that even according to the simple 
 sense of the expression, " that old serpent," he was already 
 there, in the midst of the natural world. And was it not 
 
126 
 
 MYSTEKiES IN NATURE. 
 
 probably a part of the destination of man — at least, in its 
 natural .aspect — that, setting out from this divine starting- 
 point of a Paradise prepared for and given to him, he was to 
 go forth and convert the rest of the world into a similar Eden ? 
 
 But this destination he did not, however, fulfil, and conse- 
 quently lost even this beginning and model of the first Para- 
 dise. The names of the four streams which watered it arc- 
 indeed still preserved in those regions of Asia, which even tc 
 this day are the richest and most fruitful, and, according to 
 history, were the earliest inhabited. But the one source out 
 of which they all took their rise has disappeared, and no ves- 
 tige of it remains. With the loss of Paradise all is changed, 
 not only in man himself, but in the earth as his place of 
 abode. 
 
 The way of return out of this bewildered nature, or, if men 
 prefer so to speak, out of this sunk and degraded, not to say 
 unsound and sickly, state of the earthly and sensible world 
 (and this way of return is even the way of obedience to the 
 course of the divine order in nature), is indicated even by 
 these three grades of its inmost character, its tendency and 
 ultimate destination. And in these, and in the final cause of 
 the whole constitution of things, is contained its true key and 
 interpretation, as well as the answer to so many questions 
 about nature which engage not merely the curious intellect of 
 man, but also attract the sympathies of his soul, sweeping 
 across it either with dark doubts and fears or with bright inti- 
 mations of life and glorious anticipation. 
 
 I spoke deliberately when I said to many of these question- 
 ing feelings and perplexities of the human mind, and not all 
 of them. For to expect a satisfactory answer to them all in the 
 present state of science, or generally in this terrestrial life, 
 brief as it is, and limited on all sides and short-sighted, would 
 be agreeable neither with the course nor whole constitution 
 of human affairs. A thoroughly complete and perfectly sys- 
 tematic demonstration of the wisdom in the divine order of 
 nature, which should meet and explain every difficulty, would, 
 even on account of such a pretension, command little respect 
 and be of slight influence. Much is there in nature which is 
 to remain long hidden from man ; much too which we shall 
 see first of all in the other world, when death shall have opened 
 our eyes and made us clear-sighted in one direction or another. 
 
FINAL CAUSE OF CREATION INTELLIGIBLE. 127 
 
 But the beginning and the end are even here and now placed 
 clearly and intelligibly before us, if only we are ready and 
 willing to walk by the light that is so graciously given us, and 
 here as elsewhere invariably to refer the first cause and the 
 final consummation to the Creator and to God. Without such a 
 reference, without thus as it were placing its two poles in God, 
 the right understanding of nature is absolutely impossible, and 
 every scientific attempt to attain it apart from and indepen- 
 dently of God, must simply as such prove vain and involve 
 itself in absurdities. Hence it is, however paradoxical it may 
 sound, that we can recognise more distinctly and better under- 
 stand the end of nature, its meaning and significance as a 
 whole, than we can the final cause of many a single object in 
 it, which, however, as contrasted with the whole, appears in- 
 considerable and trifling. For the clear perception that we 
 have of the final cause of nature comes immediately from the 
 divine illumination, which therefore we can, so far as it is 
 given to us, see and understand. But in the darker levels, in 
 the subterranean shaft of the obscure sensible world, the pro- 
 phetic candle of an antlike burrowing science, even though it 
 be originally kindled at that higher light, cannot reach to 
 every quarter, cannot illuminate every object in this mine of 
 darkness. 
 
 But this final cause of creation, such as it is given to us 
 clearly and intelligibly, will be rendered most clear by a com- 
 parison and contrast with the conceptions of the end of nature 
 which human reason has put forth. If the proposition already 
 quoted from one of the latest of German philosophers, that 
 the essence of mind consists in the negation of the opposite, 
 be now applied (which was the application I then had in my 
 mind) to the Creator of the world and uncreated Intelligence, 
 then the following must be the meaning involved in it. 
 That which is the opposite of God or the Creator is nothing ; 
 and so far the proposition is quite true, since man cannot but 
 admit that the Almighty has created the world out of nothing, 
 For if, with some of the ancient philosophers, we were to 
 suppose a matter existing from all eternity, out of which God 
 did not so much create as form the world, then in this case 
 we should have two Gods, and both imperfect and finite, in- 
 stead of the one all-perfect and self-sufficient Being. But if, 
 on the other hand, the Deity be regarded as merely a not- 
 
128 
 
 man's freedom. 
 
 nothing ; if the final rause of creation be simply the negation 
 of nought, then would such a view ascribe a sort of imaginary 
 reality to the nothing, and it would seem that the world was 
 created solely in order to get rid of the nothing, which comes 
 pretty much to the same as saying — if we may allow ourselves 
 so Lessing-like a boldness of expression — the Infinite made 
 the world out of ennui. Thus, in every case do the sceptical 
 views and empty negations of idealism lead to a contradictory 
 nothing. 
 
 But, in reality and truth, it was out of love that God made 
 the worlds ; and indeed out of a superabundant love. This we 
 may well venture to assert, and even to call it a fact ; and 
 that the divine love is also the final cause, as well as the be- 
 ginning of creation. A superabundance of love in God we 
 must, however, call the final cause ground of creation, inas- 
 much as He stood in no need of it ; no need of the love of the 
 creature, nor absolutely of the world itself, or created things. 
 For in His inmost essence, where one depth of eternal love 
 responds fully and eternally to the other, He was perfectly 
 sufficient for himself. And yet it is even so : there is in God 
 this superabundance of love, for He has created the worlds, 
 and it is the divine will to be loved by His creatures. For 
 this end and purpose has He created them ; and because He 
 would have their love, He has created them free, and given 
 both to the pure spirits and to men a free will. The whole 
 secret in the relation subsisting between the creature, and man 
 especially, and the Creator, lies even in this great fact, that He 
 has created them out of love, and requires in return the ser- 
 vice of their love. There is perhaps something awful in this 
 requisition, and in the relation thus found to subsist between 
 a weak and imperfect creature and the infinite and omnipotent 
 Being. But it is even so : we are really free, and are really 
 required by God to give him our love. But now a finite and 
 created being can only be free so far as God leaves him free : 
 and this is only conceivable in the light I have already set it 
 in by the simile of a fond mother teaching her babe to walk, 
 and in order to tempt it to make the first essay with its little 
 limbs, stepping back from it a few steps and leaving it a 
 moment to itself. No creature could be free did not God in 
 a similar way leave it to itself, and, after the first impulse of 
 creation, withhold from it His controlling energy. But if He 
 
THE DIVINE NATURE NOT SUBJECT TO NECESSITY. 129 
 
 did not do so — were He, on the contrary, to act upon His 
 creatures without reserve and with the whole infinite extent 
 of His might — then the liberty of the latter, overwhelmed in 
 His omnipotence, must be destroyed, as being only possible 
 through the spontaneous limitation of the divine power, which 
 results from the superabundance of creative love. 
 
 Now we can, it is true, distinguish in the essence or energy 
 I of God, between His intelligence and His will — His omni- 
 | science and His omnipotence ; but they cannot be absolutely 
 I separated from and opposed to each other, for in Him and in 
 ! His operations, they, as indeed all else in Him, are one. 
 | It would therefore be nothing but a foolish and unmeaning 
 subtilty to demand, " Why, then, has the Omniscient created 
 rational beings, of whom he must assuredly have known 
 beforehand that they would fall and perish ? " For it is but 
 a logical illusion, when we transfer from the human to the 
 divine mind a form of thought fluctuating between the con- 
 ceivably possible and the apparently necessary. Man's free- 
 dom undoubtedly consists in the choice between one pos- 
 sibility and another, or in that indefinite possibility which 
 subsists half-way between one necessity and another. But 
 God's freedom is not as man's : in Him there is neither con- 
 tingent possibility nor unconditional necessity. All in Him is 
 truly actual, living, and positive. His freedom lies even in 
 the superabundance of His essence — the fact, viz., that He is 
 not bound by any law of necessity to remain contented with 
 this His own internal fulness. For otherwise he were a Fate 
 rather than a free God, and to that conclusion the doctrine of 
 the Stoics consistently enough arrived at last. Extremely 
 difficult must it ever be, in such a system and with such a 
 conception of an intrinsically necessary God, and one bound 
 by this necessity, consistently to account for the creation of 
 the world, which, in appearance, is so irreconcilable with the 
 idea of the self-sufficiency of the divine Being. On this 
 account some of the similarly rationalising systems of ancient 
 times had recourse to the ingenious device of ascribing the 
 work of creation to a spiritual being of an inferior order, and 
 degrading this secondary deity far below the infinite perfections 
 of the supreme and all-sufficient God. But by this expedient 
 men did but fall, as is, alas ! but too commonly the case, from 
 one error into another still greater and even more monstrous. 
 
130 MORAL EVIL A RESULT OE MAN'S EREEDOM. 
 
 It is, in short, nothing but a mere logical delusion and an 
 illegitimate transference from our limited faculty of thought 
 to the divine intelligence, which gives rise to these pernicious 
 doctrines of an absolute and unconditional predestination, 
 which fundamentally amount and bring us back to a blind and 
 heathenish fatalism. 
 
 Thus much, as connected with our subject, will be suffi- 
 cient on the difficult subject, both of the freedom of the 
 pare created spirits, and also of man's will, as regarded solely 
 from its philosophical aspect, and without any reference to 
 the moral theory, and solely in relation to the system of the 
 universe. Difficult, however, is this subject, merely on one 
 account. The logical illusion, from which springs all error, 
 strife, and confusion, and which we are too apt to transfer to 
 the divine mind, is so far innate in the very form of man's 
 finite intellect, than even when we have recognised it for what 
 it really is ; yet, so long as we confine ourselves to mere logical 
 reasoning, and are seduced by its seeming rigor of consequence, 
 we are ever ready to fall anew into this dangerous error 
 without even remarking it. 
 
 In the same way, now, that the existence of free beings 
 follows naturally from the love of God, as the final cause of 
 creation, so, on the other hand, the permission of moral evil is 
 a mere result of that freedom in and through which these ere 
 ated beings have to run their appointed time. For this free 
 dom, as considered with a reference to God and futurity, or 
 to the immortality of the soul, is nothing else than the time 
 of trial and the state of probation itself. But, perhaps it wi 
 be asked, " Why, then, does not God, by one nod of retributive 
 justice, by one breath of His omnipotence, annihilate for ever, 
 as He so easily might, the whole company of evil and re 
 bellious spirits, together with their leader, the Prince of this 
 world, and so purify the whole visible creation, and release 
 external nature from their desolating influence ?" To this 
 the answer is simple and at hand. Man is placed in this world 
 on his trial and for a struggle with evil, and this warfare is 
 not yet ended. But by such an annihilation of evil, the living 
 development of nature would be precipitated in that course 
 which God originally designed it to advance through, and cut 
 short before the appointed time of final purification, when, 
 according to His promise, He will, as Holy Writ expresses it, 
 
PHYSICAL EYIL A MEANS OF PURIFICATION. 131 
 
 create new heavens and a new earth, and make perfect the 
 whole creation.* 
 
 Man is free, but utterly unripe as yet ; and thoroughly in- 
 complete also is nature, or the sensible" world, and material 
 creation ; consequently, the immortality of the soul is the 
 corner-stone and key for understanding the whole. For the 
 mere beginning of creation is perfectly unintelligible so long 
 as we do not take into consideration the other extreme or end 
 — its final completion and ultimate consummation. Just as 
 the half of human life on this side the grave cannot be under- 
 stood unless we contemplate at the same time with it its second 
 half on the other side of the tomb, as its complement, and 
 as a necessary element towards the elucidation of the whole. 
 
 As then the permission of evil finds a satisfactory ex- 
 planation in man's probationary state, and in God's love, as 
 the final cause of the creation, so also the physical evils and 
 sufferings to which the free being is liable, are fully accounted 
 for on that principle. This is the key of the enigma of their 
 existence, None of the sufferings of the free being, on 
 either side of the grave, are unprofitable and without a mo- 
 tive. They all serve, either in this preparatory state of earthly 
 existence, for probation, for discipline, or for confirmation, or 
 else after it for the perfect healing of the soul, and its purifi- 
 cation from all the remaining dross and taints of earth. f 
 Scarcely ever can the diseased matter be got rid of and 
 expelled from the organic body without a struggle, and very 
 seldom without pain. Gold is purified by the fire, and pain 
 is the fiery purification of the body. This belief is one which 
 ought least of all to have been called into question, inasmuch 
 as it is only consonant to the simple feelings of human nature. 
 For otherwise, how narrowly must the hopes of the future be 
 confined, if nothing that is unclean shall enter into heaven — 
 
 * Isaiah lxv. 17. 
 
 f In this and the following paragraph it is necessary to bear in mind 
 that Schlegel, as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, held the doc- 
 trine of a purgatory, which the catechism of the Council of Trent describes 
 as a fire, "in which the souls of the pious are tortured for a certain time, 
 and expiated, that they may be qualified to enter that eternal country into 
 which nothing enters that is unclean." " Purgatorius ignis, quo piorum 
 animae ad definitum tempus cruciatse expiantur, ut eis in aeternam patriam 
 ingressus patere possit, in quam nihil coinquinatum ingreditur." — Cat. 
 Cone. Trid., pars i. art. v. c. 5. — Trans. 
 
 K2 
 
132 
 
 ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 the Holy of Holies — the immediate presence of the pure and 
 
 holy God ! 
 
 It is not, however, my intention to make this consolatory 
 and blessed hope of a loving and longing heart the topic of 
 dispute, especially since it lies altogether beyond my present 
 limits. I will only allude to the words of the Saviour, " In 
 my Father's house are many mansions." By the u Father's 
 house " we must, it is clear, understand the future world. 
 On the other side therefore of the grave, as well as on this, 
 many divisions, many degrees, and many different states, and 
 also manifold transitions, are not merely conceivable and 
 possible, but must of necessity be assumed as actually existent, 
 even though we cannot be too cautious in avoiding all hasty 
 decisions as to what is going on in this hidden world. Only 
 we must ever remember that any absolute line of demarcation 
 which on one side has nothing but white, while all that lies 
 on the other is black, is very rarely the line of truth. And 
 this principle holds good, it is plain, in every relation and 
 every possible application. For such a trenchant line of sharp 
 and unmitigated contrast between black and white, is even 
 one of those intellectual deceptions connatural to man, which 
 disposes him too hastily to transfer to all without him the 
 limited form of his own finite iiHe<llect. All the pains, there- 
 fore, and all the sufferings of the creature, whether on this or 
 the other side of the grave, serve either to exercise and 
 strengthen, or to heal and purify, the yet imperfect being, with 
 the single exception of that bitterest of all agonies, the pain 
 of being left eternally to ourselves. But even here, although 
 there is no hope of a salutary effect, a species of converse 
 propriety seems to hold. 
 
 It is, we remarked, the problem of philosophy, leaving to 
 physics the whole development of life that lies intermediate 
 between the beginning and end, to explain the two extremes 
 of nature, As, therefore, we have examined one of these 
 extremes, and have discovered in the whole terrestrial crea- 
 tion a Paradise as the blessed state of the still innocent infancy 
 of nature, before the revolt of the rebellious spirits and the 
 fall of the first man, the present seems the place for a few 
 words touching the opposite extreme — the regions of outer 
 darkness. We can safely admit that the figurative represen- 
 tations, not merely of painters and poets, but occasionally 
 
THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. 
 
 133 
 
 also of the preacher, are so horrible, and heaped together with 
 so little consistency,— the dark colours laid on so thick, that 
 the whole assumes to the feelings an appearance of impro- 
 bability, and on this account makes, for the most part, no very 
 deep impression. But the spiritual significance of the suffer- 
 ings, and the sort of propriety and design which holds, even in 
 this unnatural state, on the utmost borders of creation, may, 
 perhaps, be made clear by a very simple illustration. Most 
 reluctantly, and with a heavy heart assuredly, would an 
 earthly parent resolve to turn out of his house and formally 
 to disinherit his first-born and beloved son, even though he 
 should have proved himself utterly worthless and hopelessly 
 depraved. But even if an earthly parent might be too hasty in 
 his anger, and actually be harsh and unjust, still we may 
 boldly assume that the love of our Heavenly Father in patience 
 and gentleness far transcends the truest parental love that 
 is to be found on earth. But when it actually comes to 
 this point of offended mercy and justice, then the disinherited, 
 cast out into the regions of darkness, joins the band of rob- 
 bers who in the night lurk about his father's house, seeking 
 where they may break into it. No other choice is left him 
 than to become a robber, and, whether he will or no, he must 
 obey the leader of the band. But better taught and as yet 
 softer of heart than the rest, he must go through many hard- 
 ships and sufferings ere he becomes quite like the others, as 
 hard-hearted as the " murderers from the beginning," who 
 the while look down upon him with scorn and contempt. 
 
 What I would say is this : many degrees, and undoubtedly 
 extreme degrees, of pain and torment, are necessary before 
 the man cast out from the presence of God can be wholly 
 and completely transformed into an evil spirit. And this is 
 perhaps the proper meaning and essential character under 
 which we are to think of these endless torments of spiritual 
 death and ruin. If, moreover, this eternal death is often 
 described as an unquenchable fire, then unquestionably there 
 lies in this figure, even physically considered, a certain truth, 
 inasmuch as even in this world and in visible nature, fire, 
 when left to itself and to its true essential character, is the 
 proper element of destruction.. In the sun's genial influence, 
 indeed, and in the blood of the living soul it is constrained 
 
134 CREATED SPIRITS WITHOUT FREEDOM. 
 
 and moderated into the wholesome warmth of life ; but in 
 itself, and working in its elementary state, it is destructive and 
 opposed to all the other elements. To the light all that has 
 life turns instinctively, and in the air it breathes and pulsates, 
 and from water it draws a part at least of its nourishment. It 
 is only incidentally that the air and water become destructive, 
 but the fire is so in its proper nature. A perfectly organised 
 animal that lived in fire, would in a greater or less degree fill 
 every mind with horror and alarm, as having no part in and 
 wholly alien from that nature which is known to and friendly 
 to man. On this account, many even of the ancient philoso- 
 phers taught that the end of the present visible and the 
 external and sensible world, would be brought about by a 
 general conflagration. 
 
 The permission of evil is an immediate consequence of the 
 creation of free beings. But although it may be regarded as 
 a fact, that God has created free both the spirits and man, still 
 we must be on our guard how we introduce into this matter 
 any notion of necessity, and suppose that God must have made 
 them free, and could not have created any other. Yor man is 
 only too prone to transfer his own imaginary conceit of neces- 
 sity to the Deity himself, and to feign to see it in Him. This, 
 however, were a most grievous error; and yet it is one into which 
 men almost inevitably fall when they adopt either a rigorously 
 systematic or purely logical view of the matter. Could not 
 God in his omnipotence have created powers and dominions 
 which, even though they were living energies and ensouled 
 principalities, should nevertheless be without the property of 
 self-determination and a true liberty, and which would conse- 
 quently require some other nature, but similar to themselves, 
 to rule and direct them ? In this sense we read of the spirits j 
 of nature, ensouled elementary powers and living forces, i 
 which are described as being seized and taken possession of 
 by the power of evil, but as hereafter to be set free by the j 
 efficacy of redeeming love, and again subjected to and united | 
 to God. Now, as connected with this subject, it is deserving 
 of consideration, that in all the declarations and allusions of | 
 the Eternal Truth this present earthly nature is spoken of as 
 the battle-place of invisible powers, the debatable ground on 
 which the two armies of good and evil spirits and elements, 
 
IMMORTAL SPIRITS WITH ANIMAL FORMS. 
 
 135 
 
 are posted in hostile array against each other, and perpetually 
 coming into collision.* 
 
 Could not God, had such been His pleasure, have created 
 other beings, and by the fiat of His almighty will have raised 
 them at once above all the dangers of liberty, and enduing 
 them with perfect holiness, and exempt from all liability to 
 fall, have drawn them to Himself in eternal love ? 
 x I have hitherto, wherever it has been my object to give a 
 clearer and sharper characterisation of the human conscious- 
 ness by means of a comparison with the faculties of intellect 
 and will possessed by superior but created spirits, confined 
 myself to the idea of the pure spirits, genii or angels. But 
 if it should have been the divine pleasure to create other 
 spiritual beings with an organic body — one, perhaps, not like 
 the human, but still of a very noble though animal form, endued 
 of course with an immortal soul and with a knowledge of God 
 — who is there in such a case to set limits to the omnipotent 
 will ? Now if, as already supposed, they were created in per- 
 fect holiness, and exempt from the liability to fall, it is easily 
 conceivable how in this respect they would be higher than frail 
 and imperfect man, and must be regarded as a part of the 
 spiritual world, rather than as belonging to the human race or 
 to the existing system of nature. 
 
 All these are not so much inappropriate and impertinent 
 conjectures and idle fancies, as calmly mooted questions for 
 explanation, which arise out of and are suggested by certain 
 traditions and points of revelation. 
 
 Lastly, if the Almighty had resolved to create a perfect 
 being, so far above and before all the other creatures of His 
 will, as to stand next to Himself, and be, as it were, the mirror 
 and reflection of His own infinite perfections — and many a 
 word in Holy Writ seems to allude to something of the kind 
 —then it is not difficult to see how the already quoted expres- 
 sion of a soul of God would receive a better sense. This 
 being, so superior to all other created spirits, must in any case 
 be regarded as a soul, and for the most part of a passive 
 essence, for otherwise it would stand too close and near to 
 Deity itself. And it is manifest, that even here the ever im- 
 measurable interval which separates the Creator from the most 
 
 * Eph. vi. 12; Col. ii. 15, &c. 
 
136 
 
 THE NEUTRAL ANGELS. 
 
 perfect of creatures must be most carefully kept in view. And 
 at all events this expression must in no case be applied to the 
 second or third persons of the Godhead, nor be confounded 
 therewith, otherwise this designation would not only be false, 
 but altogether an abomination. 
 
 Revelation contains an inexhaustible mine of verities, and 
 I have only wished, by the way, to call attention to these as 
 yet unexplored treasures. But it is above all important, for 
 the philosophical point of view, steadily to insist upon and 
 enforce the truth, that in no respect can we form a notion 
 adequately grand and lofty, or rich and manifold enough, of 
 the Creation. The compactly closed and orderly arranged 
 system is almost always the death of trust. So also is that 
 line — which, however, seems to be a connatural fault in the 
 very form of man's faculty of judgment — that straight line 
 between black and white, for even if it be not radically wrong, 
 it yet leaves much on both sides unconsidered and ill under- 
 stood. 
 
 With this impression, I shall allow myself to notice an 
 opinion but little known, which, moreover, if I had not met 
 with it in writers who, in this province of inquiry, are of the 
 highest authority, I should scarcely have ventured to adduce. 
 In this department of spiritual knowledge, a man would much 
 rather confine himself to the simple primary truth than call 
 attention to mere opinions. The opinion I allude to is to be 
 found in St. Jerome, i.e^ in that very Father who, for theolo- 
 gical judgment, is acknowledged by all to be the first and the 
 greatest. It was held also by St. Francis de Sales, that holy 
 saint of spiritual love, and who, even on that account, is so 
 superior to the many hundreds of the schoolmen before him, 
 as also to so many ideologists after him. Lastly, it occurred 
 to Leibnitz, who of all philosophers was most possessed of a 
 true and fine intellectual tact to perceive and discover all the 
 most secret, delicate traits of a great system, even though most 
 remote in character from his own. But still, with this array 
 of great authorities, it remains nothing more than a wholly 
 problematical opinion, on which, as an article of positive faith, 
 nothing is or ever can be decided. Now this opinion is, that 
 in the revolt of the rebellious spirits, while those who re- 
 mained in their state of innocence and in their allegiance 
 rallied only the closer round their Creator, a considerable num- 
 
DOCTRINE OF MAN S PRE-EXISTENCE. 
 
 137 
 
 ber, fearful and undecided, vacillated between good and evil, 
 and as we might justly say, with the weakness of the human 
 character, remained neutral in the conflict, and thereby lost 
 their original place in the hierarchy of the heavenly host, with- 
 out, however, being counted among the utterly lost. As a 
 fourth authority for this opinion, I might adduce Dante. He i 
 I is indeed a poet, but still a theological poet, and deeply versed 
 I in theology, who would never have arbitrarily devised or in- 
 | vented, or even adopted such a notion, had he not found it 
 ' existing among others before him, and had he not been able 
 j to adduce a good and valid authority for it. As a good Ghi- 
 j belline, he was, moreover, no friend of neutral spirits, either 
 j in this world or the other ; and he passes the most severe 
 I sentence upon those beings whom, as he says, heaven has cast 
 out, and hell w T ould not receive.*' 
 
 But what — if we may propound the question with some- 
 thing more of philosophical indifference than the poet — what, 
 according to the analogy of the divine economy and merciful 
 justice, as elsewhere displayed, are we to suppose the doom of 
 these undecided and wavering spirits ? In the first place, we 
 may well suppose that they would be submitted to a new pro- 
 bation : just as a general gives another opportunity to the 
 troops who in some evil moment have shown a want of spirit, 
 to retrieve their honour. Now if it be allowable to assume that 
 this, or some similar idea, or some tradition of the kind, had 
 I an influence on and gave rise to the doctrine of the pre- 
 existence of men, which is so generally diffused among the 
 
 * DelF Inferno, Canto III. 
 
 " quel cattivo coro 
 
 Degli angeli che non furon rebelli, 
 Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro. 
 Cacciarli i Ciel, per non esser men belli ; 
 Ne lo profundo Inferno gli riceve, 
 Ch' alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d' elli.*' 
 
 Thus rendered by Carey : — 
 
 " with that ill-band 
 
 Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved 
 Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves 
 Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them, 
 Not to impair his lustre ; nor the depth 
 Of Hell receives them, lest th* accursed tribe 
 Should glory thence with exultation vain." — Trans. 
 
138 MIGRATION OF THE SOUL AMONG THE STARS. 
 
 Hindoos, and which was also held by the Platonists, and even 
 Christian Platonists of the first centuries, we can then con- 
 ceive how this otherwise so arbitrary assumption and ground- 
 less hypothesis could have arisen. Groundless, however, it 
 may well be named, not only because no cause or explanation 
 of it is adduced, but as being- agreeable neither to the nature 
 of the soul nor to the constitution of things ; so that, regarded 
 even in this light, it must be looked upon as a singular instance, 
 and consequently as an exception from the laws of nature and 
 as a miraculous intervention of divine power. But a mere 
 pre-existence of spirits would, however, be no true pre-exist- 
 ence in the sense of the Hindoo theology, or of the Platonists, 
 since, by its union with and by the accession of a soul, it 
 becomes a wholly different and quite a new being. Moreover, 
 in this hypothesis, as it is further worked out in the Hindoo 
 and Platonic systems, the whole character and true destination 
 of human life is entirely misunderstood, inasmuch as it is 
 represented as a place and period of punishment ; whereas, 
 rightly conceived, and even philosophically contemplated, it 
 appears rather as a battle-place, and the time of discipline and 
 preparation for eternity. 
 
 It is the problem and vocation of philosophy not merely to 
 set forth the truth clearly and simply, but also, whenever it 
 can be done incidentally and easily, to account for and explain 
 great and remarkable errors, especially such as were prevalent 
 among the earliest nations and ages. Now among those errors 
 which are most remarkable in ancient history, this of the 
 Hindoos and Platonists holds in my eyes a very prominent 
 place. But philosophically to explain an error, means not to 
 reject it at once as absurd and undeserving of notice, but 
 requires rather that we should first of all really understand 
 it, e.e., that we should study it, and, to a certain degree, enter 
 into its spirit, and seek to discover its best significance, or in 
 other words, that interpretation which is nearest to the truth, 
 and then in conclusion accurately to determine the point where 
 error begins and truth is violated. * 
 
 All this however may now be left to its own merits. In 
 touching upon it, my only object has been to call attention to 
 the wonderful variety of God's creative power, even in the 
 copious theme of the immortality of the soul. And in this view 
 it appeared to me not unprofitable to notice even the most 
 
NATURE CONSIDERED RELATIVELY TO MAN. 139 
 
 discrepant theories on the subject, as being nevertheless well 
 calculated to throw a clear and steady light on the simple truth. 
 In the last age, since the Hindoo metempsychosis, as it is now 
 accurately and authentically known, appeared too seiious and 
 sad a doctrine to meet with the welcome and concurrence 
 of the existent generation, a brighter and more fanciful theory 
 was propounded. In it this life has been astronomically 
 depicted in the brightest and most attractive colours as a walk 
 among the stars, continually ascending from one sidereal 
 existence to another. In the limited range of human know- 
 ledge, it is alike impossible to deny or to prove the possibility 
 of such a migration among the stars. But it is evidently a 
 wiser course, and one far more agreeable to the nature and 
 limits of man's powers of understanding, for him to confine 
 his views to his own immediate home — the earth, investigating, 
 sifting, and divining its mysteries, than to lose himself in airy 
 dreams amid the whole starry universe. For, perhaps, that 
 which man is seeking so far off, he may find much closer to 
 his own doors than he suspects. For it is not improbable 
 that this planet of our earth contains in its interior many 
 subterranean courses and secret chambers of death, together 
 with the seeds of light which are to spring up into the future 
 resurrection. 
 
 But this may be reserved for consideration in another place. 
 Here I will only add, in conclusion, that opposite to that 
 gradational scale, already so often mentioned, which the vast 
 pyramid of nature forms in relation to God and its own living 
 development, stands another scale for man, adapted to his 
 needs and suited to his narrow position and limited intel- 
 ligence. In this scale, nature, i, e. 9 in this sense, the nature 
 which most immediately surrounds and environs man, this 
 planet of our earth which bears and nourishes the human race, 
 is first of all man's habitation, teeming indeed with life, and 
 even itself a living thing, in which, however, he is ever meet- 
 ing here and there with something that tells him it is not his 
 proper home. In the second step of this view of nature, which 
 contemplates it principally in its relation to man and man's 
 wants, the natural world in its present form appears as the 
 battle-place and debatable ground of the still undecided, or 
 rather not as yet terminated, struggle between the good and 
 evil powers, and the fiercer the strife again begins to be, the 
 
140 NATURE BEST DESCRIBED BY SYMBOLS. 
 
 more necessary is it not to overlook this aspect of the matter. 
 The third gradation in this view of nature, considered relatively 
 to the mind or spirit of man in his finite existence, is that 
 which teaches him to look upon it as the visible veil or the 
 invisible world, covered all over and richly ornamented with 
 significant symbols and hieroglyphics. And even because 
 nature itself is even a symbolical being, therefore, when we 
 speak of its inmost life and its spirit, or its meaning as a 
 whole, i. e., when we attempt to study and to understand it, not 
 physically only, but even philosophically, we can only hope to 
 convey our meaning symbolically, by employing scientific 
 illustrations and living symbols. 
 
 EKD OF LECTURE VX 
 
141 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 OF THE DIVINE WISDOM AS MANIFESTED IN THE REALM 
 OF TRUTH, AND OF THE CONFLICT OF THE AGE WITH 
 ERROR. 
 
 God is a spirit of truth ; and in the realm of truth, therefore, 
 the divine order, and the law of wisdom which reigns therein, 
 shines forth with an especial clearness — with a higher degree 
 of evidence or greater perspicuity than even in the region of 
 nature, which for us is for the most part half- dark, or at the 
 very best but a chiaro-oscuro — a mixture of light and dark- 
 ness. But man, formed out of the dust of the earth, placed, 
 as it were, in the very centre of nature, as its first-born son 
 or its earthly lord, is in this respect himself a natural being. 
 Even in his susceptibility for higher and divine truth, man is 
 tied to and is dependent on a similar and collateral grade of 
 development in the life of nature, which can in no case be 
 violently broken, nor a step in it arbitrarily overleaped, without 
 involving the most disastrous consequences as the penalty of so 
 unnatural a course. Even in education there reigns a similar 
 law of gradual development, according to the natural progres- 
 sion of the different ages of life. With the boy of good and 
 natural abilities, who shows an aptness and willingness to 
 learn when knowledge is presented to his mind, and implanted 
 in a true and living form, the teacher's first care is to improve 
 this disposition, and to strengthen and to foster it, and by fur- 
 nishing it with the due measure and the right quality of intel- 
 lectual culture, gradually to develop its powers. At this age 
 the moral part of education will wisely confine itself to laying 
 a foundation of good habits, to the careful exclusion of all evil 
 communication and the deadly contagion of wicked example. 
 In the soft and yielding character of the child there can 
 scarcely be as yet any question about principles or sentiments. 
 But the case is very different with youth. If at this time of 
 life the moral character be not carefully farmed simultaneously 
 
142 GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF MANKIND. 
 
 with its scientific cultivation, then is the good season irrepar- 
 ably lost, and rarely, if ever, can the deficiency be after- 
 wards supplied. For when this stage of intellectual and moral 
 culture is once passed, when the mind has begun at last to 
 move with greater freedom and to mature itself, the young 
 man is at once admitted to the full light of science, or enters 
 into the busy course of active life, to be there brought to the 
 touchstone of experience. 
 
 And a similar series of gradation may be observed on a 
 larger scale in the historical succession and development of 
 the ages of the world. For such is, in every case, the gradual 
 expansion of man's consciousness, as he is at present consti- 
 tuted. His senses must be first excited and expanded ; then, 
 and then only, with any good result, can the soul be led to 
 the good and divine, which, however, not content to dismiss 
 them after the first look of wonder and amazement, it must 
 rather dwell upon with the full and deep feelings of admiration 
 and reverence ; until at last, being wholly filled with them, it 
 derives from their inspiration a new stimulus and excitement, 
 and thereby is for ever and permanently directed to the true 
 end and aim of existence. And now at last can the free spirit 
 apprehend aright the divine truth, and, in the spirit of this 
 knowledge, act with vital energy, conformably to that position 
 in God's great world which has been assigned and allotted to 
 him. 
 
 And this order cannot be transgressed with impunity. None 
 of its intermediate steps can be overleaped without involving 
 the most fearful consequences. If the senses be not first of 
 all excited and expanded, then will it be lost labour to attempt 
 to w r in and fortify the heart, or to turn the soul towards the 
 never-setting sun of divine truth. And accordingly, how 
 many attempts, both on a large and a small scale, at the 
 moral regeneration of mankind have totally failed even for 
 want of the first step of a forerunning light and previous illu- 
 mination, by which the observation should have been roused, 
 the senses stimulated, and the eye opened. But when, on the 
 contrary, the full light is imparted to or gained by the mind, 
 while the soul still remains enveloped in darkness and fast 
 wedded to its evil habits, without attaining to a higher exal- 
 tation, then, indeed, the result is equally grievous, though 
 different from that which follows from the mistake of over- 
 
FIRST STEP OF REVELATION PREPARATORY. 
 
 143 
 
 leaping the first step. It has an effect ; it does not remain 
 without an influence. So long as the moral part of man is 
 wholly neglected, and is either left rude and barbarous or 
 suffered to become degenerate, then science works indeed, but 
 only as a destroying element. In so bad a soil the true know- 
 ledge is ever transformed into false, and the more profoundly 
 it is apprehended — the more vividly and vigorously it is pur- 
 sued — the more fatally, perniciously, and destructively does it 
 work. The examples and the proofs of the injurious conse- 
 quences of too rapid and premature development of scientific 
 enlightenment amidst a general prevalence of moral depravity, 
 and the subversion of those principles which are the founda- 
 tion of natural existence and prosperity, might easily be found 
 at no great distance from our own age. And they admit also 
 of being demonstrated as clearly and convincingly by earlier 
 instances from the history of the Greeks and Romans. The 
 production of these proofs, however, would carry us beyond 
 our present limits, and the truth they would establish, is not, 
 moreover, the end to which our present disquisitions are 
 directed. The theme of this Lecture is the course observed 
 by eternal wisdom, or the divine order in the realm of truth. 
 My object is to call your attention to the care with which 
 Providence observes a gradual progression in its mental de- 
 velopment of the human race, lovingly suiting and adapting 
 itself to the weakness and finiteness of humanity, and to the 
 I imperfection of earthly creatures, according to that principle 
 I of divine condescension, so often mentioned already, which, 
 throughout the divine operations in the world, and His influ- 
 ence on man, is distinctly visible. 
 
 Thus, then, in the knowledge immediately imparted to man 
 | by a higher providence we may discern a preliminary period 
 — a previous illumination, in order to re-open the eye of man, 
 which heathenism had blinded to the truth, that it might be 
 able to see and discern God. This first step of revelation was 
 I little more than a preparation for the future ; but the second 
 | was, or has been, an illumination of the soul — a vital renewal 
 of it — a total conversion of it from the state of darkness to 
 the Everlasting Light and the Sun of Righteousness. But in 
 this living development of the highest life, which is even the 
 divine light of the Spirit, the third and last step (which indeed 
 commences in and is involved in the second, even as it also 
 
144 man's general sense for truth. 
 
 had its germ in the first) is the full enlightenment of the spirit 
 or mind. And accordingly this full revelation is in Scripture 
 itself, as being the close and completion of the whole, expressly 
 described, and named the last time. 
 
 Before attempting, however, to point out the divine order in 
 the education of the human race, by the gradual revelation of 
 truth, two general and preliminary remarks seem called for, 
 I observe then, first of all, that when we speak of sense, soul, 
 and spirit, as the successive terms in the growing capacity of 
 the human consciousness for a higher knowledge and heavenly 
 training, and for truth in general, but more especially for 
 divine truth, then the general sense of truth, which such an 
 hypothesis supposes, and which indeed is its essential founda- 
 tion, must be understood as comprising all those other par- 
 ticular species, branches, or departments which we have 
 already enumerated. I mean the common sense of sound 
 reason. For that susceptibility for the impressions of nature, 
 and the understanding, which, as I said before, constitute the 
 sense for the revelation of spirit, or the spirit of revelation — 
 whether written or historical — are alike comprised in that 
 one and common sense for truth. Or perhaps we may rather 
 say, that by their joint operations they form it ; while, how- 
 ever, in its special application, now this now that constituent 
 preponderates — or perhaps that this one and universal sense 
 for truth is called into action, and made to co-operate now in 
 this direction and now in that. Moreover, that internal con- 
 currence and assent of the will, which I have endeavoured to 
 show is the proper sense in man for God and for divine 
 things, belongs also, as an essential and element of its consti- 
 tution, to this general sense for truth, For that the opposite 
 fault of self-will and obstinacy, is in the highest degree a 
 hindrance of good, even in the acquisition of knowledge 
 and the recognition of truth, is found by experience in the 
 earliest essays of education. But not only in the elemen- 
 tary principles of learning, but even in ihe most highly 
 finished and elaborate systems of metaphysical ideas, con- 
 structed by the profoundest thinkers and philosophers, does 
 this spirit of negation and contradiction show itself, and 
 prove the greatest obstacle to truth and the most fruitful 
 source of error. 
 
 The second remark which we have to make before enter- 
 
REVELATION GRADUAL. 
 
 143 
 
 ing upon the immediate subject of our Lecture, refers to the 
 natural progression of the living development of the human 
 consciousness. This gradation, we would observe, holds good, 
 and is applicable, not merely to the moral education of man, 
 but also to the intellectual improvement of man's capacity, as at 
 present constituted, for all higher and divine verities. But, 
 however true this may be, where the general sense for truth 
 is not from the first open and full of light, where the soul is 
 not already perfectly free and pure ; yet on the other hand 
 there is nothing against — on the contrary, everything favours 
 the supposition, that the earliest revelation imparted to man- 
 kind — the illumination which was given to the first man, and 
 bestowed upon him as his heavenly inheritance on earth, was 
 a full and perfect enlightenment of his mind {(/cist). For his 
 senses were open and clear, his soul as yet incorrupt, pure, 
 and free, Both were directed to God, and being one with and 
 at unison with nature, were keenly alive to and deeply im- 
 pressed by every token of God's glory and majesty in creation. 
 It is quite an error to assume, or rather to fancy, that this state 
 of purity and innocence was a state of ignorance like that of 
 the child or of the wild man. The tree of life was given to 
 him entirely and without reserve, as also dominion over the 
 earth, whose first made living creatures the Lord subjected to 
 his dominion, bringing them before him to call and to name 
 them. The knowledge of death was indeed designedly with- 
 held from him, as also the existence of the evil .-pints, even 
 because it was exactly therein that his trial and probation 
 were to consist. And so both are perfectly reconcilable : that 
 height of knowledge in the clearest light of nature, which the 
 sacred traditions of all primitive nations so positively and 
 unanimously assign to the first man, is in nowise inconsistent 
 with that ignorance of death which is no less expressly 
 ascribed to him. Moreover, had man but preserved and 
 kept alive in his heart this feeling of God, he would imme- 
 diately have recognised his enemy, and even thereby have 
 triumphed over him, and become the redeemer of nature, 
 instead of requiring, now that he has failed in that his high des- 
 tination, a Redeemer for his own fallen race. This first reve- 
 lation therefore was, we may well assume, in the beginning as 
 it will also be in the end, a full enlightenment of the spirit of 
 »*an, but which however was soon darkened by his dis- 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 THE JEWS THE PROPHETIC PEOPLE. 
 
 obedience and fall. This, two, is the shape which the matter 
 assumes in the legendary history of all the primeval nations 
 of antiquity, and these are the threads of light which in the 
 labyrinthine confusion of legends, symbols, and tongues of 
 earliest heathendom, carry us safely out of its mazes and back 
 to the clear starting-point of the pure and un denied revelation 
 of God. It were not difficult to show how through the first two 
 millenniums and a half, or five-and-twenty centuries, a higher 
 providence and divine guidance was ever quietly carrying on 
 these luminous threads of original truth, and from time to 
 time renewing them. But this history of the human mind 
 in the primeval world, however highly attractive, would take 
 us out of our proper limits. Upon the eclipse of man's soul, 
 when spiritual darkness universally prevailed, the senses origi- 
 nally open to a higher light were closed against it. His 
 better perceptions were overwhelmed or buried beneath a 
 chaos of true and false or half-true images and symbols. 
 Then it was that the natural law of spiritual development 
 commenced in its full force. It followed the progression 
 already described. In the first term the numbed and deadened 
 sense had to be awakened and quickened again, and in its 
 second the soul renewed, purified, and converted, before either 
 could become susceptible of the full and perfect illumination of 
 the Spirit. To trace this natural law in the human conscious- 
 ness and in the divine education of mankind, and to ascertain 
 the progressive steps in the divine revelations, expressly given 
 and designed to effect that gradual development, is the object 
 of the present Lecture. 
 
 The first step or term thereof was the selection of a 
 single people to be the schoolmaster of the whole human race.* 
 When the heathenish mass of legends or myths and symbols 
 had reached the height of confusion, and the evil had become 
 otherwise incurable, one nation was chosen and set apart by 
 God as His instrument in opening the eyes of men to the abyss 
 of error in which the whole world was plunged, and to direct 
 their looks exclusively to the future. Many prophets were 
 sent to the chosen people, and it was at first guided and ruled 
 by none but prophets. And, perhaps, we cannot form a more 
 correct notion of the character and history of this people, so 
 peculiarly distinguished from all the other nations of the 
 
 * Gal. iii. 24. 
 
REVELATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 147 
 
 ancient world, than by thinking of it absolutely and in its 
 destination as the prophetic people exclusively intended to 
 point to a distant future, and whose leading ideas and inmost 
 feelings were to be attached to, and to look far into, a remote 
 futurity. Three strokes or words, at most, comprise the highly 
 simple revelation of the first stage — the first ray of light 
 at the beginning — in which, however, lies contained the 
 hidden key and solution for the chaos of legends, and 
 all the enigmas of the primitive world and of primeval 
 history. But this brief and simple revelation was accom- 
 panied with a strict line of demarcation between the Gentiles 
 and the chosen people, who were separated from all the 
 heathen nations by customs and laws, while a long ray of 
 hope reached far into the distant future. This point of light 
 at the beginning was, however, but little considered and 
 ill-understood ; the line of demarcation too was often trans- 
 gressed upon the slightest pretext and most ordinary tempta- 
 tions. And when at last it was more strictly kept, it was 
 observed, not in its spirit, but in the letter ; and, in consequence, 
 even that high and lofty hope which irradiated it was totally 
 misunderstood, being interpreted, in a narrow spirit of national 
 exclusiveness, of a temporal Redeemer, and a political redemp- 
 tion from the yoke of the Roman oppressor. This delusion, and 
 the extreme ingratitude with which consequently the Light that 
 came into the world was, in the whole, received by those 
 to whom It was in the first place communicated, has been 
 often painted in the darkest colours of indignant censure by 
 the stern pen of history. The stiffneckedness of the Jews has 
 been a fruitful theme for virtuous indignation. But, for my 
 part, I hardly know whether, in this respect, a different and 
 more favourable sentence can be passed on the generations 
 which have witnessed the subsequent steps of divine revelation 
 in its further development. lull time was allowed to the pro- 
 phetic people to develop itself ; and, after the lapse of twenty- 
 five centuries, which make up the first age of the world, a 
 millennium and a half was allowed to this initiatory step of 
 revelation. And now, at length, after forty centuries of pre- 
 paration and hope, when the long, dark winter of the olden 
 idolatry was over, the historical development of the human 
 race reached its culminating point, and with the vernal 
 solstice (Fruhling's-iSolstitium) of this new manifestation 
 
 l2 
 
148 
 
 FIRST EIGHT CHRISTIAN CENTURIES. 
 
 commenced the second term in this series of revelation or of 
 the divine education of the human race. Even from its very 
 first opening everything characterises this second term of 
 development as not intended for a complete and final revelation 
 of spirit and knowledge. Promising, and reserving to the 
 future that final manifestation, it forms, in this respect, a 
 marked contrast to the highly-cultivated science of the Greeks, 
 which, however, in spite of its high pretensions, did but 
 become continually more and more sensuous in its character. 
 The immediate object of this second enlightenment of the whole 
 human race was to be a total conversion of the soul from its 
 previous earthly darkness to the everlasting light and the one 
 and only Sun of Truth, and thereby to effect a complete 
 renewal of life, and a reformation of all its habits, customs, 
 and institutions. This alone did God require ; and glorious, 
 and noble, and deeply touching was the conflict in which this 
 wholly new but heaven-descended sentiment had to engage 
 with the opposing spirit of the old world. 
 
 But men soon relapsed into their former discord ; and it is 
 now our painful task to point out the rise and growth of this 
 dissension through the succeeding eras of history. For thus 
 only — by considering, in every period, man's relation, or 
 rather his opposition, to the divine revelation — is it possible 
 amid the rapid progress of the widening disagreement to trace 
 the divine order which rules amidst the anarchy of mind, 
 and to follow it along its path of light up to its appointed end, 
 and to its close and conclusion. 
 
 In the first three or four centuries of Christianity, this 
 spirit of opposition showed itself in two different forms. In 
 the one, the new and simple faith was first of all perverted 
 into a chaos of philosophical fictions of an old Asiatic charac- 
 ter.* In the other, a secret and half infidelity hid itself 
 behind a veil of words,f against which the faith must defend 
 itself behind an outwork of words also ; and in this period of 
 history, a subtle and refined logomachy first of all attained 
 to a great and lasting importance for mankind. In this dis- 
 pute, the simple foundation of the faith was indeed main- 
 tained and defended, in its purity and integrity, against all 
 
 * The Gnostics and the Manichees. — Trans, 
 
 fThe Arians, with all the other rationalising sects of NoStus, Paul of 
 Samosata, Sabellius, and the like. — Trans. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 149 
 
 hostile attacks ; but the first-love lost much of its fresh- 
 ness and ardour. Consequently the new life, which sprang 
 up with the new faith, was unable to fulfil the hopes which at 
 its first rise men had reasonably entertained of it, and by re- 
 forming the corrupt civilisation of the old Roman world, to 
 renew it entirely in God. Accordingly, an alien and purely 
 physical element had to be associated with it. The northern 
 nations were called in to infuse fresh energy into the worn- 
 out races of Europe. 
 
 In this work of physical regeneration three centuries were 
 again spent. But at the close of this first period, it was seen 
 on a sudden how little the olden spirit of dissension had been 
 really conquered, or even mollified. The faith, it was said, 
 may in all essential points be perfectly identical, but a division 
 may be and still subsists notwithstanding. But what does 
 that mean but that the God and Saviour of the world wor- 
 shipped by the East, is different from Him whom the West 
 acknowledge ? And thus the one God and the one faith was 
 in the life of man again divided into two ; and this singular 
 schism, without any adequate cause, still subsists to the pre- 
 sent day.* In the following great period a fresh life blossomed 
 in rich and manifold expansion out of that revelation of love 
 which, properly speaking, now first of all puts forth its full vital 
 energies, giving a new shape to all the institutions of human 
 society, and impressing on art, as well as on moral and political 
 science, a new character, totally different from that which 
 they possessed among the most enlightened nations of anti- 
 quity. Viewed in its loving aspect, i. e., in its chivalry, there 
 is much in this period to attract and engage our enthusiasm 
 and sympathies, but for the fearful discord which broke out 
 within it, and set one half of the world in hostile array against 
 the other. The two powers which ought to work together 
 for one divine end— the two swords of which the Lord had 
 said, " It is enough,"-)- — the spiritual sword of the kingdom 
 of faith and truth and the civil sword of earthly justice, were 
 drawn and held in threatening attitude against each other, by 
 which, however, the minds of men were torn and distracted by 
 
 * The schism of the East and West— of the Greek and Roman Churches 
 — produced by the illegal interference of the Bishops of Rome in the 
 diocese of the Patriarch of Constantinople. — Trans. 
 
 + Luke xxii. 38. 
 
150 
 
 ERA OF THE RESTORATION" OF LETTERS. 
 
 the inward struggle of conflicting duties in a far greater degree 
 than the external peace of society was disturbed. But it was 
 not merely in such a collision that the strife alone showed itself; 
 but it extended even to the confusion of the two domains, and 
 a forgetfulness of their proper duties and respective positions. 
 
 In the instance, it is true, of the mailed ecclesiastic, how- 
 ever, at first sight, the union in one person of such opposite 
 characters as the soldier and priest may startle the mind, the 
 gallant and noble bearing of the spiritual knight soon recon- 
 ciles us to the strange phenomenon. So, too, when he whose 
 vocation it was to hold the pastoral staff began also to sway 
 the sceptre of a civil prince, the eminent skill and judgment 
 with which the difficult task of discharging the double and 
 often conflicting duties of so mixed a sovereignty was accom- 
 plished, silence every murmur of a protest. But when he who 
 ought to carry the crozier of peace hoisted the pennon of war, 
 such a sight naturally gave great offence, and sadly perplexed 
 the minds of men. 
 
 Thus, then, passed seven centuries more, making, with the 
 eight already described, fifteen altogether that have elapsed 
 from that great centre of the world's history, when the spi- 
 ritual sun reached its meridian altitude in this earthly life. 
 These added to the fifteen which had previously passed from 
 the first shining of the light of revelation, make no less than 
 three millenniums. And to these again three centuries more 
 are to be added. Such isthe extremely slow course of the divine 
 guidance of the world, as regulated by the inexhaustible 
 patience and long-suffering of God in the education of his 
 human creatures. 
 
 In this last period, however, the spirit of discord has 
 become still more general, and has broken out in all its violence, 
 gradually attacking and drawing into the dispute every insti- 
 tution of society and every department of life. In the won- 
 derful coincidence of many and great discoveries, simulta- 
 neously made in widely distinct and independent branches of 
 science, the spirit of man read the proclamation of his ma- 
 jority. Conscious of this intellectual ripeness, in the first 
 use of its new powers it assumed towards the faith an atti- 
 tude of estrangement and controversy, instead of calmly ad- 
 vancing along the assigned path towards perfection. Even at 
 the very commencement of this period* the hostile relation 
 
ANTICHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF THIS ERA. 151 
 
 between the new science and the ancient faith is perceptible 
 enough. But it soon showed itself more distinctly, as a rup- 
 ture became wider and more general, till at last the discord 
 extended to the very faith itself, which was henceforth broken 
 up into bitter and opposing parties. Still later, a newer and 
 deeper animosity divided the faith in general from the whole 
 civil and political life, from which in many places its religious 
 foundation was altogether removed. And now that life was 
 thus deprived of its higher and spiritual significance, the 
 strife became universal and complete. Involving science and 
 life into the discord, it set them also in deadly array against 
 each other— for life thus unspiritualized could no longer re- 
 concile itself to the dreamy ideal of a science which at most 
 was but partially true, while life itself could not satisfy the re- 
 quisitions of science. And fearful was the outbreak in which 
 this last antagonism of principle openly displayed its animosity. 
 
 This fourfold schism, then, — first, between science and 
 faith ; secondly, in the faith itself ; thirdly, between life and 
 faith ; and lastly, between the new science (which usurped 
 the place of the faith it has discarded) and life itself — this 
 fourfold schism, with its several branches and ramifications, 
 extending to every department of human existence, lies now 
 before us, in the present age, as the still unsolved problem of life. 
 
 And who but God alone shall or is able to solve it ? As a 
 question of dispute, this problem — and especially its inmost 
 root, and schism in the faith — can be profitably discussed only 
 I in the spirit of love and mutual forbearance between cognate 
 and kindred minds, who, while they think differently on a 
 few points, yet agree in most. Many works might be 
 adduced on both sides, composed in that conciliatory spirit 
 [ of approximation, which is most accordant with true phi- 
 losophy, whose first effort is in all cases directed to recon- 
 ciling and removing the deeply-rooted animosities of human 
 nature. To a complete decision, however, of the whole 
 matter in question, we shall never arrive on the road of dis- 
 putation. Even though the dispute were maintained with 
 the most valid reasoning, and were conducted with the most 
 dignified forbearance and mildness, the attempt would only 
 be lost labour. For there exists no supreme court of appeal 
 to whose sentence both sides would be ready to submit. On 
 I the one side the reason, which advances with unlimited 
 
152 THE FINAL MANIFESTATION OF TRUTH. 
 
 freedom in its investigations, and faith on the other, with its 
 assumed authority to decide in the last instance, would alike 
 refuse to acknowledge its adversary as a competent tribunal. 
 
 Thus deeply piercing into the very marrow of humanity, 
 and thus mortal is the conflict. Indeed a man can scarcely touch 
 upon it without being carried almost involuntarily into the 
 very midst of the strife, and very fortunate may he account 
 himself if he retires from it unscathed. And if it were only 
 from a mere human point of view of a scientific dispute that 
 I had to consider it, good reason should I have to be on my 
 guard lest on this matter my mind should be as it were 
 forcibly rent and divided into two halves. I have, however, 
 at present no anxiety of the kind. For my purpose is solely 
 and entirely to trace out the divine order in the revelation 
 progressively given to mankind, and following this luminous 
 thread to lead reflection up to the finishing close of God's 
 education of the human race, where, in the full shining of 
 the perfect day, there shall be no more controversy and no 
 more doubt. Viewing the matter in this light, I see but little 
 to attract my sympathies in the publicly conducted contro- 
 versy, however highly important and pre-eminent a place it 
 may hold in the history of the world. Far more attractive to 
 me are those isolated and retiring spirits on both sides who, 
 taking but little if any part in the prevailing dispute, have 
 their eyes directed rather to the future in watchful expectation 
 of that full and final illumination, with all its attendant pro- 
 mises — among which we must reckon first and foremost, the 
 peace andjoy of believing — in the last revelation of divine mind. 
 Of these calmer spirits, however, some have actually fallen 
 and others have been on the very brink of falling into the 
 plausible error of regarding this third step of enlightenment 
 as an absolutely new revelation, whereas it is quite clear that 
 it will be nothing more than the simple completion of the 
 earlier steps. For a revelation which should give itself out as 
 perfectly new, apart from and independent of that saving 
 illumination of the soul which marks the second step, and 
 which we are already in possession of ; which should disavow 
 this earlier divine revelation of the heart, of love and life in 
 faith, which is withheld from no one. and which every one 
 knows, would even by such an announcement proclaim its own 
 falsity. New heavens and a new earth are indeed expressly 
 
INTERMEDIATE CONFLICT OF TRUTH AND ERROR. 153 
 
 promised among the blessings of the last age. Mention is 
 also made of a Gospel that shall be preached "unto all them 
 that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and 
 tongue, and people."* This Gospel, however, is nowhere 
 called a new one ; since in the old one there is enough for life, 
 if only it be duly observed, and also for knowledge, if only 
 it be rightly understood. But it is called the " everlasting " 
 Gospel ; and by this term it is plain that nothing is to be 
 understood but this full light of divine knowledge now made 
 perfect in God, and which has become one with faith, and 
 consequently fully reconciled with life also. In this domain, 
 and in this spiritual sense, it is not necessary that the fair 
 morning-star of faith, which has guided us through the dark 
 night and lighted us to the day-spring, should become extinct 
 when the sun ascends the heavens in his full meridian splen- 
 dour. On the contrary, it shall burn the more brightly ; or 
 rather, to speak more correctly, for here no such contrast 
 finds a place, it is the morning-star itself that shall expand into 
 the full sun and illuminate the whole world with its light. 
 
 Waiting, therefore, for this manifestation, w T e must endure 
 with the more patience the existing discord so long as our 
 lot is placed amidst it, and show greater moderation towards 
 it, since we are subject to it in hope. Only let me not be 
 thought of as recommending a spurious impartiality, which 
 in truth, is little better than a culpable indifference to questions 
 the most important that can agitate our own generation and 
 all humanity — or the indiscriminating contempt of an arro- 
 gated superiority, which is even still more offensive and 
 baneful to truth than the most vehement adoption of either of 
 the conflicting views, if associated with honesty of purpose 
 and conviction. As little, too, would I be thought to favour 
 the presumptuous decisions of individuals, which, adopting 
 a peculiar principle, or, as it is styled, a higher point of 
 view, even though occasionally it does justice to each in 
 part, yet on the whole materially wrongs them both. In 
 the first ages of this intellectual disease, great names were 
 arrayed on either side. And that through all its variations 
 brilliant talents and scientific attainments maintained the con- 
 flict, while there was much that was false and wrong in both 
 parties, is equally unquestionable. But what avails the un- 
 
 * Rev. xiv. 6. 
 
154 IRRELIGIOUS FEATURE OF THIS CONFLICT. 
 
 righteousness of man against the righteousness of the cause, 
 when, as we must, we regard the latter as the cause of God? 
 
 The painful feature of the conflict is the fact that, in a 
 certain measure, God Himself has become the object of man's 
 rancour and animosity. In sacred lore and tradition, but 
 pre-eminently in revelation, God Himself became as it were a 
 child ; and in the childlike language of the heart, and in the 
 most confiding manner, gave Himself into the hands of men, 
 But now, even this marvellous child and the divine word is 
 near being torn asunder by the disputants, like the child in the 
 old story or parable. Two mothers, we are told, came and 
 stood before the king, disputing violently who was the child 
 that had been overlaid, and whose was the living one. But 
 the true mother, for both had fallen asleep in the night, 
 was recognised by her prayer that the child might not be 
 divided in two by the sword of justice, but preferred that her 
 son should live, even though she must lose it by resigning it 
 to the other. Whereupon the king ordered his officers in no 
 wise to slay the living child, but to give it to her who by her 
 love had proved herself its mother.* 
 
 But for us the great sentence which is to decide all contro- 
 versies, and can alone put an end to this discord, is not yet 
 pronounced. But in truth, the more confirmed symptoms of 
 the deepening intellectual strife which mark the present gene- 
 ration, furnish one proof the more of the near approach of the 
 day of final decision. And then the perfect triumph of divine 
 revelation and the fiery baptism of the Spirit, which in those 
 last days shall be administered, shall bring with it the long 
 promised universal peace of the soul when under a divine 
 leader — the invisible One now become visible — all that hope 
 in Him, of all kindreds and families, shall be reunited in Him 
 in one love and one fellowship. An universal and perfect 
 peace like this, which, according to revealed truth, is the last 
 that is to be imparted to the human race, and is even to 
 continue for ever, must, it is natural to suppose, be preceded 
 by a violent but closing conflict. And do we not in our own 
 age see such a one developing itself in a manner unparalleled 
 by all that have gone before in it ? To this conflict of our 
 age, then, I must now devote a few words, and consider pre- 
 eminently the relations subsisting between it and science. 
 
 * 1 Kings iii. 16. 
 
ATHEISTIC TENDENCY OF MODEEN SCIENCE. 155 
 
 In many and various ways, unquestionably, was the spirit 
 of man called upon in this beautiful era of the restoration of 
 science to consider itself ripe and mature ; its feelings, too, 
 answered to the call, and, in some respects, perhaps it was 
 even so. But let us examine the matter by the same law of 
 sound reason that we should judge of a corresponding case 
 in ordinary and social life. Let us suppose a youth to have 
 attained his legal majority, or, perhaps, by his father's will, 
 j declared of age at a still earlier period. Is it right for him, 
 I all at once, to forget the love wherewith his mother has nursed 
 ! and reared him ? Is it right in him, misinterpreting alto- 
 t gether the motive of his father's dying wish, to cast off and 
 [ trample under foot all the wise and useful lessons with 
 i which, according to the measure of his years, his mind was 
 I stored at school, merely because he has remarked or expe- 
 rienced that there is much in life which was not touched 
 upon in his school learning ? If we saw this in private life, 
 should we not form a very bad opinion of such a youth who so 
 suddenly throws off all restraint, and take care that sooner or 
 later he should fall under another and a stricter oversight, 
 since he has all at once outgrown parental control. Why then 
 should we form a different judgment in the realm of science 
 and truth ? All eyes and universal expectation were directed 
 I to this restoration of science. And these hopes were right in 
 so far as through the lapse of these last times which are has- 
 tening to a close, the course and trial of human nature are 
 I even to lie therein. But if, as already pointed out, they fell 
 into a grave error, who, even while they kept within the 
 bounds of faith, looked upon the promised completion and 
 final triumph of the divine and eternal revelation in the 
 light of a new manifestation of truth, and almost as a new 
 religion ; far greater was the aberration of those who formed 
 the conception of, and hoped to attain to, an ever advancing 
 science altogether without God, or at least one which, pro- 
 ceeding side by side with Him, should never come into vital 
 contact with Him ! But men cannot thus pass along by the 
 side of Omnipotence, without coming into contact with Him ; 
 and every effort to rise into the higher regions of truth, 
 which is begun and intended to remain wholly without God, 
 will, sooner or later, be directed against Him. And every 
 branch of knowledge, and more especially the highest, if it 
 
156 FALSEHOOD TO BE FOUGHT WITH ITS OWN WEAPONS. 
 
 be without God, is but a false light of the mind (geist), which 
 will only too soon beguile it into the olden darkness of the 
 soul. And so it came to pass then. For under this smooth 
 surface of a seeming moral mildness, the lurking poison sud- 
 denly broke out as it were by a fearful conspiracy of the 
 times, spreading its contagion far and wide, and corrupting 
 everything that came within its reach — even as it had been 
 predicted of it in the second book of the future.* 
 
 For even out of the struggle of good against evil, the latter 
 suddenly arose again in a new and unexpected shape, coming 
 forth, as it were, out of the sea, and the moral world was 
 transformed into a sea of blood. And so indeed, in these pro- 
 phetic pages, it is predicted of the enigmas of the last days. 
 Now, throughout this great catastrophe of the world, so far 
 as it can be regarded as a peculiar and especial, but historical 
 warning from God, and a revelation of the divine will, we 
 may trace among the better disposed, the same gradation of 
 illumination, advancing through the ascending series of sense, 
 soul, and spirit, that we have already noticed, on a larger 
 scale, in the course of the history of mankind. The senses 
 of many individuals became, indeed, more and more open, the 
 more clearly they recognised, by its historical characters, the 
 fatal abyss to w r hich the age of the world was drawing nigh. 
 The epoch of the restoration was moreover followed by a 
 general revolution in the sentiments, the moral principles, 
 and prevailing pursuits of men. The third step, however, of 
 a right and true knowledge which, from the position of a full 
 scientific enlightenment of the mind or spirit, should pene- 
 trate into the profoundest depths of truth, is still wanting, or 
 at any rate exists as yet only in a very imperfect degree. 
 This property is the defective point in the problem of the age, 
 and in all attempts hitherto made to solve it. 
 
 The false science, even that unhuman and godless science 
 wdiich has been already described, can only be overcome and 
 conquered by the true. The mere method of negation — 
 which generally, indeed, is seldom the right one — is here too 
 insufficient for the purpose. And so, in fact, when clouds 
 of dust darken the air, or swarms of noxious insects fill 
 it, it may suffice if the goodman of the house shuts to his 
 
 # The Apocalypse or Revelations of St. John the Divine. — Trans. 
 
t 
 
 THIS METHOD PURSUED BY MOSES. ] 57 
 
 casement, as he may lawfully do, even because it is his own ; 
 but when the fearful thunder-storm is lowering in the 
 heavens, the closed window will but little ensure the safety 
 of his dwelling, unless he has more wisely provided against 
 the danger, by a good lightning-conductor. But what is 
 | that ? And how came man first to think of it ? Why, by 
 studying the electrical phenomena, and arriving at a full 
 understanding of its nature, and so in obedience to its laws, 
 contriving a counteracting and diverting agent for the electric 
 i current, and converting the natural action of the threatening 
 element into an instrument of protection. And just in the 
 I same way will a true wisdom proceed in the domain of science 
 | and truth. It is only by a good power of a like kind and similar 
 I action to its own, that the supremacy of evil can be overcome. 
 Even, therefore, and to this purport was the earnest warning 
 uttered by the mouth of Truth Itself against those who, 
 I although they sat in Moses' seat, neither went in themselves, 
 I nor suffered others that were entering to go in.* 
 
 And what a different picture does Holy Writ set before us 
 I in the noble example of Moses ! No doubt the preparation 
 | for the work to which he w T as to be called, of leading success- 
 fully the people entrusted to him by God out of their Egyptian 
 darkness through the fearful Red Sea and all the wanderings 
 in the wilderness, to the borders of the promised land, was 
 even the forty years of solitude among the noble pastoral peo- 
 ple with whom he spent the long period of his exile. But 
 still it is not without a deep significance that it is written that 
 the daughter of the Egyptian monarch, having adopted the 
 foundling of the waters, brought him up and educated him 
 ! I as her own son. So too assuredly is it not without design 
 I that it is said so emphatically of him, that he " was learned 
 in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."! In the first place, 
 | we have good reason to rejoice at and to acknowledge the 
 comprehensive spirit and wide standard of judgment which 
 Holy Writ here sets up. Eor whereas it passes a severer 
 sentence of reprobation on the Egyptians than on any other 
 heathen nation or people, for their moral depravity, it yet 
 acknowledges that they possessed a scientific wisdom, which 
 amply rewarded the labour of its acquisition, while it proved 
 j the very errors wherewith in their extreme corruption they 
 
 * Matt, xxiii. 13. t Acts vii. 22. 
 
158 A STRUGGLE FOR TRUTH THE CONFLICT OF THE AGE. 
 
 had overloaded it, to be only the more culpable and deserving 
 of punishment. Shallow and superficial sceptics may, indeed, 
 as many have already done, avail themselves of such an ad- 
 mission, and cry, " There ! it is plain enough, — Moses bor- 
 rowed everything from Egypt and the hieroglyphics. " 
 
 But this is not the case. No doubt both the ten first andi 
 the twelve last letters of the Hebrew" alphabet are hierogly- 
 phics, as their very names indicate: but in its primary 
 natural roots, nevertheless, and above all, in its whole spirit, 
 and structure, and tone, this language differs widely from the 
 hieroglyphical Egyptian. Certainly Moses did learn from 
 Egypt all that there was for him to learn. And this learning 
 enabled him the more easily to disperse the thick Egyptian 
 darkness, and the less cause, consequently, had he to fear the 
 false arts of the Egyptian magicians and serpent charmers. 
 He took from them all that was available for his purpose, but 
 he made it quite new again, and gave it another nature by the 
 end to which he employed it. He despoiled them of their 
 46 jewels of gold and jewels of silver," by a theft permissible in 
 the realm of science and truth. For it is lawful for man to 
 wrest from the evU power all that may be converted into a 
 means of honouring the things of God and His revealed truth, 
 and which thereby is better employed, spiritualised, and 
 invested with a higher and better significance. This is true 
 even of our own days, as it was then, and indeed always has 
 been. 
 
 Oh that the many great men who, in our own generation, 
 have deserved so well of mankind, by devoting themselves to the 
 noble work of re-establishing right sentiments and principles, 
 had, in this their good design, followed the great example set ; 
 them by this man so highly preferred of God. But, with one ! 
 or two exceptions, it is impossible to boast of them that, like 
 Moses, they were " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." 
 And hence the fact is at once explicable why, with such ardent 1 
 and unbounded zeal, they should have effected comparatively 
 so little against the modern Egyptians, and the new Egyptian 
 darkness of our own days. 
 
 An intellectual conflict about truth, and indeed about 
 divine truth, is the struggle of our age. This fact is already 
 seen and admitted by a few, but ere long it will be still more 
 generally acknowledged. God is a spirit of truth ; and even on 
 
FALSEHOOD — TRIFLING WITH OATHS. 
 
 159 
 
 j this account is His adversary, the spirit of contradiction, 
 termed " a liar from the beginning ;" and, of all the powerful 
 
 | instruments and wicked devices of that evil one, the lie is the 
 first and chiefest. And this suggests to me to notice, in pass- 
 ing, a point in the moral systems of our day, notwithstanding 
 
 j that it does not properly lie within our prescribed limits. In 
 most of our ethical treatises the question of falsehood and 
 untruth is but carelessly treated, and seldom discussed with 
 that prominence and gravity which its great importance 
 demands. Overt transgressions of the laws belong rather 
 to jurisprudence than to ethics, which properly treats of 
 and analyses the leading faults of human character as so 
 many diseases of the soul. Now, the worst among these 
 
 I tare usually denominated mortal, i. e., likely to bring the 
 soul unto death ; but the lie, in the full import of the term — 
 the intrinsic proper lie of the soul, as the predominant fault 
 
 . in a character of untruth — a whole life become, as it were, 
 one great lie, is far more than mortal, — it is even death itself. 
 
 f And it is even of this sin — this secret revolt against and 
 
 :\ wounding of the spirit, even the divine Spirit of Eternal 
 
 If Truth — that is said in Holy Writ, that it shall be forgiven 
 neither in this world nor in the next. 
 
 ; On this point, then, I think that moral theory and teach- 
 : ing can never be stern and rigorous enough in its precepts, 
 
 especially as regards individuals. It is not, indeed, a question 
 
 about words, but about their interpretation, and what is meant 
 | by those who use them ; and in this respect there may be, and 
 1 often is, a false and over-scrupulous delicacy of conscience. 
 
 When, however we remember how, in particular ages of 
 1 history, oaths have been played with, — millions of oaths lavishly 
 
 I proferred and shortly re-taken in quite a different and oppo- 
 
 I I site sense, and soon again abjured with as little difficulty ; 
 1 and when we consider the evil effects this trifling with the 
 
 most solemn of obligations must have had on the moral cha- 
 racter of a people, we cannot but see some excuse in this 
 monstrous fact for certain small communities of Christians who 
 absolutely refuse to take an oath in any case. For when, in 
 J the important point of truth and falsehood, a grave error has 
 been committed on one side, it is better to meet it on the 
 other by too great strictness. A rigorous severity can never 
 entail such fearful consequences in such a case, as the opposite 
 
160 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE A SPIRIT OF UNTRUTH. 
 
 fault of an over-indulgent laxity, or, what is even still more 
 false and erroneous, the regarding the matter as trifling and 
 indifferent. But the further prosecution of this topic would 
 lead me out of my proper province, and I have only touched 
 upon it in passing to that which lies more immediately before 
 us. 
 
 If then there is nothing so dangerous to the character of an 
 individual, both inwardly and outwardly — if there is nothing 
 that works so insiduously, conveying its secret poison to the 
 very lowest roots and extremities of the moral character, as 
 untruth and the spirit of lying, how much more fearful must 
 its malignant influence prove when it is become the universal 
 and prevailing fault of an age which has not only wandered 
 far from the truth, but is even animated with a deadly hatred 
 of it! a 
 
 It is to this spirit of lies, and the false splendour of his 
 colossal empire, and to the final conflict which truth will have 
 to wage with it on earth, that the most aw ful of the prophe- 
 cies already alluded to refer. And the application is easily 
 made, since a greater part of their warning denunciations 
 have in our age already come to an actual fulfilment. If, 
 then, this giant spirit of destruction and untruth was strong 
 enough even in his cradle to throttle two- quarters of the 
 world,* what must it be now that the permitted interval of 
 rest has passed away without being profitably employed to the 
 cause of truth, and now that this same spirit of murder and 
 lies, with a far greater body, and endued wuth far more magical 
 powers, is let loose again to tread the earth for a while with 
 iron feet and to deceive the nations ? 
 
 Those whose responsible position in public life, or compre- 
 hensive sphere of intellectual activity, enable them to take in 
 at one glance all the various elements of evil and the perni- 
 cious principles and destructive tendencies which are so actively 
 at work in our days, will not, perhaps, be disposed to regard 
 these remarks as groundless or exaggerated ; others, perhaps, 
 may make a mock at them — but they may go on in their 
 delusion for a while, 
 
 In conclusion, I have but three observations to add. The 
 
 * Schlegel is apparently alluding to the triumph of Mahominedanism 
 ir» Asia and Africa, and the almost total extinction of Christianity in those 
 quarters of the world.— Trans. 
 
A CALL FOB, UNION AMONG THE FRIENDS OP TRUTH. 161 
 
 first regards the divine permission of evil, and is intended to 
 form a supplement to that Theodicee which I have attempted, 
 in the only way that such a justification of the divine ways is 
 permissible to man, by appealing, viz., to his feelings, rather 
 than by attempting to force his conviction by the rigour of 
 demonstration. The full justification of the ways of Provi- 
 dence is reserved for a future day, when all mouths shall be 
 stopped, whether that awful crisis be near at hand or yet 
 tarries for a while. If now, the human race be actually sick 
 and in a sicklv state, as indeed cannot well be denied, then 
 must God's overruling providence in the affairs of the world 
 be judged of in the same light as, and be compared to, the wise 
 treatment of a skilful physician. For as the latter, in the case 
 of a patient whose death was to be apprehended from a total 
 prostration of his bodilv nowers and energy, might wish for 
 or even venture to supermauce a vioiem paroxysm, in the hope 
 that in it he might perhaps be able to throw off his fatal 
 lethargy; even so, in Gods government of the world, those 
 predetermined councils, which seem so singular, but never- 
 theless are so expressly foretold, may have a somewhat similar 
 design. In the times of the last struggle the power of dark- 
 ness will probably work itself to death on the earth ; and 
 while the remnant shall come out of the crisis and fiery trial 
 purer and healthier, the divine truth is to gain a complete 
 triumph over sin and death. 
 
 The second remark 1 have to make applies to ourselves and 
 | all the well-disposed among our contemporaries, and refers to 
 | the disunion which subsists in these evil times even among the 
 best of men. Were two nations threatened in common by a 
 formidable enemy, would they not, however widely they might 
 differ in or perhaps be estranged from each other by their re- 
 spective constitutions, languages, and customs, forget in the 
 moment of danger their characteristic differences, and laying 
 aside all previous feelings of jealousy or estrangement unite for 
 their mutual protection and safety ? My heart's wish, therefore, 
 is that all the truly pious and well-wishers of truth, on which- 
 ever of the two sides of the now divided faith they may stand, 
 would unite together without sacrificing those more intimate 
 differences which cannot at present be got rid of or reconciled, 
 and, making a righteous peace of mutual forbearance, join 
 together in a firm alliance against the common enemy of all 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 FINAL TRIUMPH OP TRUTH. 
 
 truth and all faith. For that the dearest interests of reli-l 
 gion are in our generation exposed to a violent assault, and; 
 menaced with great and immediate danger, will not be denied I 
 by any lover of truth, even though his conception of the truth j 
 may differ from mine. 
 
 Lastly, the third observation that I promised will not take 
 the form of the utterance of a wish, as rather of the expression 
 of the firmest conviction, that, however awful and severe this 
 final conflict may prove, the good cause will not eventually be 
 lost, but that the great battle will have a favourable issue in 
 the complete victory of divine revelation, and the celestial 
 wisdom in the government of this kingdom of truth will be I 
 fully manifest both to men and angels. 
 
 END OF LECTURE VII. 
 
163 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 OF THE DIVINE ORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD 
 AND THE RELATIONS OF STATES. 
 
 "The history of the world is the world's tribunal," * says 
 one of our most famous poets. If by these words he meant to 
 convey an opinion that no other tribunal of judgment is to be 
 expected than that which is even now set up in the history of 
 the world, then such an opinion, implying that the human race 
 is to live for ever in its present state, and in this particular 
 terrestrial life, would be even as groundless as that of the 
 fanciful conceit, that the human race had existed from all 
 1 eternity, if, in sooth, any of the philosophical dreamers of an- 
 | tiquity had ever fallen on such a fancy, or, in modern times, 
 i any of the antipodes to the usual current mode of thinking 
 | should ever stumble upon it. The poet himself, as dramatist 
 I and artist, would but have taken it ill had any one laid before 
 ' him a great drama, composed of several acts and scenes, from 
 I which, however, the beginning was torn off, and which, ever 
 i going on, untied the existing perplexities only to fall again into 
 new and fresh complications; or like a poor journal ever refer- 
 ring to a continuation, had no true end, no conclusion or proper 
 | termination. But unquestionably a better sense is also con- 
 Itained in the poet's words. He may have merely meant to 
 say that the mind which rules the course of mundane affairs is 
 a mind that inflicts retribution on the world ; and that all the 
 j great epochs and incidents of history have a retributive cha- 
 racter and vindicatory significance.! Such an interpretation 
 
 * M Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht." 
 
 Schiller's Ode to Resignation. 
 f The following passage forcibly expresses Spiegel's thoughts on this 
 I point : — '* Les individus de l'espece humaine s'echappent quelquefois aux 
 suites de leurs actions, qui dans la regie doivent etre regardces comme les 
 justes chatimens des infractions faites a la loi de Dieu. Les nations ne 
 sauraient s'y soustraire ; car leur existence se prolonge et se projette dans DO 
 espace immense, ou les lois eternelles trouvent leur sanction et leur entier 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 AGES OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of the words, which indeed suits well with the author's serious 
 mind and character, would bring them in perfect unison with 
 my own sentiments, and adequately express the truth which 
 forms the theme of our present consideration on the divine 
 order in the history of the human race. 
 
 The human race, then, as it had a beginning, so also will it 
 have an end ; it will not continue for ever in this present form, 
 but must eventually come to a termination. But, to speak 
 according to the measure of a divine chronology, where a 
 thousand years are but as one day ; who can say, who shall 
 dare offhand to decide whether six or seven of these great 
 days of God are fixed for its duration ? Enough to know that 
 we stand on the borders of the fourth age, and on the passage 
 from the third to the fourth. And not unimportant is it, on the 
 other hand, for the clear understanding of the whole, to form 
 a right conception of each of these its great divisions and 
 epochs. The first age is made up of the twenty-five centuries 
 of obscure primeval history. The second, which we called 
 the age of preparation, is formed by the fifteen hundred years 
 which we reckon from the end of the first up to the centre and 
 turning-point of the history of the world as known to us, and 
 from which modern history takes its commencement. Even in 
 the oldest traditionary history of the Gentile nations of an- 
 tiquity we do not meet with any statements that can be relied 
 upon, or any tenable data beyond, if indeed so far back as, the 
 fifteenth century before the epoch of the commencement of 
 modern history. The fifteen centuries which follow this epoch 
 form the third age, in which this principle of a new life in the 
 spiritual, moral, and political world had to develope and com- 
 pletely to unfold itself. In the last Lecture I also reckoned in 
 this period the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries 
 of our era. But if it seems to any more advisable to consider 
 these as the introductory portion of the fourth and subsisting 
 
 accomplissement. C'est la que la terrible Nemesis se deploie tout entiere, 
 et exerce sur le crime sa bienfaisante reaction ; c'est sur la longue route 
 que decrivent les nations que, dans sa marche lente, silencieuse, mais sure, 
 elle punit la licence par le despotisme, et le despotisme par l'insurrection, 
 ou par la degeneration des peuples ; c'est la que l'egoisme et immoralite 
 des peuples, la lachete et la faiblesse des souverains et la servilite ameneDt 
 des resultats aussi terribles qu'inevi tables. On peut dire d'eux : ' Habne* 
 rent vitia ipatium exemplorum.' " — Ancillon. Essais de P/iilosophe, 
 de Politique, et de la Littirature r torn. ii. — Tram 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 165 
 
 age, there is nothing positively to condemn such a mode of 
 reckoning ; only, for my part, I cannot but regard it as less 
 correct and more inaccurate than the one which I have pro- 
 posed. In one case as well as the other the same important 
 consideration will be involved. Reckoning from some point or 
 other within these last forty years, we have, it must be acknow- 
 ledged by all, entered upon a grand and decisive epoch in the 
 history of the world ; and our attention cannot be too often 
 or too strongly directed to the fact, that we stand at the cri- 
 tical point of transition from one great period to another. 
 
 Now one of the most characteristic signs, by which such 
 important moments of general revolution in the history of the 
 world are, for the most part, known and distinguished, is a 
 number of great events pressed closely together and following 
 each other in rapid succession ; or, in other words, the accele- 
 rated course of time. It is no new remark, that, in the poli- 
 tical history of our own age, modern Europe has, in the short 
 space of two-and-twenty years, ran through all the epochs 
 of the old Roman world, from the first party struggles of the 
 republic, and its long wars with Carthage, that mistress of the 
 seas, up to the imperial rule of the Caesars, in the first reigns 
 mild and indulgent, but at the last so fearfully oppressive and 
 cruel ; and even up to the final immigration of the northern 
 nations. Such a simple remark is alone sufficient proof that 
 another law now rules in the history of the world — a quicker 
 life pulsates in its arteries than beat in the calmer days of old. 
 Whether, however, this life be thoroughly sound, or, on the 
 contrary, sickly and feverish, that is quite another question. 
 
 But not only in the political world, but also in the intellec- 
 tual domain of science has the same accelerated course been 
 noticeable. Only, as compared with that of antiquity, the 
 course or direction pursued by modern science is altogether 
 different. We have travelled with equal celerity, but in quite 
 an opposite course to the ancients. Starting from the last 
 term, we have reversed the series of their mental progression. 
 First of all, in the last decades of the preceding century, the 
 Epicurean cast of thought, or one very nearly resembling it, 
 was the one chiefly predominant in the philosophical world. 
 And then together with, but subordinate to it, came scholastic 
 subtilties and hair-splitting distinctions similar to those of the 
 later Greek schools, not unaccompanied, perhaps, with the same 
 
166 
 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 patient industry of research and extensive erudition, and exer- 
 cising altogether on the minds of men an influence no less wide, 
 nor less pernicious, than did the most brilliant of the sophists of 
 Greece. All the erroneous systems which it was possible for the 
 human mind to embrace, and which are grounded in its essential 
 qualities, or which could possibly originate in any (so to speak) 
 of its inborn misconceptions, which it took the Greeks several 
 centuries to evolve in slow succession, our age has rapidly and 
 almost simultaneously run through in as many decades. And in 
 this fact, if I do not greatly deceive myself, there is much ground 
 of consolation. It encourages me to hope that this inverse pro- 
 gression is leading us back again to the truth — that in this 
 ascending line we are gradually coming nearer to the better 
 times of the first great philosophers of Greece — of a Plato, a 
 Socrates, and a Pythagoras. It must be self-evident that in 
 this case, and still more so in that analogy of political history 
 which I have so recently noticed, as generally, in all such his- 
 torical parallels, nothing more is intended to be asserted than a 
 general resemblance, which, however, as such, is eminently 
 remarkable. It would not perhaps be difficult anxiously to 
 work out the general resemblance into points of detail, but 
 such an over- wrought assimilation could only lead to false 
 conclusions and results. 
 
 Now that the conflict which our age has to go through 
 is eminently intellectual is implied simply in the prevailing 
 notion of a public opinion and its influence. But, at the same 
 time, we must observe, that in the very notion of opinion, and in 
 the word itself, there is involved a certain character of extreme 
 vagueness and uncertainty. No doubt that which man can 
 properly be said to know is extremely limited and confined. 
 Of very much all that we can have is merely an opinion, and 
 with that must we be content to put up. Nay, inasmuch as all 
 scientific certainty admits not of being imparted to all men, 
 very much of that which we do properly and certainly know 
 is best and most beneficially set forth to others merely as an 
 opinion, in order that we may not seem to force their minds to 
 the admission of this higher certainty. And what is there 
 that the passions of a prejudiced or excited multitude cannot 
 be made to adopt as an opinion, which if presented to them as 
 a sober conviction of reason would never make an impression ? 
 So devoid are they generally of that intelligence and accurate 
 
THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 167 
 
 knowledge of men and things which are essential and neces- 
 sary to the formation of a right judgment. If, instead of 
 public opinion (which, unquestionably, is a great power, but 
 which, if it takes a wrong direction, is also a very dangerous 
 one), the appeal were to be made to a public conscience, this 
 would be, to my mind, far more impressive and serious. To 
 illustrate my meaning: — the impression which the events 
 of 1793 made on the general feeling of all Europe, and the 
 universal movement of discontent which, among all European 
 nations, preceded the great political catastrophe of our own 
 days, are instances to which the old maxim, vox populi vox 
 Dei may, without hesitation, be applied. Such feelings are 
 founded on a true and higher judgment— often on a correct 
 presentiment of evil and wrong — even though as we must 
 admit that in their utterance more or less of passion and 
 exaggeration reveals itself, and that individual prejudices are 
 not unfrequently mixed up with them. But how seldom in 
 the ebbing and flooding tide, in the ever-changing course of 
 the stream of public opinion, flows there aught that truly 
 deserves to be called a public judgment. And yet public 
 opinion is even that on which, in this respect, and relatively to 
 the theme of our present Lecture, everything mainly and 
 principally turns. 
 
 In discussing the theory of consciousness a chasm remained, 
 or, rather, was intentionally left open, and the present seems 
 the appropriate place for filling it up and supplying it. The 
 power or rather the faculty of judgment has not, as yet, had 
 its place assigned it. The reason, with its immediate subor- 
 dinates, memory and conscience ; the fancy, with its subordi- 
 nates, the senses and inclinations, form six faculties of the 
 inner man, with which the understanding and will make 
 together eight. The ninth is the living, loving, feeling soul, 
 which, although it be the centre of the whole consciousness, 
 must nevertheless be counted as an independent and peculiar 
 faculty. As for the heart (Gemuth), (as some peculiarly 
 designate the collective sum of the tender, moral emotions of 
 the soul, and which, at any rate, must be carefully distin- 
 guished from the conscience and also from love), it is, how- 
 ever, a kind of application of the triple relation and function 
 of the soul rather than an independent faculty. But the 
 tenth faculty, which completes the whole cycle and theory 
 
168 
 
 THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 of the human consciousness, and which may be regarded as- 
 its crown and perfection, is the judgment, or, in other words, 
 the judging mind (geist). 
 
 But now, if this term judgment be understood purely in a 
 logical sense, as that process of thought which forms combina- 
 tions and deductions, and by means of which we ascribe to a 
 subject A a predicate B, this would fall very far short of the 
 signification in which I here intend it to be taken. Moreover, 
 it would be, in truth, quite a superfluous task to separate this 
 cogitative relation, or this relative cogitation, from the other 
 logical functions of the understanding, and to make of it a 
 special and independent faculty. The judgment is something 
 higher than this mere coupling in the thought of some special 
 A with some general B. Understanding is the cognition of 
 spirit and of that which it has uttered ; and judgment is the 
 decision between two things understood, or the " discerning of 
 spirits." Of how great a multitude of intellectual relations 
 does a scientific or even an artistic judgment imply the coin- 
 cidence and concurrent action ! And yet these are merely 
 private judgments, which involve an assenting feeling in the 
 individual, but beyond that cannot pretend to any valid autho- 
 rity. In practical life the judicial function in the state alone 
 furnishes an adequate standard for estimating the high rank 
 which the faculty of judgment holds as the centre of the 
 human consciousness. For, in the deliberative sentence of the 
 judge, there is comprised both the mature art of the under- 
 standing, which has taken due cognizance of the matter and 
 impartially discerned between two objects equally well under- 
 stood, and also a determination of the will : for though the 
 actual carrying into effect — that which properly and peculiarly 
 constitutes a willing — belong not to, but is independent of, 
 the judge's office, still the conclusion of a positive judgment 
 implies the existence of the first determining motive of the 
 will. In this one act of judging, therefore, there is contained 
 both functions of the mind (geist), understanding and willing; 
 and as the loving soul is the centre of the consciousness, so 
 the judging mind or spirit is the highest of all its operations. 
 
 In the Book of Truth there is a sentence which admits of 
 application here. " There is none good," it is there written, 
 " but one, i. e., God." However harsh and severe this judgment 
 may sound at the first hearing, still, upon a little reflection, we 
 
GOD THE SOURCE OF JUSTICE AND AUTHORITY. 169 
 
 shall see ample cause to admit its justice. Man is not wholly 
 and purely good ; at the very best he is not free from faults, 
 and more or less of imperfection cleaves to all that he does or 
 is. And even granting that a man might be found devoid of 
 all admixture of imperfection and quite faultless and thoroughly 
 good, still he was not so always and from the first. And 
 even if any should here urge that the angels who have con- 
 tinued such as they were originally created, were good from 
 the beginning, we must remember that at least they are not 
 good in and by themselves, but that, that they are good, comes 
 from God, who is the source of all goodness. Now just 
 in the same sense can we also say, Who judges rightly? 
 There is none that judges rightly, but one, i. e., God. He is 
 Himself the truth ; and, therefore, He alone has the standard 
 of truth in Himself, and all truth has its ground and prin- 
 ciple in Him alone. Every individual judgment and decision, 
 in all important matters, has its ground, cither mediately 
 or immediately, in this divine basis, and its rectitude must 
 be estimated according to this standard. But this latter condi- 
 tion need not make us foolishly anxious ; for nothing impos- 
 sible is required of us by God. And this requisition, like every 
 other which He lays upon man, is modified by, and adjusted 
 to, the measure of human finiteness. The conscientious judge, 
 who, after a patient investigation of the cause as it is laid 
 before him, and after a careful weighing of all the possible 
 reasons and motives, nevertheless errs or is deceived by a rare 
 coincidence of circumstances, stands, nevertheless, exonerated, 
 even though he should have passed an unjust sentence, and 
 have had the misfortune to condemn the innocent. Although, 
 when he becomes aware of it, the thought must be painful 
 enough to his own feelings, yet who, in justice, can reproach him 
 merely because he was not omniscient? He who in thought, 
 in science, and in faith, adheres to this divine foundation, the 
 best and most certain that he can find or that is anywhere 
 offered to him, may rest calm and composed ; he has done the 
 utmost that lies in his power. He alone, who makes a bad 
 use of what he has, and what has been given to him, like an un- 
 just steward, need fear to give an account of his stewardship. 
 
 This reference of all judicial sentences to, and their founda- 
 tion in a divine authority, is an idea which was not unknown 
 even to the republican states of antiquity, as is evident from 
 
170 
 
 KINGS AS VICEGERENTS OF GOD. 
 
 the way they expressed themselves on the irrefragable sanctity 
 of the laws and the inviolability of the supreme judicial power, 
 and also in the maxims which they practically advanced on 
 this subject. They honoured herein a higher and a diviner 
 principle, of which, however, in theory they possessed no clear 
 and perfect knowledge, though in practical life they were 
 taught by a correct feeling of sound reason and the natural 
 conscience accurately enough to recognise and steadily and 
 distinctly to respect it. With us still more generally is it 
 become an admitted doctrine that all sovereignty and kingly 
 power is of God, and that all obedience to the laws and to the 
 supreme authority in the state rests ultimately on a divine 
 foundation and sanction. If very recently men were for a while 
 disposed to argue, that political institutions must be founded 
 on the reason and its unconditional liberty, yet bitter expe- 
 rience quickly convinced them of their error, and it was soon 
 fully refuted by the convincing argument of actual fact. And 
 accordingly, theory has for the most part reverted to a right 
 principle, and recognised the divine authority as the true foun- 
 dation of political authority. 
 
 But the principle being thus generally recognised, it is, I 
 think, still necessary to distinguish with care and accurately to 
 define in what sense the supreme ruler of the state is the vice- 
 gerent of God. The indefinite titles which are assumed by 
 Eastern despots have always been alien to the habits of the 
 West. But it is not enough to avoid such exaggerated titles 
 of honour, if nevertheless the appeal to divine right be made 
 so very vaguely, and simply in general terms to God Himself. 
 In His absolute essence, God is wholly inconceivable ; it is 
 only in His operations on man and nature, and in His rela- 
 tions to the human race, that we can at all think precisely of 
 Him. It is only as Creator of the world, as the Lawgiver of 
 nature, or as the Benefactor and Bedeemer of mankind, and so 
 forth, that we can form a clear and distinct notion of the 
 Godhead. 
 
 Now, is the supreme ruler of the state God's deputy as 
 Creator of the world ? Who would venture to assert anything 
 of the kind ? It is true that the paternal rule of the earthly 
 parent, and the universal feeling among all peoples and nations 
 of the sanctity of a father's authority, rests on a resemblance— 
 which is, however, only symbolical — between his relation and 
 
KINGS AS VICEGERENTS OF GOD. 
 
 171 
 
 that of our unseen Father which is in heaven. And it is no less 
 true also, that the reign of a truly paternal monarch over his 
 people maybe regarded as a mere amplification of the father's 
 government of his family ; a good king is the father of his 
 people. But such remote, although most significant, analo- 
 gies furnish us with no precise notion of right ; and it is on 
 such alone that the whole question here turns. No doubt 
 when a people is governed well and wisely — which is even the 
 same as to say, paternally governed — it exhibits a wonderful 
 power of natural development ; productive industry flourishes, 
 population increases, and its physical and mental cultivation 
 advances rapidly. Unfavourable seasons may imdoubtedly 
 check this tendency, and it will be entirely stopped as soon as 
 the subject refuses to follow with loving confidence the guiding 
 hand of the paternal monarch. Whenever they whose duty it 
 is to obey seek to be supreme, then are the natural energies of 
 a great people transmuted into a fearful element of universal 
 desolation. 
 
 If now we inquire in the next place how far it is allowable 
 to compare the highest authority in the state to the Lawgiver 
 of nature, we shall find that even in this respect the difference 
 is so very great that analogy almost entirely fails us. Holy 
 unquestionably are the laws of every political community in 
 respect to the duty of obedience which they suppose and 
 require ; but this is not paid spontaneously and naturally, but 
 needs to be enforced and maintained by pains and penalties. 
 And not to speak of the stern laws of retributive justice, but 
 rather of those mild and equitable enactments designed for the 
 general benefit and the improvement of the whole community ; 
 these are still more subject to the imperfection and manifold 
 changes of human things. Suppose, for instance, a measure 
 promulgated in any coiintry with the design of balancing in 
 some degree the agricultural and the manufacturing interests ; 
 however wisely designed, it is found within a few years to have 
 totally failed ; under it misery has but increased on both sides, 
 and the law must be repealed or modified. But it is not so 
 with the laws which God has implanted in the system of the 
 universe : they never fail of their intended effect. 
 
 Do we further ask in what, if in any respect, the earthly 
 sovereign is the deputy of God, as Redeemer, Emancipator, 
 and Liberator ? A notion of grace and mercy does, we must 
 
172 KINGS AND PRIESTS AS VICEGERENTS OF GOD. 
 
 admit, attach itself to our idea of supreme authority; and 
 in this respect it presents a sort of analogy and resemblance 
 to the idea of the Godhead. Properly speaking, however, 
 the exercise of grace and mercy forms an exception to the 
 general ride of man's sovereignty, and belongs to him only 
 in his special function as administrator of justice. More- 
 over, the most paternal and beneficent of earthly rulers can 
 at most provide only for the physical happiness of his people. 
 He may alleviate or avert heavy calamities, or procure many 
 temporal blessings and advantages for his subjects ; but the 
 unhappy soul can be helped by One alone. The distinction I 
 have just made will become more apparent by means of a con- 
 trast. Wherever the clergy are not regarded merely as 
 teachers of the people, but, as is the case in the greater part 
 of Western and of Eastern Christendom, as priests speaking 
 with a divine authority, this their public vicegerency relates 
 primarily and immediately to the Redeemer ; its judicial func- 
 tions over the conscience ought to shun a visible publicity, and 
 to be left entirely to the conscience and guarded by its seal of 
 secrecy. And in this respect lies the distinctive peculiarity of 
 the relation subsisting between the supreme authority in the 
 state and God, which however refers pre-eminently to His 
 attribute of justice. And here it is no mere remote analogy 
 and weak resemblance, dependent on the principle of human 
 weakness and imperfection; but it is a true and real vice- 
 gerency, publicly admitted and recognised, and exercising 
 consequently a great public influence. And therefore it is 
 that among the divers elements or branches of the supreme 
 political authority (which, however, fundamentally and in its 
 essence is one and indivisible), a special sanctity is, as I have 
 already remarked, ascribed to its judicial functions. In a 
 word, the earthly head of the state is the dispenser of the 
 divine justice, the vicegerent of the Judge of the world ; he is 
 a divine functionary, and, so to say, the supreme judge in the 
 world's tribunal. And this is the point of view from which 
 all matters and questions connected with this subject may most 
 fully be answered and most correctly determined. But that 
 this exalted dignity of the earthly ruler may not be interpreted 
 too literally, I must here observe, that the divine Judge is one 
 who allows mercy to take the place of justice, not merely occa- 
 sionally and by way of exception, but always and invariably ; 
 
HISTORY A PRELUDE OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT. 173 
 
 so long, at least, as it is in any way possible. And here comes 
 in the application of the principle which we previously ad- 
 vanced : — That God is in nowise absolute, but that on the 
 contrary His justice is in every case limited by His love and 
 grace ; while the latter again is restricted and modified by His 
 justice, and both indeed reciprocally by each other. Whoever 
 has formed in his heart the least vivid notion of God, will not 
 entertain the slightest doubt of this union of justice and of 
 mercy in the divine essence. 
 
 When, however, we speak of kings being the dispensers of 
 divine justice, we mean it in quite a different sense from that in 
 which, during the great immigration of the northern hordes of 
 Asia, the barbarian conqueror proclaimed himself the scourge 
 of God. By assuming this title he merely meant to terrify 
 his adversaries by the thought of having to encounter in him- 
 self a fearful and destructive power of evil, whom, in order to 
 chastise a degenerate world, the Almighty had permitted to do as 
 he pleased and to let loose his fury on the nations of the earth. 
 And phenomena of this kind are not confined to the period of 
 the great migration ; for the true notion of the representation 
 of the divine judge of the world by the supreme power in 
 the state combines together with the sternest severity of 
 justice, which in this respect is both wholesome and necessary, 
 the greatest clemency, — for where is there, or can there be, a 
 clemency greater than the divine ? But most especially does 
 this idea imply that which is here pre-eminently requisite, 
 and insists with a prominence proportionate to its great im- 
 portance on the strictest conscientiousness in the discharge of 
 the duties of this vicegerency. But the superior excellence 
 of this idea over many other explanations of a similar kind, 
 but labouring under the defect of extreme vagueness, consists 
 even in this, that it comprises and inseparably combines those 
 two important conditions, both that the supreme governor is 
 responsible to God alone, and, as following therefrom, that 
 he is unquestionably responsible to Him, and that it also 
 determines in what sense and in what way he is so. 
 
 Every great and remarkable event which marks an epoch 
 in the political history of nations and the world, may, perhaps, 
 be regarded as a dispensation of justice. If, then, such an 
 event, however partial and confined to a single people or 
 empire, or at most extending to an entire age, may be looked 
 
174 HISTORY A PRELUDE OF THE EltfAL JUDGMENT. 
 
 upon as a sign of judgment already commencing, or at least 
 of a retribution threatening but mercifully suspended, the 
 same mode of consideration may, with as good reason, be 
 applied to every resolution of the political world on the grave 
 questions of peace and war : for the power of making war 
 and peace is, at all events, the peculiar and characteristic pre- 
 rogative of the supreme authority in the state. Now, the 
 simplest standard, perhaps, of judging of the justice of either 
 is, if we may so speak, to ask, — is the proclamation of war or 
 the treaty of peace so entirely founded on truth, so perfectly 
 correspondent to the righteous and judicial character of God, 
 that man need not fear to lay them before the Judge of the 
 whole world for His ratification ? If such be the case, then 
 most assuredly are they right and righteous, whatever be their 
 consequences, or whatever be the judgment that men may 
 pass upon them. But, otherwise, if the manifesto of war 
 contain nothing but shallow and specious pretexts painfully 
 raked together, or of fine colourable phrases which even the 
 eye of the world can see through, if a light touch of truth 
 be only thrown over it in the hope of concealing the con- 
 queror's lust of aggrandizement, or the equally destructive 
 principle of an old national feud or jealousy. — if, in the pacifi- 
 cation, under ambiguous terms and cunningly- devised phrases, 
 the seeds of a future war be carefully sown, and thus the 
 worst disease of the political world be propagated and multi- 
 plied from generation to generation, then most assuredly the 
 guardian eye of Eternal Justice has not watched over its com- 
 pletion, and bestowed on it His blessing, but another and a 
 very different coadjutor has had his hand in the game — the 
 spirit of untruth, viz., and of corruption, of strife and ruin, 
 whom no name so exactly describes as that of a" liar from the 
 beginning." 
 
 Now, as not only the annihilation of the race of giants in 
 the universal deluge, with whicn our sacred history opens, and 
 to which the ancient traditions of almost every people allude, 
 more or less directly, but also the partial overthrow of a single 
 nation, the tragical closing catastrophe of particular ages, is, as 
 it were, a prelude of the final judgment of all nations and peo- 
 ples of the earth at the end of time ; so, on the other hand, 
 the original corruption of the primal lie is propagated as an 
 hereditary evil from millennium to milleiinium, and from cen- 
 
HISTORY A REHEARSAL OE THE EIRST TEMPTATION. I 75 
 
 tury to century. For even now, may many a fertile spot, the 
 seat of a happy and united community in the midst of pros- 
 perous times, and of peace unbroken at home or abroad, be con- 
 sidered, if not a garden of innocence, still the blissful dwelling 
 of peace and quiet. But into these happy precincts the 
 evil spirit of untruth and discontent ever and anon steals, 
 to repeat over again in the history of the human race the 
 same scene of temptation which marked its commencement. 
 Upwards and downwards, and in a twofold direction, does the 
 lying spirit of strife ply his seductive arts. Now, on the one 
 side, he whispers in the ear of the rising generation, " That is 
 the true knowledge and the real science which men are most 
 anxious to withhold from you ; but seek first of all to be free, — 
 I shake off this unworthy spirit of slavish obedience, then shall 
 | all that is noble and intellectually great be at once yours. In 
 this way, and thus only, was it attained by the great and 
 good in ancient times." But, on the other hand, he directs 
 himself to the individual invested with authority ; and if the 
 potentate be unrighteous, his ear is already more than half 
 open, — and even if he be upright, still, as a man, he is not 
 always inaccessible to such whisperings. " Why," he in- 
 sidiously asks, " dost thou draw back so fearfully before that 
 which the people call their rights ? These are nothing but 
 I childish notions which the school-boy may do well to declaim 
 about, but practically they are worthless and unreal ; no one 
 I means them seriously — the whole world puts no faith in this 
 | comedy. Rule your subjects with an iron hand, that is all 
 that they know how to respect • nay, they even admire 
 the bold spirit that defies them, and they will suppliantly 
 reverence thy greatness of mind and strength of character 
 if, betraying no infirmness of purpose, you boldly and sternly 
 I encroach upon or disregard all their pretended rights and 
 privileges. If only your sovereignty be solidly established 
 from within, and well rounded from without, then, besides a 
 great name with posterity, you will also secure to yourself 
 the present enjoyment of very great and solid advantages." 
 
 In this wise, from the original source of the one lie, is the 
 inheritance of the old evil transmitted from generation to 
 generation in the political world, in the two opposite forms 
 of popular anarchy, and the despotic lust of power and 
 aggrandizement. These two forms of evil are more closely 
 
i76 
 
 ABSOLUTE POWER. 
 
 allied than at the first look they appear to be in reality ; but 
 history, the great teacher of truth, gives its sure witness to 
 their affinity. Nothing is more common in great republics, 
 than for the discord of the citizens to be put an end to by 
 some victorious general, whom all parties, weary of their 
 dissensions, hail as the benefactor of the whole community. 
 But how seldom is the pacificator content with the glorious 
 title of the restorer of domestic peace, and does not go a step 
 further, and become the scheming tyrant and the aggressive 
 conqueror. The whole history of the world is, in short, little 
 more than the continuous struggle between the purifying fire 
 of the divine retribution and this spirit of political lying, 
 which is ever renewing itself in these twofold forms of anarchy 
 and despotism. ' 
 
 Moreover, while we acknowledge the divine authority 
 invested in the supreme ruler of the state, we must take heed 
 how we mix up with our conceptions on this head the notion, 
 so highly dangerous and so pregnant with fatal errors, of the 
 absolute and unconditional, which, as we have already re- 
 marked, cannot be applied even to the Godhead without 
 giving rise to misconceptions. If, therefore, in any country 
 a party — for now-a-days even justice is made a party matter — 
 if anywhere a party of otherwise well-disposed men call them- 
 selves " absolutists," such a designation is of itself sufficient 
 to excite our apprehension, lest, with so absolute a way of 
 thinking, some spark of evil be slumbering beneath the ashes ; 
 inasmuch as one absolute, i. e., one unconditional element 
 of destruction invariably calls forth another. 
 
 Absolute, if this pernicious term must be used, the supreme 
 power of the legitimate sovereign of a state may indeed be 
 called in so far as he is responsible to God alone. For were 
 the supreme ruler responsible to man, then the only dif- 
 ference would be, that instead of one, the many to whom 
 he is answerable would be absolute. But in another sense, 
 it is impossible to call the supreme power, wherever lodged, 
 absolute or unlimited; for it is limited in many ways. Its 
 exercise is checked and controlled by the treaties subsisting 
 between it and other powers — by the laws which it finds 
 in existence from the times of his predecessors, and which 
 are still in force by the family laws of succession, and all 
 matters pertaining to or connected therewith. If he who is < 
 
TWO FOEMS OF RELIGIOUS ERROR. 177 
 
 invested with the highest power in the state, is determined 
 to interfere with all these institutions, and violently to sub- 
 vert existing customs and compacts, then is there, in such a 
 case, no one really justified or entitled either to make objections 
 
 I to his measures or to oppose them. By such arbitrary and 
 violent proceedings, however, he is himself undermining the 
 very foundation of his own power. And a regard to and 
 consideration of the possible consequences of such injustice 
 will in most instances furnish the necessary and salutary check. 
 
 J Lastly, if we look a moment from the right itself to its actual 
 exercise and influence, how often and how greatly are the latter 
 
 J limited by adverse circumstances and evil times. Nothing, in 
 
 1 short, is more at issue with and opposed to nature and to life, 
 than the very notion of unlimited power, and generally all that 
 
 I is absolute or destructive. 
 
 But there is yet another side on which the supreme poli- 
 tical power is essentially checked and controlled. It is bound 
 to consider and pay respect to the principles of religious 
 
 I society, which rests no less than itself on a divine authority. 
 
 I For the church, although very different in its nature, and 
 flowing from a wholly different origin from that of the state, 
 
 : is, nevertheless, equally inviolable. If, however, the civil and 
 political ruler, not content with a coordinate jurisdiction and 
 the revision of ecclesiastical affairs — w r ith a joint authority 
 and influence, should attempt to make the religious polity also 
 entirely subject to his own arbitrary will, no one perhaps will 
 
 I be able to oppose force to force, and probably no one would 
 be justified in so doing. But by such an attempt, as indeed 
 
 J by every act of religious oppression, the supreme civil power 
 would most fatally undermine the very basis of its own autho- 
 rity. If, for instance, the ruler of a great nation places the 
 third estate in the painful alternative of making, what in any 
 case must be most pernicious, a choice between divine and 
 human authority — or rather, to speak more correctly, between 
 two claims to its allegiance equally divine, he does but smooth 
 the road which must lead at last to his own ruin. 
 
 And here, too, in the spiritual community of the faith, in the 
 same way as in the political body, man's patrimony of original 
 evil branches out into two directions. In the one it turns 
 
 ! longingly back towards the past, and in the other it tends 
 lestlessly forward into the indefinite future. Both of these 
 
178 
 
 THE LAST JUDGMENT. 
 
 aberrations are wholly independent of the outer form as 
 well as of the subject-matter of belief. They are consequently 
 to be found in the old covenant, as the first grade of divine 
 revelation, no less than in the second. The first of these here- 
 ditary faults of man's nature is deadness, — or in a somewhat 
 different phase — lukewarmness — manifesting itself outwardly 
 in a close and literal adherence to the old in its mere external 
 forms. In a word, it is spiritual death. For though in the 
 abundance of His love, God may have made a revelation of His 
 will to man, and even died to make an atonement for him, still 
 it is left to the free will of the individual to receive it or not ; 
 and its retention and observance is the trial of his goodness, 
 and consequently, in this point, as in others, his hereditary 
 and inborn spiritual death strongly manifests itself. The 
 second of these hereditary faults, or rather the same in a 
 different form, is the spirit of innovation, or a false sem- 
 blance of life, by which, in fact, this inner death is merely 
 propagated. 
 
 On both these faults and erroneous ways of thinking on 
 religious matters, Revelation expresses itself equally in the 
 tone of stern reprobation, though perhaps its language with 
 regard to the former is even still more severe. As regards the 
 spirit of innovation, all changes in this domain, which are 
 merely human, and not visibly and manifestly of a divine 
 spirit and origin, must simply on that account be opposed and 
 condemned. Now in both the parties into which the faith is un- 
 happily divided, there are many who are captivated and led away 
 by this spirit of change. For among those who were originally 
 seduced by it not a few are now animated with a sincere and 
 profound respect for whatever is old and sterling, while of the 
 innovation-mongers of our days, many are to be found in the 
 ranks of those who originally strove to stem the tide of alter- 
 ation and change. Oh that all who are pervaded by this evil 
 spirit, and are ever casting their views forward into the future, 
 would only advance a little further still in their thoughts, so as 
 to take in the end and conclusion of all. In the knowledge of 
 the final judgment of the world (and what is this philosophy of 
 revelation but such a reminiscence of death and the end — in 
 which light philosophy was even in olden times explained — not 
 indeed in a narrow-minded limitation to our ownselves, but in a 
 far wider sense, embracing in its universal sympathy the final 
 
god's temporal judgments on the world. 179 
 
 catastrophe of the whole human race), in the warnings and 
 allusions to this last day of account, so long and so often 
 given, men will find all the information that they seek, and 
 will no longer need any human innovations, since by this 
 key all that is old and eternal shall receive a trebly exalted 
 significance and a doubly new life. 
 
 But besides the political body and the religious community, 
 the world of letters forms a third society. Though numeri- 
 cally smaller, yet in its effects on the minds of men, whether 
 it moves freely and diffuses itself without the rigid restraints 
 of form, or is narrowly confined to the formalism of the school, 
 it is perhaps as great as either. Spiritual in its matter and in 
 its dissemination, it either renounces a divine sanction, and 
 stands under the protection and supervision of the state — such, 
 at least, is the predominant relation in recent times — or, as 
 was formerly the case, it grows and flourishes beneath the 
 shelter and through the fostering care of ecclesiastical in- 
 stitutions. Holding an intermediate place between the two 
 other bodies of human society, in its subject-matter more 
 akin to the one, but deriving from the other its external sup- 
 port, it is also of a mixed nature and partakes of both. But 
 the inborn and original sin of science is exactly similar to that 
 which infects political life. Manifesting itself in a twofold 
 aberration, it either assumes, in the spirit of anarchy, an 
 hostile position towards all that exists from without and is 
 given to men from above, or perhaps comes forward in a pre- 
 dominant love of system or scientific sectarianism, which not 
 unfrequently is as fanatical as the political party-spirit with 
 which, moreover, it is often very nearly and closely allied. 
 
 The nature of the divine order which rules the history of 
 the world, and its stern retributive law, must, in all essential 
 points, be now apparent from the preceding remarks. It is an 
 all-pervading alternation between the purifying fire of God's 
 punitive justice and the inheritance of the old evil, which 
 breaks out, now in anarchy now in despotism, at one time in 
 spiritual deadness and lukewarmness of faith, at another in the 
 pernicious lust of innovation and change. This purifying 6re, 
 it must also be clear, while confining its immediate operation 
 to single nations or to marked and distinct epochs of history, 
 ! it gives them a new shape and form, invariably gains for itself 
 a wider extension, so as at last to embrace the whole world. 
 
 isf 2 
 
180 god's temporal judgments on the world. 
 
 Moreover, every one must feel that in investigating the fiery 
 track of this judging spirit in its stern course through centuries, 
 we must reverently follow at a respectful distance to learn from 
 it what it is and how it manifests itself, and take good heed 
 how we presume to confine it within any narrow law, or 
 reduce it to any precise and rigorous definition. We cannot 
 be too carefully on our guard against ascribing to Providence 
 in its guidance of mankind many and subtle designs, which 
 after all, perhaps, are nothing but the mere fancies and con- 
 ceits of man. In general, however, it may safely be said that 
 the subordinate views and higher ends which are visible in the, 
 leading catastrophes of nations and empires, or even of entire 
 ages, have especial reference to that gradation in the divine 
 revelation which I explained to you in the previous Lecture 
 as having a regard to, and comprising the whole human race in, 
 its comprehensive design. By way of exemplification, and as 
 an instance of the right application of the ideas here advanced, 
 I will now, in conclusion, add a few words on those events and 
 catastrophes of universal history which, in this respect, seem 
 the most important. 
 
 The universal deluge, of which the whole surface of our 
 globe presents so many and so great traces and proofs, forms 
 a partition wall, sternly separating the earliest races of men 
 from the subsequent generations. Of the former it is only 
 probable that they were very different from the latter, not only 
 in their manner of life, but also in their physical and intel- 
 lectual powers and endowments, and likewise perhaps in the 
 nature and mode of their moral corruption and depravity. 
 My remarks, therefore, may well be confined to this side of 
 that great partition wall. The next great catastrophe, which 
 is both expressly given out as a divine retribution, (and as 
 such can be proved from profane history as much, though not 
 so universally, as the former,) is the so-called Babylonian con- 
 fusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations. This, and 
 that which is so inseparably connected with it, the confusion 
 of mythical ideas and legends, is rather hinted than fully and 
 clearly detailed. The time too is not given, though the locality 
 is expressly mentioned. It is the same one which, according 
 to all other historical statements, was the very spot of Western 
 Central Asia where that contagious malady of the lust of con- 
 quest first arose, or, if we may be allowed the expression. 
 
THE GREEKS A SECOND CHOSEN PEOPLE OP GOD. 181 
 
 where this unhappy invention was first made. This disper- 
 sion of nations, however, was its natural punishment, since 
 every unity which is either politically false or intellectually 
 untrue, must terminate in chaotic dissolution. This historical 
 fact is distinctly traceable in the world of the ancients among 
 the West Asiatic, South European, and North African nations 
 which dwell around the shores of the Mediterranean. Here 
 we can scarcely find our way out of the labyrinth of traces 
 of reciprocal relationship which abound, in their medley of cog- 
 nate languages and their chaos of legends, so remarkably 
 agreeing and yet frequently so inconsistent in their ideas 
 of nature, their far-reaching theogonies, and the divine 
 origination of their heroic families. These chaotic contra- 
 dictions, however, in which the poetry of heathendom indulged 
 without restraint, gradually undermined the old popular 
 belief, and led consequently at a later period to a very 
 favourable result. 
 
 For by this means the Greeks — to whom our present 
 remarks apply especially and pre-eminently — gained free 
 space for the unshackled development of a philosophy which, 
 though it may have run and wandered through many systems 
 of error, yet in so far as it was an honest and sincere search 
 after truth and certainty, served and deserves to be considered 
 as a preparation and introduction to a higher knowledge and 
 the adoption of revelation. For because of this intellectual 
 development (and the fact serves to prove that a pure sensi- 
 bility to the beautiful, and a clear and pregnant thought on 
 human life and on nature, is ever highly pleasing to God,) 
 the Greeks were chosen as the second people of the world, to 
 be the medium and the instruments of the further diffusion 
 of revelation in the course of the development of humanity. 
 
 In political life, the erroneous tendency of the Greek mind 
 was to the abuse of liberty and to anarchy. When this 
 evil had been carried to its wildest extreme, it was over- 
 taken by its natural penalty (which invariably follows close 
 upon its track), in the armed supremacy of Macedon (which, 
 however, was only a brief paroxysm), and the final subjuga- 
 tion of Greece to the Roman yoke. Among the Romans both 
 forms of political evil met together, and were closely con- 
 nected with each other. To escape from domestic anarch v. 
 they entered on a victorious career of foreign conquest and 
 
182 
 
 THE MAHOMMEDAN EMPIRE CHINA. 
 
 aggrandizement ; and when intestine dissension had reached its 
 greatest height, a perfect despotism was established, both at 
 home and in the provinces. 
 
 We recently remarked that the whole of that mixture of 
 ideas, confusion of legends and traditions, and that continual 
 alternation between anarchy and despotism, which in the 
 olden times of heathendom ran through its whole course of 
 development, from the first dispersion of nations to the esta- 
 blishment of the Roman empire over the world, immediately 
 applies to and is only to be understood of the West Asiatic 
 and South European races. In the East of Asia, two great 
 nations or empires, which together make up a third, if not 
 the half, nearly, of the population of the whole earth, have 
 remained in a great measure free from and uninfluenced by it. 
 It would almost seem as if the Almighty, with some special 
 design, had kept and reserved them unto these last times. 
 For three if not four thousand years India has preserved un- 
 changed its institution of castes, and all its essential customs 
 and laws. The very fact that this ancient empire, so extensive, 
 so abundant in riches, and so singular in its nature, and with 
 a civilised population equal to that of the whole of Europe 
 put together, should be now conquered and held in subjection 
 by the sea-ruling isles of Britain, which the ancients named 
 the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands, and described as the ultimate 
 limits of the habitable world, is one of the most remarkable 
 signs of our days. That in such great historical events, and 
 such singular juxta-positions, there rules some grand and mys- 
 terious design of the Mind which regulates the course of 
 - human affairs, we cannot but feel ; only we shall greatly err 
 if we precipitately determine its particular nature. The wiser 
 and the safer course is to look forward with attentive expecta- 
 tion to its further development. Already has this remark- 
 able approximation of the extreme East and West led to im- 
 portant consequences. The enlargement of our historical 
 information by the sources discovered in the East, has alone 
 been so considerable as to give greater coherence and con- 
 sistency to our knowledge of the earlier, and indeed, of the 
 very earliest times, and of the origin of mankind, and to have 
 afforded a growing testimony and a strong confirmation of 
 the truth of the sacred narrative. 
 
 The celestial empire too, with its monosyllabic language, 
 
PRESENT STATE OF THE JEWS THE MIDDLE AGES. 18& 
 
 remained until very recently within its walls separate from 
 and never mixing with the rest of the world. Although China 
 has been several times subjugated by northern conquerors, it 
 has nevertheless continued in all essential respects the same. 
 But now in these modern times of universal ferment and of 
 change throughout the political world, China too has been set 
 in movement, and has become so far a conquering power, that 
 she who in the earlier centuries of Christianity was only 
 known by name through fable, has become the immediate 
 neighbour of two great European powers. 
 
 The close of the ancient history of the Eastern world in its 
 westerly regions, is formed by the tragic overthrow of the 
 J ewish people and the fearful destruction of Jerusalem ; 
 events which are properly described, as also they were long 
 previously announced, as a partial judgment on an individual 
 nation. And in this light and in similar colours they are more- 
 over depicted even by heathen writers. Few things in the 
 whole course of history furnish so singular and striking a 
 phenomenon, as this total dissolution of the Jewish nation. 
 The dispersion over all parts of the earth, for so many cen- 
 turies, of a people that has exercised so great and so decisive 
 an influence on the progress of ideas and the higher cultiva- 
 tion of the human mind, both naturally and scientifically, 
 makes a sad and melancholy impression on our minds. With 
 so much the more of reason, then, may we regard it as 
 a sign of the times, and one, too, full of good promise and of 
 bright and cheerful hope, if this long and cruelly oppressed 
 people seems suddenly to be aroused again or awakened from 
 its degradation, and in manifold ways evincing an intellectual, 
 moral, and social activity, begins to partake of a more liberal 
 development and culture. And on one account the fact 
 appears still more consolatory. Such a re-awakening of this 
 long ill-treated and degraded race, is in their oldest prophecies 
 fixed for the last decisive days of the world's history. 
 
 In the mediaeval period of modern history we meet with all 
 the elements of the Christian state. The idea of a pure mon- 
 archy also was here carried far higher towards perfection, and 
 much more manifoldly developed than in heathen antiquity. 
 But the civil and spiritual powers soon came into collision, 
 and in their mutual conflict were alike guilty of despotic 
 encroachments on each other. In this sad dissension the 
 
184 
 
 PEACE OF WESTPHALIA. 
 
 whole state of things fell more and more into a new kind of 
 anarchy. And in the same way, in onr own times, after a 
 great part of the Christian world had, in sentiment at least, 
 reverted to heathenism, then as a natural consequence of the 
 ruling tone of thought and opinion, there was a great relapse 
 into the double evil of a wild and fatal popular anarchy, and 
 of a still more destructive military despotism. And the 
 whole history of the old heathen world is nothing but one 
 continual alternation between these two evils. 
 
 In the Christian West, indeed, both now and in the middle 
 ages, the predominant tendency to error inclined towards 
 the side of anarchy. Among the Mahommedan nations, 
 on the contrary, from the very earliest days of their religion, 
 the despotic lust of conquest has been, as it were, an inborn 
 and homebred hereditary failing. It was indeed fed and 
 encouraged by their national creed. But here also the great, 
 est changes have taken place. The largest and most power 
 ful of all the Mahommedan empires, that, viz., in India, ig 
 entirely overthrown, and scarcely a vestige of it remains ir 
 these times. By a natural revolution of things, the first irre- 
 sistible conquerors are now themselves conquered and brought 
 under the yoke of others. And so, too, on the other and 
 western side of their once wide rule, they who formerly 
 threatened the existence of civilised Europe are now depen- 
 dent upon, essentially mixed up with, and owe their political 
 existence to, European policy and the balance of power. This 
 total change of the relative position of the Mahommedan 
 states in general belongs undoubtedly to the characteristic 
 signs which so peculiarly mark and distinguish our own age. 
 
 In the three centuries of modern history which fill up the 
 interval between the middle ages and the revolutionary epoch 
 of our own days, the moral constitution of the monarchy has 
 been far more fully and clearly developed than in any previous 
 era. But the most striking event of this period of history is 
 furnished by the sad and melancholy phenomenon of the reli- 
 gious wars. These were the lamentable consequence of the 
 schism in the faith, not indeed by any indispensable and neces- 
 sary law, nor even as its natural, but still its perfectly explicable, 
 result. In those lands where, as in England and France, there 
 existed a weaker party of either side, which had either been 
 fully conquered or was kept under by oppressive civil disabili- 
 
PEACE OF WESTPHALIA. 
 
 185 
 
 ties, this unhappy phenomenon assumed the most revolting 
 appearance. But the same state of things took a very different 
 turn in Germany. Here the religious disputes terminated in 
 a higher and a nobler result. In a long and fruitless struggle 
 of thirty years, which wasted and consumed the best energies 
 of the nation, the two contending parties were taught, that 
 with so nicely balanced strength, no decisive result either way 
 was to be expected. Coming at length to a wiser mind, they 
 acknowledged their respective rights, and by a peaceable com- 
 promise they agreed to live together in the same social com- 
 munity. This great and famous religious peace, which, 
 considered merely in the light of a treaty of general pacifi- 
 cation, is a master-piece of policy, without equal or parallel, 
 and serving for the basis for all subsequent treaties and ques- 
 tions of peace, is become for Germany a species of inborn 
 national necessity and, as it were, a second national character. 
 She finds in it a full and perfect compensation for many disad- 
 vantages she labours under as compared with other lands, 
 while she has acquired from it a great and important posi- 
 tion in the world of the future. Considered with regard to 
 the whole world, one cannot well avoid ascribing to this inde- 
 structible religious peace in Germany, of still higher impor- 
 tance, however little it is commonly understood or regarded 
 in this light. Indeed, we cannot but look upon it as the pre- 
 cursor with hopeful promises, of a far greater and completer 
 religious peace. A peace, I mean, which shall reconcile not 
 only all differences in the faith, but also that more universal 
 and more pervading dissension between faith and unbelief; 
 the quarrel between science and faith being first adjusted, 
 and unity restored thereby between them, and consequently 
 also to life. But to effect this object God, who wills nothing 
 but peace and unity, must take the upper hand and be 
 stronger than man, who loves and desires strife ; or at least, 
 without loving and seeking it, is still ever relapsing into it. 
 
 In such or some similar way a religious view of universal 
 history and of the divine order therein admits of being deve- 
 loped ; which, however, cannot be truly done with too much 
 of scientific rigour, or by violently introducing into its plans 
 any arbitrary and consequently false designs and purposes. 
 
 My prescribed limits compel me to confine myself to these 
 few hints, and in these I have wished principally to call attcn- 
 
186 
 
 UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN PEACE. 
 
 tion to their reference to our own age, and to exhibit them in 
 the light in which they appear of universal interest and to 
 possess an eminent and remarkable destination. Comprised 
 then in one result, the following are the characteristic signs of 
 the present age : the two greatest heathen nations, which for 
 thousands of years stood by themselves apart from the rest of 
 the world, have lately come into the closest contact with 
 Europe; — the Mahommedan empires are everywhere falling 
 into decay, more rapidly than men had been led to expect their 
 fall ; — the Hebrew race is begimiing to rise from its long 
 degradation ; — in Christian states and communities there is here 
 and there visible a strong inclination to the old evil of anarchy; 
 — and if the great human peace, which has now lasted twelve 
 years, appears in some points insecure or at least endan- 
 gered from within, it is only because it is devoid of a firm 
 foundation of the internal sentiment of men. What event, 
 then, could be more happy for our age, what better turn could 
 the present posture of affairs take, than by bringing about 
 such a triple divine peace as we have already sketched, to 
 give a new foimdation and a firmer basis to the external 
 peace of society? May not this, in God's good purpose, be 
 the theme which is to occupy the next era of the world ? 
 
 FJVD OF LECTURE VIII. 
 
187 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Of the true Destination of Philosophy ; and of the apparent Schism but 
 essential Unity between a right Faith and highest Certainty, as the 
 centre of Light and Life in the Consciousness. 
 
 The philosophy of life cannot be any mere science of reason, 
 and least of all an unconditional one. For such does but 
 lead us into a domain of dead abstractions alien to life, which 
 by the dialectical spirit of disputation connatural to the rea- 
 son, is soon converted into a labyrinthine maze of contradic- 
 tory opinions and notions, out of which the reason, with all 
 its logical means and appliances, cannot extricate itself. And 
 life, consequently, — the inner spiritual life, that is, — is dis- 
 turbed and destroyed by it. And it is even this disturbing 
 and destroying principle of the dialectical reason that most 
 requires to be got rid of and brought into subjection. In the 
 mere form, however, of abstract thought there is nothing in 
 and by itself opposed to the truth. There is nothing in it that 
 it is absolutely and invariably necessary to avoid, or that 
 never and in no case admits of application. It is no doubt 
 most certain, that every system of philosophy is on a wrong 
 track, which borrows its method exclusively from mathe- 
 matics, and copies it throughout from beginning to end. 
 Still, in the progressive development of philosophical ideas 
 certain points may occur — there may be certain places in the 
 entire system — where occasionally and by the way such for- 
 mulas and abstract equations may be profitably employed. 
 Such a case may happen in the present Lecture. But by thus 
 employing them only by way of illustration, and episodically in 
 passing, I hope to establish such an use of them, and to make 
 it evident that the perspicuity of the exposition does not 
 essentially suffer thereby. 
 
 Philosophy, as the universal science, embraces in its consi- 
 deration the whole man. As, therefore, it evidently involves 
 the occasion, so it is not unlikely that cases mav occur where 
 
188 PHILOSOPHY FREE TO USE ANY FORM OR METHOD. 
 
 it can happily borrow, now from one now from another of 
 the sciences, its external form and peculiar formularies. It 
 can, in short, advantageously avail itself of all in turn. Only, 
 such an use to be profitable must be free. And this freedom 
 will best evince itself in the deliberate choice and the diversity 
 of the images. The method of free speculation, i. e., of phi- 
 losophy, must not resemble a coat of mail with its infinite 
 number of little uniform chains and rings. It ought not, as 
 is the case nearly with the mathematical method, to be 
 composed, by mechanical rule and measure, of simple pro- 
 positions scientifically linked together and then formed again 
 into higher logical concatenations. In short, the method of 
 philosophy cannot properly be uniform. The spirit must not 
 be made subservient to the method ; the essence must not be 
 sacrificed to the form. 
 
 Philosophical thought and knowledge, with that diversity 
 of illustration and variety in method which follows from its 
 universality, is in this resj)ect somewhat in the same case with 
 poetry. Of all the imitative arts poetry alone embraces and 
 by its nature is intended to embrace the whole man. It is 
 therefore free to borrow its similes or colours and manifold 
 figurative expressions from every sphere of life and nature, 
 and to take them now from this now from that object, as 
 on each occasion appears most striking and appropriate. 
 Now, no one would think of prescribing unconditionally to 
 poetry, and compelling her to take all her similes and figures 
 either from flowers and plants, or from the animal world, or 
 exclusively from any one of the several pursuits of man, — 
 from the sailor's life, for instance, or the shepherd's, or the 
 huntsman's, — or from any of his handicrafts or mechanical 
 arts. For although all such similes, and colours, and expres- 
 sions, appropriately introduced, are equally allowable in every 
 poetical composition, and none of them need be rejected, still 
 the exclusive use of any one class of them as a law would 
 hamper the free poetic spirit and extinguish the living fancy. 
 In the same way, philosophy is not confined to any one inva- 
 riable and immutable form. At one time it may come 
 forward in the guise of a moral, legislative, or a judicial dis- 
 cussion ; at another, as a description of natural history. Or, 
 perhaps, it may assume the method of an historical and 
 genealogical development and derivation of ideas as best fitted 
 
m 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OP LIFE A SCIENCE OE ALAN. 189 
 
 to exhibit the thoughts which it aims at illustrating in their 
 mutual coherence and connexion. On other occasions, per- 
 haps, it will take the shape of a scientific investigation of 
 nature, — of an experiment in a higher physiology, — in order 
 to test the existence of the invisible powers which it is its 
 I purpose to establish. Or again, by the employment of an 
 I algebraic equation or of a mathematical form (which, how- 
 I ever, it regards as nothing more than a symbol and visible 
 I hieroglyphic for a higher something that is invisible), it will 
 I perhaps most conveniently attain to its loftier aim. Every 
 method and every scientific form is good ; or at least, when 
 rightly employed, is good. But no one ought to be exclusive. 
 I No one must be carried out with painful uniformity, and 
 with wearying monotony be invariably followed throughout. 
 
 The philosophy of life, then, cannot be any mere absolute 
 philosophy of reason. And as little can or ought it to be 
 purely and absolutely a philosophy of nature ; not, at least, 
 an exclusive one, that is, exactly such and nothing more. Such 
 a philosophy of nature may indeed in its physiological aspect 
 possess unequalled scientific wealth, and be full of profound 
 and ingenious thoughts. But still the right principles and the 
 regulative ideas of human life can never be deduced from it 
 easily and without having recourse to forced constructions. 
 For even man is in his life something higher than nature ; 
 even he is something more than a mere physical being. Still 
 less possible, then, were it from such a philosophy of nature 
 to derive, establish, and to render clear and intelligible the 
 idea and being of God; the pervading reference to whom, 
 however, makes man what he is. The idea of God deduced 
 from such a source alone would, and indeed could only be, 
 some great final cause of the system of nature. 
 
 Neither the conclusions of sound reason, and least of all 
 those of the conscience, — no, nor even dialectic itself (so far 
 as it is profitably employed by the knowledge of it being made 
 available for the detection of error), nor physical science, when 
 cultivated in a noble and lofty spirit, ought in any way to be 
 excluded from the borders or even the very domain of philo- 
 sophy. On the contrary, she may in her own peculiar way 
 adopt them all, and giving them a more extensive sense and 
 spirit, employ them for her own higher aims. In its primary 
 ani most essential respects, the philosophy of life is a 
 
190 DIFFERENCE OF PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 thoroughly human science. It is nothing less than the cog- 
 nition of man. Now even on this account, and because it is 
 only by means of his all-pervading relation to God that man 
 stands above nature and is something superior to a mere 
 physical being, and something higher too than a mere rational 
 machine, therefore is the philosophy of life actually and in 
 fact a true philosophy of God. The philosophy of life attains 
 this high dignity beyond a mere philosophy of reason or of 
 nature, simply on this account — that the supreme life and 
 the ultimate source of all other degrees of life is even God. 
 Now this Supreme Life, which has its life in itself, is the sub- 
 ject of my present disquisitions. For it is even with the 
 correct and complete notion of this Supreme Life that the 
 Spirit of Truth first enters the human consciousness. And 
 then, in the inner world of man, which before was " without 
 form and void," that light begins to shine which never shall 
 become darkness, and of which even this Spirit of Truth has 
 said "that it was good." This divine but initiatory illumi- 
 nation is the first step in that progressive development of the 
 internal light and truth in human life and consciousness, and 
 which, as starting from this point and passing through its suc- 
 cessive stages of advancement, it will be our object to trace 
 in the last seven of the present Lectures. In the eight pre- 
 ceding disquisitions I have endeavoured, by advancing step by 
 step, to arrive at this last end of all. We have now reached 
 the culminating point ; and the Supreme Life, which, accord- 
 ing to what has been already said, is the primary source of all 
 other life, and which has its life in itself, is now, together with 
 the full and true notion of this life, to occupy our common 
 consideration. And then again, descending from this summit 
 of light and truth, — for which in the meantime I entreat your 
 entire and closest attention, — I propose with hasty step to 
 retrace our way through all the grades of man's spiritual 
 enlightenment, to carry back your regards and mine into all 
 the several spheres of life and consciousness. 
 
 But now, it has been said that the philosophy of life in 
 every case and instance invariably ascends to the highest 
 object of every sphere that it contemplates, and that that 
 supreme object is God. From this, further, it has been argued 
 that it is even and truly a philosophy of God. How then 
 does it differ from theology ? 
 
FROM THEOLOGY. 
 
 191 
 
 At the very commencement of these Lectures I confessed 
 that philosophy in general, and especially a philosophy of life, 
 by reason of the common object which they both treat of, 
 could not avoid coming into frequent and close contact with 
 theology. But at the same time, I asserted that the former in 
 its whole essence is completely and materially different from 
 the latter, and requires to be carefully restricted within its own 
 limits. We must take heed lest it either violently encroach 
 upon the proper domain of theology, or on the other hand, 
 become its servile handmaid at the sacrifice of its own 
 peculiar character and destination. The true relation of these 
 two kindred sciences, as occupied with a common subject 
 which is often entirely identical, ana tneir nevertheless so 
 strongly marked and distinct limits, may perhaps be most 
 clearly illustrated by a comparison with the mathematical 
 sciences. 
 
 Dogmatic theology, or the science of positive belief, resem- 
 bles pure mathematics. Its ideas and formularies cannot be 
 too strictly or too simply defined ; nor, where it admits of de- 
 monstration, can its proofs be carried out with too rigorous and 
 mathematical a precision. For in these matters it is impos- 
 sible to give the least room or influence to individual caprice 
 without hazarding the loss of all that is most essential in the 
 positive articles of faith. Philosophy, on the other hand, in 
 treating of such subjects — or at least that part of it which is 
 occupied with these matters — resembles rather mixed geo- 
 metry in its several applications, such as practical mensuration, 
 or the science of fortification and the art of war. For phi- 
 losophy is, if we may so speak, an applied theology. Adopt- 
 ing the universal ideas of the one living God and His over- 
 ruling Providence, and, what is so closely connected there- 
 with, of the soul's immortality and man's free will, it adapts 
 them, in many valuable practical applications, to the whole 
 and almost boundless field of historical knowledge and the 
 development of the human race, as well as to all physical and 
 experimental sciences, and even to the wide domain of scien- 
 tific disputes and merely human opinion, with its several 
 conflicting systems. In this course of practical application 
 philosophy needs not, in its expressions and formularies, 
 scrupulously to confine itself to the terminology of its sister 
 science, or to repeat its words with a careful exactness. On 
 
192 THE BEING 0E GOD NOT A MATTER OE REASONING. 
 
 the contrary, its best and wisest course is to move with free- 
 dom, changing and varying its expressions at pleasure. For 
 inasmuch as it is not itself so rigorously tied up as theology 
 is to authority, so it cannot appeal to it with equal justice in 
 order to enforce assent to its own teaching. In the same way, 
 too, that in algebraic equations a mere hypothetical calcu- 
 lation is oftentimes introduced, which, moreover, afterwards 
 suggests many a valuable practical application, so also a 
 similar hypothetical use of the theological magnitudes or 
 axioms, if we may so speak, is quite open and allowable to 
 philosophy in the pursuit of its merely scientific ends. It is 
 only the most general articles of the faith that philosophy 
 makes use of. At least the minuter and sharply- defined 
 determinations of a positive creed are not immediately and 
 indispensably necessary for its object. Now an overruling 
 Providence, the soul's immortality, and the freedom of the 
 will, are articles of universal belief, which, although perhaps 
 not couched in express words and definite notions, yet still 
 as germs and vague feelings exist, however deeply they may 
 slumber, in every human breast that is as yet pure and uncon- 
 taminated by that captious scepticism which frets and corrodes 
 itself with its seeming perplexities. These philosophy may 
 safely take for granted. Nay, it is its duty so to do; and 
 where it does so in the right way, then will it never on that 
 account, meet with any considerable obstacle or opposition. 
 On the contrary, by pursuing this course it will the more 
 surely arouse and awaken these universal feelings from their 
 slumber in the human mind, and gradually shape and convert 
 them into fixed and stable points from which to carry on 
 the further progress and development of the principle of 
 faith. 
 
 And it is even herein that philosophy will most display its 
 art, or rather its intellectual power over the minds of men. 
 It is in this pre-eminently that lies its vocation. But if, on 
 the contrary, it makes this mission to consist rather in 
 demonstrating, in a strictly scientific form, the existence of a 
 Deity, with its natural train of those eternal verities — the 
 immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, then at 
 the very first outset it will lose sight of its true aim and set 
 up a false one. For were such a demonstration possible, 
 still nothing essential would be gained by its actual attain- 
 
1HE BEING OF GOD NOT A MATTER OP REASONING. 193 
 
 ment. For, in such a case, the existence of God and God 
 Himself would naturally become dependent, in thought at 
 least, on that from and by means of which the proof was 
 established, and would consequently appear to us no longer as 
 the first cause of all, but rather a secondary and derivative 
 being. In such the primal essence would be made to depend 
 on our human knowledge and science of reasoning, so to 
 speak, the latter must, in the plenitude of its power, first 
 confer upon and guarantee to the former its existence. This 
 would, indeed, be a complete inversion of the true and natural 
 order of things, such as, alas, has but too often occurred and 
 manifested itself in actual experience. 
 
 These remarks, however, must be understood as applying to a 
 strict demonstration of this great verity, or at least to all attempts 
 of the kind. To point to this truth, to trace every indication 
 of it, to elucidate it, to confirm it by analogy or other corro- 
 borative evidences, is quite a different matter. All this is 
 perfectly allowable. But God does not allow his existence to 
 be proved. By force of reasoning such a belief is not to be 
 impressed on the mind of that man who is unwilling sponta- 
 neously to admit it. As life generally, so also this supreme 
 life must be learned and concluded from every man's own 
 experience ; it must be adopted with the vividness of a feeling. 
 
 Let us now, for a moment, revert to the old scholastic 
 forms and the designations usually given in the schools to 
 the several philosophical sciences, and compare with them the 
 division on which our present disquisitions are based. We 
 might, in this respect, say that the first five sections of our 
 treatise have been exclusively devoted to psychology; though 
 not indeed in the ordinary narrow sense of the word, but in one 
 far more extensive, and embracing the whole universe. Accord- 
 ing to this wider extent and signification of psychology, we 
 have considered the soul relatively, first of all, to the whole 
 of philosophy and its several systems; secondly, to moral life; 
 and, lastly, to revelation, to nature, and to God Himself. 
 The three following Lectures were devoted to an examina- 
 tion of the divine order of things in the several spheres of 
 existence, and to the indications of a ruling Providence dis- 
 coverable therein. They constitute, therefore, a species of 
 theology; but one, however, empirically conceived and his- 
 torically worked out from observations in nature and in 
 
194 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 history, not only in the annals of the external world, but 
 also in the spiritual history of the progressive terms in the 
 development of truth. ' Such a theological essay exactly cor- 
 responds to that notion we so lately advanced, of an applied 
 or mixed science of theology as the peculiar sphere for this 
 part or branch of philosophy which concerns itself with the 
 doctrine of the supreme essence, and the right understanding 
 thereof. 
 
 Now if, in compliance with olden forms of division and a 
 scholastic phraseology, it be necessary to deliver a scheme 
 of ontology as the philosophical science and cognition of 
 really existent things, and also of their true and real essence, 
 it is clear that such is only conceivable and possible by means 
 of such an applied theology. For how can things be truly 
 real, and how can they as such be known in their inmost 
 essence, except so far as they have their existence and deter- 
 mination in God, and, in this respect, admit of being known 
 by us? 
 
 In any case, however, the name of natural theology, which 
 ever and anon we still hear applied to the philosophical 
 cognition of the Divine Being and His existence, ought care- 
 fully to be avoided. Such a designation is based on a 
 thorough misconception and total inversion of ideas. Every 
 system of theology that is not supernatural, or at least that 
 does not profess to be so, but pretends to understand natu- 
 rally the idea of God, and regards the knowledge of the 
 divine essence as a branch of natural science, or derives the 
 idea simply from nature, is even on that account false. 
 Missing and entirely mistaking its proper object, it must, 
 in short, prove absolutely null and void. Properly, indeed, 
 this inquiry needs no peculiar word nor special division and 
 scientific designation. The name generally of philosophy, or 
 specially of a philosophy of God, is perfectly sufficient to 
 designate the investigation into science and faith, and their 
 reciprocal relation — their abiding discord, or its harmonious 
 reconciliation and intrinsic concord. And this is properly 
 the point which is here in question; it forms the essential 
 part of the topic which we have at present to examine. 
 
 The internal schism in the faith itself I formerly excluded 
 from our inquiry, as not lying properly within the limits of 
 philosophy, and belonging to a higher tribunal. I at the same 
 
MEANS OF RESTORATION TO UNITY. 195 
 
 time expressed my conviction that God alone could universally 
 and totally reconcile it. By this, however, I would not by 
 any means wish to be understood as asserting that works on 
 this subject, written with a thorough knowledge of historical 
 facts, and in a luminous and instructive style, cannot con- 
 tribute much to the refutation of error. Works of this nature 
 may, in their degree, tend to bring about a mutual approxi- 
 mation of sentiment. For they serve to elucidate and clear 
 I , up points which, even though they do not involve the essential 
 articles of positive belief, do nevertheless greatly and exten- 
 sively co-operate in keeping alive a mutual spiritual alienation 
 and estrangement of mind. The great merit of treatises of 
 
 | this kind, when composed with high intellectual powers and 
 in that noble spirit which is at once just and desirous of 
 
 l peace, must not in any case be denied or depreciated. Never- 
 theless, it is idle to pretend that the influence of such essays, 
 whether greater or less, is not confined to a limited sphere, 
 extending to a few individuals, or at most to classes. 
 
 To judge by the usual course of the divine order in the 
 realm of truth, a total conversion of the whole mind of the 
 age, or a re-awakening of entire nations, is only to be expected 
 from a higher and universal impulse imparted from above. 
 As a preparation, however, for that divine peace in an uni- 
 versal unity of faith, which so repeatedly and so many ways 
 is promised most distinctly even to this life, nothing can be so 
 effective as to remove, if possible, or at least to reconcile, that 
 
 I triple discord already described as dividing and distracting 
 
 I the inner man. And this is a matter which, as lying within 
 the sphere of human consciousness and science, unquestionably 
 belongs to the domain of philosophical investigation. And it 
 
 I is even the duty of philosophy, whenever it follows its pre vail - 
 
 I ing mediatory and atoning tendency, to attempt scientifically to 
 bring about the reconciliation of that strife, and undiscouraged 
 by repeated failures, still to labour to re-establish the perfect 
 
 J and profound harmony of consciousness and of life. 
 
 Now the first dissension, that, viz., between science and 
 faith, whether actual or apparent, requires for its removal 
 before all things a mutual understanding and compromise. 
 The second dissension between faith in general, even a mere 
 philosophical and natural faith, and that unbelief which is so 
 general and prevalent in our age, can only end with the per- 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 FAITH AND SCIENCE, 
 
 feet triumph of the truth. For only by the full light of divine 
 knowledge and truth — by the triumphant exposition of this 
 true light, and by the magic power of such a display on the 
 minds of men — shall doubt and infidelity be fully eradicated 
 and destroyed. The third dissension, between both faith and 
 science on the one hand, and life on the other, needs, for 
 the removal of all misunderstanding, something more than a 
 mere peace and compromise on the disputed points. For this 
 purpose there is required a thorough union of both carried out 
 into fruitful and practical application, by which the living 
 faith and the living science may evince themselves as such, 
 and manifest their true and wholesome influence on life, how- 
 ever at present estranged from and adverse to it. 
 
 The second and the third of these dissensions are reserved 
 for consideration in the two following Lectures ; but the first, 
 that, viz., which subsists between faith and science, is to form 
 the subject, and its reconciliation the problem, of our present 
 disquisition. 
 
 Now is this dissension necessarily and really grounded in 
 the thing itself, and in the nature of the thing ? Or rather, 
 does the blame of it lie with men, and in their defective 
 apprehension and form ? I have no hesitation in saying that 
 a living faith and a living science will never be at issue 
 together, at least on essential points. In three cases no doubt 
 a dissension, a reciprocal misunderstanding and endless con- 
 flict between both is perfectly conceivable. It is possible, 
 either when the faith is a mere matter of memory and of a few 
 acquired notions, rather than a deeply-rooted conviction of the 
 soul. Or, secondly, since all the faculties of the human mind 
 ought to co-operate in giving a full internal development and 
 an external shape to the truth thus divinely imparted, it may 
 spring up even when the soul receives it with a full love, but 
 is nevertheless principally, or at least too much, under the 
 dominion of a lively fancy, to the exclusion of a due admixture 
 of clearness of understanding, and the circumspection which 
 belongs to the distinguishing judgment. Or, thirdly, it may 
 arise, on the other side, when a conceited and presumptuous 
 science seeks to establish itself rather than truth, and places 
 more dependence on its own conclusions than on its announce- 
 ments. 
 
 What then is faith, taken in itself, but the reception into 
 
I^AITH AND SCIENCE. 
 
 197 
 
 the soul of the divine and divinely- communicated verities ? 
 And what is science, more than the apprehension thereof by 
 the mind {geist) ? Are there, then, two truths, of which, how- 
 ever, one or the other is not true ? Undoubtedly there exists, 
 along with the spirit of truth, another spirit— that of contra- 
 diction and negation. But the latter is no spirit of truth, but 
 the spirit of untruth and delusion so often described, which 
 invariably triumphs whenever the mind of man, in its pursuit 
 of knowledge, seeks itself rather than the truth, and conse- 
 quently finds, perceives, and retains nothiug but its own Me. 
 And this evil spirit the soul even meets half-way whenever it 
 is incapable of embracing and retaining the life and the spirit 
 of the holy faith, and when, consequently, these quickly flee 
 away, and nothing but the letter and the empty form remains 
 behind. But where the spirit of truth has once departed, error 
 in manifold shapes and forms finds one way or other an en- 
 trance into the soul. Is it not one and the same truth which, 
 on the one side, speaking from the one revelation, impresses 
 itself on the soul of man as the commanding voice of love 
 enjoining faith, and which, on the other, condescendingly 
 offers and presents itself to the mind or spirit of the 
 believer as a mystery, in order that he may, if he will, inves- 
 tigate it in order to discover and adopt the meaning and the 
 light that are veiled and enclosed within it? Is there, then, 
 to be a party-feud and a civil war in the heart of man, 
 between soul and spirit, the two elements of his existence ; 
 just as if it were some ill-organised state where, in opposition 
 to the supreme political power, some insubordinate body sets 
 itself up in authority, and presumes to give the law ? Ought, 
 forsooth, the soul in secret to be liberal, and, in half-unbelief, 
 to grant immunity to all manner of lusts and desires, while 
 the spirit is legitimist in sentiment and constitutional in 
 language ? Or ought the soul to be honestly ultra and a 
 thorough legitimist in its established faith, while the mind, on 
 its part, by its liberal measures, is perpetually falling into 
 error ? So far is this from being allowable, that even these 
 names and these parties would soon cease and disappear 
 altogether, if, instead of party, the knowledge, and the might, 
 and the inspiration of life — the supreme life, t. e., or God, 
 were once to take full possession of the minds of men, and 
 so animate them anew and ardently inspire them with 
 
198 DISCERNMENT THE LINK BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE. 
 
 the common spirit and ardour of the one faith and the one 
 science. 
 
 Now the intermediate link which unites science with faith 
 — the mean function between both which admits of demon- 
 stration within the limits of the consciousness and of philo- 
 sophy, is discernment {erkenneii). Of this there are two kinds : 
 the one distinguishes between right and wrong, and conse- 
 quently, as a separate function, directs itself outwardly in its 
 operation, and observes differences. By the other we see and 
 comprehend, or understand and discern, that two objects appa- 
 rently different, are properly and essentially one and the same. 
 It is with this intrinsic and inwardly-directed discernment, that 
 we are here concerned. For it is by this highest function of 
 thought, which penetrates into the inmost essence of each of 
 two ideas, and by its sentence declaring their similarity, that 
 we perceive and discern that this science and that faith are 
 essentially identical. Discerning in this sense is something 
 different from knowing ; it is, as it were, a second knowing ; 
 or, if we may be allowed to express ourselves mathematically, 
 4 4 knowing raised to a higher power." It is this that discovers 
 the essential unity of Science and Faith, and that must bring 
 about the restoration of concord between them, and reconcile 
 them with each other. If, however, this second and higher know- 
 ing, or this science of science, be referred and confined to one's 
 own Me or Self, as is too often done, such a course will only lead 
 us out of the common error of the ordinary self-delusion into 
 one still more profound, which will prove the more complex 
 and aggravated, the more scientifically it is evolved, and which 
 I have already depicted to you in its true colours. 
 
 Now this unity of science with faith can only be found and 
 discovered in their common object, — in truth, consequently, 
 and i. e. in God, who is the sum of all truth. Mere negations 
 — like that of the idea of the infinite, or the notion of the 
 immeasurable, which is applicable even to nature itself, or 
 that of the absolute or unconditional, of which many palpably 
 erroneous applications might easily be made — no such pure 
 negations, nor even any mere enumeration of predicates and 
 properties devoid of intrinsic coherence, can furnish us with 
 an adequate conception of the Deity. But now if a cognition, 
 an understanding of life in general, be attainable (and no scep- 
 tical perplexities have yet been able to deter or seduce man's 
 
THE TRINITY. 
 
 199 
 
 I sound common sense from entertaining and acting upon such 
 a supposition), then it is clear that there is no reason for hold- 
 ing the notion of the supreme life in and by itself to be im- 
 possible or utterly unattainable by man. 
 
 Now this is the path which a profounder science and philo- 
 sophy has invariably marked out for itself in this respect ; 
 if and in the three different powers, which however are at the 
 same time but one, in the trine energy of the one first cause 
 I of all, has it* ever sought and discovered this highest notion. 
 
 In this notion belonging to the supreme science, as advanced 
 I by philosophy in very different ages of the world and among 
 I widely-remote nations, there is a remarkable resemblance, 
 although in the subordinate statements there is a greater or 
 1 less admixture of error. In the midst of many subordinate 
 I aberrations, it has recognised the one great fact, that in 
 I the Supreme Life, who has His life in Himself, and is the 
 j prime source of all other life, there is at the same time a 
 1 creative intelligence and thought which from the beginning 
 I issued therefrom as the Eternal Word self-subsistent and 
 I ordering all things, and that the Light which proceeded 
 I therefrom was itself also the first life. But now just as this 
 original Life which was from the beginning was not simply 
 Infinite, but even the source of all finite and infinite exist- 
 I ence, and as this Life is an illumination which illuminates 
 Itself and all other things, so is this Light also a living 
 I entity, and not merely spiritual and immaterial ; (for as such 
 I even It might still be a part of nature,) but one thoroughly 
 supernatural and holy, and if man will have it so, an awful 
 I light which repels all darkness from itself, and eternally reject - 
 I ing, annihilates it. 
 
 Now this Life, this Word, and this Light, these three dif- 
 ferent powers in the same energy and in the one substance, 
 which even therefore is called the Supreme, is at once the 
 highest object of all science, and the centre and fundamental 
 source of all faith. And this science of the Highest, even 
 when regarded exclusively from this single aspect of knowing, 
 does not exhibit itself as entirely separate from and indepen- 
 dent of faith, but even as such is from the very first in contact 
 with it, and taken simply as knowing, involves in it a concur- 
 rence and co-operation of faith. 
 
 Id very many and different, not to say infinitely various 
 
200 
 
 THE TRINITY. 
 
 ways, it may be shown, pointed out, and established, that 
 without this full and correct notion of the Supreme Being 
 every other species of existence and of knowledge must be 
 without coherence and proper significance. However, as has 
 been so often observed already, there is not involved in it 
 any strict necessity. It does not possess any rigour of logical 
 sequence, constraining the assent of one who in hii M.eart is 
 otherwise disposed, and in his sentiments has otherwise deter- 
 mined. For so must it ever be : the final resolve of conviction 
 is left to the free assent, that quiet internal concurrence of 
 the will already mentioned which in general brings man into 
 actual communion with God, and opens and enlarges his 
 sense for the divine, — since such assent is itself even that 
 sense, or at least the principle and commencement of it. 
 
 And this complement of the highest science, which is fur- 
 nished by the free internal assent, is even of itself nothing less 
 than an act of faith. Consequently, the complete and correct 
 notion of the Supreme Essence is the mystical ring in which 
 science and faith are at the first beginning indissolubly con- 
 nected. Nothing but the perversity and shortsightedness of 
 men in regard both to science and faith, tears them asunder 
 again, and separating what in God is one and what He has 
 joined together, sets science and faith in hostile opposition, 
 mutually obstructing and destroying one another. Moreover, 
 this highest notion of the highest science is the scientific vertex 
 or the scientifically culminating expression of man's universal 
 belief in the one living God. For if this one God is necessarily 
 to be conceived of as endued with life, it will be sufficient for 
 me to appeal to the fact that physical science knows not, and 
 no one even can conceive or comprehend or think of a mode 
 of life in any sphere of existence, without implying a plu- 
 rality or at least a duality of co-operating forces. But if, 
 further, we are to think of it as a perfect life, then must there 
 be in it a third living energy or operation. Thus, therefore, 
 on this side also the highest notion of a science which has 
 attained to its end and to the summit of all existence and all 
 knowledge, is in perfect unison with the universal feeling of 
 truth and the natural and simple faith of man. 
 
 But now, if the highest science and a divine faith intrinsi- 
 cally and essentially be properly one, it will naturally turn 
 and depend on the preservation of the true ratio and correct 
 
FAITH AND SCIENCE RECONCILABLE. 
 
 201 
 
 proportion between the two powers and elements of human 
 existence, whether or not in their further application and 
 actual life they are to continue at unity, without coming into 
 hostile collision and discord. The believing soul, like the mis- 
 tress of a family, ought to hold and retain the chief place in the 
 house ; the spirit that knows, or that aims at knowledge, as 
 the master, may pursue out of doors whatever avocations it 
 pleases, only it must be continually returning to the domestic 
 hearth, and there warm itself at the pure ascending flame of 
 devotion and pious meditation. And if in its wanderings it 
 should most love to stray in the rich and blooming garden of 
 nature, then of the rare aromatic woods and seeds it there 
 gathers, it may throw one or more into the fire, in order to add 
 some sweet ethereal incense to its warming and illuminating 
 flames. 
 
 Or leaving figure, to express myself in more precise and 
 exact terms, — the believing part of the consciousness, observ- 
 ing its due proportion, ought not to refuse and reject the true 
 and Godlike science together with that which is Godless, per- 
 nicious, and false. So, too, the cognitive or scientific portion 
 ought to abstain from all hostile attacks on the other domain 
 and on positive faith, which in all probability it has not suffi- 
 ciently studied and still less perfectly understands. And thus, 
 pi so, when this cognitive part (as it ought, and as is essential 
 : ) its truth and correctness as science) carefully watches itself 
 and rigorously abstains from all arbitrary, presumptuous, and 
 egoistic opinions and ideas, suggestions or beginnings of ideas, 
 as involving the first disposition to false science and every 
 species of error, then there is no need for it to be held in 
 check by the other part, nor to be limited by it. 
 
 But in any case we must be ready to admit that the fault 
 lies in man, and on no account suppose that the dissension 
 has its ground in the thing itself. For the thing here is 
 nothing less than truth itself, which cannot be twofold, since 
 God Himself is this truth and the sum thereof. It is there- 
 fore important, on the one hand, by means of the old spirit, 
 to be ever giving new life and energy to faith, by carrying it 
 back continually to its own eternal foundations, in order 
 to avert the danger, which is ever threatening it, of spiri- 
 tual deadness and of the ascendancy of the letter that killeth. 
 And, on the other hand, we ought never to cease from or to 
 
1102 PATIENCE ESSENTIAL TO PUftSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 become weary of refining more and more the higher philoso- 
 phical science from all the egoistic dross of arbitrary opinions 
 and fancied apodictic conclusions, labouring the while to com- 
 plete it according to the threefold dimensions (to hazard the 
 expression) of this so utterly immeasurable essence of ever- 
 lasting truth, by keeping incessantly in view the unfathomable 
 depth, the inaccessible height, the inexhaustible centre of 
 bliss of the one inconceivable and ineffable Being. For the 
 fault and the cause of the dissension must in no case be 
 ascribed to the thing itself, but invariably either to a dead, 
 imperfectly enlightened, and unintelligent faith, on the one 
 hand, or on the other, to the arbitrary assumptions or one- 
 sided conclusions of a science, which in this respect and 
 degree at least is false and erroneous. 
 
 But inasmuch as the fault and origin of the dissension has 
 partly its foundation in human imperfection and finiteness, we 
 must rest content, even if we cannot all at once get rid of and 
 remove it. We must be satisfied if in this ceaseless struggle 
 with man's hereditary and connatural fault of error, the progress 
 though slow is sure. It is enough if in this surely advancing 
 progression, each step, however short, brings us nearer to the 
 truth, and to the perfect cognition of the unity of the highest 
 science and divine faith. But this is a point on which even 
 individuals with the most perfect honesty of purpose and a 
 sincere love of truth, too often go wrong. Unable, perhaps, to 
 reconcile to their own minds some conflicting claim of science 
 and of faith, and to see their way clear out of their perplexi- 
 ties, then to cut the knot of the problem to which they despair 
 of soon finding a satisfactory solution, they precipitately adopt 
 some partial and overhasty conclusion. But slow, extremely 
 slow, is the advance of man's mental enlightenment in the 
 realm of truth. And if the course of Providence, according 
 to the very gradual progression of divine order in this domain, 
 must be counted by millenniums, then in the life of individuals, 
 years and decades must be reckoned as days and hours. Even 
 though some grave doubt, distracting the inmost feelings, but 
 scarcely definable in express terms — some oppressive problem 
 suggested by the peculiar mental temperament of the indivi- 
 dual, cannot be resolved in three hours, or even three days, 
 , still it may perhaps in three years ; and if three years be 
 too little, then thirty years may probably suffice. While 
 
PATIENCE ESSENTIAL TO PURSUIT OP TRUTH. 203 
 
 in spite of this inward doubt we follow uninterruptedly our 
 vocation in outer life, many a silent change is effected in our 
 minds, and so at length with altered views and enlarged experi- 
 ence we attain to a calm and clear conviction on the points 
 which at an earlier period had appeared to us obscure, had held 
 us in suspense, and oppressed us with perplexing difficulties. 
 
 This is the only road that can be safely trod by those who 
 desire above all things to retain a divine faith, but at the 
 same time not to renounce the pursuit of higher science. 
 And is not this the difficult position in the present day of 
 every well-disposed person who is in any way connected with 
 science, or whose pursuits in life require him to occupy him- 
 self with it ? But now in the case of physical science we are 
 all content to observe this law of tardy progress ; indeed we 
 think it quite natural, and hold it to be the only correct method. 
 And it is only by following a similar course in the internal 
 investigations of philosophy that we shall ever arrive at a 
 stable position and the firm ground of eternal truth. By any 
 other method, we shall most assuredly lose ourselves among 
 the ever shifting systems which change with the fashions of 
 the day, or be carried away by the baseless hypotheses of this 
 or that sect or school, which, like the sterile blossoms in the 
 spring, fall fruitless to the ground. 
 
 In respect to this tardiness of progress, which most assuredly 
 is at least not inconsistent with true philosophy, I can appeal 
 to my own instance, which in such a case is, I hope, allow- 
 able. It is now nine-and-thirty years since I first read, with 
 indescribable avidity, the entire works of Plato in the original ; 
 and ever since, amid many other scientific studies, philosophical 
 research has been my principal and favourite avocation. In 
 this pursuit many and various have been the systems of science 
 — of discord and of error — that I have had to wander through. 
 Satisfied neither with the opinions of others nor with my own 
 views, I felt reluctant to come forward with a system of my 
 own. In the meanwhile my view of philosophy has been in a 
 state of inchoation and of tardy but progressive development. 
 Slowly and incompletely, little by little, incidentally and frag- 
 mentarily, at different epochs, has some of its principles come 
 to the light, or escaped me in my earlier literary works and 
 compositions, — an explanation which I do not consider super- 
 fluous, even for those who are best acquainted with them. 
 
204 
 
 HINDOO TRINITY. 
 
 But the more I held fast to the two poles of divine faith and 
 of supreme science, which as such is also divine, the firmer 
 footing did I gain in that point and that centre in the ever- 
 lasting Beginning, in which both are one and cease to be at 
 issue, but rather intimately cohering, do but lend fresh life, 
 strength, and elevation to each other. And now at length 
 I believe I have attained to that point when, fully persuaded 
 myself of this unity of science and faith as grounded in G od, I 
 may safely indulge the wish to impart to others this important 
 truth, publicly to set it forth, and develope it to the whole 
 world. And it is to me no slight cause of congratulation that 
 I am to enter upon this task in the present place and in tlie 
 present manner. 
 
 Besides those points of correlation already pointed out, 
 between the highest science and faith, there is still another 
 way in which the former, in its all-embracing notion of the 
 triple life of the primal cause and force, is referred to faith, 
 and even to its positive articles and its divine authority. It 
 is obliged to appeal to this, in order to find and maintain its 
 guiding rule and correct standard for the further application 
 and development of this highest and fundamental notion, and 
 to keep it clear of all erroneous and extravagant excrescences. 
 The necessity of this will be best and most simply shown by 
 a few historical instances. 
 
 When we open any of the ancient writings of the Hindoos, 
 whether it be their scientific systems, their books of laws and 
 customs for practical life, or their merely mythological poems, 
 we find them, in every instance, based on the notion of a 
 divine trinity, and, in some cases, asserting it in express 
 w r ords and phrases. But inasmuch as, forgetting to maintain 
 the unity together with the trinity, they abandoned the simple 
 truth and made thereout three distinct gods, the metaphysical 
 theory (which otherwise contains so many and distinct traces 
 of ancient truth) and the trinity of the Hindoos has become a 
 pure mythology, comprising as long a genealogy of gods as 
 any other. By the retention, however, of this fundamental 
 notion their mythology has acquired a theistic hue and colour- 
 ing, which forms a strong contrast between it and the better 
 known mythology of Greece, notwithstanding that in other 
 respects, and in its purely poetic portion, it exhibits many 
 and strong features of resemblance and affinity. Thus, in this 
 
THE TRINITY OP THE PLA.TON ISTS. 
 
 205 
 
 wonderful chaos of distorted truth, of monstrous error, and 
 pure fiction, we meet with ten fabulous creations of men 
 instead of the single true one with which, only within the last 
 three centuries, the Hindoos have formed a more thorough and 
 permanently based acquaintance. Moreover, in life and in 
 practice there is exhibited a renunciation of the world, and a 
 mortification of the body, which, far surpassing the rigorous 
 self-denial of the early Christian solitaries in Egypt, is carried 
 to an intensity and an extreme which it is almost incredible 
 that human nature should be capable of. But co-existing 
 pith all this, we meet with immoral practices and licentious 
 excesses sanctified by falsehood and superstition, similar to 
 those we have already become acquainted with in the more 
 sensual heathenism of antiquity, that, I mean, which pre- 
 vailed among the ancient races of this our western portion of 
 the globe. Into such a frightful abyss of error even the most 
 spiritual system of metaphysics inevitably falls, or at least 
 easily becomes associated with falsehood, whenever it is left 
 entirely to itself, and is devoid of a divine rule for its guidance, 
 and the simple standard of a higher and heaven-descended 
 authority. 
 
 In the history, too, of the development of the Grecian mind 
 we discover a similar doctrine advanced in one of its latest 
 epochs. The Neo-Platonists were very well acquainted with 
 this doctrine and idea of a divine trinity ; as, indeed, it may 
 also be traced in the still earlier writings of Plato himself. 
 How far the expressions and formularies employed by the 
 former writers scientifically to convey this idea were perfect 
 and correct is a question which does not concern us at present 
 to inquire. Moreover, the determination of it would carry us 
 far beyond our proper limits, inasmuch as its exact solution 
 would require a nice and accurate classification of the several 
 writers and systems which belong to this school. It is, how- 
 ever, sufficient to reir^rk that this profound metaphysical 
 school of the Neo-Platonists, which reckoned among its adher- 
 ents the Emperor Julian, stood in direct and hostile collision 
 with Christianity. To adapt to the purpose of their opposi- 
 tion the old Grecian mythology, a faith in which had sensibly 
 declined even among the masses, they attempted to mould it 
 according to their own views and notions, into such a theolo- 
 gical shape and direction as would make it more closely 
 
206 
 
 THE TRINITY OF THE TALMUD. 
 
 resemble the Indian. By this means they believed it possible 
 to revive and reanimate the popular faith. But; even if their 
 ulterior view and their whole object and actuating motive 
 had not taken a direction so decidedly hostile to the truth, 
 still their enterprize, even as such, could not but miscarry. 
 No doubt the mythology of Greece, in its earliest times and 
 original shape, did contain, in some of its less prominent and 
 more hidden passages, esoterically interpreted, a few symboli- 
 cal doctrines and somewhat theistic ideas, as many a profound 
 examiner of it, in modern times, has recognised and demon- 
 strated. But, notwithstanding all these traces, which we 
 must regard as the remains of an older tradition of the primary 
 knowledge and full revelation belonging to primeval times, still, 
 in subsequent ages, the Grecian mythology had, on the whole, 
 assumed exclusively and pre-eminently a poetic development 
 and form, which even subordinated to itself that political ten- 
 dency which in so many of its details is so strong. It was, 
 therefore, nothing less than an absurd and inconsistent attempt 
 to try, so late in the day, to metamorphose this beautiful world 
 of fable into a factitious theory of metaphysics, and a colossal 
 system of mysticism, after the manner and fashion of the 
 Indian. Accordingly, like every other attempt that is funda- 
 mentally false and directly opposed to the spirit of the age, it 
 passed away at last, without leaving a trace of its influence. 
 
 This inclination to the poetic aberration of polytheism and 
 a deification of nature, so universally prevalent in the heathen 
 antiquity of the West, renders it easily conceivable why, in 
 the first and Jewish portion of written revelation, such great 
 stress is laid pre-eminently and primarily on the oneness of the 
 living God. All other expressions — such as that of the eternal 
 creative Word — of the life-giving Spirit of God are, as it were, 
 but allusions full of hidden meaning for the more clear-sighted 
 and profouncler inquirers. How numerous, nevertheless, such 
 indications are ; how frequent the reference to three powers 
 or persons — the time, energy, and property of the one Supreme 
 Being — an allusion to which is contained even in the different 
 Hebrew names of the Godhead, is known and acknowledged, 
 even by those who would, if they could, deny it, both to 
 themselves and others. 
 
 The tradition of the Jews, which, lying without the strictly- 
 defined body of Scripture, yet proceeds concurrently with it, 
 
GOSPEL Or ST. JOHN, 
 
 207 
 
 while it possesses of itself no authority, is, nevertheless, a 
 very useful though too much neglected source of illustratioi 
 for the sacred volume. Now in the Talmud the doctrine anu 
 notion of the divine trinity is expressed quite fully and dis- 
 tinctly and without reserve ; although in the mode and man- 
 ner of conceiving it there is much that is both false and 
 objectionable. 
 
 In that second portion of revelation with which our present 
 era commences, together with the fulfilling and perfection oi 
 the object of faith, this supreme science is brought prominently 
 and clearly forward. No doubt a certain caution and degree 
 of reserve on this doctrine of the Trinity are distinctly visible 
 m the earliest teaching and statements, so long as the preach- 
 ing of the new faith was confined within the Jewish nation, 
 on whose mind the idea of the oneness of God was still 
 deeply imprinted, even though, like every other principle of 
 their religion, it was ill understood and had long ceased to be 
 embraced with a living energy, being taken merely in the 
 dead letter. But ere long this thin veil was also removed 
 from the All Holy One, and the great mystery of faith set 
 forth as the introduction to the fourth and last Gospel. 
 From the latter I have accordingly borrowed that designa- 
 tion of this great mystery which is even the most appropriate 
 to science ; of the supreme life which is itself omnipotence, of 
 the eternal word which is omniscience, and of the uncreated 
 light which is the All Holy. 
 
 Certain great thinkers, who, however, in many respects 
 cannot be classed among proper Christians, have indeed recog- 
 nised and acknowledged the profound significance of this 
 opening of the Gospel. Only they adopted a spirit of hostile 
 analysis, which, as it attacked so many of the great works of 
 olden time, did not spare even this divine monument. They 
 lost themselves in all sorts of superfluous hypotheses as to the 
 source from which this or that passage was derived, and with 
 what object it was introduced. Much simpler were it, without 
 having recourse to any such artificial explanations, to receive 
 the divine truth in sincerity as it is offered to us. If we must 
 ascribe some special design for its composition, it will be suf- 
 g ficient to suppose, that after the Evangel of Life and the new 
 era commencing therewith had been sufficiently set forth as 
 history in a triple narrative, it was requisite to add thereto this 
 
GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 Evangel of the Beginning — as the Gospel according to the 
 spirit of the highest science, insofar as this is fully identical 
 with the divine faith, and henceforward was always to con- 
 tinue one with it. It was quite in the natural order of things 
 that the word which was uttered at the beginning of the 
 material creation, and is the basis of the first revelation, 
 should also at the opening of the second revelation, and the 
 spiritual creation of a new era, be repeated (though in a 
 different and far higher sense) for the soul in the realm of 
 truth : — " And God said : Let there be light, and there was 
 
 light." 
 
 3ND OP LECTtJEE 1 
 
2m 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 OF THE TWOFOLD SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND ERROR IN 
 SCIENCE, OF THE CONFLICT OF FAITH WITH INFI- 
 DELITY. 
 
 In the terrestrial creation, in the realm of nature, no sooner 
 did the behest go forth, " Let there be light," than the accom- 
 plishment forthwith followed. Scarcely was this light and 
 life-creating word spoken, than it was succeeded spontaneously 
 and immediately, without let or hindrance, by the second word 
 in the joyful conclusion : " And there was light." Quite 
 otherwise, however, is it in the life and in the world of free- 
 created man, in the progression of his intellectual development, 
 in the history of his mind (getst), in his now advancing, now 
 retrograding thought and knowledge. Here, indeed, the first 
 call to light and divine truth does not pass over even man's 
 stubborn and taciturn heart altogether unheeded and unan- 
 swered and without eliciting some faint response. But lasting 
 is the struggle between light and darkness, between knowledge 
 and ignorance, between faith and infidelity. Ever waver- 
 ing from side to side and fluctuating from one extreme to 
 another, the victory long remains undecided. And centuries 
 often, nay, thousands of years, pass away ere with perfect truth 
 that word of fulfilment and completion can be uttered, and we 
 can go on undoubtingly to say, " And there was light." Even 
 when the true end is pursued along the direct road, the right 
 track is often lost amid the endless strife and controversy of 
 men, while a long train of useless discussions raises so thick a 
 cloud of dust as shuts it entirely out of sight, and so a new route 
 has to be sought and opened from quite an opposite quarter. 
 
 How deeply was the Gentile world sunk in wild and cruel 
 superstition, when the Great Prophetic spirit and the disperser 
 of that Egyptian darkness, which hung over it, repeated or 
 wrote down those first words of light for the spiritual no less 
 than the material creation! Assuredly he had in view thereby 
 
210 
 
 STRUGGLE BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS 
 
 a new genesis for his people — a new life and a new beginning 
 of light. Then followed fifteen centuries of probation. And 
 what was this long period but one ceaseless though alternating 
 struggle between light and darkness ! At the end of it, in 
 spite of its great and noble gifts and superior knowledge, 
 the whole nation had fallen into the lowest depths of luxury 
 and corruption, on the one hand a prey to the wilder passions, 
 on the other spiritually dead and rotten. But the shadow of 
 its former self, it dragged on a miserable existence, oppressed 
 by a foreign yoke and torn by intestine sects and parties. 
 The one claiming to be the only legal sect (and as concerned 
 the letter of the law, and the outward ritual, it was so in fact), 
 and arrogant and obstinate, closely adhering to the dead letter, 
 was widely estranged and alienated from the spirit of love and 
 mildness. And thus the very name of Pharisee has become 
 odious and hateful, having passed into a proverb and a by- 
 word. Wholly mistaking the meaning of the revelation im- 
 parted to them, they misunderstood the future to which it re- 
 ferred, no less than the immediate fortunes of their nation and 
 their own condition. Consequently they went totally wrong in 
 the interpretation of the former, as well as of the problem of 
 the present which was laid before them. For they took it in the 
 narrow and perverted spirit of party. No doubt the Pharisees 
 reckoned among their members many truly pious, well-disposed, 
 and right-thinking individuals ; men, who in the beginning of 
 the new era of the world, as appears from the simple history 
 of those times, acknowledged the truth, and recognised the 
 hand of God pointing and leading onwards to the future. 
 These men mourned in silence over the revolting pride and 
 stiffneckedness of their contemporaries. But though endued 
 with great learning and talents, and burning zeal for right 
 and truth, they did not venture openly to oppose and to teach 
 differently from their brethren, even because in reality the 
 law, the dead and external law, was on their side. 
 
 But the other party was that of the Sadducees. Quite 
 different in principle, these were the innovators among the 
 Jews. Explaining away the theological creed of their nation, 
 they went so far in this direction as to throw into shade, and to 
 question, or rather absolutely to deny, the immortality of the 
 soul. In civil matters, and questions of law and policy, they 
 were the liberal free-thinkers of their day. 
 
IN JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 211 
 
 From amidst these two dark clouds, which, if they shone at 
 all, glimmered only with the deceptive halo of the false light 
 and hue of party, broke the new dawn and sun of Truth — at first 
 unobserved, nor understood by any, so thickly had these mists 
 overspread the horizon. But this new genesis, and this full 
 illumination, was no longer destined exclusively for a single 
 people. Accordingly it gradually spread over the ten or twelve 
 great nations, who occupy two parts of the habitable globe, 
 and also possess and govern the greatest portion of the third 
 and the most ancient. And it is, in short, by means of that 
 intellectual superiority and civilisation which they owe to this 
 springing of a new era, and this first light, that the former 
 bear rule in the remotest regions of the earth. 
 
 Since the dawning of that day-spring eighteen centuries 
 have elapsed, and sadly torn and distracted is the present 
 aspect of Christianity. We should no doubt give a very dis- 
 torted picture of the state of Christendom were we anxiously 
 to trace its resemblance, through every minuter trait and 
 nicer shade, to the old world at its close and at the end of 
 those fifteen centuries of Jewish preparation. Such a minute 
 parallel would be false, whether we were to compare it to the 
 moral state and character of that nation, mentally blinded and 
 hurrying with hasty steps towards its ruin, or even to the old 
 heathen world of Rome, already condemned by anarchy and 
 infldeHty. Still it is generally true. For it is undeniable 
 that man is perpetually relapsing into dissension and party 
 quarrels, even while the hand which sways the destinies of the 
 I world, in ever recurring epochs of renovation, is continually 
 I presenting to him anew both truth and life, health and peace. 
 And every one can answer for himself the question whether 
 this new proclamation of light and truth, this divine message 
 of peace and salvation, has yet reached its full accomplish- 
 ment. Has the Sun of Righteousness yet penetrated, and cast 
 its bright beams on all the relations of life, to the very inmost 
 joints of soul and spirit? Can it with perfect truth be said, 
 relatively to the whole human race, " And there is light" — 
 that light at least which alone is good, even because it shall 
 remain for ever ? For those meteoric sparks which flash across 
 the universal night and darkness, from the systems of man's 
 wisdom, which crossing and recrossing each other's path, are 
 soon again extinguished for ever ; or those clouds of public 
 
 p 2 
 
212 A SIMILAR STRUGGLE IN INDIVIDUAL MINDS. 
 
 opinion, charged with electric fluid and with pestilence, which, 
 for the most part, is but the public outburst of some party 
 passion; these emit no lasting, no salutary, and therefore no 
 true light. Dark and gloomy too, perhaps, in its future pros- 
 pects, appears the long struggle between divine truth and 
 human discord, between light and darkness, between faith and 
 infidelity. But the more difficult and intricate the problem 
 is which forms the theme of our present disquisition, the more 
 diligently and the more conscientiously ought we to seek out 
 and dwell upon every bright and quiet spot. For such alone 
 can cheer us on our way along the rugged path that leads to the 
 blissful goal of internal and spiritual peace, which will essen- 
 tially contribute to give a solid basis to the public and social 
 tranquillity, and to ensure its permanence. 
 
 Slowly and gradually is it that the individual mind, dis- 
 tracted and vacillating between God and a divine faith on 
 the one hand, and a higher, 01 even the highest, science on 
 the other, advances in its progress towards the perfect truth. 
 Arriving step by step at fuller and better convictions, it at- 
 tains at last to a clear discernment that, properly and funda- 
 mentally, these two apparently conflicting objects are not dis- 
 tinct, but in their inmost essence are perfectly one. But for 
 the final attainment of this end, the most important condition 
 to be observed is that scientific patience to which I called your 
 attention in the last Lecture. The chief thing to be guarded 
 against is a precipitate and over-hasty decision. For by such 
 we should incur the great danger of sacrificing the sacred de- 
 posit of faith to science, or of foolishly rejecting the treasures 
 of true science, which as such is indispensable to the higher 
 life, and even necessary and useful for the confirmation of 
 faith itself. And why, in the pursuit of truth, that proper 
 spiritual theme and highly interesting matter of the otherwise 
 flat and insipid drama of life, should we feel indisposed to such 
 a scientific patience, as I called it? Why should we be unwilling 
 to recognise it as what it really is — both salutary and indis- 
 pensable to human frailty, and as an intellectual virtue no less 
 necessary than even moral patience? And the latter is even 
 the fundamental condition of every great or little business, 
 and almost every pursuit of life, if it is to attain to a happy 
 result, and is not to fail of its true end and aim. 
 
 For patience is, as it were, the indispensable portion which 
 
CHOICE BETWEEN FAITH AND INFIDELITY. 213 
 
 their earthly existence brings to all men. Not only is it 
 needed by the invalid on the bed of sickness, in the long and 
 tedious observance of his physician's precise and rigid pre- 
 scriptions — not only is it wanted by the teacher in his trouble- 
 some task of giving the first development to the intellectual 
 powers of the child ; not only is patience requisite for the 
 judge who has to settle the complicated quarrel of two liti- 
 gants, of whom each claims his sympathy, each desires to win 
 him to his own side and to bias his judgment, — but it is also 
 indispensable to the warrior whom ambition hurries forward 
 in the pursuit of honour for himself and his country. For 
 numberless are the hardships and privations, and many too 
 are the miseries which the soldier must undergo before he can 
 gain the object of his hopes, the hard-fought battle and the 
 glorious victory. The statesman, too, with his wide sphere of 
 influence and authority, stands eminently in need of patience 
 How watchful and comprehensive must be his vigilance, how 
 deliberate his precautions, lest the organic course of his admi- 
 nistration should come to a check or stop, in consequence of 
 his having neglected, or failed to provide for any single 
 member of the great body, or any regulating wheel in the 
 complicated machinery of the state. 
 
 But on the other hand, there are also moments in human 
 life where the final issue turns not so much on a steady and 
 uniform perseverance in continuous activity, as on a decided 
 resolution and firmness of purpose. Among these we may 
 place foremost, perhaps, in an intellectual relation, the dis- 
 sension between faith and infidelity, and the choice at the 
 point where the two branch off for ever. 
 
 It is not here my design to set up, to commend, and to 
 extol faith, nor to decry, to attack, and to make war upon 
 infidelity. For the former would take me beyond my pre- 
 sent limits ; the latter would lead me into a boundless held 
 of details, and require me to take an exhaustive survey, not 
 only of all actually existent, but also of all conceivable, 
 prejudices and delusions. My principal object is rather 
 to sketch a true and exact picture of both, comprising at 
 the same time all their historical manifestations, and explain- 
 ing their psychological causes, in order to exhibit them both 
 in their true light, so that man may choose for himself and 
 decide between them. 
 
214 IDENTITY 0E SUPERSTITION AND INEIDELITY. 
 
 Now the apparent — or it may be real, but still only acciden- 
 tal — schism between science and faith is, in the first place, 
 internal. It is often indeed profoundly hidden and concealed 
 in the inmost depths of the heart. It is therefore inwardly 
 only that it admits of being adjusted and finally reconciled. 
 When this task is once accomplished in the heart of an indi- 
 vidual, and the choice is at last made one way or the other, 
 then this decision manifests itself outwardly, either as the 
 triumph of truth in the unity of science and faith, or, as 
 infidelity and scepticism, shows itself in the form of a deter- 
 mined opposition to this unity or to faith itself. And the 
 latter is the form it also assumes in the intermediate case 
 when the schism between science and faith is declared to be 
 irreconcilable. Openly expressed, therefore, these two views 
 go far beyond the original dissension and pass into the second 
 schism and conflict between faith and infidelity. And although 
 this problem be itself an original and internal one, still it 
 reveals itself pre-eminently as a practical schism in actual life, 
 and it is as such also that it developes and manifests itself in 
 history. 
 
 But it is our object to make this comparison and parallel 
 between faith and infidelity, in the full practical meaning of 
 the words, useful and historically applicable to life. For this 
 purpose we must not regard infidelity as founded exclusively 
 on caprice, aversion, or obstinacy — consequently on ignorance, 
 but consider it rather as enjoying every intellectual advantage, 
 and commanding all the resources of learning and science. 
 For a purely personal, and merely negative unbelief, without 
 any deep foundation, and without even an apparently scientific 
 confirmation, is neither very dangerous to the community, and 
 above all presents little if any interest to philosophy. But, 
 on the other hand, if faith is successfully to cope with such 
 an adversary, furnished with all the armour and expedients 
 of science, it must be able to stand the comparison with 
 it in this respect. It must, in short, be conceived and set 
 forth in its natural relation to true science, and taking its 
 proper place and position, must act in union and co-operation 
 with it. 
 
 I must here, however, premise a second preliminary remark. 
 I cannot bring myself to follow a very general opinion, and 
 look upon faith as a true and duly moderated medium between 
 
IDENTITY OF SUPERSTITION AND INFIDELITY. 215 
 
 superstition and infidelity. On the contrary, I join supersti- 
 tion with infidelity, and cannot but class them together. Jf 
 by this term of superstition nothing is meant but some ex- 
 aggeration or other, some over-excitement of the moral and 
 religious feelings in individuals, then such a purely personal 
 case admits not of being raised to a general rule, nor elevated 
 into an universal principle. And in any case it does not fall 
 within the range of philosophical speculation. For the care 
 of the spiritual health and healthy diet of the believing soul, 
 which draws both life and love from the deep sources of faith, 
 belongs to a wholly different province from that of philosophy. 
 But by this word and notion of superstition there is often 
 understood a very childish error, which does not duly separate 
 and distinguish the figurative language and figurative forms 
 of fancy from the substance of the true intrinsic meaning. 
 This error, which thus confounds the figurative expression with 
 reality, and takes it to be something real, may justly be called 
 childish, inasmuch as it is universally peculiar, almost natural, 
 to the intellect of children. Now in and by itself, and simply 
 understood, such an internal optical delusion results from 
 nothing but a psychological imperfection — or a mere semblance 
 of intellectual nature. But when this error is carried out into 
 a system and applied on a large scale to the sum and essence 
 of faith, then, undoubtedly, it possesses a profounder origin 
 and significance. This species of superstition belongs to one 
 of those classes of error which I am about to describe. When, 
 for instance, an actual positive error is comprised in and under- 
 stood by this name, then it belongs to infidelity, which, in 
 general, is rather a false faith than any mere absence of belief. 
 Infidelity, in short, is an erroneous belief. And such also is 
 every species of superstition, and this designation of it by the 
 name of erroneous faith, if generally adopted, would be more 
 correct and accurate, or at least less liable to be misunderstood 
 than its ordinary title. 
 
 For, to adhere to the usual term, every species of infi- 
 delity is either a material deification of nature and a worship 
 of the sensible powers of life, or it is an abstract deification 
 of the absolute subjective Me, and the pure reason, with its 
 endless thinking and knowing. Even when it is conceived in 
 a purely sceptical light as an absolute not knowing, still even 
 in this case it is the understanding that is deified. Standing 
 
216 
 
 THE SOUL THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH, 
 
 apart from, and thinking itself superior to, the weak prejudices 
 of other men — in its negation feeling and fancying itself to be 
 instinct with genius, it is regarded and set up as the high- 
 est object of existence, and thereby in a certain intellectual 
 sense is made an idol of. Even the evil power of perverted 
 genius — for such we may well call it when it ventures to 
 contemn both law and right, and fancies itself to be raised 
 high above the voice of conscience and the moral duties of 
 docility and humblemindedness as belonging to ordinary 
 minds — even such a pervert? J genius may be made the idol 
 of a man who has once turned his back on the simple truth 
 and on God, and has arrogantly set himself in opposition 
 to both. We may, in short, without hesitation, advance it as 
 an invariable principle and an unerring rule, that the man 
 who has lost or abandoned — not to say rejected — the idea and 
 belief in the one good and righteous God, has enshrined within 
 his breast and cherishes some more or less dangerous idol, 
 whether it be the subjective Me or some fearful passion, or, 
 it may be, some firm and well-finished system of deified reason 
 or nature. 
 
 The complete notion or ideal" scheme of pure faith, in ite 
 organic union, co-operation, and true relation with all higher 
 and with all natural or earthly science, must be conceived of 
 and sketched in agreement with the triple principle of the 
 human consciousness, according to which it is divided into 
 spirit, soul, and sense. At least it is in this way that it can 
 most easily be made clear, and being accurately apprehended 
 in its essential properties and nature, is kept distinct from 
 all foreign elements and adscititious matters. But infidelity, 
 and that doubt and absence of harmony from which it takes 
 its rise, as well as that error which results from it, have their 
 seat in the fourfold consciousness. These all owe their origin 
 to that disunion in which the mind was involved by the Fall, 
 and which manifests itself principally in the dissension which 
 subsists between Fancy and Reason, and eventually destroys 
 all harmony and co-operation between the Understanding and 
 the Will. For this twofold schism in the human consciousness 
 is the source of all philosophical error and of its various false 
 systems. And this scientific error again, so soon as it attains 
 to a practical utterance, and in a living form enters into or 
 interferes with life, becomes infidelity. 
 
FAITH NOT A NEGATIVE LIMITATION OF REASON. 217 
 
 Originally, however, the consciousness was not thus rent by 
 dissension. Throughout in its triple principle of sense, soul, 
 and spirit, prevailed one living harmonious action. Now, in 
 this its natural state, the soul must be regarded as the prin- 
 ciple of faith. And this is a point especially to be borne in 
 mind. It is, however, too often forgotten. And consequently 
 the faith, or rather (for we are not speaking at present of the 
 subject-matter -so much as of the mental act) the believing, is 
 in an external manner derived very incompletely and unsatis- 
 factorily from the divided and quadruple consciousness. For 
 generally the act of believing and its essence is made to con- 
 sist in a certain internal reserve on the part of both under- 
 standing and will, and a similar control of the fancy, and 
 even of the reason, as well as in the recognition of these limits 
 and of such limitation. 
 
 We must no doubt admit that there may be very much 
 which the human intellect cannot fathom nor see through. 
 This it would by no means be difficult to prove. And still more 
 easy were it to show that man s will cannot always give the 
 law, but must often submit to and recognise a higher and more 
 universal authority. And as regards the fancy, every one will 
 be ready — not to say forward — to make a somewhat similar ad- 
 mission. The faculty of imagination, sensuous and material 
 in its origin and in its operation, and always remaining in the 
 highest degree subjective, is liable to innumerable illusions, to 
 which we ascribe no value, or rather, which we carefully 
 endeavour to dispel from our minds, whenever we attempt to 
 penetrate into the inmost essence of the highest truth which 
 it is the object of faith to embrace. That, moreover, the 
 reason, no less than the fancy, has its peculiar — one might 
 almost say its innate — optical delusions, must be but too well 
 known to every one who has made the slightest progress in 
 the art of logic, and advanced beyond the mere elements of a 
 philosophical examination of this faculty. 
 
 All this, however, is only of a negative nature. The mere 
 recognition and acknowledgment of the fact that we can and 
 ought to restrain our reason and reserve our judgment when- 
 ever a higher act of faith comes into question — or in other 
 words, that in such a case the absolute reason, with its logical 
 processes and laws of thought, is not alone qualified to decide, 
 but meets with limits which it is unable to surmount — such 
 
218 THE MIND THE PRINCIPLE OF SUPREME SCIENCE. 
 
 concessions do not lead to any positive result. They do but 
 establish the possibility of a faith which may transcend and 
 is not confined within these bounds. While, however, they 
 lead to the inference that such a faith is thoroughly conceiv- 
 able, and that while it transcends the reason is nevertheless 
 rational, and capable of being brought into perfect unison 
 with the sound reason, they do not by any means establish at 
 once its reality. All this is rather the preparatory step to 
 believing, and not the true living faith itself. 
 
 A true living faith (and we are here speaking of the func- 
 tion of believing, rather than of the particular details of a 
 positive creed,) is nothing else than the reception into the 
 soul of the truth given unto us by God. And inasmuch as 
 the soul is in its origin loving, and indeed the very faculty of 
 love, a true living faith cannot be thought of or exist without 
 this accompaniment of love, which is even its distinctive 
 characteristic. 
 
 In the case, for instance, of a special form and positive rule 
 of faith, the incompetency of the reason and understanding to 
 pass a definitive judgment on such high and divine matters 
 may be acknowledged, and even the external will may sacri- 
 fice its own inclinations and submit to the requirements of a 
 positive law. But so long as all this remains, as it were, 
 external to man, so long as the soul within does not concur 
 therewith — a fact which may be infallibly discerned by the 
 want or absence of love — then in this case it is but a dead 
 faith, even though outwardly, and in the judgment of others, 
 it may pass as legitimate and orthodox. Then only is it a 
 true living faith when it is wholly received into the entire 
 soul, as manifested by its internal fruitfulness in spiritual 
 thought and moral action. For it is the soul that believes — 
 that same thinking and loving soul which we have already 
 designated the centre of the collective consciousness of man 
 and of his moral life. In this state, however, the soul has 
 undergone a change ; in this higher act of believing its cogi- 
 tation has become steady and uniform, and its love perfectly 
 pure and abidingly permanent in God. 
 
 But now, if in the triple consciousness the soul be the 
 principle of faith, then is the spirit or mind (geist) that of 
 higher science, of free thought, of a full and complete dis- 
 cernment, and of the final and supreme act of distinguishing 
 
IDOLATRY OF SCIENCE. 
 
 219 
 
 and deciding. And by this higher science I mean that which 
 has for its exclusive object the eternal truth, and Him who is 
 the sum and source of all immutable verities. But thirdly, 
 the sensuous faculty is the principle of all lower sensible, 
 terrestrial, and natural knowledge. And this comprises all 
 human history, and together therewith all language and art, 
 and every branch of learning that is occupied therewith. But 
 besides the physical sciences, mathematics also belong to this 
 department, for these are dependent on the sensuous condi- 
 tions of number, weight, and measure, and consequently on 
 time and space, and on those material properties which fill 
 space, gravity, viz., and solidity. 
 
 Now there is nothing, however hidden, nothing, however 
 profound, into which this sensuous principle of knowledge, 
 which investigates all that is earthly, natural or human, and 
 historical, may not attempt at least to penetrate. Only thv* 
 inquiring senses must not quit their true centre. In other 
 words, they ought not to make a hostile attack on the centre of 
 the consciousness, which is even the believing soul. They 
 must not by breaking through it, or passing by it, attempt vio- 
 lently and unduly to ascend to the highest. For in such a 
 case, attempting to create a supreme and highest object of 
 their own, raising it on their own soil, and drawing its mate- 
 rials from their own sources, they will produce nothing but 
 absolutely false and mere nature-gods, or else some historical 
 phantoms, or idols of national recollections and patriotic 
 enthusiasm, such as were enshrined in the heathen worship of 
 antiquity. For even, without material images and altars, such 
 an idolatry may be revived in a scientific form, similar to what 
 we have witnessed, or if we will look around us, may still 
 witness, with our own eyes. And as little can the free spirit 
 of supreme knowledge look down from its own height on this 
 centre of the soul, and pay no regard either to faith or love. 
 In the depths of sensuous observation, amid all the rich trea- 
 sures of physical and historical science, it cannot move as 
 sovereign without being first invested with the luminous gar- 
 ment of pure faith and love. Otherwise it does only hasten 
 from one error to another to fall from the first abyss into a 
 second and still deeper one. 
 
 The pure and living faith of a loving soul abiding per- 
 manently in God, is properly the centre of the human con- 
 
220 IDENTITY OF SUPREME SCIENCE AND FAITH. 
 
 sciousness, — the natural passage of life for the senses as they 
 ascend into the heights, and for the mind or spirit as it 
 penetrates into the depths. It is the connecting mean which 
 not only reconciles and adjusts, joins and combines the two, 
 but also restores them to harmonious unity. 
 
 In the preceding Lecture I considered the notion of the 
 truth in which the supreme science and the divine faith 
 coincide, and are at unison in reference to their subject-matter 
 — consequently, as the right notion of Him who is truth itself. 
 Viewing it thus from its objective side principally, I desig- 
 nated it the sum and source of all truth. We have now, in 
 the progress of our speculations, met again with this notion in 
 its subjective aspect. It is chiefly in regard to its form that 
 it is at present to engage our attention. We have, in short, 
 to answer the question how the consciousness must organically 
 be formed and fashioned, and divided, but still harmonized in 
 all its parts, so that in thought and knowledge, in faith, love, 
 and science, in investigating and in learning, it may be well- 
 grounded and find a stable resting-point, and be no longer 
 distracted by dissension and doubt. 
 
 Now the more the living faith becomes love the more does 
 it, through the immediate feeling and personal experience of 
 life, attain to the certainty of science. For whatever we ex- 
 perience in our own selves, or whatever our own life brings 
 us acquainted with, whatever we are immediately sensible of, 
 and feel that we also know and are certain of it, that at least 
 is a matter on which we are not likely to be led astray by the 
 seeming dialectical proofs of the opposite, or by all sceptical 
 attacks, or objections to the effect that such an immediate 
 sensation and knowledge of a higher object is impossible. 
 Although we are incapable of refuting them, we are never- 
 theless unmoved by the doubts which are raised even against 
 the possibility of our own life and existence. We let them 
 pass by and still live on in the world, until in some un- 
 looked for moment, and some unhoped for way, the true solu- 
 tion, and the answer to these cavils which call in question the 
 reality both of man's inner life and his personal experience, 
 spontaneously suggest themselves. And in the same way that 
 the highest science, so soon as it discerns and understands its 
 own nature, also becomes conscious of faith, and of its own 
 dependence on faith, and being supported, completed, and per- 
 
FAITH THE SOUI/S FIRMAMENT. 
 
 221 
 
 fected thereby, comes into immediate and living contact with 
 it ; so, on the other hand, the higher faith in the divine, the 
 more vivid and the more earnest it is in love, becomes a 
 more immediate conviction, and a science founded on the 
 personal experience of life. 
 
 Faith in the soul, as the centre of man's entire consciousness, 
 may be likened to the outspread canopy of the blue heavens, 
 according to that olden notion of it as a firmament, which 
 perhaps in its figurative investiture still contains much that 
 is strikingly true. According to this old but beautiful con- 
 ception, the firmament was a definite limit that divides the 
 heaven from the earth. Above it the free ether of light dif- 
 fuses itself and stretches into the wide regions of illimitable 
 space ; while in the lower sphere, enclosed by the firmament, 
 the wind of life (Lebensivind) now plays with refreshing 
 motion, now descends to the earth in quickening dews or 
 fertilising showers, or draws out of the ground and to the light 
 the hidden springs of life and mighty streams. Faith, there- 
 fore, is as it were the heavenly firmament in the consciousness 
 that divides the streams of spiritual life and of external and 
 internal science that are above it, from those that are under 
 it. If this boundary be taken away, or violently broken 
 through, the light and the darkness are no longer held apart, 
 but mingle together in one confused and orderless mass. The 
 true light grows darker and gradually becomes extinct ; while 
 the darkness begins to shine with a false glare and the 
 glimmering twilight of pernicious delusion. The old chaos 
 breaks in again upon the human mind, and it becomes anew 
 what it formerly was, " without form and void." 
 
 When, however, the triple consciousness preserves its 
 beautiful order and harmony, then the spirit as the heavenly 
 height above, the sensible nature as the deep below, and 
 the soul as the firmament between them, are indeed divided, 
 but not separated or hostilely opposed to each other. On the 
 contrary, the height as well as the deep, and the whole 
 circle of spiritual existence, are organically combined and 
 united together in this centre of faith in the soul. Now this 
 original constitution of the mind being preserved, the further 
 development and progress of knowledge and truth may be 
 regarded as the second step of internal creation, wherein the 
 light begins to shine more and more oc the mind and on 
 
222 THE SUBJECTIVE THE PRINCIPLE OF MYTHOLOGY. „ 
 
 science. The first clear insight, on the other hand, and 
 internal perception that the highest science and the divine 
 faith are not essentially distinct, but are fundamentally iden- 
 tical, must be considered as the earliest entrance of the 
 spirit of truth into the heart of man. 
 
 Such is the right notion of faith, and of a mind wherein 
 faith and science are organically united and harmoniously 
 concordant. But in order to afford freedom of choice between 
 faith and infidelity, it is necessary to contrast this living 
 image with the complete picture of a mind involved in doubt, 
 distraction, unbelief, and error. For all the motives that can 
 influence a decision must be furnished by a simple com- 
 parison of the two, which, indeed, if made honestly and 
 completely, furnishes of itself the solution of the problem. 
 
 Now I have already more than once called your attention 
 to the tendency to discord, and to the disposing causes to error 
 which subsist in the natural constitution of the human mind 
 with its four poles or members. In particular I directed 
 your notice to the fact that reason and fancy, such as they 
 now are in their present state of mutual alienation and of 
 hostile opposition to each other, cannot be regarded as 
 original faculties of the human consciousness. Originally 
 they were both in unison in the thinking and loving soul 
 so long as living and working in faith and truth, it was on 
 that account confirmed by the divine Spirit, and preserved 
 by union with Him. But when it had once lost this centre of 
 unity, and, its light being obscured, it had become a prey to 
 dissension, it immediately fell asunder into these two halves 
 or faculties of thought. On the one hand stood the reason — 
 as a mere organ of reflection — one, t. e., which, in lifeless 
 abstraction, thinks over the objects previously presented to 
 it, or as a mere directive faculty of thought, without any 
 originative powers of its own ; while, on the other, the fancy 
 presented itself with a blindly productive energy in thought 
 and invention, as a wild, but nevertheless living sense and 
 instinct of nature. 
 
 Reason and fancy, therefore — those two faculties of half 
 truth, if it be allowable so to speak — whenever, instead of 
 seeking to escape from dissension by reverting to a higher 
 centre of unity, they stand isolated, and attempt each by 
 itself to reign supreme, are the real source and actual seat of 
 
MYTHOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM. 223 
 
 all error. Now, one species of error to which man has been 
 most prone ever since his soul was rent asunder and lost its 
 unity, is the subjective shape which he gives to material 
 phenomena. For that fancy, even when most comprehensive, 
 purest and best, invariably remains more or less subjective, 
 is a fact which no man will either wish or attempt to deny, 
 any more than that the imagination takes its beginning from 
 the sensuous impressions* of the material world. And this 
 subjectivity of the fancy may, I think, be taken for granted, 
 even without any reference to and without discussing the 
 question of the possibility of demoniacal influences. 
 
 Now this subjective shaping of material phenomena forms 
 the foundation of all mythology ; it is the general explanation 
 of all the facts of heathenism. It is of course implied in the 
 very principle of its explanation, that manifold and various 
 shapes or forms and developments are both conceivable and 
 possible. And in actual fact, it exhibits the greatest diversity, 
 from the rude objects of the grossest Fetischism up to the 
 exquisite creations of a refined and artistic mythology. In 
 its actual manifestations, however, and in its effects on practical 
 life, the latter still retains its affinity with the former ; at least, 
 it rests on the same foundation of a poetical religion — some 
 view of the universe embodied in a real shape — in short,' the 
 deification of nature. 
 
 We have here taken the olden heathenism in a very simple 
 light, and quite generally as a materialism assuming a poetic 
 form and expression ; but one, at the same time, in which, as 
 soon as we pierce through its poetical investiture, we discern 
 many points of contact with Pantheism. When, however, 
 pursuing a searching historical inquiry into the heathen modes 
 of conception, we enter thoroughly and deeply into its details, 
 we meet therein with so many magical rites and usages, that 
 in spite of any previous inclination to the contrary, we feel 
 indisposed to deny the possibility of a demoniacally affected 
 imagination having in some degree influenced the character 
 of heathenism. And indeed, even in a philosophical point 
 of view, there does not exist any sufficient reason for such 
 a denial. This, however, as we formerly said, is a matter 
 which needs not to be taken into consideration at present. 
 
 It would be a great mistake to suppose that this error of 
 a heathenish deification of nature is confined to the ancient 
 
224 
 
 IDOLATRY OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 world, or to those great and half- civilised primeval races of 
 the remotest East, which, however, remained, and still con- 
 tinue, as it were, a living monument of an earlier epoch in 
 the development of humanity. In the more intellectual ages 
 of the world, physical science, or the philosophy of nature, 
 may still be heathenish. It may be this, even while abstaining 
 rigorously from all symbolical language, it comes forward in 
 the highest elevation of the dynamical theory, and in pure scien- 
 tific formularies. This may be the case even when outwardly 
 it appears to be highly spiritual, or at least far removed from 
 all the ordinary features of materialism. And it is invariably 
 such whenever it recognises nothing higher or superior to the 
 infinite vital force and its dynamical play and law, and 
 consequently does but deify nature. Heathenish it must ever 
 remain so long as it does no more than this. This forms, 
 as it were, a relapse of science into heathenism, and here, 
 under a different form, fancy asserts her olden authority. For 
 this purpose she does but assume a geometrical shape, and 
 decking herself out with all the riches of science, and moving 
 with free dynamic action, speaks a thoroughly mathematical 
 language, The point of indifference, and the positive and 
 the negative pole of all existence, are now, so long as such 
 a philosophy recognises nothing beyond them, the new gods 
 which, in those scientific fictions, whereof our own age has 
 been profuse enough, may receive a shifting rank and honour 
 but still hold a similar position therein to that of Jupiter and 
 V enus, or Mars and Apollo, in the ancient mythologies. 
 
 When, however, in epochs pre-eminently devoted to science, 
 and possessed of a true or false scientific enlightenment, we 
 look to the whole age, and its general tone, this philosophical 
 error of an exclusive materialism, and of a scientific deification 
 of nature, does not appear to be the most universally pre- 
 valent. It occurs rather as an episode and an exception, and 
 in a certain limited degree, as an opposition to another error, 
 which, as it is received far more generally, so it exercises a 
 still more despotic authority over the minds of men. I mean 
 rationalism ; this is properly the new heathenism of scientific 
 times. Here in the infinity of dialectics, and the endless 
 dialectical disputes of an abstract and empty thinking, as well 
 as in the false semblance of a logical necessity which prevails 
 m these logical disputations, lies the source of the second 
 
REASON AND FANCY ULTIMATE SOURCES OE ERROR. 225 
 
 eading error of philosophy. All erroneous systems, whether 
 >f philosophy or religion, lie somewhere between these two 
 extremes of false thought. Every species of theoretical or 
 >ractical unbelief or erring faith, or even of a scientific super- 
 tition, either approximates on the one hand to naturalism, 
 vhether under the garb of a poetical symbolism, or the 
 scientific form of a dynamical theory, or on the other, to the 
 ibsolutism of the reason, with its dead formularies. Every 
 religious and every philosophical error is either a subordinate 
 or a distorted species of one or the other — or it may be a 
 nixture — a mean compounded of both. Manifold, however, or 
 rather innumerable, are the several cnanges and combinations 
 into which these two elements of infidelity and an erring 
 faith, may and indeed actually do enter. 
 
 These then are the two principal elements out of which all 
 the other forms of error are produced. Eeason, therefore, 
 and fancy must be looked upon as their true roots and sources 
 in the human consciousness. They spring either from the 
 scientific productive faculty of imagination, as the unpurified 
 sense of nature before the Spirit of God has moved on the 
 face of these waters of infinite life, or from the mere subjec- 
 tive reason, which in its pursuit of the absolute, thinks only 
 and knows only its own Me. It is on this soil also that 
 philosophical error first assumes a systematic shape and de- 
 velopment. 
 
 Our meaning will perhaps be made clear by an illustration 
 from the healing art. Confining ourselves to the simple facts, 
 we might say correctly enough, fever and gout, as two leading 
 forms of human disease, have their seats either in the organs 
 and circulation of the blood, or in the system of the bones and 
 muscles. Still it would not be inconsistent with such a state- 
 ment to believe that the primary occasion or cause of both 
 evils has a deeper and more hidden origin in some higher 
 organ of life within the human frame, and in some derange- 
 ment or disturbance of its functions. In their outward effects, 
 however, and manifestation, these two diseases respectively 
 seize upon these two spheres of bodily organisation, and there 
 spend themselves. And the same is true of those two in- 
 tellectual diseases, rationalism and the absolute system of 
 nature, as regards the reason and fancy. The latter are their 
 principal seats, they form the domain wherein all the false 
 
 Q 
 
226 UNDERSTANDING AND WILL CO-OPERATING CAUSES 
 
 productions of erring systems are engendered and spring up, 
 or in other words, the spot where the paroxysm of their in- 
 ternal enmity and strife comes to a complete outbreak. Of 
 course we do not mean that these two diseases always present 
 themselves simply and purely. In the morbid state of the in- 
 tellect, as well as in the similar case of organic affection, there 
 are numerous complications of disease which require a care- 
 ful and accurate treatment. The first cause of all intellectual 
 disease, of scientific error, or systematic infidelity, or generally 
 of every species of a false faith, may lie still deeper, or must 
 be traced still higher to some more remote and hidden cause. 
 And in truth the primary origin of all human error is to be 
 found in the alienation of the mind or spirit from God and 
 His eternal light, and in its inevitable consequences — the ob- 
 scuration of the soul, and the blinding, and the aberration 
 and disorder of the senses — and especially of the higher 
 scientific sense for truth. And in order that the senses may 
 be gradually restored to their true state and order and re- 
 opened, and in order that the soul also illuminated anew, the 
 spirit must recover its true luminous centre in God. When 
 this is once done, the whole of man's cognitive faculty will 
 be restored to its original state. 
 
 But in the outward manifestations of consciousness, as it 
 is now entangled* in and limited by the material, or sensible 
 world, or practical life, the absolute reason, and a fancy totally 
 merged in and engrossed by nature, form the two poles of 
 philosophical error. In all the systems hitherto so frequently 
 alluded to, these two are essentially the only sources of delu- 
 sion, although of course innumerable intermediate tints or 
 chemical combinations of both are possible. The under- 
 standing and the will — that is, a faulty sophistical intellect, 
 and a faulty unconditional or absolute volition — do no doubt 
 essentially co-operate in the formation and completion of both 
 these erroneous systems of science. There are besides certain 
 passionate and personal errors and prejudices of the under- 
 standing no less than of the will. These, however, in their 
 immediate effects are practical, and confined to actual life. 
 At least, taken by themselves and without the co-operation 
 of fancy and reason, they will never be able to create a scien- 
 tific system. 
 
 In order, however, more precisely to indicate the extent 
 
IN THE FORMATION AND DIFFUSION OF ERROR. 227 
 
 to which the understanding and will co-operate in the pro- 
 duction of philosophical error, it is necessary to repeat my 
 previous remarks, and also to add some more precise determi- 
 nations with respect to the form of aberration peculiar to, 
 and as it were inborn in each of these faculties. As con- 
 cerns the will, we placed its proneness to err in its uncon- 
 ditional or absolute volition, which manifests itself in life as 
 a destructive or disturbing force, where, however, its effects 
 are variable, being proportionate to the wider or narrower 
 sphere of action. In all alike, however, this principle of abso- 
 lute willing retains its true character. It shows itself, first 
 of all, in the obstinacy of the child, where it forms the 
 greatest obstacle that education has to contend against. Its 
 action is, no doubt, but very weak here ; still this apparently 
 insignificant phenomenon serves to prove — and for this purpose 
 we referred to it — that the fault has its root, and is, as it 
 were, inborn in the very nature of man, and in the present 
 constitution of his mind. As for the second degree, since 
 the evil runs through all the various stages of human life, and 
 assumes manifold shapes, we are, therefore, at no loss for 
 examples. Whether we take our instance from the obstinacy 
 of the founder of a sect passionately adhering to and main- 
 taining the opinions he has once adopted, or that of the leader 
 of some dangerous political party; in either case, the conse- 
 quences of this pernicious principle will appear to be, in the 
 highest degree, extensive and awful. But lastly, it shows 
 itself in its full and most frightful energy in the reckless and 
 unsparing lust of conquest, and in the unsatiable thirst of 
 absolute dominion which stimulates the conquering despot. 
 
 The second of the two similes, however, as it is most imme- 
 diately connected with, so it throws most light upon the 
 problem before us, the explanation, viz., of intellectual error. 
 For science, too, has its sects, and even into the calm regions 
 of philosophy (for such it surely ought to be, as professing to 
 be the satisfaction of our inmost longing after a knowledge of 
 ourselves and of nature in truth and in God), the violent 
 spirit of party finds too often an entrance. In the spirit of 
 system, and in the prejudices of a view or opinion once 
 adopted, the absolute and resolved will, which originally is 
 rather a fault of character than an error of the understanding, 
 nevertheless co-operates essentially to the establishment of a 
 
 Q2 
 
228 UNDERSTANDING AND WILL CO-OPERATING CAUSES 
 
 philosophical error, at least from its formal side. When, 
 however, as, under the influence of the spirit of system, is 
 easily, and indeed generally done by the founders of scientific 
 sects, the absolute is itself adopted as the immediate object, 
 then it is the pursuit of this idea of the unconditional that 
 carries each of these two general forms of error to the highest 
 pitch of extravagance. Applied to nature and any positive 
 view and particular system thereof, it gives to it a character 
 of exclusiveness and definiteness, by which, separated from 
 all that is higher and properly divine, and made to rest 
 entirely in itself, it is carried away to the pantheistic self- 
 sufficiency and deification of a false unity. Combined with 
 the egoistic or subjective reason, this pursuit of the absolute 
 and the idea thereof creates the idealistic delusion, or, at least, 
 readily gives rise to it, and this is the first step, or, at any 
 rate, the usual introduction, to scientific atheism. 
 
 As to the understanding, — in one of the earliest of these 
 Lectures, we mentioned abstract thought as its peculiar 
 form of error. It is unquestionable that the understanding 
 may lose itself in mere abstract and dead thinking, so as amid 
 its mass of purely abstract conceptions to forget entirely all 
 truly pregnant and vital cogitation. Such an understanding, 
 there can be no doubt, must either be defective * k ^s organi- 
 sation, or imperfectly and falsely developed ; ana */o it goes on 
 deceiving itself and propagating error among others. Cor- 
 rectly speaking, however, this abstract thinking does not 
 belong to the understanding so much as to the reason, which 
 is even the faculty of abstraction. And indeed, apart from 
 its great and manifold abuses, the latter, in its right place 
 and within its assigned limits, forms nothing less than a 
 natural requirement and an essential function of the human 
 mind. As for the understanding, it is based on intellection ; 
 consequently it supposes that in this intellectual act the object 
 Is vividly seen through and thoroughly penetrated by the 
 mind. And this object may be either an external one, taken 
 from nature or actual life, or internal — a mere thought or 
 conception, and the word or name designating it. In the 
 latter case, the mental act of penetration is directed to ascer- 
 taining the true and original sense of an idea, or the import 
 of the notion, or of the term by which it is designated. An 
 understanding which has lost itself amongst abstract ideas, 
 
IN THE FORMATION AND DIFFUSION OF EUROS,. 223 
 
 must in such purely abstract thinking become eventually 
 entirely extinct. Wholly, however, without life and spirit, 
 the understanding, according to its peculiar character, can 
 never be ; it is therefore its total absence, 01 a very defective 
 condition of it, rather than its death, that is marked out and 
 indicated by such a state. 
 
 But if we wish to determine the particular fault or error 
 that is peculiar to any one faculty of the human conscious- 
 ness, it is evident that we must not seek for it in any defec- 
 tive state or imperfect development ; but on the contrary, in 
 the highest and fullest energy. But now an extremely inge- 
 nious, clear, and vivid intellect, may be combined with what 
 I have lately termed an evil genius — the false power of genius. 
 In such a combination, we have the true state of a perverted 
 understanding, or of that aberration which is peculiar to it, 
 and for which the term of a sophistical intellect seems the 
 tersest and most appropriate designation. And this sophistical 
 understanding is ever the working organ and instrument for 
 the building and construction of all false systems, and to 
 which sooner or later the latter are all obliged to have 
 recourse. 
 
 With regard, then, to the co-operation of the sophistical 
 understanding in the formation of philosophical error, and its 
 share and influence on the spirit and the matter of any 
 system of untruth, it furnishes an opposition to the idealistic 
 confusion which the absolute will produces by its predominant 
 idea of the unconditional. Here we have rather a predomi- 
 nating tendency to a realistic view of the world, according to 
 the principle it adopts of the universal insignificance of all 
 things, not merely in reference to morals or practical life, and 
 in the domain of history, but also in nature and the whole 
 creation. And with this view is associated a sceptical con- 
 tempt for all who dare to think otherwise — all ordinary minds 
 who cannot rise to the height where the consciousness of 
 knowing and believing nothing sits enthroned. This ten- 
 dency, therefore, and this error of the sophistical understand- 
 ing, is most immediately related to and associated with the 
 dialectical confusion of the reason with its endless disputations. 
 But as the absolute volition and pursuit of the unconditional 
 cannot well be thought of entirely apart from a certain per- 
 version of the intellectual powers, so the operation of the 
 
230 PANTHEISM AND RATIONALISM ALIKE FATAL TO TRUTH. 
 
 sophistical understanding is impossible, without a certain 
 admixture of an evil will and an intentional determination to 
 oppose the truth. 
 
 But notwithstanding this intrinsic connexion between these 
 two intellectual faults, yet in their outward manifestation, 
 and in actual life, they often stand wide apart from each 
 other. The true notion of a sophistical intellect will perhaps 
 be best illustrated in a few words by recalling to your recol- 
 lection the most celebrated French writer of the eighteenth 
 century, who exercised so great an influence not only on the 
 minds of his countrymen, but on the whole spirit of the age.* 
 [f, again, it were necessary to employ instances in order to 
 give you a clear idea of the philosophical pursuit of the abso- 
 lute, examples enough might be found among the German 
 schools and philosophers of recent times. But to revert to 
 the sophistical intellect ; rarely has it been, and rarely will it 
 be, found manifesting itself in such fulness as it did in this 
 anti- Christian and worldly writer, who indeed worshipped 
 the age which worshipped him, but mocked and scoffed at all 
 besides. 
 
 Now as to these two opposite systems of error and unbelief 
 — rationalism, vi^., and a false idolatrous system of nature — 
 in their inmost essence they are both equally false and per- 
 nicious. In this respect there is nothing to choose between 
 them ; they are alike utterly abominable. Even in the judg- 
 ment of theology, pantheism, as the one extreme of error on 
 the side of nature, can scarcely appear less false and abomi- 
 nable than atheism as the other idealistic extreme. Both must 
 be placed on the same line ; for the one no less than the other 
 is a full and perfect refusal to recognise the one Eternal Truth 
 and the Living God. 
 
 Looking, however, to their external manifestation and 
 effects — a philosophy of nature which cloaks its thoroughly 
 heathenish sentiments beneath the bright and seductive attrac- 
 tion of beautiful and highly-finished form, may perhaps appear 
 more dangerous and more pernicious than rationalism, espe- 
 cially when in the comparison the latter appears under its 
 more moderate, pliant, and skilfully modified phases. 
 
 But it is not so much in and by themselves, and generally, 
 
 * Voltaire. 
 
"RATIONALISM MORE TO BE EEARED AT PRESENT. 231 
 
 that we have here to consider these two kinds of error. In 
 such a case the sentence we must pass upon them would be, 
 that they are equally fatal and pernicious. At present we 
 are rather concerned with them in their reference to our own 
 age, and to that struggle which it has to undergo with them. 
 In this respect I cannot hesitate decidedly to pronounce 
 rationalism the greater and the more dangerous error of the 
 two. For not only has it struck its root more deeply in the 
 spirit of the age, and is far more widely diffused, but it is far 
 more supple. Parasitically it engrafts itself on the truth and 
 its various systems, to prey upon them the more successfully. 
 It is ever ready to make concessions to and to capitulate with 
 its adversary, in order to triumph over it the more completely 
 in the end. And when it seems driven altogether from the 
 field, it still holds its ground beneath some new disguise. In 
 short, it is scarcely possible to determine the point, if indeed 
 it is ever reached, where it can be safely said that the evil is 
 completely and for ever eradicated. It is only life itself — the 
 higher spiritual life, that is — and the true philosophy which 
 traces and restores it m the mind's triple faculties of know- 
 ledge, that can extricate us from this dilemma of conflicting 
 errors, and provide the clue which shall guide us out of the 
 dialectical mazes of the reason. On the other hand, a false 
 philosophy of nature — and such is every system that stands in 
 hostile opposition to religion, or attempts to usurp its place — 
 which is conceived in a merely empirical spirit, will never 
 prove very dangerous. After a brief and limited influence, it, 
 will soon fall into neglect and oblivion. When, however, it 
 is the result of a lofty and intellectual effort — when a truly 
 great and comprehensive spirit moves within it — then will it 
 soon become conscious of those limits, and feeling its own 
 false position, it will, ere long, find the passage to the divine 
 which is beyond and above it. But it is not easy for a philo- 
 sophy of nature to be or at least long to remain strictly and 
 absolutely confined to its own limits of system, even because 
 of the continual advance of this science of life. And as soon 
 as it recognises its true place as second and subordinate to a 
 divine philosophy, then does it immediately cease to be a 
 false faith. It is forthwith reconciled to the truth, or at least 
 is already far on the road towards a complete reconciliation 
 with it. This milder judgment, however, cannot in justice be 
 
232 TRUTH NOT ESTABLISHED BY REFUTATION OF ERROR. 
 
 extended to that pantheistic science in which nature is as 
 decidedly and absolutely deified as in any of the old systems of 
 heathenism. 
 
 We have now completed our comparison of faith and 
 infidelity, and sketched the picture both of man's mind and 
 of his science, to and from which they respectively belong or 
 issue. We, therefore, leave it free to the judgment of every 
 thoughtful mind that reflects upon itself and the nature of 
 things, and loves and desires the truth, to choose and decide 
 between them. This comparison is ever the proper problem 
 of philosophy ; and even if the sketch and delineation of these 
 two states of the human consciousness be, from the limits to 
 which we are confined, not perfectly complete, still we may 
 regard this problem as satisfactorily solved. The struggle, 
 however, between belief and unbelief is still to go on in the 
 world and time, but the victory of truth is reserved to higher 
 powers and forces than man's. 
 
 As to the nature and conditions of that intellectual conflict 
 and its several moments, a few remarks must be added, on its 
 relation to, and bearings on philosophy. First of all, I 
 think the previous remarks must have tended to throw ligho 
 on a phenomenon which otherwise is remarkable and startling 
 enough. The good cause, even when advocated by men of 
 the best intentions and the purest zeal for truth, with the 
 greatest acuteness and a thorough knowledge of the truth and 
 its essential principles, nevertheless is but little successful. 
 At the very best, it makes an extremely slow progress, while 
 evil error advances with the fearful rapidity of contagion. To 
 account for this singular fact it is not sufficient to appeal to 
 the persuasive rhetoric which the latter has at its command, 
 or to any superior power of intellect in its advocates. The 
 cause lies rather in the miasmas of spiritual pestilence which 
 are spread throughout, and are suspended in the moral 
 atmosphere. 
 
 We should err greatly were we to suppose that the cause 
 of truth, and of the refutation of error, could as easily be dis- 
 posed of as any civil process before a judicial tribunal. Here, 
 to carry the day, it is enough completely to refute the pre- 
 tensions of one's adversary, and to set forth one's own claim 
 in a clear and irrefragable chain of legal proof. But, in the 
 matter of philosophy and the higher truth, how little is gained 
 
THE .RIGHT METHOD OF PROPAGATING TEUTK. 233 
 
 by the refutation, be it never so complete, of one written 
 system of error, when, in the meanwhile, two or three more 
 spring up and call for refutation no less than the first. The 
 straight road, therefore, of a calm, simple, and, at the same 
 time, luminous and complete exposition of the highest system 
 of knowledge seems, to my mind, a far more appropriate 
 means for the establishment and diffusion of the truth than 
 the indirect course of refuting any false or erroneous system 
 that may reign in a particular age and throughout the whole 
 world. For, in the latter course, if the controversy be at all 
 searching and complete, it is necessary to enter into all its 
 tortuous windings, at the risk of being lost and entangled in 
 them. And even in the most favourable case, where the 
 refutation is complete, nothing is ultimately gained by it but 
 a mere negative — the establishing the untruth of the refuted 
 system, together with the proofs of that negative. 
 
 It would be most erroneous to suppose that this controversy 
 is either entirely or in the main directed against books and 
 leaves, propositions and words. It looks rather to the soul 
 and spirit, and seeks to drive away, to remove, and banish 
 from them, and utterly to extirpate, all the deadly seeds of 
 error and falsehood, replacing them by truth in all its fulness 
 and energy, so as to win the minds and souls of men to its 
 beneficent rule. 
 
 This, however, is only possible by an individual process 
 and a personal interchange of ideas. For error and the resto- 
 ration of truth assume a thousand different shapes, according 
 to the different temperaments of individuals, or to the different 
 periods of life in each. If, therefore, it be the wish or duty 
 of philosophy to make this its principal aim, it is only in the 
 form of dialogue that it can successfully accomplish the task, 
 by suiting itself and closely conforming to the personal cha- 
 racter of individuals. In this sense, and on this account, 
 Plato, and the other disciples of Socrates, in their controversy 
 with the Sophists, invariably employed the dialogical style, 
 and chose this form for the exposition of their philosophical 
 views. But even the written dialogue cannot do more than 
 exhibit, as it were, a vertical section of the whole infinite 
 variety of individual views, convictions, and characters. And 
 what thereupon is to be done in order to set them free and 
 
234 
 
 THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 emancipate them from error, and to win them for, and to fill 
 them with, the truth ? 
 
 The inner sense for the truth and the spiritual eye must be 
 opened, and the spirit of man must be led back and restored 
 to its lost centre. But the soul must be won and attracted, 
 totally converted and endued with new life. But is this pos- 
 sible without some higher and divine power ? Can it be 
 accomplished by man's ordinary art of disputation, even 
 though it be perhaps sufficient for the ordinary transactions of 
 a civil tribunal; or by a logical train of proofs, or by the 
 skilful terms of a well managed dialogue, in the absence of 
 all profounder power to move and actuate the soul ? 
 
 And such a higher power and effectual word of truth does 
 exist. In the language of Scripture it is called the Sword of 
 the Spirit, which pierces to the very marrow and divides 
 asunder the soul and the spirit. A deep meaning is involved 
 in this expression of the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, 
 and the very greatest of all the soul's pains is most appro- 
 priately indicated thereby. In death the immortal soul is 
 separated and departs from the body ; but soul and spirit still 
 continue together in indissoluble union. These words, then, 
 allude to some other and more violent separation. And it is 
 one, moreover, which is indispensable to the triumph of truth 
 in this struggle for life and death. For when error goes to 
 the inmost depths, and reaches to the very centre of life, both 
 spirit and soul grow and adhere together, and the delusion 
 cannot otherwise be dispelled than by the violent separation 
 of the two. And thus the light suddenly shines upon the 
 spirit to show it the abyss on whose brink it stands, while 
 the soul is simultaneously set free from all the chains which 
 bind it to its false life, and is thereby completely changed and 
 converted. In this way is the triumph of truth over error and 
 infidelity effected. Only we must remember that the Sword of 
 the Spirit, "which pierces even to the dividing asunder of 
 soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow," needs not 
 always to be properly a spoken or a written " word." In some 
 deeply moving catastrophe of a man's life it makes a distinct 
 and speaking manifestation of itself, working in him a total 
 change of his feelings and sentiments. But the Spirit's flaming 
 sword of judgment may be turned not only upon individuals, 
 
THE SWORI. >I F THE SPIRIT. 
 
 235 
 
 but also upon whole nations and ages, to divert them from 
 error and unbelief, and to lead them back to truth. Lastly, 
 it may also be directed towards the whole world and the whole 
 human race ; and to this interesting topic, which in so many 
 ways is brought so immediately home to the present era of 
 the world, we shall in the course of the following Lectures 
 have occasion to recui . 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 OF THE RELATION OF TRUTH AND SCIENCE TO LIFE, 
 AND OF MIND IN ITS APPLICATION TO REALITY. 
 
 The union of profound knowledge with divine faith, and the 
 recognition and perception of their unity, is the mind s first 
 step within the domain of truth and of the consciousness of it ; 
 or rather the first step in that gradation by which the mind 
 and consciousness advance towards verity ; and it is even the 
 fundamental principle of truth itself that constitutes this 
 beginning. The judgment which discriminates and decides 
 between a simple universal belief in God, and the connexion 
 of such a faith with all natural and sublimely true philosophy 
 on the one hand, and unbelief, false science, and the various 
 systems of error on tne otner, forms tne second term or step 
 in the gradual progress of truth and the spirit of truth in the 
 human consciousness, whether of individuals, or of the whole 
 human race, or of any particular period of its development. 
 These two subjects have already occupied our attention in the 
 two preceding Lectures. The third point which the mind 
 must attain to as the spirit of truth is more fully expanded, 
 both in the consciousness and in science, is the profitable 
 application thereof to actual life, or its real manifestation, and 
 the practical carrying out of its principles. For it is by this 
 alone that the divine and fundamental principle of truth, and 
 that important faculty of judgment which separates and dis- 
 tinguishes truth and true science from ignorance and error, 
 are realised, and attain to their full end and perfection. The 
 consideration of this subject will form the subject of the pre- 
 sent and all the following Lectures. 
 
 Before, however, I enter upon this new topic, or attempt to 
 solve this third problem of the actual application of science 
 to life and of its profitable combination therewith, I would 
 wish to add here a few historical remarks on the subject-mat- 
 
MENTAL STATE OF ANTEDILUVIAN WOULD. 
 
 237 
 
 ter of our last discussions, which, while they serve to complete 
 and to illustrate it, will at the same time furnish a natural 
 and easy transition to our present speculations. The struggle 
 and the alternate triumph of belief and unbelief, as they gained 
 in turn the ascendancy over the minds of men and gave the 
 dominant tone to different ages, or rather the contest of truth 
 and true science with the different systems of error in the 
 several periods of the development of mankind and of the 
 history of the human intellect, is at all times a subject of the 
 highest interest for philosophical observation. In historical 
 applications like the present, it invariably proves pre-eminently 
 useful and instructive. I shall, however, confine myself to 
 a few examples, and select such as are most immediately con- 
 nected with our subject, or seem likely to lead to the most 
 important results. 
 
 From the whole history of the ancient world I shall adduce 
 but two illustrations : first of all, the twofold mental or spiritual 
 state of the primeval times ; and secondly, the highest reach of 
 thought and knowledge which Greece attained in her most 
 enlightened days, which are marked at once with the signs of 
 first maturity and of earliest decline. From both these in- 
 stances it will be my object to prove that truth invariably 
 prevails in the beginning, and that it is always and every- 
 where prior to and antecedent to error. 
 
 From the annals of modern history I shall in like manner 
 bring before you only a few particularly fruitful instances. 
 From such periods of the world's history I propose to show 
 that the problem of science, in its reference to life and its profit- 
 able application, admits not of any pure and complete solu- 
 tion ; or that often after an opening of promise it suddenly 
 takes a wrong direction, and so misses its true aim, and con- 
 sequently the problem of the age remains unsolved. This 
 examination of the actual relation subsisting between science 
 and life as it has been or still is historically exhibited in 
 this or that particular epoch, together with the difficulties 
 and the questions which it suggests, will serve as an intro- 
 duction to our entire theme. For this is nothing less than the 
 satisfactory exposition and correct theory of the application 
 of true science to life, and of their profitable combination. 
 
 First of all, let us cast our glance back to the infancy of 
 the human race. In these primeval times, we everywhere 
 
238 HEATHENISM A CORRUPTION OF A PURER GENTILISM. 
 
 meet with legends and traditions of man's divine origin, 
 mixed up and interwoven with the fables and symbols of 
 heathenism. Now we are accustomed to regard heathenism, 
 or the religion of the Gentiles, as universally and without ex- 
 ception false and idolatrous, or at least absurd and fabulous. 
 But is this consistent with the natural course of things ? — is 
 it not probable, or rather necessary, that in its beginning at 
 least this chaotic medley of symbols and legends must Lave 
 had for its foundation some very simple form of error, if we 
 must suppose that it was always and even from the very first 
 nothing but error ? 
 
 No doubt the heathenism of the first races, so far as we can 
 trace it, and the early legends and rites of the oldest times 
 that we are acquainted with them, appears to be already in- 
 volved in a perplexing confusion of strangest fancies. Nothing 
 better are they than a chaos of symbolical images of nature, 
 mingled and interwover with some vague and shadowy 
 outlines of truly spiritual ideas and thoughtful notes of a 
 higher strain, and also with ambiguous and enigmatical legends 
 of historical tradition. The whole medley, moreover, differ- 
 ently developed according to the peculiar varieties of national 
 character or the hereditary feeling of tribe and family, assumes 
 a particular hue from the local colourings of these different 
 spheres of life ; or, moreover, as is not unfrequently the case, 
 is remoulded and cast into new combinations by the arbitrary 
 caprices of the poetic fancy. Who can hope to find the 
 simple clue of such a maze ? or who will give us the threads 
 of Ariadne to guide us out of its intricacies ? 
 
 It is true, generally speaking, tjaat ov'x historical knowledge 
 and research do not reach very far bad' . The Flood, to which 
 the traditions of all people remount, and which all telluric 
 sciences, whether geography, or natural history, or geology, or 
 whatever other name they may bear, directly or indirectly 
 confirm, forms an impassable gulf between the modern and 
 later family of man, and that first and gigantic race of the 
 antediluvian world. And yet careful criticism and historical 
 investigation are still able to distinguish in the chaotic con- 
 geries of different mythologies the several strata and epochs, 
 and can separate the primary rock of the earlier natural legend 
 from the later mythical formations. But even this primary rock 
 itself, amid the legends of primeval times — this first, and oldest, 
 
TJ Is .VE.ITTEN REVELATION TO ANTEDILL VIA1N WOULD. 239 
 
 and simplest basis of heathenism, is itself but a fusion and 
 the debris of some earlier and precedent convulsion. But now 
 all legends, every mythology, and universal tradition, agree in 
 this one point. They concur in deriving the origin of man 
 from God, and assert that the first man, who, while he pro- 
 ceeded immediately from God, was also the first-born son of 
 earth, in which he was placed, because it was of a nature 
 nearest akin to his and ours. Now this same first man, as 
 proceeding and taking his beginning from God, could not well 
 be without some knowledge of Him. The concurrent tradition 
 of all nations leads us to the idea of man's possessing know- 
 ledge, and in truth an immediate and intuitive knowledge of 
 God in and out of nature, and indeed primarily and principally 
 from this source, and on the other hand also of his having an 
 immediate and intuitive knowledge of nature in God. And 
 this exactly is the old and true Gentilism of the holy patriarchs 
 of the primeval world, if by this term we understand the original 
 religion of nature, among the earliest families, and the pious 
 patriarchs of the human race, as it is described in the language 
 and after the analogy of Holy Writ,* and also in the ancient 
 traditions which have grown out of and attached themselves to 
 it. Now, according to the simple progression of truth, which is 
 also that of God, and of the knowledge of Him, this revelation 
 of nature was the first and earliest that was imparted to man 
 upon earth, and must be carefully distinguished from that later 
 or second revelation of God, which is both of a positive nature 
 and is contained in a written law, or written word and book of 
 the law. And in the written revelation this distinction is most 
 carefully observed throughout. The divine law, which although 
 not written on brazen tablets, unquestionably existed in these 
 primeval ages of a natural revelation, which was read and in- 
 tuitively understood in nature herself, or immediately in the 
 hearts and minds of men, was far simpler, and consequently 
 also easier and less burthensome, than the later law of the 
 second revelation, which was designed for the moral regene- 
 ration of a degenerate people, and for fitting them to be a 
 witness of the truth to other nations of the world still more 
 
 * In the book of J ob we have a picture of this earlier and purer religion 
 of nature, as professed by this Idumsean Gentile, while, in his vindication 
 of himself, we read a testimony to the existence of the beginnings of 
 idolatry in the worship of the host of Heaven, xxxi. 5. — Trans. 
 
240 CONCEPTIONS OF ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD INADEQUATE. 
 
 degraded and benighted than themselves. And in the same 
 way this second revelation was less stringent and less exalted 
 in its scope than the last law of later times, promulgated in 
 the third age of the world to all nations and kindreds of the 
 earth. For the latter was not designed for the first happy 
 period of the infancy of mankind, but for his last difficult, but 
 decisive struggle, which is to end in the perfect triumph of 
 good, and in man's total emancipation from the hostile and 
 oppressive yoke of original evil. For the wise and omniscient 
 Father of all, has given to every age of man's history a peculiar 
 and appropriate law. For the infancy of the race, He pub- 
 lished an easy rule of life — permitting the full expansion and 
 the blooming development of all his vital energies ; but one of 
 sterner preparation, of promise and of expectation, for his youth. 
 For his maturity, lastly, He has set forth a law of determined 
 struggle with evil, and of a predominant love of the invisible, 
 and even of perfection. And consequently a new application 
 of the same law, and a new strengthening for the same conflict, 
 is to be looked for in the last times of the final consummation. 
 But not only was the divine natural law, as promulgated to man 
 in the earliest ages, far different from that of later times, and the 
 subsequent stages of a further development of revealed know- 
 ledge. This immediate revelation, and intuitive knowledge of 
 nature, was likewise very dissimilar to the artificially elaborate 
 and complicated systems of physical science. For these have 
 principally to trace out and to revert to the original source of 
 life, and of the full truth of nature, although even on this right 
 road of return we are not always nearest to the end, even 
 when we seem to have made the greatest advance in that 
 direction. But as the first man recognised God in nature, 
 and not merely understood, but immediately perceived, and, 
 as it were, saw, that He was there, therefore nature also was, 
 in a certain measure, transparent to his eye in God. And 
 although his knowledge of nature was in the highest degree 
 simple, still did it even on that account penetrate more deeply 
 into its inmost secrets. It was rendered thereby more 
 thoroughly vital and endued with power. One might almost 
 call it a natural force within him, similar to and akin to those 
 without him. For generally in those early ages of the world, 
 man possessed many higher energies and living powers in and 
 over nature, which subsequently were entirely withdrawn from 
 
A.NTEDILUVIAN RACE GIGANTIC IN "VIRTUES AND VICES. 241 
 
 him, or which in later times, as wonderful phenomena, formed 
 singular exceptions to man's ordinary endowments. 
 
 We are perhaps only too much disposed to imagine that 
 the ancient race before the Flood resembled in every particular 
 a later and even the present generation. Our conceptions of 
 it, as regards both its virtues and its vices, are in nowise 
 great and wonderful enough. In the first place, it is highly 
 probable that the atmosphere of the globe was at that period 
 totally different from what it is in the present day, and that 
 consequently both the food and manner of living in those days 
 were also dissimilar from our own. If any reliance is to be 
 placed on the best and oldest historical testimonies on these 
 points, we can scarcely doubt that the primeval race — at least 
 the generations immediately preceding the Deluge — were of 
 gigantic stature, and that their mental powers and faculties 
 were on a correspondent scale of magnitude. In perfect con- 
 formity with these other proportions, the Scripture also 
 assigns to those antediluvian races a duration of existence, 
 which, as compared with our own standard of the average life 
 of man, is equally gigantic. And so little of antecedent 
 improbability is there in this statement, that to get rid of it 
 commentators have been forced to have recourse to the most 
 farfetched and arbitrary, and, in fact, most untenable and 
 groundless hypotheses. 
 
 Now, it is manifest that such corporeal advantages and 
 length of life which the first patriarchs of the human race 
 enjoyed, must have been highly favourable to the develop- 
 ment of their intellectual gifts and immediate intuition, as 
 founded on a living natural faith, so long as they were rightly 
 I used and directed towards God, as their proper object. And in 
 the same way their tendency to fearful corruption, under an 
 impious and sinful employment of their great mental endow- 
 ments, must be equally evident. At the same time we must 
 confess our inadequacy to form a conception of the height to 
 which they attained in either state which would be in any 
 way proportionate to the truth. It is, however, an invariable 
 principle of development, confirmed by the observation of 
 nature, and a careful induction of historical facts, that all that 
 is greatest and noblest, if it once begins to degenerate and 
 corrupt, reaches in its corruption and degeneracy the worst 
 and most fearful extremes. And so it appears to have been 
 
 B 
 
242 STATE OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 
 
 with this gigantic and gigantically endowed race of the ante- 
 diluvian world. 
 
 In modern times, a great German philosopher, who flou- 
 rished towards the close of the seventeenth century, and was 
 no less famous for his historical learning than for his mathe- 
 matical discoveries, made the memorable remark, that the 
 last sect in the whole development of Christian revelation, 
 and towards the close of modern history— the last sect, and 
 also the most prevalent and most fearful, would be that 
 of atheism. This dictum, at the time at which it was 
 pronounced, which was somewhere about the transition 
 from the anxiety and oppression of the seventeenth century 
 to the enlightenment and self-complacency of the eighteenth, 
 must have appeared a perfect paradox. But now that its 
 fulfilment seems, both to our eyes and understanding, so close 
 at hand, we recognise with amazement, not to say with a 
 slight feeling of horror, its deep oracular truth. 
 
 Now, as the beginning and the end often bear a wonderful 
 resemblance to each other, it is not improbable that the first 
 sect was of the same kind and nature as it has been predicted 
 that the final heresy will be. A mere dead unbelief and purely 
 negative atheism, it is true, can as little have prevailed in 
 those times as a symbolically degraded and an immorally 
 materialising heathenism. For it was only after the higher 
 magical powers were withdrawn from man, that the fancy 
 became in this sense, and to such an extreme degree, sym- 
 bolical and figurative. Or, perhaps, we may more correctly 
 say, that of all high endowments now lost for ever, a purely 
 figurative fancy was all that remained ; whereupon, in oppo- 
 sition to it the other erroneous extreme of abstract thought, 
 gradually attained to a greater and an undue development. 
 And we may with good reason assume, that with this fearful 
 catastrophe the very consciousness of man was essentially 
 altered and changed. Of the wild and lawless state of the 
 generations before the Flood, we cannot, perhaps, form a juster 
 conception than by regarding it as an open rebellion and 
 organised revolt of man against his Maker and benefactor, a 
 complete and visible supremacy of the evil principle and the 
 wicked spirits on earth, and an intimate union between man 
 and the devil. It must have resembled the description which 
 we meet with in some old books of the future reign of anti- 
 
RISE AND DECLINE OF GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 213 
 
 christ. Such a state of things may justly be denominated 
 atheism. But however this may be, and whatever conception 
 we may form, and whatever historical shape we may give to 
 particulars in this domain, (where, after all, we cannot get 
 beyond conjecture and presumptions, or, it may be, hypo- 
 thetical history, based on probabilities,) one general point is 
 ; incontestable. Truly noble, in those primeval times of a pure 
 natural faith, must have been the intellectual powers and de- 
 velopment of the first ancestors of the world and these great 
 progenitors of the human race, and fearful, in the same degree, 
 must have been the fall and corruption which followed the 
 i abuse of those high privileges. For man's mental powers, still 
 I subsisting in the plenitude of their productive energy, and his 
 t .ordship over nature being undisturbed, his corruption must 
 have generated the wildest and most monstrous excesses. 
 Consequently, amidst the universal reign of evil and wicked- 
 1 ness, the only course that remained was the total destruction 
 of the existing generation, and the complete renovation, or 
 rather, a new commencement, of mankind. 
 
 But the corruption of later times, though, in truth, on a less 
 f scale, has likewise been very great. Rapid, too, has been the 
 A passage from good to evil. Moreover, it is self-evident that 
 in the primeval ages of a vivid natural faith, and of a life 
 i according to nature, that separation between life and nature 
 v that exists in these later times could not well have taken 
 i place ; nay, at such a period it is totally inconceivable. On 
 3 the contrary, science and life must have been in perfect 
 ; unison. And this is true, not only of the virtuous knowledge 
 I in the first happy epoch of the world's golden age, but also of 
 M the wicked ideas and the demoniac efforts of error in the 
 [ succeeding periods of gigantic bewilderment and arrogant 
 I enmity to God. It is by reason of this unity between life and 
 knowledge that this instance belongs to that gradation in the 
 \ mutual relations of the two in the difterent ages of the 
 world. 
 
 Quite otherwise, however, was it in this respect with 
 Grecian philosophy. In the most enlightened days of clas- 
 sical antiquity we behold it either coming forward in direct 
 [ opposition to life, especially in its public aspect of politics 
 { and religion, or else as absolutely esoteric, retiring altogether 
 and estranged from active duties. Now, in adducing the 
 
 r 2 
 
244 IONIAN SCHOOLS NOT MATERIALISTIC. 
 
 history of Grecian philosophy as my second instance, and as 
 an eminently important moment in the history of the intellec- 
 tual development of the ancient world, my object is to show 
 that in the same way that, according to all grounds of analogy, 
 a simpler natural faith, as the simple religion of the first patri- 
 archs of the human race, preceded the later form of heathen- 
 ism into which the worship of the Gentiles so wildly and so 
 fearfully degenerated, so also in the philosophy of Greece, its 
 later systems and sects, which were so thoroughly false and 
 pernicious, were preceded by at least a comparatively better 
 and higher view — by a purer theory of science and of truth. 
 
 For though the oldest philosophers of the Ionian school 
 held water, or air, or fire, to be the ground and principle 
 of all things, and built on such hypotheses their whole theory 
 of nature, nevertheless, we should, in all probability, greatly 
 err, were we, on that account, to charge them with or to 
 suspect them of materialism. They understood these ele- 
 ments, not in the ordinary, but in a spiritual and living sense, 
 as the elements of universal life, and, at the same time, did 
 not fail to acknowledge a higher spirit operating in and above 
 nature, and God's all-disposing intelligence. Of Heraclitus, 
 who made fire the essential ground and first principle of all 
 things, we know, with historical certainty, that, notwithstand- 
 ing, his philosophy and view of the universe was in the highest 
 degree ideal and spiritual. And the same is true also of 
 Anaxagoras, the teacher of Socrates. Much, too, that would 
 do great credit to the general spirit of thought and science 
 of that period, might be adduced from the venerable founder 
 of the valuable art of medicine, and also from his school, were 
 the present the appropriate place. The simple fact, too, that 
 Socrates proceeded from out of this Ionian school, would alone 
 dispose me to form a favourable opinion of it in its earliest 
 state ; and it is greatly to be regretted that our information 
 concerning the oldest of these great thinkers is so scanty, and 
 its details so uncertain and so little to be depended on, that 
 it is impossible to form any settled and definite judgment on 
 the matter. 
 
 When, however, we proceed to examine the religious 
 spirit and value of Grecian philosophy in general, or any of 
 its special branches, schools, and epochs, we must adopt as 
 the fundamental rule of our judgment, the universal dogmas 
 
RELIGIOUS TENDENCY 0E PYTHAGOREANS AND PLATO. 245 
 
 of man's pure and uncorrupted feelings or judgment. Taking 
 for our standard the natural belief in a living and personal 
 God, and in an everlasting and all-ruling spirit, in the im- 
 mortality of the soul, and in the freedom of the will, together 
 with the immutable principles and ideas of justice, honour, 
 morality, and virtue ; we must, in this case, carefully exclude 
 all the special doctrines of a positive faith. We must not 
 look for or require, in so early an age, that which the further 
 development of later periods brought to light. Far be it from 
 us to wonder at, or to urge it as a reproach against Pythagoras 
 or Plato, if among their doctrines .we meet with ideas, 
 which, strictly understood, are not perfectly consistent with 
 Christianity. Rather is it a matter for surprise and con- 
 gratulation, that they knew and were aware of, had antici- 
 pated and taught, so much that a later date first placed in 
 a fuller light and made the common property of all men. 
 This at least was the opinion and conclusion on this subject 
 entertained in the first century by the greatest and best in- 
 formed of the fathers of Christian doctrine and science. 
 
 This highly religious tendency and perception which we 
 recognise in Pythagoras, for instance, or in Plato — this 
 anticipation by science of the ideas of Christianity, of prin- 
 ciples which, with this exception, belong to the Christian era 
 of the world's history, could not have been without God. 
 We must, in short, recognise therein a higher providence. 
 We may accordingly justly regard Grecian philosophy, in its 
 better spirit and elements, as forming on its part a preparation 
 for the Gospel, and a scientific introduction to Christianity, of 
 a special and peculiar kind. 
 
 Now, among those whose observations and sciences and 
 endeavours were throughout directed Godward, the Pytha- 
 goreans stand highest and foremost. We have already 
 alluded to the fact, that in physical science they were ac- 
 quainted with the best and the most important of all that our 
 history of discoveries, within the last three centuries, is so 
 proud of. Here and there, perhaps, their knowledge even out- 
 ran our own, and in all probability they were not without 
 some insight into those mysteries of creation, about which 
 our philosophy of nature has within the last half century 
 excited so much wonder and admiration. It is also probable, 
 we observed, that by their theory of numbers we are not 
 
246 
 
 THEIR NOBLE POLITICAL VIEWS. 
 
 to understand the ordinary formulae of mathematics, nor the 
 usual arbitrary play with them in which science so often 
 indulges, but rather the development of the intrinsic and 
 divine -law of nature and of life according to its everlasting 
 structure and immutable foundations, or according to the 
 vicissitudes of its critical times and seasons. But here it may 
 be asked : — whence had they all this ? how, without the tele- 
 scope, and with, at best, a very defective system of mathe- 
 matics, and an imperfect art of calculation, did they attain to 
 a knowledge of the true astronomical system of the universe ? 
 To start the hypothesis, that they learnt and borrowed it all 
 from the Egyptians, would only be to remove the question a 
 step further back, and not really to answer it. But even if 
 we were to admit the fact, such an assumption would, only, 
 as regards the essential question with respect to the Pytha- 
 goreans, and the origin of their science, increase their merits 
 and their glory. For in the same way as we observed on an 
 earlier occasion, with reference to Moses and the Hebrews, it 
 must have been by the exercise of a rare wisdom, that while 
 they selected all that was best and most valuable in Egyptian 
 science, they rejected so much that was pernicious, and laid 
 aside so much that was likely to lead them astray, and even 
 the impious magical superstitions that were to be found there. 
 
 In much later times, and even down to our own days, the 
 name of the Pythagorean school and science has been forced 
 to serve as a cloak for every noxious farrago of mysticism, as 
 also that of the Neo-Platonists has been made the symbol of 
 every visionary extravagance. But even if (what, however, I 
 greatly doubt,) an historical connexion can be shown to sub- 
 sist between the so-called Pythagoreans of later times and 
 the earlier and genuine school, nothing further would follow 
 from such a fact, than a confirmation of my general position. 
 It would but furnish an additional proof that all that is greatest, 
 noblest, and most beautiful, when it once begins to degenerate 
 and corrupt, invariably reaches a proportionate depth of cor- 
 ruption and degeneracy, and assumes the worst and wildest 
 aspect of deformity. 
 
 As concerns the influence of this school on life, and its 
 political aims and tendencies, which were unquestionably 
 part of the general design of the Pythagorean doctrine : all 
 this must be judged of in conformity with Greek notions and 
 
THE SOPHISTS ARISTOTLE. 
 
 247 
 
 habits, and with reference to the unsettled and disordered 
 state of the several Grecian communities. This being granted, 
 it will appear that a simple but lofty object was the basis of 
 their fraternity. By forming an enlightened aristocracy of 
 highly cultivated minds, of men of scientific attainments, and 
 of pure and noble morals, they hoped to establish a new and 
 better polity, such as might check the reigning anarchy and 
 revolutionary spirit of democracy, which distracted all the 
 republics, whether smaller or greater, into which Greece was 
 at that time divided. But the evil had become too great, and 
 its power was irresistible. The whole enterprise failed, and 
 its failure entailed the dissolution of the Pythagorean society. 
 
 Many similar views and political designs, which Plato 
 subsequently engrafted on his own philosophy, in like manner 
 remained nothing more than ideas, and led to no practical 
 result. A far more considerable influence on life and its 
 relations was exercised by the Sophists. Considered in a 
 political point of view, they were truly and properly per- 
 nicious demagogues, and in the fullest sense of the term, the 
 flatterers of the populace. Not only did they undermine the 
 outward national worship, with its poetical and hereditary 
 associations, but also overthrew the inward religion of good 
 principles and of moral sentiments. In short, they practically 
 taught a true moral atheism, and succeeded in making it the 
 prevailing and ruling principle in the conduct of life. 
 
 At this stage of Grecian philosophy, we witness, for the 
 first time, a remarkable phenomenon. The true and good 
 science which directs itself to the Godlike and divine, is 
 unable to attain to any lasting or pervading influence on the 
 lives of men. On the other hand, we see a false and evil 
 sophistic gradually gaining a complete ascendancy amidst the 
 general demoralization of society, and the growing anarchy 
 of the political community, which, thoroughly corrupt and 
 degenerate, ouly rose out of one revolution to fall imme- 
 diately into another. Or rather this false sophistic, and this 
 moral and political anarchy, were perfectly one together, so 
 far at least as two destructive principles can ever be or be 
 brought in unison. 
 
 The complete alienation which now existed between the 
 better science and life, and especially public life, is most 
 distinctly manifested in the case of the greatest among the 
 
248 
 
 THE STOICS AND EPICUREANS. 
 
 Grecian philosophers of later times — m Aristotle, and the 
 position he occupied in his own age and nation. This acute 
 thinker, with the utmost care and diligence, collected together 
 all the most eminent results of the science, and the most re- 
 markable thoughts of earlier times. Examining and analysing 
 them with great critical acumen, and with a comprehensive 
 survey, he formed them into a new whole, and arranged them 
 into a system of his own, completer and fuller than had ever 
 before been attempted or accomplished. 
 
 We cannot perhaps estimate too highly or admire too much 
 this great master of human subtlety, whether for his intellec- 
 tual powers, and extent of learning, or even as a writer. 
 Still we must not forget that in his system were contained the 
 germ and evident tendency to the two chief forms of philo- 
 sophical error — naturalism on the one side, and rationalism 
 on the other. And so we find that in the later times of the 
 following centuries, each of these false systems, according as 
 the occasion favoured the one or the other, was drawn out 
 from the Aristotelian doctrine, to receive a further and a 
 distincter development. In his doctrine on the Godhead, he 
 can least of all stand a severe and rigorous criticism. And 
 in many points, as, for instance, in his notion of the absolute 
 self-sufficiency of the reason, he approximates but too closely 
 to the idealistic view which we have already designated as 
 the transition to scientific atheism. 
 
 It was only in a very remote and distant age that Aristotle 
 attained to a very great importance and authority. In his 
 own day he did but form a very inconsiderable school, which 
 exercised far less influence on public life than two other sects, 
 in whose history the development of Grecian philosophy finds 
 its close. 
 
 The system of the Stoics, with its stern and consequently 
 impracticable theory of morals, its doctrine of absolute neces- 
 sity and blind fatalism, announces itself at once as identical 
 with an austere rationalism. At the same time, under the 
 teaching of the Epicureans, a soft and effeminate naturalism 
 became almost universally prevalent. And while, in another 
 and newer form, it gradually assumed the place of the old 
 mythical heathenism, which daily fell more and more into 
 neglect and disrepute, it still retained the old heathen sen- 
 timent, and a careless and undisturbed indifference in inactive 
 
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 249 
 
 bliss and self enjoyment, as it was even ascribed and imputed 
 to the gods, was introduced into life, and extolled as the true 
 wisdom. Thus, then, while on the one hand the foundation 
 was laid for that insensibility with which the wide -spreading 
 and growing corruption and the approach of the general ruin 
 were contemplated, so, on the other hand, the apathy of the 
 Stoics was not exactly the right kind of sentiment to furnish 
 a check or counteractive to this sybaritic indifference. 
 
 As concerns the relations of public life, the social community, 
 and the state, the Stoical doctrine appears no doubt in a worthier 
 and a better light. On this account it numbered among its 
 adherents almost all the great statesmen that lived from the 
 last times of the Republic down to the later centuries of the 
 Empire. Considered, however, in themselves, and scientifically 
 regarded, both systems must be looked upon simply as the 
 last chemical decomposing process, or the initiatory putrify- 
 ing state of all higher science and philosophical reflection 
 among the Greeks. On the whole, then, we conclude that 
 Grecian science and philosophy have exercised no influence at 
 all on life, or at least, either a very inadequate, or such as has 
 proved radically baneful and pernicious. 
 
 But now, in the very centre of man's history — in the tran- 
 sition-point between the ancient and the modern world — 
 science and life were again at unison, as at the beginning. 
 And this was effected by the appearance of a new science in 
 another form. For most assuredly we shall not err in giving 
 this name to a new living and spiritual power, which, totally 
 changing and giving an entirely new direction to the arbitrary 
 views, sentiments, and principles of public and private life, 
 and also to the modes of thinking prevalent in the age and in 
 the world, was strong enough to triumph not only over hea- 
 thenism itself, but also over the science and philosophy of its 
 most enlightened nations. Now this new mode of thinking, 
 which came forward in the full certainty of the most undoubt- 
 ing faith and the highest internal illumination, had, so far as 
 it is right and allowable to call it a science, a very different 
 form and scope from all that has previously and usually been 
 so called. For it issued out of the very depths of life, and 
 received from love — a divine love, that is — its first diffusion 
 and establishment. Consequently, it was a thoroughly living 
 science, or, as being perfectly clear and certain in itself, a new 
 
250 
 
 THE GNOSTICS AND ARIANS. 
 
 scientific life, which moreover, proceeding from this its first 
 starting-point, was able to penetrate into all the other forms 
 of public life and of the anterior systems of science, and by 
 adopting or remodelling them, give to itself therein a further 
 and more universal development. 
 
 But here also the divine impulse from above encountered 
 the usual partial or entire resistance from below. Accord- 
 ingly, this new living wisdom, which in its essence is one with 
 life, and which therefore the more it is developed only unfolds 
 this unity the more universally and the more immutably, was 
 not at the first universally adopted, or did not become every- 
 where predominant. Moreover, even where it was received and 
 its authority acknowledged, its reception was often little more 
 than external. It was not admitted as a living principle 
 into all the depths of the soul, or impressed on all the habits 
 and tendencies of the mind (geist). And even where, in some 
 degree at least, it was adopted in the inner man with full and 
 sincere love, it was often nothing more than an undeveloped 
 germ of the future and of a higher life. Isolated by itself, and 
 standing apart, it remained shut up within the inmost bosom, 
 without at the same time penetrating, reanimating, and giving 
 a new life and shape to all the other life-elements of the con- 
 sciousness and the productions of human science. 
 
 Thus then it was only too possible for error to find its 
 entrance even here also. And it is remarkable that both its 
 principal forms, such as in varying shapes the history of phi- 
 losophy is constantly presenting to us in the different epochs of 
 its progress, here again most distinctly present themselves 
 with all the features of their intellectual physiognomy plainly 
 marked, and with the still more obvious contrast of their in- 
 trinsic diversity. A philosophy of nature more or less vision- 
 ary and fanciful was the common basis of the various Gnostic 
 sects. With their long series of imaginary emanations from 
 the Deity, resembling in no slight degree the old heathen 
 genealogies of the gods, they would, had they triumphed, 
 have converted Christianity into a similar mythology, though 
 of a more philosophical character. In the Arians, on the 
 contraiy, and other kindred sects before and after them, 
 we recognise rather the spirit of rationalism, which, dwell- 
 ing on some point of life or theory with a show of rigouf 
 and accuracy, while apparently it disputes only about words, 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES ABISTOTELIAN SCHOOLMEN. 251 
 
 is i& fact undermining the foundation of the most essential 
 ideas. 
 
 All these parties, however, as they originated, so they also 
 disappeared, within the first five or eight centuries of our era. 
 It was therefore impossible for their pernicious influence to 
 gain a deep hold of life. At least it was neither universal nor 
 permanent. Yet by them the ardour of a first love was cooled. 
 And sad indeed has been the loss as regards the fulness of 
 living energy, and even in respect of profounder wisdom. 
 
 The history of the middle ages again presents a rare and 
 singular phenomenon. One great mind and writer of anti- 
 quity, whose influence in his own day was far from extensive, 
 became at this date, in a most remarkable manner, the problem 
 and centre of scientific inquiry. For several centuries the 
 human mind was laboriously engaged in disputing about the 
 philosophy of Aristotle. And although men did not understand 
 it — not at least its deeper meaning, for they lacked the first and 
 most essential qualifications, and also the requisite means for 
 such a purpose — this apparently aimless disputation and this 
 unsolved problem was nevertheless not without great and 
 manifold influence on their own and the following ages. It 
 has had a permanent effect on the whole frame of man's life 
 and being. 
 
 Of the two wholly different aspects which, as we have 
 already so often remarked, the philosophy of Aristotle pre- 
 sents, it was probably not its fruits of rationalism (for at this 
 period such were generally regarded as forbidden) that 
 throughout the great part of the then civilised world excited 
 so incredible a fondness for this all-absorbing and all-under- 
 standing system. Its attraction lay rather in some great and 
 mysterious knowledge of nature. And the desire for these 
 intellectual treasures was not a little heightened by the fact, 
 that in general they were inaccessible. 
 
 In the little intercourse subsisting, at this period, between 
 distant nations and lands, and the almost total separation of 
 the East from the West, it was only through the Arabic ver- 
 sions or Latin translations moulded again upon these that 
 any knowledge of this philosophy could be drawn. This must 
 have led, it is obvious, to a wide deviation from the true 
 sense and critical spirit of the author. Its original aim must 
 have been generally missed. For, however highly we may 
 
252 
 
 THE DISPUTATIONS OF THE SCHOOLMEN. 
 
 be disposed to estimate the intellectual merits of the Arabians, 
 as writers of their ifative history, or in poetry, or in any other 
 science, they are notoriously deficient in the true critical 
 spirit. Their total and universal want in this respect is 
 especially evident when they are compared with the Greeks, 
 among whom this critical acuteness, whether false or true, 
 sprang up and reached its greatest height. 
 
 Strange, no doubt, and singular is it at first sight, to view 
 this old master of philosophical thought and science, who, on 
 the whole, is so perfectly heathen, suddenly received among 
 the mediaeval theologians, and taking, as it were, his seat and 
 giving his voice among them. Still, if men of great mental 
 powers and authority sought to make themselves masters of 
 the whole matter — both of the much disputed works of this 
 writer, this Aristotle, so strangely disguised in his new motley 
 dress of Arabic Latin, and also of the voluminous labours 
 bestowed upon him ; we must look upon this procedure as 
 analogous to that of the thoughtful physician, who, in the 
 midst of a wide -spread pestilence and inevitable contagion, 
 prefers to inoculate it himself, in order the more safely to 
 treat and to cure it. In short, as the case really stands, we 
 must look on these illustrious men in two distinct lights. 
 On the one hand we must see in them the Church's venerable 
 teachers, and the sagacious and discriminating theologians of 
 the day ; on the other, the scholastic interpreters of Aris- 
 totle, who had now become a necessary evil for the Christian 
 middle ages. 
 
 This, however, and whatever else was the matter and object 
 of such subtle disputes, was too soon forgotten. In these 
 scholastic contests, after the fashion of the day, the com- 
 batants, horse and man, were armed cap-a-pid, encased and 
 disguised in logical coats of mail, composed of countless rings 
 of thought and chains of ideas. With this heavy panoply, 
 the great object was to heave their antagonist out of the 
 saddle. Often they recoiled from the shock without advan- 
 tage on either side — so equally matched were they in their 
 good lances and the weight of their armour — and often they 
 swerved from the charge. Mostly, however, both of the phi- 
 losophical knights found themselves at the end of the strife 
 at their old station in the lists, or driven back perhaps to 
 their original entry. This scholastic philosophy, in the form 
 
THE RESTORATION OP LETTERS. 253 
 
 it now took, of a highly elaborate art of logical tournay m 
 the philosophical schools, was undoubtedly an abiding evil in 
 the age that immediately followed, and furnished an impor- 
 tant element to the party disputes of later, and to the ration- 
 alism of these latest times. 
 
 The overthrow of the Grecian empire and the discover} 7 
 of the new world, suddenly and at once introduced into 
 Western Europe vast and varied treasures of historical, 
 physical, and philosophical knowledge. In this brilliant 
 epoch of the fifteenth century, a new world of thought was 
 as it were laid open. A new era of science would have been 
 founded and a veritable reformation of the whole Chris- 
 tian life must have ensued, had not the moral corruption and 
 the political disorders of the period been gross beyond de- 
 scription. But for all this, how much is there to admire in 
 the Platonic writers of the fifteenth century, among whom 
 Germany, after Italy, produced the most famous and the 
 greatest number ? When we take up even now any one of 
 their works, and contemplate therein their comprehensive 
 liberal pursuit of science, their mild, antique spirit, their t 
 noble form and their quick recognition of the beautiful, we 
 cannot turn from them without regret to that new state of 
 barbarism into which during the sixteenth and part also of 
 the seventeenth century, science was plunged by the rampant 
 spirit of party and controversy. 
 
 At last, however, peace and quiet returned again to Chris- 
 tian lands and states, and slowly, and by degrees, to the minds 
 also of men. And now was it, in the eighteenth century, 
 and especially towards the middle of it, that out of this 
 apparent and superficial peace, a new science, or a new light, 
 or at least a new diffusion of it, seemed ready to arise. Simply 
 regarded in a scientific point of view, this philosophical en- 
 deavour of the eighteenth century, and the most memorable 
 of the systems to which it gave rise, occupied our attention in 
 the very opening of these Lectures. Here the immediate 
 object of our consideration is not this new science itself, 
 whether true or false, but rather the influence on the age, 
 and on life in general, of this modern mode of thinking, as 
 generally diffused and prevalent. 
 
 Much, undoubtedly, has been discovered or newly learnt in 
 the natural sciences and in the domain of history ; many too 
 
T T TF EIGHTEENTH OENTUKY. 
 
 have been the bold ventures, at least, and novel essays in 
 philosophy. This new wisdom, moreover, was taught and 
 disseminated far more universally than ever before had been 
 the case ; while even the agreeable feeling produced by the 
 moderation of the intellectual spirit now prevalent, greatly 
 pi omoted its wide and rapid diffusion. But at a later period 
 this enlightenment, so rapidly and so widely diffused, which, 
 moreover was taken only in a negative sense, was soon recog- 
 nised to be unsatisfactory and superficial, while also the 
 theory of popular liberty and independence which was grafted 
 thereon, and claimed, or at least wished to be rational, 
 bore the bitterest and worst of fruits. 
 
 In short, to speak most leniently of it, the whole was 
 nothing less than the undigested scheme of an immature and 
 imperfect knowledge, brought into the world before its time. 
 Accordingly , its rash and precipitate course in the last age, 
 whose history is unparalleled in the annals of the whole 
 world, together with the fearful catastrophe which it has 
 brought about, opened the eyes of men to the fearful abyss 
 to which such a precipitate abuse of science had hurried them. 
 And in consequence, thinking men of the highest endowments 
 and the richest intellectual gifts among different nations, have 
 in many ways nobly devoted themselves to the w r ork of restora- 
 tion in sentiment, in thought, and in science. 
 
 But on the one hand, the first elements of the former 
 destructive principle appear to be still existing, even though 
 it be in less obvious and more pliable and disguised forms. 
 On the other hand again, the corrected mode of thinking, 
 ar*l the better tone of sentiment and science, is for the most 
 part confined merely to a more chastened outward form. 
 Scarcely anywhere as yet is it carried far enough back, up to 
 the profbundest sources of spiritual life, up to the primal 
 origin and veritable foundation of the divine and of the eter- 
 nally good. 
 
 And yet this is exactly the problem of our age, and herein 
 alone shall w r e find the solution of the great enigma of the 
 times. For from this hasty review of the whole course of 
 the intellectual development of humanity, from its beginning 
 to its close, the result, for the sake of and with a new to 
 which alone I ventured so cursorily and in such faint outline 
 to sketch all the leading epochs of the history of philosophy, 
 
REFLECTION AND ABSTRACTION. 
 
 256 
 
 must at least be evident. As in the beginning, and in the centre 
 thereof, science and life lovingly co-operated together and 
 were fully in unison ; and as in the intermediate epochs and 
 intervals among the Greeks in civilised antiquity, and in the 
 middle ages among ourselves, they became more and more 
 estranged, so at the end will they be at one again. And 
 already, even in our own days, everything is tending to bring 
 about such a consummation. But who shall say whether it 
 shall be in a good or an evil sense ? Ere long life shall either, 
 under the influence of the true and good and divine know- 
 ledge, be again restored, permanently regulated, and receive 
 a new shape and fresh vigour, or, by a false and delusive 
 science, be completely destroyed, and involved in eternal 
 ruin. 
 
 Having, in this hasty review, considered, under its histo- 
 rical aspect, the problem of the relation of science — the true 
 and divine, as well as the false and delusive — to both private 
 and public life, it now remains for us to examine and to 
 answer this same question from the side of theory. Regarded 
 from this point of view, it would appear that whenever science 
 fails to exercise an influence on life, or when they withdraw 
 and are estranged one from the other, the fact may be always 
 accounted for and explained by accidental causes and purely 
 local influences, such as have their origin in the several periods 
 of the world's history, or flow from certain imperfections on 
 one side or the other. For, considered in itself, science in 
 general is nothing but this unity of thought and life, and con- 
 sequently its living operation and influence are involved in 
 the very idea of a higher science, provided only it be true 
 and properly regulated. Either, therefore, science is life ele- 
 vated into a thought, and consequently transformed into a 
 thinking, or else it is a thought carried into reality, that has 
 passed and been transmuted into life, and therein fully attested 
 and certified by life itself — consequently a thinking become 
 life. 
 
 Now, according to this view, that science consists in the 
 mutual approximation to, and the final attainment of, a perfect 
 unity between thought and life, there are three degrees of it, 
 according to that triple gradation and threefold principle 
 which exists in the human consciousness. The first of these 
 then is reflection. And this, understood in a somewhat pro- 
 
256 consist Ftfcy ttfe cbtterton or truth. 
 
 founder acceptation than ordinarily, is an internal feeling, 
 hearing, or seeing of one's own thinking. Consequently it is 
 a perception similar to that of the senses, by means of which 
 the unseen thought is in some degree projected and intro- 
 duced into external reality. But this act of reflection is 
 nothing more than a passive state of the soul in its internal 
 observation of itself. So long as it remains confined to this 
 narrow sphere, it perpetually revolves in the same orbit, and, 
 properly speaking, produces no ulterior results of a know- 
 ledge fruitful and applicable to actual and outward life. 
 
 The second degree or moment of science is abstraction, by 
 virtue of which, from the complete sum of all the criteria and 
 characteristics of an object, or rather of a thought, some one 
 is prominently set forth as the most essential, and for the sake 
 of communication designated by a name. For all communi- 
 cation and language is based on this faculty of abstraction, 
 which is itself an arbitrary act of the free-will. But although 
 by this naming, generalisation, and communication, the in- 
 ternal thought is advanced a step further into the exter- 
 nal world arid the living reality among and with others, still 
 the reality of the thought is by no means satisfactorily estab- 
 lished thereby. For this very liberty in the choice of name, 
 of combination, and of general classification, opens a wide 
 field for caprice. This is evident enough from the countless 
 multitude of terminologies, so needlessly invented and so 
 rapidly thrown into oblivion, which form so many remote and 
 mutually unintelligible philosophical dialects, in the ever re- 
 peated attempt to build methodically the Babel tower of phi- 
 losophical system. For these designations of abstract thoughts, 
 even when they are most felicitous, fail to win the concurrence 
 of others, and do but open a door to endless dialectical dispu- 
 tation. 
 
 Thus, then, neither reflection, which is eternally revolving 
 within the narrow orbit of our inward self, nor empty abstrac- 
 tion, though it strays at pleasure over the spacious realm of 
 the possible, can lead us to the desired end of perfect cer- 
 tainty or veritable science. It is alone the practical carrying 
 out into real life of a speculative thought, that can bring it to 
 the conclusion and perfection of certainty, and to a complete 
 and true science. Now I should prefer to designate this its 
 highest grade by the notion and name of consequence. But 
 
THEORY OF INTELLECTUAL INTUITION. 257 
 
 by this term, I must be understood as meaning not merely a 
 correct logical enchainment of ideas, but pre-eminently a faith- 
 fully worked out consequence or consistency of sentiment and 
 life,' i. e., a perseverance in good. At the same time, it must 
 ever be remembered, that the evil principle, although it often 
 makes a boast of possessing this quality, does so only in ap- 
 pearance, and never in this true sense. On the contrary, 
 torn to pieces by conflicting passions in its inmost being, it 
 is really in the highest degree inconsequent, as acting in direct 
 opposition to its beginning and origin, which like all other 
 created beings, it took and received from God. 
 
 Truly consequent or consistent a man cannot be except in 
 the truth, i. e., in Him out of whom all truth, and from whom 
 all existence is derived and flows — in other words, in God. 
 Science, therefore, is an applied thinking, i. e., one that has 
 passed into life and thereby become real and certain ; and it 
 is only on the road of practice, by its actual carrying out or 
 real manifestation, that it can attain to its highest degree, and 
 that the truth of an idea or speculative thought can be satis- 
 factorily attested. 
 
 The ideas, according to the original sense of the term, are 
 even the self- existing thoughts of a higher life, as distinct 
 both from the simple facts of the consciousness in the domain 
 of reflection, and from the arbitrary forms of thought set up 
 by empty abstraction. And though even here as elsewhere, 
 a false, sickly, or a null and illusory life, may be substituted 
 for that which is true, still this applies only to the form of 
 the living idea, as contrasted with the sensuous semblance or 
 the dead notion. For, that an idea is truly divine, can only 
 be proved by this quality of consequence ; — by its divine 
 influence and effect on life. 
 
 On the other hand, many philosophical thinkers have some- 
 what erroneously indicated the intrinsic certainty of philo- 
 sophical thought by the name and under the form of an intel- 
 lectual intuition, and thereby given occasion to manifold mis- 
 conceptions. But if in all the fulness of the conception already 
 advanced of the eternal truth, and of Him who is its sum 
 and source, we were really able to be sentient of and to feel 
 the divine life — to hear and audibly to perceive the eternal 
 Word and actually to see the holy Light, such a spiritual in- 
 tuition of God's glory and majesty would be far more 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 LOGIC OF THE GHEEKS AND HINDOOS. 
 
 appropriate for the future than for the present world. And 
 even though we may and can admit it to be conceivable, as 
 given from above, still a communication of it would be impos- 
 sible, and consequently could not be available for the ordinary 
 purpose of giving a philosophical foundation to any human 
 system. Under this form, then, of a so-called intellectual 
 intuition, if it be really such, and not rather a mere form of 
 abstract thought under another and an assumed name, specu- 
 lative science would consequently assume the character of a 
 questionable vision, and a possible mental delusion. For a 
 full internal satisfaction and certainty — so far at least as these 
 are attainable by man — even in the case that they are the 
 sign and the proof that this intuition, or perception of the 
 divine light, actually took place, can only be furnished by that 
 quality of consequence already described as belonging to 
 every thought and cognition which is founded in God. And 
 to this character of consequence or consistency, the condi- 
 tion of agreement with every other idea or revelation already 
 acknowledged to be divine, belongs naturally as the irrefra- 
 gable law of judgment and of life. 
 
 That full and correct conception of eternal truth which has 
 been developed by us in the ninth Lecture as the living idea 
 of the Supreme Being, is unquestionably the fundamental 
 speculative notion and the internal spiritual basis on which 
 every other higher science, that has any pretensions to the 
 qualities of permanence and consequence which belong to 
 right-thinking and to immutable truth, is subsequently raised, 
 or in other words, it is the source from which it abidingly 
 flows. In the three subsequent Lectures, however, the sub- 
 ject has been mostly scientific, speculative, and metaphysical, 
 though throughout accompanied with historical illustrations 
 drawn from the development of the human mind. And here, 
 accordingly, a reference to the science or discipline of logic 
 is everywhere supposed. 
 
 Now, in the form in which this science or discipline has 
 come down to us from the Greeks, there is much that is 
 rather an accident than a part of its essence, and whose 
 presence must be accounted for by some special and local ne- 
 cessity. With no people before or since has rhetoric enjoyed 
 so commanding an influence as with the Greeks, and with 
 non^ also has the sophistic art produced such great and such 
 
UTILITY OF A HIGHER LOGIC. 
 
 259 
 
 pernicious effects. Accordingly, they found it necessary to 
 devote to the analysis of all its arts, delusions, and tortuous 
 windings, and also to the development of the dialectical 
 means for their detection and refutation, a disproportionate 
 degree of attention, which is neither necessary for us nor 
 practically useful. 
 
 The Hindoos likewise have from the most ancient times 
 possessed a scientific system of logic. Indeed it has even been 
 said, that Aristotle having received from Alexander the Great 
 some of their logical treatises, borrowed from them his own 
 system, or at least moulded it after them. But from the 
 reasons just adduced, I am disposed to think that, in all pro- 
 bability, the Hindoo logic was much simpler than the Grecian, 
 where the simple end of truth, and the great desideratum of 
 a correct standard thereof, was lost sight of amid an over 
 minute analysis, and the mazes of an endless subdivision of 
 notions. 
 
 In the routine of our school education logic might, per- 
 haps, be made a highly profitable study if only it were com- 
 bined with and made to bear upon the history of the gradual 
 development of human thought, and especially the theory of 
 language. And then, since thought and speech are so inti- 
 mately allied to and dependent on each other, it would be 
 advisable to go a step further, and extend our logical studies 
 to the theory of imagination, symbolical language and its fun- 
 damental rules. 
 
 In a scientific education, too, a logic of the memory (if we 
 may be allowed the expression) would in all probability be 
 highly useful. For an established law and disposition of our 
 thoughts would greatly facilitate the exercise of memory, and 
 as furnishing rules for the practice, or generally as an exer- 
 cise of that faculty, would form an excellent basis for scientific 
 education. For the conduct of life, indeed, there is nothing 
 so important or so desirable as a right logic of the conscience, 
 which should detect all the internal delusions of egoism and 
 the still more subtle sophistry of selfishness in every point 
 where the question lies between the righteous truth and a 
 latent falsehood. And this is intimately connected with, or 
 at least leads directly to, the notion of the sound reason 
 which requires before all things a conscientious susceptibility 
 of the truth. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 SCIENCE AT ONE WITH LIFE. 
 
 But a logic applicable to this higher science must be under- 
 stood in a far more comprehensive sense than is ordinarily 
 done. And this is even what we have here attempted to 
 furnish. Logic in general is conversant about three objects : 
 the notion, the judgment, and the conclusion. But it ought 
 also to possess a general fundamental rule and regulative 
 standard of truth, so far as this is attainable. But inasmuch 
 as in this domain the eternal is simply one, so also for this 
 higher science one notion properly is sufficient ; as also one 
 judgment which comprises all others, and one conclusion 
 which completes the whole, is sufficient. The act of under- 
 standing has been explained to be the completion of the 
 notion ; and the full and complete apprehension of the eternal 
 truth, or of Him who is the sum of all verities, was the subject- 
 matter of our ninth treatise. The act of discerning was 
 explained to be the completion of the judgment; and this 
 perfect judgment, which decides and distinguishes between 
 truth and error, was the theme of our tenth disquisition. 
 Science, however, is the perfection of all thinking, and in its 
 actual operation, as applied to life, and in itself carried to a 
 conclusion, is one with it. Now this was the end to which 
 the present discussion and development was intended to lead ; 
 while the further prosecution of it and its reference to the 
 several spheres and domains of existence must be reserved 
 to the following discourses. 
 
 END OF LECTURE X! 
 
261 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 OF THE SYMBOLICAL NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF 
 LIFE WITH REFERENCE TO ART AND THE MORAL 
 RELATIONS OF MAN. 
 
 How difficult it generally is for man to express his internal 
 conceptions, to bring out the indwelling idea and to realise its 
 perfect external manifestation, is shown, for example, among 
 other instances, by the fine arts, or the art of the beautiful. 
 For this reason, the theory of the latter, the so-called aesthe- 
 tics (which, however, might far more correctly be termed 
 symbolism), forms the natural pendant and accompaniment to 
 logic, if the latter, instead of being limited, as is usual, to the 
 mere art of distinguishing the different kinds of notions, is 
 understood in a far higher sense, and referred to eternal and 
 consequently divine truth, and to its intrinsic and equally 
 divine standard. For when the question no longer involves a 
 purely material or simply subjective verity, but that which is 
 more exalted and heavenly, then beauty (that, namely, about 
 which art is conversant, and which far surpassing all that is 
 merely human, pretends and really ought to be divine and 
 supernatural) forms the other and symbolical aspect of one 
 and the same eternal truth. And indeed it is neither sepa- 
 rable from it nor opposed to it, so long as art maintains its 
 high standing and employs the sensual charm which it requires 
 for the lively expression of vitality, and its outward mani- 
 festation, only as a symbol and for the sake of that higher 
 significance which she herself lends to it, and does not seek 
 nor admire it for its own sake, nor sees therein the fulfilment 
 of its own true end and aim. 
 
 But by far the greater number of the productions of art are 
 only repetitions or copies of some previous realisation. And 
 I use this term, not in its usual depreciatory sense, but rather 
 in one that is applicable to what are truly artistic productions 
 but still only successful formations at second-hand. Extremely 
 
262 ALL ART SYMBOLICAL SCULPTURE. 
 
 rare, indeed, are the original expressions or impressions of an 
 indwelling, unborrowed idea. And even among these very 
 many are nothing more than the first faint outline and com- 
 mencement, which only at a subsequent epoch of art, and 
 after long and repeated essays, attains to complete perfection 
 and a really successful and veritable outward exhibition of the 
 indwelling idea. For we must ever consider as an idea that 
 inward object which art in its external manifestations strives 
 to realise, and which in its creations ought to stand out, as 
 it were, bodily before us. 
 
 Even in music (as the expression of the emotions of the 
 soul in their flow and change, and in the struggle with inhar- 
 monious discords, till at last they finally dissolve in harmony) 
 it is not so much the immediate feeling — for this would be no 
 more artistic than the mere cry of passion — as rather the idea 
 of it that the artist has in his mind, and that forms the sub- 
 ject of his representations. The musician strives to represent 
 the whole idea, — the beautiful and the marvellous in the whole 
 progress of its development. Following the inmost life -pulse 
 in its alternate rising and falling, he labours to give its un- 
 expected transitions up to their sudden harmony or its repe- 
 titions of still increasing pitch up to a full and soothing close, 
 or (if this is designedly to be left unattained) up to the abrupt 
 and painful breaking off or gradual dying away and cessation 
 of the plaintive note or the tone of ardent longing. 
 
 And the same is the case with sculpture. But here we 
 would premise the remark, that the principle with which we 
 set out, of the triple nature and division of man's being, is 
 confirmed by the existence of a corresponding order and 
 diversity in the fine arts. Among the arts, accordingly, whose 
 object is the manifestation of the beautiful, music is pre- 
 eminently the art for the soul, while sculpture is for the most 
 part corporeal. 
 
 Now, in sculpture it is not any actual figure or the body 
 itself that the artist has in view. It is the general idea 
 thereof that constitutes the subject-matter of his representa- 
 tions. He seeks to portray its most perfect structure, its full 
 organic development, its exquisite correctness of symmetry 
 and sublime beauty of form. And to all this even the expres- 
 sion of character and passion is in a certain degree subordinate. 
 And exactly because the external medium which it employs, 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 263 
 
 because the material mass on which its internal conceptions 
 are to be stamped, or rather out of which they are to be 
 worked, is the inanimate stone and cold marble, therefore 
 does true sculpture aim at a higher excellence than the uni- 
 formity and death-like repose which characterise the Egyptian 
 statues of the gods. It seeks rather to triumph by copying 
 with the most marvellous truth and fidelity the living frame 
 in its most rapid movements, and life in its most violent strug- 
 gles, and by seizing its fleeting graces to fix them for ever in 
 its own imperishable creations. 
 
 In truth, the imitation of actual reality, however difficult 
 and in itself worthy of admiration it may be, does not consti- 
 tute the aim or object, or generally the principle of sculpture, 
 any more than of any other art. A remarkable proof of this 
 is afforded by the fact that colour, with all its charms, is 
 excluded from the plastic art and its embodied manifestations 
 as too meretricious and too closely allied to reality. For by 
 such an expedient, not less than by the use of ingenious 
 mechanism to give motion to the limbs, the artistic ideal, or 
 the images of the gods, would have degenerated into the 
 puppets of children. 
 
 Reality, therefore, with its actual shapes and the delusive 
 imitation and servile copying of them, is in nowise the proper 
 or immediate object of the plastic art. Even beauty of form 
 is not always, not at least solely and exclusively its aim ; it is 
 only so accidentally and relatively, as a condition of the ex- 
 pression of character, of external states, and of the total sig- 
 nificance. Always and universally it is a thought, the idea of 
 some subject or form as the inner sense and significance 
 thereof, that constitutes the essence of a work of art, and with 
 which art in general is concerned. In other words, art is 
 symbolical. And this may be predicated with equal truth of 
 every higher art, as well as of sculpture, whatever may be the 
 medium of its manifestations, whether a statue, or tone as in 
 music, or words as in poetry. It is exactly this that consti- 
 tutes the difference between high art and every other which, 
 however closely allied to it in appearance, has some ulterior 
 and practical object, and which therefore cannot be sym- 
 bolical. 
 
 Of this kind, for instance, is the difference between rhetoric 
 (which most assuredly is an art, or at least was exclusively 
 
264 
 
 MUSIC AND PAINTING. 
 
 treated as such by the Greeks,) and poetry. And it is of the 
 utmost importance to keep this distinction constantly in view. 
 For exactly in the same degree that it is neglected is the 
 proper character and true excellency of the higher art of the 
 beautiful lost sight of. And a right estimate of the other arts 
 which have an ulterior and practical object would also be 
 endangered. An orator who with the greatest command of 
 practical and imaginative language is nevertheless devoid of 
 convincing logical power to sway the minds of men by his 
 arguments, and to bend them irresistibly to his purpose, would 
 exercise but little influence ; while no heavier censure can be 
 passed on one who sets up for a poet, than to affirm of him, 
 that he possesses and understands nothing but the rhetoric of 
 passion, without — though such further qualification is evidently 
 superfluous — true poetry. 
 
 Of the fine arts, therefore, which, employing a material me- 
 dium for their representations, possess an ideal and symbolical 
 significance, music is the art of the soul, and sculpture is that 
 of corporeal form, and of the manifestation of the true idea of 
 organic beauty. But among the three sister arts, painting is 
 the true spiritual one. As the light, with its ceaseless variety 
 of tints and hues, is the most spiritual element of nature, and 
 as the eye is the most spiritual of man's senses, so painting, as 
 concerned about these, is the most spiritual of the arts, and 
 the one with which the symbolical spirit readily associates 
 itself. Painting directs itself wholly to the eye, whereas 
 sculpture appeals indeed to the eye, but only as the necessary 
 medium for satisfying the corporeal sense and feeling. 
 
 But painting in its manifestations does not confine itself to 
 abstract beauty (if we may so say) or the perfect structure and 
 symmetry of form. It embraces all the eye can reach in the 
 visible phenomena of the world, with all its wonderful play of 
 light and shade and magical splendour of colouring, where not 
 only the whole, but the several parts — in a word, all that in 
 many and various ways is charming to the senses, attractive to 
 the eye with ever new wonders, and all that to the mind or spirit 
 is fuU of deep spiritual and symbolical significance. And for 
 this reason the wonderful art of painting is even the most ap- 
 propriate, shall I say to exhibit, or rather to suggest, the high 
 mysteries of divine love in religion and revelation. No wonder 
 then, if in modern Christendom, music and painting, the art or 
 
ARCHITECTURE ALLIED TO SCULPTURE. 
 
 265 
 
 symbolism of soul and spirit, have been chiefly cultivated, 
 and attained their highest development and perfection, whereas 
 the art of the perfect development of organic form and cor- 
 poreal and sensual beauty, reached its height of excellence in 
 the sculpture of classical antiquity, which in the same way and 
 degree will never again be parallelled, or at least will never be 
 surpassed. 
 
 It appears sufficient if we assume that there are only three 
 symbolical arts for the higher manifestation of the beautiful. 
 For architecture, although in various ways bound and modi- 
 fied by the conditions of some ulterior design, is nevertheless 
 in its principal features closely related to sculpture, and stands 
 on the same line with it. For beauty of structure, correct- 
 ness of proportion and grace of symmetry, which form the fun- 
 damental laws of the plastic art, constitute also the ideal of 
 architecture. Accordingly, among the Greeks and Romans, 
 where the latter attained to its highest and richest cultivation, 
 its principles, relations, and forms approximate to those of 
 organic figure, to which they are not indeed outwardly in their 
 structure, but in a certain degree and according to their internal 
 constitution, similar and correspondent, or at least related. 
 
 Egyptian architecture, with its predominantly mathematical 
 character, and the tree-like Gothic aspiring to heaven, with 
 its slender shafts and floral decorations, form the two ex- 
 tremes of this organic character which belongs to architec- 
 ture, and which constitutes it one and the same art with 
 sculpture. For the structures of the former environ and sur- 
 round the creations of the latter. And it is only consistent 
 that that which supplies the legitimate sphere and the natural 
 medium for the other properly exhibitive art of sculpture and 
 its statues of the gods, should even possess or acquire a simi- 
 larity of character with it. As to the Egyptian and Gothic 
 architectures, the remark readily suggests itself that the sym- 
 bolical character displays itself predominantly in them : purity 
 of form, however, is the prevalent feature of the antique (or 
 Grecian), but even here in its proportions the symbolical 
 principle may be traced, although it is more recondite, not to 
 say concealed. 
 
 Even poetry is no fourth art alongside of the other three. 
 It does not stand on the same line with and form as it were the 
 complement of their number. It is rather the universal sym 
 
266 
 
 POETRY EMBRACES THE THREE. 
 
 bolical art which, comprises and combines in different mediums 
 all those other exhibitive arts of the beautiful. In its rhythm 
 and other metrical aids it possesses all the charms of a music 
 in words ; in its figurative diction it maintains an endless 
 succession of shifting pictures in the vivid colouring of diver- 
 sified illustration ; while in its entire structure (which must be 
 neither purely historical, nor logical, or even rhetorical) it 
 strives to attain, by a beautiful organic development and dis- 
 position of its parts, to an arrangement of the whole both 
 architecturally great and correct. 
 
 Poetry owes in every instance its first creative beginning to 
 some great and singular ray of light from symbolical tradition, 
 which, at the same time, illuminates the noble and memo- 
 rable past, and points forwards to the dark and mystical future. 
 For it would be difficult to produce one among the great epic 
 poems of antiquity that does not contain this poetico-prophetic 
 element, and does not touch upon the profound mysteries of 
 both worlds. The next and middle step is occupied by the 
 poetry of sentiment and feeling — that music of the soul or 
 poesy of song in which the calm deep longings and the wild 
 tearing passions of the moment, once plunged and glorified in 
 that immortal element, become eternal. But the height of 
 perfection in the organic development of poetry is marked by 
 the drama. This third and highest form of poetical art has 
 for its subject-matter the whole struggle of human life, which 
 in its vivid representations it aims to realise, and, as it were, 
 to bring bodily before our eyes. 
 
 There exists an obvious analogy between the several con- 
 stituents, as well as the different species or kinds of poetry and 
 the three material arts of the beautiful. As the latter are sym- 
 bolical throughout in the subject no less than in the manner 
 and design of their manifestations, so also, but in a far higher 
 degree, is poetry, as the art which embraces all the three in 
 its own sphere. And this was the end to which I wished to 
 arrive, inasmuch as the symbolical significance of the whole 
 of life is the very point which at present claims our attention. 
 For it bears intimately on the conclusion which I attempted 
 to establish in my last Lecture. It was there my endeavour 
 to prove that the supreme science, which is essentially identical 
 with a divine faith, may be actually applied to life, be really 
 brought in unison with it, and become transformed into a 
 
EDUCATION SYMBOLICAL. 
 
 267 
 
 living and real existence. But this can only be accomplished 
 by a symbolical process, or in other words, the symbolical 
 signification of life is either itself the basis, or else an indis- 
 pensable condition of, and inevitable transition-point towards, 
 such an union and its accomplishment. 
 
 But in the arts which portray the beautiful, this symbolical 
 significance and property is most distinctly prominent : here 
 it is most easily understood and most universally recognised. 
 On this account I have chosen this subject, as forming the 
 natural transition and connecting link between the previous 
 and the following Lectures. No doubt the aesthetical portion 
 of man's constitution and life is in itself sufficiently remark- 
 able and attractive, and rich and important enough in its 
 effects and consequences, to vindicate for itself such an episode, 
 and to claim for it a place in philosophical speculation. For 
 it shows that that fundamental law of psychological science 
 and triple principle of division of the human consciousness 
 into spirit, soul, and sense, admits also of application in this 
 domain also, and may serve to confirm the whole theory and 
 way of thinking. The further prosecution, however, of this 
 elementary view or sketch of art would carry me beyond my 
 present limits. For the aim of that philosophy of which I 
 am attempting to give an exposition is directed to life itself — 
 as well the inner life of the individual as the public life (and 
 m the present place also its symbolical relation or signification) 
 — which is so inseparably and intimately connected with the 
 investigation into the divine foundation of life and the divine 
 direction which ought to be imparted to it. 
 
 It can easily be shown that education as well as art is 
 essentially symbolical. Such, indeed, must be the character 
 of the education, whether public or private, of the whole 
 rising generation, unless it is to degenerate into an ordinary 
 mechanical system. And it is even in this quality principally 
 that we are disposed to place the distinction between an 
 unspiritual education, which even though in the sternness of 
 its morality it may defy censure, yet eventually proves barren 
 and mortal, and one more solid and more conformable to human 
 nature, which, less pretending in the outset, is even the more 
 lasting in its effects. 
 
 The ready susceptibility of the youthful mind for every- 
 thing symbolical that lies within its reach, and its vivid per- 
 
268 man's veey nature symbolical. 
 
 ceptioa of its meaning, might be clearly enough shown by 
 instancing some of the ordinary amusements of boyhood and 
 youth. How commonly, in these years, are the various occu- 
 pations, pursuits and circumstances of real and to them still 
 future life, childishly perhaps, but still ingeniously imitated, or 
 rather anticipated ! And how lasting an influence does this 
 frequently make on their little society! What various but 
 lasting traces does it often leave on their minds, more perhaps 
 than many hours of study, especially if in the latter the usual 
 system of overloading the young mind defeats its own end. 
 Play, indeed, must not become the mere pastime of idleness ; 
 for it is only by its alternation with labour and the sternness 
 of discipline that it continues to be a recreation and a plea- 
 sure. 
 
 And indeed the earnestness, the labour, and the sterner 
 part in this whole business and matter of education, as mixed 
 and composed of two opposite elements, of the serious and 
 the sportive, is highly capable of receiving so spiritual a 
 reference and vital a significance. And if all education be 
 nothing else than a preparation for the future, and the state 
 of this preparation, then it must be self-evident that too many 
 or enough of such vivid references and spiritual allusions to a 
 future life, either generally or to any particular phase of it 
 that may chiefly be had in view, cannot be introduced into 
 education and its serious and sportive elements and pursuits. 
 For it is only by this method that the susceptibilities of 
 youth and the youthful fancy can be vividly excited and 
 thoroughly impressed with the fundamental design and signi- 
 ficance of the whole of life, — a result which no mere dry defini- 
 tion of the future state, or generally of any " destination of 
 man" on the dusty road of logic, will ever attain to. 
 
 It is nowise singular if this symbolical property and dispo- 
 sition of human nature announces itself as distinctly in the 
 earliest development and in the most perfect of the produc- 
 tions of artistic genius, whether we take into consideration 
 the whole existing state of mankind, or his original and 
 essential constitution relatively to the world and to God We 
 have already remarked, on more than one occasion, that man, 
 as soon as he was deprived of those higher faculties which he 
 had abused to his ruin, fell thereby more entirely than would 
 seem originally to have been the case, under the dominion of 
 
SYMBOLISM OF RELIGION. 
 
 269 
 
 figurative fancy, and that consequently his whole nature and 
 consciousness became greatly changed from what it was at 
 the beginning. If man did at the very first possess the faculty 
 and the power to communicate his thoughts to others inwardly 
 by a mere operation of his will, and without having recourse 
 to the external medium of words, he no longer enjoys this pri- 
 vilege ; and if any wonderful phenomena in any way resem- 
 bling thereto be now found, they only form so many remarkable 
 exceptions, instead of making the rule of human life and con- 
 sciousness as they now are. As at present constituted, man 
 feels that his state is pre-eminently symbolical : he sees in 
 symbolism a necessary requirement for his earthly pursuits — 
 a substitute for those immediate powers of cognition which he 
 has lost. And all this is true, independently of any use he 
 may freely choose to make of symbols for the higher purposes 
 of spiritual life. 
 
 Man, at the beginning, was placed on this earth as its first- 
 born son, in the midst of the telluric universe, or in other 
 words, in the centre of a planetary world akin to and similar 
 to his own. Now whatever may be the case, or whatever it 
 may be allowable to think of any other of the starry spheres — 
 though in the invisible world of spirits all perhaps is more 
 immediately full of and instinct with essence, and is not 
 veiled in material emblems, this is not the case with this 
 earth. Terrestrial nature, in all its organic productions and 
 warring elements of life, is throughout symbolical. Man, 
 therefore, viewed from this position of his earthly habitation, 
 is surrounded by a symbolical world of sensuous emblems. 
 And if we can, or rather, if we will, believe the grand intima- 
 tion with which revelation opens, the first and highest desti- 
 nation of man is even symbolical — to be the Divine image. 
 
 If, now, all the natural wants and properties of man are 
 symbolical, — if such be his present state in the midst of cre- 
 ation — his whole position in the mundane system, and his 
 high and heavenly destination, can we, or rather ought we, to 
 wonder if even religion presents itself for the most part clothed 
 in a symbolical garb ? For this is the case, not merely with that 
 which was the wild upgrowth of a poetical and purely imagi- 
 native heathenism, but also the old, original and pure religion 
 of nature — as the first love devoting itself for sacrifice — the 
 second revelation of God. And so we find it to have been m 
 
270 
 
 RELIGIOUS ORIGIN OF ART. 
 
 the old world, or as it is otherwise called, the old covenant. 
 Here the first twilight of faith was yet studded with all tne 
 starry splendour of the whole symbolical creation, as it were 
 with the brilliant diadem of nature's most glorious images. 
 And even the new era of the ascending and brightening dawn 
 still bears on its front the glittering morning star of art. 
 
 But now, if still retaining the same figure, or rather 
 borrowing from it a contrast, we proceed to designate art in 
 and by itself, we may justly compare it to the moon, which 
 illumines with its vague but marvellous half-light the domain 
 of night and the dark realms of creative fancy. Even here 
 it is but a borrowed splendour from the true sun, a reflexion 
 from another and a higher luminary, that lights up the dark- 
 less. And while all the wonderful starry types of the spiritual 
 world, which retire in the full day, come out in this magical 
 twilight, so also deceptive phantoms, airy forms of gigantic 
 magnitude, may mingle with the hovering and misty troop of 
 shadows to which the earthborn vapours alone give birth and 
 shape. And yet, notwithstanding this earthly intermixture, 
 the art of the beautiful, whenever it retains its true nature, is 
 in its essence directed to the divine. Consequently it not 
 only lends an external charm to religion, but in its origin, in. 
 all times and peoples, it was intimately related to it, and bound 
 to it by the strictest ties of affinity and association. And 
 this is not the less true, even though to the eye of a severe 
 criticism most of its productions, in the ages of its decline, 
 may appear utterly remote from its first source and aim, and 
 perfectly vain, worthless and sensual. 
 
 The divine origin of art is easily proved by its history 
 everywhere, and indeed is so manifest that it cannot well be 
 doubted. High art, indeed, cannot and never will surrender 
 its claim to a divine power and sanctity : it must insist upon 
 the recognition of this its high sanction. If we could conceive 
 an age or country where religion should entirely cease and be 
 forgotten — where not only all positive faith and revelation, 
 but even the universal belief in a Divinity above them, should 
 die away and perish among men — the light of all higher and 
 heaven directed thoughts and aims should become extinct — 
 that echo of eternity and of eternal love which the inmost 
 feelings of the human soul spontaneously gives back, should 
 be hushed for ever — then and there at the selfsame moment 
 would all high art be withdrawn and disappear. 
 
RELIGION IN ITS ESSENCE SYMBOLICAL. 
 
 271 
 
 In our own age the state of things is the direct contrary to 
 that which we have been supposing. While from the universal 
 ( prevalence of freethinking in politics — a natural consequence 
 \ of the reign of religious scepticism — the whole of life, and 
 especially public life, has ceased to be regarded and under- 
 stood in its symbolical character and dignity; while the 
 \ little of religious sentiment that still survives is more or 
 less distracted and secularised by sectarian controversy, and 
 scarcely one inviolable sanctuary is left for a simple and 
 : undoubting faith to shelter in — art and the beautiful are for a 
 certain portion of the educated classes the only fresh oasis of 
 » divinity amid the surrounding desert of worldliness. It is the 
 | last treasure left to them, and indeed prized by them as such, 
 ! , and regarded as the true palladium of a higher intrinsic life ; 
 
 but this, in its isolated state and by itself, it never can be. 
 ; | In this respect the present age may be likened to a noble 
 I house, fallen from its primitive wealth and magnificence into 
 I decay and ruin. Its revenues dissipated by misfortunes, mis- 
 i management and extravagance ; its mansion and domains 
 mortgaged or encumbered with debt, nothing remains to it 
 but the family jewels. These time-honoured heirlooms of 
 better days are all that it still retains of its former opulence. t 
 And even in these many a false stone has been introduced 
 among the old genuine diamonds; much spurious metal has 
 been substituted for the sterling gold of antiquity. Appa- 
 rently, however, the whole are still preserved as the last relic 
 of a former splendour, and of a wealth which once seemed 
 inexhaustible. In the same way the present generation 
 supports its inner and higher life on the mere external trea- 
 sures of art, while the great capital of ancient faith, to which 
 among other excellent fruits that ornament of beauty owed 
 its existence, has by the great majority been long squandered 
 on the " spirit of the age" 
 
 But the symbolical dress that religion everywhere assumes 
 constitutes but one-half of its external form. The other 
 consists in the vital and intrinsic union of all the members 
 and professors of the common faith. Religion cannot by any 
 means be isolated and solitary. It is impossible to think of it 
 as existing only for the individual. In a word, there is no 
 such thing as religion in a proper sense without a community. 
 Two or three must at least be united in a common faith ; tha* 
 
272 COMMUNION THE HIGHEST SYMBOL OE FAITH. 
 
 its power and efficacy may be visible among them. And tins 
 association is one vital throughout ; an inmost bond binding 
 souls together by a spiritual attraction, and, as it were, en- 
 chainment of the several members. 
 
 As the electrical shock traverses instantaneously the entire 
 chain of the connected links, and the spark which enters at 
 one extremity flashes the next moment at the other ; — as a 
 single loadstone will by contact convert any number of 
 needles into magnets and elevate them into a new and higher 
 relation to the whole globe ; — so is it also in religion. A living 
 communication from the first origin runs through the whole 
 community. As in the voltaic pile, composed of alternate 
 layers of two different metals, one chemical element of the 
 telluric energy or of the vital principle of the air or atmosphere 
 is emitted or set free on one side and the other on the oppo- 
 site ; so is it here also in the spiritual chain of faith and in its 
 living reciprocal action of the different members of this soul- 
 chain — between those who are active ministers and con- 
 ductors, or instruments by which it works, and the others, who 
 in a somewhat passive relation only imbibe the invisible 
 life. By the one the divine blessing of sanctification and 
 holiness is set in action and brought to light — developed and 
 confirmed; while by the others grace is received as the 
 effectual power and gift of salvation. 
 
 One remark, however, seems particularly called for in this 
 place. It appears from what has been already said that even 
 revelation and the true religion itself invariably puts on and 
 is invested with that symbolical garb which is so consonant 
 and agreeable to the state and nature of humanity. This 
 being the case, it becomes extremely difficult to form a general 
 standard by which we may unfalteringly determine what 
 symbols are not essential, as only serving for the external garb 
 of religion and an intelligible vehicle of its communications. 
 For this, it is evident, must be governed by the diversity of 
 individual wants and peculiarities, and must consequently 
 assume a variable and personal character. If, however, a 
 symbol proceeds immediately from God, then it must neces- 
 sarily be essential. It is not only a type, but an actual sub- 
 stance. To suppose otherwise would be even almost parallel 
 to presuming to regard the eternal Logos, who is the source 
 of light and life, of all knowledge and of all being, as a word 
 merely, without innate energy and substance. 
 
CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT AN ALTAR. 
 
 273 
 
 Most natural, therefore, is it (that is to say, most consistent 
 I with the nature of the thing, which however in itself is super- 
 | natural, incomprehensible, and surpasses all conception), that 
 the highest symbol of the faith, that which forms the prin- 
 I ciple of communion and the living centre of unity of all Chris- 
 tendom, should have such a character as to be at once a 
 | symbol and also the veritable reality of the thing itself. For 
 I inasmuch as on the altar of this religion of divine love, since 
 I the one oblation has long ago been perfected, no other fire 
 shall again be kindled but the flame of prayer and of a will 
 directed to and in unison w T ith God, therefore, the act by 
 means of which that communion of souls which constitutes 
 | the essence of all religion, is maintained and carried on, 
 i consists simply in this, that the essential substance of the 
 divine power and of God's love to man is given and received 
 as the wonderful seal of union with Him.* 
 
 As to the altar itself, how rich or how simple its ornaments 
 ought to be, is a question which I have already remarked, 
 does not easily admit of any general solution. If, however, 
 we should attempt to think of Christianity without an altar, 
 or desire and attempt to establish such a scheme — w T hat indeed 
 among the vast variety of human conceits and religious 
 theories has only occurred to a very limited number, and 
 I never has and never will exercise any lasting and decided 
 influence — a Christianity thus divested of symbols and mys- 
 teries would be degraded into a mere philosophical view and 
 opinion — or at the very best, a school of the kind, anything 
 in short rather than religion. Even the study of the Bible, 
 if in spite of so sad a state of things it should still survive, 
 would sink into a mere matter of ei'udition, on a level with 
 any other favourite pursuit of antiquarian lore and research. 
 And if, on the other hand, rising perhaps somewhat higher 
 than a mere philosophical opinion or the favourite pursuits of 
 erudition, a religious community, having no altar at all, should 
 pretend to rest entirely on prayer and spiritual teaching or 
 preaching ;. such a scheme must presuppose an immediate 
 inspiration, communicable to all and continuous throughout 
 
 * This statement does not necessarily imply the Romish doctrine of 
 transubstantiation. It is fully met in an unobjectionable sense by the 
 Catholic tenet of the real presence. — Trans. 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 THE SYMBOLICAL EQUATION OF LIFE. 
 
 time. But such an hypothesis invariably proves the easy and 
 natural transition to the most frightful fanaticism, of whose 
 pernicious and evil effects those only who are acquainted with 
 the domestic history of Mohammedanism, among whose 
 modern and ancient sects this idea is rampant, can form a 
 clear and adequate conception. 
 
 In religion, therefore, and that entire union of the inner 
 man and soul with God which it demands, or at least hopes and 
 desires to bring about as essential and necessary, and which 
 the higher philosophy of antiquity, no less than revealed reli- 
 gion, strove after and longed to attain, there lies a something 
 inconceivably sublime and beautiful. Nay, we might almost 
 call it an impossible result, similar in some degree to that 
 which is involved in the higher and more intricate of alge- 
 braic equations for which there is no solution, or which, at 
 least, appear to have none till it is actually discovered. Now 
 this finite, changeable, and in all respects incomplete and in 
 no one point satisfactorily, or at least not perfectly denned (a) 
 of our own individual self, with which we are wont to com- 
 mence the whole of our thought and life, is to be brought into 
 communion with, or in other words, to be equalled to the 
 wholly incomprehensible (x) of the incommunicable Godhead. 
 How is this possible ? By what means is it to be accom- 
 plished ? 
 
 Properly, indeed, our Ego is no such (a), and cannot be 
 defined as such in the wonderful algebraic equation of our 
 inmost life and highest pursuit. For nowhere does man feel 
 himself to be a first; all things prove him to be secondary 
 and derivative, wherever it may be that he is to take or seek 
 his beginning. And not only does the alphabet of our life 
 carry us beyond itself and towards its end in this incompre- 
 hensible (#), but it is also defective at its commencement, and 
 wants a beginning and the first (a), which ought to form its 
 very opening. And even the (b) (could this satisfy us) is 
 nowhere distinctly and clearly to be found such as it is in and 
 by itself, or such even as it was originally. It is invariably 
 mixed up and involved with something else equally unknown. 
 We have, therefore, in this equation of our life, to do with 
 two wholly unknown magnitudes, — with the incomprehensible 
 (#), and with the (y). For by the latter sign we will at 
 present designate that which everywhere meets and opposes 
 
HIEROGLYPHICS ILLUSTRATE SYMBOLISM pF LIFE. 275 
 
 us. For the fact of such an inborn and connatural obstacle 
 every one will admit, even though he may refuse to explain it 
 by the evil principle and may be unwilling to receive the 
 explanation which revelation gives of it. 
 
 How now is this our (b) to be carried back to its original 
 (a) ? How is it to be set free from this evil (y), and brought 
 into union with the highest (x) ? The answer and solution to 
 this apparently insoluble equation can only be obtained by one 
 method. In attempting it, we must keep steadily in view the 
 principle so recently advanced, that the essence of religion 
 consists in the effectual communication of a higher and living 
 power, which emanating from the first and original point 
 traverses the whole spiritual chain to its furthest link. But, 
 in order to illustrate completely this principle, and the idea 
 which arises from it, of a satisfactory solution of this problem, 
 I will indulge myself in a brief but episodical explanation of 
 the Egyptian hieroglyphics, as furnishing the most suitable 
 example for my purpose. For inasmuch as the symbolical 
 nature and constitution of the human, and indeed of all mortal 
 existence, was the main subject which opened and has occu- 
 pied our present consideration, it may be regarded as the 
 natural complement and key-stone to the whole discussion, if 
 in addition to what has preceded, we go on briefly to examine 
 how and in what sense the oldest writing and earlie t method 
 employed by men for the communication of their ideas was 
 symbolical. 
 
 Of the languages of Western Asia, at least, and of the 
 alphabets derived therefrom, the Hebrew, viz., the Phoenician, 
 and the Greek, it may without hesitation be asserted that they 
 were derived from hieroglyphics, and are without exception 
 of hieroglyphical origin. This cannot be asserted as de- 
 cidedly of the Indian alphabet, which differs so totally from 
 all those previously mentioned. Still I shall not allow myself, 
 simply on this account, to come over hastily to any conclu- 
 sion as to the comparative antiquity of the Hindoo* and the 
 Egyptian modes of writing. 
 
 Now, according to all that we know of the hieroglyphical 
 mode of indicating objects, it rests on a very simple principle. 
 The discovery which was in so remarkable a manner reserved 
 to our own age, is not indeed complete, and leaves much still 
 to be explained. The fundamental principle, nevertheless, is 
 
 x 2 
 
276 9 HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 
 well established. From this it appears that the hit/roglyphic 
 system of Egypt, although entirely symbolical, contains, not- 
 withstanding, the germ of alphabetical writing. As the prin- 
 ciple of hieroglyphical writing is equally applicable to modern 
 languages as to the Egyptian, a German word will serve us as 
 well for an example, and for the purposes of our illustration, 
 as any other. Preliminarily, however, it is necessary to 
 observe, that in this mode of notation the leading characters 
 and essential elements of the radical sound are alone indi- 
 cated ; such vowels and consonants as are quiescent or servile 
 are omitted, and being without any special signs are left to be 
 mentally supplied. 
 
 To take, then, a German word for our example. The word 
 Leben (life) would be signified by its three principal charac- 
 ters. Now, the first letter would be indicated by Licht (a 
 flaming light), because this word also begins with L, Baum (a 
 tree) would stand for B, while N would be represented by any 
 kind of Nass (fluid), by a rapid waterfall, for instance, or by 
 a waving line, as a type of its moving and undulating surface. 
 A light, then, a tree, and an undulating surface, will by means 
 of the initial letters of our German terms for them (Zicht, 
 Z?aum, iVass), stand for the word Leben, i. e., life. 
 
 Now, from this example, which I have purposely chosen, it 
 will appear that this hieroglyphical mode of notation and 
 writing, while it was fundamentally alphabetical, had never- 
 theless at the same time a symbolical significance. For a 
 light, or light-giving flame, the tree with its growth, as well 
 as the flowing stream with its waves or ripples, aptly express 
 and typify the intrinsic character of life, with its several 
 characteristics and elements. And it is even this addition of 
 symbolical colouring and signification which in the otherwise 
 equivocal, and consequently inconvenient, representation of 
 objects by an hieroglyphical alphabet, constitutes the peculiar 
 difficulty, but at the same time the mental attraction of this 
 kind of writing. 
 
 This mode of hieroglyphical representation is not, however, 
 the most difficult to be understood. Another, so far as it has 
 as yet been found out and as progress has been made towards 
 deciphering it, appears to be far more abstruse and enig- 
 matical. For to understand or to interpret the latter in any 
 degree, it is almost indispensable to know beforehand what ia 
 
THE INCARNATION THE PRINCIPLE OF NEW LIFE. 277 
 
 the object indicated or intended. In this mode of hiero- 
 glyphical notation the image of an object is made to stand for 
 any other whose name begins with the same letter, as the word 
 does that designates the former. Thus, to employ the same 
 instance as before, the picture of a flaming light would by 
 itself stand for the word and idea of life. This is, if we may 
 so say, a bold play with algebraic equations, between enigma- 
 tical emblems, which are at most but imperfectly indicated, 
 and which nothing but the intelligence of one well versed in 
 the system can ever hope to comprehend. Any other, even 
 with the greatest pains, will scarcely be able to decipher it 
 with any degree of certainty. And this leads me back again 
 to our former and still unsolved equation, involving the riddle 
 of human life, and which this simile of the hieroglyphics was 
 intended to help us to solve. 
 
 The hieroglyphical mode of writing is, according to the ex- 
 planation we have given of it, a symbolical representation by 
 means of the initial letters of words. In it and through it 
 even that which is most ordinary and common assumes a 
 mystical character, and passes into this wonderful, imaginative, 
 and emblematical sphere. Now the solution of this general 
 problem lies even in this : that this (x) — this incomprehensible 
 \x) — as the eternal Logos of the incommensurable Godhead, 
 became also (a), (that is to say, took on Him a human life and 
 nature,) and is even now fully and really such. For thus the 
 beginning and the initial letter of the whole alphabet of human 
 existence, which was so long wanting, although from the very 
 first it was implied in and was the foundation of the (&), was 
 given anew to it by God. And now this (b), and every other 
 of the following letters, can attach themselves in due order and 
 connexion, be united with it and even be equated to it, and 
 being thus equalised, inasmuch as x = a, it also becomes capable 
 of apprehending the otherwise unattainable (x). And at tfte 
 samS time it can be entirely set free, at once and for ever, 
 from the restlessly opposing and destructive ( — y) ; since this 
 (y), as opposed to the (#), is merely a negative quantity, and 
 as such vanishes. 
 
 But however we may attempt by means of this or any other 
 scientific or figurative illustrations to apprehend or to express 
 the ineffable, the fact, and above all, a living faith in that 
 great verity, that the divine (x) has become a human (a)— 
 
278 THE REGAL, SACERDOTAL, AND PARENTAL POWERS. 
 
 that the eternal Logos actually and really took upon Him the 
 nature of man, and still retains it, is the point from which a 
 new and higher life commences. It is the ring which holds 
 together the whole human family ; — the first link in the chain 
 of spiritual life, to which all must be referred and from which 
 all is to proceed. 
 
 Thus, then, beginning with the emblematical representations 
 of the fine arts, and developing the idea through several other 
 spheres of its manifestation, I have carried the symbolical 
 significance of human life up to the highest hieroglyphic of all 
 existence. And as in the three previous Lectures I have con- 
 sidered the eternal Word, simply and principally in a scientific 
 point of view, as the fundamental law of truth, it now remains 
 for me to exhibit it as the word which shall solve all difficul- 
 ties in the problem of human existence, and shall prove an 
 unerring guide in the conflict of life and in all its most impor- 
 tant relations and perplexities. And to this subject the three 
 last and concluding Lectures will be devoted. And in these 
 we shall consider all this in its reference to the external and 
 public life of man in society and the state. For not only does 
 it hold true of the higher pursuits and inmost being of indivi- 
 duals, but it has also an universal application. For this highest 
 of all hieroglyphics, which is the beginning of a new life, forms 
 also the foundation of the state in its sacred character. 
 
 And because the application of Christian truth and of the 
 fundamental idea of Christianity is in general so greatly mis- 
 taken, I have thought it necessary to remount somewhat 
 higher in my investigations, to draw from a deeper source, 
 and to connect them with a higher principle, in order to arrive 
 more steadily and more certainly at the result which I had in 
 view. And this result may be thus summed up : — The Chris- 
 tian state is nothing less than symbolical, and even thereby 
 historically sanctified- — whereas the mere polity of nature or 
 that of reason, which, however artistical and consummate in 
 its constitution, remains all the while false and unsanctified, 
 is either purely dynamical or else absolute. 
 
 In human life and society there are three species of power, 
 which possess a symbolical significance and a sacred character 
 as resting on a divine foundation. And these are parental 
 authority, the spiritual or priestly power, and the kingly or 
 whatever may be the supreme authority in the state. The 
 
SANCTITY OF PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 279 
 
 affectionate care and anxiety of an earthly parent possesses 
 but a faint analogy to the goodness and providence of the 
 omniscient and eternal Father of all, and is scarcely more than 
 a type of it. Moreover, the parental authority and a father's 
 rights over his children, founded on his relation as the loving 
 and affectionate author of their being, admits not of being 
 set forth and comprised in any exact and positive formularies. 
 And even if the social community occasionally steps in to de- 
 termine by legislation the limits, and in certain points gives its 
 sanction to the domestic rights and authority of a father, as 
 founded on love and feeling, this is only done, nevertheless, 
 with a view to guard against and to remedy the possible abuse 
 of so natural a right and relation. When, however, as was the 
 principle of the old Roman law, power over the life and death 
 of his offspring is conceded to the father, we feel at once that 
 this is an undue extension of the paternal authority, and that 
 the provinces of the three different powers are not kept duly 
 distinct and separate. A parent who should avail himself of 
 such a privilege, would but prove himself devoid of the ordi- 
 nary feelings of nature. On the other hand, by a natural sen- 
 timent, common to the savage and barbarian, as well as to 
 the most refined and civilised nations, respect for and rever- 
 ence of parents is held to be something more than an ordi- 
 nary and conventional duty and obligation. It is universally 
 regarded in the light of a duty in every sense sacred and holy. 
 And the divine moral law of the Old Testament completely 
 agrees with the universal feeling of man's nature in this 
 ascription to it of holiness. But, on the other hand, the rights 
 of the Christian limit the parent's authority on the side of the 
 spiritual domain, wherever it would trench upon the freedom 
 of belief and liberty of conscience. Special circumstances, 
 again, such as the dotage of old age, mental weakness, faults 
 of character, or offences against society, may, in certain cases, 
 tend greatly to limit and control, or otherwise modify, the 
 parental dignity and authority. But still, in the very worst 
 case, the most respectful behaviour and the tenderest delicacy, 
 on all points connected with this relationship, remains for ever 
 an immutable law of duty to the child, which, as it is deeply 
 founded in the moral sense of man, makes itself heard through- 
 out the whole habitable world. The mutual tie of parental love 
 and filial duty has, it is plain, its foundations deep in nature 
 
280 SANCTITY OF PRIESTLY AND KINGLY AUTHORITY. 
 
 itself, and out of it proceeds the sanctity of the very notion 
 of domestic life, and of all its relations, as well as of the 
 peculiar authority of a father and a parent. 
 
 As for the spiritual and priestly power : wherever religion 
 recognises the priest in his true character — i. e., not simply as 
 the preacher and promulgator, but also as the living channel 
 for dispensing and communicating the divine grace, he is, in 
 so far as his office is concerned, and in the discharge of his 
 sacerdotal functions, a vicegerent of God — not so much, per- 
 haps, of the everlasting Father, the Creator and Lawgiver of 
 nature, as of the Son who came down into the world to ransom 
 and redeem the human race. The priestly or spiritual power, 
 therefore, has a divine foundation on which it ultimately rests. 
 But inasmuch as that bond of communion which unites our 
 souls with God must be sought and attained by faith and in 
 the spirit of faith, so this authority, however holy in itself, is 
 nevertheless, by its very nature, confined to the province of 
 spirituals. 
 
 The judicial function also, where it is recognised as dog- 
 matic, is at least subordinate to that other character whose 
 office it is to carry out the work of redemption, to dispense 
 the divine grace, and to bless. For an arbitrary judicial 
 power, where internal caprice is the rule of judgment, and 
 where the execution of its decrees depends on the individual, 
 does not in strict truth deserve this appellation. With as 
 much reason might the anointed head of the state claim by 
 virtue of this consecration and anointing to exercise the func- 
 tions of the spiritual office. 
 
 Further, we may observe, all these sacred offices possess a 
 certain analogy and affinity one with the other. This fact, 
 however, does not in any way militate against the essential 
 and necessary duty of preserving a precise and accurate 
 separation of their several functions. The privacy of home, 
 the family circle, and the relations of domestic life, are by the 
 laws of most nations regarded as a sanctuary which the 
 external power of the state ought not lightly and without grave 
 necessity to violate or profane. On the other hand, in ordi 
 nary language paternal titles are ascribed to the other two 
 powers. But as regards spiritual personages, this is a mere 
 mark of respect ; while as applied to the head of the state, it 
 serves to indicate a special character of goodness and clemency 
 
THE JUDICIAL THE HIGHEST FUNCTION OF KINGS. 281 
 
 in the government. It is not by any means applicable 
 generally to the functions of government as marking its spe- 
 cific nature and essence. For it may not be, nay, perhaps, 
 we should rather say it cannot in all cases be simply and 
 purely paternal. 
 
 Strict impartiality, for instance, is a primary requisition in 
 the judge, but is it possible, nay, would it properly be just, to 
 require this in every case of a father ? The judicial character, 
 however, is the predominant element of political government, 
 and the supreme judicial function is its essential aspect, 
 with which all the other distinctive characteristics or exclusive 
 prerogatives of sovereign power are most intimately con- 
 nected. And on this account, while the paternal authority 
 rests primarily on that tie of souls which consists in the reci- 
 procal affection of parents and children, and while the priestly 
 power is limited to the sacerdotal and spiritual domain, the 
 supreme judicial and sovereign power in the state, which is 
 responsible to God alone, as the highest and paramount of 
 these three sacred and venerated powers, embraces the com- 
 plete whole, if I may so say, the bodily reality of man's public 
 life. And in this sphere of historical reality it will be my 
 endeavour to trace the further development of these three 
 ideas as they manifest themselves in the busy conflict of life 
 and the age. And to this subject I purpose to devote the 
 three following Lectures. 
 
 In concluding our present disquisition I will only add one 
 remark. All these three powers, as founded on nature, on 
 divine revelation, and on historical rights, are alike holy and 
 sacred. The good, that is to say, the prudent and affectionate 
 father, the pious priest, and the righteous king, are each and 
 all, though in different ways and degrees, and with different 
 powers and rights, visible and acting vicegerents on earth of 
 the invisible God. The last, in truth, is not merely the 
 representative but the unlimited dispenser of divine justice. 
 And this divine foundation of these powers, which claim and 
 present an inviolable character of sanctity, forms the practical 
 part of that symbolical signification of life which in its highest 
 phase has formed the theme of the present Lecture. 
 
 EMD OF LECTIN KK XIT. 
 
282 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Of the Spirit of Truth and Life in its application to Politics, or of 
 the Christian Constitution of the State and the Christian Idea of 
 Jurisprudence. 
 
 The Asiatic custom of deifying their earthly rulers by ad- 
 dressing them as King of Kings, Lord or Spanner (Urn- \\ 
 spanner) of Creation, the Effulgence of the Deity, and the 
 like, have ever been and very naturally most repugnant to the 
 moral sense of Christian Europe. The Christian notion and 
 axiom, that all power is of God, is founded on a very definite 
 idea and well-considered principle. And this principle is 
 nothing less than this, that the supreme head of the state has 
 to dispense the divine justice. And while this constitutes the 
 peculiar dignity of his office, he is in the exercise of this his 
 highest function and authority, responsible to God alone. 
 If, however, we should anywhere meet, either in the present 
 times or the history of the past, with a state in which, by the 
 principle of its constitution, the nominal possessor of supreme 
 authority and the executive is responsible to another body, 
 then is the latter in fact the sovereign power, and not the 
 former, which really is subordinate to the other. The Spar- 
 tan constitution will serve to illustrate my meaning. Here, 
 to judge by that strict definition of the sovereign authority 
 and its peculiar character and distinctive criteria, it evidently 
 lay in the Ephori rather than in the possessors of supreme 
 executive power, who were called kings and whose office was 
 hereditary. The very fact that two kings reigned conjointly 
 is of itself subversive of the very notion of sovereign power. 
 But still more fatally was this undermined by their responsi- 
 bility in certain cases to the censorship of the other Spartan 
 magistracy. To the other ancient republics, whose constitu- 
 tion was based naturally enough on a very artificial division of 
 powers, and the maintenance of a certain antagonism and 
 
ALL PREROGATIVES OF SUPREME POWER JUDICIAL. 283 
 
 accurate balance between them, our notion of a supreme and 
 sovereign political authority is scarcely applicable. It is found 
 far more fully expressed in a special character of inviolable 
 sanctity and dignity attaching to certain judicial functions 
 and magistracies, such as that of the Areopagus in Athens 
 and of the censorship at Rome in the days of the Republic, 
 than to the transitory tenure of the executive power, over 
 which those judicial authorities possessed and exercised in 
 certain cases a control. 
 
 The proper and de facto, or personal division of power, is 
 essentially a republican principle. In notion, however, or in 
 idea, it is perfectly legitimate to make a distinction between 
 the several functions and elements of the whole sovereign 
 authority. Now, in such a case, the judicial power — the 
 supreme judicial power we would emphatically say — is pre- 
 eminently the characteristic sign and specific distinction of 
 sovereignty, from which all its other prerogatives and pro- 
 perties are originally derived or flow from it as its necessary 
 and natural consequences. The noble prerogative of pardon 
 and mercy, for instance, is as it were the natural attribute of 
 the supreme judicial power. 
 
 With respect to legislation, however, and the legislative 
 authority ; an important co-ordinate power may, according to 
 the existing constitution of a particular state, be vested in the 
 other correlative members of the body politic. The preliminary 
 deliberation, the first sketch or the initiation of a law, may not 
 perhaps proceed in every case from the supreme head of the 
 community. In other states, again, the law must emanate 
 from the free choice and individual will of the monarch, or at 
 least the introduction of it, since he cannot of himself alone 
 make and carry out the whole. This is a point, consequently, 
 on which it is extremely difficult to draw the boundary line, 
 which must in no case be transgressed or deviated from — in 
 so far, that is, and so long as there is no question about any- 
 thing more than a simple co-operation or co-ordinate delibe- 
 ration upon the proposed law r s. But still in every case the 
 final sanction, by which a law becomes properly the law, or 
 by which it is annulled or repealed, must be reserved to the 
 royal prerogative, otherwise the monarch ceases at once to 
 be supreme. 
 
 Even the prerogative of proclaiming war and of concluding 
 
284 THRONE AND SCEPTRE JUDICIAL SYMBOLS. 
 
 peace is, if perhaps we may be allowed so to say, a judicial 
 function on a large scale, and applied to the external relations 
 of states. It is in short nothing less than a judicial act. And 
 in this light it will appear to every one who does not regard 
 it as a mere act of arbitrary caprice. This, however, it never 
 ought to be. For it is, as it were, a verdict on the existing 
 relations of right and wrong between two neighbouring states. 
 But inasmuch as both parties, in point of right and law, are 
 in so far equal, that they refuse to recognise in common any 
 higher judge, an absolute state of violence necessarily ensues, a 
 struggle of power follows, until at last, in the change of circum- 
 stances, the relations of justice are restored by mutual consent. 
 The party that first proclaims war becomes, in this process of 
 trial by battle, the judge of its own cause. And if by the 
 fearful issue of the combat it is taught to see its own injustice, 
 then must it either make due concessions, or at very best, 
 by calling in the mediation of a third and neutral state, it 
 must constitute it the judge by whose decision it is ready and 
 willing to abide. 
 
 The usual insignia of the kingly dignity, the sceptre and the 
 throne, are only the signs of judicial power, as it were, pro- 
 moted one degree higher, and can be historically traced up to 
 the judge's bench and staff. The crown alone remains as the 
 peculiar and exclusive symbol of the highest earthly dignity. 
 And rightly is it called a splendid burthen. For while it 
 exalts him who is called to wear it above all earthly depen- 
 dence and responsibility, and exempts him from all the ordi- 
 nary relations of human life, the heavy weight of this splendid 
 ornament reminds the wearer of the grave reckoning and the 
 strict account he will have to render to God, as the Supreme 
 Judge of all — who is the source and sum of all justice and 
 righteousness. For this serious and solemn responsibility is 
 received from God, together with and at the same time with 
 the crown. 
 
 Quite different in signification was the symbolical ensign 
 of the old emperors in the middle ages — a sword pointing to 
 the four winds or cardinal points of heaven. It alluded to 
 the peculiar idea and the peculiar constitution of that dignity. 
 For m this respect it was not simply a distinction of power, 
 of rank, or of title, between the imperial and the kingly digni- 
 ties. It involved a total and essential difference between the 
 
KINGS AS WELL AS PRIESTS GOD'S VICEGERENTS. 285 
 
 ideas and objects of these sacred and anointed potentates — 
 between the elective emperor and the hereditary king, duke, 
 or prince, although it was from these alone that the former 
 could be duly and regularly elected. For the emperor was 
 looked upon "as armed with the sword of all Christendom to 
 be the defender of the whole system of European states. 
 Accordingly, as the representative of the union of several 
 states, he bore this ensign of his imperial office. 
 
 To this ancient idea of a Christian empire we shall again 
 have occasion to revert in the further examination of the idea 
 of a political state and its Christian community. We shall 
 meet with it once more in that section of our inquiry which 
 will be occupied with the ruling principle of right and polity 
 in a system of states as a body, and also in the mutual rela- 
 tions of its several members. In this section we shall also 
 show that this principle must be either absolute, that is, one 
 where one or more of the several members of the union exer- 
 cises a superior and preponderating influence, or one artifi- 
 cially constituted and dynamical, t. e., a system of the so-called 
 balance of power. And here will naturally arise the question 
 whether, for such a confederacy of moral and civilised socie- 
 ties and nations, a less imperfect and higher, but common 
 principle of Christian justice might not be found and esta- 
 blished ? For any system of mutual confederation, whether 
 absolute or founded on the artificial relations of the strength 
 of its respective members, is in any case defective and imper- 
 fect, whatever may be the ground of union, whether founded 
 on the internal constitution of the states, or derived from 
 the physical consideration of their geographical position and 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 According, then, to that divine principle and Christian 
 foundation of the state which I have attempted to derive from 
 the symbolical signification of life and the symbolical destiny 
 of man in his relation to God, the highest authority of the 
 state — the king, or generally the monarch, as well as the 
 spiritual functionary, or the priest — are the vicegerents of a 
 highest and divine power, whom they represent on earth. The 
 only difference between them is, that the latter has chiefly to 
 represent and to set forth God as teaching men, but at the 
 same time as warning and commanding them in this revelation 
 of His will, and as promising and as livingly dispensing to them 
 
288 
 
 KEPftESENTATIVE GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 His grace, while the former is the representative of the Omni- 
 potent Lawgiver and Judge, who governs the world with justice, 
 and will by no means clear the guilty. According, therefore, 
 to the true Christian notion of these two powers, both of 
 them — the civil no less than the spiritual — possess a represen- 
 tative character, which, however, deviates very widely from 
 the ordinary notion of the representation and a representative 
 constitution, or rather forms a decided contrast to them. 
 
 And what contrast can in fact be more decided than that 
 which such a representative power and dignity as belongs to 
 the ministering of the divine grace to the soul and spirit, or 
 the dispensing of divine justice to the whole earthly life, 
 forms with that thing of horrible memory,* which has been 
 called a representation of the people, or the systems which 
 have been similarly designated? But even if it could be 
 satisfactorily proved that a people, like the invisible essence 
 of the Deity, could be represented, it is open to very grave 
 doubt whether this is really possible in the method usually 
 adopted. According to the principle of this kind of popular 
 representation, where the whole adult population are en- 
 titled individually to vote, the election becomes as it were a 
 lottery, and even the political winners thus determined, or the 
 ballotted members, become so many influential units in one 
 branch of the legislative body and for a limited period. In 
 respect, however, to the principles and sentiments, the pre- 
 dominant character and spirit of a people, those who are thus 
 chosen are the representatives not so much of the whole nation 
 as of the reigning passion of the moment, or the spirit of the 
 times in its restless agitation. For when thus resolved into 
 its constituent atoms and numbered off in succession, a nation 
 is reduced to an elementary mass. But like all that is thus 
 elementary, when thus decomposed, and fermenting in its pro- 
 cess of dissolution, it assumes a destructive tendency and turn. 
 At least it ceases to form an organic whole, an individual. It 
 is only when a state or nation historically lives on, further 
 developes and vitally maintains itself in its organic members, 
 i. e., in its several estates or essential corporations, that it 
 can be said to form a living whole, and to be as it were one 
 great individual. 
 
 * SchJegel is apparently referring to the Constituent Assembly of *he 
 French Revolution. — Trans. 
 
GREAT MEN A NATION S TRUE REPRESENTATIVES. 287 
 
 It is only in this sense that there can be true representatives 
 of a people, who, if the expression is allowable, are its true 
 historical men. It is in them that the spirit and character, 
 the general leaning tendency, the peculiar style of feeling, 
 sentiment, and thought of a nation, in any definite period or 
 periods, finds its most decided and loudest expression. Rarely, 
 however, is this attained in a system of elective deputies or 
 representatives, which is liable to many passing and accidental 
 influences, and indeed in and by itself has no connexion with 
 it. Scipio and Cato would be representatives of the Roman 
 character and spirit, even if they had never been invested 
 with public authority and had lived their whole lives in exile. 
 And in the same manner purely intellectual natures may 
 often stand for such historical characters and representatives. 
 Horace and Tacitus most assuredly occupy the same relation 
 to their respective ages as the two former did to theirs, and 
 this in truth quite independently of any subordinate rank or 
 political dignity and influence which either the one or the 
 other possessed in peace or war. Cicero, indeed, would have 
 been all this in an equal degree, and perhaps still more so, if, 
 keeping entirely aloof from the civil contentions of his day, 
 for which he was little suited, he had devoted himself to the 
 acquisition of a purely intellectual and literary influence. 
 
 However, it is not every famous author or every brilliant 
 political speaker that can in this sense be justly regarded as 
 historical characters. Besides that energy of talent which 
 creates an epoch, and which is indeed the primary and essen- 
 tial condition, certain other properties of character are re- 
 quired, certain sentiments and principles vividly carried out 
 and realised in life and action. But this is a combination 
 which is rarely found. A peculiar sphere of practical influence 
 does not form an immediate, nor indeed, a necessary qualifi- 
 cation of such a character. Still it is evident that a writer 
 who truly merits such an appellation must be something more 
 than a mere man of letters or an artist. The effects he pro- 
 duces on the minds of men must be. both truly national and 
 historical. Such alone are truly and properly the historical 
 representatives of a people — the men of their nation. 
 :; As for those other elective representatives already men- 
 tioned, it is only when they belong to a particular estate and 
 corporation, and represent it, that they can promote the per- 
 
288 THE CHRISTIAN STATE AN HEREDITARY MONARCHY. 
 
 manent interests of this organically constituted whole. For it 
 is out of such organic members that the national existence 
 gains its true, i. its historical development. But this is 
 impossible whenever they are chosen by the individual votes 
 of the entire population. Such a splitting of the whole poli- 
 tical body, as it were, into its constituent atoms, is either in 
 itself an elementary decomposition or must eventually lead to 
 it. Even a republican constitution, if it be well and wisely 
 ordered, will be based principally on corporations or organic 
 division of estates, rather than on any principle of numerical 
 majority and equality, which, taken as a general element, inva- 
 riably proves, as histoiy testifies, sooner or later, a positive 
 source of anarchy. 
 
 Not only would it be an exaggeration, but even a gross 
 error, were we to regard the republican polity as excluded 
 from the Christian principle, that all sovereignty is of God, or 
 as irreconcilable with it and even as directly contradicting its 
 spirit. On the contrary, the duty of obedience and the actual 
 dependence on the existing and de facto head of the state, is 
 not less binding on all who through the accident of birth or 
 their own free choice and voluntary obligation belong to such 
 a community, than on the subjects of an hereditary monarchy. 
 The utmost that can be safely asserted, is that the Christian 
 state principle inclines rather to the latter form of polity, with- 
 out, however, formally rejecting or unconditionally excluding 
 the former. Historical experience has shown this, and the 
 whole of modern history will furnish abundant testimony to 
 its truth. When the responsibility of the supreme political 
 authority is in an endless circle shifted from point to point of 
 a mere human sphere, then the sacred character of the divine 
 foundation of the state exhibits itself with least distinctness. 
 It is more immediately manifest in an hereditary monarchy, 
 where by a single point, as the first link which holds together 
 the whole community, this responsibility is attached imme- 
 diately to God and the divine justice, before whose tribunal 
 it has alone to answer. And this more immediate mani- 
 festation forms the ground of that preponderating tendency 
 and preference of the monarchical constitution by the Chris- 
 tian principle. 
 
 But in another respect also is it easier to give a religious 
 meaning to political life in an hereditary monarchy, and to 
 
REPUBLICS VERi' LIABLE TO ADVERSE CHANGES. 289 
 
 discharge its duties and to maintain it in a religious spirit, 
 than in a republic. Since all that is human is subject to 
 change, fluctuation, and imperfection, it would be something 
 wonderful if the case were different with political matters, 
 and if the state were to form a singular exception from the 
 general rule. Such an expectation would indeed be strange, 
 and contrary to the nature of things, as well as to reason and 
 common sense. For, to take an instance from that people 
 whom God so specially and immediately led and directed ; after 
 a wise Solomon has long and peacefully occupied the throne, 
 with prosperity at home and splendour and renown abroad, 
 the reins of government may fall into the weak hands of a 
 minor, when, even without any personal culpability, all hostile 
 elements come to an outbreak, and lead to the most fearful 
 political consequences. And even Solomon, with a wisdom 
 which in many respects was more than human, was not secure 
 6:0m all mistakes and errors. For inasmuch as after receiving 
 this illumination from above, this wisdom lent to him from God, 
 he still remained a free agent, he might, as he actually did, 
 pervert it to an evil use. Like everything else that is good, 
 it was liable to abuse by man. Generally it does not lie in the 
 nature of things that in long succession and change of times one 
 reign should be equally mild and paternal as another, equally 
 prosperous and splendid, and equally wise and successful. 
 
 This, indeed, is a matter which does not depend invariably 
 and exclusively on the personal qualities of the sovereign. It 
 is governed much more by the peculiar circumstances of the 
 age, and the general relations of the political world. We 
 should err greatly if we were to suppose, or feel inclined to 
 assert, that this change, from happy and prosperous to adverse 
 or less fortunate times, is less frequent in republican states, or 
 that the latter are entirely exempted from such fluctuations. 
 History furnishes numerous instances to refute so absurd an 
 idea. On the contrary, such changes are far more generally 
 the rule in republican states, and their ruin advances with a 
 more rapid and certain progress. For the growth of a re- 
 public in external power and influence, and the consequent 
 multiplication of its relations with foreign powers, is invaria- 
 bly accompanied with great internal agitation, leading to sud- 
 den and violent changes. The greatest and most important 
 difference, however, lies in this, that in an hereditary monarchy 
 
290 DISADVANTAGES OF A REPUBLICAN POLITY. 
 
 the change from a distinguished to an unfortunate and less 
 prosperous reign is distinct, and has an assignable cause, 
 which, by a natural and just sentiment, is received as a divine 
 visitation, and wherever any sense of religion still survives and 
 prevails in men's views of Hie, will be patiently endured as such. 
 Accordingly, besides its mere legal sense, the maxim that all 
 authority is of God now assumes the further significance of a 
 divine dispensation. And it is clearly manifest that this 
 Christian maxim and principle was intended to convey this 
 second meaning, and that it embraces such a religious view 
 and estimate of political matters and events. 
 
 Now it is true that the Providence of God extends to all 
 events and circumstances of the world. Every permission, 
 therefore, of evil, whether in a greater or less degree, every 
 misfortune and calamity that happens to us, must, from this 
 point of view, be regarded either as a well-merited punishment 
 or as a severe trial, as a wholesome pang and conflict or as a 
 painful transition to a higher degree of perfection. This, at 
 least, will be our feeling, in proportion as we entertain and 
 faithfully follow a religious view and estimate of our own life 
 and fortunes, as well as of all mundane events, in a firm and 
 unshaken faith in the Divine Omnipotence and Wisdom. 
 Even for the preservation and health of his physical life, man 
 stands in need of pain and privation, but still more so for his 
 moral improvement. 
 
 Now, notwithstanding that this principle of a divine pro- 
 vidence is equally applicable in every case, still, even the 
 religious estimate, not to say a simply human mode of judging 
 of political events and relations, is in republics subject to the 
 following important and essential modification. In such a 
 constitution, all hangs, or is made dependent, on the choice or 
 the caprice of men, or, if such terms be preferred, their merit 
 and intelligence. Consequently, the entire blame of every 
 error or miscarriage in government, whether real or imaginary, 
 and however great or little, is forthwith ascribed to its human 
 administrators. But an injury at the hands of man invariably 
 provokes bitterness, revenge, and opposition. On the con- 
 trary, a misfortune which overtakes us from God, and which, 
 a«? being unable to impute the blame of it to any human indi- 
 vidual, we feel and recognise to be a divine visitation, awakens 
 h\ us whole&ome and salutary reflection. Thus it is founded 
 
HEREDITARY MONARCHY THE TRUE CHRISTIAN POLITY. 291 
 
 on the very nature of things, and on a right and sound state 
 of human feeling, that a change from a year of plenty to one 
 of want and barrenness, should be borne with patience and 
 resignation. But if, on the other hand, a general scarcity and 
 dearth, or any similar affliction and disproportion between 
 the supply and demand of the necessaries of life, should occur 
 among a trading or manufacturing population, of which the 
 source should really or apparently lie in some erroneous 
 measure or selfish policy of those on whom the administration 
 of the state devolved, all minds would immediately be in a 
 state of excitement and uproar. And, in fact, the words of 
 the pious king in Holy Writ: " Let us fall now into the hands 
 of the Lord, for His mercies are great : and let me not fall 
 into the hand of man,"* are quite in unison with the general 
 feelings of human nature. 
 
 Accordingly, throughout the sacred history of the old world, 
 and in all times where religious sentiment is not quite dead, 
 such calamities and even an unfortunate, not to say a wicked 
 reign, are looked upon as the deserved visitation of God's 
 wrath, and as a time of heavy trial. And the chastisement of 
 Heaven will be borne, by all right-thinking persons, not out 
 of fear of man, but as is fitting, in reverent submission to the 
 divine will, with manly patience and resignation. On the other 
 hand, innumerable instances of a contrary course might be 
 produced from republican times and histories. How often, in 
 such states, has a false step in government, trifling, indeed, in 
 itself, but still, in fact and in truth, a blunder, in one party, 
 been the occasion of an opposition and resistance of another, 
 and of a general feeling of discontent and a violent reaction, 
 which have proved a hundred times more fatal and pernicious 
 than the first occasion of popular murmurs. How often has 
 a merely human oversight, trivial enough in itself, and running 
 counter to public opinion in some little trifle, led to the most 
 fearful catastrophes, amidst which the first exciting cause is 
 lost sight of and entirely forgotten, and finally all is involved 
 in one general ruin. 
 
 In this respect, and in this degree, it may safely be affirmed 
 that the Christian principle of the state is more favourable to 
 an hereditary monarchy than to a republican constitution. But 
 
 * 2 Sam. xxiv. 14. 
 U 1 
 
292 CHRISTIANITY THE TfiUE GUARDIAN OF LIBERTY. 
 
 at this point the proposition must be left purposely indeter- 
 minate. For a rigorous exclusion of all republican states, as 
 if, properly, they could never be right and legitimate, would 
 most assuredly not be accordant with the Christian principle 
 of a state and the fundamental religious conception of all 
 political relations and events. On the contrary, it would, 
 undoubtedly, go directly counter to all proper feelings and 
 ideas on the subject. For the Christian principle of justice 
 respects all that has an historical existence, and leaves even 
 the imperfect in the undisturbed possession of its rights. In 
 this respect it is entirely opposed to the revolutionary spirit. 
 For the latter, in its inmost essence, is anti-historical ; its first 
 step being the refusal to recognise the value and the claims 
 of all that comes down from, and has been established by, the 
 past. And, moreover, the Christian idea of Justice, with all its 
 strict rigour, involves a principle of equity. For, in truth, 
 every Christian sentiment embraces the whole of life, and its 
 several relations, with a loving mildness, and pays a due re- 
 gard to all really existant though subordinate circumstances. 
 And it is this exactly that constitutes the very notion of 
 equity. Lastly, the doctrine of Christianity, and the idea of 
 human life which it gives rise to, is highly favourable to true 
 liberty. But, then, it is liberty, in a large and exalted sense 
 of the term, in which, first and before all, a spiritual and 
 moral freedom is meant as necessary to be firmly established 
 within men before the external liberty in social and political 
 life can be hoped for. For most true is the sublime declara- 
 tion, " If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'"* 
 To every one for whom this sentiment possesses a meaning 
 and significance it would be superfluous to add, what, in- 
 deed, is so palpably evident, that the Son makes no one free 
 except in the way that He Himself was, viz., by obedience — 
 a perfect obedience which brings the whole man, with all its 
 passions and affections, as a free-will offering to the Father. 
 
 The predominant tendency of modern Christendom to a 
 monarchical constitution, as most accordant with the Christian 
 principle of the state, is abundantly evinced in history. The 
 fact is so generally admitted, that it is almost a work of super- 
 erogation to adduce instances of it. Not only within the 
 memory of living men. but also two centuries ago, a great 
 * John viii. 36. 
 
ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND, POLAND. 
 
 293 
 
 Christian monarchy, fanatically possessed and inflamed with 
 the idea of absolute liberty and equality, lapsed for a while into 
 a republic. But in both cases this passing fever of fanaticism 
 soon worked itself out by its very violence, and the foreign 
 and diseased matter was thrown off by the political body. It 
 was out of this crisis, however, that the much lauded constitu- 
 tion of England arose, with its dynamical theory of the division 
 and nicely adjusted balance of power, which has reached at 
 present so great a height of practical excellence. Moreover, it 
 is almost superfluous to notice the fact how a second-rate mari- 
 time power, which in its very origin was entirely republican, 
 gradually approximated to, and has at last entirely adopted a 
 monarchical polity.*' Another state, monarchical indeed, but 
 which, from the fact that its sovereigns were elective, deserves 
 rather to be called a republic, and in some respects was really 
 so, amidst the anarchy of party and the feuds which arose out 
 of the elections, soon lost its ancient greatness and splendour, 
 and even its existence as an independent nation. In short, in 
 the whole of Christian Europe, but a few small and uninfluen- 
 tial communities have retained a republican form. As for the 
 republics which have sprung up out of the colonial states in 
 the new world, the very oldest of them are of too recent an 
 origin to allow us to pass upon them any judgment which 
 could be justly and truly called historical. On the other hand, 
 however, the modern Christian era furnishes one remarkable 
 phenomenon of a republican state on a large scale, and of a 
 wholly peculiar kind. And we may adduce this instance as a 
 proof that such a constitution is by no means excluded from 
 the spirit of a Christian polity or its legitimate and historical 
 principle. 
 
 I am alluding to the ancient German, or the Christian 
 Roman Empire of the middle ages, during a period of many 
 centuries, and in the time of its vigour and splendour, when it 
 led, not to say formed, the great political world, f As an 
 elective empire, but still monarchical in the unity of the 
 
 * In this and the following sentence Schlegel is alluding to Holland 
 and Poland. — Trans. 
 
 t The Kaiser was in theory the temporal lord of the whole earth ; 
 according to the words of the Sachsen- Spiegel, " Zwei swert liess Got in 
 ertriche zu oeschirmene dy Cristenheit, dem Pabste das geistlicbe, den 
 Keiser das weritliche." "Two swords has God left to the world to protect 
 
294 
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 whole, it possessed so far a republican tendency and shape. 
 And this it preserved even long afterwards, when, by a long 
 succession of emperors of the same house, the imperial crown 
 had in fact become almost the hereditary right of a single 
 family. For the solemn sanction of an election was still indis- 
 pensable, and this gave rise to more than one exception or 
 interruption to the otherwise historically confirmed law of 
 succession. Moreover, this great system or confederation of 
 states embraced many smaller and principally republican 
 states ; at least in its members were comprised every possible 
 form of political constitution. The four great dukedoms, who 
 in the imperial diet were the original representatives, together 
 with the other hereditary powers which subsequently attained 
 to the electoral dignity, formed as it were the monarchical 
 element in the whole body, retaining, however, at the same 
 time, its national and popular character. Alongside of these the 
 spiritual princes, as entirely dependent on choice and election 
 for their dignities, formed an aristocracy, not only of birth, 
 but of science and the intellectual culture of the age — in 
 short, an aristocracy of merit. Lastly, the trading and manu- 
 facturing free towns, with their imperial privileges and char- 
 ters, formed among the other members of the Empire, a true 
 democratical element, in the highest and noblest sense of the 
 
 Christianity ; (having given) to the Pope the spiritual, and the temporal 
 to the Emperor." The claim of the Empire to universal dominion was 
 indicated by the sword pointing to the four points of the heavens, while as 
 the " Holy Empire" it was its duty to exterminate not only the Heathens 
 and the Moslems, but also the false Christians, as the members of the 
 Greek Church were regarded by the West. In the mediaeval constitution of 
 the Empire, a symbolical character prevails throughout. Seven were its 
 shields : of these the first was borne by the Emperor ; the second by the 
 spiritual Electors ; the third by the temporal Princes ; the fourth and 
 fifth by the Counts and Knights of the Empire ; the sixth by their vassals ; 
 and the seventh by the free burghers and peasants. Seven, also, was the 
 original number of the Hereditary Electors of the Empire. Three spiritual 
 Princes, the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves, as chancellors 
 respectively of the Empire, of Burgundy, and of Italy. Four temporal 
 Electors: the Prince Palatine of the Rhine, who as grand-carver carried 
 the imperial apple at the coronation ; the Duke of Saxony Wittemberg, 
 who as marshal carried the sword ; the Margrave of Brandenburg, who as 
 grand-chamberlain bore the sceptre ; and the King of Bohemia, who as 
 cupbearer presented the cup. The election of the Emperor was held at 
 Frankfort- on -the-Maine ; the coronation at Aix ; and the new Emperor 
 held his first diet at Nuremberg. — Trans. 
 
1 
 
 MIXED MONARCHY DESPOTISM. 295 
 
 term. For we must not understand thereby any mere univer- 
 sal equality, leading to the usual popular anarchy, but cor- 
 
 I porations, with well-defined rights, of the burgher classes, as 
 
 I they attained to historical importance and influence. The 
 very name of the Hanse Towns is sufficient to remind us of 
 the vast and important part which the latter played, even in 
 the declining times of the Empire. 
 
 Thus free and republican in its spirit was the old Christian 
 monarchy of the German Kaisers. It had no doubt to undergo 
 many convulsions from domestic faction, and finally sunk be- 
 neath them. Still this political constitution of the middle 
 ages, in their best days, must for ever remain a remarkable 
 and singular phenomenon. Its full and deep significance and 
 grandeur are little recognised, and still less perfectly under- 
 
 I stood, by the modern science of politics. Peculiarly Christian 
 in principle, in its kingly administration as vigorous and suc- 
 cessful as any other state in the most brilliant eras of the his- 
 tory of the world, while in the internal development of its 
 republican members and constituents it was more rich and 
 varied, and in truth much freer than even the most lauded 
 among the mixed constitutions of modern times. For his- 
 torical experience, that great teacher of political science, 
 distinctly proves that in those dynamical states, which are 
 based on the principle of the division and nicely adjusted 
 balance of power, the ministry and the opposition usurp be- 
 tween them all the functions of authority, while the sacred 
 cypher of an hereditary monarch is nothing more than a mere 
 
 1 shadow, beneath which they can sit at ease to carry on their 
 endless disputes. 
 
 The Christian view, then, of the world and of the state, as 
 we have already remarked, does not exclude or reject any 
 form of political existence. On the contrary, it recognises 
 whatever possesses an historical cause and foundation, and 
 allows it to stand in its proper place and in its true and 
 original significance and rights. Accordingly, it admits the 
 validity as such even of the dynamical form of polity, even 
 though it feels it impossible to agree with partial and enthu- 
 siastic admirers in considering it as perfect. Nay, it does not 
 reject even an alsolute despotism, notwithstanding that it sees 
 clearly enough all its imperfections and great inferiority. It is 
 only by a complete view of history that their existence can be 
 
296 DESPOTISM THE NATURAL ISSUE OF ANARCHY. 
 
 explained and understood. And in this they will appear 
 either as a necessary evil in its mildest form — i. e., as the less 
 pernicious and dangerous, under existing circumstances, or as 
 a remedy for some more fearful disorder, by which alone the 
 social frame can be restored to a more healthy condition. 
 
 The usual transition and natural issue of popular anarchy, 
 when it has lasted long enough to exhaust its own fearful 
 violence, is a perpetual dictatorship or despotism in some 
 shape or other, but devoid of a higher and divine sanction. 
 This form of government, or (since strictly speaking it is not 
 a form) this political condition, must be carefully distin- 
 guished from a long- established, legitimate, and hereditary 
 monarchy, with which its whole character has nothing in 
 common. No doubt when the revolutionary evil has reached 
 its greatest height, and when a successful and prudent usurper, 
 like the much lauded Augustus in ancient Rome, without 
 being personally answerable for the overthrow of the previous 
 constitution, appears pre-eminently in the character of medi- 
 ator between parties and a general pacificator, the world is 
 ready to accord to him its applause. Gradually his authority 
 is more and more widely acknowledged. Although at first he 
 is recognised conditionally only and relatively, nevertheless, 
 if he remains faithful to his better tendencies, and continues 
 to the last to confer important benefits on his people, he may 
 often give a permanent and historical foundation to his 
 dynasty. But if, on the contrary, under his usurped power, 
 revolution, phenix-like, only renews itself out of its own 
 ashes, and the old anarchy from below revives in another 
 form from above, as a merely military despotism, which in its 
 restless and annihilating lust of conquest honours nothing, but 
 throws the whole world into confusion, then is the second 
 evil worse than the first, which it promised to remedy. By 
 such a course it loses its only moral foundation, inasmuch as 
 it was to the better promise it held out that it owed its tem- 
 porary and conditional recognition. Such an instance has 
 been brought closely enough before our eyes in the history 
 of very recent times, to enable us at once intuitively to un- 
 derstand its whole character. More slowly and in a more 
 organised method, and consequently with more lasting and 
 historical results, did such transitions shape themselves m the 
 ancient world, and especially in the Roman constitution. The 
 
RESULTS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 29? 
 
 ancient development therefore of this phenomenon, and its 
 special form, is highly instructive and pre-eminently calculated 
 to throw a clear light on our whole theory. 
 
 Modern history at no period presents to us such a vast 
 system of republican states as we meet with in the annals of 
 antiquity, which exhibit this under the most various forms, as 
 the predominant constitution of the whole civilised world, not 
 only in its infant, but in its maturest and most flourishing 
 development. Not only the Grecian communities, Carthage, 
 Home, and the Italian municipalities, but also all the inde- 
 pendent nations of central and northern Europe, possessed a 
 more or less perfect form of republican polity. This portion, 
 therefore, of ancient history furnishes to political science a 
 phenomenon which in the highest degree demands its atten- 
 tion. However greatly its freedom of inquiry and high intel- 
 lectual culture, its splendid examples of patriotism and its 
 noble characters and heroic deeds, may prepossess us in its 
 favour, on the whole we are forced to confess that experience 
 has decided against such a system. This great teacher shows 
 it to us as utterly impracticable, and ill adapted to promote 
 the real progress of human development, inasmuch as with 
 whatever of brightest promise it may begin, it invariably ter- 
 minates in barbarism and disorder. In all of these states we 
 trace early enough the same evil tendency to political licence 
 and anarchy, which, developing itself with ceaseless rapidity, 
 soon paves the way to the indeterminate condition of absolute 
 power. Almost all the great thinkers and political writers 
 of antiquity, without exception, set themselves to oppose the 
 democratic element of their national constitutions, and fore- 
 saw and predicted the ruin of their country from this source, 
 without being able in any way to prevent it. It will be 
 enough to mention Plato in Athens, and in a different manner 
 and degree, Cicero in Home, who was himself drawn into the 
 vortex of political strife. The remedy and counterpoise for 
 the evils of this democratical spirit was sought by the poli- 
 tical thinkers and philosophers of those times, in a doubtlessly 
 noble but still very imperfect form of an aristocracy — a remedy 
 which is as little consonant to our feelings, as it is unlikely to 
 satisfy our scientific convictions. A just and clear idea of 
 an hereditary and well-regulated monarchy was at that date 
 almost entirely unknown, since in its essential features, in 
 
298 
 
 RESULTS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 its true and perfect character, it is entirely of a Christian 
 origin. In the ancient world, at most, a few and faint out- 
 lines of it are occasionally to be discovered. 
 
 The internal and external dissensions of the republics of 
 Greece, and the consequent loss of their independence and 
 subjugation by the Macedonian monarchy, or the half Asiatic 
 half Grecian powers which sprang out of it, affords a sufficient 
 confirmation of the law that the republican constitution, in 
 the times of moral degeneracy, invariably terminates in popu- 
 lar anarchy and ruin. The same transition in the Romai 
 polity presents us with interesting considerations of a higher 
 but different kind. For in this instance the change was 
 effected with clear ideas, definite views, and well-digested 
 principles. After a long and unparalleled succession of 
 bloody civil wars, and an equally fearful series of foreign 
 conquest and aggression, which were almost indispensable 
 as an outlet for the wild and ambitious passions of men, the 
 catastrophe which forecasting minds had long foreseen ai 
 last came about. And instead of continuing a hopeless resist- 
 ance, it was now the first object of the wise and prudent to 
 convert the new military power into an instrument of peace, 
 rtnd by investing f^e modern but absolute authority with all 
 fhe old and halloa -vd forms 6$ dignity, to bring it as near as 
 possible to the character of an hereditary monarchy. It is to 
 the tendency to improvement which forms the germ of these 
 ideas that we must look for the apology, while in the course 
 of history at this period there lies whatever there can be ot 
 reason and justification for such absolute despotism as pre- 
 vailed at this era in the political world. In itself, however, 
 it cannot be too often repeated, it is altogether formless and 
 full of imperfection. A true family succession and hereditary 
 dynasty, however, was scarcely possible, so long as there 
 existed no limit to caprice in adoption or divorce ; and when 
 all the relations of marriage and the family were undermined 
 by the universal corruption in morals, which the better 
 emperors sought in vain to check and restrain. 
 
 By the ascription to the imperial dignity of priestly offices 
 and titles belonging to the popular religion, it was indeed 
 attempted to give to it a more sacred character and sanction. 
 This, however, secured to the emperor no real accession of 
 power. Such was the state of decay and weakness in which 
 
THE ft OMAN ±jAW. 
 
 299 
 
 religion, no less than morals, was sunk. The heathenism of 
 those days consisted in nothing but some poetical legends, ex- 
 ternal rites, and ceremonial pomp, which occasionally found a 
 philosophical interpretation, but without a proper intrinsic 
 substance and coherence and an organised priesthood — all 
 which are to be still found in the ancient religion of the 
 Hindoos. And it was only a natural addition to the other 
 numerous inconsistencies — it only rendered the whole drama 
 the more revolting, if, after an inhuman reign, and after being 
 at last put out of the way in a very human, and, at the same 
 time, very inhuman way, the hated tyrant was in conclusion 
 placed among the national gods. And if under Aurelius and 
 the Antonines better days appeared, still they were but brief 
 and transitory, since they did not, and in truth could not, 
 possess any historical confirmation and moral basis like that 
 of the hereditary monarchy of Christian times and states. 
 
 In jurisprudence, not only as a science, but in its prac- 
 tical administration, the Romans have in all ages, and even 
 modern times, been justly famous. One reason, perhaps, of 
 this was the fact, that all who still retained the least sense of 
 right and justice, withdrawing from the dangers of political 
 life and honours, retired to the still inviolate domain of law, 
 and devoted themselves to the development of the old juris- 
 tic principles. But when the whole social frame and the 
 very principle of civil existence has become in its inmost 
 essence unrighteous, and based on injustice, a few just laws 
 about property, and robbery, and fraud, and murder, and the 
 like (offences which, generally speaking, are for the most part 
 essentially the same in all times and places,) can profit little. 
 Equally unavailing, too, are the shrewdest and most sagacious 
 of juridical treatises on such topics. To extol the Roman 
 Empire on this ground would be tantamount to praising one 
 of the worst and most pernicious systems of philosophical error, 
 or excusing it because it does not violate, or rather, because 
 it necessarily observes, the ordinary rules of logic — which, 
 however, does not by any means lessen or remove the error, 
 but, on the contrary, aggravates it ; since by rendering it so 
 much the more specious, it does but gain for it a more ready 
 acceptance among men. 
 
 In the later epoch of the Christian renovation of the Roman 
 Empire in the German, the better elements of the old Roman 
 
300 
 
 GERMAN CUSTOMARY LAW. 
 
 jurisprudence were rich in valuable and beneficial results. 
 Still the Christian principle of the state accords better with 
 the old Teutonic laws than with the civil code, inasmuch as 
 by the old German usages a greater regard is paid and a higher 
 influence allowed to the rights, of equity. No doubt but the 
 Roman jurisprudence has most acutely defined and developed 
 this beautiful notion ; but it is chiefly as an exception from 
 strict right that it recognises it at all. For such was the 
 Roman law from its commencement ; and it was regarded and 
 established as the proper province of equity to moderate and 
 to soften its original sternness and severity. But according 
 to Christian law, equity and strict right ought to be in every 
 instance intimately associated and blended together, as is 
 indeed implied in the very idea of Christian sentiment and 
 feeling. 
 
 Herein lies consequently the great and essential distinction 
 between Roman and Christian law. And this is the principle 
 on which a thorough and systematic development of Christian 
 jurisprudence must proceed, and in such a spirit alone can it 
 be consistently carried out. A second distinctive mark of 
 Christian law and of its very conception consists in this, that 
 beyond all others it is founded on historical rights. No doubt 
 in its simple and natural character the Germanic custom 
 invariably tends towards an historical legislation, both for the 
 burgher and for the private individual, and is so far perfectly 
 reconcilable with the Christian principle of right and justice. 
 But in the full and extensive signification of the term, as it 
 embraces the state, and all such powers of the civilised world 
 as are brought by geographical contact into political relations 
 with each other, it is only the Christian principle of right 
 that can be truly said to be historical. For none but the 
 Christian view of the world really embraces in its plans and 
 consideration the whole of mankind. 
 
 Had man not fallen from the very first into dissension and 
 discontent with himself and his fellows, with nature and with 
 God, society would have stood in no need of a constraining 
 force, or of the state to constrain it. For what else is the state 
 but an armed neutrality for the preservation of peace, a sword 
 of justice against wrong, whether from individuals or com- 
 munities, a fortress and a bulwark against unjus>t attacks and 
 the violence of war ? And whence but from that only perfect 
 
THE CHRISTIAN JURISPRUDENCE. 
 
 301 
 
 system — the system of Christian truth and the first opening 
 of revelation — can we derive the explanation of that which is 
 but the propagation of the old evil and the primal curse? 
 Does it not furnish, in the first wrong and the first fratricide, 
 the historical derivation and origin of the state, accounting for 
 it as the divinely appointed protection against man's inborn 
 tendency to injustice ? And if in any other history or tradi- 
 tion a tolerably clear and definite allusion to such ideas 
 exists, it was without doubt originally derived from the same 
 source. 
 
 It is, however, as in my last Lecture I have already endea- 
 voured to show, in the second and new divine commencement 
 of the human race, that we are to look for the true sanction 
 and foundation of the state. For it is in this renovation of 
 mankind that their true intrinsic and higher peace was first 
 proclaimed and offered to him. Not, however, perfect peace, 
 for that is to be the fruit and reward of having " fought a good 
 fight." * Still it is in the meantime a sure and everlasting 
 Vsis of future peace, and an ever-growing germ of tranquillity 
 even in the present. Viewed in this light, then, every human 
 peace which is not merely specious and pretended, but honestly 
 intended, and in so far Christian, however imperfect and par- 
 tial, forms, nevertheless, a step in the great scale of progres- 
 sion — an approximation and a preparation to that universal 
 and all-embracing peace of God which is higher than all 
 reason, and all the disputes which arise out of or about it. 
 
 If injustice and wrong should ever disappear totally from the 
 earth — if the peace of God were actually established thereon, 
 then would the end of law be attained, and all institutions for 
 its accomplishment would become superfluous. Law presup- 
 poses a condition of struggle, and is intended to endure as 
 long as it lasts. It is itself nothing less than a struggle against 
 wrong. The Christian view, accordingly, and theory of law, 
 m far higher. In a scientific point of view, too, it alone is 
 satisfactory on this account, that it recognises a higher prin- 
 ciple as the source of right, or as right itself, and that it alone 
 contains in itself the historical key for the whole, and embraces 
 at once the beginning and the end. But now the Christian 
 idea of right is thus historical, not merely because it furnishes 
 a complete explanation of the first beginning of wrong, and 
 gives an historical derivation of the divine sanction of the 
 * 2 Tim. iv. 7. 
 
302 COMPARISON OF ROMAN WITH MAHOMMEDAN EMPIRE. 
 
 state ; but also in this sense, that in obedience to the principle 
 of equity, as extended to the wider relations of political life, 
 and to the law of toleration founded on this feeling, it respects 
 even the imperfect and inferior degrees of right, whenever, at 
 least, they are the unavoidable results of a previous course of 
 things, and possess an historical foundation, and are established 
 as less evil, and at least as comparatively good. And this 
 explains, what is otherwise incomprehensible, how the Christian 
 sense of right could reconcile itself to the absolute form or 
 rather formlessness of the later Roman world, and being gra- 
 dually associated and fused therewith, led to its complete 
 renovation in the exalted phenomenon of a Christian empire. 
 
 This peace-loving and tolerant recognition of imperfect 
 political constitutions and forms of state, is only applicable, 
 however, where the absolute and the pernicious had its founda- 
 tion in some historical occasion, and where, by a natural course 
 of development, the evil has followed as the result of some pre- 
 vious defective condition of the political body. It has no place 
 where the evil is radical and of spontaneous growth, as in the 
 empire of Mahommet, and of his immediate successors. For 
 a fanatical lust of conquest was introduced in the first germ 
 of this dynasty, and indeed formed its foundation and its ani- 
 mating and vital principle. The brilliant success and per- 
 sonal talents of the first caliphs may indeed win our admiration 
 and chain our imagination, but still in the very worst times of 
 the old Roman world absolute power never presented itself in 
 so unmitigated a form as it does in this empire of deadly 
 fanaticism. This is the calm judgment of history. In the 
 former case the evil sprung chiefly from the personal caprice 
 of individual tyrants ; in the latter, the pervading principle 
 was despotism, which, on the whole, remained unchanged in 
 the most famous and greatest characters. For such immuta- 
 bility is an essential principle of despotism whenever the spiri- 
 tual and the temporal power are held by the same hand, and 
 are united in one common centre and sovereign. 
 
 In another point of view also, that, viz., of the moral esti- 
 mate, the historical comparison between the old Roman and 
 the Mahommedan empires turns out to the disadvantage of the 
 latter. In the later times of the Roman Empire, the family 
 relations, and the sacred ties of married life, were no doubt 
 greatly disturbed and perverted by the prevailing tone of im- 
 morality. But among the Mahommedans they were entirely 
 
SPREAD OF CHRISTIAN IDEAS AMONG MAHOMMEDANS. 303 
 
 overthrown by a false religion. Even in this respect, there- 
 fore, it is evident that there could be no place in the latter for 
 that moral foundation of a long established family unity, such 
 as a civilised state like the Christian monarchy requires. It is 
 nothing strange, consequently, if in the times of the Arabian 
 dynasty, the Mahommedan state stood in more decided opposi - 
 tion, and proved less reconcilable to the Christian polity than 
 ever heathenism did in the days of ancient Rome. But not- 
 withstanding this, we find, on the other side, the Christian 
 principle of peace extending itself even to the historical phe- 
 nomena and political relations of the Mahommedan world. 
 For the most part (and in a greater degree with the advance 
 of time) these events have been judged in that mild spirit of 
 historical justice, which, in its complete and comprehensive 
 estimate, allows a due consideration to every motive and 
 circumstance. 
 
 Moreover, a high principle of toleration has extended to 
 them the benefit of the international laws of Christian states 
 — a policy which only requires to be rightly understood to 
 be pronounced in noways deserving of blame or reprobation. 
 For the evil can only be radically extirpated by the complete 
 triumph of Christian .truth over the false foundation and lead- 
 ing idea of this fanatical delusion. 
 
 But however improbable it may seem, regarded merely in 
 an historical light, that the Mahommedan races will ever adopt 
 Christian sentiments, morals, and principles, still in the great 
 course of mundane things, or in other words, in the counsels 
 of Providence, nothing, however it may contradict human 
 expectations, can rightly be held to be impossible. And, 
 indeed, recent times furnish many speaking indications of a 
 growing tendency to such an approximation. Many signs might 
 be pointed out, which, while they bear witness to a widening 
 and deepening feeling of its desirableness, encourage us to en- 
 tertain higher and better hopes. To promote, and indeed to 
 co-operate in bringing about so great and divine a consumma- 
 tion, so long as it can be done without violating higher duties 
 and principles, does not appear to go in any degree beyond the 
 sphere of a truly Christian and pacific policy, or to interfere 
 with the relations which it is right to observe in regard to non- 
 Christian states. On the contrary, the worst violation thereof, 
 and one that most surely menaces danger and mischief, is for 
 a Christian state, in direct opposition to its natural principle 
 
304 COIJ rSTON BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 and vocation, to be seized and actuated by a fanatical lust of 
 oonquest similar to that which animated the Saracens. Such a 
 subversion and confusion of all moral ideas, and of political 
 life, was publicly manifested, for the first time in the Christian 
 world, during the French Revolution. Breaking out with 
 furious violence, in the brief period of its duration it developed 
 itself with fearful rapidity. How many, or rather how few 
 steps it would have required, had its reign been longer, to 
 convert it into a military despotism, thoroughly heathenish, 
 such as the Revolution indeed was from beginning to end ; into 
 a despotism which, like that of the caliphate already men- 
 tioned, should unite in the same person all spiritual, as well 
 as temporal authority, we need not here further investigate. 
 The dreadful possibility of such a contingency has been brought 
 only too closely home to our fears. 
 
 The essence of despotism, as I said before, lies in the union 
 in one person of the civil and spiritual powers — or in a most 
 anomalous state, which is by a rare and faulty combination at 
 once spiritual and temporal. And since the distinction be- 
 tween the two powers is involved in the very notion of a 
 Christian state, it is of the highest importance that the state 
 should carefully observe and respect the boundaries between 
 the two domains. It is extremely difficult to establish any ] 
 general standard for all the cases of collision between the two 
 that either have actually occurred or are conceivably possible. 
 For it is evident that this contingency must be modified in an J 
 infinite number of ways, by existing treaties, the local circum- 
 stances and political constitution of the different states. The 
 chief point is the general spirit and feeling. The question J 
 turns principally on good will and honest intentions ; but pre- I 
 eminently on a right conception of both powers, as alike pos- 
 sessing in their respective spheres a higher sanction, a divine J 
 foundation, and a sacred character. This must be recognised 
 in every case and time, and all circumstances belonging to 
 either sphere must be treated accordingly. 
 
 Many and serious cases of such collision between the church 
 and the state have occurred and are perpetually recurring. 
 Many and grave errors have been committed on both sides, j 
 But for the most part they have been unfairly judged, or 
 rather misjudged, through ignorance both of the times and 
 of the actual circumstances of the case. The day is not long j 
 gone by when in this respect it was the habitual, rule to sub- 
 
ENGLISH REFORMATION. 
 
 305 
 
 joct certain of the early Popes especially to an unqualified 
 vituperation and censure. And it must be told, to the praise 
 of German impartiality, that Protestant writers were the first, 
 by their historical researches, to do justice to and to form a fair 
 estimate of these, in their day, truly great and eminent cha- 
 racters. Still we do not by any means pretend to deny that 
 both in these and later times grave blame rests with many 
 of the Popes individually. On neither side, however, and at no 
 time, were the limits which divide the two powers overstepped 
 so far as they were by Henry VIII. of England, that absolute 
 monarch in temporals, and who wished also to be equally 
 supreme in spirituals. The most despotic sovereign that ever 
 sat on the throne of England, by founding [the independence 
 of] the Anglican Church,* became undesignedly and uncon- 
 sciously the true author of that much lauded constitution of 
 England, which, essentially resting on this foundation, fur- 
 nishes the only instance of a dynamical polity, as the only 
 remedy of an otherwise incurable tendency to division and 
 anarchy, attaining to a highly perfect shape and development. 
 As for the schism in the faith, which in these latter has in 
 so many Christian countries made the problem of religion 
 only the more difficult, and its relation to the state more 
 delicate and liable to aggression, it has in England, through 
 this royal reformer, assumed so complicated a shape, that, 
 unsolved as yet, it appears to many, judging of it in a merely 
 human light, totally and for ever incapable of solution. 
 
 We must reserve to the succeeding Lecture the enumeration 
 of all the results which flow from these premises, and this first 
 outline of a truly Christian justice, which as such involves the 
 principle of equity, and is even truly historical. 
 
 * The words in the bracket are not in the original. As a loyal pries/" 
 of a true branch of that Church which is built on the foundation of the 
 Apostles, the Translator could not help to give currency to such a mis- 
 representation of it. Henry VIII. can stand on his own merits, or rather 
 demerits. It seems, however, to be what Schlegel would call an historical 
 retribution, that the universal supremacy claimed by the Bishops of Rome, 
 as it was confirmed by a Phocas, should be first shaken by a Henry VI II. 
 — Trans. 
 
 EFD OF LECTURE XIII. 
 
 X 
 
306 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Of the Division of Ranks, and of the reciprocal Relations of States accord- 
 ing to the Christian Idea : — Of Science as a Power, of its Constitution, 
 and of the right Regulation of it. 
 
 Whenever philosophy, setting up any conceit of its own as 
 a principle, intrudes either into the domain of religion or of 
 politics, such an intrusion is in every case an aggression. 
 And if the aggressive idea, once formed and entertained, is 
 nevertheless externally and in appearance held in check and 
 restrained — if from ulterior considerations, and for the sake of 
 some remote object, science accommodates itself to the esta- 
 blished system of law or religion — then is the case only so 
 much the worse. The deep and pervading hostility of senti- 
 ment is but concealed beneath the external servility of lan~ 
 guage ; and the rankling wound has but skinned over the 
 surface. The influence of evil is far from being checked and 
 destroyed ; or, to say the least, that of good is nipped in the 
 bud, not being allowed fully to expand itself. And at the 
 same time, the dignity of science, which can only be maintained 
 by its independence, is fatally and irretrievably endangered. 
 
 Under this conviction, I strongly protested, at the very 
 opening of these Lectures, against all such intermeddling of 
 philosophy with matters foreign to it ; and I trust that for my 
 part I have hitherto duly observed the spirit of that protest. 
 But now, the end which philosophy strives to attain to is a 
 right estimate and full understanding of its own nature, and 
 that of man, both in the internal properties of his mind and in 
 his external existence relatively to God and nature, and also 
 to the world and society. In pursuit of this object, having 
 once found and acknowledged the centre .of the inner life, 
 such as it is given to us, and setting out therefrom, philosophy 
 can and may, with perpect propriety, submit to investigation 
 the highest ideas of life, and judge thexn after its own method 
 and from its own peculiar position. But still it will do this 
 
REVIEW. 
 
 307 
 
 in the hope rather of explaining what actually exists than of 
 establishing any self-devised ideal of its own, or of setting up 
 impracticable laws for a merely conceivable state of things 
 under the most arbitrary assumptions — for a wholly visionary 
 world. 
 
 Consistently, then, with this notion of philosophy and under 
 this limitation, I have not, I think, deviated in the latter Lec- 
 tures from the law I originally laid clown. Inasmuch, how- 
 ever, as the exposition of a philosophy of life must necessarily 
 be vivid, and consequently requires to be interspersed with 
 historical views and examples, I must request you, looking 
 principally to the ideas which form the essential foundation of 
 these discourses, to judge the latter by the pervading tenour 
 and connexion of the thoughts, rather than by the several allu- 
 sions and instances which I have introduced for the mere pur- 
 pose of illustration. All that is merely personal in the inter- 
 pretation passed upon those events will, I trust, be looked upon 
 as the private opinions, indeed, but still the unprejudiced con- 
 clusions of an individual. 
 
 In the course of these Lectures I attempted first of all to 
 establish a firm foundation for the human soul, considered 
 both in its own proper nature and with regard to its most 
 essential relations in life to nature and to God. In the next 
 place, by investigating the order of the divine dispensations 
 in nature, and in the realms of truth and history, it was my 
 endeavour to obtain for it a wider and more solid basis. 
 Lastly, I occupied myself with tracing the course which the 
 Spirit of Eternal Truth pursues in science and in life, and the 
 shapes which in its progress towards perfection it successively 
 assumes. Accordingly, I have pointed out to you, first of all, 
 how this Spirit of Eternal Truth is ever one and the same in 
 the highest science and in divine faith ; then, how victoriously 
 it comes forth out of the conflict between faith and infidelity ; 
 and, in conclusion, I showed you that, far from being confined 
 to the narrow region of science, it may and rightly ought to 
 enter with an earnest influence into life itself. How the latter 
 duty is actually fulfilled we endeavoured to show, by consider- 
 ing the symbolical signification of life, and, as derived there- 
 from, its higher sanction and divine foundation, especially in 
 public life and the state. And herein the idea of a universal 
 Christian and truly historical justice found a closer applies 
 
30S 
 
 THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 tion and wider development. And this formed the subject of 
 our last disquisition. 
 
 I there sought to elucidate this idea solely and entirely from 
 history. For this purpose I endeavoured, by means of his- 
 torical instances, to set in a clear, discriminating light the 
 opposite and divergent notions of an absolute and of a dyna- 
 mical or limited monarchy, so far at least as regards the 
 essential features and characteristic constitution of each. As 
 instances of the former, I pointed to the old Roman world and 
 the empire of the Caliphs, while the latter was elucidated by 
 the English constitution, in which, as yet, it has attained to 
 its highest and most perfect development. This is no doubt a 
 master-piece of political wisdom, wherein an intractable spirit 
 of opposition being adopted, as it were, into the very consti- 
 tution, is thereby rendered legitimate and its evil tendency 
 is held in check. Still the principle of it cannot rightly be 
 viewed in any other light than the wise procedure of the 
 physician who, in the case of an inevitable epidemic, resolves 
 to inoculate the disease in order to be able to control it the 
 better, and by watching more closely its crisis, to regulate its 
 course and issue. 
 
 In its true historical place, therefore, this constitution finds 
 its satisfactory explanation and justification ; or rather deserves 
 our highest praise, the fullest acknowledgement of its merits, 
 and even our admiration. But inasmuch as every feature of 
 it is thoroughly historical and national, and since the slightest 
 local diversity in the character of a people or nation might 
 with different relations and circumstances give rise to wants 
 and difficulties little expected or dreamed of, we must be cau- 
 tious how we seek to introduce it elsewhere. Iii the arts it is 
 ever a sorry business to imitate great works of original genius. 
 By such a course little but manner is multiplied. So it is 
 • rarely a felicitous idea to suppose that a constitution, though 
 copied from never so lauded a model, must be suitable to all 
 nations alike, and must prove an universal and unfailing source 
 
 political felicity — a tree of liberty, which we may transplant 
 at pleasure, or, as it were, a constitutional bill of exchange, 
 which once endorsed we may put in circulation. 
 
 But if the true Gordian knot in that master-piece of polity, 
 the English constitution, remains still an unsolved problem, 
 since thot war of religious opinion, which seems at every 
 
CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 309 
 
 moment to be threatening an outbreak, is as yet, with con- 
 summate skill and prudence, kept under and restrained within 
 its recognised limits, we may see in this fact a further confir- 
 mation and justification of the encomiums we recently passed 
 upon the reiigious peace which has become for us in Germany 
 as it were a second nature, and which, in the place of such a 
 constitution, is to us the guarantee of mental freedom and 
 the pledge of a higher unity than one simply political. It is 
 not a mere dead letter, but it is a living power enshrined in 
 the minds of men. And if occasionally some rash expression 
 in a great and influential writer, or any grievous act on the 
 part of a powerful and leading political character, may seem 
 to menace violence to this religious peace, the general feeling 
 soon pronounces itself against such indiscretion, and the 
 single note of discord is quickly brought in unison with the 
 general harmony, or else dies away without producing any 
 deep or widely prejudicial consequences. Not, indeed, that 
 the existing differences in religious opinion are a thing desir- 
 able ; — we mean anything but that by our encomiums on the 
 religious peace. What we really mean is, that in the present 
 state of things such a peace is of the very highest value, and 
 one whose great blessing can only be appreciated fully by 
 those who enjoy it. And nothing but a comparison with other 
 civilised nations in this respect can enable us to understand 
 and to form a full estimate of its value. And if every ordi- 
 nary treaty of peace between states, whenever it is settled on 
 true and lasting foundations and sincerity of purpose, has an 
 influence on the inward development of mind or spirit in the 
 course of history, and affords, as it were, a calm presage of a 
 higher and a more universal peace of God, how can we look 
 upon this peculiar and internal peace between men's minds in 
 any other light than as a token of a richer and fuller future, 
 and as a symbol of ultimate perfection and unity ? 
 
 In our notice of the schism in the faith we made allusion 
 to the possibility of a collision between the two highest and 
 most sacred powers, the civil and the spiritual, according 
 to the distinction involved in the very idea of the Christian 
 life. In order, therefore, to avoid every possible misconcep- 
 tion, it seems to be necessary, or, at least, not a superfluous 
 task, to add one brief remark, on the extreme case w T hen, in 
 such an unfortunate collision, right and justice are openly 
 
310 HOW THE CHUECH MUST RESIST AGGRESSION. 
 
 violated and set at defiance. If the civil power be the party 
 attacked and unduly interfered with in its legitimate province, 
 it has a perfect right to defend itself, as indeed, in our days, 
 it is quite able and knows well how to do. The only thing 
 that apparently remains to be desired is, that in the exercise 
 of this right it should observe, as indeed becomes the stronger 
 side, the greatest moderation. But if, on the contrary, the 
 aggression proceeds from this side, and the spiritual power is 
 attacked, then it ought to bear in mind that its legitimate 
 opposition to the civil power ought to assume a material cha- 
 racter. Its resistance must never be public and open violence, 
 nor either directly or indirectly, by means of what we may 
 well call machinations, for such a proceeding would undermine 
 the sacred foundations of public confidence, and shake the 
 whole edifice of moral order and society. In the case of such 
 an aggression religion would deprive herself of her duly ac- 
 quired position in the state. But this, so long as the latter 
 remains Christian, religion itself never can and never will do, 
 as neither will those whose duty it is to guide and to minister 
 it in a truly reverent and pious spirit. 
 
 The only opposition, therefore, that the spiritual power can 
 rightly and justly make to the aggression of the state must be 
 of a passive nature. It is not necessary to lay down any 
 elaborate and rigorous distinctions for such an emergency ; for 
 such definitions rarely meet the complicated variety and special 
 character of every possible or even every actual case. A few 
 historical examples, which readily present themselves, will 
 serve briefly and perspicuously to illustrate the view of duty 
 which we wish to enforce. In the unfortunate case of a 
 great and public collision between the Church and the State, 
 the model of a just and legitimate resistance on the part of the 
 spiritual powder has been furnished by the conduct of that 
 venerable old man,* 1 whom half of Europe regarded as invested 
 with the highest priestly and apostolical dignity. With calm 
 fortitude, even in bonds, he refused to yield to the military 
 despot, and won the personal esteem and admiration likewise of 
 that other half of Europe which denied his spiritual authority. 
 Or, to take an example from a more limited sphere, and of a 
 more personal nature, we may appeal to the history of the 
 patron saint of Bohemia, which, at least, cannot be classed 
 * Pius VII. 
 
SEPARATION OF TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL LOWERS. 311 
 
 among the legends, and which, in any case, will afford a beau- 
 tiful and simple example of a noble, perfectly allowable resist- 
 ance of a spiritual party against the injustice of the political 
 head of the nation. By such passive resistance, and by such 
 alone, did Christianity, in the earliest centuries, though so 
 unattractive and so lowly at its first commencement, gradually 
 attain a secure external foundation, and become the religion of 
 the whole civilised world. A public outbreak and even a secret 
 feeling of discontent between the spiritual and the temporal 
 power, between Church and State, is, at all times, and in every 
 case, a great evil, threatening and bringing danger and ruin 
 on both. For the state, as being ultimately founded on a 
 religious basis, undermines its own foundation by assuming 
 an hostile attitude towards religion. No financial difficulties, 
 or any such partial calamities, will ever ruin a people, so long 
 as any moral energy still exists in the whole body, and it is 
 consequently sound at the core. Political scepticism, which 
 is the immediate and necessary consequence of infidelity in 
 religion, is the true cause and origin of the decay of nations. 
 These two vital principles of human society, therefore, — these 
 two powers, however essentially and necessarily distinct, must 
 work together in perfect peace and unity. For the one can 
 only flourish where the soil has been rendered morally fertile 
 by the other, while the latter cannot exercise its full influence 
 except under the sanction of the political power. If religion 
 were at unity in itself, and totally free from party and contro- 
 versy, and the state, as the public life, were in perfect har- 
 mony with it, and thoroughly pervaded by its life-giving spirit, 
 humanity would, by such a consummation, have made a great 
 step in advance towards that divine peace, for which every 
 human pacification, however imperfect, is the expression of a 
 profound and imperishable longing — of a pursuit which, though 
 ever attaining, is still never wholly abandoned. 
 
 However, the alienation and separation of the civil and 
 spiritual powers seems to belong peculiarly and essentially to, 
 or rather to be a necessary law of, the present condition of 
 humanity, still involved in struggle with evil, and not yet 
 having attained to the end of its endeavours. It is much 
 older than men think. It must have existed in the first ages of 
 the world, and in the earliest stage of the Gentile religion. For 
 among the Hindoos, who, as they are the most ancient people 
 
312 AFFINITY OF INDIAN AND TEUTONIC RACES. 
 
 that we are acquainted with, are also the most authentic 
 monument that remains of the primaeval condition of the 
 human race, we find this separation formally and definitely esta- 
 blished. It there forms an insurmountable barrier between the 
 regal and the sacerdotal dignity. On this point it would not 
 be advisable to direct our attention exclusively or even prin- 
 cipally to the condition of the priestly class among the Greeks 
 and Romans, since, in the later epochs of these nations, Gen- 
 tilism had greatly degenerated, and in the more civilised days of 
 these people had lost all its essential forms, and its true spirit 
 had disappeared. But, with that still more ancient .people of 
 the Hindoos, the same unchanged law still exists in these 
 days as in the very earliest times. A Brahmin who should 
 attempt to ascend the throne or usurp its powers, or a rajah 
 who should wish to be as a Brahmin, or to suppress and anni- 
 hilate the Brahminical caste, would be universally regarded as 
 an abomination. The attempt, on either side, would appear 
 an offence against human nature and divine laws. For a mix- 
 ture or confusion of castes signifies to the Hindoos the very 
 abomination of anarchy ; and by this term, in one character- 
 istic word of their language, they designate all revolutionary 
 times, even though, we must observe, such periods among the 
 Hindoos were never more than brief and transitory, the waves 
 of anarchy breaking harmlessly against the everlasting rocks 
 of this ancient and solidly compact system. 
 
 Besides the many other traces of family affinity between the 
 Indian and Teutonic races, another is furnished by the Ger- 
 manic constitution, which forms the political basis of most 
 European kingdoms. In India the noble class who most 
 especially are bound to military service forms also the caste 
 of the lords of the soil ; and from their latter character they 
 also derive their name as a class. * Some of the most general 
 and most ancient features of the feudal system have likewise 
 been discovered among them, though not indeed its more arti- 
 ficial and complicated system, to which feudalism was in later 
 times developed among European nations. To this landed 
 nobility belong the nabobs and even the rajahs. For it was 
 left open to the fluctuating fortunes of different families to rise 
 to or to fall from the summit of political dignity. Between 
 the several grades of honour accessible to a particular caste 
 • CsJiatriyas, (See " Philosophy of History," p, 146.) 
 
THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD ^OT HEREDITARY. 313 
 
 no insurmountable barrier was raised ; all were open to all the 
 members of the same rank or easte. 
 
 The democratical writers of a recent era, in obedience to a 
 sentiment natural enough to their false system, have expressed 
 a deep horror and strong aversion to this institution of castes 
 among the Hindoos, stamping it on every occasion with the 
 strongest marks of reprobation. Viewing it, however, in an 
 historical light, I for my part am disposed to think that it 
 is to this ancient and hereditary institution, however much of 
 imperfection it undoubtedly involves, that this great and popu- 
 lous country owes that firm stability of its laws and customs, 
 and that indestructible prosperity which the various conquests 
 it has undergone both in ancient and modern times have been 
 unable to shake or to undermine. No doubt the Indian gra- 
 dation of ranks wants the stamp of perfection and mildness 
 which belongs to Christian politics. And in this respect 
 the comparison is especially instructive. It serves to draw 
 attention to, and strongly illustrates the fact, that a Chris- 
 tian division of ranks is, in some points, different in its 
 principle, and the very opposite to the correspondent state of 
 things in the old world, as yet unrefined and purified by this 
 divine element. For first of all, according to the Christian 
 idea, the spiritual class cannot depend upon birth; it must 
 possess a higher and peculiar vocation. This order, conse- 
 quently, cannot recruit itself merely by birth ; but must 
 derive its members from the other classes which are here- 
 ditary. But in consequence of this principle, the partition- 
 wall, otherwise impassable and absolute, between the other 
 ranks, which, taken on the whole, are hereditary, is so far 
 removed, that exceptional cases occur when these barriers 
 are opened to merit or other important considerations. It 
 is a self-evident fact, requiring no elaborate argument for its 
 proof, that the Christian sentiment, or as we have here ex- 
 pressed it, that principle of equity so universally and essen- 
 tially interwoven with the Christian idea of justice, demands 
 that every alleviation of their toilsome and oppressive lot 
 should be afforded to the industrious classes. To those on 
 whom the accident of birth, as the world speaks, or as we 
 should prefer to say, a higher and a divine Providence, has 
 laid all the hardships of life, it is but jvst that every privilege 
 should be conceded that does not militate against the general 
 
314 CONFEDERATION OF STATES ITS PRINCIPLES. 
 
 welfare, or the private rights of individuals. And in the same 
 spirit, every political constitution that is organically arranged 
 and founded on a Christian, and consequently modified sepa- 
 ration of ranks, will attentively observe and engraft into its 
 old constitutional stock every new historical shoot. A great 
 and instructive example of the kind is at hand. In the Teuto- 
 nic constitutions of the middle ages, and especially in the 
 Germanic Empire, cities and trades, which at an earlier period 
 had formed a very immaterial and comparatively insignificant 
 element in the whole, in short, the growing burgher classes, 
 were at their very first appearance understood humanly and 
 politically, received a great organic development, and taken 
 into a living combination with the old. 
 
 In all probability our own deeply-agitated times, which 
 assuredly deserve not to be called unfruitful, even though, 
 together with the good fruit, they may also produce many a 
 false blossom, give birth to much that is new indeed, but which 
 is, nevertheless, or at least may eventually become, historical. 
 The phenomena of the present, therefore, demand our most 
 careful consideration, lest any negligence in this case should 
 inevitably involve us in disaster, and bring on us a natural 
 historical retribution. An exclusive and narrow aristocracy, 
 or if we must say so, one senselessly insisting on its privileges, 
 such as in the earlier part of the last century was probably to 
 be met with in a few countries, is, to the true friend of the 
 ancient order of things, the most painful phenomenon. It is 
 its own greatest enemy. Since, by a historical law of antago- 
 nism and reaction, one extreme inevitably calls forth the other 
 sooner or later. Hereditary monarchy, as it is the oldest form 
 of polity in history, so, if it is maintained in the mild and 
 moderate spirit of the Christian state, is likely to survive all 
 others, and to be the last in force among the human race. 
 For a state which is founded and established on the Christian 
 principle of an equitable distinction and division of ranks, 
 must, in every calm and unprejudiced judgment, deserve the 
 preference over the artificial constitution of a dynamical 
 balance of powers. For the necessary equipoise is liable to 
 be disturbed by the restless agitation to which the latter form 
 of polity is exposed. And it is only therefore in comparison 
 with an absolute despotism that the dynamical theory can 
 appear desirable and win so many adherents, while the former, 
 
JEALOUSY OF MARITIME AND CONTINENTAL POWERS. 315 
 
 on the other hand, as the only remedy for popular anarchy, 
 if administered with talent and energy, becomes not only 
 tolerable, but acquires even an historical justification. 
 
 Each of these two extremes, the absolute and the dynamical, 
 admit, however, of a wider application than merely to single 
 states and their different forms, according to the fluctuation 
 of the times between prosperity and adversity. For the entire 
 system of Christian states throughout the civilised world may 
 in their mutual relations and confederations depend principally 
 on the absolute preponderance of some leading power which 
 holds the others in subjection or rules them. But this is an 
 authority which all are ready to throw off, and is never wil- 
 lingly acknowledged or submitted to. Or perhaps the whole 
 political world may, on the dynamical theory, be based on the 
 balance of power, each state being held in check by the rest. 
 This was the reigning system of the eighteenth century, and 
 at its first foundation was admired as the perfection of a wise 
 policy. In experience, however, it has proved inadequate 
 and practically untenable. The only case where it seems to 
 admit of application, is that of a division embracing the whole 
 globe, but based on geographical relations ; but even in such 
 a case it could only serve to check mutual injury, and not to 
 promote any salutary end. 
 
 In the middle ages, as soon as the German Empire, having 
 fallen from its original purity, had become totally false to its 
 Christian principle, it found, according to the spirit of the 
 times, a salutary check and counterpoise in the Church. And 
 that iron character of the Ghibellines, which was exhibited no 
 less strikingly in individuals and morals, than in politics and 
 counsels of state, affords the best justification for this antago- 
 nism, as well as for the opposite great party of the Guelphs, 
 with their milder bearing and sentiments. 
 
 But now that this ancient division and conflict of the spi- 
 ritual and the temporal powers is in these enlightened times a 
 bygone thing, and in the older sense is extinct for ever; 
 since it seems mankind cannot do without antagonism of 
 some kind, we have instead of it, an elementary one between 
 land and water. A political schism variously manifests itself 
 between the ocean and the continent. In fact, that great 
 Island Kingdom which traverses and rules the ocean, and 
 by founding colonies and settlements wherever it listeth or 
 
316 CHRISTIAN JUSTICE BASIS OF EUROPEAN PEACE. 
 
 thinketh profitable, puts forth, as it were, the feelers of uni- 
 versal dominion, is properly an empire of the sea. For m 
 contradistinction from a kingdom we may call every monarchy 
 an empire which comprises in itself several other peoples and 
 nations of divers races and political constitutions. In such a 
 sense we have contrasted this maritime empire with the Con 
 tinent. But although experience has shown the possibility of 
 such a division of the whole world and political alienation of 
 the two elements of land and water throughout the globe ; it 
 has also established a conviction that though these two divi- 
 sions might do incalculable injury and mischief to each other, 
 no permanent or decided supremacy of either would follow, 
 inasmuch as a medium for maintaining the dependence of 
 either is wanting. And as it is only in some urgent need of 
 the times to find some counterpoise to absolute power, or an 
 apprehension of it, that a dynamical state or the tendency to 
 it finds its justification, so it was only during the transient 
 reign of a despotic lust of conquest, and as a check to it, that 
 this maritime power could have risen so high as it has in the 
 opinion of the Continental states. 
 
 Since then, however, the great powers of Europe have had 
 a different interest to pursue, and their political counsels have 
 been directed to the preservation of peace rather than to 
 selfish aggrandizement. For they have all had to contend with 
 a common enemy in the restless spirit of the age, which is yet 
 very far from being conquered and subdued. If then an 
 absolute preponderance of a single state is hateful to all, and 
 a dynamical balance of power in the general state-system is 
 either inadequate for such an end, or else does not admit of 
 application, is it not at least conceivable that a higher prin- 
 ciple of Christian justice might be substituted for these which 
 are equally defective ? Might not a common point of moral 
 unity be found and established for the European states? 
 Must this sublime idea ever be nothing more than the noble 
 enthusiasm of a magnanimous character? And is it to be 
 regarded as impossible merely because it is imbedded in diffi- 
 culties? But is not all that is great also difficult? Still, 
 inasmuch as this exalted political unity must have a purely 
 spiritual basis in the sentiments of men, a precipitate 01 
 violent attempt to bring it about must inevitably miscarry. 
 It would not only militate against, but also corrupt the 
 
CONFEDERATION OF CHRISTIAN STATES. 317 
 
 original purity of the very idea. It must be universally recog- 
 nised before it can, in the contest with the evil principle of 
 the day, become a salutary power of good, or furnish for the 
 political relations a general basis of Christian justice. The 
 one extreme of political Europe, with its absolute polity, 
 which moreover has fallen very low from its former pre- 
 ponderance, seems excluded by the very nature of things 
 from the idea of such an unity. But if it be true that it is 
 gradually becoming more and more European, a character in 
 which, until very lately, it has rarely been regarded, then a 
 modified kind of subordinate connexion with such a general 
 principle of association among European states, does not seem 
 necessarily inadmissible or inconsistent. The other extreme 
 of Europe, with its dynamical constitution, had in an opposi- 
 tion, moderate indeed in form and conditionally, more than 
 half renounced this idea. In the opinion, however, of many 
 competent judges, this renunciation is much more decided, 
 and must exercise a great and unfavourable effect on the 
 harmony of the whole. The moral want of our age, judged 
 by this or some similar idea, is the necessity which was so 
 keenly felt upon its deliverance from the general yoke of a 
 military aggression, of a moral and intrinsic regeneration of 
 Europe. And this unity is not to be derived from and set up 
 merely in science, but must be felt as a living energy in life 
 itself. But how is such an inner restoration to be brought 
 about and effected in Christian states, but by a complete re- 
 newal and invigoration of their religious foundation? And 
 inasmuch as this want actually exists and is felt, the problem 
 which is to supply it must be regarded as an historical one ; 
 and consequently the historical development of the times- 
 abstracted from the accidental form of the first essays at its 
 solution, will soone? or later carry us to all that is most essen- 
 tial in the idea. 
 
 Formerly, in the mediaeval times, the German Empire 
 claimed to be this Christian centre of unity for the states of 
 Europe — although, in truth, it was far from embracing the 
 whole system of European states. Latterly, in the new poli- 
 tical theory, the mutual relation of nations has become gra- 
 dually republican. And this new form has consequently been 
 accompanied with imperfections and difficulties and almost 
 inextricable perplexities. h it then probable that in the 
 
318 PRINCIPLES ON WHICH IT MUST BE BASED. 
 
 commencing or recently commenced era of history, a firm, 
 compact, but vast corporation of states, founded on a principle 
 of Christian justice, can be substituted for and gradually j 
 evolved out of the two previous ones, which are now found i 
 wholly inadequate for the ends they were designed to meet ? j 
 As a mere historical probability we may well allow this idea 1 
 to stand. 
 
 Totally different from those idle speculations of an endless j 
 peace, which, for the sake of mere intellectual amusement ! I 
 and discussion, philosophy was used to advance in the schools, j 
 is this thoroughly practical thought of a confederation of states I 
 based on the principle of Christian justice and vitally con- j 
 nected with religion as the most general centre of humanity. I i 
 And the latter must be regarded as the essential condition of j 
 its internal consistency and permanence. At least we may j 
 safely advance the following as the result of a philosophical ] 
 consideration of history. An exalted and universal religious j 
 peace of this kind, and proceeding from such a principle, in I 
 which by a peaceful approximation, not only the two parties 
 in the faith should be reconciled and finally united, but also the I 
 spiritual and the secular powers, the Church and the State, 
 should be allied together in the profoundest harmony, is, pro- | 
 perly speaking, the very thing which mankind most stands in 
 need of. But this desirable result never can and never will i 
 be attained until all shall be united in pervading harmony with | 
 religion and with life, especially with public life or the state, 
 so that all these three principles or fundamental elements of | 
 human existence may work together with one aim and pur- j 
 pose. Such a state of profound internal peace would be some- | 
 thing more than a simple political peace, with its transient ! 
 blessings. It would be a sacred peace of God and the higher | 
 spirits, or at least the precursor and the best initiation thereto. I 
 This, however, is not to be effected by diplomatic skill no more 
 than by scientific Irypotheses. It can only be brought about 
 by the immediate operation of God and by that divine energy 
 which from the beginning has sustained and still sustains the 
 system of the universe. Philosophy accordingly must content 
 itself with pointing to this end and this sustaining power, and 
 also with calling attention to all the traces historically fur- 
 nished which tend in the same direction. And since the great 
 conflict of the age draws all powers into its vortex more 
 
CONTROVERSY WITH ERROR BEGETS ERROR. 319 
 
 violently than ever, it may be allowed to be sufficient for us 
 to have hazarded a glance towards tins glorious consumma- 
 tion * and we now will turn our attention to the development 
 of intellect and intellectual powers as at present involved in 
 the as yet undecided conflict. Thus much at least must be 
 clear, that if science, religion and the state, and the several 
 powers, parties and influences belonging to each of these 
 domains, is as hitherto to pursue each its own way in opposi- 
 tion to the rest, then will all hasten again with rapid strides into 
 a state of chaotic confusion. It may, therefore, well be per- 
 mitted us to endeavour to hold up before men, in as strong a 
 light as possible, this better hope, and to furnish them with 
 every possible confirmation of it both from science and history. 
 
 If our age be as yet far from healthy — if it be still in a 
 sickly state, if the first fearful crisis has not totally expelled 
 the diseased matter — if, on the contrary, the general European 
 body in many of its members is still infected with the virus 
 which has penetrated into the inmost and secret marrow of 
 life — if the source of the malady lie in false ideas, or the total 
 absence of right ones, or in other words, in philosophical error, 
 which has spread in indefinite vagueness and endless hair- 
 splitting over the whole of public and private life, and in a 
 scepticism no less political than religious — then, since the 
 external refutation rarely avails anything, our first object 
 must be intrinsically to conquer and to banish this error by 
 truth, and the spirit of truth in that higher science which is 
 genuine and lawful and directs itself to divine things. 
 
 The restless anarchical spirit of the times, or the perverted 
 absolute spirit — for they are essentially one and the same, is 
 yet a spirit — it may be a superficial, shallow, sensual, and 
 negative one, but still a spirit, and therefore cannot be over- 
 come by any mere negation, but on the contrary only strug- 
 gles against it with renewed bitterness and consequently more 
 vigorous resistance. As opposed to the divine spirit of truth, 
 however, it appears an unsubstantial nullity and soon vanishes 
 into its own vanity. 
 
 A direct controversy with error entails one disadvantage. 
 By such a course the latter is unduly acknowledged for a 
 positive power of evil. But in reality it only becomes so 
 conditionally, through the atomistic splitting and diffusion of 
 false ideas, and by the mass of its followers, when once every- 
 
1 
 
 320 SCIENCE A GREAT POWER FOR GOOD. 
 
 thing is resolved into elementary decomposition. Moreover, 
 one extreme of exaggeration, whenever in controversy we 
 enter into it and get involved in it, easily introduces its oppo- 
 site, which then again is on its side carried too far — or which 
 even though strictly and literally it be right enough, is yet I 
 asserted with too little of limitation, and applied with unsalu- 
 tory rigour. It is therefore a lamentable mistake if men of 
 great and deserving talents, who from a scientific point of view 
 have devoted themselves to the great task of morally regene- 
 rating the age, have adopted a too decidedly polemical ten- 
 dency. For it is partly through exclusively following such a 
 course that their influence for good has been so narrow and 
 limited, and has not met with a more general and more un- 
 qualified success. 
 
 If men would only first and before all things endeavour to I 
 set forth with all possible vividness the intrinsic unity which 
 subsists between higher science with a divine faith, and deve- 
 lope it for its own sake, without passion or interest, the further 
 results on life of applied truth would follow spontaneously. 
 From this simple and pure source they would continue to flow 
 in ample and widening streams over the whole domain and 
 all its relations. God is truth, and simply on this account the 
 spirit of truth in a good and true science must even be divine. 
 Its proper aim is accordingly directed to the divine ; and on 
 this account there cannot be such a thing as an indifferent 
 science. For every science which is not directed to the divine 
 is shallow, superficial, sensuously negative and idly ration- | 
 alising. On this account it is false, and must consequently 
 prove, in its external effects, nothing less than evil, injurious, 
 and destructive. 
 
 It is in regard to all this that I have classed science toge- 
 ther with religion ana a. Christianly regulated state as the 
 third power of good. Although merely intellectual (geistige), 
 it is of great moment in the conflict which all have to wage 
 against the destructive principles which so fearfully menace 
 our age. The power of science, it is true, can only produce 
 an effect in an intellectual sphere, but this intellectual sphere 
 is of itself of great influence on every other circle of human 
 operation. Religion has for its immediate object the soul and 
 its salvation, or its union with God ; and this is its peculiar 
 region ; but still it comes in various ways in contact with the 
 
RELIGION AND THE STATE TWO OTHER POWERS 321 
 
 higher science, and penetrates deeply into actual and also into 
 public life. But it is the state, as the organic form of the 
 latter, by which the divine as law, and as a higher idea of 
 justice, modified and completed with that of clemency and 
 equity, is first introduced into reality of actual and corporeal 
 existence, and this historical and sensible world. But the 
 state itself has no other than a religious foundation. It is 
 built upon religion, but also requires the support of science. 
 
 By the visible relation, and that parallel similitude which 
 spontaneously suggests itself between these three great moral 
 powers in public life — philosophy, religion, and government — 
 and that original triple principle of the human consciousness 
 as consisting of body, soul, and spirit, as the simple but funda- 
 mental idea of Christian philosophy (however the latter may 
 insist on this basis in confirmation of its utility in living- 
 application), we do not for one moment mean to maintain or 
 propose a total separation or estrangement of these three 
 spheres. This would be quite unnatural. For in a political 
 as well as in a psychological sense, these three primary prin- 
 ciples must co-operate and be intimately blended together, to 
 produce a complete and perfect result in the sphere of any 
 one individually. 
 
 If, as we are perfectly justified, we have been considering 
 science, at least that which is true and divine, as a power of 
 a higher kind, we must still remember that is not this in the 
 same way as religion or government. The latter rests on a 
 divine foundation of eternal justice ; and therein lies the 
 source of its vital efficacy. Religion is the legitimate form or 
 a living dispensation of the divine strength and grace. True 
 science is the mind's lofty pursuit, in a Godward direction, of 
 perfect knowledge ; and this direction forms the characteris- 
 tic distinction between it and false science. In the state, in 
 like manner, its loftiest character lies in the sacred foundation 
 of justice. It is therefore a very wrongful and a most per- 
 nicious error to look for the inmost essence of the state, or 
 the true source of political prosperity, in any external form 
 or formula. For this external form is in many cases nothing 
 but the shape in which the national mind displays itself — the 
 theatre which it erects for its political manifestations. But in 
 another point of view also the form of the state is subordinate 
 to the essence and its foundation of right. In the legitimate 
 
 r 
 
322 THE FREE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 
 
 state, an hereditary monarchy, i. e., the act of crowning is no 
 doubt a very beautiful, highly significant, and indeed an essen- 
 tial sacred right. But with the exception of certain special 
 cases and positive institutions in some existing constitu- 
 tions, the monarch's right is not dependent thereon, but even 
 before the anointing he is truly and fully a sovereign. Far 
 different is the case, however, where the political authority is | 
 only delegated and vicarious, as with an ambassador or a pleni- 
 potentiary deputed to negociate a peace or other treaty. For 
 in such cases there is no authority but what is derived solely 
 and entirely from the delegating source, and on the legal act 
 by which the right or power was delegated. Without this, it 
 is absolutely null and void. This remark extends to every 
 case and every sphere of legitimate transference of a higher 
 authority, even though the latter be of a divine origin. And it ( 
 is simply on this account that in religion, as the proper sphere 
 for the dispensing of divine strength and grace, the form is so 
 highly important and so thoroughly essential — even as much 
 so as the matter itself — or the imparted light of the spirit, 
 and properly is inseparable from it. 
 
 The position of science is quite different. For this rests on 
 what is thoroughly human and inborn in man — the passion of 
 longing ; which, however, if it be maintained in its purity and 
 joerseveringly carried out, may without doubt pass over into 
 a divine pursuit. Even tne form of communication in science 
 is human throughout; since it employs language as the intel- 
 lectual medium for setting forth the truth. If then in this 
 higher tendency, the full centre of living and divine truth be 
 attained, according to man's utmost powers and ability, then 
 even here a higher and divine power may undoubtedly inter- 
 vene and co-operate therewith. But still, for such a case, no : 
 strictly denned form or external sanction and consecration 
 exists, and from the very essence of the thing, it is not to be 
 looked for. That which is divine in science must from its 
 nature move freely, and be devoid of all such forms. As a 
 higher power, it must operate immediately, and must seek to 
 establish its own law for itself, intermediate between religion 
 and the state, or even in each of them alike, though still in 
 a peculiar way of its own. Wherever it is genuine and 
 unadulterated, then it will in no case come into collision with 
 the actual laws either of one 01 of the other, even because 
 
THE FREE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 323 
 
 truth is one and every where the same. But if science in its 
 external form, and in its social and political existence, should 
 become entirely blended with religion and the spiritual class, 
 being confined and restricted thereto, as was the case with 
 the institution of castes among the Hindoos, which we have 
 already noticed, and with the Egyptian priesthood; then we 
 must fain admit that freedom, which the scientific spirit 
 requires for its growth and development in the sphere assigned 
 to it, would be too closely limited and checked by narrow 
 and partial considerations. But if, on the other hand, it be 
 possible for a false science to arrogate that spiritual and divine 
 right of free action, which unquestionably is in a certain sense 
 the prerogative of heavenly truth in its invisible kingdom, 
 which the latter can neither misemploy, nor ever impede in 
 its course, then such a supposition would account for the pre- 
 valence of error. It would also, at the same time, serve to 
 illustrate the mode by which such a prejudice as the arrogated 
 right of an unrestricted freedom of thought, or rather of the 
 free and unchecked communication thereof, could ever have 
 struck so deep a root in tne human mind. But this is a 
 claim which we can in no way recognise or allow, as really 
 founded in right and justice. Since, wherever, as is the case 
 in this sphere of purely intellectual operation, all is immediate 
 and without a definite form of external sanction, there any- 
 thing like right must at most be indefinite and individual. 
 
 It forms perhaps one of the most important problems or 
 questions of our day, whether the entire sphere of science, the 
 whole republic of letters, not only the mere elementary instruc- 
 tion of the schools, but the whole domain of education in 
 general, embracing under the latter description literature and 
 the fine arts, might not, in obedience to the requisitions of the 
 age, be brought into a more organised and well-regulated 
 form. For if this were possible, it might be made to approxi- 
 mate more closely to the other great spheres of public life in 
 religion and the state, and confined within its proper limits, 
 according to some greater and more comprehensive ideas 
 than those current amongst us, or than those which have come 
 down to us from antiquity, which are either defective in them- 
 selves, or else are no longer adapted to existing circum- 
 stances. Those which the present age has advanced, are for 
 the most part crude and ill-digested ; and scarcely ever con- 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 
 
 SCIENCE A REAL POWER FOR GOOD. 
 
 sistently carried out. But after having reflected for many a 
 long year on this question, so deeply interesting to myself, I 
 have arrived at the conviction, that for the present at least, a 
 radical change in this department would be premature and 
 scarcely desirable, as promising to afford no very advantageous 
 results. Everything in this sphere is too isolated; whatever 
 is good, and especially what is best, is too individual and too 
 formless to allow of its being as yet, without great difficulty, 
 reduced in all parts and in every point to a firm rule and 
 definite shape. In all probability, by attempting unseasonably 
 to introduce organic order and law, we should cramp rather than 
 assist and develope the good. In the present chaotic state of 
 science, it is only the vicious and profane that possesses a 
 systematic coherence. All detrimental and dangerous as well 
 as futile and indifferent ideas, mixed with a few good and 
 useful ones, are atomistically diffused and spread in every 
 possible shape and quarter. And if against this boundless dis- 
 semination of evil thoughts — this elementary decomposition 
 and chemical analysis of the human mind, and the whole body 
 of human thoughts, a negative barrier be set up as a preven- 
 tive measure of defence, and as a temporary substitute for a 
 better and higher state of things, murmurs and reproaches 
 immediately rise from all sides. But taken on the whole, and 
 in so far as principle is involved, these remonstrances are 
 neither just nor well founded. For in almost every state 
 where, owing to peculiar circumstances, such precautionary 
 measures have not been taken, the most dangerous disorders 
 and jarring discords have affected the whole of public life, as 
 the inevitable consequences of its absence. 
 
 But let us turn our eyes from the insignificant contro- 
 versies, with its host of ephemeral publications, the interest of 
 which seems little likely to outlive even that of a daily journal, 
 and let us look to the greater and more historical phenomena 
 amidst them, which in all probability will mark an epoch in 
 the development of mind. From these it is distinctly ap- 
 parent that science is a real and actual power. In proof 
 of this fact we need only appeal to the great talents and 
 abilities which, not only in recent years but also throughout 
 the last century, have exercised in the domain of science, 
 what, without exaggeration, we may well term a world-em- 
 bracing influence. Only we must admit that in this period 
 
SCIENCE A REAL POWER FOR GOOD. 
 
 325 
 
 they have taken more or less a destructive tendency, and one 
 that threatened in this scientific burrowing to undermine the 
 foundations of everlasting truth. But if we will take a still 
 wider survey, so as to embrace all the several periods of the 
 world's history, and the course of the human mind therein; 
 then, undoubtedly, we may discern the higher might of divine 
 truth, manifesting itself as an influence for good, as a pure 
 and genuine spiritual theocracy of science, to whose domain 
 above all others the idea of an immediate and higher supremacy 
 of mind and divine power is peculiarly applicable. 
 
 XXD OF JLECTUBX XIV. 
 
326 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 OF THE TRUE IDEA OF A THEOCRACY ; OF THE MIGHT 
 OF SCIENCE, AND OF THE FINAL RESTORATION AND 
 PERFECTION OF THE HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS, 
 
 The idea which the adverse party, or opposition, in the poli- 
 tical domain, and in the scientific theory of politics, usually 
 form of a theocracy, is for the most part incorrect. By the 
 adverse party I mean all those who either openly assail, or 
 privately call in question, the religious foundation, the higher 
 sanction, and the divine authority of the state ; in short, those 
 in general who are hostile to the religious sentiment. The 
 latter apply the idea of theocracy and employ the term to 
 signify the rule of the spiritual power, such as the Egyptian 
 priesthood may perhaps, or at least such as they suppose them 
 to have possessed, — or a polity where the supreme temporal 
 authority works in unison with the sacerdotal class. 
 
 And even by the defenders of the good cause — by men of 
 higher and better principles, the idea is frequently taken in 
 too inaccurate and indefinite, not to say incorrect, a sense. 
 They seem to understand by it nothing more than the divine 
 authority of the state and of the Church, and their mutual 
 support and dependence, and their co-operation. But nothing 
 can be more erroneous than such a notion. For the kingly 
 dignity, no less than the priestly, as respects the divine autho- 
 rity, which is inherent in both, is not immediate, but vicarious 
 and representative. 
 
 When, however, we turn to its original source — -to the 
 historical basis, i. e., to Christian revelation, and derive there- 
 from the true idea of a theocracy, we shall find it to be very 
 different from the assumption which each of these parties 
 tacitly advances as self-evident. The idea of a theocracy can 
 only be properly determined from the instance of the Jews. 
 The history of that nation will not only enable us fully to 
 
THE JEWISH THEOCRACY. 
 
 327 
 
 develope it as an actual form of polity, having an historical 
 origin and existence, but also in the clearest and readiest way 
 to illustrate it. Now the passage from revolution, civil war, 
 and anarchy, to absolute despotism, in its genetic progress, can 
 be most clearly and most profitably traced in Roman history. 
 The true nature, moreover, of the dynamical polity can be 
 learnt from the historically originated and historically pre- 
 served exemplification of it in England, far better than from 
 any theory, or from any scheme of a constitution propounded 
 for the occasion of some state experiment, for all such experi- 
 ments require the lasting test of a few generations, or at 
 least of half a century, before any decided opinion can be 
 passed on their success and historical permanency. And just 
 in the same way the peculiar character and essence of a theo- 
 cracy can be deduced from no source so clearly or so fully 
 as from the Jewish history. Or rather, the true idea of it can 
 be acquired from no other channel, since among this people 
 only has a theocracy ever existed as a real form of national 
 polity. And here it continued in force for nearly four hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 However poor may be the part which the people of Israel 
 played in the great drama of the world's history, in comparison 
 with that of the great conquering nations, the Persians, 
 Greeks, and Romans, still the prophetic people (whose im- 
 portance must be sought only in this designation, or, in other 
 words, their continual relation to the future,) possesses, even 
 in their peculiar code of laws and form of government, a 
 remarkable interest for the historian. For in the true histo- 
 rical estimate of things mere extent of power cannot pass 
 for the exclusive standard of greatness and importance. And 
 this has been already the judgment of many writers of history, 
 who, as far as regards this particular subject, and the general 
 question of religion, must undoubtedly be pronounced free 
 from either prepossession or prejudice. The way, too, in which 
 this ancient people have survived the destruction of their 
 national government, and for nearly two thousand years since 
 have uniformly remained separate from all other nations, has 
 been more than once confessed to be a very striking phenome- 
 non, unparalleled in the history of the world. 
 
 Moses, from whom that theocracy first emanated, or rather 
 with whom it commenced, was not himself the High Priest. 
 
328 MOSES AS FOUNDER OF JEWISH THEOCRACY. 
 
 His brother Aaron enjoyed that dignity. He neither wished, 
 nor had a title to hold it. He had no hereditary claim to I 
 it, neither was he elected to it by the people. And yet he 
 stood in no man's place, nor did he forcibly dispossess any 
 one of his right. And so even if for a while we dismiss the 
 theological view entirely from our regard, and forgetting it for 
 a moment, judge of the matter by the strictest juristic notions, 
 we cannot call him an usurper, even in that sense of the term 
 which comprises the demagogue's character. At an earlier 1 
 period of his life, he appeared likely to become a mere libera- 
 tor in the usual sense of the word. In this character, how- 
 ever, he does not appear unjust, even though he allowed 
 himself to be hurried into an act of violence against a petty j 
 tyrant among the oppressors of his countrymen. And at a 
 later period, when he had received his call, we cannot, in his 
 conduct towards the Egyptians, discover any trace of injustice, 
 even judging him by the strictest legal notions. Now the 
 authority which Moses exercised over his own people, while 
 he led them through the wilderness, rested on the immediate j 
 exercise of the divine powers wnich were lent to him from 
 above, and which were immediately acknowledged as such, 
 and nowhere met with any considerable resistance. And, 
 accordingly, properly speaking, no question was ever raised 
 against a right which was based entirely on those imparted 
 powers, although they were totally devoid of any formal or 
 distinct act of legal sanction. The office he held was prophe- 
 tical. But by this term I do not mean merely according to 
 its later and more obvious meaning, the function of warning or 
 promising, of teaching or predicting, but all this, and some- 
 thing more, — a higher and divine power, which vividly and 
 persuadingly displayed itself in life and deeds. Looking at it 
 in a general light, and as applied to a case which at least we 
 can think of as not impossible, of the Almighty having sent, 
 or purposing to send, a second Moses to some other people, 
 then the circumstance we lately mentioned, that this Moses 
 forcibly dispossessed no one of his rights, and had made no 
 unrighteous a revolution, must be taken into consideration, 
 even if it might not simply by itself serve as the character- 
 istic or distinctive test of the genuineness of the vocation 
 in question. 
 
 For a power emanating from God, and truly divine, would 
 
REVELATION BOTH OLD AND NEW IN ITS DOCTRINE. 329 
 
 never violate or forcibly subvert any established right, whether 
 essentially sacred or hallowed only by prescription. It will 
 respect the least privilege of equals and inferiors, no less 
 than the greatest prerogative of superiors. I have intro- 
 duced these remarks in order to determine more precisely the 
 right point of view for an historical comparison of Moses with 
 every other character that sets himself before the world in 
 the same light, whether the parallel be made with Mahomet, 
 or that still earlier Indian Mahomet who is usually called 
 Bucldha, although this is only an honorary epithet, and not the 
 name of any historical person in particular. And the same 
 standard will hold good for our judging of any other reformer 
 of the world who makes religion the instrument of his ambi- 
 tion, to whatever age he may belong, or any modern Mahomet, 
 in whatever part of the world he may arise. 
 
 As regards the religion itself, or the matter of the pretended 
 revelation, there is another characteristic mark by which we 
 may distinguish a genuine from a spurious mission from God. 
 Although it is both external and negative, still, as being histo- 
 rical, it deserves to be here adduced. It is this : a genuine 
 revelation is in the doctrine which it promulgates at the same 
 time both old and new. It is new in regard to its novel ap- 
 plication to life and in its fulfilments, and also to its animating 
 force and spiritual awakening; but old in so far as invariably 
 referring to an earlier revelation and to a still older source 
 of light it remounts up to the pure fountain of eternal truth. 
 And such is throughout the case even with the Mosaic revela- 
 tion. It continually leads the inquirer back to some higher 
 and remoter source, some deeper spring of everlasting light. 
 And on the same principle, it also has been acknowledged as 
 such by the Christian or divine philosophy of the Spirit, and 
 Moses has been recognised and honoured from all time as its 
 founder. In the domain of religion, to be absolutely new is 
 equivalent with being false or groundless, namely, totally 
 detached from the old and everlasting foundations, without 
 connexion therewith, and consequently isolated and arbitrary. 
 
 In reference to and as contrasted with the above character- 
 istics of genuine revelation, there is for the most part in sys- 
 tems of imposture as little really new as actually old. This 
 is especially the case with the doctrine and Koran of Mahomet, 
 however much it may have been lauded for its poetry, or on 
 
330 THE JUDGES AS MINISTERS OP THE THEOCRACY. 
 
 account of the rhetorical art and vigour which it displays. 
 Its subject-matter and doctriia.es are not really new, since they 
 are but recasts of Jewish *l Christian ideas, which it has 
 freely borrowed, mixing them together and adapting them to 
 an Dbvious end and design ; and yet not old, since it does not 
 go back far enough or deep enough, and never remounts to 
 the first beginning of nature and of man, far less to the three- 
 fold fountain of divine life. 
 
 Now, with respect to Moses : an historical judge of the 
 ordinary kind, who could not enter into the religious view of 
 his character and office, might say, " This is quite a strange 
 world to us, a very remote period; much is there in this 
 history difficult to explain and extremely obscure. This much, 
 however, seems to follow from the whole history: the man 
 possessed extraordinary mental powers for his times, and an 
 equally uncommon strength of character ; no wonder, then, if 
 he bore down all obstacles ind by the force of genius carried 
 everything before him." Such an estimate, however, reduces 
 everything to the force of genius in an heroic character, instead 
 of a higher and immediate operation of divine power and the pro- 
 phetic office founded thereon. Superficially judging this false 
 view, eluding, or rather perverting, the divine illumination, 
 admits of an application, though delusive and specious enough, 
 to Moses, on account of those ample powers of genius which no 
 doubt he possessed, or even on account of the sublimity of 
 his style, which the very heathens could appreciate and admire. 
 Still it is in no way applicable to that line of men, for the 
 most part of the very simplest character, who succeeded him, 
 and during the period of the theocracy down to the time of 
 the kings, held what was immediately a divine or prophetic 
 rule. It was not by any hereditary title or formal choice 
 that they ruled; neither were they priests any more than 
 Moses. Called immediately by God to the dignity of judge, 
 they suddenly stood before the people, to be instantly and 
 without opposition acknowledged, and thereupon their mis- 
 sion and authority were at once established, without any 
 external sanction or solemnities or any form of legal recog- 
 nition. 
 
 The general condition of the Jewish people under the 
 Judges was that of a noble and not uncivilised nomadic race. 
 We must not confound this description, however, with the so- 
 
THE JEWISH MONARCHY. 
 
 331 
 
 called natural state of a wild and barbarous people, but 
 rather think of it as resembling that of the Arabians generally 
 before the time of Mahomet, or of a few tribes still subsisting 
 in the most retired parts of Arabia, where, under their most dis- 
 tinguished leaders, as shepherd princes they lead a roving life 
 of hereditary freedom. Similar, or at least not very different, 
 was the mode of life and state of society that prevailed among 
 the Hebrews in the interregnums which occur in this long 
 period of the Judges. Towards the close of this period, judges 
 first arise who are invested with the priestly as well as the 
 judicial dignity. These form, accordingly, the transition to 
 the regal government and the epoch of the kings. For when 
 the people at last demanded a king to rule over them, like the 
 neighbouring Gentiles, every sanction that could exalt, and 
 every sacerdotal inauguration that could be thought of, was 
 conferred upon the appointed tribe and the kingly house. 
 But at the same time the priestly dignity was guarded strictly 
 and jealously from encroachment, and the temporal power was 
 rigorously kept free from all union and confusion with the 
 sacerdotal authority. But that wild and tumultuous demand 
 of the people, or I should say, of public opinion, which at that 
 time was in favour of a monarch with the same pomp and splen- 
 dour as the Gentile sovereigns displayed, as in more modern 
 times it directs itself to the no less heathenish attraction of 
 liberty, was imputed to them and depicted as a grievous fall 
 and religious infidelity. For in the previous times of the 
 direct theocracy, Jehovah Himself had been their true but 
 invisible king, while, as is expressly asserted, the judges and 
 leaders were only His ambassadors or plenipotentiaries. 
 Under the first kings we may discern in the historical de- 
 scription of the sacred books many traces of that higher power, 
 and its immediate exercise and effects. Subsequently, how- 
 ever, it totally disappears ; and after the division of the two 
 kingdoms, the contrast in the personal powers and character 
 of the later sovereigns and the consequent fortunes of the 
 people, so accordant with the political history of other Asiatic 
 countries, becomes most decided. 
 
 The preceding remarks will, I hope, be sufficient to throw 
 out, in perfect distinctness, the true idea of a theocracy, such 
 as it has been historically developed. For inasmuch as in the 
 present age, and amidst the party disputes which mark it, 
 
332 THE PROPHETS KEEP ALIVE THE THEOCRACY. 
 
 this idea has been employed in so many varions acceptations, 
 and mostly in a false or partial sense, I thought it expe- 
 dient, in the present place, not to omit to sift the question to 
 the utmost. Now, in a very remarkable manner, a single 
 element, from the earlier and original theocracy of the olden 
 time, still survived among the Jews in the period of the 
 monarchy. It formed no longer indeed the supreme power 
 of the state, for this was held by the kings, but consti- 
 tuted formally and avowedly an antagonism to them, as a 
 well-defined opposition, which, so long as it confined itself 
 within its due limits, was altogether righteous and justifiable, 
 and which we may justly designate as legitimate and divine. 
 In this light we must view the position of the later prophets, 
 who, without, however, being invested with any special poli- 
 tical dignity or power, dared to raise, before a vicious govern- 
 ment — or, since in those simple days of old everything was 
 more or less personal — before a wicked king who had for- 
 gotten his high vocation, the voice of warning or denuncia- 
 tion. This peculiar form of a political opposition, and, as 
 such, recognised to be legitimate and allowable, this remnant 
 of the once exclusive theocracy and a complete supremacy of 
 the prophets, which still survived in the time of the kings, 
 forms a phenomenon as highly remarkable as it is singular in 
 its kind. And those who have no admiration but for oppo- 
 sition, might, perhaps, if they could disentangle themselves 
 from the forms of their own days, or the notions imbibed at 
 school, find nere an object altogether worthy of their praise. 
 They might probably find the duties of an uncompromising 
 and yet justifiable and lawful opposition to the state discharged 
 by an Elijah with equal, if not greater intelligence, strength of 
 mind, and energy of character, as well as sense of justice, as by 
 the Ephori in Sparta, or a Demosthenes in Athens during the 
 Macedonian ascendancy, or by the most virtuous of the cen- 
 sors, and the most upright of the tribunes of the people in old 
 Home ; or even by the parliament of England. It was only in 
 the last period of the total decline of the Israelitish nation, 
 and shortly before and during the first days of the Iloman 
 dominion, that the regal dignity and the office of High Priest 
 were united in one family (for even here they were not inva- 
 riably associated in the same person), in such a manner as to 
 correspond with the notion that is at present usually under- 
 stood by the term theocracy. 
 
FALSE NOTIONS OF A THEOCRACY. 
 
 333 
 
 Far otherwise, however, was it, in this respect, with the 
 Christian world. The first apostolical preachers of the new 
 doctrine of grace and founders of an era which was truly, and 
 in a divine sense, new, undoubtedly did not possess less of that 
 immediate miraculous power than even a Moses or an Elijah. 
 But the only use they made of it was to promote the diffusion 
 and to set forth the glory of religion. Once only did the first 
 of the Apostles, for the sake of preserving the hierarchical 
 authority, and the purity of the community which professed to 
 give up itself and all that it had to God, make a retributive use 
 of the divine authority committed to him. He who for the love 
 of money was false to the cause of God and of truth, was struck 
 dead by the avenging glance of him who in will was united 
 with God as the everlasting Judge. Never did the Apostles 
 employ their power against the state, or avail themselves of it 
 in opposition to its decrees. And yet the despotic measures of 
 the Roman Government towards the degraded nation it had 
 brought, by force of arms, under its oppressive yoke, might 
 seem, at least, to justify such an interference with its unlaw- 
 ful usurpation. Not even in self-defence, or to escape from 
 afflictions or bonds, did they once employ the theocratic 
 powers committed to them. 
 
 The idea of a theocracy wdiich is entertained in the present 
 day is so loose and shifting, and its application generally so 
 erroneous, that it is necessary to show, at length, how little the 
 common views of it are founded on truth. There exists no 
 foundation for them in the view or theory of a Christian state 
 in its first and simple origin. And as little is it the case with 
 the succeeding epochs of Christianity. Such extraordinary 
 powers, as were manifested from time to time and entrusted 
 to particular individuals, have ever been employed for the 
 diffusion of the faith, its internal development, or to glorify 
 it before unbelievers, or for a new confirmation of old truths, 
 but never for the purpose of founding a temporal power or 
 political influence. 
 
 The true theocracy, however, such as it has actually mani- 
 fested itself, does not depend on any particular theory, but, as 
 an immediate power and authority" from God, is regulated by 
 the divine will alone. It would, therefore, be precipitate, if 
 judging of it, d priori, by any arbitrary principle, we should 
 unconditionally pronounce its recurrence to be impossible. 
 
334 THEOCRACY IN OVERRULING PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Generally the wonder of a theocracy must be judged of his- 
 torically in the light that its own history exhibits it. A mere 
 theory can lead us to no stable determination regarding it. 
 The following seems its relation to the natural history of man, 
 or even, we may say, to the usual course of external nature. 
 Viewed generally, and in its principle, whatever is, comes I 
 from God, as its first cause. The permission of evil, however, 
 whether in the realm of nature or of humanity, when, after 
 their first divine impulse, they are left for a time to pursue 
 their own course of internal development, is clearly something 
 of another and peculiar kind. Peculiar, too, are the higher 
 authorities which exist in the latter, and which are ultimately 
 founded on a divine law and right, and somewhat different is 
 the case with their immediate divine operation and miraculous 
 agency. As, therefore, the course of the world, on the whole, 
 is natural, and whatever transcends it as a singular or rare ex- 
 ception, does but interrupt the regularity of the ordinary laws 
 of nature ; so, too, the course of universal history, in ordi- 
 nary times, is agreeable to man's nature, as regulated and 
 modified simply by historical circumstances. At most a few 
 theocratical junctures, a few eminent moments of a more divine 
 working and development of power, may be noticed at distant 
 intervals. And these grand and pregnant epochs, in which 
 all the existing relations of the world assume a new and un- 
 expected form, are generally, in the first moment of its 
 triumphant result, or scarcely hoped for emancipation, rightly 
 and thankfully regarded and acknowledged as interventions of 
 a higher and a divine agency ; though, alas, the enthusiasm of 
 man's gratitude to God, even when it does take a passing hold 
 on man's heart, is wont to evaporate, even more rapidly than 
 any other of his ardent feelings. 
 
 Our own age has afforded a very remarkable instance of this 
 kind. To this it is sufficient to allude without entering into 
 any further disquisition concerning it. But it is not only in 
 such wonderful changes for good or happy deliverances from the 
 power of evil that these remarkable divine moments or theo- 
 cratic junctures announce themselves in the history of the 
 world. We may even recognise them in every commencement 
 of a truly new era in history, which, in the favourable crisis, is 
 suaueiily and triumphantly effected by a some higher impulse 
 and divinely imparted power. Many instances of the idnd 
 
THEOCRACY OF SCIENCE. 
 
 335 
 
 might easily be adduced if this were the proper place for it, or 
 time allowed. The first triumph of the Cross and Christianity 
 that was public and extended to the whole world, under Con- 
 
 ! stantine the Great, belongs to this class. As a second instance 
 I would mention that beginning of the Christian Empire in 
 
 i the West under Charlemagne, which was afterwards to receive 
 so happy a development. Superficial inquirers, who judge by 
 the mere external colouring, are in danger of confounding 
 these creative beginnings — these turning-points of a higher 
 intervention, with the ordinary event of a revolution, or the 
 rapid and decisive step of energetic usurpation. But to the 
 eye of patient observation and deep penetration they are dis- 
 tinguished from the latter by their profound historical causes 
 and their attendant circumstances, and by a peculiar stamp of 
 purity and grandeur. In short, in their essence they are 
 
 i entirely different. 
 
 These observations must have made it evident in what 
 sense I spoke of a theocracy of science. The power of truth 
 in that good science which is directed towards God, is in its 
 influence of a lofty and even of a divine nature. But it is 
 this simply, in its immediate energy of operation, without 
 depending on any external sanction, or even form thereof. In 
 the same way error also, in its evil effects, is most unques- 
 tionably, and in the fullest sense of the term, a power ; and 
 that not merely in a sensuous and materialistic, or relatively to 
 the mind in a purely negative sense, but a demoniacal power 
 of evil with a most embarrassing and perverting influence, 
 such as it has been often and in our own times most unde- 
 niably exercised. The great degree in which science actually 
 manifests itself as a power is not apparent so long as we limit 
 our consideration to the history of the human intellect in our 
 own circle of observation and the ordinary sphere of European 
 civilisation. 
 
 Among the Greeks, for example, rhetoric became the mere 
 slave of an extremely corrupt government, and followed it in 
 all its disorders. Poetry, indeed, was the handmaid of the 
 heathen worship and its religious legends ; but still, as being 
 an art and the sport of fantasy, it moved with a considerable 
 degree of freedom. Accordingly, in the best and purest and 
 greatest of the poets of antiquity, a profound and significant 
 symbolism of life lies under, and occasionally appears on the 
 
336 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THEOCRACY OF SCIENCE. 
 
 surface of their works, which, as considered from a right point j 
 of view and in a liberal spirit, is neither totally repugnant nor 
 directly opposed to a higher, or even the highest, i.e., Christian 
 truth. But still such notes of a divinely inspired feeling, which j 
 in the inspiration attains to a clearer perception of the divine | 
 nature, is very far from amou ting to the power of an idea, I 
 and its actually and determining influence on life. The phi- | 
 losophy and science of the Greeks, from its beginning to its I 
 close, stood in decided opposition both to the popular religion I 
 and to the state. Accordingly, they either exercised no in- j 
 fluence at all on life, or at least no uncontested one. At any 
 rate, their effects were very trivial. All that can be justly 
 said of the subject of Grecian science or the ideas of the Greeks 
 applies, with a slight modification and in a less general sense, 
 to those of the Romans. 
 
 The remarks we made above on ancient art and poetry hold | 
 good, though in a somewhat different application, of the 
 romantic portion of the middle ages, its legends, viz., and 
 poetic fictions. However important the nobler aim which 
 iancy here pursued to influence morals and life, still the idea 
 of the power of science can scarcely come in here. As for 
 science itself, the mediaeval mind was divided in its pursuit of j 
 it. On one hand there prevailed a strong desire after what 
 was forbidden — or at least was supposed to be forbidden—!- I 
 the old heathen philosophy ; on the other, as soon as it 
 appeared impossible to get rid of it altogether, an anxious | 
 endeavour to come to an equitable compromise with it, or at 
 least to make a rationally Christian application of it, and I 
 especially of Aristotle, who, in the judgment of those days, | 
 ruled as supreme monarch over all the sciences. Under these ! 
 circumstances, and confined by these chains of authority, it 
 was impossible for Christian science to put forth its Ml power 
 and might, or to exercise any material influence on the age or 
 on life. On the contrary, agreeably with the very principle 
 of the Christian life, the latter shows itself only in writers 
 like St. Bernard, who did not belong to the schoolmen. For 
 in the genuine scholastic philosophy, as having its origin in a j 
 perfectly heathen dialectic, neither the method nor the forms 
 of thought could be purely Christian. 
 
 How great the power of science has shown itself within the 
 last century, and especially in our own age, is a frequent tcoi* 
 
GHEEK, EOMAN, MEDIEVAL. HINDOO LITERATURE. 337 
 
 of remark. And at the same time the fact has not been over- 
 looked, that this power has gradually assumed a more per- 
 nicious direction, or at least has become involved in a great and 
 violent struggle, which as yet is undecided, between a destruc- 
 tive tendency of mind and the power of goodness and truth 
 exerting itself in an effort of restoration. And it is, perhaps, 
 only to the latter, in its conflict with the evil principle of un- 
 belief and the denial of all that is divine, that the idea of a 
 theocracy of science and such a higher power of truth is really 
 applicable. For this alone seems likely to secure to it the 
 victory in this contest, which, so far as numbers are con- 
 cerned, is most unequal. 
 
 If now we turn our looks to a more distant point, and take 
 into consideration the older Asiatic nations, though chiefly 
 and in generally with respect to the religious aspect of their 
 science and scientific monuments, here, more than elsewhere, 
 we shall meet with much that corresponds with this idea, and 
 has on its front a strong theocratical impress and signature. 
 It will, therefore, pre-eminently serve to elucidate this idea. 
 The whole edifice of scientific thought among the Hindoos, 
 though in its form of sacred laws, systems, and authentic com- 
 mentaries thereon — of history, legends and poetry, it is not 
 less rich and diversified than the literature and philosophy 
 of the Greeks, forms, nevertheless, a whole where every part 
 is of one piece and one mould. In all its manifold forms, it 
 rests and is supported on the same foundation, which is re- 
 garded and venerated as divine. And therein lies the secret 
 of its incalculable power, to which it owes its unshaken sta- 
 bility through so many tens of centuries, as well as its great 
 influence on the whole of Indian life, which has derived from 
 it its unchanging form and duration, so that we might almost 
 say : Here has science, or at least this elevated system of 
 thought, become the animating principle of life and a second 
 nature. 
 
 To the many and great errors which are mixed up with the 
 Indian system of faith and thought, I am not disposed to 
 ascribe this undestructible principle of vitality and permanent 
 influence on life. At least, if something must be ascribed to 
 this source, a vast deal more must be assigned to the influence 
 of the truth that is also contained in it, and which, though 
 variously adulterated and falsified, still, in its leading features, 
 
 z 
 
338 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THEOCRACY OF SCIENCE. 
 
 has been distinctly preserved from the sacred traditions of 
 primaeval times and the first progenitors of the nation. And 
 yet even here, in this edifice, otherwise so uniform, many a book 
 and many a system has been introduced from the opposition, even 
 though the latter exerted its antagonistic principle far more j 
 weakly and far less pertinaciously here than among the Greeks, 
 or on any other domain of the European mind. For it was I 
 chiefly in the south-eastern peninsula that the founder of that i 
 purely intellectual and ideal, but yet demoniacal and there- 
 fore truly anti- Christian sect of philosophy and religion, who 
 lived about as many centuries before the Christian epoch as 
 Mahomet after it, and whose followers, numbering nearly at 
 third of the whole population of the world, spread over the 
 south-east of Asia, and Tartary, and China, found adherents in 
 India. Still the old and proper India did not remain totally free 
 from the pernicious tenets of Buddhism, which of all religious 
 or philosophical sects and errors is the most fatal and destruc- 
 tive that ever has been or ever will be. 
 
 Let us now glance at the sacred writings of the Jews, though 
 not indeed in so far as they are to be regarded as the divine law 
 of faith for that nation, and for all others who should come in 
 the future and latter times of Christianity (a law, we must ob- 
 serve, which is expressed in a language so thoroughly individual, 
 and in so national a spirit, that it often becomes thereby highly 
 obscure and difficult to understand), — nor indeed generally in 
 a theological light. For otherwise the example we have chosen 
 for the illustration of the theocracy of science, would be iden- 
 tical with the matter it was intended to illustrate. We must 
 here consider it simply as the written record of the origin and 
 descent of the nation, both in it. p legal and historical exist- 
 ence, combining therewith its distant promises and expecta- 
 tions of the future — in short, as the history, poetry, literature, ] 
 political institutions and hopes of this singular people. View- 
 ing it then in this light, merely in its human, national, and 
 historical aspect, its firm and lasting impression on the Jewish 
 mind, and its indestructible effects, which survive all the, 
 changes of time, form a most remarkable phenomenon. For 
 by means of it this ancient people, so miraculously scattered 
 among all the nations of the world, is to this day, three-and- 
 thirty centuries from the original composition of its first sacred 
 books, still one amidst all its dispersion, and we might almost 
 add, even in spite of its half unbelief in itself. 
 
OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 339 
 
 In modern history, which commences with the second 
 epoch of revelation, the fonr holy Gospels, with various di- 
 dactic epistles, and the great prophetic book at the close of 
 all, forms the deep focus of illumination to which, however, 1 
 do not now immediately refer, lest, as I observed in a former 
 case, the illustration and the illustrated matter should prove 
 identical. Out of this first germ of light, as it was carried 
 forward in a living transmission through the first five or six 
 centuries, was gradually raised an edifice of Christian science 
 and thought. A new literature was formed in every branch 
 of doctrine or history, of eloquence or controversy, which, 
 composed in the two highly cultivated languages of classical 
 antiquity, has exercised the greatest possible influence not only 
 on the succeeding generation, but on all subsequent times. 
 Occasionally no doubt, and especially in the earlier centuries, 
 a deviation from, or rather opposition to, the prevailing system, 
 whethe : as private opinion or positive error, intruded itself into 
 the miast. Still, notwithstanding these little discords, scarce 
 perceptible in the entire mass, the whole forms, as a system of 
 thought, an intellectual power whose effects have been so great 
 that its authors — or rather its spokesmen, have with perfect 
 justice been styled the Fathers or the earthly creators and 
 founders of the Church, i. e., of this new era and of the truth 
 which is transmitted in it, without change indeed, but with a 
 stream which widens as it flows. 
 
 I have chosen all these examples from well-known matters 
 in order to direct your attention to the fact that the idea we 
 have advanced of a theocracy of science, or a divine power of 
 truth therein, does not depend for its final triumph and the 
 total extinction of error on any individual force of genius, 
 however great, but on a common and joint operation of a 
 system of forces — on a vast and comprehensive edifice of 
 thought, various indeed in its composition and mental cha- 
 racter and form of expression, but still perfectly harmonising 
 as a whole. One thing, however, is indispensable. A divine 
 tendency must predominate in it. The foundation on which 
 it rests and is supported must be divine. The one ray of 
 light, even though in itself it be never so pure and bright and 
 truly deserve to be termed divine — one stroke of the sword, 
 though never so sharply and keenly struck — the one confining 
 limit, though set up and maintained by never so comprehen- 
 
 z 2 
 
340 GOD ALONE CAN EKING ABOUT THIS THEOCRACY. 
 
 sive an intelligence (which term I use to convey something 
 more than mere prudence) ; — all these will avail nothing against 
 
 this new flood of error and infidelity and of Godless ideas 
 
 thoughts, that is, which are entirely without God, and making 
 no reference to Him, .proceed from impious and demoniacal 
 delusion. Against the inroad of atheism, which is threatening 
 life on all sides, the divine might or theocracy of true science 
 can alone furnish a defence. It only can raise a new Ark to 
 save the age from perishing in the flood of spiritual wickedness. 
 But with this view the most essential point is the building of 
 a consistent and compact whole, while those who wish to co- 
 operate in the good work must, like the builder of the ancient 
 Ark, have their regards turned chiefly to the future, looking 
 far beyond the present, and its minute and frequently most 
 trifling controversies. 
 
 This true theocracy of science, resting on a divine tendency 
 in man, which, though it is inborn, is seldom found pure, and 
 still more rarely retains its purity to the end, must look to the 
 state to secure its external stability and unimpeded action. To 
 this end it is necessary, however, that the state should under- 
 stand and recognise its own divine foundation, and look to 
 that heavenly grace and strength which religion alone vouch- 
 safes to it as the true source of its vitality and permanence. 
 Individuals can at most do nothing more than co-operate in 
 bringing about this desirable consummation. They must not 
 attempt to go beyond the true relation of this co-operative 
 character. The moving power must come from above ; it must 
 proceed from the fountain of all goodness and all truth. 
 
 Philosophically viewed, indeed, science and its divine ten- 
 dency rests on the good and genuine aspirations of the human 
 consciousness. And it is only by the restoration of man's 
 mind to the perfection in which it originally came from the 
 Creator's hands, that science can attain to its perfect state. 
 Now that the consciousness in its presenj state is imperfect — 
 or, rather, that as compared with its condition when, in the 
 first fresh energy of life and in full and unimpeded action, it 
 came immediately from the Creator, it is no longer uncorrupt, 
 unconfused, or unimpaired, as it was almost our opening 
 remark, so it has been kept in view throughout the present 
 series of Lectures. The most natural conclusion of our labours, 
 therefore, is to consider the possibility of restoring it to its 
 
."RESTORATION OF PERFECTION TO HUMAN MIND. 341 
 
 original divine perfection, as being the only method which can 
 secure to science a stable foundation and enable its Godward 
 tendency to attain its proper end. 
 
 In a cold, dead, and abstract understanding — in a passionately 
 blind and absolute will — in a reason which loses itself in dia- 
 lectical disputes or amuses itself with dynamical theories, and 
 consequently never reaches its true object — in a fancy which is 
 ever longing after and pursuing its own imaginations, living 
 on and lost in a dreamy and imaginary world of its own ; — in 
 these severally faulty forms of the human consciousness, as 
 corrupted by the influence of sin and the consequences of the 
 Fall (even though the objects of this vitiated thought and will 
 may in themselves appear perfectly innocent, indifferent, un- 
 selfish, and even intellectual) lies the original fountain of all 
 perverted and deadly thinking. The soul, in the centre of this 
 fourfold source of false cogitation and false volition, is torn 
 and distracted many ways, impeded, and as it were crippled 
 and deadened. But still it remains eternal and immortal. 
 Accordingly, the soul must be the point from which the resto- 
 ration and re-awakening of life must proceed. But this 
 restoration of the human consciousness to perfection is to be 
 called divine, on this account, because it can only be reached 
 by the soul attaching itself exclusively to what we formerly 
 called the second new and divine starting-point of human 
 existence. For the more that the soul, created for immortality 
 and loving, and in love embracing that which is in itself im- 
 mortal, adopts this great and new word for man, this second 
 beginning in God, and is impregnated with it, in the same 
 degree do reason and fancy cease to be at issue with each othei 
 and to be independent, isolated, and clashing faculties ; and 
 finally, they become altogether merged in the one thinking and 
 loving soul. Then, too, does the soul cease to be dead, cold, 
 and abstract, and becomes instead a living and wakeful spirit, 
 i. e., one which in its new life works freely and energetically. 
 And the will, too, is no longer blind, no longer passionately 
 absolute ; but restored to sight, becomes one with the internal 
 sense, as the third member of the human consciousness. And 
 by this union the will is, as it were, fully armed and equipped. 
 For the external sense, which hitherto has been thoroughly 
 passive, as soon as the will is restored to sight, assumes by its 
 means an active and living operation ; and the inner moral 
 
342 
 
 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS RESULTS 
 
 sense, which before was merely subjective, acquires a power of 
 external discernment. 
 
 This is the end of perfection. And it is only on this road ! 
 of a divine restoration of the human consciousness, according | 
 to its established law of progress, that the divine tendency of 
 science can attain to perfection. "With the attainment of this 
 end an entirely new era will commence. But the intricacy of I 
 the problem which our own age has to solve arises simply from 
 this circumstance, that a truly new era and a false one are 
 engaged in mortal conflict. The former can only spring up 
 and flourish when the latter decays and is got rid of. To this 
 end, the present false spirit of the age, which is but a per- 
 version of the true cosmopolitan spirit, must die the death. 
 And this must be brought to pass by the sword of the Word or 
 of eternal truth, which pierces even to the joints and marrow ' 
 and divides asunder soul and spirit. For the immortal, God- 1 
 created and God-devoted soul requires to be separated and 
 detached from the so-called spirit of the age, which is mixed 
 up and compounded of so many dim, false, imperfect, and evil ) 
 spirits. And the spirit of the age must itself be entirely con- 
 verted and be brought to a knowledge and open confession 
 of its error, and when once whatever in it is totally dead has I 
 been adjudged to eternal death, it will itself be renovated and 
 purified in the fiery floods of the truly new times. 
 
 In this divine restoration, however, of the human conscious- 
 ness, or theocracy, man's part must be wholly passive. It is 
 enough if he does not hinder or retard it ; for in a certain 
 sense he can at least co-operate in bringing it to pass. Even 
 that final consummation towards which that true new era, 
 which as yet is entirely hidden and, as it were, choked by the 
 false, longs and yearns, — that peace of God, of which the 
 highest and best religious peace is but a foreboding symbol 
 and, as it were, the first weak grade or step, cannot be brought 
 about by human art and power. It is not by any diplomatic 
 courtesy, which in this case would be highly culpable, — not 
 by any amalgamation, which in the present sphere is contra- 
 dictory to every notion of right, that that peace can be 
 brought about, in which, according to no vain or unmeaning 
 promise, there is to be one fold and one Shepherd. Its 
 accomplishment must be reserved entirely to Him who from 
 all eternity has been and still is the good Shepherd of all His 
 creatures. 
 
AND STJMMABY. 
 
 343 
 
 Here, then, at this point, having, by means of the idea of a 
 restoration of the human consciousness to its original divine 
 perfection, arrived at a close, I will pause a few moments to 
 take once more a rapid survey of, and to throw a clearer light 
 on, my past labours. And herein I shall purposely refer to 
 the division of philosophy, and the designations of its several 
 parts usually given in the schools. The first five Lectures 
 treated of the human soul in the wide extent of its original 
 relation, not only to life but also to nature and to God, and 
 formed consequently of psychology, though in a wider sense 
 than the science which is usually occupied with this subject. 
 The three next, as discussing the divine order of things, con- 
 tained a species of natural theology, though treated of in a 
 perfectly living method and relation, and entering historically 
 into individual, no less than universal, life. Of the last seven 
 Lectures the first three were devoted to the investigation of 
 truth. We here examined its fundamental principle of the 
 unity of the highest science and divine faith, the discrimina- 
 tion of truth in the struggle between faith and scepticism, and 
 the final conclusion in the unity of this higher science and 
 faith with the true life and its influence therein. This higher 
 logic, in so far as it considers the true essence of things, might 
 even be designated an ontology. And, indeed, since it derives 
 everything from a divine principle, it might not inaptly be 
 called an applied or mixed theology, in the same sense as this 
 designation is employed in the mathematical sciences, viz., 
 as the first part of such an applied theology. In this sense 
 the second part thereof would be formed by the metaphysics 
 of life, as the science of that which is above nature, whose pro- 
 vince it is to indicate all higher and supernatural principles in 
 the whole sphere of existence and the actual world, so far as 
 it is given to man to know them. Employing the old phraseo- 
 logy and division of the schools, we might term this a cos- 
 mology, in a moral and intellectual sense, and with a regard 
 to what human philosophy can attain to. The symbolical 
 energy of the divine communication in religion, the divine 
 foundation of the state, the Godward tendency of science, and 
 the restoration of the consciousness by God, form, as it were, 
 the four poles or summits of all these principles, which trans- 
 cend and overpass the merely natural. 
 
 Concerning the accomplishment of perfection in man's 
 
344 
 
 RESTORATION OF THE DIVINE IMAGE IN MAN. 
 
 divinely-restored consciousness, and also in the whole of 
 existence, or in nature itself, a few words yet remain to be 
 added. And thus this last section, considered as a cosmology, 
 is based on a divine principle, so far as this is attainable by 
 man. 
 
 Now the first consequence of the perfection of the human 
 consciousness, as accomplished by God, will be the restoration 
 of the divine image and likeness in man. The soul, now 
 purified and made complete again, becomes once more spiri- 
 tually fruitful, and in this internal productiveness, which even 
 the pure spirits do not possess, is rendered similar, though at 
 an infinite distance and in a very secondary sense, to the Creator 
 in His productive energy. The livingly operative spirit in the 
 creature is like to that in the being who is increate and from 
 all eternity, while the livingly active sense, as the third mem- 
 ber or element in the perfected consciousness, is similar and 
 correspondent to the divine operating word. And lastly, in 
 this livingly quickened and completely restored consciousness, 
 man reassumes his original true and distinct relation to 
 nature. By the soul, first of all, he is reunited to God; in 
 his spirit, now restored to true life, he enters into a living 
 and clear communion with ail other kindred spirits ; and by 
 his will, now clearly seeing and working in God, he assumes 
 once more his original relation to nature as her first-born son 
 and her legitimate lord. 
 
 But nature, as the creature that groaneth and travaileth in 
 pain together, waiteth in earnest expectation for its perfec- 
 tion and restoration. And this is the only view of it that is 
 either founded in truth or really Christian. And in this idea 
 of creation groaning and travailing in pain lies a fulness of 
 prophetic intimations for nature. While she seems on the 
 whole to be deeply slumbering, this alone excites a hope of a 
 great and general awakening ; whereas it is scarcely a genera- 
 tion and a half, or two at most, since physical science first 
 began to awaken out of the grave of its own dead notions, 
 when in nature itself, no less than in the science of it, all seemed 
 sunk in death. 
 
 We need not, therefore, be surprised if this Christian view 
 of nature and a dynamical physiology evince so little of agree- 
 ment. For the latter invariably regards the system of nature 
 as something absolute and as perfect and complete in itself; 
 
INFLUENCE OF EVIL IN NATURE. 
 
 345 
 
 but this it evidently is not. And indeed many an eloquent 
 theological essay on the proofs of design in nature and on its 
 indications of the goodness of the Creator, sets out on a simi- 
 larly defective hypothesis, that nature, in its present condi- 
 tion, is exactly the same as God originally created it. But 
 this is directly contradicted by the promise so expressly and 
 distinctly made to the last times, of " new heavens and a new- 
 earth." For this not merely implies, but rather asserts, 
 that nature stands in need of a grand renovation, which it 
 transcends the ordinary course of its proper powers of develop- 
 ment to accomplish, and which consequently is only conceiv- 
 able as brought about by the immediate operation of divine 
 power, or of a celestial theocracy for this purpose, in the time 
 of the universal regeneration. 
 
 We are far more ready and disposed to assign to the 
 powers of evil a greater influence and a wider field of opera- 
 tion in the world of man than in the system of nature. But it 
 is perhaps more conformable to truth to see in the present con- 
 dition of the latter a state of truce with' the evil and destruc- 
 tive powers which formerly raged more fiercely — an interval 
 during which the conflict is confined within certain limits, 
 rather than as a complete and perfect peace. Its external 
 influences, as they affect man, must not be taken for the stand- 
 ard in this case. For they may be merely accidental ; just as 
 the ordinary inundations belong to the economy of the balance 
 of the elementary forces of nature, and as the storms and tem- 
 pests, which occasionally are fearfully destructive, are never- 
 theless, it is clear, a process necessary for the purification and 
 salubrity of the atmosphere. But, on the other hand, many 
 facts of medical experience and peculiar phenomena of dis- 
 ease or even births of faulty or defective organisation — as well 
 as the loathsome generation of insects in the atmosphere or 
 on the surface of the earth, and many diseased states in both, 
 when viewed simply and elementarily, and apart from the 
 usual principle of epidemic contagion, appear to point rather 
 to some intrinsical evil and originally wild demoniacal cha- 
 racter in the sphere of nature, even though they only occur as 
 exceptions to these general laws. How deadly even sidereal 
 influences may prove is at least established by the fact of 
 lunacy. In those fields of celestial light, too, and those bril- 
 liant hosts of heaven, which, as nature's more retiring and 
 
346 NATURE ORIGINALLY CREATED IMMORTAL. 
 
 lovelier charms, become visible only by night, and display 
 themselves to the calm and tranqnil soul, all is not in such 
 perfect unison and harmony as the first impression would lead 
 us to suppose. A note of discord arises from the irregular 
 orbits of those eccentrically revolving stars, which, though rare 
 in their appearance, seem to be pretty numerous — exercising 
 either a watery or an arid influence on the terrestrial atmo- 
 sphere, and whose paths astronomy has indeed calculated, 
 though her calculations have not always been verified. All 
 our knowledge, too, and recorded observations of the rest of 
 nature, i. e., in this sense of the earth itself, does not go 
 beyond the surface — consequently to only one portion of it ; 
 and yet perhaps that internal part, which is hidden from us, 
 is the very one that is most deeply significant, and more 
 nearly akin to the eternal. Nature, in her interior and reality, 
 may perhaps possess little resemblance to what we see of her 
 externally. At every step we stumble on some new proof of 
 our ignorance, and much also that gives an intimation of a 
 new and unknown world. 
 
 Nature in general may for us be compared to a towering 
 pyramid of hieroglyphics heaped together at random, from 
 which, with our utmost pains, we can scarcely succeed in 
 bringing together and deciphering two or three at most ; 
 while we have not the key for interpreting the meaning and 
 order of the whole. For we must not, as under a very erro- 
 neous idea is often done, seek this in nature itself, but en- 
 tirely in its divine principle. For in this must all that is 
 unintelligible find its solution. Now in that one part of 
 nature which we are best acquainted with, its surface — after 
 that law of sexual distinction which reigns not only in the 
 animal but also in the vegetable world, and which, moreover, 
 in a certain sense prevails in the very atmosphere and its 
 elementary organs of life — no other law of nature is so uni- 
 versal as that of death. But if it be true that through that 
 spirit and power of evil who first revolted from God, death 
 came into the world and also into nature, then must the 
 earthly and now natural death have proceeded from the author 
 of eternal death. 
 
 Very questionable, in this case, would it appear to be, 
 whether the first and original creations of nature were other 
 than immortal. If He whose essence is omnipotence thinks 
 
DESTRUCTION OF DEATH AND PERFECTION OF NAT CUE. 347 
 
 hieroglyphics, then are they living creatures ; and can we, 
 judging of Him in Himself and His proper nature, suppose 
 that He would conceive of or create aught else than what is 
 eternal and immortal ? The old curse still hangs over nature, 
 wherein the first author and inventor of death has contrived 
 to root himself so deeply. And that malediction was not 
 removed by the first man ; ^ the contrary, it was deepened 
 and confirmed by him. And even at . the divine renewal of 
 the human race, the same anathema was again pronounced 
 upon the natural tree of an earthly life, condemning it to 
 wither still more and more under the baneful dominion of 
 death. The victory over death is only to be gained together 
 with the perfection of man. And then shall follow a theo- 
 cracy and divine renovation of nature, under which all that is 
 therein shall again become immortal. A perfect harmony 
 shall thereby be restored to the whole of creation. 
 
 END OF PHILOSOPHY Of LIFE. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 PREFACE OF THE GERMAN EDITOR. 
 
 In these pages we give to the world the philosophical Lec- 
 tures which the late F. V. Schlegel delivered last winter, at 
 Dresden, to a numerous and distinguished auditory — the last 
 monument of his life and mind. To many of his personal 
 hearers they will probably be welcome, as enabling them, in the 
 perusal of what their own ears so lately heard, to realise more 
 distinctly the matter of the Lectures, and the whole person of 
 the eminent individual who was so unexpectedly taken away 
 from among them. But to a still larger circle of the friends 
 and admirers of Schlegel, this publication will no doubt be 
 acceptable, especially since, under a pervading reference to 
 language, it throws much light and more fully carries out the 
 views advanced by Schlegel in the Lectures delivered two years 
 before, at Vienna, on the Philosophy of Life. In this rich and 
 important fragment, Schlegel' s whole idea of philosophy stands 
 out far more clear and distinct, though for its complete eluci- 
 dation and exposition it was his intention, had he been spared, 
 to add at least one more series of Lectures to the three 
 already given to the world. 
 
 The present publication is eminently calculated to show 
 what in these three connected series of Lectures it was the 
 author's first object, both as a thinker and teacher, to accom- 
 plish, viz., to convey the living words of his inmost mind, 
 rich with the fruits of many years' study and research, to all 
 who possessed a sensibility or disposition likely to be roused 
 and animated thereby to pursue or promote some kindred 
 inquiry or object. It would, therefore, be a proof of grave 
 
350 
 
 PREFACE OF THE GERMAN EDITOR. 
 
 misconception, to make such requisitions on these Lectures as 
 are incompatible with this end and with the character which 
 they most covet, of being, in the higher sense of the term, a 
 living discourse. For to satisfy such demands was neither 
 me design or wish of the author. It was not his purpose 
 >ither to take some single abstract notion, and by detailed 
 elucidation to make it clear and obvious, nor to set up some 
 rigorously limited system of notions, with its definitions and 
 arbitrary terminology, whose great merit should be made to 
 consist in such regularity of plan and faithful execution, as 
 should everywhere command the notice and the wonder of the 
 reader. In short, it was not his object, in some partial specu- 
 lation of the reason, exclusively to set forth a long series of 
 abstract propositions as a model and precedent for such essays. I 
 Those, however, who, to use Schlegel's own words, look upon 
 these Lectures as a series of questions to which their own i 
 hearts silently indeed give a concurrent answer, or find therein 
 the satisfactory solution to many difficulties suggested by their 
 own reflections on the life and mind of man, will not be able I 
 to get rid of a just and righteous sorrow, to think that the 
 voice from which they still looked for many such questionings, 1 
 and much similar instruction, is suddenly silenced, and that I 
 none remains who, as inheriting the spirit of the departed, or i 
 as his favourite and intelligent scholar, is able to supply what 
 lis still wanting. 
 
 With this heavy feeling of sorrow, it seems perhaps incon- 
 sistent to express a passing regret that the author has not been 
 permitted himself to superintend this edition of his Lectures, | 
 and to make those corrections which here and there might I 
 have appeared to him desirable. A few passages (noticed 
 thus in the text -f ) were marked by Schlegel himself either for j I 
 emendation or enlargement, and the loss of these corrections 
 we cannot but miss and regret. 
 
351 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 By philosophy — -and this term best expresses the historical 
 and original conception as it was understood by the Greeks, 
 who so variously and ingeniously developed it — I understand 
 man's innate and natural curiosity, so far as it is universal in 
 its scope, and not from the first limited to any one specific 
 end or subject. 
 
 This natural curiosity consequently, stimulated by the mys- 
 teries of existence, whether in the external world or of its 
 own consciousness, would fain make all these enigmas clear 
 to itself, and by attaining to an inward illumination, would 
 discover the true signification, or, if we may so call it, the 
 all- explaining key-word of life. And, indeed, there is no 
 reasonable doubt but that the possession of this revivifying 
 and living key- word would give to life, both individual and 
 universal, a more exalted energy. 
 
 For nothing less than an internal light of intellectual bright- 
 ness, or of the spirit made clear to itself, is that search after 
 truth and knowledge, by which we discover the key- word and 
 true signification of life, as a whole. By it all the powers, 
 qualities, and faculties of the soul are strengthened anew, 
 inwardly elevated, and augmented in force and fertility. And 
 if any would prefer to give the name of science to this highest 
 and earliest speculative knowledge or pursuit of internal cer- 
 tainty and divine truth, we object not, so long as it is admitted 
 that it is not a science precisely in the same sense, and still 
 less in exactly the same or similar form, as the other sciences, 
 which are directed to one specific aim and limited to one 
 subject. Free as life and the free-formed spirit itself, ever 
 new, wonderful, versatile, and infinitely varied, both in internal 
 structure and external manifestation, are the ways of man's 
 thinking and speculative spirit. A ready and apposite illus- 
 tration will clearly demonstrate this peculiar freedom and 
 manifold variety in the methods, species, and developments of 
 philosophy. At any rate, if it do not place it vividly before 
 our eyes, it at least suggests the idea of it. The written 
 
352 THE TRUE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 dialogues of Plato — that great master of philosophical expo- 
 sition and of the thinking dialogue of science, with its 'ever 
 living and changing play of thought, and earnest spirit of 
 investigation — are perhaps not less diversified in their course, 
 not less wonderfully manifold and exuberant with all the 
 riches of genius ; not less peculiar in their general concep- I 
 tion, as well as external development ; not less exquisite in the 
 finish of the several parts and divisions, than the poetical pro- jh 
 ductions of the greatest and most admired of dramatists. 
 
 Those who are best acquainted with the art and the intellect 
 of the poet and of the thinker, will be least inclined to dispute 
 the justice and accuracy of this comparison. We appeal to ■! 
 the instance of Plato with greater confidence, not only because I 
 he stands alone, as inimitable for beauty of exposition, and for 
 fulness and grace, as well as spirit and vividness of style, but 
 also because (as is apparent from the numerous and varied 
 compositions which he has bequeathed to posterity) every path 
 of inquiry previously opened, as well as every road and by- 
 way of dialectic subtilty still conceivable or possible, were 
 perfectly familiar to this lofty intellect. There was, in short, no ! 
 field of speculative thought and investigation, however high or 
 deep, that remained unexplored by him. From any one of 
 his most perfect masterpieces, consequently, we might per- i 
 haps, by a precise and exhaustive analysis of the art and skill j 
 that lies hidden in it, gain a more correct notion of the true 
 and profitable method of speculative thought and investigation 
 than from many or most of our compendiums of all absolute 
 ideas and metaphysical chimeras, or from the systems at pre- 
 sent in vogue of unconditional logical negation. 
 
 In order, however, to establish this view of a true philo- 
 sophy of life, which in its very form is also living, it is unne- !| 
 cessary to appeal to any single example, even though it be one 
 so splendid as that of the Socratic school in general, or of 
 Plato, the greatest thinker it has produced. For in fact, the 
 whole history of philosophy, from its commencement to its I 
 close, will serve as a proof and confirmation of its truth. In 
 various ways does it teach and convince us that in this lofty 
 struggle after truth the most divergent, and even apparently I 
 contradictory methods and tendencies may, however, and actu- 
 ally do, lead to similar conclusions, nay, to one common result. 
 It shows us that, however various may be the paths, the end of 
 
USE OP SCHOLASTIC OB. MATHEMATICAL FORMS. 353 
 
 knowledge — the eagerly sought jewel of truth itself — is by 
 uo means always and in all cases tied to any immutable and 
 exclusive rule of one fixed form and solely felicitous method 
 of thought, as to a magic charm on which all depends, and 
 from which all success must flow. The history of philosophy, 
 [ said, for, understood in its full extent, in its correct sense 
 uid spirit, and in its deepest significancy, what else is this 
 than the internal reverse of the picture of man ? — the intel- 
 ectual half of humanity, in its development through all the 
 peculiar and remarkable processes which in the pursuit and 
 •ognition of truth — that noblest exercise of man's powers and 
 acuities — he has at any time had recourse to. And in tracing 
 ;his gradual progression, we may easily discern an invisible 
 guidance which shows itself, especially in the more remarkable 
 epochs or transition-points and decided periods of the struggle. 
 *n the general exciting cause, and the new directions which 
 he inward intellectual development occasionally took up, and 
 he law it followed, an entirely distinct order of things mani- 
 ests itself to the glance that looks beneath the surface, of a 
 ar higher and more exalted nature than aught which is com- 
 >rised and established by the insignificant rule of our ordi- 
 iary school methods, or which is only estimated and judged 
 >; hereby. 
 
 It is by no means my wish to set aside the usual scholastic 
 orm in the academical exposition of scientific philosophy, or 
 a any way to depreciate it when it is effectively carried out on 
 trict principles. In its right place, and when the occasion de- 
 mands it, we must acknowledge it to be indispensable. It is not 
 □ be neglected with impunity. This is especially the case in 
 bat period of our life which is more particularly and exclu- 
 ively devoted to the study of the sciences, when philosophy 
 aturally takes its place among the rest in the academical 
 ourse, and also in the systematic mode of instruction assumes 
 form similar to the other sciences. It is involved in the 
 lready advanced but briefly and imperfectly developed idea 
 t' the spiritually free and ever- varying, ever- shifting form 
 hich belongs to the very nature of philosophical thought and 
 nowledge, that when circumstances predispose, and its 
 j| xternal relations afford the opportunity and occasion, philo- 
 ^phy should adopt and appropriate the limited and less abso- 
 ite form of other sciences, or, as I would rather express it, 
 
 2 a 
 
354 
 
 USE AND ABUSE OF SYSTEM. 
 
 may and can condescend to assnme them. But this is only a 
 special application for some collateral purpose, a deviation and 
 exception from, and not the rule itself, if we thereby under- 
 stand the natural rule, or that which is essential and original, 
 and consequently the simplest and highest. 
 
 As regards, however, the philosophy which pretends to be 
 the science of life, and not merely of the school, this principle 
 follows from the fact, that when taken as a whole, and when 
 the question is not of any special application to a particular 
 view and object, its form also must be free and vivid. Conse- 
 quently, even when classed and associated with the other 
 sciences, it justly lays claim to the first place among them, as 
 being of a different nature and origin. 
 
 It is far, therefore, from being requisite that philosophy, ! 
 follo wing the mathematical sciences as a handmaid, should en- 
 deavour servilely to copy them, as has been so often erroneously 
 done, and in spite of experience of its impracticability, over 
 and over again attempted. Still, with a true view of a living 
 philosophy, mathematical science, however dead in itself, and 
 even fatal to a higher spirit, attains under profounder appre- 
 hension to intrinsic significance, and becomes elevated and 
 ennobled. The true method (that, namely, which alone deserves 
 to be so called, the method of truth,) is based on the simple 
 process of thought and its living development, in which one 
 thought springs and unfolds itself naturally from another, and 
 rigidly excludes all that is foreign and repugnant. The true 
 method does not move in paragraphs and numbered proposi 
 tions. making an outward parade of an apparently strong chain 
 of evidence, in which, however, a rigid scrutiny often detects 
 some specific link in the chain totally valueless and without 
 illative force, or at least weak and far from cogent, or placed in 
 a false position, to which it has properly no reference, and only 
 in appearance filling the void it covers. Thus it is also with 
 what we call system, or systematic. We are indeed accustomed 
 to employ this word in a twofold sense, — either to convey 
 praise, or in an evil and deprecatory* signification. In the 
 latter use we say, "This or that work is nothing but a 
 system;' or 4 4 According to this or that system." But by such 
 phrases, when criticising any comprehensive theory of scien- 
 tific thought, we do not mean that the work is entirely 
 without foundation, purely and absolutely imaginary. For in 
 
CONSISTENCY OF IDEA THE ESSENCE OF SYSTEM. 355 
 
 such a case it would hardly be worth while to spend more 
 words upon it. Our meaning rather is, that while containing 
 something that is true, and much that is excellent, undue im- 
 portance is ascribed to the system, or too much is inferred from 
 it, everything being forcibly made to agree with it, and itself 
 barried" beyond the limits of sober truth: in a word, that the 
 systematic coherence is only external and specious, and the 
 result of much labour and art. In reality this is very fre- 
 quently the case. This course is too often pursued in the 
 theories and discoveries of modern science, especially in those 
 branches which stand in the closest relation to physical life 
 and its preservation, and are consequently most influenced by 
 the fashionable ideas of the age. Some happy thought, bearing 
 the very stamp of genius, some ingenious idea or entirely new 
 view is started; on this foundation a system is forthwith raised 
 either by the author himself or his followers and disciples. 
 Embraced with the ardour of enthusiasm, the novel theory is 
 further extended and promulgated, and becomes the watch- 
 word of a sect or party, until, degenerating into a mere 
 fashion, and being borne up awhile by the eddies of the 
 Imoment, it sinks at last into insignificance, and is swallowed 
 tip by the vast stream of time. When once the matter has 
 reached this point or this stage in the pathology of human 
 thought and opinion, then that first happy idea and original 
 invention may be considered as good as defunct, or at least is, 
 as it were, buried alive, and the true vital principle which 
 originally animated it is no longer perceptible. 
 
 But in a good and legitimate sense we may characterise a 
 scientific work or a scheme of thought as systematic, or as 
 forming a system in itself, and as such approve of it, if only it 
 possesses the virtue of internal consistency, and the spirit of 
 pnity pervades and animates it. And if this consistency of 
 idea be really intrinsic and spiritual, and at the same time 
 living and natural, it will be easily recognised in its perspi- 
 cacious simplicity of form and expression. It will need neither 
 the external display of systematic precision and prolix demon- 
 strative argumentation, nor the apparently rigid concatenation 
 of paragraphs, in which, however, the forced connexion and 
 the panoplied array of propositions form but a poor device to 
 conceal the deficiency of intrinsic life and unity. 
 
 The case is preciselv the same with the science of human 
 2 a 2 
 
356 PHILOSOPHY THE CKOWN OF EDUCATION. 
 
 thought and philosophy, as with external life and daily expe- 
 rience. Nothing is more highly estimated in society, business, 
 or politics, than an active and consistent character. Pro- 
 perly speaking, this example is not so much a simile as the 
 very thing itself, or the same subject viewed from another 
 ground or in a different relation. But this high and rare 
 property of a genuine consistency of character does not 
 depend on the delivery of a multitude of philosophic adages 
 in and out of season, or the specious thrusting forward of 
 moral maxims, but rather manifests itself amidst general 
 reserve and silence, by its straightforwardness of action, or 
 when it speaks, by the clear simplicity of its language. So is 
 it also with consistency of idea in philosophy. The intrinsic 
 and vital unity of a comprehensive system of thought — the 
 systematic coherence which results from a reigning idea of 
 the whole, reveals itself and is to be known by a simple and 
 familiar form of expression, not unlike that of a friendly con- 
 versation, and is not exclusively confined to any prescriptive 
 or preconceived formula of the schools or artificial method. 
 
 But in respect to academical instruction, and the position 
 which philosophy either may or ought to occupy therein, I 
 have one remark to add. If I may judge by my own expe- 
 rience, or by what I have at times observed in others, either 
 when as a youth I was an academical student, or when after- 
 wards as a visitor at several of the German universities, I 
 took part in the scientific pursuits, and occasionly as a lecturer 
 propounded my own views and opinions, a decided and striking 
 division seems to subsist between philosophy and the peculiar 
 scientific studies proper to the future wants of life. This is, 
 however, less the case with the study of medicine, which being 
 founded on, and conversant with, the science of nature, stands 
 in a close relation to philosophy. Still even the prosecution 
 of this natural science proves distinctly enough that the inter- 
 ests of general science follow entirely different paths from 
 such as are most eligible, and more especially conducive to 
 the acquirement and collection of particular information. 
 Still more does this apply to that numerous class who devote 
 themselves to civil professions, and whose future life is to be 
 employed in political departments. By them philosophy is 
 pursued as a mere collateral and secondary object of study, 
 as a half superfluous intellectual luxury. But this she nowise 
 
PHILOSOPHY THE CROWN OF EDUCATION. 357 
 
 admits of; she demands an earnest and devoted affection, 
 and must be embraced with the full ardour of love. It is in 
 this very earnestness of purpose, and this genuine attachment 
 and enthusiasm, that it has its source and being. Hence we 
 may often observe many a studious youth attracted by the 
 general question as to the nature of the human soul, and by 
 these sublime investigations into the mysteries of existence. 
 Under the influence, as it were, of some magical spell, he is 
 I absorbed in them so as completely to forget and lose sight of 
 the studies appropriate to the calling he has chosen, or at least 
 to neglect them, viewing them as comparatively secondary, 
 while others of more practical tendency steadily devote them- 
 selves to the study of their profession, and confine themselves 
 exclusively to its pursuit. Rigidly rejecting the metaphysical 
 charm and seduction of system, as a dangerous lure, they care 
 little if at all for the contempt with which the other class, 
 whom dialectic speculation has bewitched into forsaking its 
 proper object of study, looks down upon them as incapable of 
 rising to the height of its own exalted argument. Now if I 
 might venture to hazard a. suggestion for the removal, or at 
 least the accommodation, of this alienation from, not to say 
 opposition to, philosophy, which exists in the tone of our Ger- 
 man universities, and if it be not out of place here to enter 
 into this matter, my first desire and advice would be, that the 
 study and course of philosophy should be kept entirely distinct 
 from that of the profession or the particular science which is 
 learned with a view to future avocations in life. In such a 
 case philosophy might most advantageously be taken up by 
 the student after the completion of his other studies, in short, 
 at the conclusion of the whole academical course, setting, so 
 to speak, the crown upon it, and forming the last step which 
 the pupil must take before he enters upon the realities of life. 
 
 Moreover, there is no leisure for idle meditation during the 
 years of academical study — that period of preparation which 
 few have a second time afforded them, and which being entirely 
 practical, ought to be specially devoted to the perfect master- 
 ing of the special sciences which in after life are to occupy us. 
 It is rather in our later and maturer years, after the acquire- 
 ment of the particular professional knowledge, and even in 
 the midst of the active business of life, that leisure, together 
 with a convenient opportunity, or a natural occasion, is afforded 
 
358 PHILOSOPHY CONVERSANT WITH LIFE. 
 
 for that meditation with which philosophy ordinarily begins, 
 but which in its results remains no idle speculation ; or for 
 that apparently superfluous inquiry, which, however, investi- 
 gates a subject more necessary and more essential to man than 
 all else. 
 
 So much — if it has not been indeed too much — I believed it 
 requisite to say concerning the form of philosophy, not so I 
 much to justify or to excuse that which in the present case 
 I could alone adopt, as rather from this point of view also 
 to establish the independent position, and to depict the lofty 
 aims of philosophy. For if philosophy is nothing less than 
 the actual science of life (and the sceptical query whether 
 such a science be either possible or attainable by man, will 
 in nowise affect the question ; for if the doubt concerning 
 the nature of life, or life itself, is suggested by life, and con- 
 sequently is riving and real, it amounts to the same thing, and j 
 the objection applies alike to the doubt or the certainty) ; — 
 if, I repeat, the object of philosophy be the sublime concep- 
 tion of our inner life, struggling to unravel the mystery of its 
 cfwn being, how can it be right, or, how could a wish arise to I 
 exclude from it one-half of humanity, or society, or of civilised 
 life ? The proper sphere of philosophy, no less than of art, is 
 the whole civilised public. This is the body in which it must 
 circulate, and to which its action must be applied. The 
 specious ground for such an exclusion can only be looked for 
 and discovered in the ordinary school-form, which indeed, as 
 I have endeavoured to show, is by no means essential to it, 
 but rather a mere accident, which is so far from being neces- 
 sary, that it is not even of universal application. 
 
 If, therefore, the subject-matter of philosophy is the whole 
 inward life of man, — if its end is the solution of the ever-re- 
 curring questions of the speculative consciousness, and the 
 reading of the enigma of existence, or however else we may 
 choose to characterise and express it, it is assuredly some- 
 thing of a distinct and more exalted nature than any of the 
 preparatory sciences which make up the academical course of 
 study for the specific objects of some limited calling and pro- 
 fession. The philosophy of life, as it sets out only with one 
 simple position — life, viz., man's inner life, is restricted to no 
 particular sphere, but embraces them all in their fit season 
 and occasion. When, indeed, in the youthful, not to say 
 
PHILOSOPHY CONVERSANT WITH LIFE. 359 
 
 /in 
 
 childlike, spirit, standing on the threshold of expectation, 
 this inward feeling of life or consciousness has not as yet 
 shaped itself into an ardent speculative curiosity, or a grave 
 and melancholy questioning, or when, at least, it has not passed 
 through the first stage of thoughtful wondering, then it is 
 as yet too early for the awakening of philosophy — that inward 
 
 I search after truth and meditation on the nature of our exist- 
 ence and consciousness, that self-examination, those half- 
 doubting yearnings after an unknown love. Youth, inexpe- 
 
 ! rienced and undeveloped, may reasonably be supposed to be 
 excluded from a participation in this natural field of philo- 
 sophical speculation, although even in this, as in every other 
 ease, it is extremely difficult to define the precise limits. It 
 would also be idle to repeat the remark so often insisted 
 on by the sages of antiquity— that where life is totally ab- 
 
 ; sorbed in the business or pleasures of life, or distracted by 
 
 j the cares of avarice or ambition, so that, strictly speaking, no 
 voice from within is heard, no soul- cherished feeling or 
 sentiment, nay even scarcely a thought, purely spiritual, still 
 
 : survives, or finds a place in that world- engrossed bosom- 
 there philosophy finds no ear for her sublime revelations of the 
 inner life, nor dares hope for a responsive echo to her high 
 soaring meditations, and that profound emotion from which 
 it draws her own birth. 
 
 Philosophy, I said, takes nothing for granted but life — an 
 internal life, that is. The more perfectly, the more manifold 
 the aspects, and the more comprehensively within the given 
 limits under which this life which it supposes is viewed and 
 studied, the more easily will it fulfil its object, the sooner 
 will it attain to that which constitutes its proper end and 
 aim. For this aim is to render clear and intelligible both to 
 itself and others, that higher life, whose existence it assumes 
 as the necessary basis of its speculations. But how would 
 this primary postulate, this natural basis of a philosophy of 
 life, be restricted and limited, if the sex which is so pre- 
 eminently marked by strong and deep feeling, should be 
 entirely excluded from the sphere of its inquiries. Indeed, 
 according to a more liberal, comprehensive, and enlarged point 
 of view, such as is most consistent with the true nature of 
 things, youth, with its enthusiasm and quick sensibility for the 
 beautiful — its first and most exalted love, is not to be exclu- 
 
380 PHILOSOPHY CONVERSANT WITH LIFE 
 
 sively given up to the fine arts. As the latter are elements of 
 life, and very important elements too, they cannot be excluded 
 from the sphere of philosophy, but, on the contrary, form no 
 inconsiderable portion of its general problem. The objection, 
 however, might be raised, that these, the best and fairest of 
 the gifts which nature dispenses with a liberal and benignant 
 hand, are but transitory, and that they wither and disappear 
 before the first rude touch of external circumstances that 
 limits their free play ; so that, to judge from appearances, 
 they scarcely can abide, or be steadily kept up to the gravity 
 of philosophical contemplation. Often, it may be urged, 
 some unpropitious destiny, some sudden storm of fate, over- 
 whelms and destroys them, stripping the youthful tree of life 
 of all its leafy honours before it has properly put forth its 
 blossoms. This, no doubt, is perfectly true. In most cases, 
 however, the destroying principle does not come from without. 
 Fortune and external circumstances have little to do with it. 
 It lies rather in the inner impetuosity of passion, in self-will, 
 or some other dark shade of character, perverting and bringing 
 jarring discord into the most exalted feelings of the soul. 
 Would it not be well and especially advisable to place from 
 the very first these tender and delicate flowers of youthful feel- 
 ing within the influence, and under the action of an inward 
 illumination and reflection, as the only probable means of im- 
 parting to them greater hardihood and durability, and thereby 
 to convert the fair but ephemeral flowers of youthhood into 
 the mature and enduring fruit of sincere benevolence, of a 
 generous activity and inward harmony ? There is, in truth, no 
 easier or more simple mode by which man can hope to arrive 
 at this end. It is only by means of such inner light and purity 
 of sentiment and luminous meditation, that we can hope to 
 work our way to that key- word of existence which shall recon- 
 cile every difficulty, clear up every doubt, and attune to har 
 mony every discord. For hereby also will the power be gained 
 which alone can sustain and protect this inner life from every 
 destructive influence. This enlightenment, however, is no- 
 thing else than the philosophy of life, and therein consists its 
 essence. 
 
 Now, in order to place before us the very centre of the 
 entire question, and at least to notice beforehand that which 
 must more perfectly develope itself as, step by step, we trace 
 
PHILOSOPHY CONVERSANT WITH EIEE. 
 
 361 
 
 the natural process of thought, both in life itself and the 
 science of life, one remark is necessary. The soul is nothing 
 less than the faculty of love in man. For this reason, also, the 
 loving soul (if I may here make such an application of the 
 words of a great teacher,) is the clear mirror in which we 
 gaze upon the secrets of divine love either reflected or 
 symbolically figured as so many enigmas, which nevertheless 
 serve us as light- giving and guiding stars, amid the darkness 
 of this earthly existence. And in this pure mirror of our 
 soul we plainly behold the ever- verdant and immortal plants 
 | or hidden flowers of nature, like the dark bed of the deep 
 through the clear waters of a still sea. In this mental 
 mirror nature greets us with features less strange and un- 
 known, and with familiar aspect seems to claim at once a 
 kindred sympathy. 
 
 In these slight and passing remarks, I have touched briefly 
 upon many a topic of which the full development must be 
 reserved for our subsequent Lectures. Still, though thus 
 limited, they contain the grounds which to my mind fully 
 justify my adhesion to the opinion which more than thirty 
 years ago, in the first commencement of my literary labours, 
 I advanced with regard to the question of the propriety of 
 excluding one-half of mankind from this region of specula- 
 tion. And although in maintaining this sentiment, I have to 
 stand alone in, or even am opposed to, the age in which I 
 live, still on this point I prefer to take as my guide and 
 precedent the ancients, the Socratic school, and above all, 
 the great master, Plato. And were it necessary, and the 
 present place admitted of it, I might easily, both from ancient 
 history and modern times, adduce authorities enough, both 
 in number and in weight, to refute the opposite opinion, or 
 rather prejudice. 
 
 The sphere, therefore, and field in which philosophy has to 
 move, or to which it has to apply itself, is no narrow one, 
 hemmed in and confined by any unwarrantable exclusiveness. 
 On the contrary, it must, so far as is possible for aught that is 
 human, be complete and perfect. And for this reason also, 
 she must not, as indeed she cannot, take her rise in a con- 
 sciousness artificially parcelled out and divided, and in short 
 but one-half of its true self, and which being biassed and 
 visionary in its views, is divorced from real life. It can 
 
362 ABSTRACTION NOT THE TRUE METHOD. 
 
 originate only in the mind's greatest perfection and in its full 
 and most undivided entirety, inasmuch as to make this con- 
 sciousness clear to itself and to others constitutes even its 
 proper function and entire aim. 
 
 In the latest period of German philosophy many an ingenious 
 path of investigation has no doubt been here and there struck 
 out. By a critical comparison of different views, systems, 
 and opinions, dialectics, as a preparatory course of study, has 
 been improved, psychological research advanced, especially the 
 philosophy of nature enlarged. Still, on the whole, a purely 
 abstract mode of thinking, totally estranged and separate from 
 actual life, is almost universally held to be the only right 
 road to a profound philosophy. This so-called pure and 
 abstract thinking takes nothing for granted, and allows of no 
 postulate or axiom ; it acknowledges none besides, and gene- 
 rally has no foundation save itself ; it starts from itself alone, 
 and in so far has, strictly speaking, no proper beginning. 
 Consequently, without proper end or aim, it goes on continually 
 revolving around itself as a centre, and within its own charmed 
 circle. Assuredly, where the dialectic art and system moves 
 within this narrow range of thought, and restricts itself 
 thereto, employing a language which, while it is sharply 
 abstruse, metaphysically recondite, and pre-eminently abstract, 
 has at least the merits of clearness and distinctness, and 
 ingenious classification, then the very first result of such an 
 exercise of dialectic art is profitable, although merely negative. 
 For it establishes the fact, that truth and knowledge are not 
 to be attained by this method ; that thus it cannot profitably 
 be either sought or found. It shows, too, that this dialec- 
 tical preludium itself is nothing more than a preliminary 
 exercise that at most does but serve as an introduction to 
 another and more lively way of fruitful thought ; though even 
 as such it is suited, not indeed for all, but simply for those 
 who enter upon it with this view of its nature. 
 
 Human language, with its wonderful suppleness, can adjust 
 itself even to the consciousness which is parcelled out and 
 abstractedly divided, so as perfectly to copy and reflect it in 
 its ever-moveable mirror. It is able to give a perspicuous 
 order and an artist-like shape, even to the mere logical 
 thought which has no subject-matter. It only fails when the 
 logical conceit of mere empty thought contemptuously rejects 
 
ABSTRACTION NOT THE TRUE METHOD. 
 
 363 
 
 in the giddy whirl of supreme abstraction, as its last earthly 
 defect, the laws of grammatical art, and refuses to add to its 
 abstract style the merit of perspicuity, in order that, as a 
 
 I metaphysical chimera, it may in the inaccessible darkness 
 that shrouds the obscure of the high-enthroned " Ego," soar 
 higher and high r, and withdraw itself as much as possible 
 
 I from the eyes of man. A confused terminology, perfect unin- 
 telligibility, are the never-failing companions and peculiar 
 characteristics of a false philosophy, which dreams of finding 
 the inestimable jewel of truth and science in a never-ending 
 and elaborate division of the consciousness. It places per- 
 fection in an abstraction carried continually higher and higher 
 in its emptiness. But in truth it is only in the living unity of 
 the full consciousness that we can properly understand the 
 pure logical forms of thought, such as they are inborn in the 
 human mind, or are engraved thereon as the first directive traits 
 and principles of its intellect and rational activity. They 
 must be judged of according to the place which they occupy 
 in the whole, and relatively to the manner in which they act 
 in or influence it. It is thus alone that their true signification 
 can be determined and truly conceived. 
 
 As often, however, as from that self-styled pure, but in 
 reality empty and totally abstract mode of thinking, which is 
 divorced from life and the realities of things, it is hoped to 
 raise or to evoke, as it were, by spell, a real system of true 
 knowledge, we have a repetition of the old history of the 
 Babylonian tower, with its consequent confusion of language. 
 Every new system of this kind is nothing more than an 
 additional section of or an appendix to that ancient confusion 
 of speech, as well as of views and opinions, so ancient in the 
 history of the human mind. Each of these builders in the 
 edifice of endless error commences with pulling down the 
 fabric that his immediate predecessor and all before him may 
 have commenced, while in the space he has thus cleared for his 
 own labours, he founds and rears the imaginary tower of his 
 own knowledge and science. He has at least the firm intention 
 to raise it still higher, — nay, far and far above the height that all 
 before him have attained. But one man understands another 
 iust as little as himself. More and more entangled and obscure, 
 consequently, becomes this new confusion of ideas, till at last 
 nothing remains but the anomalous ruins of crumbled and 
 
364 THE HUMAN MIND A PREY TO DISCORD. 
 
 abraded thoughts, which even when entire were only so many 
 lifeless stones — mere abstractions, soon either wholly forgotten, J 
 or if surviving, becoming daily more and more unintelligible 
 — since the original lexicon or alphabet, or the all- explaining 
 key to these rare and singular characters, can be recovered j 
 only with the greatest difficulty. 
 
 A true and living philosophy cannot choose and pursue this i 
 method of ever-advancing abstraction ; much less can it recog- m 
 nise it as the only right one. It proceeds rather from life 1 
 itself and the feeling of life, and, in truth, from a feeling and ' 
 consciousness of it, which strives to be as complete as possible. 
 Far is it from dreaming that it is in any artificial and elabo- 9 
 rately worked- out division of the human mind, that it must 
 seek its success or hope to attain its aim — the end of all true jj 
 knowledge. "Without that, it feels that man's consciousness, j 
 in its existing state, at least, is already too much rent and 1 
 distracted by division, and being by means of this dismember- J 
 ment checked in its natural action, and weakened and im- 
 peded. 
 
 And this even is the point on which all turns. That philo- I 
 sophy of so-called pure, but properly empty thinking, sepa- j 
 rated and abstracted from actual reality, without end and 
 without beginning, without ground as without aim, knows I 
 nothing of our postulate of life, in the full extent and sense 
 of this word, so far as anything is full and complete for man. 
 The thinker, once entangled in the meshes of such a philosophy, ] 
 cannot admit of such an hypothesis, will allow to it no value, j 
 or rather, knows nothing of it, and would never be able to 
 make anything of it. And yet, notwithstanding, in this very 
 philosophy an hypothesis is started, or rather assumed before- 
 hand — one, however, which in truth is entirely arbitrary, and 
 which, when examined more closely and with rigid scrutiny, 
 betrays at once its utter baselessness. It depends on or con- 
 sists in assuming that the human mind, as it exists at present, is 
 in a perfect state, and has remained entire and complete and 
 altogether unaltered from its original constitution. It holds that 
 nothing is waited for the attainment of truth, beyond a careful 
 and skilful ai ilysis of man's self-consciousness, and a correct 
 and appropriate classification of its several members. But, 
 on the contrary, whenever we yield and give ourselves up to 
 the feelings of our inward consciousness, and try carefully tc 
 
THE HUMAN MIND A PREY TO DISCORD. 365 
 
 understand it simply as it is, the first thing that strikes us 
 most forcibly is a discord and opposition subsisting not only 
 between ourselves and the external world, but a strife with 
 oneself raging in the inmost centre of the mind, so that it 
 seems to fall asunder and to rend itself into absolute uncon- 
 sciousness and irreconcilable contrarieties. 
 
 Now is it probable that strife would form the original state 
 or the proper destiny of the human or even of any other 
 being ? can this, in short, have been the case from the first ? 
 
 , Strife, it is true, prevails everywhere in human life. It has 
 its parties and divisions in the present no less than in the past, 
 in the free intercourse of private as well as in political life, 
 in the family as well as in the faith, in knowledge as in thought 
 and opinion. Wherever these act upon life, or in any way 
 
 i affect it, they invariably involve it in hostile opposition and 
 
 j sectarian animosity. 
 
 But the immediate question here is not of - this strife of the 
 passions, or of the moral corruption of the inner character, 
 which is excited by their indulgence, although, in truth, the 
 
 ! external strife of human nature, w r hich comes forward, as it 
 
 I were, in a visible and bodily shape, had its earliest source in 
 the hidden contentions of the inmost soul, which arise from 
 its entire constitution and the present condition and state of 
 our faculty of thought. 
 
 Just as little also do we refer to any view taken of the sad 
 mutilations of the human consciousness resulting either from 
 some faulty organisation and disease, or from those defects 
 which proceed from defects of character or weakness of intellect* 
 The conditions which, relatively speaking at least, we call 
 physically and morally sound, as being free from all remarkable 
 deficiencies or disorders, are nevertheless not to be regarded 
 on this account as perfect, and endued with full living energy, 
 and possessed of their original completeness. On the con- 
 trary, in the general mind, such as on the whole we find it at 
 present, and which, in this respect, we may look upon as 
 being in its true and proper state, there is much that is evi- 
 dently perverted from its right object, much that has fallen a 
 prey to disorder. And indeed we are naturally led to take 
 the same view of it when we discover most of the several con- 
 stituents of the mind for the greater part extremely weak, and 
 as it were in a crippled state, and its different faculties seldom 
 
366 TKADITION BEST EXPLAINS THIS FACT. 
 
 if ever maintaining a deep pervading harmony, and keening 
 in perfect unison with each other. It is to this internal oppo- 
 sition and original dissension of the thinking consciousness 
 that I here would draw your attention, as psychologically 
 manifesting itself between thinking, feeling, and willing. In 
 this dissension, so deeply rooted in our inmost being, intellect 
 and will are, even independently of the effect of human institu- 
 tions and observances, but seldom in harmony ; while reason 
 and imagination, if not always opposed, are at least greatly 
 estranged, and seldom maintain a mutual good understanding. 
 
 This is man's first and ever recurring, ever renewed per- 
 ception of his inward life. Careful observation of self is ever 
 impressing on him a consciousness of what we might almost 
 call an inborn, or at least hereditary, discord and division in 
 the human mind. This intellectual fact, which is one purely 
 psychological and totally independent of the disturbing influ- 
 ences of passion or disease, may in truth well carry us to the 
 conclusion which, independently of it, so many other moral 
 phenomena and historical traces appear to point at. It leads 
 us on almost irresistibly to embrace that exposition of it 
 which has been held in common by almost every ancient 
 people ; the doctrine, namely, that man at the very onset fell 
 from his original state of harmony into dissension and dis- 
 union, and has since sunk many degrees lower and lower 
 from the dignity which belonged to him on his first creation 
 But as this primitive obscuration and degeneracy went to the 
 inmost root of man's being, under its influence, not only his 
 relations to the external world, but also in himself, in his 
 pure internal thinking, feeling, and willing, all is deranged, 
 discordant, and fragmentary, so that very rarely indeed 
 do the three co-operate effectually in a living and enduring 
 harmony. And it is doubtless because the prevailing theories 
 of the human mind overlook the fact of this great change 
 that they are so utterly unsatisfactory and generally so tame 
 and superficial. The determination, however, how far this 
 event is to be regarded as an historical fact and rests on 
 authentic tradition, is a question which lies beyond our present 
 purpose, and belongs rather to a purely critical investigation. 
 The immediate and specific aim of philosophy is simply to 
 analyse and clearly understand the psychological fact of the 
 discord and dissension which subsists between the several 
 
TRADITION BEST EXPLAINS THIS FACT. 367 
 
 faculties of soul and spirit, and to exhibit it just as it is. 
 Having accomplished this, it will then proceed to indicate the 
 point or position from which the work of restoration must be 
 commenced, or by which at least the way which leads to it 
 may be discovered; the path, namely, of return to the original 
 harmony of the soul. In other words, its ultimate object will 
 be to discover the means of restoring a living and perfect 
 consciousness, and of bringing about a more harmonious 
 co-operation of its hitherto divided powers and faculties, 
 whether of soul or spirit. 
 
 Now, even in ordinary experience, certain propitious combi- 
 nations of circumstances do occur, when this inward strife and 
 innate or hereditary discord between the understanding and 
 the will, the reason and fancy, is happily overcome. Under 
 their influence the faculties, which previously were separate 
 and divided or hostilely arrayed against each other, are, partly 
 at least, and for one individual life in all its incidents, actions, 
 and productions, brought into profitable agreement and har- 
 mony. These rare occasions are furnished by extraordinary 
 energy of character, unrivalled artistic genius, or other high 
 and rare mental endowment. These therefore form not only so 
 many experimental proofs of the possibility of restoring the now 
 discordant elements and the isolated organs of the inner man 
 to completeness of unity and entirety of life, but also furnish 
 stable points from which to start again, and to carry on the 
 work of restoration. Such instances, however, are but excep- 
 tions from the general course of things. Fortunate and rare 
 exceptions they are no doubt, but still, even as such, they only 
 serve to establish more surely and incontestably the predomi- 
 nance of the rule, and the universal fact of the internal strife 
 among the faculties of the human mind. 
 
 Not unnecessarily to distract your attention at the very 
 outset, I shall for the present omit to consider many sub- 
 ordinate and derivative, but applied and complex faculties of 
 our mind and soul, such as memory, the external senses, the 
 various instincts, and the conscience. Restricting, therefore, 
 myself immediately to these four principal powers, — under- 
 standing and will, with reason and fancy, which we may 
 regard as the four poles of the internal world, or as the 
 quarters of the human consciousness, I shall consider generally 
 the opposition which displays itself between these elementary 
 
368 
 
 FOURFOLD DISCORD OF THE MIND. 
 
 powers of man's mind. This fact is so universally recognised, 
 and so generally predominant, that it displays itself even in 
 the experience and incidents of every-day life. To what 
 amounts the opinion so commonly expressed of many men, 
 nay even the greater part of distinguished characters, " that 
 their judgment and will are not in unison ? " " What ex- 
 tensive learning and comprehensive views does he not pos- 
 sess," is said of one man, "what acuteness, excellent judg- 
 ment! "What might he not accomplish if he had* but the will, 
 but he is so changeful, you can never depend upon him, so 
 inactive, so void of energy of character, that he does not 
 himself know rightly what he wishes." Now in such passing 
 estimates of men, it is deserving of remark, that it is not the 
 passions, or of passionate transgressions of the moral law, 
 that come in question, but rather some internal defect and 
 weakness. " He has the best will," is said of another, " is 
 always active, capable of any sacrifice and devotion, and of a 
 firm and undaunted resolution, but at the same time he is so 
 narrow-minded, so unbending and short-sighted, and pos- 
 sessed by such inflexible prejudices, that nothing can in truth 
 be made of him, and every enterprise is sure to miscarry 
 that he has anything to do with." The discord is not indeed 
 in every case so strongly marked and distinct, still every One who 
 at all observes his own consciousness may easily determine, and 
 satisfactorily answer the question, whether this opposition be- 
 tween the understanding and the will, or at least the disposition 
 thereto, is not deeply fixed and rooted in our inmost nature, 
 and on the whole universal. Whence else springs the high esti- 
 mation in which steadiness and consistency of character are 
 generally held, but from the fact that it is a rare exception 
 for will and understanding — the inward thought and the out- 
 ward practice — to be in perfect harmony ax d agreement ? And 
 in truth consistency, thoroughly carried out in the whole life, 
 steadfast unison of idea and practice — in short, power — imme- 
 diately enforces our respect and admiration, even though we 
 may not be able to agree with the motive and principles on 
 which it acts, and moreover remark much in the whole line of 
 conduct deserving of blame, when measured by the highest 
 ideal standard of moral justice and perfection. How often 
 do we feel this to be the case in the historical judgment and 
 estimate of great and celebrated men, where our admiration 
 
COMPARISON OF MAN WITH BRUTEsy —WITH ANGELS 369 
 
 by no means implies or carries with it a full and perfect 
 approbation of every trait in their character or action* 
 Another mode of view and comparison will perhaps serve to 
 set in a still clearer light the characteristic feature of the 
 human mind in its present broken and discordant condition. 
 Man usually directs his glance downwards to the brutes, in 
 order, by pointing out its difference from the animal world, to 
 determine the peculiar essence of his own being and nature. 
 In this comparison, after much and painful investigation, man 
 discovers that although his physical organisation and the 
 principle of life, the blood- soul, as the source of vital heat, is 
 of the same kind and nature with that of the brutes, he 
 nevertheless possesses a rational soul, which they do not 
 enjoy. 
 
 More instructive would it be, occasionally at least, to raise 
 our contemplation to things above. By this method, many 
 characteristic qualities of the human mind might be briefly 
 but distinctly set forth in sharper contrast by comparison with 
 other created things, or as the poet calls them, " superior spirits, 
 with whom we share our knowledge."* Leaving this belief in 
 the existence of purely spiritual beings, which was common 
 to all nations of the old world, to rest on its own deep founda- 
 tion, and passing over the doubts which might perhaps be 
 raised against it, I shall simply take for the basis of my com- 
 parison the general idea of these angelic essences, such as 
 from the very first it has been long and widely entertained. 
 Now, from this point of view I should be at least justified, 
 were I to point to that fickleness and inconsistency, or weak- 
 ness and even defect of character, which I have above 
 mentioned and depicted as forming the ordinary condition 
 and the specific characteristic of man, which according to our 
 hypothesis does not belong, either in the same degree or at 
 all, to the pure spirits. With them understanding and willing 
 are altogether one, and every thought is at the same time also 
 a deed, every fact perfectly comprehended and carried out. 
 Nvith a design perfectly understood. Their activity is ever 
 one and the same living and uninterrupted operation, whatever 
 be its direction, in a bad as well as a good sense. And thus 
 it is that with these spirits knowing and wihYng are one ; so 
 
 * See Philosophy of Life, p. 20 . 
 2 B 
 
o*70 REASON AND FANCY SELDOM HARMONISE. 
 
 that a living and effective intellect is even a very spirit, and 
 equally so is a perfectly self-conscious will. But a spiritual 
 being like man, in whom intellect and will are not one, is, as 
 contemplated from this point of view, a spirit divided and 
 distracted, and one that has fallen into disunion with itself, 
 which only by means of a new and higher aspiration can he 
 again raised to its full energy and living unity. 
 
 Still more obvious, and even more striking, than the general 
 and universally prevailing discord between the understanding 
 and the will, is the opposition and division which holds 
 between both the fundamental faculties or opposite poles of 
 the inner world of consciousness, namely, between reason and 
 fancy. The fancy is the fertile, and, properly speaking, the 
 inventive and creative faculty of man : but she is blind, and sub- 
 ject to many, or rather, we must say, innumerable delusions. 
 This is not the case indeed, at least not in the same degree and 
 manner, with the reason, as the faculty of calm prudence in man 
 — the internal standard of the moral equilibrium of his nature. 
 Still, actually to produce, truly to bring forth or to create, is 
 with all its reasoning utterly beyond its power ; and if at 
 times, as is the case with the false philosophy and mere dialec- 
 tical thinking, it does make the attempt, it gives birth to 
 nought but lifeless abortions and mere thought- created phan- 
 toms of abstract nothingness. It will hardly be necessary to 
 track this opposition between reason and fancy further, and to 
 follow it into the great arena of public life, or to prove by a 
 lengthened discussion that the men endowed with the best 
 reasoning powers are not at the same time or especially en- 
 dowed with the fire of genius, or that the most a3sthetical and 
 artistic natures are not always the most logical. True genius, 
 however, forms a rare exception to this rule, because in him 
 the faculties of soul and spirit, which are usually found 
 isolated and opposed, are happily united and effectually 
 co-cperate in an harmonious unison. In other words, we have 
 in such a case an union of the creative fancy, which in the 
 productions of genius is the most essential point, and the 
 acute, discerning sagacity, as also the distinctness of sensible 
 shape and order, which cannot be absent from any real produc- 
 tion of art. And yet, for all this, the understanding of the 
 artist is something quite distinct from practical reason and 
 logical acuteness. There is, moreover, another state, or rather 
 
LOVE THE MEANS OE REUNION. 
 
 371 
 
 quality of the soul, wherein the else divided reason and fancy 
 are intimately associated and entirely reunited. This is a 
 natural, pure affection and the very faculty of love, which is 
 itself the soul and the peculiar essence of man's spiritual soul. 
 For example, a mother's love for her child, which is the 
 deepest and strongest of the natural affections ; — no one can 
 call this love irrational, although it must be judged by an 
 entirely different standard from the reason. At least it does 
 not arise from any carefully weighed process of the reason, 
 for it is over it that it gains its greatest triumphs. In love 
 both halves of the soul are united. For, taken separately 
 and apart, reason is only one-half of the soul, and fancy the 
 other. In love alone do both concur, and the soul is there 
 present totally and perfectly. In it both halves, which other- 
 wise are ever apart, being again united, restore a perfect state 
 of the consciousness. 
 
 And in the same manner there is also a means of reunion 
 for the understanding and the will. And that too is a pure, 
 strong, and morally regulated love. Whenever, proceeding 
 from the very depths of man's being, it has become, as it were, 
 a second nature ; and having received a higher and diviner 
 consecration, it forms the still and invisible, but ruling soul 
 of life, then is it the best and surest road for attaining to 
 the reconciliation of the otherwise inveterate and deeply-rooted 
 discord between the intellect and the will. By such a love 
 the inmost man may be restored to peace and harmony with 
 itself, and the otherwise distracted consciousness, regaining 
 a full and perfect unity, is enabled to exercise its best and 
 highest energies. 
 
 The following are briefly the results of this our first psycho- 
 logical sketch, so far forth as they are necessary for the purpose 
 and object before us. The ordinary state of the human mind, 
 such as, in its present condition, it exhibits itself to our 
 internal apperceptions, is one of fourfold discord and distrac- 
 tion. Or rather, if we may so speak, it is a quadruply 
 divided consciousness, as being a prey to the double con- 
 trariety between the understanding and the will, and between 
 reason and fancy. But the mind, when restored to its full 
 and living perfection, is threefold, or, if the expression be 
 here allowable, it is a triune consciousness — the soul restored 
 to unity in love — the mind or spirit requickened by the energy 
 
372 TRIUNIT Y OV THE PERFECT CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 of a consistent life, and lastly, the internal sense for all 
 that is highest and divine — which third member, as the 
 external medium and the ministering instrument of the 
 other two, cannot interfere with or disturb their profound 
 harmony. Now, the return from the mind, checked and 
 limited in its operation by its existing divisions and discord, 
 into a living triple or triune consciousness, is the very begin- 
 ning of a truly vital philosophy, and indeed of a renovated 
 and enhanced vitality. 
 
 END OF LECTURE I. 
 
373 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 When man is considered relatively to his external existence 
 In the sensible world and nature, to which by his body he 
 belongs and forms a constituent part, then the three elements 
 m which, as regarded from this point of view, his whole being 
 3r essence appears to consist, are body, soul, and spirit. 
 Now, not even from these are schism and conflict excluded. 
 There is little or no harmony between the higher and spiritual 
 principle of the inner man and the outer world, to which pro- 
 perly his sensuous faculty belongs. The natural wants and the 
 organic laws of our corporeal life are at issue with the moral 
 law of the inward feelings — with the exalted requisitions of 
 the soaring thought and the profound desire of the pure spirit. 
 The struggle between these two distinct laws or ordinances of 
 life, the higher and the lower, forms perhaps the chief problem 
 which in his moral destination on earth man has to solve. At 
 [east it constitutes the first beginning and step thereof. No 
 doubt, the external frame of the human body, with its won- 
 derful organisation, presents in the prime of its development 
 the corporeal image of a more exalted and more spiritual 
 beauty. In its highest and happiest expansion — in its noblest 
 Porms — in many a bright gleam, for instance, of animated 
 3xpression on the countenance of youth — we read the graceful 
 reflection of a more than earthly loveliness. The stamp of 
 man's heavenly origin is not quite extinct or completely de~ 
 (Paced even in his frame. But on the other hand, it is exposed 
 and subject to innumerable injuries, sufferings, diseases, and 
 corruptions ; so that we feel at once the truth of the Apostle's 
 words, in calling it the " body of this death." Added, then, 
 to the other two elements of man's being, spirit and soul, the 
 organic body forms the third constituent, in which, however, 
 is contained the ground and occasion of conflict and strife. 
 In the inner man, indeed, taken by itself, and in soul and 
 spirit, as the two constituents of his higher life, there is 
 involved no absolute element of discord. No doubt even 
 here the harmony is liable to many disturbances and perfect 
 
374 MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF THOUGHT AND FEELING. 
 
 unison, perhaps, is very rarely to be met with ; but still the 
 discord has not its ground in the essential constitution of these 
 two principles of soul and spirit. The contrariety between 
 reason and fancy, understanding and will, though existing 
 in the fourfold consciousness of man in its present state, 
 prevails not there by any law of necessity. It is not a result 
 of their essential constitution. Simply, the spirit is the more 
 active faculty of the whole higher principle and of its internal 
 life, the soul the more passive one. I have designedly em- 
 ployed the expression the more active and the more passive 
 while thus speaking of soul and of spirit ; for perfectly passive 
 and entirely devoid of liberty, the feeling and loving soul is not, 
 as neither, on the other hand, is the spirit perfectly active and 
 independent. The latter stands in need of the fellowship of 
 the soul and of the life-giving feeling to kindle and to expand 
 it. To a certain degree, both spirit and soul, or at least the 
 preponderance of the one or the other, are dependent on the 
 organisation and organic differences of sex. In general, we 
 may at least assert and admit this much: that, viz., spirit 01 
 thought predominates in man, but feeling or soul in the female 
 sex. But even here (so incalculably great is the diversity oi 
 human character and disposition, so various are the methods 
 and forms of education and moral culture,) many exceptions 
 either by way of complication or deviation from the origina 
 simple relation, are found to subsist. In no case, moreover 
 can this preponderance of the reigning element be taken oi 
 understood as a total isolation or severance from the other 
 On the contrary, there are manifold transitions and fusions ii 
 the reciprocal action of soul and spirit. In the same wa; 
 that there are peculiar modes of thought, a special kind o 
 intellect, which, by a happy divination, goes infallibly to tin 
 point and the truth, and is entirely the judgment of feeling — tb 
 issue, in short, of the feeling soul ; so, too, there are many im 
 pressious on the feelings (an ardent love, for instance, and 
 purely intellectual enthusiasm), which take their origin imme 
 diately out of some thought, or generally from the under 
 standing. And, in fact, the very separation of the two general! 
 does but lead to their more intimate union, and furnish a ne^ 
 bond of unity. Thought and feeling stand reciprocally i 
 need of each other. As thought gains new life and animatio 
 from the rich feeling, with its facile, tender, and profoun 
 
THE MIND S CONSUMMATION IN GOD. 375 
 
 amotions, deriving therefrom its vital nourishment and suste- 
 nance ; even so the feelings are not unfrequently first awakened, 
 and very often strengthened and elevated, by the lofty flight 
 of thought in its bold and searching investigations. It is 
 even this that constitutes, in part at least, the attraction of 
 social intercourse, the charm of love, and the happiness of a 
 well-assorted union, which does but become more close by 
 years ; the one party finding in the other the intellectual or (if 
 the term be preferred) the psychological complement of his 
 own being and character. 
 
 But now a similar complement for the void and deficiency 
 which, even in the most favoured dispositions, enjoying the 
 highest advantages of learning and culture, still remains in 
 man's consciousness and internal existence, may be found in 
 yet another wise, and by a far superior method. We may, for 
 instance, seek this consummation of our nature in that Being 
 who contains in Himself the fulness of all might and of all 
 existence — of all life, and of all love — and out of whom both 
 soul and spirit proceed and take their beginning. Now, if we 
 should wish to form an idea of the heavenly state of supreme 
 felicity, such, at least, as in forecasting hope we may suppose 
 it to be, and indeed are justified in so doing, then we may 
 doubtless think of it as such that in it both soul and spirit, sunk 
 in the abyss of eternal love, will rest perfectly satisfied, y Or 
 rather, in a living communion of thought and feeling, they will 
 most intimately sympathise in this ineffable majesty, being 
 absorbed in the never-failing stream of the infinite plenitude 
 of divinity. In this state of bliss, the body will be dissolved 
 and no longer existent. At least, transfigured and changed, 
 it will remain nothing more than the pure, luminous veil 
 (Lichthiille) of the immortal soul and the spirit, now totally 
 and freely emancipated. For it will no longer be possible, 
 with any propriety, to think of the body as separate and dis- 
 tinct from the soul and spirit, as in truth and fundamentally it 
 will not be separate from them. Now, for this blissful state of 
 perfect union with the supreme essence, no less than for those 
 single and rare moments of mental ravishment, during which, 
 even in this earthly life, man occasionally, though transiently, 
 does, by vivid thought, transport himself to such a state, the 
 third element, which as the connecting link must accrue to 
 these two fundamental energies of man's inward being and 
 
376 
 
 ABE S0X1L AND SPIRIT IDENTICAL ? 
 
 existence, in order to complete and perfect it, is God Himself. 
 For it is here even as in the external world of sense ; there 
 must be a third element. There, however, it is the body, 
 vvhich, as no less essential than the other two, completes the 
 existence of the total man. Merely psychologically regarded, 
 and when we adhere and limit ourselves to the given sphere of 
 the internal consciousness, the triple principle of man's being 
 is neither God, soul, and spirit, as in the higher blissful state, 
 nor even body, soul, and spirit, as in this material world, but 
 simply spirit, soul, and sense. These are the three elements 
 of the mind, which as such immediately concern us at present, 
 and form the essential basis of the following considerations. 
 
 Much is there that attaches itself to this principle, or 
 follows from it. It would consequently only lead to confu- 
 sion were we at present to take a full survey of all these 
 cognate matters and consequences, and lay them before you at 
 the outset. Many of them will arise much more naturally 
 afterwards. Even the treating of and elucidation of the 
 relation in which the senses, as the third element of the 
 human mind, stands to the other two, and the place which it 
 holds among them, will hereafter come more appropriately 
 before us. And this is especially true of a question which, 
 however, has an important bearing on the matter before us— ■ 
 the question, viz., whether or not some particular faculty, 
 either of sou] or spirit, is to be regarded as an internal sense, 
 a moral instinct, or an immediate perception and intuition of 
 the highest and best. And, connected with this inquiry, is 
 the remark, that even in the usual outward senses there lies a 
 spark of higher spiritual perception — such, for instance, as 
 the artistic eye for beauty of form and colour, and for grace 
 of motion, or the musical ear for lovely sounds and measures ; 
 »o that even the senses are not so purely corporeal, so totally 
 material and grossly sensuous, as at the first glance they 
 appear. But there is another topic which here enforces 
 itself on our consideration, and which for the correct appre- 
 hension of the whole matter, is even still more important than 
 that of the relation which sense holds to the other two elements 
 of man's consciousness. And this is to determine whetner 
 these two, soul and spirit, are really different, or whether it 
 be not probable that, as the active and the passive powers and 
 aspects of a higher principle in man, thev are on the whole 
 
MAN AS COMPARED WITH ANGELIC SPIRITS. 377 
 
 one and the same, and consequently ought not, in thought 
 even, to be unduly separated and distinguished. But however 
 this question is to be answered, even though in man they be 
 really and necessarily united, still a relative distinction of 
 them is justified by that preponderance of one or the other 
 which manifests itself at different times and in different rela- 
 tions of life. But a weighty reason exists for supposing that 
 they are essentially two elements. A fair presumption that 
 after all soul and spirit are not perhaps one and the same under 
 two several sets, arises from a comparison of man with other 
 created spirits, if only it be allowed us to make a further appli- 
 cation of a parallel, which on a certain hypothesis we have 
 already hazarded. For, however problematical at most the re- 
 sults of such comparisons may appear, still in such cases as the 
 present they are often very useful. They tend, at least, to give 
 a sharp and precise determination of the peculiar and charac- 
 teristic features of man's consciousness. Now, the free and 
 pure spirits far surpass man in energy of will — in activity and 
 power — and secondly, in rapidity and clearness of apprehen- 
 sion, possessing as they do an intellect immediately intuitive. 
 In these properties, as contrasted with the mutability and 
 weakness of man's vacillating will, the slowness of his groping 
 and erring intellect, the angels have greatly the advantage of 
 man. But, on the other hand, the human mina or spirit pos- 
 sesses in its peculiar creative fertility a vast prerogative, 
 which cannot — not, at least, in the same degree — be ascribed 
 even to the pure creatures of light. And in truth, it is on 
 the soul, which is not merely receptive or sentient, but also 
 inwardly productive, lovingly creative, and ever giving new 
 forms and shapes to the old and common, that the creative 
 faculty of invention, so distinctive of man, ultimately rests. 
 At least, it forms the inner foundation and root out of which 
 it springs and rises. Fancy, indeed, with its external shape 
 and visible manifestation in art, is only one portion of it. 
 But still the other part also of the soul, viz., the reason, 
 when directed to its right end, and so long as it remains 
 within its natural limits, is a faculty of endless intellectual 
 development, infinite advance and perfectionment. And, in 
 truth, the position is by no means new, that perfectibility, or 
 the faculty of endless improvement (whi^h, however, is asso- 
 ciated with an equally great and ^o less infinite faculty of 
 
378 ASCRIPTION OE HUMAN FACULTIES TO GOD. 
 
 deterioration), is the essential and wholly peculiar prerogative 
 of man. It is his characteristic property. With regard to the 
 other aspect or portion of the same property, the productive 
 fancy, viz., and its creative productions, a similar view to our 
 own — and, indeed, under the same parallel and hypothesis — 
 is expressed in the poet's assertion, already quoted — 
 
 " Thy knowledge thou sharest with superior spirits ;* 
 Art, oh man i thou hast alone." 
 
 Only the term " art" must here be understood in a wide and 
 comprehensive signification, so as to take in language. Or 
 rather, language itself is the general, all-embracing art of 
 man. For nowhere does art evince its peculiar, internal, and 
 intellectual fertility, its creative faculty of invention, so strik- 
 ingly as in this wonderful structure of human language, with 
 its many compartments. Man, we might well say, in general 
 terms, is a production of nature that has attained to the per- 
 fection of language. In other words, he is a spirit to whom 
 before all other creatures, the word explanatory and declara- 
 tory, the guiding, the communicative, and even the command- 
 ing word, is lent, imparted, committed, or conveyed, and even 
 therein consists his original, marvellous, and high dignity, so 
 far surpassing the ordinary standard of creation. 
 
 On this account, therefore, it is only natural and consistent, 
 i. e., agreeable to man's nature and dignity, that the compara- 
 tive juxtaposition and parallel which is to lead to a more 
 correct characterisation of the human mind, with its peculiar 
 faculties and properties, should, as I said, be directed up- 
 wards, rather than, as is usually done, downwards to the 
 brutes, and to the animal consciousness, if, indeed, we may 
 justly ascribe such to them. Now, in this method of com- 
 parison I would go a step further, for by so doing I hope to 
 promote the more perfect understanding of the whole, and 
 also to arrive at a correct and accurate notion of the several 
 faculties of man's spirit and of the powers of his soul. Which 
 then of man's faculties or powers may be rightly attributed to 
 the Deity, and which not? To answer this question, however, 
 it is not my intention to enter into a?iy very difficult and 
 abstruse investigations, such as would neitner be very apposite 
 
 * See quotation from the *' Die Kunstler" of Schiller, 11 Philosophy of 
 Life/' p. 20. 
 
REASON AND FANCY NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO GOD. 379 
 
 to this place, and perhaps (to speak generally) would be abso- 
 lutely without and beyond the limits of the human under- 
 jstanding. It will be sufficient for my purpose throughout to 
 take for granted what* according to the universal feeling of 
 Imankind, is generally admitted, and which is even as gene- 
 rally intelligible, as it is easy of apprehension and clear. But 
 when I thus without hesitation take for granted an universal 
 belief in the existence of a divine principle, notwithstanding 
 the doubt which in the human mind springs up as against all 
 else, so also against the highest object of faith, I do so with a 
 deliberate view and purpose. For I shall reserve the solution 
 of this grave problem to a later period of my sketch and 
 exposition of the thinking consciousness and of a true living 
 science. It is there, in truth, that it will find its most natural 
 and appropriate place. Here, however, for the purposes of our 
 i intended comparison, which, as the instance itself will prove, 
 is likely to be highly instructive, it will be sufficient if I con- 
 fine myself to a single remark. The little that we know or 
 can with certainty predicate of God, may be comprised almost 
 in the few words: " God is a spirit." It is by virtue of this 
 proposition that we ascribe to Him an omniscient intellect and 
 an almighty will. Both these attributes or powers of God, 
 are, it is self evident, in the most perfect harmony, and can 
 scarcely be separated from one another ; whereas in man they 
 are frequently widely divergent, at times even hostilely 
 oppose each other, and at best do but check and limit their 
 mutual action. Here, however, arises the question whether 
 in strict propriety we may venture to ascribe to the Deity any 
 of the other mental faculties and powers which man is con- 
 scious of, though on a greater and different scale, and in a very 
 extended sense ? 
 
 Now, in the creative energy of God, there is in truth com- 
 prised the plenitude of all fertility, and, if it be allowable so 
 to speak, an inexhaustible source of all invention. 
 
 But still, as every one must at once feel, a productive faculty 
 of imagination and a creative fancy cannot on this account be 
 ascribed to Him ; for, were we to do so, we should step at 
 once into the domain of mythology with its fabulous gods. 
 And even as little, in strict propriety and accuracy of lan- 
 guage, can we attribute to God the faculty of reason, which 
 in man is the opposite of fancy. Reason is the connecting, 
 
380 UNDERSTANDING TMA.Y BE PREDICATED OF GOD. 
 
 inferring, discursive faculty of thought. But all this, with 
 its graduated series of ideas or conceptions, is not applicable 
 to the Deity, for in Him all must be thought of as standing 
 at once and immediately before the difine mind, or rather, as 
 directly emanating from Him. Consequently, in a strict 
 sense, and following a rigorous precision of a thoroughly 
 correct designation, we may indeed ascribe to God an imme- 
 diately cognisant and intuitive understanding, but not reason ; 
 since by this term it is only by a violent abuse of language 
 and a total conversion of ideas that a faculty of intellectual 
 intuition can be understood. One kind alone or branch of 
 reason is immediately intuitive ; and that is the conscience, or 
 the moral instinct, for the appreciation of whatever is good or 
 evil, right or wrong. This might not inaptly be called an 
 applied reason ; viz., a reason applied to the will and to its 
 inmost motives, and to its just commencing still inchoate 
 determinations, out of which external actions ultimately issue. 
 But even because conscience is an immediate perception of 
 right and wrong, a moral instinct for good and evil, and 
 consequently in form wholly distinct from that function of 
 reason which infers and deduces consequences, I am indis- 
 posed to give it such a name, and would rather regard it as 
 a peculiar faculty of soul or heart, subsisting by itself, and 
 intermediate between will and reason. In any case, it would 
 be superfluous to observe how highly inappropriate it would 
 be to designate by this name that warning or punitive judicial 
 vision with which God looks through and penetrates the 
 inmost heart, even though we must seek here the root and 
 origin of the lucid oracles and simple revelations of the 
 human conscience. As a property, however, it can only be 
 ascribed to those beings who, like man, behold the law of God 
 far above them, but by no means to that Being who is Himself 
 the sum and source of all moral laws. But let us now revert 
 to our first question of the predication of reason to the Deity. 
 If in our present reigning systems, and especially in the 
 latest German philosophy, reason is, notwithstanding, ascribed 
 to Him, or rather the eternal, unconditional, and absolute 
 reason is itself called God, and rationality is made to be His 
 essence ; this is but the immediate consequence of the pre- 
 dominantly pantheistic tendency of these systems, in which 
 the Deity is identified with the mundane All, and resolved 
 
GOD CANNOT PE SAID TO HAVE A SOUL. 381 
 
 into the universal essence. For, inasmuch as it was felt that 
 it could not be merely the all-producing and all-absorbing — 
 the all- bearing, infinite, vital power of the heathen systems of 
 nature — and since a more scienti+ic designation was required, 
 nothing remained for the totally abstract designation of the 
 one All, but the name of that faculty which even in the 
 human mind forms the principle of unity. 
 
 No doubt in the preceding centuries one or two great teachers 
 have employed very similar, if not identical expressions, in 
 reference to the Deity, still this to my mind appears an excep- 
 tion from the general rule, to be explained and justified only 
 by individual terminology and points of view. And at any 
 rate it is much safer to follow the ancient usage on this point. 
 Accordingly I. have made it a law scrupulously to observe it 
 throughout. But if people will all at once subvert the ancient 
 [nodes of speech, and completely interchange and confuse the 
 ordinary signification of the terms reason and understanding, 
 Jien all must naturally turn on the thing itself and the inter- 
 lal thoughts and the proper meaning which lies at the bottom 
 )f them. And then, by a due consideration of these, a mutual 
 mderstanding may perhaps be eventually arrived at, notwith- 
 standing the differing modes of speech. With most of the 
 jvriters and philosophers of the present day this perhaps is 
 icarcely to be hoped for. The grave question however here 
 and which, as it lies at the bottom, must ultimately decide on 
 his difference of phraseology,) is this — whether philosophy 
 n general is, according to the rationalistic way of thinking, a 
 nere philosophy of reason, or a higher philosophy of the 
 ipirit and of spiritual revelation, or indeed of a divine experi- 
 ince. 
 
 Further, whenever, in the olden phraseology, there are 
 iscribed to the Deify, memory and even desires, not to say 
 mpulses which, viewed nearly in the same light as man's 
 ippetites and passions, are designated by the same terms, all 
 his is to be understood in the same way as the expressions 
 joncerning His all-seeing eye, His ear, and His mighty arm. 
 They are merely figurative and symbolical phrases. In the use 
 >f them there is no pretension to scientific accuracy, with which 
 mderstanding and will are universally and actually ascribed 
 . They are devoid even of that apparent probability 
 vhich gives rise to the question whether imagination and 
 
382 FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 
 
 reason can, with the same propriety as the former two, b 
 attributed to Him. With as little truth can a soul be ascribe* 
 to Him. For this is exclusively a passive faculty, whereas ii 
 God all is energy and activity. The expression, however, o 
 a soul of God is found, by way of exception from the genera 
 usage, in a few among ancient writers . 
 
 A more correct mode of indicating what is meant by thi 
 term, would be to say that God is love, and that love is even Hi 
 essence. Or the same idea would be well conveyed by speak 
 ing, under the form of a living force and property, of God' 
 fatherly heart as the centre of His being, of His omnipotenci 
 and omniscience, and of the infinite love which results fron 
 the two. No doubt even this expression of God's fatherl 1 
 heart is merely figurative and symbolical. Still it is one o 
 high significance, and as such it is not a mere figure withou 
 meaning. For, the higher and profounder spiritual philo 
 sophy, from Plato down to Leibnitz, has ever purposel 1 
 employed such symbols and figures to indicate that whiel 
 properly is inexpressible. In fact, it has always preferred then 
 to the abstract notions employed by the rationalising system 
 of our own lifeless metaphysics of nought, which, as they ar< 
 void in themselves, so do they in reality say nothing. 
 
 Thus, then, has the very first step in this comparative psycho 
 logy carried us at once to the utmost limits of what is know 
 able by man. Still it has tended, in passing, to place in ai 
 eminently distinct light many important matters and essentia 
 properties and faculties which belong to our present sphere o 
 psychological inquiry. It is now, however, necessary for mi 
 to turn my regards back to the point from which we started, h 
 order to commence our philosophy of life with the centre o 
 life and of man's whole consciousness, we set out from a psy 
 chological fact, w^hich immediately impresses itself on th» 
 awakening consciousness. This fact is the perception o 
 the discord which reigns in our entire self, and especially o 
 the deep-rooted dissension which in their usual state divide; 
 the four principal faculties of the consciousness, according t< 
 the twofold contrariety of understanding and will, and of reasoi 
 and fancy. I will here merely add the remark, that furthe: 
 still, another essential property of man, and a state equally cha 
 racteristic and peculiar to him, is closely associated with, anc 
 indeed is grounded in this internal discord, viz., the freedom o 
 
TREE WILL IN MAN AND ANGELS. 383 
 
 the will and the state of doubt. Now this freedom of will which 
 belongs to man, is very different from the freedom of God, or 
 even from that of the pure spirits who were first created. The 
 notion of free will, however, is so deeply and firmly grounded 
 in our inmost feelings, that man's universal conviction of it 
 'can never be wholly undermined by any doubts of the reason, 
 however subtilly advanced and in appearance demonstratively 
 urgent. No objection or difficulty can totally extinguish and 
 annihilate the persuasion of its truth within our breast. For 
 even after the greatest shock which our faith in ourselves 
 may sustain, either from reflection or from subtilly refining on 
 the subject, — after wmat apparently is a complete refutation of 
 its truth, this divine and inborn prejudice (if I may so term it) of 
 our intrinsic freedom still springs up again. As the inextin- 
 guishable vital flame of the spirit, it rises anew from the ex- 
 piring embers of those deadening doubts, which are themselves 
 nothing more than the dead notions and null phantoms of a false 
 semblance of thought. Now this freedom of will is a liberty 
 of choice, i. e., u will long vacillating between two different 
 series of ideas — of opposing grounds and reasons, and at last 
 deciding for one or the other. This volition, however, is by its 
 nature so little decided, and frequently finds so great difficulty 
 in coming to a decision, that even when externally it has 
 already concluded its deliberations, it often becomes again- 
 undecided and begins anew to hesitate. Or this freedom of 
 choice in man may otherwise be described and thought of as 
 a decision of the understanding, which compares tog ther two 
 different volitions, carefully weighs the conflicting grounds in 
 favour of each, and at last in its final judgment recognises 
 the preference to one or the other. Consequently this free 
 will and choice so peculiar to man, depends intimately and 
 essentially upon that controversy between understanding and 
 will, which, if not inborn, has become at least a second 
 nature to him. I have spoken of this freedom of will as 
 peculiar to man, since it is not necessary, and rather w r ould 
 be a most arbitrary hypothesis, w r ere we to go so far as to 
 assert that, assuming the existence of other free but created 
 essences, our own special kind of freedom is the only possible 
 and conceivable one. Still for our present purpose it is allow- 
 able to make such a purely hypothetical simile and comparison, 
 if (a point on which the experiment itself must decide) it be 
 
384 man's free will manifested in doubt. 
 
 likely to render our own peculiar form of consciousness more 
 intelligible and conceivable. In this sense, then, we may »o 
 on to say that we must conceive the liberty of the blessed 
 spirits as being in its essence very different from that of 
 man's. As such it belongs to beings who have long passed 
 beyond the probation of the still undecided choice, or who at 
 the very beginning of their existence were, by the design of 
 the Creator, withdrawn from it, and have consequently attained 
 to eternal freedom, together with undisturbed and undisturb- 
 able peace in God, who is the sum and inexhaustible source, 
 as well as the unfathomable, of all freedom, no less than of 
 all life. 
 
 But even irrespectively of this freedom of choice for actual 
 life and its particular objects and motives — irrespectively also 
 of the freedom which is conversant about external actions, and 
 of the inward moving causes of the will which contain the first ' 
 ground and hidden germ of the former, and of that state of 
 uncertainty which follows therefrom, and which not unfre- 
 quently long vacillates between one side and another — there 
 are also in pure thought, simply as such, a similar state of in- 
 ternal hesitation or doubt— i. e., of a thought hostilely attack- 
 ing, undermining and destroying, denying and annihilating 
 even consciousness and cogitation itself. Left wholly to our- 
 selves, when, closing our regards to the external world, and 
 without any definite object, we calmly commit ourselves to the 
 stream of purely internal thought, we soon become sensible 
 of this fact. On the one hand, there crowd on the mind 
 the impressions of the outward senses, and the manifold 
 creations of the peculiar never-resting faculty of cogitation, 
 seeking to gain the mastery over and to carry it along with 
 them. On the other side, the distinguishing and discerning 
 reason comes in with its questions and doubts, and chemical 
 analysis, to resolve everything finally into nought, and to 
 explain all the conceptions of the mind as groundless and un- 
 substantial, as so many pure illusions of the senses, conceits 
 of caprice, prejudices of a limited understanding, and mere 
 pictures or creations of fancy. Thus, then, the ever-swelling 
 flood of thought in man's inner being and cogitation is not 
 any calmly flowing stream, in which wave quietly follows and 
 succeeds to wave, as through rich and fertile plains it pursues 
 its course from some distant source to the wide and open sea. 
 
INHERENT DISCORD OF THE HUMAN MIND. 385 
 
 Hie fearful conflict of thought is rather some double current, 
 tsrhere, amidst the crags and rocks, the pent-in waters confin- 
 ing one another beat up into foaming breakers — or still more 
 lan°*erous, beneath their apparently calm and smooth surface 
 ,hey form the tearing whirlpool with its bottomless abyss, 
 Ivhich, at the least incautious approach, hurries irresistibly 
 nto its vortex the tossing little boat of man's brief existence. 
 For the most part it is only in natures originally at least 
 lio-hly endowed and noble that doubt and this internal struggle 
 j)f thought rise to the height of despair. These alone are 
 'in ally driven, by the rejection of all belief in themselves, into 
 itter ruin both of soul and spirit. The tendency, however, to 
 i state of struggle and doubt is universal, It seems to be 
 lothing less than a characteristic property of human nature, 
 tnd to have its foundation in the dissension subsisting between 
 •eason and fancy, which has so firmly established itself in 
 he mind of man. It may happen, no doubt, that in a mind 
 vhose opinions are settled both in theory and practice, no 
 instability will be found to subsist in the plans which guide 
 md regulate life, but that, on the contrary, they are on the 
 vhole followed out with fixed resolution and decided energy. 
 Ind yet, even in such a case, particular doubts will occa- 
 ionally arise affecting many matters, (which, although subor- 
 iinate to the fundamental laws of life, are nevertheless far from 
 >eing unimportant,) so as to force upon us the remark, or even 
 o extort the confession that in general such a state of immov- 
 ble determination does not belong to human nature, and that 
 his internal conflict forms one element of that warfare of life 
 o which man is called. The predisposition to this, I have 
 eferred to the discord between reason and fancy, and for 
 •revity's sake I have employed throughout the latter designa- 
 ion for it. I must, however, avail myself of the present 
 ccasion to observe that fancy is not limited merely to poetry 
 nd the fine arts and their respective creations, but inasmuch 
 s all productive thought belongs to the imagination in the same 
 fay that the negative does to the reason, it also co-operates 
 aore or less with science. It is therefore chiefly in this latter 
 nd larger sense that we here employ the term, since it is from 
 he contradictions of the productive and negative thought that 
 be struggle and state of doubt arise. 
 The first truth then that psychology arrives at is the internal 
 
 2 c 
 
586 YEARNINGS OF THE MIND AFTER UNITY. 
 
 discord within our fourfold and divided consciousness. Having 
 commenced with a slight characteristic sketch of this fact, ] 
 have attempted to give a further and deeper grounding, anc 
 to invest it with a higher and profounder significance. To this 
 first perception we appended, as the second member in the! 
 series of our philosophical investigation, the idea of a triplicift 
 of consciousness as restored to its perfect and living action 
 According to this view, the simple division of the mind is inte 
 spirit, soul, and sense. And this will, in all our subsequem 
 Lectures, form the basis of our psychological reflections on th( 
 human mind. It will also serve as the transition from the 
 ordinary state of the consciousness in discord with itself, anc 
 with its fourfold division, to the reunited triple consciousness 
 We shall make it the starting-point and first step in this 
 philosophy, which, as it sets out from life, is also to lead to a 
 higher life. 
 
 But now, even in the mind's ordinary state there are manj 
 such beginnings of a higher order of things — many momenta 
 of a more concentrated energy, which bespeak a joint operation 
 of the otherwise divided faculties and powers of soul and spirit 
 and have for their result a partial restoration at least of har- 
 mony to this otherwise dismembered whole. Among these 1 
 would mention first of all that inner fixity of character, where 
 thought, will, and conduct are consistent throughout ; secondly, 
 a true artistic genius in the creations both of poetic and plastie 
 fancy. Lastly, there is that ardent and disinterested love, 
 with its magnanimous self-sacrifices, which, though it surpasses 
 all the limits of reason, cannot, nevertheless, be looked upon as s 
 mere imagination or illusion of fancy, forming as it does a pro- 
 found and natural energy of the human soul, and constituting 
 in truth its true and proper essence. No doubt the externa] 
 phenomenon and effect of this elevated principle of the soul is 
 often tarnished and lessened by the dull admixture of earthl) 
 ardour, and the bewilderment of passion. A true and perfeel 
 manifestation of the feeling, consequently, is no less rare thar 
 the truly felicitous creations of real artistic genius. Still it is 
 to it that we must look for the first principle of a higher living 
 thought and the true science thereof. The truly loving soul 
 needs only the excitement and guidance of a mind or spirit 
 ripened and matured in divine experience. Accordingly, the 
 consciousness thus restored to unity and completeness of per- 
 
LANGUAGE A JOINT PRODUCE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT. 387 
 
 fection becomes actively operative in its triple energy. And 
 in the same manner the spirit striving with most ardent aspi- 
 ration after the divine, requires nothing but such an animating 
 contact with the loving soul, in order to attain fully and effec- 
 tually to its desired end. 
 
 In the series of combining elements or principles of union 
 for the otherwise divided consciousness there is yet another 
 phenomenon both great and comprehensive in itself, and which 
 also reveals itself as such in actual life and experience. And 
 this phenomenon is furnished by language, with its wonderful 
 variety and yet truly artistic uniformity. For it is the vital 
 product of the whole inner man. All the faculties both of 
 soul and spirit, however discordant generally, combine each in 
 their full share and measure to perfect this their conjoint pro- 
 duction. And yet after all many traces of inherent imperfec- 
 tion are visible therein. It is only in the highest creations of 
 artistic genius, manifesting itself either in poetry or some other 
 form of language, and then only in the brightest and happiest 
 noments of inspiration, that we meet with the perfect harmony 
 3f a complete and united consciousness, in which all its facul- 
 ties work together in combined and living action. 
 
 In language, all the four principal powers have a nearly 
 3qual part and share. The grammatical structure, the rules for 
 ;he changes and declensions of words, and their syntax, are 
 urnished by the reason. From the fancy, on the other hand, 
 s derived whatever is figurative ; and how very far does not 
 :his reach, extending as it does into the primary and natural 
 >ignification of words, which often no longer exists, or at least 
 s rarely traceable ? Lastly, the clear and distinct arrange- 
 nent of the parts, the nicely finished and beautiful shape of 
 he whole of any composition, whether poetical or rhetorical, 
 iivil or scientific, are the contributions of the understanding. 
 Vnd so, also, whatever is truly characteristic — whatever, in 
 hort, goes beyond the mere instinctive cry of animal nature, 
 md the childlike, oft-times childish imitation of external sounds 
 —in short, that deep and spiritual significance, that character- 
 stic meaning which, in the original stem- syllable and radical 
 vords of some rich old language, invariably is regarded as a 
 >eauty, must be ascribed to the understanding, which so pro- 
 bundly seizes and precisely designates whatever is peculiar, 
 inless perhaps it is preferred to assign it to an immediate 
 
 2c2 
 
388 SPEECH THE OUTWARD PROJECTION OF THOUGHT. 
 
 feeling, which wonderfully harmonises with or responds to it. 
 Moreover, the magic force of a commanding will, which carries 
 all before it by its intrinsic energy, is at least noticeable in 
 those few brilliant passages of highest inspiration or perfect 
 poetic delineation, from whose clear and perspicuous language, 
 the apparently ineffable, shining forth like an electric spark, 
 kindles and influences every sensitive and kindred mind. 
 
 But before I go deeper into the question of the origin of 
 language, and examine the correct idea of this all-embracing 
 and wonderful faculty of speech, as man's most remarkable and 
 peculiar property, I would call your attention to the intimate 
 connexion subsisting between thought aud speech, which is 
 throughout reciprocal. For as speech must be regarded as a 
 thinking outwardly projected and manifested, so, too, thinking 
 itself is but an inward speaking and a never-ending dialogue 
 with oneself. 
 
 Judging from all appearances, the consciousness of animals, 
 so far as we are justified in ascribing it to them, is perfectly 
 simple, but sadly defective and limited. But even here, how- 
 ever, the several melodious courses of irrational and seemingly 
 unconscious sounds appear like so many echoes of a better 
 foretime — lost traces of ancient memory, and which, together 
 with the moving and mournful cry of deep painful longing, 
 seem to make tolerably clear to us the notion of the creature 
 waiting and groaning for its emancipation. Highly simple, 
 too, but in quite a different respect, is the consciousness or 
 thought of the free spirits in their pure activity, such as we 
 may and ought to represent it to ourselves ; — like the ray of 
 light which in its rapid descent penetrates all space. But mar- 
 vellously intricate, on the other hand, and highly complicated, 
 is the so manifoldly rich, and, at the same time, so versatile 
 and changeable consciousness of man. Such, at least, is the 
 impression which a serious and searching glance into the un- 
 fathomable depths of our inward man enforces upon us. And 
 indeed, just as in the triple operation of the consciousness, 
 when restored to the full perfection of life, we may trace a 
 certain faint signature of man's pristine likeness to the Creator, 
 so also a slight vestige of the same kind is, we might fancy, 
 discoverable in its unfathomable depth, wdiich, however, now 
 reveals itself in quite a different form from its original 
 nature, and appears to be converted into its opposite. How 
 
THOUGHT AN INWARD SPEECH OR DIAEOttUE. 389 
 
 often does the thought that seeks to penetrate the mysteries 
 of nature — the hidden thinker within man — believe that he 
 has completely solved the riddle of existence, and is able to 
 explain and rightly interpret the many-meaning but obscure 
 words of the sphinx within us ! And even then, when he 
 most flatters himself with his own ingenuity, this miserable 
 (Edipus of his own destiny is stricken with even more fatal 
 and incurable blindness than the old Theban, and cannot 
 discern the abyss of error into which his whole life has been 
 hurrying, and into which it is at last plunged headlong and 
 precipitated. Ever labouring to seize the changing Proteus of 
 its own self, our Ego may perhaps often arrive at a rare amaze- 
 ment at the enigma of existence, and also is even seized many 
 3, time with a light terror. Never, however, by itself, let it 
 think and seek as it may, will it be able, without some other 
 ^uide, to find the object of its longing, and, in its tragic blind- 
 ness, to discover the clue of the labyrinthic mazes of its own 
 jthoughts, and at last to arrive at harmony with itself. 
 
 So profound, moreover, and lasting is this our intrinsic 
 dualism and duplicity — (and I use the term here, not in its 
 usual moral sense, but in a higher signification, which is 
 purely psychological and metaphysical) — so deeply is this dual- 
 ism rooted in our consciousness, that even when we are, or at 
 Least think ourselves alone, we still think as two, and are con- 
 strained as it were to recognise our inmost profoundest being 
 as essentially dramatic. This colloquy with self, or generally, 
 this internal dialogue, is so perfectly the natural form of human 
 thinking, that even the saintly solitaries of bygone centuries, 
 who in the Egyptian deserts or the Alpine hermitages devoted 
 a half-life to meditation on divine things and mysteries, 
 were often not able otherwise to indicate the result of such 
 meditations, to invest it in another dress, to bring it into 
 any other form of exposition than that of a dialogue of the 
 soul with God. And in all religions, what properly is true 
 prayer but a kind of dialogue, a confidential opening of the 
 heart to the universal Father, or a filial solicitation of His 
 benevolence ? 
 
 But to pass over at once to the directly opposite aspect 
 of the matter : even in the classical works of cultivated anti- 
 quity, at a time w^hen these depths of a loveful feeling were not 
 yet so widely developed, nor so completely revealed and \m- 
 
390 THE SOCRATIC IRONY. PLATO'S DIALOGUES. 
 
 veiled, we meet with this same phenomenon in another form, 
 and one indeed of the highest intellectual clearness and bril- 
 liancy — in the graceful ornament, viz., of a truly exquisite dic- 
 tion. I am alluding to the characteristic distinction of the 
 discourses and teaching of Socrates- — that peculiar irony, such 
 as it is found in the Platonic dialogues, and of which only a very 
 slight trace is to be found in the works of some of the earliest 
 poets. For what else is this scientific irony of the inquiring 
 thought and of the highest cognition, than a consciousness 
 which, while it clearly perceives the secret contradictions 
 which beset the mind, even in its most earnest pursuit of the 
 highest aim of life, has attained nevertheless to perfect harmony 
 with itself. 
 
 I must not, however, omit to remind you that this term in 
 modern phraseology has fallen very far below its primary 
 meaning, and is often so taken as to designate nothing more 
 than a mere playful mockery. In its original Socratic sense, 
 however, such as it is found in the whole series of the thought 
 and the internal structure of Plato's dialogues, where it is 
 developed to its fullest measure and proportion, irony sig- 
 nifies nothing else than this amazement of the thinking spirit 
 at itself, which so often dissolves in a light, gentle laugh. And 
 this light laugh again oftentimes beneath its cheerful surface 
 conceals and involves a deeper and profounder sense, another 
 and a higher significance, even the most exalted seriousness. 
 In the thoroughly dramatic development and exposition of 
 thought which we meet with in the works of Plato, the dia- 
 logical form is essentially predominant. Even if all the super- 
 scriptions of names and persons, all forms of address and 
 reply, and, in short, the whole conversational garb, were taken 
 away from it, and we were merely to follow the inner threads of 
 the thought according to their connexion and course, the whole 
 would nevertheless remain a dialogue, where each answer 
 calls forth a new question, and the eddying stream of speech 
 and counter-speech, or rather, of thought and countei- 
 thought, moves livingly onwards. And unquestionably this 
 form of inner dialogue is, if not in every case equally applicable 
 and absolutely necessary, still it is all but essential, and at 
 least highly natural and very appropriate to every form of 
 living thought and its vivid enunciation. And in this sense 
 even the continuous unbroken speech of a single person may 
 
THOUGHT AN INWARD DIALOGUE. 
 
 391 
 
 also assume the character of a dialogue. Yes, I must confess 
 that as it is my first object to attain to the greatest possible 
 perspicuity of a vivid development of ideas, I should then 
 most confidently believe that I had gained my end, if the present 
 Lectures should in any degree make the same impression on 
 you as a dialogue would — if they should appear like a series of 
 questions, to which some of you, if not throughout, yet here 
 and there, should in your heart give a tacit answer and assent ; 
 — or even (and in this case still more so, indeed,) if, in the 
 whole context of these Lectures, you should find and believe to 
 discover for many questions which your own hearts, your own 
 (reflections and life itself suggested, if not a full, satisfactory 
 lanswer, yet at least one directly meeting the difficulty, and 
 Ifull of suggestions for its solution. 
 
 END OF LECTURE 11. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 True irony — for there also is a false one — is the irony of love 
 It arises out of the feeling of finiteness and one's own limita 
 tion, and out of the apparent contradiction between this feel 
 ing and the idea of infinity which is involved in all true love 
 As in actual life and in the love which centres in an earthly 
 object, a good-humoured raillery, which amuses itself witt 
 some little defect of character, either apparent or real, is noi 
 inconsistent with sincerity — not, at least, when both parties 
 have no doubt of each other's affection, and its ardour admits 
 of no increase — but, on the contrary, lends to it an agree- 
 able charm, even so is this true of that other and highesl 
 love. Here, too, an apparent, or it may be an actual, but 
 still only insignificant and trivial contradiction, cannot de- 
 stroy the idea on which such a love is based, but on the 
 contrary serves rather to confirm and strengthen it, But 
 only there where love has reached the highest purity — has 
 oecome profoundly confirmed and perfect — does this appear- 
 ance of contradiction, which is thrown out in an affectionate 
 irony, fail to alloy or weaken all higher and better feeling. 
 And what other foundation could a philosophy of life well 
 have and recognise as legitimate than the idea of such a love ? 
 And this is even that supposition of life, viz., of the inner 
 life, of which I formerly said that it is the only one which 
 philosophy requires, and from which alone it must set out. 
 Only it is requisite that this love should be personally expe- 
 rienced or inwardly felt, and the notion of it derived from 
 immediate experience. 
 
 Directly opposed to those arbitrary systems which compose 
 the reigning philosophy of the day, the philosophy of life is 
 a science of internal spiritual experience, which, as it pro- 
 ceeds from, so it everywhere rests on facts ; though indeed the 
 facts on which it is grounded, and to which it has invariably to 
 refer, are in many respects of a high and peculiar kind. On 
 this account philosophy may even be called a science of divine 
 experience. If man had never, and, in short, were incapable of 
 
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 393 
 
 laving any experience of divine things, what could he know 
 )f the Deity with certainty ? A knowledge devoid of experience 
 vould be but the arbitrary creation or illusion of his own 
 u i n d — an inward fancy, or the mere reflex of his own reason 
 —consequently an absolute nullity. And for such a knowledge 
 he task would ever be difficult to get rid of a mere idealistic 
 conception of the Divine Being, or at least to repel the doubt 
 Whether He be actually anything more than what such a 
 :onception represents Him. And, in fact, in most treatises 
 nd elaborate developments of that system of thought which 
 nakes man's self the exclusive principle and standard of 
 ruth, the manner of treating the divine nature is extremely 
 uperficial. Such purely formal and empty notions on this 
 ubject are advanced, that we are often justified in applying 
 
 these speculations on the highest topic of human language 
 ind thought, the remark that applies too often to lower selen- 
 itic treatises : " Thus it is that men write who have no real 
 powledge of the matter." " Here we at once see there is 
 L total want of personal observation ; the work is not based 
 i>n any solid foundation of actual experience." 
 
 ! Now the philosophy of life, in its highest range at least, is 
 
 1 divine science of experience. This experience, however, is 
 hroughout internal and spiritual. It is therefore easily con- 
 ;eivable that it can enter readily and easily into all other ex- 
 perimental sciences, and into those especially which more 
 mmediately relate to man, as, for instance, most of the 
 tranches of natural history, and still more into philology, with 
 vhich at present we are most immediately concerned. And 
 his it does, in order to borrow Such illustrations and compari- 
 sons as may tend to elucidate or further to develope its own 
 >ubject-matter, or else to furnish applications to individual cases 
 n other departments of life. However, in thus proceeding, 
 Dhilosophy must take heed lest it overpass its own proper limits 
 )r forget its true end and aim. It must not go too deeply into 
 particulars, or lose itself among the specialities of the other 
 sciences. On the contrary, it ought carefully to confine itself 
 to those points which more immediately concern man, and 
 3specially the inner man, and adhering to the meaning and 
 spirit of the whole, seek to elucidate and throw out this pre- 
 eminently. 
 
 The question as to the origin of language, or more cor- 
 
394 TWO THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 rectly, the question how man attained to the capacity for this 
 wonderful gift or faculty of speech, which forms so consider- 
 able and essential a part of his whole nature, if it is to be 
 taken merely as a matter of historical research and philoso- 
 phical learning, lies out of the circle which we have marked 
 out to ourselves. A discussion exclusively confined to this 
 special branch of philology has little in unison with specula- 
 tions involving the inner experience of life and psycholo- 
 gical observation. There are two opinions pretty generally 
 diffused on this subject : the one maintaining that there is 
 one primary and original language, from which, as a stem, all 
 others have branched forth ; and the other, that several were 
 contemporaneously formed. These opinions, as unfavourably 
 affecting the right understanding of the essential connexion 
 between language or speech and thought, I would wish to keep 
 out of view, and consequently I shall dismiss them with a few 
 passing remarks. 
 
 The one is founded on an erroneous hypothesis, and is itself 
 false. It is in open contradiction to facts, as we now know 
 them with tolerable completeness. As for the other, even if 
 it be not in itself truly and properly false, it is nevertheless 
 based on a great misconception, or at least, as it is commonly 
 propounded, involves one. 
 
 The former theory consists in this, that language generally, 
 or rather several contemporary languages, as fundamentally dis- 
 tinct from each other as the several races of men, who, as this 
 view asserts, sprung up out of the earth, and its primaeval 
 slime, were formed spontaneously by a perfectly natural pro- 
 cess. To the mere animal cries and various instinctive excla- 
 mations, either of joy and grief, of passion and want, were 
 associated the deliberate imitation, together with a child- 
 like mimicry of different sounds, similar to what we may even 
 now observe in children, with whom such mimic intonations 
 and mocking word-play is a common and favourite amuse- 
 ment. From such sensuous beginnings, it is pretended, a 
 language might have grown up, gradually and slowly indeed, 
 to the height of rationality and grammatic form and order. 
 That these two elements — the animal cries of nature and the 
 mechanical imitation of sounds — have contributed to the de- 
 velopment of language, is a position that needs not and cannot 
 be controverted. This element, however, is not found in all 
 
ONE OR MANY ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 395 
 
 languages in equal measure. It is strongest in those lan 
 o-uages which stand at the very lowest grade of development. 
 Among others, again, which having attained very rapidly to 
 maturity and having at an, early period branched off into several 
 3thers, appear in their most ancient state highly intellectual and 
 significant, it is scarcely traceable. But a fatal objection to the 
 hypothesis as explaining the universal and complete principle 
 )f the phenomenon of language in all its ramifications, is 
 :he fact that the noblest and most cultivated languages are 
 found, upon investigation into their earliest state, to possess 
 3ven at this date, the most artificial form, and to be manifoldly 
 rich, and at the same time highly regular and simple. And this 
 s pre-eminently the case with the Sanscrit or Indian, in com- 
 parison with the Greek, Latin, and other kindred languages of 
 She West and North. In those, on the other hand, which appear 
 :o be at the very lowest grade of intellectual culture (and gene- 
 rally these stand quite isolated from all those in the midst of 
 jwhich they are found), we frequently observe, on a closer 
 acquaintanceship, a very high and elaborate degree of art 
 n their grammatical structure. This is especially the case 
 with the Basque and the Lapponian, and many of the 
 American languages. In the Chinese, this excessive and in- 
 ippropriate expenditure of art has been directed to a very 
 peculiar and complicated system of writing. There was no 
 place for it in the language itself, which is extremely poor, 
 being in its basis extremely, not to say childishly, simple and 
 rmite ungrammatical Its whole verbal treasury does not, 
 it is said, contain more than three hundred and thirty words, 
 which form the same number of si n gle syllables . These , however, 
 acquire a different signification by means of accents, of which 
 there are no less than eighty thousand; and even though, as 
 competent judges and the learned aver, not more than the 
 fourth of this large number are really necessary and made use 
 of in practice, still the liability to mistake must be very great, 
 since the entire language is founded on this artificial system of 
 writing, much more than on its living and spoken sounds. 
 Hence, not unfrequently, w T hen even learned Chinese talk 
 (together, they misunderstand each other. This, indeed, is 
 occasionally the case in other countries also. But the differ- 
 ence is, that in the former the source of misconception lies 
 in the language itself ; and it is only by writing down their 
 
396 THE ONE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE NOW LOST. 
 
 words, that the Chinese can be sure of intelligibly conveying 
 their real meaning. 
 
 Modern and experienced philologists have, in consequence 
 of these difficulties given up that view of language which! 
 would derive it entirely from the imitation of animal cries.i 
 Plain facts, indeed, speak too decidedly against it. And, in] 
 truth, the chief point to be guarded against amidst the great 
 variety and the immeasurable richness of the phenomena oi 
 language in general, is the explaining them all by any single! 
 hypothesis, or the deriving them from one origin. 
 
 As to the other opinion respecting the origin of languages 
 the view and assertion that God himself brought language to 
 man, and taught it to him, cannot properly excite any oppo- 
 sition, in so far as all that is good, and man's best and original 
 prerogatives, must in reason be derived from God as their first 
 author. But when it is supposed that the language which on 
 this hypothesis the first man spoke in Paradise, and which, as 
 such, is the source of all other later and derivative languages 
 may still be found, and is to be recognised in any one now ex- 
 tant, as, e. g., the Hebrew — this assuredly is a great error. It 
 involves a total misconception of the immense interval which 
 separates us from the first origin of the world. Of the lan- 
 guage which may have belonged to the first man, before he lost 
 his original power, perfections, and dignity, we are not, with 
 our present organs and senses, in a capacity to form an idea. 
 Indeed, we are no more able to do this, than to judge of the 
 nature of the language employed by the eternal spirits for the 
 immediate interchange of their thoughts, which on the wings of 
 light fly instantaneously through the wide expanse of heaven, 
 or of those words, ineffable by any created being, w r hich are 
 uttered by the Deity in His inmost being, where, to use the 
 words of the Psalmist, " deep calleth unto deep," and where 
 the fulness of infinite love answers to Eternal Majesty. 
 
 But now, to descend from this unattainable height to our own 
 level, and to consider the first man as he really was : then in 
 the simple statement of the first authentic records of mankind, 
 that God taught man language, there is nothing, if we adhere 
 to its obvious meaning, which is in an) way revolting to man's 
 natural feelings. For why should it make any such startling 
 impression on us, if, as it ought, this whole matter be under- 
 stood somewhat in the light of a mother teaching her child 
 the first rudiments of language ? 
 
ORIGINAL UNITY OF LANGUAGE PROBABLE. 397 
 
 Still, together with this simple and childlike signification. 
 
 (like every other part of this divine book, thus written on 
 ie inside and the out) possesses also a far deeper meaning, 
 hat name by which each living creature is called by God, 
 id designated from eternity, must embrace the sum of its 
 imost essence — the key of its existence — the reason and the 
 tplanation of its being. As, indeed, generally in the Holy 
 briptures, so here also a high and holy import is combined with 
 ie notion of the name. Interpreted, then, by this profound 
 ;nse and significance, this brief narrative, as I previously 
 minted out, conveys the idea that by this communication to man 
 y God Himself, of the names of all living things, the former 
 as set up as the lord and king of nature, and even as God's 
 cegerent over the terrestrial creation. And indeed this was 
 is original destination. 
 
 If, then, no existing speech or language can afford us an 
 3cess to this veiled original, now become inaccessible to us, 
 ill the idea of one primary language, or perhaps of several 
 ich, is certainly anything but devoid of an historical founda- 
 on. At least it is a very natural hypothesis, and founded in 
 )me degree on facts, which must not be forthwith rejected, 
 at requires to be tested by further inquiry. It is, however, 
 F no light importance to the maintenance of this hypothesis 
 ) form a right conception of the difference between deriva- 
 )ry and mixed languages, and above all, to take a compre- 
 ensive survey of the whole of human language, in its nearly 
 oundless wealth, so far as such a survey is serviceable to 
 or present object of arriving at a true knowledge of man. 
 did how can such a profitable application and applicability 
 e well doubted ? For the genealogical tree of human lan- 
 uages, in its manifold ramifications — the growth of language 
 looting forth from epoch to epoch, with all the vast riches of 
 rt, does but hold before us as it were a written monument 
 nd memorial of the thinking consciousness assuming, so to 
 peak, a bodily shape, and visibly presenting itself before us, 
 ut still on a grand historical standard, and according to 
 imensions which reach over the whole habitable globe. That, 
 here/ore, the history of the thinking consciousness stands in 
 lost intimate connexion, or at least in very close relation to 
 he science of living thought, is surely a point which requires 
 Leither lengthened investigation nor an express demonstration. 
 
398 
 
 ANALOGY OF PHILOLOGY TO GEOLOGY. 
 
 In the attempt at this juxtaposition, I shall only project 
 those points which either are of importance for the right un- 
 derstanding of the whole, or of interest in themselves. For 
 this purpose I shall avail myself of nothing but the most cer- 
 tain and clearly demonstrated results of modern research into 
 the nature and history of language. All that may appear 
 in any way uncertain, or would lead us too far into the special 
 branches of philology, will be left unnoticed. 
 
 A simile from physical science will perhaps lead us by the 
 quickest and shortest road to the object we are in pursuit of. 
 And, indeed, the geological branch of natural history may 
 well be considered cognate to the inquiry before us. For 
 what geology properly investigates is the antiquities of this 
 terrestrial planet, and the primal condition of the mountain 
 ranges, observing and seeking to read the long-hidden memo- 
 rials that are daily brought to light of pristine convulsions, 
 and to number the successive epochs of gradual change and 
 decay. But it was not at once that geological science made 
 any progress beyond the mere acquaintance with the surface 
 of our globe. An insight into its primary internal constitu- 
 tion and subsequent processes of formation was not gained 
 until observation had enabled us accurately to distinguish be- 
 tween the two kinds of rocks — the alluvial and the secondary, 
 with their fossiliferous strata of chalk and clay — and the 
 primary unstratined rocks of granitic and similar structure, 
 and by patient and accurate observation of the superficial 
 phenomena of the earth in different lands and climates, to 
 establish this classification as a general law. Now this geo- 
 logical distinction admits of application to language. Those 
 composite languages which have been formed out of a mixture 
 or aggregation of several, may be compared to the diluvial 
 rocks which belong to the secondary formation. As the 
 latter have arisen out of or have been formed by floods and 
 inundations, so these mixed languages owe their origin to the 
 great European migration of nations, or perhaps were formed 
 by the East by similar Asiatic migrations, at a still older 
 epoch, and in primaeval times. Those languages, on the con- 
 trary, which, at least as compared with those which are mani- 
 festly mere derivatives from them, we may call primary. In 
 this class we may mention the Roman among those of Europe, 
 and the Sanscrit in those of Asia. These, then, stand on the 
 
ntlMARY AND SECONDARY LANGUAGES. 399 
 
 ame line and dignity with the so-called primary rocks. No 
 loubt, even in these further investigation will discover many 
 races of a mixture, no less palpable indeed, but one, however, 
 a which the constituents neither were originally so hetero- 
 geneous, nor since have continued so totally unchanged. For 
 a the same manner, granitic rocks, and others of the primary 
 Irder, are also found to be composite in their mineral con- 
 tinents. These likewise point to a still earlier convulsion of 
 itature, to which they owed their first production. Unques- 
 ionably, however, the primary mountains form the first line 
 nd earliest formation among the several epochs of revolution 
 phich the present earth has undergone. But it would be an 
 rror were we from this simple fact at once to draw any 
 nference as to the interior of our globe ; for this geologica. 
 nd mineralogical distinction of the two classes of rocks can- 
 iot be proved to hold good beyond the mere surface and coat 
 if the earth. To this alone is man's observation and experience 
 lonfined. 
 
 It is impossible to penetrate very far into the interior or the 
 entral mass of our planet, and investigate its internal consti- 
 ution, and consequently this ring of rock cannot be regarded 
 la any other light than as analogical to the thin covering and 
 [pidermis of the organic living creature. And just so is it 
 nth the science of language. There are undoubtedly lan- 
 guages which, in a certain sense, we may term primary. Only, 
 a so doing, we must not think that in any one of them we 
 tave discovered and possess the long hidden original of all 
 xistent languages. If, for instance, from this correct geolo- 
 gical classification of rock, any bold speculator should go on to 
 ,ssert that the whole interior of the earth, or at least the 
 ;entre of it, is a mass of granitic or other primary rock, we 
 eel at once that this would be a baseless hypothesis. And 
 t would be as grave an error, in the domain of philology, 
 vere we to go on and draw a similar conclusion. The Sanscrit, 
 or instance, holds unquestionably the foremost rank, as the 
 ►ldest among those which belong to the same family, and, as 
 iompared with these, may undoubtedly, in a precise but limited 
 ense, be regarded as a primary language ; but it would be an 
 die assumption were we therefore to consider it in the same 
 ight that Hebrew was formerly, and to look upon it as the 
 miversal original, the first source and mother of all other 
 languages on the surface of the earth 
 
400 THE ENGLISH THE PERSIAN THE FRENCH. 
 
 But not even the historical prerogative of a high antiquil 
 — no, nor even the merit of having preserved a primary form l 
 in greatest purity, however valuable a quality, is the sole 
 standard of excellence in a language, nor that which alone de- 
 termines its perfection. The English language affords a ready 
 illustration of our remark. To it, beyond all others, the de- 
 signation of being a mixed language applies ; indeed it corre- 
 sponds altogether to this character. It furnishes at the same 
 time a striking proof of the height of excellence which even a 
 mixed language is capable of attaining ; meeting, as it does, 
 all the requisitions of a solemn and nervous poetry, the earnest 
 appeals of eloquence, and the calm now of descriptive prose. 
 And yet, on analysis, it presents to the grammatical eye the 
 somewhat heterogeneous compound of two wholly different 
 elements, whose originally chaotic mixture has been reduced 
 into a rare and happy proportion. For into its original High- 
 Dutch or Anglo-Saxon basis, many words have been intro- 
 duced from the Latin or Norman- French, which among the 
 living roots of the former appear so far aliens and foreigners, 
 as, being little capable of grammatical declension or deriva- 
 tion, they do not, like the others, form so many fruitful verbal 
 stems, from which new forms and compounds shoot forth. Of 
 Asiatic languages the Persian is in this respect of a similar 
 constitution to the English. Here also the essential founda- 
 tion and living root of the whole is some peculiar and old 
 national language, closely akin to the Sanscrit and Gothic- 
 German ; but its Arabian admixture is as great in degree as the 
 Latin-French of the English, and indeed both were brought in 
 by a similar political revolution. Still the Persian is generally, 
 and with good cause, praised as a noble language, abounding 
 in lively poetical ornament, and moreover, like the French in 
 Europe, is adopted throughout Asia as the general language 
 of business and conversation. Those derivatory languages also 
 which stand next in order to the mixed, and in part also belong 
 to them, and which have rather softened down than abolished 
 the stricter grammatical forms, having rounded them off, as it 
 were, for greater convenience of use, do not necessarily stand in- 
 ferior to the mother- tongue in grace and vigour of composition 
 On the contrary, in respect of style, they are often vastly supe- 
 rior to them. Thus the Italian appears softer and more flexible 
 for lyrical verse, and perhaps for every creation of the poetic 
 
LANGUAGE PERFECT IN ITS ORIGIN. 40 i 
 
 fancy, sweeter and more graceful than its Roman mother-tongue. 
 The P'rench too, at least as the language of society, moves with 
 an unequalled freedom, while, for precision and distinctness of 
 expression, its prose has attained to an unparalleled height of 
 excellence. The Spanish also, besides being praised for the 
 excellence of its prose, as admirably suited either for the dig- 
 nity of serious narrative or the ingenious play of wit, is in poetry 
 distinguished above most of its sister dialects by a wonderful 
 richness and peculiar grace in the playful sallies of the fancy. 
 And yet it is a derivative language, and compounded of the 
 most heterogeneous elements. For not only it is highly pro- 
 bable that the Gothic-German admixture is even greater in 
 this than in any other of the romance dialects which sprung 
 up out of the Latin, but the Arabic also forms a very con- 
 siderable element in it. 
 
 But it was not to descend into the grammatical specialities 
 of philological erudition, or to heap up a mass of purely aesthe- 
 tical remarks, that I have alluded to these pregnant instances. 
 What I chiefly had in view was to remove, if possible, all 
 srroneous notions from the conception of the primal language, 
 [t was, in short, my object to bring before your minds its origin 
 md growth, according to that continuous process which may 
 3ven still be seen going on in any spoken language. And 
 ilthough in our own neighbourhood it is only in a few partial 
 instances, and these far from definite, that we can trace this 
 iving process, still they are not on this account to be neg- 
 ected, since they furnish much instruction, and are calculated 
 bo throw much light upon the whole matter. 
 
 Now as regards the historical origin, not only of language 
 n general, but also of its several extant dialects, and especi- 
 illy those which relatively to such as are derived and com- 
 pounded out of them may pass as primary : there is one essential 
 loint towards a right understanding of the matter. We must 
 lot attempt to account for their origination and development 
 nerely by a mixture and derivation from many individual parts, 
 )ut rather endeavour to set them before our minds as produc- 
 ions similar in nature to that of a poem or any other piece of 
 irt. For the latter are severally the result of a conception which 
 rom the very first was a whole ; — they never could have been 
 produced by any successive agglomeration of atomistic parts, 
 [n this view of language we must in thought place ourselves 
 
 2 D 
 
402 
 
 SPEECH VARIED BY MORAL DIVERSITIES. 
 
 at a very different epoch of mind from the present. Now we 
 cannot well hesitate to allow that in the primal period of 
 the hnman race, and of nations individually, the productive; 
 fancy w r ould manifest itself in the creation of words with far 
 more of inventive genius and fertility than would be likely; 
 to be displayed at a subsequent period of mental culture, when 
 the analytical reason had, step by step, succeeded in gaining the! 
 preponderance . 
 
 Commonly, indeed, men speak strangely enough of thei 
 origin of languages. They talk of the matter somewhat in the 
 same fashion as it would be to say of a picture, that it hac 
 its origin in ochre, lake, ceruse, asphalt, and such like colour- 
 ing substances, together with the addition of oil, which hokh 
 here somewhat the same place that in language the reason does 
 with its grammatical arrangement and logical combinations 
 Of these motley materials, it might be said, one little particle 
 after another is laid on the canvas, till gradually long streata 
 appear, which again swell gradually into fuller and deepei 
 outline, until at last a complete form and figure stands forth! 
 to which at last there accrues an expressive physiognomy 
 And so at last the picture is finished. But in all this descrip 
 tion it seems totally forgotten that unless the ideal conceptioi 
 — the picture as a whole — had from the very first been present 
 to the mind of the painter, it would never have attained t( 
 such a realisation, thus growing up, step by step, under th< 
 hand of the artist. At least, without this it would not be < 
 true artistic work of genius, since this is in every instance 
 the result of some foregoing conception of a whole. 
 
 Not piecemeal, therefore, and fragmentarily, did language 
 arise. It came forth rather at once and in its totality out o 
 the full inner and living consciousness of man. We shal 
 have no difficulty in thus considering it, if only we can succee< 
 in ideally transplanting ourselves to that foretime when th< 
 thinking faculty was more creative, and when in the designatioi 
 and expression of its ideas it moved more freely and with tin 
 elasticity of genius. But if speech answers to thought, and i 
 language itself is but a true copy, a shifting diorama, as it were 
 of man's inward self, then (to make use of that oldest recore 
 of the human race, which, as it is better and more natura 
 than all others, so it also furnish es the best clue for unra 
 veiling the riddles of olrlen tradition.) we might well asl 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES. 
 
 403 
 
 whether the language of Cain, the accursed vagabond wandering 
 3ver the face of the earth, could have been the same as that of 
 the pious patriarchs and saints of the primaeval world, some of 
 whom, under other names, but in equal honour, are found men- 
 tioned in the traditions of the ancient Persians, and the sacred 
 books of the Hindoos and other Asiatic nations ? Or could it 
 i well have been the same with that of Noah, the second proge- 
 nitor and the restorer of the human race, whom likewise the 
 earliest traditionary records of every people recognise and 
 mention. The family of the Cainites holds no inconsiderable 
 place in the earliest history of civilisation, and the first work- 
 ing of metals, and the invention of several useful arts, is ex- 
 pressly ascribed to them. But still their difference in lan- 
 guage from the other families of the antediluvian world, and 
 
 DO 
 
 generally in their whole civil constitution, must have been very 
 great and palpably noticeable. And this favours the hypo- 
 thesis, which in itself is anything but impossible, and deserves 
 rather to be called highly probable, of several primary lan- 
 guages, or at least of different epochs in the primaeval speech 
 of the earliest foretime, which, moreover, serve to indicate so 
 many natural sections in the progression which the mental 
 development of the aboriginal family of man observed, and the 
 shapes which its mode of thinking successively assumed. 
 
 Now, if I may venture to suggest the course in which some 
 such progression may, in idea at least, be projected and traced 
 in the entire system of the vast multitudes of languages which 
 exist on the face of the earth, I would set out with the San- 
 scrit. For this is the best known and understood of the whole 
 Hindoo family, among which it holds the foremost rank as 
 the oldest and most complete. To the same class would 
 belong first of all the old Persian, the Gothic- German, and 
 the Scandinavian, all of which are most intimately related to 
 the former ; then the Greek, and the Latin with its many deriva- 
 tives; and lastly, according to the opinion of competent judges, 
 nearly the whole of the Sla.vonic dialects. All these languages, 
 each in its measure, and in proportion to the cultivation it had 
 enjoyed, are marked, especially in their earliest stages, by a 
 very artificial structure and a beautiful grammatical arrange- 
 ment, but pre-eminently by a highly noble poetic shape, com- 
 bined with an equal degree of scientific precision. This, 
 however, is but one family among many others which make 
 2 d 2 
 
404 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES. 
 
 up the whole system. The latter, however, stand at a fa) 
 lower grade of development and perfection. Among thost 
 which, like the Tartaric- Chinese and the African, belong t( 
 the latter class, the highly remarkable dialects of America 
 occupy an important and characteristic place. The traveller* 
 best acquainted with the American races and dialects has de 
 scribed the former as singularly remarkable for the degradatior 
 to which their mental faculties have fallen below the origina 
 standard, while he speaks of the latter as resembling the relics 
 of some great ruin or mighty devastation. On this expressior 
 of the famous traveller, which agrees so accurately with the 
 idea I am here developing, and with the result of my owi 
 investigation into the course of the human mind since the ok 
 and primal times, I am disposed to lay very great stress. Foi 
 with him it was the conviction impressed upon his mind b\ 
 personal observation alone, unbiassed by any preconceived 
 opinion or hypothesis favourable to my views. This charactei 
 of deep degradation belongs, perhaps, to the better class 01 
 languages, since they present but little analogy to each othei 
 in their material elements, and admit scarcely of any classi- 
 fication. At least it forms a distinctive mark of them, andl 
 awakens a melancholy impression. 
 
 The Egyptian, which, since the partial deciphering of its 
 hieroglyphics, is no longer totally inaccessible, belongs, I thinkj 
 to this second class. In it, however, it holds a very important 
 place, and is eminently distinguished. For its hieroglyphical 
 mode of writing, by combining the alphabetical with the sym- 
 bolical mode of indication, gave it consequently great liberty 
 of choice among the different phonetic figures which might 
 stand for the same alphabetic character, so that the phonetic 
 word was, as it were, invested with a symbolical garb, and 
 all alike assumed an hieroglyphical tone. Some of the Greeks 
 regarded the hieroglyphical as the oldest of all human Ian-, 
 guages ; and indeed that sombre melancholy which seems to 
 reign in all the monuments of ancient Egypt, might well be 
 regarded as a silent witness to the great event of the ruin ofi 
 a primaeval world. 
 
 In order to complete our subject, the Hebrew still remainsj 
 for a general notice in that brief review which alone our limits 
 
 * Alexander von Humboldt. 
 
THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. 
 
 405 
 
 admit of. We must, however, give such a characteristic view 
 of it as will enable us correctly to determine the place which 
 it is to assume among the rest. Apparently, it stands isolated 
 by itself, belonging altogether to neither of the two classes 
 we have described. It seems to favour the conjecture, that 
 a new and peculiar class is necessary to embrace all the phe- 
 nomena in this first and oldest epoch of language. This, 
 then, with the two already considered, will form three classes. 
 In its radical words the Hebrew exhibits only a slight relation- 
 ship to the Indu-European family. This, however, on further 
 examination, will probably be found to be still more con- 
 siderable. Foi it is often impossible to recognise it at once 
 beneath a totally different grammatical form and structure, 
 and it is, moreover, withdrawn from immediate notice by the 
 difference of its predominant mental tendency. We know, 
 however, as an historical fact, that the Phoenician, which 
 differed from the Hebrew only as one dialect from another, 
 was not without some connexion with the Greek, on which 
 it exercised no inconsiderable influence. Now, with respect 
 to the peculiar character of the Hebrew, everything in it 
 is directed to the attainment of the highest vividness and 
 profound significance. This is even the case with its gram- 
 matical principle, which makes all its other terms, whether 
 names of objects or qualities, subordinate to the verb. The 
 triplicity also of the roots, which, with very few exceptions, 
 consist of three letters — which again for the most part consti- 
 tute as many syllables — was assuredly not without a significant 
 design, and possessed collaterally a certain mystic allusion. 
 In its profound significancy and compressed brevity — in its 
 figurative boldness and prophetical inspiration, far more than 
 in any chronological precedence of antiquity, consists the 
 peculiar character and high prerogative of the Hebrew. On 
 the other hand, it is somewhat inferior to many others, as, for 
 example, the Greek, in poetical forms and shape, in richness 
 and variety of development, and in precision of scientific 
 diction. In its essential character, the Hebrew language is 
 prophetical, like the people itself, even in the present evil 
 days of their dispersion — the people in whom the living word 
 of the twofold ancient prophecy, now that the Jews have 
 handed it over to the Gentiles, has first attained its perfect 
 accomplishment. 
 
406 LANGUAGE THE PICTURE OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 The whole system of the languages of man is but the 
 external and visible copy and true mirror of his inmost con- 
 sciousness. The different epochs of their ancient production 
 are but so many terms in the progression observed by the 
 human mind in its development. Consequently, language in 
 general, as the clue of memory and tradition which binds 
 together all nations in their chronological series and succes- 
 sion, is, as it were, the common memory and organ of recol-| 
 lection for the whole human race. It is only in this relation, 
 which is certainly important, and also essential to the problem 
 before us, that I have thought it allowable to enter upon this 
 episode. Many of the particulars may perhaps have been 
 unattractive enough. Still I trust that the general result, 
 as throwing light upon the origin, or rather, the historical rise 
 and oldest development of language, has proved universally 
 interesting, even though at most it has but suggested matter 
 for future meditation. 
 
 This result may be expressed or briefly comprised in the! 
 following words : on our side of that obscure interval or great 
 chasm which separates us from the hidden and inaccessible 
 history of the first formation of language, the first grade in I 
 its growth is indicated by a deep state of decline and a 
 melancholy sense of the fact. And yet even from this state 
 a highly significant art is not altogether excluded, since we 
 see it expressing itself in the beautiful symbols of the figu- 
 rative language of Egypt. The second step in the further 
 development of human speech is formed by the lofty flight 
 which the poetic spirit took in the ancient languages, which 
 greatly excel all others in beauty of form and perfection of 
 structure, in richness of poetical ornament, and perspicuity 
 of scientific precision. Some of the oldest fragments in those 
 languages are also marked with a peculiarly beautiful tone of 
 sacerdotal solemnity, as is the case with many a relic from 
 the earliest period of the Latin. 
 
 But the fuller and higher initiation in divine lore, and a 
 bold, religious enthusiasm, form another and a peculiar grade 
 in the historical development of language ; and this was the 
 third step that it took in this earliest and primaeval time. 
 And, as a proof that the characteristic just alluded to is not 
 derived solely from the spirit and tone of the holy writings 
 of the Hebrews, and that I have not, without further corro- 
 
LANGUAGE THE COMMON MEMORY OE MANKIND. 407 
 
 boration, transferred it at once to language in general, I will 
 add one more remark, tending to show that in some degree 
 
 I it has its foundation in the very nature and grammatical struc- 
 ture of human speech itself. In the Arabic, which in many 
 other respects is closely akin to the Hebrew, many of these 
 characteristic properties may likewise be traced, even though 
 the Arabians at a very early date, turning aside from the 
 simple faith of the old patriarchs, gave themselves up to the 
 superstitions of magic and astrology, and, since the times of 
 Mahomet, have been animated with an inextinguishable and 
 
 | fanatical hatred of a profounder truth of godliness and the 
 religion of love. 
 
 I called language in general — as being the storehouse of 
 tradition where it lives on from nation to nation, and as being 
 the clue of material and spiritual connexion which joins century 
 to century — the common memory of the human race. Now, 
 
 | it is this faculty of memory which I would now seek to give 
 a more precise characteristic of. For the present seems its 
 appropriate place in our series of psychological inquiries, 
 according to the relative position which it holds in the general 
 system of the mental faculties. Before entering upon this 
 topic, however, the position that language must not be 
 thought of as being in the first instance produced piecemeal 
 by the concretion of several atomistic and unconnected parts, 
 but as moulded in one cast, and in its totality, similarly to 
 a poetical or other creation of art, requires proof and cor- 
 roboration. For this purpose then I would bring to your 
 remembrance a fact or phenomenon which is closely connected 
 with the investigation into the nature of memory, though it 
 involves a marvellous leap of the memory, or at least of its 
 usual method of operation : I am alluding to what by an old 
 phrase is called the gift of languages — or that natural gift by 
 which certain individuals seem enabled to enter all at once 
 into the spirit and structure of foreign languages, and that not 
 merely in the case of very simple ones, but even the highly 
 cultivated and artificial languages of modern Europe. 
 
 This phenomenon of the soul transporting itself, or, as it 
 
 1 were, transported all at once into a language previously quite 
 strange to it, so as to understand any spoken or written com- 
 position in it, is certainly not one of ordinary occurrence ; and, 
 in truth, whenever it manifests itself strongly and decidedly, 
 
408 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 it closely borders on the marvellous. Still it is a fact suffi- 
 ciently well known, and neither unheard of nor rare. On the 
 other hand, the higher and active case of the same phenomenon, 
 which is marked, not merely by the understanding but also by 
 the speaking of a language never before learnt, and which was 
 meant by the gift of tongues in the old sense, is certainly a 
 really miraculous fact. But even this is acknowledged and 
 believed, and there is no sufficient reason for calling in ques- 
 tion the ancient witnesses to the fact, merely on account of 
 the nature of it. 
 
 I called this fact a wonderful leap of the memory. For 
 however subordinate this faculty may in other respects appear, 
 relatively to those which everywhere make prominent claim 
 to the spontaneous burst of genius, still, even in the case of 
 memory, its first spring and origin is often veiled and inexpli- 
 cable, and it presents many points of view leading to pro- 
 foundest questioning and suggesting grave investigation. 
 
 In our psychological survey of the whole human mind, we 
 set out with its four leading faculties, as arranged under the 
 two contrarieties of understanding and will, of reason and 
 fancy. Besides these four leading faculties, there are several, 
 perhaps just as many others, derived indeed from the former, 
 but still not so muoh subordinate to them (for in another rela- 
 tion they appea* equally important and not less essential than 
 them) as rather co-ordinate with them and having a peculiar 
 function assigned to them. Of these I have in my former 
 Lectures analysed and described the conscience as the moral 
 instinct for right and wrong, when I named it the reason 
 applied to the will, or rather, as I preferred to consider it, as 
 a peculiar and independent faculty, intermediate between 
 reason and will, and being an immediate feeling and judgment 
 as to what is good and evil in human desires and actions. 
 Now, just as conscience is a mean between reason and will, so 
 is memory intermediate between reason and understanding. 
 With both of them it is closely connected. Memory, on the 
 one hand, is the treasure-house of the understanding ; indeed, it 
 is the understanding hitherto acquired and worked out, now laid 
 and stored up. On the other hand, as the clue and thread of 
 recollection, memory furnishes that ground and principle of 
 association in the consciousness, on which reason itself and 
 its exercise is dependent. So entirely is this the case, that 
 
INNATE IDEAS AND FORMS OF THOUGHT. 409 
 
 jhe partial or total loss of memory from sickness or old age, 
 though producing no derangement of the reason, is neverthe- 
 less followed by a partial decline and slowness of rational 
 thought, which occasionally amounts to a general deadening and 
 | extinction of the rational faculty. The close connexion 
 between memory and understanding is especially visible in 
 children, in whom the first faint opening of intellect is gene- 
 : rally simultaneous with the first apperception of self and 
 ! retention of external impressions or signs. The under- 
 j standing is that thinking and cognition of individuals, which 
 I is even the act of intellection. Consequently the individual 
 j mark and characteristc sign in the function of memory be- 
 longs to the understanding ; but the combining link between 
 these individual conceptions or signs — their permanent asso- 
 ciation — is the reason's share in memory ; for the latter is 
 the knowing and consciousness which, in the coherent whole 
 J of associated and illative thought, is conversant about general 
 j notions. 
 
 And here arises a question similar to that which we started 
 ! in our investigation of language. Must we assume, at the 
 I first awakening and hidden spring of memory, a divine im- 
 pulse, so to speak, or a higher foundation for it from before 
 the beginning of this terrestrial existence ? Or, indeed, since on 
 this subject many theories have been started of old, and are 
 ever springing up, to retain a place among the world's 
 floating opinions, what are we to think of these views, tested 
 by that knowledge of our inmost consciousness which the 
 observation of life furnishes ? How far do our feelings and 
 reflections justify or limit them ? Among these opinions 
 is the hypothesis revived by Leibnitz, of innate ideas, or 
 rather, according to the most recent exposition of it, of certain 
 forms of thought essential to the reason, existing, antece- 
 dently to experience, in its fundamental scheme, and, as it 
 were, engraven in it. Now all such opinions, whatever varia- 
 tions they may present, arise without exception from the 
 Platonic notion of the anamnesis possessed by the soul from a 
 previous existence, and, moreover, they agree with the dogma 
 of the metempsychosis, which, Indian in its origin, is, how- 
 ever, widely diffused among other nations also. 
 
 A real and actual pre -existence, however, of the human 
 soul, as it does not admit of any historical proof, so is it not 
 
410 INNATE IDEAS AND FORMS OE THOUGHT. 
 
 easily reconcilable with our own feelings, nor with our general 
 sentiments on the relation we stand in to God and the divine 
 economy in the government of the world. And as for the 
 ancient belief in the migration of souls, it cannot, however 
 remarkable for its wide diffusion, be regarded in any other light 
 than an arbitrary creation of fancy and a kind of mythology of 
 the soul. Moreover, with regard to the theory of essential forms 
 of thought impressed on the reason antecedently to all expe- 
 rience and prior to the first awakening of consciousness, it is 
 based on a view of the reason which would make it a universal 
 receptacle of the thought, divided into greater and less cham- 
 bers and compartments. It is thus made the residuum or 
 dead precipitate of the natural functions of the living cogita- 
 tion, and of the law of life which rules therein, which, thus 
 arranged in rank and row, are placed before us, like the dried 
 specimens of a herbarium, or like the butterflies pinned to the 
 entomologist's case, from each of which, however, amidst 
 the mechanical arrangement, the true, delicate, light-winged 
 Psyche has long since flown away. And since in philosophy our 
 first object must be to seize, if possible, the living thought in 
 its very life, and to give to it also a living expression, or at least 
 to paint it after the life, it is not easy to see to what end this so 
 circumstantial procedure is to lead. The whole hypothesis, in 
 short, seems useless and superfluous. As to the principle or 
 hypothesis of innate ideas, which in truth requires to be kept 
 perfectly distinct from the one previously considered, it is 
 quite conceivable that it may be a right method for the artist, 
 who is ever in pursuit of the ideal, and in some cases also for 
 the thinker, to present to his mind the object of his concep- 
 tion, and which he is seeking ideally to manifest, such as witn 
 a similar end it would appear before and be contemplated by 
 the divine mind. At any rate, such a mode of thought would 
 greatly facilitate the execution of his ideal conception. But 
 if what is meant by this theory is an antecedent intellectual 
 intuition of the pure ideas in the divine mind, then we are 
 brought again to the difficult and debatable hypothesis of an 
 actual pre-existence. Moreover, when we go into details, and 
 attempt to apply this theory to particular instances, we are 
 at once involved in the greatest perplexity. For what, even 
 in the department of art, are we to understand by the inborn 
 idea of a noble, wide-spreading tree, of a beautiful flower, a 
 
TIME AND ETERNITY. 411 
 
 grand and well-proportioned architectural edifice, or other 
 monument ? or a vigorous animal, or noble human form ? and 
 what meaning, in the domain of practical life, would it convey, 
 to talk of the innate idea of a skilful general, or of a wise finan- 
 
 [ cier? We cannot, indeed, imagine to what good end this 
 hypothesis can serve or lead, and consequently, as soon as it 
 
 I - is taken for anything more than a mere figure of thought, it 
 involves us in new, if it does not entangle us again in the 
 
 I old, inextricable difficulties. 
 
 The question, however, admits of a more general sense. 
 Without supposing that there is inborn in the human soul a 
 [i ! whole system of notions and forms of thought, a whole world, 
 in short, of all possible ideas, may there not have been im- 
 parted to it from above a higher gift, which naturally is only 
 ! called into action simultaneously with the awakening of the 
 rest of the human mind, or of the mind generally ? — If so, would 
 it not appear to the soul in the form of a memory, and in a 
 
 I I certain sense be really such, though, indeed, not so much a 
 memory of the past as of eternity ? This is a question 
 
 I which, advanced in this sense, cannot, I think, be absolutely 
 negatived. Not that any essential necessity or actual ground 
 ! exists for it, but that, carefully guarded by certain limitations, 
 it is an hypothesis that may, without hesitation, be assumed 
 or conceded. Can it, in truth, well be doubted that every 
 spiritual being created by infinite love, has had imparted to him 
 a share in the source of eternal love, which is to remain his 
 for ever, or so long at least as the connexion with the supreme 
 source of his being is not violently broken and rent asunder ? 
 If, then, such a portion is to remain for ever the property of 
 every created spiritual being, it must assume a definite place 
 in his consciousness, and in the development of the latter 
 manifest itself in its due place. As regards indeed the human 
 soul, this supposition can with less justice be denied, the more 
 I universally and pre-eminently the prerogative of a high degree 
 of resemblance to the divine image is ascribed to it. 
 
 Now this participation in God, as the primary source of 
 eternal love, which abides for ever in the human soul, and 
 which becomes extinct in one extreme case alone — this divine 
 endowment of the human consciousness from above — can only 
 be thought of and described as the recollection of eternal 
 love ; and this, moreover, is the only innate idea in the human 
 mind which it is possible or allowable to assume. 
 
412 
 
 TIME AND ETERNITY. 
 
 The thought of an original recollection in man, which pro- 
 perly is not of a mere foretime, but of eternity, but which in 
 all propriety still admits of being termed a recollection, has 
 brought us to the notion of time and eternity, and to the ques- 
 tion of their reciprocal relation — of which the true and correct 
 view is probably very different from that which commonly pre- 
 vails. But this is a topic which, for its further and complete 
 elucidation, demands a special investigation. 
 
 END OF LECTURE III* 
 
413 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The idea of a pre -existence of the soul in an earlier and 
 different state of being from the present, is a delusion and 
 groundless hypothesis, arbitrarily tacked on to Plato's doctrine 
 ! of the anamnesis or of innate ideas. As such, it is calculated 
 to involve us in innumerable difficulties. I have, however, 
 endeavoured to show that the doctrine itself is distinct from, 
 and can be kept separate from, this arbitrary admixture. 
 Stripped of all extraneous additions, the essential parts of 
 this Platonic doctrine of a higher memory have always pos- 
 sessed a powerful attraction for many deep thinkers and 
 noble minds. From its first author down to Leibnitz, it 
 has made a deep and lasting impression, which has ever 
 enabled it from time to time to recover its ascendancy. 
 In its purer sense and more simple and legitimate view, 
 we may, I asserted, understand by it no completely life- 
 less and mechanical system of all the possible ideas which 
 reason may evolve in the human mind, antecedently arranged 
 and classified, but an idea of his divine origin innate or im- 
 planted in his mind, which cannot be otherwise or more 
 simply indicated, than by the expression we have chosen to 
 designate it — of a recollection of eternal love. But this recol- 
 lection, I affirmed, is not so much the remembrance merely 
 of some special past, which would again lead us to an actual 
 pre-existence of the human soul, as a remembrance of eternity ; 
 and it is in this light that the whole idea must be regarded, 
 if it is to be allowed any force. Now, this gives rise to and 
 calls for a closer investigation into the mutual relation and 
 whole conception of time and eternity. 
 
 This faculty of remembrance is of an entirely different kind 
 from the ordinary exercise and function of memory. This state, 
 this quality or power of the soul, or whatever else it may be 
 called, might be appropriately termed a transcendental memory, 
 if it were not out of season, or if any advantage would be 
 gained by renewing the already half-forgotten and involved 
 terminology of the philosophic schools of the last generation. 
 
414 TIME AND ETERNITY. TIME TWOFOLD. 
 
 Yet this would but be a change of name for the self- same idea 
 and object, which at best could only serve to exhibit more 
 distinctly and clearly, and from many points of view, what- 
 ever is peculiar in the nature of such an unusual idea, or its 
 new and unusual sense, as well as the proper and difficult 
 focus of inquiries and investigations of this nature. But the 
 point upon which depends the decision of the whole matter, 
 or rather, from which alone its right explanation can and 
 must proceed, is, as already stated, the mutual relation between 
 time and eternity, and a just conception of both. 
 
 Usually, or at least oftentimes, eternity is explained and 
 understood as being the entire cessation, the perfect non- 
 existence and unconditional negation of all time. But this 
 would involve at the same time the negation of life and all 
 living existence, ( + )* so that nothing would remain but an 
 absolute negative, which is a void entity and perfect nullity. 
 
 In place of the endless contradictions to which all negation 
 generally, and especially the absolute negation of time, cannot 
 but lead — in place of that to which the English poet's phrase of 
 " darkness visible" is applicable, I would offer a description of 
 the idea of eternity, which may perhaps render it less incompre- 
 hensible. Eternity, as I should define it, is the all-embracing, 
 completely complete time, which is infinite not only " a parte 
 externa" i. e., ever passing, yet everlasting, without beginning 
 and without end, but also infinite " a parte interna ;" so that 
 in the endlessly living, thoroughly luminous present, and in 
 the blissful consciousness thereof, the whole past, and also the 
 whole future, are equally actual, equally clear, and equally 
 present to us as the very present itself. For can we form any 
 other conception of a state of bliss ? Nay, is not this idea 
 of the fulness of time entirely one and the same, and exactly 
 coincident with that state which at least we are able to think 
 of, and indeed cannot well avoid thinking of ? and is not this 
 also the only form of existence applicable to the divine con- 
 sciousness, on the assumption and belief not of any mere 
 divine essence, but of an actual living and self-conscious God- 
 head? That, at least, the idea of time is not absolutely 
 excluded from the life and essence or the operations of the 
 living God of revelation, there exists in the latter abundant 
 
 * The passages thus indicated were marked by Schlegel himself for 
 revision. 
 
TIME NOT EXCLUDED EEOM THE IDEA OF GOD. 415 
 
 indication, testimony, and proof. Almost all the expres- 
 sions there chosen for this matter allude to that full and 
 divine time, in which yesterday and to-morrow are as to-day, 
 and u a thousand years as one day," and many others which 
 convey the same idea, but in no ways apply to the false notion 
 of eternity which makes it the absolute negation of all time. 
 The very Hebrew name of God furnishes a confirmation of 
 this assertion. And I may here indulge myself with producing 
 it, since we shall be able to accomplish this object without 
 entering into an analysis of the language itself, and its sense 
 can be made perfectly clear according to the sense of our own 
 language, without any circumlocution or periphrase. 
 
 In the sacred volume of the Old Testament, two names are 
 used to designate the Supreme Being. The one is perfectly 
 general, and signifies the idea of God or the Deity absolutely, 
 being also applied to the gods of the heathen, and occasionally 
 employed simply to signify angels and spirits. The other, 
 however, is exclusively given to the true and living God of 
 revelation. This word is derived from a Hebrew root, which 
 signifies " to be," or rather, since we can hardly expect to 
 find in these ancient languages, and in the primary significa- 
 tions of the radical words, the idea of a simple abstract exis- 
 tence, it means life, a positive living existence. In one place 
 this name, which is made up of four letters, is explained and 
 interpreted as signifying " I am that I am," or more accu- 
 rately, " I am that I shall be." Now, this is as much as to 
 say, the true and living God of revelation, He who from the 
 beginning has manifested forth His glory in creation, and who 
 ever since is continually manifesting Himself, internally, at 
 least, to the whole human race and to each individual, though 
 in truth often unattended to and little regarded, and who will 
 still more gloriously reveal Himself in the end of time, that 
 is, of this earthly duration and period of change, or as it is 
 expressed in Sacred Writ, in the fulness of time, or when 
 time itself shall be accomplished. 
 
 Now here it is evident the idea of time is not absolutely 
 excluded from a conception of the essence and operations of 
 God. On the contrary, this description involves the idea of 
 full and complete time, which lasts from eternity to eternity, 
 and to the height of which, when the hour shall have come, 
 that is to say, at the final consummation, this our earthly 
 
416 TIME AND ETERNITY NOT IRRECONCILABLE. 
 
 time, in whose fetters this our world of sense is now held, shall 
 ne raised and glorified. 
 
 The question, therefore, is properly to determine whether 
 there exists such an absolute opposition between time and 
 eternity that it is impossible for them to subsist in any mutual 
 contact or relation, but the one necessarily leads to the nega- 
 tion of the other, or whether, at least, there is not some con- 
 ceivable transition from the one to the other. Now in the 
 former view, since the absolute, universally, and most espe- 
 cially absolute thinking as well as absolute willing, forms tt* 
 destructive principle in life, there lies, perhaps, the first source, 
 not only of false systems, but also of the metaphysical pre- 
 judices which man's intellect nourishes, and especially of all 
 the deeply-rooted, inborn, or hereditary errors of the reason. 
 On the other hand, according to the theory on which our 
 present speculations are based, both time and eternity are not 
 incompatible with or in hostile and irreconcilable opposition to 
 each other. Their ideas do not mutually destroy each other. 
 Certain definite connecting links and points of contact and 
 transition exist between them. The contrariety is not an 
 incomprehensibly absolute one of eternal negation, but rather 
 a living one, similar to the distinction between life and death, 
 or that between evil and good. So long as we believe in a 
 great and irreconcilable contrariety between time and eternity, 
 such as at the first delusive aspect they present themselves, 
 we cannot hope to extricate ourselves from the labyrinth in 
 which external things and our own internal reflections involve 
 the mind. This can only be effected by the idea of a two- 
 fold time, such as it is our purpose accurately to define and 
 bring before you. And this notion of a twofold time arises 
 from the difference between the one perfect and blissful time, 
 which is nought else than the inner pulse of life in an ever- 
 flowing eternity, without beginning and without end, and that 
 other time which is prisoned and fettered in this lower world 
 of sense, where the stern present alone is prominent, and 
 lords it over all else with despotic sway — the past being lost 
 in darkness and sunk in the night of death ; while the future, 
 now advancing, now receding, hovers like a shadow, in an 
 obscure, glimmering, and deceptive twilight, until the now bril- 
 liant present passes away, and in its turn becomes as nothing, 
 being buried in the darkness of death, which shrouds all past 
 
THE WORLD ETERNAL . IN WHAT SENSE, 
 
 417 
 
 and former existence. And as there is a twofold time, so also 
 may we, in relation to God and the world, distinguish a two- 
 fold eternity. Let us, for this purpose, contemplate the whole 
 creation, including not only this visible world of sense, but 
 also the invisible world of spirits, either in its original per- 
 fection, which it possessed when it issued unsullied from the 
 hand of the Creator, or even in that state of perfection, which, 
 glorified and perfected, and become imperishable, it is to enjoy 
 when the course of earthly time shall have run out, and when 
 there shall be no more death. 
 
 Now, relatively to either its original perfection or that to 
 which it is finally to be restored, we cannot better designate 
 the universe than by terming it the created, while God is the 
 uncreated eternity. The world, however, according to what 
 we know of it from revelation, is not absolutely such. It is 
 eternal only from one point of view, that, namely, which looks 
 forward to its everlasting, continuous, and blessed duration, 
 and not from that of its first origin. For the w T orld (if it 
 was, as we are taught, created out of nothing,) had a beginning 
 — a precise beginning — which took place in time. And this 
 fact, again, suggests and confirms the remark how the idea 
 of time, which is unquestionably involved in that of the 
 beginning of the universe, is not absolutely excluded from the 
 essence and operations of the Godhead, at least of the living 
 and personal God of revelation. On this point, however, I 
 would wish to say no more than this : here is the decisive 
 point — two distinct, opposite, or diverging paths lie before 
 us, and man must choose between them. The clear-seeing 
 spirit, which in its sentiments, thoughts, and views of life, 
 would be in accordance with itself, and would act consistently 
 to them, must in any case take one or the other. Either 
 there is a living God, full of love, even such a one as love 
 seeks and yearns after, to whom faith clings, and in whom al] 
 our hopes are centered (and such is the personal God of reve- 
 lation) ; and on this hypothesis, the world is not God, but is 
 distinct from him, having had a beginning, and being created 
 out of nothing. Or there is only one supreme form of existence, 
 and the world is eternal, and not distinct from God ; there is 
 absolutely but one, and this eternal one comprehends all, and 
 is itself all in all ; so that there is nowhere any real and essential 
 distinction ; and even that which is alleged to exist between evil 
 
 2 K 
 
418 
 
 TIME AND ETERNITY. 
 
 and good is only a delusion of a narrow-minded system of ethics, 
 or of conventional prejudices, that man allows to pass as such, 
 and holds externally in nonour, but which intrinsically, and as 
 tested by the rigour of science, has no real and substantial 
 import. Now the necessity of this choice and determination 
 presses urgently upon our own time, which stands midway 
 between two worlds. Generally it is between these two paths 
 alone that the decision is to be made, since all the doubts and 
 opinions which branch off between them are nothing more 
 than the still unsettled oscillations, assuming in appearance a 
 fixed scientific shape, or a vague mixture of narrow and im- 
 perfect views, which are just as far from having taken any pre- 
 cise form or determination. But the choice between them must 
 be perfectly free. No one's conviction can be forced to adopt 
 either one or the other. For that which is to constitute the 
 inmost sentiment and thought of a man, or the first, last, and 
 deepest foundation of all his sentiments, does not admit of 
 being imposed upon him extrinsically as the condition of con- 
 troversial defeat, without his own internal consent and agree- 
 ment. It cannot enforce his assent as easily as a mere process 
 of calculation. 
 
 But now, if eternity is nothing else than time, vitally full, 
 illimitably perfect, and blissfully complete, who, we may ask, 
 first of all caused or produced this earthly, fettered, and 
 fragmentary time, which seems but the great bond-chain of 
 the whole world of sense, — and what, then, is this time itself? 
 I might answer this latter question by the words of the poet, 
 that it " is out of joint." * For although originally em- 
 ployed of a particular period of history, they admit, I think, 
 of a more extensive and universal signification, and possess 
 an entirely metaphysical application. And what, in short, 
 is metaphysics, or what do we name metaphysical, but 
 that which transcends our ordinary nature and the earthly 
 and limited world of sense? And man cannot abandon or 
 get rid of all hopes, all prospects of eternity, in short, the 
 thoughts which, partly, at least, outrun these narrow limits, 
 For if so, he must at the same time be willing to cease to be 
 a man, in tho full, and true, and highest sense of the word. 
 Consequently, as often as he adventures a bolder flight of 
 
 * Shakspeare. Hamlet, A.ct I. Scene V. 
 
TIME AND ETERNITY. 
 
 419 
 
 thought and inquiry into that elevated region, then his words 
 and phrases must also transcend the familiar sense and ordi- 
 nary use of language. 
 
 I would not, however, be understood as asserting that the 
 language of philosophy, in its descriptions of supersensuous 
 things and ideas, should anxiously avoid all living expression 
 and everything lifelike. ( -f* ) For, in strict rigour this is neither 
 possible nor practicable, and in any case would lead to a mere 
 abstract nothingness. On the contrary, the more vivid, the 
 more striking, and apparently startling, the more boldly figu- 
 rative and rare, are the terms or forms of expression employed, 
 the more pertinently and clearly do they often convey our 
 meaning, and the more happily chosen and to the point do 
 they appear. 
 
 In proof and confirmation of this assertion, I w T ould appeal 
 to the language of Holy Writ. Most if not all its descriptions 
 of matters belonging to the invisible world, and the super- 
 sensuous regions of thought, or metaphysical subjects, if w T e 
 could still recall or still experience the first fresh impression, 
 would at once be confessed to be the boldest that language 
 has ever ventured upon. Long familiarity, however, has made 
 them seem ordinary and tame. And it is necessary to contem- 
 plate them long and intensely, if we would revive their original 
 fulness and peculiar significancy. In a very recent epoch of 
 science, there prevailed a somewhat similar view of this subject. 
 In Lessing especially it is traceable. For, as often as he 
 entered this region of inquiry, he for the most part designedly 
 employed a free and bold style of language, similar to that which 
 occasionally I have attempted myself to adopt. Now, if it be 
 allowable in this way to apply to time poetical phrases, simi- 
 lar to the one above quoted of 44 Time out of joint," giving 
 them at the same time a more universal and entirely meta- 
 physical sense, I would, in the further consideration of the 
 whole question as to time, advance the following remarks. 
 
 If eternity is essentially nothing else than the fulness of 
 time, which consequently is in itself complete and blissful, then 
 the time which is 44 out of joint," the deranged and distracted 
 time of sense, is nought but eternity fallen or brought into a 
 state of disorder- Here, then, the further question presents 
 itself, 44 Who can have plunged it into disorder, and perpe- 
 trated this jarring interference with the primaeval harmony 
 
 2 £ 2 
 
420 PRINCE OF THIS WORLD SPIRIT OP THE AGE. 
 
 disturbing the inner pulse of the world's universal life, which 
 was originally so sound?" According to one of those two 
 views which I so lately spoke of as lying before men to choose 
 between, all this is but a deception — a mere illusion, produced 
 by the imperfection of our senses. Even pain and misfortune, 
 equally with what is called evil, exist only for the poetical 
 purpose of creating, by the skill and spirit with which they 
 are treated, transient, overpowering impressions, which are 
 ultimately to give place to more elevating emotions. But in the 
 other view, which is here adopted as our fundamental convic- 
 tion, the answer is easily found. Or rather, it is one long 
 since given, and generally known. Since all the elementary 
 forces and original powers in creation can only be regarded 
 as spiritual ; therefore, the power or might which threw both 
 time and existence, universal life and the whole world, into 
 disorder, could have been no other than the spirit of absolute 
 negation which rose in revolt against the primary source both 
 of itself and of all. The power and influence of this spirit of 
 eternal contradiction and endless destruction, which in an- 
 other place I designated the inventor of death, cannot be 
 rightly deemed either slight or insignificant, if he be with 
 justice entitled " the Prince and Ruler of this world." By 
 this term we cannot understand any so-called " spirit ot the 
 age." Not, at least, in the ordinary sense of the term, in 
 which it signifies the spirit which has originally arisen out of 
 the age itself, and in its sphere brilliantly predominant, but 
 which at the same time transcends in some way that sphere, 
 either blending itself with some equally great, if not still 
 more exalted, past, or with some new and future era. For 
 with all its excellence of greatness, it is still perhaps partial 
 and narrow in its views; and in any case, so soon as the parti- 
 cular age shall be over, it too will finally pass away and decline 
 with it. It is rather the very spirit that originally introduced 
 the whole of that disjointed time. It is, therefore, the author 
 of this fallacious world of sense, — the supreme ruler and uni- 
 versal king of all the several periods and eras wdiich belong to 
 it, and are so linked together, that as one succeeds and passes 
 into the other, all of them in succession are finally absorbed in 
 the general abyss of eternal nothingness. Consequently is it the 
 supreme lord ; all these so-called spirits of the times which are 
 derived from the primary and supreme spirit of the age, being, 
 
LORD BYEON'S CAIN FATALISM. 
 
 421 
 
 so to speak, his absolute subjects and ministers. Now the 
 belief in such a spiritual power of evil, and even the idea 
 of it, simply and nakedly as in other times it is presented 
 to us, is almost wholly lost sight of in the present day. 
 The expressions of a former faith for what it is now the 
 fashion to call " the spirit of the age" have become anti- 
 quated, and make but little impression, being for the most 
 part scarcely even regarded, or else ingeniously explained 
 away, if not derided from the height of a superior enlighten- 
 ment. Amidst the killing monotony of a sleepy scepticism 
 into which men's views of the world and things had fallen, 
 and as contrasted with a philosophy, neutral from its origin, 
 and finally indifferent to everything, the celebrated English 
 author of Cain makes a gratifying exception by his vigorous 
 and vivid language, giving at least honour where honour is 
 due, and calling things by their right names. Accordingly, 
 he paints to the life the king of the spirits of the everlasting 
 abyss and the ruler of this world, in all his majesty of dark 
 ness, so that we often wonder whence he could have derived all 
 the tints and touches of truth, and are almost tempted to ask 
 whether this striking portrait, thus executed with a genius 
 and fidelity surpassing all similar poetical delineations, does 
 not owe much if not all its truth to a personal acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 But, however, this deadly spirit of absolute negation, though 
 the name be now scarcely ever heard except in poetry, has 
 not therefore lost as yet his dominion over this world of time 
 and the science thereof. On the contrary, in the baseless and 
 arbitrary systems which the philosophy of the day propounds, 
 he is acknowledged more than ever, though it be with an 
 unconscious reverence. As the idol of absolute rationalism, 
 most highly is he lauded, not to say deified. It is in fact 
 remarkable, that in many of the most extreme systems of 
 absolute reason, the whole section of theology is exclusively 
 confined to the negative view of the divine truth. Almost 
 the whole of it, if only a few slight changes be made in the more 
 important phrases, may far more consistently apply to the 
 primal antagonist of eternal love and of revelation, than to that 
 beneficent Being himself. 
 
 And even in those systems of rationalism which are less 
 spiritually perverse and less extravagant, but still equally sub- 
 
422 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 versive of a right knowledge of the highest truths, the divine 
 nature is frequently if not always confounded with that nothing 
 out of which He has created the world. Or, perhaps, in some 
 more tragic view of the universe, that rigid law of time which 
 operates on the world of sense, and which gives it up as a prey 
 to misery, is, at least poetically, deified as the blind fate of an 
 iron necessity. Now, if eternity is in itself and originally no- 
 thing more than the living, full and essential time, which is 
 still invisible, ( -f- ) and if our earthly shackled and fettered time 
 of sense is but an eternity " out of joint," or fallen a prey to dis- 
 order, it is easily conceivable that the two do not stand apart 
 and have no mutual contact. On this hypothesis, they may 
 possess many a common point of transition from one sphere 
 into the other. At least such a point of transition is in 
 general experience afforded us by death, which is mostly 
 looked upon and regarded in this light. Trivial as may sound 
 the sentiment so commonly uttered of the dead, that they 
 have changed time for eternity, still we cannot well question 
 the correctness of the notion on which the expression is 
 founded. Now these questions about time and eternity nearly 
 concern, and in many ways interest, every thoughtful mind, 
 not only by their connexion with life and death, but generally 
 with all existence and consciousness. I cannot, therefore, ap- 
 prove of the wish to exclude them entirely from the philosophy 
 of life, as lying beyond the ordinary range of the practical in- 
 tellect, and therefore, with all similar matters of unprofitable 
 disputation, to be abandoned to the theologian and the student. 
 On the contrary, I have felt it to be most agreeable to the 
 position which I have taken up, and the view which it opens 
 out, to hazard at least an experiment, and try whether it be 
 not possible to express these subjects, and to set them forth 
 in language at once appropriate and generally intelligible. 
 
 Religious people often speak of death, sometimes generally 
 as a " return," at others with a further addition as " a return 
 home." Such modes of speaking, I admit, merely as such, 
 and especially when they are uttered as so many empty phrases, 
 unaccompanied with real feeling, and repeated without dis- 
 crimination, in season and out of season, are not perhaps 
 calculated to make a very deep impression. Still a very beau- 
 tiful but grave meaning is nevertheless contained in them, 
 and one which throws out very strongly the purely spiritual 
 
CONTACT OF TIME AND ETERNITY IN DEATH. 423 
 
 aspect of the matter. But here then a difficulty immediately 
 presents itself. The question arises, how can we be said to 
 rro back or return to a place, where in fact we never were 
 before, or how can that be rightly called our home, which in 
 our present life we first seek, and are to find and learn to con- 
 sider as such. In short, the difficulty recurs in the same manner 
 as the somewhat similar questions which are involved by Plato's 
 notion of an anamnesis, so long as it is conceived, not (as we 
 would understand it) as a recollection of eternity, but quite 
 literally as that of a former state of things. But if, agreeably 
 to a vivid conception of time and eternity, a less absolute 
 distinction prevails between these two ideas, and many points 
 of contact and transition from one to the other may be found, 
 of which death is one, all the difficulty is removed, and every- 
 thing in our view and hypothesis becomes easily intelligible 
 and self-evident. It is at least one aspect of death, and a 
 cheerful one too, which exhibits it as a transition from time 
 into eternity, or out of a fettered and distracted time into 
 that which is true, perfect, and blissful. In truth, however, 
 much more is involved herein. For death, in general, is no 
 simple event, but a very complicated phenomenon. No doubt 
 that feature which stands out most fearfully in the whole event, 
 throwing into the shade and obscuring its other higher and 
 more spiritual elements, is the sufferings of disease, which are 
 often so agonising — the pang of dissolving and decaying 
 organisation in the last awful struggle of nature, as it tears 
 itself so reluctantly from life. But even in the midst of all 
 this, occasionally at least another and a better state intervenes. 
 A cessation of all physical pain seems suddenly to occur, 
 and to be followed by an almost joyous or at least composed 
 state, which may often be regarded as the harbinger of 
 approaching dissolution. Medical experience, moreover, has 
 recorded many special cases (the explanation of which, how- 
 ever, I leave to others) of idiotcy and madness, which had arisen 
 either from sad defects and derangement of the thinking faculty, 
 suddenly disappearing at the approach of death, and of the full 
 perfect consciousness returning with extraordinary clearness in 
 the few brief moments which precede the instant of decease. 
 There is yet another remarkable element or feeling in death. — 
 And it is one totally independent of the organic pain of disso- 
 lution in its various modifications, or the striking phenomena 
 
424 CONTACT OF TIME AND ETERNITY IN DEATH. 
 
 which may be observed in individual cases. I allude to the 
 feeling which shrinks at the thought of the decisive transition 
 and forcible passage into an entirely new sphere, which, 
 however, must not be confounded with an unmanly fear of 
 death. In many instances, too, it has no connexion with any 
 troubled thoughts or anxious cares for near and dear ones to 
 be left behind, nor yet with any inward doubts of a restless 
 and disturbed conscience. By no such feelings alone by them- 
 selves can it be interpreted or explained. All this is entirely 
 distinct from that which I have at present in my mind, and 
 which may very simply be termed a slight mental shrink- 
 ing before a wholly unknown state of being, which is at 
 least natural to all men, and affects every one, more or 
 less, if the change comes upon them in the full possession 
 of their faculties. But in those whose contemplations have 
 long been directed to this closing event of life, — in whom a 
 profound and deep acquaintance with the thought of eter- 
 nity, and the sublime enlightenment of a confiding faith, have 
 taken the place of a dark uncertainty, and who also, between 
 the last struggle of organic life and the final pang of disso- 
 lution, enjoy for a brief interval the last quickening breath 
 of the departing energy of nature : there death is seen in its 
 bright aspect. For siich it unquestionably does possess. How 
 often, on the very countenance of the departed, does a calm and 
 beautiful death like this leave its touching trace behind ! How 
 often do we see with astonishment a sweet smile like that of a 
 sleeping child, lingering on the well-known face, but in whose 
 very sweetness is mingled a slight though scarce perceptible 
 trace of some faint recollection of previous suffering. He who 
 has once seen some dear friend or acquaintance so die, or 
 beheld the beloved countenance after such a death, will 
 assuredly cherish for ever the remembrance of this soothing 
 expression. Nothing less than a blissful presentiment of 
 eternity seems to have preceded or imprest itself on the 
 dying features, breaking through the shackles of time before 
 its full course was ended. And it is only in this light that 
 I have mentioned it as being one of the points of contact or 
 moments of transition which facts clearly establish between 
 time and eternity, since this final crisis of our consciousness 
 forms an important element for the psychological and perfect 
 comprehension of the human intellect and its development. 
 
POETRY AS A FEELING OF THE INFINITE. 425 
 
 But even during life itself there also occur many phenc mena 
 and occasions in which, for the brief continuance at least of 
 such moments of intense existence, the limits of time seem to 
 be broken through or removed. To this class belong those 
 brief intervals of rapture, which are enjoyed in the midst of 
 deep and earnest devotion — or of proper ecstacy, which, so far 
 as it is genuine and real, we cannot but consider as an inter- 
 val of eternity in the midst of time, or as a fleeting glance into 
 the higher world of full and unchecked spiritual life. Even the 
 inward wordless prayer, in so far as it is preceded by a real 
 emotion of the heart, profoundly agitating its inmost feelings, 
 is, as it were, a drop of eternity falling through time into 
 the soul. Genuine ecstacy, in so far as it is real and actual, is 
 often on its organic side accompanied by a beginning, which 
 indeed is little more than the appearance, though a highly 
 delusive feeling, of dying away, which precedes the higher 
 gleam or echo from the world beyond the grave. Such pheno- 
 mena, however, require attentive examination before we can 
 draw from them any precise inference. The general idea of 
 them may be distinctly traced in the human consciousness. 
 The recognition of their existence is therefore essential to a 
 full knowledge of the latter. It is, however, often very difficult 
 to form a judgment of individual instances, which are often 
 ! more or less doubtful. On this account it will be sufficient in 
 this place if, without entering deeply into these necessary dis- 
 tinctions and manifold doubts, to which all of such phenomena 
 are liable, we simply notice the fact, as forming one of the 
 most intimate points of association at which time and eternity 
 come in contact and mutually intermingle. 
 
 Of such points several still remain to be noticed. One of 
 the least astonishing, and one which in its operation on the 
 soul is no less universal and beneficial than it is generally 
 intelligible, is that which is found in true art and the higher 
 kind of poetry. For here also, even beneath the earthly shell 
 of sensuous phenomenon and the temporal inciden ts of figura- 
 tive poetry, the eternal brightens over all. And it is on this 
 mighty influence of the eternal, which gleams through its ex- 
 ternal investiture of ornament, that the exalted dignity and 
 distinctive charm of true art and the higher branches of poetry 
 depends. Even here, however, as elsewhere, a strict distinction 
 must be made between the true gold and the worthless aesthe- 
 
426 
 
 ART A SIMILAR MANIFESTATION. 
 
 tical tinsel and mere mannerism of fashion. For such a dis- 
 tinction is necessary in every case where the heavenly and 
 eternal comes into close contact with the earthly and tran- 
 sitory. 
 
 That recollection of eternal love, which is implanted, com- 
 municated, or innate in the human mind, and which here 
 swells out from its hidden depth (and this is the true original 
 subject-matter of Plato's notion of the anamnesis, which, as I 
 have endeavoured to show, thus cleared from all foreign 
 admixture and corrupting additions, is quite unexceptionable), 
 is not merely a principle of the higher life. Rather is it one 
 of the great vital arteries of true poetry and art, of which, how- 
 over, there are many others equally essential and no less rich 
 and prolific. Such, for instance, is the longing after the 
 infinite, whose hopes and aspirations are directed more to the 
 future than is the case with that remembrance of eternal love, 
 which, as such, clings more closely to the past, and is often i 
 also lost and absorbed in the historic perception of some actual 
 past. On the other hand, the true inspiration, both in art and 
 in life, is exclusively devoted to a something divine in the 
 present, which may be either real or what is at least held to be 
 such, being most intimately bound up with a feeling of such 
 a divine presence, and with a belief therein. Thus, then, these 
 three forms of the highest sentiment in man's nature, as it 
 yearns after the infinite or swells forth from the eternal source, 
 and longs to receive the divine, are in their different tenden- 
 cies tied again, not unnaturally, to the three times, or rather, 
 the different categories of our earthly- divided time. 
 
 The recollection of eternal love, as far as regards its 
 influence on art, is in truth nothing but a feeling or an inborn 
 idea, if some will so call it. And yet its influence may be 
 universal, and extend itself over the whole field of man's con- 
 sciousness. For all other sentiments of the inner man, all the 
 thoughts, conceptions, and ideas of the thinker, and even all 
 the images, shapes, and forms — in short, the whole ideal of 
 the artist, are now forthwith imbued with this one fundamental 
 feeling of eternal love, being, as it were, bathed in a sea or 
 stream of higher life, spiritually refined, and exalted and trans- 
 formed into a purer and higher degree of beauty and perfection. 
 And thus it is that this ideal view of the world becomes at 
 once conceivable and perfectly clear, to all at least who can 
 
EFFECTS OF A PEKVERTED SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 427 
 
 enter into and sympathise with Platonic sentiments and ideas, 
 and especially in its close relation to science and the plastic 
 arts. And thus, understood in this correct sense, within its 
 proper limits, and in that place of the human consciousness 
 to which it really belongs, may well be admitted, and even 
 extended to a wider application. 
 
 ( + ) In order, however, to be able to assign their fitting 
 place in the whole consciousness to those other two exalted 
 feelings which are implanted in man's breast as so many sug- 
 gesters of eternity, the longing, viz., after infinity, and a 
 vitally energetic enthusiasm, it will be necessary still further 
 to prosecute and complete our psychological review, so as to 
 take in the whole range of faculties belonging to it, and to 
 exhibit their mutual relations. 
 
 In my sketchy outline of man's spiritual life and con- 
 sciousness, I set out, you will remember, with the four ele- 
 mentary faculties, understanding and will, reason and fancy, 
 as the four opposite and extreme poles of the inner world. 
 As conscience and memory presented themselves to our consi- 
 deration in the progress of our inquiries, they were cha- 
 racterised as mediate and collateral faculties of the reason, 
 since the conscience stands midway between reason and will, 
 and the memory between reason and understanding. In a 
 similar way I would now attempt to explain man's instincts, 
 especially in that peculiar form in which they belong only to 
 man, as distinct from the brutes, and subsequently become 
 passions. Afterwards I shall proceed to explain why in those 
 instances when they appear to be exaggerated into passions, 
 they must, to preserve analogy with the view hitherto main- 
 tained, be held to be nothing else than movements of the 
 will, or as a will which has yielded itself to the illimitable 
 range of fancy, and thereby lost its inner equilibrium, and 
 finally all liberty, or at least its actual exercise. This inter- 
 mediate position of the instincts between will and fancy, and 
 the fatal and pernicious influence which both these fundamental 
 powers exert in that height of passionateness and sensuality 
 which constitutes them faults of character, are also especially 
 manifest in what are properly the natural instincts, as enjoyed 
 by man in common with the brutes, and the evil of which arises 
 always, or at least principally, from their excessive indulgence 
 and undue excitement. It is often possible for this excess 
 
428 EFFECTS OF A PERVERTED SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 to reach such a height, and to become so deadly injurious, as i 
 to destroy the health, corrupt the whole soul, and to debase the ' 
 mind to such a degree that it is felt to be almost injustice to 
 compare such a human being, thus degraded by his own fault, 
 with the nobler animals, whose simple instincts and their grati- 
 fication alternate almost as regularly as day and night or the 
 rising and setting of the stars in heaven. In such cases, how- 
 ever, we may easily discover what was the first cause of such 
 aberrations. 
 
 In the better case, at least, the corruption {i. e.) of what was 
 previously a noble disposition, it is invariably, in the first in- 
 stance, some false charm of fancy or imagination which has 
 over-mastered the mind with magical power, and subsequently 
 carried it away captive to its will. In every case, however, it 
 is some perverted apprehension, or illusory power of the infinite, 
 which causes a man who has once fallen a prey to any strong 
 passion to devote all his energies, thoughts, and feelings to the 
 one object, or to surrender himself, heart and soul, to the de- 
 spotic tyranny of some ruling habit or favourite pursuit. How 
 else could, there ever have been any talk of the delusions of 
 fancy, which, however, exercise so wide and fatal an influence 
 on human life, and generally in the world, unless a distorted 
 fancy had lent a hand and co-operated therein ? Even such 
 emotions and impulses as fear and anger, which are not directed 
 merely to the gratification of the wants -of nature, but to self- 
 preservation and defence, and which consequently belong 
 equally to the brutes — these also admit of being carried, by 
 unrestrained indulgence, to the height of passionateness. This 
 is especially the case with anger. Wherever long indulgence 
 has made it a ruling habit, and if, moreover, it is associated 
 with envy., hatred, and revenge (which, indeed, are not pro- 
 perly natural instincts, and in this form can scarcely be ascribed | 
 to the brutes ; but rather faults of character in a demoralised 
 rational being), its outbreaks of passion are fearfully violent. 
 Under their combined influence the wild outbreaks of man's 
 evil principle often run into fury and madness. But even in | 
 avarice itself, it is also some false and strangely-perverted 
 charm of fancy, which in its highest degree approximates 
 very closely to the nature of a fixed idea, that furnishes the 
 first ground and deepest root of this unblessed passion for the 
 earthly mammon. And here, again, in this insatiable love of 
 
INFLUENCE OF PURE LONGING FOR THE INFINITE. 429 
 
 riches, we meet with a false force of the infinite, and one which 
 can never be satisfied. 
 
 A further ethical investigation into these erring instincts 
 does not lie within my present limits. The context of our psy- 
 chological inquiries only brought them before us for a limited 
 consideration, with a view to determine the position they 
 occupy in the whole consciousness. And here, as in my 
 former instances of comparative psychology, I do not wish to 
 cast my glance downwards longer than is necessary, but 
 rather, as quickly as possible, to raise it upwards again. In the 
 present case this can easily be done. For, for our present 
 purpose the simple remark will suffice, that the power of 
 infinity in itself, and the pursuit of the infinite, is properly 
 natural to man, and a part of his very essence. All that is 
 wrong in it, and the source of all its aberrations, is simply 
 and entirely boundless excess. Above all, we must blame 
 that quality of absoluteness, which in every time and place 
 exercises a fatal and destructive influence, both on thought 
 and practice, or perhaps the fault may be laid to a false direc- 
 tion of this pursuit towards the sensible and material objects 
 of this earthly and transitory existence, which for the most part 
 are utterly unworthy of it. For man's natural longing after 
 the infinite, even as it still shows itself in his passions and 
 failings, cannot, wherever it is still genuine, be satisfied by any 
 earthly object, or sensual gratification, or external possession. 
 
 When, however, this pursuit, keeping itself free from all 
 delusions of sense, and from the fettering shackles of earthly 
 passion, really directs its endeavours towards the infinite, and 
 only to what is truly such, then can it never rest or be sta- 
 tionary. Ever advancing, step by step, it must always seek 
 to rise higher and higher. And this pure feeling of end- 
 less longing forms, with the recollection of eternal love, the 
 heavenward-bearing wings on which the soul raises itself 
 upwards to the divine. This, indeed, has been felt and 
 peiceived by Platonic thinkers in all ages. From the earlier 
 centuries to the present many a deeply significant sentence 
 might easily be selected and quoted on the idea of this longing 
 after the infinite. And this testimony is not confined merely 
 to the comparatively modern philosophy of Europe and the 
 West. The sacred writings, also, of the Hebrews contain a 
 I beautiful sentence on this head. Thus a certain prophet, as 
 
430 INFLUENCE OF PURE LONGING FOR THE INFINITE. 
 
 endowed with more than ordinary power, as chosen for a high 
 and divine destination or mission, is expressly called a man of 
 longing [desires],* as by a title peculiarly suited to him, and 
 most clearly indicating the natural preparation for all higher 
 spiritual and divine avocations. And in a sense borrowed 
 from, if not exactly identical with the above, a somewhat 
 similar title has been given to the richest and profoundest of 
 his works by a French philosopher of our own days, to 
 whom, while I cannot adopt unconditionally all his principles 
 and sentiments, I must concede the highest praise for the 
 zeal with which, in all his writings, he has maintained 
 and promulgated a high and lofty tone, both in intellec- 
 tual and divine things, and that too in the midst of re- 
 volutionary times, when the prevailing tone of thinking 
 was decidedly material, and indeed had assumed a thoroughly 
 demoralising and' atheistic tendency. At a former epoch, 
 now more than twenty years ago, when I attempted, in 
 French, to set forth to a friendly audience, the principles of 
 the Philosophy of Life, so far as I at that time comprehended 
 it, I thought that it was indispensable to make this pure idea 
 of an exalted longing, the primary position from which the 
 whole view of life must be developed. This, however, was 
 too exclusive, and for that reason unsatisfactory. It is 
 therefore my present wish to embrace all higher elements of 
 conscience, however manifold they may be, and however dif- 
 ferent in kind they may appear, and taking a comprehensive 
 view of them, to unite them in a whole. 
 
 Even for poetry and art there is more than one such 
 primary fountain or vital artery of higher sentiment. If, 
 then, the recollection of eternal love must be recognised as 
 one of these, who can well doubt that the pure longing after 
 the infinite, which holds so deep and firm a root in man's 
 bosom, also forms another? In poetry, the former is dis- 
 tinctly traceable under the form of elegy — at least in the first 
 simple poesy of fancy's earliest and youthful days. It sounds 
 forth here a mournful recollection of a faded world of gods 
 and heroes — as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's original, 
 celestial state, and paradisiacal innocence, or lastly, in a still 
 more general and higher sense, as the faint and dying notes 
 
 * Philosophy of Life, p. 112. 
 
HOPE. 
 
 431 
 
 of the happy infancy of the whole creation, ere yet the spiri- 
 tual world had been divided by dissension, and before the first 
 outbreak of evil and the consequent misery of nature. Viewing 
 it in this light, and designating poetry in general analogi- 
 cally to an expression which we before made use of, we may 
 I term poetry the mind's transcendent recollection of the eternal. 
 I For the first and most ancient poetry, as the common memory 
 ! of the human race — its higher organ of remembrance, passes 
 on from century to century, and from nation to nation ; and 
 though ever dressing itself in the changing fashion of the 
 day, yet, through all time, it refers us back to the primary and 
 eternal. 
 
 Music, on the other hand, is eminently an art of longing. 
 To this it owes all its ravishing enchantments — its magic and 
 irresistible charms. In music, however, as in every other 
 form of art, the higher and the earthly — the soul, as it were, 
 and the body — the heavenly longing and the terrestrial are 
 often blended together in the same note and tone, so as 
 scarcely to be discriminated. It is this mingling of feelings 
 and emotions — where from amidst the half unconscious earthly 
 longing, a higher and more heavenly aspiration gleams out v 
 that in youth, when man's sensibility is first developed and ex- 
 panded, gives to newly- waking love its peculiar magic charm, 
 the inner grace of the youthful soul contributing as much if not 
 more than even the bloom of corporeal beauty. The question, 
 indeed, whether in this youthful longing really a higher love of 
 eternal duration, as an inner light, which is continually purify- 
 ing and perfecting itself, be enclosed within the earthly veil — 
 whether this first love of youth be even the true love, or whether 
 all may have been nothing more than the transient and flickering 
 flame of a delusion — this question can be alone determined 
 I from its results ; in other words, by the life which proceeds and 
 ! follows from it. It must be proved by the unwavering truth 
 and fidelity, I might almost say, the inward truth of the 
 heart and the outward character of the whole life ; and, in 
 short, of a higher love in its every species, whether human or 
 divine. 
 
 Now this longing holds a most important place in man. 
 Not only is it the crisis of transition from childish, shall we 
 say consciousness or unconsciousness, into a more mature 
 development— not only is it the threshold under which 
 
432 
 
 ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 youthful expectation enters on a fuller and more perfect life ; 
 but also still surviving uninterruptedly to the end, it ever 
 remains the first, strongest, and purest impulse of the inner 
 man. The light of its never-dying flame, growing purer 
 and stronger, lights him on his way to a higher and better 
 existence. It seems, therefore, not out of place to add here 
 the remark, how deeply hope, which is so closely associated 
 with this longing aspiration, is interwoven into the very being 
 of man, so as almost to form the characteristic peculiarity of 
 his inner life and whole state. 
 
 The lost spirits, we are told, " believe and tremble." * Love, 
 too, is the essential property of God, and even his very essence, 
 and in a certain sense also it is common to all beings created 
 by eternal love. Even in the hidden veins of life, through 
 all animated nature, beats this pulse of universal love. Hope, 
 however, cannot be ascribed to God, for in Him all is full and 
 perfect. Nature can only sigh and bemoan itself; and even 
 though it be not hopelessly wretched, yet properly it cannot 
 hope for aught, by its own power, at least. To man, above 
 all other created beings, belongs the prerogative of hope. We 
 might almost call him an immortal spirit, subjected to the 
 condition of hope. And so, before the rest of creation, he is 
 destined and chosen to be the evangelist of divine hope. 
 
 As the third of the inner life-springs of true art and higher 
 poetry, I spoke of a true enthusiasm and inspired feeling of 
 the divine. Now, among the various arts, I would especially 
 appropriate this to the plastic art — in that widest and justest 
 sense of the term, in which it comprises also the higher archi- 
 tecture. For in enthusiasm and inspiration, the divinity with 
 which it is imbued is not viewed and contemplated in the remote 
 distance either of the past or the future. It is embraced 
 at on-;e as something actual and present. And this holds 
 good both of the enthusiasm of art and also of that which 
 in moral and political life often creates for itself an epoch, 
 shaping and bringing forth whatever is truly new and original. 
 Now, the divine in beauty must be actually present to the 
 mind, at least, of the artist. It must have stood vividly before 
 his mental eye, before it could have come forth in outward 
 and visible form. Since universally the perfection of art 
 
 * St. James, c. ii. v. 5. 
 
ART AN UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 433 
 
 depends on some antagonism and the artist's triumph over 
 it, it is self-evident that even here the most exalted enthusiasm 
 must be associated with a thoughtful sagacity and persevering 
 steadiness of execution, if any great and perfect work is to be 
 produced. Moreover, it can scarcely be necessary to remind 
 you that the arts, even though, perhaps, in each of them there 
 jg a predominance of some peculiar kind of higher feeling, or 
 ^ome spirit of higher life swells out in it, are not therefore 
 rigidly limited on all sides and irrevocably confined within 
 these narrow limits. On the contrary, one branch of art 
 
 | often passes over into the domain of another. And this 
 interference is not always a misconception, owing chiefly 
 to some confusion of essential matters, and therefore in the 
 
 I highest degree erroneous and prejudicial. Poetry especially 
 often springs up indigenous in other domains of art, being 
 the most universal of all. And if in poetry itself those 
 ancient and primitive poems or epic songs of sublime re- 
 
 ! collections occupy the first place, who therefore would ex- 
 clude from it the deep, inner, ardent longing — the oracular 
 faculty of divination for exalted love and eternal hope, with 
 all its music of the feelings, forming as it does the spiritual 
 
 | contents, the animating principle and distinctive essence of 
 the lyrical art ? Who, too, would dare to censure poetrv , 
 because, striving to give another and a newer expression to all 
 that in these divine remembrances and longing anticipations 
 constitutes its inmost soul, it attempts by dramatic repre- 
 sentation to portray the essential features of its inmost being, 
 with all the vivid reality and distinct completeness of the 
 present ? For does it not in this respect approximate, so far, 
 at least, to the plastic arts, and begin to assume many points 
 of affinity with them ? 
 
 It is, however, necessary to guard here against a possible 
 
 I misunderstanding, Not without good cause, I believe, before 
 all things is the rigid discrimination insisted on which must 
 separate true poetry from a spurious semblance. Poetry which 
 condescends to minister either to the passions or to fashion- 
 or even to prose, or any mere prosaic ends, cannot deserve the 
 name. But it is another thing when the poet works his 
 poetical view of things (and this is that which constitutes the 
 poet, and not the mere outward form of poetry alone) into the 
 prosaic reality of some present time, or some historical sub- 
 
 2 v 
 
434 
 
 AET AN UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 ject. So, too, is it when in some consistent and artistic imita- 
 tion of life he takes for his theme the maze of human 
 passions, by no means for the purpose of prolonging it, and 
 still less of inflaming it, but rather, because he clearly sees 
 through its complications, to unfold and disentangle them 
 This we might call— employing a term belonging to the 
 mathematical sciences, though in a different but still analogous 
 sense — mixed or applied poetry; and to this class belong 
 many of the highest productions of art in different ages and 
 nations. 
 
 The diffeient arts, or rather, the different directions of one 
 and the same art, in the several epochs and ages of the world 
 or among nations variously divided by language and manners 
 as well as by the style and character of their thought and 
 intellect, may be considered as merely so many varying dialects 
 of one and the same language, which have a common origin 
 and are nearly related. For they possess a common meaning 
 which, interpreted by a profound and noble perception of art 
 will be found to pervade all centuries and all people, uniting and 
 enchaining them all by this soul-binding tie of a loving and 
 love-kindled fancy. These eternal and fundamental feelings 
 of the human breast, the remembrance of eternity, an innate 
 longing and high- soaring aspiration, stand in the most intimate 
 connexion with each other, even though we cannot take a full 
 survey of it, and often feel it profoundly rather than are able 
 perfectly to explain it. They are like so many stem- words 
 and radical syllables, and form together, as it were, one com- 
 mon language. And if, as I before remarked, we should in 
 vain seek for that common and original language, from which 
 all those now spoken on the face of the earth can be derived, 
 both ethnographically and geologically, may we not still find 
 in art an universal , language intelligible to all men ? Is not 
 this language (as I term it), thus enveloped in the garb of 
 art, through which, however, a profound significance gleams 
 brightly forth, an original language of a higher and intellec- 
 tual order, and at the same time intimately akin with our own 
 nature ? Do not its echoes, however faint and broken, when 
 re-awakened by true art and sublime poetry, strike a chord of 
 unison in every human breast ? 
 
 END OF LECTURE IT. 
 
435 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 The general notion of the inner life formed the point from 
 which we started in this attempt to portray the whole spiritual 
 man. I maintained, you will remember, that the philosophy 
 ►f life proceeds on the simple assumption of this inner life. 
 Now in the preceding discourses it has been my endeavour to 
 unfold this general idea into a more fully developed and more 
 iefmite conception of human consciousness, both in its several 
 principles and total coherence. And this almost completes 
 :he first division of our whole sketch. For fully to complete 
 knowledge of ourselves, and of life in general, a few parti- 
 culars only remain to be added, and a comprehensive review 
 >f the whole once more to be taken. And this, in the natural 
 >rder of this simple development of thought, forms the next 
 subject of our labours. By reason of the close vital connexion 
 hich subsists between thought and speech, language served 
 n the first instance for an external basis of comparison, which 
 the next place art enabled me to carry still further, inas- 
 nuch as the latter may also be regarded as an inner language. 
 For however fragmentary and incomplete may be our collection 
 )f languages and the science thereof, notwithstanding all the 
 enlargement it has received from modern observation and re- 
 search, it is still possible, by a rigorous distinction of the de- 
 ivatory and mixed offshoots from the more ancient and purer 
 i branches, to gain at least an insight into the history and pro- 
 i j^ress of language, and thence to trace the probable course of 
 f Its development, even while its origin, no less than the equally 
 I Incomprehensible phenomenon of its first exercise, remains 
 I Veiled in impenetrable obscurity. And when we called art a 
 anguage, we did not mean this merely in the same sense that 
 ooetry has been styled — and indeed has even herself assumed 
 :he title of — a divine language, on account of the ornamental 
 ig-ures of its external form ; neither was it because of the 
 illegorical shapes and allusions, nor of the symbolical garb 
 which plastic art so often puts on. The so transiently ad- 
 vanced metaphor was intended to convey the idea that art 
 
 <i t 3 
 
486 
 
 MAN THE CREATED WORD. 
 
 in general, not merely in its outward form, but in its ininosl 
 essence, and in all of its forms and species alike, is a language 
 of nature of a higher and spiritual kind, or if the term be pre- 
 ferred, an inward hieroglyphical writing and original speed 
 of the soul, which is immediately intelligible to all susceptibk 
 natures, and to every one whose sensibilities a taste for an) 
 form of art has rendered open and accessible to its appeal. Foi 
 the key to it lies not in any arbitrarily established principle 
 as is the case with that ingenious and beautiful, but stil 
 merely conventional invention of the East — the symbolical lan- 
 guage of flowers, but in the feeling and the soul itself. For 
 the eternal and fundamental feelings of the soul are awakened 
 or rather re-awakened, in these inner-soul words of true art 
 which, in the same sense that we speak of the riddle of life 01 
 of the world, making its solution the object and aim of philo- 
 sophy, we may likewise term a riddle of hope — of that hope 
 in truth, which is eternal and divine. But high art, like lift 
 and the world, remains a riddle, and must ever appear to us 
 as such, simply because in reality, or at least for the greatei 
 part, it is only a few detached notes, without the full and! 
 coherent air, that it allows to reach no. 
 
 There is, then, an intrinsic connexion between thought anc 
 speech, between language and consciousness. Moreover man. 
 to judge of him by the collective sum of his characteristic and 
 essential properties, is nothing else than the created word, the 
 faint echo and very imperfect copy of the uncreated and eter- 
 nal, and stands amidst the rest of creation, midway between 
 the world of nature and that of spirits. For these reasons, 
 then, in the further exposition of his inner life I shall inva- 
 riably make use of the idea of language, and even many oi 
 its characteristic properties or peculiarities, as the externa] 
 basis of a comparison calculated to throw light upon much that 
 in the inward thought of man it is otherwise difficult to express 
 and to make clear by words. For indeed, generally, living 
 thought and the science thereof, cannot well or easily be sepa- 
 rated from the philosophy of language. 
 
 The general idea of the inner life was, I said, the basis oi 
 all the previous development of ideas, and this was the only 
 hypothesis which a philosophy of life stands in need of, or car 
 venture to assume. An objection may, it is true, be here 
 started. In the various digressions into which, in the furthei 
 
DOUBT A NECESSARY CONDITION OF MAN'S MIND. 437 
 
 development of this one fundamental thought, I have been led 
 by my wish to expand it to a full and complete idea of the 
 30iKCiousness, it may be said that much besides has been sup - 
 posed or taken for granted, if not expressly, yet tacitly ; not 
 indeed arbitrarily, but still as the result of a merely personal 
 conviction, however positive and deliberate. To this objec- 
 tion, so naturally to be expected, I can only reply, that if 
 occasionally I may not have expressed myself hypothetically 
 enough, it was nevertheless my intention so to do. Conse- 
 quently all hypothetical positions, with the exception of the 
 fundamental one of the inner thought and life, hitherto 
 i assumed by me, are to be regarded here simply in such a light. 
 They are advanced only for the nonce, and provisionally, until 
 they can receive a further and completer analysis, without in 
 anywise anticipating the proof, nor, by a hasty decision, assum- 
 ing the truth, as if it were independent of argument. 
 
 Now, since doubt is a necessary and inevitable property 
 (and an essential principle of the whole man in his present 
 ijstate, we are brought by the regular course of our analysis to 
 the problem which is furnished by the thought at issue with 
 itself. To this subject, which now forces itself immediately on 
 jour attention, we must devote an entire section of our labours. 
 The object of the first portion was to advance the simple 
 and general thought of the inner life (as being in this simple 
 generality too vague and undefined), or to raise it, step by step, 
 to a full, complete, and comprehensive, but at the same time 
 rightly divided conception of the human mind. In the same 
 way, in the next division of my speculations, the essential sub- 
 ject and proper aim will be to carry that feeling, call it as we 
 will, whether of pure love, or inner life, or higher truth, whose 
 existence we have, we think, clearly established, through the 
 crisis of doubt, to a determinate judgment of profound certainty 
 and unwavering conviction, or at least to a rigorous distinction 
 between that which is certain, and that which must for ever 
 remain uncertain. 
 
 Now to render in any degree complete that characteristic of 
 the human mind which it has been our object or endeavour 
 in the previous Lectures to sketch in detail, we were obliged 
 to take in also those higher elements which by many are called 
 in question, and by some positively denied to exist. And 
 herein lay the natural ground and the occasion for our introduc- 
 
438 DOUBT A NECESSARY CONDITION OF MAN'S MIND. 
 
 ing the mention of them, at least as facts of consciousness 
 generally acknowledged by the common-sense of mankind. 
 Not that we thereby meant to exclude them from a profounder 
 investigation, or to guard them against the intrusion of that 
 doubt which knows no limits to its scepticism. We only re- 
 served them to their appropriate place in the natural course of 
 our development of living thought. Some there are, we know, 
 who hold even a higher and genuine sense of art, to be a mere 
 fancy either of genius, devoted to and displaying its excellence 
 therein, or of the mere dilettanti. Others again, and even cele- 
 brated writers, have explained conscience and its still small 
 voice, by the acquired or instilled prejudice of education or as 
 the delusive effect of custom. How far more numerous then 
 must be the doubts which such a system of abnegation of all 
 that is good and exalted would raise against the Platonic doc- 
 trine of a recollection of eternal love, or that idea which I have 
 laboured to establish, of a pure longing after infinity ! If, again, 
 many question the freedom of the will, they deny, in fact, the 
 will itself, for a will that is not free ceases to be will. If, more- 
 over, others refuse to recognise in all human thought, fictions, 
 and inventions, anything creatively new and peculiarly ori- 
 ginal, seeing therein nothing but repetition or fresh combina- 
 tions of external impressions, consequently denying to the 
 human mind all power of invention, then must fancy be denied 
 to be one of the mind's fundamental powers. For, in truth, in 
 such a case, it is nothing more than memory, or rather it is 
 memory fallen into delirium. Others again would refer even 
 reason itself and the essential rational character of man simply 
 to a more delicate sensuous organisation than is possessed by 
 the most highly endowed among the brute creation. All such 
 special and eccentric opinions form but so many subordinate 
 chapters of our second part, which has for its theme, reason 
 i and doubt, and the state of doubt, which are natural to man. 
 To it, therefore, they must be reserved for investigation. We 
 cannot anticipate the period of their discussion in the present 
 place, where our first object is, by a development of the simple 
 thought and the general ideas of the inner life, to sketch a 
 perfect outline of the human mind, which shall take in all 
 its higher elements and capacities, as well as the earthly and 
 inferior ingredients which are blended with them. 
 
 The thought or conception, as the general manifestation of 
 
PHILOSOPHY DEALS CHIEFLY WITH FACTS. 439 
 
 the inner life, is in its nature and form indefinite, but still a 
 cogitation, which even at this step is already referred to a parti- 
 cular object, and so in its contents limited thereto. An idea or 
 notion, however, is a conception mathematically proportioned 
 by number, measure, and weight ; i, according to the number 
 of its several constituents it is carefully divided, and its sub- 
 ordinate genera enumerated; measured according to its ex- 
 tent, and according to its internal value and comprehension, 
 and also its relation to other kindred notions of a higher or 
 lower order carefully weighed and pondered ; in short, a con- 
 ception complete and peifect in itself. Hitherto, therefore, 
 it has been properly but a single notion that has engaged our 
 attention, and formed the subject-matter of our whole specu- 
 lation — the notion, viz., of the human consciousness. For it 
 is not merely philosophy to link together in a never-ending 
 chain its own self-derived and arbitrary ideas, by some spe- 
 cious rule of necessary connexion. The duty of philosophy 
 is rather originally to combine facts — and in truth all the 
 i given facts of a certain kind, and within a certain range, in 
 one cle&r, intelligible, and perfectly vivid notion, and it has 
 generally to do with very few ideas. Two or three ideas, in 
 short, such as that of consciousness, of science, or of man 
 himself, are quite sufficient for its purpose of solving, if not 
 fully and completely, yet at least to the full extent of what is 
 not merely possible and allowable, but also wholesome and pro- 
 fitable, the three riddles of life, of the universe, and of a divine 
 hope, which lie before the whole human mind, and thereby to 
 arrive at some abiding conviction with regard to them. 
 
 Now, in concluding our development of the human mind, 
 and adding to it all that is still wanting to its completeness, 
 I shall observe the same method of exposition as I have hitherto 
 followed. Leaving for the nonce unmooted, the grave ques- 
 tions whether there be any such thing as truth — and, if so, 
 whether man is capable of recognising and attaining to it in 
 any degree — and reserving them to their appropriate place 
 where they will naturally arise, I shall adopt into the outline 
 of the general notion of the consciousness, all those facts of 
 it which are acknowledged by the common-sense of mankind. 
 I shall, as such, allow them all and no more than their due 
 weight. Occasionally, however, when any such phenomenon 
 appears somewhat questionable, I shall add a word or two of 
 
440 THE EXTERNAL SENSES AND INSTINCTS. 
 
 explanation, in order to guard against the possibility of mis- 
 conception, or an overhasty inference, setting down the facts 
 purely as such, and so far as they are already apprehended, 
 for further investigation and inquiry. 
 
 The four opposite poles or extremes of man's divided and 
 discordant consciousness are, I said, its four fundamental 
 faculties or powers, understanding and will, and reason and 
 fancy. With regard to the two first, every one may, both 
 from internal experience of his own self and from observation 
 of his fellow-men, easily arrive at a conviction that they sel- 
 dom work together in perfect harmony, and that the discord 
 is often the most violent, w r hen either one or both of these 
 two faculties possess more than ordinary strength. The 
 marked opposition between reason and fancy reveals itself 
 but too plainly, both in private and public life. The 
 men of mere taste and imagination, artistic and poetical 
 natures (to which category, in a somewhat loose sense, very 
 many really belong, though the happy exceptions of true 
 genius be indeed rare), on the one hand ; and on the other, 
 the men of practical reason — the utilitarians, who limit then- 
 views more or less to the public advantage to be derived 
 from this quality of practical reason, and look with distrust to 
 every higher flight of fancy or feeling, form two hostile classes 
 of men, who with difficulty comprehend each other. At least 
 they are seldom in a position to understand one another's 
 feelings, and rightly and fairly to appreciate them. Still 
 more rare are the exceptions, where both these faculties and 
 mental characters are found united in one and the same 
 individual. 
 
 After these four fundamental faculties of the first order, 
 come certain accessory functions of the second order, derived 
 from or compounded of the former. Of these, conscience and 
 memory, and after them the instincts and passions, have been 
 described as movements of the will, passing over into the 
 illimitable region of the fancy, and consequently holding an 
 intermediate place between will and fancy. We have now 
 to add a word or two concerning the external senses, and 
 therewith to complete our sketch of the human consciousness 
 in its present divided and distracted condition. But pre- 
 viously to entering upon this topic, I would, with reference 
 to this last-mentioned characteristic of instinct, call your at- 
 
THE EXTERNAL SENSES. 
 
 441 
 
 tention to a particular species of it, which is not unimpor- 
 tant, hut rather belongs essentially to a complete picture of this 
 I part of the human consciousness. It will, moreover, furnish 
 a new instance, to show how in nature herself there lies a cause, 
 or at least a first occasion for many parallels of comparative 
 psychology, similar to those which have already presented 
 themselves. I am alluding to the artistic instincts displayed by 
 ! some of the more sagacious animals, and especially some of 
 j the industrious members of the insect tribe. These present a 
 remarkable affinity to human art, in which all, at least, is not 
 j the effect of teaching. In the lower but still beautiful degrees 
 I of artistic talent, there is much that seems instinctive in 
 its operation, and, as it were, unconscious and innate. True 
 and lofty genius of art cannot be here included. It belongs, 
 on the contrary, to a different sphere. For in it the uncon- 
 scious creative faculty is not narrowly restricted to one rigid 
 path or definite form, but has rather for its essential basis a 
 productive power of imagination, of universal range and ful- 
 ness, and which, as it were, travails in birth with the infinite. 
 
 Now this notion, thus borrowed from natural science, for 
 the purposes of a comparative psychology, seems well applicable 
 I to that pure feeling of infinite longing which is the most 
 exalted of all man's aspirations. According to that idea of it 
 j which I have laboured to establish, we can name this pro- 
 found inward longing, which nothing earthly can ever satisfy, 
 man's instinct of eternity — an instinct which often long re- 
 mains, and at the first always is perfectly unconscious of a 
 higher vocation and divine destiny. 
 
 The external senses are in one respect the faithful organs 
 and instruments of the understanding in the material world, 
 with which it makes its experience or observations therein, 
 and draws therefrom its experimental science. In another 
 j point of view, they may not improperly be termed an applied 
 j or practical fancy, which for a definite direction exercises 
 j itself on the individual phenomena of the material world, for 
 j the copying and reproduction of external impressions on the 
 organs, as, e. g., of the visible form or reduced image in the 
 eye, is in any case nothing but an inferior species or a colla te- 
 rn] branch of the general faculty of productive imagination. 
 But that new and spiritual sense of higher potency, which in 
 the purely material can only develope itself as an exception, 
 
442 THREE THE TRUE NUMBER OF THE SENSES. 
 
 or may appear to be veiled therein, — I mean the keen appre- 
 ciation by the ear of musical tones, and the eye for picturesque 
 beauty of form in the plastic art — can only be regarded as a 
 lightning- spark of fancy passing along and operating through 
 this external medium and conductor. 
 
 One remark seems of importance in connexion with our 
 whole subject ; at any rate it will not be superfluous, as con- 
 firming our assertion that the threefold principle of human 
 life in general is found repeated in its single members ; and 
 though on a smaller scale, is still manifested in the same rela- 
 tion. We observe, therefore, that whatever physiological, or, 
 it may be, anatomical reasons physiologists may have for 
 counting five senses, — and they may be perfectly sufficient 
 and adequate for the requisitions of physical science, still, 
 psychologically, it is far more accurate and also simpler, in a 
 philosophical sense, to limit their number to three. No doubt, 
 in the sensation of taste, not only a mechanical contact occurs, 
 but there is also a chemical decomposition of the tasted 
 matter, by which the sensation of sweet or bitter is produced. 
 So too, in smell, although no visible evaporation takes place, 
 still it is a fact that aeriform floating particles are thrown off 
 from the sensible body, and actually taken in by the sentient. 
 Still these are far from being adequate grounds for making of 
 them two independent senses. Even in the inner organic 
 perception of one's bodily health and ease, and in the opposite 
 case of pain, it is something more than the mere mechanical 
 contact from without, that is therein sensuously perceived. But 
 are we disposed on this account to agree with those who propose 
 to divide still further the single sense of material touch, and 
 increase the number of the senses ? We feel at once that 
 this would be superfluous, since all these proposed divisions 
 are, at least in a psychological point of view, to be regarded 
 simply as modifications — as branches or lower species of one 
 and the same sense. And by the same analogy, then, wc 
 may reckon all these material senses for one. Thus, then, we 
 have in all but three senses, presenting in this smaller and 
 meaner sphere an accurate correspondence to the triple man, 
 and the three elements which make up his whole being — 
 body, soul, and spirit. 
 
 Of the outer senses, the eye is incontestably the most 
 spiritual. The ear. whereby we are sentient of sounds, words. 
 
HIGHER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE SENSES. 443 
 
 and voices, and melody, and all music, corresponds to the 
 soul ; while the sense of material feeling, which is also des- 
 tined to be the ministering organ and guardian of the health 
 and welfare of the body, is corporeal, and corresponds to the 
 I principle of organic life. After the loss both of sight and 
 hearing, the body may both be and long continue healthy 
 and vigorous ; whereas a defect in the sense of feeling, so soon, 
 at least, as it became general and total, w r ould be the com- 
 mencement of death, or at least appear to be so, since diseases 
 temporarily take this form. However, this third and corporeal 
 sense of feeling is not always entirely external and grossly 
 material. It may develope itself, at least by way of excep- 
 tion (since the sense of art in the eye and. ear is not universal), 
 as a sort of intellectual perception, though still a physical feel- 
 ing of kindred life and of the inner light, which often gives 
 rise to a peculiar and remarkable immediate natural sense 
 (not to call it an instinct) for the invisible, which is enshrouded 
 within the outward phenomena of life. And though some 
 would fain deny the reality of this capacity, still, inasmuch as 
 its existence is a matter of fact, adequately confirmed by ex- 
 perience, as great, if not greater error may be committed 
 in the opposite direction. Because this acute natural sense 
 does unquestionably often arrive in a most wonderful manner 
 at a just and right conclusion — or this instinct make most 
 remarkable divinations — we must not, therefore, exalt it at once 
 into a kind of invisible, infallible, and, as it were, omniscient 
 oracle. For such is not to be met with in the path of psy- 
 chology, nor in the whole circle of faculties which belong to man 
 as man, and least of all in that critical point of transition out of 
 the ordinary perception of consciousness into a complete state 
 of unconsciousness, and from this again into a clear and 
 bright consciousness ; which point, even on this account, 
 seeming to stand midway between light and shade, exhibits 
 here and there a strong resemblance to the world of dreams. 
 Such, in general, is the limitation of the human intellect, that 
 reason, as has been already often remarked, can never be 
 regarded as an unerring oracle and infallible organ of truth ; 
 neither is the clearest understanding and the most experienced 
 artistic sense, even in its own peculiar sphere, always unerring. 
 Still less can either the will or the fancy make such a claim. 
 Even the inner voice of conscience, although its name alludes 
 
444 PARTIAL DEVELOPMENT OF MAN'S FACULTIES. 
 
 directly to an inward knoiving, and the certainty thereof,* 
 is not always and universally recognised as such an infallible 
 guide — otherwise many a thinker and writer on the subject 
 would not have set up, as necessary to explain at least 
 some cases, the idea of a mistaken conscience. It appears, 
 then, that this natural sense, even where it exists in the 
 greatest strength and clearness, must be always regarded 
 as an entirely individual and peculiar gift, and can only 
 be understood and judged of as such. This remark in- 
 volves, perhaps, the most important consideration, which, in 
 judging of it, we must always keep in view. Moreover, 
 even where it really and decidedly exists, whether in a 
 state of complete or half- consciousness, or in full conscious 
 wakefulness, it always requires the closest observation and 
 the most watchful care before it can attain to its full perfec- 
 tion. For its development must be extremely slow and 
 gradual. In this respect it must resemble the expansioo of 
 that high and spiritual sense of art which forms a bright and 
 luminous point within the material organ of the ear or eye — 
 which lies enshrouded in the external organ like a spiritual 
 germ, or — as we may justly term the artist's vision as com- 
 pared with that of other men, an eye within the eye. 
 
 We have now taken a general view of the whole human 
 mind, finding it to comprise four great fundamental faculties 
 of the first class, and then certain secondary ones — memory, 
 viz., and conscience, with the appetites and external senses, 
 which, at least in the psychological point of view, appear to 
 be mixed forms or derivatives of the former. The four first 
 are occasionally found combined together in due proportion. 
 When this combination is the natural endowment of genius, 
 they attain to their noblest energy, and even by a lively and 
 careful development, they often attain to a most exquisite 
 unity of operation. Mostly, however, we meet with a de- 
 cided preponderance and exclusive ascendancy of some one, 
 which in its external effects is only limited and checked by 
 the fact that it is thus isolated. The four rarely co-operate 
 together. And for the most part by their dissension they prove 
 checks and hindrances to each other. But not merely in 
 the individual and his personal life and conduct, do these 
 four fundamental forces display such strength and vital energy 
 
 * In the original the three terms are — -Gewissen, Wissen, and Gewiss- 
 keit. 
 
FAETIAL DEVELOPMENT OF MAlv's FACULTIES. 445 
 
 in the grand development of the whole human race ; and 
 in its history we may also observe the same fact. Among 
 the Greeks we recognise distinctly and clearly, a profound 
 and ingenious intellect predominating in life, no less than 
 in art and science ; in the Romans, an irresistible and sovereign 
 force of will, reducing the world to its subjection, and often 
 no less gloriously imposing laws on itself ; in the Christian 
 middle ages, the lovely devices of fancy giving its bold 
 shapes to life itself as well as to art ; and lastly, in modern 
 times, reason squaring everything to the measure of its own 
 mind and laws, coupling often, and associating, or by its 
 middle terms equating, together the remotest elements, and 
 not less frequently exercising a destructive energy against 
 all, and even against itself. Thus this ground-scheme of 
 human consciousness, which formed the first result of the 
 psychological investigation of our own selves, meets us here 
 also on a grander scale as a part of the world's history, and 
 in the large dimensions of successive ages and centuries, as 
 the first striking result in the history of man's civilisation 
 during the twenty-five centuries which, as lying nearest to our 
 own times, we are best acquainted with. Much as may be 
 wanting to fill up, both in the commencement and the middle; 
 much, in short, as it would be necessary to add or more closely 
 to define, if it were our object to draw a universal sketch of the 
 four historical epochs and ages of the civilisation of the world 
 within the limits best known to us, yet for our immediate object, 
 these mere hints are sufficient. For they prove how, even in 
 history, in its place each of these four fundamental powers of 
 man developed itself in the most decided form and displayed 
 a marvellous and uncontrollable energy. Here, too, we see that 
 an intrinsic equilibrium between these several powers forms 
 in general but the rare and happy exception, while on the 
 whole it is mostly wanting. Indeed the absence of a com- 
 plete vital union and co-operation is but too painfully felt and 
 perceived in the history of the world. 
 
 Quite different, however, is the case with the mixed and 
 mediate faculties of the second rank, which are derived from 
 the former. To these may be applied the remark we latelv 
 made on the American .tribes and languages, in relation to 
 that degradation of the human race so especially noticeable 
 in them, and its still advancing degeneracy and dismeni- 
 
446 IMPERFECTION OF MEMORY AND CONSCIENCE. 
 
 berment. The external senses, whose meagre powers of cogni- 
 tion are but a sorry make-shift for man's mind, which in its 
 thirst of knowledge would embrace all existence, the Godhead, 
 and the universe, are narrowly restricted to the material world 
 immediately around him. From such slight and unpromising 
 begiimings, science is no doubt occasionally able to evolve 
 many a great and noble truth. And even in the external senses 
 themselves a feeling of art or a clear and pure sense of nature 
 gleams forth at times, like a little spark of purer light. Still 
 even here many and great impediments affect them and their 
 sure application. Memory, too, is on the whole little more than 
 a mechanical readiness, with difficulty acquired, and soon weak- 
 ened and blunted. The appetites or instincts are liable to num- 
 berless aberrations and passionate excesses. As to conscience, 
 there is but too much reason to fear that it is for the most 
 part in a state of weakness and apathy, dwarfed and mutilated 
 in its powers and operations. At least, the remark is no very 
 strange one that conscience, which has an ear as well as a 
 small, still voice, does not always hear very quickly, and often 
 fails to hear very much that it might and would do well to listen 
 to. Whether there are not men who in this respect may be con- 
 sidered perfectly deaf, is a question which can only be answered 
 by an accurate and specific history of human crimes, or by those 
 whose calling it is to study this sad and gloomy side of the 
 picture of human life. Such complete moral deadness as this, 
 however, which happily forms a rare exception in humanity, 
 may perhaps be rightly regarded as a kind of moral imbecility 
 for all higher and moral sentiments, even though it is frequently 
 accompanied with great clearness of intellect and a high 
 degree of instinctive shrewdness or cunning. On the other 
 hand, the cases are probably rare, where the delicate moral 
 sensibility or inward perception of right and wrong among 
 nobler natures, is developed in such purity and strength, 
 and carried to such a height of perfection and stability, as the 
 musical ear and artistic delicacy is by great musicians and 
 amateurs of the art. Probably, too, it is more suitable^ and 
 also more profitable, for human nature in its present degraded 
 state, that its higher senses and organs for the invisible should 
 not manifest themselves in us in all their extreme and over- 
 powering energy, and for the most part should but shine with a 
 subdued light, or, as it were, gleam through some shrouding 
 
FEELING THE CENTRE OP UNITY IN TILE MEND. 447 
 
 envelope. Even of the conscience this is true. At least, it 
 admits not of denial, that a few moments' brief enjoyment of a 
 truly bright and clear-sighted conscience would be enough to 
 tear the soul for ever from its present indifference, and to plunge 
 it into an abyss of unspeakable grief, for which earthly lan- 
 guage possesses no adequate expression, and for which the 
 human bosom has no suitable notes of lamentation and mourn- 
 ing. It is therefore only the greater proof of beneficence if the 
 invisible world, and the mysteries of eternal woe which await 
 the lost spirit — in comparison with which every earthly pain and 
 all earthly suffering are as nothing — is in mercy shrouded with 
 a veil, which only seldom and on rare occasions may lawfully be 
 lifted. Now, generally, it is at the uttermost confines of error, 
 in the very depths of degradation, and the lowest level of nar- 
 row-mindedness, that the first higher impulse and beginning of 
 happier times exalts itself, opening out the way of return to a 
 newer and better life. The same probably may be the case 
 in our present shackled and distracted consciousness. Those 
 very gross mistakes and aberrations to which the limited and 
 discordant faculties are liable, may furnish the common basis 
 for the growth of another vitally complete and harmonious 
 co-operating consciousness. 
 
 For now that we have, by the enumeration of these eight 
 faculties, made a complete sketch of the human consciousness, 
 the question may arise, naturally enough : " Which is the com- 
 mon centre of this sphere, or what is there found or demon- 
 strable in this centre ?" It was with a view to this question, 
 that I attempted to give a refined interpretation of the Platonic 
 idea of the anamnesis, taking it to mean the recollection of a 
 higher love, not so much in a former existence as of and from 
 eternity. We explained it, consequently, to be a species of 
 transcendental memory. And in this sense we justified it, 
 demonstrating at the same time, in that other region which is 
 formed of man's instinct and desires, the existence of the 
 pure idea of infinite longing as the highest effort of the human 
 soul. The sense of art, and profound feeling of natural 
 beauty, which belong to true artistic genius, are recognised 
 as being in their sphere extraordinary endowments. In the 
 same way no one will wish to deny that the moral feeling, 
 as the natural expression of the inner voice of conscience, 
 constitutes in social life the fundamental condition and the 
 
448 FEELING THE CENTRE OF UNITY IN THE MIND. 
 
 surest foundation for all lofty and noble sentiments. Thus 
 feeling is that centre which we were in search of, of the other- 
 wise divided and distracted consciousness. I might call it 
 the moral feeling, only then it would not be of so universal an 
 application as it really is. For the moral aspect constitutes 
 only a single view and energy of the whole, since the feeling 
 of art, and every other kind of higher sentiment, belongs equally 
 to it. With much greater propriety I might term it the inner, 
 by way of distinction from the external and material sense of 
 feeling. Less clear than the understanding, and not so decided 
 or definite as the will, with more vitality and life than the 
 reason, but at the same time more narrowly limited than the 
 fancy; the immediate sphere of individual existence — feeling, 
 occupies the central space between the four fundamental 
 faculties, as well as between the four intermediate faculties of 
 the second order. It is the apparently indifferent, but in 
 truth the full and living centre of consciousness, where every 
 vibration of all the other isolated powers meet and cross, either 
 neutralising each other, or combining together into new life 
 and harmonious co-operation. It admits, indeed, of the most 
 various degrees of development and of every kind of progres- 
 sion, from the simplest, almost indifferent, and passive sense 
 of mere existence, up to the highest self-sacrificing enthu- 
 siasm, which heeds no form or phase of death, or up to that 
 highest state of rapture which loses itself on the very verge of 
 unconsciousness. In this respect we might well say with the 
 poet, " Feeling is all." It is the centre of life, and the heart 
 of the whole, each single and individual faculty, in and by itself, 
 being, as compared with it, but " noise, powder, and smoke," 
 " shrouding the bright empyrean." And yet this centre of the 
 consciousness is not, however, such as to be able, by its inherent 
 force and activity, to organise and regulate the whole, holding 
 in union all those otherwise isolated powers and states of the 
 human mind. In this respect it is, on the whole, passive. 
 Indeed, viewed in a more accurate light, feeling is not so 
 much an individual and peculiar faculty as an entirely form- 
 less and indefinite, but still vitally moved and frequently 
 excited, condition of the consciousness, which is to form 
 the point of transition from its present state of fourfold 
 division, into the living, perfect, and harmonious co-operation! 
 of its triple state When reason and fancy have ceased to bei 
 
JUDGMENT. 
 
 449 
 
 I divided, being restored to oneness by the living feeling, but 
 | are blended together in the thinking and loving soul, we have 
 I the basis on which a restoration of the consciousness to har- 
 mony and perfection must in every case be commenced. When 
 I the great faculty of the understanding no longer stands aloof by 
 ! itself, coldly inactive ; when the strong will ceases, by its blind 
 obstinacy, to impede its own efforts ; when the two have now 
 | grown together into an effectual potency of the life-enlightened 
 spirit, in which every thought is at once an act, and every word 
 la power (a state which is only possible and attainable in this 
 centre of a higher love) — we have then the second step on the 
 path of return to the original perfection of the consciousness. 
 
 But before I attempt to add to this scale of progression, the 
 last term which is yet wanting, I must episodically introduce 
 and discuss another question. It relates to the phenomenon 
 of judgment, which as yet has not had its place assigned to it 
 in the consciousness. Is it to be considered as an inde- 
 ipendent faculty of the soul, and in what relation does it stand 
 to the other mental powers ? Now, by judgment, in the 
 i merely logical sense, nothing more is understood than the 
 [connecting of a predicate with a subject. For instance, m 
 jthe complete syllogism, " All men are mortal ; Caius is a 
 Itnan, therefore Caius is mortal," the minor premise, where 
 the middle or general term is specially applied, and conse- 
 i |^uently predicated of an individual, alone forms such a judg- 
 ment. Now, since it is the reason that logically connects 
 (thoughts together, it is not easy to see why this one act, by 
 Which the predicate and subject are connected, should be 
 separated from all others and set up and regarded as an inde- 
 i pendent and especial faculty. For by so doing nothing is 
 : pxplained, and an unnecessary addition is made to the sub- 
 I jlivisions (already too numerous) of the human mind and its 
 . thinking powers. Quite otherwise, however, is it with ano- 
 ; pher class of judgments, which, in fact, are highly deserving 
 I :he name. For these in their proper sphere actually decide. 
 | mid their decisions are generally regarded as authoritative 
 I because they are based on natural talents, a practised eye, a 
 f multifarious and extensive experience, a long study of the 
 \. matters they are concerned about, which in practice render 
 i hem more or less certain and trustworthy. In this case the 
 I ict of judgment is no simple function of the thinking faculty. 
 
 2 G 
 
450 JUDGMENT A COMPLEX FUNCTION OF THE MIND. 
 
 It is rather the sum of the manifold elements and spiritual 
 perceptions on which it exercises itself, and which it pre- 
 supposes. For the most part it is the highly complicated and 
 composite result of many fundamental premises. We cannot, 
 however, reckon this higher function of judgment in any par- 
 ticular sphere as a peculiar mental faculty, since in such a 
 case a special one must needs be assumed for every one. 
 For a right discrimination in any one sphere does not by any 
 means imply equal certainty in another. Moreover, the seve- 
 ral species and branches of the general gift are found to exist 
 quite separately and distinct from each other. Since, then, 
 the general notion of an independent faculty does not afford 
 a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of judgment, we 
 must seek it in some other direction. And here a few examples 
 will greatly tend to illustrate the whole matter. How much, 
 for instance, is comprised in a genuine artistic judgment ! It 
 is compounded of a multitude of observations, impressions, 
 reflections, and emotions. And yet the opinion resulting from 
 all these is simply one, and definitely comprised in one simple 
 sentence. Suppose the opinion pronounced to be, that this or 
 that beautiful and ancient painting is not from the master to 
 whom it is commonly ascribed, but belongs rather to this or 
 that other school. Of course I am not supposing the case 
 where such an assertion can be proved historically by docu- 
 mentary evidence. In such a case the decision would turn 
 on a matter of fact, and not on judgment, at least, not on 
 true artistic judgment. The judgment in question must prin- 
 cipally, if not entirely, be drawn from the work itself — from 
 the style of the handling, and similar indications, by a practised 
 and almost infallible tact. So various, in short, and manifold 
 are the observations on which such an artistic judgment de- 
 pends, that they often furnish matter for a whole book, or at 
 least for an essay. Whenever, however, it is really artistic 
 discernment, and not merely historical knowledge, that is in- 
 volved, we invariably meet with some one point or other 
 which does not admit of mathematical demonstration, and on 
 which the ultimate decision must be left to each man's per- 
 sonal judgment, or that immediate perception which forms 
 a feeling of art. Most justly, therefore, does our language 
 closely connect the two expressions. For a true artistic judg- 
 ment (Kumturtheil) is itself nothing else than this intuitive 
 
 I 
 
JUDGMENT ESSENTIALLY A PEELING. 
 
 451 
 
 feeling of art {KunstgefuhT) applied to a special case or sub- 
 ject, and brought out in perfect clearness and comprised in 
 a definite shape. Just so is it in the sphere of social life 
 with regard to the judgment on what is proper: the feel- 
 ing, in short, of propriety. Here, for instance, it is no un- 
 common question whether this or that word, spoken in some 
 delicate posture of affairs, was really necessary, exactly w T hat 
 was right to be said and thoroughly suitable, or altogether 
 ill-chosen and unseasonable. Or with regard to some step still 
 in contemplation, it may be disputed whether such or such a 
 method be the best and the most appropriate. How many little 
 niceties and delicate considerations are here involved, which 
 a fine feeling can alone enter into ? What various and in- 
 tricate contingencies, for which it is often difficult to find 
 words sufficiently expressive, must such a judgment take into 
 account, in its deliberation on such matters ? And in social 
 converse on such instances, is not the casting-voice generally 
 left to the acute sensibilities and quick tact of woman ? 
 
 For in all such cases the decision invariably depends upon 
 an immediate feeling of propriety, which, though first called 
 forth and developed by the social intercourse of life, is in trutL 
 original and innate. Such, indeed, it ever must be. For where 
 it does not exist naturally, it can never be learnt nor artificially 
 acquired. The original want of this inward feeling can never 
 be replaced by any varnish of external culture, however bril- 
 liant. And the case is also the same even in the sphere of 
 science ; for instance, in the shrewd, searching glance by which 
 the skilful physician takes his diagnosis of disease ; or in the 
 clear, perspicacious sagacity which enables the judge, in some 
 highly complicated suit or doubtful criminal trial, to seize 
 the right point on which truth and justice hinge. For in 
 judicial cases, with much that admits of demonstrative proof, 
 | or which, as matter of fact, is unquestioned, there is still 
 ! more where nothing but this psychological penetration, long 
 I practised in such matters, and to which past experience has 
 given confidence in itself, can immediately see through all 
 | the sophistical wiles not only of the pleadings and the skilful 
 | advocate, but also of the litigant parties themselves, or of the 
 I crafty criminal. 
 
 The same remark applies also to a sphere, apparently, 
 j indeed, related to the one last mentioned, but in fact essen- 
 
 2 g 2 
 
452 JUDGMENT ESSENTIALLY A FEELIMG. 
 
 tially different and widely remote from it. I allude to the 
 unerring tact of the experienced statesman, by which he 
 not only penetrates, through his knowledge of mankind, the 
 political designs of others, but is also enabled to read the 
 great events of the world and their tendencies, and infallibly 
 to seize the right moment for action. 
 
 In all these instances (and many others might easily be 
 added) it is upon an immediate perception or feeling of what 
 is right, that the decision finally turns. And this fact is 
 almost confessed by such expressions as a " penetrating 
 glance," an "unerring tact," and many similar ones to be 
 found in our own and other highly cultivated languages. 
 Such a judgment may therefore not inaptly be termed an 
 intellectual feeling. For it implies the existence of intellect. 
 And this not only as an inborn natural talent, for the special 
 domain within which the judgment is to be exercised, but 
 moreover, a certain development of the understanding, 
 strengthened by long practice, and confirmed by varied expe- 
 rience in the particular province. But still, with this intel- 
 lectual element there is invariably mixed a feeling, or imme- 
 diate perception, of what is right and just. It is this, in 
 short, that properly decides and makes the opinion ultimately 
 expressed to be a judgment. On this account I cannot attri- 
 bute the act of judgment exclusively to the understanding, 
 for the former involves something more than the simple intel- 
 lection of a single object. It comprises at the same time a 
 rigorous distinction between two objects, or a decision between 
 yes and no. Perhaps, therefore, the best and most perfect 
 explanation of judgment would be to call it an intelligent 
 feeling of a correct discrimination, comprised and expressed, 
 and also communicated to others, in a general form. The 
 last mentioned quality, however, does not always belong to 
 the judgment, since it often remains merely internal ; at least, 
 it does not form an essential or necessary part of it. 
 
 Thus, then, this digression (though in truth it is not pro- 
 perly a digression, since the question concerning the faculty 
 of judgment, and the position it occupies in the whole soul, 
 is essentially connected with the consideration of the latter,) 
 has again led us back to feeling, as the living centre of the 
 entire consciousness, where all its extreme tendencies con- 
 verge and reunite. Here it is that the dull and unpromising 
 
UNION OF SOUL AND SPIRIT. 
 
 453 
 
 state of calm, contemplative indifference meets together with 
 the highest excitement of energetic activity, the lowest and 
 most insignificant states of consciousness being found there, 
 as well as the most exalted and most sublime — the enthu- 
 siasm that carries all before it, no less than the clear self- 
 possession in the spirit's feeling of a discernment of truth v 
 or, as I called the judgment, an intelligent perception of 
 what is right and just. In this advance of feeling in the 
 mind or spirit (geistigen) up to that height of self-possession 
 and clearness at which it receives the name of judgment, 
 the former bears the same relation to the latter as the mere 
 thought, in its first vague generality, does to the notion which I 
 have defined to be a thought perfectly divided into its organic 
 members, and mathematically measured both inwardly and 
 outward — both, i. e., as to extent and comprehension. 
 
 Now this inward feeling, taken in the full comprehensive 
 sense of the word, is the same as what I previously called 
 sense, when I spoke of the human consciousness as consisting 
 of spirit, soul, and sense. In these places, however, you will 
 remember, I reserved to a future opportunity the further and 
 closer determination of the relation in which this general 
 Sense stands to the other two elements of the mind. But 
 inasmuch as the notion of sense always carries us back to a 
 special kind of sensation, limited to and only open to a special 
 sphere of objects, the expression of an inward feeling seems 
 far more strictly appropriate to the third element of the mind. 
 For the term feeling, by its vague generality, comprises all 
 objects of consciousness, or, in other words, all kinds and 
 species of a higher sense. Now, this higher and all-embracing 
 internal feeling is the starting-point from which we must set 
 out if we would hope to arrive at the complete reunion and 
 living co-operation which marks the consciousness in its ori- 
 ginal threefold state. It is not, however, the key-stone of 
 consummation. It is simply the foundation on which all the 
 rest must be built, or it is the deep fountain out of which rich 
 nourishment springs up on all sides for the other two elements 
 of the mind, the soul, viz., and the spirit. The latter two, in 
 fact, constitute the whole essence of the inner man. Now, 
 since the spirit is an active faculty, while the soul, though 
 possessed of a creative vitality, is on the whole mostly pas- 
 sive, their undivided union and constant co-operation may, 
 
454 
 
 DISTURBANCES OTP THIS UNION. 
 
 by way of figure, be designated as an inner intellectual union 
 or marriage in the consciousness. Indeed, we might not 
 inaptly explain man's essence as consisting in the spirit being 
 wedded to its soul, and in the soul being thereupon clothed 
 with an organic body. But, to pursue the same metaphor : 
 this marriage between spirit and soul is not always a happy 
 and harmonious union. Whenever the soul, drawn off by 
 every external impression and attraction, loses itself in the 
 manifold ways and by-ways of the material world, or wanders 
 to an unsafe distance with fancy, as she roams at liberty amid 
 the things of sense ; whenever the spirit, trusting to its own 
 inherent powers, follows their dictates alone, and recognises no- 
 thing above, and disregards all that is without, itself, then this 
 marriage is invariably distracted by passionate discord and 
 unquiet. Here, perhaps, as well as in the external world, the 
 words apply : " What God hath joined together, let no man 
 put asunder." A complete and total divorce is indeed scarcely 
 conceivable, such is the coherence of the living consciousness. 
 By death alone is it possible to be brought about, or perhaps 
 also by that flaming sword of the Holy Word, which it is said 
 pierces to the bone and marrow, dividing soul and spirit. 
 Where the first bond of union was given by God, it must 
 be maintained and continually strengthened by recurring to 
 this supreme centre, if it is to be permanent and to look 
 finally for perfection. This is only possible where the spirit 
 recognises a divine standard above itself, and where in all 
 its thoughts, works and deeds, it acts upon this exalted prin- 
 ciple, and where also the soul seeks before all things this 
 eternal centre of love, and is ever reverting to it. In such a 
 case both soul and spirit are united in God, or at least are 
 ever yearning for such a union. And, in truth, nothing more 
 is required of man than what has always and everywhere been 
 required of him, though, alas ! this requisition has seldom 
 been fully realised. God, then, is the key-stone which holds 
 together the whole human consciousness ; and this is the point 
 to which our investigation has, step by step, been leading us. 
 And now our notion of the whole scheme and delineation of 
 the human mind is complete. 
 
 Its general basis and outline, such as we find it within our- 
 selves, is formed by the four fundamental faculties first 
 described, together with four others of a lower and secondary 
 
THE IDEA. OF GOD MUST MAINTAIN IT. 455 
 
 order. Feeling — the inner feeling, i. e. — comprising every 
 higher form thereof, is its centre. It is that by which we first 
 are awakened to its present existence, and also at the same 
 time the point at which we pass into a higher state, wherein its 
 operation will be more vivid and its union more harmonious. 
 But as to the threefold life of the inner man, it consists in 
 spirit, soul, and God, as the third, in whom the first two are 
 united, or at least must seek their union. 
 
 In proportion, therefore, as this key-stone is removed from 
 the human mind, it falls a prey to discord and the isolation of 
 its several powers ; nay more, the latter sink continually 
 lower and lower, and fall from one depth of degradation to 
 another. And when occasionally, as in the might and strength 
 of genius, there occurs a preponderance of some one faculty, 
 it exercises for the most part a destructive tendency against 
 the harmony of the whole, checking, if not suppressing alto- 
 gether, the free developments of other powers as necessary and 
 as essential as itself. 
 
 I 
 
 END OF JjECTTJKE V* 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 According to that outline of the human mind which we 
 have just sketched, its whole alphabet, so to speak, consists 
 but of twelve letters or primary elements. These are formed 
 first of all into the stem syllables or radicals of higher truth 
 and knowledge, out of which again, in the inner language of 
 true science, entire words and connected propositions are con- 
 structed. And these again must further combine into one 
 universal key and all-embracing fundamental word of life. 
 In this internal alphabet of the consciousness, however, there 
 is one point on which a few words of further explanation 
 are necessary to a right understanding. And it is one of the 
 very highest consequence, since it concerns the final aim or 
 even the first foundation, being nothing less than the centre 
 of life and perfection of unity. God, it is said, must form the 
 key-stone in the arch of the whole consciousness ; and no 
 other real point of union can be found. But now God is with- 
 out, or rather above, the human mind. How then are we to 
 designate that by and through which this centre of unity, which 
 we feel and acknowledge to be raised far above us, is to be 
 seized and retained, so that it may livingly operate within us ? 
 I know no other way of indicating it than by the word idea — 
 the idea, viz., of the divine and of the Divinity Himself. As 
 then feeling forms the common centre of life for the lower and 
 ordinary consciousness of man and its eight elementary facul- 
 ties, so it is this idea that, as the third internal principle, makes 
 up, together with spirit and soul, the higher threefold living 
 consciousness. But by this idea we mean not a merely spe- 
 culative or abstract and dead idea, but an effectually operative 
 and living idea of a God, who having life in Himeself, is the 
 source from which all life proceeds. In its outward form, and 
 as compared with the other functions of the consciousness 
 or acts of the thinking faculty, this idea is a notion. At the 
 same time, however, it is also a figure or a symbol. For it is 
 only figuratively that that which is not so much inconceivable, 
 as rather transcends conception, being far above and beyond 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD THE ONLY IDEA . 457 
 
 all possible notions, can be at all indicated. It is by symbols 
 alone that such can be conceived or comprehended. Indeed, 
 the word idea in its original Greek sense alludes to some kind 
 of visible figure and figurative shape lying as it were within 
 the notion itself. All that is highest of every species can only 
 be apprehended by such a mode of thinking as is at the same 
 time both logical and symbolical — in which the logical thought 
 of reason and the symbolical of imagination- — the scientific, 
 viz., or of that which in cognition is the inward productive 
 faculty, are once more in unison, being thoroughly combined or 
 wholly blended together. The idea, however, is not merely a 
 coDception, which is a notion, and yet. at the same time, as 
 properly transcending all notion, a figure or symbol ; but 
 looking to the inward form of the consciousness, rather than 
 to the object itself, it is a conception which is also a feeling. 
 Indeed, without the supposition of the latter it cannot exist, 
 and strictly speaking is not even conceivable. That this is 
 the case, the following instance will fully show : — How could 
 we, if we wished it, suggest the idea of true love, or make it 
 clear and comprehensible to one who had. never felt anything of 
 the kind, and was, in short, totally incapable of such a feeling ? 
 
 Properly, however, and in scientific rigour, there is only one 
 idea truly so called. And that is the one idea of the Godhead . 
 All else that we call ideas, whether in this higher significa- 
 tion, or in a kindred and similar sense — like the innate ideas 
 without number of which the Platonic philosophy speaks, or 
 that idea of true love which I lately alluded to, having pre- 
 viously made frequent use of such expressions, and intending 
 to do so again whenever they appear calculated to lead to 
 accuracy of distinction or vividness of indication — all such 
 can only be called ideas in a certain sense and analogy. Such 
 a mode of speech, however, is allowable whenever we are 
 treating of such notions and conceptions as stand in any rela- 
 tion to the higher and divine. For, contemplated from this 
 spiritual centre of the divine idea, they shine in a new light. 
 Being purified in its flame, they seem to be elevated and 
 brought many degrees nearer to this one supreme idea of the 
 living God, in all His perfection and beauty. In all its fulness 
 and completeness, however, this idea cannot truly be said to be 
 innate in the human mind. At most there are there only the 
 elements of it. viz.. the remembrance of eternal love (which 
 
458 THIS IDEA UNINTELLIGIBLE WITHOUT LOVE. 
 
 Plato's doctrine of the anamnesis, when purified, amounts to), 
 the infinite longing, the voice of conscience, and then com- 
 pleting the number, as the fourth element, comes the genuine 
 and exalted enthusiasm for art and natural beauty. All these 
 higher elements, however, of the divine in man, form but a 
 weak echo of the whole. They are, as it were, but so many 
 faint dying notes, or the first infantine lispings of this one 
 divine idea, which in its full force and brightness must be 
 given, imparted, and revealed ; while that which is thus given 
 and experienced, and indeed personally experienced, can only 
 be embraced, understood, and retained by faith through love. 
 
 He who has never had any feeling or experience of God, 
 who is a stranger to love, and incapable of faith of any kind, 
 to such an one, so long as he remains in this state, it would 
 be lost labour to speak of God, or of the divine idea, with all 
 that flows immediately from it. This idea may indeed exist as 
 a rational notion necessarily emanating from our own cogita- 
 tions. But in this form, as the creature of our own concep- 
 tion, but not as given and revealed, it is little better than the 
 fixed reflection of ourselves — the objective projection of our 
 own Me. For such in all purely rational systems it ever is — 
 emptied and utterly void of all effectual living power, and of 
 all truth and reality. But when the idea of God has been 
 received by a higher experience (and thus only can it be 
 vitally imparted), then may we in truth call it divine. For it 
 is now no longer the barren, unfruitful idea that it is in all 
 other cases, but it contains in itself an effectual living and life- 
 giving energy. 
 
 The fundamental elements of the human consciousness are 
 then twelve in number. The first universal basis is formed 
 by the eight special faculties, with love as their living centre. 
 To these must be added the three principles of the higher 
 inward life — soul, spirit, and the idea of the divine — such as 
 we have accurately defined and characterised it. These 
 together I have called the alphabet of the consciousness. 
 And this alphabet, like a fixed and established logical notion, 
 I shall henceforth adopt in this precise shape and number, 
 making it, without any essential variation, the basis of my 
 subsequent remarks. It is no doubt of great advantage, and 
 even necessary for the elucidation of any matter, rigorously 
 to separate the several elements of the general notion, duly 
 
WIT. 
 
 459 
 
 arranging them, and accurately preserving their number. 
 Still we may be over-anxious in this respect. And, indeed, 
 language itself is not always very precise in its designations ; 
 and the different dialects of human speech, with their fluctuat- 
 ing phraseology, often assign a different rank and position to 
 the parts of the same whole. Much, for instance, is set down 
 as an independent faculty, which, more correctly regarded, is 
 but a state — or even only a passage from one state into another 
 — or it may be merely a natural talent ; or perhaps some such 
 happy coincidence and harmonious co-operation of several 
 powers of the soul as constitutes true genius. An instance 
 of this kind ga ve rise to that question which so lately engaged 
 our attention, whether the judgment is rightly to be con- 
 sidered a special faculty; and, if not, how is it in strictness 
 of truth to be designated? And in a similar respect, I now 
 find occasion to say a few words on wit, as being nearly 
 related to judgment, (if the latter be, as I have explained it, 
 an intelligent feeling?) and as holding an intermediate position 
 between judgment and genius. For now we have given a 
 complete sketch in outline of the whole consciousness, it is 
 desirable to fill in, as completely as possible, all the lesser 
 and nicer features. In other words, it is expedient to assign 
 their proper place m the entire consciousness to those pro- 
 perties of soul and spirit which are not so much simple or 
 first principles as complex phenomena of a secondary order, 
 and compounded of several distinct elements. Now wit, like 
 judgment, is an intelligent feeling, marked, however, with the 
 qualities of immediateness and pertinency. But it is not, 
 like the judgment, associated always with a special know- 
 ledge and insight. On the contrary, wit often arises from a 
 certain naive ignorance of the entire province to which be- 
 longs the object on which it exercises itself. We might almost 
 say that the disposition to wit consists in an universally in- 
 telligent feeling, for its quickness of perception is confined to 
 no particular department of life, but exercises itself on life 
 in general, and finds therein its proper arena. But this 
 describes rather the notion of what is commonly called 
 " sound sense," or " natural intelligence," which, in itself, is 
 not wit, and is often found existing totally unaccompanied 
 with the latter. Nevertheless, this at least is manifest, that 
 if an individual be said to be entirely devoid of judgment— 
 
460 
 
 WIT. 
 
 which is nearly the same as saying that he possesses no intelli- 
 gent feeling in any species or form — it would be in vain in 
 such a person to look for much, if any, wit. That, more- 
 over, which forms the chief characteristic of wit, and essen- 
 tially distinguishes it from judgment, is its unconsciousness. 
 Oil this very account children even, if they be at all lively, 
 are often witty. And, indeed, this childish wit forms perhaps 
 one of the most graceful of its many forms and kinds. To 
 prove how greatly this childish wit depends on its very un- 
 consciousness, we may appeal to a fact, which moreover will 
 teach us at the same time not to lay too much stress on the 
 fact, if children, even at an early age, appear very clever 
 and witty. It is no unfrequent observation that when chil- 
 dren, by the development of their understandings, attain to 
 greater clearness of consciousness, their wit suddenly ceases, 
 and their character assumes a touch of dry, solemn, but still 
 childish earnestness. That genial unconsciousness which ever 
 remains the property of true wit, both of social conversation 
 and of poetry, at once forms and attests its affinity with genius. 
 But, still, wit alone is not a complete creative power. By 
 itself it rarely gives birth to aught. It is but a single ele- 
 ment, which is added as the last finishing grace to all the 
 creative productions of fancy — and to every other work in 
 which a fertile and original mind gives utterance to its 
 thoughts. On this account it manifests itself in the most 
 varied and opposite forms. It is not limited to social con- 
 versation, or to art and poetry, but even in philosophy — and 
 the Socratic especially — assumes a peculiar and important 
 place as the essential ingredient of irony. 
 
 Now the variety of forms in which wit so richly displays 
 itself is a further point of resemblance between it and judg- 
 ment. Still this common property has a different cause in 
 each. The immediate judgment, or intelligent feeling, pre- 
 sents so great a variety of forms, because the human mind is 
 not equally conversant in every province of thought, being 
 generally familiar with some one in particular. But in the 
 case of wit, it is its very versatility, by which it suits itself 
 to and insinuates itself in every object of intellectual atten- 
 tion, that is the source of its manifold diversity . But that it 
 would carry us far beyond our present limits, it would be 
 highly instructive in a scientific point of view to take a 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 461 
 
 I survey of all the several forms in which this mental quality- 
 gushes forth in all the rich fulness of genius. 
 
 But now, since our exposition of the human mind has been 
 ! hitherto carried on by means of a parallelism with the idea of 
 language, it will not be out of place to make a few remarks 
 here on the real alphabet, or the elementary letters of diiferent 
 languages, as bearing a relation to what we have called the 
 alphabet of the consciousness. For the former presents more 
 than one remarkable analogy with the higher principle of the 
 inward life, and its whole organic framework. Properly sylla- 
 I bles, and not letters, form the basis of language. They are 
 I its living roots, or chief stem and trunk, out of which all else 
 I shoots and grows. The letters, in fact, have no existence, 
 except as the results of a minute analysis ; for many of them 
 are difficult, if not impossible, to pronounce. Syllables, on 
 I the contrary, more or less simple, or the complex composites 
 i of fewer or more letters, are the primary and original data of 
 j language. For the synthetical is in every case anterior to the 
 elements into which it admits of resolution. The letters, 
 I therefore, first arise out of the chemical decomposition of the 
 | syllables. But the results of this analytical process are very 
 i different in different languages, as is proved by the difference 
 of results in the variety of alphabets. While in our own we 
 I reckon four- and- twenty letters, in many others the number is 
 far greater. In those oriental languages nearest akin to our 
 own, they amount to more than thirty; while the Indian 
 family counts as many as fifty. 
 
 It forms no easy problem to indicate most of these by our 
 European characters ; and to pronounce them requires the 
 organs of speech to be more than ordinarily flexible. On the 
 other hand, profound and philosophical inquirers into lan- 
 I guage, by rejecting all mere modifications of harshness or 
 ! softness in the same sound, and whatever is manifestly a mere 
 J variation of the same letter, or a mere compound of simpler 
 I tones, have reduced the whole alphabet to ten primary ele- 
 I ments. According to this system, which has not been esta- 
 blished without great acuteness, so much at least is evident, 
 that properly there are but three vowels,* instead of five, as 
 
 * The three primary vowels, according to Eopp and Grimm, are a, i, u, 
 e and o being diphthongal compounds of ai and ao respectively. Th? 
 I former appears from a comparison between the Greek <r<paipa, Latin 
 
462 TEN THE TRUE NUMBER OF ELEMENTARY SOUNDS. 
 
 we usually count them, the E being a softened I, and U a 
 deadened or faint O. The diphthongs, and other tones inter- 
 mediate between the simple vowels, in which the German is so 
 rich, are evidently to be considered but as so many musical 
 transitions from one to the other. "We may here appeal to the 
 Hebrew, as being in its system of letters, notwithstanding its 
 other ancient oriental features, highly simple and profoundly 
 significant and coherent.*' Its two-and-twenty characters may 
 be divided into two orders. The first and higher, as I would 
 term it, contains the three vowels, the aspirates (of which 
 more by-and-bye), and then the simplest and softest (they 
 might almost be called the child's) consonants, B, D, G. The 
 twelve letters of the second contain all the other grosser, 
 more corporeally-sounding consonants. Usually, indeed, all 
 letters, and especially consonants, are classed into labials, 
 Unguals, and dentals, according to the organs principally 
 employed in their utterance, distinguishing, on the same 
 principle, certain nasals and gutturals. But however correct 
 this classification may be in an anatomical point of view, and 
 physiologically considered, still, for that parallel, which is 
 grounded in nature itself, between speech and thought, and 
 for the analogy which subsists between man's inward and out- 
 ward language, it is both unsatisfactory and uninstructive. 
 For it looks exclusively to a single aspect. The ordinary 
 grammatical division also of letters into vowels and con- 
 sonants, is at least incomplete. It would be far more correct 
 to associate with them a third class of aspirates. For the 
 latter may be distinguished from the former by many a 
 characteristic property, even though they are indicated by 
 signs which resemble those of the other class and often 
 
 sphcera, and our sphere; or, again, from Movcrai, Musse, pronounced by 
 us, Muse; or from the Ionic form tjs, of dat. plur. ais. To prove that au 
 gives o, it will be sufficient from many instances to give one : — the Latin 
 pauci, in the Spanish and Italian dialects of the Romance is poco. 
 The simple alphabet of ten elementary sounds may stand thus : — 
 Three vowels . . . . a, i, u. 
 
 Three consonants . . . p, t, k, or b, d, g in the mediate form, as 
 
 given by Schlegel. 
 Three liquids . . . . 1, n, r. 
 
 Sibilant s. — Trans. 
 
 * On the Hebrew alphabet see Latham's " The English Language," 
 p. 184. — Trans. 
 
VOWELS, CONSONANTS, AND ASPIRATES. 463 
 
 pass into and may be resolved into them. In the various 
 alphabetical systems the aspirates stand out most indivi- 
 dually. They assume the most diversified forms, even in their 
 mode of notation, and it would almost seem as if the ethereal 
 breathing which floats around them refused to be corporeally 
 fixed and confined with as much easiness as the other ele- 
 ments of language. In some languages, as the Greek, for 
 instance, according to the extant system, which belongs not 
 to the earliest period of its development, the principal aspira 
 tion is not denoted by a letter, but is indicated in the same 
 way as an accent. In the oriental, and, generally, in all 
 ancient languages, the aspirates, according to the different 
 forms into which they enter, hold a very important place. It 
 almost seems that the more aspirated a language is, the 
 nearer it is to its original state. It is also remarkable, that 
 wherever this element appears in undiminished vigour, 
 it gives to the whole language a character of antiquity and 
 grandeur, and lends to it a pervading tone of spiritual gravity, 
 such as has been observed in the Arabic, and prevails also in 
 a high degree in the Spanish ; though, indeed, an undue pre- 
 valence of this high and solemn note, unrelieved by others, is 
 apt to degenerate into monotony. In our own German the 
 aspirates were originally far more numerous than they are at 
 present. And, generally, the more a language is softened 
 down and refined by daily use and conversation, the more it 
 loses this impress of antiquity. And it even happens with 
 some, as with the French, for instance, that the aspirates 
 cease to be articulated, even though they are still marked. 
 
 Now while the aspirates form the spiritual element in the 
 whole system of elementary sounds; in the vowels, on the 
 other hand, predominates the soul- full voice of song. These, 
 in short, form the musical ensouling principle of language. 
 The less a language is overladen with consonants, and the 
 more fully the simple vowels sound out, the better adapted is 
 it for music and songs. The consonants, on the other hand, 
 which only in part imitate sound, make up the material ele- 
 ment of language. They are no doubt necessary to the rich- 
 ness of a language, and its variety of expression; neverthe- 
 less, when they greatly predominate, they render it corporeal 
 and heavy. 
 
 Now this remarkable analogy between this division of the 
 
464 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ALPHABET. 
 
 alphabet into aspirations, vowels, and consonants, and the 
 triple principle of human life and operation, as consisting of 
 spirit, of soul, and of body, or of a bodily exterior, I could not 
 but notice in passing, and throw out as distinctly as possible. 
 
 But now this analogy and parallel between speech and 
 consciousness presents another view of the matter, which it 
 appears desirable to consider. In the alphabet of the human 
 consciousness, which furnishes the several elements out of 
 which syllables and then words are framed, which again form 
 the first elements of all man's higher knowledge, I would pre- 
 eminently consider as its vowels those eternal feelings of the 
 Godlike which have their foundation in the very nature of 
 man. Now it is usual to designate these fundamental feelings 
 of man as faith, hope, and love (charity). But, however 
 customary it may be to class the three together, the intrinsic 
 connexion between them is not easily pointed out. And yet, 
 perhaps, if we have recourse to another analogy with the 
 visible world, it will help us to trace this bond of union. 
 This method will probably be both easier and simpler than 
 a direct refutation of erroneous views on the subject, or any 
 critical enumeration of elements which in the psychological 
 apprehension are incorrectly associated with them. Now 
 these three feelings or properties, or states of the conscious- 
 ness, may be regarded as so many organs for the cognition 
 or the perception, or, if the term be preferred, for the sug- 
 gestion of the divine. In this respect, then, and relatively 
 to their different modes of apprehension, we may compare 
 them with the external senses and their organs. Thus love, 
 in its first soul-exciting contact, abiding attraction, and 
 finally complete union, strikingly corresponds to the external 
 sense of feeling. Faith is the inner ear of the spirit which is 
 open to, catches up, and retains the imparted word of a higher 
 revelation. Hope, however, is the eye, whose clear vision 
 discerns, even in the remote distance, the objects of its pro- 
 found and ardent longing. The latter brings us to a 
 thoroughly vivid idea (or rather presupposes the existence) 
 of faith, according to which it is no arbitrary and artificial 
 idea, but one real throughout and vital. Although intel- 
 ligent and spiritual, it is still a feeling, and ultimately rests 
 also on a feeling, that, viz., of love, out of which, as its root 
 and foundation, it arises. Indeed, faith is nothing else than 
 
FAITH GENUINE AND SPURIOUS. 
 
 465 
 
 love, through a pure will, maintained with consistency of 
 character ; and this applies to it even in its nobler relations 
 among human things, and does not apply to it merely in a 
 higher and divine reference. 
 | In the last age (if it be not also in the present), the notion 
 I of faith was taken in a very different sense, and the phraseo- 
 I logy arising from that view is, in part at least, still preva 
 j lent. On this account a few explanatory words are neces- 
 i sary for the sake of caution and distinction. The following is 
 the historical occasion or scientific origin of this other notior 
 of faith. At a late period of so-called enlightenment, in the 
 midst of which, however, many grave misconceptions pre- 
 vailed, reason was set up as the sole authority. As the highest 
 and greatest of man's endowments, it was almost deified, 
 whatever did not appear at once and easily explicable by 
 reason, being forthwith and indiscriminately pronounced a 
 prejudice, and as such to be got rid of with all diligence. 
 In this state of things, modern German philosophy commenced 
 its career with attempting to show that this sovereign reason, 
 I which had set itself forth as the first and highest in man, is 
 extremely defective, and comes far short of the requisitions 
 both of science and life. The position was honestly and 
 earnestly maintained, and the proof worked out with toler- 
 able completeness. Subsequently, however, its validity has 
 been questioned, or only admitted under many limitations 
 and qualifications. But even this modified praise cannot be 
 bestowed on the scientific remedy with which men hoped to 
 supply the defects of reason, and to cure the old and universal 
 evils of rationalism. For, in fact, the method by which they 
 sought to get rid of this great and manifest deficiency, was 
 simply by suddenly opening an unlimited credit for the rea- 
 son, which going beyond all actual need, and based either on 
 arbitrary assumption or a confiding generosity, should be 
 sufficient for all emergencies. But this expedient, in the 
 existing state and panic of the rational market, could not 
 remove the evil ; it only exaggerated it. In a word, it was 
 the same old reason which (its claim to supersensible honours 
 having been rejected) had been just thrust out of the temple 
 of science by the front entrance, that, under the disguise of 
 faith, was now being smuggled in by the postern. It was 
 but a mere arbitrary substitute for reason that had assumed 
 
 2h 
 
466 
 
 DANGERS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 this new name. Now such a faith as this requires to be care 
 fully distinguished from that living faith which springs fron 
 and is founded on love. For this purpose I have attempted 
 to show from the very outset the great difference betweei 
 the two. 
 
 Now, if occasionally I have felt myself called upon to se 
 bounds to and to protest against the illimitable requirement 
 and assumptions of reason in science, my remarks have bee] 
 directed, not against reason itself, but chiefly against thai 
 absoluteness with which it pretends to reign paramount, h 
 our German tongue — and since the comparative parallel ml 
 thought and language is a part of the general plan of on 
 present exposition, this trifling but not insignificant philolo 
 gical remark will not here be inappropriate — in our vernal 
 cular tongue, the close limitation of the thing is furnished hy 
 the term itself. For as understanding ( Ver stand) comes fron 
 the verb to understand (verstehen), and implies the existence j 
 of an object which stands before the mind, to be penetratecj 
 and searched through by it, so reason ( Vernunt) implies ?! 
 Vernehmen, a perception or apprehension, and is itself nothing 
 else than the organ of spiritual perception, which is threefold 
 1st, of a higher law and rule above us and given to us; 2ndi 
 of the inward voice of conscience and the pure self- conscious- 
 ness within us; and, 3rd, of other rational thought arounc! 
 and beside itself. Now it is only against that reason whicl! 
 is unwilling to perceive anything, or at least anything besides 
 or above itself, that all my objections are directed. For wherj 
 the reason refuses to acknowledge aught above itself, bu1| 
 absolutely rejects it, then will it estimate but little whateveil 
 is besides itself. At any rate it will never be eminently suc- 
 cessful in its attempts to comprehend or understand it. Ib; 
 this case, it will continually make the greatest mistakes and 
 blunders in its views and conceptions of that even which it 
 really finds and perceives, or at least believes to discover 
 within itself. Reason, in itself, and in its due limits, is indeed 
 but one of man's various fundamental powers; still, in the| 
 present state of his divided and discordant consciousness, it! 
 is a highly essential faculty. Like all the others, conse- 
 quently, which severally do but present so many different 
 aspects of man's external and internal life, reason, when it| 
 oversteps its due limits, is liable to great, nay, the greatest of 
 
THE WORSHIP OF GENIUS. 
 
 467 
 
 aberrations. But it might here be asked, are not the possible 
 aberrations of fancy still more dangerous ? We must answer, 
 Without doubt they are ; and this is the only answer we can 
 give to the question put thus generally. But in the special 
 reference to our own age, there is far greater and more fre- 
 quent occasion to call attention at present to the evils pro- 
 duced by the errors of reason, than to warn men anxiously 
 against the possible abuses of fancy. And this for the 
 simple fact, that of all the powers of the human mind, 
 which when isolated are, more or less, destructive in their 
 action, reason has in the later ages, and in our times espe- 
 cially, been decidedly predominant. Consequently we have 
 on all sides before our eyes obvious and instructive exam- 
 ples of the mazes and abyss of error, fatal no less to science 
 than to morals, into which reason not only falls herself, but 
 hurries all that come within her influence, when, having once 
 started from a false position, she has followed out this wrong 
 tendency with full rigour of consequence. We see in it 
 the cause of all the catastrophes of the age and the feaiful 
 struggle of party. The dangers which might arise from the 
 exclusive ascendancy of fancy are, in our generation, less 
 likely to be general, and they are less threatening, less 
 jurgent. And the explanation of this fact is equally simple. 
 The occurrence of lofty and genius-gifted powers of imagina- 
 tion is extremely rare ; and at any rate many instances are 
 seldom met with at one and the same time. Here therefore 
 it is often a false alarm ; the threatening clouds quickly dis- 
 perse, the blue heavens again shine forth, and the wide hori- 
 zon of the all-spanning reason once more becomes bright, and 
 3ven clearer than we had ever known it before. And if occa- 
 sionally an over-abundance of genius-gifted power does mani- 
 fest itself in the domain of fancy, the general effect that results 
 from it is at most a recognition of its excellence, which how- 
 ever only slowly and with difficulty gains possession of men's 
 ninds. This feeling may, no doubt, sometimes amount to a pro- 
 bund admiration, whose language, sparkling with the exquisite 
 )rnaments and flowery tropes of exaggeration, may seem to 
 )order closely on a deification of its object; still this feeling, 
 lowever great and universal it may appear, is very far from 
 hat height of enthusiasm which wholly engrosses and carries 
 
 2 h 2 
 
468 
 
 EVIL INFLUENCES OF AET. 
 
 the mind along with it. Indeed, for the most part, it care 
 fully avoids and keeps aloof from such a state. 
 
 In short, however much any particular age may admire o 
 even worship great powers of genius or art, it is very rare! 
 indeed, if ever, carried away by its partial and erroneou 
 tendencies, or its arbitrary and quaint peculiarities. At leas 
 the same party zeal is not to be witnessed here that divide 
 both science and life between the rival systems of absolut 
 reason. However, the consideration of the prejudicial effect 
 of the despotic ascendancy of the reason has, almost of necegi 
 sity, brought before us the somewhat connected topic of w 
 hindrances which art may occasion to the pursuit of th| 
 highest truth and certainty. "We will therefore now examin! 
 the evils which arise whenever art, as the executive power i: 
 the region of fancy, usurps an undue authority over the rest c 
 the consciousness, and when in its judgment of things, takin; 
 an undue position in some merely poetical or artistic view, I 
 assumes a reality that belongs not to it, and dreams of finding 
 in itself the final cause and firm basis of all existence. 
 
 For the right exposition of that notion of faith, hope, an»j 
 love, which we made the foundation of the knowledge of al 
 higher truth, it was above all things necessary that we shouL 
 carefully and accurately discriminate between the true livinjj 
 faith which is grounded on and springs out of love, and tha 1 
 spurious faith which reason arbitrarily devises to cover its owj! 
 weakness and deficiencies. In the same way it remains for u 
 to point out the true end of hope, establishing the interna 
 foundation of its idea, and making out at the same time it I 
 intimate relation to art, as it arises from its connexion there 
 with and with time. Now, as all high hope stands in clos> 
 union with man's inmost character, and forms a principal 
 element of his being, his whole life and activity being base* 
 on hope, so likewise in art — so faithful a mirror is it of humai 
 nature — man's holiest hopes form the chief aim and the ani| 
 mating soul of its representations. A perfectly faithful, thougl; 
 artistically expressed, imitation of a love higher than an; 
 actual manifestation of the feeling (of whatever nature it be' 
 may simply, of itself, constitute a work of art, and, indeed, i 
 its natural object-matter. But still, isolated and by itself i 
 would furnish but a fragmentary feeling for the fancy, withou 
 
HOPE THE SOUL OE ART. 
 
 469 
 
 a true beginning and without end or aim, or proper conclu- 
 sion. Faith is but as it were a straight line — the rule of 
 sentiment for this life, of expectation for the other. But 
 now, in the mind of man, above every actual love and every 
 definite faith, there is a superabundance — if we may so speak 
 — of feelings thoughtfully forecasting, ardently loving, and 
 hoping, even beyond hope itself — of thoughts, dreaming, at 
 least, of a higher truth than is to be met with on earth. 
 
 And this divine superabundance in the human soul, if I 
 may be allowed this bold expression, is properly the sublime 
 matter, the invisible object and spiritual essence of true art 
 and poetry. Not that this inner soul, this vital breath of 
 high art and poetry, must, even in the outward form, invari- 
 ably express itself (as it does in music generally) as a feeling 
 [)f longing. Neither must it in its definite direction to the 
 future, always manifest itself externally in the form of hope ; 
 md, consequently, speak only in lyrical strains, as the music 
 }f enthusiasm. Such a limitation would, indeed, have a most 
 nonotonous effect. On the contrary, even in a highly-finished 
 Dicture of some actual and present scene, this idea of hope, as 
 :he soul which animates the whole, may be present, and like an 
 nvisible thread of higher life, be interwoven in it. And this 
 envelopment, or rather this veiled manifestation and indirect 
 -evelation of spirit, is often to be found, not only in crea- 
 ions which are permanently artistic, but also in those that 
 ire profoundly poetical and enthusiastic. Even the sorrowful 
 •emembrance of a by-gone foretime of infantine innocence, 
 md of sublime grandeur, is properly nothing but a reflec* 
 ion of this divine hope, and in a free and comprehensive 
 sense, which thus combines poetry and art, may be even 
 counted as a part of it. And if ancient art and ancient 
 )oetry especially, with their mournful back glances at the 
 )lden majesty long past and gone, come over us with emotions 
 jiomething like those of eventide, when the last parting gleam 
 
 E pf the brilliant sun is fast setting behind the distant hills ; so 
 jn their opposite aspect, as hope, turning its bold, enthusiastic 
 
 • l*ye towards the future, they may smile upon us as the rosy 
 lawn which runs before the rising sun of truth, and that new 
 ime which is to shine and glow in its beams, — or as the first 
 )eautiful ray of enthusiastic promise. Such, in all probability, 
 seems the position most suitable to art in our own days. 
 
470 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 Now with respect to this peculiar position of art relatively 
 to hope, and their intimate affinity, and their relation to the 
 present age and to the two other elements of the harmonit 
 scale of human life, viz., love and faith, the frequent anc 
 expressive sentiment of a poet whose intimate friendship i 
 is my privilege to enjoy, will convey most forcibly the con 
 elusion which I would wish to enforce upon your minds 
 Although his remark with regard to the harmony and unioi I 
 which ought to prevail between the true elements of highei I 
 feeling was addressed primarily to the present generation, i 
 admits of application to every age : — He asks — 
 
 " The age has neither faith nor love ; 
 How then for such should hope remain ?"* 
 
 This voice first sounded forth in fateful days, when danger anc 
 alarm were so instant and threatening as almost to cut off anc 
 extinguish hope ; but the storm so dark and menacing passec 
 away. A new prospect has since opened upon us, and all h 
 changed. As a just estimate of our own times, however, 
 it appears to me, in its present unqualified form, too sweeping 
 and severe. The age is not so entirely without hope as 
 the poet here asserts. No doubt we have been somewhat 
 lukewarm, inconstant, and unsteady in this respect. Or, 
 more correctly to express the real state of the case : in itseli 
 and in that faith in itself which, as it was overhastily em- 
 braced, was set up without limit or condition, and generally 
 in all faith, from its highest degree down to that lowest 
 grade of it which moves within the ordinary pursuits and 
 relations of life, it has been somewhat confused and wander- 
 ing ; nay, at times it has proved somewhat forgetful, not only 
 of the old and transitory, but also of what is modern, and 
 even what was most recent and within its own experience. 
 Accordingly, to the eye of the observer, it appears on the 
 whole to be devoid of all ruling principle, and to be still in 
 search of some regulative standard within itself. If, in this 
 search after faith, some few have taken up too quickly, and 
 rested satisfied with that arbitrary expedient and device of 
 a faltering and meagre reason, this was, no doubt, a symptom 
 of a partially sickly state, but by no means such as to justify 
 
 * " Die Zeit hat Glauben nicht, noch Liebe ; 
 Wo ware dann die Hoffnung die ihr blebe ?" 
 
THE PRESENT STATE OF ART. 
 
 471 
 
 us in passing a sweeping sentence on the whole age, as totally 
 unsound and diseased. For in all human affairs and relations, 
 such a profound longing as this, when it is lasting, and gene- 
 rally whenever it does not proceed solely and entirely from 
 some want or defect, invariably presupposes some natural 
 disposition and capacity, though it may be one which is 
 I neither rightly cultivated, nor as yet expanded to full vigour 
 and stability. 
 
 And as little, or rather still less, would it be just to deny to 
 I the age all love — if, at least, an enthusiasm which readily and 
 J cheerfully makes the greatest sacrifices be a part of love. 
 Consequently, I cannot concur with the opinion which will not 
 I concede to the age in which we live the least spark of hope. 
 Even though many of its expectations — as being at least pre- 
 1 cipitate or wholly immaterial — as being founded, in short, on 
 nought — have terminated in nought; and even in their desired 
 fulfilment, must have ended in a nullity : still we dare not, 
 j therefore, to throw aside all higher, holier, and diviner hope. 
 For in this we feel every earthly expectation, so far as it is real 
 and well-grounded, will receive its final accomplishment, 
 being realized to a degree surpassing all that we had ever 
 ventured to look for. And even if dark clouds are again 
 gathering on the horizon, and if to many an observer, whose 
 position in the political world affords him a wide and distant 
 prospect of society, the dangers menacing our own generation 
 seem still more fearful and terrible even than those which 
 have but scarcely passed away; still there is no need of 
 despair. Rather, taught by past experience in like fearful 
 circumstances, and recognising in this lesson of experience a 
 teaching higher than man's, we will, even though our fears be 
 fulfilled in the worst and most awful form, regard it all as 
 probably forming, if not a necessary, yet certainly a most salu- 
 tary crisis of transition to a higher state of divine hope. To 
 this divine hope it is sufficient for me thus briefly to have 
 alluded. For whatever I have at any time in my past life 
 attempted, it may be feebly and inadequately, to give expres- 
 sion to, and all that it is my object to convey to my present 
 respected auditory, and all that hereafter I shall have to say 
 in this world, has had and will have no other end or object 
 than to point to and to preach this sacred and eternal hope 
 of a true, not merely earthly, but profoundly new era, and of a 
 
472 
 
 HOPE THE ROOT OF ART. 
 
 spiritual life advancing in it towards the perfection of majesty 
 and glory. To gain a full assurance for such a hope, and to 
 establish it to the best of my power firmly and immoveably 
 among the actuating motives of life, has ever been and will 
 always be my first and dearest wish. 
 
 But still, though the poet's distich, in its immediate refer- 
 ence to our own days, requires to be greatly qualified, I would 
 nevertheless venture to apply it to art. At least, it admits of 
 such an application ; though in this case likewise it must 
 undergo some restriction and limitation. As passed even on 
 the present condition of art, the sentence is harsh, if not unjust. 
 If, however, there ever was or should be a time of which, if 
 not strictly and absolutely, yet generally and on the whole, it 
 could with truth be asserted, that the existing condition of 
 art " had neither faith nor love," then might we go on confi- 
 dently to add the inference, " How then should hope remain 
 for it ?" 
 
 I must once again repeat it: such a sentence, if applied 
 to German art in our own days, would be both harsh and un- 
 merited. If, however, art — which itself is nothing but the 
 significant hieroglyphics, the deeply-moving and elevating song 
 of eternal hope — should have for its basis, instead of a true 
 and unwavering faith, one merely artificial and self-imposed, 
 or at best, the unreal faith of feeling, fugitive and transitory 
 and unable to stand the fiery trial — if, too, love, instead of 
 being deep-felt and profound, be but the cuckoo-note of a 
 fashionable admiration, unthinkingly caught up and repeated 
 without nature ; then the harsh sentence we have just quoted, 
 together with its sad inference, finds a due application. At 
 least, it is so far applicable as it is true that in this sad defi- 
 ciency of living faith and earnest love, we can alone discover 
 an explanation of what otherwise seems so strange in the his- 
 tory of art within the recent century. If, after many a truly 
 noble beginning, the further development and result corre- 
 sponded bat little and most imperfectly with the expectations 
 that had at first been excited ; if, with truly great talents and 
 rare endowments of genius, so much has fallen to the ground 
 like imperfect blossoms without maturing any useful and last- 
 ing intellectual fruits ; it was simply because art was deficient 
 in this its firmest basis. And partly, it was also because she 
 mistook and was unable to take her proper position in the times, 
 
SPURIOUS ART AND POETRY. 
 
 473 
 
 or even if she did understand, was too weak to retain it by an 
 abiding feeling of love. For the true position of art must not 
 be misunderstood, nor the natural order of things reversed, if 
 it is truly to flourish, and the age itself is not to be deprived of, 
 or checked and disturbed in, its true enjoyment of it. True 
 art and poetry are the beautiful crown, the promising blossoms, 
 yea, the very flowers of hope, on the nobly-grown tree of 
 humanity, as it widely expands itself in rich and marvellous 
 intellectual development. But it cannot also be its root ; and 
 if anywhere it pretends or desires to be such, there assuredly 
 some strange perversion must exist, or some profound and 
 essential defect must have lead to so singular a pretension. 
 
 We hear, no doubt, in horticulture, of inverted trees, whose 
 heads being placed in the ground, strike root and grow, 
 while the natural root freely developes itself into branches 
 and leaves. The experiment so successful with plants cannot 
 be imitated in mental matters without fearful peril. Here 
 ; the blossoming crown, if reversed, will not take root, and never 
 bear real and genuine fruit. No ! an absolutely aesthetic founda - 
 tion is insufficient even for this life, and much more so then for 
 the next. Of the origin of life and the world, a mere poetical 
 view of things can give but a specious and cleverly evasive 
 account ; but as good as none of that of hope, of which, in such 
 a case, it must wholly have lost the clue. If then that which 
 is at most but the bright morning tint of hope should seek to 
 keep back the sun, or would set itself up for the true luminary, 
 then — supposing it for a moment to be possible — it would itself 
 soon lower into dark clouds, and instead of the longed-for splen- 
 dour of the full and glorious daylight, a dull grey sky would 
 cover the whole earth. This intrinsic weakness often betrays 
 itself in poetry (and frequently, also, in other spheres of human 
 invention,) by what at any rate appears to be an inflated display, 
 which, instead of concealing, does but create a suspicion of a 
 deep internal hollo wness. "What I allude to may take two forms. 
 Sometimes it manifests itself in an excessive luxuriousness — 
 often we might call it a very deluge — of the most unintelligible 
 exaggerations of sacred feelings, such as I regret occasionally 
 to observe in our modern school of poetry. At other times it 
 comes forward in an equally lavish and boundless prodigality 
 of wit and raillery ; sometimes, too, a serious humour lurks in 
 the wit, while a mocking parody makes sport with the very 
 
474 
 
 PURE THOUGHT. 
 
 humour, or a still loftier tone of irony, from its height of spiri- 
 tual exaltation, soars above both wit and humour, and the whole 
 work itself — nay, above all besides, and even the very universe. 
 It is in this one-sided preponderance, and in the absoluteness 
 with which reason or fancy is allowed to take a decided but 
 exclusive direction, that the first cause lies of that alienation 
 already mentioned as subsisting between men of a purely ses- 
 thetical temperament and poetical nature, who on the one side 
 judge of everything by the rules of taste, and the men of 
 practical reason on the other, whose only standard is utility. 
 This estrangement is only too apparent in real and actual life, 
 where in the degree which we have supposed, and by the 
 methods ordinarily pursued, it is utterly irreconcilable. They 
 stand, indeed, as fully estranged from each other, and as hos- 
 tile, as two wholly different races. And in this light a well- 
 known savant, at the close of the last century, seems really to 
 have regarded them, since, on the whole face of the earth, he 
 saw only two races — noble-minded, elegant, and tasteful Celts, 
 and dull, ordinary, and stupid Mongols. Here, however, I 
 must repeat my previous remark, that, in these days at least, 
 by far the greater danger is to be apprehended from an abso- 
 lute ascendancy of reason. For the rationalising system of 
 thought which results from such one-sidedness, is not confined 
 merely to the schools and their scientific theories, but it too 
 often extends its pernicious consequences, and its fatal and 
 debasing influence, over the whole range of public and social 
 life. On the other hand, the slight aberrations of taste, or (if 
 they must be accounted such) the little extravagances of genius, 
 may always be easily and promptly reduced within due limits, 
 especially in an age like our own, so thoroughly pervaded 
 with a correct feeling of art. 
 
 To give a solid basis to the whole of life, a firm internal 
 conviction is necessary. It must be a deeper feeling than 
 any that a mere aspiration, however beautiful, or any poetical 
 visions of enthusiastic hope, or even that irony which exalts 
 itself above both, can ever give. Now, for the attainment of this 
 inward certainty and irrefragable science of life and truth, 
 pure thought, though it does not form the only road, is never- 
 theless in every case a necessary agent, whose co-operation is 
 indispensable. In the further prosecution, therefore, of our 
 pursuit of the science of life, as deducible from the very 
 
PYTHAGOREAN THEORY OF NUMBERS. 475 
 
 notion of the consciousness, according to that theory of it 
 which we have been developing, thought in and by itself 
 must now, as we hinted in our first sketch, form the subject 
 of a special inquiry. But here the principal thing to be 
 guarded against is the delusion that philosophy must aim at 
 the rigour of mathematical certainty, and a mode of proof 
 derived, on such an hypothesis, from that science, by a servile 
 copying of its method. For, often as this has been attempted, 
 it has never as yet led to a felicitous result. This miscon- 
 ception in the domain of science is something like to what 
 it would be if in poetry, from an undue consideration of music, 
 the mere play of tones — the rhyme and rhythm — which do 
 indeed contribute to the ornateness of its figurative investi- 
 ture, should be held to be the very essence of the art. Or, to 
 take another illustration, it is much the same as if, with some 
 of the more recent English poets, we should wish to make 
 picturesquely descriptive poetry to be a peculiar species ; 
 
 j whereas in truth it forms, or has a tendency to degenerate 
 into, a mere faulty mannerism. 
 
 You will remember that I explained a notion to be a con- 
 
 I ception completely determined, both inwardly and outwardly 
 (in extent, i. e., and comprehension), according to the mathe- 
 matical dimensions of number, measure and weight. But 
 this, perhaps, is the only mathematical formula that in the 
 domain of philosophy is universally applicable. And even as 
 such it only applies to the notion as a standard and funda- 
 mental idea by which we may judge of the correctness of its 
 formation, and the completeness of its division into its several 
 organic parts, or lower genera and species. It is no use 
 further for the combination of the several notions into entire 
 scientific periods and conclusions ; for we may regard every 
 complete system of science and speculative thought as some 
 such perfect period and syllogism. But with regard to the 
 notion and its object, it is unquestionably of the highest im- 
 portance to determine whether it be absolutely simple or 
 compound. If the latter, it may suggest many questions. If 
 double, it may fall into an intrinsic contrariety, or be involved 
 in a twofold want of harmony. If it numbers three consti- 
 tuents, we may have to inquire whether in its triple energy 
 it enjoys a living unity of operation. Or if possessed of four 
 opposite directions, it may be involved in binary contrarieties 
 
476 
 
 PYTHAGOREAN THEORY OE NUMBERS. 
 
 and double discord. Or again, we might have to inquire 
 whether the essential accession of some fifth element forms 
 the living centre to hold together and reunite the four which 
 otherwise are divergent and apart ; or whether the whole in 
 triple couplets, or a double trine, forms a six ; or whether 
 seven arise from the union of a trine and quartain, either in 
 the world of thought, or the realities of life and outward ex- 
 perience. And again, eight may be a double square in the 
 one or the other relation. Or yet once more, we may have to 
 inquire whether in the still advancing inward reckoning and 
 development of life, nine arise from a thrice repeated triple 
 energy. And lastly, whether all these first elementary num- 
 bers are in various ways perfected and combined together in 
 the decade. 
 
 Rightly understood, the Pythagorean theory of numbers — 
 however unintelligible its single statements may appear, when 
 detached from the general context — is perhaps as little devoid 
 of foundation as the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis. The 
 latter I have endeavoured to justify, by explaining it in a 
 better sense than it is ordinarily taken ; the former, however, 
 from a deficiency of original and genuine historical authori- 
 ties, it is far more difficult to judge of correctly and impar- 
 tially. In the first place, the Pythagoreans as a body stand 
 very far indeed above the ordinary standard of the Grecian 
 intellect and enlightenment; for Plato was but a single 
 great mind, and stood almost alone even in the Socratic 
 school. 
 
 The degradation of the female sex, though founded on the 
 habits as well as political institutions of the rest of Greece, 
 was decried by these earnest and deep-thinking men, who, in 
 their reform, adopted quite an opposite sentiment. And if 
 in their measures for its removal something seems still to be 
 desiderated, and even something to be blamed, both defects 
 arise chieflv from their having fallen into the other extreme 
 of error, by proposing to give to woman a culture too decidedly 
 masculine, and seeking to establish it as the rule of their 
 new society. Women were concurrent and co-ordinate mem- 
 bers of the governing body of the Pythagorean league, and an 
 essential element of the splendid aristocracy of merit in this 
 new model of life and society ; which, however, as clashing 
 too directly with the inveterate habits of their countrymen, 
 
NUMERICAL RELATION OE THINGS. 
 
 477 
 
 coon provoked a revolution, and was entirely overthrown. It 
 was, however, from this source that Plato, and also Socrates, 
 chiefly derived their respect for highly gifted women and their 
 general view of the female sex; which in a degree, though 
 Very imperfectly, anticipated the purer Christian notion both 
 of it and human nature, possessing on the whole a right but 
 vague notion of the true dignity of both. 
 
 With respect to the theory of numbers in this ancient 
 philosophy, and its true and simple sense, we have the follow- 
 ing remarks to make. There is, we know, a certain chrono- 
 logical feeling by means of which the skilful physician 
 strives, with acute and often happy conjecture, to determine 
 the impending crisis of disease and its probable termina- 
 tion. There is also a smilar tact which enables the experi- 
 enced politician to measure the under-current of the rapid 
 flow of mundane events — to feel the pulse of life as it beats 
 in its thronging and quickly passing incidents. In both cases, 
 however, we feel that it is no infallibly certain and perfectly 
 omniscient oracle — for none such is to be found in the whole 
 range of the human mind. Neither is it any prophetical fore- 
 casting — not to speak of any predestined necessity. It must 
 be regarded as a delicate and sensitive tact, which may 
 deceive, but whose perceptions subsequent results most fre- 
 quently prove to be correct. Now, of somewhat similar nature 
 to this, there is a kind of immediate, searching, arithmetical 
 glance into the internal and essential numerical relations of 
 things in general, and also of all the objects of nature and 
 phenomena of life, which does unquestionably form an essen- 
 tial element in every innate talent for scientific thinking. In 
 some such simple sense as this we may understand the Pytha- 
 gorean doctrine of intrinsic life-numbers in things and their 
 manifold relations. Under such limitations we may adopt it, 
 or at least allow its validity. And at any rate we must admit 
 that it was an advance (or at least the first step thereto) in 
 scientific thought, to be able, by this way of regarding things, 
 to count, in the analysis of them or their notions, up to ten, or 
 even to fifteen or more. 
 
 Thus, then, as regards the general notions (but only in 
 regard to these), the mathematical view and method may be 
 profitably applied to philosophy. In any case it is highly 
 important, and indeed essential, for the correct formation of 
 
478 
 
 TRUE LOGIC A GRAMMAR. 
 
 notions, (and also for the complete division of them into their 
 organic members, whatever may be the sphere to which they 
 belong), that we should be able to determine the true inner 
 number, both of them and their objects. Since on this num- 
 ber the right quantity and weight of any one notion relatively 
 to others, whether kindred or distinct, and especially to the 
 whole, most intimately depends. 
 
 The combination, however, of single notions into propo- 
 sitions, or complete systems of science, cannot, in philosophy 
 at least, follow a mathematical or any similar principle. For 
 philosophy, we have seen, is a science of a higher life, derived 
 from an internal experience. It rests, therefore, on the triple 
 basis, inasmuch as the latter is given from within, from above, 
 and from without. Consequently, the great object here is, 
 naturally, not, as it is in mathematical science, to link toge- 
 ther, in apparently rigorous connexion, the several phenomena 
 of these higher data, or (if, as some will have it, there be 
 only one,) its single momenta, and manifoldly to concatenate 
 them as so many pure schemes and formula?. The essential 
 point is rather to gain a pure apprehension of the imparted 
 data of this higher life ; and rightly understanding them, to 
 clothe them correctly in words, and by giving these again in 
 correct grammatical coherence, to express them clearly and 
 forcibly. But this would imply that the method of thought 
 in this self- cognition of life, thus expressed in words, is of a 
 thoroughly grammatical nature ; and then the higher logic — 
 if we must so speak, and isolate and detach the latter, as an 
 elementary science, from its connexion with the living whole 
 — the higher logic would consist simply of the rules for this 
 inner language, and be nothing but a correct grammar of 
 living thought. And, in truth, I for my part do believe that 
 it ought so to be treated. And it is from this point of view, 
 and according to the idea thus advanced of such a higher 
 grammatical correctness of thinking, that I shall proceed, 
 whenever any point connected with the form of thought and 
 the right method of science comes into question, or requires 
 to be noticed in passing. An instance will place clearly before 
 our mind the different points of view taken by these two modes 
 of judging and doctrinal methods. In compliance with a 
 similitude which accurately enough corresponds to the truth, 
 let us consider a system of philosophy as a whole period of 
 
PKILOSOrilY ILLUSTRATED BY NATURAL SCIENCE. 479 
 
 higher thought, or as a perfect proposition of science. Now 
 in that estimate of a period of this kind which observes the 
 usual requisitions of mathematical certainty and mode of 
 thinking, it would be said : " This system is wonderful, 
 and quite perfect, for all its positions are rigidly demon- 
 strated." But even supposing the system were thus rigor- 
 ously demonstrative in all its parts, still the whole system 
 might be radically false ; for it might originally have started 
 from an erroneous principle, or being devoid of any truly 
 real and abiding subject-matter, be based on some empty 
 phantom of scientific imagination, or the unsubstantial abso- 
 lute of the reason. But the same system or period of thought 
 being judged from the opposite position of what I have 
 called a higher grammatical method, will be thus spoken of: 
 " It is all empty words, without worth or substance, for no- 
 thing in it is taken from actual life, and nothing of the kind has 
 ever been felt in man's experience." When, however, the 
 subject-matter is real, and furnished by the realities of 
 the inner life, there, in the special details, much may be 
 wanting, here and there a word may be missing, the struc- 
 ture of the periods of the whole system may not be perfectly 
 distinct, and the general arrangement not sufficiently lucid : 
 occasionally also a faulty and inadequate expression may be 
 met with, and yet the whole work may nevertheless constitute 
 a great advance on the road to higher knowledge and furnish 
 a valuable contribution to truth. With the exception of the 
 case of the total inanity and perversity of view, our judgment 
 must never be indiscriminate or rigorous. Scientific thought 
 in general, and especially in philosophy, consists of notions, 
 intuitions, and judgments, if only the latter term be taken, in 
 its usual logical sense, to signify the combining together no- 
 tions or intuitions. Now of the true mathematical mode of 
 proceeding with notions according to the pure and simple 
 acceptation of the Pythagorean mystery of numbers ; and 
 secondly, of what in its inmost essence is a grammatical 
 method — their combination in methodical thought — we have 
 already spoken. As to the inward intuitions that we enjoy of 
 that higher something which is in three ways imparted to us, 
 the mathematical mode of procedure is plainly inapplicable to 
 them. Even the grammatical one ceases to be fruitful here ; 
 at least it is unsatisfactory. Natural science, which is itself 
 
480 
 
 PROGRESS OF TRUTH, 
 
 pre-eminently based on intuition, will perhaps most readily 
 furnish a comparative illustration, calculated to throw light 
 on and explain that perception of a higher something 
 from which philosophy sets out. And this illustration will 
 be best borrowed from those experiences in natural philo- 
 sophy which appear to seize the fundamental phenomena of 
 nature and her inmost life ; even though the experiment itself 
 set before our eyes these wonderful phenomena, and the 
 secrets which are brought to light therein, in the greatly 
 diminished proportions of scientific abbreviation. Extremely 
 trifling as the imitation of lightning by our electrical apparatus 
 may appear, still that little spark has kindled a great and 
 universal light in the domain of physical science. The mag- 
 netic needle, which at first sight was looked upon as an 
 insignificant marvel of nature, taught man first of all to fix 
 his position on this earth and to find it again after quitting it 
 — and so, by leading him on to the discovery of the New 
 World, founded thereby a great epoch in the history of the 
 human mind. Not merely does it point to the terrestrial 
 north-pole, but it also guides the thoughtful observer to the 
 inmost centre of nature, where, in this mystery of living 
 attraction, the universal key of interpretation seems to lie 
 hidden. And who would mock or despise the thoughtful 
 naturalist who delights by the prismatic analysis, or division 
 of the elementary colours of light, to produce or copy in 
 miniature the rainbow which spans the heavens ? 
 
 Now in these first simple and elementary phenomena, 
 external nature, as it were, spontaneously presents to us 
 beautiful emblems for still higher phenomena belonging to 
 another and internal region. They enable us metaphorically 
 to express the divine phenomenon of truth, and its vivid 
 apprehension and intrinsic adoption, till it becomes a fixed 
 and imperishable knowledge, and to narrate intelligibly the 
 intrinsic genesis of truth and true knowledge. For the follow- 
 ing is, if we may so speak, the history of the growth of living 
 science in the human mind, whenever the latter is capable of 
 it, and is raised or raises itself to the height thereof. 
 
 The beginning is made by the first kindling spark of truth, 
 which works like the electric shock — by the first ray of 
 knowledge, which afterwards gradually expands into the 
 nourishing flame of love. 
 
FROGRESS OF TRUTH. 
 
 The second step of further progress is formed by the mag- 
 netic attraction of the soul, which from the first contact to the 
 ultimate union, strives still to penetrate more profoundly, and 
 more accurately to investigate the object of its love. In this 
 remark, I proceed on the hypothesis (which hereafter will still 
 oftener be spoken of), that no living cognition is possible or 
 actual, without a previous vital contact and union between 
 the knowing and the known. 
 
 When, lastly, the moment of completion arrives, then the 
 ck)se of this pursuit of a highest knowledge will be made by 
 that full expansion of divine light, which often, like an heavenly 
 token of peace and reconciliation, shines forth in the very 
 midst of the clouds of discontent, and dissolves all doubts 
 before it. But now philosophy, according to the original sense 
 of the beautiful Greek word, does not by any means signify 
 the highest wisdom, the everlasting truth itself, or the perfect 
 science. It denotes rather the pure longing, the love of a 
 genuine knowledge of divine truth, which spiritually con- 
 quers and triumphs over every difficulty in the way of its 
 attainment. This then implies that this science does and 
 must set out from love as its basis. For the indication of this 
 foundation of true knowledge, in its characteristic features 
 at least, natural science has furnished us with the adequate 
 symbols. 
 
 BNP OF LECTURE VI. 
 
 3 I 
 
4S2 
 
 LECTUKE VII. 
 
 "Feeling is everything" I would again repeat; in words 
 only does there lie a possibility of misconception. When 
 philosophy sets out from the false semblance of necessary 
 thought, it must always have a similar result. It cannot 
 extricate itself from its own subtle web of scientific delusion. 
 Abstract phrases, i. e., words deprived of their living signifi- 
 cance (if ever they possessed any) and reduced to empty, 
 lifeless formulas, are easily found, or rather have long since 
 been found, for this seeming knowledge, which as such does 
 in truth remain ever identical with itself.* And if from time 
 to time it changes its expressions and assumes quite a dif- 
 ferent terminology, this is only done for the sake of appearing 
 new, whereas fundamentally it is still the old error which con- 
 tinues to be propagated in a changed form and dress. Some- 
 times, no doubt, it is done with an honest intention, under the 
 persuasion that truth and true science will perhaps in the new 
 magical form be more easily seized and comprehended than 
 was possible in the old one, whose unintelligible obscurity 
 and intricacies were deeply felt, and which it is hoped are 
 avoided in the somewhat altered arrangement of the ideas. 
 But the unintelligible obscurity lies, not in the words and 
 phrases or the terminology, however strange and barbarous 
 the latter may sound. It arises entirely from a defective 
 point of view, and the perversion of thought involved in 
 the very theory of identity; and no phraseology or skill ol 
 composition, however unparalleled, will ever be able totall) 
 to remove it. Quite otherwise is it when philosophy sets ou1 
 from the feeling of that which it desires, and which from the 
 very first it has propounded and sought as its proper object 
 In this case the difficulty does not lie in the thing itself, oi 
 in the view on which it is based. For the latter, inasmuch 
 
 * The philosophy of Schelling professed to be a system of identity ! 
 ar:d had for its basis the principle of the sameness of subject and object.! 
 —See Philosophy of Life, note, p. 15. — Trans, 
 
METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY MULTIFORM. 
 
 483 
 
 as it results from life itself, and man's inmost feelings and expe- 
 riences, is as obvious and intelligible as the visible shape and 
 phenomenon and as the pure consciousness of life itself. At 
 I least it is sufficiently clear for all the purposes of life, and 
 sufficiently intelligible for the kindred feelings on which it 
 rests. But in this, as in every other case of profound internal 
 emotion, it is extremely difficult to find the very right word 
 for it, the exact appropriate term which happily seizes and 
 ; vividly expresses its essential character. Accordingly, in phi- 
 losophy — so long, at least, as it proceeds from this fundamental 
 principle of life and a living feeling — I think it best not to 
 shackle our thoughts and notions by the fetters of a rigidly 
 fixed and unchangeable terminology. For such sciences as 
 are distinctly limited to a particular sphere, this method may 
 ! be profitable and salutary. Indeed, it may not only appear 
 I but actually be indispensable. But in the present case it 
 | would be inappropriate. We must seek, on the contrary, 
 j the greatest possible variety of expression, availing ourselves 
 of all the riches of language in the copious diversity of 
 ! scientific, and even of poetical and figurative diction, and not 
 ( refusing to borrow the terms of society or any sphere of life. 
 For our first endeavour must be to keep our exposition vivid 
 throughout. Continually advancing with a living movement, 
 we ought to avoid above all things that propensity to using 
 I stiff and dead formularies, which almost seems to be inborn 
 and hereditary in rational science. For as the living philo- 
 sophy is a higher and clearer consciousness, or a self-conscious 
 knowledge — a sort of second consciousness within the ordinary 
 one — it requires for its indication and exposition, as it were, 
 a language within language ; only the latter can never be a sys- 
 tem of lifeless formulas, but must even be in the highest degree 
 vivid and flexible. The philosophy of life may in short borrow 
 its terms from every sphere, but principally from life itself ; 
 and even the fugitive terms and evanescent forms of con- 
 versational language will often supply it with the happiest 
 and most pertinent modes of expression. Such, too, it may 
 occasionally borrow from all the subordinate sciences. Even 
 the obsolete and cumbrous terminology — the barbarous school 
 phrases of a recent German philosophy — might furnish many 
 a valuable contribution to that rich copiousness of expression 
 which is indispensable to the philosophy of life. An occa- 
 
 2 i 2 
 
484 PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE A COMPREHENSIVE SCIENCE. 
 
 sional phrase or term borrowed from this source, but differently 
 applied or employed in quite a new sense — and thereby for 
 the time rendered intelligible, may often serve to express 
 most happily and most pertinently what before seemed to be 
 
 almost inexpressible and to elude all the powers of language. \ 
 
 But above all things we must remember that its exposition 
 must not be a mere dead framework of fixed terms — a system of 
 empty formularies. This is a point which appears to me to be 
 most intimately connected and mixed up with the very essence 
 
 and spirit of scientific truth. On this point my feelings are I 
 
 so strong, that if in that attempt which for some years I a 
 
 have been making to give a new development of philosophy, I 
 
 I could consider it allowable to adopt the course which has I 
 
 so often been followed in German literature and its several I 
 
 school-systems, of detaching some single notion from its general if 
 
 connexion, in order more rapidly to gain for it, like small coin, f 
 
 a wider circulation, even though by so doing its peculiar stamp i 
 
 of intrinsic truth is quickly abraded and lost — if, I say, I could s 
 
 bring myself to adopt such a course, I should confine myself ff 
 
 to opposing, and using every means to counteract, this killing cl 
 
 of the spirit by words which in and by themselves have no i 
 
 signification. If it were possible, nothing would give me K 
 
 greater pleasure than to see all the old and customary terms ec 
 
 rejected and dropped, and new and different ones found for m 
 
 the same theme. hj 
 
 The philosophy of life — one, i. e., which sets out in its specu- to 
 
 lations from life itself and the living consciousness — neither i\ 
 
 can, nor desires to be, all- comprehensive ; not, at least, in the I 
 
 same sense that that philosophy does which proceeds from the ti 
 
 assumption of a necessary connexion of thought. It does not il 
 
 presumptuously suppose that it possesses the power of mea- in 
 
 suring the whole sum of all that is conceivable or possible, and t 
 
 of setting it down as an unalterable result for ever. It does to 
 
 not arrogate to itself such omniscience. But in one sense the n 
 
 philosophy of life may justly be called an all- comprehensive \n 
 
 science. And that is in so far as, keeping in contact with the h 
 
 centre of life, and consequently of thought also, and of know- I L 
 
 ledge, it attempts to seize and rightly to apprehend them, hi 
 
 And so long as it does not lose sight of this centre, but is con- | \L 
 
 stan thy returning to it, it may be allowed many liberties. rlj< 
 
 Around this centre it may revolve in circles now narrower now i L 
 
ITS TRUE METHOD CONVERSATIONAL. 485 
 
 wider, with the view of contemplating it more advantageously, 
 so long as it does not rest too soon in any definite focus 
 of thought. While it refuses to confine itself to any fixed 
 form of language, it may with unshackled choice select from 
 the whole range of life and thought whatever expressions 
 appear the most significant and happiest for indicating that 
 fulness of feeling, which is so difficult to give words to, and 
 which indeed can never be adequately comprised in language. 
 Nor in such a case will it ever be made an objection, if in the 
 succession of its ideas and its manifoldly varied turnings, it 
 avails itself of the same liberty, frequently coining back to the 
 same starting-point, though always presenting it in some new 
 light and relation. The test of the scientific correctness of a 
 true method of thought, which must ever be living and vivid, 
 is an internal one. It is independent of all such little ar»d 
 external matters, and it can even exist unimpaired alongside 
 of many apparent irregularities. Here the case is nearly the 
 same as with actual conversation. In both alike, when we 
 would express ourselves on any grave point of feeling, and 
 clothe it in such language as is likely to gain the concurrence 
 of others, or by making it clear, to enforce it upon the general 
 conviction, we feel it perfectly allowable to follow whatevei 
 course may seem most convenient. At one time we prelimi 
 narily advance some question more or less remotely bearing 
 upon it, or we take up a narrative or simile which will serve 
 to introduce it. Or it may be, by explanation we try to clear 
 away some possible misconception — or perhaps to limit and 
 determine some preconceived opinion on the matter, in the 
 hope of removing or solving some apparent or troublesome 
 difficulty. Some or all of these means we freely make use of 
 in order that the desired result of our discourse may finally 
 stand out clear and distinct before the mental eye of our audi- 
 tors. I shall therefore, I think, be justified if I follow the same 
 course in these Lectures, which it is my wish should leave on 
 your minds the impression of an internal dialogue. In the 
 seemingly rhapsodical flow of its thought, I shall assume the 
 same liberty. Far from abstaining from episodical matters, 
 when they suggest themselves, I even think it essential often 
 to introduce them ; and by frequently recurring, under many 
 a variation of expression, to the same leading idea, it will be my 
 endeavour to place it in a still clearer light. By this course, 
 
486 FEELING THE CENTRE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 in spite of its seeming tediousness, I shall be able ultimately 
 in a few simple ideas to set the whole matter more distinctly 
 and intelligibly before you. And at the same time, I trust 
 that the rules of internal language for the correct composition 
 of the whole, the right arrangement of the words (if I may so 
 call it), that internal grammatical order of living thought, of 
 which I previously spoke, will be found to be duly observed, 
 even though in the details many a term may appear imperfect 
 and inadequate, and many a happier expression might have 
 been found. The most vivid diction, even the best and most 
 felicitous, falls always far short of feeling. " Feeling is 
 everything" — the full centre of the inner life, the point from 
 which philosophy sets out, and to which it invariably returns. 
 We might call it, if such an every-day expression would not 
 sound and strike us as strange, the quintessence of the con- 
 sciousness. However, in its original sense (which in truth arose 
 out of a very superficial and meagre view of ancient philo- 
 sophy), as used to denote the essential fifth over and above the 
 four opposite poles of inward existence, or the four divergent 
 directions of reality, which, like the mind, is also divided into 
 quadruple dissension, the term quintessence is not inappropriate 
 for this centre of the consciousness. For feeling is unquestiou 
 ably such a fifth, both in relation to the four great fundamental 
 energies of the inner man, as the latter are manifested to us 
 by experience, and also to the four faculties of the second order, 
 which are composed of or derived from the former. But it is 
 not only difficult to find an adequate expression for the full 
 central feelings of the inner life, but especially to indicate 
 accurately in words all the more delicate perceptions, with 
 their shades of difference and distinction, which spring from 
 it, and rigorously to keep them as distinct in the expression 
 as they were in the actual emotion. Clearly, too, and accu- 
 rately as the inner sense may distinguish between a genuine 
 and spurious manifestation of the higher feelings, it is not so 
 very easy in language to keep them separate, or so precisely 
 to characterise them as to exclude every false accompaniment, 
 and to prevent the possibility of confounding the spurious 
 and the genuine. How great, for instance, is the difference 
 between the two kinds of irony which we meet with in the 
 philosophical dialogue, either as introduced by the Socratic 
 school, or as similarly employed in modern dialectic. The 
 
ITS SPURIOUS AND GENUINE MANIFESTATIONS. 487 
 
 one kind, overflowing with sceptical shrewdness, makes illimi- 
 table doubt the end of its dialog'ical expositions, and is that 
 acrid and biting irony which is based on universal negation. 
 The other species, more amiable and benevolent, is intimately 
 allied to a lofty enthusiasm for the divine and the true, being 
 almost one with or at least inseparable from it, since it arises 
 from a sense of its own incapacity to comprise in any form of 
 words the plenitude of divinity, as the spirit discerns it in 
 truth. And yet, notwithstanding such differences in the ex- 
 pressions and turns of the dialogue, they often border close 
 upon and nearly resemble one another; whereas the inner 
 purpose, the spirit, the design of the line of thought, is often 
 thoroughly distinct in the two cases, and almost directly 
 opposed. In the same way, true artistic genius and its mere 
 imitation are even in their external manner and productions 
 easily detected by the feeling. And yet we often find words 
 fail us when we attempt characteristically to indicate their 
 differences, and to pass a discriminating judgment upon them. 
 So, too — to illustrate this topic by the instance of wit — a forced 
 humour, with its wearying repetitions and mannerism, or the 
 ceaseless straining and empty play of an artificial wit, is very 
 different from the overflowing fulness of genuine poetical wit, 
 in which the lively genius of a sportive fancy is everywhere 
 welling forth, and a profound poetical enthusiasm shines 
 through the coat of ever-shifting hues which its motley humour 
 puts on. But still even here it is extremely difficult to explain 
 oneself, and to distinguish the different impressions they make. 
 Accordingly, in a general judgment upon them, many mistakes 
 and misconceptions are both possible, and are frequently 
 made. 
 
 Now, in the sphere of feeling, the mere counterfeit, in par- 
 ticular cases at least, is frequently in its language so decep- 
 tively similar to the true and genuine, that at last the judg- 
 ment can find no other words suitable to itself than the simple 
 •ones, " I feel it to be true and profound," or " I feel it to be 
 spurious, intrinsically vain, a mere counterfeit and a cheat." 
 Again : faith, hope, and love or charity — (those three states of 
 the soul-springs of life — those inward organs of the moral sense 
 — those decisive acts and diversified forms of manifestation of 
 one common sentiment, directed to the good and the divine — or 
 by what other terms they may be expressed) — this sisterhood 
 
488 
 
 GENUINE AND SPURIOUS FEELING. 
 
 of spiritual qualities often mentioned together, and in fact 
 closely allied and united, are presented to us as forming a com- 
 plete scheme and all-embracing and significant symbol of a 
 higher life. When they are felt and regarded in this light, thev 
 do indeed become such for all higher thought and science, in 
 so far as the latter ought to be living and to have their founda- 
 tion in life. Too frequently, however, and that not merely in 
 the poems of an aesthetical piety, but also in many a dull work 
 of edification, we see this triple symbol of a higher life degraded 
 into the common-place of a morbid fancy, which in the gratifica- 
 tion of an idle vanity, trifles with the best and holiest feelings 
 of our nature. Even here, therefore, as elsewhere, a strict 
 separation between the genuine and the spurious is very 
 necessary, calling for and claiming all our watchfulness. But 
 the counterfeiture lies not in the tone of solemn earnestness 
 and depth of pathos with which men broach these subjects, or 
 generally touch upon them; on the contrary, the affectation 
 mostly announces itself in a certain external pomp of word 
 and phrase. But now, if this symbol of an internal religious 
 triplet contains at the same time (so to speak) the funda- 
 mental harmony of that higher life which is devoted to the 
 good and directed to the divine, then must this apply not only 
 to the inner but also to the outer life. In short, this scheme 
 of the fundamental moral ideas must be again met with in 
 the ordinary relations of actual life. In such a case it is 
 clearly most agreeable to truth to speak of this internal and 
 better life simply and unpretendingly in a perfectly natural 
 manner ; while a holy reverence for what is most exalted in 
 humanity is best testified by an intrinsic delicacy in the mode 
 of treating it, by the absence of all pedantry of sublimity, or 
 affectation of a sentimental formality. 
 
 With an especial reference to the end of science, I have 
 in the case of these three elements of higher consciousness, 
 attempted to distinguish strictly and precisely, the true and 
 genuine from the spurious, which often runs parallel to it, and 
 the well founded from that which rests on no right basis of 
 reality. In the case of faith, we drew a distinction between 
 that intrinsic living faith which is based on the feelings of per- 
 sonal experience and love, and that counterfeited imitation of 
 it which is only externally assumed. In the case of hope, too* 
 it has been my endeavour to show, that besides a narrow. 
 
m 
 
 TRUE AND FALSE FAITH. 489 
 
 j minded, egoistic and passionate and partizan hope, whose 
 I anticipations are seldom realised, but if so, only to their 
 i own punishment and disgrace, there is also a higher hope, 
 which is both Godlike and divine. To this hope it is that art 
 and poetry owe the magical charm by which they win upon 
 ;< us. But in actual life also it is the stay to which we must 
 ] resolutely cling. For even though she be rightly named 
 [ I eternal, yet at certain particular moments and appointed his- 
 , ! torical epochs, after being long looked for in vain, she often 
 I appears in a far different shape from that which expectation 
 I had lent to her, and to our surprise stands forth unexpectedly 
 j in the full majesty and splendour of final consummation. All 
 1 then that now remains to be done in this way is, in the case of 
 I love, (since the earthly passion is for the most part only transi- 
 tory, often confounded with the phantom of passion, and is per- 
 | haps totally blind,) to point to a higher and better love, which 
 I is abiding and eternal, and at the same time endued both with 
 j sight and knowledge. For such alone can be of real value 
 I for the cognition of truth, and the right understanding of 
 j life. Such alone, in short, can contribute to the acquisition of 
 j that science of man, and especially of the inner man, which 
 \ we are here in search of. 
 
 But now those three principles, which constitute the grand 
 harmony of that higher intelligent feeling which leads to 
 science and also to religion, are at the same time, though in a 
 less dignified relation, the impelling motives and ruling influ- 
 ences of actual life. For it is almost impossible to take one 
 j step forwards in life without some feeling or other of trust 
 and perfect faith in the general result. All our proceedings, 
 I in short, are based on some confident assumption or other, even 
 though it is one which perhaps we cannot mathematically de- 
 monstrate, and which, when the moment for action is pressing 
 upon us, we are unable perfectly to analyse. And hope, too, in 
 j some shape or form, is universally acknowledged to be the true 
 moving impulse of our whole existence. So also love of some 
 kind, true or false — it may be pure and lofty or mixed and 
 sordid, if not altogether counterfeit — forms the very sum of life 
 j and of all enjoyment of it — aye, even life itself. An example 
 or two, consequently, from the ordinary relations of actual life, 
 will enable not so much to demonstrate, indeed, as rather to 
 remind you of the difference which subsists even here between 
 
 i 
 
490 
 
 TRUE AND FALSE EAITH. 
 
 a trust and confidence that is merely reasoned out by logical 
 inference, — a faith externally assumed, and one that is the result 
 of personal experience and confiding love . Thus reminding you 
 of what in this life is manifest enough, I hope to set more dis- 
 tinctly before your eyes the difference which subsists also in 
 the higher region of faith. Let us suppose the case of a friend 
 dangerously ill or in a state of extreme suffering, and we are 
 in search of a physician able to relieve and heal him. One is 
 recommended to us of great reputation for extensive knowledge 
 and of a judgment strengthened by long experience. We are 
 told that he has effected remarkable cures, that he has never 
 been known to lose a patient by neglect or by mistaking his 
 disease, and that withal he is very kind and extremely 
 attentive. These, we are aware, are great recommendations: 
 but he is a perfect stranger to us ; we feel a kind of reserve 
 and restraint towards him — as yet he has not our perfect 
 confidence. How very different is the case when we our- 
 selves have experienced all this; — when we ourselves have 
 witnessed his comprehensive view, the number and variety of 
 his remedies, and the penetrating glance of genius in the 
 moment of danger ; — when with grateful recollection we feel 
 that we must ascribe to him either the preservation of some 
 dear one's life, or our own unhoped-for restoration to health 
 and strength ! Such is the difference between a reasoning faith 
 on rational grounds, and a personal faith based on our own 
 experience and vivid conviction. And in truth this simile 
 is not remote and far-fetched. It comes very close indeed to 
 the matter itself, if only it be true that the soul is often dis- 
 eased, and that religion presents to us no inexorable lawgiver 
 of a rigid rule of reason, no stern judge of severe truth, but a 
 wise physician touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and 
 able to save to the uttermost. 
 
 Or let us take another case, which will go still more deeply 
 and touch more nearly the very root of the social relations of 
 life. An individual of high rank, as often happens, is about to 
 enter into a lasting union with one of whom he personally knows 
 little, if anything. In regard to rank and fortune, of agreeable- 
 ness of person and manner, as well as accomplishments, not to 
 say mental endowments, he has the best and strongest assur- 
 ances. But the character of youth is generally undeveloped 
 Not only may all that is morally beautiful, and every great and 
 
TRUE AJNU JA.LS.E. FAITH. 491 
 
 noble disposition, lie tnerein ; but there may also be slumber- 
 ing within it the violent elements of passion. It is only the 
 I full development of life and love that will expand the one or 
 the other. The question, then, for one contemplating such an 
 [ union, is — can he have such a confidence in the character and 
 [1 sentiments as naturally ought to precede an union which is 
 I to last for life. She has received an excellent education; she 
 [ enjoys a spotless reputation ; her whole family stands high in 
 » the respect and esteem of men, its friendship and society are 
 , everywhere sought and valued, not merely for its rank and 
 I station, but also for its amiable qualities. Moreover, another 
 lady of established character for all that is good and estima- 
 [ ble, has the most favourable opinion of her, honours her with 
 her friendship, and loves her as a younger sister, or as her 
 own daughter. All these considerations are perhaps sufficient 
 grounds and rational warrant for an anticipatory confidence 
 in such a case. But how widely remote and how different a 
 feeling is this from that deep trusting confidence which 
 springs up after the union — which a wife's conduct instils into 
 LI a husband's heart — when no longer captivated by mere per- 
 I sonal charms, but almost entirely forgetting them, he rather 
 I rejoices to notice and to contemplate those qualities of the 
 inmost soul, which being most congenial to his own tastes and 
 habits, afford him a sure prospect of unbroken harmony and 
 felicity in the remainder of their wedded life. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to lay down any general rule by 
 which in individual cases the boundary line may be drawn 
 between a mere reasoning faith, resting on external consi- 
 derations, and one that is founded on personal feeling and 
 experience of life, in its gravest and most decisive moments. 
 Very often a confidence that in its origin was quite arbitrarily 
 taken up on a cold calculation of reason, will suddenly receive 
 a full confirmation, and pass into that profounder assurance 
 which draws its strength from our own feelings and expe- 
 rience. And as it is in actual life, so it is likewise in the 
 higher sphere of faith. In matters of religion, and of science 
 also, that which originally was merely a belief of the cold and 
 abstract reason is subsequently transformed by degrees into a 
 profound faith, rising at last into an abiding personal feeling, 
 and even a deep intuition of living truth. As a first begin- 
 ning, then, and as the foundation of a better, and as the first 
 
492 
 
 ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 step of a higher and fuller development, a merely rational 
 faith requires to be treated with respect and judged of with 
 all due allowance. But when it is set up as perfect and com- 
 plete in itself, and challenging the most rigorous requisitions 
 of science, or when it is put forth as sufficient in itself, then 
 our decision must be that this self-devised rational belief is 
 only a substitute for, and not faith itself. For this must ever 
 be vivid and based on an immediate personal feeling, and on 
 this account full of love, and indeed both founded upon and 
 proceeding from out of love. 
 
 Properly, the three elements of higher life are inseparable ; 
 and it is therefore extremely difficult to propound any inva- 
 riable law applying to individual cases, as to the order in 
 which these three grades of internal development must or 
 ought always to succeed one another. Essentially they are 
 one and indissoluble. As faith and hope are based upon love, 
 so is love dependent on both the former ; and this is as true 
 of genuine love on earth, as it is of that which lives in a 
 higher domain. If its faith be hostilely disturbed, then it 
 loses its hope also, and the very root of its existence. If 
 hope is entirely cut off, it does not indeed lose thereby faith 
 itself, and its object, but it preys on itself. 
 
 That in which all these three grades of feeling are most 
 perfectly united, blended and fused together, is enthusiasm. 
 All genuine enthusiasm is based on some exalted and elevating 
 faith : it is a form and species of the higher love, and involves 
 in itself a grand and divine hope. And this is true of genuine 
 patriotism, and of artistic enthusiasm, no less than of the 
 religious, which is most akin to scientific, especially as the 
 latter was understood by the ancients, and according to the 
 place it held in the Platonic philosophy. But though thus 
 combining all three, enthusiasm is yet essentially distinguished 
 from them. Enthusiasm is only an elevated state of the con- 
 sciousness, which, although in capacity it admits of being 
 durable, is generally regarded as transitory. Accordingly, it 
 is of a passing state that the term is generally understood. 
 But the three degrees of feeling are elements of a permanently 
 exalted consciousness — of the mind generally, in its highest 
 state. And this is even that triune living consciousness, le- 
 stored again to perfect unity, and to fertile operation. It 
 is even that to which I have been from the commencement 
 
f 
 
 FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE. 493 
 
 | of these Lectures continually alluding, and especially in the 
 assertion, that it is necessary to pass from the existing state 
 | of the consciousness — which is neither its fitting nor original 
 I condition — with its four parts, one of which is mostly divorced 
 I from the rest by its undue exaggeration, and to revert to its 
 higher and living constitution ; which return I spoke of as the 
 essential condition of true philosophy, if not its very self. 
 [ Now, if any should desire to give one common name to this 
 higher, or rather highest, state of the consciousness, inclusive 
 I of its three elements, and call it enthusiasm, it would be 
 necessary to add the remark, that this enthusiasm is abso- 
 lutely one, universal, and of the highest kind, having for its 
 I object the divine itself : and that, moreover, it is abidingly 
 I permanent, and at the same time reconcilable and even really 
 I associated with the most clear-sighted prudence. 
 
 Some such a highly exalted and sublime conception of true 
 enthusiasm, is to be met with, and indeed predominates 
 j throughout the Platonic philosophy. So far, therefore, it 
 might be said, that the essential in this harmonic triad (Drei- 
 ) klang) of Christian sentiment was not wholly unknown to it, 
 j even though it knew nothing of the ideas of faith and hope in 
 this form or direction. Comprising all in one, it gave such 
 r especial prominence to love as to make it by itself the very basis 
 of science — of that science, at least, of which alone there can 
 be any question in the present place, the science of the inner 
 and higher life. For it considered such a science as being 
 simply a love which has arrived at intelligence, and has 
 thereby become firmly fixed and moreover elevated to the 
 highest degree of clearness and perspicuity. 
 
 The relation in which these three properties stand to spirit, 
 soul, and sense — those three principles already mentioned of 
 the consciousness, when in its undivided perfection it attains to 
 i a full, vivid operation — is somewhat of the following nature. 
 Faith is an act of the spirit, by which the higher feeling, 
 being distinguished and separated from all that is not essen- 
 tial, and being purely and spiritually apprehended, is set forth 
 as an intelligent feeling, and consequently as a judgment, and 
 in this light comprised in an imperishable idea. Love is the 
 turning or directing of the whole soul towards the higher 
 and divine, even, that is, to God himself. Hope, however, is 
 the new life which emanates from them both, and in which 
 
494 
 
 man's knowledge. 
 
 the divine ideas become actual and active ; or, in other words, 
 it is the internal sense and fruitful susceptibility for the divine 
 idea and its energies and influences. 
 
 Now the next problem which properly comes before us in 
 this place of our exposition of the human mind, and of the 
 degree of certainty which is attainable by it, is accurately to 
 determine and to indicate the true intrinsic essence of science. 
 What, then, is it to know ? How is it brought about and 
 accomplished ? In the next place, it will be necessary to ex- 
 plain the origin of error, which is ever opposing science, often 
 imperceptibly deluding or undermining and destroying our 
 convictions. This will then enable us to solve the questions 
 and difficulties suggested by doubt in general, after we have 
 once ascertained the place which is to be assigned to it in the 
 human mind. And thus we shall at last be able to determine 
 completely, precisely, and satisfactorily, the relation in which 
 faith and enthusiasm, love and revelation, stand to science. 
 
 Now in order to arrive at a full idea of science, it will be 
 essential to distinguish its several elements — understanding 
 and generalisation (Begreifen), and also discernment — the dif- 
 ferent forms, too, of thinking — the necessary in reason, the 
 possible in fancy, as well as the scientific cogitation of what 
 is actual. 
 
 But before entering on this field of our labours, I would 
 premise one general remark. It refers to the nature of that 
 certainty which we have to look for and may expect in philo- 
 sophy, according to the idea of it which we have made the 
 basis of our speculations, as being the noblest and highest 
 manifestation of man's desire of knowledge. And here the 
 examination of the words of a great and famous thinker, with 
 regard to his own system, will best serve me for the introduc- 
 tion and exposition of my own views. The system of Spinosa 
 — for I allude to him — is, it is true, in ill repute for its 
 obscureness and unintelligibility. The remark, however, to 
 which I refer is wholly unconnected with his system. It is 
 an estimate of his own knowledge, and is quite clear and 
 intelligible to all, as every one will admit when I come to 
 quote the words. And perhaps the obscurity of his system 
 arises chiefly from the matter, and the position taken up, 
 rather than from the author's method, and the form of expo- 
 sition. For, if only we can once bring ourselves to allow that 
 
THE SYSTEM OF SPINOSA. 
 
 495 
 
 I the mathematical method is suitable to philosophy, we must 
 | pronounce Spinosa's style most excellent. It is, in fact, remark- 
 i able, not only for the rigour and precision of its definitions 
 and proofs, but also for the structure of its sentences and 
 general composition, so far as excellence was attainable in the 
 modern Latin of the schools, to which, however, Spinosa has 
 I succeeded in giving a wonderful evenness and uniformity of 
 I expression, having handled it with a facility never before 
 I paralleled. 
 
 As to the system itself, and the rank which, according to 
 I the position here assumed for the philosophy of life, ought to 
 be assigned to it, it will hardly be necessary to enter into a 
 particular review. Generally we have already expressed our 
 opinion, and the judgment we should pass upon it may be 
 deduced from the remarks which I formerly made when dis- 
 I tinguishing between the two directions or views which, in its 
 i search after truth, present themselves to the reflecting mind 
 for its choice between faith or doubt. One of these views of 
 the world and things is based on the idea of the living triune 
 God, whom faith embraces, love desires, and in whom all our 
 hopes are centred. Now this hypothesis implies, by a neces- 
 sary and inevitable consequence, that the world is not self* 
 i existent, but, as we have all been taught, had a beginning, 
 having been created by God out of nothing. According to 
 the other theory (and to one of these every profound and 
 truly scientific system of philosophy must in its essential 
 principles belong), the world had not a beginning, but is 
 eternal, being one with God — or indeed, speaking absolutely, 
 all is one, and necessary thought and necessary existence 
 are not properly and essentially distinct, but only so many 
 different forms or aspects of the one eternal and necessary 
 essence. Now of the latter system, according to the opinion 
 of all competent judges, either of his own or our times, the 
 work of Spinosa is the ablest and most consistent exposition 
 that science has e ver yet produced. But between these two 
 systems and views of the universe, the philosophy of life 
 cannot long hesitate. Seeking to arrive at a clear insight 
 into all that is divine, so far as it is traceable within the 
 higher life and inward consciousness, and adopting and re- 
 garding it as an imparted fact of an internal, no less than 
 of an external revelation, she cannot be at a loss to decide 
 
496 
 
 THE SOPHIST AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 between faith in a living God and that idea of one necessary 
 essence which is at the same time both God and the world — 
 an idea which, making thought and being identical, proceeds 
 to give to all else correspondent arbitrary definitions. Indeed, 
 the question can hardly arise for the philosophy of life, or if 
 it does, it may at once set it aside. Now this general ob- 
 servation on all such systems of necessity implies, of course, 
 the condemnation of that of this great and famous thinker. 
 It too must be at once rejected as fundamentally false. Such 
 a censure, however, does not involve anything of personal 
 vituperation. All such feelings need not to be mixed up with 
 it. For in truth it often happens that the greatest and most 
 richly endowed minds, and the most single and straightfor- 
 ward characters, if they once take a wrong direction, fall into 
 the profoundest, or, as they have been termed, the most violent 
 errors. But in every case it is but equitable to make a dis- 
 tinction between the author and his system, however severe 
 may be the judgment we pass on the latter. In the case of 
 Spinosa, too, we must bear in mind that he was by birth and 
 education a Jew. As such, he was not only without the pale 
 of Christianity, but even regarded it with strong national pre- 
 judices. If, therefore, his system is not consistent with the 
 truths of religion, or rather, if it even violently clashes with 
 them, he is scarcely obnoxious to reproof. At least, he is not 
 half so much open to censure as those who, not having this 
 palliation to urge, assume an hostile position towards religion, 
 while their animosity is not relieved by any splendour of 
 great talents, but marked throughout by the meanness and 
 narrowness of their views and the ordinary character of their 
 scientific theory and system. 
 
 The expression of this great thinker to which I have alluded, 
 relates to his own self and the object he had in view by his 
 literary labours : to his work, in short, or system. It is con- 
 tained in a letter to one of his most intimate friends, and runs 
 as follows : " Whether my philosophy be the very best, I know 
 not ; at least I do not wish to decide that point ; that, however.. 
 I have discovered the true philosophy, I have not the least 
 doubt." All this sounds modestly enough. And in all proba- 
 bility it expresses his real sentiments and opinion. It sets up, 
 however, a pretension which I cannot by any means admit. 
 Spinosa here takes the term philosophy in a different sense 
 
CAN MAN'S KNOWLEDGE BE PERFECT? 497 
 
 from its old and original signification. Among the Greeks the 
 Sophists alone derived their name from a pretension to perfect 
 wisdom and science. But the followers of a true wisdom, from 
 Socrates' time at least, explained philosophy to be what its 
 name imports, — a desire of the highest knowledge, and a pur- 
 suit of divine truth. And this is the essential point which, 
 involving a total difference of opinion, has divided the minds 
 of men through centuries and tens of centuries, and is as yet 
 far from having attained to a satisfactory solution. And 
 herein the Socratic idea of philosophy, which is also my own, 
 receives a species of historical confirmation, which that other 
 mathematical notion of it stands still in need of. But to 
 return to our author. By philosophy, as indeed is clear from 
 his very system, he understands a perfect science and absolute 
 truth. Now this perfection of knowledge does not, it is true, 
 pretend to extend to and embrace all individualities. Still it 
 is at least intensively an omniscience- — which by the further 
 development and expansion of what it possesses within itself 
 unevolved, would in its external comprehensiveness embrace 
 every particular case. And can such infinite knowledge and 
 omniscience be ascribed to any other being than God ? If 
 we at once acknowledge this, it would surely be more agreeable 
 to truth to consider man in this life as being merely in a pre- 
 paratory state, where at most it is permitted him, step by step, 
 to approximate still nearer to the height of knowledge. If 
 that degree of knowledge which is conceded to and is attain- 
 able by man, really suffices for the wants of life — we might, 
 I or rather, to speak more properly, we must be content with it. 
 Probably even that which it is allowed to man to reach, has 
 never yet been actually attained to by any individual. And 
 why in any case are we unwilling to wait, if, as it undoubtedly 
 remains for ever certain, that when this period of preparation 
 1 snail have closed in that eternity which is really life, man will 
 | in one way or another arrive at perfect certainty and clearness 
 j of insight into the nature of himself, the world, and the Deity, 
 i and will also fully understand the now inscrutable relation of 
 j God to man and the universe ? 
 
 Now while we regard the last half of the judgment which 
 this great thinker has passed upon himself, as a pure self- 
 | delusion naturally arising from, and indeed closely connected 
 I with, his whole system, we must also qualify the first half, 
 
 2 K 
 
498 
 
 INFLUENCE OF SPINOSA's SYSTEM. 
 
 and subject it to many essential limitations. The best philo- 
 sophy, that of Spinosa most assuredly cannot be called. And 
 this for two reasons. On the one hand it sets out with the 
 pursuit of mathematical certainty and precision — an end not 
 attainable in this branch of human inquiry ; on the other, it 
 commences with a principle fundamentally false, starting from 
 the imaginary notion of absolute necessity as the original first 
 and last illusion of the reason. Better, however, it most 
 unquestionably is than many others, which, no less false, are 
 with their superficial dulness, their half compromise and 
 jumble of inconsistent principles, still more pernicious. Violent 
 errors, to use an old phrase, are those which serve to give a 
 new impulse to science, and arousing it from its stationary 
 point of imperfect development, excite it to advance one step 
 nearer to the truth. They serve to accelerate a whole crisis 
 of movement and transition. In this respect, accordingly, a 
 system of philosophy which is far from good in itself, may 
 nevertheless be pronounced good in a relative sense. In other 
 words, it is one the study of which may occasionally prove 
 salutary and profitable. It will benefit those individuals, or 
 even a whole nation or age, who are in the very crisis of 
 transition, and capable of digesting such strong meat, are 
 healthy enough to elaborate such a system of error into the 
 sound elements of truth. That this opinion is by no means 
 unduly lenient, or over tolerant, but that its justice is not un- 
 supported by historical experience, is proved by the history 
 of our national philosophy in these later days. Thus, on the 
 German philosophy of nature, in the first stage at least of its 
 development, the system of Spinosa exercised a great and 
 decided influence, which however has now altogether ceased. 
 All the most original, too, of our thinkers, whether they 
 belonged to the older or later schools, who stood aloof from all 
 system or party, have also paid his works great attention. For 
 this they ri vetted by their wonderful simplicity and rigour of 
 consequence, and their loftiness of scientific thought, even 
 while they failed to win a general, much less a complete adhe- 
 sion to his theory. But this feeling is quickly fading away. A 
 great internal victory has been gained over its seductive charms, 
 which is of inestimable importance to the cause of truth. It 
 is fast quitting the field of human thought and inquiry; and if 
 it still holds its place in a few minds, it forms there alone the 
 
VOETICAL AND OTHER SPINOSISTS. 
 
 490 
 
 last remaining obstacle to the complete triumph of the science 
 of life and revelation — the last lingering mist of mental dark- 
 ness and demoniacal illusion before the rising sun of a newly 
 breaking day. 
 
 It may perhaps appear inappropriate, and indeed highly 
 objectionable, to have spoken of a pernicious system of meta- 
 physical error before such an audience as the present ; espe- 
 cially as from the -first I expressed my unwillingness to enter 
 
 l at large into its details. But I have, I think, a full and com- 
 plete justification. A very similar, or rather the same view 
 of the world and things as that which it propounds, and whose 
 
 i essential peculiarities I have, I think, correctly characterised as 
 one of the leading branches of human error, still prevails, and 
 
 I is not confined in its manifestations to a metaphysical form. It 
 meets us everywhere in still more accessible and highly-attrac- 
 tive shapes — in every form and dimension — in the interesting 
 but simple tale, and in the magic creation of poetical pan- 
 theism. And since so many poets and other popular writers 
 
 | ' are a kind of half or whole, conscious or unconscious, Spinosists 
 — to use this name in a wide and general sense — it would be 
 
 | to affect an unscrupulous delicacy, which would neither be in 
 
 I measure nor in season, were I to abstain from all notice of 
 what is otherwise so notorious. If the philosophy of divine 
 experience, with its totally different form and spirit, were 
 but carried out as perfectly and completely as this silently 
 reigning system of rationalism with its consistency of error, 
 then should we at last be able fully to comprehend, and to 
 our great amazement discern all that is meant by this its 
 dangerous rival, and how very much it involves. 
 
 My object has not been to make a polemical attack, and to 
 give a complete refutation of this system. Such a design 
 neither lay within my prescribed limits, nor could it be other 
 than useless and superfluous in a philosophy which took its 
 
 j position from life, and especially the inner and higher life. 
 What I had chiefly in view was to establish a precise and 
 rigorous distinction between the Socratic notion of philoso- 
 phy, as a gradual approximation to eternal truth and the first 
 science, and that false mathematical conception of it which 
 sets up a claim to absolute knowledge, and by a rigid ob- 
 servance of system pretends to the attainment of omniscience. 
 And this was a distinction which, both from personal consi- 
 
 2 k 2 
 
5U0 FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE UNIVERSAL. 
 
 derations and with regard to the present undertaking, it was 
 incumbent on me to insist upon, in order to avoid the slightest 
 misconception. Having myself long since recognised the 
 three categories of an elevated consciousness — faith, hope, 
 and love, to be also the essential elements and primary foun- 
 dation of all higher thought and knowledge, so far at least as 
 the latter, having life for its matter and subject, must take 
 life for its starting-point and foundation; I have therefore 
 publicly advanced this doctrine. Still nothing could be more 
 foreign to my whole mode of thinking and feeling, or so directly 
 opposed to it, as the design of forcing adhesion to my theory 
 of faith, hope, and love, by the might of logical demonstra- 
 tion, or even the thought of constraining by the weapons of 
 science the convictions of any one. Nay, even if I were gifted 
 with magic powers of persuasion and irresistible eloquence, so 
 as to be able to win the whole world over to my own way of 
 thinking, or rather conviction, on these matters, still I should 
 have no wish to accomplish such a general concurrence in 
 this manner. Sucn a method would not be appropriate to this 
 domain of philosophy, and above all it would not be the true 
 and right one. For philosophy must ever be the fruit of one's 
 own personal reflection, and invariably spring from an im- 
 mediate feeling of a want and defect within, otherwise it can 
 scarcely exist in real-ity. All teaching, therefore, or commu- 
 nication of philosophy, has properly no other end and aim 
 than to furnish a vivid impulse to self-reflection. Beyond 
 this it can only serve to suggest the limits of a right and law- 
 ful exercise of such meditation, and by pointing out the road 
 that leads most directly to this end, to warn against the devi- 
 ous by-ways of error which branch out from it at every point 
 of its path. Everyone who is in earnest in the pursuit of 
 truth has, moreover, already within himself a principle (An- 
 fcing) of faith, hope, and love, in some shape or other, and not 
 merely a principle, but a very system of them, even though 
 it do not always manifest itself exactly in a scientific form. 
 If everyone who in any degree lends a sympathising ear to 
 my present discourses feels himself in any degree confirmed 
 by them in that principle of a higher faith and love that 
 is as yet in any degree developed in him — if he feels him- 
 self moved by them to still more lofty aspirations after the 
 highest end of hope — if what to him is the centre of love and 
 
THE IDEA OE SCIENCE. 
 
 501 
 
 life has been more fully and more clearly evolved by them — 
 if his thoughts have taken from them a clearer and more 
 distinct order and arrangement, then will the first wish and 
 principal object of my present labours be perfectly realised, 
 and attain to their fullest and completest gratification. 
 
 We would therefore, for our parts, remit to God and the 
 
 J future all properly unconditional and absolute knowledge. 
 For, irrespectively of the delusive phantom of a pretended 
 mathematical method and rigour of demonstration, which is 
 both fundamentally false, and moreover totally inapplicable 
 
 I to the present sphere of inquiry, such an absolute science, 
 merely as claiming to be positive, trenches ultimately on 
 omniscience. We therefore prefer modestly to acquiesce in 
 pretensions more suitable to man's position in the world. If 
 therefore we confine ourselves within the prescribed limits, 
 and are content with a gradually but steadily advancing 
 approximation to perfect truth, as it is in God, we shall soon 
 find that even within these boundaries a legitimate idea of 
 science may be set up and advanced. And this science, it 
 
 I will quickly appear, not only contains within it a stable foun- 
 dation of irrefragable certainty, sufficient for all the wants 
 and requisitions of life, but also opens a wide space for the 
 further exercise and development of all time, thought, and 
 cognition, und the most ample field for all genuine spiritual 
 hopes and pure wishes of a higher nature. In its free de- 
 velopment it is by no means subject to the narrow limits of 
 earth ; while, as resting on the firm basis of experience, it is 
 little affected by doubt ; which, though plied with all its 
 acuteness and with its endless refinements to the very height 
 of subtlety, shall never undermine or essentially injure it. 
 
 I said an idea (Idee) of science. I did not employ the 
 term notion (Begriff ), as in the case of the consciousness ; for 
 the latter, in all its completeness, is given to us by internal 
 experience and the observation of our own minds. In the 
 
 j case of the consciousness, consequently, the only point is to 
 set it forth in a well-ordered and fully comprehensive term, 
 as completely as it is revealed to us in reality. But of 
 science there cannot be more than one idea. An ideal 
 standard may be set up to guide us m our attempts to attain 
 to it, and to indicate the degree, measure, and method, of its 
 possible acquisition. And this idea and standard can only 
 
502 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF EEftOR. 
 
 be derived from the highest idea of all — that of God, who is 
 the eternal truth itself. It is thither that it must go, as to its 
 first source. Now this idea of science, after the complete 
 notion of the consciousness which I have already established, 
 is the second result to which our inquiries have brought us. 
 It is the second step of progress in our present development 
 of thought. 
 
 Now this idea of science, which points to it as possible and 
 actually attainable, and which also in fact leads us to it, rests on 
 two assumptions. It implies, in the first place, that man must 
 continually advance to a fuller understanding of a given truth ; 
 and having the capacity, is also able to do so, if only he has a 
 real and abiding wish for it. How, indeed, can it in general be 
 doubted, that we are not absolutely incapable of understand- 
 ing any given truth, when the very fact of its being given 
 implies it in some degree at least, however limited ; and when 
 the very apprehension of the given matters forms a begin- 
 ning, it may be a very imperfect one, of understanding ? 
 But, in the second place, the idea of an actually attainable 
 science rests on the assumption, that we are in a condition to 
 recognise as such, and in its true light, the error which 
 springs up everywhere in the human mind, and by so doing 
 to emancipate ourselves, if not from every trace of its former 
 influence, yet, at least, from its absolute dominion and tyranny. 
 And since in this field of human errors we are at least at 
 home, there can be no obstacle to our taking a full and com- 
 plete survey of them, and taking the exact measure of their 
 shallowness. This requisition, as well as the possibility of its 
 accomplishment, is fundamentally involved in that old Gre- 
 cian maxim, " Know thyself," when interpreted in its more 
 scientific sense. And in truth there is no ground to doubt its 
 possibility, if only a firm footing — the nov ro> of Archimedes — 
 can be found for us out of ourselves and of the ordinary state 
 of the human consciousness. And such a stable point is 
 actually found and provided for us in the revelation of a 
 higher truth than man's. That a recognition of error as such 
 is possible, and thereby the emancipation of the mind from 
 its slavery may be facilitated, will be best and most clearly 
 evidenced by actual experiment. We must then try to assign to 
 each single faculty of the consciousness, in its present degraded 
 and distracted state,, the essential scientific error which peeu- 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH POSSIBLE. 
 
 503 
 
 liarly clings to and besets its exercise, or at least to point out 
 the tendency thereto which is deeply rooted therein. And 
 such an experiment may be made successfully, if we take up 
 our position in the high point of view furnished by a con- 
 sciousness restored again to unity and harmony in God. Now 
 from this point of view it is no doubt impossible, as we have 
 already remarked, to assume or concede the existence of 
 innate ideas — at least, not in the usual and literal sense. 
 Innate errors, however, may well naturally be assumed to 
 I exist in the first degraded state of the human mind. Not, 
 indeed, that there rules in them any blind inevitable neces- 
 sity, but rather a false tendency — an evil habit become a 
 I second nature — which is only in appearance an original imper- 
 fection. And such have been often enough recognised in the 
 illusions of imagination and the narrow limits of the reason ; 
 I only the recognition has not been complete and total enough, 
 [ and consequently not sufficiently explanatory. Indeed, the 
 j notion of scientific error, as innate in the human mind, must 
 be taken exactly in the same light as the moral weakness and 
 frailty of man in his present condition — as being, in short, 
 peculiar to the whole race, and transmitted as an inheritance 
 from generation to generation. 
 
 Now, to the knowledge of error as such is opposed the 
 recognition of truth — the higher, that is, divinely revealed 
 truth. And this perception it is that furnishes the stable 
 point of intrinsic certainty to every species and form of 
 human cognition. But here the question might arise natu- 
 rally enough : how can man recognise a truth, which never- 
 theless is revealed to him from without, making himself 
 thereby, as it were, at once its master and its judge ? How, 
 in other words, can he, as it were, know again that which is 
 now first given to him, and which previously he was not in 
 possession of. In this matter the case stands almost exactly 
 the same as it does with innate ideas, which are not to be 
 understood literally as involving the hypothesis of a pre-exis- 
 tence of the soul — and as it does with that eternal memory 
 which, as connected with the theory of innate ideas, rightly 
 and more correctly interpreted, is both justifiable and tenable. 
 If man is to be declared totally incapable of this recognition 
 of divine truth, then must he be first stripped of all the high 
 prerogatives which the Almighty has bestowed upon him 
 
504 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH POSSIBLE. 
 
 above the rest of the natural creation. The very last trace 
 and vestige of the divine image that is in him must be erased 
 and destroyed. Among these endowments, that which we 
 may well call the dangerous privilege of free will, holds neither 
 the last nor the lowest place. God created man free, and free 
 he is even in his relation to God. It is left to man's choice, 
 whether he will or not acknowledge the Deity above him. 
 But this being the case, this free and unconstrained acknow- 
 ledgment, so far as the choice is rightly made, by no means 
 involves any exaltation of man's judgment above the law of 
 God. On the contrary, it is nothing more than a free and 
 voluntary assent to the divine. However, it is the inward 
 experience that we have here to consider. For the facts and 
 external data of mere experimental sciences can only so far 
 belong to our present consideration, as they bear upon the 
 inner experience of the consciousness and the knowledge of 
 human nature — as well upon that more exalted experience 
 (which is indeed contained in the former) of a higher desti- 
 nation imported to and announced to man by God. And this 
 is the case with history or language. It is exactly in this 
 relation that a scientific knowledge of either stands to our 
 present subject. But not only language, but every object also 
 in the whole domain of human inquiry — in the vast realms of 
 art and nature — belongs thereto, or may be made a part of 
 it, if only it stands in or admits of being brought into this 
 relation to the inward and higher experience. Now this 
 understanding of the truth that is above man, which is ever 
 growing in clearness and brightness — this perfect recognition 
 of whatever is erroneous and false — this ever-advancing com- 
 prehension of the actual, so far as the latter lies within its 
 limits, form the three grades or spheres of science which, even 
 according to this idea of it, may unquestionably be regarded 
 as possible, and founded also on the actual and real. 
 
 The latter is an important point ; as to all else, the different 
 ways, methods, and directions -of thought, belong to the out- 
 ward form, rather than to the intrinsic essence of science. 
 Essentially, there is but one law and standard for all ways 
 and modes of thinking. The necessary thought of the reason, 
 with its strict logical concatenation, no less than the pos- 
 sible thinking of the scientific imagination, with its gene- 
 rally symbolical dress, must, if it would not lapse into error T 
 
PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE MUST HAVE A REAL BASIS. 505 
 
 and become ultimately utterly null and vain, adhere to the 
 actual and real, and stand and maintain itself on the firm soil 
 of experience. It is only when the necessary cogitation sets 
 out from reality, that it is truly necessary ; and in like man- 
 ner is it with the possible. If it does not rest on the firm 
 basis of the actual, it is not really possible and actually attain- 
 able. Without this intrinsic gravity and point of rest, the 
 mathematical method, with its pretended rigour of demonstra- 
 tion, no less than the most ingenious but arbitrary hypotheses, 
 are perpetually oscillating through the wide realms of infinite 
 space — like pure fictions — not, however, like good fictions 
 based on realities, for such often possess a deep and profound 
 significance, but like thoroughly unmeaning and aimless fig- 
 ments, and unsubstantial fantasms. Against the intrinsic 
 reality of the mind's experience and its science, which is built 
 up on this foundation of a recognition and understanding of 
 what is revealed and imparted to it, of an acknowledgment 
 of what is spurious and false, and of a comprehension of the 
 actual and real, all the doubts of scepticism avail little, or, 
 properly speaking, nothing. If, however, we set out from 
 the unconditional science of reason, holding it and consider- 
 ing it really to be such, then there is no longer any safeguard 
 to keep us from falling headlong into the bottomless abyss of 
 endless doubt. In such a case, the human mind may for a 
 time be lulled into a calm, which, however, is anything but 
 a true and perfect serenity. Between that arbitrary faith 
 which is the mere creation of the reason, and devised for 
 the express purpose of filling the profound void which man 
 must feel so long as his heaven- ward aspirations are unsa- 
 tisfied, and the endless doubts of his intellect, there is at 
 best but a temporary and passing truce : it is no true peace. 
 It is like some " Concordat" which, effected with the greatest 
 difficulty, and ever on the point of being dissolved by the 
 mutual jealousy of the contracting parties to it, does but 
 leave each member to follow his own devices, so long as 
 he engages to abstain from all hostile interference with the 
 other. In such a case, a complete and harmonious co-opera- 
 tion of the mind's hitherto divided and estranged faculties is 
 not for a moment to be thought of. That, however, must be 
 sought by a very different path. 
 
 END OF LECTURE VII. 
 
506 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Ik" the domain of art it is an old and established opinion, 
 not only that a peculiar genius is required for its original 
 creations, but also a special sense or feeling is indispensable 
 for a correct appreciation and estimate of the works pro- 
 duced by the former. Indeed, we can hardly call it an 
 opinion ; its validity is so universally acknowledged, that it is 
 acted upon as a principle. In the same way the Platonic 
 philosophy assumes for its foundation an enthusiastic aspira- 
 tion after divine truth and a higher knowledge of it. More- 
 over, as it sets out from a consciousness elevated and expanded 
 by enthusiasm, so it looks to the same for access and adoption. 
 And this is the source of that affinity between this species of 
 philosophy and an artistic enthusiasm which is traceable in 
 all ages and nations, however widely different in the general 
 character of their minds, among whom the former has in any 
 degree manifested itself, assuming everywhere, if not the 
 shape of dialogue, yet some other equally beautiful form of 
 exposition. Hence, too, so far at least as this is possible in 
 the domain of science, the point of view of this philosophy is 
 predominantly artistic. The more, then, that in modern days, 
 and especially among German writers, the school form has 
 become prevalent in science generally, and especially in phi- 
 losophy, the greater is the merit of those who have striven to 
 give to philosophy this artistic elegance and structure, or at 
 least to preserve it and restore it to favour. And even if any 
 be disposed to set less value upon this artistic grace and 
 enthusiasm for the beautiful in philosophy than, in my opi- 
 nion, is due to it, they must at least admit that it tends to 
 promote a more liberal and comprehensive culture of the 
 mind. On this account it is surely to be defended, and de- 
 serves our most favourable judgment. This remark does not 
 apply exclusively to our own German literature and culture, 
 and that devotion to the arts of the beautiful which is so 
 peculiar to our countrymen; it has a general reference to all 
 modern nations. A more artistic feeling is an universal want 
 
BEA-UT Y. 
 
 507 
 
 of the times to counteract the prevailing school form, and the 
 preponderating mathematical view of the world, or, at least, 
 a predominantly mathematical cast of mind. Accordingly, 
 Hemsterhuys, who in philosophy adopted a view similar to, if 
 not identical with, the Platonic, though writing in the French 
 language, which was not his vernacular tongue, has laboured 
 with a masterly hand to give to his style the exquisite beauty 
 of art. But still, notwithstanding this common affinity and 
 enthusiasm for the beautiful, a distinction exists, and must 
 ever remain, between the scientific notion of beauty and the 
 mere artistic conception of it, and that fanciful view of the 
 world and things which is derived from and dependent on it. 
 For according to the latter, the highest beauty is to the poet 
 and artist nothing less than the height of truth, as indeed it 
 really is of poetic and artistic truth. But to the view of science, 
 between the divine and eternal truth and beauty, even the 
 highest beauty, there is and must ever remain a certain degree 
 of distance, which, if it do not amount to an interval, is yet, 
 nevertheless, a line of demarcation. Eternal truth is even God 
 himself. And if, occasionally, in the Platonic philosophy, the 
 Prime Being is distinguished and designated as the archetype 
 of beauty, this is but a loose way of speaking, not exactly con- 
 sistent with scientific accuracy. For, according to the latter, 
 the excellence of beauty is but a perfect mirror, or a pure 
 reflection of eternal perfection, but not eternal perfection 
 itself. Indeed, in order to express its perfect purity from 
 all admixture, and from every the least stain of the sensible 
 world, as well as from every mist of earthly delusion that 
 otherwise might cling to and encircle it, I should prefer to call 
 it the holy beauty, rather than the archetype of beauty, or 
 even the height of beauty. For the latter shifts and varies with 
 the subjective tastes of individuals. One man sees the standard 
 of beauty in a«n Apollo, another in some other equally sublime 
 and highly-finished god-form of ancient statuary. 
 
 What, then, is this beauty, according to the pure and ori- 
 ginal notion of it, and relatively to reality ? For, according 
 to the principle which the philosophy of life assumes, we 
 must trace everything back to the real and the actual — to the 
 actual and the real of nature and of earth, or else to one that 
 is higher and more spiritual, nay, even Godlike. What place, 
 then, does beauty here hold r what is its relation to the rest 
 
508 
 
 CREATED WISDOM. 
 
 of creation, or, still more generally, to the whole created 
 universe and its author ? What is it in and by itself, and in 
 truth? 
 
 Now in that sacred .anguage which treats of holy things, 
 and devotes to them well and carefully weighed expressions 
 and terms, mention is made of a wisdom created in the 
 beginning, and before all time. As, therefore, it is said to be 
 created, it is plain that by it is not meant, and that we must 
 not confound with it, that uncreated and eternal wisdom who 
 is elsewhere called the Almighty Word, by whom the whole 
 system of nature, and all things, were created in their original 
 beauty. Now this created wisdom, which consequently as 
 such is also a creature — what else is it than the thought, the 
 image, the expression and impress of the hidden and internal 
 essence of the Deity — wherein its inapproachable depth and 
 unfathomable abyss are outwardly projected and rendered 
 visible ? Is it not, in short, the exact mirror and unsullied 
 reflection of the divine perfections ? But however we may I 
 choose to name and describe it, the creature — even though its 
 creation may have been before the whole world, and even I 
 before time itself — must always be kept distinct from the 
 uncreated Being of eternity and omnipotence, who, moreover, 
 called the former into existence. Now, if we were to apply 
 to this created wisdom the expression of "a soul of God," 
 which was formerly employed by a few writers, but which was 
 soon allowed to fall again into disuse, from a dread of the 
 misapprehensions it might possibly lead to, it would give per- 
 haps a good sense. It might thus serve to distinguish this, 
 the first of all creatures, in its pure and original beauty, from 
 a mere soul of the world or of nature, howevei ideally con- 
 ceived. Only in that case care must be taken to keep in re- 
 membrance that such a mode of speaking can only apply to a 
 creature, and that of such alone is it allowable so to speak. 
 For — in correctness of language and in the true meaning of 
 words — a soul, as being on the whole and predominantly a 
 passive faculty, cannot be attributed to God, in whom all is 
 infinite power and pure activity, and who as such ever worketh 
 and never ceases in His infinite operations. 
 
 It is this, the first of all created things, which with its pure 
 splendour lights up in brilliancy whatever in tiie rest of crea- 
 tion still retains aught of childlike innocence and blessed 
 
.REMEMBRANCES OF PR1MJEVAL INNOCENCE. 509 
 
 t purity. It is the inner charm, the spiritual flower of nature, 
 
 | the hidden germ of that paradisiacal loveliness which, though 
 
 i veiled in this terrestrial shroud, still gleams forth occasionally. 
 It is even that sacred beauty which fills to the full the true 
 
 [ artist's soul, even though he is never able fully and com- 
 pletely to realise it. It is that for which the thinker in his 
 
 I inspired enthusiasm seeks in vain for words and expressions. 
 
 I All the forms and terms of language fail to reach its high 
 excellence. For, in fact, so long as man, holding it to be a 
 pure ideal, regards it as nothing but a thought or notional 
 relation, he cannot but fail to seize and apprehend this 
 mystery of love in all its living reality. 
 
 And here it is that I would apply the words already quoted 
 of a great thinker. They were used by him in reference to 
 
 I his own system of science and philosophy ; and though in 
 my application they relate to a very different matter, it is 
 nevertheless one which has an intimate bearing on the first 
 
 i science. Slightly modifying his words, then, I would thus 
 say : whether the notion of beauty I have here advanced be 
 
 I for the artist absolutely the right one— i. whether it be 
 
 J perfectly satisfactory and sufficient ; or whether in its special 
 application to a particular branch of art, and in the actual 
 execution of any given work, it requires several intermediate 
 notions and means of transition, and whether, moreover, several 
 elements equally essential must concur therein ; that I know 
 not, or at least I make no assertion about it. And indeed, I 
 see clearly enough that even for art and its perfect realisation, 
 something else is wanting besides the pure idea of beauty 
 alone. This, however, I do know and am -quite certain of, 
 that, viz., the notion of beauty which I have here advanced, 
 and besides which scarcely another will be found, is the true 
 and right Christian notion, of which all the statues of heathen 
 gods, all fantasies of nature, all mental ideas, are but single 
 rays, faint memorials, corporeal images, or mere &eattered 
 and mutilated fragments. 
 
 The thought, too, of that blissful state in the infancy of 
 creation — when sorrow had as yet no existence, and evil, with 
 its many woes, was not — is a notion not insignificant, but full, 
 rather, of rich influences for the higher and more spiritual aim 
 of art, and especially for the deeper and profounder essence of 
 poetry. I have, indeed, already alluded to this notion; and I 
 
510 SOURCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL IN FICTION, 
 
 revert to it because I feel it is one which does not deserve 
 to be so totally neglected as it usually is. Now the higher 
 poesy was termed, in consideration of that Godlike idea of 
 eternal hope which predominates in it, the dawn of an upris- 
 ing morn in the world of intellectual culture and poetic fancy; 
 but at the same time I remarked, that it was accompanied 
 by a mournful recollection of a great foretime, long since 
 passed away and departed. Not that this sad backward look- 
 ing to a lost infantine happiness of the first times is in 
 discord with or in opposition to the hopes of the rising dawn. 
 Rather must it be regarded as in harmony with it. For 
 this feeling is as it were the reflection of that hope — the 
 same light thrown back from yet another side — even as the 
 lovely hue of the sky at eventide, and the bright rays of the 
 breaking dawn, make a kindred impression on the fancy. In 
 this respect we might almost venture to say of poetry and its 
 inmost essence, that it is but the spiritual echo of the soul — a 
 sorrowful remembrance of a lost paradise. I do not mean 
 that the latter and its history, such as it is transmitted to us, 
 or even as it has been handled by the English poet, is the 
 only fitting or even a particularly happy subject for poetry. 
 I allude rather to that paradisiacal state of universal nature 
 throughout the whole globe — creation's state of infantine 
 happiness, before it was ruined by revolt from God. 
 
 A note of these paradisiacal remembrances, a sorrowful 
 memento of this heavenly innocence and primal beauty of a 
 newborn world, seems like an inward and animating soul to 
 breathe in — or as a thread of higher a»nd intenser life, to run 
 through — all the songs and exquisite delineations of a more than 
 earthly poesy. Not that this ray of light ought or ever could 
 form by itself the subject-matter of the finished work of any 
 true poet. His subjects are generally, and indeed must be, 
 somewhat more corporeal, being drawn for the most part from 
 history and from life. What I formerly said of divine hope 
 applies here also. Even while the picture of reality which is 
 set forth is worked out most elaborately, with accurate obser- 
 vation of all its little and nicest traits, this purely spiritual 
 and almost unearthly tone ought nevertheless to be present. 
 It must be found there as the inner soul of the whole, how- 
 ever veiled beneath the outer world that is portrayed in the 
 story. No work, however, in which this inner thread of life 
 
FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE IN RELATION TO TIME. 511 
 
 is totally wanting, is or ever will be in its essence more than 
 simple prose, even though in form it be verse. Art it may 
 have unquestionably, and wit, a story, and irony; all in short, 
 that can be wished ; — anything but poetry. For except where 
 its true notion is either already lost or fast disappearing, the idea 
 of poetry cannot possibly be separated from that of enthusiasm. 
 The calm cold poetry of the head, if such can for a moment 
 
 I deserve the name, is to the true inspired poetry of enthusiasm 
 in the same relation that the spurious faith of the pure reason 
 stands in to the living faith of the full feeling which springs 
 
 1 out of a profound personal conviction and love. 
 
 Now the full essence of this enthusiasm, which, according 
 
 I to the Platonic notion of it, takes in all things in its embrace, 
 is in the Christian harmonic triad of faith, hope, and love, dis- 
 solved, as it were, into its three time-forms. For though faith 
 has its root in the present, still, in every case, it looks back- 
 ward to some past, whether of an extant or still earlier 
 revelation, which at the same time it embraces and adopts 
 into itself. And even in that faith which admits the revela- 
 tions of history, or that practical faith which, in the ordinary 
 
 j transactions of life, places its trust in human testimony and 
 
 !j the recorded facts of experimental science (since even out of 
 the domain of religion faith is inseparably mixed with all that 
 man thinks or does) — in all these kinds of faith a similar refer- 
 ence to the past might easily be pointed out. To the future 
 it is that hope directs itself, while in love there reigns a full 
 and intense feeling of the present. And even so of God's 
 everlasting love — this too has ever been and always must be 
 understood as a full, intense, and abiding feeling of a never- 
 ending present, which, without beginning and without end, 
 goes on for ever in abiding felicity. Besides this subdivision 
 into three branches or elements, species or forms, there is yet 
 another character by which these three fundamental Christian 
 feelings are essentially distinguished from the single and all- 
 embracing one of enthusiasm. To this distinction I have 
 already alluded, and it consists in this, that whereas enthusiasm 
 indicates nothing more than a passing state of a more intense 
 consciousness, the three categories above mentioned contain 
 not merely a transient but a permanent enhancement of it, or 
 in other words, a consciousness which has really become higher 
 and more intense, and as suoh endures in full self-possession 
 
512 
 
 RELATION OF FAITH TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 and inward enlightenment. Accordingly, when we are speak- 
 ing of the relation of faith to knowledge, this scheme of the 
 fundamental feelings of Christianity seems in the highest 
 degree appropriate to that philosophy which undertakes to 
 show the connexion between knowledge and faith, and the 
 passage from one to the other. For it is in truth well calculated 
 to lead to this end even more rapidly and more surely than the 
 Platonic fundamental principle of enthusiasm, notwithstanding 
 the profound and essential affinity which subsists between 
 these two views of the world and things. 
 
 With respect to the relation of faith to knowledge : we must 
 remember that the positive dogmas of a fixed definite creed 
 belong to theology, and lie altogether out of the domain of 
 philosophy. For though a truly learned exegesis of Holy Writ 
 most unquestionably demands a truly philosophical spirit, it is 
 not philosophy itself. And this applies also to ecclesiastical 
 tradition, as running parallel to and co-ordinate with written 
 revelation. This enlarged assumption, however, of a twofold 
 source for deducing a knowledge of the truths necessary to be 
 believed, and for their dogmatic interpretation, as touching 
 on a particular province of history, or as some perhaps will 
 rather say, a controverted point of church authority, must be 
 left to theology to discuss and decide. It does not fall within the 
 true limits of philosophy, which properly is concerned only with 
 faith in general, and the notion thereof relatively to know- 
 ledge. And here comes in the greatest of the distinctions 
 between the philosophy of life (which is founded both on an 
 external and also an internal and higher experience, being 
 itself a science of experience) and the philosophy of absolute 
 reason. The relation between faith and knowledge, as 
 respectively established by them, is thoroughly and essentially 
 different. According to that absolute view of the world and 
 things which rests on and springs from a pure and necessary 
 rational science, faith and knowledge stand in absolute opposition 
 to each other. The only connexion into which they can possibly 
 enter is that by which faith is called in to the aid of reason, 
 and in order to supply its deficiencies. When, for instance, the 
 unconditional science cannot by itself attain to fulness and per- 
 fection of knowledge, or, after all its labours, finds itself standing 
 unsatisfied even within its own domain, then the transition is 
 made forcibly, and, as it were, by a great and sudden leap into the 
 
KNOWLEDGE IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT FAITH. 
 
 513 
 
 opposite and totally different domain of reason, in order to seek 
 there refuge and protection from itself. And this indeed is the 
 only way still open, if not to a complete reconciliation between 
 the two, yet, at least, to a peaceful compromise of the re- 
 spective claims of knowledge and of faith. Quite different, 
 however, is the relation between them, as set forth by the 
 philosophy of life, which takes its position in experience and 
 the knowledge which is based thereon. For, in the first place, 
 faith and knowledge are not so rigorously separated, nor so 
 absolutely distinguished in it as they are in the preceding 
 system. And secondly, as regards the order and succession 
 of the two : — here, in the wide field of human experience, both 
 inward and outward, in nature and in his own self, it is faith 
 for the most part that furnishes the beginning and foundation 
 of knowledge, which, however, as such is incomplete, and 
 requires further development. We have already remarked, 
 that the positive dogmas of a particular faith, together with 
 the scientific investigations appropriate to them, form a special 
 domain of higher experience. This is a statement which 
 scarcely requires any laboured proof. And we need not dwell 
 | on it further than to remind you, that even here the faith, 
 so far as it is dogmatically propounded, forms the foundation. 
 In this higher region faith is the first and that which makes 
 the beginning ; while the knowing forms the further develop- 
 ment. Descending into its particular applications, the latter 
 furnishes an explanation, or rather elucidation, of the whole. 
 Still it must all the while adhere faithfully to the fact of a 
 revelation, and maintain its authority over the rational prin- 
 ciple which otherwise seeks to depress, and does often actually 
 overbear it. And so is it also with the first awakening of the 
 consciousness. And even in experimental science, the order 
 between faith and knowledge is exactly the same. In actual 
 [life, too, every great enterprise begins with and takes its first 
 step in faith. In faith Columbus, compass in hand, and 
 firmly relying on its revelations, traversed in his frail bark 
 the wide waters of an unknown ocean. In this faith he dis- 
 covered a new world, and thereby opened a new era in the 
 history of science and of man. For all his inquiries, all his 
 thirst and search after information, all his thinking, guessing, 
 and supposing, did not as yet amount to a complete know- 
 ing,— by such means he could not succeed in working out 
 
 2 L 
 
514 KNOWLEDGE IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT FAITH. 
 
 a full conviction, either for himself or for others. It was 
 the given fact, the unquestionable proof of actual experience, 
 that first exalted his bold conception into true and perfect cer- 
 tainty. In a greater or less degree this is the course by which 
 all the great discoveries in science have been made ; passing 
 by a slow but ever advancing process of thought from faith up 
 to knowledge. And the same character of faith is stamped 
 on every great and decisive act, every important event in the 
 history of individuals or of nations. And if, in contrast with 
 these grander phenomena, an instance be required from the 
 first and almost unnoticeable beginnings of consciousness, I 
 would refer to the first time that, with manifest purpose, the 
 infant seeks and finds for itself Its mother's breast. But 
 perhaps the force of this illustration may be questioned, as 
 being drawn from what might be called a mere gratification 
 of an animal want. I shall therefore take one which borders 
 closely indeed on the former, but which does not appear to 
 be so immediately connected, not to say identical, with in- 
 stinct. We will take, then, the second moment of conscious- 
 ness — that at which the child regards its mother for the first 
 time, full, apparently of reflection, and, certainly of attention 
 and meaning, as it were wishing to say something, if it had 
 the power to talk. And this eye, upturned for the first time, 
 full of love and meaning, what is it but the dawning look of 
 faith ? And though even this opening dawn of consciousness 
 involves a certain distinction and recognition, it is still very 
 far from the full day of certainty and knowledge. And is not 
 the former instance highly appropriate and well fitted to illus- 
 trate the relation in which man stands to God ? For that 
 paternal heart, which, as the living pulse of omnipotence, beats 
 sensibly in the boundless universe — is it not also, as it were, 
 the full maternal fountain at which the immortal spirit imbibes 
 its first milk, and indeed all its nourishment for eternity? 
 In short, at the vivid point of experience, the first — the still 
 delicate and innocent — beginnings of feeling are very often in 
 close contact with the full maturity of the most enlightened 
 knowledge, expanded and elevated to the height of its Infinite 
 Source. 
 
 At this point, then, of living experience, faith and knowledge 
 are not so sharply separated from, or so unconditionally opposed 
 to each other as is commonly thought. The relation of faith to 
 
LIFE THE FINAL OBJECT OF PHYSICAL RESEARCH. 515 
 
 knowledge is that nearly of the beginning to the consummation. 
 Such, too, is the case with experience and revelation, as the 
 data of all scientific knowledge. These two also stand in close 
 dependence on each other. Their mutual relation is some- 
 thing similar to that of the external manifestation to the 
 inward energy — of the visible body to its animating principle, 
 or to that inward spark of light which the body serves as 
 an organ and vehicle, or as an outward garb and veil. In 
 history, and in every science that in any way deserves to be 
 called historical, the spirit or mind has been long and gene- 
 rally acknowledged to be the first and only thing that gives 
 to the whole its true worth. And in the domain of physical 
 science, which of all branches of mere empirical knowledge 
 is the most comprehensive and most extensive, the case is 
 precisely similar. The externally given phenomenon of the 
 fact or natural object which is under consideration, forms only 
 the outward investiture and is to be regarded as the mode 
 of manifestation — the visible form — of the inner life, and law 
 which rules within it. And man's chief object in inves- 
 tigating the former is, if possible, to pierce its shroud, and to 
 seize and to discover the inward law of life, as that which is 
 most essential, and as the germ of existence, which is wrapped 
 up and hidden in the outward and sensible veil. Many of the 
 special branches of physical inquiry, such as botany and mine- 
 ralogy, can only be considered as preparatory labours, which 
 are to furnish the materials and apparatus for future science 
 to act upon, and not really as sciences. When all the 
 facts of mineralogy shall have been brought under one great 
 and universal law ; when the isolated results of anatomical 
 research and observation can be reduced to one common phy- 
 siological idea ; when chemistry, by its exhaustive analysis, 
 and decomposition of matter into its ultimate elements, shall 
 be able to discern, in the different gases and other imponder- 
 able agents, the various forms of the invisible principle of 
 things ; when a higher range of physical research shall pene- 
 trate the grand primal phenomena of the electric shock, of 
 magnetic attraction, and the prismatic decomposition of light, 
 and its artistic imitation for scientific purposes, then only 
 shall we be able to remove the last veil which shrouds the 
 mysteries of nature. 
 
 For the whole effort of natural science is indefatigabl 
 2 l 2 
 
516 
 
 SOURCES OF REVELATION MANIFOLD. 
 
 directed to reaching through external existence, to that hid- 
 den centre of life of whose inner light and splendour the 
 whole corporeal mass of the sensible world is but the broken 
 and multiplied reflection, and empirical science but the che - 
 mical precipitate, the gross material residuum of its pure and 
 spiritual truth. It is to this that all the results of science point 
 and tend ; every investigation in the domain of natural history, 
 which in any degree pretends to be philosophical, likewise leads 
 to this conclusion. Assuming, then, the existence of a God 
 as the Creator of the world, what else can nature be than a 
 revelation of God and divine love — a visible manifestation 
 thereof in outward and material matter? And how, if other- 
 wise conceived of, can it ever be understood or comprehended? 
 Supposing also (what in the first step of our knowledge we may 
 very well allow) that even from this point of view much remains 
 obscure, enigmatical, andmiintelligible to us — still these incom- 
 prehensible, or rather uncomprehended, matters are merely a 
 few individual instances. The whole nevertheless will, on this 
 hypo thesis, be found full of deep significancy, and satisfactory, 
 not only to the feelings, but even to the inquiring and question- 
 ing intellect. But according to the opposite view of the uni- 
 verse, although many, not to say, very many individual facts in 
 nature may be acutely explained and scientifically under- 
 stood; still the whole, if it be not looked upon as a revela- 
 tion from God, but a peculiar self- existent entity, remains 
 for ever an enigmatical mass of indissoluble complications. 
 Stripped by this hypothesis of its higher design of leading 
 man onwards to the divine, it becomes for him at least per- 
 fectly unmeaning. But when, on the contrary, the universal 
 system of nature is regarded as the unfolding and visible 
 revelation of the hidden majesty of the Creator, then, together 
 with that other one which is written and contained in the 
 divine law and sacred records, it forms one consistent whole. 
 Holy Writ and nature, according to this view, appear two mu- 
 tually explanatory and supplemental halves of that book of God 
 which is written on the inside and the out. The inner voice 
 of conscience also has often, and indeed from the very earliest 
 times, been represented as a revelation, though of a different 
 kind ; and the moral feeling and its peculiar law have been 
 supposed to be frequently opposed to, or at least wholly inde- 
 pendent of, nature and the natural law. But even this internal 
 
SOURCES OF REVELATION MANIFOLD. 517 
 
 revelation is also double, like the external one of Holy Writ 
 and of nature. For in its negative prohibitions, in its gentle or 
 terrible, but ever distinct warnings, as well as in its positive 
 requisitions, it is quite distinct from its other form as a 
 feeling of devotion and of mental prayer, or of an illimitable 
 aspiration after God and divine things. And it is by no 
 means allowable to confound or mix up together these two dis- 
 tinct forms. For the one is universal, though variable in its 
 degrees of intensity ; whereas the other manifests itself 
 rather by way of exception as an individual vocation, or if 
 the term be preferred, as a peculiar genius for piety, and a 
 special sensibility for holy thoughts and feelings. 
 
 Now this fourfold divine revelation, embracing the two 
 external branches of Scripture and of nature, and the two 
 inner ones of conscience and devotion, has its seat in the four 
 faculties of the lower order which have so repeatedly been 
 brought before our consideration. For the memory is the 
 organ of its written and oral transmission and perpetuation 
 — nay, of writing and language generally, according to the 
 intimate connexion which subsists between them. And in 
 the next place, the external senses, with which we may also 
 associate an immediate intuition into the depths and myste- 
 ries of nature, are the organs for perceiving and understanding 
 the sensible phenomena. Lastly, there is conscience, and on 
 the other side, a longing after God and divine things, as the 
 highest and most enhanced degree of human pursuit — of the 
 profoundest aspiration of man's soul, and the purest desire of 
 his spirit. For it is even here, in these subordinate faculties, 
 where the deep decline and gross degeneracy of the human 
 mind in its present state most strikingly displays itself, that 
 a susceptibility for improvement is first excited. Here springs 
 the earliest impulse to return to that higher state from which 
 we have fallen. Here the divine seed of resuscitation soonest, 
 expands itself, revivifying and restoring to its pristine worth 
 and dignity the morbid and lifeless consciousness. The in- 
 ternal revelation, however, of devotion and prayer must be 
 regarded as clearly distinct from and as lying altogether out 
 of the domain of philosophy, even as the learned exposition 
 of Scripture, and a scientific study thereof, forms a peculiar 
 branch of intellectual pursuit. But though philosophy must 
 not be mixed up with it, yet on the other hand it must not 
 
518 FEELING A SOURCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 lapse into, or inseparably identify itself with, a pure mysticism 
 of devotional feelings, or if the term be preferred, a theory of 
 prayer, and a mere contemplative meditation on the Deity and 
 divine things. And the reason is obvious. Devotion, with 
 its mystical feelings, must necessarily and absolutely attach 
 itself to the positive data of a fixed dogmatic faith. For in 
 such alone can it find, not only a definite form and a maturely 
 developed external shape, but also an inner assurance for 
 itself as well as a safeguard against the possible errors of 
 fanaticism. 
 
 And here, however, it must not be forgotten that the 
 intrinsic essence of divine longing, as well as of all other 
 holy feelings, can never be or seem alien and repugnant to 
 the philosophy of life, which indeed takes its rise out of this 
 very centre of a high and holy love. On the contrary, it 
 must always be intimately associated with and amicably 
 disposed towards it. The philosophy of life, therefore, even 
 while it carefully guards against falling into a mere exposition 
 and commentary of Scripture, may freely borrow from the old 
 Scriptural language its awful spiritual phrases and its vividly 
 forcible expressions. It would, in fact, be an overstrained 
 pedantry, and an excessive affectation of scientific purism, 
 were it to wish to avoid it. Still it is necessary to draw a 
 precise line of demarcation between religion and philosophy, 
 and carefully to observe their limits. And in the same man- 
 ner, philosophy will abstain from an undue encroachment on 
 the province of natural history, or on the domain of ethics 
 where the internal revelation of conscience furnishes the basis 
 of all moral legislation. At least it will keep from so doing, 
 as long as it is anxious to preserve its true dignity as a philo- 
 sophy of life, and of thought and science in general, and fears 
 to degrade itself by becoming nothing more than a special 
 branch and application, either as mere morals or natural phi- 
 losophy. This, however, does not preclude from it the liberty 
 of occasionally entering even deeply into them, or of taking a 
 general survey of their results, or borrowing largely from 
 their facts, as pregnant instances, remarkable phenomena and 
 similes, in order to make this remote region illustrate its own 
 sphere, though properly they do not belong to it. Philosophy 
 has enough to do with what really forms the subject-matter 
 and contents of its own province, without seeking to enlarge 
 it by any extraneous addition. 
 
ERROR CO-ORDINATE WITH KNOWLEDGE. 519 
 
 Now, to these four forms or sources of a higher revelation, 
 both internal and external, a fifth remains to be added. It con- 
 stitutes, as it were, their common bond of union — the centre 
 at which, converging and coming into contact, they exercise a 
 mutual influence, and adjusting and accommodating them- 
 selves to one another, combine in living union and perfect 
 harmony. This we would designate by the general name of 
 a revelation of eternal love. But a revelation of eternal love 
 in man, and not merely such a one as we might with good 
 reason pronounce nature and the whole creation to be. And 
 even when we say in man, we do not merely mean thereby 
 such as is revealed in man's instinctive emotions of devotion 
 and religion, but that rather which speaks out in his most 
 universal feeling, and in his profoundest and intensest con- 
 sciousness. But if love itself is nothing but the pure idea, 
 the inmost spirit and essential energy of all true life, and 
 especially of that which is highest and most exalted, then 
 must this revelation of love be pre-eminently the subject- 
 matter of the philosophy of life. For it is even the rich and 
 intrinsic centre of the other four sacred sources of divine 
 revelation. Out of it therefore all higher life, thought, faith, 
 and science, flows into the soul of every man that has any sus- 
 ceptibility for such exalted excellence. This remark, more- 
 over, implicitly determines the relation which both faith and 
 enthusiasm (according to the Platonic notion of it) hold in 
 general to science, and also to revelation and love, though, 
 indeed, with respect to the latter, it is only inchoately and in 
 outline that it is so fixed. 
 
 But in order fully to work out and complete the idea of 
 science, according to all those external relations which we have 
 already laid down, it will be necessary to examine the several 
 elements of this idea in their internal coherence, and also, 
 by means of contrast with a complete evolution of the system 
 of inborn error, to set them in the fullest and clearest light. 
 
 We have already declared and enumerated the several 
 elements and degrees, or species and constituents which toge- 
 ther make up scientific knowledge. First of all, there is the 
 understanding and explaining, the discerning and distin- 
 guishing. In the second place, comes the living cogitation 
 or complete comprehension of the actual, which forms the 
 true centre of scientific knowledge, if not its very self ; and 
 
520 REASON DISCURSIVE, NOT CREATIVE. 
 
 lastly, that which is closely connected therewith, the imme- 
 diate perception and recognition of truth, and an inward 
 feeling of certainty. All these, however, may be more or less 
 falsified and led astray by the principal of those scientific 
 errors which are innate in man's mind, — which sometimes 
 secretly undermine, and at last totally subvert and destroy 
 them. First of all, the living thought is often converted 
 into a dead cogitation, being carried away from, its natural 
 direction towards the actual, and misled to an unsubstantial 
 pursuit of empty abstractions. The total confusion of ideas 
 which this leads to is fatal to all distinctness and precision of 
 understanding, and renders it impossible to have a clear 
 discernment and correct judgment of things. And then, in 
 this bottomless abyss, the firm foundation of actual truth and 
 inward certainty sinks and disappears for ever. 
 
 Every one, indeed, of the four fundamental faculties of the 
 human mind contains in itself a faulty disposition and per- 
 nicious germ of a special and precise form of scientific error, 
 which establishes and fully developes itself in its appropriate 
 domain, and which, when circumstances are favourable, is 
 matured and shaped into a system of falsehood. It is chiefly 
 by the visible consequences of its further development, and 
 also by the intrinsic inconsistencies in which it is involved by 
 the unfounded assumption from which it originally sets out, 
 that each of these abortions of unsubstantial and empty 
 cogitation is most easily detected. And, in fact, in the history 
 of the human mind and philosophy, and even of science 
 generally, the essential characters of these leading phases 
 of scientific aberration are only too distinctly legible to him 
 who contemplates that great intellectual picture with an eye 
 unblinded by prejudice. 
 
 The error most peculiar to the reason, and which in its do- 
 main springs up almost indigenously, is one that has already 
 been frequently mentioned — the phantom, viz., of the uncon- 
 ditional, or the delusion of absolute necessity. Now, all the 
 data on which man's knowledge must be based have a triple 
 source ; they are presented to him from within, from above, 
 and from without. But the reason, which is the faculty of the 
 logical connexion of ideas, and of the logical necessity which 
 rules in that connexion, often quits this safe and solid ground 
 of reality, as presented to it in threefold experience, whether of 
 
PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICS EMPIRICAL. 521 
 
 revelation and history, or of natural science, and resting en- 
 tirely on itself, tries to build exclusively on its own founda- 
 tion. Whenever, therefore, it attempts this impossibility, it 
 invariably copies the mathematical method of demonstration. 
 And so there immediately springs up the false semblance of a 
 necessary knowledge. As the faculty of logical thinking, the 
 reason is at the same time a power of endless progressive 
 development. To invent, however, to create and to produce, 
 is absolutely beyond its capacity. And it forfeits its own 
 rights, whenever, abandoning the pursuits most appropriate, 
 and assigned to it by nature, it usurps the prerogatives of an 
 inventive and productive faculty, and thereby gives birth to 
 the abortions of false metaphysical systems. 
 
 When, however, the firm basis and sure principle of some 
 real and actual fact is once given, then the further scientific 
 development, derivation, and wider deduction from this first 
 foundation may be carried inimitably onwards. There exists 
 no ground at all why we should wish to set bounds to its ad- 
 vance. For were we to do so, we should perhaps afterwards 
 discover that they had been drawn either too narrowly or too 
 prematurely ; as, indeed, has already been too often done in 
 many a branch of mathematical science. And, even because 
 it is exactly in mathematics that the illimitable procedure of 
 scientific development manifests itself most signally and most 
 brilliantly, and is at the same time not inconsistent with the 
 greatest rigour of form and certainty, if only it originally sets 
 out from a stable principle of actual reality, this science will 
 furnish perhaps the most appropriate and pertinent illustra- 
 tion. And, indeed, the more so, as the prejudice still subsists 
 in men's minds, that the first foundation of mathematical 
 science is an original invention of the reason — a pure product 
 of the internal intuitions of the intellect ; and that this science 
 stands quite apart from all other so-called sciences of expe- 
 rience. But in its first development and acquisition, this is 
 very far from being the case. If we could only observe in 
 others, or could in our own case recall to mind, how long it 
 is before a child can actually count three, or clearly separate 
 from itself the external objects it perceives, or can learn to dis- 
 tinguish between any two objects, or between them and itself, 
 we shall be forced to admit that the first basis of enumeration 
 has an empirical origin, and that it is on such, consequently, 
 
522 
 
 USE AND ABUSE OF REASON. 
 
 that all mathematical science is built and founded. Geome- 
 trical lines and figures are properly nothing more than num- 
 bers, or the fundamental arithmetical notions fixed in space 
 and invested with a corporeal shape, and thereby rendered 
 visible. It is, however, not unusual to regard the first princi- 
 ples of geometry — such as the point, the right line, the square, 
 and the triangle, out of which all else is compounded — as in- 
 dependent of experience, and existing absolutely in and by 
 themselves. But, in truth, these primary facts of geometry 
 originally are, without exception, furnished by experience. And 
 even if, for the purposes of science, they are advanced in a 
 degree of abstract purity and of notional completeness, which 
 they do not possess in the external world of sensible things, 
 where they are always combined with more or less of gross 
 admixture or of imperfection, this is only what is the case, 
 in exactly the same degree, with the first principles of all 
 other experimental sciences. 
 
 Astronomy is one of the highest applications of mathema- 
 tical science, which in it is carried to its highest limits of 
 development. But here, too, the latter has grown together 
 and in common with natural science. The complicated and 
 elaborate calculations, the approximate hypotheses of mathe- 
 matical astronomy, are intimately interwoven and mixed up 
 with manifold sidereal facts and observations. Properly, 
 therefore, and rightly understood, mathematical science forms 
 no exception to the general principle, that all knowledge is 
 based upon experience, derived from inward, outward, or it 
 may be, higher perceptions. Consequently it is not so much 
 in kind as in degree that it is distinguished from other ex- 
 perimental sciences. We ought not, however, to forget that in 
 very many cases of the application of mathematics to real life 
 and natural history, it is not so much a material science as 
 rather a mere organ and instrument for the advancement and 
 further elaboration of the particular sciences to which it is 
 applied. Viewed relatively to a higher physical science, 
 mathematics do but form the mere outline and articulation 
 of the whole structure or the inner skeleton of the wholy body 
 of nature ; or rather, it is the hidden key and rule of speech of 
 the marvellous language of revelation, and of that otherwise, 
 hidden existence which is here brought to the light, and which 
 we call nature — its inner grammar, in short, and higher 
 symbolism. 
 
THEOLOGY IN ITS METHOD OUGHT TO BE RATIONAL. 523 
 
 In order to guard against this abuse of reason, to which 
 every thinker must feel himself but too liable, and which is 
 universally acknowledged to be possible, it has been thought 
 sufficient to distinguish the perversion from the right appli- 
 cation of it within its natural and due limits. With this 
 view it has been maintained that the knowledge and certainty 
 which are conceded to and are within the reach of man are 
 restricted to the sensible world ; while, on the other hand, in 
 the suprasensible domain, all judgment is denied to reason, 
 and absolutely all knowledge to man. But this position is very 
 far from being justifiable. For if, as we maintain, all know- 
 ledge is really imparted from above, or, in other words, is a gift 
 or revelation, its measure and limits cannot be determined by 
 way of anticipation, nor in truth do they at all depend upon 
 man. Such limits rest entirely with Him from whom all has 
 proceeded, and who communicates or has communicated to 
 His creatures severally whatever it is His will to commu- 
 nicate or impart to them, or absolutely to enjoin upon them. 
 But this revelation and communication, on which all religion 
 and science ultimately rest, being once given and received, 
 reason need not by any means be excluded from the supra- 
 sensible domain. On the contrary, it may in a certain degree 
 lawfully co-operate in working out its given matter, and, to 
 a certain extent and under certain limits, may even judge of 
 it. Indeed, when the first foundation of actual reality is once 
 given and established, and moreover acknowledged as such, 
 then the use and employment of reason is no less legitimate 
 here than it is in the domain of the sensible world, or in a 
 special science of experience directed and confined to terres- 
 trial things. What is meant hereby, and how it is to be 
 understood, will best appear from what I am now about to 
 add. Though theology, as little as religion itself, can draw 
 exclusively from or rest entirely on reason — for this would be 
 fatal to its very idea— still it is not only allowable, but even 
 highly desirable, that theology, in its practical application 
 and method, should be thoroughly rational. By this means 
 alone will it be able to guard against not only a pernicious con- 
 fusion of ideas and the mistakes of fanatical enthusiasm, but 
 also all unprofitable disputes and the absurd bitterness of 
 animosity. And thus, under the prevailing influence of rea- 
 
524 SYSTEMS OF IDENTITY AND IDEALISM, &C. 
 
 son, the spirit of love and concord will outlive all the violent 
 attacks and rancorous wounds of controversial ardour. 
 
 In its application, therefore, and external form, all science 
 is, or rather, to speak generally, ought to be, rational ; even 
 though it cannot derive its subject-matter from reason, nor 
 in any way depend upon it in this respect. For whenever 
 she attempts to produce the latter out of herself, she invari- 
 ably gives birth to the metaphysical phantom of absolute 
 entity and of absolute knowledge, or that false illusion of 
 reason, which sets up an identical dualism and intrinsic unity 
 of necessary being and necessary thought, as the two inse- 
 parably connected forms or species of the one eternal essence 
 which, superior to and higher than both, contains in itself the 
 primary ground of all existence and of all consciousness. 
 Before this illusion, the idea of a personal Deity naturally 
 falls to the ground. It is all too low and too mean for the 
 lofty conceptions of this imaginary phantom of reason. No- 
 where, I would observe by the way, has this illusory system, 
 which is utterly fatal to the truth, been carried out with such 
 rigour of consequence, or set forth with such masterly powers 
 of exposition, as in the works of Spinosa. In this view of the 
 world and things, however, we have two forms of a necessary 
 thought, running, indeed, continually parallel to each other, 
 but never becoming perfectly coincident. Accordingly, no 
 system of it has ever been able to attain to a general recog- 
 nition and reception. For, notwithstanding that perfect un- 
 intelligibility is essential to this view, being deeply inwoven 
 in its whole system, and running through its most delicate 
 threads, and reaching to its inmost corners ; each new master 
 of mathematical certainty in this method of negation and 
 systematic nullity seeks the cause of the obscurity in some 
 intellectual defect of his immediate predecessor in the exposi- 
 tion of it. Accordingly, he feels himself called upon to make 
 some slightly changed turn and arrangement of the thoughts, 
 and so to come forward as the inventor and founder of an 
 entirely new fabric of truth ; whereas, in truth, his new form 
 and method are fundamentally the very same delusion of a 
 mere rational semblance of logical necessity that formed the 
 foundation of the old and condemned systems. However 
 greatly the outward garb of language and phraseology may 
 
LIFE THE UNITY 0E BEING AND THOUGHT. 525 
 
 have varied in the course of centuries, still the error itself 
 has remained identical and free from change. 
 
 And even if the necessary connexion of these two worlds 
 of objective existence and subjective consciousness, which 
 run parallel with each other, should be conceived of, somewhat 
 after the idea of Leibnitz, as a pre-established harmony, 
 having as such its origin in a personal God; still, by this 
 apparent recognition of the sovereign hand of omnipotence 
 ruling and guiding the whole creation, it is only in the 
 external form that it is relieved from the objection of 
 dualism. For, fundamentally, this theory resolves itself 
 into the mechanism of an intrinsically blind necessity, 
 by means of which the two clocks, as it were, set originally 
 together by the supreme artist, run on for ever and agree, 
 while otherwise they have no sort of connexion or contact. 
 Such a theory evidently furnishes no true solution of the diffi- 
 culty, and leads to no satisfactory result. Quite different 
 from this is the true inner unity, which, however, is no mere 
 sameness — the true living harmony, which, however, is no pre- 
 established one — between the external sensible world of nature 
 and the inner conceptional world of the consciousness, as con- 
 templated from the position of life, and of a philosophy which 
 takes its source and foundation from life itself. According 
 to this view, everything in the outward reality of corporeal 
 existence is truly and properly animated, ensouled, and even 
 living. Or, at least, life is the source from which both the 
 external object of material existence and the inner thought, life, 
 or consciousness, alike take their rise — in this one common 
 notion of life, that which exists and that which is conscious 
 meet together and are fused into one. The whole of the sup- 
 posed contrariety falls at once to the ground; and nothing 
 remains but a certain difference of degree or steps of transition 
 and fluctuation from one state to another, similar to that be- 
 tween life and death, sleeping and waking. What we call 
 existence is merely the visible appearance of a thought, it is 
 the external expression, the corporeal shape of an inner life. 
 No doubt this inner and hidden life of nature, when contrasted 
 with the perfectly clear and free consciousness of man, or 
 still more, when compared with a higher and superior being, 
 appears perfectly unconscious. But, in truth, it ought not to 
 be considered as being always and entirely such; at least, it 
 
526 
 
 LIFE UNIVERSALLY PRESENT. 
 
 was not so originally. We ought rather to explain it as a life 
 and consciousness which have fallen into a state of slumber, 
 dreaminess, or trance ; and even if we must suppose it to be 
 stiff and rigid with actual death, still it is not with that death 
 which is eternal and everlasting. This, however, implies at the 
 same time that we may look upon it as being in a commencing 
 state of re-awakening, though, indeed, it be very far as yet 
 from being fully awake. And, in truth, in man's most per- 
 fectly developed consciousness, do we not trace such or a 
 similar reciprocation between sleeping and waking, dreaming 
 and thinking, memory and oblivion, between the full clear 
 day of understanding, comprehension, and discernment, and 
 that night of error and of darkness that cannot be dispersed, 
 which conflicting opinions, with their passions and compli- 
 cations, cast over the human mind? In truth, no absolute 
 line of demarcation, no impassable barrier, subsists. On the 
 contrary, there are numberless points of contact and steps 
 of transition easy enough to trace from the state of a living 
 and wakeful consciousness into that of sleep, or of an appa- 
 rently total rigidity and numbness. Strictly and accurately 
 speaking, however, there is, according to this view of life, no 
 such thing as death; there is only a fluctuation and variation 
 of life through its several transitory forms. Still we must not 
 forget that, relatively to the present state of things, all of these 
 forms cannot be regarded as transitory. In nature itself, how- 
 ever, death has no existence, L e., death is neither essential nor 
 from the beginning. It was brought in afterwards, and inciden- 
 tally, into creation. And indeed, for man especially, the im- 
 mortality of the soul forms not only an article of the creed of 
 a higher hope, but it is also a visible fact of nature, an indis- 
 putable truth of history, that everywhere plainly and loudly 
 announces itself. This hypothesis of a real vitality, inherent 
 in all the forms of existence, which we may very properly term 
 the only hypothesis of feeling which the living truth admits of, 
 was, in ancient times, the general creed of nature, enforced by 
 the universal feeling of mankind, and originally held by all 
 the nations of the earth. It is only in modern times that the 
 one-sided sagacity of an elaborate and artificial science has 
 drawn this strong line of demarcation between thought and 
 entity, and thereby lead to a total deadening of both. No 
 sooner, therefore, had existence and consciousness been torn 
 
DEATH IN NATURE A DREAM OF MODERN SCIENCE. 527 
 
 from their common root of life, and thereby forced asunder 
 from each other, than, with a view of filling up the great gap 
 between them, the deceptive rationalism of an irrefragable 
 chain of destiny, and a necessary predetermination of all 
 things, took the place which life had formerly held, but from 
 which it had been forcibly expelled. 
 
 BND OF LECTURE VII 3. 
 
528 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Among the widely diversified forms and ever new appiica. 
 tions under which the rational system of absolute knowledge 
 and necessary connexion is wont to exhibit itself from time to 
 time, some are occasionally found in which the first foundation 
 is not established in that mathematical form and that rigour 
 of demonstration which marks all the subsequent steps of the 
 systematic edifice. In a few systems, at least, reason, as 
 the faculty of the subjective Ego, is expressly assumed to be an 
 intrinsic fact of the consciousness. And this is done, appa- • 
 rently, in the very same way that in the philosophy which 
 sets out from life itself, the theory of the consciousness, or 
 the development of the notion thereof, commences with some 
 such fact of the inward cogitation, as a first principle given 
 and established by internal experience. But the question, 
 whether in any rationalistic system this assumption be really 
 meant — in which case the whole system would be to be re- 
 garded as purely a science of experience — or only apparently, 
 being adopted for home secondary object, will be quickly de- 
 termined as the development of the entire system proceeds. A 
 few characteristic remarks, both simple and easy to be under- 
 stood, will soon enable us to decide this point. If, as regards 
 the form, under the guise of a mathematical method of demon- 
 stration it immediately introduces the old ontological confusion 
 of unintelligible abstractions, we may assume it as highly pro- 
 bable, nay, set it dc ^vn as certain, that in spite of its different 
 shape and bearing, it is essentially the same invariable error 
 of identical thought and unconditional being that is set forth 
 in such a system. But the token by which such scientific 
 fatalism most surely and infallibly reveals itself is the subject- 
 matter of the system. We can have no doubt of its presence 
 wherever the existing state of life and consciousness, which is 
 merely accidental, and by no means its original one, is proved, 
 or rather, by a pretended demonstration, is set forth as its 
 necessary condition. 
 
 On the contrary, that incessan* alternation between life and 
 
NECESSITY TRAGIC DESTINY THE EPOS. 529 
 
 death, such as the latter exists at present in nature, and which, 
 in all its various forms, coming and going like night and day, 
 sleeping and waking, ebb and flood, affects not the individual 
 only but the whole human race, must, according to truth, be 
 ever regarded as a perpetually changing event, assuming 
 manifold different shapes, and being variously modified by the 
 influence of human freedom. And not even for the purposes 
 of science is it allowable to see, in what is but a transitory 
 state of the present constitution of things, an eternal and 
 immutable law ; nor in its application to the individual cases 
 of actual life, to assume a necessary predetermination re- 
 sulting from some indissoluble chain of destiny. 
 
 Moreover, this illusory phantom of the unconditional — 
 that peculiar error of the reason whenever it is unduly applied 
 and left wholly to itself — and the semblance of rationality 
 which arises thereout in a predetermined and indissoluble 
 enchainment of all events and phenomena, is not confined to 
 the domain of science and its inner world of thought. In 
 poetry, under the notion of destiny, it holds a prominent and 
 remarkable position. In the tragedy of the ancients espe- 
 cially, it comes before us in peculiar splendour and majesty, 
 as the blind fate of an iron necessity. Since then this notion, 
 though in itself and originally nothing but a mere delusion, 
 has yet, through an almost universal belief in its reality, ac- 
 quired and exercised for centuries a fearful power over the 
 minds of men, it cannot of course be omitted or refused a 
 place in a truly artistic view and portraiture of life. This 
 view of the general constitution of things, thoroughly and 
 deeply tragic as it is, must ever remain intrinsically and 
 essentially heathen. But even the most perfect creations of 
 tragic art stand a full degree below, or at least hold a somewhat 
 subordinate position to, the epic songs and lays of the oldest 
 foretime. For this rich and copious stream of primal and 
 eternal recollections is the source from which ^very other form 
 of poesy branches off and derives its inspired waters ; the living 
 play of its billows, as they sweep along with full and undivided 
 flood, bears w r ith it all the magic treasures of fancy; and 
 like the world-encircling ocean, with its ever-changing undula- 
 tions, it flows around all the ages and epochs of nature and hu- 
 manity. The epos, in short, is poesy itself. In it pre-eminently 
 the very essence of poetry is present, and there also are its 
 
 2m 
 
530 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL POETRY. 
 
 truest manifestations. Every other form of poetic art con- 
 stitutes but a special kind, and as compared with this pure 
 original is, so to speak, a mixed or applied poetry. For in 
 the same way that music is an art of longing, while the arts 
 of figure are the channels in w r hich the highest enthusiasm 
 for visible beauty expresses itself; so poesy is the bright 
 reflection of the world as it is mirrored on the everflowing 
 love-stream of eternal recollection. But enthusiasm invari- 
 ably attaches itself to something positive. On this account 
 it is that the plastic arts are intrinsically of two kinds essen- 
 tially diiferent in character. While a heathen beauty pre- 
 dominates in the statuary and buildings of ancient times, a 
 spirit of Christian inspiration is no less visible and decidedly 
 apparent in modern painting and architecture. And in some 
 degree this remark applies to dramatic poetry : for in its 
 inner spirit and character, encroaching, as it were, into the 
 domain of the plastic art, it forms a peculiar species of mixed 
 poetry. But in epic poetry, in the same way that all streams 
 flow into and commingle in the ocean, all contrasts are 
 softened off and dissolved, and in a true and genuine epic 
 poem the ancient mythology must not impress us as heathen 
 — or, at least, this character must not there be so distinctly 
 apparent as it is in Grecian tragedy. Every age that enjoys 
 a high civilisation and a rare degree of intellectual enlighten- 
 ment, even though it has not lost all relish for noble and 
 original poetry, applies itself first and preferably to those 
 mixed forms w r hich allow of art attaining to its freest deve- 
 lopment, and in w T hich it frequently arrives at the height of 
 excellence. When, however, during the reign of the cold 
 poetry of the head, the tragic view of the world and things 
 manifests itself no longer in the grand style of free invention, 
 but interweaves and works itself up with some artificial and 
 elaborate picture of prosaic reality, the impression it leaves is 
 doubly painful ; closing for the most part with some moral- 
 izing maxim of a baneful scepticism. And in the place of 
 that genuine poetical truth which marked the deep and preg- 
 nant feelings of ancient poesy, of which scarce a trace is here 
 to be found, we have, on the whole, nothing but the scientific 
 illusion of some empty notion or the deep but bitter feeling of 
 universal negation. 
 
 In the whole series of the essential errors of science — 
 of which some one form or other is peculiar to each of the 
 
ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 531 
 
 four great faculties of the mind, and which, though not as an 
 inevitable and irremediable limitation of it, yet still as a 
 
 I defective tendency and an hereditary germ of deviation, is 
 there indigenous and domesticated, — among all these various 
 forms of error, the deceptive phantom of the unconditional, 
 
 J the seeming identity of necessary being and absolute thinking 
 and knowing, has been shown to belong especially to the 
 
 I reason whenever, quitting the right road, it refuses to confine 
 
 I its operations within their due limits. In consequence, how- 
 ever, of that close concatenation and mutual influence which 
 pervades all the different forms and species of man's intel- 
 
 | lectual development, I deemed it anything but superfluous to 
 call your attention to the fact, that this system of necessity, or 
 in other words, this scientific fatalism, plays a very essential 
 part in the poetical view of things, and to notice the shapes it 
 there assumes. And just as this delusion of the reason, which 
 has given rise to so many false systems, (which, however, are 
 but one, since they do but repeat in different forms one and 
 the same error of the absolute,) has had a powerful effect 
 
 j even on poetry, having exercised a great and decided in- 
 
 i fluence on the internal constitution of the tragic drama, so, 
 in a similar manner, there is a peculiar species of scientific 
 error which owes its origin to the faculty of imagination. 
 Now, as might well be expected, wherever this inventive and 
 productive faculty directs itself exclusively to the side of 
 prosaic reality and to palpable corporeal phenomena, this 
 error, and the erroneous scientific system to which it gives 
 
 I rise, have, above all others, a dry, meagre, and grossly mate- 
 rial character. Those lovely illusions of a fancy innocently 
 sporting with emblems and figures, which most immediately 
 occur to our mind while speaking of an error peculiar to 
 that province of the imagination, although purely scientific — 
 I am alluding to the fabulous world and imaginary deities of 
 ancient mythology — these furnish but little, if any, obstacle 
 in the way of science and of the acquisition of physical 
 truth. Considered, therefore, in this light alone they would 
 scarcely demand a place in our present disquisitions. For the 
 whole of them possess for us only a certain degree of poetical 
 truth : or at most perhaps a deeper and more penetrating search 
 may discover in them a symbolical signification, which is un- 
 doubtedly full of grave meaning, and therefore is in so far also 
 
 2 m 2 
 
532 VESTIGES IN IT OF DIVINE TRUTH. 
 
 true. But the case was very different with the ancients them- 
 selves. And on this account, when heathenism was the prevail- 
 ing faith, a lively opposition was raised against them. A stern 
 law of morals and philosophy, with indiscriminating censure 
 would have swept away the whole of the national mythology. 
 Right and just as this censure may appear to us, so far as it 
 was directed against the arbitrary fictions or grossly sensual 
 features of these fables, still it is impossible to concur with it 
 totally and entirely. Occasionally the point of view was taken 
 too narrowly and too exclusively. Moreover, it is undeniable 
 that these ancient objectors did not sufficiently recognise the 
 symbolical meaning of their own mythology. And in fact, 
 they were far from being in a position to take such a survey 
 of the whole cycle of legends among different nations, as 
 would alone enable them to trace their common historical 
 connexion. And even if in some single points they under- 
 stood and gave due weight to this symbolical significancy, 
 occasionally making use of it themselves, it was only as a mere 
 intellectual amusement, or with the narrow object of illus- 
 trating some occasional ethical discussion of limited interest. 
 
 But a far wider and more extensive view of antiquity lies be- 
 fore our eyes, and history in its comprehensive survey now takes 
 in almost the whole of the ancient world. Modern inquiry, 
 therefore, with its vast erudition, its patient observation and 
 quickness of apprehension, has succeeded in establishing more 
 completely than heretofore, the general truth of this symbo- 
 lical basis of ancient mythology. And by this means it has 
 been able to trace the inner threads of a higher truth which 
 lay concealed within those fictions, and were the source of 
 their vitality ; for it was from such a beginning of truth that 
 they originally set out, however widely in their subsequent 
 course and growth they may have deviated therefrom. In- 
 deed, if it is allowable, on the ground that the true religion 
 must from the very first have been one and the same, to give 
 the name of Christianity to the simple religion of the first 
 men and great saints of the primaeval world, then may we 
 well venture to assert that a vein of Christianity and of the 
 knowledge of the true God runs through and ever and anon 
 manifests itself on the very surface of heathenism and in its 
 several mysteries. And, in truth, it would be anything but 
 an unprofitable task to trace, through this variety of syni- 
 
MATERIALISM HAS ITS RISE IN IMAGINATION. 533 
 
 bolical expressions, the sinuous and intricate course of the 
 human mind in its manifold development, as it pursued every 
 direction and took up the most opposite positions in order to 
 view and contemplate the truth. However, this Christianity 
 of the primaeval world, even where it kept itself free and pure 
 from all admixture of fiction and distortion, can only be 
 regarded as a Christianity in anticipation. Or, perhaps, we 
 may look upon it as an ascending progression (though not 
 uniformly advancing, but marked with many an apparent 
 check and recession, or even many a void interval of expec- 
 tation,) up to the last term of consummation in the visible and 
 actual manifestation ; just as, on the other hand, Christianity, 
 since that epoch, may appear to the historical inquirer as a 
 descending series, if not in its definite form and shape or intel- 
 lectual development, yet certainly in the inward moral senti- 
 - ment and the power of a living faith. 
 
 It is now a matter pretty generally admitted, and which is 
 moreover daily gaining a wider concurrence, that in these 
 1 fables, which at the first glance appear the mere sportive 
 creations of fancy, there is even contained many a beau- 
 tiful hieroglyphic of nature and of natural truth. A brief 
 allusion to the fact, therefore, will suffice for our general 
 view, which calls upon us to notice it just so far only as is 
 necessary to make our survey of the human mind and its 
 development complete. 
 
 Now, if it should be demanded of us psychologically to 
 treat of and to discuss at length all the delusions of the fancy, 
 we should indeed open for ourselves a wide field of labour. 
 It would rival that of the ancients in their treatises on the 
 possible fallacies of logic, and the illegitimate forms of its 
 syllogisms, with the different rules for avoiding and detect- 
 ing them. But in truth, the psychological illusions of the 
 fancy in actual life are no less numerous nor less diversified in 
 their manifestation than the differences of individual cha- 
 racters, which are incalculable. And as to those logical 
 errors, on the other hand, which relate solely to the form 
 of argumentation, the consideration of them will be most pro- 
 fitably attached to those branches of science which concern 
 the particular province of life in which they severally occur. 
 However useful for the purposes of practice a detailed analysis 
 and dissection of them may be, it nevertheless lies wholly 
 
534 
 
 MATERIALISM ATOMS. 
 
 without the limits of our present speculations. By scientific 
 errors, which, as arising from a natural disposition and exciting 
 cause in the fundamental faculties of the human conscious- 
 ness, deserve to be called innate, must be understood none 
 but those essentially false views of the whole constitution 
 of things, or such scientific systems which result from some 
 one-sided tendency or perverted application of the prin- 
 cipal powers of man's mind. We are not therefore con- 
 cerned at present with the poetic fancy and the psycho- 
 logical delusions of this faculty. It can only be with an imagi- 
 nation that has exclusively given itself up to a scientific 
 direction that we can have to do in discussing the question: 
 What false system, and what error in science generally, or in 
 physical science especially, can have proceeded from a per- 
 verted use of this faculty of fancy ? This, it appears to me, 
 can be no other than the well-known materialism — the atomis- 
 tic view of nature, and, what is so closely connected with it, 
 that atomistic thinking whose deadening character is far more 
 dangerous and fatal to philosophy than that much decried 
 fct system of nature,"* which for the most part has outlived its 
 day, and, in its former shape at least, is obsolete and out of 
 fashion. This atomistic view of nature cannot for one moment 
 be regarded as or explained by an error of the reason. For 
 the reason seeks everywhere for an absolute unity. .But these 
 imaginary atoms, out of which all is composed and com- 
 pounded, are infinite in multiplicity. Among them there is 
 nothing like unity. All there is ever dissolving itself, and falling 
 asunder into an innumerable multitude of separate individuals. 
 Neither can it be termed an error of the understanding; for 
 the latter does not universally, or even principally, employ 
 itself with such anatomical dissections and mutilations. It 
 labours rather before all things to understand, to compre- 
 hend the whole, to seize the inner meaning, to fathom the 
 true significance, and to gain a knowledge of the very essence 
 in its true spirit and meaning. But all this, as it implies 
 a living principle, is also applicable to such alone. Where 
 there is neither life nor spirit, there there is nothing to under- 
 stand. These simple minute corpuscles of nature, or these in- 
 divisible particles of the universe, as furnishing the foundation 
 
 4 Schlegel is here agwn alluding to the philosophy of Schelling. — Trans, 
 
ATOMS OF EPICURUS MONADS OF LEIBNITZ. 535 
 
 and principle of the collective world of nature and of sense, 
 would form an inexplicable and unintelligible aggregate. 
 But, in fact, the dissection and anatomy of the visible objects 
 of matter has never yet succeeded in reaching these infinitely 
 minute primal particles of existence. On the contrary, the 
 chemical analysis of bodies terminates in certain living ele- 
 ments of a wholly volatile nature, which defy and elude all 
 such gross and material manipulations. The whole hypothesis, 
 therefore, must be held to be perfectly arbitrary ; it is alto- 
 gether an unfounded fiction. It is no doubt highly unpoetieal, 
 and anything but fanciful ; nay, rather, it is fatal both to life 
 and fancy, but a fiction it is nevertheless. And on this 
 account its origin must be ascribed to the imagination. It 
 was therefore in this sense, and relatively to this fact, that I 
 formerly asserted that when once the imagination — the 
 scientific imagination, that is — applied itself to palpable 
 corporeal phenomena, then the error that it would give 
 rise to would be a dry and meagre production of a grossly 
 material nature. I might almost call it an imagination of 
 death, inasmuch as the whole of it is founded on the dreary 
 hypothesis that all is dead and lifeless, and, in this respect, it 
 contrasts so directly with that ancient and once universally dif- 
 fused creed of nature which we so lately spoke of as teaching 
 that in the visible universe, and even in the external and 
 corporeal world, notwithstanding its appearance of death, 
 everything is animated, living, and ensouled. Further to com- 
 bat, or totally to refute, the atomistic theory, would be inconsis- 
 tent with our present object ; that, too, is a duty which belongs 
 rather to what is properly natural philosophy. Moreover, 
 it would be a superfluous task ; for a truly living philosophy of 
 nature, based on a very different position, and taking far 
 higher views, has long since and almost everywhere taken the 
 place of this hypothesis, which, as it kills the spirit, so it dis- 
 honours nature. One historical fact connected with the theory 
 is, however, deserving our notice. Leibnitz, we know, opposed 
 to these atoms of Epicurus, as the constituents of all things, 
 his own monads, as so many living and ensouled unities. 
 While, however, by this expedient, this great thinker, and in 
 his way, truly exalted spirit, retained the same idea of univer- 
 sal and atomistic decomposition, he did but reveal thereby, as 
 in so many other instances, that feature of his character which 
 
536 TWO SOURCES OF ERROR IN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 enabled him, by a sort of half rejection of, half connivance 
 at, error, to put it aside with the skill of a diplomatist, rather 
 than to get rid of it altogether. 
 
 But in science there is another erroneous tendency, which 
 is still more deeply rooted, and which is far more pernicious 
 and dangerous to true living philosophy than these ancient 
 atoms and all these false, materialising systems of nature, which 
 in some degree carry with them their own refutation. And that 
 is an atomistic mode of thinking, which has its natural source 
 in the present defective and disorganised state of man's cogni- 
 tive faculty. True physical anatomy is a most valuable science, 
 and has already led to most important results. In this respect — 
 its merits cannot be rated too high, so long as it does not dream 
 of detecting with its scalpel the long- departed principle of 
 life, but contents itself with endeavouring to point out and 
 decipher in the dead husk, the still remaining traces of its 
 general constitution, or of certain morbid states of the life 
 that once lived and moved within it. But the dead and bar- 
 ren anatomy of thought leads not to any similarly pregnant 
 results. Beneath its dissecting hand, the life that was once 
 present is extinguished for ever ; and from the history of 
 every science, instances innumerable may be adduced to prove 
 that before this baneful spirit of analysis all high and noble 
 truth disappears. 
 
 There are then two principal sources of philosophical error. 
 On the one hand comes the illusory phantom of unconditional 
 entity and of identical thought, with all that follows there- 
 from in the most diversified forms either of scientific fatalism, 
 or a poetical pantheism, or of some false and perverted tragic 
 view of the world and things. On the other stands the atom- 
 istic theory, with its kindred errors of a materialistic cast 
 of thought, and the atomistic thinking itself, and the dead 
 analysis of general notions, with that imagination of death so 
 deeply rooted in the human mind on which they all rest. 
 And these two delusions form that curse of mental blindness 
 which from the very first has invariably rested on such usurped 
 absolutism and omnipotence of reason when it sets itself up 
 as supreme. Or they are, perhaps, the now hereditary morbid 
 symptoms of mental poverty and numbness which mark and 
 distinguish the faculty of thought whenever it is caught and 
 tied with the fetters of materialism. 
 
SUBJECTIVE ERROR, — IDEALISM. 
 
 537 
 
 The above are errors of a general kind, whether faults of 
 objective thinking or perverted directions of thought, on which 
 the personal character exercises little influence. It has, how- 
 ever, a far greater effect on those forms and species of scientific 
 error which have their seat in the human will and understand- 
 ing ; for in the latter all becomes more or less individual, and 
 in them character, sentiment, passion, and free volition, exer- 
 | cise the greatest influence. Consequently it is extremely diffi- 
 cult in the case of those errors which flow from a common or 
 at least kindred source, and which are so intimately interwo- 
 ven together, to separate and determine what portion belongs 
 I to the mere cognitive faculty, and what to that which wills, 
 | works, and acts. However, I shall venture to speak simply and 
 plainly of the prejudice of egoism, as having its root princi- 
 pally in the will, even though it often springs up quite involun- 
 tarily. Its existence every one will be ready to admit. All, 
 too, will allow that its influence extends widely over the pur- 
 suits and thoughts of man, and is even apparent in the spiri- 
 tual domain, where the pure pursuit of the highest truth is not 
 altogether free from it. It is very seldom, however, that this 
 error shapes itself into a decidedly and completely idealistic 
 view of the world, and a similar perfect system of science. 
 For such a view finds on all sides so much opposition, and 
 becomes itself so quickly involved in difficulties, that it never can 
 be carried out into a universally consistent system. At any 
 rate, such a system is very seldom of long duration. It is so 
 decidedly in opposition to man's inmost feelings, that even at 
 its first promulgation, its startling strangeness often gives rise 
 to the doubt whether it really ought to be understood literally, 
 and were ever meant seriously. It frequently happens, there- 
 fore, that the first author and founder of such a system 
 of egoism makes in his second revision of it many and 
 essential modifications ; or rather, he may be more correctly 
 said to take quite a different position, and to give a wholly 
 new turn to his ideas. Of this many an example might, 
 if this were the appropriate place, be easily adduced from 
 the history of the human mind in general, while our own times 
 furnish some striking and remarkable instances of it. A 
 lengthy analysis and refutation of a real and decided system 
 of idealism would therefore be scarcely necessary, inasmuch 
 as, properly, it furnishes its own refutation. At any rate, it 
 
538 SUBJECTIVE PREJUDICES AND OPINIONS. 
 
 would not fall within the scope of our present disquisition, 
 whose principal object is to give a full exposition of the 
 inner and higher life. For this purpose, all that was required 
 was simply to notice this scientific aberration as a peculiar 
 and remarkable form in the system of human errors, and with 
 this view to sketch, in a few prominent features, its general 
 character. 
 
 What I have said of the system of idealism, I would not, 
 however, by any means wish to be applied to idealistic doubt. 
 For this, like doubt in general, may perhaps form a salutary 
 and highly beneficial crisis, out of which a well-established 
 and enlightened system of knowledge is to arise. Indeed, I 
 am disposed to believe, however paradoxical it may seem (and 
 perhaps it is a profound inward feeling of its paradoxical 
 character that carries with it my conviction), that this ideal- 
 istic doubt is more likely to lead to a wholesome change in 
 the prevailing views of science, than that doubt which assails 
 life itself, and which, as directing itself against the freedom 
 of the will, I would call a moral scepticism ; for the latter is 
 diffused very widely indeed, and without any scientific pre- 
 tension, as the mere fatalism of ordinary reflection. 
 
 What, however, we are principally concerned with at pre- 
 sent, is the prejudice accruing to the cause of science from 
 the fundamental errors which cling to the human mind in its 
 present form. Now in this respect the evil influence of the 
 prejudice of egoism is perhaps the most extensive of all. 
 Even when it does not manifest itself openly in its most 
 extreme and revolting form, it secretly insinuates itself into 
 all man's thoughts and actions, and pervades more or less 
 every region of truth. Indeed, we may say, or rather, must 
 confess, that even in the most able, pure, and perfect exposi- 
 tions of well-established truths — whatever may be the form 
 they take, whether scientific, historical, artistic, or rhetorical, 
 or perhaps be designed for the practical illustration and guid- 
 ance of life — a certain subjective tone and colouring is more 
 or less perceptible Over all human compositions, and not 
 merely art and poetry, (where, though not absolutely and uni- 
 versally, yet still to a certain degree it is allowable,) a peculiar 
 light is thrown from the personal Me of the author, as reflected 
 through the immediate sphere of his associates and the circle 
 of ideas in which his mind has been accustomed to revolve. 
 
SUBJECTIVE PREJUDICES AND OPINIONS 539 
 
 Against such an influence, whether proceeding from ourselves 
 or others, we cannot be too much on our guard. In all 
 our judgments and conclusions we ought carefully to put 
 it aside. And this is the only true and legitimate abstraction 
 which holds good both for science and for life. But thus to 
 abstract our own Me and subjective peculiarities is a duty 
 which is far from being commonly observed, and which is in 
 truth extremely difficult, even with the greatest honesty of 
 purpose, faithfully to discharge. 
 
 As we have so often spoken of an unintelligible medley of 
 barren abstractions as so many empty forms of thought, this 
 truer notion of abstraction may well be allowed a brief pass- 
 ing consideration. It seems not improbable that in an older 
 form of science, and a more religious way of thinking, this 
 notion did possess this higher and more correct signification. 
 At least, it is evident that if we would meditate upon God 
 and divine things, and give up ourselves fully and entirely to 
 these contemplations, we must first forget the whole outer 
 world and withdraw our thoughts from it, and at the same 
 time rise above ourselves and go out of ourselves and our own 
 narrow and finite Me, Almost all the notions of science pos- 
 sessed originally a grand and exalted import. It was only in 
 course of time that, deteriorated by common usage, they sunk 
 into empty formulas of error. In life, indeed, the subjective 
 prejudices of man, under the influence of a will carried away 
 and narrowed by them, has had so wide a range of action as 
 to be co-extensive with the whole field of human action. 
 The wilfulness of children forms the principal obstacle that 
 education has to deal with ; and the inflexible obstinacy and 
 passionateness of party spirit is the ruling power in public 
 life, the cause of most of the catastrophes of state, and the source 
 of their greatest perils. In short, were we to attempt to extend 
 our survey to all the prejudices which spring out of narrow sub- 
 jective views, and to the great and extensive authority which 
 long- cherished opinions exercise both over the inner man and 
 the outer world, the chapter devoted to them in a system 
 or manual of a practical knowledge of humanity, would be 
 as long as that which should enumerate the false syllogisms 
 and all the violations that were possible, either in thought or 
 practice, of the logical form of right reasoning, or even as 
 that other which should comprise all the psychological delu- 
 
540 
 
 DOUBT ESSENTIAL TO MAN. 
 
 sions of the fancy. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to a 
 brief, but still complete sketch. And to ensure such complete- 
 ness there is one remark to be made, which is far from unim- 
 portant, or at least not superfluous. And that refers first of 
 all to the relation which subsists between the aberrations of the 
 understanding and those of the will, and in the next place to 
 that between the fancy and the reason, and to the contrariety 
 usually arising from an undue predominance of either of these 
 two faculties. Understanding and will stand in a very close 
 connexion together, their reciprocal influence being very con- 
 siderable. In many an error, or at least in many a perverse 
 and erroneous direction of thought and opinion, we are 
 scarcely able to decide whether the will and sentiments, or the 
 understanding and special modes of thinking, have the greater 
 part. How difficult, for instance, is it to determine this point 
 in the case of the predominant spirit of contradiction, whether 
 it reveal itself as a reaction, having indeed an external 
 exciting cause, but still thoroughly passionate, or appear in 
 the shape of a mere delight in opposition, such as is found 
 in many, and often highly distinguished individuals. For 
 both these motives have great influence, not only in life 
 but also in the domain of science, in which they often deve- 
 lope themselves as fruitful sources of error. 
 
 As to doubt : it is even that state, or that tendency of the 
 mind (geisi) peculiar to the understanding, which though in 
 itself not absolutely culpable or faulty, is certainly erroneous, 
 and one which in its extreme manifestation becomes a negative 
 error of the very worst and most pernicious kind in science. 
 I have already several times mentioned in passing, and by way 
 of anticipation, that doubt appears to form one of the most 
 characteristic and peculiar of man's fundamental properties. 
 As sleep forms for man, as compared with the pure and 
 ever-wakeful spirits, an essential and peculiar state of his 
 organic life in the body ; and as that eternal hope which 
 is innate in the human soul, is acknowledged to be its higher 
 stamp and Godlike signature ; just so and in a similar way 
 must doubt be regarded as the inborn character of the human 
 mind, or at least as one of its most indelible features. And 
 indeed this struggle of doubt and hope (which even after the 
 full attainment of internal certainty and peace, still survives 
 in a degree, showing itself when we come to the special 
 
IGNORANCE PASSES THROUGH DOUBT TO KNOWLEDGE. 541 
 
 points of practical application, and in truth will never 
 wholly cease in this lower world), this conflict between 
 hope and doubt holds no less important nor less exten- 
 sive a place in the inner spiritual world than the recipro- 
 cation of sleeping and waking does in the external and 
 organic, maintaining the due equilibrium of the bodily 
 powers and their healthy state. Now doubt takes its rise 
 pre-eminently and originally in the understanding. The latter 
 is its appropriate place in the human consciousness, though 
 from thence it quickly spreads over its whole sphere and 
 extends to its utmost limits. The delusion so peculiar to 
 the reason, of an absolute unity or identity and necessity, leads 
 rather to a false and perfectly imaginary science, which for the 
 most part aims at possessing or dreams of having attained to 
 a mathematical certainty. And though the intrinsic contra- 
 diction and inconsistency which reigns in this absolute view 
 of the world and things, notwithstanding the denial of all 
 contrariety with which it sets out, and which, apparently at 
 least, it does get rid of at the beginning, is well calculated to 
 provoke and occasion doubt ; still it is not the seat where 
 doubt is originally engendered and first takes its rise. The 
 act of understanding, on the contrary, supposes an ante- 
 cedent state of its absence. The object or thought which is 
 now understood for the first time, must have already existed 
 as a given matter, standing before us as a problem for our 
 previous ignorance up to the time that we succeeded in solv- 
 ing it. In truth, the act of understanding is nothing more 
 than the passing from ignorance into intelligence. Aid this 
 passage is not always effected at one step, but mostly by 
 slow degrees, and often very slowly and gradually indeed. 
 Now doubt, as the intermediate state between the original 
 ignorance and the inward yearning after certainty, forms the 
 crisis of this passage or transition. Primarily, therefore, and 
 as stripped of all perverted applications and unlimited exten- 
 sion, it is not in its essence an impediment to knowledge, but 
 rather an indispensable aid and useful instrument for the 
 attainment and perfection of science. Wonder, accord- 
 ing to the sense in which it is employed in some passages 
 of the Platonic philosophy, as the inner amazement of the 
 spirit, or the astonished rapture of the soul at the happy dis- 
 covery — the first opening out of the truth — wonder, we 
 
542 
 
 ABSOLUTE DOUBT ALONE PERNICIOUS. 
 
 might say, is the mother of knowledge, which bears in its 
 womb and gives to the light the first germ of it ; but doubt 
 is the father, by whom the internal basis, and also the external 
 form of science, is and can alone be perfected. And inas- 
 much as science, although relatively and for any precise and 
 given form it may apear complete, yet in itself, and gene- 
 rally, and with regard both to its eternal diffusion and 
 intrinsic advance, can never reach to full perfection in 
 this lower world ; therefore doubt can never properly cease 
 altogether. But still, if doubt is to remain a wholesome 
 co-operative power of knowledge, one requisition and 
 demand, and one only, must be made upon it. It must 
 never question the hope and the end of truth itself, and 
 must not give up that inward search after knowledge, of 
 which it is really designed to serve as the organ.. In the 
 form of an universal scepticism, however, it falls into a tone of 
 unconditional decision, which involves an assumption of com- 
 plete certainty, and consequently of a perfect, though nega- 
 tive knowledge, totally inconsistent with its true character. 
 It thereby undermines its own foundation. 
 
 Absolute doubt, therefore, alone constitutes scientific error. 
 As such it must invariably be looked upon whenever, rising 
 to the height of despair, it pronounces science to be unat- 
 tainable. It is such unlimited extension that constitutes a 
 fault or error. But even in this respect it is extremely 
 difficult to determine for individuals, nations, and eras, the 
 utmost limit, beyond which doubt becomes culpable. It is 
 a shifting line of demarcation, according as the perplexity 
 of infinite doubt remaining nothing more than a passive 
 state of internal conflict, is not raised into an abiding 
 principle and unchangeable maxim of life. Besides, it is 
 extremely difficult to determine as a general law, how far 
 doubt can and may go before hope is entirely lost. Nay, it is 
 not easy to say whether, even in this pernicious extravagance, 
 it may not transform itself into good, and bring about a salu- 
 tary crisis of transition, and, being set free from its own 
 exaggerations, discover the true road to the goal of truth, 
 and to a thorough understanding of it. It is only when 
 absolute doubt, in its full energy, is set up purposely and for 
 ever as the final conclusion of all thought and reflection, as 
 the supreme science itself, being developed with cool, calm 
 
DOCTRINE OF A GOOD AND AN EVIL PRINCIPLE. 543 
 
 eelf-possession, and applied to all things without exception, 
 that this spirit of absolute negation becomes totally erroneous. 
 In this case, indeed, it is irredeemably bad ; as the hostile 
 antagonist of all that is good and precious, it overturns truth 
 itself together with science. 
 
 And who then is the author of all evil in man himself, and 
 in all his thoughts, knowledge, and volitions, as well as in all 
 the rest of creation ? It is the dark spirit of negation who so 
 well knows how to veil himself in the false light of apparently 
 transparent clearness. And since we have reached up to the 
 height, or rather down to the depths, of this primary source 
 of all error, it may perhaps be necessary to add a further 
 remark or two on this prime author of untruth, with a view of 
 guarding against the misconceptions that otherwise might arise 
 only too naturally. In Holy Writ he is called the Spirit and 
 the Prince of this world. In ancient times, this description 
 has been greatly misunderstood. It was taken to mean that 
 he is properly the demiurge and subordinate creator of this 
 sensible world, in which there are so many traces of fearful 
 dissension, profound corruption, and disorder. The intrinsic 
 state of nature in its present condition appeared to many 
 thinkers so inexpressibly miserable and so full of deadly evil, 
 that they could not bring themselves to ascribe its origination 
 to the true God. But even though nature be in fact never so 
 heavily laden with woes and intrinsically miserable — (and 
 indeed it is spoken of in the Book of Truth as the creature 
 " groaning and travailing in pain;") — though the world were 
 even far more fearfully rent with disorder and corruption, and 
 chained and fettered to a shape stranger to goodness and truth 
 than seems at the first glance to be the case, still there would 
 be no ground for adopting the oriental view of two principles. 
 And indeed the wonder is how it could ever have found 
 adherents; since this world, already sufficiently distracted, 
 is thereby but involved in still deeper dissension, and 
 actually rent into two distinct parts, so that it becomes no 
 longer possible to think or conceive of such a thing as truth, 
 or to hope for any veritable and satisfactory scheme of know- 
 ledge This strange religious error, into which the primal 
 world of Asia, with its deep and profound emotions, fell, is 
 so remote and foreign to the more moderate, not to say 
 colder, sentiments of the West, that it is extremely difficult 
 
544 
 
 ABSOLUTE DOUBT A SOURCE OF EE. "ROB. 
 
 to set it forth and understand it in all its actual awfulness. 
 It would therefore be as idle as it would be inappropriate for 
 me to enter further into this false, but ancient system of dualism. 
 Still there is one remark which essentially belongs to our pre- 
 sent subject, and is also closely connected with what has gone 
 before. The first author of untruth, we have seen, cannot for 
 a moment be regarded as the true demiurge and creator of the 
 world, as the oriental view would represent him. Neverthe- 
 less, inasmuch as evil, universally and individually, in great 
 and in little, is a deceptive image and imitation of good, this 
 spirit of everlasting negation has unquestionably a world of his 
 own, which is his production, and in a certain degree called 
 forth and created by him. And that is the null and seeming 
 world of void nought, which, however, through a fatal delusion 
 and belief in its reality, and through its opposition to the 
 good as well as the true, has become a real nought, and 
 must be considered as such. The actual world of the bene- 
 ficent Creator was created out of nothing, since, besides Him- 
 self, all is nothing but a mirror of His perfection, a mere 
 reflection of His infinite power and glory. But though it was 
 made out of nothing, it was yet created for something, or 
 rather for very much, even for an ever- advancing approxima- 
 tion to, and a finally complete identity with, its Maker. This 
 good and noble something, as the supreme end of the true 
 creation, is however opposed by the nought of the dark world 
 of shadows, which has now become real and consequently 
 evil. Thus created, however, or at least shaped and produced 
 out of something, it exists for nothing, even for that nought 
 which constitutes the proper world, the field of action and 
 vital atmosphere of the evil principle. In the case of an indi- 
 vidual whose delusions have been carried to the height of 
 passion, and whose soul is torn and distracted by a perfect 
 despair of all truth, it is sometimes said that he has hell itself 
 in his heart ; such a mode of speaking (as is usually the case 
 with such images and metaphors, which we use without asso- 
 ciating with them any very clear or definite ideas,) is perfectly 
 and in sober earnestness quite true. In a metaphysical sense 
 even, it is perfectly precise and correct. 
 
 If this absolute doubt, which is so often set up for the 
 supreme principle of all thought and knowledge, were always 
 to show and exhibit itself such as it really is, and in its 
 
TBUE AND LIMITED DOUBT USEFUL. 545 
 
 inmost nature, and if what it ultimately leads to, and from 
 what source it originally springs, were fully known, then would 
 this sceptical view of things, with its wild exaggerations, which 
 go beyond all the analogy of human nature, prove far less 
 baneful than it does at present. In general it would less 
 easily gain assent and make a far weaker impression. But 
 inasmuch as this fatally pernicious and most absurd paradox 
 does not stand out here so sharply and clearly as it does in 
 the genuine idealistic theory, but is mostly veiled and hidden 
 beneath the manifold beauties of an exquisite skill of ex- 
 position, which very often drops the rigour of scientific 
 form, it consequently numbers far more adherents than could 
 have been believed to be possible. Indeed, they are almost 
 as numerous as the admirers of a poetical pantheism, with 
 which it contrives occasionally to form a half compact and 
 seemingly identifies itself. And this fact alone furnishes a 
 sufficient reason why we should not pass it over altogether 
 unnoticed in these Lectures. However, it must be borne in 
 mind that all our objections and exceptions are directed 
 exclusively against an absolute scepticism, as exercising by 
 its perverted application and undue extension, a fatally destruc- 
 tive influence on science and on life. 
 
 The true doubt, which keeps within its proper limits and on 
 the road to its appointed goal of a constantly advancing but 
 never perfect knowledge, deserves to be regarded as an ever 
 active and co-operative power for the development of truth 
 and science. It must therefore be confessed that the ap- 
 pointed guardians of the publicly acknowledged truth (which, 
 as such, ought to possess universal authority, both in the 
 state and the spiritual domain,) do not always exhibit the 
 greatest wisdom and discretion. Too often do they violently 
 suppress every movement of doubt without distinction, and 
 allow no opening to it in any shape. But by this course 
 they do but exaggerate the spiritual and intellectual evil that 
 already exists. At least this purely negative method can 
 never totally eradicate it. 
 
 We have now then completely depicted, in their leading 
 features at least, the principal errors to which science is ex- 
 posed. And if we have enabled you to regard them as errors 
 both in their origin and their subsequent character, we must 
 at the same time, by means of the contrast, have thrown addi- 
 
 2 N 
 
546 INDISPENSABLE TO ADVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 tional light and distinctness on the idea of science, not only 
 as regards its different elements and constituents, but also the 
 whole periphery and centre of internal certainty. If, now, it 
 should be required of us to give a common characteristic of all 
 the fundamental errors which, potentially at least, exist in the 
 human consciousness — if it be wished that we should comprise 
 under one general designation the false phantom of absolute 
 unity and necessity in science — the imaginary fiction of death 
 brought into nature by a dead and atomistic mode of thinking 
 — the prejudices of the Ego or Me, and the spirit of eternal 
 negation, which is utterly fatal to truth — then, for this pur- 
 pose, nothing else would remain but an empty formula or 
 unsubstantial notion, viz., the dead absolute. At least this 
 would be thoroughly appropriate to convey that intrinsic indif- 
 ference of all forms of scientific untruth. 
 
 Opposed thereto, and forming the centre of a true and valid 
 knowledge, is that source of eternal love within the feeling to 
 which we have already so often alluded, designating it by 
 either similar or somewhat different expressions. To defend 
 and securely to settle this living centre of all higher truth and 
 true science against the attacks of absolute scepticism, was 
 even the task which we proposed to ourselves from the out- 
 set. It was however far from our intention, while discharg- 
 ing this duty, wholly to put doubt itself under a ban. On 
 the contrary, we look upon the latter as an essential means 
 of improvement, and as an almost indispensable organ of 
 development in a living progression of knowledge. 
 
 Now in these definite limits, both for the exclusion of 
 absolute scepticism and for the recognition and correct appli- 
 cation at all times of a genuine and salutary doubt, we have 
 we think found a satisfactory answer to the great question of 
 truth and of the possibility of man's attaining to a knowledge 
 of it. And if so, we have at the same time shown completely 
 that doubt forms a decisive crisis in the human mind, and 
 thereby happily solved the problem which at an earlier period 
 we propounded with regard to it. And moreover, as was 
 then declared to be necessary, the instinctive feeling of truth 
 within the very centre of love has been raised to and esta- 
 blished in the dignity of an intelligent feeling or a solid judg- 
 ment of inward certainty, and of an immediate perception 
 thereof. And this immediate perception of inward certainty 
 
WHAT IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE f 
 
 547 
 
 must serve as the transition from the first developed notion 
 of the consciousness to our now more enlightened idea of 
 science, and also form the connecting link between them. 
 Before, however, we can close our present development with 
 this notion of judgment or intelligent feeling of inward cer- 
 tainty, one question remains to be answered, or perhaps one 
 remark to be added. And this relates to truth itself, as the 
 inmost centre of such an immediate perception, while the 
 question that occurs is, what is it, per se, to know, and what 
 is it that in the act of knowing really takes place in the human 
 mind ? 
 
 Now it has been long admitted that true knowing con- 
 sists in this; — that a man discerns things, not merely as they 
 outwardly appear, but as they are really and truly in them- 
 selves. But this true intrinsic essence of things is seized or 
 understood by him only who perceives them such as they 
 proceeded from the Deity, have their being in Him, and such 
 as they stand before His omniscient eye and are seen by Him. 
 What then is true knowledge, if such be possible for man ? 
 Now, supposing the existence of a living God — and how with- 
 out this universal primary and imperishable hypothesis, could 
 there be either talk or question about truth or knowledge in 
 general ? — this supposition then involves the idea of an omni- 
 present Deity, in whom all existent things " live and move 
 and have their being," even though He does not visibly 
 appear and is hidden to the outward eye of sense. Truly to 
 know, therefore, would be, if we may so express it, to feel 
 and draw out the latent presence of God in objects, and 
 « thereby to seize and perceive their true intrinsic essence. Now 
 if it is necessary to distinguish the several grades of develop- 
 ment of this spiritual or intellectual feeling which draws out 
 the inner truth of things, its first step must be described as 
 a perception, which, however, is both from without and 
 remote. The second w r ould be a sensation, i. e., the full certain 
 finding the truth in oneself.* As to the last step of consum- 
 mation : that would amount to an intellectual intuition, even 
 though, by reason of human finiteness, it must ever remain 
 indirect. Still it would not on that account be less profoundly 
 
 * Our language cannot give the etymological connexion of the thoughts 
 in this sentence. The original is : Die zweyte ware dann ein Empfinaen, 
 namlich, das voile gewisse In sich finden einer Wahrheit. 
 
 2 N 2 
 
548 DEVELOPMENT OF TRUTH SLOW AND GRADUAL. 
 
 searching and penetrating, while, in it, that of which we have 
 now first become certain, comes forward externally perfect 
 and admits of being imparted to others. And unquestion- 
 ably for that philosophy which pretends to open and unveil a 
 true and right understanding of the inner and higher life, 
 after the first grade, which took for its basis the full and com- 
 plete notion of the consciousness ; and after the second, in 
 which the idea of science is unfolded, this intuition of truth 
 forms the third degree, and also the final close and comple- 
 tion of the whole. In order, however, to understand how 
 such an intuitive knowledge is possible, we must bear in mind 
 that it is not we who raise ourselves to the divine idea ; but 
 that, on the contrary, it is it that takes hold of our minds, 
 being imparted to and working within us. 
 
 The deadly attacks of scepticism may no doubt be directed 
 successfully enough against an unconditional science of rea- 
 son, where its action or reaction, which brings out the intrinsic 
 contradiction of such a system, is both salutary and desirable, 
 in order to destroy the false semblance of a spurious neces- 
 sity. All its blows, however, glance off from a real and solid 
 experience and soon cease entirely. And just so also the 
 limit of an assumed or credited impossibility, which is too 
 hastily and too nearly set up, is quickly overstepped by facts 
 themselves. Very often before now has it happened in 
 experimental science, that what man once not merely ques- 
 tioned, but actually declared to be incredible, nay even impos- 
 sible, has unexpectedly proved afterwards to be an actual fact, 
 and gained general credence as undeniably certain. How- 
 much is there not in nature that deserves to be called mar- 
 vellous, and borders close upon the miraculous, and which 
 makes at lea^t some such impression on our minds and under- 
 standings as they have been hitherto developed? To one, 
 indeed, who takes his stand on revelation, it becomes extremely 
 difficult to draw a strict line of demarcation, and to raise an 
 impassable boundary between that which is called natural and 
 that which is termed supernatural, in the usual sense of these 
 words. And if all higher truth is imparted, and cannot but 
 be such, who will presume to set a limit or a measure here ? 
 Who will set bounds to the Author of revelation which He 
 shall not pass? If then, even in philosophy, all science and 
 truth is really a revelation, and if it were recognised and 
 
LIMITS TO MAN'S SPECULATION. 
 
 549 
 
 understood in this light, then should we be able to put this 
 matter to the test of experience, provided only that we be 
 careful to draw from the right source and to treat philosophy 
 really and truly as a science of an experience higher than 
 any internal or external one. 
 
 But man must not expect, even according to this mode of 
 view, to penetrate at once into the fulness of the divine 
 mysteries, and arbitrarily to play with and mould them at his 
 pleasure. The development of truth in the human mind 
 always proceeds slowly and step by step. Even when the 
 whole beginning and sure foundation is already found, or 
 rather given, the inner evolution and external application of 
 #true science unfolds itself with extreme tardiness. At each 
 point of progress much still remains to be overcome, much 
 to be improved, and even to be thought upon once more and 
 reconsidered over and over again. Often, too, at the very last 
 moment, an unexpected obstacle presents itself, or some new 
 procrastination of a conscientious doubt or scruple. To show that 
 all this is to be expected even according to the theory which 
 makes science to be a divine communication, and that all higher 
 knowledge is and must be such, I have a remark or two more 
 to add. And here I shall not follow the same course that I 
 took in my exposition of the possible forms of error, tracing 
 the origin of each to some predisposing cause in the several 
 faculties of the mind. It will suffice to take for granted the 
 keenest susceptibility in the truth-loving soul, the greatest 
 activity and energy of the spirit in its search after and cog- 
 nition of science, and a perfectly pure will co-existing and 
 having a common foundation in a purified, newly invigorated, 
 and enhanced state of the human consciousness. 
 
 Very often, even in the noblest minds, a lively open sense 
 and profound sensibility of the soul for the higher truth are 
 found associated with a secret dread and profound apprehen- 
 sion before it. At this, however, we need not to feel sur- 
 prised. It is not so much a lasting illusion, as rather a slight 
 partition-wall between the first new impression and our habi- 
 tual self; for each fresh influence of higher truth draws us 
 noticeably away from our usual circle of ideas, and often pain- 
 fully eradicates some favourite notion and cherished opinion. 
 This fact, then, will serve to explain this slight feeling of resist- 
 ance which precedes a complete adhesion and identification. 
 
550 THESE DISCERNED BY A LOGICAL CONSCIENCE. 
 
 and as such requires to be treated with the utmost delicacy 
 and tenderness. Or let us take the case of a great mind in 
 possession of a higher and comprehensive knowledge, and most 
 assuredly he could never have attained to it without many a 
 bold venture in living thought ; for without boldness nothing 
 good or beautiful, much less great, is ever reached or attain- 
 able. And this is true also of language, for the bold thought 
 demands a correspondent boldness of expression. Where, 
 then, is such an one to look for the limits and the standard of a 
 legitimate venture — the guide and safeguard against temerity, 
 when his boldness of speculation springs really from a pro- 
 found love of truth, and a pure enthusiasm for science ? The 
 risk of error and mistake, and even a sense of solemn account- I 
 ability, meets him on all sides, and fills him with anxiety and 
 reserve. The hypothesis has been deemed allowable, at least 
 it has been advanced, invented by way of simile, of a man 
 being entrusted with and holding in his hand the full truth 
 — or rather let me say all truth in heaven and in earth- 
 since if we suppose science to be imparted and a gift, there 
 can be no limits set or predetermined to its extent. Now it 
 has been asserted that such a person would be seized with 
 hesitation, fear, and doubt whether he ought to open his hand 
 all at once, or only half open it at first, or whether he ought 
 not even to keep it a long time closed. But to turn away 
 from this fiction, which in reality transcends altogether the 
 measure of human capacity : then, as regards the necessary 
 gradation and salutary slowness that marks, and even the 
 hesitation that must take place in all human learning and 
 development, and even in philosophy, no less than in the 
 internal region of the consciousness, what rule or guide has 
 man ? For such a standard nothing apparently remains to us 
 but to assume the notion of a logical conscience as a quality 
 in the true thinker necessary to preserve him from every false 
 step, either within or without. That there is such a logical 
 conscience, wholly independent of all moral relation, is per- 
 fectly obvious. By it we must understand not only a careful 
 measuring and weighing of all thoughts, but even of every 
 word and expression. And we have chosen this term as well 
 fitted to enforce the great importance of this sensibility in 
 matters of scientific truth, and to indicate the place in the 
 consciousness where it properly has its seat, and the principle 
 
SOPHIST AND PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 551 
 
 from which it must take its rise. The genius-gifted boldness 
 of a great thinker would be little likely to convey confidence, 
 if it were not at the same time associated and harmoniously 
 united with the essential element of a cautious and gradual 
 procedure. In its essential features, though in a somewhat 
 different form and relation the Greeks in their philosophy 
 were acquainted with and possessed this notion of a logical 
 conscience ; for in some measure it is even implied in this 
 very word philosophy, which was intended to indicate and 
 mtrinsically means an unselfish and pure pursuit of truth. 
 But the fact becomes still more evident by the contrast with 
 or rather by the notion of the sophist, as opposed to that of 
 the philosopher. By the former they understood a common 
 and vulgar traffic with wisdom, or even an interested and 
 wholly unconscientious abuse of scientific truth to personal 
 interest, or the gratification of selfish humours and passions, 
 and even of vain glory. All this the Greeks regarded as 
 absolutely worthless and despicable. And much is it to be 
 wished that we in our days remembered a little better, and 
 strove to imitate, this stern morality of the old Athenians in 
 their notion of the high dignity of truth, and of the respect 
 due to this sanctuary of science, which, at the distance that 
 they were allowed to approach to it, they reverently worship- 
 ped and honoured. 
 
 .2ND Or LSCTURB IX.* 
 
552 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 The apprehending of a real object in thought, unquestion- 
 ably involves an act of knowing, so long, at least, as it is no 
 empty thought, but has a real subject-matter. It is a piece of 
 knowledge, even though it may be as yet very incomplete, 
 both as regards its external connexion with others and its 
 inward development, and though it be highly defective also 
 in form and expression. It is, moreover, possible that sub- 
 sequently, by an incorrect analysis or other erroneous treat- 
 ment of it, its usefulness may be destroyed, itself dissolved 
 into nought, and stripped of true vital significance. And 
 thus by our own fault, the thought, which originally possessed 
 a true and real object, is reduced into a mere wordy formula, 
 conveying actually no meaning at all. In order, then, to 
 indicate the real distinction between the two, and at the 
 same time to guard against all possible misconception, we 
 would define a-s follows the intrinsic essence of knowledge : to 
 know is the living thought of something real. The general in- 
 definite term, thought, which we have here employed, is the 
 right one and the most appropriate in this place, for it com- 
 prises every kind of perceiving and understanding, of judging 
 and comprehending, of cognition and recognition, and serves 
 to indicate the several elements and relations or differing 
 degrees of knowledge, and of that intuitive inward certainty 
 which is combined and associated with them. It would be far 
 less accurate to say that knowledge is the correct thought, 
 instead of the living thought of a real object; although, 
 indeed, the former is involved in an4 inseparable from the 
 latter. When a thought which in any degree apprehends or 
 comprehends a real object, is said to be incorrect, this is as 
 much as to say, that it comprises much that is not found in 
 the object itself, and consequently does not coincide with it. 
 But that which is not contained in the object itself is, so far 
 as it is concerned, unreal and does not belong to it. And 
 all such is necessarily excluded from the notion of the thought 
 of a real object, since otherwise it would be a thinking of 
 
KNOWLEDGE MUST START EROM A REAL OBJECT. 553 
 
 what is unreal. The expression, too, of an incorrect thinking 
 of what is real, would no doubt point to and indicate the same 
 fact in every case where such thinking is a thoroughly defec- 
 tive and incomplete knowing; if, for instance, much that 
 is essential and is really found in the particular object were 
 not comprised in the thought or were wanting in it. This 
 expression, consequently, is perfectly applicable, and indeed 
 appropriate, w T hen we wish to speak of a complete and 
 perfect knowledge, and to distinguish it from one that is 
 faulty and defective. But such knowledge slowly and gra- 
 dually developes itself; the notion of knowing in general 
 must precede that of perfect knowledge. The living thought 
 of a real object, however imperfect and incomplete it may be, 
 contains nevertheless the first beginning and germ of a know- 
 ing. It is only out of a dead thought that a true knowing 
 can never arise ; properly, indeed, when it is but a mere for- 
 mula, it is not even a true thinking. Knowledge, therefore, 
 in general is the living thought of some real object ; but per- 
 fect and complete knowledge is the full and correct develop- 
 ment of this thought, by means of which it becomes perfectly 
 defined, both outwardly and inwardly. But a real object is 
 invariably the first foundation and beginning, from which all 
 knowledge springs up, and to which all thought must be 
 immediately directed and also closely attach itself. 
 
 In an older form of philosophy, the supreme, or — as it 
 was called, not very appropriately, if all its various relations 
 be considered — necessary Being, was usually declared to be 
 that of which the reality was at once given in its possi- 
 bility, so that the proof of its actual existence would imme- 
 diately follow from the mere idea of its perfection. This, 
 however, is but one of the many forms of expression for the 
 absolute unity of being and knowledge. We have already 
 expressed ourselves sufficiently at large on the general topic, 
 and we have only adduced this particular instance to serve as 
 a passage to our exposition of another view, in the hope of 
 throwing out the latter more distinctly and definitely by means 
 of the contrast. 
 
 In that method of philosophy which takes its rise in no 
 dead and abstract thinking, but rather in life itself and the 
 living thought, reality, together with the immediate feeling of 
 whatever is thus real and actual in the inward perception, as 
 
554 
 
 ITS SECOND STEP A GENERALIZATION. 
 
 well as in external experience, and also in the revelation from 
 above, forms the first beginning out of which all is developed. 
 This is the fixed, stable point to which all that follows 
 attaches itself. The necessary, which comes first after this 
 reality, is simply the inner essential and complete connexion 
 of this first data. But the possible, which is not any mere 
 arbitrary conception and chimerical invention, but something 
 truly, and we might almost say really possible, forms the 
 conclusion, as that which by a natural development results 
 from the two former — the initiatory fact and its intrinsic 
 essentiality. This simple series or natural progression in 
 living thought forms and constitutes in the next place the 
 different degrees of understanding, and even the internal 
 grades of certainty and clearness in a continuously advancing 
 development. The foundation of the whole is formed by the 
 feeling of a reality, the perception of a fact, existing somewhere 
 within the limits of that triple experience which takes in an 
 inner and an outer and also a higher world. Now the first 
 step in this progressive intellectual development is formed by 
 the notion or general term, which, as I formerly explained it, 
 is a thought or conception that is mathematically determined 
 and precisely limited, both inwardly and outwardly, according 
 to the three dimensions of number, measure, and weight. In 
 it all the several elements which, taken together, form the 
 original thought or conception of the real object, are first of 
 all duly separated and arranged, and then again united as 
 organic members into a regular whole, or, after the manner 
 of geometry, brought into a construction. But this act of 
 comprising into a general notion {Begreifen) is by no means 
 a perfect explanation of the matter. It is not, as it were, an 
 analysis carried out fully and completely, so that nothing still 
 remains to be explained. For even according to the ordinary 
 usage of speech, we may very easily form and have a notion 
 of any system, whether purely ideal or experimental, philo- 
 sophical or unphilosophical, or belonging to any other domain 
 of science, and even of a work of art, at the same time that 
 we are forced to admit that there is much in it that we do 
 not understand, or which appears to us inexplicable and unin- 
 telligible. This comprehending, which externally consists in 
 the correct marking out of the whole circumference of an 
 object, and inwardly, in the clear division and arrangement of 
 
ITS THIRD STEP AN IDEA. 
 
 555 
 
 its several organic members, is not the complete act of under- 
 standing ; it is only its first step. As such, however, it may 
 afterwards attain to an internal confirmation, and become 
 thereby the second degree in the approach to completeness of 
 understanding. And this it does as soon as a cognition of 
 the error which may either possibly rise up in, about, or 
 together with itself, or is actually combined with it, is attained, 
 and when, consequently, a clearer recognition of the opposing 
 truth advances the mere feeling of a something real into an 
 intelligent feeling or judgment of inward certainty. And 
 this is the very essence of knowing. The third step in the 
 further development or enhancement of the first living thought, 
 or of its progressive approach towards completeness of under- 
 standing, is formed by the idea. The idea is distinct from 
 the notion, even in its form. Unlike the latter, it does not set 
 forth all that, under the given conditions, necessarily and 
 essentially belongs together, fn other words, it does not give 
 the full and complete extent of the reality which was taken up 
 by the original feeling and perception. It rather propounds the 
 thought of a possibility, which, in a certain and definite view 
 or direction, appears attainable. For instance, in o present 
 development of the inner and higher life, the notion of the 
 consciousness was followed by the idea of science, and the 
 question how far it is possible and within the reach of man. 
 Even in ordinary language, this distinction is observed. How 
 often do we hear it observed, that this or that scheme is a 
 mere idea, signifying that it is a thought whose object is 
 a something possible, but of which the reality or realisation 
 appears at the time highly problematical. On the other hand, 
 by the term notion, strictly taken, it is usual to understand a 
 thought which has for its subject-matter something relatively 
 true at least, since, otherwise there would be nothing that we 
 could have a notion of or comprehend. And simply on this 
 account it is not possible that the idea should contain a per- 
 fectly definite and organically articulated construction of its 
 object. For, in fact, an idea is merely the indication, the 
 standard, and the rule of the possible. It is simply designed 
 to show what is to be, and in what way it can be, attained, 
 and perhaps also in what law of progression its attainment 
 will be actually realised. 
 
 However, a truly scientific and scientifically useful idea is 
 
553 
 
 IDEAS DEPENDENT ON CERTAINTY. 
 
 before all things closely and essentially dependent on the 
 foundation of an inward certainty, or a feeling and conviction 
 that the object which forms its problem, or the problem which 
 is its object, is really and actually attainable. Consequently 
 it intimately depends on the intelligent feeling or judgment as 
 to this inward certainty and truth in knowledge. 
 
ANALYTICAL INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Absolute knowledge, false cha- 
 racter of . . .56 
 power considered . .176 
 Abstraction, not the true me- 
 thod of philosophy . 362 
 iEther of the nerves . .74 
 Age, the early Christian . 148 
 the middle . . 149, 251 
 that of the restoration of 
 
 letters .... 150 
 anti- Christian spirit of the 
 
 present . . .151 
 
 a struggle for truth the con- 
 flict of the present . 158 
 the spirit of the present a 
 
 spirit of untruth . .160 
 different ages of the history 
 
 of the world . . .164 
 characteristics of the pre- 
 sent . . . 165, 470 
 the middle contained all the 
 elements of the Christian 
 state . . . .183 
 rationalism to be feared in 
 
 the present . . .231 
 spirit of the present . .420 
 Alphabet, the psychological . 464 
 Angels, the neutral . .136 
 Animals, soul of . . .120 
 Antediluvian — see World. 
 Architecture, its alliance to 
 
 sculpture . . .265 
 Arians, the .... 250 
 Aristotle, his system . .288 
 Aristotelian schoolmen . 251 
 Art, symbolical nature and 
 
 Page 
 
 constitution of life with 
 reference to it . .261 
 Art, all symbolical . . . 262 
 religious origin of . .270 
 a feeling of the infinite . 426 
 a universal language , .433 
 evil influences of . .468 
 hope the soul of . . 469 
 present state of . . .471 
 spurious . . . .473 
 Astronomy, modern . .81 
 seven the traditionary num- 
 ber of the planets . .82 
 Pythagorean system of . 83 
 Atheism, produced by French 
 
 philosophy . . .12 
 tendency of modern science to 155 
 Atlantis, legend of . .81 
 Authority, God the source of . 169 
 Avarice, its character . . 29 
 apart from industry . .31 
 Beauty . . . .506 
 source of in fiction . . 510 
 Bible — see Scriptures. 
 Body, the spiritual . . 74 
 Bjnron, his Cain . . 16, 421 
 Cause, final, doctrine of .124 
 of creation intelligible . 127 
 Chemical analysis, modern, re- 
 sults of ... 85 
 China, its state of separation . 182 
 Christianity, revelation of .147 
 first eight Christian centuries 148 
 the middle ages . .149 
 anti-Christian spirit of this era 151 
 universal peace . . .186 
 
558 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Christianity, its dispensation, 
 struggle between light and 
 darkness in . . .210 
 its science and philosophy . 249 
 the Gnostics and Arians . 250 
 the middle ages — the Aris- 
 totelian schoolmen . 251 
 disputations of the schoolmen 252 
 of the eighteenth century . 25-1 
 without an altar . .273 
 the Christian state an here- 
 ditary monarchy . .288 
 the true guardian of liberty 292 
 its jurisprudence . .301 
 spread amongst the Mahom- 
 
 medans . . . 303 
 its priests not hereditary . 313 
 its justice the basis of Euro- 
 pean peace . . .316 
 confederation of its States . 317 
 Church, its collision with the 
 
 State . . . 304, 309 
 separation of . . .311 
 Communion, the highest sym- 
 bol of faith . . .272 
 Compass, the invention of .80 
 Condillac, his philosophy . 11 
 Conscience, its relationship to 
 
 reason . . . .50 
 imperfection of . . .446 
 Consistency, the criterion of 
 
 truth . . . .256 
 Creation, final cause of, intelli- 
 gible . . . .127 
 Death, final emancipation of 
 
 nature from . . .91 
 destruction of . . .347 
 Deluge, the, how to be consi- 
 dered . . . . 117 
 Despotism .... 295 
 the natural result of anar- 
 chy ... 296 
 Dialogue the natural form of 
 
 philosophy . . .65 
 the true form assumed by 
 all living thought . . 390 
 Discernment the link between 
 
 faith and science . .198 
 
 Pa?* 
 
 Divine — see God. 
 
 Doubt, a necessary condition 
 
 of man's mind . .437 
 essential to man . . 540 
 the passage from ignorance . 
 
 to knowledge . .541 
 absolute, a source of error . 544 
 true, and limited, indispen- 
 sable to advance of know- 
 ledge .... 545 
 Dreams, their character . 24 
 Earth, man's affinity to . 79 
 Education, its symbolical cha- 
 racter . . . .267 
 philosophy the crown of .356 
 English, the Reformation 
 
 amongst . . .305 
 their constitution . .308 
 Church and State . . 309 
 Enthusiasm springs from love 32 
 the origin of patriotism . 33 
 its longing for the eternal 
 and divine 34, 432, 492 
 
 Epicureans, the . . . 248 
 Error, rapid growth of . .56 
 four sources of . . .103 
 intermediate conflict of with 
 
 truth . . . .153 
 religious, two forms of .177 
 twofold spirit of truth and 
 
 error .... 209 
 struggle between . .210 
 reason and fancy the ulti- 
 mate sources of . . 225 
 understanding and will co- 
 operating causes in its 
 formation and diffusion . 227 
 truth not established by its 
 
 refutation . . .232 
 controversy with, begets it . 319 
 knowledge of . .502 
 
 co-ordinate with knowledge 519 
 two sources of in philosophy 536 
 subjective . . .537 
 absolute doubt a source of . 544 
 Eternal punishments . .132 
 the unquenchable fire .133 
 Eternity . . . .411 
 
INDEX. 
 
 559 
 
 Page 
 
 Eternity, not irreconcilable with 
 
 time .... 416 
 
 of the world . . .417 
 Europe, peace of, based on 
 
 Christian justice . .316 
 Evil, moral, a result of man's 
 
 freedom . . . 130 
 
 physical, a means of purifi- 
 cation . . . .131 
 
 influence of in nature . . 345 
 Faith, man's, not sufficiently 
 
 childlike . . .110 
 
 can restore unity to the 
 mind . . . .112 
 
 dissension between faith and 
 science . . . .195 
 
 discernment the link between 
 them . . . .198 
 
 reconcilable with science . 201 
 
 choice between that and in- 
 fidelity . . . .213 
 
 not a negative limitation of 
 reason . . . .217 
 
 its identity with supreme 
 
 science .... 220 
 the soul's firmament . .221 
 communion its highest 
 
 symbol . . . .272 
 genuine and spurious . .465 
 true and false faith . .489 
 universal . . . .500 
 in relation to time . .511 
 its relation to knowledge . 512 
 
 knowledge impossible with- 
 out it . . . . 513 
 Fall, the, physical consequences of 90 
 
 discord of the mind one of 
 its consequences . .96 
 Falsehood to be fought with its 
 
 own weapons . .156 
 
 trifling with oaths . .159 
 
 the present spirit of the age 160 
 Fancy, man's distinctive pro- 
 perty . . . .20 
 
 a division of the soul apart 
 from reason . . .24 
 
 its influence on the senses . 27 
 
 on the passions . . .28 
 
 Page 
 
 Fancy, its influence on the 
 
 nobler feelings . .30 
 on love and marriage . .32 
 on enthusiasm . . .32 
 on all man's emotions . 35 
 the poetical • . .36 
 its powers . . .72 
 fancy and reason the ulti- 
 mate sources of error . 225 
 seldom harmonises with rea- 
 son .... 370 
 not attributable to God .379 
 Feeling, the centre of con- 
 sciousness . . . 486 
 its spurious and genuine 
 
 manifestations . .487 
 a source of revelation . .518 
 Fichte, his philosophy . .15 
 Final causes, doctrine of . 124 
 of creation intelligible . 127 
 Freedom, man's . . . 128 
 moral evil a result of it .130 
 created spirits without it .134 
 of philosophy . . .188 
 French, their modern philo- 
 sophy . . . .11 
 its atheism • . .12 
 its fatal results . . .13 
 their advancement in phy- 
 sical science . . .16 
 Generation, spontaneous, crea- 
 tures of . . . . 121 
 Genius, worship of . .467 
 Geology, analogy of philology to 398 
 Germans, their philosophy . 13 
 Kant . . . .13 
 Jacobi, Fichte . . .14 
 Schelling, Hegel . .15 
 its superiority to the French 17 
 their old Christian empire . 294 
 their customary law . . 300 
 confederation of states 314, 317 
 Gnostics, the . . .250 
 God, his attributes . .51 
 figurative language as applied 
 
 to Him . . . .52 
 His divine nature unap- 
 preciated by reason • 53 
 
560 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 God, the understanding the only- 
 proper organ for acquiring 
 a knowledge of Him . 54 
 
 limitation of His justice and 
 mercy . . . . 57 
 
 knowledge of Him a science 
 of experience . .58 
 
 His revelation to man . 61 
 
 knowledge of, illimitable . 70 
 
 condescension of the divine 
 essence . . . .106 
 
 self-denial bringing us near 
 Him . . . .108 
 
 the author and preserver 
 of nature's laws . .116 
 
 His divine nature not subject 
 to necessity . . .129 
 
 His divine wisdom mani- 
 fested in the realm of truth 141 
 
 His divine order in the his- 
 tory of the world and rela- 
 tions of States . .163 
 
 the source of justice and 
 authority . . .169 
 
 kings His vicegerents . .170 
 
 priests . . . .172 
 
 His temporal judgments on 
 the world . . .179 
 
 the Greeks His second chosen 
 people .... 181 
 
 His being not a matter of 
 reasoning . . .192 
 
 can alone bring about the 
 era of science . .340 
 
 restoration of His image in 
 man .... 344 
 
 the mind's consummation in 
 Him . . . .375 
 
 understanding may be predi- 
 cated of Him . . . 380 
 
 cannot be said to have a soul 381 
 
 must maintain the union of 
 soul and spirit . .455 
 
 the idea of, the only idea . 457 
 
 unintelligible without love . 458 
 Greeks, their philosophers, dif- 
 ferent cosmogonies of . 2 
 
 a second chosen people of God 181 
 
 Greeks, rise and decline of 
 
 their philosophy . . 243 
 their logic . . .258 
 Heathenism a corruption of a 
 
 purer Gentilism . . 238 
 Hegel, his philosophy . .15 
 Hieroglyphics, illustrate sym- 
 bolism of life . . .275 
 Hindoos, their trinity, cha- 
 racter of 204 
 their logic . . .258 
 History, a prelude of the final 
 
 judgment . . .173 
 a rehearsal of the first temp- 
 tation . . . .175 
 ancient, its results . .297 
 Honour apart from pride . 31 
 Hope, the vital flame of faith 
 
 and love . . 113, 431 
 universal . . . .500 
 in relation to time . .511 
 Ideas, innate . . .76 
 of death . . . .77 
 Identity, system of . .524 
 Idolatry of science . .219 
 of rationalism . . .224 
 Incarnation, the principle of 
 
 new life . . . 277 
 Indians, their affinity to the 
 
 Teutons . . .312 
 Industry apart from avarice . 31 
 Infidelity, choice between and 
 
 faith . . . .213 
 its identity with superstition 214 
 Infinity, the, poetry a feeling of 425 
 art, a feeling of . . . 426 
 effects of a perverted sense of 427 
 influence of pure longing for 429 
 Innocence, remembrances of 
 
 primaeval . . . 509 
 Instincts, divided from the 
 
 senses . . . .26 
 become passions . . 28 
 their pernicious character . 28 
 their nobler character . 30 
 the external . . .440 
 Intuition, intellectual, theory 
 
 of. . . \ 257 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Irony 390 
 
 Jacobi, his philosophy . .15 
 Jews, the prophetic people . 146 
 their present state . .183 
 their dispensation, struggle 
 between light and dark- 
 ness in . ' . . .210 
 their theocracy — see Theo- 
 cracy, 
 
 their monarchy . . .331 
 John, St., Gospel of . . 207 
 Judges, the ministers of the 
 
 Jewish theocracy . . 330 
 Judgment, the faculty of .167 
 final, history a prelude of .173 
 the last . . . .178 
 God's temporal judgments . 179 
 phenomena of . . . 449 
 essentially a feeling . .451 
 Judicial, the, the highest func- 
 tion of kings . . .281 
 prerogatives of supreme 
 
 power, judicial . . 283 
 the throne and sceptre its 
 symbols . . . 284 
 Jurisprudence, Christian . 301 
 Justice, divine, limited . .57 
 God the source of . .169 
 Christian, the basis of Euro- 
 pean peace . . .316 
 Kant, his philosophy . .15 
 Kings, the vicegerents of 
 
 God . . . 170, 285 
 their power . . .278 
 sanctity of . . .280 
 the judicial, the highest func- 
 tion of . . . .281 
 Knowledge, true, slow progress 
 
 of .... 55 
 absolute, false character of . 56 
 of God, a science of expe- 
 rience . . . .58 
 of divine things, illimitable . 70 
 pursuit of must have a real 
 
 basis .... 505 
 relation of faith to . .512 
 impossible without faith . 513 
 true 547 
 
 -Age 1 
 
 Knowledge, must start from a 
 
 real object . . . 55B 
 its second step a generaliza- 
 tion .... 564 
 its third step an idea . . 555 
 Language, how produced . 45 
 the joint produce of soul and 
 
 spirit . . . .387 
 origin of . . . . 393 
 the original now lost . .396 
 original unity of, probable . 397 
 primary and secondary . 399 
 English, Persian, and 
 
 French . . .400 
 
 perfect in its origin . .401 
 classification of . . .403 
 the picture of consciousness 405 
 the common memory of man- 
 kind . . . .407 
 elements of . . .461 
 ten the true number of ele- 
 mentary sounds . . 462 
 vowels, consonants, and as- 
 pirates . . . .463 
 the psychological alphabet . 464 
 Life, its symbolical nature and 
 constitution with reference 
 to art and man's moral 
 relations . . .261 
 symbolical equation of .274 
 its symbolism illustrated by 
 
 hieroglyphics . . .275 
 new, incarnation, the prin- 
 ciple of . . . .277 
 philosophy conversant with 
 
 it 358 
 
 the final object of physical 
 
 research . . .515 
 the unity of being and 
 
 thought . . .525 
 see also Philosophy. 
 Logic of the Greeks and 
 
 Hindoos . . .258 
 utility of a higher one . 259 
 true, a grammar . .478 
 Love, the foundation of happi- 
 ness and moral welfare . 31 
 marriage . . . .32 
 2 O 
 
562 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Love, the origin of enthusiasm, 
 
 patriotism, &c. . .32 
 its connexion with marriage . 37 
 difference between genuine 
 
 and spurious . . .38 
 the means of reuniting the 
 
 reason and fancy . .371 
 universal . . . .500 
 in relation to time . .511 
 Magnetism, phenomena of .80 
 Mahommedan empire . .182 
 change in their position . 184 
 compared with the Roman . 302 
 spread of Christian ideas in 303 
 Man, compared with spiritual 
 
 beings . . . .18 
 fancy his distinctive pro- 
 perty . . . .20 
 his triple nature . .21 
 his fourfold consciousness . 22 
 physiology of . .73 
 
 his affinity to the earth . 79 
 concurrence of his will in 
 
 faith . . . .107 
 his faith not sufficiently 
 
 childlike . . .110 
 his longing after the eternal 
 
 and sublime . . .111 
 his freedom . . .128 
 moral evil a result of his 
 
 freedom . . .130 
 physical evil a means of pu- 
 rification . . .131 
 eternal punishment of . 132 
 doctrine of his pre-existence 137 
 nature considered relatively 
 
 to him .... 139 
 his gradual development . 141 
 his general sense for truth . 144 
 philosophy of life a science of 188 
 his nature symbolical . .268 
 restoration of the divine 
 
 image in 344 
 compared with brutes . 369 
 with angels . . 369, 377 
 ascription of his faculties to 
 
 God ... 378 
 his free will . . .382 
 
 Page 
 
 Man, his free will manifested 
 
 in doubt . . . 384 
 the created word . . 436 
 doubt a necessary condition 
 
 of his mind . . .437 
 partial development of his 
 
 faculties . . .444 
 his knowledge . . . 494 
 can it be perfect ? . .497 
 limits to his speculation . 549 
 Marriage, the foundation of 
 human and political so- 
 ciety . . . .32 
 the world's judgment of it . 37 
 difference between genuine 
 
 and spurious love . .38 
 its three conditions . .39 
 reciprocal influence . .40 
 Materialism has its rise in 
 
 imagination . . . 533 
 Mathematics, formulae of inap- 
 propriate to philosophy . 8 
 the true, of nature . .78 
 use of in philosophy . .353 
 principles of, empirical . 521 
 Medicine, a basis of the science 
 
 of nature . . .75 
 Memory, a faculty of the 
 
 soul . . .47, 408 
 essential to rationality . 48 
 imperfections of . .446 
 Mercy, divine, limited . .57 
 Method, right use of in philo- 
 sophy ... 7, 188 
 Middle age — see Age. 
 Mind, the, intrinsic discord of 94 
 a consequence of the fall . 96 
 restoration of unity . .97 
 originally simple . .100 
 its essence in pure spirits . 102 
 unity of only to be restored 
 
 by faith. . . .112 
 struggle between light and 
 
 darkness in . . .212 
 the principle of supreme 
 
 science . . .218 
 restoration of perfection to it 341 
 a prey to discord . 364 
 
563 
 
 Page 
 
 Mind, the, fourfold discord of. 368 
 its consummation in God . 375 
 inherent discord of . .385 
 its yearnings after unity . 386 
 doubt a necessary condition 
 
 of . . . . 437 
 feeling the centre of unity in 447 
 Miracles, possibility of . .117 
 Monarchy, hereditary, the true 
 
 Christian polity . .291 
 mixed . . . .295 
 Moses fought falsehood with 
 
 its own weapons . .157 
 founder of the Jewish theo- 
 cracy .... 328 
 Music the representation of 
 
 ideas . . . .262 
 Mysteries in nature . .126 
 Mythology, the subjective the 
 
 principle of . . .222 
 its pantheism . . .223 
 ancient . . . .531 
 vestiges in it of divine truth 532 
 Nature, science of, based on 
 
 medicine . . .75 
 possibility of attaining it . 76 
 innate ideas of, its true ma- 
 thematics . . .78 
 man's affinity to the earth . 79 
 magnetism . . .80 
 the compass . . .80 
 legend of Atlantis . .81 
 modern astronomy . .81 
 seven the traditionary num- 
 ber of the planets . .82 
 Pythagorean system of as- 
 tronomy . . .83 
 results of modern chemical 
 
 analysis . . .85 
 nature, a system of living 
 forces .... 
 sleep an essential law of 
 intelligible to the spiritual 
 . only . ... .88 
 physical consequences of the 
 
 fall .... 90 
 final emancipation of from 
 death . . . .91 
 
 86 
 87 
 
 Page 
 114 
 115 
 
 Nature, its divine order . 
 
 a living reproductive power . 
 
 God the author and pre- 
 server of its laws . 
 
 miracles, the Deluge . 
 
 no blind necessary force 
 
 a Theodicee, or justification 
 of God's ways in the 
 world — its perplexities 
 
 the soul of animals 
 
 creatures of spontaneous ge- 
 neration 
 
 influence of the evil spirits . 
 
 doctrine of final cause 
 
 the preadamite world a para- 
 dise for angels 
 
 mysteries in 
 
 final cause of creation intel- 
 ligible .... 
 divine nature not subject to 
 
 necessity 
 created spirits without free- 
 dom .... 
 immortal spirits with animal 
 
 forms . 
 nature considered relatively 
 to man .... 
 best described by symbols . 
 influence of evil in 
 originally created immortal . 
 perfection of 
 Nerves, sether of . 
 Numbers, Pythagorean theory 
 of .... 
 Painting, the true spiritual art 264 
 Pantheism, mythological and 
 scientific 
 as fatal to truth as rationa- 
 lism .... 
 Parental power 
 
 sanctity of 
 Passions, arise from the higher 
 instincts 
 the pernicious . 
 the nobler . 
 Patriotism springs from enthtt 
 
 siasm and love 
 Peace, Christian, universal 
 2 O 2 
 
 116 
 117 
 118 
 
 119 
 120 
 
 121 
 123 
 124 
 
 125 
 126 
 
 127 
 
 129 
 
 134 
 
 . 135 
 
 139 
 140 
 345 
 346 
 347 
 74 
 
 475 
 
 223 
 
 230 
 278 
 279 
 
 28 
 28 
 30 
 
 36 
 133 
 
564 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Philology, its analogy to geo- 
 logy . . . .398 
 Philosophy, its dreamy cha- 
 racter .... 1 
 unfeasibility of Plato's ideal 2 
 cosmogonies of the Ionian 
 
 school .... 2 
 objects and limits . . 3 
 form and method of true 
 
 philosophy ... 4 
 that of the schools unintelli- 
 gible .... 5 
 distinction between that of 
 
 life and that of the schools 5 
 intelligibility of the former . 6 
 right use of method . . 7 
 mathematical formulae inap- 
 propriate ... 8 
 unity of its thoughts . . 9 
 modern French systems . 11 
 modem German . .13 
 French physical science . 16 
 natural German philosophy 
 
 superior to the French . 17 
 the false starting-point con- 
 trasted with the true 
 centre . . . .17 
 dialogue its natural form . 65 
 improperly confined to a 
 
 school . . . .66 
 that of life cannot be a mere 
 
 science of reason . .187 
 free to use any form or me- 
 thod . . . .188 
 that of life a science of man 189 
 differs from theology . .191 
 the relation of truth and 
 
 science to it . . .236 
 of the Greeks, rise and de- 
 cline of . . . .243 
 Ionian schools not material- 
 istic . . . .244 
 religious tendency of Pytha- 
 gorean and Platonic . 245 
 the Sophists — Aristotle . 247 
 the Stoics and Epicureans . 248 
 of the Christians — see Chris- 
 tianity. I 
 
 Philosophy of life, its sym- 
 bolical nature and consti- 
 tution . . . .261 
 true method of . . .351 
 use of scholastic or mathe- 
 matical forms . . 353 
 use and abuse of system . 354 
 the crown of education . 356 
 conversant with life . .358 
 deals chiefly with facts . 439 
 from natural science . .479 
 method of multiform . .483 
 its true method conversa- 
 tional .... 485 
 two sources of error in .536 
 Physiology of man . .73 
 Planets, seven the traditionary 
 
 number . . .82 
 Plato, his ideal unfeasible . 2 
 trinity of . . . . 205 
 religious tendency of . . 245 
 Poetry, embraces music, poetry, 
 
 and architecture . . 266 
 a feeling of the infinite . 425 
 spurious . . . .473 
 philosophical . . . 530 
 Power, absolute, considered . 176 
 Preadamite world, a paradise 
 
 for angels . . .125 
 Pre-existence, doctrine of .137 
 Prerogative, all of supreme 
 
 power judicial . .283 
 Pride, its character . . 28 
 Priests, the vicegerents of God 1 72 
 their power . . . 278 
 sanctity of 280 
 Christian, not hereditary . 313 
 Principle, doctrine of a good 
 
 and evil . . . 543 
 Prophets, the, kept alive the 
 
 Jewish theocracy . . 332 
 Public opinion . . .166 
 Punishments, eternal . .182 
 Pythagoreans, their system of • 
 astronomy . . .83 
 their religious tendency . 245 
 their noble political views . 246 
 their theory of numbers . 475 
 
INDEX. 
 
 565 
 
 Page 
 
 Rationalism, idolatry of . .224 
 as fatal to truth as pantheism 230 
 more to be feared at present 231 
 danger of . . . • 466 
 Reason, a division of the soul 
 
 apart from fancy . . 24 
 its essence . . .46 
 relationship of the faculties 
 
 of the soul to it . .47 
 its power and value . .49 
 derivation of the German 
 
 name . . • .50 
 distinction between it and 
 
 understanding . .51 
 not properly attributable to 
 
 God . . . .60 
 faith not a negative limita- 
 tion of . . . .217 
 reason and fancy the ulti- 
 mate sources of error . 225 
 seldom harmonises with 
 
 fancy .... 370 
 not attributable to God . 379 
 discursive, not creative . 520 
 use and abuse of . .522 
 Reformation, the English . 305 
 Religion, its symbolism . .269 
 in its essence symbolical . 271 
 Religious error, two forms of . 177 
 Representative governments . 286 
 Republics, their liability to ad- 
 verse changes . .289 
 disadvantages of their polity 290 
 Revelation, power to under- 
 stand it the gift of God . 58 
 its fourfold character . .61 
 of Scripture . . .62 
 an ante- Mosaic revelation . 63 
 the soul its receptive organ 64 
 its first step preparatory . 143 
 gradual .... 145 
 that of Christianity . .147 
 unwritten to the ante-dilu- 
 
 vian world . • .239 
 both old and new in its doc- 
 trine . . . .329 
 sources of manifold . .516 
 Roman Empire, law of . .299 
 
 Page 
 
 Roman Empire compared with 
 
 the Mahommedan . . 302 
 Scepticism, the author of it . 542 
 Sceptre, the, a judicial symbol 284 
 Schelling, his philosophy . 15 
 Schools, philosophy of, unintel- 
 ligible .... 5 
 their compared with that of life 5 
 philosophy improperly con- 
 fined to them . .66 
 disputations of the school- 
 men .... 252 
 Science, physical, no system of 
 
 in the Bible . . .68 
 its imperfect character . 71 
 of nature, medicine a basis of 75 
 modern, its atheistical ten- 
 dency .... 155 
 dissension between science 
 
 and faith . . .195 
 discernment the link be- 
 tween .... 198 
 reconcilable with faith . 201 
 supreme, the mind the prin- 
 ciple of . . . . 218 
 idolatry of . . .219 
 its identity with faith . .220 
 its pantheism . . . 223 
 its relation to life . .236 
 that of Christianity — see 
 
 Christianity. 
 a great power for good . 320 
 free development of . . 322 
 a real power for good . 324 
 theocracy of 335 
 illustrations of . . . 336 
 to be brought about only by 
 
 God . . . .340 
 the idea of 501 
 Scripture not the original re- 
 velation . . .62 
 contains no system of phy- 
 sical science . . .68 
 considered as the sword of 
 the Spirit . . . 234 
 Sculpture, its symbolical cha- 
 racter . . . .262 
 its alliance to architecture . 265 
 
566 
 
 •INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Self, sacrifice of, brings us near 
 
 to God . . .108 
 
 how far necessary . .109 
 Senses, their triple character 26, 442 
 influence of fancy on .27 
 the external . . .441 
 sensuality, its character . 28 
 developments of . .443 
 Sleep an essential law of na- 
 ture . . . .87 
 Soul, the thinking, the centre 
 
 of thought . . .17 
 the centre of moral life . 23 
 its unconscious conceptions . 24 
 divided between the abstract- 
 ing and classifying reason 
 and the inventive fancy . 24 
 its four principal branches . 25 
 the loving, the centre of 
 
 moral life . . .37 
 its share in knowledge . 44 
 furnishes the cognitive mind 
 
 with language . .44 
 its faculties in relationship 
 
 to the reason . .47 
 the receptive organ of reve- 
 lation . . . .64 
 considered in relation to na- 
 ture . . . .67 
 considered in relation to God 93 
 of animals . . .121 
 its migration among the stars 138 
 the principle of faith . .216 
 faith its firmament . .221 
 the mutual dependence of it 
 
 with thought . .374 
 
 its identity with spirit . 376 
 its union with the spirit . 453 
 the idea of God must main- 
 tain it . . . . 455 
 see Mind. 
 Speech the outward projection 
 
 of thought . . .388 
 varied by moral diversities . 402 
 Spinosa, system of . .495 
 its influence . . .498 
 Spirits besides those of men . 18 
 the higher, incorporeal . 19 
 
 Page 
 
 Spirits contain the essence of 
 
 mind .... 102 
 influence of evil ones on 
 
 nature . . .123 
 
 created without freedom . 134 
 immortal, with animal forms 135 
 Scriptures the sword of the 
 
 Spirit .... 234 
 see Soul. 
 Stars, migration of the soul 
 
 amongst . . .138 
 State, the, its collision with the 
 
 Church . . 304, 309 
 separation of . . .311 
 Stoics, the . . . . 248 
 Subjective, the, the principle 
 
 of mythology . .222 
 Superstition, its identity with 
 
 infidelity . . .214 
 Symbols, nature best described 
 
 by .... 140 
 characterise all art . .262 
 characterise education . 267 
 characterises man's nature . 268 
 those of religion . . 269 
 their equation of life . .274 
 those of the judicial . .284 
 System, use and abuse of . 354 
 consistency of idea, the es- 
 sence of . . .355 
 Talmud, trinity of . . 206 
 Teutons, their affinity to the 
 
 Indians • . .312 
 Theocracy, the true idea of .326 
 the Jewish . . .327 
 Moses, as founder of . . 328 
 the Judges, as ministers of . 330 
 kept alive by the Prophets . 332 
 false notions of . . . 333 
 exists in overruling Provi- 
 dence .... 334 
 that of science . . . 335 
 illustrations of from Greek, 
 Roman, Mediaeval, and 
 Hindoo literature . .337 
 illustrations of from Old 
 and New Testament and 
 Christian literature . 339 
 
INDEX. 
 
 567 
 
 Page 
 
 Theocracy, only to be brought 
 
 about by God . . 340 
 Theodicee, its perplexities . 119 
 Theology, difference of philo- 
 sophy of life from . .190 
 natural . . . .194 
 in method must be rational . 523 
 Thought, the mutual depend- 
 ence of it and feeling . 374 
 speech its outward project 
 
 tion . . . .388 
 an inward speech or dialogue 389 
 dialogue the true form as- 
 sumed by 390 
 innate ideas and forms of .409 
 pure, its character . .474 
 Throne, the, a judicial symbol 284 
 
 Time 411 
 
 its twofold character . 414 
 
 not excluded from the idea 
 
 of God ... 415 
 not irreconcilable with eter- 
 nity .... 416 
 Trinity, the, of God . . 199 
 of the Hindoos . . 204 
 of the Platonists . . 205 
 of the Talmud . . .206 
 Truth, man's general sense for 144 
 final manifestation of .152 
 intermediate conflict of with 
 
 error .... 153 
 falsehood to be fought with 
 
 its own weapons . .156 
 a struggle for truth the con- 
 flict of the age . .158 
 untruth the spirit of the age 160 
 call for union among the 
 
 friends of . . .161 
 final triumph of . .162 
 patience essential to its pur- 
 suit .... 202 
 the twofold spirit of truth 
 
 and error . . . 209 
 struggle between . .210 
 
 Page 
 
 Truth, pantheism and rational- 
 ism alike fatal to it . . 230 
 not established by refutation 
 
 of error . . .232 
 right method of propagating 
 
 it .... 233 
 its relation to life . .236 
 consistency the criterion of . 256 
 progress of 480 
 knowledge of possible . 503 
 development of, slow and 
 gradual . . .548 
 Understanding, the, considered 
 
 apart from reason . .51 
 the only proper organ for 
 acquiring a knowledge of 
 God . . . .54 
 a co-operating cause in the 
 formation and diffusion 
 of error . . . 226 
 may be predicated of God . 380 
 Unity, means of restoration to 195 
 yearnings of the mind after . 386 
 Westphalia, peace of, a master- 
 stroke of policy . .185 
 Will, its concurrence in faith a 
 co-operating cause in the 
 formation and diffusion of 
 error .... 226 
 freedom of . . .382 
 in man and angels . .383 
 manifested in doubt . .384 
 Wisdom, created . . . 508 
 Wit, origin and forms of . 459 
 Women, the soul pre-eminent 
 in their mental constitu- 
 tion . . . .41 
 World, the preadamite, a pa- 
 radise for angels . .125 
 ante-diluvian, mental state 
 
 of .... 237 
 unwritten revelations to it . 239 
 conceptions of the ante-dilu- 
 vian inadequate . . 240 
 
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