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THE JOURNAL 



O F 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



Vol. VIII 



EDITED BY WM. T. HARRIS 



ST. LOUIS, MO. 

THE R. P. STUDLEY COMPANY, PRINTERS, CORNER MAIN & OLIVE STS. 

1874. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S74, by 

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



/ w 



CONTENTS. 



Conditions of Immortality according to Aristotle Thos. Davidson. 143 

Grammar of Dionyslos Thrax (translation) Thos. Davidson. 326 

Grand Man, The Theron Gray. 73 

Herbart's Rational Psychology (translation) H. Eaanel. 261 

Hegel's Philosophic Method Editor. 35 

Introduction to Speculative Logic and Philosophy A. Vera. 13, 107, 228, 2S9 

Kant's Criticism of Pure Reason S. S. Laurie. 305 

Kant's Ethical Worship James Edmunds. 339 

Lectures on the Philosophy of Law J. Hutchison Stirling. 123 

Logic Joseph G. Anderson. 85 

Music of Color C. E. Seth Smith. 216 

Personal Relation of Christ to the Human Race- Geo. N. Abbott. 351 

Professor Tyndall's Address Thos. Davidson. 361 

Recognition John Albee. 260 

Revisal of Kant's Categories S. P. Andrews. 268 

Robert Schumann E. Sobolewski. 254 

Rosenkranz on Hegel's History of Philosophy (translation) G. S. Hall. 1 

Rosenkranz: Pedagogics as a System (translation) Anna C. Brackett. 49 

Schopenhauer on the Intellect (translation) Charles Josefs. 243, 316 

Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream D. J. Snider. 165 

Shakespeare's Tempest D. J. Snider. 193 

Subject and Object, or Universal Polarity Richard Randolph. 97 

Notes and Discussions : 

Vera on Trendelenburg 92 

Vera on Trendelenburg; Immortality; Freedom of the Will; Vera on 
Strauss; Is Inorganic Matter Dynamical? Can Matter Produce 

Mind? Tldpra pel 275 

Tyndall's Address; Immortality of the Historic Individual; Brinton on 
t Life, Force, and Soul; Contemporary Philosophy 37 



( iv ) 

Book Notices: 

(1) Ueberweg's History of Philosophy; (2) Boston Lectures on Chris- 
tianity and Scepticism; (3) An Analysis of Schiller's Bride of Mes- 
sina; (4) Dr. Bartol's Rising Faith; (5) Life's Mystery; (6) Books 
received 94 

(1) Liberty and Law ; (2) Hegel's Logic, translated by Wall-ace; (3) 
The Education of American Girls; (4) Strauss, l'Ancienne et la 
NouvelleFoi; (5) Von Magdeburg bis Konigsberg 186 

(1) Emanuel Hualgren's System; (2) Die Neue Zeit; (3) Wisconsin 
Academy of Sciences; (4) Jevons on the Principles of Science; (5) 
Transactions of the Albany Institute; (6,) Flint on the Philosophy 
of History in France and Germany; (7) Morris on Final Causes; 
(8) Blood on Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy 285 

CI) Memoir of Samuel J. May; (2) Folsom's Logic of Accounts; (3) 
Croll on Molecular Motion ; (4) Bibliotheca Diabolica ; (5) Von 
Hartmann's Selbgtzersetzung des Christenthums 377 



THE JOURNAL 



o r 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



Vol. VLII. January, 1874r. No. 1. 



ROSENKRANZ ON HEGEL'S HISTORY OF 
PHILOSOPHY^ 

Translated from the German of Dr. K. Rosenkranz, by G. S. Hall. 

The third great work which Michelet elaborated from He- 
gel's posthumous papers was the History of Philosophy. 
This subject was treated with very unequal merit in its dif- 
ferent parts. Ancient philosophy is treated as a totality, 
and its presentation is quite uniform and is made from ori- 
ginal authorities ; that of the middle ages is very inorganic, 
and is composed from secondary sources and with the mani- 
fest wish to get through it as quickly as possible. Recent 
philosophy again is studied exhaustively from original 
sources, although more according to the chronological suc- 
cession of the chief systems than in a proper historico- 
genetic bearing and construction. Often there are only 
extracts from cardinal works, with brief introductions and 
critical remarks, which give a rich fulness of insight in pithy, 
characteristic words ; and the readiness with which he as- 
sumes a kind of frank superiority aids him here to the most 
happy and vigorous periods. 

Hegel prepared for no other undertaking so carefully as for 
this History. He exhaustively wrought out the determina- 
tion of its domain, its distinction from related departments, 
its position in the system, its divisions, its ordinary concep- 
tion, its sources, and its necessary method of treatment. The 
History of Philosophy records facts, but facts which are 

viii— 1 



2 HegeVs History of Philosophy. 

thoughts, and not merely thoughts in general, but such as have 
the conception of the absolute for their content ; if it states, 
in a merely objective way, that a philosopher then and there 
taught this or that, it remains without a connective idea. 
It should rather show how the thoughts of different philoso- 
phers are developed from one another, what relation subsists 
between the false and the true in a given philosophy, and 
how progress cannot refute its previous stand-point as a mere 
error without at the same time confirming its positive con- 
tent. All philosophies in and for themselves are only phi- 
losophy itself. The system of philosophy must integrate all 
stand-points as organic moments, as categories of its differ- 
ent spheres. 

Philosophers do not elaborate their systems apart from all 
connection with universal history. It is often thought that 
they project unique ideas of God and the world from purely 
speculative idiosyncrasy, while in fact they stand in the 
most intimate relation with the spirit of peoples and with the 
movement of mankind. They seek to fathom, by solitary 
reflection, that which more or less engages all contempora- 
ries, and to express with all possible clearness what is often 
the open secret of the age. When the sequence of philo- 
sophical systems appears only as a gallery of fortuitous 
opinions, nothing seems more comfortless than the study of 
the history of philosophy, and nothing but superficial skep- 
ticism^ the profane stand-point of a Pilate, can be the result. 
Criticism, according to Hegel, does not consist in applying 
the measure of one presupposed system upon another, or 
upon all systems. It should arise from the development of 
a system as its own critique, in which the consequences of its 
stand-point reveal the imperfections which it involves, and 
at the same time disclose the positive germ which consti- 
tutes its imperishable truth and thereby its historic right. 
Philosophy must be learned from the history of philosophy. 
Hegel would say that philosophy, as well as every other 
science which has a name — or, as we often say, an author- 
ity — may recall a necessary and eternally true conception. 
Harvey and the discovery of the circulation of the blood, 
Copernicus and the true theory of our planetary system, are 
synonyms. So too, in philosophy. The Eleatic stand-point 



HegeVs History of Philosophy. 3 

and the conception of self-identical Being, Plato and the con- 
ception of true, affirmative dialectics, Aristotle and the con- 
ception of teleology, &c, are all identical. "Were this not so, 
philosophizing would be entirely without results, which is 
indeed a very common view of it, ascribing to it at most the 
utility of a certain formal exercise of thought. The highest 
system is not merely an external summation of foregoing 
systems, but their vital unity, which sublates them into it- 
self, and thereby acquires for itself new illumination and a 
relatively changed significance. Hegel claimed to have har- 
vested into his own the truth of all preceding systems, and 
not merely to have gathered them synthetically into a syn- 
cretistic aggregate, but rather to have posited them at the 
same time analytically with immanent dialectics and as self- 
producing and cancelling moments of the totality. It should 
not be imagined, as it often is, that he expected to lind, point 
for point, in history the sequence of the determinations of his 
system, or, in its determinations, to find the temporal succes- 
sion of philosophers, although on the whole a marked coin- 
cidence might be admitted. In a philosophy one side of the 
absolute will be emphasized as its qualitative element, but 
from it the philosopher will seek to apprehend and present 
the whole ; as Plato not only established the conception of 
dialectics, but from it sought to develope the conception of 
nature and mind. 

In the perfect and clear consciousness which Hegel had 
concerning the process of the history of philosophy down to 
his own time, he stands alone among modern philosophers : 
I say modern, because among the ancients Aristotle took a 
similar position, as his Introduction to Metaphysics and his 
other numerous references to other philosophers show. 
Leibnitz also was unusually well versed in the history of 
philosophy, as his treatise De arte combinatoria especially 
shows ; but he lacked the proper conception of its inner con- 
nection, which gave Hegel so great superiority and externally 
so great repose. Bruoker, Tennemann, and Buhle, Hegel's 
predecessors in this department, were perhaps superior to 
him in the extent of their erudition, but they lacked depth 
of speculative penetration, imitative vitality of reproduction, 
and the sharpness of universal criticism, which is not confined 



4 HegeVs History of Philosophy. 

within the circle of Wolffian or Kantian categories. When 
Hegel expounds foreign systems, he does not merely quote the 
decisive words in the language of the original — all the others 
do that — but he translates and expounds them ; and it is 
this attempt at correct objective apprehension which throws 
a charm over such passages, as well as the exquisite tact 
with which he discriminates between the essential and the 
unessential, the philosophical and the unphilosophical. 

According to human seeming, it is much to be regretted 
that Hegel was not himself permitted to bring the history of 
philosophy out of the crude state of lecture-manuscripts to 
full maturity and perfection for the public. What an entirely 
different finishing it would then have received, and how the 
grouping of single parts would have been transformed! As it 
is, it is invaluable, and has exercised a most abiding influence 
upon the elaboration of this discipline. In its philosophical 
content it is classic, but in form it is imperfect. From single 
extracts we may compute what he sought to have achieved. 
His presentation of Plato's system, made with such predilec- 
tion and perfection, deserves especial praise. Other histo- 
rians, e.g. Brandis, in his history of ancient philosophy, has 
presented a 'very true and comprehensive picture of the Pla- 
tonic doctrine, but it is dry and cold ; so that, with all the 
citations which he printed under the text, we can attain to no 
vital understanding, to no penetration into the real essence 
of Plato's system. The poetic endowment and the myth- 
Ibuilding phantasy of Plato have been ever admired, but 
where, down to Hegel, do we find a single rational word con- 
cerning the relation of this mythic system to speculation 
proper ''. Hegel does not merely refer, but, as a philosopher, 
cooperates in the formation of a principle ; he strives with 
the striver, and this invests his statements, even where 
aesthetically they are unsatisfactory, with an infinite charm. 
We feel ourselves transported to the secret laboratory of 
thought where mind thirsts for knowledge. How many and 
voluminous reproductions of Spinoza's Ethics and of Kant's 
Critique of Pure Reason we have had within the past cen- 
tury, and how weary we became in reading them, and how 
duped with the expectation that now the true light was about 
to dawn upon us; while the brief, somewhat slovenly pre- 



HegeVs History of Philosophy. 5 

sentation of Hegel, penetrating however with freedom into the 
ground of the subject, enlightens us at once! This he did* 
often, with a sort of rude pedagogical manner, even in deal- 
ing with the greatest philosophers. 

It might be expected in the construction of this History 
that Hegel would divide it into Oriental, Antique, and Chris- 
tian. This he essentially did. Yet he is unwilling to recog- 
nize Oriental philosophy. He makes a beginning first with 
the Greeks because they first formed states with free consti- 
tutions, and true philosophy is impossible without political 
freedom. He discourses nevertheless upon Chinese and In- 
dian philosophy. It has been often remarked that the 
abstractions of the Oriental world do not suffice for the criti- 
cal estimates of concrete history. The Chinese and Hindoos 
have not philosophized like the Greeks, but they have phi- 
losophized. The Chinese, as rational moralists, have culti- 
vated practical philosophy ; the Hindoos, as essentially 
religious men, have cultivated metaphysics and psychology. 
How can the Chinese Mengtseu, who vindicated to the inha- 
bitants of a state under certain conditions the jus revolutio- 
nis against their prince, from the conception of the state, be 
called other than a philosopher ? This he did not do as a 
poet, or a prophet, or a priest, but as a prosy -thinking 
Confucian. 

Or, among the Hindoos, can Kanada, whom Hegel mentions 
on account of his doctrine of categories, be refused the name 
of philosopher ? After all it avails nothing, especially since 
the further investigations in this domain since Hegel's death, 
to seek either to ignore or to exclude the Orientals ; for they 
have philosophized, though they have taken a lower stand- 
point than the Greeks. 

The History of Ancient Philosophy is Hegel's historical 
master-piece. Details may be disputed, here and there he 
may be corrected and supplemented, as Zeller has done ; but 
in essentials he is correct, and in the delineation of details 
he is unsurpassable. He preserves his power to the end, 
while that of historians often falters before Neo-platonism. 
They generally excuse themselves by loudly disparaging 
it as eclecticism and mysticism, so that we seek in vain for 
a clear conception of it, and are lost in wonder that philoso- 



6 HegeVs History of Philosophy. 

phers like Plotinus and Proclus, who have evidently studied 
Plato and Aristotle profoundly, should have erred so ex- 
travagantly. 

The History of Mediaeval Philosophy, in spite of a few 
genial touches, is the weakest of all his works. He had a 
general dislike for the middle ages. To him it was an age of 
barbarism, where little that was congenial was to be found. 
Erdmann, a follower of Hegel, in his admirable text-book on 
the History of Philosophy, has especially treated scholasti- 
cism after the French, e.g. Cousin, Rousselot, Haureau, and 
others, had preceded him. 

Respecting Hegel's disposition and criticism of Arabic and 
Jewish philosophers there is much to be said, but this would 
take us too far from our proper theme. We must conclude 
the same also with reference to the History of Modern Philoso- 
phy. It is too desultory, and lacks, from the effort at com- 
pendious abridgment in order to hurry through with the ma- 
terial before the end of the semester, a formal completeness. 
It becomes, in fact, even more difficult to follow and describe 
the movements of thought in Modern Europe, because, by the 
mediation of printing, the diffusion of systems has become 
much more rapid and wide, and extends from nation to na- 
tion in a way and to a degree which cannot be estimated, so 
that a wide margin must be left for chance ; but especially be- 
cause religious (or more properly ecclesiastical and political) 
interests now play so great a part. The crossing of systems, 
and the number of hybrid formations and of syncretic media- 
tion, as well as the numerous efforts which have the appear- 
ance of originality, but which are often the misunderstood 
reproductions of long anterior systems, grows towards infi- 
nity. How much of all this mass deserves notice? The 
literary historian of philosophy is unquestionably bound to 
register subordinate and even inferior authorities, the philo- 
sophical author must be allowed to confine himself to the 
epoch-making central figures. If principles are strictly 
adhered to, the divisions of the history of philosophy, in 
accordance with those of universal history, will be found to 
arrange themselves very simply about the antithesis of 
ethnicism and monotheism, and their sublation into Chris- 
tianity. 



HegeVs History of Philosophy. 7 

I. The Philosophy of Ethnicism. 

1. Chinese philosophy; realism. 

2. Indian philosophy ; idealism. 

3. Grseco-Ronian philosophy; ideal realism. 
II. Philosophy of Monotheism. 

The Jews and the Mohammedans have themselves produced 
no independent philosophy, because they were under no 
necessity to do so. Only by contact with the Greeks were 
they impelled to make the attempt to construe the world of 
thought in accordance with their faith, as was first done 
by Philo with extraordinary acuteness and with remarkable 
phantasy. The vast number of the philosophical writings of 
the Arabians must not make us forget their dependence upon 
the Greeks. All finally centres about the substantive and 
operative predicates of God. Christian scholastics have bor- 
rowed from the Arabs and Jews, but the converse has never 
taken place. Christians quote Averrhoes and Moses Maimo- 
nides, but Arabs and Jews do not quote Abelard and Thomas 
Aquinas. 

III. The Philosophy of Christianity. 

A. First period: the philosophy of faith. 1. Gnosti- 

cism. 2. Patristic philosophy. 3. Scholasticism. 

B. Second period: philosophy as an independent 

science. 1. The reaction of national indivi- 
duality against ecclesiastical scholasticism. 
(a) Dogmatism in Italy ; Platonic in Florence, 
Peripatetic in Lombardy, individualistic in 
Campania. Bruno, Vanini, Campanella. (b) 
Skepticism in France; Pierre de la Ramee, 
Sanchez, La Mothe le Vayer, Montaigne, Char- 
ron, Gassendi. (c) Empiricism in England ; 
Bacon of Verulam (already anticipated by the 
scholastic Roger Bacon), (d) Theosophy in 
Germany ; Paracelsus, Weigel, Jacob Bohme. 
2. Philosophy as a rational science, (a) The 
idealism of the principle of substantiality ; (a) 
Cartesius, (/?) Spinoza, (r) Leibnitz. It recedes 
partly into mysticism and scholasticism, (b) 
Realism of the principle of subjectivity as 
eclair cissement of the understanding ; (a) in the 
sensism and skepticism of England, (/?) in 
the materialism and atheism of France, (r) in 
the eudsemonism and deism of Germany, (c) 
Kant's critical idealism and the systematic for- 
mation of philosophy resulting therefrom. 



8 HegeVs History of Philosophy. 

Let this simple outline be kept in mind and it will not be 
difficult to group into their proper place all the enlargements 
of a principle, its amalgamation with others, its often 
striking correlation with seemingly contradictory potencies, 
without forced or artificial constructions. What Hegel says 
respecting individual thinkers is always profound, but his 
construction is not free from confusion, and often conceals 
the natural course of development which he followed. What 
is individual also naturally finds its proper place in the 
epochs here indicated, and thus the colossal genius of Kant, 
who first grasped together the antithesis of the subjective and 
objective principle in a truly scientific synthesis, may be 
recognized even more justly than it has been done by Hegel. 

The history and the absolute system of philosophy should, 
according to Hegel, cover the same ground. There should 
be found in history no system, of which the principle wherein 
lies its truth and its justification, cannot be proved to be an 
organic moment of the systematic totality. Thus the history 
constitutes the critique of the system of philosophy, and the 
system the critique of the history. By this, of course, it is not 
to be understood that the same stand-point may not be empi- 
rically repeated in history, i.e. Pythagoreanism, Platonism, 
Epicureanism, Stoicism, Scholasticism, Materialism, &c, may 
appear repeatedly, and thus far they belong to history; but, 
first, they would always appear in new connections, which, 
in the general identity of its principle, would individualize it 
again and again ; and, secondly, they would always be final 
stand-points to which history had advanced from former 
stand-points which here became merely relative. Hegel him- 
self furnishes a very plain example of this. In his charac- 
terization of Proclus, it is plain that he fully accords with 
him in his general apprehension of the idea as a triad of 
triads. He commends Proclus because he so affirms the unity 
of the absolute that every triad within its own peculiar do- 
main is at the same time a totality, because otherwise they 
could not harmonize with one another. He commends him 
because he distinguished triads as essence, life, and mind 
(ouacodcot;, ^corcxwz, kuzocoq dvac). He commends him because, 
in the conception of essence, following the Philebus of Plato, 
he distinguished limit, the unlimited, and measure {xspaz, 



Hegel's History of Pliilosophy . 9 

instpov, fierpov, or, as Proclus says, ao/j/xezpca), precisely as 
Hep;el himself began with the categories of quality, quantity, 
and measure. He commends him because he characterizes the 
vouq as the return {tLiziorpuyq) to the logical idea, just as he him- 
self did, &c. Is Hegel's system, therefore, a mere repetition 
of that of Proclus ? Certainly not. Contrasted with Hegel's 
system that of Proclus is only an abstract sketch with tedi- 
ous and diffuse dialectics, with nature wrapped in shadows, 
and with a superabundance of artificial theology, while the 
logical idea of Hegel becomes real flesh and blood, and free- 
dom organizes itself into the concrete form of the State. 
Mention had often been made of a law in the History of Phi- 
losophy. Dogmatism, skepticism, and criticism; or objec- 
tivity, subjectivity, and the absolute; or idealism, realism, 
and ideal realism ; or analytic, synthetic, and eclectic sys- 
tems, had succeeded one another ; it is also quite right to 
discern such connections, because every one-sidedness en- 
genders its antithesis, and the antithesis demands sublation 
into a higher unity, but, since the element of chance pervades 
history, no scheme can be established as an unconditional 
norm without incurring the danger of putting a forced con- 
struction upon facts. The principal fact ever remains that 
every system does criticize itself in its own consequences, 
and thus aids in producing from itself a relatively higher 
stand-point. This Hegel saw more profoundly than any of 
his predecessors, and explained most admirably, in the 
Introduction to his History, as the conception of the de- 
velopment of philosophy. This idea embraces what is 
sought for under the name of a philosophy of the history 
of philosophy, or a law for its process. Because Hegel be- 
lieved that he had articulated all essential stand-points, of 
both previous and contemporary systems, into their proper 
place in his system as organic moments of the idea, he 
rightly regarded it not merely as the most perfect and com- 
plete, but as the most critical, because a vital unity pervaded 
all parts of the whole, and thus, in an immanent way, brought 
to bear, not only positively but negatively, a criticism of 
details. 



10 HegeVs Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

COMPLETION OF THE HEGELIAN SYSTEM IN THE SECOND EDI- 
TION OF THE "ENCYCLOPEDIA" IN 1827. 

The exoteric occasion of a new edition of his Encyclopedia 
determined Hegel to make his system as accessible as possi- 
ble from without. This he could not do without foregoing 
further discussion upon its subject-matter, and striving to 
give to it a finished and final form. This edition, which was 
completed but a short time before his death, remained unal- 
tered. He added a new chapter to the Introduction, in 
which he presented the attitude of thought towards objec- 
tivity, as metaphysics of the understanding, as empiricism, 
as critical philosophy, and as immediate knowledge. He 
gave greater scope to philosophy of nature, psychology, and 
to practical philosophy, and shed light on many questions of 
the day, e.g. the relation of philosophy to religion, the con- 
ception of state constitutions and of the budget, and in how 
far the name law was unfitting for a pecuniary grant, &c. 
The simple articulation of the whole suffered from the addi- 
tion of these didactic ornaments. 

His Philosophy of Nature, a department of such intense 
interest for our age, was printed, in the general edition of his 
works, with the appendices which Michelet gathered from 
Hegel's lectures in this field. Valuable as these are, it is 
still to be regretted that he did not treat this science as ex- 
haustively as he did the JEsthetics, or Philosophy of Histo- 
tory, or the Philosophy of Religion. The form of a commen- 
tary upon paragraphs as they occur in a text-book brings 
unavoidable repetitions, misplacements, and, from the nature 
of the material treated, great contingency. In the sciences 
of organic nature these appendices sink to the rank of mere 
extracts which Hegel had made, for the purpose of his own 
study, from Treviranus, Authenrieth, Bichat, &c. We may, 
however, hence infer to how great an extent, and with what 
extraordinary attentiveness, he pursued empirical sciences, 
while at the same time the wish becomes strong to see this 
mass more clearly and sharply organized. "We may conclude 
from many merely casual and passing expressions that Hegel 
was not wanting in a poetic sense for nature, as is often 
affirmed of him ; but that the picture of the phenomenon, 



HegeVs Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 11 

which hung before him clear in all its most exquisite details, 
became often very loosely bound by its logical frame, and 
that much which is admirable and original — which indeed is 
often found — did not attain to the reality to which it was en- 
titled on account of this incompleteness. It is to an Italian 
philosopher, August Vera, that the great merit belongs of 
having translated Hegel's Philosophy of Nature into French, 
and of furnishing it with an admirable commentary in which 
the peculiarity and fruitfulness of Hegel's intuitions on nature 
are convincingly exhibited. 

Recent natural science declares that nature can be con- 
ceived only atomically. It is resolved, it asserts, to proceed 
only empirically ; its method must be inductive, i.e. analyti- 
cal. An atom however is an hypothesis, for experience cannot 
make it a subject of observation. Instead of being empiric, 
it is also metaphysical; instead of being inductive, it is 
deductive. The atom, it is said, is matter as the infinitely 
small, which is absolutely unchangeable. In order that a 
movement of atoms may become possible, a void must, in the 
second place, be postulated for it, which the originators of 
this doctrine quite rightly did. This void modern thought 
has determined to be not merely space but aether. Since, 
then, aether must be distinguished from space, it has been 
found necessary to make it also consist of atoms, so that we 
have on the one hand the atoms of aether, and on the other 
the atoms of concrete materiality. In order that they may 
not be idle, a repellant force is ascribed to the former and an 
attractive force to the latter. All these fictions aim to give 
to the phenomena of nature a purely mechanical basis, and 
to subject them to the laws of the calculus. Since physical 
and especially chemical processes cannot thus be reached, a 
warm envelop has been ascribed to atoms. Thus they are 
made small planets. 

All the real progress of recent natural science has been 
made by observation conducted according to the conclusions 
of induction and analogy. The atomic theory and its calcu- 
lus has contributed nothing to this progress, but has rather 
obstructed and limited it. The category of quantity is in 
great requisition for the processes and forms of nature ; but 
this must not, because it necessarily contains the extremes 



12 HegeVs Encyclopedia of Philosophy . 

of the infinitely large and the infinitely small, be identified 
with atomism. 

The Hegelian philosophy of nature is very far from under- 
valuing mathematics. It has expressly accepted it as a 
moment of natural scienoe, but, in place of the artificial con- 
straint which is put upon natural phenomena by premature 
expression in number, it seeks to posit the realism of sponta- 
neous self- formation. The work of arithmetical formalism 
depends only upon the facts upon which the computations 
are made. If the former are false, the latter are barren. 
Very important rectifications, e.g., have become necessary in 
modern astronomy for the distances between the sun and the 
planets, as a result alone of a more accurate measurement of 
the velocity of light. 

Hegel attempts to apply dialectics to the scientific treat- 
ment of nature. He did this himself in a very imperfect way, 
but there is no doubt that science will be compelled to come 
back eventually to this method. He distinguishes (1) Me- 
chanics, (2) Physics, (3) Organics. If we put in their place 
the content of these special sciences, we shall have (1)* Mat- 
ter, (2) Force, (3) Life. If we translate these conceptions 
into abstract categories, they will read, (1) Substantiality, 
(2) Causality, (3) Teleology. 

According to the Hegelian method, each of these spheres 
has an immanent conformity to law in itself, which becomes 
phenomenal (1) as weight, (2) as qualitative change, (3) as 
determination of form. But these differences sublate them- 
selves, as consecutive, both forward and backward. The 
truth of matter is force, and the truth of force is life. Life, 
as the absolute end of nature, presupposes the other spheres 
as its conditions. Of late only matter and force are talked 
of, though form is equally important in nature, because, by 
virtue of it, first the individual, and then life, become possi- 
ble. Organic cells are now treated atomically in order to 
construct organisms as mere mechanisms from them, but the 
cell is essentially an individualizing power developing itself 
into a distinct shape. It is not enough to say that organism 
is endowed with vital force, for the former is, through and 
through, the nisus formandi, according to Blumenbach, or 
inner conformity to an end, according to Kant. 



Preliminary Remarks to Legitimate Logic. 13 

Hegel's apprehension of the conception of life is profound, 
but its depth is but little elaborated in the extent of the 
thousand-fold forms of nature, i.e. all morphology is omitted. 

Hegel believes the earth to be the only star upon which life 
exists. This *may easily excite surprise, and it is readily 
admitted that, empirically, we cannot know whether or not 
organic beings exist upon other stars, e.g. Venus and Mars. 
As a strict systematizer, however, he could not do otherwise 
than vindicate to the Earth this superiority. Bessel, in a 
treatise on the physical constitution of the world, and Whe- 
well, in his "Plurality of Worlds,-' have arrived at the same 
result. The further conclusion that, in the entire universe, 
a history has been unfolded only upon the Earth, is una- 
voidable. 

The infinite multiplicity of the heavenly bodies did not 
embarrass Hegel. This he regarded as a "mere" infinity 
which was no more imposing than the infinite multiplicity of 
infusoria, or insects, &c. He disapproves of the measureless 
admiration of natural phenomena which placed them above 
the productions of mind. Thus a tiny infusorium, because 
it was a living individual, stood infinitely higher than a con- 
stellation which is inorganic, although ever so gigantic in its 
mass. 



INTRODUCTION TO SPECULATIVE LOGIC AND 

PHILOSOPHY. 

By A. Vera. 

CHAPTER III. 
§ 1. Preliminary Bemarks to Legitimate Logic. 

We may now dismiss old Logic as artificial, arbitrary, and 
inadequate for the attainment of truth, and turn our attention 
to legitimate and rational Logic and to the principles upon 
which it must be firmly established. 

First of all, it ought to be borne in mind that if there be a 
logical Science, it must be an absolute Science, or a part or 
division of the absolute Science. And by absolute Science, 
I mean a Science which inquires into, and is adequate to, the 



14 Preliminary Remarks to Legitimate Logic. 

absolute and eternal nature both of thought and things. For 
neither thought which is not the right thought of its object, 
nor the object which is not rationally thought, is science. 
Nor is it science if it is thought which is not an absolute, 
but a limited, transient, and accidental thought. Thus in 
dividing, defining, classifying, in deducing Ideas, or in affirm- 
ing the Infinite and describing its attributes, either thought 
grasps and defines the inward and immutable nature of 
things, in which case there will be science, or it performs 
mental operations which are not necessarily and inwardly 
connected with the nature of things, in which case there will 
only be the shadow of science, nay, mere delusion and phan- 
toms of the imagination. 

This shows how unfounded is the division, generally ad- 
mitted, of Truth into logical and metaphysical truth, a sister 
distinction to that we have just exploded between Reason 
and Reasoning. For it will be easily perceived that if Logi- 
cal truth, whatever it may be, is not an absolute truth, it is 
no truth at all. If, on the contrary, it is an absolute truth, it 
possesses in its own sphere and attribution a worth and im- 
portance equal to that of Metaphysical truth — indeed it is 
itself a metaphysical truth. In fact, if there be an absolute 
Science, this Science must be Logic. All sciences presuppose 
Logic, whilst Logic presupposes none. All sciences avail 
themselves of logical processes and notions ; nor could they 
attain their own peculiar object without bringing them into 
action, as it were. Even taking Logic as it now stands, it is 
easy to see that all sciences — Mathematics, Physics, Ontolo- 
gy, &c. — borrow from it a part of their own subject-matter. 
And by borrowing I mean this, namely, that all Sciences 
make, and cannot but make, Logical principles and sub- 
stance (if I am allowed the expression) a part of their own 
substance, like the plant that borrows from surrounding ele- 
ments strength and life. And as earth, air, and light, consti- 
tute an integral part of the plant's life and nature, so Logic 
must be considered as a necessary and essential element of 
all Sciences, and consequently of all Thought and Being. In 
fact, it would be irrational and inconsistent to admit that 
Logic is the universal organon of truth, that there is no 
being that can be apprehended or understood unless it goes 



On Science in general. 15 

through some logical process, and to refuse at the same time 
to Logic all objective and consubstantial connection with the 
very being known through it. Indeed, if we look closely into 
the subject, we will perceive that, by taking this view of 
Logic, we admit that there are two Logical sciences, a Logic 
eternal and absolute, according to which things are made, 
arranged, and thought ; and a Logic finite, accidental, and 
arbitrarily contrived for our special use and purpose. But 
then we must give up Logic — and, with Logic, Science — as 
useless and deceptive, and as holding out expectations it is 
absolutely unable to fulfil. For we use it in the expectation 
of attaining through it the real knowledge of things, and act- 
ually find that our knowledge has no other foundation, nor 
any other object, but our own transitory notion, and the ne- 
gative and limited conceptions of our mind. 

In order to arrive at a correct view of Logic we must, there- 
fore, view it as a Science in the strict sense of the word, viz. 
as a Science of Knowing and Being, whose principles consti- 
tute at once the principles of thought and the principles of 
things ; so that if we were, for instance, to realize it as the 
Science of Form, we should not consider the Form, as old 
Logic does, namely, as a merely subjective Form, but as a 
Form embracing the twofold sides of existence — the subjec- 
tive and the objective, thought and the thing thought — in the 
unity of its nature. 

§ 2. On Science in general. 

As Logic, whatever be its importance, constitutes only a 
part of the Absolute, or of the Absolute Science, we cannot 
form a clear notion of Logic unless we give an insight into 
Science in general, its conditions, its bearing, and the part it 
plays in the constitution and the existence of the Universe. 

(a) 7s there an Absolute Science? 

If there be an absolute Science, this must be the Science of 
the Absolute, and, vice versa, if there be an Absolute, there 
must be an absolute Science. For an Absolute without an 
absolute Science is no absolute, and an absolute Science 
without an absolute object is not an absolute Science. The 
absolute Science and the Absolute, the absolute thought and 
the absolute object of thought, are therefore reciprocally and 



16 (Jn Science in general. 

inseparably connected, or, to speak more properly, are the 
two sides of one and the same being. The question now 
is whether the Absolute is within the reach of the human 
mind ; and as it is a question of vital importance, and bear- 
ing upon Logic as well as upon Science in general, I will 
dwell at some length upon it. 

The opinion respecting the capability of the human mind 
to attain absolute knowledge may, I think, be divided into 
three heads. 

First, there are those who entirely refuse to the human 
mind the power of reaching the Absolute. The Absolute, if 
it exist, they argue, is a Deus absconditus; it is a Being into 
whose ineffable and inscrutable nature no human eye can 
penetrate. In fact, is not man an imperfect and finite being ? 
How, then, could he comprehend the Perfect and the Infinite ? 

Secondly, there are others who steer an intermediate 
course. These do not say that we are refused all knowledge 
of the Absolute, but that our knowledge does not extend be- 
yond its existence. We know that the Absolute is, but we 
are not allowed to know what it is, and to have an insight 
into its nature, its attributes and perfections. 

Finally, others go one step farther, and admit that we are 
capable of apprehending both its existence and some of its 
attributes, as, for instance, that it is Infinite, All-powerful, 
All-wise, &c, without being able to reach the very length, 
the essence of its nature, nor to determine clearly and in a 
positive manner what these attributes are ; and consequently, 
according to this tenet, we would know that the Absolute is 
All-wise, Omnipotent, &c, without comprehending icliat om- 
nipotence, all-wisdom, &c, are. 

Although these doctrines seem, at first sight, to stand on 
different bases, and to represent different opinions, they start 
in reality from the same point of view — the inadequacy of 
the human mind for the attainment of absolute knowledge; 
and lead to the same result — the negation of Science, or 
Skepticism. Indeed the two latter, though apparently more 
comprehensive and more condescending, as it were, towards 
the human mind, labor, when compared with the former, un- 
der the disadvantage of inconsistency ; and the third, which 
seems to conciliate matters and to hit upon the right solu- 



On Science in general. 17 

tion is the most inconsistent of the two. In fact there is no 
inconsistency in affirming that man's mind is utterly inade- 
quate for absolute knowledge. There may be error, but there 
is no inconsistency ; whilst in the other two opinions error is 
coupled with inconsistency, as they state both, and the latter 
more explicitly than the second, that man can reach the Ab- 
solute, and then they take up, so to speak, the opposite thesis, 
in the same proposition, and state that he is unable to reach 
it; and although the inconsistency does not appear in the 
expression, it is not the less involved in the real meaning. 

The second doctrine teaches that we are allowed to know 
that God is, but we are forbidden to advance a step farther. 
If we were to trace the origin of this doctrine, we should find 
that it arises from a superficial view of the subject, and from 
an application equally superficial and erroneous of the ana- 
logical and inductive process to absolute knowledge. Here 
is a tree, or an animal, or myself. As I can affirm that a tree 
is, or that I am, without knowing the nature of the tree or 
my own, so likewise can I affirm that God is, although I may 
be unable to comprehend His attributes and nature. 

Now this manner of arguing is erroneous and deceptive 
even within the sphere of experimental perception. For the 
perception of the existence of all objects which come within 
the pale of experience is inseparable from the perception of 
some of their qualities ; as, for instance, that the tree occupies 
a portion of space ; that it has color, leaves, &c. ; and its 
existence is made known to me through some of these quali- 
ties. Nor am I conscious of my existence save by apprehend- 
ing myself either as a thinking, or as an active, or as a sen- 
sitive being. Now this connection between the existence and 
the attributes of a being is still more intimate and inseparable 
in God. For when we say that God is, we do not mean that 
He is like anything finite, or falling under the senses, but 
that He is in such a manner as is conformable with the per- 
fection of His nature. Consequently, the affirmation of the 
existence of God involves already the apprehension of the 
manner in which God exists, that is to say, of a part or aspect 
of the Divine nature. Besides, when we state that God is, 
either the word God is a mere word, an empty sound, and 
then the proposition means nothing ; or it has a meaning, 

viii — 2 



18 On Science in general. 

and then it means that the Absolute, or the Perfect Being, or 
the Ens realissimum, etc., is,- i.e. it expresses some essential 
and necessary attribute of the nature of God. In fact, in God 
the Esse essentia^ and the Esse existential, to use the expres- 
sion of Schoolmen, are more intimately blended than in Unite 
beings ; so that in God to be and to be such is one and the 
same thing. Nor could He be if He might be otherwise than 
He is, and, vice versa, were He otherwise than He is, He could 
not be. Consequently, to apprehend that God is, is to appre- 
hend, in a certain manner, what He is ; and to pretend that 
we can apprehend that God is, and then to say that we are 
not allowed to know what He is, is to deny in the second 
part of the proposition what we have admitted in the first. 

With respect to the third doctrine, it will be easily seen 
that it is still more inconsistent and arbitrary ; for it 
states that we are allowed to apprehend a part only of the 
Absol ate, and then it adds that even this part is known to 
us negatively; which means, in reality, that we do not know 
it at all. 

With regard to the first part of the proposition, namely, 
that we know, or are capable of knowing, a portion, a certain 
number of the attributes of the Absolute, but not the whole 
of Hiw nature, — it will be observed that those who hold this 
doctrine break asunder artificially and arbitrarily the unity 
of the Absolute, and, after having thus disfigured, nay, an- 
nulled the absolute, say, this part of the absolute we can 
know, and this other part we are not allowed to know. But 
how can they say that there is a part, a sphere in the abso- 
lute which is beyond the reach of the mind, if the mind has 
no notion of it? If, on the contrary, the mind has some no- 
tion of it, how can they say that it is beyond the reach of 
the mind ? Besides, is it not one and the same mind that 
apprehends in the one and the same absolute both the part 
which is known and that which is supposed to be unknown \ 
If so, how could I affirm that the part supposed unknown in 
the absolute belongs really to the absolute, and constitutes 
the highest sphere of its nature and existence, if I have not 
actually, or am not allowed to have, any knowledge of it? 
The fact is that the absolute cannot be so dismembered; for, 
such is the unity of its nature, that of the Absolute, more 



On Science in general. 19 

than any of other being, it may be truly said, that, if we can- 
not know all, we can know nothing of it. 

But even granted that it would be rational to admit that 
we know only a part of the Absolute, — if the knowledge we 
possess of it is merely a negative one, such a knowledge is, 
in reality, no knowledge at all. In fact, to possess a negative 
knowledge of a thing, is not to know what this thing is, but 
what it is not. For instance, to have a negative knowledge 
of the triangle is not to know what the triangle is, but that 
the triangle is not a square; or to have a negative knowledge 
of a tree is not to know what the tree is, but that the tree 
is not a mountain ; or to have a negative knowledge of the 
good is not to know what the good is, but that the good is 
neither the evil, nor the beautiful, nor any other thing. 
This manner of arguing seems, at first sight, quite plausible ; 
for although I do not know, one would say, what a man is 
doing at the present moment, yet this I perfectly know, that 
he is neither writing, nor reading, nor sleeping, &c. All the 
strength of the argument lies in the assumption that we are 
able to know what a thing is not without knowing in any way 
what it is. Now it is quite plain that we cannot state what 
a thing is not unless we know in some manner what it is — 
unless, in other words, we possess some positive knowledge 
of it. For I must know in a positive manner what a man is 
to affirm that he is neither writing nor sleeping, &c. ; nay, I 
must know that writing and sleeping are parts of his nature. 
And this connection of positive and negative knowledge is 
still more inseparable in matters eternal and absolute. To 
say that the Infinite is not the Finite requires that I should 
have some positive notion of what the Infinite is. And it is 
by comparing the positive notion of the Infinite with the Fi- 
nite that I am enabled to draw the conclusion that the former 
is not the latter. Had I not some positive notion of the Infi- 
nite I could neither affirm that the Infinite is, nor that it is 
or is not in such and such a manner. 

The fact is that we cannot consistently conceive two 
Sciences, an absolute science and a science which is not ab- 
solute — not any more than we can admit two Reasons, the 
human Reason and the Divine Reason, as substantially dis- 
tinct. For by admitting two Reasons we would not only 



20 On Science in general. 

admit that one Reason knows what the other does not know 
— a difference which exists within the limits of the human 
Reason and between man and man — but that what is knowl- 
edge and truth to the one is not, or may not be, knowledge 
and truth to the other. For if the Reason which apprehends 
mathematical or any other truth, in man, is not the Reason 
which apprehends the same truth in God, or if the Reason 
by which man apprehends God is of a different genus and 
substance from that by which God apprehends himself, all 
human knowledge is a mere delusion. Indeed all relation be- 
tween God and man is at an end if God's and man's Reason 
does not flow from one and the same principle. And this 
would strike at the very root not only of Science but of Re- 
velation also; as where there is not a community of nature, 
some identical faculty between the master and the disciple, 
there can be no teaching possible, let this take place either 
through an inward inspiration from mind to mind, or by word 
of mouth. Therefore the only solution of the problem — the 
solution which alone will be found, upon an impartial and 
close examination, consistent with science, religion and truth 
— is that the divine and the human reason, springing from one 
and the same source, are, as to their essence, one and the same 
reason.* 

(b) Nature and Characteristic. 1 ' of Science. 

To the uncultivated and unscientific mind Science appears 
as an accident, and a kind of superfluous luxury which is not 
required by any inward want or necessity of human nature. 
This is the point of view of purely sensitive life belonging to 
the undeveloped and elementary stage of existence, either 
national or individual— to what we might call the state of 
childhood and nature. Here the satisfaction of physical 
wants appears as the law of life. For, to quote the argument 
in its popular and crude form, there is necessity in eating 
and drinking, and in removing all unpleasurable sensation; 
but there is no necessity in learning. 

However, man soon feels that physical life is not the su- 
preme object of his existence, that there are wants of a higher 
order and more cognate with his own nature than physical 



* See also on this question my book, lately published, "The Problem of the 
Absolute." 



On Science in general. 21 

wants, and that the satisfaction of the former is a duty as 
imperative, nay, more imperative, than the satisfaction of the 
latter. For it is this that makes him what he is, a being who 
by his mind holds sway over the inanimate and brnte crea- 
tion, adapting it to his spiritual as well as to his material 
wants, elevating thereby the latter to a higher dignity, and 
imparting to them such.beauty and perfection as they would 
never have possessed had not the mind stamped them with 
its own perfection. Here man acknowledges Science and 
reverences it. He acknowledges that Science is an object of 
paramount importance either as a moral and intellectual ne- 
cessity, or as a source of the purest enjoyment, or as a means 
of conquering the blind and unruly forces of Nature. Now 
this acknowledgment is nothing else than the actual expres- 
sion aud manifestation of the idea of Science. In fact, the 
idea or notion of Science is, like the ideas of the Infinite, of 
the Beautiful, of Justice, of Number, &c, a primitive, objec- 
tive, and necessary attribute of the mind; or, more exactly, 
it is a notion that springs from its very essence, and is more 
intimately inherent in it than any other notion, principle, or 
law. For it may be truly said that the mind is more abso- 
lutely and more irresistibly attracted towards Science than 
matter towards its centre ; as a mind not possessing any de- 
sire for knowledge would be a sort of eontradictio in termi- 
nis — it would be a mind which is not a mind, an understand- 
ing which is not an understanding. But this desire fur knowl- 
edge, this inward and inextinguishable longing after truth, is 
nothing but a movement of the Intellect towards its natural 
object and nourishment, stimulated, as the Intellect is, by this 
very Idea of Science; so much so, that were the Idea erased 
from the Intellect, the longing also would thereby be extin- 
guished. 

If it be so, if Science rests on a primary notion or law of the 
mind, to determine the nature and essence of Science we have 
only to describe the essential feature and eharacteri sties of 
this same notion. 

First of all, the notion of Science and the notion of abso- 
lute Science are inseparable, or, more accurately speaking, 
are one and the same notion. All relative and finite knowl- 
edge conceals under various forms, and more or less visibly > 



22 On Science in general. 

an infinite knowledge, from which it emanates and with 
which it is connected by necessary and inward bonds. Thus 
it may be truly said that the natural and predominant aspi- 
ration of the mind is not towards limited but absolute knowl- 
edge — an aspiration that rises with the rising of our intellec- 
tual activity. That world-embracing curiosity, that vague 
but profound and ardent desire for universal knowledge 
which is fermenting as it were in the innermost recess of our 
soul, is nothing else than the aspiration, still obscure and 
indefinite, after absolute science, of which subsequent in- 
quiries are the greatest satisfaction and actual realization. 
This aspiration, or want, or whatever it be called, may 
be traced in every mind; and the only difference between 
them in this respect is the difference arising from the various 
degrees of their development, or from the influence which 
external and accidental causes — moral, social, and physical — 
exercise upon this development either to promote or to im- 
pede it, as well as from their application to the multifarious 
objects of knowledge and practical activity. And if we close- 
ly examine into the nature of beings, and the constitution of 
che Universe, such differences, far from surprising us, will ap- 
pear as a necessary condition of this existence. Thus all men 
virtually possess the same faculties and instincts, all are en- 
dowed with the same natural aptitude for all social functions. 
But the unity of the Universe as well as the unity of human 
nature is divided into particular and individual beings, and 
split as it were into fragments ; the necessary consequence of 
which division is that in some beauty, in others morality^ 
most predominates ; that one is possessed of a peculiar apti- 
tude for mechanical labor, and another for some liberal or 
intellectual avocation. So it is with science. There is but 
one Science, as there is but one Intellect; and particular sci- 
ences constitute as many degrees, or stages, of the absolute 
Science. They are so many radii that spring from a central 
focus, from which they derive life, light, and nourishment. 
The natural philosopher who studies matter and its laws 
well knows that his investigations and results possess but a 
limited and relative importance, and are subordinate to a 
superior knowledge, where their justification and ultimate 
reason are only to be found. He knows it, or he ought to 



On Science in general. 23 

know it. And if he be not aware of it — if, in consequence of 
a defective intellectual training he concentrates his attention 
and inquiries within the limited sphere of nature, seeking in it 
the ultimate solution of the problem of science, he is certainly 
mistaken in seeking the centre of knowledge where it is not 
to be found. Yet he thereby explicitly acknowledges that 
there is such a centre ; he acknowledges, in other words, the 
existence and necessity of an absolute Science, and it is such 
a science he endeavors to realize. And so it would be with 
Mathematics and with any limited science that would set 
itself up as the ruling power of Intellect and as the Science 
of sciences. This high pretension would not be in keeping 
with the limited object of this investigation, but this would, 
at the same time, bear testimony to the existence of a higher 
object and a higher visual power than their own. Science 
and absolute Science are therefore, in the strict sense of the 
word, identical, and particular sciences are only sciences, inas- 
much as they are parts of the absolute Science, coincide with, 
and are justitied by it. Now, as there cannot be two Sciences, 
the second essential character of the really scientific knowl- 
edge is unity. The unity of Science is not the mathematical 
or quantitative unity, but the higher and absolute unity of 
qualities and essences, something like the unity of the human 
body, or the unity of the Universe*; namely, a whole in which 
the various qualities and essences, the conflicting elements, 
forces, and principles, are so harmoniously adjusted as to 
converge towards one and the same centre, and melt, as it 
were, into a common result; in other words. Science is essen- 
tially a System. 

There are those who object to systematic knowledge on 
the plea that a system, i.e. a doctrine, which would be, so to 

* This is an important distinction; for, misled by mathematical notions, we 
are apt to represent to ourselves the unity of things as an einpty and abstract 
mathematical unity. But the unity of force, the unity of the soul, the unity of 
God, are neither points wot numbers, but are indivisible wholes, containing quality 
and quantity as well as the various attributes that constitute their nature. When 
we say that the soul is — that it possesses sensibility, will, intellect, &c, we count 
its attributes, and in this respect there is quantity in it; but the connection or 
unity of these faculties and qualities is not a numerical but an essential unity — 
the unity of the essence of the soul. Besides the unity of thought that thinks, 
and is all things, cannot be the mathematical unit. (See below ••{ ,3. On 
Thought.") 



24 On Science in general. 

speak, the reflex of the Universe, embracing the universality 
of things, deducing and connecting them according to some 
rational process, describing their properties and nature, and 
determining the part they play either within their own limited 
sphere or in their relation to the whole, is well nigh, if not 
wholly, impossible. But the difficulty, however great it may 
be, we meet with in the realization of a scheme, is not a test 
against its rationality and usefulness ; and because it is not an 
easy matter to realize a system, it does in no way follow that 
we must not make the attempt, if Science be, as it evidently is, 
a system. On the contrary, the consequence to be naturally 
drawn therefrom is, that the more systematic the investiga- 
tion, the more accurate and complete the result. And it 
ought to be borne in mind, that the difficulty we find in real- 
izing a perfect system may be said to beset all knowledge, 
the knowledge of the most rudimentary and minute object — 
of a pebble, of an insect — so that this argument belongs to 
the category of those which overshoot the mark, or, as lo- 
gicians say, proving too much prove nothing. Indeed, if 
the matter be attentively inquired into, it will be seen that 
the difficulty in explaining the nature of particular beings 
chiefly arises from the absence of systematic knowledge, 
which precludes the mind from perceiving their connection 
with collateral beings and with the whole. For the part 
thus singled out and dissevered from the whole is not the 
same being as when connected with the whole. The eye 
which is separated from the body is no longer an ej r e but a 
dead and useless object; and the dissection and analysis of 
the anatomist, however careful and minute, is unable to repro- 
duce the real eye, the e} r e that was in union with the whole 
organism, with life, with the mind, and through the mind 
with the Universe. The leaf which has fallen from the tree 
has ceased to be a leaf; and if we continue to call it so. it is 
from the remembrance of its former connection with the 
whole plant. But as soon as this connection is broken, its 
growth, its beauty, and ail its other functions and purposes, 
are broken also. Thus it i^ with Science. Science which 
disconnects and scatt< is knowledge, and breaks asunder the 
unit of things— the golden chain from which the Universe 
is suspended — converts a full, concrete and living being into 



On Science in general. 25 

an unmeaning, lifeless and purposeless object. Moreover, 
by admitting that Science is not a system, we admit that 
knowledge may be gathered at random, and that we are able 
to obtain it without deducing and disposing our thoughts and 
inquiries according to their natural and necessary connection 
— an opinion contradictory to the very notion of science,as well 
as to the universal nature of things, since nothing can either 
be rationally thought or exist which is not a system. The 
beauty, the proportion, the unity, we admire in the Universe 
is nothing else than a systematic arrangement — an arrange- 
ment which is not confined to the general outline and to the 
framework of the structure, but extends to all its parts and 
penetrates into its most minute details, thus filling alike the. 
intellect and the imagination with wonder and delight. This 
applies equally to Science ; for, whether Science be consid- 
ered as the representation of the Universe, or the Universe 
as the representation of Science, the conclusion to be drawn, 
in either supposition, is that knowledge must be a sys- 
tem, and consequently that where there is no system there 
must be error, confusion, a medley of inordinate and irrecon- 
cilable elements. For to gather knowledge unsystematieally 
is either to take up questions, notions and principles at.ran- 
dom, without defining their nature, meaning and bearing,* 
or to consider a part as if it were a whole, f or the whole as if 



* Thus it is, lor instance, that we use the notion infinite, applying it indiscri- 
minately to different objects, ami saying that Gud is infinite; that Space isinfinite; 
that Number, Beauty. Sew.. &r&infinite, without inquiring what an infinite being 
is or can be, nor how these various objects can be infinite. We deal in the same 
manner with other notions, ami the most important, as God, Force, Being, Ob- 
ject, &c. For instance, we say, God is a Being, Man is a Being, the Plant is a 
Being, without inquiring into the meaning involved in the notion Briny, or if it 
is the same notion which is applied to these different objects, and. if the same, 
how it can be applied to them. 

f This is the way in which the differenl parts of .Science are generally han- 
dled: Logic. Metaphysics. Ethics, Psychology . Art, Religion, Ac . are considered 
irrespectively of each other, and as if each of them constituted a whole. And 
within the province of each separate branch of knowledge, particular subjects 
are handled in the same manner. Bence exclusive, one-sided theories, as, for in- 
stance, in Psychological Science, the theory that deduces the whole mind from 
sensation; in .Morals, the theories which identify all motives either with pleas- 
ure or with interest; in Art, the theories that concentrate beauty either in form 
or in expression; in Politics, all theories which, instead of embracing the various 
wains, tendencies and interests of the social body, single out some particular 
want or principle, and violently merge, as it were, the whole body politic into it. 



26 On Science in general. 

it had no parts and could exist without them ;* or to bring 
together things irreconcilable, and to separate things neces- 
sarily connected ; or to confound things that are distinct by- 
mixing their provinces, and forcing the nature of one upon 
that of the other ; f or to admit or deny in a certain form the 
the very same things that had been denied or admitted in 
another.;}: 

We say, then, that absolute Science is one, and that it is 
one as a system. 

But to know in the absolute sense of the word is not only 
to think and to apprehend, but to be the object of knowledge. 
In fact Science is neither Thought without Being, nor Being 
without Thought, as neither Thought which involves no real 
object, nor any real object which is not thought, constitute 
Science. Science is therefore the unity of thought and being — 
the object thought — or it is Thought par excellence, thought 

* When, for instance, we say that the cause is perfect without its effect, or the 
substance without its acciiences. Under the same head may be ranged those doc- 
trines which strip a substance or a principle of its attributes, modes, or qualities 
— matter, for instance, of color, form, weight. &e. — the soul of sensibility, will, 
imagination, &c. — which they consider as non-essential, pretending that matter 
or the soul could exist without them; just as, in another province, some politi- 
cians would banish force, inequality, war from the State, which they consider as 
unessential elements of social life. 

f This is one of the most common errors, as it is difficult to draw an exact 
line of demarcation between the various beings and spheres of existence. Thus 
it is that we transfer from one being or from one province of knowledge or ex- 
istence to another the qualities, laws, and attributes, which belong only to the 
former. In this respect the inductive and analogical processes are the greatest 
source of inadvertencies and misconceptions. 

% This inadvertency may be frequently observed in common life, where men 
will admit the very same proposal, opinion, and principle, they had formerly 
rejected, and which they would still reject unless it were put to them in a differ- 
ent form. Instances of the same error are not uncommon in science and in the 
most important questions. For instance, there are doctrines which draw an 
absolute separation between the substance of God and the substance of the world, 
and then when they come to determine the nature and attributes of the Godhead 
they realize them in conformity with our own, assigning to God our own facul- 
ties — a Personality, a Consciousness, a mode of loving and governing the world 
modelled upon our own corresponding attributes; so much so, that, according 
to this manner of viewing the subject, the popular dictum, that man is made in 
the image of God, ought to be reversed, and said thai Qod is made in the image of 
Man. It will be observed that formal Logic is unable to supply any rule or cri- 
terion by the aid of which the mind could guard against these or other similar 
errors, as it is only by inquiring into the matter and objective nature of things 
that they can be discovered and avoided. 



On Science in general. 27 

which is become adequate to its object, and in the nature of 
which the object has been so merged and absorbed as to make 
one and the same thing. The unity of the Universe is not to 
be found in the absolute Being, or in the absolute Substance, 
but in the absolute Thought and Knowledge in which the 
Being and the Substance as well as all other principles are 
involved, and attain their highest and fullest existence. Be- 
ing and Substance without Science are like the body without 
the mind, or Nature without the Spirit. 

We say, then, that to know is to be, and I will add that it 
is to be in the fullest acceptation of the word. The difficulty 
we find in perceiving the truth and importance of this prin- 
ciple is mainly due to a deficiency in the training of our 
speculative faculty, which keeps our mind within the bounds 
of sensation, of experience and induction, and conceals from 
its sight other and higher realities — realities without which 
experience itself, and all things appertaining to it, could 
neither exist nor be apprehended. In fact,, if we start from 
experience, — holding it as the criterion of reality, the iden- 
tity of knowing and being, is, I admit, inconceivable. For 
to apprehend a tree is not to be a tree, and to apprehend the 
fire is not to be the fire and to burn ; so that here thought 
and its object are beings distinct and separable. But if we 
admit, as we must admit, that besides and above the visible 
and experimental there is an invisible and transcendent Re- 
ality, that this latter Reality is the principle of the former, 
and that, being beyond the reach of the senses, it can only 
be apprehended by pure thought — by thought freed from 
sensation and all experimental elements — the difficulty will 
be more easily solved. 

To elucidate this point, let us consider the two propositions, 
God is — This flower is. Here, deceived b} T the identity of 
the word is, and by the habit of picturing to ourselves all 
reality in a material and sensible form, we apply to the word 
the same meaniDg in both instances, and thus are led to real- 
ize the Being of God as the Being of a flower or of any other 
object falling under the senses. Now, it may be easily per- 
ceived that the meaning involved in the is of the one propo- 
sition is entirely different, nay, the reverse of that which is 
involved in the is of the other. For the Being or the to Be 



28 On Science in general. 

of God is not the Being of the flower, and were we to con- 
ceive His Being in any manner similar to that of an external 
and phenomenal object, not only would we distort but sup- 
press at. once the notion and existence of Gfod. Consequently, 
when we say that God is, we mean, if we mean anything, that 
He is in a purely intelligible and ideal manner, and that He 
can be apprehended through that faculty which alone is able 
to reach the eternal and the absolute, by whatever name it 
be designated, whether it be called Reason, or Intellect, or 
Speculative Thought. Whence it follows also that the ex- 
istence of God is quite the reverse of the existence of finite 
and phenomenal beings, and that, in order to form a correct 
notion of Him, we must strive to remove from our mind all 
trace of experience, and set its visual power, so to speak, in 
antagonism with it. And these considerations not only apply 
to God, but to all principles, causes, and essences. For nei- 
ther God, nor any principle whatever, can be apprehended 
through experimental process, and it is only by a fallacy 
and delusion of the inductive method that we are led to be- 
lieve that metaphysical science can be founded on experi- 
mental knowledge ; it is from inconsistency, and by leaping 
over instead of filling up the gap — nay, by tacitly and un- 
wittingly presupposing the very notion and principle it pro- 
fesses to draw from its operation — that experimental method 
concludes the infinite and eternal from the finite and tempo- 
ral. Were it consistent, as phenomena, facts, effects — all, in 
one word, that comes within the pale of experience is change- 
able and perishable — the conclusion ought to be that prin- 
ciples, causes, and essences, are changeable and perishable 
also. Thus, for instance, as motion, force, light, heat, &c, 
when considered in particular phenomena, are continually 
perishing and reviving, the inference would be that the prin- 
ciples of these phenomena are subject to the same alternate 
movement of destruction and revival ; or that the cause, what- 
ever it be, that produces man is mortal, because man is mor- 
tal — and similar examples — which would be simply absurd, 
as nothing could be, nor be restored to life when destroyed, 
if its principles were liable either to alteration or destruction. 
Accordingly, the nature and knowledge — the Being and 
Knowing — of principles and essences, differ from the nature 



On Thought. 29 

and knowledge of their products — facts, phenomena, effects. 
•And if we contrast the former with the latter we shall see, 
1°. that, for the very reason that the former are the creative 
essences of things, their nature remains unimpaired and un- 
diminished in the begetting of them ; 2°. that they possess a 
purely ideal and intelligible nature, — indeed they are ideas, 
as we will see hereafter, and as such they cannot be felt, or 
brought within any sensuous shape, or any point of time and 
space, but only be apprehended by pure thought; 3°. that,- 
from their being creative essences, they produce the effect 
without mingling their eternal and impassible nature with it, 
like the hand, or, still more truly, like the mind, that pro- 
duces the work without being reacted upon by it and receiv- 
ing the imprint of it ; thus it is that Death destroys without 
destroying itself, and fire burns without burning itself out;* 
and 4°. that, because of their possessing & pure and intelligi- 
ble nature, thought can think them in their intelligible ex- 
istence — thinking the fire, for instance, the light, the air, as 
well as the Good, the Beautiful, &c, and when thinking them 
in their objective and essential nature, being the fire, the 
light, &c, &c, and keeping clear at the same time from their 
effects. 

§ 3. On Thought. 

This will be better understood if we give a deeper insight 
into the nature of Thought, of Science, and their eternal and 
inseparable object — namely, Ideas, and the relation in which 
they stand to each other. 

To know is to think, and it is to think in the highest sense 
of the word. Now thought is not only the faculty from whose 
inexhaustible depths springs all knowledge, but it constitutes 
also the highest essence and the culminating point of exist- 
ence. The old adage that man is a microcosm has only a 
meaning when applied to thought. For thought alone pos- 
sesses the privilege, shared by no other faculty or being, of 
thinking itself and all other things, and of thinking them as 
within itself, and as objects not only cognate to, but identical 
with, its own nature. There is no being, whatever be its 



* This elucidates the theory of the First mover of Aristotle, namely, of the 
Mover who moves All without moving itself, or being moved. 



80 On Thought. 

nature and properties, there is no point of space, actually or 
possibly, without the reach of thought. The infinite and the" 
finite, the invisible and the visible world, the numberless 
variety of beings with their numberless qualities, difference 
and opposition, all equally meet in the depths of thought as 
in their common centre. Indeed it is in thought that the Uni- 
verse attains its highest perfection. The external world, by 
being thought and in thought, is made partaker of a dignity, 
beauty, and perfection, it does not possess in itself. For it 
is within the mind that Nature attains its ideal and essential 
existence, whilst without the mind Nature's existence is frag- 
mentary, scattered, destitute of inward bond or unity. It is 
an external juxtaposition of beings unconscious of them- 
selves as well as of their mutual connection. Nor can we 
conceive, either in God or in man, anything more excellent 
than thought. Indeed it constitutes in both the very excel- 
lence of their nature.* In man, his whole being, so to speak, 
supposes thought, and is thought. Take away thought from 
him and he ceases to be what he is, the most wonderful 
amongst created beings, and he will find himself lowered to 
the level of the brute and inanimate creation. All his activity, 
internal as well as external, flows from thought; and there is 
no manifestation of it, from the most profound researches and 
the highest soarings of imagination to the most humble occu- 
pation, in which thought stands not foremost and is not the 
motive power of action. Will, imagination, memory, self- 
consciousness, and even the faculty that stands, as it were, 
on the limit of the physical and the spiritual worlds, of the 
body and soul — Sensation I mean — are not merely impelled 
by thought, but thought is their essential element — nay, they 



* As far as we can conceive God. But this must not be lost sight of, namely, 
that God. like all other things, is only known to us through thought, and that 
beyond thought His being is for us =0. It is one of the popular inadvertencies 
to believe that we can reach God through any other faculty — sentiment i?iti<ition, 
or whatever be its name — but thought, although sentiment and intuition are 
only inferior forms of thought, or thought which is still mixed with sensation, 
and unable to perceive truth in its pure essence. We possess the sentiment of 
God as we possess the sentiment of ourselves, of mathematical truth, and of all 
things in general — which sentiment is a dim perception of these objects, or eon- 
fused and imperfect thought, involving inconsistencies and delusion, a mixture 
of light and shade, of truth and error. 



On Thought. 31 

are different forms or instruments of thought. For there is 
thought in Sensation as well as in any other faculty and 
mental operation, and not only is it through thought that 
sensation is inwardly felt by the soul, but the external ob- 
ject that produces sensation is likewise apprehended by 
it. Thought constitutes, therefore, the unity of the human 
being, of mind and body, and of their connection with the 
universe*; and if it constitutes the highest essence and per 
fection, it follows that everything is made for it and is sub- 
ordinate to it; that it is thought that will impart light, vigor 
and life to individuals as well as nations, and that where the 
internal activity of thought is declining there the external 
also will languish or become extinct. Such is thought, the 
most stupendous of beings! In the presence of Nature, be- 
fore the huge masses that move in space, the vast expanse of 
the water, the sun and the planets, and the bodies innumera- 
ble with which the vault of heaven is studded, we are struck 
with wonder and awe. How much more will thought appear 
worthy of our admiration if we bear in mind, that not only 
these objects but the Universe is concentrated in thought, 

* Those who place this unity in the brain as the centre of the nervous system, 
or those who localize the soul by assigning it a particular place, either in the 
brain, like Descartes (glandula pinealis), or in any other part of the body, are 
deceived by external and sensuous representation which lead them to assimilate 
the unity of the soul to something like the spider feeling in the centre of the 
cobweb the insect that skims over its threads. But quite different is the unity 
of the human being. Here the centre is everywhere and nowhere; and the sen- 
sation is not felt in a central point, but all over the body and in every part of it. 
Moreover, all sensation, however different and opposite — as the sensation of pain 
and pleasure, of light and darkness, of heat and cold, &c— may be compared and 
brought into a unity, though felt by different senses and in different parts of the 
body. From the fact that we feel thinking in the brain, and that the more in- 
tense is thought, the more it seems to concentrate itself in this part of the body, it 
does not follow that thought has its seat in the brain, and much less that the brain 
is the faculty of thinking, but merely that the brain is the main instrument of 
thought, as the eye is the instrument of vision and the ear of hearing. I say the 
main; for all the senses and organs of the body are instruments of thought, as 
it is not the eye that sees, nor the ear that hears, but it is thought that sees and 
hears through the instrumentality of the organ. Besides, any theory attempt- 
ing to explain the unity and nature of thought, or the unity and nature of the 
human being, by some organic function or arrangement, will run aground not 
only against abstract and speculative arguments, but against experience itself. 
For it is a fact that thought apprehends the infinite, the eternal, and the abso- 
lute, and consequently cannot be circumscribed within the bounds of corporeal 
organs. 



32 On Thought. 

and that the ultimate reason of all that exists and will exist 
is apprehended by thought, and is thought! For thought 
that constitutes the excellence of the human, constitutes also 
the excellence of the divine nature. God is the absolute and 
eternal thought. This is the highest definition of God, His 
preeminent attribute and perfection. The omnipotence, 
the love, the providence, as well as the goodness and justice 
of God are subordinate attributes and modes of His Being. 
All prestippose thought, and it is by coming, as it were, in 
contact with thought, that they attain their highest power 
and perfection. Thus the love of God is the thought of the 
eternal ideas which are His perfection, a love embracing the 
love of Himself and the love of the external manifestation 
of ideas, or the World ; which shows that the love of God 
towards the world cannot be love towards individuals, nor 
even towards nations, but towards the Whole, and that the 
parts are only loved by God inasmuch as they harmonize 
with the Whole, and contribute to its preservation and the 
fulfilment of the law, which is the eternal thought of God. 
And thus it is that what is wisdom and love in the sight 
of man may be foolishness and hatred in the sight of God. 
This applies also to His Providence. The providence of God 
is His eternal and immutable thought, which is the law out 
of and according to which all things are made and gov- 
erned. The government of the World is implied in the very 
essence of things, as everything must be made and governed 
according to its special essence. Therefore to thlnlc is in God 
to govern and to foresee^ and to govern through and to fore- 
see in the immutable essence of things. This is the rational 
notion of the Providence and Prescience of God, the onry no- 
tion in conformity with the majesty and excellence of His 
nature. To realize God as actually foreseeing and regulating 
all single and dail}' events, all transient phenomena and 
accidents, is to degrade and lower Him to the level of finite 
beings. 

Note. — The popular doctrine is that God not only governs the world through 

general laws hut that His Providence extends to all particular events, and to the 
minutest details of this vasl and wonderful machinery. For it is agreed, if there 
were events— nay, one single event- -that should not ho predetermined by God, 
God's Providence would not embrace all things, and consequently God would not 

be All-powerful, which is contradictory to the notion of the Deity. The same 



On Thought. 33 

argument applies to His Prescience. Those who rest their doctrine on this and 
similar arguments do not perceive that they fall, and still more deeply, into the 
difficulty they pretend to avoid; for against this mode of arguing it may be 
retorted, that if it be contradictory to the notion of God that God's Providence 
should not embrace all things, it is much more at variance with the whole of 
His nature that He who is the Absolute and Perfect Being should busy Himself 
with individual beings and particular and transitory events, however unworthy 
they may be of His providential care. But we deal with God in a more off-hand way 
than we are wont to do with our fellow-creatures. For we would think it dero- 
gatory in the sovereign to descend from his high station and perforin menial or 
inferior duties, or in the judge to carry out with his own hands the prescription 
of the law; but with God we are not so considerate and reverential, and He must 
have a hand in all our daily affairs, no matter how irreconcilable they may be 
with His majesty and perfections. And this is done to shield Him, as it were, 
from imperfection, and to describe Him in the fulness of His nature and exist- 
ence! The fact is that such representation of God is sheer anthropomorphism; 
nay, it is the heathenish conception ot the Deity, glossed over with a kind of 
nominal Spiritualism. For, in reality, we make Him love, foresee, and govern, 
as we do love, foresee, and govern; and we force upon Him what we call our 
Personality and Consciousness, adding, it is true, that all such attributes and 
faculties are infinite in Him, but taking care, at the same time, not to state what 
an infinite Love, an infinite Providence, an infinite Personality is or can be. In 
fact, if the matter were more closely gone into, it would become manifest that an 
infinite love, an infinite personality, &c, are mere vain and empty words, calcu- 
lated only to mislead the mind, if we realize God's lo-\e and personality like 
man's. The heathenish representation of God would then be at least more con- 
sistent. For if love in God be what love in man is, God must love as man does; 
and if God's government of the Universe be what man's government is, Jupiter 
must convene his council in Olympus as Agamemnon in the camp, and frown 
when in anger, and drink and eat as man does when impelled by thirst and hun- 
ger, except that he will partake of some unknown and immortal nourishment. 
And what is still stranger in the matter is, that if any one come forward and 
suggest that these and the like representations of God— namely, all representa- 
tions drawn from experience, analogy, and induction— are not only inadequate, 
but fallacious and at variance with the very nature of God ; and that the only 
way by which we can form a correct and true notion of the Deity is through 
purely intellectual and speculative processes, as God is not only a Being that no 
experimental process can reach, but rather the reverse of all we know through 
experience; — if any one, I say, come forward and hold such a doctrine, some will 
object that they do not understand it, and that it is too subtle for their percep- 
tion; others, that they have neither leisure nor taste for such iiinuiri<s. and that 
they rest satisfied with the popular and current notions on the matter; and 
finally, others, that all speculation is the delusion of a visionary brain that 
mistakes its own phantoms for realities, not unfrequently exciting against it 
popular ignorance and prejudice by branding it v ith the name of Pantheism, of 
Atheism and Infidelity. Surely, it there be Atheism and Infidelity, all doctrine 
that inculcates an irrational and erroneous notion of the Godhead deserves such 
•a name; and if there be Pantheism, the doctrine that teaches that God predeter- 
mines and foresees everything, and that there is not a single event in which God 
has not a share, is Pantheism of the coarsest description. That God is All, and 
that all things are in God. i* a sound— nay, it is the only rational doctrine. For all 
things must come from God, if they do not come from nought; but if they come 

viii-3 



34 On Thought. 

from God, were they even created ex nihilo, there must be something of God— a 
spark of the divine essence— in them. Consequently, those who hold that God 
is in the World, and that the World is in God. hold a rational tenet. In fact, 
this parental connexion of God with the World is that which, on the one hand, 
imparts to the World and to everything that is in it whatever being and 
perfection they possess, and which, on the other hand, completes, as it were, 
the perfection of God Himself. For if we separate, substantially and abso- 
lutely, God and the World, we do not only impair and curtail the being of 
the World but that of God also. We curtail the being of the World, by 
separating it from its principle; we curtail the being of God, by admitting 
that the substance of the World is independent of God, and. consequently, by 
admitting tw ■> absolute substances. And the creatio ex nihilo would not till up the 
gap. as the creatio ex nihilo could not aftect the principles and essences of things, 
which under any supposition, must be coeternal with God. But if God be All, 
He is not so in the sense that He is every individual being and every single phe- 
nomenon — so that if I am joyful or sorrowful He should rejoice and grieve with 
me. or that He should be the insect that ciawls or the seed that grows upon the 
earth — but in the sense that He is the principle of all things, and that all things 
find their ultimate reason, their essence, in Him. Thus, being the principle, He 
is not what the thing is of which He is the principle. And. being All in this 
high sense of the word. He is not what the individual and fragmentary part is. 
It is because joy and sorrow, as well as life and death, come from Him, that He 
does neither rejoice nor grieve, neither come to life nor end in death. For should 
He come to life or end in death He could give neither lite nor death; and if He 
felt joy and sorrow as we do He could be the principle of neirher, as they would 
be sent to Him as they are sent to us. Besides, being All and the Absolute, He 
is liable neither to want, nor loss, nor to any increase of perfections, which are 
the conditions of joy and sorrow and of all similar modifications and changes 
through which the finite and mortal being must pass. Again, the seed that 
becomes and the seed that is (the essence) are two different seeds. The former 
we see and touch, the latter we think only. But that which we think only, is 
eternal and immortal. God is the Thought, the Idea, the Essence of the Universe — 
this is the highest and absolute definition of God, a definition in which are com- 
prised His Providence, His Love, His Power, and all His perfections. For the 
Thought of God is the Providence of things, and, for the very reason it is the 
essence, it is the Providence of each being particularly. The Providence of the 
plant is its idea, according to which it is born, it grows and dies. And so it is 
with everything. And, knowing and being the idea, God need not extend His 
care to individual beings, as not only the knowledge and being of the latter are 
involved in the knowledge and being of the former, but they find in the former 
their highest and perfect existence. Thus, for instance, in the knowledge and 
being of the ideal triangle are comprised ail material triangles, whatever be their 
size, form, and position, as in the knowledge and being of the ideal man — genus 
or species — are involved the knowledge and being of all men. Consequently, it 
must be laid down as a fundamental principle of metaphysical science that God 
is in the World, and that Ho is not in the World; that He is All things in their 
idea, and as a Whole, and in the Unity of their existence; and that He is not All 
things individually, or in their particular and fragmentary existence. 



( 35 ) 



ON HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHIC METHOD. 

To Hegel has been ascribed the honor of discovering a new- 
Philosophic Method. In the Introduction to his great central 
work, "The Logic," Hegel himself claims that although the 
method which he has " followed in that book — or rather the 
method which the system itself has followed — may be capa- 
ble of much improvement, or more thoroughness of elabora- 
tion, as regards details, yet I know that it is the only true 
method." " Because," he adds, " it is identical with its ob- 
ject and content; for it is the content in itself, the Dialectic 
which it has in itself that constitutes its evolution." " The 
only thing essentially necessary to an insight into the 
method of scientific evolution is a knowledge of the logical 
nature of the negative ; that it is positive in its results, — in 
other words, that its self-contradiction does not result in zero 
or the abstract nothing, but rather in the negation of its spe- 
cial content only ; that such negation is not simple [or abso- 
lute] negation, but the negation of a definite object which 
annuls itself, and is therefore a definite negation. Hence in 
the result there is contained essentially that from which it 
resulted — which amounts to a tautology, for otherwise the 
somewhat would be an independent original existence and 
not a result." 

If we restate his method and affirm it to be the process of 
discovering in the finite or limited what it is that constitutes 
its limitation or finitude, and thereby of ascending through 
successive syntheses to the self-limited or infinite, we shall 
see in that statement its substantial identity with the Plato- 
nic Dialectic. To trace out the dependent to that on which 
it depends is to go from the part to the whole, from that 
which is not self-existent to that which is self-existent. (Pla- 
to's definition we shall quote below.) 

The triad — Being, Naught, and Becoming — with which 
Hegel begins his Logic furnishes an example of an applica- 
tion of the general method as well as an exhibition of what 
is peculiarly Hegelian. In consideration of the fact that this 
triad is better known than anything else of Hegel, and that 
it has furnished the point of attack to his most powerful 



36 Abstract Exposition of the Dialectic. 

opponents — Trendelenburg in particular* — an exposition of 
his method in the evolution of this triad will serve to exhibit 
the true nature of the Hegelian Philosophy more directly 
than any general disquisition on its results. 

Let us at once, then, proceed to grapple with this much 
disputed beginning of Hegelian Logic, and make, first, an 
abstract exposition of the theme ; second, a more concrete or 
explanatory one ; third, a critical one, directed towards the 
position of Trendelenburg. We will attempt to give Hegel's 
thought in our own manner. 

I. Abstract Exposition. 

A. Introduction : why we begin with the category of Being. 

Whatever we postulate as a beginning of pure science 
must be, as such, not yet scientifically determined. It is the 
object of pure science to develope a system, and of course 
the beginning cannot be a system. Since in pure science we 
must not receive determinations (attributes, qualities, cate- 
gories, definitions, logical terms, &c.) except those justified 
and defined by the system, any determination that we postu- 
late, and that is not objectively evolved, must be regarded 
as unscientific and therefore rejected. Determination and 
negation are identical, and the complete removal of deter- 
mination or negation should give us pure being as a begin- 
ning or starting-point of our system. Were our system to 
start with any other category, as for example with the Ego, 
that category must be as empty as pure being ; if not, it 
would contain pure being plus determinations, and thus du- 
ality would be present before the system had evolved it. It 
would be ostensibly seized as a simple somewhat, and yet 
the mind would mean something else more concrete. Science 
has to do with what is expressed and not with what is merely 
meant. Hence, unless Science is to start unscientifically, it 
must commence with pure Being. 

B. Being : what comes of the pure thought of it. 

I. Being is the simple undetermined. 

II. Since it is the not-determined, it is distinguished from 
the determined, and is already determined by the con- 

* Lvgische Untersuchuyigen . 



Abstract Exposition of the Dialectic. 37 

trast. (The abstraction from the world of concrete 
being here becomes explicit.) 

HE. But since according to its definition (I.) it is the abso- 
lutely undetermined, it must be the negative of all 
determined somewhats, and hence of itself, if it is de- 
termined through contrast. It is therefore negative of 
itself as Being, if Being be defined at all as contrasted. 
Such a universal negative may be named, substantive- 
ly, Naught. 

Remark. — Here we have I. its definition, whence results EL 
its opposition or contrast, III. its self-relation. Thought en- 
deavors to seize the object (Being) as a whole, i.e. to compre- 
hend it in its entirety. It seizes first the abstract definition, 
and then proceeds to realize it as thus defined. It finds con- 
trast, and then further, universal negation as the more ade- 
quate statement of the idea which it is contemplating. 

C. Naught: the result of attempting to think it purely. 

I. Being can comply with its definition — which requires it 
to be kept distinct from its determination or negation 
— only by negating itself and thus becoming Naught. 
Naught is the negative of all Being. 

II. Naught as the negative of all Being is defined through 
contrast it is distinguished from Being. 

III. But since Naught is the negation of all Being, it is the 
negative of itself ; for if Being were regarded as the 
determined, Naught would be the undetermined, and 
hence the negative of itself as the opposite of Being 
(i.e. contrasted with Being) ; or, if Being is defined as 
the undetermined, then Being becomes universal ne- 
gation, and Naught as the negation of Being must 
be the negation of universal negation or negation of 
itself. 

Resume. — The thought of Being is the thought of a vanish- 
ing, a negation of itself. It is hence a form of Becoming. But 
the thought of Naught is the thought of a self-negation or a 
determining of itself, hence the thought of origination or be- 
ginning to be. Naught can be thought, therefore, only as a 
form of Becoming. Origination (beginning) and evanescence 
(ceasing) are the two forms of Becoming. Becoming is the 
thought which results from thinking Being and Naught. 



38 Abstract Exposition of the Dialectic. 

D. Becoming : Results from trying to think the All as a 

Becoming. 

I. Becoming in general is a union of Being and Naught, 
but a union wherein their difference vanishes and each 
passes into the other. The difference must persist, and 
likewise the annulling of that difference must persist, 
or else the Becoming will cease. 

II. The union of Being and Naught in the Becoming is a 
union wherein each is a self-annulment. Not Being 
nor Naught in their simple abstraction, but each a 
vanishing — the former as Ceasing, the latter as Begin- 
ning. Being and Naught have proved themselves no 
adequate categories, but in their places we have two 
forms of Becoming. 
HI. Becoming considered by itself is a self- nugatory, for it 
implies duality and involves a from and a to; but 
not from Being to Naught nor the contrary, but from 
Beginning to Ceasing, and the contrary ; for the differ- 
ence that remains in the Becoming is that between the 
two kinds of Becoming only. Beginning likewise, as a 
form of Becoming, possesses duality and is a from 
and to, but for the reason stated can have in itself only 
the difference of the two forms of Becoming, and hence 
contains within it its own opposite ; Ceasing, too, con- 
tains in itself its opposite in so far as it is Becoming. 
Hence the difference upon which Becoming rests also 
vanishes, and each side becomes identical through its 
evolution of its opposite from itself. Thus instead of 
Becoming we have rather determined (or definite) Be- 
ing. Each form of Becoming is a process that returns 
into itself through its opposite, and by this each 
becomes the total process, and the total process is a 
present unity of Being and Naught or of Beginning 
and Ceasing. 

Note. — The "from and to" involved in Becoming is not a 
spatial one. If Spatial, then we have a concrete form of Be- 
coming, to wit, motion. But Becoming involves only be- 
ginning and ceasing, and this applies as well to ideas as to 
natural things, and hence includes spatial motion under it as 
one species distinct and separate from the activity of thinking 
as another species. All spatial motion is measured in feet or 
decimals of a foot, but ideas do not admit of such measure- 
ment, and the activity of passing from one to another is there- 
fore non-spatial. 

Remark. — This deduction will seem wholly arbitrary and 
a mere play of words to most people. All exposition of 



Explanatory Exposition of the Dialectic. 39 

pure thought — that in Plato's Parmenides, for example — 
seems arbitrary word-jugglery. 

Let us go over the ground once more in a more explana- 
tory and familiar manner, when some of the difficulties may 
clear up. 

II. Explanatory Exposition. 

BEING AND NAUGHT. 

I wish to know the truth — to think it ; and by truth I mean 
the abiding, that which is universally and necessarily valid, 
and all that is involved in it. 

How shall I begin ? I wish to think the truth, the abiding, 
that which must be as it is and can be nothing else. Hence 
I am to find the universal conditions of Being ; and these uni- 
versal conditions must result from Being itself as its nature. 
Let me think Being then and see what else is implied. 

If I think Being as self-sufficing, I do not set it opposite to 
Naught as something else than it, for thus it would receive 
distinction or determination through this very contrast. I 
must think Being by itself; as excluding all multiplicity, for 
the multiple can be only where there is distinction of parts, 
and distinction is negation or Not-being. Hence if I would 
not let in the opposite of Being (or Non-being) into my 
thought of the same, I must think being as simple and unde- 
termined ; otherwise it will be a self-contradiction — it will be 
a being that contains negation or limitation already. 

Having now before me the thought of pure simple Being, 
let me examine it. What is pure simple Being? It is — unde- 
termined; it has no content; it is — Naught. It cannot differ 
from Naught ; for if it did, it would differ by means of some 
characteristic or determination, and this would render its 
simple pure Being, determined Being. I think pure Being, 
therefore, as identical with Naught when I think it by itself. 
"It at once becomes its opposite''? No, it does not become 
its opposite ; it is Naught, and does not seem to become it. 
Let me pause, however, and consider the result at which I 
have arrived. For it is clear that in trying to seize Being 
purely by itself, and without negation or limitation, I have 
arrived at a dead result identical with Naught. I set out with 
the resolve to think Being pure and simple, and even with- 



40 Explanatory Exposition of the Dialectic. 

out opposition or contrast. But by removing all difference 
from it I get only Naught as a result. I must, however, in- 
vestigate this result and see what implications my thought 
of it contains. 

What do I mean by the thought of Naught? It is the 
thought of the negation of All — a negation by itself, for I am 
considering each category by itself, as a universal. It is the 
negation of all, and yet is all. But as such it is a negation 
of itself. Either it is a negation which does not negate any- 
thing, or it is a negation that negates itself. It is the content 
of its own negation. At all events, the thinking of negation 
in the universal form of Naught gives as result the cancelling 
of negation. 

Here we are arrived at a very strange view. At first, Be- 
ing seemed identical with Naught without Becoming, — two 
names for one concept; now, Naught has shown itself to in- 
volve self-opposition ; it is inherently antithetic, and posits 
distinction or difference instead of identity. It therefore 
posits duality, and the duality of Being and Naught rises be- 
fore us as an immediate distinction which cannot be resolved 
into any other or more simple one. Being and Naught are 
opposites and contradictories, and yet are this only when in 
one unity. If we try to seize them isolatedly each becomes 
the opposite of itself, and each has no truth or meaning out- 
side of the synthetic thought which unites them. 

Note. — A psychological question arises: Why is not the 
absolute Naught, the Nihil negatwum, entirely outside of all 
relation or contrast, and hence, no " negation of all" ? It is 
made relative by thinking it as active negation. It seems, 
therefore, an assumption to pass from "naught" to "negation 
of all" — an unwarrantable substitution, a petitio principii. 
Of course, so soon as one can see Naught to be a self-negation, 
the dialectical self-movement must be apparent. Hegel has 
omitted any notice of this point in treating of Being, Naught, 
or Becoming, but has elucidated the question in its proper 
place under "Reflexion' 1 '' (vol. ii. of the large Logic) and also 
under "Begriff" (vol. iii. of the same). In the third or criti- 
cal exposition of this subject, which follows, an endeavor 
will be made to clear up this point. 

BECOMING. 

If I review my result, it is this : my thought of Being is a 
thought of the becoming of Naught — a ceasing to be, a de- 



Explanatory Exposition of the Dialectic. 41 

parting, an evanescence. My thought of Naught is a thought 
of the becoming of Being — a beginning to be, an arising or 
origination. These I perceive are two species of Becoming, 
and they exhaust the genus. These appear distinct, and their 
distinction is the distinction which I formerly supposed I 
saw between Being and Naught, but which proved on exam- 
ination to be really a distinction between these two kinds of 
Becoming. I note also that Becoming cannot be a becoming 
of Naught or of Being, for each of these latter categories has 
shown itself to be in reality a species of Becoming. 

Is this distinction between the two forms of Becoming a 
true and abiding one? Is Becoming the "solvent word" 
which explains the All? 

Let me examine this distinction more closely : the Becom- 
ing is a duality, it is a from and a to : a union of distinct 
somewhats in the process of uniting. Ceasing is from Being 
to Naught; Beginning is from Naught to Being. Becoming 
is the term indifferently applied to either. But Ceasing can- 
not become Naught, for the thought of pure Naught showed 
it to be a self-dirempting, a Beginning. Hence Ceasing can 
only cease in Beginning. Beginning cannot become Being, 
for pure Being is a self-nugatory whose more adequate state- 
ment is Ceasing. Hence Beginning is a movement towards 
Ceasing, inseparable from it, and therefore no simple pure 
species of Becoming, but rather a movement that is at once 
" reflected into itself." Beginning is a movement from itself 
to Ceasing which is a movement to Beginning. Each species 
of Becoming has the other species as its own content. Each 
process traced out is a becoming of itself through the becom- 
ing of its other. Beginning becomes Ceasing, which, again, 
becomes Beginning. Such a process to itself through its other 
has been called " Reflection into itself." 

The form of Reflection into itself cannot be considered as 
a Becoming. Its form is that of self-relation. Each of its 
sides is reflected into itself through the other, and hence each 
is identical with the other. Each is itself plus the other in 
one process. Becoming can persist only so long as the ine- 
quality or non-identity of the two sides persists. The becom- 
ing of the same from the same is no becoming ; it is rather 
an unchangeable continuance of one phase. 



42 Explanatory Exposition of the Dialectic. 

I must, therefore, seek another name, since Becoming is 
no longer an appropriate predicate for the All. Being and 
Naught were no adequate designations of the All ; they were 
mere phases of the process of Becoming. The phases Be- 
ginning and Ceasing vanish in more comprehensive process- 
es. Instead of Being, Naught, or Becoming, I have before 
me the thought of the Determining of Being: two forms of 
self-relation, Being or Ceasing returning into itself through 
Naught or Beginning, and the opposite of this, i.e. Naught 
reflected into itself through Being. Here is Determination : 
determined Being and determined Naught. The abyss of 
difference that yawned for me between Being and Naught 
is now narrowed to that between Reality and Negation, the 
two forms of determined Being. Each is a form of Being, 
for each begins and ends with itself, i.e. has the form of self- 
sufficiency, and not the form of dependence or of relation to 
another. 

Remark 1. — We note that the Dialectic movement carries 
with it two threads which are ever becoming identical in a 
new Category. Thus at first our two threads were Being and 
Naught; next, Beginning and Ceasing, whose general name 
is Becoming ; then, again, Reality and Negation, the sides of 
Determined Being. These two threads become identical in 
the respect wherein they were first distinguished, and this 
their identity is a new Category. But their distinction reap- 
pears in the hew Category, as a less essential one. 

Remark 2. — Upon inspection of the Dialectic movement 
one will see that it is not a method of proceeding from a first 
principle "which continues to remain valid'- — as, e.g., some 
mathematical axiom. One is rather engaged in a process of 
proving his first principles to be untrue or inadequate, and 
is leaving them behind him as abstract untrue elements and 
arriving at comparatively concrete and true ones. Each new 
category is richer in what it contains than the preceding, for 
it is a unity resulting from a synthesis of what has gone 
before. 

Remark 3. — Thus the dialectical procedure is a retrograde 
movement from error back to truth, from the abstract and un- 
true back to the concrete and true ; from the finite and de- 
pendent back to the Infinite and Self-subsistent. We are 
proceeding toward a First Principle rather than from one. 

In Plaro's Republic, book vii., chapter xiii. {Stallbaum\ 
a clear distinction is drawn between the Dialectic Method 
( c // dtatexzcxr] /isdodoc;) of pure science {int<n^fifj\ which 



Critical Exposition of the Dialectic. 43 

cancels one after the other its hypothetical categories or 
principles on its way to the highest principle (rac vTzodioect; 
dvaepouaa ix abzyv zyju dpy^v), and Geometry with its kindred 
sciences, which use fixed hypotheses or axioms (ito<; &v u-odi- 
<TE<Ji ypw/nevae zabzaq dxivijzou<; abac, jirj ouvd.tj.zvat Xoyov dcdbvat 
auzaJv) and are not able to deduce them. Thus our hypothe- 
tical "'Being," "Naught," &c, have been removed on our way 
to the first principle. 

Remark 4. — We do not lose any of our categories, but only 
reduce them to subordinate elements ("moments"). The unity 
wherein they are thus annulled is called a "Negative Unity." 

Remark 5. — Hegel's logic in this manner proceeds to show 
up one after another all the general ideas or categories of 
thought, finding for each the exact place in the series which 
its extension and comprehension gives it. The highest and 
ultimate is the IDEA as definition of Personality — the self- 
conscious Absolute, the voirjatc; vorjasco^ which Aristotle finds 
to be the highest, and which Theology defines as God. 

Before arriving at this point such questions have arisen as : 

(1) Is not all this a play on words? 

(2) If not a play on words, is it not merely a subjective play 

of thought, and not in anywise a process related to ob- 
jective truth \ 

(3) Do you not in every instance presuppose concrete cate- 

gories (movement, for example) as underlying the pure 
thoughts with which the dialectic begins ? 

(4) If you were really to begin without presuppositions, could 

you find any language into which to translate your re- 
sults ? Do you not in fact merely translate one set of 
categories into another set not scientifically deduced ? 

In order to clear up these and a multitude of other similar 
objections which have no answer in the foregoing expositions 
the following considerations are presented. Those acquaint- 
ed with the objections of Trendelenburg and others will per- 
haps see their pertinence best. 

111. Critical Exposition. 

A. " The presuppositionless Beginning.' 1 '' 

v 1. That Pure Science should begin without presupposition 

I means that it should begin with an idea that is not analyti- 

1 cally resolvable into simpler ones. If the idea with which 

we begin involves others simpler than it, we should discover 

ourselves in the act of thinking those simpler presuppositions 

while on our way to think the beginning ; that is to say, if 

we turned our attention fully upon our unconscious processes. 



44 Critical Exposition of the Dialectic. 

Our attempted beginning would be a farce, for we should at 
once repudiate it : our first thinking would result in detecting 
the ideas implicit in it, and from these elements we should 
make a new commencement. 

2. In science all should be explicit, or should become so. A 
term should not mean more than it is defined to mean. But 
when we claim that Pure Science should begin without as- 
suming results implicitly contained in some synthetic idea, 
we do not mean that Pure Science does not imply or presup- 
pose — (a) that the philosopher who is to understand it must 
have ideas and names for them ; (b) that his progress will 
consist in recognizing, in the Pure Science, ideas before fa- 
miliar to him and known by name. He will learn in Pure 
Science to know their necessity, scope, and affiliation. A 
familiar unscientific knowledge goes before a scientific one. 
The description of the categories of Pure Science must at the 
beginning be made by means of terms not yet dialectically 
examined. Trendelenburg criticizes Hegel {LogiscJie Unter- 
suchungen, 2°. Aujlage, p. 37 sqq.) for using the expression 
"unity" in speaking of the "unity of Being and Naught in the 
Becoming." It was a presupposition surreptitiously brought 
in where all presupposition was expressly excluded. So, too, 
he points out the expression "pure abstraction," and more 
especially the idea of "movement" where Hegel says of Being 
and Naught, " Their truth is therefore this movement of the 
immediate vanishing of the one in the other : Becoming, &c." 
The idea of movement, says Trendelenburg, "is the vehicle 
of the dialectic evolution in thought." 

Here is a misunderstanding of the sense in which presup- 
position is applied. Trendelenburg would demand strictly 
that Pure Science should, according to Hegel, generate not 
only its ideas from the a priori activity of thought, but also 
the names and predicates applied to them. He would pro- 
hibit any recognition of any determinations that arose in 
thought, for recognition would imply that the ideas were 
known before in some shape, and hence were presupposed 
and not originated. Such a demand completely stultifies all 
pure science inasmuch as the latter sets out with the express 
problem before it of deducing the content of experience, or at 
least the form of experience, and every result in pure science 



r 



Critical Exposition of the Dialectic. 45 

must consequently be an identification (act of recognition) of 
its d priori determinations with the content of experience. 
Only in this way could science explain anything by exhibit- 
ing its origin and necessity. 

3. It can, however, be reasonably asked of pure science 
that it shall at its close leave no category of pure thought 
undeduced. Each category must exhibit what ideas it pre- 
supposes as its elements or moments analytically contained 
in it, as well as what ideas it demands either to complement 
its defects, or to transcend and include it in a higher totality. 
But science cannot deduce all ideas at once. Its beginning 
must be made with the simplest idea and the others must be 
introduced in the order of their complexity. Pure science 
cannot be said to be complete until it explains and deduces 
the simple idea with which it began. It must be a circle. 

4. We may call thinking iinite so long as it is involved 
with a content foreign to itself — i.e. with some matter of Ex- 
perience derived from the senses. Through the act of Reflec- 
tion (in the form of analysis and abstraction) thought steps 
back from the world of Experience and contemplates its own 
generalizations or abstractions. The summum genus of such 
generalization is Being. When it abstracts from all multi- 
plicity and says all things in the world are, or have Being, 
Being is contemplated as the ultimate result of analysis. 
Thought has cut off one by one all special determinations 
(properties, characteristics, attributes,' predicates), and now 
has before it the empty form of itself: of itself, because ex- 
perience gave only the multiplicity, and analysis has elimin- 
ated it all. Being is therefore the empty form of pure thought 
from which all content has been removed. It is justly consi- 
dered a great era for Philosophy when theEleatics announced 
Being as the highest principle. It was the first time that a 
Philosophy had announced a pure thought for its principle. 
Neither Pythagoras nor Heraclitus did this explicitly. When 
thought becomes its own object it assumes the form of the 
infinite ; i.e. it is no longer limited by and dependent on an 
external object, but is self- limited and independent, in its 
cognition. 

5. Being is the limit of Analytic thinking. How does 
thought become synthetic and find its way back to concrete 



46 Critical Exposition of the Dialectic. 

Categories ? Simply by extending its consciousness into self- 
consciousness. In reflection it is conscious of the object and 
of its negative power of abstraction. In the speculative 
activity of thought it must objectify its entire activity and 
observe it. In sense-perception only the object is known, 
and no notice is taken of the function performed by thought 
in furnishing the general ideas through which we recognize 
the object. In reflection we recognize the general ideas as 
the basis of the particular. In the speculative we must 
cognize the primitive synthesis of Reason which makes it 
possible. Reflection, therefore, always recognizes only dead 
results. It fails to grasp the synthetic movement that takes 
place unconsciously in the mind, as its counterpart. 

B. The Dialectic : how synthesis arises from analysis. 

6. Being is defined as the undetermined. Abstraction has 
removed all determinations in order to seize Being purely. 
But if we now try to seize Being and realize its definition in 
thought, we come upon this contradiction : it is defined as 
indefinite. When we attempt to seize Being as the negative 
of all, we seize it as determined and defined by this negative 
attitude. We correct this act of determination and limitation 
of the idea of Being by recurrence to the definition of inde- 
terminateness, and hence we think it as negative to itself as 
thus defined and limited. It flees itself. We thus find our 
thought of Being an infinite regress: first we apply a predi- 
cate to it, but we immediately annul the predicate on account 
of its inconsistency ; we continue to annul its predicates, 
but the act of annulling them is the act of predicating them. 
Predicatelessness is itself a predicate, and to think without 
the act of predication is impossible. Hence our thinking 
activity necessarily posits a self- negative idea when it posits 
Pure Being. It_p_osits a regress ad infinitum : a vanishing ; 
an idea which perpetually finds itself in opposition and thus 
has become a particular, and therefore annuls itself and 
escapes beyond itself. It is a self-remover, a self-negative. 
It must flee all particular, i.e. retire to the extreme of sim- 
plicity ; but thus it goes into self-contradiction, for it should 
be pure from all relations or antitheses, and hence pure from 
purity 



Critical Exposition of the Dialectic. 47 

But such a thought is no longer simply analytic, but an 
active synthesis — the thought of self-determination or self- 
annulment. 

7. Self-annulment of Being is a form of Becoming. In our 
synthetic act as the totality of the thought of Being, we have 
Becoming in both forms. As Being it is a self cancelling = 
ceasing-to-be. But it is just as much an act of opposition or 
antithesis in itself, and hence a specializing or particulariz- 
ing of itself, a becoming of something or a beginning-to-be. 
Thus it is an activity of determining itself while in the act of 
annulling determinations ; and vice versa. This remarkable 
result we have arrived at only through observing our whole 
thought, its process as well as its results. Reflection noted 
results ; the speculative thought notes processes as well. 

8. Becoming is then the more adequate name of the object 
of pure thought as it is now before us. But it is Becoming 
as a process which unites two counter activities each of which 
is a becoming. A tendency to, and a tendency from, are the 
extremes of its activity. But each of these extremes is like- 
wise dual, and sustains itself only through its opposite. The 
Ceasing (or self-annulment of Being) is only an activity of 
self- opposition by which it reduces its simple empty being 
to a definite particular — and thus it is a Beginning. But it 

f is the latter only in so far as it is an active cancelling of such 
opposition and particularization. Hence we now see that our 
activity is a circular one and returns back into itself continu- 
ally. Becoming is therefore now seen to be no adequate de- 
signation of the synthesis before us. It is a self-sustained 
process of determination (called by Hegel Daseyn) which 
we may call determined Being. 

We can proceed further to examine the adequacy of our 
new designation and trace out its synthesis of the two coun- 
ter movements which we recognized in it as (a) Beginning 
returning into itself through Ceasing, and (b) Ceasing re- 
turning into itself through Beginning. 

This is enough, however, to show the critical basis of He- 
gel's method, and to furnish a key to the insight into the 
difference between its procedure and that of the Analytical 
Reflection. Plato's "Knowing by wholes" (i.e. knowing the 
results in their entire process) has here its explanation. 



48 Critical Exposition of the Dialectic. 

C. Pure Thought objective as well as subjective. 

9. We now will inquire briefly what are the grounds of the 
assertion that this pure thought has objective validity and 
furnishes the key to the explanation of the world of Expe- 
rience. 

Pure thought is the universal and necessary form of 
thought and hence the net result of all thought. What is 
found in pure thought is the thought which underlies all con- 
crete thinking. Pure thought brings to consciousness the 
whole process, while in ordinary thinking we know only the 
results of our thinking activity, and not only can give no ac- 
count of the process within us, but for the most part never 
suspect the existence of such a process. We refer the results 
of the unconscious dialectic process within us to an objective 
origin. 

Thought exhibits its process exhaustively in pure science. 
Hence it would be as impossible to think of an objective ex- 
istence which transcended the categories of pure thought as 
it would be to think without thinking. Any special act of 
thought can be analyzed at once, and the pure thought which 
lies at its basis exhibited. The possibility of all special think- 
ing lies primarily in pure thinking. 

Not only is it impossible to think or express anything that 
transcends the categories of pure thought, but the speculative 
insight is certain of the universal and necessary objective va- 
lidity of what it recognizes as the total process of the think- 
ing activity. It is perfectly certain that what it tinds true of 
quantity in general can never be untrue of quantity in parti- 
cular. For the thought of any particular quantity is limited 
by the thought of quantity in general. So of Cause and Effect, 
of Substance, Essence, Design, &c. When we determine d 
priori a mathematical theorem we are perfectly certain that 
we can never experience its opposite in Space or Time. For 
it is the logical condition of the existence of phenomena in 
Time and Space. So pure thought is the logical condition of 
all thought, and hence no one can ever cognize an experience 
other than through it and in accordance with it. 

10. In fancy or imagination our thinking activity exhibits 
its arbitrariness and caprice, and hence in them we do not 

[Continued on p. 91.] 



( 49 ) 



PEDAGOGICS AS A SYSTEM. 

By Dr. Karl Rosenkranz, Doctor of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at the 

University of Konigsberg . 

Translated by Anna C. Brackett. 



THIRD PART. 
Particular Systems of Education. 



Second Division. 
the system of theocratic education. 

§ 227. The system of National Education founded its first 
stage on the substantial basis of the family- spirit; its second 
stage on the division of the nation by means of division of 
labor which it makes permanent in castes; its third stage 
presents the free opposition of the laity and clergy ; in its 
next phase it makes war, immortality, and trade, by turns, 
its end; thirdly, it posits beauty, patriotic youth, and the 
immediateness of individuality, as the essence of mankind, 
and at last dissolves the unity of nationality in the con- 
sciousness that all nations are really one since they are all 
human beings. In the intermixture of races in the Roman 
world arises the conception of the human race, the genus 7iu- 
manum. Education had become eclectic : the Roman legions 
levelled the national distinctions. In the wavering of all 
objective morality, the necessity of self-education in order 
to the formation of character appeared ever more and more 
clearly ; but the conception, which lay at the foundation, was 
always, nevertheless, that of Roman, Greek, or German edu- 
cation. But in the midst of these nations another system had 
striven for development, and this did not base itself on the 
naturalconnection of nationality, but made this, for the first 
time, only a secondary thing, and made the direct relation 
of man to God its chief idea. In this system God himself is 
the teacher. He manifests to man His will as law, to which 
he must unconditionally conform for no other reason than that 
He is the Lord, and man His servant, who can have no other 
will than His. The obedience of man is therefore, in this sys- 
tem, abstract until through experience he gradually attains to 
the knowledge that the will of God has in it the very essence 

viii — 4 



50 System of Theocratic Education. 

of his own will. Descent, Talent, Events, Work, Beauty, Cour- 
age, — all these are indifferent things compared with the sub- 
jection of the human to the divine will. To be well-pleasing 
to God is almost the same as belief in Him. Without this 
identity, what is natural in national descent is of no value. 
According to its form of manifestation, Judaism is below the 
Greek spirit. It is not beautiful, but rather grotesque. But 
in its essence, as the religion of the contradiction between 
the idea and its existence, it goes beyond nature, which it 
perceives to be established by an absolute, conscious, and 
reasonable Will; while the Greek concealed from himself 
only mythically his dependence on nature, on his mother- 
earth. The Jews have been preserved in the midst of all 
other culture by the elastic power of the thought of God as 
One who was free from the control of nature. The Jews 
have a patriotism in common with the Romans. The Mac- 
cabees, for example, were not inferior to the Romans in 
greatness. 

— Abraham is the genuine Jew because he is the genuinely 
faithful man. He does not hesitate to obey the horrible and 
inhuman command of his God. Circumcision was made the 
token of the national unity, but the nation may assimilate 
members to itself from other nations through this rite. The 
condition always lies in belief in a spiritual relation to which 
the relation of nationality is secondary. The Jewish nation 
makes proselytes, and these are widely different from the 
Socii of the Romans or the Metoeci of the Athenians. — 

§ 228. To the man who knows Nature to be the work of 
a single, incomparable, rational Creator, she loses indepen- 
dence. He is negatively freed from her control, and sees in her 
only an absolute means. As opposed to the fanciful sensuous 
intuitions of Ethnicism, this seems to be a backward step, 
but for the emancipation of man it is a progress. He no 
longer fears Nature but her Lord, and admires Him so much 
that prose rises to the dignity of poetry in his telological 
contemplation. Since man stands over and beyond nature, 
education is directed to morality as such, and spreads itself 
out in innumerable limitations, by means of which the dis- 
tinction of man from nature is expressly asserted as a differ- 
ence. The ceremonial law appears often arbitrary, but in its 



System of Tlieocratic Education. 51 

prescriptions it gives man the satisfaction of placing himself 
as will in relation to will. For example, if he is forbidden 
to eat any specified part of an animal, the ground of this 
command is not merely natural — it is the will of the Deity. 
Man learns therefore, in his obedience to such directions, to 
free himself from his self-will, from his natural desires. This 
exact outward conformity to subjectivity is the beginning 
of wisdom, the purification of the will from all individual 
egotism. 

— The rational substance of the Law is found always in 
the Decalogue. Many of our modern much admired au- 
thors exhibit a superficiality bordering on shallowness when 
they comment alone on the absurdity of the miracles, and 
abstract from the profound depth of the moral struggle, and 
from the practical rationality of the ten commandments. — 

§ 229. Education in this theocratical system is on one side 
patriarchal. The Family is very prominent, because it is 
considered to be a great happiness for the individual to be- 
long from his very earliest life to the company of those who 
believe in the true God. On its other side it is hierarchical, 
as its ceremonial law develops a special office, which is to 
see that obedience is paid to its multifarious regulations. 
And, because these are often perfectly arbitrary, Education 
must, above all, practise the memory in learning them all, so 
that they may always be remembered. The Jewish monothe- 
ism shares this necessity with the superstition of ethnicism. 

§ 230. But the technique proper of the mechanism is not 
the most important pedagogical element of the theocracy. 
We find this in its historical significance, since its history 
throughout has a pedagogical character. For the people of 
God show us always, in their changing intercourse with their 
God, a progress from the external to the internal, from the 
lower to the higher, from the past to the future. Its history, 
therefore, abounds in situations very interesting in a peda- 
gogical point of view, and in characters which are eternal 
models. 

§ 231. (1) The will of God as the absolute authority is at 
first to them, as law, external. But soon God adds to the 
command to obedience, on one hand, the inducement of a 
promise of material prosperity, and on the other hand the 



52 System of Theocratic Education. 

threat of material punishment. The fulfilment of the law is 
also encouraged by reflection on the profit which it brings. 
But, since these motives are all external, they rise finally 
into the insight that the law is to be fulfilled, not on their 
account, but because it is the will of the Lord; not alone be- 
cause it is conducive to our happiness, but also because it is 
in itself holy, and written in our hearts : in other words, man 
proceeds from the abstract legality, through the reflection of 
eudremonism, to the internality of moral sentiment — the 
course of all education. 

— This last stand-point is especially represented in the 
excellent Gnomic of Jesus Sirach — a book so rich in pedago- 
gical insight, which paints with master-strokes the relations 
of husband and wife, parents and children, master and ser- 
vants, friend and friend, enemy and enemy, and the dignity 
of labor as well as the necessity of its division. This price- 
less book forms a side-piece from the theocratic stand-point 
to the Republic of Plato and his laws on ethical govern- 
ment. — 

§ 232. (2) The progress from the lower to the higher ap- 
peared in the conquering of the natural individuality. Man, 
as the servant of Jehovah, must have no will of his own ; but 
selfish naturalness arrayed itself so much the more vigor- 
ously against the abstract "Thou shalt," allowed itself to 
descend into an abstraction from the Law, and often reached 
the most unbridled extravagance. But since the Law in 
inexorable might always remained the same, always per- 
sistent, in distinction from the inequalities of the deed of 
man, it forced him to come back to it, and to conform him- 
self to its demands. Thus he learned criticism, thus he rose 
from naturalness into spirit. This progress is at the same 
time a progress from necessity to freedom, because criticism 
always gradually opens a way for man into insight, so 
that he finds the will of God to be the truth of his own self- 
determination. Because God is one and absolute, there arises 
the expectation that His Will will become the basis for the 
will of all nations and men. The criticism of the understand- 
ing must recognize a contradiction in the fact that the will of 
the true God is the law of only one nation ; feared by other 
nations, moreover, by reason of their very worship of God as 



System of Humanitarian Education. 53 

a gloomy mystery, and detested as odium generis humani. 
And thus is developed the thought that the isolation of the 
believers will come to an end as soon as the other nations 
recognize their faith as the true one, and are received into it. 
Thus here, out of the deepest penetration of the soul into 
itself, as among the Romans out of the fusion of nations, we 
see appear the idea of the human race. 

§ 233. (3) The progress from the past to the future unfolded 
the ideal servant of God who fulfils all the Law, and so blots 
out the empirical contradiction that the "Thou shalt" of the 
Law attains no adequate actuality. This Prince of Peace, 
who shall gather all nations under his banner, can therefore 
have no other thing predicated of him than Holiness. He 
is not beautiful as the Greeks represented their ideal, not 
brave and practical as was the venerated Virtus of the 
Romans; he does not place an infinite value on his indi- 
viduality as the German does : but he is represented as in- 
significant in appearance, as patient, as humble, as he who, 
in order to reconcile the world, takes upon himself the infir- 
mities and disgrace of all others. The ethnical nations have 
only a lost Paradise behind them ; the Jews have one also 
before them. From this belief in the Messiah who is to come, 
from the certainty which they have of conquering with him, 
from the power of esteeming all things of small importance 
in view of such a future, springs the indestructible nature of 
the Jews. They ignore the fact that Christianity is the ne- 
cessary result of their own history. As the nation that is 
to be (des Seinsollens), they are merely a historical nation, 
the nation among nations, whose education — whenever the 
Jew has not changed and corrupted its nature through mod- 
ern culture — is still always patriarchal, hierarchal, and mne- 
monic. 

Third Division. 
THE SYSTEM OF HUMANITARIAN EDUCATION. 

§ 234. The systems of national and theocratic education 
came to the same result, though by different ways, and this 
result is the conception of a human race in the unity of which 
the distinctions of different nations find their Truth. But 
with them this result is only a conception, being a thing 
external to their actuality. They arrive at the painting of an 



54 System of Humanitarian Education. 

ideal of the way in which the Messiah shall come. But these 
ideals exist only in the mind, and the actual condition of the 
people sometimes does not correspond to them at all, and 
sometimes only very relatively. The idea of spirit had in 
these presuppositions the possibility of its concrete actuali- 
zation ; one individual man must become conscious of the 
universality and necessity of the will as being the very es- 
sence of his own freedom, so that all heteronomy should be 
cancelled in the autonomy of spirit. Natural individuality 
appearing as national determinateness was still acknowl- 
edged, but was deprived of its abstract isolation. The divine 
authority of the truth of the individual will is to be recog- 
nized, but at the same time freed from its estrangement 
towards itself. While Christ was a Jew and obedient to the 
divine Law, he knew himself as the universal man who deter- 
mines himself to his own destiny ; and while only distin- 
guishing God, as subject, from himself, yet holds fast to the 
unity of man and God. The system of humanitarian educa- 
tion began to unfold from this principle, which no longer 
accords the highest place to the natural unity of national 
individuality, nor to the abstract obedience of the command 
of God, but to that freedom of the soul which knows itself 
to be absolute necessity. Christ is not a mere ideal of the 
thought, but is known as a living member of actual history, 
whose life, sufferings and death for freedom form the secu- 
rity as to its absolute justification and truth. The esthetic, 
philosophical, and political ideal are all found in the univer- 
sal nature of the Christian ideal, on which account no one of 
them appears one-sided in the life of Christ. The principle 
of Human Freedom excludes neither art, nor science, nor 
political feeling. 

§ 28."). In its conception of man the humanitarian education 
includes both the national divisions and the subjection of all 
men to the divine law, but it will no longer endure that one 
should grow into an isolating exclusiveness, and another 
into a despotism which includes in it somewhat of the acci- 
dental. But this principle of humanity and human nature 
took root so slowly that its presuppositions were repeated 
within itself and were really conquered in this reproduction. 
These stages of culture were the Greek, the Roman, and the 



Epoch of Monkish Education. 55 

Protestant churches, and education was metamorphosed to 
suit the formation of each of these. 

— For the sake of brevity we would wish to close with these 
general definitions ; the unfolding of their details is inti- 
mately bound up with the history of politics and of civiliza- 
tion. We shall be contented if we give correctly the general 
whole. — 

§ 236. Within education we can distinguish three epochs : 
the monkish, the chivalric, and that education which is to fit 
one for civil life. Each of these endeavored to express all 
that belonged to humanity as such ; but it was only after the 
recognition of the moral nature of the Family, of Labor, of 
Culture, and of the conscious equal title of all men to their 
rights, that this became really possible. 

I. The Epoch of Monkish Education. 

§ 237. The Greek Church seized the Christian principle 
still abstractly as deliverance from the world, and therefore, 
in the education proceeding from it, it arrived only at the 
negative form, positing the universality of the individual 
man as the renunciation of self. In the dogmatism of its 
teaching, as well as in the ascetic severity of its practical con- 
duct, it was a reproduction of the theocratic principle. But 
when this had assumed the form of national centralization, 
the Greek Church dispensed with this, and, as far as regards 
its form, it returned again to the quietism of the Orient. 

§ 238. The monkish education is in general identical in all 
religions, in that, through the egotism of its way of living and 
the stoicism of its way of thinking, through the separation 
of its external existence and the mechanism of a thoughtless 
subjection to a general rule as well as to the special com- 
mand of superiors, it fosters a spiritual and bodily dulness. 
The Christian monachism, therefore, as the fulfilment of 
monachism in general, is at the same time its absolute dis- 
solution, because, in its merely abstracting itself from the 
world instead of affirmatively conquering it, it contradicts 
the very principle of Christianity. 

§ 239. We must notice as the fundamental error of this 

whole system, that it does not in free individuality seek to 

•produce the ideal of divine-humanity, but to copy in exter- 



56 Epoch of Monkish Education. 

nal reproduction its historical manifestation. Each human 
being must individually offer up as sacrifice his own indivi- 
duality. Each biography has its Bethlehem, its Tabor, and 
its Golgotha. 

§ 240. Monachism looks upon freedom from one's self and 
from the world which Christianity demands only as an ab- 
stract renunciation of self, which it seeks to compass, like 
Buddhism, by the vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience, 
which must be taken by each individual for all time. 

— This rejection of property, of marriage, and of self-will, 
is at the same time the negation of work, of the family, and 
of responsibility for one's actions. In order to avoid the 
danger of avarice and covetousness, of sensuality and of 
nepotism, of error and of guilt, monachism seizes the conve- 
nient way of abstract severance from all the objective world 
without being able fully to carry out this negation. Monkish 
Pedagogics must, in consequence, be very particular about 
an external separation of their disciples from the world, so 
as to make the work of abstraction from the world easier and 
more decided. It therefore builds cloisters in the solitude of 
deserts, in the depth of forests, on the summits of mountains, 
and surrounds them with high walls having no apertures ; 
and then, so as to carry the isolation of the individual to its 
farthest possible extreme it constructs, within these cloisters, 
cells, in imitation of the ancient hermits — a seclusion the im- 
mediate consequence of which is the most limitless and most 
paltry curiosity. — 

§ 241. Theoretically the monkish Pedagogics seeks, by 
means of the greatest possible silence, to place the soul in a 
state of spiritual immobility, which at last, through the want 
of all variety of thought, goes over into entire apathy, and 
antipathy towards all intellectual culture. The principal 
feature of the practical culture consists in the misapprehen- 
sion that one should ignore Nature, instead of morally freeing 
himself from her control. As she again and again asserts 
herself, the monkish discipline proceeds to misuse her, and 
strives through fasting, through sleeplessness, through vol- 
untary self-inflicted pain and martyrdom, not only to subdue 
the wantonness of the flesh, but to destroy the love of life 
till it shall become a positive loathing of existence. In and 



Epoch of Chivalric Education. 57 

for itself the object of the monkish vow — property, the fami- 
ly, and will — is not immoral. The vow is, on this account, 
very easy to violate. In order to prevent all temptation to 
this, monkish Pedagogics invents a system of supervision, 
partly open, partly secret, which deprives one of all freedom 
of action, all freshness of thinking and of willing, and all 
poetry of feeling, by means of the perpetual shadow of spies 
and informers. The monks are well-versed in all police- 
arts, and the regular succession of the hierarchy spurs them 
on always to distinguish themselves in them. 

§ 242. The gloomy breath of this education penetrated all 
the relations of the Byzantine State. Even the education of 
the emperor was infected by it; and in the strife for freedom 
waged by the modern Greeks against the Turks, the Igumeni 
of the cloisters were the real leaders of the insurrection. The 
independence of individuality, as opposed to monkish ab- 
straction, more or less degenerates into the crude form of 
soldier and pirate life. And thus it happened that this prin- 
ciple was not left to appear merely as an exception, but to 
be built up positively into humanity ; and this the German 
world, under the guidance of the Roman Church, undertook 
to accomplish. 

II. The Epoch of Chivalric Education. 

§ 243. The Romish Church negated the abstract substan- 
tiality of the Greeks through the practical aim which she in 
her sanctity in works founded, and by means of which she 
raised up German individuality to the idealism of chivalry, 
i.e. a free military service in behalf of Christendom. 

§ 244. It is evident that the system of monkish education 
was taken up into this epoch as one of its elements, being 
modified to conform to it : e.g. the Benedictines were accus- 
tomed to labor in agriculture and in the transcribing of 
books, and this contradicted the idea of monachism, since 
that in and for itself tends to an absolute forgetf ulness of the 
world and a perfect absence of all activity in the individual. 
The begging orders were public preachers, and made popu- 
lar the idea of love and unselfish devotion to others. They 
labored toward self-education, especially by means of the 
ideal of the life of Christ ; e.g. in Tauler's classical book on 



58 Epoch of Chwalric Education. 

the Imitation of Jesus, and in the work of Thomas-a-Kempis 
which resembles it. Through a fixed contemplative com- 
munion with the conception of the Christ who suffered and 
died for Love, they sought to find content in divine rest and 
self-abandonment. 

§ 245. German chivalry sprang from Feudalism. The edu- 
cation of those pledged to military duty had become confined 
to practice in the use of arms. The education of the chivalric 
vassals pursued the same course, refining it gradually through 
the influence of court society and through poetry, which 
devoted itself either to the relating of graceful tales which 
were really works of art, or to the glorification of woman. 
Girls were brought up without especial care. The boy until 
he was seven years old remained in the hands of women ; 
then he became a lad (a young gentleman), and learned the 
manner of offensive and defensive warfare, on foot and on 
horseback ; between his sixteenth and eighteenth year, 
through a formal ceremony (the laying on of the sword), he 
was duly authorized to bear arms. But whatever besides 
this he might wish to learn was left to his own caprice. 

§ 246. In contradistinction to the monkish education. Chi- 
valry placed an infinite value on individuality, and this it 
expressed in its extreme sensibility to the feeling of honor. 
Education, on this account, endeavored to foster this reflec- 
tion of the self upon itself by means of the social isolation 
in which it placed knighthood. The knight did not delight 
himself with common possessions, but he sought for him 
who had been wronged, since with him he could find enjoy- 
ment as a conqueror. He did not live in simple marriage, 
but strove for the piquant pleasure of making the wife of 
another the lady of his heart, and this often led to moral and 
physical infidelity. And, finally, the knight did not obey 
alone the general laws of knightly honor, but he strove, be- 
sides, to discover for himself strange things, which he should 
undertake with his sword, in defiance of all criticism, sim- 
ply because it pleased his caprice so to do. He sought ad- 
ventures. 

§ 247. The reaction against the innumerable number of 
fantastic extravagancies arising from chivalry was the idea 
of the spiritual chivalry which was to unite the cloister and 



Education for Glml Life. 59 

the town, abstract self-denial and military life, separation 
from the world and the sovereignty of the world — an unde- 
niable advance, but un untenable synthesis which could not 
prevent the dissolution of chivalry — this chivalry, which, as 
the rule of the stronger, induced for a long time the destruc- 
tion of all regular culture founded on principles, and brought 
a period of absence of all education. In this perversion of 
chivalry to a grand vagabondism, and even to robbery, noble 
souls often rushed into ridiculous excesses. This decline of 
chivalry found its truth in Citizenship, whose education, how- 
ever, did not, like the Tzbhz and the civitas of the ancients, 
limit itself to itself, but, through the presence of the princi- 
ple of Christianity, accepted the whole circle of humanity as 
the aim of its culture. 

III. The Epoch of Education fitting one for Civil Life. 

§ 248. The idea of the State had gradually worked itself 
up to a higher plane with trade and industry, and found in 
Protestantism its spiritual confirmation. Protestantism, as 
the self assurance of the individual that he was directly 
related to God without any dependence on the mediation of 
any man, rose to the truth in the autonomy of the soul, and 
began out of the abstract phantasmagoria of monaehism and 
chivalry to develope Christianity, as the principle of humani- 
tarian education, into concrete actuality. The cities were 
not merely, in comparison with the clergy and the nobility, 
the " third estate"; but the citizen who himself managed his 
commonwealth, and defended its interests with arms, devel- 
oped into the citizen of a state which absorbed the clergy and 
nobility, and the state-citizen found his ultimate ideal in pure 
Humanity as cognized through reason. 

§ 249. The phases of this development are (1) Civil edu- 
cation as such, in which we find chivalric education meta- 
morphosed into the so-called noble, both however being 
controlled as to education, within Catholicism by Jesuitism, 
within Protestantism by Pietism. (2) Against this tendency 
to the church, we find reacting on the one hand the devotion 
to a study of antiquity, and on the other the friendly alli- 
ance to immediate actuality, i.e. with Nature. We can 
name these periods of Pedagogics those of its ideals of 



60 Civil Education. 

culture. (3) But the truth of all culture must forever re- 
main moral freedom. After Education had arrived at a 
knowledge of the meaning of Idealism and Realism, it must 
seize as its absolute aim the moral emancipation of man 
into Humanity ; and it must conform its culture by this aim, 
since technical dexterity, friendly adroitness, proficiency in 
the arts, and scientific insight, can attain to their proper rank 
only through moral purity. 

1. Civil Education as such. 

§ 250. The one-sidedness of monkish and chivalric educa- 
tion was cancelled by civil education inasmuch as it de- 
stroyed the celibacy of the monk and the estrangement of 
the knight from his family, doing this by means of the inner 
life of the family ; for it substituted, in the place of the nega- 
tive emptiness of the duty of holiness of the celibate, the 
positive morality of marriage and the family ; while, instead 
of the abstract poverty and the idleness of the monkish piety 
and of knighthood, it asserted that property was the object of 
labor, i.e. it asserted the self-governed morality of civil so- 
ciety and of commerce ; and, finally, instead of the servitude 
of the conscience in unquestioning obedience to the command 
of others, and instead of the freakish self-sufficiency of the 
caprice of the knights, it demanded obedience to the laws of 
the commonwealth as representing his own self-conscious, 
actualized, practical Reason, in which laws the individual 
can recognize and acknowledge himself. 

— As this civil education left free the sensuous enjoyment, 
freedom in this was without bounds for a time, until, after 
men became accustomed to labor and to their freedom of 
action, the possibility of enjoyment created from within out- 
ward a moderation which sumptuary laws and prohibitions 
of gluttony, drunkenness, &c, could never create from the 
external side. What the monk inconsistently enjoyed with 
a bad conscience, the citizen and the clergyman could 
take possession of as a gift of God. After the first millen- 
nium of Christianity, when the earth had not, according to 
the current prophecies, been destroyed, and after the great 
plague in the fourteenth century, there was felt an im- 
mense pleasure in living, which manifested itself externally 



Civil Education. 61 

in the fifteenth century in delicate wines, dainty food, great 
eating of meat, drinking of beer, and, in the domain of dress, 
in peaked shoes, plumes, golden chains, bells, &c. There was 
much venison, but, as yet, no potatoes, tea and coffee, &c. 
The feeling of men was quarrelsome. For a more exact 
painting of the Education of this time, very valuable au- 
thors are Sebastian Brant, Th. Murner, Ulrich von Hutten, 
Fischart, and Hans Sachs. Gervinus is almost the only one 
who has understood how to make this material useful in its 
relation to spirit. — 

§251. In contrast with the heaven-seeking of the monks 
and the sentimental love-making of the knight, civil educa- 
tion established, as its principle, Usefulness, which traced out 
in things their conformity to a proposed end in order to gain 
as great a mastery over them as possible. The understand- 
ing was trained with all exactness that it might clearly seize 
all the circumstances. But since family-life did not allow the 
egotism of the individual ever to become as great as was the 
case with the monk and the knight, and since the cheer of a 
sensuous enjoyment in cellar and kitchen, in clothing and 
furniture, in common games and in picturesque parades, 
penetrated the whole being with soft pleasure, there was de- 
veloped with all propriety and sobriety a house-morality, 
and, with all the prose of labor, a warm and kindly disposi- 
tion, which left room for innocent merriment and roguery, 
and found, in conformity to religious services, its serious 
transfiguration. Beautiful burgher-state, thou wast weak- 
ened by the thirty years' war, and hast been only acciden- 
tally preserved sporadically in Old England and in some 
places in Germany, only to be at last swept away by the 
flood of modern world-pain, political sophistry, and anxiety 
for the future ! 

§ 252. The citizen paid special attention to public educa- 
tion, heretofore wholly dependent upon the church and the 
cloister ; he organized city schools, whose teachers, it is true, 
for a long time compassed only accidental culture, and were 
often employed only for tumultuous and short terms. The 
society of the brotherhood of the Hieronymites introduced a 
better system of instruction before the close of the fourteenth 
century, but education had often to be obtained from the so- 



62 Civil Education. 

called travelling scholars (vag 'antes, bacchantes, scJiolastici, 
goliardl). The teachers of the so-called scholar exteriores, 
in distinction from the schools of the cathedral and cloister, 
were called now locati, then stampuales — in German, Kinder- 
Meister. The institution of German schools soon followed 
the Latin city schools. In order to remove the anarchy in 
school matters, the citizens aided the rise of universities by 
donations and well-invested funds, and sustained the street- 
singing of the city scholars (currende), an institution which 
was well-meant, but which often failed of its end because on 
the one hand it was often misused as a mere means of sub- 
sistence, and on the other hand the sense of honor of those 
to whom it was devoted not unfrequently became, through 
their manner of living, lowered to humiliation. The defect 
of the monkish method of instruction became ever more 
apparent, e.g. the silly tricks of their mnemotechnique, the 
utter lack of anything which deserved the name of any prac- 
tical knowledge, &c. The necessity of instruction in the use 
of arms led to democratic forms. Printing favored the same. 
Men began to concern themselves about good text-books. 
Melanchthon was the hero of the Protestant world, and as a 
pattern was beyond his time. His Dialectics, Rhetoric, Phys- 
ics, and Ethics, were reprinted innumerable times, comment- 
ed upon, and imitated. After him Amos Comenius, in the 
seventeenth century, had the greatest influence through his 
Didactica Magna and his Janua Reserta. In a narrower 
sphere, treating of the foundation of Gymnasial Philology, 
the most noticeable is Sturm of Strasburg. The universities 
in Catholic countries limited themselves to the Scholastic 
Philosophy and Theology, together with which we find 
slowly struggling up the Roman Law and the system of 
Medicine from Bologna and Salerno. But Protestantism first 
raised the university to any real universality. Tubingen, 
Konigsberg, Wittenberg, Jena, Leipzic, Halle, Gottingen, 
&c, were the first schools for the study of all sciences, and 
for their free and productive pursuit. 

§ 253. The Commons, which at first appeared with the clergy 
and the nobility as the Third Estate, formed an alliance with 
monarchy, and both together produced a transformation of 
the chivalric education. Absolutism reduced the knights to 



Civil Education. 63 

mere nobles, to whom it truly conceded the prerogative of 
appointment as spiritual prelates as well as officers and coun- 
sellors of state, but only on the condition of the most com- 
plete submission ; and then, to satisfy them, it invented the 
artificial drinking festivals, of a splendid life at court, and a 
temptingly-impressive sovereignty of beauty. In this condi- 
tion, the education of the nobles was essentially changed in 
so far as to cease to be alone military. To the art of war, 
which moreover was made so very much milder by the inven- 
tion of fire-arms, must be now added an activity of the mind 
which could no longer dispense with some knowledge of 
History, Heraldry, Genealogy, Literature, and Mythology. 
Since the French nation soon enough gave tone to the style 
of conversation, and after the time of Louis XIV. controlled 
the politics of the continent, the French language, as conven- 
tional and diplomatic, became a constant element in the edu- 
cation of the nobility in all the other countries of Europe. 

— Practically the education of the noble endeavored to 
make the individual quite independent, so that he should, by 
means of the important quality of an advantageous personal 
appearance and the prudence of his agreeable behavior, 
make himself into a ruler of all other men, capable of enjoy- 
ing his own position, i.e. he should copy in miniature the 
manners of an absolute sovereign. To this was added an 
empirical knowledge of men by means of ethical maxims, so 
that they might discover the weak side of every man, and 
so be able to outwit him. Mundus vult declpi, ergo deci- 
piatur. According to this, every man had his price. They 
did not believe in the Nemesis of a divine destiny ; on the 
contrary, disbelief in the higher justice was taught. One 
must be so elastic as to suit himself to all situations, and, 
as a caricature of the ancient ataraxy, he must acquire as a 
second nature a manner perfectly indifferent to all changes, 
the impassibility of an aristocratic repose, the amphibious 
sang-froid of the " gentleman." The man in the world as the 
man of the world sought his ideal in endless dissimulation, 
and in this, as the flowering of his culture, he took the high- 
est interest. Intrigue, in love as well as in politics, was the 
soul of the nobleman's existence. 

— They endeavored to complete the refinement of manners 



64 Jesuitic Education. 

by sending the young man away with a travelling tutor. 
This was very good, but degenerated at last into the mechan- 
ism of the foolish travelling of the tourist. The noble was 
made a foreigner, a stranger to his own country, by means 
of his abode at Paris or Venice, while the citizen gradually 
outstripped him in genuine culture. 

§ 254. The education of the citizen as well as that of the 
noble was taken possession of, in Catholic countries by the 
Jesuits, in Protestant countries by the Pietists : by the first, 
with a military strictness ; by the second, in a social and 
effeminate form. Both, however, agreed in destroying indi- 
viduality, inasmuch as the one degraded man into a will-less 
machine for executing the commands of others, and the other 
deadened him in cultivating the feeling of his sinful worth- 
lessness. 

(a) Jesuitic Education. 

§ 255. Jesuitism combined the maximum of worldly free- 
dom with an appearance of the greatest piety. Proceeding 
from this stand-point, it devoted itself in education to, ele- 
gance and showy knowledge, to diplomacy and what was 
suitable and convenient in morals. To bring the future more 
into its power, it adapted itself not only to youth in general, 
but especially to the youth of the nobler classes. To please 
these, the Jesuits laid great stress upon a fine deportment. 
In their colleges dancing and fencing were well-taught. They 
knew how well they should by this course content the noble, 
who had by preference usurped the name of Education for 
this technical way of giving formal expression to personality. 

— In instruction they developed so exact a mechanism that 
they gained the reputation of having model school regula- 
tions, and even Protestants sent their children to them. From 
the close of the sixteenth century to the present time they 
have based their teaching upon the ratio et institutio Stu- 
diorum Soeietatis Jesu of Claudius Aquaviva, and, following 
that, they distinguish two courses of teaching, a higher and 
a lower. The lower included nothing but an external knowl- 
edge of the Latin language, and some fortuitous knowledge 
of History, of Antiquities, and of Mythology. The memory 
was cultivated as a means of keeping down free activity of 
thought and clearness of judgment. The higher course com- 



Jesuitic Education. 65 

prehended Dialectics, Rhetoric, Physics, and Morals. Dia- 
lectics appeared in the form of Sophistry. In Rhetoric, they 
favored the polemical-emphatic style of the African fathers 
of the Church and their pompous phraseology ; in Physics, 
they stopped with Aristotle, and especially advised the read- 
ing of the books De Oeneratione et Corruptione, and De 
Casio, on which they commented after their fashion ; finally, 
in Morals casuistic skepticism was their central point. They 
made much of Rhetoric on account of their sermons, giving 
to it much attention, and introduced especially Declamation. 
Contriving showy public examinations under the guise of 
Latin School Comedies, they thus amused the public, dis- 
posed them to approval, and at the same time quite inno- 
cently practised the pupil in dissimulation. 

— Diplomacy in behavior was made necessary to the Jesuits 
as well by their strict military discipline as by their system 
of reciprocal mistrust, espionage, and informing. Abstract 
obedience was a reason for any act of the pupils, and they 
were freed from all responsibility as to its moral justifica- 
tion. This empirical exact following out of all commands, 
and refraining from any criticism as to principles, created a 
moral indifference, and, from the necessity of having consid- 
eration for the peculiarities and caprices of the superior on 
whom all others were dependent, arose eye-service, and the 
coldness of isolation sprang from the necessity which each 
felt of being on his guard against every other as against a 
tale-bearer. The most deliberate hypocrisy and pleasure in 
intrigue merely for the sake of intrigue — this most refined 
poison of moral corruption — were the result. Jesuitism had 
not only an interest in the material profit, which, when it 
had corrupted souls, fell to its share, but it also had an inter- 
est in the process of corruption. With absolute indifference 
as to the idea of morality, and absolute indifference as to the 
moral quality of the means used to attain its end, it rejoiced 
in the superiority of secrecy, of the accomplished and cal- 
culating understanding, and in deceiving the credulous by 
means of its graceful, seemingly-perfect, moral language. 

— It is not necessary to speak here of the morality of the 
Order. It is sufficiently recognized as the contradiction, that 
the idea of morality insists upon the eternal necessity of 

viii — 5 



66 Pietistic Education. 

every deed, but that in the realizing of the action all deter- 
minations should be made relative and should vary with the 
circumstances. As to discipline, they were always guided 
by their fundamental principle, that body and soul, as in and 
for themselves one, could vicariously suffer for each other. 
Thus penitence and contrition were transformed into a 
perfect materialism of outward actions, and hence arose the 
punishments of the Order, in which fasting, scourging, im- 
prisonment, mortification, and death, were formed into a 
mechanical artificial system. 

(b) Pietistic Education. 

§ 256. Jesuitism would make machines of man, Pietism 
would dissolve him in the feeling of his sinfulness : either 
would destroy his individuality. Pietism proceeded from 
the principle of Protestantism, as, in the place of the Catholic 
Pelagianism with its sanctification by works, it offered justi- 
cation by faith alone. In its tendency to internality was its 
just claim. It would have even the letters of the Bible trans- 
lated into the vivacity of sentiment. But in its execution it 
fell into the error of one-sidedness in that it placed, instead 
of the actuality of the spirit and its freedom, the confusion of 
a limited personality, placing in its stead the personality of 
Christ in an external manner, and thus brought back into the 
very midst of Protestantism the principle of monachism — an 
abstract renunciation of the world. Since Protestantism has 
destroyed the idea of the cloister, it could produce estrange- 
ment from the world only by exciting public opinion against 
such elements of society and culture which it stigmatized as 
worldly for its members, e.g. card-playing, dancing, the thea- 
tre, &c. Thus it became negatively dependent upon works ; 
for since its followers remained in reciprocal action with the 
world, so that the temptation to backsliding was a perma- 
nent one, it must watch over them, exercise an indispensable 
moral-police control over them, and thus, by the suspicion of 
each other which was involved, take up into itself the Jesuit- 
ical practice, although in a very mild and affectionate way. 
Instead of the forbidden secrecy of the cloister, it organized 
a separate company, which we, in its regularly constituted 
assembly, call a conventicle. Instead of the cowl, it put on 



The Ideal of Culture. 67 

its youth a dress like that of the world, but scant and ashen- 
colored ; it substituted for the tonsure closely-cut hair and 
shaven beard, and it often went beyond the obedience of 
the monks in its expression of pining humility and prud 
ish composure. Education within such a circle could not 
well recognize nature and history as manifestations of God, 
but it must consider them to be limitations to their union 
with God, from which death can first then completely release 
them. The soul which knew that its home could be found 
only in the future world, must feel itself to be a stranger 
upon the earth, and from such an opinion there must arise 
an indifference and even a contempt for science and art, as 
well as an aversion for a life of active labor, though an un- 
willing and forced tribute might be paid to it. Philosophy 
especially was to be shunned as dangerous. Birjle lectures, 
the catechism and the hymn-book, were the one thing need- 
ful to the "poor in spirit." Religious poetry and music were, 
of all the arts, the only ones deserving of any cultivation. The 
education of Pietism endeavored, by means of a carefully 
arranged series of representations, to create in its disciples 
the feeling of their absolute nothingness, vileness, godless- 
ness, and abandonment by God, in order to displace the tor- 
ment of despair as to themselves and the world by a warm, 
dramatic, and living relation to Christ — a relation in which 
all the Eroticism of the mystical passion of the begging- friars 
was renewed in a somewhat milder form and with a strong 
tendency to a sentimental sweetishness. 

2. The Ideal of Culture. 

§ 257. Civil Education arose from the recognition of mar- 
riage and the family, of labor and enjoyment, of the equality 
of all before the Law, and of the duty of self-determination. 
Jesuitism in the Catholic world and Pietism in the Protestant 
were the reaction against this recognition — a return into the 
abstract asceticism of the middle ages, not however in its 
purity, but mixed with some regard for worldly possessions. 
In opposition to this reaction the commonwealth produced 
another, in which it undertook to deliver individuality by 
means of a reversed alienation. On the one hand, it absorbed 
itself in the conception of the Greek-Roman world. In the 



68 The Humanitarian Ideal. 

practical interests of the present, it externalized man in a 
past which held to the present no immediate relation, or it 
externalized him in the affairs which were to serve him as 
means of his comfort and enjoyment; it created an abstract 
idealism — a reproduction of the old view of the world — or an 
abstract Realism in a high appreciation of things which 
should be considered of value only as a means. In one direc- 
tion, Individuality proceeded towards a dead nationality ; in 
the other, towards an unlimited world-commonwealth. In 
one case, the ideal was the aesthetic republicanism of the 
Greeks ; in the other, the utilitarian cosmopolitanism of the 
Romans. But, in considering the given circumstances, both 
united in the feeling of humanity, with its reconciliatory and 
pitying gentleness toward the beggar or the criminal. 

(a) The Humanitarian Ideal. 

§ 258. The Oriental-theocratic education is immanent in 
Christian education through the Bible. Through the media- 
tion of the Greek and Roman churches the views of the an- 
cient world were subsumed but not entirely subdued. To 
accomplish this was the problem of humanitarian educa- 
tion. It aimed to teach the Latin and Greek languages, 
expecting thus to secure the action of a purely humane dis- 
position. The Greeks and Romans being sharply marked 
nationalities, how could one cherish such expectations? It 
was possible only relatively in contradiction, partly to a pro- 
vincial population from whom all genuine political sense had 
departed, partly to a church limited by a confessional, to 
which the idea of humanity as such had become almost lost 
in dogmatic fault-findings. The spirit was refreshed in the 
first by the contemplation of the pure patriotism of the an- 
cients, and in the second by the discovery of Reason among 
the heathen. In contrast to formlessness distracted by the 
want of all ideal of culture of provincialism and dogmatic 
confusions, we find the power of representation of ancient 
art. The so-called uselessness of learning dead languages 
imparted to the mind, it knew not how, an ideal drift. The 
very fact that it could not find immediate profit in its knowl- 
edge gave it the consciousness of a higher value than mate- 
rial profit. The ideal of the Humanities was the truth to 



The Philanthropic Ideal. 69 

Nature which was found in the thought-painters of the an- 
cient world. The study of language merely with regard to 
its form, must lead one involuntarily to the actual seizing of 
its content. The Latin schools were fashioned into Gymna- 
sia, and the universities contained not merely professors of 
Eloquence, but also teachers of Philology. 

(b) The Philanthropic Ideal. 

§ 259. The humanitarian tendency reached its extreme in 
the abstract forgetting of the present, and the omitting to 
notice its just claim. Man discovered at last that he was not 
at home with himself in Rome and Athens. He spoke and 
wrote Latin, if not like Cicero, at least like Muretius, but he 
often found himself awkward in expressing his meaning in 
his mother-tongue. He was often very learned, but he lacked 
judgment. He was filled with enthusiasm for the republi- 
canism of Greece and Rome, and yet at the same time was 
himself exceedingly servile to his excellent and august lords. 
Against this gradual deadening of active individuality, the 
result of a perverted study of the classics, we find now react- 
ing the education of enlightenment, which we generally call 
the philanthropic. It sought to make men friendly to the 
immediate course of the world. It placed over against the 
learning of the ancient languages for their own sake, the 
acquisition of the more needful branches of Mathematics, 
Physics, Geography, History, and the modern languages, 
calling these the real studies. Nevertheless it often retained 
the instruction in the Latin language because the Romance 
languages have sprung from it, and because, through its long 
domination, the universal terminology of Science, Art, and 
Law, is rooted in it. Philanthropy desired to develope the 
social side of its disciple through an abstract of practical 
knowledge and personal accomplishments, and to lead him 
again, in opposition to the hermit-like sedentary life of the 
book-pedant, out into the fields and the woods. It desired 
to imitate life even in its method, and to instruct pleasantly 
in the way of play or by dialogue. It would add to the sim- 
ple letters and names the contemplation of the object itself, 
or at least of its representation by pictures ; and in this di- 
rection, in the conversation-literature which it prepared for 



70 The Philanthropic Ideal. 

children, it sometimes fell into childishness. It performed 
a great service when it gave to the body its due, and intro- 
duced simple, natural dress, lbathing, gymnastics, pedestrian 
excursions, and a hardening against the influences of wind and 
weather. As this Pedagogics, so friendly to children, deemed 
that it could not soon enough begin to honor them as citizens 
of the world, it was guilty in general of the error of presup- 
posing as already finished in its children much that it itself 
should have gradually developed ; and as it wished to edu- 
cate the European as such, or rather man as such, it came 
into an indifference concerning the concrete distinctions of 
nationality and religion. It coincided with the philologists 
in placing, in a concealed way, Socrates above Christ, be- 
cause he had worked no miracles, and taught only morality. 
In such a dead cosmopolitanism, individuality disappeared 
in the indeterminateness of a general humanity, and saw 
itself forced to agree with the humanistic education in pro- 
claiming the truth of Nature as the pedagogical ideal, with 
the distinction, that while Humanism believed this ideal real- 
ized in the Greeks and Romans, Philanthropism found itself 
compelled to presuppose an abstract notion, and often mani- 
fested a not unjustifiable pleasure in recognizing in the Indi- 
ans of North America, or of Otaheite, the genuine man of 
nature. Philosophy first raised these conceptions to the idea 
of the State, which fashioned the cognition of Reason and of 
the reform which follows from its idea, into an organic ele- 
ment in itself. 

— The course which the developing of the philanthropic 
ideal has taken is as follows : (1) Rousseau in his writings, 
Simile and the Nouvelle Heloise, first preached the evangel 
of Natural Education, the abstraction from History, the nega- 
tion of existing culture, and the return to the simplicity and 
innocence of nature. Although he often himself testified in 
his experience his own proneness to evil in a very discourag- 
ing way, he fixed as an almost unlimited axiom in French 
and German Pedagogics his principal maxim, that man is by 
nature good. (2) The reformatory ideas of Rousseau met 
with only a very infrequent and sporadic introduction among 
the Romanic nations, because among them education was 
too dependent on the church, and retained its cloister-like 



The Philanthropic Ideal. 71 

seclusion in seminaries, colleges, &c. In Germany, on the 
the contrary, it was actualized, and the Philanthropia, esta- 
blished by Basedow in Dessau, Brunswick, and Schnepfen- 
thal, made experiments, which nevertheless very soon de- 
parted somewhat from the ultraism of Basedow and had very 
excellent results. (3) Humanity existed in concreto only in 
the form of nations. The French nation, in their revolution, 
tried the experiment of abstracting from their history, of lev- 
elling all distinctions of culture, of enthroning a despotism 
of Reason, and of organizing itself as humanity, pure and 
simple. The event showed the impossibility of such a be- 
ginning. The national energy, the historical impulse, the 
love of art and science, came forth from the midst of the revo- 
lutionary abstraction, which was opposed to them, only the 
more vigorously. The grande nation, their grande armee, 
and gloire — that is to say, for France — absorbed all the 
humanitarian phases. In Germany the philanthropic circle 
of education was limited to the higher ranks. There was no 
exclusiveness in the Philanthropia, for there nobles and citi- 
zens, Catholics and Protestants, Russians and Swiss, were 
mingled ; but these were always the children of wealthy 
families, and to these the plan of education was adapted. 
Then appeared Pestalozzi and directed education also to the 
lower classes of society — those which are called, not without 
something approaching to a derogatory meaning, the people. 
From this time dates popular education, the effort for the 
intellectual and moral elevation of the hitherto neglected 
atomistic human being of the non-property-holding multi- 
tude. There shall in future be no dirty, hungry, ignorant, 
awkward, thankless, and will-less mass, devoted alone to an 
animal existence. We can never rid ourselves of the lower 
classes by having the wealthy give something, or even their 
all, to the poor, so as to have no property themselves ; but 
we can rid ourselves of it in the sense that the possibility of 
culture and independent self-support shall be open to every 
one, because he is a human being and a citizen of the com- 
monwealth. Ignorance and rudeness and the vice which 
springs from them, and the malevolent frame of mind against 
the human race, which are bound up with crime — these shall 
disappear. Education shall train man to self-conscious obe- 



72 Free Education. 

dience to law, as well as to kindly feeling towards the err- 
ing, and to an effort not merely for their removal but for their 
improvement. But the more Pestalozzi endeavored to realize 
his ideal of human dignity, the more he comprehended that 
the isolated power of a private man could not attain it, but 
that the nation itself must make their own education their 
first business. Fichte by his lectures first made the German 
nation fully accept these thoughts, and Prussia was the first 
state which, by her public schools and her conscious prepa- 
ration for defence, broke the path for National Education ; 
while among the Romanic nations, in spite of their more 
elaborate political formalism, it still depends partly upon 
the church and partly upon the accident of private enter- 
prise. Pestalozzi also laid a foundation for a national peda- 
gogical literature by his story of Leonard and Gertrude. 
This book appeared at first in 1784, i.e. in the same year in 
which Schiller's Robbers and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason 
announced a new phase in the Drama and in Philosophy. 

— The incarnation of God, which was, up to the time of the 
Reformation, an esoteric mystery of the Church, has since 
then become continually more and more an exoteric problem 

of the State. — 

3. Free Education. 

§ 260. The ideal of culture of the humanitarian and the 
philanthropic education was taken up into the conception of 
an education which recognizes the Family, social caste, the 
Nation, and Religion, as positive elements of the practical 
spirit, but which will know each of these as determined from 
within through the idea of humanity, and laid open for recip- 
rocal dialectic with the rest. Physical development shall be- 
come the subject of a national system of gymnastics fashioned 
for use, and including in itself the knowledge of the use of 
arms. Instruction shall, in respect to the general encyclopae- 
dic culture, be the same for all, and parallel to this shall run 
a system of special schools to prepare for the special avoca- 
tions of life. The method of instruction shall be the simple 
representation of the special idea of the subject, and no 
longer the formal breadth of an acquaintance with many 
subjects which may find outside the school its opportunity, 
but within it lias no meaning except as the history of a sci- 



The Grand Man. 73 

ence or an art. Moral culture must be combined with family- 
affection and the knowledge of the laws of the commonwealth, 
so that the dissension between individual morality and 
objective legality may ever more and more disappear. Edu- 
cation shall, without estranging the individual from the inter- 
nality of the family, accustom him more and more to public 
life, because criticism of this is the only thing which can 
prevent the cynicism of private life, the half-ness of knowl- 
edge and will, and the spirit of caste, which has so exten- 
sively prevailed. The individual shall be educated into a 
self-consciousness of the essential equality and freedom of 
all men, so that he shall recognize and acknowledge himself 
in each one and in all. But this essential and solid unity of 
all men shall not evaporate into the insipidity of a humanity 
without distinctions, but instead it shall realize the form of 
a determinate individuality and nationality, and shall en- 
lighten the idiosyncrasy of its nation into a broad humanity. 
The unrestricted striving after Beauty, Truth, and Freedom, 
actually through its own strength and immediately, not 
merely mediately through ecclesiastical consecration, will 
become Religion. 

The Education of the State must rise to a preparation for 
the unfettered activity of self-conscious Humanity. 



THE GRAND MAN. 

By Theron Gray. 

The phrase that leads our thought in this discussion of 
some of the affairs of experience is becoming somewhat fre- 
quent in use, and, as it is questionable whether there is a 
due appreciation of the real purport thereof, and of the prac- 
tical bearing or sway thence derived in all human conduct, 
it may be well to give it a moment's consideration. Man is 
somewhat known, we may suppose, but mostly known, doubt- 
less, in his limited, private, individual form ; in that which 
isolates or separates him from the race, rather than that 
which unites him with it. He is mostly known in extreme 
contrast — by marked distinction from his kind, instead of 
integral alliance that consolidates in firm solidity and 



74 The Grand Man. 

strength. Hence we are apt to use our best endeavors to 
prompt mr-tuous action, thus practically ignoring and nulli- 
fying the thought of a homo-geneous manhood, which alone 
can glorify virtue in a common sunshine of life — a kindred 
human fervor that shall glow and melt and mingle, and 
never languish nor fade away for want of base foil in human 
distress. 

Surely man is individual, private, or personal, as also com- 
mon, public, or social, in nature, spirit, and power. Other- 
wise there were only a blank chaos for him that must swamp 
him forever in the gloomy depths of mere brute nature. 

In order to be sure of our reckoning, and to exhibit to the 
understanding just what we understand the Grand Man to 
comprehend, let us try to properly define. 

We hold the term to mean the aggregate humanity ; man- 
kind as a unit, in nature, power, and destiny. The first seal 
to such a unit is a common origin — natural consanguinity — 
one-ness of blood. The second seal is a one-ness of spiritual 
energy, that prompts every individual of the race to press 
onward in the endeavor for fuller personal realizations in life. 
The third seal is a unity of destiny, that assures true social 
alliance, fullest opportunity and clear competence for all. 
The first is like a motionless sea, sure to become putrid if 
left thus to stagnate. The second makes a common motor 
or stimulus of action, which, although engendering painful 
turbulence of particles and seeming destruction, tends to 
work the whole body pure and good in constant use. The 
third is the inexhaustible fount or ocean, competent to satisfy 
all thirst, allay all the fevers of life, and amply to refresh 
forevermore. 

In plain terms, the first estate of mankind, as a whole, is 
one of common inheritance in native equality, practically 
void of the differential human spirit requisite to develope 
personal force, or individual character, while yet involving 
that spirit in latent form. The second is one of universal strife 
and toil under the active promptings of this involved spirit, 
and fosters continual connection and discord as means to a 
worthy end — full accordance. The third is one of rest and 
peace through perfect adjustment, by competent institutions, 
of " each with all and all with each"; making every indivi- 



The Grand Man. 75 

dual factor a firm integer to an integral public body. They 
all stand by together as successive forms of one structure ; a 
one comprising an involved primary as a ground of action, 
an evolutionary course as a process of action, and an 
evolved result as the object of such action. These are held to 
comprise the t7ietic, the antithetic, and the synthetic, aspects 
of the one. Like the order of the solar system, the first term, 
under the diction of centripetal law, tends to obliterate the 
human in the Divine ; the second term, as centrifugal, tends 
to destruction through extreme, or unqualified, self-projec- 
tion ; the third tends to a reconciliation and balance of these 
extremes in an orbitual poise that carries the perfected form 
on its own axis, in perpetual play around its Supreme Cen- 
tre, whence alone it can derive light, heat, and requisite vital 
energy. 

The elementary principles of this formula may be found 
in — first, simple unity, which buries personality in univer- 
sality; second, in duality, which separates, self-asserts, or 
immediately antagonizes universality ; third, in trinity, or 
compound unity, which unites, or reconciles, the prior con- 
trarieties in a new power of matchless worth — a power that 
orders and keeps all of the intrinsic glories of diversity in 
the supreme glory of eternal unity. 

It is clear, accordingly, that the Grand Man can only be- 
come duly conscious of himself, in external realms, through 
an experience of the third condition indicated in our formula. 
In other words, the actual, complete organization and experi- 
ence of full integral order in human affairs — of perfect society 
and fraternal alliance in all things — must be clearly effected 
before there can be due public consciousness of universal 
unity — divine social order with its boundless delights — as the 
sure vital constituent of human earthly destiny. As in the 
individual one identical life rules different eventful periods, 
and only comes to manly consciousness in the experience of 
manhood itself, so the race — humanity — slumbers long in 
prehistoric foetal environment, then emerges in a compara- 
tively helpless and innocent state of childhood, then passes 
on to the boisterous turbulence of " the coming man " in the 
spirit of the youth, and only comes to know its true objec- 
tive personality in the deliverance of a complete manhood 



76 The Grand Man. 

achieved. Extreme earthiness must be the generative initial 
of the Grand Man ; thence, for a time, comes a cradling amid 
the flowers of springtime, and bathings in the dewy breath 
of morning. Then come struggles with the sterner and more 
painful realities that beset his way and pierce and tear him, 
from which he finally emerges into an open experience of 
the sublime destination that ruled from the first, even while 
he was all unconscious of his essential Life. 

In the great march of Humanity — the Grand Man in pro- 
cess of development — Christianity answers to this third es- 
tate, and applies itself to fulfil accordingly. Yet serious 
doubts ensue and questions spring up to chafe and plague 
the sturdiest intellects till there arises a clear understanding 
of the whole ground. Unless we sharply distinguish the real 
difference between the developing process of Christianity 
and the fruitional condition wherein that development is 
consummated, we shall be found reeling somewhat beneath 
the sturdy blows of skepticism ; at least we shall, otherwise, 
be unable to justify the Christian claims on rational grounds. 
"We must know that in the race-career each distinctive form 
of human character exacts an era of growth wherein it is not 
distinctly visible in its essential character ; like the corn that 
germinates unseen in the earth, then, in higher form, is also 
covered by a course of stock-growth ; and again is hidden, in 
process of ear-growth, beneath its enveloping husk. The era 
of Christian development stands as this maturing process in 
the career of the Grand Man, while the era of accomplished 
ripeness throws down the perishable husk and exhibits the 
imperishable "corn fully ripe in the ear." Seeing this, and 
knowing that the kingdom that " shall break in pieces and 
consume all other kingdoms " hath its foundations already 
firmly fixed, only needing some proper divesting of outward 
scaffolding and rubbish, we should find ourselves duly pre- 
pared to explicate the stirring events of seeming adversity 
that transpire during the developing throes of Christian civil- 
ization, and to point the clear way to the coming Day, even 
though immediately jolted and bruised amid present tumult. 
"We should stand firmly to our task and labor as the husband- 
man, having first partaken of the fruit. We should see and 
know the risen Christ, with his great involution of "good-will 



The Grand Man. 77 

towards men, and on earth peace," to be made real through 
the supreme sway of his vital presence and power. Jesus, 
as the Christ, brought to light — personally revealed — the 
great realities that come to general consciousness in the 
actual experience of established harmony and order in hu- 
man affairs ; but those realities surely exacted the adverse 
and painful experience, in the career of the Grand Man, 
known and felt as the commotions of Christian development. 
And when such experience becomes a stumbling-block to the 
human intellect, and prompts it to question and deny the 
Christian verity itself, the need of a comprehensive intellec- 
tual poise becomes at once evident. The great law that, in 
all cases, makes the multiplication of a good in natural 
realms to depend upon a previous planting of that good there, 
and then upon a tedious experience in developing culture and 
structural effort in its behalf, before a worthy fruition can be 
had, must become apparent. Then, not only the shocking 
throes of Christian development will be found consistent, but 
its blessed promise of divine harmony and order in all earth- 
ly affairs will be not only anchored in the affections but also 
held in the intellect, as the adequate lumen on all occasions. 

Accordingly, let our vision revert briefly to the status of 
the Grand Man to-day. Let us face some of the sterner real- 
ities of experience that confront us and challenge our faith 
in both God and man, threatening social dissolution and 
decay. 

The pompous splendor of outward possession, of personal 
aggrandizement and display, so influences and commands in 
certain directions, that there is coming to be felt a fearful 
greed and an equally fearful disregard of neighborly inter- 
ests under its promptings. Ambition to outweigh and out- 
shine, in such comparatively unworthy ways, works constant 
mischief, making men unscrupulous and inhuman, even to 
the extent of the most hideous criminality in many instan- 
ces. Then, in other quarters, comes into play all the forces 
of human nature with starved appetite, claiming satisfaction 
of its wants in all its broad range ; while, amid prevailing 
antagonism of interest, competition, and especial self-asser- 
tion, hordes of such as are variously weak and less competent 
to crowd, strive, and supply wants, are prompted to seize 



78 The Grand Man. 

upon any means that seem to be available to serve, even 
though penal barriers pend at every point. Threats of dis- 
aster and death are weak where unregulated human passion 
and unrelieved natural want are in the ascendant. There is 
no ferocity more keen and relentless than that which is born 
of unrelieved human want — unregulated human nature. It 
will rage, storm, and destroy, in the endeavor to appease its 
promptings, whatever the obstacles erected or the inflictions 
threatened. It is not less determined to its native level than 
the waters in our streams ; hence, if found malarious or de- 
structive in its course, no obstructive device can long avail to 
check the flux. Only new channels — new means of expres- 
sion — will remedy the evil and secure public welfare. In 
plain words, human nature is an irrepressible force, and, if 
found expressing itself violently and harmfully when oper- 
ated by present methods, new ways should be devised and 
instituted to give more consistent expression ; thus not only 
keeping the full power as a public treasure, but securing the 
freedom and dignity of the subject. Repression by .force 
may for a time measurably check, but only perfectly ordered 
freedom will effectually cure, and thus serve both the indi- 
vidual and the public. 

The problem doubtless requires new studies and more hu- 
mane endeavors, but its solution is demanded as our only 
hope of peace and social order. Murders and every kind of 
violence are coming to be shockingly frequent. Men stand 
aghast before the floods of crime that surge upon us. When- 
ever life seems to menace passion, obstruct want, or in any 
way to thwart cherished designs, it is held to be awfully 
cheap, and is swept aside with horrid levity. Moved by all 
this, earnest, considerate minds are at least becoming duly 
inquisitive ; and not a few are at loss which most to deplore, 
the low-bred rapacity that prowls and stabs in dark alleys 
and hidden retreats, in behalf of some personal end, or the 
inhuman anger and hate poured forth on every hand, towards 
these base offenders, in supposed behalf of public interests. 
The flippancy with which hate and vengeance leap forth to 
berate the wretches betokens murderous conditions on a 
large scale, more demoralizing and deplorable, if possible, 
than those private bloody horrors that are mostly born of 



The Grand Man. 79 

degradation and prostitution of one kind or another. One is 
Murder, well-dressed, challenging public recognition and ap- 
proval — at least boldly presuming upon them ; the other is 
Murder in rags, and filth, and debauchery — self-condemned, 
and solely intent upon dodging the policeman and hangman. 

If the force thus spent in vindictive malediction were di- 
rected, instead, to a careful consideration of the motive pow- 
ers of society, with its numerous covert traps and seductive 
springs which allure and destroy human worth — Manhood — 
when it should be stimulated and supported constantly and 
on every hand, we should at once begin to breathe a new and 
reviving social atmosphere, and feel new sensations of pre- 
cious health and spirits never before imagined. Shall we 
thus begin to amend ? or, shall we go on in the vain endeavor 
to give the Grand Man the coveted rest and integrity by petty 
amputations and lacerating thrusts ? Let our answer to these 
questions take a wholesome practical turn, and all will yet 
be well. We must commence to build with strict reference 
to the End. We must shape all preliminaries by its clear 
light. Especially as a Nation planted distinctly in the prin- 
ciple of this intrinsic unity of private and public, special and 
general, personal and combined interests in a universal fra- 
ternization, we must proceed to form and conduct all of our 
civil affairs in actual consistency therewith. In this way, 
and in this way alone, may we hope to live and prosper and 
become the great nation that we must, to verify our national 
principle of " each in all and all in each." 

The initial conception of our nationality, distinctly involv- 
ing the principle of full composite order — the unity of all, in 
interest, power, and social worth — was clearly announced, 
and partially formulated in institutions, at the first ; but it 
was utterly impossible that fruition should come at the time 
of planting. A long course of faithful toil was requisite — 
labor that should truly comprehend the nature of the seed 
and the promise of the harvest, and thus insure issues in all 
respects complete. During immaturity we doubtless needed 
penal institutions and all the appendages of unripeness ; but 
they should all have been shaped accordantly with the cen- 
tral principle involved — the principle of fraternity that aimed 
at ultimate embodied or actualized fraternization. Hence the 



80 The Grand Man. 

main intent and power of all penal structures should have 
been educational and reformatory instead of repressive and 
maledictory. 

An instance comes to mind, where, almost within a stone's 
throw of our present writing, the head manager of a criminal 
institution avowed it to be his especial purpose to treat his 
subjects with such severity that they would not come back 
again to his charge. And such adverse, base conceptions 
seem mostly to rule, not only criminal administration, but 
criminal legislation. 

We have nationally sowed for a magnificent harvest ; but 
if we tread down and mutilate the crop, in rash and bungling 
impatience during our efforts to cultivate, we can hardly ex- 
pect to reap as we have sowed. Only consistent culture can 
assure the harvest. Let our statesmen, therefore, proceed to 
form and direct anew, in more strict conformity to the de- 
mands of our national genius, and so correct those flagrant 
violations that frustrate our national hopes and tend to de- 
struction. Neither true heart nor head will counsel any sen- 
timental folly that would shelter social offenders from stern 
tutelage. Those criminally offensive, and in any way adverse 
to tolerable social order, must be held to courses of tutelage 
as constant and true as our heart-throbs ; and with equally 
constant purpose to purify the particles, and send health, 
vigor, and the ruddiest glow of a common life, throughout 
the whole system. Until we do thus conform to the national 
pledge and the national demands we shall be in constant peril 
of national destruction, and shall continue to be played 
upon by dire inflictions to the end. We may easily avert 
such evils by projecting institutions — tutelary and educa- 
tional — strictly conforming to the commanding national 
thought, being sure to have them faithfully administered 
accordingly. 

Nothing could prompt us to present or urge useless inno- 
vations or impracticable measures. All seeming urgency 
proceeds solely upon such a knowledge of the constitutional 
law, developing law, and finally organizing law of social or- 
der, as leaves one no option as to the choice of action in the 
case. With Paul we feel under bonds to say some word, 
duly authorized, to disturb prevailing lethargy, and arouse 



The Grand Man. 81 

statesmen and moralists from their present state of alarming 
mental photopsia. It is not that present institutions are too 
lax or unexacting in their aims at a tolerable order, but 
that they are largely mistaken and inefficient ; which prompts 
criticism and protest and a call for reform. They "carry us 
into captivity, and yet require of us a song; they waste us, 
and in return expect of us mirth." 

Our institutions — at least our statesmen — do not sufficient- 
ly take into account that man is never so truly man as when 
standing in the full stature of integral freedom ; and that 
such freedom is dependent upon the attainment of fullest 
amity between the private and public man, and that all 
provisional or educational means must be strictly designed 
accordingly. True statesmanlike endeavor will at once com- 
prehend the whole situation. It will see that the grand na- 
tional mistake consisted in an attempt to ignore the demands 
of national development and culture towards an involved end 
or object, and thereupon an endeavor to enter into full occu- 
panc}^ and use, as if the full structure were accomplished 
from the first, and ready to dispense its blessings accordingly. 
The proceeding was as absurd and fruitful of disaster as were 
that of a party in want of a physical structure to shelter and 
serve him variously, who, upon securing a satisfactory plan 
and specifications, proceeds to lay the foundations, and then 
to immediate occupancy and use. True, statesmanlike vision 
will see and aim to correct this great error, though it cannot 
annul the national experience of heats and chills and stormy 
peltings already felt in consequence of the blunder. 

Thus the question constantly recurs, and demands equally 
constant consideration, how may we outgrow and amend? 
The dreadful events of our daily experience being distress- 
ingly impressive in witness of the count we make — aye, in 
witness of our utter inability to make that count in suffi- 
ciently impressive terms — there can be no room for indiffer- 
ence either in word or deed. Under God's providence the full 
remedy is possible ; aye, it is certain ; but it were better that 
it come through our intelligent cooperation than through the 
experimental bungling of mere intuitional endeavor. In the 
former case all will proceed in beautiful order and peace ; in 
the latter, in disorder and painful commotions, being attended 

viii— 6 



82 The Grand Man. 

with large breaks, or interruptions, that betoken for a time 
final failure. In order that our statesmen may more truly 
comprehend the needs, and that the promise of our republic 
may not end in such a break, let us renewedly try to outline 
the path that must be opened and faithfully trodden in order 
to plant our feet securely upon the foundations of the New 
City, wherein, alone, the Grand Man can become duly con- 
scious of ample social integrity. 

In the whole range of our national endeavor we must dis- 
pose ourselves with the docility of little children, and begin 
to study and learn anew. We must heartily turn from the 
ways and means heretofore relied upon and found impotent 
to serve, and implore God that our eyes may be opened to 
see, and our hands nerved to do, the right. We must come 
to know that life mistakenly expressed, and goring us at 
every point with its violence, cannot be righted by violence 
in return. Nor can it be repressed by any obstructive device 
that can be erected — as we ought to learn ere long. Human 
conduct may be directed or duly ordered, but can never be 
annulled or choked off — not with desired effect. Coming 
to a due sense of the truth of these allegations, a new endea- 
vor arises, and new studies begin, through which we may 
hope to conduct the human forces, that now destructively 
play upon us, into productive channels. " How V By the 
use of new institutions, graded to lit all the varying needs — 
institutions that shall reach out and humanly embrace every 
factor of the social compact that in any way inclines to de- 
bauch or to subvert the public interests. Social material, 
while yet in the rough, must be seized and firmly held, and 
properly shaped for the great structure in view. 

In agriculture, physical chemistry is coming to lend itself 
to the conversion of offensive decay and poisonous stenches 
into the priceless wealth of abundant fertilization and growth. 
It is high time that political and social science were sounding 
the depths of those matchless human chemical stores in re- 
serve, whereby present social and political filth and poison 
may as surely be transformed into means of equal produc- 
tive worth in these higher realms of life and experience. 

Perfect personal liberty is surely essential to the constitu- 
tion of the fully conscious Grand Man — to social order fully 



The Grand Man. 83 

achieved ; but the unqualified factors thereof must first be 
seized and forced, if necessary, into qualifying processes. 
They must be trained in the use of due means for manly de- 
velopment — achievement of character — and held firmly to the 
task, even if personally averse. The personal freedom of a 
partial culture may rightly be held in immediate abeyance, 
always with a view to fitting the subject for the enduring 
freedom of a perfected composite culture. Accordingly, the 
public must sternly command and direct the private force in 
all needful ways, in order to educe — educate — unfold such 
force to best purposes, and never to circumscribe or despoil 
in any way. For instance, the ballot should be withheld 
until suffrage is first qualified, measurably at least, according 
to the great behests of our national standard of intelligent 
and virtuous manhood. Not for the purpose of defrauding 
or despoiling the subject, but for the purpose of assuring his 
interests, which his own unqualified action would be quite 
sure to undermine. He were thus not a direct or active power 
in government, but none the less an indirect or passive power, 
ruling perforce of needs intelligently apprehended rather than 
by the exercise of his own unintelligent will. One involunta- 
rily shudders in view of the great peril of our nation in con- 
sequence of an attempt to realize universal suffrage ere such 
suffrage were duly qualified. Men truly enough saw that it 
was involved in our system, but failed to see that its invest- 
ing conditions must be first provided before it could prove 
safe and salutary in actual experience. 

When our legislation comes to appreciate the national 
needs and to apply itself accordingly, it will proceed to com- 
mand and organize all institutions in the clear interest of 
every citizen. It will make our national structure one great 
"ring," or organic form, that shall play upon all minor rings 
and make them all variously tributary to the highest welfare 
of every citizen. The invincible spirit of combination, orga- 
nization, association, that gives character to the present era 
and exhibits its powers in countless partial and contiicting 
organic forms or rings, must come under the diction of com- 
petent ordering and qualifying intelligence, which will give 
adequate form and augmented force thereto, thus finally ex- 
hibiting a grand national unity that shall hold and operate 



84 The Grand Man. 

every fibre of the immense system in exactest order. Initia- 
tory thereto, legislation should at once project and properly 
man a series of institutions that will tend to carry every par- 
ticle of the blood of the Grand Man into healthy circulation, 
gradually working it clear of all impurities, and giving the 
whole form the glow of immortal health and beauty. If re- 
pressive and penal institutions be kept for a time — as doubt- 
less they must — they should be ordered and conducted anew. 
Criminal offenders should be duly classified and brought 
under the play of the most ennobling incentives to manly 
conduct. Stimulating influences should be constantly made 
to bear in fostering manly endeavor and strength, and secur- 
ing actual growth and permanent reform. "PojDiilation is 
wealth," and all decimation should be carefully prevented. 
In order that such wealth be converted to highest value, the 
broad vision of ripest statesmanship must come in to devise 
and direct and construct to the sublime human ends in view. 
Social intuitions that confusedly develope and organize must 
give place to social science. Not to a merely nominal or 
miscalled social science — itself hobbling with infirmity — but 
to the clear vision that determines all previous events, and 
assures every onward and upward step in the sure light of 
the End. That End, alone, must truly determine all means; 
hence no developing nor organizing means can proceed with 
infallible effect unless such means be dictated solely by its 
ample lumen, held by the intellect as positive science. Be- 
neath its transforming rays, not only spears will be turned 
into pruning-hooks and swords into ploughshares, but crim- 
inal courts and prison-houses will gradually melt away, 
giving place to Social Directories and Reformatories, which 
again will grow into hierarchal Councils overlooking pala- 
tial homes, temples of worship, art, science, education, indus- 
try, recreation, amusements, where will centre and abide all 
the graces and delights of Divine-Human Social Order. 



( 85 ) 
LOGIC. 

IJy Joseph G. Anderson. 

Whatever exists is a thing or being. The words " thing '" 
and "being" are used convertibly. Things are of two kinds, 
Substances or beings by themselves, and Qualities or beings 
by accident or by or through another. " For Being (to ov, 
ens) is primarily divided into Being by itself (ens per se) and 
Being by accident (ens per accidens)." * 

Logic is the science of the Laws of Substances and Quali- 
ties as substances and qualities. 

Every logical term names a substance or class of substan- 
ces. A term may include in its signification all the indivi- 
duals in a class (that is, the whole class), or a part of them 
only. When all the individuals are included the term is said 
to be universal, otherwise particular. 

All substances outside of, or not belonging to, or included 
in, a class may be considered together as forming another 
class, which is the negative of the first. Hence results an 
axiomatic law : — Law I. Every class added to its negative 
equals or rather constitutes the class all substances. A 
negative class as well as a positive one may be considered 
all together or otherwise, and therefore negative terms may 
also be universal or particular in the same manner as posi- 
tive terms. 

There are, then, four classes of terms produced by this 
cross division of universal and particular, positive and nega- 
tive terms, namely, the positive universal, the negative uni- 
versal, the positive particular, and the negative particular. 

Now let capital letters be used as universal terms and 
small letters as particular terms ; let Roman letters be used 
as positive terms and Italic letters as negative terms. Thus, 
A as the positive universal term, the usual expression there- 
for being "All A"; A as the negative universal term, for 
which there is, perhaps, no exact equivalent commonly used, 
but which would mean the same as "All non-A," or "All ex- 



* Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Lojiic, p. 141. 



86 Logic. 

cept (or besides) A"; a as the positive particular, usually 
" Some A"; a as the negative particular, equivalent to "Some 
non-A," or a portion of what is outside the class A. 

The particular terms a and a are indefinite in their mean- 
ing, being equivalent to any "some A," or any part of A, and 
are accordingly used when it is wished to signify an indefinite 
part of the class A. a' and a' are used when it is desired to 
signify some definite part of the class A or the class A. 

Discretive identity is the relation which two classes bear 
to each other when the same individuals which constitute 
one constitute the other also. The whole of one class may 
be discretively identical with the whole of another or with a 
part of another, or a part with a part. Now let a colon (:) 
placed between two terms be the sign of identity — indicate 
that the classes signified are discretively identical. 

A proposition is a statement that two classes are discre- 
tively identical. 

By the various combinations of the four classes of terms, 
sixteen propositions will result as follows : 

(1) A:B, (5) A:b, (9) a:B, (13) a:b. 

(2) A:JB, (6) A: 6, (10) n:B, (14) a: b, 

(3) A:B, (7) A:h, (11) a : B, (15) fl:i>. 

(4) A:B, (8) A:b, (12) a:B, (16) a:b. 

These are all convertible. When A : B, B : A ; when A : b, 
b : A, and so throughout. It will be observed that several of 
the propositions are substantially alike and that the number 
of propositions might thus be reduced to ten ; but, for reasons 
that will appear hereafter, all are retained. 

A number of inferences, commonly called immediate, arise 
from the first twelve propositions. Of these there are two 
series. The first arise in accordance with the following ax- 
iomatic law : — Law II. When a whole class is discretively 
identical with another whole class, or with part of another 
class, then any part of the first class will be discretively 
identical with a part of the second class. 

In other words : What is true of each individual contained 
in a whole class, is also true of each individual contained in 
any part of that class. 

Applying this law to the first twelve propositions, we have 



Logic. 



87 



From 



(1) A:B, 


a:b; 


From (7) A:b, 


a:b ; 


(2) A:B, 


a.:b ; 


« (8) A:b, 


a:b ; 


(3) A:B, 


a:b ; 


« (9) a:B, 


a:b ; 


(4) A:B, 


a: J ; 


" (10) a:5, 


a:£> : 


(5) A:b, 


a : b ; 


« (11) a:B, 


a:b ; 


(6) A: b, 


a:6 ; 


" (12) a: 5, 


a:b. 



While the particular term in the last eight examples does 
not change its form, there is in reality a lessening in the 
quantity of the term exactly corresponding to that in the 
other member of the proposition. So in the other four pro- 
positions while there may be an inference drawn in the same 
manner as in the first twelve, it would produce no change of 
form in the proposition. This can be made to appear as 
follows: in the proposition a:b, let us make both terms 
definite, a': b'; now let a" be a part of a' and b" be the corre- 
sponding part of b', then we have the inference from a': b', 
a":b". 

The second series of inferences arise in accordance with 
the following laws : 

Law III. When a whole class is discretively identical with 
another whole class, the whole of the negative of the first 
class will be discretively- identical with the whole of the 
negative of the second class. 

Law IV. When a whole class is discretively identical with 
a part of another class, then a part of the negative of the first 
class is discretively identical with the whole of the negative 
of the second class. 

These laws are demonstrated as follows : 

Law III. When A:B, A:B. 

Lot Z be all substances : 
Then A-f-^4:Z, by Law I. ; 
but A : B, 
therefore B+A-.Z. 

ButB-\-B:Z, 
therefore A : B. 

A-f^LB-f.B, by Law I. 

Dropping A from one side, and its equivalent B from the oth- 
er, we have A: B. 



88 Logic. 

This reasoning may also be stated thus : If the classes A 
and B exactly coincide, then must their negatives also ex- 
actly coincide. 

Law IV. When A : b, a : B. 

A-fA:Z; 

A:b; 
.-. b+A:Z, 
or A:Z-b. 
Let b+b'iB, 
then h+b'+B:Z, 
or b'-\-B:Z-h, 
whence A : h'-{-B. 
Let b+b': B, 
A-f^ib-f-b'-J-J?, 
.•.A:b'+£. 

Dropping b' from one side, and the corresponding portion of 
A from the other, we have a: B. 

Applying law III. to the first four propositions, and law 
IV. to the next eight, we have 



From 


(1) A:B, 


A;B; 


From (7) A:b, 


a :B; 


u 


(2) A: B, 


4:B; 


" (8) A:b, 


a :B; 


(C 


(3) A.B, 


A:B; 


" (9) a :B, 


A:b; 


it 


(4) A: B, 


A:B; 


" (10) a :B, 


A:b; 


u 


(5) A:b, 


a :B; 


« (11) a :B, 


A:b; 


It 


(6) A: b, 


a :B; 


" (12) a :B, 


A:b. 



Neither of these laws apply to the last four propositions. 
The only inference from them is, first making both terms de- 
finite and letting a'+a":A and b'+b":B, when a': b', A + a"\ 
B+W. 

A Syllogism is an inference from two propositions having 
a common term which in the syllogism is called the middle 
term. The law of this inference is : 

Law V. Classes discretively identical with the same class 
are discretively identical with each other. When A : B and 
B:C, A:C. 

By the various combinations of the sixteen propositions, 
two hundred and fifty-six pairs of premise-propositions will 
result as given in the following table, which also gives the 
conclusion, if any, to be derived from each : 



Logic. 



89 



10 



11 



1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


c, 


J 


8 


n 


10 


11 


12 


Vi 


11 


15 


16 


A:B 

B:C 
A:C 


A:B 
B: C 
A:C 


A:B 

B:C 
.1:0 


A:B 
B:C 
A:B 


A:Bj 

B:c 

A:c 


A: B 
B:c 

A:c 


A:B 
B:c 
A:c 


A:B 1 
B:c 

A:c \ 


A:B 

b:C 
a:C 


A:B 

b: C 
a:C 


A:B 

6:C 
a :0 


A:B 

6 : C 
a : C 


A:B 

b:c 
a :c 


A:B 
b:c 
a :c 


A:B 

6:c 
a :c 


A:B 
b:o 

a : c 


A:B 
B:0 
A:C 


A:B 
B:C 
4:C 


A:B 
A:C 


A:B 
B:C 
A:C 


A:B 
B:c 
A:c 


A:B 
B:c 
^:c 


A: B 
B:c 
A:c 


A:B 
B: c 
A: c 


A:li 
b:(; 
a :U 


A:B 
b:C 
a: C 


A:B 

6 :C 
a : C 


A:B 
b :C 

A.C 


A:B 
b:c 
a :c 


A:B 
b:c 
a : c 


A:B 
6:c 
a : c 


A:B 
b:c 
a :c 



A:B 
B:C 

A:V, 



A:B 
B:0 
A:C 



A:b 
B:C 
a:C 



a:B 
B.C 
a.C 



a:B 
B:C 
a.C 



a: B 
B.C 
a:C 



12 



13 



14 



15 



16 



a : B 
B:C 
A:c 



a: b 
B:C 
a:c 



A:B 
B:C 
A:C 



A:B 
B:C 
A:C 



il: B 
B:C 
A:C 



A:B 
B:c 

A:c 



A: 


B 


,4 


B 


A: 


B 


/I 


B 


A 


B 


A 


1'. 


A 


B 


A 


B 


4 


B 


A: 


B: 


c 


B: 


c 


B 


c 


b 


C 


b 


C 


b 


C 


b 


C 


b 


c 


b 


c 


b : 


-1: 


c 


A 


c 


A 


c 


a 


G 


a 


c 


a 


c 


a 


c 


a 


c 


a 


c 


a: 



^:B 
b:c 
a: c 



,4:B 
B:C 
A:C 



A:B 
B:C 
A:C 



A:B 
B:C 
A:C 



A:B 
B:c 
A:c 



A: B 
B:c 

A:c 



^: B 
B:c 
il:o 



A: 11 
B:c 
A:c 



A:B 

b:0 
a:C 



A:B 
b:C 
a: C 



A: B 
b:C 
a :C 



A:B 
b.C 
a: C 



A:B 
b:<-< 
a :c 



A:B\ A:B 
b : c 6 : c 
a: c I «: c 



A.B 

b:c 
a : c 



A:b 
B:0 
A:c 


A:b 
B:C 

A:c 


A:b 
B:C 
A:c 


A:b 
B:C 
A:c 


A:b 
B:c 
A:c 


A:b 
B:c 
A:c 


A:b 
B:c 
o : c 


A:b 
B:c 

a : c 


A:b 
b:C 

a : c 


A:b 
b:C 

a : c 


A:b 
b :C 
A:c 


A:b 
ft :C 
A:c 


A:b 

b c 

* 


A.b 
b :c 

• 


A:b 
6 :c 
a :c 


A:b 
ft :c 

a : c 


A:b 
B.C 
A:c 


A: & | A: 6 
B: 01 B:C 
A:c 1 A:c 


A:& 

J?:C 

A:c 


A:b 
B.c 
o:c 


A: 6 
B:e 
a: c 


A: b 
B:c 
A:c 


A:b 
B:c 

A:c 


A: b 
b:C 
A:c 


A: b 
b: C 
A.c 


A: 6 
ft :C 
a : c 


A: ft | 
6:C| 
a :c 


A: ft 
b:c 
a:c 


A: 6 
b:c 
a : c 


A: 6 
ft :c 

• 


A: 6 
ft :c 

• 


4:b 
B:C 
il:o 


A : b 1 ^: b 
B: C\ B:C 
A:c [ a : C 


yl:b 
B:C 
&:C 


^:b \A:b 
B:c 1 B:c 
j4: c 1 A: c 


^:b 1 
B.c | 

a :c | 


A:b 
B:c 
a.c 


A:b 
b:C 
a:c 


yl:b | ^:b 
b:C \b:0 
a:c | a : C 


^:b 
6:C 
a:C 


^:b 
b:c 

* 


,4:b 
b:c 

* 


^:b 
ft :c 
a:c 


^:b 
ft:c 
a:c 



A:b I 4:ft 
B:C| B:>: 
a : C | il : c 



.1:6 
B:C 
^:c 



A:b 
B.c 
a : c 



A:b 
B.c 
a : c 



^:ft 
B:c 
A:c 



A:b 
B:c 
A:c 



A:b 
b:C 
a:C 



A: ft | A:b 
b : C I ft : C 
a : C a : c 



A:b 
b:C 
a : c 



A:b I A:b 
b:C b:c 
a : c I a : c 



A:b 
6 : c 



.4:6 
b:c 



a:B|a:B a.B 



B:C I B:C 
a : C a : C 



B:C 

u:C 



a:B 
B.c 

a:c 



a: B | a: B 
B: c \B: c 
a : c L^: c 



a : B 
B:c 

A:c 



a:B 
b.C 
a.C 



a:B 
b:C 
a.C 



a.B 
6:C 
a: c 



a.B 
ft:C 
a: c 



.1 


B 


a : B I a : B 


b 


: c 


b : c 1 6 : c 


a 


: c 


a : c \ * 



a:B 
6 :c 



a: B 
B:C 
a: (J 



a:B 
B:C 
a:C 



a:B 
B: C 
a.C 



a:B 
B:e 
a:C 



a: B 
I',: c 
a:C 



a:B 

B:e 
a:c 



a:B 
B:c 
a: c 



a:B 
b:C 
a : c 



a:B 
b:C 
a : c 



a:B 
6:C 
a:C 



a :B 
6 :C 
a: C 



a : B 
b :c 

* 



a:B 
b:c 



a:B 
6 :c 
a : c 



a:B 
b:c 
a : c 



a : B ! a : B | a : B 
B: C B: C 1 B: C 
o: C a: C a : C 



a:B 
B:c 
a :c 



a: B 
B:c 



a.B 

B:c 

A:c 



a : B 
B:c 

A:c 



a :B 
b:C 
a:C 



a: B ! a:B I <i:B 
b : C & : C 6 : C 
a : C a: c a : c 



a.B 
b:c 
a : c 



a:B 
b:c 

a: c 



a:B I a :B 

6 : c ft : c 

* • 



a : B I a: B 
B.C B:C 
A: c a : C 



a: B 
B:C 
a: C 



a:B 
B.c 

A:c 



a :B 

B:c 

A.c 



a:5|a:5 
5: c \B: c 
a : c a : c 



a:B\a:B 
b:C b:C 
a: c a :c 



a: B 

6:0 
a:C 



a:^ 
6:C 
a:C 



a:B 
b:c 



a:^ 
b.c 

* 



a:B 

6:c 

a:c 



a:B 
b:c 
a :c 



a:b 


a :b 


a :b I a :b 


a: b 


a :b 


I a:b 


a : b 


a.b 


a:b 


a:b 


B:0 


B:C 


B: C LB : C 


B:c 


B:c 


B:c 


B:c 


b:C 


b:C 


6:0 


a:c 


a : c 


a :c | a :c 


a:c 


a:c 


* 


* 


* 


* 


a: c 



a:b 
ft:C 
a:c 



a:b 
b:c 

* 



a:b 
b :c 

» 



a:b 
ft:c 

» 



a:b 
ft:c 



a : ft I p : ft 
B: C \B: C 
a : c a : c 



a : 6 
B:C 

a : c 



a: 6 
B:c 

* 



a : 6 
B.c 



a : 6 
B.c 

a : c 



a. -6 
B:c 
a : c 



a: ft 
b:C 
a: c 



a:6 
b:C 
a: c 



a:ft 
ft:0 

* 



a:6 
6:C 

* 



a: 6 
b:c 



a: 6 
b:c 



a: 6 
ft:c 



a: & 
ft:c 

* 



a :b 


a : b 


a • 


b 


a :b 1 


a:b 


a: b 


a :b 


a :b 


a 


b 


a: b 


a:b 


a:b 


I a: b 


a: b 


a: b 


B:0 


B:C 


B 


C 


B:C 


B:c 


B:c 


B:c 


B:c 


b 


(1 


b:C 


ft:C 


6:C 


b:c 


b:c 


6:c 


a:c 


a: c 


a : 


c 


a : c 


a:c 


a: c 


* 


* 




* 


» 


a: c 


a:c 


* 


* 


« 


a : 6 


a. -ft 


a 


6 


a : ft 


a: 6 


a : 6 1 a : ft 1 


a :6 1 


a 


& 


| a : ft | 


a: 6 


a:b 


1 a : 6 


1 a :6 


a:ft | 


B:C. 


B:C 


1 B 


•(' 


B:C 


B:c 


B:c | B:c 


^:c 


b 


'' 


b.C 


6:0 


b:C 


b:c 


b:c 


ft:c 


a :c 


a: c 


\ '' 


c 


a :c 


* 


* 


a :c 


a :c 


a 


:c 


a :c 


* 


• 


* 


♦ 





a: b 
b:c 



a : 6 
6:c 



* No conclusion can be- reached. 



90 Logic. 

It will be observed that the same figure, that is, the same 
order of terms and propositions, is used throughout the table. 
This is done because we thus get every possible variation of 
the simple syllogism, the figure otherwise making not the 
slightest difference. If it were attempted to produce syllo- 
gisms in the other three possible figures, it would be found 
in effect to result in a simple repetition of the same syllo- 
gism. The conclusion is deduced from the two identities, 
and it makes no difference which proposition comes first, or, 
in each proposition, which term comes first. 

In many of the cases in the table the conclusion is reached 
directly in accordance with law V. In others, however, it is 
necessary first to transform one or both the premises by laws 
II., III. and IV., or some of them, before a conclusion can be 
reached. 

By examination of the table, it is found that a conclusion 
can be reached in every instance where two or more of the 
four terms contained in any two premise-propositions in the 
table are universal, and that too whatever be the variation of 
the terms as to quality. 

When but one of the four terms is universal, a conclusion 
can be reached in all cases (and in those only) where the uni- 
versal term is the middle term in one of the propositions and 
the middle term in the other proposition is of the same qua- 
lity, that is, positive when the universal term is positive and 
negative when the universal term is negative, or where the 
propositions can be reduced to that form by the application 
of law IH. or IV. 

Keokuk, Iowa, Dec. 1, 1873. 



Critical Exposition of the Dialectic. 91 

[Continued from page 48.] 

find objectively valid thoughts. Even Reflection is an ac- 
tivity partly confined to images which it is unable wholly to 
transcend. It cannot seize the living process, and is there- 
fore inadequate to state what is universally and necessarily 
valid in the objective world. The Speculative Reason, how- 
ever, is occupied solely in the contemplation of this living 
process not only as defined in pure thought, but also as ma- 
nifested in the world of Experience. 

11. Think in universals. Place every idea "under the form 
of eternity"; i.e. make it universal, and see what will come 
of it. Its dialectic will then appear. The dialectic is the soul 
of the whole revealing itself in the part, The partial exhib- 
its its implications or presuppositions when it is posited as 
universal by thought. Trace out these implications and the 
true whole will appear. 

12. That there hovers before the mind a "presupposition 
of the world from which abstraction has been made" when 
one discusses pure being, is a critical saying of Trendelen- 
burg. Undoubtedly he is right; but of what nature is this 
presupposition ? It is not a presupposition of some idea more 
simple than Being — of some idea that must be thought before 
thinking Being. On the contrary, Being is the idea that must 
necessarily be thought prior to the idea of the world. Let 
one endeavor to think the world (or any other concrete idea), 
and his first mental act will be the predication of the undeter- 
mined Being of it : the world is. The second act of thought 
will necessarily be the simple first determination of it — the 
thought of its negation or limit. The next thought (whether 
this process is conscious or unconscious, it is, all the same, 
involved in every mental act of seizing an idea) will be that 
of the synthesis of its Being and its limit, and only after these 
three steps will the mind recognize before it the definite being 
of its object. These three steps are rarely separated con- 
sciously ; their result alone is seized as the first step. The 
triad Being, Naught, and Becoming, takes us but a little way 
forward in Logic. Hegel considered it the nadir of pure 
thought, and opposite to it held up the idea of Personality 
as the zenith of his system ("Die hochste zugescharfste Spit- 
ze"). But the spirit of his method may be exhibited even in 
these barren abstractions. 



92 Notes and Discussions. 

The Dialectic is a process of passing from Seeming to 
Truth. Pure Science furnishes the general formulas for the 
solution of all problems. It is a Calculus, a general theory 
without which particular solution is impossible, inasmuch as 
it underlies all synthesis. 



NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 

In the present number of the Journal we offer our views 
on the Method of Hegel as a contribution to the settle 
ment of the question of Speculative Dialectic. If we can 
only ascertain what thoughts and ideas in our minds have 
the most unmistakable universality (of application) and ne- 
cessity, we can ascertain what thoughts and ideas have the 
most objective validity. For what we must think on a given j 
subject is the logical condition of all experience regarding' 
that subject. The article to which we refer is the result of 
thirteen years' thinking on Hegel's results. The third or 
" critical exposition " is the final (and to us satisfactory) 
statement which explains the other views. It is made with 
special reference to the objections of Trendelenburg in re- 
gard to the matter of presupposition and beginning, as well 
as the objections of English and American writers, who gen- 
erally attack the objective validity of Hegel's Logic. 

The following notes on Vera's polemic against Trendelen- 
burg will be of interest here : 

Vera on Trendelenburg. 

Mr. Editor: 

I have just been reading over the article in No. 25 of the Journal of Spe- 
culative Philosophy, entitled ''Trendelenburg on Hegel's System," and 
translated from the Preface of Prof. Vera's Introduction to Hegel. The title 
should have been — should it not? — "A. Vera on Trendelenburg"'; for the 
article is a series of observations on Trendelenburg's supposed doctrines, 
and not an account of Trendelenburg's famous criticism of the dialectic 
method. The stand-point and consequent doctrine attributed to Trendel- 
enburg seem to me so different from those really held by him, that I have 
thought it might be worth while, for the benefit of any among your read- 
ers who have not made a special study of Trendelenburg's works, to write 
a few words of explanation and correction. 

I. The logic of Trendelenburg is not written from the stand-point of the 
Hegelian logic. Since M. Vera, after asserting the contrary, himself ad- 



Notes and Discussions. 93 

mits the truth of what I state (he says, in loc. cit., p. 29, that the "dialectic" 
of Trendelenburg- is not "any dialectic whatever, but rather the contrary 
of all dialectic," and what is the Hegelian logic if not dialectic?) yet it may 
be well enough to state what Trendelenburg's logic is. It is true that T. 
rejects the so-called formal logic ; but from this it does not follow that he 
must therefore adopt the Hegelian logic. The contrary is so true, that it is 
notorious that Trendelenburg did more to weaken the credit of the Hegelian 
logic, both in its "general and fundamental point of view" and in its "form," 
than any one among his contemporaries. The Hegelian logic affirms the 
identity of thought and being, identifies therefore logic and metaphysics, 
and asserts the possibility. of a dialectical development of all the qualifica- 
tions of being (or of the absolute) in pure thought. Trendelenburg denies 
all these positions, holding, however, that there must be a principle common 
to thought, as an ideal function, and to objective being, in order to the pos- 
sibility of any act of knowledge. But thought, for Trendelenburg, is not 
being, nor is being thought ; hence logic is not metaphysics; and as thought, 
in the view of Trendelenburg, depends on a principle present in physical 
being (viz. motion, which has its ideal, but not independent, counterpart in 
thought) . it can develop nothing in absolute independence of that faculty by 
which motion is apprehended, A'iz. Anschauung, or intuition, in the etymo- 
logical sense of this term, including therefore the sensibility ; hence a dia- 
lectical development by pure thought, is of course held to be impossible. 
Trendelenburg's logic is the logic of Aristotle, in which he conceives the 
forms and processes of thought to bear a relation of demonstrable corre- 
spondence to the general relations of tilings. But Aristotle's logic, it need 
not be said, is no dialectic. As to Trendelenburg's "Logical Investiga- 
tions," they are not primarily an exposition of logic, but constitute an 
attempt to lay the ground for metaphysics and logic, or to establish a The- 
ory of Science. 

II. There is no triad in Trendelenburg's system, certainly none that is 
put forth as such, nor any that can be demonstrated to be such in the sense 
required by, or in a sense imitated from, the dialectic method. Much 
less is there, as in Hegel's logic, a series of triads following each other in 
dialectic development. Trendelenburg seeks to account for the possibility 
of knowledge, and more especially for the element of scientific necessity. 
To accomplish this he proceeds in the ordinary scientific way, assuming 
provisionally the fact to be explained, just as the theory of vision assumes 
the reality of vision, and seeking for an hypothesis which shall explain the 
facts. He proceeds thus from the particular and the known to the general 
and the unknown, or from the "prior for us" (in Aristotelian phraseology) 
to the " prior in nature." The simplest analysis of an act of knowledge 
discloses the antithesis of subject and object, "thought" and "being." 
These are not assumed as starting-points given in absolute knowledge from 
which to proceed in dialectical development. They are simply found empi- 
rically to exist as different factors in all cognitive acts, and the distinction, 
in the form of theory or method and subject-matter, is found concretely ex- 
emplified in all the positive sciences. To explain, now, the possible union 
or harmony of thought and being in knowledge, an hypothesis is selected 



94 Book Notices. 

and tried, like any other scientific hypothesis, by its power of explaining 
the facts. In this there is no talk and no semblance of triads or triadic 
development, or of any species of dialectic. The method is simply that of 
ordinary, accredited science. 

(Jeo. S. Morris. 
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Dec. 5, 18To. 



BOOK NOTICES. 

History of Philosophy from Thales to the Present Time. By Dr. Friedrich Ueber- 
weg, late Professor of Philosophy in the University of Kbnig-berg. Trans- 
lated from the fourth German Edition by Geo. b. Morris, A.M., Professor of 
Modern Languages in the University of Michigan, and Associate of the Victo- 
ria Institute', London.— Vol. II. History ot Modern Philosophy. With Addi- 
tions, &c. New York: Scribinr, Armstrong & Co. 1S74. 

As our readers are already informed, this work constitutes the first of the 
Philosophical Division of the Theological and Philosophical Library, ''A 
Series of Text-books, original and translated, for Colleges and Theological 
Seminaries, edited by Henry B. Smith, D.D., and Philip Schaff, D.D., Pro- 
fessors in the Union Theological Seminary, New York." It is a truly merito- 
rious undertaking, and deserves more than the mere approval of American 
students in Theology or Philosophy. The two volumes on the History of 
Philosophy now published should be in the library of every person inter- 
ested in the thoughts of the world's greatest thinkers. So complete a store- 
house of information as regards the history of Philosophy has never before 
been accessible in English. The work of Ueberweg is noted for its consci- 
entious accuracy and the minuteness of its bibliographical information. 
The translator, Professor Morris, has, in our judgment carried away the 
palm before all rival translators from German Philosophy. That his work 
is con amove we find evidence on every page. How thoroughly he has 
himself studied certain special systems of Philosophy is shown in his full 
account of the system of Trendelenburg which is added as an appendix to 
the brief paragraph of Ueberweg. Professor Morris has likewise diligently 
searched the English sources for information regarding any of the Philoso- 
phers, and has added under appropriate heads references to English trans- 
lations and commentaries which will prove of great service to the English 
reader. The ''Appendix on English and American Philosophy, by Noah 
Porter, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College, and the second appendix 
"On Italian Philosophy, by Vincenzo Botta, Ph.D., late Professor of Phi- 
losophy in the University of Turin,'' are elaborated in the spirit of Ueber- 
weg by thoroughly capable and equally fair-minded scholars. 

The readers of this Journal have had occasional glimpses of the great 
Philosophical activity in Italy. Dr. Botta is intimately acquainted with 
the whole movement, and indeed has been an active participant in it. 
President Porter's account of American Philosophy is a contribution to a 
new subject. His treatment of it will, we trust, stimulate others to inves- 
tigate the same field. The reciprocal action of Theological and Metaphysi- 
cal thinking in this country is a theme that deserves exhaustive elaboration. 



Book Notices. 95 

We know of nothing that would so much help the cause of Philosophy in 
America. For it is the Theological Seminaries of this country and not the 
Colleges which make the professional thinkers. An indigenous philosophy 
here must originate in Theological soil. — AVe rind an exquisite specimen of 
the dry humor of Dr. Porter in a foot-note to his account of Herbert Spen- 
cers system. It runs thus: 

"The system of Spencer is still under criticism, and perhaps may not 
have been fully expounded by its author. Possibly it has not yet been com- 
pletely developed. Should Spencer continue to devote to Philosophy his 
active energies for many years, it is not inconceivable that new associations 
may take possession of that physiological organization Avhich he is accus- 
tomed to call himself, and perhaps be evolved into another system of first 
principles which may displace those which he has taught hitherto." 

Of the original power of speculative thought possessed by Ueberweg one 
cannot speak very highly. His critical remarks in this work are seldom of 
value, and, fortunately, few in number. An example of these which will 
give the reader an insight into his calibre as a thinker we will quote. It is 
a note relative to Kant's criteria for a priori knowledge. That Kant held 
universality and necessity to be sure signs of non-empirical cognition, he 
tells us is the fundamental mistake from which the whole critical system 
of Kant grew up. 

" The principle of gravitation which is strictly universal in its truth, and 
yet, as Kant admits, is derived from experience, is alone enough to refute 
him. The simpler the subject of a science, so much the more certain is the 
universal validity of its inductively-acquired principles ; so that from Arith- 
metic (quantity) to Geometry, Mechanics, &c, a gradation in the measure 
of certainty, and not, as Kant affirms, an absolute difference in universality, 
subsists. The empirical basis of Geometry is admitted b\ mathematicians 
of such weight as Riemann and Helmholtz." 

That the principle of gravitation is universal and necessary, in the Kan- 
tian use of these terms, is a supposition worthy of a place in Lewes's Bio- 
graphical History of Philosophy, but not of a place in a book emanating 
from Konigsberg and written by a Professor in the University that Kant 
honored by his long labors in Philosophy. 

A few typographical errors observed by us we omit to mention as they 
are corrected ere this in a new edition of the woi"k. 

Boston Lectures, 1872. — Christianity and Scepticism: Embracing a Consideration 
of important traits of Christian Doctrine and Experience, and of the leading 
Facts in the Life of Curist. Boston : Congregational Publishing Society, 1873. 

The contents of this volume consist of nine lectures, forming the third 
course of " Boston Lectures." The first and fifth were delivered by two of 
the ablest divines of the West — the former by Rev. Dr. Magoun of Iowa 
College, the latter by Rev. Dr. Post of St. Louis. The subject of the first 
lecture: "The Adjustment between the Natural Law of Progress and 
Christian Law." It exhibits the Christian Religion as a system not merely 
adapted to the wants of mankind, but as fundamentally necessary to the 
progress of the race. The topic of the fifth lecture is " The Incarnation." 
This volume seems to bring out the prominent doctrines of Christianity in 
a treatment at once popular and profound. 



96 Book Notices. 

An Analysis of Schiller's Tragedy, Dik Buaut Von Messina, after Aristotle's 
Poetic: Being an Inaugural Dissertation for obtaining the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy, at the Georgia Augusta University in Gottingen by Isaac 
Flagg (at present Professor in Cornell University). 

This essay is a fine example of the kind of aesthetic criticism which we 
need in our higher institutions of learning. The student must be shown 
the presuppositions of the ancient works of art before he can form a true 
estimate of them or be genuinely affected by them. The discussion in this 
essay following the Aristotelian categories of the Poetics treats, I. The 
Complication, 1 (a) events within the action, (b) events outside the action; 
II. The Development, 3 (a) the discoveries, 3 (6) the revolution, 4 (c) the 
calamities. 5 

We suggest resolution or solution for the category "development*' used 
by the author. 

The Rising Faith. By C. A. Bartol, author of '"Radical Problems." Boston: 
Roberts Brothers. 1874. 

The contents of this book include the following topics: The Seeker, The 
Seer, The Secret Power, Sincerity, Sex, Teaching, Training, Forms, Val- 
ues, Validity, Personality, Prayer, Unity, Survival, Signs, Ideas. 

In the chapter on Personality, our author says : "This is the curiosity of 
speculation, that a creature should, with its own, doubt its Author's con- 
sciousness." "Human unfolding is into personality evermore pronounced. 
Lost in Deity? The more we are absorbed the more we are found and find 
ourselves. The infant is confounded with other persons and things. But 
out of this baby imperfection is developed the character of Charlemagne, or 
Luther, reaching by differentiation its union with the Most High, as the root 
of a tree widens with its top." "You tell me God is not personal. From 
the unconsoling statement how much do I learn? What else is He not? 
What more important quality can you eliminate? What is personality but 
the focus or burning-point where all the faculties meet, the concentration 
in which judgment and memory flame into genius, the grip wherein every 
ability is hurled to accomplishment ; the property whose scale with each 
new degree is the measure of greatness?'" 

There is nothing in this book that is not inspiring. It is the very atmo- 
sphere of hope and aspiration. Like the Cologne Cathedral, all its lines 
lead upward to the sky, aud whatever is depressing or manifests gravitation 
is allowed to appear only in some subordinate shape — a pendant that seems 
to look earthward, but is prevented from reaching the floor by reason of the 
strong counter-impulse it receives from the roof which carries it upward. 

Life's Mystery. Philadelphia: Henry Longstreth. 1873. "From Old-fashioned 
"Ethics and Common-sense Metaphysics/ By William Thomas Thornton Mac 
Millan & Co. London." 

A discussion of the problem of evil in metre. 

Crimes of Passion and Crimes of Reflection. By J. B. Bitlinger. 

Reprint from the Princeton Review for April, 1873. An able discussion. 

The River of Life. A music book for Sunday Schools, &c. By H. S. Perkins 
and Wm.'M. Bentley. Boston: Oliver Ditson & Co. 1873. For sale by Balmer 
& Weber, St. Louis, Mo. 

Clarke's Dollar Instructor for the Reed Organ. By Wm. H. Clarke. Boston: 
Oliver Ditson & Co. For sale by Balmer & Weber, St. Louis, Mo. 

1 dsacz. 2 X'joc^. 3 dvayvtopiffsa;. 4 nepatereta. 5 nddrj. 



THE JOURNAL 



o r 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



Vol. VLII. April, 1874. No. 2. 

SUBJECT AND OBJECT, OR UNIVERSAL POLARITY. 

By Richard Randolph. 

" Sing ye praises with understanding." — Ps. xlvii. 7. 

" Let all things be clone decently and in order." — 1 Cor. xiv. 40. 

" For our process of thought is such as requires no especial acuteness and 
vigor of mind, being almost equally ready and open to all degrees ol intelli- 
gence." (Nostra verb inveniendi scientias ea est ratio, ut non multum ingenio- 
rum acumini et robori relinquatur; sed qua? ingenia et intellectus fere exrequet.) 

— Francis Bacon. 

Synopsis. — 1. Manner and Matter: their unfathomed reciprocity 
suggestive at least of the true Law of Criticism. — 2. A manifest present 
Want: the most definite possible Formula of universal Duty. — S. The 
Facts of Mind: their former empirical and complex Classification now 
obsolete and futile. — 4- The Polarity of all Experience and of all Thought. 

— 5. The implied Lesson of Order, or Subordination. — 6. Its only Diffi- 
culty. — 7. Its virtual Dignity. 

1. In oral unpremeditated converse alone can perfect com- 
munion be realized and manifested between mind and mind. 
There is an element of dictation, however allowable or neces- 
sary it may often be under attendant circumstances, in every 
premeditated effort of the orator or the essayist upon any 
abstract theme, which the continual interpolation of fresh 
inquiry or suggestion can alone remove or prevent in a true 
partnership of thought. But though there is danger of their 
being over-estimated, there is still obvious occasion for the 
sermon and the essay. The. true flow of soul is not necessa- 
rily solitary or exclusive merely by reason of that intellec- 
tual distance between the communicants, which may render 
necessary a sustained argument on the part of either for the 
viii-7 



98 Subject and Object. 

presentation of his views. Such efforts will evidently be 
successful directly in proportion as they shall be made to 
anticipate the questionings or comments of the intelligent 
reader or hearer, on the simple condition of a studious 
attention on his part, proportional to his previous want of 
acquaintance with the subject treated of. However abun- 
dantly such prolonged and premeditated discourses may at 
any time be pressed upon us, some of them are presumably 
entitled to a hopeful welcome : and in the still increasing 
throng of such claimants, some brief and general statement 
of the law of criticism, one which shall do justice to the mu- 
tually dependent and often conflicting claims of manner and 
matter, becomes therefore increasingly necessary as a test of 
literary and logical pretensions. 

Estimating all truth at an average value, then, for the sake 
of arriving at such a general statement, we may safely allege, 
that that which we at an} 7 time read or hear will be useful to 
us, in proportion either to the amount of matter which is at 
once fresh to us and clearly expressed, or to the amount of 
that which, while already more or less known to us, is there 
so vividly presented to us as to induce a more constant re- 
gard to it, or to both of thes.e considerations combined. We 
may often think that we understand what is written, when 
we only recognize therein modes of thought and of expres- 
sion which are familiar to ourselves and current among our 
associates, but which we do not at all understand aright. 
Such reading must evidently be fictitious reading of the most 
deceptive kind, and must of course be left out of account in 
every just estimate and comparison of substantial literary 
values. The reader of the ensuing lay sermon is besought 
to bear these observations in mind; and to pass judgment 
upon the production, not according to the proportion in it, 
as compared with other utterances of equal length, of matter 
which may be to him unfamiliar and at first unintelligible, 
but according to the supply of fresh suggestion or expression 
which may mingle with the plainly trite or the seemingly 
unmeaning. Seeming mysticism must itself be an additional 
plea for cheerful toleration and hopeful attention, so far as 
it may possibly be due to the mere replacement of conven- 
tional fiction by sound abstraction. The appreciation of 



Subject and Object. 99 

manner, as the higher grace, should meanwhile remain unat- 
tempted. It is both safe and expedient for the critic or the 
student to presume at the outset upon the fitness of the ver- 
bal vehicle, and to proceed in the assurance that the myste- 
riousness of a true and adequate expression will be precisely- 
proportioned to the novelty of the truth conveyed or symbo- 
lized. Matter and style, or truth of experience and aptness 
of utterance, must on the whole advance or recede together. 

" Running while reading, taught as they pursue 
Advancing good, true men all lessons true 
Consider and enact."' 

2. The great Atonement being confessedly " finished," the 
definition and appreciation of those elements of present and 
future life and salvation which are not finished, plainly 
become the universal practical desideratum. Professional 
theologians have so glaringly fallen short, whether in Bib- 
lical exposition or in original speculation, of meeting this 
common want, that the field is evidently open to all careful 
explorers; and the ear of earnest workers presumably as 
open to all clear and competent reporters. How far the 
present essay may indeed report a genuine exploration in 
that direction, the writer can only invite such " fit audience" 
to determine. 

3. To the faithful or truly observant liver, life is continu- 
ally becoming experience. How it becomes so, is the 
problem which involves all other problems. That there is 
nothing truly originative, any more than inherently* dis- 
tinctive in the so-called faculties of the mind, is proved by 
their natural subjection to the limitations of time and space, 
a more or less entire exemption from which (such as is con- 
ceivable from the most fragmentary intimations of truly 
spiritual experience) must proportionally consign Memory, 
Reason, and Imagination, to the category of simple Percep- 
tion or Observation. In other words, these diversities of 
mental manifestation are rather diversities in the relation of 



* That is, permanently, dividually— objectively or in the nature of things. It 
must be obvious that the same process of mental construction or inference which 
is Imagination at one instant, may become Reason the next instant, and Memory 
ever afterward, and may already be so to some other mind. 



100 Subject and Object. 

mind to time and space, than diversities of mental power. 
They may be compared, both in derivation and in develop- 
ment, to different forms of a single molten material, as caught 
and congealed in moulds of different patterns. As merely 
circumstantial variations, they must be left out of account, or 
only incidentally included, in the investigation and demon- 
stration of that which is essential. The great desideratum of 
Mental Philosophy, therefore, is a simple description of the 
connection, in all human life and experience, between the 
spiritual volition which is the directive power of individual 
life and the sensational impression which is the primary or 
crude material of individual experience. The volition from 
within — the exercise, that is, however inspired or however 
independent, of the individual will — and the sensation from 
without, are in fact connected by a chain of distinguishable 
processes or phenomena, whose definition by one mind to 
another becomes often exceedingly difficult, and perhaps 
temporarily impossible, by reason of the different spheres of 
experience and therefore of communion (one often, practical- 
ly or socially, wholly including another) which appertain to 
different grades of culture, and even of inherited intelligence 
and sensibility. As the largest minds are also presumably 
the deepest, that which is consciously external, and so, glar- 
ingly obvious, to one mind, may thus be often unfa thorn ably 
mystical to another of more contracted range ; so that the 
only intellectual principle which they can be said to possess 
or to be able to exercise in common, is the intuition, which 
a faithful adherence to the lessons of experience may supply 
to all, that the determining power of enjoyment and enlight- 
enment is from within rather than from without— from the 
perceiving and acting Subject, rather than from the observa- 
ble and demonstrable Objects, of experience and action. 

J,,. Accordingly, the one thing upon which Metaphysicians 
may be said to be unanimously agreed, is, the convenience 
of, and the necessity for, the use of the terms Subjective and 
Objective as distinguishing diverse phases or polar elements 
of experience, thought, and language. 

Whether the universe is all soul, or all body, or a mixture 
of the two ; whether thought is one with the thinker, and the 



Subject and Object. 101 

thinker one with the mind ; and what may be the power and 
the province, the scope and the limitation, of the mysterious 
individual will, — are all questions which have not been 
unanimously decided. Indeed they cannot be, so long as in- 
vestigators shall begin and prosecute their work with the 
purpose of framing and the hope of establishing an}" com- 
plete system (still less any incomplete system) of truth, 
rather than with that single eye to the present guidance of 
Divine Wisdom in the ever-progressive development of its 
only universal system, which can alone qualify any steadily 
to serve as vehicles of its inspiration. But, as already inti- 
mated, in tracing this progressive development of mind and 
doctrine, it is universally found necessary to have some such 
otherwise mystical terms as Subject and Object to designate 
the same thing or principle in those (to our still limited and 
forming view) diverse stages, aspects, or relations, which the 
more familiar terms, cause and effect, interior and exterior, 
power and vehicle or instrument, substance and phenomenon 
or surface, action and passion, and perhaps the Hegelian 
"becoming" and "being," less comprehensively distinguish.* 

* The contrast of internal and external, of spiritual and material, of cause and 
effect, of substance and surface, of power and manifestation, is always fugitive in 
any special instance or development of it, owing to that very advance in the 
standard of life, experience, and knowledge, which is the sole presentable proof 
of our living to any lasting purpose. These terms being all derived from the 
limited realm of human experience for the purposes of language, partake of the 
partiality and fallibility of that experience. Language, however, has a ground 
of verity or fitness outside of the largest human experience, in that analogy be- 
tween the inner and the outer worlds, which, as the secret storehouse of meta- 
phor, is the very armory of all abstract argument, because the original vehicle 
of all general statement. The current language is evidently the practical social 
embodiment of that Science of Mind in which alone the special sciences can 
meet, so far as they do meet, at any stage of social progress. Hence the old 
aphorism, '• Grammar is the Janitress of the Sciences," is no mere pedantic 
flourish, but a real "hard fact." As the most comprehensive science, that of 
Language (or Grammar) must evolve from itself the largest or most nearly ade- 
quate expression of the largest universal fact. Now that fact, we may venture 
to assume, is the relationship of national phenomenon to supernatural power, 
or of natural truth to supernatural truth. No other terms can so at once indi- 
cate both the largeness and the fugitiveness of this distinction as the grammatical 
terms Subject and Object, which are not only illustrated or exemplified in every 
spoken sentence, but which derive all their significance from, or through, their 
temporary relativity. Short, at least, of that completeness of humanity which 
implies the very "fulness of God," the distinction between these terms must 
remain a movable (and in healthy life, of course, a progressive) one, so that we 



102 Subject and Object. 

The more urgent examples of this metaphysical polarity, 
and of the resulting necessity for discrimination in the anal- 
ysis of human consciousness and activity may be included in 
the subjoined list, with the proviso that, as Perception is the 
avenue in which all the bodily senses converge, it must, as 
the real connecting link between the inner and the outer 
world, be regarded as being itself a thing or principle having 
two aspects or relations, of which the internal aspect* (the 
external relation) is the only one here included, viz. : 

SUBJECTIVE. OBJECTIVE. 

l H Tvpuscz (praxis), the doing. To n pay pa (pragma), the deed. 
Thought, Perception. 

Desire, Emotion. 

Will, Spiritual Knowledge. 

In the wider classification, which should take in the exter- 
nal universe on the one hand, and the self-existent spiritual 
Power, or Powers, on the other, Perception must of course be 
viewed as subjective to external fact, and the human will as 
objective to the Divine Will, or to the Divine and the demo- 
nic. Our list may therefore, perhaps, be somewhat more 
completely rendered thus: 

can only speak of them relatively to each other; that which is " subjective," or 
internal, or even supernatural, to one person, or at one time, being "objective," 
or external, and wholly natural, to another person, or, at another time, to the 
same person. How treacherously vacillating must even the best language be to 
those who do not fathom this temporariness or fugitiveness, and who depend 
upon " the letter" for the purposes of thought rather than of intercourse, as 
though man were made for language, not language for man! 

* It is of course impossible definitely to distinguish, in ideas and words, things 
which are iii nature so intimately combined as to be inseparable without some 
change of their nature; so that, for instance, even the solar spectrum imper- 
fectly expresses to us the constitution of light. The combination in nature of 
elemental potencies may be most plausibly conceived as a concentric arrange- 
ment of curvilinear strata of manifestation rather than a mere sue cession of 
planes. The true arrangement or relation of nature is doubtless not one of 
lateral composition or of vertical imposition, but one of involving and being in- 
volved—the rays of shorter wave, in the case supposed, being included in those 
of longer wave. For the purposes of intellectual analysis, therefore, it may be 
a smaller departure from the absolute truth of nature, to compare the constitu- 
ent elements of the unshivered ray, either physical or metaphysical, to the con- 
centric layers of a tulip-bulb, or of an onion, than to mere parallel planes without 
any relationship of subordination. As thus conceived, it must be apparent that 
the external aspect of any constituent element is that by which it is internally 
related to these adjoining constituents, and vice versa, as above assumed. 



Subject and Object. 103 

subjective (praxis). objective (pragma). 

Sensation, External Universe. 

Perception, Sensation. 

Thought or Emotion,* Perception. 

Desire, Thought or Emotion.* 

Spiritual Knowledge, Desire. 

Human Will, Choice, or Volition, Spiritual Knowledge. 

Self-Existence, Human Will. 

The complete analysis of a perfect consciousness, or of the 
illumination which, so far as it at all prevails, involves the 
whole nature of man, will doubtless be the last triumph of 
philosophy. t Possibly, this attempt may to some minds pre- 
sent, or at least suggest, some advance toward the develop- 
ment of what may be called a psychological spectrum. f 

5. The pantheistic rashness which predicates self-existence 
of the external universe, and which accordingly so confounds 
all the subjective and objective aspects of life and experience 
as practically to reverse their legitimate order of develop- 
ment, is at least herein indicated. It is indeed unhappily 
true that men may be tempted to live from without rather 
than from within, or retrogressively rather than progres- 

* This apposition, which may perhaps startle some readers, is hazarded on 
the presumption that undefined emotion is more essentially and closely related 
to current or communicable thought than has been hitherto generally appre- 
hended. The relation of bullion to coin, or of invisible moisture in the atmo- 
sphere to developed cloud, may here be found illustrative and suggestive. 

f The inquiry can scarcely yet be ventured upon, how far Sensation, in some 
yet attainable sense of the term, may, with the other elements of a perfect con- 
sciousness at its back, be said continually to create the External Universe. The 
reader who is familiar with the reflections and arguments of Addison on the 
nature of Time, as presented in No. 94 of the "Spectator," and who has pondered 
the vitally important suggestions which flow therefrom in all directions, will 
perhaps find some seasonable illustration as well as safe suggestion in a simple 
stanza from a lately published poem, on Immortality: 

''So may we know the central Source of Light, 
So may its flood our finite measures fill, 
That the Creative and Redemptive Alight 
May prove in every pass 01 r treasure still." 

It may, however, be neither visionary nor premature, while thus hinting at the 
possible analogy between the physical and a psychological spectrum, to remark, 
that the summary analysis of the latter in the familiar trinity of Intellect, Sen- 
sibility, and Will — or Idea, Motive, and Self-determination or individual Choice — 
may possibly, as ultimately rectified, be found to correspond with the reduction 
of the seven actual colors of the outward spectrum into the three primary ones. 



104 Subject and Object. 

sively, by a reckless inversion of that law of subordination 
through which alone the Divine goal of harmony in thought 
and feeling can at length be realized. But short of the con- 
scious attainment or the conscious relinquishment of that 
happy result, the distinction between Subject and Object 
with their more or less diverse and sexual functions, vaguely 
denotable as begetting and awakening (or quickening), must 
remain as the widest expression of the law of human intelli- 
gence, as the basis of all present order in practice, and as the 
hope of all future progress in theory. Through their ever 
advancing subordination alone can we steadfastly regard the 
creation in its unbroken dependence upon the Creator, and 
rationally adopt and illustrate the oft occurring and awe- 
inspiring adjuration, "Wait thou only upon God." The 
necessary objectivity of all sound and dividual or communi- 
cable thought can thus only be made to comport with its 
self-evident internality, and to complement the essential 
though neglected subjectivity of all present inspiration ; and 
the genuine manifestation of such thought can thus only be 
presented in its necessary dependence* upon such inspira- 
tion, as that ever available test of truth and right in all liter- 
ature and in all life which a maul}- independence of external 
means universally calls for. ]S"o otherwise, in short, can we 
intelligently gather the full value of the instruction which 
has for thousands of years fallen upon Jew and Christian 
from the precept, " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out 
of it are the issues of life." 

6. The only difficulty of apprehending this universal lesson 
of order or law of subordination, springs from the depth of 
the distinction between Subject and Object — a distinction 
which can no more be permanently illustrated by isolated 
instances, than any single vital movement of a physical 
organism can perpetuate its life-principle, or preserve it for 
the revelation of the dissecting-knife, the test-tube, or the 
spectroscope. Indeed, as itself a principle of vitality, that 
distinction represents the as yet inexhaustible and unfathom- 

* '-The Holy Spirit does not tench by arbitrary acts, or those acts which have 
no relation to the constitution of the human mind; but by silently, and yet 
effectually, inspiring and guiding the movements of the natural powers of per- 
ception and knowledge, in cooperation with their own action/' — Upham. 



Subject and Object. 105 

able fact of an " irrepressible conflict " pervading all nature. 
It is a mystical ladder, or law of insensible gradation, upon 
which error and vice covertly ascend and plausibly imitate 
the dignity and office of truth and virtue, in all but their 
latest, and highest, and most invisible flights. Hence the 
justness, as to all minor principles, of Pope's startling epi- 
gram — 

"On human actions reason as you can. 
It may be reason, but it is not man: 
His principle of action once explore, 
That instant 'lis his principle no more."' 

As a primary principle of thought, lending coherency alike 
to the manifestations of evil and of good, the polarity of 
Subject and Object is in all particular applications variable 
and fugitive, and sure at last to betray the inquirer or the 
schemer who lives not in the spirit of renunciation and rever- 
ence, and whose first care accordingly is not that "all things" 
shall so " be done decently and in order," as to be made tri- 
butary to the ever advancing glory of God.* Such an one 
will surely mistake the pursuit of knowledge for the guid- 
ance of wisdom. In life, matter will more or less gain the 
precedence of manner ; in logic, the material or the statis- 
tical — the u d posten'orP' 1 — be made to dominate the spiritual 
or the essential, the "d priori"; and the first practical ques- 
tional in theology, the relation of sanctification to justifica- 
tion, remain a more or less transcendental issue. In the very 
company of the believing may be those who, from thus fail- 
ing to realize their own intellectual position, would seem to 

* " The soul," writes Ralph Waldo Emerson, "can be appeased not by a deed, 
but by a tendency. It is in hope that she feels her wings. You shall love rec- 
titude, and not the disuse of money or the avoidance of trade: an unimpeded 
mind, and not a monkish diet: sympathy and usefulness, and not hoeing or 
coopering: tell me not how great your project is, the civil liberation of the 
world, its conversion into a Christian church, the establishment of public educa- 
tion, cleaner diet, a new division of labor and of land, laws of love for laws of 
property; — I say to you plainly there is no end to which your practical faculty 
can aim so sacred or so large, that, if pursued for itself, will not at last become 
carrion and an offence to the nostril. The imaginative faculty of the soul must 
be fed with objects immense and eternal. Your end shall be one inapprehen- 
sible to the senses — a goal always approached, never touched; always giving 
health. A man adorns himself with prayer and love, as an aim adorns an action. 
What is strong but goodness, and what is energetic but the presence of a brave 
man?" — Method of Nature. 



106 Subject and Object. 

rank with the swine-consuming Mahometans of Cowper's 
famous fable ; and Emerson's perhaps less known lines have 
too wide an applicability to be omitted here : 

"The horseman serves the horse, 
The neat-herd serves the neat, 
The merchant serves the purse, 

The eater serves his meat; 
'Tis the day of the chattel, 

Web to weave, corn to grind; 
Things are in the saddle, 
And ride mankind." * 

7. Obvious or recondite, be it repeated, Philosophy can 
prescribe no other corrective for the confusion and disgrace 
of this practical heresy and draggling bewilderment than 

THE SUBORDINATION OF THE OBJECTIVE. But may not this 

prescription, as the universal lesson of Philosophy, and as 
an essential element in the triumph of freedom over fate, 
and of immortality over death, after all be regarded as no 
other than the philosophical rendering of the very purpose 
of Christianity? Our Saviour's own statement of that which 
was essential has been, perhaps, too much lost sight of in 
our glorification of the circumstantial: "To this end was I 
born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should 
bear witness unto the truth." In the conduct of the present 
life, the method of Christ's career in the flesh doubtless con- 
cerns his followers as responsible agents more immediately 
than the results of that career, however largely those results 
may now be embodied in the very ground and materials of 
our action. To a prone, object-bound, and therefore latitudi- 
narian and retrograde nature, the Subordination oi* the Object 
may evidently represent our Lord's Crucifixion as its imme- 
diate desideratum. In a love-inspired, object-ruling, and 
therefore truly expansive and progressive nature, as evi- 
dently "the same rule," through the enlarged meaning that 
will then attach to its terms, will convey all that can be told 
of his Resurrection. AVhile time shall endure, the old 
" stumbling-block " and " foolishness " of self-denial must 
thus remain as the more or less hidden law of true culture 

* Ode to W. H. Chaining. 



On Ideas. 107 

and healthy development; and the true lover of his kind 
must be content with continually adapting it in practice and 
precept to the ever advancing manifestations of truth, and to 
the closely following transformations of error. The " mys- 
tery of iniquity " is indeed not yet obsolete : but the "mys- 
tery of godliness" is justly distinguished as "great"; and 
there can be no change in the fundamental principles of 
human nature and of divine truth which underlie and unify 
the whole history of the human race while that history shall 
remain incomplete. As it approaches completion, the crude 
manifestations of demoniac possession, and of the "rebellion 
which is as the sin of witchcraft," may indeed be buried more 
and more deeply in the grave of the past; but, short of that 
mysterious goal, there can be but one unvarying method of 
true progress and one comprehensive object of healthy aspi- 
ration, even as there is but one universal rule of initiation 
into that better nature which they illustrate. 

" Higher and higher mounts the law that hinds 
Enfranchised hearts and unperverted minds. 

Larger and larger fact 
Restrains while liberating their career, 
As in the light of sphere encircling sphere 

New visions still attract, 
Deploying in due sequence Christ, the stair 
On which they climb to reach such survey fair. 

Let largest lore and tact, 
Possession, prudence, energy and skill 
Hasten his holy programme to fulfil!" 



INTRODUCTION TO SPECULATIVE LOGIC AND 

PHILOSOPHY. 

By A. Vera. 

CHAPTER IV. 
§ 1. On Ideas. 

The universality and unity of Knowledge as well as the 
universality and unity of Being require a principle which 
should extend to all things and embrace all things in the 
unity of its nature. This principle, we have seen, is Thought. 
Viewed in this light the various branches of knowledge may 



108 On Ideas. 

be considered as constituting the various branches or stages 
of Thought, and then, according to this notion, Logic would 
represent a special province of Thought. But it will be easily- 
perceived that this mode of viewing Logic, though abstract- 
ly correct, cannot convey a concrete and full notion of this 
Science unless we previously define the object of Thought in 
general, the subject-matter; or, to use more familiar expres- 
sions, the principles and laws with which Thought is inva- 
riably and absolutely concerned, as well as their import and 
bearing with relation both to Knowing and Being. 

This leads us to the fundamental and decisive Problem of 
Science, the Problem which lies, under various forms, at the 
bottom of all others, and constitutes, as it were, the keystone 
of the whole edifice , I mean the Problem of Ideas. The two 
main points we shall have to elucidate on this subject are 

1°. The relation of Ideas to Thought and Knowledge, or what 
has been termed the subjective and psychological Pro- 
blem of Ideas. 

2°. The intrinsic value of Ideas, or the Ideas considered in 
themselves and in their essential existence, i.e. the ob- 
jective and ontological Problem of Ideas. 

It must be observed that these two Problems are but two 
aspects of one and the same thing, and may be comprehended 
in a general query, namely, " Are Ideas at once the princi- 
ples of Knowledge and the principles of Being ?" — a point 
which must be constantly kept in view in the course of the 
following investigation. 

If to know is to think, to think is, in its turn, to possess 
the idea of the object apprehended by Thought — Thought 
and Idea are inseparable. Thought embodies itself in Idea, 
and Idea embodies itself in Thought. Where there is no 
idea there is no thought, and where there is no thought there 
is no idea.* The clearness and fulness of Thought are in 

* Ideas cannot exist in their general form and unity — i.e. as ideas — in nature 
and without Thought. From which will also be seen that those who, like Spi- 
noza or the Materialists, see in Substance or in Matter the universal principle and 
substratum of things, overlook the fact that Substance, Matte?-, Being, as well as 
the Good and the Beautiful, are attributes or essences subordinate to Thought. 
For Thought comprehends them, whilst it is not comprehended by them. And 
it comprehends them in the twofold manner in which we use the word; for it 
understands them, and, for the very reason that it understands them, it contains 



On Ideas. 109 

proportion to the clearness and fulness with which Idea is 
apprehended by it. To possess distinct and complete ideas 
-is the natural impulse and the most inward want of Thought ; 
and to evolve them out of the obscure and confused mass of 
facts, images, and sensations, incessantly flowing into the 
soul, constitutes its permanent labor and highest enjoyment. 
Sentiment, heart, feeling, intuition, are, as we have already 
observed, inferior stages or forms of Thought. Here thought 
is still enveloped in nature and sensation, not having reached 
the clear and pure perception of ideas. Yet, even at this 
stage, Idea is present, though dimly, in Thought ; and what- 
ever value and truth the latter possesses, it is from Idea it is 
derived. The sentiment of God, of the Beautiful, of the Soul, 
of any internal or external object, is inferior to the clear per- 
ception — the idea — of them. But whatever truth is in it, it is 
Idea that imparts it. Let, for instance, the idea of God be 
erased from the mind, and with the idea all perception and 
sentiment of the Deity will be extinguished.* 

But, in order to establish still more incontestibly the inti- 
mate connection of Though t and Ideas, let us analyze Thought 
in its most rudimentary operation, in that state in which it 
hardly distinguishes itself from the external world — I mean 
sensation. For there are those who will admit that Thought 
cannot think God, the True, the Beautiful, and other trans- 
cendent objects, save through an idea, bur who will not 
acknowledge the idea of sensation, However, it is easy to 
see that the idea of sensation is as necessary to apprehend 
sensation as the ideas of God, of the Beautiful, &c, are neces- 
sary to apprehend God and the Beautiful. For sensation, to 

them in the manner in which Thought contains all things — namely, spiritually 
and ideally — in their highest form and perfection. 

* It may be said that the progress nor only of Science bur of Religion is 
nothing else than an evolution of ideas. For instance, all Religions are founded 
on the belief in the existence of God. and in this respect there is no difference 
between them. Consequently they can differ only in the manner in which they 
realize God. And it is immaterial whether it is through Faith or through Sci- 
ence that God is realized: for iu both eases there must be a notion of God ; and 
the more correct the notion, the truer the Religion. Those who pretend to found 
Religion exclusively on the Word of God, forget the simple but most glaring fact 
that the Word of God must be apprehended and received by the mind, and con- 
sequently that the mind must possess some notion through which it perceives 
the existence of God and the truths contained in His Word. 



I 



110 On Ideas. 

be felt, must be thought, and thought as something deter- 
mined, and different from any other phenomenon and sub- 
jective modification. Now what determines Thought in 
sensation is the idea of sensation, as the idea of triangle de- 
termines thought in the apprehension of the triangle, and the 
idea of God in the apprehension of God. It may be supposed 
that it is the external object that produces both the organic 
modification — the impression — and the internal apprehension 
of the phenomenon by Thought. But it must be observed 
that the external object as well as the organic modification 
that follows the impression are converted into mental phe- 
nomena by their coining in contact with Thought, and con- 
sequently they are unable to produce an effect which it is 
beyond their nature and faculty to produce. Moreover, the 
very idea by which the mind apprehends the corresponding 
phenomenon must needs be previously contained in Thought, 
and cannot be imprinted in it as an image in wax. For, on 
the one hand, ideas are neither images, nor symbols, nor any 
material representation, but pure and merely intellectual 
elements, and, on the other hand, not only do they precede 
the impression, but before and after the impression they 
distinguish themselves from it. 

This brings before us the vexata qucestio of the origin 
of Ideas, a question which in our days and since Kant's labor 
has lost much of its importance,* but upon which I have 
deemed it necessary to dwell at some length, as to form a 
correct and clear notion of the nature of ideas we must em- 
brace them in their various aspects ; and, besides, the eluci- 
dation of this point will pave the way to the solution of the 
ontological problem. 

If Thought and Ideas be inseparable, either ideas are given 
with and in thought, i.e. are innate, or not only ideas but 
ideas and thought must equally be derived from experience. 
This is the real and rational position of the problem, and 
when considered from this point of view its solution will 
more readily be arrived at. In fact, those who deri}^ the 

* Because since Kant it has been more clearly perceived that the main and 
decisive point in the problem of ideas is not to determine whether ideas are in- 
nate or derived from experience, but what is their objective meaning and func- 
tion; in other words, their essential and absolute nature. 



On Ideas. Ill 

inneity of ideas will perceive that they deny at the same time 
the preexistence of the mind to sensation and experience. 
To hold that the mind alone precedes experience, but ideas 
are gradually brought into the mind by it, is in reality to 
hold that the mind is not the mind, if it be true that the essen- 
tial business of the mind is to think and to know, and that 
there is neither thinking nor knowing without ideas. But, 
even granted that the mind and ideas were not so intimately 
connected as to be inseparable, the very fact that the mind 
is capable of forming ideas (a fact which those who pretend 
to draw our mental constitution and activity out of the mate- 
rials furnished by experience are obliged to admit, but which 
they explain by the process — equally possessed by the mind 
— of generalization), this very fact, I say, shows how untena- 
ble the ground is upon which the sensualistic doctrine rests. 
The capabilities of a being constitute its nature, and the 
bringing of them into play constitutes its actual existence 
and operation. The capability of wood is to burn and that 
of powder to explode, and these capabilities are involved in 
their inward and essential constitution. So likewise the capa- 
bility possessed by the mind of forming ideas is nothing else 
than the preexistence in the mind of these very ideas; which 
means, in other words, that to think through and according 
to ideas is what constitutes the mind's whole essence and 
activity.* And we shall arrive at the same result if we 
examine the manner in which experimental philosophers 
profess to explain the formation of ideas, namely, the well- 
known process of generalization. In fact, generalization 
presupposes ideas; for to generalize is, according to the 
definition of these philosophers, to deduce from individual, 
transient and scattered phenomena a general, fixed and indi- 

* The so-called laws of Thought are nothing else than ideas. For instance, 
the laws of causality, of action and reaction, or that the xohole is greater than the 
part, &c, are only ideas and relations of ideas, such as cause and effect, action 
and reaction, etc., and it is by applying these ideas to phenomena that we name 
and distinguish them. As we handle here the problem of ideas in a general way, 
we will not enter into the question relating to the difference between category 
and idea as established by Kant. It will suffice to say that what Kant calls cate- 
gory is nothing else but the idea, taken only in its abstract form, as a form or 
element of the understanding (Verstand), and not in its concrete and real unity, 
in its systematic existence, and as it is in reason (Vemunft), which constitutes 
the speculative idea in the strict Hegelian sense. 



112 On Ideas. 

visible notion. Now it is plain that this result would be 
unattainable unless the very notion which, it is pretended, 
is brought out by this operation, preexisted in the mind; 
for it is the presence of the notion in the mind that in- 
duces the latter to generalize, and therefore, were the notion 
abolished, the generalizing process would cease with the 
principle that produces it. To speak more correctly, there is 
no generalization at all, and what is called generalization is 
merely the successive and partial application of ideas to sin- 
gle phenomena. Let us take an instance, the general idea of 
man. According to the empirical doctrine this idea would 
be formed in the following manner : We perceive through 
the senses a certain number of men, we abstract from each 
individual man some common qualities, and these common 
qualities which are scattered in each individual we combine 
and unite so as to compose the general notion, man. This 
process seems very simple, and well-adapted to account for 
the presence of ideas in the mind, whilst it escapes the 
popular argument directed against this inneity, and found- 
ed upon the fact that we are not aware in childhood of 
possessing any general idea, our mind being then exclusive- 
ly occupied with sensations and phenomena of the obscurest 
and most fleeting kind — a fact showing, it is assumed, that 
ideas are subsequently and gradually formed upon materi- 
als furnished by experience. This argument, I say, seems 
very simple, and the more cogent as it is founded upon 
psychological experience; but it will be seen, upon close ex- 
amination, that it mutilates and perverts the very experience 
from which it is deduced. In fact, if things were to take place 
as it is stated, ideas would come from naught ; for whence 
could ideas be derived, experience supplying only individual, 
fugitive and isolated elements ? And how could these ele- 
ments be collected and so combined as to form a unit}*, if this 
unity — the idea — do not preexist in Thought! 1 Besides, each 
of these particular elements — sensations, phenomena, and 
representation of material objects — in order to be transformed 
into a general notion, must be singled out. determined, and 
named (the first as well as the second, and the whole series), 
as it is presented to the mind, otherwise it would mean and 
represent nothing, and then the pretended formation of ideas 



On Ideas. 113 

could not take place. But to name and discriminate a phe- 
nomenon a preexisting idea is necessary, and the very idea 
to which the phenomenon is referred, let it be a man, a sen- 
sation, a phenomenon of light, of heat, &c. For when we 
generalize the different men, or phenomena of light, heat, 
&c, we do not generalize indiscriminately or in an indeter- 
minate manner, but we refer each successive representation 
to a distinct idea, which for the very reason that it names 
and determines each of these phenomena distinguishes itself, 
as we have already observed, from each of them, and conse- 
quently must need precede them as well as continue after 
they have disappeared. 

With regard to the other part of the argument, namely, 
that ideas cannot be inherent in the mind because we are not 
conscious of their presence in childhood, it comes to this, 
that there is no law regulating our digestive or visual power, 
or any other organic function, because we digest, see, walk, 
without being aware of, or inquiring into, these laws ; and, 
agreeably to this criterion, it ought to be said that these, or 
any other laws, begin to exist only when we become aware 
of them, and not before ; and straining the consequences, that 
thev exist for those who are conscious, but not for those who 
are unconscious of their existence. This is the real import 
of the argument, which shows that it is no argument at all. 
In fact, the subjective state of the individual, his conscious- 
ness or unconsciousness does not in any way affect princi- 
ples. Principles, laws, ideas, exist and produce their effects 
whether he be conscious of their existence and operation or 
not. And if it be recollected that this state of unconscious- 
ness with regard to principles is not confined to childhood, 
but extends to mature age and all periods of life, and that 
this transition from unconsciousness to consciousness, from 
ignorance to science, takes place in some — and these the very 
few — men's minds, whilst others — the greatest number — live 
in a state of unconsciousness and ignorance, the hollowness 
of the argument will become still more apparent. The part 
experience plays in the development and training of the mind 
is to awaken attention and reflection, which in some are 
directed towards the general, the absolute and the eternal, 
whilst in others they do not rise above the particular, the 

viii— 8 



114 On Ideas. 

relative, and the temporal. But experience produces noth- 
ing; it does no more produce ideas than the mind, its in- 
stincts, tendencies and faculties, or the body and its func- 
tions. The objection drawn from the fact that without the 
help of experience and of the senses we could not possess the 
physical ideas of color, light, sound, &c, goes so far as to 
prove that experience calls the attention of the mind to 
ideas through the sensuous representation of them, and that 
these representations are apprehended by the mind through 
the instrumentality of the senses, but not that experience is 
the principle and the source of ideas ; for representation and 
ideas are entirely distinct, though they are generally con- 
founded/- The sound that I hear is not the idea of sound, 
but the image and the symbol of it (we will see hereafter that 
it is its effect and product); and when I hear a sound, two 
different events take place in my mind — though both appre- 
hended and distinguished by Thought, i.e. the representation 
of the particular sound and the perception of the idea that 

* It is a confusion generally occurring in the popular and irrellective mind 
which makes use indiscriminately of the word idea to designate the particular 
and the general, the phenomenon and its principle. This confusion is one of the 
greatest obstacles to the right understanding of idealism, and it is of the utmost 
importance that the philosopher should by an appropriate training be enabled 
to avoid the confusion, and to distinguish between representations and ideas. 
Descartes, to mark this distinction, has recourse to the following example: '* I 
can," says he. ''represent to myself a triangle. I can also realize a \ entagon or a 
decagon, though not so distinctly as a triangle. But as the number of sides and 
angles increases, the representations become more and more dilhcult and indis- 
tinct, until they vanish entirely. For instance, I cannot in any manner represent 
to myself a chiliagon ; and yet, although I am unable to realize it, I can define it. 
and determine its properties, as clearly and rigorously as those of the triangle — 
an operation showing that I possess the idea of the chiliagon which I appnhend 
through pure thought' 1 [intellection is the word used by Descartes) "without the 
assistance of any sensible representation." Similar examples may be found in 
all departments of knowledge. For instance, we can form sensible representa- 
tions of the rapidity of a horse, or of a small distance, but cannot form sensible 
representations of the rapidity of light or of a long distance, though we can 
equally measure and determine both. However, such examples are not needed 
to perceive the distinction between representation and idea, and, though they 
help the inexperienced, they may, on the other hand, mislead him by making 
him believe that we can represent to ourselves the idea of triangle, for instance, 
whilst the fact is that we can no more form a representation of t lie idea of trian- 
gle than of the idea of the chiliagon or of any other object. What we represent 
to ourselves is a particular triangle, but not the idea of it, which, like any other 
idea, can only be apprehended by pure Thought. 



On Ideas. 115 

imparts to the latter, whatever value and meaning it pos- 
sesses—of the idea which, as we have already observed, was 
in my mind before the sonnd was perceived, and will con- 
tinue in it ready to apprehend all similar phenomena, and 
which has perceived, is perceiving, and will perceive them in 
the minds that were, that are, and that will be. 

We must then admit that ideas are innate, and that, far 
from originating with experience, they are presupposed by 
it, so that were the mind deprived of ideas no experimental 
object could reach the mind, nor be apprehended or named 
by it. 

The question now arises whether all ideas be innate, or 
whether only some of them be so. For there are philoso- 
phers who acknowledge the inneity of ideas, but only of 
some of them, and who consequently make a selection, single 
out some of them as innate, and consider the rest as adventi- 
tious (generally dividing them into metaphysical and physi- 
cal or primary and experimental ideas, calling metaphysical 
or primary the ideas of God, of the Infinite, the Beautiful, 
the Good ; or categories, such as the categories of Quantity, 
of Unity and Plurality, of Substance, Action and Reaction, 
&c), and physical or experimental all ideas relating to exter- 
nal objects. Now it will be seen that this distinction is 
founded neither upon speculative nor upon experimental 
grounds. For, if we bear in mind that inasmuch as they are 
all ideas, they must partake of the same nature and flow from 
the same source, we shall come to the conclusion that either 
they are one and all innate, or that none of them are. In 
fact, the difference which distinguishes them bears upon their 
objective meaning, i.e. the various aspects or qualities of 
being they express — the Beautiful, Justice, Color, Light, &c. 
— but it cannot in any way affect their origin. Why, for in- 
stance, the idea of the Infinite should be innate, and the idea 
of Light should be acquired ? Are they not both ideas, and 
do they not fill, each in its own sphere, similar functions? 
When, to prove the dissimilarity of their origin and nature, 
it is argued that the idea of the Infinite cannot be deduced 
from the Finite, as the latter will always remain so what- 
ever be the perfections with which the mind will endow it, 
and consequently that the idea of the Infinite cannot be 



116 On Ideas. 

drawn from the Finite, whilst the idea of Light, or any other 
physical idea, is produced by the direct apprehension of cor- 
responding phenomena, — an argument is brought forward 
which rests on the confusion, I have just pointed out, be- 
tween representation and idea, besides overlooking other 
vulnerable points which lay it open to other objections. For 
it will be seen that, in this argument, we have, on the one 
hand, the idea of the Infinite, whilst, on the other, we have 
not the idea but the representation of Light. Had Light 
been considered, like the Infinite, in its idea, it would have 
been perceived, as I have demonstrated, that there cannot be 
such a difference between them, and that we cannot any more 
deduce the general idea of Light, Heat, or Sound, from 
luminous, calorific, and sonorous phenomena, than the idea 
of the Infinite from the apprehension of finite beings. There- 
fore, as the idea of Light bears the same relation to luminous 
phenomena as the idea of the Infinite to the perception of the 
Finite, the argument applies equally to both or to neither. 
But, setting aside all other considerations, the hollowness of 
the argument will be more readily discovered by directing 
the attention to its general purport, and to the principle upon 
which it is grounded. It is there assumed that the idea of 
the Infinite and that of the Finite cannot be traced back to 
a common source because of the impossibility of deducing 
the former from the latter. Now if we grant the impossi- 
bility of the deduction, we must admit at the same time that 
the impossibility affects both terms and their mutual rela- 
tion. If so, the converted proposition will be equally true ; 
I mean that, if it be true that the Infinite cannot be drawn 
from the Finite, it is equally true that the Finite cannot be 
drawn from the Infinite; for if, by indefinitely enlarging the 
boundaries of the Finite, we would never reach the Infinite, 
and as, on the other hand, we could discover no limit in the 
Infinite, we would equally be unable to descend from the 
Infinite to the Finite. Therefore, both ideas being, in this 
respect, identical, the only inference to be legitimately drawn 
is, that they issue not from a different, but from one and the 
same source. Thus this famous argument upon which eclec- 
tic idealism mainly rests, is found, on close examination, to 
be no argument at all. The fact is that ideas are all innate, 



On Ideas. 117 

and they are all innate because of their being all ideas, 
namely, purely t intelligible principles constituting the com- 
ponents and indivisible elements of intellect and thought. 
They are also innate because of their being the immutable 
and eternal principles of Knowledge and Being. This leads 
us to the consideration of the other — the objective and onto- 
logical — aspect of the Problem. 

§ 2. 

What we have now to consider is the objective nature of 
Ideas, or Ideas in themselves independent of the subjective 
and accidental state of the individual mind, and the part 
they play with reference either to Knowing or to Being. 
This, I need hardly add, is the highest Problem of Science, 
in whose solution is involved, directly or indirectly, that of 
all others, and compared with which all other inquiries must 
be looked upon as preliminary exercises, a kind of mental 
gymnastic whose object it is to invigorate the mind, that it 
may reach this supreme object of its labors and aspirations.* 

First of all, if, as I have demonstrated (section preceding), 
thought and idea are inseparable, and where there is idea 
there is thought, and where there is no idea there is no 
thought, it follows — 

1°. That the limits of thought and the limits of ideas are 
identical, and that there exists between things and ideas the 
same relation as between things and thought. 

2°. That, as to know is to think, and that where thought 
ceases there knowledge ceases also, knowledge and idea are 
inseparable, and, consequently, 

3°. That there are as many ideas as there are determina- 
tions and objects of thought, and that the more we penetrate 
into the nature of ideas the more we become possessed of a 
clear and adequate knowledge of things ; whence it follows, 
also, 

4°. That as, on the one hand, there is no being, virtually or 



* See on this point Plato passim in his Dialogues, but more especially in the 
Phedon, the Republic, and the Banquet. Hegel has admirably and systematically 
described in his Phenomenology of Spirit this metamorphosis of the mind, these 
gradual evolutions which the mind must go through that it may be enabled to 
handle pure ideas and deal directly with them. 



118 . On Ideas. 

actually, beyond, the reach of thought, and as, on the other, 
thought can think no being but through or in idea, there 
are ideas for all things, i.e. for all beings, modes or forms of 
existence.* 

Yet, although this is a consequence which necessarily 
flows from the above enunciated principles, we are generally, 
so to speak, less condescending, in this respect, towards 
ideas than towards thought. For we readily admit that 
thought is endowed with the faculty of thinking all things, 
but with regard to ideas we here deal with them as we 
did with regard to their origin ; we make a selection, and 
accordingly reject the doctrine that there are ideas cor- 
responding to all things ; admitting, for instance, the ideas 
of Justice, of the Good, of the Beautiful, of God, &c, but 
refusing to admit the ideas of Body, of Plant, Organism, 
Light, &c. It is, as it may be seen, the same eclectic and 
arbitrary process applied to the present question. In fact, 
whatever be the conception we form of ideas, whatever the 
value we assign them — let them be the essence of things, or 
mere subjective forms of thought — either we must admit that 
there is an essence, or an absolute form for the body, the 
plant, the light, as there is one for justice, the infinite, the 
good ; or if we deny it, our denial must extend to both, to the 
latter as well as to the former. 

The reluctance we feel to assign ideas to all things, and 
the difficulty we find in perceiving this fundamental truth, 
are mainly owing to our not being sufficiently impressed with 
the importance of this principle, namely, that the invisible 
and the ideal constitute the essential element of all beings, 
of Nature and Spirit, of body and sou], as well as of their 
mutual relation. In a general and indefinite manner we do 
acknowledge the principle, but, as we do not possess a clear 
perception of it, and do not embrace it in all its bearings and 
relations, when we come to application, either we totally dis- 
regard it, or we apply it in a desultory and arbitrary manner, 
so as to stultify ourselves and fall into the strangest contra- 
dictions. Thus it is, for instance, that we will assert that Grod 
is a Being immaterial and invisible, and, at the same time, 

* Plato has laid down this principle in the Republic and Parmenides, but he 
has made only a partial and incomplete application of it. 



On Ideas. 119 

that He is the Principle of Nature, for the reason that Nature 
and the visible AVorld cannot contain within themselves the 
ultimate principle of their existence ; which means, and 
cannot but mean, that the reason, the cause, or the ultimate 
essence of Nature, resides in God. But if any one set forth 
the doctrine that Idea is either the principle or an essential 
element of Nature, we will not listen to such a doctrine, on 
the ground that we cannot understand how a purely intelli- 
gible element could be the principle of matter, space, motion, 
&c, here rejecting what we had formerly admitted in an other 
form, and basing our rejection upon the very same ground on 
which we had admitted it. 

We were, then, right in stating that we must deny or admit 
the objective reality of all ideas, and deny or admit them on 
the same grounds. Therefore, if there be the ideas of the 
Good, the True, the Infinite, there will be also the ideas of 
quantity, of quality, of number, light, animal, body and soul, 
life and death,* indeed of beings which seem the most remote 
from the ideal world ; I mean, matter, phenomenon, and the 
Self. In fact, all Selfs, as well as any other being, possess 
an invariable element, a common essence, and they are such 
only inasmuch as they are the product of this essence and 
partake of its nature. And the adversaries of Idealism, the 
so-called psychologists who pretend to found philosophical 
knowledge upon internal experience and facts of conscious- 
ness, as they term them, acknowledge, or must acknowledge, 
this principle, namely, that in examining and describing such 
facts it is not as facts belonging exclusively to the indim- 



* Physiologists, for the same reason that they do not generally admit the idea 
of organism (I say, generally, for there are some — Burdach, for instance— who 
admit it), reject the idea of life and death. And yet they endeavor to give 
a definition of them (see Cuvier, Regne animal, [ntrod., and Bichat. Rrche-ches 

sur la vie et sur la mort). Now, either the definition possesses a merely nominal 
value, and then life and death would be a compound of words, or it must be 
acknowledge! that there is an idea corresponding to each of them. And this is 
what, in reality, they acknowledge themselves by endeavoring to describe the 
conditions and invariable elements which constitute them. It is what, for in- 
stance, Cuvier acknowledges, who, after having defined life as the faculty pos- 
sessed by the body of assimilating to itself, b\ a fixed and regular process, the 
environing substances, winds up his remarks by saying that the form is more 
essential to the living body than the matter. Now this form is nothing el-e than 
the idea, which appeared to Cuvier as a mere form because of his not having 
given the subject sufficient attention. 



120 On Ideas. 

dual self that they describe them, but as facts extending to 
all selfs, nay, as constituting their very nature. And this 
only can lend to their inquiries a scientific importance; which 
means that it is this very science — Idealism — which they 
oppose that furnishes them with a leading principle, and im- 
parts a meaning and a value to their own doctrine. 

This misconception of idea in its relation to the Self must 
be chiefly attributed to the incorrect and deceptive notion 
we entertain about this same Self and consciousness. For 
we hold that Self combined with Consciousness, or Self- 
consciousness, is the highest stage and perfection of the hu- 
man being, so that, according to this opinion, truth must be 
apprehended by the Self in Consciousness or Self conscious- 
ness ; and a truth which does not fall under Self-conscious- 
ness is, as far as we are concerned, = 0. Now, even granted 
Self-consciousness to be the highest perfection or faculty of 
the human being, here also it must be admitted that it is not 
the exclusive attribute of single individuals, but that all in- 
dividuals are possessed of it ; which leads us to the same 
conclusion we have just stated, that there is a type, an idea, 
a common essence for self-consciousness, in which idea lies 
the cause and unity of all self-consciousness, and by which 
all self-consciousnesses are linked together and set in mutual 
communication. 

Moreover, the knowledge of my Self rests on the knowl- 
edge of the Self, as the knowledge of my nature rests on the 
knowledge of man's nature. This is the import of the /W3&, 
aeaurov. For to obtain the real knowledge of my faculties, 
rights, and duties, I must know other men's also. And to 
embrace my Self in the wide range of its relations as a phy- 
sical, social, moral, and religious being, 1 must know the be- 
ings also with whom I stand in such a relation. And if, in 
examining into my Self, I do not discriminate what belongs 
to it and what belongs to the Self — what is local and acciden- 
tal, the effect of ignorance, caprice and opinion — from what 
is invariable, permanent and absolute in my nature, I shall 
know neither the Self in general nor my individual Self'.'' 



* If any one were to state thai man is the Englishman or the Frenchman — or, 
what is the same, that in possessing the knowledge of the Englishman we pos- 
sess the science of man — the Englishman himself would smile at such a state- 



On Ideas. 121 

If we now consider the Self in its relation to truth, we shall 
arrive at the same result. In fact, truth which would be ex- 
clusively my individual Self's truth would prove no truth at 
all. And if I apprehend it as identical with, or inseparable 
from, my Self, I pervert it, or apprehend the shadow and not 
the reality of truth. For the very nature of truth is to be 
universal, and so constituted as to be open to universal ap- 
prehension. Therefore when I say that it is my mind which 
apprehends truth, I use an erroneous expression which cre- 
ates in me the belief that it is really my mind that appre- 
hends it, whilst it is the mind that is in me, and with which 
I am in union, that really perceives it. And, far from my 
selfish nature being the organon of truth, all my endeavors 
must, on the contrary, be directed towards vanquishing and 
silencing it, in order to invigorate and give rein to that uni- 
versal nature that lies hidden in the depths of my soul, and 
which alone is able to apprehend the universal and the eter- 
nal. For when I live with and within the narrow compass 
of my individual Self, I live amidst fleeting shadows and de- 
ceptive phantoms which I mistake for realities, and instead 
of enlarging and perfecting my individual nature by raising- 
it to the True and the Good, and by actually accomplishing 
my union with the universal and the absolute, I disfigure 
and curtail the latter by violently compressing them (if I am 
allowed the expression) into the mould of my individual and 
perishable nature. Consequently, to apprehend truth I must 
abolish my Self-consciousness, and turn it into Unconscious- 
ness, or the Consciousness of Truth. This is the high and 
exclusive privilege of Truth and of the intellect that appre- 
hends it. For in this mutual embrace of Intellect and Truth, 
Truth becomes Intellect and Intellect becomes Truth. Now 
this union and identification is what Thought and Idea alone 
can accomplish. For Thought that has become adequate to 
Idea is Thought not only of my individual Self, but of Con- 
sciousness and the Self, as well as of the Non-self and of all 

meat. Now those who pretend that the Self is the, highest attribute of man, and 
refuse, at the same time, to admit an essence common to all Selfs, hold a still 
stranger opinion. For the error of the Tormer would only be to mistake the 
species for the nenus, whilst the latter substitute the individual for the whole 
melius. 



122 • On Ideas. . 

things as grasped by the mind in their universal and immu- 
table essence. 

Analogous considerations will lead us to the idea of matter. 
In fact, if there be an essence of matter, this essence must 
need be a merely intelligible principle. Now there is and 
there must be such an essence. For even were we to realize 
the principle of matter in a manner similar to that of Plato's 
and Aristotle's, i.e. as a principle utterly passive and form- 
less (dfjtofjyop), as the absolute virtuality or indetermination 
(Suva/ice), it would be this virtuality and this indetermination, 
this absence of all forms, and consequently this capability of 
receiving any, that would constitute its essence. 

The habit of representing to ourselves matter as compound 
and impenetrable is the chief hindrance to our apprehending 
the simplicity and intelligibility of its principle. 

Now, with regard to composition, if by composition be 
meant an accidental and external union, or juxtaposition of 
elements and properties that would not be united by any in- 
ternal, simple, and consubstantial principle ; in this case, 
matter is no more compound than spirit. Otherwise we ought 
to hold that spirit is compound also, as it contains, like mat- 
ter, various properties, faculties, and modes of activity. If 
it be said that in matter it is form that links together its 
properties, this would be equally applicable to spirit, and in 
this respect also there would be no difference between them. 
Finally, to realize either Spirit or Matter as a merely ex- 
ternal and fortuitous aggregate of elements, is to fall into 
atomism and all the impossibilities with which this doctrine 
is beset. 

As to impenetrability, it is not only speculative thought 
but experience itself that shows matter not to be absolutely 
impenetrable ; for, if it were impenetrable, how could the 
most essential fact — the fact constituting, so to speak, the 
very life of matter — I mean, its transformation, and the 
mutual fusion and identification of the various material 
substances — be explained? Besides, if we admit matter in 
itself, matter forming the link of all material substances, we 
must admit also that matter penetrates all these substances, . 
or, what is the same, that all these substances penetrate each 
other through the medium of matter. Therefore, what is 



Philosophy of Law. 123 

impenetrable is not matter in itself, but matter in its particu- 
lar and fragmentary existence, i.e. bodies. And, consequent- 
ly, we must bold that bodies are penetrable and impenetra- 
ble : penetrable inasmuch as they possess a common nature 
and substance, impenetrable inasmuch as they are distinct 
and separate parts of this same substance. Finally, extent 
and impenetrability, as well as all properties and modes of 
matter, are general and essential properties, and conse- 
quently, like matter itself, merely intelligible elements ; 
they possess, in other words, like matter, a principle, a type, 
an idea. 



LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAW/- 

By James Hutchison Stirling. 
IV. 

Gentlemen : — The last subject of consideration with us was 
the alienation of property through long omission of the mani- 
festation of will in it. There the omission was indirect, and 
the step from indirect to direct omission constitutes the tran- 
sition from the subject of the use of property to that of its 
alienation proper. A thing is mine when it is willed mine, 
and not mine, consequently, when it is willed not mine ; or, 
from that into which I have set my will, I can also withdraw 
it again. This is alienation which may be an act direct, 
explicit, and declared, as well as one indirect, implicit, and 
undeclared. What is alienable, however, must be by very 
nature external ; whereas what is by very nature internal, is 
also by the very terms inalienable. I cannot outer what is 
wholly and solely inner. Now, such is my personality as 
personality ; such my free-will, my moral sense, my religious 
conviction. These I cannot commit to the disposal of another ; 
for they are my very inmost being, my very principle of ex- 
istence, my very self; and the nature of one's absolute self 
is free-will, and that is freedom, liberty. I can neither be a 
slave, then, nor have a slave. All compulsion is unlawful 
but that of law itself which, properly considered, is no com- 

* Delivered before the Juridical .Society. Edinburgh, Nov. 16, 1871. 



124 Lectures on the 

pulsion ; for it is the restoration of right, of free-will, not only 
to him who has been compelled, but to him who has been the 
compeller. Or, to put it otherwise, no man can be compelled 
but to undo his compulsion, which evidently is the restora- 
tion of his own right. He who gives into the possession of 
another his capability of rights, his moral and religious prin- 
ciples, gives away what he does not possess. Let him once 
possess them, let him once take his own free-will into pos- 
session, and such alienation is impossible. Retrocession 
from an immoral covenant, then, is no wrong ; for the right 
that might be said to be wronged, as regards either contract- 
ing party, no matter which, never could have been his. The 
inviolable inner of my being is no externality, and once I 
have taken it into my possession as such, every externality 
is powerless against it. Nevertheless, a part is, as in relation 
to the whole, external; and I may alienate to another the 
temporary and partial use of my inner abilities. Were such 
alienation not partial, but complete, then I were again a slave. 
This question of partial alienation of what is in its nature 
inward leads Hegel to speak of right in reference to the vari- 
ous products of mind, and one remark here is this : " The 
merely negative, but indispensably first, furtherance of the 
arts and sciences is to secure those who work in them from 
theft, and allow them the protection of their property, just as 
it was the indispensably tirst and the most important further- 
ance of trade and industry to procure them safety from rob- 
bery on the roads." Hegel naturally, also, considers here the 
question of seZ/-alienation, of the alienation of one's life, of 
suicide. The complete totality of our external activity, life, 
is not, to the personality which it naturally constitutes, an 
outer thing; it is not my right to seek death, then, unless at 
call of the ethical universal in which I am held, and which 
is my substance. " Suicide," says Hegel, " may be possibly 
thought bravery, but it is the false bravery of tailors and 
girls." Still he seems a little soft to the suicides of the heroes. 
"When Hercules burns himself," he says, "when Brutus 
falls on his sword, that is the bearing of the hero to his own 
personality ; but when the question is of the simple right of 
suicide, it must be denied to the heroes as well as to the rest." 
The prohibition here, however, hardly seems a strong one, 



Philosophy of Law. 125 

seeing that it appears to be admitted that there is an heroic 
bearing to which personal life is an externality. 

Property as external is in connection with other things ex- 
ternal which are also properties ; bnt the principle of prop- 
erty is will, and property to property is consequently will to 
will. This relation of will to will is the true and proper 
element in which free-will has existence ; and property, no 
longer through subjective will and an external object, but 
property through a common will, through the will of another 
— this is the sphere of Contract. And, perhaps, there is that 
in this transition which will reveal to you at last how the 
triplet Property, Contract, and Penalty, is conditioned by the 
moments of the Notion. In property, for example, the rela- 
tion is that of a single will, in contract that of several wills, 
and in penalty that of the common or universal will. Very 
plainly, then, there is here but the ordinary succession of the 
moments, singular, particular, and universal ; and I may 
remark in this connection, that Hegel does .not tie himself 
down to the universal being always first, but allows it freely 
to exchange places with the singular. 

The main moments with Hegel in his treatment of contract 
are the act of will which constitutes it — from the very notion, 
and that the realization is a simple consequence of this act, 
and necessarily contained or implied in it. " My promise in 
the case of a contract," he says, ''implies that I, with my own 
will, have excluded something from the sphere of what is 
mine, and, at the same time, that I have acknowledged that 
the other person has received it into the sphere of what is 
his. The thing, then, by virtue of the contract, is already 
the property of the other, inasmuch as that a thing is mine 
so far as it depends on me, has its ground in my will. In so 
far, then, as I should not render to the other the matter of 
the contract, or fail to put him in possession of it, I should be 
infringing his property. The contract itself binds me to its 
realization." 

There is that in the relation of the mutual wills present in 
contract which is peculiarly interesting to Hegel. He sees 
in it all the features of the notion, and so, as he is fain to be- 
lieve, its sanction also. He finds property an affair of wills 
now, and no longer to depend for manifestation on an exter- 



126 Lectures on the 

nal object. Contract, he says, is "the process in which there 
is exhibited and resolved the contradiction that I am and re- 
main independent proprietor, exclndent of the other will, so 
far as, in a will identical with the other will, I cease to be a 
proprietor." I not only can, but must, alienate property ; 
for it lies in its very notion that will should be made objec- 
tive, external. But if it is external it is another — that is, 
another will, as it were ; and so we have the unity of differ- 
ent wills — a unity in which this difference is at once negated 
and affirmed. This, however, is the very movement of the 
notion — the identification of differences, the differentiating 
of identity — and signifies the production of an identical will 
in the absolute difference of independent proprietors, in 
which each, with his own will and with the will of the other, 
ceases to be a proprietor, remains a proprietor, and becomes 
a proprietor. It follows, then, that each issues from contract 
the same proprietor that he entered into it, or that there is 
virtually between them an identical property ; this is the 
value in which the articles of the contract are, with all their 
specific external differences, equal to each other. So it is, 
says Hegel, that a Zcesio enormis cancels the obligation of a 
contract. It is in this neighborhood also that Hegel censures 
the unilateral and bilateral and other divisions of contract 
in Roman law, accusing them of superficiality and confusion. 
Possession stands to property as in a relation of substan- 
tiality to externality. Property, namely, is an assertion of 
will, of which possession is the internal reality. This same 
relation but repeats itself in contract in its two terms of 
agreement and fulfilment (prwstatio, solutio). The agree- 
ment is wholly substantial, it is in the element of ideality ; 
and the utterance of ideality — expression — is the sign. So 
the agreement brings itself through the stipulation, in the 
symbolical formalities of gestures or of speech (which last is 
the fittest expression of ideality), into a sign. The stipula- 
tion, therefore, gives an outer body to the ideality of the 
agreement. Formalities, doubtless, get simpler and simpler ; 
still, for the conversion of subjectivity into objectivity, an 
externality is necessary, and formalities of some kind will 
remain as necessary for the expression of will, as speech 
generally for the expression of thought — it lying in these 



Philosophy of Law. 127 

very words that the expression of will will reduce itself more 
and more to the expression of thought as such. The formali- 
ties of contract, then, are not there only to bring a fee to offi- 
cials, but that the mobile inwardness of will may be stereo- 
typed in an outward and undeniable form. It is impossible 
to gainsay the value, in all cases, of the external proof : a 
thousand witnesses to the contents of a letter are really 
impotent beside production of the letter itself. Where agree- 
ment and prestation are not simultaneous, then the stipula- 
tion must be regarded as a real essential. What is impli- 
citly meant must be explicitly set. The derivation of the 
word stipulation, as an outer expression to an inward will, 
does not seem quite certain. Kant derives it from stipula : 
the contracting parties broke a straw between them. Dr. D. 
C. Heron, again, has it that "whatever was firni was termed 
a stipulum by the ancients: probably from stipes, the trunk 
of a tree." * The stipulation is the guarantee, then, that 
something does not lie only in the will, but actually is 
willed, and so lies out of will — a fact. The stipulation fur- 
ther, then, must be regarded as what in contract is legally 
substantial, or in the stipulation the transfer of property 
must be regarded as virtually accomplished. This is the 
declaration of the notion ; but of course, between the stipu- 
lation and the prestation there is allowed the usual latitude 
of understanding ; understanding has always the fact of the 
equal value — in regard to what is given and what is taken — 
as basis and standard. Stipulation, moreover, as substan- 
tial, only applies to what is substantial — value. A contract 
is not a mere promise ; and the stipulation gives shape and 
tixture to the difference. Fichte and others are quite wrong, 
then, in assuming the obligation in contract only to begin 
with the beginning of the prestation. Contract is an affair 
of legal, not of moral right, and has nothing to do with the 
secret intentions, the state of mind morally, of either side. 
Duplicity of moral meaning is not allowable in contract, and 



* Nevertheless, in tiie libris "'Originum seu Etymologiarum" of Isidorus His- 
palensis we find it said (iv. 2-1): "Stipulatio a stipula — veteres enim quando sibi 
aliquid promittebant, stipulam tenentes frangebant," which would seem to be 
dead against Dr. Heron, who, for the rest, supports his own statement by no 
authority. 



128 Lectures on the 

the stipulation is the embodied and undeniable guarantee of 
that. Prestation is but the inevitable result of stipulation, 
and that there are contracts — loans, deposits, &c. — in which 
agreement and prestation are simultaneous is no proof to the 
contrary. 

As regards the classification of contracts Hegel differs but 
little from Kant, and as it may be readily found by reference 
I shall not spend time in its exposition. 

Hegel points out that in contract will is not will as such, 
not absolute will, but, as limited to, included in, an outer 
object — so to speak, transformed to it — is only formal will, 
individual will, self-will. That is, in contract the will is but 
natural will, the object but a natural object, and there is no 
necessity of reason between them : the will may express it- 
self in the object, but it may also withdraw itself again. In 
contract, then, the wills are self-wills, natural, individual 
wills; the onn will that results, is only one ol' community, 
and not of substantial universality; and the object, as at all 
alienable by self-will, is only an individual external object. 
Neither the State nor marriage, therefore, are mattersof con- 
tract. The State, for its part, is very evidently our natural 
absolute : we can neither enter it nor leave it by will of our 
own : it is no result, consequently, of any artificial reciprocal 
agreement ; it is a natural growth, but a growth, from reason ; 
it is a realization in time of objective reason, of the rational 
will. The State is a single national spirit, and it is that spirit 
which is the substantial contents of every individual subject. 
These subjects are indebted to it then, and not it, in the first 
place, to them. The preservation of the State, consequently, 
is infinitely more than the preservation of the individual, 
and it is the latter's duty to perceive and acknowledge this. 
As regards marriage, there is a wonderful Superiority in the 
teaching of Hegel to that of Kant. In fact, the sort of good 
old-maiden Kant is almost even disgusting here, and Hegel 
has a perfect right to speak of him as having exhibited the 
subsumption of marriage under the notion of contract in its 
" Schandlichkeit "y that is, in its shamefnlness, or scanda- 
lously. Marriage to Kant, namely, is, in so many words, a 
contracted interchange of the use of the sexual organs, and 
his whole exposition in connection with it teems with often- 



Philosophy of Law. 129 

sive expressions. It is only that old-maidenness of Kant, 
perhaps, that can supply any excuse for him. He has lived 
all his life, namely, at such a distance from the kindly mys- 
teries of Hymen, that when he gets a chance in philosophy 
to approach them he cannot help extending a half-weak, 
half-wicked hand to the drapery. Hegel exhibits here an 
admirable contrast to Kant, To him the origin of marriage 
is ethical. The individual does indeed seek for himself 
the substantial existence of his own natural universal, the 
genus, the family, but the relation of sex in it takes on intel- 
lectual quality in a union of love and the spirit of trust. 
Sentiment, then — feeling — is still the element in which the 
family lives, and its rights and duties are moral or ethical 
rather than legal ; for the individual constituents of the 
family are members of its one unity, of its one personality, 
rather than themselves persons, and the legal side is conse- 
quently subordinate to the moral. In this way Hegel de- 
duces the necessity of monogamy, and presents the bodily 
union as rather a result of the ethical one. It is very true 
that we have all been much interested in certain views in 
regard to capture in marriage and other facts in its reference 
of an historical character, but the evolution in time neither 
dictates the evolution of the notion, nor renders it untrue. 
So far as time is concerned, religion may have begun in 
plant-worship, or brute-worship, or star-worship, or whatever 
worship you please ; but, for all that, religion is a principle 
of reason, and has its own evolution of reason. The evolu- 
tion in time generally is but — if we are to believe Hegel — the 
evolution of the notion in representation, as it were. As such 
external representation, history, then, is but necessarily a 
scene of contingency, which contingency gives to the evolu- 
tion a scattered, partial, miscellaneous look — even a look of 
caricature ; still, nevertheless, the evolution of the notion is 
but the evolution in time, stripped of its contingency. To 
arrange law, morals, and politics, according to the notion, 
therefore, is not really to fall into contradiction with the 
phenomena of history how motely soever. 

Contract, as we have seen, then, is an agreement on the 
part of two wills — an agreement to a certain performance on 
the part of each. Now there are certain possibilities in this 

viii— 9 



130 Lectures on the 

relation. The one term may have mistaken the other ; or 
expression may not have corresponded to inner intention on 
the part of either ; or performance in the case of the one or 
the other may fail. Suppose, then, in the first place, a mis- 
take. In this case there is a difference, but neither denies 
the right of the other: neither denies right as right; each on 
his own side only insists on his right. Nevertheless there 
is wrong here somewhere, though both are by supposition 
innocent in its regard. This, then, is the position of unin- 
tentional wrong, unintentional injustice, and the result is 
simply the civil suit, the action at law. The position is dif- 
ferent, however, if we suppose expression in the case of either 
not to have corresponded with the state of his mind. Here 
the wrong, then, is no longer unintentional, but intentional; 
and the result is deception, fraud. But so the wrong is cri- 
minal : it amounts to a denial of right as right, at the same 
time that it acknowledges it in form. 

But let us suppose, lastly, that there is intentional and 
express non-performance of the contract. In that case, the 
right of the other person is not only denied, but right as right 
is denied, and we have criminality in terms. Logically. 
as Hegel points out, in the unintentional wrong that gives 
rise to the civil suit, we have only a simple negative judg- 
ment; it is only denied in it that such and such particular is 
capable of subsumption under the genus, under the general 
rule ; whereas, in the case of crime, it is the genus itself, the 
general rule itself, that is denied; and the judgment is of 
the kind that is called infinite. To say this rose is not red. 
is to deny a particular, but implicitly to admit a general; 
whereas to deny that fraud is crime, is to deny the genus 
itself, is to deny the person to be a person. 

This, then, is the sort of external statement of the various 
positions, but how are they internally? how do they relate 
themselves to the notion? The notion here is that of will, 
particular personal will contracting with particular personal 
will under sanction and prescription of the universal will, of 
universal right. Now, the fact that it is particular will that 
is concerned, and in regard as well to a particular externali- 
ty, some one article of property, introduces contingency, the 
possibility of accident. Neither will may deny the universal 



Philosophy of Laio. 131 

will, and each may insist on its right as particular ; but in 
its own contingency, one or other may err. Again, in the 
second instance, or in the case of fraud, universal will is for- 
mally maintained by both, but it is secretly denied by one 
of them. In the third case, lastly, universal right as right is 
denied, and the individual sets up his own will in its place. 
Now, it is from this last that the notion of punishment, 
penalty, evolves itself; and, believing the rest by implica- 
tion intelligible, it is to this now that we shall confine our 
attention. 

The criminal, then, has done two things: he has negated 
the universal will, and he has affirmed in place of it his own 
particular will. How is this disturbance of the true balance 
to be restored ? To negate the universal will is to do some- 
thing that is in itself null ; and this null thing, to restore the 
affirmative, must be itself nullified. The criminal has re- 
sorted to force — a negation, and this negation can only be 
converted into the affirmative by being itself negated. The 
negation of the negation, like a double negative, effects posi- 
tion again, affirmation ; and punishment is the true remedy. 
But, again, the criminal has set up his own particular will 
in place of the universal will ; and as a free being he has, in 
so willing, willed what ought to be, or what ought to be 
supposed to be, universal. It is but justice, then, that the 
criminal be subsumed under his own law — force. Nay, as a 
free being, it is universal will he must acknowledge to be his 
own true will ; therefore it is but the affirmation of his own 
true will that he must recognize in the negation of his own 
false particular will. 

The first result, in mere natural circumstances, of the 
assertion of a mere particular will as law, is the counter- 
assertion, and with equal positiveness, so to speak even, 
with equal right, of the opposite particular — this is revenge. 
But this counter-assertion, as itself proceeding only from 
what is private and particular, is itself a new offence, and so 
there is initiated a progress, or, better, a regress ad infini- 
tum, as we see in the vendette of the Corsicans or of the 
Arabians. This continuity of an endless repetition is inter- 
rupted now by the judge, who, as disinterested representative 
of Right qua Right, rounds the action back into itself through 



132 Lectures on the 

retribution, and restores the universal will — the true will — 
that is, of the criminal himself. And we can readily see that 
the judge is the only proper administrator of any such func- 
tion. His private feelings are not concerned — he is there for 
the universal only ; whereas even the righteous man that 
would only revenge, that by retaliation would only restore 
the disturbed balance, acts, and can act, only under private 
feelings, — and probably under the private feeling that his 
wrong is wrong as wrong, and can only be atoned for by an 
utter negation — a negation that infinitely transcends the 
original negation of the criminal himself. The only legal 
compulsion, then, is the legal retaliation of the illegal com- 
pulsion. He who has forced or deforced the law, must be in 
turn forced or deforced, and that can be realized only where 
he is seizable, only in his person or property. Of course, the 
word force must be understood to have acquired a width of 
meaning here beyond its usual physical application : what- 
ever is even passively illegal, as a negligence or even a mere 
omission, is, as infringement of the universal, capable of 
being regarded as force. In the same way it is allowable to 
view the sensuousness and mere nature of children as so 
much force which can be redressed only — raised into the uni- 
versal of reason — by so much counter-force of training and 
restraint, discipline, and education. The natural will is to 
the rational will really in the relation of the particular to the 
universal, and the former must be negated into the latter. To 
the family as by law established, to the community as by 
law established, all untutored rude individualism of will or 
manner may be allowably said to stand as in a relation of 
force. Even suppose an entire society in a state of nature, 
that whole society may be convicted of force — force to its 
own universal, and the resultant helium omnium contra 
omnes is but the necessary process for the discovery of the 
heroic will, which, instinctively universal, subjects the rest 
to itself. Mr. Grote would fain see this war of all against 
all brought back again ; for he would have no standard for 
the individual but the individual. He is so much surprised, 
indeed, that any one should think otherwise that he cannot 
help referring him to what he calls "notorious facts"; and is 
thus absolutely blind to his own suicidal self-contradiction. 



Philosophy of Law. 133 

Not only are the " notorious facts " lie affirms the universal 
standard he denies ; but that he, an individual, and claiming 
to be amenable only to the individual, should express sur- 
prise at an individual simply for making good his own claim, 
this is the very naivete of self-deception, the very naivete of 
self-conviction, and the very naivete of self-confutation. Only 
in the possibility of such confutation, indeed, is it that there 
is room for the very existence of the State. "Were there no 
universal, were individualism all, then there were no State. 
It is the same possibility then, the game fact, that constitutes 
the very foundation and the origin and the reason of penalty. 
Many have found much difficulty in this. The Stoics, for 
example, in assuming only one virtue, necessarily implied 
also only one punishment, as realized in the laws of Draco, 
which made death the penalty of offences and crimes alike. 
Free-will is realized in a necessarily varied externality, 
however, and the infringements of it are subjected to a cor- 
respondent variety both as regards quality and quantity. 
Analogous variety of punishment, then, is but justice. It is 
gratifying to observe, however, that there is a decided 
tendency throughout all civilized communities to mitigate 
punishments, and all the more gratifying that this does not 
result from a laxer but from an exacter estimation of law 
and justice. It is because the many so correctly regard the 
law that we can afford to punish less the few who err. In 
this way we see that the character and amount of penalty 
does not depend altogether on the notion, but on the actual 
historical condition of the particular people. That is the 
circumstance that explains the apparent paradox: the more 
a people abhors crime, the less it punishes it. Such a people 
is secure in itself, and stands not in need of extraordinary 
examples. It is probably this circumstance that has led 
some to oppose the punishment of death, and others all pun- 
ishments whatever. Beccaria, for example, even denies the 
State any right of capital punishment, and he assigns for 
reason that it is not to be presumed that the social contract 
contains the consent of individuals to their own death. But 
the State is not a contract ; and, as the established universal, 
it possesses a right to claim the sacrifice of the individual 
for its interests. To others, again, it appears absurd because 



134 Lectures on the 

of owe evil to will another. Accordingly they either reject 
punishment altogether, or admit it only because of its 
tendency to intimidate, deter, prevent, &c. Such views, as 
Hegel points out, however, resemble the lifting of a stick to 
a dog : they do not really respect man, they do not really 
respect him as a free being, but treat him as a dangerous 
animal, that must be kept under. But punishment is an 
idea on its own account, and has its foundation in the very 
nature of the will, in the very nature of reason. The true, 
even to realize itself, must destroy the false : so the false 
will of the criminal must realize the true universal will, 
and it lies in the very notion of the relation that the false 
will should contradict itself, negate itself, and how can that 
be done but by submitting it to its own law? 'This is to 
be borne in mind as against all that moral sublime which 
encounters us but too frequently in medical books now-a- 
days. In these we find generally a thousand physiological 
reasons pleaded in proof that the criminal but obeyed his 
own necessity, but did what he could-uot do otherwise ; and 
that the true punishment of the criminal is the rewarding of 
him by making him, through the infinite cares and privileges 
of public protection, a mere pampered pet, a sort of humane- 
ly and scientifically crammed animal ! This is to pervert the 
very notion of will ; this is to pervert the very notion of rea- 
son; this is to pervert the very notion of Nature herself; for 
Nature, when it is man that approaches her, is herself reason. 
No; let us return to health, let us abandon all these pillows 
and bolsters — all these feather-beds of sentimentality on 
which vice is to fall soft, and let us tell men that the}* must 
be men, and that when they declare their self-will the uni- 
versal will, they must be subsumed' under it and abide the 
consequences. For this there is provided the universal law — 
for this there is provided the judge, who dispassionately and 
disinterestedly knows the universal, and dispassionately and 
disinterestedly can subsume the wrong and the false under 
it. In the very criminal there lies the universal that is to do 
him justice. This universal, then, is his own; and in the 
very fact that it is his own, he has given his consent to its 
essential and necessary action even against himself. The 
universal will has a right to negate what would negate it, 



PTtilosopliy of Laio. 135 

and that very universal will is the criminal's own. The kind 
of punishment, then, depends on the particular crime and on 
the particular condition of society, and that is an affair of 
understanding ; but punishment itself depends on the no- 
tion, depends on reason, and is an inevitable and rational 
result. "An act of justice cannot be degraded into any mere 
means: justice is not exercised in order that anything but 
itself be attained and realized. The fulfilment and self- 
manifestation of justice is an absolute end, an end unto its 
own self." It is precise^ in punishment that the criminal 
himself is honored ; and it is precisely by this that such 
punishment lies in his own act, that he is specially honored. 
The particular will that is only the particular will is an of- 
fence to the universal ; and must be sublated through its own 
very self into the universal again, with restoration of the 
pristine, rational, and absolute unity. 

Now. in the relation of crime and penalty, the edge of inter- 
nulity appears. The observance of law, namely, may, in many 
respects, be observaiye only — an external and mechanical 
mode of conduct in certain references. without a thought further 
than the required externality; but this externality becomes 
deepened, becomes reflected inwards, becomes internalized 
into inner ideal principles of right and wrong, in the rela- 
tion of crime and its consequences. This is the more apparent 
when we contrast physical necessity with moral freedom. 
Only because the sun, the planet, the rock, the river, the sea, 
the clod, the plant, the animal, cannot depart from the pre- 
scripts of its universal, is it/bound, is it under necessity, and 
incapable of imputation ; whereas it is only because the hu- 
man being can contradict and oppose, and set himself against 
his universal, that he is free and within reach of imputation. 
It is in the relation of crime and its consequences, then, that 
the majesty of the universal will, which is one's true will, 
and the nullity of the particular will, which is only one's 
false will, appear and manifest themselves : and in this way 
Rigid passes into — Morality. 

The rights which we have just considered are often named 
natural rights. There is involved here an essential and funda- 
mental mistake, however. In a state of nature, that is, there 
are no rights — in a state of nature there are only the un- 



136 Lectures on the 

rights of cunning and of strength. Only in the civil commu- 
nity is it that there are really rights, and these are such as 
we have just seen sketched in reference to the relations of 
Property, Contract, and Penalty. The sketch has been slight, 
but I trust it has not been altogether without true traits. I 
trust that you understand, also, that it has been limited to 
Right as Right, and that the Moral and Political sections of 
the book we have had always in view have only been inci- 
dentally alluded to. 

I have said that for these lectures I had the advantage of 
the examination of a considerable number of authorities 
kindly lent me for the purpose; and that the result was to 
establish my confidence in the exposition of Hegel as regards 
depth and truth of insight. The consideration now of an ob- 
jection or two will enable me, by the addition of a word on 
these authorities, to bring these lectures fittingly to a close. 

Roder accuses the Hegelian exposition of "formalism," and 
of all nations praises the Italian for this, that it has " fortu- 
nately let the Hegelian goblet pass by 4 " As regards "form- 
alism," there is a certain outside show of reason, for the 
Notion may be considered something merely artificial ; but 
as regards the Italians it is Roder who is " unfortunate," for 
in no part of the world at this moment is Hegelianism more 
in the ascendant than precisely in Italy: whether at Flo- 
rence, or at Naples, or even at Rome, under Spaventa, and 
Mariano, and Vera, it is Hegelianism that, as philosophy, is 
taught. When Roder further, then, accuses Hegel and his 
disciples of "obscuring," "degrading," "distorting," "disfigur- 
ing," "caricaturing" "the simplest truths of Rights and Poli- 
tics," "on the rack of an equally clumsy and unintelligible 
method," by the "trickery" of a new "scholasticism," &c, we 
have good grounds to suspect him of incorrectness, at the 
same time that we see internal ignorance to be the condition 
of the show of truth that applies to the outside. Roder, for 
the rest, though writing clearly and with much detail, is all 
too plainly wholly under the power of the biassed and sub- 
jective Pantheism of his master, Krause. Trendelenburg's is 
a good book, and by a very able man; but, though there is 
latently to be understood disagreement with Hegel, it is the 
spirit of Hegel that is the valuable element in it. This spirit. 



Philosophy of Law. 137 

too, is what informs the work of Michelet, at the same time 
that he must be pronounced largely original, and valuably 
so, especially in historical references. What Hildenbrand 
gives us is a history of the notions of Right, and not — at least 
as yet — a system. As a history, it is most excellent. In all 
German historical writers on philosophical matters now, 
there is a single common story, especially ie reference to the 
ancients ; but it must be acknowledged that Hildenbrand, 
for his part, tells this story with perfect elegance and ease, 
and with the most careful accuracy. I come now to Lassalle, 
who is a writer at once of original power and great import- 
ance. In recent philosophy there are few works of greater 
mark than his work on Heraclitus the Dark. His work on 
the Erbrecht also gains more attention daily. But Lassalle 
is an Hegelian, and he glories in the name. Nevertheless, 
he has an objection to the Reclitsphiloso'phie of Aegel. This 
objection I believe to be a mistake, but, as it concerns the 
one pressing question of the day, I shall state it. It concerns, 
namely, the question, of acquired rights of property, and 
Lassalle looks upon the ideas of liberalism, of the bourgeoi- 
sie, of what we know as the passive political economy of the 
middle classes, represented by Mr. Mill, say, as at once nar- 
row and erroneous in regard to it. He surely is not wrong 
in believing this question to contain the "politico-social 
thought that underlies our epoch," what " forms the inmost 
ground of our political and social struggles" now. This it 
is, he says, that " thrills the world's heart at present"; and 
" the mere necessitj^ just to refer to this only shows in what 
soulless platitude and superficiality political principles are 
understood by the spokesmen of the liberal bourgeoisie. " 
"The isolatedness," he continues, "in which the liberal 
bourgeoisie places politics — it is that which characterizes its 
stand-point and its mental horizon, and conditions its per- 
formances. It is this isolatedness which gives at the same 
time to its political diatribes their astonishingly philistine 
color," . ..." a dead isolatedness in which the soul has 
resigned its life and its vision, to lose itself in mere words, 
and with words, on words, for words, to battle." He would 
oppose to this world-cultus substantial thought, and he 
points out the necessity of reconsideration scientifically of 



138 Lectures on the 

many particulars in the science of Right in order to attain 
to a scientific theory of acquired rights. He says, "It is now 
more than forty years since Hegel published his first edition 
of his Philosophy of Right," and remarks that this work, 
from its historical conditions, could only be a first attempt 
to exhibit right as a rational organism, and censures his dis- 
ciples for not having regarded it as a mere logical foundation 
on which it was theirs to build farther. He regards, with Hegel, 
the scientific evolution of will as alone capable of yielding 
a philosophy of Right; Hegelianism is to him the "quin- 
tessence of all Wissenschaftlichkeit," and Hegel's ground- 
principles and method will, he believes, always remain. But 
the principles of Right are, as he also believes, no stereotyped 
logical category : they are substantial ideas that historically 
change and historically progress. Hegel himself did not, he 
thinks, sufficiently see this, otherwise he would have treated 
Law as he treated Religion, and would hare demonstrated 
it in evolution through various historical stages. It is but 
Hegel himself, then, that must be used here to correct Hegel. 
Indeed "Hegel himself and his philosophy bear none of the 
blame here" is his slightly self contradictory further avowal; 
" on every page of his works Hegel is never tired of making 
it prominent that philosophy is identical with the totality 
of empiricism, that philosophy stands in greater need of 
nothing than of penetration into the empirical sciences; re- 
conciliation of natural and positive right, that was Hegel's 
object," but his disciples have neglected to carry it out into 
actual realization in the empirical or historical matter of law. 
In short, Lassalle would have Positive Law regarded as con- 
sisting of but successive historical transformations of natural 
law, and he proceeds with great eloquence and fulness to 
illustrate this idea, with special reference to property. 

The progress of law, he remarks, is towards limitation of 
the individual's right to private property — towards the liber- 
ation of objects from individual dominion. We see this in 
the abrogation of Fidel Commissa even, though so much is 
this mistaken that it is generally regarded as an increase of 
the liberty of property — a removal of its restrictions. This 
abrogation, namely, lessens the power of a proprietor over 
his own property. The same is the case with the "free com- 



Philosophy of Law. 139 

petition" of the present day. That, too, is vaunted as a giv- 
ing freedom to the right of property, whereas it is rather a 
restricting of the power of the private proprietor; for the 
thought in it is, there shall be no more monopoly, no longer 
any privileged individuals. The private property, then, that 
was once possible is now impossible. 

Man — Lassalle substantially continues — at first like the 
infant, stretches out his hands to everything — would make 
all his — recognizes no limits to his self-will. The fetich- 
worshipper breaks his idol when his desires are crossed, 
and thus treats his very gods as his property. Long after 
the rescue of these from such position, man himself con- 
tinues to constitute to man an article of property. The con- 
queror regarded the life of the conquered as his ; and slavery, 
at first unconditioned, then conditioned, has only in our own 
day been abrogated. Formerly one's wife was propert} r , and 
could be bought and sold. Formerty one's children and one's 
debtors were so completely in the same category that the 
former might be put to death by us and the latter taken as 
slaves. In like manner, the power of disinheritance was but 
a fuller right of private property, while subsequent legisla- 
tion has been all in restriction of it. So the slave rises into 
the serf, the serf from privilege to privilege into full emanci- 
pation. Here even the jus primce noctis is a restriction of 
property ; the seigneur compounds for his right to the very 
life of the slave by accepting her virginity. The middle ages, 
though freed from slavery proper, are the very time when the 
human will can, in all its three moments, be set as private 
property. Public will is then an object of such property 
on many grades, and this he illustrates by the privilege of 
sovereigns and other feudal superiors to arrogate a property 
in everything, air and water, and things public, things reli- 
gious, &c. As for particular will being in similar relations, 
monopolies, and guilds, &c, are referred to ; and as regards 
individual will in the middle ages, lastly, we are reminded 
of villenage, and of such rights even over the personally free 
as the choice by the feudal lord of a husband for his female 
vassal. The French Revolution Lassalle conceives to have 
been the sublation of said private property, and in all its 
three moments. As regards the present, it is incorrect, he 



140 Lectures on the 

says, to call this the age of individualism, and individualism 
the character of liberalism. Liberalism is particularism (as 
we may say), classism : it wants freedom, that is, not for the 
individual, but for the tax-paying, capital-holding particular, 
and that is a class. This is but a remnant of the middle 
ages, Lassalle believes, and must disappear. The social 
question now, he intimates in conclusion, is : whether, in 
these days, when there is no longer property immediately in 
another human being, such may exist mediately ; and he 
proceeds to describe the relative positions of capital and 
labor as we must daily witness them. It cannot be denied, 
then, that Lassalle regards the historical progress as e man- 
cipio — emancipation — that is, a release from private proper- 
ty ; and that such release is equivalent to the positive reali- 
zation of human liberty. Neither can we well doubt that 
there is much in what he says highly worthy of our very 
closest attention (it is curious that we should have here in 
Edinburgh so recent and striking an example of a portion of 
his doctrine in the changes we have seen effected on the Mer- 
chant Schools) ; still, what concerns us here is mainly the 
alleged correction of a defect in Hegel. And, so far as adhe- 
sion to the right of private property is a defect, Hegel must 
be pronounced guilty of that defect. Hegel undoubtedly 
signalizes the advantages — the necessity of the institution 
of private property. Still, it is to be borne in mind that it is 
the State that is to Hegel paramount — that to him the State 
is there with power to sist any contingent unreason of the 
lower spheres — that the State has a MacMsprucTi over all, 
and a perfect right of negation. This is manifest in almost 
every page he writes. Evidently, then, if Hegel, is averse to 
the one extreme, the individualism of such men as Lassalle 
and Fichte, he is equally averse to the other extreme, the 
superficial pedantry of those spurious, passive, political 
economists, who believe their laws to be laws of nature, not 
reason, that need only be allowed to work on like gravita- 
tion or a waterfall ; and who look forward to that day of 
light, at length, when we shall parson, and doctor, and law- 
yer ourselves ; and when the whole earth will be inhabited 
only by a single rational community of exchanging animals, 
with nothing but the buttons of the policeman to clear up 



Philosophy of Law. 141 

and shine away any foggy nodus of misunderstanding that 
may arise. That I take to be Hegel's position — a. position, 
then, as it seems to me, that corrects the very correction Las- 
salle would offer it. It is not correct either to accuse Hegel's 
Rechtsphilosophie of being independent of history, or of deal- 
ing only in stereotyped categories, like those of Logic and 
Nature. The Rechtsphilosophie itself contains many refer- 
ences to history, and the whole " Philosophy of History " 
may be regarded as just such reference by itself and at full. 
Right, besides, is not Religion, as little as Religion is Art : 
the Rechtsphilosophie, and the Religionsphilosophie, and the 
JEsthetik, must be allowed to prescribe themselves each its 
own specific character. Neither can it be said that in Hegel's 
philosophy of law, Hegel would have all regarded as fixed 
and stereotyped — a Seyn, and not a Werden, a Being, and not 
a Becoming. Hegel, on the contrary, is so convinced of the 
truth of an historical Becoming that he does not regard Logic 
itself as fixed — in the sense, that is, of the impossibility of 
new categories. He will be found saying that all revolutions 
in science, no less than in history, depend on this, that man 
has changed his categories, and preciser proofs to the same 
effect might be readily adduced. 

It is in place now to refer to Austin, and the remarkable 
contrast his opinions exhibit to those of Lassalle and Hegel. 
Of the public good, this writer speaks thus: ''When I speak of 
the public good, or of the general good, I mean the aggregate 
enjoyments of the single or individual persons who compose 
that public or general to which my attention is directed. 
The good of mankind is the aggregate of the pleasures which 
are respectively enjoyed by the individuals who constitute 
the human race. The good of England is the aggregate of 
the pleasures which fall to the lot of Englishmen, considered 
individually or singly." This, you will observe, is the very 
voice of the modern English spurious enlightenment. Ac- 
cording to it, what is, is but the various motely individuals, 
and no universal exists, but only a motely aggregate ; while 
good, again, is only enjoyment — pleasure. These are doc- 
trines that know nothing of morals, nothing of the State, and 
nothing of the law : these are doctrines that, carried into 
effect, would, almost in an instant, scatter the race into an 



142 Lectures, &c. 

incoherent atomism of unconnected and irresposible single 
savages. This really is the only word they deserve ; yet in 
his peculiar Wahn, so sure is their author of the truth of 
them, that he says, "When it is stated strictly and nakedly, 
this truth is so plain and palpable that the statement is 
almost laughable." He ought to have said, not almost, but 
quite laughable, though for a very different reason. This he 
does not say, however ; but continues, this " truism is un- 
known in that notion of the public good which was current 
in the ancient republics." "Agreeably to that notion of the 
public good, the happiness of the individual citizen is sacri- 
ficed without scruple, in order that the common weal may 
wax and prosper; the only substantial interests are the 
victims of a barren abstraction, of a sounding but empty 
phrase." The state of Mr. Austin's knowledge, as regards 
all that constitutes the philosophy of history, is so plain here 
that it is useless to point out more than the dependence of 
the individual on that universal — on that common stock 
which is his substance, and apart from which he is is little 
better than the gorilla our so enlightened modern science 
would make of him. 

As regards the laboring classes, Mr. Austin speaks thus : — 
" It is certainly to be wished that their reward were greater. 
and that they were relieved from the incessant drudgery to 
which they are now condemned. But the condition of the 
working-people (whether their wages shall be high or low, 
their labor moderate or extreme), depends upon their own 
will, and not upon the will of the rich. In the true principle 
of population, detected by the sagacity of Mr. Malthas, they 
must look for the cause and the remedy of their penury and 
excessive toil. There they may rind the means which would 
give them comparative affluence ; which would give them the 
degree of leisure necessary to knowledge and refinement ; 
which would raise them to personal dignity and political 
influence, from grovelling and sordid subjection to the arbi- 
trary rule of the few." The rule of the few is arbitrary and 
bad, then, to Mr. Austin ; but if only the working-classes 
would refrain from making children we should have a heaven 
on earth! This, with education, is Mr. Austin's panacea. 
Mr. Austin is, in many respects, a very worthy gentleman ; 



Conditions of Immortality. 143 

but it is his own wife (an admirable an amiable lady) who 
tells us that " the experience of the thirty years which have 
elapsed since the foregoing lecture was written, does not 
seem to j ustify the author's sanguine anticipations." I should 
like to read you several other extracts here which naively 
confute the doctrines involved by the wholly innocent but 
unthinking propos of a disciple who has got by heart only ; 
but I must refrain from want of space. I was prepared also to 
give some consideration of Mr. Austin's views of Utility, as 
well as to discuss, at some length, his ideas of the principles 
of law ; but I must now deny myself in these references also. 
If any gentleman, however, will consider that a command as 
such is to Mr. Austin the essence of law and morals, as well 
as in what he places this command to give it meaning, source, 
reason, and authority, he will be able to form some concep- 
tion of what I might finally say of him. Mr. Austin, in short, 
is one of those finical, over-refined, almost female minds, that, 
without power in themselves, attach themselves blindl}^ to 
the guidance of another or others ; and his book is a work of 
infinite external verbal distinction, but it has not a vestige of 
internal thinking rationale. Heron's book is, to my mind, a 
book much more usefnl to the student, though it is very much 
of a pele-mele, undigested compilation. Here, too, I have to 
suppress much. 

I have now to conclude these lectures by sincerely thank- 
ing you for the very kind and generous attention with which 
you have assisted me in a very dubious and difficult un- 
dertaking. 



CONDITIONS OF IMMORTALITY 

ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE. 

By Thos, Davidson. 

As a proof of the soul's immortality it has been frequently 
urged that all peoples, in all times and under all circumstan- 
ces, have believed it. Though the allegement is not strictly 
true, as has been shown by recent researches, it is neverthe- 
less near enough to the truth to form a presumption in favor 



144 Conditions of Immortality. 

of the doctrine specified. It is true that all tribes except the 
very lowest do believe in immortality of some sort, be it rude 
and material like the belief of the American Indians and the 
Ancient Egyptians, or sublimated and shadowy like that of 
the Buddhists — an immortality which many Buddhist phi- 
losophers hold to be equivalent to annihilation. Prevalent 
as this doctrine of immortality is, the notion connected with 
it has seldom been defined in the mind of a nation, and more 
seldom still have the conditions been stated under which 
immortality would be possible. As a result of this, nearly 
all the disputes which have arisen on the subject have been 
grapplings in the dark, neither party to the dispute having 
any very clear notion what he was disputing for or against. 
This is especially true at the present day, when the doctrine 
of immortality is extensively, though quietly, canvassed. 
Under these circumstances, it may not be uninteresting to 
attempt, without entering upon the question of human im- 
mortality, to discover under what conditions, if any, immor- 
tality would be possible, leaving it to others to say whether 
the human soul possesses these conditions. 

Immortality is usually defined as Eternal Life. This, ac- 
cording to Aristotle, is incorrect,* on the ground that such a 
definition includes as a species that which is merely an acci- 
dent. Immortality is not a form of life or a kind of life : it 
is something that happens to life — something higher than 
life, yet something whereof life is a condition. When life 
passes into immortality, it ceases to be life — it passes be- 
yond life into something higher. All life does not of neces- 
sity become immortal, and life, in the ordinary sense, cannot, 
as such, be immortal. Nevertheless, as we shall see, immor- 
tality answers all the conditions of life, although it includes 
much more. This may seem to be a somewhat wire-drawn 
distinction, still it means a great deal, and is very essential 
to an understanding of Aristotle's doctrine of Immortality. 
Life, as Ave shall learn, is, in Aristotle's view, essentially a 
physical process, in its very nature finite, utterly incapable 
of being eternal. There is, however, no great objection to 
using the expression Eternal Life, provided we bear in mind 

* Topica, J cap. 5 ad fin. 12G b, 34 sqq. Edit. Bekker. 



Conditions of Immortality. 145 

that, when life passes into the Eternal, when the mortal puts 
on immortality, it ceases to be life, in the ordinary sense, 
and mortal. In this way we may speak of the union of eter- 
nity and life. Indeed, in certain connections, Aristotle him- 
self uses the world life in this sense. 

Immortality being defined as life which has passed over 
into the Eternal, our inquiry resolves iself into three. 

1°. What are the conditions of life ? 

2°. What are the conditions of eternity ? 

3°. What are the conditions of their union ? 

• First, then, 

THE CO^DITIOXS OF LIFE. 

The physical science of the present day, if it does not help 
us materially in finding out what life is, does throw some 
light upon the physical conditions of life, i.e. it shows us that 
life exists under conditions and in forms under which it had 
not previously been expected to appear. 

The tendency of science in recent years has been to prove 
that in nature there are no gnlfs or leaps ; that all forces are 
but forms or manifestations of one force ; that the changes in 
the inorganic world, the upheaval of mountains, and the de- 
pression of valleys, &c, proceed gradually and slowly ; that 
between the organic and inorganic worlds there is no clear 
line of demarcation ; that the plant and animal worlds have 
a common origin and merge into each other; that all ani- 
mals, man included, instead of being distinct creations, are 
modifications of one primitive, very simple organization ; 
and, finally, that matter and force, instead of being distinct, 
are perhaps identical in reality, and certainly correlative in 
thought. Indeed, it is not hard to see that the so-called de- 
velopment theory, or theory of evolution, will soon be made 
to account for all the changes in the Universe. These will 
be held to be mere forms, or stages, or moments, in the all- 
embracing process of increasing individualization. 

This general tendency to abolish distinctions, formerly 
recognized as absolute, attempts, amongst other things, to 
blot out the dividing line between the animate or living and 
the inanimate or lifeless, and to reassert — under another 

viii— 10 



146 Conditions of Immortality. 

form, indeed — the position of Aristotle, that the animate can 
spring from the inanimate.* 

Physicists are wont to think that they have explained a 
thing, when they have shown that it is not essentially differ- 
ent from another thing, even when that other thing is admit- 
ted to be inexplicable. So it is in this case. They think 
they have in some measure explained the animate, by hav- 
ing shown (if, indeed, they have done so) that it is not essen- 
tially different from the inanimate, although what that is 
which causes the inanimate to pass into the animate they do 
not know. Moreover, they take it for granted that all essen- 
tial difference between two classes of objects is abolished, 
when it can be shown that they merge into each other by 
insensible degrees. There is thus not only no essential dis- 
tinction between the most cultured and the most savage of 
men, or between man and the lower animals, but there is 
none between man and the earth he treads upon. Of course, 
all such assumptions entirely ignore the active element in 
change and production, and consider merely the results. 
But, apart from this, there are many and serious fallacies 
involved. The mere fact that a thing can be shown to have 
had its origin in something quite different from itself, some- 
thing from which it has ascended or descended by insensible 
gradations, proves nothing with regard to the nature of the 
thing now. The major premise underlying all such assump- 
tion is, that no amount of specilic difference can produce a 
generic difference, which, in Natural Science at least, is ad- 
mitted to be false. Some logicians, indeed, and notably the 
Hegelians, claim that logically all existence may be included 
under one genus, viz. Being; indeed, the whole fabric of 
the Hegelian logic rests upon this assumption. Aristotle, 
on the other hand, has most emphatically denied it even for 
Logic.f However this may be in Logic, in Nature there is no 
doubt whatsoever. It may be true, for example, that all ani- 
mals are descended from a common ancestor ; that proves 
nothing with regard to them know. There exist now species 

* De Gen. An., cap. xvi. ad init. 721, a, G. 

f Topica, J ? cap. 6, 127, a, 26 sqq.; 998, b, 14 sqq.; 1053, b. 20 sqq. Cf. Bren- 
tano, Uebcr die mannigfaltigen Bedeut. dcs Seienden, p. 6 sqq. 



Conditions of Immortality. 147 

distinct enough to be unfruitful with each other, and, so far 
as we know, no amount of training will ever bring them 
nearer to each other. However gradual the differentiation 
may have been, there must undoubtedly have been a point 
at which this unfruitfulness began, and, from that moment 
on, there was a difference of species ; in other words, two 
essentially, or generically different classes of animals. It 
may be true that man has ascended by insensible gradations 
from an animal akin to the apes, and that there is but very 
little distinction between the highest apes and the lowest 
men ; still this proves nothing any more than in the former 
case. We have a perfect right to say that there was a point 
at which man separated himself from the lower animals, the 
point, namely, at which self-consciousness, or reflection upon 
the jjrocess of thinking, began. It may not be easy to put 
our linger upon the point, or to say of any particular act 
that it is the outcome of reason as distinguished from in- 
stinct; this, however, does not interfere with the matter. 
Moreover, it is not so true, as some persons would have us 
believe, that there are no sudden leaps in Nature's processes. 
Some, indeed many, of the changes on the earth's surface are 
produced by sudden convulsions, and, in the animal world, 
we do sometimes find abnormalities of considerable degree, 
which perpetuate themselves notwithstanding that they have 
arisen suddenly. From very ancient times, we hear of peo- 
ple having six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, 
and we know that there are, at the present day, whole fami- 
lies having this peculiarity. Facts like these are usually 
got rid of by being styled freaks of Nature, and looked upon 
as if they were the result of a caprice for which it is not 
necessary to account. This may be correct enough in one 
sense, but why set such an arbitrary limit to Nature's freaks 
and caprices ? If an appendage like a sixth finger, which is 
of no use, perpetuates itself, how much more is an appendage 
which is useful, and capable of being developed by use, 
likely to be permanent ? If Nature has a freak to furnish 
an animal with six fingers instead of five, why may she not 
have a freak to furnish an animal with reason, or even with 
an immortal soul ? There is a noteworthy point seldom borne 
in mind in speaking of the gradualness of Nature's processes. 



148 Conditions of Immortality. 

Many of them, though very slow, produce a result which is 
very sudden. A land-slip, the fall of a house, or the plunge 
of an iceberg, is a very sudden thing ; but it may have taken 
Nature a hundred or several hundred years to bring it about. 
Thus, although it could be shown that man has ascended 
from an ape-like condition, it would not follow either that the 
change from ape to man was gradual, or even that man is not 
a freak of Nature. The same will apply generally to all the 
stages of so-called development. The mere fact that a thing 
of higher order has sprung from a thing of lower order proves 
nothing with regard to the similarity of the two. The inor- 
ganic is not the organic any more than what is implied by 
the chemical symbols H 2 is water, however closely related 
they may be. H 2 is water only when we add electric ac- 
tion, and we may rest assured that the inorganic becomes 
organic only through the action of that or of some other 
manifestation of the universal agent. The majority of the 
popular mistakes into which natural scientists fall arise from 
a confounding of the essential nature of a thing with its ma- 
terial conditions. As Aristotle says, however, the true nature 
of a thing is its purpose. 

But to return to life and its conditions. Recent researches 
have shown us that life exists in lower forms than we previ- 
ously knew, and that the gulf which separates the animate 
from the inanimate, the organic from the inorganic, as far as 
material conditions are concerned, is very narrow. Let us 
see, then, what life is conceived to be by those who have 
thought most profoundly upon it. 

Bichat, the great French biologist, says life is " the sum 
of the functions which resist death" (Pensemble des fonctions 
qui resistent a la mort). 

Herbert Spencer says it is "the continuous adjustment of 
internal relations to external relations." 

Bastian, the author of a most remarkable work, The Be- 
ginnings of Life, enlarging the latter definition, says life is 
" the detinite combination of heterogeneous changes, both 
simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with exter- 
nal coexistences and sequences." 

Passing from the physicists to the great German thinkers, 
we find that 



Conditions of Immortality. 149 

Kant says: "An organized, product of Nature is that in 
which all is Aim and reciprocally also Means." 

Hegel says, " Life is a means, not for something else, but 
for the idea of life ; it continually produces its infinite form." 

After the opinions of the two great thinkers of modern 
times, we may cite that of the greatest thinker of ancient 
times : 

Aristotle defines life as a " nourishing, growth, and de- 
cay, through self." The principle of life is the soul, which 
is defined to be " the first actuality of a physical body hav- 
ing life in potentiality"; and the philosopher adds, "What- 
ever is organic is of this nature." 

It has taken volumes and would take volumes to convey 
adequately to the modern mind what Aristotle meant when 
he used the words actuality (ivepyeia) and potentiality (duva- 
pus). There will be occasion to speak of them afterwards. 

However different the above definitions may appear at first 
sight, if we examine them closely and hold them together, 
we shall see that they are not in any way at variance with 
each other. On the contrary, we shall find that they mutu- 
ally supplement each other. If we adopt the very convenient 
Aristotelian division of aixlm or grounds, we shall find that 
the definitions can be distributed among them. These 
grounds are (1) Matter, (2) Form or Determination, (3) Effi- 
cient Cause, and (4) Final Cause. 

Bichat's definition attempts to give the matter of life — 
"The sum of the functions that resist death"; Spencer's and 
Bastian's give the form — "The continuous adjustment of 
internal relations to external relations"; Aristotle's gives the 
efficient cause — "Nourishing, growth, and decay, through 
self; Kant's and Hegel's give the final cause — "Life is self- 
aim." Perhaps, by taking them all together, we might frame 
an exhaustive definition of life : Life is the sum of those 
functions which, in a continuous adjustment of internal rela- 
tions to external relations, through self-action, in the pro- 
cesses of nourishment, growth, and decay, resist dissolution 
for the sake of life. These are the conditions of life, not one 
of which can be omitted. 

Bichat's definition is, logically, a very faulty one. We can 
never define a thing by saying that it resists its opposite. It 



150 Conditions of Immortality. 

would be very foolish to define motion as the sum of the 
functions that resist rest, or waking as the sum of the func- 
tions that resist sleep ; yet these would be as good as the 
other. Everything resists its opposite. The important part 
of the definition is, that life is a function or sum of functions. 
This states its ub] or matter ; in other words, places it in a 
category — the ninth, namely, in the Aristotelian list, izoi&v or 
activity. It is important to observe that Aristotle's list of 
categories does not include actuality and potentiality, which, 
nevertheless, play a most important part in his philosophy. 
These, instead of being categories, run alongside all the cate- 
gories, so that each of the latter may exist in the form of 
actuality or in that of potentiality. Life, therefore, is an 
activity either actually or potentially, and is not a quantity 
or a quality, or any other of the categories. The form of the 
vital activity is that of an adjustment of internal to external 
relations. It is, therefore, a Ibyoc, or proportion, an activity 
which is a perpetual ratio, and.it is only in this form that it 
is an Actual. A formless, indeterminate activity is really no 
activity at all ; only when the form is added to the poten- 
tiality does it become a reality. Though Aristotle enumer- 
ates four ahccu or grounds, he is quite aware that they are 
reducible to two — the two enumerated, namely. In that which 
is eternal, form, efficient cause, and final cause, are all one ; 
only in <puai<;, in Nature, as it presents itself to the senses, are 
they sundered. Objects in Nature have four grounds ; the 
Eternal, which lies outside of Nature, has but one. Without 
going any farther, we might here obtain a formula for the 
Eternal, by finding out under what circumstances these three 
grounds become one ; but we may reserve this for its proper 
place. So far, we have not treated of the eternity of life. 
We have merely found its material and formal grounds. The 
efficient ground of life is the soul (or <p u TQ)i " tne nrst actu- 
ality of a physical body, having life in potentiality." Sold, 
with Aristotle, is a word of very wide application. Every 
organization is endowed with a soul, which is its distinctive 
essentiality. He says, for example, " If the eye were a dis- 
tinct organization, vision would be its soul." The eye which 
has lost its vision, is no longer an e}^e in the same sense as 
before. Soul is the life principle. The final cause of life is 



Conditions of Immortality. 151 

life itself. Aristotle knows this, as we shall see afterwards, 
as fully as Kant or Hegel. 

Summing up these points, we may now reduce our defini- 
tion of life to a more compact form : Life is activity, self- 
supported for its own sake, through adjustment to the exter- 
nal. Here is the very kernel of the thing. From it you can 
draw all the phenomena of life, from the lowest even to the 
highest — from the monera of Dr. H?eckel to the most devel- 
oped of the human race. And you cannot leave out one 
element of the definition. There is no life which is not an 
activity; none that is not self- sustained, else we might say 
that the magnetic needle is alive ; none that is not for its 
own sake, else the planets would be alive ; none, finally, that 
is not an adjustment to the external — for the moment that a 
living thing ceases to be -able to adjust or adapt itself to ex- 
ternal circumstances, it perishes. The Darwinian theory of 
Natural Selection rests upon this part of the definition, as 
applied to species. A species would, doubtless, be eternal 
that could adapt itself to all circumstances. This brings us 
to the second consideration, 

THE CONDITIONS OF ETERNITY. 

There are two ways in which Eternity may be considered, 

1°. As endless perpetuity of time ; 
2°. As independence of time. 

These however, properly viewed, are really one. A consid- 
eration of time and eternity involves a consideration of the 
two terms already mentioned, viz. buva^uc, or potentiality, and 
ivep-reea or actuality. These are cardinal points in the thought- 
system of Aristotle. They underlie every thing, and that, too, 
not only in his system, but, though often unobservedly, in 
many succeeding systems, notably in Christian Theology, in 
which, for example, the doctrine of the Presence, as has been 
abundantly shown, is but a transformation of the Aristo- 
telian doctrine of iwsU^eca, a word nearly synonymous with 
iviftysia or actuality. (Teichmuller, Aristot. Forschungen, 
vol. iii.) 

The words d'jva/Mz and ivspyeia stand related to each other 
as matter and form — form, in this instance, being made to 
include efficient and final cause. 



152- Conditions of Immortality. 

"When we examine the phenomenal world, we see unceas- 
ing change, unceasing movement.* When we reflect upon 
this, our first thought is : "Why do not things remain at rest 
and unchanged ? That must be their natural condition. It 
is some time before we bethink ourselves that rest, being a 
compound of motions, is harder to explain than mere motion. 
What, then, is the ground of motion ? What does it mean ? 
Aristotle is ready with his answer. Motion, in whatever form 
it may appear, locomotion, change, &c, is the pathway from 
potentiality to actuality. The abstract matter of change it- 
self is time. Time, therefore, in Aristotle's view, is not form, 
but matter or potentiality. Instead of conditioning changes, 
it is the absolutely conditionable. It becomes real only in 
change, which is its form. Before, then, we can understand 
what time, and, consequently, what eternity is, we must know 
distinctly what is meant by potentiality and actuality. 

Pure potentiality, pure matter, as Aristotle asserts, is un- 
knowable. This does not arise from any weakness or imper- 
fection of our minds, as some modern philosophers assert in 
similar relations, but lies in the very nature of the potential. 
It is pure negation, in itself neither this nor that, absolutely 
predicateless and indeterminate. It is, nevertheless, not 
nothing: it is a form of Being, capable of becoming actual, 
and thus clearly distinguished from nothing, which can never 
under any circumstances become actual. Potentiality is the 
negation of actuality ; nothing is the negation of potential- 
ity. That which is not in any form, can never be. Ex nihilo 
nihil fit. 

Many of our modern atomists assert that atomic matter 
and force are inseparable. Though Aristotle is too clear- 
headed to assume atoms, he nevertheless admits that pure 
matter has no existence apart from form, which is, of course, 
only another way of saying that it is unknowable. That 
which is unknowable has no existence, and vice versa. Mat- 
ter, as far as known, is always united with form, i.e. is some- 
thing determinate. What, now, is this form ? We have seen 
that form, according to Aristotle, has a wider and a narrower 

'•'• Oudh >'iu dvdpamotae [i£v& XPW z l u ~ £ 3° v a ' £ '- {Simo?iides.) 

Ea la! Thaet on eordhan aunt faestlices 

veorces on vorulde ne vunath aefre. (Alfred.) 



Conditions of Immortality. 153 

signification. It is sometimes merely the second of the four 
grounds of existence, and sometimes it includes the second, 
third, and fourth. In the latter sense, it is synonymous with 
ivspyeca or actuality. There are, however, a large number of 
stages of actualization, before ivTs?J%eia, perfection or com- 
plete actualization, is reached. If we consider the material 
world, in which there are no wholes but only parts, we shall 
convince ourselves of this. The lowest form of existence or 
actuality is so-called inanimate matter, conditioned entirely 
from without. It cannot move or change except as it is 
moved or changed. It has no endurance whatsoever. It ex- 
ists only in change, is a perpetual Becoming. Immediately 
above the material world is the plant-world, with its nutri- 
tive soul and power of reproduction within itself. The plant 
lives by adjusting itself to the external, and dies when it can 
no longer do this. To preserve itself it reproduces itself in 
forms wherein it can resist the external better. It thus ekes 
out its existence by becoming a species, which endures until 
a condition of things comes round which it cannot overcome. 
Question Nature : 

"From scarped cliff and quarried stone, 
She cries, 'A thousand types are gone.' " 

In the plant, as elsewhere, matter is raised to a higher form. 
It becomes organized — becomes what modern physicists call 
protoplasm. In the plant, life is self-aim. The plant lives for 
itself. But there is aim and aim, and a lower aim must give 
way before a higher. The plant is liable not only to destruc- 
tion, but to be used for a higher aim. The animal is a higher 
form of actualization than the plant. Accordingly, the plant's 
aim must give way before the animal's. Just as the plant pre- 
supposes unorganized matter as its ul-q or potentiality, so the 
animal presupposes the plant with its protoplasm. The ani- 
mal takes the protoplasm of the plant, and by means of it 
ascends to a higher actuality. The plant is really only a 
mass of individuals rather loosely held together by a com- 
mon aim — so loosely that not only a large number of them 
can be detached without injury to the plant, but, in many 
cases, each individual part can be made to develope into a 
whole plant. Not only, indeed, will twigs become whole 
trees, but a large number of plants can be propagated from 



154 Conditions of Immortality. 

a single leaf. In the animal, the organization is much higher 
and more centralized. In some low animal organizations, 
indeed, parts, when severed, will become wholes ; still, these 
must always be definite parts. In higher organizations such 
a thing is not known. Under no circumstances will the leg 
of an ox or the arm of a man develope into an ox or a man. 
In the higher animals, the centralization is complete. But 
the animal and its species perish, as well as the plant and its 
species. The animal has, indeed, greater power of adjust- 
ment to the external than the plant. Endowed with sensa- 
tion and power of locomotion, it can seek sustenance over 
a wide range, and likewise avoid occasions of destruction. 
Nevertheless, its power of adjustment is limited, and it 
finally perishes. It reproduces itself, indeed ; but in vain. 
The adjusting power of the species even is limited. 

We need not proceed farther in this direction, inasmuch 
as the meaning of the words "potentiality" and "actuality" 
are perhaps already, so far, clear. Pure potentiality is abso- 
lute negation of existence, though not of being ; hence pure 
potentiality or pure matter has no existence. The "lowest 
form or actuality is unorganized matter, which again is the 
potentiality or matter of organized matter; and we might go 
on and show that organized matter is the potentiality of nu- 
trition, nutrition of perception, perception of imagination or 
conception, conception of understanding, and understanding 
of reason. The lower actuality is always the potentiality of 
the next higher, and the process by which the higher stage 
is reached is movement. Aristotle enumerates four kinds of 
movement, viz. locomotion, change, growth, and decay. The 
abstract potentiality of these is time. Without forgetting 
that a higher actuality may return into a lower — this, in- 
deed, is decay as distinguished from growth — we may say 
that time is the abstract matter or potentiality of the pas- 
sage of anything from potentiality to actuality. It will be 
easy now to state when eternity can be predicated of any- 
thing. First, however, we must rid ourselves of one difficulty 
which has puzzled and yet does puzzle many minds. 

It seems to occur naturally to almost every one who be- 
gins for the first time to think of eternity, that the 'eternal 
must be the unchangeable, that which has absolutely no 



Conditions of Immortality. 155 

potentialities, or rather no possibility of any actuality. It 
appears as if, by removing change from the Universe, we 
should remove also the possibility of destruction. This is no 
doubt true, if only we could remove change. If things could 
exist in an utterly quiescent state, in a state of entire nega- 
tion of activity, every one of them would doubtless be inde- 
pendent of time, which, as being the abstract potentiality of 
change, would have no existence, not even a subjective one. 
Unfortunately, however, we know of no existence except as 
in a state of change, a perpetual hovering between potential- 
ity and actuality. The essence of things is this activity, this 
limiting of themselves as over against other things. This 
table is known to me only as affecting — that is, as limiting, 
and determining itself with reference to, my senses. Were 
this activity to cease, existence itself would cease, and the 
Universe would be reduced, not to primal matter inputT] ufo)\ 
for that is capable of actuality, but at once to absolute 
naught. Those* therefore, who look for the Eternal in the 
Unmoved, in the Unchanging, look for it in the absolute 
Naught. That, indeed, is independent of time ; but it is not 
eternal, since it is not at all. 

Being forbidden, therefore to look for the Eternal in the 
utterly Inactive and Unchangeable, we are driven to seek it 
in the Active. There, if anywhere, must be the Eternal. Not 
in unchangeability, but in some form of changeability, it 
must lie. We have seen that change — or, to use a more gen- 
eral term, movement — is the pathway between potentiality 
and actuality ; we have found, moreover, that no actuality 
endures any longer than it can adjust and adarjt itself to the 
External, and that lower actualities, being the conditions of 
higher ones, the former must give way before the latter. So 
long, then, as any actuality is unable to adjust itself uni- 
versally, or so long as there is any actuality higher than it, 
whereof it is the condition, so long it carries in it the germs 
of its own destruction. I have spoken as if lack of universal 
adjustability and subserviency to a higher actuality were 
two different things. They are not so, however, being only 
the same thing in somewhat different relations. Lack of 
universal adjustability is subserviency to the Universe as a 
whole; subserviency to a higher actuality is lack of adjusta- 



156 Conditions of Immortality. 

bility to a particular part (if I may so speak) of the Universe. 
This being the case, we may say that the Eternal is the high- 
est actuality, and, vice versa, that the highest actuality is the 
Eternal. Thus, instead of being the negation of actuality, 
the Eternal is the highest actuality, the purest energy. How, 
then, can such an energy exist, and what are its conditions? 

We have found that that which is incapable of actualiza- 
tion is absolute Nothing. If we were to apply the same rea- 
son to the utterly actualized, we should arrive at the same 
result. If there were anything entirely actualized, so that 
all its potentialities were actual at the same time, we should 
arrive at the same state of pure quiescence as in the other 
case. Thus pure actuality and absolute lack of actuality 
would be exactly the same thing. In both cases we arrive 
at the Unchangeable, whereas, as we have seen, the Eternal 
must be sought in the Changeable. There seems to be a dif- 
ficulty here. It is one, however, not hard to remove. 

Let us take, for example, a portion of unorganized mat- 
ter, say a piece of coal. We can subject this to any 
known amount of cold, to some degree of heat, to a con- 
siderable amount of pressure, and so forth, and it remains, 
not, indeed, exactly the same — for, under the influence of 
cold and heat, it will contract and expand — but such that, 
when the influence to which it has been subjected is removed, 
it is the same as it was before. It returns, indeed, of itself 
to its former state. Let us apply to it, however, a certain 
amount of heat — let us throw into a flame, for example — and 
it will undergo a change from which it cannot return to its 
former condition. It is no longer coal, it is something else. 
In the same way, water may become ice or steam ; but as soon 
as the influences cease that produce these changes, the ice 
and the steam again become water. Pass an electric current 
through your water, however, and it will enter into a state 
from which it cannot return of itself. It thus appears that 
both coal and water are capable of adjusting themselves, 
within a certain limit, to the external; when that limit is 
reached, they cease to be what they are. Even within those 
limits, the potentialities of water cannot be all actual at the 
same time. It cannot at once be water, ice, and steam ; nor 
can it be which of them it wills at any time. In the plant- 



Conditions of Immortality. 157 

world, each individual plant is in a process of unceasing 
change. Potentialities are becoming actual continually un- 
til they are exhausted. Then the plant dies, and, though it 
gives birth to other individuals like it, itself ceases to exist. 
What is true of the vegetable world, is true with some modi- 
fications of the animal world. The animal has a larger num- 
ber of potentialities, but they are never all at once realized. 
A lion is never at once old and young, or sleeping and wak- 
ing. Nevertheless he can be all these without ceasing to be 
a lion. If, on the contrary, he fall from a precipice and shat- 
ter his skull, he actualizes a potentiality whose actualization 
destrovs him, 

But what has this to do with the question of eternity? 
It shows that there are two senses of the word " actual." 
This Aristotle recognizes in the clearest terms. Indeed we 
find him, in the definition of the soul, already alluded to, 
speaking of a first actuality, which, of course, implies that 
he recognized a second or even more. He speaks of the 
soul as " the first actuality of a physical body having life 
in potentiality." The difference between a first actuality 
and a second is this, that the former is not always real ; the 
latter always. This may be made plainer by an illustration. 
In the mineral and the plant, neither sleeping nor waking is 
either potential or actual. In the animal, on the contrary, 
they are both actual, but not both at once. One is always a 
first actuality and the other a second. When the animal is 
awake, sleep is a first actuality, and waking, a second. In 
the same way with knowledge. Almost all knowledge is in 
a state of first actuality ; only the small part we are con- 
scious of at any time is in a state of first actuality. 

The fact that there are two forms or stages of actuality 
solves the difficulty we encountered by finding that if all the 
potentialities of a thing were actualized at once, we should 
arrive at utter quiescence or annihilation, instead of eternity. 
Let us imagine now, for a moment, that all the potentialities 
of a thing had reached the form of first actuality, with a pos- 
sibility of reaching the second at any time. It is quite plain 
that, although (say) only one of these could be actual in the 
second form at any given time, they might one and all be- 
come actual without the thing's losing its identity or being 



158 Conditions of Immortality. 

annihilated. The passage from first to second actuality 
might go on forever. Such a thing and only such a thing 
would be eternal. There is, however, one proviso that must 
not be forgotten. The thing must be able at will to put any- 
thing out of the condition of first into that of second actual- 
ity. But this will be better treated elsewhere. 

To recapitulate, before passing to our third and last point, 
the results arrived at concerning the Eternal. The Eternal is 
that which endures through all time, and is, therefore, inde- 
pendent of it. Time is the abstract potentiality of change. 
The Eternal is not, therefore, the Changeless, but that which 
is capable of changing forever without ceasing to be what it 
is. In order to possess this capability, a thing must have all 
its potentialities actualized in the form of first actualities, 
and be capable of turning any of them at will into second 
actualities. This brings us to 

THE CONDITIONS OF THE UNION OF ETERNITY AND LIFE, OR THE 
CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH LIFE CAN BECOME ETERNAL. 

We defined life to be an activity, self-supported for its 
own sake, through adjustment to the External. Applying to 
this the results just arrived at, we obtain the conclusion that 
life will be eternal only when it has all its potentialities in 
the form of first actualities, with the capability of raising 
them to second actualities. 

We have found that Aristotle calls the passage from po- 
tentiality to actuality, movement. The passage from first 
actuality to second he calls by another name, energy. Things 
that are imperfect, things whose potentialities, not being in 
the form of first actualities, carry them, when actualized, 
outside of themselves, have motion, move; things that are 
perfect, whose potentialities are all actualized in such a way 
that every change is a change, not into something else, but 
into itself, have energy, energize. Thus life, to be eternal, 
must become an energy. But an energy, from its very 
signification, is self- supported, exists for its own sake, since 
it can subserve nothing higher — can be merged in nothing 
higher — and is, of course, capable of infinite adjustment. It 
is an entelecheia (ivrdi/era), as Aristotle calls it, having its 
end in itself. 



Conditions of Immortality. 159 

We thus observe that life, as such, and energy, as such, 
have three important attributes in common. Why, then, is 
life, as such, not an energy, and therefore eternal ? The an- 
swer must be : Because its potentialities are not necessarily 
all actual ; it is therefore liable to pass outside of itself, and 
so to be destroyed. This brings us to the important result 
that while all life is not energy, all energy includes life. 
Though life will not answer all the conditions of energy, en- 
ergy will answer all the conditions of life. We hence obtain 
the conclusion that all that is eternal is a higher form of 
living. We can thus understand why Plato and Aristotle, 
notably the former, asserted that the Universe was alive. 
The Universe is alive, according to any proper definition of 
life. Not only so, but the life of the Universe is an energy 
and therefore eternal. The modern atomist, too, whether 
rightly or wrongly, claims indestructibility, i.e. eternity, for 
his atoms and force. In one point, he is certainly right, viz. 
that atoms, apart from force, i.e. potentiality without energy, 
are absolutely unthinkable. If atoms are eternal, they must 
be endowed with energy, and, as we have seen, they must. 
a fortiori, be alive. Indeed, among German materialists, it is 
quite common to speak of matter as immortal. Dr. Biichner 
entitles the second chapter of his Force and Matter " The 
Immortality of Matter," and the third " The Immortality of 
Force." However, the whole doctrine of atoms is a mere 
hypothesis, not only unnecessary, but absolutely self- 
contradictory and unthinkable. If the maintainers of the 
hypothesis would only analyze their own thought about 
atoms, they would soon abandon it. Aristotle was well 
aware of this, and is never tired of asserting that energy — 
eternity of activity — implies the absence of matter. Matter, 
being mere potentiality, cannot, of course, exist in those 
things in which all potentiality has ceased by passing into 
actuality ; that is, it cannot accompany anything that is eter- 
nal. The thought of energy excludes the thought of matter, 
and, therefore, to assert the eternity of force and matter is 
to assert a contradiction. Matter is a mere abstraction, the 
abstract potentiality of force. 

But to return. Having found that all energy is necessa- 
rily life, and that all eternal life is energy, let us see what 



160 Conditions of Immortality. 

we can deduce from the thought of energy. An energy 
having all its potentialities actualized, must, of course, have 
them in its own power. If this were not the case, the energy 
would be affected or determined from without, and, in that 
case, would have to wait for an external cause to call it into 
actuality ; in other words, it would sink to the level of a mere 
potentiality. It is necessary to dwell upon this point, inas- 
much as upon it rests the whole weight of what is to follow. 
We have found that material objects, such as coal and 
water, can be made to actualize a certain number of their 
potentialities without being destroyed, and that higher 
organizations can be made to actualize a very large number 
with the same result. In no case, however, does any one 
arrive at a full energy. Not only can coal not be warm and 
cold at the ODe time, and not only is water incapable of 
being ice, water, and steam, at once, but they cannot through 
themselves be in any one condition. In other words, these 
can be affected, but cannot energize. Again, the plant and 
the animal, although possessing in themselves, to a certain 
extent, the principle of their own development or succession 
of actualities, nevertheless have no power over these actu- 
alities. The plant or animal passes from stage to stage ; 
but it cannot recall any past stage or forestall any future 
one. The apple-tree cannot produce fruit under a frosty sky, 
or the lion renew his youth. All the processes in the min- 
eral, vegetable, and animal worlds are movements ; not one 
of them is an energy. An energy in which all is actual must 
be able to pass to any of its actualities at any moment ; in 
other words, it must be able to energize completely in any of 
its forms, without depending upon any combination of exter- 
nal circumstances to determine it. But that which is not 
determined by any external circumstances is free: hence 
Pure Energy, tlie higher life, the true Eternal, is free, abso- 
lutely independent, determining itself. It is, as Aristotle 
says, pure form — scoo^ ecocou, the form of forms — wherein there 
is no matter, no potentiality, itself being its own form. Thus 
Energy, the Eternal, grasps itself. But what is the form of 
that which grasps itself? Is not that the very form of self- 
consciousness ? And does not self-consciousness answer all 
the conditions of a pure energy, of an energy which is eter- 



Conditions of Immortality. 161 

nal ? Is consciousness not able to pass from form to form at 
will, to be actual in any of its forms ? It would be easy to 
show that self-consciousness in every point answers the con- 
ditions of eternity, and that Aristotle was aware of the fact. 
But quotations would be as wearisome as useless. The result 
is beyond all doubt. The Self-conscious, that which thinks 
itself, is the Immortal. 

It would, perhaps, be proper to stop here. Setting out 
with the common notion of immortality, I have shown its 
deficiency, substituted a better, and sought to find out under 
what conditions such immortality would be possible, and 
have found that it is possible only in the form of free self- 
consciousness. We have reached the end of our inquiry, 
having obtained a reply to the question with which we start- 
ed. We have arrived at a result by no means startling in 
itself, and yet one which is not usually reached in this way. 
It is customary to set out with the Conscious, and try to show 
that it involves the notion of immortality. This is a very 
difficult procedure, and is consequently almost uniformly un- 
successful. The true method, I believe, is to proceed in the 
opposite direction, as I have done — to lind the conditions of 
immortality, and then to show that they involve the condi- 
tions of consciousness. 

Though my task is thus ended, I hope I shall be par- 
doned if I add a few words to show the value of the result 
arrived at. 

No one who has made the result of the last fifty years' 
linguistic research his own, is ignorant of the fact, that the 
land from the shores of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of 
Bengal, westward to the Pacific, is occupied by people of one 
blood, the so-called Aryan, or Indo-Germanic, or Indo-Euro- 
pean race. The same blood flows in the veins of the Hindoo, 
the Persian, the Russian, the Greek, the Italian, the Kelt, 
the Teuton, and consequently the American. The gloomy, 
fantastic Hindoo was brother to the bright, clear-reasoned 
Greek. It has been often asked, what constituted this 
immense difference, and scientists and statisticians have 
been ready with their theories of climate, the influence of 
plains, and so forth. These have their influence no doubt ; 
but it is much less than is usually supposed — far too little 

viii — 11 



162 Conditions of Immortality. 

to account for the immense difference to be explained. The 
true explanation of the difference lies in the difference be- 
tween the views of the Universe held by the two peoples— 
as the Germans would say, in their different Weltanscliau- 
ungeu. It is hardly necessaiy to say that this difference 
depends mainly upon the light in which the Eternal is re- 
garded. It was not original, but grew up after the separation 
of the Indo-Germanic race. 

Let us consider for a moment some facts connected with 
the earliest records of the Hindoos and Greeks. Speaking 
of the former, Max Muller says : 

"In the songs of the Rig-veda we find but little of philoso- 
phy, but we do occasionally meet with wars of kings, with 
rivalries of ministers, with triumphs and defeats, with war- 
songs and imprecations. The active side of life is still pro- 
minent in the genuine poetry of the Rishis, and there still 
exists a certain equilibrium between the two scales of human 
nature. It is only after the Aryan tribes had advanced south- 
ward, and taken quiet possession of the rich plains and beau- 
tiful groves of Central India, that they seemed to have turned 
all their energies and thoughts from the world without them 
to that more wonderful nature which they perceived within." 

In another place, the same author says : 

" In the Veda, life after death is not frequently alluded to, 
and it is more for the goods of this world, for strength, long 
life, a large family, food, and cattle, that the favor of the gods 
is implored." 

We thus see that the Hindoo, in those ancient times, like 
the Greek, thought more of life than of immortality. Cer- 
tain it is that, to both, the future life looked inactive com- 
pared with the present. But the Hindoo loved inactivity, 
while the Greek hated it. The thought expressed in a very 
ancient commentary to the Veda was, doubtless, very con- 
solatory to the former : 

"It is with us, when we enter the divine spirit, as if a lump 
of salt were thrown into the sea ; it becomes dissolved into 
the water (from which it was produced), and is not to be . 
taken out again. But wherever you take the water and taste 
it, it is salt. Thus is the great, endless, and boundless Being 
but one mass of knowledge. As the water becomes salt, ami 
the salt becomes water again, thus has the Divine Spirit 
appeared from out the elements and disappears again into 



Conditions of Immortality. 163 

them. When we have passed away, there is no longer any 



name." 



Here the love for inactivity has imparted itself very strong- 
ly to the conception of immortality. Compare this with the 
famous words of the Greek Achilleus, which he speaks to 
Odysseus in the underworld : 

"Noble Odysseus, speak not thus of death, 
As if thou couldst console me. I would be 
A laborer on earth, and serve for hire 
Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer, 
Rather than reign o'er all that have gone down 
To death. Speak rather of my noble son, 
Whether or not he yet has joined the wars 
To fight among the foremost of the host,'" &c* 

The Hindoo love of inactivity developed, naturally enough, 
into the Buddhistic doctrine of Nirvana, while the Greek 
hatred of the same and love of activity developed into the 
Christian doctrine of immortality. Indeed, Buddhism and 
Christianity are the legitimate outcomes of the two different 
views of the Eternal. The Hindoo and the Greek equally 
desired and longed for immortality ; but the one looked for 
it in utter inactivity, which, as we have seen, would be utter 
annihilation. This is, indeed, the meaning of the word Nir- 
vana. As Max Miiller says : 

"No person who reads with attention the metaphysical 
speculations on the Nirvana, contained in the Buddhistic 
canon, can arrive at any other conviction than that expressed 
by Burnouf, viz. : that Nirvana, the highest aim, the sum- 
mum bonum, of Buddhism, is the absolute nothing." 

It is customary among superficial thinkers of the present 
day to belaud Buddhism at the expense of Christianity, and 
to speak as if the former were equal, if not superior, to the 
latter. It is true that there are many wonderful truths and 
beautiful sayings in the Buddhist books ; but the religion, 
as a whole, stands infinitely below Christianity. If it conld 
be shown that the Buddhist ethical system were superior in 
every point to the Christian, that would not alter the result. 
The speculative error maintained by Buddhism in regard to 
the Eternal vitiates the whole system beyond recovery. The 
condition of Eastern Asia to-day may be said to be the result 

* Bryant's Translation. 



164 Conditions of Immortality. 

of a failure to find the true Eternal, while the infinite-seem- 
ing progress of the Christian nations is due to the fact that, 
in Christianity, the Aristotelian doctrine, that the Eternal is 
pure energy or self-consciousness, is acknowledged to the 
fullest extent. As Hegel says: "The world's history is a 
progress in the consciousness of freedom." 

The Apostle Paul, speaking of Jesus Christ, says he "hath 
abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to 
light through the gospel." It has often been asserted, in 
opposition to this, that the Greeks, as well as many other 
nations, believed in the immortality of the soul ages before 
the appearance of Jesus Christ. In a certain view, this is 
true, and yet the Apostle's remark is also true in a very 
striking sense. Though Aristotle had stated the conditions 
of immortality more than three hundred years before the 
Christian era, and had come to the conclusion that pure rea- 
son, voDc, being pure energy, was immortal, yet he cannot be 
said to have brought immortality to light, So far, indeed, 
was this from being the case, that many of his followers, 
down even to the present day, have doubted whether he 
held the doctrine of the individual soul's immortality at all. 
Admitting that he did even, we are, nevertheless, constrained 
to assert that Christianity first brought true immortality, 
or, as the Apostle says, "life and immortality," to light. 
Brought to light, in this passage, ((fcozcaavrot;,) means illu- 
minated. Christianity first illuminated life and immortality. 
What Aristotle reached speculatively, Christianity reached 
intuitively and stated at first metaphorically. We hear it 
called "living water," "bread of life," "flesh and blood"; but 
again we are told, " It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh 
profiteth nothing ; the words that I speak unto } T ou, they are 
spirit and they are life." What the founder of Christianity 
reached intuitively and stated metaphorically, later reflec- 
tion grounded speculatively. This was, of course, done from 
the resources of the existing philosophy, and chiefly from 
that of Aristotle. Thus while Christianity was the first sys- 
tem which recognized immortality as a great and important 
fact, indeed the great fact, it was from Aristotle that the 
doctrines respecting its conditions and nature were drawn. 
How very Aristotelian, for example, is the expression, "This 



Midsummer NigTiVs Dream. 165 

corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal im- 
mortality"! Immortality does not belong to life : it must be 
put on. He who puts it on, returns to the image of God. As 
Aristotle says : 

" If God subsists eternally as perfectly as we do some- 
times, that is wondrous; and if yet more perfectly, it is yet 
more wondrous. And even so it is. And life belongs to Him ; 
for the energy of spirit is life, and that energy is He ; but 
His energy is in itself best and eternal life. Hence we call 
God living, eternal, best ; so that life and an a?on perpetual, 
eternal are His : for this is God." 



MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. ' 

By D. J. Snider. 

Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the most popular 
of Shakspeare's comedies. Its weird ethereal scenery capti- 
vates the purely poetical nature, its striking sensuous effects 
impress the most ordinary mind, while its faint rainbow-like 
outlines of the profoundest truths entice the thinker with an 
irresistible charm to explore the hidden meaning of the poet. 
There is no work of our author that is so universal, that ap- 
peals so strongly to high and low, to old and young, to man 
and woman. Its shadowy forms appear, disappear, and re- 
appear in the wildest sport, and the critic may sometimes 
doubt his ability to track them through all their mazy hues. 
Nor can it be denied that there is a capricious play of fancy 
over and around the underlying elements of the drama. 
Still, like all of Shakspeare's pieces, it is based on thought, 
and must look to the same for its justification. Our attempt, 
therefore, will be to seize and fix these fleeting iridescent 
shapes in the abstract forms of thought. To be sure, the 
poetry of the play is thus destroyed; but criticism is not 
poetry, but prose. For if criticism were poetry, it had bet- 
ter keep silent in the presence of this piece, and not vainly 
attempt to imitate that which is inimitable, or say over again 
that which the Poet has already so adequately said. The 
only justification of the critic, therefore, is that he expresses 
the content of this drama in a new form — the form of thought 



166 Midsummer NigTifs Dream. 

— for his reader, instead of the imaginative form which the 
dramatist has chosen, and in fact must choose. 

I am aware that not a few people will regard any attempt 
to make out a consistent unity in this play as wanton and 
absurd refinement. Moreover, the great interpreters of 
Shakspeare will be pointed to, who call it a caprice, a dream 
without necessary connection in thought of its various parts. 
That is, the work is a chaos. But every person who reads 
this play with admiration must grant that there is a pro- 
found harmony pervading it throughout, that he feels all its 
essential parts to be in perfect unison with one another, that 
the effect of the whole is not that of a discordant and ill- 
assorted poem. Thus, however, the notion of caprice or of a 
dream must be abandoned as the fundamental idea of the 
work. Both these elements undoubtedly are present ; there 
is a capricious ingredient in certain parts, and also the fairy- 
world is likened to the dream-world ; but they are only sub- 
ordinate members in the organization of the whole. If, then, 
it must be granted that there is a deep, underlying harmony 
throughout the entire piece, it must further be granted that 
the attempt to ascertain and state the law of such harmony 
is not only reasonable but necessary. 

The procedure of this essay will be twofold. First, it will 
attempt to state the phases or stages of the entire action and 
their transition into one another; secondly, it will seek to 
trace the various threads which run through the whole play. 
The former divides the total movement of the drama into a 
certain number of parts, the latter unites the characters to- 
gether into groups. This will give a complete analysis of 
the work, which must be the foundation for all future con- 
clusions. 

But after such preparatory labor of method, the chief part 
of the critic's work remains to be done. All the above-men- 
tioned stages must be explained for thought ; the transitions 
must be shown to be logically necessary ; the different cha- 
racters, if important, but particularly the different groups of 
characters, must be elucidated in their unity, in their funda- 
mental idea. In other words, the language of imagination, 
which is that of the poet, must be translated into the lan- 
guage of thought, which is that of the critic. 



Midsummer Night's Dream. 167 

Following the principles above laid down, we are now 
ready for the statement of the various phases or divisions of 
the total movement of the play. These are three : 1st, the 
Real World, which is embraced in the lirst Act, and which 
is called real because its mediations and its collisions are 
those of common experience, and are based upon the self- 
conscious Reason of man; 2nd, the Fairy World, the Ideal 
Realm which terminates in the course of the fourth Act — so 
named because its mediations and collisions are brought 
about through the agency of supernatural beings, the crea- 
tures of the Imagination ; 3rd, the Representation in Art, 
which, together with the return from Fairyland to the world 
of reality, takes up the rest of the drama, except the final 
scene. In this last part, then, the first two parts mirror 
themselves, the action reflects itself, the play plays itself 
playing, it is its own spectator, including its audience and 
itself in one and the same movement. Thus there is reached 
a totality of Representation which not only represents some- 
thing, but represents itself in the act of Representation. The 
very limits of Dramatic Art are touched here ; it can go no 
further. In this reflection of the play by itself is to be found 
the thought which binds together its multifarious and seem- 
ingly irreconcilable elements. 

The reader will notice that there is very little portraiture 
of character in the play. The sketches of persons are true, 
but light and superficial; there is no profound and intricate 
psychological painting, such as is to be found in other of 
Shakspeare's works. This is, therefore, in no sense a cha- 
racter-drama, and the criticism which proceeds from such a 
point of view would assuredly fall short of the true concep- 
tion of the Whole. No doubt there is some characterization; 
there must be in a drama, but it is not the principal element. 
The chief interest is centered in the groups, in the transi- 
tions, in the different phases which are above called worlds, 
as the Real World, the Fairy World, and their Representa- 
tion. We shall, therefore, indulge very sparingly in charac- 
ter-analysis, believing it to be quite out of place here. Our 
object will be to unfold and connect these various parts and 
threads logically, and unite them into one central thought. 
For the work of the poet moves in images, in individual 



168 Midsummer NighVs Dream. 

forms which are apparently independent; but thought must 
unify all these distinct elements, and thus must free itself 
from the pictures of the imagination by exhibiting the un- 
derlying ground of their order and connection. 

We shall, therefore, begin with the Real World, and care- 
fully separate the various threads of which it is composed. 
The first of these threads is the part of Theseus and Hippo- 
lyta, whose love hovers over the whole drama, the beautiful 
arch which spans the entire action. In them there is no di- 
remption, no collision ; the unity is perfect from the start, 
and remains undisturbed to the end. They are thus the type 
of that harmony in which all the difficulties of the lovers 
must terminate, and in which all the complications of the 
play must be solved. But the essential function of Theseus 
is that he is the head of the State. He, therefore, represents 
the highest rational institutions of man — he is both judge 
and ruler — through him the Real World is seen to be con- 
trolled by an organized system of law and justice — such is 
the atmosphere which surrounds him everywhere. Hence 
he stands above the rest and commands them, but does not 
himself become involved in their collisions. At first he sides 
with Egeus and asserts absolute submission to parental au- 
thority, but in the end he alters his mind and commands the 
daughter to be united to her chosen lover. The grounds for 
this change of judgment are carefully elaborated by the poet, 
and indeed the movement from strife to harmony lies just 
between the two decisions of Theseus. 

Next comes the second thread, Egeus and the group of lov- 
ers. Here now the negative element, discord, is introduced, 
and the contrast to the preceding pair is manifest. Egeus 
comes before the Duke Theseus with his refractory daugh- 
ter, who insists upon marrying the one whom she loves, with- 
out regarding the selection of her father. Thus it is the old 
collision, involving the right of choice on the part of the child 
against the will of the parent. It is a theme which Shak- 
speare has often handled, and for which he seems to have a 
particular delight. But this is not the only difficulty which 
arises. There begins also a complicated love-collision, by 
which is meant the struggle which takes place when indi- 
viduals of either sex find out that their love is unrequited 



Midsummer Night's Dream. 169 

by its object. Here two such cases are portrayed : Helena 
loves and is repelled by Demetrius, Demetrius loves and is 
repelled by Hermia ; the reciprocal love being between Ly- 
sander and Hermia, which, however, has to endure the con- 
flict with the will of the parent. Yet even this sole harmony 
will hereafter be destroyed for a time in Fairyland. Such 
are the collisions from which the action starts, and which 
must be solved by the play. 

The law at Athens demands the most implicit submission 
to parental authority, under the severest penalties, and the 
Duke will abate none of its rigors. The harshness of Egeus, 
the father, and the decision of Theseus, the ruler, force the 
lovers to flee from their home and their city, from Family 
and State. But whither are they to go? It is just at this 
point that we must seek for the basis of their transition to a 
new order of things. We hope the reader will observe care- 
fulty the nature and necessity of this transition, for here lies 
the distinctive work of the critic. It must be borne in mind 
that the lovers do not run away from the world of organized 
wrong ; on the contrary, it is the authority of the parent and 
of the law — certainly a valid authority — from which they 
are fleeing. Hence they abandon the world of institutions, 
in which alone man can enjoy a free and rational existence, 
and they go to the opposite, for it is just these institutions 
and the law which have become insupportable to them. 
They cannot enter another State, for it is the State as such 
with which they have fallen out, and hence the same collision 
must arise. Thus the nature of their place of refuge must 
be determined by what they reject. The next place we lind 
them is in a new and strange world, called by the poet a 
"wood near Athens." 

The similarity at this point to "As You Like it" is appa- 
rent. In that play there was also a flight from society and 
an entrance into a wood, the Forest of Arden. But mark the 
distinction ; it was a flight from the world of wrong — society 
was without justice; while in the drama before us, it is the 
flight from the supremacy of law and just authority — in 
general, from the World of Right. Hence, in "As You Like 
it" those who tiee must begin to build up society from its 



170 Midsummer NighVs Dream. 

foundation ; they must commence with the primitive pastoral 
existence which developes into society. Such was the course 
of that drama. But here there can be no such movement, for 
society in its just and rightful form is already present, and 
the flight is from it. 

On their entrance into the wood, the lovers must therefore 
leave behind them the realized world of Reason, the State, 
the Family, and the other institutions of society. Now, the 
object of all these institutions is to secure freedom to man, 
and to shield him from external accident. By them he is 
protected against incursions of enemies from abroad, against 
injustice at home, against every species of rude violence ; 
through civil institutions brute force is shut out as it were 
by mountain-bulwarks. Man is only in this way secure of 
his freedom and can enjoy his existence as a self-determined 
being. For in the State all action is determined ultimately 
through Reason in the form of laws and institutions — in other 
words, is determined through man himself; thus it is his true 
abode, in which he sees everywhere the work of his own In- 
telligence, whose mediations are therefore perfectly clear to 
his mind, and not the work of some dark extraneous power. 
It is Theseus who represents such a world in the drama be- 
fore us. 

The lovers, therefore, enter a place where all these media- 
tions of Intelligence no longer exist, but they are brought 
into direct contact with the mediations of Nature which 
determine them from without. Such a place is hence repre- 
sented by the Poet as a wood dark and wild, a pure product 
of Nature, inhabited by a race of beings foreign to man and 
unknown in the world of Reason. The lovers are, therefore* 
at once exposed to all sorts of external influences. They 
have now no State above them whose action is their own 
highest rational principle, hence clear to their minds ; but the 
world which is now at work is beyond them, outside of their 
Intelligence, the world of Nature, of Accident, of Externality. 
Now it was seen to be the great function of the State to sub- 
ordinate these elements hostile to freedom, and to protect man 
against them ; but when the former is wiped out, or has been 
abandoned, the latter must have full sway. Therefore the 



Midsummer Night's Dream. 171 

one fundamental property of the "wood near Athens " must 
he that it exhibits a world of unfreedom, of external deter- 
mination. 

But how is such a world to be represented by the Poet 
Here, too, there need be no doubt, for an adequate statement 
of this phase of consciousness has frequently been given in 
the course of human history. In certain stages of culture 
man's profoundest convictions repose upon a system of ex- 
ternal determination ; it is his deepest belief that he is the 
sport and the victim of extraneous powers, and consequently 
he must elaborate a corresponding expression of his faith. 
While he has not yet freed himself from the trammels of 
Nature by means of institutions and thought, what else can 
he do but portray himself as he really is ? Such is the cha- 
racter of all Mythologies. The mediations of Nature and of 
man in relation to the same are conceived to take place by 
the instrumentality of supernatural agents ; the most com- 
mon phenomena have behind them the demon, angel, fairy, 
god, as producing cause. Man is not seized in his freedom, 
nor is Nature subjected to Law, but all mediations are 
performed by a power superior to both. Mythology is, 
therefore, the adequate expression of this world of external 
determination. 

The mythopceic epoch of nations hence will furnish the 
poet numerous examples for his purpose. Which of the 
many mythologies will he then take? Evidently the one 
which has been elaborated by the nation which he is ad- 
dressing. It is known as an historical fact that the belief in 
fairies was common, at the time of the writing of the play, 
throughout England. To this consciousness already existent 
the Poet appeals, and at the same time portrays it to itself. 

But there are two more characteristics which follow from 
this one fundamental principle. In the first place, the Fairy- 
world is not the product of Reason, which is here the State 
and has been left behind, but of the Imagination, which 
objectifies the processes of Nature and Spirit in the form of 
images and external activities. It projects some personality 
behind every kind of mediation. Hence when it takes com- 
plete possession of the mind, all occurrences are transferred 
to the realm of the Supernatural. But the content of the 



172 Midsummer Night's Dream. 

Imagination is, nevertheless, the genuine expression of the 
consciousness of a nation, its statement and solution of the 
profoundest problems of existence. But, in the second place, 
this is also the world of poetry, since everything is trans- 
fused into images and external influences ; the prose of real 
life, with its means and ends, its wants and utilities, is ban- 
ished, man seems to live in a perpetual dream. The abstract 
Understanding, with its categories of cause and effect, laws 
of Nature, etc., has no validity here ; all is pictured, abstract 
terms are quite unknown. Whole nations like the ancient 
Hindoos seem to have lived in this dreamy sensuous state. 
The Fairy-world is a phase of this consciousness, and hence 
the ethereal poetical existences which flit through it are not 
merely the capricious products of the poet's fancy, but strict- 
ly necessary. 

These are the essential qualities with which the Poet has 
endowed his "wood near Athens." It is a world of external 
determination ; it has a Mythology which is the product of 
Imagination, and thus resembles dream-land, where all 
rushes in without cause ; it is poetic as contradistinguished 
from the prosaic life in society. 

Such is the second thread of the drama, the love-collision 
and that which springs from it, namely, the poetic Fairy- 
land. The third thread is the learning and representation of 
the theatrical piece by the clowns. This is motived on the 
first page of the play, in an external manner, by Theseus 
calling upon his Master of Revels to stir up the Athenian 
youth to merriments, to produce something for the entertain- 
ment of the court. That is, a demand for Art has arisen. 
For man's highest want is, after all, to know himself; he de- 
sires to behold his own countenance as it were in a mirror 
which Art holds up before him. Moreover, there is an offi- 
cial attached to the court, and generally to all courts, whose 
duty it is to provide for the above-mentioned want, 

The theme will therefore be that which gives a picture of 
the Court, of its chief thought and business at this time, 
which is love. The content of the drama of "Pyramus and 
Thisbe" is thus a love-collision. Now, to exhibit such a work 
adequately demands the highest skill both in actor and poet. 
They must be gifted by nature with true artistic conoeinion, 



Midsummer Night's Dream. 173 

they must polish nature by culture, Art must be their life 
and living, they must be professional. Such at least is the 
general rule, dilettantism beyond the private circle is intol- 
erable, and never was it more happily ridiculed than just in 
these clowns. Shakspeare has therefore chosen not to give 
a poetic, ideal picture in this part, but a prosaic one. And 
necessarily so, for what would the second picture otherwise 
have been but a repetition of the first? In fact, this play of 
the clowns is the contrast to his own true play ; he has ex- 
hibited thus in one and the same totality the negative side 
of his own work. 

The idea of the third thread now before us may therefore 
be given in the statement: Prose is trying to be Poetry. 
The result is a burlesque of the legitimate kind, for it is not 
Poetry or any other high and holy thing which is wantonly 
caricatured, but the prosaic conception of Poetry. The con- 
tradiction is real, inherent ; the Prosaic attempts to be what 
it is not and can never be, the Poetic ; its efforts to put on 
such etherial robes, — are simply ludicrous. But we have 
also the True alongside of the Burlesque ; genuine Poetry 
is to be found just here in the same piece; thus the Poet 
does not leave us with a negative result ; after his wit has 
ceased to sparkle, there is not left merely a handful of 
ashes, but the positive side is present also. 

In this connection, another distinction must be noticed 
which our Poet has carefully elaborated. It is not the culti- 
vated, refined, prosaic Understanding which is here repre- 
sented ; that will be shown hereafter, and has quite a differ- 
ent manifestation. But it is the dull, uneducated, prosaic 
consciousness of low life, of mechanical employments, with 
a feeling only for the most gross sensuous effects, without 
even cultivated taste, not to speak of artistic sense. The 
lowest form of prosaic life thus proposes to undertake to 
represent the very highest form of the highest Art, namely, 
Dramatic Poetry ; hence the clowns, too, must go to the po- 
etic Fairyland, the mystic wood of the Imagination. 

These are the three threads which the Poet has unfolded 
in the first Act. They embrace the Real World, from which 
the play suddenly leaps into the ideal realm. The logic of 
this transition has already been given ; the lovers flee from 



174 Midsummer Night's Dream. 

civil society with its manifold mediations, whose object is to 
secure freedom and enter a Wood whose characteristic was 
denned to be external determination. That is, man acts 
through influences from without, and not through the me- 
diations of his own Intelligence, through institutions. The 
reader will note, therefore, that Theseus and his world here 
disappear and their place is taken by the fairies : the former 
cannot consist with the latter. Moreover, when Theseus 
reappears, the sway of these supernatural beings at once 
vanishes. If we now examine the nature and attributes of 
the fairies as here represented, it will be easy to discern their 
common characteristic. They work upon man, deceive him, 
lead him about by appearances, victimize his senses, in gen- 
eral manifest external determination. But it must not be 
forgotten that they only exhibit man himself; they are sim- 
ply a portraiture of his own unfree stage of consciousness, of 
his own delusions. Such must be their interpretations, they 
are symbols of some phase of Spirit. 

Let us now consider the organization of this Fairy-world, 
for it is a regular hierarchy. First comes the common fairy, 
with a description of her functions : she is the servant ; she 
dews the orbs upon the green, spots the cowslips, hangs dew- 
drops in the flower's ear ; that is, she performs the operations 
usually ascribed to Nature, which is thus mediated in its 
activity by the fairies. Next are told the doings of Puck, a 
servant of a higher order, having also a sphere of independent 
activity, in which he is the embodiment of mischief, and 
causes what are usually called accidents. He seems to stand 
in a nearer relation to man than the other fairies, and has a 
certain external power over him. Also the repulsive element 
of Nature is not forgotten; it stands in open hostility to 
these beings of beauty : snakes, newts, worms, spiders — 
negative Nature, as it may be called for the occasion, is 
warned off once for all from the sleeping fairy queen ; only 
Philomel with her melody may approach. The Beautiful 
cannot abide the Ugly. But the central principle of the fairy 
organization, and its chief figures, are the pair Oberon and 
Titania, to whom all the rest are subordinate. 

The main fact here to be observed is that the highest 
fairies are king and queen ; hence, are not only sexed but 



Midsummer NigliVs Dream. 17 '5 

coupled, or, if the term is applicable to these beings, are mar- 
ried Such is not the case with the other fairies. This hint 
will furnish the key to what follows, for the sexual diremp- 
tion is the deepest contradiction of Nature, and the sexual 
unity is the profoundest harmony of Nature. The pair, there- 
fore, are monarchs, and are placed on the apex of the phy- 
sical world, whose highest effort is self-reproduction. At 
present, however, their unity has been disturbed — the two 
Sexes are in opposition — Titania and Oberon have quarreled 
— what is the result? All Nature is out of joint, in strife 
with itself ; the seasons do not come in their regular order — 
winter is in summer and summer in winter ; the waters have 
taken possession of the land and destroyed the labors of 
man : all of which evils are produced by the quarrel of the 
royal pair. The cause is explicitly stated by the Poet in the 
speech of Titania : 

"And this same progeny of evil comes 
From our debate, from our dissension; 
We are their parents and original." 

For when the central and controlling principle of Nature is 
thus deranged and in contradiction with itself, the effects 
must be transmitted to all the subordinate parts. Such is 
the poetical conception of the hierarchy governing Nature. 

But the cause of the unhappy separation of the fairy cou- 
ple has not been forgotten; it is represented to be jealousy. 
This passion is based upon the absolute unity of man and 
wife ; it asserts that each individual shall find his or her 
complete existence in the other. If a third person is taken 
by either, the tie is destroyed. Jealousy, therefore, rests 
upon the monogamic nature of marriage, and will and ought 
to be manifested in all its intensity when that relation is 
disturbed. The king and queen of Fairyland reproach one 
another with their gallantries, quarrel, and separate. Con- 
fusion and strife must now reign in the kingdom of Nature. 
Leaving out of acoount the mutual charges of infidelity as 
equally false or equally true, the fault of the separation would 
seem to lie with Titania. However this may be, Oberon re- 
solves to assert the husband's right to be head of the family, 
and is determined to subordinate his refractory wife. His 
aim is unity and peace, not only in his own domestic relations, 



176 Midsummer Night's Dream. 

but in the entire realm of which he is the supreme ruler. 
Thus the action sets in towards the reconciliation of the con- 
flict in Fairyland. Accordingly, he prepares the means for 
his purpose. It is by dropping the juice of a certain flower 
upon her eye-lids when she is asleep, in order to make her 
fall in love with. some ugly monster, the opposite of her na- 
ture. The retributive character of this punishment is obvi- 
ous : if you cannot live in peace with me, one of your own 
kind, then try the contrary, a horrid brute. Titania, therefore, 
becomes infatuated with Bottom the ass. It is the Poetic 
under the yoke of Prose, the natural result of her separation 
from her husband, since she has abandoned for the time the 
beautiful world of the fairies and its monarch. In this 
service she undergoes the deepest indignity — in vain she 
lavishes her choicest love — her ideal perfections are soiled 
and unappreciated by the gross clown. The cause of the 
quarrel being at last removed by the submission of the wife, 
Oberon takes pity on her like a dutiful husband, releases 
her from her thraldom, and restores her to his bosom. 

Thus the conflict which harassed Fairyland has been har- 
monized, and peace reigns. But mark! now occurs one of 
those transitions upon which so much stress was laid in the 
first part of this essay. Night flies away, the darkness of 
the Wood is driven off by the light of the day, the Fairy 
World disappears with its own reconciliation, the Real 
World dawns. But this is not all. Theseus the monarch is 
on hand, ready to judge — Egeus is here with his former col- 
lision — all transpires in the clear sunlight of consciousness 
— external mediation has ceased. Is it not evident that we 
have returned to the world of institutions which we left some 
time ago ? 

Having thus brought the rirst thread to its termination, 
we are now ready to take up the second thread, the lovers. 
They arrive from Athens, and enter the Wood in the height 
of the strife between Oberon and Titania. They also bring- 
along collisions among themselves, for two of them have an 
unreciprocated love. Fairyland, therefore, is a picture of the 
condition of the lovers, for both have collisions, and indeed 
similar collisions, namely, those in the Family. Hermia has 
left her father, Titania has left her husband, and also the 



Midsummer NigliVs Dream. 177 

conflicts of the rejected suitors may "be reckoned under this 
head. Here is the point where the relation between the real 
and ideal worlds may be seen : the one reflects the other. 
The internal state of the lovers is thus pictured in the world 
of the Imagination, which was before said to be this Fairy- 
land, the poetic abode of such forms. 

It was also shown that the flight from society must be a 
flight to a world of external determination ; here it now is in 
full operation. The lovers are wholly influenced by powers 
outside of themselves ; the chief means, for example, is a 
flower wounded by Cupid's bolt. But these external forms, 
like the Fairy-world itself, are poetic, are symbolical of the 
inner spirit of man, and hence must be interpreted. The com- 
mon and most natural view is that this flower represents the 
effects of what the Poet calls "Fancy," a combination of ca- 
price and love, which chooses and changes with wanton 
whim the objects of affection. The part of the lovers in the 
"Wood near Athens" may thus be interpreted to be a play 
of fanciful, capricious love. 

On account of the externality of the means, a mistake is 
possible; the mediation is not in the heart and emotions. 
Puck anoints the wrong person. The effect is quite the same 
as that of a comedy of Intrigue in which there is some form 
of disguise. This mistake, therefore, produces all the results 
of that very common dramatic instrumentality, Mistaken 
Identity. In fact, Shakspeare has in several places indicated 
that the influence of Mistaken Identity is like that of a 
dream, since it places man in such new and strange relations 
that he seems to himself to have been carried into an un- 
known world. The mistake destroys the only remaining 
reciprocal tie, the collisions are now completed, each indi- 
vidual hates his lover and loves his hater. There ensues a 
love-chase through the woods which furnishes sport for all 
Fairyland, till the parties, weary with fatigue, la}' down 
on the ground and go to sleep. The solution of the collision 
is also external, and is brought about by command of Obe- 
ron, the central power, whose highest object has been all 
along the unity of the Family in his own case, and hence, to 
be true to his character, he must manifest the same trait to 
the lovers who have wandered into his realm. The separa- 
viii— 12 



178 Midsummer Night's Dream. 

tion cannot, therefore, continue, for, as before stated, the 
highest point and goal of Nature is the unity of the two 
sexes in which the two are made into a mysterious one. Such 
has been the aim of Oberon, or, if you please, the aim of Na- 
ture, from the beginning. To take another phase of the same 
interpretation, the lovers have run the course of caprice, and 
are now ready to experience the permanent affection upon 
which the Family reposes. 

The lovers awake, and, their difficulty being harmonized, 
Fairyland disappears like a dream. Not that they have 
actually dreamed; on the contrary, the contrast is very dis- 
tinctly drawn — they sleep, but do not dream, in this realm. 
In their waking state, they compare their night's experience 
to a dream on account of the external mediation. The fact 
is to be noticed, for critics have generally tried to explain 
the whole piece from this single element. The lovers now 
tind themselves again in the world of institutions, before 
Theseus the ruler and Egeus the parent. But now the two 
pairs are in perfect harmony, their love is reciprocal ; hence 
the rational basis of union is present in both couples. The- 
seus, therefore, reverses his former -sentence ; he decides in 
favor of the Right of Choice on the part of the daughter 
against the will of the parent — a solution which Shakspeare 
uniformly gives in all similar collisions. Nor can Theseus 
consistently do otherwise ; for what is he himself doing but 
celebrating his own union with Hippolyta ? The return of 
the lovers from the ideal to the real world is thus accom- 
plished. 

The third thread must now be resumed, the Clowns in Fai- 
ryland. Why are they, too, here t The question comes up, 
for this would seem to be a place most uncongenial to them. 
And so it is; the poetic world is certainly not their natural 
abode. But in the present instance they have left their pro- 
saic occupation, they are transcending their own sphere, and 
are trying to represent a play, a work of Art, which lies far 
out of their comprehension. The attempt, however, brings 
them into the Fairyland of Poetry, which is soon found full 
of strange beings, and they are compelled by terror to leave 
it with precipitation. A man cannot make, nor indeed act, a 
drama without entering the mystic Wood, the world of the 



Midsummer NighVs Dream. 179 

Imagination. To be sure, the clowns themselves have only 
a common-place reason, "lest our devices be known"; since, 
if the plot should, be revealed, then there would be no "sur- 
prise." But the principal thing to be noticed is how they 
reduce everything to the dead level of Prose. Their solici- 
tude for the audience is touching ; it must be perpetually 
reminded that these characters are not real, but that they are 
merely assumed: that I am not Pyramus, but Bottom the 
weaver ; that I am not a lion — be not afraid ! — but Snug the 
joiner. The clowns, therefore, have not the primary notion 
of the drama ; they do not comprehend that it is a represen- 
tation and not a reality. The imaginative form must be 
at once destroyed, and the illusion of Art is always extin- 
guished by their prosaic explanations. This trait is common 
to all these " mechanicals," and lies deep in their nature ; it 
forms the essence of their comic characterization. They re- 
duce all poetic form to Prose. Thus their end is a nullity ; 
they are simply destroying the object which they are seek- 
ing to produce, are annihilating their own end, which princi- 
ple is the essence of comedy. 

Another trait must not be forgotten. How realistic they 
are ! how true to nature and probability ! No sham moon- 
shine for them ; they must have the queen of night herself 
present in her own person, if possible ; no pretended wall, 
or, if it must be represented by a man, let him be plastered. 
All is to be real, natural, probable. Thus, however, the 
thought is lost, for the attempt is not to portray Spirit, but 
to reproduce the meaningless forms of Nature in their fidel- 
ity. One might almost think that the poet was satirizing 
the modern generation of critics, so true does he hit their 
canons. But Nature has only to illustrate and portray mind 
in an artistic work ; when it ceases to have this significance, 
it is worthless. 

Their flight from the land of the Imagination cannot be 
long delayed. Bottom, the hero of the clowns, appears to 
them suddenly with an ass's head on, the appropriateness of 
which might be shown in various ways, but it will be mani- 
fest. Such does Bottom turn out to be in the realm of Art, 
and is thus represented even to his own comrades. Terror- 
stricken at his image, which is without question their own 



180 Midsummer NighVs Dream. 

too, they flee, lest they be " translated " also. Such is the 
lamentable outcome of the rude Prosaic, in its effort to repro- 
duce the Poetic. How much of this satire was intended for 
his own age by the Poet cannot now be told. But since it 
was his special calling, the drama, which is here the theme, 
we may suppose that it had some foothold in the circum- 
stances of his time. 

One other phase of this realm remains to be mentioned. 
"We have just seen with what effect the prosaic clowns woo 
Poetry ; what, now, if Poetry should become the lover and 
servant of Prose ? Such is the scene when Titania falls in 
love with Bottom — the queen of Fairyland with an ass. The 
contrast in all its ludicrousness is here portrayed, the two 
elements are brought out face to face. The motive for her 
strange conduct has already been stated to lie in her separa- 
tion from Oberon. The Ethereal is thus subjected to the 
Gross and Sensual ; Imagination and her handmaids, sepa- 
rated from beings of their own spiritual nature, must obey 
the behests of Prose, nay, be swallowed in its voracious ap- 
petite. Her rapt poetic utterances are reduced to grovelling 
common-places, her ambrosial food seems to excite no desire, 
her sweet caresses are turned into grossness, she has at last 
to tie up his tongue. When she returns to her first love, how 
she hates the brute. The result, therefore, of the clowns' visit 
to Fairyland, the realm of Art, is that they have produced 
and also beheld a picture, but a picture of their own assi- 
ninity, and that they have been rudely driven off from the 
mystic Wood by its inhabitants. Thus they also have re- 
turned to the Real World. 

We have now traced to their conclusion the three threads 
of the second grand division of the drama, the Fairy World. 
Again we are ushered into the presence of the old society 
from which we parted at the end of the Fiist Act. The diffi- 
culty upon which a separation from it was based has disap- 
peared, the collision which created the ideal realm has been 
harmonized ; hence the ground of its existence has been 
taken away. Theseus, who represents the State, no longer 
gives absolute validity to the will of the parent ; and since it 
was his adverse decree which caused the flight, there must 
now follow the return and the reconciliation with the Real 



Midsummer Night's Dream. 181 

"World. Here the work of the Poet might generally end — 
here it does end in the similar drama of "As Yon Like it." 
But in the play before ns he he has chosen to make a higher 
synthesis ; he wishes not only to portray an action to the 
spectators, but also to make the action portray itself. 

Hence we must now pass to the third division of the piece, 
which has not yet been developed, the Representation. The 
Court has demanded Art in which to see itself, or at least by 
which to amuse itself. The two actions which have hitherto 
run alongside of each other are now to be brought up before 
Theseus and his company, who henceforth assume the part 
of audience and critics. The poem therefore, after beholding 
and reflecting itself, is to criticise itself. But these criticisms 
will only illustrate the points of view of the different speak- 
ers. The first thread of this division is the story of the lov- 
ers which has been told to the company, as we see by the 
words of Hippolyta at the beginning of the Fifth Act: 

" 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of." 

Shakspeare, however, could not well repeat the same story 
in the same play, and hence it is here omitted. The main 
point dwelt upon by the Poet is the criticism of Theseus. 
How will he treat the Poetic as it was shown in the strange 
tale of Fairyland ? His conception is purely prosaic ; hence 
in him Prose again appears, but it is now altogether different 
from the grovelling sensuous form which was manifested in 
the " rude mechanicals." Here we see education, refinement, 
abstract culture. Theseus, therefore, represents in this con- 
nection the Prose of the cultivated Understanding, whose 
skepticism assails all poetic conception and tears its forms 
to pieces. He derides the "antic fables"; he scoffs at "the 
lunatic, the lover, and the poet," placing them in the same 
category; the Imagination itself is made the subject of his 
sneers — it is full of "tricks," and is placed in striking con- 
trast with "cool reason." The poet's function is to "give to 
airy nothing a local habitation and a name"; that is, the 
poet's work is without any actual or rational content. Old 
Theseus was a downright Philister, as the Germans say. It 
is the prosaic Understanding attempting to criticise Poetry, 
whose essence is totally outside of its horizon. Theseus 



182 Midsummer Night's Dream. 

will not acknowledge that under this fabulous form may be 
found the profoundest meaning ; it is not his form, and hence 
worthless. 

The reader will perhaps be surprised at this interpretation 
of the famous speech of Theseus, since the passages above 
mentioned, which are taken from it, have been quoted by- 
critics of high authority as the most adequate definitions of 
Poetry and of the Imagination that have ever been given. 
The fact is, however, Theseus intends to ridicule both, and 
his language, on a careful examination, will be found to be 
that of skeptical derision. Look, too, at the answer of his . 
wife and see how she understands him. 

This wife, Hippolyta, is of quite a different character ; she, 
with all the appreciation inherent in the female nature, is 
inclined to gently dissent from the negative judgments of 
her husband. She mildly suggests that there may be some 
content in these wild poetic forms of Fairyland ; that the 
story of the night 

"More witnesseth than fancy's images, 
And grows to something of great constancy; 
Bnt, howsoever, strange and admirable." 

With this quiet remark she ceases ; she does not pursue the 
discussion further, for she is a woman, and possesses per- 
haps the immediate feeling and appreciation of Poetry 
rather than the ability to give the grounds of her judgment. 
Such is the contrast; Theseus has at his side the opposite 
form of consciousness ; the husband and wife exhibit oppo- 
site phases of critical opinion. It may be added that the 
Poet does not represent and cannot represent the highest 
critical comprehension of his work, for that involves the 
statement of the entire content in an abstract form, while he 
must necessarily employ for the same content a poetical 
form. 

But the second thread, the play of the clowns, now comes 
up for representation. It must also be subjected to the cri- 
ticism of the audience, mainly composed of these two mental 
principles, Theseus and Hippolyta. The Duke wants to be 
amused — he rejects the old plays — he must see something 
new — he therefore chooses "Pyramus and Thisbe 1 ' both on 
account of its novelty and its absurd title, though against 



Midsummer NigliPs Dream. 183 

the strong protests of his Art-critic. The clowns appear and 
go through with their play. We again observe in them the 
same elements which were before characterized : the destruc- 
tion of all artistic form ; the introduction of nature in its 
immediateness simply for its own sake and not as the bearer 
of any spiritual meaning ; rant, which lays equal emphasis 
on what is important and unimportant, without any re- 
lief; ignorance of all technical requirements of acting, with 
a strong infusion of general stupidity and self-importance. 
Indeed, it may be said that the separation of the lovers in 
"Pyramus and Thisbe" rests not upon a moral obstacle, but 
a natural object; the basis of its collision is a wall. It ex- 
hibits the realistic style reduced to absurdity. The critical 
judgment of the audience serves to bring out more strongly 
the contradictions of the piece, beneath whose sneers it per- 
ishes, Theseus pronouncing upon it final sentence. It will 
be observed that the clowns have fared hard in their artistic 
efforts. After a very uncomplimentary picture of Bottom, 
and, in fact, of themselves, they are frightened out of Fairy- 
land, and thus excluded from the world of Poetry ; and now 
their work is torn piece-meal by the critical Understanding. 
Neither Gods nor Men, Poetry nor Prose, can endure medi- 
ocrity in Art, much less stupidity. It will also not escape 
the attention of the reader that the Poet has portrayed in 
the drama before us the two essential phases of the prosaic 
Understanding in its attempts to attain the beautiful realm 
of Poetry. Theseus and the clowns have thus a common 
element. 

The three pairs of lovers retire to rest in perfect happiness 
and peace, and the Poet again allows the Fairy World to flit 
for a moment across the stage, as if to give one more hint of 
its meaning. This world is now, too, in harmony ; Oberon 
and Titania, the ideal couple, beside the three real ones, en- 
ter with their train and sing an epithalamium whose content 
is the prosperity and concord of the Family. Thus Fairy- 
land has done its last duty : it has reflected the peaceful 
solution of the struggle, whereas previously it had imaged 
the strife. 

At this point the drama must end; its three divisions with 
their various threads have been wrought out to their natural 



184 Midsummer Night's Dream. 

conclusion. My reader will probably consider some of the 
above explanations to be far-fetched, and it must be con- 
fessed that the faintest hint of the Poet has often been ex- 
panded in full. Such, however, is the duty of criticism ; it 
gives what Poetry cannot, and Poetry gives what it cannot. 
Besides, in the present drama I feel satisfied that Shakspeare 
did not always adequately realize his conception ; he wres- 
tles with his idea, and sometimes does not succeed in embo- 
dying it with clearness and completeness. Especially the 
third part, the Representation, caused him great difficulty, 
and is the least perfect of the three parts. The thought of 
making the play reflect itself in the course of its own action 
never lost hold of him during the whole period of his 
dramatic career. The poem has other inequalities of 
execution, and bears numerous traces of the youthfulness 
of the author. But the conception is one of his grandest, 
though not always clear and definite in his own mind, and 
hence the work is marred with some imperfections. It has 
been attempted in the foregoing essay to develope the com- 
plete idea of the Poet, not in his own beautiful poetic form, 
but in the abstract form of Thought. 

Let us express the movement of this drama with other 
categories. In it is introduced the Mythological World, the 
adequate poetic representation of which, however, gives the 
Epos. The latter has as its mediating instrumentalities those 
beings of a realm beyond, the god and goddess, the nj^mph, 
fairy, elf, angel ; or, to present its negative elements, devils, 
furies, goblins, griffins, etc. These supernatural powers are 
portrayed as influencing man externally. They, therefore, 
do not belong to the drama in its strictness, for it exhibits 
man as determined through himself, through his own inter- 
nal being, through motives, ends, passions, thoughts. It is 
the most adequate expression of self-determination, of free- 
dom, and hence it is the highest point of Art. The divinities 
of the Epos may, it is true, be only these internal determina- 
tions of man in an external form; but it is just this form 
which gives the basis of the essential distinctions of Art. 
The Epos, therefore, passes away in the culture of nations, 
when they come to a profounder self-consciousness, and the 
Drama takes its place as a truer and more adequate repre- 



Midsummer Night's Dream. 185 

sentation of Spirit. In order to ascertain, therefore, the true 
position of the mythological element in the play before us, 
we must be careful to note that it also is transitory; it passes 
away, with the dawn of light, the most perfect symbol of 
consciousness ; when the parties fully wake in the presence 
of Theseus, it is no more. In like manner it departs in the 
history of nations. The Poet has thus introduced an epi- 
cal element into his drama, but only as a subordinate phase ; 
the action moves out of this purely epical world, where, if it 
remained to the end, it would not give a true drama. A dra- 
matic composition which employs only these instrumentali- 
ties of the Epos is a contradiction; it violates its own funda- 
mental principle. Many dramatists have committed this sin 
against their Art, and thus debauched it; but Shakspeare 
always remains true to its highest thought; if he seems at 
times to wander, it is only to return with additional spoils; 
The External, though employed by him in all its shapes, he 
invariably transmutes into the Internal. 

The views which have been held concerning the purport 
of this drama have been various, and have as a general rule 
seized some one side and considered it to be the whole. It 
has been thought to be an intrigue of capricious love, and 
certainly this is one of its elements, namely, the part of the 
lovers. It has also been called a romantic drama, as if the 
mythological world were its essential thread, whereas it is 
only one of the several threads which are woven together into 
a whole. But the most general explanation seems to be that 
it is a dream. To this view, however, the objections are so 
strong that it cannot be reasonably entertained. Granting 
that the world of fairies is the same as the world of dreams, 
the above-mentioned explanation leaves two entire move- 
ments of the play wholly unaccounted for, namely, the first 
and the third. More than half of the poem is therefore de- 
cidedly awake, and transpires in the Real World. In the 
next place, it is not pretended that the lovers dream these 
occurrences in Fairyland; on the contrary, they first go to 
sleep after all the events there have transpired. They only 
compare their experiences to a dream. Then, when we have 1 
called it a dream, what is explained, since the content of 
dreams is so various, and their product is not generally a 



186 Book Notices. 

poem like "Midsummer Night's Dream" ? Finally, the name 
of the piece is cited in support of this view ; but it may be 
laid down as a general rule that the titles of Shakspeare's 
comedies have only the most remote reference to their con- 
tents ; several have, in fact, names of quite the same signi- 
fication. It is true that the world of Imagination bears a 
great resemblance to that of dreams, and it is just this resem- 
blance and nothing else of which the poet speaks. Hence the 
necessity of seeking a higher synthesis which will account 
for every part of the drama, and will combine its diverse ele- 
ments into a consistent unity. 



BOOK NOTICES 



Liberty and Law under Federative Government. By Britton A. Hill. Philadel- 
phia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1874. St. Louis: Gray, Baker & Co. 

Contents. — A Discussion of the legal and political Organizations of the 
Jews, Greeks, Romans, Feudal States, Switzerland. Great Britain, and the 
United States ; A Chapter on the Functions of the State, its affirmative 
powers regulating for each citizen his culture and behavior ; its negative 
powers prohibiting from injuring others: including regulations adapted to 
secure (1) Public Hygiene, (2) Public Education, (3) Public Intercommu- 
nication ; established by three codes, (1) a constitutional, (2) statutory. 

(3) federative and international. The design of government to secure for 
man (1) a physical body in the world of nature, (2) an intelligent being in 
the world of intelligence, (3) a social being in the state and world at large. 

Public Hygiene is discussed under the following heads: I. Pure Air; II. 
Laying-out of Cities ; III. Construction of Buildings; IV. Personal Clean- 
liness; V. Laying-out of Counties and Townships: VI. Pure Food and 
Drink. 

Public Education: I. Relation of Morality and Law: II. The Right 
to Rest; III. The Right to Schools; IV. The Nature of Education; V. 
Classification of Schools; VI. School Exhibitions; VII. The Education of 
every Scholar for a Vocation; VIII. Analysis of this System of School-. 

Public Intercommunication includes a consideration of the subjects: I. 
Money, (1) its origin, (2) invention of banking, (3) creation of State debts. 

(4) interest a curse, (5) true nature of money, (6) history of paper monej , 
(7) foreign exchanges and international clearing-house; II. Public High- 
ways — (1) their nature, (2) mail and telegraph, (3) public roads, (4) rivers 
and lakes, (5) canals, (6) railroads; III. Taxation, Duties, and Imposts — 
(1) nature of taxation, (2) true rules for taxation, (3) limits of taxation, 
(4) the tariff; IV. Intercommunication by the Press — (1) the press, (2) its 
demoralization, (3) daily national newspaper ; V. Police, Passports, Regis- 
tration; VI. Domestic Relations — (1) marriage, (2) children. 

I 



Book Notices. 187 

It will be noticed by this index that Mr. Hill has discarded the theory of 
government that limits the scope of its functions to the maintenance of jus- 
tice among- men. He would have it also secure social well-being — nurture, 
if we may so call it. In the current philosophical view, the functions of 
nurture, social combination, and the maintenance of justice, are separated, 
and assigned respectively to one of the three institutions — the family, civil 
society, the state. It is quite evident that within the family, for instance, 
wherein the perpetuation of the race is cared for, a strict application of the 
principle of justice could not be expected. It would destroy the race if 
one were to treat all infants as though they were perfectly responsible 
beings, and with this view were to return upon them the consequences of 
their deeds. Nurture is the shape of a rational treatment of the race in its 
infantile years, and nurture is even the predominating feature of the most 
rudimentary states— e.g. that of China. Civil society is an organism whose 
function is the supply of human wants — food, clothing, and shelter. In 
this organism, each man labors to produce a special product which he 
contributes to the general store (i.e. sells it in the market), and withdraws 
from the general store (i.e. purchases in the market) a quantity of special 
products measured by the value of his own contribution. Each works for 
all and all for each. But it is not done after the manner which Commun- 
ism proposes. It is not equal contribution, neither is it equal distribution. 
In the family, however, there is community of goods : the wants of each 
are supplied from the common fund regardless of the source of the contri- 
butions to it. This is nurture. In civil society, on the other hand, each 
draws out of the supply created by the combined endeavor of all, only an 
equivalent of what he puts in. Hence each man is self-determined— receives 
the fruits of his own deeds. It is clear that this institution is governed by 
a principle which would destroy the race if it were applied within the fami- 
ly, and the infant were to receive only what he earned. 

The state purely by itself, and apart from the family and civil society, 
would make no provision at all for the nurture of its people. It would not 
support hospitals or asylums, nor provide in any manner for the public 
health, the public morals, or the public intelligence. It would not provide 
means for the creation of wealth; it would not build roads or bridges, im- 
prove navigable streams or harbors. It would never undertake the "pro- 
tection of home industry,"' nor regulate commerce, nor coin money — still 
less would it issue paper money. The sole direct function of the state as a 
political organism is to secure justice to its citizens. This implies that it 
protect them from foreign enemies and secure to each man the fruits of 
his deed at home. If the man does a good deed, he shall be protected ; if 
he trespasses on his neighbor, thereby abridging his neighbor's freedom 
and doing violence to his will, the state will cause his malice to revert upon 
himself and abridge his own freedom instead of that of his neighbor. But 
the state, pure and simple, will not interfere and save the foolish or unwise 
man from the effects of his deed. That would be nurture. It will not 
make a " public improvement," for that would be to usurp the functions of 
civil society. 

But while the state refuses to do the deed for the individual man, or to 
connive at his pecuniary profit directly, it finds itself forced into doing 



188 Book Notices. 

both of these things indirectly in order to achieve its own proper function. 
Hence arises the collision in politics between those who hold to the ideal 
state and those who hold to the state as modified by the idea of the family 
and civil society. Some concession has to be made — the contest arises over 
the how much. 

Right here comes in the phase of municipal organization and public cor- 
porations. The labor of the individual in producing special products for the 
market is limited to such special products as may be exclusively possessed 
and used by others individually . But there are thousands of modes in 
which the welfare of society can be promoted by the application of labor to 
the removal of general obstacles or to the creation of general facilities : the 
highway, the bridge, the railroad, the canal, the acqueduct, the sewer, the 
useful invention, &c. &c. No single person can consume, entirely, one of 
such products as these. They are valuable to a whole community and to a 
series of generations. In order that human labor may be applied to such 
substantial productions as these, there must be some form of guaranty that 
such labor shall be remunerative ; that it shall be able to convert into money 
its present labor, expended not for special commodities, but for the general 
good of the community at large, and it may be for the generations that are 
to come ; that it shall be able to realize for itself special commodities for 
such general productive activity. The device invented for this purpose is 
the chartered corporation, a semi-political, semi-social institution. It is 
clear that Mr. Hill would absorb, if not all, at least the greater part of this 
sphere into the state itself and make it solely political. What is for the 
public weal shall belong to the state, is the principle set up in his book. 
The public health, the public education, money, highways — even the news- 
paper — shall come into the hands of the state. 

We have Socialism, Communism (the "Internationalist 7 ' association), 
where the function of civil society is made to absorb the state. When the 
latter is made to swallow up the former, we have a "parental" government 
and probably a despotism. To these two imperfect theories we may add 
the theory which isolates the state entirely from civil society. The latter 
theory is quite common in the United States, and indeed has been so ever 
since the establishment of the Union. Through the interference of the state 
with civil society arise corporations, and these become so powerful as to 
threaten the freedom of the private citizen. Moreover, by such interfer- 
ence one section is benefitted at the expense of another, or one species of 
industry is built up at the cost of another — manufactures "protected" and 
agriculture taxed. The national finances are deranged and the circular 
movement of industry by which the total of production determines the 
price of each commodity is stopped by the introduction of an arbitrary spe- 
cies of money which is not the production of the labor of the community 
and therefore does not complete the circuit. Irredeemable paper money 
prevents the labor of civil society from self-determination, or. in other 
words : the money which should measure the value of all other productions 
of labor, is itself not a product of labor and hence incommensurable as re- 
gards products of labor. 

Mr. Hill recommends a national system of paper money, opposes the 



Book Notices. 189 

issue of interest-bearing bonds by the state, suggests an international 
clearing-house. 

Whatever may be said against the interference of the state in the affairs 
of civil society, there is no prospect of preventing such interference. A 
nation that refused would be speedily forced to interfere with and regulate 
the functions of society were it only to preserve itself from destruction. 
Mr. Hill sees this fact in all its scope. The questions of limitation and of 
method in such interference are the essential ones. 

If we assume as self-evident that the money of a country which is to 
measure the products of labor must itself be a product of labor, or else con- 
vertible directly into such products according to definitely named quantities 
and qualities specified on the face of the convertible money, we must con- 
clude that a strictly irredeemable currency would destroy civil society if 
continued for a long period. All such systems have collapsed, with great 
disaster to productive industry. But a national paper currency is not of 
this kind. It is receivable for government dues — taxes, imposts, postal ser- 
vice, &c. From one-half to three-fourths of the "greenbacks," for example, 
are thus taken up annually by the government. If receivable for all duties, 
they would be still further redeemable to that extent. Such redemption is 
also, and has been, practised by other nations. It is not a perfect form of 
redemption because it is not directly convertible into a perfect commodity. 
The precious metals form such a commodity; national bonds bearing a 
fixed rate of interest payable in coin are also a perfect commodity. A 
national paper currency should therefore be redeemable at the treasury 
for gold and silver, or interconvertible directly with bonds bearing gold 
interest. 

A paper currency which represents specie on deposit of equal amount, 
dollar for dollar, is sound. But such is not the system of banking in vogue 
anywhere in the world, nor is it proposed by those who oppose the present 
system in the United States. The 1600 banks in the United States in 1860 
had in circulation 200 millions of paper and only 38 millions of specie on 
deposit to redeem with. In case of a sudden and wide-spread panic, they 
could have paid 38 cents on the dollar in Louisiana, 15 cents in New York, 
2 cents in Illinois, and 19 cents on an average throughout the whole coun- 
try. Not any better than this is the condition of the celebrated Bank of 
England. Its resource in case of a wide-spread panic is to suspend and 
make its bills a "legal tender."' Such banking as this, notwithstanding its 
great value to a community as compared with a system that uses only the 
precious metals, is a very imperfect institution, and is liable at any time to 
collapse in case of panic. Suspension means a forced " legal tender" Act, 
with the disadvantage that credits are everywhere shaken. The loss to the 
productive industry of the country in a suspension of work by the laborers 
amounts to at least 50 millions of dollars per week. In case of a general 
panic, the country is injured to the extent of several weeks of idleness of 
the whole laboring class, and is quite likely to equal the entire amount of 
all the specie in the country. And this loss is a dead loss, for it cannot be 
made up ; it is not a change of ownership of property. Its demoralizing 
effects are still more formidable. Despair paralyzes the business energy of 
the community. 



190 Book Notices. 

A paper currency based on the national credit, and convertible into 
bonds only, is the only kind that can withstand the " run" of a panic. A 
bond bearing gold interest is a commodity and will sell anywhere where 
profitable investments are sought. Its rate of interest and the resources of 
the government will determine its A r alue in the precious metals. A cur- 
rency convertible into bonds is redeemable, because it may be changed at 
will into a commodity. Money as money is not a commodity, but simply 
the general possibility of all commodities. When a commodity is used as 
money, its use as a commodity is prevented, and hence a waste made. 
But any commodity used as money acquires thereby an inflated value con- 
ditioned upon its usefulness as money. Gold is said to be inflated to ten 
times its nominal value in the arts by its use as money. However this may 
be, a commodity must be at the basis of a currency, and there are two kinds 
of commodities to choose from — corporeal, like gold and silver, and incor- 
poreal, like a government bond. By far the most valuable to the commu- 
nity is the species of property resting on franchise. Improvements which 
benefit an indefinitely large community like a highway, a railroad or bridge, 
or a sewer system, or water works, &c. &c, cannot be initiated and carried 
out by a single individual, nor by a collection of private individuals. The 
first requisite is an act of the State creating a franchise and vesting it. Capi- 
tal may then be invested with the certainty that the stock based on the 
franchise will be a perfect commodity. Through such franchises, each 
individual of the community obtains the possibility of purchasing at merely 
nominal rates inestimable conveniences. Of a kindred nature to stocks 
based on franchises are interest-bearing bonds. Government bonds are 
based on the right of the state to tax all the property within its dominion — 
even to the point of confiscation. They form the most stable species of 
incorporeal property, and hence the best form of commodity, into which to 
convert a paper currency. If, as Treasurer Spinner has proposed, the 
bonds bore 3. Go per cent, gold interest, and were not to be taken up by the 
government except when offered at the treasury for currency at par, said 
currency again being fundable in similar bonds at the will of the person 
holding it, it is clear that the wants of the community would regulate the 
supply of money in the community. When redundant, an investment in 
bonds would instantly reduce the amount of currency, and when scarce the 
bonds would be presented at the treasury and currency drawn. It seems 
strange that the distinguished financier Amasa Walker should speak of this 
.system such words as these: "To invest in such bonds, from time to time, 
drawing interest at the rate of 3.65 per cent, as proposed, and hold them 
until the moment most favorable for an intended movement, and then at 
the shortest notice convert them into money wherewith to flood the local 
market, must be as great a convenience to one who is operating ' for a pro- 
fitable corner' as any Wall-street operator could desire."' 

It is self-evident that no one could " flood the local market" except by 
investing in commodities at such a rate as to cause a rise in prices. But 
such a flood of currency would at once seek safe investment, and would 
flow directly to the subtreasury and buy 3.65 per cent, bonds again. The 
Treasury could supply any amount of bonds at this rate of interest — 
enough, in fact, to pay for gold sufficient to take up all of its 6 per cent. 



Book Notices. 191 

bonds. It would save interest by the process, and could afford to reduce 
taxes. It could pay out greenbacks enough to take up every bond, in case 
the community needed it. In that case it would have no interest to pay. 
Mischievous speculation in securities would cease, because there would be 
a safe means of investment in " call loans" at the moneyed centres when 
glutted with money. What could keep gold at a premium under such cir- 
cumstances? The tax on exchange from one part of the country to another 
— formerly \\ to S per cent, in St. Louis, now J to § per cent. — would be- 
come merely nominal. 

Without a commodity at the basis of a paper currency, there could be no 
possible method of settling the interpretation of its unit of value. "Dollar" 
would not mean any specific amount of any commodity, and might mean 
what " dime" or " cent" does in coin. The ''elasticity of the currency" 
demands that the needs of business shall determine the amount of it, and 
Mr. Spinner's plan meets the exigency. It also makes a "product of labor" 
the measure of value. The bond represents labor performed just as the 
share of stock in a railroad or other franchise. 

The Logic of Hegel. Translated from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical 
Sciences, with Prolegomena, by William Wallace. M.A., Fellow and Tutor of 
' Merton College. Oxford. At"the Clarendon Press. London: MacMillan & 
Co., Publishers to the University of Oxford. New York: MacMillan & Co., 
38 Bleecker st. (For sale also by Gray, Baker & Co.. St. Louis, or by Scrib- 
ner, Welfonl & Armstrong. New York. 1 vol. Price $7.) 

We find this volume an excellent piece of work. It bears the evidence 
not only of long study but also of practical experience in the labor of teach- 
ing the Hegelian Philosophy to others. Hence its explanations are very 
adequate and admirable for the most part. It is to be hoped in the interest 
of Philosophy that the remaining two parts of the Encyclopedia may be 
translated also. The present translation is from the third edition of the 
Encyclopedia, and hence contains those interesting explanatory remarks 
added from the notes taken at Hegel's lectures by Professors Henning, Ho- 
tho, and Michelet. The easiest way to learn Hegel is to read these expla- 
natory remarks first and gradually approach the severer definitions. No 
one who desires to know Hegel can afford to be without this book. 

The Education of American Girls. Considered in a series of Essays. Edited by 
Anna C. Brackett. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1374. For sale by 
Gray, Baker & Co., St. Louis. Price $1.75. 

A valuable contribution to a department of the Philosophy of Education 
hitherto not sufficiently considered. Jean Paul's Levana had long ago 
offered most valuable thoughts on the education of girls, although not spe- 
cially devoted to that phase of the subject. The present work finds no peer 
since the Levana in its application of the fundamental principles of educa- 
tion to the treatment of girls. One may well feel thankful for the advent 
of Dr. Clarke's book on " Sex in Education," when we find its counter im- 
pulse producing such books as this. Dr. Clarke attacks, by his facts and 
inferences, the system of class education for girls between the ages of four- 
teen and eighteen, leaving only the system of private instruction or of indi- 
vidual study, a system which would well deprive most girls of a respectable 



192 Book Notices. . 

education. The book above named presents, besides a general treatise on 
the subject by the editress, much carefully weighed matter to disprove the 
theory of Dr. Clarke. The tone of the book is not flippant and personal, 
but is pervaded by an air of quiet madonna-like dignity. The contributors 
are Mrs. E. D. Cheney, Mrs. C. H. Dall, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mrs. 
Lucinda H. Stone, Miss Mary E. Beedy, besides the editress who is well 
known to the readers of this journal as the translator of Rosenkranz' s 
Pedagogics. 

Strauss: I'Ancienne et la Nouvelle Foi. Par A. Vera. Professeur de Philosophie 
& 1' University de Naples. Naples: Detken & Pocholl. 1873. (F. W. Chris- 
ten, 77 University Place, New York.) 

M. Vera attacks Strauss, in this work, from the stand-point of the older 
Hegelianism. To the abstract universal the negative all-devouring chaos 
into which every individual plunges and disappears, is opposed the concrete 
universal whose existence is personality, immortal and individual. This 
universal was defended by Hegel against the abstract universal which he 
called a " negative unity" because it is conceived as negating all particu- 
larity — as the ocean negates its particular waves and swallows them up. 
The negative unity is the principle of Pantheism, and of Strauss and Feuer- 
bach. The principle of Personality, or the concrete universal, is that of 
Hegel, Aristotle, Plato, and Leibnitz. "Not substance, but subject, is the 
highest principle," said Hegel. It is because of failure to think himself 
through to "subject" that Strauss arrests his development in the Saurian 
period of Pantheism. 

In the London "Athenaeum" for June 21st and 28th, 1873, Dr. Hutchin- 
son Stirling publishes a most able and satisfactory review of this book of 
Strauss, showing up in his trenchant way the whole philosophic movement 
of which he forms a part. 

We have also received a work bearing on the same subject from R. Ma- 
riano : Strauss e Vera. Saggio Critico. Roma: S tab i lime nto CivellL 
1874. 

Von Magdeburg bis Konigsberg, von Karl Rosenkranz. Berlin: L. Heimann's Ver- 
lag, 1873. 

This is the first volume of the Autobiography of Dr. Karl Rosenkranz, 
Professor of Philosophy in the University of Konigsberg for the past forty 
years. It embraces the period from 1805 to 1834 — a period of great interesl 
in the development of German Philosophy. The charm of this volume lies 
in the portrayal of the gradual initiation of a genial and appreciative youth 
into the literature and philosophy current in that heroic period. In 1824 
he became acquainted with the Hegelian Philosophy through Leopold Von 
Henning. His action and reaction with Romanticism, Spinozism, Kantian- 
ism, and Hegelianism, is told in a delightfully personal style. Ill— relations 
with the great men of the time, and particularly with Hegel, whose biogra- 
pher he was destined to become, are woven in and around the story of his 
growth and culture, and the whole furnishes material for twenty-one chap- 
ters as interesting to a student of Philosophy a* a novel could possibly be. 
It is a work that would pay any American publisher who should get out a 
translation. 



THE JOURNAL 



o r- 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



Vol. VEIL July, 1874. No. 3. 

SHAKESPEARE'S " TEMPEST." 

By D. J. Snider. 

The great and striking peculiarity of this play is that its 
action lies wholly in the ideal world. It differs, therefore, 
from every other work of Shakespeare in the character of its 
mediation. Our poet, in most of his dramas, portrays the 
real world, and exhibits man as acting from clear conscious 
motives, and not from supernatural influences. But here he 
completely reverses his procedure ; from beginning to end 
the chief instrumentalities of the poem are external ; its con- 
flicts and solutions are brought about by powers seemingly 
beyond human might and intelligence. It should, however, 
be classified with "As You Like it" and "Midsummer 
Night's Dream," in both of which the ideal world is the 
grand mediating principle. But in these two plays the real 
world is also present, and there is in the course of the action 
a transition from one to the other. Hence, too, there follows 
a change of place and time, and the so-called unities must 
be violated. But the "Tempest" has not this double ele- 
ment : with the first scene we are in the magic realm of the 
island and its influences, which do not cease till the last line 
of the play. Hence it is more unique, more homogeneous, 
than the two dramas before mentioned ; the unities of time 
and place can be observed, and the action lies wholly in the 
ideal world, 
viii— 13 



194 The Tempest. 

It is now the duty of the interpreter to translate these po- 
etic forms and mediations into Thought. Thus he gives the 
same meaning, the same content, which is found in the play ; 
but he addresses the Reason and Understanding instead of 
the Imagination. What Shakespeare expresses in poetry 
he must express in prose, and moreover must supply the 
logical nexus which the imaginative form cannot give. 
Hence, above all things, let him not fall into the error of 
merely substituting one poetical shape for another, whereby 
nothing is explained and only confusion is increased. If 
Prospero is called Shakespeare, or by any other name, what 
is gained by the change? The same difficulties remain for 
Thought as before. The task is not easy, nor is it likely to 
give satisfaction at first to the reader ; for these beautiful 
ideal shapes must perish before our eyes and be transformed 
into the dry, abstract forms of prose. The contrast is strik- 
ing, perhaps repulsive; but, if we wish to comprehend and 
not merely to enjoy Shakespeare, there is no alternative. 

Let us bring before our minds the leading elements of the 
play. First, Alonso and his company represent the real world ; 
but they have arrived at a magic isle where they are under the 
sway of unknown external agencies Within certain limits 
they still can act through themselves, but their chief move- 
ments are determined from without by the ideal world, Ariel 
and his spirits, who constitute the second element. Thus the 
fact is indicated that the ideal, supernatural world is master 
of the real, natural world. Thirdly, there is Prospero, a be- 
ing who commands both, yet partakes of both these princi- 
ples, the real and the ideal, the natural and the supernatural: 
lie is connected by nationality and even by family with those 
in the ship, but is at the same time lord of Ariel and of the 
spirit- world, who fulfil his behests with implicit obedience. 

Here appears the two-fold nature of Prospero, which is 
the pivotal point of the drama, and hence its comprehension 
must be our first object. He controls the elements, he is 
gifted with foresight, he possesses absolute power ; yet he 
has been expelled from his throne and country. To be sure, 
there is the difference of time between his expulsion and his 
present greatness, but this cannot adequately account for the 
change. Let us try to explain these two elements of his 



The Tempest. 195 

character, as they have been elaborated fully by the poet in 
the course of the drama. In the first place, Prospero must 
manifest the finite side of his nature. As an individual, he 
comes in contact with other individuals and things ; in gen- 
eral, with the realm of finitude in which he himself is finite. 
Limitation begets struggle; thus arise the collisions of life. 
Many men, it seems, have been his superiors in these strug- 
gles ; his brother is a much more practical man — has de- 
throned him and driven him off. Such is Prospero the indi- 
vidual, and as such he collides with various forms of finite 
existence. He has been hitherto defeated in these conflicts. 
This is the one element. But Prospero also possesses the 
side of universality ; he is spirit, intelligence, which compre- 
hends, solves, and portrays all the collisions of the finite 
world. It is only through long discipline and devoted study 
that he has attained this power. His pursuit of knowledge, 
moreover, cost him his dukedom, and hence was the source 
of his chief conflict — that with his brother. He thus stands 
for spirit in its highest potence, the Universal, but he is at 
the same time individual, and hence is exposed to the realm 
of finite relation and struggle, which, however, his reason 
must bring into a harmonious unity. 

But his spiritual activity is mostly confined to a special 
form of intelligence, that form which embodies its content in 
pictures and symbols, namely, the creative Imagination. Pros- 
pero does not employ pure thought, but poetic shapes and 
images. He must therefore be the Poet, who has within him 
the world in ideal forms, and hence possesses over it an 
absolute power. He calls up from the vasty deep whatever 
shapes he Avishes in order to execute his purposes and per- 
form his mediations. Thus he solves all the contradictions 
in which he as an individual is involved, and subdues all the 
influences which come within his magic circle. For he is this 
universal power, and in the sphere of ideality, in the realm 
of spirit, nothing can resist him. The revenge of Prospero 
is therefore ideal, for certainly our poet would never have 
taken such instrumentalities to portray a real revenge. 
Moreover, the play must end in reconciliation, the harmony 
of the Individual with the Universal ; for spirit possesses 



196 The Tempest. 

just this power over the conflicts of finite existence: it must 
show itself to be master. 

In this way we can account for the commanding position 
of Prospero in the drama. He is the grand central figure, the 
absolute power who controls ultimately the movements of 
every person and from whom all the action proceeds. The 
form of mediation is therefore external ; but, truly consid- 
ered, Prospero is no deus ex machina, no merely external 
divinity brought in to cut the knot that cannot be untied. 
The interpretation must always exhibit him inside of the 
action ; the clew is his double nature. As an individual, he 
is engaged in conflict ; but then he steps back, beholds and 
portrays that conflict, and solves it through spirit in the form 
of Imagination. He is therefore the mediator of his own col- 
lisions ; thus externality falls away. The solution is hence 
not external, which would be the case if the absolute power 
simply stood outside of the action, and commanded every- 
thing to take place. It is the special duty of the critic to 
explain these external mediations, of which the play is full r 
into a clear, spiritual signification. 

Prospero is, therefore, the mighty spirit standing behind 
and portraying the collisions of his own individual life and 
of finite existence generally. But this is not enough to ac- 
count for his activity. He could easily put his experiences 
and struggles in a drama without invoking the aid of the 
supernatural world. The necessity of this element must be 
seen. If he would give a complete picture of his own activi- 
ty, he must not only portray the above-mentioned conflicts, 
but also portray himself as portraying them. In other words, 
he must depict himself as Poet, as Universal ; he must give 
an account of his own process, and that account must also be 
in a poetic form. This will push the Imagination to the very 
verge of its powers, for thus it must do what abstract thought 
alone can usually do : namely, it must comprehend and por- 
tray itself. Hence comes the external form representing it 
as the absolute master over its materials. 

The Drama thus attempts to account lor itself in a drama, 
in its own form. Having swept over the whole field of life, 
and portrayed every species of collision, it now comes to 



The Tempest. 197 

grasp itself, its own process. Thus it becomes truly univer- 
sal, a complete totality ; for it takes in the world and itself 
too. This play is often considered Shakespeare's last, and 
it may be regarded as a final summing up of his activity, or, 
indeed, that of any great poet. In his other works he has 
portrayed the manifold variety of collisions, but now he por- 
trays them being portrayed. Here he reaches, if he does not 
transgress, the limit of dramatic representation ; he can only 
use strange symbolical shapes to indicate his meaning. 

It is now time to see the poem springing from the two-fold 
nature of Prospero. As individual, we must expect to behold 
him involved in some of the ordinary dramatic collisions. 
An analysis will reveal three of them all in regular grada- 
tion of importance. First, there arises the collision in the 
Family — Prospero the father, on the one hand, against the 
lovers Ferdinand and Miranda, on the other. The old con- 
flict is depicted: the choice of the daughter is opposed by 
the will of the parent. Secondly, there is portrayed the col- 
lision in the State: Prospero, the rightful ruler of Milan, 
against the usurper Antonio, supported by the king of Na- 
ples, both of whom with followers are on board the newly- 
arrived ship. Thirdly, there is the more general collision 
which may be stated to be between rationality and sensu- 
ality, the former represented by Prospero and Ariel, the lat- 
ter by Caliban with Trinculo and Stephano. The Sensual 
rises up against the Rational in all its forms, in institutions 
and even in Art, as well as in Intelligence. Such is the ma- 
terial for Imagination to work upon. But the other side must 
not be forgotten. The Imagination, at the same time, portrays 
itself elaborating this content. The Poet is not only going 
to make the drama, but is going to show himself making it. 
This gives the ideal element, representing Prospero as hav- 
ing the absolute power of mediating all the collisions of his 
individual existence. 

Such are the threads which must be carefully kept before 
the mind in order to comprehend the organization of the play. 
Next, the entire movement of the action must be considered. 
It is three-fold. In the first place, there is the expulsion of 
Prospero by the rulers in the ship, who have now come into 
his power ; this is the wrong done to Prospero, and consti- 



198 The Tempest. 

tutes the pre-supposition of the drama. Next follows the 
punishment of this wrong in the island, the realm of Pros- 
pero, through his spirit-powers. Lastly, the reconciliation of 
the two sides by the repentance of the guilty and forgiveness 
of the injured, when we have the final harmony resulting 
from the conflict. It, therefore, is connected with that class 
of Shakespeare's plays in which wrong is atoned for by re- 
pentance, and the criminal escapes by "heart's sorrow" the 
punishment of death, the legitimate consequence of his deed. 

Let us now take the poem in hand and see whether these 
things, with a reasonable interpretation, can be found in it, 
or whether they are the absurd subtleties of the critic's fancy. 
First comes the tempest, from which the drama takes its 
name, the effect of which is to divide the ship's company into 
three parts, corresponding to the three threads above men- 
tioned, and to scatter them into different portions of the 
island. But the peculiarity of this tempest is, as we learn in 
the next scene, that Prospero has brought it about through 
Ariel ; it is, therefore, not a tempest which has taken place 
through natural causes, but through spiritual causes : it is, 
evidently, a poetical tempest. For certainly Shakespeare 
would not have us believe that storms are produced by spir- 
its ordinarily ; bat this one certainly is. What, then, does the 
author mean ? for his conduct here assuredly needs expla- 
nation. I think he tells us, in saying that Ariel, by com- 
mand of Prospero, caused the tempest and dispersed the com- 
pany, that tempests are called up by the Poet — that they are 
a poetical instrument employed to bring about a separation 
of parties, and to scatter them into different places as here. 
We are, therefore, led to inquire whether Shakespeare him- 
self has ever employed this means in any of his dramas. 
Accordingly, we And the same instrumentality in "Twelfth 
Night" and "Comedy of Errors" used for the same purpose. 
It is an artifice of the Poet for scattering, or possibly uniting, 
his characters in an external manner. Here then, in the very 
first scene, the Poet is portraying his own process. 

The second scene of the First Act, which now follows, is 
the most important one in the play, for it gives the key to the 
action. A careful analysis of all its elements will therefore 
be necessary. First appears before us the Family, the pri- 



The Tempest. 199 

mary relation of man — here that of father and daughter, the 
latter of whom speaks in the first line of her parent's art, 
which she herself, being purely individual, does not possess, 
but still knows of. The relation is a natural one, not spir- 
itual, between parent and child. She is excited by sympa- 
thy for the sufferers, when the father assures her that no 
one has perished — in fact, no one can perish — in the vessel. 
Again we ask the question, why this Confidence of Prospero 
that all will be saved? The prevision in his art, which he 
speaks of, is that of the Poet, who ordains beforehand, by the 
strictest necessity, the course of the action and the fate of the 
characters, and knows what kind of a drama he is going to 
write. He lays down his magic mantle — that is, he assumes 
the individual relation to his daughter — and then begins to 
give an account of his life and conflicts as an individual. 
Here, then, he relates his first collision: a brother, with the 
aid of a foreign king, has driven him from his dukedom. 
Nor does Prospero conceal the cause of his banishment. He 
neglected the Practical for the Theoretical ; he handed over 
the administration of his government to others, and devoted 
his time to his books, his study, his art. The logic of this 
transition is evident. He cuts loose from the real world, and 
the real word retorts by cutting loose from him — drives him 
off. Where, now, is he I Having severed all his individual 
relations, he is manifestly left just in his ideal realm. But 
there is one tie which he cannot break ; he is a father : this 
bond still unites him to finite existence; or, if he must de- 
part for the ideal world, the daughter must go along. The 
two, therefore, are put in a vessel together, and reach the 
magic island. Prospero intimates that it was this relation 
which saved him, otherwise he would have given that final 
stroke which dissolves all individual relations: 

Mir. Alack, what trouble was I then to you ! 

Pro. O, a cherubim 

Thou wast, that didst preserve me. Thou didst smile 
Infused with a fortitude from heaven. 

The nature of the transition of Prospero from the real to 
the ideal world is thus made manifest. It 'Hfi'ers, therefore^ 
from "As You Like it," where there is a similar transition, 
based, however, upon the flight from the World of Wrong. 



200 The Tempest. 

It also differs from "Midsummer Night's Dream," where there 
is likewise a similar transition, based, however, upon the 
flight from the world of Institutions or of Right. But in the 
"Tempest" this transition is based upon the flight from the 
whole finite world of conflict, of individual relation, of prac- 
tical activity ; and hence necessarily lands Prospero in the 
magic island, in an ideal world. 

It is furthermore to be noticed that both parties have their 
just and their unjust element. Prospero is wronged; he is 
dispossessed of his recognized rights by violence. Yet he 
himself is not without guilt ; the real world has a claim upon 
him as ruler, which claim he has totally ignored. Hence the 
play must result in reconciliation and not in the death of the 
wrong-doers. Prospero as Poet must see both sides and rep- 
resent them in their truth, and cannot avenge himself as an 
individual. This drama, therefore, will not have a tragic ter- 
mination ; it must, as previously stated, end in the repentance 
of the one party and forgiveness of the other. 

Prospero thus brings the story of his life down to the tem- 
pest, embracing the conflicts of his individual existence. His 
enemies, wrecked in the ship, are now scattered over the 
island and in his power. Here begins the action proper of 
the drama. But behold ! Miranda sleeps in the presence of 
the spirit-world ; she is mortal, individual merely — she pos- 
sesses not the vision and faculty divine. It is no wonder 
that she cannot choose but sleep in the invisible world, for 
eyes cannot help her. But who appears here in this spirit- 
realm? An airy being called Ariel, who seems not to be 
restrained by any bonds of Space and Time, who flies abroad 
and performs on land and sea the behests of his master. He 
was the cause of the shipwreck we now learn, and he gives 
a vivid account of his feats in that work. Again an expla- 
nation is demanded, and we feel compelled to say that xVriel 
is that element of Prospero before designated as Imagina- 
tion, which thus gives an account to itself of its own deeds in 
a poetic form. For Ariel controls the elements, is sovereign 
over the powers of Nature, and directs them for the accom- 
plishment of his master's purposes. In general, he seems to 
perform every essential mediation in the entire poem. What 
possesses this power but Imagination? Yet we must not 



The Tempest. 201 

press this meaning too closely, for Shakespeare does not 
allegorize, but always individualizes ; he tills out his charac- 
ters, whether they be natural or supernatural, to their sensu- 
ous completeness. We shall observe that there are many 
sides given which are necessary to the image, but not neces- 
sary to the thought even when the thought preponderates. 
Therefore these Shakespearian creations cannot be inter- 
preted as allegories, in which each particular stroke has its 
separate signification, but rather the purport of the whole 
should be seized and its general movement. 

But this dainty spirit Ariel is not wholly satisfied with his 
lot ; he has that absolute aspiration of intelligence — nay, of 
Nature herself — namely, the aspiration for freedom. What 
is meant here by freedom \ merely to get rid of labor and 
then be idle \ We think not ; it is rather to accomplish the 
work in hand — to embody itself in some grand result: this 
is the toil of Spirit, of the Imagination. The freedom is the 
realization of its end, when the Imagination has clothed itself 
in an adequate form, which process, it may be added, can 
only be completed at the close of the poem ; then Ariel is 
dismissed to the elements. But he never could have been free 
unless he realized aspiration in an objective form. It will 
thus be seen that Ariel quite corresponds to that element of 
Prospero's character which was called Spirit, Intelligence, or 
the Universal as opposed to the Individual. 

But the Poet Prospero proceeds further ; he gives a history 
of Ariel. Once he was the slave of the hag Sycorax, who 
imprisoned him in a cloven pine because he would not per- 
form her earthy and abhorred commands. Here is presented 
the conflict which is as old as man, spirit against flesh, Rea- 
son against Appetite. Moreover, we see its earliest form : 
spirit is overcome and is subordinate to flesh, to sense. 
Hence the groans of Ariel from his prison-house, till at 
length Prospero conies to the island and frees him. Now 
he is the servant of Prospero, and transforms himself into 
every kind of shape which Prospero commands, in order to 
perform the various mediations of the play. He is at once 
sent off" on an errand, the nature of which will soon be seen. 

But what is this other shape which now rises upon our 
view — a monster, half man, half beast? He is the slave of 



202 The Tempest. 

Prospero, compelled to perform all the menial duties; in 
other words, his is the service of sense. His origin is not left 
in doubt ; he is the son of Sycorax, and the heir of her char- 
acter. Now we behold the opposite of Ariel in every way : 
Caliban is sense in all its forms, sensuality included. The 
peculiarity of their names, too, has been noticed by critics: 
with a slight transposition of letters, aerial becomes Ariel 
and cannibal becomes Caliban. But at present, under the rule 
of Prospero, sense is subordinated, is made to serve. Cali- 
ban is therefore the natural man whom Prospero has tried to 
educate, yet without altering his nature — who cannot be any- 
thing else but a slave. His knowledge is just sufficient to 
contest with Prospero the supremacy of the island. The rise 
of mankind from a state of nature, through language and 
education, is here indicated. The claim of Caliban to the 
sovereignty of the island by right of birth, against the right 
of intelligence, is a rather severe satire upon the principle of 
legitimacy, which may or may not have been intended by 
Shakespeare. This antithesis between Prospero and .Caliban 
should be observed, for it will constitute hereafter one of the 
collisions of the play. 

There can hardly be a doubt concerning the main signifi- 
cation of these two figures of the drama. They are not por- 
trayed as human in form, but as unnatural, or, if you please, 
supernatural; they exhibit one side, one element of man in 
its excess : Ariel is spirit without sense, Caliban is sense 
without spirit. They are therefore not human, for man in- 
cludes both of them. Or, to revert to our abstract terms, we 
behold the two principles of Prospero's character, the Indi- 
vidual and Universal, objectified into independent forms 
by the Imagination of the Poet. Moreover, the inherent 
antithesis and hostility — in other words, the collision be- 
tween these two principles — is also indicated. Prospero has, 
so to speak, separated himself into the two contradictory 
elements of his character and given to each an adequate 
poetic form, and has also stated their contradiction. But he 
remains still master over both ; they, though opposites, are 
still his servants, are still the instruments of the Poet, who 
stands behind and directs their acts. Such is their funda- 
mental representation in the play. 



The Tempest. 203 

Another relation has been indicated in the poem with dis- 
tinctness, namely, the relation of the race of Caliban to Art. 
The foul witch Sycorax is the representative of the Ugly \ 
she has even lost the human form, "with age and envy grown 
into a hoop." She came from Argier, a land beyond the pale 
of culture, where spirit is still enslaved in the bonds of sense. 
But even there she could not live on account of her negative 
character. She is put on the island, which remains a wild, 
untamed jungle till the arrival of Prospero. The fate of 
Ariel has been mentioned as well as his enfranchisement ; 
but at present, under the rule of Prospero, nature is the ser- 
vant of mind, and is the bearer of its forms ; Art is therefore 
possible since the Sensuous is now controlled by the Spirit- 
ual. For Art is spirit expressed in a sensuous form. 

So much is introductory. The Poet has elaborated all his 
instrumentalities, has brought the story of his life down to 
the time of the action, and is now ready to portray the col- 
lisions of the play. Our Ariel brings to the fair maiden a 
lover — the Poet never fails to do so. By his mysterious mu- 
sic, Ferdinand, one of the ship's company, is led to Miranda. 
Both fall in love at first sight; the natural unity of sex, which 
calls forth the Family, asserts itself on the spot. What else 
could happen ? Ferdinand is alone in the world, Miranda 
is almost so — only her father is known to her. If man and 
woman belong together, certainly these two must feel their 
inseparableness, for there is nobody else to whom they can 
belong. It is the old climax : admiration, sympathy, love. 
"They are both in either's powers"; each one finds his or her 
existence in the other. But now appears the obstacle, for 
the course of true love can never run smooth — at least, in a 
drama. The collision so frequently portrayed by Shake- 
speare again arises for a new treatment, that between the will 
of the parent and the choice of the daughter. Prospero op- 
poses the match, charges Ferdinand with being a traitor and 
spy, and lays upon him the menial task of removing " some 
thousands of logs." But Miranda is present with consola- 
tion and even offers to assist in the labor ; the young prince 
bravely stands the trial — he is willing to undergo any toil 
for love's sake. The mutual declaration is made ; then fol- 



204 The Tempest. 

lows the mutual promise ; the unity of feeling is complete. 
It is the essence of all love-stories. 

The next time we meet with the father in this connection, 
he has yielded his objections and sealed their pledge with 
his consent. But all along we have been aware that his 
opposition was feigned, that he intended from the start to 
acquiesce in their marriage. In fact, he was the very person 
that brought it about. For his conduct he has adduced an 
external motive: "lest too light winning make the prize 
light." Still deeper is the design which he cherishes of not 
only restoring his daughter to his own possessions, but also 
of making her queen of Naples. But the true internal neces- 
sity for his opposition being feigned lies in his double nature. 
The Poet, who is none other than Prospero himself, inter- 
poses an obstacle — the refusal of the parent — which parent, 
also, is none other than Prospero himself. As father he 
stands in an individual relation to his daughter and comes 
into conflict with her ; but as Poet he has brought about this 
conflict, and must solve it by giving validity to the right of 
choice. Such is the solution demanded by reason, and the 
one which Shakespeare universally gives to such a collision. 
Prospero knows, therefore, from the beginning that his 
daughter will triumph — in fact, that he must make her tri- 
umph. The key to his conduct is that the father or indivi- 
dual and the Poet or Universal are one and the same man. 

The right of choice is therefore victorious over the will of the 
parent, a right which, though generally conceded at the pres- 
ent time, was once stoutly contested. Their love has been 
portrayed through its successive stages : the flrst predilec- 
tion, the mutual declaration, the secret plight of troth, the 
consent of the father. But one thing more remains to be 
done : the ceremony with full and holy rite must be minis- 
tered. Upon this point Prospero lays the greatest stress ; 
he speaks of it no less than three times in different places. 
Without the formal solemnization of marriage their union 
cannot be ethical ; it can only bring forth the most baleful 
weeds — hate, disdain, and discord. Lust is not love ; indeed 
it is the destruction of genuine love: a Caliban cannot truly 
enter the marriage relation. Moreover, the ceremon}* gives 



The Tempest. 205 

reality to the Family, which hitherto existed only in the 
subjective emotions of the parties. Religion (or the State in 
our time) comes in with its sanction and objectifies their 
union — makes it an institution in the world. 

The marriage rite is therefore not a meaningless and un- 
necessary formality. Yet the origin and primal basis of the 
Family is love, which the Poet has here portrayed in all its 
fervor. But by itself simply, and ungoverned, it degenerates 
into lust. Our author would teach the lesson, if we under- 
stand him, that the ethical element and the emotional 
element must both be present in true affection ; for it is de- 
stroyed by the Ethical alone, which is the case when the 
daughter is wholly obedient, and simply follows the will of 
the parent, and lets him choose for her. She thus cannot 
have much intensity in her love, and hence Miranda insists 
upon her affection, and the father at last yields. On the 
other hand, passion alone without any ethical restraint is 
even more fatal to love. Now both these elements in their 
one-sidedness are represented by Shakespeare as antagonis- 
tic to the unity of marriage. The truth is, the Emotional 
must be regulated, restrained, and made permanent, by the 
Ethical ; and the Ethical, which now takes the form of devo- 
tion to husband or wife instead of obedience to parent, must 
be filled, vivified, and intensified, by the Emotional. 

Next comes the masque, whose connection with the rest of 
the play must be carefully studied, for it reveals more than 
anything else in the work the special character of Prospero 
as Poet. He calls up Ariel, who, it will be noticed, always 
appears when some important mediation of the drama is 
about to be performed. For what purpose is he now invoked I 
Mark the language of Prospero : 

I must 
Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple 
Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise 
And they expect it from me. 

At once there rise up before us the goddesses of the ancient 
Greek world, the poetical forms of all ages. These, then, are 
the spirits over which Prospero has power through his min- 
ister Ariel ; this, too, is his art, which has brought forth all 
the other wonderful shapes of the poem. They are the beau- 



206 The Tempest. 

tiful forms of the Imagination, over which the Poet alone 
has control. 

But let us notice the content of this little interlude : what 
will be its theme ? Nothing else but what has already taken 
place, only in a new form for the lovers, who thus behold a 
representation of their own unity. The main-spring of the 
action is Juno, the spouse of the king of Gods and Men ; 
therefore both the type and guardian of wifehood, of chas- 
tity, of domestic life. She sends Iris, her many-colored mes- 
senger, for Ceres — 

A contract of true love to celebrate. 
And some donation freely to estate 
On the blest lovers. 

Such is the object of the visit of the two goddesses, which is 
still more precisely expressed hy each in their songs : Juno 
particularly confers marriage-blessing and honor — Ceres, 
physical comfort and prosperity. But mark that Venus and 
her blind boy are invited to stay away. They represent un- 
holy lust; they plotted the means whereby dusky Dis, or 
devilish sensuality, carried off the innocent Proserpine, the 
daughter of Ceres, to the infernal regions. Thus the ethical 
element is again emphasized. 

The relation of Prospero as parent, as individual, has now 
been portrayed, as well as the collision resulting therefrom 
and its solution. But he is also Poet, and hence must shadow 
forth the whole subject in the objective forms of poetry. It 
has already been pointed out that his feigning an objection 
to the love-match resulted from his poetical prevision, and 
hence that such an objection must tinally be abandoned. 
Thus he has manifested in himself, and also depicted in the 
drama, the collision in the Family. But now, when consent 
has been given, and the hindrances smoothed over, a second 
time he appears as Poet, as if to leave no doubt of his nature 
in the mind of the reader or hearer. He steps back and re- 
produces in a new poetical dress the substance of the whole 
story before the lovers. This little play within the play thus 
has the effect of a double reflection of the action. 

New beings appear in order to celebrate the contract of 
true love ; Naiads whose crown is chastity, and the sun-burnt 
sicklemen whose trait is industrj^, join in a dance. But, 



The Tempest. 207 

while Prospero is busy calling up these beautiful shapes 
from the ideal realm, he suddenly thinks of the conspiracy 
of Caliban. A new collision against himself as an indivi- 
dual has arisen which demands immediate attention, the real 
world rushes in upon him, and at once the poetical world 
vanishes. He is thus reminded that there are other things 
to be done, other struggles to pass through, and finally other 
collisions to be portrayed. But he is highly vexed at the 
interruption, and in his anger he utters the doom of the whole 
finite world, which sounds like the Last Judgment. It is 
the most sublime passage of its length to be found in Shake- 
speare : 

And like the baseless fabric of this vision 
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgous palaces. 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 
Yea. all which it inherit, shall dissolve. 
And. like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep. 

It is just this finite world which is so full of conflict and has 
caused him so much trouble. No wonder, then, that he almost 
curses it, and announces its utter perishability. But though 
the life and works of man, and also the physical globe, are 
transitory, he is far from saying that mind, the Universal, 
will thus pass away. On the contrary, he now invokes the 
latter against destruction, for it is the master over finitude, 
over the negative powers of the world. Again our Ariel must 
appear: " Come with a thought." Why? Only because he 
is thought. He answers, " Thy thoughts I cleave to." Why 
again? Because he cannot be separated from them. Thus 
Prospero and Ariel prepare for the conflict with Caliban, the 
account of which will be taken up in its proper connection. 

Such is the first thread ; the second is the collision in the 
State. This is the central movement of the play. Prospero 
as rightful duke comes into conflict with a usurper, his own 
brother, who is supported by the king of Naples. Again we 
see that Prospero, in his individual relation, falls into strife, 
and is overthrown. The history of his expulsion has already 
been given, and it must be noticed also that he relates the 
occurrence as something long antecedent to the play, and not 



208 The Tempest. 

embraced in its action, though its necessary presupposition. 
Such has been the wrong done to him. But now the Uni- 
versal element appears ; his enemies are completely in his 
power ; their punishment is to follow. 

The tempest has conveniently scattered the ship's com- 
pany into groups, in one of which are to be found all the 
offenders. But first there arises a conflict among themselves. 
There are three good characters — that is, those without guilt 
— Gonzalo, Adrian, and Francisco ; opposed to these are the 
three wicked ones — Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian. The 
two latter show their hatred, especially of the honest Gonza- 
lo, by bitter ridicule, while Alonso is beginning to feel re- 
pentance for his deeds through the loss of his son. Yet a 
deeper retribution appears to be impending over him : he has 
aided in dethroning a brother; a brother now threatens to 
dethrone him. The same man whom he assisted seems about 
to punish him. But his repentance will save him from final 
overthrow. So much for Alonso ; Antonio is a much worse 
man. His conduct is consistent; he cannot stop in his nega- 
tive career; he must continue dispossessing and assailing the 
rights of others, for that is the logical necessity of his char- 
acter. Having wrongfully expelled his nearest relative, he 
very naturally begins to plot against his greatest benefactor,, 
the king of Naples. But the poetical mediator Ariel is again 
on hand to prevent the consummation of the plan ; the Poet 
cannot let the matter end in that way. 

The main poetical mediation is next to be accomplished, 
of course through Ariel. It is reconciliation by repentance. 
Repentance means that man has the power to make his 
wicked deed undone, as far as its influence upon his own 
mind is concerned. He can free himself from remorse, from 
the consequence of his own negative act. But the repentance 
must be complete; it includes the confession of the wrong, 
contrition adequate to its magnitude, and an entire restora- 
tion of its advantages. Spirit thus becomes again at peace 
with itself, and is relieved from its own destructive gnawings. 
This reconciliation is therefore a spiritual process, and hence 
must be accomplished by the representative of spirit, Ariel. 

The three criminals are in the presence of Prospero, who 
is invisible tn them ; they are hence in the presence of their 



The Tempest. 209 

own wrong ; retribution is at hand. Again we urge upon 
the reader to keep in mind the double nature of Prospero : 
as individual he has suffered these injuries, but as universal 
he is the Poet who mediates and portrays them. He there- 
fore puts into operation his spirit-world, whose main object 
is now to excite conscience, to rouse remorse. They are 
hungry; a banquet is spread before them by several strange 
shapes. When the king and the rest begin eating, the ban- 
quet vanishes. Thus it is indicated to them that a power 
beyond their consciousness is at work in the isle. Here he 
is — Ariel — who now drops his invisible form and appears to 
them like a harpy, the symbol of vengeance. He calls him- 
self Destiny, or a minister of Fate ; his function is retribu- 
tion. He comes to avenge the wrong done to Prospero, 

for which foul deed 

The powers, delaying', not forgetting, have 
Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all creatures, 
Against your peace. Thee of thy son. Alonso, 
They have bereft ; and do pronounce by me 
Lingering perdition — worse than any death 

So far it resembles that external power which the Greeks 
called Fate, and which even controlled Jupiter himself. But 
is there no salvation from the wicked deed? Hear Ariel 
again : 

. . . whose [the powers'] wraths to guard you from — 
Which here in this most desolate isle else falls 
Upon your heads — is nothing but heart's sorrow, 
And a clear life ensuing. 

What a wonderful change! Ariel is no longer the repre- 
sentative of Grecian Fate, but is a preacher of Christian 
Gospel, whose doctrine is repentance — "heart's sorrow and 
a clear life ensuing." Man can now avoid the retribution of 
ancient Destiny. Though Ariel has assumed this shape to the 
wicked three, yet the reader has all along known that it was 
merely a poetical form ; that Ariel, in reality, is not a minis- 
ter of Fate, but of Prospero, of spirit, of self-determination. 
Thus the three " men of sin " are brought to a conscious- 
ness of their crimes ; they wax desperate at their guilt, which 
now reacts negatively upon their minds — "like poison, 'gins 
to bite the spirits." The innocent three weep over them, 
"brimful of sorrow and dismay." When the guilty have 

viii — 14 



210 The Tempest. 

sufficiently atoned for the wrongs which they have commit- 
ted, Prospero is ready to graDt forgiveness ; he declares that 
their repentance is "the sole drift of his purpose." The frenzy 
begins to subside after they enter his charmed circle; gra- 
dually reason returns, and Prospero, though invisible, tells 
to their innermost conscience the nature of their crimes and 
the consequent punishment. All is now plain to them sub- 
jectively. But, to remove the last doubt, Prospero presents 
himself to their eyes looking just as when he was Duke of 
Milan, and confirms his previous utterances. Alonso, in par- 
ticular, repents in the most heartfelt manner, surrenders the 
advantages of his wrong, and asks pardon; he makes his 
deed undone as far as lies in his power. Therefore his son 
is restored to him : the marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda 
receives blessing ; thus it is ethically complete, having re- 
ceived the sanction of both parents. 

It is evident that the ability which the mind possesses of 
healing its own wounds, of cancelling its own negative deeds, 
is here portrayed. Spirit alone can reconcile itself with itself 
and come to inner harmony. For if it is truly universal, it 
must have the power to mediate all its conflicts Therefore 
the play cannot have a tragic termination, as was before 
stated. It must end in reconciliation, mediation. Prospero 
himself, in his highest potence, represents this absolute might 
of spirit, which cannot succumb to any struggle, but must 
overcome every conflict. Though Shakespeare has to a cer- 
tain extent employed the heathen form of Fate, he has truly 
expressed the Christian doctrine of Repentance. 

We are now ready to take up the third thread, the collis- 
ion between Prospero and Caliban. The character and ori- 
gin of the latter have already been noticed ; it was stated 
that he represented the natural man — man still immersed in 
his senses and not yet elevated to a rational existence. He 
therefore must collide with the world of spirit represented 
by Prospero, for the reason that it necessarily subordinates 
him and even reduces him to a slave. Such is the function 
of the senses — they are the pack-horses of intelligence ; and 
the physical man, even if he constitute the whole man, must 
follow the same law. Caliban is therefore a menial of the 
lowest type, and is set to performing the most degrading 



• The Tempest. 211 

services for Prospero. His ignorance and utter slavishness 
to the External are manifest from the fact that he cannot 
comprehend either the mediations of Spirit or of Nature ; he 
regards them as ghosts and goblins sent to torment him. 

But Caliban has not always been in this condition of servi- 
tude. Prospero found him on the island, treated him with 
the greatest kindness, taught him to speak, and admitted 
him to his own family. The result was an attempt to violate 
the honor of his daughter. Prospero has now learned the 
very important distinction that an animal is an animal and 
must be subordinated, at least not admitted to social equali- 
ty. There is a difference between a man and a brute not- 
withstanding our so-called humanitarians. By ignoring this 
distinction we do not elevate the lower, but inevitably de- 
grade the higher. " I had peopled else this isle with Cali- 
bans" is the threat of the beast. Thus passes away the 
high-pressure humanity of Prospero when it comes in con- 
tact with the reality. 

Such is the man monster in the family relation ; our author 
is now going to bring him before us in his political and also 
in his religious character. Every American can study the 
picture with profit at the present time. Caliban is in deadly 
enmity with Prospero. The ship also — or the real world, if 
you please — has its sensual element as well as the island 
or the ideal world. The next thing, therefore, is the appear- 
ance of the representatives of this element, Trinculo and 
Stephano. The}^ too, have been separated from the ship's 
company by the tempest, and from a natural attraction of 
character have been brought together with Caliban. Here 
we see the sensual trio made up from the ship and the island. 
The two strangers bear the stamp of reality, are men of 
flesh and blood, belong therefore to prosaic life and speak in 
prose ; while Caliban, since he is a native of the island, is 
strictly a poetical being and speaks in verse. There is also 
a distinction between Trinculo and Stephano, the former be- 
ing not so much jester as coward,- craven in spirit, with the 
fear of the External always before his eyes ; the latter being 
a drunkard, the slave of appetite. Caliban represents both 
persons, for he is mortally afraid of the imaginary spirits, 



212 The Tempest 

and lie swallows with the wildest ecstasy the contents of 
Stephano's wine-bottle. 

Caliban's religion now appears also ; he deifies the man 
who has gratified his appetite. Yet he himself remains a 
slave and performs the same servile duties ; he will kiss the 
foot of the new deity, dig pig-nuts for him, and carry all his 
wood — a task which is so irksome to do for Prospero. But 
he thinks he has obtained freedom, which to him means the 
reign of sensuality. The mob seems to have broken loose 
from the strong hand of Prospero, lust and violence hope 
now to rule triumphant, and the ominous shout of drunken 
bestiality falls upon the ear: "Freedom, hey-day, hey-day, 
freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom!" It is curious that 
Shakespeare has endowed two beings so completely oppo- 
site as Ariel and Caliban with the same aspiration for 
freedom. He has thus indicated the two great definitions of 
that word which have always divided mankind. The one 
means unrestrained lust and anarchy, the other means lib- 
erty through institutions ; the one is the realization of sensu- 
ality, the other is the realization of reason. 

But the political side is still further developed. Such be- 
ings must have some conflict among themselves, which Ariel, 
our poetical mediator, does not fail to bring about. It only 
ends, however, in a beating given to the coward Trinculo, 
who is innocent. But they have a common enemy, the pres- 
ent lord of the island, against whom they now conspire. It 
is King Stephano against King Prospero, the Sensual trying 
to dethrone the Rational. Stephano is not without his wor- 
shippers to-day. He represents the demagogue in the politi- 
cal world, who rules the rabble by gratifying their passions, 
himself being the incarnation of those passions. He thus 
unites the worst elements of society in a crusade against all 
established order and right. It will be noticed, also, that not 
the least attraction for their " freedom " is the fair Miranda ; 
both Family and State are to be subjected to unbridled lust. 
But their very nature is turned against them ; their innate 
tendency to theft leads them aside from their purpose, and 
they are caught in their own toils. Still they cannot reach 
Prospero; he is spirit, knows of their schemes, and sends 



The Tempest. 213 

upon them retribution in the shape of dogs and hounds — 
turns against them their own passions. He is thus victori- 
ous in this final collision — all his enemies are now in his 
power — he has mastered the conflicts of his individual ex- 
istence. Nay, farther, he has not merely punished, but even 
reconciled, all his enemies. Caliban himself submits, mani- 
fests hearty repentance, and is cured of his delusive worship. 
Sense thus yields to reason. ' Such is the truly positive func- 
tion of spirit : to bring all into harmony with itself, to make 
all reflect its own image. It may crush out with its power ; 
but that is a negative result, and really no solution of a 
conflict. The highest attainment of intelligence may be ex- 
pressed by just this word — reconciliation. The colliding indi- 
viduals of the play are now united in spirit, and the harmony 
is perfect. They all have come to see the nature of their 
deeds ; this is their common insight, and therefore their com- 
mon concord : furthermore, they hasten to make their deed 
undone. Hence, when the criminals arrive at this island, 
their destiny is to rise above their hitherto selfish, indi- 
vidual existence, and become reconciled with the Rational, 
the Universal. 

Thus Prospero has changed all his enemies into an image 
of himself, and has made them participate, to a certain extent 
at least, in his own double character. Each person through 
repentance reflects Prospero, and places himself in unity 
with him. Nor must his double nature be considered any- 
thing strange or unknown. It is found more or less developed 
in every soul. As a moral, and particularly as a thinking 
being, man must solve the conflicts of his individual exist- 
ence. Indeed, the sum of all conflicts, and the greatest of all 
contradictions, is the one above mentioned which in abstract 
language was called that between the Individual and Uni- 
versal. Nay, the mightiest of men — for he was a man — 
whose spirit, however, raised him to be a divinity — Christ 
himself — was he not the embodiment of this contradiction? 
A celebrated sarcasm was once uttered concerning him : 
"Yes, Christ was able to save the whole world, but couldn't 
save himself." True, and his chief merit. Christ as indi- 
vidual was necessarily involved in tl\e struggles of the world 
a,nd perished ; but as spirit he created it anew, and made it, 



214 The Tern/pest. 

so to speak, a different world, for its history since his time 
is the history of Christianity. So, too, Prospero as an indi- 
vidual is overwhelmed with the collisions of life, but as 
spirit he has mastered and portrayed them, and even con- 
verted his enemies into his own image. 

Prospero's career is now at an end, his work is done when 
the reconciliation is completed. He calls up once more the 
world of spirits who have been his faithful instrumentalities, 
in order to bid them farewell forever. He abjures his rough 
magic, his art ; and soon he will break his staff, bury it in 
the earth, and drown his book. For the present Ariel is re- 
tained, who brings together the entire company, and restores 
even the ship. " Then to the elements," the play ends, his 
poetical activity ceases. 

The relation of the play to Shakespeare himself has- fre- 
quently been discussed. Long ago a critic suggested that 
Prospero was Shakespeare. But the mistake has been that 
the play was supposed to represent Shakespeare's individual 
life. It might be taken as a portraiture of his poetic t univer- 
sal life, or that of any great poet. Other mighty individuals 
have been suggested in place of Prospero, but in such cases 
there is merely the substitution of one name for another, 
whereby however nothing is explained. We can only say, 
as we began, Prospero is the Poet generically, who, in the 
first place, embodies the manifold themes of his art in a dra- 
matic form ; and, in the second place, portrays himself in 
the act, portrays himself performing his own process also in 
a dramatic form. The drama can go no further ; it has at- 
tained the universality of Thought. 

Here also can be found the reason why it is impossible to 
give a theatrical representation of this play. What form 
shall we assign to Ariel and Caliban ? A child for the one, 
and a low human shape for the other ? Then we feel the im- 
passible chasm which shuts off the poet's creation from the 
stage. The illustrative art is equally impotent in reaching 
these conceptions. Why is this ? Because Ariel and Cali- 
ban are thoughts more than images 3 they are not only far 
beyond the realm of sensuous representation, but even begin 
to transcend the realm of pure imagination; hence we can 
read them and think them, but cannot image them with 



The Tempest. 215 

clearness ; they lie too far in the sphere of unpicturable 
thought. 

If we now put together the beginning and the end of the 
drama, we find that Prospero departs from the Real, passes 
through the Ideal, and returns to the Real. The middle 
stage is alone portrayed in the play. It would seem, there- 
fore that Prospero, being forced to abandon the practical 
world on account of his devotion to his books and his art, 
solves in his theoretical domain all the contradictions of 
finite existence, and thus returns in triumph to the practical 
world. Thought therefore, though at lirst antagonistic, final- 
ly restores action. Here we behold the theme of Goethe's 
" Faust," yet treated in a very different manner. But, though 
it touches the real world at both ends, its action lies wholly 
in the ideal world. 

We have now arrived at the point where we can see the 
unifying principle of three of Shakespeare's most important 
works, namely, u As You Like it," "Midsummer Night's 
Dream," and "Tempest." That principle is mediation 
through an ideal world. In "As You Like it," this world is 
idyllic, exhibits a primitive pastoral existence, hence ap- 
proaches what is actual: but in the remaining two it is 
wholly supernatural. The three constitute a new species of 
drama, which belongs to Shakespeare alone. Though other 
poets have used similar materials and means, yet their pro- 
ducts have been entirely different from these plays not only 
in degree of excellence but also in kind. The general move- 
ment is the same in all three : a breach in the real world, a 
transition to the ideal world where the breach is healed, and 
a return to the real world. The fundamental distinction be- 
tween them — though tliev are not at all alike in details — lies 
in the fact that in "As You Like it" there is no self-reliection 
of any kind, hence it is the simplest in structure; that in 
''Midsummer Night's DrSam" the objective dramatic action 
reflects itself in the "play within Lie play"; that in "Tem- 
pest" the subjective process of the Poet reflects itself along 
with the action. Taken together they constitute a dramatic 
cyclus, and may be called the ideal dramas of Shakespeare. 



( 216 ) 
THE MUSIC OF COLOR. 

By C. E. Seth Smith. 

"There's not the smallest orb that thou beholdest 
But in his motion like an angel sings 

***** 

Such harmony is in immortal souls." 

***** 

Merchant of Venice, Act V., Scene ] . 

The music of the spheres is an ancient story standing in 
evidence of an apprehension which has always obtained of 
the harmony of physical phenomena. That the heavenly 
bodies as bestowers of light give at the same time the har- 
monies of sound is the notion thus vaguely signified. 

This conception, which has for so long a time haunted the 
human understanding, is by the evolution of scientific facts 
no longer vague. That there is an analogy between the 
impression produced by a musical composition and that 
produced by a painting is undoubted, and has from time to 
time occupied the attention of both musicians and painters. 
It remains only for a collocation of such facts as have been 
in very recent times obtained by the study of the elementary 
principles of Music and, by means of the prism and spectro- 
scope, of the properties of Light, to demonstrate not only the 
dependence of both color and sound upon analogous vibra- 
tion, but that between the laws regulating the composition 
of the one and the other there exists a definite and systema- 
tic relationship. 

It is the purpose of this paper, through the means now 
available to science, to give the theory of this relationship ; 
thereby placing beyond the region of doubt the existence of 
a precise mathematical harmony between the Arts which 
appeal most potently toman's aesthetic nature — Music and 
Painting. 

Light and Sound are known as attributes of motion, called 
by one or the other name as the respective organs translate 
that motion in different ways to the brain ; a certain number 
of regularly recurring motions combined into a single im- 
pression giving the sensation of Sound, another set in more 
numerous proportion giving that of Light. 



The Music of Color. 217 

It must be remembered that these wave - motions have 
limits, at either end of which certain other vibrations exist, 
which are untranslatable by the brain either as color or 
sound. 

This limitation, however, is not constant, and differs in 
various species of animals, in individuals, and even in the 
dual organs of the man. 

Within the recognized limits in the case of sound, those 
having vibrations from 16 to 38,000 per second, there are some 
which individual ears detect, which to others are unheard. 

Doctor Wollaston has shown that the power of the ear va- 
ries much in different persons, and that to many the shrill 
notes of the cricket and the bat are inaudible. 

One ear is often less sensitive than the other in the same 
person. 

The range varies in animals also, and with it the power of 
producing as well as hearing sounds. 

M. Savart has pointed out that the ear of a calf is so con- 
structed that the lowest sounds only are heard, and that its 
limit must necessarily be beneath ours. The lowing of cat- 
tle, doubtless, impresses themselves far differently from the 
impression made on us. Their quick detection of movement 
inaudible to human beings assists this conjecture. At the 
higher limit, too, we may instance many insects who both 
hear and produce sounds shrill beyond our cognizance. 

The same variation is found in the power of sight; waves 
at each end of the spectrum have been demonstrated — heat 
rays at the lower or red end, and actinic or chemical rays at 
the higher or violet end, both of which are quite powerless to 
affect the retina of the eye. Tyndall has shown by experi- 
ment that some of these invisible calorific rays brought to a 
focus, and energetic enough to raise platinum to a red heat, 
do not cause the optic nerve, placed at the same spot, to be 
conscious of either light or warmth.* With this " personal" 
equation distinctly in view, where can the absolute limits of 
Sound or Light be placed? How rapidly or slowly must mo- 
tion vibrate to produce that which is neither Light nor Sound? 
Logically such limits are impossible ; that there is a limit to 

* Science for Unscientific People, p. 194. 



218 The Music of Color. 

the eye and ear, to each organ, is true; but the fact that this 
limit so varies in individuals admits the hypothesis, that to 
a perfect organ the perception of motion is illimitable. 

A tuning-fork in agitation, held loosely in the hand, yet 
produces sound — inaudible, indeed ; but, placed upon a iirm, 
resonant base, from the same play of the limbs of the fork 
a clear full note swells out. The fibres of the wood or other 
substance are also imbued with motion, and take up and re- 
peat with greater force the silent note of the tuning-fork. 

It is to this power of sympathy or synchronism in various 
bodies and in the air that the impressions translated to the 
brain as sound are due ; and by this synchronism may we 
understand the true nature of all sensations/- 

The vibration of a column of air in ajar responsive to an 
approaching tuning-fork, and the dancing of " sensitive 
flames," are due to this power of synchronism. f These vibra- 
tions, communicated through various channels, eventually 
reach the brain, where they are conceived and called Sound. 

Chladni has shown that, though the ears be stopped, two 
persons may converse by stretching a thread between the 
teeth, or pressing a stick against the breast or throat. Thus 
may the true manner in which sonorous motion is convej^ed 
to the brain be understood. 

By watching the strings of a piano, it may be noticed that 
whenever a note is sung in a room, that note which repre- 
sents the same note is thrown into vibration. A deaf man 
may be so placed as to hear every note that has been sung. 

An instrument which acts under the same influence has 
been discovered in the ear by the Marchese Corti, and which 
is shaped like tlie harmonicon. Wedge-like in structure, it 
divides the cochlea of the ear, and is so constructed that the 
individual fibres can execute vibrations without throwing the 
remainder of the membrane into vibration. This wedge- 
shaped structure is stretched in the direction of its breadth, 
so that its fibres form a series continually diminishing. 
These fibres were examined in 1869 by Professor von Hensen 
of Kiel, and by Helmholtz proved capable of executing the 
movements suggested. 

* Tyndall on Sound, p. 321. f Philosophical Magazine, 1867. 



The Music of Color. 219 

We are thus led to conclude that it is the limit of the or- 
gans in the ear which alone limits the vibrations of motion 
being translated by it as sound — since all motion is in a con- 
dition to produce Sound ; all Motion is Rhythmical, a series 
of undulations of waves to and fro. 

Herbert Spencer* proves the rhythm of motion by illustra- 
tion of natural effects — by the waving of pennants, the vibra- 
tion of cordage, the sound from an yeolian harp, the waving 
of water-weeds, the rippling of shallow streams and the ser- 
pentine course of rivers, the rapid rhythm of the screw of a 
steamer, and the lateral and vertical oscillations of a railway 
carriage. 

All known forces, too, serve as examples ; for Light, Heat, 
and Electricity, are all propagated by undulations. 

The Northern Aurora and the stratification in vacuum 
tubes shows that the current is not uniform, but comes in 
gushes of greater or less intensity. In Sound we have inter- 
ference and beats; in Light, the twinkle of the stars — both 
resulting from the same cause. 

From the production of little ridges in the sand, when the 
tide is running down, to the rolling of the planets as they 
alternately present each pole to the sun, all motion is trace- 
able only in a state of vibration. 

Even in sensations which expend themselves in the pro- 
duction of Music, Dancing, or Poetry, this is seen — strong 
muscular efforts in dancing being alternated with weaker — 
Bars, Piano-forte, and the primary and secondary beat, mark- 
ing out the Rhythm of Music. 

Poetry, even, may be said to be "a form of speech which 
results when the emphasis is regularly recurrent — that is, 
when the muscular effort of pronunciation has definite pe- 
riods of greater or less intensity, periods which are compli- 
cated with others of alike nature answering to the successive 
verses." 

Pain has fits of intensity, and Passion comes in bursts. 

Since, then, it must be granted that all motion is in a State 
of Rhythm, a state capable of producing sound — were the or- 
gan of hearing sufficiently extended — the following question 

* First Principle?, Part 2, chap. xi. 



220 The Music of Color. 

arises: are the pleasing combinations of these motions such 
as might be inferred from a study of Musical laws ? Will 
experiment bear out the inference and show that all harmo- 
nies result from obedience to similar conditions ? 

To define our terms : since musical combinations which 
form harmony are not the result of fortuity or accident, but 
are the consequence of obedience to well-defined mathemati- 
cal laws, a short statement of these conditions is necessary. 

Pythagoras, 500 years before Christ, recommended to 
students of Music the simple monochord, and with it all the 
fundamental laws may be illustrated. 

A string stretched and then divided into three equal parts, 
and fixed at one point of division, will, when sounded, give 
two notes ; that portion of the string whose length is just half 
that of the other will give the octave of the longer portion. 

The string again divided into two parts bearing to each 
other the proportion of 2 : 3, when sounded will give notes 
which are separated by an interval called a fifth. 

Thus dividing the string at different points, Pythagoras 
found the so-called consonant intervals in music to corre- 
spond with certain lengths of the string, and made the ex- 
tremely important discovery that the simpler the ratio of the 
two parts into which the string was divided, the more pleas- 
ing was the harmony of the two sounds. 

Two notes one of which is the octave of the other blend the 
most pleasingly together — their ratio is written down as 1 :2 ; 
next to them, a note and its fifth, written as 2:3; the next 
most pleasing, a note and its fourth, whose ratio of vibration 
is 3:4 — and so on, each combination growing gradually from 
incipient roughness to absolute discord, until, when the ratio 
of 13 to 14 is reached, interference is marked by beats, and 
the ear testifies its repugnance to so complex a relation of 
one note to another. The question to be mooted now comes 
in: since the harmonies — that is, the pleasing combinations 
of Music — follow a regular mathematical law, will not the 
result of Motion in other forms — in that of Light — exhibit in 
its harmonies any obedience to the same or analogous laws \ 

Modern Scientific investigation already proves how all 
known forces act in accordance with similar laws, the pheno- 
mena of any one illustrating the others, the difference being 



The Music of Color. 221 

only in degree. Analogies between Nerve-force and Electri- 
city, Electricity and Heat, Heat and Light, Light and Sound,* 
are everywhere admitted ; why not, then, an analogy between 
the Arts built upon those scientific laws if one exist between 
the forces themselves ? 

Since obedience to the laws of Sound produces in Music 
pleasurable harmony, and obedience to the laws of Light 
produces in Painting a pleasurable composition, is not an 
analogy between Music and Painting as truthful as one be- 
tween Sound and Light ? 

The means of producing both sound and light are in com- 
parison alike. By striking a tuning-fork, by plucking a 
string, by hammering, Sound is produced, as Light by strik- 
ing Hint and steel, or by rubbing together two pieces of wood 
or quartz. 

Light is motion, for it may impart motion to solids, and 
by its inseparable heating powers it can be made to turn 
wheels and lift weights. 

Waves of sunlight are of different lengths mixed together, 
and producing, when so mixed, a sensation upon the optic 
nerve called " white light." This nerve, like the musical nr- 
strument in the ear, spreads out to form the retina, and has 
upon its terminal filaments most minute bodies termed the 
"rods and cones." Each of these, Melloni has suggested, ac- 
cepts only the vibrations of that impinging Light-wave which 
synchronizes with its own ; sympathetic vibration, in short, 
being the cause of the sensations of both Light and Sound. 
The waves of sunlight, by means of the prism, may be sepa- 
rated from each other and spread out upon a screen, with 
the longest, or red waves, at one end, the shortest, or blue 
waves, at the other, and the intermediate gradations orderly 
arranged between the two extremes. 

Color is, in fact, but a phenomenon of wave-length, just as 
higher and lower notes are the product of shorter or longer 
Sound-waves. 

But there is a great interval, it is said, between the highest 
Sound and the lowest Color-wave ; and another difficulty, in 

* Quarterly Journal of Science, January, 1870; and Color and Sound, Dr* 
Macdonald, F.R.S. 



222 The Music of Color. 

the small range of but one octave which Color possesses, 
while Sound, taking a much wider range, extends over nearly 
eleven octaves. 

But this difference is only one of degree; each scale is 
obedient to the same laws, though the vibrations of the one 
are so vastly more delicate and subtle than those of the 
other. 

It is possible that a painting by Raphael, or the delicate 
play of colors on a pigeon's breast or on a shot-silk dress, 
may express as truly a Musical theme as one of Bach's 
fugues or a symphony by Beethoven. And although the 
relations causing the latter vary but from 100 to 3,000 times 
in a second, while in the former they pulsate from 500,000,- 
000,000,000 to 700 million million times in the same period, 
still the precise relationship existing between the two scales 
may be so worked out that Painting and the coloring of 
dress shall be elevated to the. status of a science based like 
Music upon mathematical principles. 

The first step towards this definite analogy was discov- 
ered by Newton, who found the spaces occupied by the 
seven principal colors to be similar to the relative intervals 
between the seven musical notes comprising an octave. And 
recent investigation has shown that the actual ratio of sound 
wave-lengths to each other compare with the ratio to each 
other of wave-lengths of colored light. 

New tables have appeared of the wave-lengths of different 
parts of the solar spectrum,* which require only to have the 
various wave-lengths reduced to a common ratio and com- 
pared with those of musical notes reduced to the same ratio 
to show a most marked correspondence. 

The first column in the table here given represents the 
actual wave-length of the different colors as determined by 
Professor Listing ; the second column gives the ratio of one 
set of wave-lengths to another taking 100 as the mean ; the 
third column gives the wave-length in inches of the notes 
of the middle octane; the fourth, the ratio of one note to 
another, taking also as the mean 100. 

A most remarkable table is the result, given as follows: 



* Transactions of the Eoyal Society of Upsala, 3d Series, vol. vi. 



The Music of Color. 223 

Mean. Mean. 

Bed waves are 6S5 of a millini. in length, 100 C has waves 52 in. in length, 100 



Orange '• 


" 610 


ih 


it 


89 


D 


n 


46£ " 


a 


89 


Yellow " 


" 560 


. . 


(( 


81 


E 


k< 


42 " 


a 


80.8 


Green '• 


u 513 


t( 


u 


75 


F 


u 


39 « 


K 


75 


Blue " 


" 456 


il 


fc ( 


66f 


G 


(( 


35 " 


t< 


67 


Violet " 


" 410 


4. 


fc( 


60 


A 


u 


31 " 


It 


60 


Ultra-violet 










B 


* , 


27£ " 


u 


53 



And, doubtless, could we distinguish colors "beyond the vio- 
let they would repeat themselves, and like the musical scale 
advance octave by octave with precisely similar notes. We 
have the high authority of Sir John Herschel and Professor 
Grassmann* in support of this inference. 

The aesthetic analogy between Color and Sound, Painting 
and Music, is thus founded, and the intuition of this fact, to 
which Language is already a witness, proved to be truthful. 

"Loud," "cHard" " Schreiend" appear identical expres- 
sions, applying in English, French and German both to glar- 
ing colors and forcible musical sounds. 

"Tone" is a term both of coloring and of sounds. 

"Dim" and "dumb" in Anglo-Saxon appear closely related, 
expressing feebleness to either voice or sight. 

Max Miiller's researches show that in Sanscrit the word 
"Pururavas" which means the same as noXodeox^ — endowed 
with much light — has a root (ru) which, although meaning 
originally " to cry," is applied also to color in the sense of a 
loud or crying color. f Thus it is said, " The fire cries with 
light"; and the rising sun, in the Veda, is said to "cry like a 
new-born child." 

From time immemorial, indeed, the sister arts have gone 
hand in hand, and a genius for the one seems to have been 
inseparable from a genius for the other. The great masters 
in painting were often at the same time good musicians ; 

" Not merely painters dwarfed in all their aims, 
But men who painted, builded, carved, wrote 
Whole diapasons, not a single note." — Story. 

But this analogy must be carried further than similarity 
of production, than innate perception, or than agreement of 

* Philosophical Magazine, April, 1S64. 

f Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 2, p. 101. 



224 The Music of Color. 

ratios of wave-lengths, and an absolute identity be shown 
between the laws laid down by the masters of each art. 

The identity in number of the seven notes in the visible 
prismatic scale and the seven notes of the musical scale al- 
ready noticed, and the fact that the three principal colors — 
Red, Yellow, and Blue — which occur respectively on the first, 
third, and fifth intervals, and so answer to the chord admit- 
ted by all musicians to be the ground-work of harmony, 
strengthen the analogy. 

The most pleasant combination of sounds next to that of 
unison is of a note and its octave, answering in painting to 
what is termed Reflection, where the expanse of color in the 
upper part of a picture is repeated, though in less extent at 
the foot. 

The next combination of sounds in the scale of pleasurable 
sensations is formed by a note and its fifth, called from its 
predominance in Music " the Dominant," and answering in 
the Key of to G : its analogue will be Blue. Then a note 
and its fourth, giving Red and Green. 

In natural colors, these are the simplest and most -accurate 
combinations. As a broad principle, it may be assumed that 
alternate colors produce common chords — Red, Yellow, and 
Blue, answering to C, E, and G ; and Orange, Green, and Pur- 
ple, to D, F, and A. 

Given one note — C, for instance, supposed to be the ana- 
logue of Red — it should be supported by the other two either 
separately or in its complementary color, Green, answering 
to F. Purple should have its complementary Yellow, or be 
supported by Green and Orange. 

Thus any key may afford examples, the working out of 
which will be of great service to those diffident of their own 
taste. For although good taste in dress, in the arrangement 
of flowers, and what is called gusto in painting, seem intui- 
tive in the same manner as musical taste is a natural gift, yet 
an aesthetic rule may be most useful to those not so highly 
favored, and surprising results developed. 

The juxtaposition of two colors nearly alike is distasteful 
to the eye, and, as adjacent notes sounded together, produce 
discord; suggesting that the indifference of yellow to green, 
red to orange, or blue to violet, is like the " beats " pro- 



The Music of Color. 225 

duced by sounding C and B together — the result of " Inter - 
ference." 

To this is due the green appearance of blue when strongly 
contrasted with yellow or viewed in a yellow light, and the 
likeness of purple to red when placed in proximity to 
blue. 

Colors have a knack of calling out — or, more correctly, 
intensifying — their complementary colors from white. This 
should be borne in mind in the choice of dress, and those 
colors avoided whose opposites are unbecoming to the com- 
plexion of the wearer. A red dress is apt to tinge a pale face 
with green, and a purple dress to render it yellow. 

In practically working out this theory, and translating the 
mental music of a group of colors into the audible music of 
life, the suggestion may be valuable that the instrument most 
capable of producing parallel sensations is the Organ ; the 
"Diapasons," the "Flute," the "Principal," and the "Swell," 
being necessary to represent Loudness, Force, and the Tone 
of pictorial effect. 

Colors vary as much in quality of tone as do sounds of 
musical instruments. C on the Trumpet and on the Flute are 
the same note, yet how different in character and effect ! 

The Organ represents most instruments in imitation by its 
stops varying from the "15th" to the "stop diapason"; one 
being soft, another sweet, another coarse. 

With Colors this is perhaps the most difficult subject in 
the whole inquiry ; for whatever quality may be observed in 
a single Red, Crimson, Scarlet, Indian Red, or any other kind, 
a similar quality should pervade its own scale, and all the 
other colors should be akin to it. 

Shades or gradations of color may be symbolized by semi- 
tones ; thus C-sharp for cherry-color, F-sharp for greenish- 
blue, and so on. 

The expression to be conveyed will regulate the choice of 
key, one with many sharps to signify joy or light and merry 
movement, whilst a minor approaching as it were by a low 
wail almost to discord will give the idea of deep and sup- 
pressed sorrow. 

The pitch in sound, then, has its equivalent in the tint or 
hue of color; loudness of note corresponding to "loudness" 

viii — 15 



226 The Music of Color. 

or depth of the color, higher octaves representing fainter and 
lighter-tinted hues. 

Since any two colors complementary to each other produce 
ichite, white may be harmoniously used with any color; for 
wherever two such colors may be necessary to complete a 
full chord, white may be truthfully substituted. 

In a general sense, the lower the refrangibility of a color 
the nearer it will appear to the eye, and the greater the 
refrangibility the greater the apparent distance. Thus, in 
Nature, red — the least refrangible color — predominates in the 
foreground ; yellow, green, and the intermediate tints, lie in 
the middle distance ; and blue, with every variety of grey, 
forms the background of mountains, vapors, and sky. 

As in singing it is the invariable custom to add power to 
the voice in the upper notes of a song, thus producing artifi- 
cially a larger volume of sound, so in Nature the grey or 
violet of distant mountains or sky is greatly in excess of the 
naturally lower and stronger notes of the red cottage-roof, 
the peasant's cloak, or red tree trunk, that are more forward 
in position. 

In such minute particulars is this analogy of sound and 
color strengthened that we look in vain to modern scientific 
researches for counter-evidence. 

Certain chemical changes are attended by alteration of 
color, and when such is the case it invariably occurs in 
consecutive order, and either ascends or descends the scale ; 
thus the green Iodide of Mercury under the action of heat 
yields a yellow sublimate, and subsequently becomes red. 
The red Iodide changes under the same condition from yel- 
low to chrome and from yellow ochre to light-red. 

Autumnal tints, descending the scale, may also admit 
some such analogy of cause and effect. 

Spectrum analysis shows that new lines make their ap- 
pearance in the spectra of certain elements when the tem- 
perature is increased. When, for instance, Lithium is heated 
a splendid blue band is obtaind in addition to the red and 
orange rays, showing that the undulations of this particular 
set of vibrations have become more intense. 

The same phenomena are observed in the case of the 
Strontium spectrum, where no less than four red lines (e, 7-, 



The Music of Color. 227 

x, X) make their appearance on increasing the temperature of 
the metal. 

Professor Roscoe* remarks that "The analogy between 
the production of these more highly refrangible rays and 
that of overtones, or harmonies of a vibrating string," must 
be patent. 

M. Lecoq de Brisbandeau,f quoting also Plucker and Hit- 
torf, notices similar results with the spectra of Azote, and 
finds strong analogies to musical harmonies. 

From this discovery it is possible that the music of the 
spheres may no longer remain a mystery ; it would only be 
necessary to write down the score of each star by spectrum 
analysis, and convert it into the corresponding musical 
chords, to realize how 

" Each smallest orb * * * 
In his motion like an angel sings." 

The sensations of taste and smell may also be the result 
of appreciated vibrations, and pleasing combinations have 
some general law of harmonies to govern them. 

Between the voice and temper of the speaker an analogy 
has long been supposed to exist,:}: and indeed theories of the 
kind have their foundation in scientific fact. 

There is an approximation to a law of distances between 
one planet and another from the primary bearing a strong 
resemblance to a musical ratio, which gives us some clue 
guiding us into the Pythagorean idea of the music of the 
spheres. The distances between Mercury, Venus, the Earth, 
the group of Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, and 
from the Sun, are closely analogous to the distances between 
eight octaves in succession. So, too. the four visible moons 
which revolve around Jupiter bear in the ratio of their revo- 
lutions or vibrations to each other a resemblance to harmo- 
nical notes. The first moon revolves in 42 hours, the second 
in 85, the third passes through its phases in 170 hours, and 
the fourth in 416 hours — giving the following series for the 
number of hours required for one revolution : 42, 85, 170, 416, 

* Spectrum Analysis, p. 144. 

t On the Constitution of Luminous Spectra. Paris, 1S70. 
I Philosophical Transactions published in 1700. See Curiosities of Litera- 
ture, by DTsraeli. 



228 Ideas the Essences of Tilings. 

the longest time corresponding to the lowest note. By 
imagining some fixed time wherein to count the revolutions 
of these satelites, and calculating them for the sake of ex- 
ample by the number of vibrations per second producing 
musical notes, the second is found to correspond to the oc- 
tave below the first, the third to the octave below that, and 
the fourth to the dominant or 5th of the fourth octave below 
the first. 

Speculations of this kind are necessarily vague, yet not 
the less truthful. Again and again have the discoveries of 
a future day been first but dimly seen and faintly outlined. 
A strong effort of moral courage is required to overstep the 
bounds of approved philosophy and to start a new theory 
with all its necessary imperfections and difficulties. "Phi- 
losophical guesses 1 ' are often censured, and this regardless 
of the fact that all our best established theories were guesses 
once. Men in a former era give the clue, others follow it into 
the Labyrinth. What if some of these guesses prove wrong ? 
The spirit of Investigation, the life of Science is aroused; 
and if the "Light," Goethe so earnestly prayed for, be given, 
the silent music of flowers, sunlight, and the stars, may not 
forever remain unheard. 



INTRODUCTION TO SPECULATIVE LOGIC AND 

PHILOSOPHY. 

By A. Vera. 

CHAPTER IV. {Continued.) 

§ 3. On Ideas as the Essences of lliings. 

If we admit that all things rest on a corresponding idea,, 
the next question is whether idea constitutes the essence of 
tilings, or whether there is above idea a higher principle, of 
which idea would be only the form — a force, the inward na- 
ture of which we are unable to reach, issuing forth from the 
divine essence, or, to speak more accurateky, constituting this 
very same essence. This is, I need hardly say, the decisive 
and crowning point of the problem. All those who have 
sufficiently attended to the subject concur in admitting that 
ideas are necessary elements of things, that they are eternal 



Ideas the Essences of Things. 229 

and immutable, and that their origin must be traced to the 
Absolute. But are ideas so identical with the Absolute as 
to constitute his whole Being ( Or is there, besides ideas, 
some principle or essence of which ideas would be only 
forms or attributes ? This is the point upon which opinions 
are divided. For, according to some, ideas are only forms, 
modes, or attributes ; according to others, they constitute 
both the form and the substance — the very nature of the 
Absolute. Now, the following are the reasons which, in my 
opinion, establish the second doctrine : 

First of all, if it be true, as we have demonstrated, that 
thought and idea are inseparably connected, so much so that 
they suppose each other; that obscure force, or that un- 
deiinable substance which is held forth as the source and 
substratum of ideas, cannot be thought but through an idea, 
and an idea which is adequate to it. And, as it is admitted 
that idea is the essential form of things, it follows that the 
idea of this substance will be its essential form, and as ab- 
solute and eternal as the substance itself. The idea of a 
substance is consequently adequate to this very substance ; 
which means that this substance is thought as it is, and can- 
not be otherwise than it is thought. Thus, for instance, if 
gravity be an essential form of matter, this latter must be 
attracted towards the centre, and, if gravity thought, it would 
think itself as necessarily attracted towards the centre. If 
God is the Perfect Being, or the Absolute Spirit, &c. &c, he 
must think himself as such, and, nice versa, he must be as he 
thinks himself. This shows how deeply idea is involved in 
the inward and substantial nature of things. And this con- 
nection will become still more manifest if we consider the 
whole idea — I mean each idea in the whole range of its quali- 
ties and relations ; if we describe and determine, for instance, 
the various and general properties of the triangle, or of organ- 
ism, or of the soul. For one cannot see then what other cha- 
racter or substance may exist besides and above idea. 

The difficulty we find in apprehending the true and com- 
plete nature of ideas is to be attributed, in a great measure, 
to the arbitrary selection I have pointed out* — a solution 



* See preceding' section. 



230 Ideas the Essences of Things. 

circumscribing the sphere of ideas, assigning ideas to one 
order of beings and withholding them from another, and 
leading thereby to the conclusion that this latter must rest 
on other principles than the former. For example, suppose 
any one admitting the idea of the Beautiful, and that it is 
this idea which imparts to the work of art its beauty, — if he 
do not admit at the same time the idea of matter, this he 
must derive from another source, and in this case the idea 
of the Beautiful will only possess, in his opinion, the power 
of stamping matter with a certain form. Again, it will be 
admitted that the operation of the mind must be performed 
according to certain fixed and invariable laws, i.e. ideas. 
But if we do not admit at the same time the idea of the think- 
ing subject or of the Self, this also must be derived from 
some other principle or essence than idea, and then the laws 
or ideas which govern the mind will be only forms. It is 
the same process and mode of arguing we make use of in 
considering the nature of God ; for we will fain acknowledge 
that ideas are inseparable from God's nature. But here also 
we argue with regard to God as we do with regard to the 
Self. And as we refer the Self and ideas to distinct princi- 
ples, so likewise we separate in God ideas from his being and 
substance. But if there be the idea of the Self, there must 
be also the idea of God, and God cannot be and think him- 
self but according to this idea. And when we endeavor to 
grasp the divine essence, and we think we soar above the 
sphere of ideas by attributing to God Consciousness, Per- 
sonality, Goodness, Ubiquity, &c, we in reality are gather- 
ing merely ideal elements to build up the nature of God. 
Now these and similar elements must represent the real and 
objective nature of God, otherwise we would make up the 
nature of God of mere words and shadows. And, in saying 
that they represent God, I do not mean to say that they are 
only symbols or images, but component parts and elements, 
of his essence. For if we realize the Being of God as differ- 
ing from the Thought of God, we are drawn into the same 
difficulty ; and this difficulty does not only affect the human 
but the divine thought also. In fact, if Being and Thought 
be separated in God, or if the idea of God be not identical 
with his essence, the unity of the divine nature will be 



Ideas the Essences of Things. 231 

broken, and neither God in thinking himself nor man in 
thinking God Avill think God, but a shadow of God — in fact, 
anything but God. Consequently, thought in God, or the 
thought of God, is identical with his Being ; it is his Being 
intellectualized, if I am allowed the expression. But if there 
be, it might be objected, as you assert, a stage of existence 
where thought and being become identical, the thought of a 
thing would not differ from its being, and consequently to 
think happiness would be to be happy, to think the Good 
would be to be good, and so forth. Now this is not only at 
variance with language, but with vulgar and daily experi- 
ence, as we think happiness without being happy, and the 
Good without being good. 

This objection, which at first sight seems unanswerable, 
but which we have already implicitly considered, rests on an 
erroneous notion of the nature of Science and ideas, as well 
as on an inaccurate observation of experience itself. In fact, 
even if we confine ourselves within the limits of experience 
and of subjective thought, we shall see that if the thought of 
a thing is not the whole thing, it is at least its starting-point 
or its essential condition. Thus one is not happy and good 
unless he seeks after happiness and the good, i.e. not unless 
he thinks them ; so that by abolishing the thought of them 
we would abolish the seeking after them, and consequently 
their possession and the sentiment attached to it. 

However, this is not the proper way of viewing the question ; 
for the essential and decisive point is whether there are ab- 
solute thoughts or absolute ideas of good and happiness, 
and whether these ideas be the principles from which the 
imperfect and individual good and happiness are derived. It 
little matters, then, that such individual should think happi- 
ness without being happy, or that happiness should assume 
different forms and vary with the different individuals, or 
that it be realized only in a certain number of individuals 
and in a certain sphere of existence. For from the fact of 
there being an idea of happiness, it does not follow that all 
must be happy, or that all must be equally so, no more than 
it does follow that all must possess beauty because there is 
an idea of the Beautiful, or that all bodies must be luminous 
because there is the idea of Light. It is rather the contrary 



232 Ideas the Essences of Things. 

that must take place, and this because ideas determine each 
oilier, and can each of them fill up only a limited province 
and sphere in the whole system. 

But here the difficulty principally arises from the mistake 
created by the confusion of Individual and subjective with 
universal and objective thought, or of thought accidental 
with thought necessary and absolute. To think accidentally 
the triangle or the solar system is not to be either the trian- 
gle or the solar system. But the essential point is to know 
whether, besides the idea, the eternal and objective thought 
of the triangle or of the solar system, there can be another 
and higher essence of these beings. And if, to establish this 
latter opinion, we appeal to individual consciousness and 
experience, we do not only place ourselves without the pale 
of Science, but we are necessarily led to a result contrary to 
that which we aim at. In fact, we will not admit that ideas 
constitute the ultimate principles of things, and we raise 
above ideas being and essence, apparently on the ground that 
the notion* we form of the Absolute surpasses the region of 
ideas, and then we transfer to this essence the data of psy- 
chological experience, and make absolute consciousness in 
the image of individual consciousness. Now, to form such a 
conception of the Absolute is to deny it. For if God thinks 
as I do think in the capacity of a finite and individual be- 
ing — if my individual consciousness is the type according to 
which I must represent to myself absolute consciousness, — 
God is finite and imperfect like myself. And it will be in 
vain for me, in order to reach the absolute, to combine such 
imperfect elements, to add to or to subtract from them, or to 
enlarge them indefinitely, so as to make up by their aggre- 
gate the notion of God ; for I shall not be able to overstep 
the limits of the finite and the imperfect. Consequent^, the 
principle to be laid down is not that God is such a thought, 
or such a will, or such a personality, but thought, will, and 

* This shows the inconsistency involved in all doctrine rejecting Idealism. 
For when we pretend that ideas are not the essences of things we must base our 
opinion on some rational ground, and this rational ground must need be some 
notion we have formed of essences and principles; which means that in rejecting 
ideas we make use of them, and that the very arguments and reasonings by 
which we pretend to overthrow idealism rest on some idea from which they de- 
rive whatever value they possess. 



Ideas the Essences of Things. 233 

personality, or the idea of thought, of will, and person- 
ality. 

Again, the argument which is put forth to prove the dis- 
tinction of idea and being, namely, that we possess the 
consciousness of thinking — of thinking light, for instance, 
without the consciousness of being light — nay, that we feel 
conscious that the being of light is totally different from the 
thinking of it ; this argument, I say, is to no purpose. For, 
as we have already observed, either there is a consubstantial 
connection between the thought and the being of light, or 
there is none. If we admit the latter position, we may say 
that in the thought of light there is no apprehension of real 
light but a mere delusion. Moreover, we ought to bear in 
mind that here the question does not turn upon individual 
existence, or any contingent and particular phenomenon, but 
upon essences and principles — a point which we lose sight of 
when we appeal to observation, self-consciousness, and sen- 
timent. For essences, let them be ideas or any other princi- 
ples, can be thought, but cannot he felt. And, far from their 
coming within the apprehension of sentiment, we must rise 
above the sphere of sentiment, of observation, and individual 
consciousness, to contemplate them in the purity and reality 
of their immutable and eternal nature. Thus, for instance, 
when we inquire into the nature of the soul, it is not a soul, 
but the soul we purpose knowing ; and we do not think we 
possess the science of the soul until we have attained such a 
knowledge. And having attained it, it is not necessary that 
we should be such or such individual soul, or that we should 
feel so, to apprehend its being and qualities. On the contrary, 
the sentiment of the individual soul would dim the perception 
of the soul, depriving • thereby the mind of the criterion by 
which the individual soul itself can be known. Thus to think 
the soul, the triangle, light, organism, &c, is, in the highest 
acceptation of the word, to think and to be all these objects. 
And this identity of idea and essence will be more clearly 
perceived by considering the nature of God. In fact, we hold 
that God is the ultimate principle of things, of Nature as 
well as of Spirit; of matter, light, &c, as well as of justice, 
liberty, good, &c. Now, either these words are destitute of 
all meaning, or they mean that God is all beings in general 



234 Idea the Ultimate Reason of Things. 

without being any individually, and consequently that es- 
sences are merely intelligible elements, principles that pure 
and speculative thought alone can reach, and transcending 
the region of sentiment, of self-consciousness, and experience. 

§ 4. Idea as the Ultimate Reason of Things.* 

If ideas and essences are, as we pretend, identical, it fol- 
lows that ideas contain the why and the ultimate reason of 
things. Why are there organic beings, or such a function or 
property in organism ? Or, why do bodies move ? and, what 
is the reason why they cannot move but in time and space, 
swiftly or slowly, or in a certain direction? Why such a 
phenomenon, or such a sensation ? Or, what is the ultimate 
reason of the union of the soul and the body ? The answer 
to these and similar queries will be derived from ideas, 
namely, that the body and the soul are united because there 
is the idea of such a union, and that they are united con- 
formably to such idea; or that there are organic beings, phe- 
nomena, movements, because there are ideas of organism, 
phenomena, and motion. Such a doctrine, 1 know," we are 
unwilling to admit, and this for the same reason we object 
to assigning ideas to all things. Here also we are wont to 
make a solution, and explain one order of facts and beings 
by ideas, and another by some other principle. When asked, 
for instance, why such an action is good, or such a concep- 
tion right, or such a thing beautiful, we answer that they are 
so because they are conformable to certain ideas of justice, 
truth, and beauty; which means that whatever justice, truth 
and beauty is in them they borrow from these ideas. But if 
any one hold that the ultimate reason of sensation, of organ- 
ism, of the union of the body and the soul, lies in ideas, we 
will not listen to him, and will reject his doctrine as possessing 

* I need not remind the reader that in this and the preceding section I have 
considered all questions relating to ideas in their abstract and general form, and 
confined myself to showing in a general manner the necessity and nature of ideas 
without determining the nature of any particular idea, and this because such an 
inquiry belongs to particular branches of Philosophy. For instance, the idea of 
Religion belongs to the Philosophy of Religion, as the ideas of time, space, light. 
&c, come within the province of the Philosophy of Nature. Moreover, the value 
and meaning of ideas cannot be apprehended unless each idea is systematically 
deduced. 



Idea the Ultimate Reason of Things. 235 

no meaning, and substituting mere and empty words for real 
and substantial causes. It is, as we may say, the same in- 
consistency we fall into. For if we give as ultimate reason 
of the justice of actions the idea of justice, we must also ac- 
knowledge idea as the ultimate reason of the union of the body 
and the soul; or, if we reject the latter, we must reject the 
former also. Therefore, for the very reason we admit other 
ideas, we must admit the idea of the soul and the idea of the 
body, and then the idea of their mutual communication. All 
the explanations contrived on the subject — the hypothesis of 
a plastic mediator (Cudworth), or that of physical influx 
(Euler), or that of occasional causes (Cartesius), or that of 
preestablished harmony (Leibnitz) — are but various expres- 
sions of one and the same conception, namely, that there is 
an intermediate principle or essence by and according to 
which the soul and the body are united. The theories of 
preestablished harmony and of occasional causes, which seem 
to point to another solution inasmuch as they seem to place 
the principle of this union in the power and will of God, rest, 
when attentively examined, on no other foundation. In fact, 
the divine will is not an arbitrary and contingent will, but 
finds its rule and guidance in the laws of God's nature, which 
are nothing else than the very essence of things. And this 
is proved by the fact, that even those who would attribute to 
God a contingent will and liberty — a liberty of choice or of 
indifference, as they name it — are compelled by a rational 
necessity to place above these attributes the nature itself of 
God, and acknowledge that God acts, and cannot but act, 
according to the laws of his nature. Therefore, it would be 
no explanation, or at least it would not be to give the ulti- 
mate reason, to say that the soul and the body are united 
because God has willed it ; but we must go beyond this, and 
say that he has willed it because this union is conformable 
to the laws of his reason and wisdom, and that he has willed 
it but in conformity with these laws : which means, in other 
words, that there is in God's nature a certain idea, a certain 
essence, where the two substances are eternally and abso- 
lutely united, which ideal union is the ultimate reason of 
their actual communication. In fact, the ultimate reason of 
a thing is that internal and ideal necessity which makes the 



236 Idea is Force. 

thing what it is, and that it cannot be otherwise than it is ; 
and this is its essence. And it must be remarked that when 
we have attained that degree of knowledge, we cannot pro- 
ceed further and inquire for a higher reason. Thus, for in- 
stance, it would be illogical to ask why bodies fall, should it 
have been demonstrated that gravity is their essence. And 
all attempts to answer the question would prove vain, or 
would lead to the begging of the question. This explains 
also why it is irrational to ask the reason of the existence 
of God. For God is essence and absolute necessity ; and in 
this respect what can be said of him is, that God is because 
Tie is. 

These remarks may be easily applied to other ideas. Let us 
take life, for instance. All physiologists tacitly admit the idea 
of life : for when they investigate the laws of living nature 
and strive to determine their essential character and condition, 
it is in reality the idea of life they aim at, as it is this very 
same idea looming, so to speak, before them that guides 
them through their inquiry. But being unaccustomed to 
pure speculation, and unable to set their mind free from 
images and material representations, they expect to derive 
from observation and experience that which from specula- 
tion alone can be derived, thereby obtaining facts and 
consequences which they mistake for causes and principles. 
They are thus led to materialize ideas, and to seek the 
principle of life, some in animalcules {infusoria), a kind of 
material types by which are engendered all living beings ; 
others, like Buffon, in an organic substance spread from eter- 
nity through the Universe, and stamped in succession with 
limited and individual forms. In reality, what they have in 
view is idea — a purely intelligible principle by which all 
living beings are produced, as all particular good emanates 
from the Good, and all particular beauty from the Beautiful. 
Of this principle they possess a presentiment, a glimpse as 
it were ; but they are unable to reach it in their real and ab- 
solute existence. 

§ 5. Idea is Force. 

This is a consequence naturally flowing from the preced- 
ing considerations. For, if idea be essence and the ultimate 



Idea is Force. 237 

reason of things, it is also force, and the force the most irre- 
sistible, which may be called also necessity. The force that 
produces the plant, and according to which the plant grows 
and dies, is its idea. The real and absolute germ is not the 
individual, and external germ we touch and see, but the idea 
by which the external germ is created and endowed with the 
necessary force for its growth and preservation. The force 
which every being is possessed of, as well as the form or law 
according to which it acts and displays its powers, lies in its 
very nature, i.e. in its idea. The difference of forces is owing 
to the difference of ideas. Matter is a force, and the soul is 
a force, and, as forces, they are the product of one and the 
same idea, and both produce similar effects ; for instance, 
the soul moves the body, and a body moves another body. 
Their difference is to be found in their specific elements, or 
in what constitutes their special idea : for instance, space 
and time, extent, attraction and repulsion, &c, for matter ; 
imagination, will, thought, &c, for the soul. Or, to quote 
another example, matter in its mechanical and matter in its 
chemical state are both force, which are only diversified by 
their specific typical structure. As idea is force, and the 
source of all forces, so the permanency and preservation of 
force do not rest on-any quantitative (mathematical) formula 
or conception, such as, for instance, the quantitative absorp- 
tion and reproduction of force, but in the permanency and 
immutability of its principle. For instance, with regard to 
the falling of bodies we may ask the question, whence comes 
the force that makes the body fall, and what becomes of the 
force that has been thus expended in producing the fall? 
Perhaps it will be said that the force is inherent in the body 
that falls, and that the amount of force that body employs 
in falling is absorbed by other bodies, which in their turn 
reproduce it, thus forming a circle — an alternate movement 
of absorption and reproduction, in which, the loss and the 
gain being balanced, there would be no actual deperdition of 
force. Now this explanation, even were it correct, does not 
reach the real and ultimate source of the permanency of gra- 
vity. The absorption and reproduction, the quantity of force 
absorbed, and the quantity of force reproduced, are subordi- 
nate states or forms of force, and are depending on its very 



238 Idea is Force. 

nature and essence. Let us suppose the whole of the force 
of gravity in the Universe to be = 1,000, and this sum to be 
equally divided among say 100 masses, and this in such a 
way as, when one of these masses expends its 10th part, this 
is to be absorbed and preserved by the others ; and, as we 
may suppose also that each mass is continuously'supplying 
its share of force, there would be in the whole system an un- 
interrupted recijDrocation of forces, absorbed and reproduced. 
Now it is clear that the permanency of the fact rests on the 
permanency of the principle that produces it, and that if 
there be no diminution in the quantity of force it is because 
its principle — its idea — is liable to no deterioration. 

Mathematical formula? symbolizing the law of gravity, or 
any other law, possess a real and rational value, in their ab- 
stract and general form, on the condition only that they are 
the expression of an absolute idea, independent of all phe- 
nomena of gravity, and to which these very phenomena owe 
their existence. When we say that force is inherent in 
matter, we use an expression which conveys a correct idea 
neither of matter nor of force ; for it represents matter and 
force — or the force that is in matter — as things separable, 
whereas they are inseparable. Such is, in fact, the ordinary 
mode of viewing matter and force. Y(e place matter on 
one side, so to speak, and force on the other, realizing the 
former as complete of itself, or as possessing its being and 
its essential qualities without the force of gravity, and the 
latter as something extraneous and superinduced ; and this 
on the ground that we can conceive matter without such a 
force, from which we draw the consequence, or rather the 
assumption, that matter would not cease to exist even were 
the force of gravity subtracted from it. According to this 
view, gravity becomes a mere law of matter, as it is called ; 
a certain form imprinted, as it were, upon matter, but neither 
matter itself nor an essential and component element of it. 
Now, if we give the subject the proper attention, we shall see 
that Being and Force are inseparable ; that Being destitute 
of Force is no Being, and that Force possessing no Being is 
no Force. By Being I mean here that which constitutes a 
thing, and without which it could neither exist nor be con- 
ceived. What to an inaccurate observer often appears as an 



Idea is Force. 239 

accidental or external form, is in reality an integral element 
of a being's nature, as integral as its substance, and conse- 
quently is itself a force. For instance, thought and the forms 
of thought are inseparable, so that thought could neither be 
or act without forms, nor could these be or act without 
thought. So likewise in the body form and matter are so 
interwoven that whatever force is in it springs from the 
association of both ; so much so, that, were either of them 
annihilated, being and force would be at once annihilated in 
the body. And so it is with all things. Consequently, gra- 
vity, attraction and repulsion, motion, &c.,are not forces and 
forms added to, but essential elements of, matter ; they are 
not forces acting upon the molecules, as one is wont to real- 
ize them, but forces that constitute the molecules and matter. 
The doctrine that resolves matter into atoms or indivisible 
molecules, representing the latter as coalescing under the 
action of an additional and extraneous force,* cannot be sup- 
ported on any experimental or speculative grounds. In fact, 
experience nowhere shows the existence of such elements ; 
indeed, according to experience, matter would be indefinitely 
divisible, and there would be no such indivisible principles. 
Nor is the atomistic doctrine more justifiable on theoretic 
grounds ; for either atoms are absolutely formless, or they 
possess a form — polarity, or weight, or volume, &c. In the first 
hypothesis, they are phantoms of the imagination, or rather 
empty words, as nothing could be affirmed or thought of them ; 
not even that they are indivisible, indivisibility being a 
manner or form of being. If they are endowed with a form, 
this form constitutes with their substance, and as well as 
their substance, their inward and inseparable force. Whence 
it follows — 1°. That force is not superinduced, but is one of 
their constitutive elements. In fact, if we consider extent, 
or the filling up of space in matter, we shall see that it pre- 
supposes both attraction and repulsion, and that it presup- 
poses them as generating principles of matter; for if we 
suppress attraction there will be nothing to repel, and if we 
suppress repulsion there will be nothing to attract. 2°. That 
force and form, be it extent, or weight, or whatever it may 

* Molecular forces. 



240 Idea is Force. 

be, are the common properties of all such pretended atoms, 
or of all parts of matter; which means that there is a com- 
mon principle — an idea — from which all parts of matter "bor- 
row whatever force or any other quality they possess. 

If I have dwelt at some length on the idea of matter to 
show that idea is force, it is to have the opportunity of 
pointing out the inconsistencies and errors into which the 
Philosophy of Nature is necessarily drawn, the arbitrary 
and artificial theories to which it is obliged to resort when 
it attempts to explain Nature, its forces and laws, by any 
other principles than ideas. Yet such is the aversion of the 
Natural Philosopher to ideas, that he will prefer inconsisten- 
cies, or any irrational and untenable theory to Idealism. He 
must use ideas, for he cannot advance a step without their 
assistance, and he must use them to prop up his own theo- 
ries ; but he will look with suspicion, nay, with contempt, 
upon any doctrine teaching that ideas are realities, forces, 
and principles. Thus, for instance, instead of acknowledging 
the ideas of organism and generation, he will have recourse 
to hypotheses such as the engrafting of organism upon organ- 
ism (epi genes is), or to the concentric envelopment of germs 
{emboitement des germes), or to spontaneous generation 
(generatio primarla, spontanea), or perhaps to the will of 
God. Now these and similar hypotheses explain nothing, 
or, if there be any meaning in them, this they draw from 
some idea, and consequently they are rational and correct 
inasmuch as and to the extent in which the idea is so. In 
fact, the will of God, when set forth as the ultimate reason 
of things, is the Deus ex macltina, which, for the very reason 
that it may be used for all purposes, in reality demonstrates 
nothing. For a principle which may arbitrarily and indis- 
criminately be brought forward to explain the motion of my 
arm as well as the motion of the Sun, or any other order of 
phenomena, is no principle at all, and no Science can be 
founded upon it. Moreover, the will of God, as we have 
already observed — and the will of God more absolutely than 
any other will — must be ruled by law, and by an absolute 
law, which law is at once the essence of things and a part of 
God's nature. 

As to spontaneous generation, if by spontaneous it is 



Idea is Force. 241 

meant that tilings — phenomena, individuals — are produced, 
or do produce themselves, without any previous and inde- 
pendent cause or principle that produces them, this is equal 
to saying that they come from nought. In any other sense, 
spontaneity presupposes a preexistent principle, and there- 
fore explains nothing. The same applies to epigenetic 
generation, and to the collateral hypothesis of the concentric 
involution of germs ; for, even granting that the germ be 
endowed with an inexhaustible power of begetting similar 
individuals, or that it should contain, like some infinitesimal 
quantity, an infinite number of germs, such hypotheses will 
explain neither the initial germ, nor the unity of the species, 
nor even the grown up and complete individual. For the 
complete individual is not the germ, and though it may be 
supposed to be potentially involved in the germ, as the whole 
picture is involved in its outline, yet there are additional ele- 
ments, properties, and processes, through which only its full 
growth can be accomplished. Besides, the germ cannot con- 
stitute the species, for the production as well as the relation 
of germs can only be explained by a distinct and separate 
principle. To say that the various germs or individuals are 
issuing from a common stock, and then to realize this com- 
mon stock as an individual — the various plants from an in- 
dividual plant, for instance, or men from a primitive man — 
is to say that this individual being is at once the individual, 
the species, and the genus. Now let us suppose the fact to 
be so ; let us suppose that there was a primitive germ or 
individual from which all subsequent germs or individuals 
have sprung. It is evident that there would have been two 
natures involved in the nature of such individual, namely, 
its own individual nature coupled with the common and gen- 
eral, i.e. the species. Now, if we suppress in the supposed 
individual its individual, limited, and perishable nature, 
what will be left in it is the common and universal nature, 
or the generating principle of all subsequent and similar 
individuals. And if we add to this that the supposed indivi- 
dual must be itself the product of a principle which embraces 
both the individual and the common nature, we shall arrive 
at the conclusion that here also idea constitutes the commou 

viii— 16 



242 Idea is Force. 

stock, and the ultimate principle to which the individual, 
the species, and the genus, owe their origin and existence. 

The fact is, the Natural Philosopher, if consistent, cannot 
escape Idealism; for he 'cannot even think force in general, 
or any particular force, such as gravity, light, &c, without 
ideas. And, when he comes to consider the objective nature 
of forces, if he rejects Idealism, he will be obliged to adopt 
Nominalism, and to realize force either as an empty word — 
flatus vocis — or, like Kant, as a merely subjective form of 
thought; or to divide force and scatter it into infinitesimal 
divisions, i.e. to adopt Atomism ; or to substitute mathema- 
tical quantities and formuhe for physical forces; — which 
means, in other words, that the Natural Philosopher, by re- 
jecting Idealism, raises insurmountable difficulties, nay, he 
contradicts himself, and brings about a result opposite to 
that which he is aiming at. For he rejects Idealism on the 
ground that idea, in his opinion, is not a real principle, an 
essence, a force, and then he builds up forces and beings 
with merely subjective elements, with empty sounds, or with 
mathematical formulae ; in other words, with materials either 
destitute of all reality and force, or deriving from ideas all 
the reality and force they may possess.* 

* Has vires (attraction and repulsion), says Newton, non Physice sed Mathe- 
matice tantum considero. (Phil. Nat. Princ. Math., Defin. VIII.) — These words 
show that, in the opinion of Newton, there are two essential elements of which 
gravity consists, namely, the Physical and the Mathematical. It is not my 
object to examine here the purport of this division, or whether it is conformable 
to a strictly rational and scientific method to divide a being, substance, or force, 
into two parts, to consider one and to leave oft' the other. Here, confining 
myself to the present subject, I will only observe that if the Natural Philoso- 
pher admit that the mathematical element is an integral part of force, he cannot 
without inconsistency reject Idealism, as the pure mathematical element is noth- 
ing but idea. If, on the contrary, he consider force as independent of mathema- 
tical notions, his formulae and combinations possess no value whatever, nay, 
they are delusive and fallacious, as they create the belief that mathematical no- 
tions constitute a real element of force. (See on this question my Introduction 
to the Philosophy of Nature, of Hegel, vol. 1.) 



( 243 ) 
THOUGHTS ON THE INTELLECT 

IN GENERAL AND IN EVERY RELATION. 

Translated from the German of Arthur Schopenhauer by Charles Josefe, M.D. 

(Chapter III. of the '"Parerga and Paralipomena."') 

§ 27. Every procedure in philosophy pretending to be 
without any presupposition is nothing but boasting, for we 
always must regard something as given in order to proceed 
from it. This is what is meant by the &>c pot rod <tto>, which 
is the indispensable condition of every human operation, 
even of philosophy, because we neither mentally nor bodily 
are able to float in the pure ether. But such a point of pro- 
cedure of philosophising, which we meanwhile have assumed 
as given, must afterwards again be compensated and justi- 
fied. It either will be something subjective, as perhaps the 
self-consciousness, the imagination, the subject, the will; or 
it will be something objective, something that represents 
itself in the consciousness of other things, as the real world, 
the objects exterior to us, nature, matter, atoms, even a god, 
even a mere idea thought out at leisure as the substance, the 
absolute, or whatever it may be. Now, so as to make up for 
the arbitrariness committed with this, and to rectify the pre- 
supposition, we must change aftewards the stand-point and 
proceed to the opposite, from which we now derive, in a 
supplementary philosopheme, that which at first had been 
assumed: sic res accendunt lumina rebus. If, for instance, 
we proceed from the subjective, as did Berkeley, Locke, and 
Kant, with whom this manner of reflection reached its height, 
then we shall become possessed of a philosophy which is 
partly very one-sided (although, on account of the imme- 
diateness of the subjective, this way has the greatest advan- 
tages), yet it is not wholly justified unless we supply the 
deficiency by taking once more the conclusion as the point 
of departure, and thus from the opposite stand-point derive 
the subjective from the objective, as we did before the objec- 
tive from the subjective. This completion of the philosophy 
of Kant I believe I have given in outline in the twenty- 
second chapter of the second volume of my principal work, 



244 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

and in the "Will in Nature," under the title of " Physiology 
of Plants," where I, proceeding from external nature, derived 
the intellect. 

But if, on the contrary, we proceed from the objective, and 
immediately assume much as given — as, for instance, matter 
— together with the powers as manifesting themselves in it, 
then we soon have the whole nature, as such a mode of con- 
templation gives the mere naturalism, which I more accu- 
rately called absolute Physics. The laws and powers of 
nature, together with matter in which they inhere, constitute 
here the given, and consequently the absolute real, taken 
generally ; but regarded specially, as innumerable suns and 
planets, floating in infinite space. These are therefore, as 
the result, every where, nothing but balls, a part of which are 
shining, the rest illuminated. Upon the last, life has unfold- 
ed itself in consequence of a process of putrefaction, which, 
in gradual succession, produces temporary organic beings, 
rising and perishing through generation and death according 
to the laws of nature governing the power of life, which, like 
all the others, make up the reigning (and from eternity to 
eternity) existing order of things, without beginning or end, 
and without giving account of themselves. The highest 
point of this succession is occupied by man, whose existence 
also has a beginning, in its course many and great miseries, 
few and parsimoniously granted joys, and after this, like 
everything, has an end ; after which it is as if it never had 
been. Our absolute physics, which here governs the con- 
templation and plays the part of philosophy, now explains 
to us how, according to those absolutely existing and valid 
laws of nature, one phenomenon constantly brings on the 
other or supplants it; everything here goes on very natural- 
ly, and consequently is perfectly clear and intelligible; so 
that we may apply to the whole of the thus explained world 
a phrase which Fichte used to express with deep, earnest, 
imposing accents, and a mien exceedingly perplexing to 
students, whenever he displayed his dramatic talents at the 
lecturing-desk, thus: "It is because it is, and is as it is be- 
cause it is thus." Consequently, it would seem to be a mere 
freak, from this stand-point, if one sought still for other 
explanations of a world which has been made clear in a 



Scliopenliauer on the Intellect. 245 

wholly imaginary metaphysics, upon which again morals 
have been put, which, as they are not to be confirmed by 
physics, would have their only support in those fictions of 
metaphysics. From this arises the marked disdain with 
which natural philosophers look upon metaphysics. But, in 
spite of all the self-sufficiency of this merely objective mode 
of philosophising, the one-sidedness of the stand-point and 
the necessit}^ of changing it, to make the object of investiga- 
tion the recognizing subject, together with its faculty of 
recognizing, in which alone all these worlds, first of all, are 
present, will declare itself sooner or later, and under many 
forms and motives. Thus, for instance, at the foundation of 
the expression of the Christian mystics, who call the human 
intellect the light of nature, which they in a higher in- 
stance declare to be incompetent, lies the recognition that 
the validity of all such cognitions can be only a relative 
and conditional one, but not an absolute, for which, on the 
contrary, our present rationalists take it; who, just on ac- 
count of this, disdain the deep mysteries of Christianity, as 
the natural philosophers disdain metaphysics; take the dog- 
ma of original sin to be a superstition, because their Pela- 
gian common-sense has happily found out that one is not 
responsible for the sin of somebody else six thousand years 
before him. For the rationalist confidently follows his light 
of nature, and thinks therefore in all earnestness that he, 
forty or fifty years ago, was absolutely nothing, and after- 
wards originated from nought ; for only in this wa}^ can he 
free himself from responsibility, that sinner and inheritor 
of sin ! 

Thus, as we have said, speculation, following objective cog- 
nition in many ways, but mostly in the unavoidable philo- 
sophical one, will begin to understand that the wisdom which 
was obtained on the objective side must be taken on credit 
of the human intellect, which for all that has its own form, 
functions, and manner of representing things, consequently 
must be entirely conditioned by it; from which follows the 
necessity of changing the stand-point, and of exchanging the 
objective procedure for the subjective one, that is, to take it 
once as subject of investigation, and to institute an examina- 
tion into the authority of the intellect, which till now confi- 



246 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

dently erected its dogmatism and with the greatest boldness 
judged a priori of the world and all things in it, even of its 
possibility. This brings us, first of all, to Locke ; then it 
leads us to the Critic of Pure Reason, and lastly to the recog- 
nition that the light of nature is directed only towards the 
external, and that this, if it would bend itself back and illu- 
minate its own internal, cannot do it, consequently cannot 
disperse immediately the obscurity which there prevails, but 
only receives with great difficulty a mediate knowledge of its 
own mechanism and its own nature by following the sideway 
of reflection which those philosophers have taken. But after 
this it will become clear to the intellect, that it from the be- 
ginning is destined to the comprehension of mere relations, 
which suffices to the service of an individual will ; that it con- 
sequently is mainly directed towards the external, and even 
that it then is only a superficial power, like electricity ; i.e. 
it only comprehends the surface of things, but does not pene- 
trate into their interior, and therefore cannot understand or 
discern thoroughly and from the foundation a single nor the 
most simple of all these beings ; though they are real and 
objectively clear to it, rather the main thing remains in all 
and everything a secret to it. This now will lead him to the 
deeper understanding which the name of idealism expresses, 
namely, that that objective world and its order, as it con- 
ceives them with its operations, is not unconditionally and 
in itself existing, but originates by means of the functions 
of the brain, and consequently exists first of all in this, and 
furthermore has in this form only a conditional and relative 
existence, therefore is only a mere phenomenon, mere mani- 
festation. If up to this time man has investigated the rea- 
sons of his own existence, whereby he presupposes the laws 
of cognition, of thinking, and of experience, to be purely 
objective in themselves and absolutely existing, and only by 
means of these himself and everything else to be, then he 
now recognizes that, on the contrary, his intellect, conse- 
quently also his existence, is the condition of all those laws 
and whatever follows from them. Then at last he will also 
understand that the ideality of space, time, and causality, 
now clear to him, will leave room for a wholly different order 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 247 

of things than that of nature, which last however he is obliged 
to regard as the resnlt or the hieroglyph of the former. 

§ 28. How little in general the human intellect is qualified 
for philosophical reflection is exhibited, among other ways, 
in this, that now too, after all that has been said on the sub- 
ject since Descartes, realism still contidently appears against 
idealism with the naive assertion that bodies not only existed 
in uur imagination, but were also really and truly extant. 
But just this reality itself, this way and manner of existence, 
together with all that it contains, is just the thing, of which 
we assert it exists only in the imagination, and is nowhere 
else to be found, because it is only a certain necessary order 
of the combination of our conceptions. Notwithstanding all 
that former idealists, especially Berkeley,' have said, it is 
only through Kant that we reach a real profound conviction 
of it ; because he does not settle the matter with one stroke, 
but descends into the particulars, distinguishes that which 
is d priori, and accounts everywhere for the empirical ele- 
ment. But to him who has once comprehended the ideality 
of the world, the assertion appears really senseless that such 
a one could be present, even if nobody imagined it, because 
it expresses a contradiction ; for its being present only means 
its being imagined. Its existence itself lies in the imagina- 
tion of the subject. This is the significance of the expres- 
sion : It is object/* In consequence of this, the older and 
better religions — that is, Brahminism and Buddhism — place, 
throughout, idealism at the foundation of their teachings, 
and require therefore its recognition by the people. Juda- 
ism, on the contrary, is a genuine concentration and consoli- 
dation of realism. 

An innovation, introduced by Fichte and since reproduced, 
lies in the expression, the Ego. Here, namely, the mainly 
and absolutely subjective becomes changed into the object 
by means of the substantive form of expression and the pre- 
fixed article. For, in truth, "the Ego'' signifies the subjective 



* If I look at any object — for instance, a prospect — ami imagine I should be 
decapitated in this moment, then I know that the object would remain un- 
moved and undisturbed. But this only implies at bottom that I likewise would 
be there. This will be clear only to few, but for these few it may be said. 



248 Schopenliauer on the Intellect. 

as such, which therefore never can become object, namely, 
that which recognizes, in opposition to and as condition of 
all that which is recognized. The wisdom of all languages 
has expressed this by not treating Ego as substantive ; there- 
fore Fichte had to do violence to the language so as to be 
able to carry out his intention. A still more bold innova- 
tion by this same Fichte is the insolent abuse he has carried 
on with the word "posit" (setzeri), which, instead of being 
censured and exploded, is still in full use up to this day, as 
a standing expedient for sophisms and fallacious teachings, 
with nearly all dabblers in philosophy after his example and 
on his authority. To posit (ponere, whence propositio) is, from 
olden times a purely logical expression, which signifies that 
one, in the logical frame-work of a disputation or other dis- 
cussion, meanwhile admits something as being true, presup- 
poses it, confirms it, and thus gives it in the interim logical 
validity and formal truth, whereby its reality, material truth 
and real existence remain perfectly undecided and untouched. 
But Fichte by-and-bye obtained surreptitiously for this "pos- 
it" a real, but naturally dark and obscure meaning, which 
the simpletons let pass and the sophists continually used : 
since, namely, the Ego posited first itself and afterwards the 
non-Ego, positing comes to signify as much a creating, a 
producing, in short, to posit in the world, one knows not 
how, and everything what one without reasons would like 
to assume as existing and impose upon others, is then pos- 
ited, and then it stands, and is there, wholly real. This is 
the method still recurring in the so-called post-Kantian phi- 
losophy, and is the work of Fichte. 

§ 29. The ideality of time, discovered by Kant, is, prop- 
erly speaking, contained already in the mechanical law of 
inertia; for what this expresses is, in truth, that mere time 
is not able to produce any physical effect, in consequence of 
which it, for itself and alone, does not alter anything in the 
rest or motion of a body. From this it naturally follows that 
itls not something physically real, but something transcen- 
dentally ideal, i.e that it has its source not in the thing but 
in the recognizing subject. Did it inhere, as a property or 
accidence, to things themselves and in themselves, then its 
quantity — that is, its length or shortness — would be able to 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 249 

change something in them. But this it cannot do ; rather it 
passes over things without leaving the slightest trace. For 
only the causes are efficacious in the course of time, but not 
at all time itself. Therefore, if a body is withdrawn from all 
chemical influences — as, for instance, the mammoth in the ice 
of the Lena, the fly in amber, a precious metal in a perfectly 
dry air, Egyptian antiquities (wigs even) in the dry tomb 
formed in the rocks — thousands of years do not affect or 
change them in the least. The absolute inefficacy of time there- 
fore it is which, in mechanics, appears as the law of inertia. 
If a body is once set in motion, no time can take the mo- 
tion away from it, or even diminish it : it is absolutely end- 
less, if physical causes do not counteract it ; just as a body 
at rest will rest to all eternity, if no physical causes enter to 
put it in motion. From this it follows that time is something 
which has no relation to bodies, nay, that the two are hetero- 
geneous in nature; that reality which belongs to bodies can- 
not be attributed to time, hence this latter is absolutely 
ideal, i.e. belongs to the mere imagination and its apparatus ; 
while, on the contrary, bodies show, by the manifold variety 
of their qualities and their effects, that they are not only ideal, 
but that at the same time something objectively real, a thing 
in itself, manifests itself in them, however different the thing 
in itself may be from this its appearance. 

Motion is, first of all, a mere phoronomic occurrence, i.e. 
one whose elements are all taken from time and space alone : 
matter is that which is movable ; it is already objectiva- 
tion of the thing in itself. But now its absolute indifference 
towards motion and rest, by virtue of which, as soon as it 
has taken the one or the other, it will remain in it forever, 
and just as well is ready to fly through all eternity as to rest 
for all time, proves that space and time, and the contraries of 
motion and rest originating purely from them, do not at all 
belong to the thing in itself, which exhibits itself as matter 
and gives it all its forces, but rather are perfectly extraneous 
to it, consequently did not come into the phenomenon from 
that which manifests itself, but from the intellect conceiving 
them, to which they, as its forms, belong. 

Let him who would form a lively image of the here men- 
tioned law of inertia imagine himself to be standing on the 



250 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

edge of the world, before empty space, and to fire a pistol 
into it. The ball will fly through all eternity with an un- 
changed direction ; billions of years will never tire it, never 
will it be in want of space to iiy farther, nor will it ever want 
time for this. Add that we know all this a priori, and are 
therefore perfectly sure. I think the transcendental ideality, 
i.e. the cerebral phantasmagoria, of the whole thing is here 
exceedingly perceptible. 

A contemplation of space, analogous and parallel to the 
foregoing one of time ; could perhaps be attached to this, that 
matter, through all division extending it, or also through 
pressing it together in space, can become neither increased 
nor diminished ; as also in this, that in absolute space rest 
and right-line motion fall phoronomically together, and are 
one and the same. 

An anticipation of Kant's teaching of the ideality of time 
shows itself in many sentences of the elder philosophers, of 
which I have already collected what is necessary in another 
place. Spinoza sa}"s without hesitation : " Tempus non est 
affectio rerum, sed tantum merus modus cogitandi"- (Cogi- 
tata Metaphysica, C. 4.) Properly speaking, the conscious- 
ness of the ideality of time lies even at the foundation of the 
ever-existing notion of eternity. This, namely, is really the 
opposite of time, and thus all "who understood it have con- 
stantly conceived of it, something they only could do in con- 
sequence of the feeling that time dies in our intellect only, 
not in the essence of things themselves. Only the want of 
sense on the part of the wholly incompetent has allowed 
them to explain the idea of eternity as an endless time. Just 
this led the scholastics to such utterances as, "vEtemitas 
non est temporis sine fine successio, sed Nunc stans"; even 
Plato said in the Timreus, and Plotinus repeated, "Acdivo<; 
ecxwv wvqrq b xpovot;." According to this view, one might call 
time eternity drawn asunder, and found on this the asser- 
tion, that if there is no eternity, there also can be no time. 
Since Kant, in the same sense, there has entered into Philo- 
sophy the idea of a being which trascends time ; but one 
should be very careful in the use of this, because it belongs 
to those which still might be thought, but by no intuition 
can be supported or realized. 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 251 

It could easily be understood that time everywhere and in 
all heads runs on at the same rate, if the same were something 
purely external, objective, perceptible through the senses 
like bodies. But this it is not ; we can neither touch nor see 
it. It also is by no means the mere motion or some other 
change of bodies : all this is rather in time, which therefore 
already is presupposed as a condition of it ; for the clock 
goes too fast or too slow, and not the time with it; but the 
synchronistic and normal, to which this slow and fast is re- 
ferred, is the real course of time. The clock measures time, 
but it does not make it. If all clocks stopped, if even the 
sun himself stopped, if all and every motion stopped, — the 
course of time would not be delayed for a moment, but it 
would proceed in its regular course, and pass now without 
being accompanied by change. Notwithstanding all this, 
time is not something perceptible, not something externally 
given and operating on us, therefore nothing really objective. 
Nothing then remains except what lies within us, and which 
is our own undisturbed advancing mental process, or, as 
Kant calls it, the form of the inner sense and of all our con- 
ception ; consequently it forms the undermost scaffold of the 
stage of this objective world. This symmetry of its course 
in all heads proves, more than anything else, that we all are 
imbedded in the same dream, even that it is one being that 
dreams. (If one should wonder at this subjective origin of 
time, or even at the perfect sameness of its course in all 
heads, there would be some misunderstanding at the bottom ; 
for the sameness here would mean, that in the same amount 
of time the same amount of time would pass; consequently 
the absurd presupposition of a second time would be made, 
in which the first, fast or slow, would pass.) The same can 
be proved in space, so far as I leave behind me all worlds ; 
however many there may be, I still never can get out of 
space, but always bring this with me, because it adheres to 
my intellect and belongs to the perceiving machine in my 
skull. 

Now time is that mechanism of our intellect by virtue of 
which what we take as the future now does not seem to exist 
at all; this illusion disappears as soon as the future has 
become present. In some dreams, in clairvoyant somnam- 



252 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

bulism, and in second-sight, this illusion becomes put aside; 
therefore the future presents itself as being present. This 
explains why all trials which have been made to frustrate, 
sometimes, were ii only in accessory circumstances, what 
had been foretold by the seer of second-sight, must fail ; for 
he has seen it in the reality of it, being present already at 
that time — just as we only perceive that which is present; — 
it therefore possesses the same unalterableness as the past. 
(Examples of experiments of this kind are to be found in 
Kieser's Archives fur thierischen Magnetismus, vol. 8.) 

Corresponding to this, the necessity of everything that 
happens, i.e. enters successively in time, presenting itself 
to us by means of the chain of cause and effect, is only the 
way in which, under the form of time, we perceive the one 
and unchangeable existing ; or, also, it is the impossibility 
that the existing, although we perceive it to-day as future, 
to-morrow as present, the day after to-morrow as past, should 
not be identicalwith itself, be one and unalterable. As in the 
conformity of the organism to its indwelling purpose the unity 
of the will objectivating itself in it presents itself, though in 
our apprehension limited by space, this is perceived as a 
multitude of parts and their correspondence to the end ; in 
the same way, the necessity of everything that happens, 
brought on by the causal nexus, forms the unity of the being, 
objectivating itself in it, but which in our apprehension, lim- 
ited by time, is conceived as a succession of conditions, that 
is, as something past, present, or future ; while the being 
itself knows nothing of all that, but exists in the '''■Nunc 
stans." 

Separation in space is very much more easily annulled in 
the somnambulistic clairvoyance than separation in time, as 
the merely absent and distant are much oftener brought to 
perception than what is really still future. In the language 
of Kant, this could be explained from this, that space is only 
a form of the external, but time that of the internal sense. 
That space and time, according to their forms, are contem- 
plated d priori, Kant has taught ; but that this also can be 
done according to their content, is taught by the clairvoyant 
somnambulism. 



JSchojienhauer on the Intellect. 253 

§ 30. The dearest and at the same time most simple proof 
of the ideality of space is this, that we cannot annul space in 
our thinking, as we do all else : we can only empty it. Every- 
thing we can think away from space we can let disappear, 
we even can imagine the space between the lixed stars to be 
absolutely void, etc. Only space itself we never can get rid 
of in any way ; whatever we do, wherever we may place our- 
selves, it is there, and has nowhere an end : for it lies at the 
foundation of all our thinking and is its first condition. By 
this is proved undeniably that it belongs to our intellect it- 
self, forms an integral part of it, and indeed that part which 
furnishes the warp of the web upon which the variegated 
world of objects then is woven. For it presents itself as soon 
as there is imagined an object, and accompanies afterwards 
all movements, turns, and efforts, of the contemplating intel- 
lect just as constantly as the spectacles which I have on my 
nose accompany all turns and movements of my person, or 
as the shadow accompanies the body. If I remark that some- 
thing, everywhere and under all conditions, is with me, then 
I conclude that it belongs to me ; thus, for instance, if a cer- 
tain odor, which I want to escape, presents itself wherever I 
go. The same is true with space : whatever I may think, 
whatever world I imagine, there always is. first space, which 
never yields. Now if this is, as it plainly follows from this, 
a function — yea, even a fundamental function of my intellect 
itself — then the ideality following from this also extends it- 
self over everything spatial, i.e. everything presenting itself 
in it, no matter whether this in itself have an objective ex- 
istence ; but in so far as it is spatial, so far as it has figure, 
size, and motion, it is subjectively conditioned. The exact 
and just calculations of astronomy are possible only through 
this, that space, properly speaking, is in our head. Conse- 
quently we do not recognize things as they are in them- 
selves, but only as they appear. This is the great doctrine 
of the great Kant. 

It is the most absurd, but in a certain sense the most fruit- 
ful of all thoughts, that space is independent of us, that it 
in itself is existing, and that a mere picture of it as of some- 
thing infinite through our eyes should penetrate our head; 
because, whoever really perceives the absurdity of this' wilj 



254 Robert Schumann. 

recognize immediately with this the mere apparent existence 
of this world, in conceiving it as a mere phenomenon of the 
brain, which, as such, will vanish with the death of the 
brain, and leave remaining quite a different world, the world 
of things in themselves. That the head is in space does not 
prevent one from conceiving that space after all is only in 
the head.* 



ROBERT SCHUMANN. 

By E. Sobolewski. 



Schumann was a singular phenomenon both as a man and 
as an artist. All-absorbed in the world of tones, he would 
sit for hours in the company of friends without uttering a 
word. His whole life was a dream, often a very beauti- 
ful one. 

Schumann made his first appearance in the musical world 
as Editor of "The New Musical Gazette" of Leipsic, the 
finest articles by his pen being signed "Florestan" or "Euse- 
bius"; "Florestan " always floating in the seventh heaven, 
and "Eusebius" in a somewhat lower sphere. 

The object of this "Gazette" was to propagate and promote 
the new Romantic School, in opposition to another "Gazette," 
advocating the Old School, and edited by Fink, in Leipsic. 
Schumann called this opposition the " Combat of David 
with the Philistines." For this reason artists and amateurs 
who contributed to his paper received the name of "Davids- 
Bundler." 

In a composition by Schumann entitled " Davids-Bundler 
Dances," which is small in volume but great in spirit and 
originality, he painted the different characters of his friends 
the "Davids-Bundler." 

Many of Schumann's compositions owe their creation to 
similar circumstances. Thus the grand Fantasy in C for the 

* If I say, "in another world," it shows a great want of sense to ask, '-where 
is this other world?" For space, which only gives a meaning to all wheres, is 
just what belongs to this world: out of it there is no where. Peace, rest, and 
happiness, are only where there is no vihere and no when. 



Robert Schumann. 255 

Piano, Op. 17, originated in the following manner :— It was 
resolved that a monument should be erected in memory of 
Beethoven ; but how obtain the necessary means? The pub- 
lishers of Beethoven's music could have solved the problem, 
as they had gathered riches by these publications, hardly 
paying Beethoven sufficient to make his living ; but, calcu- 
lating that the dead knew no necessities, they contributed 
nothing towards the monument. 

The object was taken in hand by a few poor musicians and 
amateurs, and Schumann wrote this Fantasy for the occa- 
sion, intending to call it " Obolus," signifying the smallest 
silver coin of Athens, about two cents in value. He chose 
this title because he supposed, and but too correctly, that 
this composition, although worthy of Beethoven, would not 
be rated and paid for very highly by music publishers. It 
turned out even worse than he feared, for they refused to 
publish "Obolus" at all, not even as a gift! 

Schumann then renounced the project and cast his "Obo- 
lus" aside. It was afterwards published by Breitkopf and 
Haertel under the title of "Fantasy." The performer of this 
and later compositions of Schumann will better understand 
the import and idea of these pieces by knowing their origin. 

Schumann's Carnival Scenes, which Liszt executed with 
so much success at Vienna, owe their existence to the follow- 
ing circumstance : 

These very interesting Genre-pictures, so full of life and 
spirit, of epigrammatic crooks and witty hooks, are all 
founded on the four notes — a, e flat, c, and b ; constituting 
in the German language the four letters — a, s, c, and h, — 
Asch being the name of a small town in Saxony, the Resi- 
dence of the Light of Schumann's soul ! His heart was all 
love — it is expressed in every tone of his music. This love 
was not loud and passionate, not d la Verdi, nor in the least 
like the passion of Arditi's "Bacio." It was so silent, Plato- 
nic, and pure, that his bride, the celebrated Pianiste, Clara 
Wiek, af terwards his wife, was never jealous. 

Many who performed these compositions did not discover 
that every one of the parts begins with these four notes, 
robed in entirely different fashions by time and rhythm. 



256 Robert Schumann. 

Schumann's Fantasy pieces, already very celebrated, were 
brought to still greater notice by Miss Ladlaw, a young 
English lady and a very distinguished piano player, while 
at Leipsic. These pieces, dedicated to her, are very beauti- 
ful, and not as difficult to perform as the " Carnival," which 
was written expressly for Liszt. 

Yet the finest of Schumann's small Compositions for the 
Piano are his " Children Scenes." By a half prophetic, half 
poetic intuition, and that spiritual flexibility which is particu- 
larly a quality of objective power, the Composer rendered in 
tones the temper, situations, and different moments of child- 
hood to such a degree, that a sensitive soul in listening to 
them is touched to the inmost core of the heart. Critics often 
ask, "Whence comes this uncommon effect ? what brings the 
hearer into such perfect illusion?" Nothing but the verity 
of the picture, the true representation and coloring of Na- 
ture, because the tone-poet was lost entirely in his object; 
in a word, because he found the naivete, sweet carelessness 
of real childhood. This is the reason. 

These compositions do not require much mechanical drill 
of the fingers, but a fine sensitive feeling and musical intel- 
ligence. 

The amateur who desires to become familiar with Schu- 
mann should begin with his later compositions. The first 
productions of this artist are far more difficult in melodical 
and harmonical relation in spirit and form, and calculated 
more for players like Liszt and Thalberg than amateurs ; for 
in the beginning of his musical career he expressed the deep- 
est and most original thoughts of which he was master, and 
for this very reason often gave too much. 

His whole power at that time, however, was not yet fully 
developed. He studied counterpoint, fugues, and canons, at 
a later period. Yet, with his eminent talent and intellectual 
power, he soon surpassed all his predecessors, excepting the 
old Italian masters and Handel and Bach. 

Schumann was a master in every species of mivisic. At his 
time there still existed Organists who condemned not only 
all Concert and Opera music, but all music in general which 
was not full of prolongations, suspensions, imitations, coun- 



Robert Schumann. 257 

terpoint in all its intervals, and other such things belonging 
to the fugue style ; yet even upon these Schumann imposed 
respect. 

Once a friend of Schumann praised his compositions for 
the piano to one of these men, a young and talented artist — 
Granzian, organist at Dantzic, and composer of a very good 
"Crucifixus" in the style of Capella. Granzian glanced over 
Schumann's composition and said contemptuously, " Yes," 
pretty sweet and nice melodies, but not a bit of the right art 
in all those pieces ; the smallest of Bach's preludes is worth 
more than the whole of Schumann !" 

"But have you," replied the other, "looked minutely into 
their structure? Did you perceive that the smallest part of 
these compositions is based upon a very skilful canon ?" 

"Canon!" said Granzian, "let me see and play these won- 
ders again." 

He did ; and a tear rolled from, his eye, and in tears he 
spoke : "Your Schumann is a great master ; the depth of Art 
in his works can scarcely be discerned !" 

It was so, and always should be so. The study of Art must 
never be paraded ki music. Counterpoint, fugue, and canons, 
are good servants, but should never rule as masters. 

Euler, the celebrated Professor of Mathematics, composed, 
without the least knowledge of Music, by mere calculation, 
a very long vocal fugue. This fugue on paper looks very 
nice, but executed is horrible. 

The celebrated philosopher Herbart also composed a so- 
nata for piano and violin, wherein an adagio is in f time, i.e. 
one accented part (the first) to four unaccented in the bar — 
difficult to perform and hard to enjoy. The apparent f time 
sometimes found in Operas, as in Boieldieu's Dame Blanche, 
is in reality no f time at all, but merely a combination of f 
and f time in one bar. Though mathematics is beyond ques- 
tion a very high science, yet it constitutes neither a principle 
nor a requirement for a composer of music. For this reason, 
but few, and often the best of them, have been little versed in 
this art, and often fell short in their reckonings in daily life — 
yea, being mostly in embarrassed circumstances, as Beetho- 
ven, Franz Schubert, and many others. 

viii— 17 



258 Robert Schumann. 

Schumann himself devoted and spent an inherited fortune 
for his art, and left his wife and children in no enviable cir- 
cumstances when he died. He overlooked the necessities of 
this world in experiencing the wonders of the other, the world 
of tones, to which his soul belonged and where it sought its 
home : his greatest happiness was to soar to heaven and 
revel in the etherial paradise of the tone-world. For this 
reason his greatest success was achieved in compositions of 
a free, visionary nature; whenever his imagination was lim- 
ited, his productions were not so perfect. 

This we may notice in the overtures to Byron's Manfred 
and in Genovefa, operas composed by him. In this kind of 
music he reaches neither Mozart, Beethoven, nor Mendels- 
sohn. Yet in his symphonies he excels the latter, not 
being confined to any definite limit, as is the case in the com- 
position of overtures to operas or dramas. 

The symphony, according to the old theorists, requires 
great and bold thought, free treatment of the harmony, 
strongly marked rhythms of different kinds, powerful bass 
melodies, free imitations, sometimes a theme treated as a 
fugue, sudden modulations, strong contrasts of forte and 
piano, crescendos, — which, by a melod}^ rising in expression, 
are of great effect. For all this is needed talent and capa- 
bility to combine all parts in such manner that the one does 
not destroy the other. Such a symphony is like an ode of 
Pindar; it elevates the soul to heaven, and needs the same 
inspiration, the same sublime imagination, and deep science 
of Art, as the works of this great poet. 

Such compositions are Beethoven's and Schumann's sym- 
phonies : not so Mendelssohn's, whose symphonies are rather 
more like string-quartettes, with addition of brass and wind 
instruments, than compositions for instrumental masses. 
They are too fine and their character too sweet, and should 
never be placed on a programme for a great musical festival; 
excepting, however, the so-called Scottish symphony, where- 
in the original Scottish theme is well preserved. 

Schumann's vocal compositions likewise embrace much 
grace. Some are a little broken, like Heine's poems ; but 
many are very beautiful, as " Thou, my life ! thou, my 



Robert Schumann. 259 

soul!" " Grudge me not"; "Mignon's Song," and many oth- 
ers. In compositions of this kind he approaches Beethoven 
and Schubert nearer than Mendelssohn ever did. 

Schumann's greatest and best work in vocal music is "Pa- 
radise and Peri." Before he composed this upon the poem 
of Thomas Moore he intended to have chosen " The Prophet 
of Khorassan." Concerning the latter he wrote to me : " I 
have carried this dreadful fellow in my head for nine months, 
and now you step in and compose him as opera before me. 
So I must take 'Paradise and Peri,' for 'Lalla Rookh' is 
too beautiful, and has troubled my brain too much ! I must 
pour out music for one or the other of these sublime Oriental 
poems!" 

This composition is entirely new in its form. It is neither 
oratorio nor opera, yet approaching nearer to the latter. Its 
solos and choruses are of the most exquisite beauty. The 
instrumentation is magnificent — never too much for the sing- 
er, and never enough for the hearer. Every tone produced 
by an instrument appears to be a new star on the clear blue 
sky ; even when the triangle sounds, though but a single 
tone, we look upon it as an important instrument, and con- 
sider its player an artist, whom before we thought but little 
superior to a bellows-treader. 

Thus Genius understands how to transform a triangle- 
player into an artist, who needs but little more than one note 
to be master of his entire musical science ; and thus it trans- 
forms every musician into an Apollo, and the soprano and 
alto singers into Muses, even as Napoleon I. transformed his 
whole Italian army into heroes. 



( 260 ) 
RECOGNITION. 

By John Albee. 

Led by the thread which destiny unrolls, 
Before our eyes have seen or ears have heard, 

"We feel the presage of familiar souls 
And all our being is with longing stirred. 

Partly I saw but more I felt her fair. 

Such brows of gleaming white ! and gleamed as well 
Her ear transparent half hid in her hair, 

As shines in seaweed a small rosy shell. 

"Was any hope or fear in her begun 

That raised her eyes and breathed through all her breast? 
Ages ago her soul with mine was one, 

Nor even halved by a corporeal vest. 

At last the hour was come in which I sought 
To cross her path, borne on by Fate's design; 

But, held by all the power of subtle thought, 
I only told her eyes what shone through mine. 

How soon with one quick thrilling glance she turned! 

How well she knew this late, this old embrace! 
The spirit's legend in the strange light burned, 

And all the past was easy to retrace. 

Our life's dark paths all lead one certain way; 

Love draws us on to all that is our own; 
"We think we miss so much — so oft we lay 

Our hearts in hands that leave us still alone. 

So many things just hint the real thing. 

Too long I dallied with a phantom face 
That only taught me how this soul to bring 

Nearer to thine and its appointed place. 



( 261) 
HERBART'S RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY.* 

Translated by H. Haanel. 



FIRST SECTION. 
Principles of Metaphysic and Philosophy of Nature. 



FIRST CHAPTER. 

Of Soul and Matter. 

150. The hypothesis of a soul, upon which suspicion has 
been cast by modern systems without just reason, must be 
restored; not, however, without qualifications, formerly un- 
known. The soul is a simple substance ; not only without 
parts, but without any and every multiplicity of qualities. 
Hence it is spaceless; although, by the action of thought, it 
necessarily is grouped with other beings located in space, 
and, for every moment of time, in a definite place, yet such 
place is what is perfectly simple in space, or nothing in 
space, a mathematical point. 

Note. — There are certain necessary and logically consistent fictions, 
where, in behalf of doctrines of natural philosophy, and hence of physiol- 
ogy, though not of psychology, that which is simple is considered as if 
parts could be distinguished in the same. Such fictions must also be applied 
to the soul in reference to its union with the body, without thereby attri- 
buting properties, really belonging to space, to the soul itself. Somewhat 
similar are geometrical fictions, e.g. when cmwes are viewed as consisting 
of rectilinear parts. 

151. The soul is, for the same reason, timeless. Although 
in the mind, by which it is comprehended in company with 
other substances, it must take its place in time, or rather in 
endless eternity, such eternity, after all, or any duration of 
time in general, does not furnish a predicate really inherent 
in the soul itself. 

152. The soul has no innate ideas or faculties either to re- 
ceive or to produce. It is, therefore, no tabula rasa in such a 
sense as if impressions could be made upon the same foreign 
to it ; nor is it a substance, within the meaning of Leibnitz, 

* J. F. Herbart's Complete Works, edited by G. Hartenstein. Vol. V., pp. 
108-117. 



262 HerbarVs Rational Psychology. 

endowed with unconditional spontaneity. In and of itself, 
it has neither perceptions, nor feelings, nor desires ; it knows 
nothing of itself and nothing of other objects; it is in pos- 
session of no form of intuition or thought, of no laws of voli- 
tion or action, and of no kind of predisposition to that effect 
however remote. 

153. The quality of the soul, as absolutely simple, is com- 
pletely unknown, and must remain so forever ; it is no more 
an object of rational than it is of empirical psychology. 

154. There is a relation between several simple and dis- 
similar substances which, with the help of an analogy from 
the material world, may be designated by the terms of pres- 
sure and resistance. For, as pressure is motion obstructed, 
said relation consists in this, that something would be altered 
in the simple quality of one substance by another, provided 
the first did not resist and preserve its quality against the 
perturbation. Self-preservations of this description are ex- 
clusively'the one thing which is truly going on in Nature, and 
it is this which furnishes the connection between the changes 
we observe and the changeless substances. 

155. The soul's self-preservations are (at least in part, and 
as far as we know) intuitions and simple intuitions, because 
the act of self-preservation is as simple as the substance 
which preserves itself. An infinite diversity of such acts is 
consistent therewith, for they are as diversified as are the 
perturbations. Accordingly, the variety of intuitions and 
their infinite combinations present no difficulty whatever. 
"We are not speaking here of feelings and desires. These 
appear to be a compound of something objective, on one 
hand, and, on the other, of the act of preferring or rejecting; 
which will be explained hereafter. Nor are we already 
speaking of self-consciousness, or of anything that may be 
referred to the inner sense. 

156. Opposition between soul and matter is not opposition 
of the quality of substances ; it is opposition of our mode 
of viewing them. Matter, viewed as a substance of space, 
with forces of space such as we are in the habit of conceiving 
the same, belongs neither to the sphere of that which never 
changes, nor to that which always changes, but is a mere 



HeroarVs Rational Psychology. 263 

phenomenon. Such matter exists solely as a sum of simple 
substances ; and in each of these substances something is 
really enacted, the effect of which is the phenomenon of a 
(definite) existence in space. 

Further explanation of matter consists entirely in showing 
how certain relations of space, as unavoidable modes of ob- 
servation, correspond to the inner states of substances (self- 
preservations), and how those relations, not being substances, 
are necessarily governed by these states in such a manner 
that an appearance of attraction and repulsion is produced. 
The proportion of the two latter prescribes to matter its de- 
gree of density, its elasticity, its form of crystallization by 
free condensation; in a word, its essential properties, which, 
in this sense, are absolutely dependent upon the qualities of 
simple substances. Matter never fills space with absolute 
identity of all parts (this geometrical continuum cannot be 
construed of simple parts), but it fills the same with an in- 
complete and mutual interpenetration of its contiguous sim- 
ple part. (Compare note under § 150 in regard to this contra- 
diction.) 

A given kind of matter is impenetrable for those sub- 
stances only which are net capable of altering the proportion 
of attraction and repulsion existing in the same. It can be 
penetrated by all its solvents. 

Note. — To account for the preceding and following propositions, the 
author must refer to his Metaphysic. with which his Philosophy of Nature 
is connected. 

SECOND CHAPTER. 

Of Vital Forces. 

157. Vital forces (it is best to speak of them in the plural 
number, as they could not originate or operate otherwise) do 
not exist unconditionally, and there is nothing similar to 
them in the simple quality of substances. Only a system of 
self-preservations in one and the same substance is capable 
of producing them, and they are to be considered as the inner 
culture of simple substances. They usually take their origin 
in the elements of organic bodies, the arrangement of which 
is fit to call forth systems of self-preservations in the indi- 
vidual elements. This is exhibited by the assimilation of 
nutritious matter. 



264 HerbarVs Rational PsycJiology. 

158. The peculiar vital force, once acquired, is retained by 
the element after separation from the organic body to which 
it belonged. This appears from the fact that higher organ- 
isms need those of a lower order, and that plants need the 
decomposed parts of other organic bodies for assimilation. 

Note. — All generation must be referred to the same cause without ex- 
ception, including that of lower organisms from matter apparently crude, 
i.e. from matter which does not possess an organic structure — a sign from 
which the absence of vital force cannot be inferred. To see in this fact, 
on the other hand, original vital force, is a hasty conclusion. Within the 
sphere of our experience, there occurs no matter which could be safely 
affirmed to be crude. The whole atmosphere is full of elements which have 
acquired vital force in some organic body previously, and the number of 
such elements increases in Nature incessantly. Indeed we do not know 
whether such matter is not exchanged between the astronomical bodies. 

159. All human investigation necessarily terminates in 
referring the organic forces Ho Providence, to the designs of 
which they owe their origin. No metaphysic and no expe- 
rience reaches beyond ; but every hypothesis, according to 
which lower organisms have been developed from crude mat- 
ter and higher organisms fron those of a lower order, may be 
refuted by argument. 

160. Psychology exhibits a preeminent internal culture in 
the example of the soul. The internal culture of every other 
substance, though devoid of conscious acts, is to be under- 
stood in accordance with this type, and, in connection with 
the above remark, that, where several beings constitute a 
material whole, their internal state will always produce 
a corresponding external situation. For this reason vital 
forces usually appear as moving forces ; but their motions 
cannot, for the same reason, be comprehended by chemical 
or mechanical laws. (Internal culture is set aside in consid- 
erations of the latter class.) 

The relation between psychology and physiology is here- 
with indicated : Psychology is the first, the preceding sci- 
ence ; the other, unless content with undigested experience, 
is the second ; for it has to learn what is internal culture 
from the first. A true definition of life cannot be obtained 
without the help of psychology. 

Notk. — Trevirauus' Biology (vol. 1. p. 16) may be compared, among 
others, with regard to the difficulty of defining lite. The plainest empirical 



HerbarVs Rational Psychology. 265 

sign is, probably, assimilation, and we mentioned it, therefore, first. If an 
organism should be found without this characteristic property, we might 
have reason to doubt whether it is living or not, though it should be pos- 
sessed of a soul (a case which, in general, may be conceived to be possible) . 

101. In accordance with the above, it is a matter of course 
that vital forces may be very different with respect to proper- 
ties as well as to degrees. For a system of self-preservations 
may be different in different substances ; it may appear 
changed in like substances according to the different pertur- 
bations ; finally, there may be a greater or less number of 
self-preservations corresponding to the perturbations. 

This explains the variety of what is prepared from the 
same kind of nutriment. The elements of which heart and 
nerves consist are, chemically considered, certainly not as 
widely different as they are by internal culture. 

The causal connection between different parts of the same 
living body, or between this body and the outside world, pre- 
sents no general difficulty. All causality, and in particular 
all cohesion of matter, depends upon the dissimilarity of 
elements. Consequently, the influence e.g. of nerves upon 
muscles cannot excite special surprise ; nor is there any need 
of hypotheses of electrical streams, polar forces, and the like 
empty fancies which owe their existence to the most mo- 
dern idiosyncrasies of physicists. There might be something 
true in them, and yet the most important points of the pro- 
blem remain unanswered ; and one puzzle is, after all, re- 
placed by another. 



THIRD CHAPTER. 

Of the Connection between Soul and Body. 

162. The connection between mind and matter in animals, 
and particularly in man, contains much that must be referred 
to the wisdom of Providence ; but the miracle is not where 
we are in the habit of seeking the same, because we, on the 
one hand, suppose matter, as extended in space, to be a real 
substance, and because, on the other hand, we consider the 
human mind to be an innate thinking, feeling, and volition : 
so that every term of comparison is missing. Let us seek 
behind matter, as a phenomenon of space, the simple sub- 
stances capable of internal culture and of which the pheno- 



266 HerbarVs Rational Psyeliology. 

menon is composed ; let us consider the mind as a soul with 
conscious actions (self-preservations) ; let us remember that 
self-preservations in other substances (directly in the ele- 
ments of the nervous system) must correspond to the intui- 
tions or conscious self-preservations of the soul, — and we 
shall understand that the chain of correlated self-preserva- 
tions may stretch beyond even through an entire system of 
substances which present themselves as one body, and we 
shall not any longer find it enigmatical if a series of internal 
changes reaches forward and backward from the end of the 
toe to the brain and into the soul, without succession in time 
and without motion in space, though both may occur as ac- 
companying phenomena. 

163. But now a question reappears which has hitherto 
been unjustly neglected, the question concerning the seat of 
the soul. It is known that, on physiological grounds, not a 
place, but a region (between brain and spinal cord), may be 
assigned to it with probability. Nor is there any need for a 
fixed seat, for the soul may move in a certain region without 
finding the least intimation of the fact in consciousness, and 
without leaving the least trace of it to be apprehended by 
anatomical researches ; moreover, this change of seat might 
afford a very fruitful hypothesis for the explanation of ano- 
malous facts. 

Note I. — This passage has created much astonishment. Let physiologists 
remember that their sphere of observation is confined to the limits of space, 
and they may leave it to the metaphysician to take care that no more is 
yielded to space than rightfully belongs to it. But, if they desire to share 
these cares, let them study metaphysics. 

Note II. — There is no good reason for assuming the seat of the soul to 
be precisely in the same place in animals and man. It is probably in the 
spinal cord of animals, especially of the lower order. Nor is this all. It i- 
not to be supposed that every animal has only one soul. The contrary is 
probable with regard to worms, parts of which continue life when cut off. 
There may be a great number of elements in the nervous system of the 
human body, the internal culture of which far exceeds that of the souls of 
animals of lower degree. (Besides, it should be borne in mind that signs 
of life are not yet signs of a soul. Life continues for a time without a soul 
in parts separated from their organism.) If disposed to attribute several 
souls to one human body, we should guard against distributing the mental 
faculties among them ; on the contrary, they should be entire in every one : 
next, the most perfect harmony is to be presupposed among them, and to 



Herbarfs Rational Psychology. 267 

such extent that they would appear exactly identical copies of the same 
original ; but this is improbable in the highest degree, and the whole sug- 
gestion, on that account, entirely objectionable. If, in the conflict between 
reason and passion, it sometimes would appear to man as if he was pos- 
sessed of several souls, he will find it to be a psychical phenomenon, the 
explanation of which will occur below, and which should not be confounded 
with the paradoxical opinion just mentioned. 

164. The entire nervous system of the human body is, 
therefore, servant to a single soul ; b}^ means of that it is 
planted into this body, more a burden to the same than a 
help; for, if nourishment and a convenient place is pro- 
vided, as is done in the case of complete idiots, it may vege- 
tate like a plant. (Some stories of born idiots suggest the 
idea that these, possibly, were only vegetating bodies, with- 
out souls.) 

165. The causal connection between all parts of the entire 
system, called man, being so close, it cannot appear strange 
that the mind is dependent upon the body in many ways. 
But it is certainly surprising that the nervous system, upon 
the whole, seems to have been created for the office of a ser- 
vant, and we recognize this fact the better the more we see 
how few physiological suppositions are required to explain 
mental states and actions. It is, however, only in health that 
the nervous system serves ; the same appears disobedient and 
self-willed in sickness ; and in mental diseases, especially in 
fools, the relation between soul and nerves is completely re- 
versed. This may serve as a hint not to consider the state 
of health as a mere phenomenon of Nature which could not 
well be different, but to behold in it with reverence a benefi- 
cent arrangement of Providence. 

166. It would hardly be necessary to make mention of the 
communication with the outside world afforded to the soul 
by the body and limited by it, if I did not feel obliged to re- 
mark, that the popular opinion of a general organic connec- 
tion of the entire universe should not be associated with the 
propositions here advanced, unless there is a desire to con- 
taminate conceptions perfectly heterogeneous by each other. 

Note. — There are no satisfactory reasons a priori for a universal causal 
connection, and experience ends with the faint glimmer of light exchanged 
by distant suns. 



( 268 ) 
REVISAL OF KANT'S CATEGORIES. 

By Stephen Pearl Andrews. 

The categories of quantity, quality, relation, and modali- 
ty, as developed by Immanuel Kant in his Critique on Pure 
Reason, lie so directly at the basis of the entire fabric of 
modern speculative philosophy, that any work done, either 
to render the application of these fundamental discrimina- 
tions of thought more extensive and lucid, or to remove any 
lurking error in the classification itself, could not be other- 
wise than important. I propose in this communication to 
attempt both of these objects. 

In respect to the first, the better understanding of the cate- 
gories themselves, and especially outside of or beyond the 
abstract metaphysical aspect of the subject, the carrying of 
them over from being merely categories of the understand- 
ing into some objective sphere, and proving them in that 
manner to be also categories of Universal Being, what I shall 
attempt is only what is greatly needed in respect to the 
whole domain of abstract and transcendental thinking. It 
is alike characteristic of the transcendental Metaphysicians 
and of the modern Positivists, or the school of external Sci- 
entists, that they have kept mutually so well asunder from 
each other. If the former have carried their abstract truths 
into the realm of objective science at all, it has been feebly, 
and only, as it were, for the purpose of illustration or de- 
fence ; and, if the Positivist School of investigators have 
drawn upon the Metaphysicians, as, in fact, they often have, 
and largely, for the better statement of the laws which they 
are formulating in the realm of Nature, and indeed for the 
discovery of the laws themselves, it has been for the most 
part without credit and often quite unconsciously. It will 
be the work of the thinkers of the future to narrow and to 
span this gulf which severs Philosophy from Science, and to 
demonstrate the identity of law in both spheres. The ab- 
stractions of transcendental logic must be carried forward 
and outward into the domain of Nature on the one hand ; 
and the observations, investigations and reasonings of the 
objective scientists must and will more consciously, and in 



Revised of Kant's Categories. 269 

the end gladly, come into subordination to the governing in- 
fluence of metaphysical, logical and transcendental thinking. 

At the moment, I have in view, however, nothing more than 
to point out with, as I hope, some accuracy, the actual ex- 
pression, correspondentially, of the Kantian categories in the 
domain of ordinary school grammar — language, of which 
grammar is the mere presentative science, being, as it were, 
the middle ground between the metaphysical and the physi- 
cal domain ; so that what is here accomplished in respect to 
language, may, by an ulterior application of the same anal- 
ogy, be carried forward into the outer world. 

The three categories* of quantity are Unity, Manifoldness, 
and Universality, which are no more than the same ideas 
which in respect to grammar we indicate by the terms " sin- 
gular," "plural," and "common." These discriminations are 
made to apply, in the first instance, to nouns and pronouns, 
which are the entical parts of speech; but they are carried 
over thence into a formal relation with the verb, and are 
again expressed, at least as to the singular and plural, in the 
forms of the verb as they occur in Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, and 
the other more complex languages; and, in some slight mea- 
sure, in all languages which can be said to have any gram- 
matical development. 

The verb, when analyzed and stripped of its connection 
with participial forms, is reducible entirely to the single verb 
to be, predicating existence, or serving as copula (of being or 
existence), expressing itself in the coupling of the substan- 
tive with the attributive idea. "I love," "I read," "I speak," 
signify merely, as is familiarly known, "I am loving, "I am 
reading," "I am speaking"; so that the true verbal part of 
every such expression resolves itself into the idea of being ; 
whence it is that the verb, as the core of grammar, is, at the 

* The categories, as in Seelye's translation of Schwegler's History of Phi- 
losophy, are as follows: 

Quantity. Quality. 

Totality, Reality. 

Multiplicity, Negation. 

Unity, Limitation. 

Relation. Modality. 

Substance and Inherence, Possibility and Impossibility. 

Cause and Dependence, Being and Not-Being. 

Reciprocal Action, Necessity and Accidence. 



270 Revised of Kant's Categories. 

same time, the core of logic; and its subject-matter is being 
itself, separating into the "Seyn" and "Nicht-seyn" of Hegel, 
or into the Reality (otherwise, and better, termed Affirmation) 
and the Negation of Kant's categories of quality. 

We are thus conducted to this second considerable group 
of the categories. The affirmative locution, as " I love," the 
negative locution, as " I do not love," and the interrogative 
locution with its double form, affirmative and negative, " do 
I love?" and "do I not love?" are the first distinctive and 
most important modifications of the verb, prior even to 
considerations of tense and mode, and so obvious, direct, and 
simple, that grammarians have overlooked them, and have 
not provided any technicality for the expression of these 
peculiarities. So far as affirmation and negation are con- 
cerned, it is quite obvious that we are here again in exact 
accord with the Kantian discrimination in question. It is 
not quite so obvious, but equally true, that the interrogative 
locution involves what Kant intends abstractly by the term 
"limitation." Spencer says rightly, "All distinction. is lim- 
itation." To discriminate in thought, as in any affirmation 
or negation from its opposite, is to insert mental limitation 
between them. Interrogation implies doubt, and dubitation 
is the discrimination and the holding in the balance before 
the mind of opposite propositions. " Do I love ?" stands al- 
ways in correlation with the opposite form, "do I not love ?" 
The mind balances or wavers along the line of difference 
between the two ideas ; and, in this manner, interrogation 
implies and corresponds with "limitation" as exactly as 
"Reality" with negation and "Affirmation" with negation. 

We pass, in the next place, to the categories of relation. 
These forms are double. The first, which is inherence and 
substance (substantia et accidens, or, better here, accidens et 
substantia), is denoted in grammar by the adjective and the 
substantive in their mutual relation, the former as accessory 
to the latter. It needs only to be observed that the idea of 
adjectivity must, however, be so extended as to include the 
accidents, or case-relations, of the noun substantive; that is 
to say, substantives in all other cases than in the nominative 
or vocative, which oblique cases are then denominated, in the 
technicalities of grammar, accidents, and are as really adjec- 



Revised of Kant 's Categories. 271 

tives as the words to which the name is usually restricted. 
It should be further observed that this relation is static, or 
occurs in space merely, and, as such, it has a relation to the 
modes of the verb, as will be pointed out subsequently. 

The next of these categories is that of causality and de- 
pendence (of cause or agency, and operation or effect). This 
has a similar relation to the tense of the verb, which appears 
best when the verb is in the active voice. The " causality," 
cause, or agency, is then represented by the nominative 
which names the agent, and the " dependence " by the verb 
which names the operation. The relation here is what I de- 
nominate motic, and thence it has the same relation to time, 
and so to tense, as that which the preceding static relation 
holds to space, and thence to the mode of the verb. The 
relation of the tenses of the verb to time is universally recog- 
nized. That of the static relation of substance and accidents 
to modes of the verb is more obscure, but will be brought 
into some lucidity by the following considerations. The 
oblique cases of the noun, really, as we have seen, adjective 
in character, pass readily, by contraction and condensation, 
into the class of words called adverbs. "Rarely" means, for 
example, " at rare times"; "often," at "frequent times," &c. 
All adverbs may, in this manner, be reduced to oblique cases 
of nouns ; and yet it is the function of adverbs not now to 
qualify substantives as static objects in space, but to qualify 
verbs as motic processes in time ; and so preeminently it is 
the office of the adverb to modulate or modify the mean- 
ing of the verb — a function, therefore, the same in kind as 
that which, in the more general way, and with regard to 
certain modes that can be so indicated, is fulfilled by the so- 
called mode or mood of the verb itself. Mode is merely ad- 
verb iality 'wrought into the form of the verb. It is seen, 
therefore, that the verb — now meaning the compound verb, 
including the participle — denotes "the becoming" (Werden), 
and that the mode of the verb is the transfer to this motic 
aspect of being of the first double category of relation which 
belongs primarily to mere substantive and static form of be- 
ing (Seyn). 

The third and final one of this group of categories is reci- 
procal action (the interworking between objectivity and pas- 



272 Revised of Kant's Categories. 

sivity). In this there is clearly nothing else than what we 
denominate the voice of the verb and its changing form from 
the active to the passive voice, with its double or reflected 
form in the middle or reflected voice, and its quiet subsidence 
into indifference in the so-called neuter verb. 

We come now, in time, to the categories of modality, in 
which we are simply to take up, ex professo, the considera- 
tion of that which has been previously alluded to, and par- 
tially provided for, as the modes or moods of the verb. The 
etymological identity of the names here, and throughout this 
exposition, is so striking and convincing that I have hardly 
deemed it necessary to advert to the subject, and nowhere 
more striking and convincing than in the case now before us. 
These are also double categories ; and it is in respect to this 
group that I have the twofold undertaking in hand, first, to 
point out the grammatical analogies, and, in the second place, 
to establish certain important inaccuracies in the exposition 
of this class of discriminations as made by Kant himself; 
and I shall now couple these subjects with each other, The 
first of these categories is named by Kant that of possibility 
and impossibility. It will be seen, on slight reflection, that 
what is here meant is no more than bringing forward, in 
a new and special point of view, the same dubitation, now 
appearing as the potential mode of the verb which was pre- 
viously expressed under the name of "limitation" and which 
appeared as the interrogative locution of the indicative mode. 

I do not know whether I shall go or not," the last clause 
falling into what is denominated sometimes potential and 
sometimes subjunctive modality, is very closely related to 
the interrogatives, " shall I go ?" or " shall I not go ?" This 
intimate relationship is curiously and strikingly indicated 
in the Latin language by the force of the conjunction "an," 
which serves equally to introduce an interrogatory, or a 
clause involving this subjunctive dubitation. 

But what is here said by Kant is by no means what is in- 
tended, or should be intended, by him. "Impossibility" is 
very far from being the true dubitative antithet of the term 
"possibility"; for nothing can be more certain not to happen 
than that which is impossible. What is meant, or should be 
meant, is not " what cannot be," but simply " what may not 



n 



Remsal of Kant's Categories. 273 

be 1 '; or " may happen not to come to pass." The compound 
relation is not between " may be" and " may not be" in the 
sense of "must not be," but that between "ma} r be" and "may 
happen not to be." The antithesis is expressed in the phrase 
" whether is" or "is not," or by the phrase "may be" and 
" may be not"; and not by the phrase "may be" and "may 
not be," meaning "must not be," as when in peremptorily for- 
bidding an act one says " that thing may not be," which last 
is the form that involves the idea of impossibility, and this 
notion of impossibility belongs not under this category at 
all, but, as we shall see presently, under the subsequent and 
final one relating to necessity. 

The second of this series of categories is that of " being or 
existence" (the Hegelian difference between Seyn and Da- 
seyn had not yet been insisted on) and " not-being or non- 
existence." Here again we have simply brought, in the 
performance of a new rule, a category with which we are fa-, 
miliar under the name of reality, or affirmation and negation, 
and so close is the identity that there seems to be no other 
reason for the repetition than that affirmative and negative 
modality affect subjunctive and potential forms of thought 
in this case ; whereas, under the categories of quality, it is 
the direct or indicative assertion or denial which is in ques- 
tion. 

We come in the end to the third of this series of categories, 
which is stated by Kant as necessity and accidentally. But 
attention is now to be directed to the important fact that this 
also is a false antithesis. The real accidentally, as affect- 
ing the verb, is expressed in the affirmative and negative 
alternation. A thing may be or may not be, and occurrence 
or non-occurrence may be attributed to chance; whereas 
whatsoever is necessary is excluded from all connection with 
chance or accidentalitv. The true antithesis here, that w r hich 
is meant, or should be meant, by this double category is 
"affirmative necessity" and "negative necessity" — the neces- 
sity to be or the necessity not to be (or to not be), one of 
which is just as peremptory as the other. The antithesis 
placed before us by Kant is really between the third and the 
second of this series of categories, and is not that which is 
intended. And now it will appear, on closer attention, that 

viii— 18 



274 Revised of Kant's Categories. 

negative necessity is exactly that impossibility which Kant 
has erroneously placed as the antithet of possibility. The 
true expression of the category here, therefore, is " affirma- 
tive necessity," called rightly by Kant "necessity," and " ne- 
gative necessity" synonymous with impossibility. 

The three categories of modality, as amended in accord- 
ance with these suggestions, will therefore stand thus: 

1. Possibility and possibility not (to be). 

2. Affirmative form and negative form of possibility and 

possibility not. 

3. Affirmative necessity (command, imperative mode) 

and negative necessity = impossibility (inhibition, 
prohibition, negative form of the imperative mode). 

Or, expressed verbally in the forms of the verb — 1. " May 
be" and "may be not." 2. "May be" and "may notbe' 1 ; or 
hypothetically "is" and " is not." 3. " Must be," "let it be," 
"be"; and "must not be," "let it not be," "be not." 

But affirmative and negative necessity are not confined to 
the imperative mode, or to the modal form of the verb. They 
glide in, in a very subtle manner, in connection with alter- 
native locutions in a way which is now to be pointed out. 
Positive necessity lurks in the compound alternative propo- 
sition, "either is, or is not"; that is to say, it is an affirma- 
tive necessity by excluded middle that one or the other be 
true. This predication may be made with positive certainty 
of everything, either that "it is" or "is not." The alternative 
involved is therefore affirmative necessity, and we are, as it 
toere, commanded to bide by the one or the other proposition. 
On the contrary, negative necessity is involved in the similar 
logical inhibition, or negative command, not to affirm that a 
thing "is and is not" (meaning to be understood in the same 
time and the same sense), for this involves the logical prin- 
ciple*of contradiction. Either "is" or "is not" as an unavoid- 
able alternative is therefore an expression of affirmative 
necessity; and "not (i.e. don't say) is" and "is not" is a simi- 
lar expression of negative necessity. 

These considerations lead us to another important observa- 
tion in close connection with logical accuracy and true defi- 
nition, not so directly, however, involved in the subject of 



Notes and Discussions. 275 

Kant's categories. I refer to a prevalent, if not indeed, as I 
believe, a universal inaccuracy in the use of the terms "posi- 
tive" and "negative." Nothing is perhaps better established 
in the common idea, even with those most versed in critical 
discriminations, than that these two terms, positive and ne- 
gative, are legitimately antithetical to each other, while yet 
this is not the case. The term truly antithetical to "nega- 
tion" or "negative" is "affirmation" or "affirmative." "Affirm- 
ative" and "negative" make therefore the true coupling of 
terms in this sense. The true antithet of " positive " is, on 
the contrary, "dubitative" or "doubtful." A negative propo- 
sition is just as positive as an affirmative one. We deny as 
positively as we affirm ; and that which is unpositive or non- 
positive is simply undecided or doubtful. 

There remains much to be said, in this connection, of the 
relation of the objective case to Objectivity, of the dative 
case to Teleology, etc. But, to avoid making this communi- 
cation too long, I omit these additional considerations — say- 
ing merely, in general terms, that Grammar repeats Logic 
throughout in a sense which has not heretofore been clearly 
expounded, or, so far as I am aware of, even intimated. 



NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 

As a continuation of the discussion of Trendelenburg's cri- 
tique of Hegel, Professor Vera of the University of Naples 
sends us the Avant-propos de la deuxieme edition of his 
French translation of Hegel's Logic now printing in Paris. 
The following extract he thinks will clear up some points 
controverted by Professor Morris in our January number. 

Criticism on Trendelenburg. 

Translated from the French of A. Vera, by Anna C Brackett. 

I will speak here of Trendelenburg's Logical Investigations ; and I 
speak only of his work, because the other works on this subject — such, for 
example, as that of J. S. Mill — seem to me to possess no serious or scien- 
tific importance.* I have already examined this work of Trendelenburg- 

* What is Mr. Mill's Logic? Is it formal Logic, or is it rather objective Logic? 
What name shall be given to it? Is it deserving of the name of Logic? I maintain 



276 Notes and Discussions. 

in the Preface to the second edition of my Introduction to the Philosophy 
of Hegel [p. 26 of vol. vii. J. S. Ph.], where I think that I have demonstra- 
ted that it is — I will not say an imitation and a reproduction, but a falsifi- 
cation of Hegel's Logic. I propose here to complete this demonstration. 

Those who are not strangers to the works of German philosophy wed 
know that Trendelenburg, after having adopted the meaning and the 
objective and absolute form of the Logic of Hegel, took the liberty of sub- 
stituting for the first Hegelian triad (I mean the first in the order of 
abstraction), i.e. Being, No a Being, and Becoming, another triad. Being, 
Thought, and Movement. In examining this triad, the first question which 
naturally arises in out' minds is this: "What has become of Non-Being in 
this dialectic, and how have Thought and Movement and then all the rest 
arisen without Non-Being? For it is plain that, in order to make any pro- 
gress, Non-Being is quite as necessary as Being, and indeed even more 
necessary. But the reader can take courage. Non-Being is not lost, and 
it will appear at the proper time and place. However, it will not appear 
by the front door, but by a side door and in a kind of disguise. 

After having, in the first part of* his Investigations, given a certain num- 
ber of categories, Trendelenburg seems to have discovered that all these 
categories could not have been developed without the intervention of a cer- 
tain other category. And what is this? Listen to our author: — "We have 
shown,'" he say»,t "in what precedes, the fundamental active notions (cate- 
gories) 4 But with these categories there was implicitly (stillschweigend) 
bound up another category which we ought to consider as co-operative (in 
dieser Mitwirkung). This category is Negation ( Verneinung) ." 

Thus Negation is placed here as an auxiliary of other categories. And 
what has it done? It has been active, but only implicitly. Are we in the 
sphere of Logic or in imaginary spaces? We must say that this implicit or 
silent work of the category under consideration is not its work, but a work 
which exists alone in the imagination of the author. For behold how, in 
the author's imagination, the work would be done. " While." he says, 
" Movement was producing definite formations {Gebilde), at first figures 
(Figureii) and numbers, there appeared in this work (in dieser That) a 
negative moment. There can be no figure unless there is a point of rest 
(Hemmung) in the generating movement. The unities of different num- 
bers are posited as distinguishing them from each other. Each of them is 

that the only reply possible to these questions is that it is a confused, undigested, and 
superficial collection from all the spheres ot knowledge; which is only saying that it 
is the exact opposite of Logic, and the exact opposite of what it should be. 

t Negation.— The chapter entitled "Negation " is placed in the two great classes 
of categories designated by Trendelenburg by the names Heal and Modal, and he gives 
us in these categories only the following remark as to the notion of Negation: — " We 
have already spoken of the fundamental active categories. With these categories there 
was implicitly bound up a notion which we ought to consider. This notion is Nega- 
tion." Truly this is a very unceremonious way of disposiug of it. But such bravado 
we know is often put on to conceal desperate situations. 

% They are logically active in the sense that, according to our author, they are de- 
veloped from the category of Movement. 



Notes and Discussions. 277 

the work of au activity which at the same time collects and separates them 
(einer zusammenfassenden unci zugleich ausschliessenden TMtigkeit). 
When determinate results come forth from general movement, and when 
categories spring from this action and from these results, determination 
appears as a limitation and limitation as a negation. Each determination 
in itself implies the negation of that which is not itself. Thus negation acts, 
like an element of the thing; not like an original (ursprungliches) element, 
but like a consequence ; not as an end, but as a means ; it acts in a positive 
term, but not as an independent element (ein selbstandiges fir sich)." 

Thus speaks Trendelenburg; and we reply that the more he says, the 
more he condemns his own theory. To begin with: Could there be any- 
thing more strange than for one to say to us, "Behold a category without 
which nothing would have resulted from Movement, but which, although 
Movement by its aid brought forth other categories, such as Number and 
its unities, kept itself aloof and worked only in secret"? We ask again 
whether there was ever made a stranger statement than this. It requires 
no great effort to see that into the development of the categories this cate- 
gory directly enters; that it works in quite as plain and active a manner as 
Movement itself, and asserts itself quite as loudly, nay, even more loudly, 
since without it we should have only an indeterminate Movement, even if 
we had any Movement at all. But why does Trendelenburg introduce this 
category here in so arbitrary and singular a manner, and why, at the same 
time that he assures us that it appears here, is he nevertheless obliged to 
make it interpose in advance, although he makes it interpose in dumb show ? 
It is because this category is neither more nor less than ^on-Being. 

But notice the skill of the author: We know that Trendelenburg does 
not wish to have any Non-Being. He desires neither the name nor the thing. 
And it is precisely for this reason that he calls by the name of Negation 
what in reality is nothing else than Non-Being. But why will he not have 
Non-Being? Because if he had admitted Non-Being he would have been 
obliged to place it side by side with Being, and thus all the scaffolding for 
his logic would have been demolished. But since truth is stronger than 
skill, he has been obliged to have recourse to the negative element — to an 
element which in its highest abstraction is exactly Non-Being. Trendelen- 
burg then brings in Non-Being ; but instead of calling it Non-Being he calls 
it Negation ; instead of putting it in its proper place as the opposite of 
Being, he makes it enter— one cannot imagine why — at the end of a series 
of categories which presuppose it, and which could have had no existence 
without its co-operation. After this, of what consequence is the silent and 
passive work which Trendelenburg attributes to Negation, and which 
should commence in the train of Movement, for the reason, he says, that 
Movement must have certain points of rest in order that it may be deter- 
mined? To' begin with, it is not correct to say that Negation comes in in 
the train of Movement either silently or loudly. Movement itself is Move- 
ment only because it is neither Being nor Thought (the other two terms of 
Trendelenburg's triad), and this means that Movement presupposes Non- 
Being. And not alone Movement, but Thought itself, presupposes Non- 
Being, in that it is Thought only because it is that which Being is not. 



278 Notes and Discussions. 

And now how can any one say that this Non-Being - , without which neither 
Movement nor Thought would have any existence, and by whose aid they 
are determined, is a passive element, and that it is not an original element? 
Doubtlessly Non-Being is a passive and derived element, in comparison 
with higher determinations like Matter, just as Matter is passive in compa- 
rison with the more concrete spheres of Nature. This is an elementary 
point. But Non-Being — or, if it must be so called, Negation — is not pas- 
sive and derived in the sense in which the followers of Trendelenburg must 
understand it, i.e. in the sense that Non-Being is less active, less essential, 
and less original, than Being. Being and Non-Being are equally active and 
equally passive. They are equally passive in that abstract and indetermi- 
nate Being; or Being-in-itself is worth no more than Non-Being ; equally 
abstract and indeterminate as Non-Being by itself. They are equally active 
in that they both enter on equal terms into the constitution and develop- 
ment of more concrete terms, such as Movement or Thought. Movement 
is not Movement through Being and because it contains Being, but also 
through Non-Being and because Non-Being negates Being, and in negating 
Being- makes Movement possible. In other words, Movement is, and is 
Movement quite as much because of Non-Being as because of Being, and 
because it contains them both, and, in containing them both, constitutes 
their unity. 

Thus this passivity and this silent and subordinate work of Negation are 
not reasonable. They have no more reason and are no more founded on 
reason than Negation itself as Trendelenburg conceives it, or than that triad 
which he substitutes for the Hegelian triad, and on which he tries to rear 
the scaffolding of his Logic. 



Immortality* 

Mr. Editor : 

The speculative interest which attaches to the discussion of the purely 
rational grounds of a belief in immortality is not, it seems to me, shared in 
any great degree by the practical interests of life ; for, apart from the fact 
that immortality has been brought to light by other than speculative ways 
for the satisfaction of mens ethical and emotional needs, that sort of im- 
mortality, be it said with respect, which the transcendentalist makes proba- 
ble, is not of a nature to work powerfully upon the imagination either for 
good or bad. This consideration emboldens me to offer a few strictures 
upon the reasoning and presuppositions of Mr. Kroeger. and upon your 
own remarks, Mr. Editor, in the last number* of the Journal. 

The "practical proof which Mr. Kroeger adduces, and which seems to 
be a very peculiar modification of the Kantian doctrine, amounts apparently 
to this: — First, that the moral impulse or conscience could not exist unless 
it were an absolute imperative. Now all impulses considered in themselves 
are unconditioned, pure impulse, and in that sense absolute; but if it h 
meant, as seems, that the moral impulse differs in demanding all or noth- 
ing, the proof is called for, as we are certainly conscious of degrees of moral 
inclination: second, "that no individual can attain this complete and abso- 

* A continuation of the discussion in the Julv number of last Year. — Ed. 



Notes and Discussions. 279 

lute subjection except at the completion of an infinite time"; which certain- 
ly means That no individual ever can. 

As a conclusion from these astonishing premises, we learn that we can 
not act morally at all unless we " postulate" for ourselves an infinite con- 
tinuance of our individual lives ! It might be hard to show how the postu- 
late helps so hard a case, especially so impractical a postulate as that about 
what shall happen at the end of an endless time. Mr. Kroeger, it seems to 
to me, instead of proving our immortality, has, if anything, proven our im- 
mortal immorality. 

But the conscience does not make conditions — if it did it were no con- 
science — but simply acts in different individuals with different energy 
against the non-moral forces when they exceed their bounds. 

As to the disturbance in the moral world consequent upon his or any 
one's removal from it, how can he think it would be greater than that con- 
sequent upon his advent? The physical universe would be as likely to blow 
up on the accession of a pebble to its matter as to collapse if one were 
removed ; but it does not seem to me that anything can be added to or 
taken from the moral world, which is not the world of time, but of absolute 
relations. 

I agree with you, Mr. Editor, as to the inadequacy as a first principle of 
every negative unity however obtained ; I also concur in the definition of 
Individual by which you describe it as involving its own negative unity — 
that is, I conceive — as a self-related process. The individual therefore is 
immortal because self-determined, but then the demon sh and urn comes to 
be that there exists a number of such entities. In your own words, "in the 
act of self-consciousness one realizes his identity wit pure universality or 
Ego in general," and all particulars are annulled y which we are distin- 
guished as Tom, Dick, and Harry; so that it is a surrcntition of the point 
in issue to say that Tom or Dick is conscious of him. self, meaning to imply 
a discrimination of persons in the supreme reflective act. Empirically we 
are conscious of ourselves and much besides, but the speculative self- 
consciousness is not a determination of Tom, Dick, and Harry. 

All unconscious individuals, you say, are transparent determinations of 
the absolute, and annulled as easily as determined, but conscious individu- 
als have their oavii negative unity within them and alone remove their own 
limitations, &c. Again, I ask for the legitimation of the plural. Is it given 
in self-consciousness? It seems not. Is it reached by the dialectic? This 
seems to be the bearing of the theory of cognition by recognition and the 
doctrine of monads which you adduce here as illustrating the nature of the 
individual. But the monad remains an hypothesis ; no legitimate dialectic 
can compass it ; for there is no logical transition from a moment of compre- 
hension to a self-developing monad, the only dialectical movement being 
by synthesis back to the negative unity of the comprehension. The monad 
is not logical, Leibnitz himself ascribing it to arbitrary creation and sub- 
jecting it to the possibilities of an equally super-rational destruction, while 
speaking of it as an effulguration of the Deity for lack of a deductive con- 
ception. Monadology differs from subjective Monism only by an hypothe- 
sis. Again, the self-realization of the Absolute cannot be inadequate, as 



280 JVotes and Discussions. 

you seem to say, because there is not virtually another or many other Abso- 
lutes in which to mirror itself ; but, if speculative thought has any truth, 
the Absolute realizes itself by annulling its particular determinations, and 
the realization of this in our own consciousness is the moral task of life. 
Again, the stand-point of the Idea differs, it seems to me, from that of the 
Comprehension [Begrijf] in embracing, not the negative unity of moments 
in either position of the absolute reason, but their vital unity in the three 
positions of the reason — its thesis, externality, and return to self. All that 
you declare of the individual's sovereignty of the conditions of time and 
space — that is, of law — is true, but not of the particular. 

We are free only in our conscious identity with the Absolute — that is, 
free to do what is perfectly reasonable and good. There is no other free- 
dom than that of reason, as Spinoza has shown ; and I think, too, that I 
speak ex sententia magistri when I say that the only immortality he ac- 
corded the particular individual is that which inheres in all res singulares 
sub specie ceternitatis concept ai. B. C. Smith. 

University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan., August, 1873. 



Freedom of the Will. 

From Kirksville, Missouri, where one of the State Normal Schools is 
located, and where some of the most vigorous thinking on Educational Psy- 
chology is done, Mr. O. P. D. writes regarding the Freedom of the "Will : 
" I so frequently hear men, who pretend to be philosophers, speak of a 
'■port of the cause,' when really I could gain no idea of what they intended 
to convey. Again, frequently it is said (with reference to willing) that 
were there no motive there would be no volition ; whence they conclude 
that the motive is at least a part of the cause of willing or volition.'''' 

The constraint of the will through motives is frequently urged by people 
who are caught in the meshes of fatalistic thinking. And all thinking is 
fatalistic so long as it thinks only in the form of determination through oth- 
ers and cannot think under the form of self-determination. The reduction 
of the illusion of motive-constraint may perhaps be accomplished best as 
follows : 

(a) A motive is an idea in the mind — it is a possibility seen as desirable. 

(6) As such, it must be formed by the activity of thought ; thought must 
be its cause. It must be formed by the process of abstraction ; for unless 
one abstracts from things as they are, he cannot form an idea of things as 
he would desire to have them. 

(c) An abstraction (i.e. a motive) from what is really existent cannot 
constrain or control an existent (i.e. the will, for example) ; for that would 
be to say that a somewhat (a motive or abstraction — something which is 
desired to be) can act before it exists, or that a possibility can cause a 
reality to change. 

(d) The causal relation of this is as follows : The Ego as thinking activ- 
ity causes or originates a motive. Now if the motive could be said to cause 
or originate a volition, the volition would in fact be caused by the thinking 
activity through the motive as agent, and not by the motive as an indepen- 
dent entity. 



^Yotes and Discussions. 281 

Briefly stated : a motive has its being in the totality which thinks it, and 
does not possess reality until the mind gives it to it by realizing it through 
volition. The motive arises through the thinking, which abstracts from 
some reality its potentiality and thus makes a motive. If the motive be- 
comes actualized it ceases to be a motive. To say that a motive constrains 
the will, is to hold that a non-existent constrains an existent. Bat to say 
that the motive constrains the will, and to acknowledge that the motive is 
caused by the mind, is to make the mind in volition causa sui in very deed. 
For mind initiates the act, which reflects back upon itself though the motive. 
Unless the archetype of the act exists for consciousness in the form of mo- 
tive, the act, though spontaneous, is not for the Ego, and may be called 
involuntary, like the action of the heart, lungs, &c. 

At the outset one must settle whether all things are externally con- 
strained or determined. Finding that self-determination is the highest fact, 
he then can approach the subject of the Will. He must next investigate the 
ideas of Efficient and Final Causes. A confusion of these two species of 
causes prevents a solution. Efficient cause is the first principle of fatalism, 
Final cause is the first principle of freedom. 

The excellent reflections on this topic in "Hazard on the Will" (published 
by the Appletons) are to be recommended to those interested. (See Book 
Notices in this Journal, vol. iv. p. 95.) Editor. 



We have received the following communication regarding 
Professor Vera's recent review of Strauss's book, noticed in 
our last number : 

JI. le redacteur du J. S. P. — Ce qu'un grand horame aaffirme a Pegard des 
langues est encore plus vrai a l'egard des philosophies ; celui qui n'en 
commit qu'une ne'n connait aucune. C*est le cas du professeur Vera, qui, 
regardant, pour des raisons suffisantes, sans doute, la philosophic hegelienne 
comme la seule vraie philosophic,* et, par consequent, la religion chretienne 
eomme la religion absolue.f vient d'entreprendre la refutation oil plut6t la 
demolition de l'ouvrage recent du docteur Strauss, L , a?icienne et la nou- 
velle Foi.% 

Quoi que Ton pense des principes ou des resultats philosophiques du doc- 
teur Strauss, personne ne s'avisera probablement de nier que ce ne soit un 
ecrivain excellent, un logicien profond, un erudit des premiers, et comme 
il nest pas tenu d'accepter les principes de Hegel, l'attaque de M. Vera ne 

* Si la verite est une verite determinee, la philosophie aussi doit etre une philoso- 
pbie determinee, et, s'il n'y a qu'une verite, il n'y a ni ne peut y avoir qu'une philo- 
sophie. Et cette philosophie, je ne me lasserai pas de le repeter, et, autant qu'il est 
en moi, de le demontrer, est la philosophie hegelienne. (P. 2.) 

t Nous pretentions que la religion chretienne est la religion absolue en tant que 
religion, et cela parceque, <P une part, c'est l'unite tie toutes les religions, etque, 
d'autre part, son principe est celui qui se rapproche le plus de la philosophic, de telle 
fa<;ou que la christianisme est virtuellement la philosophie. (P. To.) 

X Strauss, U Ancienne et la Xouvelle Foi. Par A. Vera, Professeur de la Philoso- 
phie a l'Universite de Naples. Naples: Detken et Rocholl, Place du Plebiscite, 1873. 



282 Notes and Discussions. 

saurait etre que tres-faible, ce qu'elle est en effet. Bien que uous ne soyons 
pas de ceux qui refusent a la religion toute validite, — elle a, bien entendu, 
sa valeur et sa place a elle, dans les cceurs de ceux qui ne peuvent monter 
a un point de vue philosophique — cependant, nous affirmons que la reli- 
gion, conime telle, ne saurait jamais 6tre absolue, ni virtuellement ni autre- 
ment, et qu'a mesui-e qu'elle devient philosophique, c'est-a-dire, qu'elle se 
rapproche de Fabsolu, elle cesse d'etre religion et devient philosophic 
Aussi, sur ce point, nous somnies parfaitement d'accord avec Strauss, qui, 
selon nous, ne fait que combattre, dans l'interet de la pliilosophie, une reli- 
gion devenue obstructive au progres et, partant, plus qu'inutile. Cela ne 
veut pas dire que nous approuvions la pliilosophie par laquelle Strauss 
desire remplacer le christianisme ; tant s'en taut. Enlin nous prendrons la 
liberte de rappeler a la memoire de M. Vera une chose qu'il parait avoir 
oubliee, savoir, qu'attaquer un ouvrage avec des armes tirees de Farsenal 
d'un systeme que l'auteur de cet ouvrage nereconnait pas, n'est pas du tout 
dans l'esprit de la pliilosophie de hegelienne dont il se declare le disciple 
devoue. 

St. Louis, le 10 Avril, 1874. Thomas Davidson. 



Is Inorganic Matter Dynamical? 

Mr. Editor: 

I read in your journal, and have read before, that both Kant and Hegel 
define inorganic nature as dynamical ; it is simply mathematical. .Dynam- 
ics appear in organic nature as well. Is not our idea of power from our 
own consciousness in organic nature? If not, that of horse power certainly 
is derived from organic matter. 

In inorganic nature, form or structure (e.g. crystallization), composi- 
tion (witness the law of definite proportions), motion, force in its devel- 
opment and in its distribution, harmony, and so forth, are all regulated 
mathematically. Organic nature breaks loose from these conditions and 
limits, and is emphatically ideological. Here form, composition, motion, 
and the outgoing of force, is according to the end in view. In both depart- 
ments the properties of matter are the same. In each, these properties are 
made to work out all that ran be educed from them under their respective 
limits. Take, for instance, the properties of elasticity and of muscular con- 
tractility. The former is cohesion with a to and fro movement among the 
cohering molecules according to mathematical law ; the latter is cohesion 
with a to and fro movement of the cohering molecules according to volition. 
The highest attainment of the first is perhaps the production of musical 
sounds. The last stops not here; but while it loses nothing that it has 
attained in inorganic nature, strives through all inferior animated nature 
till it reaches its final goal in the human voice, viz. in the production of 
articulate language. Thus, with the greatest economy of means, the same 
apparatus that distributes the air to the blood to enable it to avail itself in 
the most perfect manner of its chemical properties, so modifies itself in this 
very act of distribution as to compel the mechanical properties of the same 
substance into subservience to the highest and latest function which mind 
performs in connection with matter. 



Notes and Discussions. 283 

***** my question is this : is not the order of inorganic 
nature strictly a mathematical order, with the same life or spiritual activity- 
underlying it as that in which we live and move and have our being? 

Rockport, Mass., Dec. 4, 1873. Bknj. Haskell. 

Mr. Editor: Can Matter Produce Mind f 

Another absurdity wherein materialistic philosophers choose to involve 
themselves is this : they first sneer at the notion that thought could have 
produced any matter, no matter how fine, aye, though as fine as the finest 
gases or the thinnest ether; and the next moment we find them engaged in 
discovering some sublimated sort of matter, phosphorus if you please or 
anything else, the gases whereof finally culminate in thought. You cannot 
take hold of any Popular Science work now-a-days without meeting notices 
of attempts that have been made to get at this final link whereby matter is 
changed into mind, and other notices abusing all who dare to talk of mind's 
producing matter. As if either statement were not equally absurd and fool- 
ish ! It is generally pretty laughable to watch a dog trying to catch his 
tail; but for men who acknowledge that they have passed beyond the 
gorilla stage of life, and that they have consequently lost their tails alto- 
gether, to attempt the same problem is a little more than ridiculous. No 
sensible mind lays claim to the power of producing matter, and hence 
no matter, whether fish-like or otherwise, should be so recklessly bold as 
to assert its power to produce mind. That it may produce idiocy is clearly 
illustrated every day, and will be disputed by no attentive reader of popu- 
lar books on physical science. 

Can Thought make Granite? — A remark very characteristic of the aver 
age Englishman's notion and comprehension of the nature and object of 
Speculative Philosophy was recently noticed in the Journal in an article by 
Dr. J. Hutchinson Stirling. A great English thinker put to Dr. Stirling, 
as a final extinguisher, this question: " Can thought make granite?" 

With this simple question the materialistic Briton must have thought 
he had crushed the idealistic Professor beyond all chance of recovering; 
nor is it to be supposed that the supreme idiocy of asking such a question 
ever entered the interrogator's mind, since he doubtless belonged to the 
same school of English philosophers that daily propound to themselves 
seriously another question just as absurd, "How does beefsteak make 
thought?" and use their microscopes and other ingenious instruments in 
attempts to solve that question, to the infinite amusement of those who per- 
ceive the absurdity. 

The materialistic Englishman — and for that matter we may add Ameri- 
can of the same notable school — knock their idealistic opponent down by 
asking an absurd question ; and then go and ask themselves another ques- 
tion, its exact counterpart in idiocy, and knock their own heads against it, 
as if it were not from its absurdity equally unsolvable. 

Meanwhile the idealist is content to confess that thought cannot make 
granite ; though he also would like to claim that neither beefsteak nor the 
accompanying onions can ever make thought. 

St. Louis, March 25, 1874. A. E. Kroeger. 



284: Notes and Discussions. 

flduza ps7. 

By Austin Biekbower. 

Not all that is, is in full being now ; 

Its other half has been, its future half will be ; 
All time is needed for a thing's full self, 

Which is not, but becomes, and passes by degree. 

One point of time, no more than point of space, 
Holds all things in its compass, or holds one; 

Things are extended both in date and place, 

And what is here is there, and what is now 's anon. 

Nought is, nought was, and nought will ever be, — 
All time summed up alone must give the thing; 

To have been, be, and be -about -to -be, 's 
Its way, — past, present, future, in its form of being. 

What is is wanting where it joins the past, 
And needs a cause to make its being full; 

'Tis wanting when it joins the future too, 
And straight demands th' effect to be full fact at all. 



*e' 



Things are not, but are changing, and the whole, 
(If whole there be where things are infinite,) 

No more than single part can be at once, 

But all 's becoming, and is never self-complete. 

They are not, but are passing; not to be 's 

Their nature, or remain in stable state, but go- 
ing, unbecoming and becoming, passing hence 
And hither coming in perpetual flow. 

Each point with all in some connection stands; 

Twofold it reaches into space and time, 
And through the worlds and through eternity expands, 

Exists not in itself, but with the whole combined. 

Attraction holds it to the sun and stars, 

Causality to other days and years, 
(Whose force still in it makes it partly past,) 

And in its latent germs exists in future years. 

One mighty whole through space and time dispersed, 
With every wheres its parts and nowheres all, 

The universe in two dimensions spread, 
Attraction and causality uniting them a whole. 



Book Notices. 285 



BOOK NOTICES. 

Forelasning om Nytian och Befog enheten af Allmanna Forelasningar, hallen i 
Warbergs Hogtidssal den 7 April 1S72 ; jemte Orundschemat till ett Philophiskt 
System i popular framstallning af Emanuel Hvalgren. Roping: J. F. Sat berg, 
1873. 

The author of the above paper, Emanuel Hualgren of Warberg, Sweden, 
expects to publish a large work unfolding completely his "Theocosniic Sys- 
tem,'' an outline of which is before us. Some idea of the system may be 
arrived at by studying the articulation of the categories in the following 

A. The Idea-Spirit (Godhead) [Creator]. 

B. Spirit (the Universe) [or the Creation]. 

i. Elementary Spirit (material life). 

a. Barotic Spirit (gravity). 

b. Photeric Spirit (light). 

II. Biological Spirit (spiritual life). 

a. Erotic Spirit (love). 

b. Eleutheric Spirit (freedom). 

The antithesis of weight (centripetal force) and light (centrifugal force), 
or of contraction and expansion, reappears continually in Nature. Its ana- 
logue in the spiritual world is the antithesis of love and freedom. Love is 
centripetal and freedom centrifugal. The aesthetic and religious phases of 
Spirit are centripetal; the practical (i.e. legal and political) and theoretical 
phases of Spirit are centrifugal. Arranged in the order from highest to 
lowest, the phases of Spirit (mental and material) are as follows: (a) Lo- 
gical (reason), (b) Noematological (wisdom), (c) Thelematological (will), 
(d) Themistiological (justice), (e) Pathiological (feeling), (/) Psycholo- 
gical (powers of the soul), (g) Phantasiological (imagination), (h) Harmo- 
niological (order), (i) Phenomenical (illuminating), (J) Chaotic (non- 
being), (k) Genetic (formation), (I) Chemical (becoming), (m) Crasiotic 
(heat), (n) Ontologic (being), (o) Chromatic (colors), (j)) Stereotic 
(thing). 

Die Neue Zeit. Freie Hefte fur vereinte Hoherbildung tier Wissenschaft und 
des Lebens. Herausgegeben von Dr. Hermann Freiherrn von Leonliardi. 
Prague : F. Tempsky. Publisher. 

We have received the first three numbers of the third volume of this 
most interesting publication, the general scope and tendency of which we 
have described in a previous number of the journal. "We then promised at 
some future time to give our readers a sketch of the philosophical system 
of Professor Leonhardi, based iipon that of Krause, but various reasons 
have compelled the postponement of such a work. It would require, in- 
deed, not an essay, but a good sized book, to convey an idea of the various 
features of the Krausc-philosophy in its constant intermingling with the 
affairs of human life. Though a part of it claims to be pure Science of 
Knowledge — a term, by the bye, which Krause has revived from Fichte's 
terminology — it almost everywhere overleaps the barriers of theoretical 
knowledge and enters those of practical life, in which it proposes to effect 
a thorough reformation. Hence all the agitations of our present social 
condition, from the woman movement down to the Kindergarten system, 



286 Book Notices. 

are, in one way or another, considered in their general relation to the 
development of humanity by the philosophers of the Krause school, and 
treated in the JSfeue Zeit with constant reference to their latest phases. 

The numbers before us open with a lengthy article by Dr. H. Ahrens, 
Professor in Leipzig, upon "The False Paths in the last German Intellectual 
Development and the Necessary Reforms in Our System of Education," an 
article as timely for the Germans, in their new and unsettled political and 
social condition, as it is instructive for foreigners. Then follows an arti- 
cle, by Professor Leonhardi himself, on the "Science of Rights and the Ne- 
cessity of Establishing a System of International Law for all the Nations 
of the Earth." The Professor demonstrates pointedly how the Geneva 
Convention has shown the possibility of such an international judicial tri- 
bunal, and that there is really nothing impracticable in its execution. 

Dr. Hohfeld of Dresden furnishes a contribution on the importance of 
Julius Froebel for the present age, while Dr. Roeder discusses the relation 
of Morality and Law, and Dr. Stamm writes on the relation between Labor 
and Capital. Two excellent articles are devoted to showing up the absur- 
dity of the Darwinian theory ; but probably the best essay in the volume, 
of a purely philosophical character, is the last one, on Space, by Dr. Leon- 
hardi. There are, however, so many good things in this periodical that it 
is impossible to notice them all in a mere sketch. We can cordially recom- 
mend the Neue Zeit to all students of philosophy as well as to all those who 
desire to keep themselves posted on the advancement of social, political, 
religious and intellectual life in Germany. a. e. k. 

Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 1S70-72. 
Madison, Wis. : 1872. 

The contents of this volume are, first, an able Report by the President, 
Dr. J. AY. Iloyt, embracing a lucid statement of the basis on which the 
Academy is organized, its general plan, and a report of what has been 
accomplished. The system of classification adopted by the President in 
order to tabulate his results is a notably excellent one, and deserves the 
careful study of all who are attempting to organize an institution of the 
kind. 

Under the department of Social and Political Sciences we observe an able 
paper on "The Relation of Labor and Capital," from the pen of Dr. Chapin 
of Beloit College. Under the department of the Natural Sciences are found 
ten able articles. The volume is a credit to the intelligence and scientific 
interest, in Wisconsin. 

The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientilic Method. By W. 
Stanley Jevons, M.A., F.R.S., Fellow of University College. London; Profes- 
sor of Logic and Political Economy in the Owens College, Manchester. In 
two volumes. London: MacMillan & Co. (38 Bleecker street, New York.) 
For sale by Gray, Baker <fc Co., St. Louis. Price $*J. 

This work discusses (1) Formal Logic, deductive and inductive; (2) 
Number, Variety, and Probability ; (3) Methods of Measurement, includ- 
ing the law of error; (4) Inductive Investigation; (5) Generalization, 
Analogy, and Classification. It is a work of great labor, great erudition, 
and of a life of experience in the concrete fields of scientific research. It 
impresses us as a Titanic upheaval through the heterogeneous strata of for- 



Book Notices. 287 

mal logic, mathematics, physics, sociology, and modern skeptical and evo- 
lutional theories toward the universal and necessary truth of an exhaustive 
theory. It deserves careful study at the hands of thinkers. 

Transactions of the Albany Institute^ vol. vii. Albany: J. Munsell, 1872. 

This volume contains, besides other papers, a remarkable article on the 
"Theory and Calculus of Operations," by John Paterson. His attempt to 
reach a cosmical philosophy deserves to be sketched in full, and we hope 
at some future time to do it justice. His subtle calculations are based on 
the hypothesis of radiating molecular centres of force, whence arise static 
forces or solid matter from their mutual limitation. Each reaction leads to 
a higher, more complete and concrete synthesis. In his "Digression First" 
he polemicizes against the prevalent method of conducting experimental 
philosophy on statical principles alone. "Under this method," he says, 
''everything, every phenomenon is weighed, measured, and classified; the 
dead results being strung on a thread of antecedents and consequents, like 
night invariably followed by day, with habit for interpreter of the connec- 
tion. A true method of theorizing has scarcely dawned upon us. Any- 
thing like an anvailable notion of Cause is positively repudiated. The 
shrine of the Protean god Force attracts devotees few and far between, 
and is glanced at askance by those who profess to be wise in their day. 
The fundamental conceptions of space and time are stifled in darkness that 
cannot be felt; are, in fact, believed to be ci'eated by each customer at his 
own convenience, for his own use, and to perish as soon as attention to 
their content ceases. * * * * 

"It would appear that the notion of matter, unless transformed into that 
of force, is a stale, flat, and unprofitable conception, ending in non-entity. 
Abstract from matter its qualities, and nothing is left but the conception of 
an inconceivable subject of inhesion * * . Matter or substance 

is a perpetual or ceaseless Energy, in the original Aristotelic signification 
of the word, constantly acting and reacting throughout the domains of the 
physical world * * .It may be said that the amount of 

force in the universe is constant. Equilibrated forces are constantly de- 
stroyed and constantly replaced in maintaining and restoring equilibrium 
when interrupted. Substances of diflerent density, that is, forces of differ- 
'ent intensity, come to interference and force is liberated. The liberated 
forces circulate through trajectories peculiar each to its genus and the spe- 
cifying conditions it encounters, and finally all return to their source and 
keep the cosmical measure full. Everything resolves into force and force 
re-dissolves, but dies at last." 

The Philosophy of History in France and Germany. By Robert Flint (University 
of St. Andrews). Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1874. 

Our author treats the philosophic histories of France in fourteen chap- 
ters. I. Bodin and Cartesianism ; II. Bishop Bossuet; HI. Montesquieu; 
IV. Turgot; V.Voltaire; VI. Condorcet; VII. The Theocratic School; 
VIII. Saint-Simon and Fourier; IX. Cousin and Joufl'roy; X. Guizot; 
XL The Socialistic School — Buchez and Leroux; XII. Auguste Comte ; 
XIII. The Democratic School — Michelet and Quinet ; XIV. The Democra- 
tic School — DeTocqueville, Odysse-Barot, DeFerron, and Laurent. 



288 Book Notices. 

The German contribution to the Philosophy of History is treated under 
the following heads: I. The Progress of Historiography in Germany; II. 
Rise of Historical Philosophy in Germany — Leibnitz, Iselin, Wegelin, 
Schlozer, Von Miiller ; III. Leasing; IV. Herder; V. Kant and Schiller; 
VI. Fichte; VII. Schelling; VIII. Schelling's School— Stutzmann, Stef- 
fens, and Gorres; IX. Frederick Schlegel ; X. Krause; XI. Hegel; XII. 
Schelling, Bunsen, and Lasaulx; XIII. Lazarus, Lotze, and Hermann. 

Such a table of contents could not but introduce a work of the intensest 
interest. Even a bungler would bring together from such sources scraps 
of the greatest value. But the author is no bungler, even if we deny to him 
an altogether adequate critical acumen or ability to dissolve the several 
stand-points into one central one. 

He uses the following language regarding Hegel : "It is very possible, 
after honest study of Hegel, to doubt altogether the legitimacy of his me- 
thod, to disapprove of many of his conclusions, to be conscious of great 
defects, to be often unable to make out what he means ; but quite impossi- 
ble to deny him an extraordinary wealth of thoughts which can be under- 
stood, and which are of the most profound and precious kind. It i> a 
simple matter of duty to recommend students of philosophy to make them- 
selves acquainted with Hegel; for, however anti-Hegelian they may find 
reason to become, he, if they would ever form for themselves a philosophy 
worthy of the name, is the thinker of the century from whom they will 
require to borrow most ; and in philosopny no less than in the special sci- 
ences much borrowing is indispensable even to the most original — a truth 
which Hegel well knew, and fully acted on, borrowing the thoughts of 
every man whom he believed to have had much thought in him, and by 
re-thinking making them always his own, and often truer and completer 
than they were before." 

The author promises a continuation of the work treating the philoso- 
phies of history that have appeared in Italy and England. 

Final Cause as Principle of Cognition and Principle in Nature. By Professor G. 
8. Morris, M.A.. Michigan University 

This paper is a contribution read before the Victoria Institute, or Phi- 
losophical Society of Great Britain, May 18th, 187-4. Professor Morris, 
translator of Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, is well known as an able 
defender of the views of Trendelenburg. When a philosopher reads the 
words "Final Cause,'' he thinks of Aristotle and " his philosophic fami- 
ly," prominent in which sits Trendelenburg. As the doctrines of Fatalism 
and Free-will are founded respectively on the idea of efficient cause and 
that of final cause, there is no investigation in pure thought of more impor- 
tance, morally, socially, or politically, than this of the nature and grasp of 
Final Cause. 

The Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy. By Benj. Paul Blood, of 
Amsterdam, N. Y. 

Any one desiring to read this remarkable essay, which professes to 
unfold the theory of the true method of insight, can obtain a copy by writ- 
ing to the above address. In our "Notes and Discussions" we propose to 
allude to the ideas of Mr. Blood at some future time. 



THE JOURNAL 



O F 



SPECULATIYE PHILOSOPHY. 



Vol. VIIT. October, 1874r. No. 4=. 

INTRODUCTION TO SPECULATIVE LOGIC AND 

PHILOSOPHY. 

By A. Vera. 

CHAPTER V. 

§ 1. Idea in itself and without itself. 

If idea be the essence and the ultimate reason of things, it 
necessarily follows that it exists in itself and without itself, 
or, to use another expression, that it exists in thought and 
out of thought in Nature, and that it does not exist out of 
itself and in Nature as it exists in itself and in thought. 
However startling and irrational this proposition may ap- 
pear at first sight, it will be perceived, when properly con- 
sidered, that it must be admitted under any supposition, and 
from whatever point of view we look upon the subject; nay, 
that we admit it in many instances, only we admit it, in 
another form, unconsciously and in a desultory and unscien- 
tific manner. 

The popular sayings that God is the principle of the 
World, but that he is not in the World; or that idea and its 
realization, theory and practice, though connected by a close 
relation, are distinct and cannot become identical; or that 
the artist perceives idea, but is unable to embody it in all 
its beauty and perfection ; or that Nature and the visible 
world are but images and symbols of the invisible, — all these 
and similar propositions are but various expressions of one 
viii— 19 



290 Idea in itself and without itself. 

and the same principle, namely, that idea is in itself and 
without itself in the things of which it is the idea, and that 
it is not in the things as it is in itself. For when we say that 
God is the principle of the World, but that he is not in the 
World, we do not mean to say that there is no consubstan- 
tial connection between God and the World — there is no 
proposition more untenable and more absurd than this — but 
that God, who is the principle of the World, exists in a two- 
fold manner, namely, in himself and without himself, and 
that he does not exist in the latter as he existsan the former 
manner. So likewise in saying that the visible world — the 
world of phenomena — is only the image of the invisible one, 
we mean that the latter manifests itself but imperfectly 
through the former, as sound or any outward sign is una- 
ble to represent thought in the clearness and fulness of its 
meaning, though both sound and thought are linked together 
in the same subject. 

What language is to ideas in general, the external world 
is to Art. Languages as well as works of Art are symbols, 
imperfect and obscure adumbrations of ideas. They embody 
ideas, or, to speak more correctly, ideas embody themselves 
in them ; but as the body both manifests and veils the soul, 
so ideas, by giving themselves an external existence, must 
need create Nature, or bring themselves in contact with Na- 
ture, and consequently dim the purity and transparency of 
thought, and conceal the unity, the infiniteness and immuta- 
bility of this essence. For Nature is time, space, and mo- 
tion ; it is the field of perpetual change, of ever-recurring 
renovation and destruction ; where everything is not only 
dissimilar to another but to itself at each moment of its ex- 
istence; where beings and forces form mere aggregates, and 
are merely juxta-posited, without being internally connect- 
ed, and conscious either of themselves or of the relation in 
which they stand to each other. 

Therefore the Being that either creates Nature, or uses 
Nature as a means, or stands in any relation to Nature, must 
needs partake of it, and adapt itself to its laws and constitu- 
tion. Thus what in itself is one and undivided must become 
plural and divided, what is immutable and eternal must 
become mutable and temporal, and what is beneficial and 



Idea in itself and, without itself. 291 

harmonious must be made to appear hurtful and inharmoni- 
ous. This is the relation in which ideas and Nature stand to 
each other, a relation involving a contradiction, an affirma- 
tion, and a negation. 

It may be said of God that he affirms Nature inasmuch as 
he is the principle of it, and that he denies Nature inasmuch 
as Nature cannot contain him. And so it is with thought 
and ideas — God, Thought, and Idea, being identical in the 
highest sense of the words. Consequently we stand, like 
God, to Nature in a similar relation. For inasmuch as we 
are thinking beings, and bear an ideal world within us, Na- 
ture cannot contain us ; so that we also affirm Nature — we 
live in it, we adapt it to our wants and purposes, and asso- 
ciate it with all our works and enterprises, and all our enjoy- 
ments and sufferings ; and then we destroy it as a useless 
and unmeaning instrument, and as a hindrance to the 
furtherance of other purposes and the attainment of other 
enjoyments. The inward and inextinguishable yearning 
after something better, absolute perfection ; the feeling of 
discontent and weariness which is inseparable from all hu- 
man things, however accomplished they may be ; progress, 
reforms, revolution — history, in one word — is the work of the 
ideal world that is in thought, and which the external world 
is unable to express and realize. The working of thought is 
unceasing ; nay, it is the very life and essence of History ; 
and the appearing and disappearing of individuals, nations, 
and civilization, are but its actual results — the only results 
visible to the external eye, and to the inattentive mind to 
which the latent causes are hidden — by whose incessant and 
combined action events are brought to maturity. 

This alternate movement of life and death, of renovation 
and destruction, of adaptation of Nature to the requirements 
of Spirit, and of annihilation of Nature, is the work of ideas 
and thought, which, like the double-edged weapon of the 
Greek hero, inflicts the wound and heals it ; showing thereby 
their infinite and irresistible power, before which Nature 
is something like nought — an instrument they create and 
annihilate at will and according to their purposes. This 
power may be seen at work incessantly, and in every part of 
time and space ; but never is it more visible, or surrounded 



292 Idea in itself and loithout itself. 

with more tremendous attributes, than in those great histo- 
rical changes and revolutions when the times are full for 
humanity to advance another step in the consciousness of 
itself and in the path of truth. Then we see the world 
thrown into, as it were, a state of disruption and confusion. 
We see beauty becoming ugliness, wisdom folly, truth un- 
truth, patriotism and heroism sterile and powerless virtues, 
and institutions upon which had been bestowed the thought 
and labor of centuries and generations, and which in former 
times had proved a source of strength, of glory and triumph, 
now turning into a source of weakness, defeat, and humili- 
ation. 

The middle ages are looked upon as times of barbarism. 
And it must be owned that when compared with the Greek 
and Roman civilizations, with their extraordinary men and 
achievements, and the imperishable monuments raised by 
them — monuments from which we derive, even now, the high- 
est instruction and the purest enjoyment, nay, which will 
live as long as there will be a human mind to admire and 
revere them ; — when compared, I say, with these high civili- 
zations, the middle ages are rightly called times of darkness 
and barbarism. For if we consider them separately and apart 
from the general movement of history, — if we consider their 
institutions, their languages, and the moral, social and intel- 
lectual state of their societies, even taking Christianity into 
account, we are perplexed to see what humanity had gained 
by the overthrow of the ancient world. And yet the middle 
ages prevailed against ancient civilization, and they pre- 
vailed because the new spirit of the world was with them. 
As life begets death and death life, as the organic being 
must fall into a state of inorganism and corruption to bring- 
forth a new organic being, so ancient civilizations — their 
forms, their creeds and institutions — what in other times 
they held as true and holy, what had inspired their bards 
with immortal strains and had been the main-spring of great 
actions — all must be broken and dissolved. 

The middle ages are the new-born infant whose birth is 
death to its parents ; they are the plant and the flower that 
break to a new life through the rotten seed and feed upon 
rotten matter. The darkness that surrounds them is the 



Idea in itself and without itself. 



9 v. 



darkness that precedes the new morning light, and the rate 
of violence, instability and confusion into which soci ies 
were thrown at that period, is the chaotic state that must 
precede all new birth and formation; it was the crucible h. 
which were melted the elements of the old world, to be 
mixed afresh and purified by the breath of the new Spirit. 
And so it is, under various forms and in various degrees, 
everywhere, in all points of time and space, and at all peri- 
ods of history. Everywhere there is life and everywhere 
there is' death, everywhere there is darkness and everywhere 
there is light springing out of it. What is the darkness and 
light of to-day is the light and darkness of the morrow, and 
what is or is not to-day shall not or shall be to-morrow. 
This perpetual change in Nature, these evolutions and invo- 
lutions of forms and beings, this passage from being into 
nought and from nought into being, visibly demonstrates 
both that idea — the Absolute and the Eternal — is in Nature 
and that it is not in it. For idea alone can work the change 
either in destroying or in producing the being, and it can only 
work it from its being itself impervious to all change, dimi- 
nution, and destruction. Whence it follows also that the 
Absolute exists and can be apprehended but imperfectly in 
Nature, and that it is as pure thought only that it exists, 
and through pure thought that it can be apprehended in the 
reality and fulness of its essence. 

In the above remarks, if properly applied, will be found 
the elucidation of objections directed against Idealism from 
a sensualistic point of view. It is said, on the one hand, that 
ideas do not possess any positive, but a merely negative, value 
and existence, and, on the other, that they cannot be recon- 
ciled with the infinite variety of beings, institutions, creeds, 
and opinions. How is it, it is objected, that if there be one 
and the same idea for one and the same class of beings, ideas 
vary with individuals, times, and external conditions ; that 
Europeans and Chinese, for instance, form different notions 
of beauty ; or that different peoples take different views of 
right, of justice, and religion; nay, that individuals belong- 
ing to the same community and nursed in the same doctrines 
hold conflicting opinions upon one and the same subject? 



294 Idea in itself and without itself. 

With regard to the first objection, it may be easily per- 
ceived that it is founded on the assumption that the only 
positive (which here means real) beings are those that fall 
under the senses, which is the sensualistic assumption, and, 
consequently, that ideas possess no reality — the meaning we 
must attach here to the word negative. In fact, if we start 
from the principle that nothing save that which falls under 
the senses posseses reality, then idea would possess no positive 
existence. But to assume that ideas do not possess any posi- 
tive and objective reality because we cannot picture them to 
our imagination, or embody them in any external form, is to 
assume that the only real beings, forces, or principles, are 
those that can be apprehended through the senses. For the 
argument does not only apply to ideas, but to all principles 
in general, as there is no principle, whatever be its nature, its 
object, and the notion we form of it, that can be brought un- 
der the senses and imagination ; indeed, it is contradictory 
to the very nature of principle to be sensibly representable. 
For as soon as a principle falls within the limits of experi- 
ence it is no longer a principle. And we may observe, by the 
way, that it is on this erroneous view and assumption that 
not only the sensualistic, but the Kantian doctrine also, is 
founded ; the real and main purport of Kant's theory being 
that we are not rationally allowed to affirm metaphysical 
and transcendental realities, because we do not meet in the 
field of experience with any being or phenomenon which we 
can bring these transcendental realities to coincide with. 
Thus, for instance, according to Kant's argument, we cannot 
demonstrate the existence of God, or of the Perfect Being, 
because the objective reality of the Perfect Being is not con- 
tained in the notion of the Perfect Being ; which means that 
the notion or the Idea of the Perfect Being possesses no ob- 
jective or actual reality. As the precedent inquiries show 
the untenableness of this and similar positions, I will not 
enter again into a lengthened discussion of the question, but 
I will confine myself to a few remarks. 

The sensualistic as well as the Kantian doctrine starts, as 
we have just observed, from the assumption that the only 
realities are those that come within the reach of the senses 



Idea in itself and without itself. 295 

and imagination ; from which the inference is drawn, that, 
as ideas can be neither felt nor imagined, ideas possess no 
reality. But then the question arises as to what ideas may 
be ; and how it is, if ideas are equal to nought, that the ex- 
ternal world cannot be apprehended save through ideas, and 
that there is no being which our mind, or any mind we may 
possibly conceive, can apprehend without ideas. Must we 
say that the phenomenal world which is apprehended 
through ideas is the highest, nay, the only reality, whilst 
ideas by the aid of which the latter is known would be des- 
titute of all reality ? But it would seem that it is the con- 
trary we ought to admit. For to ideas, through which not 
only a single individual being, but all similar beings are, and 
can possibly be, thought and known, must need appertain a 
higher nature than these beings themselves. Besides, it will 
be acknowledged, under any supposition, that phenomena 
are manifestations and effects of principles, and that these 
principles must be possessed of a higher reality than their 
effects. Now, principles, whatever they may be — let them 
be called God, or the Absolute, or the Infinite — cannot be 
made the object of sensible perception any better than ideas, 
as we have demonstrated. In fact, the highest reality is the 
invisible reality, which is the highest for the very reason 
that it does not fall under the senses and the conditions to 
which all external reality is necessarily submitted. There- 
fore, to hold that ideas possess no reality because this reality 
is not proved by experience, is to hold that the Infinite does 
not exist because it does not exist like the Finite, or because 
the reality of the former is not the reality of the latter. 

As to the other objection, drawn from the variety of opin- 
ions, customs, and institutions, as well as the products of 
Nature, it will be observed that the difference does not aftect 
idea, but its external manifestation. Viewed in itself and in 
its essential existence, idea is one and the same, and is not 
liable to either alteration or division. It is only as Idea in 
Nature that it assumes various forms, and that its unity ap- 
pears as broken and as a plurality. And yet even variety 
reveals the unity and the infiniteness of ideas. For the 
numberless individual forms and the ever-changing scene of 
external objects show the inexhaustible activity of this 



296 Idea in itself and without itself. 

principle, whilst the invariableness and community of their 
essential character show its unity. It is one and the same 
thought that stamps Nature with different marks, it is one 
and the same mind that manifests itself in the variety of its 
works. The difference between Chinese and European, or 
between ancient and modern Art, does not reach this princi- 
ple. For were they sprung from different sources there 
would be no relation between them, nor could they be com- 
pared ; nay, one of them could not even come within the same 
denomination. And so it is with laws, institutions, and 
languages. This difference begins with their external mani- 
festation — the temporary, limited, and local forms in which 
they are necessarily embodied. As one and the same sun 
produces different effects according to different latitudes and 
to the different elements with which it is combined — as one 
and the same object multiplies with the points from which it 
is viewed and the eyes that view it — or as one and the same 
voice awakens different feelings in different ears and differ- 
ent hearts, — so likewise, and in a still much higher sense, 
idea, in its contact with Nature, splits itself into infinite'forms 
and numberless beings.* 

The most striking illustration of this self-diversifying power 
of ideas is supplied by language* Of all external manifesta- 
tions of ideas, language is one of the most perfect. Its affin- 
ity to thought is so intimate, that some have been led not 
only to confound them, but to see in language the origin of 
thought.f In fact, language is the most immediate offspring 
of the ideal world ; it is the echo which externally reverber- 
ates the internal sound and breath of Spirit. In other stages 
of its existence Nature is dumb and silent, and where it 
possesses a voice it is a voice whose meaning is obscure, un- 
defined, and destitute of all connection and unity. Thus it 

* "Et erat Lux vera qum illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum." 
Now this light which embraces man, though one and the same light, does not 
illumine him in the same manner, but adapts itself to space and time and to local 
requirements. Even within the pale of Christianity, this inward and eternal 
light is externally broken up into fragments, sects, and denominations, which 
represent as many aspects of one and the same thing. 

f Hence the superficial theories of CondUlac and M. de Bonald, summed up in 
the well-known propositions, " Penser c'est parler" (to think is to speak), and 
ii La science est icn langage bien-fait" (Science is a well-made language). 



Idea in itself and without itself 297 

may be truthfully said that we are the organs of Nature, and 
that Nature speaks through us a language superior to its 
own essence, attaining thereby, even externally, a perfection 
which it does not possess in itself. The roaring of thunder 
has no meaning for the thunder, or for Nature in general, so 
long as it has not reached the region of Spirit, and has been 
marked with an external sign conveying the internal signifi- 
cation of the phenomenon. Likewise the roaring of thunder, 
the whistling of wind, the flashing of lightning, &c, are 
scattered and isolated sounds that find their connection and 
unity in the voice of Spirit. Even the animal — the brute 
creation — though possessing a soul and a voice to give utter- 
ance to its internal wants, is refused a language ; and this, 
because the animal, though the product of the same principle 
as man, does not bear it within itself, and consequently does 
not perceive it or feel a desire for it. Being thus debarred 
from the contemplation of the ideal world, the animal is 
invariably kept within the bounds of Nature and of a limited 
number of physical wants, for the manifestation of which a 
limited number of inarticulate sounds are required ; and as 
Nature is by its very constitution the field of uniformity, of 
unchanging, ever-recurring and self-repeating wants, the ani- 
mal's wants as well as the /node of expressing them must be 
invariable. But the being that possesses thought — and the 
thought of the Eternal and the Absolute, and of the Unity 
of the Universe — must also possess a means adequate to the 
outward expression of this internal world. And this is lan- 
guage. The highest and final object of language is not to 
associate men ; for language is like ideas, the double-edged 
weapon which associates and dissociates men, engenders 
both peace and war, and creates and overthrows societies ; 
but to give utterance to the internal world of thought, or to 
express ideas, and, by expressing ideas, to unite and disunite 
men, to found and overthrow societies, according to the re- 
quirements of truth. Now, as language is the most imme- 
diate and direct product of thought, it must imitate thought; 
or if it must imitate Nature, it is Nature as it reflects itself 
in thought. Indeed thought transfers at will, and according 
to its own perceptions and purposes, the internal world into 
the external and the external into the internal ; for in this 



298 Idea in itself and without itself. 

double sense language is metaphorical. But the creative 
power of thought in language is mainly shown by this, that 
words cannot represent things except through thought ; that 
they possess no other meaning, or being, but that which 
thought imparts to them ; that it is from thought they derive 
their beauty, their power, and duration ; and that as soon as 
thought retires from them they become a dead letter, a soul- 
less body.* Thus the same sounds which in former times 
had delighted the ear, had stirred the soul, and been the 
incentive to mighty deeds, lie now unmeaning and powerless ; 
or, if they still retain some of their former substance, it is 
because they enshrined thought, or because we ourselves 
infuse into them a breath of the living Spirit. Here we can 
see the common source of all languages, as well as the 
cause of their diversity. 

In fact, if thought is the soul of the word, the internal 
verbum by which the external is created, thought is the prin- 
ciple of all languages, and it is because languages all flow 
from this same source that thought is able to understand 
them all. Therefore, the unity of languages does not lie in 
any primordial language, but in the unity of thought and 
ideas expressed by words. Whatever explanation may be 
contrived of the origin of languages, it is towards this 
common centre that all suppositions and inquiries must ulti- 
mately converge. For, either man has taught himself, or he 
has been taught to speak. In the first hypothesis, language 
is evidently the product of man's thought and ideas. If, on 
the contrary, language was communicated to him, in what- 
ever manner the communication was made it must be admit- 
ted that the being that made the communication thought 
what he communicated, and that the communication was the 

* The less language is representative, the more correct, faithful, and appropri- 
ate to the free and full manifestation of thought. Even in poetry, figures and 
images must be made subservient to ideas. They must not be the literal, but 
the ideal, transfer of a natural phenomenon to the thing we want to describe; 
so much so, that, if a literal construction were put upon the words, the intention 
of the poet would be perverted or become unintelligible. If, for instance, we 
were to take literally the words flowncc;, xuva, dpyuiponoo^, & c ., Greek god- 
desses, nymphs, and heroes, would become unseemly or ludicrous objects. The 
letter of the word must, then, be idealized, i.e. must be diverted from its natural 
sense to that of the ideas the poet intends to express through it. 



Idea in itself and without itself. 299 

product of thought and in conformity with it ; and, on the 
other hand, that the being which received the communication 
possessed thought, and thought consubstantial with that of 
the being by which the communication was transmitted, and 
that he spoke also in consequence of that thought and in 
conformity with it. In other words, he who teaches and he 
who is taught must possess a common nature; and the 
higher the teaching, the more intimate and inseparable the 
connection must be ; so that, if I teach either to speak or to 
think, my teaching would be of no avail; in fact, it would 
be no teaching unless the being I teach possesses the very 
same faculty of thinking and speaking I use in teaching 
him. But if he possess this faculty, my thought and his 
thought, my and his vocal organs, now from one and the same 
principle, from one and the same essence. This is the idea 
of language — an idea in which the internal and the external, 
thought within and thought without itself, are intimately and 
immediately connected. For to speak is neither thought with- 
out voice, nor voice without thought, but thought and voice 
penetrating each other and forming an indivisible whole. As 
the body is the external form and instrument of the soul, so 
the word is the external form and instrument of thought. Thus 
viewed, language appears as the highest form of external ex- 
istence, as the highest degree to which Nature can attain. The 
other powers and functions of the body are limited in time and 
space, and mainly intended for the satisfaction of phj^sical ap- 
petites or inferior wants of the soul ; whilst language, being in 
immediate intercourse with thought and issuing directly from 
it, strives to become identical with it ; and as thought is abso- 
lute$ eternal, and immortal, so there is in language an inward 
effort, a longing after perfection, eternity, and immortality. 
Yet it is a longing which shall never reach its object. For 
the word being a sound and an image of thought, and not 
thought itself, i.e. falling within the sphere of Nature, must, 
like all images, be limited, perishable, and deceptive. Hence 
the dispersion of thought in various languages. Hence the 
necessary transformation and dissolution of languages. 
Hence also the errors of which language is the source. 

In fact, as there are two elements involved in the too?'d, 
the internal and the external, the idea and the sound ; and as 



300 Idea in itself and without itself. 

the sound, which is imperfect and finite, cannot render idea, 
which is infinite, in the unity and fulness of its essence, — it 
follows that thought creates another sound, other vocal forms 
and combinations, to express this very same idea ; which 
forms and combinations, being themselves necessarily lim- 
ited, prove inadequate for the expression of thought, and call, 
in their turn, for other forms, which fall under the same con- 
ditions as the former, and so forth. Now, if we contrast the 
various languages, we shall see that, for the very reason that 
they are limited and external embodiments of thought, each 
of them must represent a different aspect of one and the same 
thought, different relations and combinations of one and the 
same idea ; so that what one expresses, the others will be 
unable to express, or to express in the same manner, with 
the same degree of clearness, accuracy, and perfection — a fact 
we experience in translating. For not only is a translation 
always dissimilar or inferior to the original, although both 
the original and the translation spring from one and the same 
thought, but it frequently happens that both the original and 
the translation are utterly inadequate to the rendering of 
thought ; so that here we can discern, and feel, as it were, 
thought in itself in the unity and perfection of its existence, 
and thought without itself in the limited form in which it is 
externally clothed. This finiteness of languages, which, by 
stamping limited forms with ideas and by concentrating 
thought in a limited number of sounds, is, on the one hand, 
the source of their power and beauty, and, on the other, 
the source of their transformation and decay. For, in con- 
sequence of their inability to embrace and express the infi- 
niteness of thought, they must either modify and transform 
themselves, or, if they do not possess the necessary vitality 
and aptitude to embody the new developments and wants of 
Spirit, they must disappear and make room for other and 
more appropriate organs of truth.* For this same reason 

* Ut silvifi foliis pronos mutantur in annos, 
Prima cadunt : ita verborum vetus intent ;etas ; 

. mortalia facta peribunt, 
Nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax. — Hor. Ars Poet. 

As a general criterion, it may be laid down that as soon as a language ceases 
to be spoken it ceases to be a living being— the representative of the living Spirit. 
Yet a language, although inwardly dead, may continue to be spoken by keeping 



Idea in itself and without itself. 301 

language is a source of error and delusion, and may become 
a hindrance to the progress of science and truth. Language 
is fallacious, not only when false representations are embo- 
died in words, but even when words — single or combined — 
express right notions and real objects. For from the fact of 
the words being limited and disconnected symbols of things, 
they represent a part of a thing instead of the whole thing, 

up a kind of factitious and galvanic life, within which the soul of the present and 
living spirit of the world does not beat. The Eastern languages, the Chinese, 
and the Hindoostanee, may, in this sense, be considered as dead, though still 
spoken by millions and hundreds of millions of human beings. Indeed, in the 
eyes of History, they are more dead to Science and civilization than Latin and 
Greek, which we inhale, as it were, from the cradle with our native tongue. 
They are to Greek and Latin what Oriental history — i.e. Philosophy, Science, 
Art, Law — is to Greek and Roman history in general. The study of Oriental 
languages possesses, like any other study, its usefulness and importance, and 
may also be required for political or commercial purposes. But it could never 
be a substitute for Latin and Greek, and it would be irrational and anti-historical 
to make Chinese and Hindoostanee the basis of classical education in the room 
of Greek and Latin. 

In considering the history and present state of the Eastern nations, it must be 
borne in mind, that, though still in existence, they in reality belong to the past, 
to the ancient world, where they were far outshone by the two great luminaries 
of that period. Since that time, whilst the European and Occidental nations, 
inheriting the spirit of their forefathers, have been righting the battle of civiliza- 
tion, promoting the common interests, and raising the common level of mankind, 
the Oriental nations have stood immovable, and kept aloof from the movement 
of history. So they are, in substance, what they were two thousand years since, 
and as, two thousand years since, we have seen a handful of Europeans conquer 
them and hold them in subjection. Therefore, their language and institutions 
possess only an interest for the antiquarian and the historian. 

With regard to the Greek and Roman languages, it is a remarkable fact that 
they continued to be written and spoken long after the Greek and Roman na- 
tionalities had ceased to exist. This is owing to Christianity having adopted the 
two languages as organs of its doctrines and teaching. The unsettled state of 
the world in the middle ages, the absence of any newly constituted nationality 
and language, coupled with the high degree of perfection to which the Greek 
and Latin languages had been brought, made it necessary for the Church to 
adopt them. And as, on the other hand, the Church, especially the Latin, was 
at that time the representative of the new Spirit — a spirit embodied in a Code 
upon which the nationalities then in a state of formation were to be founded — 
and. moreover, as Science and Law were so intertwined with Theology as to be 
inseparable from it— the very fact of the Church having adopted them must have 
prolonged their existence. For the Church constituted, in some manner, their 
centre and nationality. Then came the Renaissance, which infused again into 
them some of their native vigor. However, as the new nationalities, and the 
languages sprung up with them, were developing themselves, assuming a fixed 
and individual shape, and attaining maturity, Greek and Latin became more and 



302 Idea in itself and without itself. 

or as divided and plural what is united and one*; so that the 
mind, which is guided by the literal and conventional signi- 
fication of the word, considers as a whole what is only a 
part,t or as divided what is united.;}: 

more dead languages. The Reformation, the popular use of the Bible. Science 
asserting its independence of the Church and using the vulgar tongue, the daily 
press, the necessity of a more rapid intercourse between men and nations, new 
discoveries and wants, physical and mental habits requiring new signs and forms 
of expression, — all these causes must have made and are making ancient lan- 
guages more and more foreign to our mental and social requirements, however 
beautiful — nay, even superior, in some respects, to those by which they have 
been superseded — ancient languages may be. 

* Or vice versa. 

+ For instance, the expressions, "My hand presses upon the table,'* "That 
body adheres to that other body," "The bun attracts the Earth," when taken 
literally and according to the usual representation of the meaning involved in 
them, convey to the mind the notion that by representing to ourselves the hand 
pressing upon the table, or body A adhering to body B, or the Sun attracting the 
Earth, we conceive and embrace the whole phenomenon or law\ whilst we per- 
ceive only a part of it. For in the phenomena of pressure, adhesion, and attrac- 
tion, not only the hand presses but is pressed upon, not only A adheres to B but 
is adhered to by B, not only the Sun attracts but is attracted also by the "Earth; 
so that the right perception of the whole object is not in the perception of either 
term considered singly and apart from the other, but in the perception of both 
considered singly as well as in their mutual connection — the two conditions of 
pressure, adherence, &c, and without which such phenomena could not take 
place. " The whole is made up of parts'" is another expression producing a 
similar error, as it makes one believe that in possessing the parts one possesses 
the whole, whilst, in reality, the whole and the parts are different, though in- 
separable. Similar expressions can be easily found. 

t The natural tendency of language is to separate what is united, thereby 
preventing the mind from perceiving the internal unity of things. Words, being 
images and external representations of thought, resolve themselves into sensa- 
tions; and as the natural tendency of sensation is to divide and to circumscribe, 
in time and space, both the subject that receives the impression and the object 
that produces it. so it is with words. Thus, unless the mind — disregarding the 
word, so to speak, and going beyond it — directs its attention towards the ob- 
jective and invisible connection of things, the Universe will appear as made up 
of fragments, of units or atoms. For instance, the words luminous, opaque. Sun, 
Earth, motion, rest, cause, effect, general, individual, trill, imagination, reason, 
taken singly, or even united in propositions, such as "The Sun is luminous. " 
"The Earth is opaque," "The cause is not the effect." "The effect is not the 
cause," "The general is not the individual," &.C.. offer to the mind a series of 
merely opposite or disconnected beings. It has been already observed by Con- 
dillac that language is an analytical process — "/' moj/oi d' analyse. In reality, if 
we consider the word — the external sign of thought — in itself, language is nei- 
ther an analytical nor a synthetical process, as it is thought that divides and 
unites. But, from the very fact that the word is a limited and particular repre- 



Idea in itself and without itself. 303 

But what chiefly brings about the decline and dissolution 
of languages is that a time arrives when not only they are 
unable to accomplish the object for which they are insti- 
tuted, namely, to express truth and to spread and promote 
science, but they become the most stubborn opponents of 
truth and science. The language of a nation is part and 
parcel of its being. The long usage and elaboration of a 
language bring this result, that, whilst they evolve all their 
native vitality and beauty, and create a more perfect instru- 
ment for mental operations, they gradually petrify the mind 
by encompassing it within fixed sounds and forms, so that 
the words and thought become identified, and local, limited 
and imperfect truth becomes the universal and absolute 
truth. The god of the Romans was not the invisible and 
eternal God, but the Jupiter optimus maartmus, seated in 
all his majesty and glory on the Capitolium, surrounded 
with the Dii majores and all the attributes and formulae 
which constituted the Roman religion. So likewise morality, 
justice, glory, eloquence, were for the Roman inseparable 
from the words and sounds that expressed them and the na- 
tional meaning affixed to them, nor would any other sound 
move his heart or captivate his ear. Consequently, when by 
the inward and incessant working of thought a new Spirit 
breathes upon the world, and new wants and aspirations 
issue forth from the depths of the mind, the old sounds and 
formulae in which are embodied the institutions, the wisdom 
and life of a nation stand up in formidable array to oppose 
them as false, pernicious, and impious. And it may happen 
that the higher the civilization of a people, the more obsti- 
nate the opposition. For glory and power beget pride and 
stubbornness, harden the heart, and blind the mind, and lead 
gradually a nation to the belief that she is the representative 
of the absolute truth. In this delusion mainly lies the cause 
of her decline and dissolution. For in this contest between 
the limited and mortal spirit of a nation and the spirit of the 
world — which is the Spirit and Providence of God — the for- 



sentation of ideas, it has a tendency towards distinguishing and analyzing; so 
that the mind, from inadvertency or from an inadequate philosophical training, 
misled by the word, is apt to overlook the connection of things. 



304 Idea in itself and without itself. 

iner must either follow or succumb. It must either become 
the apostle of the new doctrine and the organ of the new 
truth, or, if it be unable to utter the new sounds and spell the 
new words, it must withdraw from the contest and yield up 
the arena to a more youthful, more vigorous, and God- 
inspired race. 

Since language, which is the most direct and faithful exter- 
nal manifestation of thought, is unable to render it in all the 
depth and fulness of its meaning, it follows that thought can 
only be apprehended by thought and idea by idea ; and that 
words, images, representations, whatever they may be, are 
but imperfect and deceptive adumbrations of truth. If, there- 
fore, in listening to words, the mind, instead of fixing its 
perceptive power upon their objective and internal value, let 
itself be captivated by the sound and by its outward form 
and beauty, it will mistake the shadow for the reality, the 
image for the thing, and the perishable for the eternal being. 
For the Absolute is unutterable, and there is no language 
that can adequately express it save the internal and silent 
language of thought, a language which is the reverse of the 
former, and that can only be spoken by him who is able to 
forget his native and mortal and learn the universal and im- 
mortal tongue through the contemplation of ideas as per- 
ceived in the reality of their nature and existence, i.e. in their 
unity and as a system. For this is speculation, or specula- 
tive thought, in the strict Hegelian sense; as speculative 
thought is not the thought which apprehends abstract ideas, 
ideas in their isolated, partial, and fragmentary existence, 
but thought that apprehends ideas as they are in the abso- 
lute idea, which is absolute for the very reason that it is a 
systematic unity without which nothing can either rationally 
be thought or exist. 



( 305 ) 



KANT'S CRITICISM OF PURE REASON. 

AX INTERPRETATION AND CRITICISM, 
By Simon S. Laurie. 



TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS. 



FIRST PART. 

TRANSCENDENTAL ESTHETIC. 



[The object of transcendental aesthetic is to prove the possi- 
bility of a priori synthetic judgments in the region of sensi- 
ble perception. That is to say, in the mere act of sensibly 
perceiving objects I affirm with respect to each a certain 
predicate which I do not obtain from the sensible object or 
presentat itself, and which is therefore synthetic or ampli- 
ative, and which also is necessary and therefore d priori. I 
say therefore d priori, because, although Kant slips into 
the use of d priori as the contrary of d posteriori, the prima- 
ry ground of his notion of d priori is the feeling (so to call it) 
of "Necessity" in a judgment. We must in estimating his 
argument, however, give him the credit of both conceptions 
as contained in the notion d priori — the conception of Ne- 
cessity and the conception of " not d posteriori" that is to 
say, " not-given-in-Sense." 

Kant's motive in this investigation (the word "motive" is 
used of course in an intellectual and not a moral significa- 
tion) is to explain the necessary and synthetic character of 
mathematical judgments, which he assumes he has already 
shown to be d priori synthetic. I think he failed to do this, 
and consequently the motive disappears so far as I, the stu- 
dent, am concerned. The necessity or (apriority) has been 
explained as analytic, and it is of no importance to me that 
the predicates Space and Time should be found to be given 
not in sense but as d priori (that is, here, native and neces- 
sary) Forms of sensible Intuition or Perception.] 

TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS. 
1. Transcendental JEsthetic. 

Knowledge is immediately related to objects through Per- 
ception (or Intuition), Anschauung . 

But the object must be given or presented to us, and this 
it can be only by affecting our mind (Gemiith) in a certain 
way. 

viii— 20 



306 Interpretation of 

The capacity for so obtaining percepts ( Vorstellungen) or 
presentats is called Sensibility (Sinnlichkeif). 

Through Sensibility therefore it is that percepts (Anschau- 
ungen) are delivered to us. 

[Here Anschauungen seems to mean substantially the 
same as Vorstellungen.'] 

These Anschauungen are thought by the Versta?id, which 
thus gives us Begriffe (Concepts or Notions). All Begriffe 
ultimately rest on Anschauungen (percepts). 

The action or effect of the object on the Sensibility we call 
Sensation (Empfindung). The perception which reaches the 
Sensibility through Sensation is called empirical, and the 
object of this Sensation is called Phenomenon {Erscheinung). 

[It is a pity thus to limit the "empirical" to outer sensible 
perception. 

The above passage, though introducing the Kritikof Sense 
in a free and almost easy-going way, is very important. The 
terms used demand close attention. Anschauung is for the 
most part more general in its use than Vorstellung ; when 
applied to a particular object, however, these terms are each 
synonymous with perception and percept. But, again, Vor- 
stellung has a more limited meaning when strictly used, in- 
asmuch as it properly signifies only Sensible percept — actual 
or reproduced in memory. In truth, however, I pekceive an 
operation of the understanding as well as a fact of Sense.] 

The matter of the Phenomenon is that which corresponds 
to the Sensation ; while by Form of the Phenomenon is meant 
that which reduces to order the manifold in the phenomenon. 
That which reduces the manifold of the Phenomenon in sen- 
sation to order, and gives it a certain form, cannot be itself 
again Sensation ; and is therefore previously existent d pri- 
ori in the mind as a Form. 

Those percepts are pure in which there is no element of 
Sensation. The Form of sensible perception is to be found 
(as has been already said) in the mind a priori (we see this 
before we see the body, as Kant elsewhere says); and this 
Pure Form may also be denominated Pure Perception {An- 
schauung). E.g. take from a body all that the Understand- 
ing puts into it — Substance, Power, Divisibility — and also all 



Kant's Kritik of Pure Reason. 307 

that is the product of Sensation— Impenetrability, Hardness, 
Color, &c. — something still remains, namely, Extension and 
Figure. These, then, "belong to Pure Perception ; they are 
the d priori product of the mind, and constitute the mere 
Form of Sensibility apart from any actual object of sensi- 
bility or Sensation. 

[The above is the interpretation rather than even the sub- 
stance of Kant; but it is true to the substance. It is only 
by putting the points in greater relief than they are put by 
Kant that we can see the importance, or at least the precise 
significance, of these passages and their relation to what fol- 
lows. Note first : that Kant truly enough says, that that 
(power) which gives unity, definite relations, &c, to the 
multiform phenomenal, cannot be itself a second underlying 
sensation. But he makes an enormous stride when he says 
that therefore it is an d priori Form native to the intelli- 
gence. Criticism by starting with such an assumption starts 
in fact with Dogmatism. It is not a fundamental treatment 
of the subject. Note secondly : that, having occupied this 
position, it follows that the Form being a priori is pure. It 
is not d posteriori: it is given in and with Perception, and 
is Pure Perception. This conclusion we may, if we choose, 
accept, but it is not critically ascertained. Note thirdly: 
that it is further affirmed that Sensation or Sensibility does 
not give us the extension or figure of a phenomenal object, 
although it gives everything else vulgarly supposed to be 
given d posteriori (except, as we shall afterwards see, Time). 
Consequently, Extension or Space is a Pure Percept fur- 
nished by the mind itself as Form of the Sensible. We may 
readily admit that if mA given d posteriori, it is given d pri- 
ori, and is Pure and so forth: but thus far the d priori and 
pure character of this or any percept is a mere hypothesis. 
We yet look for the demonstration. (Kant is here for the 
moment using u d priori" in its proper signification.)] 

The Science of the d priori Forms of Sensibility is Trans- 
cendental iEsTHETic, while that which deals with the prin- 
ciples (Forms) of Pure Thinking is Transcendental Logic. 

Our first duty, then, is to isolate the Sensibility from the 
Ver stand and its Begriffe ; and then, secondly, to take away 
from the Sensibility everything given through Sensation, 
and leave nothing but pure a priori Perception, or Forms of 
Sensibility. We shall find that there are two such d priori 
Forms of Sensibility which give us d priori knowledge, viz., 



308 Interpretation of 

SPACE AMD TIME. 

First Section. 
OF SPACE. 

2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Begrijf. 

[The form Begriff is either used loosely here, or it signifies 
the perception or intuition of Space as held in and by the 
Verstand as a notion, applicable to the individual ''many," 
as opposed to Space as an a priori Pure Perception or Vor- 
stellung.] 

By means of the outer sense objects are presented to us 
as outside us in Space: the inner sense perceives objects as 
in Time, under which Form the perception of our inner men- 
tal state is alone possible. We cannot see Space inside our- 
selves any more than we can see time outside. 

What, now, are Space and Time? Do these predicates be- 
long to the things an sich, or are they, as subjective Forms, 
applied to things in necessary obedience to the constitution 
of our mind ? To ascertain this let us expound first the Be- 
grijf of Space. 

(1.) Space is not a Begriff resting on outer (sensible) expe- 
riences. For my sensations cannot be related outside me, 
that is, to anything in another part of Space than that in 
which I am ; and in like manner objects cannot be perceived 
as respectively outside one another in various parts of space, 
except on the presumption that the perception of Space 
already lies at the bottom of the whole procedure. The 
perception is therefore not due to the relations of the phe- 
nomenal as given in experience, but, on the contrary, outer 
and phenomenal experience is itself first of all possible 
through the Percept ( Vorstellung). 

[I cannot see the force of this argument. Suppose Space to 
be a condition of the existence of things an sich or fur sicfr 
external to me ; I open my eyes and perceive or feel, first, 
indefinite Space, and, secondly, things spaced and placed in 
indefinite Space — What can be answered to this? "You 
cannot," Kant would say, " perceive relations of Space with- 
out first having the intuition or percept of Space." True in 
a certain sense ; but I get my sensation of indefinite Space 
from without in the first instance, and then gradually mark 
off spaced bodies one from another in Space, that is to say, I 
place them. Is not this a valid position to take up ? Granted 



Kant's Kritilc of Pure Reason. 309 

that I cannot "place" bodies without a prior percep'ion of 
Space, it does not follow that that percept must be a "Form" 
of my Sensibility. It may be given from without in Sensa- 
tion after all.] 

(2.) Space is a necessary a priori percept ( Vorstellung), 
the ground of all outer perception : and this is shown by the 
fact that you cannot image {eine Vorstellung macheri) the 
absence of Space, although all objects in Space may be extin- 
guished. Phenomena are possible to Sensibility only under 
this condition of Space ; but they do not yield Space to our 
cognition as a determination (of themselves). 

[To say that I cannot eine Vorstellung machen of the non- 
existence of Space, is simply to say that I cannot imagine 
the outer save as spaced. This is true : but may I not say 
that it is true, because to think the outer is to think Space, 
for all older is Space ? " Outer" and " Space" are identical 
terms. The condition or Form of the externalized life of 
Deity is Space ; and I in knowing this external, know Space 
as the universal condition.] 

(3.) Space is not a discursive general notion or concept 
{Begriff) drawn from the relations of things, but a pure per- 
ception ; for you perceive it only as one and uniform Space, 
and if you speak of " Spaces " you mean only parts of the 
same one continuous Space {alleinigen Raumes) : and you 
think these " Spaces " not as constituent parts of universal 
Space and prior to it, but as in it. Space is essentially one, 
and the notion of "Spaces" rests on the perception of limita- 
tions of Space. From which it follows that an a priori per- 
ception lies at the root of all notions of Space. Thus it is 
that all fundamental mathematical theorems or propositions 
(as that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third) 
can be deduced out of an a priori perception with apodictic 
certainty, and could not be deduced out of general notions 
of a line and triangle. 

[That is to say, Space is not an Abstract general resting on 
particular extended objects, for you can perceive it only as 
one, uniform, unique, universal Space, and not as made up. of 
parts. On which I remark that, according to an important 
distinction, which I would suggest here, Space in so far as it 
is a Begriff is not an Abstract concept at all, but an abstract 



310 Interpretation of 

Percept (universal), and that if Abstract Space qua Space 
were not uniform, one, unique, it would not be a universal 
abstract percept at all. Is it hot this oneness which is the 
essential characteristic of an abstract percept as sucTif Take 
even " hardness " as an Abstract, which is unquestionably 
based on empirical observation. In so far as it is a "general," 
it is one, unique, and not to be divided into constituent parts. 
It may be said that it is not, like Space, a universal condition 
of all presentation or representation of the outer, but, strictly 
speaking, only a general resting on a definite number of par- 
ticular experiences. I might question this ; but I content 
myself with merely here pointing out that, in so far as it is 
an abstract general, it is one. If Space is not only one, but 
also a universal one, this may merely mean that Space is a 
Form of universal external existence. 

As to the mathematical propositions regarding which Kant 
exhibits so much anxiety that I believe they motived his 
whole theory of Space and Time, I have already spoken of 
them. It is by no means apparent that where three lines 
enclose a space, even the largest side must be less than the 
other two taken together, until the case is presented to per- 
ception (as Vorstellung) ; in which event (unless we choose 
to go through proof on the basis of certain demon strata and 
axioms as in Euclid) it can be shown that the two sides must 
be greater than the third, because, on close inspection, they 
traverse a greater space : or, again, that since a straight line 
is the shortest from A to B, and as two lines are not a straight 
line, their length on the way from A to B by the route C. or 
any other route, must be longer than that traversed by the 
straight line.] 

(4.) Space is not a Begriff, because it is present to con- 
sciousness as an endless given quantity. A Begriff contains, 
or may contain, endless Vorstellungen under it, but as such 
it cannot contain endless Vorstellungen in it. Space, how- 
ever, is so thought ; therefore it is not a Begriff, but a Per- 
ception d priori. 

[There is much force in this argument, but I think it onl} r 
proves that the presentat Space is not a Begritf or concept. 
It is not built up out of a series of observations of a certain 
quality common to all sensible objects. But it is not on this 
account therefore a Perception a priori, so far as I can see. 
It is a Perception of what actually is outside, and in its first 
presentation to the Sensibility is one, uniform, indefinite, 
endless.] 



Kant's Kritik of Pure Reason. 311 

3. Transcendental. Exposition of the Begriff of Space. 

[By "Transcendental" is meant the mode of a priori object- 
cognition.] 

Transcendental exposition is the explanation of a Begriff 
as a Principle out of which the possibility of a priori cogni- 
tion can be discovered. 

{Metaphysical exposition, again, is the exhibition of the 
Begriff as given d priori.] 

We have to show (1) that such d priori cognitions do flow 
out of the given Begriff; and (2) that the cognitions are pos- 
sible only on the presupposition of a given explanation-mode 
of this Begriff. 

Geometry has such d priori synthetic propositions of 
Space. .Inasmuch as such propositions cannot be got out of 
a Begriff — they being synthetic or ampliative and not ana- 
lytic — they must rest on a perception or intuition {Anschau- 
ung), and this perception must be a priori (prior to all actual 
perception of objects) pure and not empirical, because other- 
wise their necessity could not be explained, e.g. " Space can 
have only three dimensions." 

[That mathematical propositions are necessary (and if the 
term " necessar}' " be identical with " a priori," therefore a 
priori) is certain. But the necessity, as we have already 
maintained, is analytical. We can draw a necessary con- 
clusion analytically from Percepts as well as from Concepts, 
and this is a point of much significance. Therefore, even in 
geometrical propositions necessity does not carry with it 
apriority.] 

How now can an external intuition {Anschauung) which ]3re- 
cedes objects themselves, and determines the notion [Begriff] 
of them, exist in the mind {dem Gemuthe bewohnen) ? Mani- 
festly, this external intuition can so exist only in so far as it 
exists in the Subject as the formal Disposure (adaptation) of 
the same for being affected by objects, and through that affec- 
tion acquiring immediate presentats ( Vorstellungen) of these 
— that is to say, acquiring intuition {Anschauung). Accord- 
ingly, it can exist only as the Form of the outer Sense {des 
ausseren Simies). 

Our explanation, accordingly, alone makes conceivable 
the possibility pf Geometry as a synthetic d priori cognition. 



312 Interpretation of 

[By the "Form of the outer Sense" Kant does not mean a 
moving force in Sensation itself which so and not otherwise 
interprets the outer, but a Form of the Sensibility (Sinnlich- 
Tieit). Translate the word Anschauung above as Perception 
and not Intuition, and the argument may be reduced to this : 

(1) External Perception exists prior to the perception of 
actual objects. 

(2) It can so exist only as a disposure of the subject to 
receive affections from objects and so to get percep- 
tions (actual). 

(3) It is therefore a Form of the outer Sense : i.e. of the 
Sensibility (of the subject) in its outer relations. 

On all which I might remark, that, if Space be given as Ex- 
ternal, it could not reach the Subject at all there to be cog- 
nized unless there was an innate disposure or fitting capacity 
of the sensibility to receive it. This of course : and, thus 
fae, all will say there is a Form of Space resident in the 
Subject-Sensibility. But so to use the term "Form" would 
be an abuse ; for, if it has any distinctive meaning at all, it 
means that the Subject does not receive the outer at all, but 
only a subjective interpretation (not even a translation) of it.] 

4. Conclusions from the above Begriffe. 

(a) Space is not a property of things in themselves or of 
their relations. It does not remain if the subjective condition 
(Form) of Perception is taken away. For neither absolute 
nor relative determinations of the outer object can be per- 
ceived prior to the existence of the things to which they 
belong. 

[But these determinations are so perceived, Kant means, 
or, at least in their principle, perceived ; consequently they 
do not belong to the outer object.] 

(b) Space is nothing but the Form of all Phenomena of the 
outer Sense — the subjective condition of Sensibility under 
which alone outer perception is possible. Just as the capa- 
city of the subject to be affected by objects must precede 
perception of the objects, so may we easily understand how 
the Form of all phenomena can be given in the mind d priori, 
prior to all actual perception ; and how as a pure perception 
in which all objects are determined it can contain the princi- 
ples of the relations of the same prior to all experience. 

[This is important as showing beyond doubt that Kant 
distinguishes between the Disposure or constitutional adap- 



Kant's Kritik of Pure Reason. 313 

tation of the Subject to receive affections of objects and the 
Form in which it envelopes these phenomena.] 

Extension and extended things are, as such, true to man 
only. If we lay aside the subjective condition of external 
perception, the sensible percept (Vorstellung) Space has no 
meaning at all. 

The permanent Form of our Receptivity (which we name 
Sensibility) is a necessary condition of all relations in which 
objects appear as outer. If it be abstracted from objects, it 
is a pure Perception bearing the name Space. 

Space or Extension is not a condition of things (at least 
we have no ground for saying so), but only of things being 
known to us phenomenally [that is, in sense]. "All things 
are beside one another in Space " is a valid and universal 
proposition if taken with the limitation — " in so far as these 
things are objects of our sensible perception." 

Observe, then, that the Reality of Space — that is to say, its 
objective validity — is affirmed with reference to all which can 
be present to us as external object [this is, of course, no real- 
ity at all, except that it is really in our consciousness] ; but, 
at the same time, in relation to things in themselves as 
estimated by Reason and without regard to our Sensibility, 
Space is Ideal. In other words, Space has an empirical real- 
ity, but a transcendental ideality. 

[In brief, it is affirmed that in so far as there is Extension, 
and by consequence all the relations dependent on Exten- 
sion, such as dimension, figure, locality, that extension and 
those relations are imposed by the knowing mind on certain 
Somewhats in themselves quite unknown. To which, may I 
not fairly say, "if a particular stone or tree gets all its sense- 
properties from me, what is the stone or tree save a dependent 
on my Ego ?" Again, how is it that this unknown, undeter- 
mined someiohat stirs into activity in me the Space-form of 
the Sensibility, which, though not dead, is yet still not alive 
until this external "somewhat" teaches it to live and to know 
its own powers ? It is evident that, according to this doctrine, 
we are involved in greater difficulties than we can escape 
from by means of it. We are driven by it to posit an infinite 
number of external points of causation which by affecting us 
effect their own form and their own existence to us. Each of 
these points of causation is in itself different from every oth- 



314 Interpretation of 

er, and by virtue of this difference affects our sensibility dif- 
ferently : so that, while stimulating into life the Space-form, 
it also at the same moment determines both the quantity and 
the quality of that Space relatively to itself the particular 
object! 

The universe of things must reach a knowing subject some- 
how, and it does so by means of sense or feeling, which is 
broken up into various forms (viz. seeing, touching, &o.) If 
there is to be uniformity and certainty — anything which can 
be called Knowledge — in the knowing of the world, there can 
be but one general mode of sensibility ; that is to say, Sense 
must be true to itself. The intelligence cannot say of an 
object at one moment "it is square," and at another "it is 
'round"; now it is "black" and also "white," and so forth. 
Given a general mode of knowing the external, that mode 
must have subjective permanence, or subject and object 
would be involved in an insane whirl of perpetual contradic- 
tions. The necessity of this proposition, "An external object 
must be extended," simply means that I cannot know an ex- 
ternal object save through Sense. If, however, this mode is 
created in and with the subject-knowing, it is as true and 
necessary for hearing, smelling, &c, as it is for extension. 
For it merely comes to this, that at one moment the object 
stirs in me the sensation or mode of sensation which I call 
Extension, and at another the mode of sensation which I call 
Sound or Color. Both are equally valid objectively and 
subjectively, and so must be. To the extent to which they 
differ, they differ only in their respective universality, but 
not at all in their objective validity. They are equally un- 
valid. Kant feels this difficulty as presented by the secon- 
dary qualities; and how does he deal with it?] 

Besides Space there is no other subjective percept ( Vor- 
stellung) which can be called "a priori objective." Color, 
Sound, Warmth, &c. &c, belong to the subjective constitu- 
tion of the Sense-manner (des Sinnes-art) just as Space does. 
But they are in sensation {Empfindung) and are not percep- 
tions (Anscliauungen), and give us a cognition of no object 
in itself— at least, a priori. [Why?] Because from none of 
these Vorstellungen [of secondary qualities] can we deduce 
d priori synthetic propositions as we can from the percep- 
tion, Space. 

[Here again comes in the mathematical motif to which we 
have already referred as determining all Kant's aesthetic 
doctrine.] 



Kant's Kritik of Pure Reason. 315 

I point out this lest any one should be induced to illustrate 
by such examples [i.e. by means of the secondary qualities] 
the Ideality of Space, since colors, &c, are not to be regarded 
as part of the constitution of things, but merely as changes 
effected in our subject, which may be different in different 
people. The color of a Rose may be different to different 
people; but the Rose itself is to the empirical understand- 
ing always a thing in itself. 

[This is particularly unsatisfactory. First, it is admitted 
that the so-called Secondary qualities are known through a 
subjective constitution of the Sense just as Space is, but that 
'they have not even empirical validity, but are merely varying 
and uncertain affections of the Sense. To which the remark 
offers itself that the senses of Hearing and Color, &c, if nor- 
mal, and Sound, though more easily disturbed by our own 
physical conditions than the sense of Space, are not more va- 
riable, speaking absolutely, than the sense of Space. There 
are diseases which utterly distort the sense of Space, just as 
there are diseases which distort the sense of Color or Smell. 
"Yes," it maybe urged, "but the sense of Space itself is 
always there under every variety and distortion/ 1 To which 
the rejoinder is, "So also is the sense of Smell. &c, except 
when disease or mal-formation altogether extinguishes it. 1 ' 
Secondly, it is admitted that Space as well as Color is de- 
pendent on a subjective constitution of Sense or Sensibility ; 
but that the latter is a Sensation, the former a Perception, 
and hence the difference. Kant here, however, manifestly 
begs the question, or rather proceeds on the assumption that 
the apriority of Space as a perception has been proved: 
whereas we are entitled — nay, bound — so far as the origin of 
secondary qualities is concerned, to presume this very point 
to be still at issue ; and to ask, in what respect does our 
knowledge of Space, in so far as it is dependent on a process 
in sensation (for that there is a process is not denied), differ 
from our knowledge of Color and Sound ? They both may 
be on equal evidence (apart from the argument about neces- 
sary propositions) affirmed to stand on the same basis — the 
basis, viz., of a certain change effected in our nerves. That 
the one is purer and more direct than the other, does not 
alter the essential fact.] 



( 316) 
THOUGHTS ON THE INTELLECT 

IN GENERAL AND IN EVERY RELATION. 

Translated from the German of Arthur Schopenhauer by Charles Josefe, M.D. 

(Chapter III. of the "Parerga and Paralipomena.") 

§ 31. What light is for the external world of bodies, the 
intellect is for the inner world of consciousness. For this is 
to the will (therefore also to the organism, which is only the 
will objectively conceived) about as light is to combustible 
bodies and oxygen, at whose union it breaks out. And as 
this is so much the purer the less it mixes itself with the 
smoke of the burning body, so also the intellect is the purer 
the more perfectly it is separated* from the will from which 
it arose. In a bolder metaphor, it even could be said: life is, 
as everybody knows, a process of combustion ; the formation 
of light taking place in it is the intellect. 

§ 32. That our recognition, like our eye, only looks with- 
out, and not within, so that, if the recognizing tries to direct 
itself within so as to recognize itself, it looks into a perfect 
darkness, gets into a perfect vacuity, — this depends upon the 
following two reasons : 

(1.) The subject of cognition is not something self-subsist- 
ing, no thing in itself ; it has no independent, original, 
substantial existence ; but it is a mere apparition, something 
secondary, an accidence at tirst conditioned by the organ- 
ism which is the apparition of the will ; it is, in short, nothing 
else than the focus in which all powers of the brain converge. 
Now, how should this subject of cognition recognize itself, as 
it in itself is nothing? It directs itself within; then, of course, 
it recognizes the will, which is the basis of its essence : but 
this is, after all, for the recognizing subject no proper self-cog- 
nition, but cognition of something else different from it, but 
which now, already as something recognized directly, is only 
phenomenon, but such a one as has time only for its form — 
not, like the things of the external world, space besides. But, 
aside from this, the subject also only recognizes the will, like 
external things, in its utterance, that is, in the single acts of 
will and other affections, which are comprehended under the 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 317 

name of wishes, affections, passions, and feelings : conse- 
quently it recognizes it always as phenomenon, although not 
under the restriction of space, like external things. But, for 
the above-mentioned reason, the recognizing subject cannot 
recognize itself simply because there is nothing to be recog- 
nized in it except this, that it is the recognizing, and just 
for that reason never that which is recognized. It is a pheno- 
menon which has no other expression but to recognize ; con- 
sequently no other can be recognized in it. 

(2.) The will in us is of course a thing in itself, existing for 
itself, something primary, self-subsisting, that whose mani- 
festation represents itself as organism in the spatially 
intuiting apprehension of the brain. But still it is not ca- 
pable of a self-cognition, because it is in and for itself only 
something that wills, but does not recognize ; for the will as 
such does not recognize anything at all, consequently not it- 
self. The recognizing is a secondary and mediated function 
which does not belong to it, the primary in its own nature. 

§ 33. The most simple, unprejudiced self-observation, 
together with anatomical researches, leads to the conclusion 
that the intellect, as well as its objectivation, the brain, 
together with the apparatus of senses attached to it, is 
nothing but a highly increased susceptibility for influ- 
ences from without, but that it does not constitute our origi- 
nal and real inner nature ; thus, that the intellect within us 
is not what in the plant is the impelling power, or in the 
stone gravity, or chemical forces : only the will shows itself as 
this. But the intellect within us is that which in the plant 
is mere susceptibility to external influences, to physical 
and chemical influences, and whatever else may increase 
or hinder their growing and thriving ; only that within 
us this susceptibility is so very highly increased, that, by 
virtue of it, the whole objective world — the world as concep- 
tion — presents itself, consequently takes thus its origin as 
object. To make this clear, one may imagine the world to be 
without animal beings. Thus it is without any perception, 
consequently objectively does not exist at all; nevertheless 
we take it to exist thus. Now, let us imagine a number of 
plants sprung up from the soil closely side by side. Many 
things will influence them, as light, air, the contact of one 



318 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

plant with another, moisture, cold, warmth, electric tension, 
etc. Now let us increase, in thought, the susceptibility of 
these plants to such influences more and more : then at last 
this will become sensation, accompanied by the ability to 
refer it to its causes, and thus results perception : directly 
there is the world presenting itself in space, time, and 
causality, but it remains none the less a mere result of the 
external influences upon the susceptibility of plants. This 
allegorical contemplation is very well adapted to make intel- 
ligible the mere phenomenal existence of the external world. 
For who would think after this of maintaining that the cir- 
cumstances which have their existence in such a contempla- 
tion, arising from mere relations between external influences 
and living susceptibility, — who would think that they repre- 
sent the truly objective inner and original nature of all those 
potencies of Nature which, as is admitted, influence all the 
plants, that is, the world of things, in themselves? We there- 
fore can by this picture make it intelligible to us, why the 
human intellect has such narrow limits, as Kant points out 
in the Critique of Pure Reason. 

But the thing in itself, on the contrary, is the will alone ; 
consequently it is the creator and bearer of all properties of 
the phenomenon. Without hesitation it is charged with the 
moral ; but also the cognition and its power, that is, the in- 
tellect, belongs to its appearance, consequently mediately 
to it itself. That narrow-minded and stupid men always 
experience some contempt may, at least partly, depend upon 
this, that the will has made the burden so easy, and, for the 
furtherance of its aims, has assumed only two drams of the 
cognitive faculty. 

§ 34. Not only, as I have said above (§ 25), and also 
already in my principal work (vol. i. § 14), is all evidence in- 
tuitive, but all true and real understanding is so too. This 
is proved by the innumerable tropes in all languages, which 
are all efforts to reduce what is abstract to something 
visible. For mere abstract notions of a thing give no real 
understanding of the same, although they enable us to speak 
of it as many people talk of many things: yea. many need 
for this purpose not even notions, but only words ; for in- 
stance, technical expressions, which they have learned, suffice 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 319 

them. But, on the contrary, to understand really and truly, 
it is required that one conceive intuitively ; that he receive a 
clear image, if possible, from the reality itself, but at least 
from the imagination. Even that which is too large or too 
complicated to be surveyed at a glance, must, to be really 
understood, be either visibly represented, or represented 
by something that can be surveyed ; but that which does not 
admit of this, one must at least try to represent under some 
intuitive visible picture and allegory. So far intuition is the 
basis of our recognition. This is also shown by this, that we 
indeed can think in abstracto very large numbers, and also 
very great distances, which can be expressed only by such 
as, for instance, the astronomical ones ; but that still we do 
not really and immediately understand them, but have only 
a notion of their proportion. 

The philosopher should, more than any one else, gather 
from that original source the intuitive cognition, and there- 
fore constantly fix his eyes on things themselves, on Nature, 
the world, and life ; take them, and not books, for the text of 
his thoughts, and also constantly examine and control all 
notions that pass, already prepared, over to him ; and take 
books, therefore, not as sources of cognition, but only as an 
assistance. For what they give he only receives at second 
hand, and generally also somewhat distorted — perchance 
only a reflection, a likeness of the original (that is, the world), 
and rarely is the looking-glass perfectly clear. But Nature, 
the reality, on the contrary, never lies; for it is she who 
makes all truth to be truth. The philosopher, therefore, has 
to make his study of her, and it is principally her great and 
distinct features, her chief and fundamental characteristics, 
whence his problem arises. He therefore will take as the 
object of his consideration the principal and general pheno- 
mena, those which are everywhere and at all times ; but the 
special, particular, rare, microscopic, or passing phenomena, 
he will leave to the natural philosopher, to the zoologist, the 
historian, etc. More important things occupy him : the total- 
ity and the greatness of the world, its essential part, the fun- 
damental truths, they are his aim. He therefore cannot at 
the same time occupy himself with its particularities and mi- 
nutiae just as he who, from the top of a high mountain, looks 



320 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

over the land, cannot at the same time ascertain and examine 
the plants growing down in the valley, but leaves this to him 
who botanizes among them. To devote oneself and all one's 
faculties to a special science, one must of course like it very 
much, but must also have a great indifference towards all 
others ; for the former is only possible under the condition 
of remaining ignorant in all others, just as he who marries 
one renounces all others. Spirits of the first rank will there- 
fore never devote themselves to a special science ; for the un- 
derstanding of the whole lies too much at their heart. They 
are generals, not captains ; leaders of an orchestra, not indi- 
vidual performers. How should a great spirit find its satis- 
faction in knowing perfectly, and in all its relations to oth- 
ers, one field, one certain branch of the community of things, 
and in leaving out of sight everything else? It, on the 
contrary, is directed to the whole ; its aim is the whole of 
things, the world in general, and there must nothing remain 
unknown to him : he consequently cannot spend his life in 
exhausting the minutiae of a single department. 

§ 35. That the lowest of all mental operations is the arith- 
metical is proved by this, that this is the only one which may 
also be performed by a machine, as there are now in England 
already such calculating machines in frequent use. Now, 
in truth, all analysis, finitorum et injinttorum, traces back • 
to counting. After this, one will understand the mathemati- 
cal penetration of the mind at which Lichtenberg makes 
himself merry in saying: "With mathematics it is almost as 
with theology. Just as those following the last, especially 
if they fill an office, lay claim to a special credit for holiness 
and a nearer relationship to God, although very many 
amongst them are nothing but idle rogues, so the so-called 
mathematicians very often wish to be taken for deep think- 
ers, although there are amongst them the greatest blunder- 
heads that ever can be found, unfit for any business which 
requires reflection, if it cannot be done by means of that easy 
connection of signs which are more the work of routine than 
of thinking.* 



* Every understanding is an immediate one, and therefore an intuitive appre- 
hension of the causal connection, although it must readily become changed into 
abstract notions so as to become established. Calculation is consequently no 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 321 

§ 36. The eye becomes weak from long straining at one 
object, and does not see any more; in the same way the in- 
tellect becomes unable, by continually meditating over the 
same things, to find out and to comprehend more of them ; it 
becomes weak and embarrassed. It is necessary to quit 
them, so as to return to them again, when we shall find them 
again fresh and with clear outlines. Therefore, when Plato 
relates in his Banquet that Socrates was standing motionless 
and like a statue for twenty-four hours meditating over 
something he remembered, we must not only say to this — 
non e vero ; but also add to it, e mal trovato. From this 
want of rest of the intellect is also explained this, that if we, 
after any longer pause, look as it were anew into the com- 
mon course of the things of this world, and thus cast a fresh, 
really wholly unprejudiced glance at them, their connection 
and their significance become most pure and most deeply 
clear to us, in such a way, that then we see quite plainly 
things, and only cannot understand how it is possible that 
they are not perceived by all those who constantly move 
amongst them. Such a clear moment, therefore, can be com- 
pared with a lucid interval. 

§ 37. In a higher sense, even the hours of inspiration, with 
their moments of enlightening and proper conception, are 
nothing but the lucid intervals of genius. It therefore could 
be said that genius lodges only one story higher than mad- 
ness. Even the reason of the reasonable operates only in 
lucid intervals, for he also is not always reasonable. Also 
the prudent man is not always thus ; for sometimes he will 

understanding of things. This only can be obtained in the way of intuition 
through correct cognition of the causality and geometrical construction of the 
process, as Euler gave such better than anybody else because he understood the 
things from the foundation. Calculation, on the contrary, has to deal with 
nothing but abstract notions of quantity, the relation of which to each other it 
fixes. By these means not the least understanding of a physical event can be 
obtained. For to understand such a one it requires intuitive visible comprehen- 
sion of the spatial relations by means of which the causes operate. Calculation 
defines the how much and how large, and is therefore indispensable in practice. 
It even can be said: where calculation begins, understanding ends. For the 
head, occupied with numbers while calculating, alienated from the causal con- 
nection and the geometrical construction of the physical event, is full of mere 
abstract notions of numbers. But the result never tells more than how much, 
never what. 

viii — 21 



322 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

not be able to recall himself and to collect things most fami- 
liar to him. All this seems to paint a certain ebb and flood 
of the fluids of the brain, or an extension or relaxation of its 
fibres. Now if, at a spring-tide of this kind, some new and 
deep intelligence rises suddenly before us, whereby of course 
our thoughts attain a very high degree of vivacity, then the 
motive to this will always be an intuitive visible one, and 
an intuitive understanding always lies at the foundation of 
every great thought. For words awaken thoughts in others, 
pictures in us. 

§ 38. It is understood by itself that one should write down 
as soon as possible valuable original meditations; for we 
forget sometimes what we have experienced, and much more 
that which we have thought. And thoughts do not come 
when we wish, but when they wish to come. On the con- 
trary, whatever we receive tinished from without, that which 
we merely have learned, it is better not to write down, there- 
fore to make no collections ; for to write down something 
means to consign it to oblivion. But one should treat his 
memory vigorously and despotically, so that it may not for- 
get obedience ; for instance, if one cannot recall to his mind 
anything, a verse, or word, he should on no account look for 
it in books, but should for weeks systematically torment his 
memory with it until it has done its duty. For the longer 
one has to think of it, the better will it stick afterwards. 
What one thus with great exertion has worked out from the 
depths of his memory, will at some other time be much 
readier at one's command than if one had renewed it again by 
means of books. Mnemonics, on the contrary, rests on this 
as a foundation, that one trusts more to his wit than to his 
memory, and therefore transfers the services of this to the 
former. He must substitute for something that is hard some- 
thing that is easy to remember, and translate it afterwards 
again into the former. This mnemonics is to the natural me- 
mory what an artificial leg is to a real one, and is, like every- 
thing, subject to the expression of Napoleon : tout ce qui iCest 
pas naturel est imparfait. It is convenient to make use of it at 
the beginning with things newly learned, or words, like a tem- 
porary crutch, until they are incorporated into the natural, 
immediate memory. How our memory sets about to find 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 323 

each time, out of the often immeasurable compass of its 
stock, just what is wanting — how the sometimes long, blind 
search after it goes on — how the, at first, vainly looked for 
comes to us generally whenever we have discovered a little 
thread attached to it, but at other times after hours, some- 
times after days, quite of itself, without any motive, as if it 
were whispered to us, — all this is to us ourselves, who are 
active in it, a riddle ; but it seems tome indisputable that 
those subtile and mysterious operations, on such an enor- 
mous quantity and variety of the matter to be remembered, 
can by no means be replaced by an artificial and conscious 
play with analogies, with which the natural memory, after 
all, always must remain as the primum mobile, but now has 
to keep in memory even two instead of one, the sign and the 
thing signified. At all events, such an artificial memory can 
take only a proportionally very small stock. Altogether, 
there are two modes in which things become impressed on 
our memory: either through intention, as we intentionally 
memorize them, whereby we meanwhile can also make use 
of mnemonic arts, if they are only numbers or words ; or they 
impress themselves, without our assistance, by themselves, 
by virtue of the impression they make upon us, for which 
reason we may also call them lasting ones. But just as we 
generally do not feel a wound at the moment we receive it, 
but only afterwards, so also many a thought makes a deeper 
impression upon us than we are directly conscious of, for 
afterwards we remember it again ; the consequence of which 
is that that we do not forget it, but it becomes incorporated 
in the system of our thought, to step forward in the right 
hour. To this is plainly requisite that, in some relation or 
other, it interest us. It therefore is required that one have 
a lively spirit, which eagerly takes up the objective, and 
aspires after knowledge and understanding. The surprising- 
ignorance of many scholars, in things of their own depart- 
ment, has as its ultimate reason their want of interest for 
the objects of the same ; consequently the observations, 
remarks, inspections, etc., make no vivid impression upon 
them, and therefore do not cling to them, as they in gen- 
eral do not study con amore, but under self- constraint: 
the more things there are a man takes a vivid and objective 



324 Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 

interest in, the more will fix itself in this spontaneous mode 
in his memory; therefore also mostly in the youth, where the 
novelty of things heightens interest in them. This second 
mode is much surer than the first, and selects besides, quite 
of itself, what is most essential for us, although it will with 
stupid heads confine itself to personal affairs. 

§ 39. The quality of our thoughts (their formal value) 
conies from within, but their direction, and through this their 
material, from without; so that what we think in any given 
moment is the product of two fundamentally different factors. 
The objects are therefore for the spirit only that which the 
plectron is for the lyre; consequently the great diversity of 
thoughts which the same aspect excites in different heads. 
When I still stood in the flower of my spirit and in the 
point of culmination of its powers where the brain had its 
highest tension, then whatever object my eye could meet 
talked revelations to me, and a series of thoughts arose 
which were worthy to be written down, and accordingly 
were. But in the progress of life, especially in the years of 
failing powers, those hours became less and less frequent ; 
for the objects are, it is true, the plectron, but the lyre is the 
spirit. Whether this be well and highly tuned — that is what 
makes the great difference in the world's representation of 
itself in every head. Now as this depends upon physiolo- 
gical and anatomical conditions, thus, on the other side, 
Chance, in bringing forward the objects which shall occupy 
us, keeps the plectron in its hand. Nevertheless, here a great 
part of the matter is placed in our caprice, in so far as we, 
at least partly, can design it by means of the objects with 
which we occupy or surround ourselves. Upon this we there- 
fore should devote some care, and proceed with methodical 
intention. 

The excellent little book of Locke On the Conduct of the 
Understanding gives us instruction on this point. Good, 
serious thoughts on worthy objects, however, cannot be called 
up arbitrarily at any time : all that we can do is to keep 
the road open for them by scaring away all futile, insipid or 
common-place ruminations, and by averting all tricks and 
farces. It therefore can be said, that, to think something 
judicious, the first means is to think nothing absurd. Leave 



Schopenhauer on the Intellect. 325 

the plain free only to good thoughts: they will come. For 
the same reason, one should not in every moment in 
which he is not occupied directly take a book in hand, but 
he should get settled in his head; then easily something- 
good might rise in it. Very judicious is the observation 
Riemer made in his book on Goethe, that original thoughts 
almost only come while walking or standing, hardly ever in 
sitting. Now, because generally the rising of vivid, impres- 
sive, worthy thoughts is more the consequence of inner 
than of outer conditions, it becomes explicable from this, 
that of such thoughts several, regarding quite different 
objects, will appear quickly one after another, and often at 
the same time, in which case they cross and interfere with 
each other like crystals, — even that may happen to us which 
happened to him who hunted two hares at the same time. 

§ 40. How narrow and poor the normal human intel- 
lect is, and how small the clearness of consciousness is, 
may be judged from this, that, in spite of the ephemeral 
shortness of the life of man cast into an endless time, of 
the uncertaint}^ of our existence, of the innumerable riddles 
urging themselves everywhere, the important character of 
so many phenomena, and the thorough insufficiency of life — 
yet all, are not constantly and unremittingly philosophiz- 
ing — nay, not even many, or even only some, only few ; no, 
only one now and then, only the rare exceptions. The 
rest live on in this dream not much different from the ani- 
mals, from which after all they only distinguish themselves 
through foresight for several years in advance. For the me- 
taphysical want which perhaps could announce itself has 
been taken care of from above in advance by means of reli- 
gions ; and these, no matter how they may be, do suffice. 
However, it may be that secretly there is more philosophizing 
than is apparent. For, truly, a dubious situation is ours ! — 
to live a span of time, full of trouble, misery, anguish, and 
pain, without knowing in the least wherefrom, whereto, and 
what for; and to have, in addition to all this, the priests, of 
all colors, with their respective revelations on the matter, 
together with their threatenings against infidels. 



( 32G ) 
THE GRAMMAR OF DIONYSIOS THRAX. 

Translated from the Greek by Thos. Davidson. 

[This famous little pamphlet, the first attempt at a systematic grammar made 
in the Western World, and for many generations a text-book in the schools of 
the Roman Empire, appears, I believe, now for the first time in English. Pretty 
nearly all that we know about the person of Dionysios is what we are told by 
Suidas, who says: 

"Dionysios the Alexandrian, called the Thracian from [the native country of] 
his father Teros, was a disciple of Aristarchos, and a grammarian. He was a 
public professor (tao^iarevaev) in Rome in the time of Pompey the Great, and 
was preceptor to Tyrannion the Elder. He composed a very large number 
of grammatical works, as well as set treatises and commentaries.'"— Cf. Max 
Midler, Lectures on the Science of Language, 1st Ser., p. 90 (English ed.); Lentz, 
Herodiani Technici Reliquiae, Praef. p. clxvi.; Steinthal, Gesch. der Sprachw. bei 
den Griechen und Romern, pp. 478. 568 sqq. 

The Grammar of Dionysios was first printed (I believe, though Lersch says 
"suletzt abgedruckt") in 1816, in Immanuel Bekker's Anecdota Grceca (pp. 629- 
643) along with the scholia of Choeroboskos, Diomedes, Melampous, Porphyry, 
and Stephanos (pp. 647-972). The genuineness and authenticity of the work have 
been impugned, but have been defended by Lersch, Die Sp?-achphilosophie der 
Alien. Pt. II. pp. 64 sqq.. and are now generally admitted. Cf. K. E. A. Schmidt, 
Beitrage zur Geschichte der Gra.mmatik des Gr. und des Lat., pp. 81, 189, 216, 519. 

To my very literal translation I have added a few explanatory notes which 
seemed necessary, and a number of references for the convenience of persons who 
may wish to pursue the subject further. — 7h-a?islator.'] 

1. On Grammar, (jpapfiartxij). 

Grammar is an experimental knowledge (ijanecpia?) of the 
usages of language as generally current among poets and 
prose writers. It is divided into six parts : 

1°. Trained reading with due regard to Prosody/- 
2°. Explanation according to poetical figures. 
3°. Ready statement of dialectical peculiaritiesf and al- 
lusions (ioTOftiat) . 
4°. Discovery of Etymology. 
5°. An accurate account of analogies.:}: 



* Prosody (jrpoauSia'), in the Greek sense, includes everything designated by 
diacritical marks — aspiration, accentuation, quantity, and sometimes pauses. 
Yid. Bekker, Anecdota Grceca, pp. 679 sqq. : K. E. A. Schmidt, Beitrage zur 
Geschichte der Grammatik, pp. 181 sqq. Prosody had nothing whatsoever to do 
with verse-making, although it was related to music. 

t Yid. Wailz, Aristotclis Organon, vol. i. pp. 323 sq. 

J Mere came in all that we generally understand by Grammar. The whole 
of the first part of Lersch's Sprachphilosophie der Alteti is devoted to the ques- 
tion of Analogy and Anomaly. 



Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 327 

6°. Criticism * of poetical productions, which is the no- 
blest part of grammatic art. 

2. On Reading (d^dyucoa^) . 

Reading is the rendering of poetic or prose productions with- 
out stumbling or hesitancy. It must be done with due regard 
to expression, prosody, and pauses. Through the expressionf 
we learn the merit (Apery) of the piece ; from the prosody, the 
art of the reader ; and from the pauses, the meaning intended 
to be conveyed. In this way we read tragedy heroically, 
comedy conversationally, elegiacs thrillingly, epics sustain- 
edly, lyric poetry musically, and dirges softly and plain- 
tively. Any reading done without due observance of these 
rules degrades the merits of the poets and makes the habits 
of readers ridiculous. 

3. On Tone (ruvoc). 

Tone^; is the resonance of a voice endowed with harmony. 
It is heightened in the acute, balanced in the grave, and 
broken in the circumflex. 

4. On Punctuation (arcxfjrj).% 

There are three punctuation marks : the full stop, the semi- 
colon, and the comma.|| The full stop denotes that the sense 
is complete ; the semicolon is a sign of where to take breath ; 
the comma shows that the sense is not yet complete, but that 
something further must be added. 

5. \Yiieretn does the full stop differ from the comma? 

In time. At the full stop the pause is long, at the comma, 
very short. 

* Such Criticism apparently did not include a discussion of the poetical mer- 
its of a piece (Kpivet f5< ru KOirjjiaTa ov% bu KOAa kanv fj nana' ttou)tov yap av .■.■// to 
- j/nrror.) 

f Expression (yndnpiaiQ) is defined as being equivalent to ,"i/<i/oi'j or Imitation. 

X Tone is what we usually call accent. The Latin accentus, however, formed 
in imitation of the Greek irpoauSia, was undoubtedly intended to have the same 
width of meaning as the latter. Vid. Schmidt, Beitriige, pp. 190 sqq. 

§ On this whole question, vid. Schmidt, Beitrage, pp. 506-570. 

|| These terms are hardly accurate: the sequel explains their meaning. 

If It will be seen that in practice Dionysios distinguishes only two punctua- 
tion marks, the ariy/iij [iec?j (^semicolon) being really not one at all. 



328 Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 

6. On Rhapsody (pa</>ajdia). 

A Rhapsody is a part of a poem including a certain (defi- 
nite) argument. It is called a rhapsody, that is, rhabdody,: 
because those who recited the Homeric poems were girt with 
a laurel branch (pdfidoz).* 

7. On Elements (<JToi^e7a).-f 

There are twenty-four letters from a to to. They are called 
letters {yp6.fip.az a) from being formed of lines and scratches. 
For to write (ypd^at), among the ancients, meant to scratch 
(£6aai), as in Homer: 

virv fit fi' t'7r<}/)di/'af rapabv Trodbc ev^eat a'vruc. 

They are also called elements (<jroiyj7a) from being in a cer- 
tain series Coro^oc) or arrangement. 

Of these letters, seven are Vowels : a, e. r h c o, u, and to. 
They are called vowels ((ptovrjevza) because they form a com- 
plete sound ((ptovij) by themselves. Of the vowels, two are 
long, r] and to ; two are short, e and o ; and three are doubt- 
ful, a, i, u. They are called doubtful:}: because they may 
be either lengthened or shortened. Five of the vowels are 
prepositive, a, e, rj, o, w. They are called prepositive be- 
cause, when placed before e or u, they form a syllable, as a:, 
au. Two are subjunctive, c and u. T is sometimes preposi- 
tive to e, as in pula, cipnuia, u:6;, and the like. There are six 
diphthongs, at, au, et, so, ot, ou. 

The remaining seventeen letters are Consonants, t 3, y, d, £, 
#, x, A, p, v, c, 7T, p, a, r, (p, %, </>. They are called consonants 
because by themselves they have no sound, but produce a 
sound only when they are combined with vowels. § Of the 

* Cf. Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. ii. p. 141, note; Wolf. Proleg., pp. 58 sqq. 
(Edit. Calvary) ; K. O. Miiller, Hist, of Lit. of Ancient Greece,, pp. 33 sqq. 

t On Srot^eZov, vid. Aristotle., Metaph. I. 1 (1026, b. 12); Bonitz, Aristotelis 
Metaph. pp. 225 sq. ; Schmidt, Beitrdge, pp. So sqq., 126. Aristotle's definition 
of OToix?iov, as meaning a sound, is: " An element is an indivisible sound, not 
applicable, however, to every such sound, but only to those which are capable 
of entering into the formation of intelligible speech." — Poet. cap. xx. Cf. Stein- 
thal, Gesc/i. der Sprach-v. bei den Gr. und Rom., pp. 24S sq 

\ kixpopoi = of twofold time. Cf. Rossbach und Westphal, Metrik der Griech., 
vol. ii. pp. 66 sqq. 

§ Aristotle, Poetics, cap. xx., makes three divisions of sounds — ~6 
koX to T//tl(puvov Koi a$avov — vowels, semivowels, and mutes. Cf. with the whole 
of Dionysios' classification, Schleicher, Compend. der verg. Grammatik der 



Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 329 

consonants, eight are Semivowels, £, £, ^, ^, //, v, ^o, c They 
are called semivowels because, being less easily sounded 
than the vowels, when attempted to be pronounced alone, 
they result in hisses and mumblings. There are nine Mutes, 
ft, y, o, &, x, 7i, z, <p, %. They are called mutes because they 
are more disagreeable in sound than the others, just as we 
say that a tragedian with a disagreeable voice is mute (&<pa>- 
voc = voiceless). Of these, three are smooth, x, n, r; three are 
rough, &, <p, % ; and three are medial, ft, y, d. The last are 
called medials because they are rougher than the smooths, 
and smoother than the roughs. And ft is the medial between 
7z and <p, y between x and /, and o between r and #. The 
roughs stand related to the smooths thus : 

<p to 7i — 6XK6. pot ec<p' oirflioyes cwv euepyia v^a' 

% to x — olotcy b pkv yXcuvdv ze yizco\<d. ze Ivuur ' Oduaasix:' 

# to t — we if aft ', ol daoa ndvzez dxrju iyivovzo ouotzt} . 

Again, of the consonants, three are double, t, £, tp. They 
are called double because each one of them is composed of 
two consonants, C of c and o,f ; of x and <?, (p of tt and a. 
Four are unchangeable. They are called unchangeable be- 
cause they do not change in the futures of verbs or the inflec- 
tions of nouns. They are likewise called liquids. The final 
elements of masculine nouns, in the nominative case, singu- 
lar number, are live, v, £, p, a, <p, as Juov, 0o7v&, Neara>p, 
Ildpit;, IIeAo</>; of feminine nouns, eight, «, r t , to, v, ?, p, <r, <p, 
as Mobaa, ^ EXsvrj, Khuo, %£Acd(ov, eXe£, prJT/jp, Sens, AcuAOKp ; of 
neuters, six, a, c, v, p, a, o, as appa, pike, devdfiov, odtop, oezai;, 
dopo. Some add also o, as in ixeivo, zouzo, dXko. The final 
elements of duals are three, a, e, co, as 'Arpeida, "Exzope, <pilto\ 
of plurals, four, e, c, «, r h as wiloi, " Exzopec,, ftcoAca, fteXy. 

8. On Syllables (pv)Ja6ai).\ 
A Syllable is properly the combination of a vowel§ with a 

Indoger. Spy., pp. 54 sqq. et passim; Curtius, Grundziige der grieck Etymolo- 
gic, pp. 85 sqq. ; Max Miiller, Lectures, 2d Series, Lect. III. 

t Cf. Aristotle, Metafh. A 9 (993 a 5), v 6 (1093a 20); Kuhner, Ausfiihr. 
Gram, der Gr. Spr., vol. i. p. 55. 

\ Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, cap. xx. ; Schmidt, Beitrdge, pp. 126-180; Steinthal, 
Sprachvj. bei den Gr. und Rom., p. 254. 

§ Or diphthong, evidently. 



330 Grammar of Dionysios Tlirax. 

consonant or consonants, as Kap, ^oDc- Improperly we speak 
of a syllable as composed of a single vowel, as a, y t . 

9. On Long Syllables {fiaxpal aukkafiai). 

A long syllable may come about in eight ways, three by 
nature and five by position*: by nature, when it is repre- 
sented by the long elements, as rjf>a>z — or when one of the 
doubtful elements is assumed as long, as " Aprji; — or when it 
contains one of the diphthongs, as Mac: by position, either 
when it ends in two consonants, as &Xq — or when a short or 
shortened! vowel is followed by two consonants, as dpyo<; — 
or when it ends in a single consonant and the next syllable 
begins with a consonant, as epyov — or when it is followed by 
a double consonant, as sew — or when it ends in a double 
consonant, as cLxaq. 

10. On Short Syllables (j3pa%ecai oulXafiai). 

A syllable becomes short in two ways, either when it con- 
tains a vowel naturally short, as fipe<po<; — or when it has a 
doubtful vowel assumed as short, as '' ' Apr^.\ 

11. On Common Syllables (xoivo.l ouXXafiai). 

A syllable is common in three ways, either when it ends 
in a long vowel while the next syllable begins with a vowel, 

as 0i>~i /mi aiTitj taa'r &eoi vii uot ainoi una- — 

or when a shortened vowel is followed by two consonants, 
whereof the latter is an unchangeable, while the former is 
by itself a mute, as 

YlarpoKki uot deiki) KAeiarov Kexapto~fi,evE &v/iu — 

or when, being short, it stands at the end of a part of speech 
and the next syllable begins with a vowel, as " 

'Nearopa 6'oiiK e%a&ev ia\// irivovra trep //. ■- ■■. 

* Position (#£<nf), in this connection, does not mean, as is generally sup- 
posed, place, but convention, arbitrary imposition, as opposed to nature {fvoig). 
Vid. Lersch, Sfrachphilosophie, Pt. I. p. 5 ; Rossbach und Westphal. Metrik 
der Griechen, vol. ii. p. 74. This shows the utter absurdity of the rule, laid down 
in so many Greek and Latin grammars, that a vowel followed by two consonants 
is long. 

t A short vowel is either e or 0; a shortened vowel is a doubtful vowel (a, /, 
i') assumed as short. 

% Cf. Horn. //., v. 31 : 

r Apeg, "Apeg, f}poTo%otyt, /Mai<p6ve, reixeonrTajTa. 



Grammar of Dlonysios Thrax. 331 

12. On the Word (/i^c). 

A Word is the smallest part of an ordered sentence.* 

13. On the Sentence ().6yoc).-\ 

A Sentence is combination of words, either in prose or 
in verse, making complete sense. There are eight parts of 
speech : Noun, Verb, Participle, Article, Pronoun, Preposi- 
tion, Adverb, and Conjunction. The proper noun, as a spe- 
cies, is subordinate to the nouii.J 

14. On the Noun (otfofia). 

A Noun is a declinable part of speech, signifying some- 
thing either concrete or abstract (concrete, as stone; abstract, 
as education); common or proper (common, as man, horse; 
proper, as Socrates, Plato). § It has live accidents : genders, 
species, forms, numbers, and cases. 

There are three Genders, the masculine, the feminine, and 
the neuter. Some add to these two more, the common and 
the epicene — common, as man, horse: epicene, as swallow, 
eagle. 

There are two Species of nouns, the primitive and the de- 
rivative. A primitive noun is one which is said according to 
original imposition, as p) (earth); a derivative noun is one 
which derives its origin from another noun, as yarfcoz (earth- 
born). There are seven classes of derivatives : Patronymics, 
Possessives, Comparatives, Diminutives, Nominals, Superla- 
tives, and Verbals. A Patronymic is properly a noun formed 
from the name of a father, improperly a noun formed from 
the name of another ancestor, e.g., Achilleus is called both 

* Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, capp. xix.-xxii. ; Waitz, Aristotelis Organon, vol. i. 
pp. 323 sq. ; Steinthal, Gesch. des Sprachwiss., pp. 285 sqq. ; J. Vahlen, Aristo- 
ieles Lehre von der Ratigfolge der Theile der Tragcedie, in Symbola Philologo- 
rum Bonnens/inn, pp. 1S0 sqq. 

f Aristotle (De hiterp., cap. iv.) defines \6yoc as "significant sound, whereof 
any one part is separately significant as an expression, but not as an affirma- 
tion." Cf. Schmidt, Beitriige, pp.218 sqq.; Steinthal, Sprachwiss. bei den Gr. 
und Rom., pp. 568 sqq. ; Lersch, Sprachpkilosophie, Pt. II., passim. 

X Directed against the Stoics, who made the Tvpoaijyopla a distinct part of 
speech. 

§ Aristotle (De Interp., cap. ii.) says: "A noun is a sound significant ac- 
cording to convention '(deaic == position), timeless, whereof no part is separately 
significant." Cf. Schmidt, Beitriige, p. 227 sqq. 



332 Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 

Peleides and Aiakides. Of masculine patronymics there 
are three forms, one in o-^c, one in wv, and one in ddcot: — e.g. 
Atreion, Atreides, and the form peculiar to the iEolians, 
Hyrradios. (Pittakos was the son of Hyrras.) Of feminine 
patronymics there are likewise three forms, one in .'c, as 
Priamis; one in etc, as Pelias ; one in vy, as Adrastine. From 
the names of mothers, Homer forms no species of patronym- 
ics ; later authors do. A Possessive is a noun which denotes 
possession and includes the possessor, as Nykqccu Imtot (Neleian 
mares), c Exzopeoz ftziov (Hektorean robe), II/Mzojuxbi< ficSXiov 
(Platonic book). A Comparative is a noun making a com- 
parison of one individual with another individual of the same 
genus, e.g. Achilleus braver than Aias ; or of one individual 
with many of a different genus, e.g. Achilleus braver than the 
Trojans. Of comparatives there are three forms, one in :s/wc, 
as ozuzepoz, ftpaouzepoz ; one in cov pure, as ftsXzuov, xaXXUov ; 
one in acov, as xpeioaiov, yjaocov. A Superlative is a noun used 
to express the superiority of one individual over many in 
a comparison. There are two forms of it, one in zazoz, as 
oquzazoi;, fipad'Jzazo<;\ and one in <rroc, as pijcazoc, apcazb^. A 
Diminutive is a noun expressing a diminution of the primi- 
tive word without comparison, as dvfrfjomiaxoc (mannikin), 
li&a% (stonelet), pietpaxuXXeov (stripling). A Nominal is a word 
formed alongside a noun, or as from a noun, as Theon. Try- 
phon. A Verbal is a noun derived from a verb, as Philemon, 
Noemon. 

There are three Forms of nouns, simple, compound, and 
super-compound — simple, as Memnon ; compound, as Aga- 
memnon ; super-compound, as Agamemnonides, Philippides. 
Of compounds there are four kinds ; 1°. those compounded of 
two complete words, as Cheirisophos ; 2°. those compounded 
of two incomplete words, as Sophokles ; 3°. those compound- 
ed of an incomplete and a complete word, as Philodemos ; 
and 4°. those compounded of a complete word and an incom- 
plete, as Perikles. 

There are three Numbers, singular, dual, and plural ; sin- 
gular, as c '^/i^ooc (Homer); dual, as zto 'Oprjpco (both Homers); 
plural, as "Ofiypot (Homers). There are some singular desig- 
nations used of plural objects, as drjpoz (people;, %opo<; (cho- 
rus); and plural designations used of singular and dual 



Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 333 

objects — of singular, as 'A&ijvou, Srficu (Athens, Thebes) — of 
dual, as d/juporefjoi (both). 

There are five Cases, the right, the generic,* the dative, the 
accusative, and the vocative. The right case is called also 
the nominative and the direct; the generic, the possessive, 
and the patrial; the dative, the injunctive-, while the accu- 
sative is named from cause, and the vocative is called the 
allocutive. 

The following terms, expressive of accidents belonging to 
the noun, are also called Species: proper, appellative, adjec- 
tive, relative, quasi-relative, homonym, synonym, pheronym, 
dionym, eponym, national, interrogative, indefinite, anapho- 
ric (also called assimilative, demonstrative, and retributive), 
collective, distributive, inclusive, onomatopoetic, general, 
special, ordinal, numeral, participative, independent. 

A Proper noun is one signifying a peculiar substance,f as 
Homer, Sokrates. An Appellative is one that signifies a 
common substance, as man, horse. An Adjective noun is one 
that is applied homonymously:}: to proper or appellative 
nouns, and signilies either praise or blame. It is derived 
from three sources, from the soul, the body, and external 
things: from the soul, as sage, licentious ; from the body, 
as swift, slow ; from external things, as rich, poor. A Rela- 
tive noun is such as father, son, friend, right (hand). A 
quasi-Relative is such as night, day, death, life. A Homo- 
nym is a noun predicated homonymously of many things, as 
of proper nouns, e.g. Telamonian Aias, O'ilean Aias ; of ap- 
lative nouns, as sea-mouse, land-mouse. A Synonym is a 
noun which, by several designations, signifies the same thing, 
as glaive, sword, bludgeon, blade, brand. A Pheronym is a 
name given from some accident, as Tisamenos and Megapen- 
thes. A Dionym is a couple of names applied to the same 
proper noun, as Alexander and Paris, without there being 
any reciprocity in their signification; e.g., if one is Alexan- 



* 1'iTiKr/, on no account to be rendered by genitivus (genitive), as the Romans 
did. Vid. Max Miiller, Lectures, ist Series, p. 180 sq. (Eng. edit.) ; Schmidt, 
Beitriige, pp. 320 sqq. 

t Cf. Aristotle, Categ., cap. v. 

% Cf. Aristotle, Categ., cap. i. : '"Things which have a common name, but 
whereof the notions corresponding to that name are different, are said to be 
/lomonymous." 



334 Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 

der, it does not follow that he is Paris. An Eponym (also 
called Dionym) is a noun which, along with another proper 
noun, is applied to one object, as Poseidon is called 
Enosichthon, and Apollo, Phoebos. A National name is 
one showing to what nation an individual belongs, as Phry- 
gian, Galatian. An Interrogative (also called an Inquisi- 
tive) is so called from being employed in interrogations, 
as tic ; (who?) — -ouk : (of what sort?) — noaoz; (how great?) — 
nr/.ixo: • (how old?) An Indefinite is a noun placed in oppo- 
sition to an Interrogative, as dant; (whosoever), d-u7oc (of 
whatever sort), bizdeoz (however great), otojUxoz (of what- 
ever age). An Anaphoric noun (called also an Assimilative, 
a Demonstrative, or an Attributive) is one signifying simi- 
larity, as zocobzoc (as great), rrfAcxouroz (as old), zoiobzu; (such). 
A Collective noun is one which, in the singular number, sig- 
nifies a multitude, e.g. dr Jr io<; (people), %op6t: (chorus), oj^oc 
(crowd). A Distributive noun is one having a relation to 
one out of two or more, as s'zzou^ (the other), Ixdzenoc (each), 
i'xaazoc (every one). An Inclusive noun is one that shows 
what is contained in it, as datpvcbv (laurel-grove), -uo&smou 
(virgin's abode). An Onomatopoetic noun is one formed im- 
itativel} T from the peculiarities of sounds, as (pX6to6o<: (dash- 
ing), fioi'oz (whistling), dftofiaydoz (rattle). A General noun 
is one that can be divided into a number of species, as ani- 
mal, plant. A Special noun is one of those into which a 
genus is divided, e.g. ox, horse ; vine, olive. An Ordinal is 
a noun showing order, as first, second, third. A Numeral is 
a noun signifying number, as one, two, three. A Participa- 
tive is a noun partaking of a certain substance, as golden y 
silvern. An Independent noun is one which is thought by 
itself, as God, Reason. 

The Dispositions of the noun are two. Activity and Pas- 
sivity ; Activity, as the judge, the judging ; Passivity, as tin 
judgeable, the judged . 

1."). On the Vekh (^y/a).* 

A Verb is an indeclinable word , indicating time, jei^on 

* Aristotle (De Interf., cap. iii.) says : "A Verb is that which adds a time- 
specification, of which no part separately signifies anything, and which is always 
asserted of something else." Cf. Schmidt, Beitriige, pp. 344 sqq. ; Harris. Her- 
mes, Book I. cap. 6. 



Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 335 

and number, and showing activity or passivity. The verb 
has eight accidents : Moods, Dispositions (voices !), Species, 
Forms, Numbers, Tenses, Persons, Conjugations. There are 
five Moods: Indicative, Imperative. Optative, Subjunctive, 
and Infinitive. There are three Dispositions*: Activity, Pas- 
sivity, and Mediality— Activity, as ximvto (I strike); Passivity, 
as z'j-To/Mi (I am struck); Mediality, marking partly activity 
and partly passivity, as nsnoc&a (I trust), deif&opa (I waste), 
inoirjadfirjv (I became), iypoupdfxyv (I registered). There are 
two Species: Primitive and Derivative — Primitive, as apdco; 
Derivative, as dodv'jo). There are three Forms : Simple, Com- 
pound, and Super-Compound — Simple, as <ppova>\ Compound, 
as xarafpovw ; Super-Compound, as dvTeyovi^oi (I Antagonize), 
wdtTi-i^oj (I Philippize). There are three Numbers: Singu- 
lar, Dual, and Plural — Singular, as ru7rr<w; Dual, as tuxtstov; 
Plural, as zunzopiev. There are three Persons : First, Second, 
and Third. The First is the person from whom the assertion 
is ; the Second, the one to whom it is ; and the Third, the one 
concerning whom it is. There are three Tenses : Present, 
Past, Future. Of these, the Past has four sub-species — Im- 
perfect, Perfect, Pluperfect, and Aorist — which stand in three 
respective relations: the Present is related to the Imperfect, 
the Perfect to the Pluperfect, and the Aorist to the Future. 

16. On Conjugation (au^uyia). 

Conjugation is the consecutive inflection of Verbs. Of Ba- 
rytone Verbs there are six conjugations, of which the First 
is characterized by 6", <p, -, or tzt, as kec6a), ypd<pia, vepizto, 
xo-zo)\ the Second by r, x, /, or xr, as /.iyio, izAexat, zpiyco, zixzio\ 
the Third by o, #, or r, as adco, -/.r/lco, dvutio ; the Fourth 
by £ or tt, as <ppd£a), uuaffio, opuaaco ; the Fifth by the four 
unchangeables, /. u, v, (>, as ndXXto, vep.a)\ and the Sixth by 
a pure, as i7trceuaj : ~/Jtu, ftaadeuw, dxouto. Some also introduce 
a Seventh Conjugation, characterized b} 7 £ and <p, as dUzco, 

e<pco. 

17. On Cikcumflexed Verbs (Tzepcanatfieva). 

Of Circumfiexed Verbs there are three Conjugations, of 
which the First is characterized in the second and third per- 
sons by the diphthong ee, as voio, uos7<;, voet ; the Second by 

* Aid&eotg, the word which Roman stupidity rendered by Vox (voice). 



336 Grammar of Dionysios Tltrax. 

the diphthong «, as Soco, 6oaz, ooa (the c being added in writ- 
ing,* but not pronounced) ; and the Third by the diphthong 
01, as ypuaaij ypuao7^, ypuadt. 

18. On Verbs in pt (zd eiz pe). 

Of Verbs ending in pi there are four conjugations, of which 
the First is characterized from the first of the Circumflexed 
Conjugations, as from zt&to comes xid--qpx\ the Second from 
the second, as from lazco, larqpt ; the Third from the third, as 
from dcdco, dldajpi ; and the Fourth from the sixth of the Bary- 
tone Conjugations, as from Trrjyuuo), Tir^vupc. 

19. On the Participle (pezuyrj). 

A Participle is a word partaking of the nature both of 
nouns and verbs. It has all the accidents which belong to 
nouns as well as those which belong to verbs, except mood 
and person. 

20. On the Article (dp&pov). 

An Article is a declinable part of speech prefixed or sub- 
joined to the various cases of nouns, taking, when prefixed, 
the form o, and, when subjoined, the form oc-t It has three 
accidents : Gender, Number, and Case. The Genders are 
three, as b Tzocyrfc, fj noirjatc;, zb -oiypa. The Numbers are 
three: Singular, Dual, and Plural — Singular, as 6, ^, zo; 
Dual, as rw, zd ; Plural, as of, «.' zd. The Cases are — 6, zou, 
za> } zbv, <b\ >y, r^c, r^, r^v, to; ro, roD, rcu, zo, w. 

21. On the Pronoun (dvzwvupia.)\ 

A Pronoun is a word assumed instead of a noun, and indi- 
cating definite persons. It has six accidents : Person, Gen- 
der, Number, Case, Form, and Species. 

* It was not subscribed till the twelfth century of our era. Vid. Kiihner, Aus- 
fiihr. Gram, der Gr. Spr., vol. i. p. 59, note (2d edit.) Chceroboskos (Bekker, 
Anec. Grteca, vol. p. 1186) says: "It must be understood that grammarians, 
whose attention is directed to pronunciation, say that the 1 is unpronounced 
when it is found with (follows) a long, >j, or u, * * * * ; but musicians, 
who stickle for accuracy, say that it is pronounced, but is not distinctly heard on 
account of the length of the [preceding] long vowels." 

t The ancient a/nipov included both the article and the relative pronoun. Cf. 
Lersch, Sprachphilosophie, Pt. II. pp. 132 sqq. ; Steinthal, Sprach-v. bet den 
Gr. und Rom., pp. 660 sqq. ; Harris, Hermes, Bk. II., cap. 1. 

% Lersch, Pt. II. passim; Steinthal, pp.663 sqq-: Harris, Hermes, Bk. I. 
cap. v. 



Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 337 

22. On Primitive Pronouns. 

The Persons of the Primitive Pronouns are ivcb, oi>, c; those 
of the Derivative Pronouns, £//6c, <roc, <fc. The Genders of 
the Primitive Pronouns are not expressed in speech, but by 
the indication which they make, as iyco (I), whereas the Gen- 
ders of the Derivatives are expressed in speech, as 6 iuo; } 
J} i/r/j, to ijjidu. The Numbers of the Primitives are — Singular, 
ira>, ait, l'; Dual, vcoi\ aycac; Plural, $/*£«C, 6//e?c, ofttz: those 
of the Derivatives — Singular, i/i6c, <roc, oc; Dual, £//<«, <rw, a>; 
Plural, i/*o/ 3 <ro/, ol. The Cases of the Primitives are — Direct, 
iroj, au, «'; Generic, £//ou, <roiJ, oh ; Dative, i/W, <ro;', oF; Accu- 
sative, i//i, ere, e ; Vocative, <ru : those of the Derivatives are 
ifioc, oo~, 5c; £//oD, <roD, oD; «/-««>, <r<£, «> ; £/zov, <7ov, 8v. There 
are two Forms: Simple and Compound — Simple, i/wb, oob, 
oh ; Compound, iuwjzo 7 ), aauzou, kauzou. There are two Spe- 
cies, inasmuch as some are Primitive, as iyco. au, :', and others 
Derivative, as are all the Possessives, which are also called 
Bi-personals. They are thus derived— from Singulars, those 
designating one possessor, as i/wv, i/wz; from Duals, those 
designating two, as from va>e\ vtvhepoc, from Plurals, those 
designating many, as from /y/^c, fjfierepoz. Of the Pronouns, 
some are [used] without the article and some with it — with- 
out the article, as ira> ; with the article, as b iptoz. 

23. Ox Prepositions {itp6&eot<;)* 

A Preposition is a word placed before any of the parts of 
speech, both in Composition and in Syntax. The number of 
Prepositions is eighteen, whereof six are monosyllabic, iv, 
ecc, ig, Tifjo, rrfjoz, o'jv — which are incapable of anastrophe — 
and twelve are dissyllabic, dud, xazd, did, uezd, napd, dvz't, liti, 
TTcj)'.^ dn.ifi, d~6, u~6, urzif). 

24. On the Adverb (kitipfyfiai)^ 

An Adverb is an indeclinable part of speech, said of a verb 
or added to a verb. Of the Adverbs, some are Simple, and 
others Compound — Simple, as ~d)m; Compound, as nponakae. 
Some are indicative of time, as wv, zozs, audi- : to these we 

* Lersch, passim ; Steinthal, 671 sqq. ; Harris, Hermes, Bk. II. cap. iii. 
% t Lersch, flassim ; Steinthal, 672 ; Harris, Hermes, Bk. I. cap. xi. ; Schmidt, 
Beitrcige, pp. 485 sqq. 
viii — 22 



338 Grammar of Dionysios Thrax. 

must subordinate as species those that connote particular 
times or seasons, as oqpepov, aupcov, vdfpa, zicoz, itrjvixa. Some 
indicate manner, as xahoz, oo<pa>ti, duvaz&c;; some, quality, as 
7tv£, Xdz, fioT(>od6v, dyurjonv ; some, quantit} 7 , as zo/ldxit;, bhyd- 
xiz, pupcdxa: ; some, number, as dlz, rpk, ztzpdxa;^ some, place, 
as duco, xdzu) — of these there are three kinds, those signi- 
fying in a place, those signifying to a place, and those sig- 
nifying from a place, as ohoc. oixads, oixo&ev. Some Adverbs 
signify a wish, as ei'/h, al'&e, dSaXs-, some express horror, as 
izanai, iov, cpvj ; some, denial or negation, as o ; j, ohyj, ou d^za, 
obdaptoz ; some, agreement, as vac, vaiyt ; some, prohibition, 
as prj, pr t dtjza, pydapwt; ; some, comparison or similarity, as 
w:, ibansp, 9/&TS, xa&d, xafrdzep; some, surprise, as fta6at\ some, 
probability, as «ra>c, rd^a, zu%6v ; some, order, as l^c, £<p ^c, 
ftopiz\ some, congregation, as dpdrjv, dpa, jjfo&a; some, com- 
mand, as ela, dye, (pipe ; some, comparison, as pd/J.ov, Jprbv ; 
some, interrogation, as -bdev, nob, tt^vcxu, ttcoz ; some, vehe- 
mence, as o<podpa, dyav, rzdvu, pdXcoza ; some, coincidence, as 
&pa, bpou, dpudcz; some are deprecative, as pd; some are assev- 
erative, as vy ; some are positive, as dyvcooziov, ypanziov, kXeu- 
ozeov; some express ratification, as dyAadrj ; and some enthu- 
siasm, as euo7, tudv. 

25. On Conjunctions (ovvde.op.oz).* 

A Conjunction is a word binding together a thought in or- 
der and tilling up the hiatuses of speech. Of conjunctions, 
some are copulative, some disjunctive, some conjunctive, 
some praeter-conjunctive, some causative, some dubitative, 
come conclusive, and some expletive. Copulative Conjunc- 
tions are those which bind together a discourse which flows 
on indefinitely : they are these, piv, di, re, xai, d/ld, y]piv, -^di, 
dzdp, auzdp, fjzot. Disjunctive Conjunctions are those which 
bind the phrase more firmly together, and disjoin the facts 
expressed : they are these, q, rjzoc, y£. Conjunctive Conjunc- 
tions are those which do not indicate any actual existence, 
but signify sequence : they are these, ec, etkep, ecdr n ecdrjnsp. 
The Prater-conjunctives are those which, along with actual 
existence, show also order: they are these, i~si, ixecTrep, ineidrf, 

* Aristotle, Poet., cap. xi. ; Len»ch. passim; Steinthal, pp.673 SC 1 C J- i Harris, 
Hermes, Bk. II. cap. ii. 



Kant's Ethics. 339 

iTrmdrJTTep. Causatives are those which are taken to express 
cause: they are these, tva, 6<ppa, ottwc, svexa, ouvsxa, 5u, d:6, 
Store xa&6, xaftoTi, xa&oaov. DuMtatives are those which we 
are wont to use when we are in doubt; they are these, &~pa, 
xara, umv. Inferential^ are those which lend themselves 
readily to conclusions and summings-up of demonstrations: 
they are these, &pa, d/J.d, dl'/.d ukv, voivuv, zoq-dproi, rotyapouu. 
Expletives are those which are used for the sake of metre or 
ornament: they are these, or h pd, vj, nou, roc, frjv, do, d^ra, 
nip, 7i(l), prjv, dv, au, o5v, xsu, ye. Some persons add also 
Adoersatives, as innr^, niuo-. 



KANT'S ETHICS. 



By James Edmunds. 
[Continued Horn Vol. V., p. 307.] 

V. — The Ethical End and Aim. 

§ 85. " Superadd to the will of one sensitively affected 
(who would like to lie, because somewhat may' be earned by 
it), the moral law. Then it is as when the experimenter adds 
an alkali to a solution of muriate of lime : the acid deserts 
the lime, combines with the alkali, and the earth is precipi- 
tated." Most extraordinary Kant ! 

However interesting such experiments are, we are not like 
to fall into the belief that morality is valid for man because 
it interests him. On the contrary, it interests solely because 
of its obvious and odious validity. The kaleidoscopic charm 
of exhibited virtue were surely insufficient to startle us out 
of placid resignation to the drift of nature, were not militant 
autocracy enforced by the native energy of the naked law. 
The obligation to descend into hell is expressed in the pre- 
cept "Know thyself"; and the man who goes down voluntarily 
must know well that the precipitous way is the sole (however 
unwelcome) path of supreme duty. Not until he has thor- 
oughly learned that in his own person unite the roles of 
Orpheus and Euridice, does he in search of himself valor- 
ously explore and with no backward glance immediately 
reconduct himself up the facilis descensus Averni. 



840 Kant's Ethics. 

§ 86. This valor (fortitude* moralis) is the true ethic 
strength (§ 53), manifest in the unflinching fulfilment of 
duty; and Kant acutely remarks that it were not virtue 
(the strength of man) " unless it were brought forth by the 
firmness of man's resolution when combatting such mighty 
withstanding appetites." 

As there is in genere but one reason, but one law of reason, 
and but one freedom (§§ 43, 62, 76), so there, can be but one 
virtue, the strength of resistance to whatever determinator 
may propel toward injustice. But as the law (in application 
by means of the ethical schema) directs upon material ends 
and thereby constitutes particular duties, so it may be said 
that the one true virtue, thus (in the fulfilment of these du- 
ties i applied, becomes different practical virtues, correspond- 
ing to the several distinct offices of virtue (particular moral 
duties, such as not to lie). k 'To acknowledge several virtues, 
as we inevitably must, is merely to cogitate different moral 
objects towards which the will is guided and led by the one 
and single principle of virtue.' 1 

§ 87. He who endeavors to fulfil duty, approves his own 
conduct pro tanto; and this self-approbation is in itself no 
slight pleasure. Kant well says that no man can endure to 
hold himself unworthy of life ; and the displacency follow- 
ing upon self-condemnation embitters an}^ pleasure attained 
by unworthy means (violation of obligations). But he who 
persists in his worthy endeavor without ceasing, will proba- 
bly surprise himself (and not infrequently) in the possession 
of an ethical complacency which is so far superior to self- 
approbation that it is untranslatable into language ; and in 
this way virtue is truly its own reward, bringing along with 
it (in terra) a peace (hominibus bonaB voluntatis) which pass- 
eth understanding. But this most desirable peace is to be 
attained by no other means than constant struggle ; and he 
who halts for a moment in his onward march toward virtue, 
fondly fancying himself already sufficiently virtuous, shall 
have no peace. To say that virtue is a quality (possessed of 
degree) is no doubt correct; but to maintain that the essence 
of virtue consists just in the degree of the quality (in other 
words, that the possession of a certain quantum of virtue is 
the essence of moral perfection), is to eradicate the very 



The Ethical End and Aim. 341 

notion of morality. To liim who should attain moral perfec- 
tion, the law would be no longer applicable; and so tiie aim 
of the law could be no longer commanded and the end of the 
law no longer indicated. To sum up all in a paradox : vir- 
tue is never found but in the seeking, and he who hath her 
hath her not.* 

<< 88. The great extent of the moral law (which must cover 
every particular act of reason, else it were no law of reason), 
preventing the possibility of its complete fulfilment hy any 
one agent (though if all agents were honestly to fulfil each 
his duty, the law must necessarily be fuliilled. no further 
obedience being possible), in connection with the complexity 
of the concerns of individual life, occasions indeterniinateness 
of moral obligation. For while it is easy to state certain acts 
which we must do or omit (as not to steal, to obey just statutes, 
etc.), there are other duties (as beneficence) no less obligatory, 
which cannot be extensively determined. For instance, wheth- 
er we give to the poor so great part of our means that our own 
family must suffer, or withhold from our hungry neighbor 
that we may enjoy superfluity, we are equally wrong; but 
the exact medium cannot be known, and each person must 
judge each case for himself as justly as possible. It is not 
lawful to neglect any duty because its extent cannot be accu- 
rately known; for the obligation would thereby be violated. 
The judgment in indeterminate cases must depend upon the 
maxim which governs the act ; and if that maxim is in har- 
mony with the law, the act is right. 

* This is hard doctrine for those transcendent geniuses who if they may not 
issue upon some absolute end will begin no march; who find it "just as saiisfac- 
tory to be resigned at the beginning as at the [what?] end" of an endless pro- 
gress. But it involves no other presupposition than that the law precedes its 
subject. Leibnitz could not endure that form should precede the things them- 
selves and determine their possibility: an objection, says Kant (remarks upon 
the equivocal nature of the conceptions of reflection), "•perfectly correct, if we 
assume that we intuite things as they are. although with confused representa- 
tion.'* But to think that form precedes things-in-themselves is irreconcilable 
merely with the thought of things uncreate and indeterminable, not repugnant 
to the understanding. For it is by no means the intuition which gives the per- 
manence (not-beginning) of matter, lint the understanding — the same under- 
standing which confesses its own inability to deal in any way with this same 
permanent matter other than upon the presupposition of law. To annihilate 
the absolutely necessary presupposition, is to admit the apotheosis of the abso- 
lutely limited understanding with which Fichte logically concludes. 



342 KanVs Ethics. 

§ 89. The interest of reason in the indeterminateness of 
moral obligation is inestimable. Although upon lirst view 
it would seem preferable that all acts should be morally 
determinate, yet manifestly if we are to know immediately 
that an act is right or wrong, we shall probably do or 
omit it and think no more about it, a procedure which does 
not so much tend to the exercise and consequent strengthen- 
ing of virtue. But since we are obliged to use a continuous 
dialectic as to the moralitv of our actions, and are unable to 
conclude with certainty, and can approximately decide only 
by careful scrutiny of our own motives : it results that the 
faculty of moral judgment (conscience), developed by con- 
stant use, becomes more active and adept and easy of appli- 
cation : and the moral sense is rendered more acute, vastly 
increasing both the pain which deters from wrong and the 
pleasure which incites to right. And since virtue is inevita- 
bly its own reward, the most refined selfishness might forbid 
the neglect of any duty, however indeterminate. 

§ 90. The facility with which the morality of actions may 
be evolved by consideration of their maxim is truly surpris- 
ing. It is not easy to exemplify any rule, because instances 
are for the most part inadequate : but since we have nowhere 
attempted a categorical treatise, we have introduced exam- 
ples without hesitation ; and we here subjoin one which 
occurs: Yesterday we removed a large atlas from our desk. 
In passing through the office we were interrupted by an asso- 
ciate who inquired " Is the war over ?" (the atlas no longer 
required ?) He was answered that we wanted to use the atlas 
at our room. Conscience immediately condemned that an- 
swer; and the judgment was delivered as promptly and as 
apparently without consideration as the reply itself. But 
since reason never acts illogically, it is duty to recall by 
reflection the steps in the logical process which (were not 
originally omitted, but, being passed over with incalculable 
rapidity,) concluded in the first instance upon the reply and 
in the second upon the condemnation. Clearly it will not do 
to insist on the truth of the reply in the presence of the con- 
demnation ; so we must go to the motive again : this time we 
find that we do not desire to use the atlas at our room more 
than at the office, our real object being to secure more space 



The Ethical End and Aim. 343 

in the desk and to " satisfy the unities" by placing the book 
in our library. We next inquire into the motive of the lie: 
here it appears that there were present several gentlemen 
who might have inferred a wish to put the map out of their 
reach, a wish which if expressed would have been pronoun- 
ced u mean." Hence the desire not to be accounted ungener- 
ous prompted an inconsiderate and needless falsehood ; and 
the maxim (to lie rather than seem ungenerous) needs no 
proof of its unfitness for law universal. No analysis of the 
lie itself can exhibit its falsity; but the recognition of the 
maxim instantly justifies the voice of conscience. The hu- 
miliation of such an examination is always salutary; for it 
strengthens the conviction that conscience, however warped, 
is apt to speak the truth to the attentive ear, and thereby 
assists to constitute a habit of attention which makes less 
difficult the performance of duty. 

§ 91. But we cannot too emphatically insist that this sort 
of exploration does in no way increase the obligation of obe- 
dience to the law (§ 77). It is only because we cannot escape 
from the judgment of conscience, that we undertake the self- 
examination necessary to exhibit the deduction of the judg- 
ment. If the judgment were theoretic merely and esteemed 
invalid, no man would devote an instant to the development 
of its accordance with the systematic unity of all science 
(§ 49). Moreover, if the scientific deduction were essential to 
the validity of the deliverance of conscience, that validity 
could extend only to those agents who are competent to make 
the deduction ; and he who is by force of hard circumstance 
prevented from high cultivation of his own rational faculty, 
might well plead ignorance of the law in avoidance of judg- 
ment. And when presently we come to consider the supreme 
occasion of the law (§§ 14, 96), we shall not be able suffi- 
ciently to admire that supreme adaptation of means to ends 
which admits no defeat and tolerates no avoidance, and which 
here as elsewhere distinguishes the architectonic character 
of the natura naturans. 

§ 92. The intelligent knows himself merely as presenting 
a phenomenon to which he gives a law. Finding himself 
compelled to obey his law, he proceeds in accordance with 
his phenomenal method of ends to assign his intelligent self 



344 Kant's Ethics. 

as the end of his supersensible law. But of himself as an 
end he knows nothing more than the fact of existence. He 
yields obedience to the force of the pure law, and not to any 
figurative or abstract end. Himself as end is a pure abstrac- 
tion, adding nothing to the law, which is an obstinate reality. 
For himself as end he may have no regard (§ 71) : yet will he 
be unable to break the force of the law (§ 78). But as a doc- 
trine, by the representation of himself as end the selfish man 
may be able to coact the pure representation of the law,, 
setting over against the solicitations of the carnal man an 
ethical analogue (as it were) of the material ends of his phe- 
nomenal designs. 

§ 93. This figurative sequent to the application (by an 
agent subject to sensuous solicitation) of the pure insensi- 
tive law, Kant represents as " an end which is at the same 
time a duty'''; and the co-action which is effected by the 
adoption of this quasi end into human design, he seems to us 
to confound with the original spontaneous action of the law 
(§ 80). " That there must be such an end," says he, "and a 
categorical imperative corresponding to it, is apparent from 
this : that were there are free actions there must also be ends 
whitherwards they tend as their object; and among these 
ends there must be some whereof it is of the very essence to 
be duties. For were none such given, then (because no action 
can be aimless) would every end be only valid in the eye of 
reason as a means instrumental and conducive toward some 
further end, and a categorical imperative would be impossi- 
ble, a position which would overthrow all ethics," which 
would be very sad, certainly. 

§ 94. Now the truth is that the purely insensitive law 
(§ 54) cannot possibly supply the matter of obligation (an 
end which is at the same time a duty), and can at furthest 
only give form to sensible design and direct to the adoption 
of such ends alone as (and of an} T ends of will that) are 
thereto conformable,. Kant's ethical end is merely the 
necessary schema (§ 59) in and through which the otherwise 
inconceivable synthesis (of the heterogeneous elements, in- 
telligible holiness and the deflected and sensuously subjected 
will of the man of flesh and hot blood) becomes possible (and 
constitutes virtue). To this end (as to any schema) no con- 



Tltt Ethical Mud and Aim. 345 

ceivable matter can be adequate ; and while it must be con- 
ceded that beneath softer skies it may perhaps (how, when, 
or where we know not) be possibly an objective end, it can- 
not by any means be admitted into the essential constitution 
of the obligation of the supreme law of reason, who tolerates 
no co-sovereign (§ 46) and resolutely refuses to rest upon any 
determination of sense, whether body or pure schema, her ab- 
solute ideal rule : sic volo! sic jubeo! sit pro ratioiie voluntas! 

§ 95. It is true that no action can be aimless. But reason 
commands to act only because to act is essential to the world 
of nature, whereof the rational agent is constituent ($ 47): in 
other words, the merely human reason is a regulative, not a 
constitutive idea, and her law commands not so much to act, 
as (since man must act) how to act (§ 74). If there were no 
schema, she could not even regulate ; and a categorical im- 
perative commanding an end would be impossible, a position 
which would overthrow all applied ethics. 

§ 96. But we understand that the categorical imperative 
(§ 5) depends upon no commandment of any end (§§ 57, 84) 
as its warrant and sure ground, but solely upon its position 
as the inexorable apodict of reason, by which supreme facul- 
ty it is moreover unremittingly thrust forward and enforced 
upon the world. We see also (Chap. IY.) how in and through 
the rational schema, man, the law is synthetically formulated 
and directed upon material ends, constituting and subsum- 
ing under itself particular offices of virtue : which offices are 
never adequate to the obligation of the law, and which ends 
can never enter into that obligation as the ethical end and aim 
of the law. Our deduction is therefore at an end and complete 
in so far as it subserves a practical behoof (§ 23); and it 
remains only to inquire, in order that the demand of reason 
for absolute completeness (theoretical as well as practical) 
may be satisfied: — What is the true end and aim of the law? 
What is the true content of the design which reason appre- 
hends in the conception of her absolute law, which design 
cannot be abstracted from without destroying the very no- 
tion itself of law? And we shall be assisted in this highest 
speculation of supremest reason by the reflection (upon sure 
apriori ground) that such an end cannot only be no object 
in the world and hence no possible end and aim of human 



346 Kant's Ethics. 

design, but no object at all, and therefore no end and aim of 
any finite intelligence. Else were it not only inadequate to 
the law which directs upon it, but insufficient to check the 
daring progress of reason, which would unhesitatingly pass 
beyond it in search of that Absolute Unconditioned upon 
which alone any determinate finds ultimate rest. What 
therefore we shall discover is no end and aim of our finite 
action, which it must be our duty as rational agents to adopt 
and approach ; but such an end and aim as that merely to 
behold it is and ever shall be the complete and absolute 
occasion for the existence and exhibition of the law. 

§ 97. The wondrous fact of moralit}^ in all ages and under 
all circumstances instructs man, who would fain set himself 
up as the author of a law from which he would fain escape, 
that so soon and so long as he attempts so to escape must he 
himself (man the inexorable judge) pronounce upon himself 
(man the willing culprit) never ending self-condemnation 
(§ 24), a judgment which neither contains nor threatens any 
penalty beyond the mere fact itself of its declaration, but 
under which to remain is itself the supreme penalty of 
supreme law. No doubt particular violations of material 
duties are followed by sensible pains and punishments ; but 
these, however difficult to be borne, are utterly inadequate to 
the bare fact of the judgment, and would by the commonest 
reason gladly be a thousandfold endured, were it thereby 
possible to be rid of the terrors of the law itself. It is not 
to be denied that the material end and practical aim conse- 
quent upon the law is the conservation and continual ad- 
vancement of phenomenal man. But the ethical end and 
aim of the law, (to which moreover three thousand recorded 
years of experience and observation have uniformly and 
irresistibly pointed), ever unconditionally demanded by rea- 
son in view of the unconditioned law itself, is the Uncondi- 
tioned Author Himself, Semper Deus.* 



:: It.is 3266 years since in Asia the great Pharaoh, K.vmesks Mei-Amoux, in 
the fifth year of his reign, on the ninth day of the month Epiphi, marching 
against the insurgent tribes commanded by the prince of Kheta, found his troops 
driven hack in terror before the city Atesh. on the left bank of the river Aranta, 
ami himself for the first time in the face of defeat. To rally and inspire his broken 
cohorts, he himself in the presence of his army ordered his single chariot into 
the confederate ranks. "He was alone, " relates a historian of his court, '-no 



*The Ethical End and Aim. 347 

§ 98. Schwegler aptly characterizes the Neo- Platonic 
philosophy as a monism, and thus the most perfect develop- 
other near him. And the king had with him neither his princes nor his gener- 
als, nor the captains of the archers or of the chariots. And this is what his 
majesty of the sound and strong lite said: 

•• ' What then is the intent of my Father Ammon? Is it a Father who would 
deny his son? Or have 1 trusted to my own thoughts? Have I not walked 
according to Thy word? Has not Thy mouth guided my going- forth, and Thy 
counsel- have they not directed me? Have I not dedicated to Thee magnificent 
festivals in great number, and have I not filled thy house with my booty? There 
is building to Thee a dwelling for myriads of years. The whole world is gather- 
ing together to dedicate its offerings to Thee. I have enriched thy domain; I 
have sacrificed to Thee thirty thousand oxen, with all the scent-bearing herbs 
and choicest perfumes. 1 have built for Thee upon the sand temples of blocks 
of stone; and bringing obelisks from Elephantina, I have reared eternal shafts 
in Thine honor. For Thee the great ships toss upon the deep; they bear to 
Thee the tribute of the nations. Who will say that like things have been done 
at any other time? Ignominy to him who resists Thy designs: felicity to him 
who understands Thee. () Ammon. 1 invoke Thee, O my Father! I am in the 
midst of a throng of unknown tribes, and I am alone before Thee; no one is with 
me. My archers and my horsemen deserted me when I called aloud to them; 
not one among them hearkened to me when I cried to them tor help. But I 
prefer Ammon to thousands of archers, to millions of horsemen, and to myriads 
of young men arrayed in phalanx. The wiles of men are as nought; Ammon 
will prevail over them. O Sun, have 1 not obeyed the order of Thy lips, and 
Thy counsels have they not guided me? Have I not given glory to Thee, to the 
ends of the earth?* *" 

The incident is (said by the French savants to be) commemorated at I. uxor, at 
Ipsamboul, at Beit-el-Wally, in the Rameseum, and at Karnak, upon one of 
whose walls it is related in extenso. Whether the Alexander of his age actu- 
ally delivered the invocation in the midst of battle, is not material for the pur- 
pose of this illustration ; since even the uncritical predetermination to compress 
Egyptian chronology within the limits of the Mosaic genesis will not find it easy 
to assign to the record a date within the past three thousand years.* 

At the Indian council at Fort Laramie, October 5, 1S70, Red Cloud, hero of 
eighty-seven battles, with uplifted hands, 'in presence of the commissioners and 
the assembled Indians," who all rose to their feet, "prayed: 

•■O Great SriRix, I pray You to look at us: we are Your children, and You 
placed us first in this land. We pray You to look down on us, so nothing but the 
truth will be spoken in this council. We don't ask for anything but what is right 
and just. When You made Your red children. O Great Spirit, You made them 
to have mercy upon them. Now we are before You to-day, praying You to 
look down on us and take pity on Your poor red children. We pray You to 
have nothing but the truth spoken here. You are the Protector of the people 
born with bows and arrows as well as the people born with hats and garments; 



* The poem of Pen-ta-ur upon the wall at Karnak is greatly disfigured by time; but it is partly 
preserved in the papyrus of Sallier in the British Museum, and partly restored by the labors of 
Champollion and other eminent Egyptologists. The reader may consult the Vicointe de Rouge's 
memoir on *' the campaigns of Sesostris," Revue Contemporaire for August, 1S56; or F. de La- 
nave's "Rameses the Great." 



348 KaaVs Elides. 

ment of ancient philosophy "in so far as this has striven to 
carry back the sum of all being to one ultimate ground." 
(§ 16.) 

Plotinus, says Schwegler, "has thoroughly striven to 
think of this first principle [unity] not as first principle, i.e. 
not in its relation to that of which it is the ground, but only 
in-itself, wholly without reference either to us or to any- 
thing else. This pure abstraction, however," adds Schweg- 
ler, "he could not carry out." 

Now this is just such a comment as one would expect from 
a disciple of Hegel, to whom even absolute nothing is some- 
thing to be carried out. It is difficult to avoid the belief that 
there must be some radically weak point in such great minds, 
that when they have accompanied reason to her ultimate 
deliverance (consciousness) and have discovered her ultimate 
ground (unity*) they must so persistently forget that the 
consciousness of the ground is no knowledge of the ground, 
and in itself gives nothing more than bare existence, and 
must so daringly venture the transcendent saltus which re- 

and I hope we don't pray You in vain. We are poor and ignorant; our lore- 
fathers told us we would not be in misery if we would a>k for Your assistance. 
O Great Spirit, look down on Your red children and take pit} - on them." 

Fayel, a correspondent who never lies, has particularly described to us the 
scene upon this occasion. We have carefully collated our copy with the original 
transcription made by John Richards, to whom and to Lkon 1\\li.ai:day (both 
of whom also heard thtoriginal delivery) Red Cloud for this purpose expressly 
repeated the invocation. The result oi our investigation is the conviction that 
the prayer is genuine and the transcription correct in general, though not quite 
literal. The personal character of the chief (one of the noblest of hi- people) 
does not concern the present illustration. 

God always; but when His children arc in trouble, they call Him -'Father.'* 

* This unity is immanent in knowledge and in nature (of which may be 
knowledge), but it is transcendent in idea; and of it (as transcendent) con- 
sciousness declares only that it exists. 

In this connection it ma y be noted that the word "preposited" d 16) is not 
used inadvertently: we do not mean "presupposed," as has been ••supposed." 
The presupposition stands in relation to the supposition, like its hypothe- 
sis, and with it would fall. But the unity which is preposited by consciousness 
is clearly abstract, completely independent, and (unlike consciousness) cannot be 
annihilated even in thought. And of all the apodictic deliverances of conscious- 
ness, this is the most apodictic. 

We are not unaware that the words suppose and presuppose are by some 
used to indicate the proposition and the preposition: but they are so demoralized 
by the popular use that we would as soon undertake to expound "the idea of 



Tin- Ethical End and Aim. 349 

moves them instantly beyond all stay and support (§ 21) — 
as though having climbed to the very apex of the highest 
tower in the earth, one may safely leap thence toward heaven. 
Neither Plotinus nor Heuel nor any finite intelligent 
can carry out such pure abstraction. It is enough that the 
philosopher is permitted to attain to it and to gaze upon its 
glory. If his »oul does not expand in that gaze, expand into 
utter humility (not humiliation), let him remember that pearls 
are no fit diet for swine, and get him back to whatever his 
experience enables him most easily a to carry out." 

§ 99. But who, demands Plotinus, "could understand the 
full power [o-jw/m!^] of Absolute Unity ?" (aurou bpou, the 
one in itself). For if otherwise, he adds, u how could one 
[r*r, he, any determinate] differ from the one in itself?"* 

Since therefore to know the Infinite is not possible for the 
finite (§ 75), the grand old dialectician proceeds to illustrate 
that ecstatic instant in which as it were by a "Hash of rap- 
turous light " the soul becomes conscious of the absolute 
unknowableness of Absolute Unity, as a separation from 
individual consciousness and an absorption into Infinite 
Intelligence. This is that unparalleled magnificence of 
conception which the disciple of Comte is unable to look 
upon without a sneer at" the vicious circle in which all such 
reasonings are condemned to move.''t 

§ LOO. Plotinus, Spinoza, Kant — greatest among great 
names — the last not least — how large a portion of Infinite 
Love must have blessed these three living, whose neglected 

red"' to ;i Texan bull as to restore their radical significance. Furthermore, they 
are convenient as degenerate. 



* 'In av ovv ~t/v ovvafuv avrov ■■-'<>■' 6/xni rraoav • ei yap o/iov Tcaoav, ri av vn nrrmi 
• ipo/. — Enneas V. lib. 5, cap. 10. 

t Lewes sarcastically sums up the case thus: 
'■ Axiom: The finite cannot comprehend the Infinite. 
•• Problem: How can the finite comprehend the Infinite?" 
"Solution: The finite must become the Infinite." * 

Of a truth, ye are the people, and with you wisdom will die! 
Now conies one who asks "How does the Infinite become finite?" and 
unblushingly explains that *• the singleness of the determination sublates the 
otherness." The spirit of the reply is no doubt very honorable, and far from 
the superficies of self-styled positivism; but even a logodsedalist might reflect 
that occupation adds nothing to the conception of substance, which last cannot 



350 Kant's Ethics. 

pages the spirit of Infinite Love so gloriously illumines! 
The purpose of this brief review and recension of the philos- 
ophy of Immanfel Kant in reference to its central thought 
and motive will he fulfilled if it shall induce the reader to 
take no more Kantian doctrine upon trust, from whatever 
source, but to study for himself the works of the great 
thinker who met rationalism upon its own ground and in 
the interest of religion completely conquered it. Semple 
exclaims that "the philosophic system of Kant is not a uni- 
ty, which must be either wholly accepted or entirely rejected : 
it has a negative and a positive side, really opposed to each 
other." It is not true. The Kantian system is a connected 
whole and unity, and repays a thousandfold the patient 
months which bring at the last suddenly along the lines a 
blaze of light that irradiates and exhibits in new grandeur 
the whole universe. Happy Immanuel! how utterly hast 
thou entered into that very knowledge (falsely called " mys- 
ticism") which consists singly in PERceiving that knowledge 
is firmly rooted in the Unknowable, that reason declares, 
her hidden source and spring with absolute certainty, that 
her earliest voice and her latest end and deliverance, speak- 
ing alike in the same unknown tongue, manifest to His 
creatures irrespective of intellectual condition the absolute 
existence of the ABSOLUTE ONE, the Siniatic I AM 
WHO AM* 

"I think," says Kant, "that the time will come when the 
Kantian system may laugh in turn, and with the greater jus- 
tice, when it beholds the fair but airy castles of its opponents 
crumble to pieces at its touch, and their defenders taking 
fright amidst the ruins — a destiny which inevitably awaits 
them." No less does the same inexorable fate remain for 
the noble master's false disciples, + whose untruthful exege- 
sis has for more than half a century degraded his title to a 

be annihilated by an ideal and outrageously transcendent synthesis <>f the deter- 
minate and Absolute. 

* Not "I am that I am." which is puerile, but •• i urn Very Existence." See 
\ In- V nitrate. 

f It must not be supposed that we question the sincerity of those who claim 
to be rationalists of the Kantian school. But however true to themselves, they 
are utterly false to their master. 



Personal Relation of Christ to tlie Human Race. 351 

term of reproach among men and made the rational method 
an unendurable stink in the nostrils of virtue. When that 
time comes (perhaps not in our day, but surely), he who 
shall be so favored as to stand upon the solid Kantian ground 
at the outer verge of just human inquiry, shall behold dan- 
gling betwixt heaven and earth the baseless feet of them who 
make haste to lay profane hands upon the very altars of the 
MOST HIGH GOD. 

There is none like Thee among the gods, O Lord, 

And no works like Thine. 

All nations, which Thou hast mmle, 

Shall come and bow down before Thee, O Lord, 

And shall give glory to Thy Name. 

P'or Thou art great, and doest wonders; 

Thou art (ion alone. 



THE PERSONAL RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE 

HUMAN RACE. 



liv Gkokc, e N. Abbott. 



Within the scope of this comprehensive topic the present 
article will be devoted to the discussion of the following pro- 
position, namely, 

Christ's sons/i/p to humanity is a normal and integral relation. 

The truth of this proposition supposes on the side of hu- 
manity, that, considered in its normal state, it contains some 
latent principle or incipient germ constituting the rational 
ground or capacity on its part for a divine progeny. For if 
the relation in question be an integral one, then is not 
Christ's divinity in the least excluded from the human son- 
ship ; and if the sonship be a normal one. then must there 
be an original susceptibility for this relation in the proper 
nature of each party involved. 

Again, if Christ's sonship to humanity be a strictly normal 
relation, then did he not go out of his proper species when 
he ''became iiesh"; while, on the other hand, if the relation 
in question were abnormal, his becoming rlesh could be no 
otherwise regarded than as -a transmigration into a lower 



352 Personal Relation of Christ 

species of being. The former alternative, namely, that his 
human sonship be considered normal and in every sense ra- 
tional, while at the same time it is admitted that he is divine, 
brings us then at once to the assumption that there is no 
absolute difference of species between the divine and the 
human. 

Thus much explanatory may serve sufficiently to set forth 
the general intent of our proposition. The scientific proof of 
such a proposition ought, in order to suit all the relations of 
the subject, to be both metaphysical and physical, or onto- 
logical and physiological. 

In order to pursue our argument after the most feasible me- 
thod it may be necessary to expand it into the most general 
form, and to assume as the basis of reasoning the universal 
relationship necessarily subsisting between normal persons 
of whatever grade. This universal relationship will embrace 
within itself all specific normal relations, at least in the 
germ. The general formula of personal relationship will 
then constitute the principal lemma for the argument in 
hand. This formula may be given generally thus : 

Every normal personality virtually contains the radical princi- 
ple of every other such personality (whether actual or only normally 
possible). 

In order to render the import of this statement as intelligi- 
ble as possible, we may vary its form so as to give place to 
variety in the exponential terms. Using the mathematician's 
vocabulary, we may give the substance of our formula as 
follows : 

All the individual pure functions of the grand personal unit or 
idea are implicitly mutual functions of such, other. 

Again, the language of the formula being, so far as practi- 
cable, conformed to that of the naturalist, the same general 
import may be thus expressed : 

Every organically individualized rationality possesses as an essen- 
tial constitutive element an incipient germ of every other such 
rationality whose existence is possible in the normal organic devel- 
opment of the rational. 

The truth of these statements is that which lies at the foun- 
dation of the ideal harmony of the moral universe. 



to the Human Race. 353 

GENERAL DEMONSTRATION. 

It is of course here postulated that there is a certain ulti- 
mate or radical constituent in each proper person which forms 
the ground of distinct and permanently self-identical person- 
ality. Now this ultimate distinguishing principle can be no 
other than that principle or idea of reason which would have 
to be grasped in making out a rationale (rational solution) 
of that* particular person's being; which principle or idea we 
may designate by the term Radix Persona. But the ground 
principle of the rationale of a particular personality must be 
suggestive of, and in some mode or degree identical with, a 
universal personal idea comprehensive of a universal per- 
sonal rationale : otherwise the particular rationale in ques- 
tion would be without rule or method ; or, in other words, 
the existence of each individual person would form an entire- 
ly independent problem, and the rational conception of each 
person would be rendered absolutely and unconditionally 
sui generis ; which is absurd. Consequently the universal 
personal idea, or the ultimate reason and seminal principle 
of the existence of all possible rational individuals, must be 
in some mode or degree identified with or involved in each 
radix personce. 

Remark. — The special application of what is here proved 
to the particular case in question will be made in connection 
with the less rigid yet more specific demonstrations which 
follow. 

ANALOGIC* DEMONSTRATION FROM NUMERICAL UNITY". 

To the general demonstration now given may be added an 
analogic one having especial reference to the second or ma- 
thematically stated formula above. It is therein postulated, 
as is plain to be seen, more distinctly than in the first given 
formula, that there is a grand unit or personality. In this 

* This is called an analogic demonstration because there may be, as in the case 
of vegetable structures, actual numbers involved in the personal relations, which 
may be different from the ones suggested below. Since the writing of this essay 
the following- passage from Fichte has been pointed out to the writer: 

" Jed.es Individuum ist ein rationales Quadrat einer irrationalem Wurzel, die in 
der gesammten Geistenvelt ist wiederum rationales Quadrat der fur sie und ihr 
aniverselles Beivusstsein, welches jeder hat tend haben kann — irrationalen Wurzel = 
dem immanent en Lichte oder Qott." — Fichte to Schellino-. Letter xxvii. 

viii — 23 



354 Personal Relation of Christ 

regard, that is taken for granted which it was just now one 
part of our object to prove. 

Beginning, then, with the assumption of a universal per- 
sonal unity, we may attempt to unfold some of the necessary 
implications of such a unity. Now it must be admitted that 
every idea which can properly be called a unity involves in 
some important sense the mathematical unity with its essen- 
tial properties: otherwise the term unity in such a case loses 
entirely its primitive force. It appears likewise evident that 
the development of certain functions of the numerical unit 
ought to bear some specific ami logy to the ideal development 
of any subject to which unity can be ascribed as an essential 
attribute. Proceeding, then, upon this presumptive analogy, 
let us seek to discover those simple pure functions of unity 
which may perhaps illustrate our subject. 

In order to obtain the pure functions of any ideal subject, 
we proceed by the methods of analysis and synthesis, these 
being the two poles of all thought. But, in relation to num- 
ber, involution and evolution form specific modes of synthe- 
sis and analysis. * 

Now, making use of involution and evolution, we shall 
have three general pure functions of unity, including the 
underived unit as the prime function — namely, unity — the 
n th power of unity and the n ih root of unity, or 

i, i», r. f 

Only the last of these three functions admits variety of value, 
that having in any case one value equal to that of either of the 
other functions and n_1 other values all deducible by a general 
solution of the equation x" =-1. In order to make a single 
hypothetical solution, so far as possible, a complete rationale 
or /.oyo<; of the unit, let us suppose " (the degree of the given 
equation) equal to infinity, and at the same time a prime 
number, or, more strictly, indivisible by any assignable num- 
ber except unity. 

* Possibly there may be other modes better adapted to illustrate t lie subject . 
but the course here taken is one way to show that unity involves the many. 

t The more philosophical arrangement would be " , 1, 1% or. fully 

] -1 

i 1" 1" 1" 

expressed, { ' ' 

( Positive, Neutral. Negative. 



to the Human Race. 355 

The proposed hypothetical solution will then give us out 

1 -i 

'of the general pure function l 00 or l 00 an infinite number of 

particular functions [roots], every one of which has its total 
significance absorbed in that of the unit, and at the same 
time, reciprocally, absorbs by implication the total signifi- 
cance of the unit. 

Besides, one of these coordinately developed ultimate func- 
tions will be the original unit apparently unchanged, the 
remaining functions [roots] being essentially infinitesimal 
powers of of unity.' 

The former together with the general functions 1 and l 00 
will then give three equal pare functions of unity. 

In all, then, we shall have three equal functions and an 
indefinite number of functions coordinate or cognate with 
one of these three as regards development, but subordinate 
as regards value, — all these functions in the fullest sense 
implying each other. 

Now, restoring our numerical unit to its place in the per- 
sonal idea, we have — so far as the analogy will apply — a 
suggestion of three primary coequal persons and an indefi- 
nite number of secondary persons essentially cognate with 
one of the primary ; all mutually implying and as it were 
necessitating each other. 

Still further, a radix personce of the primary order in- 
volves, according to our analogy, one of the secondary order 
in an infinite' degree ; while a radix persona, of the secon- 



* The five 


fifth roots of unity 
1. 

\ [V"6 - 1 
\ [V"6 - 1 

-* CV^+ 1 
-i [V '"5+1 


are 










+ v- 


■ 10 


— 2V 


"6] 




- v- 

- v- 

- v- 


10 
10 
10 


-2V 

+ 2V 

+ 2V' 


6] 



These may serve to illustrate the form and mutual relation of cognate roots of 
unity of any degree whose index has the nature of a prime number. 

The existence of such roots adds significance to the function l 00 , which of 
course infolds into itself the ultimate involution of all the possible roots of 
unity. 

The imaginary character of the roots (except the first) is also significant, their 
real value lyinu not in themselves but in the parent unit- 



o 



56 Personal Relation of Christ 



clary involves one of the primary order in an infinitesimal 
degree.* 

By a simple substitution of terms which requires no spe- 
cial explanation, our argument from number, so far as applies 
directly to the subject in hand, may be summed up thus : 

While dhnnity involves humanity in its highest potence, humanity 
involves \_itn pi i es\ divinity in a minimum degree \_germinall V]. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL DEMONSTRATION. 

We may here make a transition to the organic law of per- 
sonal procreation, the substratum of which law we have 
attempted to give in the last of the three formulae which were 
to constitute one and the same lemma to our first enunciated 
proposition. We may commence the proof of that formula 
by showing that the essential procreative power in each in- 
dividual of a given organic species is in idea a summary of 
the procreative power of the whole species ; in other words, 
that there is a tendency in each individual to produce the 
species entire, with all its normalty arranged and correlated 
individuals. f Now a species is by definition limited to those 
individuals which either have or might have descended from 
a single individual or pair (the pair being organically but a 
polarized unit)4 

j_ 

* The radix personae analogous to the unit value of our symbol l°° ought, 
if the analogy be good, to be regarded as in respect to real value standing with 
the primary order, but in idea (i.e. as the ideal result of an infinite evolution or 
development) standing with the secondary order. In this view it becomes a 
true medium [mediator'] between the two orders. 

t Glimpses of a law of universal harmony between the proper individuals of 
an organic species are discoverable in the structure of a plant which of itself 
constitutes as it were a species in miniature; the single branches being distinct 
individuals, the single leaves too having strictly speaking a claim to organic 
individuality, and finally the millions of constituent cells having and in the last 
resort [e.g. at the beginning of germ-formation in the incipient seed] exercising 
the same claim. The branches, when all developed, are found to be arranged 
according to a geometrico-numerical law, the same law indeed by which the 
leaves are arranged upon the branches; so that the leaves of a tree, for instance, 
of a given species, and of a given age or degree of development, are in theory, it 
may almost be said, as the Scripture says of the hairs of our head, "all num- 
bered." 

% This statement does not preclude the ideal wholeness of each component of 
the pair, as will be seen tart her on. 



to the Human Race. 357 

There is, therefore, "hut one life in the species: and as this 
life may be wholly in one individual, so it may be wholly in 
every individual of which the one is the prototype. In other 
words, the species is brought simply by its definition within 
the range of application of that general axiom in relation to 
the dissemination of the organic or vital power in the indi- 
vidual : the whole is in every part. 

Our formula, indeed, affirms this community of organific 
potence of the whole order of organized rational being, within 
which sphere of being must be included the divine Father of 
spirits (his very paternity being exponential of his organic, 
that is, Thing personality) and all within the circle of his true 
sonship, divine, angelic, and human. 

And as all the individuals regularly descended from the 
same parent stock are universally reckoned to be of the same 
species, so is the divine Father with his first-born Son, the 
express image of his person, identified in species with numer- 
ous secondary progeny of angels and men ; these latter [an- 
gels and men] differing only, if differing at all except in degree 
of development, as varieties or races, mere modifications of 
the same universal type, and this type the image of God. 

If, therefore, the essentially self-procreative life of the spe- 
cies, original in the first All-Father, be, as we have endea- 
vored to show, universally diffused throughout the species 
in some measure or mode of its [the life's] entireness, then 
must there be in like manner diffused the correlative All- 
Sonship in potentia. Or, if in this connection we may be 
allowed the use of a metaphor, the All-Intelligent's first all- 
expressive Word can, as we may reasonably imagine, be 
echoed or repeated at least faintly by all who share in the 
universal reason. Again, to put the same conception under 
an aspect familiar to the naturalist, there cannot be denied 
to the human race, as a race of the grand rational species, 
that inherent characteristic of all natural races, a tendency 
to return by procreation to the primitive type: for though in 
most cases of animal and vegetable races such return may 
be along step downioard, this does not prove that in the case 
of rational beings there may not be normally an equally 
strong, if not a stronger, tendency to reproduce the primal 
type of the rational, though the attainment of such a result 



358 Personal Relation of Christ 

should be by an infinite step upward, since the contrast of 
inclinations thus presented is but the natural contrast be- 
tween the rational and the irrational. * 

If it cannot be assumed that the tendency in question will 
independently eventuate in an actual reversion to the divine 
Image proper in any single case of human birth, the denial 
of a right to such assumption is not equivalent to the denial 
of the fact of such a tendency. A tendency exists in every 
female to produce young; yet there is required a specific 
stimulative agency in order to overcome a certain inertia in 
the germinal organism. 

That incipient organism in the female which, if properly 
fructified, will result in a birth, is called an ovum ; the male 
coefficient of the ovum\ is, without doubt, its exact equal in 
value:}:: so we may assume the primitive ovum as the general 
symbol of the unisexual individual's reproductive capacity, 
whatever be the order of being. 

Now our lemma, being regarded as proved, furnishes this 
important link of argument for our specific proposition with 
regard to Christ's Human Sonship, namely : 

There belongs in the normal constitution of every human being 

the EQUIVALENT OF AN OVUM DlVINUM.§ 

In order to see clearly the full force of this statement, it will 
be needful to consider a little more particularly the relation 
of the sexual co-factors in procreation. Among some of the 
single-celled aquatic vegetables the method of propagation 
is by the conjugation or growing together of two cells not 
distingui 'shably different from each other, the adjacent walls 
being so removed as to allow the fluid contents of the two 
cells freely to commingle. In these mingled contents origin- 
ate the reproductive spore-cells. Here we have doubtless a 
minimum sexual development, but at the same time an index 

* Nature when elevated by extraneous cultivation seems inclined to fall back 
to its original plane, as the water of the cloud returns to the ocean; but it may- 
be, nevertheless, that in a more comprehensive view it will be found that all 
nature "groaneth and travaileth'' in expectation of results above itself. 

f The ovum in the case of persons might then be called the physiological radix 
personce. 

X This equality will, directly, be illustrated from a fact in natural history. 

g Comp. Gen. 3: 15. Gen. 22: 18. Gal. 3: 1G. 



to the Hitman Race. 359 

to one of the most important laws in this department, name- 
ly, that the primitive sexual co-factors are essentially equal. 

Again, in the higher forms of vegetation, where the sexual 
relation of reproductive organs is distinct, the masculine or 
pollen cell communicates its contents to the prime embryo- 
nic cell or vesicle only through two or more membranes — 
the actual communication being probably thus rendered, as 
it were, infinitesimal. The same holds good with respect to 
the higher animals. "In birds," says one writer on natural 
history, " the ova exist ready formed in the mother before 
fecundation ; and it is not a rare occurrence to see eggs laid 
without impregnation similar in every respect to those which 
produce young." But such ready-formed or primitive ova 
are by no means peculiar to birds : they belong almost to 
the whole animal kingdom. They belong, too, to the human 
race. The difference between the embryo life of birds and 
that of viviparous animals lies chiefly in the place of incu- 
bation — this being in the one case without the mother, in the 
other case within. But this difference is of so little conse- 
quence that of two closely allied species of the batrachian 
order, one is viviparous and the other oviparous,* the eggs 
of the latter being fructified after their separation from the 
mother. 

The summing up of the evidence under this particular 
head appears to be that the feminine factor of generation 
is substantially a complete germ; the special office of fecun- 
dation being to promote the development of this germ : at 
the same time there being in this germ, pure and simple, a 
disposition towards self-development almost, and even in 
particular cases quite, transcending absolute latency; so that 
in certain ova the process initiatory to embryo-formation has 
been observed, it is said, actually to commence independent- 
ly of fecundation. f 

The apparent insignificance to which this single view re- 
duces the male factor of generation must be conceived as 
only apparent, and not as contradicting the law of equality 
of the sexual co-factors just now enunciated. 

The organic first principle that the whole is substantially 
in each essential part here again applies. 

* Vog-t, Thierleben. \ 215. t Id. \ 217. 



3t50 Personal Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 

Now, applying these principles within the sphere of ordi- 
nary humanity, we should say that a child is both equally 
and integrally the offspring of each parent. 

Again, if we suppose the human ovum divinum in any case 
to be fecundated according to the Scripture history of Christ's 
earthly generation, what are we to look for in the result but 
a divine Son of man and a human Son of God, not merely 
one and inseparable, but one and identical. 

Such an offspring would of course sustain to humanity a 
normal and integral sonship. 

Again, this same hypothetical offspring of Deity and 
humanity would evidently be exponential of a maximum 
relationship between the human and the divine — that rela- 
tionship, namely, in which the divine and human would be 
radically and completely identified in the same person. 

But the personality of Christ must be exponential of a like 
maximum relationship, he being the "one Mediator between 
God and men, the man Christ Jesus"; and also "Immanuel, 
God, with us," " God manifest in the llesh" — Godhead and 
manhood in him coming to a perfect oneness ; and conse- 
quently the difference between divinity and humanity being 
in him reduced to nothing. 

Hence our d 'priori developed conception of a divine-human 
person is homogeneous with Christ's actual personality. 
Therefore we may conclude that Christ is normally and in- 
tegrally "THE SON OF MAN"; or, in other words, that as 
man he is radically the offspring of an implication of Deity* 
inherent in humanity as such, so that even as the Son of man 
he is divine. 

The converse of the last statement, namely, that as the Son 
of God he is human, must also hold good according to the 
whole tenor of the foregoing argument. 

It follows that the historical life of Christ as a divine- 
human person was, philosophically speaking, simply a true 
exponent of his essential and eternal nature ; and that there 
is nothing rationally inconceivable in his frequent appear- 
ance 'ma, human similitude before his historical incarnation. 

* The rational pole of this implication may be viewed as a kind of ovum 
{divinum) rationale or latent idea, which, being divinely fructified, will result in 
•' Christ's being- formed in us.*' 



( 361 ) 
OX PROFESSOR TYNDALL'S RECENT ADDRESS. 

By Thomas Davidson. 

The recent address of the President of the British Associa- 
tion delivered at Belfast is intended to be a general account 
of the history and principles of Materialism, whereof Profes- 
sor Tyndall is one of the most distinguished and certainly 
one of the most eloquent expounders. In making a few cri- 
ticisms upon it, I shall not follow those persons who have 
discussed its bearing upon religion and existing institutions, 
or its tendency generally, but shall confine myself to ques- 
tions of historic fact and undeniable philosophic truth. 

There was a time in the history of Materialism when its 
adherents eagerly inquired "Qui nous delinrera des Grecs et 
des Romains?" Now-a-days, on a cltange tout ga, and Mate- 
rialism is looking for antiquities, to give it prestige, among 
the fragments of the early philosophers of Greece and Rome, 
and dragging from their obscurity such names as Empedo- 
kles and Demokritos to set off against those of Plato and 
Aristotle. Like Dr. Buchner, Professor Tyndall opens his 
address with a sketch of the history of Materialism,* begin- 
ning with Demokritos, and therein takes occasion to speak 
depreciatingly of those thinkers who have maintained other 
doctrines, and especially of Aristotle, whom he charges with 
" what we should consider some of the worst attributes of a 
modern physical investigator — indistinctness of ideas, con- 
fusion of mind, and a confident use of language" — adding 
that his " errors of detail were grave and numerous." 

Taking up first this portion of the Professor's address, let 
us see whether he, with over two thousand years more of 
"organically remembered" experiences than Aristotle, be 
entirely free from those same faults. And first as regards 
matters of historic detail. 

(1.) In speaking of the doctrines of Demokritos, Professor 
Tyndall says : " The varieties of all things depend upon the 
varieties of their atoms in number, size, and aggregation." 
Now. all that we know about this matter, we know, either 

* Borrowed, often cerbaiim, from Lange and Draper. 



362 On Prof. TyndalVs recent Address. 

directly or indirectly, through Aristotle ; and he is at pains 
to tell us that, according to Demokritos, the varieties of all 
things depend upon the varieties of their atoms in figure, 
aggregation, and position — puafxb^ dca&ipy, rpo-K^ — which Aris- 
totle renders into his own terminology by v^/ia, zdgu;, M- 
<re<; (Metaph. A. 5). 

(2.) A little farther on, we are told : "Empedokles,* a man 
of more fiery and poetic nature [than Demokritos], introdu- 
ced the notion of love and hate among his atoms, to account 
for their combination and separation. Noticing this gap in 
the doctrine of Demokritos, he struck it with the penetrating 
thought, linked however with some wild speculation, that it 
lay in the very nature of those combinations which were 
suited to their ends (in other words, in harmony with their 
environment) to maintain themselves, while unfit combina- 
tions, having no proper habitat, must rapidly disappear. 
Thus more than two thousand years ago the doctrine of the 
4 survival of the fittest,' which in our day, not on the basis 
of vague conjecture, but of positive knowledge, has been 
raised to such extraordinary significance, had received at all 
events partial enunciation." Reading this passage, one would 
certainly conclude that Empedokles wrote after Demokritos 
and with a knowledge of the doctrines of the latter. Now, 
there is not a shadow of proof for either of these assumptions. 
Empedokles belonged to Agrigentum in Sicily, and was, ac- 
cording to the best authorities, born about B.C. 492, while 
Demokritos belonged to Abdera in Thrace, and was born 
about 460. As Empedokles died at the age of sixty, Demo- 
kritos could hardly have been more than twenty-eight years 
old at the time of that event. As he is known to have made 
long journeys previous to writing his works, it is hardly 
credible that any of these could have reached Empedokles 
in Agrigentum. And, indeed, the writings of Empedokles 
show no traces of the influence of Demokritos : they belong 
to an older period of thought. There is no trustworthy proof 
that he propounded a doctrine of atoms at all. His extant 
fragments lead to the very opposite conclusion. He believed 
in the existence of four elements, combining and separating 

* I have taken the liberty of using-, for uniformity's sake, the Greek orthogra- 
phy of Greek proper names. 



On Prof. TyndalVs recent Address. 363 

through the influence of love and hate, which however were 
not inherent in the elements, but outside and independent of 
them. Nowhere does Empedokles hint that those combina- 
tions of atoms which are suited to their ends maintain them- 
selves, while unlit combinations disappear. He held, that 
of organisms the plants sprang first from the earth, then the 
animals. Not, however, whole animals, but separate limbs, 
which afterwards came together by chance, according as 
guided by love or hate. In the former case, monsters were 
produced ; in the latter, natural products. It must require a 
wonderfully " scientific use of the imagination " to find any 
resemblance between this theory and the modern one of the 
"survival of the fittest." Thus, in the above quotation, there 
is not a single correct statement. 

Passing over the accounts of Epikouros and Lucretius, 
which are not above criticism, we come to the following: 

(3.) "During the centuries between the first of these three 
philosophers [Demokritos] and the last, the human intellect 
was active in other fields than theirs. The Sophists had run 
through their career. * * * * Pythagoras had made his 
experiments on the harmonic intervals." Who would read 
this and not suppose that Pythagoras lived between Demo- 
kritos and Lucretius ? And yet Pythagoras was dead long- 
before Demokritos (probably even before even Empedokles) 
was born. He is thought to have been born B.C. 582, which 
would make him ninety years old at the birth of Empedo- 
kles, if he was then alive. 

This may suffice to show the accuracy of Prof. Tyndall's 
acquaintance with those pre-Aristotelian philosophers whose 
views he sympathizes with and considers the forerunners of 
his own. I doubt whether his errors of detail be not grave 
nd numerous, and whether he be not fairly chargeable with 
"indistinctness of ideas, confusion of mind, and a confident 
use of language." But these faults become even more promi- 
nent when he conies to speak of Aristotle, with whom he 
does not sympathize, but whom he treats very much as 
George Henry Lewes does. 

(4.) Prof. Tyndall tells us that "Aristotle put words in 
the place of things/'' subject in the place of object. "f It is 

* Cf. Whewell, Hist, of Inductive Sciences, vol. i. p. 67. 
f Cf. Lewes, Aristotle, p. 238. 



364 On Prof. TyndalVs recent Address. 

curious to compare the former of these assertions with one 
of Prof. Steinthal's (Gesch. der Sprachwissenschaft bei den 
Griechen und Rbmern, pp. 197 sqq.) : "From what has been 
said, we see that it is not notions or words that, acccording 
to Aristotle, are spoken, but objects. The object animal is 
said of the whole object horse (i.e. of course, of every horse)." 
Both assertions are equally untrue. Aristotle distinguishes 
perfectly well, not only between words and things, but be- 
tween words and thoughts. In the first chapter of the work 
On interpretation, we read : "The modifications of the voice 
are the symbols of modifications in the souk and written 
characters are symbols of the modifications of the voice. 
And as all peoples have not the same written characters, so 
all have not the same articulate sounds, whereas the corre- 
sponding modifications of the soul and the external facts 
which these represent are the same for all." As to the 
second assertion, that Aristotle put subject in the place of 
object; if we persist in translating Aristotle's word for 
subject (uttoxzc/isuov) by object, that is our fault, not his. The 
present use of the words subject and object came in with 
Kant and Fichte. Trendelenburg, Elementa Logicce Aristo- 
telece, p. 55, note, says : "Apud Germanos, Kantio potissimum 
et Fichtio auctoribus, horum verborum usus plane inversus 
est.^ To-day we follow the German usage. 

(5 ) Prof. Tyndall proceeds : " He [Aristotle] preached in- 
duction without practising it." This statement is borrowed 
from Lewes' Aristotle, p. 113. It is untrue notwithstanding, 
as any one acquainted with Aristotle's Logic, which rests 
entirely upon induction, well knows. It is true that Aristo- 
tle makes hasty and incorrect inductions ; but in this respect 
Bacon, the falsely reputed father of induction, was even infe- 
rior to him. Lewes, ut sup., says: "Bacon did not attack 
the Method which Aristotle tauglit ; indeed he was very im- 
perfectly acquainted with it." * * * "It is to these causes 
that Bacon's failure must be ascribed; for, grandly as he 
traces the various streams of error to their sources, he is him- 
self borne along by these very streams whenever he quits the 
position of a critic and attempts to investigate the order of 
nature for himself." * 

* Compare the articles on Bacon by Baron Liebig in Macmillan's Magazine. 



On Prof. TyndalVs recent Address. 365 

(6.) We are next told that Aristotle's " notions of matter 
were entirely unphysical,f * * * no real mechanical 
conception regarding it lying at the bottom of his mind." I 
don't know precisely what is here meant by "mechanical 
conception," having always thought that the notion of mo- 
tion lay at the basis of all mechanical conceptions, instead 
of vice versa; but Alexander von Humboldt says: "Natural 
Philosophy deals with the general properties of matter; it is 
an abstraction from the manifestations of force in matter ; 
and even where the basis of it was first laid, in the eight 
books of Aristotle's Physical Discourses, all the phenomena 
of nature are represented as the moving vital activity of a 
universal force." And he adds in a note : "All the changes 
in the condition of the physical world (Korperioelt) are redu- 
ced to motion — Aristot, Pliys. Ausc. I. 1, 4." It is. indeed, 
hard to see how the notion of motion could have been 
•• unphysical." But Whewell — from whose History of the 
Inductive Sciences, coupled with Lewes' work on Aristotle, 
Tyndall borrows pretty nearly all he knows about the Sta- 
girite — is partly to blame for this misrepresentation. 

(7.) We are next informed that Aristotle "affirmed that a 
vacuum could not exist, and proved that if it did exist mo- 
tion in it would be impossible." And yet. a little farther on, 
Tyndall accuses Aristotle of saying that " there is an empty 
space, not at the front, but at the back of every man's head."^: 
Now, if an empty space be not a vacuum (the Aristotelian 
term, xevov, is the same in both cases), I do not know what 
it is. The fact is that Aristotle attempted to prove, and did 
prove, that an independent, self-existing vacuum (ycopcorov 
x£vop) could not exist; i.e., that vacuum is merely a relative 
term opposed to full. But even had Aristotle tried to prove 
the other, I apprehend Professor Tyndall would have had 
some difficulty in refuting him. In his Light and Electri- 
city (§ 218), speaking of Luminiferous ether, he says: "It 
fills space; it surrounds the atoms of bodies; it extends, 
without solution of continuity, through the humors of the 
eye." It would be interesting to know where Prof. Tyndall, 
with this belief, ever found a vacuum, or how he knows that, 
if it did exist, motion in it would be possible. 

f Cf. Whewell, ut sup., p. GS. X Lewes' Aristotle, p. 16(3. 



366 On Prof. TyndalVs recent Address. 

(8.) As one of Aristotle's grave and numerous errors in 
matters of detail, we are told that "he affirmed that only in 
man we had the beating of the heart." Now, Aristotle does 
not affirm anything of the kind. What he does say, in a 
very modest way, is this: "It has been incorrectly affirmed 
that the lungs contributed to the fluttering (&Ao«;) of the 
heart ; this fluttering, generally speaking, takes place in man 
only, because he alone is affected by hope and expectation." 
{On the Parts of Animals, Book III. chap, vi.) In the 20th 
chapter of his work On Respiration, he is extremely careful 
to distinguish between beating (<j<furf*6c) and fluttering or 
leaping {cL/.otz, Tirjdr^c^). 

(9.) A little farther on, we are assured that Aristotle " re- 
fers the ascent of water in a pump to Nature's abhorrence of 
a vacuum." Now, not to mention the fact that suction-pumps 
were not invented till long after the time of Aristotle, we 
venture to say that no such assertion occurs, even impliedly, 
in any of the works of Aristotle. Prof. Tyndall is here bor- 
rowing, and borrowing incorrectly, from Whewell {Inductive 
Sciences, vol. i. pp.346 sqq.), who says: ''Yet the effects 
of these causes were so numerous and so obvious, that the 
Aristotelians had been obliged to invent a principle to ac- 
count for them; namelv 'Nature's Horror of a Vacuum.' 
This is, I believe, the correct statement. 

Perhaps enough has been said to give an idea of Professor 
Tyndall's knowledge of the history of philosophy and the 
development of human thought, as well as of his scientific 
habit of verifying his conclusions. But, if he is a mere tyro 
in the external history of philosophy, he is something worse 
in philosophy itself. Knowing no hierarchy in thought, he 
proceeds to solve the Universe with what he calls Vorstel- 
liingen, and, of course, finds himself helpless. He finds in 
matter "the promise and potency of every form of lii'e." > 
But, then, the existence of matter is a pure assumption, a 
metaphysical hypothesis, utterly incapable of being verified 
by experiment. It is conceived to exist in the external world; 
but the external world is, as Mill says, " the great battle- 
ground of metaphysics." Worse than this, it is the lost 
battle-ground of physics, which cannot venture on it at all. 
Prof. Tyndall wisely refrains from telling us what he thinks 



On Prof. TyadalVs recent Address. 367 

about its existence, and contents himself with imparting to 
to us Mr. Spencer's method of cutting the Gordian knot, leav- 
ing us to suppose that he adopts the same. He says : 

" With him [Spencer], as with the uneducated man, there 
is no doubt or question as to the existence of an external 
world. But he differs from the uneducated, who think that 
the world really is what consciousness represents it to be. 
Our states of consciousness are mere symbols of an outside 
entity which produces them and determines the order of their 
succession, but the real nature of which we can never know. 
In fact, the whole process of evolution is the manifestation 
of a Power absolutely inscrutable to the human intellect. 
As little as in the days of Job [cf. Renan, Lime de Job, Intro- 
due, pp. 87 sqq.] can man, by searching, find this Power out. 
Considered fundamentally, it is by the operation of an inso- 
luble mystery that life is evolved, species differentiated, and 
mind unfolded, from their prepotent elements in the immea- 
surable past. There is, you will observe, no very rank mate- 
rialism here." 

Indeed there is not. Having rejected Aristotle and Meta- 
physics and gone back to Demokritos with his atoms, he, of 
course, arrives at chaos, and the only way he can escape from 
that is by leaping on the back of " an insoluble mystery." 
How does Mr. Spencer or Prof. Tyndall happen to be so well 
acquainted with this mystery as to know that it is insoluble? 
With what solvents has he ever experimented upon it? Aris- 
totle, seeing plainly that with a material cause only, endow it 
how you may, a world could not be constructed, recognized a 
triunity of causes besides matter, viz. formal, efficient and final 
causes, and tried to develope the notions of them in the pro- 
foundest of his works. He steadily disbelieved in all inso- 
luble mysteries, and bravely went to work to solve them. 
His three causes are no less capable of external verification 
than is matter, which he admits to be, by itself, unknowable.* 
This is admitted even by Lewes {Aristotle, p. 119). Now, on 
what ground do Spencer and Tyndall assume a material 
cause and reject all others, or relegate them to the region of 
mystery? That there are form, harmony and adaptation in 
the world as truly as there is matter, and that the former 
need explanation as much as does the latter, is sufficiently 

* This need not be quoted as showing that Aristotle believed in insoluble 
mysteries. 



368 On Prof. TyiulalVs recent Address. 

evident. It is admitted that the promising, potent matter ex- 
plains nothing, and yet it is assumed and eked out with an 
insoluble mystery. One mystery assumed as knowable, all 
else rejected as unknowable! 

For example, it is assumed by Mr. Spencer that "our states 
of consciousness are mere symbols of an outside entity which 
produces them and deteTmines the order of their succession, 
but the real nature of which we can never know." That is, 
our states of consciousness are symbols, but symbols of such 
a kind that they give us no information regarding the nature 
of the entity symbolized. Of course, then, we can have no 
knowledge repecting it. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Spencer 
appears to know a good deal about it. First, he knows that it 
is outside of us; second, that it is endowed with active powers; 
for, third, he knows that it is capable of producing symbols 
in us, and, fourth, he knows that it is capable of regulating 
the succession of the same. It would be interesting to know 
where he obtained all this information, and what more he 
thinks it would be desirable to know. Perhaps he would 
like to be able to form a Vorstellung of it ; that is, to form a 
sensuous concept of it, just as Mr. Tyndall thinks he can 
form a "mechanical conception" of motion. But what if this 
" outside entity " were of such a nature as to be utterly 
beyond the reach of sensuous or mechanical conception ? 
should we then be condemned to remain forever in ignorance 
of it? This, undoubtedly, is the theory arbitrarily main- 
tained and unceasingly reiterated by Spencer and those who 
blindly follow his lead. "Nihil est in intellectu quod non 
prius fuerit in sensu v ; and if we add "nisi intellectus ipse" 
they tell us that mind, too, is evolved from the prepotent 
elements of matter by the same inscrutable Power. But as 
matter by itself explains nothing, and that which we ima- 
gine to be the cause of everything is inscrutable, we know 
nothing of the real nature of anything. All that we know is 
symbols, which, we suppose, symbolize an outside entity, but 
in such away as to give us no information as to its real nature. 

It is easy enough to see what lies at the bottom of all this 
confusion, self-stultihcation, and self-confessed helplessness. 
The men who hold these views are in culpable ignorance of 
the history of the development of thought as well as of the 



On Prof. TyndalVs recent Address. 369 

distinctions and limits in thought itself. With no prepara- 
tion other than the perusal of a few compends and superficial 
treatises, and with no better implements than the Vorstel- 
lungen of the most naive and confident common sense, they 
undertake to deal with the most difficult and momentous of 
problems, and, of course, come out with the confidently 
expressed result that these problems are insoluble. The 
assumption of matter and atoms is what the Vorstellungs- 
kraft, from its very nature, drives them to, and of that 
assumption they will never be able to rid themselves until 
they ascend to higher ground and are able thence to survey 
and explain their Vorstellungen. When they have done that, 
they will be driven to examine and define other causes in the 
Universe besides matter, and may then find their inscrutable 
mystery solved. The great fault of these men is their atti- 
tude of ignorant superciliousness toward the past, coupled 
with intellectual sluggishness and a confident use of unde- 
fined terms. 

There are, however, not wanting signs to indicate that the 
days of supercilious ignorance and sluggishness are draw- 
ing to a close. It is almost amusing to hear George Henry 
Lewes, one of the most brilliant and superficial of the decri- 
ers of metaphysics, declare, in his last book, Problems of 
Life and 3Ilnd, that " the continuance of metaphysical in- 
quiry is, for the present, inevitable." He was apparently 
brought to this sudden change of view by the example of J. 
S. Mill, who says : "England's thinkers are again beginning 
to see what they had only temporarily forgotten, that the 
difficulties of Metaphysics lie at the root of all science ; that 
these difficulties can only be quieted by being resolved, and 
that until they are resolved, positively whenever possible, 
but at any rate negatively, we are never assured that any 
knowledge, even physical, stands on solid foundations." 
Such language is hopeful, and shows that the human mind 
can never be made to rest satisfied with the recognition of 
insoluble problems. Indeed the acceptance of insoluble 
mystery in regard to all things that have any real interest or 
value, leaves an open door for all the forms of superstition 
that debase and corrupt. It was the recognition of insoluble 
mystery introduced by Christianity, far more than the Chris- 

viii — 24 



370 Notes and Discussions. 

tian system itself, that produced that stagnation and degen- 
eration of the European mind which Prof. Tyndall so bitterly 
and so justly laments. And there are not wanting indica- 
tions that to-day the same cause would produce the same 
result. Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, whose reputation as a natu- 
ralist is almost equal to that of Darwin, and who is almost 
as much entitled to be called the discoverer of the Darwinian 
theory as Darwin himself, has come to be a believer in Spi- 
ritualism on grounds entirely illogical. As Dr. Carpenter 
{Principles of Mental Physiology, p. 627) says : " Such men 
seem totally oblivious of the difference between external and 
internal evidence — the testimony of our senses (or those of 
other individuals) and that uf our sense" And this, though 
the most remarkable, is not a solitary instance. While, there- 
fore, I entirely sympathize with Prof. Tyndall in his manly 
and determined opposition to dogma and authority, and in 
his demand for the free and unprejudiced discussion of all 
questions, I cannot but be sorry that he has diminished the 
weight of his own authority, and thus injured a cause which 
is that of all earnest truth-seekers, by trying to draw con- 
clusions in regions of thought where he is an entire stranger, 
and by being thus entrapped into making a display of care- 
lessness in regard to matters of fact and of incapacity to 
grasp philosophic truth. 



NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 

Professor TyndalVs Address.* 

The recent " Inaugural Address before the British Association" by Pro- 
fessor Tyndall, in which he has taken occasion to define his attitude toward 
the current theories of the source of all phenomena, has excited interest on 
all hands. His bold statement regarding the potency of matter to produce 
every form and quality of life is a challenge to all thinkers who hold to the 
supremacy of Personality as the first principle of the Universe, particularly 
that portion of the address in which the Professor follows closely the Spence- 
rian version of the doctrine of the Unknowable. Before all things, the writer 
on these subjects should be acquainted with the history of human thinking. 
Such acquaintance presupposes in one's self, however, the ability to think, 
for no one can recognize thought in another unless he rethinks the thought 
himself. Those who cannot solve the antinomies of reflection are necessa- 

* Reprinted in Appleton's Popular Science- Monthly for October, 1S74. 



Notes and Discussions. 371 

rily unable to give a coherent account of the doctrines of a philosopher who 
writes on a plane which presupposes such solution. Sir Win. Hamilton's 
celebrated Critique of Cousin bets up the systems which claim a doctrine of 
the Absolute in a manner that makes them ludicrous and absurd to those 
who do not know the doctrines at first hand. The one who has studied those 
systems, however, sees that the absurdity lies in' the mind of Hamilton, 
which has failed to grasp essential outlines. In Mr. Davidson's article on 
Tyndall, published in this number, the reader will find evidence of the 
carelessness with which the history of philosophy is treated by Mr. Tyn- 
dall. In this respect Herbert Spencer is quite as open to criticism. His 
First Principles rest on an uncritical adoption of Kantianism, apparently 
at second or third hand, through some disciple of Sir Wm. Hamilton. He 
has learned a little of the doctrine of antinomies, and uses that doctrine to 
prove that we cannot know spiritual verities. Afterwards, in the same 
book, he ignores the same doctrine, and in the face of it undertakes to 
prove physical laws a priori by an uncritical use of the elements of the 
antinomies. For instance, he proves that Matter is indestructible because 
we cannot think its annihilation ; that Force is persistent for the same rea- 
son. Unthinkableness is here a valid ground for deciding upon the exist- 
ence of objective realities. But earlier in his book he uses the same thesis 
negatively, after the style of Kant {First Prin., p. 31) : "Self-Existence 
necessarily means existence without a beginning; and to form a conception 
of self-existence is to form a conception of existence without a beginning. 
Now, by no mental effort can we do this ; and to conceive existence through 
infinite past time implies the conception of infinite past time, which is an 
impossibility." To have been consistent, he should have used the same 
argument regarding correlation, indestructibility, &c, thus {Jour. Spec. 
Phil., vol. i. p. 16) : " Indestructibility implies existence through infinite 
future time, but by no mental effort can infinite time be conceived. Hence 
the indestructibility of matter is 'an untenable hypothesis,' and is only 
'verbally intelligible.' So, too, with the 'Persistence of Force,' which in- 
volves the same unthinkable elements." * 

Freedom of thinking is essential to philosophizing. Thought must be 
free, untrammelled not only by dogma or tradition, but also by the limita- 
tions of sensuous perception or the categories of reflection. Its first free- 
dom is from the dogma, and in this freedom Tyndall and the Spencerians 
rejoice. But this is only formal freedom; it is not real, substantial : only 
the cognition of truth can give real, substantial freedom. A balancing of 
the mind between two sides of an antinomy is a paralysis of skepticism. 
The freedom from sensuous perception is gradually being achieved by the 
Spencerians and Comtians through a growing insight into the universal 
processes or potencies that underlie the phenomenal world (in such doc- 
trines as the correlation of forces, evolution from the abstract to the con- 
crete, &c.) Now, however, there remains the third freedom — the freedom 

* In a recent number of the New York World (August), the editor has undertaken to refutathis 
position. His argument rests on a distinction between existence and self-existence, a distinction 
which has no bearing in this argument for the reason that the latter turns on the thinkableness of 
annihilation, which is the same whether applied to existence, or self-existence, or force. 



372 Notes and Discussions. 

from the stand-point of fatalism, which results from the nature of our Reflec- 
tion. The stand-point of absolute personality, as the highest principle, is 
the one to be attained. On this plane, freedom, immortality, and God, are 
the regulative principles of science as well as of life, and they are not only 
matters of faith but equally matters of indubitable scientific certainty. 

The remarks of Rev. F. E. Abbott, editor of the (Boston) Index, are so 
pertinent and just regarding these positions of Tyndall, that we quote them 
here (The Index, Sept. 17, 1874). Editor. 

BY F. E. ABBOTT. 

"Following Herbert Spencer with a fidelity to which that philosopher is 
\>y no means entitled, although his merits in many respects are indubitably 
great, Professor Tyndall settles down into the recognition of an "insoluble 
mystery" as the last word of modern science. 'In fact, the whole process 
of evolution,' he says, in an exposition of Spencer's thought which he appa- 
rently gives as also his own, 'is the manifestation of a Poioer absolutely 
inscrutable to the intellect of man.'' Are we, then, shut down to the submis- 
sive acknowledgment that evolution is the manifestation of a Power which 
does not manifest itself? If so, science is degraded to the rank of the theo- 
logical cosmogonies which Professor Tyndall so energetically repudiates, 
and the human intellect is driven to the hara-kari of a new sacred contra- 
diction, which it must accept by a new species of 'faith.' For one, we repu- 
diate such science as we repudiate the theology of which it is the bastard 
offspring. Science that deserves the name will refuse to admit the exist- 
ence of any 'insoluble mystery.' She must, by the very law of her being, 
assume that every mystery is soluble, and forthwith proceed to solve it. 
She recognizes the co-existence of the known and the unknown, and admits 
that the latter is probably vaster, nay, inconceivably vaster, than the former 
— an admission she justifies solely on the ground of her own past experi- 
ence ; but she cannot possibly recognize the existence of the 'unknowable,' 
since even to affirm it would be to affirm some knowledge of it. The 'Power' 
which manifests itself in 'the whole process of evolution' manifests itself, 
does it not? It cannot, then, be ' inscrutable to the intellect of man.* The 
business of science is to study the manifestation of it, and not to cut her 
own throat by the confession that the 'manifestation' of anything under 
heaven is 'inscrutable' to her. The unutterable shallowness of this Spen- 
cerian philosophy of the 'unknowable,' now so fashionable, is the intellec- 
tual disgrace of the century. It makes a quasi-God out of 'the unknowable' 
by printing its name with a big U as ' the Unknowable' ; it sets aside •' the- 
ism, pantheism, and atheism,' as equally untenable, notwithstanding the 
fact that, by the law of contradiction, either theism or atheism must be true 
(pantheism being merely one form of theism) ; and so it contrives to cheat 
its deluded followers into believing that philosophy sits between yes and 
no on the little end of nothing whittled down to a point. It is enough to 
make every thinker blush with shame to see philosophy so villainously 
impaled. Most certainly the humiliating spectacle will be a brief one. 
Compared with this farce of a philosophy, straight-out atheism is infinite!; 
respectable. The issue raised by modern scientific reflection is a 9erious 



Botes and Discussions. 373 

and honest one ; does God exist or not? The answer must be as honest as 
the question: yes or no. Science herself must give the answer, for science 
herself propounds the question; and, as our readers already understand, 
we believe her answer will be yes. That is the true state of the ca=e ; and 
we are sorry to see Professor Tyndall helping to confuse the public mind 
still further by reiterating Herbert Spencer's meaningless jargon on the 
subject. There is no religion in ignorance ; but there is religion in a knowl- 
edge that seeks to lessen its own ignorance. There is no religion in mysti- 
fication, or in the apotheosis of 'insoluble mystery'; but there is religion 
in the modest recognition of a mystery which we are here to solve, and 
thereby to convert into known and nutritious truth. That we shall solve 
it all, least of all in our own day, is not to be expected ; but to give up the 
attempt to solve it on the plea that it is insoluble, is to bury our talent in 
the earth because we know that we have a hard master. 

" For one, we refuse to juggle, or be juggled with, by this empty gibber- 
ish of ' the unknowable ' or ' the inscrutable.' The ' Power' which confess- 
edly manifests itself in the process of evolution is not only to be studied 
but known in and through its manifestations or effects ; that is, in and 
through the grand order of Nature, the adaptation of part to part in the 
organic and limitless whole, the eternal series of sequences according to 
law by which it has been developed. Admitting that but an ' infinitesimal 
span' of the wondrous ' cosmical life' is as yet known to us, science has 
already taught us to seek its explanation in one omnipresent cause. If we 
consider this one cause to be matter, even in Professor Tyndall's enlarged 
use of the word, we are defeated in the search for real unity, which is 
excluded by his illimitable multitude of self-subsistent molecules; we can 
find it only in such a philosophy of atoms as shall show them to be indeed 
'manifestations' of a unitary energy or 'Power.' That is, the way out of 
Tyndall's imperfect materialism is clear through it into a philosophy which 
may be called materialistic or spiritualistic as you please, yet which shall 
recognize the infinite ' cosmical life' as embracing our little human life, not 
as an alien thing, but as part and par*el of itself. What we require is a 
more radical treatment of science itself, sure that such a treatment will 
leave abundant room for every sentiment that now ennobles man, without 
imposing on him the dire necessity of pouring contempt upon his own 
'understanding,' or of narrowing religion down to a mere emotion or feel- 
ing, a« Professor Tyndall does." 



7 he Immortality^ of the Historic Individual. 

In the last number of this journal Professor Smith continues the discus- 
sion of the question of immortality. The difficulty to be decided relates to 
the idea of Universality. 

What can one mean by "historic individual" except the individual 1 or 
he who remembers that he has a distinct past history, in which he has re- 
acted against persons and circumstances, and created his own self and 
belongings by the act of his Will, and is now conscious that he is product 
of his will as producer? His will produces by his own act the universality 



374 Notes and Discussiojis. 

which is attributed to man. By the act of negating his particular, special, 
individual peculiarities he makes himself not an abstract universal but a 
concrete universal, one which is individual as well as universal. For, does 
it not sustain its phase of universality hy the act of its will in negating or 
abstracting, and is not this act always a special one, a purely individual 
act? Were this annulment of the special, by means of the activity which 
is individual, to cease, there would remain neither abstract universal nor 
individual, but zero. The mistake consists in seizing an abstract caput 
mortuum for the universal instead of a concrete process. What I mean by 
concrete process is a process of self-determination wherein the negative 
unity which acts is the subject of the act, and freely produces in itself all 
its multiplicity and dissolves any particular phase of the same at will. It 
cannot dissolve the total sphere of particularity at once, it is true; for the 
act of such annulment is itself a particular one, and hence creates what it 
attempts to destroy. Otherwise the self-relation of the negative act could 
annul or destroy the subject and thus end its being in a vacuity, like the 
abstract unity which is the result of the "absorption theory.-' The ego is 
always subject-object and hence dual in its unity. Since both sides are the 
game — the self as subject and the same self as object — we have a concrete 
unity ; and since its knowing is always an acting, w r e have the existence of 
the ego an eternal process. 

The following communication, received from Mr. Kroeger, continues the 
same subject. Editor. 

Mr. Editor: — In the July number of the Jour. Spec. Philosophy, Mr. B. 
C. Smith, referring to an article of mine on the subject of immortality, and, 
summing up his objections to it, takes occasion to say : "Mr. Kroeger. it 
seems to me, instead of proving our immortality, has, if anything, proven 
our immortal immorality." This hits the nail on the head, and seems to 
me, indeed, too self-evident to need much proof. If any finite being is im- 
mortal, i.e. continues to lead a self-conscious life throughout all time, it 
necessarily remains always more or less immoral, because it remains finite. 
Were it to lose its finite character, it would become God or be submerged 
in the Godhead, &c; all of which suppositions are absurd, for the immor- 
tality which inheres in all res singulares sub specie ceternitatis concept a is 
not in any sense of the word what people mean when they want to know 
whether they are immortal. Tom does not care a fig whether he will ever be 
" conscious of being identical with the Absolute," but he is very anxious to 
know whether he will be forever conscious of being and having been Tom. 
It seems strange that those who still discuss the subject of immortality 
always lose sight of this fact. 

It does seem somewhat plausible that the moral world would be no 
more disturbed by my departure from it than it was by my advent into it, 
as Mr. Smith suggests ; but the reason of the difference is precisely because 
" the moral world is not the world of time," to use Mr. Smith's own words 
in the same sentence wherein he seems to charge me with presumption in 
holding that the moral world cannot get along without me. Really, I think 
it cannot get along without him either. A. E. Kroeger. 



Notes and Discussions. 375 

Dr. Brinton on Life Force and Soul. 

In the "Medical and Surgical Reporter" (Philadelphia) for September 6, 
1873, is to be found an editorial on modern Psychology which reviews con- 
cisely the attitude of the physiological school toward the spiritual doctrine 
of the soul, and especially toward that of free-will. In the number for 
October 11, 1873, a book notice of Garretson's " Thinkers and Thinking" 
furnishes occasion for some acute strictures bearing upon the two opposed 
schools — the positivists and the abstract idealists. 

In the ?ame journal (Medical and Surgical Reporter) for Nov. 1, 1873, 
the editor, Dr. Brinton, offered some valuable suggestions on the definition 
of life, criticising the attempts of Bastian, Bichat, Whewell, Spencer, De 
Candolle, and Cuvier. That of the last named he prefers to those of the 
others — " Life is that condition of Being in which the form is more essen- 
tial than the matter,'' and proceeds to remark upon this definition: 
" This, we take it, contains in abstract language the gist of the distinction 
between organic and inorganic nature. 

"The value of a definition in inductive science, we have said, is to point 
out the path for future investigation. And, in the one we have just given, 
that object is prominently held in view. The science of Biology concerns 
itself beyond all else, with functions, combined in a unity of purpose, act- 
ing under varying conditions. This unity of purpose is the maintenance 
of the individual, as bounded and circumscribed by definite confines, or 
by defined form. 

''Again, the whole science of Morphology is based on the idea of meta- 
morphosed and developed symmetry of form ; the matter is continuously 
and rapidly changing, it is in a whirling eddy or vortex (tourbillon), but 
the type, the form, is always retained in one or another of its metamor- 
phoses. Although composed chiefly of such unstable elements as oxygen, 
hydrogen, and nitrogen, so long as life lasts, fidelity to form is the guiding 
principle of organie beings. 

"There is even a higher application of this definition, lying, it is true, 
out of the boundaries of exact science, but we may, perhaps, be pardoned 
for referring to it. As those most airy and intangible elements are attached 
to fixed forms of symmetry and individual existence by Life, so the still 
less material elements of Thought may be chained to even more inflexible 
forms of personal existence when visible life ceases, and thus the words of 
the poet prove true : 

" ' Eternal Form shall still divide 
Eternal Soul from all beside, 
And I shall know him when we meet.' 

Tennyson, In Memoriam." 

In the next number (Nov. 8, 1873) Dr. Brinton discusses "The Ultimate 
of Science," and criticises acutely the various theories regarding force. He 
speaks of James Croll's views against Bain : 

"The Determination (i.e. the direction, regulation, or application) of 
motion is something very different from its Production. If Force guides 
itself, by virtue of iv hat does it do so? Energy cannot direct energy. The 



376 Notts and Discussions. 

determination of molecular motion is something else than the laws of that 
motion. They are merely the results of observed sequences; they are not 
regulative ; or if regulative, then they mean something very different from 
an empirical law. Form can never be the product of forces ; it is not their 
result, but the result of the way in which they are applied, the effect not 
of the forces but of that guiding or directing power which rests behind 
them {London Philosophical Magazine, July, 1872, pp. 5-25). He (Croll) 
and those with him insist that the Law of Causation can never offer a 
completely satisfactory explanation to the human mind. No matter how 
far up it is carried, no matter how supreme and universal the generalization 
reached, the mind cannot help still inquiring for yet another proximate 
cause. This Professor Bain pronounces to be inept ; ' the limits of Expla- 
nation are the limits of Induction' is his dictum, and, true as it is, it is not 
the whit more satisfactory for all that; and no matter how many logician* 
sustain it, the mind itself will not. 

"And why not? 

"Because there is a wider, a more comprehensive truth, which decrees 
that no explanation dependent on the physical laws of causality can satisfy 
the thinking faculties; that they require, that they incessantly and increas- 
ingly demand, the ultimate reference of every law of phenomena to a law 
of Intelligence. Derided and despised as this instinctive longing may be, 
it will remain still importunate and clamorous until it is recognized, lis- 
tened to, respected, yes, honored, and at last assigned its just position as 
the truest and grandest instinct of man's nature." 

Dr. Brinton continued his philosophic discussions in the numbers of his 
journal for Nov. 15, Nov. 22 and Nov. 29, 1873, treating of " Soul in Terms 
of Science," "Laws Common to Mind and Matter," &c. On the former 
question he remarks : 

"No bi-anch of scientific inquiry has been more devotedly studied in the 
last ten years than the physiology of the senses. In Germany, especially, 
it has been pursued with unflagging ardor, and the researches of Fechner, 
Helmholtz, Heiing, Wundt, and a score of others, are known, at least by 
hearsay, to every student. The half-confessed motive which has prompted 
these extraordinary labors has been the hope of throwing some light on the 
nature of man's thinking faculties, his mind or his soul. What the result 
has been it is our purpose now to lay before our readers in as brief a form 
as possible. 

"The theory of the correlation of forces, reduced to a definite form by 
Helmholtz, Mayer, and Grove (about 1847-1850), while very fruitful for a 
while, has proved itself insufficient in the higher walks of science, and may 
now be said to have been expanded into the theory of the metamorphosis 
or propagation of motion. There is no such tiling as a force ; motion pass- 
ing from one form to another displays what we call a Force. Considered 
broadly, matter has neither properties nor forces ; for no such entities can 
be conceded to exist, but only action, repulsive or attractive. Motion, once 
more, is ending; what was once called latent force, or matter at rest, has 
been defined as constitutive motion, as opposed to regulative motion, which 



Notes and Discussions. 377 

embraces all dynamical conditions. Strictly, as we mentioned last week, 
force is neither motion nor action, but the intensity of action, expressed in 
terms of motion, either dynamically by the space passed over, or statically 
by pressure exerted. — "Such are the principles to guide us in the study of 
soul. Is this essence a measure of motion (as other so-called forces), or is 
it something entirely different? That is the question. 

"An apparently unconquerable dilemma meets us at the very start. All 
motion must be in space. Yet thought is distinctly not in space. Space is 
a form of perception, and no possible common measure of thought and space 
can even be imagined. Therefore thought cannot be motion. This is the 
first horn of the dilemma. 

" But again, all mental and physical force expended being exactly equal 
to the force in the form of nutriment received, clearly the mind, if there is 
any such independent thing, contributes no force at all ; it cannot and it 
does not act on ponderable matter, and never gives added power. This is 
demonstrable, and is the other horn of the dilemma." 

On the latter question he remarks : 

" In the last few numbers of this journal we have explained the modern 
doctrines of Life, of Force, and of Soul. It remains, in order to complete 
the survey of this recondite province of physiological science which we have 
been exploring, to examine somewhat more attentively that community of 
laws which we found at the conclusion of our last article to constitute the 
real bond of unity between Thought and Matter, or, to phrase it differently, 
between Mind and body. 

"Two eminent English authors, Professor Bain and Dr. Maudsley, have 
each written, the last year, a work on this very topic, and each has advo- 
cated closely similar views. These, in the case of the former, defend, to 
use his own words, 'a guarded Materialism,' and in the case of the latter 
a Materialism that can hardly be called guarded. In spite of the high repu- 
tation of these teachers, and the solid worth of much of their writings, few 
who are versed in the literature of psychology will accept their theories as 
adequate. It is not our purpose to point out their shortcomings, but merely 
to warn our readers, that, while they are good authorities as far as they go, 
they fail to grasp, or perhaps they avoid, the subtlest points of the inquiry. 

" Taking their works as fair expositions of the ascertained and the sus- 
pected physiological bases of Life and Thought, we shall briefly adduce 
some of the laws common to thought and extended substance, in order to 
indicate the path of investigation in this direction. 

" First, what is the true mental correlate of the physical fact of Life ? 
This is the first and broadest question. We have defined life to be a cer- 
tain condition of material Being. What immaterial, unextended mental 
fact is its universal associate, its inseparable correlate? 

" No one can hesitate a moment to acknowledge that this correlate is 
Feeling, the sentient faculty. This is exclusively confined to living beings, 
and is co-extensive with them, in the vegetable as well as in the animal 
world. But can we not define still more closely this correlate? There can 



378 Notes and Discussions. 

be no reasonable doubt but that we can and must. Not Feeling alone, but 
pleasurable feeling, as opposed to painful feeling, is the true mental cor- 
relate of Life. 

" This is a most momentous and far-reaching conclusion. It is formu- 
lated by Professor Bain as the 'Law of Self-Conservation ' in the following 
words, which however might be more pointedly arranged : ' States of Pleas- 
ure are connected with an increase, states of Pain with an abatement, of 
vital functions.' {The Theories of the Relation of Mind and Body, p. 59.) 

" The condition of increasing vitality is therefore increasing pleasure, 
and vice versa; and that this is true mentally and morally as well as physi- 
cally is the assumed foundation of what is known as the Utilitarian theories 
of Ethics and Political Economy. The objections to these theories are in 
constant process of reduction, and doubtless will ere many years be wholly 
overcome; but, of course, we cannot stop even to glance at this immense 
discussion. Suffne it to say that modern physical science here reaches 
exactly the same point which psychical analysis, in the masterly hands of 
Spinoza, attained two hundred years ago, as any one can see by comparing 
the third part of his Ethices with this last book of Prof. Bain. 

"The second fundamental law common to Thought and Material is akin 
to this first law of Self-Conservation. It is the law of Unity or Identity. 
Whatever is, exists as itself, and not as something else. In other words, it 
preserves its own identity. Plants and animals, whose constituent parts 
are undergoing ceaseless change, preserve the identity of Form, and, what 
is even more inexplicable, transmit this Form, so that each species ' brings 
forth after its kind.' So in Thought, one must think of anything as one 
thing, and not another. The nervous impression given by the color blue 
must always be recognized as the color blue, or all correct thought about 
it becomes impossible. 

" The third great law is the law of Duality, otherwise called Relativity 
or Contrast. One thing can only exist as one by being different from some 
other thing. So it can only be a subject of thought when contrasted with 
some allied subject of thought. AVe recognize the blue because it differs 
from the red, etc." 

Contemporary Philosophy. 

In the "North American Review" for July, 1872, appeared a very note- 
worthy estimate of the Philosophical stand-point of "Henry Thomas Buckle, 
His Problem and his Metaphysics," from the pen of Dr. J. EL Stirling, well 
known to our readers. The article is in the same thorough style as that on 
" Professor Fraser's Berkeley," published in this journal January, 1873. 



In Scribner's Monthly for Sept., 1872, appeared an interesting article on 
"Frederic Denison Maurice," from the pen of Dr. E. Mulford, the author 
of "The Nation," by tar the ablest speculative work on the Philosophy of 
Rights in the English language. At the close of the article he draws a 
comparison between Maurice's Theological views and those of Hegel, and 
does Hegel's views the justice that they seldom get. 



Book Notices. 879 

In the July number of the above-named Review for the same year is a 
very satisfactory article on "Arthur Schopenhauer and his Pessimistic Phi- 
losophy," by E. Gryzanorski. 

In the October number, " Taine's Philosophy of Intelligence" received a 
thorough examination by James T. Bixby. 



Professor Barzelotti of Florence, Italy, whose book on The Moral in 
Positive Philosophy we noticed April, 1872, is now engaged in the prepa- 
ration of an extensive work upon the present condition of Philosophy. 



BOOK NOTICES. 

Memoir of Samuel Joseph May. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1873. 

If the chief value of biography is found to lie in the fact that it brings 
the reader into intimate society with great and good men, here is certainly 
a valuable biography. All who knew Mr. May will comprehend the sin- 
cerity of the words of President White of Cornell University: "Here lies 
before us all that was mortal of the best man, the most truly christian man, 
I have ever known; the purest, the sweetest; the fullest of faith, hope, and 
charity ; the most like the Master." 

The Logic of Accounts; a New Exposition of the Theory and Practice of Double 
Entry Book-keeping, based in value, as being of two primary classes, Com- 
mercial and Ideal; and reducing all their Exchanges to nine Equations and 
thirteen Results. By E. G. Folsom, A.M., Proprietor of the Bryant & Stratton 
College, Albany, N. Y. New York and Chicago: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1873. 

Who can doubt that a philosophically trained mind, deeply versed in 
political economy, would teach the subject of book-keeping in such a way 
as to make it simple and clear, and exhaustive and comprehensive? If our 
merchants were all thoroughly trained in a school of political economy, and 
were initiated into the secrets of finance, there would not only be fewer 
failures among them, but there would be vast systems of commerce built 
up on a sound basis. Commerce is the centre and head of human industry ; 
on it rests the division of labor and all possibility of prosperous manufac- 
turing, agriculture, and mining. 

Until reached by the arms of commerce a population is never inore than 
half civilized and its labor not half utilized; its ideas move in narrow cir- 
cles, for it cannot through the daily newspaper receive a cosmopolitan cul- 
ture. The substitution of matter of world-interest for village gossip is as 
important a step toward genuine civilization as one can name. 

Success to any teacher of Book-keeping who lifts his theme up on the 
pillars of broad generalization ! 

What Determines Molecular Motion? — The Fundamental Problem of Nature. By 
James Croll, of the Geological Survey of Scotland. (Reported from the Phi- 
losophical Magazine for July, 1872.) London: Taylor & Francis, 1872. 

An able investigation into the phenomena of matter, motion, and force, 
which occupy so much of the attention of thoughtful men in our time. Its 
author is preparing for the press a new and revised edition of his "Philoso- 



380 Book Notices. 

phy of Theism : the Determination of Molecular Motion considered in rela- 
tion to Theism ; with an Examination of Modern Theories of Molecular 
Evolution" — pronounced by English authority to be " one of the clearest 
and subtilest works on the metaphysics of theism ever written." 

Bibliotheca Diabolica; being 1 a choice selection of the most valuable books relat- 
ing to the Devil, his origin, greatness, and influence; comprising ttie most 
important works on the Devil, Satan, Demons, Hell, Hell-torments, Magic. 
Witchcraft, Sorcery, Divination, Superstitions, Angels, Ghosts, &c. &c. With 
some curious volumes on Dreams and Astrology. In Two Parts — pro and con, 
serious and humorous. Chronologically arranged with Notes, Quotations 
and Proverbs, and a copious Index. Illustrated with twelve curious Designs. 
On sale by Scribner, Welford & Armstrong, 654 Broadway, New iork. 

This catalogue has been ably compiled and edited by Mr. Henry Kernot, 
and is the most complete and valuable one ever published, containing the 
names of upwards of five hundred works, on the subject. What adds most 
importance to the catalogue is the fact that all the books named are for sale 
by Scribner, Welford & Armstrong. 

On Deaf-Mutism and the Method of Educating the Deaf and Dumb. By Lawrence 
Turnbull, M.D. Pamphlet, pp. 1 to 7. Reprint from Trans. Med. Soc. ol Pa. 

Catalogue No. 3 of Publications, importations and selections of a liberal and re- 
form character, advocating free thought in Religion, and Political, Social and 
Natural Science. By Asa K. Butts & Co., 36 Dey street, New York. 

The Philosophy of Evolution, together with a Preliminary Essay on the Metaphy- 
sical Basis of Science. Two Papers read before the Wisconsin Academy of 
Science, Arts, &c, by Stephen II. Carpenter, LL.D., Professor of Logic in 
Wisconsin University, and President of the Department of Speculative Phi- 
losophy in the Wisconsin Academy of Science. 

Die Selbstzersetzung des Christe?ithums und die Religion der Zukunft. Von Ed- 
uard von Hartmann. Berlin, 1874. Carl Duncker's Verlag. 

Contents (translated): (1) Reconstruction or a New Structure? (2) The 
Historical Problem of Protestantism ; (3) Christianity and Modern Culture ; 
(4) Pauline and Johannean Christianity; (5) The Christianity of Christ; 
(6) The unchristian Attitude of Liberal Protestantism — (7) Its Irreligious- 
ness ; (8) The Necessity and Possibility of a new World-Religion ; (9) The 
Historical Corner-stone of the Religion of the Future. 

We have here the theological views of the author of the Philosophy of 

the Unconscious, whose work on that subject has run through six editions 

within five years. His closing paragraph is as follows: 

"It therefore appears, from the present attitude of science, to be the most 
probable event, that the Religion of the Future will be a Pantheism, or, more 
definitely, a Pantheistic Monism (with an exclusion of every tendency to Poly- 
theism)— or. in other words, an impersonal, immanent Monotheism, of whose 
deicy the world is an objective manifestation — not without him. but within 
him. This, however, is not accomplished either by the Positive Christianity 
with its triune polytheism, or by the Liberal Protestantism with its abstract, 
personal theism; historically, the result sought for will be attained only through 
the synthesis of the East Indian and Jewish-Christian evolutions of religion into 
one structure which shall unite in itself the chief characteristics of both tenden- 
cies (with elimination of defects), and thereby find the means to complement 
both and become a World-Religion in the true sense of the word. Such a Pan- 
monotheism would harmonize most perfectly with reason and at the same time 
arouse and satisfy completely the religious nature, and likewise furnish a meta- 
physics that would afford the strongest support to ethics, and therefore would 
come the nearest to being what people seek under the name of '•truth'' in Reli- 
gion." 



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