OF THE TWOFOLD SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND ERROR IN SCIENCE; OF THE CONFLICT OF
FAITH WITH INFIDELITY.
In the terrestial creation, in the realm of nature, no sooner did the
behest go forth, “Let there be light,” than the accomplishment forthwith
followed. Scarcely was this light and life-creating word spoken, than it
was succeeded, spontaneously and immediately, without let or hinderance,
by the second word of the joyful conclusion: “And there was light.”
Quite otherwise, however, is it in the life and in the world of
free-created man, in the progression of his intellectual development, in
the history of his mind [_geist_], in his now advancing, now
retrograding thought and knowledge. Here, indeed, the first call to
light and divine truth does not pass over even man’s stubborn and
taciturn heart altogether unheeded and unanswered, and without eliciting
some faint response. But lasting is the struggle between light and
darkness, between knowledge and ignorance, between faith and infidelity.
Ever wavering from side to side, and fluctuating from one extreme to
another, the victory long remains undecided. And centuries often, nay,
thousands of years, pass away ere with perfect truth that word of
fulfillment and completion can be uttered, and we can go on,
undoubtedly, to say, “And there was light.” Even when the true end is
pursued along the direct road, the right track is often lost amid the
endless strife and controversy of men, while a long train of useless
discussion raises so thick a cloud of dust as shuts it entirely out of
sight, and so a new route has to be sought and opened from quite an
opposite quarter.
How deeply was the Gentile world sunk in wild and cruel superstition,
when the Great Prophetic Spirit and the Disperser of that Egyptian
darkness, which hung over it, repeated or wrote down those first words
of light for the spiritual no less than the material creation! Assuredly
he had in view thereby a new genesis for his people--a new life and a
new beginning of light. Then followed fifteen centuries of probation.
And what was this long period but one ceaseless though alternating
struggle between light and darkness? At the end of it, in spite of its
great and noble gifts and superior knowledge, the whole nation had
fallen into the lowest depths of luxury and corruption, on the one hand
a prey to the wilder passions, on the other spiritually dead and rotten.
But, the shadow of its former self, it dragged on a miserable existence,
oppressed by a foreign yoke and torn by intestine sects and parties. The
one claiming to be the only legal sect (and as concerned the letter of
the law, and the outward ritual, it was so in fact), and arrogant and
obstinate, closely adhering to the dead letter, was widely estranged and
alienated from the spirit of love and mildness. And thus the very name
of Pharisee has become odious and hateful, having passed into a proverb
and a by-word. Wholly mistaking the meaning of the revelation imparted
to them, they misunderstood the future to which it referred, no less
than the immediate fortunes of their nation and their own condition.
Consequently they went totally wrong in the interpretation of the
former, as well as of the problem of the present which was laid before
them. For they took it in the narrow and perverted spirit of party. No
doubt the Pharisees reckoned among their members many truly pious,
well-disposed, and right-thinking individuals--men, who in the beginning
of the new era of the world, as appeals from the simple history of those
times, acknowledged the truth, and recognized the hand of God pointing
and leading onward to the future. These men mourned in silence over the
revolting pride and stiffneckedness of their cotemporaries. But though
endued with great learning and talents, and burning zeal for right and
truth, they did not venture openly to oppose and to teach differently
from their brethren, even because in reality the law, the dead and
external law, was on their side.
But the other party was that of the Sadducees. Quite different in
principle, these were the innovators among the Jews. Explaining away the
theological creed of their nation, they went so far in this direction as
to throw into shade, and to question, or, rather, absolutely to deny,
the immortality of the soul. In civil matters and questions of law and
policy, they were the liberal free-thinkers of their day.
From amid these two dark clouds, which, if they shone at all, glimmered
only with the deceptive halo of the false light and hue of party, broke
the new dawn and sun of Truth--at first unobserved, nor understood by
any, so thickly had these mists overspread the horizon. But this new
genesis, and this full illumination, was no longer destined exclusively
for a single people. Accordingly, it gradually spread over the ten or
twelve great nations who occupy two parts of the habitable globe, and
also possess and govern the greatest portion of the third and the most
ancient. And it is, in short, by means of that intellectual superiority
and civilization which they owe to this springing of a new era, and this
first light, that the former bear rule in the remotest regions of the
earth.
Since the dawning of that day-spring eighteen centuries have elapsed,
and sadly torn and distracted is the present aspect of Christianity. We
should, no doubt, give a very distorted picture of the state of
Christendom were we anxiously to trace its resemblance, through every
minuter trait and nicer shade, to the old world at its close and at the
end of those fifteen centuries of Jewish preparation. Such a minute
parallel would be false, whether we were to compare it to the moral
state and character of that nation, mentally blinded and hurrying with
hasty steps toward its ruin, or even to the old heathen world of Rome,
already condemned by anarchy and infidelity. Still it is generally true.
For it is undeniable that man is perpetually relapsing into dissension
and party quarrels, even while the hand which sways the destinies of the
world, in ever-recurring epochs of renovation, is continually presenting
to him anew both truth and life, health and peace. And every one can
answer for himself the question whether this new proclamation of light
and truth, this divine message of peace and salvation, has yet reached
its full accomplishment. Has the Sun of Righteousness yet penetrated,
and cast its bright beams on all the relations of life, to the very
inmost joints of soul and spirit? Can it with perfect truth be said,
relatively to the whole human race, “And there is light”--that light, at
least, which alone is good, even because it shall remain forever? For
those meteoric sparks which flash across the universal night and
darkness, from the systems of man’s wisdom, which, crossing and
recrossing each other’s path, are soon again extinguished forever; or
those clouds of public opinion, charged with electric fluid and with
pestilence, which, for the most part, is but the public outburst of some
party passion; these emit no lasting, no salutary, and, therefore, no
true light. Dark and gloomy, too, perhaps, in its future prospects,
appears the long struggle between divine truth and human discord,
between light and darkness, between faith and infidelity. But the more
difficult and intricate the problem is which forms the theme of our
present disquisition, the more diligently and the more conscientiously
ought we to seek out and dwell upon every bright and quiet spot. For
such alone can cheer us on our way along the rugged path that leads to
the blissful goal of internal and spiritual peace, which will
essentially contribute to give a solid basis to the public and social
tranquillity, and to insure its permanence.
Slowly and gradually is it that the individual mind, distracted and
vacillating between God and a divine faith on the one hand, and a
higher, or even the highest, science on the other, advances in its
progress toward the perfect truth. Arriving, step by step, at fuller and
better convictions, it attains at last to a clear discernment that,
properly and fundamentally, these two apparently-conflicting objects are
not distinct, but in their inmost essence are perfectly one. But for the
final attainment of this end, the most important condition to be
observed is that scientific patience to which I called your attention in
the last Lecture. The chief thing to be guarded against is a precipitate
and over-hasty decision. For by such we should incur the great danger of
sacrificing the sacred deposit of faith to science, or of foolishly
rejecting the treasures of true science, which as such is indispensable
to the higher life, and even necessary and useful for the confirmation
of faith itself. And why, in the pursuit of truth--that proper spiritual
theme and highly interesting matter of the otherwise flat and insipid
drama of life--should we feel indisposed to such a scientific patience,
as I called it? Why should we be unwilling to recognize it as what it
really is--both salutary and indispensable to human frailty, and, as an
intellectual virtue, no less necessary than even moral patience? And the
latter is even the fundamental condition of every great or little
business, and almost every pursuit of life, if it is to attain to a
happy result, and is not to fail of its true end and aim. For patience
is, as it were, the indispensable portion which their earthly existence
brings to all men. Not only is it needed by the invalid on the bed of
sickness, in the long and tedious observance of his physician’s precise
and rigid prescriptions--not only is it wanted by the teacher in his
troublesome task of giving the first development to the intellectual
powers of the child--not only is patience requisite for the judge who
has to settle the complicated quarrel of two litigants, of whom each
claims his sympathy, each desires to win him to his own side and to bias
his judgment--but it is also indispensable to the warrior whom ambition
hurries forward in the pursuit of honor for himself and his country. For
numberless are the hardships and privations, and many, too, are the
miseries which the soldier must undergo before he can gain the object of
his hopes, the hard-fought battle and the glorious victory. The
statesman, too, with his wide sphere of influence and authority, stands
eminently in need of patience. How watchful and comprehensive must be
his vigilance, how deliberate his precautions, lest the organic course
of his administration should come to a check or stop, in consequence of
his having neglected, or failed to provide for any single member of the
great body, or any regulating-wheel in the complicated machinery of the
state.
But, on the other hand, there are also moments in human life where the
final issue turns not so much on a steady and uniform perseverance in
continuous activity, as on a decided resolution and firmness of purpose.
Among these we may place foremost, perhaps, in an intellectual relation,
the dissension between faith and infidelity, and the choice at the point
where the two branch off forever.
It is not here my design to set up, to commend, and to extol faith, nor
to decry, to attack, and to make war upon infidelity. For the former
would take me beyond my present limits; the latter would lead me into a
boundless field of details, and require me to take an exhaustive survey,
not only of all actually existent, but also of all conceivable,
prejudices and delusions. My principal object is rather to sketch a true
and exact picture of both, comprising, at the same time, all their
historical manifestations, and explaining their psychological causes, in
order to exhibit them both in their true light, so that man may choose
for himself and decide between them.
Now the apparent--or it may be real, but still only accidental--schism
between science and faith is, in the first place, internal. It is often,
indeed, profoundly hidden and concealed in the inmost depths of the
heart. It is therefore inwardly only that it admits of being adjusted
and finally reconciled. When this task is once accomplished in the heart
of an individual, and the choice is at least made one way or the other,
then this decision manifests itself outwardly, either as the triumph of
truth in the unity of science and faith, or as infidelity and
skepticism, shows itself in the form of a determined opposition to this
unity, or to faith itself. And the latter is the form it also assumes in
the intermediate case when the schism between science and faith is
declared to be irreconcilable. Openly expressed, therefore, these two
views go far beyond the original dissension, and pass into the second
schism and conflict between faith and infidelity. And although this
problem be itself an original and internal one, still it reveals itself
pre-eminently as a practical schism in actual life, and it is as such,
also, that it develops and manifests itself in history.
But it is our object to make this comparison and parallel between faith
and infidelity, in the full practical meaning of the words, useful and
historically applicable to life. For this purpose we must not regard
infidelity as founded exclusively on caprice, aversion, or
obstinacy--consequently on ignorance--but consider it rather as enjoying
every intellectual advantage, and commanding all the resources of
learning and science. For a purely personal, and merely negative
unbelief, without any deep foundation, and without even an apparently
scientific confirmation, is neither very dangerous to the community,
and, above all, presents little if any interest to philosophy. But, on
the other hand, if faith is successfully to cope with such an adversary,
furnished with all the armor and expedients of science, it must be able
to stand the comparison with it in this respect. It must, in short, be
conceived and set forth in its natural relation to true science, and,
taking its proper place and position, must act in union and co-operation
with it.
I must here, however, premise a second preliminary remark. I can not
bring myself to follow a very general opinion, and look upon faith as a
true and duly moderated medium between superstition and infidelity. On
the contrary, I join superstition with infidelity, and can not but class
them together. If by this term of superstition nothing is meant but some
exaggeration or other, some over-excitement of the moral and religious
feelings in individuals, then such a purely-personal case admits not of
being raised to a general rule, nor elevated into a universal principle.
And in any case it does not fall within the range of philosophical
speculation. For the care of the spiritual health and healthy diet of
the believing soul, which draws both life and love from the deep
sources of faith, belongs to a wholly different province from that of
philosophy. But by this word and notion of superstition there is often
understood a very childish error, which does not duly separate and
distinguish the figurative language and figurative forms of fancy from
the substance of the true intrinsic meaning. This error, which thus
confounds the figurative expression with reality, and takes it to be
something real, may justly be called childish, inasmuch as it is
universally peculiar, almost natural, to the intellect of children. Now,
in and by itself, and simply understood, such an internal _optical
delusion_ results from nothing but a psychological imperfection, or a
mere semblance of intellectual nature. But when this error is carried
out into a system, and applied, on a large scale, to the sum and essence
of faith, then, undoubtedly, it possesses a profounder origin and
significance. This species of superstition belongs to one of those
classes of error which I am about to describe. When, for instance, an
actual positive error is comprised in and understood by this name, then
it belongs to infidelity, which, in general, is rather a false faith
than any mere absence of belief. Infidelity, in short, is an erroneous
belief. And such, also, is every species of superstition, and this
designation of it by the name of erroneous faith, if generally adopted,
would be more correct and accurate, or, at least, less liable to be
misunderstood than its ordinary title.
For, to adhere to the usual term, every species of infidelity is either
a material deification of nature and a worship of the sensible powers of
life, or it is an abstract deification of the absolute subjective Me,
and the pure reason, with its endless thinking and knowing. Even when it
is conceived in a purely skeptical light as an absolute _not-knowing_,
still even in this case it is the understanding that is deified.
Standing apart from, and thinking itself superior to, the weak
prejudices of other men--in its negation feeling and fancying itself to
be instinct with genius--it is regarded and set up as the highest object
of existence, and thereby in a certain intellectual sense is made an
idol of. Even the evil power of perverted genius--for such we may well
call it when it ventures to contemn both law and right, and fancies
itself to be raised high above the voice of conscience and the moral
duties of docility and humblemindedness as belonging to ordinary
minds--even such a perverted genius may be made the idol of a man who
has once turned his back on the simple truth and on God, and has
arrogantly set himself in opposition to both. We may, in short, without
hesitation, advance it as an invariable principle and an unerring rule,
that the man who has lost or abandoned--not to say rejected--the idea
and belief in the one good and righteous God, has enshrined within his
breast and cherishes some more or less dangerous idol, whether it be the
subjective Me or some fearful passion, or, it may be, some firm and
well-finished system of deified reason or nature.
The complete notion or ideal scheme of pure faith, in its organic union,
co-operation, and true relation with all higher and with all natural or
earthly science, must be conceived of and sketched in agreement with the
triple principle of the human consciousness, according to which it is
divided into spirit, soul, and sense. At least it is in this way that it
can most easily be made clear, and being accurately apprehended in its
essential properties and nature, is kept distinct from all foreign
elements and adscititious matters. But infidelity, and that doubt and
absence of harmony from which it takes its rise, as well as that error
which results from it, have their seat in the fourfold consciousness.
These all owe their origin to that disunion in which the mind was
involved by the Fall, and which manifests itself principally in the
dissension which subsists between Fancy and Reason, and eventually
destroys all harmony and co-operation between the Understanding and the
Will. For this twofold schism in the human consciousness is the source
of all philosophical error and of its various false systems. And this
scientific error again, so soon as it attains to a practical utterance,
and in a living form enters into or interferes with life, becomes
infidelity.
Originally, however, the consciousness was not thus rent by dissension.
Throughout, in its triple principle of sense, soul, and spirit,
prevailed one living, harmonious action. Now, in this its natural state,
the soul must be regarded as the principle of faith. And this is a point
especially to be borne in mind. It is, however, too often forgotten. And
consequently the faith, or, rather (for we are not speaking at present
of the subject-matter so much as of the mental act), the believing, is
in an external manner derived very incompletely and unsatisfactorily
from the divided and quadruple consciousness. For generally the act of
believing and its essence is made to consist in a certain internal
reserve on the part of both understanding and will, and a similar
control of the fancy, and even of the reason, as well as in the
recognition of these limits and of such limitation.
We must, no doubt, admit that there may be very much which the human
intellect can not fathom nor see through. This it would by no means be
difficult to prove. And still more easy were it to show that man’s will
can not always give the law, but must often submit to and recognize a
higher and more universal authority. And as regards the fancy, every one
will be ready--not to say forward--to make a somewhat similar admission.
The faculty of imagination, sensuous and material in its origin and in
its operation, and always remaining in the highest degree subjective, is
liable to innumerable illusions, to which we ascribe no value, or,
rather, which we carefully endeavor to dispel from our minds, whenever
we attempt to penetrate into the inmost essence of the highest truth
which it is the object of faith to embrace. That, moreover, the reason,
no less than the fancy, has its peculiar--one might almost say, its
innate--optical delusions, must be but too well known to every one who
has made the slightest progress in the art of logic, and advanced beyond
the mere elements of a philosophical examination of this faculty.
All this, however, is only a negative nature. The mere recognition and
acknowledgment of the fact that we can and ought to restrain our reason
and reserve our judgment whenever a higher act of faith comes into
question--or, in other words, that in such a case the absolute reason,
with its logical processes and laws of thought, is not alone qualified
to decide, but meets with limits which it is unable to surmount--such
concessions do not lead to any positive result. They do but establish
the possibility of a faith which may transcend and is not confined
within these bounds. While, however, they lead to the inference that
such a faith is thoroughly conceivable, and that while it transcends the
reason is, nevertheless, rational, and capable of being brought into
perfect unison with the sound reason, they do not by any means establish
at once its reality. All this is rather the preparatory step to
believing, and not the true living faith itself.
A true living faith (and we are here speaking of the function of
believing, rather than of the particular details of a positive creed),
is nothing else than the reception into the soul of the truth given unto
us by God. And inasmuch as the soul is in its origin loving, and,
indeed, the very faculty of love, a true living faith can not be
thought of or exist without this accompaniment of love, which is even
its distinctive characteristic.
In the case, for instance, of a special form and positive rule of faith,
the incompetency of the reason and understanding to pass a definitive
judgment on such high and divine matters may be acknowledged, and even
the external will may sacrifice its own inclinations and submit to the
requirements of a positive law. But so long as all this remains, as it
were, external to man, so long as the soul within does not concur
therewith--a fact which may be infallibly discerned by the want or
absence of love--then in this case it is but a dead faith, even though
outwardly, and in the judgment of others, it may pass as legitimate and
orthodox. Then only is it a true living faith when it is wholly received
into the entire soul, as manifested by its internal fruitfulness in
spiritual thought and moral action. For it is the soul that
believes--that same thinking and loving soul which we have already
designated the center of the collective consciousness of man and of his
moral life. In this state, however, the soul has undergone a change; is
this higher act of believing its cogitation has become steady and
uniform, and its love perfectly pure and abidingly permanent in God.
But now, if in the triple consciousness the soul be the principle of
faith, then is the spirit or mind [_geist_] that of higher science, of
free thought, of a full and complete discernment, and of the final and
supreme act of distinguishing and deciding. And by this higher science I
mean that which has for its exclusive object the eternal truth, and Him
who is the sum and source of all immutable verities. But, thirdly, the
sensuous faculty is the principle of all lower sensible, terrestrial,
and natural knowledge. And this comprises all human history, and
together therewith all language and art, and every branch of learning
that is occupied therewith. But besides the physical sciences,
mathematics also belong to this department, for these are dependent on
the sensuous conditions of number, weight, and measure, and consequently
on time and space, and on those material properties which fill space,
viz., gravity and solidity.
Now there is nothing, however hidden--nothing, however profound--into
which this sensuous principle of knowledge, which investigates all that
is earthly, natural or human, and historical, may not attempt at least
to penetrate. Only the inquiring senses must not quit their true center.
In other words, they ought not to make a hostile attack on the center of
the consciousness, which is even the believing soul. They must not, by
breaking through it, or passing by it, attempt violently and unduly to
ascend to the highest. For in such a case, attempting to create a
supreme and highest object of their own, raising it on their own soil,
and drawing its materials from their own sources, they will produce
nothing but absolutely false and mere nature-gods, or else some
historical phantoms, or idols of national recollections and patriotic
enthusiasm, such as were enshrined in the heathen worship of antiquity.
For even, without material images and altars, such an idolatry may be
revived in a scientific form, similar to what we have witnessed, or, if
we look around us, may still witness, with our own eyes. And as little
can the free spirit of supreme knowledge look down from its own height
on this center of the soul, and pay no regard either to faith or love.
In the depths of sensuous observation, amid all the rich treasures of
physical and historical science, it can not move as sovereign without
being first invested with the luminous garment of pure faith and love.
Otherwise it only hastens from one error to another to fall from the
first abyss into a second and still deeper one.
The pure and living faith of a loving soul abiding permanently in God,
is properly the center of the human consciousness--the natural passage
of life for the senses as they ascend into the heights, and for the mind
or spirit as it penetrates into the depths. It is the connecting mean
which not only reconciles and adjusts, joins and combines the two, but
also restores them to harmonious unity.
In the preceding Lecture I considered the notion of the truth in which
the supreme science and the divine faith coincide, and are at unison in
reference to their subject-matter--consequently, as the right notion of
Him who is truth itself. Viewing it thus from its objective side
principally, I designated it the sum and source of all truth. We have
now, in the progress of our speculations, met again with this notion in
its subjective aspect. It is chiefly in regard to its form that it is at
present to engage our attention. We have, in short, to answer the
question how the consciousness must organically be formed and fashioned,
and divided, but still harmonized in all its parts, so that in thought
and knowledge, in faith, love, and science, in investigating and in
learning, it may be well-grounded and find a stable resting-point, and
be no longer distracted by dissension and doubt.
Now the more the living faith becomes love the more does it, through the
immediate feeling and personal experience of life, attain to the
certainty of science. For whatever we experience in our own selves, or
whatever our own life brings as acquainted with, whatever we are
immediately sensible of, and feel that we also know and are certain of
it, that at least is a matter on which we are not likely to be led
astray by the seeming dialectical proofs of the opposite, or by all
skeptical attacks, or objections to the effect that such an immediate
sensation and knowledge of a higher object is impossible. Although we
are incapable of refuting them, we are, nevertheless, unmoved by the
doubts which are raised even against the possibility of our own life and
existence. We let them pass by and still live on in the world until, in
some unlooked-for moment, and some unhoped-for way, the true solution,
and the answer to these cavils which call in question the reality both
of man’s inner life and his personal experience, spontaneously suggest
themselves. And in the same way that the highest science, so soon as it
discerns and understands its own nature, also becomes conscious of
faith, and of its own dependence on faith, and being supported,
completed, and perfected thereby, comes into immediate and living
contact with it, so, on the other hand, the higher faith in the divine,
the more vivid and the more earnest it is in love, becomes a more
immediate conviction, and a science founded on the personal experience
of life.
Faith in the soul, as the center of man’s entire consciousness, may be
likened to the outspread canopy of the blue heavens, according to that
olden notion of it as a firmament, which perhaps in its figurative
investiture still contains much that is strikingly true. According to
this old but beautiful conception, the firmament was a definite limit
that divides the heaven from the earth. Above it the free ether of light
diffuses itself and stretches into the wide regions of illimitable
space; while in the lower sphere, inclosed by the firmament, the wind of
life [_Lebenswind_] now plays with refreshing motion, now descends to
the earth in quickening dews or fertilizing showers, or draws out of the
ground and to the light the hidden springs of life and mighty streams.
Faith, therefore, is, as it were, the heavenly firmament in the
consciousness that divides the streams of spiritual life and of external
and internal science that are above it, from those that are under it. If
this boundary be taken away, or violently broken through, the light and
the darkness are no longer held apart, but mingle together in one
confused and orderless mass. The true light grows darker and gradually
becomes extinct, while the darkness begins to shine with a false glare
and the glimmering twilight of pernicious delusion. The old chaos breaks
in again upon the human mind, and it becomes anew what it formerly was,
“without form and void.”
When, however, the triple consciousness preserves its beautiful order
and harmony, then the spirit, as the heavenly height above, the sensible
nature as the deep below, and the soul as the firmament between them,
are indeed divided, but not separated or hostilely opposed to each
other. On the contrary, the height as well as the deep, and the whole
circle of spiritual existence, are organically combined and united
together in this center of faith in the soul. Now this original
constitution of the mind being preserved, the further development and
progress of knowledge and truth may be regarded as the second step of
internal creation, wherein the light begins to shine more and more on
the mind and on science. The first clear insight, on the other hand, and
internal perception that the highest science and the divine faith are
not essentially distinct, but are fundamentally identical, must be
considered as the earliest entrance of the spirit of truth into the
heart of man.
Such is the right notion of faith, and of a mind wherein faith and
science are organically united and harmoniously concordant. But in order
to afford freedom of choice between faith and infidelity, it is
necessary to contrast this living image with the complete picture of a
mind involved in doubt, distraction, unbelief, and error. For all the
motives that can influence a decision must be furnished by a simple
comparison of the two, which, indeed, if made honestly and completely,
furnishes of itself the solution of the problem.
Now I have already more than once called your attention to the tendency
to discord, and to the disposing causes to error which subsist in the
natural constitution of the human mind with its four poles or members.
In particular I directed your notice to the fact that reason and fancy,
such as they now are in their present state of mutual alienation and of
hostile opposition to each other, can not be regarded as original
faculties of the human consciousness. Originally they were both in
unison in the thinking and loving soul so long as living and working in
faith and truth, it was on that account confirmed by the divine Spirit,
and preserved by union with Him. But when it had once lost this center
of unity, and, its light being obscured, it had become a prey to
dissension, it immediately fell asunder into these two halves or
faculties of thought. On the one hand stood the reason--as a mere organ
of reflection--one, _i.e._, which, in lifeless abstraction, thinks over
the objects previously presented to it, or as a mere directive faculty
of thought, without any originative powers of its own; while, on the
other, the fancy presented itself with a blindly-productive energy in
thought and invention, as a wild, but, nevertheless, living sense and
instinct of nature.
Reason and fancy, therefore--those two faculties of half truth, if it be
allowable so to speak--whenever, instead of seeking to escape from
dissension by reverting to a higher center of unity, they stand
isolated, and attempt each by itself to reign supreme, are the real
source and actual seat of all error. Now, one species of error to which
man has been most prone ever since his soul was rent asunder and lost
its unity, is the subjective shape which he gives to material phenomena.
For that fancy, even when most comprehensive, purest, and best,
invariably remains more or less subjective, is a fact which no man will
either wish or attempt to deny, any more than that the imagination takes
its beginning from the sensuous impressions of the material world. And
this subjectivity of the fancy may, I think, be taken for granted, even
without any reference to and without discussing the question of the
possibility of demoniacal influences.
Now, this subjective shaping of material phenomena forms the foundation
of all mythology; it is the general explanation of all the facts of
heathenism. It is, of course, implied in the very principle of its
explanation, that manifold and various shapes or forms and developments
are both conceivable and possible. And, in actual fact, it exhibits the
greatest diversity, from the rude objects of the grossest Fetischism up
to the exquisite creations of a refined and artistic mythology. In its
actual manifestations, however, and in its effects on practical life,
the latter still retains its affinity with the former; at least, it
rests on the same foundation of a poetical religion--some view of the
universe embodied in a real shape--in short, the deification of nature.
We have here taken the olden heathenism in a very simple light, and
quite generally as a materialism assuming a poetic form and expression,
but one, at the same time, in which, as soon as we pierce through its
poetical investiture, we discern many points of contact with Pantheism.
When, however, pursuing a searching historical inquiry into the heathen
modes of conception, we enter thoroughly and deeply into its details, we
meet therein with so many magical rites and usages, that, in spite of
any previous inclination to the contrary, we feel indisposed to deny the
possibility of a demoniacally-affected imagination having, in some
degree, influenced the character of heathenism. And, indeed, even in a
philosophical point of view, there does not exist any sufficient reason
for such a denial. This, however, as we formerly said, is a matter which
needs not to be taken into consideration at present.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that this error of a heathenish
deification of nature is confined to the ancient world, or to those
great and half-civilized primeval races of the remotest East, which,
however, remained, and still continue, as it were, a living monument of
an earlier epoch in the development of humanity. In the more
intellectual ages of the world, physical science, or the philosophy of
nature, may still be heathenish. It may be this, even while abstaining
rigorously from all symbolical language, it comes forward in the highest
elevation of the dynamical theory, and in pure scientific formularies.
This may be the case even when outwardly it appears to be highly
spiritual, or, at least, far removed from all the ordinary features of
materialism. And it is invariably such whenever it recognizes nothing
higher or superior to the infinite vital force and its dynamical play
and law, and, consequently, does but deify nature. Heathenish it must
ever remain so long as it does no more than this. This forms, as it
were, a relapse of science into heathenism, and here, under a different
form, fancy asserts her olden authority. For this purpose she does but
assume a geometrical shape, and, decking herself out with all the riches
of science, and moving with free dynamic action, speaks a thoroughly
mathematical language. The point of indifference, and the positive and
the negative pole of all existence, are now, so long as such a
philosophy recognizes nothing beyond them, the new gods which, in those
scientific fictions, whereof our own age has been profuse enough, may
receive a shifting rank and honor, but still hold a similar position
therein to that of Jupiter and Venus, or Mars and Apollo, in the ancient
mythologies.
When, however, in epochs pre-eminently devoted to science, and possessed
of a true or false scientific enlightenment, we look to the whole age
and its general tone, this philosophical error of an exclusive
materialism, and of a scientific deification of nature, does not appear
to be the most universally prevalent. It occurs rather as an episode and
an exception, and, in a certain limited degree, as an opposition to
another error, which, as it is received far more generally, so it
exercises a still more despotic authority over the minds of men. I mean
rationalism; this is properly the new heathenism of scientific times.
Here, in the infinity of dialectics, and the endless dialectical
disputes of an abstract and empty thinking, as well as in the false
semblance of a logical necessity which prevails in these logical
disputations, lies the source of the second leading error of philosophy.
All erroneous systems, whether of philosophy or religion, lie somewhere
between these two extremes of false thought. Every species of
theoretical or practical unbelief or erring faith, or even of a
scientific superstition, either approximates, on the one hand, to
naturalism, whether under the garb of a poetical symbolism, or the
scientific form of a dynamical theory, or, on the other, to the
absolutism of the reason, with its dead formularies. Every religious and
every philosophical error is either a subordinate or a distorted species
of one or the other--or, it may be, a mixture--a mean compounded of
both. Manifold, however, or, rather, innumerable, are the several
changes and combinations into which these two elements of infidelity and
an erring faith may, and, indeed, actually do, enter.
These, then, are the two principal elements out of which all the other
forms of error are produced. Reason, therefore, and fancy must be looked
upon as their true roots and sources in the human consciousness. They
spring either from the scientific productive faculty of imagination, as
the unpurified sense of nature before the Spirit of God has moved on the
face of these waters of infinite life, or from the mere subjective
reason, which, in its pursuit of the absolute, thinks only and knows
only its own Me. It is on this soil also that philosophical error first
assumes a systematic shape and development.
Our meaning will perhaps be made clear by an illustration from the
healing art. Confining ourselves to the simple facts, we might say
correctly enough, fever and gout, as two leading forms of human disease,
have their seats either in the organs and circulation of the blood, or
in the system of the bones and muscles. Still it would not be
inconsistent with such a statement to believe that the primary occasion
or cause of both evils has a deeper and more hidden origin in some
higher organ of life within the human frame, and in some derangement or
disturbance of its functions. In their outward effects, however, and
manifestation, these two diseases respectively seize upon these two
spheres of bodily organization, and there spend themselves. And the same
is true of those two intellectual diseases, rationalism and the absolute
system of nature, as regards the reason and fancy. The latter are their
principal seats: they form the domain wherein all the false productions
of erring systems are engendered and spring up, or, in other words, the
spot where the paroxysm of their internal enmity and strife comes to a
complete outbreak. Of course we do not mean that these two diseases
always present themselves simply and purely. In the morbid state of the
intellect, as well as in the similar case of organic affection, there
are numerous complications of disease which require a careful and
accurate treatment. The first cause of all intellectual disease, of
scientific error, or systematic infidelity, or generally of every
species of a false faith, may lie still deeper, or must be traced still
higher to some more remote and hidden cause. And, in truth, the primary
origin of all human error is to be found in the alienation of the mind
or spirit from God and His eternal light, and in its inevitable
consequences--the obscuration of the soul, and the blinding, and the
aberration and disorder of the senses--and especially of the higher
scientific sense for truth. And in order that the senses may be
gradually restored to their true state and order, and reopened--and in
order that the soul be also illuminated anew, the spirit must recover
its true luminous center in God. When this is once done, the whole of
man’s cognitive faculty will be restored to its original state.
But in the outward manifestations of consciousness, as it is now
entangled in and limited by the material, or sensible world, or
practical life, the absolute reason, and a fancy totally merged in and
engrossed by nature, form the two poles of philosophical error. In all
the systems hitherto so frequently alluded to, these two are essentially
the only sources of delusion, although, of course, innumerable
intermediate tints or chemical combinations of both are possible. The
understanding and the will--that is, a faulty sophistical intellect, and
a faulty unconditional or absolute volition--do, no doubt, essentially
co-operate in the formation and completion of both these erroneous
systems of science. There are, besides, certain passionate and personal
errors and prejudices of the understanding no less than of the will.
These, however, in their immediate effects, are practical, and confined
to actual life. At least, taken by themselves, and without the
co-operation of fancy and reason, they will never be able to create a
scientific system.
In order, however, more precisely to indicate the extent to which the
understanding and will co-operate in the production of philosophical
error, it is necessary to repeat my previous remarks, and also to add
some more precise determinations with respect to the form of aberration
peculiar to, and, as it were, inborn in, each of these faculties. As
concerns the will, we placed its proneness to err in its unconditional
or absolute volition, which manifests itself in life as a destructive or
disturbing force, where, however, its effects are variable, being
proportionate to the wider or narrower sphere of action. In all alike,
however, this principle of absolute willing retains its true character.
It shows itself, first of all, in the obstinacy of the child, where it
forms the greatest obstacle that education has to contend against. Its
action is, no doubt, but very weak here; still this apparently
insignificant phenomenon serves to prove--and for this purpose we
referred to it--that the fault has its root, and is, as it were, inborn
in the very nature of man, and in the present constitution of his mind.
As for the second degree, since the evil runs through all the various
stages of human life, and assumes manifold shapes, we are, therefore, at
no loss for examples. Whether we take our instance from the obstinacy of
the founder of a sect passionately adhering to and maintaining the
opinions he has once adopted, or that of the leader of some dangerous
political party, in either case the consequences of this pernicious
principle will appear to be, in the highest decree, extensive and awful.
But, lastly, it shows itself in its full and most frightful energy in
the reckless and unsparing lust of conquest, and in the unsatiable
thirst of absolute dominion which stimulates the conquering despot.
The second of the two similes, however, as it is most immediately
connected with, so it throws most light upon, the problem before us, the
explanation, viz., of intellectual error. For science, too, has its
sects, and even into the calm regions of philosophy (for such it surely
ought to be, as professing to be the satisfaction of our inmost longing
after a knowledge of ourselves and of nature in truth and in God), the
violent spirit of party finds too often an entrance. In the spirit of
system, and in the prejudices of a view or opinion once adopted, the
absolute and resolved will, which originally is rather a fault of
character than an error of the understanding, nevertheless co-operates
essentially to the establishment of a philosophical error, at least from
its formal side. When, however, as, under the influence of the spirit of
system, is easily, and indeed generally done by the founders of
scientific sects, the _absolute_ is itself adopted as the immediate
object, then it is the pursuit of this idea of the unconditional that
carries each of these two general forms of error to the highest pitch of
extravagance. Applied to nature and any positive view and particular
system thereof, it gives to it a character of exclusiveness and
definiteness, by which, separated from all that is higher and properly
divine, and made to rest entirely in itself, it is carried away to the
pantheistic self-sufficiency and deification of a false unity. Combined
with the egoistic or subjective reason, this pursuit of the absolute and
the idea thereof creates the idealistic delusion, or, at least, readily
gives rise to it, and this is the first step, or, at any rate, the usual
introduction, to scientific atheism.
As to the understanding--in one of the earliest of these Lectures, we
mentioned abstract thought as its peculiar form of error. It is
unquestionable that the understanding may lose itself in mere abstract
and dead thinking, so as, amid its mass of purely abstract conceptions,
to forget entirely all truly pregnant and vital cogitation. Such as
understanding, there can be no doubt, must either be defective in its
organization, or imperfectly and falsely developed; and so it goes on
deceiving itself and propagating error among others. Correctly speaking,
however, this abstract thinking does not belong to the understanding,
so much as to the reason, which is even the faculty of abstraction. And
indeed, apart from its great and manifold abuses, the latter, in its
right place and within its assigned limits, forms nothing less than a
natural requirement and an essential function of the human mind. As for
the understanding, it is based on intellection; consequently it supposes
that in this intellectual act the object is vividly seen through and
thoroughly penetrated by the mind. And this object may be either an
external one, taken from nature or actual life, or internal--a mere
thought or conception, and the word or name designating it. In the
latter case, the mental act of penetration is directed to ascertaining
the true and original sense of an idea, or the import of the notion, or
of the term by which it is designated. An understanding which has lost
itself among abstract ideas must, in such purely abstract thinking,
become eventually entirely extinct. Wholly, however, without life and
spirit, the understanding, according to its peculiar character, can
never be; it is therefore its total absence, or a very defective
condition of it, rather than its death, that is marked out and indicated
by such a state.
But if we wish to determine the particular fault or error that is
peculiar to any one faculty of the human consciousness, it is evident
that we must not seek for it in any defective state or imperfect
development; but, on the contrary, in the highest and fullest energy.
But now an extremely ingenious, clear, and vivid intellect may be
combined with what I have lately termed an evil genius--the false power
of genius. In such a combination, we have the true state of a perverted
understanding, or of that aberration which is peculiar to it, and for
which the term of a sophistical intellect seems the tersest and most
appropriate designation. And this sophistical understanding is ever the
working organ and instrument for the building and construction of all
false systems, and to which sooner or later the latter are all obliged
to have recourse.
With regard, then, to the co-operation of the sophistical understanding
in the formation of philosophical error, and its share and influence on
the spirit and the matter of any system of untruth, it furnishes an
opposition to the idealistic confusion which the absolute will produces
by its predominant idea of the unconditional. Here we have rather a
predominating tendency to a realistic view of the world, according to
the principle it adopts of the universal insignificance of all things,
not merely in reference to morals or practical life, and in the domain
of history, but also in nature and the whole creation. And with this
view is associated a skeptical contempt for all who dare to think
otherwise--all ordinary minds who can not rise to the height where the
consciousness of knowing and believing nothing sits enthroned. This
tendency, therefore, and this error of the sophistical understanding, is
most immediately related to, and associated with, the dialectical
confusion of the reason with its endless disputations. But as the
absolute volition and pursuit of the unconditional can not well be
thought of entirely apart from a certain perversion of the intellectual
powers, so the operation of the sophistical understanding is impossible,
without a certain admixture of an evil will and an intentional
determination to oppose the truth.
But notwithstanding this intrinsic connection between these two
intellectual faults, yet in their outward manifestation, and in actual
life, they often stand wide apart from each other. The true notion of a
sophistical intellect will perhaps be best illustrated in a few words by
recalling to your recollection the most celebrated writer of the
eighteenth century, who exercised so great an influence not only on the
minds of his countryman, but on the whole spirit of the age.[50] If,
again, it were necessary to employ instances in order to give you a
clear idea of the philosophical pursuit of the absolute, examples enough
might be found among the German schools and philosophers of recent
times. But to revert to the sophistical intellect: rarely has it been,
and rarely will it be, found manifesting itself in such fullness as it
did in this anti-Christian and worldly writer, who indeed worshiped the
age which worshiped him, but mocked and scoffed at all besides.
Now as to these two opposite systems of error and unbelief--rationalism,
viz., and a false idolatrous system of nature--in their inmost essence
they are both equally false and pernicious. In this respect there is
nothing to choose between them; they are alike utterly abominable. Even
in the judgment of theology, pantheism, as the one extreme of error on
the side of nature, can scarcely appear less false and abominable than
atheism as the other idealistic extreme. Both must be placed on the same
line; for the one no less than the other is a full and perfect refusal
to recognize the one Eternal Truth and the Living God.
Looking, however, to their external manifestation and effects--a
philosophy of nature which cloaks its thoroughly heathenish sentiments
beneath the bright and seductive attraction of beautiful and
highly-finished form--may perhaps appear more dangerous and more
pernicious than rationalism, especially when in the comparison the
latter appears under its more moderate, pliant, and skillfully modified
phases.
But it is not so much in and by themselves, and generally, that we have
here to consider these two kinds of error. In such a case the sentence
we must pass upon them would be, that they are equally fatal and
pernicious. At present we are rather concerned with them in their
reference to our own age, and to that struggle which it has to undergo
with them. In this respect I can not hesitate decidedly to pronounce
rationalism the greater and the more dangerous error of the two. For not
only has it struck its root more deeply in the spirit of the age, and is
far more widely diffused, but it is far more supple. Parasitically it
engrafts itself on the truth and its various systems, to prey upon them
the more successfully. It is ever ready to make concessions to and to
capitulate with its adversary, in order to triumph over it the more
completely in the end. And when it seems driven altogether from the
field, it still holds its ground beneath some new disguise. In short, it
is scarcely possible to determine the point, if indeed it is ever
reached, where it can be safely said that the evil is completely and
forever eradicated. It is only life itself--the higher spiritual life,
that is--and the true philosophy which traces and restores it in the
mind’s triple faculties of knowledge, that can extricate us from this
dilemma of conflicting errors, and provide the clew which shall guide us
out of the dialectical mazes of the reason. On the other hand, a false
philosophy of nature--and such is every system that stands in hostile
opposition to religion, or attempts to usurp its place--which is
conceived in a merely empirical spirit, will never prove dangerous.
After a brief and limited influence, it will soon fall into neglect and
oblivion. When, however, it is the result of a lofty and intellectual
effort--when a truly great and comprehensive spirit moves within
it--then will it soon become conscious of those limits, and feeling its
own false position, it will, ere long, find the passage to the divine,
which is beyond and above it. But it is not easy for a philosophy of
nature to be or at least long to remain strictly and absolutely confined
to its own limits of system, even because of the continual advance of
this science of life. And as soon as it recognizes its true place as
second and subordinate to a divine philosophy, then does it immediately
cease to be a false faith. It is forthwith reconciled to the truth, or
at least is already far on the road toward a complete reconciliation
with it. This milder judgment, however, can not in justice be extended
to that pantheistic science in which nature is as decidedly and
absolutely deified as in any of the old systems of heathenism.
We have now completed our comparison of faith and infidelity, and
sketched the picture both of man’s mind and of his science, to and from
which they respectively belong or issue. We, therefore, leave it free to
the judgment of every thoughtful mind that reflects upon itself and the
nature of things, and loves and desires the truth, to choose and decide
between them. This comparison is ever the proper problem of philosophy;
and even if the sketch and delineation of these two states of the human
consciousness be, from the limits to which we are confined, not
perfectly complete, still we may regard this problem as satisfactorily
solved. The struggle, however, between belief and unbelief is still to
go on in the world and time, but the victory of truth is reserved to
higher powers and forces than man’s.
As to the nature and conditions of that intellectual conflict, and its
several moments, a few remarks must be added, on its relation to, and
bearings on, philosophy. First of all, I think the previous remarks must
have tended to throw light on a phenomenon which otherwise is remarkable
and startling enough. The good cause, even when advocated by men of the
best intentions and the purest zeal for truth, with the greatest
acuteness and a thorough knowledge of the truth and its essential
principles, nevertheless is but little successful. At the very best, it
makes an extremely slow progress, while evil error advances with the
fearful rapidity of contagion. To account for this singular fact it is
not sufficient to appeal to the persuasive rhetoric which the latter has
at its command, or to any superior power of intellect in its advocates.
The cause lies rather in the miasmas of spiritual pestilence which are
spread throughout, and are suspended in the moral atmosphere.
We should err greatly were we to suppose that the cause of truth, and of
the refutation of error, could as easily be disposed of as any civil
process before a judicial tribunal. Here, to carry the day, it is enough
completely to refute the pretensions of one’s adversary, and to set
forth one’s own claim in a clear and irrefragable chain of legal proof.
But, in the matter of philosophy and the higher truth, how little is
gained by the refutation, be it ever so complete, of one written system
of error, when, in the mean while, two or three more spring up and call
for refutation no less than the first. The straight road, therefore, of
a calm, simple, and, at the same time, luminous and complete exposition
of the highest system of knowledge seems, to my mind, a far more
appropriate means for the establishment and diffusion of the truth than
the indirect course of refuting any false or erroneous system that may
reign in a particular age and throughout the whole world. For, in the
latter course, if the controversy be at all searching and complete, it
is necessary to enter into all its tortuous windings, at the risk of
being lost and entangled in them. And even in the most favorable case,
where the refutation is complete, nothing is ultimately gained by it but
a mere negative--the establishing the untruth of the refuted system,
together with the proofs of that negative.
It would be most erroneous to suppose that this controversy is either
entirely or in the main directed against books and leaves, propositions
and words. It looks rather to the soul and spirit, and seeks to drive
away, to remove, and banish from them, and utterly to extirpate, all the
deadly seeds of error and falsehood, replacing them by truth in all its
fullness and energy, so as to win the minds and souls of men to its
beneficent rule.
This, however, is only possible by an individual process and a personal
interchange of ideas. For error and the restoration of truth assume a
thousand different shapes, according to the different temperaments of
individuals, or to the different periods of life in each. If, therefore,
it be the wish or duty of philosophy to make this its principal aim, it
is only in the form of dialogue that it can successfully accomplish the
task, by suiting itself and closely conforming to the personal character
of individuals. In this sense, and on this account, Plato, and the other
disciples of Socrates, in their controversy with the Sophists,
invariably employed the dialogical style, and chose this form for the
exposition of their philosophical views. But even the written dialogue
can not do more than exhibit, as it were, a vertical section of the
whole infinite variety of individual views, convictions, and characters.
And what thereupon is to be done in order to set them free and
emancipate them from error, and to win them for, and to fill them with,
the truth?
The inner sense for the truth and the spiritual eye must be opened, and
the spirit of man must be led back and restored to its lost center. But
the soul must be won and attracted, totally converted and endued with
new life. But is this possible without some higher and divine power? Can
it be accomplished by man’s ordinary art of disputation, even though it
be perhaps sufficient for the ordinary transactions of a civil tribunal;
or by a logical train of proofs, or by the skillful terms of a
well-managed dialogue, in the absence of all profounder power to move
and actuate the soul?
And such a higher power and effectual word of truth does exist. In the
language of Scripture it is called the Sword of the Spirit, which
pierces to the very marrow and divides asunder the soul and the spirit.
A deep meaning is involved in this expression of the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit, and the very greatest of all the soul’s pains is most
appropriately indicated thereby. In death the immortal soul is separated
and departs from the body; but soul and spirit still continue together
in indissoluble union. These words, then, allude to some other and more
violent separation. And it is one, moreover, which is indispensable to
the triumph of truth in this struggle for life and death. For when error
goes to the inmost depths, and reaches to the very center of life, both
spirit and soul grow and adhere together, and the delusion can not
otherwise be dispelled than by the violent separation of the two. And
thus the light suddenly shines upon the spirit to show it the abyss on
whose brink it stands, while the soul is simultaneously set free from
all the chains which bind it to its false life, and is thereby
completely changed and converted. In this way is the triumph of truth
over error and infidelity effected. Only we must remember that the Sword
of the Spirit, “which pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and
spirit, and of the joints and marrow,” needs not always to be properly a
spoken or a written “word.” In some deeply-moving catastrophe of a man’s
life it makes a distinct and speaking manifestation of itself, working
in him a total change of his feelings and sentiments. But the Spirit’s
flaming sword of judgment may be turned not only upon individuals, but
also upon whole nations and ages, to divert them from error and
unbelief, and to lead them back to truth. Lastly, it may also be
directed toward the whole world and the whole human race; and to this
interesting topic, which in so many ways is brought so immediately home
to the present era of the world, we shall, in the course of the
following Lectures, have occasion to recur.