§ 553. The _notion_ of mind has its _reality_ in the mind. If this reality
in identity with that notion is to exist as the consciousness of the
absolute Idea, then the necessary aspect is that the _implicitly_ free
intelligence be in its actuality liberated to its notion, if that
actuality is to be a vehicle worthy of it. The subjective and the
objective spirit are to be looked on as the road on which this aspect of
_reality_ or existence rises to maturity.
§ 554. The absolute mind, while it is self-centred _identity_, is always
also identity returning and ever returned into itself: if it is the one
and universal _substance_ it is so as a spirit, discerning itself into a
self and a consciousness, for which it is as substance. _Religion_, as
this supreme sphere may be in general designated, if it has on one hand to
be studied as issuing from the subject and having its home in the subject,
must no less be regarded as objectively issuing from the absolute spirit
which as spirit is in its community.
That here, as always, belief or faith is not opposite to consciousness or
knowledge, but rather to a sort of knowledge, and that belief is only a
particular form of the latter, has been remarked already (§ 63 note). If
nowadays there is so little consciousness of God, and his objective
essence is so little dwelt upon, while people speak so much more of the
subjective side of religion, i.e. of God’s indwelling in us, and if that
and not the truth as such is called for,—in this there is at least the
correct principle that God must be apprehended as spirit in his community.
§ 555. The subjective consciousness of the absolute spirit is essentially
and intrinsically a process, the immediate and substantial unity of which
is the _Belief_ in the witness of the spirit as the _certainty_ of
objective truth. Belief, at once this immediate unity and containing it as
a reciprocal dependence of these different terms, has in _devotion_—the
implicit or more explicit act of worship (_cultus_)—passed over into the
process of superseding the contrast till it becomes spiritual liberation,
the process of authenticating that first certainty by this intermediation,
and of gaining its concrete determination, viz. reconciliation, the
actuality of the spirit.
Sub-Section A. Art.
§ 556. As this consciousness of the Absolute first takes shape, its
immediacy produces the factor of finitude in Art. On one hand that is, it
breaks up into a work of external common existence, into the subject which
produces that work, and the subject which contemplates and worships it.
But, on the other hand, it is the concrete _contemplation_ and mental
picture of implicitly absolute spirit as the _Ideal_. In this ideal, or
the concrete shape born of the subjective spirit, its natural immediacy,
which is only a _sign_ of the Idea, is so transfigured by the informing
spirit in order to express the Idea, that the figure shows it and it
alone:—the shape or form of _Beauty_.
§ 557. The sensuous externality attaching to the beautiful,—the _form of
immediacy_ as such,—at the same time _qualifies_ what it _embodies_: and
the God (of art) has with his spirituality at the same time the stamp upon
him of a natural medium or natural phase of existence—He contains the
so-called _unity_ of nature and spirit—i.e. the immediate unity in
sensuously intuitional form—hence not the spiritual unity, in which the
natural would be put only as “ideal,” as superseded in spirit, and the
spiritual content would be only in self-relation. It is not the absolute
spirit which enters this consciousness. On the subjective side the
community has of course an ethical life, aware, as it is, of the
spirituality of its essence: and its self-consciousness and actuality are
in it elevated to substantial liberty. But with the stigma of immediacy
upon it, the subject’s liberty is only a _manner of life_, without the
infinite self-reflection and the subjective inwardness of _conscience_.
These considerations govern in their further developments the devotion and
the worship in the religion of fine art.
§ 558. For the objects of contemplation it has to produce, Art requires
not only an external given material—(under which are also included
subjective images and ideas), but—for the expression of spiritual
truth—must use the given forms of nature with a significance which art
must divine and possess (cf. § 411). Of all such forms the human is the
highest and the true, because only in it can the spirit have its
corporeity and thus its visible expression.
This disposes of the principle of the _imitation of nature_ in art: a
point on which it is impossible to come to an understanding while a
distinction is left thus abstract,—in other words, so long as the natural
is only taken in its externality, not as the “characteristic” meaningful
nature-form which is significant of spirit.
§ 559. In such single shapes the “absolute” mind cannot be made explicit:
in and to art therefore the spirit is a limited natural spirit whose
implicit universality, when steps are taken to specify its fullness in
detail, breaks up into an indeterminate polytheism. With the essential
restrictedness of its content, Beauty in general goes no further than a
penetration of the vision or image by the spiritual principle,—something
formal, so that the thought embodied, or the idea, can, like the material
which it uses to work in, be of the most diverse and unessential kind, and
still the work be something beautiful and a work of art.
§ 560. The one-sidedness of _immediacy_ on the part of the Ideal involves
the opposite one-sidedness (§ 556) that it is something _made_ by the
artist. The subject or agent is the mere technical activity: and the work
of art is only then an expression of the God, when there is no sign of
subjective particularity in it, and the net power of the indwelling spirit
is conceived and born into the world, without admixture and unspotted from
its contingency. But as liberty only goes as far as there is thought, the
action inspired with the fullness of this indwelling power, the artist’s
_enthusiasm_, is like a foreign force under which he is bound and passive;
the artistic _production_ has on its part the form of natural immediacy,
it belongs to the _genius_ or particular endowment of the artist,—and is
at the same time a labour concerned with technical cleverness and
mechanical externalities. The work of art therefore is just as much a work
due to free option, and the artist is the master of the God.
§ 561. In work so inspired the reconciliation appears so obvious in its
initial stage that it is without more ado accomplished in the subjective
self-consciousness, which is thus self-confident and of good cheer,
without the depth and without the sense of its antithesis to the absolute
essence. On the further side of the perfection (which is reached in such
reconciliation, in the beauty of _classical art_) lies the art of
sublimity,—_symbolic art_, in which the figuration suitable to the Idea is
not yet found, and the thought as going forth and wrestling with the
figure is exhibited as a negative attitude to it, and yet all the while
toiling to work itself into it. The meaning or theme thus shows it has not
yet reached the infinite form, is not yet known, not yet conscious of
itself, as free spirit. The artist’s theme only is as the abstract God of
pure thought, or an effort towards him,—a restless and unappeased effort
which throws itself into shape after shape as it vainly tries to find its
goal.
§ 562. In another way the Idea and the sensuous figure it appears in are
incompatible; and that is where the infinite form, subjectivity, is not as
in the first extreme a mere superficial personality, but its inmost depth,
and God is known not as only seeking his form or satisfying himself in an
external form, but as only finding himself in himself, and thus giving
himself his adequate figure in the spiritual world alone. _Romantic art_
gives up the task of showing him as such in external form and by means of
beauty: it presents him as only condescending to appearance, and the
divine as the heart of hearts in an externality from which it always
disengages itself. Thus the external can here appear as contingent towards
its significance.
The Philosophy of Religion has to discover the logical necessity in the
progress by which the Being, known as the Absolute, assumes fuller and
firmer features; it has to note to what particular feature the kind of
cultus corresponds,—and then to see how the secular self-consciousness,
the consciousness of what is the supreme vocation of man,—in short how the
nature of a nation’s moral life, the principle of its law, of its actual
liberty, and of its constitution, as well as of its art and science,
corresponds to the principle which constitutes the substance of a
religion. That all these elements of a nation’s actuality constitute one
systematic totality, that one spirit creates and informs them, is a truth
on which follows the further truth that the history of religions coincides
with the world-history.
As regards the close connexion of art with the various religions it may be
specially noted that _beautiful_ art can only belong to those religions in
which the spiritual principle, though concrete and intrinsically free, is
not yet absolute. In religions where the Idea has not yet been revealed
and known in its free character, though the craving for art is felt in
order to bring in imaginative visibility to consciousness the idea of the
supreme being, and though art is the sole organ in which the abstract and
radically indistinct content,—a mixture from natural and spiritual
sources,—can try to bring itself to consciousness;—still this art is
defective; its form is defective because its subject-matter and theme is
so,—for the defect in subject-matter comes from the form not being
immanent in it. The representations of this symbolic art keep a certain
tastelessness and stolidity—for the principle it embodies is itself stolid
and dull, and hence has not the power freely to transmute the external to
significance and shape. Beautiful art, on the contrary, has for its
condition the self-consciousness of the free spirit,—the consciousness
that compared with it the natural and sensuous has no standing of its own:
it makes the natural wholly into the mere expression of spirit, which is
thus the inner form that gives utterance to itself alone.
But with a further and deeper study, we see that the advent of art, in a
religion still in the bonds of sensuous externality, shows that such
religion is on the decline. At the very time it seems to give religion the
supreme glorification, expression and brilliancy, it has lifted the
religion away over its limitation. In the sublime divinity to which the
work of art succeeds in giving expression the artistic genius and the
spectator find themselves at home, with their personal sense and feeling,
satisfied and liberated: to them the vision and the consciousness of free
spirit has been vouchsafed and attained. Beautiful art, from its side, has
thus performed the same service as philosophy: it has purified the spirit
from its thraldom. The older religion in which the need of fine art, and
just for that reason, is first generated, looks up in its principle to an
other-world which is sensuous and unmeaning: the images adored by its
devotees are hideous idols regarded as wonder-working talismans, which
point to the unspiritual objectivity of that other world,—and bones
perform a similar or even a better service than such images. But even fine
art is only a grade of liberation, not the supreme liberation itself.—The
genuine objectivity, which is only in the medium of thought,—the medium in
which alone the pure spirit is for the spirit, and where the liberation is
accompanied with reverence,—is still absent in the sensuous beauty of the
work of art, still more in that external, unbeautiful sensuousness.
§ 563. Beautiful Art, like the religion peculiar to it, has its future in
true religion. The restricted value of the Idea passes utterly and
naturally into the universality identical with the infinite form;—the
vision in which consciousness has to depend upon the senses passes into a
self-mediating knowledge, into an existence which is itself
knowledge,—into _revelation_. Thus the principle which gives the Idea its
content is that it embody free intelligence, and as “absolute” _spirit it
is for the spirit_.
Sub-Section B. Revealed Religion(172).
§ 564. It lies essentially in the notion of religion,—the religion i.e.
whose content is absolute mind—that it be _revealed_, and, what is more,
revealed _by God_. Knowledge (the principle by which the substance is
mind) is a self-determining principle, as infinite self-realising form,—it
therefore is manifestation out and out. The spirit is only spirit in so
far as it is for the spirit, and in the absolute religion it is the
absolute spirit which manifests no longer abstract elements of its being
but itself.
The old conception—due to a one-sided survey of human life—of Nemesis,
which made the divinity and its action in the world only a levelling
power, dashing to pieces everything high and great,—was confronted by
Plato and Aristotle with the doctrine that God is not _envious_. The same
answer may be given to the modern assertions that man cannot ascertain
God. These assertions (and more than assertions they are not) are the more
illogical, because made within a religion which is expressly called the
revealed; for according to them it would rather be the religion in which
nothing of God was revealed, in which he had not revealed himself, and
those belonging to it would be the heathen “who know not God.” If the word
of God is taken in earnest in religion at all, it is from Him, the theme
and centre of religion, that the method of divine knowledge may and must
begin: and if self-revelation is refused Him, then the only thing left to
constitute His nature would be to ascribe envy to Him. But clearly if the
word Mind is to have a meaning, it implies the revelation of Him.
If we recollect how intricate is the knowledge of the divine Mind for
those who are not content with the homely pictures of faith but proceed to
thought,—at first only “rationalising” reflection, but afterwards, as in
duty bound, to speculative comprehension, it may almost create surprise
that so many, and especially theologians whose vocation it is to deal with
these Ideas, have tried to get off their task by gladly accepting anything
offered them for this behoof. And nothing serves better to shirk it than
to adopt the conclusion that man knows nothing of God. To know what God as
spirit is—to apprehend this accurately and distinctly in thoughts—requires
careful and thorough speculation. It includes, in its fore-front, the
propositions: God is God only so far as he knows himself: his
self-knowledge is, further, his self-consciousness in man, and man’s
knowledge _of_ God, which proceeds to man’s self-knowledge in God.—See the
profound elucidation of these propositions in the work from which they are
taken: _Aphorisms on Knowing and Not-knowing, &c._, by C. F. G—l.: Berlin
1829.
§ 565. When the immediacy and sensuousness of shape and knowledge is
superseded, God is, in point of content, the essential and actual spirit
of nature and spirit, while in point of form he is, first of all,
presented to consciousness as a mental representation. This
quasi-pictorial representation gives to the elements of his content, on
one hand, a separate being, making them presuppositions towards each
other, and phenomena which succeed each other; their relationship it makes
a series of events according to finite reflective categories. But, on the
other hand, such a form of finite representationalism is also overcome and
superseded in the faith which realises one spirit and in the devotion of
worship.
§ 566. In this separating, the form parts from the content: and in the
form the different functions of the notion part off into special spheres
or media, in each of which the absolute spirit exhibits itself; (α) as
eternal content, abiding self-centred, even in its manifestation; (β) as
distinction of the eternal essence from its manifestation, which by this
difference becomes the phenomenal world into which the content enters; (γ)
as infinite return, and reconciliation with the eternal being, of the
world it gave away—the withdrawal of the eternal from the phenomenal into
the unity of its fullness.
§ 567. (α) Under the “moment” of _Universality_,—the sphere of pure
thought or the abstract medium of essence,—it is therefore the absolute
spirit, which is at first the presupposed principle, not however staying
aloof and inert, but (as underlying and essential power under the
reflective category of causality) creator of heaven and earth: but yet in
this eternal sphere rather only begetting himself as his _son_, with whom,
though different, he still remains in original identity,—just as, again,
this differentiation of him from the universal essence eternally
supersedes itself, and, though this mediating of a self-superseding
mediation, the first substance is essentially as _concrete individuality_
and subjectivity,—is the _Spirit_.
§ 568. (β) Under the “moment” of _particularity_, or of judgment, it is
this concrete eternal being which is presupposed: its movement is the
creation of the phenomenal world. The eternal “moment” of mediation—of the
only Son—divides itself to become the antithesis of two separate worlds.
On one hand is heaven and earth, the elemental and the concrete nature,—on
the other hand, standing in action and reaction with such nature, the
spirit, which therefore is finite. That spirit, as the extreme of inherent
negativity, completes its independence till it becomes wickedness, and is
that extreme through its connexion with a confronting nature and through
its own naturalness thereby investing it. Yet, amid that naturalness, it
is, when it thinks, directed towards the Eternal, though, for that reason,
only standing to it in an external connexion.
§ 569. (γ) Under the “moment” of _individuality_ as such,—of subjectivity
and the notion itself, in which the contrast of universal and particular
has sunk to its identical ground, the place of presupposition (1) is taken
by the _universal_ substance, as actualised out of its abstraction into an
_individual_ self-consciousness. This individual, who as such is
identified with the essence,—(in the Eternal sphere he is called the
Son)—is transplanted into the world of time, and in him wickedness is
implicitly overcome. Further, this immediate, and thus sensuous, existence
of the absolutely concrete is represented as putting himself in judgment
and expiring in the pain of _negativity_, in which he, as infinite
subjectivity, keeps himself unchanged, and thus, as absolute return from
that negativity and as universal unity of universal and individual
essentiality, has realised his being as the Idea of the spirit, eternal,
but alive and present in the world.
§ 570. (2) This objective totality of the divine man who is the Idea of
the spirit is the implicit presupposition for the _finite_ immediacy of
the single subject. For such subject therefore it is at first an Other, an
object of contemplating vision,—but the vision of implicit truth, through
which witness of the spirit in him, he, on account of his immediate
nature, at first characterised himself as nought and wicked. But,
secondly, after the example of his truth, by means of the faith on the
unity (in that example implicitly accomplished) of universal and
individual essence, he is also the movement to throw off his immediacy,
his natural man and self-will, to close himself in unity with that example
(who is his implicit life) in the pain of negativity, and thus to know
himself made one with the essential Being. Thus the Being of Beings (3)
through this mediation brings about its own indwelling in
self-consciousness, and is the actual presence of the essential and
self-subsisting spirit who is all in all.
§ 571. These three syllogisms, constituting the one syllogism of the
absolute self-mediation of spirit, are the revelation of that spirit whose
life is set out as a cycle of concrete shapes in pictorial thought. From
this its separation into parts, with a temporal and external sequence, the
unfolding of the mediation contracts itself in the result,—where the
spirit closes in unity with itself,—not merely to the simplicity of faith
and devotional feeling, but even to thought. In the immanent simplicity of
thought the unfolding still has its expansion, yet is all the while known
as an indivisible coherence of the universal, simple, and eternal spirit
in itself. In this form of truth, truth is the object of _philosophy_.
If the result—the realised Spirit in which all meditation has superseded
itself—is taken in a merely formal, contentless sense, so that the spirit
is not also at the same time known as _implicitly_ existent and
objectively self-unfolding;—then that infinite subjectivity is the merely
formal self-consciousness, knowing itself in itself as absolute,—Irony.
Irony, which can make every objective reality nought and vain, is itself
the emptiness and vanity, which from itself, and therefore by chance and
its own good pleasure, gives itself direction and content, remains master
over it, is not bound by it,—and, with the assertion that it stands on the
very summit of religion and philosophy, falls rather back into the vanity
of wilfulness. It is only in proportion as the pure infinite form, the
self-centred manifestation, throws off the one-sidedness of subjectivity
in which it is the vanity of thought, that it is the free thought which
has its infinite characteristic at the same time as essential and actual
content, and has that content as an object in which it is also free.
Thinking, so far, is only the formal aspect of the absolute content.
Sub-Section C. Philosophy.
§ 572. This science is the unity of Art and Religion. Whereas the
vision-method of Art, external in point of form, is but subjective
production and shivers the substantial content into many separate shapes,
and whereas Religion, with its separation into parts, opens it out in
mental picture, and mediates what is thus opened out; Philosophy not
merely keeps them together to make a total, but even unifies them into the
simple spiritual vision, and then in that raises them to self-conscious
thought. Such consciousness is thus the intelligible unity (cognised by
thought) of art and religion, in which the diverse elements in the content
are cognised as necessary, and this necessary as free.
§ 573. Philosophy thus characterises itself as a cognition of the
necessity in the content of the absolute picture-idea, as also of the
necessity in the two forms—on one hand, immediate vision and its poetry,
and the objective and external revelation presupposed by
representation,—on the other hand, first the subjective retreat inwards,
then the subjective movement of faith and its final identification with
the presupposed object. This cognition is thus the _recognition_ of this
content and its form; it is the liberation from the one-sidedness of the
forms, elevation of them into the absolute form, which determines itself
to content, remains identical with it, and is in that the cognition of
that essential and actual necessity. This movement, which philosophy is,
finds itself already accomplished, when at the close it seizes its own
notion,—i.e. only _looks back_ on its knowledge.
Here might seem to be the place to treat in a definite exposition of the
reciprocal relations of philosophy and religion. The whole question turns
entirely on the difference of the forms of speculative thought from the
forms of mental representation and “reflecting” intellect. But it is the
whole cycle of philosophy, and of logic in particular, which has not
merely taught and made known this difference, but also criticised it, or
rather has let its nature develop and judge itself by these very
categories. It is only by an insight into the value of these forms that
the true and needful conviction can be gained, that the content of
religion and philosophy is the same,—leaving out, of course, the further
details of external nature and finite mind which fall outside the range of
religion. But religion is the truth _for all men_: faith rests on the
witness of the spirit, which as witnessing is the spirit in man. This
witness—the underlying essence in all humanity—takes, when driven to
expound itself, its first definite form under those acquired habits of
thought which his secular consciousness and intellect otherwise employs.
In this way the truth becomes liable to the terms and conditions of
finitude in general. This does not prevent the spirit, even in employing
sensuous ideas and finite categories of thought, from retaining its
content (which as religion is essentially speculative,) with a tenacity
which does violence to them, and acts _inconsistently_ towards them. By
this inconsistency it corrects their defects. Nothing easier therefore for
the “Rationalist” than to point out contradictions in the exposition of
the faith, and then to prepare triumphs for its principle of formal
identity. If the spirit yields to this finite reflection, which has
usurped the title of reason and philosophy—(“Rationalism”)—it strips
religious truth of its infinity and makes it in reality nought. Religion
in that case is completely in the right in guarding herself against such
reason and philosophy and treating them as enemies. But it is another
thing when religion sets herself against comprehending reason, and against
philosophy in general, and specially against a philosophy of which the
doctrine is speculative, and so religious. Such an opposition proceeds
from failure to appreciate the difference indicated and the value of
spiritual form in general, and particularly of the logical form; or, to be
more precise, still from failure to note the distinction of the
content—which may be in both the same—from these forms. It is on the
ground of form that philosophy has been reproached and accused by the
religious party; just as conversely its speculative content has brought
the same charges upon it from a self-styled philosophy—and from a pithless
orthodoxy. It had too little of God in it for the former; too much for the
latter.
The charge of _Atheism_, which used often to be brought against philosophy
(that it has _too little_ of God), has grown rare: the more wide-spread
grows the charge of Pantheism, that it has _too much_ of him:—so much so,
that it is treated not so much as an imputation, but as a proved fact, or
a sheer fact which needs no proof. Piety, in particular, which with its
pious airs of superiority fancies itself free to dispense with proof, goes
hand in hand with empty rationalism—(which means to be so much opposed to
it, though both repose really on the same habit of mind)—in the wanton
assertion, almost as if it merely mentioned a notorious fact, that
Philosophy is the All-one doctrine, or Pantheism. It must be said that it
was more to the credit of piety and theology when they accused a
philosophical system (e.g. Spinozism) of Atheism than of Pantheism, though
the former imputation at the first glance looks more cruel and insidious
(cf. § 71 note). The imputation of Atheism presupposes a definite idea of
a full and real God, and arises because the popular idea does not detect
in the philosophical notion the peculiar form to which it is attached.
Philosophy indeed can recognise its own forms in the categories of
religious consciousness, and even its own teaching in the doctrine of
religion—which therefore it does not disparage. But the converse is not
true: the religious consciousness does not apply the criticism of thought
to itself, does not comprehend itself, and is therefore, as it stands,
exclusive. To impute Pantheism instead of Atheism to Philosophy is part of
the modern habit of mind—of the new piety and new theology. For them
philosophy has too much of God:—so much so, that, if we believe them, it
asserts that God is everything and everything is God. This new theology,
which makes religion only a subjective feeling and denies the knowledge of
the divine nature, thus retains nothing more than a God in general without
objective characteristics. Without interest of its own for the concrete,
fulfilled notion of God, it treats it only as an interest which _others_
once had, and hence treats what belongs to the doctrine of God’s concrete
nature as something merely historical. The indeterminate God is to be
found in all religions; every kind of piety (§ 72)—that of the Hindoo to
asses, cows,—or to dalai-lamas,—that of the Egyptians to the ox—is always
adoration of an object which, with all its absurdities, also contains the
generic abstract, God in General. If this theory needs no more than such a
God, so as to find God in everything called religion, it must at least
find such a God recognised even in philosophy, and can no longer accuse it
of Atheism. The mitigation of the reproach of Atheism into that of
Pantheism has its ground therefore in the superficial idea to which this
mildness has attenuated and emptied God. As that popular idea clings to
its abstract universality, from which all definite quality is excluded,
all such definiteness is only the non-divine, the secularity of things,
thus left standing in fixed undisturbed substantiality. On such a
presupposition, even after philosophy has maintained God’s absolute
universality, and the consequent untruth of the being of external things,
the hearer clings as he did before to his belief that secular things still
keep their being, and form all that is definite in the divine
universality. He thus changes that universality into what he calls the
pantheistic:—_Everything is_—(empirical things, without distinction,
whether higher or lower in the scale, _are_)—all possess substantiality;
and so—thus he understands philosophy—each and every secular thing is God.
It is only his own stupidity, and the falsifications due to such
misconception, which generate the imagination and the allegation of such
pantheism.
But if those who give out that a certain philosophy is Pantheism, are
unable and unwilling to see this—for it is just to see the notion that
they refuse—they should before everything have verified the alleged fact
that _any one philosopher, or any one man_, had really ascribed
substantial or objective and inherent reality to _all_ things and regarded
them as God:—that such an idea had ever come into the hand of any body but
themselves. This allegation I will further elucidate in this exoteric
discussion: and the only way to do so is to set down the evidence. If we
want to take so-called Pantheism in its most poetical, most sublime, or if
you will, its grossest shape, we must, as is well known, consult the
oriental poets: and the most copious delineations of it are found in
Hindoo literature. Amongst the abundant resources open to our disposal on
this topic, I select—as the most authentic statement accessible—the
Bhagavat-Gita, and amongst its effusions, prolix and reiterative _ad
nauseam_, some of the most telling passages. In the 10th Lesson (in
Schlegel, p. 162) Krishna says of himself(173):—“I am the self, seated in
the hearts of all beings. I am the beginning and the middle and the end
also of all beings ... I am the beaming sun amongst the shining ones, and
the moon among the lunar mansions.... Amongst the Vedas I am the
Sâma-Veda: I am mind amongst the senses: I am consciousness in living
beings. And I am Sankara (Siva) among the Rudras, ... Meru among the
high-topped mountains, ... the Himalaya among the firmly-fixed
(mountains).... Among beasts I am the lord of beasts.... Among letters I
am the letter A.... I am the spring among the seasons.... I am also that
which is the seed of all things: there is nothing moveable or immoveable
which can exist without me.”
Even in these totally sensuous delineations, Krishna (and we must not
suppose there is, besides Krishna, still God, or a God besides; as he said
before he was Siva, or Indra, so it is afterwards said that Brahma too is
in him) makes himself out to be—not everything, but only—the most
excellent of everything. Everywhere there is a distinction drawn between
external, unessential existences, and one essential amongst them, which he
is. Even when, at the beginning of the passage, he is said to be the
beginning, middle, and end of living things, this totality is
distinguished from the living things themselves as single existences. Even
such a picture which extends deity far and wide in its existence cannot be
called pantheism: we must rather say that in the infinitely multiple
empirical world, everything is reduced to a limited number of essential
existences, to a polytheism. But even what has been quoted shows that
these very substantialities of the externally-existent do not retain the
independence entitling them to be named Gods; even Siva, Indra, &c. melt
into the one Krishna.
This reduction is more expressly made in the following scene (7th Lesson,
p. 7 sqq.). Krishna says: “I am the producer and the destroyer of the
whole universe. There is nothing else higher than myself; all this is
woven upon me, like numbers of pearls upon a thread. I am the taste in
water;... I am the light of the sun and the moon; I am ‘Om’ in all the
Vedas.... I am life in all beings.... I am the discernment of the
discerning ones.... I am also the strength of the strong.” Then he adds:
“The whole universe deluded by these three states of mind developed from
the qualities [sc. goodness, passion, darkness] does not know me who am
beyond them and inexhaustible: for this delusion of mine,” [even the Maya
is _his_, nothing independent], “developed from the qualities is divine
and difficult to transcend. Those cross beyond this delusion who resort to
me alone.” Then the picture gathers itself up in a simple expression: “At
the end of many lives, the man possessed of knowledge approaches me,
(believing) that Vasudeva is everything. Such a high-souled mind is very
hard to find. Those who are deprived of knowledge by various desires
approach other divinities... Whichever form of deity one worships with
faith, from it he obtains the beneficial things he desires really given by
me. But the fruit thus obtained by those of little judgment is
perishable.... The undiscerning ones, not knowing my transcendent and
inexhaustible essence, than which there is nothing higher, think me who am
unperceived to have become perceptible.”
This “All,” which Krishna calls himself, is not, any more than the Eleatic
One, and the Spinozan Substance, the Every-thing. This every-thing,
rather, the infinitely-manifold sensuous manifold of the finite is in all
these pictures, but defined as the “accidental,” without essential being
of its very own, but having its truth in the substance, the One which, as
different from that accidental, is alone the divine and God. Hindooism
however has the higher conception of Brahma, the pure unity of thought in
itself, where the empirical everything of the world, as also those
proximate substantialities, called Gods, vanish. On that account
Colebrooke and many others have described the Hindoo religion as at bottom
a Monotheism. That this description is not incorrect is clear from these
short citations. But so little concrete is this divine unity—spiritual as
its idea of God is—so powerless its grip, so to speak—that Hindooism, with
a monstrous inconsistency, is also the maddest of polytheisms. But the
idolatry of the wretched Hindoo, when he adores the ape, or other
creature, is still a long way from that wretched fancy of a Pantheism, to
which everything is God, and God everything. Hindoo monotheism moreover is
itself an example how little comes of mere monotheism, if the Idea of God
is not deeply determinate in itself. For that unity, if it be
intrinsically abstract and therefore empty, tends of itself to let
whatever is concrete, outside it—be it as a lot of Gods or as secular,
empirical individuals—keep its independence. That pantheism indeed—on the
shallow conception of it—might with a show of logic as well be called a
monotheism: for if God, as it says, is identical with the world, then as
there is only one world there would be in that pantheism only one God.
Perhaps the empty numerical unity must be predicated of the world: but
such abstract predication of it has no further special interest; on the
contrary, a mere numerical unity just means that its _content_ is an
infinite multeity and variety of finitudes. But it is that delusion with
the empty unity, which alone makes possible and induces the wrong idea of
pantheism. It is only the picture—floating in the indefinite blue—of the
world as _one thing_, _the all_, that could ever be considered capable of
combining with God: only on that assumption could philosophy be supposed
to teach that God is the world: for if the world were taken as it is, as
everything, as the endless lot of empirical existence, then it would
hardly have been even held possible to suppose a pantheism which asserted
of such stuff that it is God.
But to go back again to the question of fact. If we want to see the
consciousness of the One—not as with the Hindoos split between the
featureless unity of abstract thought, on one hand, and on the other, the
long-winded weary story of its particular detail, but—in its finest purity
and sublimity, we must consult the Mohammedans. If e.g. in the excellent
Jelaleddin-Rumi in particular, we find the unity of the soul with the One
set forth, and that unity described as love, this spiritual unity is an
exaltation above the finite and vulgar, a transfiguration of the natural
and the spiritual, in which the externalism and transitoriness of
immediate nature, and of empirical secular spirit, is discarded and
absorbed(174).
I refrain from accumulating further examples of the religious and poetic
conceptions which it is customary to call pantheistic. Of the philosophies
to which that name is given, the Eleatic, or Spinozist, it has been
remarked earlier (§ 50, note) that so far are they from identifying God
with the world and making him finite, that in these systems this
“everything” has no truth, and that we should rather call them
monotheistic, or, in relation to the popular idea of the world, acosmical.
They are most accurately called systems which apprehend the Absolute only
as substance. Of the oriental, especially the Mohammedan, modes of
envisaging God, we may rather say that they represent the Absolute as the
utterly universal genus which dwells in the species or existences, but
dwells so potently that these existences have no actual reality. The fault
of all these modes of thought and systems is that they stop short of
defining substance as subject and as mind.
These systems and modes of pictorial conception originate from the one
need common to all philosophies and all religions of getting an idea of
God, and, secondly, of the relationship of God and the world. (In
philosophy it is specially made out that the determination of God’s nature
determines his relations with the world.) The “reflective” understanding
begins by rejecting all systems and modes of conception, which, whether
they spring from heart, imagination or speculation, express the
interconnexion of God and the world: and in order to have God pure in
faith or consciousness, he is as essence parted from appearance, as
infinite from the finite. But, after this partition, the conviction arises
also that the appearance has a relation to the essence, the finite to the
infinite, and so on: and thus arises the question of reflection as to the
nature of this relation. It is in the reflective form that the whole
difficulty of the affair lies, and that causes this relation to be called
incomprehensible by the agnostic. The close of philosophy is not the
place, even in a general exoteric discussion, to waste a word on what a
“notion” means. But as the view taken of this relation is closely
connected with the view taken of philosophy generally and with all
imputations against it, we may still add the remark that though philosophy
certainly has to do with unity in general, it is not however with abstract
unity, mere identity, and the empty absolute, but with concrete unity (the
notion), and that in its whole course it has to do with nothing else;—that
each step in its advance is a peculiar term or phase of this concrete
unity, and that the deepest and last expression of unity is the unity of
absolute mind itself. Would-be judges and critics of philosophy might be
recommended to familiarise themselves with these phases of unity and to
take the trouble to get acquainted with them, at least to know so much
that of these terms there are a great many, and that amongst them there is
great variety. But they show so little acquaintance with them—and still
less take trouble about it—that, when they hear of unity—and relation
_ipso facto_ implies unity—they rather stick fast at quite abstract
indeterminate unity, and lose sight of the chief point of interest—the
special mode in which the unity is qualified. Hence all they can say about
philosophy is that dry identity is its principle and result, and that it
is the system of identity. Sticking fast to the undigested thought of
identity, they have laid hands on, not the concrete unity, the notion and
content of philosophy, but rather its reverse. In the philosophical field
they proceed, as in the physical field the physicist; who also is well
aware that he has before him a variety of sensuous properties and
matters—or usually matters alone, (for the properties get transformed into
matters also for the physicist)—and that these matters (elements) _also_
stand in _relation_ to one another. But the question is, Of what kind is
this relation? Every peculiarity and the whole difference of natural
things, inorganic and living, depend solely on the different modes of this
unity. But instead of ascertaining these different modes, the ordinary
physicist (chemist included) takes up only one, the most external and the
worst, viz. _composition_, applies only it in the whole range of natural
structures, which he thus renders for ever inexplicable.
The aforesaid shallow pantheism is an equally obvious inference from this
shallow identity. All that those who employ this invention of their own to
accuse philosophy gather from the study of God’s _relation_ to the world
is that the one, but only the one factor of this category of relation—and
that the factor of indeterminateness—is identity. Thereupon they stick
fast in this half-perception, and assert—falsely as a fact—that philosophy
teaches the identity of God and the world. And as in their judgment either
of the two,—the world as much as God—has the same solid substantiality as
the other, they infer that in the philosophic Idea God is _composed_ of
God and the world. Such then is the idea they form of pantheism, and which
they ascribe to philosophy. Unaccustomed in their own thinking and
apprehending of thoughts to go beyond such categories, they import them
into philosophy, where they are utterly unknown; they thus infect it with
the disease against which they subsequently raise an outcry. If any
difficulty emerge in comprehending God’s relation to the world, they at
once and very easily escape it by admitting that this relation contains
for them an inexplicable contradiction; and that hence, they must stop at
the vague conception of such relation, perhaps under the more familiar
names of, e.g. omnipresence, providence, &c. Faith in their use of the
term means no more than a refusal to define the conception, or to enter on
a closer discussion of the problem. That men and classes of untrained
intellect are satisfied with such indefiniteness, is what one expects; but
when a trained intellect and an interest for reflective study is
satisfied, in matters admitted to be of superior, if not even of supreme
interest, with indefinite ideas, it is hard to decide whether the thinker
is really in earnest with the subject. But if those who cling to this
crude “rationalism” were in earnest, e.g. with God’s omnipresence, so far
as to realise their faith thereon in a definite mental idea, in what
difficulties would they be involved by their belief in the true reality of
the things of sense! They would hardly like, as Epicurus does, to let God
dwell in the interspaces of things, i.e. in the pores of the
physicists,—said pores being the negative, something supposed to exist
_beside_ the material reality. This very “Beside” would give their
pantheism its spatiality,—their everything, conceived as the mutual
exclusion of parts in space. But in ascribing to God, in his relation to
the world, an action on and in the space thus filled on the world and in
it, they would endlessly split up the divine actuality into infinite
materiality. They would really thus have the misconception they call
pantheism or all-one-doctrine, only as the necessary sequel of their
misconceptions of God and the world. But to put that sort of thing, this
stale gossip of oneness or identity, on the shoulders of philosophy, shows
such recklessness about justice and truth that it can only be explained
through the difficulty of getting into the head thoughts and notions, i.e.
not abstract unity, but the many-shaped modes specified. If statements as
to facts are put forward, and the facts in question are thoughts and
notions, it is indispensable to get hold of their meaning. But even the
fulfilment of this requirement has been rendered superfluous, now that it
has long been a foregone conclusion that philosophy is pantheism, a system
of identity, an All-one doctrine, and that the person therefore who might
be unaware of this fact is treated either as merely unaware of a matter of
common notoriety, or as prevaricating for a purpose. On account of this
chorus of assertions, then, I have believed myself obliged to speak at
more length and exoterically on the outward and inward untruth of this
alleged fact: for exoteric discussion is the only method available in
dealing with the external apprehension of notions as mere facts,—by which
notions are perverted into their opposite. The esoteric study of God and
identity, as of cognitions and notions, is philosophy itself.
§ 574. This notion of philosophy is the self-thinking Idea, the truth
aware of itself (§ 236),—the logical system, but with the signification
that it is universality approved and certified in concrete content as in
its actuality. In this way the science has gone back to its beginning: its
result is the logical system but as a spiritual principle: out of the
presupposing judgment, in which the notion was only implicit and the
beginning an immediate,—and thus out of the _appearance_ which it had
there—it has risen into its pure principle and thus also into its proper
medium.
§ 575. It is this appearing which originally gives the motive of the
further development. The first appearance is formed by the syllogism,
which is based on the Logical system as starting-point, with Nature for
the middle term which couples the Mind with it. The Logical principle
turns to Nature and Nature to Mind. Nature, standing between the Mind and
its essence, sunders itself, not indeed to extremes of finite abstraction,
nor itself to something away from them and independent,—which, as other
than they, only serves as a link between them: for the syllogism is _in
the Idea_ and Nature is essentially defined as a transition-point and
negative factor, and as implicitly the Idea. Still the mediation of the
notion has the external form of _transition_, and the science of Nature
presents itself as the course of necessity, so that it is only in the one
extreme that the liberty of the notion is explicit as a self-amalgamation.
§ 576. In the second syllogism this appearance is so far superseded, that
that syllogism is the standpoint of the Mind itself, which—as the
mediating agent in the process—presupposes Nature and couples it with the
Logical principle. It is the syllogism where Mind reflects on itself in
the Idea: philosophy appears as a subjective cognition, of which liberty
is the aim, and which is itself the way to produce it.
§ 577. The third syllogism is the Idea of philosophy, which has
self-knowing reason, the absolutely-universal, for its middle term: a
middle, which divides itself into Mind and Nature, making the former its
presupposition, as process of the Idea’s subjective activity, and the
latter its universal extreme, as process of the objectively and implicitly
existing Idea. The self-judging of the Idea into its two appearances (§§
575, 576) characterises both as its (the self-knowing reason’s)
manifestations: and in it there is a unification of the two aspects:—it is
the nature of the fact, the notion, which causes the movement and
development, yet this same movement is equally the action of cognition.
The eternal Idea, in full fruition of its essence, eternally sets itself
to work, engenders and enjoys itself as absolute Mind.
Ἡ δὲ νόησις ἡ καθ᾽ αὑτὴν τοῦ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ ἀρίστου, καὶ ἡ μάλιστα τοῦ
μάλιστα. Αὑτὸν δὲ νοεῖ ὁ νοῦς κατὰ μετάληψιν τοῦ νοητοῦ νοητὸς γὰρ
γίγνεται θιγγάνων καὶ νοῶν, ὥστε ταὐτὸν νοῦς καὶ νοητόν. Τὸ γὰρ
δεκτικὸν τοῦ νοητοῦ καὶ τῆς οὐσίας νοῦς. Ἐνεργεῖ δὲ ἔχων. Ὥστ᾽
ἐκεῖνο μᾶλλον τούτου ὂ δοκεῖ ὁ νοῦς θεῖον ἔχειν, καὶ ἡ θεωρία τὸ
ἥδιστον καὶ ἄριστον. Εἰ οὖν οὕτως εὖ ἔχει, ὡς ἡμεῖς ποτέ, ὁ θεὸς
ἀεί, θαυμαστόν; εἰ δὲ μᾶλλον, ἔτι θαυμασιώτερον. Ἔχει δὲ ὡδί. Καὶ
ζωὴ δέ γε ὑπάρχει; ἡ γὰρ νοῦ ἐνέργεια ζωή, ἐκεῖνος δὲ ἡ ἐνέργεια;
ἐνέργεια δὲ ἡ καθ᾽ αὑτὴν ἐκείνου ζωὴ ἀρίστη καὶ ἀΐδιος. Φαμὲν δὲ
τὸν θεὸν εἶναι ζῷον ἀΐδιον ἄριστον, ὥστε ζωὴ αἰὼν συνεχὴς καὶ
ἀΐδιος ὑπάρχει τῷ θεῷ; τοῦτο γὰρ ὁ θεός. (ARIST. _Met._ XI. 7.)
INDEX.
Absolute (the), xlviii, 7.
Abstraction, 74.
Accent, 81, 87.
Ages of man, 17.
Alphabets, 81.
Altruism, 57.
Animal magnetism, clxi, 5, 29 seqq.
Anthropology, xxv, lxxxviii, 12 seqq.
Appetite, 53.
_Aristotle_, liii, cxxxiii, 4, 63, 163.
Art, xxxix seqq., 169 seqq.
Asceticism, cxv, cxliii, clxxxvii, 159.
Association of ideas, 73.
Atheism, 183.
Athens, cxxx.
Attention, clxxiii, 69.
Automatism (psychological), clxv.
_Bacon_ (Fr.), xxi, lii, lix, clx.
_Bain_ (A.), cxxi.
Beauty, 169.
Bhagavat-Gita, 186 seqq.
Biography, 151.
Body and Soul (relations of), lxxxii, cxvi, clvi, 13.
_Boëthius_, l.
_Böhme_ (J.), 95.
_Braid_ (J.), clxiv.
Bravery, cxcix.
Budget, 144.
Capitalism, cci seqq.
Cardinal virtues, cxxxii.
Categories, lx.
Catholicism, 157.
Children, lxxxvii, cii.
Chinese language, 81 seqq.
Choice, 98.
Christianity, xliv, cxli, clxxix, 7, 101, 157.
Clairvoyance, clviii, clxi, 33.
Cognition, 64.
Commercial morality, cci.
_Comte_ (C.), xcix.
_Condillac_, lxxviii, 61.
Conscience, xxx, cxxii, clxxxvii, 117, 156, 161.
Consciousness, xxv, xcix, 47 seqq.
Constitution of the State, 132.
Contract, 108.
Corporation, 130.
Crime, cxciii, 109.
Criticism, xvi, cxxxviii, 149.
Custom, clxxxix, 104.
_Dante_, cxxxiv.
Deduction (Kantian and Fichtean), cx seqq.
Democracy, 141.
Development, 60.
Disease (mental), 27, 37.
Duty, cxiv, cxix, cxxi seqq., cxxxi, cxxxix, 97, 104, 116.
Economics, 122.
Education, xcii, cxxxvii, 11.
Ego (the), lxiv seqq., 47 seqq.
Egoism, 55.
Eleaticism, 190.
England, 143.
Epicureanism, cxli, 195.
Epistemology, ciii.
Equality (political and social), cxc, 133.
Equity, xxxi.
Estates, 123.
Ethics, xv, xix, xxx seqq., xcv, cxiii seqq., cxc seqq., 113 seqq.
Experience, 51.
Experimental psychology, lxxxi seqq., c.
Expression (mental), 23, 45.
Faculties of Mind, lxxiii seqq., xcvii, cxxvi, 58, 65.
Faith, cvii.
Faith-cure, clxi, 35.
Fame, 153.
Family, xxxii, cxcii, 121.
_Fechner_ (G. T.), cli.
Feeling, 22, 68, 92.
_Fichte_ (J. G.), cvi, cix seqq., clxiv, clxix, 49.
Finance, 144.
Finitude, 8.
Fraud, 110.
Freedom, cxxv seqq., clxxv, 6, 99, 113, 133 seqq.
_Fries_, clxxix.
Genius (the), clvii, 28.
German language, 78, 88:
politics, clxxvii;
empire, clxxxi.
God, xxxiv, xli, cxxii, 20, 154, 176.
_Goethe_, cliv, clxix.
Goodness, 115.
Government, 137;
forms of, 141.
Greek ethics, cxxix seqq., cxciv;
religion, 164.
Habit, clviii, 39.
Happiness, 99.
_Herbart_, lxii seqq., lxxxv, cxxvii.
Hieroglyphics, 80.
History, xxxiv, xlvii, xci, 147 seqq.
_Hobbes_, lxxvi, clxxxii.
Holiness, 159.
Honour, 124.
_Humboldt_ (W. v.), 79.
_Hume_, lxxi, cxx.
Hypnotism, clxiv seqq., 31 seqq.
Idea (Platonic), 163.
Idealism, civ; political, clxxxvi.
Ideality, clxviii, 25.
Ideas, lxix seqq., ci seqq.
Imagination, 72.
Immaterialism, clii, 12, 45.
Impulse, 95.
Individualist ethics, cxx seqq.
Individuality in the State, 139.
Industrialism, cc, 123.
Insanity, 37.
Intention, 114.
International Law, 147.
Intuition, 67.
Irony, 179.
_Jelaleddin-Rumi_, 189.
Judgment, 89.
Judicial system, 127.
_Jung-Stilling_, clxii.
Juries, 128.
_Kant_ (I.), xv, lxiv, lxxi, xcvi, cvii, cxxviii, clxxxviii, 20, 48, 51,
63, 154.
_Kieser_, clxiii.
Knowledge, cv, cxxxv, cxli, 64.
Krishna, 186 seqq.
Labour, 123.
Language, clxxiv, 79 seqq.
_Laplace_, clxiv.
Law, xxix, xcvi, cxc, 104, 125.
Legality, xxx, clxxxix.
Legislation, 125.
_Leibniz_, lxxii, lxxvii, cxlvi, 14, 80, 82.
Liberty, see Freedom.
Life, 13.
Logic, xiv, xvii, lxi, xcv, 196.
Lutheranism, 157.
_Macchiavelli_, clxxx.
Magic, clxi, 29.
Manifestation, 7.
Manners, 104.
Marriage, 121, 159.
Master and slave, 56.
Mathematics in psychology, lxviii.
Medium, 34.
Memory, clxxiv, 70, 84.
_Mesmer_, clxi.
Metaphysic, lviii seqq.
_Mill_ (James), lxxix.
Mind (= Spirit), xlix seqq., 58, 196.
Mnemonics, 85.
Monarchy, 139.
Monasticism, 159.
Monotheism, 188.
Morality, xxx, xxxviii, cxxi, clxxxviii seqq., cxcviii, 113 seqq.
_Münsterberg_ (H.), lxxxiii.
_Napoleon_, 19.
Nationality, 142, 150, 154, cxcv.
Natural Philosophy, xv, xvii, xxii.
Natural rights, 112.
Nature, cxx, cxxiv, 12, 133, 196.
Nemesis, 174.
_Nietzsche_ (F.), cxxviii.
Nobility, cxcvii.
Observation, lxxxix.
Orders (social), cxcvii seqq., 124.
Ought, clxxv, 94, 116.
Pain, 6, 94.
Pantheism, 184, 194.
Parliament, 142.
Passion, 95.
Peasantry, cci.
_Peel_ (Sir R.), 127.
Perception, 67.
Perfection, cxxvii, cxxix.
Person, 107, 119.
Personality, lxiv, clxvii.
Philosophy, xiv, cxvii, cxxxviii, 159 seqq., 179 seqq.
Phrenology, 35.
Physiology, lxxxi, c.
_Pinel_, 39.
_Plato_, xcviii, cxxxi, cxxxv, 33, 97, 102, 162.
Pleasure, cxxxvi, 94.
_Plotinus_, cxliv.
Police, 130.
_Porphyry_, xx.
Positivity of laws, 125.
Powers (political), ccii, 138.
Practice, 92.
Property, xxix, cxcii, 107.
Protestantism, 166.
Prussia, clxxviii, clxxxiv.
Psychiatry, 33.
Psychology, xxii, xxiv, lii seqq., lxiii, lxxxvi, xcv, cxvii, 4, 58, 63.
Psycho-physics, clvi, 23.
Punishment, cxciii, cciii, 111.
Purpose, 97, 114.
Races, 16.
Rationalism, clxv, 183.
Reason, cxv, cxliii, clxxii, 58.
Recollection, 70.
_Reinhold_, 49.
Religion, xxxvii seqq., cxcvi, 155 seqq., 167 seqq.
Representation, cxi, 70;
political, clxxxiii, 142.
Responsibility, 114.
Revelation, 7, 175.
Right, xxix, 104 (see Law).
_Ritter_, clxi, clxiii.
Romances, 151:
romantic art, 172.
Savages, lxxxvii, cii.
_Schelling_, clxi.
_Schindler_, clxiii.
_Schopenhauer_, cvi, cxvi, cli, clxiv, clxix, clxxxvii.
Science, xviii.
_Scott_ (Sir W.), 151.
Self-consciousness, clxxi, 53 seqq.
Sensibility and sensation, 20, 50.
Sex, 18.
Siderism, clxiii, 15.
Signs (in language), 76.
Skill (acquired), 42.
Slavery, 56, 101.
Sleep, 18.
Society, xxxii, 56.
Sociology, xxiii.
Somnambulism, 30.
Soul, liv, lxix, lxxv, 26.
_Spencer_ (H.), xxi seqq., cxi, cxxiii, cxliv.
_Spinoza_, lxxvi, ci, cxix, cl, 14, 49, 188.
Spiritualism, clxii.
State, xxxii seqq., clxxvi, clxxxiii, 131 seqq.
Stoicism, cxix, cxxiv, cxi, cxliii.
Suggestion, clxv seqq., 33.
Superstition, 158.
Syllogism, 90.
Symbol, 77, 171.
Sympathy, clv.
Telepathy, clxi, 34.
Tellurism, clxiii, 15.
Theology, 155.
Thinking, clxxiv, 89.
_Tholuck_, 191.
Trinity, 177 seqq.
Truth, cv, 182.
Unconscious (the), cxlvi.
Understanding, 52, 89.
Universalising, cxxviii.
Utilitarianism, cxxxvi.
Value, 109.
Virtues, cxxxi, cxcviii, 120.
War, cxcix, 146.
Wartburg, clxxix.
Welfare, 114.
Wickedness, 9, 94, 117.
Will, xxviii, cxxv, clxxv, 62, 90.
_Wolff_, lxxiii.
Words, clxxiv, 79.
_Wordsworth_, li, clxviii.
Written language, 81 seqq.
Wrong, 109.
Würtemberg, clxxxv.
FOOTNOTES
1 Plato, _Rep._ 527.
2 The prospectus of the _System of Synthetic Philosophy_ is dated
1860. Darwin’s _Origin of Species_ is 1859. But such ideas, both in
Mr. Spencer and others, are earlier than Darwin’s book.
3 Hegel’s _Verhältniss_, the supreme category of what is called
actuality: where object is necessitated by outside object.
4 Cf. Herbart, _Werke_ (ed. Kehrbach), iv. 372. This consciousness
proper is what Leibniz called _« __Apperception,__ »__ la
connaissance réflexive de l’état intérieur (Nouveaux Essais)_.
5 Herbart, _Werke_, vi. 55 (ed. Kehrbach).
6 p. 59 (§ 440).
7 p. 63 (§ 440).
8 These remarks refer to four out of the five Herbartian ethical
ideas. See also Leibniz, who (in 1693, _De Notionibus juris et
justitiae_) had given the following definitions: “Caritas est
benevolentia universalis. Justitia est caritas sapientis. Sapientia
est scientia felicitatis.” The jus naturae has three grades: the
lowest, jus strictum; the second, aequitas (or caritas, in the
narrower sense); and the highest, pietas, which is honeste, i.e. pie
vivere.
9 To which the Greek πόλις, the Latin civitas or respublica, were only
approximations. Hegel _is not writing a history_. If he were, it
would be necessary for him to point out how far the individual
instance, e.g. Rome, or Prussia, corresponded to its Idea.
10 Shakespeare’s phrase, as in _Othello_, iii. 2; _Lover’s Complaint_,
v. 24.
_ 11 Iliad_, xii. 243.
12 See Hegel’s _Logic_, pp. 257 seq.
13 See p. 153 (§ 550).
14 Cf. _Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel_, chaps. xviii, xxvi.
15 As stated in p. 167 (_Encycl._ § 554). Cf. _Phenom. d. Geistes_,
cap. vii, which includes the Religion of Art, and the same point of
view is explicit in the first edition of the _Encyclopaedia_.
_ 16 Philosophie der Religion_ (_Werke_, xi. 5).
17 Hegel, _Phenomenologie des Geistes_ (_Werke_, ii. 545). The
meeting-ground of the Greek spirit, as it passed through Rome, with
Christianity.
18 Ib., p. 584.
_ 19 Phenomenologie des Geistes_ (_Werke_, ii. 572). Thus Hegelian
idealism claims to be the philosophical counterpart of the central
dogma of Christianity.
20 From the old Provençal _Lay of Boëthius_.
21 It is the doctrine of the _intellectus agens_, or _in actu_; the
_actus purus_ of the Schoolmen.
_ 22 Einleitung in die Philosophie_, §§ 1, 2.
_ 23 Psychologie als Wissenschaft_, Vorrede.
_ 24 Einleitung in die Philosophie_, §§ 11, 12.
_ 25 Einleitung in die Philosophie_, § 18: cf. _Werke_, ed. Kehrbach, v.
108.
26 Cf. Plato’s remarks on the problem in the word Self-control.
_Republ._ 430-1.
_ 27 Lehrbuch der Psychologie_, §§ 202, 203.
_ 28 Allgemeine Metaphysik_, Vorrede.
_ 29 Hauptpunkte der Metaphysik_ (1806), § 13.
_ 30 Werke_, ed. Kehrbach (_Ueber die Möglichkeit_, &c), v. 96.
_ 31 Ibid._, p. 100.
32 One might almost fancy Herbart was translating into a general
philosophic thesis the words in which Goethe has described how he
overcame a real trouble by transmuting it into an ideal shape, e.g.
_Wahrheit und Dichtung_, cap. xii.
33 Herbart’s language is almost identical with Hegel’s: _Encycl._ § 389
(p. 12). Cf. Spencer, _Psychology_, i. 192. “Feelings are in all
cases the materials out of which the superior tracts of
consciousness and intellect are evolved.”
_ 34 Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel_, ch. xvii.
_ 35 Psychologia Empirica_, § 29.
36 As is also the case with Herbart’s metaphysical reality of the Soul.
_ 37 Human Nature_, vii. 2. “Pleasure, Love, and appetite, which is also
called desire, are divers names for divers considerations of the
same thing....” Deliberation is (ch. xii. 1) the “alternate
succession of appetite and fears.”
_ 38 Eth._ ii. 48 Schol.
_ 39 Eth._ ii. 43 Schol.: cf. 49 Schol.
40 This wide scope of thinking (_cogitatio_, _penser_) is at least as
old as the Cartesian school: and should be kept in view, as against
a tendency to narrow its range to the mere intellect.
41 e.g. _Analysis of the Human Mind_, ch. xxiv. “Attention is but
another name for the interesting character of the idea;” ch. xix.
“Desire and the idea of a pleasurable sensation are convertible
terms.”
42 As Mr. Spencer says (_Psychology_, i. 141), “Objective psychology
can have no existence as such without borrowing its data from
subjective psychology.”
43 The same failure to note that experiment is valuable only where
general points of view are defined, is a common fault in biology.
44 Münsterberg, _Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie_, p. 144.
_ 45 Lehrbuch der Psychologie_, § 54 (2nd ed.), or § 11 (1st ed.).
46 See p. 11 (§ 387).
47 Cf. Nietzsche, _Also sprach Zarathustra_, i. 43. “There is more
reason in thy body than in thy best wisdom.”
48 This language is very characteristic of the physicists who dabble in
psychology and imagine they are treading in the steps of Kant, if
not even verifying what they call his guesswork: cf. Ziehen,
_Physiol. Psychologie_, 2nd ed. p. 212. “In every case there is
given us only the psychical series of sensations and their
memory-images, and it is only a universal hypothesis if we assume
beside this psychical series a material series standing in causal
relation to it.... The material series is not given equally
originally with the psychical.”
49 It is the same radical feature of consciousness which is thus noted
by Mr. Spencer, _Psychology_, i. 475. “Perception and sensation are
ever tending to exclude each other but never succeed.” “Cognition
and feeling are antithetical and inseparable.” “Consciousness
continues only in virtue of this conflict.” Cf. Plato’s resolution
in the _Philebus_ of the contest between intelligence and feeling
(pleasure).
50 It is the quasi-Aristotelian ἀπαγωγή, defined as the step from one
proposition to another, the knowledge of which will set the first
proposition in a full light.
_ 51 Grundlage des Naturrechts_, § 5.
_ 52 System der Sittenlehre_, § 8, iv.
53 Even though religion (according to Kant) conceive them as divine
commands.
54 Cf. Hegel’s _Werke_, vii. 2, p. 236 (Lecture-note on § 410). “We
must treat as utterly empty the fancy of those who suppose that
properly man should have no organic body,” &c.; and see p. 159 of
the present work.
_ 55 Criticism of Pure Reason_, Architectonic.
56 Spencer, _Psychology_, i. 291: “Mind can be understood only by
observing how mind is evolved.”
57 Cf. Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, i. 339: “The ethical sentiment
proper is, in the great mass of cases, scarcely discernible.”
_ 58 Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel_, p. 143.
59 Windelband (W.), _Präludien_ (1884), p. 288.
60 Cf. Plato, _Republic_, p. 486.
_ 61 Human Nature: Morals_, Part III.
_ 62 Emotion and Will_, ch. xv. § 23.
63 It is characteristic of the Kantian doctrine to absolutise the
conception of Duty and make it express the essence of the whole
ethical idea.
64 Which are still, as the Socialist Fourier says, states of social
incoherence, specially favourable to falsehood.
_ 65 Rechtsphilosophie_, § 4.
66 Cf. Schelling, ii. 12: “There are no _born_ sons of freedom.”
67 Simmel (G.), _Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft_, i. 184.
_ 68 Jenseits von Gut und Böse_, p. 225.
69 Aristot. _Polit._ i. 6.
70 Plato, _Phaedo_.
71 Carus, _Psyche_, p. 1.
72 See Arist., _Anal. Post._ ii. 19 (ed. Berl. 100, a. 10).
73 Cf. _The Logic of Hegel_, notes &c., p. 421.
74 “Omnia individua corpora quamvis diversis gradibus animata sunt.”
_Eth._ ii. 13. schol.
_ 75 Nanna_ (1848): _Zendavesta_ (1851): _Ueber die Seelenfrage_ (1861).
76 Described by S. as the rise from mere physical _cause_ to
physiological _stimulus_ (Reiz), to psychical _motive_.
77 Infra, p. 12.
78 Aristot., _De Anima_, i. c. 4, 5.
_ 79 Wilhelm Meister’s Wanderjahre_, i. 10.
_ 80 Wilhelm Meister’s Wanderjahre_, iv. 18.
81 Works like Preyer’s _Seele des Kindes_ illustrate this aspect of
mental evolution; its acquirement of definite and correlated
functions.
82 Cf. the end of Caleb Balderstone (in _The Bride of Lammermoor_):
“With a fidelity sometimes displayed by the canine race, but seldom
by human beings, he pined and died.”
83 See Windischmann’s letters in _Briefe von und an Hegel_.
84 Cf. _Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel_, chaps. xii-xiv.
85 Kieser’s _Tellurismus_ is, according to Schopenhauer, “the fullest
and most thorough text-book of Animal Magnetism.”
86 Cf. Fichte, _Nachgelassene Werke_, iii. 295 (_Tagebuch über den
animalischen Magnetismus_, 1813), and Schopenhauer, _Der Wille in
der Natur_.
87 Bernheim: _La suggestion domine toute l’histoire de l’humanité_.
88 An instance from an unexpected quarter, in Eckermann’s conversations
with Goethe: “In my young days I have experienced cases enough,
where on lonely walks there came over me a powerful yearning for a
beloved girl, and I thought of her so long till she actually came to
meet me.” (Conversation of Oct. 7, 1827.)
_ 89 Gleichsam in einer Vorwelt, einer diese Welt schaffenden Welt_
(_Nachgelassene Werke_, iii. 321).
_ 90 Selbst-bewusstsein_ is not self-consciousness, in the vulgar sense
of brooding over feelings and self: but consciousness which is
active and outgoing, rather than receptive and passive. It is
practical, as opposed to theoretical.
91 The more detailed exposition of this Phenomenology of Mind is given
in the book with that title: Hegel’s _Werke_, ii. pp. 71-316.
_ 92 System der Sittlichkeit_, p. 15 (see Essay V).
93 Hegel’s _Werke_, viii. 313, and cf. the passage quoted in my _Logic
of Hegel_, notes, pp. 384, 385.
94 Hegel’s _Briefe_, i. 15.
_ 95 Kritik der Verfassung Deutschlands_, edited by G. Mollat (1893).
Parts of this were already given by Haym and Rosenkranz. The same
editor has also in this year published, though not quite in full,
Hegel’s _System der Sittlichkeit_, to which reference is made in
what follows.
96 In which some may find a prophecy of the effects of “blood and iron”
in 1866.
_ 97 Die Absolute Regierung_: in the _System der Sittlichkeit_, p. 32:
cf. p. 55. Hegel himself compares it to Fichte’s _Ephorate_.
_ 98 Die Absolute Regierung_, l.c. pp. 37, 38.
99 Some idea of his meaning may perhaps be gathered by comparison with
passages in _Wilhelm Meister’s Wanderjahre_, ii. 1, 2.
_ 100 Kritik der Verfassung_, p. 20.
101 In some respects Bacon’s attitude in the struggle between royalty
and parliament may be compared.
102 Just as Schopenhauer, on the contrary, always says _moralisch_—never
_sittlich_.
103 Grey (G.), _Journals of two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West
and Western Australia_, ii. 220.
104 With some variation of ownership, perhaps, according to the
prevalence of so-called matriarchal or patriarchal households.
105 Cf. the custom in certain tribes which names the father after his
child: as if the son first gave his father legitimate position in
society.
_ 106 System der Sittlichkeit_, p. 8.
_ 107 Aufhebung_ (_positive_) as given in _absolute Sittlichkeit_.
_ 108 System der Sittlichkeit_, p. 15.
109 This phraseology shows the influence of Schelling, with whom he was
at this epoch associated. See _Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel_,
ch. xiv.
110 Cf. the intermediate function assigned (see above, p. clxxxiii) to
the priests and the aged.
_ 111 System der Sittlichkeit_, p. 19.
112 See _infra_, p. 156.
113 Wordsworth’s _Laodamia_.
114 “For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the
brute!’
But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot.”
115 “I can assure you,” said Werner (the merchant), “that I never
reflected on the State in my life. My tolls, charges and dues I have
paid for no other reason than that it was established usage.”
(_Wilh. Meisters Lehrjahre_, viii. 2.)
_ 116 System der Sittlichkeit_, p. 40.
_ 117 System der Sittlichkeit_, p. 65.
_ 118 Ibid._ p. 46.
_ 119 Natürliche Seele._
_ 120 Natürliche Qualitäten._
_ 121 Empfindung._
_ 122 Die fühlende Seele._
123 Plato had a better idea of the relation of prophecy generally to the
state of sober consciousness than many moderns, who supposed that
the Platonic language on the subject of enthusiasm authorised their
belief in the sublimity of the revelations of somnambulistic vision.
Plato says in the _Timaeus_ (p. 71), “The author of our being so
ordered our inferior parts that they too might obtain a measure of
truth, and in the liver placed their oracle (the power of divination
by dreams). And herein is a proof that God has given the art of
divination, not to the wisdom, but, to the foolishness of man; for
no man when in his wits attains prophetic truth and inspiration; but
when he receives the inspired word, either his intelligence is
enthralled by sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or
possession (enthusiasm).” Plato very correctly notes not merely the
bodily conditions on which such visionary knowledge depends, and the
possibility of the truth of the dreams, but also the inferiority of
them to the reasonable frame of mind.
_ 124 Selbstgefühl._
_ 125 Gewohnheit._
_ 126 Die wirkliche Seele._
_ 127 Das Bewußtsein als solches_: (a) _Das sinnliche Bewußtsein._
_ 128 Wahrnehmung._
_ 129 Der Verstand._
_ 130 Selbstbewußtsein._
_ 131 Die Begierde._
_ 132 Das anerkennende Selbstbewußtsein._
_ 133 Die Vernunft._
_ 134 Der Geist._
_ 135 Die Intelligenz._
_ 136 Anschauung._
_ 137 Vorstellung._
_ 138 Die Erinnerung._
_ 139 Die Einbildungskraft._
_ 140 Phantasie._
_ 141 Gedächtniß._
_ 142 Auswendiges._
_ 143 Inwendiges._
_ 144 Das Denken._
_ 145 Der praktische Geist._
_ 146 Der praktische Gefühl._
_ 147 Der Triebe und die Willkühr._
_ 148 Die Glückseligkeit._
_ 149 Der freie Geist._
_ 150 Gesess._
_ 151 Sitte._
_ 152 Das Recht._
_ 153 Moralität._
_ 154 Naturrecht._
_ 155 Moralität._
_ 156 Der Vorsatz._
_ 157 That._
_ 158 Handlung._
_ 159 Die Absicht und das Wohl._
_ 160 Das Gute und das Böse._
_ 161 Die Sittlichkeit._
_ 162 Die bürgerliche Gesellschaft._
_ 163 Das System der Bedürfnisse._
_ 164 Die Rechtspflege._
_ 165 Geseß._
_ 166 Die Polizei und die Corporation._
_ 167 Inneres Staatsrecht._
_ 168 Das äußere Staatsrecht._
_ 169 Die Weltgeschichte._
_ 170 Weltweisheit._
_ 171 Der absolute Geist._
_ 172 Die geoffenbarte Religion._
173 [The citation given by Hegel from Schlegel’s translation is here
replaced by the version (in one or two points different) in the
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. viii.]
174 In order to give a clearer impression of it, I cannot refrain from
quoting a few passages, which may at the same time give some
indication of the marvellous skill of Rückert, from whom they are
taken, as a translator. [For Rückert’s verses a version is here
substituted in which I have been kindly helped by Miss May Kendall.]
III.
I saw but One through all heaven’s starry spaces gleaming:
I saw but One in all sea billows wildly streaming.
I looked into the heart, a waste of worlds, a sea,—
I saw a thousand dreams,—yet One amid all dreaming.
And earth, air, water, fire, when thy decree is given,
Are molten into One: against thee none hath striven.
There is no living heart but beats unfailingly
In the one song of praise to thee, from earth and heaven.
V.
As one ray of thy light appears the noonday sun,
But yet thy light and mine eternally are one.
As dust beneath thy feet the heaven that rolls on high:
Yet only one, and one for ever, thou and I.
The dust may turn to heaven, and heaven to dust decay;
Yet art thou one with me, and shalt be one for aye.
How may the words of life that fill heaven’s utmost part
Rest in the narrow casket of one poor human heart?
How can the sun’s own rays, a fairer gleam to fling,
Hide in a lowly husk, the jewel’s covering?
How may the rose-grove all its glorious bloom unfold,
Drinking in mire and slime, and feeding on the mould?
How can the darksome shell that sips the salt sea stream
Fashion a shining pearl, the sunlight’s joyous beam?
Oh, heart! should warm winds fan thee, should’st thou floods
endure,
One element are wind and flood; but be thou pure.
IX.
I’ll tell thee how from out the dust God moulded man,—
Because the breath of Love He breathed into his clay:
I’ll tell thee why the spheres their whirling paths began,—
They mirror to God’s throne Love’s glory day by day:
I’ll tell thee why the morning winds blow o’er the grove,—
It is to bid Love’s roses bloom abundantly:
I’ll tell thee why the night broods deep the earth above,—
Love’s bridal tent to deck with sacred canopy:
All riddles of the earth dost thou desire to prove?—
To every earthly riddle is Love alone the key.
XV.
Life shrinks from Death in woe and fear,
Though Death ends well Life’s bitter need:
So shrinks the heart when Love draws near,
As though ’twere Death in very deed:
For wheresoever Love finds room,
There Self, the sullen tyrant, dies.
So let him perish in the gloom,—
Thou to the dawn of freedom rise.
In this poetry, which soars over all that is external and sensuous,
who would recognise the prosaic ideas current about so-called
pantheism—ideas which let the divine sink to the external and the
sensuous? The copious extracts which Tholuck, in his work _Anthology
from the Eastern Mystics_, gives us from the poems of Jelaleddin and
others, are made from the very point of view now under discussion.
In his Introduction, Herr Tholuck proves how profoundly his soul has
caught the note of mysticism; and there, too, he points out the
characteristic traits of its oriental phase, in distinction from
that of the West and Christendom. With all their divergence,
however, they have in common the mystical character. The conjunction
of Mysticism with so-called Pantheism, as he says (p. 53), implies
that inward quickening of soul and spirit which inevitably tends to
annihilate that external _Everything_, which Pantheism is usually
held to adore. But beyond that, Herr Tholuck leaves matters standing
at the usual indistinct conception of Pantheism; a profounder
discussion of it would have had, for the author’s emotional
Christianity, no direct interest; but we see that personally he is
carried away by remarkable enthusiasm for a mysticism which, in the
ordinary phrase, entirely deserves the epithet Pantheistic. Where,
however, he tries philosophising (p. 12), he does not get beyond the
standpoint of the “rationalist” metaphysic with its uncritical
categories.