In the domain of art it is an old and established opinion, not only that
a peculiar genius is required for its original creations, but also a
special sense or feeling is indispensable for a correct appreciation and
estimate of the works produced by the former. Indeed, we can hardly call
it an opinion; its validity is so universally acknowledged, that it is
acted upon as a principle. In the same way the Platonic philosophy
assumes for its foundation an enthusiastic aspiration after divine truth
and a higher knowledge of it. Moreover, as it sets out from a
consciousness elevated and expanded by enthusiasm, so it looks to the
same for access and adoption. And this is the source of that affinity
between this species of philosophy and an artistic enthusiasm which is
traceable in all ages and nations, however widely different in the
general character of their minds, among whom the former has in any
degree manifested itself, assuming, every where, if not the shape of
dialogue, yet some other equally beautiful form of exposition. Hence,
too, so far, at least, as this is possible in the domain of science, the
point of view of this philosophy is predominantly artistic. The more,
then, that in modern days, and especially among German writers, the
school form has become prevalent in science generally, and especially in
philosophy, the greater is the merit of those who have striven to give
to philosophy this artistic elegance and structure, or, at least, to
preserve it and restore it to favor. And even if any be disposed to set
less value upon this artistic grace and enthusiasm for the beautiful in
philosophy than, in my opinion, is due to it, they must, at least, admit
that it tends to promote a more liberal and comprehensive culture of the
mind. On this account it is surely to be defended, and deserves our most
favorable judgment. This remark does not apply, exclusively, to our own
German literature and culture, and that devotion to the arts of the
beautiful which is so peculiar to our countrymen; it has a general
reference to all modern nations. A more artistic feeling is a universal
want of the times to counteract the prevailing school form, and the
preponderating mathematical view of the world, or, at least, a
predominantly mathematical cast of mind. Accordingly, Hemsterhuys, who,
in philosophy, adopted a view similar to, if not identical with, the
Platonic, though writing in the French language, which was not his
vernacular tongue, has labored with a masterly hand to give to his style
the exquisite beauty of art. But still, notwithstanding this common
affinity and enthusiasm for the beautiful, a distinction exists, and
must ever remain, between the scientific notion of beauty and the mere
artistic conception of it, and that fanciful view of the world and
things which is derived from and dependent on it. For, according to the
latter, the highest beauty is to the poet and artist nothing less than
the height of truth, as, indeed, it really is of poetic and artistic
truth. But, to the view of science, between the divine and eternal truth
and beauty, even the highest beauty, there is, and ever must remain, a
certain degree of distance, which, if it do not amount to an interval,
is yet, nevertheless, a line of demarkation. Eternal truth is even God
himself. And if, occasionally, in the Platonic philosophy, the Prime
Being is distinguished and designated as the archetype of beauty, this
is but a loose way of speaking, not exactly consistent with scientific
accuracy. For, according to the latter, the excellence of beauty is but
a perfect mirror, or a pure reflection of eternal perfection, but not
eternal perfection itself. Indeed, in order to express its perfect
purity from all admixture, and from every the least stain of the
sensible world, as well as from every mist of earthly delusion that
otherwise might cling to and encircle it, I should prefer to call it the
holy beauty, rather than the archetype of beauty, or even the height of
beauty. For the latter shifts and varies with the subjective tastes of
individuals. One man sees the standard of beauty in an Apollo, another
in some other equally sublime and highly-finished god-form of ancient
statuary.
What, then, is this beauty, according to the pure and original notion of
it, and relatively to reality? For, according to the principle which the
philosophy of life assumes, we must trace every thing back to the real
and the actual--to the actual and the real of nature and of earth, or
else to one that is higher and more spiritual, nay, even Godlike. What
place, then, does beauty here hold? what is its relation to the rest of
creation, or, still more generally, to the whole created universe and
its author? What is it in and by itself, and in truth?
Now, in that sacred language which treats of holy things, and devotes to
them well and carefully-weighed expressions and terms, mention is made
of a wisdom created in the beginning, and before all time. As,
therefore, it is said to be created, it is plain that by it is not
meant, and that we must not confound with it, that uncreated and eternal
wisdom who is elsewhere called the Almighty Word, by whom the whole
system of nature, and all things, were created in their original beauty.
Now this created wisdom, which, consequently, as such, is also a
creature--what else is it than the thought, the image, the expression
and impress of the hidden and internal essence of the Deity--wherein its
inapproachable depth and unfathomable abyss are outwardly projected and
rendered visible? Is it not, in short, the exact mirror and unsullied
reflection of the divine perfections? But, however we may choose to name
and describe it, the creature--even though its creation may have been
before the whole world, and even before time itself--must always be kept
distinct from the uncreated Being of eternity and omnipotence, who,
moreover, called the former into existence. Now, if we were to apply to
this created wisdom the expression of “a soul of God,” which was
formerly employed by a few writers, but which was soon allowed to fall
again into disuse, from a dread of the misapprehensions it might
possibly lead to, it would give, perhaps, a good sense. It might thus
serve to distinguish this, the first of all creatures, in its pure and
original beauty, from a mere soul of the world, or of nature, however
ideally conceived. Only, in that case, care must be taken to keep in
remembrance, that such a mode of speaking can only apply to a creature,
and that of such alone is it allowable so to speak. For--in correctness
of language and in the true meaning of words--a soul, as being, on the
whole, and predominantly, a passive faculty, can not be attributed to
God, in whom all is infinite power and pure activity, and who, as such,
ever worketh and never ceases in His infinite operations.
It is this, the first of all created things, which, with its pure
splendor, lights up in brilliancy whatever in the rest of creation still
retains aught of childlike innocence and blessed purity. It is the inner
charm, the spiritual flower of nature, the hidden germ of that
paradisiacal loveliness which, though veiled in this terrestrial
shroud, still gleams forth occasionally. It is even that sacred beauty
which fills to the full the true artist’s soul, even though he is never
able fully and completely to realize it. It is that for which the
thinker, in his inspired enthusiasm, seeks in vain for words and
expressions. All the forms and terms of language fail to reach its high
excellence. For, in fact, so long as man, holding it to be a pure ideal,
regards it as nothing but a thought or notional relation, he can not but
fail to seize and apprehend this mystery of love in all its living
reality.
And here it is that I would apply the words, already quoted, of a great
thinker. They were used by him in reference to his own system of science
and philosophy; and though in my application they relate to a very
different matter, it is, nevertheless, one which has an intimate bearing
on the first science. Slightly modifying his words, then, I would thus
say: whether the notion of beauty I have here advanced be for the artist
absolutely the right one--_i.e._, whether it be perfectly satisfactory
and sufficient, or whether in its special application to a particular
branch of art, and in the actual execution of any given work, it
requires several intermediate notions and means of transition, and
whether, moreover, several elements equally essential must concur
therein--that I know not, or at least I make no assertion about it. And
indeed, I see clearly enough that even for art and its perfect
realization, something else is wanting besides the pure idea of beauty
alone. This, however, I do know and am quite certain of, that, viz., the
notion of beauty which I have here advanced, and besides which scarcely
another will be found, is the true and right Christian notion, of which
all the statues of heathen gods, all fantasies of nature, all mental
ideas, are but single rays, faint memorials, corporeal images, or mere
scattered and mutilated fragments.
The thought, too, of that blissful state in the infancy of
creation--when sorrow had as yet no existence, and evil, with its many
woes, was not--is a notion not insignificant, but full, rather, of rich
influences for the higher and more spiritual aim of art, and especially
for the deeper and profounder essence of poetry. I have, indeed, already
alluded to this notion; and I revert to it because I feel it is one
which does not deserve to be so totally neglected as it usually is. Now,
the higher poesy was termed, in consideration of that Godlike idea of
eternal hope which predominates in it, the dawn of an uprising morn in
the world of intellectual culture and poetic fancy; but at the same time
I remarked that it was accompanied by a mournful recollection of a great
foretime, long since passed away and departed. Not that this sad
backward looking to a lost infantine happiness of the first times is in
discord with or in opposition to the hopes of the rising dawn. Rather
must it be regarded as in harmony with it. For this feeling is, as it
were, the reflection of that hope--the same light thrown back from yet
another side--even as the lovely hue of the sky at eventide, and the
bright rays of the breaking dawn, make a kindred impression on the
fancy. In this respect we might almost venture to say of poetry and its
inmost essence, that it is but the spiritual echo of the soul--a
sorrowful remembrance of a lost paradise. I do not mean that the latter
and its history, such as it is transmitted to us, or even as it has been
handled by the English poet, is the only fitting or even a particularly
happy subject for poetry. I allude rather to that paradisiacal state of
universal nature throughout the whole globe--creation’s state of
infantine happiness, before it was ruined by revolt from God.
A note of these paradisiacal remembrances, a sorrowful _memento_ of this
heavenly innocence and primal beauty of a new-born world, seems like an
inward and animating soul to breathe in--or as a thread of higher and
intenser life, to run through--all the songs and exquisite delineations
of a more than earthly poesy. Not that this ray of light ought or ever
could form by itself the subject-matter of the finished work of any true
poet. His subjects are generally, and indeed must be, somewhat more
corporeal, being drawn for the most part from history and from life.
What I formerly said of divine hope applies here also. Even while the
picture of reality which is set forth is worked out most elaborately,
with accurate observation of all its little and nicest traits, this
purely spiritual and almost unearthly tone ought, nevertheless, to be
present. It must be found there as the inner soul of the whole, however
veiled beneath the outer world that is portrayed in the story. No work,
however, in which this inner thread of life is totally wanting, is or
ever will be in its essence more than simple prose, even though in form
it be verse. Art it may have unquestionably, and wit, a story, and
irony; all in short, that can be wished--any thing but poetry. For,
except where its true notion is either already lost or fast
disappearing, the idea of poetry can not possibly be separated from that
of enthusiasm. The calm, cold poetry of the head, if such can for a
moment deserve the name, is to the true inspired poetry of enthusiasm in
the same relation that the spurious faith of the pure reason stands in
to the living faith of the full feeling which springs out of a profound
personal conviction and love.
Now, the full essence of this enthusiasm, which, according to the
Platonic notion of it, takes in all things in its embrace, is in the
Christian harmonic triad of faith, hope, and love, dissolved, as it
were, into its three time-forms. For though faith has its root in the
present, still, in every case, it looks backward to some past, whether
of an extant or still earlier revelation, which at the same time it
embraces and adopts into itself. And even in that faith which admits the
revelations of history, or that practical faith which, in the ordinary
transactions of life, places its trust in human testimony and the
recorded facts of experimental science (since even out of the domain of
religion faith is inseparably mixed with all that man thinks or
does)--in all these kinds of faith a similar reference to the past might
easily be pointed out. To the future it is that hope directs itself,
while in love there reigns a full and intense feeling of the present.
And even so of God’s everlasting love--this, too, has ever been and
always must be understood as a full, intense, and abiding feeling of a
never-ending present, which, without beginning and without end, goes on
forever in abiding felicity. Besides this subdivision into three
branches or elements, species or forms, there is yet another character
by which these three fundamental Christian feelings are essentially
distinguished from the single and all-embracing one of enthusiasm. To
this distinction I have already alluded, and it consists in this, that
whereas enthusiasm indicates nothing more than a passing state of a more
intense consciousness, the three categories above mentioned contain not
merely a transient but a permanent enhancement of it, or, in other
words, a consciousness which has really become higher and more intense,
and as such, endures in full self-possession and inward enlightenment.
Accordingly, when we are speaking of the relation of faith to knowledge,
this scheme of the fundamental feelings of Christianity seems in the
highest degree appropriate to that philosophy which undertakes to show
the connection between knowledge and faith, and the passage from one to
the other. For it is in truth well calculated to lead to this end, even
more rapidly and more surely than the Platonic fundamental principle of
enthusiasm, notwithstanding the profound and essential affinity which
subsists between these two views of the world and things.
With respect to the relation of faith to knowledge: we must remember
that the positive dogmas of a fixed definite creed belong to theology,
and lie altogether out of the domain of philosophy. For though a truly
learned exegesis of Holy Writ most unquestionably demands a truly
philosophical spirit, it is not philosophy itself. And this applies also
to ecclesiastical tradition, as running parallel to and co-ordinate with
written revelation. This enlarged assumption, however, of a twofold
source for deducing a knowledge of the truths necessary to be believed,
and for their dogmatic interpretation, as touching on a particular
province of history, or as some, perhaps, will rather say, a
controverted point of church authority, must be left to theology to
discuss and decide. It does not fall within the true limits of
philosophy, which properly is concerned only with faith in general, and
the notion thereof relatively to knowledge. And here comes in the
greatest of the distinctions between the philosophy of life (which is
founded both on an external and also an internal and higher experience,
being itself a science of experience) and the philosophy of absolute
reason. The relation between faith and knowledge, as respectively
established by them, is thoroughly and essentially different. According
to that absolute view of the world and things which rests on and springs
from a pure and necessary rational science, faith and knowledge stand in
absolute opposition to each other. The only connection into which they
can possibly enter is that by which faith is called in to the aid of
reason, and in order to supply its deficiencies. When, for instance, the
unconditional science can not by itself attain to fullness and
perfection of knowledge, or, after all its labors, finds itself standing
unsatisfied even within its own domain, then the transition is made
forcibly, and, as it were, by a great and sudden leap into the opposite
and totally different domain of reason, in order to seek there refuge
and protection from itself. And this indeed is the only way still open,
if not to a complete reconciliation between the two, yet, at least, to
a peaceful compromise of the respective claims of knowledge and of
faith. Quite different, however, is the relation between them, as set
forth by the philosophy of life, which takes its position in experience
and the knowledge which is based thereon. For, in the first place, faith
and knowledge are not so rigorously separated, nor so absolutely
distinguished in it as they are in the preceding system. And, secondly,
as regards the order and succession of the two: here, in the wide field
of man’s experience, both inward and outward, in nature and in his own
self, it is faith for the most part that furnishes the beginning and
foundation of knowledge, which, however, as such is incomplete, and
requires further development. We have already remarked, that the
positive dogmas of a particular faith, together with the scientific
investigations appropriate to them, form a special domain of higher
experience. This is a statement which scarcely requires any labored
proof. And we need not dwell on it further than to remind you, that even
here the faith, so far as it is dogmatically propounded, forms the
foundation. In this higher region faith is the first and that which
makes the beginning, while the knowing forms the further development.
Descending into its particular applications, the latter furnishes an
explanation, or, rather, elucidation, of the whole. Still it must all
the while adhere faithfully to the fact of a revelation, and maintain
its authority over the rational principle which otherwise seeks to
depress, and does often actually overbear it. And so is it also with the
first awakening of the consciousness. And even in experimental science,
the order between faith and knowledge is exactly the same. In actual
life, too, every great enterprise begins with and takes its first step
in faith. In faith Columbus, compass in hand, and firmly relying on its
revelations, traversed, in his frail bark, the wide waters of an unknown
ocean. In this faith he discovered a new world, and thereby opened a new
era in the history of science and of man. For all his inquiries, all his
thirst and search after information, all his thinking, guessing, and
supposing, did not as yet amount to a complete knowing--by such means he
could not succeed in working out a full conviction, either for himself
or for others. It was the given fact, the unquestionable proof of actual
experience, that first exalted his bold conception into true and perfect
certainty. In a greater or less degree this is the course by which all
the great discoveries in science have been made; passing by a slow but
still advancing process of thought from faith up to knowledge. And the
same character of faith is stamped on every great and decisive act,
every important event in the history of individuals or of nations. And
if, in contrast with these grander phenomena, an instance be required
from the first and almost unnoticeable beginnings of consciousness, I
would refer to the first time that, with manifest purpose, the infant
seeks and finds for itself its mother’s breast. But perhaps the force of
this illustration may be questioned, as being drawn from what might be
called a mere gratification of an animal want. I shall therefore take
one which borders closely indeed on the former, but which does not
appear to be so immediately connected, not to say identical, with
instinct. We will take, then, the second moment of consciousness--that
at which the child regards its mother for the first time, full,
apparently of reflection, and, certainly of attention and meaning, as it
were with a wish to say something, if it had the power to talk. And this
eye, upturned for the first time, full of love and meaning, what is it
but the first look of faith? And though even this opening dawn of
consciousness involves a certain distinction and recognition, it is
still very far from the certainty of knowledge. And is not the former
instance highly appropriate and well fitted to illustrate the relation
in which man stands to God? For that paternal heart, which, as the
living pulse of omnipotence, beats sensibly in the boundless
universe--is it not also, as it were, the full maternal fountain at
which the immortal spirit imbibes its first milk, and indeed all its
nourishment for eternity? In short, at the vivid point of experience,
the first--the still delicate and innocent--beginnings of feeling are
very often in close contact with the full maturity of the most
enlightened knowledge, expanded and elevated to the height of its
Infinite source.
At this point, then, of living experience, faith and knowledge are not
so sharply separated from, or so unconditionally opposed to, each other
as is commonly thought. The relation of faith to knowledge is that
nearly of the beginning to the consummation. Such, too, is the case with
experience and revelation, as the data of all scientific knowledge.
These two also stand in close dependence on each other. Their mutual
relation is something similar to that of the external manifestation to
the inward energy--of the visible body to its animating principle, or
to that inward spark of light which the body serves as an organ and
vehicle, or as an outward garb and veil. In history, and in every
science that in any way deserves to be called historical, the spirit or
mind has been long and generally acknowledged to be the first and only
thing that gives to the whole its true worth. And in the domain of
physical science, which of all branches of mere empirical knowledge is
the most comprehensive and most extensive, the case is precisely
similar. The externally given phenomenon of the fact or natural object
that is under consideration, forms only the outward investiture and is
to be regarded as the mode of manifestation--the visible form--of the
inner life, and law which rules within it. And man’s chief object in
investigating the former is, if possible, to pierce its shroud, and to
seize and to discover the inward law of life, as all that is most
essential, and as the germ of existence, which is wrapped up and hidden
in the outward and sensible veil. Many of the special branches of
physical inquiry, such as botany and mineralogy, can only be considered
as preparatory labors, which are to furnish the materials and apparatus
for future science to act upon, and not really as sciences. When all the
facts of mineralogy shall have been brought under one great and
universal law--when the isolated results of anatomical research and
observation can be reduced to one common physiological idea--when
chemistry, by its exclusive analysis, and decomposition of matter into
its ultimate elements, shall be able to discern, in the different gases
and other imponderable agents, the various forms of the invisible
principle of things--when a higher range of physical research shall
penetrate the grand primal phenomena of the electric shock, of magnetic
attraction, and the prismatic decomposition of light, and its artistic
imitation for scientific purposes, then only shall we be able to remove
the last veil which shrouds the mysteries of nature.
For the whole effort of natural science is indefatigably directed to
reaching to that hidden center of life through external existence, of
whose inner light and splendor the whole corporeal mass of the sensible
world is but the broken and multiplied reflection, and empirical science
but the chemical precipitate, the gross material residuum of its pure
and spiritual truth. It is to this that all the results of science point
and tend; every investigation in the domain of natural history, which
in any degree pretends to be philosophical, likewise leads to this
conclusion. Assuming, then, the existence of a God as the Creator of the
world, what else can nature be than a revelation of God and divine
love--a visible manifestation thereof in outward and material matter?
And how, if otherwise conceived of, can it ever be understood or
comprehended? Supposing also (what at the first we may very well allow)
that even from this point of view much remains obscure, enigmatical, and
unintelligible to us--still these incomprehensible, or, rather,
uncomprehended, matters are merely a few individual instances. The
whole, nevertheless, will, on this hypothesis, be found full of deep
significancy, and satisfactory, not only to the feelings, but even to
the inquiring and questioning intellect. But, according to the opposite
view of the universe, though many, or, let us say, very many individual
facts in nature may be acutely explained and scientifically understood;
still the whole, if it be not looked upon as a revelation from God, but
a peculiar self-existent entity, remains forever an enigmatical mass of
indissoluble complications. Stripped by this hypothesis of its higher
design of leading man onward to the divine, it becomes, for him at
least, perfectly unmeaning. But when, on the contrary, the universal
system of nature is regarded as the unfolding and visible revelation of
the hidden majesty of the Creator, then, together with that other one
which is written and contained in the divine law and sacred records, it
forms one consistent whole. Holy Writ and nature, according to this
view, appear two mutually explanatory and supplemental halves of that
book of God which is written on the inside and the out. The inner voice
of conscience also has often, and indeed from the very earliest times,
been represented as a revelation, though of a different kind; and the
moral feeling and its peculiar law have been supposed to be frequently
opposed to, or at least wholly independent of, nature and the natural
law. But even this internal revelation is also double, like the external
one of Holy Writ and of nature. For in its negative prohibitions, in its
gentle or terrible, but ever-distinct warnings, as well as in its
positive requisitions, it is quite distinct from its other form as a
feeling of devotion and of mental prayer, or of an illimitable
aspiration after God and divine things. And it is by no means allowable
to confound or mix up these two distinct forms. For the one is
universal, however variable in its degrees of intensity; whereas the
other manifesto itself rather by way of exception as an individual
vocation, or, if the term be preferred, as a peculiar genius for piety,
and a special sensibility for holy thoughts and feelings.
Now this fourfold divine revelation, embracing the two external branches
of Scripture and of nature, and the two inner ones of conscience and
devotion, has its seat in the four faculties of the lower order which
have so repeatedly been brought before our consideration. For the memory
is the organ of its written and oral transmission and perpetuation--nay,
of writing and language generally, according to the intimate connection
which subsists between them. And in the next place, the external senses,
with which we may also associate an immediate intuition into the depths
and mysteries of nature, are the organs for perceiving and understanding
the sensible phenomena. Lastly, there is conscience, and, on the other
side, a longing after God and divine things, as the highest and most
enhanced degree of human pursuit--of the profoundest aspiration of man’s
soul, and the purest desire of his spirit. For it is even here, in these
subordinate faculties, where the deep decline and gross degeneracy of
the human mind in its present state most strikingly displays itself,
that a susceptibility for improvement is first excited. Here springs the
earliest impulse to return to the higher state from which we have
fallen. Here the divine seed of resuscitation soonest expands itself,
revivifying and restoring to its pristine worth and dignity the morbid
and lifeless consciousness. The internal revelation, however, of
devotion and prayer must be regarded as clearly distinct from, and as
lying altogether out of, the domain of philosophy, even as the learned
exposition of Scripture, and a scientific study thereof, forms a
peculiar branch of intellectual pursuit. But though philosophy must not
be mixed up with it, yet on the other hand it must not lapse into, or
inseparably identify itself with, a pure mysticism of devotional
feelings, or, if the term be preferred, a theory of prayer, and a mere
contemplative meditation on the Deity and divine things. And the reason
is obvious: devotion, with its mystical feelings, must necessarily and
absolutely attach itself to the positive data of a fixed dogmatic faith.
For in such alone can it find, not only a definite form and a
maturely-developed external shape, but also an inner assurance for
itself as well as a safeguard against the possible errors of
fanaticism.
And here, however, it must not be forgotten that the intrinsic essence
of divine longing, as well as of all other holy feelings, can never be
or seem alien and repugnant to the philosophy of life, which indeed
takes its rise out of this very center of a high and holy love. On the
contrary, it must always be intimately associated with and amicably
disposed toward it. The philosophy of life, therefore, even while it
carefully guards against falling into a mere exposition and commentary
of Scripture, may freely borrow from the old Scriptural language its
awful spiritual phrases and its vividly forcible expressions. It would,
in fact, be an overstrained pedantry, and an excessive affectation of
scientific purism, were it to wish to avoid it. Still it is necessary to
draw a precise line of demarkation between religion and philosophy, and
carefully to observe their limits. And in the same manner, philosophy
will abstain from an undue encroachment on the province of natural
history, or on the domain of ethics where the internal revelation of
conscience furnishes the basis of all moral legislation. At least it
will keep from so doing as long as it is anxious to preserve its true
dignity as a philosophy of life, and of thought and science in general,
and fears to degrade itself by becoming nothing more than a special
branch and application, either as mere morals or natural philosophy.
This, however, does not preclude from it the liberty of occasionally
entering even deeply into them, or of taking a general survey of their
results, or borrowing largely from their facts, as pregnant instances,
remarkable phenomena and similes, in order to make this remote region
illustrate its own sphere, though properly they do not belong to it.
Philosophy has enough to do with what really forms the subject-matter
and contents of its own province, without seeking to enlarge it by any
extraneous addition.
Now, to these four forms or sources of a higher revelation, both
internal and external, a fifth remains to be added. It constitutes, as
it were, their common bond of union--the center at which, converging and
coming into contact, they exercise a mutual influence, and, adjusting
and accommodating themselves to one another, combine in living union and
perfect harmony. This we would designate by the general name of a
revelation of eternal love. But a revelation of eternal love in man, and
not merely such a one as we might, with good reason, pronounce nature
and the whole creation to be. And even when we say _in man_, we do not
merely mean thereby such as is revealed in his instinctive emotions of
devotion and religion, but that, rather, which speaks out in man’s most
universal feeling, and in his profoundest and intensest consciousness.
But if love itself is nothing but the pure idea, the inmost spirit and
essential energy of all true life, and especially of that which is
highest and most exalted, then must this revelation of love be
pre-eminently the subject-matter of the philosophy of life. For it is
even the rich and intrinsic center of the other four sacred sources of
divine revelation, and out of it all higher life, thought, faith, and
science, flows into the soul of every man that has any susceptibility
for such exalted excellence. This remark, moreover, implicitly
determines the relation which both faith and enthusiasm (according to
the Platonic notion of it) hold in general to science, and also to
revelation and love, though, indeed, with respect to the latter, it is
only inchoately and in outline that it is so fixed.
But, in order fully to work out and complete the idea of science,
according to all those external relations which we have already laid
down, it will be necessary to examine the several elements of this idea
in their internal coherence, and also, by means of contrast with a
complete evolution of the system of inborn error, to set them in the
fullest and clearest light.
We have already declared and enumerated the several elements and
degrees, or species and constituents which, together, make up scientific
knowledge. First of all, there is the understanding and explaining, the
discerning and distinguishing. In the second place comes the living
cogitation or complete comprehension of the actual, which forms the true
center of scientific knowledge, if not its very self; and, lastly, that
which is closely connected therewith, the immediate perception and
recognition of truth, and an inward feeling of certainty. All these,
however, are more or less falsified and led astray by the principal of
those scientific errors which are innate in man’s mind--which sometimes
secretly undermine, and, at last, totally subvert and destroy them.
First of all, the living thought is often converted into a dead
cogitation, being carried away from its natural direction toward the
actual, and misled to an unsubstantial pursuit of empty abstractions.
The total confusion of ideas which this leads to is fatal to all
distinctness and precision of understanding, and renders it impossible
to have a clear discernment and correct judgment of things. And then, in
this bottomless abyss, the firm foundation of actual truth and inward
certainty sinks and is swallowed up.
Every one, indeed, of the four fundamental faculties of the human mind
contains, in itself, a faulty disposition and pernicious germ of a
special and precise form of scientific error, which establishes and
fully develops itself in its appropriate domain, and which, when
circumstances are favorable, is matured and shaped into a system of
falsehood. It is chiefly in the visible consequences of its further
development, and, also, by the intrinsic inconsistencies in which it is
involved by the unfounded assumption from which it sets out at the very
first, that each of these abortions of unsubstantial and empty
cogitation is most easily detected. And, in fact, in the history of the
human mind and philosophy, and even of science generally, the essential
characters of these leading phases of scientific aberration are only too
distinctly legible to him who contemplates that great intellectual
picture with an eye unblinded by prejudice.
The error most peculiar to the reason, and which, in its domain, springs
up almost indigenously, is one that has already been frequently
mentioned--viz., the phantom, of the unconditional, or the delusion of
absolute necessity. Now, all the data on which man’s knowledge must be
based have a triple source; they are presented to him from within, from
above, and from without. But the reason, which is the faculty of the
logical connection of ideas, and of the logical necessity which rules in
that connection, often quits this safe and solid ground of reality, as
presented to it in triple experience, whether of revelation and history,
or of natural science, and resting entirely on itself, tries to build
exclusively on its own foundation. Whenever, therefore, it attempts this
impossibility, it invariably copies the mathematical method of
demonstration. And so there immediately springs up the false semblance
of a necessary knowledge. As the faculty of logical thinking, the reason
is at the same time a power of endless progressive development. To
invent, however, to create and to produce, is absolutely beyond its
capacity; and it forfeits its own rights, whenever, abandoning the
pursuits most appropriate, and assigned to it by nature, it usurps the
prerogatives of an inventive and productive faculty, and thereby gives
birth to the abortions of false metaphysical systems.
When, however, the firm basis and sure principle of some real and actual
fact is once given, then the further scientific development, derivation,
and wider deduction from this first foundation may be carried
illimitably onward. There exists no cause at all why we should wish to
set bounds to its advance. For were we to do so, we should perhaps
afterward discover that they had been drawn either too narrowly or too
prematurely; as, indeed, has already been too often done in many a
branch of mathematical science. And, even because it is exactly in
mathematics that the illimitable procedure of scientific development
manifests itself most signally and most brilliantly, and is at the same
time not inconsistent with the greatest rigor of form and certainty, if
only it originally sets out from a stable principle of actual reality,
this science will furnish, perhaps, the most appropriate and pertinent
illustration. And, indeed, the more so, as the prejudice still subsists
in men’s minds, that the first foundation of mathematical science is an
original invention of the reason--a pure product of the internal
intuitions of the intellect, and that this science stands quite apart
from all other so-called sciences of experience. But in its first
development and acquisition, this is very far from being the case. If we
could only observe in others, or could in our own case recall to mind
how long it is before a child can actually count three, or clearly
separate from itself the external objects it perceives, or learns to
distinguish between any two objects, or between them and itself, we
shall be forced to admit that the first basis of enumeration has an
empirical origin, and that it is on such, consequently, that all
mathematical science is built up and founded. Geometrical lines and
figures are properly nothing more than numbers, or the fundamental
arithmetical notions fixed in space and invested with a corporeal shape,
and thereby become visible. It is, however, not unusual to regard the
first principles of geometry--such as the point, the right line, the
square, and the triangle, out of which all else is compounded--as
independent of experience, and existing absolutely in and by themselves.
But, in truth, these primary facts of geometry are, without exception,
first furnished by experience. And even if, for the purposes of science,
they are advanced in a degree of abstract purity and of notional
completeness, which they do not possess in the external world of
sensible things, where they are always combined with more or less of
gross admixture or of imperfection, this is only what is the case, in
exactly the same degree, with the first principles of all other
experimental sciences.
Astronomy is one of the highest applications of mathematical science,
which in it is carried to its highest limits of development. But here,
too, the latter has grown together and in common with natural science.
The complicated and elaborate calculations, the approximate hypotheses
of mathematical astronomy, are intimately interwoven and mixed up with
manifold sidereal facts and observations. Properly, therefore, and
rightly understood, mathematical science forms no exception to the
general principle that all knowledge is based upon experience, derived
from inward, outward, or, it may be, higher perceptions. Consequently,
it is not so much in kind as in degree that it is distinguished from
other experimental sciences. We must not, however, forget that in very
many cases of the application of mathematics to real life and natural
history, it is not so much a material science as rather a mere organ and
instrument for the advancement and further elaboration of the particular
sciences to which it is applied. Viewed relatively to a higher physical
science, mathematics do but form the mere outline and articulation of
the whole structure of the inner skeleton of the whole body of nature;
or, rather, it is the hidden key and rule of speech of the marvelous
language of revelation, and of that otherwise hidden existence which is
here brought to the light, and which we call nature--its inner grammar,
in short, and higher symbolism.
In order to guard against this abuse of reason, to which every thinker
must feel himself but too liable, and which is universally acknowledged
to be possible, it has been thought sufficient to distinguish the
perversion from the right application of it within its natural and due
limits. With this view it has been maintained that the knowledge and
certainty which are conceded to and are within the reach of man are
restricted to the sensible world; while, on the other hand, in the
suprasensible domain, all judgment is denied to reason, and absolutely
all knowledge to man. But this position is very far from being
justifiable. For if, as we maintain, all knowledge is really imparted,
or, in other words, a gift or revelation, its measure and limits can
not be determined by way of anticipation, nor do they in truth depend at
all upon man. Such limits rest entirely with Him from whom all has
proceeded, and who communicates or has communicated to His creatures
severally whatever it is His will to communicate or impart to them, or
absolutely to enjoin upon them. But this revelation and communication,
on which all religion and science ultimately rests, being once given and
received, reason need not by any means be excluded from the
suprasensible domain. On the contrary, it may in a certain degree
lawfully co-operate in the effectually working of it, and, to a certain
extent and under certain limits, may even judge of it. Indeed, when the
first foundation of actual reality is once given and established, and
moreover acknowledged as such, then the use and employment of reason is
no less legitimate here than it is in the domain of the sensible world,
or in a special science of experience directed and confined to
terrestrial things. What is meant hereby, and how it is to be
understood, will best appear from what I am now about to add. Though
theology, as little as religion itself, can draw exclusively from or
rest entirely on reason--for this would be fatal to its very idea--still
it is not only allowable, but even highly desirable, that theology, in
its practical application and method, should be thoroughly rational. By
this means alone will it be able to preclude not only a pernicious
confusion of ideas and the mistakes of fanatical enthusiasm, but also
all unprofitable disputes and the absurd bitterness of animosity. And
thus, under the prevailing influence of reason, the spirit of love and
concord will outlive all the violent attacks and deep wounds of
controversial ardor.
In its application, therefore, and external form, all science is, or,
rather, to speak generally, ought to be, rational; even though it can
not derive its subject-matter from reason, nor in any way depend upon it
in this respect. For whenever she attempts to produce the latter out of
herself, she invariably gives birth to the metaphysical phantom of
absolute entity and of absolute knowledge, or that false illusion of
reason which sets up an identical dualism and intrinsic unity of
necessary being and necessary thought, as the two inseparably connected
forms or species of the one eternal essence which, superior to and
higher than both, contains in itself the primary ground of all existence
and of all consciousness. Before this illusion, the idea of a personal
Deity naturally falls to the ground. It is all too low and too mean for
the lofty conceptions of this imaginary phantom of reason. Nowhere, I
would observe by the way, has this illusory system, which is utterly
fatal to the truth, been carried out with such rigor of consequence, or
set forth with such masterly powers of exposition, as in the works of
Spinosa. In this view of the world and things, however, we have two
forms of a necessary thought, running, indeed, continually parallel to
each other, but never becoming perfectly coincident. Accordingly, no
system of it has ever been able to attain to a general recognition and
reception. For, notwithstanding that perfect unintelligibility is
essential to this view, being deeply inwoven in its whole system, and
running through its most delicate threads, and reaching to its inmost
corners, each new master of mathematical certainty in this method of
negation and systematic nullity seeks the cause of the obscurity in some
intellectual defect of his immediate predecessor in the exposition of
it. Accordingly, he feels himself called upon to make some slightly
changed turn and arrangement of the thoughts, and so to come forward as
the inventor and founder of an entirely new fabric of truth; whereas, in
truth, his new form and method are fundamentally the very same delusion
of a mere rational semblance of logical necessity that formed the
foundation of the old and condemned systems. However greatly the outward
garb of language and phraseology may have varied in the course of
centuries, still the error itself has remained identical and free from
change.
And even if the necessary connection of these two worlds of objective
existence and subjective consciousness, which run parallel with each
other, should be conceived of, somewhat after the idea of Leibnitz, as a
pre-established harmony, having, as such, its origin in a personal God,
still, by this apparent recognition of the sovereign hand of omnipotence
ruling and guiding the whole creation, it is only in the external form
that it is relieved from the objection of dualism. For, fundamentally,
this theory resolves itself into the mechanism of an intrinsically blind
necessity, by means of which the two clocks, as it were, set originally
together by the Supreme Artist, run on forever and agree, while
otherwise they have no sort of connection or contact. Such a theory
evidently furnishes no true solution of the difficulty, and leads to no
satisfactory result. Quite different from this is the true inner unity,
which, however, is no mere sameness--the true living harmony, which,
however, is no pre-established one--between the external sensible world
of nature and the inner conceptional world of the consciousness, as
contemplated from the position of life, and of a philosophy which takes
its source and foundation from life itself. According to this view,
every thing in the outward reality of corporeal existence is truly and
properly animated, ensouled, and even living. Or, at least, life is the
source from which both the external object of material existence and the
inner thought, life, or consciousness, alike take their rise--in this
one common notion of life, that which exists and that which is conscious
meet together and are fused into one. The whole of the supposed
contrariety falls at once to the ground; and nothing remains but a
certain difference of degree, steps of transition, and fluctuation from
one state to another, similar to that between life and death, sleeping
and waking. What we call existence is merely the visible appearance of a
thought, it is the external expression, the corporeal shape of an inner
life. No doubt this inner and hidden life of nature, when contrasted
with the perfectly clear and free consciousness of man, or still more,
when compared with a higher and superior being, appears perfectly
unconscious. But, in truth, it ought not to be considered as being
always and entirely such; at least, it was not so originally. We ought
rather to explain it as a life and consciousness which have fallen into
a state of slumber, dreaminess, or trance; and even if we must suppose
it to be stiff and rigid with actual death, still it is not with that
death which is eternal and everlasting. This, however, implies at the
same time that we may look upon it as being in a commencing state of
reawakening, though, indeed, it be very far as yet from being fully
awake. And, in truth, in man’s most perfectly developed consciousness,
do we not trace such or a similar reciprocation between sleeping and
waking, dreaming and thinking, memory and oblivion--between the full,
clear day of understanding, comprehension, and discernment, and that
night of error and darkness that can not be dispersed, which conflicting
opinions, with their passions and complications, cast over the human
mind? In truth, no absolute line of demarkation, no impassable barrier,
subsists. On the contrary, there are numberless points of contact and
steps of transition easy enough to trace from the state of a living and
wakeful consciousness into that of sleep, or of an apparently total
rigidity and numbness. Strictly and accurately speaking, however, there
is, according to this view of life, no such thing as death; there is
only a fluctuation and variation of life through its several transitory
forms. Still we must not forget that, relatively to the present state of
things, all of these forms can not be regarded as transitory. In nature,
death has no existence, _i.e._, death is neither essential nor from the
beginning. It was brought in afterward, and incidentally, into creation.
And indeed, for man especially, the immortality of the soul forms not
only an article of the creed of a higher hope, but it is also a visible
fact of nature, an indisputable truth of history, that every where
plainly and loudly announces itself. This hypothesis of a real vitality,
inherent in all the forms of existence, which we may very properly term
the only hypothesis of feeling which the living truth admits of, was, in
ancient times, the general creed of nature, enforced by the universal
feeling of mankind, and originally held by all the nations of the earth.
It is only in modern times that the one-sided sagacity of an elaborate
and artificial science has drawn this strong line of demarkation between
thought and entity, and thereby lead to a total deadening of both. No
sooner, therefore, had existence and consciousness been torn from their
common root of life, and thereby forced asunder from each other, than,
with a view of filling up the great gap between them, the deceptive
rationalism of an irrefragable chain of destiny, and a necessary
predetermination of all things, took the place which life had formerly
held, but from which it had been forcibly expelled.