The idea of a pre-existence of the soul in an earlier and different
state of being from the present, is a delusion and groundless
hypothesis, arbitrarily tacked on to Plato’s doctrine of the anamnesis
or of innate ideas. As such, it is calculated to involve us in
innumerable difficulties. I have, however, endeavored to show that the
doctrine itself is distinct, and can be kept separate, from this
arbitrary admixture. Stripped of all extraneous additions, the essential
parts of this Platonic doctrine of a higher memory have always possessed
a powerful attraction for many deep thinkers and noble minds. From its
first authors down to Leibnitz, it has made a deep and lasting
impression, which has ever enabled it from time to time to recover its
ascendency. In its purer sense and more simple and legitimate view, we
may, I asserted, understand by it no completely lifeless and mechanical
system of all the possible ideas which reason may evolve in the human
mind, antecedently arranged and classified, but an idea of his divine
origin innate or implanted in his mind, which can not be otherwise or
more simply indicated than by the expression we have chosen to designate
it--of a recollection of eternal love. But this recollection, I
affirmed, is not so much the remembrance merely of some special past,
which would again lead us to an actual pre-existence of the human soul,
as a remembrance of eternity; and it is in this light that the whole
idea must be regarded, if it is to be allowed any force. Now, this gives
rise to and calls for a closer investigation into the mutual relation
and whole conception of time and eternity.
This faculty of remembrance is of an entirely different kind from the
ordinary exercise and function of memory. This state, this quality or
power of the soul, or whatever else it may be called, might be
appropriately termed a transcendental memory, if it were not out of
season, or if any advantage would be gained by renewing the already
half-forgotten and involved terminology of the philosophic schools of
the last generation. Yet this would but be a change of name for the
self-same idea and object, which at best could only serve to exhibit
more distinctly and clearly, and from many points of view, whatever is
peculiar in the nature of such an unusual idea, or its new and unusual
sense, as well as the proper and difficult focus of inquiries and
investigations of this nature. But the point upon which depends the
decision of the whole matter, or, rather, from which alone its right
explanation can and must proceed, is, as already stated, the mutual
relation between time and eternity, and a just conception of both.
Usually, or at least oftentimes, eternity is explained and understood as
being the entire cessation, the perfect nonexistence and unconditional
negation of all time. But this would involve at the same time the
negation of life and all living existence (+),[65] so that nothing would
remain but an absolute negative, which is a void entity and perfect
nullity.
In place of the endless contradictions to which all negation generally,
and especially the absolute negation of time, can not but lead--in place
of that to which the English poet’s phrase of “darkness visible” is
applicable, I would offer a description of the idea of eternity, which
may, perhaps, render it less incomprehensible. Eternity, as I should
define it, is the all-embracing, completely complete time, which is
infinite, not only “_a parte externâ_,” _i.e._, ever-passing, yet
everlasting, without beginning and without end, but also infinite “_a
parte internâ_;” so that in the endlessly living, thoroughly luminous
present, and in the blissful consciousness thereof, the whole past, and
also the whole future, are equally actual, equally clear, and equally
present to us as the very present itself. For can we form any other
conception of a state of bliss? Nay, is not this idea of the fullness of
time entirely one and the same, and exactly coincident with that state
which at least we are able to think of, and indeed can not well avoid
thinking of? and is not this also the only form of existence applicable
to the divine consciousness, on the assumption and belief not of any
mere divine essence, but of an actual living and self-conscious Godhead?
That, at least, the idea of time is not absolutely excluded from the
life and essence or the operations of the living God of revelation,
there exists in the latter abundant indication, testimony, and proof.
Almost all the expressions there chosen for this matter allude to that
full and divine time, in which yesterday and to-morrow are as to-day,
and “a thousand years as one day,” and many others which convey the same
idea, but in no ways apply to the false notion of eternity which makes
it the absolute negation of all time. The very Hebrew name of God
furnishes a confirmation of this assertion. And I may here indulge
myself with producing it, since we shall be able to accomplish this
object without entering into an analysis of the language itself, and its
sense can be made perfectly clear according to the sense of our own
language, without any circumlocution or periphrase.
In the sacred volume of the Old Testament, two names are used to
designate the Supreme Being. The one is perfectly general, and signifies
the idea of God or the Deity absolutely, being also applied to the gods
of the heathen, and occasionally employed simply to signify angels and
spirits. The other, however, is exclusively given to the true and living
God of revelation. This word is derived from a Hebrew root, which
signifies “to be,” or, rather, since we can hardly expect to find in
these ancient languages, and in the primary significations of the
radical words, the idea of a simple abstract existence, it means life, a
positive living existence. In one place this name, which is made up of
four letters, is explained and interpreted as signifying “I am that I
am,” or, more accurately, “I am that I shall be.” Now, this is as much
as to say, the true and living God of revelation, He who from the
beginning has manifested forth His glory in creation, and who ever since
is continually manifesting Himself, internally, at least, to the whole
human race and to each individual, though, in truth, often unattended to
and little regarded, and who will still more gloriously reveal Himself
in the end of time, that is, of this earthly duration and period of
change, or, as it is expressed in Sacred Writ, in the fullness of time,
or when time itself shall be accomplished.
Now, here it is evident the idea of time is not absolutely excluded from
a conception of the essence and operations of God. On the contrary, this
description involves the idea of full and complete time, which lasts
from eternity to eternity, and to the height of which, when the hour
shall have come, that is to say, at the final consummation, this our
earthly time, in whose fetters this our world of sense is now held,
shall be raised and glorified.
The question, therefore, is properly to determine whether there exists
such an absolute opposition between time and eternity that it is
impossible for them to subsist in any mutual contact or relation, but
the one necessarily leads to the negation of the other, or whether, at
least, there is not some conceivable transition from the one to the
other. Now, in the former view, since the absolute, universally, and
most especially thinking as well as absolute willing, forms the
destructive principle in life, there lies, perhaps, the first source,
not only of false systems, but also of the metaphysical prejudices which
man’s intellect nourishes, and especially of all the deeply-rooted,
inborn, or hereditary errors of the reason. On the other hand, according
to the theory on which our present speculations are based, both time and
eternity are not incompatible with or in hostile and irreconcilable
opposition to each other. Their ideas do not mutually destroy each
other. Certain definite connecting-links and points of contact and
transition exist between them. The contrariety is not an
incomprehensibly absolute one of eternal negation, but rather a living
one, similar to the distinction between life and death, or that between
evil and good. So long as we believe in a great and irreconcilable
contrariety between time and eternity, such as at the first delusive
aspect they present themselves, we can not hope to extricate ourselves
from the labyrinth in which external things and our own internal
reflections involve the mind. This can only be effected by the idea of a
twofold time, such as it is our purpose accurately to define and bring
before you. And this notion of a twofold time arises from the difference
between the one perfect and blissful time, which is naught else than the
inner pulse of life in an overflowing eternity, without beginning and
without end, and that other time which is prisoned and fettered in this
lower world of sense, where the stern present alone is prominent, and
lords it over all else with despotic sway--the past being lost in
darkness and sunk in the night of death; while the future, now
advancing, now receding, hovers like a shadow, in an obscure,
glimmering, and deceptive twilight, until the now brilliant present
passes away, and in its turn becomes as nothing, being buried in the
darkness of death, which shrouds all past and former existence. And as
there is a twofold time, so also may we, in relation to God and the
world, distinguish a twofold eternity. Let us, for this purpose,
contemplate the whole creation, including not only this visible world
of sense, but also the invisible world of spirits, either in its
original perfection, which it possessed when it issued unsullied from
the hand of the Creator, or even in that state of perfection, which,
glorified and perfected, and become imperishable, it is to enjoy when
the course of earthly time shall have run out, and when there shall be
no more death.
Now, relatively to either its original perfection or that to which it is
finally to be restored, we can not better designate the universe than by
terming it the created, while God is the uncreated eternity. The world,
however, according to what we know of it from revelation, is not
absolutely such. It is eternal only from one point of view, that,
namely, which looks forward to its everlasting, continuous, and blessed
duration, and not from that of its first origin. For the world (if it
was, as we are taught, created out of nothing) had a beginning--a
precise beginning--which took place in time. And this fact, again,
suggests and confirms the remark how the idea of time, which is
unquestionably involved in that of the beginning of the universe, is not
absolutely excluded from the essence and operations of the Godhead, at
least of the living and personal God of revelation. On this point,
however, I would wish to say no more than this: here is the decisive
point--two distinct, opposite, or diverging paths lie before us, and man
must choose between them. The clear-seeing spirit, which, in its
sentiments, thoughts, and views of life, would be in accordance with
itself, and would act consistently to them, must in any case take one or
the other. Either there is a living God, full of love, even such a one
as love seeks and yearns after, to whom faith clings, and in whom all
our hopes are centered (and such is the personal God of revelation), and
on this hypothesis the world is not God, but is distinct from him,
having had a beginning, and being created out of nothing; or there is
only one supreme form of existence, and the world is eternal, and not
distinct from God; there is absolutely but one, and this eternal one
comprehends all, and is itself all in all; so that there is nowhere any
real and essential distinction; and even that which is alleged to exist
between evil and good is only a delusion of a narrow-minded system of
ethics, or of conventional prejudices, that man allows to pass as such,
and holds externally in honor, but which intrinsically, and as tested by
the rigor of science, has no real and substantial import. Now, the
necessity of this choice and determination presses urgently upon our own
time, which stands midway between two worlds. Generally it is between
these two paths alone that the decision is to be made, since all the
doubts and opinions which branch off between them are nothing more than
the still unsettled oscillations, assuming in appearance a fixed
scientific shape, or a vague mixture of narrow and imperfect views,
which are just as far from having taken any precise form or
determination. But the choice between them must be perfectly free. No
one’s conviction can be forced to adopt either one or the other. For
that which is to constitute the inmost sentiment and thought of a man,
or the first, last, and deepest foundation of all his sentiments, does
not admit of being imposed upon him extrinsically as the condition of
controversial defeat, without his own internal consent and agreement. It
can not enforce his assent as easily as a mere process of calculation.
But now, if eternity is nothing else but time, vitally full, illimitably
perfect, and blissfully complete, who, we may ask, first of all caused
or produced this earthly, fettered, and fragmentary time, which seems
but the great bond-chain of the whole world of sense--and what, then, is
this time itself? I might answer this latter question by the words of
the poet, that it “is out of joint.”[66] For although originally
employed of a particular period of history, they admit, I think, of a
more extensive and universal signification, and possess an entirely
metaphysical application. And what, in short, is metaphysics, or what do
we name metaphysical, but that which transcends our ordinary nature and
the earthly and limited world of sense? And man can not abandon or get
rid of all hopes, all prospects of eternity, in short, the thoughts
which, partly, at least, outrun these narrow limits. For if so, he must
at the same time be willing to cease to be a man, in the full, and true,
and highest sense of the word. Consequently, as often as he adventures a
bolder flight of thought and inquiry into that elevated region, then his
words and phrases must also transcend the familiar sense and ordinary
use of language.
I would not, however, be understood as asserting that the language of
philosophy, in its descriptions of supersensuous things and ideas,
should anxiously avoid all living expression and every thing lifelike
(+). For, in strict rigor this is neither possible nor practicable, and
in any case would lead to a mere abstract nothingness. On the contrary,
the more vivid, the more striking, and apparently startling, the more
boldly figurative and rare are the terms or forms of expression
employed, the more pertinently and clearly do they often convey our
meaning, and the more happily chosen and to the point do they appear.
In proof and confirmation of this assertion, I would appeal to the
language of Holy Writ. Most, if not all its descriptions of matters
belonging to the invisible world, and the supersensuous regions of
thought, or metaphysical subjects, if we could still recall or still
experience the first fresh impression, would at once be confessed to be
the boldest that language has ever ventured upon. Long familiarity,
however, has made them seem ordinary and tame. And it is necessary to
contemplate them long and intensely, if we would revive their original
fullness and peculiar significancy. In a very recent epoch of science,
there prevailed a somewhat similar view of this subject. In Lessing
especially it is traceable. For, as often as he entered this region of
inquiry, he for the most part designedly employed a free and bold style
of language, similar to that which occasionally I have attempted myself
to adopt. Now, if it be allowable in this way to apply to time poetical
phrases, similar to the one above quoted of “Time out of joint,” giving
them at the same time a more universal and entirely metaphysical sense,
I would, in the further consideration of the whole question as to time,
advance the following remarks.
If eternity is essentially nothing else than the fullness of time, which
consequently is in itself complete and blissful, then the time which is
“out of joint,” the deranged and distracted time of sense, is naught but
eternity fallen or brought into a state of disorder. Here, then, the
further question presents itself, “Who can have plunged it into
disorder, and perpetrated this jarring interference with the primeval
harmony, disturbing the inner pulse of the world’s universal life, which
was originally so sound?” According to one of these two views which I so
lately spoke of as lying before men to choose between, all this is but a
deception--a mere illusion, produced by the imperfection of our senses.
Even pain and misfortune, equally with what is called evil, exist only
for the poetical purpose of creating, by the skill and spirit with which
they are treated, transient, overpowering impressions, which are
ultimately to give place to more elevating emotions. But in the other
view, which is here adopted as our fundamental conviction, the answer is
easily found. Or, rather, it is one long since given, and generally
known. Since all the elementary forces and original powers in creation
can only be regarded as spiritual, therefore the power or might which
threw both time and existence, universal life and the whole world, into
disorder, could have been no other than the spirit of absolute negation
which rose in revolt against the primary source both of itself and of
all. The power and influence of this spirit of eternal contradiction and
endless destruction, which in another place I designated the inventor of
death, can not be rightly deemed either slight or insignificant, if he
be with justice entitled “the Prince and Ruler of this world.” By this
term we can not understand any so-called “spirit of the age.” Not, at
least, in the ordinary sense of the term, in which it signifies the
spirit which has originally arisen out of the age itself, and in its
sphere brilliantly predominant, but which at the same time transcends in
some way that sphere, either blending itself with some equally great, if
not still more exalted, past, or with some new and future era. For with
all its excellence of greatness, it is still perhaps partial and narrow
in its views; and in any case, so soon as the particular age shall be
over, it too will finally pass away and decline with it. It is, rather,
the very spirit that originally introduced the whole of that disjointed
time. It is, therefore, the author of this fallacious world of
sense--the supreme ruler and universal king of all the several periods
and eras which belong to it, and are so linked together, that as one
succeeds and passes into the other, all of them in succession are
finally absorbed in the general abyss of eternal nothingness.
Consequently is it the supreme lord; all these so-called spirits of the
times which are derived from the primary and supreme spirit of the age,
being, so to speak, his absolute subjects and ministers. Now, the belief
in such a spiritual power of evil, and even the idea of it, simply and
nakedly as in other times it is presented to us, is almost wholly lost
sight of in the present day. The expressions of a former faith for what
it is now the fashion to call “the spirit of the age” have become
antiquated, and make but little impression, being for the most part
scarcely even regarded, or else ingeniously explained away, if not
derided from the height of a superior enlightenment. Amid the killing
monotony of a sleepy skepticism into which men’s views of the world and
things had fallen, and as contrasted with a philosophy, neutral from its
origin, and finally indifferent to every thing, the celebrated English
author of _Cain_ makes a gratifying exception by his vigorous and vivid
language, giving, at least honor where honor is due, and calling things
by their right names. Accordingly, he paints to the life the king of the
spirits of the everlasting abyss and the ruler of this world, in all his
majesty of darkness, so that we often wonder whence he could have
derived all the tints and touches of truth, and are almost tempted to
ask whether this striking portrait, thus executed with a genius and
fidelity surpassing all similar poetical delineations, does not owe much
if not all its truth to a personal acquaintance.
But, however, this deadly spirit of absolute negation, though the name
be now scarcely ever heard except in poetry, has not therefore lost, as
yet, his dominion over this world of time and the science thereof. On
the contrary, in the baseless and arbitrary systems which the philosophy
of the day propounds, he is acknowledged more than ever, though it be
with an unconscious reverence. As the idol of absolute rationalism, most
highly is he lauded, not to say deified. It is, in fact, remarkable
that, in many of the most extreme systems of absolute reason, the whole
section of theology is exclusively confined to the negative view of the
divine truth. Almost the whole of it, if only a few slight changes be
made in the more important phrases, may far more consistently apply to
the primal antagonist of eternal love and of revelation, than to that
beneficent Being himself.
And even in those systems of rationalism which are less spiritually
perverse and less extravagant, but still equally subversive of a right
knowledge of the highest truths, the divine nature is frequently if not
always confounded with that nothing out of which He has created the
world. Or, perhaps, in some more tragic view of the universe, that rigid
law of time which operates on the world of sense, and which gives it up
as a prey to misery, is, at least poetically, deified as the blind fate
of an iron necessity. Now, if eternity is in itself and originally
nothing more than the living, full, and essential time, which is still
invisible(+), and if our earthly shackled and fettered time of sense is
but an eternity “out of joint,” or fallen a prey to disorder, it is
easily conceivable that the two do not stand apart and have no mutual
contact. On this hypothesis they may possess many a common point of
transition from one sphere into the other. At least such a point of
transition is in general experience afforded us by death, which is
mostly looked upon and regarded in this light. Trivial as may sound the
sentiment so commonly uttered of the dead, that they have changed time
for eternity, still we can not well question the correctness of the
notion on which the expression is founded. Now, these questions about
time and eternity nearly concern, and in many ways interest, every
thoughtful mind, not only by their connection with life and death, but
generally with all existence and consciousness. I can not, therefore,
approve of the wish to exclude them entirely from the philosophy of
life, as lying beyond the ordinary range of the practical intellect,
and, therefore, with all similar matters of unprofitable disputation, to
be abandoned to the theologian and the student. On the contrary, I have
felt it to be most agreeable to the position which I have taken up, and
the view which it opens out, to hazard at least an experiment, and to
try whether it be not possible to express these subjects, and to set
them forth in language at once appropriate and generally intelligible.
Religious people often speak of death, sometimes generally as a
“return,” at others with a further addition as “a return home.” Such
modes of speaking, I admit, merely as such, and especially when they are
uttered as so many empty phrases, unaccompanied with real feeling, and
repeated without discrimination, in season and out of season, are not,
perhaps, calculated to make a very deep impression. Still a very
beautiful but grave meaning is, nevertheless, contained in them, and one
which throws out very strongly the purely spiritual aspect of the
matter. But here, then, a difficulty immediately presents itself. The
question arises, how can we be said to go back or return to a place
where, in fact, we never were before, or how can that be rightly called
our home, which in our present life we first seek, and are to find and
learn to consider as such. In short, the difficulty recurs in the same
manner as the somewhat similar questions which are involved by Plato’s
notion of an _anamnesis_, so long as it is conceived, not (as we would
understand it) as a recollection of eternity, but quite literally as
that of a former state of things. But if, agreeably to a vivid
conception of time and eternity, a less absolute distinction prevails
between these two ideas, and many points of contact and transition from
one to the other may be found, of which death is one, all the difficulty
is removed, and every thing in our view and hypothesis becomes easily
intelligible and self-evident. It is, at least, one aspect of death, and
a cheerful one too, which exhibits it as a transition from time into
eternity, or out of a fettered and distracted time into that which is
true, perfect, and blissful. In truth, however, much more is involved
herein. For death, in general, is no simple event, but a very
complicated phenomenon. No doubt that feature which stands out most
fearfully in the whole event, throwing into the shade and obscuring its
other higher and more spiritual elements, is the sufferings of disease,
which are often so agonizing--the pang of dissolving and decaying
organization in the last awful struggle of nature, as it tears itself so
reluctantly from life. But even in the midst of all this, occasionally,
at least, another and a better state intervenes. A cessation of all
physical pain seems suddenly to occur, and to be followed by an almost
joyous, or, at least, composed state, which may be often regarded as the
harbinger of approaching dissolution. Medical experience, moreover, has
recorded many special cases (the explanation of which, however, I leave
to others) of idiotcy and madness, which had arisen either from sad
defects and derangement of the thinking faculty, suddenly disappearing
at the approach of death, and of the full, perfect consciousness
returning with extraordinary clearness in the few brief moments which
precede the instant of decease. There is yet another remarkable element
or feeling in death; and it is one totally independent of the organic
pain of dissolution in its various modifications, or the striking
phenomena which may be observed in individual cases. I allude to the
feeling which shrinks at the thought of the decisive transition and
forcible passage into an entirely new sphere, which, however, must not
be confounded with an unmanly fear of death. In many instances, too, it
has no connection with any troubled thoughts or anxious cares for near
and dear ones to be left behind, nor yet with any inward doubts of a
restless and disturbed conscience. By no such feelings alone by
themselves can it be interpreted or explained. All this is entirely
distinct from that which I have at present in my mind, and which may
very simply be termed a slight mental shrinking before a wholly unknown
state of being, which is, at least, natural to all men, and affects
every one, more or less, if the change comes upon them in the full
possession of their faculties. But in those whose contemplations have
long been directed to this closing event of life--in whom a profound and
deep acquaintance with the thought of eternity, and the sublime
enlightenment of a confiding faith, have taken the place of a dark
uncertainty, and who also, between the last struggle of organic life and
the final pang of dissolution, enjoy for a brief interval the last
quickening breath of the departing energy of nature, there death is seen
in its bright aspect. For such it unquestionably does possess. How
often, on the very countenance of the departed, does a calm and
beautiful death like this leave its touching trace behind! How often do
we see with astonishment a sweet smile, like that of a sleeping child,
lingering on the well-known face, but in whose very sweetness is mingled
a slight though scarce perceptible trace of some faint recollection of
previous suffering. He who has once seen some dear friend or
acquaintance so die, or beheld the beloved countenance after such a
death, will assuredly cherish forever the remembrance of this soothing
expression. Nothing less than a blissful presentiment of eternity seems
to have preceded or impressed itself on the dying features, breaking
through the shackles of time before its full course was ended. And it is
only in this light that I have mentioned it as being one of the points
of contact or moments of transition which facts clearly establish
between time and eternity, since this final crisis of our consciousness
forms an important element for the psychological and perfect
comprehension of the human intellect and its development.
But even during life itself there also occur many phenomena and
occasions in which, for the brief continuance at least of such moments
of intense existence, the limits of time seem to be broken through or
removed. To this class belong those brief intervals of rapture which are
enjoyed in the midst of deep and earnest devotion--or of proper ecstasy,
which, so far as it is genuine and real, we can not but consider as an
interval of eternity in the midst of time, or as a fleeting glance into
the higher world of full and unchecked spiritual life. Even the inward
worldless prayer, in so far as it is preceded by a real emotion of the
heart, profoundly agitating its inmost feelings, is, as it were, a drop
of eternity falling through time into the soul. Genuine ecstasy, in so
far as it is real and actual, is often on its organic side accompanied
by a beginning, which indeed is little more than the appearance, though
a highly delusive feeling, of dying away, which precedes the higher
gleam or echo from the world beyond the grave. Such phenomena, however,
require attentive examination before we can draw from them any precise
inference. The general idea of them may be distinctly traced in the
human consciousness. The recognition of their existence is therefore
essential to a full knowledge of the latter. It is, however, often very
difficult to form a judgment of individual instances, which are often
more or less doubtful. On this account it will be sufficient in this
place if, without entering deeply into these necessary distinctions and
manifold doubts to which all of such phenomena are liable, we simply
notice the fact, as forming one of the most intimate points of
association at which time and eternity come in contact and mutually
intermingle.
Of such points several still remain to be noticed. One of the least
astonishing, and one which in its operation on the soul is no less
universal and beneficial than it is generally intelligible, is that
which is found in true art and the higher kind of poetry. For here also,
even beneath the earthly shell of sensuous phenomenon and the temporal
incidents of figurative poetry, the eternal brightens over all. And it
is on this mighty influence of the eternal, which gleams through its
external investiture of ornament, that the exalted dignity and
distinctive charm of true art and the higher branches of poetry depends.
Even here, however, as elsewhere, a strict distinction must be made
between the true gold and the worthless æsthetical tinsel and mere
mannerism of fashion. For such a distinction is necessary in every case
where the heavenly and eternal comes into close contact with the earthly
and transitory.
That recollection of eternal love, which is implanted, communicated, or
innate in the human mind, and which here swells out from its hidden
depth (and this is the true original subject-matter of Plato’s notion of
the _anamnesis_, which, as I have endeavored to show, thus cleared from
all foreign admixture and corrupting additions, is quite
unexceptionable), is not merely a principle of the higher life. Rather
is it one of the great vital arteries of true poetry and art, of which,
however, there are many others equally essential and no less rich and
prolific. Such, for instance, is the longing after the infinite, whose
hopes and aspirations are directed more to the future than is the case
with that remembrance of eternal love, which, as such, clings more
closely to the past, and is often also lost and absorbed in the historic
perception of some actual past. On the other hand, the true inspiration,
both in art and in life, is exclusively devoted to a something divine in
the present, which may be either real or what is at least held to be
such, being most intimately bound up with a feeling of such a divine
presence, and with a belief therein. Thus, then, these three forms of
the highest sentiment in man’s nature, as it yearns after the infinite
or swells forth from the eternal source, and longs to receive the
divine, are in their different tendencies tied again, not unnaturally,
to the three times, or rather, the different categories of our
earthly-divided time.
The recollection of eternal love, as far as regards its influence on
art, is in truth nothing but a feeling or an inborn idea, if some will
so call it. And yet its influence may be universal, and extend itself
over the whole field of man’s consciousness. For all other sentiments of
the inner man, all the thoughts, conceptions, and ideas of the thinker,
and even all the images, shapes, and forms--in short, the whole ideal of
the artist--are now forthwith imbued with this one fundamental feeling
of eternal love, being, as it were, bathed in a sea or stream of higher
life, spiritually refined, and exalted and transformed into a purer and
higher degree of beauty and perfection. And thus it is that this ideal
view of the world becomes at once conceivable and perfectly clear, to
all at least who can enter into and sympathize with Platonic sentiments
and ideas, and especially in its close relation to science and the
plastic arts. And thus, understood in this correct sense, within its
proper limits, and in that place of the human consciousness to which it
really belongs, may well be admitted, and even extended to a wider
application.
(+) In order, however, to be able to assign their fitting place in the
whole consciousness to those other two exalted feelings which are
implanted in man’s breast as so many suggesters of eternity, the
longing, viz., after infinity, and a vitally energetic enthusiasm, it
will be necessary still further to prosecute and complete our
psychological review, so as to take in the whole range of faculties
belonging to it, and to exhibit their mutual relations.
In my sketchy outline of man’s spiritual life and consciousness, I set
out, you will remember, with the four elementary faculties,
understanding and will, reason and fancy, as the four opposite and
extreme poles of the inner world. As conscience and memory presented
themselves to our consideration in the progress of our inquiries, they
were characterized as mediate and collateral faculties of the reason,
since the conscience stands midway between reason and will, and the
memory between reason and understanding. In a similar way I would now
attempt to explain man’s instincts, especially in that peculiar form in
which they belong only to man, as distinct from the brutes, and
subsequently become passions. Afterward I shall proceed to explain why,
in those instances when they appear to be exaggerated into passions,
they must, to preserve analogy with the view hitherto maintained, be
held to be nothing else than movements of the will, or as a will which
has yielded itself to the illimitable range of fancy, and thereby lost
its inner equilibrium, and finally all liberty, or at least its actual
exercise. This intermediate position of the instincts between will and
fancy, and the fatal and pernicious influence which both these
fundamental powers exert in that height of passionateness and sensuality
which constitutes them faults of character, are also especially manifest
in what are properly the natural instincts, as enjoyed by man in common
with the brutes, and the evil of which arises always, or at least
principally, from their excessive indulgence and undue excitement. It is
often possible for this excess to reach such a height, and to become so
deadly injurious, as to destroy the health, corrupt the whole soul, and
to debase the mind to such a degree that it is felt to be almost
injustice to compare such a human being, thus degraded by his own fault,
with the nobler animals, whose simple instincts and their gratification
alternate almost as regularly as day and night or the rising and setting
of the stars in heaven. In such cases, however, we may easily discover
what was the first cause of such aberrations.
In the better case, at least, the corruption, _i.e._, of what was
previously a noble disposition, it is invariably, in the first instance,
some false charm of fancy or imagination which has overmastered the mind
with magical power, and subsequently carried it away captive to its
will. In every case, however, it is some perverted apprehension, or
illusory power of the infinite, which causes a man who has once fallen a
prey to any strong passion to devote all his energies, thoughts, and
feelings to the one object, or to surrender himself, heart and soul, to
the despotic tyranny of some ruling habit or favorite pursuit. How else
could there ever have been any talk of the delusions of fancy, which,
however, exercise so wide and fatal an influence on human life, and
generally in the world, unless a distorted fancy had lent a hand and
co-operated therein? Even such emotions and impulses as fear and anger,
which are not directed merely to the gratification of the wants of
nature, but to self-preservation and defense, and which, consequently,
belong equally to the brutes--these also admit of being carried, by
unrestrained indulgence, to the height of passionateness. This is
especially the case with anger. Wherever long indulgence has made it a
ruling habit, and if, moreover, it is associated with envy, hatred, and
revenge (which, indeed, are not properly natural instincts, and in this
form can scarcely be ascribed to the brutes, but rather faults of
character in a demoralized rational being), its outbreaks of passion are
fearfully violent. Under their combined influence the wild outbreaks of
man’s evil principle often run into fury and madness. But even in
avarice itself, it is also some false and strangely-perverted charm of
fancy, which in its highest degree approximates very closely to the
nature of a fixed idea, that furnishes the first ground and deepest root
of this unblessed passion for the earthly mammon. And here, again, in
this insatiable love of riches, we meet with a false force of the
infinite, and one which can never be satisfied.
A further ethical investigation into these erring instincts does not lie
within my present limits. The context of our psychological inquiries
only brought them before us for a limited consideration, with a view to
determine the position they occupy in the whole consciousness. And here,
as in my former instances of comparative psychology, I do not wish to
cast my glance downward longer than is necessary, but rather, as quickly
as possible, to raise it upward again. In the present case this can
easily be done. For, for our present purpose, the simple remark will
suffice, that the power of infinity in itself, and the pursuit of the
infinite, is properly natural to man, and a part of his very essence.
All that is wrong in it, and the source of all its aberrations, is
simply and entirely boundless excess. Above all, we must blame that
quality of absoluteness, which in every time and place exercises a fatal
and destructive influence, both on thought and practice, or, perhaps,
the fault may be laid to a false direction of this pursuit toward the
sensible and material objects of this earthly and transitory existence,
which, for the most part, are utterly unworthy of it. For man’s natural
longing after the infinite, even as it still shows itself in his
passions and failings, can not, wherever it is still genuine, be
satisfied by any earthly object, or sensual gratification, or external
possession.
When, however, this pursuit, keeping itself free from all delusions of
sense, and from the fettering shackles of earthly passion, really
directs its endeavors toward the infinite, and only to what is truly
such, then can it never rest or be stationary. Ever advancing, step by
step, it must always seek to rise higher and higher. And this pure
feeling of endless longing forms, with the recollection of eternal love,
the heavenward-bearing wings on which the soul raises itself upward to
the divine. This, indeed, has been felt and perceived by Platonic
thinkers in all ages. From the earlier centuries to the present many a
deeply-significant sentence might easily be selected and quoted on the
idea of this longing after the infinite. And this testimony is not
confined merely to the comparatively modern philosophy of Europe and the
West. The sacred writings, also, of the Hebrews contain a beautiful
sentence on this head. Thus a certain prophet, as endowed with more than
ordinary power, as chosen for a high and divine destination, or mission,
is expressly called a man of longing [desires],[67] as by a title
peculiarly suited to him, and most clearly indicating the natural
preparation for all higher spiritual and divine avocations. And, in a
sense borrowed from, if not exactly identical with, the above, a
somewhat similar title has been given to the richest and profoundest of
his works by a French philosopher of our own days, to whom, while I can
not adopt unconditionally all his principles and sentiments, I must
concede the highest praise for the zeal with which, in all his writings,
he has maintained and promulgated a high and lofty tone, both in
intellectual and divine things, and that, too, in the midst of
revolutionary times, when the prevailing tone of thinking was decidedly
material, and, indeed, had assumed a thoroughly demoralizing and
atheistic tendency. At a former epoch, now more than twenty years ago,
when I attempted, in French, to set forth to a friendly audience the
principles of the Philosophy of Life, so far as I at that time
comprehended it, I thought that it was indispensable to make this pure
idea of an exalted longing the primary position from which the whole
view of life must be developed. This, however, was too exclusive, and,
for that reason, unsatisfactory. It is, therefore, my present wish to
embrace all higher elements of conscience, however manifold they may be,
and however different in kind they may appear, and, taking a
comprehensive view of them, to unite them in a whole.
Even for poetry and art there is more than one such primary fountain or
vital artery of higher sentiment. If, then, the recollection of eternal
love must be recognized as one of these, who can well doubt that the
pure longing after the infinite, which holds so deep and firm a root in
man’s bosom, also forms another? In poetry, the former is distinctly
traceable under the form of elegy--at least in the first simple poesy of
fancy’s earliest and youthful days. It sounds forth here a mournful
recollection of a faded world of gods and heroes--as the echoing plaint
for the loss of man’s original, celestial state, and paradisaical
innocence, or, lastly, in a still more general and higher sense, as the
faint and dying notes of the happy infancy of the whole creation, ere
yet the spiritual world had been divided by dissension, and before the
first outbreak of evil, and the consequent misery of nature. Viewing it
in this light, and designating poetry in general analogically to an
expression which we before made use of, we may term poetry the mind’s
transcendent recollection of the eternal. For the first and most ancient
poetry, as the common memory of the human race--its higher organ of
remembrance--passes on from century to century, and from nation to
nation; and though ever dressing itself in the changing fashion of the
day, yet, through all time, it refers us back to the primary and
eternal.
Music, on the other hand, is eminently an art of longing. To this it
owes all its ravishing enchantments--its magic and irresistible charms.
In music, however, as in every other form of art, the higher and the
earthly--the soul, as it were, and the body--the heavenly longing and
the terrestrial are often blended together in the same note and tone, so
as scarcely to be discriminated. It is this mingling of feelings and
emotions--where from amid the half-unconscious earthly longing a higher
and more heavenly aspiration gleams out, that in youth, when man’s
sensibility is first developed and expanded, gives to newly-waking love
its peculiar magic charm, the inner grace of the youthful soul
contributing as much if not more than even the bloom of corporeal
beauty. The question, indeed, whether in this youthful longing really a
higher love of eternal duration, as an inner light, which is continually
purifying and perfecting itself, be inclosed within the earthly
veil--whether this first love of youth be even the true love, or whether
all may have been nothing more than the transient and flickering flame
of a delusion--this question can be alone determined from its results;
in other words, by the life which proceeds and follows from it. It must
be proved by the unwavering truth and fidelity--I might almost say, the
inward truth of the heart and the outward character of the whole life;
and, in short, of a higher love in its every species, whether human or
divine.
Now this longing holds a most important place in man. Not only is it the
crisis of transition from childish, shall we say consciousness or
unconsciousness, into a more mature development--not only is it the
threshold under which youthful expectation enters on a fuller and more
perfect life; but also still surviving uninterruptedly to the end, it
ever remains the first, strongest, and purest impulse of the inner man.
The light of its never-dying flame, growing purer and stronger, lights
him on his way to a higher and better existence. It seems, therefore,
not out of place to add here the remark, how deeply hope, which is so
closely associated with this longing aspiration, is interwoven into the
very being of man, so as almost to form the characteristic peculiarity
of his inner life and whole state.
The lost spirits, we are told, “believe and tremble.”[68] Love, too, is
the essential property of God, and even his very essence, and in a
certain sense, also, it is common to all beings created by eternal love.
Even in the hidden veins of life, through all animated nature, beats
this pulse of universal love. Hope, however, can not be ascribed to God,
for in Him all is full and perfect. Nature can only sigh and bemoan
itself; and even though it be not hopelessly wretched, yet, properly, it
can not hope for aught, by its own power, at least. To man, above all
other created beings, belongs the prerogative of hope. We might almost
call him an immortal spirit, subjected to the condition of hope. And so,
before the rest of creation, he is destined and chosen to be the
evangelist of divine hope.
As the third of the inner life-springs of true art and higher poetry, I
spoke of a true enthusiasm and inspired feeling of the divine. Now,
among the various arts, I would especially appropriate this to the
plastic art--in that widest and justest sense of the term, in which it
comprises, also, the higher architecture. For, in enthusiasm and
inspiration, the divinity with which it is imbued is not viewed and
contemplated in the remote distance either of the past or the future. It
is embraced at once as something actual and present. And this holds good
both of the enthusiasm of art, and also of that which, in moral and
political life, often creates for itself an epoch, shaping and bringing
forth whatever is truly new and original. Now, the divine in beauty must
be actually present to the mind, at least, of the artist. It must have
stood vividly before his mental eye before it could have come forth in
outward and visible form. Since universally the perfection of art
depends on some antagonism and the artist’s triumph over it, it is
self-evident that even here the most exalted enthusiasm must be
associated with a thoughtful sagacity and persevering steadiness of
execution, if any great and perfect work is to be produced. Moreover, it
can scarcely be necessary to remind you that the arts, even though,
perhaps, in each of them there is a predominance of some peculiar kind
of higher feeling, or some spirit of higher life swells out in it, are
not, therefore, rigidly limited on all sides and irrevocably confined
within these narrow limits. On the contrary, one branch of art often
passes over into the domain of another. And this interference is not
always a misconception, owing chiefly to some confusion of essential
matters, and, therefore, in the highest degree erroneous and
prejudicial. Poetry, especially, often springs up indigenous in other
domains of art, being the most universal of all. And if in poetry itself
those ancient and primitive poems or epic songs of sublime recollections
occupy the first place, who, therefore, would exclude from it the deep,
inner, ardent longing--the oracular faculty of divination for exalted
love and eternal hope, with all its music of the feelings, forming, as
it does, the spiritual contents, the animating principle and distinctive
essence of the lyrical art? Who, too, would dare to censure poetry,
because, striving to give another and a newer expression to all that, in
these divine remembrances and longing anticipations, constitutes its
inmost soul, it attempts, by dramatic representation, to portray the
essential features of its inmost being, with all the vivid reality and
distinct completeness of the present? For does it not, in this respect,
approximate, so far, at least, to the plastic arts, and begin to assume
many points of affinity with them?
It is, however, necessary to guard here against a possible
misunderstanding. Not without good cause, I believe, before all things
is the rigid discrimination insisted on which must separate true poetry
from a spurious semblance. Poetry which condescends to minister either
to the passions or to fashion, or even to prose, or any mere prosaic
ends, can not deserve the name. But it is another thing when the poet
works his poetical view of things (and this is that which constitutes
the poet, and not the mere outward form of poetry alone) into the
prosaic reality of some present time, or some historical subject. So,
too, is it when in some consistent and artistic imitation of life he
takes for his theme the maze of human passions, by no means for the
purpose of prolonging it, and still less of inflaming it, but rather
because he clearly sees through its complications, to unfold and
disentangle them. This we might call--employing a term belonging to the
mathematical sciences, though in a different but still analogous
sense--mixed or applied poetry; and to this class belong many of the
highest productions of art in different ages and nations.
The different arts, or, rather, the different directions of one and the
same art, in the several epochs and ages of the world, or among nations
variously divided by language and manners, as well as by the style and
character of their thought and intellect, may be considered as merely so
many varying dialects of one and the same language, which have a common
origin and are nearly related. For they possess a common meaning, which,
interpreted by a profound and noble perception of art, will be found to
pervade all centuries and all people, uniting and enchaining them all by
this soul-binding tie of a loving and love-kindled fancy. These eternal
and fundamental feelings of the human breast, the remembrance of
eternity, an innate longing and high-soaring aspiration, stand in the
most intimate connection with each other, even though we can not take a
full survey of it, and often feel it profoundly rather than are able
perfectly to explain it. They are like so many stem-words and radical
syllables, and form together, as it were, one common language. And if,
as I before remarked, we should in vain seek for that common and
original language, from which all those now spoken on the face of the
earth can be derived, both ethnographically and geologically, may we not
still find in art a universal language intelligible to all men? Is not
this language (as I may term it) thus enveloped in the garb of art,
through which, however, a profound significance gleams brightly forth,
an original language of a higher and intellectual order, and at the same
time intimately akin with our own nature? Do not its echoes, however
faint and broken, when reawakened by true art and sublime poetry, strike
a chord of unison in every human breast?