41
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A 58116 1
Blood
The anaesthetic
revelation and the gist
of philosof hy
University of Michigan



THE
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY
OF
PROFESSOR GEORGE S. MORRIS,
PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY,
1870-1889.
Presented to the University of Michigan.

BD
41
365
انیشتین
Morris 30.
THE
ANESTHETIC REVELATION
AND
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY,
THE
ANÆSTHETIC REVELATION
AND
104150
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
BY
BENJAMIN PAUL BLOOD.
AMSTERDAM, IN NEW YORK, AMERICA.
1874.
The Anæsthetic Revelation.
By what follows I rather hope to signalize than purpose
to define a discovery-unutterable by any, yet accessible to
all, and of singular interest if not of novel instance-which
has been usual with me for now nearly fourteen years. I
have often attempted an account of it, and still have hap-.
pily deferred publication, warned by the fate of philoso-
phers, which was ever to have published too soon at last.
But weary of reticence, I at length resign to that course of
nature wherein every conceit of the ultimatum has come to
be corrected in turn as but a stage of growth. I am now
forty years old, as men reckon, and doubting that I shall
ever be better able to forestall my critical advantage, and
indulging a scruple at longer delay lest by some adven-
ture this matter should altogether die with me, I take the
chance of being called a mad one in my day, in order to
declare however imperfectly, and to leave in the world this
which is now my assurance and poise, where before were
doubt and vacillation.
But the substance of the discovery here alleged, although
accessible to even vulgar empiricism, can hardly be either
critically entertained or thankfully received without some
appreciation of philosophy. In various guise-as truth,
the true, the good, the absolute, the identical, the apodeictic,
the perfect, the ultimate, God, Heaven, etc., is sought, as
I shall say, supreme being, or unconditioned life,—from
4
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
which (or rather, from what this contradiction intimates)
I have many times returned; and as I take this for that
satisfaction of philosophy unattained in its way, it would
behoove me to relate, more distinctly than as they now pass,
the uneasiness which is the instigation of philosophy, and
the knot or coil which baffles philosophical explication,
together with the most plausible methods of philosophical
endeavor heretofore; and this preparation I shall first essay,
with what cogency pertains.
And now it should seem an easy task, (for a philosopher
at least,) to tell outright what philosophy is, and is about;
but vexatiously enough, no philosopher has succeeded bet-
ter in defining than in finding what he sought.
So per-
plexed is the philosophical spirit, even in his calmest
determination, that a definition of philosophy (or of aught
else) is impossible while (and for the same reason that)
philosophy endures. Technically, philosophy is the desire
for truth; and as an art it might be called the art of defi-
nition; but what truth is, and whether or not it is, and
what "is" (or any other predicate) means, and how one
thing should express, or contain, or give understanding or
content of another: these are still questions in philosophy,-
as is also a question the anomaly of asserting and pursuing,
as a style of course, although the desideratum may perhaps
event not by observation nor by definition, but by some
silent retrocession, which shall leave the philosophical con-
dition pathologically reproached with the presence of a
question rather than with the want of an answer.
There is this oddity in questioning what truth is, and
especially in questioning whether or not it is: that be who
speaks or writes thereof must in honor be presuming its
possession. But philosophy differs from the quest of knowl-
edge, in that philosophy proceeds from a question of the
possibility and reality of knowledge, and doubts of "an
answer in words to a question of things." The dictionary
seems to satisfy common sense by defining truth as conform-
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
LO
A MA
ity to fact, as instanced in any description wherein an
original is recognized. But philosophers aver: If the
original is recognized in the truth, it must have been cog-
nized before as the original; else how shall the likeness or
conformity be claimed? or as between what is it claimed?
Again they aver: In conformity, or likeness of form,
there is not claimed a likeness of essence; or if indeed
there be likeness of essence, then the same essence, distin-
guished, is a different individuality. In one sense or other
truth is claimed as other of the true, although the topic is
single. And when the topic is Life-that great concern
with us all-we are forced to confess that, if by means of
truth we are to be wiser in life, truth of life must be differ-
ent as distinguished from life; else one of the terms is su-
perfluous. *
It seems an easy and a very proper thing to say, that the
success of philosophy depends on the possibility of life
entering into thought and language; and as this can hard-
ly be hoped for, the pursuit, at first view, seems fit to be
given up. But thinking more carefully, we confess that
although life may be considered as in itself independent
of language or logical thought, our life, as individuals, is
such only by and in consequence of formal particulars of
thought which make up our self," and to doubt that the
form and particulars of thought, by which we become as per-
sonal, are truly life, is to doubt that our life is real-is life
(6
*The use of philosophy will be instantly brought to popular ap-
pearance by a due consideration of Webster's definition of truth,
to wit:-"The quality of being true; as (a) conformity to fact or
reality; exact accordance to that which is, or has been, or shall
be." Of this explanation, and of the disposition which accepts it,
it is the quality of philosophy to ask two questions: first, This
Conformity ("to fact or reality")-is it not itself fact and reality?-
second, This Accordance ("to that which is")-is not it? What
can accord to that which is, save that which is not? Or, besides
what is, is there somewhat that accords to it? Hereby either truth
is not, or else it is likeness of being and not being, rather than true
being, or being true. So of truth as accordance to what has been,
and what shall be; does it accord in these respects: that it has been,
and shall be, but is not now ?-What knowledge is; whether possi-
bly it is; how it can be out of the content of a thing; and especial-
ly, how it can be of all, so that all may be safe in intelligence;
these are the fundamental questions in philosophical curiosity
which have not been answered, and cannot be wisely ignored.
6
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
at all. So that rebuking philosophy is in effect denying
one's self,-which is not easily done.
The inveterate and abiding knot or twist which baffles
philosophy (as a pursuit of the truth of life) is, in general
terms, the identity and difference of the same and the oth-
er ; and in particular terms, the identity and difference
of being and knowing, of life and logic, of things and
thinking, of reason and sense, of reality and appearance,
of something and nothing, of universal and particular,
of one and all. Whichever of these couples we cogitate
and take apart, on either hand we are forced to confess
the same in the other-identity and difference.
We
As a sufficient illustration of the philosophical difficulty
we take the identity and difference of being and knowing,.
and indulge the curiosity of knowing what we are.
immediately encounter this puzzle: If we know what we
are, still we know as we are, for what is known and what
knows are then the same,-and then also being and know-
ing are the same,-and what we are is simply knowledge-
yet, knowledge of (or off) what we are. The distinction is
still open between being and knowledge,—the identity and
difference are alike confest ;-and the question, What are
we? is only reput and emphasised: what are we then, if we
know so intimately? Why are we not satisfied?-There
are two considerations wherein we are not satisfied: one is,
We know many particulars which we do not usually think
we are; and the other is, In all we know of what we are
there is no satisfaction for another curiosity, namely, why
we are;—we doubt our possessing real knowledge of aught,
while we lack the secret of commanding its presence and
its absence.
While prevails this philosophical notion-that knowl-
edge is a necessity of presence and of being-there is
no peace to us save in the belief that all is known: that no
blind fate, prior to what is, necessitates that all first is and
only secondly is known, but that knowledge is first and
original, with safety in its own hands. But when we speak
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
of knowledge as of or off all being, either we claim knowl-
edge as other of all being, or else knowledge itself means
being, and one of the two words is superfluous. Yet inas-
much as, even in the supposition that knowledge is and
only is and means being, our condition insists upon knowl-
edge as of some particular, although that particular were
knowledge itself, there still remains a sense in which there
is being other than (or in) knowledge, and knowledge as
of all is other of all; which implication perhaps suggested
a saying of Parmenides, "The more is thought;" as if,
whatever may be known, there is more, by the thought of
it, than is known, which "more" is metalogical, and never
a this-an object, or aught to be found--but somewhat cer-
tified from behind knowledge, in regions not to be referred
to as practicable ground for speculation. Yet clearly, to
mention or assume this unknown ground as such, is to treat,
as if known, more than is confest as known; and such
reference is idle, save with an understanding or admission
of an intuition of being had aside from formal knowledge.
Of whatsoever we desire a definition, or a formal setting
forth in light or knowledge, we already confess some in-
formal possession in our being, else why the curiosity for
definition? as definition of what? There seems to be an
indefinite substance of intelligence, of which knowledge is
an added and exterior form, or set of forms.
Observe, that in a supposed relieving of the implication
of being and knowledge, by knowing what we are, not only
must we be all that we know, but we presume that what
we are could have its contents better appreciated outward-
ly, as in knowledge, picture, or expression, than they are
realized identically at home. But this presumption is not
practically justified; for on the other hand, of whatsoever
we merely know, as seeming external, we doubt that we
possess the secret, because we are not it in its life. When
we look upon any picture, reflection, or whatever is visible,
as claiming in itself to represent an original life, we are
compelled to confess that if our observation is true to the
8
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
life-possesses or really contains its secret-then life is
doubled in the truth; and in trying to see or to account for
one, we have found another in truth or knowledge, which
other, when truth or knowledge of all is concerned, must
be, as other of all, both being and not being;-which hard
dilemma has brought some hard sayings into the world :-as
when Zophar the Naamathite tells Job: The secrets of wis-
dom are the "double to that which is;" as when Parme-
nides says:
"The more is thought;" as when Aristotle says:
the absolute is "Thought thought;" as when St. John
says: "The Word was made flesh;" as when Jesus says:
"I am the truth;" as when Fichte says: "Consciousness is
Being out of its being;" as when Hegel tells of "Being
(both noun and participle) produced;" as when Emerson
says: "We are wiser than we know."
This, then, seems to be the ground of philosophical ex-
patiation :-" knowledge of all," or "
"knowledge of what
is," leaves a distinction between knowledge and what is;
and when we speak of thought, we distinguish between
thought and what is thought (of)—although we were think-
ing, or proposing to think, of thought; so that thought and
thinking, or knowledge and knowing, seem related as ob-
ject and action-which last cannot well become an object
of knowledge, but must be identically lived. Yet "more"
is inferred; whether knowing be act, fact, substance, or
illusion, how can it be a topic of consideration unless in
some sense it" is," as an object to some other, or to itself-
as other ?
Regarding any object or topic of knowledge, let us de-
clare this: We see only what we do not see through-only
what stands forth to wonder, resists penetration, and is not
resolved,—the given-the matter of experience,--and this
the same whether as a mere object to the eye, or as any con-
sistency of idea, or any lingual expression, or abstraction,
or emotion. Were we commandingly possest of every secret
constitutional in that which confronts or arrests us, there
would be no resisting opacity extant-no matter of experi-
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
9
ence and wonder-nought given. Wherefore Kant (and
Plato before him, when he says color is commensurate with
sight,) held that we see or know not "things in them-
selves," but "appearances,"-inferring that “appearances,'
though "known" as he says, are not things in themselves,
but are related to knowing, somewhat as pain is related to
feeling.
From the fact that within or behind our own form or
appearance we feel a private potency of life, which, as ex-
ercised, is a reason or ground for changes in appearances,
we usually infer the same ground behind other appear-
ances, and conclude that, if life is reality, there is reality
without us as well as within us. But if the only need of
somewhat behind form and color, of which somewhat they
shall be the "mere" form and color, is of a ground or
reason for their standing forth as they do, the integrity of
the somewhat supposed behind external form and color
will be questionable if those qualities shall be found ac-
cording to somewhat elsewhere than thus as supposed
behind them, and also not according to our will. Now
aside from the fact that we have no conception of aught
remaining if the qualities apparent are taken away, we
have all learned that sensible presents-form, color, sound,
resistance, etc., are to us more and less, present and absent,
according to our organs and the mediums between them
and their objects; and whether this according is actively
on the part of the objects, or on the part of the organs-
(i. e. in whichsoever any change would be prior, and in
whichsoever consequent)-all objects claimed as external to
us must have this questionable in their objective integrity:
they are at least partly as we are, and we are at least partly
as they are. Thus appearances," although in one respect
(topically) necessarily things in themselves, and in another.
respect things in ourselves, yet taken as a whole-taken as
act, fact, and substance, which jointly may be called expe-
rience this experience, contemplated as if by one outside
of experience-alien to the world-transcendentally-seems
"
10
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
the result of two factors: a subject and an object;-but
there is yet no determination whether these two are indi-
viduals or parts of an individual;-for this last saying,
(“parts of an individual,") although nonsense to reason, is
reasonable to sense; empirically, each of us as one is a sub-
ject-object, although rationally this is impossible. Whence
are confest identity and difference in our personality.
(6
Here we, confident of life behind our appearance at least,
might well infer that our life involuntarily and unwittingly
projects all that we see or know, as a self," did not our
pains, if not our pleasures, at the presence of externals (so
called,) insist on our respecting them as in themselves effi-
cient independently of our desire and very will. It were
strange, we can but think, that what we are should so hate
and hurt us, or be ground of that which should in any way
annoy or oppose us;-for this inward antagonism revolts
from any possible conception of a ground or reason for
anything whatsoever. It is not the vastness of the outer
space and beauty which deters us from conceiving them as
optical illusions projected by the vital soul; for nothing is
more fertile than life; and a mile outward is no further
than the mile inward which measures it; but we marvel at
the antagonism of ground and consequent-of creator and
creature.
Philosophy long ago referred this antagonism, which at
first is held to lie between us and the unobedient outer-
world, to the antagonism of two faculties in us, namely,
Sense and Understanding: of which the office of the first
is to confess the presence of things, and that of the second
is to question the ground of the presence and (or) its con-
fession. But this step in advance led only to a new and equal
difficulty: As knowledge requires some sort of unity of
appearances and things, in order that appearances may be
real, or that things may appear as they are, so the two
faculties, sense and understanding, require to be made one,
or else there is an entire man who, as a third consideration,
owns these faculties, and is perfect and identical as a critic
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
11
of both of them. And thus far in the history of philoso-
phy these faculties are in antagonism, and the unit is not
found. Understanding accuses sense of deception-decep-
tion of the man, except her share in him; and sense tor-
ments the man with pains which understanding cannot
enable him to ignore. And neither will these two faculties
agree before the man, nor can the man determine to which
of the two voices he should listen; for there appears no
choice between them, save upon the unwarranted (and
though warranted, yet unavailing) assumption that sense is
organic and perishable while understanding, or reason, is
universal and immortal.
When we sensibly see the image or picture of our room
in the mirror, and rationally conclude that no room is there
as there appears, reason assumes a deception of sense. But
there is, then, somewhat worthy of her remark, no matter
whether characterized as an act, a fact, or a falsity; she
confesses the thusness, even in denying the thereness of the
illusion; and although affirming that the illusion is not
outward in matter, but is an error in one side of the mind-
affirming that it is not there whether seen or not, but only
as seen, and that there is no unseen color, nor unfelt pain,
and that these seeming realities are mistakes which but for
sense were not, yet this denial of any supposed substance
in the illusion does not wipe out the fact of the illusion-
which fact Reason, (herself practical only by means of a
sensible element,) confesses in the boast of its detection.
She does not relieve the man from the potency of the things
of sence by simply pronouncing them unsubstantial; the
mistake is fact and potential over the peace of the man,
though there be nought mistaken, nor any ground for mis-
taking,—for sense is part of the man, and is as inseperable
from him as reason.
The question raised here is not merely sophistical, as
whether an illusion or a falsity can really be; any one may
detect the waste of words in speaking of a definite falsity,
or of a real illusion; but the question is practical in the
12
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
first degree. Here is one faculty in the man claiming, and
another faculty repudiating the presence of somewhat; and
the man-pleasantly or painfully affected by sense on the
one part, and on the other part assured that, as naught
really is there, he should not be so affected-raises the
double question, as to whether or not aught is there, and as
to who he is that thus seems to transcend both faculties or
voices, yet uses both when he criticises either. Who is the
man? Is he either or both of these faculties? Or are both
of these mere conditions in somewhat which may survive
them ?
If then the first achievement of philosophy is the detec-
tion of deception in the senses, it is sadly plumed with
doubts as to whether that other faculty which condemns the
senses is of a more commanding order and of a higher des-
tiny than are those of sense; for once deceived, by aught so
palpable and so potent as sense, gives stern admonition,
lest we be deceived again, to patient suspense of any judg-
ment which may be determined by our condition. And I
am fully assured of a life (so calling it because some name
is convenient) in which is neither logical reason nor percep-
tive sense, but only the metalogical or undistinguishable of
which these are conditioned and knowable particulars,-in
which life the confusion of identity and difference, and of
universal and particular, troubles the soul no longer. This
assurance is in memory of that life beyond condition or
name, and from which I have many times returned, as
others also may; and it is only because the possibility of
that life forbids that philosophy should reach it in this our
condition, that I would admonish philosophy of her own
weakness in her own way, before I speak of that uncondi-
tional satisfaction. And freely I confess, with all normal
sanity, that I caunot normally conceive how there may be
life without personality, or consciousness that is not of some
particular in logical form,-I only remember that so it is;-
but philosophy, normally possest of but the two faculties,
sense and reason, vainly struggles in the coil of identity and
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
13
difference, to find the content unity of life instead of the
antagonism of reality and appearance, of being and thought.
For this is that Truth, whence philosophy takes its name:
thought as reality; or, logically, the word of life; and I
would expose the failure of philosophy to discover it.
Therefore observe carefully the following:-Truth, if it
be not an idle word, tautological, and one with the word
life, but is worthy a name of its own, as of or off the life,
infers that life can be exprest, as being in another; and if
truth has any use or desirableness it lies in the present-
ment into the working capacity of some faculty somewhat
not otherwise apprehensible. But this peculiar presence,
claimed separately as truth-distinguished as truth-is surely
a re-presentment of somewhat, which, however intangible
before, was firstly (or is at the same time) posited, detected,
and confest in being by some other faculty of cognition or
hypothecation. If truth and life are not the same, then how-
ever like, they must differ. Truth then, as the likeness of
that visible to that invisible, reverts as likeness or harmony
between his faculties in the observer; and inasmuch as but
one object is claimed in the visible and the invisible, then
while the visible and the invisible-the original reality and
the apparition—are one, the observer must either be two,
or possess two faculties, himself being a third and separate
consideration; and only as the visible and the invisible are
two and distinguishable can the observer be one; and only
when the duplexity of being, as reality and apparition, is
vanquished, can we proclaim the visibility of reality, or the
reality of observation.
Fichte, who is original herein, states the matter thus:-
Life, or Being, alone is; and "is" means knowledge: Being
"is" only because and in that it appears, as in conscious-
ness, or form, or manifestation;—as if Being, inherently
dark or latent-in-isting-should in the same time and
place, and without change or motion, ex-ist, or become to
light, form, or definition, as consciousness, and and so “is;"
and Being is in no other sense or manner. And further,
14
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
(and this is the meaning of truth,) Being ex-ists even as it
in-ists; or, in knowledge it appears as it is: thus asserting
the equivalence of being and appearing, and the truth of
one to the other when they are distinguished in doctrine.
But observe: If Being is by knowledge, or through knowl-
edge, surely it is not as knowledge, for thus were two
words, (being and knowledge,) for one meaning; or if
knowledge is the act of being, and is means knows, knowl-
edge is distinguished from being as process is distinguished
from substance. And note the practical consequence of
saying that being is only by and in knowledge :—this would
affirm of us that we are dead and nothing if without
knowledge, whereas we sleep in safety, and in due time
life (or all that we mean by life) resumes consciousness, and
we awake by a potency prior to our knowledge and will. In
this instance so far is knowledge from the guidance or the
founding of being that it is as a toy in the grasp of the
unreasoning life. And in somnambulance even formal
knowledge seems active, though void of our remembering
personality.—And note further the consequence of saying
aught is only as it appears :-the color and form of the
flowers seen in the mirror are as real as color and form can
be; and all that we see in any flower is of color and form;
yet the object in the mirror is not taken for a real double,
of which the color and form belong to an it behind them,
nor supposed to possess that life of the bouquet before the
mirror-that life which we are and try to know.-Yet fur-
ther:-if we shall admit the demonstration of physical
science, that vision as well as sound and touch is mediate-
that the eye takes time to see as well as the ear to hear-
then a star may have been so far away that if it had
perished before the days of Adam, it might still be visi-
ble from here yet a hundred years; surely what is now seen
is not the being of the star, for here is an appearance
to which no outward reality belongs. And (popularly
speaking) as somewhat appears and is not, so also there is
which appears not; as in the earth's motion, when we re-
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
15
volve a thousand miles an hour as is alleged-and many
generations lived and did not know it.--Still further note:-
if aught is as it appears, yet is not mere appearance but in-
herent being or substance, then besides the constituent
qualities of a thing is the thing itself as owner of the
qualities, yet the owner is identical with the qualities as
identified by them. Thus somewhat in dogs, wherein all
dog is alike, owns the head, body, unity and entirety of
every dog, and were really no less by the loss of any or all
of these qualities, and this somewhat being that which
appears as it is in every dog, the universal, or being as ex-
cluding particulars, is not simply the universal, but is uni-
versal dog. And so of all things fair or foul: the universal
is the universal of their particular,—which cannot be
asserted as logic, however unavoidable above logic.
This grand conception of Fichte, that is means knowledge,
he fortified thus:-Truth is "the proposition of identity;"
and if truth is possible, there is a being all in knowledge;
and as an illustration of a being all in knowledge he pro-
posed the formula “A=A,” as living truth.
But this will never serve. Identity may tolerably be
spoken of as in position, but never as in proposition. There
is no living truth (truth of the life) in the formula “A=A,”-
nor in any other mathematical assertion,-no more that
truth which philosophy requires than in a machine of
weights is "perpetual motion." If there is any truth told
in "A-A," to what question is it an answer? The only
claim the formula can have to truth is, that if one had
asked what is A? or, what is the value of A?, that value
or content is given in the formula, and it is "A." Now
there is but one A in reality or identity, and there are two
A's in the formula, and these are equal; if then the identi-
cal A is not doubled in the proposition of identity, (the
same in the other,) that which is proposed is not the iden-
tity but the apparition of A. Proof is required of the
likeness of the being and appearing of A-of life and
knowledge—of reality and logic,-and is merely tricked
16
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
forth by a likeness of appearance as of A taken twice by
the senses, while the subtler faculty-that which sympa-
thizes with the life of A, and would know whence it is and
why it is stands idle. If A were wise he would not take
this "A" of reflexion-this man in the mirror, "in exchange
for his soul."
Give the formula a general application, thus: All=AU;
here, by the formula, all is proposed, in thought of all, as
equal and other of all; and that which is equal and other
is the double of a definite whole;-and thus ever
"the more
is thought," and wisdom is the "double to that which is."
"Being alone is," said Fichte-is by consciousness; and
in a doctrine of knowledge, consciousness, as distinguished,
is "Being out of its being." The contradiction involved
in this utterance he would not deign to scrutinize, but said
"otherwise it cannot be, and so it is; ask not for the
How-be satisfied with the Fact." He was staunched in this
position by observation of the dynamic and transcending
genius of life itself, which is aware or awake only as being
exceeds, or is the same in new time, as Being produced (that
is, popularly speaking, self-extended);-but this process it
was not for him to illuminate.
Here begins the operation of Hegel, who demands the
freshest patience and the stillest attention,-to be rewarded
with something less than the kingdom of heaven.
The Fichtean Being-universal and static-cannot go
"out of its being" (as he said) save into a consequent con-
sideration-an other of all. Fichte would not follow it.
But is there other of all? Yes, said Parmenides: thought
is other of all; yes, said Zophar the Naamathite: there is a
double to that which is; and yes, said in effect Hegel:
there is an other of all in newness of the same-in being-
produced; there is a "notion"-containing and exceeding
the duplex of identity and difference, as the unity of man
contains and exceeds the clashing faculties of sense and
understanding; and in all considerations great or little, the
absolute is one and it is this notion. Is there an antithesis
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
17
Are
of particulars? there is the notion containing them.
there cross-universals? there is the universal notion contain-
ing them. Being and being (continuing), substance and
process, noun and participle, identity and difference-impli-
cated and explicated in couples by the logical sense and
understanding-have for each couple a notional unit in
reason,-in which notion the identity and difference, oscil-
lating, push the unit, life, onward: Onward, but not out of
the system; for if we overhaul the unit-the concrete no-
tion-we shall instantly antithesise it with its own nega-
tion,-put its being side by side with its non-being, and
uplift in logic the universal notion of being and not being,
and crown these with the notions of absolute assertion and
contradiction in turn,-all to no end save a scoffing of our
finite condition, and a sickening of all philosophy.
We shall better approach Hegel if we may for the mo-
ment turn the light of Hegelianism on two opposing sys-
tems that of Heracleitus and that of the Eleatics.
Observe that an other of all, as spacically and statically
exterior to all, is illogical or incogitable only because uni-
versal space (or say the compass of the spacic faculty) can-
not be transcended by that faculty-(call it the faculty of
the present tense, or of actuality);—but at the use of this
faculty another faculty lies idle,-(call this the critical, or
potential faculty-) by which faculty the spacic universe, as
if it were a disc, is turned edgewise toward us and set at
right-angles across the universe of duration, in which the
spacic totality shows, as enduring, but a moment's thick-
ness-like a curtain hung between the future and the past;
for all that is, to the faculty of actuality or sense, is in
the present tense, and to this faculty neither the past nor
the future is. If we suppose now a totality embracing not
only what is (sensually observed) but also what has been
and what shall be, this last totality might be hinted as a
panorama, whereof the section exposed to view should
stand for the content of the present tense, between two
equal and fore-finished rolls, (the past and the future,)
18
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
which rolls, as one winding and the other unwinding, and
moving the picture in exposition, are a novelty to the local
spectator, but an old affair to the showman, who has a
notion of the whole canvass. The showman here stands
for the critical or potential faculty (memory and hypothe-
cation,—) and as he gives no special attention to the actual
field of sensual observation, what he apprehends as the
totality of being has not the demonstration of nature or
newness by process of time, and not only does not (as does
the other) show its totality in the present tense, but has no
relation to any tense or time whatsoever. Thus to one
faculty the spacic universe is all and presently, while to the
other only the eternal is an object. For if we look for the
world by the light of reason we shall not find room for it.
The present, where the world should be observed, has no
breadth; the finest line of division between what has been
and what shall be (neither of which is, to sense,) must yet
be magnified by scrutiny and split in halves belonging on
both hands, until there remains only a notion of division,
between becoming and departing, as the concrete content
of the present; there is no definite precipitate of the pro-
cess of becoming, nor any residuum of the process of de-
parting, but cogitation changes the world back and forth
from substance to action—from a noun to a participle-by
the alternate predominance of sense or reason in the ob-
server. Therefore Heracleitus, who acknowledged reality
only in the present tense, said of all things, They are and
are not; or, All is of two elements, of which one is and the
other is not; or again, All fleets;-while the Eleatics held
reality as independent of observation, and therefore neither
becoming nor deceasing, nor in any way touched by time;
and held all that of which we say it is simply because it
becomes manifest to observation in the present tense, as
some illusion, of which the less said the better.-But both
of these theories, undoubtedly, were properties of either
party, which could be partisan only by an arbitrary exalta-
tion of a favorite faculty, and by criticising one alternative
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY,
19
by the light or the contrast of the other. It were an arro-
gance to say that either Heracleitus or Zeno or Parmenides
was less than a critic of both of these systems-more than
either and more than both.—But thus it events, when we
would acknowledge a universal--somewhat sole, safe, un-
threatened by an other,—and when we would say the field
is cleared and clean possest by the spacic universal as all
that is now, and boldly declare that what is, as all, stands
apodal and unsustained, then lo! we discover that this "is"
(as a verb to the sensible all) is but a shallow predicate in
the eye of the critical faculty; and in the hypothecation of
the continuance of this all, and in the memory of its en-
durance, and in conjecture of a possible ground whereby all
is rather than is not, or is differently, we dread an other of
all; for our all is still of observation, a this, a topic, and
does not include us or our thought. And although to a
single faculty two universals are (or other of the universal
is) impossible, yet to the mystery of the simultaneous pres-
ence and the alternating predominance of the two faculties,
(the universal and the particular,) two universals are in-
seperable in the whole of thought, which is more than
either, and more than both. And logic proper, which
should be the expression of this antithesis, and also of a
new antithesis arising from the juxtaposition of logic with
that first antithesis, (and of another and another antithesis
infinitely), is in its very genius and pretensions an intermin-
able effort and an unfinished consideration, in which either
Heracleitus or Parmenides can make only an arbitrary pause
-while Hegel says, go on!
Now what distinguishes Hegel is the determination that
the logic of life shall be as life exceeding, and yet per-
fect as exceeding, or as including excess. He sought by
the use of both faculties under the guidance of the unit of
judgment which they constitute or produce, to sympathise-
to spread himself out upon-all, as of the same style as
himself having as a genius of constitution the perfection.
of process in the process of perfection on the one hand, and
20
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
the perfection of constitution embracing imperfection as a
constituent on the other hand-or rather an other hand;
his hands are numberless. For it must follow, after Hegel
may perfect a system of logic commensurate with life, that
life and logic become antithetic terms in a notion trans-
cending both.
The difficulty of understanding what he desired to tell
is, that it cannot be told; and all his credit is due only to
his effort, and not to his success. When Hegel said there
was "but one man who understood him, and even he did
not," the man he meant was himself. The moment he de-
scends from the genius of assertion to the bodily limits of
assertion, we pick up only deciduous leaves.
Thus when he says Life, or the absolute, is Being pro-
duced, all who live may identify what is trying to enter his
mind, but it cannot be logically thought. What is already
Being needs no producing; and what is in process of pro-
duction is not to be christened until it is born.-But, says
he, this is the absolute quality, that every notion has in it
its own negation. Well, not quite: if the negation is com-
mensurate with the notion, then, reversing the terms of this
equation, every negation has in it its own notion, and we
have something equal to nothing,—which can be said only
of a confest deception; while only some high and prepon-
derant reality of life-even though it were in a combination
of reality and negation—can justify any utterance or pains
in regard to it. Or, if negation and affirmation are equal
in the notion, how shall there be any excess, any process ?—
Or if negation and affirmation both together are not the
total of the notion-which also contains (as produced) the
new notion or the newness of the notion-then this newness
of the notion was not included in that first negation, which
should have been commensurate with the totality of the
notion. So again, if knowledge or logic becomes possible
as other of all in newness of the same, it is the consequent
rather than the ground of life; it is thrust forward as an
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
21
1
!
impotent second rather than precedes as an original and
guiding principle.
Hegel's is the greatest, the best, and thereby also the
worst of philosophies; the greatest in that it shrewdly
mimics the genius of life; the worst in that it most clearly
shows the uselessness of logic. Illogical it cannot be called;
the fault is in logic itself. Its members, when lifted, break
of their own weight, and not because of any fault in the
system save that it is unfinished, and that unfinishedness is
a necessity of its genius. Life is sensibly exceeding and
unfinished; its logic must be exceeding and unfinished
also;—but so it should not be to 'Hegel, for logic unfinished
is but diasophic, or science of the fleeting, and is ever too
late for the yitality of the notion.-Wherefore the labor of
Hegel, like that of all the rest, will be set aside in a corner
of the mind, as another of those " perpetual motion"
machines that will not go.
Yet to this conclusion there is of course a Hegelian retort.
For if life exceeds logic, so does logic exceed life, as when
abstraction transcends sensible reality-thus: Logic has
its universal, as space, which particulars cannot frustrate;
logical space is universal, whether filled or empty; and
only in logic can this universal be. For actually the un-
limited or unconditioned could be only when there was no
limit-and not then as such, for what sense were there in
naming an un-limited while there was no such thing as limit
to give meaning to the negative qualification? So an ac-
tual universal cannot be while any individual actually is;
for what sort of actual universal is that which has a hole in
it, for any particular head?-yet neither can it be without
an individual,-for uni-versal is such only in being one all
over and every where, while the very life of oneness is
limit, which universality excludes.
Yet Sense must have the last word:-Is it merely igno-
rance of Hegel's dialectic that keeps us miserable? or was
the "brain-benumbing Hegel" happier than others?-It
were excusable in a logic confessedly of development and
22
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
process at least in part, that the development should go on
after the brain of the logician had turned to dust; he could
but say, after recording his mortal installment of life's pro-
cess, "and so on!" But not just thus may the Hegelian
"and so on" be taken, but rather thus: Given the brain of
Hegel, the Hegelian method starts fairly on the way toward
the logic of the notion, and fails for lack of infinitude in
the Hegelian capacity. To claim more than this: to wit,
that Hegel's logic is equal to life, and has the secret or ori-
gin of life, demands that the logic should serve an interest
and allay the uneasiness we feel-should give us peace and
power in worldly demonstration; it should bear fruit in
better and happier life, and not, like a mere mirror, reflect
life as it comes. Shall a starveling student, pushed to the
wall by every prosperous burgher, proclaim the absolute?
Shall Poe boast that he has found it, and leave his execu-
tors looking vainly to find which of his tattered pockets he
put it in? Is there not some absurdity in claiming the
secret of the thing while you cannot produce the like, or
make fruit appear at the magic word of life? Yet the
philosophers proper deride Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists,
who attempted theurgy and miracle in good faith-(and if
they could not make bread out of stones, yet stood resolved
they might go to heaven without it)-for the philosopher
proper shall hold truth equal with the life, and shall have
his full dignity if he may stand without and know, though
he may not as within identically do and be. It must go
hard with him if he cannot be happy at the jingle of other
men's money and the savor of other men's fare. Yet
"Who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?"
Not a philosopher indeed; yet martyrs, blessed memory!
have sung in fire till this illusion faded. The divine issued
through and displaced them. And ever thus divinity shapes
our ends; and the river of thought is destined not by the
headlong current but by the guidance of the changeless-
shore
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
23
There appears no possibility of divine and vital asser-
tion. Diction and contradiction are inseperable, and the
great of the earth ever expect to be understood by sympa-
thy, rather than by expression. Life is metalogical; the
word of life is rather lived than spoken. The words of
"the
Jesus may never be surpassed: "I am the truth;"-
kingdom of God cometh not with observation"-it is within
you. But by "I" here is not meant the individual-“ not
I, but He that sent me." Based, at least, upon the total
life, which must impinge on us in supporting us, why sball
we hesitate to confess an inuendo of a greater than our
limits, and therefore a formless to us? Why shall philoso-
phy insist on the expression of life, while all wise men
identify yet cannot tell their meaning?
Whenever the Life-the metalogical-has hinted doc-
trine into this our condition-doctrine echoing, through
contradiction, between heart and heart, the identity which
does not pass-the organ of that doctrine has had grace to
stand aside and deny his originality thereof. Thus John
the Baptist, than whom Jesus declared there was none
greater born among men, characterized his instrumentality
as "the Voice of One crying in the Wilderness." Jesus in
turn declared: "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent
me;”—“The words I speak unto you I speak not of myself;
the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works;"" Of
myself I can do nothing;"-"If any man will do the will of
Him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine, whether
it be of God, or whether I speak of myself;"—“ If
"If any man
will be my disciple, let him deny himself."-So Plotinus,
Jacobi, Fichte, Goethe, Emerson, ever held themselves but
as witnesses of their puted originality—" surprised specta-
tors" of thought, or as pipes, whose only virtue was to be
hollow and smooth. The proposition of Descartes, “I
think; therefore I am," is a very shallow start. But Fichte
begins to relate of the Doctrine of Knowledge as apart
from any definite knowing;"-ruling himself as Doctor out
24
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
of the world,-for something greater than knowledge must
judge of the definition of knowledge. *
But all philosophers who do not attain the Pyrrhonic
suspense of judgment are disposed to glide over this diffi-
culty, of the knowledge of all, by an assertion of “self-
knowledge," holding the ego given as "self-evident,"
"subject object," or "knowing itself." Even Hegel toler-
ates this vulgar sleight, and, determined that philosophy
shall succeed in any event, seems satisfied in such expres-
sion as "thought (noun) thought (participle)"-" thought
that thinks itself"" thought produced." It seems hardly
worth while to say, that when a relation to self is declared
as in aught that knows itself, or moves itself—“it” and
“self” are, by habitual consent and simultaneous action
or oscillation of our two faculties of cognition, made into
one word, which, ignoring and avoiding the very difficulty
from which all philosophy sets out, factitiously glozes over
subjective and objective as a seamless unity for practical
purposes of popular discourse; but for a philosopher to
deliberately ignore or consent to this gloss is to presume
success.
If there is requisite a statement of self, self may be
defined as a sum of knowledge. But as for "self-knowl-
edge," all knowledge is self-knowledge, as all pain is self-
pain; yet it no more follows that the man knows himself
in the one case than it does that he hurts himself in the
other; self is the knowledge and the pain.
This little slur covers the whole of Transcendentalism,
which cannot escape the dogmatic assertion that the Kritik
* Not so does our Stephen Pearl Andrews, when he rashly pro-
claims "Universology "-"a canon of universal criticism "-as a
doctrine or logos of All,-and infers, of course, "the wholeness-
aspect of being." In order to learn, if the universe has been found
and known, whether it is known by this universe or another, I wrote
and asked him: "To whom is 'the wholeness aspect of being?"-He
answered: "I confess the question is as blind to me as Trinism is to
you." I enquired also what was the word (gone out of the plate) of
his Glossary, defining identity. He had not missed the word, but
supposes it was "sameness." When we consider that sameness is of
two or more, and that the definition of identity is the main problem
of philosophy, this answer, if final, is unsatisfactory.
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
25
of Reason must be a knowledge of knowledge, and is liable
to the question how knowledge Number Two is wiser than
knowledge Number One, unless knowledge Number Three
would be wiser than knowledge Number Two, and so on.
To make judgement topical to judgement is merely to con-
fess in that instance the duplexity of being and thought.
Self as knowledge (if we should admit that deception
as important) might, in the method of knowledge, be said
to be caused or projected by that life which abides while
knowledge sleeps, and so aught or all might under protest
be said to cause, to sustain, or to know its self,-but this is
not to the purpose. If aught and its self are one word and
thing, the two terms are tautological-there is no division.
in this one thing itself; and if aught and its self, or all and
its self, are the same in two takings, with time or trans-
cendency or production between the takings, yet these two
are equal in all respects, so that if aught knows, or sus-
tains, or causes itself, it is known, sustained, or caused by
itself in the same moment: thus in the matter of principle
or origin exchanging the properties of ground and conse-
quent in a manner impertinent to an explanation of why
the whole goes forward instead of backward in history.
This sum of observation is that self which Jesus denied,
couching all his doctrine from that which projects this
self "He that sent me;"-not indeed denying self as
knowledge, nor in the method of this world,-for in this
confusion self is unavoidably to be admitted before it can
be denied, but renouncing and ignoring it ever as an un-
accountable deception, a lie and a father of lies, and
hesitating not to assume a basic identity behind the self,
contravening its importance if not its reality. "My Father
and I are one;"-"He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father;" yet no man hath seen God at any time".
me" either, in the proper sense: for by "me" here is not
meant this limit of individuality, but the origin of the
doctrine; nor according to this limit shall the great doc-
trine proceed, but in spite of and ignoring it. And this is
(C
(6
-nor
26
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
that great and only wise doctrine: That which proposes
“I” in every creature is identical and of equal dignity, no
more by thy addition and no less by thy lack. In God,
Socrates and the grasshopper have no distinction. Knowl-
edge apart, the being of an ant and of an angel is the
same. The logos subsides in God. "Then shall the Son
also himself be subject unto him that put all things un-
der him, that God may be all in all."
What is specially characteristic of all divine doctrine is
its inuendo of impersonal yet wise life, addrest to the sub-
stance to the "heart," or the " spirit "and expected
rather to be sympathetically echoed than logically known,—
as if the universal purport were in us, and only distorted in
any ambitious attempt to utter it particularly in the world.
Only through life and in spite of formal speech can we
resound in each other. Jesus attempts the noun-participle
of being in the saying "I am the truth,"-as if he had said
"understand me in your heart or substance ;"_" the word is
made flesh.” Yet strictly thinking, in all “self-denial,”
whether of desire or of observation, there is a higher de-
sire of the same which is not meant to be denied; and in
confessing the deception of cognition we operate a higher
cognition which detects the deception, and which is not
meant to be repudiated. The coil is about us-nay, we are
and are not the coil! If I deny myself wholly and heartily,
what good is in this impeached man's denial? If I decide
with sense, reason condemns me; if I decide with reason,
sense torments me, and will be respected; if I hold them
equal and both delusive, bebold, when I say I am properly
neither, but a critic of both, I find my criticism restricted
to the two old methods, the universal and the particular-
the critical and the dogmatic. If I say that truth of life
cannot be spoken, yet somehow I live and have spoken;
and others have spoken and I understand their impulse. If
disgusted with this entanglement I conclude that only si-
lence is wise, how can I impart my wisdom? and if I keep
silent, do I not impotently sanction all the folly spoken ?
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
27
Shall I say with one breath 'thou errest,' and 'truth cannot
be told'?-Verily, the Kingdom of God cometh not with
observation, but is in us, to be sought in the opposite di-
rection.
We detect, then, a weakness in the philosophic spirit, in
that it pursues the content or contents of life outwardly in
another, (namely truth,) in order that it may comprehend
and sustain life in safety, by manipulating a sustenance of
being,―lacking dignity or faith to recline inward and as-
sume in what is, as all, that which we might assume and
must confess as practical somewhere, namely an apodal
sufficiency, to which sufficiency a wonder or a fear of
why it is sufficient cannot pertain, and could be attributed
only as an impossible disease or lack :
"But to seem to find
Asks what thou lackest, thought resigned,
A healthy frame, a quiet mind."
Consider the weakness of ever charging the vitality of
aught upon an other, (or upon its self,) in that this other
but affords a place of riddance for the mystery of sufficien-
cy, which is not meant to be refuted, but merely forced off
the field of speculation because as individual, in limit, we
have it not, but are made by other. This sufficiency cannot
be grounded in knowledge, nor enter knowledge, which it
precedes and scorns. And he is both timid and inconsid-
erate who takes it for an impossibility of course that our
soul, which assumes and puts off consciousness, is this very
God, in whose build (whether it be of substance or action
or both or neither,) is the sufficiency of life, and is all the
reality to be confest extant. That which the casuist seeks-
that but for which all were not-is that identically which
is; and what it lacks of ground to knowledge is what
knowledge lacks of it.-In this weak spirit of reference to
other, though I had made all that is observed, as freely as
I write these words, I should not be content of its origin,
but should defer to fate in being, and find sustenance in
28
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
precedence rather than ignore sustenance in prime vitality.
In this method nought is but was caused and is effect, and
so of course cause never is; and what never is never was;
yet by the same method, all that is is cause-cause of what
shall be. So that which is stands and stood ever without
cause; and aught that stands ill at ease lacks dignity or
faith, which it has the right to assume, and none shall say
it nay.
"The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and
the violent take it by force."
If we are to be satisfied we must be satisfied without
knowledge—metalogically. "In my heart there is light,"
said Jacobi, “but directly I would bring it into the under-
standing it vanishes." This is the ring of true metal. Yet
Jacobi makes the old mistake, as far as logic is concerned,
when he would put feeling in the place of knowledge, as
informal certainty; for feeling also is organic and relative,
a thing of contrast, a one made by other. The same shall
be said of faith; for without works it is dead, while he
who does a great work has already transcended the ago-
nism of faith or its need.
Schelling labors vainly against the same embarrassment.
Something higher than science I certainly do know," he
says; we have what he intends, but it is not in what he
says. Only in the highest science does the mortal eye
close, and then it is not man that sees, but eternal sight
that has come to sec in him." But see what? Identical, in
possession, what achievement remains for a faculty of vis-
ion? Shall the eye look forth into the formless and color-
less, and look, and look, and see not? Logically, is that
conscious which is not conscious of somewhat? or is as a
knowing-machine running with no grist in the hopper?
Shall the will tower in majesty and prevalence against
nothing?—All these efforts toward logical content serve
only to manifest our conditional uneasiness, while yet
they give sure monition of the great content which
provokes them.
The fact that there is philosophy at
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
29
all is a greater comfort than any that philosophy has at-
tained. *
With Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, Hegel, Schelling and Emer-
son in hand, and with Jesus above all, we go back well
equipt to the ancients, the grandeur of whose simple aston-
ishment was the balmy morning of dialectics, now in their
sultry Hegelian noon. Moderns have not surpassed them
save in new excursions, to which they would freely have
consented. Socrates would have worshipped Jesus; and
the static Plato would have clapped his hands had he seen
the Hegelian notion beating heavenward on its mighty
wings. All philosophies are but stages in the logical en-
deavor, which, since Hegel, is pretty well given up. The
best of later thinking is content with confessing a light
from within or from behind," which shines through and
nullifies the logical desire, and determines that what we
cannot account for should not trouble our peace. Thus
knowledge has risen to sagacity, or wisdom, and the sage
sits a grade higher than the philosopher.
A few of the staminal assertions of the Greeks will show
their common notion, of knowledge as a necessity of being,
and the only light.-" The One is God," said Zenophanes.
"The whole is limited; for it is just so much as it is and no
more," said Zeno.
"Number is the substance of things,"
said Pythagoras.
"Strife (i. e. antagonism, contrast) is the
father of things," said Heracleitus. "All things were made
* Yet Heaven and Earth forbid! that to Philosophy however vain
should be preferred the assertions of Common Sense, which are
about as like to wisdom or to wit as hash is to hasheesh; they sound
very like, and are equally inscrutable. To Common Sense-to the
Lockes and Bacons, to the Scotch school, and to most theological
schools outside of Germany, philosophy means but serious reflection
generally. Serious reflection it surely is, but fundamentally, chiefly,
all but exclusively, of a single topic, to wit: the possibility of knowl-
edge and the possibility of being without knowledge. No accumu-
lation nor classification of knowledge, no deduction of "laws"
therefrom, nor any adaptation to the wants of men, not even to
their eternal happiness, hath any relevancy to the single effort put
forth to unriddle the dialectic duplexity that knits the nature of
thought and being. All that of "Înduction" and "Deduction," of
Progression," and "Positivism," and "Science" from end to end,
is but secondary and subsequent and unavailing to philosophy-the
wonder of the gods.
30
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
by the Logos," says St. John after the others. These say-
ings all have one meaning, namely: that only by limit, con-
trast, discrimination, can things exist;-and whether this
is or is not a correct statement of the case of things, it fol-
lows not that without formal knowledge all were nought
because this world of observation were not.
Surely, in knowledge, one is by other: and "one thing
alone the gods cannot show us," for one ever stands between
two, as the simple difference; and one is not perfected in
observation until we come to other; and one cannot stand
alone; wherefore the possibility of things (individual) is
the possibility of conception. But even as identity does not
depend upon the proposition of identity, nor life upon
knowledge, so does not the inherent content of aught de-
pend upon that sensible limiting which gives oneness, or
individuality. A hole abides as a hole only while that
abides in which it is a hole; but the content quality of the
hole is not affected by removing the limits which individ-
ualize and locate it in knowledge. This content is not
made by limit, nor does any question arise in content as to
how or whether at all it is made.
The necessity of being and the necessity of things are
diverse considerations. "Strife is the father of things,"
said Heracleitus: that is, contrast, one against other; this
tolerably accounts for the things, but what accounts for the
father? Who is the grandfather of things?-Granting
knowledge, things come easily, inferred by contrast: thus
conception of nothing infers space, and space infers time,
and this infers coetaneity, and this relation, and this posi-
tion, and this motion, and this irritation, and this heat,
light and color,-and so on to Substance; thence are accre-
tion, limit, form, unity, Individuality; thence property,
propriety, self-interest, resistance, Life, and so on perhaps
to intelligence and apodal sufficiency. But before all this,
is a question of the necessity of being at all, of which Phi-
losophy in its method should seek an answer as requisite to
the peace of being. Wherefore the philosophical method
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
31
is condemned as availing itself of only one-half of intelli-
gible possibility; for who knows not that the weakness of
the back is the weight of the burthen-that the force of
desire is the value of acquisition-and that uneasiness in
general may be as well forestalled as gratified? Knowl-
edge, being void of the mystery of causation, and being
only observation, must ever wonder at what is given her—
even at her own being; but being without knowledge hath
no doubt and no question of origin or basis. The disease
vanishes in the fading of the question, and not in the com-
ing of an answer,-leaving a new and empirical question
as to the possibility of an informal consciousness, or an un-
conditioned being: And thereof, as Poe well urged, the
possibility is not determined by our ability to conceive.
And as conception of any part infers more than a part, so
does the whole in knowledge argue more than the sum of
the parts; for as the individuality of one is by division
from other, so the wholeness of the sum of the parts is by
the connective and circumferent tissue of thought. Where-
fore, as to what is being limited "because it is just so much
as it is and no more," it is so limited only in knowledge as
deception; for identity is neither much nor little-which
are terms of comparison with other.
And here we see that knowledge of the other in each
does not afford knowledge of all. For if all were in parts,
(not parts and limit, observe-for taken topically limit is a
part as a net of the parts)—if all were in parts, and all the
parts were alike in being, and each part were known by
other parts, tho' neither part were known by that part itself,
still all would not be known as all; for if the limit be al-
lowed as a necessity of parts, thought also is a necessity of
wholeness; thought is the limit of wholeness, and is a part
extra; and knowledge here as ever mistakes the limit of
all as in the content of all, though ever "the more is
thought," and limit of aught real takes no part.-Neither
can we declare that the unknown is the knower,—as if the
difficulty were simply in that we cannot see backwards, as
32
THE GIST OF PHILOSOPHY.
the gun cannot shoot into its own muzzle. In strictness,
we cannot declare, name, nor assert concerning the un-
known-we know not of aught unknown; and only that
we should be forever silent, while yet we expect to be di-
vinely understood above the letter, sympathetically hinting
the mystery of identity in fellowship, we could not say of
being that it is, and thus necessitate a contrast of it with
the space it fills, or with other or different that might have
been in its place; for well said Democritus, "Being is by
nothing more real than nothing "—to knowledge, that is—in
which all considerations, as topical, are of equal reality.
So being, as to us, topically, is off from us, and so is by
knowledge, as Fichte said; yet never dream that this “is,”
as form, or manifestation, or reflexion, is the only predicate
of divine being; for being is in a meaning prior to and
deeper than manifestation in form. Fichte finally saw this
dimly. For of God he said: “Thou art,” etc.—“ but as I
now and ever must conceive of being Thou art not." This
sort of confession cost him his professional chair; for to
his wise censors, who fancied God as some shape with ideas,
this was atheism.
As what is then, or at least as of what is, we were sound
and content if--we were so: in other condition. Faith
comes not by doubtful tests, but is ever a foregone conclu-
sion. It arrests us rather than is assumed by us. Its dig-
nity and courage are simply divine, "the gift of God,” and
according to nought besides; especially may I say, not ac-
cording to knowledge. Courage as by knowledge is in a
sense of safety, in which courage has no part; for the more
definite sense of safety, the less merit of courage. Your
bully Samson, and Marcius, and Wallace, and Plantagenet,
safe in their knowledge of superior strength and address,
shall not be mentioned with many a little hero who, di-
vinely resentful of accidental advantages, and having no
hope of successful battle, would yield only his life,—for
such have that within regardless of safety or self which
THE ANESTHETIC REVELATION.
33
yearns in the parent's love, and begs to suffer instead of the
child, and is above any possible good of the individual.
Why shall Socrates call Ion "inspired" in his rhapsodies,
yet fail to see that love and courage, or faith, are all di-
vine? For him who has done his best there is an honest
ignorance that shall face the highest inquisition. What
boots all outward sustenance when the flood covers the
drowning man, with "dreadful noise of water in his ears,"
and his heart cries out Which way to the Kingdom of God?
How shall he escape inward, where the Kingdom of God
is, if he shriek abroad prayers addrest into the realm of
observation? How shall he soothe his frightened child
with doctrine, taking responsibility for another in his holi-
est love, unless, though mistaking, he may be worthy as
aught that sent him here? Nay, son and brother, Courage!
Mine be thy retribution! To the highest Court that ques-
tions mortal patience after the truth of the life, I and my
sorrows lift a brow of brass, whether to-day or to-morrow.
THE ANESTHETIC REVELATION,
By the Anæsthetic Revelation I mean a certain survived
condition, (or uncondition,) in which is the satisfaction of
philosophy by an appreciation of the genius of being, which
appreciation cannot be brought out of that condition into
the normal sanity of sense-cannot be formally remembered,
but remains informal, forgotten until we return to it.
As here we find in trances, men
Forget the dream that happens then,
Until they fall in trance again."
Of this condition, although it may have been attained
otherwise, I know only by the use of anaesthetic agents.
After experiments ranging over nearly fourteen years I
affirm-what any man may prove at will-that there is an
invariable and reliable condition (or uncondition) ensuing
about the instant of recall from anesthetic stupor to sensi-
ble observation, or "coming to," in which the genius of
34
THE ANESTHETIC REVELATION.
being is revealed; but because it cannot be remembered in
the normal condition it is lost altogether through the in-
frequency of anesthetic treatment in any individual's case
ordinarily, and buried, amid the hum of returning common
sense, under that epitaph of all illumination: "this is a
queer world." Yet I have warned others to expect this
wonder on entering the anaesthetic slumber, and none so
cautioned has failed to report of it in terms which assured
me of its realization. I have spoken with various persons
also who induce anesthesis professionally (dentists, sur-
geons, etc.,) who had observed that many patients at the
moment of recall seem as having made a startling yet
somehow matter-of-course (and even grotesque) discovery in
their own nature, and try to speak of it, but invariably fail
in a lost mood of introspection. Of what astonishes them
it is hard to give or receive intimation; but I think most
persons who shall have tested it will accept this as the
central point of the illumination: That sanity is not the
basic quality of intelligence, but is a mere condition which
is variable, and like the humming of a wheel, goes up or
down the musical gamut according to a physical activity;
and that only in sanity is formal or contrasting thought,
while the naked life is realized only outside of sanity alto-
gether; and it is the instant contrast of this "tasteless
water of souls" with formal thought as we "come to," that
leaves in the patient an astonishment that the awful mys-
tery of Life is at last but a homely and a common thing,
and that aside from mere formality the majestic and the
absurd are of equal dignity. The astonishment is aggra-
vated as at a thing of course, missed by sanity in overstep-
ping, as in too foreign a search, or with too eager an atten-
tion: as in finding one's spectacles on one's nose, or in
making in the dark a step higher than the stair. My
first experiences of this revelation had many varieties of
emotion; but as a man grows calm and determined by
experience in general, so am I now not only firm and fa-
miliar in this once weird condition, but triumphant-di-
THE ANESTHETIC REVELATION.
35
vine. To minds of sanguine imagination there will be a
sadness in the tenor of the mystery, as if the key-note of
the universe were low,-for no poetry, no emotion known
to the normal sanity of man can furnish a hint of its pri-
meval prestige, and its all-but appalling solemnity; but for
such as have felt sadly the instability of temporal things
there is a comfort of serenity and ancient peace; while for
the resolved and imperious spirit there are majesty and su-
premacy unspeakable. Nor can it be long until all who
enter the anæsthetic condition (and there are hundreds
every secular day) will be taught to expect this revelation,
and will date from its experience their initiation into the
Secret of Life.
Men and brethren, into this pervading genius we pass,
forgetting and forgotten, and thenceforth each is all, in God.
There is no higher, no deeper, no other, than the life in
which we are founded.
แ
The One remains, the many change and pass;"
and each and every of us is the One that remains. Listen,
then, to the charming of the Prince of Peace, who takes
away the sin of the world, and say, each for himself, "My
Father and I are one."-Mourn not for the dead, who have
awoke in the bosom of God. They care not, they think
not, and when we are what they are, we too shall think of
them no more.—Much might I say of the good of this dis-
covery, if it were, as it soon may be, generally known of.
Now for the first time the ancient problem is referred to
empirical resolution, when the expert and the novice may
meet equally on the same ground. My worldly tribulation
reclines on its divine composure; and though not in haste
to die, I “care not to be dead," but look into the future
with serene and changeless cheer. This world is no more
that alien terror which was taught me. Spurning the cloud-
grimed and still sultry battlements whence so lately Jehovan
thunders boomed, my gray gull lifts her wing against the
nightfall, and takes the dim leagues with a fearless eye.
"
36
THE ANESTHETIC REVELATION.
By this revelation we enter to the sadness and the majesty
of Jesus—to the solemn mystery which inspired the propt-
ets of every generation. By some accident of being they
entered to this condition. This is "the voice of One cry-
ing in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”
He that hath ears to hear let him hear. Heed not for them-
selves the voice nor the hand, which ever deny themselves;
remember only how many inspired times it is spoken
and written: I AM-that God whom faltering spirits seek
in far-off courts of heaven, while behold! the kingdom of
God is neither "lo! here" nor "lo! there" but within you; it
is the Soul. Thou shalt vanish, but the Soul is eternal: I
speak not of souls. And behold, I say unto you, the Su-
preme Genius doth not facultize; the glory is not what it
does but what it is; it hath no old nor new, no here nor
there; it stays not to remember, to wonder, to compare; to
the vehm of the patrician Presence, omniscience were an
idle labor and delay, and prophecy is forestalled and boot-
less in the sole sufficiency whose pæan hath no echo.
This is the Ultimatum. It is no glance between condî-
tions, as if in passing from this sphere of existence we might
catch a glimpse of
The Gods, who haunt
The lucid interspace of world and world,
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,”
and lose them again as we pass on to another orb and or-
ganization. This thick net of space containing all worlds
—this fate of being which contains both gods and men, is
the capacity of the Soul, and can be claimed as greater
than us only by claiming a greater than the greatest, and
denying God and safety. As sure as being-whence is all
our care-so sure is content, beyond duplexity, antithesis, or
trouble, where I have triumphed in a solitude that God
is not above.
It is written that "there was war in heaven,"-that worS
of dominion, as absolute as any, beheld the banners of La-
THE ANÆSTHETIC REVELATION.
37
cifer streaking with silver and crimson the mists of the
morning, and heard the heavy guns of Moloch and Belial
beating on the heights of the mind; and I read that dead
men have appeared as human forms;-nought of this can I
deny, more or better than I can deny myself. The tales,
whether they be true or false, are as substantial as the
things of which they tell.
แ We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."


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