THE CIVILIZING POWER OF THE ETHIC OF REVERENCE FOR LIFE
Civilization as a product of reverence for life
THE reverence for life which has grown up in the will-to-live which
has become reflective, contains world- and life-affirmation and ethics
side by side and interpenetrating each other. It therefore cannot but
continually think out and will all the ideals of ethical civilization,
and bring them into agreement with reality.
Reverence for life will not allow to pass as current the purely
individualistic and inward conception of civilization as it rules in
Indian thought and in mysticism. That man should make efforts for
self-perfecting by withdrawing into himself is to it a deep, but an
incomplete, ideal of civilization.
In no way does reverence for life allow the individual to give up all
interest in the world. It is unceasingly compelling him to be
concerned about all the life that is round about him, and to feel
himself responsible for it. Whenever life is in question the
development of which we can influence, our concern with it, and our
responsibility for it, are not satisfied by our maintaining and
promoting its existence as such; they demand that we shall try to
raise it to its highest value in every respect.
The being that can be influenced in its development by us is man.
Reverence for life compels us, therefore, to picture to ourselves and
to will every kind of progress of which man and humanity are capable.
It throws us into a restless condition of ever picturing to ourselves
and willing civilization, but as ethical men.
Even a not yet deepened world- and life-affirmation [pg 270] produces
this picturing and willing of civilization, but it leaves a man to
exert himself more or less without guidance. In reverence for life,
however, and the willing which accompanies it, to raise men and
humanity to their highest value in every respect, he possesses the
guidance which leads him to complete and purified ideals of
civilization which with full consciousness of their goal come to terms
with reality.
Defined from outside and quite empirically, complete civilization
consists in making actual all possible progress in discovery and
invention and in the arrangements of human society, and seeing that
they work together for the inward perfecting of individuals which is
the real and final object of civilization. Reverence for life is in a
position to complete this conception of civilization and to supply a
foundation for its most inward elements. This it does by defining what
is meant by the inward perfecting of man, and making it consist in
reaching the spirituality of an ever deepening reverence for life.
In order to give a meaning to the material and spiritual progress
which is to be made actual by the individual man and mankind, the
ordinary representation of civilization has to assume an evolution of
the world, in which such progress has a meaning. But to do so, it puts
itself in dependence on a play of phantasy which reaches no result. It
is impossible to depict an evolution of the world in which the
civilization produced by the individual man and mankind means
something.
In reverence for life, on the contrary, civilization recognizes that
it has nothing at all to do with the evolution of the world, but
carries its meaning in itself. The essence of civilization consists in
this, that the reverence for life which in my will-to-live is
struggling for recognition does get stronger and stronger in
individuals and in mankind. Civilization, then, is not a phenomenon of
any world-evolution, but an experience of the will-to-live within us,
which it is neither possible nor necessary to bring into [pg 271]
relation with the course of nature as we know it from outside. As a
perfecting of our will-to-live it is sufficient for itself. What the
development that takes place in us means in the totality of the
development in the world we leave on one side as something
undiscoverable. That as a result of all the progress which men and
mankind can make there shall exist in the world as much as possible of
will-to-live, putting reverence for life into practice on all life
which comes within reach of its influence, and seeking perfection in
the spiritual atmosphere of reverence for life: this and nothing else
is civilization. So completely does it carry its value in itself that
even the certainty of the human race ceasing to exist within a
calculable period, would not be able to lead us away from our efforts
to attain to civilization.
As a development in which the highest experience of the will-to-live
lives itself out, civilization has a meaning for the world without
needing any explanation of the world.
The four ideals of civilization. The struggle for a civilized mankind
in the machine age
The will-to-live which is filled with reverence for life is interested
in the most lively and persevering way that can be imagined in all
kinds of progress. Moreover, it possesses a standard by which to
assess their value correctly, and can create a spirit and temper which
allows them all to work in with one another in the most effective way.
Three kinds of progress come within the purview of civilization:
progress in knowledge and power; progress in the social organization
of mankind; progress in spirituality.
Civilization is made up of four ideals: the ideal of the individual;
the ideal of social and political organization; the ideal of spiritual
and religious social organization; the ideal of humanity as a whole.
On the basis of these four ideals thought comes to terms with
progress.
Progress in knowledge has a directly spiritual significance [pg 272]
when it is interpreted by thought. It makes us recognize, ever more
completely, that everything which exists is power, that is to say,
will-to-live; it is ever making larger the circle of the will-to-live
of which we can form conceptions by analogy with our own. What a
significance it has for our meditation on the world that we have
discovered in the cell an individual existence, in the capacity of
which for activity and suffering we see repeated the elements of our
own vitality! By our ever-growing knowledge we are roused to ever
greater astonishment at that secret of life which surrounds us on
every hand. From simple simplicity we arrive at a more profound
simplicity.
From our knowledge comes also power over the forces of nature. Our
powers of movement and of action are increased in an extraordinary
way. There comes about a far-reaching change in the circumstances of
our life.
The progress which accompanies it, however, is not to the same extent
an advantage for the development of man. By the power we obtain over
the forces of nature we do indeed free ourselves from nature, and make
her serviceable to us, but at the same time we thereby also cut
ourselves loose from her, and slip into conditions of life, the
unnatural character of which brings with it dangers of many sorts.
We press the forces of nature into our service by means of machines.
There is a story in the writings of Chwang-tse of how a pupil of
Confucius saw a gardener who, to get water for his flower-beds, went
down to the spring with his bucket every time. So he asked him whether
he would not like to lessen his labour. “How can I?” replied the
other. “You take a long piece of wood for a lever,” said Confucius’
pupil, “weighted behind, but light in front; with this you dip for the
water and it comes up without the least trouble. They call this device
a draw-well.” But the gardener, who was something of a philosopher,
answered: “I have heard my teacher say: ‘If a man uses machines, he
carries on all the affairs of life like a machine; whoever [pg 273]
carries on his affairs like a machine gets a machine-like heart; and
when anyone has a machine-like heart in his breast, he loses true
simplicity.’”
The dangers that were suspected by that gardener in the fifth century
B.C. are active among us in full force. Purely mechanical labour has
become the lot of numbers among us to-day. Cut loose from their own
house and from any ground of their own which might feed them, they
live in a depressing, materialist unfreedom. As a result of the
revolution which the machine has produced, we are almost all of us
subjected to an existence of labour which is far too much governed by
rule, too limited in its nature, and too trying to the system.
Reflexion and collectedness are made difficult for us. Family life and
the upbringing of our children are impoverished. We are all more or
less in danger of becoming human things instead of personalities. Many
sorts of material and spiritual injury to human existence form
therefore the dark side of the achievements of discovery and
invention.
Even our capacity for civilization is endangered. Claimed entirely for
so severe a struggle for existence, many of us are no longer in a
position to think about ideals which make for civilization. Such men
cannot reach the objective mood which is necessary for it. All their
attention is directed to the improvement of their own existence. The
ideals which they set up for this latter object they proclaim to be
ideals of civilization, and thus they start confusion in the general
picture of what civilization is.
In order to fit ourselves to the state of things produced by the
results of these achievements of discovery and invention which are,
indeed, desirable although injurious, we must think out the ideal of
humanity and wrestle with circumstances to make them hinder as little,
and help as much as possible the development of man up to this ideal.
The ideal of civilized man is none other than that of a man who in
every relation of life preserves true human nature. To be civilized
men means for us almost this: [pg 274] that in spite of the conditions
of modern civilization we remain human. It is only taking thought for
everything which belongs to true human nature that can preserve us,
amid the conditions of the most advanced external civilization, from
going astray from civilization itself. It is only if the longing to
become again truly man is awakened in the man of to-day, that he will
be able to find his way out of the confusion in which, blinded by
conceit at his knowledge and pride in his powers, he is at present
wandering. Only then, too, will he be in a position to work against
the pressure of those relations of life which threaten his human
nature.
Reverence for life demands, therefore, as the ideal of the material
and spiritual being of man, that with the completest possible
development of all his faculties and in the widest possible freedom,
both material and spiritual, he strives to be honest with himself and
to take a sympathetic and helping interest in all the life that is
around him. In earnest concern about himself he must ever keep in mind
all the responsibilities which are his lot, and so, as sufferer and as
actor, preserve in his relation to himself and to the world a living
spirituality. There should ever be before him as true human nature the
duty of being ethical in the profound world- and life-affirmation of
reverence for life.
If it is recognized as the aim of civilization that every man shall
attain to true human nature in an existence which is as fully as
possible worthy of him, then the uncritical overvaluing of the
external elements of civilization which we have taken over from the
end of the nineteenth century can no longer prevail among us. We are
forced more and more into a reflexion which compels us to distinguish
between the essentials and the unessentials of civilization.
Unspiritual pride in civilization loses its power over us. We dare to
face the truth that with the progress of discovery and invention
civilization has become not easier, but more difficult. We become
conscious of the problem of the mutual relations between the material
and [pg 275] the spiritual. We know that we all have to wrestle with
circumstances on behalf of our human nature, and make it an object of
our care to transform the almost hopeless struggle which many have to
carry on to preserve their human nature, into one which offers some
hope.
As a spiritual help in this struggle we offer them the spirit and
temper which will allow no man ever to be sacrificed to circumstances,
as if he were a mere human thing. Formulated by so-called thinkers and
popularized in all possible forms, the conviction is general that
civilization is the privilege of an _élite_, and that man in the mass
is only a means for realizing it. At the same time the spiritual help
which they can claim is denied to these men who have to wrestle to
preserve their human nature. That is the effect of the devotion to
reality to which we have surrendered ourselves. But reverence for life
rebels against it, and produces a spirit and temper in which there is
offered to every man in the thoughts of others the human value and the
human dignity which the circumstances of life would deny him. The
struggle has thus lost its extreme bitterness. Man has now to assert
himself only against his circumstances, and no longer against his
fellow-men at the same time.
Further, the temper of reverence for life helps those who have to
struggle hardest on behalf of their human nature by keeping alive the
conception of human nature as the privilege which must be preserved at
any price. It keeps them from engaging with one-sided aims in their
struggle for the diminishing of their material unfreedom, and bids
them bethink themselves that much more of human nature and inward
freedom can be combined with their actual life-circumstances than they
actually secure. It leads them on to preserve recollectedness and
inwardness when they have hitherto given them up.
There must come about a spiritualizing of the masses. The mass of
individuals must begin to reflect about their lives, about what they
want to secure for their lives in the [pg 276] struggle for existence,
about what makes their circumstances difficult, and about what they
themselves renounce. They are wanting in spirituality because they
have only a confused conception of what spirituality is. They forget
to think, because elementary thought about themselves has become
something unfamiliar to them. In what is in our day cultivated as
spirituality and practised as thought, there is absolutely nothing
that comes directly home to them as necessary for them. But if it
comes about that the thoughts suggested by reverence for life become
common among us, there will be a mode of thought provided which will
work in everybody, and a spirituality aroused which will show itself
in everybody. Even those who are engaged in the hardest struggle on
behalf of their human nature will then be led to reflexion and
inwardness, and will thereby obtain powers which they did not before
possess.
Though all of us are alike aware that the maintenance of civilization
is dependent first and foremost on the breaking out of the fountains
of spiritual life in us, we shall nevertheless zealously take in hand
our economic and social problems. The highest possible material
freedom for the greatest possible number is a requirement of
civilization.
The recognition that we evidently have so little power over economic
relations does not discourage us. We know this to be to a considerable
extent a result of the fact that hitherto facts were contending with
facts, and passions with passions. Our powerlessness comes from our
feeling for reality. We shall be able to deal with things much more
effectively, if we resolve to try to solve our problems by a change of
spirit and temper. And we are at length ready for the recognition of
this. The efforts for control which were made on the strength of
economic theories and Utopias were in every respect failures, and have
brought us into a terrible condition. There remains nothing for us to
do but to try a radical change of policy, [pg 277] viz., the solution
of our problems by means of a helpful understanding and confidence in
a way that will prove effective. It is reverence for life alone which
can create the spirit and temper needed for this. The understanding
and confidence which we mutually accord to each other with a view to
what is most purposive, and by means of which we obtain the utmost
power that is possible over circumstances, can be enjoyed only if
everyone can assume in everyone else reverence for the existence of
the other and regard for his material and spiritual welfare as a
spirit and temper which influences them to the depths of their being.
Only through reverence for life can we attain the standards of
economic justice, about which we have to come to an understanding with
each other.
Will it be possible to bring about this development? We must, if we
are not to be ruined together, materially and spiritually. All
progress in discovery and invention works itself out at last to a
fatal result, if we do not maintain control over it through a
corresponding progress in our spirituality. Through the power which we
gain over the forces of nature we get in an inexplicable way as human
beings control over other human beings. With the possession of a
hundred machines a single man or a company is given a supremacy over
all who work the machines. Some new invention makes it possible for
one man by a single movement to kill not merely a hundred, but ten
thousand of his fellow-men. In no sort of struggle is it possible to
avoid becoming ruinous to one another by economic or physical power.
At best the result is that the oppressor and the oppressed exchange
rôles. The only thing that can help is that we renounce the power
which is given us over one another. But that is something to be done
by spirituality.
Intoxicated by the progress in discovery and invention with which our
age has been flooded, we forgot to trouble ourselves about men’s
progress in spirituality. In the absence of all thought we slid
without knowing it into [pg 278] pessimism, believing, that is, in all
sorts of progress, but no longer in the spiritual progress of the
individual and of mankind.
Facts call us now to bethink ourselves, just as movements of their
capsizing vessel drive the crew up on to the deck and into the
rigging. Belief in the spiritual progress of the individual and of
mankind has already become almost impossible for us, but with the
courage of despair we must force ourselves into it. That we shall all
unanimously again will this spiritual progress and again hope for it:
that is the reversal of the helm which we must succeed in making, if
our vessel is at the last moment to be brought once more before the
wind.
Only through thoughtful reverence for life shall we become capable of
this achievement. If that reverence begins anywhere to work in our
thinking and in our spirit and temper, then the miracle is possible.
The power of the elementary and living spirituality that is to be
found in it is beyond calculation.
Church and State as historical entities, and as ideals of civilization
State and Church are only modified forms of the organization of men
towards humanity. The ideals of social-political and religious
organization are therefore determined by the necessity of these
entities being made effective aids to the spiritualizing of men, and
to their organization towards humanity.
The fact that the ideals of State and Church among us are not at work
in their true form is due to our historical sense. The men of the
“Aufklärung” assumed that State and Church had come into existence by
reason of estimates made of their usefulness. They sought to
comprehend the nature of these two entities by means of theories about
their origins, but in this proceeding they did nothing but read back
their own view into history. Not feeling the least reverence for any
natural historical entity, they [pg 279] found it easy to approach
them with demands suggested by a rational ideal. We, on the contrary,
have such a measure of this reverence that we feel shy of wishing to
transform in accordance with theoretical ideas what had a quite
different origin.
But State and Church are not merely natural historical entities; they
are also necessary ones. The only way in which reflexion can deal with
them is to be always at work, transforming them from what they are as
received, into organisms which are in accordance with reason and
effective in every respect. Only in this capacity for development is
their existence fully apprehended and justified.
The natural historical entity presents us always only with initial
facts which lead on to corresponding further happenings, but never
with facts in which the nature of the society, that is to say the way
in which we are to behave towards it and to belong to it, can be
determined. If one allows that in the conception of the natural entity
there is also given one of a self-determined purpose, there arises a
fundamental confusion in people’s notion of the organization. The
individual and humanity as a whole, which are just as truly natural
entities as the two historical ones, are robbed of their rights and
sacrificed to the latter. The increased understanding with which we
now study the natural policy of societies with historical origin can
therefore not alter at all our demand that State and Church shall
direct their course more and more with reference to the ideal of man
and of humanity as their natural poles, and be obliged to find in them
their higher effectiveness.
Civilization demands, then, that State and Church become capable of
development. This presupposes that the relations of influence between
the collective body and individual members of it will become different
from what they have been. In the last few generations the individual
has in face of State and Church surrendered more and more of his
spiritual independence. He received his spirit [pg 280] and temper
from them, instead of the spirit and temper that was growing within
him working as a shaping force upon State and Church.
This abnormal relation was unavoidable. The individual had, of course,
nothing in which he could be spiritually independent. He had,
therefore, no spirit and temper in which he could come to terms with
the entities of real life. Nor was he in a position to think out
ideals which could work upon reality. There was no course left for him
but to adopt as an ideal an idealized reality.
But in the world- and life-view of reverence for life he obtains the
means to a firm and valuable self-determination. It is with a will and
a hope which he carries ready shaped within himself that he faces
reality. It is to him something self-evident that every society that
is formed among men must serve towards the maintenance, the
advancement, and the higher development of life, and the production of
true spirituality.
That which is decisive for the commencement of a development of State
and Church which has civilization for its aim and object, is that the
mass of men belong to these two entities in the spirit and temper of
reverence for life and the ideals which grow out of it: when that is
the case there arises in State and Church a spirit which works for
their transformation into something ethical and spiritual.
A forecast of the course this process will take cannot be made, nor is
one needed. The spirit and temper of reverence for life is a force
which works effectively in every direction. The important thing is
that it shall be present with a strength and a steadiness which will
suffice to bring about the transformation.
The moralizing of the religious and political community
If the Church is to accomplish its task, it must unite men in
elementary, thoughtful, ethical religiousness. This [pg 281] it has
done hitherto very imperfectly. How far it is from being what it ought
to be, its absolute failure in the war revealed. There devolved on it
the duty of summoning men out of the struggle of national passions to
reflexion, and to keep them in the spirit and temper of the highest
ideals. It was not able to do this, and indeed did not seriously
attempt to. Only too completely historical, and too well organized,
and too little a directly religious association, itself succumbed to
the spirit of the time and mixed up with religion the dogmas of
nationalism and pragmatism. There was only one tiny church, the
community of the Quakers, which attempted to defend the unconditional
validity of reverence for life, as it is contained in the religion of
Jesus.
The spirit and temper of reverence for life is able to work for the
transformation of the Church to the ideal of a religious association,
because it is itself deeply religious. In all historically formulated
belief it seeks to bring into general acceptance as the elemental and
essential thing in piety the ethical mysticism of oneness with the
infinite Will, which experiences itself in us as the will to love. By
putting in the very centre of things the most living and universal
element of piety, it leads the different religious associations out of
the narrowness of their historical past, and paves the way for
understanding and union between them.
But this spirit and temper does even more than that. Besides bringing
the existing historical religious associations out of their historical
existence into a development towards the ideal of a religious
association, it works also where they can do nothing, in the sphere of
non-religion. There are many non-religious people among us. They have
become so partly through thoughtlessness and absence of any
world-view, and partly because as a result of honest thinking they
could no longer be content with a traditional religious world-view.
The world- and life-view of reverence for life enables these
non-religious minds to [pg 282] learn that every world- and life-view
which begins to think honestly necessarily becomes religious. Ethical
mysticism reveals to them the necessity to thought of the religion of
love, and leads them back to paths which they believed they had
abandoned for ever.
Just as the transformation of the religious association must be the
result primarily of an inward change, so must that of the social and
political community also.
It is true, indeed, that to believe in the possibility of transforming
the modern state into the civilized state is a piece of heroism. The
modern state finds itself to-day in an unprecedented condition of
material and spiritual penury. Collapsing under the weight of debts,
torn by economic and political struggles, stripped of all moral
authority, and scarcely able any longer to maintain its authority in
practical matters, it has to wrestle for its existence in a succession
of fresh troubles. Whence is it to get power to develop, in the face
of all these things, into a truly civilized state?
What crises and catastrophes the modern state is still destined to go
through cannot be foreseen. Its position is further endangered
especially by the fact that it has far overstepped the limits of its
natural sphere of operation. It is an extraordinarily complicated
organism which intervenes in all social relationships, which tries to
regulate everything, and therefore in every respect functions
ineffectively; it tries to dominate economic life as it dominates
spiritual life; and for its activities over this extensive field it
works with machinery which in itself at once constitutes a danger.
At some time and in some way or other the modern state must emerge
from its financial trouble, and reduce its activity to a normal
standard, but by what methods it can ever again get back to a natural
and healthy condition remains still a riddle.
The tragic thing is, then, that we have to belong to the unsympathetic
and unhealthy modern state while cherishing [pg 283] the will to
transform it into a civilized state. There is demanded from us an
absolutely impossible achievement of faith in the power of the spirit.
But the ethical world- and life-view gives us strength for the task.
Living in the modern state and thinking out the ideal of the civilized
state, we first of all put an end to the illusions which the former
cherishes about itself. Only by the majority of its members taking up
a critical attitude towards it can it come to itself again in
reflexion about itself. The absolute impossibility of the continuance
of the state in its present condition must become the universal
conviction before things can become in any way better.
But at the same time, through meditation on the civilized state, the
perception must become common property that all merely external
measures for raising and making healthy the modern state, however
effective they may be in themselves, will have only a quite imperfect
result unless the spirit of the state becomes quite different. Let us,
then, undertake to drive the modern state, so far as the power of our
thought reaches, into the spirituality and the morality of the
civilized state as it is to be, by following the ideas contained in
reverence for life. We demand from it that it shall become more
spiritual and more ethical than any state has hitherto been called on
to become. Only with efforts to reach the true ideal do we get
progress.
The objection is raised that, according to all experience, the state
cannot exist by relying merely on truth, justice, and ethical
considerations, but has in the last resort to take refuge in
opportunism. We smile at this experience. It is refuted by the dreary
results it has produced. We have, therefore, the right to declare the
opposite course to be true wisdom, and to say that true power for the
state as for the individual is to be found in spirituality and the
ethical. The state lives by the confidence of those who belong to it;
it lives by the confidence felt in it by other [pg 284] states.
Opportunist policy may have temporary successes to record, but in the
long run it assuredly lands itself in failure.
Thus ethical world- and life-affirmation lays upon the modern state
the requirement that it shall aspire to making itself an ethical
personality. It presses this obstinately upon the state, and does not
let itself be deterred by the smiles of superior persons. The wisdom
of to-morrow has a different tone from that of yesterday.
Only by a new spirit and temper ruling within it can the state attain
to peace within its borders; only by a new spirit and temper arising
between them can different states come to understand each other, and
cease to bring destruction upon each other; only by treating the
overseas world in a different spirit and temper from that of the past
and of to-day, can the modern state cease to load itself in that
quarter with guilt.
Such moral talk about the civilized state has often been produced in
the past. Certainly it has. But it acquires a special tone at a time
when the modern state is perishing in misery, because it refused in
the past to continue to be in any way spiritually ethical. It
possesses a new authority, too, to-day because in the world- and
life-view of reverence for life there is revealed the significance of
the ethical in its full extent and its full profundity.
We are therefore freed from any duty of forming a conception of the
civilized state which accords with the declarations of nationalism and
national civilization, and we are at liberty to turn back to the
profound _naïveté_ of thinking it to be a state which allows itself to
be guided by an ethical spirit and temper. With confidence in the
strength of the civilized spirit and temper which springs from
reverence for life we take upon ourselves the task of making this
civilized state an actuality.
We look round beyond peoples and states upon humanity as a whole,
feeling ourselves responsible to the civilized spirit and temper. To
anyone who has surrendered himself [pg 285] to ethical world- and
life-affirmation the future of men and of mankind is an object of care
and of hope. To become free from this care and hope is poverty; to be
wholly surrendered to it is riches. Thus it is our consolation, that
in a time of difficulty and without knowing how much we may still
experience of a better future, we are paving the way, solely by our
confidence in the power of the spirit, for a civilized mankind which
is to come.
Kant published, with the title _Towards Perpetual Peace_, a work
containing rules which were to be observed with a view to lasting
peace whenever treaties of peace were concluded. It was a mistake.
Rules for treaties of peace, however well intended and however ably
drawn up, can accomplish nothing. Such thinking as brings power to the
spirit and temper produced by reverence for life is the only thing
which can bring to mankind perpetual peace.
FINIS
FOOTNOTES
Preface Notes
1 [_Translator’s Note_.—Weltanschauung. This compound word may be
translated “theory of the universe,” “world-theory,”
“world-conception,” or “world-view.” The first is misleading as
suggesting, wrongly, a scientific explanation of the universe; the
second and third as suggesting, less ambitiously but still wrongly, an
explanation of how and why our human world is what it is. The last
indicates a sufficiently wide knowledge and consideration of our
corner of the universe to allow all factors to be taken into
consideration which bear on the question at issue.
There may be passages in which it is desirable to vary the
translation, and others in which it is possible to give the meaning in
more elegant English, for good English style does not take kindly to
such compound words. But this latter consideration can be only a
secondary one in the translation of a philosophical work, the first
object of which must be to ensure that the author’s meaning shall be
reproduced as clearly as possible.]
CHAPTER III Notes
2 Friedrich Jodl: _A History of Ethics as Philosophical Science_, 2nd
ed., 2 vols. (Vol. I., 1906; Vol. II., 1912). It treats of the ethics
of Western philosophy only.
CHAPTER V Notes
3 Very important for our knowledge of the old philosophy and ethics
are the ten books entitled _The Lives and Teaching of Famous
Philosophers_, Diogenes Laertius in the third century after Christ.
Just because they are purely anecdotal, They have preserved for us
much information and many views which otherwise—for the works on the
philosophers treated of have all been lost—we should not possess.
4 Xenophon, one of the generals who led the ten thousand back out of
Asia, wrote down his recollections of Socrates after the latter’s
death. By his report of the simple conversations of the master he
seeks to render impotent for all time the accusation that he corrupted
the youth and taught atheism, for even after his death teachers of
rhetoric did in fact draw up formal complaints against him. Xenophon’s
straightforward, realistic portrait of Socrates is extraordinarily
valuable.
5 The most important dialogues in this connexion are the _Protagoras_,
the _Gorgias_, the _Phædrus_, the _Symposium_, the _Phædo_, and the
_Philebus_.
6 Of the writings of the Cyrenaics and the Cynics, of Democritus,
Epicurus, Zeno, and the older Stoics hardly anything has come down to
us. Our knowledge of them is derived mostly from Diogenes Laertius.
The Cyrenaics were known as the philosophers of pleasure because
Aristippus, the first preacher of the world-wisdom of joy, hailed from
Cyrene. The Cynics, or dog-philosophers, derived their name from the
fact that they despised the amenities of life and often delighted in a
coarse naturalness. The best known of them is Diogenes of Sinope (died
323 B.C.).
Zeno’s philosophy was called Stoicism because he taught at Athens in a
colonnaded portico called the Stoa Poikile (_i.e._, the painted
portico).
7 _Translator’s Note_.—Irony is intentional self-depreciation or
disclaiming what one really possesses.
8 Of Seneca quite a series of ethical treatises have come down to us.
We mention here: _On Clemency_ (_De Clementia_, addressed to Nero);
_On Benefits_ (_De Beneficiis_); _On Tranquillity of Soul_ (_De
Tranquillitate Animi_), _On Anger_ (_De Ira_).
Our knowledge of the teachings of Epictetus we owe to his pupil,
Flavius Arrianus, the historian. The latter has recorded a number of
his master’s lectures in eight books, of which four have survived. In
addition to these he collected and published a number of his sayings
on morality in the _Enchiridion_.
In the popular philosophizings of Cicero (106-43 B.C.) as well, we can
see an attempt to produce a new ethic which is really living.
CHAPTER VI Notes
9 Bacon was Lord Chancellor under James I. of England, but was in 1621
deprived of his office because found guilty of corruption. His two
chief works are the _Novum Organum Scientiarum_ (1620) and _De
Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum_ (1623). Of the _New Atlantis_ only
a fragment has survived.
10 See the writer’s books: _Das Messianitäts- und Leidensgeheimniss.
Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu_ (1901). English version: _The Mystery of
the Kingdom of God_ (1914 A. & C. Black). _Geschichte der
Leben-Jesu Forschung_ (1906; new edition, 1922). English version: _The
Quest of the Historical Jesus_ (1911; 3rd impression, 1922 A. & C.
Black).
11 Gassendi: _De vita, moribus, et doctrina Epicuri_ (1647) and
_Syntagma philosophiæ Epicuri_ (1649).
CHAPTER VII Notes
12 D. Hartley: _Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his
Expectations_ (1749; 6th ed., 1834).
13 D. von Holbach: _Système de la nature ou des lois du monde physique
et du monde moral_ (1770).
14 Thomas Hobbes: _Elementa philosophica de cive_ (1642); _Leviathan,
or the Matter, Form, and Authority of Government_ (1651); _De homine_.
15 John Locke: _An Essay concerning Human Understanding_ (2 vols.,
1690).
16 Adrien Helvetius: _Traité de l’Esprit_ (1758).
17 Jeremy Bentham: _An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation_ (1780). E. Dumont (1759-1828) of Geneva, an admirer of
Bentham who was domiciled in England, reproduced this work in French
in a free abbreviation as _Traités de législation civile et pénale_
(1802). Frederick Edward Beneke followed this abbreviation when he
produced a German translation with the title: _Grundsätze der Civil-
und Criminalgesetzgebung_ (1830).
18 _Translator’s Note_.—German “enthusiastisches Handeln.” The
explanatory periphrasis is added once for all, since “enthusiastic”
implies a kind and degree of feeling which is not implied in these
philosophical passages.
19 David Hume: _A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to
introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects_
(1740). German translation by Heinrich Jacob (2 vols., 1791): _Inquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals_ (1751).
20 Adam Smith: _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ (1759); _Inquiry into
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ (1770). German
translation of _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ by L. Th. Kosegarten
(1791). Adam Smith was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow.
21 “L’amour de la gloire est inné dans les belles âmes; il n’y a qu’à
l’animer, il n’y a que l’exciter, et des hommes qui végétaient
jusqu’alors, enflammès par ce heureux instinct, vous paraîtront
changés en demi-dieux.”—_Œuvres de Frédéric le Grand_, vol. ix., p.
98.
22 R. Cudworth: _Intellectual System of the Universe_ (1678);
_Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality_ (postumous,
1731).
23 H. More: _Enchiridium Ethicum_ (1667).
24 S. Clarke: _A Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of
Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian
Revelation_ (1706).
25 R. Cumberland: _De legibus naturæ disquisitio philosophica_ (1672).
26 W. Wollaston: _The Religion of Nature Delineated_ (1722).
27 _Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times_ (3 vols., 1711).
In the second volume there is included his ethical treatise entitled,
_Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit_, which appeared first, in 1699,
independently. It was published in French in 1745 by Denis Diderot.
28 F. Hutcheson: _An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty
and Virtue_ (1725); _A System of Moral Philosophy_ (1755, posthumous).
29 Joseph Butler: _Fifteen Sermons upon Human Nature, or Man
considered as a Moral Agent_ (1726).
CHAPTER VIII Notes
30 The freely thinking, anti-dogmatic religiousness of Socinianism had
maintained itself chiefly in Poland, Holland, Hungary, England, and
North America. Its closer adherents called themselves also
Latitudinarians, the more distant ones Unitarians. The fact that
religious rationalism had already existed in a literary form made its
appearance in the eighteenth century easier.
31 Tindal’s work bears the title _Christianity as Old as the Creation_
(1730). Pierre Bayle’s famous _Dictionnaire historique et critique_
appeared for the first time in two volumes in 1695.
32 The most impressive, and perhaps the most profound document of the
religion of reason is the confession of faith which Rousseau in his
novel _Emile_ (1762) puts into the mouth of a country minister from
Savoy.
33 F. V. Reinhard: _Essay concerning the Plan which the Founder of the
Christian Religion drew up for the Benefit of Mankind_ (1791; 4th ed.,
1798). K. H. Venturini: _Natural History of the Great Prophet of
Nazareth_ (1800-1802). See for an account of them the writer’s work:
_The Quest of the Historical Jesus_ (1906; 4th ed., 1922 (German); 1st
English ed., 1910; 3rd, 1922).
34 Expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal, 1759; from France, 1764;
from Spain and Naples, 1767; from Parma, 1768.
35 _Short Theses upon the Sin of Witchcraft and the Practice of Trial
Therefor_.
36 See G. Lenôtre: “Les Agents Royalists sous la Revolution” (_Revue
des Deux Mondes_, 1922).
37 Her dictum is given in the English periodical, _The Atlas_, in its
issue of January 27th, 1828.
38 _Esquissè d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain_.
It was published in 1795, after the author’s death, at the expense of
the National Convention.
CHAPTER IX Notes
39 Immanuel Kant: _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_ (1781); _Grundlegung
zur Metaphysik der Sitten_ (1785); _Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_
(1788); _Kritik der Urteilskraft_ (1790); _Die Religion innerhalb der
Grenzen der blossen Vernunft_ (1793); _Metaphysik der Sitten_ (1797).
CHAPTER X Notes
40 _Tractatus theologico-politicus_ (anonymous, 1670); _Ethica ordine
geometrico demonstrata_ (posthumous and anonymous, 1677; German
translation by Johann Lorenz Schmidt, 1744); _Tractatus politicus_
(posthumous and anonymous, 1677). First complete edition of Spinoza’s
works, 1802-3.
41 Lao-tze (born, _circa_. 604 B.C.): _Taoteking_; Chwang-tse (fourth
century B.C.): _The True Book of the Southern Flower Land_; Lie-tse
(fourth century B.C.): _The True Book of the Primitive Water-spring_.
42 G. W. Leibniz: _Système nouveau de la nature, et de la
communication des substances_ (1695); _Nouveaux Essais_ (1704); _La
Monadologie_ (1714).
CHAPTER XI Notes
43 The greatest representatives of Gnosticism are Basilides,
Valentinus, and Marcion, all three living in the first half of the
second century B.C. At the beginning of that century all sorts of
Gnostic systems spring up, as did speculative ones at the beginning of
the nineteenth. The two great Christian teachers of Alexandria,
Flavius Clemens at the end of the second century A.D., and Origen at
the beginning of the third, try to bring the Gnostic speculations into
harmony with the doctrine of the Church.
44 J. G. Fichte: _The Foundations of All Scientific Theories_ (1794);
_The System of Moral Teaching According to the Principles of Science_
(1798); _The Destiny of Man_ (1800); _How to Attain to the Happy Life_
(1806); _Addresses to the German Nation_ (1808).
A complete edition of J. G. Fichte’s works was edited by his son, J.
H. Fichte, in 1845 and the following years. A good selection has been
published by F. Medicus (1908 to 1912).
45 This and the following quotations are from _The Destiny of Man_.
CHAPTER XII Notes
46 D. E. Schleiermacher: _Discourses on Religion for the Educated
among its Contemners_ (1799); _Monologues_ (1800); _Outlines of a
Critique of Moral Philosophy down to the Present Day_ (1803);
_Christian Belief_ (1821-23); _Draft of a System of Moral Philosophy_
(posthumous, 1835).
CHAPTER XIII Notes
47 Friedrich Hegel: _Phenomenology of the Spirit_ (1807); _The Science
of Logic_ (3 vols., 1812-26); _Encyclopædia of the Philosophical
Sciences_ (1817); _The Philosophy of Law_ (1821); _The Philosophy of
History_ (posthumous, 1840). Complete edition of his works in eighteen
volumes, prepared by his pupils, 1832-45.
48 _The Encyclopædia_, Part III. (1845 ed.), p. 386.
49 _The Encyclopædia of Philosophical Sciences_, Part III. (1845 ed.),
p. 359.
CHAPTER XIV Notes
50 F. E. Beneke: _Prolegomena to a Physiology of Morals_ (1822); _The
Natural System of Practical Philosophy_ (3 vols., 1837-40). By his
appearance as a champion of utilitarianism and his consequent attitude
of hostility to Kant, Beneke drew upon himself the enmity of Hegel,
and was compelled in 1822 to stop the course of lectures which he was
giving as a _Privat-dozent_ at Berlin University. After Hegel’s death
he filled a professorship at Berlin.
51 L. A. Feuerbach: _What is Christianity?_ (1841); _Divinity,
Freedom, and Immortality from the Standpoint of Anthropology_ (1866).
52 Ernst Laas: _Idealism and Positivism_ (3 vols., 1879-84).
53 _The Physiology of Society_ is the fourth volume of Comte’s _Course
of Positive Philosophy_ (6 vols., 1830-42).
54 John Stuart Mill: _Principles of Political Economy_ (2 vols.,
1848); _Utilitarianism_ (1861). There is a German translation of his
works by Th. Gomperz (12 vols., 1869-86). It was J. S. Mill who
introduced into philosophy the word “utilitarian” as the descriptive
title of this particular school of ethic.
55 Charles Darwin: _The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to
Sex_ (1871).
56 Herbert Spencer: _Social Statics_ (1851); _The Data of Ethics_
(1879); _The Principles of Ethics_ (1892).
57 Henri de Saint-Simon: _L’Organisateur_ (1819-20); _Catéchisme des
Industriels_ (1823-24).
58 Charles Fourier: _Le nouveau monde industriel et sociétaire_
(1829).
59 P. J. Proudhon: _Qu’est-ce que la Propriété?_ (1840).
60 Robert Owen: _A New View of Society_ (1813); and _Book of the New
Moral World_ (7 parts, 1836-49).
61 Ferdinand Lassalle: _Das System der erwonbenen Rechte_ (2 vols.,
1861); _Offenes Antwortschreiben an das Centralkomitee zur Berufung
eines allgemeinen deutschen Arbeiterkongresses_ (1863).
62 Karl Marx: _Manifesto of the Communist Party_ (1848, in
collaboration with Friedrich Engels); _Capital_ (vol. i., 1867; the
second and third volumes were published in 1884 and 1894 by Friedrich
Engels).
63 The same spirit pervades the work of the national economist, Gustav
Schmoller of Berlin: _Concerning Some Questions of Law and National
Economy_ (1875). Schmoller was the leader of the so-called “Socialists
of the Chair.”
64 The first to set before Christendom its duty to take part in the
solution of the social question is Félicité de Lamennais (1782-1854)
in his _Paroles d’un croyant_ (1833). This book was condemned by the
Pope in 1834.
65 The English public was made familiar with working-class misery by
Kingsley’s novel _Yeast_ (which appeared in 1848 in _Fraser’s
Magazine_, and in 1851 was printed as a book), and by two articles of
Henry Mayhew’s in the _Morning Chronicle_ (December 14th and 18th,
1849). That Christian Socialism made its appearance first in England
and France is connected with the fact that the industry which creates
social problems developed earliest in these countries.
66 Leo Tolstoi: _My Confessions_; German translation as _Worin besteht
mein Glaube_ (1884); French as _Ma Religion_ (1884); English as
_Christ’s Christianity_ (1885). See also _What then shall we do?_
(German, 1886). The fact that Tolstoi’s ethical Christianity
associates itself with contempt for civilization brings it near to
primitive Christianity. But the all-important question, how the power
of the ethical thoughts of Jesus are to work in the temper and the
circumstances of modern times, it does not answer. Tolstoi is a great
stimulator but no guide.
67 Eduard Bernstein: _The Presuppositions of Socialism, and the Tasks
of Social Democracy_ (1899).
CHAPTER XV Notes
68 What Schopenhauer wrote after this, his chief work, which was
printed when he was thirty, are only appendixes and popular
explanations of it: _Concerning the Will in Nature_ (1836), _The Two
Fundamental Problems of Ethics_ (1840), _Parerga and Paralipomena_ (2
vols., 1851).
69 In 1802-1804 Anquetil Duperron (1731-1805) published in two
volumes, with a Latin translation, the _Oupnek’hat_, a collection of
fifty Upanishads, which he had brought back from India in a Persian
text.
70 _The World as Will and Idea_, vol. ii., chap. xli.
71 _The World as Will and Idea_, vol. i., chap. lxix.
72 That the man who has won through to complete world- and life-denial
remains holy even if he commits actions which according to accepted
ideas are unethical, is taught by the Bhagavadgita as well as by the
Upanishads.
73 _The World as Will and Idea_, vol. i., chap. lxviii.
74 Friedrich Nietzsche: _Old-fashioned Reflexions_ (4 parts,
1873-1876), _Human and All too Human_ (3 vols., 1878-1880), _Joyous
Science_ (1882), _Thus spake Zarathustra_ (4 parts, 1883-1885),
_Beyond Good and Evil_ (1886), _On the Genealogy of Morality_ (1887),
_The Will to Power_ (posthumous, 1906).
75 Max Stirner (1806-1856), whose real name was Kaspar Schmidt, has
recently been regarded as a predecessor of Nietzsche’s on account of
his book, _The Individual and His Property_ (1845), in which he
supports the theory of merciless egoism. But he is not one. He has
provided no really deep philosophical background for his anarchistic
egoism. He speaks as a mere logician, and does not rise above the
level of the Greek sophists. A religious reverence for life, such as
Nietzsche feels, is not to be found in him.
CHAPTER XVI Notes
76 H. Sidgwick: _The Method of Ethics_ (1874). (German translation by
C. Bauer, 1909.)
77 Leslie Stephen: _The Science of Ethics_ (1882).
78 S. Alexander: _Moral Order and Progress: An Analysis of Ethical
Conceptions_ (1889).
79 Wm. Wundt: _Ethics: An Examination of the Facts and Law of the
Moral Life_ (1887).
80 Friedrich Paulsen: _A System of Ethics_ (1889).
81 Friedrich Jodl: _A History of Ethics as Philosophical Science_ (2
vols., 2nd ed., 1906 and 1912).
82 Georg von Gizyki: _Moral Philosophy, expounded so as to be
intelligible to all_ (1888).
83 Harald Höffding (a Dane): _Ethics_ (1887). (German translation,
1888.)
Georg Simmel (1858-1918) adopts a critical attitude towards modern
“scientific” ethics in his _Introduction to Moral Science_ (1892).
84 H. Cohen: _Kant’s Foundation given to Ethics_ (1877); _The Ethic of
the Pure Will_ (1904).
85 W. Herrmann: _Ethics_ (1901).
In France Charles Renouvier (1838-1903) tries, in his _Science of the
Moral_ (1869), to restore the Kantian system of ethics.
86 Jas. Martineau: _Types of Ethical Theory_ (2 vols., 1885).
87 F. H. Bradley: _Ethical Studies_ (1876).
88 T. H. Green: _Prolegomena to Ethics_ (posthumous, 1883).
89 Simon Laurie: _Ethica, or the Ethics of Reason_ (1885). (A French
translation by Georges Remack, 1902.)
90 James Seth: _Study of Ethical Principles_ (3rd ed., 1894).
91 Josiah Royce: _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy_ (1892); _Religious
Aspects of Philosophy_ (4th ed., 1892).
92 A. Fouillée: _Critique des systèmes de morale contemporaine_
(1883); _Evolutionisme des idées-forces_ (1890; German translation,
1908); _La morale des idées-forces_ (1907).
93 Jean Marie Guyau: _La morale anglaise contemporaine_ (1879);
_Esquisse d’une morale sans obligation ni sanction_ (1885);
_L’irreligion de l’avenir_ (1886). A German version of his works
appeared in 6 vols. in 1912.
94 “Toute idée enveloppe un élément impulsif; nulle idée n’est un état
simplement représentatif.” (Every idea contains an element of impulse;
no idea is merely a condition of re-presenting something in thought.)
95 . . . “notre conscience de nous-même tendant à sa plénitude par son
expansion en autrui.” ( . . . our consciousness of ourselves, which
presses on to its full growth by expanding into others.)
96 “Agis envers les autres comme si tu avais conscience des autres en
même temps que de soi.”
97 Fouillée reveals his attitude towards Nietzsche in a work entitled
_Nietzsche and Immoralism_. Notes on the works of Fouillée and Guyau
have been preserved by Nietzsche.
98 Eduard von Hartmann: _Philosophy of the Unconscious_ (1869);
_Phenomenology of the Moral Consciousness_ (1879).
99 _Phenomenology_, p. 670.
100 _Phenomenology_, p. 700.
101 Henri Bergson: _Sur les données immédiates de la conscience_
(1888). (English translation by F. L. Pogson, 1910: _Time and
Freewill; An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness_.) _Matière
et memoire. Essai sur la relation du corps et de l’esprit_ (1896).
(English translation by N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer: _Matter and
Memory_, 1911.) _L’énvolution créatrice_ (1907). (English translation
by A. Mitchell: _Creative Evolution_, 1911.)
102 H. S. Chamberlain: _The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century_
(1899). (14th impression, 1922.) _Immanuel Kant_ (1905); _Goethe_
(1912).
103 Count Hermann Keyserling: _The Structure of the World_ (1906); _A
Philosopher’s Travel-Diary_ (2 vols., 1919); _Philosophy as Art_
(1920).
104 So Otto Braun in his essay “Monism and Ethics” in the volume
entitled _Monism Expounded in Contributions from its Representatives_
(edited by Arthur Drews; vol. i., 1908). The poverty of this ethic is
clearly revealed when the editor tries to indicate its content.
CHAPTER XX Notes
105 This book dates from about the eleventh century A.D. It has been
translated into English by James Legge (_Sacred Books of the East_,
1891) and by T. Susuki and P. Carus (Chicago, 1906); into French by M.
A. Rémusat (_Le livre des récompenses et des peines_, 1816), and by
Stanislas Julien (1835); into German by W. Schüler (_Zeitschrift für
Missionskunde_, 1909).
“Be human with animals, and do no harm to insects, plants, and trees,”
is the command of one saying in this book. The following acts are
condemned: “Hunting men or animals to death; shooting with bow and
arrow at birds; hunting quadrupeds; driving insects out of their
holes; frightening birds which are asleep in the trees; blocking up
the holes of insects, and destroying birds-nests.” To delight in
hunting is described as a serious moral perversion.
[pg 286]
INDEX
Alexander the Great, 50
Alexander II., 103
Alexander, Samuel, 182
Amos, 21
Antisthenes, 36
Anti-Utilitarians(ism), 86, 87, 107
Aristippus, 36 n.
Aristotle, 21,42,44 ff., 65
Arrian, 53 n.
Augustine, 58
Bach, J. S., 91
Bacon, Lord Verulam, 64
Basilides, 125 n.
Bayle, 93
Beneke, 151
Bentham, 75, 77, 79, 83, 96, 103,
144, 151, 159, 222, 233
Bergson, 198 f., 203
Bernstein, 163
Bodin, 68
Bradley, 184 f.
Braun, 201 n.
Buddha, 21, 25, 27, 133, 172, 174, 214, 238
Butler, Bp., 89
Carus, P., 234 n.
Chamberlain, 198 f.
Charron, 68
Cherbury, Lord H. of, 93
Chwang-tse, 27, 54, 118, 120 f.,
131, 133, 139, 179, 236 f., 272
Cicero, 52 n., 65
Clarke, 86
Clemens, Flavius, 126 n.
Clement XIV., 95
Cohen, 183 f.
Collins, 93
Comte, 152, 154
Condorcet, 89, 104
Confucius (Kung-tse), 21, 27, 34,
54, 91, 104, 139, 237 f., 272
Copernicus, 61, 114
Cudworth, 86
Cumberland, 86
Cynics, 34, 36, 43
Cyrenaics, 34, 36, 43
Darwin, Chas., 14,153 ff., 193, 233
Democritus, 36 f.
Descartes, 13, 62, 116, 123, 137,
233, 246
Diderot, 87 n., 89
Diogenes Laertius, 32 n., 36 n.
Diogenes of Sinope, 36 n.
Domitian, 52
Drews, 201 n.
Du Bois-Raymond, 209
Engels, 161
Epictetus, 52-6, 58, 60, 65
Epicurus(ism), 21, 36-9, 51, 58, 68
Erasmus, 66 f.
Ernesti, 93
Essenes, The, 98
Feuerbach, 152
Fichte, J. G., 21, 126 ff., 136-145,
147, 150 f., 166-171, 177, 185,
189, 209, 223, 231, 237 f.
Fichte, Imm. H., 126 n., 166
Firmian, Archbishop, 95
Fouillée, 186-193, 198
Fourier, 161
Frederick the Great, 81, 96
Freemasons, 97
Galileo, 62
Gassendi, 68
Giordano, Bruno, 62, 88
Gizyki, von, 182
Gnostics, 60, 125 f.
Goethe, 89, 136 ff., 140, 199
Gomperz, 153 n.
Green, T. H., 184 ff.
[pg 287]
Grotius, 68, 96
Guyau, 187-93
Haeckel, 201
Hartley, 72, 152
Hartmann, 194-197
Hegel, 21, 102, 126, 141-149, 150,
162, 167, 170, 173, 197, 202,
237 f.
Helvetius, 75-79
Heraclitus, 32
Herbart, 166
Herder, 89
Herrmann, 183-185
Hobbes, 75-79, 85, 120
Höffding, 182
Holbach, von, 72, 152
Humanism, 92
Hume, 80-84, 93, 152, 155, 181,
188
Hutcheson, 89
Illuminati, The, 97
Indian Philosophy, 11, 14, 17, 25,
27, 28, 30, 34, 42, 54, 66, 88,
113, 117 f., 121, 123, 145 f.,
158, 166, 171, 194, 214, 223,
231, 237, 239
Intellectualists, 87, 106
Intuitionists, 87, 106, 184
Isaiah, 21
Jacobi, 116
James, 210
Jenner, 97
Jesuits, 95, 98
Jesus, 21, 25, 27, 34, 63, 64, 65,
66, 67, 94, 98, 158, 202
Jodl, 24, 182
Joseph II., 99
Josephus, 98
Kant, 13, 21, 23, 25, 41, 87,
106-115, 122, 127-129, 134,
136, 137, 140, 147, 150, 151,
166, 169, 184, 190, 199, 206,
209, 223, 231, 233, 252
Kepler, 62
Keplerbund, 209
Ketteler, 162
Keyserling, 198-200, 203
Kingsley, Charles, 162 f.
Laas, 152
Lamennais, 162 n.
Lange, 162, 192 f.
Lao-tse, 21, 27, 34, 37, 118, 120,
121, 133, 139, 179, 236 f.
Lassalle, 161, 164
Latitudinarians, 93 n.
Laurie, 184 f.
Legge, 234 n.
Leibniz, 93, 116, 122-124, 137
Leonardo da Vinci, 61, 200
Lenôtre, 96 n.
Lessing, 89, 93
Lie-tse, 118, 120, 179
Locke, 21, 75-79, 85
Machiavelli, 68
Marcus Aurelius, 52-60, 65, 68
Marcion, 125 n.
Martineau, 184 f.
Marx, 161 f.
Maurice, F. D., 162
Mayhew, 163 n.
Mendelssohn, Moses, 89, 93, 116
Meng-tse, 27, 47, 51, 54, 237
Michaelis, 93
Mill, James, 153
Mill, John Stuart, 150, 153
Mo-di, 237
Mohammed, 27
Monism, 60, 90, 114, 138, 189,
201
Montaigne, 67
More, Henry, 86
Napoleon Buonaparte, 100, 102
Neoplatonism, 60
Neopythagoreanism, 60
Nero, 52
[pg 288]
Newton, Isaac, 69, 86
Nicolai, 129
Nietzsche, 21, 23, 165, 174-180,
188 f., 197, 201, 223, 231, 236
Origen, 126 n.
Orphism, 42
Owen, Robert, 161
Paracelsus, 62
Paulsen, 182
Paul (the Apostle), 21
Plato, 21, 33-35, 40-52, 85, 223
Plotinus, 60
Positivism, 152
Prophets, the Jewish, 21, 27, 34, 231
Proudhon, 161
Pythagoreanism, 42
Rationalists (ism), 6, 90-105,124-131,
135, 139, 147, 150 f., 190,
211
Reformation, 66
Reimarus, 93
Reinhard, 94
Renaissance, 21, 61 f., 69
Renouvier, 183
Ritschl, 210
Rousseau, 93
Royce, 186
Saint Simon, 161
Schelling, 126
Schiller, 136-138, 140
Schleiermacher, 138-140, 145
Schmoller, 162
Scholasticism, 61
Schopenhauer, 11, 13, 21, 23, 30,
165-174, 179 f., 189, 197, 223,
231, 234
Schweitzer, Albert, 67 n., 94 n.
Semler, 93
Seneca, 52-60, 65
Seth, 184 f.
Sforza, 200
Shaftesbury, Lord, 21, 85-87, 138
Sidgwick, H., 182
Simmel, 182 n.
Smith, Adam, 80-84, 87, 152
155 f., 185
Socinians, 92
Socrates, 21, 33-47, 52, 71, 74,
177
Sophists, 32, 48, 178
Spencer, H., 153-158, 202
Spinoza, 13, 21, 25, 88, 104
116-124, 133, 137-140, 143
167, 189, 223, 237 f.
Staël, Madame de, 103
Stephen, Leslie, 182
Stern, 192 f., 234
Stirner, 179 n.
Stoics, 21, 35-9, 54, 57, 237
Taoism, 37
Telesio, 62
Thomasius, 95
Tindal, 93
Toland, 93
Tolstoi, 163
Unitarians, 93
Unold, 201
Utilitarianism, 80-83, 87-89, 107
109, 150-164, 166, 221, 232
Valentinus (Gnostic), 125 n.
Venturini, 94, 98
Voltaire, 89, 90, 93, 122
Wieland, 89
Wollaston, 86
Wolff, 93, 124
Wundt, 182, 233
Xenophanes, 32
Xenophon, 33, 39
Yang-tse, 179, 236
Zarathustra, 21, 27 f., 179, 231
Zelter, 91
Zeno, 36 f., 54, 57
Zwingli, 92
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
The formatting of both the .htm and .txt files followed that of three
similar books, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, The Mystery of the
Kingdom of God and The Decay and Restoration of Civilization already
in Project Gutenberg. I have included page numbers in the format [pg
xxx] for both .htm and .txt.
I made several hyphenation choices, forced by de-hyphenation at
the ends of lines:
1. Will-lessness p. 194.
2. birds-nests note 105 p. 234.
Cases of inconsistent use (both hyphenated and unhyphenated are
present) were left as they are: two-fold, non-sensible, Kung-tse,
un-civilization, pre-conceptions, pre-suppositions, thorough-going,
re-fashion, present-day, world-view, driving-force, sum-total,
will-to-power, belief-in-progress, nature-philosophy,
rationally-pleasurable, ever-new, general-notion, world-and-life
affirmation, matter-of-fact, wage-system, fellow-men, bass-note,
world-religions, so-called, will-to-action, ready-made, all-round,
optimistic-ethical.
I left the misspelled word “postumous” in footnote 22 from p. 86, the
misspelled word “alway” from p. 262 but I corrected the birth date for
Henri Bergson from 1560 to 1860 on p. 198, I corrected the spelling of
the translator of Mill in the Index to “Gomperz”, the spelling of the
German philosopher “Leibniz” on p. 93 and the Index and the spelling
of the German philosopher “Nietzsche” on p. 175 and 176. I eliminated
the small caps used for the first name of each starting letter in the
Index.
In the .txt version I have used utf8 encoding and the following
markers:
1. italic text surrounded by _
2. footnote references in the form _(_number_)_