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BOCKSHAMMER 
 
 FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN WILL. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, 
 
 AHbBiTia^s 
 
 BY 
 
 A. KAUFMAN, Jr. 
 
 Of the Theological Seminary, Andover. 
 
 ANDOVER: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY GOULD AND NEWMAN. 
 
 1835. 
 
S4 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, 
 
 By Gould and Newman, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 ^<r^^^ 
 

 OF THE 
 
 '/-^ 
 
 (UNIVERSITTJ 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The Author of the present investigation has either 
 no justifying reason to offer why his views on the 
 Freedom of the human Will are here made known, 
 after so much has been thought and published by 
 others, and why he may have chosen the most difficult 
 of all problems of philosophy as the object of his first 
 literary effort : — or if he have, that justification must 
 be found in the work itself. Hence all further anx- 
 iety to justify the undertaking before the public in a 
 preface, or any effort to excuse it, must necessarily be 
 superfluous, or would be vain. It only remains then 
 that the preface attempt to bring the reader to an un- 
 derstanding with respect to some of the more external 
 circumstances of the writing. 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 To him who at the very commencement may wish 
 to come as quickly as possible to a clear knowledge of 
 the book, it may, indeed, seem to be a deficiency, that 
 it is not definitely announced at the beginning to what 
 scientific system the author belongs. It is true that 
 by making such a declaration the introductory sur- 
 vey might be rendered more easy and clear, there 
 would be an anticipation of the results, and in general 
 an immediate classification might be made. But this 
 small inconvenience was unavoidable from the circum- 
 stance that the Author did not start out from any fin- 
 ished system either of another's or of his own ; nor 
 was it his design simply to set forth results previously 
 determined upon, and to encompass them with proofs. 
 His purpose was rather to search out results themselves 
 and to deduce them from the investigation. Although 
 not now philosophizing for the first time, yet the 
 Author believed that as he had undertaken to consider 
 the Freedom of the Will anew, it was obligatory upon 
 him to preserve the freedom of investigation also as pure 
 as might be. Philosophical Principles, however, 
 from which one can proceed to conclusions, have al- 
 ways appeared to him to be something entirely dif- 
 ferent from prepared Forms into which the thoughts 
 are to be moulded. Much rather are these principles 
 productive, when, like germs, they are still enveloped, 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 and from which, in proportion to the energy of their 
 plastic power, the growth of scientific knowing may 
 develope itself organically. 
 
 In the present condition of science the thoughts 
 and discoveries of earlier inquirers unquestionably be- 
 long to the elements and conditions of this developing 
 process ; and although the names of authors and the 
 titles of books are not here quoted, yet whatever of 
 others the present writing may have appropriated to 
 itself, it does not for that reason deny, but would ex- 
 pressly acknowledge. 
 
 The Author found it necessary to dwell more cir- 
 cumstantially upon Schelling's work on the Essence 
 of human Freedom, inasmuch as a scientific examina- 
 tion of that object would of itself more than once lead 
 to a consideration of the work named ; and the more 
 so, since it not only treats fully of freedom itself and 
 the most important objects kindred with it, but also 
 stands in the strictest connexion with the whole of a 
 peculiar scientific system, whose influence upon the 
 age cannot be misapprehended, and in reference to 
 which to be ignorant, or to act as if ignorant, would, 
 to say the least, not be compatible with a living interest 
 in the present state of German Science. 
 
 Without being numbered either among the disciples 
 or the opposers of Schelling's philosophy, the Author 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 places an infinite value in pursuing fearlessly his own 
 convictions. He believes that he has brought consid- 
 erations not unimportant against some peculiar tenden- 
 cies of Schelling's theory of Freedom ; and he did 
 this openly with no other design than that which lies 
 at the heart of all the friends of science, viz. that 
 truth might be promoted. But still in the exercise 
 of an unquestionable right he feels assured that duty 
 has not been violated, nor did he ever lose sight of 
 the regard due to that scientific man. 
 
 Besides, it were to be wished, (and the present 
 essay may at least contribute a share to occasion it,) 
 that some impartial judge skilled in the system might 
 subject the philosophical views of Schelling, especially 
 his theory of Freedom in its strict connexion with 
 other the most important objects of religion and phi- 
 losophy, to a more thorough and scrutinizing examina- 
 tion, than from the nature of the case could have been 
 undertaken by his friends or enemies immediately 
 after the publication of the first impression when all 
 was yet excitement. 
 
 Buttenhausen, July 24, 1820. 
 
 GusTAVus Ferdinand Bogkshammer. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 As the Author of the following Essay, when 
 presenting it to the learned of Germany where works 
 of science and deep thought abound much more than 
 with us, did not think proper to offer any other justifi- 
 cation of his procedure than what was to be found in 
 the essay itself, it is certain that were he still living 
 he would feel not indebtedness to the Translator, if, in 
 offering it the lovers of philosophical discussion in his 
 own country, he should presume to accompany it with 
 a laboured apology. The Essay must, therefore, be 
 left to cary within itself its own apology, or its con- 
 demnation. It may be observed in general terms, 
 however, that the points brought to view in the follow- 
 ing pages are discussed with modesty but yet with 
 manliness. The essay is short but comprehensive, com- 
 prising all the most important objects connected with the 
 Will. It does not pursue out into all their ramifications 
 and detail the topics started, but abounds rather in first 
 principles. Like the writings of Lord Bacon " it is 
 full of the seeds of things." Professor Tholuck of 
 Halle, so well and so favourably known in this country 
 both as a scholar and a Christian, and not less as a 
 
VIII PREFACE. 
 
 deep thinker, pronounces this essay one of the most 
 remarkable and excellent productions of the times. 
 
 Of the writer himself but httle is known. Winer, 
 in his Manual of Theological Literature, states simply 
 that he was a Pastor in the village of Buttenhausen in 
 Wiirtemberg. He died in 1822. The presumption 
 is that at his death he was yet a young man. In ad- 
 dition to the writing here translated, he wrote another 
 work somewhat larger, entitled Revelation and The- 
 ology, which is quoted with high approbation in his 
 native country. In religion and philosophy the Au- 
 thor belonged to the same general class with Schleier- 
 macher, Neander, Olshausen, Heinroth, Twesten, Tho- 
 luck, Hengstenberg, and others, whose writings are in 
 Germany every day exerting a more wide-spread and 
 salutary influence upon the philosophy and religion of 
 that interesting people. Among these Christian Phi- 
 losophers in the truest and best sense, or Mystics as 
 they are sometimes styled by the opposing Rational- 
 ists, our Author stood forth as a philosophical theolo- 
 gian of energy and thought ; — one who soon attained 
 the maturity of his powers and was soon gathered to 
 the grave. From the specimens of originality and depth 
 which he furnished, Science had reason to deplore his 
 loss. 
 
 The constant aim of the Translator has been to 
 present the precise views of his author; in no case 
 to thrust in any thoughts of his own, nor in any case 
 to leave out any important thought. In doing this, 
 however, original sentences have oftentimes been 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 divided into two or three ; oftentimes words have been 
 repeated to keep up the logical connexion, and not un- 
 frequently words and whole clauses added to make the 
 sense complete. Explanatory phrases have in some 
 cases been added when the original was so concise and 
 idiomatic as not to be intelligible if literally translated ; 
 and all that is found in brackets is from the Translator. 
 If, in thus endeavouring to show faithfulness to the 
 Author, free use has sometimes been made with the 
 English language, it is hoped that this will be pardoned 
 by the discriminating reader. The language of Ger- 
 man philosophy has much more of vigour and concise- 
 ness than ours ; it was, therefore, sometimes found 
 necessary to adopt words and phrases not in ordinary 
 use, or else to choose the more problematical course of 
 employing diluting periphrases. To transfuse all the 
 freshness of the original into a translation were impos- 
 sible ; to impart to it the same energy, or to clothe it 
 with the same precision, would be equally difficult. 
 But those who are incapable of the pleasure of using 
 the original, will, it is hoped, be content to receive 
 these thoughts in a form somewhat less elegant and 
 precise. 
 
 If the Translator has in any case not been able to 
 give an energetic and perspicuous sense, or to convey 
 the precise shade of his Author's meaning, or even in 
 some cases to have failed in apprehending it, he would 
 in these items also bespeak the favour of the learned 
 reader. And he feels assured that those will be most 
 ready to exercise charity who are best acquainted with 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 the intrinsic difficulty of discoursing with accuracy on 
 spiritual topics generally, and the augmentation of that 
 difficulty when attempting to transfer into English, an 
 essay on the Freedom of the Will, written in the pecu- 
 liar and nervous language of German Transcendental 
 Metaphysic. He conceives that his claim to mildness 
 is the better grounded, from the circumstance that he 
 has ventured upon a comparatively new sphere. 
 Whilst German Literature in general is cultivated with 
 enthusiasm, and their historians and poets are translat- 
 ed in abundance, German Philosophy is but little 
 studied ; or if it be, no one is yet known to have un- 
 dertaken and succeeded in translating into English 
 any complete work. 
 
 Our language does not even furnish a means 
 of acquiring a knowledge of the general scope and 
 tendecy of German Philosophy. The English read- 
 er may in his own language acquaint himself with 
 the splendid creations of Klopstock and Goethe, or 
 pursue the classic narrations of Schiller and Niebuhr, 
 whilst Fichte, and ScheUing, and Jacobi, and Schleier- 
 macher, and Schultz, must be entirely unknown to him 
 unless he have recourse to the originals. In the last 
 century Mr. Nitsch^ and Dr. Willich,^ two dis- 
 
 ^ A general and introductory view of Professor Kant's 
 principles concerning man, the world and the Deity, &c. by 
 F. A. Nitsch, Lend. 1796. 
 
 2 Elements of the Critical Philosophy, containing a con- 
 cise account of its origin and tendency ; a view of all the 
 works published by its founder, Professor Immanuel Kant, 
 &c. by A, F. M. Willich, M. D. Lond. 1798. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 ciples and pupils of Kant, published in England a di- 
 gest of the leading principles of their great Master ; 
 but these works are necessarily meagre, having been 
 written before the principles of the New Philosophy 
 had been fully developed and scrutinized. Their ter- 
 minology, too, has been in a great measure superseded 
 by the adoption of a better nomenclature. The latter 
 of the two works named is principally occupied with a 
 brief historical Introduction to the rise of Transcen- 
 dentalism, and in giving a catalogue of Kant's works to- 
 gether with an analysis of their contents. Madame 
 De StaeFs survey of German Philosophy is more rich 
 and interesting, but it is still designed for the general 
 reader alone. 
 
 Stewart's view of the German School was, with the 
 exception of one of Kant's first essays written in Latin 
 and entitled De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis 
 Forma et Principiis, according to his own statement, 
 derived from Second or third hand. It is of course 
 imperfect. A number of elaborate articles on the 
 Kantian Philosophy have appeared in the Encyclopae- 
 dia Londinensis, of which, taken as a whole, we here 
 forbear to say any thing. Some parts are good, and 
 may afford considerable aid to the student. Tenne- 
 mann's Grundriss has been translated into English by 
 Mr. Johnson, fellow of Wadham College, England ; this 
 work we have not seen, and from personal examination 
 therefore can neither affirm nor deny any thing in re- 
 gard to its worth. But judging from the specimens fur- 
 nished by the Edinburgh Quarterly for October 1832, 
 
XII PREFACE. 
 
 we should think it would not be of much service to one 
 who wished to become acquainted with the peculiari- 
 ties of the Critical School. Coleridge's Writings af- 
 ford the best introduction to the study of German Phi- 
 losophy. He had much of the German spirit, and often 
 employs German terms. Yet he was by no means 
 bound to the Germans ; for instead of translating their 
 works or retailing their speculations, he drew his 
 thoughts from the depth and fullness of his own ex- 
 haustless mind. 
 
 Without making pretensions to any thing like an 
 accurate knowledge of the history, or of the compass 
 and complement of German Philosophy, the Translator 
 would still hope that his additions have thrown some 
 light upon certain points and allusions in the Essay 
 which might otherwise have been unintelligible to the 
 mere English scholar. The appendix and all the 
 notes are from him. They are generally intended to 
 be illustrative ; in some few cases they are confirmato- 
 ry of the views advanced by the Author. Many of 
 the extracts added are from rare works ; they serve to 
 show the accordance of thought between thinking men, 
 and are conceived to add interest to the discussion. 
 
 That this little work may aid its reader to obtain a 
 more living insight into himself and nature ; that it may 
 be promotive of a spiritual religion subjectively, and of 
 christian energy in action, is the only wish of 
 
 The Translator. 
 
 Andover, Feb. 1835. 
 
_ LI I 
 
 OF THB 
 
 FREEDCTM OF THE WILL. 
 
 Might it not be better to omit all profound in- 
 vestigations on the Freedom of the human Will, and 
 adhere simply to that which is certain and indisputa- 
 ble, viz. to conscience and moral feeling, without be- 
 ing disturbed with doubts or metaphysical difficulties ? 
 This question presents itself at the threshold of our in- 
 quiry, and in so far as it concerns practical life we might 
 readily answer it in the affirmative. To science, how- 
 ever, this sphere of investigation must ever remain 
 open, because the direct and leading aim of science is 
 not action, but truth, and the connexion of knowledge. 
 — Happy may he be esteemed who has never heard 
 of a free or an unfree Will ; and who, faithfully follow- 
 ing his inward consciousness of right and wrong, calmly 
 pursues the right, without permitting himself, even for 
 one moment, to be perplexed in regard to the question 
 of liberty. When the time of action arives even the 
 Philosopher forgets his system, with which he finds it so 
 difficult to incorporate empirical ^ freedom ; and, if in 
 
 1 In English the word Empiric is now generally used to 
 designate an ignorant pretender to medical skill. But in 
 German Philosophy the corresponding adjective is employ- 
 2 
 
14 
 
 other respects a man, in word and deed he pursues 
 that course, which without any subtilties he knows it 
 
 ed with a very different significance. It there means that 
 which belongs to experience, what rests upon experience, 
 what is derived from experience^ a posteriori ; — Empirism, 
 the knowledge of experience. As an equivalent term 
 experimental is, perhaps, of more frequent use with us ; 
 but empirical is more philosophic, and by no means unused or 
 unauthorized. Empirical freedom, then, is that freedom of 
 which we feel conscious in all the actions of daily life, with- 
 out inquiring into the grounds on which that freedom rests ; 
 without inquh'ing whether the Will is self-active and self- 
 determinant, or whether all its acts take place in accordance 
 with a necessitated and pre-established law ; without deciding 
 whether that apparent freedom may not yet be but the grad- 
 ual unfofdingjof a liTdderilrrechaftisBf^^-er -whether all acts 
 be not the results of Divine efficiency, or whether they may 
 not be produced through objective motives according to the 
 changeless law of cause and effect. In philosophy and the 
 art of healing, an Empiric is the opposite of a Rationalist ; 
 one who attends simply to the notices of nature instead of 
 searching out the reasons of them. Even the etymology of 
 the word would indicate this meaning; and in the third 
 century there existed a school of Greek physicians who did 
 not refuse to bear the name of Empirics. They rejected 
 the speculations and subtilties of preceding physicians ; they 
 went back to experience, and rested entirely upon her de- 
 cisions. — As Kant has given currency to this word in more 
 recent speculations, the meaning which he attached to it 
 may be seen from the following statement of his views. 
 " He presupposed philosophy and mathematics to be, in re- 
 gard to their origin, rational sciences, or sciences of reason. 
 
15 
 
 to be his duty to pursue. Thus Luther acted with 
 efficiency and as a man who was free ; yet in his spec- 
 ulative moments he maintained the doctrine of a ser- 
 vum arbitrium. But on this very account the Meta- 
 physician should be allowed fearlessly to pursue within 
 their legitimate bounds, his inquiries on this object of 
 human knowledge ; and this, too, without being made 
 answerable for the results, should they, in the event, 
 prove any less favourable to empirical freedom. Many 
 a one, contrary to his design and with a resisting heart, 
 
 Rational knowledge is distinguished from empirical by 
 its character of necessity and universality. With the pos- 
 sibility of the same stands or falls the possibility of philosoph- 
 ical knowledge, which is of two kinds — synthetic and an- 
 alytic. The latter rests upon the first law of thought [i. e. 
 the principle of contradiction] ; but what is the principle of 
 synthetic knowledge a priori in opposition to empirical, the 
 ground of which is perception ? The existence of such 
 knowledge is warranted by the existence of mathematics, 
 and even of common knowledge ; and in Metaphysics the 
 reflexive effort of reason is chiefly directed to its realization. 
 There is, therefore, a science in the highest degree necessary 
 and of the greatest importance, which, on principles, inquires 
 into the possibility of such knowledge as well as into its 
 grounds and employment." Empirical knowledge, then, is de- 
 pendent upon perception ; rational science is associated with 
 an inner Faculty ; and as the latter involves unity, necessity 
 and universality, so the former is characterized as that which 
 is fragmentary, conditional and limited. See Tennemann's 
 Grundriss der Gesch. der Phil. § 381. p. 467. also Convei-sa- 
 tions-Lexikon, art. Empirismus. Tr, 
 
16 
 
 is, by the irresistible current of his thoughts, forced to 
 adopt his philosophical theory of freedom ; and he is thus 
 brought to the melancholy experience that the process of 
 knowledge even is ofttimes subject to destiny. Con- 
 templation has its pains as well as its pleasures ; and it 
 is therefore no ground of accusation against the calm and 
 reflecting Inquirer, if, by the strictly interlinked chain 
 of his thoughts, he finds himself led to the adoption of 
 views which seem to correspond neither to his own nor 
 to the feelings of others. A Science too, which, hke spec- 
 ulative philosophy, inquires after the ultimate grounds 
 of things and of knowledge, and the whole vitality of 
 which consists in acts of apprehension or cognition, can- 
 not at the same time have in view another principle 
 end separate from these cognitive acts. Moreover what 
 is thought or written on this point is inaccessible to the 
 multitude, and of a consequence cannot exert any evil 
 influence upon daily life ; so that the fears commonly 
 entertained in regard to the practical tendency of such 
 an inquiry are groundless, and the censuring cavils 
 sometimes urged against it are unjust and out of place. 
 He who is accustomed to reflect, who is in the 
 habit of inquiring after ultimate grounds, and who has 
 come to the living consciousness of an opposition which 
 when once awakened must be satisfied — for him the 
 question in reference to the essential character of human 
 freedom, and how the same may be reconciled with 
 belief in God, and with the assumption of an eternal 
 order of events as they take place in the world, even 
 on account of its difficulty possesses a high attraction. 
 
17 
 
 and upon the whole cannot be passed over. Urged by 
 his inmost feeling to attribute to himself and to others, now 
 guilt and now merit, and obliged also by his conscience to 
 recognize human action as free, every honest Inquirer 
 must surely wish to see this assumption of freedom brought 
 to accord with the remaining requisitions of his spirit, 
 with his views of God and nature ; or at least to see it 
 defended against the difficulties and apparent contradic- 
 tions which unavoidably force themselves upon his 
 consideration. Wherever a spirit of investigation ex- 
 ists, there the question in regard to liberty is inevitable ; 
 that is, human reason in the progress of its inquiries x 
 is necessarily forced upon it. Every investigation of 
 nature points, as it were unconsciously, to man, in 
 whom the earthly nature attains its perfection ; but in 
 whom there is at the same time found a higher, an un- 
 earthly nature, which appears to be as much elevated 
 above mere organic life as this is superior to blind mo- 
 tion effected by attraction and the power of gravity. 
 Making Nature, therefore, the starting point, reflection 
 seeks to arrive at Intelligence ; the Material must re- 
 solve itself into the Spiritual, Necessity must be lost in 
 Freedom. A similar problem presents itself for solution | 
 to the Historian and the Poet. For that which is call- ! 
 ed the History of the World is something more than j 
 the fixed course of fate and necessity, in that its great \ 
 and truly elevating portion, the Tragic of History, 
 consists in the self-subsistent striving of the w ill against 
 such fixed course; — in the conflict between Liberty 
 and Necessity. For which reason Poetry also, were 
 
 
18 
 
 It not for this indestructible co-existence of both Liberty 
 and Necessity, now in conflict with each other and 
 now meeting in perfect concord, would be deprived of 
 its animating principle, and would necessarily degen- 
 erate into spiritlessness or rather sink into death. The 
 purely spiritual efforts of man, his converse with Ideas, ^ 
 
 ^ For half a century past the word idea has been used 
 by English writers with great indeterminateness and in such 
 a way as to cause much confusion of thought. They speak 
 of the idea of a tree, a dog, a poem, a circle, the free will, 
 the soul, immortality and God. I have an idea that A has 
 no idea of the nature of an idea. The Critical Philosophy 
 has attempted to rescue the word from this promiscuous and 
 indefinite use, and to aj)propriate it exclusively to objects of 
 Reason, as opposed to objects of the Understanding, which are 
 designated by the term Conception. Intuition marks the 
 immediate object of the outer or inner sense, of understand- 
 ing or imagination. An Idea is equally removed from fact, 
 notion, image and sensation. Of this character is the idea 
 of the Perfect, of Eternity, of God, of Holiness, of Beauty, of 
 mathematical and moral Truth. To those who are not un- 
 wilhng to be at the trouble of fixing dererminately the mean- 
 ing of phrases, or of learning the history of a word, the fol- 
 lowing extracts may not be unacceptable : 
 
 "The word ^Idecc, in its original sense, as used by Pindar, 
 Aristophanes, and in the gospel of Matthew, represented the 
 visual abstraction of a distant object, when we see the whole 
 without distinguishing its parts. Plato adopted it as a tech- 
 nical term, and as the antithesis to El'd(o)M, or sensuous im- 
 ages ; the transient and perishable emblems, or mental words, 
 of ideas. The ideas themselves he considered as mysterious 
 powers, living, seminal, formative, and exempt from time. In 
 
19 
 
 or his endeavour to apprehend, by contemplation, the 
 laws of that higher necessity by which all things have 
 
 this sense the word became the property of the Platonic 
 school ; and it seldom occurs in Aristode, without some 
 such phrase annexed to it, as, according to Plato, or as 
 Plato says. Our English writers to the end of Charles 2nd's 
 reign, or somewhat later, employed it either in the original 
 sense, or Platonically, or in a sense nearly correspondent to 
 our present use of the substantive, Ideal, always, however, 
 opposing it, more or less, to image, whether of present or 
 absent objects. The reader will not be displeased with the 
 following interesting exemplification from Bishop Jeremy 
 Taylor: * St. Lewis the king sent Ivo bishop of Chartres on 
 an embassy, and he told, that he met a grave and stately 
 matron on the way, with a censer of fire in the one hand, 
 and a vessel of water in the other ; on observing her to have 
 a melancholy, religious and phantastic deportment and look, 
 he asked her what those symbols meant, and what she meant 
 to do with her fire and water ; she answered, my purpose is 
 with the fire to burn paradise, and witli my water to quench 
 the flames of hell, that men may serve God purely for the 
 love of God. But we rarely meet with such spirits, which 
 love virtue so metaphysicall}^ as to abstract from her all sensi- 
 ble composition^ and love the purity of the Idea..' Des Cartes 
 having introduced into his philosophy the fanciful hypothesis 
 of material ideas, or certain configurations of the brain, 
 which are so many moulds to the influxes of the external 
 world ; Mr. Locke adopted the term, but extended the sig^ 
 nification to whatever is the immediate object of the niind's 
 attention or consciousness. Mr. Hume, distinguishing those 
 representations which are accompanied with a sense of a 
 present object, from those reproduced by the mind itself, 
 
20 
 
 their being, could not proceed one step, nay could 
 not begin to be, without the most free self-subsistent 
 act of the spirit. Or is it not a breaking away from 
 those inward sensations that succeed each other accord- 
 ing to natural laws, and at the same time a rising above 
 the chain of external phenomena, which first brings 
 man to himself, and which marks especially the con- 
 dition of the philosophizing mind ? For him upon 
 whom the question does not force itself, it is, perhaps, 
 not of much importance to action (Morality) to de- 
 cide whether Reason, ^ whilst it prescribes laws, may 
 
 designated the former by impressions, and confined the word 
 Idea to the latter." Biographia Literaria, 2d ed. p. 64. See 
 further Appendix [A.] Tr. 
 
 1 It is well known that in German Metaphysics, as well 
 as by the Old English writers and some of a more recent 
 date, a broad distinction is made between Reason and the 
 Understanding. The latter faculty is busied with the things 
 of sense, is occupied with perceiving, arranging, classifying 
 and combining the varied phenomena of nature, and is con- 
 cerned with the affairs of daily life ; the former, from individ- 
 ual data given, rises to an apprehension of the universal, and 
 lives in the infinite and the eternal. "The faculty of 
 thought manifests itself both as Understanding and as Reason. 
 By the understanding we inquire after and investigate the 
 grounds, causes and conditions of our representations, feel- 
 ings and desires, and of those objects standing in immediate 
 connexion with them ; by reason we inquire after ultimate 
 grounds, causes and conditions. Reason strives afler the 
 comprehension of all that is known in the Unconditioned and 
 the Absolute. By the understanding we evolve rules for the 
 
21 
 
 not on the other hand be determined by reciprocal in- 
 fluences, and whether, therefore, in a higher sense it 
 
 regulation of our desiring faculty; by reason we subordinate 
 these rules to a higher Law — to a law which determines the 
 unconditioned form, the highest end of acting. Through 
 the power of thought, therefore, our knowledge both theo- 
 retic and practical, is comprehended in unity, connexion 
 and in being." Tennemann's Grundriss §41. p. 30. 
 
 " By the Understaxding, I mean the faculty of thinking 
 and forming judgments on the notices furished by the sense, 
 according to certain rules existing in itself, which rules con- 
 stitute its distinct nature. By the pure Reason, I mean the 
 power by which we become possessed of principles, (the 
 eternal verities of Plato and Des Cartes) and of ideas, (N. B. 
 not images) as the ideas of a point, a line, a circle of Mathe- 
 matics ; and of Justice, Holiness, Free-Will, &c. in Morals. 
 Hence in w^orks of pure Science the definitions of necessity 
 precede the reasoning ; in other works they more aptly form 
 the conclusion. 
 
 " To many of my readers it will, I trust, be some recom- 
 mendation of these distinctions, that they are more than 
 once expressed, and every where supposed, in the writings 
 of St. Paul. I have no hesitation in undertaking to prove, 
 that every Heresy which has disquieted the Christian Church, 
 from Tritheism to Socinianism, has originated in, and sup- 
 ported itself by, arguments rendered plausible only by the 
 confusion of these faculties, and thus demanding for the ob- 
 jects of one, a sort of evidence appropriated to those of anoth- 
 er faculty. — These disquisitions have the misfortune of be- 
 ing in ill-report, as dry and unsatisfactory ; but I hope, in 
 the course of the work, to gain them a better character — 
 and if elucidations of their practical importance from the 
 
22 
 
 may not itself be unfree ; but nevertheless this view 
 accords not with the demands and the strong moral 
 feeling of an inquiring mind, for which it is not suf- 
 ficient that the willing man imagines only that he per- 
 forms his own act, whilst yet with his inmost self he is, on 
 that supposition, but the instrument of developing a 
 concealed Necessity. If therefore transcendental ^ 
 
 most momentous events of History, can render them interes- 
 ting, to give them that interest at least. Besides, there is 
 surely some good in the knowledge of Truth as Truth — 
 (we were not made to live by bread alone) and in the 
 strengthening of ihe intellect. It is an excellent remark of 
 Scaliger, ' Harum indagaiio Suhtilitalum, etsi non est utilis 
 ad machinas farinarias conjlciendas, exuit animum tamen in- 
 sciticb rubigine acuitque ad alia.'' Scalig. Exerc. 307. § 3. i. 
 e. The investigation of these subtilties, though it is of no 
 use to the construction of machines to grind corn with, yet 
 clears the mind from the rust of ignorance, and sharpens it 
 for other things." Friend^ p. 150, 151. Tr. 
 
 ^ As Reason is distinguished from Understanding, Idea from 
 Conception, Subject from Object, so Transcendental 
 stands opposed to Empirical. " There is a philosophic (and 
 inasmuch as it is actualized by an effort of freedom, an ar- 
 tificial) consciousness, which lies beneath, or, (as it were ) 6c- 
 /linrf the spontaneous consciousness natural to all reflecting 
 beings. As the elder Romans distinguished their northern 
 provinces into Cis- Alpine and Trans- Alpine, so may we 
 divide all the objects of human knowledge into those on this 
 side, and those on the other side of the spontaneous con- 
 sciousness ; citra et trans conscientiam communem. The 
 latter is exclusively the domain of pure philosoi)hy, which 
 
23 
 
 freedom were given up, it would be impossible, for 
 the critical Inquirer at least, to be satisfactorily assured 
 of practical freedom ; for, (although it might be possi- 
 ble for the spirit to tolerate it) he could not peacefully 
 or indifferently suffer a continual inward dissension, the 
 thorn of a contradiction lying in the depth of his per- 
 sonal being. Morever the well known expedient to 
 be resorted to in such a case could not long afford 
 satisfaction, that is, in theoretical philosophy, to permit 
 the thing to rest upon itself, and to give up the ques- 
 tion about freedom ; but on the contrary, in practical 
 philosophy, to recognize reason as prescribing laws 
 (that is as free), or, for the behoof of action, to postu- 
 late this freedom. Because, in order to be satisfied as 
 to the correctness of such a view, it would be demand- 
 ed that there should be two kinds of reason, one for 
 action and another for thought ; and so related too, 
 that neither could have any knowledge of the other. ^ 
 
 Hence it is that the human spirit has continually 
 repeated the attempt to solve the riddle of freedom, 
 and that those given to reflection are led, as it were by 
 an instinctive impulse, to exercise their power upon 
 
 is, therefore, properly entitled transcendental, in order to dis- 
 criminate it at once, both from mere reflection and re-pre- 
 sentation on the one hand, and on the other from those 
 flights of lawless speculation, which, abandoned by all dis- 
 tinct consciousness, because transgressing the bounds and 
 purposes of our intellectual faculties, are justly condemned 
 as transcendent,''^ lAt, Biog, p. 143. Tr. 
 
 ^ See Appendix [B.] 
 
34 
 
 this dark and difficult point ; for partly the very diffi- 
 culty of the problem renders it the more powerfully 
 attractive, and induces renewed and continued efforts, 
 and partly also the connexion of this problem with 
 other the noblest and dearest objects of philosophy, 
 makes some kind of answer to it in the highest degree 
 desirable to those engaged in speculation. 
 
 But the problem which is here the subject of dis- 
 course appears, like so many others presented to our 
 consideration, in its nature to belong to the infinite ; and 
 in this respect a remarkable analogy reigns between it and 
 the kindred problem of the practical philosophy which 
 proposes holiness as its end. And although it is im- 
 possible for us at once to attain perfect holiness, still it 
 is our imperative duty to be forever approximating 
 towards it. As now in this case which concerns our 
 'practice, the greatness of the problem would by no 
 means justify us in despairing of its solution, nor ex- 
 cuse any irresolution in our efforts for its attainment, 
 but rather demands, and imposes upon us obligations 
 to use, the more untiring zeal and higher efforts, whilst 
 at the same time it inexorably destroys the fond illusion 
 which would ever persuade us that we have reached 
 the goal ; even thus is it in respect to the limits of our 
 Jcnowlecfge on the subject now before us. So that 
 there is no contradiction whatever in regarding it as 
 impossible to give at once a full and satisfactory solu- 
 tion of all the difficulties pertaining to this question, 
 and yet to venture w^ith delight and hope to tread in 
 the path that stretches forward in endless prospect be- 
 
25 
 
 fore us. The pleasure of speculation and the happi- 
 ness of the Inquirer consist to a great degree in this, 
 that as soon as one boundary is attained, immediately 
 another, from the darkness of a still greater distance, 
 emerges as it were, and invites on to renewed exer- 
 tions. We admit that this very peculiarity passes with 
 us for an irrefragable proof of the indestructibility of 
 the spirit of man ; and in an especial manner do we 
 feel that the present life, were it deprived of this reflec- 
 tion of the infinite, would be to us worthless and exceed- 
 ingly insipid. 
 
 In view of these things it is proper, if possible, to 
 contribute somewhat to the system of knowledge and 
 science, which nevertheless always remains imperfect ; 
 and it is fit that every one, not entirely unversed in the 
 things of philosophy, should be able to appreciate the 
 labours of others, and also by his own labours to gain 
 respect for himself. 
 
 makes itsdf known Jo .. tke jo^rd^ jc^Qsoioiig^esaj^ 
 in general be denied, and although all feel themselves 
 compelled to recognize or presuppose man to be free, in 
 so far as he acts, yet at the very commencement of 
 this investigation a not unimportant difficulty presents 
 itself before us ; that namely, of finding a precise scien- 
 tific expression to designate this feeling which manifests 
 itself in all. 5!or notwithstanding that all feel them- 
 selves to be free, still all do not therefore know what 
 Free^dom is ;— and the progress of this inquiry depends 
 not a little on the preliminary conception which we 
 
 3 
 
26 
 
 form of freedom. Without noticing separately and by 
 name all the different definitions of Liberty which have 
 been given, we remark simply that two classes of them 
 seem to us as especially worthy of attention. Not a 
 few make the essence of freedom to consist in the pre- 
 ponderance of the Intelligential over the Animal, and 
 consequently describe it as the Dominion of the Spirit 
 over the desires and lustful passions. Others, howev- 
 er, less advantageously indeed, but adhering more 
 faithfully to its empirical manifestation, represent 
 freed om as the Ability jo jGood and Evil. Those first 
 named appear to describe freedom in the manner men- 
 tioned, either to point out under what form, according 
 to their view, true freedom should exhibit itself, as they 
 well feel that human dignity consists in rising superiour 
 to the influence of sensual gratifications ; or else they 
 do it to avoid the difficulty, in which the assumption 
 that an ability to evil is derived from God, necessarily 
 involves us. But in their endeavour to avoid this dif- 
 ficulty they fall into another not less important, since 
 on their supposition it now becomes impossible to ex- 
 plain existent evil from the freedom of the will, and 
 they must be unavoidably driven either to the denial 
 of evil, that is of immorahty, in so far as it is imputa- 
 ble to the creature, or else to the denial of freedom, 
 as arbitrary election {the faculty of choice, volition). 
 For if man were free only iipi proportion as he reigns 
 over his lustful passions and desireSjjhen in the opposite 
 respect he would Be proportionally unfree ; so that 
 were this definition correct, it wp^^ be proper indeed 
 toTp eak of the. freedom of good persons, but not of the 
 
; 27 
 
 freedom of bad ones. But it is plain that this would 
 be the same as to take away the right of imputing evil ; 
 and consequently it would destroy evil itself, as moral 
 evil, in so far at least as it has respect to man. So on 
 the other hand, if we called freedom the dominion of 
 Intelligence, we should still have to inquire in the first 
 place after the freedom of this freedom. We may in- 
 deed in a noble sense of the word pronounce that man 
 to be really free who has attained the dominion over 
 his lusts and passions, and who makes goodness the 
 regulative principle of his life. But every one imme- 
 diately perceives that the above expression is but anoth- 
 er terni for purity or holiness ; in regard to this holi- 
 ness, however, the question now first arises, did man 
 attain it by his own free election, and consequently by 
 a self-determination which rejected the opposite course 
 that might have been taken ;^ or in other words, is 
 
 1 By many we are told that such a course were impossi- 
 ble ; that every state in which we find ourselves, or every 
 act which we perform, is the necessary result of a con- 
 catenation of antecedent causes, natural or moral, or both 
 combined, and to suppose that we might have been other- 
 wise, or that we might have acted differently, all things con- 
 sidered, would be as absurd as to suppose that we might 
 put our hands into the fire without being burned. "A voli- 
 tion, or determination, [or act of Will] when freed from the 
 mystery in which it has been too generally involved, is found 
 to be nothing more than a desire — a state of mind which can 
 no more arise without a cause, than a sensation or percep- 
 tion ; — and a state of mind, which must infidlibly arise, I 
 may add, in the circumstances which are adapted to produce 
 
. 28 , 
 
 that holiness and dominion of the spirit his act or only 
 his good fortune ? — After all that others have said on 
 
 it, as the feeling of fragrance, when the odoriferous particles 
 of a rose are brought into contact with the organ. ^ * * * 
 To exhibit it as a matter of choice with us whether we will 
 submit to the influence of motives, when their moral power 
 is discerned by the mind, is equivalent with stating that the 
 mind chooses whether it will recieve sensation in the case 
 referred to — than which few things can be more absurd." 
 Payne^s Elements, p. 371. 
 
 Not so the profound Author of the Ecclesiastical Polity : 
 */ Man in the perfection of nature being made according to the 
 likeness of his Maker, resembleth him also in the manner of 
 working ; so that whatsoever we work as men, the same 
 we do willingly work and freely : neither are we according 
 to the manner of natural agents any way so tied, but that 
 it is in our power to leave the things we do undone. The 
 good which either is gotten by doing, or which consisteth 
 in the very doing itself, causeth not action, unless apprehend- 
 ing it as good we so like and desire it. That we do unto 
 any such end, the same we choose and prefer before the 
 leaving of it undone. Choice there is not, unless the thing 
 we take be so in our power, that we might have refused and 
 left it. If fire consumeth the stubble, it chooseth not so to 
 do, because the nature thereof is such that it can do no other. 
 To choose, is to will one thing before another ; and to will, 
 is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that which 
 they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the 
 understanding, and the light of that eye is Reason. So that 
 two principal fountains'there are of human action, Knowledge 
 and Will; which Will, in things tending towards any end, 
 is termed choice." Hooker, Bk. I. Tr. 
 
this point, especially after what has been remarked in 
 reference to it by Schelling in his work entitled " Phi- 
 losophical INQ,UIRIES RESPECTING THE ESSENCE OF 
 
 HUMAN Freedom," ' we presume that nothing more 
 need be added in order to show that freedom, in and of 
 itself, is something else than the dominion of Intel- 
 ligence ; and that evil cannot be made to consist in the 
 mere feebleness of the intelligential principle, much 
 less in the want of freedom. 
 
 In one point, however, there is an agreement be- 
 tween that definition of freedom which has already 
 been considered, and that other given by Schelling. 
 The agreement consists in this, that both definitions 
 primarily have respect to the use of freedom ; the first 
 expresses the manner in which freedom should be 
 used, whilst the last named Inquirer had in mind the 
 principal manifestations of empirical freedom, as they 
 stand opposed to each other. But in regard to both 
 of these views it may justly be asked, whether, if free- 
 dom were defined according to its exercises only, the 
 Idea itself would not be ravished from our sight, and 
 merely separate empirical phenomena substituted 
 instead of it? No doubt the word freedom in its 
 primary and literal sense expresses a negative concep- 
 tion, namely, the absence of all force or compulsion ; 
 and this universal and essential characteristic of freedom 
 must be found connected with all free actions under 
 whatever variety of outward circumstances they may 
 
 1 Philosophische Untersuchungen Uber das Wesen der 
 
 menschlichen Freyheit. 
 
 3# 
 
30 
 
 be performed. On the contrary, those empirical phe- 
 nometia, which in the above named definitions have been 
 adduced as marks of freedom, are not to be met with 
 in every manifestation of free vdll : whilst, therefore, 
 they belong to the history of freedom, they are not such 
 essential and immutable criteria as to be of any service 
 in forming a scientific definition of it considered in 
 itself. That only which cannot be absent from any free 
 will, whatever may be its other condition and relations, 
 that alone is really essential to the nature of freedom, 
 and that alone may be used for its definition. As the 
 dominion of the InteUigential over the Animal, freedom 
 is too narrowly defined, because by this definition all 
 the wicked would be excluded from the class of the 
 free. That definition which declares freedom to be 
 an Abihty to good or Evil, also appears unsuitable and 
 erroneous; for this representation leaves it entirely 
 undecided whether the Good and the Evil result from 
 election and self-determination, or whether they are the 
 products of Divine appointment and necessity ; — so that 
 here is missing that very attribute without which free- 
 dom cannot at all be conceived of. Besides, the ori- 
 ginal and archetypal freedom, that is, the freedom of 
 God, lies entirely without the bounds of this definition, 
 since an ability to evil taken in its real and Hteral sense, 
 cannot at all belong to Him. Even to the higher un- 
 fallen spirits an ability to evil could only be figuratively 
 ascribed, and in a sense very limited. But since the 
 word can by no means be used in its literal sense with 
 respect to God, nor be so taken as when we speak of 
 
31 
 
 an ability to fly or of an ability to think, and under- 
 stand by the expression a natural power or constitution 
 from which thought and flying proceed according to 
 established laws ; so it is clear that in this sense human 
 freedom is also incorrectly defined to be an Ability to 
 Good and Evil. Such a conception of freedom were 
 rather a kind of fixed tendency to both Good and Evil 
 as already comprehended in it ; but it would effectually 
 exclude all real liberty. Good as well as evil, as such, 
 does not lie in freedom itself; opposed to each other, both 
 arise as the consequence of a determinate freedom, 
 that is, of the freedom of man. From its false use, 
 (of which hereafter,) springs evil, which, consequently, 
 is not to be sought in the ability itself, much less in 
 the pure Idea. Hence the predicates Good, morally 
 Good, are never applied to the free Will ; they first 
 arise from a determined mode of its use. Freedom 
 must indeed in itself always be regarded as a Good, 
 since it is the necessary condition of man's higher nature, 
 of his spiritual personality. In the higher domain of 
 spiritual being, however, the activity of the Will is by 
 no means restricted to an election between good and 
 evil ; and hence that definition which limits the Will's 
 freedom to this one point does but imperfectly enumerate 
 its modes of action. The power of the will exhibits 
 itself in such original activities of Mind as have no ref- 
 erence whatever to morality or immorality ; nay, which 
 operate for themselves before all moral law, and entirely 
 independent of it. This is the case with the act of 
 pure self-consciousness, and generally with that ten- 
 
32 
 
 dency which the spirit takes in its higher scientific ex- 
 ertions. In tMs pure WilHng, that is, in the original 
 energy of the spirit acting from itself, nothing is con- 
 tained which in any, even the most remote sense, can 
 as yet be called evil. Were this the case, then indeed 
 evil would be associated in our very conception of free- 
 dom ; but this again would immediately destroy the 
 conception itself, and evil would have to be explained 
 as a product of nature, that is, as necessary. If by the 
 term ability be meant a power real and actual, then an 
 ability to good, as such, must be already good, and an 
 ability to evil, as such, must already be evil ; whence 
 it would follow that there is no freedom at all, but the 
 necessity to become not one of the two, good or evil, but 
 both at the same time and in the same manner. There 
 is always a certain indeterminateness, or rather an ac- 
 tual double sense in the expression, that freedom is an 
 ability to good and to evil. For if by'^the phrase nothing 
 more is intended to be affirmed than that by means of 
 freedom man has in his power the possibility not of 
 moral good only but of moral evil also ; this is indeed 
 an incontestible analytic truth, yet is it in no sense a 
 definition of the free will, but only a consequence de- 
 veloped from our conception of freedom. But if by 
 the expression it be understood that an ability, or (ac- 
 cording to the examples above used,) a natural constitu- 
 tion and adaptedness to evil as well as to good, con- 
 stitutes the essential characteristic of freedom ; then in- 
 deed evil must spring from freedom itself, not in the 
 way of an accompaniment, (as, under given circum- 
 
33 
 
 stances, sickness from health,) but always and necessa- 
 rily. Against such a view what has hitherto been said 
 seems valid, and in general it may be urged against it, 
 that this definition of liberty involves not only the 
 impossibility of its derivation from the Will of a personal 
 God, but also the necessity of evil. 
 
 Negatively expressed. Freedom is to be regarded 
 as the absence of all force or compulsion ; positively, 
 as Conscious Self-determination, in which there is given 
 a spiritual Personality or Self-subsistence. The Will is 
 a Conscious Energy, the fountain of actions which spring 
 from the union of powers towards objects and designs. 
 It is originally both the mover and th^ connecting bond 
 of powers, whereby arises a spiritual and personal life ; 
 hence one may correctly characterize the Spirit as as- 
 cending Will. Immediately and simultaneously with 
 the I, exists also the will ; and conversely, where there 
 is no Will there is no Personality, because where this is 
 wanting, rude power may operate, passion and instinct 
 may reign, but no conscious energy regulating itself 
 with self-subsistent determination and design. An un- 
 consious will were a contradiction destructive of itself. 
 All that could be intended by it would be to mark a 
 blind appetency, and it might be compared to the force 
 and impulse of the excited elements. 
 
 It were strange, and would betray but little know- 
 ledge of that self-subsistent power which lies in the 
 spirit, if the state of desiring and the act of willing w^ere 
 confounded with each other, or if both were used as 
 words of synonymous import. Desire is the very op- 
 
34 
 
 posite of the will, inasmuch as the two reciprocally 
 strive to limit each other, yea rather to destroy each 
 other. Appetite, as hunger or thirst, involuntarily 
 springing up from the deep ground of mere feeling and 
 from a sensible need, has its sole attraction towards 
 self, an seeks to satisfy itself, and in its ascendency in- 
 dicates an absence or rather a passiveness of the Will 
 and of Intelligence. Hence the desirous man (or man 
 in a state of desire,) is not only something very different 
 from the willing man, but the direct contrary of him. ^ 
 
 ^ And yet two writers on the Philosophy of Mind, most 
 popular with us, strenuously maintain the sameness of will 
 and desire. " The determination of the mind never is, and 
 never can be, to do what, in the particular circumstances 
 of the moment, we do not desire to do." — "What is termed 
 will, is a desire following directly another desire ; but it has 
 this circumstance in common with many other desires, 
 which rise one from the other, and are not considered as 
 involving on that account any peculiar quality. The in- 
 dolent sensualist, for example, who knows the extent of com- 
 mand over the various objects of luxurious accommodation 
 which wealth confers, may have wishes as various as the 
 luxuries of which he thinks ; and the desire of any one of these 
 may be instantly followed by the desire of that which he knows 
 to be necessary for the gratification of it, — as instantly, as, 
 when the very delicacy which his appetite lias sought is 
 placed before him, his will to extend his arm to it seems it- 
 self, in its quick subsequence, to be almost a part of the 
 earlier desire of enjoying what is within his reach, so as to 
 require only the rapid intermediate effort." Brown on 
 Cause and Effect, p. 38, 39. 
 
35 
 
 Whilst in desire there is necessarily commingled a feel- 
 
 . ing of dependence, the will is accompanied with the 
 
 feeling of independence. This last state, however, 
 
 " On various accounts certain actions, i. e. certain motions 
 of some of the bodily members, may be regarded in the 
 light of a good, and so become objects of desire. But as 
 the actual motions follow instantly, by Divine appointment, 
 our desires to perform them, these desires perish, of course, 
 in the moment of their birth. It is to desires of this kind 
 that we give the name of Volitions ; but they are not spe- 
 cifically different from our permanent desires — all of which, 
 but for the circumstance of their permanence, would be 
 denominated Volitions." " There is, then, no radical differ- 
 ence between will and desire." Payne's Elements^ p. 365, 
 370. Thus no distinction is here recognized between the 
 Will, volitions and desires. Indeed writers generally, who 
 in their leading characteristics belong to this school of phi- 
 losophy, do not seem to admit any radical distinction in fact, 
 (although they do in words,) between acts of the will and 
 desires, inasmuch as they represent all appetites, sensations, 
 propensities, desires, hopes, fears, all apprehension of spir- 
 itual truth, the loftiest efforts of thought and imagination, 
 Holiness and Free Will, as being but different states oftht 
 same indivisible essence, mind. Without entering into the 
 discussion, we would simply ask. Have brutes a Will ? Are 
 they Persons ? Can we call them beings, though lower in 
 degree and varying in their specific characters, yet the same 
 in kind, with the Divine Being, angels and men ? But have 
 they not desires of various kinds? If now these latter 
 differ not essentially from acts of will, how shall we 
 account for it that brutes are without moral character 
 and irresponsible, as all admit that they are ? And whence 
 originate guilt and remorse in man ? See Appendix [C] Tr. 
 
36 
 
 can exist only under the condition of the self-subsistent 
 determination of a spiritual power concentred, under 
 the condition of a conscious energy and action springing 
 absolutely from itself; consequently the power of the 
 will is more centrifugal than centripetal, yet at the same 
 time that it has a tendency to place itself in opposition 
 to that which is not self, it also evinces a striving to sub- 
 ject this last to self, and thus to manifest itself to the 
 same as an energic or creative power. 
 
 Desires and passions in and of themselves consid- 
 ered, and aside from their possible derangement are, as 
 well as every other power and activity, of inestimable 
 wortli in their proper place ; but being blind, and con- 
 sequently always subordinate powers, they have, as is 
 proper, no determining voice in the counsels of the Spir- 
 it, and should therefore never be released from the guard- 
 ianship and guidance of the Understanding and the Will. 
 The derangement of this proper relation (w^hich, from the 
 nature of free man, we shall hereafter endeavour to 
 explain,) is sin ; and evil lies not in any one of these 
 individual powers considered in and of itself, but in the 
 perversion of their order, in the false co-operation and 
 interlinking of powers that have departed from and 
 deranged their original relation. For the activity of 
 the Life is not destroyed by means of evil, but the in- 
 dividual Factors only come to bear a different relation to 
 the Centre. Inactivity or the non-use of the will and 
 of reason is, in strictness, never without guilt ; and it 
 is this inactivity of the will which marks every degree 
 of evil, from sinful weakness and inefficiency of con- 
 
37 
 
 duct, to the most abandoned wickedness. An entire 
 perversion follows when the will itself and the abused 
 reason, deluded by the desires and passions as by false 
 friends, rise in league with these in rebellion against 
 the law, and with them make now but one hostile host. 
 The will then becomes an energetic will to evil, nay, it 
 becomes wickedness itself. As the triumph, so also 
 the fruitfulness of Evil, shows itself in this, that the 
 powers by which it is actuated were originally the same 
 as those which operate in the Good. Hence the eternal 
 hostility between the two, and the continual longing 
 after derangement and subversion which cleaves to per- 
 fected immorality, because that a system of wickedness 
 and lies can only be constructed from the wreck of truth, 
 and reared upon the ruins of virtue. By this means, 
 that is, through the original homogeneousness of these 
 powers, persons of the very greatest wickedness are 
 oftentimes enabled to show forth capabilities (e. g. of 
 courage, of perseverance, of presence of mind,) which 
 in themselves considered are of very high worth, but 
 in their present relations become most pernicious. 
 From the above representation moreover it becomes 
 intelligible how the wicked can make themselves ap- 
 pear externally virtuous, and how the hypocrite by 
 his deceitful arts can assume the specious garb of piety. 
 For, evil also, inasmuch as it is but perverted good, is 
 susceptible of a refined cultivation, and hence it does by 
 no means always appear in the gross outbreakings of 
 desires and lustful passions, (from which, perhaps, some 
 one might wish that he were on the very summit of 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
 human sinfulness,) but rather the will which has become 
 depraved, and the debased reason, in league with white- 
 washed passions, generate that hypocritical prudence, that 
 false, that ofttimes astonishing worldly wisdom, which 
 can only be characterized as deceitful cunning and cool 
 premeditating wickedness. To wish to derive a phe- 
 nomenon of this kind from the lusts and desires them- 
 selves, were unsatisfactory. Desire wills neither the 
 Good nor the Evil, and that, simply, because it wills 
 not at all. The human will too, as such, is not, per se, 
 essentially evil, — it does not originally will what is wrong; 
 and perfected immorality has never yet at once broke 
 forth from any human soul. But in our view, which 
 we shall endeavour to develope more fully in the pro- 
 gress of this essay, evil arises gradually through the 
 seduction of lust, (obedience to which constitutes the 
 first guilt, but yet a guilt which might be altogether 
 avoided) ; and thus it increases in the course of a contin- 
 ually augmenting and wicked derangement of powers, 
 until it arrives at a certain state of self-subsistence. A 
 case analogous to it is presented to us in the human 
 organization. When the fluids are diverted from their 
 proper channels they give rise to an after-growth, a pro- 
 duct hostile to life and yet deriving its sustenance from 
 life. A neglected mind therefore, especially where it 
 has very early been guilty of crime, may proceed to such 
 a high point of evil that sinfulness will acquire the as- 
 cendency, and for a time prove too powerful for every op- 
 posing obstacle. In this condition, although the better 
 voice may call aloud from its depth and command to 
 
39 
 
 return, sudden reformation is impossible — ^impossible, at 
 least, before the self-consuming madness of evil has 
 run through its course ; as is not unfrequently the case 
 with certain diseases, which no human skill can arrest 
 until they have arrived at a certain crisis. Without 
 doubt it is a remarkable peculiarity — a peculiarity fre- 
 quently observed in Evil, — that notwithstanding the effi- 
 ciency of the individual powers operative in it, notwith- 
 standing the apparent self-subsistence by means of which 
 this Life that has moved out of its proper orbit seeks to 
 form for itself an independent and secure middle-point, 
 (as a substitute for the true centrum which has been lost,) 
 still there always remains an inward contradiction, a 
 contradiction that cannot be removed ; there is still 
 an indestructible feeling of disunion, a continual long- 
 ing after something not had. And thus it is that such a 
 life betrays itself as somewhat false and unsubstantial ; 
 it can afford nothing which is healthful and per- 
 manent, but seems rather to resemble spectral forms 
 and apparitions. This is the reason why that in in- 
 dividuals who have given themselves up to the prac- 
 tice of wickedness there is observed an internal faint- 
 heartedness and insecurity at the very time when one 
 would least expect it ; their condition is like to that of 
 one under whose feet the solid earth begins to trem- 
 ble and to move. The abused reason can no longer 
 keep in league those powers that have conspired to 
 pursue a life of falsehood ; and the feeling of dissever- 
 ance from the Ground of all Life ends in corroding 
 remorse, or cowardly irresolution and despair. Were 
 there an original ground of evil as such, in which it 
 
40 
 
 might have its firm root so far as its developement ap- 
 pears, then in its manifestations it would exhibit a natural 
 and healthy growth, a life inwardly true, peaceful and 
 permanent. But if this were the case it would be difficult 
 to explain why all better persons feel such a horror on 
 witnessing the gross outbreakings of evil ; and still 
 more difficult would it be to account for that internal dis- 
 sension which exists in the breast of every wicked man, 
 for the arts of hypocrisy and self-deception, and for the 
 self-corroding agony of ren?orse and despair. After all 
 that has been said, it only remains as a further preliminary 
 step to consider evil as a degeneracy, as a monstrous- 
 birth ; and, since, in so far as its essential being is concern- 
 ed, it has no fixed ground in an original nature, to consid- 
 er it as something unsubstantial, and to explain its tem- 
 poral phenomenon from that determination which the 
 free will of a finite being is able to make. As has 
 already been observed, however, this will is not to be 
 regarded as an ability to evil derived from God, nor 
 must it by any means be supposed that the will origi- 
 nally, as such, is evil ; for by making such a supposi- 
 tion we should be driven to the necessity of assuming 
 a primary Ground of evil, and indeed of considering 
 the Great First of all as being himself also evil. Besides, 
 on such a view it were perfectly inconceivable how a 
 Will, in its very essence infected with evil, could ever be 
 transformed into a good Will, without an utter destruction 
 of its essential being. Hence we are unavoidably led 
 to the conclusion that the ultimate ground of evil lies 
 in something different from nature, and which is itself 
 
41 
 
 originally not evil, namely, in the human will, — from 
 which we maintain that it is free. 
 
 This assertion is doubtless worthy of particular 
 attention. For although it is daily assumed that the 
 will is free, still on closer examination, and on a com- 
 parison of this with other acknowledged truths, it creates 
 abundant difficulty. So that we deem it necessary in 
 the first place to offer a vindication of this assumption 
 which in many respects appears so strange, or at least 
 to point out in what this supposed freedom consists. 
 
 If one considers the phenomena i of the sensible 
 
 ^ As the words essence, nature, phenomena, and phe- 
 nomenal, are employed in this essay in a manner differing 
 somewhat from their ordinary use, it may not be improper 
 to subjoin an explanation. "Having resolved all external 
 and internal Intuitions into Sensations, we may with equal 
 propriety apply the name of Phenomena, or appearances, 
 to them ; and say of Nature, or the external world, that it is 
 only a collection o£ Phenomena y or appearances, which strike 
 our senses and exist in the mind alone ; hence also the ttoo 
 general varieties, Time and Space, can exist no where but 
 in the mind. We must not however suppose that this in 
 any manner leads to Idealism ; for it is most certain that in 
 all this procedure the mind is Passive, and is acted upon 
 by something different from itself, and which it does not 
 create ; namely, that which produces Sensation : and, from 
 the happy discovery that Time and Space really are the two 
 Receptivities of the Sensitive Faculty, we are enabled to 
 say that this something is out of THme and Space, and may 
 be called the Noumenon, or Cause of the Phenomena, or 
 the thing in itself independent of the mind. Thus, while 
 4# 
 
42 
 
 world as such, they appear to form one unbroken chain, 
 each of whose individual links constitutes the necessary 
 condition of each succeeding one. It is an immeasur- 
 able system of causes and effects strictly connected 
 with each other ; a consecutive series which seems to 
 unwind, as it were, in one long line of inseparable 
 dependencies. The Freedom of the Will is : That it is 
 not subjected to this law ; — that every moment, by an 
 
 the same causes produce the same effects^ Nature will be as 
 permanent and unchanged as it is at present, and the ex- 
 ternal world completely secured." Thomas Wirgman^ Encyc. 
 Lond. Art Philosophy, p. 128. 
 
 " The word nature has been used in two senses, viz. 
 actively and passively ; energetic (= forma formans,) and 
 material (= forma formata). In the first it signifies the in- 
 ward principle of whatever is requisite for the reality of a 
 thing, as existent : while the essence or essential prop- 
 erty, signifies the inner principle of all that appertains 
 to the possibility of a thing. Hence, in accurate lan- 
 guage we say the essence of a mathematical circle or 
 geometrical figure, not the nature ; because in the con- 
 ception of forms purely geometrical there is no expres- 
 sion or implication of their real existence. In the second, 
 or material sense of the word Nature, we mean by it the 
 sum total of all things, as far as they are objects of our senses, 
 and consequently of possible experience — the aggregate of 
 Phenomena, whether existing for our outer senses, or for 
 our inner sense. The doctrine concerning nature would 
 therefore (the word Physiology being both ambiguous in 
 itself, and already otherwise appropriated) be more properly 
 entitled Phenomenology, distinguished into its two grand 
 divisions, Somatology and Psychology." Friend, p. 410. Tr. 
 
43 
 
 inward self-determination, without being conditioned by 
 any thing extraneous or antecedent to itself, it is able to 
 begin a new ideal series of spiritual effects, and can 
 also arbitrarily connect itself as a forming power with 
 the course of things as they take place before us. By 
 these outward events, however, it is in no way deter- 
 mined, but on the contrary this active imprinting of 
 itself is accompanied by corresponding effects upon 
 nature ; or in other words, these things by which 
 the will is not determined, may on the contrary be de- 
 termined by the Will. ^ Without doubt in the spirit and 
 
 ^ We find, however, that some writers on the Will do 
 not accord with this representation. " Necessity, as applied 
 to the operation of moral causes, appears simply to corres- 
 pond with the uniformity which we observe in the operation 
 of physical causes. We calculate that a man of a certain 
 character will act in a particular manner in particular cir- 
 cumstances, or that he will be acted upon in a certain man- 
 ner by particular truths and motives, when they are present- 
 ed to him, — by a principle of uniformity similar to that with 
 which we expect an acid to act in a particular manner upon 
 an alkali^ Jibercromhie on tJie Intellectual Powers, Pt. Ill, 
 ch. IV. 
 
 " I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a 
 cause. What is self-existent must be from eternity, and 
 must be unchangeable : but as to all things that begin to be, 
 they are not self-existent, and therefore must have some 
 foundation of their existence without themselves." [Con- 
 sequently, every act of the Will which begins to be, or every 
 Will in whatever condition or relations it may be, must, 
 provided it was not so from eternity, have some cause, out 
 OF ITSELF, why it is as it is and not otherwise. Or in other 
 
44 
 
 the heart of man — a tribunal whose decisions we should 
 know and reverence, even long before we approach 
 nature, so foreign to us, to inquire about the significance 
 of her synnbolic language and mysterious hieroglyphics 
 — there lies a defence of the bold assumption that the 
 Will is independent of and contradistinguished from 
 nature. In what immediately follows we shall attempt 
 to vindicate, or at least to point out freedom in the 
 soul of man. But to derive a proof of this from the 
 necessary laws of nature, or to set forth a deduction of 
 ,v^y I freedom drawn from natural causes, is neither attempt- 
 [ ed, nor is it deemed possible ; yet by pursuing this 
 course we do by no means exclude the effort to bring 
 human freedom into an accordance with the Idea of God 
 and with nature, but rather retain it as a farther pro- 
 blem to be solved. 
 
 words, the Will is hot the Originator of its own acts.] Ed- 
 wards^ Inquiry on the Will, Pt. II. Sec. III. On this reason- 
 ing Dugald Stewart thus remarks: ^' The foregoing argument 
 goes to prove, that all human actions are as necessarily pro- 
 duced by motives, as the going of a clock is necessarily pro- 
 duced by the weights, and that no human action could have 
 been otherwise than it really was. Nay, it applies also in full 
 force to the Deity, and indeed to all intelligent beings what- 
 ever ; for it is not founded on any thing pecidiar to the hu- 
 man mind, but on the impossibilily of free agency ; and, of 
 consequence, it leads to this general conclusion, that no 
 eveiU in the universe could have happened otherwise than it 
 did." And, if logically carried out, he might have added 
 the words of Spinoza: ^*Res nullo alio modo, neque alio 
 ordine a Deo pioduci potuerunt, quam productse sunt." Tr. 
 
5t LlBli^^^:; 
 
 OF THE ^ 
 
 From the considemtieft-o£ natiWStoqjSijr , and" ^Y ^\^ 
 means of impressions recieyed from witlwa^^^4& im^^^ 
 possible that man could ever have been led to aEnovv- 
 ledge of the Freedom of the Will. This is no notion 
 which was made, or which originated from abstraction ; 
 because from the so called universal laws of nature, 
 governed by necessity, it would not be possible to derive 
 its very antithesis — a Law of Freedom. Freedom 
 is an Idea, it is original to the human soul, and so I 
 inwoven with it, that it is no less impossible for the i 
 mind arbitrarily to divest itself of this Idea than it is ar- 
 bitrarily to create it. In speaking thus, however, we 
 do not pretend to assert that each particular man, 
 though he possesses this Idea existing in the germ, has 
 so developed it as to have made it an object of clear 
 and distinct consciousness. For there are also other 
 Ideas in many individuals, whose souls seldom or rarely 
 hold converse with themselves, which are either per- 
 fectly misapprehended, or only float before the mental 
 vision as obscure representations. But no one will there- 
 fore entirely deny to human nature the Faculty of 
 Ideas ; for this would be the same as to say that for 
 the spirit there is nothing unconditioned or infinite, and 
 that all the representations possible for the soul of man 
 are comprehended in the conceptions of the under- 
 standing and sensible intuitions. After being suffi« 
 ciently wearied with perceiving, arranging and combin- 
 ing the endless series of outward phenomena, the 
 spirit at last unavoidably meets with such presentations 
 as cannot be reckoned under the same category with 
 
46 
 
 those phenomena, nor ranged in the same series with 
 them. And it is particularly worthy of remark, that 
 this very power of forming representations which lie 
 above the range of experience and the conceptions of 
 understanding is that which, as the most noble and 
 worthy, not only elicits the highest interest, but it is 
 that alone which gives humanity to Man. Still, how- 
 ever much it may be elevated, it is this faculty which 
 does in an especial manner regulate the course of life ; 
 for Ideas, as if they were heavenly powers that might 
 be felt though but indistinctly apprehended, oftentimes 
 exercise a more than earthly power and dominion even 
 over those who are but little cultivated. As is the case 
 with so many other ideas, that of God for instance, so 
 is it especially with the idea of freedom, that it causes 
 itself to be felt by that higher obtrusiveness, and per- 
 vades the mind with an indestructible though uncom- 
 prehended activity. The chief problem of philosophy 
 is to search into these higher movements of life pecu- 
 liar to the Spirit, and to make ideas objects of distinct 
 consciousness. For such inquiries he is best fitted 
 who has accustomed himself to consider the soul in its 
 immediate relation to itself — a relation by which it is it- 
 self distinguished from that which ends in it or passes by 
 it ; — to consider it as that which constitutes the abid- 
 ing principle, the subject, as it were, of all its changes 
 and conditions ; that which at the same time contains 
 the primary standard of all phenomena — a standard 
 not given, but existing anterior to everything that is 
 given. With special reference to the idea of freedom it 
 
47 
 
 could not be correctly said, that it first originates as the 
 result of varied reflections upon the phenomena of the 
 inner and outward world. For although it is certain 
 that continued thought upon the visible world conducts 
 back to a First and Free Original, who belongs not to 
 the class of the Phenomenal ; and although it is farther 
 certain that meditation upon our internal moral nature 
 can ultimately find rest only in the idea of moral free- 
 dom ; yet from all this it does not follow that this idea is 
 first simply formed in the progress of those reflections, 
 and that it is therefore to be regarded as but a mere 
 expedient invented to aid us in the better understand- 
 ing of both worlds. Indeed this idea could scarcely 
 be applied to the purposes named, did it not exist prior 
 to and independent of every purpose ; for even the 
 application of it supposes its pre-existence i. e. presup- 
 poses that it is impossible for the human spirit to rest 
 peacefully in an endless regress of blindly operative 
 causes and consequences ; or, which is the same thing, 
 that it is not possible for it to exclude from itself the 
 idea of freedom. In the first original action, in the act 
 of self-conscionsness, is this idea already present ; for 
 even here the soul feels itself to be an energy acting 
 from itself, and finds the act of " Willing" to be so 
 essential to its being, that when critically scrutinized 
 no other predicate whatever can be applied to it, and 
 it is impossible for the soul even to think of itself as 
 710^ Willing. The existence of the idea then, already 
 gives assurance for the existence also of a sphere of 
 gjctiop lying above the unbroken visible chain of phe- 
 
48 • 
 
 nomena, whose changes are effected according to ne- 
 cessary laws. Hence the conflict which man must 
 carry on against necessity, and the pain consequent 
 upon its power, are apparent ; for both are conceivable 
 only on the supposition that the essence of the soul ori- 
 ginally possesses freedom as its own proper endowment. 
 It is very certain that the brute animal does not thus feel 
 the constraint of necessity, to which it nevertheless 
 yields passive obedience ; it does not feel the want 
 of freedom for the very reason that by nature it is un- 
 free, just as a person born blind has no conception of 
 darkness because he never lost that of light ^. In or- 
 der that he might be able to form to himself a represen- 
 
 ^ By some, however, liberty is ascribed to brutes. " The 
 liberty of brutes is as perfect in its sphere, as that of men or 
 angels. As they roam in forests and mountain wildernesses, 
 or swim in the depths of the ocean, or fly and gaily sing in 
 the radiant fields of the summer's sky, they are free ; they 
 rejoice in their freedom ; and prize it as one of heaven's 
 best gifts." Upharn's Essay on the Will, § 148, p. 231. An.l 
 by others to rivers. Hobbes says, " The water is said to 
 descend /reeZ?/, or to have liberty to descend by the channel 
 of the river, because there is no impediment that way; but 
 not across, because the banks are impediments. And though 
 water cannot ascend, yet men never say it wants the liberty 
 to ascend, but the faculty or power ^ because the impediment 
 is in the nature of the water and intrinsical." Hobbes was 
 a celebrated advocate for necessity, or rather for a liberty 
 which was nothing better than necessity. His definition of 
 liberty was : The absence of all impediments to action that are 
 not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent. 
 
49 
 
 tation of the deep night in which he Hves, he must pre- 
 viously have enjoyed the intuition of light. He who has 
 never tasted liberty will also feel no desire to exercise it ; 
 nor does any pain arise relative to its hindrance or 
 interruption. He only who is originally free can feel 
 
 It was in this sense that he spoke of a river as being free ; in 
 its own sphere it is free. In his Philosophical Writings Schel- 
 ling says essentially the same thing : " Frei ist, was nur den 
 Gesetzen seines eignen Wesens gemass handelt." " That is 
 free which only acts conformably to the laws of its own be- 
 ing." In remarking upon this definition Tholuck observes 
 that it is entirely accordant with the one given by Spinoza, 
 and that it expresses the same as what we mean when we 
 speak of any thing's being necessitated or nnfree. He goes on 
 to remark of Neeb, whom he highly commends, that the con- 
 ception of freedom recognized by him, was, in a higher 
 sense, not materially different from that of Schelling and 
 Spinoza, since he ascribed to man in his original condition, 
 and to all holy spirits, such a relation to God, as that by their 
 union with Him they could not act otherwise than accord- 
 ing to the laws of their being. This relation, he proceeds, we 
 call;;free, as, w hen speaking* analogically, every developement 
 of nature, the organization of w^hich suffers no interruption 
 from without, is denominated free. Still, however, there is 
 only an external likeness between this definition and that of 
 Spinoza. For we maintain that man stands in this condi- 
 tion of Divine Freedom by a continuous act of free self- 
 determination, which cannot be conceded bj pantheists, 
 inasmuch as they assert that even in this self-determination 
 the actor is God. See Lehre von der Sunde, 4te aufl. s, 189, 
 190. Tr, 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 the constraint of necessity ; as original warmth is de- 
 manded to the end that the sensation of cold may be felt. 
 The power of the Will is the warm stream of light 
 that flows through opposing nature, and by which the 
 rigidity and fixedness that pervade it are first made 
 known. But should any one say that freedom is still 
 simply an Idea, in opposition to that w^hich is living 
 and actual, it would be because he had entirely misap- 
 prehended the nature of an idea, which through its 
 Ideality loses nothing of its Reality, but for this very 
 reason, as has already been shewn, manifests itself by 
 exercising an active influence in life. Freedom is 
 not to be considered as a mere creature of thought, 
 nor as a distant good yet to be hoped for, nor as some- 
 thing long since lost, but as an original, present, exist- 
 ing Power. The will acting from itself is so intimately 
 connected with the essence of spiritual being, that the 
 former cannot be taken away without the destruction 
 of the latter. Without the most free act of the spirit, 
 as has already been intimated, man could never have 
 said to himself " F' ; nor would he ever be able to say it. 
 It is only as the soul arbitrarily, (for in the so called course 
 of nature there is no ground for this interruption,) breaks 
 off the series of passing sensations in which it rather loses 
 than finds itself, and by a reflex act turns in upon itself, 
 that it distinguishes itself from things, and from the im- 
 pressions produced by them or arising inwardly. Thus 
 only is it that the soul finds itself, not by a seeking, but 
 by virtue of its own free act dependent upon no out- 
 ward anterior condition. Even the very first act of 
 
51 
 
 self-consciousness is a pure ^If-determination, so that 
 freedom is a matter of fact which stands or falls with 
 the being of I. Ev^ery analysis of self-consciousness 
 conducts back to a point where the chain, (represented 
 as endless,) of connexion between bhndly operative 
 causes and effects, does by no means reach ; and where, 
 in a manner entirely different from the so called laws 
 of nature, a much higher life, even the life of the spirit, 
 re-creates itself endlessly, and in this repetitive act 
 beholds or knows its own self. So little place is here 
 found for that necessary and inseparable consecutive 
 series of phenomena interlinking with each other, that 
 rather in so far only as that series is removed can self- 
 consciousness enter ; and conversely, this decreases in 
 precisely the same proportion as that appears pre- 
 dominant. The fact, moreover, that the soul always 
 remains conscious of its own identity, as the tide of 
 things rolls onward, and amid the ceaseless change 
 of outward phenomena and inward states, can only be 
 explained on the supposition that it finds within itself 
 somewhat which does not belong to these phenomena, 
 somewhat which is not subject to their laws. The charac- 
 teristic of these laws is a ceaseless progression from the 
 condition to the thing conditioned, whilst yet for the con- 
 sciousness of identity there is demanded something per- 
 manent and enduring— something that can oppose itself 
 to the rapid current instead of floating down passively with 
 the stream, and which, from its lofty height, can securely 
 contemplate the changing scenes beneath. The state, 
 finally, of the philosophizing mind, is possible only on 
 
52 
 
 condition that the soul has power arbitrarily to withdraw 
 from the consequential series of external or internal phe- 
 nomena comprehended in the law of constant propulsion, 
 and that in the midst of change and fluctuation it can 
 always turn back to the Permanent as the ground of 
 the Phenomenal, and can elevate itself to the One 
 and the Ultimate ; this never occurs, however, in a 
 progressive series, and can be conceived of only by con- 
 ceding to the soul its own free determination. Other- 
 wise the spirit, by speculation, could never be made par- 
 ticipant of a higher knowledge ; but, if subject to the 
 same law of causality with the phenomena of nature, it 
 would always, buried as It were in the dark perception of 
 the apparent, be borne along together with the ceaseless 
 current of other things. For the spirit, then, there would 
 be progression only without beginning ; always time a- 
 lone without eternity. Once inserted as a link in the iron 
 chain, there could be for it no dehverance. Nothing 
 but the free spirit can deliver itself; and this alone 
 has power not only to distinguish itself from things, 
 but also, (for the actuahzing of which no course of 
 nature is sufficient,) to go back to the laws of its own 
 agency, and to the ultimate grounds of its existence. 
 So the will then is the true redeemer for man ; and it 
 also constitutes the necessary condition of his higher 
 cognitive faculty, since it is utterly inconceivable how 
 truth and science could be accessible to us without 
 the Will. For although there is frequently found an 
 impulsive kind of knowing not directed by the free 
 will, and which, nearly in the manner of brute animals, 
 
53 
 
 as an instinctive curiosity seeks to satisfy itself with, 
 and impress itself upon, numberless individual objects ; 
 yet there is also a higher scientific insight, which ap- 
 prehends universal laws and takes its direction accord- 
 ing to ultimate grounds i. Still nothing but the deter- 
 
 ^ ^' In consequence of being endowed with Reason, man 
 strives after a systematic completion of his knowledge, and 
 consequently aims to raise himself to a science of the ul- 
 timate grounds and laws of Nature and ^'reedom, as well as 
 of their reciprocal relations to each other. He is at first 
 urged to this by a blind feeling of need, without forming 
 any worthy conceptions of the problem thus proposed by 
 Reason, without knowing in what way, by what means, 
 or to what extent, the end is to be attained. By degrees, as 
 the self-consciousness of reason is gradually developed, his 
 eftbrts become more determinate in their aim and more 
 reflective in their character. This reflective eflbrt is de- 
 nominated the act of philosophizing." — ** The human spirit 
 proceeds from dark undeveloped consciousness to clear ap- 
 prehension, from imagination to thought, from belief to 
 knowledge, from the individual to the universal, and thus 
 accompanied by an obscure feeling of truth, of agreement, 
 of harmony and conformity to law, it seeks for the Certain 
 and the Necessary, to which all the convictions that interest 
 it must attach themselves, and by means of which it may 
 give an account of them. It philosophizes, first for itself, 
 and then generally for the thinking reason. In accordance 
 with the natural progress of cultivation the philosophizing 
 act is first occupied with external and gross objects which 
 strongly excite attention, and afterwards proceeds gradually 
 to the more refined, the more concealed, the inward and 
 the simple. We find this progressive course more or less 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 mining power of an energetic will can cause this direc- 
 tion ; for which reason also there is a much more in- 
 timate and essential connexion between spiritlessness 
 and inefficiency of will than is usually supposed. Even 
 in the productions of the Artist and the Poet it is im- 
 possible not to perceive that independence which we 
 have hitherto affirmed the spirit to possess over the 
 mechanism of causes and effects necessarily conjoined. 
 For although the faculty of song and the creative pow- 
 er of art are vouchsafed by Divine favour, and are to 
 be regarded as gifts from above — and although the 
 poet and the artist, therefore, in the hour of inspiration, 
 neither can nor will strive against a higher influence, 
 
 among all nations and in various modifications. But a marked 
 difference is seen in this, that in but few the thinking subject 
 proceeds to scientific acts of philosophizing. Whence arises 
 this difference ? Tennemann's Grundr. § 2, p. 2. lb. § 53. p. 35, 
 " Man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition 
 of that wherewith his life is preserved, or with performance 
 of such actions as advance him most deservedly in estima- 
 tion ; but doth further covet, yea, oftentimes manifestly pur- 
 sue, with great sedulity and earnestness, that which can- 
 not stand him in any stead for vital use ; that which ex- 
 ceedeth the reach of sense, yea somewhat above the capacity 
 of Reason, somewhat Divine and Heavenly, vv'hich with hid- 
 den exultation it rather surmiseth than conceiveth ; some- 
 what it seeketh, and what that is directly it knoweth not ; 
 yet very intentive desire thereof doth so incite it, that all 
 other known delights and pleasures are laid aside, they give 
 place to the search of this but only suspected desire." Hook- 
 er. Tr. 
 
55 
 
 still the most free accord of the mind with that higher 
 influence is not to be misapprehended. And it is 
 equally certain, also, that without self-independence 
 and freedom of spirit, no true work of art could ever 
 be produced. As the idea of beauty is evidently some- 
 what of the inward being, so also the creation of a par- 
 ticular work of beauty, or a criticism pronounced upon 
 it, is plainly a determining act proceeding from itself. 
 Here dependence upon the laws of the visible world 
 is so definitely rejected, that an ideal form of phenom- 
 ena, conditioned by no law of nature, is rather self-ac- 
 tively called forth, and placed in opposition to the or- 
 dinary course of things. 
 
 Art is so far removed from being a mere represen- 
 tation or lifeless imitation of that which is exhibited in 
 the phenomena of nature, that it rather strives to pre- 
 sent those unseen forms of which external nature is 
 but the correlative manifestation — it seeks to body 
 forth the archetypal nature or ideas. Consequently 
 the Poet and the Artist endeavour to represent anoth- 
 er nature, the counterpart of that which is visible ; and 
 in their productions exhibit themselves as absolutely- 
 free, that is, as creative. But independence of the 
 outward nature is also shown in criticisms pronounced 
 upon works of art ; — in determining what in them is 
 beautiful, or what is otherwise. The standard of judg- 
 ment in such cases is not derived from nature, (w^hich 
 contains rather copied representations than the un-i 
 sketched originals,) but is taken directly from the Idea, 
 which the poet and the artist, empowered by their ideal 
 
56 
 
 nature, self-subsistently apply. Since now, according 
 to what has hitherto been said, the free will constitutes 
 the fundamental condition as well of true Science as 
 of Poetry and Art, so does it hold the same relation 
 also to true moral Action. 
 
 True action is without doubt that which is connect- 
 ed with the consciousness of one's own individual 
 agency. It may be asked. How can such a conscious- 
 ness arise? — Not from the feeling that something 
 nearly concerns us, even though our whole being were 
 seized with it ; for then indeed we might speak of a 
 sensation, or of an impression, or of a Divine ordinance, 
 but not of an election, or of a resolve. Neither could 
 this consciousness ever have arisen if any thing were 
 developed from the depth of our appropriate personality 
 according to the dark laws of nature ; as is the case, 
 for example, in an inexplicable shuddering, or a magi- 
 cal inclination, or any other involuntary tendency. In 
 every feeling of this kind something has indeed hap- 
 pened to us, but nothing has been done by us ; and 
 all events of this description, as well as those wliich a 
 destiny independent of our own agency brings upon 
 our outward life, we name occurrences^ but not acts. 
 The consciousness of true action can arise from the 
 Willing Spirit alone ; and, indeed, in that case only, 
 when knowing from itself and self-determined, it decides 
 upon the end aimed at. Nothing but the free will 
 can make that wdiich takes place in reference to us 
 our own act ; wherefore, also, the tme cause lies in our- 
 selves alone — it lies in that which each one calls him- 
 
57 
 
 self. This power in man is that which is self-knowing 
 and self-active. Hence many things may very nearly 
 concern us, but nothing more nearly than our own 
 act ; but with the consciousness of such an act is also 
 connected the consciousness of freedom. 
 
 In every individual act, consequently in all true 
 action, the question in regard to its moral worth cannot 
 be avoided. How comes it that man is able to apply, 
 nay is obliged to apply, such a criterion of judgment 
 not derived from tlie phenomenal world, to all human 
 actions ? 
 
 The fact itself is undeniable. It is a necessity 
 deeply impressed upon the human soul to estimate its 
 own, and the acts of others, not merely according to 
 their external appearance, but to examine and decide 
 upon them according to their moral worth. ^ This 
 
 ^ Although the conscious feeling which dwells in the 
 breast of every one must lead him to acknowledge the truth 
 of these remarks, yet there have not been wanting those, 
 who, through perverted speculations, have attempted to 
 sweep them all away. Arabia has produced a sect of fana- 
 tics who maintain that with every holy being God created its 
 dark counterpart, and with every Divine one a devil, to the 
 end that the latter might be instrumental in developing to 
 the world the former ; so that when Abraham arose, Nimroil 
 appeared with him, at the time of Moses there was a Pha- 
 raoh, and during the Saviour's manifestation upon the earth a 
 black Judas was found at his side. The dark moral shade, say 
 they, is no less excellent than the light which it serves to 
 place in more prominent contrast. Nor have such viewg 
 been confined to the opium-eating East. Some of the cold- 
 
^58 
 
 distinction between the action as it appears, and the in- 
 ward act of the spirit, cannot be regarded as an inven- 
 
 erand less refining spirits of Europe have evolved senti- 
 ments of a similar kind. We are told by Diderot that all 
 is necessity, that there is no difference between the holy and 
 the profane, that the doer of good is lucky, not virtuous. 
 Bonnet, the celebrated disciple of Leibnitz, says (as translat- 
 ed by Stewart): "The same chain embraces the physical 
 and moral worlds, binds the past to the present, the present 
 to the future, the future to eternity. That wisdom which 
 has ordained the existence of this chain has doubtless will- 
 ed that of every link of which it is composed. A Caligula 
 is one of those links, and this is a link of iron. A Marcus 
 AuRELius is another link, and this link is of gold. Both aro 
 necessary parts of one whole, which could not but exist 
 Shall God then be angry at the sight of the iron link? 
 What absurdity ! God esteems this link at its proper value : 
 He sees it in its cause, and he approves this cause, for it is 
 good. God beholds moral monsters as he beholds physical 
 monsters. Happy is the link of gold ! Still more happy if 
 he know that he is only fortunate, Heureux le chainon d' 
 or ! plus heureux encore, s'il salt qu'il n'est qu' heureux,^'' 
 It may not be uninteresting to notice the shew of mathe- 
 matical demonstration which Thomas Belsham gives to this 
 view. He argues thus: "According to the hypothesis of 
 free will, the essence of virtue and vice consists in liberty ; 
 for example, benevolence without liberty is no virtue : 
 mahgnity without liberty is no vice. Both are equally in, a 
 neutral state. Add a portion of liberty to both, benevolence 
 instantly becomes an eminent virtue, and malignity an odious 
 vice. That is, if to equals you add equals, the whole 
 WILL BE unequal ; than which nothing can be more ab- 
 
59 
 
 tion of certain sages and lawgivers, since it involves a 
 universal moral necessity felt even by the most simple 
 and unsophisticated. This distinction has been recog- 
 nized too, although in different degrees of perfection 
 and clearness, yet in essence, among nations of ancient 
 and modern times differing most widely in other res- 
 pects ; and among whom there also reigns the greatest 
 dissimilitude in manners, religion, and laws. That a 
 higher degree of mental cultivation is requisite to make 
 the distinction spoken of become an object of more 
 clear consciousness, is not intended to be denied ; but 
 on the contrary it is altogether appropriate to the 
 nature of the case that it should be so. In every in- 
 stance the conception of guilt and of innocence, of merit 
 or the desert punishment, is found to attach to the 
 wide spread and indestructible pecuharities of human 
 nature. But this conception is not any inference or 
 conclusion, it is directly in the will that it originates, 
 which will an inward voice bids us ascribe to man ; and 
 only where an election was possible do we speak of 
 merit or ill desert. In addition to this, it is a remarka- 
 ble fact that consciousness is universally felt to be the 
 necessary condition of the imputation of a moral char- 
 acter; so that the moral worth or turpitude of an 
 act is not made to depend upon any outward manifesta- 
 tion whatever, but upon the inmost life of the spirit, 
 and is immediately conjoined with the original activity 
 
 Burd." Elements of Philos, of Hum, Mind, p. 258. Such 
 reasoning needs no refutation ; such statements need no 
 comment, Tr. 
 
60 
 
 of the I. As true peace and self-regard depend less 
 upon our external relations and outward actings than 
 upon that which we have inwardly willed, so is it 
 always in deciding upon the moral worth of another — 
 the ultimate and highest ground of decision is derived 
 from the will of the man. The accordance of this 
 will with a law, which does indeed command with 
 necessity, but yet without involving a necessity of na- 
 ture — a law which in itself is of universal, indisputable 
 validity, but which may nevertheless every moment 
 be violated — this accordance is it that gives worthiness 
 to character, and constitutes the very essence of mo- 
 rality. Without placing an inward and intolerable 
 contradiction in the beino- of man — without o-ivins: the 
 lie to conscience, in the certainty of which no one 
 doubts — it cannot be assumed that what we are not 
 only accustomed, but what we are even bound to as- 
 cribe to ourselves and others, is not yet in and of itself 
 the ground of imputing moral character ; or in other 
 words, unless that be done, the conviction in regard to 
 the Will's freedom cannot be surrendered. To give 
 up this were at once to contradict the holiest feelings, 
 to resolve the noblest ideas, as virtue, morality, and de- 
 sert, into mere idle conceits. In which case also every 
 condemning sentence either actually pronounced a- 
 gainst man, or threatened in future, would, as resting 
 upon a false principle, necessarily of itself fall away. 
 Thus is it at once obvious how important, even on 
 account of its consequences for the dignity and well 
 being of man, it becomes to determine the question in 
 
61 
 
 reference to freedom or non-freedom. Yet it is by- 
 no means exclusively on account of the consequences 
 which might result from particular views on these 
 points, that it is improper to pass them by without 
 consideration in a scientific inquiry. Evil consequences 
 could themselves neyer become universal, because it 
 would be impossible for an un perverted man to act 
 upon the assumptions from which they must necessarily 
 spring. For in this whole domain we meet with an 
 original obligation, antecedent to all calculation of con- 
 sequences — with a command neither made, nor dis- 
 covered, but which existed already coeval with con- 
 sciousness — a command that does not receive its bind- 
 ing force from any foreign conditions, but which -im- 
 poses its injunctions unconditionally. It is not neces- 
 sary to appeal to such a command, as the principle of 
 all moral actions, according to the mode of expression 
 used in the system of any one philosopher ; independ- 
 ent of every particular system there speaks in all a 
 Law, which if not in form, yet in essence, is One. 
 Every one knows that he should act conformably to 
 the requisitions of his conscience. Every one must not 
 only approve of righteousness and trueness for himself 
 alone, but must also wish that both might be universally 
 regarded. Through this command originally existent, 
 each one possesses, as it were, a delineated archetype, 
 every departure from which manifests itself by a feel- 
 ing of disquietude, by a voice of reproach which calls 
 him to return. But an obligation which not only does 
 not require a peaceful surrender to the course of out- 
 6 
 
62 
 
 ward events, but on the contrary frequently demands 
 the most determined opposition against them — which 
 not only forbids an individual to permit himself to be 
 determined exclusively by the feeling of gratification, 
 or the probability of momentary advantage, but on the 
 other hand demands that each one should bring every 
 thing else as a sacrifice to the Idea, without giving him- 
 self the trouble perplexedly to calculate how this idea may 
 possibly exhibit itself in the world of sense — an obliga- 
 tion of this kind is either independent of sense, or it points 
 to a power of the idea, and consequently to an ability 
 or energy of the will to determine itself according to 
 the moral Ideal, however dissimilar the course of out- 
 ward events may be. To derive the origin of this law 
 itself from experience were contradictory, because ex- 
 perience can make known an existence only, but not 
 an obligation, and because there is at the same time 
 presented in that law a perfect Archetype, to which no 
 given experience corresponds, and to which, therefore, 
 it is obligatory upon man to approximate in endless 
 progression. It is consequently anterior to all experi- 
 ence and independent of it ; a principle of activity in 
 the soul itself, a power in the possession of which the 
 soul enacts its own laws, and is therefore free. It will 
 not be objected that there is perhaps still in the spirit, 
 so far forth as it is itself a law, only a concealed me- 
 chanism at work, and that the soul in acting gradually 
 developes an inward predetermined series, which in ap- 
 pearance simply are manifestations of will, but which 
 in fact are but the unfolding of a necessity not yet ob^ 
 
63 /f 
 
 served — and that accordingly the soul blindly obeys, 
 not indeed an external, but an internal law of causality, 
 similar to a time-piece, which carries within itself the 
 principle of its own motion, and so far is negatively 
 free, but at the ground is still a machine and therefore 
 unfree. Such an assumption and comparison would 
 be in direct contrast to our conception of a moral 
 law, that is, of a command which possesses uncon- 
 ditional validity, yet without involving any compulsive 
 force. In what has heretofore been said, moreover, 
 there are contained decisive grounds against that pre- 
 tended concealed mechanism of the spirit, as, (to adduce 
 no other points,) that morality and the imputation of 
 guilt could not in any manner consist with such me- 
 chanical creatures. And finally, it is an important ob- 
 jection against the comparison used, and one which is 
 readily seen, that it extends only to the most unimportant 
 part. Without appealing to the fact that a machine, 
 in consequence of the external aids which it requires, 
 and on account of the constant possibility of countless 
 interruptions from without, is incorrectly described as a 
 kind of thing possessing autonomy ; yet self-conscious- 
 ness generally, and moral consciousness in particular, as 
 the direct characteristic of spirit, is entirely overlooked 
 in that comparison. But as self-consciousness cannot 
 in general be called in question, so in like manner that 
 which is the distinguishing fact of self-consciousness 
 cannot by any one be reasonably denied. Now the 
 "I am " is the first and most distinctive fact of con- 
 sciousness, which evidently could never have origina- 
 
64 
 
 ted without the most free act ; and it has been shown 
 that by means of it a higher world, the world of know- 
 ledge and of truth, is opened up before the spirit. So 
 likewise the other distinguishing facts of consciousness 
 as well as the first, though only rendered possible by 
 the first, are these two : /' I ought," and ^^ I am guilty 
 or innocent ;" respecting which it has not less satisfac- 
 torily been show^n that their origin is only conceivable 
 on the condition of a free Will. 
 
 But since a machine never acts from its own design 
 nor for its own ends, but rather, conformably to our 
 very conception of it, presupposes an intelligent cause, 
 a framer, according to whose design and for whose ends 
 it must blindly move ; so, the necessary mechanism of 
 the human spirit being once assumed, just propose the 
 question, What must you think not only of yourselves 
 and your own dignity, but what must you think of the 
 most perfect Spirit of God, the Author of this pretend- 
 ed time-piece ? On such a supposition man were with* 
 out doubt no longer the image of God, but the direct 
 contrary, a being the most dissimilar to Him ; and the 
 remaining creation, what would it be, if upon its lofti- 
 est summit it ended in a machine ? And how much 
 degraded from its greatness and grandeur, nay how in- 
 significant must it appear, if, in its productions, it never 
 rose to a self-subsistent being — a being acting from it- 
 self? Even to the Creator no glory could accrue 
 from such a creation ; it would but detract from his 
 excellency. And could this view be established, what 
 a strange phenomenon were man, who, in consequence 
 
 
65 
 
 of a deception imposed upon him by his Maker, would 
 suffer remorse through the illusion of conscience, and 
 would vainly dream of freedom ! i On such a suppo- 
 
 ^ In perusing the various metaphysical systems of philo- 
 sophers, it is curious and instructive to trace the train of log- 
 ical consequences which often flow from some one false as- 
 sumption, to contemplate the superstructure of errour fre- 
 quently reared upon some erroneous principle, to examine in- 
 to the evil that has resulted from the vain attempt to bring 
 down all the higher forms of spiritual truth to a level with our 
 Sensitive Faculty, to observe the effect of Reason, although 
 thrust out of its legitimate sphere by the intrusion of the 
 Understanding, to give oneness and comprehension and con- 
 sistency to all knowledge, and finally, to watch the conflict 
 between consciousness and conscience on the one hand, and 
 perverted speculation on the other. One of the leading 
 principles of the Leibnitzian Philosophy was the doctrine of 
 Optimism : — That is, out of the infinite number of possible 
 worlds God selected that which his wisdom perceived to be 
 best, a world where the most realities might find existence and 
 harmony. To such a world his power gave actual exis- 
 tence ; such is the present world. Hence, viewed in all its 
 relations and dependencies, every thing that exists is the 
 best that it could be ; nothing could be better, even though 
 it may in itself be imperfect. Consequently, nothing could 
 be otherwise than as it is, and therefore every thing is neces- 
 sitated to be as it is ; there is no room left for Free Will. 
 All auctions and events are pre-conformed to each other ; all 
 things take place agreeably to the Divine determination. 
 The outward world is a physical machine, the mind is a 
 spiritual machine ; their movements are both harmonious and 
 reciprocal. God is the efficient agent in each. The same 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 sltion existence itself would become worthless, and the 
 hope of a future life repulsive ; because the only ad- 
 mode of representation was subsequently adopted by the 
 dogmatic Wollf. 
 
 Lord Karnes, whilst he firmly believed that we are ne- 
 cessitated in all our actions, yet openly acknowledged that 
 this doctrine is in direct opposition to the universal and na- 
 tural feelings of mankind ; nay, he even went so far as to ad- 
 mit that the business and intercourse of life could not be 
 transacted unless each one possessed the assurance that he 
 was free. In order to reconcile his speculative views with 
 his empirical convictions, and to solve the riddle of freedom, 
 he had recourse to the strange supposition that our sense 
 of liberty is false and deceitful, yet necessary ; we are so 
 made, that by virtue of our very constitution we are led to 
 imagine ourselves free, whilst yet, when philosophically 
 scrutinized, we are mere machines, and act only in so far as 
 we are acted upon. Dr. Hartley, as well as his successor 
 and admirer Dr. Priestley, admits that it was against the 
 strongest convictions of his own mind that he adopted his 
 views of philosophical necessity, and surrendered his belief 
 in freedom. Other writers, who were, no doubt, not unac- 
 quainted with the agony and bitterness of Remorse, concede 
 that a belief in the freedom of the will is the ground- work 
 and necessary condition of this feeling ; but at the same 
 time they declare that the feeling itself is altogether falla- 
 cious, that it is superseded by the " glorious doctrine" of ne- 
 cessity, and that it should never be admitted into a system of 
 moral discipline. Others, again, would persuade us that a 
 belief in a fixed necessity is the most soothing and cheer- 
 ing view that can be taken of the world, and particularly of 
 human nature. It fills us with self-satisfaction on contem- 
 
67 
 
 vantage which futurity could at best promise, would be 
 a more clear insight into the machinery of an inexora- 
 ble necessity no longer to be concealed — and thus we 
 should be brought to witness the destruction of an illu- 
 sion, which, whilst it remains, is yet consoling. But 
 who does not see that views of this kind, even whilst 
 they are in the process of thought, do, as it were, de- 
 stroy themselves, and dissolve into nothing ? Besides, 
 by the denial of freedom it could not once be proved 
 that moral evil, for the present life at least, does at all 
 cease actually to exist. It would seem, indeed, that with 
 the removal of the free will, evil also would be taken 
 out of the way ; but in strictness it would only remove 
 the ground of imputing moral character, or the right of 
 charging the creature with guilt. Existing wicked- 
 ness and immorality themselves, however, could not, 
 without an entire, nay an impossible confusion and 
 perversion of all conceptions, be accounted as any 
 thing else than real evil, so that that denial would not 
 remove them ; and so long as there were yet conceded - 
 One free Will, an Original Will, the ground of all evil 
 would have to be sought in that alone. On the supposition 
 of that spiritual mechanism which He alone could have 
 formed and can regulate, to the Creator would have to 
 be ascribed not only the permission of evil, and a cer- 
 
 plating our own characters, and reconciles us entirely to all 
 our fellow beings, however vile and abandoned they may be, 
 because, forsooth, all their actions are performed agreeably to 
 the appointment of God, and to be offended with them there- 
 fore would be open rebellion against Him ! Tr. 
 
68 
 
 tain mere co-operation with the sinner, in so far as all 
 power is derived from Him ; but He would have to be 
 regarded as the direct and only cause of evil — of that 
 which still always remains evil. But it were superflu- 
 ous to dwell more circumstantially on this painful view 
 of the subject, or to consider more particularly the con- 
 tradictoriness of those thoughts to which the denial of 
 freedom necessarily gives rise. 
 
 Our only design has thus far been to point out 
 freedom as it exists in the being of man's spirit itself, 
 and to show that it is so intimately interwoven with his 
 internal economy, that there is no possibility of its 
 removal without the destruction of all that is peculiar 
 to spirit and to morality. It were a very different 
 problem : — To derive freedom from its first grounds, 
 and to show how it must necessarily arise according to 
 immutable laws of nature. Many reasons might be 
 adduced to prove that an investigation instituted with 
 such a design would necessarily fail of attaining its end ; 
 yet from such investigation no evil could result against 
 freedom itself, for it should at the same time become the 
 aim of the inquirer to show, that neither in the being 
 of God, nor in the laws of nature, is there any thing to 
 be met with that could oblige us to surrender it. To 
 show this is indeed the most difficialt, as well as the 
 most attractive part of the investigation, which now 
 leads us naturally to consider the Freedom of the hu- 
 man Will in relation to God and to Nature : and to es- 
 tablish the actualness of the free will's existence in op- 
 
69 
 
 posftion to those mighty forces, of which yet all, upon 
 their ultimate height, appear as but One Force only. 
 The shortest and surest way to do this seems to be 
 to derive, a priori, from universal principles, not only 
 the 'possibility of a free, self-operative, particular will, 
 but also from the very same principles to demonstrate 
 that such will is actually in being, and to elucidate the 
 manner of its co-existence with an actual world. If by 
 those principles were understood such laws as the 
 mathematics point out in nature, or if that derivation 
 were conceived to be a construction of freedom resting 
 upon those laws, or an exhibition of the mode of its or- 
 igin according to them ; then w^ould freedom be trans- 
 formed into a product of nature, and the laws of its 
 movements could be as easily demonstrated as are those 
 of the planets, whose most important phenomena ne- 
 cessarily result from the universal laws of gravity and 
 attraction. But since without a violent and abrupt sal- 
 tus, (leap, abrupt transition,) nothing could ever origi- 
 nate from such premises except that which was kindred 
 with them — a necessary product of nature — so it were 
 contradictory to apply such a method of derivation, or 
 proof, to that which is not necessitated. From laws 
 that involve within themselves the character of physi- 
 cal compulsion, it is not possible to derive such an ac- 
 tivity, whose distinguishing trait consists in this very 
 point, That it is not subject to that compulsion. To 
 will, is evidently to act ; and to derive this acting from 
 yet other grounds lying out of the will, would be to 
 
70 
 
 destroy that of which we speak i. e. the Willing. Free- 
 dom, in regard to its fountain and its appropriate sphere 
 of action, lies in an entirely different domain, and with- 
 out the bounds of a series of things mechanically de- 
 veloped. It must be regarded as springing forth di- 
 rectly from the Supersensuous, as a power shining in 
 upon the Spacious and the Necessary, without yet be- 
 coming subject to their laws ; even as light pervades 
 and illuminates space without filling it, or without being 
 comprehended by it. The ultimate and sufficient 
 ground of human freedom can be found in God alone ; 
 and although many questions in respect to the kind and 
 mode of its origination from God, and of its entrance 
 upon a state of actual existence, must ever remain un- 
 answered, yet it does not seem to fall without the lim- 
 its of human science to point out its fountain even in 
 the Divine Being. The Godhead is by no means so un- 
 approachable by the spirit that the idea of the Most 
 High must be conceived of only as the utmost bound, 
 but not as the object also of speculation. Surely the 
 idea of this Being contains in it something real, essen- 
 tial, and is not throughout of a merely negative nature. 
 The sole ground, rather, of that deep and thrilling in- 
 terest which every profound inquiry awakens within us, 
 lies in the possibility, always presupposed, that some- 
 thing may be know^n of the All Perfect. Human na- 
 ture's highest attribute, or spiritual personality, of itself 
 conducts every reflecting mind to the Most High, to the 
 SuperAmrndLii ; and we cannot imagine how spirit and 
 
71 
 
 freedom could ever have been imparted to man, except 
 through the will of an originally free and most perfect 
 Spirit.^ 
 
 From a still deeper depth, and, — in reference to 
 the personality of God — from a still ulterior ground, 
 Schelling attempts to derive the origin of human free- 
 dom and the possibility of sin, in his remarkable trea- 
 tise entitled " Philosophical inquiries respect- 
 ing THE NATURE OF HUMAN FREEDOM AND THE 
 OBJECTS INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH IT," ^ It 
 
 would be inappropriate to censure an undertaking of 
 this kind, both on account of its difficulty, and because 
 it Hes without the sphere of ordinary efforts ; on these 
 accounts it should rather excite the attention of all 
 who have at heart the promotion of true science. 
 Strange indeed is the view which in that work is taken 
 of the highest Being; especially in that respect, where 
 for science even, men have been accustomed to rest 
 satisfied with an empty or undefined conception. The 
 old objection against an impersonal God, in its indefi- 
 niteness and universality ever incorrect, can in no case 
 be promotive of true science ; yet from it first origina- 
 ted the idea—an idea highly beneficial to the cause of 
 science — tliat the all- perfect Being is to be regarded 
 as a unity of hving qualities, and not as a pure unity of 
 conception. As the thoughts of God, (an essential 
 
 1 See Appendix [D.] 
 
 2 Philosophische Untersuchungen iiber das Wesen der 
 menschlichen Freyheit imd die damit zusammanhangenden 
 Gegenst'ande, vou F. W. J. Schelling. 
 
72 
 
 part of whose perfection is, that thought originates be- 
 ing, and that an act of will results in the effect will- 
 ed,) cannot possibly be a play of empty notions 
 through which nothing living is produced, but must 
 rather be regarded as plastic or creative ; so the attri- 
 butes of God are not mere notional conceptions, but 
 living qualities, or real, yea the most real, active powers. 
 Those who have inclosed themselves in the conception 
 of a pure oneness, as in a blank circle, would do well 
 to look around to see what they can find in it, and 
 how they may get out of it again. In this simple 
 One, according to the very conception of it, there can 
 be no distinction ; but where there is no possibility of 
 distinction, there neither intelligence, nor will, nor 
 love can be found. For One has in itself nothing 
 which it can will, or towards which it may exercise af- 
 fection ; it becomes necessary, therefore, that this One 
 should, as it were, double itself by the production of a 
 kindred counterpart. This last, however, presupposes 
 an original twoness, a duality of the Knower and the 
 Known, of the Lover and the Loved ; and thus only 
 does it become possible that the eternal Seer may be- 
 hold and become conscious of himself, and that a 
 proper personality of God can arise. On no other 
 supposition, moreover, than as a movement of distin- 
 guishable powers is in this way placed in the life of 
 God, is any outward revelation of the Divine Being, or 
 any farther series of possible generations conceivable. 
 
 Hence also every more profound philosophy, even 
 from the earliest times, found its only secure resting 
 
73 
 
 place in the very ancient doctrine of Tri-unity ; ^ a 
 doctrine which distinguishes from the eternal Ground 
 the two-fold manifestations of the same, the one an in- 
 
 ^ Great evil has undoubtedly been done to the cause of 
 truth by the manner in which its doctrines have sometimes 
 been enforced. Many instructors of philosophy, especially 
 of religious philosophy, (and strictly speaking indeed there is 
 none other,) have attempted to urge upon their pupils or 
 hearers certain doctrines as the mere arbitrary appointments 
 of God, without attempting to give any explanation, or with- 
 out pretending to account for their views on any rational 
 ground. Thus the requisitions of the Sabbath have often 
 been urged simply on the authority of the Divine command, 
 as if the Divine law were arbitrary, without noticing the 
 grounds of such an appointment which are found in the 
 wants of human nature and of the animal creation in general. 
 (For the Christian it must be admitted that the Bible consti- 
 tutes the ultimate tribunal of appeal ; but the requisitions of 
 the Bible are gi-ounded in the highest reason, even in the Rea- 
 son of God.) The doctrine of the atonement is often held 
 forth with no other claims to notice or acceptance. But it is 
 certain That unless the hearer has been brought to feel in the 
 wants of his own being the necessity of an atonement, he 
 will always think that his teacher has misapprehended the 
 instructions of the Divine oracles. In a particular manner 
 the doctrine of the Trinity— the sublimest and most mysteri- 
 ous of all doctrines-^is frequently exhibited in such a way 
 as to leave the impression upon the hearer or reader that it is 
 one of outward revelation simply, that there is no ground for 
 it in the essence of the Divine Being, nor any reason for its 
 belief to be found in the wants of humanity ; that it not only 
 far transcends the comprehension of finite minds, but that it 
 
 7 
 
74 
 
 ward, the other an outward manifestation. Yet this 
 doctrine does not imply an actual plurality in the Di- 
 vine Essence, but rather fixedly retains the idea of 
 Unity undestroyed. But without supposing an orig- 
 inal threefold distinction in the One Divine being, 
 even for science this barren oneness becomes inopera- 
 tive and dead ; and we might in vain seek for that 
 which it must forever want, viz. — a first moving princi- 
 ple, a primum movens. In a manner somewhat simi- . 
 lar, although adopting neither the same words nor the 
 same mode of exhibition, Schelling long since repre- 
 sented a threefold distinction in God ; but more partic- 
 ularly in his treatise on human freedom he has made 
 an appropriate scientific application of this idea. Ac- 
 cording to his view, the eternal One, (the Ground origi- 
 nant, called also the unoriginated Ground,) divides in 
 two Originals, both equally eternal ; or there is in Him 
 a twoness, (duality,) to the end that life and personal- 
 ity might be possible. By means of that twoness 
 eternally proceeding from the unoriginated Ground, 
 arises Love, which conjoins the one of those eternal 
 Originals, the Ideal, (the existent,) with the other, the 
 
 is even above the apprehension of reason and directly oppo- 
 sed to it. History teaches that the awakened Inquirer can- 
 not long rest satisfied with such instructions. Reason is ever 
 striving to give harmony and unity to all its knowledge. 
 History teaches too, that this sublime truth does not lie en- 
 tirely whhout the sphere of human thought, or of practical 
 speculation, if such an expression may be allowed, (spiritual 
 body). See in Appendix [E.] Tr. 
 
75 
 
 Ground of existence. Essentially, the distinction is 
 here made only that both may become One ; the sep- 
 aration, in order that Love may unite those who are 
 separated. Yet this connecting Love, according to 
 the representation of the above named treatise, is rath- 
 er an' originated Becoming than an original Being ;^ 
 and the free, independent, permanent Ground does not 
 lose its distinctive characteristic by ascending into the 
 purely ideal, not even in the untroubled clearness of a 
 perfected, inwardly formed counterpart. An appro- 
 priate or individual life is rather ascribed to this 
 Ground, and also a distinct agency, which, not only to 
 aid our apprehensions nor in the order of thought sim- 
 ply, but in fact and in the order of time, is antecedent 
 to the agency of the Spirit and of the Love. The 
 procession of things from this Ground, which is the na- 
 ture in God, and the agency of the Ground generally, 
 is the chief object of discourse in that oft-named trea- 
 tise ; and thus being a philosophy of the Ground, it is 
 characterized as a philosophy of nature.^ The sepa- 
 
 ^ The idea of a secondary being without beginning, (an- 
 fangslosen Werdens, an' originated Becoming in opposition 
 to an unoriginated Being, [eternal generation]), a derivation 
 in essence but not in the order of time, was somewhat too 
 refined, was somewhat incomprehensible, nay it appeared 
 even contradictory to Arius, who had but little of the specu- 
 lative or intuitive. We here see how little Origen's subjective 
 form of intuition was adapted to the spirit of Arius. Neand. 
 Algm. Kircheng. II. B. II Abt. s. 771. Tr. 
 
 2 Not having the work of Schelling, a short analysis of 
 
76 
 
 rate existence of things, their distinctiveness from God, 
 is explained in this manner, viz., they derive their ori- 
 
 which is here given, I fear lest I may have misapprehended 
 some of the author's terms, and I hardly feel v^arranted to of- 
 fer any farther explanations, lest I should misrepresent. 
 Guided by Tennemann and Tholuck, however, I w^ill venture 
 to subjoin a few occasional statements 'which may serve to 
 throw some light on those peculiar points in the philosophy 
 of Schelling which are brought to view in this work. 
 
 Fichte attempted to deduce all things from the I in a 
 progressive method. But with him it was altogether an ar- 
 bitrary assumption that the Subjective produced the Objec- 
 tive, and not the latter the former. This order might be 
 transposed, and we might as well proceed from nature to • 
 the I. Especially if we give ourselves up to wild specula- 
 tion without critical and fixed rules, one method is just as 
 admissible as the other. Schelling therefore differed from 
 Fichte. He supposed there were two sciences which were 
 the representatives or counterparts of each other; — the one he 
 denominated Transcendental Philosophy, the other J^atural 
 Philosophy^ or the philosophy of nature. Out of the I springs 
 the former, and from the same it derives the objective, the 
 multiform, the necessary ==:Natu re ; the latter derives its origin 
 from Nature, and from it deduces the I, the Free, the Simple. 
 The tendency of these two sciences is to make both the powers 
 of nature and the powers of the soul, considered as identical, re- 
 flect mutual light upon each other. The fundamental principle 
 lying at the basis of both is this ; that the laws of nature may 
 be immediately apprehended in consciousness as the laws of 
 consciousness also, and conversely, the laws of consciousness 
 may also be pointed out in objective nature as laws of na- 
 ture. Yet the first in its constructive form can never ex- 
 
77 
 
 gin from a Ground distinguished from God, but which, 
 conformably to what has heretofore been said, and 
 
 haust the multitudinous, nor can the last ever attain to the 
 absolutely simple. It is not possible to conceive how multi- 
 plicity could spring from unity, and how again from this 
 multiplicity should spring a unity which at the same time 
 involves within itself both multiplicity and unity. Both of 
 these lose themselves in the infinite, which is common to 
 both. There must therefore be a higher, a connecting phi- 
 losophy, from which these two sister sciences spring. Schel- 
 ling supposed that the essence of Knowing consisted in the 
 original oneness of the knowing subject and the object 
 known; the absolute Ideal and the absolute Real. From 
 thence he deduced his system of the absolute identity of the 
 subjective and the objective; or the indifference of the dif- 
 ferenced, wherein consists the essence of the Absolute= 
 God. He did not rest satisfied with thus representing 
 God as the Absolute, the Centre from which all things radi- 
 ate and towards which all things converge ; but he plunged 
 still deeper into this mysterious depth and attempted to shew 
 how the personaHty of God arose. He placed in the Divine 
 Being a dark uncreated Ground and also a brightened Form 
 of the same. A third principle or power united these to- 
 gether. The first he named the perverted God, (umgekehr- 
 ten Gott,) the Enemy of every creature ; and as the bright God 
 was developed from the dark original Ground by means of 
 the evolution of the dark God in the world, so God himself 
 derived his existence from Satan. (We must suppose, how- 
 ever, that these statements are not to be taken literally, but 
 that they are mere symbolic representations.) Thus God is 
 not free and independent. He is subjected to the still higher 
 conditions of his own being ; his manifestation was necessary, 
 7* 
 
78 ' 
 
 since no absolute dualism can here find a place, still 
 belongs to God, and is designated as that which is in 
 God, but is not God himself. Absolutely considered, 
 God is then first realized only as he beholds himself in 
 an image formed through a reflex presentation. But 
 it is easy to perceive that neither this self-knowledge 
 of God, nor the formation of things would be possible, 
 without an Understanding to arrange and classify, 
 through which distinction and form might be effected 
 among the dark agitations of original powers excited 
 and pervaded by obscure appetencies. From these 
 powers thus distinguished and arranged, or thus 
 brought into order, originates body ; but the living 
 bond of union between these powers, distinguished in- 
 deed but not entirely disparted from each other — that 
 bond w^hich springs from the depth of the Ground — 
 is called soul. Without that living bond the distinc- 
 tion would not be creative ; it would rather be a rend- 
 ing in sunder, yea a deadening of these powers. 
 Hence every being in nature is to be regarded as ani- 
 mated by a soul ; ^ and the more perfectly so in pro- 
 
 and even in the order of time Intelligence sprang from Non- 
 intelligence, from the nature in God, the Chaos. This being 
 the character of the Absolute and of the Ground, both subject 
 to the law of an inexorable necessity, it follows that every 
 thing that springs from them, nature, the will, sin, and every 
 thing else, is involved in the same law, and therefore his phi- 
 losophy may justly be characterized as the philosophy of 
 nature ; all things are the products of necessity. See Appen- 
 dix, [F.] Tr. 
 
 ^ Beseelt, soulified, if we may be allowed to coin a word 
 
79 
 
 portion as the powers contained in it are more defi- 
 nitely and clearly distinguished. Every thing is root- 
 ed in a double principle ; first in the Ground, bywhich 
 it is distinguished fi'om God, and secondly, also, in the 
 understanding of God. Upon the first rests the indi- 
 vidual will of the creature ; which, however, in a lower 
 degree of formation appears as a blind instinct only. 
 The highest degree is characterized thus; that in a 
 being even the deepest point of original darkness — the 
 darkness derived from the Ground — is entirely bright- 
 ened into light, by means of progressive distinguishings 
 arid a more perfect transformation of its powers. Of 
 all beings known to us, man alone is elevated to this 
 summit. Through his derivation from the Ground, he 
 possesses, in reference to God, an independent princi- 
 ple in himself; but it is only with the transformation 
 of that principle into light, which in its connexion with 
 the Ground remains dark, that spirit at the same time 
 springs up in him : so that the soul of man is the hving 
 identity of both principles, the dark and the light. Or 
 in other words, when that principle originating from 
 the Ground — the principle of individual being whereby 
 man is distinguished from God — is elevated to an har- 
 monious union with the ideal principle, there is in man 
 — a spirit. Even as in God also there is spirit, when all 
 the depths of the Real lying in the Ground are illumi- 
 
 for the exigency. The author does not mean to affirm that 
 every object in nature is endowed with a separate individ- 
 ual soul, but that all creation is pervaded by a living Power, 
 the Law of Life. Tr. 
 
nated by the Ideal in him, from which illumination 
 there arises a resolved harmony of both principles in 
 the most perfect accordance — that identity, namely, 
 which is not to be confounded with absolute sameness, 
 nor yet with entire inseparableness. That this peace- 
 ful union is indissoluble in God — that these principles in 
 perfect harmony, each one in its proper place and 
 manner, characterize the whole Divine Being — and 
 that in the eternity of God there is no strife or disso- 
 nance — this belongs to his perfection. Were the case 
 precisely the same in regard to man, that is, were this 
 bond of both principles in him also so inseparable as 
 that the individual will could never aspire upward from 
 its tranquil Ground, but always remained in peaceful 
 accord and, subordination to the other principle, the 
 universal will ; then there would be no distinction be- 
 tween God and man — God would not be manifested 
 as spirit, man would be as God. The union of these 
 principles must, therefore, be separable in man, and 
 this constitutes — in the words of the work so frequent- 
 ly referred to already — the possibility of good and 
 evil. 
 
 It may well somewhat surprise us that the freedom 
 of the human will, sought for and expected, is not here 
 to be found, but on the contrary we are presented with 
 the possibihty of good and evil ; for these two concep- 
 tions are by no means of precisely the same import. 
 In reference to good and evil we must rather inquire 
 in the first place whether they are the actual consequence 
 of human freedom of Will, or whether they arose through 
 
81 
 
 Divine appointment and pre-determination, or finally, 
 whether they must be regarded merely as the natural off- 
 spring of an involuntary excitation of forces, which took 
 place already in the first creation? The possibility of good 
 and of evil does not at all necessarily involve the possi- 
 bility of such beings who with conscious self-determi- 
 nation act from themselves, and from whose free elec- 
 tion the moral good and the moral evil of human ac- 
 tions must originate, if so be that moral freedom gen- 
 erally belongs to man. — But in fact it is not the double 
 possibility of good and of evil which can be legitimate- 
 ly deduced from the premises assumed in this w^ork, or 
 from the separability of principles ; but rather, all those 
 positions being conceded, there would result from them 
 directly the 'possibility of evil only. For good is al- 
 ready originally there, and its possibility rests, accord- 
 ing to the representations made, upon entirely different 
 grounds than upon the possible disseverance of princi- 
 ples ; the essence of good is namely — the uninterrupt- 
 ed harmony of the powers. Not the possibility of good, 
 but the possibility of evil only, depends, as we are led to 
 conclude by following consecutively the whole course 
 of reasoning in that work, upon the circumstance that 
 disharmony may enter into man. And this also ap- 
 pears really to be the true sense of Schelling in his 
 treatise, for the nearer and more direct inquiry express- 
 ly proposes as the problem to be solved, the possibility 
 of evil only, and seeks to make this intelligible. But 
 the inquiry proceeding in this manner, recedes farther 
 and farther from the original end proposed ; and it is 
 
82 
 
 no longer the freedom of the will, but evil only which 
 is sought after. And, in consequence of a train of 
 thought once entered upon, this evil seems to be repre- 
 sented as some offspring of original nature, — as a natu- 
 ral product. We believe, too, that this character of 
 evil, and the whole view of the subject as exhibited in 
 the speculations of Schelling, must be the necessary re- 
 sult, so soon as such an importance, nay we might say 
 such a preponderating power, is once attributed to the 
 Ground. From the assumption that there is a Ground 
 independent of God, in so far as he is Spirit and con- 
 scious Will — and that out of this ground individual be- 
 ing has originated — may be derived the possibility of 
 evil indeed, (and scarcely even this!) but not the pos- 
 sibility of a free wdll. For, according to this view, in- 
 dividual being, although independent of God in so far 
 as he exists, yet becomes the more dependent upon 
 him so far forth as he is the Ground of existence ; it is 
 therefore independent of the Spirit, but dependent 
 upon the Nature. Hence it is not to any individual 
 man, but to the Ground only that a certain indepen- 
 dence of God, a relative self subsistence, can be as- ' 
 cribed. The self-subsistence of each individual will, 
 w^hich can hardly with satisfaction be explained as the 
 correlative image of the Divine Conscious will, must, 
 as it would seem on the view just given, be the corres- 
 pondent of, or become subordinate to the unfree and 
 dark Ground. For this Ground, operating as a blind 
 power, is able to produce nothing but necessary conse- 
 fjuents, in all the gradations of its products, however far 
 
83 
 
 removed. If, then, the derivation of man's free will 
 from God, in so far as he is a spirit and exists with 
 consciousness, has its great and undeniable difficulties ; 
 yet the derivation is encumbered with difficulties in- 
 finitely greater, when the fountain of freedom is sought 
 for in something ulterior to the consciousness and the 
 personality of God. Yet the most important question 
 — and one which it is our conviction must be decided 
 in the negative — is, whether there can be supposed to 
 exist in God, independent of his spirit and personality, 
 a root of any hfe, and an actual distinct agency of the 
 Ground ? There must indeed without doubt be in him 
 a distinction of qualities, (in order that there may be 
 life and manifestation); but also, (to the end that he 
 may have unity and perfection,) there must be an in- 
 separableness of powers, together with a peaceful co- 
 union and harmonious co-operation of those powers in 
 Eternity which always remain the same — which ex- 
 cludes every succession and variation of time. As in 
 infinite space — that silent shadow of eternity falling in 
 upon creation — there is neither above nor beneath, so 
 also in the eternity of God there is neither before nor 
 after. 
 
 Thus also in the Tri-unity perfected in itself, that 
 which we call first is also the last, and conversely, the 
 last is first ; consequently, there is in it no quality that 
 is anterior to others. It is also impossible that there 
 should be in God any thing prior to the Divine will, 
 and independent of it ; and least of all could it be so 
 in the order of time. God is in no sense before or ul- 
 
84 
 
 terior to his will ; and this Schelling has expressed most 
 definitely in the following sentence : ^' There is in 
 strict accuracy no other Being whatever than the Will- 
 ing ; — the Willing is the primary Being." Since, now, 
 we here recognize the peculiarity of this philosophy 
 expressed in a noticeable manner ; and inasmuch as 
 we quote below a passage entire, which is very deci- 
 sive on the question now under consideration, ( — viz. 
 whether the Ground can furnish a root independent of 
 the personality of God ?) — " It is no contradiction to 
 assert, that in the circle from which all things are, that 
 by which the One is produced, is itself in turn again 
 produced from it" — we deem it necessary only to add, 
 that in the singular application of these speculative 
 views in the writing now before us, in order to aid us 
 in discovering the desired root of evil, the idea of uni- 
 ty is frequently lost sight of. Hence in this work we 
 find defended the position of a distinct agency of the 
 Ground /o?' a longer time ; hence an excitation of evil 
 happening already in the first creation, and evident in- 
 dications of it in nature antecedent to human freedom ; 
 hence universal evil developed as a principle, which, 
 throughout the universe lying in hostile opposition to 
 the good, broke forth from the Creation ; and hence, 
 finally, the necessity of sin. 
 
 The cause of this scientific phenomenon seems 
 
 evidently to lie in the preponderance yielded to nature, 
 
 in a strong tendency towards the Real, and in the 
 
 i aversion, which in end of itself is proper, that is felt 
 
 to mere notional conceptions. Hence even in this 
 
 ■/ 
 
 ^« ■ 
 
 JU-J. tct^ 
 
85 
 
 inquiry into things purely spiritual, a philosophy of 
 nature, favored by prepossession, becomes predom- 
 inant. With an increasing love for nature, the ideal 
 principle must frequently be driven back into its in- 
 ward recesses, or become entirely latent. By plac- 
 ing in God the operation of a nature, it results as~a 
 necessary consequence that God himself, as it were 
 organically, is developed before our eyes from deep 
 darkness until he attains to the bloom of a personal 
 life ; and, if the expression may be tolerated, he al- 
 most appears to be the subject of growth. And as 
 the plant, which in its roots is subjected to darkness 
 and constraint, but in its blossoms struggles forth into 
 light and liberty — thus exhibiting a most touching 
 emblem of silent, longing sorrow — so on the supposi- 
 tion of a nature in God, the Divine Being could never 
 perfectly liberate himself from necessity and darkness ; 
 nor could he remove from himself a slight, though 
 always vanquished, sensation, (pressure, impression, 
 Andrang,) of melancholy and sadness. With such a 
 fixed destiny pervading all things, the investigation 
 must necessarily end in the assumption of a freedom, 
 which, in opposition to God and nature, cannot be main- 
 tained where it is most needed, viz, — in action. So 
 in this work of Schelling, notwithstanding the oppos- 
 ing moral seriousness that reigns throughout the whole, 
 and contrary to the expectation awakened at the com- 
 mencement, empirical freedom is entirely given up, and 
 all that is left to man is One free act, anterior to all 
 consciousness ; and this act, the possibility of whjch is 
 8 
 
86 
 
 not grounded in the first principles, does forever iin-^ 
 changeably determine all his acting. This is a theory 
 of freedom, which, although undesirable, can by no 
 means be said to be unheard of; for, to name no other 
 examples, Leibnitz and Kant, (as theorists,) long since 
 came to much the same result, though in different ways. 
 For although that intelligible act is not found in the 
 system of Leibnitz, yet in his predetermined harmony, 
 (by which, indeed, still less is conceded to liberty than 
 in the theory of Schelling,) there is already involved 
 the determination of all actions by an unavoidable ne- 
 cessity ; since by it must be explained the harmonious 
 connexion between soul and body. It is true that in 
 his view the soul does indeed act from itself; but yet it 
 acts only in conformity with those necessary laws which 
 yv<^|:/V have been implanted in it ever since creation — and this 
 \ is necessary, to preserve the harmony between the 
 \ creation and the Creator. Could the will but once 
 depart from the path strictly marked out before it, one 
 such departure would immediately destroy the pre- 
 determined harmony. It was Leibnitz's views of 
 nature, and the strict subjection to its laws extended 
 by him even over the realm of spirits, which in a 
 manner compelled him to assume that predetermina- 
 ' tion. To him the creation appeared so impenetrable 
 and so compactly constructed, that it could never afford 
 an entrance to the light of the free spirit ; since the 
 course of life for each individual was already determin- 
 ed from eternity, and had been brought into strict and 
 preestablished harmony with the movements of the 
 
87 
 
 whole machine. He believed empirical freedom to be 
 so irreconcileable with the order of nature and the 
 Divine government of the world, that rather than 
 surrender the latter t)e preferred to bind the former 
 to an unchanging and unchangeable law of predeter- j 
 mination. But, in what is said of monads, viz. that they 
 are not to be regarded as material, but as powers of 
 presentation, there is contained the germ of a more 
 living view of the world, and the prophecy of our 
 future deliverance from a strict adherence to nature.^ 
 
 ^ Leibnitz was one of the first philosophers who was led to 
 a more spiritual apprehension of the material world, and of the 
 laws by which it is governed. Preceding writers had been 
 in the habit of regarding the Creator and the creation as to- 
 tally and diametrically opposed to each other in their charac- 
 , teristic qualities. The latter, or the material of which it was 
 formed, was regarded as hard, rigid, unyielding, filled with 
 evil properties ; and by many it was regarded as the source 
 of all evil. Hence Aristotle believed that the world in its 
 present form was eternal, and Plato taught that matter was 
 co-eternal with God. Hence the atomic theory of Epicurus, 
 who in words indeed acknowledged the existence of a Grod, 
 but his God had so little intercourse or sympathy with this 
 creation, that he rather enclosed himself in the depths of his 
 own Eternity, and left the universe to take care of itself. 
 
 Epicurus held that an infinite number of hard atoms 
 floating about in the vast inane, were by their inward mo- 
 tion gradually brought together, and by degrees arranged 
 themselves in their present forms. Hence also the vortices 
 of Descartes, who thought that on the principles and laws of 
 mechanics simply he could account for all the phenomena of 
 
 it^^ 
 
88 
 
 It is acknowledged by those who have been in a con- 
 dition to observe impartially the phenomena in the do- 
 creation without having recourse to the hypothesis of a 
 Framer or Creator. Even Sir Isaac Newton, the cotemporary 
 of Leibnitz, believed that all the forms of the bodily world 
 were ultimately constituted of the same specific material, and 
 that the essence of this material consisted in particles infinite- 
 ly small. He held that these particles were hard, impenetra- 
 ble, and totally dissimilar to' spirit ; he was therefore, in all 
 essential respects, an atomist. He seemed inclined to be- 
 lieve that even the Law of gravitation consisted in a countless 
 number of these invisible atoms — or in other words, that a 
 subtile ethereal matter pervaded the universe, by virtue of 
 which the vast spheres that roll through infinity were attract- 
 ed towards each other. But if his own principle that mat- 
 ter is infinitely divisible be correct, must it not ultimately be re- 
 solved into something else than atoms ? 
 
 Leibnitz rejected entirely the atomic theory and introdu- 
 ced his own theory of monads. In the system of Leibnitz 
 these monads are spiritual atoms, not the hard, impenetra- 
 ble, insoluble things of Epicurus and Descartes, (by the Gre- 
 cian these atoms were so called on account of their supposed 
 impenetrable nature and their indissolubleness, atofioi, r{Kov- 
 rai dca Tr\v aXvtov (TTEgQotrjioi,) but substances all permeable 
 to a higher power, and actually permeated by a higher pow- 
 er. They are simple, uncompounded, without parts, without 
 divisibility, without extension or figure ; they constitute the 
 elements of things, and bodies are nothing more than the 
 phenomena or aggregate of these monads. These units 
 are living, animated, spiritual. "Les substances simples, les 
 vies, les ^mes, les esprits, sont des unites." All creation, 
 therefore, is pregnant with life; and, if the word be taken 
 
 Jl^(/'-'^' f^^/l 
 
89 
 
 main of science, that the writings of Schelling have of 
 late awakened a more comprehensive view of the world, 
 and in particular have spread abroad a more living in- 
 sight into nature ; that through the influence of this 
 philosophy upon the age a new impulse has been excit- 
 ed for the love of nature, and a more spiritual apprehen- 
 sion of its laws, in as much as he strives to catch the 
 Spirit of Life which manifests itself in the visible world, 
 and through which nature becomes to us both human 
 and divine. By saying this however, it is not intended 
 to be asserted that this has already been fully effected, 
 but rather that there is a strong tendency that way, and 
 still more is continually sought.^ But a scientific the- 
 
 with rigouroiis and philosophic precision, there is no such thing 
 as death to be found. Thus Leibnitz removed the essential 
 dualism which had previously been thought to exist between 
 matter and spirit, and he boldly denied that there was any 
 vast chasm between the creation and the Creator. He main- 
 tained that there was no cleft or saltus in nature, but that in 
 the physical and moral world, all was one continuous and 
 connected chain of gradation. " Leibnitz admettoit comme 
 un principe fondamental de sa sublime philosophic : qu'il n'y 
 a jamais de sauts dans la nature, et que tout est continu ou nu- 
 ance dans le physique et dans le moral." These specula- 
 tions were the precursor of the Dynamic theory, and this, in 
 its turn, prepared the way for the Magnetism of Germany. 
 Tr. 
 
 ^ The writings of Schelling produced a deep and exten- 
 sive effect upon Germany. His followers were exceed- 
 ingly numerous, and they were made up of Philosophers, 
 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 ory which contemplates nature as no machine, and every 
 activity in it as a real life ; which, consequently, in 
 the productions of creation recognizes not merely the 
 results of mathematical laws, but an exhibition of soul 
 and mind, so that to it even body appears as soul, and 
 every plant as some intricate feature of spirit ; ^ — should 
 not such a theory have determined first of all whether 
 there is in nature a changeless, necessary connexion 
 
 Theologians, Philologists, Physicians and Naturalists. They 
 attempted to comprehend all things according to the point 
 of view held forth in the doctrine of Absolute Identity ; 
 they sought also to give systematic completion to this sys- 
 tem which had been left imperfect. His speculations had a 
 very remarkable influence particularly upon inquiries into 
 nature, upon Mythology, History, the Arts and aesthetic Crit- 
 icism. Tr. 
 
 1 Schelling held that strictly speaking all things are but 
 one and the same original Being. The difference of things 
 with respect to their essence is in quantity only, not in qual- 
 ity, (quantitativer kein qualitativer Unterschied ;) in the 
 preponderance of the objective and the subjective, of the 
 ideal and the real. Every finite thing, as a product of a re- 
 flection existing only relatively, has a reality in appearance 
 only. The One absolute Being manifests himself in the 
 eternal generation of things; and these things constitute the 
 Forms of this Being. Consequently every thing is a mani- 
 festation of the absolute in a determinate Form. Nothing 
 therefore exists which is not participant of the Divine Being. 
 Hence also Nature is not dead but hving, and divine also as 
 well as the Ideal. All events in the universe, all history, is but 
 the developement of God gradually unfolding itself. Tr. 
 
91 
 
 between cause and effect, or whether will and Spirit 
 may not be the ruling powers in it ? And if the latter, 
 how can an eternal predetermination and necessity of all 
 human actions appear tenable ? — That one intelligible 
 act — an act which was never the object of consciousness, 
 and which in the whole subsequent life must be atoned 
 for or its bitter fruits gathered — offers, to say the least, 
 but a poor indemnification for the loss of liberty in this 
 life, which alone for the present is ours. The thought 
 that each one has been from eternity what he now is, and 
 that in consequence of that intelligible act he could not 
 possibly have been otherwise, is repulsive, not so much 
 because it is difficult to be comprehended, as because it 
 does not answer the purpose for which it was invented. 
 It does not remove the difficulties in which the question is 
 involved ; it not only renders unintelligible the most re- 
 markable facts of our moral nature, but it directly contra- 
 dicts them. What concerns the first of these points must 
 be treated of subsequently ; but some examination in 
 regard to the second may here find its appropriate place. 
 How that intelligible act could be a free act, and 
 how, in consequence of it, there can justly be any impu- 
 tation of moral character, is at least not rendered com- 
 prehensible. It would seem rather, that inasmuch as 
 that act lies without the province of and anterior to all 
 consciousness — the indispensable condition of moral 
 freedom — it must be unfree, and that consequently 
 there can be no imputation of it. But as the imputation 
 of moral character is unavoidable, so this imputation . 
 must be grounded upon acts of an entirely different char- 
 
92 
 
 acter, that is, upon acts absolutely free. — To the remar- 
 kable moral phenomena which receives no elucidation 
 from this hypothesis, we reckon, farther, the gradual de- 
 terioration of those who attain to a high degree of reck- 
 lessness. It is undeniable that this does not take place 
 at once, but progressively, and in the course of time- 
 The fact has already been noticed above, that the evil as 
 well as the good in man is susceptible of cultivation, and 
 that it has a growth ; nay, if not early and vigorously op- 
 posed, it will ultimately acquire an unconquerable power. 
 On this view the conflict between good and evil, in so 
 far as it concerns the human soul, is confined to a tem- 
 poral state ; and the life time of each individual is the 
 appropriate period in which the processes of fermentation 
 and clarification must go on between these hostile ele- 
 ments. According to the other view the most perfect im- 
 morality,— for which the perfected villain was already des- • 
 tined from eternity — must break forth with the first dawn 
 of conciousness ; but this is evidently not the case, any 
 more than that moral maturity and manly energy in good, 
 are found to be coeval with the first awakening of con- 
 sciousness. — Besides, the warning conscience, and that 
 inward conflict accompanying an immoral life, receive 
 at least but a very unsatisfying explanation from the 
 theory here brought into view. This internal strife ev- 
 idently points — not to a determination now fully made, 
 but to a struggling of powers still arrayed in battle. But if 
 the evil man were already evil from eternity, and if it 
 were impossible for him to be otherwise, whence is that 
 better voice in him, and to what end ? The better 
 
93 
 
 voice in him plainly shows that the contest has not yet 
 been determined ; and indicates that the decision cannot 
 be made before the termination of the conflict. On no 
 other supposition than the one here maintained could the 
 warning conscience have any end. Otherwise its resis- 
 tance to evil were but a sport of nature, and would 
 have to be regarded as the after-pain consequent on 
 sin ; by means of which, after the perfected birth of 
 evil, no regeneration could be effected. Or we should 
 have to look upon it as the last convulsive effort of 
 better powers already destroyed from eternity, even as 
 in many animals when killed we may still observe a 
 lively play of the fibres, as the last vain reaction of de- 
 parting Hfe. And another objection, though not the 
 only one, yet one of very great weight against this^ 
 view, is, to use the very expression of the author him- 
 self, that it entirely cuts off from man, for the present 
 life at least, and we may add for eternity too, all hope 
 of change from good to evil and from evil to good. A 
 consequence which is not removed by the fact that 
 the author of that oft named treatise, influenced less by 
 the theory presented than by a strong moral feeling, 
 could not forbear attempting to show the purpose of 
 this better voice, which warns the unreformed to re- 
 pent, and by yielding obedience to which he first ob- 
 tains inward peace ; and, as though satisfaction had 
 now first been rendered to the original idea, he finds 
 himself in a state of reconciliation with his guardian 
 spirit. But that stern demand which can endure no 
 evasion, and the universal validity of this inward mor|t 
 
94 
 
 itor felt by every one without exception, or rather the 
 sacred and at the same time terrifying character of this 
 better voice, proves the presence of something actually 
 better, of that freedom namely, in the possession of 
 which It must be possible for every individual, even 
 now in the present life — in this period so full of other 
 and varied transmutations — to effect that conversion of 
 his inward self which conscience demands, and which 
 alone can deliver him from the pangs of remorse ; to 
 effect it even by a free return to God, whether this re- 
 turn ultimately rests upon aid human or Divine. 
 
 If now one should wish to explain and determine 
 more narrowly in regard to that inward calling, he 
 would have to find its ultimate ground in God alone, 
 and would be obliged to consider it as but the voice of 
 God heard in the heart. Hence that freedom also, to 
 which this Divine voice so definitely appeals, must be 
 conceived of as in the Divine understanding, and as 
 willed by the Divine will ; that is, it must actu- 
 ally he. He who would deny this, must point out 
 in the very idea of God such traits as could not, in the 
 present life at least, be reconciled with the freedom of 
 the human will. But one who denies the freedom of 
 man ought to be the last, it would seem, to make his 
 appeal to the Will of God generally, or to the Divine 
 Holiness in particular. For, if there be a Will in God, 
 and even pre-eminently an Holy Will, why should he 
 not have willed that, without which it would have 
 been impossible that he could ever have been mani- 
 fested as a Holy Being ; — viz., the Freedom of the 
 
95 
 
 Will ? The more the idea of a free and living Person- 
 ality is retained in reference to God, the moj-e cer- 
 tainly does the consequence follow, that such a Being, 
 (according to the word of Schelling taken by us in its 
 most literal sense,) could never find his pleasure in a 
 machine how perfectly soever it might be constructed. 
 He must rather will the Free and the Personal, and 
 oppose these to himself as his own image reflected ; 
 and they alone can correspond to the proper life of the 
 original Author. To none but beings of this kind, in 
 whom God again recognizes his own spirit, could the 
 Creator direct himself as to the proper and worthy ob- 
 jects of that intellectual and Divine love with which 
 he loved the world from eternity ; and on the other 
 hand, none but such beings would be able to know or 
 love Him. For none but personal beings are the 
 proper objects of love ; and none other than they pos- 
 sess the capability of loving. Now although it was 
 necessary that man should be a personal being in order 
 that God might be manifested, yet he is surely not to 
 be considered as simply a means for the attainment of 
 this end ; for from the fact that he possesses personal- 
 ity, the end of his existence is at the same time placed 
 in himself; that is, by means of a kind of self-with- 
 drawal of God, man is elevated to that degree of spir- 
 itual dignity and self-subsistence, upon which he is ca- 
 pable of being somewhat for himself, and by himself: 
 wherefore, also, the attainment of the end of his exist- 
 ence stands in the strictest possible connexion with his 
 own inward energy. True, indeed, man is placed up- 
 
96 
 
 on that elevated position for the very reason that 
 God nmust manifest himself; but still, he never would 
 have been manifested as a Will of love and of holiness, 
 had not man at the same time been capable of recog- 
 nizing himself as a personal being, and as having in 
 him a self-end, and were he not able through his own 
 natural power to strive after the most perfect state of 
 being. But this perfectness of being, wherein does it 
 consist, if not in the realization of the original idea in 
 life, when man through his own agency comes to be 
 conformed to the likeness of God? Thus an obligation, 
 [an absolute Ought,] is imposed upon man, and his 
 personal relation with God becomes at the same time 
 a moral one. But certain as it is that God, as a holy 
 Being, wills morality, so certain is it also that he must 
 will the conditions under which alone morality is possi- 
 ble. Now whether morality appears under the strict- 
 est form of self-denial yielding obedience to the law, 
 and brings as a sacrifice to right all opposing feelings, 
 or whether it shines out as love ; yet always, under 
 both forms, its possibility and its worth are given only 
 through the freedom of the will. For though love 
 follows the Beautiful without artifice or calculation, yet 
 it is love only on condition that every compulsive 
 power is removed from it, and that the devotion to its 
 object is a most free act of the soul. Thus, too, the pi- 
 ous tendency of the mind towards God ; on the one side, 
 indeed, it appears simply to be a natural return to the 
 living Central-point which always attracts the wander- 
 ing spirit ; yet on the other hand there is demanded a 
 
97 
 
 most free directing act of the spirit itself, and this re- 
 turn cannot be effected without a struggle, and a con- 
 quest over counteracting obstacles. Even self-denial, 
 in its rigid adherence to law and right, from its very- 
 name directs to an individuality of effort, a self-energy, 
 which can vanquish as well as be vanquished ; so also 
 law and right, (rules of conduct for such as are not de- 
 termined by the law of nature,) are conceptions which 
 have significance only for those who are free. But 
 since the validity of these conceptions, especially for 
 the present state of being, cannot for one moment be 
 disputed, and since the demand to lead a moral hfe is 
 continually repeated and urged upon every one ; so it 
 would seem that no one can be destitute of the only 
 condition under which such a life is possible in the 
 present period of existence — that is, no one can be 
 without empirical freedom. He who has placed man 
 in this period of trial and of conflict, and imposed upon 
 him an obligation to fight the battle of light with dark- 
 ness, surely could not have willed that this should be a 
 conflict in appearance simply — the decision of which 
 had been long before made— but must have designed 
 that it should be an actual and severe contest, for which 
 also he must have bestowed upon him placed on the 
 battle-field the necessary powers and weapons — the 
 arms of the spirit and of freedom. 
 
 To render intelhgible the manner in which a 
 
 power at least relatively independent of God, can, 
 
 together with the freedom of the will, be imparted to 
 
 a creature, is, without doubt, a task of very great 
 
 9 
 
'7 
 
 98 
 
 difficulty — and this difficulty presses itself in no small 
 degree upon every theory of freedom where real free- 
 dom is retained. Be it now that in this relation God 
 is conceived of simply as might and power, or that he 
 is thought of under the form of Will also, still there is 
 always involved a self-subsistence of the Finite in 
 opposition to the Infinite, and the problem is this : 
 To show how other self-subsist^nt powers may exist at 
 the same time with the absolute and unlimited power 
 of God, or how a particular individual Will can co-exist 
 with a universal Will ? That all beings in the world 
 are necessarily dependent upon God, cannot by any 
 one be called in question. The dependence of 
 creatures upon God, is not, as it were, a mere con- 
 sequence of the Divine Omnipotence, but is the imme- 
 diate condition of the continued existence of things. 
 Even in wicked persons — to notice here, by way of 
 anticipation, an objection which appears still more diffi- 
 cult — God must still continually co-operate, in order 
 that their existence may be possible, [for if his sustain- 
 ing agency were withdrawn they would be nothing.] 
 .,— But certain as it is that the creature is always de- 
 pendent upon God, yet the freedom of the human will 
 must be maintained to be as certain, and this, too, from 
 grounds of the highest importance. There must, 
 therefore, be a state of dependency with which self- 
 subsistence may co-exist, and such a relation of both 
 may be conceived of, (at least in the Divine under- 
 standing,) that neither the freedom of the finite being is 
 destroyed by the infinite power of God, nor is His 
 
99 
 
 power infringed by the freedom of the human will. 
 Were God merely a dead conformity to law, or the 
 totality of powers blindly operative, then indeed the re- 
 lation demanded could not at all exist. From such a na- 
 ture in God, had it even been possessed of a might twice 
 as great as omnipotence, nothing personal could ever 
 have been developed ; and no self-subsistence could be 
 maintained in opposition to its unconditioned causality. 
 But the case is very different with the much higher 
 idea of a most perfect Being — the Personal God. 
 True, indeed, every life, even the most perfect, is de- 
 pendent upon Him in a twofold sense : dependent 
 as having derived its existence from Him, and depend- 
 ent, also, upon his continuous necessary co-operation 
 and sustaining agency, which must extend through the 
 whole as well as to each individual part. This, view 
 of dependency, however, does not in any sense involve 
 an actual denial of the freedom of the will. To have 
 come into being through the agency of another is not 
 to be bound to this agent in every movement of life. 
 Even that which may stand in need of another for its 
 continued existence, does not therefore cease to be 
 and to act for itself; and notwithstanding the continual 
 influences of this other, yet to a being dependent in 
 this manner, inward individuality, and a self-subsistent 
 agency acting from itself, always remain possible. 
 
 Visible nature even furnishes us with a proof of 
 this relation. That which is produced is dependent 
 upon that which produces it only in reference to its 
 coming into existence, and not in regard to its after- 
 
100 
 
 life. The plant which originally sprouts from the 
 earth and is rooted in it, is, indeed, dependent upon 
 its mother in a twofold sense. Yet even to this plant, 
 although placed much lower in the scale of life, there 
 belongs a self-subsistence, which, by its specific indi- 
 viduality, and through the particular mode of its 
 formation and growth, it maintains hi opposition to the 
 universal mother of all organized forms that belong to 
 the earth. What to creatures placed much lower in 
 the order of being is a relative self-subsistence, that, 
 upon the highest point of developement, is the free- 
 dom of the human will. The ground of the perfection 
 of the creature must be sought for only in the perfec- 
 tion of God ; the more perfect He is, the more will a 
 perfection similar to his own be exhibited in the most 
 exalted of his creatures. It belongs to the perfection 
 of God alone not to be continually striving and work- 
 ing through endless impulsion as a blind power without 
 rule or aim, but as a will of wisdom and of love to gov- 
 ern creatures bearing a resemblance to himself. And to 
 the end that the Free and the Personal may exist at 
 the same time with him, his power does not operate 
 with violence or unconditionally, but is conditioned — 
 conditioned, namely, by his own will. This may be 
 regarded as an act of Divine self-denial, or, if any one 
 prefers the expression, as an act of self-limitation. 
 Should any one say that according lo this mode of 
 representation God himself, in a certain sense, would 
 seem to be subjected to the form of the finite, he 
 would thereby express a true and religious idea, provided 
 
101 
 
 at the same time he did not exclude the consideration, 
 (which in the domain of the eternal is perfectly con- 
 ceivable,) that God does not therefore cease to be in- 
 finite. But if it be asked, how could God impart to 
 man an unconditioned freedom of action, without any 
 disturbance of the most necessary relations in his gov- 
 ernment ? we at once deny that human freedom is un- 
 conditioned ; it is rather the freedom of a finite being, 
 and is confined within the bounds of a limited circle of 
 action : — it is precisely the freedom of willing^ not an 
 unconditional power of operating on creation in gen- 
 eral. Finally, should any one be displeased that limits 
 are here assigned to God, only relatively however, and 
 by his own most free determination ; to such an one 
 we answer that the conception of an entire illimitedness 
 is in itself merely notional, and is erroneously sup- 
 posed to belong to the highest perfection. If no limits 
 whatever be ascribed to God — not even those which 
 he may have imposed upon himself — then no real 
 [)redicates should be applied to him ; for every predi- 
 cate involves some limitation, either that which ex- 
 cludes or that which more narrowly defines every 
 other. 
 
 But without predicates the idea itself evaporates 
 into dim incomprehensible mist ; — into that which is 
 infinite, but indeterminate and without character. 
 Were the Eternal but a continuous streaming forth of 
 infinite power, (somewhat comparable to an infinite 
 straight line, which from its very nature is susceptible 
 of no specific form, or inclination, not even to itself,) it 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 would be impossible to make him an object of distinct 
 thought — for there would be darkness upon such a depth. 
 But since the Eternal comprehends himself as Spirit 
 in that streaming forth, and recognizes himself as 
 somewhat limited ; and since, as it were, the flow of the 
 eternal tide sets in against the ebb, from the beholding 
 of this opposition there arises a personal life in God — 
 and there is light. Thereby God exists as Spirit, 
 but for himself alone ; like as a vast depth enclosing the 
 light within itself. But with the Spirit, is also connect- 
 ed the Will, which is originally directed to itself alone, 
 and is hence to be regarded as an intellectual love of God 
 towards himself, as a delight which he takes in his own 
 self-contemplation. Whilst yet the active operation 
 of powers in him is not destroyed by that act of Divine 
 self-knowledge, but only determined or directed by it, 
 so the stream of life is not held in check or inj;errupt- 
 ed, but is brightened into light. And because this life 
 in God is at the same time a will of love, and as all 
 love would make itself known to that which is not self, 
 there is therefore in God also a will for manifestation. 
 This will is the Word through whom all things exist ; 
 the Word by whom the divine thoughts are brought to 
 a manifestation, are made, as it were, to become Man, 
 (or are formed into humanity, Menschwerdung.) As 
 in man himself, without that redeeming or creative 
 Word, the whole spiritual life would have lain buried 
 under the darkness of a nature still teeming unintelli- 
 gently to the birth ; so also, nothing individual or par- 
 ticular could have ever been developed from the 
 
103 
 
 depth of the Divine Being, had it not been for the co- 
 presence and co-agency of that Primal Word. Con- 
 sidered in itself, that power which constantly co-operates 
 with the creature, is indeed infinite, the more especially so 
 as it is exhibited in man ; but nevertheless this power 
 acts in a determinate mode, in that manner, namely, 
 which is conformable to the Will of Love. Now this 
 Will of love does not desire itself only, and hence does 
 not wish that the pure Godhead alone should exist, but 
 it determines also that at the head of all earthly beings 
 the personal and free creature shall stand as the re- 
 flected image of the Creator. Hence it is, that be- 
 tween God and man there exists a double bond of 
 union : — the bond of nature or of life, and also the 
 bond of love and of spirit. The first expresses a ne- 
 cessary, the other a free relation. By means of the 
 first, the soul is rooted in a necessary and indissoluble 
 union with God ; and no freedom can be predicated of 
 this relation in which man, as a natural being, stands 
 to his Creator. The other relation, which in its very 
 nature is a moral one, consists in a free surrender of 
 one's self to God through love and humble acknowledge- 
 ment. Man's obhgation to add the moral to the natural 
 bond is enhanced in proportion as the original love 
 has been the more bestowed on him. If this relation 
 be sustained, it is accounted to man as a merit ; if in- 
 terrupted or destroyed, it is reckoned guilt : — that is, it 
 must be regarded as his own act. 
 
 By the representations which have now been made, 
 although the subject is by no means exhausted, yet we 
 
104 
 
 think that it has at least been satisfactorily shown that with 
 the relation of dependency there may yet at the same 
 time exist self-subsistence and freedom ; and that 
 even the perfection of the Creator — that is, the moral 
 perfection of God — renders it necessary for us to as- 
 sume such a relation between himself and man — a rela- 
 tion which does not destroy freedom, and makes moral- 
 ity possible. The highest power only becomes the 
 more perfect from the fact that instead of acting with 
 all-subduing violence, it operates in a determinate mode 
 as a spirit of holiness and of love. On the other hand, 
 this higher power may safely leave man free, for the 
 very reason that it is onmipotent, for it is the character 
 of strength not to fear freedom ; and it is precisely be- 
 cause Omnipotence governs the world, that no infringe- 
 ment of universal order is to be apprehended from the 
 personal self-subsistence of finite spirits. 
 
 Besides, the difficulty, a solution of which has now 
 been attempted, is not removed by the surrender of em- 
 pirical freedom merely, if instead of it. One free intelligi- 
 ble act be conceded, but it is only concentrating the dif- 
 ficulty upon a different point — namely, upon that in- 
 telligible act itself. For either the absolute depen- 
 dence of man upon God, without the possibility of free- 
 dom, is asserted, or it is not. If not, then empirical free- 
 dom is also possible ; but if on the contary it be so as- 
 serted, then without controversy that intelligible act 
 was not really a free act, but one unconditionally de- 
 pendent upon God. All the other objections, too, which 
 are commonly made against freedom, urge themselves 
 
105 
 
 wiih the same correctness or incorrectness against 
 that one presuppossed intelligible act ; nor does this as- 
 sumption, in fact, remove one of the important difficulties 
 . in which the question is involved. For example, to re- 
 concile the permission of One e vil act irrevocably de- 
 termining for the rest of his hfe the destiny of the in- 
 dividual who commits it — to reconcile this with the ho- 
 liness of God, is still more difficult than to reconcile 
 with it the permission of such sins, from which conver- 
 sion to ti better state always remains possible, and in 
 which actual regeneration is not excluded. 
 
 In reference to the unity and connexion of the 
 universe, however, and in regard to the infringement of 
 the course of nature apprehended from freedom, it is 
 conceded, indeed, that that eternal act, being antecedent 
 to all phenomena, could not effect any interruption in their 
 order. But still, since the acts of each individual first 
 come to be manifested in the progress of natural events, if 
 the difficulty respecting the infringement of universal or- 
 der have full and perfect validity under other circum- 
 stances, why would not the course of nature be des- 
 troyed or interrupted by the manifestation of free acts, 
 originating from a freedom that was before all time ? 
 If that intelligible acting was absolutely free, it must 
 without question be assumed that from eternity every 
 phenomenon of freedom was brought into the most 
 strict accordance with the course of nature, and the lat- 
 ter with the former, by means of a predetermined har- 
 mony ; so that on such a supposition, the Determiner 
 of events in this government of the world would not 
 
106 
 
 properly have been the will of God, but rather the 
 good or evil acts of men. But according to this re- 
 presentation the Creator would appear to be dependent 
 upon the creature. And it is altogether more conceiv- 
 able, and probable, that God should govern the w^orld 
 by imposing upon himself that limitation which we 
 have defended, and by giving to beings actually free 
 a circle of action in which they might move without 
 constraint, than to imagine that the only end of crea- 
 tion should have been the manifestation of those intelli- 
 gible acts which can never more be changed. The 
 objections, finally, which are commonly urged against 
 freedom from the fore-knowledge of God, apply with 
 equal force against that oft named hypothesis. If 
 Divine fore-knowledge be one and the same with pre- 
 determination, and if it be irreconcileable with free- 
 dom ; then this objection, if it have any force when 
 urged against the freedom of empirical actions, destroys 
 that also of the intelligible acts. For God must al- 
 ways be thought of as the First of all, and consequent- 
 ly we must suppose that he was in reality anterior to 
 that intelligible act of man, and therefore foresaw it. 
 If, however, this act be made co-eternal with God, 
 then indeed he could neither have foreseen nor prede- 
 termined it ; but then on such a supposition there would 
 arise a series of other, and much greater difficulties, 
 which do not here seem to demand any particular in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 The author of this essay feels unwilling to express 
 anything determinately upon the question, whether the 
 
co-existence of the Divine fore-knowftogaovith l>uraan 
 freedom, can be made perfectly intellig^TfTto TBe un- 
 derstanding; but would only say, as at the beginning, 
 that the proposition in general seems to belong to the in- 
 finite. Still; however, as no circumscribing limit is placed 
 upon the inquiry by this concession, so also human 
 freedom would not be deprived of its sphere of action, 
 even though it were in a manner conceded that its con- 
 nexion with any other idea could not be fully compre- 
 hended by the understanding. That which from the 
 other grounds is sufficiently certain, does not become 
 impossible, even though on comparison with other indi- 
 vidual truths it may appear paradoxical. Even the idea 
 of God is by no means one of ordinary comprehensible- 
 ness, yet it is always accompanied with the assurance 
 of unquestionable certainty. And generally, it is in 
 the domain of eternal truths, where the most wonder- 
 ful paradoxes are found as in the proper place ; yet 
 those truths do not on account of these paradoxes, lose 
 any thing whatever of their certainty or influence. The 
 acts of Divine cognition and of thought are, without 
 doubt, something very different from what these words 
 express in the ordinary language of men. So also if 
 any one would speak of the knowledge of God accquir- 
 ed by conceptions and logical deductions, the expres- 
 sions would have to be taken in an entirely figurative 
 sense. For the supreme Reason which lives in the eter- 
 nal beholding of the universe needs no conceptions ; be- 
 cause conceptions are but shadows of their essential equi- 
 valents, and necessary only on account of the poverty and 
 
108 
 
 imperfectness of human intuitions. Still less does it 
 stand in need of logical conclusions, which proceed 
 solely from the effort to widen the circumscribed lim- 
 its of human insight. In the same manner we cannot 
 speak of God as having memory, or a recollection of 
 events that are past, for with him nothing can pass 
 away ; and for a like reason we cannot, in its liter- 
 al sense, ascribe to him a fore-knowledge of the future, 
 because Eternity has no future. Without attempting 
 to relieve ourselves from embarrassment by asserting 
 that time, viewed from its loftiest stand- point, is noth- 
 ing, (since we do not utter a proposition without meaning 
 when we say that things are temporal,) yet thus much 
 is clear, that with God time cannot be the same as 
 it is in relation to things, and that therefore we must 
 conceive of the Divine fore-knowledge in a manner 
 entirely different from that in which we are accustomed 
 to view the things of time : — provided, however, that 
 nothing inappropriate or contradictory be connected 
 with this form of thought. 
 
 The common conception of prescience, as the fore- 
 knowledge of that which is to take place in future time, 
 is merely a human notion, resting upon the ground of the 
 limited and the finite, whose character is succession ; and 
 consequently it can in this manner by no means be pre- 
 dicated of God. As Omnipresence is not material and 
 does not occupy space, so also fore-knowledge must be 
 conceived of as not successive or temporal. God's 
 knowledge of what is in man cannot be a knowledge 
 acquired gradually in the way of learning ; it must be 
 
109 
 
 an intellectual intuition of human life as a whole. 
 We now acquire our knowledge in a fragmentary 
 manner, but we hope that hereafter, face to face, we 
 shall, by immediate intuition, know even as we are 
 known, that is, as we are known to God, in whose un- 
 derstanding our life must be delineated as a whole, not 
 separately in itself alone, but all its relations taken in 
 connexion with the whole universe. All things pre- 
 sent themselves as they are in their essential nature to 
 the contemplation of God, and man also every mo- 
 ment stands before Him as that which he really is. 
 Our form of thought being so intimately connected 
 with succession, we seek to render this intelligible by 
 representing it as fore-knowledge ; but in reference to 
 God himself it can neither be designated as fore-seeing 
 nor as predetermining, but as an eternal changeless act 
 of Knowing, as an ever present, clear insight into the 
 life and connexion of all things. 
 
 The question. How can it be that this Divine in- 
 tuition does not determine the life of man in such a 
 manner that predetermination alone remains, but no 
 liberty ?— is essentially one and the same with that 
 which has already been discussed — that of the relation 
 between God and man, which permits personal free- 
 dom to co-exist with a state of dependency. For 
 such an individualizing and separating of the act of 
 thinking and the act of willing, of knowing and of being, 
 as human abstraction has derived from experience, can- 
 not for one moment be supposed to exist in the Divine 
 Life, which excludes all parts and fragments. The 
 10 
 
no 
 
 eternally Present stood in no need either of fore-know- 
 ledge or predetermination in order that the Divine 
 wisdom might not err in regard to man. — Finally ; it 
 appears to us that when the relation of a free spirit to 
 the Divine Spirit is the subject of discourse, concep- 
 tions entirely inappropriate to this domain are too fre- 
 quently employed — such conceptions, namely, as are 
 abstracted from a consideration of the physical world, 
 and the co-operation of material powers. But as spirit- 
 ual presence, so spiritual agency, is, in its nature, not 
 fitted to jar with or exclude other spirits. True, in- 
 deed, two or more bodies cannot at the same moment 
 of time fill the same point in space, nor can they move 
 on the same line without striking against each other. 
 But all those laws lose their force when attempted to 
 be transferred to a supersensuous world. Thoughts and 
 sentiments the most diverse, nay even the most contra- 
 dictory, may exist in reference to one and the same ob- 
 ject at one and the same time, without any, even the 
 least infringement resulting thence to the spiritual self- 
 subsistence, or uninterrupted freedom of different indi- 
 viduals. Those phenomena of infringement and inter- 
 ruption can occur only under the condition of space, 
 and existence in dimensions, under which circumstances 
 there may, indeed, a multitude of possible bodily colli- 
 sions result from matter and its impenetrability ; and 
 hence bodies moving in different directions, if they 
 meet in the same point, must necessarily interrupt or 
 destroy each other's motion. Were the relation of the 
 human spirit to Ood to be judged of according to these 
 
Ill 
 
 laws, then the conclusion to be deduced from them 
 would be very plain and easily to be formed ; but by so 
 doing the spiritual would be transferred from its own 
 sphere into one to which it does not at all belong, 
 namely, from the domain of the spiritual into that of 
 the physical and mechanical.^ 
 
 1 These remarks deserve to be thoughtfully considered. 
 May not all our contradictions in philosophy spring from the 
 attempt to bring down to the comprehension of the Under- 
 standing those truths which appropriately belong to the do- 
 main of pure Reason .^ And are not many led to reject 
 with scorn the mysteries of our Holy Religion,, as contra- 
 dictious and absurd, from the fact that some of its friends 
 have attempted to embody in logical propositions and under 
 the forms of conception, those truths which are appropriate 
 only to intuition and to faith ? The difficulties above notic- 
 ed are not confined to Metaphysics and Theology. They 
 are found equally in Physics and Mathematics. The sub- 
 joined extracts, taken from the Philosophical Collection of 
 the learned Dr. Henry More, will serve to illustrate the prin- 
 ciple alluded to. 
 
 *^If the difficulty of framing a conception of a thing must 
 take away the existence of the thing itself, there will be no 
 such thing as hody left in the world, and then all will be spi- 
 rit^ or nothing. For who can frame so safe a notion of a 
 hody, as to free himself from the entanglements that the ex- 
 tension thereof will bring along with it 7 Fpr this extended 
 matter consists of either indivisble points, or of particles di- 
 visible in inJinUum, Take which of these you will, (and you 
 can find no third,) you will be wound into the most notori- 
 ous absurdities that may be. For if you say it consists of 
 
112 
 
 It were an entirely different question, though nearly 
 allied to the one last under consideration, to ask wheth- 
 
 points, from this position I can necessarily demonstrate that eve- 
 ry spear or spire-steeple, or what long body you will, is as thick as 
 it is long ; that the tallest cedar is not so high as the lowest 
 mushroom ; and that the moon and the earth are so near 
 one another that the thickness of your hand will not go be- 
 twixt ; that rounds and squares are all one figure ; that even 
 and odd numbers are equal one with another ; and that the 
 clearest day is as dark as the blackest night. And if you 
 make choice of the other member of the disjunction, your 
 fancy will be little better at ease ; for nothing can be divisi- 
 ble into parts it has not: therefore if a body be divisible into 
 infinite parts, it has infinite extended parts: and if it has an 
 infinite number of extended parts, it cannot be but a hard 
 mystery to the imagination of man, that infinite extended 
 parts should not amount to one whole infinite extension. 
 And thus a grain of mustard-seed would be as well infinite- 
 ly extended as the whole matter of the Universe, and a thou- 
 sandth part of that grain as well as the grain itself. Which 
 things are more inconceivable than any thing in the notion 
 of a spirit. Therefore we are not scornfully and contemptu- 
 ously to reject any notion, for seeming at first to be clouded 
 and obscured with some difficulties and intricacies of con- 
 ception ; since that of whose being we seem most assured, 
 is the most entangled and perplexed in the conceiving, of 
 any thing that can be propounded to the apprehension of 
 man." Antidote to Atheism, p. 14. 
 
 " Reason attending to the nature of an exact globe and 
 plane, will undoubtedly pronounce that they will touch in 
 a point, and that they may be moved one upon another ; but 
 our imagination cannot but make this exception, that the 
 
113 
 
 er the freedom of the human will can in general co- 
 exist with the regular order and law-hondage to w^hich 
 nature is subjected ? — and whether the former would 
 not constantly be making insufferable interruptions in 
 the latter ? — Since the life of man has its root in the 
 Ground of nature and is inwardly conjoined with the 
 same, from the alleged freedom of the human will 
 there follows a view of the world in every respect 
 double, and, as it might seem, contradictory too. For 
 according to this representation we must suppose that 
 within the hmits of one and the same universe, there 
 
 globe thus drawn upon the plane describes a line which 
 juust necessarily consist of points, point perpetually follow- 
 ing point in the whole description. So likewise the angle of 
 contact included betwixt the periphery and a perpendicular 
 falling on the end of tlie diameter of a circle, geometricians 
 prove by Reason to be less than any acute angle whatso- 
 «jver, insomuch that a line cannot fall betwixt the periphery 
 and the perpendicular : whence the /anr^i/ cannot but imag- 
 ine this angle to be indivisible ; which is a perfect contradic- 
 tion, and against the definition of an angle, which is not llie 
 coincidence hut the inclination of two lines. Besides, a lesser 
 circle inscribed in a greater, so that it touches in one point, 
 through which let there be drawn the common diameter of 
 them both, and then let fall a perpendicular on that end of 
 the diameter where the circles touch ; it will be evident that 
 one angle of contact is bigger than the other, when yet they 
 are both indivisible as was acknowledged by our imagina- 
 tion before : so that one and the same angle will be both di- 
 visible and indivisible, which is a plain contradiction." Ap- 
 pendix to the same, p. 15 J, 152. Tr. 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 is on the one side the sternest Necessity , in the most 
 strictly interlinked series of causes and effects ; and on 
 the other, a Freedom from the law of this necessary con- 
 secutive series. If, now, in this two-fold view of the 
 world there be involved an actual and inexplicable con- 
 tradiction, or in other words, if we are obliged to con- 
 cede in conformity with what has hitherto been said, 
 that the freedom of the human will must be suppos- 
 ed to be correspondent to the will of a personal God, 
 and may yet run counter to the course of nature regula- 
 ted by law — which course of nature, however, is also 
 to be regarded as an expression of the Divine Will — 
 then it would necessarily follow that something — the 
 freedom of the human will — may at the same time be 
 conformed and not conformed to the will of God. 
 Should any one, in order to avoid this startling con- 
 tradiction, wish to give up either the necessary confor- 
 mity of nature to law, or the freedom of the human will, 
 then indeed the question would be quickly settled ; — ' 
 but certainly not to the satisfaction of science, in whose 
 domain those victories most easily achieved are not al- 
 ways the most glorious. 
 
 In the higher realm of thought, the immediate and 
 direct problem for speculation is not to reject one of 
 two apparently contradictious truths, but frequently 
 this more difficult problem, viz. without the rejection 
 of one or the other, to change their dissonance into har- 
 mony. In the case before us it is impossible not to 
 perceive that such a demand is made directly upon our 
 reason, because that grounds of equal importance de- 
 termine us to hold fast both : i. e. we must believe in 
 
115 
 
 a fixed order and necessary connexion in nature, since 
 otherwise neither a science of nature, nor the possibili- 
 ty of seeking or finding God in it, would remain to man ; 
 but at the same time also, we must maintain the self- 
 subsistence of the human will, for without this there 
 could be neither true morality, nor veneration for God as 
 a holy Being. But the thought which naturally arises 
 upon close examination — the thought that the same 
 Divine will which is a will to nature, is also a will to 
 the personality and self-subsistence of better creatures, — 
 makes an absolute contradiction between spiritual free- 
 dom and the physical arrangement of the world actual- 
 ly inconceivable. If creation be not in general a ma- 
 chine, but an ascending series of powers organically de- 
 veloped, then it is impossible to understand how reci- 
 procal interruption could take place, or how irreconcile- 
 able dissension could reign between powers of a lower 
 order and that higher point of developement on which 
 man is placed. That energy which pervades and ani- 
 mates the rest of nature is no foreign power hostile to 
 spirit. If we are correct in calling this creation a 
 creation of God, we indicate by the expression some- 
 thing more than a mere fabric which he has constructed 
 and framed together from one knows not how many 
 different materials, — a machine which he has now left 
 to regulate its own movements ; — we rather mean by it 
 a manifestation and a realizing of the Divine thoughts.^ 
 
 ^ Hooker seems to have entertained views not essentially 
 different : " All things which Grod in their times and seasons 
 hath brought forth, were eternally and before all times in 
 
/ 
 
 116 
 
 Yet the Divine thoughts thus reahzed do not at 
 first indeed, nor at once, as by one bound, exhibit 
 themselves under the highest and most spiritual forms ; 
 but starting from the basis they rise after a fit and reg- 
 ular mode in an ascending order, and in this manner 
 they proceed through every link of the series, not 
 merely according to the notional representations of 
 men, but in a manner actually creative. In this way " 
 every step of the ascending system becomes distin- 
 guished by some peculiar formation. Hence also ev- 
 ery creature, although at first view it appears only 
 as a finite individuality, yet for the thoughtful in- 
 quirer carries within it somewhat of the character of 
 infinity. It is not matter, (a word which conveys little 
 or no meaning,) but Will and active Power, which ul- 
 timately constitute the true essence of nature also ; 
 
 God, as a work unbegun is in the artificer which afterwards 
 brjngeth it into effect. [The comparison cannot be carried 
 out to the extreme in all respects; for in the latter case the 
 artificer has the material provided ready to his hand, hut in 
 the formef case the Material, as well as the Form, was abso- 
 lutely dependent upon God.] Therefore whatsoever we do 
 behold now in this present world, it was enwrapped within 
 the bowels of the Divine Mercy, written in the book of Eter- 
 nal Wisdom, and held in the hands of Omnipotent Power, 
 the first foundations of the world being as jet unlaid. So 
 that all things which God hath made are in that respect the 
 offspring of God, they are in him as effects in their highest 
 cause ; he likewise actually is in them, the assistance and in- 
 Jluence of his Deity is their lifey Eccles. Pol. B. V. Tr. 
 
117 
 
 and the so called bodily or material things are nothing 
 else than a deeply depressed, and thereby concealed 
 and misapprehended spiritual being. 
 
 One cannot say that any where in nature life 
 ceases or begins ; ^ there is every where found — as a 
 mark of the spirit's presence — an energy and forma- 
 tive power. These active forces are, however, fre- 
 quently concealed, and in a state of confinement. To- 
 gether with many serene and glorious appearances in 
 nature, there are at the same time spread over creation 
 traces of lowliness and pensive sorrow ; — that depres- 
 sion which operates silently in hidden depths, and nev- 
 er becomes visible to man ; and that sadness which, 
 with inward mourning, feels the want of a still higher 
 freedom, and which sometimes, as it were with con- 
 vulsive throes, dilates its ancient bonds and strives to 
 burst them. Where do we not see betrayed, as if un- 
 intentionally, that inward principle of activity which 
 gives the lie to all opinions of a merely outward and 
 
 ^ Locke expands the same sentiment in the following 
 language. " It is a hard matter to say where sensible and 
 rational begin, and where insensible and irrational end ; and 
 who is there quick-sighted enougk to determine precisely, 
 which is the lowest species of living things, and which is 
 the first of those who have no life ? Things, as far as we 
 can observe, lessen and augment, as the quantity does in a 
 regular cone, where, though there be a manifest odds betwixt 
 the bigness of the diameter at a remote distance, yet the 
 difference between the upper and under, where they touch 
 one another, is hardly discernible." Tr. 
 
118 
 
 artificial world — a world which is inanimate and has 
 nothing kindred to spirit ? You will say that nature is 
 dead ; — for you, then, all the mighty piles of moun- 
 tains are but inert masses. Yet they send up wit- 
 nesses of their life in every fountain, and in their won- 
 derful strata of rocks and minerals. Thus in those 
 subterraneous regions the active spirit of the earth pur- 
 sues its labour with unheard but ceaseless energy, and 
 when man penetrates thither he finds the work already 
 performed. Yet the forming process and the labourer 
 he sees not ; no whispering sound of their operation 
 ever reaches his ear. 
 
 But notwithstanding this profound repose, we still 
 have evidences of an inward striving ; and on the con- 
 templation of these powers strictly bound, there invol- 
 untarily arises in the reflecting mind a feeling that this 
 confined life may yet at some future time break 
 through the covering which now envelopes it. This 
 is especially the case when that hardness and rigidity 
 of form, which is frequently deemed the most essential 
 of all things, vanishes as something unreal : and on the 
 contrary the so called inert masses dissolve into bright 
 activity, and an active power not in the" least antici- 
 pated manifests itself throughout nature as it lies sup- 
 pressed beneath our feet. In some particular phe- 
 nomena there is evinced, not only the possibility, but 
 the actualness of such an effort of struggling powers, 
 when the painful continuance of the creature is no lon- 
 ger tolerable, and it attempts a disseverance of the an- 
 cient bond ; as, for example, in earthquakes and vol- 
 
119 
 
 canoes, the mute power that had for years been held 
 in bondage, begms to roar from its depth and call 
 aloud for freedom. This energetic striving of rigid 
 powers, which, as if tormented by their bondage to 
 the earthly, aspire after perfection, is not the less per- 
 ceptible upon a higher scale of organic nature's devel- 
 opement, and is therefore hfere presupposed as ac- 
 knowledged. Even man, pious and enlightened 
 though he may be, is yet, whilst on earth, subject to 
 the destiny of a creature ; and he too, as if interwoven 
 with the life of nature and borne down with frailties, is 
 often inwardly moved with anxious longing after deliv- 
 erance from this bondage. But man differs from the 
 lower nature in this, that standing between the phe- 
 nomenal and supersensuous v;orlds, he is still as a nat- 
 ural being elevated to bright spiritual consciousness, 
 and is even here already made a participant of moral 
 freedom ; so that both the Divine and the earthly are 
 at the same time combined in one person, and he sus- 
 tains towards God the double relation of a child and of 
 a creature absolutely dependent. 
 
 But since things are so, it may be asked, How 
 should hostility and contradiction exist between man 
 and the rest of nature ? It would seem rather that 
 nature aspires upward to the state of man, or longs to 
 be placed in a condition similar to his, whence arises a 
 relation of harmony rather than of discord : so that it 
 is not possible for nature itself to stand in contradiction 
 to freedom, that is, to the highest attribute which can 
 be possessed v/ithin the limits of creation. 
 
120 
 
 But nature itself being unfree, it is alleged that it 
 cannot at least afford to the free will any sphere of ac- 
 tion within the limits of its domain. — If by the asser- 
 tion it is only meant that man cannot destroy or inter- 
 rupt the entire course of nature, nor abrogate those 
 laws under which it was created, but that he himself 
 is rather on his part also bound to the fixed order and 
 connexion of powers interlinked with each other, and 
 that consequently the laws imposed upon creation by 
 a higher tribunal are inviolable : all this must be ac- 
 knowledged as unquestionably true. But surely by 
 the term Freedom of the Will, no one ever seriously 
 understood an unbounded power of controlling the 
 laws of the world, or maintained that the will possess- 
 ed an absolute dominion over nature. Such a power 
 would exalt the creature to the place of the Creator, 
 and instead of a careful and rational investigation of 
 nature, those magic arts forbidden to man would be 
 universally introduced. 
 
 But if the objection implies that nothing whatever 
 can act in nature except a stern necessity, and that 
 therefore a self-subsistent personal life is not at all ad- 
 missible without prejudice to her laws, and that every 
 actual manifestation of free will must be an impossibili- 
 ty ; — then we deny all this, because that up to the 
 present moment at least not a shadow of proof has 
 ever been adduced to establish the proposition thus de- 
 fined. He who would maintain such a position must 
 in the first place show — not that things phenomenal, 
 of a lower order in the scale of existence, are unfree. 
 
121 
 
 which no one denies — but that no free being can find 
 place above them, and that the moral freedom of a 
 higher class of beings, standing upon the summit of 
 nature, cannot possibly consist with its fixed arrange- 
 ment. It is not at all contradictory to suppose that 
 upon the highest point of developement there should be 
 found somewhat which could not be manifested upon 
 a lower point ; and the less contradictory will this ap^ 
 pear in reference to freedom, if, (as is in fact the case,) 
 it must be assumed that spirit and freedom, which are 
 first actualized in man, constitute the essential being of 
 nature also. But notwithstanding that the essence of 
 nature must ultimately be resolved into spirit and free- 
 dom, we must still bear in mind that in these lower or- 
 ders they lie circumscribed and buried, making known 
 their existence and presence only in numberless at- 
 tempted formations, as in dark strivings and desires ; 
 so that they cannot be seen in their absolute form at 
 the base, but are realized at the apex only. On the 
 other hand-, it w^ould be very strange, and contradictory 
 to the law of progressive formation, if upon the highest 
 and most perfect point of developement there were 
 found nothing which is not also to be met with at the 
 first step of the same ; and if the creation, thus always 
 remaining in an incipient state, although deriving its 
 origin from will and spirit, should yet never in any of 
 its forms attain to spirit and will. These last named 
 powers, spirit and will, do not indeed belong to a se- 
 ries of things sensuously developed, they are rather in 
 their nature above sense, they spring from the Super-^ 
 11 
 
122 
 
 sensuous, but first make their appearance in the circle 
 of phenomenal nature. 
 
 No one has ^^et proved that the agency of super- 
 sensuous powers is irreconcileable with the course of 
 sensuous things controled by natural law. On the 
 contrary it might be satisfactorily shown that it is only 
 through the constant influence of a supersensuous pow- 
 er, through the unceasing influx of a higher life, that 
 the whole phenomenal world has its existence and 
 maintains its continuance in being. Belief in God, in 
 his being the Creator and Governour of the world, im- 
 plies nothing else than a belief that the phenomenal 
 world is sustained and interpenetrated by a power that 
 is above sense. To say that the influences of spi- 
 rit and will upon nature would universally produce ef- 
 / fects destructive of it, and in opposition to its law of 
 / order, is the same as to explain that vital principle 
 which pervades and animates creation, to be this same 
 destroying principle. Evidently that which is here 
 true of the all-powerful Spirit, or the universal Will, 
 (namely, that its agency and influence do not interrupt 
 the course of nature,) must be still more true when ap- 
 plied to the limited action of finite spirits that are free. 
 And it has already been shown that a relation of de- 
 pendency upon God, and in a certain sense upon 
 nature also, may be consistently reconciled with this 
 attribute of finite freedom. 
 
 But it may here be asked in turn. What kind of 
 representation then lies at the foundation of that view 
 of nature and creation, which assumes it as an irapossi- 
 
123 
 
 bility that there should be in them any manifestation of 
 free will ? None other than that of a lifeless machine, 
 of a compacted structure framed from rigid and inert 
 masses, and dove-tailed together : it has for its basis 
 the conception of some Thing, which, (though it first 
 becomes so indeed, through artificially invented predi- 
 cates,) is totally and absolutely heterogeneous to spirit. 
 Yet it can scarcely be denied that an entirely different 
 view is far more worthy of acceptation. Notwith- 
 standing all its apparent inflexibleness and impenetra- 
 bility, nature is still throughout open to higher influen- 
 ces, — even to the influences of spirit. But since God 
 can work in it and control its movements, therefore the 
 less is to be apprehended for the order of the whole 
 from the influence and working of free man ; and un- 
 der these relations the world's laws must ever continue 
 to remain inviolate and inviolable. Besides, we never 
 in reality meet with that chasm, which, (only in con- 
 sequence of arbitrary conceptions, however,) has fre- 
 quently been supposed to exist between nature and 
 freedom ; and which has been represented as eternally 
 separating, and rendering inaccessible to each other, the 
 world of spirits and the world of material things so called. 
 Even universal experience shows what is to be regarded 
 as true In reference to the pretended rigidity and hardness 
 of natural things. Those things which are most unyield- 
 ing and rigid, are always at the same time the weakest 
 and most unsubstantial; whilst those which are more re- 
 fined, and approximate nearer to the spiritual, approve 
 themselves as the most powerful and essential qualities 
 
134 
 
 in nature, and hold dominion over that which is more 
 gross. Hither are to be referred those principles 
 which in physics are figuratively, though not inappo- 
 sitely, called spirits ; and which, notwithstanding that 
 they are so volatile, yet overcome and dissolve such 
 materials as seem most insoluble. To the same class are 
 to be reckoned the so called imponderable materials, 
 which, although to the common observation they seem tri- 
 fling and unimportant, yet constitute, in fact, the very life 
 and energy of nature. This being the case, we may with 
 correctness say that the actualized spirit, the spirit as 
 it exists in man, is in every respect more powerful and 
 more essential than those spirits which are such in 
 name only. That nature, then, which affords a theatre 
 of action to the latter, cannot exclude the former ; and 
 in the system of the Universe, through which the 
 beam of light finds its way, there may also be opened 
 a passage for the free spirit without introducing any 
 confusion or derangement. 
 
 It is evident that the phenomenon of light is al- 
 ready to be regarded as the entrance of a higher potency 
 into the corporeal world ; and hence a remarkable an- 
 alogy — an analogy frequently observed — nay even a 
 certain homogeneous relation between it and the 
 spirit, cannot be denied. As the whole corporeal 
 world is first unfolded to our view through the agency 
 of immaterial light ; so, in a certain sense, it is the 
 supernatural will of the spirit which first renders it 
 possible for us to take a rational view of nature. As 
 the herald of spirit, light entered already into the first 
 
125 
 
 creation, to make nature, yet void and waste, suscep- 
 tible of higher formations, and to prepai:e it for the 
 future arrival of the spirit. Throughout the whole 
 phenomenal world, light approves itself as the symbol 
 and forerunner of the Will. For as the former pervades 
 space without filHng it, as it oftentimes disports in bright 
 appearances with the hardest and most inflexible bodies, 
 and, almost as though they were not present, swiftly 
 pierces through such substances as yield no entrance 
 to the finest material air ; so also many facts have been 
 presented of those higher influences of Will upon the 
 corporeal world, which, although they did not derange 
 the order of nature, are not yet to be referred to the 
 laws of dark and ponderable matter. This inbreaking 
 of light as a higher potency upon the material world is 
 now admitted as a daily phenomenon, and there has 
 long been an agreement upon it in the theory of nature. 
 Only in so far as it was necessary to constitute a science 
 of light, is it subject to the laws which were imposed 
 upon the rest of the material world. But as optics are 
 not to be given up because it is not possible to explain 
 from the ordinary views of matter what transparency is ; 
 so also the doctrines and the hopes grounded upon the 
 assumption of freedom are to be held fast, even though 
 many questions should remain unanswered in regard to 
 the possibility of a free will's shining through and illu- 
 minating the system of nature. 
 
 And what then were moral feeling, virtue, and ex- 
 pected recompense, — what were the most holy faith, and 
 the noblest efforts of humanity ,-without that illuminatioq 
 11* 
 
126 
 
 of the free will in nature, and without that beam of the 
 spirit, ofttimes though broken by an opposing power ? 
 A higher life universally pervades the visible creation, 
 and breaks out from it, as it were before our eyes. In 
 every lofty thought, in every virtuous resolve, there 
 takes place in the midst of nature somewhat, which, as 
 it were, enlightens and sanctifies it ; and which would 
 be incomprehensible on the supposition of any system 
 of mechanism, even though it were called heavenly. 
 In every word of truth that is uttered the supersensuous 
 enters into the world ; and the whole language of man, 
 by which the spirit is continually re-created in nature,^ 
 is a very ancient and holy testimonial of its better de- 
 scent — a testimonial hereditarily transmitted from the 
 first creation. 
 
 Those varied modes of the spirit^s manifestation 
 upon the earth,and especially the interpenetration of free- 
 dom in the midst of necessity, might, perhaps, be denom- 
 inated miraculous in so far as the laws of an earthly 
 nature are of themselves alone not sufficient to afford an 
 explanation. Yet because these physical laws are not 
 sufficient to afford a solution of such manifestations, 
 we are not thence obliged to deduce the impossibility 
 of a spiritual freedom elevated above this series of phe- 
 nomena, nor is it necessary to infer that there are 
 therefore no higher grounds of explanation. This 
 holds true also in reference to an actual miracle, lite- 
 
 ^ Speech is the very image whereby the mind and soul 
 of the speaker conveyeth itself into the bosom of him which 
 heareth. 
 
127 
 
 rally so called. Human freedom is not a miracle in the 
 ultimate strict sense of the word, because in the present 
 ordinary course of events it effects no changes which 
 are difficult of explanation ; and because no one won- 
 ders at the cases of its daily occurrence which are so 
 frequently observed. The capability of the will's action 
 might be called miraculous in the strictest sense, if, by 
 its own immediate influence it were able so to modify 
 the course of nature, that by its own direct energy phc" 
 nomena would be effected in it contrary to the ordi- 
 nary current of events as known to us from long contin- 
 ued experience. To affirm that such a power of the 
 spirit over the sensible world is in itself impossible, 
 would only betray an ignorance or misapprehension of 
 both. 
 
 From the position that nature is ultimately anima- 
 ted by spiritual and moral powers, as well as from the 
 idea of the pure will, it spontaneously follows that in 
 the will there dwells an energy of acting upon nature 
 which cannot be estimated — a power of acting upon 
 nature, not as striving against, but as comprehended in, 
 and hence correspondent to the will. It is not the 
 visible creation directly which first closes itself against 
 the spirit ; but the energy of the will becomes para- 
 lyzed, the vision of the spirit is darkened, and thus 
 true living cognition becomes as it were dissipated. 
 After all that has been said in favour of the position we 
 cannot be brought to persuade ourselves of the deep 
 depravity and ruin of Creation ; and least of all can 
 we believe that nature as it now is — according to the 
 
128 
 
 representations of some — 'is almost more the work of 
 the Devil than of God. Without wishing to deny 
 that in many particular instances there is found much 
 that is disagreeable and repulsive, we are still of the 
 opinion that the chief ground of the unyielding resist- 
 ance by which the sick man is so frequently pressed 
 down, lies less in nature than in the man himself — in 
 his despondency of heart, in the fluctuating insight of 
 the spirit, and in the powerlessness of a will not free 
 from guilt. 
 
 That which is determined with an energetic will in 
 the spirit of truth and purity, is determined by the Spi- 
 rit of God ; and it is but a postulate of reason to as- 
 sume that nature cannot strive against such a will. It 
 was on this account that Christ was a worker of mira- 
 cles, and the time of his sojourn upon the earth was a 
 time of signs and wonders. From many intimations 
 one might be led to suppose that the momentary in- 
 terpretation of the idea, and the dominion of the spirit, 
 were a derangement not to be tolerated, nay, as 
 though it would be a great evil; — but such is not the 
 fact, for on the contrary nature, instead of suffering vi- 
 olence or injury from it, manifests her dignity in a 
 miracle. The miracle consists in this, that the high- 
 est energy of the power of the will is at the same time 
 an act of reconciliation between the Spirit and Nature ; 
 it is both the triumph of freedom and the deliverance 
 of the powers of nature held in bondage ! ^ The more 
 
 ^ It would seem that the performing of miracles was the 
 natural mode of the Redeemer's agency ; for inasmuch as 
 
129 
 
 intimately both conceptions are conjoined, — that of free- 
 dom and that of miracles — and the more powerfully both 
 energize in nature, the less is it possible to think anything 
 satisfactory of the first without being borne onward to the 
 second, and the more certain does it become that a place 
 is due to both in the philosophy of nature. 
 
 Divine powers resided in him, they necessarily gave rise to 
 supernatural phenomena. Hence it is that we cannot adopt 
 as our view of miracles that conception which represents 
 them as suspensions of the laws of nature. If we receive 
 the biblical representation of the immanence of God in the 
 world, we cannot regard the laws of nature as mere arbitrary 
 and mechanical arrangements, the operation of which can- 
 not be interrupted except by some invasion from without ; but 
 on the contrary we must consider them all as ultimately rest- 
 ing upon the being of God. Consequently, those phenome- 
 na which cannot be explained either from known or un- 
 known laws as developed in the earthly life, must not there- 
 fore be regarded as opposed to law, or as suspensions of the 
 laws of nature. These are themselves rather comprehended 
 in a higher whole conformed to law ; for even the Heavenly 
 and the Divine constitute the essence of Law. That, there- 
 fore, which is contrary to nature is opposed to God, and the 
 true miracle is only a higher form of the Natural coming 
 from the world of untroubled harmony and shining in upon 
 this unharmonious world. Where this view of the world 
 is retained the attempt to explain miracles from natural cau- 
 ses must be rejected as evil ; for according to it the Miracu- 
 lous,( taken in a higher sense,) is also the Natural, and the Nat- 
 ural, (commonly so called,) is the Miraculous. Olshausen's 
 Bihlis, Com, B. I. s. 242, 243. Views corresponding with 
 these may be seen in Heinroth's Psychologic, s, 632, Tr, 
 
130 
 
 But notwithstanding that these things are so, yet 
 the performance of a miracle, or even the will to per- 
 form one, cannot be the determination of man, nor is 
 that the immediate end of moral freedom. By means 
 of this freedom a moral relation between God and man 
 is rendered possible, and it is imposed upon every one 
 as his first and prime duty to realize this relation in 
 life ; wherefore there is but One miracle which all 
 should endeavour to perform, that, namely, of effecting 
 their own holiness by a free consecration of themselves 
 to God. As men now are, the more frequent bestowal 
 of the gift of miracles would only be misused to dis- 
 turb the order and harmony of things ; and the world 
 too, in and over which the Creator reigns, but rarely 
 stands in need of such a gift. Hence it has appeared 
 seldom, like comets, only at great intervals of the 
 world's history ; whilst moral freedom, as indispensa- 
 ble for every truly human being, like the all-pervading 
 light of the sun, illumines every day of our earthly ex- 
 istence. Besides, man does not primarily stand in 
 need of any other freedom than that of being able to 
 act upon himself and to determine himself. He first of 
 all demands from nature, that as his outward existence is 
 under her control, she must not domineer over his will; 
 but that she permit him, unfettered by her iron chain, 
 with his inmost self to look down from a secure elevation 
 upon the impulses of unconscious powers, and to aspire 
 upward, after a mark placed much higher— a goal which 
 is either not at all attainable, or can be reached only in the 
 way of inward free election and self-determination. The 
 
131 
 
 proportion in which the transient phenomena of the vis- 
 ible world may or may not correspond to his will, can 
 determine nothing for his moral worth or ill desert ; yet 
 this he knows, that the will is in its essence the might- 
 iest energy, that it is originally the creative power of 
 motion, (vohtion,) and that therefore it is God-like. 
 
 Regarding himself as an individual and responsible 
 agent in distinction from the Creator, he feels that he 
 is neither bound by an inexorable fate, nor yet abso- 
 lutely independent. It is but a happy necessity that 
 man cannot act in direct opposition to the Creator ; 
 yet he can ivill contrary to Him, and he must have 
 this power in order that his accordance with God may 
 be a harmony of love, and not a worthless and blind 
 servitude — the obedience of a machine. The freedom 
 of each individual always reaches as far as the order of 
 the whole will permit ; and this whole is to be consid- 
 ered as a great Divine state, the regulation of which 
 corresponds to the sense of a Divine government in 
 this, that a personal life is developed and freely acts in 
 it. It is not accident which rules in this state. Those 
 events only can be denominated accidental which can- 
 not be explained from any natural cause, or which 
 were not designed by some act of will. The suppo- 
 sition that all things which take place either happen 
 necessarily or accidentally, pre-excludes a possible 
 third, the action of freedom, before any proof is given. 
 Besides, that antithetic proposition is in itself mere noth- 
 ingness, because even accident is but an obscure necessi- 
 ty — a necessity not seen into nor traced from its premises ; 
 
consequently it is a mere negative notion, the whole 
 sum of which resolves itself into a confession of io-no- 
 
 o 
 
 ranee of the efficient cause. 
 
 If under the name Nature were comprehended 
 things of the lower orders only, and if it were considered 
 as something existent for itself, then in reference to this 
 nature, indeed, free action might be denominated ac- 
 cidental, because in such nature no true ground of ex- 
 planation could be found. It is to be taken into con- 
 sideration, however, that the above is a mere notion ar- 
 bitrarily formed, and that in reality there is no nature 
 found which constitutes in itself a strictly finished whole 
 with the exclusion of the Rational and the Free. We 
 know of but one nature only, of that namely, which, 
 as in a mirrour, reflects itself in the cognitions of free ra- 
 tional beings. A nature not contemplated by mind, a 
 world of pure objects, were an entirely vain and empty 
 notion. We do not deny the actualness of nature, but 
 we do deny that a series of unconscious phenomena 
 constitute its essential being, and that these of them- 
 selves make up the whole sum of nature ; for to living 
 nature in its proper sense spirit and will are communica- 
 ted, and they are something of a much more essential 
 character than motion and gravitation. Still less has it 
 been our design, by what has been said, to deny the 
 so-called mathematical laws of the world. It may, 
 however, be safely asserted, that these laws explain but 
 one side of nature only, and not the whole of it ; and 
 that in general they afford but a subordinate, and, (as 
 soon as they are taken for the only and highest truth,) 
 but a partial knowledge of nature. 
 
133 
 
 Calculus and mensuration are always immediately 
 at an end wherever life properly begins. That which 
 is living must be apprehended with a Living Sense, 
 the Spiritual must be Spiritually judged of: and if 
 any where, it is in the domain of freedom that this 
 requisition possesses validity. The rich multiformity 
 of nature abounding in life and activity, and the 
 mental character of most of her productions, would be 
 entirely inexplicable from a mathematical necessity ; 
 much less would, such necessity suffice to explain the 
 thousand varied phenomena of the spiritual and moral 
 world. In the domain of Thought and Will there 
 exists in love and hate, — in hope and fear, — in the 
 investigation and apprehension of truth, — in the strife 
 to overcome self, — in the effort to become devotional 
 and heavenly minded, — in this sphere there is found a 
 realm of invisible life, which, in comparison with the 
 impulses of material things, can only be denominated 
 .9t/per-terrestrial. Even perverseness indicates a self- 
 subsistence ; and errour can be explained only on the 
 supposition that the spirit which is susceptible of it, 
 is not bound by an eternal unerring necessity. If, 
 as the only self-subsistent Being, the One and first 
 Good were alone capable of acting freely with all-sub- 
 duing efficiency, then we should universally find a 
 similar conformity to law without any transgression ; 
 and sin — the bitter fruit of finite freedom — would be 
 entirely inconceivable. 
 
 And here we come upon a point, the consideration 
 of which w^as, perhaps, earlier expected. — Evil is the 
 12 
 
134 
 
 stone of stumbling, especially for those with whom a 
 uniform agreement with law passes for a mark of good- 
 ness and perfection. But nevertheless this evil, how- 
 ever difficult it may appear to incorporate it with a 
 system of the world and of science, must still, as some- 
 thing spiritual and as something undeniably existent, 
 have a place conceded to it in the last, as it has long 
 been received into the first. 
 
 And although a discord for the mind and a vexa- 
 tion for the understanding, still its existence merits the 
 highest attention, because that man alone upon the 
 earth is capable of committing it, and because that we 
 are thence led to infer a certain superiour excellence of 
 the powers operative in him. It is also worthy of at- 
 tention as developing itself under a varied diversity of 
 forms, from that state, where with inward wickedness 
 there is connected a cheerful and amiable deportment, 
 which almost challenges our esteem and affection — or 
 where evil is associated with wit and levity, so that it 
 becomes a derison of life and a parody upon all seri- 
 ousness and virtue— unto that condition where a faith- 
 less fury, apostate from truth, betrays its desperation of 
 all good by a wild recklessness, or, more revolting still, 
 by cool premeditated crime. Always, as it would 
 seem, evil is to be considered as a degradation of pow- 
 ers, as a perversion of the original life ; and in this 
 state of perverseness, it now manifests itself monkey- 
 like exciting laughter,— at another time it appears as a 
 monstrous birth, creating loathsomeness and disgust, — 
 and again it is seen as an object of horrour, awaken- 
 ing terrour and alarm. 
 
135 
 
 However difficult now, it may appear, to find an 
 appropriate place for evil in a scientific system pro- 
 ceeding fi-om Unity, and certain as it is that sin has 
 ever been the thorn that has destroyed the peace and 
 quietude of life, or the discordant tone which has ever 
 with jarring dissonance disturbed the harmony of the 
 universe ; yet these difficulties do not immediately 
 press themselves upon him, who, only in a scientific 
 manner maintains the freedom of the human will, un-- 
 disturbed about the consequences or the possible abuse 
 of the doctrine. On the contrary, not only the possi- 
 bility but the undeniable actualness of sin, as has already 
 been shown, is indeed a melancholy, but at the same 
 time a most convincing proof in favour of the alleged 
 self-subsistence of the human will. It is impossible 
 to derive sin immediately from God, the highest Good. 
 Were He the only free Will, then it would follow that 
 every thing else must flow from him in a peaceful con- 
 formity to law ; throughout the universe there would 
 be nothing but compulsion, and compulsion too, effec- 
 ted by a most perfect Central and Universal Will. 
 Or in other words, every efficiency would only be some 
 form of God's agency, and consequently, since it is im- 
 possible for God to act in opposition to himself, it would 
 follow that every where there would be nothing but 
 harmony, and that in reference to God every thing 
 that exists would be good. We say explicitly in res- 
 pect to God. Because considered in and by itself the 
 creature could be neither good nor bad ; for both, (that 
 is, moral good and moral evil,) can only originate from an 
 
136 
 
 individuaPs own will. But instead of that peaceful 
 concentration in One central Will, — instead of that har- 
 mony of all the powers and their conformity to law — 
 we find the fact to be directly the contrary. Sin, as 
 a self-active striving against God, compels us therefore 
 to adopt the position that the pure Godhead is not the 
 only efficient agent in the creature, but that it also 
 at the same time possesses an independence of God, 
 (an independence bestowed upon the creature for the 
 behoof of personality ;) and that this self-subsistence 
 granted to man is moral freedom, the fountain of his 
 moral good and moral evil. Should any one wish to 
 seek the fountain of moral evil in any other place, it 
 would only remain for him either to place in God some- 
 thing which is not himself, which is not actually good, 
 (on which point we have already expressed our opinion, 
 and from which evil could not still proceed ;) or else 
 he must assume the existence of another uncreated being 
 co-eternal with God; — a form of dualism which is 
 scarcely adapted even to a wild and heated imagina- 
 tion, in as much as it is repulsive to the human mind 
 and cannot be confirmed to any scientific proof.^ 
 
 ^ " The Origin of Evil, meanwhile, is a question interest- 
 ing only to the Metaphyscian, and in a system of moral and re- 
 ligions Philosophy. The man of sober mind, who seeks for 
 truths that possess a moral and practical interest, is content 
 to be certain, first, that Evil must have had a beginning, since 
 otherwise it must either be God, or a co-eternal and co-equal 
 Rival of God ; both impious notions, and the latter foolish to 
 boot. Secondly, That it could not originate in God ; for if 
 
137 
 
 If now, as we have endeavoured to show, the root 
 of evil is not to be sought for in God, but in freedom 
 alone ; yet freedom itself, as such, is not to be consid- 
 ered as something already actually evil. For were 
 this the case, God would again be made the Author 
 of evil ; since, in conformity with all that has been said, 
 it is plain that freedom can be derived from Him alone. 
 Considered in itself, then, this freedom is to be regarded 
 as nothing else than the highest good of man. Yet it 
 is not at all contradictory that evil should spring from 
 this good. The abuse of the highest good can only be 
 productive of the highest evil, — Sin. — It may, however, 
 be asked how such an abuse, which is itself already sin, 
 can be possible ? — It is sufficiently evident that every 
 aberration from the line of rectitude, such as has above 
 been spoken of, is entirely inconceivable when applied 
 to the absolute Divine Freedom, which is identical 
 
 so, it would be at once Evil and not Evil, or God would be 
 at once God, (that is, infinite Goodness,) and not God — both 
 alike impossible positions." — " A moral Evil is an Evil thai 
 has its origin in a Will. An Evil common to all must have 
 a ground common to all. But the actual existence of moral 
 evil we are bound in conscience to admit ; and that there i9 
 an evil common to all is a Fact ; and this evil must there- 
 fore have a common ground. Now this evil ground cannot 
 originate in the Divine Will : it must therefore be referred 
 to the Will of man." Aids to Reflection, p. 158, 174. See 
 the same philosophic view expanded, and rhetorically delin- 
 eated by Professor Tholuck in his Lehre v. d, Sunde s. 14 — 
 26. Tr. 
 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 with holiness — the higher necessity of the good. In 
 God there is infininte perfection ; but the perfection of 
 man is finite ; — although a similarity there is yet a dis- 
 tinction. Human freedom, moreover, is not absolute, 
 and consequently involves in it no holy necessity of 
 good. 
 
 Bestow upon a finite being, in every respect imper- 
 fect, freedom of will ; or impart to it, (whilst at the same 
 time you exempt it from an infallible but neces- 
 sitating guidance,) the power of self-determination, and 
 you at once create in it the possibility of erring and of 
 abusing its powers, — that is, the possibility of sin. It 
 is plain that the only way of excluding this possibility 
 would be either to take away freedom itself, or else to 
 elevate man to the condition of God. It is not here 
 our purpose to explain how sin can be permitted 
 by God, or, according to the much used phrase, to 
 justify him in reference to the existence of evil in the 
 world ; the proposition was, and still continues to be 
 only this ; To explain the possibility of sin from the 
 spiritual personality of an imperfect creature, whom the 
 Creator has left free to engage in the hazardous enter- 
 prize of life. 
 
 Were freedom a things somewhat material^ like 
 the floating atoms, then, indeed, we would be led to 
 seek the cause of its departure from a straight line or 
 from the path of rectitude, in something lying out of 
 itself; and the ground of this cause would again have 
 to be sought in something still farther back, and so on 
 in infinitum, and at the end we should still find our- 
 
139 
 
 selves linked to a chain of endless regression. But 
 all this results from an entire confusion of conceptions, 
 for nothing whatever can be conceived of freedom 
 upon the stand-point of the purely Corporeal, and where 
 impulsion and repulsion are literally spoken of. If an 
 erroneous point of view be once chosen, and a first false 
 position be assumed, a whole series of conclusions will 
 follow, which although entirely consequent, will yet 
 lead only to a compulsion and a mechanism of nature ; 
 and from such materials there will spring up sponta- 
 neously a whole superstructure of errour. The same is 
 the case in the moral life, when once the first false step 
 has been taken, when the understanding and the con- 
 science have yielded to the first lie, (the ngoirov xpev^og,) 
 it is but too easy for a chain of errour to follow, nay for 
 a whole structure of sin to be reared upon it. But the 
 Idea of the Will is that it is no thing, and least of all 
 a bodily thing, subject to physical laws ; but that it is a 
 Productive Energy, a Life that re-creates itself and acts 
 from itself. Nevertheless it may be said in a certain 
 sense, only somewhat more circumscribed, that freedom 
 is determined by something else, by something which 
 lies out of it ; or rather, (in which that more limited 
 sense is contained,) that it can permit itself to be deter- 
 mined, [or, that it can take occasion to determine itself 
 in view of some outward object or some end proposed. 
 The difference between the Will's being determined 
 by objective motives, and determining itself in view 
 of these objects as occasions, is broad and radical, and 
 should ever be kept in mind.] For, according to our 
 
140 
 
 very conception of an action there precede it a multi- 
 tude of contradictory and opposite possibilities, which 
 operate upon the acting subject by more than one soli- 
 citation. But which solicitation the agent will permit to 
 gain the preponderance, the ground of that lies in his 
 will alone ; and to seek for another ground differ- 
 ent from it, and lying without it, would be the same as 
 to maintain that the will never can be a ground, that 
 is, that there is no such thing as Will. 
 
 It cannot be said that according to this view 
 man acts without a reason, simply in order to will. 
 The will is itself a ground as well as the solicitation 
 through which a person determines himself; he must will, 
 and must decide in view of the continuous inflowing of 
 various excitations, because neither the inward nor the 
 outward hfe can remain stationary. The act of willing 
 is therefore necessary to his continued spiritual exis- 
 tence ; but what direction he will take, or what act he 
 will choose to make his own — these are matters of his 
 free election. That the election of a finite and imper- 
 fect being, left to act upon his own peril, is not always 
 righteous, but frequently false and incorrect, is less a 
 matter of astonishment than if the case were otherwise. 
 For a peaceful course of human life, and one always 
 conformed to the Divine law, w^ould be in the highest 
 degree wonderful, and would be no unimportant objection 
 against the actualness of freedom. It is from freedom 
 alone, moreover, that the manifold anomalies and irregu- 
 larities of character found among men can be explained. 
 It may be objected, indeed, that the aberration, or 
 
141 
 
 act of erring, which is capable of being explained from 
 the freedom of an imperfect behig, cannot still be one 
 and the same with actual crime, and with the evil do- 
 ing of an intelligent and consistent wickedness ; and it 
 must be conceded that the high point of evil spoken of 
 does not result immediately from the conception of one act 
 of departure from the line of right : still, however, it 
 may be explained by the intermediate conception of a 
 gradual deterioration. This deterioration, as the contin- 
 uance of a hfe given up to derangement, becomes more 
 and more perverted, and gives birth to products increas- 
 ingly loathsome in their character ; and it is, also, quite 
 as intelligible as moral growth in virtue, which is noth- 
 ing else than a progressive cultivation of powers con- 
 formably to the original law. These same powers, 
 however, in a perverted state or falsely directed, do in- 
 deed in their progressive operation and growth, always 
 still continue to manifest the character of a Life ; but 
 on account of that derangement their forming principle, 
 their PROTOPLAST^, exhibits itself in mis-formations, that 
 is, in such products as are opposed to a sound and healthy 
 fife. The more perfect the Original of a Life, the 
 greater the multitude of possible aberrations ; and the 
 more excellent are the active powers of a being, the 
 
 ^ So our medical writers commonly translate Professor 
 Blumenbach's Bildungstneb, the vis plastica, or vis vitae for- 
 matrix of the eldest physiologist, and the life or livrjg prin- 
 ciple of John Hunter, the profoundest, we had almost said 
 the only, physiological philosopher of the latter half of thq 
 preceding century. Friend, p. 433, Ti^, 
 
142 
 
 more energetic and destructive is their agency in a per- 
 verted state. 
 
 Hence man's departure from the moral Ideal is to 
 be lamented as a deeper fall ; and among all the mon- 
 strous forms of life, moral deformity is the most loath- 
 some, and excites the greatest horrour. It would be 
 very remarkable if sin alone, when it is not immediate- 
 ly and firmly withstood, were incapable of increase and 
 progressive growth, inasmuch as it belongs to the pe- 
 culiar character of man that neither his inward nor his 
 outward life, as has already been observed, can ever 
 endure an absolute cessation. No where, where life 
 exists, is there found a fixed and motionless state of 
 Being ; on the contrary, we universally meet with pro- 
 gression, a ceaseless Becoming. Even in sickness 
 and decay there is only exhibited the operation of a con- 
 tinuous activity ; and the death of organized things is 
 but a transition from one state of existence to another, 
 is only another form of Becoming. The moral life, also, 
 exhibits similar phenomena in good and evil ; and it has 
 already been shown in the prehminary part of this essay, 
 how that evil, in the progress of a continually aug- 
 menting and guilty derangement of the moral powers, 
 may attain to a certain state of self-subsistence. This 
 perverted condition of the moral man may be illustrated 
 by an analogy drawn from those who are diseased in 
 body — an analogy which others have frequently obser- 
 ved-— that is, from the so called after-organizations. 
 
 From all that has now been said it seems to us that 
 we can be at no loss for an explanation of the phe- 
 
143 
 
 nomenon, that the freedom of the will is not altogether 
 annihilated by a series of continued acts of sinfulness, 
 but that it nevertheless becomes so strongly fettered ; 
 and that evil may be raised to such a degree of 
 strength, that return to a better state is rendered 
 exceedingly difficult, nay, under certain circumstances, 
 almost impossible. Besides, we can now be at no loss 
 to discover the reason why a constantly progressive 
 course in good or evil, persevered in for a long time, 
 lessens the probability of an entire change in either 
 case ; yet this fact does not render such a change abso- 
 lutely impossible, nor does it destroy freedom, but only 
 proves that it is a human freedom, that is, such a 
 freedom, in the possession of which man does not 
 cease to be a natural being and to develope his char- 
 acter in conformity with the laws of nature. 
 
 To explain the Universality of sin upon the earth, 
 is more difficult and perplexing ; and we may well be 
 at a loss to show how it is, that every human being as 
 soon as it attains to a state of consciousness, at the same 
 time finds within itself a consciousness of evil. Not 
 that we would be understood to affirm that the whole 
 human race is involved in one and the same state of 
 wickedness, equal in degree ; but as men now are no 
 one feels that fieedom from guilt which conscience de- 
 mands, and all moral excellence here below must be 
 attained through the travails of a new birth. And 
 whenever man wishes to possess any thing actually 
 good, and to have it grow and become a living prin- 
 ciple in him, he must first root out and deaden the 
 
144 
 
 weeds of evil which stand in the way. The entire 
 race of man, as it presents itself to the eye of daily ob- 
 servation and experience, at the same time that it is 
 endowed with invaluable powers and talents, is yet 
 infected with hankering desires after that which is 
 forbidden ; and whosoever has remaining a sufficiency 
 of moral energy impartially to contemplate his inmost 
 self, will there find not indeed a necessity of sin, but 
 yet somewhat already existent without his agency or 
 concun-ence — somewhat which his better voice cannot 
 approve but commands him firmly to resist. And no 
 matter how soon the contest may have been seriously 
 commenced, still even the most excellent man will al- 
 ways find something evil to have been anteriour to all 
 his efforts; a something which in a thousand cases 
 cannot indeed be denominated as actual guilt or wick- 
 edness, but must still be considered as transgression. 
 The same is the case also with one who has already 
 commenced the work of reformation ; he will not pur- 
 sue the straight path of life, nor attain the goal placed 
 before him, without similar aberrations. 
 
 In what way soever we may otherwise judge of 
 this depraved state of human nature, we must yet al- 
 ways attribute to the individual himself every act of er- 
 ring or departure from right which has been really 
 perfected. Even the best among men, (as it is not ne- 
 cessary here to speak of the most criminal and abandon- 
 ed,) do not find their whole life to be free from guilt ; 
 whilst yet every moral errour can only arise on the con- 
 dition that the will consents to the transgression of an 
 
145 
 
 always existent and always known law. This univer- 
 sality of guilt points to some great, deep-laid cause ; 
 to the universal prevalence of a depraved disposition. 
 To place this evil disposition directly in the very es- 
 sence of freedom, were contradictory ; because, by so 
 doing, freedom itself, that is, the freedom of election, 
 and with it the imputation of moral character which 
 must always be maintained, WT)uld all be swept away. 
 To make the will a Principle of Evil would be to 
 make every true moral action entirely incomprehensi- 
 ble. Nor could that disposition have been imparted 
 by,the Creator. For the Great First of all, God, is 
 the Good ; and our better nature imposes upon us an 
 obligation to withstand the impulses of that depraved 
 disposition, which w^ould be utterly inexplicable were 
 God originally the Author of that evil state. It can 
 therefore only have arisen through guilt. 
 
 But here it may be asked. How could a universal 
 and permanent evil disposition spring from any single 
 act of transgression ? And how could that which is al- 
 ready born with us have come into existence through 
 guilt ? To say that every individual in his Maxims 
 commits, through the elections of his will, occasional 
 transgressions of the law, explains nothing. The uni- 
 versality of sin, which, so far as history extends, is 
 without exception, cannot be accounted for on on the 
 supposition that innumerable individuals differing so 
 widely from each other^ all possess a free self-determi- 
 nation. And besides, this supposition would not ex- 
 plain the circumstance that that evil disposition is bom 
 13 
 
146 
 
 with us, for that a Maxim should be connatural 13 in 
 opposition to the very conception of a maxim. It is 
 by no means to be assumed that such a universal ac- 
 cordance of all free persons in a perverted maxim can 
 have its ground in freedom alone ; and the less so, 
 since, independent of its universality, the particular fact 
 that it is born with us points to an entirely different 
 domain than that of arbitrary election. It refers us 
 rather — (we speak it at the hazard of being misunder- 
 stood,) — to a dark law of nature. 
 
 But it is likewise undeniable; and, as it might 
 seem, contradictory to what has just been said, that 
 moral good and moral evil can only originate from 
 some exercise of freedom, so that the inborn imperfect 
 condition must still have its sole ground in the will as 
 the moral ability, and must adhere to the same. This 
 contradiction can only be explained on the supposition 
 that the ground of the universal state of sinfulness lies 
 in something which is both free and necessitated ; that 
 is, in an original act of the free will, the consequences 
 of which develope themselves according to the laws of 
 nature. For the solution of the problem it is express- 
 ed more definitely by saying that an original act of 
 guilt must be presupposed, through which there is im- 
 planted in human nature a preponderating inclination 
 to yield to sensuous impulses, and by means of it obe- 
 dience to the law is rendered not indeed impossible for 
 the will but exceedingly difficult, so that from this 
 cause transgressions are to be met with in the course 
 of every man's life. 
 
147 
 
 In the examination of this assumption the point 
 must not be lost sight of that we here simply inquire 
 into the Universality of sin, and consider more par- 
 ticularly that inborn, and consequently involuntary 
 disposition to it. To place this involuntariness imme- 
 diately and primarily in the will itself were, — contradic- - 
 tory. The feeling of guilt arises when the will, not 
 originally determined to evil, but finding itself called 
 upon to obey the injunctions of the better voice, does 
 nevertheless bring no determined opposition against 
 those powerful impulses which exist in the man with- 
 out his agency or concurrence. If you placed in man 
 a predetermination of the will as the source of evil — a 
 predetermination derived either immediately from the 
 Creator, or resulting from one intelligible act, — then nei- 
 ther could the reaction against evil be explained, not 
 would it ever be possible for the energy of a good will 
 to achieve a victory over sin. Both, however, be- 
 come intelligible if the occasioning cause of a Univer- 
 sal evil disposition be sought for in something out of 
 the will, namely, in an excited and strengthened sen- 
 suousness, in a preponderance of the irrational princi- 
 ple, which, (in its present state,) is interwoven into the 
 very being of human nature. Through this prepon- 
 derating influence of the Sensuous, the will is stunned 
 and can be easily seduced to sin ; this consequence, 
 however, is not rendered absolutely necessary, as in 
 very many individuals, it does by no means always 
 continue to follow. Since, now, according to what has 
 been said, the cause of so strong a solicitation cannot 
 
148 
 
 lie in the will of each individual, nor yet in the original 
 creation, so it only remains to assume a catastrophe 
 subsequently brought in — a catastrophe which could 
 not have originated from natural laws, (for if so, the 
 Creator would have been its direct cause,) but which 
 afterwards operated according to the laws of nature, 
 (because on any other supposition the involuntary uni- 
 versality of the solicitation could have no ground.) 
 This catastrophe may here be more strictly defined as 
 an original free act, anteriour to all history ; to this act, 
 however, the present human race stands related in the 
 necessary connexion of nature. 
 
 Is not this now the proper place, where a priori 
 grounds reach no farther, to present the testimony in 
 favour of this view derived from other sources ? For 
 there is a tradition among the nations, which has exist- 
 ed from time immemorial and is still current, that 
 goes far to establish the theory derived from the oc- 
 currence just presupposed. 
 
 History itself indeed, taken in the strict sense of 
 the word, does not extend back to the time of the 
 fact after which we are inquiring; but this fact is 
 rather already presupposed in all history, and sinful- 
 ness has been recognized as universally prevalent 
 through all past centuries. For our present purpose 
 it is not necessary to appeal to the more flagrant 
 crimes, many of which history records ; according to 
 her testimony, even among the Noble and Virtuous 
 of all times, the very best were those who were not 
 entirely without failings, but those who were charge- 
 
149 
 
 able with the fewest faults. And that man has always 
 been accounted virtuous, not he who was entirely free 
 from sin, (only One such, as a Miracle, shines through 
 the world's history,) but he who strove most constantly 
 and victoriously against that evil which he could not 
 yet perfectly eradicate. 
 
 So in the progress of history, the stream of life is 
 never more found to flow perfectly pure, but its watei-s 
 have always been troubled and obscured with commin- 
 gled evil. From the very earliest antiquity, however, 
 this evil was lamented, not as something originally 
 created by God, but as something subsequently in- 
 troduced; and it was the common belief that by its 
 violent entrance into the world,- and through its im- 
 purity, the pristine immaculate hfe was polluted. Ac- 
 cording to all the traditions of the earliest times which 
 have come down to us, the human race did not com- 
 mence in a state of depravity, but in a state of virtue ; 
 and they all agree that a time of happiness and in- 
 nocence preceded the centuries of sin and guilt. Par- 
 adise, the Golden Age of peace and innocence, is so 
 indelibly impressed upon the recollection of all nations, 
 and its loss has been, (the higher up the more defin- 
 itely,) so deeply felt and so universally deplored, that 
 it requires no small degree of arrogance to give the 
 lie directly and without farther examination, to the 
 unanimous testimony of the oldest generations who 
 were placed nearer to this age of original happiness. 
 It is most difficult for men to forget that which is irre- 
 coverably lost ; and hence with the knowledge of that 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 state of original happiness was, fixedly connected the 
 knowledge of its loss. Consequently the fact by 
 which that earliest purity was first and forever polluted , 
 has been transmitted in a more or less inteUigible form 
 through all subsequent traditions.^ In the oldest say- 
 
 ^ The tradition of a Golden Age is found in the earliest 
 records of history, and in all parts of the world ; it must, 
 therefore, have been antecedent to all history. Some have 
 supposed that far back in the depths of antiquity, long before 
 the Augustan days of Rome, or before civilization and sci- 
 ence had dawned upon Greece, there existed an age of re- 
 finement and learning, no traces of which have been hand- 
 ed down to us, unless, perhaps, the Orphic Fragments may 
 be referred to that period. Those most conversant with the 
 early history of the world, say that the farther history is tra- 
 ced back the more definitely is seen the influence which 
 religion exerted upon politics. It is also known that the In- 
 dians, the Chinese, the Chaldeans and Egyptians were early 
 acquainted with Astronomy, Geometry, Natural Philosophy 
 and Architecture. Hence, in conformity with the statements 
 of the oldest classic writers, and contrary to those who 
 would make the first Parents of the human race to have been 
 semi-brutes, many of the best German Historians and Phi- 
 losophers, such as Johannes von Miiller, Heeren, Herder, 
 Schlegel and Tholuck assume that man was originally pla- 
 ced by God in a high state of cultivation, and was endowed 
 with distinct apprehensions of religious truth and duty. So 
 also the celebrated Antiquary Ouverof : L'^tat naturel de 
 I'homme n'est ni I'^tat sauvage, ni I'etat de corruption, c'est 
 un ^tat simple^ meilleur, plus rapproch^ de la divinit^ ; 
 I'homme sauvage et I'homme corrompu en sont ^galement 
 
151 
 
 ings of the nations this fact was designated as the 
 FALL, or the ACT OF GUILT, in essentially the same 
 manner as is done at the present day. Of this act of 
 transgression the original parents of the human family, 
 how many or how few soever they may have been, 
 were all equally guilty. 
 
 It has already been shown that a departure from, 
 or transgression of the law, may be understood from 
 the existence of human freedom considered in itself, 
 and that it is not necessary to assume any other dispo- 
 sition in order to account for it. But according to 
 tradition this transgression of the first parents produced 
 a natural disharmony extending to all their posterity ; — 
 and from this is explained the universality of sin. 
 
 It is plain that some wonderful change must have 
 been connected with the ^rs^ step to evil ; it was a 
 transition from a state of happy innocence to one of 
 guilt and discord ; it was a perversion of original rela- 
 tions, pregnant with evil consequences, and taking 
 deep hold upon the essential character of human na- 
 
 eloign^s. "The natural condition of man is neither the savage 
 condition, nor the state of corruption, but it is a simple and 
 better state, approaching nearer to the divinity ; the savage 
 man and the corrupt man are both equally removed from it." 
 It is not necessary to mention how well these statements ac- 
 cord with the Biblical representations. For further informa- 
 tion on this interesting topic, the reader is referred to Nean- 
 der's Denkwurdigkeiteny B. I. s. 15, 211 — 216 and the author- 
 ities there quoted, or to Prof. Robinson's Bibl. Repository 
 Vol. II. p. 119—123. Tr. 
 
152 
 
 ture. The thorn of a new incitement, never before 
 experienced, must have goaded on the hitherto peace- 
 ful life to a sickly and inefficient activity. As a 
 strange violence for the first time came like a shock — 
 as the host of desires and lustful passions which had 
 before reposed in their dark depth were suddenly 
 awakened from their light slumbers — as the animal na- 
 ture which had previously remained in peaceful subjec- 
 tion was excited and broke forth in hostility from 
 its silent ground — then indeed the whole internal and 
 external organization must have been brought into wild 
 confusion by the sudden interruption of the previous 
 harmony, and there must have been experienced an 
 alteration difficult to be described. 
 
 Human life is a life only on condition tliat in it 
 should be found not pure freedom alone, but necessity 
 also ; upon which necessity it rests as upon a dark 
 ground of nature. But this dark ground once dis^ 
 placed from its benevolent relation operates rude- 
 ly and destructively, as does every blind power 
 no longer held by the bond of harmony ; and to 
 allay the driving storm, to banish back the subterra- 
 nean spirits once brought up, requires an energy of will 
 entirely different from that which first called them 
 forth from their places of repose. Yet this conflict be- 
 tween the spirit and blind impulse, arising from the 
 double nature of man, is not fully decided : and we 
 still always see how that which was intended as the 
 support of life, when brought into confusion, becomes 
 its destroyer. 
 
153 
 
 Even in the peculiar relations of the human body 
 we already see distinctly shadowed forth that co-exis- 
 tence of necessity and freedom, which is in itself indis- 
 pensable, and in the highest degree salutary. In the 
 royal seat of the head the free spirit manifests itself, 
 since it is from the brain as the support and instrument 
 of the will, that voluntary motion proceeds ; but in the 
 lower parts of the body a nature withdrawn from con- 
 sciousness and not under the control of will, performs 
 its mysterious operations in a manner not less wonder- 
 ful. This arrangement is made in order that the 
 silent functions of life, undisturbed by changeful 
 caprice, may proceed without interruption. And to 
 the end that the spirit also may not be troubled with 
 the continual supervision of the operations of the 
 earthly life, immediate insight into that depressed 
 depth is withheld from a healthy consciousness by 
 means of the salutary hmits, (the ganglia,) imposed up- 
 on it. Disorder and disease are connected with the 
 overstepping of the limits here prescribed ; and how- 
 ever remarkable and instructive the phenomenon may 
 appear, it is still true, that light cannnot fall in upon 
 this region originally consigned to peaceful darkness, 
 without a great and hostile derangement to the func- 
 tions of life. For which reason also a clear magnetic 
 insight, whilst on the one hand it affords the most im- 
 portant solutions in regard to the essential character of 
 life, and leads to the most noble views respecting it, 
 yet on the other hand cannot but prove humiliating to 
 the free spirit. 
 
154 
 
 We need not here be required to furnish any circum- 
 stantial analysis, in order to prove what is sufficiently ev- 
 ident from the foregoing remarks, that that part of the hu- 
 man being which is withdrawn from consciousness and not 
 subject to the determinations of will, yet contains with- 
 in itself a realm of great and wonderful active powers. 
 Thus the free and conscious man stands over the 
 waves and agitations of his own life, as over a conceal- 
 ed and slumbering volcano, which whosoever presump- 
 tuously dares to lay open or kindle up, it bums like 
 a consuming fire. Easily excited, these concealed 
 powers rend the thin veil which covers them ; and 
 those otherwise benevolent quahties, when brought in- 
 to disorder, turn to bitter rage and demoniacal fury. 
 The state of one who has permitted his sensuousness 
 to gain the predominance over him — a condition which 
 may daily be observed — is in like manner only to be 
 considerd as a perversion of relations, as a hostile out- 
 breaking of that which properly belongs to the depth, 
 and which in its subordinate sphere was designed to 
 promote the operations of life. 
 
 It must without controversy be assumed that the 
 first rupture caused by excited impulse was to the 
 power of human nature, yet fresh and undepraved, like 
 a mighty electrical discharge, and took place with ex- 
 traordinary violence ; and that this rupture was accom- 
 panied with particular consequences in the highest de- 
 gree remarkable in their kind. The young life, still 
 immediately warmed with the spirit of the first crea- 
 tion, in respect to good and evil must have been capa- 
 
155 
 
 ble of an energy now no longer felt ; and hence also 
 in the first fall a greatness of excited passions may 
 have been experienced which it were impossible for 
 the sluggishness of a later race to comprehend. It is 
 therefore not for one moment to be doubted but that 
 such a catastrophe had a most powerful influence upon 
 the entire being of the first Parents, and that it left be- 
 hind deep traces upon their organization. 
 
 Human nature after the fall became something 
 very different from that first and original nature ; not 
 differing indeed in essence and substance, but in regard 
 to the reciprocal relation of its powers. This modifi- 
 cation could not possibly have entered into the first 
 parents of the human family without leaving a physical 
 influence upon their posterity ; and hence we have — 
 not an hereditary sin, (for the conception of such 
 sin is in itself contradictious, and the Will is the One 
 thing which cannot be transmitted as an inheritance,) 
 — but a predominance of the irrational principle propa- 
 gated by generation,— a continual solicitation from the 
 natural side of our being, which is always striving to 
 raise itself from the depth to which it belongs, and to 
 gain over man that dominion which it was never de- 
 signed to exercise. Since, now, this side of our being, 
 as that which stands deepest, is always in the order of 
 time antecedent to the intelligent principle, and hence 
 from youth up the Reason being as yet unadmonished 
 and the Will not proportionally strengthened, they do 
 not withstand it sufficiently early ; so in the progress of 
 life this dark power by its bewitching arts introduces at 
 
156 
 
 least inefficiency and headlong precipitance, of which 
 even the best have found cause to accuse themselves. 
 
 We hope that the objection of arbitrariness will not 
 be urged against this attempt to explain the universal- 
 ity of sin. Unless we are totally deceived, throughout 
 the whole representation none but compulsory grounds 
 have been taken — not seldom, we are free to confess, 
 with the strugghng feelings and inward aversion of the 
 author. Not to mention the painfulness excited by 
 the supposition of an hereditary sin, nor to notice the 
 contradiction involved in the assertion itself, — a contra- 
 diction with which the author feels conscious that the 
 present essay is not chargeable, — yet even the as- 
 sumption of an inherited wicked disposition contains in 
 it something unkind and forbidding. — That theory 
 which places the occasioning cause of universal sinful- 
 ness, not immediately in a disposition of the Will, but 
 in that excitation of the irrational principle which took 
 place already in the first Parents, is unquestionably 
 more tolerable and in every respect more conceivable ; 
 a theory which on the one side is conformable to ex- 
 perience, and on the other still leaves open the hope 
 of victory over evil and always guarantees to man the 
 freedom of election. Both these, as it seems, must 
 fall away, if a principle of wickedness be placed origi- 
 nally in the human will itself, and if it be maintained 
 that we are therefore incapable of any good, but are 
 rather wicked by nature and born sinners. No one 
 can hesitate to consider this theory, invented for the 
 pretended honour of religion, as a calumny upon human 
 nature — a calumny which can be justified on no ground 
 
157 
 
 whatever. Besides, whosoever from a religious zeal 
 would defend the above figment also renders himself 
 obnoxious to the charge of slander against the love of 
 God towards man, which must likewise be maintained. 
 For even a fallen spirit — in reference to evil constantly 
 striving against it, although not always victorious yet 
 not absolutely wicked — may be an object of love and 
 complacency to a holy Being. That an inter-commu- 
 nion of love and of faith should exist between beings 
 diametrically opposed to each other in their characters, 
 is not possible ; but can this relation between God and 
 man be misapprehended ? Is it not plain in language 
 and in word, in tradition, in revelation and religion, 
 through all ages of the world down to the present 
 time ? 
 
 Correspondent to that attractiveness which goes 
 forth from the eternal Central Point, and which, not- 
 withstanding that sin has entered into the soul, still 
 draws it with the living bond of Divine love, there is 
 found in all religion a reflex effort of the spirit to return 
 to God ; and connected with it there is universally 
 found an amiableness and benevolence more or less 
 pure. This movement of the soul tending towards 
 and seeking the One and the Eternal as the Centre, 
 must first be annihilated before it can be said that the 
 fall of man was an entire and total apostasy ; — an irre- 
 concilable disseverance between himself and his God. 
 Nay it is even by sin, or the feeling of errour and of 
 guilt, through which an entirely peculiar inwardness 
 is imparted to religion ; and from this cause it is that 
 14 
 
158 
 
 in Christianity there is found to exist that deep serious- 
 ness, that consciousness of the need of salvation, and 
 that lively, spirited commingling of sadness and of joy. 
 To derive the origin of religion and of revelation 
 from sin itself were unsatisfactory, and woul3 give rise 
 to unworthy views. Religion is natural to every better 
 unfallen spirit ; and an inter-communion between God 
 and man is appropriate to the nature of both. Yet 
 through the introduction of sin among men there has 
 arisen a new and peculiar need of religion. On sin too 
 is grounded not only the necessity of a higher Divine 
 guidance, but also the indispensableness of a scheme of 
 atonement resting upon a particular revelation. As 
 every particular individual of the present race of men 
 becomes human only through instruction and superinten- 
 ding care, and as he stands in need of education to aid 
 his better being, and to develope and sustain his spiritual 
 part in opposition to the irrational nature ; so also (fal- 
 len) humanity in the aggregate, (in order that human 
 education may thereby have a ground and continuance,) 
 cannot surely dispense with superhuman guidance and 
 education. As in organic life where a strongly ex- 
 cited activity calls forth its antagonist principle, and 
 leads to opposition, so also by the appearance of evil 
 it was demanded that good should come forth as an an- 
 tithesis to this phenomenon ; or it became necessary 
 that good should manifest itself. This special revela- 
 tion can never cease from men until sin has not only 
 as it were interrupted, but absolutely destroyed the re- 
 ciprocal relation between God and us ; so that by this 
 
159 
 
 destruction there would be effected an entire cessation 
 of communion with God, an absolute irreconcilable dis- 
 severance. In this case, however, a perfect separation 
 would be necessary, and with the withdrawal of God 
 from theTallen creature, the necessary result would be 
 for the latter a state of entire rejection, or rather a 
 proper non-entity. 
 
 The religious doctrines of the oldest nations accord 
 with the view now presented, for among them human 
 nature was indeed universally considered as fallen, but 
 it was never regarded as having irrecoverably aposta- 
 tized. Hence we find that the hope of re-union and 
 reconciliation, (more or less distinct and perfect,) was 
 universal ; but no whefe do we find any people despair- 
 ing of a possible return. And this distrust was the less, 
 since among the most remarkable people of antiquity, 
 (as the Indians and Egyptians,) there was spread 
 abroad the belief in a means of deliverance eflFected by 
 Divine power, and a new relationship of man with God. 
 They believed God himself to be manifested in a finite 
 form of being.^ It is very instructive and affecting to 
 see in the mysterious doctrines of antiquity how the con- 
 solation of redemption always goes side by side with 
 
 ^ Tholuck has shown that the hope and expectation of a 
 Divine Restorer, of a coming age of virtue, was not confined 
 to the Indians and Egyptians, but vt^as also prevalent among 
 the Persians, the Chinese, the Greeks and the Romans, in 
 short, that it was universal. Leh, v. d. Siin. merit Beilage. 
 6.229—237. Tr. 
 
160 
 
 evil, and how, although guilt and death have come into 
 the world, yet no religion has ever recognized their 
 power as forever binding ; but rather from this wreck 
 of the first there arises another creation, and through 
 continual reformation and renewal, light springs from 
 the bosom of night, and out of the midst of death life 
 is born. 
 
 Such a view is necessary for him who feels that his 
 earthly hfe,notw^ithstanding sin, is still interpenetrated by 
 that which is above earth ; and who feels that man, 
 with all his deficiences, is yet in no way thrown without 
 the circle of the Divine life and influence. For man 
 generally this conviction is the first and most indispen- 
 sable condition of reform and salvation ; and in it 
 science finds the resolvent word which unriddles the 
 difficulty presented by the existence of evil in the world. 
 
 It is only from a religious stand-point, as it would 
 seem, that we are able to gain a view with regard to 
 the relation of sin to the holiness and wisdom of God, 
 which, although it may not embrace all the bearings and 
 connexions of the subject, may yet prove satisfactory, 
 and may serve to obviate the chief difficulties raised 
 against freedom on account of its abuse. From the 
 preceding investigation, indeed, it appears that the ex- 
 istence of sin does not render doubtful the actual and 
 present existence of the free will, but rather confirms 
 it. It is true, however, that doubts with respect to the 
 derivation of freedom from God may be raised from the 
 fact that sin is the offspring of the misuse of freedom — 
 a freedom not always infallible. All will readily con- 
 
161 
 
 cede that if there had been no freedom, sin or moral 
 evil, never could have had any existence. Hence the 
 question particularly urges itself upon our consideration ; 
 How could the Divine Will, which is and only can be 
 a Will of Good, have willed such a freedom with which 
 is evidently connected at least the possibility of evil ? 
 
 In the course of the preceding essay it has been 
 shown from ultimate grounds that such a freedom of 
 will as is possessed by finite creatures must not only 
 have had the concurrence of the Divine Will permit- 
 ting its existence, but that it must have been express- 
 ly willed by God, nay, that it must be regarded as the 
 very key stone of that creation known to us. At the 
 same time, however, we trust it has been satisfactorily 
 shown, that although no immorality were possible with- 
 out moral freedom, that yet freedom itself in its essen- 
 tial being is to be considered as a good, even as the 
 highest good of human nature ; and consequently, is 
 in no sense to be regarded as something actually evil. 
 But it is the characteristic peculiarity of this good be- 
 stowed upon humanity, that the possibility of its abuse 
 cannot be excluded without at the same time remov- 
 ing with it the good itself. He who willed that man 
 should exist, must also have willed his freedom ; but 
 he who willed human freedom, evidently could not ex- 
 clude from it the possibility of false election. The 
 Will were falsely called a self-subsistent Power if it 
 could determine in regard to one course of conduct on- 
 ly, but in reference to the other was determined by a 
 superiour destiny. Besides, we should have to call the , 
 14* 
 
162 
 
 election of good, in case the contrary were an impossi- 
 bility, unfree and worthless ; or rather there would be 
 no election at all, but absolute pre-determination. To 
 say that in leaving man free, God did by that act de- 
 cree the existence of evil, would be a groundless as- 
 sumption resting upon an ignorance of the character of 
 freedom, and upon entirely false representations of 
 God and his Will. Even Omnipotence, for the very 
 reason that it is Divine omnipotence, stands subject to 
 the laws of universal and eternal truths ; and whatsoever 
 involves in itself a contradiction, as being absolutely im- 
 possible, that is also impossible for the Divine Will. 
 
 To will the dignity of spiritual personality and of 
 morality, and yet not at the same time to will freedom, 
 were contradictory, and hence not possible even for 
 the Creator. To will the freedom of a human, that 
 is, of an imperfect being, and yet by any kind of 
 constraint to exclude from that freedom the possibility 
 of evil, would also be contradictory in itself, and there- 
 fore in no way possible for the Divine Will. It is 
 only from the fact that God willed the actual existence 
 of the Good, because he willed that the morality of a 
 personal being should rest upon free unbiassed elec- 
 tion, that he made the free creature the reflected im- 
 age of himself; between them, however, there is this 
 difference, that with the former co-exists the possi- 
 bility of evil, which can never be an object of the 
 Divine Will. But the Divine understanding saw 
 that the possibility of evil was something inseparably 
 connected with finite freedom, and that therefore it 
 
163 
 
 was the necessary condition of true, that is, of free 
 morahty. After all this it may correctly be said that 
 whosoever claims for man the impossibility of sin, at 
 the same time removes from him the possibility of 
 moral good, and thereby adjudges to evil a rank and 
 importance which by no means belong to it. 
 
 The evil actually accasioned by sin is not of itself 
 so great, that in order to prevent it, the highest good, 
 spiritual personality and self-determination, should 
 have been denied to man ; for in that case in order 
 to obviate the possibility of a relative evil, it would 
 have been necessary to impose upon him something 
 absolutely evil, viz. a mechanism incapable of moral- 
 ity. The highest end after which creation strives is 
 the self-subsistent developing of moral natures. Evil 
 should not be rendered impossible in it, but should be 
 vanquished in manly conflict. Constrained unifor- 
 mity and limitation of powers cannot in the least be 
 reconciled with the highest view of a Divine Gover- 
 nour ; and in the circumstance that God imparts to 
 the creature a freedom which can manifest itself in 
 opposition lo Him, as well as in harmony and love, 
 seems to lie the evidence not only of the highest 
 power, but also of the Divine love and self-denial. 
 Yet the influence and importance which belong to 
 the evil actually springing from this striving against 
 God, are both finite and circumscribed. Good only, 
 as participant of the Divine nature, is indestructible and 
 eternal. But evil arising as a kind of accompaniment 
 in the formation and developement of finite powers 
 
164 
 
 endowed with self-subsistence, is on this very account, 
 so far as its actualness is concerned, merely a tempo- 
 ral phenomenon. But with its first appearance in a 
 finite state commenced also a Divine method of sal- 
 vation, which throughout all periods of the w^orld has 
 been gradually developing itself. By means of this 
 redemptive plan the character of a Divine scheme 
 remains perfectly vindicated for nature and for history ; 
 and in a manner, too, which reconciles all apparent 
 contradictions, in that it is conformable to the holiness 
 and the goodness of the Creator, as well as to the free- 
 dom of the finite though not guiltless creature. 
 
 It is true in a very limited sense only that God 
 permits sin or evil, or that he ever did permit it. In 
 the whole circle of physical powers — the appropriate 
 domain of might and natural energy — no one is able- 
 to point out any thing actually evil. Considered ab- 
 solutely and in itself as an effect upon nature, an act 
 could be regarded as evil, not simply when committed 
 by an evil will striving against God, but when suffi- 
 ciently powerful to operate destructively upon the 
 system of the universe, to suspend the operation of 
 the divine laws imposed upon it, and thus to counter- 
 act the efficient determinations of God himself. But 
 no one has yet adduced any proof too show that an 
 evil act has this power ; nor has the position been con- 
 troverted that the world is upon the whole governed 
 by good and not by evil powers. Yet the Good exer- 
 cises one dominion in the circle of the physical, and 
 another in that of the spiritual and moral powers. In 
 
165 
 
 the latter there never does exist, and, according to our 
 very conception of it, never did exist on the part of 
 God, any physical constraint, and consequently no 
 compulsory prevention of moral evil. But moral 
 means of deliverance — by revelation, religion and effi- 
 cient grace — as the only conceivable principles which 
 could be brought to bear in this domain, are opposed 
 to moral evil. God has not destroyed the essential 
 character of the creature ; and the latter abusing that 
 freedom which was bestowed upon it no longer chooses 
 the right alone, but is in a continual conflict between 
 good and evil. But inasmuch as each individual's 
 sphere of action is very much circumscribed, so also 
 the evil which he may effect must be very limited ; 
 whilst on the other hand good, as participant of the 
 Divine nature, on that account carries within itself the 
 guarantee of final victory. On account of this peculi- 
 arity of good, Divine revelations, as illuminating phe- 
 nomena, shine through the most ancient history — as 
 phenomena, in which, together with the pervasion of 
 supersensuous powers, the might and energy of good 
 exhibited themselves as victorious. And from this 
 very circumstance it is plain that with God there is no 
 unconditional toleration of evil. Consequently with 
 the outbreaking of sin the infant race of man was by 
 no means annihilated in its birth, but on the contrary 
 sin itself was made the occasion of establishing a mode 
 of regeneration which no one will find to be inappro- 
 priate, who thinks that the existence and continuance 
 of humanity is at least sufferable, and who thinks the 
 
166 
 
 redemption of the world more desirable than would 
 have been its destruction. 
 
 Presumptuous as it may appear to wish to pene- 
 trate into the secrets of the Divine counsels ; and cer- 
 tain as it is that at this precise point there is opened 
 up before the spirit a depth, into which it may look in- 
 deed, (though not without shuddering and terrour,) 
 without yet being able to fathom it ; still with him 
 who acknowledges God there can be no real doubts in 
 reference to the final end of this history, for he feels 
 assured that the powers that enter upon a finite state 
 of being do all, though it may be in general, tend to 
 one grand result. Every individual or particular being 
 has actual existence conferred upon it because God 
 must manifest himself. And from the fountain of eter- 
 nal birth once opened up there burst forth every varied 
 form ; and in the progressive formation and distinction 
 of powers, upon the highest point of creation, where 
 spiritual personality is developed and free powers ope- 
 rate, there also evil makes its appearance as an accom- 
 paniment arising from that formative process. Consid- 
 ered as evil, it is not that which the active powers of 
 the world seek to attain as their end, but must rather 
 be considered as that which is to be entirely separated 
 through various clarifying processes, — as the dross 
 which is to be more and more separated from the pure 
 metal. Once separated, no longer in conflict or com- 
 mixture with the good, evil ceases to be evil ; as after 
 
167 
 
 a thorough separation the heterogeneous masses that 
 remain no longer stand in a disturbing relation with the 
 gold that has been obtained pure. 
 
 Every power strives after an end ; every course 
 seeks to return into its beginning. The creature 
 also seeks its beginning again ; yet without being at 
 the end of its seeking merely the same that it was at 
 the beginning. The conscious and personal being is 
 only as it were raised to the state of individuality, in 
 order that at the end he may, by the free self-subsis- 
 tent direction of his own spirit, bring himself so to har- 
 monize with the whole, as before creation in the peace- 
 ful depth of eternity, All Powers were as but One Pow- 
 er. Then will God be All and in All, when every 
 creature without ceasing to have an individual exist- 
 ence shall yet find itself in willing accord and harmo- 
 nious union with Him. 
 
 That now which here appears to be the end of the 
 world's history, is at the same time the problem to be 
 solved by every individual human life, in whom the laws 
 of the Universal are Spiritually repeated. Correspon- 
 dent to the voice of the indwelling conscience and of each 
 one's reason are the particular Divine revelations made 
 to man ; and these revelations are but so many eviden- 
 ces of a continual inter-communion between God and 
 us, and are at the same time so many means of impart- 
 ing light, and the power of a higher world, to those engag- 
 ed in a free conflict with darkness. As the summit of 
 all Divine revelation, but also as the Archetype of man 
 and the Image of God, Christ stands forth in the midst 
 
168 
 
 of the World's History. In him we recognize the 
 sound and living germ around which a new spiritual 
 creation is gradually formed, and from which also light 
 and energy are continually streaming forth through all 
 the arteries and veins of this new world, and whence 
 they will forever continue to stream. This temporal 
 state is not one rejected of God, but was rather chosen 
 by Him as one in which moral natures might form 
 themselves into harmony with the whole. 
 
 For dark matter also there is in reserve a higher 
 transmutation and clarification, even a concord with the 
 life of Spirits. 
 
 On the great circle which creation describes, this 
 re-union of things marks the point where the end rests 
 again upon the beginning ; and here God becomes All 
 and in All. Yet even here things cease not to have 
 their own separate existence ; but the Original Idea 
 rather shines with unsullied lustre in Each Individual 
 One. 
 
 But here we meet with objects of consideration, 
 which, although not foreign to the present inquiry, yet , 
 seem worthy of a particular and not merely an inci- 
 dental examination. Hence the author of the present 
 treatise has long had the wnsh, and has formed the deter- 
 mination, if his situation should permit, to bestow upon 
 them a more circumstantial examination at another 
 time.^ 
 
 ^ The Author did not live to accomplish liis purpose. Tr, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 
 As the word Idea is of such constant use in Philos- 
 ophy, the critical reader cannot but be pleased with the 
 following extract. It is taken from an article of pro- 
 found thought and learned research on Brown's Theo- 
 ry of Perception, and may be found in the Edinburgh 
 Review for 1830. We could not conveniently em- 
 body it in the work, and have therefore thrown it into 
 the appendix. The writer is commenting upon this 
 passage in Brown's lectures on the Philosophy of 
 Mind : " In the Philosophy of the Peripatetics, and in 
 all the dark ages of the scholastic followers of that sys- 
 tem, ideas were truly considered as little images de- 
 rived from objects without; and, as the word idea 
 still continued to be used after this original meaning 
 had been abandoned, (as it continues still, in all the 
 works that treat of perception,) it is wonderful that 
 many of the accustomed forms of expression, which 
 were retained together with it should have been of a 
 kind that, in their strict etymological meaning, m^ight 
 have seemed to harmonize more with the theory of 
 ideas as images, which prevailed when these particular 
 forms of expression originally became habitual, than 
 with that of ideas as m^e states of the mirid itself; 
 15 
 
170 
 
 since this is only what has happened with respect to 
 innumerable other words, in the transmutations of 
 meaning which they have received during the long 
 progress of scientific inquiry. The idea, in the old 
 philosophy, had been that, of which the presence im- 
 mediately preceded the mental perception, — the direct 
 external cause of perception ; and accordingly, it may 
 well be supposed, that when the direct cause of per- 
 ception was believed to be, not a foreign phantasm, 
 but a peculiar affection of the sensorial organ, that 
 word, which had formerly been appHed to the suppo- 
 sed object, would still imply some reference to the or- 
 ganic state, which was believed to supply the place of 
 the shadowy film, or phantasm, in being, what it had 
 been supposed to be, the immediate antecedent of per- 
 ception." Lect. XXVI. 
 
 " It is always unlucky to stumble on the threshold. 
 The paragraph [quoted above] in which Dr. Brown 
 opens his attack on Reid, contains more mistakes than 
 sentences ; and the etymological discussion it involves, 
 supposes as true, what is not simply false, but diamet- 
 rically opposite to the truth. Among other errors — in 
 the first place, the term ^ idea ' was never employed 
 in any system, previous to the age of Descartes, to 
 denote ' little images derived from objects without.^ 
 In the second, it was never used in any philosophy, 
 prior to the same period, to signify the immediate ob- 
 ject of perception. In the third f it was not applied 
 by the ' Peripatetics or Schoolmen,' to express an ob- 
 ject of human thought at all, In the fourth, ideas 
 
171 
 
 (taking this term for species) were not ^ in all the dark 
 ages of the scholastic followers of Aristotle/ regarded 
 as * little images derived from without ;' for a numer- 
 ous party of the most illustrious schoolmen rejected 
 species, not only in the intellect, but in the sense. In 
 the Jijth ' phantasm,' in ^ the old philosophy,' was not 
 the ' external cause of perception ' but the internal ob- 
 ject of imagination. In the sixth, the term ^ shadowy 
 film' which here and elsewhere he constantly uses, 
 shows that Dr. Brown confounds the matterless species 
 of the Peripatetics with the substantial effluxions of 
 Democritus and Epicurus 
 
 duse, quasi memhrarKZ, sunimo de cortice rerum 
 Dereptse, volitant ultro citroque per auras. 
 
 Dr. Brown in short only fails, in illustrating against 
 Reid the various meanings in which ' the old writers ' 
 employed the term idea, by the little fact, that the old 
 writers never employed the term idea at all. 
 
 The history of the word idea seems completely 
 unknown. Previous to the age of Descartes, as a phi- 
 losophical term, it was employed exclusively by the 
 Platonists, — at least exclusively in a Platonic meaning ; 
 and this meaning was precisely the reverse of that at- 
 tributed to the word by Dr. Brown ; — the idea was not 
 an object of perception — the idea was not derived from 
 without, — In the schools, so far from being a current 
 psychological expression, as he imagines, it had no 
 other application than a theological. Neither, after 
 the revival of letters, was the term extended by the 
 Aristotelians even to the objects of intellect, Melanc- 
 
178 
 
 thon indeed (who was a kind of semi-Platonist) uses it 
 on one occasion as a synonyme for notion, or intelligi- 
 ble species (De Anima, p. 187, ed. 1555 ;) but it 
 was even to this solitary instance, we presume, that 
 Julius Scaliger alludes (De Subtilitaie, VI, 4,) when 
 he castigates such an application of the word as neo- 
 teric and abusive. Q Melanch.' is on the margin.) — 
 We should have distinctly said that previous to its em- 
 plpyment by Descartes himself, the expression had 
 n^ver been used as a comprehensive term for the im- 
 mediate objects of thought, had we not in remem- 
 brance the Historia Animce Humance of our country- 
 man David Buchanan. This work, originally written 
 in French, had for some years been privately circula- 
 ted previous to its publication at Paris in 1636. Here 
 we find the word idea familiarly employed, to express 
 the objects, not only of intellect proper, but of mem- 
 ory, imagination, sense ; and this is the earliest exam - 
 pie of such an employment. For the Discourse on 
 Method in which this term is used by Descartes in an 
 equal latitude, was at least a year later in its publica- 
 tion — viz., in June 1637. Adopted soon after also by 
 Gassendi, the word under such imposing patronage 
 gradually won its way into general use. In England, 
 however, Locke may be said to have been the first 
 who naturalized the term in its Cartesian Universality. 
 Hobbes employs it, and that historically, only once or 
 twice ; Henry More and Cud worth are very chary of 
 it, even when treating of the Cartesian philosophy ; 
 [relatively to More this assertion is broadly incorrect. 
 
173 
 
 His philosophic pages which he occupies with the 
 higher forms of metaphysical discussion are literally 
 sprinkled with the word idea,] Willis rarely uses it ; 
 while Lord Herbert, Reynolds, and the English philos- 
 ophers in general, between Descartes and Locke, do 
 not apply it psychologically at all. When in common 
 language employed by Milton and Dry den, after Des- 
 cartes, as before him, by Sidney, Spenser, Shak- 
 speare. Hooker, &c., the meaning is Platonic. Our 
 Lexicographers are ignorant of the difference. 
 
 The fortune of this word is curious. Employed 
 by Plato to express the real forms of the intelHgible 
 world, in lofty contrast to the unreal images of the sen- 
 sible ; it was lowered only when Descartes extended 
 it to the objects of our consciousness in general. 
 When, after Gassendi, the school of Condillac had an- 
 alyzed our highest faculties into our lowest, the idea 
 was still farther degraded from its high original. Like 
 a fallen angel, it was relegated from the sphere of Di- 
 vine intelligence, to the atmosphere of human sense ; 
 till at last by a double blunder in philosophy atid 
 Greek, IdeOlogie (for Idealogie,) a word which 
 could only properly suggest an a j)riori scheme, dedu- 
 cing our knowledge from the intellect, has in France 
 become the name peculiarly distinctive of that philoso- 
 phy of mind which exclusively derives our knowl- 
 edge from sensation. — Word and thing, idea, has been 
 the crux philosophorum, since Aristotle cursed it to 
 the present day ; — tug de ideag xcclQu&i ' tsgitiafimiit 
 yug Hoi:' Vol. LU. p. 181-^. 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 B. 
 
 The remarks in the text to which this note refers 
 are evidently levelled against the theory of Kant, who, 
 it is well known, maintained the doctrine of two reasons, 
 or Reason under the twofold form of the Speculative 
 and the Practical. Speculative reason strives to give 
 unity and comprehension to all knowledge by classify- 
 ing our ideas, and ranging them under particular heads, 
 such as absolute substance, absolute cause, and the like. 
 Practical reason aims to give unity and consistency to 
 all our desires and the objects to which they are direct- 
 ed, by holding forth to our view ideas and principles 
 which it generates ; or it is the province of practical 
 reason to subordinate our desires and conform them to 
 the moral law. Reason, therefore, in so far as it has 
 power to regulate our desiring faculty, is practical, be- 
 cause it does by that means determine our practice. 
 That faculty which is susceptible of being directed to 
 action through the determining power of reason is the 
 Will. Practical Reason is therefore the same with 
 Will. 
 
 Kant held that the pure reason is in possession of 
 sciences, a priori, as mathematics and philosophy, 
 which are grounded in the unconditioned, the absolute 
 and the eternal. That these forms of cognition may 
 from sense through the understanding be traced up to 
 their fountain analytically, or may be evolved synthet- 
 ically. He believed in the actualness of an outer 
 
175 
 
 world, but declared that we can know nothing of it in 
 itself; and of matter considered in itself he would not 
 ever predicate existence in time and space. He assert- 
 ed that all we can know of it are the phenomena of 
 which we are conscious ; these phenomena are in the 
 mind, we cannot tell any thing about their essential 
 character, and they succeed each other according to 
 fixed laws of necessity. So in action, all that we know 
 of freedom is our consciousness of it ; we can tell noth- 
 ing about it considered in and of itself. Freedom, in 
 his system, is the only one among all the ideas of the 
 speculative reason, which, without yet having an insight 
 into it, we are able to know a priori^ because it is the 
 condition of the moral law with which we are acquaint- 
 ed. (In another place, however, we are told that the 
 moral law is the only condition under which we can 
 first become conscious of freedom. In order to recon- 
 cile this seeming contradiction we must bear in mind 
 that with him Freedom is, indeed, the ratio essendi of 
 the moral law, but that the moral law itself is the ratio 
 cognoscendi oii freedoin. For if the moral law were 
 not distinctly developed in our reason and apprehend- 
 ed by it, we should never be justified in assuming the 
 existence of freedom. And conversely, were there no 
 freedom, we should never meet within us any such 
 thing as the moral law.) The ideas of God and im- 
 mortality are not conditions of the moral law, but they 
 are only the conditions of a will determined by this 
 law, that is, conditions merely of the practical employ- 
 ment of our pure reason. It is, therefore not only im- 
 
176 
 
 possible for us to have any apprehension or insight into 
 the actualness of these ideas, but we cannot even know 
 any thing of their possibiUty. Still, however, their 
 real existence must be assumed for the behoof of mor- 
 al action ; and it is sufficient for all practical purposes 
 that they involve no impossibility nor inward contradic- 
 tion. He therefore assumes freedom as a postulate 
 of the practical reason, without clearly showing wheth- 
 er, in a higher and transcendental sense, it may not be 
 under the law of a rigorous and unchanging necessity. 
 It would seem, th en, that all which Kant concedes to us 
 physiologically and psychologically, is a series of con- 
 scious phenomena ; in the wide universe of being he has 
 left nothing but a number of unknown quantities — of 
 things in themselves nothing can be predicated, they 
 are without form, and lie far beyond the circumference 
 of human vision. 
 
 Tennemann in noticing Kant's Practical Reason speaks 
 thus : Reason, however, is not merely theoretic, but is 
 also practical in the determination of the will, by the 
 ideas of duty and right. An examination of the concep- 
 tion of duty, and a good will in which even common 
 reason places the highest worth of humanity, leads to 
 a recognition of practical knowledge a priori, in which 
 we find delineated or determined not that which is, 
 but that which should be. The practical reason is au- 
 tonomic [self-law-giving, ainog v6f>togj] it determines 
 only the form of the will, and pre-supposes freedom as a 
 necessary condition. The moral law, in opposition to an 
 empirically determined act of choice^ exhibits itself un- 
 
OF TH« \ 
 
 der the character of a categorical imperative^ (aa abso- : 
 lute Ought [unconditional duty]), and -places itself at 
 the very summit of the practical philosophy. As the 
 universal rule of every rational will, this Imperative 
 with stern necessity precribes a universal conformity 
 to the law [of duty] ; and by that means it establishes 
 the highest absolute end and motive of acting, which 
 should not be a pathalogical feeling [mechanical or 
 blind instinct,] but a reverence for the law, as virtue is 
 the moral strength of a man's will in the pursuance of 
 his duty, (that is, of moral compulsion by his law-giving 
 reason,) or in the subordinating of his propensities and 
 inclinations to reason. The ideas of God, of immortal- 
 ity and of freedom, obtain through the moral law real- 
 ity and certainty. Yet this conviction of their certainr 
 ty is no theoretic knowledge, but simply a practical 
 belief of reason, (Moraltheologie). Grundriss <§> 383. 
 p. 469, 470. 
 
 In order that Kant might be permitted to speak for 
 himself on this point we have ventured to undertake the 
 translation of a passage from his own writings. 
 
 Of the Idea of a Critic of the practical Reason, 
 
 The theoretic employment of reason busies itself 
 merely with objects of the cognitive faculty, and a Crit- 
 ic of Reason, when considered in reference to this em- 
 ployment, properly treats, only of the pure faculty of 
 cognition, because this at once awakens the suspicion, 
 which is also subsequently confirmed, that it may easi- 
 
178 
 
 ly lose itself in striving after objects unattainable and 
 beyond its own boundaries, or amid conceptions al- 
 together condictious of each other. The case, how- 
 ever, is entirely otherwise in respect of the practical 
 use of reason. In this latter employment the reason 
 is occupied with the grounds of determining the Will, 
 which is a faculty that in outward acts is able to em- 
 body objects corresponding to subjective representa- 
 tions, or at least it has power to determine itself to- 
 wards the actualizing of these representations, (wheth- 
 er the physical ability may be sufficient for the accom- 
 plishment or not,) that is, it can establish its own cau- 
 sality. For the reason can at least attain to the Will's 
 determination, and only in so far as it is concerned 
 with the act of willing does it possess objective reality. 
 Here then rises the first question : Is the pure reason 
 of itself alone sufficient for the determination of the 
 will, [does it determine the will], or is it a ground of 
 determination only as an empirically conditioned rea- 
 son ? 
 
 But here now there enters into the account a 
 conception of causality justified by a Critic of the pure 
 Reason, but susceptible of no empirical delineation^ 
 namely, the conception of Freedom ; and could we 
 here discover reasons to prove that this attribute does 
 in fact belong to the human will, (and therefore also to 
 the will of every rational being,) it would thereby be 
 shown not only that the pure reason may be practical, 
 but that it alone, and not the empirically circumscribed 
 reason, is practical in an unconditional manner. Con- 
 
179 
 
 sequently we would have no occasion to elaborate a 
 Critic of the pure practical Reason, but simply of the 
 practical Reason in general. For pure Reason, when 
 it is in the first place proved that there is such, stands 
 in no need of a Critic. It is that which contains with- 
 in itself the standard, (measuring-line, Richtschnur,) of 
 a Critic in respect to all its different employments. It 
 therefore becomes obligatory upon a Critic of the prac- 
 tical reason generally, to keep back the empirically 
 conditioned reason from abrogating to itself the claim 
 that it alone in an exclusive way is to furnish the 
 ground of the will's determination. The use of the 
 pure reason, if it is once made out that there is such, 
 is simply immanent ; but the empirically conditioned 
 employment, which arrogates to itself the sole execu- 
 tive dominion, is on the contrary transcendent, and 
 manifests itself in requisitions and commands which as- 
 cend up above its sphere. This relation is directly 
 the opposite of that which can be predicated of the pure 
 reason in its speculative employment. 
 
 Meanwhile, since it is still always pure reason, 
 the cognition of which here lies as the basis of the 
 practical use, so, in its general features, the division or 
 distribution of a Critic of the practical reason must be 
 graduated conformably to that of the speculative. We 
 must, therefore, have in it a Doctrine of Elements and 
 a Doctrine of Method, as in that of the speculative 
 Reason. In the first part is required an Analytic, as a 
 rule of truth, and a Dialectic as an exhibition and a so- 
 lution of the phenomena exhibited in judgments of the 
 
180 
 
 practical reason. But in the subdivisions of the Analytic 
 the order must be the reverse of that which it is in the 
 Critic of the pure Speculative Reason. In the present 
 case, (practical reason,) beginning with fundamental 
 principles we proceed first to conceptions, and then 
 where it is possible, to the senses ; but in the speculative 
 reason, on the contrary, we must commence with the 
 senses, and end with fundamental principles. The 
 ground of this again lies herein : that at present we 
 have to do with a will, and have to consider the reason 
 not in relation to objects, but in relation to this will 
 and its causality ; since the fundamental principles of the 
 empirically unconditioned causality necessarily consti- 
 tute the beginning, after which the attempt can first be 
 made to fix firmly our conceptions of ihe determining 
 ground of such a will in its application to objective ends, 
 and finally in its application to the subject, and the sub- 
 ject's sensitive faculty. The law of causality proceeding 
 from freedom, that is, from some pure practical funda- 
 mental principle, here inevitably constitutes the begin- 
 ning, and establishes the objective ends to which alone it 
 can be directed. Critikder pract, Veniunft, Einleit. 
 
 Concerning knowledge ; Behold, saith Moses, I 
 have set before you this day good and evil, life and 
 death. Concerning Will, he addeth immediately, 
 Choose life ; that is to say, the things that tend unto 
 life, them choose. But of one thing we must have 
 
181 
 
 special care, as being a 'matter of no small moment, 
 and that is, how the Will, properly and strictly taken, 
 as it is of things which are referred unto the end that 
 man desireth, differeth greatly from that inferior nat- 
 ural desire which we call Appetite. The object of 
 Appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished 
 for; the object of Will is that good which Reason 
 doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, 
 and fear, and anger, and such like, being as it were 
 the sundry forms and fashions of Appetite, can neither 
 arise at the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose 
 but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is 
 not altogether in our power, whether we will be stirred 
 with affections or no. Whereas actions which issue 
 from a disposition of the Will, are in the power there- 
 "of to be performed or stayed. Finally, Appetite is 
 the Will's Solicitor, and the Will is Appetite's ►con- 
 troller ; what we covet according to the one, by the 
 other we often reject. Neither is any other desire 
 termed properly Will, but that where Reason and 
 Understanding, or the ghew of Reason, prescribeth 
 the thing desired. It may be therefore a question 
 whether those operations of men are to be counted 
 voluntary, wherein that good which is sensible provo- 
 kelh Appetite, and Appetite causeth action, Reason 
 being never called to counsel ; as when we eat or 
 drink, and betake ourselves unto rest, and such like. 
 The truth is, that such actions in men, having attain- 
 ed to the use of Reason, are voluntary : for as the 
 authority of higher powers hath force even in tbos^ 
 16 
 
182 
 
 things which are done without their privity, and are 
 of so mean reckoning, that to acquaint them there- 
 with it needeth not : in hke sort, voluntarily we are 
 said to do that also, which the Will, if it hsted, might 
 hinder from being done, although about the doing 
 thereof we do not expressly use our Reason or Un- 
 derstanding, and so immediately apply our Wills there- 
 unto. In cases therefore of such facility, the Will doth 
 yield her assent, as it were, with a kind of silence, by 
 not dissenting ; in which respect her force is not so 
 apparent as in express- mandates or prohibition, espe- 
 cially upon advice and consultation going before. 
 Where Understanding therefore needeth, in those 
 things Reason is the director of Man's Will, by dis- 
 covering in action what is good. For Laws of well- 
 doing are the dictates of right Reason. Hooker 
 Eccles. Pol B. I. 
 
 D. 
 
 As the Ideas of the Deity, and of the Perfect, 
 constitute the first and the last truths of Philosophy 
 as well as of Religion, and as the views advanced by 
 our author are oftentimes controverted, it will be in- 
 teresting to hear what two of England's greatest scbol-^ 
 ars and thinkers have said on the point. 
 
 ^^ It is true, indeed, that the Deity is more incom- 
 prehensible to us than any thing else whatsoever, 
 which proceeds from the fullness of its being and per- 
 fection, and from the transcendency of its brightness ; 
 
183 
 
 but for the very same reason it may be said also, in 
 some sense, that it is more knowable and conceivable 
 than any thing. As the sun, though by reason of its 
 excessive splendour, it dazzle our weak sight, yet it is 
 notwithstanding far more visible also than any of the 
 nebuloece stellce, the small misty stars. Where there 
 is more of light there is more of visibility ; so where 
 there is more of entity, reality, and perfection, there 
 is more of conceptibility and cognoscibility ; such an 
 object filling up the mind more, and acting more strong- 
 ly upon it. Nevertheless, because our weak and im- 
 perfect minds are lost in the vast immensity and redun- 
 dancy of the Deity, and overcome with its transcend- 
 ant light and dazzling brightness, therefore hath it to 
 us an appearance of darkness and incomprehensibility ; 
 as the unbounded expansion of light, in the clear trans- 
 parent ether, hath to us the apparition of an azure 
 obscurity ; which yet is not an absolute thing in itself, 
 but only relative to our sense, and a mere fancy in us. 
 The incomprehensibility of the Deity is so far 
 from being an argument against the reality of its exist- 
 ence, as that it is rhost certain, on the contrary, that 
 were there nothing incomprehensible to us, who are 
 but contemptible pieces, and small atoms of the uni- 
 verse; were there no other being in the world, but 
 what our finite understandings could span or fathom, 
 and encompass round about, look through and through, 
 have a commanding view of, and perfectly conquer 
 and subdue under them ;. then could there be nothing 
 absolutely and infinitely perfect, that is, no God. For 
 
184 
 
 though that of Empedocles be not true in a literal 
 sense, as it seems to have been taken by Aristotle 
 yaia fiip ydg ycuav &;c. that by earth we see earth, by 
 water, water, and by fire, fire ; and understand every 
 thing by something of the same within ourselves : yet 
 is it certain, that every thing is apprehended by some 
 internal congruity in that which apprehends, which 
 perhaps was the sense intended by that noble philo- 
 sophic poet. Wherefore it cannot possibly otherwise 
 be, but that the finiteness, scantness, and imperfection 
 of our narrow understandings must make them as- 
 symetral, or incommensurate, to that which is abso- 
 lutely and infinitely perfect." Cudworth's Intellect. 
 Syst.ofthe Universe. Lond. 1820 Vol. III. p. 221-3. 
 '^ 1. Those who deny Infinity in God, must ne- 
 cessarily attribute it to something] else, as to infinite 
 Space, infinity of succession ol ages and persons, if tliS 
 world were eternal ; and therefore it is most unreasona- 
 ble to reject any notion for that which it is impossible, 
 but if I deny that, I must attribute it to something else, 
 to whose Idea it is far less proper than it is to God's. 
 2. Lest I should rather seek to avoid the argument 
 than to satisfy it, I say, that though infinite as in- 
 finite cannot be comprehended, yet may we clearly 
 and distinctly apprehend a Being to be of that nature 
 that no limits can be assigned to it, as to its Power or 
 Presence : which is as much as to understand it to be 
 infinite. The ratio formalis of Infinity may not be 
 understood clearly and distinctly, but yet the Being 
 which is infinite may be. Infinity itself cannot be on 
 
185 
 
 this account, because however positive we apprehend 
 itj yet we always apprehend it in a negative way, be- 
 cause we conceive it by denying all limitations and 
 bounds to it ; but the Being which is infinite we appre- 
 hend in a Positive Manner, although not adequately, 
 because we cannot comprehend all which is in it. As 
 we may clearly and distinctly see the sea, though we 
 cannot discover the bounds of it ; so may we clearly and 
 distinctly apprehend some Perfections of God when 
 we fix our minds on them, although we are not able to 
 grasp them altogether in our narrow and confined in- 
 tellects, because they are infinite. Thus we see that 
 God's Infinity doth not at all abate the clearness and 
 distinctness of the notion which we have of God ; so 
 that though the perfections of God are without bounds 
 or limits, yet it bears no repugnance at all to men's nat- 
 ural faculties, to have a settled Idea of a Being infinitely 
 Perfect in their minds. 
 
 It seems highly probable and far more consonant 
 to Reason than the contrary, that this Idea of God 
 upon the mind of man, is no merely fictitious Idea, 
 but that it is really imprinted therq by that God whose 
 Idea it is, and therefore doth suppose a reality in the 
 thing correspondent to that objective reality which is in 
 the understanding. For although I am not so well satis- 
 fied that the mere objective reality of the Idea of God 
 doth exceed the efficiency of the mind, as that Idea 
 is nakedly considered in itself, because of the unlimit- 
 ed power of the understanding in conception : yet I 
 say considering that Idea in all the circumstances of it, 
 16* 
 
186 
 
 it seems highly probable that it is no mere ens rationis, 
 or figment of the understanding : and that will appear 
 on these considerations : 1 . This Idea is of such a 
 nature as could not be framed from the understanding's 
 consideration of any corporeal phantasms. Because 
 whatever hath any thing of matter in it, involves of 
 necessity many imperfections along with it ; for every 
 part of matter is divisible into more parts. Now it is 
 a thing evident to natural light that it is a greater per- 
 fection not to be divisible than to be so. Besides, cor- 
 poreal phantasms are so far from helping us in forming 
 this Idea, that they alone hinder us from a distinct 
 conception of it, while we attend to them ; because 
 these bear no proportion at all to such a Being. So 
 that this Idea however must be a pure act of Intellec- 
 tion, and therefore supposing there were no other 
 Faculty in man but imagination, it would bear the 
 greatest repugnancy to our conceptions, and it would 
 be according to the principles of Epicurus and some 
 modern philosophers, a thing wholly impossible to 
 form an Idea of God, unless with Epicurus we imagine 
 him to be corporeal, which is to say he is no God. 
 ' Which was the reason that TuUy said Epicurus did on- 
 ly, nomine ponere, re tollere deos, because such a 
 notion of God is repugnant to natural light. So that 
 if this Idea doth wholly abstract from corporeal phan- 
 tasms, it thereby appears that there is a higher Faculty 
 in man's soul than mere imagination, and it is hardly 
 conceivable whence a faculty which thus extends to 
 an infinite object should come, but from an Infinite 
 
187 
 
 Being: especially if we consider ; Secondly, That the 
 understanding in forming this Idea of God, doth not 
 by distinct acts first collect one perfection, and then 
 another, and at last unite these together, but the sim- 
 plicity and unity of all these perfections is as necessarily 
 conceived as any of them. Granting then that the 
 understanding by the observing of several perfections 
 in the world, might be able to abstract these severally 
 from each being wherein they were, yet whence 
 should the Idea of the Unity and the Inseparability 
 of all these Perfections come ? The mind may, 
 it is true, knit some things together in fictitious ideas, 
 but then those are so far from unity with each other, 
 that in themselves they speak mutual repugnancy to 
 one another, which makes them proper entia ratio- 
 nis, but these several perfections are so far from speak- 
 ing repugnancy to each other that the Unity and In- 
 separability of them is as necessary to the forming of 
 this Idea, as any other perfection whatsoever. So 
 that hence it appears that the consideration of the per- 
 fections which are in the creatures, is only an occasion 
 given to the mind to help it in its Idea of God, and 
 not that the Idea itself depends upon those perfec- 
 tions as the causes of it : as in the clearest math- 
 ematical truths the manner of demonstratioa may 
 be necessary to help the understanding to its clear 
 assent, though the things in themselves be undoubtedly 
 true. 3. It appears that this is no merely fictitious 
 Idea from the uniformity of it in all persons who have 
 freed themselves from the entanglements of corporeal 
 phantasms. Those we call entia rationis, we find by 
 
188 
 
 experience in our minds that they are formed ad pla- 
 citum, we may imagine them as many ways as we 
 please ; but we see it is quite otherwise in this Idea of 
 God ; for in those attributes or perfections which by 
 the light of nature we attribute to God, there is an uni- 
 form consent in all those who have divested their minds 
 of corporeal phantasms in their conceptions of God. 
 For while men have agreed that the object of their 
 Idea is a Being absolutely Perfect, there hath been no 
 dissent in the perfections which have been attributed to 
 it ; none have questioned but that infinite Wisdom, 
 Goodness and Power, joined with necessity of exist- 
 ence, have been all implied in this idea. It is hardly 
 conceivable there should be so universal a consent of 
 minds in this Idea, were it not a natural result from 
 the free use of our Reason and Faculties." Bishop 
 Siillingfleefs Origines Sacrce^ B.III. ch. I. V. VI. p. 
 234—6. 
 
 E. 
 
 Even now there are not a few, on whose convic- 
 tions it will not be uninfluencive to know, that the 
 power by which men are led to the truth of things, in- 
 stead of the appearances, was deemed and entitled the 
 living and subtantial Word of God by the soundest of 
 the Hebrew Doctors ; that the eldest and most pro- 
 found of the Greek philosophers demanded assent to 
 their doctrine, mainly as Ooocfla eonaQadoiog^ i. e. a 
 traditionary wisdom that had its origin in inspiration : 
 
189 
 
 that those men referred the same power to the nvQ kw 
 CcDOP V710 diovyiovvTog AOFOT; and that they were 
 scarcely less express than their scholar Philo Judaeus, 
 in their affirmations of the Logos, as no mere attribute 
 or quality, no mode of abstraction, no personification, 
 but literally and mysteriously Deus alter et idem. 
 
 The very same truth [that the Life is the Light of 
 men] is found in a fragment of the Ephesian Heracli- 
 tus, preserved by Stobaeus, and in somewhat different _ 
 words by Diogenes Laertius. Avv v6(a Xiyoviag /a/u- 
 QiCeod'ai yQTi tm :'^vvco navzcov' zQeqovTac yag navii? 
 ol av&QOjnlvov voov vno ivog xov '&atov (Aoyov *) ^QaTel 
 yoLQ ToaovTOv okogov id^skei, kuI e^ccgael 7iaat> aat nsQL" 
 yiveiui. Translation : — To discourse rationally (=if 
 we would render the discursive understanding " dis- 
 course of Reason^ ^) it behoves us to derive strength 
 from that which is common to all men : (=the light 
 that lighteth every man.) For all human understand^ 
 ings are nourished by the one Divine Word, whose 
 power is commensurate with his will, and is sufficient 
 for all and overfloweth (=shineth in darkness, and is 
 not contained therein, or comprehended by darkness.) 
 Aids to Reflection, p. 387, 8. 
 
 The learned Cudworth in the preface to his great 
 work speaks thus : '^ Moreover we have in the fourth 
 chapter, largely insisted also upon the Trinity. The 
 reason whereof was, because it came in our way, and 
 our contents engaged us thereunto, in order to the giv- 
 ing a full account of the Pagan theology, it being cer- 
 tain that the Platonics and Pythagoreans, at least, if 
 
190 
 
 not other Pagans also, bad their Trinity as well as 
 Christians. And we could not well avoid the compar- 
 ing of these two together : upon which occasion we 
 take notice of a double Platonic Trinity ; the one spu- 
 rious and adulterated of some later Platonists : the oth- 
 er true and genuine, of Plato himself, Parmenides, and 
 the ancients. The former of which, though it be op- 
 posed by us to the Christian Trinity and confuted, yet 
 betwixt the latter and that, do we find a wonderful cor- 
 respondence : which is largely pursued in the Platonic 
 Christian apology. Wherein, notwithstanding, nothing 
 must be looked upon as dogmatically asserted by us, 
 but only offered and submitted to the judgment of the 
 learned in these matters ; we confining ourselves in 
 this mysterious point of the Holy Trinity, within the 
 compass of these its three essentials declared : — First, 
 that it is not a trinity of mere names or words, or of 
 logical notions only ; but of persons or hypostases. — 
 Secondly, that none of those persons or hypostases are 
 creatures, but all uncreated. — And, lastly, that they 
 are all three, truly and really One God. Nevertheless 
 we acknowledge, that we did therefore the more copi- 
 ously insist upon this argument, because of our then 
 designed defence of Christianity; we conceiving that 
 this parallelism, betwixt the ancient or genuine Pla- 
 tonic and the Christian Trinity, might bd of some use 
 to satisfy those amongst us, who boggle so much at the 
 trinity, and look upon it as the choke-pear of Chris- 
 tianity ; when they shall find that the freest wits 
 amongst the Pagans, and the best philosophers, who 
 
191 
 
 had nothing of superstition to determine them that 
 way, were so far from being shy of such an hypothesis, 
 as that they were even fond thereof. — * * * True, 
 indeed, our beHef of the Holy Trinity is founded up- 
 on no Pagan Cabala, but only Scripture revelation ; it 
 being that, which Christians are, or should be, all bap- 
 tized into. Nevertheless these things are reasonably 
 noted by us to this end, that that should not be made 
 a prejudice against Christianity and revealed religion, 
 nor looked upon as such an afFrightful bugbear or mor- 
 mo in it, which even Pagan philosophers themselves, and 
 those of the most accomplished intellectuals, and un- 
 captivated minds, though having neither councils, nor 
 creeds, nor scriptures, had so great a propensity 
 and readiness to entertain, and such a veneration for." 
 Vol. I, p. 60-2. 
 
 It should perhaps be mentioned here, that some 
 recent German writers have endeavoured to show 
 that the Idea of a Trinity is not to be found in the 
 writings of Plato. Yet even if this were true it 
 would not disprove the -principle involved in the 
 preceding remarks. For in addition to the traces of a 
 trinity in a Divine Being current among the Jews of 
 Alexandria and the Platonists, there are many other 
 indications of the same in all the East, particularly 
 among the Indians and Egyptians ; which is proof suf- 
 ficient that this doctrine, whencesoever it may have 
 been first derived, whether from outward or inward 
 revelation, or from tradition, is not so repugnant to the 
 principles and the belief of the human mind. Indeed 
 
192 
 
 Neander says that " The Idea of a God not wrapt up 
 in himself, but manifesting himself — without which 
 there could be found no perfect revelation of God, — 
 nay, of a God imparting even his own essence, is the 
 fundamental Idea of Christianity, and also the basis of 
 ALL LIVING Theism." Alg. Kircheng. B. II. abt. II. 
 p. 789. 
 
 If, as some maintain, the Idea of the Trinity so 
 far transcends the apprehension of all finite faculties, 
 and if yet this doctrine be found in the Bible, we might 
 ask whether the Prophets and Apostles who were the 
 instruments of communicating this revelation had any 
 distinct apprehension of it ? And if so, were they still 
 men ? If it be necessary that a super-human agency 
 be brought to bear upon the mind in order to en- 
 able it to apprehend the doctrine of the Trinity, do all 
 enjoy that Divine aid, or do they not ? If not, is that 
 doctrine a truth for them ? Or, if the mind in itself 
 or in conjunction with those supernatural influences 
 vouchsafed to all, had not a capacity or adaptedness to 
 the apprehension of the highest spiritual truths, could 
 those truths be communicated to it by writing or ver- 
 bal address ? Can an ape be brought to apprehend the 
 principles of mathematics ? And why? 
 
 Plotinus, as quoted by Coleridge, says : " To those to 
 whose imagiation it has never been presented, how beau- 
 tiful is the countenance of justice and wisdom ; and that 
 neither the morning nor the evening star is so fair. For, 
 in order to direct the view aright, it behoves that the be- 
 holder should have made himself congenerous and simi- 
 
193 
 
 lar to the object beheld. Never could the eye have 
 beheld the sun, had not its own essence been soliform," 
 (that is, pre-configured to light by a similarity of es- 
 sence with that of light,) " neither can a soul not beau- 
 tiful attain to an intuition of beauty." Nor, we may 
 add, can a mind in its nature not adapted to form an 
 Idea of the Trinity, ever attain to an afpprehension of 
 the Trinity. On the use of Reason in Religion 
 Quenstedt aptly remarks : " Sine usu rationis nemo in 
 theologia versari potest ; neque enim brutis aut animal" 
 ibus, rationis expertibus, proponenda est theologia. 
 Uti itaque homo sine oculis non potest videre, sine 
 auribus non potest audire, ita sine ratione, sine qua ne 
 quidem homo est, non potest percipere, quae fides com- 
 plectitur. With Saurin, Bayle believed that the chris- 
 tian doctrines accord with reason, but that human rea- 
 son cannot perceive this accordance. He did not doubt 
 but that the mysteries of Christianity were conformable 
 to the high absolute reason of God, but he believed that 
 the small imperfect part of reason communicated to 
 man is not sufficient to afford him an insight into that 
 agreement. Leibnitz held that the mysteries of the 
 christian faith are not opposed to reason but above it. 
 He made two classes of truths, the one eternal and 
 necessary, the opposite of which would be a contradic- 
 tion ; and the other positive truths, or those laws which 
 God, according to his own wisdom and goodness, im- 
 posed upon creation. Nothing can contradict the for- 
 mer, and therefore nothing can be absolutely opposed 
 to reason ; the latter may be subordinated to higher 
 17 
 
194 
 
 grounds, and consequently some things may be above 
 our reason. He thought also that much confusion arose 
 from confounding the words to comprehend and to ex- 
 plain. Les mysteres surpassent notre raison, car ils 
 contiennent des verites qui ne sont comprises dans cet 
 enchainment ; mais ils ne sont point contraires a notre 
 raison, et ne contredisent a ancune des verites ou cet 
 enchainment nous pent mener. 
 
 II y a souvent un peu de confusion dans les expres- 
 sions de ceux qui commettent ensemble la philosophic 
 et la theologie, ou la foi et la raison ; ils confondent ex- 
 pliquer, comprendre, yrouvevy soutenir. Les mysteres 
 se peuvent expliquer, autant qu'il faut pour les croire ; 
 mais on ne les sauroit comprendre, ni faire entendre 
 comment ils arrivent. On this subject generally, many 
 remarks rich in thought and profound may be seen in 
 Tvvesten's Dogmatik, B. I. ss. 463-496. Without 
 an outward revelation correspondent to the law written 
 upon the heart, in order that the former might serve to 
 elicit the latter and awaken it to life, and without su- 
 pernatural or Divine influences to enable him to rise 
 above himself and to withstand the promptings of an 
 inward depravity as well as to attain to clear intuitions 
 of objects spiritual and unseen, forlorn indeed were 
 man. And although, compared with the full-orbed 
 day of Christianity, Paganism was but the dark night 
 of religion, still on examination we shall find that night 
 to have been studded with twinkling and heavenly stars, 
 
195 
 
 The prominence which our author concedes to Schel- 
 ling, and the little that is known of him in this coun- 
 try, will be a sufficient justification for our dwelling 
 with the more particularity upon him. He is univer- 
 sally allowed to have been a thinker of great depth 
 and originality. But at the same that this acknowl- 
 edgement is made, and whilst some of the most judi- 
 cious writers in Germany admit their indebtedness to 
 him, they yet charge his philosophy with being essen- 
 tially pantheistic, and accuse him of radical errour in ma- 
 ny of his fundamental principles. The annexed de- 
 scription of himself and his system by one of his own 
 countrymen, although partaking somewhat of the char- 
 acter of the humourous, will be read with interest. Af- 
 ter speaking of Fichte and various other of Schelling's 
 predecessors, the writer proceeds : 
 
 Now came Schelling. He sought not so much to 
 balance accurately the opposition between the Sub- 
 jective and the Objective, as to deduce from their ori- 
 ginal union, (identity,) the Philosophy of Identity, of 
 which the two poles are the philosophy of Being, (phi- 
 losophy of nature,) and the philosophy of Knowing, 
 (transcendental Idealism.) He was a bright phe- 
 nomenon, perhaps the most distinguished that has 
 ever appeared in the domain of philosophy. Who has 
 not at least a general knowledge of the views of Schel- 
 ling ? In the mean time, however, it must not be con- 
 
196 
 
 cealed, that in antiquity as well as in the middle ages, 
 kindred spirits announced kindred theories, yet not 
 with the same fulness or systematic completion as has 
 beeii done by him. Even in the antiquity of Greece 
 we find already the doctrine of One in All, (or all in 
 one,) and the same doctrine existed still earlier in the 
 East. Then in the middle ages, what a kindredness of 
 views do we find to have been held by Scotus Erigena, 
 by Gerson, by Giordano Bruno, whom Schelling him- 
 self has recently called forth from his darkness, and fi- 
 nally, by that mystic of all mystics, Jacob Boehman ! 
 And besides, without Fichte, or even without Kant, 
 what would Schelling have been ? Still, however, al- 
 though outward stimuli were brought to bear upon him, 
 and his growing mind was nourished by nutrition re- 
 ceived from others, yet he possessed an individual and 
 inward power, a living activity ; he was endowed with 
 an energy and a union of intuitive thought or think- 
 ing intuition, (eine Verbindungdesschauenden Denkens, 
 oder denkenden Schauens,) in a manner and to a 
 degree that was imparted to no other thinker of that 
 period so rich in men of thought. Nevertheless, has 
 this man of Genius conducted any farther than to pan- 
 theism ? It would be difficult to show that he has, 
 and therefore he has only reached that goal which in 
 the East is the starting-point of philosophical specula- 
 tions. Now these oriental speculations in destroying 
 the conception of a creation, annihilate also the concep- 
 tion of a holy Creator and Lord of the world ; or in other 
 words, if the Divine revelation contained in the sacred 
 
197 
 
 history be true, they put falsehood in the place of truth. 
 But this Oriental pantheism being once received, how 
 does the pantheism of Schelling differ from it ? And 
 wherein consists the distinction between the former, 
 and the doctrine of All in One, or the doctrine of Iden- 
 tity ? But grant that they are true, and what advan- 
 tage accrues to our knowledge from the genial specu- 
 lations of Schelling, or what farther insight do we re- 
 ceive from the no less genial speculations of the old 
 East ? They teach us to know neither the All nor 
 the One, but we must rest satisfied with empty postu- 
 lates and hollow formulas, of which the highest and the 
 ultimate is that A=A. [Absolute Identity alone is, 
 and besides it there is in fact nothing else ; conse- 
 quently also there is nothing which is in itself really 
 finite. All things that are, are but the Absolute Iden- 
 tity and its developed being ; for the opposites, as the 
 Impression, the Sides, the Poles of the Absolute, do 
 yet derive their existence from it, and are only distin- 
 guished now by the preponderance of the Ideal and 
 now of the Real, (duplicity, polarity,) and these again 
 become unified, (indifFerenced,) through Totality. 
 Identity in Triplicity is the law of developement. 
 This derivation of existence, or these developed forms 
 of being, is at one time called a Dualizing, (a distin- 
 guishing, a differencing,) of the Absolute, and again it 
 is called Self-revelation, Through this self-revelation 
 absolute cognition is also rendered possible ; and Rea- 
 son itself, in so far as it is absolute, constitutes the 
 identity of the ideal and the real. The Form of the 
 
198 
 
 essence of the Absolute, is the absolute act of knowing, 
 in which identity, unity, passes over into duplicity, 
 A=A.] 
 
 Notwithstanding all the intellectual intuition [The 
 absolute identity of the Subjective and the Objec- 
 tive constitutes the essence of the Absolute=God. 
 Through an absolute act of cognition, in which the sub- 
 jective and the objective become identical, is the Ab- 
 solute known. This cognitive act is termed intellec- 
 tual intuition, intellectuelle Anschauung.] of Schelling, 
 from the Starry Heavens on high down to the small 
 blade of grass upon the earth, the energy and Creative 
 power of the All-Seeing One is entirely concealed from 
 our view. And the All-Seeing himself, does he ex- 
 hibit his countenance in this Philosophy of Identity ? 
 He before whom hosts of angels — if revelation does 
 not deceive us — continually cry aloud, Holy, Holy, 
 Holy, does He obey the magic call of the Philosopher 
 and stand before us in his grandeur and in his glory, 
 and at the same time in his mercy and compassion 
 towards the weak race of man ? The Philosopher does 
 not think on poverty of spirit, nor on the feebleness of 
 man ; but as a young Lion rather he bounds forward 
 exulting in his might. And well might he do so, since 
 a God and a Universe simultaneously, or rather a God 
 and a Universe one and the same. One in Two, spring 
 forth from the thinker's head ; — an act which may be 
 compared with that of Jupiter's in giving birth to the 
 Goddess of Wisdom, when Minerva leapt forth from 
 his head armed and mailed against every opposing foe. 
 
199 
 
 It is well known how warmly the Philosophy of the 
 Absolute went forth armed with Sword and Lance to 
 withstand its opposers to the face. 
 
 We may calmly acknowledge, however, that no 
 one of these opposers ever attained to the height of 
 Schelling ; for it is much easier to find fault with that 
 which has been created than to call it into being. 
 Does not the nasal-twanged Jurist whom Goethe men- 
 tions in his biography, say " I have detected imperfec- 
 tions even in God himself?'' Why then should Schel- 
 ling have remained unattacked ? Who is not open to 
 attack in some part ? [Even Achilles, though plung- 
 ed into the Styx by the Goddess Thetis, was still not 
 invulnerable in the heel.] But notwithstanding the 
 opposition which Schelling had to encounter, on the 
 other hand he found more disciples, followers and im- 
 itators, than any of his cotemporaries or predecessors 
 in the New Philosophy ; and those who with views 
 either apparently or actually of a contrary tenour op- 
 posed themselves to him, even they, as if involuntarily, 
 did still imbibe his spirit. Heinroth's Pisteodicee, s, 
 312-314. 
 
ERRATA . 
 
 Page 16 line 14 from top for " principle '* read principal. 
 
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 "effect" read effort 
 
 " remain " " remains. 
 
 " end " " ^ and. 
 
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 receives " receive. 
 
 condictious " contradictious. 
 
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