A. Idealism and Scepticism 363
1. Berkeley 364
2. Hume 369
B. Scottish Philosophy 375
1. Thomas Reid 376
2. James Beattie 377
3. James Oswald 377
4. Dugald Stewart 378
C. French Philosophy 379
1. The Negative Aspect 388
2. The Positive Aspect 392
_a._ Materialism 393
_b._ Robinet 394
3. Idea of a Concrete Universal Unity 397
_a._ Opposition between Sensation and Thought 398
_b._ Montesquieu 399
_c._ Helvetius 400
_d._ Rousseau 400
D. The German Illumination 403
SECTION THREE
RECENT GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 409
A. Jacobi 410
B. Kant 423
C. Fichte 479
1. The First Principles of Fichte’s Philosophy 481
2. Fichte’s System in a Re-constituted Form 505
3. The More Important of the Followers of Fichte 506
_a._ Friedrich von Schlegel 507
_b._ Schleiermacher 508
_c._ Novalis 510
_d._ Fries, Bouterweck, Krug 510
D. Schelling 512
E. Final Result 545
INDEX 555
CORRIGENDA IN VOLS. I. AND II. 570
PART TWO
PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
INTRODUCTION
The first period embraces a space of one thousand years—from Thales, 550
B.C., to Proclus, who died 485 A.D., and until the disappearance of pagan
philosophy as an outward institution, 529 A.D. The second period extends
to the sixteenth century, and thus again embraces a thousand years, to
pass over which we must provide ourselves with seven-leagued boots. While
Philosophy has hitherto found its place in the religion of the heathen,
from this time on it has its sphere within the Christian world; for
Arabians and Jews have only to be noticed in an external and historic way.
1. Through the Neo-Platonic philosophy we have come into quite familiar
acquaintance with the Idea of Christianity, as the new religion which
has entered into the world. For the Neo-Platonic philosophy has as its
essential principle the fact that the Absolute is determined as spirit in
a concrete way, that God is not a mere conception. Although the Absolute
is Thought, it must, in order to be true, be concrete in itself and not
abstract; in what we have just seen we have, then, the first appearance
of the absolutely existent spirit. But in spite of their profound and
true speculation, the Neo-Platonists still had not proved their doctrine
that the Trinity is the truth, for there is lacking to it the form of
inward necessity. The Neo-Platonists begin from the One that determines
itself, that sets a limit to itself from which the determinate proceeds;
this, however, is itself an immediate method of presentation, and it is
this that makes such philosophers as Plotinus and Proclus so tiresome.
Undoubtedly dialectic considerations enter in, in which the opposites
which are conceived as absolute are shown to be null; but this dialectic
is not methodical, but occurs only disconnectedly. The principle of
retroversion and comprehension found with the Neo-Platonists is that
of substantiality generally, but because subjectivity is lacking, this
idea of Spirit is deficient in one moment, the moment of actuality, of
the point which draws all moments into one, and which thereby becomes
immediate unity, universality, and Being. To them spirit is thus not
individual spirit; and this deficiency is made good through Christianity,
in which spirit is found as actual, present spirit, immediately existent
in the world here and now, and the absolute spirit is known in the
immediate present as man.
In order to grasp and apply the Idea of Christianity, the philosophic
Idea of which we have already spoken in connection with the
Neo-Platonists must have been comprehended for itself; but within
Christianity the basis of Philosophy is that in man has sprung up the
consciousness of the truth, or of spirit in and for itself, and then
that man requires to participate in this truth. Man must be qualified
to have this truth present to him; he must further be convinced of this
possibility. This is the absolute demand and necessity; the consciousness
must be arrived at that this alone is true. The first point of interest
in the Christian religion thus is that the content of the Idea should
be revealed to man; more particularly that the unity of the divine
and human nature should come to the consciousness of man, and that,
indeed, on the one hand as an implicitly existent unity, and, on the
other, in actuality as worship. The Christian life signifies that the
culminating point of subjectivity is made familiar with this conception,
the individual himself is laid claim to, is made worthy of attaining on
his own account to this unity, which is to make himself worthy of the
Spirit of God—Grace, as it is called—dwelling in him. Hence the doctrine
of reconciliation is that God is known as reconciling Himself with the
world, _i.e._ as we have seen in the Neo-Platonic philosophy, that He
particularizes Himself and does not remain abstract. Not external nature
alone, but the whole world pertains to the particular; above all must
human individuality know itself in God. The interest of the subject
is itself involved, and here it plays an essential rôle in order that
God may be realized and may realize Himself in the consciousness of
individuals who are spirit and implicitly free. Thus through the process
these accomplish that reconciliation in themselves, actualize their
freedom; that is to say, they attain to the consciousness of heaven upon
earth, the elevation of man to God. Thus the true intellectual world
is not a beyond, but the so-called finite is an element in it, and no
division exists between this side and that. The real concrete in regard
to the absolute Idea is the knowing of the mundane, the ‘other’ in God,
as implicitly divine, as universal, as the world of intellect, as having
its root in God, but only the root. In God man is accepted only in his
truth, and not in his immediacy, and thus this doctrine is not what we
call Pantheism, for that leaves the immediate just as it is. Man then
has himself to accomplish the process of reconciliation in himself in
order to attain to his truth. We have thus seen that man possesses the
determination and attributes of God as the first begotten son, Adam
Kadmon, the first man; we may call this unity the concrete Idea, which,
however, is still only implicit.
But the fact that because man is capable of the divine, the identity of
the divine and human nature must likewise be present for him, has in an
immediate way become known to him in Christ, as one in whom the divine
and human nature are implicitly one. In the world what has come to pass
is that the Absolute has been revealed as the concrete, and, further, not
only in thought in a general way as intelligible world, but because it
has in itself proceeded to its ultimate point of intensity. Thus it is
an actual self, an “I,” the absolute universal, the concrete universal,
that is God; and also the absolute opposite of this determination, the
clearly finite as it exists in space and time, but this finite determined
in unity with the eternal as self. The Absolute comprehended as concrete,
the unity of these two absolutely different determinations, is the
true God; each of them is abstract, and either of them taken by itself
is thus not the true God. The fact that the concrete is thus known to
men in this perfection as God, brings about the whole revolution that
has taken place in the world’s history. The Trinity is thereby not
only present in conception, which would not yet constitute the perfect
concrete, but actuality is perfectly united to it. In the consciousness
of the world it has consequently broken in upon men that the Absolute has
attained to this “culminating point” of immediate actuality, as Proclus
says; and that is the manifestation of Christianity. The Greeks were
anthropomorphic, their gods were humanly constituted; but the deficiency
in them is that they were not anthropomorphic enough. Or rather the Greek
religion is on the one hand too much, and, on the other hand, too little
anthropomorphic—too much, because immediate qualities, forms, actions,
are taken up into the divine; too little, because man is not divine as
man, but only as a far-away form and not as ‘this,’ and subjective man.
Thus man reaches this truth, because for him it becomes a sure intuition
that in Christ the λόγος has become Flesh. We thus first have man
through this process attaining to spirituality, and in the second place
we have man as Christ, in whom this original identity of both natures
is known. Now since man really is this process of being the negation of
the immediate, and from this negation attaining to himself—to a unity
with God—he must consequently renounce his natural will, knowledge,
and existence. This giving up of his natural existence is witnessed in
Christ’s sufferings and death, and in His resurrection and elevation to
the right hand of the Father. Christ became a perfect man, endured the
lot of all men, death; as man He suffered, sacrificed Himself, gave up
His natural existence, and thereby elevated Himself above it. In Him
this process, this conversion of His other-being into spirit, and the
necessity of pain in the renunciation of the natural man is witnessed;
but this pain, the pain of feeling that God Himself is dead, is the
starting point of holiness and of elevation to God. Thus what must come
to pass in the subject—this process, this conversion of the finite—is
known as implicitly accomplished in Christ. This constitutes the great
leading Idea of Christianity.
From what has been said it follows, in the second place, that the world
must not be left in its immediate naturalness. The original, implicitly
existent, is found only in the strictest conception of mind, or as its
determination: immediately, man is only a living being, who has indeed
the capacity to become actual spirit—but spirit does not pertain to
nature. Man is thus not by nature this particular in which the spirit
of God lives and dwells: man is not by nature what he ought to be. The
animal is by nature what it ought to be. But what has to be noticed in
this respect is that natural things merely remain in their implicit
Notion, or their truth does not enter into their sensuous life, for this
their natural individuality is only a fleeting fact that cannot look back
on itself. The misfortune in natural things is that they get no further,
that their essential nature is not for itself and independent; from this
it follows that they do not attain to infinitude, to liberation from
their immediate individuality, _i.e._ they do not attain to freedom, but
only remain in the necessity which is the connection of the “one” with an
“other,” so that when this other unites itself to natural things, these
last perish because they cannot bear the contradiction. But because the
truth exists for man as consciousness, and in it he has the qualities
necessary for freedom, he is capable of perceiving the Absolute, of
placing himself in a relation to the same, and having knowledge as an
end; and the liberation of mind depends on the fact that consciousness
does not remain in its natural condition, but becomes spiritual, _i.e._
that for it the eternal, that is the reconciliation of the finite as this
subject with the infinite, exists. Thus consciousness does not signify
remaining in the sphere of nature, but the existence of the process
whereby the universal becomes object or end to man. Man makes himself
divine, but in a spiritual, that is to say not in an immediate way. In
the ancient religions the divine is also united to the natural or human;
but this unity is no reconciliation, but an immediate, undeveloped, and
thus unspiritual unity, just because it is merely natural. But because
mind is not natural but only that into which it makes itself, the
spiritual is first met with in this very process of producing unity. To
this spiritual unity pertains the negation of nature, of the flesh, as
that in which man must not rest; for nature is from the beginning evil.
Man is likewise naturally evil, for all the wickedness that man does
proceeds from a natural desire. Now because man is in himself the image
of God, but in existence is only natural, that which is implicit must be
evolved, while the first natural condition must be abrogated. So much the
more is it true that man first becomes spiritual, and attains to truth
through rising above the natural, inasmuch as God Himself is a spirit
only in that He transformed the hidden unity into the other of Himself,
in order from this other to turn back again into Himself.
Now the fact that this is given as, or asserted to be the fundamental
Idea of Christianity, implies on the one hand an historic question;
at different times this idea has been grasped in different ways, and
now, for example, men again have their particular conceptions of it. In
order to bring about the conclusion that this is the historic idea of
Christianity, we should have to enter upon an historic disquisition;
but because we cannot deal with this here, we must accept it as an
historic axiom. On the other hand, in so far as this question falls
within the history of Philosophy, the assertion that this is the idea
of Christianity has another ground to stand on than that of history,
and this constitutes the third point of interest. In connection with
the preceding forms it has been shown that this Idea of Christianity
must have now come forth, and indeed become the universal consciousness
of the nations. The fact that it has come forth as the world-religion,
is the content of history; it is this necessity in the Idea which has
to be expounded more clearly in the philosophy of history. To this end
the conception of mind must be made fundamental, and it must now be
shown that history is the process of mind itself, the revelation of
itself from its first superficial, enshrouded consciousness, and the
attainment of this standpoint of its free self-consciousness, in order
that the absolute command of mind, “Know thyself,” may be fulfilled. The
recognition of this necessity has been called the _à priori_ construction
of history; there is no good in decrying it as inadmissible, and indeed
as arrogant. The development of history may be represented as contingent.
Or, if the providence and government of God are seriously accepted,
these are represented as though Christianity were so to speak ready made
in the mind of God; then, when thrust into the world, it appears to be
contingent. But the rationality and likewise the necessity of this decree
of God’s has now to be considered, and this may be called a theodicy,
a justification of God, _i.e._ a vindication of our Idea. It is a
demonstration that, as I have just said, things have happened rationally
in the world, and it implies the fact that the world-history represents
the process of mind partially as the history of mind, which has to be
reflected into itself in order to come to a consciousness of what it is.
It is this which is shown forth in temporal history, and as history,
indeed, just because mind is the living movement, proceeding from its
immediate existence to beget revolutions in the world, as well as in
individuals.
Since it is hereby presupposed that this Idea must necessarily become
universal religion, there is, in the fourth place, present in it the
source of a method of knowledge proper to the particular consciousness.
That is to say, the new religion has made the intelligible world of
Philosophy the world of common consciousness. Tertullian hence says:
“Even children in our day have a knowledge of God, which the wisest
men of antiquity alone attained to.” But in order that all may know
the truth, this Idea must come to them as an object, not for the
thinking, philosophic and cultured consciousness, but for the sensuous
consciousness which still adheres to uncultured methods of regarding
things. If this Idea were not to receive and to retain this form of
outward consciousness, it would be a philosophy of the Christian
religion; for the standpoint of Philosophy is the Idea in the form of
the merely universal thought, and not the Idea as it is for the subject
and directed to the subject. That through which this Idea appears
as religion, belongs, however, to the history of religion, and this
development of its form must here be passed over. Through these forms we
must however not mistake the content, much less reject it altogether, for
we must rather recognize its presence more completely; the forms must
likewise not be held to be absolute, and we must not try to maintain the
doctrines in this form alone, as was at one time done by an orthodoxy “of
straw.”
Only one example will here be given. The so-called doctrine of original
sin implies that our first parents have sinned, that this sin has thus
descended to all mankind as an hereditary disorder, and has come upon
posterity in an external way as something inherent in their nature, which
does not pertain to freedom of the mind, nor has its ground therein.
Through this original sin, it is further signified, man has drawn upon
himself the wrath of God. Now if these forms be adhered to, we have in
the first place there the first parents in time, and not in thought; but
the thought of these first parents is none other than man as he is in
and for himself. What is said of him as such, what every member of the
human race really is in himself, is represented here in the form of the
first man, Adam; and in this first man sin manifests itself as something
contingent, or, more particularly, in his allowing himself to be enticed
into eating of the apple. But it is again not merely represented that
he simply partook of the fruit, but that he ate of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil; it is as man that he must partake of it, and
not as beast. The fundamental characteristic, however, through which he
distinguishes himself from the animal, is the very fact that he knows
what good and evil are. For God likewise says, “Behold, Adam has become
as one of us, to know good and evil.” But it is only through man’s having
the power of thinking that he can make this distinction between good and
evil; in thought alone is there thus the source of good and evil, but the
healing of the evil which is brought about through thought is also there.
The second point is that man is by nature evil and transmits the evil.
On the other hand, it is said: “Why should the sinner suffer punishment
seeing that there is no responsibility for what is inborn in him?” As a
matter of fact the statement that man is implicitly or by nature evil
would seem to be a hard saying. But if we set aside this hard saying,
and do not speak of a divine punishment, but make use of milder general
expressions, in this idea of original sin the fact remains for us that
man as he is by nature is not what he ought to be before God, but has
the power of becoming explicitly what he only is implicitly; and the fact
that this rests in the determination of man as such is represented as
inheritance. The abrogation of mere naturalness is known to us simply as
education, and arises of itself; through education subjection is brought
about, and with that a capacity for becoming good is developed. Now if
this appears to come to pass very easily, we must recollect that it is of
infinite importance that the reconciliation of the world with itself, the
making good, is brought about through the simple method of education.
2. What concerns us now is to make the Principle of Christianity, which
has been explained at considerable length, into the principle of the
world; the task set before the world is to bring this absolute Idea
within itself, to actualize it in itself, and thereby to reconcile itself
to God. This task once more falls into three separate divisions.
In the first place we have the dissemination of the Christian religion
and the bringing of it within the hearts of men; this, however, lies
outside the limits of our consideration. The heart signifies the
subjective man as ‘this,’ and through this principle the latter has a
different position from before; it is essential that this subject should
be present. The individual subject is the object of divine grace; each
subject, or man as man, has on his own account an infinite value, is
destined to partake of this spirit which must, as God, be born within the
heart of every man. Man is determined for freedom, he is here recognized
as implicitly free; this freedom is, however, at first only formal,
because it remains within the principle of subjectivity.
The second point is that the principle of the Christian religion should
be worked out for thought, and be taken up into thinking knowledge, and
realized in this; and thus that it should attain to reconciliation,
having the divine Idea within itself, and that the riches of thought
and culture belonging to the philosophic Idea should become united to
the Christian principle. For the philosophic Idea is the Idea of God,
and thought has the absolute right of reconciliation, or the right to
claim that the Christian principle should correspond with thought. The
Fathers have rendered the service of thus elaborating the Christian
religion in thinking knowledge; but neither have we to consider further
this development of the Christian principle, since it belongs to the
history of the Church. We have only here to give the point of view
adopted regarding the relation of the Fathers to Philosophy. They for
the most part lived within the ancient Roman world and in Latin culture,
though the Byzantines likewise are included with them. We know that the
Fathers were men of great philosophic culture, and that they introduced
Philosophy, and more especially Neo-Platonic philosophy, into the Church;
in this way they worked out a Christian system by which the first mode
in which Christianity was manifested in the world was supplemented, for
system was not present in this first manifestation. The Fathers have
dealt with all questions respecting the nature of God, the freedom of
man, the relationship to God—who is the objective—the origin of evil,
and so on; and whatever thought decided regarding these questions was
by them brought into and incorporated with the Christian system. The
nature of spirit, the way of salvation, _i.e._ the various stages in the
spiritualizing of the subject, his growth, the process of spirit, whereby
it is spirit, the changes it has undergone, they have likewise treated in
its freedom, and recognized its moments in the depths to which it reaches.
We may thus describe the attitude of the Christian Fathers, and likewise
remark that this first philosophic development of the Christian principle
has been looked on as a crime on their part, and it has been said that
they have thus corrupted the purity of Christianity as originally
manifested. We must speak of the nature of this corruption. It is well
known that Luther in his Reformation made his aim the bringing of the
Church back to the purity of its first estate in the early centuries,
but this first condition already shows the fabric of an extensive and
closely interwoven system, an elaborate tissue of doctrines regarding
what God is and what is man’s relation to Him. Hence at the time of the
Reformation no particular system was built up, but what was originally
there was purified from later additions; it is a complicated erection,
in which the most intricate pieces of workmanship are to be found. In
modern times this elaborately woven system has been entirely pulled to
pieces, because men have wished to bring Christianity back to the simple
lines of the Word of God as found in the writings of the New Testament.
Men have likewise given up the propagation of the system, the doctrine
of Christianity as determined through the Idea and by the Idea, and have
returned to the manner of its first appearance (and that, indeed, in
eclectic fashion, and having regard to what will fit in with their own
notions), so that now only the original Gospel narrative is regarded as
forming the basis of Christianity. As regards the title of Philosophy and
the Fathers to bring Philosophy into Christianity we have the following
remarks to make.
Modern Theology on the one hand derives its formulas from the words of
the Bible, which are made to form their basis, so that the whole business
of the individual, as regards his thoughts and his conceptions, is merely
exegetical; religion must be retained in its positive form, and thus it
is from something received and given, something most evidently externally
posited and revealed, that a beginning must be made. These words and
this text are, however, of a nature such that they allow full latitude
to the will of the interpreter; hence the other side is also present, or
the application of the Bible saying: “The letter killeth, but the spirit
giveth life.” This must be assented to, and the spirit means none else
than the power which dwells within those who apply themselves to the
letter in order that they may spiritually apprehend and animate it. This
signifies that it is the conceptions which we bring along with us which
have in the letter to give efficacy to themselves. Now these reflections
brought along with us may be grasped by the most ordinary human
understanding, which is what is indicated in modern times when we say
that dogmas must be popular. In that way the right to act upon the letter
with the spirit is assumed, _i.e._ the right to approach it with our
individual judgment; but to the Fathers this is forbidden. They did act
upon it with the Spirit; and it is expressly said that the Spirit dwells
within the Church, directs, teaches, and illuminates it. The Fathers
have hence a similar right to relate themselves with the Spirit to the
positive, to what is given by the senses. Only it will depend absolutely
upon what the nature of the Spirit is, for spirits are very different.
The assertion that the spirit must give life to the mere letter is
certainly more definitely stated as that spirit has only to expound what
is given, _i.e._ it must leave the actual sense of what is immediately
contained in the words. We must, however, be far behind in culture if we
do not see the fallacy in the attitude here adopted. To expound without
the individual spirit, as though the sense were one entirely given, is
impossible. To elucidate signifies to make clear, and it must be made
clear to me; this can be done by nothing excepting what was already
present in me. It must be in conformity with my subjective judgment,
the necessities of my knowledge, of my apprehension, of my heart, &c.;
thus only is it for me. We find what we look for, and just because I
make it clear to myself, I make my conception, my thought, a factor in
it; otherwise it is a dead and external thing, which is not present for
me at all. It is hence very difficult to make clear to ourselves those
foreign religions which lie far below our spiritual needs; but yet they
touch a side of my spiritual necessities and standpoints, although it
is but a dim and sensuous side. Thus when we talk of “making clear,”
we conceal the real matter in a word; but if this word itself is made
clear we find nothing in it but the fact that the spirit which is in man
desires therein to recognize itself, and that it cannot know anything
which does not rest in him. Thus have men made of the Bible what may be
called a nose of wax. This man finds this thing, the other man that; what
was secure now shows itself as insecure, because it is considered by the
subjective spirit.
In this regard the nature of the text describing the method in which the
first manifestation of Christianity took place, must be remarked upon;
it cannot as yet expressly contain that which rests in the principle of
Christianity, but only somewhat of an anticipation of what spirit is and
will know as true. This also is expressly said in the text itself. Christ
says: “If I depart, I will send the Comforter, the Holy Ghost.... He will
guide you into all truth,” He—and not Christ’s earthly presence nor His
spoken words. It was only to be after Him, and after His teaching through
the text, that the Spirit was to come into the Apostles, and that they
were to become full of the Spirit. It might almost be said that when
Christianity is carried back to its first appearing, it is brought down
to the level of unspirituality, for Christ Himself says that the Spirit
will not come until He Himself has departed. In the text of the first
manifestation of Christianity we, on the other hand, see Christ only as
the Messiah, or under the more explicit designation of a mere teacher;
for His friends and apostles He is a present man whom they can perceive
by the senses, and who does not yet hold to them the relationship of
the Holy Ghost. His friends have seen Him, heard His doctrine, seen His
miracles, and have thereby been brought to believe in Him. But Christ
Himself sternly rebukes those who demand miracles of Him; if He thus be
made as God to man, God in the heart of man, He cannot have a sensuous
and immediate presence. The Dalai-lama, in the form of a sensuous man, is
God to the inhabitants of Thibet, but in the Christian principle, where
God dwells in the hearts of men, He cannot be present to them in sensuous
form.
The second point then is that the sensuous and present form must
disappear, so that it may be taken into the Mnemosyne, into the realm
of popular conception; then for the first time can the spiritual
consciousness, the spiritual relation, enter in. To the question of
whither Christ has gone, the answer is given, “He sits on the right hand
of God,” which signifies that it is only now that God can be known as
this concrete One, as the One who has the other moment, His Son (λόγος,
σοφία), in Himself. Thus to know what is the principle of Christianity as
truth, the truth of the Idea of spirit must be known as concrete spirit,
and this is the form peculiar to the Fathers of the Church. With this
the idea that the abstractly divine breaks up and has broken up within
itself, first began to appear. This other moment in the divine must
not, however, be grasped in the mode of an intelligible world, or, as
we certainly have it in the ordinary conception, of a kingdom of heaven
with many angels, who are also finite, limited, thus approaching closer
to humanity. But it is not sufficient that the concrete moment should be
known in God, for the further knowledge is requisite that Christ is an
actual present man. This moment of Christ’s actual present humanity is of
immense importance to Christianity, because it is the union of the most
tremendous opposites. This higher conception could not have been present
in the text, in the first manifestation; the greatness of the Idea could
only come in later on, after the Spirit had perfected the Idea.
That the revelation of Christ has this significance is the belief of
Christians, while the profane, immediate and direct significance of
this history is that Christ was a mere prophet and met the fate of
all the prophets in being misunderstood. But the fact that it has the
significance given by us is known through the Spirit, for the Spirit is
revealed in this history. This history is the Notion, the Idea of Spirit
itself, and the world-history has in it found its end, which is in this
immediate way to know the truth. It is therefore the Spirit which so
comprehends that history, and at the time of Pentecost this is shown in
an immediate and evident manner. For before this time the Apostles did
not know the infinite significance of Christ; they did not yet know that
this is the infinite history of God; they had believed in Him, but not
yet as seeing in Him this infinite truth.
This is the truth which the Fathers developed; the general relation of
the first Christian Church to Philosophy is hereby given. On the one
hand, the philosophic Idea has been transplanted into this religion; on
the other, this moment in the Idea—according to which the latter breaks
up within itself into wisdom, the active Logos, the Son of God, &c., but
yet in so doing remains in universality—has been brought to a culmination
in subjectivity, and further in the sensuous immediate individuality and
present existence of a human individual appearing in time and space.
These two elements are essentially intermingled in this Christian system,
the Idea itself, and secondly the form as it presents itself through its
connection with a single individuality present in time and space. To the
Fathers this history had thus the Idea as its principle; the true Idea
of the Spirit was consequently to them likewise in the determinate form
of history. But the Idea was not yet, as such, separated from history;
because the Church thus held to this Idea in historic form, it determined
the doctrines. This, then, is the general character of the time.
From this Idea as comprehended through the Spirit, many so-called
heresies arose in the first centuries after Christ. Among such heretics
must be included those of the Gnostics who take the Christian literature
as their basis, but give a spiritual significance to everything therein
present. For they did not remain at this historical form of the Idea
of Spirit, since they interpreted the history and deprived it of its
historical value. The reflections which they introduced are, as we
have seen (Vol. II., pp. 396-399), to a greater or less extent such as
are to be found in the philosophy of the Alexandrians or of Philo. In
conformity with their principles they adopted a speculative attitude, but
they proceeded into extravagances both of the imagination and morality,
although in this dim fantastic region the elements which we found in
history may always be recognized. But the form of immediate existence,
an essential moment in Christ, is by them etherealized into a universal
thought, so that the determination of the individual as a ‘this’
disappears. The Docetæ, for example, said that Christ had only a phantom
body, a phantom life; yet in such assertions thought still constituted
the background. The Gnostics were thus antagonistic to the Western
Church, and, like Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists, this last strove hard
against Gnosticism, because it remained in what is general, grasped
the conception in the form of imagination, and because this conception
was opposed to that of Christ in the Flesh (Χριστὸς ἐν σαρκί).[1] The
Church, on the contrary, held to the definite form of personality as the
principle of concrete actuality.
From the East other forms of opposition in the principles than those
we mentioned in connection with the Gnostics have been introduced,
namely, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. But more particularly has
this Parsee opposition emerged in Manichæism, in which God, as the
Light opposes the evil, non-existent (οὐκ ὄν), the ὕλη, the material,
self-annihilating. Evil is that which contains contradiction in itself:
the powers of evil (ὕλη), given over to themselves and raging in blind
enmity against one another, were met by a gleam from the Kingdom of
Light and thereby attracted, and this light pacified the powers of
evil, so as to cause them to cease from strife and unite together in
order to penetrate into the Kingdom of Light. As an inducement to make
them so act, in order to weaken and mitigate their blind fury through a
power operating irresistibly, and in order to bring about their final
overthrow, and the universal supremacy of light, of life, of the soul,
the Father of Light delivered over one of the powers of good. That is
the world-soul (ψυχὴ ἁπάντων); it was swallowed up by the material,
and this intermixture is the basis of the whole creation. Hence the
soul is everywhere disseminated, and in the dead husk it is everywhere
working and striving in man, the microcosm, as in the universe, the
macrocosm, but with unequal power; for where beauty reveals itself,
the Light-principle, the soul, obtains the mastery over matter, but in
the ugly, the hateful, it is subordinate, and matter is the conqueror.
This captive soul Mani likewise called the Son of Man—that is, of the
primitive man, the heavenly man, of Adam Kadmon. But only a part of
the Light-principle which was destined to strive with the Kingdom of
Evil is in this manner delivered over; being too weak, it incurred the
danger of being vanquished, and had to deliver over to matter a part
of its armour, this soul. The part of the soul which had not suffered
through such intermingling with matter, but had raised itself freely to
heaven, works from above for the purification of the imprisoned souls,
its kindred portions of light; and that is Jesus, the Son of Man, in so
far as he has not suffered (ἀπαθής), as distinguished from the suffering
Son of Man, the soul confined within the universe. But that delivering
soul remains in the second and visible light which is still distinguished
from the first and unapproachable, having its seat there, and by means
of sun and moon exercising influence in the purification of nature. To
Mani the whole course of the physical as of the spiritual world appears
as a process of purification by means of this soul. The captive principle
of Light required to be raised from the cycle of metempsychosis to an
immediate re-union with the Kingdom of Light. Hence the pure heavenly
soul came down to earth and appeared in the semblance of human form
in order to reach to the suffering soul (to the νοῦς παθητικός of
Aristotle?) a helping hand. The Manichæans also express themselves to
the effect that God, the Good, goes forth, illumines, and thus produces
an intelligible world. What comes third is Spirit as turning round,
establishing the unity of the second and first, and experiencing feeling,
and this feeling is Love. This heresy fully recognizes the Idea, but
does away with the form of individual existence in which the Idea is
presented in the Christian religion. The crucifixion of Christ is
consequently taken as merely a semblance, as allegorical only, simply an
image. That merely phantom crucifixion of the non-suffering Jesus, the
fellow-suffering, only imaginary certainly, of the soul unmingled with
matter, shows forth the actual suffering of the captive soul. Thus as
the forces of Darkness could exercise no power over Christ, they must
also show themselves powerless over the soul allied thereto. With the
Manichæans originates the conception of a Jesus who is crucified in all
the world and in the soul; the crucifixion of Christ thus mystically
signifies only the wounds of our suffering souls. Through vegetation the
particles of light were held fast, and thus held fast they were brought
forth as plants. The earth becoming fruitful brings forth the suffering
(_patibilis_) Jesus, who is the life and salvation of men and is
crucified on every tree. The νοῦς which appeared in Jesus signifies all
things.[2] The Church has likewise made a principal point of asserting
the unity of the divine and human nature. But because this unity in the
Christian religion attained to conceiving consciousness, human nature was
in its actuality taken as ‘this,’ and not merely in an allegorical or
philosophic sense.
Now if, on the one hand, the essential matter with the orthodox Fathers
who opposed themselves to these Gnostic speculations, is the fact that
they held firmly to the definite form of an objectively conceived Christ,
on the other hand they attacked the Arians and all that pertain to them;
for these recognize the individual as manifested, but do not place the
Person of Christ in connection with the separation, with the breaking
up of the divine Idea. They took Christ to be a man, accorded to Him
indeed a higher nature, not, however, making Him a moment of God, of
Spirit itself. The Arians did not indeed go so far as the Socinians,
who accepted Christ merely as a man of noble nature, a teacher, and
so on; this sect hence did not form part of the Church at all, being
simply heathen. But still the Arians, since they did not recognize God
in Christ, did away with the idea of the Trinity, and consequently with
the principle of all speculative philosophy. The according to Him of a
higher nature is likewise a hollow mockery which cannot satisfy us; as
against this the Fathers accordingly asserted the unity of the divine
and human nature, which has come to consciousness in the individual
members of the Church, and this is a point of fundamental importance.
The Pelagians again, denied original sin, and maintained that man has by
nature sufficient virtue and religion. But man should not be what he is
by nature; he should be spiritual. And thus this doctrine is likewise
excluded as heretical. Therefore the Church was ruled by Spirit, to
enable it to hold to the determinations of the Idea, though always in
the historic form. This is the philosophy of the Fathers; they produced
the Church, as the developed Spirit required a developed doctrine, and
nothing is so out of place as the endeavour or desire of some men of the
present day to lead the Church back to her original form.
What follows thirdly is that the Idea permeates reality, is immanent
therein, that not only is there a multitude of believing hearts, but that
from the heart, just as the natural law rules over a sensuous world, a
higher life of the world, a kingdom, is constituted—the reconciliation
of God with Himself is accomplished in the world, and not as a heavenly
kingdom that is beyond. This community is the kingdom of God upon earth
in the Church; “Where two or three are gathered together in my name,”
says Christ, “there am I in the midst of them.” The Idea is only for
spirit, for subjective consciousness, in so far as it realizes itself
in actuality, and thus it not only has to bring itself to perfection
in the heart, but has to perfect itself also into a kingdom of actual
consciousness. The Idea which man, self-consciousness, should recognize,
must become altogether objective to him, so that he may truly apprehend
himself as spirit and the Spirit, and then that he may be spiritual in
a spiritual, and not in an emotional way. The first objectification
is found in the first immediate consciousness of the Idea, where it
appeared as an individual object, as the individual existence of a man.
The second objectivity is the spiritual worship and communion extended
to the Church. We might imagine a universal community of Love, a world
of piety and holiness, a world of brotherly kindness, of innocent little
lambs and pretty triflings with things spiritual, a divine republic, a
heaven upon earth. But this is not supposed to come to pass on earth;
that imagination is relegated to heaven, _i.e._ to some other place,
that is to say, it is put off until death. Each living actuality directs
his feelings, actions, and affairs in a very different way from this.
On the appearance of Christianity it is first of all said: “My kingdom
is not of this world;” but the realization has and ought to be in the
present world. In other words the laws, customs, constitutions, and
all that belongs to the actuality of spiritual consciousness should be
rational. The kingdom of rational actuality is quite a different one, and
must be organized and developed thinkingly and with understanding; the
moment of the self-conscious freedom of the individual must maintain its
rights against objective truth and objective command. This, then, is the
true and actual objectivity of mind in the form of an actual temporal
existence as state, just as Philosophy is the objectivity of thought
which comes to us in the form of universality. Such objectivity cannot be
in the beginning, but must come forth after being worked upon by mind and
thought.
In Christianity these absolute claims of the intellectual world and of
spirit had become the universal consciousness. Christianity proceeded
from Judaism, from self-conscious abjectness and depression. This feeling
of nothingness has from the beginning characterized the Jews; a sense of
desolation, an abjectness where no reason was, has possession of their
life and consciousness. This single point has later on, and in its proper
time, become a matter of universal history, and into this element of the
nullity of actuality the whole world has raised itself, passing out of
this principle indeed, but also into the kingdom of Thought, because that
nothingness has transformed itself into what is positively reconciled.
This is a second creation which came to pass after the first; in it Mind
became aware of itself as I = I, that is, as self-consciousness. This
second creation has first of all appeared in self-consciousness equally
directly in the form of a sensuous world, in the form of a sensuous
consciousness. As much of the Notion as has entered in was adopted by the
Fathers from the philosophers already mentioned; their Trinity, in so far
as a rational thought, and not a mere ordinary conception, comes from
these, and certain other ideas also. But what mainly distinguishes them
is the fact that for the Christian this intelligible world had likewise
this immediate sensuous truth of an ordinary course of events—a form
which it must have and retain for the majority of men.
3. This new world has therefore, however, to be adopted by a new race of
men, by Barbarians; for it is characteristic of barbarians to apprehend
the spiritual in a sensuous way. And it must be by northern barbarians,
for it is the northern self-containedness alone that is the immediate
principle of this new world-consciousness. With this self-consciousness
of the intelligible world as a world immediately actual, mind, having
regard to what it has in itself become, is higher than before, but, on
the other side, in respect of its consciousness it is thrown quite back
to the beginning of culture, and this consciousness had to commence
from the beginning again. What it had to overcome was on the one hand
this sensuous immediacy of its intelligible world, and secondly the
opposed sensuous immediacy of actuality, by its consciousness held as
null. It excludes the sun, replaces it with tapers, is furnished with
images merely; it is in itself alone, and inward, not reconciled for
consciousness—to self-consciousness a sinful, wicked world is present.
For the intelligible world of Philosophy had not yet completed in
itself the task of making itself the actual world—of recognizing the
intelligible in the actual, as well as the actual in the intelligible.
It is one thing to have the Idea of Philosophy, to recognize absolute
essence as absolute essence, and quite another thing to recognize
it as the system of the universe, of nature, and of individual
self-consciousness, as the whole development of its reality. The
Neo-Platonists had found that principle of realization—namely, this
real substance which again places itself in quite opposed, though in
themselves real determinations—but having got so far they did not find
the form, the principle of self-consciousness.
On the Teutonic nations the world-spirit imposed the task of developing
an embryo into the form of the thinking man. What comes first is the
mind as apprehended, and to that is opposed the subjectivity of will
which has not been taken up into mind; the kingdom of truth and that of
the world are bound together and at the same time evidently divided. An
intelligible world has thus in the conception of men established itself
in the mode of this same actuality, like a far-away land that is just as
really conceived of by us, peopled and inhabited, as the world we see,
but which is hidden from us as though by a mountain. It is not the Greek
or any other world of gods and of mythology—a simple, undivided faith;
for there is likewise present in it the highest negativity, that is, the
contradiction between actuality and that other world. This intellectual
world expresses the nature of real absolute existence. It is on it that
Philosophy tries its powers, and on it that thought also moils and
toils. We have in general outline to deal with these not very pleasing
manifestations.
Our first view of Philosophy, as revealed in Christianity (pp. 10-21)
is that of a dim groping which is carried on within the depths of the
Idea—as being the forms assumed by the same, which constitute its
moments; we see a hard struggle made by reason, which cannot force
its way out of the imagination and popular conceptions to the Notion.
There is no venture too rash for the imagination to undertake, because,
impelled by reason, it cannot satisfy itself with beautiful images, but
has to pass beyond them. There is likewise no extravagance of reason
into which it does not fall, because it cannot obtain the mastery of
the image, but within this element is merely in the act of warfare
with it. Later on than this Western self-immersion, there arose in the
East expansion, negation of all that is concrete, abstraction from
all determinations; this pure contemplation or pure thought present
in Mohammedanism corresponds to the Christian descent into self.
Within Christianity itself, however, the intellectual world is set in
opposition to that first Cabalistic principle; in it pure conceptions
rule which constitute the ideas present in thought, and with this we
enter upon the Scholastic philosophy. Philosophy, like the arts and
sciences, when, through the rule of the Barbarians of Germany, they
became dumb and lifeless, took refuge with the Arabians, and there
attained a wonderful development; they were the first sources from
which the West obtained assistance. Through the presupposition of the
immediately present and accepted truth, thought had lost its freedom and
the truth its presence in conceiving consciousness; and philosophy sank
into a metaphysics of the understanding and into a formal dialectic.
We have thus in this period first of all to consider philosophy in the
East, and secondly in the West; that is, the philosophy of the Arabians
first, and subsequently the philosophy of the Schools. The Schoolmen are
the principal figures in this period; they represent European philosophy
in the European Middle Ages. The third stage is the dissolution of what
is upheld in the scholastic philosophy; new meteor-like apparitions are
now seen, which precede the third period, the genuine revival of free
Philosophy.
SECTION ONE
ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY
In the West the Germanic tribes had obtained possession of what had
hitherto formed a section of the Roman Empire, and their conquests
were attaining to shape and solidity, when another religion dawned in
the East, namely the Mohammedan. The East purified itself of all that
was individual and definite, while the West descended into the depths
and actual presence of spirit. As quickly as the Arabians with their
fanaticism spread themselves over the Eastern and the Western world,
so quickly were the various stages of culture passed through by them,
and very shortly they advanced in culture much farther than the West.
For in Mohammedanism, which quickly reached its culminating point, both
as regards external power and dominion and also spiritual development,
Philosophy, along with all the other arts and sciences, flourished to an
extraordinary degree, in spite of its here not displaying any specially
characteristic features. Philosophy was fostered and cherished among the
Arabians; the philosophy of the Arabians must therefore be mentioned in
the history of Philosophy. What we have to say, however, chiefly concerns
the external preservation and propagation of Philosophy. The Arabians
became acquainted with Greek philosophy mainly through the medium of the
Syrians in Western Asia, who had imbibed Greek culture, and who were
under the Arabian sway. In Syria, which formed a Greek kingdom, at
Antioch, especially in Berytus and Edessa, there were great institutes of
learning; and thus the Syrians constituted the connecting link between
Greek philosophy and the Arabians. Syrian was the language of the people
even in Bagdad.[3]
Moses Maimonides, a learned Jew, gives further historical particulars
in his _Doctor Perplexorum_ of this transition of Philosophy to the
Arabians. He says: “All that the Ishmaelites have written of the unity
of God and other philosophic dogmas”—especially the sect of the Muatzali
(מעתוזלה, _i.e._ the Separated), who were the first to take an
interest in the abstract intellectual knowledge of such subjects, while
the sect Assaria (האשערייה) arose later—“is based upon arguments
and propositions which have been taken from the books of the Greeks and
Aramæans” (Syrians), “who strove to refute and deny the teachings of the
philosophers.” The cause of this is as follows: The Christian community
came to include within it these nations also, and the Christians defended
many dogmas which were contradictory of philosophic tenets; among these
nations, however, the teachings of philosophers were very widely and
generally diffused (for with them Philosophy had its origin), and kings
arose who adopted the Christian religion. The Christian Greeks and
learned Aramæans, therefore, when they perceived that their doctrines
were so clearly and plainly refuted by the philosophers, thought out
a wisdom of their own, the “Wisdom of the Words” (Devarim), and they
themselves received on that account the name of the Speakers (Medabberim,
מִדַבְרִים). They set up principles which served the purpose both
of confirming their faith and of refuting the opposite teaching of the
philosophers. When the Ishmaelites followed and attained supremacy, and
the books of the philosophers themselves fell into their hands, and along
with them the answers which “Christian Greeks and Aramæans had written
against the philosophic books, as for instance the writings of Johannes
Grammaticus, Aben Adi, and others, they eagerly laid hold of these and
adopted them bodily.”[4] Christians and Ishmaelites felt the same need
of philosophy; the Ishmaelites, moreover, strove all the more eagerly
after knowledge of this kind, because their first desire was to defend
Mohammedanism against Christianity, which was the religion of a large
proportion of the nations they had conquered.
The external sequence of events is this. Syriac versions of Greek
works were to be had, and these were now translated into Arabic by the
Arabians; or translations were made from the Greek directly into Arabic.
In the reign of Harun al-Raschid several Syrians are named who lived in
Bagdad, and who had been called upon by the Caliphs to translate these
works into Arabic. They were the first scientific teachers among the
Arabians, and were chiefly physicians; hence the works they translated
were on medicine. Among these translators was Johannes Mesue of Damascus,
who lived in the reigns of Al-Raschid (_d._ A.D. 786), Al-Mamun (_d._
A.D. 833) and Al-Motawakkil (_d._ A.D. 847), rather earlier than the rise
of the Turks to supremacy (A.D. 862); he was a hospital superintendent
in Bagdad. Al-Raschid appointed him to make translations from Syriac
into Arabic; he opened a public school for the study of medicine and all
the sciences then known. Honain was a Christian, as was also his master
Johannes, and belonged to the Arab tribe Ebadi; he applied himself to the
study of Greek, and made a number of translations into Arabic, and also
into Syriac, for example, Nicolaus _De summa philosophiæ Aristotelicæ_,
Ptolemy, Hippocrate and Galen. Another is Ebn Adda, an eminent
dialectician, who is quoted by Abulfaraj.[5] Among the works of the Greek
philosophers it was almost exclusively the writings of Aristotle which
were translated by these Syrians, and the later commentaries on the same.
It was thus not the Arabians themselves who translated the above works.
In the Arabic philosophy, which shows a free, brilliant and profound
power of imagination, Philosophy and the sciences took the same bent
that they had taken earlier among the Greeks. Plato with his Ideas or
universals laid the foundation of the independent world of intellect,
and established absolute existence as an existence which is manifestly
present in the mode of thought; Aristotle developed, completed and
peopled the realm of thought; the Neo-Platonic philosophy reached the
further conception of the intelligible world as Idea of the existence
which is independent in itself, of spirit; and then this first Idea,
which we have already met with in connection with Proclus, passed over
into a similar Aristotelian development and completion. Consequently
it is the Alexandrian or Neo-Platonic Idea which forms the essential
principle or basis of the Arabian as well as the Scholastic philosophy,
and all that Christian philosophy offers; it is on it that the
determinations of the Notion expend their strength, and around this that
they career. A particular description of Arabian philosophy has in some
parts but little interest; in other parts it will be found that the
main dogmas of this philosophy have much in common with those of the
Scholastics.
We may say of the Arabians that their philosophy constitutes no
characteristic stage in the development of philosophy. The principal
points in this, as in the later philosophy, were the question whether the
world is eternal, and the task of proving the unity of God and similar
dogmas. One great consideration in all this, however, was to defend the
doctrines of Mohammedanism, and owing to this all philosophizing had
to be carried on within the limits of these doctrines. The Arabians,
like the Christians of the West, were restricted by the dogmas of their
Church (if one may call it so), few though these dogmas were; yet this
last circumstance of the small number of the dogmas certainly gave
them greater liberty. But according to all that we know of them, they
established no principle of self-conscious reason that was truly higher,
and thus they brought Philosophy no further. They have no other principle
than that of revelation, therefore only a principle that is external.
A. PHILOSOPHY OF THE MEDABBERIM.
The Medabberim are specially mentioned by Moses Maimonides as a widely
extended philosophic school or sect of considerable eminence. He
speaks (More Nevochim, P. I. c. 71, pp. 134, 135) of the peculiarity
of their method of philosophy somewhat as follows: “The Ishmaelites,
however, have extended their discourses still further, and have aspired
to other wonderful doctrines, of which none of the Greek Medabberim
knew anything, because they were still on some points in agreement
with the philosophers. The main point to be remarked is that all the
Medabberim, whether among the Greeks who had become Christians, or among
the Ishmaelites, in the building up of their principles did not follow
the nature of the matter itself, or draw their arguments from it, but
only had in view how the subject must be regarded in order to support
their assertion, or at least not to refute it altogether: afterwards
they boldly asserted that these were the circumstances of the case, and
adduced further arguments and maxims in support of their object. They
insisted on that, and that alone, which concurred with their opinions,
even though it were in the most remote degree, through a hundred links
of reasoning. The earliest of their learned men adopted this practice,
though professing that they reached these reflections through speculation
alone, without reference to any preconceived opinion. Their successors
did not follow their example,” &c.
In the pure philosophy of the so-called “Speakers” was expressed the
principle, peculiar to the Oriental mind, of the dissolution of definite
thought in all its consequences as the dissolution of all connection
and relation. Maimonides says (P. I. c. 71, p. 135; c. 73, p. 149):
“The ground-principle of the Medabberim is that men can have no certain
knowledge of the nature of things, because in the understanding the
contrary may ever exist and be thought. Besides this they in the majority
of instances confound imagination with understanding, and give to the
former the name of the latter. They adopted as a principle, atoms and
empty space,” where all connection appears as something contingent.
“Production is nothing but a connection of atoms, and decay nothing but
a separation of the same; and time consists of many ‘nows.’” In this way
nothing but the atom really exists. They have thus in the more advanced
cultivation of thought brought to consciousness the main standpoint,
then as now the standpoint of the Orientals—that of substance, the one
substance. This pantheism, or Spinozism, if you like to call it so, is
thus the universal view of Oriental poets, historians and philosophers.
The Medabberim go on to say: “Substances, _i.e._ individuals, which,”
for the rest, “are created by God, have many accidental qualities, as in
snow every particle is white. But no quality can endure for two moments;
as it comes, it goes again, and God creates another and yet another in
its place.” All determinations are thus fleeting or perishable; the
individual alone is permanent. “If it pleases God to create another
quality in a substance, it continues; but if He ceases to create, the
substance perishes.” Thereby all necessary connection is done away with,
so that Nature has no meaning. “They therefore deny that anything exists
by nature, likewise that the nature of this or that body necessitates
that it should have certain qualities rather than others. But they say
that God creates all qualities instantaneously, without natural means
and without the help of anything else.” General permanence is substance,
and the particular is altered every moment, and so exists through the
substance. “According to this principle they say, for instance, that when
we think we have dyed a garment red with red dye we have not dyed it red
at all; for God created the red colour in the garment at the very moment
at which we thought we had brought about the result with the red dye. God
observes the invariable custom of not permitting that the colour black
should be produced except when the garment is dyed with that hue; and the
first colour which comes to pass on the occasion of the connection is
not permanent, but disappears on the instant, and every moment another
appears which is created in its turn. In the same way knowledge also
is an accident, which is created by God at every moment that I know
anything; to-day we no longer possess the knowledge which we yesterday
possessed. A man,” when writing, “does not move the pen when he thinks
he moves it, but the motion is an accident of the pen, created by God at
the moment.” In this way God alone is in truth the operative cause; but
He might have made everything differently. “Their eighth proposition is
to the effect that nothing but substance or accident exists, and natural
forms are themselves accidents; substances alone are individuals. The
ninth proposition is that accidents have nothing to do with one another;
they have no causal connection or other relation; in every substance all
accidents may exist. The tenth proposition is transition (אִפִשָׁרות,
_transitus_, _possibilitas_):” “All that we can fancy may also pass over
into the understanding, _i.e._ be possible. But in this way everything is
possible,” since there are no laws of the understanding; this transition
of thought is thus perfectly accidental. “A man as large as a mountain,
a flea as large as an elephant, are possible. Everything may just as
well be something else as what it is, and there is no reason at all why
anything should be one way rather than another. They term it a mere habit
that the earth revolves round a centre-point, that fire moves upward and
that it is hot; it is just as possible, they say, that fire should be
cold.”[6]
We thus see an utter inconstancy of everything; and this whirl of all
things is essentially Oriental. But at the same time this is certainly
also a complete dissolution of all that pertains to reasonableness, in
harmony of course with Eastern exaltation of spirit, which allows of
nothing definite. God is in Himself the perfectly undefined, His activity
is altogether abstract, and hence the particulars produced thereby are
perfectly contingent; if we speak of the necessity of things, the term
is meaningless and incomprehensible, and no attempt should be made to
comprehend it. The activity of God is thus represented as perfectly
devoid of reason. This abstract negativity, combined with the permanent
unity, is thus a fundamental conception in the Oriental way of looking at
things. Oriental poets are in a marked degree pantheists; the pantheistic
is their ordinary point of view. Thus the Arabians developed the sciences
and philosophy, without further defining the concrete Idea; their work
is rather the dissolution of all that is definite in this substance,
with which is associated mere changeableness as the abstract moment of
negativity.
B. COMMENTATORS OF ARISTOTLE.
The Arabians, moreover, made a point for the most part of studying the
writings of Aristotle very diligently, and of availing themselves more
especially both of his metaphysical and logical writings, and also of
his _Physics_; they occupied themselves particularly with multiplying
commentaries on Aristotle, and developing still further the abstract
logical element there present. Many of these commentaries are still
extant. Works of this kind are known in the West, and have been even
translated into Latin and printed; but much good is not to be got from
them. The Arabians developed the metaphysics of the understanding and a
formal logic. Some of the famous Arabians lived as early as the eighth
and ninth centuries; their progress was therefore very rapid, for the
West had as yet made very little advance in culture.
Alkendi, who wrote a commentary on the _Logic_, flourished in and about
A.D. 800, under Almamun.[7] Alfarabi died in 966; he wrote commentaries
on Aristotle’s _Organon_, which were made diligent use of by the
Scholastics, and was also author of a work “On the Origin and Division
of the Sciences.” It is related of him that he read through Aristotle’s
treatise _On Hearing_ forty times, and his _Rhetoric_ two hundred times,
without getting at all tired of them;[8] he must have had a good stomach.
The very physicians made a study of philosophy, and formulated theories;
among them was Avicenna (_b._ A.D. 984, _d._ A.D. 1064), who belonged
to Bokhara, to the east of the Caspian Sea; he wrote a commentary on
Aristotle.[9] Algazel (_d._ A.D. 1127 at Bagdad) wrote compendiums
of logic and metaphysics; he was a sceptic of great ability, with a
powerful mind of the Oriental cast; he held the words of the Prophet to
be pure truth, and wrote _Destructio Philosophorum_.[10] Tofail died in
Seville in A.D. 1193.[11] Averroës, who died A.D. 1217, was specially
distinguished as the commentator of Aristotle.[12]
The acquaintance of the Arabians with Aristotle has this interest in
history that it was thus that Aristotle first became known also in the
West. The commentaries on Aristotle and the collections of passages from
his writings become thus for the Western world a fountain of philosophy.
Western nations long knew nothing of Aristotle, excepting through such
retranslations of his works and translations of Arabian commentaries on
them. For such translations were made from Arabic into Latin by Spanish
Arabs, and especially by Jews in the south of Spain and Portugal and in
Africa; there was often even a Hebrew translation between.
C. JEWISH PHILOSOPHERS.
With the Arabians are closely connected the Jewish philosophers, among
whom the above-mentioned Moses Maimonides held a distinguished place. He
was born at Cordova, in Spain, A.D. 1131 (Anno Mundi 4891, or, according
to others, 4895), and lived in Egypt.[13] Besides _More Nevochim_, which
has been translated into Latin, he composed other works; of him and
other Jews much more of a literary character might be said. In their
philosophy a strong Cabalistic element, on the one hand, makes itself
felt throughout, in astrology, geomancy, &c.; on the other hand, we
find in Moses Maimonides, as in the Fathers, that the foundation is
laid in history. He deals with this in a strictly abstract system of
metaphysics, which is connected, in Philo’s fashion, with the Mosaic
books and their interpretation. We find in these Jewish philosophers
proofs brought forward that God is One, that the world was created, and
that matter is not eternal; Maimonides also speaks of the nature of God.
The unity of God is dealt with as it was among the ancient Eleatics
and the Neo-Platonists; to prove, namely, that not the Many, but the
self-begetting and self-abrogating One is the truth.[14]
SECTION TWO
THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY
All the Philosophy which we first encounter in the Middle Ages, when
independent states begin to rise, consists of bare remnants of the
Roman world, which on its Fall had sunk in all respects so low that the
culture of the world seemed to have come entirely to an end. Thus in
the West hardly anything was known beyond the Isagoge of Porphyry, the
Latin Commentaries of Boethius on the Logical works of Aristotle, and
extracts from the same by Cassiodorus—most barren compilations; there
is also what is just as barren, the dissertations ascribed to Augustine
_De dialectica_ and _De categoriis_, which last is a paraphrase of
the Aristotelian work upon the categories.[15] These were the first
make-shifts or expedients for carrying on Philosophy; in them the most
external and most formal reasoning is applied.
The whole effect of the scholastic philosophy is a monotonous one. In
vain have men hitherto endeavoured to show in this theology, which
reigned from the eighth or even sixth century almost to the sixteenth,
particular distinctions and stages in development. In this case as in
that of the Arabian philosophy, time does not allow—and if it did the
nature of things would not allow—us to separate the scholastic philosophy
into its individual systems or manifestations, but only to give a general
sketch of the main elements present therein which it has actually taken
up into thought. It is not interesting by reason of its matter, for we
cannot remain at the consideration of this; it is not a philosophy. The
name, however, properly speaking indicates a general manner rather than
a system—if we may speak of a philosophic system. Scholasticism is not
a fixed doctrine like Platonism or Scepticism, but a very indefinite
name which comprehends the philosophic endeavours of Christendom for the
greater part of a thousand years. However, this history which occupies
nearly a thousand years is, as a matter of fact, comprised within one
Notion which we propose to consider more closely; it has ever occupied
the same standpoint, and been grounded on the same principle; for it is
the faith of the Church that we catch sight of, and a formalism which is
merely an eternal analysis and constant re-iteration within itself. The
more general acceptance of the Aristotelian writings has merely brought
forth a difference of degree and caused no real scientific progress.
Here there is indeed a history of men, but speaking properly none of
scientific knowledge; the men are noble, pious, and in all respects most
distinguished.
The study of the scholastic philosophy is a difficult one, even if its
language only be considered. The Scholastics certainly make use of a
barbaric Latin, but this is not the fault of the Scholastics but of their
Latin culture. Latin forms a quite unsuitable instrument for applying to
philosophic categories such as these, because the terms which the new
culture adopts could not possibly be expressed by this language without
unduly straining it; the beautiful Latin of Cicero is not adapted for
use in profound speculations. It cannot be expected of anyone to know at
first hand this philosophy of the Middle Ages, for it is as comprehensive
and voluminous as it is barren and ill-expressed.
Of the great schoolmen we still have many works left to us which are
very lengthy, so that it is no easy task to study them: the later
they are, the more formal do they become. The Schoolmen did not only
write compendiums—for the writings of Duns Scotus amount to twelve,
and those of Thomas Aquinas to eighteen folios. Abstracts of them are
to be found in various works. The principal sources from which we
obtain our knowledge are: 1, Lambertus Danæus in the Prolegomena to his
_Commentarius in librum primum sententiarum Petri Lombardi, Genevæ_,
1580. (This is the best authority we have in abridged form); 2, Launoi:
_De varia Aristotelis in Academia Parisiensi fortuna_; 3, Cramer:
Continuation of Bossuet’s History of the World, in the last two volumes;
4, the _Summa_ of Thomas Aquinas. In Tiedemann’s History of Philosophy
extracts from the Scholastics are also to be found, as likewise in
Tennemann; Rixner also makes judicious extracts.
We shall limit ourselves to general points of view. The name finds its
origin in this way. From the time of Charles the Great it was only in
two places—in the great schools attached to the great cathedral churches
and monasteries—that a cleric, that is a canon who had the oversight of
the instructors (_informatores_), was called _scholasticus_; he likewise
gave lectures on the most important branch of science, theology. In
the monasteries he who was the most advanced instructed the monks.
We have not, properly speaking, to deal with these; but although
scholastic philosophy was something altogether different, the name of
Scholastics attached itself to those alone who propounded their theology
scientifically and in a system. In place of the _patres ecclesiæ_ there
thus arose later on the _doctores_.
The scholastic philosophy is thus really theology, and this theology is
nothing but philosophy. The further content of theology is merely that
which is present in the ordinary conceptions of religion; theology,
however, is the science of the system as it must necessarily be present
within every Christian, every peasant, &c. The science of theology
is often placed in an external historical content, in exegesis, in
the enumeration of the various manuscripts of the New Testament, in
considering whether these are written on parchment, cotton fabrics or
paper, whether in uncial letters or otherwise, and which century they
belong to; further matters for consideration are the Jewish conceptions
of time, the history of the Popes, Bishops and Fathers, and what took
place at the councils of the Church. All these matters, however,
do not pertain to the nature of God and its relation to mankind.
The one essential object of theology as the doctrine of God, is the
nature of God, and this content is in its nature really speculative;
those theologians who consider this are therefore nothing less than
philosophers. The science of God is nothing but Philosophy. Philosophy
and theology have hence here also been counted one, and it is their
separation that constitutes the transition into modern times, seeing that
men have thought that for thinking reason something could be true which
is not true for theology. Down to the Middle Ages, on the contrary, it
was held as fundamental that there should be but one truth. Thus the
theology of the scholastics is not to be represented as though, as with
us, it merely contained doctrines about God, &c., in historic guise, for
in fact it also has within it the profoundest speculations of Aristotle
and of the Neo-Platonists. Their philosophy, and much in them that is
excellent, is found in Aristotle, only in a simpler and purer form; and
to them too the whole lay beyond actuality and mingled with Christian
actuality as it is represented to us.
From Christianity, within whose bounds we now have our place, Philosophy
has to re-establish its position. In heathendom the root of knowledge
was external nature as thought devoid of self, and subjective nature
as the inward self. Both Nature and the natural self of mankind, and
likewise thought, there possessed affirmative significance; hence all
this was good. In Christianity the root of truth has, however, quite
another meaning; it was not only the truth as against the heathen gods,
but as against Philosophy also, against nature, against the immediate
consciousness of man. Nature is there no longer good, but merely a
negative; self-consciousness, the thought of man, his pure self, all this
receives a negative position in Christianity. Nature has no validity,
and affords no interest; its universal laws, as the reality under which
the individual existences of nature are collected, have likewise no
authority: the heavens, the sun, the whole of nature is a corpse. Nature
is given over to the spiritual, and indeed to spiritual subjectivity;
thus the course of nature is everywhere broken in upon by miracles. With
this surrender of natural necessity we have the fact associated that all
further content, all that truth which constitutes the universal of that
nature, is given and revealed. The one starting-point, the contemplation
of nature, is thus for knowledge undoubtedly not present. Then this fact
is likewise set aside that I am present as a self. The self as this
immediate certainty has to be abrogated; it must also merge itself in
another self, but in one beyond, and only there does it have its value.
This other self, in which the proper self is made to have its freedom,
is first of all likewise a particular self, that has not the form of
universality: it is determined and limited in time and space, and at
the same time has the significance of an absolute in and for itself. A
real sense of self is thus abandoned, but what self-consciousness on the
other hand gains is not a universal, a thought. In thought I have real
affirmative significance, not as an individual, but as universal ‘I’; the
content of truth is now, however, plainly individualized, and thus the
thought of the ‘I’ falls away. Thereby, however, the highest concrete
content of the absolute Idea is set forth, in which the opposites that
are plainly infinite are united; it is the power which unites in itself
what appears to consciousness infinitely removed from one another—the
mortal and the absolute. This absolute is itself ‘this’ first of all as
this concrete, not as abstraction, but as the unity of universal and
individual; this concrete consciousness is for the first time truth. The
reason of the former content being also true, comes to me as something
not pertaining to myself, but as a thing received outside of self.
The testimony of spirit, indeed, pertains thereto, and my inmost self
is present there; but the testimony of spirit is a thing concealed,
which does not further reveal itself, does not beget the content from
itself, but receives it. The Spirit which bears witness is further
itself distinguished from me as an individual; my testifying spirit is
another, and there only remains to me the empty shell of passivity.
Conditioned by this inflexible standpoint, Philosophy had to go forth
once more. The first working up of this content, the inward operation of
universal thought in the same, is the task scholastic philosophy has to
undertake. The opposition between faith and reason forms the end arrived
at; reason, on the one hand, feels the necessity of setting to work on
nature in order to obtain immediate certainty, and on the other hand of
finding in genuine thought, in specific production out of self, this same
satisfaction.
We must now speak of the methods and manners of the scholastics. In this
scholastic activity thought pursues its work quite apart from all regard
to experience; we no longer hear anything of taking up actuality and
determining it through thought. Although the Notion came into recognition
earlier than this, in Aristotle, in the first place, the Notion was not
apprehended as the necessity of carrying the content further; for this
was received in its successive manifestations, and there was present
merely an intermingling of actuality accepted as truth and of thought.
Still less, in the second place, was the greater part of the content
permeated by Notions, for this content was taken up superficially into
the form of thought—more especially with the Stoics and Epicureans.
The scholastic philosophy altogether dissociates itself from any such
endeavours; it leaves actuality to exist alongside itself as if it were
despised and had no interest. For reason found its true existence, its
actualization, in another world and not in this; the whole progress of
the cultivated world goes, however, to the re-instalment of a faith in
the present world. Nevertheless, at first all knowledge and action, and
whatever relates to an interest in this world, were entirely banished.
Branches of knowledge that pertain to such ordinary matters as sight and
hearing, restful contemplation and occupation with ordinary actuality
here found no place; nor did such sciences as recognize a definite
sphere of actuality after their own particular fashion, and constitute
the material for genuine philosophy, nor arts which give to the Idea a
sensuous existence. Likewise law and right, the recognition of the actual
man, were not esteemed as pertaining to the social relationships of life,
but to some other sphere. In this absence of rationality in the actual,
or of rationality which has its actuality in ordinary existence, is found
the utter barbarism of thought, in that it keeps to another world, and
does not have the Notion of reason—the Notion that the certainty of self
is all truth.
Now thought as sundered has a content, the intelligible world, as an
actuality existent for itself, to which thought applies itself. Its
conduct is here to be compared with that which takes place when the
understanding applies itself to the sensuous and perceptible world, makes
it as substance its basis, having a fixed object in it, and reasoning
respecting it; it is then not the independent movement of Philosophy
proper which penetrates existence and expresses it, for all it does is
to find predicates regarding it. The scholastic philosophy has thus the
intelligible world of the Christian religion, God and all His attributes
and works therewith connected, as an independent object; and thought is
directed to God’s unchangeableness, to such questions as whether matter
is eternal, whether man is free, &c.—just as the understanding passes to
and fro over the phenomenal and perceived. Now the scholastic philosophy
was here given over to the infinite movement of determinate Notions;
the categories of possibility and actuality, freedom and necessity,
constitution and substance, &c., are of this nature, they are not
fixed, but pure movements. Anything whatever, determined as potential,
transforms itself equally into the opposite, and must necessarily be
surrendered; and determination can only save itself by a new distinction,
because it must, on the one hand, be given up, and on the other retained.
The scholastics are thus decried on account of the endless distinctions
which they draw. For the sake of these determinations through the
abstract Notion the Aristotelian philosophy was predominant, though not
in its whole extent. It was the Aristotelian _Organon_ that was held in
such favour, and that indeed just as much for its laws of thought as
for its metaphysical conceptions—the categories. These abstract Notions
constituted in their determinateness the understanding of the scholastic
philosophy, which could not pass beyond itself and attain to freedom, nor
seize upon the freedom given by reason.
With this finite form a finite content is likewise directly associated.
From one determination we pass on to another, and such determinations,
as particular, are finite; the determination there relates itself
externally and not as self-comprehensive and self-embracing. The result
of this determination is that thought will really act as if it brought
about conclusions, for to draw conclusions is the mode of formal logical
progression. Philosophy thus consists of a methodical and syllogistic
reasoning. Just as the Sophists of Greece wandered about amongst abstract
conceptions on behalf of actuality, so did the scholastics on behalf of
their intellectual world. To the former Being had validity; it they had
rescued and delivered as against the negativity of the Notion, while
along with that they had justified it through the same. The principal
endeavour of the scholastics was in the same way to vindicate the
Christian intellectual world as against the confusion of the Notion,
and through the latter to demonstrate its conformity with the same. The
universal form of the scholastic philosophy thus consisted in this—that
a proposition was laid down, the objections to it brought forward,
and these contradicted through counter-propositions and distinctions.
Philosophy was hence not separated from theology, as it is not in itself,
for Philosophy is the knowledge of absolute existence, that is to say,
theology. But to that theology the Christian absolute world was a system
which was held to be an actuality, as was ordinary actuality for the
Greek sophists. Of Philosophy proper there thus remained only the laws of
thought and abstractions.
A. RELATIONSHIP OF THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY TO CHRISTIANITY.
Philosophy with the scholastics had consequently the same quality of
want of independence as it had before this with the Christian Fathers
and the Arabians. The Church as already constituted established itself
amongst the Teutonic nations, and through its constitution it conditioned
philosophy. The Christian Church had indeed spread itself abroad
throughout the Roman world, but, more especially in the beginning, it
merely formed a community of its own, by whom the world was renounced,
and which made no special claims to recognition—or if such claims were
made they were merely negative, because the individuals in the world
were simply martyrs, thus renouncing the world. But the Church in time
became dominant, and the Roman emperors, both of the East and of the
West, embraced Christianity. Thus the Church attained to a position
openly recognized and undisturbed, from which it exercised much influence
upon the world. The political world, however, fell into the hands of
the Teutonic nations, and thereby a new form arose, and to this the
scholastic philosophy pertains. We know the revolution by the name of the
Migration of the Nations (_supra_, pp. 23, 24). Fresh races inundated
the ancient Roman world and established themselves therein; they thus
erected their new world on the ruins of the old—a picture which Rome in
its present aspect still presents. There the splendour of the Christian
temples is due in part to the remnants of the ancient, and new palaces
are built on ruins and have ruins all around.
1. The principal feature in the Middle Ages is found in this disunion,
the two sides here present; there are revealed in it two nations, two
manners of speech. We see people who have hitherto ruled, a previous
world having its own language, arts, and sciences, and on this to them
foreign element the new nations grafted themselves, and these thus
started upon their course internally dissevered. In this history we
have thus before us not the development of a nation from itself, but
one proceeding from its opposite, and one which is and remains burdened
by this opposite, and which takes it up into itself and has to overcome
it. Hence these people have in this way represented in themselves the
nature of the spiritual process. Spirit is the making for itself a
presupposition, the giving to itself the natural as a counterpoise, the
separating itself therefrom, thus the making it an object, and then for
the first time the working upon this hypothesis, formulating it, and from
itself bringing it forth, begetting it, internally reconstructing it.
Hence in the Roman as in the Byzantine world, Christianity has triumphed
as a Church; but neither of these worlds was capable of effectuating
the new religion in itself and of bringing forth a new world from this
principle. For in both there was a character already present—customs,
laws, a juridical system, a constitution (if it can be called
constitution), a political condition, capacities, art, science, spiritual
culture—in short, everything was there. The nature of spirit, on the
contrary, requires that the world thus constituted should be begotten
from it, and that this process of begetting should take place through
the agency of reaction, through the assimilation of something which has
gone before. These conquerors have thus established themselves in a
foreign sphere, and have become the rulers over it; but at the same time
they have come under the dominion of a new spirit which has been imposed
upon them. Although on the one hand predominant, on the other they have
come under the dominion of the spiritual element, because they conducted
themselves passively in regard to it.
The spiritual Idea or spirituality has become imposed upon the dulness,
both in mind and spirit, of these rough barbarians; their hearts were
thereby pricked. The rough nature has in this way become immanent in the
Idea as an eternal opposition, or there is kindled in them infinite pain,
the most terrible suffering—such that it may even be represented as a
crucified Christ. They had to sustain this conflict within themselves,
and one side of it is found in the philosophy which later on made its
appearance amongst them, and was first of all received as something
given. They are still uncultured people, but for all their barbaric
dulness they are deep in heart and mind; on them, then, has the principle
of mind been bestowed, and along with it this pain, this war between
spiritual and natural, has necessarily been instituted. Culture here
begins from the most terrible contradiction, and this has to be by it
resolved. It is a kingdom of pain, but of purgatory, for that which is
in the pain is spirit and not animal, and spirit does not die, but goes
forth from its grave. The two sides of this contradiction are really thus
related to one another in such a way that it is the spiritual which has
to reign over the barbarians.
The true dominion of spirit cannot, however, be a dominion in the sense
that its opposite is in subjection to it; spirit in and for itself
cannot have the subjective spirit to which it relates confronting it
as an externally obedient slave, for this last is itself also spirit.
The dominion that exists must take up this position, that spirit is in
subjective spirit in harmony with itself. The universal is thus that
opposition in which the one can only have supremacy by the subjection
of the other, but which already contains the principle of resolution in
itself because mind must necessarily bear rule. And hence the consequent
development is only this, that mind as reconciliation attains the
mastery. To this it pertains that not the subjective consciousness, mind
and heart alone, but also the worldly rule, laws, institutions, the
human life, in so far as these rest in mind, must become rational. In
the Republic of Plato we have met with the idea that the philosophers
are those who ought to reign. Now is the time in which it is said that
the spiritual are to govern, but this talk about the spiritual has been
made to bear the significance that ecclesiasticism and the ecclesiastics
ought to govern. The spiritual is thus made a particular form, an
individual, but the real meaning that it bears is that the spiritual as
such ought to be the determining factor; and this has passed current
until the present day. Thus in the French Revolution we see that abstract
thought is made to rule; in accordance with it constitution and laws are
determined, it forms the bond between man and man; and men come to have
the consciousness that what is esteemed amongst them is abstract thought,
and that liberty and equality are what ought to be regarded; in this the
subject also has his real value, even in relation to actuality.
One form of this reconciliation is likewise this, that the subject is
satisfied with himself and in himself as he stands and moves, with
his thoughts, his desires, with his spirituality; and thus that his
knowledge, his thought, his conviction, has come to be the highest, and
has the determination of the divine, of what holds good as absolute.
The divine and spiritual is thus implanted in my subjective spirit,
is identical with me; I myself am the universal, and it has efficacy
for me only as I directly know it. This form of reconciliation is the
newest, but the most one-sided. For the spiritual is not there determined
as objective, but is only comprehended as it is in my subjectivity,
in my consciousness: my conviction as such is taken as ultimate, and
that is the formal reconciliation of subjectivity with itself. If the
reconciliation has this form, the point of view of which we spoke before
has no longer any interest; it is past and a mere matter of history. If
the conviction as it immediately reveals itself within every subject
is the true, the absolute, this process of mediation between God, as
the true and absolute, and mankind, is no longer in us a necessity.
The doctrines of the Christian religion have likewise the position of
something foreign, pertaining to a particular time, that with which
certain men have occupied themselves. The conception that the Idea is
absolutely concrete, and is as spirit in a relation of opposition to the
subject, has disappeared, and only shows itself as having passed away.
In so far that which I have said about the principle of the Christian
system, and shall still say of the scholastics, has interest only from
the standpoint which I have given, when the interest is in the Idea in
its concrete determination, and not from the standpoint of the immediate
reconciliation of the subject with himself.
2. We have now to consider further the character of the opposition to
any agreement with Philosophy; and to do this we must shortly call to
mind the historical aspect of the case, although we need only treat of
the main points therein. The first matter to consider is the opposition
that exists in the world. This form of opposition as it appears in
history is as follows. Spirituality as such should be the spirituality
of the heart; spirit, however, is one, and thus the communion of those
who have this spirituality is asserted. Hence a community arises,
which then becomes an external order, and thus, as we have seen (pp.
21, 22), expands into a church. In as far as spirit is its principle,
it is, as spiritual, immediately universal, for isolation in feeling,
opinion, &c., is unspiritual. The Church organizes itself, but yet it
goes forth into worldly existence, attains to riches, possesses goods,
and even becomes worldly and imbued with all the brute passions; for
the spiritual is merely the original principle. The heart that is
set on ordinary existence, on the world, and the whole of such human
relationships as are hereby involved, is guided by these inclinations,
desires and passions, by all this grossness and vulgarity. Thus the
Church merely has the spiritual principle within itself without its
being truly real, and in such a way that its further relationships are
not yet rational; for such is their character before the development
of the spiritual principle in the world. The worldly element without
being conformable to the spiritual, is present as existence, and is the
immediately natural worldly element; in this way the Church comes to have
in itself the immediately natural principle. All the passions it has
within itself—arrogance, avarice, violence, deceit, rapacity, murder,
envy, hatred—all these sins of barbarism are present in it, and indeed
they belong to its scheme of government. This government is thus already
a rule of passion, although it professes to be a spiritual rule, and thus
the Church is for the most part wrong in its worldly principles, though
right in its spiritual aspect.
Hence the new religion separated our whole conception of the world into
two different worlds, the intellectual but not subjectively conceived
world, and the temporal world. Therefore life as a whole fell into two
parts, two kingdoms. Directly opposite the spiritual worldly kingdom
there stands the independent worldly kingdom, emperor against pope,
papacy and Church—not a state, but a worldly government; there the world
beyond, here the world beside us. Two absolutely essential principles
conflict with one another; the rude ways of the world, the ruggedness of
the individual will, beget an opposition most terrible and severe. The
culture which now begins to show itself is confronted by this incomplete
reality, as an actual world in opposition to its world of thought; and
it does not recognize the one as present in the other. It possesses two
establishments, two standards of measure and of weight, and these it does
not bring together but leaves mutually estranged.
The spiritual kingdom likewise has as Church an immediate present of
ordinary actuality, but the worldly kingdom, both as external nature and
as the real self of consciousness, has no truth or value in itself; for
truth, as lying beyond it—the measure of truth that shines in it—is given
to it from without as something inconceivable and in itself complete. The
worldly kingdom must thus be subject to the spiritual become worldly;
the emperor is hence defender and protector of the Church (_advocatus
ecclesiæ_). The worldly element, in a certain sense, takes up a position
of independence, no doubt, but it is still in unity with the other
in such a way that it recognizes the spiritual as dominant. In this
opposition a war must arise both on account of the worldly element which
is present in the Church itself, and likewise on account of the directly
worldly element of violence and of barbarism in worldly rule as it exists
_per se_. The war must at first, however, prove disastrous to the worldly
side, for just as its own position is asserted, the other is likewise
recognized by it, and it is forced humbly to submit to this last, to
the spiritual and its passions. The bravest, noblest emperors have been
excommunicated by popes, cardinals, legates, and even by archbishops and
bishops; and they could do nothing in self-defence, nor put their trust
in outward power, for it was internally broken; and thus they were ever
vanquished and finally forced to surrender.