were shedding their mild radiance of political wisdom, a star of the
first magnitude rose above the Western horizon of Germany, and filled
the surrounding heaven with the splendour of its light. The illustrious
Goerres, already celebrated for his profound researches in archaeology,
and many admirable political writings, published in 1819 his work,
entitled "Germany and the Revolution," which produced so extraordinary a
sensation, and was at the time so ably translated by Mr. Black. This
work was followed in 1821 by that writer's still more wonderful
production, entitled "Europe and the Revolution," a production which in
the soundness of its doctrines--the generosity of its sentiments--the
depth and comprehensiveness of its views--and the copiousness and
variety of historical illustration brought forward in their
support--surpasses perhaps all the mighty works in defence of social
order and liberty which the momentous events of the last fifty years
have called forth in different parts of Europe. With a few slight shades
of difference, the political views of Goerres mainly accord with those
of Schlegel; but, living under the free government of Bavaria, the
former is able boldly to proclaim truths which the latter at Vienna was
able only to hint. Goerres unites the strong, practical sense of
Gentz--the masterly learning and profound and comprehensive
understanding of F. Schlegel--to great boldness of character, and a
style of peculiar force and condensation. While the political glance of
Schlegel was mostly directed towards the past--that of Gentz to the
present hour--the eye of Goerres is turned more particularly to the
future. Had the counsels of this illustrious man been more generally
followed, the perilous crisis, in which for the last five years Germany
has been involved, would have been happily averted, or at least better
provided against. Himself and Schlegel may be considered as the supreme
oracles of that illustrious school of liberal Conservatives, founded by
our great Burke, and which numbers besides the eminent Germans, whose
names have already been mentioned, a Baron de Haller in Switzerland--a
Viscount de Bonald in France[20]--a Count Henri de Merode in
Belgium--and a Count Maistre in Piedmont: men whose writings contain, in
a greater or less degree, the seeds of the future political regeneration
of Europe.
While engaged in the editorship of the Concordia, Schlegel gave a new
edition of his works with considerable improvements and augmentations.
Actively as his time had been employed, a long period had now elapsed
since he had given any great production to the world; and he was now
preparing those immortal works, which were to shed so bright an
effulgence round the close of his life. In the rapid review which has
been here taken of his critical, philological and historical writings,
nothing has been said of his philosophical pursuits; and yet philosophy
was his darling study--philosophy, which the ancients called "the
science of divine and human things," was alone capable of filling the
vast capacity of Schlegel's mind. At the age of nineteen, he had already
read all the works of Plato in their original tongue; and six-and-thirty
years afterwards, he expressed a vivid recollection of the delight and
enthusiasm which the perusal had excited in his youthful mind. In 1800,
he commenced his philosophical career at the University of Jena before
an admiring audience; we have already seen him at Paris, amid his
philological labours, devoting a portion of his time to the cultivation
of philosophy; and, amid all the struggles and occupations of his
subsequent life, he would ever and anon snatch some moment to pay his
homage to this celestial maid--this mistress of his heart--this object
of his earliest enthusiasm and latest worship.
A very distinguished friend and disciple of Schlegel's, the Baron
d'Eckstein asserts that, towards the close of the last century, a
confederacy was formed among some men of the most superior minds for the
regeneration of natural science--for the revival of the lofty physics of
remote antiquity, when nature was regarded only as the splendid and
almost transparent veil of the spiritual world. The members of this
intellectual association were Schelling, the two Schlegels, the poet
Tirek, Novalis, and the celebrated geographer Ritter. This confederacy
was dissolved, when the pantheistical tendency of Schelling's philosophy
became more apparent; and Frederick Schlegel, in particular, became
afterwards the most strenuous and formidable opponent of a philosophic
system which appeared to him, and rightly enough, only a more subtle and
refined Spinozism. On the true nature of this philosophy, however,
opinion was much divided; many religious men among the Protestants
ranged themselves under its banners; even some of the Orthodox entered
into terms of accommodation with it; and the great Catholic theologian,
Zimmer, thought that, by means of this system, he could obtain a clearer
conception of the great Christian mystery of the Trinity. Enormous as
may be the errors contained in this philosophy, yet, as few philosophic
systems are entirely erroneous, the philosophy of Schelling, which
appears to have undergone a purification in its course, has been
attended with some beneficial results. It has led to a more profound and
spiritual knowledge of nature--it has been, to many, a point of
transition from the materialism and rationalism of the eighteenth
century to the Christian Religion--and, indeed, this effect it has had
on its illustrious founder himself, who has for some years returned to
the bosom of Christianity, and who probably will be remembered by
posterity more for his recent labours as a profound Christian
naturalist, than for the pantheistic reveries of his youth.[21]
Schlegel's earlier philosophical, as well as historical, works are no
longer to be met with, and have not yet been re-published. In the
Concordia for 1820, we find an outline of those lectures on the
Philosophy of life, which the author delivered at Vienna, in the year
1827. This work immediately preceded the one to which this memoir is
prefixed; and, as it embodies those general philosophical principles, of
which in the latter an application is made to history, a rapid analysis
of its doctrines, particularly in the psychological and ontological
parts, will be useful, nay, almost necessary, to the elucidation of many
passages in the following translation. But how can I attempt the
analysis of a work where the arrangement of a formal, didactic
discussion is studiously avoided--where the author pours forth his
thoughts with all the freedom of conversation--high, spiritual
conversation--where such is the exuberant fulness of his ideas, such
the shadowy subtilty of his perceptions, that even the German language,
copious and philosophical as it is, seems at times inadequate to their
expression. Long as Germany had been habituated to the genius of
Schlegel, she herself seems to have been startled by the appearance of a
work where the boldest, the most unlooked for, the sublimest vistas of
philosophy were opened to her astonished view.
Bespeaking then the indulgence of the reader, I will now proceed to lay
before him an outline of some of the principal ideas on psychology and
ontology, contained in the Philosophy of Life.
The consciousness of man is composed of mind, soul, and body. The soul
is the centre of consciousness. The consciousness of man may be best
understood by comparing it with that of other created beings. The
existence of brutes is extremely simple--they have only a body--they
have no mind--they have, properly speaking, no soul--at least, their
soul is completely mingled with their corporeal frame; so that on the
destruction of the latter, it reverts to the elements, or is absorbed in
the general vital energy of nature (Natur-seele). In the scale of
existence superior to man, the angelic spirits are represented in Holy
Writ, and in the Traditions of all nations, as pure, intellectual
beings, devoid of a _gross_ corporeal frame. But have they no body
whatsoever? Schlegel ascribes to them what he calls in his beautiful
language, "an etherial body of light." This opinion, it must be
confessed, has comparatively few supporters in the modern schools of
theology, whether in the Catholic or Protestant churches; but it was
maintained by many of the ancient Fathers, and, in modern times, it has
met with the high sanction of the great Leibnitz. Schlegel assigns no
reason for his opinion; but I have means of knowing that another great
Christian philosopher of the age has, in his unpublished system of
metaphysics, adduced very cogent arguments in support of this theory.
With the exception of this subtle, etherial, luminous body, the
celestial Spirits, according to the author, are nothing but intelligence
or mind. They have, strictly speaking, no soul; for the distinctive
faculties of the soul (as will be presently shown) are reason and
imagination; and these faculties cannot be ascribed to beings in whom
an intuitive understanding needs not the slow deductions, and analytic
process of reason; nor wants a medium of communication with the world of
sense, like imagination. Hence the lines of the great German poet fully
represent the difference, as well as the resemblance, in the
intellectual action of man and the angelic spirits:
"Science, O man, thou shar'st with higher spirits;
But Art thou hast alone."
Hence the nature of brutes is simple--that of angels two-fold--that of
men three-fold.
The third part of human consciousness, the body--its organic laws,
powers, and properties, the philosopher must leave to the naturalist. It
is only when it has reference to the higher parts of consciousness that
its properties can be made the matter of his investigation. The soul and
the mind form the fit and peculiar subject of his enquiries. To the mind
belong the faculties of will and understanding--to the soul, those of
reason and imagination. Schlegel observes it is remarkable that the
three different species of mental alienation correspond to the three
parts of human consciousness. Thus monomania springs from some error
deeply rooted in the mind--frenzy is the disorder of a soul that has
broken loose from all the restraints of reason; and idiotcy arises from
some organic defect in the brain. The last is the effect of physical,
the two former the consequence of moral, and frequently accidental,
causes. The author lays it down as a general principle, subject,
however, to many modifications and exceptions, that in man mind or
thought predominates--in woman soul or feeling prevails. Hence in
marriage, which is a sacred union of souls, the deficiencies in the
psychology of either sex are happily and mutually supplied. On this
subject, Schlegel has some of the most touching and beautiful
reflections, which a loving heart and a noble fancy have ever inspired.
Imagination (Einbildungs-kraft) is the inventive faculty--Reason
(Vernunft) the regulative--Understanding (Verstand) the penetrative, or
in a higher degree the intuitive--and the Will (Wille) the moral,
faculty. To these primary faculties, or as the author styles them, these
main boughs of human consciousness, four secondary faculties are
subservient--the memory--the conscience--the passions or natural
impulses, and the outward senses. The memory is the intermediate faculty
between the understanding and the reason--the conscience the
intermediate faculty between the reason and the will--the passions or
natural impulses the intermediate faculty between the will and the
imagination--and the outward senses form the connecting link between the
imagination and the body.
Reason is the regulative faculty implanted in the soul. In real life, it
corresponds to what we commonly call judgment, and is that faculty by
which the transactions of men are regulated, and the resolutions of the
will are brought to maturity, whether in sacred or secular concerns. In
science, Reason is the dialectical or analytic faculty, by which the
discoveries of Imagination and the perceptions of the Understanding
receive a definite form--the faculty of analysis, arrangement, and
combination. Reason in itself is not inventive--it makes no
discoveries--it is rather a negative than a positive faculty--but it is
the indispensable arbitress, to whose decision Understanding and
Imagination must submit their various productions.
Imagination, on the other hand, is the inventive faculty in art, poetry
and even science. No great discovery, says the author, can be made even
in the mathematics, without imagination. This assertion may strike us
as strange; but we must remember that Leibnitz declared he was led to
his great mathematical discoveries by the aid of metaphysics; and that
imagination necessarily enters into the composition of a great
metaphysical genius, few will be disposed to question. Here, however, if
I may be allowed to offer an opinion, Schlegel does not appear to me to
have traced, with sufficient distinctness, the boundaries between
imagination and understanding.
Understanding is the faculty of apprehension--it penetrates into the
inward essence of things, and discerns the manifestations of the divine
or human mind in their several revelations and communications.--Thus the
naturalist, whose eye searches into the inward life of nature--the
statesman, who can fathom the most deep-laid plans of a hostile
policy--the theologian, who can discover the most hidden sense of
Scripture, may be said to possess in an eminent degree, the faculty of
understanding.
Will is the other faculty implanted in the mind of man--the faculty on
whose good or evil direction that of all the other faculties of mind and
soul essentially depends. Independently of the moral direction of the
will, its innate strength or weakness, its steadiness or vacillation,
proportionably augment or diminish the power of all the other faculties.
How far moderate abilities, when directed by a firm, tenacious,
perseverant will can avail--to what a degree of success they may
sometimes lead, daily experience may serve to convince us.
Originally all these faculties, will and understanding, reason and
imagination, were harmoniously blended and united in the human
consciousness; but since, at the fall of man, a dark spirit interposed
its shadow betwixt him and the Sun of Righteousness, disorder and
confusion have entered into his mind and soul, and troubled their
several faculties. Thus the understanding often points out a course
which the will refuses to follow; and the will, on the other hand, is
often disposed to pursue the good and right path, were the blind or
narrow understanding competent to direct it. Not only are will and
understanding in frequent collision with one another, but each is at
variance with itself. What the will resolves to-day it shrinks from
to-morrow! How often does the understanding view the same subject in a
different light at different times! How much do time, circumstance, and
humour, place the same truth in a clearer or obscurer aspect! The same
opposition is observable betwixt reason and imagination. Where fancy is
the strongest in the house, how often doth she spurn the warnings of her
more homely and unpretending sister--reason. Again, where reason has the
ascendancy, what groundless aversion, and paltry jealousy does she not
frequently evince at the superior nature of her brilliant sister! Or, to
drop this figurative language, how often do we behold a man of lofty
imagination very deficient in practical sense; and again, in your man of
strong sense, how frequently dull and pedestrian is the fancy! In real
life what a deplorable schism exists between poets and artists on the
one hand, and men of business on the other! What mutual contempt and
aversion do they not frequently exhibit! Well, this schism is nothing
else than the external realization of the inward conflict between reason
and imagination.
With respect to the four secondary faculties--memory--conscience--the
natural impulses--and the outward senses--faculties, which, as the
author says, cannot from their importance be termed subordinate, but
should rather be called subsidiary or assigned;--Schlegel shews that, as
regards the first, the decay of the memory precedes the decline of the
reason, and its sudden and entire loss brings about the extinction of
the latter faculty. In the same way the deadness of the conscience
argues the utmost depravity of the will. The conscience is the memory of
the will, as the memory is the conscience of the understanding.
"The natural impulses," says Schlegel, "where they appear exalted to
passion, are to be regarded as nothing else but the motions of a will,
that has been overpowered by the false illusions of imagination. The
middle position of the impulses betwixt the will and the imagination, as
well as the abused co-operation of those two faculties in any passion or
sensual gratification, become habitual, is apparent particularly in
those inclinations which man has in common with the brute, and where the
viciousness lies only in their excess or violence."[22] "Aspiration
after infinity is natural to man, and belongs essentially to his being.
Whatever is defective or disorderly in his impulses, consists only in
their unbounded gratification--in the perversion of that aspiration
after infinity towards perishable, sensual, material, and often most
unworthy, objects; for that aspiration, natural as it is to man, where
it is pure and genuine, can be gratified by no sensual indulgence and no
earthly possession."[23] In the brute, the gratification of the natural
appetites is regular, uniform, subject to no vicissitudes or excesses,
and entails no injury on his nature, because undisturbed and unvitiated
by the false illusions of imagination.
Lastly, with regard to the outward senses, there are, philosophically
speaking, but three, sight, hearing, and touch--for under the last,
taste and smell are included; and it is remarkable how these severally
correspond to the three parts of human consciousness. The sight is
pre-eminently the sense of the mind--hearing the sense of the
soul--while the touch is peculiarly the sense of the body; the sense
given to the body for its special protection and preservation. The loss
of the first two senses the body can survive--but it perishes with the
utter extinction of the last. Those expressions in common parlance, a
good artist-like eye--a fine musical ear--prove the close connexion
which mankind has always felt to exist between the outer senses and the
higher faculties of man.
"Had the soul," says the author, "not been originally darkened and
troubled--had it remained in a clear, luminous repose in its God--then
the human consciousness would have been of a far more simple nature than
at present; for it would have consisted only of _understanding_, _soul_,
and _will_. Reason and imagination, which are now in such frequent
collision with the will and understanding, as well as with each other,
would then have been absorbed in those higher faculties. Even the
conscience would not then have been a special act, or special function
of the judgment--but a tender feeling--a gentle, almost unconscious
pulsation of the soul. The senses and the memory, those ministrant
faculties which, in the present dissonance of the human consciousness,
form so many distinct powers of the soul, would, in its state of
harmony, have been mere bodily organs."[24]
So much for the author's psychology--let us now proceed to the
ontological part of the work.
To the Supreme Being, will and understanding belong in a supreme degree;
in him they exist in the most perfect harmony--will is understanding,
and understanding will. But with no propriety can the faculty of reason
be ascribed to the Deity; and it is remarkable, says the author, that
nowhere in Holy Writ, nor in the sacred traditions of the primitive
nations, nor in the writings of the great philosophers of antiquity, is
the term reason ever used in reference to Almighty God. It is only among
a few of the later, degenerate, and rationalist sects of philosophy, the
Stoics for example, that the expression _Divine Reason_ is ever met
with. If such an expression is incorrect or unsound, with still less
fitness and decorum can the faculty of imagination be assigned to the
God-head--the very term would shock the understandings, and revolt the
inmost feelings, of all men.
The Deity reveals himself unto men in four different ways--in Scripture,
(including of course its running and necessary commentary,
ecclesiastical Tradition);--in Nature--in Conscience, and in History.
"Holy Writ," says the author, "as it is delivered to us, and as it was
begun and founded three-and-thirty centuries ago, does not exclude the
elder sacred traditions of the preceding two thousand four hundred
years; or the revelation, which was the common heritage of the whole
human race. On the contrary, it contains very explicit allusions to the
fact that such a revelation was imparted to the first man, as well as to
that patriarch who, after the destruction of the primeval world of
giants, was the second progenitor of mankind. As the sacred knowledge,
derived from this revelation, flowed on every side, and in copious
streams over the succeeding generations of men, the ancient and holy
traditions were soon disfigured, and covered over with fictions and
fables; where, amid a multitude of remarkable vestiges and glorious
traits of true religion, immoral mysteries and Bacchanalian rites were
often intermixed, and truth itself, as in a second chaos, buried under a
mass of contradictory symbols. Thence arose that Babylonish confusion of
languages, sagas, and symbols, which is universally found among the
ancient, and even the primitive nations. In the great work of the
restoration of true religion, which accordingly we must regard as a
second revelation, or rather as a second stage of revelation, a rigid
proscription of those heathen fictions, and of all the immorality
connected with them, was the first and most essential requisite. But in
that gospel of creation, which forms the introduction to the whole
Bible, that elder revelation, accorded to the first man and to the
second progenitor, is expressly laid down as the ground-work; and in
this introduction, we shall find the clue to the history and religion of
the primitive world--nay, it is the true Genesis of all historical
science."[25]
Now with respect to the secondary or more indirect modes, by which the
Deity communicates himself to men, the author observes that "Nature,
too, is a book written on both sides, within and without, in which the
finger of God is clearly visible:--a species of Holy Writ, in a bodily
form--a glorious panegyric, as it were, on God's omnipotence, expressed
in the most vivid symbols. Together with these two great witnesses of
the glory of the Creator, scripture, and nature--the voice of conscience
is an inward revelation of God--the first index of those other two
greater and more general sources of revealed truths; while History, by
laying before our eyes the march of Divine Providence--a Providence
whose loving agency is apparent as well in the lives of individuals as
in the social career of nations--History, I say, constitutes the fourth
revelation of God."[26]