Either we have an immortal soul, or we have not. If we have not, we are
beasts; the first and wisest of beasts, it may be; but still true beasts.
[1] We shall only differ in degree, and not in kind; just as the elephant
differs from the slug. But by the concession of all the materialists of all
the schools, or almost all, we are not of the same kind as beasts--and this
also we say from our own consciousness. Therefore, methinks, it must be the
possession of a soul within us that makes the difference.
[Footnote 1:
"Try to conceive a _man_ without the ideas of God, eternity, freedom, will,
absolute truth; of the good, the true, the beautiful, the infinite. An
_animal_ endowed with a memory of appearances and facts might remain. But
the _man_ will have vanished, and you have instead a creature more subtle
than any beast of the field, but likewise cursed above every beast of the
field; upon the belly must it go, and dust must it eat all the days of its
life."--_Church and State_, p. 54. n.]
* * * * *
Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice, and you will be
convinced at once. After the narrative of the creation of the earth and
brute animals, Moses seems to pause, and says:--"And God said, Let us make
man in _our image_, after _our likeness_." And in the next chapter, he
repeats the narrative:--"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;" and then he
adds these words,--"_and man became a living soul_." Materialism will never
explain those last words.
* * * * *
Define a vulgar ghost with reference to all that is called ghost-like. It
is visibility without tangibility; which is also the definition of a
shadow. Therefore, a vulgar ghost and a shadow would be the same; because
two different things cannot properly have the same definition. A _visible
substance_ without susceptibility of impact, I maintain to be an absurdity.
Unless there be an external substance, the bodily eye _cannot_ see it;
therefore, in all such cases, that which is supposed to be seen is, in
fact, _not_ seen, but is an image of the brain. External objects naturally
produce sensation; but here, in truth, sensation produces, as it were, the
external object. In certain states of the nerves, however, I do believe
that the eye, although not consciously so directed, may, by a slight
convulsion, see a portion of the body, as if opposite to it. The part
actually seen will by common association seem the whole; and the whole body
will then constitute an external object, which explains many stories of
persons seeing themselves lying dead. Bishop Berkeley once experienced
this. He had the presence of mind to ring the bell, and feel his pulse;
keeping his eye still fixed on his own figure right opposite to him. He was
in a high fever, and the brain image died away as the door opened. I
observed something very like it once at Grasmere; and was so conscious of
the cause, that I told a person what I was experiencing, whilst the image
still remained.
Of course, if the vulgar ghost be really a shadow, there must be some
substance of which it is the shadow. These visible and intangible shadows,
without substances to cause them, are absurd.
January 4. 1828.
CHARACTER OF THE AGE FOR LOGIC.--PLATO AND XENOPHON.----GREEK DRAMA.----
KOTZEBUE.--BURKE.--PLAGIARISTS.
This is not a logical age. A friend lately gave me some political pamphlets
of the times of Charles I. and the Cromwellate. In them the premisses are
frequently wrong, but the deductions are almost always legitimate; whereas,
in the writings of the present day, the premisses are commonly sound, but
the conclusions false. I think a great deal of commendation is due to the
University of Oxford for preserving the study of logic in the schools. It
is a great mistake to suppose geometry any substitute for it.
* * * * *
Negatively, there may be more of the philosophy of Socrates in the
Memorabilia of Xenophon than in Plato: that is, there is less of what does
not belong to Socrates; but the general spirit of, and impression left by,
Plato, are more Socratic.[1]
[Footnote 1:
See p. 26. Mr. Coleridge meant in both these passages, that Xenophon had
preserved the most of the _man_ Socrates; that he was the best Boswell; and
that Socrates, as a _persona dialogi_, was little more than a poetical
phantom in Plato's hands. On the other hand, he says that Plato is more
_Socratic_, that is, more of a philosopher in the Socratic _mode_ of
reasoning (Cicero calls the Platonic writings generally, _Socratici
libri_); and Mr. C. also says, that in the metaphysical disquisitions Plato
is Pythagorean, meaning, that he worked on the supposed ideal or
transcendental principles of the extraordinary founder of the Italian
school.]
* * * * *
In Æschylus religion appears terrible, malignant, and persecuting:
Sophocles is the mildest of the three tragedians, but the persecuting
aspect is still maintained: Euripides is like a modern Frenchman, never so
happy as when giving a slap at the gods altogether.
* * * * *
Kotzebue represents the petty kings of the islands in the Pacific Ocean
exactly as so many Homeric chiefs. Riches command universal influence, and
all the kings are supposed to be descended from the gods.
* * * * *
I confess I doubt the Homeric genuineness of [Greek: dakruoen gelaschsa].
[1] It sounds to me much more like a prettiness of Bion or Moschus.
[Footnote 1:
[Greek: hos eipon, alochoio thilaes en chersin ethaeke paid eon hae d ara
min chaeodei dexato cholpo, dachruoen gelasasa.]--Illiad. Z. vi. 482]
* * * * *
The very greatest writers write best when calm, and exerting themselves
upon subjects unconnected with party. Burke rarely shows all his powers,
unless where he is in a passion. The French Revolution was alone a subject
fit for him. We are not yet aware of all the consequences of that event. We
are too near it.
* * * * *
Goldsmith did every thing happily.
* * * * *
You abuse snuff! Perhaps it is the final cause of the human nose.
* * * * *
A rogue is a roundabout fool; a fool _in circumbendibus_.
* * * * *
_Omne ignotum pro magnifico_. A dunghill at a distance sometimes smells
like musk, and a dead dog like elder-flowers.
* * * * *
Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from,--as pickpockets are
observed commonly to walk with their hands in their breeches' pockets.
_January 6_. 1823.
ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.--CHRISTIANITY--EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.--THE LOGOS.--
REASON AND UNDERSTANDING.
St. John had a twofold object in his Gospel and his Epistles,--to prove the
divinity, and also the actual human nature and bodily suffering, of Jesus
Christ,--that he was God and Man. The notion that the effusion of blood and
water from the Saviour's side was intended to prove the real _death_ of the
sufferer originated, I believe, with some modern Germans, and seems to me
ridiculous: there is, indeed, a very small quantity of water occasionally
in the præcordia: but in the pleura, where wounds are not generally mortal,
there is a great deal. St. John did not mean, I apprehend, to insinuate
that the spear-thrust made the _death_, merely as such, certain or evident,
but that the effusion showed the human nature. "I saw it," he would say,
"with my own eyes. It was real blood, composed of lymph and crassamentum,
and not a mere celestial ichor, as the Phantasmists allege."
* * * * *
I think the verse of the three witnesses (1 John, v. 7.) spurious, not only
because the balance of external authority is against it, as Porson seems to
have shown; but also, because, in my way of looking at it, it spoils the
reasoning.
* * * * *
St. John's logic is Oriental, and consists chiefly in position and
parallel; whilst St. Paul displays all the intricacies of the Greek system.
* * * * *
Whatever may be thought of the genuineness or authority of any part of the
book of Daniel, it makes no difference in my belief in Christianity; for
Christianity is within a man, even as he is a being gifted with reason; it
is associated with your mother's chair, and with the first-remembered tones
of her blessed voice.
* * * * *
I do not believe St. Paul to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Luther's conjecture is very probable, that it was by Apollos, an
Alexandrian Jew. The plan is too studiously regular for St. Paul. It was
evidently written during the yet existing glories of the Temple. For three
hundred years the church did not affix St. Paul's name to it; but its
apostolical or catholic character, independently of its genuineness as to
St. Paul, was never much doubted.
* * * * *
The first three Gospels show the history, that is, the fulfilment of the
prophecies in the facts. St. John declares explicitly the doctrine,
oracularly, and without comment, because, being pure reason, it can only be
proved by itself. For Christianity proves itself, as the sun is seen by its
own light. Its evidence is involved in its existence. St. Paul writes more
particularly for the dialectic understanding; and proves those doctrines,
which were capable of such proof, by common logic.
* * * * *
St. John used the term [Greek: ho Logos] technically. Philo-Judæus had so
used it several years before the probable date of the composition of this
Gospel; and it was commonly understood amongst the Jewish Rabbis at that
time, and afterwards, of the manifested God.
* * * * *
Our translators, unfortunately, as I think, render the clause [Greek: pros
ton Theos] "_with_ God;" that would be right, if the Greek were [Greek: syn
to Theo].[1]
By the preposition [Greek: pros] in this place, is meant the utmost
possible _proximity_, without _confusion_; likeness, without sameness. The
Jewish Church understood the Messiah to be a divine person. Philo expressly
cautions against any one's supposing the Logos to be a mere
personification, or symbol. He says, the Logos is a substantial, self-
existent Being. The Gnostics, as they were afterwards called, were a kind
of Arians; and thought the Logos was an after-birth. They placed [Greek:
Abyssos] and [Greek: Sigae] (the Abyss and Silence) before him. Therefore
it was that St. John said, with emphasis, [Greek: en archae aen ho Logos]--
"In the _beginning_ was the Word." He was begotten in the first
simultaneous burst of Godhead, if such an expression may be pardoned, in
speaking of eternal existence.
[Footnote 1: John, ch. i. v. 1, 2.]
* * * * *
The Understanding suggests the materials of reasoning: the Reason decides
upon them. The first can only say,--This _is_, or _ought_ to be so. The
last says,--It _must_ be so.[1]
[Footnote 1:
I have preserved this, and several other equivalent remarks, out of a
dutiful wish to popularize, by all the honest means in my power, this
fundamental distinction; a thorough mastery of which Mr. Coleridge
considered necessary to any sound system of psychology; and in the denial
or neglect of which, he delighted to point out the source of most of the
vulgar errors in philosophy and religion. The distinction itself is
implied throughout almost all Mr. C.'s works, whether in verse or prose;
but it may be found minutely argued in the "Aids to Reflection," p. 206,
&c. 2d edit. 1831.--ED.]
_April_ 27. 1823.
KEAN.--SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.--SIR H. DAVY.--ROBERT SMITH.--CANNING.--
NATIONAL DEBT.--POOR LAWS.
Kean is original; but he copies from himself. His rapid descents from the
hyper-tragic to the infra-colloquial, though sometimes productive of great
effect, are often unreasonable. To see him act, is like reading Shakspeare
by flashes of lightning. I do not think him thorough-bred gentleman enough
to play Othello.
* * * * *
Sir James Mackintosh is the king of the men of talent. He is a most elegant
converger. How well I remember his giving breakfast to me and Sir Humphry
Davy, at that time an unknown young man, and our having a very spirited
talk about Locke and Newton, and so forth! When Davy was gone, Mackintosh
said to me, "That's a very extraordinary young man; but he is gone wrong on
some points." But Davy was, at that time at least, a man of genius; and I
doubt if Mackintosh ever heartily appreciated an eminently original man. He
is uncommonly powerful in his own line; but it is not the line of a first-
rate man. After all his fluency and brilliant erudition, you can rarely
carry off any thing worth preserving. You might not improperly write on his
forehead, "Warehouse to let!" He always dealt too much in generalities for
a lawyer. He is deficient in power in applying his principles to the points
in debate. I remember Robert Smith had much more logical ability; but Smith
aimed at conquest by any gladiatorial shift; whereas Mackintosh was
uniformly candid in argument. I am speaking now from old recollections.
* * * * *
Canning is very irritable, surprisingly so for a wit who is always giving
such hard knocks. He should have put on an ass's skin before he went into
parliament. Lord Liverpool is the single stay of this ministry; but he is
not a man of a directing mind. He cannot ride on the whirlwind. He serves
as the isthmus to connect one half of the cabinet with the other. He always
gives you the common sense of the matter, and in that it is that his
strength in debate lies.
* * * * *
The national debt has, in fact, made more men rich than have a right to be
so, or, rather, any ultimate power, in case of a struggle, of actualizing
their riches. It is, in effect, like an ordinary, where three hundred
tickets have been distributed, but where there is, in truth, room only for
one hundred. So long as you can amuse the company with any thing else, or
make them come in successively, all is well, and the whole three hundred
fancy themselves sure of a dinner; but if any suspicion of a hoax should
arise, and they were all to rush into the room at once, there would be two
hundred without a potato for their money; and the table would be occupied
by the landholders, who live on the spot.
* * * * *
Poor-laws are the inevitable accompaniments of an extensive commerce and a
manufacturing system. In Scotland, they did without them, till Glasgow and
Paisley became great manufacturing places, and then people said, "We must
subscribe for the poor, or else we shall have poor-laws." That is to say,
they enacted for themselves a poor-law in order to avoid having a poor-law
enacted for them. It is absurd to talk of Queen Elizabeth's act as creating
the poor-laws of this country. The poor-rates are the consideration paid
by, or on behalf of, capitalists for having labour at demand. It is the
price, and nothing else. The hardship consists in the agricultural interest
having to pay an undue proportion of the rates; for although, perhaps, in
the end, the land becomes more valuable, yet, at the first, the landowners
have to bear all the brunt. I think there ought to be a fixed revolving
period for the equalization of rates.
_April_ 28. 1823.