By philosophy--and this term best expresses the historical and original
conception as it was understood by the Greeks, who so variously and
ingeniously developed it--I understand man’s innate and natural
curiosity, so far as it is universal in its scope, and not from the
first limited to any one specific end or subject.
This natural curiosity, consequently, stimulated by the mysteries of
existence, whether in the external world or of its own consciousness,
would fain make all these enigmas clear, to itself, and by attaining to
an inward illumination, would discover the true signification, or, if we
may so call it, the all-explaining key-word of life. And, indeed, there
is no reasonable doubt but that the possession of this revivifying and
living key-word would give to life, both individual and universal, a
much more exalted energy. For nothing less than an internal light of
intellectual brightness, or of the spirit made clear to itself, is that
search after truth and knowledge, by which we discover the key-word and
true signification of life, as a whole. By it all the powers, qualities,
and faculties of the soul are strengthened anew, inwardly elevated, and
augmented in force and fertility. And if any would prefer to give the
name of science to this highest and earliest speculative knowledge or
pursuit of internal certainty and divine truth, we object not, so long
as it is admitted that it is not a science precisely in the same sense,
and still less in exactly the same or similar form, as the other
sciences, which are directed to one specific aim and limited to one
subject. Free as life and the free-formed spirit itself, ever new,
wonderful, versatile, and infinitely varied, both in internal structure
and external manifestation, are the ways of man’s thinking and
speculative spirit. A ready and apposite illustration will clearly
demonstrate this peculiar freedom and manifold variety in the methods,
species, and developments of philosophy. At any rate, if it do not place
it vividly before our eyes, it at least suggests the idea of it. The
written dialogues of Plato--that great master of philosophical
exposition and of the thinking dialogue of science, with its
ever-living and changing play of thought, and earnest spirit of
investigation--are perhaps not less diversified in their course; not
less wonderfully manifold and exuberant with all the riches of genius;
not less peculiar in their general conception, as well as external
development; not less exquisite in the finish of the several parts and
divisions, than the poetical productions of the greatest and most
admired of dramatists.
Those who are best acquainted with the art and the intellect of the poet
and of the thinker, will be least inclined to dispute the justice and
accuracy of this comparison. We appeal to the instance of Plato with
greater confidence, not only because he stands alone, as inimitable for
beauty of exposition, and for fullness and grace, as well as spirit and
vividness of style, but also because (as is apparent from the numerous
and varied compositions which he has bequeathed to posterity) every path
of inquiry previously opened, as well as every road and by-way of
dialectic subtilty still conceivable or possible, were perfectly
familiar to this lofty intellect. There was, in short, no field of
speculative thought and investigation, however high or deep, that
remained unexplored by him. From any one of his most perfect
master-pieces, consequently, we might perhaps, by a precise and
exhaustive analysis of the art and skill that lies hidden in it, gain a
more correct notion of the true and profitable method of speculative
thought and investigation than from many or most of our compendiums of
all absolute ideas and metaphysical chimeras, or from the systems at
present in vogue of unconditional logical negation.
In order, however, to establish this view of a true philosophy of life,
which in its very form is also living, it is unnecessary to appeal to
any single example, even though it be one so splendid as that of the
Socratic school in general, or of Plato, the greatest thinker it has
produced. For in fact, the whole history of philosophy, from its
commencement to its close, will serve as a proof and confirmation of its
truth. In various ways does it teach and convince us that in this lofty
struggle after truth the most divergent, and even apparently
contradictory methods and tendencies may, however, and actually do lead
to similar conclusions, nay, to one common result. It shows us that,
however various may be the paths, the end of knowledge--the
eagerly-sought jewel of truth itself--is by no means always and in all
cases tied to any immutable and exclusive rule of one fixed form and
solely felicitous method of thought, as to a magic charm on which all
depends, and from which all success must flow. The history of
philosophy, I said, for, understood in its full extent, in its correct
sense and spirit, and in its deepest significancy, what else is this
than the internal reverse of the picture of man?--the intellectual half
of humanity, in its development through all the peculiar and remarkable
processes which in the pursuit and cognition of truth--that noblest
exercise of man’s powers and faculties--he has at any time had recourse
to. And in tracing this gradual progression, we may easily discern an
invisible guidance which shows itself, especially in the more remarkable
epochs or transition-points and decided periods of the struggle. In the
general exciting cause, and the new directions which the inward
intellectual development occasionally took up, and the law it followed,
an entirely distinct order of things manifests itself to the glance that
looks beneath the surface, of a far higher and more exalted nature than
aught which is comprised and established by the insignificant rule of
our ordinary school methods, or which is only estimated and judged
thereby.
It is by no means my wish to set aside the usual scholastic form in the
academical exposition of scientific philosophy, or in any way to
depreciate it when it is effectively carried out on strict principles.
In its right place, and when the occasion demands it, we must
acknowledge it to be indispensable. It is not to be neglected with
impunity. This is especially the case in that period of our life which
is more particularly and exclusively devoted to the study of the
sciences, when philosophy naturally takes its place among the rest in
the academical course, and also in the systematic mode of instruction
assumes a form similar to the other sciences. It is involved in the
already advanced but briefly and imperfectly developed idea of the
spiritually free and ever-varying, ever-shifting form which belongs to
the very nature of philosophical thought and knowledge, that when
circumstances predispose, and its external relations afford the
opportunity and occasion, philosophy should adopt and appropriate the
limited and less absolute form of other sciences, or, as I would rather
express it, may and can condescend to assume them. But this is only a
special application for some collateral purpose, a deviation and
exception from, and not the rule itself, if we thereby understand the
natural rule, or that which is essential and original, and consequently
the simplest and highest.
As regards, however, the philosophy which pretends to be the science of
life, and not merely of the school, this principle follows from the
fact, that when taken as a whole, and when the question is not of any
special application to a particular view and object, its form also must
be free and vivid. Consequently, even when classed and associated with
the other sciences, it justly lays claim to the first place among them,
as being of a different nature and origin.
It is far, therefore, from being requisite that philosophy, following
the mathematical sciences as a handmaid, should endeavor servilely to
copy them, as has been so often erroneously done, and, in spite of
experience of its impracticability, over and over again attempted.
Still, with a true view of a living philosophy, mathematical science,
however dead in itself, and even fatal to a higher spirit, attains under
profounder apprehension to intrinsic significance, and becomes elevated
and ennobled. The true method (that, namely, which alone deserves to be
so called, the method of truth) is based on the simple process of
thought and its living development, in which one thought springs and
unfolds itself naturally from another, and rigidly excludes all that is
foreign and repugnant. The true method does not move in paragraphs and
numbered propositions, making an outward parade of an apparently strong
chain of evidence, in which, however, a rigid scrutiny often detects
some specific link in the chain totally valueless and without illative
force, or at least weak and far from cogent, or placed in a false
position, to which it has properly no reference, and only in appearance
filling the void it covers. Thus it is also with what we call system, or
systematic. We are indeed accustomed to employ this word in a twofold
sense--either to convey praise, or in an evil and deprecatory
signification. In the latter use we say, “This or that work is nothing
but a system,” or, “According to this or that system.” But by such
phrases, when criticising any comprehensive theory of scientific
thought, we do not mean that the work is entirely without foundation,
purely and absolutely imaginary. For in such a case it would hardly be
worth while to spend more words upon it. Our meaning rather is, that
while containing something that is true, and much that is excellent,
undue importance is ascribed to the system, or too much is inferred
from it, every thing being forcibly made to agree with it, and itself
carried beyond the limits of sober truth: in a word, that the systematic
coherence is only external and specious, and the result of much labor
and art. In reality this is very frequently the case. This course is too
often pursued in the theories and discoveries of modern science,
especially in those branches which stand in the closest relation to
physical life and its preservation, and are consequently most influenced
by the fashionable ideas of the age. Some happy thought, bearing the
very stamp of genius, some ingenious idea or entirely new view is
started; on this foundation a system is forthwith raised, either by the
author himself or his followers and disciples. Embraced with the ardor
of enthusiasm, the novel theory is further extended and promulgated, and
becomes the watchword of a sect or party, until, degenerating into a
mere fashion, and being borne up awhile by the eddies of the moment, it
sinks at last into insignificance, and is swallowed up by the vast
stream of time. When once the matter has reached this point or this
stage in the pathology of human thought and opinion, then that first
idea and original invention may be considered as good as defunct, or at
least is, as it were, buried alive, and the true vital principle which
originally animated it is no longer perceptible.
But in a good and legitimate sense we may characterize a scientific work
or a scheme of thought as systematic, or as forming a system in itself,
and as such approve of it, if only it possesses the virtue of internal
consistency, and the spirit of unity pervades and animates it. And if
this consistency of idea be really intrinsic and spiritual, and at the
same time living and natural, it will be easily recognized in its
perspicacious simplicity of form and expression. It will need neither
the external display of systematic precision and prolix demonstrative
argumentation, nor the apparently rigid concatenation of paragraphs, in
which, however, the forced connection and the panoplied array of
propositions form but a poor device to conceal the deficiency of
intrinsic life and unity.
The case is precisely the same with the science of human thought and
philosophy, as with external life and daily experience. Nothing is more
highly estimated in society, business, or politics, than an active and
consistent character. Properly speaking, this example is not so much a
simile as the very thing itself, or the same subject viewed from another
ground or in a different relation. But this high and rare property of a
genuine consistency of character does not depend on the delivery of a
multitude of philosophic adages in and out of season, or the specious
thrusting forward of moral maxims, but rather manifests itself amid
general reserve and silence, by its straightforwardness of action, or
when it speaks, by the clear simplicity of its language. So is it also
with consistency of idea in philosophy. The intrinsic and vital unity of
a comprehensive system of thought--the systematic coherence which
results from a reigning idea of the whole, reveals itself and is to be
known by a simple and familiar form of expression, not unlike that of a
friendly conversation, and is not exclusively confined to any
prescriptive or preconceived formula of the schools or artificial
method.
But in respect to academical instruction, and the position which
philosophy either may or ought to occupy therein, I have one remark to
add. If I may judge by my own experience, or by what I have at times
observed in others, either when as a youth I was an academical student,
or when afterward, as a visitor at several of the German universities, I
took part in the scientific pursuits, and occasionally as a lecturer
propounded my own views and opinions, a decided and striking division
seems to subsist between philosophy and the peculiar scientific studies
proper to the future wants of life. This is, however, less the case with
the study of medicine, which, being founded on, and conversant with, the
science of nature, stands in a close relation to philosophy. Still even
the prosecution of this natural science proves distinctly enough that
the interests of general science follow entirely different paths from
such as are most eligible, and more especially conducive to the
acquirement and collection of particular information. Still more does
this apply to that numerous class who devote themselves to civil
professions, and whose future life is to be employed in political
departments. By them philosophy is pursued as a mere collateral and
secondary object of study, as a half-superfluous intellectual luxury.
But this she nowise admits of; she demands an earnest and devoted
affection, and must be embraced with the full ardor of love. It is in
this very earnestness of purpose, and this genuine attachment and
enthusiasm, that it has its source and being. Hence we may often observe
many a studious youth attracted by the general question as to the
nature of the human soul, and by these sublime investigations into the
mysteries of existence. Under the influence, as it were, of some magical
spell, he is absorbed in them so as completely to forget and lose sight
of the studies appropriate to the calling he has chosen, or at least to
neglect them, viewing them as comparatively secondary, while others of
more practical tendency steadily devote themselves to the study of their
profession, and confine themselves exclusively to its pursuit. Rigidly
rejecting the metaphysical charm and seduction of system, as a dangerous
lure, they care little, if at all, for the contempt with which the other
class, whom dialectic speculation has bewitched into forsaking its
proper object of study, looks down upon them as incapable of rising to
the height of its own exalted argument. Now, if I might venture to
hazard a suggestion for the removal, or at least the accommodation, of
this alienation from, not to say opposition to, philosophy, which exists
in the tone of our German universities, and if it be not out of place
here to enter into this matter, my first desire and advice would be,
that the study and course of philosophy should be kept entirely distinct
from that of the profession or the particular science which is learned
with a view to future avocations in life. In such a case philosophy
might most advantageously be taken up by the student after the
completion of his other studies, in short, at the conclusion of the
whole academical course, setting, so to speak, the crown upon it, and
forming the last step which the pupil must take before he enters upon
the realities of life.
Moreover, there is no leisure for idle meditation during the years of
academical study--that period of preparation which few have a second
time afforded them, and which, being entirely practical, ought to be
specially devoted to the perfect mastering of the special sciences which
in after-life are to occupy us. It is rather in our later and maturer
years, after the acquirement of the particular professional knowledge,
and even in the midst of the active business of life, that leisure,
together with a convenient opportunity, or a natural occasion, is
afforded for that meditation with which philosophy ordinarily begins,
but which in its results remains no idle speculation; or for that
apparently superfluous inquiry, which, however, investigates a subject
more necessary and more essential to man than all else.
So much--if it has not been indeed too much--I believed it requisite to
say concerning the form of philosophy, not so much to justify or to
excuse that which in the present case I could alone adopt, as rather
from this point of view also to establish the independent position, and
to depict the lofty aims of philosophy. For if philosophy is nothing
less than the actual science of life (and the skeptical query whether
such a science be either possible or attainable by man, will in nowise
affect the question; for if the doubt concerning the nature of life, or
life itself, is suggested by life, and consequently is living and real,
it amounts to the same thing, and the objection applies alike to the
doubt or the certainty)--if, I repeat, the object of philosophy be the
sublime conception of our inner life, struggling to unravel the mystery
of its own being, how can it be right, or how could a wish arise to
exclude from it one half of humanity, or society, or of civilized life?
The proper sphere of philosophy, no less than of art, is the whole
civilized public. This is the body in which it must circulate, and to
which its action must be applied. The specious ground for such an
exclusion can only be looked for and discovered in the ordinary school
form, which indeed, as I have endeavored to show, is by no means
essential to it, but rather a mere accident, which is so far from being
necessary, that it is not even of universal application.
If, therefore, the subject-matter of philosophy is the whole inward life
of man, if its end is the solution of the ever-recurring questions of
the speculative consciousness, and the reading of the enigma of
existence, or however else we may choose to characterize and express it,
it is assuredly something of a distinct and more exalted nature than any
of the preparatory sciences which make up the academical course of study
for the specific objects of some limited calling and profession. The
philosophy of life, as it sets out only with one simple position--life,
viz., man’s inner life--is restricted to no particular sphere, but
embraces them all in their fit season and occasion. When, indeed, in the
youthful, not to say childlike spirit, standing on the threshold of
expectation, this inward feeling of life or consciousness has not as yet
shaped itself into an ardent speculative curiosity, or a grave and
melancholy questioning, or when at least, it has not passed through the
first stage of thoughtful wondering, then it is as yet too early for the
awakening of philosophy--that inward search after truth and meditation
on the nature of our existence and consciousness, that self-examination,
those half-doubting yearnings after an unknown love. Youth,
inexperienced and undeveloped, may reasonably be supposed to be excluded
from a participation in this natural field of philosophical speculation,
although even in this, as in every other case, it is extremely difficult
to define the precise limits. It would also be idle to repeat the remark
so often insisted on by the sages of antiquity--that where life is
totally absorbed in the business or pleasures of life, or distracted by
the cares of avarice or ambition, so that, strictly speaking, no voice
from within is heard, no soul-cherished feeling or sentiment, nay, even
scarcely a thought purely spiritual, still survives, or finds a place in
that world-engrossed bosom--there philosophy finds no ear for her
sublime revelations of the inner life, nor dares hope for a responsive
echo to her high-soaring meditations, and that profound emotion from
which it draws her own birth.
Philosophy, I said, takes nothing for granted but life--an internal
life, that is. The more perfectly, the more manifold the aspects, and
the more comprehensively within the given limits under which this life
which it supposes is viewed and studied, the more easily will it fulfill
its object, the sooner will it attain to that which constitutes its
proper end and aim. For this aim is to render clear and intelligible,
both to itself and others, that higher life, whose existence it assumes
as the necessary basis of its speculations. But how would this primary
postulate, this natural basis of philosophy of life, be restricted and
limited, if the sex which is so pre-eminently marked by strong and deep
feeling should be entirely excluded from the sphere of its inquiries.
Indeed, according to a more liberal, comprehensive, and enlarged point
of view, such as is most consistent with the true nature of things,
youth, with its enthusiasm and quick sensibility for the beautiful--its
first and most exalted love--is not to be exclusively given up to the
fine arts. As the latter are elements of life, and very important
elements too, they can not be excluded from the sphere of philosophy,
but, on the contrary, form no inconsiderable portion of its general
problem. The objection, however, might be raised, that these, the best
and fairest of the gifts which nature dispenses with a liberal and
benignant hand, are but transitory, and that they wither and disappear
before the first rude touch of external circumstances that limits their
free play; so that, to judge from appearances, they scarcely can abide,
or be steadily kept up to the gravity of philosophical contemplation.
Often, it may be urged, some unpropitious destiny, some sudden storm of
fate, overwhelms and destroys them, stripping the youthful tree of life
of all its leafy honors before it has properly put forth its blossoms.
This, no doubt, is perfectly true. In most cases, however, the
destroying principle does not come from without. Fortune and external
circumstances have little to do with it. It lies rather in the inner
impetuosity of passion, in self-will, or some other dark shade of
character, perverting and bringing jarring discord into the most exalted
feelings of the soul. Would it not be well and especially advisable to
place from the very first these tender and delicate flowers of youthful
feeling within the influence, and under the action of an inward
illumination and reflection, as the only probable means of imparting to
them greater hardihood and durability, and thereby to convert the fair
but ephemeral flowers of youthhood into the mature and enduring fruit of
sincere benevolence, of a generous activity and inward harmony? There
is, in truth, no easier or more simple mode by which man can hope to
arrive at this end. It is only by means of such inner light, and purity
of sentiment and luminous meditation, that we, can hope to work our way
to the key-word of existence which shall reconcile every difficulty,
clear up every doubt, and attune to harmony every discord. For hereby
also will the power be gained which alone can sustain and protect this
inner life from every destructive influence. This enlightenment,
however, is nothing else than the philosophy of life, and therein
consists its essence.
Now, in order to place before us the very center of the entire question,
and at least to notice beforehand that which must more perfectly develop
itself as, step by step, we trace the natural process of thought, both
in life itself and the science of life, one remark is necessary. The
soul is nothing less than the faculty of love in man. For this reason,
also, the loving soul (if I may here make such an application of the
words of a great teacher) is the clear mirror in which we gaze upon the
secrets of divine love either reflected or symbolically figured as so
many enigmas, which, nevertheless, serve us as light-giving and guiding
stars amid the darkness of this earthly existence. And in this pure
mirror of our soul we plainly behold the eververdant and immortal
plants or hidden flowers of nature, like the dark bed of the deep
through the clear waters of a still sea. In this mental mirror nature
greets us with features less strange and unknown, and with familiar
aspect seems to claim at once a kindred sympathy.
In these slight and passing remarks, I have touched briefly upon many a
topic of which the full development must be reserved for our subsequent
Lectures. Still, though thus limited, they contain the grounds which to
my mind fully justify my adhesion to the opinion which, more than thirty
years ago, in the first commencement of my literary labors, I advanced
with regard to the question of the propriety of excluding one half of
mankind from this region of speculation. And although, in maintaining
this sentiment, I have to stand alone in, or even am opposed to, the age
in which I live, still on this point I prefer to take as my guide and
precedent the ancients, the Socratic school, and, above all, the great
master, Plato. And were it necessary, and the present place admitted of
it, I might easily, both from ancient history and modern times, adduce
authorities enough, both in number and in weight, to refute the opposite
opinion, or, rather, prejudice.
The sphere, therefore, and field in which philosophy has to move, or to
which it has to apply itself, is no narrow one, hemmed in and confined
by any unwarrantable exclusiveness. On the contrary, it must, so far is
possible for aught that is human, be complete and perfect. And for this
reason also, she must not, as indeed she can not, take her rise in a
consciousness artificially parceled out and divided, and, in short, but
one half of its true self, and which, being biassed and visionary in its
views, is divorced from real life. It can originate only in the mind’s
greatest perfection and in its full and most undivided entirety,
inasmuch as to make this consciousness clear to itself and to others
constitutes even its proper function and entire aim.
In the latest period of German philosophy many an ingenious path of
investigation has, no doubt, been here and there struck out. By a
critical comparison of different views, systems, and opinions,
dialectics, as a preparatory course of study, has been improved,
psychological research advanced, especially the philosophy of nature
enlarged. Still, on the whole, a purely abstract mode of thinking,
totally estranged and separate from actual life, is almost universally
held to be the only right road to a profound philosophy. This so-called
pure and abstract thinking takes nothing for granted, and allows of no
postulate or axiom; it acknowledges none besides, and generally has no
foundation save itself; it starts from itself alone, and in so far has,
strictly speaking, no proper beginning. Consequently, without proper end
or aim, it goes on continually revolving around itself as a center, and
within its own charmed circle. Assuredly, where the dialectic art and
system moves within this narrow range of thought, and restricts itself
thereto, employing a language which, while it is sharply abstruse,
metaphysically recondite, and pre-eminently abstract, has at least the
merits of clearness and distinctness, and ingenious classification, then
the very first result of such an exercise of dialectic art is
profitable, although merely negative. For it establishes the fact, that
truth and knowledge are not to be attained by this method; that thus it
can not profitably be either sought or found. It shows, too, that this
dialectical preludium itself in nothing more than a preliminary exercise
that at most does but serve as an introduction to another more lively
way of fruitful thought; though even as such it is suited, not indeed
for all, but simply for those who enter upon it with this view of its
nature.
Human language, with its wonderful suppleness, can adjust itself even to
the consciousness which is parceled out and abstractedly divided, so as
perfectly to copy and reflect it in its ever-movable mirror. It is able
to give a perspicuous order and an artist-like shape even to the mere
logical thought which has no subject-matter. It only fails when the
logical conceit of mere empty thought contemptuously rejects in the
giddy whirl of supreme abstraction, as its last earthly defect, the laws
of grammatical art, and refuses to add to its abstract style the merit
of perspicuity, in order that, as a metaphysical chimera, it may in the
inaccessible darkness that shrouds the obscure of the high-enthroned
“Ego,” soar higher and higher, and withdraw itself as much as possible
from the eyes of man. A confused terminology, perfect unintelligibility,
are the never-failing companions and peculiar characteristics of a false
philosophy, which dreams of finding the inestimable jewel of truth and
science in a never-ending and elaborate division of the consciousness.
It places perfection in an abstraction carried continually higher and
higher in its emptiness. But in truth it is only in the living unity of
the full consciousness that we can properly understand the pure logical
forms of thought, such as they are inborn in the human mind, or are
engraved thereon as the first directive traits and principles of its
intellect and rational activity. They must be judged of according to the
place which they occupy in the whole, and relatively to the manner in
which they act in or influence it. It is thus alone that their true
signification can be determined and truly conceived.
As often, however, as from that self-styled pure, but in reality empty
and totally abstract mode of thinking, which is divorced from life and
the realities of things, it is hoped to raise or to evoke, as it were,
by spell, a real system of true knowledge, we have a repetition of the
old history of the Babylonian tower, with its consequent confusion of
language. Every new system of this kind is nothing more than an
additional section of or an appendix to that ancient confusion of
speech, as well as of views and opinions, so ancient in the history of
the human mind. Each of these builders in the edifice of endless error
commences with pulling down the fabric that his immediate predecessor
and all before him may have commenced, while in the space he has thus
cleared for his own labors, he founds and rears the imaginary tower of
_his own_ knowledge and science. He has at least the firm intention to
raise it still higher--nay, far and far above the height that all before
him have attained. But one man understands another just as little as
himself. More and more entangled and obscure, consequently, becomes this
new confusion of ideas, till at last nothing remains but the anomalous
ruins of crumbled and abraded thoughts, which even when entire were only
so many lifeless stones--mere abstractions, soon either wholly
forgotten, or if surviving, becoming daily more and more
unintelligible--since the original lexicon or alphabet, or the
all-explaining key to these rare and singular characters, can be
recovered only with the greatest difficulty.
A true and living philosophy can not choose and pursue this method of
ever-advancing abstraction; much less can it recognize it as the only
right one. It proceeds rather from life itself and the feeling of life,
and, in truth, from a feeling and consciousness of it, which strives to
be as complete as possible. Far is it from dreaming that it is in any
artificial and elaborately-worked-out division of the human mind, that
it must seek its success or hope to attain its aim--the end of all true
knowledge. Without that, it feels that man’s consciousness, in its
existing state, at least, is already too much rent and distracted by
division, and being by means of this dismemberment checked in its
natural action, and weakened and impeded.
And this even is the point on which all turns. That philosophy of
so-called pure, but properly empty thinking, separated and abstracted
from actual reality, without end and without beginning, without ground
as without aim, knows nothing of our postulate of life, in the full
extent and sense of this word, so far as any thing is full and complete
for man. The thinker, once entangled in the meshes of such a philosophy,
can not admit of such an hypothesis, will allow to it no value, or,
rather, knows nothing of it, and would never be able to make any thing
of it. And yet, notwithstanding, in this very philosophy an hypothesis
is started, or, rather, assumed beforehand--one, however, which in truth
is entirely arbitrary, and which, when examined more closely and with
rigid scrutiny, betrays at once its utter baselessness. It depends on or
consists in assuming that the human mind, as it exists at present, is in
a perfect state, and has remained entire and complete, and altogether
unaltered from its original constitution. It holds that nothing is
wanted for the attainment of truth, beyond a careful and skillful
analysis of man’s self-consciousness, and a correct and appropriate
classification of its several members. But, on the contrary, whenever we
yield and give ourselves up to the feelings of our inward consciousness,
and try carefully to understand it simply as it is, the first thing that
strikes us most forcibly is a discord and opposition subsisting not only
between ourselves and the external world, but a strife with one’s self
raging in the inmost center of the mind, so that it seems to fall
asunder and to rend itself into absolute unconsciousness and
irreconcilable contrarieties.
Now, is it probable that strife would form the original state or the
proper destiny of the human or even of any other being? can this, in
short, have been the case from the first?
Strife, it is true, prevails every where in human life. It has its
parties and divisions in the present no less than in the past, in the
free intercourse of private as well as in political life, in the family
as well as in the faith, in knowledge as in thought and opinion.
Wherever these act upon life, or in any way affect it, they invariably
involve it in hostile opposition and sectarian animosity.
But the immediate question here is not of this strife of the passions,
or of the moral corruption of the inner character, which is excited by
their indulgence, although, in truth, the external strife of human
nature, which comes forward, as it were, in a visible and bodily shape,
and its earliest source in the hidden contentions of the inmost soul,
which arise from its entire constitution and the present condition and
state of our faculty of thought.
Just a little also do we refer to any view taken of the sad mutilations
of the human consciousness resulting either from some faulty
organization and disease, or from those defects which proceed from
defects of character or weakness of intellect. The conditions which,
relatively speaking at least, we call physically and morally sound, as
being free from all remarkable deficiencies or disorders, are,
nevertheless, not to be regarded on this account as perfect, and endued
with full living energy, and possessed of their original completeness.
On the contrary, in the general mind, such as on the whole we find it at
present, and which, in this respect, we may look upon as being in its
true and proper state, there is much that is evidently perverted from
its right object, much that has fallen a prey to disorder. And indeed we
are naturally led to take the same view of it when we discover most of
the several constituents of the mind for the greater part extremely
weak, and as it were in a crippled state, and its different faculties
seldom if ever maintaining a deep pervading harmony, and keeping in
perfect unison with each other. It is to this internal opposition and
original dissension of the thinking consciousness that I here would draw
your attention, as psychologically manifesting itself between thinking,
feeling, and willing. In this dissension, so deeply rooted in our inmost
being, intellect and will are, even independently of the effect of human
institutions and observances, but seldom in harmony; while reason and
imagination, if not always opposed, are at least greatly estranged, and
seldom maintain a mutual good understanding.
This is man’s first and ever-recurring, ever-renewed perception of his
inward life. Careful observation of self is ever impressing on him a
consciousness of what we might almost call an inborn, or at least
hereditary, discord and division in the human mind. This intellectual
fact, which is one purely psychological and totally independent of the
disturbing influences of passion or disease, may in truth well carry us
to the conclusion which, independently of it, so many other moral
phenomena and historical traces appear to point at. It leads us on
almost irresistibly to embrace that exposition of it which has been held
in common by almost every ancient people; the doctrine, namely that man
at the very onset fell from his original state of harmony into
dissension and disunion, and has since sunk many degrees lower and lower
from the dignity which belonged to him on his first creation. But as
this primitive obscuration and degeneracy went to the inmost root of
man’s being, under its influence, not only his relations to the external
world, but also in himself, in his pure internal thinking, feeling, and
willing, all is deranged, discordant, and fragmentary, so that very
rarely indeed do the three co-operate effectually in a living and
enduring harmony. And it is doubtless because the prevailing theories of
the human mind overlook the fact of this great change that they are so
utterly unsatisfactory and generally so tame and superficial. The
determination, however, how far this event is to be regarded as an
historical fact and rests on authentic tradition, is a question which
lies beyond our present purpose, and belongs rather to a purely critical
investigation. The immediate and specific aim of philosophy is simply to
analyze and clearly understand the psychological fact of the discord and
dissension which subsists between the several faculties of soul and
spirit, and to exhibit it just as it is. Having accomplished this, it
will then proceed to indicate the point or position from which the work
of restoration must be commenced, or by which at least the way which
leads to it may be discovered; the path, namely, of return to the
original harmony of the soul. In other words, its ultimate object will
be to discover the means of restoring a living and perfect
consciousness, and of bringing about a more harmonious co-operation of
its hitherto divided powers and faculties, whether of soul or spirit.
Now, even in ordinary experience, certain propitious combinations of
circumstances do occur, when this inward strife and innate or hereditary
discord between the understanding and the will, the reason and fancy, is
happily overcome. Under their influence the faculties, which previously
were separate and divided, or hostilely arrayed against each other, are,
partly at least, and for one individual life in all its incidents,
actions, and productions, brought into profitable agreement and
harmony. These rare occasions are furnished by extraordinary energy of
character, unrivaled artistic genius, or other high and rare mental
endowment. These, therefore, form not only so many experimental proofs
of the possibility of restoring the now discordant elements and the
isolated organs of the inner man to completeness of unity and entirety
of life, but also furnish stable points from which to start again, and
to carry on the work of restoration. Such instances, however, are but
exceptions from the general course of things. Fortunate and rare
exceptions they are, no doubt, but still, even as such, they only serve
to establish more surely and incontestably the predominance of the rule,
and the universal fact of the internal strife among the faculties of the
human mind.
Not unnecessarily to distract your attention at the very outset, I shall
for the present omit to consider many subordinate and derivative, but
applied and complex faculties of our mind and soul, such as memory, the
external senses, the various instincts, and the conscience. Restricting,
therefore, myself immediately to these four principal powers--understanding
and will, with reason and fancy, which we may regard as the four poles
of the internal world, or as the quarters of the human consciousness, I
shall consider generally the opposition which displays itself between
these elementary powers of man’s mind. This fact is so universally
recognized, and so generally predominant, that it displays itself even
in the experience and incidents of every-day life. To what amounts the
opinion so commonly expressed of many men, nay even the greater part
of distinguished characters, “that their judgment and will are not in
unison?” “What extensive learning and comprehensive views does he not
possess,” is said of one man; “what acuteness, excellent judgment! What
might he not accomplish if he had but the will; but he is so changeful,
you can never depend upon him, so inactive, so void of energy of
character, that he does not himself know rightly what he wishes.” Now
in such passing estimates of men, it is deserving of remark, that it
is not the passions, or of passionate transgressions of the moral law,
that come in question, but rather some internal defect and weakness.
“He has the best will,” is said of another, “is always active,
capable of any sacrifice and devotion, and of a firm and undaunted
resolution; but at the same time he is so narrow-minded, so unbending
and short-sighted, and possessed by such inflexible prejudices, that
nothing can in truth be made of him, and every enterprise is sure
to miscarry that he has any thing to do with.” The discord is not
indeed in every case so strongly marked and distinct, still every one
who at all observes his own consciousness may easily determine, and
satisfactorily answer the question, whether this opposition between
the understanding and the will, or at least the disposition thereto,
is not deeply fixed and rooted in our inmost nature, and on the whole
universal. Whence else springs the high estimation in which steadiness
and consistency of character are generally held, but from the fact that
it is a rare exception for will and understanding--the inward thought
and the outward practice--to be in perfect harmony and agreement?
And in truth consistency, thoroughly carried out in the whole life,
steadfast unison of idea and practice--in short, power--immediately
enforces our respect and admiration, even though we may not be able to
agree with the motive and principles on which it acts, and moreover
remark much in the whole line of conduct deserving of blame, when
measured by the highest ideal standard of moral justice and perfection.
How often do we feel this to be the case in the historical judgment
and estimate of great and celebrated men, where our admiration by no
means implies or carries with it a full and perfect approbation of
every trait in their character or actions. Another mode of view and
comparison will perhaps serve to set in a still clearer light the
characteristic feature of the human mind in its present broken and
discordant condition. Man usually directs his glance downward to the
brutes, in order, by pointing out its difference from the animal world,
to determine the peculiar essence of his own being and nature. In this
comparison, after much and painful investigation, man discovers that
although his physical organization and the principle of life, the
blood-soul, as the source of vital heat, is of the same kind and nature
with that of the brutes, he nevertheless possesses a rational soul,
which they do not enjoy.
More instructive would it be, occasionally at least, to raise our
contemplation to things above. By this method, many characteristic
qualities of the human mind might be briefly but distinctly set forth in
sharper contrast by comparison with other created things, or, as the
poet calls them, “superior spirits, with whom we share our
knowledge.”[62] Leaving this belief in the existence of purely
spiritual beings, which was common to all nations of the old world, to
rest on its own deep foundation, and passing over the doubts which might
perhaps be raised against it, I shall simply take for the basis of my
comparison the general idea of these angelic essences, such as from the
very first it has been long and widely entertained. Now, from this point
of view I should be at least justified, were I to point to that
fickleness and inconsistency, or weakness and even defect of character,
which I have above mentioned and depicted as forming the ordinary
condition and the specific characteristic of man, which according to our
hypothesis does not belong, either in the same degree or at all, to the
pure spirits. With them understanding and willing are altogether one,
and every thought is at the same time also a deed, every fact perfectly
comprehended and carried out, with a design perfectly understood. Their
activity is ever one and the same living and uninterrupted operation,
whatever be its direction, in a bad as well as a good sense. And thus it
is that with these spirits knowing and willing are one; so that a living
and effective intellect is even a very spirit, and equally so is a
perfectly self-conscious will. But a spiritual being like man, in whom
intellect and will are not one, is, as contemplated from this point of
view, a spirit divided and distracted, and one that has fallen into
disunion with itself, which only by means of a new and higher aspiration
can be again raised to its full energy and living unity.
Still more obvious, and even more striking than the general and
universally prevailing discord between the understanding and the will,
is the opposition and division which holds both the fundamental
faculties or opposite poles of the inner world of consciousness, namely,
between reason and fancy. The fancy is the fertile, and, properly
speaking, the inventive and creative faculty of man; but she is blind,
and subject to many, or rather, we must say, innumerable delusions. This
is not the case indeed, at least not in the same degree and manner, with
the reason, as the faculty of calm prudence in man--the internal
standard of the moral equilibrium of his nature. Still, actually to
produce, truly to bring forth or to create, is, with all its reasoning,
utterly beyond its power; and if at times, as is the case with the false
philosophy and mere dialectical thinking, it does make the attempt, it
gives birth to naught but lifeless abortions and mere thought-created
phantoms of abstract nothingness. It will hardly be necessary to track
this opposition between reason and fancy farther, and to follow it into
the great arena of public life, or to prove by a lengthened discussion
that the men endowed with the best reasoning powers are not at the same
time or especially endowed with the fire of genius, or that the most
æsthetical and artistic natures are not always the most logical. True
genius, however, forms a rare exception to this rule, because in him the
faculties of soul and spirit, which are usually found isolated and
opposed, are happily united and effectually co-operate in an harmonious
unison. In other words, we have in such a case a union of the creative
fancy, which in the productions of genius is the most essential point,
and the acute, discerning sagacity, as also the distinctness of sensible
shape and order, which can not be absent from any real production of
art. And yet, for all this, the understanding of the artist is something
quite distinct from practical reason and logical acuteness. There is,
moreover, another state, or, rather, quality of the soul, wherein the
else divided reason and fancy are intimately associated and entirely
reunited. This is a natural, pure affection, and the very faculty of
love, which is itself the soul and the peculiar essence of man’s
spiritual soul. For example, a mother’s love for her child, which is the
deepest and strongest of the natural affections; no one can call this
love irrational, although it must be judged by an entirely different
standard from the reason. At least it does not arise from any
carefully-weighed process of the reason, for it is over it that it gains
its greatest triumphs. In love both halves of the soul are united. For,
taken separately and apart, reason is only one half of the soul, and
fancy the other. In love alone do both concur, and the soul is there
present totally and perfectly. In it both halves, which otherwise are
ever apart, being again united, restore a perfect state of the
consciousness.
And in the same manner there is also a means of reunion for the
understanding and the will. And that, too, is a pure, strong, and
morally regulated love. Whenever, proceeding from the very depths of
man’s being, it has become, as it were, a second nature, and having
received a higher and diviner consecration, it forms the still and
invisible, but ruling soul of life, then is it the best and surest road
for attaining to the reconciliation of the otherwise inveterate and
deeply-rooted discord between the intellect and the will. By such a love
the inmost man may be restored to peace and harmony with itself, and the
otherwise distracted consciousness, regaining a full and perfect unity,
is enabled to exercise its best and highest energies.
The following are briefly the results of this our first psychological
sketch, so far forth as they are necessary for the purpose and object
before us. The ordinary state of the human mind, such as, in its present
condition, it exhibits itself to our internal apperceptions, is one of
fourfold discord and distraction. Or, rather, if we may so speak, it is
a quadruply divided consciousness, as being a prey to the double
contrariety between the understanding and the will, and between reason
and fancy. But the mind, when restored to its full and living
perfection, is threefold, or, if the expression be here allowable, it is
a triune consciousness--the soul restored to unity in love--the mind or
spirit requickened by the energy of a consistent life, and, lastly, the
internal sense for all that is highest and divine--which third member,
as the external medium and the ministering instrument of the other two,
can not interfere with or disturb their profound harmony. Now, the
return from the mind, checked and limited in its operation by its
existing divisions and discord, into a living triple or triune
consciousness, is the very beginning of a truly vital philosophy, and,
indeed, of a renovated and enhanced vitality.