OF THE SYMBOLICAL NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF LIFE WITH REFERENCE TO ART
AND THE MORAL RELATIONS OF MAN.
How difficult it generally is for man to express his internal
conceptions, to bring out the indwelling idea and to realize its perfect
external manifestation, is shown, for example, among other instances, by
the fine arts, or the art of the beautiful. For this reason the theory
of the latter, the so-called æsthetics (which, however, might far more
correctly be termed symbolism), forms the natural pendant and
accompaniment to logic, if the latter, instead of being limited, as is
usual, to the mere art of distinguishing the different kinds of notions,
is understood in a far higher sense, and referred to eternal, and,
consequently, divine truth, and to its intrinsic and equally divine
standard. For when the question no longer involves a purely material or
simply subjective verity, but that which is more exalted and heavenly,
then beauty (that, namely, about which art is conversant, and which, far
surpassing all that is merely human, pretends and really ought to be
divine and supernatural) forms the other and symbolical aspect of one
and the same eternal truth. And indeed it is neither separable from it
nor opposed to it, so long as art maintains its high standing and
employs the sensual charm which it requires for the lively expression of
vitality, and its outward manifestation, only as a symbol and for the
sake of that higher significance which she herself lends to it, and does
not seek nor admire it for its own sake, nor sees therein the
fulfillment of its own true end and aim.
But by far the greater number of the productions of art are only
repetitions or copies of some previous realization. And I use this term,
not in its usual depreciatory sense, but rather in one that is
applicable to what are truly artistic productions but still only
successful formations at second-hand. Extremely rare, indeed, are the
original expressions or impressions of an indwelling, unborrowed idea
And even among these very many are nothing more than the first faint
outline and commencement, which only at a subsequent epoch of art, and
after long and repeated essays, attains to complete perfection and a
really successful and veritable outward exhibition of the indwelling
idea. For we must ever consider as an idea that inward object which art
in its external manifestations strives to realize, and which in its
creations ought to stand out, as it were, bodily before us.
Even in music (as the expression of the emotions of the soul in their
flow and change, and in the struggle with inharmonious discords, till at
last they finally dissolve in harmony) it is not so much the immediate
feeling--for this would be no more artistic than the mere cry of
passion--as rather the idea of it that the artist has in his mind, and
that forms the subject of his representations. The musician strives to
represent the whole idea--the beautiful and the marvelous in the whole
progress of its development. Following the inmost life-pulse in its
alternate rising and falling, he labors to give its unexpected
transitions up to their sudden harmony or its repetitions of still
increasing pitch up to a full and soothing close, or (if this is
designedly to be left unattained) up to the abrupt and painful breaking
off or gradual dying away and cessation of the plaintive note or the
tone of ardent longing.
And the same is the case with sculpture. But here we would premise the
remark, that the principle with which we set out, of the triple nature
and division of man’s being, is confirmed by the existence of a
corresponding order and diversity in the fine arts. Among the arts,
accordingly, whose object is the manifestation of the beautiful, music
is pre-eminently the art for the soul, while sculpture is for the most
part corporeal.
Now, in sculpture it is not any actual figure or the body itself that
the artist has in view. It is the general idea thereof that constitutes
the subject-matter of his representations. He seeks to portray its most
perfect structure, its full organic development, its exquisite
correctness of symmetry and sublime beauty of form. And to all this even
the expression of character and passion is in a certain degree
subordinate. And exactly because the external medium which it employs,
because the material mass on which its internal conceptions are to be
stamped, or, rather, out of which they are to be worked, is the
inanimate stone and cold marble, therefore does true sculpture aim at a
higher excellence than the uniformity and death-like repose which
characterize the Egyptian statues of the gods. It seeks rather to
triumph by copying with the most marvelous truth and fidelity the living
frame in its most rapid movements, and life in its most violent
struggles, and by seizing its fleeting graces to fix them forever in its
own imperishable creations.
In truth, the imitation of actual reality, however difficult and in
itself worthy of admiration it may be, does not constitute the aim or
object, or generally the principle of sculpture, any more than of any
other art. A remarkable proof of this is afforded by the fact that
color, with all its charms, is excluded from the plastic art and its
embodied manifestations as too meretricious and too closely allied to
reality. For by such an expedient, not less than by the use of ingenious
mechanism to give motion to the limbs, the artistic ideal, or the images
of the gods, would have degenerated into the puppets of children.
Reality, therefore, with its actual shapes and the delusive imitation
and servile copying of them, is in nowise the proper or immediate object
of the plastic art. Even beauty of form is not always, not at least
solely and exclusively its aim; it is only so accidentally and
relatively, as a condition of the expression of character, of external
states, and of the total significance. Always and universally it is a
thought, the _idea_ of some subject or form as the inner sense and
significance thereof, that constitutes the essence of a work of art, and
with which art in general is concerned. In other words, art is
symbolical. And this may be predicated with equal truth of every higher
art, as well as of sculpture, whatever may be the medium of its
manifestations, whether a statue, or tone as in music, or words as in
poetry. It is exactly this that constitutes the difference between high
art and every other which, however closely allied to it in appearance,
has some ulterior and practical object, and which therefore can not be
symbolical.
Of this kind, for instance, is the difference between rhetoric (which
most assuredly is an art, or at least was exclusively treated as such by
the Greeks) and poetry. And it is of the utmost importance to keep this
distinction constantly in view. For exactly in the same degree that it
is neglected is the proper character and true excellency of the higher
art of the beautiful lost sight of. And a right estimate of the other
arts which have an ulterior and practical object would also be
endangered. An orator who with the greatest command of practical and
imaginative language is nevertheless devoid of convincing logical power
to sway the minds of men by his arguments, and to bend them irresistibly
to his purpose, would exercise but little influence; while no heavier
censure can be passed on one who sets up for a poet, than to affirm of
him, that he possesses and understands nothing but the rhetoric of
passion, without--though such further qualification is evidently
superfluous--true poetry.
Of the fine arts, therefore, which, employing a material medium for
their representations, possess an ideal and symbolical significance,
music is the art of the soul, and sculpture is that of corporeal form,
and of the manifestation of the true idea of organic beauty. But among
the three sister arts, painting is the true spiritual one. As the light,
with its ceaseless variety of tints and hues, is the most spiritual
element of nature, and as the eye is the most spiritual of man’s senses,
so painting, as concerned about these, is the most spiritual of the
arts, and the one with which the symbolical spirit readily associates
itself. Painting directs itself wholly to the eye, whereas sculpture
appeals indeed to the eye, but only as the necessary medium for
satisfying the corporeal sense and feeling.
But painting, in its manifestations, does not confine itself to abstract
beauty (if we may so say) or the perfect structure and symmetry of form.
It embraces all the eye can reach in the visible phenomena of the world,
with all its wonderful play of light and shade and magical splendor of
coloring, where not only the whole, but the several parts--in a word,
all that in many and various ways is charming to the senses, attractive
to the eye with ever new wonders, and all that to the mind or spirit is
full of deep spiritual and symbolical significance. And for this reason
the wonderful art of painting is even the most appropriate, shall I say
to exhibit, or rather to suggest, the high mysteries of divine love in
religion and revelation. No wonder, then, if, in modern Christendom,
music and painting, the art or symbolism of soul and spirit, have been
chiefly cultivated, and attained their highest development and
perfection, whereas the art of the perfect development of organic form
and corporeal and sensual beauty, reached its height of excellence in
the sculpture of classical antiquity, which in the same way and degree
will never again be paralleled, or at least will never be surpassed.
It appears sufficient if we assume that there are only three symbolical
arts for the higher manifestation of the beautiful. For architecture,
although in various ways bound and modified by the conditions of some
ulterior design, is, nevertheless, in its principal features closely
related to sculpture, and stands on the same line with it. For beauty of
structure, correctness of proportion, and grace of symmetry, which form
the fundamental laws of the plastic art, constitute also the ideal of
architecture. Accordingly, among the Greeks and Romans, where the latter
attained to its highest and richest cultivation, its principles,
relations, and forms approximate to those of organic figure, to which
they are not indeed outwardly in their structure, but in a certain
degree and according to their internal constitution, similar and
correspondent, or at least related.
Egyptian architecture, with its predominantly mathematical character,
and the tree-like Gothic aspiring to heaven, with its slender shafts and
floral decorations, form the two extremes of this organic character
which belongs to architecture, and which constitutes it one and the same
art with sculpture. For the structures of the former environ and
surround the creations of the latter. And it is only consistent that
that which supplies the legitimate sphere and the natural medium for the
other properly exhibitive art of sculpture and its statues of the gods,
should even possess or acquire a similarity of character with it. As to
the Egyptian and Gothic architectures, the remark readily suggests
itself that the symbolical character displays itself predominantly in
them: purity of form, however, is the prevalent feature of the _antique_
(or Grecian), but even here in its proportions the symbolical principle
may be traced, although it is more recondite, not to say concealed.
Even poetry is no fourth art alongside of the other three. It does not
stand on the same line with and form, as it were, the complement of
their number. It is rather the universal symbolical art which comprises
and combines in different mediums all those other exhibitive arts of the
beautiful. In its rhythm and other metrical aids it possesses all the
charms of a music in words; in its figurative diction it maintains an
endless succession of shifting pictures in the vivid coloring of
diversified illustration; while in its entire structure (which must be
neither purely historical, nor logical, or even rhetorical) it strives
to attain, by a beautiful organic development and disposition of its
parts, to an arrangement of the whole both architecturally great and
correct.
Poetry owes in every instance its first creative beginning to some great
and singular ray of light from symbolical tradition, which, at the same
time, illuminates the noble and memorable past, and points forward to
the dark and mystical future. For it would be difficult to produce one
among the great epic poems of antiquity that does not contain this
poetico-prophetic element, and does not touch upon the profound
mysteries of both worlds. The next and middle step is occupied by the
poetry of sentiment and feeling--that music of the soul or poesy of song
in which the calm deep longings and the wild tearing passions of the
moment, once plunged and glorified in that immortal element, become
eternal. But the height of perfection in the organic development of
poetry is marked by the drama. This third and highest form of poetical
art has for its subject-matter the whole struggle of human life, which
in its vivid representations it aims to realize, and, as it were, to
bring bodily before our eyes.
There exists an obvious analogy between the several constituents, as
well as the different species or kinds of poetry and the three
_material_ arts of the beautiful. As the latter are symbolical
throughout in the subject no less than in the manner and design of their
manifestations, so also, but in a far higher degree, is poetry, as the
art which embraces all the three in its own sphere. And this was the end
to which I wished to arrive, inasmuch as the symbolical significance of
the whole of life is the very point which at present claims our
attention. For it bears intimately on the conclusion which I attempted
to establish in my last Lecture. It was there my endeavor to prove that
the supreme science, which is essentially identical with a divine faith,
may be actually applied to life, be really brought in unison with it,
and become transformed into a living and real existence. But this can
only be accomplished by a symbolical process, or in other words, the
symbolical signification of life is either itself the basis, or else an
indispensable condition of, and inevitable transition-point toward, such
a union and its accomplishment.
But in the arts which portray the beautiful, this symbolical
significance and property is most distinctly prominent; here it is most
easily understood and most universally recognized. On this account I
have chosen this subject, as forming the natural transition and
connecting link between the previous and the following Lectures. No
doubt the æsthetical portion of man’s constitution and life is in itself
sufficiently remarkable and attractive, and rich and important enough in
its effects and consequences, to vindicate for itself such an episode,
and to claim for it a place in philosophical speculation. For it shows
that that fundamental law of psychological science and triple principle
of division of the human consciousness into spirit, soul, and sense,
admits also of application in this domain also, and may serve to confirm
the whole theory and way of thinking. The further prosecution, however,
of this elementary view or sketch of art would carry me beyond my
present limits. For the aim of that philosophy of which I am attempting
to give an exposition is directed to life itself--as well the inner life
of the individual as the public life (and in the present place, also,
its symbolical relation or signification)--which is so inseparably and
intimately connected with the investigation into the divine foundation
of life and the divine direction which ought to be imparted to it.
It can easily be shown that education as well as art is essentially
symbolical. Such, indeed, must be the character of the education,
whether public or private, of the whole rising generation, unless it is
to degenerate into an ordinary mechanical system. And it is even in this
quality principally that we are disposed to place the distinction
between an unspiritual education, which, even though in the sternness of
its morality it may defy censure, yet eventually proves barren and
mortal, and one more solid and more conformable to human nature, which,
less pretending in the outset, is even the more lasting in its effects.
The ready susceptibility of the youthful mind for every thing symbolical
that lies within its reach, and its vivid perception of its meaning,
might be clearly enough shown by instancing some of the ordinary
amusements of boyhood and youth. How commonly, in these years, are the
various occupations, pursuits, and circumstances of real and, to them,
still future life, childishly, perhaps, but still ingeniously imitated,
or, rather, anticipated! And how lasting an influence does this
frequently make on their little society! What various but lasting traces
does it often leave on their minds, more perhaps than many hours of
study, especially if in the latter the usual system of overloading the
young mind defeats its own end. Play, indeed, must not become the mere
pastime of idleness, for it is only by its alternation with labor and
the sternness of discipline that it continues to be a recreation and a
pleasure.
And, indeed, the earnestness, the labor, and the sterner part in this
whole business and matter of education, as mixed and composed of two
opposite elements, of the serious and the sportive, is highly capable of
receiving so spiritual a reference and vital a significance. And if all
education be nothing else than a preparation for the future, and the
state of this preparation, then it must be self-evident that too many or
enough of such vivid references and spiritual allusions to a future
life, either generally or to any particular phase of it that may chiefly
be had in view, can not be introduced into education and its serious and
sportive elements and pursuits. For it is only by this method that the
susceptibilities of youth and the youthful fancy can be vividly excited
and thoroughly impressed with the fundamental design and significance of
the whole of life--a result which no mere dry definition of the future
state, or generally of any “destination of man” on the dusty road of
logic, will ever attain to.
It is nowise singular if this symbolical property and disposition of
human nature announces itself as distinctly in the earliest development
and in the most perfect of the productions of artistic genius, whether
we take into consideration the whole existing state of mankind, or his
original and essential constitution relatively to the world and to God.
We have already remarked, on more than one occasion, that man, as soon
as he was deprived of those higher faculties which he had abused to his
ruin, fell thereby more entirely than would seem originally to have been
the case, under the dominion of figurative fancy, and that,
consequently, his whole nature and consciousness became greatly changed
from what it was at the beginning. If man did at the very first possess
the faculty and the power to communicate his thoughts to others inwardly
by a mere operation of his will, and without having recourse to the
external medium of words, he no longer enjoys this privilege; and if any
wonderful phenomena in any way resembling thereto be now found, they
only form so many remarkable exceptions, instead of making the rule of
human life and consciousness as they now are. As at present
constituted, man feels that his state is pre-eminently symbolical: he
sees in symbolism a necessary requirement for his earthly pursuits--a
substitute for those immediate powers of cogitation which he has lost.
And all this is true, independently of any use he may freely choose to
make of symbols for the higher purposes of spiritual life.
Man, at the beginning, was placed on this earth as its first-born son,
in the midst of the telluric universe, or, in other words, in the center
of a planetary world akin to and similar to his own. Now, whatever may
be the case, or whatever it may be allowable to think of any other of
the starry spheres--though in the invisible world of spirits all perhaps
is more immediately full of and instinct with essence, and is not veiled
in material emblems, this is not the case with this earth. Terrestial
nature, in all its organic productions and warring elements of life, is
throughout symbolical. Man, therefore, viewed from this position of his
earthly habitation, is surrounded by a symbolical world of sensuous
emblems. And if we can, or, rather, if we will, believe the grand
intimation with which revelation opens, the first and highest
destination of man is even symbolical--to be the Divine image.
If, now, all the natural wants and properties of man are symbolical--if
such be his present state in the midst of creation--his whole position
in the mundane system, and his high and heavenly destination, can we,
or, rather, ought we, to wonder if even religion presents itself for the
most part clothed in a symbolical garb? For this is the case, not merely
with that which was the wild upgrowth of a poetical and purely
imaginative heathenism, but also the old, original, and pure religion of
nature--as the first love devoting itself for sacrifice--the second
revelation of God. And so we find it to have been in the old world, or,
as it is otherwise called, the old covenant. Here the first twilight of
faith was yet studded with all the starry splendor of the whole
symbolical creation, as it were with the brilliant diadem of nature’s
most glorious images. And even the new era of the ascending and
brightening dawn still bears on its front the glittering morning-star of
art.
But now, if still retaining the same figure, or, rather, borrowing from
it a contrast, we proceed to designate art in and by itself, we may
justly compare it to the moon, which illumines with its vague but
marvelous _half-light_ the domain of night and the dark realms of
creative fancy. Even here it is but a borrowed splendor from the true
sun, a reflection from another and a higher luminary, that lights up the
darkness. And while all the wonderful starry types of the spiritual
world, which retire in the full day, come out in this magical twilight,
so also deceptive phantoms, airy forms of gigantic magnitude, may mingle
with the hovering and misty troop of shadows to which the earth-born
vapors alone give birth and shape. And yet, notwithstanding this earthly
intermixture, the art of the beautiful, whenever it retains its true
nature, is in its essence directed to the divine. Consequently it not
only lends an external charm to religion, but in its origin, in all
times and peoples, it was intimately related to it, and bound to it by
the strictest ties of affinity and association. And this is not the less
true, even though to the eye of a severe criticism most of its
productions, in the ages of its decline, may appear utterly remote from
its first source and aim, and perfectly vain, worthless, and sensual.
The divine origin of art is easily proved by its history every where,
and indeed is so manifest that it can not well be doubted. High art,
indeed, can not and never will surrender its claim to a divine power and
sanctity: it must insist upon the recognition of this its high sanction.
If we could conceive an age or country where religion should entirely
cease and be forgotten--where not only all positive faith and
revelation, but even the universal belief in a Divinity above them,
should die away and perish among men--the light of all higher and
heaven-directed thoughts and aims should become extinct--that echo of
eternity and of eternal love which the inmost feelings of the human soul
spontaneously gives back, should be hushed forever--then and there at
the self-same moment would all high art be withdrawn and disappear.
In our own age the state of things is the direct contrary to that which
we have been supposing. While from the universal prevalence of
freethinking in politics--a natural consequence of the reign of
religious skepticism--the whole of life, and especially public life, has
ceased to be regarded and understood in its symbolical character and
dignity; while the little of religious sentiment that still survives is
more or less distracted and secularized by sectarian controversy, and
scarcely one inviolable sanctuary is left for a simple and undoubting
faith to shelter in--art and the beautiful are for a certain portion of
the educated classes the only fresh oasis of divinity amid the
surrounding desert of worldliness. It is the last treasure left to them,
and, indeed, prized by them as such, and regarded as the true palladium
of a higher intrinsic life; but this, in its isolated state and by
itself, it never can be.
In this respect the present age may be likened to a noble house, fallen
from its primitive wealth and magnificence into decay and ruin. Its
revenues dissipated by misfortunes, mismanagement and extravagance; its
mansion and domains mortgaged or encumbered with debt, nothing remains
to it but the family jewels. These time-honored heirlooms of better days
are all that it still retains of its former opulence. And even in these
many a false stone has been introduced among the old genuine diamonds;
much spurious metal has been substituted for the sterling gold of
antiquity. Apparently, however, the whole are still preserved as the
last relic of a former splendor, and of a wealth which once seemed
inexhaustible. In the same way the present generation supports its inner
and higher life on the mere external treasures of art, while the great
capital of ancient faith, to which among other excellent fruits that
ornament of beauty owed its existence, has by the great majority been
long squandered on the “_spirit of the age_.”
But the symbolical dress that religion every where assumes constitutes
but one half of its external form. The other consists in the vital and
intrinsic union of all the members and professors of the common faith.
Religion can not by any means be isolated and solitary. It is impossible
to think of it as existing only for the individual. In a word, there is
no such thing as religion in a proper sense without a community. Two or
three must at least be united in a common faith, that its power and
efficacy may be visible among them. And this association is one vital
throughout--an inmost bond binding souls together by a spiritual
attraction, and, as it were, enchainment of the several members.
As the electrical shock traverses instantaneously the entire chain of
the connected links, and the spark which enters at one extremity flashes
the next moment at the other--as a single loadstone will by contact
convert any number of needles into magnets, and elevate them into a new
and higher relation to the whole globe--so is it also in religion. A
living communication from the first origin runs through the whole
community. As in the voltaic pile, composed of alternate layers of two
different metals, one chemical element of the telluric energy or of the
vital principle of the air or atmosphere is emitted or set free on one
side and the other on the opposite; so is it here also in the spiritual
chain of faith and in its living reciprocal action of the different
members of this soul-chain--between those who are active ministers and
conductors, or instruments by which it works, and the others, who in a
somewhat passive relation only imbibe the invisible life. By the one the
divine blessing of sanctification and holiness is set in action and
brought to light--developed and confirmed; while by the others grace is
received as the effectual power and gift of salvation.
One remark, however, seems particularly called for in this place. It
appears, from what has been already said, that even revelation and the
true religion itself invariably puts on and is invested with that
symbolical garb which is so consonant and agreeable to the state and
nature of humanity. This being the case, it becomes extremely difficult
to form a general standard by which we may unfalteringly determine what
symbols are not essential, as only serving for the external garb of
religion and an intelligible vehicle of its communications. For this, it
is evident, must be governed by the diversity of individual wants and
peculiarities, and must consequently assume a variable and personal
character. If, however, a symbol proceeds immediately from God, then it
must necessarily be essential. It is not only a type, but an actual
substance. To suppose otherwise would be even almost parallel to
presuming to regard the eternal Logos, who is the source of light and
life, of all knowledge and of all being, as a word merely, without
innate energy and substance.
Most natural, therefore, is it (that is to say, most consistent with the
nature of the thing, which however in itself is supernatural,
incomprehensible, and surpasses all conception), that the highest symbol
of the faith, that which forms the principle of communion and the living
center of unity of all Christendom, should have such a character as to
be at once a symbol and also the veritable reality of the thing itself.
For inasmuch as on the altar of this religion of divine love, since the
one oblation has long ago been perfected, no other fire shall again be
kindled but the flame of prayer and of a will directed to and in unison
with God; therefore, the act by means of which that communion of souls
which constitutes the essence of all religion, is maintained and carried
on, consists simply in this, that the essential substance of the divine
power and of God’s love to man is given and received as the wonderful
seal of union with Him.[52]
As to the altar itself, how rich or how simple its ornaments ought to
be, is a question which I have already remarked, does not easily admit
of any general solution. If, however, we should attempt to think of
Christianity without an altar, or desire and attempt to establish such a
scheme--what indeed among the vast variety of human conceits and
religious theories has only occurred to a very limited number, and never
has and never will exercise any lasting and decided influence--a
Christianity thus divested of symbols and mysteries would be degraded
into a mere philosophical view and opinion--or at the very best, a
school of the kind--any thing, in short, rather than religion. Even the
study of the Bible, if in spite of so sad a state of things it should
still survive, would sink into a mere matter of erudition, on a level
with any other favorite pursuit of antiquarian lore and research. And
if, on the other hand, rising perhaps somewhat higher than a mere
philosophical opinion or the favorite pursuits of erudition, a religious
community, having no altar at all, should pretend to rest entirely on
prayer and spiritual teaching or preaching, such a scheme must
presuppose an immediate inspiration, communicable to all and continuous
throughout time. But such an hypothesis invariably proves the easy and
natural transition to the most frightful fanaticism, of whose pernicious
and evil effects those only who are acquainted with the domestic history
of Mohammedism, among whose modern and ancient sects this idea is
rampant, can form a clear and adequate conception.
In religion, therefore, and that entire union of the inner man and soul
with God which it demands, or at least hopes and desires to bring about
as essential and necessary, and which the higher philosophy of
antiquity, no less than revealed religion, strove and longed to attain,
there lies a something inconceivably sublime and beautiful. Nay, we
might almost call it an impossible result, similar in some degree to
that which is involved in the higher and more intricate of algebraic
equations for which there is no solution, or which, at least, appear to
have none till it is actually discovered. Now this finite, changeable,
and in all respects incomplete and in no one point satisfactorily, or at
least not perfectly defined (_a_) of our own individual self, with which
we are wont to commence the whole of our thought and life, is to be
brought into communion with, or, in other words, to be equaled to the
wholly incomprehensible (_x_) of the incommunicable Godhead. How is this
possible? By what means is it to be accomplished?
Properly, indeed, our Ego is no such (_a_), and can not be defined as
such in the wonderful algebraic equation of our inmost life and highest
pursuit. For nowhere does man feel himself to be _a first_; all things
prove him to be secondary and derivative, wherever it may be that he is
to take or seek his beginning. And not only does the alphabet of our
life carry us beyond itself and toward its end in this incomprehensible
(_x_), but it is also defective at its commencement, and wants a
beginning and the first (_a_), which ought to form its very opening. And
even the (_b_) (could this satisfy us) is nowhere distinctly and clearly
to be found such as it is in and by itself, or such even as it was
originally. It is invariably mixed and involved with something else
equally unknown. We have, therefore, in this equation of our life, to do
with two wholly unknown magnitudes--with the incomprehensible (_x_), and
with the (_y_). For by the latter sign we will at present designate that
which every where meets and opposes us. For the fact of such an inborn
and connatural obstacle every one will admit, even though he may refuse
to explain it by the evil principle and may be unwilling to receive the
explanation which revelation gives of it.
How, now, is this our (_b_) to be carried back to its original (_a_)?
How is it to be set free from this evil (_y_), and brought into union
with the highest (_x_)? The answer and solution to this apparently
insoluble equation can only be obtained by one method. In attempting it,
we must keep steadily in view the principle so recently advanced, that
the essence of religion consists in the effectual communication of a
higher and living power, which, emanating from the first and original
point, traverses the whole spiritual chain to its farthest link. But, in
order to illustrate completely this principle, and the idea which arises
from it, of a satisfactory solution of this problem, I will indulge
myself in a brief but episodical explanation of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, as furnishing the most suitable example for my purpose.
For, inasmuch as the symbolical nature and constitution of the human,
and, indeed, of all mortal existence, was the main subject which opened,
and has occupied our present consideration, it may be regarded as the
natural complement and keystone to the whole discussion, if, in addition
to what has preceded, we go on briefly to examine how and in what sense
the oldest writing and earliest method employed by men for the
communication of their ideas was symbolical.
Of the languages of Western Asia, at least, and of the alphabets derived
therefrom, the Hebrew, viz., the Phœnician and the Greek, it may
without hesitation be asserted, that they were derived from
hieroglyphics, and are, without exception, of hieroglyphic origin. This
can not be asserted as decidedly of the Indian alphabet, which differs
so totally from all those previously mentioned. Still I shall not allow
myself, simply on this account, to come over hastily to any conclusion
as to the comparative antiquity of the Hindoo and the Egyptian modes of
writing.
Now, according to all that we know of the hieroglyphical mode of
indicating objects, it rests on a very simple principle. The discovery
which was in so remarkable a manner reserved to our own age, is not
indeed complete, and leaves much still to be explained. The fundamental
principle, nevertheless, is well established. From this it appears that
the hieroglyphic system of Egypt, although entirely symbolical,
contains, notwithstanding, the germ of alphabetical writing. As the
principle of hieroglyphical writing is equally applicable to modern
languages as to the Egyptian, a German word will serve us as well for an
example, and for the purposes of our illustration, as any other.
Preliminary, however, it is necessary to observe, that in this mode of
notation the leading characters and essential elements of the radical
sound are alone indicated; such vowels and consonants as are quiescent,
or servile, are omitted, and being without any special signs are left to
be mentally supplied.
To take, then, a German word for our example. The word _Leben_ (life)
would be signified by its three principal characters. Now, the first
letter would be indicated by _Licht_ (a flaming light), because this
word also begins with L, _Baum_ (a tree) would stand for B, while N
would be represented by any kind of _Nass_ (fluid), by a rapid
waterfall, for instance, or by a waving line, as a type of its moving
and undulating surface. A light, then, a tree, and an undulating
surface, will, by means of the initial letters of our German terms for
them (_L_icht, _B_aum, _N_ass), stand for the word _Leben_, _i.e._,
life.
Now, from this example, which I have purposely chosen, it will appear
that this hieroglyphical mode of notation and writing, while it was
fundamentally alphabetical, had, nevertheless, at the same time, a
symbolical significance. For a light, or light-giving flame, the tree
with its growth, as well as the flowing stream with its waves or
ripples, aptly express and typify the intrinsic character of life, with
its several characteristics and elements. And it is even this addition
of symbolical coloring and signification which in the otherwise
equivocal, and, consequently, inconvenient, representation of objects by
an hieroglyphical alphabet, constitutes the peculiar difficulty, but, at
the same time the mental attraction of this kind of writing.
This mode of hieroglyphical representation is not, however, the most
difficult to be understood. Another, so far as it has as yet been found
out, and as progress has been made toward deciphering it, appears to be
far more abstruse and enigmatical. For to understand or to interpret the
latter in any degree, it is almost indispensable to know beforehand what
is the object indicated or intended. In this mode of hieroglyphical
notation the image of an object is made to stand for any other whose
name begins with the same letter, as the word does that designates the
former. Thus, to employ the same instance as before, the picture of a
flaming light would by itself stand for the word and idea of life. This
is, if we may so say, a bold play with algebraic equations, between
enigmatical emblems, which are at most but imperfectly indicated, and
which nothing but the intelligence of one well versed in the system can
ever hope to comprehend. Any other, even with the greatest pains, will
scarcely be able to decipher it with any degree of certainty. And this
leads me back again to our former and still unsolved equation, involving
the riddle of human life, and which this simile of the hieroglyphics was
intended to help us to solve.
The hieroglyphical mode of writing is, according to the explanation we
have given of it, a symbolical representation by means of the initial
letters of words. In it and through it even that which is the most
ordinary and common assumes a mystical character, and passes into this
wonderful, imaginative, and emblematical sphere. Now the solution of
this general problem lies even in this: that this (_x_)--this
incomprehensible (_x_)--as the eternal Logos of the incommensurable
Godhead, became also (_a_) (that is to say, took on Him a human life and
nature), and is even now fully and really such. For thus the beginning
and the initial letter of the whole alphabet of human existence, which
was so long wanting, although from the very first it was implied in and
was the foundation of the (_b_), was given anew to it by God. And now
this (_b_), and every other of the following letters, can attach
themselves in due order and connection, be united with it and even be
equated to it, and being thus equalized, inasmuch as _x_=_a_, it also
becomes capable of apprehending the otherwise unattainable (_x_). And at
the same time it can be entirely set free, at once and forever, from the
restlessly opposing and destructive (-_y_); since this (_y_), as opposed
to the (_x_), is merely a negative quantity, and as such vanishes.
But however we may attempt by means of this or any other scientific or
figurative illustrations to apprehend or to express the ineffable, the
fact, and above all, a living faith in that great verity, that the
divine (_x_) has become a human (_a_)--that the eternal Logos actually
and really took upon Him the nature of man, and still retains it, is the
point from which a new and higher life commences. It is the ring which
holds together the whole human family--the first link in the chain of
spiritual life, to which all must be referred and from which all is to
proceed.
Thus, then, beginning with the emblematical representations of the fine
arts, and developing the idea through several other spheres of its
manifestation, I have carried the symbolical significance of human life
up to the highest hieroglyphic of all existence. And as in the three
previous Lectures I have considered the eternal Word, simply and
principally in a scientific point of view, as the fundamental law of
truth, it now remains for me to exhibit it as the word which shall solve
all difficulties in the problem of human existence, and shall prove an
unerring guide in the conflict of life and in all its most important
relations and perplexities. And to this subject the three last and
concluding Lectures will be devoted. And in these we shall consider all
this in its reference to the external and public life of man in society
and the state. For not only does it hold true of the higher pursuits and
inmost being of individuals, but it has also a universal application;
for this highest of all hieroglyphics, which is the beginning of a new
life, forms also the foundation of the state in its sacred character.
And because the application of Christian truth and of the fundamental
idea of Christianity is in general so greatly mistaken, I have thought
it necessary to remount somewhat higher in my investigations, to draw
from a deeper source, and to connect them with a higher principle, in
order to arrive more steadily and more certainly at the result which I
had in view. And this result may be thus summed up: The Christian state
is nothing less than symbolical, and even thereby historically
sanctified--whereas the mere polity of nature or that of reason, which,
however artistical and consummate in its constitution, remains all the
while false and unsanctified, is either purely dynamical or else
absolute.
In human life and society there are three species of power, which
possess a symbolical significance and a sacred character as resting on a
divine foundation. And these are parental authority, the spiritual or
priestly power, and the kingly or whatever may be the supreme authority
in the state. The affectionate care and anxiety of an earthly parent
possesses but a faint analogy to the goodness and providence of the
omniscient and eternal Father of all, and is scarcely more than a type
of it. Moreover, the parental authority and a father’s rights over his
children, founded on his relation as the loving and affectionate author
of their being, admits not of being set forth and comprised in any exact
and positive formularies. And even if the social community occasionally
steps in to determine by legislation the limits, and in certain points
gives its sanction to the domestic rights and authority of a father, as
founded on love and feeling, this is only done, nevertheless, with a
view to guard against and to remedy the possible abuse of so natural a
right and relation. When, however, as was the principle of the old Roman
law, power over the life and death of his offspring is conceded to the
father, we feel at once that this is an undue extension of the paternal
authority, and that the provinces of the three different powers are not
kept duly distinct and separate. A parent who should avail himself of
such a privilege would but prove himself devoid of the ordinary
feelings of nature. On the other hand, by a natural sentiment, common to
the savage and barbarian, as well as to the most refined and civilized
nations, respect for and reverence of parents is held to be something
more than an ordinary and conventional duty and obligation. It is
universally regarded in the light of a duty in every sense sacred and
holy. And the divine moral law of the Old Testament completely agrees
with the universal feeling of man’s nature in this ascription to it of
holiness. But, on the other hand, the rights of the Christian limit the
parent’s authority on the side of the spiritual domain, wherever it
would trench upon the freedom of belief and liberty of conscience.
Special circumstances, again, such as the dotage of old age, mental
weakness, faults of character, or offenses against society, may, in
certain cases, tend greatly to limit and control, or otherwise modify,
the parental dignity and authority. But still, in the very worst case,
the most respectful behavior and the tenderest delicacy, on all points
connected with this relationship, remains forever an immutable law of
duty to the child, which, as it is deeply founded in the moral sense of
man, makes itself heard throughout the whole habitable world. The mutual
tie of parental love and filial duty has, it is plain, its foundations
deep in nature itself, and out of it proceeds the sanctity of the very
notion of domestic life, and of all its relations, as well as of the
peculiar authority of a father and a parent.
As for the spiritual and priestly power: wherever religion recognizes
the priest in his true character--_i.e._, not simply as the preacher and
promulgator, but also as the living channel for dispensing and
communicating the divine grace, he is, in so far as his office is
concerned, and in the discharge of his sacerdotal functions, a
vicegerent of God--not so much, perhaps, of the everlasting Father, the
Creator and Lawgiver of nature, as of the Son who came down into the
world to ransom and redeem the human race. The priestly or spiritual
power, therefore, has a divine foundation on which it ultimately rests.
But inasmuch as that bond of communion which unites our souls with God
must be sought and attained by faith and in the spirit of faith, so this
authority, however holy in itself, is, nevertheless, by its very nature,
confined to the province of spirituals.
The judicial function, also, where it is recognized as dogmatic, is at
least subordinate to that other character whose office it is to carry
out the work of redemption, to dispense the divine grace, and to bless.
For an arbitrary judicial power, where internal caprice is the rule of
judgment, and where the execution of its decrees depends on the
individual, does not in strict truth deserve this appellation. With as
much reason might the anointed head of the state claim, by virtue of
this consecrating and anointing, to exercise the functions of the
spiritual office.
Further, we may observe, all these sacred offices possess a certain
analogy and affinity one with the other. This fact, however, does not in
any way militate against the essential and necessary duty of preserving
a precise and accurate separation of their several functions. The
privacy of home, the family circle, and the relations of domestic life,
are by the laws of most nations regarded as a sanctuary which the
external power of the state ought not lightly and without grave
necessity to violate or profane. On the other hand, in ordinary language
paternal titles are ascribed to the other two powers. But as regards
spiritual personages, this is a mere mark of respect, while, as applied
to the head of the state, it serves to indicate a special character of
goodness and clemency in the government. It is not by any means
applicable generally to the functions of government as marking its
specific nature and essence. For it may not be, nay, perhaps, we should
rather say it can not in all cases be simply and purely paternal.
Strict impartiality, for instance, is a primary requisition in the
judge, but is it possible, nay, would it properly be just, to require
this in every case of a father? The judicial character, however, is the
predominant element of political government, and the supreme judicial
function is its essential aspect, with which all the other distinctive
characteristics or exclusive prerogatives of sovereign power are most
intimately connected. And on this account, while the paternal authority
rests primarily on that tie of souls which consists in the reciprocal
affection of parents and children, and while the priestly power is
limited to the sacerdotal and spiritual domain, the supreme judicial and
sovereign power in the state, which is responsible to God alone, as the
highest and paramount of these three sacred and venerated powers,
embraces the complete whole, if I may so say, the bodily reality of
man’s public life. And in this sphere of historical reality it will be
my endeavor to trace the further development of these three ideas as
they manifest themselves in the busy conflict of life and the age. And
to this subject I propose to devote the three following Lectures.
In concluding our present disquisition I will only add one remark. All
these three powers, as founded on nature, on divine revelation, and on
historical rights, are alike holy and sacred. The good, that is to say,
the prudent and affectionate father, the pious priest, and the righteous
king, are each and all, though in different ways and degrees, and with
different powers and rights, visible and acting vicegerents on earth of
the invisible God. The last, in truth, is not merely the representative
but the unlimited dispenser of divine justice. And this divine
foundation of these powers, which claim and present an inviolable
character of sanctity, forms the practical part of that symbolical
signification of life which in its highest phase has formed the theme of
the present Lecture.