“Feeling is every thing,” I would again repeat; in words only does there
lie a possibility of misconception. When philosophy sets out from the
false semblance of necessary thought, it must always have a similar
result. It can not extricate itself from its own subtile web of
scientific delusion. Abstract phrases, _i.e._, words deprived of their
living significance (if ever they possessed any) and reduced to empty,
lifeless formulæ, are easily found, or, rather, have long since been
found, for this seeming knowledge, which as such does, in truth, remain
ever identical with itself.[73] And if, from time to time, it changes
its expressions and assumes quite a different terminology, this is only
done for the sake of appearing new, whereas fundamentally it is still
the old error which continues to be propagated in a changed form and
dress. Sometimes, no doubt, it is done with an honest intention, under
the persuasion that truth and science will, perhaps, in the new magical
form be more easily seized and comprehended than was possible in the old
one, whose unintelligible obscurity and intricacies were deeply felt,
and which it is hoped are avoided in the somewhat altered arrangement of
the ideas. But the unintelligible obscurity lies, not in the words and
phrases or the terminology, however strange and barbarous the latter may
sound. It arises entirely from a defective point of view, and the
perversion of thought involved in the very theory of identity; and no
phraseology or skill of composition, however unparalleled, will ever be
able totally to remove it. Quite otherwise is it when philosophy sets
out from the feeling of that which it desires, and which from the very
first it has propounded and sought as its proper object. In this case
the difficulty does not lie in the thing itself, or in the view on which
it is based. For the latter, inasmuch as it results from life itself,
and man’s inmost feelings and experiences, is as obvious and
intelligible as the visible shape and phenomenon and as the pure
consciousness of life itself. At least it is sufficiently clear for all
the purposes of life, and sufficiently intelligible for the kindred
feelings on which it rests. But in this, as in every other case of
profound internal emotion, it is extremely difficult to find the very
right word for it, the exact appropriate term which happily seizes and
vividly expresses its essential character. Accordingly, in
philosophy--so long, at least, as it proceeds from this fundamental
principle of life and a living feeling--I think it best not to shackle
our thoughts and notions by the fetters of a rigidly-fixed and
unchangeable terminology. For such sciences as are distinctly limited to
a particular sphere, this method may be profitable and salutary. Indeed,
it may not only appear but actually be indispensable. But in the present
case it would be inappropriate. We must seek, on the contrary, the
greatest possible variety of expression, availing ourselves of all the
riches of language in the copious diversity of scientific, and even of
poetical and figurative diction, and not refusing to borrow the terms of
society or any sphere of life. For our first endeavor must be to keep
our exposition vivid throughout. Continually advancing with a living
movement, we ought to avoid, above all things, that propensity to using
stiff and dead formularies, which almost seems to be inborn and
hereditary in rational science. For as the living philosophy is a higher
and clearer consciousness, or self-conscious knowledge--a sort of second
consciousness within the ordinary one--it requires for its indication
and exposition, as it were, a language within language; only the latter
can never be a system of lifeless formulæ, but must even be in the
highest degree vivid and flexible. The philosophy of life may, in short,
borrow its terms from every sphere, but principally from life itself;
and even, the fugitive terms and evanescent forms of conversational
language will often supply it with the happiest and most pertinent modes
of expression. Such, too, it may occasionally borrow from all the
subordinate sciences. Even the obsolete and cumbrous terminology--the
barbarous school phrases of a recent German philosophy--might furnish
many a valuable contribution to that rich copiousness of expression
which is indispensable to the philosophy of life. An occasional phrase
or term borrowed from this source, but differently applied, or employed
in quite a new sense--and thereby for the time rendered intelligible,
may often serve to express most happily and most pertinently what
before seemed to be almost inexpressible and to elude all the powers of
language.
But, above all things, we must remember that its exposition must not be
a mere dead framework of fixed terms--a system of empty formularies.
This is a point which appears to me to be most intimately connected and
mixed up with the very essence and spirit of scientific truth. On this
point my feelings are so strong, that if, in that attempt which for some
years I have been making to give a new development of philosophy, I
could consider it allowable to adopt the course which has so often been
followed in German literature and its several school-systems, of
detaching some single notion from its general connection, in order more
rapidly to gain for it, like small coin, a wider circulation, even
though by so doing its peculiar stamp of intrinsic truth is quickly
abraded and lost--if, I say, I could bring myself to adopt such a
course, I should confine myself to opposing, and using every means to
counteract, this killing of the spirit by words which in and by
themselves have no signification. If it were possible, nothing would
give me greater pleasure than to see all the old and customary terms
rejected and dropped, and new and different ones found for the same
theme.
The philosophy of life--one, _i.e._, which sets out in its speculations
from life itself and the living consciousness--neither can nor desires
to be all-comprehensive; not at least in the same sense that that
philosophy does which proceeds from the assumption of a necessary
connection of thought. It does not presumptuously suppose that it
possesses the power of measuring the whole sum of all that is
conceivable or possible, and of setting it down as an unalterable result
forever. It does not arrogate to itself such omniscience. But in one
sense the philosophy of life may justly be called an all-comprehensive
science; and that is in so far as, keeping in contact with the center of
life, and, consequently, of thought also, and of knowledge, it attempts
to seize and rightly to apprehend them. And so long as it does not lose
sight of this center, but is constantly returning to it, it may be
allowed many liberties. Around this center it may revolve in circles,
now narrower now wider, with the view of contemplating it more
advantageously, so long as it does not rest too soon in any definite
focus of thought. While it refuses to confine itself to any fixed form
of language, it may, with unshackled choice, select from the whole
range of life and thought whatever expressions appear the most
significant and happiest for indicating that fullness of feeling which
is so difficult to give words to, and which indeed can never be
adequately comprised in language. Nor in such a case will it ever be
made an objection if, in the succession of its ideas and its manifoldly
varied turnings, it avails itself of the same liberty, frequently coming
back to the same starting-point, though always presenting it in some new
light and relation. The test of the scientific correctness of a true
method of thought, which must ever be living and vivid, is an internal
one. It is independent of all such little and external matters, and it
can even exist unimpaired alongside of many apparent irregularities.
Here the case is nearly the same as with actual conversation. In both
alike, when we would express ourselves on any grave point of feeling,
and clothe it in such language as is likely to gain the concurrence of
others, or, by making it clear, to enforce it upon the general
conviction, we feel it perfectly allowable to follow whatever course may
seem most convenient. At one time we preliminarily advance some question
more or less remotely bearing upon it, or we take up a narrative or
simile which will serve to introduce it. Or, it may be, by explanation
we try to clear away some possible misconception, or, perhaps, to limit
and determine some preconceived opinion on the matter, in the hope of
removing or solving some apparent or troublesome difficulty. Some or all
of these means we freely make use of in order that the desired result of
our discourse may finally stand out clear and distinct before the mental
eye of our auditors. I shall, therefore, I think, be justified if I
follow the same course in these Lectures which it is my wish should
leave on your minds the impression of an internal dialogue. In the
seemingly rhapsodical flow of its thought I shall assume the same
liberty. Far from abstaining from episodical matters, when they suggest
themselves, I even think it essential often to introduce them; and by
frequently recurring, under many a variation of expression, to the same
leading idea, it will be my endeavor to place it in a still clearer
light. By this course, in spite of its seeming tediousness, I shall be
able ultimately, in a few simple ideas, to set the whole matter more
distinctly and intelligibly before you. And, at the same time, I trust
that the rules of internal language for the correct composition of the
whole, the right arrangement of the words (if I may so call it), that
internal grammatical order of living thought, of which I previously
spoke, will be found to be duly observed, even though in the details
many a term may appear imperfect and inadequate, and many a happier
expression might have been found. The most vivid diction, even the best
and most felicitous, falls always far short of feeling. “Feeling is
every thing”--the full center of the inner life, the point from which
philosophy sets out, and to which it invariably returns. We might call
it, if such an every-day expression would not sound and strike us as
strange, the quintessence of the consciousness. However, in its original
sense (which, in truth, arose out of a very superficial and meager view
of ancient philosophy), as used to denote the essential fifth over and
above the four opposite poles of inward existence, or the four divergent
directions of reality, which, like the mind, is also divided into
quadruple dissension, the term quintessence is not inappropriate for
this center of the consciousness. For feeling is, unquestionably, such a
fifth, both in relation to the four great fundamental energies of the
inner man, as the latter are manifested to us by experience, and also to
the four faculties of the second order, which are composed of or derived
from the former. But it is not only difficult to find an adequate
expression for the full central feelings of the inner life, but
especially to indicate accurately in words all the more delicate
perceptions, with their shades of difference and distinction, which
spring from it, and rigorously to keep them as distinct in the
expression as they were in the actual emotion. Clearly, too, and
accurately as the inner sense may distinguish between a genuine and a
spurious manifestation of the higher feelings, it is not so very easy in
language to keep them separate, or so precisely to characterize them as
to exclude every false accompaniment, and to prevent the possibility of
confounding the spurious and the genuine. How great, for instance, is
the difference between the two kinds of irony which we meet with in the
philosophical dialogue, either as introduced by the Socratic school, or
as similarly employed in modern dialectic. The one kind, overflowing
with skeptical shrewdness, makes illimitable doubt the end of its
dialogical expositions, and is that acrid and biting irony which is
based on universal negation. The other species, more amiable and
benevolent, is intimately allied to a lofty enthusiasm for the divine
and the true, being almost one with, or, at least, inseparable from it,
since it arises from a sense of its own incapacity to comprise in any
form of words the plenitude of divinity, as the spirit discerns it in
truth. And yet, notwithstanding such differences in the expressions and
turns of the dialogue, they often border close upon and nearly resemble
one another; whereas the inner purpose, the spirit, the design of the
line of thought, is often thoroughly distinct in the two cases, and
almost directly opposed. In the same way, true artistic genius and its
mere imitation are even in their external manner and productions easily
detected by the feeling. And yet we often find words fail us when we
attempt characteristically to indicate their differences, and to pass a
discriminating judgment upon them. So, too--to illustrate this topic by
the instance of wit--a forced humor, with its wearying repetitions and
mannerism, or the ceaseless straining and empty play of an artificial
wit, is very different from the overflowing fullness of genuine poetical
wit, in which the lively genius of a sportive fancy is every where
welling forth, and a profound poetical enthusiasm shines through the
coat of ever-shifting hues which its motley humor puts on. But still,
even here it is extremely difficult to explain one’s self, and to
distinguish the different impressions they make. Accordingly, in a
general judgment upon them, many mistakes and misconceptions are both
possible, and are frequently made.
Now, in the sphere of feeling, the mere counterfeit, in particular cases
at least, is frequently in its language so deceptively similar to the
true and genuine, that at last the judgment can find no other words
suitable to itself than the simple ones, “I feel it to be true and
profound,” or “I feel it to be spurious, intrinsically vain, a mere
counterfeit, and a cheat.” Again: faith, hope, and love or
charity--(those three states of the soul-springs of life--those inward
organs of the moral sense--those decisive acts and diversified forms of
manifestation of one common sentiment, directed to the good and the
divine--or by what other terms they may be expressed)--this sisterhood
of spiritual qualities often mentioned together, and, in fact, closely
allied and united, are presented to us as forming a complete scheme and
all-embracing and significant symbol of a higher life. When they are
felt and regarded in this light, they do, indeed, become such for all
higher thought and science, in so far as the latter ought to be living
and to have their foundation in life. Too frequently, however, and that
not merely in the poems of an æsthetical piety, but also in many a dull
work of edification, we see this triple symbol of a higher life degraded
into the commonplace of a morbid fancy, which, in the gratification of
an idle vanity, trifles with the best and holiest feelings of our
nature. Even here, therefore, as elsewhere, a strict separation between
the genuine and the spurious is very necessary, calling for and claiming
all our watchfulness. But the counterfeiture lies not in the tone of
solemn earnestness and depth of pathos with which men broach these
subjects, or generally touch upon them; on the contrary, the affectation
mostly announces itself in a certain external pomp of word and phrase.
But now, if this symbol of an internal religious triplet contains at the
same time (so to speak) the fundamental harmony of that higher life
which is devoted to the good and directed to the divine, then must this
apply not only to the inner but also to the outer life. In short, this
scheme of the fundamental moral ideas must be again met with in the
ordinary relations of actual life. In such a case it is clearly most
agreeable to truth to speak of this internal and better life simply and
unpretendingly in a perfectly natural manner, while a holy reverence for
what is most exalted in humanity is best testified by an intrinsic
delicacy in the mode of treating it, by the absence of all pedantry of
sublimity, or affectation of a sentimental formality.
With an especial reference to the end of science, I have, in the case of
these three elements of higher consciousness, attempted to distinguish,
strictly and precisely, the true and genuine from the spurious, which
often runs parallel to it, and the well-founded from that which rests on
no right basis of reality. In the case of faith, we drew a distinction
between that intrinsic living faith which is based on the feelings of
personal experience and love, and that counterfeited imitation of it
which is only externally assumed. In the case of hope, too, it has been
my endeavor to show that, besides a narrow-minded, egoistic, and
passionate and partisan hope, whose anticipations are seldom realized,
but if so, only to their own punishment and disgrace, there is also a
higher hope, which is both Godlike and divine. To this hope it is that
art and poetry owe the magical charm by which they win upon us. But in
actual life also it is the stay to which we must resolutely cling. For
even though she be rightly named eternal, yet at certain particular
moments and appointed historical epochs, after being long looked for in
vain, she often appears in a far different shape from that which
expectation had lent to her, and to our surprise stands forth
unexpectedly in the full majesty and splendor of final consummation.
All, then, that now remains to be done in this way is, in the case of
love (since the earthly passion is for the most part only transitory,
often confounded with the phantom of passion, and is, perhaps, totally
blind), to point to a higher and better love, which is abiding and
eternal, and, at the same time, endued both with sight and knowledge.
For such alone can be of real value for the cognition of truth, and the
right understanding of life. Such alone, in short, can contribute to the
acquisition of that science of man, and especially of the inner man,
which we are here in search of.
But now those three principles which constitute the grand harmony of
that higher intelligent feeling which leads to science and also to
religion, are at the same time, though in a less dignified relation, the
impelling motives and ruling influences of actual life. For it is almost
impossible to take one step forward in life without some feeling or
other of trust and perfect faith in the general result. All our
proceedings, in short, are based on some confident assumption or other,
even though it is one which, perhaps we can not mathematically
demonstrate, and which, when the moment for action is pressing upon us,
we are unable perfectly to analyze. And hope, too, in some shape or
form, is universally acknowledged to be the true moving impulse of our
whole existence. So, also, love of some kind, true or false--it may be
pure and lofty or mixed and sordid, if not altogether counterfeit--forms
the very sum of life and of all enjoyment of it--ay, even life itself.
An example or two, consequently, from the ordinary relations of actual
life, will enable not so much to demonstrate, indeed, as rather to
remind you of the difference which subsists even here between a trust
and confidence that is merely reasoned out by logical inference--a faith
externally assumed, and one that is the result of personal experience
and confiding love. Thus reminding you of what in this life is manifest
enough, I hope to set most distinctly before your eyes the difference
which subsists also in the higher region of faith. Let us suppose the
case of a friend dangerously ill or in a state of extreme suffering, and
we are in search of a physician able to relieve and heal him. One is
recommended to us of great reputation for extensive knowledge and of a
judgment strengthened by long experience. We are told that he has
effected remarkable cures, that he has never been known to lose a
patient by neglect, or by mistaking his disease, and that withal he is
very kind and extremely attentive. These, we are aware, are great
recommendations: but he is a perfect stranger to us; we feel a kind of
reserve and restraint toward him--as yet he has not our perfect
confidence. How very different is the case when we ourselves have
experienced all this--when we ourselves have witnessed his comprehensive
view, the number and variety of his remedies, and the penetrating glance
of genius in the moment of danger--when with grateful recollection we
feel that we must ascribe to him either the preservation of some dear
one’s life, or our own unhoped-for restoration to health and strength!
Such is the difference between a reasoning faith on rational grounds and
a personal faith based on our own experience and vivid conviction. And
in truth this simile is not remote and far-fetched. It comes very close,
indeed, to the matter itself, if only it be true that the soul is often
diseased, and that religion presents to us no inexorable lawgiver of a
rigid rule of reason, no stern judge of severe truth, but a wise
physician touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and able to save
to the uttermost.
Or let us take another case, which will go still more deeply and touch
more nearly the very root of the social relations of life. An individual
of high rank, as often happens, is about to enter into a lasting union
with one of whom he personally knows little, if any thing. In regard to
rank and fortune, of agreeableness of person and manner, as well as
accomplishments, not to say mental endowments, he has the best and
strongest assurances. But the character of youth is generally
undeveloped. Not only may all that is morally beautiful, and every great
and noble disposition, lie therein, but there may also be slumbering
within it the violent elements of passion. It is only the full
development of life and love that will expand the one or the other. The
question, then, for one contemplating such a union is, can he have such
a confidence in the character and sentiments as naturally ought to
precede a union which is to last for life. She has received an excellent
education--she enjoys a spotless reputation--her whole family stands
high in the respect and esteem of men--its friendship and society are
every where sought and valued, not merely for its rank and station, but
also for its amiable qualities. Moreover, another lady of established
character for all that is good and estimable, has the most favorable
opinion of her, honors her with her friendship, and loves her as a
younger sister, or as her own daughter. All these considerations are,
perhaps, sufficient grounds and rational warrant for an anticipatory
confidence in such a case. But how widely remote and how different a
feeling is this from that deep trusting confidence which springs up
after the union--which a wife’s conduct instils into a husband’s
heart--when, no longer captivated by mere personal charms, but almost
entirely forgetting them, he rather rejoices to notice and to
contemplate those qualities of the inmost soul, which, being most
congenial to his own tastes and habits, afford him a sure prospect of
unbroken harmony and felicity in the remainder of their wedded life.
It is extremely difficult to lay down any general rule by which in
individual cases the boundary line may be drawn between a mere reasoning
faith, resting on external considerations, and one that is founded on
personal feeling and experience of life, in its gravest and most
decisive moments. Very often a confidence that in its origin was quite
arbitrarily taken up on a cold calculation of reason, will suddenly
receive a full confirmation, and pass into that profounder assurance
which draws its strength from our own feelings and experience. And as it
is in actual life, so it is likewise in the higher sphere of faith. In
matters of religion, and of science also, that which originally was
merely a belief of the cold and abstract reason is subsequently
transformed by degrees into a profound faith, rising at last into an
abiding personal feeling, and even a deep intuition of living truth. As
a first beginning, then, and as the foundation of a better, and as the
first step of a higher and fuller development, a merely rational faith
requires to be treated with respect and judged of with all due
allowance. But when it is set up as perfect and complete in itself, and
challenging the most rigorous requisitions of science, or when it is put
forth as sufficient in itself, then our decision must be that this
self-devised rational belief is only a substitute for, and not faith
itself. For this must ever be vivid and based on an immediate personal
feeling, and on this account full of love, and indeed both founded upon
and proceeding from out of love.
Properly, the three elements of higher life are inseparable; and it is
therefore extremely difficult to propound any invariable law applying to
individual cases, as to the order in which these three grades of
internal development must or ought always to succeed one another.
Essentially they are one and indissoluble. As faith and hope are based
upon love, so is love dependent on both the former; and this is as true
of genuine love on earth as it is of that which lives in a higher
domain. If its faith be hostilely disturbed, then it loses its hope
also, and the very root of its existence. If hope is entirely cut off,
it does not, indeed, lose thereby faith itself, and its object, but it
preys on itself.
That in which all these three grades of feeling are most perfectly
united, blended, and fused together, is enthusiasm. All genuine
enthusiasm is based on some exalted and elevating faith; it is a form
and species of the higher love, and involves in itself a grand and
divine hope. And this is true of genuine patriotism, and of artistic
enthusiasm, no less than of the religious, which is most akin to
scientific, especially as the latter was understood by the ancients, and
according to the place it held in the Platonic philosophy. But though
thus combining all three, enthusiasm is yet essentially distinguished
from them. Enthusiasm is only an elevated state of the consciousness,
which, although in capacity it admits of being durable, is generally
regarded as transitory. Accordingly, it is of a passing state that the
term is generally understood. But the three degrees of feelings are
elements of a permanently exalted consciousness--of the mind generally,
in its highest state. And this is even that triune living consciousness,
restored again to perfect unity, and to fertile operation. It is even
that to which I have been, from the commencement of these Lectures,
continually alluding, and especially in the assertion that it is
necessary to pass from the existing state of the consciousness--which is
neither its fitting nor original condition--with its four parts, one of
which is mostly divorced from the rest by its undue exaggeration, and to
revert to its higher and living constitution; which return I spoke of as
the essential condition of true philosophy, if not its very self. Now,
if any should desire to give one common name to this higher, or, rather,
highest, state of the consciousness, inclusive of its three elements,
and call it enthusiasm, it would be necessary to add the remark, that
this enthusiasm is absolutely one, universal, and of the highest kind,
having for its object the divine itself: and that, moreover, it is
abidingly permanent, and at the same time reconcilable and even really
associated with the most clear-sighted prudence.
Some such a highly exalted and sublime conception of true enthusiasm is
to be met with, and, indeed, predominates throughout the Platonic
philosophy. So far, therefore, it might be said, that the essential in
this _harmonic triad_ [_Dreiklang_] of Christian sentiment was not
wholly unknown to it, even though it knew nothing of the ideas of faith
and hope in this form or direction. Comprising all in one, it gave such
especial prominence to love as to make it by itself the very basis of
science--of that science, at least, of which alone there can be any
question in the present place, the science of the inner and higher life.
For it considered such a science as being simply a love which has
arrived at intelligence, and has thereby become firmly fixed, and,
moreover, elevated to the highest degree of clearness and perspicuity.
The relation in which these three properties stand to spirit, soul, and
sense--those three principles already mentioned of the consciousness,
when in its undivided perfection it attains to a full, vivid
operation--is somewhat of the following nature. Faith is an act of the
spirit, by which the higher feeling, being distinguished and separated
from all that is not essential, and being purely and spiritually
apprehended, is set forth as an intelligent feeling, and consequently as
a judgment, and in this light comprised in an imperishable idea. Love is
the turning or directing of the whole soul toward the higher and divine,
that is, even to God Himself. Hope, however, is the new life which
emanates from them both, and in which the divine ideas become actual and
active; or, in other words, it is the internal sense and fruitful
susceptibility for the divine idea and its energies and influences.
Now, the next problem which properly comes before us in this place of
our exposition of the human mind, and of the degree of certainty which
is attainable by it, is accurately to determine and to indicate the true
intrinsic essence of science. What, then, is it to know? How is it
brought about and accomplished? In the next place, it will be necessary
to explain the origin of error, which is ever opposing science, often
imperceptibly deluding or undermining and destroying our convictions.
This will, then, enable us to solve the questions and difficulties
suggested by doubt in general, after we have once ascertained the place
which is to be assigned to it in the human mind. And thus we shall at
last be able to determine completely, precisely, and satisfactorily, the
relation in which faith and enthusiasm, love and revelation, stand to
science.
Now, in order to arrive at a full idea of science, it will be essential
to distinguish its several elements--understanding and generalization
[_Begreifen_], and also discernment--the different forms, too, of
thinking--the necessary in reason, the possible in fancy, as well as the
scientific cogitation of what is actual.
But before entering on this field of our labors, I would premise one
general remark. It refers to the nature of that certainty which we have
to look for and may expect in philosophy, according to the idea of it
which we have made the basis of our speculations, as being the noblest
and highest manifestation of man’s desire of knowledge. And here the
examination of the words of a great and famous thinker, with regard to
his own system, will best serve me for the introduction and exposition
of my own views. The system of Spinosa--for I allude to him--is, it is
true, in ill repute for its obscureness and unintelligibility. The
remark, however, to which I refer, is wholly unconnected with his
system. It is an estimate of his own knowledge, and is quite clear and
intelligible to all, as every one will admit when I come to quote the
words. And, perhaps, the obscurity of his system arises chiefly from the
matter, and the position taken up, rather than from the author’s method,
and the form of exposition. For, if only we can once bring ourselves to
allow that the mathematical method is suitable to philosophy, we must
pronounce Spinosa’s style most excellent. It is, in fact, remarkable,
not only for the rigor and precision of its definitions and proofs, but
also for the structure of its sentences and general composition, so far
as excellence was attainable in the modern Latin of the schools, to
which, however, Spinosa has succeeded in giving a wonderful evenness and
uniformity of expression, having handled it with a facility never before
paralleled.
As to the system itself, and the rank which, according to the position
here assumed for the philosophy of life, ought to be assigned to it, it
will hardly be necessary to enter into a particular review. Generally we
have already expressed our opinion, and the judgment we should pass
upon it may be deduced from the remarks which I formerly made when
distinguishing between the two directions or views which, in its search
after truth, present themselves to the reflecting mind for its choice
between faith or doubt. One of these views of the world and things is
based on the idea of the living triune God, whom faith embraces, love
desires, and in whom all our hopes are centered. Now, this hypothesis
implies, by a necessary and inevitable consequence, that the world is
not self-existent, but, as we have all been taught, had a beginning,
having been created by God out of nothing. According to the other theory
(and to one of these every profound and truly scientific system of
philosophy must in its essential principles belong), the world had not a
beginning, but is eternal, being one with God--or, indeed, speaking
absolutely, _all_ is _one_, and necessary thought and necessary
existence are not properly and essentially distinct, but only so many
different forms or aspects of the one eternal and necessary essence.
Now, of the latter system, according to the opinion of all competent
judges, either of his own or our times, the work of Spinosa is the
ablest and most consistent exposition that science has ever yet
produced. But between these two systems and views of the universe, the
philosophy of life can not long hesitate. Seeking to arrive at a clear
insight into all that is divine, so far as it is traceable within the
higher life and inward consciousness, and adopting and regarding it as
an imparted fact of an internal, no less than of an external revelation,
she can not be at a loss to decide between faith in a living God and
that idea of one necessary essence which is at the same time both God
and the world--an idea which, making thought and being identical,
proceeds to give to all else correspondent arbitrary definitions.
Indeed, the question can hardly arise for the philosophy of life, or if
it does, it may at once set it aside. Now, this general observation on
all such systems of necessity implies, of course, the condemnation of
that of this great and famous thinker. It too must be at once rejected
as fundamentally false. Such a censure, however, does not involve any
thing of personal vituperation. All such feelings need not to be mixed
up with it. For, in truth, it often happens that the greatest and most
richly endowed minds, and the most single and straightforward
characters, if they once take a wrong direction, fall into the
profoundest, or, as they have been termed, the _most violent_ errors.
But in every case it is but equitable to make a distinction between the
author and his system, however severe may be the judgment we pass on the
latter. In the case of Spinosa, too, we must bear in mind that he was by
birth and education a Jew. As such, he was not only without the pale of
Christianity, but even regarded it with strong national prejudices. If,
therefore, his system is not consistent with the truths of religion, or,
rather, if it even violently clashes with them, he is scarcely obnoxious
to reproof. At least, he is not half so much open to censure as those
who, not having this palliation to urge, assume a hostile position
toward religion, while their animosity is not relieved by any splendor
of great talents, but marked throughout by the meanness and narrowness
of their views and the ordinary character of their scientific theory and
system.
The expression of this great thinker to which I have alluded, relates to
his own self and the object he had in view by his literary labors--to
his work, in short, or system. It is contained in a letter to one of his
most intimate friends, and runs as follows: “Whether my philosophy be
the very best, I know not; at least I do not wish to decide that point;
that, however, I have discovered the true philosophy, I have not the
least doubt.” All this sounds modestly enough; and in all probability it
expresses his real sentiments and opinion. It sets up, however, a
pretension which I can not by any means admit. Spinosa here takes the
term philosophy in a different sense from its old and original
signification. Among the Greeks, the Sophists alone derived their name
from a pretension to perfect wisdom and science. But the followers of a
true wisdom, from Socrates’s time at least, explained philosophy to be
what its name imports--a desire of the highest knowledge, and a pursuit
of divine truth. And this is the essential point which, involving a
total difference of opinion, has divided the minds of men through
centuries and tens of centuries, and is as yet far from having attained
to a satisfactory solution. And herein the Socratic idea of philosophy,
which is also my own, receives a species of historical confirmation
which that other mathematical notion of it stands still in need of. But
to return to our author. By philosophy, as indeed is clear from his very
system, he understands a perfect science and absolute truth. Now this
perfection of knowledge does not, it is true, pretend to extend to and
embrace all individualities. Still it is at least intensively an
omniscience--which by the further development and expansion of what it
possesses within itself unevolved, would in its external
comprehensiveness embrace every particular case. And can such infinite
knowledge and omniscience be ascribed to any other being than God? If we
at once acknowledged this, it would surely be more agreeable to truth to
consider man in this life as being merely in a preparatory state, where
at most it is permitted him, step by step, to approximate still nearer
to the height of knowledge. If that degree of knowledge which is
conceded to and is attainable by man, really suffices for the wants of
life, we might, or, rather, to speak more properly, we must be content
with it. Probably even that which it is allowed to man to reach, has
never yet been actually attained to by any individual. And why in any
case are we unwilling to wait, if, as it undoubtedly remains forever
certain, that when this period of preparation shall have closed in that
eternity which is really life, man will in one way or another arrive at
perfect certainty and clearness of insight into the nature of himself,
the world, and the Deity, and will also fully understand the now
inscrutable relation of God to man and the universe?
Now, while we regard the last half of the judgment which this great
thinker has passed upon himself, as a pure self-delusion naturally
arising from, and, indeed, closely connected with, his whole system, we
must also qualify the first half, and subject it to many essential
limitations. The _best_ philosophy that of Spinosa most assuredly can
not be called, and this for two reasons. On the one hand it sets out
with the pursuit of mathematical certainty and precision--an end not
attainable in this branch of human inquiry; on the other, it commences
with a principle fundamentally false, starting from the imaginary notion
of absolute necessity as the original first and last _illusion of the
reason_. Better, however, it most unquestionably is than many others,
which, no less false, are with their superficial dullness, their half
compromise and jumble of inconsistent principles, still more pernicious.
_Violent_ errors, to use an old phrase, are those which serve to give a
new impulse to science, and arousing it from its stationary point of
imperfect development, excite it to advance one step nearer to the
truth. They serve to accelerate a whole crisis of movement and
transition. In this respect, accordingly, a system of philosophy which
is far from good in itself, may, nevertheless, be pronounced good in a
relative sense. In other words, it is one the study of which may
occasionally prove salutary and profitable. It will benefit those
individuals, or even a whole nation or age, who are in the very crisis
of transition, and capable of digesting such strong meat, are healthy
enough to elaborate such a system of error into the sound elements of
truth. That this opinion is by no means unduly lenient, or overtolerant,
but that its justice is not unsupported by historical experience, is
proved by the history of our national philosophy in these later days.
Thus, on the German philosophy of nature, in the first stage at least of
its development, the system of Spinosa exercised a great and decided
influence, which, however, has now altogether ceased. All the most
original, too, of our thinkers, whether they belonged to the older or
later schools, who stood aloof from all system or party, have also paid
his works great attention. For this they riveted by their wonderful
simplicity and rigor of consequence, and their loftiness of scientific
thought, even while they failed to win a general, much less a complete
adhesion to his theory. But this feeling is quickly fading away. A great
internal victory has been gained over its seductive charms, which is of
inestimable importance to the cause of truth. It is fast quitting the
field of human thought and inquiry; and if it still holds its place in a
few minds, it forms there alone the last remaining obstacle to the
complete triumph of the science of life and revelation--the last
lingering mist of mental darkness and demoniacal illusion before the
rising sun of a newly breaking day.
It may perhaps appear inappropriate, and indeed highly objectionable, to
have spoken of a pernicious system of metaphysical error before such an
audience as the present, especially as from the first I expressed my
unwillingness to enter at large into its details. But I have, I think, a
full and complete justification. A very similar, or, rather, the same
view of the world and things as that which it propounds, and whose
essential peculiarities I have, I think, correctly characterized as one
of the leading branches of human error, still prevails, and is not
confined in its manifestations to a metaphysical form. It meets us every
where in still more accessible and highly-attractive shapes--in every
form and dimension--in the interesting but simple tale, and in the magic
creation of poetical pantheism. And since so many poets and other
popular writers are a kind of half or whole, conscious or unconscious,
Spinosists--to use this name in a wide and general sense--it would be to
affect an unscrupulous delicacy, which would neither be in measure nor
in season, were I to abstain from all notice of what is otherwise so
notorious. If the philosophy of divine experience, with its totally
different form and spirit, were but carried out as perfectly and
completely as this silently-reigning system of rationalism, with its
consistency of error, then should we at last be able fully to
comprehend, and, to our great amazement, discern all that is meant by
this its dangerous rival, and how very much it involves.
My object has not been to make a polemical attack, and to give a
complete refutation of this system. Such a design neither lay within my
prescribed limits, nor could it be other than useless and superfluous in
a philosophy which took its position from life, and especially the inner
and higher life. What I had chiefly in view was, to establish a precise
and rigorous distinction between the Socratic notion of philosophy, as a
gradual approximation to eternal truth and the first science, and that
false mathematical conception of it which sets up a claim to absolute
knowledge, and by a rigid observance of system, pretends to the
attainment of omniscience. And this was a distinction which, both from
personal considerations and with regard to the present undertaking, it
was incumbent on me to insist upon, in order to avoid the slightest
misconception. Having myself long since recognized the three categories
of an elevated consciousness--faith, hope, and love--to be also the
essential elements and primary foundation of all higher thought and
knowledge, so far at least as the latter, having life for its matter and
subject, must take life for its starting-point and foundation, I have
therefore publicly advanced this doctrine. Still, nothing could be more
foreign to my whole mode of thinking and feeling, or so directly opposed
to it, as the design of forcing adhesion to _my_ theory of faith, hope,
and love, by the might of logical demonstration, or even the thought of
constraining, by the weapons of science, the convictions of any one.
Nay, even if I were gifted with magic powers of persuasion and
irresistible eloquence, so as to be able to win the whole world over to
my own way of thinking, or, rather, conviction on these matters, still I
should have no wish to accomplish such a general concurrence in this
manner. Such a method would not be appropriate to this domain of
philosophy, and, above all, it would not be the true and right one; for
philosophy must ever be the fruit of one’s own personal reflection, and
invariably spring from an immediate feeling of a want and defect within,
otherwise it can scarcely exist in reality. All teaching, therefore, or
communication of philosophy, has properly no other end and aim than to
furnish a vivid impulse to self-reflection. Beyond this it can only
serve to suggest the limits of a right and lawful exercise of such
meditation, and, by pointing out the road that leads most directly to
this end, to warn against the devious by-ways of error which branch out
from it at every point of its path. Every one who is in earnest in the
pursuit of truth has, moreover, already within himself a principle
[_Anfang_] of faith, hope, and love, in some shape or other, and not
merely a principle, but a very system of them, even though it do not
always manifest itself exactly in a scientific form. If every one who in
any degree lends a sympathizing ear to my present discourses feels
himself in any degree confirmed by them in that principle of a higher
faith and love that is as yet in any degree developed in him--if he
feels himself moved by them to still more lofty aspirations after the
highest end of hope--if what to him is the center of love and life has
been more fully and more clearly evolved by them--if his thoughts have
taken from them a clearer and more distinct order and arrangement, then
will the first wish and principal object of my present labors be
perfectly realized, and attain to their fullest and completest
gratification.
We would, therefore, for our parts, remit to God and the future all
properly unconditional and absolute knowledge. For, irrespectively of
the delusive phantom of a pretended mathematical method and rigor of
demonstration, which is both fundamentally false, and, moreover, totally
inapplicable to the present sphere of inquiry, such an absolute science,
merely as claiming to be positive, trenches ultimately on omniscience.
We therefore prefer modestly to acquiesce in pretensions more suitable
to man’s position in the world. If, therefore, we confine ourselves
within the prescribed limits, and are content with a gradually but
steadily advancing approximation to perfect truth, as it is in God, we
shall soon find that even within these boundaries a legitimate idea of
science may be set up and advanced. And this science, it will quickly
appear, not only contains within it a stable foundation of irrefragable
certainty, sufficient for all the wants and requisitions of life, but
also opens a wide space for the further exercise and development of all
time, thought, and cognition, and the most ample field for all genuine
spiritual hopes and pure wishes of a higher nature. In its free
development it is by no means subject to the narrow limits of earth;
while, as resting on the firm basis of experience, it is little affected
by doubt, which, though plied with all its acuteness and with its
endless refinements to the very height of subtilty, shall never
undermine or essentially injure it.
I said an _idea_ [Idee] of science. I did not employ the term _notion_
[Begriff], as in the case of the consciousness; for the latter, in all
its completeness, is given to us by internal experience and the
observation of our own minds. In the case of the consciousness,
consequently, the only point is to set it forth in a well-ordered and
fully comprehensive term, as completely as it is revealed to us in
reality. But of science there can not be more than one idea. An ideal
standard may be set up to guide us in our attempts to attain to it, and
to indicate the degree, measure, and method of its possible acquisition.
And this idea and standard can only be derived from the highest idea of
all--that of God, who is the eternal truth itself. It is thither that it
must go, as to its first source. Now this idea of science, after the
complete notion of the consciousness which I have already established,
is the second result to which our inquiries have brought us. It is the
second step of progress in our present development of thought.
Now this idea of science, which points to it as possible and actually
attainable, and which also in fact leads us to it, rests on two
assumptions. It implies, in the first place, that man must continually
advance to a fuller understanding of a given truth, and, having the
capacity, is also able to do so, if only he has a real and abiding wish
for it. How, indeed, can it in general be doubted, that we are not
absolutely incapable of understanding any given truth, when the very
fact of its being given implies it in some degree at least, however
limited, and when the very apprehension of the given matters forms a
beginning, it may be a very imperfect one, of understanding? But, in
the second place, the idea of an actually attainable science rests on
the assumption that we are in a condition to recognize as such, and
in its true light, the error which springs up every where in the human
mind, and by so doing to emancipate ourselves, if not from every trace
of its former influence, yet, at least, from its absolute dominion
and tyranny. And since in this field of human errors we are at least
at home, there can be no obstacle to our taking a full and complete
survey of them, and taking the exact measure of their shallowness.
This requisition, as well as the possibility of its accomplishment,
is fundamentally involved in that old Grecian maxim, “Know thyself,”
when interpreted in its more scientific sense. And in truth there is no
ground to doubt its possibility, if only a firm footing--the ποὑ ςὡ of
Archimedes--can be found for us out of ourselves and of the ordinary
state of the human consciousness. And such a stable point is actually
found and provided for us in the revelation of a higher truth than
man’s. That a recognition of error as such is possible, and thereby
the emancipation of the mind from its slavery may be facilitated, will
be best and most clearly evidenced by actual experiment. We must,
then, try to assign to each single faculty of the consciousness, in
its present degraded and distracted state, the essential scientific
error which peculiarly clings to and besets its exercise, or at least
to point out the tendency thereto which is deeply rooted therein. And
such an experiment may be made successfully, if we take up our position
in the high point of view furnished by a consciousness restored again
to unity and harmony in God. Now, from this point of view it is, no
doubt, impossible, as we have already remarked, to assume or concede
the existence of innate ideas--at least, not in the usual and literal
sense. Innate errors, however, may well naturally be assumed to exist
in the first degraded state of the human mind. Not, indeed, that there
rules in them any blind inevitable necessity, but, rather, a false
tendency--an evil habit become a second nature--which is only in
appearance an original imperfection. And such have been often enough
recognized in the illusions of imagination and the narrow limits of the
reason; only the recognition has not been complete and total enough,
and, consequently, not sufficiently explanatory. Indeed, the notion of
scientific error, as innate in the human mind, must be taken exactly
in the same light as the moral weakness and frailty of man in his
present condition--as being, in short, peculiar to the whole race, and
transmitted, as an inheritance, from generation to generation.
Now, to the knowledge of error, as such, is opposed the recognition of
truth--the higher, that is, divinely revealed truth. And this perception
it is that furnishes the stable point of intrinsic certainty to every
species and form of human cognition. But here the question might arise
naturally enough: How can man recognize a truth, which, nevertheless, is
revealed to him from without, making himself thereby, as it were, at
once its master and its judge? How, in other words, can he, as it were,
know again that which is now first given to him, and which previously he
was not in possession of. In this matter the case stands almost exactly
the same as it does with innate ideas, which are not to be understood
literally as involving the hypothesis of a pre-existence of the
soul--and as it does with that eternal memory which, as connected with
the theory of innate ideas, rightly and more correctly interpreted, is
both justifiable and tenable. If man is to be declared totally incapable
of this recognition of divine truth, then must he be first stripped of
all the high prerogatives which the Almighty has bestowed upon him above
the rest of the natural creation. The very last trace and vestige of the
divine image that is in him must be erased and destroyed. Among these
endowments, that which we may well call the dangerous privilege of free
will holds neither the last nor the lowest place. God created man free,
and free he is even in his relation to God. It is left to man’s choice,
whether he will or not acknowledge the Deity above him. But this being
the case, this free and unconstrained acknowledgment, so far as the
choice is rightly made, by no means involves any exaltation of man’s
judgment above the law of God. On the contrary, it is nothing more than
a free and voluntary assent to the divine. However, it is the inward
experience that we have here to consider. For the facts and external
data of mere experimental sciences can only so far belong to our present
consideration, as they bear upon the inner experience of the
consciousness and the knowledge of human nature--as well upon that more
exalted experience (which is indeed contained in the former) of a higher
destination imported and announced to man by God. And this is the case
with history or language. It is exactly in this relation that a
scientific knowledge of either stands to our present subject. But not
only language, but every object also in the whole domain of human
inquiry--in the vast realms of art and nature--belongs thereto, or may
be made a part of it, if only it stands in or admits of being brought
into this relation to the inward and higher experience. Now this
understanding of the truth that is above man, which is ever growing in
clearness and brightness--this perfect recognition of whatever is
erroneous and false--this ever-advancing comprehension of the actual, so
far as the latter lies within its limits, form the three grades or
spheres of science which, even according to this idea of it, may
unquestionably be regarded as possible, and founded also on the actual
and real.
The latter is an important point; as to all else, the different ways,
methods, and directions of thought belong to the outward form, rather
than to the intrinsic essence of science. Essentially, there is but one
law and standard for all ways and modes of thinking. The necessary
thought of the reason, with its strict logical concatenation, no less
than the possible thinking of the scientific imagination, with its
generally symbolical dress, must, if it would not lapse into error, and
become ultimately null and vain, adhere to the actual and real, and
stand and maintain itself on the firm soil of experience. It is only
when the necessary cogitation sets out from reality that it is truly
necessary; and in like manner is it with the possible. If it does not
rest on the firm basis of the actual, it is not really possible and
actually attainable. Without this intrinsic gravity and point of rest,
the mathematical method, with its pretended rigor of demonstration, no
less than the most ingenious but arbitrary hypotheses, are perpetually
oscillating through the wide realms of infinite space--like pure
fictions--not, however, like good fictions based on realities, for such
often possess a deep and profound significance, but like thoroughly
unmeaning and aimless figments, and unsubstantial phantasms. Against the
intrinsic reality of the mind’s experience and its science, which is
built upon this foundation of a recognition and understanding of what is
revealed and imparted to it, of an acknowledgment of what is spurious
and false, and of a comprehension of the actual and real, all the doubts
of skepticism avail little, or, properly speaking, nothing. If, however,
we set out from the unconditional science of reason, holding it and
considering it really to be such, then there is no longer any safeguard
to keep us from falling headlong into the bottomless abyss of endless
doubt. In such a case, the human mind may for a time be lulled into a
calm, which, however, is any thing but a true and perfect serenity.
Between that arbitrary faith which is the mere creation of the reason,
and devised for the express purpose of filling the profound void which
man must feel so long as his heavenward aspirations are unsatisfied, and
the endless doubts of his intellect, there is at best but a temporary
and passing truce: it is no true peace. It is like some “_Concordat_,”
which, effected with the greatest difficulty, and ever on the point of
being dissolved by the mutual jealousy of the contracting parties to it,
does but leave each member to follow his own devices, so long as he
engages to abstain from all hostile interference with the other. In such
a case, a complete and harmonious co-operation of the mind’s hitherto
divided and estranged faculties is not for a moment to be thought of.
That, however, must be sought by a very different path.