Raphael to Julius.
It would be very unfortunate, my dear Julius, if there were no other way
of quieting you than by restoring the first-fruits of your belief in you.
I found with delight these ideas, which I saw gaining in you, written
down in your papers. They are worthy of a soul like yours, but you could
not remain stationary in them. There are joys for every age and
enjoyments for each degree of spirits. It must have been a difficult
thing for you to sever yourself from a system that was entirely made to
meet the wants of your heart. I would wager that no other system will
strike such deep roots in you, and, possibly, if left quite to your own
direction, you would sooner or later become reconciled to your favorite
ideas. You would soon remark the weakness of the opposite system, and
then, if both systems appeared equally deficient in proof, you would
prefer the most desirable one, or, perhaps, you would find new arguments
to preserve at least the essential features of your former theory, even
if a few more doubtful points had to be given up.
But all this is remote from my plan. You must arrive at a higher freedom
of mind, where you no longer require support. I grant that this is not
the affair of a moment. The first aim of the earliest teaching is
commonly the subjugation of the mind, and among all the artifices of the
art of education this generally succeeds the first. Even you, though
endowed with great elasticity of character, yet appear destined to submit
readily to the sway of opinions, and even more inclined to this than
thousands; and this state of infancy might last very long with you, as
you do not readily feel the oppression of it. Your head and heart are in
very close connection. A doctrine is sweet to you on account of the
teacher. You soon succeeded in finding an interesting side in this
doctrine, you ennobled it according to the wants of your heart, and you
suffered your mind to be resigned to other points that must needs appear
strange to you. You regarded attacks on this doctrine as boyish revenge
taken by a slavish soul against the rod of its tutor. You played with
your chains, which you thought you carried by your own free will.
I found you in this situation, and the sight gave me pain--how, in the
midst of the enjoyment, of your glowing life, and while giving expression
to your noblest powers, you were hemmed in by narrow considerations. The
very logical consistency with which you acted according to your
convictions, and the strength of soul that made every sacrifice light to
you, were twofold hinderances to your activity and to your joys. I then
resolved to set aside these clumsy efforts by which it had been
endeavored to cramp a soul like yours in the measure of ordinary natures.
The result of your first exertions favored my intentions. I admit that
your imagination was more actively employed upon the work than was your
penetration. The loss of your fondest convictions was more than atoned
for by your presentiments, which gathered results much more rapidly than
the tortoise pace of cold scientific inquiry, passing from the known to
the unknown. Your kind of inspired system gave you your first enjoyment
in this new field of activity, and I was very careful not to destroy a
welcome enthusiasm which was very favorable to the development of your
excellent disposition. The scene is now changed. A return into the
restrictions of infancy is closed forever. Your way leads onwards, and
you require no further precautions.
You must not be surprised to find that a system such as yours cannot
resist the searching of a severe criticism. All essays of this kind,
equal in breadth and boldness to yours, have had no other fate. It was
also most natural that your philosophical progress began with you
individually, as with the human race in general. The first object on
which man's spirit of inquiry first attempted its strength was, at all
times, the universe. Hypotheses relating to the origin of the world, and
the combination of its parts, had occupied the greatest thinkers for
ages, when Socrates called down the philosophy of his day from heaven to
earth. But the limits of human wisdom were too narrow for the proud
intellect of his followers. New systems arose on the ruins of the former
ones. The penetrating mind of subsequent ages explored the immeasurable
field of possible answers to those ever-recurring questions, bearing on
the mysterious interior of nature, which could not be disclosed by any
human intellect. Some, indeed, succeeded in giving a certain coloring of
distinctness, completeness, and evidence to their views. There are many
conjuring tricks by which the pride of reason seeks to avoid the disgrace
of not being able to exceed the bounds of human nature in extending the
circle of its knowledge. It is a frequent conceit with men to believe
that they have discovered new truths, when they have dissected a
conception into the separate elements out of which it was first
compounded by an act of caprice. Not unfrequently an imperceptible
assumption lies at the basis of a chain of consequences, whose breaks and
deficiencies are cunningly concealed, while the false conclusions are
admired as sublime wisdom. In other cases, partial experiences are
accumulated to found a hypothesis, and all contradictory phenomena are
either ignored, or the meaning of words is changed according to the
requirements of the reasoning. Nor is it only the philosophical quack
who employs these conjuring tricks to deceive the public; without being
conscious of it, the most upright and the least prejudiced thinker uses
analogous means to satisfy his thirst for knowledge directly that he
issues from the only sphere where reason can legitimately enjoy the fruit
of its activity.
After what you have heard me say on former occasions, Julius, these
expressions must cause you no little astonishment; yet they are not the
product of a sceptical caprice. I could lay before you the foundations
on which they rest, but this would require, as prelude, a somewhat dry
examination into the nature of human knowledge,--and I prefer to reserve
this for a time when you will feel the want of it. You have not yet
arrived at that state of mind when humiliating truths on the limits of
human knowledge can have any interest for you. Make a first essay with
the system which has supplanted your own in your mind. Examine it with
the same impartiality as severity. Proceed in the same manner with other
theories with which you have recently become acquainted; and if none of
them can fully satisfy your requirements, you will ask yourself if, after
all, these requirements are reasonable.
Perhaps you will tell me this is a poor consolation. You will infer that
resignation is your only refuge after so many brilliant hopes had been
raised. "Was it worth while," you will say, "to challenge me to a full
exercise of my reason in order to set bounds to it at the very moment
when it was beginning to bear the noblest fruit? Was I only to become
acquainted with a higher enjoyment in order to feel with a double
keenness how painful it is to be thus bounded?"
Nevertheless, it is this very feeling of discouragement that I expressly
wish to banish from your soul. My aim is this: to remove all that places
an obstacle to the free enjoyment of your being, to bring to life in you
the germ of all lofty inspiration--the consciousness of the nobility of
your soul. You have been awakened from the slumber in which you were
rocked by the slavery of others' opinions; but you would never reach the
degree of grandeur to which you are called if you dissipated your
strength in the pursuit of an unattainable end. This course was all
proper up to the present time; it was the natural consequence of your
recently acquired freedom. It was necessary that the ideas which had
most engaged you previously should give the first impulse to the activity
of your mind.. Among all possible directions that your mind could take,
is its present course the most fertile in results? The answer would be
given, sooner or later, by your own experience. My part was confined to
hastening, if possible, this crisis.
It is a common prejudice to take as a measure of the greatness of man
that matter on which he works, and not the manner of his work. But it is
certain that a superior Being honors the stamp of perfection even in the
most limited sphere, whilst He casts an eye of pity on the vain attempts
of the insect which seeks to overlook the universe. It follows from this
that I am especially unwilling to agree to the proposition in your
papers, which assumes that the high destiny of man is to detect the
spirit of the Divine Artist in the work of creation. To express the
activity of infinite perfection, I admit that I do not know any sublimer
image than art; but you appear to have overlooked an important
distinction. The universe is not the pure expression of an ideal, like
the accomplished work of a human artist. The latter governs despotically
the inanimate matter which he uses to give a body to his ideas. But in
the divine work the proper value of each one of its parts is respected,
and this conservative respect with which the Great Architect honors every
germ of activity, even in the lowliest creature, glorifies it as much as
the harmony of the immeasurable whole. Life and liberty to all possible
extent are the seal of divine creation; nowhere is it more sublime than
where it seems to have departed most widely from its ideal. But it is
precisely this highest perfection that prevents us from grasping the
limits in which we are at present confined. We embrace only too small a
part of the universe, and the explanation of most of its discords is
inaccessible to our faculties. Each step we climb in the scale of being
will make us more susceptible of these enjoyments of art; but even then
their only value will be that of means, and to excite us to an analogous
exercise of our activity. The idle admiration of a greatness foreign to
ourselves can never be a great merit. A superior man is never wanting in
matter for his activity, nor in the forces necessary to become himself a
creator in his sphere. This vocation is yours also, Julius; when you
have recognized this you will never have a thought of complaining of the
limits that your desire of knowledge cannot overstep.
When you have arrived at this conviction I expect to find you wholly
reconciled to me. You must first know fully the extent of your strength
before you can appreciate the value of its freest manifestation. Till
then, continue to be dissatisfied with me, but do not despair of
yourself.