β. In the second place, the spiritual was observed as in its realization

it constitutes the spiritual world of states, in order thus to

investigate from experience the rights of individuals as regards one

another, and as regards rulers, and the rights of states against states.

Before this popes anointed kings, just as was done in Old Testament

times to those appointed by God; it was in the Old Testament that the

tithe was commanded; the forbidden degrees of relationship in marriage

were also adopted from the Mosaic laws. What was right and permissible

for kings was demonstrated from Saul’s and David’s histories, the rights

of priesthood from Samuel—in short, the Old Testament was the source of

all the principles of public law, and it is in this way even now that

all papal bulls have their deliverances confirmed. It may easily be

conceived how much nonsense was in this manner concocted. Now, however,

right was sought for in man himself, and in history, and what had been

accounted right both in peace and in war was explained. In this way books

were composed which even now are constantly quoted in the Parliament of

England. Men further observed the desires which could be satisfied in

the state and the manner in which satisfaction could be given to them,

in order thus from man himself, from man of the past as well as of the

present, to learn what is right.

b. The second method, that of Idealism, proceeds from what is inward;

according to it everything is in thought, mind itself is all content.

Here the Idea itself is made the object; that signifies the thinking

it and from it proceeding to the determinate. What Realism draws from

experience is now derived from thought _à priori_; or the determinate is

also comprehended but not led back to the universal merely, but to the

Idea.

The two methods overlap one another, however, because experience on its

side desires to derive universal laws from observations, while, on the

other side, thought proceeding from abstract universality must still give

itself a determinate content; thus _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ methods

are mingled. In France abstract universality was the more predominant;

from England experience took its rise, and even now it is there held in

the greatest respect; Germany proceeded from the concrete Idea, from the

inwardness of mind and spirit.

2. The questions of present philosophy, the opposites, the content which

occupies the attention of these modern times, are as follows:—

a. The first form of the opposition which we have already touched upon in

the Middle Ages is the Idea of God and His Being, and the task imposed is

to deduce the existence of God, as pure spirit, from thought. Both sides

must be comprehended through thought as absolute unity; the extremest

opposition is apprehended as gathered into one unity. Other subjects

which engage our attention are connected with the same general aim,

namely, the bringing about of the inward reconciliation in the opposition

which exists between knowledge and its object.

b. The second form of opposition is that of Good and Evil—the opposition

of the assertion of independent will to the positive and universal; the

origin of evil must be known. Evil is plainly the “other,” the negation

of God as Holiness; because He is, because He is wise, good, and at the

same time almighty, evil is contradictory to Him; an endeavour is made to

reconcile this contradiction.

c. The third form of opposition is that of the freedom of man and

necessity.

α. The individual is clearly not determined in any other way than from

himself, he is the absolute beginning of determination; in the ‘I,’

in the self, a power of decision is clearly to be found. This freedom

is in opposition to the theory that God alone is really absolutely

determining. Further, when that which happens is in futurity, the

determining of it through God is regarded as Providence and the

fore-knowledge of God. In this, however, a new contradiction is involved,

inasmuch as because God’s knowledge is not merely subjective, that which

God knows likewise is.

β. Further still, human freedom is in opposition to necessity as the

determinateness of nature; man is dependent on nature, and the external

as well as the inward nature of man is his necessity as against his

freedom.

γ. Considered objectively, this opposition is that between final causes

and efficient causes, _i.e._ between the acts of freedom and the acts of

necessity.

δ. This opposition between the freedom of man and natural necessity has

finally likewise the further form of community of soul and body, of

_commercium animi cum corpore_, as it has been called, wherein the soul

appears as the simple, ideal, and free, and the body as the manifold,

material and necessary.

These matters occupy the attention of science, and they are of a

completely different nature from the interests of ancient philosophy.

The difference is this, that here there is a consciousness of an

opposition, which is certainly likewise contained in the subjects with

which the learning of the ancients was occupied, but which had not come

to consciousness. This consciousness of the opposition, this ‘Fall,’ is

the main point of interest in the conception of the Christian religion.

The bringing about in thought of the reconciliation which is accepted in

belief, now constitutes the whole interest of knowledge. Implicitly it

has come to pass; for knowledge considers itself qualified to bring about

in itself this recognition of the reconciliation. The philosophic systems

are therefore no more than modes of this absolute unity, and only the

concrete unity of those opposites is the truth.

3. As regards the stages which were reached in the progress of this

knowledge we have to mention three of the principal.

a. First of all we find the union of those opposites stated; and to prove

it genuine attempts are made, though not yet determined in purity.

b. The second stage is the metaphysical union; and here, with Descartes,

the philosophy of modern times as abstract thought properly speaking

begins.

α. Thinking understanding seeks to bring to pass the union, inasmuch as

it investigates with its pure thought-determinations; this is in the

first place the standpoint of metaphysics as such.

β. In the second place, we have to consider negation, the destruction of

this metaphysics—the attempt to consider knowledge on its own account,

and the determinations which proceed from it.

c. The third stage is that this union itself which is to be brought

about, and which is the only subject of interest, comes to consciousness

and becomes an object. As principle the union has the form of the

relationship of knowledge to the content, and thus this question has been

put: ‘How is, and how can thought be identical with the objective?’ With

this the inward element which lies at the basis of this metaphysic is

raised into explicitude and made an object; and this includes all modern

philosophy in its range.

4. In respect to the external history and the lives of the philosophers,

it will strike us that from this time on, these appear to be very

different from those of the philosophers of ancient times, whom we

regarded as self-sufficing individualities. It is required that a

philosopher should live as he teaches, that he should despise the

world and not enter into connection with it; this the ancients have

accomplished, and they are such plastic individualities just because the

inward spiritual aim of philosophy has likewise frequently determined

their external relations and conditions. The object of their knowledge

was to take a thoughtful view of the universe; they kept the external

connection with the world all the further removed from themselves

because they did not greatly approve of much therein present; or, at

least, it ever proceeds on its way, according to its own particular

laws, on which the individual is dependent. The individual likewise

participates in the present interests of external life, in order to

satisfy his personal ends, and through them to attain to honour, wealth,

respect, and distinction; the ancient philosophers, however, because

they remained in the Idea, did not concern themselves with things that

were not the objects of their thought. Hence with the Greeks and Romans

the philosophers lived in an independent fashion peculiar to themselves,

and in an external mode of life which appeared suitable to and worthy of

the science they professed; they conducted themselves independently as

private persons, unfettered by outside trammels, and they may be compared

to the monks who renounced all temporal goods.

In the Middle Ages it was chiefly the clergy, doctors of theology,

who occupied themselves with philosophy. In the transition period the

philosophers showed themselves to be in an inward warfare with themselves

and in an external warfare with their surroundings, and their lives were

spent in a wild, unsettled fashion.

In modern times things are very different; now we no longer see

philosophic individuals who constitute a class by themselves. With the

present day all difference has disappeared; philosophers are not monks,

for we find them generally in connection with the world, participating

with others in some common work or calling. They live, not independently,

but in the relation of citizens, or they occupy public offices and take

part in the life of the state. Certainly they may be private persons,

but if so, their position as such does not in any way isolate them from

their other relationships. They are involved in present conditions, in

the world and its work and progress. Thus their philosophy is only by

the way, a sort of luxury and superfluity. This difference is really

to be found in the manner in which outward conditions have taken shape

after the building up of the inward world of religion. In modern times,

namely, on account of the reconciliation of the worldly principle with

itself, the external world is at rest, is brought into order—worldly

relationships, conditions, modes of life, have become constituted and

organized in a manner which is conformable to nature and rational. We

see a universal, comprehensible connection, and with that individuality

likewise attains another character and nature, for it is no longer the

plastic individuality of the ancients. This connection is of such power

that every individuality is under its dominion, and yet at the same time

can construct for itself an inward world. The external has thus been

reconciled with itself in such a way that both inward and outward may be

self-sufficing and remain independent of one another; and the individual

is in the condition of being able to leave his external side to external

order, while in the case of those plastic forms the external could only

be determined entirely from within. Now, on the contrary, with the

higher degree of strength attained by the inward side of the individual,

he may hand the external over to chance; just as he leaves clothing to

the contingencies of fashion, not considering it worth while to exert

his understanding upon it. The external he leaves to be determined by

the order which is present in the particular sphere in which his lot is

cast. The circumstances of life are, in the true sense, private affairs,

determined by outward conditions, and do not contain anything worthy of

our notice. Life becomes scholarly, uniform, commonplace, it connects

itself with outwardly given relationships and cannot represent or set

itself forth as a form pertaining only to itself. Man must not take up

the character of showing himself an independent form, and giving himself

a position in the world created by himself. Because the objective power

of external relationships is infinitely great, and for that reason

the way in which I perforce am placed in them has become a matter of

indifference to me, personality and the individual life generally

are equally indifferent. A philosopher, it is said, should live as a

philosopher, _i.e._, should be independent of the external relationships

of the world, and should give up occupying himself with and troubling

himself concerning them. But thus circumscribed in respect of all

necessities, more especially of culture, no one can suffice for himself;

he must seek to act in connection with others. The modern world is this

essential power of connection, and it implies the fact that it is clearly

necessary for the individual to enter into these relations of external

existence; only a common mode of existence is possible in any calling

or condition, and to this Spinoza forms the solitary exception. Thus in

earlier times bravery was individual; while modern bravery consists in

each not acting after his own fashion, but relying on his connection with

others—and this constitutes his whole merit. The calling of philosopher

is not, like that of the monks, an organized condition. Members of

academies of learning are no doubt organized in part, but even a special

calling like theirs sinks into the ordinary commonplace of state or class

relationships, because admission thereinto is outwardly determined. The

real matter is to remain faithful to one’s aims.

SECTION ONE

MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN ITS FIRST STATEMENT

The first two philosophers whom we have to consider are Bacon and

Boehme; there is as complete a disparity between these individuals as

between their systems of philosophy. None the less both agree that mind

operates in the content of its knowledge as in its own domain, and

this consequently appears as concrete Being. This domain in Bacon is

the finite, natural world; in Boehme it is the inward, mystical, godly

Christian life and existence; for the former starts from experience and

induction, the latter from God and the pantheism of the Trinity.

A. BACON.

There was already being accomplished the abandonment of the content

which lies beyond us, and which through its form has lost the merit

it possessed of being true, and is become of no significance to

self-consciousness or the certainty of self and of its actuality; this

we see for the first time consciously expressed, though not as yet in a

very perfect form, by Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans.

He is therefore instanced as in the fore-front of all this empirical

philosophy, and even now our countrymen like to adorn their works with

sententious sayings culled from him. Baconian philosophy thus usually

means a philosophy which is founded on the observation of the external

or spiritual nature of man in his inclinations, desires, rational

and judicial qualities. From these conclusions are drawn, and general

conceptions, laws pertaining to this domain, are thus discovered. Bacon

has entirely set aside and rejected the scholastic method of reasoning

from remote abstractions and being blind to what lies before one’s eyes.

He takes as his standpoint the sensuous manifestation as it appears to

the cultured man, as the latter reflects upon it; and this is conformable

to the principle of accepting the finite and worldly as such.

Bacon was born in London in 1561. His progenitors and relatives held

high office in the state, and his father was Keeper of the Great Seal

to Queen Elizabeth. He in his turn, having been educated to follow the

same vocation, at once devoted himself to the business of the state, and

entered upon an important career. He early displayed great talent, and

at the age of nineteen he produced a work on the condition of Europe

(_De statu Europæ_). Bacon in his youth attached himself to the Earl of

Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth, through whose support he, who as a

younger son had to see his paternal estate pass to his elder brother,

soon attained to better circumstances, and was elevated to a higher

position. Bacon, however, sullied his fame by the utmost ingratitude

and faithlessness towards his protector; for he is accused of having

been prevailed upon by the enemies of the Earl after his fall to charge

him publicly with High Treason. Under James I., the father of Charles

I. who was beheaded, a weak man, to whom he recommended himself by his

work _De augmentis scientiarum_, he received the most honourable offices

of state by attaching himself to Buckingham: he was made Keeper of the

Great Seal, Lord Chancellor of England, Baron Verulam. He likewise made a

rich marriage, though he soon squandered all his means, and high though

his position was, he stooped to intrigues and was guilty of accepting

bribes in the most barefaced manner. Thereby he brought upon himself the

ill-will both of people and of nobles, so that he was prosecuted, and

his case was tried before Parliament. He was fined 40,000_l._, thrown

into the Tower, and his name was struck out of the list of peers; during

the trial and while he was in prison he showed the greatest weakness of

character. He was, however, liberated from prison, and his trial was

annulled, owing to the even greater hatred of the king and his minister

Buckingham, under whose administration Bacon had filled these offices,

and whose victim he appeared to have been; for he fell earlier than his

comrade Buckingham, and was deserted and condemned by him. It was not

so much his innocence as the fact that those who ruined him had made

themselves hated to an equal degree through their rule, that caused the

hatred and indignation against Bacon to be somewhat mitigated. But he

neither recovered his own sense of self-respect nor the personal esteem

of others, which he had lost through his former conduct. He retired into

private life, lived in poverty, had to beg sustenance from the king,

occupied himself during the remainder of his life with science only, and

died in 1626.[95]

Since Bacon has ever been esteemed as the man who directed knowledge

to its true source, to experience, he is, in fact, the special leader

and representative of what is in England called Philosophy, and beyond

which the English have not yet advanced. For they appear to constitute

that people in Europe which, limited to the understanding of actuality,

is destined, like the class of shopkeepers and workmen in the State, to

live always immersed in matter, and to have actuality but not reason as

object. Bacon won great praise by showing how attention is to be paid

to the outward and inward manifestations of Nature, and the esteem in

which his name is thus held is greater than can be ascribed directly

to his merit. It has become the universal tendency of the time and of

the English mode of reasoning, to proceed from facts, and to judge in

accordance with them. Because Bacon gave expression to the tendency,

and men require to have a leader and originator for any particular

manner of thinking, he is credited with having given to knowledge this

impulse towards experimental philosophy generally. But many cultured men

have spoken and thought regarding what concerns and interests mankind,

regarding state affairs, mind, heart, external nature, &c., in accordance

with experience and in accordance with a cultured knowledge of the world.

Bacon was just such a cultured man of the world, who had seen life in

its great relations, had engaged in state affairs, had dealt practically

with actual life, had observed men, their circumstances and relations,

and had worked with them as cultured, reflecting, and, we may even say,

philosophical men of the world. He thus did not escape the corruption

of those who stood at the helm of the state. With all the depravity of

his character he was a man of mind and clear perception; he did not,

however, possess the power of reasoning through thoughts and notions

that are universal. We do not find in him a methodical or scientific

manner of regarding things, but only the external reasoning of a man of

the world. Knowledge of the world he possessed in the highest degree:

“rich imagination, powerful wit, and the penetrating wisdom which he

displays upon that most interesting of all subjects, commonly called

the world. This last appears to us to have been the characteristical

quality of Bacon’s genius.... It was men rather than things that he

had studied, the mistakes of philosophers rather than the errors of

philosophy. In fact he was no lover of abstract reasoning,” and although

it pertains to philosophy, we find as little as possible of it in him.

“His writings are indeed full of refined and most acute observations, but

it seldom requires any effort on our part to apprehend their wisdom.”

Hence mottoes are often derived from him. “His judgments,” however,

“are commonly given _ex cathedra_, or, if he endeavours to elucidate

them, it is by similes and illustrations and pointed animadversions

more than by direct and appropriate arguments. General reasoning is

absolutely essential in philosophy; the want of it is marked in Bacon’s

writings.”[96] His practical writings are specially interesting; but we

do not find the bright flashes of genius that we expected. As during

his career in the state he acted in accordance with practical utility,

he now, at its conclusion, likewise applied himself in a practical

way to scientific endeavours, and considered and treated the sciences

in accordance with concrete experience and investigation. His is a

consideration of the present, he makes the most of, and ascribes value to

it as it appears; the existent is thus regarded with open eyes, respect

is paid to it as to what reigns pre-eminent, and this sensuous perception

is reverenced and recognized. Here a confidence on the part of reason

in itself and in nature is awakened; it thinkingly applies itself to

nature, certain of finding the truth in it, since both are in themselves

harmonious.

Bacon likewise treated the sciences methodically; he did not merely

bring forward opinions and sentiments, he did not merely express himself

regarding the sciences dogmatically, as a fine gentleman might, but he

went into the matter closely, and established a method in respect of

scientific knowledge. It is only through this method of investigation

introduced by him that he is noteworthy—it is in that way alone that

he can be considered to belong to the history of the sciences and of

philosophy. And through this principle of methodical knowledge he has

likewise produced a great effect upon his times, by drawing attention

to what was lacking in the sciences, both in their methods and in

their content. He set forth the general principles of procedure in

an empirical philosophy. The spirit of the philosophy of Bacon is to

take experience as the true and only source of knowledge, and then to

regulate the thought concerning it. Knowledge from experience stands

in opposition to knowledge arising from the speculative Notion, and

the opposition is apprehended in so acute a manner that the knowledge

proceeding from the Notion is ashamed of the knowledge from experience,

just as this again takes up a position of antagonism to the knowledge

through the Notion. What Cicero says of Socrates may be said of Bacon,

that he brought Philosophy down to the world, to the homes and every-day

lives of men (Vol. I. p. 389). To a certain extent knowledge from the

absolute Notion may assume an air of superiority over this knowledge; but

it is essential, as far as the Idea is concerned, that the particularity

of the content should be developed. The Notion is an essential matter,

but as such its finite side is just as essential. Mind gives presence,

external existence, to itself; to come to understand this extension, the

world as it is, the sensuous universe, to understand itself as this,

_i.e._ with its manifest, sensuous extension, is one side of things.

The other side is the relation to the Idea. Abstraction in and for

itself must determine and particularize itself. The Idea is concrete,

self-determining, it has the principle of development; and perfect

knowledge is always developed. A conditional knowledge in respect of the

Idea merely signifies that the working out of the development has not

yet advanced very far. But we have to deal with this development; and

for this development and determination of the particular from the Idea,

so that the knowledge of the universe, of nature, may be cultivated—for

this, the knowledge of the particular is necessary. This particularity

must be worked out on its own account; we must become acquainted with

empirical nature, both with the physical and with the human. The merit

of modern times is to have accomplished or furthered these ends; it was

in the highest degree unsatisfactory when the ancients attempted the

work. Empiricism is not merely an observing, hearing, feeling, etc., a

perception of the individual; for it really sets to work to find the

species, the universal, to discover laws. Now because it does this, it

comes within the territory of the Notion—it begets what pertains to the

region of the Idea; it thus prepares the empirical material for the

Notion, so that the latter can then receive it ready for its use. If

the science is perfected the Idea must certainly issue forth of itself;

science as such no longer commences from the empiric. But in order that

this science may come into existence, we must have the progression from

the individual and particular to the universal—an activity which is a

reaction on the given material of empiricism in order to bring about its

reconstruction. The demand of _a priori_ knowledge, which seems to imply

that the Idea should construct from itself, is thus a reconstruction

only, or what is in religion accomplished through sentiment and feeling.

Without the working out of the empirical sciences on their own account,

Philosophy could not have reached further than with the ancients. The

whole of the Idea in itself is science as perfected and complete; but

the other side is the beginning, the process of its origination. This

process of the origination of science is different from its process in

itself when it is complete, just as is the process of the history of

Philosophy and that of Philosophy itself. In every science principles are

commenced with; at the first these are the results of the particular,

but if the science is completed they are made the beginning. The case

is similar with Philosophy; the working out of the empirical side has

really become the conditioning of the Idea, so that this last may reach

its full development and determination. For instance, in order that the

history of the Philosophy of modern times may exist, we must have a

history of Philosophy in general, the process of Philosophy during so

many thousand years; mind must have followed this long road in order

that the Philosophy may be produced. In consciousness it then adopts the

attitude of having cut away the bridge from behind it; it appears to be

free to launch forth in its ether only, and to develop without resistance

in this medium; but it is another matter to attain to this ether and

to development in it. We must not overlook the fact that Philosophy

would not have come into existence without this process, for mind is

essentially a working upon something different.

1. Bacon’s fame rests on two works. In the first place, he has the

merit of having in his work _De augmentis scientiarum_ presented to

us a systematic encyclopedia of the sciences, an outline which must

undoubtedly have caused a sensation amongst his contemporaries. It is

important to set before men’s eyes a well arranged picture such as

this of the whole, when that whole has not been grasped in thought.

This encyclopedia gives a general classification of the sciences; the

principles of the classification are regulated in accordance with the

differences in the intellectual capacities. Bacon thus divides human

learning according to the faculties of memory, imagination, and reason,

for he distinguishes what pertains (1) to memory; (2) to imagination; (3)

to reason. Under memory he considered history; under imagination, poetry,

and art; and finally, under reason, philosophy.[97] According to his

favourite method of division these again are further divided, since he

brings all else under these same heads; this is, however, unsatisfactory.

To history belong the works of God—sacred, prophetic, ecclesiastical

history; the works of men—civil and literary history; and likewise the

works of nature, and so on.[98] He goes through these topics after the

manner of his time, a main characteristic of which is that anything can

be made plausible through examples, _e.g._ from the Bible. Thus, in

treating of _Cosmetica_, he says in regard to paint that “He is surprised

that this depraved custom of painting has been by the penal laws both

ecclesiastical and civil so long overlooked. In the Bible we read indeed

of Jezebel that she painted her face; but nothing of the kind is said

of Esther or Judith.”[99] If kings, popes, etc., are being discussed,

such examples as those of Ahab and Solomon must be brought forward. As

formerly in civil laws—those respecting marriage, for instance—the Jewish

forms held good, in Philosophy, too, the same are still to be found. In

this work theology likewise appears, as also magic; there is contained in

it a comprehensive system of knowledge and of the sciences.

The arrangement of the sciences is the least significant part of the work

_De augmentis scientiarum_. It was by its criticism that its value was

established and its effect produced, as also by the number of instructive

remarks contained in it; all this was at that time lacking in the

particular varieties of learning and modes of discipline, especially in

as far as the methods hitherto adopted were faulty, and unsuitable to the

ends in view: in them the Aristotelian conceptions of the schools were

spun out by the understanding as though they were realities. As it was

with the Schoolmen and with the ancients, this classification is still

the mode adopted in the sciences, in which the nature of knowledge is

unknown. In them the idea of the science is advanced beforehand, and to

this idea a principle foreign to it is added, as a basis of division,

just as here is added the distinction between memory, imagination and

reason. The true method of division is found in the self-division of the

Notion, its separating itself from itself. In knowledge the moment of

self-consciousness is undoubtedly found, and the real self-consciousness

has in it the moments of memory, imagination and reason. But this

division is certainly not taken from the Notion of self-consciousness,

but from experience, in which self-consciousness finds itself possessed

of these capacities.

2. The other remarkable feature in Bacon is that in his second work,

his _Organon_, he sought at great length to establish a new method in

learning; in this regard his name is still held greatly in honour by

many. What chiefly distinguishes his system is his polemical attitude

towards scholastic methods as they had hitherto existed, towards

syllogistic forms. He calls these methods _anticipationes naturæ_; in

them men begin with presuppositions, definitions, accepted ideas, with a

scholastic abstraction, and reason further from these without regarding

that which is present in actuality. Thus regarding God and His methods

of operating in nature, regarding devils, &c., they make use of passages

from the Bible, such as “Sun, stand thou still,” in order to deduce

therefrom certain metaphysical propositions from which they go further

still. It was against this _a priori_ method that Bacon directed his

polemic; as against these anticipations of nature he called attention

to the explanation, the interpretation of nature.[100] “The same action

of mind,” he says, “which discovers a thing in question, judges it;

and the operation is not performed by the help of any middle term, but

directly, almost in the same manner as by the sense. For the sense in

its primary objects at once apprehends the appearance of the object, and

consents to the truth thereof.”[101] The syllogism is altogether rejected

by Bacon. As a matter of fact, this Aristotelian deduction is not a

knowledge through itself in accordance with its content: it requires a

foreign universal as its basis, and for that reason its movement is in

its form contingent. The content is not in unity with the form, and this

form is hence in itself contingent, because it, considered on its own

account, is the movement onwards in a foreign content. The major premise

is the content existent for itself, the minor is likewise the content

not through itself, for it goes back into the infinite, _i.e._ it has

not the form in itself; the form is not the content. The opposite may

always be made out equally well through the syllogism, for it is a matter

of indifference to this form what content is made its basis. “Dialectic

does not assist in the discovery of the arts; many arts were found out by

chance.”[102]

It was not against this syllogism generally, _i.e._ not against the

Notion of it (for Bacon did not possess this), but against deduction as

it was put into operation, as it was to the scholastics—the deduction

which took an assumed content as its basis—that Bacon declaimed, urging

that the content of experience should be made the basis, and the method

of induction pursued. He demanded that observations on nature and

experiments should be made fundamental, and pointed out the objects

whose investigation was of special importance in the interests of human

society, and so on. From this there then resulted the establishment of

conclusions through induction and analogy.[103] In fact it was only to

an alteration in the content that, without being aware of it, Bacon

was impelled. For though he rejected the syllogism and only permitted

conclusions to be reached through induction, he unconsciously himself

drew deductions; likewise all these champions of empiricism, who followed

after him, and who put into practice what he demanded, and thought they

could by observations, experiments and experiences, keep the matter

in question pure, could neither so do without drawing deductions, nor

without introducing conceptions; and they drew their deductions and

formed their notions and conceptions all the more freely because they

thought that they had nothing to do with conceptions at all; nor did

they go forth from deduction to immanent, true knowledge. Thus when

Bacon set up induction in opposition to the syllogism, this opposition

is formal; each induction is also a deduction, which fact was known even

to Aristotle. For if a universal is deduced from a number of things, the

first proposition reads, “These bodies have these qualities;” the second,

“All these bodies belong to one class;” and thus, in the third place,

this class has these qualities. That is a perfect syllogism. Induction

always signifies that observations are instituted, experiments made,

experience regarded, and from this the universal determination is derived.

We have already called to mind how important it is to lead on to the

content as the content of actuality, of the present; for the rational

must have objective truth. The reconciliation of spirit with the world,

the glorification of nature and of all actuality, must not be a Beyond,

a Futurity, but must be accomplished now and here. It is this moment of

the now and here which thereby comes into self-consciousness. But those

who make experiments and observations, do not realize what they are

really doing, for the sole interest taken by them in things, is owing

to the inward and unconscious certainty which reason has of finding

itself in actuality; and observations and experiments, if entered upon

in a right way, result in showing that the Notion is the only objective

existence. The sensuous individual eludes the experiments even while it

is being operated upon, and becomes a universal; the best known example

of this is to be found in positive and negative electricity in so far

as it is positive and negative. There is another shortcoming of a formal

nature, and one of which all empiricists partake,—that is that they

believe themselves to be keeping to experience alone; it is to them an

unknown fact that in receiving these perceptions they are indulging in

metaphysics. Man does not stop short at the individual, nor can he do

so. He seeks the universal, but thoughts, even if not Notions likewise,

are what constitute the same. The most remarkable thought-form is that

of force; we thus speak of the force of electricity, of magnetism,

of gravity. Force, however, is a universal and not a perceptible;

quite uncritically and unconsciously the empiricists thus permit of

determinations such as these.

3. Bacon finally gives the objects with which Philosophy mainly has

to deal. These objects contrast much with that which we derive from

perception and experience. “In the summary which Bacon gives of what

he conceives ought to be the objects of philosophical inquiry, are the

following; and we select those which he principally dwells upon in his

works: ‘The prolongation of life; the restitution of youth in some

degree; the retardation of old age, and the altering of statures; the

altering of features; versions of bodies into other bodies; making of new

species; impression of the air and raising tempests; greater pleasures of

the senses, &c.’” He likewise deals with objects such as these, and he

seeks to direct attention upon whether in their regard the means could

not be found to carry out their ends; in such powers we should be able

to make some progress. “He complains that such investigations have been

neglected by those whom he designates _ignavi regionum exploratores_.

In his Natural History he gives formal receipts for making gold, and

performing many wonders.”[104] Bacon thus does not by any means take

the intelligent standpoint of an investigation of nature, being still

involved in the grossest superstition, false magic, &c. This we find

to be on the whole propounded in an intelligent way, and Bacon thus

remains within the conceptions of his time. “The conversion of silver,

quicksilver, or any other metal into gold is a thing difficult to

believe, yet it is far more probable that a man who knows clearly

the natures of weight, of the colour of yellow, of malleability and

extension, of volatility and fixedness, and who has also made diligent

search into the first seeds and menstruums of minerals, may at last

by much and sagacious endeavour produce gold, than that a few grains

of an elixir may so do.... So again a man who knows well the nature

of rarefaction, of assimilation, and of alimentation, shall by diets,

bathings, and the like prolong life, or in some degree renew the vigour

of youth.”[105] These assertions are thus not as crude as they at first

appear. In dealing with Medicine Bacon speaks amongst other things of

maceration (_Malacissatio per exterius_)[106] and so forth.

Bacon emphasizes what has reference to the formal aspect of

investigation. For he says, “Natural philosophy is divided into two

parts, the first consists in the investigation of causes; the second

in the production of effects; the causes to be investigated are either

final or formal causes, or else material or efficient causes. The former

constitutes metaphysics; the latter physics. This last Bacon looks

upon as a branch of philosophy very inferior in point of dignity and

importance to the other and accordingly to ascertain the most probable

means of improving our knowledge of metaphysics is the great object of

his _Organon_.”[107] He himself says: “It is a correct position that

‘true knowledge is knowledge by causes. And causes, again, are not

improperly distributed into four kinds: the material, the formal, the

efficient, and the final.’”[108] (Vol. I. p. 174, Vol. II. p. 138.)

But in this connection an important point is that Bacon has turned

against the teleological investigation of nature, against the

investigation into final causes. “The investigation of final causes is

useless; they corrupt rather than advance the sciences except such as

have to do with human action.”[109] To Bacon the important matter is to

investigate by the study of _causæ efficientes_. To the consideration

of final causes such assertions as these belong: “That the hairs of the

eyelids are for a protection to the eyes; that the thick skins and hides

of living creatures are to defend them from heat and cold; that the trees

have leaves so that the fruit may not suffer from sun and wind”[110]:

the hair is on the head on account of warmth; thunder and lightning are

the punishment of God, or else they make fruitful the earth; marmots

sleep during the winter because they can find nothing to eat; snails

have a shell in order that they may be secure against attacks; the bee

is provided with a sting. According to Bacon this has been worked out in

innumerable different ways. The negative and external side of utility is

turned round, and the lack of this adaptation to end is likewise drawn

within the same embrace. It may, for example, be said that if sun or

moon were to shine at all times, the police might save much money, and

this would provide men with food and drink for whole months together.

It was right that Bacon should set himself to oppose this investigation

into final causes, because it relates to external expediency, just

as Kant was right in distinguishing the inward teleology from the

outward. As against the external end, there is, in fact, the inward end,

_i.e._ the inward Notion of the thing itself, as we found it earlier

in Aristotle (Vol. II. pp. 156-163). Because the organism possesses an

inward adaptation to its ends, its members are indeed likewise externally

adapted as regards one another; but the ends, as external ends, are

heterogeneous to the individual, are unconnected with the object which

is investigated. Speaking generally, the Notion of nature is not in

nature itself, which would mean that the end was in nature itself; but as

teleological, the Notion is something foreign to it. It does not have the

end in itself in such a way that we have to accord respect to it—as the

individual man has his end in himself and hence has to be respected. But

even the individual man as individual has only a right to respect from

the individual as such, and not from the universal. He who acts in the

name of the universal, of the state, as a general does for instance, does

not require to respect the individual at all; for the latter, although an

end in himself, does not cease to be relative. He is this end in himself,

not as excluding himself and setting himself in opposition, but only in

so far as his true reality is the universal Notion. The end of the animal

in itself as an individual is its own self-preservation; but its true end

in itself is the species. Its self-preservation is not involved in this;

for the self-preservation of its individuality is disadvantageous to the

species, while the abrogation of itself is favourable thereto.

Now Bacon separates the universal principle and the efficient cause,

and for that reason he removes investigation into ends from physics to

metaphysics. Or he recognizes the Notion, not as universal in nature, but

only as necessity, _i.e._ as a universal which presents itself in the

opposition of its moments, not one which has bound them into a unity—in

other words he only acknowledges a comprehension of one determinate

from another determinate going on into infinity, and not of both from

their Notion. Bacon has thus made investigation into the efficient cause

more general, and he asserts that this investigation alone belongs to

physics, although he allows that both kinds of investigation may exist

side by side.[111] Through that view he effected a great deal, and in

so far as it has counteracted the senseless superstition which in the

Germanic nations far exceeded in its horrors and absurdity that of the

ancient world, it has the very merit which we met with in the Epicurean

philosophy. That philosophy opposed itself to the superstitious Stoics

and to superstition generally—which last makes any existence that we

set before ourselves into a cause (a Beyond which is made to exist in a

sensuous way and to operate as a cause), or makes two sensuous things

which have no relation operate on one another. This polemic of Bacon’s

against spectres, astrology, magic, &c.,[112] can certainly not be

regarded exactly as Philosophy like his other reflections, but it is at

least of service to culture.

He also advises that attention should be directed to formal causes, the

forms of things, and that they should be recognized.[113] “But to give

an exact definition of the meaning which Bacon attaches to the phrase

formal causes is rather difficult; because his language upon this subject

is uncertain in a very remarkable degree.”[114] It may be thought that

he understood by this the immanent determinations of things, the laws

of nature; as a matter of fact the forms are none else than universal

determinations, species, &c.[115] He says: “The discovery of the formal

is despaired of. The efficient and the material (as they are investigated

and received, that is as remote causes, without reference to the latent

process leading to the forms) are but slight and superficial, and

contribute little, if anything, to true and active science. For though

in nature nothing really exists beside individual bodies, performing

pure individual acts according to a fixed law, yet in philosophy this

very law, and the investigation, discovery and explanation of it, is the

foundation as well of knowledge as of operation. And it is this law, with

its clauses, that I mean when I speak of Forms.... Let the investigation

of Forms which are eternal and immutable constitute metaphysics.

Whosoever is acquainted with Forms embraces the unity of nature in

substances the most unlike.”[116] He goes through this in detail, and

quotes many examples to illustrate it, such as that of Heat. “Mind must

raise itself from differences to species. The warmth of the sun and

that of the fire are diverse. We see that grapes ripen by the warmth of

the sun. But to see whether the warmth of the sun is specific, we also

observe other warmth, and we find that grapes likewise ripen in a warm

room; this proves that the warmth of the sun is not specific.”[117]

“Physic,” he says, “directs us through narrow rugged paths in imitation

of the crooked ways of nature. But he that understands a form knows the

ultimate possibility of superinducing that nature upon all kinds of

matter; that is to say, as he himself interprets this last expression,

is able to superinduce the nature of gold upon silver,” that is to say

to make gold from silver, “and to perform all those other marvels to

which the alchymists pretended. The error of these last consisted alone

in hoping to arrive at these ends by fabulous and fantastical methods;”

the true method is to recognize these forms. “One leading object of

the _Instauratio Magna_ and of the _Novum Organon_ is to point out the

necessity of ascertaining the formal causes and logical rules.”[118] They

are good rules, but not adapted to attain that end.

This is all that we have to say of Bacon. In dealing with Locke we shall

have more to say of these empirical methods which were adopted by the

English.

B. JACOB BOEHME.

We now pass on from this English Lord Chancellor, the leader of the

external, sensuous method in Philosophy, to the _philosophus teutonicus_,

as he is called—to the German cobbler of Lusatia, of whom we have no

reason to be ashamed. It was, in fact, through him that Philosophy first

appeared in Germany with a character peculiar to itself: Boehme stands in

exact antithesis to Bacon. He was also called _theosophus teutonicus_,

just as even before this _philosophia teutonica_ was the name given to

mysticism.[119] This Jacob Boehme was for long forgotten and decried as

being simply a pious visionary; the so-called period of enlightenment,

more particularly, helped to render his public extremely limited.

Leibnitz thought very highly of him, but it is in modern times that his

profundity has for the first time been recognized, and that he has been

once more restored to honour. It is certain, on the one hand, that he

did not merit the disdain accorded him; on the other, however, he did

not deserve the high honour into which he was elevated. To call him an

enthusiast signifies nothing at all. For if we will, all philosophers may

be so termed, even the Epicureans and Bacon; for they all have held that

man finds his truth in something else than eating and drinking, or in

the common-sense every-day life of wood-cutting, tailoring, trading, or

other business, private or official. But Boehme has to attribute the high

honour to which he was raised mainly to the garb of sensuous feeling and

perception which he adopted; for ordinary sensuous perception and inward

feeling, praying and yearning, and the pictorial element in thought,

allegories and such like, are in some measure held to be essential in

Philosophy. But it is only in the Notion, in thought, that Philosophy

can find its truth, and that the Absolute can be expressed and likewise

is as it is in itself. Looked at from this point of view, Boehme is a

complete barbarian, and yet he is a man who, along with his rude method

of presentation, possesses a deep, concrete heart. But because no method

or order is to be found in him, it is difficult to give an account of his

philosophy.

Jacob Boehme was born in 1575 of poor parents, at Altseidenburg, near

Görlitz, in Upper Lusatia. In his youth he was a peasant boy who tended

the cattle. He was brought up as a Lutheran, and always remained such.

The account of his life which is given with his works was drawn up by

a clergyman who knew him personally, from information given by Boehme

himself. Much is there related as to how he attained to more profound

knowledge and wisdom by means of certain experiences through which he

passed. Even when a herd tending the cattle, as he tells of himself, he

had these wonderful manifestations. The first marvellous awakening that

occurred to him took place in a thicket in which he saw a cavern and a

vessel of gold. Startled by the splendour of this sight he was inwardly

awakened from a dull stupor, but afterwards he found it was impossible

for him to discover the objects of his vision. Subsequently he was

bound apprentice to a shoemaker. More especially “was he spiritually

awakened by the words: ‘Your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit

to them that ask Him’ (Luke xi. 13), so that, desiring to come to a

knowledge of the truth, and yet retaining the simplicity of his mind, he

prayed and sought, and knocked, fervently and earnestly, until, while

travelling about with his master, he was, through the influence of the

Father in the Son, spiritually transported into the glorious peace and

the Sabbath of the soul, and thus his request was granted. According to

his own account, he was then surrounded with divine light, and for seven

days he remained in the supremest divine contemplation and joy.” His

master for this dismissed him, saying he could not keep in his service

“house-prophets such as he was.” After that he lived at Görlitz. In 1594

he rose in his trade to be master, and married. Later on, “in the year

1600, and in the twenty-fifth year of his age, once more” the light broke

upon him in a second vision of the same kind. He tells that he saw a

brightly scoured pewter dish in the room, and “by the sudden sight of

this shining metal with its brilliant radiance” he was brought (into a

meditation and a breaking free of his astral mind) “into the central

point of secret nature,” and into the light of divine essence. “He went

out into the open air in order that he might rid his brain of this

hallucination, and none the less did he continue all the more clearly

as time went on to experience the vision in this way received. Thus by

means of the signatures or figures, lineaments, and colours which were

depicted, he could, so to speak, look into the heart and inmost nature

of all creatures (in his book _De signatura rerum_ this reason which

was impressed upon him is found and fully explained); and for this he

was overwhelmed with joy, thanked God, and went peacefully about his

affairs.” Later on he wrote several works. He continued to pursue his

handicraft at Görlitz, and died at the same place in 1624, being then a

master shoemaker.[120]

His works are especially popular with the Dutch, and for that reason

most of the editions are issued from Amsterdam, though they were also

surreptitiously printed in Hamburg. His first writing is the “Aurora” or

“Morgenröthe im Aufgange,” and this was followed by others; the work “Von

den drei Principien,” and another “Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen,”

are, along with several others, the most noteworthy. Boehme constantly

read the Bible, but what other works he read is not known. A number

of passages in his works, however, prove that he read much—evidently

mystical, theosophic, and alchemistic writings for the most part, and he

must certainly have included in his reading the works of Theophrastus

Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, a philosopher of a somewhat

similar calibre, but much more confused, and without Boehme’s profundity

of mind. He met with much persecution at the hands of the clergy, but he

aroused less attention in Germany than in Holland and England, where his

writings have been often printed.[121] In reading his works we are struck

with wonder, and one must be familiar with his ideas in order to discover

the truth in this most confused method of expression.

The matter of Jacob Boehme’s philosophy is genuinely German; for what

marks him out and makes him noteworthy is the Protestant principle

already mentioned of placing the intellectual world within one’s own

mind and heart, and of experiencing and knowing and feeling in one’s own

self-consciousness all that formerly was conceived as a Beyond. Boehme’s

general conceptions thus on the one hand reveal themselves as both deep

and sound, but on the other, with all his need for and struggle after

determination and distinction in the development of his divine intuitions

of the universe, he does not attain either to clearness or order.

There is no systematic connection but the greatest confusion in his

divisions—and this exists even in his tables,[122] in which three numbers

are made use of.

I.

What God is beside nature and creation.

II.

Separability: _Mysterium The first _Principium_.

God in Love. magnum._ God in Wrath.

III.

God in wrath and love.

Here nothing definite to hold the moments asunder is shown, and we

have the sense of merely doing it by effort; now these and now other

distinctions are set forth, and as they are laid down disconnectedly,

they again come into confusion.

The manner and system which Boehme adopts must accordingly be termed

barbarous; the expressions used in his works prove this, as when, for

example, he speaks of the divine Salitter, Marcurius, &c. As Boehme

places the life, the movement of absolute existence in the heart, so

does he regard all conceptions as being in a condition of actuality; or

he makes use of actuality as Notion, that is to say he forcibly takes

natural things and sensuous qualities to express his ideas rather than

the determinations of the Notion. For instance, sulphur and such like are

not to him the things that we so name, but their essence; or the Notion

has this form of actuality. Boehme’s profoundest interest is in the Idea,

and he struggles hard to express it. The speculative truth which he

desires to expound really requires, in order to be comprehended, thought

and the form of thought. Only in thought can this unity be comprehended,

in the central point of which his mind has its place; but it is just

the form of thought that is lacking to him. The forms that he employs

are really no longer determinations of the Notion at all. They are on

the one hand sensuous, chemical determinations, such qualities as acid,

sweet, sour, fierce, and, on the other, emotions such as wrath and love;

and, further, tincture, essence, anguish, &c. For him these sensuous

forms do not, however, possess the sensuous significance which belongs

to them, but he uses them in order to find expression for his thought.

It is, however, at once clear to us how the form of manifestation must

necessarily appear forced, since thought alone is capable of unity.

It thus appears strange to read of the bitterness of God, of the

_Flagrat_, and of lightning; we first require to have the Idea, and

then we certainly discern its presence here. But the other side is that

Boehme utilizes the Christian form which lies nearest to him, and more

especially that of the Trinity, as the form of the Idea: he intermingles

the sensuous mode and the mode of popularly conceived religion, sensuous

images and conceptions. However rude and barbarous this may on the one

hand be, and however impossible it is to read Boehme continuously, or to

take a firm grasp of his thoughts (for all these qualities, spirits and

angels make one’s head swim), we must on the other hand recognize that

he speaks of everything as it is in its actuality, and that he does this

from his heart. This solid, deep, German mind which has intercourse with

what is most inward, thus really exercises an immense power and force in

order to make use of actuality as Notion, and to have what takes place

in heaven around and within it. Just as Hans Sachs represented God,

Christ and the Holy Ghost, as well as patriarchs and angels, in his own

particular manner and as ordinary people like himself, not looking upon

them as past and historic, so was it with Boehme.

To faith spirit has truth, but in this truth the moment of certainty

of self is lacking. We have seen that the object of Christianity is

the truth, the Spirit; it is given to faith as immediate truth. Faith

possesses the truth, but unconsciously, without knowledge, without

knowing it as its self-consciousness; and seeing that thought, the

Notion, is necessarily in self-consciousness—the unity of opposites

with Bruno—this unity is what is pre-eminently lacking to faith. Its

moments as particular forms fall apart, more especially the highest

moments—good and evil, or God and the Devil. God is, and the Devil

likewise; both exist for themselves. But if God is absolute existence,

the question may be asked, What absolute existence is this which has not

all actuality, and more particularly evil within it? Boehme is hence

on one side intent on leading the soul of man to the divine life, on

inducing the soul to pay attention to the strife within itself, and make

this the object of all its work and efforts; and then in respect of this

content he strives to make out how evil is present in good—a question

of the present day. But because Boehme does not possess the Notion and

is so far back in intellectual culture, there ensues a most frightful

and painful struggle between his mind and consciousness and his powers

of expression, and the import of this struggle is the profoundest Idea

of God which seeks to bring the most absolute opposites into unity, and

to bind them together—but not for thinking reason. Thus if we would

comprehend the matter, Boehme’s great struggle has been—since to him

God is everything—to grasp the negative, evil, the devil, in and from

God, to grasp God as absolute; and this struggle characterizes all

his writings and brings about the torture of his mind. It requires a

great and severe mental effort to bring together in one what in shape

and form lie so far asunder; with all the strength that he possesses

Boehme brings the two together, and therein shatters all the immediate

significance of actuality possessed by both. But when thus he grasps

this movement, this essence of spirit in himself, in his inward nature,

the determination of the moments simply approaches more nearly to the

form of self-consciousness, to the formless, or to the Notion. In the

background, indeed, there stands the purest speculative thought, but it

does not attain to an adequate representation. Homely, popular modes of

conception likewise appear, a free out-spokenness which to us seems too

familiar. With the devil, particularly, he has great dealings, and him he

frequently addresses. “Come here,” he says, “thou black wretch, what dost

thou want? I will give thee a potion.”[123] As Prospero in Shakespeare’s

“Tempest”[124] threatens Ariel that he will “rend an oak and peg him in

his knotty entrails ... twelve winters,” Boehme’s great mind is confined

in the hard knotty oak of the senses—in the gnarled concretion of the

ordinary conception—and is not able to arrive at a free presentation of

the Idea.

I shall shortly give Boehme’s main conceptions, and then several

particular forms which he in turn adopts; for he does not remain at one

form, because neither the sensuous nor the religious can suffice. Now

even though this brings about the result that he frequently repeats

himself, the forms of his main conceptions are still in every respect

very different, and he who would try to give a consistent explanation of

Boehme’s ideas, particularly when they pass into further developments,

would only delude himself in making the attempt. Hence we must neither

expect to find in Boehme a systematic presentation nor a true method

of passing over into the individual. Of his thoughts we cannot say much

without adopting his manner of expression, and quoting the particular

passages themselves, for they cannot otherwise be expressed. The

fundamental idea in Jacob Boehme is the effort to comprise everything

in an absolute unity, for he desires to demonstrate the absolute divine

unity and the union of all opposites in God. Boehme’s chief, and one may

even say, his only thought—the thought that permeates all his works—is

that of perceiving the holy Trinity in everything, and recognizing

everything as its revelation and manifestation, so that it is the

universal principle in which and through which everything exists; in such

a way, moreover, that all things have this divine Trinity in themselves,

not as a Trinity pertaining to the ordinary conception, but as the real

Trinity of the absolute Idea. Everything that exists is, according to

Boehme, this three-fold alone, and this three-fold is everything.[125]

To him the universe is thus one divine life and revelation of God in all

things, so that when examined more closely, from the one reality of God,

the sum and substance of all powers and qualities, the Son who shines

forth from these powers is eternally born; the inward unity of this light

with the substance of the powers is Spirit. Sometimes the presentation is

vague, and then again it is clearer. What comes next is the explanation

of this Trinity, and here the different forms which he uses to indicate

the difference becoming evident in the same, more especially appear.

In the _Aurora_, the “Root or Mother of Philosophy, Astrology and

Theology,” he gives a method of division in which he places these

sciences in proximity, and yet appears merely to pass from one to the

other without any clear definition or determination. “(1) In Philosophy

divine power is treated of, what God is, and how in the Being of God

nature, stars and _Elementa_ are constituted; whence all things have

their origin, what is the nature of heaven and earth, as also of angels,

men and devils, heaven and hell and all that is creaturely, likewise what

the two qualities in nature are, and this is dealt with out of a right

ground in the knowledge of spirit, by the impulse and motion of God. (2)

In astrology the powers of nature, of the stars and elements, are treated

of, and how all creatures proceed from them, how evil and good are

through them effected in men and animals. (3) In theology the kingdom of

Christ is dealt with, as also its nature, and how it is set in opposition

to hell, and how in nature it wars with the kingdom of darkness.”[126]

1. What comes first is God the Father; this first is at once divided

in itself and the unity of both its parts. “God is all,” he says, “He

is the Darkness and the Light, Love and Anger, Fire and Light, but He

calls Himself God only as to the light of His love. There is an eternal

_Contrarium_ between darkness and light; neither comprehends the other

and neither is the other, and yet there is but one essence or substance,

though separated by pain; it is likewise so with the will, and yet

there is no separable essence. One single principle is divided in this

way, that one is in the other as a nothing which yet exists; but it is

not manifest in the property of that thing in which it is.”[127] By

anguish is expressed that which we know as the absolute negativity—that

is the self-conscious, self-experienced, the self-relating negativity

which is therefore absolute affirmation. All Boehme’s efforts were

directed towards this point; the principle of the Notion is living in

him, only he cannot express it in the form of thought. That is to say,

all depends on thinking of the negative as simple, since it is at

the same time an opposite; thus anguish [Qual] is the inward tearing

asunder and yet likewise the simple. From this Boehme derives sources or

springs [Quellen], a good play on the words. For pain [die Qual], this

negativity, passes into life, activity, and thus he likewise connects it

with quality [Qualität], which he makes into Quallity.[128] The absolute

identity of difference is all through present to him.

a. Boehme thus represents God not as the empty unity, but as this

self-separating unity of absolute opposites; one must not, however, here

expect a clearly defined distinction. The first, the one, the Father, has

likewise the mode of natural existence; thus, like Proclus, he speaks of

this God being simple essence. This simple essence he calls the hidden;

and he therefore names it the _Temperamentum_, this unity of what is

different, in which all is tempered. We find him also calling it the

great Salitter—now the divine and now the natural Salitter—as well as

Salniter. When he talks of this great salitter as of something known to

us, we cannot first of all conceive what it means. But it is a vulgar

corruption of the word _sal nitri_, saltpetre (which is still called

salniter in Austria), _i.e._ just the neutral and in truth universal

existence. The divine pomp and state is this, that in God a more glorious

nature dwells, trees, plants, &c. “In the divine pomp or state two things

have principally to be considered; salitter or the divine power, which

brings forth all fruits, and marcurius or the sound.”[129] This great

salitter is the unrevealed existence, just as the Neo-Platonic unity is

without knowledge of itself and likewise unrecognized.

b. This first substance contains all powers or qualities as not yet

separated; thus this salitter likewise appears as the body of God, who

embraces all qualities in Himself. Quality thus becomes an important

conception, the first determination with Boehme; and he begins with

qualities in his work “Morgenröthe im Aufgang.” He afterwards associates

with this the conferring of quality, and in the same place says: “Quality

is the mobility, boiling, springing, and driving of a thing.” These

qualities he then tries to define, but the account he gives of them is

vague. “As for example heat which burns, consumes and drives forth all

whatsoever comes into it which is not of the same property; and again

it enlightens and warms all cold, wet, and dark things; it compacts and

hardens soft things. It contains likewise two other kinds in it, namely

Light and Fierceness” (Negativity); “of which the light or the heart of

the heat is in itself a pleasant, joyful glance or lustre, a power of

life ... and a source of the heavenly kingdom of joy. For it makes all

things in this world living and moving; all flesh, trees, leaves, and

grass grow in this world, as in the power of the light, and have their

light therein, viz. in the good. Again, it contains also a fierceness or

wrath which burns, consumes and spoils. This wrath or fierceness springs,

drives, and elevates itself in the light, and makes the light movable. It

wrestles and fights together in its two-fold source. The light subsists

in God without heat, but it does not subsist so in nature. For all

qualities in nature are one in another, in the same manner as God is all.

For God” (the Father) “is the Heart.” On another occasion (Vom dreifachen

Leben des Menschen, chap. iv. § 68, p. 881) the Son is the heart of God;

and yet again the Spirit is called the heart (Morgenröthe, chap. ii.

§ 13, p. 29) “or fountain of nature, and from Him comes all. Now heat

reigns and predominates in all powers in nature and warms all, and is one

source or spring in all. But the light in the heat gives power to all

qualities, for that all grow pleasant and joyful.” Boehme goes over quite

a list of qualities: cold, hot, bitter, sweet, fierce, acid, hard, dense,

soft qualities, sound, etc. “The bitter quality is in God also, but not

in that manner as the gall is in man, but it is an everlasting power, in

an elevating, triumphing spring or source of joy. All the creatures are

made from these qualities, and live therein as in their mother.”[130]

“The virtues of the stars are nature itself. Everything in this world

proceeds from the stars. That I shall prove to you if you are not a

blockhead and have a little reason. If the whole _Curriculum_ or the

whole circumference of the stars is considered, we soon find that this

is the mother of all things, or the nature from which all things have

arisen and in which all things stand and live, and through which all

things move. And all things are formed from these same powers and remain

eternally therein.” Thus it is said that God is the reality of all

realities. Boehme continues: “You must, however, elevate your mind in

the Spirit, and consider how the whole of nature, with all the powers

which are in nature, also extension, depth and height, also heaven and

earth and all whatsoever is therein, and all that is above the heavens,

is together the Body and Corporeity of God; and the powers of the stars

are the fountain veins in the natural Body of God, in this world. You

must not conceive that in the Body of the stars is the whole triumphing

Holy Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But we must not so

conceive as if God was not at all in the _Corpus_ or Body of the stars,

and in this world.... Here now the question is, From whence has heaven,

or whence borrows it this power, that it causes such mobility in nature?

Here you must lift up your eyes beyond nature into the light, holy,

triumphing, divine power, into the unchangeable holy Trinity, which

is a triumphing, springing, movable Being, and all powers are therein,

as in nature: of this heaven, earth, stars, elements, devils, angels,

men, beasts, and all have their Being; and therein all stands. When we

nominate heaven and earth, stars and elements, and all that is therein,

and all whatsoever is above the heaven, then thereby is nominated the

total God, who has made Himself creaturely in these above-mentioned” many

“Beings, in His power which proceedeth forth from Him.”[131]

c. Boehme further defines God the Father as follows: “When we consider

the whole nature and its property, then we see the Father: when we behold

heaven and the stars, then we behold His eternal power and wisdom. So

many stars as stand in the whole heaven, which are innumerable, so

manifold and various is the power and wisdom of God the Father. Every

star differs in its quality.” But “you must not conceive here that every

power which is in the Father stands in a peculiar severed or divided part

and place in the Father, as the stars do in heaven. No, but the Spirit

shows that all the powers in the Father,” as the fountainhead, “are one

in another as one power.” This whole is the universal power which exists

as God the Father, wherein all differences are united; “creaturely” it,

however, exists as the totality of stars, and thus as separation into

the different qualities. “You must not think that God who is in heaven

and above the heaven does there stand and hover like a power and quality

which has in it neither reason nor knowledge, as the sun which turns

round in its circle and shoots forth from itself heat and light, whether

it be for benefit or hurt to the earth and creatures. No, the Father

is not so, but He is an All-mighty, All-wise, All-knowing, All-seeing,

All-hearing, All-smelling, All-tasting God, who in Himself is meek,

friendly, gracious, merciful, and full of joy, yea Joy itself.”[132]

Since Boehme calls the Father all powers, he again distinguishes these

as the seven first originating spirits.[133] But there is a certain

confusion in this and no thought-determination, no definite reason for

there being exactly seven—such precision and certainty is not to be

found in Boehme. These seven qualities are likewise the seven planets

which move and work in the great Salitter of God; “the seven planets

signify the seven spirits of God or the princes of the angels.” But they

are in the Father as one unity, and this unity is an inward spring and

fermentation. “In God all spirits triumph as one spirit, and a spirit

ever calms and loves the others, and nothing exists excepting mere joy

and rapture. One spirit does not stand alongside the others like stars

in heaven, for all seven are contained within one another as one spirit.

Each spirit in the seven spirits of God is pregnant with all seven

spirits of God;” thus each is in God itself a totality. “One brings forth

the other in and through itself;” this is the flashing forth of the life

of all qualities.[134]

2. As what came first was the source and germ of all powers and

qualities, what comes second is process. This second principle is a very

important conception, which with Boehme appears under very many aspects

and forms, viz. as the Word, the Separator, Revelation—speaking generally

the “I,” the source of all difference, and of the will and implicit Being

which are in the powers of natural things; but in such a way that the

light therein likewise breaks forth which leads them back to rest.

a. God as the simple absolute existence is not God absolutely; in Him

nothing can be known. What we know is something different—but this

“different” is itself contained in God as the perception and knowledge

of God. Hence of the second step Boehme says that a separation must have

taken place in this temperament. “No thing can become manifest to itself

without opposition; for if it has nothing to withstand it, it always

goes forward on its own account and does not go back within itself. But

if it does not go back into itself as into that from which it originally

arose, it knows nothing of its original state.” Original state [Urstand]

he makes use of for substance; and it is a pity that we cannot use this

and many other striking expressions. “Without adversity life would have

no sensibility nor will nor efficacy, neither understanding nor science.

Had the hidden God who is one solitary existence and will not of His

own will brought Himself out of Himself, out of the eternal knowledge

in the _Temperamento_, into divisibility of will, and introduced this

same element of divisibility into an inclusiveness” (Identity) “so as

to constitute it a natural and creaturely life, and had this element of

separation in life not come into warfare, how was the will of God which

is only one to be revealed to Himself? How could a knowledge of itself

be present in a solitary will?”[135] We see that Boehme is elevated

infinitely above the empty abstraction of the highest reality, etc.

Boehme continues: “The commencement of all Beings is the Word as the

breath of God, and God has become the eternal One of eternity and

likewise remains so in eternity. The Word is the eternal beginning and

remains so eternally, for it is the revelation of the eternal One through

and by which the divine power is brought into one knowledge of somewhat.

By the Word we understand the revealed will of God: by the Word we

mean God the hidden God, from whom the Word eternally springs forth.

The Word is the efflux of the divine One, and yet God Himself as His

revelation.” Λόγος is more definite than Word, and there is a delightful

double significance in the Greek expression indicating as it does both

reason and speech. For speech is the pure existence of spirit; it is a

thing which when once heard goes back within itself. “What has flowed

out is wisdom, beginning and cause of all powers, colours, virtue and

qualities.”[136]

Of the Son Boehme says: “The Son is” of the Father and “in the Father,

the heart of the Father or light, and the Father beareth him ever, from

eternity to eternity.” Thus “the Son is” indeed “another Person from

the Father, though no other,” but the same “God as the Father,” whose

image he is.[137] “The Son is the Heart” or the pulsating element “in

the Father; all the powers which are in the Father are the propriety of

the Father; and the Son is the heart or the kernel in all the powers in

the whole Father, and he is the cause of the springing joy in all powers

in the whole Father. From the Son the eternal joy rises and springs

in all the powers of the Father, as the sun does in the heart of the

stars. It signifies the Son, as the circle of the stars signifies the

manifold powers of the Father; it lightens the heavens, the stars and

the deep above the earth, working in all things that are in this world;

it enlightens and gives power to all the stars and tempers their power.

The Son of God is continually generated from all the powers of his Father

from eternity, just as the sun is born of the stars; He is ever born and

is not made, and is the heart and lustre shining forth from all powers.

He shines in all powers of the Father, and his power is the moving,

springing joy in all the powers of the Father, and shines in the whole

Father as the sun does in the whole world. For if the Son did not shine

in the Father, the Father would be a dark valley; for the Father’s power

would not rise from eternity to eternity, and so the divine Being would

not subsist.”[138] This life of the Son is an important matter; and

in regard to this issuing forth and manifestation Boehme has likewise

brought forward the most important assertions.

b. “From such a revelation of powers in which the will of the eternal

One contemplates itself, flows the understanding and the knowledge of

the something [Ichts], since the eternal will contemplates itself in the

something [Ichts].” “Ichts” is a play upon the word “Nichts” (nothing),

for it is simply the negative; yet it is at the same time the opposite of

nothing, since the Ich (Ego) of self-consciousness is contained in it.

The Son, the something, is thus “I,” consciousness, self-consciousness:

God is not only the abstract neutral but likewise the gathering together

of Himself into the point of Being-for-self. The “other” of God is thus

the image of God. “This similitude is the _Mysterium magnum_, viz. the

creator of all beings and creatures; for it is the separator” (of the

whole) “in the efflux of the will which makes the will of the eternal One

separable—the separability in the will from which powers and qualities

take their rise.” This separator is “constituted the steward of nature,

by whom the eternal will rules, makes, forms and constitutes all things.”

The separator is effectuating and self-differentiating, and Boehme calls

this “Ichts,” likewise Lucifer, the first-born Son of God, the creaturely

first-born angel who was one of the seven spirits. “But this Lucifer has

fallen and Christ has come in his place.”[139] This is the connection

of the devil with God, namely other-Being and then Being-for-self or

Being-for-one, in such a way that the other is for one; and this is

the origin of evil in God and out of God. This is the furthest point

of thought reached by Jacob Boehme. He represents this Fall of Lucifer

as that the “Ichts,” _i.e._ self-knowledge, the “I” [Ichheit] (a word

which we find used by him), the inward imagining of self, the inward

fashioning of self (the being-for-self), is the fire which absorbs all

things. This is the negative side in the separator, the anguish; or it is

the wrath of God. This divine wrath is hell and the devil, who through

himself imagines himself into himself. This is very bold and speculative;

Boehme here seeks to show in God Himself the sources of the divine

anger. He also calls the will of the something [“Ichts”] self-hood;

it is the passing over of the something [“Ichts”] into the nothing

[Nichts], the “I” imagining itself within itself. He says: “Heaven and

hell are as far removed from one another as day and night, as something

and nothing.” Boehme has really here penetrated into the utmost depths

of divine essence; evil, matter, or whatever it has been called, is the

I = I, the Being-for-self, the true negativity. Before this it was the

_nonens_ which is itself positive, the darkness; but the true negativity

is the “I.” It is not anything bad because it is called the evil; it is

in mind alone that evil exists, because it is conceived therein as it

is in itself. “Where the will of God willeth in anything, there God is

manifested, and in that manifestation the angels also dwell; but where

God in any thing willeth not with the will of the thing, there God is

not manifested to it, but dwelleth” (there) “in Himself without the

co-operating of the thing;” in that case “in that thing is its own will,

and there the devil dwelleth and all whatever is without God.”[140]

Boehme in his own way sets forth the form further assumed in this process

in a pictorial manner. This “_Separator_ deduces qualities from itself,

from which the infinite manifold arises, and through which the eternal

One makes itself perceptible” (so that it is for others) “not according

to the unity, but in accordance with the efflux of the unity.” Implicit

Being and the manifold are absolutely opposed through the Notion, which

Boehme did not have: Being-for-self implies Being-for-another and

retrogression into the opposite. Boehme sways backwards and forwards

in apparent contradictions, and does not well know how to find a way

out of the difficulty. “But the efflux is carried on to the greatest

extreme possible, to the generation of fire”—dark fire without light,

darkness, the hidden, the self;[141]—“in which fiery nature,” however,

since this fire rises and shoots up, “the eternal One becomes majestic

and a light,” and this light which there breaks forth is the form which

the other principle assumes. This is the return to the One. “Thereby”

(through fire) “the eternal power becomes desirous and effectual

and” (fire) “is the original condition” (essence) “of the sensitive”

(feeling) “life, where in the Word of power an eternal sensitive life

first takes its origin. For if life had no sensitiveness, it would have

no will nor efficacy; but pain”—anguish, suffering—first “makes it”

(all life) “effectual and endows it with will. And the light of such

kindling through fire makes it joyous, for it is an anointment,” joy and

loveliness “of painfulness.”[142]

Boehme turns this round in many ways in order to grasp the something

[Ichts], the Separator, as it “rises”[143] from the Father. The qualities

rise in the great Salitter, stir, raise, and move [rügen] themselves.

Boehme has there the quality of astringency in the Father, and he then

represents the process of the something [Ichts] as a sharpness, a drawing

together, as a flash of lightning that breaks forth. This light is

Lucifer. The Being-for-self, the self-perception, is by Boehme called

the drawing together into a point. That is astringency, sharpness,

penetration, fierceness; to this pertains the wrath of God, and here

Boehme in this manner grasps the “other” of God in God Himself. “This

source can be kindled through great motion or elevation. Through the

contraction the creaturely Being is formed so that a heavenly _Corpus_

may be” intelligibly “formed. But if it”—the sharpness—“be kindled

through elevation, which those creatures only can do which are created

out of the divine Salitter, then it is a burning source-vein of the wrath

of God. The flash is the mother of light; for the flash generates the

light, and is the Father of the fierceness; for the fierceness abides in

the flash as a seed in the father, and that flash generates also the tone

or sound”—the flash is, speaking generally, the absolute generator. The

flash is still connected with pain; light is what brings intelligence.

The divine birth is the going forth of the flash, of the life of all

qualities.[144] This is all from the Aurora.

In the _Quæstionibus theosophicis_ Boehme makes particular use of the

form of Yes and No for the separator, for this opposition. He says:

“The reader must know that in Yes and No all things consist, whether

divine, devilish, earthly, or what they may be called. The One as the

Yes is pure power and life, and it is the truth of God or God Himself.

He would be unknowable in Himself, and in Him there would be no joy nor

elevation, nor feeling”—life—“without the No. The No is a counterstroke

of the Yes, or of the truth” (this negativity is the principle of all

knowledge, comprehension), “that the truth may be manifest and be a

something wherein there is a _contrarium_ in which there is the eternal

love, moving, feeling, and willing, and demanding to be loved. And yet

we cannot say that the Yes is separated from the No, and that they are

two things in proximity; for they are only one thing, but they separate

themselves into two beginnings and make two _centra_, where each works

and wills in itself. Without those two, which are continually in strife,

all things would be a nothing, and would stand still without movement.

If the eternal will did not itself flow from itself and introduce itself

into receptibility, there would be no form nor distinction, for all

powers would” then “be one power. Neither could there be understanding

in that case, for the understanding arises” (has its substance) “in the

differentiation of the manifold, where one property sees, proves and

wills the others. The will which has flowed out wills dissimilarity, so

that it may be distinguished from similarity and be its own something—and

that something may exist, that the eternal seeing may see and feel.

And from the individual will arises the No, for it brings itself into

ownness, _i.e._ receptivity of self. It desires to be something and

does not make itself in accordance with unity; for unity is a Yes which

flows forth, which ever stands thus in the breathing forth of itself,

being imperceptible; for it has nothing in which it can find itself

excepting in the receptivity of the dissentient will, as in the No which

is counterstroke to the Yes, in which the Yes is indeed revealed,

and in which it possesses something which it can will. And the No is

therefore called a No, because it is a desire turned inwards on itself,

as if it were a shutting up into negativity. The emanated seeking will

is absorbent and comprehends itself within itself, from it come forms

and qualities: (1) Sharpness, (2) Motion, (3) Feeling. (4) The fourth

property is Fire as the flash of light; this rises in the bringing

together of the great and terrible sharpness and the unity. Thus in the

contact a _Flagrat_ [Schrack] results, and in this _Flagrat_ [Schrack]

unity is apprehended as being a Flash or Gleam, an exulting joy.” That

is the bursting forth of the unity. “For thus the light arises in the

midst of the darkness, for the unity becomes a light, and the receptivity

of the carnal will in the qualities becomes a Spirit-fire which has its

source and origin out of the sharp, cold astringency. And according to

that, God is an angry” and “jealous God,” and in this we have evil.

“(_a_) The first quality of the absorption is the No; (_b_) Sharpness;

(_c_) Hardness; (_d_) Feeling; (_e_) the source of fire, hell or

hollowness, Hiddenness. (5) The fifth quality, Love, makes in the fire,

as in pain, another _Principium_ as a great fire of love.”[145] These

are the main points under the second head. In such depths Boehme keeps

struggling on, for to him conceptions are lacking, and there are only

religious and chemical forms to be found; and because he uses these in a

forced sense in order to express his ideas, not only does barbarism of

expression result, but incomprehensibility as well.

c. “From this eternal operation of the sensation the visible world

sprang; the world is the Word which has flowed forth and has disposed

itself into qualities, since in qualities the particular will has

arisen. The _Separator_ has made it a will of its own after such a

fashion.”[146] The world is none other than the essence of God made

creaturely.[147] Hence “If thou beholdest the Deep” of the heavens, “the

Stars, the Elements and the Earth,” and what they have brought forth,

“then thou” certainly “comprehendest not with thy eyes the bright and

clear Deity, though indeed it is” likewise “there and in them.” Thou

seest only their creaturely manifestation. “But if thou raisest thy

thoughts and considerest ... God who rules in holiness in this government

or dominion, then thou breakest through the heaven of heavens and

apprehendest God at His holy heart. The powers of heaven ever operate in

images, growths and colours, in order to reveal the holy God, so that He

may be in all things known.”[148]

3. Finally what comes third in these three-fold forms is the unity of the

light, of the separator and power: this is the spirit, which is already

partially implied in what has preceded. “All the stars signify the power

of the Father, and from them issues the sun” (they make themselves a

counterstroke to unity). “And from all the stars there goes forth the

power which is in every star, into the Deep, and the power, heat and

shining of the sun goes likewise into the Deep”—back to the stars,

into the power of the Father. “And in the Deep the power of all stars,

together with the heat and lustre of the sun, are all but one thing,

a moving, boiling Hovering, like a spirit or matter. Now in the whole

deep of the Father, externally without the Son, there is nothing but the

manifold and unmeasurable or unsearchable power of the Father and the

Light of the Son. The Light of the Son is in the Deep of the Father a

living, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-hearing, all-seeing, all-smelling,

all-tasting, all-feeling Spirit, wherein is all power, splendour, and

wisdom, as in the Father and the Son.”[149] That is Love, the softener of

all powers through the light of the Son. We see that the sensuous element

thus pertains to this.

Boehme really has the idea that “God’s essence” (which has proceeded

from the eternal deep as world) “is thus not something far away which

possesses a particular position or place, for” essence, “the abyss of

nature and creation, is God Himself. Thou must not think that in heaven

there was some manner of _Corpus_”—the seven spirits generate this

_Corpus_ or heart—“which above all other things is called God. No; but

the whole divine power which itself is heaven and the heaven of all

heavens, is so generated, and that is called God the Father; of whom all

the holy angels are generated, in like manner also the spirit of all men.

Thou canst name no place, either in heaven or in this world, where the

divine birth is not. The birth of the divine Trinity likewise takes place

in thine own heart; all three persons are generated in thy heart, God the

Father, Son and Holy Ghost. In the divine power everywhere we find the

fountain spring of the divine birth; and there already are all the seven

qualifying or fountain spirits of God, as if thou wouldst make a spacious

creaturely circumscribed circle and hadst the deity therein.”[150] In

every spirit all are contained.

To Boehme this trinity is the complete universal life in each individual,

it is absolute substance. He says: “All things in this world are

according to the similitude of this ternary. Ye blind Jews, Turks, and

Heathens, open wide the eyes of your mind: I will show you, in your

body, and in every natural thing, in men, beasts, fowls, and worms, also

in wood, stone, leaves, and grass, the likeness of the holy ternary in

God. You say, there is but one Being in God, and that God has no Son.

Open your eyes and consider your selves: man is made according to the

similitude and out of the power of God in his ternary. Behold thy inward

man, and then thou wilt see it most plainly and clearly, if thou art not

a fool and an irrational beast. Therefore observe, in thy heart, in thy

veins, and in thy brain, thou hast thy spirit; and all the powers which

move in thy heart, in thy veins, and in thy brain, wherein thy life

consists, signify God the Father. From that power springs up [gebaret]

thy light, so that thou seest, understandest, and knowest in the same

power what thou art to do; for that light glimmers in thy whole body; and

the whole body moves in the power and knowledge of the light; this is the

Son which is born in thee.” This light, this seeing and understanding, is

the second determination; it is the relationship to itself. “Out of thy

light goes forth into the same power, reason, understanding, skill, and

wisdom, to govern the whole body, and to distinguish all whatsoever is

externally without the body. And both these are but one in the government

of thy mind, viz. thy spirit, which signifies God the Holy Ghost. And the

Holy Ghost from God rules in this spirit in thee, if thou art a child of

light and not of darkness. Now observe: in either wood, stone, or herbs

there are three things contained, neither can anything be generated or

grow, if but one of the three should be left out. First, there is the

power, from which a body comes to be, whether wood, stone, or herbs;

after that there is in that” thing “a sap which is the heart of the

thing. And thirdly there is in it a springing, flowing power, smell, or

taste, which is the spirit of the thing whereby it grows and increases.

Now if any of these three fail, the thing cannot subsist.”[151] Thus

Boehme regards everything as this ternary.

When he comes into particulars we see that he is obscure; from his

detailed explanations there is therefore not much to be derived. As

showing his manner of apprehending natural things I shall give one

more example of the manner in which, in the further working out of

the existence of nature as a counterstroke to the divine knowledge,

he makes use of what we call things as Notions (_supra_, p. 192).

The creaturely, he says, has “three kinds of powers or _Spiritus_ in

different _Centris_, but in one _Corpore_. (α) The first and external

_Spiritus_ is the coarse sulphur, salt and _Mercurius_, which is a

substance of four elements” (fire, water, earth, air) “or of the stars.

It forms the visible _Corpus_ according to the constellation of the

stars or property of the planets and now enkindled elements—the greatest

power of the _Spiritus mundi_. The _Separator_ makes the signature or

sign”—the self. The salt, the salitter, is approximately the neutral:

mercury [Merk or Mark] the operating, unrest as against nourishment;

the coarse sulphur, the negative unity. (β) “The other _Spiritus_ is

found in the oil of sulphur, the fifth essence, viz. a root of the four

elements. That is the softening and joy of the coarse, painful spirit

of sulphur and salt; the real cause of growing life, a joy of nature

as is the sun in the elements”—the direct principle of life. “In the

inward ground of that coarse spirit we see a beautiful, clear _Corpus_

in which the ideal light of nature shines from the divine efflux.” The

outward separator signs what is taken up with the shape and form of the

plant which receives into itself this coarse nourishment. (γ) “What comes

third is the tincture, a spiritual fire and light; the highest reason

for which the first separation of qualities takes place in the existence

of this world. _Fiat_ is the Word of each thing and belongs according

to its peculiar quality to eternity. Its origin is the holy power of

God. Smell [Ruch] is the sensation of this tincture. The elements are

only a mansion and counterstroke of the inward power, a cause of the

movement of the tincture.”[152] Sensuous things entirely lose the force

of sensuous conceptions. Boehme uses them, though not as such, as thought

determinations, that constitutes the hard and barbarous element in

Boehme’s representations, yet at the same time this unity with actuality

and this present of infinite existence.

Boehme describes the opposition in creation in the following way. If

nature is the first efflux of the _Separator_, two kinds of life must

yet be understood as in the counterstroke of the divine essence, beyond

that temporal one there is an eternal, to which the divine understanding

is given. It stands at the basis of the eternal, spiritual world, in the

_Mysterium Magnum_ of the divine counterstroke (personality)—a mansion

of divine will through which it reveals itself and is revealed to no

peculiarity of personal will. In this _centrum_ man has both lives in

himself, he belongs to time and eternity. He is (α) universal in the

“eternal understanding of the one good will which is a temperament;

(β) the original will of nature, viz. the comprehensibility of the

_Centra_, where each _centrum_ in the divisibility shuts itself in one

place to egotism and self-will as a personal _Mysterium_ or mind. The

former only requires a counterstroke to its similarity; this latter, the

self-generated natural will also requires in the place of the egotism

of the dark impression a likeness, that is a counterstroke through its

own comprehensibility, through which comprehension it requires nothing

but its corporality as a natural ground.” Now it is this “I,” the dark,

pain, fire, the wrath of God, implicitude, self-comprehension, which is

broken up in regeneration; the I is shattered, painfulness brought into

true rest—just as the dark fire breaks into light.[153]

Now these are the principal ideas found in Boehme; those most profound

are (α) the generating of Light as the Son of God from qualities, through

the most living dialectic; (β) God’s diremption of Himself. Barbarism

in the working out of his system can no more fail to be recognized than

can the great depths into which he has plunged by the union of the most

absolute opposites. Boehme grasps the opposites in the crudest, harshest

way, but he does not allow himself through their unworkableness to be

prevented from asserting the unity. This rude and barbarous depth which

is devoid of Notion, is always a present, something which speaks from

itself, which has and knows everything in itself. We have still to

mention Boehme’s piety, the element of edification, the way in which

the soul is guided in his writings. This is in the highest degree deep

and inward, and if one is familiar with his form these depths and this

inwardness will be found. But it is a form with which we cannot reconcile

ourselves, and which permits no definite conception of details, although

we cannot fail to see the profound craving for speculation which existed

within this man.

SECTION TWO

PERIOD OF THE THINKING UNDERSTANDING

After Neo-Platonism and all that is associated with it is left behind,

it is not until Descartes is arrived at that we really enter upon a

philosophy which is, properly speaking, independent, which knows that

it comes forth from reason as independent, and that self-consciousness

is an essential moment in the truth. Philosophy in its own proper soil

separates itself entirely from the philosophizing theology, in accordance

with its principle, and places it on quite another side. Here, we may

say, we are at home, and like the mariner after a long voyage in a

tempestuous sea, we may now hail the sight of land; with Descartes

the culture of modern times, the thought of modern Philosophy, really

begins to appear, after a long and tedious journey on the way which has

led so far. It is specially characteristic of the German that the more

servile he on the one hand is, the more uncontrolled is he on the other;

restraint and want of restraint—originality, is the angel of darkness

that buffets us. In this new period the universal principle by means of

which everything in the world is regulated, is the thought that proceeds

from itself; it is a certain inwardness, which is above all evidenced

in respect to Christianity, and which is the Protestant principle in

accordance with which thought has come to the consciousness of the

world at large as that to which every man has a claim. Thus because the

independently existent thought, this culminating point of inwardness,

is now set forth and firmly grasped as such, the dead externality of

authority is set aside and regarded as out of place. It is only through

my own free thought within that thought can however be recognized and

ratified by me. This likewise signifies that such free thought is the

universal business of the world and of individuals; it is indeed the duty

of every man, since everything is based upon it; thus what claims to rank

as established in the world man must scrutinize in his own thoughts.

Philosophy is thus become a matter of universal interest, and one

respecting which each can judge for himself; for everyone is a thinker

from the beginning.

On account of this new beginning to Philosophy we find in the old

histories of Philosophy of the seventeenth century—_e.g._ that of

Stanley—the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans only, and Christianity

forms the conclusion. The idea was that neither in Christianity nor

subsequently any philosophy was to be found, because there was no longer

a necessity for it, seeing that the philosophic theology of the Middle

Ages had not free, spontaneous thought as its principle (Vol. I. pp. 111,

112). But though it is true that this has now become the philosophic

principle, we must not expect that it should be at once methodically

developed out of thought. The old assumption is made, that man only

attains to the truth through reflection; this plainly is the principle.

But the determination and definition of God, the world of the manifold as

it appears, is not yet revealed as necessarily proceeding from thought;

for we have only reached the thought of a content which is given through

ordinary conception, observation, and experience.

On the one hand we see a metaphysic, and, on the other, the particular

sciences: on the one hand abstract thought as such, on the other its

content taken from experience; these two lines in the abstract stand

opposed to one another, and yet they do not separate themselves so

sharply. We shall indeed come to an opposition, viz. to that between

_a priori_ thought—that the determinations which are to hold good

for thought must be taken from thought itself—and the determination

that we must commence, conclude and think from experience. This is

the opposition between rationalism and empiricism; but it is really

a subordinate one, because even the metaphysical mode in philosophy,

which only allows validity to immanent thought, does not take what is

methodically developed from the necessity of thought, but in the old

way derives its content from inward or outward experience, and through

reflection and meditation renders it abstract. The form of philosophy

which is first reached through thought is metaphysics, the form of the

thinking understanding; this period has, as its outstanding figures,

Descartes and Spinoza, likewise Malebranche and Locke, Leibnitz and

Wolff. The second form is Scepticism and Criticism with regard to the

thinking understanding, to metaphysics as such, and to the universal

of empiricism; here we shall go on to speak of representatives of the

Scottish, German, and French philosophies; the French materialists again

turn back to metaphysics.