OF THE TRUE DESTINATION OF PHILOSOPHY, AND OF THE APPARENT SCHISM BUT
ESSENTIAL UNITY BETWEEN A RIGHT FAITH AND HIGHEST CERTAINTY, AS THE
CENTER OF LIGHT AND LIFE IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS.
The philosophy of life can not be any mere science of reason, and least
of all an unconditional one. For such does but lead us into a domain of
dead abstractions alien to life, which, by the dialectical spirit of
disputation connatural to the reason, is soon converted into a
labyrinthine maze of contradictory opinions and notions, out of which
the reason, with all its logical means and appliances, can not extricate
itself. And life, consequently--the inner spiritual life, that is--is
disturbed and destroyed by it. And it is even this disturbing and
destroying principle of the dialectical reason that most requires to be
got rid of and brought into subjection. In the mere form, however, of
abstract thought there is nothing in and by itself opposed to the truth.
There is nothing in it that it is absolutely and invariably necessary to
avoid, or that never and in no case admits of application. It is, no
doubt, most certain that every system of philosophy is on a wrong track
which borrows its method exclusively from mathematics, and copies it
throughout from beginning to end. Still, in the progressive development
of philosophical ideas certain points may occur--there may be certain
places in the entire system--where occasionally and by the way such
formulas and abstract equations may be profitably employed. Such a case
may happen in the present Lecture. But by thus employing them only by
way of illustration, and episodically in passing, I hope to establish
such a use of them, and to make it evident that the perspicuity of the
exposition does not essentially suffer thereby.
Philosophy, as the universal science, embraces in its consideration the
whole man. As, therefore, it evidently involves the occasion, so it is
not unlikely that cases may occur where it can happily borrow, now from
one now from another of the sciences, its external form and peculiar
formularies. It can, in short, advantageously avail itself of all in
turn. Only, such a use, to be profitable, must be free. And this freedom
will best evince itself in the deliberate choice and the diversity of
the images. The method of free speculation, _i.e._, of philosophy, must
not resemble a coat of mail with its infinite number of little uniform
chains and rings. It ought not, as is the case nearly with the
mathematical method, to be composed, by mechanical rule and measure, of
simple propositions scientifically linked together, and then formed
again into higher logical concatenations. In short, the method of
philosophy can not properly be uniform. The spirit must not be made
subservient to the method; the essence must not be sacrificed to the
form.
Philosophical thought and knowledge, with that diversity of illustration
and variety in method which follows from its universality, is, in this
respect, somewhat in the same case with poetry. Of all the imitative
arts poetry alone embraces, and by its nature is intended to embrace,
the whole man. It is, therefore, free to borrow its similes or colors,
and manifold figurative expressions, from every sphere of life and
nature, and to take them now from this, now from that object, as on each
occasion appears most striking and appropriate. Now, no one would think
of prescribing unconditionally to poetry, and compelling her to take all
her similes and figures either from flowers and plants, or from the
animal world, or exclusively from any one of the several pursuits of
man--from the sailor’s life, for instance, or the shepherd’s, or the
huntsman’s--or from any of his handicrafts or mechanical arts. For
although all such similes, and colors, and expressions, appropriately,
introduced, are equally allowable in every poetical composition, and
none of them need be rejected, still the exclusive use of any one class
of them as a law would hamper the free poetic spirit and extinguish the
living fancy. In the same way, philosophy is not confined to any one
invariable and immutable form. At one time it may come forward in the
guise of a moral, legislative, or a judicial discussion; at another, as
a description of natural history. Or, perhaps, it may assume the method
of an historical and genealogical development and derivation of ideas as
best fitted to exhibit the thoughts which it aims at illustrating in
their mutual coherence and connection. On other occasions, perhaps, it
will take the shape of a scientific investigation of nature--of an
experiment in a higher physiology--in order to test the existence of
the invisible powers which it is its purpose to establish. Or again, by
the employment of an algebraic equation, or of a mathematical form
(which, however, it regards as nothing more than a symbol and visible
hieroglyphic for a higher something that is invisible), it will,
perhaps, most conveniently attain to its loftier aim. Every method and
every scientific form is good; or, at least, when rightly employed, is
good. But no one ought to be exclusive. No one must be carried out with
painful uniformity, and with wearying monotony be invariably followed
throughout.
The philosophy of life, then, can not be any mere absolute philosophy of
reason. And as little can, or ought it to be purely and absolutely a
philosophy of nature; not, at least, an exclusive one, that is, exactly
such and nothing more. Such a philosophy of nature may, indeed, in its
physiological aspect, possess unequaled scientific wealth, and be full
of profound and ingenious thoughts. But still the right principles and
the regulative ideas of human life can never be deduced from it easily,
and without having recourse to forced constructions. For even man is, in
his life, something higher than nature; even he is something more than a
mere physical being. Still less possible, then, were it, from such a
philosophy of nature, to derive, establish, and to render clear and
intelligible the idea and being of God--the pervading reference to whom,
however, makes man what he is. The idea of God deduced from such a
source alone would, and indeed could only be, some great final cause of
the system of nature.
Neither the conclusions of sound reason, and least of all those of the
conscience--no, nor even dialectic itself (so far as it is profitably
employed, by the knowledge of it being made available for the detection
of error), nor physical science, when cultivated in a noble and lofty
spirit, ought in any way to be excluded from the borders, or even the
very domain of philosophy. On the contrary, she may, in her own peculiar
way, adopt them all, and, giving them a more extensive sense and spirit,
employ them for her own higher aims. In its primary and most essential
respects, the philosophy of life is a thoroughly human science. It is
nothing less than the cognition of man. Now, even on this account, and
because it is only by means of his all-pervading relation to God that
man stands above nature and is something superior to a mere physical
being, and something higher, too, than a mere rational machine,
therefore is the philosophy of life actually and in fact a true
philosophy of God. The philosophy of life attains this high dignity
beyond a mere philosophy of reason, or of nature, simply on this
account--that the supreme life and the ultimate source of all other
degrees of life is even God. Now this Supreme Life, which has its life
in itself, is the subject of my present disquisitions. For it is even
with the correct and complete notion of this Supreme Life that the
Spirit of Truth first enters the human consciousness; and then, in the
inner world of man, which before was “without form and void,” that light
begins to shine which never shall become darkness, and of which even
this Spirit of Truth has said “that it was good.” This divine but
initiatory illumination is the first step in that progressive
development of the internal light and truth in human life and
consciousness, and which, as starting from this point and passing
through its successive stages of advancement, it will be our object to
trace in the last seven of the present Lectures. In the eight preceding
disquisitions I have endeavored, by advancing step by step, to arrive at
this last end of all. We have now reached the culminating point; and the
Supreme Life, which, according to what has been already said, is the
primary source of all other life, and which has life in itself, is now,
together with the full and true notion of this life, to occupy our
common consideration. And then again, descending from this summit of
light and truth--for which, in the mean time, I entreat your entire and
closest attention--I propose, with hasty step, to retrace our way
through all the grades of man’s spiritual enlightenment, to carry back
your regards and mine into all the several spheres of life and
consciousness.
But now, it has been said that the philosophy of life, in every case and
instance, invariably ascends to the highest object of every sphere that
it contemplates, and that that supreme object is God. From this,
further, it has been argued that it is even and truly a philosophy of
God. How, then, does it differ from theology?
At the very commencement of these Lectures I confessed that philosophy
in general, and especially a philosophy of life, by reason of the common
object which they both treat of, could not avoid coming into frequent
and close contact with theology. But, at the same time, I asserted that
the former, in its whole essence, is completely and materially
different from the latter, and requires to be carefully restricted
within its own limits. We must take heed lest it either violently
encroach upon the proper domain of theology, or, on the other hand,
become its servile handmaid at the sacrifice of its own peculiar
character and destination. The true relation of these two kindred
sciences, as occupied with a common subject, which is often entirely
identical, and their, nevertheless, so strongly-marked and distinct
limits, may perhaps be most clearly illustrated by a comparison with the
mathematical sciences.
Dogmatic theology, or the science of positive belief, resembles pure
mathematics. Its ideas and formularies can not be too strictly, or too
simply, defined; nor, where it admits of demonstration, can its proofs
be carried out with too rigorous and mathematical a precision. For in
these matters it is impossible to give the least room or influence to
individual caprice without hazarding the loss of all that is most
essential in the positive articles of faith. Philosophy, on the other
hand, in treating of such subjects--or, at least, that part of it which
is occupied with these matters--resembles rather mixed geometry in its
several applications, such as practical mensuration, or the science of
fortification and the art of war. For philosophy is, if we may so speak,
an applied theology. Adopting the universal ideas of the one living God
and his overruling Providence, and, what is so closely connected
therewith, of the soul’s immortality and man’s free will, it adapts
them, in many valuable practical applications, to the whole and almost
boundless field of historical knowledge and the development of the human
race, as well as to all physical and experimental sciences, and even to
the wide domain of scientific disputes and merely human opinion, with
its several conflicting systems. In this course of practical application
philosophy needs not, in its expressions and formularies, scrupulously
to confine itself to the terminology of its sister science, or to repeat
its words with a careful exactness. On the contrary, its best and wisest
course is to move with freedom, changing and varying its expressions at
pleasure. For inasmuch as it is not itself so rigorously tied up as
theology is to authority, so it can not appeal to it with equal justice
in order to enforce assent to its own teaching. In the same way, too,
that in algebraic equations a mere hypothetical calculation is
oftentimes introduced, which, moreover, afterward suggests many a
valuable practical application, so, also, a similar hypothetical use of
the theological magnitudes or axioms, if we may so speak, is quite open
and allowable to philosophy in the pursuit of its merely scientific
ends. It is only the most general articles of the faith that philosophy
makes use of. At least, the minuter and sharply-defined determinations
of a positive creed are not immediately and indispensably necessary for
its object. Now, an overruling Providence, the soul’s immortality, and
the freedom of the will, are articles of universal belief, which,
although, perhaps, not couched in express words and definite notions,
yet still as germs and vague feelings exist, however deeply they may
slumber, in every human breast that is as yet pure and uncontaminated by
that captious skepticism which frets and corrodes itself with its
seeming perplexities. These, philosophy may safely take for granted.
Nay, it is its duty so to do; and where it does so in the right way,
then will it never, on that account, meet with any considerable obstacle
or opposition. On the contrary, by pursuing this course it will the more
surely arouse and awaken these universal feelings from their slumber in
the human mind, and gradually shape and convert them into fixed and
stable points from which to carry on the further progress and
development of the principle of faith.
And it is even herein that philosophy will most display its art, or,
rather, its intellectual power over the minds of men. It is in this,
pre-eminently, that lies its vocation. But if, on the contrary, it makes
this mission to consist rather in demonstrating, in a strictly
scientific form, the existence of a Deity, with its natural train of
those eternal verities--the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of
the will, then at the very first outset it will lose sight of its true
aim, and set up a false one. For, were such a demonstration possible,
still nothing essential would be gained by its actual attainment. For,
in such a case, the existence of God, and God himself, would naturally
become dependent, in thought at least, on that from and by means of
which the proof was established, and would, consequently, appear to us
no longer as the first cause of all, but, rather, a secondary and
derivative being. In such the primal essence would be made to depend on
our human knowledge and science of reasoning, so to speak; the latter
must, in the plenitude of its power, first confer upon and guaranty to
the former its existence. This would, indeed, be a complete inversion of
the true and natural order of things, such as, alas, has but too often
occurred and manifested itself in actual experience.
These remarks, however, must be understood as applying to a strict
demonstration of this great verity, or at least to all attempts of the
kind. To point to this truth, to trace every indication of it, to
elucidate it, to confirm it by analogy or other corroborative evidences,
is quite a different matter. All this is perfectly allowable. But God
does not allow his existence to be proved. By force of reasoning such a
belief is not to be impressed on the mind of that man who is unwilling
spontaneously to admit it. As life generally, so also this supreme life
must be learned and concluded from every man’s own experience; it must
be adopted with the vividness of a feeling.
Let us now, for a moment, revert to the old scholastic forms and the
designations usually given in the schools to the several philosophical
sciences, and compare with them the division on which our present
disquisitions are based. We might, in this respect, say that the first
five sections of our treatise have been exclusively devoted to
psychology; though not indeed in the ordinary narrow sense of the word,
but in one far more extensive, and embracing the whole universe.
According to this wider extent and signification of psychology, we have
considered the soul relatively, first of all, to the whole of philosophy
and its several systems; secondly, to moral life; and, lastly, to
revelation, to nature, and to God Himself. The three following Lectures
were devoted to an examination of the divine order of things in the
several spheres of existence, and to the indications of a ruling
Providence discoverable therein. They constitute, therefore, a species
of theology; but one, however, empirically conceived and historically
worked out from observations in nature and in history, not only in the
annals of the external world, but also in the spiritual history of the
progressive terms in the development of truth. Such a theological essay
exactly corresponds to that notion we so lately advanced, of an applied
or mixed science of theology as the peculiar sphere for this part or
branch of philosophy which concerns itself with the doctrine of the
supreme essence, and the right understanding thereof.
Now if, in compliance with olden forms of division and a scholastic
phraseology, it be necessary to deliver a scheme of ontology as the
philosophical science and cognition of really existent things, and also
of their true and real essence, it is clear that such is only
conceivable and possible by means of such an applied theology. For how
can things be truly real, and how can they as such be known in their
inmost essence, except so far as they have their existence and
determination in God, and, in this respect, admit of being known by us?
In any case, however, the name of _natural_ theology, which ever and
anon we still hear applied to the philosophical cognition of the Divine
Being and His existence, ought carefully to be avoided. Such a
designation is based on a thorough misconception and total inversion of
ideas. Every system of theology that is not supernatural, or at least
that does not profess to be so, but pretends to understand naturally the
idea of God, and regards the knowledge of the divine essence as a branch
of natural science, or derives the idea simply from nature, is even on
that account false. Missing and entirely mistaking its proper object, it
must, in short, prove absolutely null and void. Properly, indeed, this
inquiry needs no peculiar word nor special division and scientific
designation. The name generally of philosophy, or specially of a
philosophy of God, is perfectly sufficient to designate the
investigation into science and faith, and their reciprocal
relation--their abiding discord, or its harmonious reconciliation and
intrinsic concord. And this is properly the point which is here in
question; it forms the essential part of the topic which we have at
present to examine.
The internal schism in the faith itself I formerly excluded from our
inquiry, as not lying properly within the limits of philosophy, and
belonging to a higher tribunal. I at the same time expressed my
conviction that God alone could universally and totally reconcile it. By
this, however, I would not by any means wish to be understood as
asserting that works on this subject, written with a thorough knowledge
of historical facts, and in a luminous and instructive style, can not
contribute much to the refutation of error. Works of this nature may, in
their degree, tend to bring about a mutual approximation of sentiment.
For they serve to elucidate and clear up points which, even though they
do not involve the essential articles of positive belief; do,
nevertheless, greatly and extensively co-operate in keeping alive a
mutual spiritual alienation and estrangement of mind. The great merit of
treatises of this kind, when composed with high intellectual powers and
in that noble spirit which is at once just and desirous of peace, must
not in any case be denied or depreciated. Nevertheless, it is idle to
pretend that the influence of such essays, whether greater or less, is
not confined to a limited sphere, extending to a few individuals, or at
most to classes.
To judge by the usual course of the divine order in the realm of truth,
a total conversion of the whole mind of the age, or a reawakening of
entire nations, is only to be expected from a higher and universal
impulse imparted from above. As a preparation, however, for that divine
peace in a universal unity of faith, which so repeatedly and so many
ways is promised most distinctly even to this life, nothing can be so
effective as to remove, if possible, or at least to reconcile, that
triple discord already described as dividing and distracting the inner
man. And this is a matter which, as lying within the sphere of human
consciousness and science, unquestionably belongs to the domain of
philosophical investigation. And it is even the duty of philosophy,
whenever it follows its prevailing mediatory and atoning tendency, to
attempt scientifically to bring about the reconciliation of that strife,
and, undiscouraged by repeated failures, still to labor to re-establish
the perfect and profound harmony of consciousness and of life.
Now the first dissension, that, viz., between science and faith, whether
actual or apparent, requires for its removal before all things a mutual
understanding and compromise. The second dissension between faith in
general, even a mere philosophical and natural faith, and that unbelief
which is so general and prevalent in our age, can only end with the
perfect triumph of the truth. For only by the full light of divine
knowledge and truth--by the triumphant exposition of this true light,
and by the magic power of such a display on the minds of men--shall
doubt and infidelity be fully eradicated and destroyed. The third
dissension, between both faith and science on the one hand, and life on
the other, needs, for the removal of all misunderstanding, something
more than a mere peace and compromise on the disputed points. For this
purpose there is required a thorough union of both carried out into
fruitful and practical application, by which the living faith and the
living science may evince themselves as such, and manifest their true
and wholesome influence on life, however at present estranged from and
adverse to it.
The second and the third of these dissensions are reserved for
consideration in the two following Lectures; but the first, that, viz.,
which subsists between faith and science, is to form the subject, and
its reconciliation the problem of our present disquisition.
Now, is this dissension necessarily and really grounded in the thing
itself, and in the nature of the thing? Or, rather, does the blame of it
lie with men, and in their defective apprehension and form? I have no
hesitation in saying that a living faith and a living science will never
be at issue together, at least on essential points. In three cases, no
doubt, a dissension, a reciprocal misunderstanding, and endless conflict
between both is perfectly conceivable. It is possible, either when the
faith is a mere matter of memory and of a few acquired notions, rather
than a deeply-rooted conviction of the soul. Or, secondly, since all the
faculties of the human mind ought to co-operate in giving a full
internal development and an external shape to the truth thus divinely
imparted, it may spring up even when the soul receives it with a full
love, but is nevertheless principally, or at least too much, under the
dominion of a lively fancy, to the exclusion of a due admixture of
clearness of understanding, and the circumspection which belongs to the
distinguishing judgment. Or, thirdly, it may arise, on the other side,
when a conceited and presumptuous science seeks to establish itself
rather than truth, and places more dependence on its own conclusions
than on its announcements.
What, then, is faith, taken in itself, but the reception into the soul
of the divine and divinely-communicated verities? And what is science,
more than the apprehension thereof by the mind [_geist_]? Are there,
then, two truths, of which, however, one or the other is not true?
Undoubtedly there exists, along with the spirit of truth, another
spirit--that of contradiction and negation. But the latter is no spirit
of truth, but the spirit of untruth and delusion so often described,
which invariably triumphs whenever the mind of man, in its pursuit of
knowledge, seeks itself rather than the truth, and consequently finds,
perceives, and retains nothing but its own Me. And this evil spirit the
soul even meets half way whenever it is incapable of embracing and
retaining the life and the spirit of the holy faith, and when,
consequently, these quickly flee away, and nothing but the letter and
the empty form remain behind. But where the spirit of truth has once
departed, error in manifold shapes and forms finds, one way or other,
an entrance into the soul. Is it not one and the same truth which, on
the one side, speaking from the one revelation, impresses itself on the
soul of man as the commanding voice of love enjoining faith, and which,
on the other, condescendingly offers and presents itself to the mind or
spirit of the believer as a mystery, in order that he may, if he will,
investigate it in order to discover and adopt the meaning and the light
that are veiled and inclosed within it? Is there, then, to be a party
feud and a civil war in the heart of man, between soul and spirit, the
two elements of his existence; just as if it were some ill-organized
state where, in opposition to the supreme political power, some
insubordinate body sets itself up in authority, and presumes to give the
law? Ought, forsooth, the soul in secret to be liberal, and, in
half-unbelief, to grant immunity to all manner of lusts and desires,
while the spirit is legitimist in sentiment and constitutional in
language? Or ought the soul to be honestly _ultra_ and a thorough
legitimist in its established faith, while the mind, on its part, by its
liberal measures, is perfectly falling into error? So far is this from
being allowable, that even these names and these parties would soon
cease and disappear altogether, if, instead of party, the knowledge, and
the might, and the inspiration of life--the supreme life, _i.e._, or
God, were once to take full possession of the minds of men, and so
animate them anew and ardently inspire them with the common spirit and
ardor of the one faith and the one science.
Now, the intermediate link which unites science with faith--the mean
function between both which admits of demonstration within the limits of
the consciousness and of philosophy, is discernment [_erkennen_]. Of
this there are two kinds: the one distinguishes between right and wrong,
and, consequently, as a separate function, directs itself outwardly in
its operation, and observes differences. By the other we see and
comprehend, or understand and discern, that two objects apparently
different, are properly and essentially one and the same. It is with
this intrinsic and inwardly-directed discernment that we are here
concerned. For it is by this highest function of thought, which
penetrates into the inmost essence of each of two ideas, and by its
sentence declaring their similarity, that we perceive and discern that
this science and that faith are essentially identical. Discerning in
this sense is something different from knowing; it is, as it were, a
second knowing; or, if we may be allowed to express ourselves
mathematically, “knowing raised to a higher power.” It is this that
discovers the essential unity of Science and Faith, and that must bring
about the restoration of concord between them, and reconcile them with
each other. If, however, this second and higher knowing, or this science
of science, be referred and confined to one’s own Me or Self, as is too
often done, such a course will only lead us out of the common error of
the ordinary self-delusion into one still more profound, which will
prove the more complex and aggravated, the more scientifically it is
evolved, and which I have already depicted to you in its true colors.
Now this unity of science with faith can only be found and discovered in
their common object--in truth, consequently, and _i.e._ in God, who is
the sum of all truth. Mere negations--like that of the idea of the
infinite, or the notion of the immeasurable, which is applicable even to
nature itself, or that of the absolute or unconditional, of which many
palpably erroneous applications might easily be made--no such pure
negations, nor even any mere enumeration of predicates and properties
devoid of intrinsic coherence, can furnish us with an adequate
conception of the Deity. But now if a cognition, an understanding of
life in general, be attainable (and no skeptical perplexities have yet
been able to deter or seduce man’s sound common sense from entertaining
and acting upon such a supposition), then it is clear that there is no
reason for holding the notion of the supreme life in and by itself to be
impossible or utterly unattainable by man.
Now, this is the path which a profounder science and philosophy has
invariably marked out for itself in this respect; and in the three
different powers, which, however, are at the same time but one, in the
trine energy of the one first cause of all, has it ever sought and
discovered this highest notion. In this notion belonging to the supreme
science, as advanced by philosophy in very different ages of the world
and among widely-remote nations, there is a remarkable resemblance,
although in the subordinate statements there is a greater or less
admixture of error. In the midst of many subordinate aberrations, it has
recognized the one great fact, that in the Supreme Life, who has His
life in Himself, and is the prime source of all other life, there is, at
the same time, a creative intelligence and thought which from the
beginning issued therefrom as the Eternal Word self-subsistent and
ordering all things, and that the Light which proceeded therefrom was
itself also the first life. But now, just as this original life, which
was from the beginning, was not simply Infinite, but even the source of
all finite and infinite existence, and as this Life is an illumination
which illuminates Itself and all other things, so is this Light also a
living entity, and not merely spiritual and immaterial (for as such even
It might still be a part of nature), but one thoroughly supernatural and
holy, and, if man will have it so, an awful light which repels all
darkness from itself, and, eternally rejecting, annihilates it.
Now, this Life, this Word, and this Light, these three different powers
in the same energy and in the one substance, which even, therefore, is
called the Supreme, is at once the highest object of all science, and
the center and fundamental source of all faith. And this science of the
Highest, even when regarded exclusively from this single aspect of
knowing, does not exhibit itself as entirely separate from, and
independent of, faith, but even, as such, is from the very first in
contact with it, and, taken simply as knowing, involves in it a
concurrence and co-operation of faith.
In very many and different, not to say infinitely various ways it may be
shown, pointed out, and established, that without this full and correct
notion of the Supreme Being, every other species of existence and of
knowledge must be without coherence and proper significance. However, as
has been so often observed already, there is not involved in it any
strict necessity. It does not possess any rigor of logical sequence,
constraining the assent of one who in his heart is otherwise disposed,
and in his sentiments has otherwise determined. For so must it ever be:
the final resolve of conviction is left to the free assent, that quiet
internal concurrence of the will already mentioned, which in general
brings man into actual communion with God, and opens and enlarges his
sense for the divine--since such assent is itself even that sense, or,
at least, the principle and commencement of it.
And this complement of the highest science, which is furnished by the
free internal assent, is even of itself nothing less than an act of
faith. Consequently, the complete and correct notion of the Supreme
Essence is the mystical ring in which science and faith are at the first
beginning indissolubly connected. Nothing but the perversity and
shortsightedness of men in regard both to science and faith, tears them
asunder again, and, separating what in God is one and what He has joined
together, sets science and faith in hostile opposition, mutually
obstructing and destroying one another. Moreover, this highest notion of
the highest science is the scientific vertex or the scientifically
culminating expression of man’s universal belief in the one living God.
For if this one God is necessarily to be conceived of as endued with
life, it will be sufficient for me to appeal to the fact, that physical
science knows not, and no one even can conceive or comprehend or think
of a mode of life in any sphere of existence, without implying a
plurality, or, at least, a duality of co-operating forces. But if,
further, we are to think of it as a perfect life, then must there be in
it a third living energy or operation. Thus, therefore, on this side
also the highest notion of a science which has attained to its end, and
to the summit of all existence and all knowledge, is in perfect unison
with the universal feeling of truth and the natural and simple faith of
man.
But now, if the highest science and a divine faith intrinsically and
essentially be properly one, it will naturally turn and depend on the
preservation of the true ratio and correct proportion between the two
powers and elements of human existence, whether or not in their further
application and actual life they are to continue at unity, without
coming into hostile collision and discord. The believing soul, like the
mistress of a family, ought to hold and retain the chief place in the
house; the spirit that knows, or that aims at knowledge, as the master,
may pursue out of doors whatever avocations it pleases, only it must be
continually returning to the domestic hearth, and there warm itself at
the pure ascending flame of devotion and pious meditation. And if in its
wanderings it should most love to stray in the rich and blooming garden
of nature, then of the rare aromatic woods and seeds it there gathers,
it may throw one or more into the fire, in order to add some sweet,
ethereal incense to its warming and illuminating flames.
Or, leaving figure, to express myself in more precise and exact
terms--the believing part of the consciousness observing its due
proportion, ought not to refuse and reject the true and Godlike science
together with that which is Godless, pernicious, and false. So, too, the
cognitive or scientific portion ought to abstain from all hostile
attacks on the other domain and on positive faith, which in all
probability it has not sufficiently studied, and still less perfectly
understands. And thus, also, when this cognitive part (as it ought, and
as is essential to its truth and correctness as science) carefully
watches itself and rigorously abstains from all arbitrary, presumptuous,
and egoistic opinions and ideas, suggestions or beginnings of ideas, as
involving the first disposition to false science and every species of
error, then there is no need for it to be held in check by the other
part, nor to be limited by it.
But in any case we must be ready to admit that the fault lies in man,
and on no account suppose that the dissension has its ground in the
thing itself. For the thing here is nothing less than truth itself,
which can not be twofold, since God Himself is this truth and the sum
thereof. It is therefore important, on the one hand, by means of the old
spirit, to be ever giving new life and energy to faith, by carrying it
back continually to its own eternal foundations, in order to avert the
danger, which is ever threatening it, of spiritual deadness and of the
ascendency of the letter that killeth. And, on the other hand, we ought
never to cease from or to become weary of refining more and more the
higher philosophical science from all the egoistic dross of arbitrary
opinions and fancied apodictic conclusions, laboring the while to
complete it according to the threefold dimensions (to hazard the
expression) of this so utterly immeasurable essence of everlasting
truth, by keeping incessantly in view the unfathomable depth, the
inaccessible height, the inexhaustible center of bliss of the one
inconceivable and ineffable Being. For the fault and the cause of the
dissension must in no case be ascribed to the thing itself, but
invariably either to a dead, imperfectly enlightened, and untelligent
faith, on the one hand, or on the other, to the arbitrary assumptions or
one-sided conclusions of a science, which in this respect and degree at
least is false and erroneous.
But inasmuch as the fault and origin of the dissension has partly its
foundation in human imperfection and finiteness, we must rest content,
even if we can not all at once get rid of and remove it. We must be
satisfied if in this ceaseless struggle with man’s hereditary and
connatural fault of error, the progress though slow is sure. It is
enough if in this surely advancing progression, each step, however
short, brings us nearer to the truth, and to the perfect cognition of
the unity of the highest science and divine faith. But this is a point
on which even individuals, with the most perfect honesty of purpose and
a sincere love of truth, too often go wrong. Unable, perhaps, to
reconcile to their own minds some conflicting claim of science and of
faith, and to see their way clear out of their perplexities, then to cut
the knot of the problem to which they despair of soon finding a
satisfactory solution, they precipitately adopt some partial and
overhasty conclusion. But slow, extremely slow, is the advance of man’s
mental enlightenment in the realm of truth. And if the course of
Providence, according to the very gradual progression of divine order in
this domain, must be counted by millenniums, then in the life of
individuals, years and decades must be reckoned as days and hours. Even
though some grave doubt, distracting the inmost feelings, but scarcely
definable in express terms--some oppressive problem suggested by the
peculiar mental temperament of the individual, can not be resolved in
three hours, or even three days, still it may perhaps in three years;
and if three years be too little, then thirty years may probably
suffice. While in spite of this inward doubt we follow uninterruptedly
our vocation in outer life, many a silent change is effected in our
minds, and so at length with altered views and enlarged experience we
attain to a calm and clear conviction on the points which at an earlier
period had appeared to us obscure, had held us in suspense, and
oppressed us with perplexing difficulties.
This is the only road that can be safely trod by those who desire above
all things to retain a divine faith, but at the same time not to
renounce the pursuit of higher science. And is not this the difficult
position in the present day of every well-disposed person who is in any
way connected with science, or whose pursuits in life require him to
occupy himself with it? But now, in the case of physical science, we are
all content to observe this law of tardy progress; indeed we think it
quite natural, and hold it to be the only correct method. And it is only
by following a similar course in the internal investigations of
philosophy that we shall ever arrive at a stable position and the firm
ground of eternal truth. By any other method, we shall most assuredly
lose ourselves among the ever-shifting systems which change with the
fashions of the day, or be carried away by the baseless hypotheses of
this or that sect or school, which, like the sterile blossoms in the
spring, fall fruitless to the ground.
In respect to this tardiness of progress, which most assuredly is at
least not inconsistent with true philosophy, I can appeal to my own
instance, which in such a case is, I hope, allowable. It is now
nine-and-thirty years since I first read, with indescribable avidity,
the entire works of Plato in the original; and ever since, amid many
other scientific studies, philosophical research has been my principal
and favorite avocation. In this pursuit many and various have been the
systems of science--of discord and of error--that I have had to wander
through. Satisfied neither with the opinions of others nor with my own
views, I felt reluctant to come forward with a system of my own. In the
mean while my view of philosophy has been in a state of inchoation and
of tardy but progressive development. Slowly and incompletely, little by
little, incidentally and fragmentarily, at different epochs, has some of
its principles come to the light, or escaped me in my earlier literary
works and compositions--an explanation which I do not consider
superfluous, even for those who are best acquainted with them. But the
more I held fast to the two poles of divine faith and of supreme
science, which as such is also divine, the firmer footing did I gain in
that point and that center in the everlasting Beginning, in which both
are one and cease to be at issue, but rather intimately cohering, do but
lend fresh life, strength, and elevation to each other. And now at
length I believe I have attained to that point when, fully persuaded
myself of this unity of science and faith as grounded in God, I may
safely indulge the wish to impart to others this important truth,
publicly to set it forth, and develop it to the whole world. And it is
to me no slight cause of congratulation that I am to enter upon this
task in the present place and in the present manner.
Besides those points of correlation already pointed out, between the
highest science and faith, there is still another way in which the
former, in its all-embracing notion of the triple life of the primal
cause and force, is referred to faith, and even to its positive articles
and its divine authority. It is obliged to appeal to this, in order to
find and maintain its guiding rule and correct standard for the further
application and development of this highest and fundamental notion, and
to keep it dear of all erroneous and extravagant excrescences. The
necessity of this will be best and most simply shown by a few historical
instances.
When we open any of the ancient writings of the Hindoos, whether it be
their scientific systems, their books of laws and customs for practical
life, or their merely mythological poems, we find them, in every
instance, based on the notion of a divine trinity, and, in some cases,
asserting it in express words and phrases. But inasmuch as, forgetting
to maintain the unity together with the trinity, they abandoned the
simple truth and made thereout three distinct gods, the metaphysical
theory (which otherwise contains so many and distinct traces of ancient
truth) and the trinity of the Hindoos has become a pure mythology,
comprising as long a genealogy of gods as any other. But the retention,
however, of this fundamental notion, their mythology has acquired a
theistic hue and coloring, which forms a strong contrast between it and
the better known mythology of Greece, notwithstanding that in other
respects, and in its purely poetic portion, it exhibits many and strong
features of resemblance and affinity. Thus, in this wonderful chaos of
distorted truth, of monstrous error, and pure fiction, we meet with ten
fabulous creations of men, instead of the single true one with which,
only within the last three centuries, the Hindoos have formed a more
thorough and permanently-based acquaintance. Moreover, in life and in
practice there is exhibited a renunciation of the world, and a
mortification of the body, which, far surpassing the rigorous
self-denial of the early Christian solitaries in Egypt, is carried to an
intensity and an extreme which it is almost incredible that human nature
should be capable of. But co-existing with all this, we meet with
immoral practices and licentious excesses sanctified by falsehood and
superstition, similar to those we have already become acquainted with in
the more sensual heathenism of antiquity, that, I mean, which prevailed
among the ancient races of this our western portion of the globe. Into
such a frightful abyss of error even the most spiritual system of
metaphysics inevitably falls, or at least easily becomes associated with
falsehood, whenever it is left entirely to itself, and is devoid of a
divine rule for its guidance, and the simple standard of a higher and
heaven-descended authority.
In the history, too, of the development of the Grecian mind we discover
a similar doctrine advanced in one of its latest epochs. The
Neo-Platonists were very well acquainted with this doctrine and idea of
a divine trinity; as, indeed, it may also be traced in the still earlier
writings of Plato himself. How far the expressions and formularies
employed by the former writers scientifically to convey this idea were
perfect and correct is a question which does not concern us at present
to inquire. Moreover, the determination of it would carry us far beyond
our proper limits, inasmuch as its exact solution would require a nice
and accurate classification of the several writers and systems which
belong to this school. It is, however, sufficient to remark that this
profound metaphysical school of the Neo-Platonists, which reckoned among
its adherents the Emperor Julian, stood in direct and hostile collision
with Christianity. To adapt to the purpose of their opposition the old
Grecian mythology, a faith in which had sensibly declined even among the
masses, they attempted to mold it according to their own views and
notions, into such a theological shape and direction as would make it
more closely resemble the Indian. By this means they believed it
possible to revive and reanimate the popular faith. But, even if their
ulterior view and their whole object and actuating motive had not taken
a direction so decidedly hostile to the truth, still their enterprise,
even as such, could not but miscarry. No doubt the mythology of Greece,
in its earliest times and original shape, did contain, in some of its
less prominent and more hidden passages, esoterically interpreted, a few
symbolical doctrines and somewhat theistic ideas, as many a profound
examiner of it, in modern times, has recognized and demonstrated. But,
notwithstanding all these traces, which we must regard as the remains of
an older tradition of the primary knowledge and full revelation
belonging to primeval times, still, in subsequent ages, the Grecian
mythology had, on the whole, assumed exclusively and pre-eminently a
poetic development and form, which even subordinated to itself that
political tendency which in so many of its details is so strong. It was,
therefore, nothing less than an absurd and inconsistent attempt to try,
so late in the day, to metamorphose this beautiful world of fable into a
factitious theory of metaphysics, and a colossal system of mysticism,
after the manner and fashion of the Indian. Accordingly, like every
other attempt that is fundamentally false and directly opposed to the
spirit of the age, it passed away at last, without leaving a trace of
its influence.
This inclination to the poetic aberration of polytheism and a
deification of nature, so universally prevalent in the heathen antiquity
of the West, renders it easily conceivable why, in the first and Jewish
portion of written revelation, such great stress is laid pre-eminently
and primarily on the oneness of the living God. All other
expressions--such as that of the eternal creative Word, of the
life-giving Spirit of God--are, as it were, but allusions full of hidden
meaning for the more clear-sighted and profounder inquirers. How
numerous, nevertheless, such indications are; how frequent the reference
to three powers or persons--the time, energy, and property of the one
Supreme Being--an allusion to which is contained even in the different
Hebrew names of the Godhead, is known and acknowledged, even by those
who would, if they could, deny it, both to themselves and others.
The tradition of the Jews, which, lying without the strictly-defined
body of Scripture, yet proceeds concurrently with it, while it possesses
of itself no authority, is, nevertheless, a very useful though too much
neglected source of illustration for the sacred volume. Now, in the
Talmud the doctrine and notion of the divine trinity is expressed quite
fully and distinctly, and without reserve; although in the mode and
manner of conceiving it there is much that is both false and
objectionable.
In that second portion of revelation with which our present era
commences, together with the fulfilling and perfection of the object of
faith, this supreme science is brought prominently and clearly forward.
No doubt a certain caution and degree of reserve on this doctrine of the
Trinity are distinctly visible in the earliest teaching and statements,
so long as the preaching of the new faith was confined within the Jewish
nation, on whose mind the idea of the oneness of God was still deeply
imprinted, even though, like every other principle of their religion, it
was ill understood and had long ceased to be embraced with a living
energy, being taken merely in the dead letter. But ere long this thin
veil was also removed from the All-holy One, and the great mystery of
faith set forth as the introduction to the fourth and last Gospel. From
the latter I have accordingly borrowed that designation of this great
mystery which is even the most appropriate to science; of the supreme
life which is itself omnipotence, of the eternal word which is
ominisence, and of the uncreated light which is the All-holy.
Certain great thinkers, who, however, in many respects can not be
classed among proper Christians, have indeed recognized and acknowledged
the profound significance of this opening of the Gospel. Only they
adopted a spirit of hostile analysis, which, as it attacked so many of
the great works of olden time, did not spare even this divine monument.
They lost themselves in all sorts of superfluous hypotheses as to the
source from which this or that passage was derived, and with what object
it was introduced. Much simpler were it, without having recourse to any
such artificial explanations, to receive the divine truth in sincerity
as it is offered to us. If we must ascribe some special design for its
composition, it will be sufficient to suppose, that after the Evangel of
Life and the new era commencing therewith had been sufficiently set
forth as history in a triple narrative, it was requisite to add thereto
this Evangel of the Beginning--as the Gospel according to the spirit of
the highest science, in so far as this is fully identical with the
divine faith, and henceforward was always to continue one with it. It
was quite in the natural order of things that the word which was uttered
at the beginning of the material creation, and is the basis of the first
revelation, should also at the opening of the second revelation, and the
spiritual creation of a new era, be repeated (though in a different and
far higher sense) for the soul in the realm of truth:--“And God said:
Let there be light, and there was light.”