fK
PRESENTED
TO
The University of Toronto
BY
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THE JOUBNAL
OF
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.
Volume X.
EDITED B Y \Y M . T . H A E E I S
ST. LOUIS. MO.
GARDINER S. BOUTOX, PRINTER, 915 NORTH SIXTH STREET.
1876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S76, by
WILLIAM T. HARRIS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
/2>0 s- o
CONTEXTS.
Basis of Induction, J. Lachelier (translation) Sarah A. Dorsey. 307,337"
Beneke's Educational Psychology, Karl Schmidt (trans) L. F. Moldan. 361
Darwin's Descent of Man J. H. Pepper. 134
Empiricism and Common Logic John Watson. 17
Faust and Margaret Karl Rosenkranz. 37
Goethe's "Song of the Spirit Over the Water," F. R. Man-in. 215
Hedonism and Utilitarianism John Watson. 271
Herbart's Ideas on Education Hugo Haanel. 166
History of Philosophy in Outline, The The Editor. 225
Idea of Mind, The K. Th. Bayrhoffer. 382
Idea of Matter, The (Tyndall's Problem Solved) K. Th. Bayrhoffer. 69
Idea of the Venus H. K. Jones. 48
Kant's Anthropology (trans) A. E. Kroeger: 319
Kant's Ethics — VI. Ethical Worship James Edmunds. 416
Kant's Reply to Hume John Watson. 113-
Philosophy of Art, The Geo. S. Morrte. 1
Quaternion, A W. E. Charming. 44
Relation of Religion to Art, The '.......The Editor. 204
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra D. J. Snider. 52
" Troilus and Cressida " 395
" Two Gentlemen of Verona '• 194
Science in Government C Theron Gray. 290
Turner W. E. Charming. 141
Two Kinds of Dialectic, The L. P. Hickok. 158
Notes and Discussions. (1) What is Truth? (2) Exposition of the Hu-
man Form in Three Degrees ; (3) Dr. Hickok's Definition of Tran-
scendental Logic ; (4) An Old Picture ; (5) Spencer's Evolution
and Dissolution— Loss of Heat 89
Book Notices 102
(1) La Filosojia della Scuole Italiane ; (2) Die Zeitschrift fuer Philos-
ophic und Philosophische Kritik ; (3) Yerhandlungen der Philosophis-
chen Gesellschaft zu Berlin; (4) Philosophische Monatshefte; (5)
Mind, a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy ; (6) Re-
vue Philosophique de la France, &c. ; (7) John Miller's Metaphysics;
(8) Philosophy of Trinitarian Doctrine ; (9) The Influence of Des-
cartes on Metaphysical Speculation in England ; (10) Notice to
Shakespearian Students.
Book Notices 21G
(1) Anderson's Norse Mythology ; (2) The Physical Basis of Immor-
tality ; (3) Shakespeare's " Borneo and Juliet.*' (Von Hartmann) ;
(4) Zur Reform des Hoeheren Schulwese?is. (Von Hartmann) ; (5)
Ueber das Princip des Realismus, (J. H. v. Kirchmann) ; (6) Giornale
del Museo D' Istruzione e di Edueazione.
Books Received 223
Book Notices 324
(1) Brinton's The Religious Sentiment, Its Source and Aim; (2)
Frothingham's Transcendentalism in New England ; (3) La Ftloso-
Ha della Scuole Italiane.
Notes and Discussions 431
(1) Dr. Brinton on " Pleasure and Pain" ; (2) Michael Angelo's
Poem on the Death of his Father and Brother.
THE JOURNAL
OF
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.
Vol. X. January, 1876. No. 1.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF APT.*
By George S. Morris.
Philosophic der Kunst istnothwendiges Ziel des Philosophen, der in
dieser das innere Wesen seiner Wissemchaft, icie in einem magischen
und symbolisclien Spiegel schaut. — Schelling.
Philosophy is the demonstration of the ideal as the living' truth
of real things, as underlying, determining, constituting what is
figuratively but vaguely termed their blind necessity, as furnish-
ing the origin of their true existence, and the end toward which
they tend.
St. Paul says that we live, move, and have our being in God.
Philosophy holds no ground antagonistic to that of the Apostle,
but rather in strict accordance with it, when it teaches that exist-
ence is bathed throughout in the atmosphere ot thought and of
that which thought, or some other form of the ideal activity of
conscious beings, alone apprehends.
The grand old poet-pbilosopher, Parmenides, sang, before the
classical epoch in the history of Greek philosophy, "Being and
Thought are one." This seems a paradox to the undisciplined or
unreflecting mind, and yet, but for the truth which lies at the bot-
tom of it, human science would not exist. Xot to insist, with the
* A University lecture, before a class ot undergraduates reading Taine's Phi-
losophie de Vart en Italic
X— 1
2 The Philosophy of Art.
literal idealists, like Berkeley, on the fact that what we call reality
is, in the first instance, only a form of human consciousness,*
(whence the Berkeleyan conclusion that the belief in external real-
ity is illusory), yet it is evident, from the ordinary point of view,
that onr knowledge exists and is extended only because so-called
real things admit of being brought under the forms of rational
apprehensiou. The knowing, feeling, willing agent in us is the
purest form of ideal existence directly known to us. It is this
inner, truest reality of our natures which goes on extending the
realm of knowledge, and in increasing measure bringing what is
called matter under the control, and iuto the forms of mind. jSTow
this it could not do, if mind and matter were wholly distinct and
incommensurable entities. A circle could not know a square. The
only way in which it could be imagined to " know " it, would be for
the circle to coincide with the square — and this is eternally impos-
sible. The circle and the square are utterly different from each
other : there is nothing in which the one could be brought within
the comprehension of the other. Xot so in the case of man and
the universe which he cognizes. Man is an ideal, knowing agent ;.
the universe is knowable. There is something akin between them.
Music has been called " speech without words." But not only
music, the world itself, which Schopenhauer terms embodied music
and in which the Pythagoreans long before discovered a universal r
spheral harmony, is speech without words, i. e., it addresses though
inaudibly, the reason of man, it is the expression of reason, of
thought. The very being of the universe and of its parts presents
itself to man under forms which are cognate with the forms of his ide-
al activity. It appears as the expression of number, in its manifold
modifications and relations, of geometrical forms and proportions,
of harmony and symmetry. It exhibits the constant and unvary-
ing sequence of cause and effect, which is but the requirement and
expression of ideal or rational necessity. In short, it is in all its
parts the exhibition of law, which naught but intelligence (i. e., the
* And here let me ask you not to suppose this to be the dictum of mere abstract
theorists. So reputable a scientist as Huxley says : " 'Matter' and 'Force' are,
so far as we can know, mere names for certain forms of consciousness." (Lay
Sermons and Addresses, p. 340, Am. Ed.) So Helmholtz, who terms matter and
force abstractions : Du Bois Reymond, and others. I mention these testimo-
nies, in order that you may see that the dictum in question is not peculiar to
mere so-called speculative dreamers, but is held by men who have lived and
worked in the purest atmosphere of pl^sical science, and have made great con-
tributions to our positive knowledgo of such science.
The Philosophy of Art. 3
ideal) can apprehend, and which can originate in nothing but intel-
ligence.
To return to the figure employed a moment ago. As words,
verbal forms, are nothing, except as factors of speech, i. e., as-
symbols of thought or emotion, so the forms of the universe and
its conteuts, which "speak" to us, are nothing apart from the ideas
they express. And Plato is right in affirming that all these ideas
are summed up in the one grand idea around which they revolve,
the idea of the Good, to which may be added, as inseparable from
the Good, though in rank subordinate to it, the Beautiful, which
is its refulgence. We say, commonly, that what is irrational is
absurd, and what is absurd cannot be. Hence Hegel's saying, that
" whatever is real, is rational, and whatever is rational, is real."
The rational or ideal aspect of things is essential to their being,
and the real (though sometimes unconscious and often unadmitted)
aim and substance of all philosophy and of all science is to show
that this is the constitutive aspect of things, the aspect which is
fundamental, that in view of which all things truly are, and are
what they are. The world were at best a chaos, i.e., nothing in
particular, were it not the expression, the embodiment of complex
(and, we may add in passing, organically interrelated, hence har-
monious and beautiful) ideas, (etymologically, " forms," eldf), that
which in thought is called an " idea," is in the concrete universe
" form").
Such then is the philosophical view of the world ; and such too,
is the common view, when reduced to definite form. For the phi-
losophical view is not one artificially constructed. It is but the
result of reflection upon what all admit. It is but the reduction of
that which is contained in the general consciousness of mankind,
to scientific expression. The leading characteristics of this view
are the two beliefs (1) in the universal presence of the element of
spontaneity as lying at the basis of all things (tkis manifests
itself in man as, among other things, freedom of the will), and
(2) in the tendency of the world to become what it ought — in other
words, the perception of the fact that the forms, the ideal natures
of things are their true being, ever imperfectly realized, owing to
the limitations which surround them, but ever progressing towards
greater and absolute perfection, towards that which Plato terms
the " Good." Even those who are unable to see in the ideal, i. e.,
in spirit, or intelligent mind and goodness, as existing primally and
supremely in God, derivatively in man and all things, the renl
4 The Philosophy of Art.
truth and the true reality and principle of things, bear involuntary
witness to the fact that the conclusion above enunciated is the one
which human reason, when it philosophizes, instinctively and nec-
essarily seeks. Thus, while denying the existence of free, inde-
pendent spirit in man or in the universe, they speak (and I use here
the very words of noted materialists and atheists) of " Necessity,
or the enchainment of causes in the world" as "Keason herself"
(Strauss) they imagine an "Instiuct of Necessity," an "uncon-
scious creative impulse " in nature (Buechner) through whose ope
ration the world and its phenomena are to be explained. In other
words, an intelligence which is not intelligent, an impulse which
knows not what it does, and which is far less easy to comprehend
(being in fact incomprehensible) than a freely and consciously act-
ing force, is assumed to account for a world in which the ideal ele-
ments, as mind, beauty, are the crowning ones.
Such contradictory hypotheses as these, I say, bear indirect
witness to the fact that philosophy must seek the ideal in nature,
and find in it the truth of things. And so too the flutterings and
strivings of artists, who reject the idealistic view, and accept the
mechanical or materialistic one, tend to illustrate the same conclu-
sion. The artist's business, as I shall hope to make you see, is,
if anything, to express the ideal in some concrete, even though
imperfect form. What sort of success then must that artist expect,
who avows his disbelief in the reality and supremacy of the ideal .'
And yet the profession of disbelief can not destroy the fact of the
kinship of all men and all things in the ideal, and so the sceptical
poet still bears involuntary Avitness, by the very language he is
forced to use, by his regrets, by all his intellectual behavior, to the
fact that his native element is in the world of ideal, spiritual forces,
which he denies. His spirit comports itself like the bird which
has lost its nest and seeks in vain to find it. Thus I read in a
"Paris Letter,'* in a recent number of the London Academy [April
24, 1875, pp. 425, 42G], of a new volume of poems by Sully Prud-
homme, who, it is said, has "earned his right to be ranked in the
first order of contemporaneous poets" — a volume entitled " Les
Vaines Tendr esses." The author, we are told, is " not a mystic,
but a philosopher trained in the school of Lucretius," i. e., of mate-
rialism. "His poems," the writer continues, "are all based on the
same idea, namely, the want of harmony existing between man's
aspirations and the weakness, the powerlessness, the narrow limits
to which nature condemns him," forgetting, I would add, the grand
The Philosophy of Art. 5
truth so sententious) j expressed by Emerson, that " limitation is
power that shall be," that "calamities, oppositions, and weights,
are wings and means.'' This poet, in other words, denies all that
which connects man with a world of realities that are not seen
without the aid of the inner eye of reason and intuition, and can
sing only in accents of regret and despair of the futility of man's
higher aspirations, the falseness of his noblest instincts. Each
verse of the poem cited by the correspondent as an illustration of
the manner of this poet, begins with "A quoi bon?" "Of what
use?" and among the subjects of which the question is asked are
" plodding science" and human love. The poet is "alike unable
either to believe or to refuse to believe in " the " reality" of " the
infinite and the eternal." Poems written in such a frame of mind
have the beauty — though it be in this case only a beauty of sad-
ness — which is inseparable from all genuine spiritual emotion, a
beauty* which gives the lie to the author's scepticism ; but they
have not the beauty which inspires, which exalts, which inflames
with the fire of ideal faith and knowledge, which transplants the
soul into a sphere where it feels that it has found its true home,
and is in the near presence of the Origin and End of all being.
Yet they are a powerful evidence of that which the soul, not seeing
or believing, must nevertheless regret with infinite and inconsola-
ble sorrow.
I repeat the statement with which I began : Philosophy is the
demonstration of the ideal as the truth and substance, the source
and end, of real things. True, it is not a complete demonstration:
that is to say, it has not reached that point where nothing can be
added to it. It is not shut up in any one system. It is a great
induction, running through all systems, and to which not only all
great thinkers but the very progress of civilization itself contrib-
ute. It is not excepted, in a sense, from the law so pregnantly
expressed by Lessing in the words: " In den idealen Gebieten
muss man immer mehr suchen.V ("In ideal things man must always
remain simply a seeker"). True it is that when the philosophical
instinct (which is essentially universal) awakens in a youth, and
he sets about the inquiry as to what is the truth of things, what
conception he shall and should hold as to their nature, their mean-
ing, their whence, what, and whither, it is only as the result of a
thorough search, often involving painful endeavor, and repeated
repulses, that he reaches peaceful ground, whence he may at least
espy, even though he may but imperfectly possess, the fair land
6 The Philosaphy of Art.
of truth. And the same experience is repeated in the history of
thought at laige.
> T ow, I hold that what philosophy in its best acceptation thus
seeks to demonstrate, art seeks to embody in concrete form. The
philosopher thinks the true substance, the ideal — the artist feels,
and loves, and is moved by it. The former would exhibit it in
reasoned form, the latter in sensible types and symbols. My desire
is that you should feel the necessary connection between the true
theory and nature of art and such an idea of philosophy or view
of the world and its contents as I have now presented to you, in
distinction from all opposed philosophies, which assume that there
is such a thing as independent brute matter and blind law, and that
free intelligence and spirit are but a product and function of the
former.
As matter of fact, we tind but slight, if any, contributions to the
higher comprehension of art in the history of materialistic and
sceptical thought. Lucretius, the Roman poet and disciple of the
Epicurean and atomic philosophy, a pure materialist and atheist,
adopting the Epicurean theory of art as mere imitation — imitation
in the most material sense — proposes (in his Be Eerum Natura) to
explain the difference between instrumental and vocal music as
arising from the difference of the material sounds which they imi-
tate. While the latter has arisen from the imitation of the song
of birds, the former arose, according to Lucretius, from the attempt
to reproduce the noises of inorganic nature, as of storms, the rush-
ing of water, and the like (Schasler Oesch. d. Aesthetik, p. 210).
Such "philosophizing" as this is childish. In the eighteenth cen-
tury Diderot the French Encyclopaedist, pantheist, and sceptic,
again insisted on art as being imitation of nature, in opposition to
the ideal. But he was unable to carry out the theory without sur-
reptitiously, perhaps unconsciously, substituting for the conception
of the natural — i. e., things as they really are in nature — the con-
ception of natural truth, the truth of nature, or things as they
ought to be, perfect in their kind, which in reality they never are.
Thus the theory ends with a virtual admission of that which it set
out to deny, namely, of the ideal as the true object of art. Diderot
finds that art, like nature, has its inspiring effects, that these are
inexplicable except on the hypothesis of a purely subjective, hence
ideal, and invariable standard of taste, and asks whence, if you
deny this hypothesis, "come those delicious emotions which arise
in the soul with such suddenness and power, whence those tears of
The Philosophy of Art. 7
joy, of pain, of admiration at the sight of some sublime natural
spectacle or of some magnanimous action ? " "Away thou soph-
ist!" he says, "thou shalt never persuade my heart that it has no
right to be thrilled, nor my bowels that they do wrong to be moved
with emotion" — in opposition to what materialism, consistently
applied to the theory of art, would allow. (Schasler, loc. cit., 324,
325). So that, after all, according to Diderot, it is in virtue of the
relation (and, I may add, the relationship or kinship) of natural
and artistic forms to ideal quantities (thoughts, emotions), that the
former have their artistic quality. We shall come to au allied
result if, now, we consider positively the nature of art, both by and
in itself, and in the light of that ideal philosophy above set forth,
which we have reason to regard as the true philosophy of things.
Art is a working, an activity. It is a working with materials.
These may be wood and stone, marble, the drawing-board, canvas,
tones, words. In short, anything, with or upon which man exer-
cises an external activity, may be artistically treated. But both
the stone-cutter and the architect work in stone, and yet both are
not artists. The like may be said of him who paints a madonna
and him who paints a fence, of the man who howls and the one
who sings, of the expounder of a science and of the poet. The
artist is then one who works in a particular way, with his materials,
and for a particular end.
Art manipulates its materials with a view to please or to move;
it addresses the emotions. It does this, in the first place, by the
use of forms, lines, colors which please or charm the eye, and of
rhythmic forms and intonations, and sequences or combinations of
tones, which similarly affect the ear. This is its immediate, sensu-
ous effect, but not its only one. Eating and drinking produce an
even greater degree of vivid, sensual gratification, yet they are not
fine arts. We may, it is true, eat and drink and do all things to
the glory of God, in addition to the satisfaction of our sense-desires
and our bodily needs. And so the artist not only may, but neces-
sarily does, minister to something more than a passing titillation ot
the senses through which his work is apprehended. Were this not
so, the foreigner residing in Italy who told me that he cared less
for any opera than for such immediate sensual gratification as the
country afforded, would have been right. As it is, we all instinct-
ively recognize that that man acknowledged himself more beast
than man.
The pleasure which true art produces is disinterested. It is
8 The Philosophy of Art.
not connected with any thought of gain or advantage to our-
selves individually, whether in our pockets or as increasing the
sum of our exclusively personal happiness. We are the rather
lifted out of ourselves into the element where petty, personal, self-
ish distinctions cease. We recognize the influence exerted as en-
nohling, spiritualizing, and belonging of right to all men. and far
from desiring to withhold it from any, we would, in the spirit
of that charity which is identical with love, communicate it to all.
Again, the artist's work is free. The workman who hews stone
or marble, or follows the painter's trade for his living, is subject to
the law of his employers. The expounder of mathematical science
uses language merely as a means to an end, as a sort of mechanical
instrument of communication. The sculptor, the painter, and the
poet, on the other hand, are free from any such bondage as this.
Their action is, rather, spontaneous, and if subject to law, the law
is given from within, and not from without. The artist, as the
Germans significantly say, does not work, he plays. His play is
the play of fancy — not of caprice, of personal whim, but of fancy,
as the creative handmaid of mind, of the ideal, of God.
For, to complete the present enumeration of the characteristic
qualities of art and of the artist, the artist is a maker, an inventor,
in a secondary sense, a creator. Art is poetic (in the phraseology
of Aristotle). The poet, or maker, is not simply he who makes or
creates with words, but he who does this with any material what-
soever. The germ or foundation of art, as an empirical, historical
development, lies unquestionably in the instinct of imitation, which
is observable in almost all the plays of children. But this is not
all. The photographer, in so far as he merely produces by chem-
ical processes a correct likeness of his subjects, is no artist. The
sculptor, who faithfully reproduces the bust of a living original,
including all the wrinkles which care has worn on the brow, and
all the accidental pimples, or even uglinesses, is no artist. Art not
simply imitates nature, it idealizes. That is, it represents the
natural object, not as it actually is, with its inevitable blemishes
and defects, but as it ought to be, as it would be if the idea of it
were perfectly realized. Or, it takes, in painting, or in scenes bor-
rowed by poetry from common life, (as well as in other arts) definite
types or aspects, and makes them the medium for the suggestive
representation of ideal perfections. It is thus creative, inasmuch
as ii represents, at least symbolically, what does not exist in natu-
ral, physical reality. But it is not absolutely creative, in so far as
The Philosophy of Art. 9
its inspiration, its ideal, is derived from a world of ideal forms,
eternally existent in the mind of the Eternal One, though only
caught by the favored few among mortals.
But I am anticipating my conclusion. Is it not evident, I ask,
that there is more in art than in the forms and sounds of nature
which the physical eye and ear perceive ?
Take for example, music, the purest of the arts. The splendid
harmonies of Beethoven, which inspire the listener with a whole
world of new and thoughtful and most profound emotion, have but
the faintest parallel in the sweetest melodies of birds. So in true
poetry we are transplanted into scenes and familiarized with forms
of thought, feeling, and action, which are not what actual life
shows us, but such as we are sure actual life may become and
tends to become. So in true sculpture and painting, the aim of
which is not the mere reproduction of something seen, but the rep-
resentation of something which we should like to see, which is
akin to our natures, towards which our truest being strives. The
Apollo Belvedere does not interest us as the likeness of any one
who probably ever existed, but as expressing a phase of noble
humanity, a germ of divinity. The Sistine Madonna does not please
us as being a fair representation of the way the Virgin Mary may-
have looked, not as a noble natural form, but as portraying the
possessor or parent of divine qualities.
By virtue of what, then, under the guidance of what faculty or
power, does the artist work ? Psychologists call it imagination,
fancy, and ascribe to it, on the basis of their observation of the
way in which it works, a power of original, free combination.
Others speak of an artistic instinct, which, in so far as it is an
instinct, must work unconsciously. It is also otherwise, and with
justice, termed genius. Whatever it may be called, it must now
be obvious that it addresses the mental and emotional faculties of
man, i. e. those, in virtue of which he is an ideal being: that, in so
far as its products differ from the products of nature, the difference
must be ideally apprehended and weighed.
The ideal philosophy above set forth, the philosophy which sees
in matter nothing but the growing life of spirit, in the concretely
real, nothing but the expression of the ideal as that which alone is
truly real ; which sees, in short, in the whole universe nothing but
the creation, hence the expression of the mind, of a spiritual being,
i. e. of a God of wisdom, and goodness, and love, this philosophy
can alone account for art and the artist. If this philosophy be
10 The Philosophy of Art.
true, the root of the nature not only of man, but of all things, is
in ideal, spiritual being. Such being is conscious, intelligent,
intrinsically and necessarily good, and loving. The original foun-
tain of such being, the fundamental and central personality to
which its universal consciousness belongs, is called by us God.
And here I may remark, parenthetically, that it is not only those
who admit the existence of a personal God who adopt a theory of
-art like the one here advocated. The whole army of modern pan-
theists admit more or less explicitly the spiritual or ideal nature
and substance of all things, yet deny that the source of this nature
is a personal, self-conscious being. The nature and being of things,
they say, is God, but God first becomes conscious in man. Others,
perceiving the absurdity of employing the word God to denote an
existence of which personality is denied, and yet convinced of the
truth of idealism as a theory of the nature of things, use instead
the expressions " the idea," " will," " the unconscious," as names
for the ideal and true essence and source of things. These men
are, in my view, inconsistent, in not admitting the existence of a
personal God, as the fountain and first substance of all reality.
To assume the independent existence of an unconscious idea, will,
or other spiritual element, seems like admitting a contradiction in
terms. But notwithstanding all this, it is evident that those who
hold such a view of the ideal nature of things, can and must hold
a theory of art similar to that held by Christian idealism. And
this also they do.
To resume : In the assumed universal consciousness are all true
and perfect ideas which the one Spirit to whom they belong is
seeking to realize, and does approximately and progressively real-
ize, in this world. Indeed, the world is, in its truth, as before inti-
mated, nothing but a complex of ideas, organically united under or
within one controlling idea, or rather a complex of spiritual forces
of which these ideas may be said to be the light and life, all seek-
ing or tending to find their appropriate embodiment in concrete
form. Of course these forces are always to be considered as hav-
ing their origin in God, the Absolute Spirit. The life of God must
be considered as the element in which they have their own true
being, and whatever spontaneity they possess must be regarded as
subordinate to the will and control of God.
Now, man is such a spiritual force, possessing a more or less com-
plete consciousness of itself and of its parentage and kinship.
His daily, transient consciousness excludes largely, in some cases
The Philosophy of Art. 11
almost entirely, from his attention the life of the ideal principle,
which is his true and best life, the life which ought to be. Hence
the assumption of idealistic psychologists — an assumption amply
illustrated in the world's best literature and verified by reason and
observation — of what may be called a double life of the soul, the
one, the lower, involved in all the changing and ephemeral variety
of sensible impressions, the other and higher, the life of the soul
in the pure and immutable element of the eternally true and
good. And just as the whole world, in the language of the apos-
tle, " travaileth and groaneth " in the slowly accomplished endeavor
to bring to the birth — i. e. to adequate realization — the complete
idea which underlies it, which is its true being, which is what it
ought to be, so the higher life of the soul seeks to gain the mastery
over the lower, to raise it as nearly as may be to its own level, to
bring it under its own direction, and not only thus to shape the
thoughts and life according to its own high standard, but also to
bring all which it handles into conformity with the ideally perfect,
in which it has its true life. True art I hold to be the work of this
higher Psyche.
If this opinion be true, we can understand the distinction between
the genius which constitutes the real artist, and talent, which makes
its possessor only a skilful workman. We can understand also
how the fancy of the former, which is popularly said to know no
law, and which is yet so unerring in its results, is simply under the
guidance of a higher law, the law of the true ideal, to which the
natural or lower man rises only with difficulty. Says Schopen-
hauer, in efi'ect : " Talent is like a rifleman, who hits the most distant
mark that is visible to ordinary eyes; Genius is like a rifleman
who hits a mark which is only visible to himself." Genius, the true
artist, that is to say, works under the guidance of the higher life
of the soul, in its true ideal element ; talent works according to the
laws of the lower every day consciousness. We now see how an
â– "artistic instinct" can be spoken of, and how not only, as Schiller
says, in the poetic artist, but in the artist of whatever kind, there
is a union of the (so-called) unconscious (say, rather, the supra-
conscious) and the reflective. The " unconscious " element, namely,
is the true ideal life emerging and taking the life and the ways of
ordinary reflection under its control.*
* Reflective science does not discover the laws of genius until after genius,
proceeding without any formal or scientific consciousness of them, lias already
illustrated them in its works.
12 . The Philosophy of Art.
Upon this theory, too, we see how the genuine artistic product
may be, as it generally is, called a "revelation." It brings to light
something entirely new, for which our experience gives us no
standard of judgment, and which nevertheless we as if instinct-
ively recognize as true. How often do the greatest strokes of
genius in all the arts impress us as being the simplest and most
natural things in the world! Yet we know that we could not by
our ordinary powers have accomplished them. It is that our inner
selves are at home, however unconsciously to us, in an ideal realm
of perfect being, and that when its light is brought down to us
and embodied before us, we cannot but feel at home in it. We can
understand now the intense and exalting emotion produced upon
us by the noblest art. We are elevated by it from the lower to
the higher, from an atmosphere of confusion and error into one of
simplicity and truth, from clouds and darkness into serene and
unchangeable light. We see, too, how the artist may be said to
be "possessed" or "inspired." His true being asserts itself and
has possession of him, to the exclusion of his lower, degenerate
self. We see with what significance he is designated by Plato as
" a light and winged and holy thing," "moved by power divine,"
" divinely released from the ordinary ways of man." On the basis
of the philosophy of this paper you may also perceive how the
artist can copy natural forms to express an ideal substance. For
as before remarked, in connection with the etymology of the word
idea, that which in the realm of spirit or thought is idea, is in the
realm of concrete expression form, and all forms are but servants,
media for the manifestation of ideas in which alone they have their
true existence. And we see that if, as is the fact, the artist does
not literally reproduce nature's forms, but creates something in a
measure different, his work, however idealized, will, if it be truly
artistic work, never seem to us unnatural. We shall the rather,
as in fact we usually do, term it supremely natural. It presents
more or less perfectly the true nature of the object represented —
the true idea of it — what it must concretely become in order to
attain objectively to its true being.
Our conclusion then is that the artist, in so far as he is truly
such, is the representer of true being, in forms which are
addressed to the senses. His works have an independent value,
the intrinsic value of truth. They are created for their own sake,
and not for use, nor, in their truest sense, lor pleasure. They
excite the dec] test emotions, but these emotions are not in them-
The Philosophy of Art. 13
selves the true object or end of art. They are only its necessary
result and concomitant,. arising from the appeal which it makes for
comprehension to what is highest, truest, most real in ourselves.
True works of art are inspired from above, and not from below ;
from the more exalted, true life which man leads (whether always
consciously or unconsciously) in the realm of real spiritual being,
in alliance with the everlasting forms of true being, in direct rela-
tion with the Father of all spirits, and not from the lower life and
consciousness which are forced upon us from our association with
the finite, imperfect scenes of every day life, and which are there-
fore not of our making, and hence not truly ours — not a part of
ourselves. The artist, the man of genius, works spontaneously
and freely, and yet in accordance with the perfect, simple law of
# the idea. There is in his work that mysterious combination of
freedom and necessity, which is observable in all the highest types
of moral perfection. The same element in which he lives and
works, and which lives and works in him, the element which we
term, in the last and highest analysis, the Spirit of God, operates
throughout the universe in the history of men and nations, and no
less in the lower realms of organized and inorganic being, slowly
and surely working out, under forms of unerring law, the purposes
of the Idea. This operation, viewed often from a narrower point
of view, is termed providence. Everywhere there is the sponta-
neous working of derived force, and the inworking, the inspiration,
of true being. By this view we are taught, as Goethe puts it :
"To know our brothers in air, and water, and the silent wood,"
All nature is akin, and art is but the endeavor of man, that part of
nature which is most near to the divine mind, (which mind is the
truth — but also more than the truth — of nature) to help nature to
perfection, to complete the incomplete, to substitute the true and
real for the partly true and imperfectly real.
I have not time to show you in detail how this result is practi-
cally verified, by reference to the lives of the great artists of all
ages. It will be sufficient if you recall the fact that the masters of
Grecian art, of mediaeval Gothic architecture, of Italian art, of
modern music, were all men of deep piety or of a lofty ideal faith.
Listen to the words of the giant-soul Michael Angelo, taken from
one of his translated sonnets. They indicate the source whence he,
at least, sought inspiration :
14 The Philosophy of Art.
"Heaven-born, the soul a heavenward course must hold.
Beyond the visible world she soars to seek
(For what delights the sense is false and weak)
Ideal form, the universal mould."
Listen to the greatest musical composer of all times, a true Pla-
tonist iu spirit, Beethoven, declaring that his art, "music, is a
higher revelation than all wisdom and all philosophy ; " and to
another, of kiudred spirit with the master, saying that wonderful
and unfathomable as are its mysteries, yet it " dwells in the breast
of man himself, and so fills his inner nature with its generous man-
ifestations, that his whole sense is turned towards them, and anew,
transfigured life wrests him, even while he is yet here below, from
the crushing weight and torment of earthly things." It is enough
for my purpose to ask you to look further for yourselves into the
biographies of the greatest artists and into the moral and intel-
lectual history of their times (into which Taine does not enter
deeply enough), and to see how their own faith coincided in sub-
stance with the views which I have placed before you.
It remains for us now only to form our judgment upon Mr.
Taine's philosophy of art, in the light of the convictions here
reached. I would term it rather incomplete, than false. It would
be erroneous to claim that it is a complete theory of that which it
would explain, for a reason precisely similar to that which would
forbid our admitting the entire sufficiency of a philosophy of things
in general, which should proceed only by what is falsely termed
the positive method, (as, for the most part, for example, Mr. Her-
bert Spencer's philosophy does). There are two ways of looking
at things, viz : from without and from within. By the one method
we simply record the impressions which phenomena produce on
the observer, together with the order in which they are seen to
coexist or to follow each other. By the other we seek to enter into
the nature of things, to comprehend the force which causes them,
and which constitutes their true being. Both methods have their
place, and are indispensable instruments of human knowledge.
Neither of them can long exist without the other. But only the
latter is truly philosophical. The former provides just such
results as any animal with fair logical powers, with well devel-
oped faculties of analysis and classification, but without the
rational insight and emotion of man, would arrive at. By this
I do not wish to throw any discredit — to attempt this would be
foolish — upon positive science and the positive method. They
The Philosophy of Art, 15
are grandly useful, and when their philosophical worth is
not unduly estimated, worthy of most grateful praise. I mean
simply to intimate that they are the servants of man, and
not his master, and that they are therefore the servants of philos-
ophy, Avhich is the highest rational function of man, and not its
master. The positive method, dealing only with phenomena, fur-
nishes no knowledge of the real nature of things. Its ablest rep-
resentatives disavow with reason all knowledge of what matter,
force, and cause are. It retains the words as being conditionally
necessary to the existence of science. Sometimes it forgets its own
limitations, and then proceeding to define, gives to the words in
question meanings which it is easy to show are absurd.
Now, Mr. Taine does not belong avowedly to the so-called posi-
tivist school, but he follows a positive method. And he incautiously
defines these fundamental terms, just spoken of, proceeds theoret-
ically on the assumption of the truth of his definitions, and so
passes over or attempts to pass over on to the ground of philoso-
phy, carrying with him his positive method (the method of the
science of phenomena), which is only adapted to serve the purposes
of scientific or accurate observation, and not of philosophy, the
science of principles. Here is his luminous (!) definition of force,
taken from his comparatively recent and extensive work on Intelli-
gence : " Force is simply the property which one event has of
being followed by another of the same series or of another series."
The result of this singular and absurd definition (and yet not any
more absurd than were to be expected from a substitution of the
"positive" method — as above explained — for the philosophical
one) is the frank avowal by the author of his disbelief in the exist-
ence of what is commonly understood by substance and force.
" Nothing exists," these are his words, " but events, their condi-
tions, and dependencies." (What these can be, without substance
or force, I know not. M. Taine treats them, at any rate, from the
mechanical or positive [phenomenal] point of view only.) Again he
says, " the notion of fact or event alone corresponds to real things."
M. Taine's positive analysis here leads him away into the mists of
an abstract, mechanical phenomenalism. Again, in various works
of his he defines cause as equivalent to law, that is, observed law
of succession and co-existence. The shallowness of this I have
not time to point out. It will, I trust, be sufficiently obvious to
you. Now bear these definitions in mind and consider the follow-
ing definition of the masterpiece in art, taken from his " Ideal in
16 The Philosophy of Art.
Art : " " The masterpiece is that in which the greatest force
receives the greatest development." Substitute for the word force
in this sentence the definition of it above given, and the same for
the word cause (which is implied in the word " development "), and
see what sense you can make of it. Philosophy of art, or of any-
thing else, written from the standpoint of a principle so contra-
dictory and meaningless as this, can end only in the absurd. The
cause, says M. Taine, is the law. The law about art is that it cor-
responds to its environment. Does the law then account for the
correspondence ? Does it really cause it % ISTo, it simply states
what is the observable order of phenomena. That there is such
correspondence is what we should expect, from whatever point 01
view we regard the subject. For the philosopher it follows as the
simplest matter of course that in a world where all things are
believed to be akin in the foundation of their being, and where this
foundation is believed to be rational, there should be, so far as the
limitations of finite existence will permit, the strictest harmony
between the conditions and the product. And if, as we are com-
pelled to hold, the high and fundamental ideal nature of things, is
constantly seeking throughout the universe to realize itself more
adequately, we shall of course look for the brightest manifesta-
tions of it where there is the most favorable union of conditions-^
for there it will meet with least resistance. And so we have, in
the history of modern times, three great efflorescences of the ideal
in art — first in architecture, then in painting, and finally in music
— each at the time when circumstances and conditions were most
favorable, i. e., when they offered least resistance to the idea, but
each the manifestation under a form of its own of the same ideal
principle, the same kinship of man with the eternal, the same love
of the soul for the perfect simplicities, harmonies, splendors of
the ideal world of true thought. ,
I must consider M. Taine's contributions to the philosophy of art
as of slight value, as, in fact, false except where, as on pp. 160, 169
of the Art en Italic, he admits causes and motives* which are in
contradiction with his general philosophy. But as a contribution
to what may be called the natural history of art, his works are of
exceeding interest and great value.
* The former spontaneous, the latter ideal.
(17)
EMPIRICISM AND COMMON LOGIC.
By John Watson.
The aim of a philosophy being to give a full and self-consistent
explanation of knowledge, its value may be exactly estimated by
its freedom from the presuppositions and inconsistencies of ordi-
nary thinking. The impulse to know necessarily precedes any
doubt of the attainability of knowledge, or any analysis of the
grounds on which it rests. The unreflecting observer, whose only
speculative notions are those that have nourished his mind as un-
consciously as food and air have helped to build up his body, can
only by an effort comprehend that facts, apparently simple and
self-evident, need for thek ultimate justification to be brought tc»
the test of philosophical criticism. Least of all has he any tend-
ency to suspect the truth of those beliefs, that concern the nature
of the common world of sense, which seems simply to copy itself
in the passive mirror of his own consciousness. That there exists,,
apart in itself, and just as he perceives it, a world of realities, that
was before any mind was there to know it. and would be if every
mind were annihilated, he does not once begin to doubt. The ele-
ments of which this really complex conception is the product were
never consciously distinguished, and are now so completely fused
together as to seem an indissoluble unity. Hence, when philosophy
seeks to resolve knowledge into its primal constituents, the precon-
ceptions of common sense, from which it must needs start, offer a
stubborn resistance to the successful completion of the task. To
a failure to overcome this hindrance to a thorough analysis and
reconstruction of knowledge, the philosophical theory known as
Empiricism owes its origin.
The first and crudest form of Empiricism simply formulates what
is most obviously in every one's consciousness, maintaining that
all real knowledge is of individual things, as manifoldly qualified
and self-existent, i. e. as unrelated either to consciousness or to
each other. These objects are supposed to be passively appre-
hended by sense, in their integrity and isolation, without any exer-
cise of thought. A distinction, indeed, is usually made between
secondary qualities of body, which are only affections of the sen-
sitive organism, and primary qualities, which have an extra-organic
existence; but this in no way affects the fundamental position,
that objects exist as they are known, and are known as they exist.
X— 2
18 Empiricism and Common Logic.
As thing's with the full complement of attributes that make up
their reality, are thus given ready-made to sense, thought is neces-
sarily conceived as purely formal in its activity. Incapable of
originating anything, it can only compare one object with another,
detach resembling qualities and recombine them after a fashion
of its own. In this way general conceptions are formed, which
only differ from the real things they are abstracted from in the
possession of fewer attributes and in the arbitrariness of their
unity. In the language of Locke, " general and universal belong
not to the* real existence of things, but are the inventions and
creatures of the understanding." Hence an abrupt contrast of
sense and thought, things and conceptions. To think is to relate,
and relation destroys the individuality of objects, putting asun-
der what nature has joined together. Knowledge, it would seem,
takes place only when the mind passively reflects the world ; it
is adequate when, undisturbed by the ''inventions" of the under-
standing, it reflects that world fully. It follows that we must
think in a different way from what we know, and that the under-
standing can only produce an illusion of knowledge. If the pres-
51 ervation of reality depends upon the exclusion of relation, the
only thing left for thought to do is to convert reality into fiction.
This theory commends itself to an ordinary way of thinking,
â– and seems to account for knowledge simply and naturally. True
as it seems, however, it is at once superficial and self-contradic-
tory. Its validity depends upon the possibility of keeping intact
the isolation of individual objects, for once bring them into rela-
tion and they will be infected with the taint of thought. Can
the antithesis of things and thoughts, implied in such an isola-
tion, be consistently maintained? If an object, as a complex of
qualities, is given to sense apart from relation, it must be known
in a simple and momentary act of consciousness ; for, were a sep-
arate sensation needed for the knowledge of each of its several
qualities, a series of relations would be required to combine these
qualities into a unity, and the opposition of thing and thought
would be destroyed. On the other hand, what are the properties
of an object but the sum of its relations to other objects? I can
only think of a quality as at once the quality of a thing and as
distinguished from, and therefore related to, other qualities of a
like kind. "Determination by negation" is the condition of any
knowledge whatever of a thing as qualified, and what is so deter-
mined is brought into relation with other things. To think of
Empiricism and Common Logic. 19
" gold " as " yellow," implies a comparison of the sensation by
which the quality is known with other sensations of color to which
it is negatively related, and, more obviously, the quality of duc-
tility or solubility involves a series of relations to other things.
The knowledge of each of the qualities that together make up
the object, implies a relation to other objects as qualified. And
not only is each of the qualities of a thing determined by its rela-
tion to the qualities of other things, but all the qualities that
belong to the same thing are determined, by successive judg-
ments, as related to each other. When one property has been
judged to belong to a thing, it is conceived as attaching naturally
to that thing and forming an integral part of it, and thus a fresh
determination of the partially qualified object becomes possible.
It is again brought into relation with other objects, and a prop-
erty, different in kind from that already known, is added. Thus
I judge that the object called "gold," which I already know to
be " yellow," is also " soluble in aqua regia." In this way, by
being successively brought into relation with other things, a
thing multiplies in attributes exactly as knowledge concerning it
increases. But if so, what becomes of the assumed opposition
between thought and reality ? Either the real existence of the
individual does not depend upon its being completely qualified,
or reality is constituted by relations of thought. To accept the
latter alternative is to abandon the fundamental position of Em-
piricism ; and hence, still grasping at the antithesis of nature and
thought, its advocates try to preserve the reality of knowledge
by. maintaining that, while sensation does not reveal a variously
qualified object, it makes known a quality in its singleness. For
the individual, in other words, is substituted the particular ; for
isolated things, isolated qualities of things. Thought is still
regarded as inadequate to a knowledge of the real, from its incom-
petence to apprehend objects in their unrelated simplicity, but its
domain is vastly enlarged, and its method of procedure reversed.
Whatever complexity may be shown to attach to kuowledge is
referred to the inventive activity of the understanding ; and, as
complexity can only result from the putting together of simple
elements, thinking is now regarded as a gradual process of com- v
plication, and not, as formerly, of abstraction, or at least of the
former as the condition of the latter. Does this revisal of Em-
piricism successfully avoid the introduction of relativity into the
knowledge of real existence \
20 Empiricism and Common Logic.
A negative answer to this question has already been given by
implieation. The knowledge of a single quality involves rela-
tions of thought not less than the knowledge of a multiplicity of
qualities. By identifying a momentary sensation with the qual-
ity of a thing which is not momentary but permanent, something
unaffected by illusion seems to be obtained. This seeming exclu-
sion of illusion, however, is itself illusive. Just because a sen-
sation is in itself simple and individual, and therefore free from
relation, it cannot be identified with the quality of a thing which
is neither simple nor individual. The latter is a registered result
of a series of comparisons between like sensations, and therefore
is overlaid by the invention of the understanding. Only as
arrested in the moment of its disappearance from consciousness-
by something other than itself, and fixed by relation to other sen-
satious, whose mere individuality is likewise converted into uni-
versality, does a sensation become representative of the quality
of a thing. Quality is meaningless except as relative to a sub-
? stance which it qualifies, i. e., to something which remains identical
with itself through a multiplicity of times. Nothing less than
this is involved in the distinction of reality and fiction. But as-
sensation cannot survive the moment of its origination without
distinguishing itself as existing at one moment from itself as ex-
isting at a different moment, and such distinction involves rela-
tion to something that does not pass away. Nor can a sensation
be identical with itself, for successive sensations, while they may
be similar, cannot be the same. Thus the contradiction implicit
in the opposition of thought and reality once more emerges, and
, again forces upon us the alternative of giving up the knowledge
of the real, or of admitting the originative activity of thought.
The attempt to exclude thought from the construction of reality
has already compelled the Empiricist to attenuate real know-
ledge to the reception of single qualities in their isolation ; and
now, still refusing to adopt the only way of escape that will at
once break down the false antithesis of thought and knowledge
and at the same time account for real existence, he clings to the
reality of mere sensation rather than sunender his belief in the
passivity of the mind. It may be impossible, as it is, to appre-
hend a complex of qualities, or even a single quality, in a mo-
mentary act of consciousness; as it may, and must be admitted
that there is no external object, independent of consciousness;
but at least the reality of sensation, which cannot be infected
Empiricism and Common Logic. 21
y/
â– with relations of thought, is indubitable. This is the attitude of
the Empiricist, as at last brought to bay. The realm of illusion
Las now encroached so far upon the world of reality as to
threaten completely to submerge it, and the only defence against
the advancing tide of scepticism is the thin barrier of individual
sensation. That gone, the only way in which the domain of real
knowledge can be retained must be by a complete change of
method. Meantime, what has to be explained is not the know-
ledge of a real world, existing apart in itself, but the fiction by
which we come to imagine that there is such a world.
The two forms of the Empirical hypothesis now considered,
which are not only diverse but contradictory — the one maintain-
ing that knowledge begins where, according to the other, it ends
— are not to be found anywhere stated with that explicitness
which at once manifests their inherent opposition. But, by strip-
ping off the disguise of ambiguous language and misleading asso-
ciations, they may be discerned, lying side by side in contrasting
juxtaposition, in the pages of Locke, of the Scottish Realists,
and, generally, of all Empiricists. This, indeed, is inevitable ;
for the dialectic which transforms the uncritical assumption of a^
self-dependent world into its opposite, is continually repeated in
the arena of ordinary consciousness itself. The one position to
which common sense remains true is that the mind is passively
receptive of reality, and that objects are given in an instantane-
ous act of consciousness. But while, in the main, what is appre-
hended seems to be the manifoldly qualified individual, there are
oases in which fjualities are apparently given singly, as when an
odor or taste is felt for the first time, a sound newly heard, or a
sudden change of color perceived. Formulated, the seeming dif-
ference of complexity in the content of sensation comes forth as
the two theories of knowledge, whose incompatibility has just
been shown. Moreover, common sense, in holding, as it certainly
does in an unconscious way, that the test of reality is the imme-
diateuess of sensation, virtually surrenders the test of reality as
determined by the independence of a material object — the stage
at which we have now arrived in our criticism of Empiricism.
This new simplification of Empiricism has been already refuted
by anticipation. Nothing of the original theory remains except
the antithesis of sensation as real, and thought as fictitious, but
even this modest claim to reality cannot be consistently main-
tamed. The workmanship of the mind will manifest itself in the
22 Empiricism and Common Logic.
very rudiments of knowledge, and force the admission of the
constructive activity of thought. Xot even the mere individu-
ality of sensation can substantiate its plea for exemption from
the inventions of the understanding. An isolated sensation can-
not be real, because, as indeterminate, it is mere zero. To be in
* consciousness at all, it must be related to other sensations, to
which it is at once like and unlike. Mere sensation cannot ae-
couut for the appearance of knowledge, not to speak of reality,
for in itself it is nothing. This objection cannot be met, it can
only be disguised. The individual sensation must be complicated
with the constructions of thought, under shelter of ambiguous
phraseology, in order that its seeming independence of thought
may be plausibly preserved. This is the cue of Berkeley and.
Hume, as of all their followers. The sleight of hand by which
the mystification is effected is a dexterous use of such expres-
sions as " natural relations," and "association of ideas," which
cover, but do not dispense with, the creative activity of thought.
? It is by surreptitiously investing sensation with relations of
thought, while seeming to extract them from it in its simplicity,
that Mr. Mill gives plausibility to his " psychological theory of
the belief in an external world." He "postulates" the "laws
of association," which, as sensations do associate themselves, is
tacitly to assume at the outset the manifold relations which only
thought can constitute. Following Hume, he starts with the
"law" that " similar phenomena tend to be thought of together,"
i. e., with association in the way of resemblance. Assuming that
" phenomena " here means feelings, as it should in a theory which
feigns to derive the conception of matter from sensation, as orig-
inally given or as reproduced, the law must be interpreted to sig-
nify that those sensations which have a natural affinity for each
other tend to coalesce and form groups. This clearly implies
that one sensation compares itself with another, and, observing
the likeness and unlikeness that subsists between them, attaches
itself to the other in virtue of their mutual likeness. This, how-
ever, is not to derive knowledge from simple sensations, but to
destroy their simplicity by investing them with the faculty of
comparison, distinction, and identification. If a sensation is
competent to perform this act of relation, it is competent to per-
form any act of relation, however complex. Grant that the sen-
sation "white" may distinguish itself from, and relate itself to,
the seusatiou "red," and we cannot deny that it may equally
Empiricism and Common Logic. 23
retain and compare itself successively with any indefinite number
of sensations, until it has compassed a knowledge of the whole
universe. In assuming that a sensation carries with it relations
to other sensations, we assume what is true not of sensation in
itself, but only of the mind as conscious of sensation. Associa-
tion by resemblance involves the presence of a permanent factor
to serve as a bond of connection between fleeting impressions,
taking them out of their isolation and relating them to each other,
and such a permanent factor can be found in thought alone. It
is true that thought does not separately apprehend sensations,
and afterward compare and relate them. The relation is given
in the consciousness of each, but not the less is the active pres-
ence of thought implied ; for were there no unifying activity,
even the meagre amount of relation required for the conscious-
ness of two sensations in one act would be impossible. To be
consistent in excluding the constitutive action of thought, even
the seemingly trifling admission that an individual sensation may
in itself resemble another sensation cannot be allowed. The ad-
mission, however, is not trifling; for, once allow that sensation
may perform any act of relation whatever, and no limit can bei/
set to its relating activity. AVe have but to take association by
resemblance to cover association in the way of succession and
co-existence, and the belief in an external world follows as a
matter of course. The permanence and self-dependence of things,
which is what mainly distinguishes them from our subjective
states, is tacitly assumed when, under the disguise of association
by resemblance, a self in permanent relation to sensation is
quickly substituted for sensation in its mere individuality. By
its power of universalizing the particular, thought, if granted
sensations to begin with, will rear the whole fabric of knowledge.
This is the secret of the plausibility of Mr. Mill's reduction of
the belief in matter to mere feeling. The laws of association that
he postulates at the start, implicitly contain the manifold rela-
tions by which knowledge, as it is to a rational being, is consti-
tuted. Any one of a group of resembling sens3tious (in the
wide meaning of resemblance above mentioned) instantaneously
suggests all the others that, by frequent repetition, have become
inseparably associated with it; and, uniformity of association
being inevitably confounded with objective connection, perma-
nent possibilities of sensation come at length to appear self-iden-
tical and independent of the sensations from which thev were
24 Empiricism and C<,mmon Logic.
generated. Now, if for "permanent possibilities of sensation' 1
we substitute "permanent relations of thought to sensation,"
this account of the origin of real knowledge will be fairly aecu-
rate, although to do so is not to correct but completely to change
the theory. It is, roughly speaking, by a comparison of resem-
bling sensations, i. e., sensations that are at once like and unlike,
that that " determination by negation " which is the condition of
knowledge, is carried on. But thus to compare and distinguish
is not passively to apprehend impressions, but to substantiate
them by relations that only thought can constitute. Thus the
so-called " laws " of association are seen to be the bringing of
the particular under categories. The minimum of knowledge is
the judgment "something is here," and "something'' is implicitly a
â– " permanent possibility of sensations," because, being the reflex
of a permanent self, it is a completely qualified thing in po-
tentiality. Unlike a sensation, it does not pass away with the
moment of its appearance, but remains identical with itself. At
each fresh stage in the development of thought a more concrete
category comes into play, and the goal of perfected knowledge is
the thing in the fullness of its relations. But if this is a true
account of knowledge, the only thing that can, with absolute
truth, be called a "permanent possibility of sensations" is
thought itself. Things are so named only in the secondary sense
of deriving their permanence from the unifying action of thought.
^As permanent they are the universalizatious of the individual
through the particular, as thought is the individualization of the
particular through its own universality. Thus substances lose
that aspect of hard and rigid isolation which they present to the
eye of sense, and become instinct with the life of thought. They
are seen to be constituted by a universe of relations, of which
self-consciousness is at once the centre and the circumference,
the beginning and the end, and to manifest the self-development
of an eternal and immortal spirit. The relative positions of
thought and nature thus change places. Starting with the famil-
iar opposition of sense aud thought, things and conceptions, we
have found that, by simply forcing Empiricism to account for
itself, one portion of the domain of nature after another has to
be given up, until at last there is none that has not come under
the sway of thought. When even the individuality of sensation
has been wrested from the grasp of the Empiricist, his last hold
upon reality is loosened, and with it the possibility of accounting
Empiricism and Common Logic. 25
for even the appearance of knowledge; from all of which we
learn the lesson that there is no sure halting-place short of an
absolute idealism that recognizes the rationality of the real and
the reality of the rational.
The impotence of Empiricism to account for knowledge, or
even the illusion of knowledge, having been proved, there can be
no great difficulty in showing the futility of common logic, as-
an explanation of the powers of thought. Formulating the pre-
conceptions of common sense, Empiricism gives two mutually
contradictory theories of knowledge : maintaining, on the one
hand, that the individual thing, as a complex of attributes, is -
given ready-made to consciousness, and on the other hand that
the real as presented is the mere individual. From these oppo-
site views have grown up the two forms of the logic of common
sense — syllogistic or deductive logic, corresponding to the form,
and applied or inductive logic, based upon the latter — which are
really contradictory of each other, with whatever plausibility
they may be reconciled.
Syllogistic logic, as its origin necessitates, is nominalism. The
concrete thing being assumed to be given, as concrete, to start
-with, apart from any activity of thought, the only thing left for
thought to do is to recombine in an arbitrary manner the attri-
butes it has stripped off. At each stage in the process, thought
is going farther away from reality, and when it has reached the
goal of its efforts it has succeeded so well that all determination
has been removed, and nothing remains but a contentless abstrac-
tion. This is the theory of generalization upon which the syllo-
gism is based, and hence reasoning is supposed to be the inverse
process of gradually adding on the attributes that have been
taken away, until the concrete object, with which thought is sup-
posed to begin, is again reached.
A general conception, according to this account, must be relat-
ed to reality as its negation. Thus an uncompromising opposi-
tion is set up between the world of things and the world of
thought. Conceptions, indeed, are said to coincide with things,
but only in the sense that their content, being partially identical
with the attributes of objects — it can never be completely identi-
cal — is not positively contradictory of them. The only reality,
therefore, that can be predicated of conceptions, as conceptions,
is the meaning of the names by which they are expressed. If
this is a correct accouut of the powers of thought, it follows that
26 Empiricism and Common Logic.
thinking consists, not in the knowledge of reality, but in gradu-
ally receding from reality, and that thought will be most perfect
when knowledge has been reduced to the unthinkable abstraction
of "pure being." This result is simply the logical complement
of that reduction of knowledge to the mere individuality of sen-
sation, which is the outcome of Empiricism as a psychological
theory; for an individual sensation, as indeterminate, is simply
the abstraction of relation to consciousness, and therefore identi-
cal with the category of "being." Nor, again, is it possible to
add the smallest item to the knowledge we are assumed to start
with, for to think is to abstract, and thus to take from the store
of knowledge we already possess, not to increase it. Thought is
therefore tied down to the analysis of the meaning of names, and
the explicit declaration of that meaning in propositions or syllo-
gisms. There is no way of escape from this conclusion, so long
as real objects are assumed to be given to consciousness without
any exercise of thought. What is called conceptualism is but
a less consistent nominalism. To say, as the eonceptualists do r
that conceptions are as real as the things of which they are more
or less meagre outlines, is as contradictory as to maintain that
the reflection of an object is real in the same sense as the object
itself. As the only reality that can be ascribed to an image as
such is borrowed from what it represents. So the only reality of
a conception is its relation to things, i. e., the signification of its
name. At the most, a conception can only be a greater or less
approximation to reality. It is not pretended that the processes
of abstraction and generalization in any way affect the real exis-
tence of objects, and hence thought must be nearest to real
knowledge when it is least exercised. Even the minimum of ab-
straction, the elimination of the particular place and time in
which the individual is presented in perception, must falsify real
existence to that extent, as the maximum must completely destroy
it. A general conception is admittedly thinkable only through
its relations to individuals, which just means that to have real
knowledge we must go back to the completely qualified object
from which we set out; and this is nominalism.
Refusing, as we must, to accept the concept ualistic correct ion
of nominalism, it follows that no general proposition is adequate
to the expression of reality. In every such proposition the sub-
ject is a general conception, and therefore the recorded result of
a greater or less remove from reality. All conceptions being
Empiricism and Common Logic. 27"
formed by a process of abstraction, their connotation is neces-
sarily less than that of the concrete thing from which they are
abstracted; and, as thought can originate nothing of itself, judg-
ment can only consist in stating explicitly the attributes which
are implicit in conception, i. e., in evolving the meaning of a name.
Hence all general propositions at least must be merely verbal. A
judgment is simply the analysis of the meaning of a conception
already known, and the form of predication an index that such
an analysis has been made. In a general proposition there is
less expressed in the predicate than is implied in the subject, it
being merely affirmed that a given conception contains a certain
attribute or attributes among others. Thus, in the proposition
"gold is a metal," it is asserted that of the totality of attributes
signified by the name " gold," those attributes connoted by the
term "metal" form a part. A judgment, on this theory, is not
a way of attaining to real knowledge, but a way of getting away
from it. It indicates a further advance than conception in that
process of abstraction which only ends with the disappearance
of the last vestige of reality. One result of this falsification of
the process of thought is the impossibility of the science of na-
ture. No aggregation of singular propositions is competent to-
the expression of a law of nature ; for this only a general propo-"
sition will serve, and such a proposition, as it seems, is inade-
quate to express real knowledge. Do we, then, reach a more sat-
isfactory result by limiting ourselves to singular propositions'?
No, for any predication whatever implies an act of abstraction,,
and therefore destroys reality. If, in the proposition, " this rose
is red," we suppose the subject to refer to a concrete object exist-
ing here and now, the predicate expresses the abstraction of the
attribute " red " from the complex of attributes given, and there-
fore converts reality into illusion. The only way, it would ap-
pear, in which the reality of things may be preserved is not to
judge of them at all; which just means that, thought being ini-^
possible without relation, nothing real can be thought. It is
hardly necessary to point out that, as the individual cannot be
judged of without losing its reality, so neither can it be known,
since knowledge implies judgment. But if so, not even the pre-
carious footing that science may seem to have in the singular
proposition can be maintained, since a singular is no more com-
petent than a general proposition to express anything real. These-
results cannot be avoided by changing our point of view from
28 Empiricism and Common Logic.
the connotation to the denotation of terms. This alteration
simply makes the futility of syllogistic logic as an account of the
process of knowing, more obvious. If the relation expressed by
a proposition is that of a part to a whole of extension, the predi-
cate merely states that of a certain number of individuals indi-
cated by a class, the fewer number of individuals expressed by
the subject are a part. If the proposition "gold is a metal,"
means, as is implied in the theory of conversion, that the indi-
viduals named "gold' 1 are some of the aggregate of individuals
called "metals," evidently we are simply repeating what we are
already supposed to know, without advancing a single step. And
if we accept the doctrine of " the qualification of the predicate "
and its consequences, it is not less evident that, as the individu-
als composing the class " metals," to which the predicate refers,
can only be those which are indicated by the subject, viz : those
composing the species " gold," the proposition is but the identical
one, " gold is gold," and an identical proposition is merely verbal.
This is what is implied in setting up the " law of identity " as
the supreme canon of affirmative propositions ; for the formula A
is A, is, like the category of "being," the mere abstraction of re-
lation to consciousness, and only affirms that what is in con-
sciousness is in consciousness.
After what has been said as to the relation of conceptions and
propositions, few words are needed to dispose of the syllogism.
As the proposition is a more decided departure from reality than
the conception, so the syllogism carries the process of abstrac-
tion still further. Having reduced the number of attributes of
a conception by predication, the syllogism reduces the attributes
thus obtained by a new predication. Thus, to retain our former
example, the totality of attributes signified by the name "gold"
being limited to those connoted by the term " metal," a further
limitation is effected by predicating "substance" of "metal,"
which gives a syllogism in the fourth figure :
Gold is a metal.
A metal is a substance.
Therefore gold is a substance,
in which the conclusion expresses a more advanced stage of re-
trogression from reality than either of the premises, being in fact
simply the subject of the major premise after abstraction has
been made from all attributes except those connoted by the term
-"substance." There is here no real inference, no advance from
Empiricism and Common Logic. 29
the "known to the unknown," but a mere change of name in
conformity with a changed point of view. Hence there is no
adequate reason for restricting formal reasoning to three terms
and three propositions ; an indefinite number of terms and pro-
positions may be linked together by simply carrying on the pro-
cess of abstraction until, by successive acts, we have entirely
eliminated detemniation. This is the rationale of the " Sorites,"
which shows that any number of propositions may be strung
together by taking the predicate of one proposition as the subject
of the next. The ordinary syllogism is simply the union of two
purely verbal propositions, and may be thus stated : a thing
which, under one aspect, is called by a certain name, may also,
under another aspect, be called by another name, and under a
different aspect by a still different name ; as, in the example given
above, " gold," which is so called from connoting certain attri-
butes, may also be called, when regarded as having fewer attri-
butes, by the name "metal," and, as possessed of still fewer
attributes, by the name "substance." Syllogistic logic, when
thus reduced to its bare formalism, may well be regarded as
admitting only of "trifling propositions." A like result is of
course reached by an examination of the syllogism of extension.
If the qualified predicates of the premises are really identical
with their respective subjects, the quantified predicate of the
conclusion will be identical with its own subject. Thus, stated
tersely, our former example of the syllogism becomes,
Gold = the metal named gold = the substance named gold."
Syllogistic logic is thus based upon a radical misconception of*
the relation of thought and knowledge. To assume that we
already know is not to account for knowledge, and this is what
the restricting of thought to an analysis of the meaniug of names
implies. The actual process of thinking is exactly the reverse
of vphat formal logic supposes it to be. The completely qualified
individual is the goal and not the starting-point of knowledge.
Thinking is a gradual progress from the abstract to the concrete, *-
and not the reverse, as Empiricism and common logic assume.
It is true that of the absolutely abstract nothing can be said, as
the absolutely concrete is the ideal mark toward which the indi-
vidual thinker is continually pressing forward, but to which he
never completely attains. The beginning of intelligent con-
-:;:- Note. — The validity of formal lo^ic is ably discussed, Irom a different
point of view, by Prof. Vera. Jour. Spec. Phil., Vol. VII., No. 3, p. GO it'.
30 Empiricism and Common Logic.
seiousness is the opposition of an object to self, as expressed in
the formula: " something is present to me which I did not make
for myself." Xothing less is involved in any theory which is to
account for knowledge at all, and what it implies is that the mere
individual, as out of relation to thought, is unknowable. From
this minimum of relation, intelligence advances to new and wider
relations, so that the most complete knowledge is also the most
complex. Hence the substitution of a true conception of the
universal for the false conception which identifies it with a class
name. The universal is the sum of relations by which a thing is
determined as real, the absolute universal the totality of rela-
tions of all things to each other. And, as things owe their rela-
tions to self-consciousness, from self-consciousness all reality
proceeds and to it all must return. The conception of logic, as
the science of thought, is thus thoroughly altered and simplified.
The false antithesis of nature and thought, experience and rea-
/ eoning, disappears when it is seen that nature or experience is
â– constituted by relations to universal thought or reason. So, too,
the hard opposition of "matter" and "form," "concrete" and
*' abstract," " conuotative " and " non-counotative," breaks down
iil)on a perception of their strict corelativity. Finally, to give
•one other instance, analysis and synthesis, deduction and induc-
tion, are transcended by a process, which at once differentiates
and integrates, individualizes and universalizes.
And this leads us to consider the logical system that has grown
•out of the second form of Empiricism — the so-called Inductive
Logic. A more thorough attempt to exclude relations of thought,
leads the Empiricist, as we have seen, to maintain that know-
ledge begins with individual sensations, as representatives of
single qualities of objects, and that thought consists in putting
together the " simple ideas " thus given to it. Reality is now
assumed to lie, not in the complex of qualities constituting a
thing, but in these qualities taken separately. As, however, con-
sciousness of the quality of a thing implies relation as much as
consciousness of a number of qualities, Empiricism, striving to
be consistent in excluding the activity of thought, finally seeks
to derive knowledge from simple sensations or copies of sensa-
tion. But as no progress can be made from pure sensation to
something other than itself, the reality or even the appearance of
knowledge can be accounted for only by the reiutroduction of that
relation to self-consciousness which is ostensibly excluded ; and
Empiricism coid Common Logic. 31
hence permaueut, identical and uintually related things are qui-
etly substituted for momentary aud isolated sensations, under
cover of habitual associations. Upon this compromise between
a pure sensationalism and a thorough idealism the common the-
ory of induction is founded. Were the Empiricist consistent in
admitting nothiug but feeling as it is to the individual, a science
of nature, or even the fiction of such a science, would be inex-
plicable. Hence, while pretending to deny the originative activ-
ity of thought, he tacitly assumes that objects are independent
of feeling, and thus brings back the relations he seems to ex-
clude. As was to be expected from its genesis, the ordinary •
inductive logic is a mixture of truth and error. Unlike syllo-
gistic logic, it correctly represents knowledge as gradually pro-
ceeding from the abstract to the concrete, the past to the future,
the known to the unknown; but of the ultimate grounds upon
which the validity of this process rests it can give no consistent
account. That the canons of inductive logic are valid within the -
sphere of physical science, we have no wish to deny ; the point
at issue is whether the method which they formalize is justifi-
able, upon the assumption that all knowledge originates in feel-
ing.
The foundation of induction are those uniformities or laws of
nature which, on the Empirical " hypothesis" of their origin, we
must suppose to be passively apprehended by experience. If
there were no such laws, no general propositions in regard to
nature would be possible. These uniformities are mainly reduc-
ible to the law of causation, which, upon the supposition that
thought has no constructive power, is explained to be an observed
uniformity of succession, not between things, but between feel-
ings. There is uo necessary connection of events, although there
is a fixed order in their succession. Finding that such an order
obtaiias in an indefinite number of observed instances, we gener-
alize our experience, and conclude universally that nature as a
whole is uniform. Expressed in terms of feeling, this theory
must be interpreted to mean that certain sensations, from being
habitually associated in the way of resemblance and of order in
time and place, become inseparably associated in consciousness,
and assume the appearance of self-identical objects, permanent
aud independent of consciousness ; and that, certain groups of
*' permanent possibilities" being frequently associated in one defi-
nite order of succession, a new form of inseparable association is
.32 Empirieism and Common Logic.
created, winch is naturally and inevitably confounded with a
necessary connection in the sequence of things. The law of
causation is thus a uniform, but by no means a necessary con-
nection of associated feelings.
The most obvious reflection upon this theory is that it is a
scepticism in disguise, as its parentage in Hume would lead us
to expect. It is not, as it pretends to be, an account of the
origin of real knowledge, but a disproof of the possibility of
such knowledge. jSTature is a " fortuitous concourse" of feelings
that happen to follow in a fixed order, but which might have
followed in any other order, or in no order at all. If knowledge
is to be more than a name, the real world must be something
that, in virtue ot universal relations to thought, may be known
by all intelligences ; whereas the net result of this theory is
that nothing can be known save the order of feelings as they are
for the individual consciousness. But how can we call that
knowledge, which is merely a succession of feelings as they
happen to suggest each other to the individual .' As there is no
reason why they should not have come in a totally different
order, any combination of feelings is equally entitled to the name.
The Empiricist is of course ready with the reply that whether
observed uniformities of feeling are entitled to be called know-
ledge, is merely a dispute about words, since to such uniformi-
ties the law of causation, upon which induction is based, is dem-
onstrably reducible. Upon the possibility of reconciling this
theory of causation with the procedure of the physical sciences.
we are willing to rest the whole question.
Such expressions as "uniformity in the succession of phe-
nomena," " fixed order in our sensations," "a constancy of ante-
cedence and sequence," and the like, imply that it is by repeated
associations of feelings in a definite order of succession that
belief in the uniformity of nature is generated. Xor are these
expressions merely an adaptation to the usages of popular lan-
guage; they are essential to the plausible characterization of the
law of causation, upon the denial of necessary connection be-
tween objects. But if repeated acts of association between
feelings — we are not told how many — are required to create a
uniformity among phenomena, it must be impossible to make a
valid induction from a single instance. And yet one of the
canons of inductive logic — the canon which admittedly forma-
lizes the most perfect method of the sciences, the "method of
Empiricism and Common Logic. 33
difference v — is based upon the principle that one properly con-
ducted experiment is sufficient to give absolute certainty of a
law of nature. "When a chemist," says Mr. Mill, "announces
the existence and properties of a newly discovered substance, if
we confide in his accuracy, we feel assured that the conclusion he
has arrived at will hold universally, although the induction be
founded on but a single instance." Here is a general law of
nature, inferred without hesitation from a single instance. No
words could more flatly contradict the account of causation as '
the product of an " order of succession " gradually generated by
repeated associations of feelings. According to the one view,
the belief in a uniformity of natural phenomena should be of
various degrees of intensity, varying from the faintest possibility
to absolute certainty ; according to the other, it is as strong on
the first instance as any number of instances could make it. It
may be replied that, while frequent acts of association are needed
to generate the conception of uniformity, that conception, once
acquired, may be directly applied to any new instance. " Only
the scientific man," it may be said," to whom nature is already a
system of unvarying laws, could apply the 'method of difference;'
the law of causation is itself an induction, being nothing more
than a generalized statement of the observed fact that, so far as
our knowledge has gone, there is no exception to uniformity of
sequence in events." Now, that the principle of the uniformity
ot nature is not given to man in the form of a general proposi-
tion, but gradually discovered, is of course a mere truism. The
question is, whether a regular succession of feelings, as they are
to the individual, is sufficient to account for those special uniform
mities that are inferred from a single instance. Does not the
very assertion that causality, as a general law, is but a summing
np of special cases of causation, overthrow the derivation of
these cases from an invariable order of succession between feel-
ings ? If a given instance of succession is not of itself sufficient
to establish a causal relation, no reference to the general law of
causation can be of any avail. The general law can only warn .
us that we may expect to find a fixed order of association be-
tween every group of possibilities of sensation, it cannot tell
ns between what groups the uniformity obtains. On the con-
trary it is claimed, and rightly claimed by Mr. Mill, that the
general uniformity of nature, being related to particular uniform-
ities, as the major proposition of a syllogism to the minor,
X— 3
34 Empiricism and Common Logic.
depends upon do exception being' found in the case of special
uniformities. Each instance of the law of causation must there-
fore be determined upon its own merits. Suppose, then, that " a
chemist announces the existence and properties of a newly dis-
covered substance," i. e., the association for the first time of cer-
tain possibilities of sensation hitherto unassociated ; have we
any right to " feel assured that the conclusion he has arrived at
will hold universally, although the induction be founded on but a
single instance?" Assuredly not, if we are to be consistent in
deriving every case of causation from a uniform association of
feelings. There is no possible meaning in calling that order of
succession "uniform," which has occurred only once. But if the
connection of feelings is not uniform, it is indistinguishable from
associations of feelings, that are notoriously but the play of
fancy or the sport of arbitrary suggestion. Once again Ave hud
that, by persistently following out Empiricism to its logical con-
sequences, not merely all actual, but even all apparent, distinc-
tion between reality and fiction is obliterated. The force of this
criticism cannot be destroyed by any change in the form of the
theory, so long as the passivity of thought, and the consequent
reduction of facts to feelings, is maintained. If thought has
^ nothing to do with the constitution of experience, the relation of
cause and effect can only be explained as a sequence of feelings
as they are felt by the individual ; and if the legitimacy of sci-
entific method is to be even plausibly established, that sequence
must be declared to be a uniform one. Only one of two alter-
natives remains : either to preserve the possibility of science by
giving up the derivation of nature from associated feelings, or to
hold by the Empirical explanation of knowledge at the expense
of denying the validity of scientific procedure. The necessity of
> accepting the former alternative will be made more apparent by
pointing out the relations of thought that are covertly introduced
when the law of causation is ostensibly reduced to a uniform
succession of feelings.
Our criticism has hitherto proceeded upon the assumption
that invariability in the sequence of feelings does not involve
more than can be correctly referred to the origin of feeling. We
have now to enquire whether even the fiction of a necessary
connection between phenomena, which is not denied to exist, can
he accounted for upon the principles of Empiricism. In our
translation of the law of causation into terms of sensation, it
Empiricism and Common Logic. 35
appeared that belief in the uniform sequence of phenomena in-
volves the presupposition that individual feelings have, by fre-
quent association, assumed the appearance of permanent objects;
which, however, can only be correctly defined as "permanent
possibilities of sensation." To this it is added that, upon the
occasion of an actual sensation being- felt, a " countless variety
of possibilities of sensation" are instantaneously and uncon-
sciously suggested ; which manifestly assumes that the feelings
thus suggested are recognized as identical with those formerly
experienced, for otherwise they would want the characteristic
which distinguishes them from the contingent sensation accom-
panying them. Xo doubt the theory does not contemplate an
identity such as is implied in the continuous existence of an ob-
jective thing, but only the repetition of feelings, identical in de-
termination, although not numerically the same, with feelings
formerly felt, either under the same or under similar conditions ;
but at least the belief in " something which," in Mr. Mill's lan-
guage, "is fixed and the same, while our impressions vary," has
to be accounted for. Xow, no two feelings can be exactly iden-f
tioal ; the sensation I felt a moment ago is different from the
sensation I now feel, if for no other reason than that it exists in
a different instant of time. And what is true of my actual im-
pressions is equally true of my impressions as reproduced,
which, as Hume has shown once for all, only differ in vivacity ;
no feeling can be repeated, and therefore no feeling can be iden-
tical with itself. But " permanent possibilities of sensation" are
simply suggested feelings, and therefore cannot be self-identical.
The group of sensations, " that I might possibly feel under cer-
tain conditions," and Avhich an impression calls up by associa-
tion, may resemble feelings I have formerly experienced, but
they are not identical with them. Uniformity of sequence be-
tween feelings, therefore, does not meau, as at first seemed to be-
the case, a fixed order of succession between the same feelings,
but only a regular consecution of similar feelings ; and by the
law of causation must be understood a uniformity of association
between feelings that are like, but not identical. It is assumed,
however, that, while no two feelings can be identical, the order
of succession between them is unvarying; otherwise the law of
causation, as a fixed order in the connection of antecedent and
consequent, would vanish entirely, and with it the possibility of
a science of nature. But such a uniformity involves the concep-
3(3 Empiricism and Common Logic.
tion of identity as much as the belief in the permanent existence
of things, which it is brought forward to explain. The feelings
vary, the relation between them remains the same. Undoubt-
edly: but this is just to reinstate that originative activity of
thought which Empiricism exists to deny. The identity of ob-
jects, which was to be explained away, is secretly brought back
under the disguise of a uniform succession of feelings. No
sooner do we oppose uniformity to change than we reintroduce
the whole sum of relations by which the world is constituted.
There is no difficulty in plausibly resolving the laws of nature
into a uniformity in the succession of feeling, because such a
uniformity involves identity; identity implies the permanence of
objects ; and permanent objects are necessarily related, in so far
as they succeed each other as cause and effect. A. uniform se-
quence of feelings implies the relation of feelings to a conscious-
ness that not only feels but thinks — i. e., which prevents sensa-
tions from vanishing by bringing them into permanent relations
with each other — and therefore that "necessary connection" in
the way of causality which is synonymous with the exercise of
thought. An attempt will hardly be made to obviate this con-
clusion by saying that the uniformity spoken of does not imply
identity, but only similarity, of succession. Without laboring
to extract meaning from the meaningless statement that the law
of causation is a similar succession of similar feelings, it is suffi-
cient to say that a similar, not less than an absolute uniformity,
involves the conception of identity. Things are only similar in
so far as they are both like and unlike, and to judge of their
likeness involves an act of comparison and identification, which
we have already seen to be beyond the reach of mere sensation.
Thus we have successively seen that the Empiricist cannot
account for the belief in a necessary connection of events or in
the permanence and identity of objects ; nor for his assumption
of a uniform order of identical feelings or of similar feelings;
nor for similarity in the sequence of similar feelings : nor, we
may add, for a sequence of feelings, neither similar nor iden-
tical, i. e., f>r succession in time. In its attempt to explain away
the necessary connection or permanent relations <>f things. Em-
piricism only succeeds in explaining itself away, and thus in
unwittingly establishing the originative activity of self-con-
sciousness.
(37)
FAUST AND MAKGAEET.
Translated from the German of Karl Rosenkranz, by Anna C. Brackett.
The first part of the tragedy may be said in general to lead us
over from the unity of heaven into the disruption of the world.
The angels, lost in the view of the universe, sing the praise of
the Lord:
" The sun-orb sings in emulation
Mid brother spheres his ancient round :
His path predestined through creation
He ends with step of thunder sound.
The angels from his vision splendid
Draw power whose measure none can say ;
The lofty works, uncomprehended.
Are bright as on the earliest day."
The world of finite relations comes to Faust, with Mephistoph-
eles. lie ridicules the longings which drive Faust into distance,
like a fool half conscious of his follv, who seeks the most beau-
tiful star out of the heavens, and at the same time the greatest
pleasure on the earth. The Lord takes him, in spite of this accu-
sation, into his protection, because the good man in his dim im-
pulse is conscious of the right way. He guarantees success to
Faust, while he bids Mephistopheles to try to draw him away
from the Source of his being.
After this scene in heaven, we see Faust in his Gothic study,
where he has spent so many sleepless nights over his books and
papers. He breaks out in wild despair over the empty results of
his efforts in the sciences. He has gone through them all. He
is called Master and Doctor, but he has the consciousness that
he is only making fools of his pupils. He is convinced that we
can know nothing of the Truth, and this conviction well nigh
consumes his heart. Philosophy is no fit subject for poetry,
because it deals with pure thinking, which can admit of no sen-
suous images. The poet has therefore done rightly in painting
this speculative pathos as a mere mood. Thus can philosophy
appear as poetry, for the struggle of mankind after the certainty
of truth is poetic. The majority of men pass their lives care-
lessly. They allow themselves to be couteut with everything in
38 Faust and Margaret.
the world, without troubling themselves to think at all about it.
It exists, and they also. Day and night, the seasons, war and
peace succeed each other. Man is born, eats, drinks, sleeps, dies,
etc. But the philosopher is sick at the estrangement which
thinking has created between itself and the world. The very
same world with which the simple, average, e very-day, believing
man feels himself in such harmony, it is, which is torment for
him. He does not hesitate to question the existence of the whole
world ; nay, more, his own. He will no longer deal in words, but
he will look at all the active forces and germs in their truth.
Since science has failed to satisfy Faust, he will try magic, which
can however offer him only a theatrical spectacle. Knowledge,
like our theoretical freedom, must be worked out by our own
efforts. A knowledge which is conferred upon us contradicts the
very idea of knowledge. The sign of the macrocosm shows to
Faust the harmony of the universe, how the golden buckets rise
and sink, how the divine forces sound forth their harmony
through the All, how they press towards the earth laden with
blessings. But alas! for him this is only a theatrical display.
He knows not how to reach the sources of all this life. While
they well forth and give drink to all, he languishes in vain. The
sign of the microcosm produces another effect upon him. He feels
himself lifted up in spirit, and glows as with new wine, but yet
he cannot endure the flaming figure of the Earth Spirit whom he
has conjured. A shudder seizes him who fancies himself super-
human, and the busy spirit who works
" In the titles of life, in action's storm,"
between heaven and earth, tells him, imperiously, that he is
like the spirit whom he comprehends — but not like him. The
individual man feels himself powerless before the colossal forms
of nature. Faust, who restlessly pressing onward, has become
filled with despair over the emptiness of all knowledge, cannot
but feel himself unequal to this restless, eternal change, always
identical with itself in birth and death. Because he has not yet
comprehended nature, does she strike him with awe, not, as many
interpreters of the Earth Spirit would have it, because she is in
and for herself higher than he.
Just here in the midst of the narrative the " Dryasdust " Wag-
ner slinks in. He represents Empiricism, which is necessary to
speculation, as the condition which the reality of appearance im-
Faust and Margaret. 39
poses upon thinking. Faust gives him good instruction for the
pursuit of scientific investigation, and as soon as he has gone out
prepares with serenity to commit suicide. A new day beckons
him to new shores ! He prepares for this, not because of any
petty vexation, not from any sad consciousness of guilt, but be-
cause he can no longer endure his life, which is so barren of
results. Death is for him an experimentum cruris. But it is too
cheap from this theoretical standpoint. Passivity in the chang-
ing of surrounding circumstances does not correspond to the
nature of the soul, which is to make of itself whatever it will,
Of his own free will, as out of his own grave, must he rise to
renewed life and effort if he would remain true to his own convic-
tion. The memory of the faith of his childhood, of Christian
faith, the faith in a possible regeneration, the true faith of the
world stirs within him. Xow he hears the words of the Easter
chorus without having faith in it, but the remembrance of the
childlike rest which once made him happy has still great power
over him. The tears start, and the earth has again possession
of him.
But here closes the sphere of heaven, and that of worldly
things makes its appearance. Faust accompanies Wagner on a
walk to the Easter festivities. He meets the crowd of people
who have come out from miserable houses and the wretched cor-
ners of the narrow alleys to celebrate the resurrection of the
Lord. But however finely he may comment upon the different
groups, he is alone among them. The faith of the common peo-
ple is foreign to his hypercritical mind. The unconstrained
pleasure found in the dancing group around the linden, is entirely
out of his life. He carries in his soul the wound of doubt, and
of the boundless longiag which transcends all. He would gladly
fiy away with the eagle who soars high over pine-clad heights
and seas, or hasten on with the sun as he circles from land to
land, from ocean to ocean, in everlasting glow of rosy dawn and
setting. Then he notices a poodle which runs hither and thither,
and takes it with him into his dwelling, whose retired quiet makes
him once more feel an inclination for study.
u Behind me field and meadow sleeping
I leave in deep, prophetic night,
Within whose dread and holy keeping
The better soul awakes to light.
The wild desires no longer win us,
40 Faust and Margaret.
The deeds of passion cease to chain ;
The love of man revives within us,
The love of God revives again.
Ah, when within our narrow chamber
The lamp with friendly lustre glows,
Flames in the breast each faded ember
And in the heart, itself that knows.
Then Hope again lends sweet assistance,
And Reason then resumes her speech ;
One yearns, the rivers of existence,
The very founts of Life to reach."
This he seeks in an examination of the ]STew Testament, in
which, as he expresses it, burns the most beautiful and most
worthy revelation. i3e will translate the opening sentences of
St. John's Gospel, and he must translate, "In the beginning was
the Word," that is the eternal Logos as which God reveals him-
self in himself, and as which he in human speech reveals himself
to the human soul. But this does not suit him. He can make
nothing out of it, and after meditating he concludes that it should
be Power. This however satisfies him no better, and he reflects
till he finally makes up his mind and w r rites as the most reason-
able : " In the beginning was the Deed." Thus is always made
the dangerous exegesis [Schluepfrige Exegese]. It turns and
twists the text till it suits the preconceived meaning. Faust, in
whose veins glows the longing for life, translates by Deed what
he should have translated Word, because he himself inclines to-
ward life, toward a joyous activity. The poodle snarls at the
holy words which occupy the whole soul of Faust. Faust ad-
jures him, whereupon he swells to the size of an elephant, and
the traveling scholar steps forth from the figure as its kernel.
" The result makes me laugh," exclaims Faust to him, and
he is at once on familiar terms with him, for he is like to this
spirit. The Earth Spirit had made him tremble, but the Spirit
of Evil, or evil-mindeduess, is well known to him as his like, and
with him he at once strikes a bargain to belong to him wholly as
soon as he shall ever once be coutent with a moment of inactiv-
ity. When Mephistopheles completes this bargain, he expects
to be able to cheat Faust by means of some trifling thing of little
significance, but here he makes his mistake. The Lord, who
decreed the confusion of Mephistopheles, knows man better. To
begin with, the devil lulls Faust into an undefined and dim expec-
tation of great pleasures. The choir of his spirits sing :
Faust and Margaret. 41
" Vanish ye darkling
Arches above him I
Loveliest weather,
Born of blue ether,
Break from the sky !
O that the darkling
Clouds had departed !
Starlight is sparkling,
Tranquiller-hearted
Suns are on high," &c.
The covenant with Faust has made the whole world of spirits
resound with sad discords. He has, like a demigod, shattered
the whole world. It trembles, it falls. He must begin a new life
and build it up anew in his own breast. But the prescribed be-
ginning does not please Faust. Mephistopheles leads him to
Auerbach's cellar, to a riotous drinking debauch, so that he shall
see how easy life is. But this beastly coarseness, which can be
pleased with obscenity, poor jokes and drinking, does not touch
Faust. Then Mephistopheles has him drink of the elixir of
youth, in the witches' kitchen, so that he shall see in every
woman a Helen. Thus comes the transition to Margaret, whom
Faust first looks at in the light of sensual pleasures, but the
longer he looks the more he goes over into genuine love, and
thus disappoints the devil's expectation, who designed that he
should feel in his passion only what was sensual and selfish.
If Faust is to represent man in general, woman must come to
him tl at he may be complete. As a man alone, he may be
scholar, philosopher, partaker in the world's work, even a hero,
but he can rise to complete manhood only through love. Xo man
is fully man except in his relation to woman, for whatever is
beautiful in him so first becomes revealed. In the old story the
merchant's daughter refuses to give herself up to Faust. She
insists upon marriage, which is expressly forbidden to Faust
through an article in the devil's compact. From this, Goethe's
Idealism has created the beautiful figure of Margaret.
Her story is what constitutes the dramatic action of the first
part. But what is her story but the simple tragedy of woman,
consisting in the loss of maidenly honor through love, for with-
out love one could have no tragic demerit. Betrayed innocence
and the consequences of her guilt, how they desolate and shatter
her life ! We must say with Heine :
1- Faust and Margaret.
" It is the olden story.
Yet ever new again ;
And whensoe'er it happens
Then breaks a heart in twain."
Margaret is the crown jewel of all the womanly creations of
Goethe. Iphigenia, Leonora, Dorothea, must all yield to her,
however perfect they are in themselves, for they fail in her depth
and simplicity. Margaret, this lovely child, this soul so full of
faith, this shy maiden, longing for love, this sweet, enthusiastic,
laughing rose-bud, whose peace is lied, whose heart is heavy
after she has seen him, who has after that but one thought —
Heinrich — to catch a glimpse of whom she gazes out of the win-
dow, who only to be near him goes out of the house — this Mar-
garet is the genuine German maiden in all her peculiarities, even
to that charming little snappish way in which she sends the im-
portunate Faust from her side as she comes from church :
"I'm neither lady, neither fair,
And home I can go without your care."
This is to Faust entirely charming. By means of ornaments
and the artful sophistry of her neighbor, she lets herself be led
away, and her fall leads on the whole series of evil. The mother
dies from the sleeping draught, and the brother, who stigmatizes
her as a wanton, perishes on the threshold of the house, where
Faust would have tamed the clown with his sword-thrusts.
We have here entered into the sphere of hell, for Guilt has
made its appearance, and the consciousness of it, however much
it may seek to suppress itself, must and will be recognized. Mar-
garet, who feels the newly developing life at her heart, can no
more gossip at the well with the other maidens. She casts her-
self down before the all-pitying Mother, Mary, but in the church
even, the contradiction of her life overwhelms her. The spirit
of the church takes up all into itself, rich and poor, young and
old, good and bad. But the guilty one trembles before the ter-
rible earnestness of the spirit, of whom the choir sing:
Judex ergo cum sedebit
Quidquid latet, apparebit.
Nil inultum remanebit.
It is as if fury seizes Margaret. She hears the trumpet sound,
the graves yawn, and she falls in a swoon.
Fa uat and Margaret. 43
This picture is wrought by the artist with the most iuteuse,
fearful, and yet exquisite, tragical colors. Iu a few words, touches
and scenes, he has painted innocence, beauty, fascination, love,
passion, guilt, and the torment of conscience. Faust seeks to
fly from the surrouudings of his guilt. He tries to forget him-
self in the solitary brooding of sophistry, in the tempest of
inane debauch, in giving himself over to insipid dissipation. But
in the midst of the distorted figures on the Blocksberg he sees a
beautiful, pale child, her feet bound, aud with a red mark round
her neck, urged slowly onward. It is Margaret, whatever the
devil may say. His consciousness of sin breaks forth. He over
whelms Mephistopheles with curses, that he has concealed from
him Margaret's misery. Here Goethe has introduced prose, but
with uncommon power, and Mephistopheles, in this dilemma,
endeavors, not for the iirst time, and much in the fashion of ty-
rants, to overwhelm him with thunder.
Margaret, to escape public shame, motherless, brotherless, has
murdered her child— this little Margaret! This gentle, dear, good
maiden! Yes, this sweet, this lovely girl, has thrown the child,
bom in the peril of death, into the pond! The judgment for
such a deed of despairing shame has overtaken her. She awaits
iu prison her execution. But, unable to endure the contradiction
of her loving heart, and the actual, terrible deed, she has become
insane. She did not desire the deaths of her mother, her brother,
her child, and yet they are dead and testify against her. She is,
through her love, the source of all this evil. Faust endeavors
to lead her away. She loves him although she might curse him,
but she always loves him, remaining in the midst of her distrac-
tion of soul, always true to the holy voice which promises her
reconciliation through the punishment of her sin. Mephisto-
pheles, after his fashion, speaks only of the execution. But even
while she is judged she is saved.
Note. — The translations here given from the Faust are those of Bayard
Taylor. A. C. B.
(44)
A QUATERXIOX.
By William Ellery Chaxmng.
I. THE DULL HEARER.
"And a part of the seed fell on stony ground. '"'
I never enter there,
I do not love the air,
The preacher I mistrust,
Tedious and dry as dust.
To hear the Scripture read
I feel a prudent dread :
Give me some lively book.
That has a modern look.
And worst of all, I rate
The parson's fallen state,
"Who being no longer clerk,
Is paid, and does not work.
How great and strong he looks.
It never came of books.
And wasting midnight oil,
Holy with learning's toil.
And if in church he says
Those same things all his days,.
Must I sleep nodding there,
And blame his sinful prayer ?
Are those my mates who sit,
And hear his Hebrew wit ;
Are their loud, homely hymns,.
The song of seraphims I
Give me a frosty sky,
With stars set up on high :
A Quaternion. 45
Give ine the godless air
That bloweth anywhere :
Give me the burning wood,
Where God and Moses stood,
As some old fable tells,
And where He fabled — dwells.
And shut the church so tine
And feeble, in decline,
And lock me out of it,
And hide the bible-wit !
II. THE BIRTHDAY PIECE.
If the winter skies be o'er us,
And the winter months before us,
When the tempest boreal falling
Hurls his icy bolts appalling,
Let us yet thy soul inherit,
Equable and nice in spirit,
Who, in turbulent December,
With still peace, we can remember.
Muses should thy birthday reckon,
As to one, their foretastes beckon,
Who in thought and action never,
Could the right from self dissever;
Taken with no serpent charming,
By no tyranny's alarming ;
From thy sure conviction better
Than from blurred tradition's fetter,
Would the State such deeds might cherish,
And her liberties ne'er perish.
Age must dart no frost to harm thee,
Fell reversals ne'er alarm thee,
Having that within thy being,
Yet the good in evil seeing; —
40 A Quaternion.
Faithful heart, and faithful doing,
Bring life's forces humbly suing.
Now, we bid the dear Penates,
Inward guardians with whom Fate is r
And the Lar whose altar flaming,
From thy household, merits naming :
And Yertumuus we solicit,
Whose return brings no deficit,
Bacchus with his ivy-thyrses,
And Pomona's friendly verses,
(Or what other joys may be
Pouring from antiquity) ; —
Let them o'er thy roof displaying
Happiest stars, stand brightly raying ;
In thy thought poetic splendor,
This late age spontaneous render, —
Fit for thee and fit for thine,
Shed o'er acts of love divine.
III. A DIRGE FOR THE DEAD.
Called from this trance of life — the dream of pain,
Thy soul, no more this thirsting day, shall see,
The lonely hour, the chill and sobbing rain, —
Nor hear that trace of far-off' melody,
That sometime taught there was another shore,
Where softly breaks a wave darkling no more.
I saw from out that life, which was not life,
A shadow from thy soul — reversed on time;
I would improve that thought, and cease this strife.
With inconclusive fictions past their prime, —
And life, and hope, and joy, once my despair,
How still your fading sunshine touched the air.
Forsaken, on the plain the warrior sinks,
Swells past the ruddy tide that bore him on ;
Afar, in distant vales the home he thinks,
A Quaternion. 4T
Xe'er knows him more, magnificently gone,
His love, her pallid hope assenting sees,
Shiver with anguish, in the cruel breeze.
IV. SPRING ON THE ISLAND.
Come to ray heart, thon first and spring sunshine,
Warm a chilled frame where wintry winds o'erlay
Some clusters of an old and famous vine,
Whose dancing tendrils frost had pruned away.
Here as I sit, and hear the withered grass,
While waves the thorn-bush to the swift March-wind,
Oh how I wish my weary life could pass
With this fresh air, nor leave its trace behind !
And how I prayed that I could die like thee,
Thou first spring sunshine on a loved one's heart.
Hear the dark breeze hiss bv von stricken tree.
Where every leaf is dead, and every part, —
Fixed by transfusion of a killing frost,
Icy and cold must now forsaken stand,
Wrecked like my past, upon a rock-bound coast,
Snapt by the finger of the death-king's hand.
Come to this weary breast, thou sunshine dear,
For thou and I are now the same to all,
And have for the indifferent a cheer,
And o'er the beaches lone unwelcomed fall.
In yon far hills that line the water blue,
In those few pines that dot the neighbor strand,.
And in that proud and overarching view,
That lifts our souls above the lovely land :
In withered grasses, on the wide-spread moor,
Whereon the prickly furze, and tall reeds grew,
And where the sluggish creek pervades the floor
With slow pulsation, old yet ever new :
48 The Idea of the Venus.
And in those fitful pauses of the blast,
Aud iu the tall dark spars that touch the sky,
What find I there ? — that joy has speedier past,
Than all those winds, to lifelong misery.
O God, why wertthou God — to thus o'ergo
My soul in torture, like this sunshine sere ! —
Away, I feel the cold March breezes blow,
And little waves are sparkling bright and clear.
THE IDEA OF THE VENUS.
By H. K. Jones.
Venus is beauty, and her offspring is love. And there has
T>een given beneath the sun no age in human history in which
this goddess has not been adored. All generations have erected
statues and temples in this worship, and she has been cele-
brated in their music, aud poesy, aud sculpture and painting —
and by the praise and adoration of all human hearts.
This subject has therefore been the preferred and most fertile
theme of art from the most ancient times.
Venus is beauty, and beauty has two most general orders —
immortal and mortal, or spiritual aud natural — or celestial and
terrestrial — and accordingly in ancient mythologic science and
art, of which we may assume the Greek wisdom to afford the
purest type: there are two Venusee, the celestial aud the ter-
restrial.
These are both the daughters of Jove. All beauty is of divine
paternity. In the poetic myth, these are respectively the daugh-
ters of Jupiter aud Harmonia, and of Jupiter and Dione. The
one of supermundane, the other of mundane maternity. But
universally and in philosophic myth, the Venus, in the soul's
participation — love, is born of the foam or spray of the sea.
The idea of this philosophic myth is the key to the whole sub-
ject in its unity and universality. The sea is the symbol and
representative of life, in that it is the deep that moveth from
The Idea of the Venus. 49
within itself. It is inspired and quickened into movement by a
visible goddess in the natural heavens, whose effigy and efful-
gence it bears in its bosom — the beautiful " Selene," — unto whom
it perpetually aspires and lifts itself up in universal tides of res-
piration, and pulses of waves, and it followeth her whithersoever
she goeth.- And out of these soul-motions, these respiring tides
and pulsing waves, fanned by the breath of the heavens, issues
forth the beautiful spray, a creature white and pure, and as
beheld upon the expanses, a creature the very top and spirit of
the aspiration of the waters — light, translucent, graceful, gay —
skipping, hopping, dancing, joyful and instinct with life and the
spirit of beauty. And this is the philosophic image of the
Venus.
Let us now look for its Idea. And first, as nearest in order,
the terrestrial Venus. The soul, in natural generation, is an
abyss that moves from within itself. It also is inspired and
quickened and determined by some vision of the beautiful — its
heavenly — whose image in its own bosom and whose effulgence
there, is the secret of the potency and rhythm of its respirations
and pulses. This beautiful object, like the moon to the sea, is
however but the reflection of the splendor of the true, and is not
the absolute beauty. It, too, is a sublunary image. Yet unto
this as its final good, in yearning and aspiration the soul ever
lifteth itself, and followeth whithersoever this goddess leadeth-
And out of this aspiration — the spray of the waters of the soul
— ever springeth a spirit bright as the light, beautiful according*
to the image, joyful, graceful, leaping, skipping and dancing
upon the waters of the soul — the queen, the crowned promiser,
and bringer of all earthly bliss. She is Venus, with her ever
attendant train of daughteis — Thalia, Aglaia, and Euphrosune,
youthful, ardent Desire, vivacious, bewitching Imagination,, and
exuberent, joyful Hope. All mortals tender their votive offer-
ings at the shrine of this goddess — the terrestrial Venus, the
effigy of the True. And of these votaries are they that " Have
such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
more than cool reason ever comprehends," "That behold Helen's
beauty in a l>row of Egypt."
"A celebrated, royal fount I sing,
From foam begotten and of loves the spring ;
Those winged, deathless powers, whose general sway,
In different modes, all mortal tribes obey."
X— 4
50 The Idea of the Venus.
Even mortal love is of divine paternity and plenitude, the
daughters of Jove and Dione,
And yet the moon and all beneath her sway,
Are but reflections of the Fount of day.
Let us next distinguish between the reflection and the subject
reflected, between the image and the subject imaged. And as in
nature, so in spirit and mind, must we cognize other forms than
those of mere terrestrial corporeality. Says St. Paul, " There
are bodies celestial and there are bodies terrestrial," " and the
glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is
another."
Terrestrial objects are not in themselves luminous, their lumen
is a participation and reflection of a celestial body. And so the
beautifuluess of sensible forms is not of themselves, but partici-
pations and reflections of the celestial form, and the soul liber-
ated from sense, possessed consciously of the vision of this ce-
lestial beauty, will of this contemplation experience that of
which nature and sense are but symbols and prophesies. As the
sea, the universal symbol, is lifted up in motion and aspiration
unto its sensible image of beauty, so now, most eminently, is the
soul that is quickened and alive in the true light of life, aspirant
and enamored of the essential beauty. And the movement and
the aspiration inspired and begotten of this beholding is love
divine, love immortal. This fountain is the celestial Venus.
She giveth her votaries " beauty for ashes," and nourisheth
the life with the ambrosia and the nectar, and her attendants, the
graces, are youth, and beauty, and joy immortal.
Said Diotima, "To go, or be led by another correctly in the
affairs of love is this: Beginning from the beautiful things, to
keep ascending for the sake of the beautiful itself, by making
use as it were of steps, from one beautiful object to many, and
from the beauty of bodies to the beauty of souls, and from the
beauty of souls to that of arts, and from the beauty of arts to
that of disciplines, until at length from the disciplines he arrives
at that single discipline which is the discipline of no other thing
than of that supreme beauty, and thus finally attain to know what
is the absolute beauty itself. Here is to be found, dear Socrates,
if anywhere, the blessed life, the ultimate object of desire to
man; it is to live in the contemplation of this consummate beauty.
The Idea of the Venus. 51
" Whoever then has been instructed thus far in the mysteries
of love, and has beheld in due order and correctly the things of
beauty, he will when he arrives at the consummation, suddenly
discover, bursting into view a beauty astonishing in its nature,
that very beauty to the gaining a sight of which, all his previous
labors have been undertaken. " What think you then," said
she, " would take place, if it were in the power of any
person to behold beauty itself, clear as the light, pure and
unmixed, not polluted with human flesh and color, and much of
other kinds of mortal trash, but be able to view the God-like
beauty in its singleness of form ? Think you," said she, " that
the life of that man would be of little account who looks thither
aud beholds it with what devotion he ought, and is in company
with it?"
" Perceive you not," said she, " that then alone will it be in
the power of him who looks upon beauty itself with the eye by
which it can be seen, to generate not the shadowy semblance of
virtue, as not coming in contact with semblances, but true virtue
as coming in contact with the substantial and the true? and to a
person begetting true virtue aud bringing her up, it will happen
for him to become God-beloved, and, if ever man was, immortal."
" Thus, friend Phaedrus, and ye the rest here," spoke Diotima,
"and I am myself convinced, and being convinced, I am endeavor-
ing to convince the rest, that no one would readily find a better
assistant to human nature for the attainment of such a posses-
sion than love, and hence I assert that every man ought to hold
love iu honor, and I do myself pay all honor to the things of
love, and cultivate them particularly, and exhort others likewise,
and both now and ever I celebrate as far as I can, the power and
the excellence of love."
Beauty generates love — terrestrial beauty, mortal love ; spirit-
ual beauty, celestial love; and this is the celestial Venus, the
ideal Venus, the fabled goddess Venus, and yet not formed of
gold, nor ivory, nor marble, but of the ideas aud thoughts in-
spired by the muses ; that divine form, which is the ultimate
end and purpose of pure art, the typical form existing in the
comprehension of the artist; in its terrestrial effigy represent
ing the idea of the fairest earthly loveliness and beautifulness,
and in its celestial type containing the idea of the celestial
beauty and loveliness in its absolute sublimity. And thence does
art endeavor to express the realization, at once, of the most beau-
52 Antony and Cleopatra.
tiful soul by means of the most beautiful body. She is a World-
spirit, a divinity that shapes our ends.
" Celestial Queen !
Expel base passions from the wandering soul,
And once more raise her to true beauty's light,
Averting far the irritation dire,
And rage insane, of earth-begotten love."
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
By D. J. Snider.
Rome had conquered the world. The stern spirit of the Re-
public could sutler no limitations ; it was impelled by an irresist-
ible impulse to reduce to its sway all the nations of the globe.
Whatever was not Roman had no right to be ; existence could
only be purchased by submission to the Roman principle and by
adoption of Roman institutions. The national spirit which grad-
ually arose in the small hamlet along the banks of the Tiber was
simply illimitable ; hence it sought to sweep away the bounda-
ries of nations, and could only be satisfied by the absorption of
all other peoples. Assimilation was its strongest and most abid-
ing principle, the world must become Roman. It is this colossal
strength and intensity of nationality which gives to Rome her
eternal charm and inspiration. But just here, too, we must look
for the one-sidedness and imperfection of her deeds and charac-
ter. Though the Romans, of all peoples that have ever existed,
were the most intensely national, their whole career is, on the
other hand, but one continued assault upon nationality ; in the
conquest of other countries they were logically destroying their
own principle.
Hence when the world was subdued, republican Rome was no
more; when she had obliterated the bounds of nationality, she
had obliterated herself. The process is manifest; the conquered
peoples which were incorporated into her life changed her char-
acter ; the world absorbed Rome quite as much as Rome absorbed
the world. Not captive Greece alone captured her conqueror, as
Antony and Cleopatra. 53
a Roman poet sings, but all other conquered States assisted.
Heuee she was changed, was no longer Rome, could not extend
her conquests, her republican vitality was gone. Thus we pass
to the Empire, whose chief destiny will be not to conquer but to
hold together, not to bring about an external addition of terri-
tory, but an internal organization of the manifold nations, and
their consolidation through laws and institutions.
Now it is just this transition from republican to imperial
Rome which Shakspeare has made the subject of his two
greatest historical dramas. The theme is not merely na-
tional but world-historical, in it the whole world participates,
for it was then under the sway of Rome, except an outlying cir-
cle of uuhistorical peoples. On the plains of Pharsalia the old
system of things was permanently overthrown, the Empire was
essentially established in the complete supremacy of one man.
This first phase of the conflict which ends in the triumph of Ju-
lius Cresar is not given by the poet, though it would almost seem
as if he had entertained some such design. The struggle with
Pompey is always hovering in the historical foreground, and the
party of Pompey is one of the colliding elements in both these
later Roman plays. The character of Julius Cresar, which is so in-
adequately portrayed in the drama of that name, would thus be
exhibited in its full development and amid the greatest exploits
â– of the hero. Other slight indications might be pointed out which
lead to the same inference ; still it would be rashness to assert
positively that Shakspeare ever intended to complete the missing
link. As it is, the Roman Trilogy is a matter of conjecture, and
we should gladly accept the two dramas which have come down
to us upon this subject.
The play which goes by the name of Julius Ccesar presupposes
the hero as having attained the summit of his power and glory ;
he is really the sole supreme authority in the State, though a
formal recoguition to this effect has not yet been embodied in the
laws and institutions of the country. The crown is offered to
him, but he hesitates. Now the embers of the old republican
spirit of Rome begin to glow anew, the supporters of Caesar's
old antagonist are not idle. The result is, a conflict between im-
perialism and republicanism, between the new and the old. Bru-
tus, and pre-eminently Cassius, stand as the representatives of
the ancient Roman constitution ; they succeed in assassinating
the autocrat, and seem for a moment almost to have won. But
54 Antony and Cleopatra.
they in their turn fall before the reaction, the principle of Caesar
even without his personal guidance and prestige is far stronger
than the old Roman principle. The Triumvirs, his friends and
supporters, avenge his death, republican Koine is defeated by her
own citizens, the Cesarean movement is restored, and will now
pass on to its complete realization.
Such in general is the collision in Shakspeare's Julius Caesar.
It is clear that the play does not give the full solution of this
great world-historical problem ; the Triumvirate was but a brief
phase of the transition to imperialism. The three must be re-
duced to one, such is the tendency of the world; it is logically
impossible that this neutral order of things should endure. Hence
another drama becomes necessary in order to portray the comple-
tion of the movement. That drama is Antony and Cleopatra,
whose theme is therefore the reduction of the Triumvirate to the
Empire. The principle of Eome was stated to be assimilation of
nations, hence it cannot suffer itself to be divided into three or
even two nations. The intimate connection not only of thought
but also of treatment between Julius Cwsar and Antony and Cleo-
patra has often been observed ; incidents, motives, characters are
often merely touched upon in the former play, in order to prepare
for their full development in the latter play.
The material is very large and almost unwieldy, and it will aid
us in obtaining a complete survey of the whole subject, if the
various collisions both of State and Family are pointed out sepa-
rately. These constitute the basis of all dramatic action, and
are always the pivotal points of interest and development. In
the play of Antony and Cleopatra they are in general the follow-
ing : First, is the collision between Eome and the still uncon-
quered portion of the world. It is still the glimmer of that spirit
of conquest which shone with such intensity throughout the life
of the old republic. But now it has become feeble and unimpor-
tant, though by no means extinct; the poet has given to it only
one short scene besides several allusions scattered through the
drama. Indeed, the Eoman generals dare not conquer too much,
on account of the envy of their superiors, the zeal of the sol-
diers is quenched in the fear of degradation. Thus Ventidius is
afraid of winning too great military glory by his defeat of the
Parthians. The second collision is within the Eoman Empire,
between the Triumvirate and the younger Pompey. Here we
behold another renewal of the struggle which was temporarily
Antony and Cleopatra. 55
ended on the plains of Pharsalia, which was rekindled by Brutus
and Cassius to be again extinguished on the plaint of Philippi —
it is the struggle between republicanism and imperialism. But
the old Roman consciousness has passed away forever, again the
star of the republic sinks beneath the horizon, and will rise no
more. The second Poinpey is destroyed by the second Csesar,
the representative and heir of the Empire. The third collision
is with the Triumvirate, and is the essential one of the play. Le-
pidus, the peace-maker, where no peace is possible, is speedily
eliminated ; then the struggle between Antony and Octavius
breaks forth in its full intensity. The former seems satisfied
with the threefold division of the world, and above all desires to
be let alone in his Oriental enjoyment. But Octavius has the
thought of unity as his deepest principle and as his strongest
ambition; he thus is the representative of the world-historical
spirit and conquers, must conquer. Such are the three political
collisions of this drama, each one of which becomes more intense
as it becomes more narrow : the external collision of Borne
against the rest of the world, the internal conflict of the old Bo-
man principle against the Triumvirate, finally the disruption of
the Triumvirate and the triumph of the imperial principle.
Amid these purely political elements are mingled the domestic
collision of Antony, his -violations of the ties of the family. He
has abandoned his first Boman wife for the unethical relation to
Cleopatra; after a time however he leaves the latter and returns
to the Boman Family with new resolutions ; but his second Bo-
man wife he also deserts and returns to Cleopatra. Thus he
abandons both the Boman State and the Boman Family for an
Oriental country and an Oriental mistress; it is clear that he
can make no claim to being the champion of the destiny of his
country which he has thus forsaken. Borne has already subor-
dinated the Oriental world, but Antony goes back to it, hence
his fate is clearly written in its fate.
This enumeration gives the principal factors of the play,
though by no means in their true dramatic order. But the mate-
rial of the work is so multifarious and complicated that the mind
must have some guide to which it can turn when it gets lost in
the labyrinth of detail. The universal complaint is that Antony
and Cleopatra is wanting in dramatic simplicity, and the com-
plaint is certainly well-founded. To the less careful reader or
spectator its movement seems confused, at times chaotic, and
50 • Antony and Cleopatra.
there is hardly a doubt but that the poet has undertaken to com-
pass too much in the limits of one drama. Still it has his lan-
guage, his thought and his characterization in their highest
potence. We shall now pass to consider the organization of the
play as a whole, and attempt to unfold its various parts, stating
their meaning and relation.
There are manifestly two grand movements, though other divis-
ions are possible, according to the stand-point of the critic. The
first division exhibits the various conflicting elements of the Ro-
man world, and ends in their apparent reconciliation. It has
three distinct threads or groups of characters, each of which has
a locality of its own. The central figures of these groups are re-
spectively Antony and Cleopatra, Octavius, Pompey. The second
movement shows the disruption of the truce and the struggle of
the hostile principles and individuals, till their final and complete
subordination to one man, Octavius. Here there are essentially
two threads, that of Antony and Cleopatra on the one hand and
that of Octavius on the other ; the minor groups are more or
less intimately connected with these leading personages. The
elaboration of this scheme will show all the elements of the work
in their proper order and signification.
The first thread of the first movement may be called the Egyp-
tian thread, and is the fullest in its portraiture as well as the
most interesting. The first speaker is an old Eoman soldier who
strikes at once the key-note of the drama. He complains in bit-
ter scorn that the illustrious warrior, the " triple pillar of the
world " has sacrificed his grand historical destiny to sensuality.
But here come the pair, what is their conversation ? They are
talking of love, whose power Antony expresses in the strongest
language, it is illimitable, subdues all, it demands " a new heaven
and a new earth." Kote must be taken that this is not the ethi-
cal aii'ection of the Family, but sensual love. Here is indicated
the strongest principle of Antony's nature; he will often fluctu-
ate between his contradictory impulses, but in the end will always
return to the " Egyptian dish." Just now he is feeling some sa-
tiety and shame, which he seeks to disguise carefully from Cleo-
patra.
She however, with a true instinct of the situation, suspects
him, and we shall now behold the successive waves of jealousy,
anger, affection, despair, which heave and surge through her na-
ture. The fundamental trait of Cleopatra is passion, passion in
Antony and Cleopatra. 57
all its forms and in its fullest intensity. As love, as hate, as iras-
cibility, as jealousy, it has the same colossal manifestation.
There is absolutely no ethical subordination in the woman. She
recognizes no duty, submits to no institution. She seems to have
admiration for the heroic element of Antonyms character, and with
the true instinct of her sex she adores his courage; but her love
for him springs mainly from his boundless capacity for revelry
and sensual indulgence, in which she participates along with him.
Corresponding quite to the degree and intensity of her passion,
the poet has portrayed her power of fascination, indeed the one
arises from the other. It is curious to note how the greatest per-
sonages of Eoman history have in turn submitted to her spell :
Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, and now Antony. The contrast
is apparent; it would seem as if the adamantine Eoman charac-
ter must always sink before this gorgeous Oriental enchantress.
But she is destined to meet with her master; the cool and wary
Octavius sees her, she tries her sorcery upon him without suc-
cess, and then — dies. It is her destiny that if her charm be once
withstood, she, like the Sirens of old, will destroy herself. Her
attractiveness therefore does not consist in youth, in grace, in
figure, in personal beauty; it lies in the sensual intensity of her
whole being, which appears to set on fire all who dare look upon
her. Such is the central principle of her character.
At first she torments Antony with her suspicions, because she
sees the conflicting principles in his bosom. Her sarcasms are
directed against the " married woman," Fulvia, wife of Antony,
and also against Octavius, who, a "scarce bearded" youth, un-
dertakes to dictate to the old warrior. Her purpose is manifest;
she wishes to sever Antony from all Eoman connections. Hence
she tries to engender a conflict which may lead to a separation of
the Orient from the Eoman P^mpire ; at least she is seeking to
detain Antony by every means in the East. But also she sneers
at his domestic relation, and above all desires to detach him from
the Eoman Family. The purpose which runs through all her
conversation is, to break oft' the two main ethical relations which
still have some power over him, namely, those of family and
country.
But Antony is resolved to go, the death of Fulvia causes him
even to long for a Eoman wife, and the political occurrences de-
maud his immediate presence in Borne. Now comes the separa-
tion ; it is what might be expected; to follow her through the
58 Antony and Cleopatra.
careenings of her passions is unnecessary ; as the cynical Eno-
barbus intimated, she dies instantly, dies twenty times and more.
But Antony holds fast to his purpose with a Roman firmness,
amid all her extravagant ado ; which for a time leads us to hope
well for his future. Again we behold her during the absence of
her lover ; imagination excited and intensified by the deepest trait
of her nature, by her passion, now controls her; his image is
always present to her mind, it surpasses all the memories of the
other Roman heroes who yielded in times past to her enchanting
wiles. Xext we behold her under the iufiuence of bad news,
word has come that Antony is married, again has allied himself
to the Roman Family. Her passion now reaches its climax in the
form of anger, she becomes simply irrational in her rage, she
heats the innocent messenger, and even prepares to kill him. Her
seeming justification is that she is subject to moral self-control
no more than the elements :
"Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt !"
But she bethinks herself; she knows the power of her sensu-
ous attractions, she too knows their deep hold upon Antony.
What then are the years, the beauty, the disposition of Antony's
new wife; "let him (the messenger) not lfcave out the color of
her hair ! " • By patient questioning she discovers that the per-
sonal graces of Octavia must be far inferior to her own, and
above all, is wholly wanting in fervid intensity of passion :
"She shows a body rather than life,
A statue than a breather.' 1 '
Cleopatra is so well satisfied, indeed delighted with the result
of the examination, that she now rewards the messenger with
gold. She has the most unerring instinct which tells her the
deepest principle of Antony's nature; she knows that Antony
must in course of time turn away from the cold and unattractive
Octavia, and go back to the enjoyment of sensual love which he
can find in the highest manifestation only in her. This inference
is not and can not be falsified by the event. Antony returns be-
cause he must obey that which is strongest within him. Such is
Cleopatra, the embodiment of all that which is most fascinating
to the senses of man, and at the same time the victim of her own
powers of fascination. For she is tortured with her own passion
Antony and Cleopatra. 59
even more than she tortures, her gift so painful and fatal to oth-
ers is equally painful and fatal to herself. Her world is a carni-
val of enjoyment, no ray of duty or of ethical devotion enters
there, physical agony is the sole retribution which comes home
to sensual indulgence.
We can now go back and take up the second thread of the first
movement. The two colleagues of Antony are at Rome, the true
centre of the nations at that time; their conversation turns upon
the man who has sacrificed his Roman destiny to Oriental indul-
gence. We catch a glimpse of the Triumvirate, with the relation
and character of its three members. Octavius is the man of cold
understanding, who has grasped his ultimate end with clearness,,
and who pursues it in politic disguise but with inflexible deter-
mination. Already we can see his grand purpose looming up in
the future ; we also see that he plainly comprehends the conflict
which he must pass through in order to attain his object. His
great obstacle is Antony, who surpasses him in every quality ex-
cept the greatest, namely, the mind to grasp and the will to
accomplish the world-historical destiny of Rome. This is for
Octavius the highest end, to it everything else is subordinate.
For this reason his character has often excited moral aversion.
He sacrifices his colleague, his sister whom he seems really to
have loved is thrust by him into a short and unhappy marriage
to further his policy, he disregards the most sacred promises, in
fine all the emotions of man and all the scruples of conscience
he subordinates to his grand purpose, the union of the nations in
one empire. He himself says in one place that he is seeking uni-
versal peace, the harmony of the whole world in a single govern-
ment. He is one of those world-historical characters whose fate
it is to be always condemned for trampling upon moral consider-
ations when they collided not merely with his own subjective
purpose but with the absolute movement of humanity which he
represented. Xow Antony in this fundamental trait is the con-
trast to Octavius. He is one of the triumvirs, he is a great sol-
dier with heroic elements of character, he was the victor at Phi-
lippi, he was the friend and supporter of Julius Csesar. His op-
portunity is really greater than that of Octavius. But he has
not the clear ultimate end, he is not at one with himself, his
deepest controlling principle is enjoyment, gratification of the
senses, though he is capable of enduring the most terrible hard-
ships of war. Hence he falls into the lap of Orientalism, yet
450 Antony and Cleopatra.
struggles to return to his Eoraan life and destiny, but finally re-
lapses completely and thus loses the great opportunity. Between
these two men, Antony and Oetavius, the struggle must arise;
the question is, which one will unify the Triumvirate ? From the
very beginning the poet has elaborated the dramatic motives so
forcibly that the result is plainly foreseen.
But there remains the third triumvir, Lepidus. He is the
peace-maker though peace is impossible ; he tries to compromise
two contradictory principles which are on the point of embracing
in a death-struggle. Conciliation is possible between individuals
but not between principles. If one principle be truer, that is,
more universal than another, the former must subordinate the
latter, for otherwise it is not more universal. The higher truth
must realize itself, must make its superiority valid in the world ;
this means always the subsumptiou of what is lower. Lepidus
therefore has no perception of what is going on around him, he
placed himself between the two jaws of the world, aud is speed-
ily ground to death. His basis is the peaceful continuance of the
present condition of affairs, of the Triumvirate, which is in re-
ality a fleeting phase of the great transition to imperialism. A
man with good intentions but with a weak head amid a revolu-
tion, what is in store for him but annihilation?
The first utterance of Oetavius is a complaint against Antony,
he is disgracing his office and his country by his conduct in
Egypt, he has insulted his colleagues, but above all he has per-
mitted through his inactivity the enemies of the Triumvirate
again to muster their forces and threaten Italy. In other words
he is faithless to his high calling and to the destiny of Borne,
which is the most serious thought of Oetavius. Here is seen
plainly the difference of their characters and their ends. But
Antony has shaken off' the Egyptian enchantress, has come to
Borne ; the two rivals are brought face to face in order to settle
their quarrel. Antony answers the complaints of Oetavius with
such success that they are seen to be mere pretexts for the most
part ; still the old veteran asks pardon of his youthful confeder-
ate, and thus tacitly points out the superior to whom he acknow-
ledges responsibility and submission ; in this act the destinies of
the two men are truthfully foreshadowed. But Oetavius is not
yet ready to strike the final blow, he must first unify all the rest
of the Roman world against his antagonist. He therefore con-
sents to conciliation; and to tie the hands of Antony for a time,
Antony and Cleopatra. 61
his sister he gives in marriage to the latter, as suggested by his.
wily counsellor, Agrippa. The tether works well, it holds An-
tony till both Lepidus and Pompey are absorbed by Octavius.
But now they are reconciled, and hasten to unite their powers
against the common foe of the Triumvirate.
Such are the transactions of Antony at Borne, their nature and
consequences are now foreshadowed in two very different ways-
through two very different characters — through Enobarbus and
the Soothsayer. Enobarbus is a most wonderful delineation ; he
is the mirror which reflects the results of the deeds which are-
enacted by the high personages of the drama ; in particular he
adumbrates the conduct of Antony, his friend and companion.
His chief trait is therefore intellectual sagacity, he foresees with
the clearest vision and foretells with the most logical precision.
But he possesses at the same time the reverse side of human na-
ture in colossal magnitude ; glutton, debauchee, sensualist, he
seems immersed in the very dregs of Egyptian license, and when
he is absent, his memory is filled with Egyptian orgies. The
two extremes meet in him, the keenest intelligence and the gross-
est sensuality; the mediating principle between them, namely,
moral subordination, seems not to exist. He is the peculiar pro-
duct of an age of corruption in which even mental cultivation
aids in blasting the character. He appears to have anticipated
the main consequences from the beginning; he tried to keep An-
tony in Egypt, then he sought to prevent the reconciliation with
Octavius ; he also intimates that the marriage will in the end inten-
sify the enmity which it was intended to forestall. For he knows
that Antony will return to the Egyptian queen; his highly-col-
ored account of her appearance when " she pursed up his heart
upon the river Cydnus " indicates the power of her fascination
over the senses, and the deep hold which she rnust.consequently
retain upon Antony. Enobarbus manifestly thinks that his mas-
ter ought to go back at once to Egypt, though his appetite seems
to favor such a decision quite as strongly as his judgment.
Such is the intellectual reflection of Antony's conduct and des-
tiny; now follows a second reflection of the same through a
wholly different medium, namely, through the prophetic emotion.
Its bearer is the Soothsayer. This man, too, urges very
strongly the return to Egypt; the reason whereof he says
he has not in his tongue but in his feeling, in his in-
stinctive perception of the future. Antony is warned that
<32 Antony and Cleopatra.
the daemon, "thy spirit that keeps thee," cannot resist the might
of C.esar, becomes afraid in the presence of the latter. Antony
feels the truth of the declaration, resolves to go back to Egypt,
and gives the true ground, " in the East my pleasure lies." The
Soothsayer thus utters in his peculiar form that which has
already been told ; the principle of Antony is subordinate to the
principle of Octavius, the higher end must vindicate its superior
power. This is not only known but is now felt; the poet has in-
dicated the same result both through intelligence and through
feeling. The Triumvirate is however reconciled within itself, and
must turn its attention to its external foe.
This is Pompey, who is the central figure of the third thread
of the first movement, which thread may now be taken up and
traced. Pompey from the first exhibits no great strength of pur-
pose, no firm reliance on his principle. He stands as the repre-
sentation of the old republican constitution of Eome, in opposi-
tion to the tendency to imperialism ; he cites as examples of ad-
miration those " courtiers of beauteous freedom," pale Cassius
.and honest Brutus, who drenched the capitol,
" That they would
Have one man but a man. And that is it
Hath made me rig my navy," — etc.
He also has a personal ground, to avenge the fate of his father.
But he is clearly not the man to be at the head of a great politi-
cal movement. He has moreover a scrupulosity which makes
him sacrifice his cause to a moral punctilio. Such a man ought
never to begin a rebellion whose success is not his highest prin-
ciple. His main hope is that Antony will remain in the East ;
but when the latter returns and is reconciled with Octavius,
Pompey becomes frightened at their hostile preparation and com-
promises for a certain territory. That is, he really joins the Tri-
umvirate in the division of the world, and thus utterly abandons
the principle which he represented. Logically he is now absorb-
ed in the new idea by his own action, he disappears as a factor of
the drama.
His position is wholly due to the fact that he was the son of
the great Pompey; birth, the most external of grounds, makes
him leader. But by the side of him is seen the genuine old Roman
republican, to whom the cause means everything, though he is
Antony and Cleopatra. 63
called a pirate by his enemies. This is Menas, who sees and con-
demns the folly of the new treaty, who reflects the weakness of
Pompey as Enobarbns reflects the weakness of Antony. Xow
comes the supreme moment of Pompey's career. All three of
the triumvirs are on board of his galley, holding- high festival in
honor of the peace; the rulers of the world, the enemies of his
principle are as it were bagged and placed at his disposition.
Menas urges upon him immediate action with the greatest vehe-
mence ; but no, his "'honor" will not let him, the nature of which
honor is seen in his declaration that he cannot advise the doing
of the deed, but he would applaud it if it were done. Menas now
deserts, for he to whom the good old cause is the highest princi-
ple of existence, cannot endure to see the destiny of Koine and
of the world sacrificed to a moral scruple. However great may
be our admiration of Pompey's motive, it destroys his world-
historical character; both he and Antony are therefore alike in
surrendering their grand opportunity, though the one yields it to
sensual love and the other to conscience. Pompey hence keeps his
agreement, but Octavius who subordinates both emotion and
morality to his great political purpose, breaks that same agree-
ment when his plan is ripe, and slays his confederate in return
for the latter's fidelity and conscientiousness. The character of
Brutus in Julius Ca'sar is in this respect repeated in him.
Xow if the moral test be the sole and absolute test of the deed
under all circumstances, it is manifest that Pompey is the hero of
this play as Brutus is by the same criterion the hero of Julius
Ccesar. But if there be a national, indeed a world-historical duty
as well as a moral duty, and if these duties come into irreconcila-
ble conflict in which one side must be subordinated to the other,
the question can by no means be so easily dismissed. The solu-
tion of Shakspeare is plain, and it is the same as that of history.
The national or the world-historical principle always subsumes
the moral, because it is the truer, the more universal. This very
drama is condemned by certain critics because it is said to have
no noble, that is, moral characters, and because it represents the
political principle as triumphant. The complaint is frivolous, the
poet has written from the complete reality and not from a one-
sided abstraction, which however valid in its sphere has limita-
tions which it ought not to transcend. The ultimate criterion of
these critics is the moral one, which is certainly not that of the
poet.
64 Antony and Cleopatra.
Indeed there is just this struggle between the moral and polit-
ical elements going- on at all times in all countries. The purely
moral man is in a condition of chronic disgust at public life and
public men, he generally judges by altogether too narrow a stand-
ard, and is hence unjust. But the public man is also too apt to
sacrifice moral considerations to some supposed expediency when
in reality there is no conflict of duties. The relations of the in-
dividual in society must ordinarily be controlled by morality;
this is just its function. But in revolutions, in periods of politi-
cal disintegration, the collision between principles arises in its
fullest intensity. One side must be chosen, still the choice is a
violation which calls forth a retribution. In our own recent
struggle we all thought it our duty to sacrifice every moral tie to
the imperilled nationality, if the two conflicted. In that pro-
longed and intense effort, the moral consciousness of private and
public life disappeared, for it was immolated: though the nation
was saved, the Xemesis of violated morality still scourges us ;
this is the real price, the spiritual price, and not the blood or the
treasure spent, which we paid, are now paying, and shall continue
to pay for our national existence.
In the final scene of this thread, when the banquet is portrayed,
we behold the fate of all the leading characters foreshadowed in
the most subtle manner. Here are collected the representatives
of the main conflicting principles of the drama, Antony, Pompey,
Lepidus, Octavius, with their chief subordinates. They indnlge
in a drunken carousal, symbolical of the mad confusion of the
period. Who will keep his head clear and retain his senses amid
the wild revel ? Lepidus first yields to the wine, and is carried
out; the others sink into an Egyptian debauch: but the cool-
headed Octavius never for a moment loses his self-control, and
when he finds himself touched with the wine, he hastens away
from the company. No sensual pleasure can conquer his under-
standing, he will remain master.
Such is the first general movement of the playing, ending in
the reconciliation of all the colliding characters. The Triumvi-
rate is restored to internal harmony, Pompey is admitted to a
share of its authority, Antony is restored to the Roman Family
and State. Even external conquest breathes for a moment. No-
thing is settled however, principles have been compromised, but
they are as antagonistic as before. Suddenly comes the disrup-
tion. The poet does not portray it in fall, he merely indicates
Antony and Cleopatra. 65
the result. Caesar and Lepidus united to destroy Poinpey, then
Osesar turued upon Lepidus; which important events are all an-
nounced iu one short scene. Antony leaves Octavia, next we find
him with Cleopatra. Such is this rapid separation which intro-
duces the second general movement of the drama. There are
now essentially but two threads, namely, the two antagonists
with their respective adherents. Of this last movement there
are three distinct phases, the first defeat of Antony, his second
defeat and death, the death of Cleopatra.
Antony, when he fully comprehends the inexorable purpose of
Octavius to subordinate him also, takes his departure from Oc-
tavia. She is the true Soman wife, who is by no means devoid
of deep emotion, but it is the quiet, pure emotion of the Family;
her feeling is confined to the bounds of an ethical relation, and
herein she is the direct contrast to Cleopatra, whose passion is
hampered by no limitations. She tried to perform her duty to
both husband and brother; but that husband had as his deepest
impulse sensual instead of conjugal love, and that brother had as
his strongest principle political supremacy instead of fraternal
affection, even if he possessed the latter also. Octavia with the
most beautiful devotion tried to conciliate the conflicting individ-
uals, but was sacrificed by both. Thus the Family sank before
the thirst of passion and before the thirst for power.
The poet having elaborated the motives of all that is to follow,
passes at once to the scene of the struggle which is to decide the
fate of the two colliding personages. The infatuation of Antony
is brought out in the strongest colors, he fights a naval battle
against the advice of all his soldiers from the commanding officer
down to the common private in the ranks. The ground of his
conduct is the control exercised over him by Cleopatra. Then
during the crisis of the fight she flies, Antony follows ; the result
is utter defeat by sea, universal desertion by land. His oriental
connection has thus brought to ruin his world-historical oppor-
tunity, he has sacrificed everything Soman, even his Soman
courage. The internal struggle now begins, he feels the deep
degradation of his behavior, the memories of his Soman life
again awake in him, he seems ready to reproach the cause of his
fatuity; but the weeping enchantress by her presence subdues
him more completely than Octavius had done in the battle just
fought, and again his deepest trait asserts itself:
X— 5
6G Antony and Cleopatra.
" Fall not a tear, I say : one of them rates
All that is won and lost: give me a kiss ;
Even this repays me."
But even a stronger evidence of his love is given. He sud-
denly comes upon Thyreus, the messenger of Cresar, toying with
the hand of Cleopatra; there ensues a tit of jealousy so violent
that he totally forgets his generous nature and orders the man to
be whipped. The thought of her infidelity crazes him, he has
loved her more than the whole world in the literal sense of the
expression, since he has sacrificed the world for her sake. What
if another shares with him the possession ? The strongest ele-
ment of his nature revolts. But a declaration of Cleopatra lulls
his wrath, again harmony prevails. Now however their union is
threatened from without by the approach of the victorious Octa-
vius, a conflict which must arouse all his dormant energy.
Octavius is true to his aim throughout these scenes, his cool
calculation is never disturbed by a whiff of passion, his politic
cunning is everywhere paramount. His enemy is surrounded by
a net- work of espionage, while his own movements are artfully
concealed. He acts with a celerity and secrecy which are incom-
prehensible to Antony; his insight into the real situation is never
clouded for a moment, he orders the battle to be fought at sea
with every advantage in his favor. His imperturbable under-
standing which grasps clearly the end in view and the means to
reach the same, shines through all his actions. He will after the
victory grant no terms to Antony, who must be entirely elimi-
nated from the world in order to produce unity. But Cleopatra
he attempts to detach by specious promises, he has no faith in
her fidelity and but little trust in women under the most favora-
ble circumstances. She seems to listen to his proposals, hercon-
(lucl is at least ambiguous, two opposite impulses divide her pur-
pose.
We pass on to the second phase of the second movement, em-
braced in the Fourth Act. Antony now has a new motive for
action, his union with Cleopatra is in jeopardy. His heroic char-
acter returns in its fullest intensity, he fights not to save an em-
pire, but to preserve his relation to the Egyptian queen. It will
be noticed that the deepest principle of his nature is assailed : he
might dally away the world, but he cannot surrender the tie to
Cleopatra. Again we behold a 1 ! the noble elements of his nature
Antony and Cleopatra. 67
in full play, bis generosity, his warm-heartedness even to serv-
ants, his activity, his heroism. Nor is the other side of his char-
acter omitted, there must be a final debauch before departure for
the battle-field. Still there is the dark reflection of the future,
music in the air is heard by the common soldiers, who express
their feelings in ominous words ; their belief is that the god Her-
cules, tutular deity of Antony, is now leaving him; his cause is
lost beyond hope.
A second battle is fought, a temporary advantage is gained on
laud, but the Egyptian fleet yields to the foe, traitorously as An-
tony supposes and as we also may suppose. The internal con-
flict now arises more fiercely than ever, she to whom he has sac-
rificed a world has betrayed him. What agony could be more
intense ? She appears before him, but neither her presence nor
her language can assuage his revengeful anger this time, she has
to leave him. But is his love entirely gone, that which was the
strongest principle of his nature ? She will put the matter to
proof, the test being death — absolute separation. Accordingly
word is sent to him that she is no more, that she died with his
name on her lips. He answers the test in the fullest degree, sep-
aration from her means death, which he at once proceeds to inflict
upon himself. Other motives too influence his resolution, as the
sense of shame, the fear of dishonor, the loss of his opportunity ;
but the main impelling power which drove the last blow was the
thought of being forever disjoined from Cleopatra. Thus his
deepest principle asserts itself with an absolute supremacy ; he
had already sacrificed au empire, and a world-historical destiny
for his love; it is easy and consistent now to give his life in addi-
tion. His career is made up of a series of external conflicts on
account of his passion, and internal conflicts with his passion.
The third phase of the second movement is embraced in the last
act. Cleopatra is now the central figure. The difference between
her and Antony is seen in the fact that she is willing to survive
him, but he was not willing to survive her; separation does not
mean death in her case. There is however no doubt about her
h>ve for Antony, but there is as little doubt about her readiness
to transfer it to another person. She has been making provision
for the future, she has been laying plans to catch Octavius in her
toils. He comes into her presence but he is not charmed, his
cool head cannot be turned by sensuous enchantment. This seals
her fate, she has met her master, she has found the man who is
68 Antony and Cleopatra.
able to resist her spell. The proof is manifest, she learns that
Octavius intends to take her to Borne to grace his triumph. This
secret is confided to her by Dolabella, Mho seems to be the last
victim of her magical power. That power is now broken, noth-
ing remains except to die. Still she shows signs of a better na-
ture in this latter part, misfortune has ennobled her character :
" My desolation begins to make a better life."
The heroic qualities of Antony, now that he is gone and she
-can captivate no new hero, fill her imagination; she will go and
join him in the world beyond. Her sensual life seems purified
and exalted as she gives expression to her "immortal longings."
Her deepest trait is however conquest through sensual love; she
will live as long as she can conquer ; wheu her spell is ouce over-
come she will die, dwelling in imagination upon the greatest vic-
tory of her principle and upon its most illustrious victim.
The fate of the immediate personal dependents of Antony and
Cleopatra is connected with that of their master and mistress;
the relation is so intimate that they die together, the devotion of
the servants will not permit them to survive. But Enobarbus is
the most interesting of all these subordinate personages; his
character too undergoes a change in this second part. His sharp
intellect has foreseen and tried to avert the consequences of An-
tony's folly, but without avail. Now begins his internal conflict.
Should he follow interest and desert a fool, or preserve fidelity
and cling to his fallen master? It does not surprise us that he
goes over to Csesar, that he was led by his sagacity and not by
his moral feeling. He saw the rising star of Octavius, and fol-
lowed, but bitter is his disappointment. The conqueror will not
trust a traitor. Enobarbus finds out that he has "done ill," his
intelligence has failed utterly. But this is not all. The gener-
ous Antony sends his treasure after him with kindly greetings;
now he calls himself not fool but villain, the moral elements, as
honor, gratitude, fidelity, conscience, burst up in his soul with
terrific force. This mediating principle, which was previously so
inert, is now supreme, asserting itself over both pleasure and in-
tellect. He repents of his conduct but is not reconciled ; he slays
himself, an irrational act, but one which shows that remorse was
stronger than existence. So intense is his anguish, that he will
.not retain a life without moral devotion.
The Idea of Matter. (}<»
Octavius has passed his final and supreme conflict, which the
poet seems to make the most difficult as well as the most glori-
ous of all the conflicts in the drama. This victory is greater
than the victory over Antony, who had already been subdued by
Cleopatra ; now the mighty conqueress is herself conquered.
The man who can resist the fascination of the Orient is the true
Roman, is the ruler capable of maintaining and perpetuating the
Roman principle and the Roman empire. Alexander even was
absorbed by the East, and his realm passed away like a cloud.
Octavius can spend a tear of pity over his illustrious foes, but
his emotions never clouded his judgment or hindered the clear,
definite pursuit of his political end. When the play terminates^
we feel that a great epoch with its external and internal throes,,
with its weak men and mighty heroes, has passed a way. All the
struggles are overcome not by temporary compromises but by
the subordination of the lower to the higher principle; the world
flnds unity, peace, and law, in the empire. This epoch is there-
fore the true date of Imperialism.
THE IDEA OF M ATTER AS THE GROUND OF ALL PHE-
NOMENA OF THE UNIVERSE.
(An attempt to solve Tyndall's Problem).
By K. Th. Bayrhoffer.
[Translated from the author's manuscript by Mrs. Ella S. Mokgas] .
Tyndall, in his well-known Belfast address, as well as in severa.
passages in his '' Fragments of Science," declares that in matter
he discerns the promise and potency of life and spirit, but that
the idea of matter, in order to justify this, must be more profound
and comprehensive than it has hitherto been apprehended to be.
He says that until now the idea of matter as the basis of nature,,
had been considered only from its external and mechanical sides.
Rut then Tyndall confesses that he cannot give the truer idea be-
70 The Idea of Mutter.
cause the connection between spiritual life and mechanics or
organism, the movements of the Universe, is still obscure. If
we now ask "What is the conception of matter in the general
consciousness and in natural science?" we receive the universal
answer, " Matter is the substance extending through and filling
parts of space, considered as independent existence in and for itself,
whose universal predicates are this extension and divisibility, re-
sistance or the impenetrability of all its parts, and perhaps weight,
the gravitation of all its parts towards each other." Matter is some-
times defined as that which is impenetrable and movable in space.
If we now take these phenomena as the manifestation of internal
essence (innerer gruende) then we may consider matter as filled
with forces or principles of inter-action, especially the power of
attraction and repulsion. From the standpoint of such a theory
it is therefore presupposed that the particles of matter them-
selves, being separate members and bodies, can never re-
ciprocally penetrate each other, and that all apparent pen-
etrability is only a nearer approach of the particles and a pen-
etration of matter into the hitherto empty spaces lying be-
tween. It is also now universally presupposed that the so-
called forces are wholly bound up with matter, are in fact only its
qualities inseparable from it. In the same way it has often been
supposed that matter was originally in motion, which (motion) is
consequently an absolute fact just as incapable of derivation as
matter itself. And now since in order to explain phenomena,
scientific investigation of nature conceives visible matter as itself
made up of invisible, minute, material particles or bodies (the so-
called atoms or molecules) it is claimed that from the forces and
motions of these atoms and molecules we are to comprehend all
nature as a mechanism; and logically consistent scientists declare
that even the spiritual life of man must also originate in this
mechanism, because the nervous system, more especially the
brain, is evidently the material ground out of which spirit is
born, and of which we know nothing without this base — for im-
material spirits are only fantastic images or chimeras. Matter
bein<;, according to this, the root of-all phenomena of the uni-
verse, materialism is esteemed as the only true system of know-
ledge (based upon one principle) in contrast both to an original
dualism of matter and spirit, and to a spiritualistic unitary basis,
as is claimed by Christian theology, or in another way by the
philosophy of Berkeley.
The Idea of Matter. 71
We cannot deny that empirical, reflective science has always
held fast to the materialistic basis of all phenomena of the uni-
verse, and taught that an immaterial spirit is out of the question,
i. e., any spirit not bound to matter or not conditioned by mat-
ter — unless we wish to put poetical fancy in the place of science.
If therefore to the real empirical conception matter is the only
basis of the universe, out of which arise all phenomena — revela-
tions of nature and spirit — to the reflective mind still remains
the question, "What is the essence or idea of matter itself?"
For speculative analysis cannot rest until it has become an abso-
lute analysis, until it has reached the point where no further pre-
supposition is possible, until it has reached the ultimate hypoth-
esis. And as empirical, inductive investigation stops either with
the mere conception of one infinitely extended and divisible matter,
or with the atom as the ultimate element of matter, having exten-
sion but still being indivisible : the first theory asserts a simple
logical contradiction; the second asserts the construction of
matter en masse out of minute particles of matter, which them-
selves involve the contradiction of being both indivisible and
extended. The problem of philosophy or speculative thinking
is precisely to And an idea of matter that does not involve con-
tradiction, the final solution of this fantastic knot of ideas. The
solution of the problem of matter is the solution of all problems.
It may indeed be said — from the standpoint of modern empiri-
cal science — that the real essence of things, matter, is still hid
den, is an insoluble problem, is " unknowable absolute force,"
(Herbert Spencer), or is the unknown and in itself unknowable
(Kant, Herbart). It might be said that it is sufficient for us to
know that all phenomena, of nature as of mind, inhere in the
eternal, material substratum. And on the other hand we might
say with Herbert Spencer that since all knowledge consists in a
relation of the subject to the object, the absolute being, the
unity, or at all events the unifying root, of both sides, it would
therefore be one-sided to set up a mere materialism, and true
philosophy may as rightly be called spiritualism if we give the
chief weight to the subjective side of knowledge. For all con-
ceptions of matter being but mental images of it, spiritual phe-
nomena and not the thing itself, it is after all more credible that
matter is but the expression of spirit than vice versa. Still the
absolute being is in truth only the unknown unity of both sides,
neither materialism nor spiritualism is the true expression of
72 The Idea of Matter.
philosophy. In the same way, but in another form, Spencer ad-
vocates Shelling's "absolute indifference" and Hegel's "abso-
lute idea."
But as regards the unknowableness of being, we ask on what
grounds is the mind of man justified in denying knowledge of
being f Being, matter with its metamorphoses and phenomena
lies before us. Phenomena being its (matter's) revelations, posi-
ted by it, necessarily contain the essence, the kernel, and are
utterly inseparable from it. Hence while the thinking mind ana-
lyzes the phenomenon it must posit its being as the plainly exist-
ing unity which lies at the foundation. And that would be con-
ceded by all, if in this attempt at absolute comprehension thought
did not involve itself in logical contradictions which seem insur-
mountable (cf. Kant's Antinomies and the contradictious shown
by Hegel and Herbart in all notions of experience.) But think-
ing is not a fixed something, it is a process, a development in the
thinking subject. Thought itself generates all the inconsisten-
cies, and drives on to their solution — on account of its own cer-
tainty of its real existence — unhindered by contradictious, it can-
not rest until it has developed a system of thought which is en-
tirely consistent with itself, that is, one which has solved the
contradictious, the inner illusion, the confusion of the subject.
All proceeds from the belief that the subject has objectivity
within as well as without itself; that every real, concrete, sensi-
ble being is the union of subjectivity and objectivity (hence the
dualism of subject and object is disposed of, once and forever),,
and this belief is confirmed by all experimental science. In re-
gard to the other theory of Herbert Spencer, viz : that the uni-
tary system can be called spiritualism as well as materialism, we
are not to forget that spirit is essentially mediated as through
nature, the material system; while matter is conceived as the
substance, the mother of things and phenomena, and so under
all circumstances life and spirit exhibit themselves as the phe-
nomenology of matter. But of course we recognize that in a
certain sense matter itself is phenomenology, is the eternal chain
of egos, of real souls, and that even the notion of matter is incon-
ceivable without including the potentiality of spirit, and con-
versely, the idea of spirit presupposes matter. Hence we may
call the true system the unitary system of the material-spiritual,
the external-internal, and also the unitary system of living sub-
stance, which as we shall «ee is the eternal chain of being; abso-
The Idea of Matter. 73
lute synthesis. Speculative analysis will advance this to cer-
tainty. We now pass to this analysis.
The real phenomenal world, which we perceive through the
senses (not excepting the animal organism as the only bearer of
spiritual life, in the strictest sense)— this world lies before us ex-
tended in space, consisting of parts and members near, but apart
and separable from each other. This appearance in space, con-
ceived as the positive, the self-existing, essence, or self, is called
matter, which, in order to make form and content identical, is-
defined as extended being. Conceive the phenomenon to
have the form of space, or of continuous external being,
without the essence, the substance, then we have the mental im-
age of pure or empty space. It is well known that the old At-
omic philosophy conceived the universe as made up of the atom
and the void, being and nothing. The actual which lies before
us as a visible, material, is the entire heavenly and earthly world r
which latter of course, according to the true scientific theory
of the universe, is only a member of the cosmic whole, of the
starry host with its illimitable spaces and varied forms.
Now while empirical science continues by the induction of ex-
perience, to verify the forms and laws of this material universe
by a relative analysis referring to relatively simple elements (viz..
atoms and forces) speculative thinking carries the inquiry up to-
the notion, or to the perfect analysis of material existence, which
is after all only an empirical conception. Thought tries to estab-
lish the absolute analysis of this being, while recognizing that
matter (defined as an extended, resisting, somewhat capable of
rest and motion) in order to be comprehended, involves pre-
suppositions which for the sake of scientific knowledge must
be posited and comprehended in thought, and in so far as mat-
ter is the sole basis of all phenomena (as the unitary system of
materialism supposes) must be recognized as the principles of all
phenomena of the universe, the physical as well as spiritual, or
else the whole theory would fall asunder as a one-sided and there-
fore false hypothesis.
From the standpoint of Tyndall, Huxley, and other great sci-
entific investigators, we are confronted with the remarkable phe-
nomenon, that matter is presupposed as the absolute essence, but
that nevertheless its spiritual side is put down as from its very
nature incomprehensible, or at least uncomprehended, whence
Tyndall (as we have already seen) rightly demands a truer con-
74 The Idea of Malta:
ceptiou of the idea of matter than men of science Lave hitherto
had.
If matter is conceived, as it is universally, that each of its
parts or components is essentially extended and divisible, then
according to this idea, matter would be composite, ad infinitum.
Of course it makes no difference whether we speak of ideal or
actual divisibility, siuce infinite divisibility involves a state of
being infinitely divided, i. e., the so-called separation only rep-
resents the original separation as made visible. If we deny this,
we are met by Spinoza's illogical notion of the divisibility of the
form without the divisibility of the essence or substance, as if
form could stand in opposition to essence, or as if there
could be form without essence. Spinoza's absolute, indi-
visible, extended substance would not be able to exist as extend-
ed, because all of its parts and components are from the begin-
ning absorbed and dissolved in the unity of the substance. The
infinite, extended, but indivisible substance of Spinoza contains
an internal logical contradiction, just as the simple extended sub-
stance, divisible but not in and for itself discrete, is a similar
contradiction.
It is therefore agreed that if matter is extended and divisible
then it must be composite in itself or limited, and it therefore
passes continuously through these limits, and this internal limi-
tation must of course be infinite, i. e., must continue to the simple
ultimate element, for the analysis of thought can be satisfied
with nothing short of that. Hence matter must be resolvable
into pure simple elements, and would without these become a
chimera of so-called absolute empty space, of a merely negative
identity, devoid of essence, and of a pure logical contradiction.
This is the truth in the Atomistic Philosophy, only that in spec-
ulative analysis the atom necessarily becomes a monad. Hence
Leibnitz was justified in setting up the system of monads against
Spinoza's one extended and thinking substance, and had therein
seized the actually true principle of the unity of nature and
spirit, extension and subjectivity. Herbart also recognized the
principle of the universe in the community of souls. And Hegel
without more ado, posits matter as the continuity of the discrete,
the unity of independent somewhats which have sunk together
into the unity of space and time, i. e., motion, in which
differences have vanished, unity of repulsion and attraction
of the for itself existent ; although lie lias not adequately
The Idea of Matter 75
developed this true principle, and in his inverted method
derives the concrete from the abstract, instead of tirst com-
prehending the perfectly concrete principle by a speculative
analysis of the content of experience, and then developing
science from this concrete principle. Had Hegel but con-
tinued on this true road upon which he entered with his Phe-
nomenology of Spirit, from this phenomenology of the real spirit
he would have developed the universal metaphysical principle of
the universe, and from the latter would have followed the real
genesis of the same as a complete system of nature, in which
self-conscious spirit is nothing more than the final blossom of
nature. Philosophy from its very nature must (since scientific
knowledge is only the final reflection of being) begin with a re-
gressive movement, in which experience elevates itself to specu-
lative thought, and in which are shown the unity and commeusu-
rability of subject and object, ego and non-ego, science and na-
ture. Then philosophy must pass over to a progressive move-
ment, to a construction of the universe from one principle, upon
whose summit the mind returns to itself. The real principle, the
real ground of nature is not space and time and motion, abstrac-
tions which as such areeinpty nothings; and this Hegel well knew,
but he offered this discipline to the mind in order to lead it,
through these nothings, to the real. The true principle of nature
is the eternal unity or synthesis of real monads, as we shall see,
and not until this principle is postulated can we understand
space and time and motion, matter and its forces, life and mind,
which without this presupposition all vanish into nothingness.
We saw that the speculative analysis of matter leads to the imma-
terial and non-extended, as the elements of which matter is com-
posed. Matter is only a combination of simple beings, the chain
of souls or egos, as it were. Infinite divisibility is only the ever
unsuccessful attempt on the part of sense-perception to ex-
plain composite being as derivative from simple being. The con-
ception of matter as the conception of being is only the unsolved
and confused notion of a series of monads. The infinite sought
by the sensuous conception is reached in thought, and with it is
reached the eternally abiding existence in the changes of phe-
nomena in the mutable synthesis of the monads. The universe
is the ceaseless process of the S5*stem of monads. All matters,
forms, laws, forces, conscious and unconscious powers are the
offspring of this system. We have reached the point in which,
70 The Idea of Matter.
atoms and molecules of the scientists (into which the abstract
chimera of continuous extended entitiy has been resolved)
find their explanation in the absolute analysis of reason, in the
interaction of the centres of life.
Our problem is now (a) to show that the idea of the simple
essence, though not really perceivable by the senses, nor capable
of being pictured in the mind, still contains no contradiction,
and carries the element of visibility in it. (b) That the idea of
an original aggregate, and of interaction of simple entities, can
be conceived without contradiction, (c) That the universe with
all its material-spiritual phenomena, forms, laws, forces, is to be
comprehended or explained through this interaction. (1) Simple
being is the opposite of composite being, and all composite be-
ings can be reduced finally to simple beings. We will not here
dispute as to whether we may call a composite being " a being.""
We probably may so call it if the compositeness is understood
as an absolute composition — taking place through mutual inter-
action — being therefore an essential one, for here all beiugs re-
ciprocally assume their predicates of phenomena — the external
and internal phenomena are interlinked with each other from
within out, and so form a real whole. In the same way a row of
marbles, books, stones, etc., would not be called one being; but
we should speak of one stone, one plant, one animal, because
each exists only as a chain of parts and members, each through
the other, not as a mere external juxtaposition; and we shall see
that the universe is an eternal and internal chain of simple ele-
ments, an original manifold, an original form of unity, and so far
as the One infinite (i. e., a being limited only through itself) can
be defined, is self-articulated, i. e., is made up of simple element-
ary causal factors. Instead of composition the word interposit-
ing (fuer-einandersetzung) could be used if we wished to keep in
mind that this interpositing is imagined only as a reflex of beings
in antithetic relation to each other, in order to preserve their
mutual independence of each other. Interaction is an appro-
priate and correct expression.
Leibnitz places at the beginning of his Monadology the propo-
sition, "There are composite beings, hence there must be simple
beings." Much as this fundamental idea has been criticised (e. g.,
lately by Stallo) it still remains unrefuted, and the negative of
this proposition would be a simple logical contradiction, unless
those critics intend by it to posit an extended, divisible being.
The Idea of Matter. 77
without composition, without articulation. But that again is a
pure logical contradiction. Therefore the so-called continuity of
substance can in truth be only a middle term between unity and
separateness of substances, an internal-external chain or interac-
tion of simple elements, from which eternal chain the universe
proceeds.
Simple substance is that indivisible (because not composite)
being which is identical with itself. It cannot therefore be con-
ceived as extended, disparate, that is as consisting of parts in
juxtaposition, and so far cannot be really perceived by the senses
because sense-perception is a function of a composite somewhat
directed towards a composite somewhat. But should it be posi-
ted for thinking intuition, then the indivisible point must be con-
ceived as interactive, as centre of action. This indivisible one,
this simple ultimate is in itself free from logical contradiction,
because it is conceived as consisting of pure identity, of that
which is like itself, and this is what it is in its simple unity. Its
further quantitative and qualitative predicates are gained in the
interaction in ich^ch it defines itself. In any case as this simple
unity it is not perceivable by the sense, not susceptible of analy-
sis, indivisible, imperishable; it is the invisible root of the phe-
nomenal world, which it is true can be conceived only as a total-
ity of such roots in a state of interaction.
So far as these simple beings or constituent parts of being
(according to whether we have in view the particulars or the
whole, synthesis or analysis) offer themselves as the limits or as
the original points of all real sense-perception, of all quality and
quantity, we may perhaps say that they are inconceivable, mere
abstractions, nothings ; i. e., they are negatives of phenomenal
reality just as the point is the limit, the negative, the nothing of
the line and of space. And this consciousness of the negative,
this rejection of simple elements from the standpoint of a reality
picturable for the senses, would be perfectly justifiable, and the
existences would be resolved into nothing if we could hud in
them no bridge as it were, to sense-perception, that is if they
were not combined in everlasting unity as a totality, through
whose interaction they are able to represent the sensible world,
whereby each element is a necessary collection, a centre of life,
without losing its simple identity. So they appear as dynamic
central spheres, as we shall see, and not as separable into material
particles, not as atoms. So, conceived as central spheres of life
78 The Lien of Matter.
and motion, as centres of relatively minute spaces which they
create, they arc in the element of sense-perceptibility, and can
develop the phenomenal world in time and space. Xo other hy-
pothesis (neither that of continuous matter, nor the atomic the-
ory,) can overcome logical contradiction. Both inevitably crum-
ble into nothing. Only in the interaction of the monadic factors-
can we obtain a fixed point of rest for the flowing current of the
phenomenal world. Hence thought must posit it. It must posit
the absolute, infinite discreteness in the continuity of the whole,,
unless it allows the manifestation of the discrete in the continu-
ous, and vice versa, in a contradictory manner.
Our standpoint is nothing more than the infinite analysis (i. e. r
in thought) of the world as perceived through the senses. It is
the unity of the totality, the ultimate synthetic-analytic unity, in
which absolute posit ivity includes all affirmations and negations.
Only as the combination of primal elements, monads, can a so-
called primal matter, primal substance occupying space, be com-
prehended as a thinkable reality in which all phenomena rise and
set. While with the taking away of this .r, this simple self-sub-
sistent, the universe would vanish into mere relations without
subjects, into a dreamy line-drawing in an empty space. So we
must now recognize as valid the doctrine of monads, and if we
find in it the grounds of all material and spiritual phenomena of
experience, then Ave shall recognize in primal matter the univer-
sal and ultimate root of the universe. And this doctrine annuls
the fancies or anthropomorphisms of the various religions, and
transforms Hegel's entire speculative logic (as well as religion)
into the phenomenology of the universe as reflected in the human
mind, into a subjective abstraction from human experience. The
self-emancipation of the so-called "Absolute Idea" into Nature is a
pure chimera or farce, a juggler's trick of thinking, like the notion
of a divine creation of the world out of nothing. That essential
whole (of monads) present in the universe, is all in all, and there
exuts nothing behind the universe, and over and above the uni-
verse — no absolute idea, no God, no immortal human spirit. In
this sense is Hegel the last of the scholastics through whose new-
departure science is first completely freed from the dogmas of
phantasy, and the only possibility is given for a reconciliation of
philosophy and natural science. This analysis is now in full
progress, this consciousness is increasing more widely, and
The Idea of Matter. 79
therein is the great importance of Tyndall's address, the inde-
pendent scientific value of which is a mere cipher.
2. Absolute Combination and Interaction of Elementary Es-
sences. — We posit a totality of simple nltimates, of unities of
being and action. We posit them eimply together, that is recip-
rocally present in one infinite centre, for nothing is presupposed
but them, there is therefore nothing which could separate or
keep them apart but their own activity. We presuppose no space,
no time, in short absolutely nothing but the monads. For all
such presuppositions would be mere logical contradictions, exist-
ing nothings. There is therefore nothing between the monads,
or that which is between is only their product. They are there-
fore necessarily combined, undivided, the positive, infinite whole.
The basis of the universe is not the monad, but the unity of
monads. Apart from this the monad would sink back into inef-
fable being, devoid of quality or quantity or power of manifesta-
tion ; it would be the uucognizable " real " of Herbart. Herbart's
fundamental error is that he assumes that the "reals" could in
the beginning be combined or not combined, as a matter of acci-
dent. Their not being combined leads to a logical contradiction,
because it must presuppose an independent, sundering nothing.
All real space vanishes if the system of monads is taken away.
The monad gets its real attributes (outside of its simple identity)
only in combination, in relation. This is the truth in the theories
of such men as Moleschott, Stallo, Lewes, and the relativists in
general. The mistake is that they posit the whole relative phe-
nomenal world without independent existent things, without real
centres. The relation without the terms between which the rela-
tion exists, is a form without essence. They eliminate the ,r, and
so make the universe a relativity, a phenomenon of nothing. For
all continuous primal matter, primal forces which may be presup-
posed in addition, are of no assistance, for they themselves are
resolved into relativity. The logical contradiction consists iu a
relation without the terms of the relation.
The thought of the monad can be repudiated only at the ex-
pense of reducing the world to a desert waste. Without the
monad all existence becomes an illusion. In every element, in
every point of the universe, must be posited the independently
existing into-thcmselves-refiected monads, the ultimate, or else
all relations vanish.
What is now the notion of the monad-totalitv t The monads
80 The Idea of Matter.
arc not simply in and through each other, for then they would
collapse into one centre, one existence, their being' would he pos-
ited as nothing - , we should have no extended world, nor the sense-
perception of a world. So Leibnitz degrades the monads to a
mere illusion by the contradictory fancy of an emanation ("efful-
guration ") of monads from the primal monad; he makes their
origin and disappearance a miracle, as he himself expressly
acknowledges; in other words he also remains captive in the re-
ligions stage of phantasy. Xor are the monads simply external
to each other or in juxtaposition. For then they would represent
a rigid, dead mass, like Herbart's rigid line, and could not even
be conceived in this totality, because the contact of simple beings
(real points) would necessarily be the coalescence of the same,
consequently their annihilation ; pure externality would return
into pure internality, or rather it would never have proceeded
from it. Of course the agglomeration of monads can be only an
eternal process of the same, in order to continually transform
their positive unity (penetration, attraction) into negative unity
(externality, repulsion) and vice versa, the negative into posi-
tive unity ; in other words the monads are permanent impul-
ses and activities against each other. Tins is their perpetual con-
tact, which can be conceived in no other manner. They are thus
because their absolute combination, their self-preservation in
negation or limitation is reciprocally possible only in this way,
but the annihilation of existence, being impossible, is a logical con-
tradiction, because that which is posited would appear as not
posited, or objectively expressed, the existing somewhat would
appear as nothing. Only through this eternal conflict, this eter-
nalplay of monads, can the phenomenal world of time and space
be founded. Hence the universe is combined from infinitely mi-
nute, simple, active elements, which as in eternal contact (combi-
nation) become impulses for each other and centres of spheres of
motion, thus creating the spaces between them, the attractive
and repulsive forces ; and as this chain they establish the phe-
nomenon of matter, which consequently is formed everywhere
and always, and ever exhibits in specific forms the various mat-
ters or bodies. Therefore all matter as interaction of its real
centres, occupies space, is impenetrable and heavy.
But does there not lie an internal contradiction in the develop-
ment of simple beings that are in contact, into central spheres ot
action ? Is there not here a centre of action in a surrounding
The Idea of Matter. 81
sphere of space, consequently a centre that acts where it really
is not 1 ? Is it not therefore really resolved into an externality*
To be sure we posit being or the substanceof the central sphere,
as point, as centre, and the spatial sphere of activity (the dy-
namic atmosphere, so to speak, or the combining, ideal
pether, posited in the reflexion from one centre against other
centres, in other words, objective space) cannot be being or sub-
stance, existing in and for itself, nor can it be merely nothing ; it
must therefore be a shining, a reflex of being, the positive
negation of being, originating from being by contact or combina-
tion. And this is no logical contradiction, because the positive
identity of being itself is not negated, is rather posited, but as-
mutual interdependence of beings, whereby is given with logical
necessity, a reflex in every being, a shining of being, in and
from itself, against other beings. The beings — if they are to exist
over against each other — as they must, because they are simply
accepted from negation — must preserve themselves in com-
bination and in their reciprocal limitation ; also must discrim-
inate themselves in unity, returning from the others into them-
selves. And this discrimination and returning is notour thought
of them, but their own process, their own life, and must be their
self-activity for each other, hence their positing of an appear-
ance, of a continuous externality between them, an oscillation
and a tension between them. This is the process which we are
obliged to substitute for Herbart's contradictory notion of an in-
complete interpenetratiou of the " reals." We must convert
Herbart's spheres into central spheres. At any rate it is clear
that through self-activity of monads, without which the idea of
the contact or the combination of real points cannot be realized,
an externality (space and time) would be constructed, a jux-
taposition and consecutiveness. Thus the centre creates a pe-
riphery out of itself, forced by the negation posited in it through
the other, it (the centre) is an internality in an externality, an in-
ternality which posits an externality, in which it exists. All real
space, time and motion, follow from this, that the active elements
in their unity limit themselves for each other, really discriminate
themselves. In this manner the ultimates draw elementary lines
for each other, hence space-lines, a form to the essence, which
form is posited out of the essence and is reabsorbed into the es-
sence, in repulsive and attractive activity, in oscillation, in the
X— 6
82 The Idea of Matter.
electric play. Matter, the phenomenon of this internal construc-
tion is therefore absolutely elastic, although in the most different
forms and grades.
In this way we must consider the lines between real points
(the so-called empty space, whose central points are the monads)
as a posited appearance, as a direction of force, a perspective of
action in the monad, whereby it positively and negatively coheres
with the other monads, so that the forces, the impulses of mo-
tion change into motion itself. At a relative minimum of dis-
tance the positive becomes negative, at a relative maximum dis-
tance the negative becomes positive, and so a continual oscillation
of motion is posited, whereby maxima and minima of distance
are relative according to the different standpoints of single mem-
bers in the system of the ichole. The immediate and mediate
chains of monads extending in all directions, the impulse to activ-
ity and the spaces and times are universally evolved and brought
into relation and become specific. So phenomenal matter with all
its forms and forces is the interaction of monads, always having a
certain but mutable form. The universe is the eternal positing,
analysis, and transmutation of all matters in infinite revolution,
whilst the eternal self-included totality has primally the differen-
tiations of activity within itself, which, continually comprehended
in the impulse to equilibrium, let one condition proceed from an-
other, thereby showing the necessity of the causal chain. This
process is eternally one with the essence of the totality, because
in it the primal difference and the impulse toward equilibrium
are eternal.
Finally the question arises: Is not space as an ex istinq, empty
externality between the monads, in contradiction with the concep-
tion of space as an appearance — a direction aud line of being?
As existing it (space) must be a being, aud consequently, as it
seems, must coalesce with continuous matter. We should thus
be led around in a circle, to the contradiction of a pure continu-
ous matter, which would be identical with continuous space. But
space as an existing being, is only an abstraction of the fancy.
In truth it is only the relativity of existences posited and can-
celled by them. It is the negation posited by beings, their dis-
tance from each other, in which coherence is preserved only
through the perspective of beings, as the differing intensity of
the impulse of the same for each other. It is therefore the ob-
jective appearance of being, a product of motion. The separa-
The Idea of Matter. 83
tion of beings is effected by their negative motion, and space is no-
thing but this separation, which is continuous and indivisible. It
therefore varies as the motion which creates it varies, thus mak-
ing a larger or smaller space. Hence objective space vanishes
with the coalescence of the monads, is proved to be a posited no-
thing, an appearance. The space of the universe is the perpetual
product of the universal chain of monads in its movements and
articulation, and in this space exist and move all members which at
the same time originate it. If all the members were to combine per-
fectly into one, which is impossible, then space would disappear as
an illusory appearance; nothing would remain but the subjective
conception (assuming it were possible) of an infinite void, an infi-
nite nothing, in truth only the idea of a universal possibility of a
here and there. This empty space would not be perceived through
the senses, because it could exercise no effect upon the ego, on
account of its emptiness. The apparent perception of space
through the senses would be only a fancy in the life of the brain,
an internal subjective movement (assuming a brain were possible
without the presupposition of a universe).
A logical contradiction consists in abolishing a determination
at the same time within which it is posited, in predicating of a
thing that which is irreconcilable with its idea, e. g., a quadrilat-
eral circle or wooden iron. If we now posit beings or egos in
contact or in relation to each other, then determinations will be
developed from them which could not be those of isolated beings.
Logical contradiction cannot forbid our positing interdependent
beings ; for one is not posited as the other but with the other,
they are self-identical in the negation which strikes them, and
must be posited as this self-identity mediated by negation in
order to avoid contradiction. So each must be posited as self-
preservation, but self-preservation is something other than
mere self-existence, it is mediated by the attempted negation, it is
negation of negation. The universe is therefore the eternal ne-
gation of negation, appertaining to all egos in their relation to
each other, so all are self-limitations, are beings which posit the
limits in themselves, in other words self-preservation. The impulse,
motion, space and time are only these negations of negation, these
activities and manifestations of the egos for each other. The eter-
nal egos could not exist reciprocally combined if they did not eter-
nally originate the objective appearance of the universe. The
universe can be only the eternal process of self-preservation of
84 The Idea of Matter.
the monads in reciprocal conflict and reflex. It is an objective
appearance, as is evident from the fact that all its forms are tran-
sitory, although necessarily trausmntable into others. Only the
monads, their combination and their primal impulses in combina-
tion are eternal ; the form of the combination changes while the
relativity of the monads varies. In this sense the immortal al-
ways-identical somewhat, is matter icith its primal instincts with-
out which it cannot exist a moment. The final question is, "How
then is developed perpetually the manifolduess of forms (of mat-
ter with its forces) in the primal essence, the monad totality " .'
3. The Universe as the Necessary Consequence of the Totality
of Monads, or of Primal Matter. — Of course we shall not
here attempt to give a theory of the construction of the
universe, which iu any case would probably be premature.
But we will show in brief that a world of motion, articulation
(organization) and metamorphoses necessarily follows from
the principle, that in particular the forms and laws of nature
follow from it, and the forms of intelligence in animals and man
result from it.
(a) We see that sensible matter has for its presupposition the
interaction and motion of the elementary unities. We call the
monads central spheres in so far as they appear as central 2>oints
of spatial spheres, by means of which they cohere and oscillate re-
ciprocally. These lines iu the immediate interdependence of the
centres of activity, we may call the smallest elements or real dif-
ferentials of spatial, sensible reality, which elements are in every
respect relative, discriminated according to the differentiation of
matter in the whole. At the same time that all elements are uni-
ted, in part immediately, in part mediately, by intervening mem-
bers, and hence form a chain, the so-called actio in distans, and
entire spheres of space are developed in which we find the uni-
versal polarity of the series [of monads] in attractions and repul-
sions, contractions and expansions, elasticity, motion of mole-
cules and of masses, vibrations and wave lines ; in light, heat,.
electricity, magnetism, crystallization, chemic force and organic
force. If we now posit the whole — which as existing reality can
not be sought in the infinite but must be a totality complete and
entire in itself — as the positive maximum (as vice versa divisibil-
ity in the monad terminates as the infinitesimal) — if then we
presuppose the positive totality as an original irregular whole
(not as the one possible case among an infinite number of abso-
The Idea of Matter. 85
lutely perfect spheres) which presupposition being absolute ad-
mits no cause, but is only made in order to explain the real uni-
verse : then we immediately have in this whole, with the univer-
sal internal molecular motion (so to describe in brief the motion
of the smallest parts of the monads and their smallest constella-
tions of atoms and molecules) an original motion of the mass, by
virtue of the universal gravitation or attraction within the series,
which in the unspherical whole seeks to create the absolute
sphere, and so establishes in the eternally existing being an eter-
nal goal for its strivings, a universal motion toward the creation
of universal equilibrium.
The particular motions in general must unite in a common
rotation, and create the universe as a rotating spheroid, in which
spheres separate themselves from spheres (rings) and finally be-
come separate bodies, and the system of the starry universe is
formed. At the same time the molecular determinations must
arise, and there must be special forms of combination, i. e., mole-
cules, (whose most primitive members are the so-called atoms) thus
forming the so-called elementary matter or material elements, which
then by new and closer unions originate concrete matters and
bodies, all in mathematical necessity conformable to law. And
as the primal atoms (monads) are all of equal value for the
phenomenal world, since no difference of essence can be conceiv-
ed in the simple, then the identically combined primal forms (ele-
mentary atoms) must be identical, must be capable of reciprocal
substitution; the differently combined on the contrary must be
different in quality and quantity and in their neutral combination,
their respective unions and separations must exhibit the chemical
processes, the synthetic and analytic processes. So primal mat-
ter, (the totality of monads) is comprehended in an eternal process
of progressive and regressive specification. And this process of
molecular and mass motion, of articulation, dissolution and re-artic-
ulation, can never cease, because the difference is originally in
the absolute and hence must appear to all infinity. The universe
is the never-dying life, an eternal circular motion. It needs nei-
ther the chimera of Spencer's infinite nor YVinchell's God in order
to be resurrected from its death.
(b) The forms of primal matter as articulated we call the ichole
of nature, which is therefore all in all. For what in contrast to
it we call mind, sensation, consciousness, thought, will, is as re-
ality only an internal appearance in a form of nature, in the ani-
80 The Idea of Matter.
rnal organism, and at its highest potency in man. But since feel-
ings, thought and will inhere in the same matter (although loca-
ted in special organs) which (matter) also forms the crystal and
the plant by other forms of combination, then the principle or
the potency of spirit must lie in all nature, therefore in the mo-
nad itself, and every other conception of the monad and of mat-
ter is simply unthinkable, would take from the monad its ego, its
internality, and thereby annihilate it. The essence of mind is
self-manifestation of being, it is the objectivity become inter-
nality or self-determining. Now this internality is inseparable
from the monad in its interaction : it is its ego, its self-preserva-
tion in limitation. Without this it would have to vanish as one
empty point of space vanishes in another. Consequently, with
Leibnitz, Herbart, Schopenhauer and Hartmann, we must posit
in the whole of nature, (hence simply and altogether in matter)
idea and will as the quintessence of every force and motion; so
that this ego is as manifold as the monad, and in such combina-
tions appears like the monad and so is more or less a universal,
combined ego in the special members of the universe, and a most
universal and most abstract world-ego. But the ego is raised to
consciousness only in the animal organism. Cognition and will
in the strictest sense, inhere only in a certain highest concrete
and organized reflex form of matter, and act first of all even here
as unconscious formative instinct to the further organization of
matter, always emerging from unconsciousness to consciousness
and vice versa returning from consciousness to unconscious force
of nature, in a continual metamorphosis of forces. Leibnitz thus
rightly says, " The monads are in the so-called lifeless nature in
the state of sleep, in the animal in the state of dreaming, in man
in the state of awakening." The forces of nature are therefore
nothing but the exhibitions of the necessity of the sleeping ego,
of every monad in the conflict of monads, the continual evolu-
tion of the centre in the periphery, in motion. The spiritual
forces in the narrower sense, are the taking back of motions into
centrality, that is the self-perception of the same, or the contin-
ual metamorphosis of motion into sensation and will-instinct,
which then resolve themselves into motions again. In this idea
alone arc solved the contradictions ot Tyndall, Huxley, and
Spencer; in it is reached the true notion of matter which Tyn-
dall seeks. Na1 are is every where merely sleeping spirit, no more
and no less. And in the animal and in man it awakes, matter
The Idea of Matter. 87
itself awakes, and herein is solved once and forever the dualism
of matter and mind, object and subject, thing in itself and cog-
nition, non-ego and ego — absolute cognition is established, natural
science and philosophy reconciled.
(c) And because nature in itself is mind, then the mind in na-
ture can awake by a higher reflexion of natural force. It is awa-
kened in the animal organism whose highest form is man, created
by development, by an ever fuller reflexion of the animal, by its
own perfect self-production in the course of millions of years.
The highest result of this process is the human brain, to which
finally the simple nerve-ganglion has developed, and so is en-
throned above all lower forms. Were nature only a system of
dead atoms then mind would never awake. Such chimeras as
are set up by Challis and others, believers in soulless mechanics,
with their impossible, self-contradictory fundamental notions of
the material universe, demand for compensation separate souls
and gods. The true, universal essence of the universe, is indi-
vidualized, living, primal matter, everywhere in which life and
mind in a special sense can appear. The life of the mind as
brain-life demands on the one side the foundation of the same in
the construction of the brain and nervous system, on the other side
the comprehension of the same as a development in its own ele-
ment, the development of consciousness, thought and will,
which are as incomprehensible from the exterior mechanical
brain form as the articulation of organism is from unorganized
chemic force. Organism is the continual reaction upon chemical
forces, and consciousness is the continual reaction upon the brain
or upon organism. Higher concrete reflex points are formed
from lower ones, upon which they react. Such a reflex point is
life, appearing out of the unorganized synthesis, such a higher
reflex point is sensation, appearing in life. And every such point
surrounds itself with its own organization, forming its own pre-
supposed basis from itself, reaching out in order to transform the
lower into its form of growth so far as the nature of the lower
will allow. Mature is a system of reflex-stages, on the summit
of which stands man and spirit, all based in the living chain of
monads.
CONCLUSION.
Matter, then, is the chain and interaction of living unities.
Therefore matter is extended, divisible, moving and equilibrating,
resistent and elastic, articulated and organized, perceptive and
88 The Idea of Matter.
impulsive, and the promise and potency and actuality of life and
mind.
Tyndall, a very thoughtful experimentalist and a man of the
noblest character, has the true image of Matter and Nature. To
him Nature is a living organized whole, an interaction, oscilla-
tion, equilibration of moving atoms, and a power or potency of
sensibility and will. In his preface to the last edition of the
"Fragments of Science," ("Popular Science Monthly," Dec,
1875, p. 129-148) he has gone farthest in his ideal intuition of
matter as universal vitality and sensibility, which he does not deny
â– even to the elemental and mineral world. That is the most which
we can ask from the standpoint of mere empirical induction. That
standpoint lacks only the cognition that no matter at all, not even
the smallest atom can really be thought as existing without con-
tinuous subjectivity or reflection into itself, that is without vital
points ; that no predicates, relations, forces, and therefore no
movement and mechanism are at all possible without subjects,
that is, simple beings reflected into themselves as well as into
others. All attraction, repulsion, impenetrability, movement,
translation of movement, resistance to movement, consequently
all mechanism presupposes monads becoming vital by their posi-
tive-negative reaction to other limiting monads. The speculative
thinking alone, and not the mere empirical inductive imagination
can understand and illuminate the ultimate processes of things; it
posits the absolute presupposition of the phenomenal world. For
the speculative thinking, the universe is the totality of living
differentials and integrals of being, manifesting themselves in
chains of space and time or movement. Matter as the mere
passive, extended, impenetrable and moveable substance, is t he
most irrational of all ideas.
(89)
NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.
What is Truth f
Editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy :
Sir:— Some comment on the article entitled " What is Truth ? "
by Mr. A. E. Kroeger in the October number of the Journal, I will
endeavor to express, although in the gossipy style of one whose
brains are not well settled either as to Truth or as to anything else.
Very commendable the article is in several respects, to wit: that it is
brief, and it is clear, and it has at least an ambition to stand alone.
The last is not the least respect, as due to that Greek simplicity which
holds the problem close in view and still attempts to state it, or at
least to declare some strong conviction in regard of it, whereas too
much is usually said, in discussions, of other previous discussions — in-
dulging and expatiating in the " literature of the topic." Not that I
would claim for the method which I here approve much hope from
past examples of success. No : I do not remember any absolute
stand-alone apothegms which are in themselves explanatory, or of any
use or meaning save to those who know and learned their truth other-
wise, and who might as well have said them themselves. Thus the
saying: "the more is thought," or "the more is the thought," (as
Dr. Stirling reads it) has occasioned words enough to make one wish
Parmenides had taken a few more words and explained himself. So
the saying of Heraclitus: "Strife is the father of things," brings with
it after-thoughts which defeat it as an explanation — for the father and
children are of one species, and we are only set at referring the father
to the grandfather, with little hope of reaching the great-great-grizzly
grandfather of All. So the saying of St. John : "All things are made
by the logos," brings after-thoughts as to whether the logos is another
"thing," and whether there are realities which are not things, yet are
principles of things — some-thing made by no-thing, yet not nothing.
The sayings of Jesus also, pregnant with general truth, are but con-
tradictions to all who have not by their own thinking forestalled the
use of them. "My doctrine is not mine," he says; "the words I
speak I speak not of myself," etc. So when Master Emerson says,
"We are wiser than we know," we can but ask, what if not-know-
ledge is competent to itself? how can we know and not know we
know ? Yet this is clear and suggestive to him who holds the general
as the life of the particular, and not all revealed in the particular —
that the genius moves the man (who builds better than he knows,)
and not that the man manipulates his genius — we being in this regard
like those toys on the stove pipe, where a little busy figure seems to
be turning a wheel, which in fact is turning him. And so in this
light we can understand Goethe when in his later years reviewing his
90 Notes and Discussions.
earlier works lie said there was much in them which he did not know,
when he wrote them, and which could not have been written had he
not been submissive in spirit — or as his detractors might say, full of
the conceit that he was inspired. But in regard of making absolute
and uncontradictable statements, I do not see how there is to be a phi-
losophy outside of the philosopher's own head, and left behind when
he dies, unless there is some method invented to preserve it, so that it
can be immediately taught and communicated to a novice. It is of no
use teaching philosophy to one Avho already knows it. What could be
more ridiculous than two philosophers with their heads together, coo-
ing and congratulating over an interior revelation which neither
could tell the other or anybody else? But bring your philosopher to
the test of writing a dictionary — make him say that which shall stand
self-explanatory, and then let us ask if either of Mr. Kroeger's an-
swers to Pilate's question would be satisfactory. One answer is :
"truth is simply a word." That would never do in a dictionary:
boot-jack is also a word, yet not like truth, although it has a double
tongue. The other answer is in effect : " truth " is a phenomenal rela-
tion to the mind, like " causality : " but this would not pass, for many
reasons, not the least of which is that explanatory knowledge cannot
be phenomenal because knowledge alone is competent to itself— while
" causality " is an illusion of sense and time, and is invisible from the
standpoint whence all things always are, under the form of eternity.
Death also is a word for a relation to the mind, but it is a fair ques-
tion what death is, as aside from what it appears.
And, by the way, how have the lexicographers met this demand
upon their philosophical skill? Certainly no better than other folk of
less pretension. What says Mr. Webster to Pilate's question— or
rather, what says another professor who does the unabridged philo-
sophical in AVebster's dictionary ? Truth is thus defined : " Exact ac-
cordance to that which is, has been, or shall be ; " I shall not dispute
this as an aphorism, but some vulgar questions arise : Besides what
is, is there more which accords to it ? What accords to that which is?
— that which is not? or does that which is accord to itself in a self-
relation ? Take another of his definitions- Being: this he defines as
" existence ;" that is, the being of " things." But it does not require
much study to perceive that being, pure and simple, were the same
whether as the being of these things or others or none at all ; that be-
ing is supposed to be thought. Take another of his definitions — iden-
tity: this is defined " sameness." Yet this same is another; same-
ness is of two or more ; and the identity of otherness is one with the
identity of sameness, etc., etc.
This is not very successful defining we will all admit, but who gives
us any better? or can a word define a thought, or put it where it was
not before? Can you tell a man what black is, if he does not know
beforehand? no better than vou can tell him the truth of the tooth-
Notes and Discussions. 91
ache. Even so, Mr. Kroeger infers a man must have the phenomenal
relation of truth in his own experience, and it is not to be referred or
explained but identified, and raises no question if only it is called by
its conventional name. This may be a correct statement, but is it not
empirical? Is it not in the spirit by which Fichte said, "Ask not for
the how; be satisfied with the fact?" Is it in the manner of one
who would make self-determination the final explanation ?
Pilate might have heard all that Mr. Kroeger has said of truth, and
then have said impatiently: "Yes, yes! I know — I want the good
man to tell me of this 'relation to the mind,' what distinguishes it from
false conviction, etc." And haply he had dreamed that being was
thought, and that thought was the universe — was All and at once the
knowledge of All, and as knowledge was all, the truth of All was the
relation of thought to itself. Now why did not Mr. Kroeger say that
truth was thought's one and only relation to itself?
I have a notion as to why he did not say this : it was because this
answer is as dark as the question ; it was because there is at least an
immense difficulty in using generals without particulars — in telling
pure reason — in giving out a "content of the speculative." If the
mind can think the mind and think erroneously, the relation of
thought to the thinker is not necessarily truth.
In any method of immediate thought with which we are acquainted
self-relation impeaches itself. Truth as a relation to the mind infers
a likeness, an accordance, a correlation in thought, which splits
thought as All in two, and declares that truth is when thought is as it
knows, or when the two items of being and knowing are — what ?
alike? or the same? or one? when the two are one! and the one is
other, and the same! According to Mr. Kroeger being and thought
are not the same ; the words indicate a distinction; yet only in their
identity is truth possible — and in their difference.
The difficulty in the mind of Pilate may have been as to whether
the particular truly represents the general, or is at all necessary to the
general ; and if we are to hold that the general is not obtained through
the particular — that our ideas are not all from the senses and experi-
ence (which is the only hope of immortality because, if all our ideas
did not come through the senses, some of them may survive the
senses) — and that there may be generals which have no particulars
(for example the infinite,) then it may be correct to say that pure rea-
son does not descend to nor rise from formal expression, and philos-
ophy does not survive the senses and the formal imagination, which
now make philosophy by trying to embrace the general as speculative
content.
But Mr. Kroeger attempts to knock Pilate down with his Fichtean
"is." Truth does not is, says Mr. K., and it is silly to ask how it ises*
a thing is according to our knowledge of it, or its appearance, and its
reality may not all have ised ; the thing in itself we may not know r
92 Notes and Discussions.
for it may is out other appearances hereafter, etc. I do not see this
clearly. If the "thing in itself" is mind, or thought, and self-know-
ledge is the universe, it would seem that the "thing in itself" is
known, and there is nought else to he known.
If we could get thoroughly at this "is," then we might better de-
cide whether and how truth is. I have a notion that the content of
the speculative, though now it is not, must be made to is before there
can be Philosophy taught. And let not Mr. K. be discouraged, but
set right off and go measuring the infinite, and if by pursuing a
straight course he comes upon his tracks again he may swear that he
has made a circle, and the All, though infinite to sense and imagina-
tion, is One in reason ; then by counting his tracks he may construct
a method, or system, which may be relied upon in predicating forms
of the formless — which will put the back and the front of his head
together, the general and particular together, and find an is which
shall not only predicate the ex-istence of Being, but shall serve as well
for Seyn as for Daseyn. Now truth according to Fichte would
occur thus : Being ex-ists, or is: the existence or manifestation of
Being, whereby and wherein it is (or ises,) is Knowledge ; and Truth
will occur when the knowledge or existence and the Being or inhe-
rence shall what ? conform ? no, for existence is itself the " form "
•of the otherwise formless being; the general cannot conform to the
particular, but dwells only in the "form of eternity." And see how
utterly empirical all this is. Knowledge comes forth according to
Beiug, and is secondary and not a principle ; all first is, and only sec-
ondarily is known — or, fate is the basis of being. But the truth which
we seek, and the only truth which is now held to be explanatory, is
not in an observation of a process of being or becoming or existing,
but in a process of perceiving that which eternally abides ; for in truth
all things always are. So that if we are anywhere near correctness
when we declare that the only possible explanation or truth of the
total is self-relation — a possibility or truth only to the general faculty
of mind, and to the particular faculty a contradiction — and if this
self-relation is self-knowledge, which not by any exertion but by a ne-
cessity of reason is self-determination, and if this cannot be thought
out and understood in any immediacy of imaginative or formal
thought, but must be confessed as the, conclusion of an approved pro-
cess of thinking — if truth is to be sought and gathered by the appli-
cation and test of the right system, rather than formally pictured by
the mind's eye, then is it not a fair question : What is truth ? and the
same whether we refer to truth in general or in particular? If it is
not a fair question then we particulars should be as well contented to
abide as we are, or to set back deeper into our particularity and sen-
sual limits, and filling our bellies with wine, to hoot at reason and
the gods. Mr. K. surely does not mean us to infer that we all know
the truth already. You, Mr. Editor, designate truth as "the form of
Notes and Discussions. 93
the total," and you believe " truth can be known by the thinking rea-
son." I suppose Mr. Kroeger also to know the truth, but he pays me
too great a compliment if he says that I know it also, in any other
sense than that in which Euthydemus said Socrates knew all things,
for of course the latter could not mention anything in instance of
what he did not know. I know enough of truth to mention it, and to
distinguish it from whiteness and sourness, etc., and even so I know
the number of sands on the seashore ; but to say I know " the form
of the total " in such a sense that I see how the positive is constituted
out of the negative — how all eternally abides — were to say a good deal.
To say I know that Being and Nought are equal, simply because both
are alike undetermined, and that the particulars under the general
Being, need no more invention nor explanation than so many void
spaces — that because positive infers negative, and light infers dark-
ness, so a certain region in general nothingness infers a cotton-gin — or
that any amount of sleep and death and darkness infers conscious
soul — or that because the reason of things is and must be reason, the
reason of things is my reason, or reasonable to me without further in-
quiry, is to hold me at least wiser than most folks. I should know
also the False, and the Grotesque — for the wise Greek who carved the
statue of Jupiter cut a baboon's head on the arm of his throne. Shall
not truth as the form of the total embrace the false and the illusive ?
Is not the illusive, as empirical fact, as true as the real ? death as true
as life ? When I think of these things, and remember how we weary
of monotony and sameness, I dread lest the knowledge of an unchang-
ing total should stale within the soul, and make her pine for a Mys-
tery, a Contingency, a Fate, and make her cry with Tithonus "release
me and restore me to the ground." Many evidences indicate that the
truth is just this mixture of certainty and uncertainty. Moreover, in
the ana?sthetic revelation I have a " light that was never on land or
sea," a light which belongs and abides only about the anaesthetic con-
dition, and which normally I can neither utter, remember, nor think
of, and of which all the books I can read fail utterly to remind me.
Still I read on, cherishing for the professors of philosophy a most cor-
dial fraternal feeling, and hoping yet to "know how it is myself." If
a man says he knows, I am ready to believe him ; but if I knew, it
seems to me I should be that happy and contented that I would not
call even a dog "silly," much less lament over the shallowness of
Plato, whose private conclusions are not very well known to us. But
this is a matter of personal disposition.
Now let me sum up, and set forth Mr. Kroeger's position, and see
what he says. Truth in the vulgar acceptation is the likeness or cor-
rectness of any pretended representation ; but on second thought, to
represent a thing absolutely were to double it in place and time, and
hence all pretense of actual representation is questionable to the vul-
94 Notes and Dismissions.
gar mind; the substance is not in the picture, nor is the actual life in
the story that is told. The question then arises, what is absolute
truth? and we see that absolute truth is possible only when know-
ledge is itself the objective substance of knowledge; and here the
after-thought arises that the truth of knowing-being, in order to retain
the vulgar notion of likeness, must have two items in order to like-
ness of them — for if knowing-being were absolutely one, truth would
be squeezed out of it. Rut to hold being and knowing as two, is to
have one element in the world which is beyond knoAvledge, has not
its principle in knowledge, and therefore is blind and unsafe. To ob-
viate all this a new art of thinking became necessary — the art of think-
ing self-relation — an art above the antagonism of sense and reason.
Now it is the progress (whether individual or collective) of this art
of thinking, wherein the old duplexity is obviated, which raises in
lower minds a question to the higher as to what is meant by truth, or.
what becomes of the likeness between the two sides of the old duplex-
ity when the absolute becomes one. In the new method of thinking
the immediate is not the true, in knowledge, and the conclusion is
formless save as it has the form of a system by which truth is found
but not seen. But when this process has obtained such a perfect tech-
nique or mechanism that it can be used for immediate knowing, then
the old likeness will be restored or retained by absolute dialectic.
Now Mr. Kroeger seems to believe or think that as truth is a common
phenomenon of intelligence, all question in regard of it only presup-
poses the mind's consciousness of such a relation, which, like pain, we
all have by experience, and any question of " what it is " is silly if we
only use the word conventionally; if a man shouts "Oh!" when he
is hurt, that settles the question of what is the matter with him. So
in all our uneasiness and perplexity in this existence, if we so state
the phenomena of our condition that other men identify it, all curios-
ity looking to the solution of our doubts and the relief of our anxiety
by solving the puzzle which we are, is impertinent and vain. To me
it seems that Mr. Ivroeger has not spoken relevantly of his rubric, and
that at least a part of life's puzzle is to tell what the puzzle is — that is,
to state the problem of philosophy : What is Philosophy ? And on
this theme I would be glad to hear him.
With high regard for all who even try to know the truth, I remain
your obedient servant, Benjamin Paul Blood.
Amsterdam, N. Y., December, 1875.
Notes and Discussions.
95
Exposition of the Human Form in in its Three Degrees: as Sensory
and Physical ; Rational and Moral ; Sophial and Divine.
Involved Elements. -I
"I : The Sensory Powers deal with thing's — with sense-
properties only.
II: The Rational Powers deal with things and ideas
in the interest of special science, or to special
designs in knowledge.
Ill: The Sophial Powers deal with things and ideas in
lull divine order; under the laws of unitary
science — knowledge upon principles of uni-
versal unity.
ANALYSIS AND DEFINITIONS.
Sensory Form.
(Animal).
1st. Senso-Sensory, consists of merest animal sensibilities
as allied to things and states, under express natural
conditions.
2d. Ratio-Sensory, consists of merest animal reason; reason
prompted and controlled by the wants of the animal
nature.
3d. Sophia- Sensory , consists of the animal instincts, which
are dominant in the animal nature, to direct and ful-
fil its needs.
Rational Form -]
(Human).
II.
1st. Senso-Rational, consists in merest human sensibilities,
allied, by feeling, to things, states, qualities and ideas,
as subject to human discrimination and use.
2d. Ratio-Rational, consists of distinct human powers in
rational discrimination and use ; investigating special
conditions, or analyzing and comparing, on limited
grounds.
3d. Sophia-Rational, uses the human powers in associating,
combining, synthetizing or ordering in the domain of
rational science, but subject to the limitations of par-
tial and special methods peculiar to human reason,
even at its best.
III.
1st. Senso-Sophial, involves those divine sensibilities which
feel or know — in general or involved form — the uni-
versality of Love, Wisdom and Power, and the essen-
tial harmony thereupon pending.
2d. Ratio-Sophial, reflects, and conducts all quests upon
grounds of universal unity in creative law as standard
rule of all intellectual endeavor in whatever realm the
thought explores.
3d. Sophia-Sophial, carries all feeling, thought and action
upon the infallible principle of universal unity as
fixed science ; thus classifies, associates, concludes, or
determines desired results upon the comprehensive
grounds of immutable law.
SU3IMARY STATEMENT*
f This Form, as a unit of personalit}* creatively matured in Divine Human
| Order, exhibits the full play of all these elements in normal realization of
\ the whole Sensory, Rational, and Sophial nature, as one majestic complex
I of infinite Love, Wisdom and Power, duly embodied and active, in created
L realms.
Sophial Form.
(Divine).
90 Notes and Discussions.
EXPLANATORY.
The above is an attempt to make a very concise index of the forms
and forces of character that combine to make mature manhood — ''the
perfect man in Christ Jesus." The animal form is essential as a base
sensibly lodged; the human form is essential to fix and unfold spirit-
ual subjectivity or proper self-hood, as a requisite vessel given for the
inflow of Divine Life; and the Divine Form — infinitely perfect — is es-
sential consummating power, by which alone immortal bliss and glory
can become a conscious reality to man.
In this method of analysis and definition, mental forms, or forms of
character, have been mainly in view. Truest estimates take account
of these, rather than of mere physical form, which only serves as
house or vehicle to such conditions.
Without due estimates of the design and bearing of the whole thinsr,
the leading phraseology of the different moments may seem far-fetched
and awkward. But when it is considered that it is intended to make
a verbal investure of a whole conception as a measured diversity, in a
comprehensive unity, the propriety of such terms will readily appear.
The conception is one which embraces creative diversity in scientific
unity, under a formal law of trinity. Any phraseology that would
consistently present this conception in a comprehensive analysis, must
be shaped to carry, constantly, the specials in the general, and the
general in the specials. Unquestionably the great need of the times
is a scientific ordering of all thought, all conduct, and all conditions
of life, upon the ground of the integrity and constancy of the special
or individual in the universal or public, and the integrity of the uni-
versal, public, or associate, in the fulfilled specials.
A special that does not in its form and degree partake of the uni-
versal, or a universal that is exclusive of the least special, is simply
impossible. Hence Swedenborg, treating of creative order, says sub-
stantially, " the least is in the greatest, as the greatest is in the least."
Now, in classifying mental characteristics, and defining the various
degrees as Sense, Reason, and Wisdom, we are directly led, on the
ground above stated, to this process, namely : We proceed to find
reason and wisdom in sense in their sensory character or degree,
sense and wisdom in reason in their rational character or degree, and
sense and reason in wisdom in their sophial character or degree.
Thought conducted upon this method can never be exclusive or par-
tial, but fully comprehensive. It cannot be thus limited to the sim-
plistic in form ; but it arises to the fully consistent and composed, ac-
cording to the commanding order of serial law.
Knowing this process of analysis and classification to be in strict
accordance with fundamental creative law and believing the defini-
tions adduced sufficiently indicate its validity, let us come closer to
Notes and Discussions. 97
the question of phraseology, or verbal investure. If the major term
is thus constant in the minor and the minor is equally constant in the
major, we must, in order to be duly explicit and exact, construct ver-
bal terms that will consistently hold and carry the precise conception ;
hence in dealing with the sensory degree we must find its dominant
character under the head of senso-sensory, and its subordinates under
the terms reason-sensory and wisdom-sensory : Then, in dealing
with the rational, as the next higher form, we must find the sensorv
and sophial in form appropriate to that degree, and invest them with
verbal terms accordingly ; and, proceeding to the next form, wisdom,
we must find sense and reason there sophially conditioned, and give
them verbal vesture accordingly. Thus we are led to construct and
apply forms of investure befitting the actual conditions apprehended
by strict conceptions of immutable law; the terminal form of that
investure indicating the constant one and the prefixes thereof indicat-
ing the variable conditions of the one.
This is held to be a true method of procedure, to whatever extent
analysis may be cax*ried ; though it is deemed impracticable, and gen-
erally difficult, to carry an analysis beyond the extent indicated in the
formula.
If this method be regarded as simply speculative and curious, and
void of practical availability in the affairs of experience, I would say
that, as a comprehensive principle of creative law fundamental to all
whole thought and all well-ordered conditions, I do not hesitate to
propose it as a practical solvent of the knotty problems of the times,
and as basic in a commanding science of mind and mind's essential
conditions. If capable of such construction and use, there will be
found no limit to practical reordering and reconstruction to be realized
thereby, except in the actual consummation of Divine-Human Order;
wherein the flow of life must be continually accordant with perfected
scientific organization.
'&*
Let no one suppose this presentation assumes to be more than a
faint outline, with briefest hints in definition. Nor must it be over-
looked that the elements indicated will be found wearing very differ-
ent aspects, in their productive function in development, and in their
function of organic use in the play of fully developed conditions — all
of which may be explicated on occasion. Theron Gray.
Concord, N. H., Sept., 1875.
Dr. HickoWs Definition of a Transcendental Logic."
In the last number of this journal Dr. Hickok explained aud de-
fended in a concise manner his position in regard to the chief systems
of German Philosophy, whose principle he characterized under the
X— 7
98 Notes and Discussions.
name of " Transcendental Logic." (See J. S. P. Vol. IX., pp. 222,
328, 430). Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, he thinks, reached only
an abstract generalization from experience as their highest principle,
and this, whether called by them "absolute Ego," "absolute Identity,"
" Idea," " God," or " Self-determination," is only a totality of all po-
tentialities, things, men. "The universal is but the total of empirical
thought ; Life, cognition and Avill are forms of thinking, and cre-
ating can be conceived only as a process and result of interminable
thought-activity." He would make the whole philosophy of Kant
and his successors turn on the question of form and matter in judg-
ments.
In contrast with this principle he defines that of the " Logic of Rea-
son " : " Instead in any way of a deduction from what is in experience,
it is an induction from without and so a production of somewhat that
is wholly new knowledge. It sees in the experience a clear implication
of a somewhat that must have already been, or the experience itself
had been impossible [i. e., not derivable by analysis from experience
as contained under the latter but inferable as the logically necessary
condition of it]. It knows the conditions on which alone experience
can be, and with which the experience must be and could not other-
wise have been than it is. It is not therefore in any sense an arbitrary
presupposition taken just because it has been needed; it is a legiti-
mate prerequ is ition taken because known a priori to have been in
order to the experience, and in which is the primal ' sufficient rea-
son ' for the experience."
Limiting as he does the work of the so-called "Transcendental
Logic " to mere abstraction and generalization from human experi-
ence, he affirms life, cognition, and will as found in Hegel's system to
be only "forms of thinking." The " Idea in its identity" contains
"all matter and form, thinking and being, in one," and is therefore
pantheistic.
Here, however, it is claimed that the Transcendental logic is not
accredited with what is its due. Even for Kant it may be claimed
that he did not abstract from experience but added to experience syn-
thetically his "pure intuitions" and ideas. Looking at sense-percep-
tion he saw that in order to make it possible there must be a logical
condition (" prerequisition" as Dr. H. calls it) viz: Time and space
must be conceded as forms of mind existing a priori. Time and
space as forms of mind antedating all possible experience are not
generalizations from experience, or as Kant expresses it they "are no
discursive or as we say general conceptions of the relations of things,
but pure intuitions." This he demonstrates by showing that we can-
not think particular spaces or times without presupposing one univer-
sal space or one universal time as the logical condition thereof. The
particular spaces or times can be thought only as limitations of the
one all-embracing space or time. So too with the Ideas of God,
Notes and Discussions. 99
Freedom and Immortality. If sense-perception has its a priori form
transcending all human experience, so too has the Will certain logical
conditions which are required to make even the least of its acts possi-
ble. These are first, its own spontaneity (Freedom) ; second, its im-
mortality (freedom implies responsibility aud the latter implies im-
mortality) ; third, God or the personality of the absolute (for man as
rising in nature aud the last link of its series can be neither free nor
immortal unless the highest principle of the Universe is a free, per-
sonal one, transcending Nature and any form of fate whatsoever.) And
if the highest principle of the Universe is free and personal, it is cer-
tain that Nature, emanating from such a source, will close its series
in a final product which will transcend it (Nature) and reflect the
highest principle by means of and through its own self-activity. So
much is in Kant, on the surface or near the surface of his " Critique
of the Practical Keason." To sum it up: Any, the slightest act of
human will, preferring duty to sensuous desire, postulates God, Hu-
man Freedom, Responsibility and Immortality, just as much as the
perception of any space-occupying object implies out-lying space ex-
tending ad infinitum. To a logical mind, as Kant shows, the
briefest manifestation of that human will reveals in it an immortal
individuality, and the personality of the highest Principle ot the
Universe.
What is in Kant is likewise^in Fichte with still more intensity of
expression aud strictness of demonstration — (not, perhaps, to be found
in any of the expounders of Fichte that have written popular sum-
maries of his system, because they have studied first of all to be epi-
grammatic and sensational in their account of it, and hence have ex-
aggerated all its insights into paradoxes).
Schilling's earlier system needs to be read in the light of his latter.
His Mysticism must interpret his Philosophy of Nature. If one bears
this in mind he will not find Schelling's system pantheistic. .
As for Hegel, his Logic and his Phenomenology of Mind everywhere
show up mere abstractions or generalizations from experience to be
inadequate. He uses the method of presupposition or " prerequisi-
tion" constantly, and points out that it was the moving principle of
the far-famed Platonic Dialectic. In his Republic (Book VI., Chap.
NX. and XXI.) Plato defines the dialectic method as one that proceeds
from the immediately given or assumed (i"a~ v-nodeoeig-) back to its
ultimate presuppositions, cancelling the first assumed on finding them
inadequate, until it arrives at the first principle. In his Logic (Vol.
III., 3 Abschnitt, Kap. III.) Hegel describes the nature of the " Idea,"
which he has reached as the ultimate principle of the Universe : "The
highest, steepest summit, is the pure personality * * * * which
possesses freedom." " The Absolute Idea is not merely soul but free
subjective cognition that comprehends speculatively, and exists inde-
pendently as person and will, an impenetrable, atomic subjectivity, as
100 Notes and Discussions.
personal will and as theoretically cognizing all truth." Again in the
Encyclopaedia (Vol. I., $236) he says: "This [the Absolute Idea] is
the vdrjaig- vo?joe(jj- which Aristotle characterized as the highest form
of the Idea."
In his Logic he first examines whether truth or true being is imme-
diate or absolutely simple, whether, in short, being exists out of rela-
tion. If any being or'any somewhat exists entirely without relation,
it cannot in anywise be determinate or have particularity or speciali-
zation : it cannot exist for another or even for itself; it can have no
difference from aught else. The simple immediate is absolutely null.
Such categories as quality, quantity and measure are used by the
mind with a presupposition that there is an independent simple imme-
diateness. In fact the sensuous consciousness thinks all things as es-
sentially existing, as self-subsistent, and while it does not deny rela-
tion between them, it supposes all relation to be an accidental, unes-
sential affair.
The dialectical examination of the categories of Being (which is
conducted in detail in the three volumes of Hegel's " Complete
Logic ") results in proving that Relation is essential to all beings.
That dependence is a necessary characteristic of individual existences.
Each is in and through something else. Mediation is the basis of im-
mediateness. Pure immediateness is consequently the illusion of im-
mature thinking. Immediateness is apparent and phenomenal.
The second task of logic is to examine the character of Phenome-
nality (manifestation, appearance, seeming) and essentiality. Nega-
tivity is shown to be relativity. Relativity is duality, and to it be-
longs all finitude. Spinoza says : "All that is, is either in itself or in
some other," i. e., it is either through its relation to something else,
or non-related, or self-related. The category of dependence is solved
by the principle of self-relation. The general formula is : (a) All is
negative or relative ; each depends on another. This is the status of
cause and effect, of force and manifestation, of form and matter,
&c. (b) Dependence and Relation however are impossible, except a^
grounded through independence and self-relation. Otherwise we
should have a dependent that did not depend on anything, or a relative
that did not relate, (c) The independent is self-relating because it cannot
be a simple immediate somewhat — such would be a form of being and
devoid of relation, hence devoid of determinateness, and therefore
null. It is relativity regarded as a whole, or totality. For the rela-
tive by itself must be relative to itself. The negative by itself
is the negative of itself. Self-relativity or self-negativity is
self-determination, and, (a) involves pure universality as its
first phase or determining-activity ; such pure identity is an
Ego, (b) as determined it is the phase of particularity — self-objectiv-
ity — reduction of identity to opposition and difference — conscious-
ness, (c) as self-determining or totality it is a pure activity which con-
Notes and Discussions. 101
tinually generates difference, and yet continually dissolves this differ-
ence into unity with itself through recognition, hence .it is self-con-
sciousness. This, then, is the highest principle of all.
How the self-conscious One is related to the world we discussed in
the note on "Pantheism, or God the TJniverse," (J. S. P. for July,
1875). It would he a mistake (according to our view) to suppose this
totality of self-relation a sort of indifferent totality or dead result.
The essential point to note is that its self-relation reduces its differ-
ences to identity, and yet the same self-relation is self-determination,
and hence generative of difference. Such an activity is exactly what
we find in self-consciousness, and is not possible as a dead identity
It is a living activity. As highest Principle of the Universe, it
must next explain the world and the multiplicity of " potentialities,
things, men." This it does, as we have endeavored to show in the
note referred to. Editor.
An Old Picture.
Wrapped in a charmed indolence
AVith slothful lashes half-dropped down,
On cheeks just flushed with quickened sense
Of some sweet pain that she has known —
'Tis so the artist paints her, well
If we could break the silences
Of long-forgotten years to tell
What followed on those hours of peace.
If we could read in those calm eyes
The story of her after years —
If any ship, sailed any seas
And brought her costly freight of tears.
If agony held secret power
To pale the sweetness of her mouth —
And rob her of her pictured dower
Of beauty, or her heritage of youth,
What then ? we know that she was fair —
We know that through immortal years
The canvas boasts the unfaded hair,
The glorious eyes, undimmed with tears.
How much of joy or pain was hers,
What curious soul should guess or care ?
We stand among her worshippers
And only know — that she was fair.
Boston, October, 1875. Mary Christine Kipp.
102 Boole Notices.
Editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy :
The argument of Mr. Spencer, (First Principles), shows that evolu-
tion is attended with loss of heat, citing, inter alia, as an instance,
the earth, the contraction of which was coincident with loss of heat.
According to Mr. S.'s view, it is further shown that evolution ends in
dissolution. But he shows that dissolution is attended with acquisi-
tion of heat. Will Mr. S. explain how it is that evolution, which is
attended with loss of heat, can end in dissolution, which is attended
with the acquisition thereof? M. M. COHN.
Little Rock, Ark.. Dec. 25, 1375.
BOOK NOTICES.
La Filosofla dell a Scuole Italiane, Bivisia Bimestrale contenente
gli atti della Societk promotrice degli studj filosojlci e letterarj.
Roma.
The first appearance of this philosophical periodical was noticed hy
this journal in 1871 (Vol. V., p. 94). In 1872, upon the commencement
of the fifth volume, its place of publication was transferred from
Florence to Rome, where it has remained. A table of contents to the
first three volumes and to two parts of Vol. IV. has been given (J.
Sp. Phil., Vol. VI.. p. 189). In order to make the notice of this able
periodical complete, a translation of the contents of the numbers that
have appeared since is here given. Two volumes of three numbers
each appear annually. The editorial corps, commencing with the
fifth volume, included Count Terenzio Mamiani editor-in-chief, with
G. M. Bertini, L. Ferri, F. Bonatelli, and G. Barzellotti associates.
It will be noticed that each number contains a report of the transac-
tions of The /Society for the Promotion of Philosof)hy and Letters.
In fact this review is the organ of that society.
Vol. IV.. Part 3 — Contents — (1). Transactions of the Society for
the Promotion of the Study of Philosophy and Literature in Italy ; a
circular to the members of the society. A list of the members resi-
dent in Rome. An account of the proceedings of the society during
the years 1870-71. Letter of the secretary, Augusto Franchetti, con-
cerning the general assembly of the 29th October, 1871. (2). Philo-
sophical Conversations, by F. Bonatelli. (3). The Second Revival of
the Academy in Italy. Letter to Dr. G. Descours di Tournay, by Te-
renzio Mamiani. (4). The Influence of Philosophy upon the National
Spirit of Germany, by[Dr. Giuseppe Descours di Tournay. (5). Phi-
losophy of Religion, Church and State, by Terenzio Mamiani. (6).
Book Xotices. 103
Analysis and Criticisms of new works: Essay upon " The History
of Philosophy in Italy in the Nineteenth Century." by L. Ferri; Paris
1869, (by Prof. Francisco Lavarino). Notices of Philosophy and Lit-
erature in America, England, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. In-
dex to Vol. IV.
Vol. V., Part 1. — Contents. — (1). Programme by the editors.
(2). Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of the
Study of Philosophy and Literature. (3). The Form of Philosophic
Thought or Method, by L. Ferri. (4). U/pon Count Terenzio Mami-
ani's Theory of the Objectivity of the Idea, by A. Franchi. (5).
Notes upon the preceding article, by T. Mamiani. (6). The Oriental
and Occidental Tradition, by A. Severini. (7). Formation of the
Idea, a dialogue between a Kantian and a Platonist, by T. Mamiani.
(9). Necrology ; Adolph Trendelenburg, by G. Barzellotti. (10). Bib-
liography, by S. Turbiglio. Notices. Part 2. — Contents. — (1). Trans-
actions of the Society, &c. (2). Common Sense in Philosophy, and
its History, by L. Ferri. (3). Philosophy of Nature, The Method of
Positive Science, by L. Barb era. (4). The Origin of the Idea, accord-
ing to the Peripatetics, a letter to Prof. Valerga, by T. Mamiani. (5).
Reply of the Abbot Pietro Valerga. (6). Upon Perception, a letter
to Count T. Mamiani, by F. Tocco. (7). Upon the same subject, a
letter to Prof. Tocco, by T. Mamiani. (8). Other Considerations upon
Theories of Perception, by G. Jandelli. (9). Synthetical Judgment a
priori, in the Philosophy of Kant and in the Italian Doctrine of the
Nineteenth Century, by L. Ferri. (10) Notices. Circular. Part2>. — Con-
tents. — (1). Transactions of the Society, &c. (2). The Mind Accord-
ing to Spinoza, by S. Turbiglio. (3). Philosophy of History in the
Latin and Teutonic Races, by T. Mamiani. (4). Necrology, by G.
Barzellotti. (5). Letter to Terenzio Mamiani, by Nicola Mameli.
(6). Conception of Cause in the School of Herbart, by L. Ferri. (7).
Count T. Mamiani's Theory of the Objectivity of the Idea, by F. La-
varino. (8). Bibliography, by S. Turbiglio. Recent Publications.
Vol. VI., Part 1. — Contents. — (1). Transactions of the Society, &c.
(2). The Mind According to Spinoza, by S. Turbiglio. (3). Percep-
tion According to Positive Philosophy, by Settimio Piperno. (4).
Chai-acter of the Italian Philosophy, and the Latest Sketch of the
Platonic Doctrine, by T. Mamiani. (5). Other Considerations of the
Theory of Perception, by G. landelli. (6). Dr. Julius Hermann
Kirchmann's Theory of Knowledge, translation, &c, by L. Ferri.
(7). Prolegomena to every past and future Criticism of Reason, by G.
M. Bertini. (8). Count f . Mamiani's Theory of the Objectivity of
the Idea, by F. Lavarino. (9). Bibliography— thirty lectures, &c, by
(S. Turbiglio). Count Cattera Lettieri's Introduction to Moral Philos-
ophy and the Strictly Rational, (by the editors). Recent Publica-
tions. New circular by the Eleventh General Assembly of the Italian
Scientists. Part 2. — Contents.— (1). Transactions of the Society, &c
104: Boole Notices.
{2). Philosophy of Religion — Critique on Revelation, by T. Mamiani.
(3). Philosophy of Religion ; upon Revelation in Religion, &c, a
letter to T. Mamiani from L. Ferri. (4) A Letter to L. Ferri from
T. Mamiani. (5). Prolegomena to every past and future Criticism of
Reason, by G. M. Bertini. (6). Count T. Mamiani' s Theory upon the
Objectivity of the Idea, by F. Lavarino. (7). Upon the Origin of the
Idea According to the Peripatetics, by Pietro Valerga. (8). Conclu-
sion Concerning Kant and his Critique of Knowledge, by T. Mami-
ani. (9). Bibliography; The Philosophy of Statistics: Introduction
of Prof. A. Messedaglia, (by S. Turbiglio). R. Mariano's " The Reli-
gious Problem in Italy," (by L. Ferri). Foreign Philosophical Re-
views. In Memoriam : Dr. Lorenzo Cerise, (by L. Ferri). Notices.
Part 3.— Contents.— Transactions of the Society, &c. (2). Benedict
Spinoza, part third : of the Mind and Cognition, by S. Turbiglio.
(3). Philosophic Conversation Concluded, by F. Bonatelli. (4). Notes
on Political Philosophy, Principles of Radicalism and Conservatism,
T. Mamiani. (5). Count Terenzio Mamiani's Theory of the Object-
ivity of the Idea, by F. Lavarino. (6). Bibliography, Sermon of a
Layman, &c, (by S. Turbiglio). General index of the six parts for
1872.
Vol. VII., Part I— Contents. — (I). Programme by the Editors.
Transactions of the Society, &c. (2). Philosophy of Religion ; Crit-
ique on Revelation, by T. Mamiani. (3). Perception According to Pos-
itive Philosophy, by S. Piperno. (4). Upon the Principle and Idea of
Cause, according to the School of Herbart, by Luigi Ferri. (5). The
Conception of Logic, by F. Bonatelli. (6). The "Italian School" and
its Works. (7). Bibliography. Recent Publications. Part 2— Con-
tents.— (1), Transactions of the Society, &c. (2). Philosophy of Re-
ligion ; Critique on Revelation, by T. Mamiani. (3). The Doctrine of
Berkeley and his Theory on Association, by T. Collyns Simon. (4).
Contemporaneous Psychology, and the Problem of Consciousness, by
G. Barzellotti. (5). The Doctrine of Perception, by S. Turbiglio. (6).
Bibliography, by the Editors. (7). Philosophical Journals. Part 3,
Contents.— (1). Transactions of the Society, &c. (2). The Doctrine
of Berkeley and the Theory of Association, by T. Collyns Simon.
(3). A Letter in Reply to T. Collyns Simon, by T. Mamiani. (4).
Fragments of Girolamo Clario's Philosophy, by F. Bonatelli. (5). A
Short Commentary upon an unedited letter of Prof. Castagnola, by T.
Mamiani. (6). The Ideal and the True in Art ; a dialogue between a
poet, a professor and a painter, by P. E. Castagnola. f7). Upon Ex-
ternal Causes, letters to Prof. Luigi Ferri, by T. Mamiani. (8). Study
of the Phaedrusof Plato, by E. Ferrai. (9). Bibliography (by the edit-
ors). Recent Publications.
Vol. VIII., Part 1— Contents.— (I). Transactions of the Society,
&c. (2). Critique on Revelation; a letter to Prof. Bertini, by T.
Mamiani. (3). The Philosophy of Nature and the Doctrine of Ber-
Book Notices. 105
uardus Telesius, by L. Ferri. (4). Fragmental Remains of the Philos-
ophy of Girolamo Clario, by F. Bonatelli. (5). Italian Psychology ; a
letter to Prof. Jacopo Barzellotti, by T. Mamiani. (6). The Practical
Philosophy of Herbart, by A. Paoli. (7). The History of Philosophy
Respecting the Cognition of God, by C. Antonaci. (8) Bibliography.
Review of Foreign Philosophy. Recent Publications. Part 2.— Con-
tents.— (I). Transactions of the Society, &c. (2). The Dialectic Unity
according to the Ancients and Moderns, by B. Labauca. (3). The New
Prolegomena to every present and future system of Metaphysics, by
T. Mamiani. (4). Upon Sentiment (or Feeling), by C Cantoni. (5).
The Conception and Limits of Anthropology, by F. Tocco. (6). Bib-
liography, (by A. Valdarnini and L. Ferri). Review of Foreign Phi-
losophy. Recent Publications. Part 3.— Contents.— (1). Transactions
of the Society, &c. (2). New Prolegomena to every present and future
Metaphysics, by T. Mamiani. (3). Upon a Preliminary Question in
Every Philosophy, by G. M. Bertini. (4). Anthropology and Peda-
gogy, by F. Bonatelli. (5). The Dialectic Unity according to the An-
cients and Moderns, by B. Labanca. (6). Bibliography, Review of
Foreign Philosophy. Recent Publications, M« J. tt,
Die Zeitschrift fuer Philosophic unci Philosophische Kritik. Edited
by Dr. J. H. v. Fichte, Dr. Hermauu Ulrici, and Dr. J. U. Wirth.
Halle : E. E. M. Pfeffer.
We translate the table of contents of the 66th volume of this ably ed-
ited periodical : 1, Dr. A. Dorner on the Principles of Kantian Ethics
continued ; 2, Prof. E. Grapengiesser's third and last article on The
Transcendental Deduction ; Kant and Fries (with references to the
works of J. Bona Meyer, O. Liebmann, Kuno Fischer, Ed. Zeller,
Herm. Cohen and Edm. Montgomery); 3, Dr. J. "Wolff's third article
on The Platonic Dialectic, its Nature and Worth for Human Know-
ledge ; 4, Unprinted Correspondence of Kant and Fichte, communica-
ted by Prof. Teichmueller at Dorpat ; 5, Dr. J. Wolff on the Platonic
Dialectic as method.
The most important book reviews are the following : By Prof.
Erdmann of Prof. K. Werner (a) on the Psychology of William of
Auvergne, and (b) on His Relation to the Platonists of the Twelfth
Century, also (c) on The Cosmology and Natural Science of the
Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. By Br. H. Siebeck of G. Teich-
mueller's History of the Idea of the Tragovala. By Dr. Wirth of
Dr. Ed. Pfleiderer's Empiricism and Scepticism in David Hume's
Philosophy, as the final sundering of the English mental, moral and
religious sciences. By Dr. P. Schuster of H. Siebeck's Investigations
of Greek Philosophy. By Prof. Ulrici {a) of the Province of Logic,
with special reference to E. Sigwart's Logic ; (b) of Kant's treatise on
the Power of the Heart to achieve the mastery over its abnormal feel-
ings by mere resolution (of the will); (c) of T. K. Abbott's translation
10G Book Notices.
of Kant's Theory of Ethics or Practical Philosophy ; (d) of B. P.
Bowne's Examination of the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer; (e) of
Robert Flint's Philosophy of History in Fiance and Germany ; (/) of
G. S. Morris's translation of Ueberweg's History of Philosophy. Ry
Dr. von. Fichte of Maximilian Perty's Anthropology as the Science
of the Corporeal and Spiritual Nature of Man, second article. By
Dr. Pjteiderer of Idealism and Realism as found in Baumann's "Phi-
losophy as the Means of Orienting one's self in Regard to the World."
By Dr. A. JRichter (a) of Franz Hoffman's Philosophical Writings :
(b) of Demetrius von Glinka's "Human Society in its Relations to
Freedom and Law (Rechts);" (c) of Carl D. A. Boeder's edition of Carl
Chr. Fr. Krause's Lectures on the Philosophy of Law, (Rechts). Ap-
pendix: Adolph Steudel's Reply to Dr. Schwartz on the Question of
Monism and Dualism.
Verhandlungen der Philosophischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin. Erstes Heft. Leip-
zig : Erich Koschny, 1875.
Contents.— {I) Professor A. Lasson's lecture on Mechanism and Tel-
eology, delivered before the Philosophical Society of Berlin, Sept. 26,
1874. (2). Dr. Frederich's Lecture on The Principles of Critical Ideal-
ism, delivered at the session of the society Oct. 31, 1874. A brief re-
port also is made of the discussions which took place at the close of
the lectures
The second part of the same work contains (1) Professor Michelet's
Lecture on Idealism and Realism, delivered at the session March 27,
1875. (2). Dr. A. Vogel's Lecture on the Problem of Matter, delivered
at the session April 24, 1875. It is the intention of the society to con-
tinue the publication of its proceedings, and a committee of editors
composed of Dr. Ascherson, Dr. Frederichs and Dr. von Kirchmann,
is appointed to take charge of the preparation of the work. Inasmuch
as the members of the society represent the greatest diversity in their
philosophical views, their discussions are rendered all the more inter-
esting. We notice among the names of the participants in these dis-
cussions those of von Kirchmann and von Heydebreck, besides those
of the lecturers before named.
Philosophische Monatshefte unter Mitwirkung von Dr. F. Ascherson und Dr.
J. Bergmann, redigirt und herausgegeben von Dr. E. Bratuscheck. Leip-
zig: Erich Koschny, 1876.
The ten numbers of the twelfth volume, 1875, have been received.
We translate from the rich table of contents the following:
I. Treatises published during the year: 1, on Positivism in Sci-
ence, by Prof. E. Bratuscheck of Giessen ; 2, on the Study of the Hu-
man Sciences, of Society and the State, by Prof. W. Dilthey of Bres-
lau ; 3, The Philosophy of Religion of Averroes, by Prof. Merx of
Heidelberg; 4, The Present Attitude of the Cosmological Problem.
Boole Notices* 107
by Dr. H. Vaihinger of Leipzig ; 5, The Law of Codification, by Prof.
Merx ; 6, Arthur Schopenhauer, by D. Jose del Perojo of Madrid ;
7, An Investigation of the Perceptibility of Phenomena, and of the
Imperceptibility of Essence, by Maximilian Drossbach of Donau-
woerth ; 8, Correction of a Mistake on the part of a Translator and
Expounder of Plato, by Dr. Wiegand of Giessen.
II. Book Reviews — (a) Relating to the Philosophical Theory of
the World; 1 and 2, Edm. Pfleiderer and Prof. Wundt, The Province
of Philosophy in the Present Time ; 3, Dr. von Kirchmann on the
Principle of Religion ; 4, Rev. Kluge, Philosophical Fragments ; 5 ?
Dr. Strauss and Belief in Miracles ; 6, Dr. Vitringa, Man as Animal
and Spiritual Being, (b) Relating to the History of Philosopihy; 1.
Prof. Rud. Eucken on the Value of the History of Philosophy ; 2,
Prof. George S. Morris's translation of Ueberweg's History of Phi-
losophy ; 3, Prof. Alfr. Weber's History of European Philosophy ; 4,
Robt. Zimmermann,Kant and Positivism ; 5, Prof. Carriere and Count
von Bothmer ; 6, Rev. Potter, History of Philosophy, and The Per-
sonal God and the World ; 7, Thilo on Herbart's Claim as a Philoso-
pher; 8, Dr. Duehring, Critical History of Philosophy; 9, Prof. Ros-
enkranz's "New Studies ;" 10, Dr. AViegand, Literature of the Letters
of Plato, (c) Relating to Psychology; 1, Prof. Brentano, Psychology
from an Empirical Standpoint; 2, Ochorowics, Conditions of Con-
sciousness, (d) Relating to Logic : Prof. Harms, The Reform of
Logic, (e) Relating to Modern Nature-Philosophy: Alex. Waissner,
The Atom. (/) To the Philosophy of History; Prof. Flint's Philos-
ophy of History in Europe, (g) To Religious Questions: 1, Dr.
Asmus, The Indo-Germanic Religion ; 2, Prof. Grau, Origin and Goal
of our Culture-Development.
Besides these there are many notices of books and periodicals ; many
discussions of questions of current interest. We note that Dr. Porter
of Yale College contributes three articles on Philosophy in North
America. There are excellent indexes of current philosophical litera-
ture, as well as of notices and reviews of philosophical works appear-
ing in contemporary journals.
Mind, a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy. Edited by George
Croom Robertson, M. A., Professor of Logic and Mental Philosophy in
University College, London. London. Williams & Norgate. No. 1. Jan.,
1876.
Our readers will" greet with cordial interest the appearance of a new
philosophical journal in the English language. The first number of
the new enterprise is before us with the follwing table of contents:
Preparatory Words by the Editor.
The Comparative Psychology of Man, by Herbert Spencer.
Physiological Psychology in Germany, by James Sully.
Consistency and Real Inference,. by John Venn.
108 Book Notices.
The Theory of Evolution in its Application to Practice, by Henry
Sidgwick.
Philosophy and Science, by Shad worth II. Hodgson.
Philosophy at Oxford, by the Rector of Lincoln College.
Early Life of James Mill, by Professor Bain.
Critical Notices, Reports, Notes, &c, by G. H. Lewes, Professor
Flint, J. G-. McKendriek, Professor T. M. Lindsay, and others ; Books
of the Quarter and News, including notices of Brentano's Empirical
Psychology, Lassaua's Physiology of the Nervous Centres of the En-
cephalon, Hughlings Jackson's Researches on the Nervous System,
â– Spencer's Principles of Sociology, and Cairne's Logical Method of Po-
litical Economy ; Reports on physiological journals and German phi-
losophical journals, Psychology in Holland, &c, &c.
We insert the prospectus, which gives account of the scope and
design of " Mind."
Mind will be an organ for the publication of original researches, and
a critical record of the progress made in Psychology and Philosophy.
Psychology, while drawing its fundamental data from subjective
consciousness, will be understood in the widest sense, as covering all
related lines of objective inquiry. Thus, due prominence will be
:given to the physiological investigation of Nerve-structures. At the
â– same time, Language and all other natural expressions or products of
mind, Insanity and all other abnormal mental phases, the Manners
and Customs of Races as eyinciug their mental nature, mind as exhib-
ited in Animals generally — much of what is meant by Anthropology
and all that is meant by Comparative Psychology— will come within
the scope of the Review.
[Beyond Psychology, account will be taken of Logic, ./Esthetics and
'Ethics, the theory of mental functions being naturally followed by the
doctrine of their regulation.
The practical application of psychological theory to Education will
receive the attention it so urgently claims at the present time.
For the rest, "Mind" will be occupied with general Philosophy.
Even as a scientific journal, it cannot evade ultimate questions of the
philosophical order, suggested as these are with peculiar directness by
psychological inquiry. There is, also, a function truly philosophical
winch only the investigator of mind is in a position to discharge, the
task, namely, of collating and sifting the results of the special scien-
ces with a view alike to insight and conduct. But "Mind" will, far-
ther, expressly seek to foster thought of bold sweep—sweep that can
â– never be too bold, so be that it starts from a well ascertained ground
•of experience, and looks to come again there to rest.
Nor, in this connection, will the History of Philosophy be over-
looked : whether as it involves the critical appreciation of the sys-
tems of thought, more or less speculative, which eager minds in every
Booh Notices. 109
age have [been impelled to frame ; or as it seeks to understand impor-
tant thinkers in the record of their lives ; or, finally, as it may take
note of what is being done or left undone in the present day at the
intellectual centres where thought and inquiry should be most active.
" Mind " will include among its contributors some of the foremost
workers in psychology and philosophy on the Continent and in Amer-
ica.
Writers will sign, and be alone responsible for, their contributions.
"Mind" will not be the organ of any philosophical school, unless it
be held the mark of a school to give prominence to psychological in-
quiry.
Correspondence will be printed if it communicates new facts of
scientific importance or expresses reasoned opinions.
" Mind " will be published quarterly on the first of January, April,.
July, and October, and may be purchased of all booksellers at 3s per
number.
Revue Philosophique de la France et de 1' etranger, dirigee par Th.
Ribot. Premiere Annee. 1. Janvier, 1876. Paris : Libraire Gernier
Bailliere et Cie.
Cotemporaneous with the appearance of "'Mind," the English or-
gan of Psychology and Mental-Philosophy, appears a philosophical
review in France, devoted mainly to the same movement. "While the
former is a quarterly, however, the latter is a monthly, each number
being of the same size as a number of the Journal of Speculative
Philosophy. The contents of the first two numbers are as follows :
January, 1876, No. I', {a) Preface; (6) H. Taine on the Acquisi-
tion of Language by Infants and Primitive Races ; (c) P. Janet on
Final Causes ; (d) Herbert Spencer on a Comparative Psychology of
Man ; (e) Analyses and Notices : (1) Horwicz's Psychological Anal-
yses upon Physiological Bases ; (2) Despine's De La Folie, &c; (3)
Schmitz-Dumont's "Time and Space" ; (4) Giraud Teulon's " Origin
of the Family " ; (5) Guarin de Vitry's Sketch of Sociology ; (6) Kuno
Fischer's Francis Bacon. (/) Reviews of Foreign Periodicals : (1)
Philosophische Monatshefte ; (2) Zeitschrift fuer Philosophic wad
Philosophische KritiTc. {g) Bibliography and announcements.
February, 1876, No. 2. (a) W. Wundton the Mission of Philosophy
in the Present Time : (6) Ch. Benard on Contemporary Aesthetics in
Germany ; (c) G. H. Lewes on the Hypothesis of the Specific Energy
of the Nerves ; (cZ) P. Tannery on the Nuptial Number in Plato ;
(e) Analyses and Notices : (1) of W. Wundt's Influence of Philosophy
upon Experimental Science ; (2) of E. von Hartmann's Religion of the
Future ; (3) of A. Lemoine's Habit and Instinct ; (4) of A. Brentano's
Empirical Psychology ; (5) of J. H. Jackson's Localization of Cerebral
Movement. (/) Reviews of Foreign Periodicals: (1) Mind, a Quar-
110 Book Notices.
terly Review of Psychology and Philosophy ; (2) The Journal of Spec-
ulative Philosophy ; (3) Notes and Announcements.
In his preface the editor announces that his review will be open to
all schools of philosophy. It proposes to give a complete and exact
view of the actual movement in philosophy, without exclusiveness or
special proclivity towards any one school. It offers a neutral ground
for writers of all classes, upon which they can present their systems
for criticism and study. Here, therefore, is an opportunity afforded
for the removal of wrong impressions and for fair, impartial judg-
ment. While, therefore, eclecticism is avoided as of no value, it gives
room to each school to represent its claims. There is Positivism, the
Experimental School of France, Germany and England, the Critical
School following Kant, and Spiritualism inspired by Maine de Bi-
ran. Of the questions which the editor hopes to discuss he names the
following : Psychology in its connection with Anatomy and Physiol-
ogy, Mental Pathology, History and Anthropology. Logic and
./Esthetics are regarded as departments of Psychology, "the
former studving the mechanism of the human reason, the latter
a certain form of pleasure — that which the beautiful excites in
us." Ethics — relating to human actions is to be discussed in its rela-
tion to religion, to positive science, to social and natural bases. The
theories of natural science will be examined in the light of Philoso-
phy, especially those relating to the principle of the correlation of
forces, to the hypothesis of evolution, to chemical theories and to
theories of Life. Finally, the questions regarding the possibility of
Metaphysics as a Science. Meanwhile the Review is to demand of
Metaphysicians the facts on which they base their conclusions, being
convinced that no one can neglect experience without running the
danger of basing himself upon creations of his imagination and upon
mystical effusions ; but a pure Empiricism it avoids. Its great value
to French thought will be manifest in its influence in behalf of a more
thorough study of the previous works in each department. The la-
bor of solitary students who waste their time in going over useless
and sterile investigations will be spared. Oriented by the history of
Philosophy each will make the best use ot his time and opportunities.
A very interesting list of articles is advertised for the future num-
bers, and we shall gladly lay before our readers from time to time an
account of the progress of this and the English journal ("MIND,") to-
gether with some notice of the contents of the several discussions.
Metaphysics ; or the Science of Perception. By John Miller, Princeton, N. J.
426 pages, Svo. New York : Docld & Mead, 1S75.
This work, within the compass of a single volume, treats the mind
in all its aspects, theoretical, practical, and divine : Book I. investi-
gates "Psychology, or the Science of Perception as Such " ; Book II.,
Book Notices. Ill
"Logic, or the Science of Perception as Knowledge"; Book III.,
" Ontology, or the Science of Perception as the Knowledge of Being; "
Book IV., "Pathics, or the Science of Perception as Emotion"
(aesthetical and moral); Book V., '' Theology, or the Science of Per-
ception as Knowledge of the Being of a God."
The author says at the outset : "It is a doctrine of this book that
there are no simple ideas. It has been a usual doctrine that simple
ideas cannot be defined. It is a doctrine of this book that no ideas
can be defined ; that definition is a near approach to a boundary ; and
hence the endless lists ; no thought ever having attracted much dis-
cussion without great vagrancy in defining it ; that vagrancy being
greatly increased as thought wanders off from the concrete ; abstract
thought, and, above all, speculative thought, being endlessly at sea,
and hard to fix by any understood limits."
With this view, we see why he has given so wide a scope to the
word "Metaphysics." Wolff made it include only theoretical philos-
ophy with four divisions : (1) Ontology, (2) Cosmology, (3) Rational
Psychology, and (4) Natural Theology. The philosophy of ethics, eco-
nomics and politics he includes under "practical philosophy," i.e.,
the philosophy of the will. Co-ordinate with metaphysics and prac-
tical philosophy, he makes logic a third discipline treating of that
which appertains to the general use of reason. Thus with the excep-
tion of cosmology (fragments of which are to be found in his fourth
and fifth books) Mr. Miller treats the enth-e field of philosophy as fall-
ing within the province of metaphysics. He holds perception to be all in
all in philosophy, there being " nothing consciously in the mind but per-
ception;" "nothing intuitively known but perception"; hence no
being cognized except as perception; that "emotion is numerically
the same as perception ; that " unless God is perception He is not in-
tuitively known." Agreeing with Berkeley he makes all esse to be
percijri. But when he makes will to be only a species of perception,
and explains attention by the law of the strongest emotion, he encoun-
ters a difficulty which he seems unable to surmount : Perception is
not morally good or bad ; and to make volition a species of percep-
tion is to deprive it of responsibility and render virtue impossible.
The author has taken great pains to present the results of the prin-
ciples and method of which we have a glimpse in the above, in a pop-
ular colloquial style, so as to attract and hold the common reader.
Philosophy of Trinitarian Doctrine: A Contribution to Theological Progress
and Reform. By Rev. A. G. Pease, Rutland, Vt. New York : G. P. Put-
nam's Sons, 1875 ; pp. XII., 1S3.
This little volume, the fruit of the thoughtful and loving medita-
tions of one long separated from the active affairs of life by painful
disease, has, it is true, on the face of it, apparently a theological,
112 Book Notices.
rather than a philosophical, bearing. The work is, to a considerable-
extent, an exegesis of verses in the Gospel of St. John. But this exege-
sis is philosophical. It aims at real explanation. It would facilitate
rational comprehension. Proceeding on the evident assumption that
a revelation to man is to be received with all man's faculties, and is
therefore to be apprehended with the reason, just as much as (though
not more than) it is to be taken up into the heart and life, the author,,
whose thoughts run in sympathy with the best philosophical idealism
of the world, seeks to show the organic relation between God the
Father, the Word His Son, and the world (more especially, humanity,
which lovingly receives the Word). It is not the place, in a philosoph-
ical journal, to discuss the bearings of a work like this on dogmatic
theology. But every thoughtful reader will find the book in a high
degree mentally stimulating and in the best sense practically helpful.
In "a Plain Word with Prof. Tyndall," at the end of the volume,
Mr. Pease tersely and plainly expresses what he terms the " Gist of
the [assumed] controversy" between science and religion, o. s. m.
The Influence of Descartes on Metaphysical Speculation in England. By VV.
Cunningham, B. A., Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. Liverpool :
Printed by T. Brakell, Cook Street. 1875.
An excellent monograph which shows both powers ot thought and
a philosophical erudition very unusual in the English metaphysical
literature of the present time. In an introduction the author elabo-
rates the speculative principles which govern his work. His first
chapter is devoted to discussing the " Internal Connection of the Va-
rious Systems." Next he passes to Descartes and gives an exhaustive
review of the Cartesian philosophy. The succeeding chapters are :
The Contemporaries of Descartes ; John Locke and his School ; Geo.
Berkeley ; David Hume. These writers are discussed in their rela-
tion to Descartes mainly. The fundamental stand-point of the author
can be seen when he states the central principle to be " the Notion and
its Moments." An acquaintance with the best German works which
treat of his subject is a leading feature. d. j. s.
Notice to Shakespearian Students.— We deem it our duty to call
attention to the remarkable work of Dr. Alexander Schmidt of Kon-
igsberg, Prussia, entitled ''Shakespeare-Lexicon, a Complete Diction-
ary of all the Words, Phrases and Constructions in the Works of the
Poet." It is our opinion that Dr. Schmidt has furnished here the most
important contribution yet made to Shakespearian literature.
i>. j. s.
'
THE JOURNAL
O F
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.
Vol. X. April, 1876. No. 2.
KANT'S EEPLY TO HUME.
By John Watson.
David Hume, as Carlyle has said, was the true intellectual
king of the eighteenth century. Nor is his authority any the
less real now, because he receives little outward homage. The
dead but sceptred sovereign still rules the spirits of many who
refuse to be called his subjects. No one who has followed the
course of philosophic thought with any care will be surprised
either at the real influence or the apparent neglect ; for the sin-
gleness of purpose and clearness of thought which lend an espe-
cial charm and value to the work of the master, are but rarely
met with in the halting disciple. And hence there are not a few
writers of eminence of our own time who show that they have
not been able to receive the lesson it was Hume's mission to
teach, by occupying themselves with the futile task of raising a
dogmatic system upon a foundation that he has proved to have
no stability. One thinker, of remarkable subtlety, seeks to for-
mulate the canons of a science of nature, after expressly reduc-
ing nature itself to a procession of vanishing sensations. An-
other, whose speculations have won the confidence of many
leading physicists, maintains that thought is in its very essence
X— 8
114 Kant's Reply to Hume.
self-contradictory : that neither Materialism nor Idealism is true,
but both; that the universe is resolvable into the feelings of the in-
dividual, and is yet absolutely independent of those feelings; and
that nothing hinders us from saying unconditionally that con-
sciousness is synonymous with nerve-vibrations, but the equally
demonstrable fact that nerve- vibrations are nothing apart from
consciousness.
The eager reception of such self-contradictory and anachronis-
tic systems as those of Mill and Spencer, can only be accounted
for upon the supposition that, while the premises of the master
have been accepted without hesitation, the spirit which animated
his philosophy has tied. For Hume has proved, once for all,
that absolute Skepticism is the legitimate outcome of the assump-
tion, made by all Empiricists, that knowledge may be explained
by an inspection of the individual consciousness. In the suppo-
sition that the individual mind is the final court of appeal, it is
already implied that subject and object, thought and nature, are
abstract opposites, which can in no way be reconciled, and which
therefore logically annihilate each other. This however is what
the followers of Hume are unable to see ; and hence, instead of
letting each side of the opposition develop itself until both
vanish, they either preserve the oue at the expense of the other,
or they allow each alternately to destroy its opposite, and yet
very strangely suppose that both survive in their integrity. The
former method gives rise to Sensationalism or Materialism, ac-
cording as the subjective or objective term of the relation is
preserved ; the latter to what may be called Indiflereutism. Of
the three, the two former involve a less sacrifice of logical con-
sistency, while none can put forward any valid plea for accept-
ance. It thus becomes a matter of the last importance that this
veiled Skepticism should be forced to disclose its true nature,
and that some estimate should be made of what has already been
done for its overthrow and for the reconstruction of knowledge
upon a secure foundation. And as the Skepticism latent in Em-
piricism appears with little disguise in Hume, and the philosophy
of Kant was at least believed by its author to be a rcpl t v to t 4l t
Skepticism, a comparison of the main points in the system of
each cannot tail to be profitable.
Know ledge, if it is to be more than an empty name, must con-
tain a permanent element that is unaffected by the perpetually
changing phases of the individual consciousness. If no such
Kant's Re-ply to Hume. 115
element can be shown to exist, the supposition that truth .is at-
tainable must be rejected as a delusion. Now common conscious-
ness and the special sciences are at one in believing that truth is
within the reach of human faculties, and that they are them-
selves to some extent actually in possession of it. The objective
validity of the conceptions of substance and causality — the per-"
manence of objects and the permanence of their connection — is a
presupposition which it does not occur to common sense to doubt.
The physical sciences in like manner take for granted that there
are objects independent of the individual consciousness, and that
the laws of their connection are discoverable ; while it is a pos-
tulate of mathematical science that its axioms and demonstra-
tions are necessarily and universally valid. There is therefore in
the direct or unrefleetive consciousness in all its forms an unhes-
itating belief that there is in knowledge a universal and perma-
nent element, which is raised above the mutations of the individ-
ual mind. This belief may however be incapable of justifying
itself; being assumed as a ready-made fact that does not stand in
need of proof, it is possible that science, as well as common
sense, has been all the time deluding itself by an assumption of
stability which a critical investigation will show to be baseless.
That such a universal delusion besets the fundamental beliefs of
mankind is what Hume, following out the line of thought first
consciously entered upon by Locke, has to tell us. Uulike the
extreme school of ancient sceptics, he has no quarrel with the
facts of consciousness as facts. He admits that people do imag-
ine that substances persist, and that effects flow by necessary
sequence from causes ; that there is an appearance of knowledge
he not only allows but contends ; but appearance is not reality,
belief is not demonstration. When we come to examine the sup-
posed necessary and universal notions, which the possibility of
knowledge presupposes, but which the uncritical mind makes no
attempt to justify, we find that their objective validity disap-
pears and gives place to a flux of individual sensations, each of
which perishes in the moment of its origination. Nevertheless
the delusive appearance of knowledge — the belief that there is
in knowledge a uuiversal and necessary element — has to be ac-
counted for, and this is the task with which Hume mainly occu-
pied himself.
Formulating the presuppositions of common sense, Locke had
held that all real knowledge is given in a simple and momentary
116 Kant's Reply to Hume.
act of consciousness, and hence that the inind is purely receptive
in its acquisition of knowledge. There are two sources of know-
ledge, sensation and reflection, or inner and outer sense. The
relations introduced by the spontaneous activity of thought — and
thought is in all cases a faculty of relations — do not constitute
but destroy reality. But if relations of thought are consistently
excluded, no assistance in the derivation of real knowledge can
be obtained from the assumption of an external world or of an
internal self. Locke however allowed himself to take advantage
of both assumptions, and was thus enabled to account for the
knowledge of reality, although at the expense of logical consis-
tency. His illegitimate assumption of the relation of individual
feeling to an external world was pointed out by Berkeley, his
unproved supposition of its relation to an internal self by Hume.
All reality has therefore to be sought in unrelated ideas of sen-
sation and reflection, or, in the language of Hume, in impressions
of sensation and impressions of reflection. These indeed do not
exhaust the phenomena of consciousness ; impressions are not
only originally felt but reproduced, and that in two ways — either
in their original or in a new order. These are called by Hume
respectively ideas of memory and ideas of imagination. The
distinction of an impression and an idea cannot be found in the
relation of the former to an external object or an internal self,
nor does it consist in any difference in the content of either ; and
hence Hume places it in greater or less vivacity. An impression
is a more vivid, an idea a less vivid feeling ; as again an idea of
memory is more vivid than an idea of imagination. Whatever
reality an idea has, it possesses in the secondary sense of being
a copy of an impression : and hence to impressions of sensation
and reflection all reality is reducible. The Skepticism of Hume
thus lies ready to his hand. The only connection in the objects
of knowledge he can admit is that arbitrary order in which feel-
ings succeed each other. There can therefore be no necessary
element either in common experience or in the sphere of mathe-
matical or physical truth. There can be no objects in the sense
of permanent and identical substances, nor consequently can
there be any necessary connection of objects in the way of caus-
ality. All reality is reducible to a series of feelings, as they are
to the individual, and the supposed identity and causal relation
of objects must be explained as an observed uniformity in the
order of succession among feelings. Now a feeling, as Hume
Kant's Reply to Hume. 117
himself tells us, is a "perishable passion, 7 ' and hence all feelings
taken together form a mere series, each of which is over before
the other begins. Xo two feelings can be identical "with each
other, because no feeling can repeat itself: in one word feeling is
a multiplicity and nothing but a multiplicity. Xo real know-
ledge therefore is possible. There is no object to be known,
and if there were, no self to know it : and the belief in the
identity and necessary connection of objects is a natural de-
lusion, produced by confounding the subjective necessity of cus-
tom with the objective necessity of things.
This sceptical result cannot be consistently avoided by any one
who follows the psychological method. The immense superiority
of Hume over "his recent disciples and imitators is especially
manifested in his clear perception of the really crucial question.
He saw plainly that, if no necessary relations can be shown to be *-
involved in experience, knowledge in any intelligible sense is a
contradiction, and that, on the principles of Sensationalism, which
he inherited from Locke, such a necessary element is inadmissi-
ble. One cannot but be surprised that, both by Hume's immedi-
ate opponents and by his recent followers, the difficulty as to the
possibility of knowledge is supposed to be solved when it is said
that all knowledge must be based upou the facts of experience.
For what is this but a re-statement of the untested belief, that
what is in consciousness is in consciousness ? So understood,
the explanation is the mere tautology : consciousness is con-
sciousness, experience is experience. The real point at issue —
viz : whether our conscious experience has in it a permanent and
universal element, and whether therefore knowledge in any sense'
that is not unmeaning is possible — is not in this way so much as
touched. The true problem of philosophy, as Hume showed
with unequalled clearness and force, is : Is knowledge possible
at all? or, more definitely, Are the conceptions of substance and
causality necessary and objective, or subjective and arbitrary .'
Moreover, in showing that, if the mind is purely passive in its
apprehension of reality, all knowledge must be reduced to imme-
diate and unrelated states of consciousness, none of which per-
sists beyond the moment of its origination, Hume indirectly
suggested a way by which the reconstruction of knowledge
might be attempted. Neither his mode of stating the problem,
nor his suggestive failure to account for knowledge, was lost on
Kant. Generalizing the problem of philosophy, Kant saw that
118 Kant's Reply to Hume.
the possibility of knowledge depends upon our capability of re
turning an appropriate answer to the question, Does experience
involve, as its condition, universal and necessary notions ? And,
as Hume had shown that upon Locke's assumption of the pas-
sivity of thought such notions cannot be established, it was sug-
gested to Kant that thought does not passively apprehend ob-
jects of experience, but is instrumental in their construction.
The relation of Kant and Hume is thus of the closest and most
suggestive kind. Both start with experience as it is for the un-
reflective consciousness ; they are agreed in holding that there is
in consciousness a belief in the necessity and universality of cer-
tain notions, and that truth is unattainable unless this belief can
be justified; and both are agreed in holding that feeling in itself is
a mere multiplicity, and that if thought is purely receptive no-
thing but feeling is knowable. On the other hand, Kant denies
that mere feeling can be known at all, as Hume had assumed in
order to explain the appearance of knowledge; and hence he is
led to see that, starting from the facts of consciousness, as ap-
prehended by common sense and the special sciences, we must,
to account for their existence, hold that they imply an element
which, as contributed by thought, is necessary and universal.
This partial account of the genesis of the Critical Philosophy
may serve to explain the ambiguity that attaches to certain of
Kant's technical terms, and to account for that appearance of
contradiction between the earlier and later portions of his work,
which obscures his real meaning and has caused the true devel-
opment of his thoughts to be misunderstood. Beginning with
experience, as it is for the individual, Kant's object is, by a criti-
cal analysis of it, to separate the contingent element due to feel-
ing from the necessary element contributed by the mind, and thus
to prove how experience itself is possible. Hence the term ex-
perience is at first used in the ordinary sense as equivalent to the
untested facts of consciousness. And, as all untested tacts are
from their nature received passively, this meaning naturally
passes into that in which it is applied to the element of know-
ledge given to the mind by sense. Finally, the term experience
is employed in its strict critical sense, to designate real know-
ledge, i. e., experience that has been proved to involve a necessary
element originated by thought, as Avell as a contingent element
contributed by sense. Closely connected with the difficulty aris-
ing from ambiguous language, is an imperfection in Kant's expo-
Kant's Reply to Hume. 119
sition of his system, in which the order of thought is inverted ;
the consequence of which is that he has to speak provisionally,
and make assumptions that have afterwards to he justified.
Thus, in the earlier part of the Kritik he seems to infer that
there is in experience au a priori element contributed by thought,
because experience contains necessary and universal judgments;
whereas his real thought, as we discover in the sequel, can only
be correctly expressed by saying exactly the reverse, the proof
of the universality and necessity of judgments being that expe-
rience is inconceivable except upon the supposition that there is
in it an element which as originated by thought is a priori.*
The task of Kant then was to prove that the real knowledge
which common sense and science suppose they possess, but which
remains in them an unproved assumption, is not hopelessly in-
fected by delusion. As has been said, he accepted the conclu-
sion of Hume that sense of itself can only give a multiplicity of
isolated impressions, and that if there is no other source of know-
ledge truth is unattainable. But unfortunately, while he saw the
necessity of deducing the necessary element of knowledge from
Eeason, Kant did not entirely free himself from the false assump-
tion that had led to Hume's skepticism ; and hence, biased by
the influence of the Wolfian dogmatism, he retained the absolute i-
distinction of subject and object, upon which the Empiricism of
Locke rested, even when advancing a theory which rendered it
superfluous. Accordingly, while all known phenomena are re-
duced to the unity of thought, he yet holds that beyond con-
sciousness there is a real object and a real subject, which are not
known in themselves but are only implied in their known effects.
This dnalistic assumption has partially destroyed the purity and
harmony of the Critical Philosophy, and, in conjunction with the
imperfection of Kant's exposition just referred to, has given
color to the false impressiou that it is only another psychological
explanation of knowledge. The psychologist starts from the
supposition that the problem of philosophy is to explain how the
individual mind, of which the known object is supposed to be
the abstract opposite, comes to have a knowledge of that object.
*Mr. Laurie (Jour. Spec. Philosophy, Vol. VI.. p. 224) charges Kant with
assuming that there is a "necessary in propositions," and upon this assump-
tion basing his proof that there are a priori judgments. It would be very
strange if Kant had assumed that which the Kritik was mainly written to
establish.
120 Kant' 8 Reply to Hume.
But when the question is thus stated, Ave are inevitably driven
back to the theory of which Hume's skepticism is the logical re-
sult, that thought is a purely formal activity. If therefore we
insist upon interpreting Kant's system from the dualistic point of
view which it undoubtedly presents, we may show it to be infec-
ted by the psychological method. The truth is however that the
assumption of a noumenal subject and object, while it could not
but make its influence felt in Kant's exposition, is quite incom-
patible with the whole scope and aim of his philosophy. What
imperfections exist in his theory from the intermingling of the
psychological with the speculative method, will appear as we
proceed.
Sense in itself, as Hume has shown, is a mere multiplicity.
But a mere multiplicity, as he ought to have maintained, but did
not, cannot account even for the phenomena of the individual
consciousness. Although Hume was much more consistent than
Locke or Berkeley, or their recent followers, he was forced, in
order to explain even the appearance of knowledge, inconsist-
ently to assume that sensation is more than a mere multiplicity ;
that it not only gives the particular, i. e., isolated differences, but
also the individual, i. e., a combination of differences. What
Kant does is to iusist that we shall not surreptitiously foist into
the conception of mere difference the contradictory conception
of identity, and thus make a show of extracting from sense a
unity of differences. Sensation as purely immediate and unrela-
ted, is mere difference. But, in our unreflective consciousness
there are individual objects, each of which, as in space, is exter-
nal to every other, and each part of which for the same reason is
external to every other part. Moreover these objects are regard-
ed as persisting through successive moments of time, no two of
which co-exist. Whether, therefore we attempt to account for the
unity of differences involved in the spatial and temporal rela-
tions of objects, or for the unity of determinations of individual
objects themselves, we must have recourse to something essen-
tially different from sense. For sense of itself can only give
difference; it has no possibility of integration, and therefore is
incompetent to account for that unity of differences which oven
the simplest phenomena of consciousness imply. Before, there-
fore, we can explain how the individual mind could have a con-
scious experience of external objects, or of space and time, we
must suppose that the differences of sense have been success-
Kant's Reply to Hume. 121
ively apprehended and in that apprehension combined and re-
duced to unity. While then the differences are receptively ap-
prehended, their combination must be spontaneous. This act of
combination Kant calls Synthesis, to indicate its spontaneous
character, and the faculty which produces synthesis he terms the
Understanding. That in our ordinary experience a synthesis of
the differences of sense is implied, is overlooked when it is sup-
posed that the understanding is a purely analytical faculty.
This is the fallacy that vitiates the theory of Locke, as of all
Empiricists, and which has as its result the skepticism of Hume.
The very fact that we can analyze our ordinary conception of
objects, is of itself a proof that a synthesis of the understand-
ing must have gone before; for although knowledge in its earli-
est stage is in a confused and partially indeterminate state, and
therefore stands in need of analysis, still had there been no prior
synthesis of differences, there would have been nothing what-
ever to analyze.
The necessity of a synthesis by the understanding of the mere
difference of sense, as the condition of even the simplest experi-
ence, has been proved ; but much more is required to establish
that there is in knowledge a necessary and universal element.
The combination of differences evidently cannot be effected by
sense, as the Empiricist supposes, but must be produced sponta-
neously by the understanding. It is competent however for an
objector to say that the synthesis of the understanding is per-
fectly arbitrary, and hence that we can have no certainty that
truth is attainable. If we can combine determinations in any
way we please, obviously the product of this combination will
not be objective knowledge. To place knowledge upon a sure
foundation we must be able to show that there is a supreme prin-
ciple which regulates the synthesis of the understanding; that
the unity to which sensuous determinations is reduced is not the
result of an arbitrary combination, but on the contrary that the
combination is itself absolutely conditioned by a necessary
unity.
And here it may not be out of place to point out that Kant
does not regard sense and thought as giving different kinds of
knowledge, but only as contributing elements of knowledge, -
which in themselves are mere zero. ^Ye should hardly have
thought it necessary to insist upon this distinction had not Mr.
Lewes in his recent work repeated the charge, first advanced by
122 Kant's Reply to Hume.
him in his " History of Philosophy," that Kant absolutely sepa-
rates the sensibility from the understanding, and regards the one
as capable of being exercised apart from the other. Kant, says
Mr. Lewes, '' after first defining knowledge to be the product of a
subjective element and an objective element, henceforward treats
the subjective element as if it alone contributes a peculiar kind
of knowledge, and not simply one of the factors of knowledge."*
]STow if we are resolved to adhere to the mere letter of the
Kritik, many statements might be produced which, taken by
themselves, would seem to substantiate this charge. But the
doctrine that sense in itself affords but a possibility of know-
ledge, which only becomes actual upon the exercise of the syn-
thetic understanding, is so fundamental a distinction in the Criti-
cal Philosophy that to overlook or obliterate it is to render the
whole system meaningless. If sense in itself gives one kind of
knowledge, it must of course be a knowledge of individual ob-
jects, and hence thought necessarily takes up the place of a
purely formal activity, which has no other task than that of ab-
stracting certain attributes from the completely determined object,
and recombining them in a perfectly arbitrary way. It thus be-
comes not synthetical but analytical ; and when Kant represents
the problem of philosophy as comprehended in the question,
How are synthetical a priori judgments possible? we must sup-
pose that he did not understand what he himself meant, and thus
fell into an elaborate ignoratio elenchi ! On the other hand, there
is a side of the Kantian philosophy, to which reference has al-
ready been made, that may be said logically to overthrow the
relativity of sense and thought; but only because it destroys the
possibility of any knowledge whatever. By absolutely opposing
the noumenal self to the uoumenal object, Kant lent countenance
to the fundamental fallacy of Empiricism — a fallacy which Mr.
Lewes endorses, and which therefore it is not competent for him
to object to in another— that the mind is purely passive in its ap-
prehension of knowledge. If we carry out this assumption to
its consequences, we shall no doubt be led to say, not only that
sense gives one kind of knowledge, but that it gives all know-
ledge worthy of the name. The ultimate issue of this mode of
thought we have already seen to be the skepticism of Hume,
which, on the ground that sensation is immediate and moment-
•
^Problems of Life and Mind, American Ed., Vol. I. p. 405.
Kanfs Reply to Hume. 123
ary, denies the possibility of any knowledge of reality. But this
psychological point of view, although it is distinctly countenanced
by Kant, can only be regarded as a superficial flaw which leaves
his philosophy in its essential features unimpaired. The thing-
in-itself is in Kant an unwarranted presupposition, which may
easily be separated from his system, and very much to its im-
provement in simplicity and self-consistency. As it is, it neces-
sarily exercised a pernicious influence, which may be traced in
the most purely speculative part of the Kritik, the reduction of
all knowledge to the unity of self-consciousness, to which we
now proceed.
To prove the possibility of real knowledge we must be able to
show that there is a primal unity, which is the necessary condi-
tion of the synthesis of the understanding. In our ordinary ex-
perience we have a consciousness of individual objects as exist-
ing in space and time. Such a consciousness cannot be accoun-
ted for upon the supposition that sense gives us a knowledge of
objects, for sensation is in itself bare difference. The mind must
not only apprehend the difference of sense, but by an intellectual
synthesis combine it. But such a synthesis is only possible if
there is something which contains in itself no difference — some-
thing which is absolutely self-identical. Xow it is evident from
a mere analysis of our ordinary consciousness that in each of
our perceptions the consciousness of self is implied ; for an un-
perceived perception — a perception that is not in consciousness —
is a contradiction. This consciousness of self is however simply
accepted as a fact, without being proved or in any way accounted
for; and hence it may be said, as Hume did say, that self, like
the object, is an illusion which philosophy dispels. It will not
therefore do to prove the reality of self by a mere appeal to the
individual consciousness ; for all that can in this way be estab-
lished is that there is in our ordinary consciousness a belief in
the reality of self. What we have to show is that the conscious-
ness of self is the necessary condition of the belief in self. Xow
it has been shown that sense per se is a mere multiplicity, and
hence that, to account for the empirical consciousness of objects,
the understanding must combine this multiplicity. The possibil-
ity of such a combination has to be accounted for, and that which
is to account for it must have in itself no difference, or a higher
synthesis would again be required to reduce this difference to
unity. The conscious /however exactly meets the requirement.
124 Kant's Reply to Hume
The J is a pure identity ; it is absolutely one and the same in all
perceptions, as an analysis of the empirical consciousness is sufi-
cient to show. The various determinations which in their total-
ity constitute one perception would not be in consciousness at
all, did they not belong to one and the same self-consciousness.
It is only by going through the separate determinations of sense
and summing them up that they can be in one consciousness, and
being in one consciousness they are related to an absolutely iden-
tical self. Were there no universal self lying at the basis of
knowledge, we could not have even the consciousness of the dif-
ference of sense as a difference ; aud on the other hand if there
were nothing but the identity of self we could not have the con-
sciousness of self as identical. Actual experience and the pos-
sibility of its extension, alike involve as their condition a synthe-
sis of sensuous differences by an absolutely identical eelf. The
fact that when I analyze my empirical consciousness I detect the
presence of self in each perception, implies that self-conscious-
ness is the necessary condition of synthesis, just as synthesis is
the condition of analysis. The synthetical unity of self-con-
sciousness is thus the highest principle of all knowledge, and
hence it may be called the "original unity of self-consciousness;"
and as it is the condition of the necessary element of knowledge,
it may be termed the " transcendental unity of self-conscious-
ness." The possibility of experience thus involves that the va-
riety of sense should be reflected upon the identity of self-con-
sciousness. Self-consciousness is therefore the absolutely neces-
sary condition of all knowledge.
The synthetical unity of self-consciousness, as it is the central
truth of the Critical Philosophy, so it is the highest point of
pure speculation to which Kant attained. Interpreted in its true
spirit, and liberated from a certain inconsistency (to be immedi-
ately considered) that vitiates its actual presentation, it ought to
commend itself to the "inductive" logician not less than to the
speculative thinker. To the former it should appeal as a suc-
cessful instance of the advance of knowledge " from the known
to the unknown" by the verification of an hypothesis. Starting
from admitted "facts of experience," it goes on to explain them
by a principle that binds them together by a necessary law: set-
ting up the hypothesis that self-consciousness is competent to
explain the given phenomena, it tests the hypothesis by the phe-
nomena, and finds that it, and it alone, is competent to account
Kant's Reply to Hume. 125
for them. Nor can it be said that Kant flies beyoud the bounds
of possible experience in search of his principle of explanation ;
for surely, since Descartes' " Coqito ergo sum," all are agreed
that the consciousness of self is the simplest and most certain of
"facts." Why then do our Empiricists obstinately refuse to ac-
cept so irrefragable an instance of induction "? May it not be that
their favorite formula of the progress " from the known to the
unknown," and their no less favorite maxim that induction in-
volves the " verification of hypotheses," are barren truisms that
no sane person would dispute, but which tell us no more than
the ''trifling propositions" that stirred the wrath of Locke by
their pretentious emptiness? Surely we are all agreed that if
any advance in knowledge is to be made, it must be by knowing
something we did not know before ; and that to find out the law
which regulates any given phenomena we must hazard a conjec-
ture, which can only be accepted if it turns out to be correct.
But after these " wise saws" have received due homage, the only
really important question — the value of the explanation offered
— is as far from being settled as ever. Kow in the present in-
stance, that which prevents the Empiricist from gratefully ac-
cepting Kant's solution — as he certainly ought to do, seeing that
it places " experience " upon a solid basis — is the preconception
that the object of thought stands in absolute opposition to the
self that thinks it. Under this false supposition he seeks to
overthrow the logical law of contradiction (for which he should
have more respect) by trying violently to bring the object into
relation with the subject, each being implicitly defined as the-
contradictory of the other. Hence when Kant brings forward a
principle which is to explain knowledge by showing that self and
not-self, as strictly correlative, are meaningless when taken in
abstraction from each other, the Empiricist replies reproachfully
that this is to take the " high priori road " that leads away from
experience and loses itself in mist. The charge is undoubtedly
just if by "experience" is to be understood the object in isola-
tion from the subject; but if it means, as it ought to mean, the
totality of experience, the synthesis of subject and object, it is
the Empiricist, and not Kant, who violates the integrity of expe-
rience.
But, however innocuous may be the assaults of Empiricism, the
disturbing element, to which reference has more than once been
made, would not allow the central doctrine of the Critical Phi-
120 Kant's Reply to H^me.
losophy to remain uiicontaminated by contradiction. Taken
strictly, the conception of self-consciousness as the principle
which unites subject and object in a higher unity, is fatal to the
presupposition of a thing-in-itself, which as beyond conscious-
ness is unknowable. By simply holding fast the two correla-
tives, we get the conception of a self-consciousness that is nei-
ther an abstract universal nor a mere' particular, but at once uni-
. versa! and particular, and therefore individual. To suppose that
there is an unknown self and an unknown object, in addition to
the known self and the known object, is to advance an hypothesis
that is at once unnecessary and self-contradictory. But Kant
was not prepared to surrender the thing-in-itself, and hence we
find him, after he has enunciated the strict correlativity of self
and not-self, falling back into the psychological point of view
which Hume had shown to be contradictory of knowledge. For
immediately after he has spoken of self-consciousness as the uni-
fying principle of all knowledge, and therefore in effect as the
unity of subject and object, he goes on to remark that the I. be-
ing an absolutely simple unity, contains no difference in itself,
and must therefore have difference given to it by sense. Hence
he deliberately and emphatically rejects the suggestion that the
understanding may be perceptive. There may, he admits, possi-
bly be a self-consciousness which originates the determinations of
which it is conscious, but of such a self-consciousness we can
form no positive conception. In other words, the difference of
sense, although it has no existence apart from consciousness, is
nevertheless in its origin due to the noumeual object and not to
reason. Now by thus denying to thought any capacity of origi-
nating difference, Kant virtually makes the original self-con-
sciousness a bare unit, and thus identifies it with the abstraction
of self, which is the negation of not-self; and hence he is debar-
red from giving any consistent explanation of the relation of sub-
ject aud object. Even in this imperfect form, his theory success-
fully explodes the fallacy of Empiricism, which assumes that
sense of itself gives a knowledge of objects, i. e., of a unity of
differences. But, on the other hand, a purely abstract self is as
incapable of accounting for the difference which all knowledge
involves, as mere sense is of explaining its unity. No doubt if
knowledge is possible at all there must be a synthesis of differ-
ences ; but how can any synthesis be produced by a self-con-
sciousness which is so defined as to exclude all difference ? That
Kant's Reply to Hume. 127
the self is in its own nature a unity — or rather a unit, for unity
necessarily implies difference — does not help us to understand
how it introduces unity into that which is conceived as its ab-
stract opposite. Self is a mere unit, not-self is mere difference,
and so they must remain in eternal isolation, unless we can point
to a principle which is in itself a synthesis of unity and differ-
ence. This principle must be neither self nor not-self, but that
which in transcending - combines both. Kant sees this clearly
enough ; but, unable to break loose from the fetters of the thing-
in-itself, he confuses self-consciousness with the abstract self, and
stumbles in the very moment of victory. Hence if we mete out
praise to him strictly upon the ground of what he has achieved, '
without taking into consideration the scope and intention of his
efforts and the near approach he made to complete success, we
may say that he has rather given an exceptionally clear state-
ment of the problem of philosophy than a true solution of it.'
The follower of Kant has therefore only two courses open to him:
either to hold fast by the unknowable thing-in-itself, and the con-
sequent abstraction of self; or to deny the reality of the indemon-
strable noumenon, when the conception of self-consciousness as
a unity that transcends the opposition of self and not-self, will
follow as a matter of course. If he decides to adopt the former
alternative, he must be prepared to throw in his lot with Empir-
icism, and therefore with Skepticism, which attends it as its
shadow. For when self is conceived as the abstract of not-self,
thought can only be a formal activity ; and hence the wealth of
reality is thrown out of the orderly domain of Eeason and given
over to the lawless realm of Sense. If, on the other hand, he
choose the alternative that self-consciousness is implicitly both
subject and object, he will see that, knowledge is placed upon a
foundation that cannot be moved; being the self-evolution of
Eeason, which, in universalizing the particular, realizes itself in
the concrete individual.
After establishing that the difference of sense is reduced to
unity by a synthesis of the understanding, of which self-con-
sciousness is the only possible condition, Kant goes on to ask
what are the special forms that that synthesis takes. Hitherto
it nas onlv been shown that no knowledge is possible unless we
suppose that sensuous determinations are combined by the spon-
taneous activity of tnoiight. We can easily see that, however
contingent may be the sensuous material given to thought, the
128 Kantfs Reply to Hume.
various modes of reducing this material to the unity of self-con-
sciousness must be necessary. But to hud out what these modes
are, and to be sure that we have discovered them in their com-
pleteness, we must have some clue to guide us in our search. All
intellectual synthesis being a manifestation of one absolutely
identical self, the understanding is a complete unity; and hence
it must be possible to find some one principle that will lead to
the discovery of all the ways in which it combines the variety of
sense. Now to reduce variety to unity is to judge, and hence all
thinking is judging. Judgment is either analytical or syntheti-
cal : and, as all analysis implies a prior synthesis, the various
forms of the analytical judgment will afford a clue to the differ-
ent manifestations of the synthetical judgment. Formal logic,
which abstracts from all content of knowledge, has already tab-
ulated the forms of the analytical judgment. In our ordinary
experience we have a consciousness not only of individual ob-
jects, but of general conceptions. It is with the formal relation
of these conceptions to each other that common logic deals. Con-
ceptions are generalizations from individual perceptions. Com-
paring a number of individuals together and noting their points
of agreement, we form general conceptions. We may next com-
pare together the conceptions thus obtained, and by a like pro-
cess of abstraction, form higher conceptions ; and this process
we may repeat until we have obtained a conception that includes
all individuals under it. The act by which we reduce a number
of perceptions to conceptions, or a number of conceptions to
others of a higher degree of generality, is judgment. And as
conceptions can only be employed in judging, the only office of
the understanding is to judge, i. e., to refer conceptions to ob-
jects through perceptions. An analysis of the various forms of
judgment thus affords an infallible clue to the different concep-
tions used by the understanding in the synthetical judgment.
Applying this principle, Kant finds that all judgments may be
classified according to their quantity, quality, modality and rela-
tion, each of which has under it three phases, and that to these
phases there correspond as many pure conceptions, or categories.
These categories then are the different ways in which the under-
standing reduces the material of sense to unity. Thus the per-
manent element of knowledge, which Hume had denied to exist,
has been found. The categories, as belonging to the very consti-
tution of thought, cannot be reduced to an arbitrary order in our
Kant's Reply to Hume. 129
feelings, inasmuch as, without presupposing them, no experience
even of a series of feelings as they are to the individual could
have taken place. They are therefore necessary and universal.
In this account of the way in which he was led to the discov-
ery of the categories, Kant attempts to comprehend the analyti-
cal and synthetical judgments under one formula. To think, he
tells us, is to judge, and judging consists in referring concep-
tions to objects through perceptions. Now in strict propriety
this formula is only applicable to the analytical judgment, the
common view of which rests upon the supposition that individual
objects, with the full complement of their attributes, first exist
full-forced in consciousness, and are afterwards referred to an
abstract universal. If, following the analogy which the account
naturally suggests, we attempt to assimilate the synthetical to
the analytical judgment, we shall naturally be led to think that
objects as such beiug given by perception, the understanding
proceeds to apply to them its categories. We might suppose, e. g.,
that on entering a room our senses reveal to us a number of
individual objects, which the understanding afterwards combines
by means of such categories as unity, plurality and totality. It
must be under some such misapprehension that Mr. Lewes
charges Kant with holding that sense and thought contribute
different hinds of knowledge. Kant's real thought is, that by
the application of the categories to the element of knowledge
given by sense, objects are first constituted as objects. This, no
one who has apprehended the relation of the categories to the
synthetical unity of self-consciousness, can fail to understand.
Self-consciousness, as we have seen, is the absolute condition of
all knowledge, no matter how rudimentary or confused it may be.
The isolated impressions contributed by sense would have no
existence even in the changing consciousness of the individual,
were they not reduced to unity by an all-pervasive and identical
self. But to refer the manifold of sensation to a universal self is
to think it, and therefore to bring it under the unity of the cate-
gories. The categories are thus the condition of the perception
of objects ; and hence we must suppose the analytical judgment
to imply the synthetical, as the analytical unity of consciousness
presupposes the synthetical unity. For the analytical judgment
in all cases brings one or more individuals under an abstract uni-
versal, either mediately or immediately ; and hence it assumes
X— 9
130 Kant's Reply to Hume.
the individual to be already known. This assumption has to be
justifies', and its justification lies in the necessity of supposing a
prior synthesis of individual impressions to account for con-
scious experience. It is true that the office of the categories iu
the synthetical judgment is not only to constitute objects as such,
but also to connect them ; but the process by which they are con-
nected with each other is not divergent from that by which they
are constituted, but strictly continuous with it.
Interpreted in its spirit, Kant's derivation of the categories is
inconsistent with the assumed opposition of the synthetical and
analytical judgments. If self-consciousness is conceived, as Kant
in his higher moments does conceive it, as the unity which tran-
scends the opposition of subject and object, the analytical must
be regarded as strictly correlative with the synthetical judgment.
The isolated impressions of sense are only knowable in so far as
they are distinguished from each other, and in that distinction
related to a universal self. But this implies on the one hand an
analytical judgment which distinguishes one determination from
another, and on the other hand a synthetical judgment which
unites the determinations thus distinguished. Take away either
the judgment which differentiates or the judgment which inte-
grates, and knowledge becomes impossible. Thus knowledge is
neither mere synthesis nor mere analysis, but a unity of both. It
i.s the self-determination of Beasou, which in manifesting itself
at once differentiates and integrates. For how can the syntheti-
cal judgment combine elements that without analysis would have
no existence ? and how can thv re be an,\ analysis without a cor-
responding synthesis ? These are uot separate processes, but
correlative aspects of the same process. The same presupposi-
tion, however, that prevented Kant from clearly apprehending
and retaining the absolute unity of subject and object in self-
consciousness, led him to contrast the synthetical and analytical
judgments as distinct and opposite processes. That presup. osi-
t on, it need hardly be said, was that the particular is given to
the mind by the unknown thing-in itself. For, the particular be-
ing thus taken up ready-made, the only task left for thought to
perform is to reduce it to unity. Hence the understanding, in so
far as it is constructive, is supposed to form synthetical judg-
ments alone; and hence also the categories are conceived as
empty forms of combination that receive their filling from an ex-
ternal source. The result is that the analytical judgment is de-
Kant's Reply to Hume. 131
graded to the rank of a purely formal activity, instead of beiug
regarded as not less constitutive of knowledge than the synthet-
ical judgment.
Kaut could not overlook the fact that analysis plays an impor-
tant part in the development of knowledge; but, misled by the
false assumption that all necessary relations are constituted by the
synthetical judgment, no other course was left open to him than
to hold that analysis merely resolves objects, that are already
known in their completeness, back into their original elements.
Accordingly he plays into the hands of the formal logician,
maintaining that thought as analytical refers objects to abstract
universals, or, in other words, separates from them the attributes
by which they are already constituted. But this is to identify
judgment with memory, and to fall into a lifeless nominalism. If
objects in their completeness, i. e., in the sum of their relations
to other objects, already exist in consciousness, thought can only
by introspection recall them as they are suggested by a given
name. In strict propriety therefore we cannot say that the ana-
lytical judgment brings individuals under the unity of a con-
ception, for the attributes designated by a term are already sup-
posed to be given as united. And hence Kant, in assuming that
the analytical judgment is a reliable guide to all the forms ofv
the synthetical judgment, goes upon a false principle, the influ-
ence of which is shown in the incompleteness and want of con-
nection of his list of categories. That he was led to a discovery
of certain of the categories, notwithstanding his derivation of
them from the superficial analysis of common logic, is due to the
fact that the analytical judgment, as he conceived it, is a repeti-
tion in an inverse order of the actual process of thought. The
syllogism is a disintegration of the elements put together by
thought in its constructive activity ; and hence it does serve as a
clue, although an imperfect one, to the discovery of the cate-
gories.
Little more is needed to complete Kant's proof of the possibil-
ity of a real knowledge of objects in their connection. The dif-
ference of sense, it has been shown, must be referred to the unity
of self-consciousness in order to be known at all ; to refer sensu-
ous differences to a universal self is to think them, and thus to
bring them under the categories. But here the difficulty arises
that the categories are merely the ways in which thought may
combine a difference that is given to it, and the differences of
132 Kant's Reply to Hume.
sense are in complete isolation from each other; and hence we
cannot, without supposing something that shall mediate between
the categories on the one hand and the sensuous differences on
the other, explain how actual knowledge can take place. But if
we look again at what is involved in experience, we shall see that
the consciousness of objects, as possessed of qualities and as
related to each other, implies that they exist in Time and Space.
And here we come upon the last element required to constitute
experience. For Time and Space can be resolved neither into
the mere difference of sense, nor into the unity of thought : not
the former, because they must be presupposed before we can ex-
plain to ourselves how sensuous differences can come within the
sphere of consciousness : not the latter, because Space and Time
are complete unities in themselves. It was by supposing that
sensuous differences are given as coexistent and successive that
Hume was able to make a show of deriving Space and Time from
sensation. But when we simply hold fast by what he himself
states, that sensation per se is bare difference, we see that Space
and Time, as unities, must be referred to some other source.
They are therefore not given from without, but supplied from
within, and hence they are a priori. And just as little can they
be identified with the categories of the understanding as with the
differences of sense; they are indeed unities, but not unities
which may comprehend under them an infinite variety of differ-
ences supplied from some other source ; their unity and their
difference are implied in themselves, all parts of space and time
being limitations of one space and one time. They are therefore
perceptions. Space and time have thus the peculiar character-
istic of being akin on the one hand to the categories, and on the
other to the differences of sense; and hence they are fitted to
mediate between the two. As pure forms they lie a priori in the
mind, and thus thought can act through them upon the manifold
of sense supplied by the transcendental object. Thus we can
understand how we may have experience of objects in their con-
nection. When we analyze experience we find that it involves
these elements: (1) isolated seusations, (2) the pure forms of
space and time, (3) the categories and (4) self-consciousness.
Self-consciousness is absolutely the highest condition of all
knowledge ; the categories stand under it, as its modes of reduc-
ing the manifold of sense to unity; space and time are the formal
conditions of the apprehension of sensation ; and through them
Kant's Reply to Hume. 133
the latter is brought into connection with the categories, and thus
referred to the unity of self-consciousness.
Thus the possibility of knowledge has been proved, and by
implication its limits prescribed. That there is a necessary and
universal element in experience is established from the impossi-
bility of accounting for experience upon any otber supposition;
and that we can have no knowledge except within the bounds of
experience is involved in the fact that sense must contribute the
element of difference before we can even be conscious of self as
identical. For thought can only be exercised upon condition that
a manifold of sense shall be given to it; and as this manifold
is itself conditioned by the forms of space and time, we can have
no knowledge of the tbing-iu-itself, which is out of space and
time. It is true that thought could reduce any manifold what-
ever to unity, provided only that it were sensuous ; but so far as
our knowledge is concerned this capacity is valueless, since we
can have no sensible experience except that which is given in
space and time. While therefore within the limits of experience,
our knowledge is beyond the assaults of Skepticism, the condi-
tions of possible knowledge preclude us from ever knowing more
than phenomena.
We had intended to point out, somewhat in detail, how com-
pletely the Critical Philosophy of Kant meets the philosophy of
Hume, both in its positive and negative aspects : proving on the
one hand that mere sensation cannot account even for a series of
feelings, as they are to the individual, and therefore not for that
limited amount of certainty which Hume inconsistently allowed
to the mathematical and physical sciences ; and on the other hand
destroying the basis of his Skepticism by showing that the neces-
sary element of knowledge cannot be the product of custom or
repeated association, since custom itself implies the constructive
activity of thought. Had space permitted we should also like
to have made some remarks upon Kant's conception of space
and time as purely subjective — a conception which, like the other
imperfections in his system, to which reference has been made,
flows from the assumption of an unknown thing-in-itself— and
upon his limitation of knowledge to phenomena. But perhaps
enough has been said to show that the Critical Philosophy, while
its purity is so far polluted by the intermingling of absolute Be-
alism with absolute Idealism, nevertheless gave the death-blow
to Empiricism ; and that it clearly pointed out the way to a thor-
134 Dancings Descent of Man.
ouglily consistent philosophy, which should explain all reality as
the externalization of Reason, working through and yet indepen-
dent of the consciousness of the individual. The Empiricist
should learn from a study of Kant that the only reality his own
premises will allow him to retain is that which remains after all
thought and existence have vanished ; and the less prejudiced
reader, in making the thought of Kant his own, may perhaps be
led to see the necessity of cleansing it of all taint of Empiricism.
DARWEN T 'S DESCENT OF MAX.
(A Few Thoughts and Queries Suggested on Heading Darwin's Introduction
to his fifth edition of " The Origin of Species, and Descent of Man ").
By J, II. Pepper.
Darwin commences by begging the question and talks at the
commencement of " prejudices against his views;" as much as to
say that he alone is right, and that other people are so stupid
and bigoted, they will not change their minds on a subject that
nature alone can teach them, and the knowledge thus acquired
appears to ignorant observers to be all against Darwin, because
no one has yet heard or read of a monkey being anything but a
monkey, a codfish a codfish, a jelly fish a jelly fish, a cell a cell,
&c, &c, &c.
Darwin says " man must be included with all other organic
beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appear-
ance on this earth." Granted as we allow (at least a large sec-
tion of the Christian world) that Father, Son and Holy Ghost is
one God, but each separate and distinct, as we allow that red,
yellow and blue waves come from one wave of white light, but
all distinct and having separate qualities. "Species are the
modified descendants of other species." Very true again, but
each species belongs to its species, and you cannot raise a con-
tinuous species by uniting a horse and a donkey, and if you do
it the result is a mule, which can no longer generate its species,
Darwin's Descent of Man. 135
but ends as a mule. Mules do uot aud cannot increase and mul-
tiply. If you name three species, A, B, C :
A — Monkey, ( A cannot generate with B,
B— Dog, \ B with C, or
C— Man. ( A with C.
It is Darwin's business to get over this great and fundamental
difficulty, and he must be able to prove that the reverse of the
story of the confusion of languages at the building of the Tower
of Babel must happen to living animals, viz : that the multiplic-
ity of organisms and varieties of animal life possessing the com-
mon instincts of their species, must be all as the people were
said to be before the confusion of languages, i. e., all speaking
one language, or in other words having "one common seed" of gen-
eration, so that the seed of a jelly fish is really by some refined
and long time process, gradually to evolve itself from an humble
and ignoble condition to the more glorious and perfect estate called
man. Darwin's postulate seems to be that the story of the
" Tower of Babel" may be paraphrased into that of the "Tower
of Mental Activity — Man," the confusion of languages, the confu-
sion or differentiation of species, did not occur in nature, but that
the Architect of nature used only one language, one seed, out of
which came all living things from the jelly fish to man. " Natu-
ral Selection " meant that the weakest or least perfect seed was
destroyed, tbe strongest as most perfect, only lived.
Darwin allows he may have overrated the importance of "Nat-
ural Selection," aud he compliments the old and honored chiefs
in natural science and says: "Many unfortunately are still op-
posed to evolution in every form.''' 1 Darwin admits that he has
never deliberately applied these views to a species taken singly.
" When we confine our attention to any one form we are de-
prived of the weighty arguments derived from the nature of the
affinities which connect whole groups of organisms, their geo-
graphical distribution in past and present times, and their geo-
logical succession. The homological structure, embryological de-
velopment, and rudimentary organs of a species, whether it be
man or auy other animal to which our attention may be directed,
remains to be considered, but these great classes of facts afford
ns, it appears to me, ample and conclusive evidence in favor of
the principle of graded evolution."
First it may be noted that Darwin obtains no proof of evolu-
tion by studying one species ; he then begs the question again,
136 Darwin's Descent of Man.
and asks to be permitted to argue on " groups." Very good : let
him do so, and still group A is different from group B, and that
from C. If he can prove that the seed of group A will beget B r
and B beget C, we must then pay strict attention to this great
and awful fact, and say that it may then be possible to conceive
the world peopled only with monsters such as the Pagan Satyrs
or Centaurs, and in process of time by the degradation, or rather
in this case the evolution of species, we may realize semi-animals
— half dog half man, half horse half cow: but fortunately this
imaginary cataclysm is arrested by the stubborn, incontroverti-
ble obstinacy of nature in declining to permit a mule to generate
with another mule.
It would appear that the world is more likely to become de-
graded than elevated, if Darwin's doctrines are to be paramount,
and as we proceed with the analysis of his pleadings, we perceive
that like a drowning man he snatches at straws.
Darwin is undoubtedly a great philosopher, but like other
monomaniacs appears to be insane on one point, viz: that man
came from the seed of a jelly fish by "Natural Selection," (the
strong destroying the weak) occurring through millions and mil-
lions and millions (make jour left hand figures stand well in this
discussion) of years.
Darwin states that " the sole object of this work is to consider
firstly, whether man like any other species, is descended from
some pre-existing form ? Secondly, the value of the differences
between the (so-called) races of man." Ye gods ! so-called ! ! as
if a negro (so-called) was not different from a white man. When
human beings of weak intellect have escaped into the forest
wilds, it would appear that they become in certain cases covered
with hair almost like an animal, they tear their food with hands
and teeth, and live on berries, or whatever they can masticate,.
swallow, or digest.
This is the degradation of the species called man. The idiot is
one of a degraded species, and may have sprung from some in-
cestuous connection, or from the intermarriage of relations too
closely connected and within the ties of consanguinity, as usu-
ally happens when first cousins marry. Even the same seed in
the same species, man, is fatal to longevity — the offspring being
weak, languid, and die early.
If man generating with his species, and intermarriages in one
community or family, may breed idiots or other people of weak
Dancings Descent of Man. 137
bodies and intellects, what would it be if the same seed permeated
all living things belonging to the mammalia? Why gradual de-
cay, and the earth should be empty and void of human beings by
this time.
Darwin says "the high antiquity of man has recently been
demonstrated by the labors of a host of eminent men." Very
true— let that pass. Why not very ancient? when a thousand
years in Thy sight are but as yesterday.
And this, the distinguished author goes on to say, is " the in-
dispensable basis for understanding his origin." One would have
thought the contrary, because antiquity shrouds much that is
ordinarily regarded as historically in comparative darkness, and
u as distance lends enchantment to the view," so distance of time
provokes the most fascinating narratives, which, unhappily, like
the " Evolution Fairy Tale," cannot be proven — and yet are most
amusing because they wear a rag of probability of truth about
them. It seems that this vaunted antiquity shuts the door and
hides the key that might open the domain of knowledge respect-
ing the actual date of the origin of man. Darwin continues,
" Nor shall I have occasion to do more than allude to the amount
of difference between man and the ape, for Professor Huxley
says the opinion of the most competent judges has conclusively
shown that in every single visible character man differs less from
the apes than these do from the lesser members of the same
order of primates." True again, in all time man has observed
the remarkable similarity between himself and his " poor rela-
tions," the monkeys. There is a great similarity between a horse
and a mule or a donkey, but "the difierence" just makes the two
perfectly distinct. Man and apes are alike " with a difference "
profound and immense; no monkey has ever been tried in a
court of justice for a crime or conduct unbecoming a gentleman ;
they are irresponsible members of the animal world, endowed
with remarkable instincts and a great imitative faculty, but there
it ends ; individual apes, chimpanzees and ourangs, with contin-
ued kind treatment may perform remarkable acts, and by these
and facial expressions simulate their lord and master, man; the
record is full of such cases, with the usual sequel of attempted
civilization of the poor wild animal viz : death, as the ape dies of
consumption ; whereas, if allowed to roam its own native forests
and feed in its own way, the poor relation (as Charles Lamb called
the monkey) shifts for himself and lives his appointed time.
138 Darwin's Descent of Man.
So, on tbe contrary, when man is turned adrift in the forest, as
has happened with children of weak intellect, they have hardly
been able to sustain life, because they require the opposite con-
ditions of life to the monkey; if by accident they are of the fam-
ily of Esau, i. e., hairy, and nature has furnished this natural
suit of clothes or skin covering-, they may manage to exist.
When hair does not grow profusely, death probably ensues from
exposure, unless it be in a warm or temperate climate.
Darwin is a most sincere and truthful enthusiast ; it is not dis-
respectful to call him a monomaniac in the sense one would
.speak of the " perpetual motion" inventors, or "Biblio-inamacs,"
or other men who harp so long upon one string that a slight
lesion of the brain apparatus probably takes place.
Darwin's modesty charms the thoughtful reader — thus he says :
-" This work contains hardly any original facts in regard to man ;
but, as the conclusions at which I have arrived after drawing up
a rough draught, appeared to me interesting, I thought that they
might interest others." Very nice, very prettily put, and quite
refreshing as compared with the self-assertion of Tyndall and
others.
" It has often and confidently been asserted that man's origin
can never be known, but ignorance more frequently begets con-
fidence than does knowledge, it is those who know little and not
those who know much who positively assert that this or that
problem will never be solved by science." True, very true, an
undoubted truism.
The conclusion that man is co-descendant with other species of
some ancient, lower and extinct form, is not new in any degree.
See Haeckel's remarkable work, a book so perfect that even
Darwin says his own essay should not have appeared if it, the
book, had appeared before his own was written.
Possibly true again. We need not oppose the idea of the
gradual improvement of the race of man, although we are enti-
tled, with Agassiz, to reverse the process of "Evolution" rea-
soning, and say that the first creations called " man " were more
perfect than anything we now see, more beautiful, and cast in
the mould of the Apollo Belvidere and Venus of Milo.
Out of tens of thousands of horses only one wins "the Derby."
Out of tens of thousands of men and women, only one here and
there is perfect in form and conspicuous from intellect.
Were the first creations of man Apollos and Venuses ! or were
Darwin's Descent of Man. 139
they ugly, brutal, and simply animal, with or without a wild and
scanty form of language ? HoW did the divine gift of speech
originate ? The answer to these simple questions is impressive,
because silence is the result — except we say because man was
originally endowed with the organs of speech. Then if man had
the vocal organs, why did not the monkeys have the same gift >
Can we cultivate a monkey's voice to speak like a Washington or
or to sing like a Kellogg or a Titiens ?
Darwin says that "Sexual Selection has played an important
part in the differentiation of the races of man." Of course it
has, or we should not be able to recognize the pluck and endur-
ance of the Anglo-Saxon race as distinct from that of other races
of white men. We know that intermarriage, and mixture of va-
rieties of white men, climate and food, work great changes, as we
speak of a beef-eating Englishman.
Darwin's arguments fail to show us " that the differentiation of
the races of man" brings him nearer to the race of apes.
If it pleased the Creator to form monkeys and men with the
same kind of skeleton and external form, it also pleased him to
leave great barriers of distinction, b}* endowing the flesh and blood
of man with a nervous system that monkeys have not, and even
if they had it, does not give the monkeys the power to express
their thoughts in words or to reason upon or indite their ideas.
Monkeys may communicate with other monkeys by cries and
signs, but they cannot speak to man. Has any monkey
learned talk within the period, since the Antigone of Soph-
ocles was written, viz: about 450 Before Christ! If any
change had taken place in the forms of apes it must have been
recorded during the last 2,000 years. The conversion of monkeys
into men would have been too startling a fact to have escaped
notice in the Greek works published during that period. But
then Darwin's reply would be : give me more time, and count the
•evolutiou of living persons by thousands of centuries, and the
most perfect work of the Creator, viz : man, will be the result.
After reading Darwin one regrets that it is difficult if not im-
possible to agree with him, and if we take all he says for " gos-
pel,' 1 there is still a bond of connection, theoretical of course,
like Darwinism, between matter and a first great Creator.
" We may extend our vision backwards," is the high-flown and
pedantic lauguage of Tyndall, or in other words dream a dream,
140 Darwin's Descent of Man.
which put into words, suggests the following queries to the
"speculative" but "philosophical" readers of this journal:
I. Might not the principles of " evolution " and " natural se-
lection " lead up from cell life to divine perfection ?
II. If there is a beginning in " cell life," which is the lowest
form of vitalized matter, unless we begin with the chemical com-
pound called protein, whose vitality is doubtful, may there not be
an end somewhere in the very highest condition of " vitalized
matter"?
III. Do not extremes meet, and may not " cell life " and divine
majesty be the two ends of a long chain ?
IV. If cell life began the reign of vitality, why should it not
be asserted that the highest order of " spiritualized vitality " has
started first into "Power," and unrolling itself like a scroll,
shows the Powers from whence it, the "Divine Spiritual Essence
or God-head " proceeded, but ending in a cell ?
V. Upon the "Evolution Theory," we may dream that millions
and millions of years ago, matter gradually formed itself into an
Essence and Divine condition, i. e., " Perfection." This once
achieved would give the control over matter, and constitute a
" Divine, Absolute and Perfect Power," which may forever re-
peat itself in the creation of countless worlds.
VI. As a "moral code" is the basis of true happiness, the
same perfect " God-head " that repeated itself in the creation of
worlds, would provide for this want. Without a code of moral-
ity man would abandon himself entirely to brutal lusts; man
would destroy man, ergo, man would destroy himself. It was
necessary to subjugate the powers of " Ethereality," viz : "the
operations of the mind," by permitting reason to assert itself as
a co-existent power with mere animal, nervous, electrical, chemi-
cal, and mechanical "cell life."
VII. The ten commandments are the grandest examples of
what should constitute a moral code. The civilized world has
mainly accepted this code, and embodied nearly all of it in
laws. Whoever breaks the laws must in the end bring upon
himself or herself unhappiness and misery, as punishment fol-
lows the breaking of the laws. The upright and prudent man
obeys the laws (if acknowledged by all to be just), and if indus-
trious may enjoy that degree of happiness which our senses can
receive; but even the good and industrious may through ignor-
ance break some minor branch of the law, or in other terms
Turner. Ill
4 * make mistakes," and so a lack of knowledge is almost a crime,
for it frequently brings the punishment of want and penury, as
shown by unsuccessful speculations. Parents cannot too early
inculcate and insist upon rigid economy and habits of saving, for
without "means " even the best "go to the wall."
VIII. All denominations are certainly begging for money, de-
clared to be " the root of all evil," ergo, they ask for evil.
After Moses and the letter of the law, come a still more won-
derful "evolution" of "Divine Essence" of highly spiritualized
reason and thought to occupy Darwin's improved and higher
order of "cell life," viz: the marvellous life of " Him who is
called the Saviour of the World," whose code of "Mental Ethe-
riality," if once firmly established, would end all wars, and de-
stroy forever the love of the " root of all evil," and lead to sus-
tained, pure, and everlasting happiness, by the angelic purity of
the lives of men.
IX. When this last result of " Evolution," or continual de-
struction of the weak and evil, takes place, then we must have the
uprising of the highest condition of " Mental Essence," as shown
for our example in the " Life of Christ." And now has arrived
the Millenium.
But alas, it is only a dream caused by an attempt to digest the
tough theory of good, truthful, learned Darwin.
TUEXEE.
By W. E. Channing.
" He sat — and talked
With winged messengers ; who daily brought
To his small Island In the ethereal deep
Tidings of joy and love.
The measure of his soul was filled with bliss,
And holiest art, as earth, sea, air, with light,
With pomp, with glory, with magnificence."
Joseph Mallord William Turner, was born April 23, 1769, and
died December 19, 1851, at Chelsea, England.
142 Turner.
In the last ten years of the eighteenth century, there sprang
up in Britain the fashion of publishing illustrated books of local
scenery. Draughtsmen at leisure, and sketchers or amateurs,
were thus employed. Turner, in 1794, made the first sketch for
a work of this kind. He had been for some time acquiring the
rudiments of drawing and coloring, and was now sent into the
field to make sketches from nature, a practice he never aban-
doned during his extremely industrious artisMife. In these
early sketches we find his later traits, his love of reality, his
strong yet essential contrasts of light and shade, and the natural
style of his work — an elevated realism, Never would he make a
purely fanciful and traditionary picture. "We see less clearly
what he at length became, as superior by art to nature, as the
latter is to the unversed spectator — his tact and complete ad-
dress of manipulation, came latest. The author of "Modern
Painters," of whom Turner says : " He sees things in my pic-
tures that are not in them," and to whom, "A thing of beauty is
a snare forever," makes no allusion to these early works — so un-
commonly quiet and literal, needy performances, by which the
first of artists Avas educated, and confirmed in his purpose to be
a painter. Thus, face to face, he came with sea and shore, in
calm and storm, hand to hand with their beauties and their mer-
ciless exactions, never this picturesque attitude of the world ab-
sent from his eye, using his pencil before the thing he painted,
putting in his colors, in the brilliant sunshine on an open deck at
sea, as sweetly as at home :
"All he desires, all that he would demand.
Is only that some amicable hand.
Would but irrigate his fadeless bays
With due, and only with deserv-d pra'se."
This man was one to whom experience cries : " Little child,
the path of human life is something dark and crooked. I will
lead you up to the blazing sunshine, yet you shall not know it.
Eude and pitiable you must seem, awkward in the cunning appli-
ances of men and things." Never could Turner unbind his
thought save in the wave of his color, oven if he knew most dis-
tinctly what he liked. This environment restricted him from
metaphysical expression, an instinctive, irrepressible sense of
creating beauty, only possible in his art, la^- forever seeking its
Turner. US
outlet through that cramped exterior; he could draw, but never
spoke his thought.
From the outset he shows his every-day, humane tendency,
and by symbols homely in their kind. He lived a realist. He
says : "I must paint the world as I think it. Men have human
affections, they live by work and work by" tools ; I will not shut
human sympathy oat of my picture. Beauty must there be, and
love; and humauity must have its place. They laugh at my
wheelbarrows and pickaxes, the shows of toil and labor in my
compositions; the plough left in the furrow, the fishing-net
drawn up to dry; such ore the things I really sympathize with
in the scenes I draw." Raphael, having a like respect for home-
truth, paints a view of Florence into the " back wards and dark
abyss " of a " Holy Family," and Titian finishes every single sta-
men of the wild-rose, in his " Bacchus and Ariadne."
Xo weight, nor mass, nor beauty of execution can outweigh
one grain of knowledge. Three penstrokes of Raphael make a
better picture than the most highly sweetened Madonna Carlo
Dolci ever coddled. In Turner's great drawing of " Whitstable,"
with its shadowy, sweeping middle-distance, and an interminable
infinity of moving sky, we see a stone in the right-hand corner,,
with a memento of man, " Whitstable Oyster Beds, Notice." All
the rest is pure, fascinating poetry :
'• With his Yemen sword for aid ;
Ornament it carried none,
But the notches on the blade."
This quality of human truth appears the more forcibly in his
boats, those lumps of fate, as in the "Hastings" and so many
others. Here pitched to the seat swings like a wash-kettle on
the surge, the fisherman's hammock, which suggests : " It's nae
fish ye're buying, Monkbarns : "
" Wha'll have my caller herring 1 ,
Wives and maithers most despairing
Ca' them lives o* men."
With round bows, heavy and forcible, he builds that salt-fish
craft, now sunk in the waves, now with a wave on board, and
perchance the figure-head of some uuheaveuly fisher bolt up-
right, and staring bravely with fishy eyes at Providence. Then
144 Turner.
there is the amiable artist's buoy, dashy and shining on salt sea
wrack, with a streak of rusty crimson from the angry sunset,
or shivering under the wash of a bankrupt cloud, yet a useful
buoy, morally prepared to do his duty. In one drawing he has a
stout brig resting on the very crest of a foaming wave, lifted
bodily out of the sea-level, and calculating the plunge for a
second.
He crowds hosts of figures, as in the " Zurich," where we see
a hundred and more washerwomen, raising their morning hymn to
the Virgin of Linen, or as in the '' Valhalla," and its endless pro-
cession, sauntering along the shores of the rapid, sparkling
river. A domestic symbolism prefaces the unutterable glories of
color — this foreground must and shall be an objective outlook at
humanity — art must be brought by me into friendly social rela-
tions. Here are native sympathies which can be counted on as
certain. It is his paying excellence to have invested a long, pains-
taking life, in improved art-copies from common facts. Those
lines from the " Blind Highland Boy " would not have displeased
him :
"A Household Tub, like one of those
Which womeu use to wash their clothes ;
This carried the blind boy."
He feared not truth, nor like good society " lied on principle,"
as a comfort to the other side. Veracity in expression was his
from his earliest education, and from his after practice, brought
up by sketching for his bread. The picture must be a recogniza-
ble likeness of the thing painted, if it must also be paid for. His
work thus became a personation of that old romance of reality :
" The light that never was on sea or land."
To the last — limited — if vaporing about one's self is counted
for substance ; what he sought not to do. Is not the planet, the
cost of limitation, the monotonous march in an orbit, and the ab-
sence of the accident, by which we are not what we had imagined
— on credit '?
With him, his landscape shall have an earnest, life-giving pur-
pose. It is meant to satisfy the desire after property, which
haunts the human breast. It must not be dry and meagre ; if
not more than a dozen lines, these must record a rich and varied
experience, to be so many, by right. In his progress to his sec-
Turner. 145
ond style, he bad learned to execute through unspeakable en-
deavors. How, as in tbe " Southern Coast," be ventures to con-
test with the exasperating differentiation of distance, the trailing
of sudden showers across wide spaces, the yeasty waves with a
shipwreck in their mouth, rainbows, or glittering, wet strands,
painting nioonrise and sunset at opposite corners of the picture,
as nature also can.
"Such delights
As float to earth, permitted visitants."
From nothing that appears in Turner's manner was he heart-
broken or repining, as men inspired through their individual
cracks reflectively assert he was. His native fashion was to be
resigned — he could symbolize grief, and see terrors that lurk like
serpents, in tbe undertow of human expectation, and wrote "Fal-
lacies of Hope," but he felt the consciousness of immeasurable
endowment, and that he possessed the power of setting forth a
portion of tbe Providential glory of tbe lower world. Xever was
any man broken-hearted in any calling or craft wherein be had
worked and lived with earnest and successful industry. The
outset and culmination of a practised artist's life, tbat moral les-
son, the result of certain, well-directed effort, shines fortb, for he
was not anywise bom a painter, but forcibly made himself one,
by the "struggle for existence," which is a saving strength to the
soul. He never looked to cast stones at his humble apprentice-
ship — "it was," he said, "good practice." It taught him scrupu-
lous fidelity in work. Every first line in bis unfinished drawing-
betrays the same truth as the last magnificence of his creative
whole. He had humility, and he had ease. He exacted every-
thing from himself, and everything he also did perform — always
the two sides to the building of success. In a small space he
analyzes a great outline, and he rejoices to find much room may
be packed in an inch. He produces storm-fed skies that clutch
up and indignantly reject the prose of earth. He is as peculiar
by his numberless varieties of manner, as the mass of painters
by their variety of one. He composed a delightfully picturesque
architecture, fouud books in the running brooks, sermons in stones
and humanity in everything. The cataract and the woodland
could be set in skies such as no poet has conjectured; the hues
of peaches and violets melting upon soft mountain castles, with
X— 10
14G Turner.
their purple shadows sleeping in the sweet distances of heaven T
far beyond all beauty that thought or speech can suggest. His
color soon lost its first close precision and mechanism, and he
was at length blamed, even ridiculed, for his indefiniteness. A
great and overpowering landscape painter cannot be such save by
daring variations and unexpected conclusions. But what pen
could ever portray, or what pencil ever copy, those perfect and
simple effects ? Simple in expression, and of countless design,
they melt, they fade — those outlines seemingly firm as stone, of
the floating mountain-walls — the subdued light of the sinking
sun from the torn edges of the crimson sky falls over the sea in
that shimmering haze. We thought we had seen it all over and
over again. Never, till now; for it is alone through the great
artist's eye we can ever truly see at all. Turner was most inspired
artistically in his infinite adaptations, his multitudinous natural
expressions. There are artists who all their lives repeat their
one success, and more, the many failures. Then the genius comes
with his heroic affluence of possibility.
" Quia delectasti me, Domine, in factum tua,
Et in operibus manuum Tuaruni exultabo. , '
(Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy works.
I will triumph in the works of Thy hand).
In these sublime words we read the meaning and the impulse
in which Turner lived and wrought. His life was a worship of
that one God, who dwelleth not in temples made with hands, who
inspires the puffing Isaiahs or Samuels, and will inspire all God-
seeking men, whatever their profession or sect — saint, sinner or
sage — so long as creation repeats the joyful anthem of the stars.
If there was anything Turner did not, and could never do, it was
to have the supercilious atheist's liver complaint, and above all
that of the despairing, thin-skinned, over-cultivated atheist. No
child rocked in its mother's arm to peaceful slumber, ever more
confided in that mother's heart than he in the mysteries of the
Creator, so purely worshipped.
If we contrast the work of Turner with that of J. F. Millet,
the distinction lies in the superhuman character of the former,
whereby transcendent beauty escapes from the dull environment
of earthly form. Millet's manner does not yield in vitality of
surface. He too knows that shadow is perforated with light.
Turner. 147
There are enough of smooth daubs across the surface — work of
artists — nature contrives light and life to pulsate beneath her
drawing. Millet's picture may be three inches by two, a bit of
wood-road, water beneath a low bank, on which crouch a few
scrambling trees or bushes, or loose stones with a stream over
them, like the subject of some French song. "You see in the
meadow, through an opening in the thicket, the lengthened
shadow of a horse and cart in the setting sun, and from time to
time the end of the fork loaded with hay appears and disappears
above the hedge." So here the glimmering, unsteady pool, the
frowning trees, (live green or brown, with just a mere shimmer
in one spot of soft, sun-lit green, and trees, stones and ground
drawn in by diagonal lines, make up the whole ; but all is crammed
with thought. A tree in the distance, not the tenth of an inch,
is perfect. There is no littleness, no effort, all is strong, free and
well alive. The water positively stirs as it reflects, under the
shimmering half-transparent bank, and the cassimere-yellow mid-
dle-distance, with a single dot on the outline, that xoufeel should
be a house, speaks French. Such is the possibility of art, on a
strip of paper you could put in your pocket. Turner rises supe-
rior to Millet, as the sky is superior to ground. He has that re-
ligion which gently leads his thoughts to flow out in creations of
otherwise impossible beauty. With one it is the garden or the
vine, with the other the radish and the sip of tea — one heaven,.
the other earth. And to-morrow what will constitute the
style ?
" Y peiisez vous, ils sont fanes, ces noeiuls ?
lis sont d'hier ? Mon Dieu, comme tout passe ! "
(And think you then my ribbons are soiled? Yesterday's pur-
chase. Good God, how it all spins ! )
A few traditions of Turner follow, which might be taken cum
grano salis. Mountains possess a different hue according to the
standpoint of the looker-on. The supposed date of his birth, in
a parish register, is 1775; he said he was born on the twenty-
third of April, 1769, the birth-day of Shakspeare as to the month,
and in this same year Wellington, Xapoleon, and Sir Thomas
Lawrence were also born. As for his mother's family name it is
not known, nor where his- parents married, nor where he was
born. His luck in dates, that pneumonia of bores, was small,
and that upon his parents' gravestone, written by himself, is
148 Turner.
wrong by a year. In his last move, to Chelsea, where he died,
the widow whose rooms he hired asked him his name. " Name,"
said Tinner, who had an apathy of questions, "Why, what is
your name ? " " Booth," was the reply. *' So, so, Booth," said
he, " well, I am Mr. Booth," and by that name he went, and was
so called by the doctor who made his last pill, and who knew
Turner, the artist, well. The malaria of the great is discounted
as over soul. Turner kept seven Manx cats with no tails, and a
lady, Mrs. Danby, to form their society, and had that horror of
mending and moving, that the damp and rain streamed down
over his pictures. His nickname was "Avalanche Jenkinson,"
and he was usually so addressed by his friends, which by no
means accuses him of ill-humor, nominally.
He did not spend his days, in recounting the fact that he was a
genius (the ear-mark of an ass) and had no envy ; he was a little
humorous with his brother artists. On visiting the handsome
gilded gallery of Thompson, in Edinburgh, after looking slowly
about and musing, he said thoughtfully, "You beat me †” in
frames." Mulready disposed a little bird inconspicuously but
very effectively on a pillar, in one of his taking pictures. Tur-
ner quietly said, " I saw your robin," at once catching the motive.
He had a pleasant turn. Sometimes he leaves a parasol in a
foreground, without a figure, to show that one has been there.
In his lovely, warm spring landscape, a sweet idyl of misty morn-
ing sunlight, " Bain, Steam and Speed," there is a hare running
before the engine which is crossing the viaduct, but he is almost
inconspicuous ; the little beastie and the puffing iron-horse, the
morn as lovely as a dream of youth, life, fate and God, somewhat
antithetically put. In the old proverb to see a hare running be-
fore you denotes calamity. In one of his plates, named Wick-
liff'e, he introduced a burst of light, in touching the proof, not in
the drawing.' The engraver inquired about it. Turner replied,
" That is the place where Wiekliffe was born, and there is the
light of the glorious Beformation." " Yes," said Mr. Pye, satis-
fied : "but what do you mean by these large geese?" " They
are the old superstitions, which the genius of the Beformation is
driving away." In the original sketch of Elgin Cathedral, by an
amateur, the windows of the nave were built up. Turner, in his
drawing, left them open, and on being asked why, replied: "They
should be open. How much better to see the light of day in
God's house, than darkness."
Turner. 149
Once driving home with a friend, at the pike his host found he
had no money, and borrowed sixpence of Mr. Turner. After a
superb dinner, sitting over their wine, the gentleman gravely
said : " Let me see, Mr. Turner, I think I owe you a little
money." " What money," cried Turner, clapping down his glass,
" what for ? " " You paid sixpence for the gate when I drove you
down." " Oh," said Turner, with an odd look of disappointment
"nevermind that — now." One of Sir Thomas Lawrence's rich
friends at Clapham Terrace ordered a picture at a great cost, and
Turner went down to see it hung. After a noble dinner, with
the ladies, who praised the magnificent work, his host saw that
the artist was restless, and when they were alone said: u Xow
to business. I'll go and write you a cheque." He came back,
handed Turner the cheque, who held it and looked at it, turning
it over and over, but did not put it up. His host said, seeing
something wrong : " I have made it guineas. I think it was to
be guineas, Mr. Turner." "Yes," replied the artist, in his
awkward fashion, " the guineas are right, but I paid six shillings
for the coach ; that's not down."
He gained a great fortune for an artist. He left it all beyond
a doubt, as he believed, as a fund for the benefit of " Decayed
Male Painters." Out of this will the lawyers strained the truth.
This sum, painfully scraped out of the dirt, straw and ashes of a
long, penurious life, was by him faithfully economized fortius one
good end. His art-remains went to the English people ; the re-
lief for the " Decayed Male Painters," with their distressing com-
pany— to Hades.
Some hints follow from " Modern Painters," a book that en-
folds in its lengthening chain and long drawn out, good bits of
Turner. There are gem my sparks scintillating from a maze of
vertiginous obscuration.
Yorkshire scenery greatly influences him, he feels a strong lo-
cal attachment to its minutiae. With his feeling for beauty of
line, the broad wooded steeps and swells reappear, in the infinite
massiveness of his mountain drawing. They contain finish and
quantity of form with aerial perspective, and light without color ;
they are studies in light and shade, very green blues being used
for the shadows, and golden brown for the lights. France, in its
perfectness of foliage and forms of ground — lowland France, the
valleys of the Loire and Seine, and the district between Calais
150 Turner.
and Dijon was grateful to hiin. He is still the one sufficient
painter of French landscape.
He felt the true colors of nature had never been attacked by
any artist. He went to the cataract for its iris, to the conflagra-
tion for its flames, asked of the sea its inteusest azure, of the sky
its clearest gold. Color is a god-inspired commandment to him.
He is the one painter who has drawn the sky, a mountain or a
stone ; the stem of a tree, the surface of calm, or the force of ag-
itated water; the effects of space on distant objects, and the ab-
stract beauty of natural color.
He boldly takes pure white for his highest light, and lamp-
black for his deepest shade. He associates warm with cold light.
In his sunsets he has the gray passages about the horizon, where
seen through its dying glory, the cool and the gloom of night
gather themselves for the victory. As in the "Old Temeraire," be-
neath the blazing veil of vaulted fire which lights the vessel on
her last path, there is a desolate, blue, deep hollow of darkness,
out of which come the sad and lonely voices of the night-wind,
and the sorrowful anthem of the unresting sea. A single dusty
roll of Turner's brush is more expressive of the infinity of life,
than the niggling of Hobbima, if he had niggled on till doomsday
at the spicule of hay stacks or the ear of a donkey.
Where Turner gives blue, it is atmosphere. Nothing near
enough to have details, is painted sky-blue. Sunset skies, the
moment before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-
color — when the whole sky becomes one molten, mantling sea of
color and fire, the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting
through it all, Turner has painted that. Or, as in the "Napoleon,"
the stormy blood-red of the horizon, the scarlet of the breaking
sun-light, the rich crimson browns of the wet, illumined sea-
weed ; the pure gold and purple of the upper sky, and shed
through it all, the deep passage of solemn blue, where the cold
moonlight falls on one pensive spot of the limitless, unthought-
ful shore. He sheds through every hue a dazzling intensity of
light. He has points, where the system of each individual color
is concentrated by a single stroke. There is no warmth which
has not gray in it, and no blue which has not warmth in it.
Grays, as with all perfect colorists, are the cherished, the inimit-
able portions of his color. In the "Mercury and Argus," the pale
and vaporous blue of the heated sky is broken with gray and
pearly white, but there is not a grain of pure blue. All is sub-
Turner. 151
clued and warmed by the mingling gray aud gold, up to the very
zenith, where, breaking through the flaky mist, the transparent
and deep azure of the sky is expressed with a single, crumbling
touch. He gives a dash of pure white for his highest light, the
other whites are pearled dowu with gray and gold. He gives a
fold of pure criinsou to the drapery of his nearest figure, all his
other crimsons will be warmed with black, or deepened with yel-
low. There is a general current of gray pervading the whole of
his color. The highest lights and the local touches of pure color
are the key-notes, flashing with intense brilliancy. He never
leaves a quarter of an inch of canvass without a change in it.
No richness nor depth of tint can atone for the loss of one par-
ticle of arranged light, no splendor of hue must interfere with
the depth of a determined shadow. And color is the climax of
his excellence — that dream all beauty — that illusion of the soul.
Turner depends on attaining brilliaucv of light by clear and
perfect drawing of the shadows, not by blackness, but by exces-
sive evenness, unity and sharpness of edge. The liner and
vaguer shadows throughout give a thrilling influence to the light
they leave — its passion and its power. On each stone, and leaf,
and cloud, the light is felt to be passing and palpitating, which
chooses one thing and rejects another, glowing, or flashing, or
scintillating, aud then losing itself in doubt or dimness, or per-
ishing in drifting mist, or melted into melancholy air — living
light, which sleeps but never dies. Search all the foregrounds
that Claude ever painted, and you will not find so much as the
shadow of one leaf upon another.
The conception of each individual inch of his distance is com-
plete in the master's mind. Not one line of the myriads there, is
without meaning. A distinct, sharp, visible, yet unintelligible
and inextricable richness. In the capital on the foreground of
the "Daphne," not one jog of the acanthus leaves is absolutely vis-
ible. The lines are all disorder, but you feel in an instant, they
are all there. Or, look at his treatment of the highest clouds —
the cirri, which have symmetry, sharp edges, multitude, purity
and variety :
"Multitudes of little floating clouds,
Through their ethereal texture, had become
Vivid as tire; clouds separately poised,
And giving back, and shedding each on each
152 Turner.
With prodigal communion, the bright hues
Which from the unappareut fount of glory
They had imbibed.'"
When serenity of sky and intensity of light are needed, Tur-
ner uses the cirri. At times, a ray of light calls them to exist-
ence from its misty shade; in greater repose, a few detached,
equal rounded flakes hang motionless in the deep zenith-blue,
each other's shadow, or burn in fiery, flying fragments, with
separate energy, or are woven with fine threads of intermediate
darkness, melting into the blue. He beautifully uses the low,
horizontal bars or fields of cloud, the cirro-strati. In some of
his skies the whole space of the heavens is covered with the del-
icate, dim flakes of gathering vapor, the link between the central
region and the rain-cloud. Then we have the haze of sun-lit rain,
or the half-exhausted shower, when the white torrent flings up
its white jets of spray, which vanish in the shafts of the sun-
light — wind-woven sunlight, sending them as messengers of peace
to the far mountain summits yet unveiled, and hoarse with the
down-rush of the plunging freshets. Or, we may have clouds,
without rain, at twilight, enveloping the cliffs of the coast, but
concealing nothing, every outline visible through the gloom, in-
tense in its pure warm gray, without blackness or blueness. Or,
high and far above the volumes of the swift rain-cloud, are seen
through their opening, the quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the
highest cirrus, resting in the repose of the deep sky. In his
storm-drawing we witness angular outlines, vastness and energy
of form, infinity of gradation and depth, without blackness.
In the "Jumieges" there is the haze of sun-lit rain, the gradual
retirement of the dark wood into its depth, and the sparkling
and evanescent light, which sends its variable flashes upon the
abbey, figures, foliage and foam. In the "Long Ship's Lighthouse"
we have clouds without rain, at twilight, intensity of gloom in
pure warm gray without blackness or blueness, full of storm-
energy, fiery in haste, with fitful swirls of bounding drift. In
the "Coventry" the great mass of cloud is characterized through-
out by severe right lines, but no one entirely parallel to any
other, and made up of the most varied curves. Those of the
falling rain are equally varied. Impetuous clouds, twisted rain,
flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, and oppressed cattle, all
speak of tumult, fitfulness, power and velocity. One thing is
wanted, a passage of repose — we find it in the highest cirrus, rest-
Turner. 153
ing on the deep sky. But the color of the delicate and soft forms
of these pausing vapors, and the exquisite depth and pulsing
tenderness of the blue with which they are islanded, never could
be portrayed by aught else than the artist's soul from which they
sprang, or ever were else created, far beyond man's lower nature,
and its herd of self-sufficient averages :
" My course is run, my errand done.
I lived to Him from whom I came."
In Turner, the dash of the brush is as much under the rule of
thought and feeling as its slowest line, and cannot be varied a
hair's breadth without changing the expression of the whole.
To them who have never seen a cloud vanish on a mountain-side,
we cannot indeed hope to tell what the morning mist is like in
mountain air. How soft, how soothing, how ineffably agreeable
its perfumed breath, the incense of the hills, and that delicious
contrast with the loving, cheerful, far away sun-lit valleys, that
spring from out the changing mist-cloud with their brief green,
glad life, bathing the soul in thankfulness to God for those adorn-
ments of earth which lift it to the skies ; lie paints it all.
In the "Lake of Lucerne'' we see the recess of near mountain
form, not into dark, but into luminous cloud, the most difficult
thing to do in art. In the "Battle of Marengo," we feel that Tur-
ner is as much a geologist as a painter. However the light may
fall, mountain peaks are marked with sharp and defined shad-
ows. They rise in the morning light, rather like sharp shades
cast up into the sky, than solid earth. Their lights are pure,
roseate and cloud like, their shadows transparent, pale and opa-
lescent, and often indistinguishable from the air around them.
The mountain top floats like a flake of motionless fire in heaven.
In Turner's distance we see transparency or filminess of mass,
with excessive sharpness of edge. Slurred and melting lines do
not characterize large objects. In the "Mount Lebanon," there is
not one touch or shade on the rock that does not show the strata.
Every shade is understood at once, you can step from block to
block, till you reach the top. In the "Daphne,," the mountain is
simple, broad, the surge of a swelling sea, an unbroken line
along the valley. In its mass there are ten thousand hills. On
this side, a range of tower-like precipices. The clinging wood
along the ledges, with waterfalls gleaming through, stealing
down from shadowy point to point, with evanescent foam and
154: Turner.
flashing light, here a wreath and there a ray, through the deep
chasms and hollow ravines, out of which rise the soft, rounded
slope of mightier mountains, surge beyond surge, immense and
numberless, of delicate and gradual curve, accumulating in the
sky until their garment of forest is exchanged for the shadowy
folds of slumberous morning cloud, above which the utmost sil-
ver peak shines islanded and alone. The most essential quali-
ties of mountain line, are to be explained alone by appeals to our
feeling of what is beautiful, they cannot be reduced to line and
rule — intangible, incalculable, to be loved not comprehended, to
be felt not understood, — a music of the eye, a melody of the
heart :
" O they are fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."
In the foreground of the "Mercury and Argus," we have earthy
crumbling banks, cut away by water. The whole distance is
given by the retirement of solid surface. If ever an edge is ex-
pressed, it is only felt for an instant and then lost — heaving here,
sinking there, now blending now breaking. In the foreground of
the Llanthouy, the rocks are not divided by joints, but into their
horizontal and united beds, cut by the torrent one above another,
with the eddying, water-worn edges showing beneath. In the
Ulleswater, the rock surfaces seem to move under the tine touch
of the waves, a soft swell, or a gentle depression. You cannot
find a single edge in Turner's near rock- work ; there are every-
where round surfaces, and you go back on these, you cannot tell
how. In "Penmaen Mawr," there is soft soil, beautifully modulated
by descending rain. He who cannot make a bank sublime, will
make a mountain ridiculous, and the painter's rank is shown by
his use of minutiae. Turner's foregrounds are united in all their
parts. The eye cannot take them by divisions, and we discover
new truths by approaching them in a new direction. Without
effort, he showers knowledge into every touch. His slighted
passages, part by part, contain the universal working of his deep-
est thought. Like a sonata of Mozart, every note is necessary
to the whole, the gradations of tone and color perfectly agreeing,
from the highest line of the sky to the lowest line of the ground.
In his smooth water there is a peculiar texture given to the
most delicate tints of the surface, when there is little reflection
from anything save sky or atmosphere. This gives the appear-
Turner. 155
ance of substantial liquidity. In the "Lucerne," we see the melt-
ing of the mountain promontories, below into the clear depth,
above into the clouds. He obtains the force of falling or agita-
ted water, by fearless and full rendering of its forms. He never
loses himself or his subject in the splash of the fall. Nature
gives more than foam, she shows beneath and through it, a char-
acter of exquisite form, on every wave and line of fall. This
character Turner seizes. In the "Llauthouy," the chief light falls
on the surface of the stream swelled by recent rain. Its mighty
waves roll down, close, green and clear, but pale with anger. A
race of mad motion, the waves dragged into lines and furrows
by their swiftness, but drawn with the most studied chiaroscuro
of delicate color, grays and greens, with that thoughtful refine-
ment of profound execution which the eye strains itself with
looking into, and the vividness of foam is obtained by a general
middle tint.
The right painting of the sea must depend, at least in all coast
scenery, on the power of drawing foam, in good part. It is not
usually from the shore Turner studies his sea, but twenty or
thirty yards from it. In the "Laughame" especial attention is
given to the flatness of the lines, as in his mountain drawing.
Sublimity is not given by the height but by the breadth of mass-
es, and there is a peculiar expression of weight in his waves.
The surges roll with such prostration against the shore, we feel
the rocks shaking under them. The wind has no power on this
tremendous unity, and there is only an indication of a line of
torn spray along the beach. The same lines show the violence
and the swiftness of the rising wave, as were used to give the
fury of the torrent. Two waves which spring high into the air,
in the distance, show their encounter with the recoil of the pre-
ceding wave. In the "Land's End," the whole surface of the sea
becomes one dizzy whirl of rushing, writhing, tortured, undirec-
ted rage, subdivided into myriads of waves, not each a separate
surge, but part and portiou of a vaster one. There is not one
false curve given, not one that is not the expression of a visible
motion. The color of the sea is a solemn green gray, its foam
seen dimly through the shadows of twilight, modulated with the
fullness, changefulness and sadness of a deep, wild melody. In
the "Slave-ship" the storm is somewhat lulled, the torn and stream-
ing rain-clouds are moving in scarlet lines to lose themselves in
the hollow of the night. The surface makes two ridges of enor-
156 Turner.
rnous swell — between these the fire of sunset falls along the
trough of the sea, an intense and lurid splendor, which burns like
gold and bathes like blood. The tossing waves of the swell lift
themselves restlessly in dark fantastic forms, leaving between
them treacherous spaces of level and whirling water, now lighted
with green and lamp-like fire, now flashing back the gold of the
declining sun, now fearfully dyed from above with the indistin-
guishable images of the burning clouds. Purple and blue, the
lurid shadows of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of
night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of
death upon the guilty ship as it labors amid the lightning of the
sea, its thin masts lined upon the sky in crimson :
" Such is the eve of tropic sun :
With disk like battle-target red.
He rushes to his burning - bed,
Dyes the wide wave with bloody light,
Then sinks at once, — and all is night."
It has been said no men but Titian and Turner ever drew the
stem of a tree. The woody stiffness hinted through muscular
line, and the inventive grace of the upper boughs, have never
been rendered except by the latter. The boughs if finely grown,
bear among themselves such a ratio of length, as to describe
with their ends a symmetrical curve, constant for each species.
Any engineer could have drawn the steps and balustrade, in
the "Hero and Leander''; Turner alone could have thrown the ac-
cidental shadows upon them. Generally his management of color
and tone is so absolutely exceptional in fineness and variety, it
may be said no one but he ever made a beautifully perfect water-
color drawing. Engravings and copies from him may possibly
give, if extremely skillful, a partial idea of his design. Chro-
mos from his works, are a vulgar caricature. He has not one dot
or line whose meaning can be understood without knowledge, and
nothing is in one that knowledge will not enable us to under-
stand. He aims at the deep final truth, which is the ripened
fruit of reflection and experience. He does, or omits nothing,
without comparison of results, after careful selection, and
thoughtful arranging, of all that can bethought of and arranged.
Turner's word for finishing a picture, was always this : " Carry
forward."
Turner. 157
He fell in flashing splendor, — like a star,
{Down through a clouded chasm of worn-out days) —
Veiled in celestial blooms ; such skies as saw
Far-freighted isles all loveliness, with fanes
Of columnar splendor clustering round
Bays in their depth of foliage ; sun-bright meads.
Held to their dream by guardian heights of rock.
And looking in soft lakes, on whose smooth cheek.
Like down upon a maiden's lip they lay,
Wondering what was their beauty.
When the storm
Beat high and rocked the humble shore, upon
Its haughty arm, and tossed it in mid-heaven,
With rock and surf, and many-pebbied weed,
Loaded with purple tresses like a nymph's,
Born in the sea-depp grots, he too was there,
Drinking that ocean-chorus, till the swell
Danced in long lines of light, and filled his soul ;
Or on the main, launched in the fiery ship,
Saw unremorseful ocean seize his prey.
Beauty must find a voice, nor always speak
By one aperture. Hers, a thousand tones,
Of smallest flower, or gleam of serpent's scale,
Or touch of waterfalls o'er glittering stones,
And in the mind of man, we know not how, —
Something that should be said, albeit no ear
May take it in, human or otherwise.
For yet that starry vault and crystalline air,
And the blue throbbing worlds roll on unheard,
Utterly unheard, in their old round !
The many— come and fade ;— they fade, they fly,
Like leaves at autumn, and the cold, deaf wind
Heaps up their stricken multitudes ! What thought,
What utterance of the early gods, had they,
In such unvaried paths, all toil and care ?
And less the fluttering gnats that fashion swarms,
The beautiful and fine, dancing the sunset's gold,
Splendid as gems, all Ormuz in the blaze, —
Motes in the shadow, desolate as scorn !
Not thus, the seer !
On earth, if once he comes, she lifts an eye,
(Old nature weary of old forms) to see,
A being made to re-create more than hers.
So far as man, the last — perchance the best,
Of time's long products, in his choicest sons,
Material shapes, infinitely outdoes
Those pebbles on life's shore, dry and ungraced.
158 The Tico Kinds of Dialectic.
Until a shining surge floats o'er their souls,
And in a fairy touch so gilds their face
That it becomes the mirror of the wave,
And earth and sky and air uplift their prayer,
And the sweet music of the low-voiced sea
Says : "Take us, we are Thine, do as Thou will,
Slaves to Thy bidding, O, too glad we serve."'
THE TWO KINDS OF DIALECTIC,
[We have received the following valuable contribution from Rev. Dr. L. P.
Hickok, for our " Notes and Discussions." We insert it here, and will reserve
our comments for another place.] — Editor.
Editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy :
Sir — You have written so clearly that I readily take the stand-
point from which you view a priori truth. I am not so sure that
I can give to you my own so completely. My attempt to do so,
as concisely as I can, is as follows —
Logic gives the law of thought, and is logic proper when con-
necting phenomena into judgments; but when carried beyond
phenomenal connections into questionings of thought itself, it
then becomes dialectic and is of two kinds only, though the logic
may have many varieties. The logical law will regulate the dia-
lectical process, but in one kind the dialectic will be within the
ruling of the Logic of Eeason, which has no varieties ; and in the
other kind it will take the regulation of the Logic of the Under-
standing, which will be modified into many varieties. The logic
of reason will carr.s the dialectical process from universals to
particulars, and the logic of the understanding in all its varieties
will take the dialectical process from particulars to the universal.
The former process will be by continual concretions, and may be
termed the concrete or Platonic Dialectic ; the latter will be by
perpetual abstractions, and may be known as the abstract or Ar-
istotelian Dialectic.
I. The Platonic Dialectic. When we observe an acorn as
it grows onward to an oak, it is phenomenal only through all the
The Tico Kinds of Dialectic. 159
course, but beyond this sense-observation, the reason-insight
detects the inner life-power which has all along been determining*
the passing phenomena, and which has been the real acorn and
oak through all the process. And just so with every natural and
artificial object; a stone, and a brick, have each in them their
efficient working-force which both fixes and moves the appear-
ances, and this inner efficient is the real entity. Now, this real-
ity connecting the appearances is the Platonic Idea, not at all as
mentally made but a real rationally lnoicn, and every observed
object of whatever sort has its idea, and that idea is the only
real object. This idea holds the many phenomena together indi-
visibly in the object and so makes of the multiplicity an individu-
ality, and therein also a concrete universality. All sense-phe-
nomena become known as individual objects, only by the reason-
insight detecting their respective real ideas, and thus it is that
the entire phenomenal world has its entity as a reality in the
ideas ; and in this is found the Platonic logical law for thinking
sense-appearances into valid judgments.
And now, beyond this logical connecting of the phenomena
comes a dialectical mental questioning ; how may these ideas be
known in their connections ? The like reason-insight, which
knew the phenomena conspiring in one, knows also all ideas to be
conspiring in unity, each holding others and all holding each de-
terminately, so that one being taken all others may be known,
and thereby is the individual completely known only in the uni-
versal. And further still, the reason sees in the universe of the
phenomenal and real that it has also its comprehending fountain
of all efficiency and rationality, and this is the Good, as called by
Plato, standing independent in personal self-sufficiency, and both
sustaining and ruling the dependent Universe. The phenomenal
in the real occasions the Universe to be known in the distinctions
of space, and time, and individuality ; but the Good, as reality
beyond all sense appearing, necessitates that to him all distinc-
tions of space, and time, and substantial divisibility, must be ut-
terly impertinent.
So, moreover, the one common space and common time give
occasion for all possible pure figures and numbers to be construc-
ted within them ; and since they cannot be regulated by the real
ideas, in their purity, and only ruled in reason by definitions and
axioms ultimate and universal, they give rise to a middle science
between the phenomenal and real, viz : mathematics, to which the
100 The Tico Kinds of Dialectic.
absolute space and time are concretes, and every figure construc-
ted within them is a concrete, and every demonstration a law for
and not a deduction from the Empirical, and so they afford for the
reason a field of known truth ultimate and eternal.
We have here then a prior, independent of our form of repre-
sentation, both in its reality and its ruling. In the physics, the
idea rules the phenomenal experience and is no abstraction nor
deduction from the experience. The phenomena can be intelligi-
ble only by the idea, the ideas only by their union in the cosmos,
and the Universe only by its comprehension in the Good. And
in the mathematics, the demonstration can be convincing only as
ruled by the definitions and axioms, and these must be alike for
all rational beings. In none of these can the posterior have any
meaning but as interpreted in the light of the prior. Just as
soon as the insight flashes through the constructed diagram, the
demonstration is irrefragable; and just so soon as the phenome-
nal world is apprehended in its logical ideas, the dialectic shoots
up. as the minaret from the mosque, and at a glance the Universe
and its God are known as the dependent on the Absolute.
II. The Akistotelian Dialectic. The logic in this will
ever be an abstraction and deduction from a precedent experi-
ment, and so a logic of the understanding only, and attaining its
uuiversals only from what appears in the particulars ; while some
minor modifications of the logical will so far modify the dialecti-
cal process. Any a priori knowing will be only of that which
we ourselves put into the objects.
1. The Variety of Logic that Regulates the Knowing by the Ob-
ject. This is Aristotle's own method, and it of course rules his
dialectic. The prime principle is that of contradiction;, viz : that
of two universal opposites one only can be true ; and he trusts
so little in reason and will so invariably have experiment, that
he seeks to prove its truth by showing that any opposer to it can
be made to contradict himself, as if contradiction by an example
could be a more repulsive absurdity than when only in the light
of reason alone. The logic begins with the known in experience
and seeks by this to reach the unknown. Particulars are sorted
in species and graded genera till the conception of abstract being-
is reached, in which is universal essence exclusive of all differ-
ence, and here logic must terminate, since all predication ceases.
Below this, all syllogistic forms may be arranged and deductions
concluded, but all questioning beyond is dialectic and belongs to
The Two Kinds of Dialectic. 161
First Philosophy, or Metaphysics. All essence is here just as
found in experience, and the dialectical querying is, what more
can analysis and abstraction get from it ? It is then fouud poten-
tial for all changes, which will give matter and form, the one
merely capable for any changes and thus passive, the other active
in passing into form and taking the essence along with it. In
the actual is material, formal, moving, and final causes in combi-
nation, in which the movement attains the end and is satisfied.
Here, movement and end are identical in that the moving has its
object, just as the eye acts and objectifies in the acting, or as
mind thinks and is satisfied in the thinking, even so the univer-
sal energy ever grasps the Universe and in that satisfies its aim.
This is Aristotle's grand Entelechy, the eternal thinking of
thought.
We pass now all critical remark, that nothing is here satisfac-
tory in the presumption that nature has any substantial and
causal connections, and is truly a Universe ; that we can appre-
hend a self as free personality, either as creature or creator ; and
that there is no opening for morality or religion; we only note
that there is and can be here no a priori knowledge. All the
known given is in the phenomenal, and the only way to the un-
known is through the sense-known. We may abstract and de-
duce, we have no insight to verify presuppositions and prerequi-
sitions. Neither the logic nor dialectic can reach anything prior
to the Empirical. The only semblance of a priori knowledge is
in making a limited induction stand for universal observation.
We cannot perceive all ; we have observed so much and so well,
that we may take this as receipt for the deficit. We presume
that the future is mirrored in the past, and that what has been
is a warrant for what will yet be. Indeed this logic does not
claim, but disdainfully discards all a priori knowing.
2. The Logic which Regulates the Knowing by the Subject. —
Spinoza might be here adduced who takes the understanding to
be distinct from the universal substance, and constitutionally
gives to the substance the attributes of thought and extension,,
mind and matter, in complete harmony; or Leibnitz might be-
cked, whose view of mind and matter is that in distinct sub-
stance they are monads representing together each by itself ac-
cording to a pre-established harmony, the former in conscious-
ness and the latter in unconsciousness ; both Spinoza and Leib-
X— 11
10l» The Tico Kinds of Dialectic.
nitz, acquiring such instruments for representing, could then a
priori speak of the knowing. But under this variety, Kant is the
fullest and fairest example. We observe man representing by
sense, and judging by understanding, and both in such a manner
that we are induced to give to the sense constitutionally the forms
of space and time as intuitions, and to the understanding those
of the categorical conceptions. We find him competent to know
only by ordering the intuitions in and by the conceptions. That
Empirical intuitions may be given to the constitutional intuitions
of space and time, a noumenon as " thing-in-itself" is assumed,
but cannot be known since it cannot of itself be envisaged. Be-
yond these intuitions and conceptions, there are constitutionally
the formal ideas of the Infinite and Absolute in the Beasou, but
as these forms cannot be filled through sense, their objects can-
not be reached by human intelligence.
Taking thus, from experimental trial, what the human mental
•constitution is, we may say a priori what it is competent to do.
Such a mind may know what can be envisaged in space and time
and ordered in the categorical conceptions, but nothing beyond.
The Empirical intuitions in space aud time may be ordered in all
the categories of Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Mode ; but not
in the ideas of the infinite and absolute ; they may be perceived
and conceived, but never so as to have known infinity and abso-
lute being. Space and time themselves can go into the category
of Quantity so far as they may be limited, but not as infinite aud
absolute, and cau never so be known by man. Substance can
hold the accidents, and cause connect the events just as suppos-
ed or assumed iu the noumenon, but never as real entities in
sreason. We may know the necessary aud the contingent as
fixed or potential, but nothing as free and personal, for in this
dialectic we can prove as much against as we can for freedom.
Presuppositions in philosophy, and postulates in morality, can
stand under no forms and come within no judgments of the
sense and understanding, and if they are to have validity they
must be known by some other faculty. Our a priori knowing
can reach only to our constitutional making, and if supposed to
reach further, this logic should admit the contradiction or find
some place for a new faculty.
3. The Logic Regulating the Phenomenal in Thought. Fichte
and Schelling may here be included iu Hegel, last and greatest of
transcendental thinkers, aud for present purpose we need refer-
The Two Kinds of Dialectic. 163
ence to Hegel's philosophy only. It is wholly by abstraction
from the phenomenal and passing from particulars to a universal,
and thus is thoroughly Aristotelian ; admitting nothing of Plato's
reason and using nothing of his ideas in real entity. Kant's nou-
menon is also discarded, and while thus phenomenal, it is also of
the inner or mental phenomena alone. Hegel first takes his
"voyage of discovery" and records the movement and attain-
ment gained in his experiment, in his Phenomenology, and which
turns out to be an abstraction thinner and broader than had be-
fore been used. The vision taken is mental inspection rather
than rational speculation, and what is found is as nakedly "a
mode of motion " as is Tyndall's notion of heat. He knows only
phenomenal acts, and these exclusively thinking acts, and all
their appearances are wrought in us by our own movement as
surely as in our dreaming.
The appearance first taken is immediate, and thus indetermin-
ate, and the act has nothing further of it than a " this," wholly
indefinite. But this means nothing without a that, and so the act
discedes into two counterparts and this aud that limit each other,
and yet we cannot take one without the other, and in such unity
we get a middle-third, which has now become for us a this deter-
mined. And just such movement is perpetuated to and through
common consciousness, self-consciousness, and into reason, where-
in the objective of common consciousness and the subjective of
self-consciousness become known in the one reason-act, and in this
we have the truth of all our discoveries in a self-cause, potential
for all self-manifestation. This may be known as Idea, not at all
Plato's reality but Aristotle's potentiality and actuality. Applied
to abstract being in the above method of stating, disparting, and
reuniting, through all occurring categories, it is science of Logic ;
then applied to abstract externality it is science of Xature ; and
then combined with iuternality it is made science of Mind, wherein
we have found universal Spirit — the God-thinking to be also God-
manifesting throughout all created phases.
Here then is the most marvelous system of abstract thought
that the world has had from a human understanding, all pro-
duced from one activity, working after one method, and conform-
ing with surprising exactness to our outer knowledge and our
inner thinking; and yet the whole is the phenomenal in merely
thinking-act. The unsound part is in the closing assumption
that such a movement can attain to a self-knowing and freely
1G4 The Two Kinds of Dialectic.
willing personality in reason. So constituted, it could only act
on in its method endlessly, with no capability to presuppose any
other mode of movement than that of its past experience. It is-
not competent to forecast, but only to know as the thinking-act
reveals itself.
The knowing is in and by the moving, and the method of the
movement has been found in experiment, by an actual discovery
of what passes in consciousness from immediate appearance to
self-recognition, and in the logic by actually carrying the abstract
conception of being through all categorical judgments. We are
warned against all prompting to anticipate what is to come, and
bid just to look on the movement and see what does come. It
can only say what must be from having discovered its constitu-
tion in what it has done, and so knowing what must be its own
making. If it were guided by Plato's reason, it would know the
reason's space and time as concrete in themselves, illimitable,
immutable, and not mere abstract externality. It would see that
these must be, in order that place and period might be in them \
and that place and period must be held persistent or pass suc-
cessive by a common object for all, in order that all may in com-
mon know the same place and period. This would be true a pri-
ori knowing, as it would be knowing in reason what must be for
all reason, and not merely for a specially constituted understand-
ing. The reason space and time is prior to place and period, and
the persistent real ideas must be prior in the places and periods
for all, and give their connected phenomena to all prior to the
perceiving, and known as so being, or we cannot a priori know
how all must know in common. Such knowledge the thinking-
process cannot gain except as in connection with quite another
faculty for knowing.
III. The Conclusion. We now know Plato's dialectic as
recognizing and using a process peculiar to itself. It takes fleet-
ing phenomena with no intelligent consistency in themselves, which
yet in their grouping and flowing have enough of method and
order to indicate infallibly some existent efficiency working in
the standing and flowing appearances; and thus he both saves
and harmonizes the two sides of what had then been a long dis-
pute, viz: whether the standing or the flowing had real being.
This is effected by attaining being for both, but each after its own
fashion. One is perceived in sense, standing in and passing off
the field of consciousness ; the other evinces its reality, to an in-
The Two Kinds of Dialectic. 165
sight sharper than sense, as perpetually existing and working in
those sense-appearances. This penetrating organ is the Eeason,
which, as apprehended by Plato, is competent with quick glance
to detect, and with steady gaze to comprehend, the real entity
determining the appearing ; aud which he terms idea, since it is
an object the reason attains beyond all sense-perceiving. And
yet, in Plato's age the observation of phenomena had been too
partial to admit of a full expression of its meaning to the reason.
Mature had many mysteries, aud seemed abortive in frequent oc-
currences, or monstrous and wayward in her occasional produc-
tions. The way the phenomena were connected with the idea,
and the method also in which the ideas were themselves bound
together were but obscurely seen, although the fact of these con-
nections was to him unmistakable. More especially were the in-
effable perfections of the Good, as Author and Ruler of all, held
to be forever inscrutible secrets without some divinely communi-
cated revelation. He knew the fine thread his reason saw was
a real guide through the labyrinth, though there were many tan-
gled loops he could not unravel. He knew that matter and mind
made up a cosmos, and that the Good held and moved the Uni-
verse in wisdom ; and he has spoken out his message so well that
the ages since have kept and studied the record as the wisest
word among its philosophical teachers.
Aristotle was still greater than Plato, but only in his own dis-
tinct field of thought and utterance. Cautious and careful, pa-
tient and persevering, he will feel out the thread he does not see
by analysis, abstraction and deduction, and will never take one
step in the dark except as literally he can keep his clew in his
hand. The working philosophy of the world has, since his day,
been, nearly entire, kept within the compass of his dialectic, vary-
ing the logic as each found he might best leap the abysses which
he could not fathom. It has done much for Platonism, while that
has been held in abeyance till the materials shall be found and
gathered for its universal prevalence. Eeason reads by its own
light, and yet only as the printed book is laid before it. It
makes for man no new truths nor reveals to him hidden wisdom
garnered up in stores of its own, and only takes from legible
characters the meaning previously put within them and expressed
by them. This is the full import of a priori human knowing,
viz : seeing in nature's phenomena the veritable entities which
already were, prior to the appearing, and necessary condition for
1G0 Herbart's Ideas on Education.
the appearing, and the more clearly seen by so much as the ex-
pression has been the more sharply cut. And it is just here
that so much has been done for future Platonic questioning. The
physics and metaphysics studied and taught under Aristotelian
masters have made both matter and mind a plainer book now,
for reason, than Plato ever had in hand. What of fact physical
science is gaining in the modern doctrine of the conversion and
conservation of forces, and what especially German logic and
dialectic have discovered in profound abstract thought, have
opened wide occasion for expounding the connections of phenom-
ena and idea, and idea with idea, in ample plainness and fullness,
that until his death remained dark and unsatisfactory to Plato.
But much as Platonism owes to Aristotelian dialectic, the latter
begins and ends within the natural, while the former only can
a priori know the supernatural; and sure as the ages the time is
coming, when every logical grist shall be carried to Plato's old
mill, and there together all be ground in one logic and one dialec-
tic, which will make of all the one Philosophy.
HERBART'S IDEAS ON EDUCATION.
Translated from the German of Dr. Karl Schmidt* (Geschichte der Poeda-
gogik), by^HuGO Haaxel.
John Frederick Herbart was born the 4th of May, 177C, in the
*Dr. Karl Schmidt's sketch of Herbart's Pedagogics is herewith presented
with notes designed to prepare the way for a review of Herbart's system,
which may appear in a subsequent nurnber of this journal. These notes have
been added with a view to compare Herbart's views with those of other sys-
tems better known, and thereby interpret them. Though the additions to the
text are not only quite free, but, at times, imply criticism, the general connec-
tion ot the remarks will bear evidence that they have been conceived in the
spirit of Herbart's arduous undertaking to make the formation of moral char-
acter the aim and end of public education. The text and the comments being
separated by brackets, the latter may be disregarded without much inconve-
nience.— [Translator.
Herbart" 1 s Ideas on Education. 107
city of Oldenburg, where he received his collegiate education,
and exhibited a much stronger inclination for investigation than
for erudition. In 1794 he attended the University of Jena, join-
ing the law department, but studying philosophy under Schmid,
Eeinhold, and Fichte for three years, when he became private tu-
tor in Switzerland. He was admitted as academic lecturer into
the University of Goettingen, 1802 ; went as Professor of Philos-
ophy to Koenigsberg in 1809, and returned as such in 1833, to
Goettingen, where he died August 14, 1841. Herbart has paid
more attention to pedagogics than any other philosopher; in fact
pedagogics was the aim and end of his best efforts in psychology.
He says himself: "I have summoned and kept employed meta-
physics and mathematics in addition to self-observation, experi-
ence and experiment for the space of twenty years, that I might
discover the foundation of true psychological knowledge. The
cause of these not very easy investigations was chiefly, and stil
is, my settled conviction that a large share of the tremendous
gaps in our pedagogical knowledge is attributable to defects in
our psychology, and that we first have to possess the latter sci-
ence; nay, first of all, that we have to do away with the illusion
called psychology at present, before we are able to pronounce
with any degree of accuracy whether a single lesson has been
taught well or otherwise."
The chief works resulting from Herbart' s practical interest in
pedagogics are :
(1) "Pestalozzi's Primary Principles {Idee eines A,B, C,) of Ob-
ject Lessons (AnscJiauung) Developed Scientifically (icissenschaft-
lich enticicJcelt) into a Course of Preparatory Training (Vor-
uebungen) for Perception of Form. 1802."
(2) "General Pedagogics Deduced Scientifically from the Aim
and End of Education." 1806.
(3) "Concerning Public Co-operation in Matters of Education."
1810.
(4) "Relation Between Idealism and Pedagogics." 1831.
(5) "Sketch of Lectures on Pedagogics." 1835.
(6) "Letters Concerning Psychology Applied to Pedagogics" —
(fragments).
All these works have their deepest root in the "Text-book of
Psychology," and "Psychology as a Science, Founded in a Xew
Manner upon Experience, Metaphysics and Mathematics."
Herbart considers an outside influence upon the person under
168 HerbarVs Ideas on Education.
age necessary in order that be may grow mentally in the same
[continuous] maimer as he does physically, because he (Herbart)
maintains, as a principle of his psychology, that there are by no
means fixed, predetermined capacities in the human soul, similar
to those in plants and animal bodies; that man — only as far as
his body is concerned — brings his future form with his germ into
the world; that the human soul on the contrary, resembles rather a
machine entirely constructed out of perceptions* [The impres-
sions furnished by circumstances being without order or plan,] a
systematic education has to nurture the mental capacities of the
pupil and thereby save them in [for and against] a world from
which they neither can nor should be isolated, and to train them
to a conscious attitude of moral freedom. [All] possibility of
education involves the fact and idea (Begriff) of a plastic nature
(Bildsamheit) exhibiting a transition from something indefinite to
a fixed form (Festigheit.) The aim of education is the harmoni-
ous development in manifold directions of spontaneous activity,
subordinated to moral culture. " Let each one be an amateur in
all things, but let each one be master in one branch of business,"
is a fundamental principle of Herbart.
*This should read : That the human mind may be made to resemble an or-
ganism, but under different circumstances with very different degrees of per-
fection, and that this mental organism or system is created by the soul out of
the material furnished to the senses. Herbart holds that the soul is active, not
passive, in forming perceptions out of the momentary sensations of color,
sound and the like, that these elementary sensations are reactions of the soul,
corresponding to outside influences; that we know nothing of soul, self, or
faculties, save what we have learned by induction from the works of the hu-
man mind, that other faculties— being likewise the result of work and compar-
ison — maybe produced purified and strengthened but in no other manner than
by induction, and that the faculties both as regards their separate fnnctions
and their joint operation, will approach the closer to the perfection of a living
organism, or of the system of mathematics, or of a machine, the more thor-
oughly we use our energies in the removal of definitely given difficulties and
the solution of definitely given problems, first and before such application is
followed up by broad and exhaustive 1 comparison with other objects operated
upon by the same energies of the soul ; whereas a psychological theory which
rests satisfied with a number of disconnected faculties for an ultimate basis,
to the neglect of their unity in application, and without inquiring into the
cause of their unity in the soul, is apt to unfit man for the business of life, and
at best to degrade him to the rank of a laborer, whose sense of freedom, and
natural enthusiasm for unity in the different departments of society is reduced
to smoking embers. — Translator.
Merbart's Ideas on Education. 169
Pedagogics is, according to Herbart, closely connected with
ethics and psychology ; it really depends upon both. He com-
mences by showing that pedagogics depends upon ethics, and
proves [indirectly] that those opinions are erroneous which do
not let the process of education begin and continue as well as
terminate in the individual subject, but which place the pupil in
such a relation to certain ideal objects (happiness, usefulness,
family, State, humanity, God) that the future actions of the indi-
vidual are defined by such objects as the end and aim of educa-
tion. This proceeding has to be reversed, and it must be main-
tained that the individual person is and remains the exclusive
and true centre for the purposes of education. Xothing of an
objective nature has to be fixed in such a manner that value and
safety is transferred to the actions of the individual from out-
side, but on the contrary, any and every kind of objective reality
receives [all] its importance and value from the individual per-
son, and if such importance has been attached to it already, it
will not be recognized or assimilated unless it is found to be
consonant with the highest standard of individual endeavor and
action. It is thereby not denied that humanity, age, State, fam-
ily, mean great things, but it is not permissible to hold up any
one of them as the one ideal standard ; they are alike parts of a
system centring in him whose idea of right is realized in his
individuality. This realization is morality or virtue, and [if]
concentrated and embodied [in the idea of self] it is personified
force of habitual morality (CharacterstaerJce der SittlicMteit).
Pedagogics, according to this principle, should be defined as
the sketch of a plan designed by means of ethics for the real-
ization of the latter, and executed under the presupposition of
a systematically artistic activity in individuals, necessarily sup-
posed to be susceptible of its influence.
[The part which ethics perform in Herbart's system, and espe-
cially in his pedagogics, may be explained briefly by comparison
with the corresponding views of Hegel.
Hegel and Herbart agree that the chief end of education is to
raise the individual to fixed habits of subordinating all to moral
activity ; neither of them proposes to attain that end by the ex-
planation of moral texts ; the spirit of their systems is evidently
in emphasizing correct habits of methodical observation and
work, which, at the age of mature reflection, may be employed in
the culture of our moral self, directly and systematically; both
170 Herbart's Ideas on Education.
undertake to educate by means of instruction, and to develop the
moral judgment of the individual while it is assisted in taking
possession of the indispensable results and conditions of civiliz-
ation. They further agree that the life of the individual owes
fruitfnluess and scope to society, while unity and harmony of the
departments of society rest upon the moral strength of the indi-
viduals, and furthermore that the perpetuity of life, whether of
society or of the individual, depends upon the "idea," if we un-
derstand by the term ''idea" the consciousness of the necessary
conditions of such perpetuity. We may therefore conclude that
if Hegel had elaborated pedagogics himself, the speculative prob-
lem would have been for him as it was for Herbart, how to real-
ize the "idea" within the province of education. jSTow, though
Hegel subordinates everytling to one absolute idea, while Her-
bart co-ordinates his five ideas, viz : Freedom, Perfection, Right,
Equity and Benevolence, it is nevertheless not difficult to harino-
ize the latter five with the one absolute idea, for practical pur-
poses. For, whereas complementary opposites are equally neces-
sary to life, and the knowledge thereof to responsibility: non-inter-
ference between such co-ordinate powers constitutes the basis of
rights; compensation in proportion to the number of complement-
ary opposites united in any purpose and multiplied by the number
of actual repetitions, constitutes equity of reward and punishment;
both, Eights and Equity limited to the domain of intention and
spiritual intercourse, i. e., where the assistance of physical organs
and forces is precluded, constitutes Benevolence, the principle of
morality in contradistinction from those applications of Bights
and Equity which may be enforced ; the agreement between in-
tention and action, both being governed as stated above, consti-
tutes individual Freedom. All subordination is governed by the
relative term Perfection. Setting aside differences of quantity,
any one of the complementary opposites is imperfect as compar-
ed with their unity ; the richer unity is perfect in comparison
with the object embodying a less number of complementary op-
posites. But whatsoever severs that which is jointly necessary
for life, liberty and happiness, actually and with the intention of
keeping it severed, is physically bad, legally wrong, spiritually
untrue, and morally sinful.
The general manner in which Herbart facilitates the applica-
tion of the above practical (ethical) ideas, is termed aesthetical
judgment. The statement : "It pleases," as to the harmony of
Herbarfs Ideas on Education. 171
colors, sounds, tastes, the symmetry and proportion of forms,
the exhibition of unity in variety by the works of nature and of
man, is a judgment only in appearance, but in fact an inference,
the major premise of which is a fixed, a priori, though uncon-
scious relation of complementary opposites, outward or inward
experience furnishing the middle term. The introduction of in-
ventive dialectics into schools in such a manner that the scholar
should discover for the elementary forms of drawing their coun-
terparts, symmetrical to an axis or a centre (inventive drawing),
or for the definite qualities of objects as to form, size, number,
color, sound, use (object lessons) their opposite qualities and the
objects corresponding to their varied combinations (lessons on
natural science) ; or, for the geographical conditions of one place,
the opposite conditions and the commercial reciprocity of ex-
change (physical geography) ; or for the given grammatical com-
binations of number, gender, case, voice, tense, mode, &c., their
corresponding opposites (elements of composition), or for the al-
gebraical expression the geometrical construction (analysis) —
these and the like obvious applications of inventive dialectics
cannot be attempted directly, but every master of a specialty
prepares his scholars by means of the aesthetical judgment. He
writes, draws, sings, speaks, reasons well, i. e., embodies the har-
mony of opposites in his work; its perfection pleases because it
is agreeable to true human nature, the pleasure stimulates imita
tion, successful imitation develops into knowledge of the method,
and critical application of the method to works of art and nature
widens, by means of classical education, into "sesthetical concep-
tion of the world" — the goal of Herbarfs pedagogics].
Pedagogics depends not less upon psychology [than it does
upon ethics]. Ethics may point out the goal of education, but
they cannot decide as to the connection between the general
method and the given individuality to be educated, nor as to the
probability of success. All that is business belonging to psy-
chology, [namely] to that science which treats in general of the
internal constitution of substances which are the foundation of
things that appear.
Psychology, (Herbarfs), teaches that the soul is a simple sub-
stance, indivisible by physical forces, and not liable to any
change of its identity; pedagogics should not, therefore at-
tempt to treat the human soul like impressible matter to
which every possible impression might be given. And no more
172 Herbarfs Ideas on Education.
are we permitted to conceive the soul as changing- its identity in
lime (Werdendes) than we are allowed to admit a change of the
internal constitution of the soul at any moment; the soul is what
it is [retains its nature] absolutely and perfectly, and is and re-
mains this identity (dies) always, unmodified by differences of
quantity. The soul is the real, unchangeable, concrete centre of
all conscious activity whatsoever (Vorstellungen), which latter,
being susceptible of change, may assume all these forms, the to-
tality of which is called Mind and among which [conscious pro-
ducts] we find even the conception of Self (Ichlieit).
[Herbart demands as an act of justice to himself, and repeat-
edly, that such a construction should be put upon his words as
may be obtained by a comparison of all his works. This is not
easy to be done with reference to the doctrine of the simplicity
of the soul. This theorem has its proper place in his metaphys-
ics as basis for a philosophy of nature; it may, therefore, be per-
missible to construe simplicity as unity indivisible by physical
forces ; for he admits that the mind may distinguish between the
various actions of the soul, that the latter are different, accord-
ing to the various objects acted upon, that difference of quality
is the principle of physical attraction, that all attraction does
not end when substances touch each other, but that it may con-
tinue until one occupies the place of the other, that millions may
be absorbed by one, that the substances have an internal consti-
tution or permanent relation of qualities necessarily joined which
act as a unity in case of self-preservation against outward forces.
This and much more cannot be understood unless the simplicity
of a soul endowed with the above practical ideas, means concrete
unity. On the other hand, if such a rendering is allowed, we
think that his views are not only plain but may be illustrated by
every equation above the first degree].
The opinion, according to which a certain [and fixed] number
(Anzahl) of higher and lower faculties are ascribed to the soul, is
a psychological myth.
[The enumeration of faculties in psychology is as faulty as the
mythology of Greece. Neither in these gous nor in these facul-
ties is there to be found harmonious co-operation, well defined
subordination to ethical ideas, or help for the practical concerns
of life; both the gods and the faculties are imperfect productions
of the mind. All those gods are in every human breast, all the
faculties in every thought. Extraordinary strength of faculties
Herbert's Ideas on Education. 173
may be explained by greatness of purpose, i. e., objective unity
of faculties and zealous purity of character (subjective unity of
faculties) both being curtailed by given circumstances].
Everything which enters our mind [appears to] act as a force,
on account of its contradictory or complementary qualities with
respect to other matter of thought with which it is connected by
means of [in] the soul, and the effect is considered as [the result
of reaction against some] interference which may be more or less
transient, reciprocal and extensive. The general activity in the
great variety of thoughts is thus accounted for, but it is also evi-
dent that categories, unities of categories according to their com-
plementary relation and different degrees of application of both
these primary and higher faculties [Psychology, Complete Works,
Vol. VI., p. 361] will be produced, from the fact that the relation
of opposition is different in degree, existing in part only with ref-
erence to some, being entirely absent with regard to other per-
ceptions, and that [therefore] the material will be dialectically
graduated and concatenated from extremes towards the centre, (a
scale of electro-positive and negative bodies): and lastly that these
[ideal chains of things] will be interwoven in consequence of
identical or similar links. The thinking, feeling, and perceptive
activities, are nothing but the same general action of the soul to
preserve its identity limited in different ways ; they are, as such
limitations, solely [subjective] relations among that which is real :
[but] consciousness is the totality {Summe) of such relations ex-
isting between the soul and other substances. These relations,
and the corresponding acts Of consciousness not being of equal
intensity, some of them [may and] do interfere with, oppose, [or]
throw into shadow others; those which are suppressed, keep
waiting at the very threshold of consciousness until they are at
liberty to arise again, when they associate with cognate percep-
tions and press onward with united strength. Such associations
[temporarily] repressed, but continuing to act with the least
degree of distinct consciousness, and working in the dark [as it
were], are denominated feelings. A somewhat higher degree of
action is termed desire, namely, when the work of assimilation is
more or less successful. Desire develops into will, when sup-
ported by probability of success. That which we call imagina-
tion, memory, understanding, desire, reason, will, and-so-forth, in
popular phraseology, and whatever other [mental operations] are
supposed to be, and are introduced as primary faculties of the
174 Herbart's Ideas on Education.
soul [in addition to metaphysical categories and mathematical
operations] are nothing but a certain activity observed in, and
limited to (vorhanden) a definite number of intellectual facts sys-
tematically connected — the correlation of stages of mental action
with reference to the same or different objects.
[The faculties of psychology are secondary faculties ; they
cannot be influenced directly; they can be affected only by means
of the primary faculties, or categories ; the latter are always
ready for action and require nothing but to be directed; their
union the soul controls, by means of the co-operation of the
physical organs, and more especially the correlation of eye and
ear by means of language and mathematics].
The [general] question, how any kind of education is possible,
[how man may transfer his remembrance, imagination, will, self-
consciousness by means of sound, form or color,] necessarily
presupposes that certain processes are going on in the mind of
the pupil, though without distinct consciousness, which the edu-
cator must have it in his power to control though with certain
limitations, and he can direct his action only upon the co-opera-
tion of these primary actions, but not upon their real unity from
which they proceed, and which as soul we conceive to be the
unchangeable foundation of conscious life, [nor] upon the rich
variety of intellectual events resulting from the association of
primary 'faculties which gradually unite, multiply, improve or
deteriorate, and which exhibit the predominant functions in
which the operations characteristic of human nature are perceiv-
ed. Pedagogics can reach a satisfactory degree of scientific gen-
erality and applicability only by means of true psychological
knowledge, and it is only by this means that education as a pro-
fession will take rank among the fine arts. Psychology accounts
[also] for the causes which render minds vascillatiug between
error and truth, between that which is good and that which is
bad, and convinces us that there is a natural demand for educa-
tion, and that education is a matter of necessity. The applica-
tion of pedagogical means attains scientific accuracy and connec-
tion, the [entire] business of education attains unity and system-
atic use from Psychology alone.
The complete work of education may be divided into disci-
pline, {Itcgieruny), instruction, (Unterricht), and training, (Zucht).
The child comes into the world without ability to concentrate the
action of his organs upon one object, to the exclusion of the rest;
Herbart's Ideas on Education. 175
bis individual will is tbe result of practice ; this gradual result
is interrupted by all manner of disordered inclination ; to bold
the latter within proper bounds, is the office of discipline. What
experience and society teach, outside of school, is too one-sided
and desultory, it is disconnected and fragmentary : a systematic
activity must supervene which is able to complement, to digest
and to unite the material collected as a mere aggregate. This
methodical business, complementary of experience and society,
is instruction. The term training (Ziehen, duco, educo, education)
contains allusion to that which is not yet existing [the harmony
of opposites controlling insubordinate tendencies] something-
hoped for [the strength of the complementary opposite, now be-
ing weak in the individual] which exists only as purpose, and
toward which the pupil has to be led : this action, devoted more
especially to the culture of the will, but also, in part, to know-
ledge and understanding is designated by "training."
1. It is the office of discipline to keep order, and to subject the
naturally predominant and unruly inclinations of the individual.
Such subjection has to be effected by a power strong enough, and
acting so frequently as to be completely successful, before indi-
cations of a genuine will [persisting in wrong] are exhibited by
the child. Measures within the reach of discipline are : (a) to
keep the pupil so busy that he can find no time for mischief; (b)
detective supervision which, however, is useful only during the
first years of life, and during periods of special danger ; (c) com-
manding and forbidding, with respect to which great caution has
to be exercised, lest discipline be rather weakened by it; ((7)
threats and punishments, which must be superseded by respect
and love, wherever possible. Discipline, [assisted by physical
means] has, at all events, to cease long before training ceases,
and should, as soon as possible, be relieved by the latter. The
[apparently] limiting power of discipline [resembling tbe restraint
of prison] cannot be discontinued so long as great temptations
are offered to the pupil by his surroundings.
2. Instruction ought to be and must be educative : tbe aim of
instruction should not be solely, or even predominantly, the
amount of knowledge, nor should it be the acquisition of merely
technical skill, but culture of the Personality [executive ability
for ethical ideas] ; this most essential part of education should
be rooted and grounded. To be more definite, instruction is
methodical production and culture of representations of objects
170 Herbart's Ideas on Education.
[as definitely constructed applications of the categories and ethi-
cal ideas], such representations being - the true germs from which
to develop the unit}' of all faculties until said elementary unities
of object and subject seem to assimilate subordinate facts with
spontaneous rapidity, embracing the complementary opposites in
such an exhaustive manner that executive ability and energy for
action are the direct result, as well as tact or [more generally]
the quick decision as to the ethico-aesthetical value of a given
fact.
The operations of the soul which are performed both with and
without distinct consciousness (psychisch), have to be studied to
solve that problem. Attention is, among these psychical opera-
tions, one of the most important, and a correct theory thereof a
momentous question for pedagogics. Attention is [accompanied
with consciousness of the relations between the object and the
aims of the person, or it is not; it is] either artificial or natural.
Intentional attention, produced by conscious direction of the will,
©r by aims more remotely subserved, or by the directive power
of the teacher, transferred by his methods of discipline and train-
ing, is more especially required for [unprejudiced reception of
facts by] observation and memorizing, though it is of less impor-
tance for the theory of culture on a large scale [as observed in
the onward march of history]. Unintentional or natural atten-
tion has to be divided into primary and apperceptive attention.
The former exists, when notice of a fact ( Vorstellung) [appears]
to work of itself and for itself [by means of its antithetical nov-
elty] ; the latter exists when the action [of the consciousness of
the object upon the subject which, for the time, is unconscious
of his operation] is supported by correspondence with expecta-
tions apriori. The following four rules are of use with reference
to primary attention : Let the sensuous objectivity have a sutri-
cient degree of intensity; the exhibition of the real object, and,
if the latter cannot be had, a picture thereof is to be preferred to
the combination of categories embodied in the construction of
sentences without the help mentioned. 2. Excess, however, in
quantity and quality of that which is novel [compared with what
is known] is to be avoided, lest the susceptibility [unconscious
synthetical action] might be discontinued too soon. 3. Instruc-
tion [i. e., the operation of construction, conscious in the teacher,
unconscious in the pupil] must be careful not to heap that which
has to succeed [the more concrete] upon that which has to pre-
Herbart's Ideas on Education. 177
cede [the complementary opposites] too fast; the subject matter
has to be analyzed, factored and the corresponding parts of op-
position have to be fixed step by step. 4. The teacher must
allow well selected periods of review, before presenting to the
perceptive function difficulties of a higher order, in which the
diffusive richness of the newly acquired material may be digested
symmetrically.
When the mind is apperceptively attentive, the new matter is
assimilated directly [though unconsciously] by previous habits
of thought, and is intelligible and interesting on account of such
relation.
[To understand thoroughly] the action of the mind in the con-
struction of objectivity, it is of chief importance to perceive the
correlation between the unity of the categories in the object
(Vertiefung, adding depth, third dimension, perspective-centre,
self-forgetfulness) and the unity of the categories in the subject
(Besinnung : s/?m=sense; sinnen=TiBmg senses in matter of mem-
ory; iio<j = according to their correlation; i?e==jointly: method-
ical recollection). The more exclusively the pupil forgets him-
self in such objects as are agreeable to his idiosyncrasies, the
more danger there is that every fact will be distorted : [culture
of] self-recollection must, therefore, alternate with that of self-
application. Personality is rooted in the unity of conscious ac-
tions, [which proceed either without reference to past and future
or with reference to both, and are, therefore, either] presence of
mind (Sammlunq) or methodical reflection (Besinnung). Both op-
erations preclude, as such, and for the time being, self-forgetful-
ness in the object (Vertiefung); the former have, nevertheless, to
be united in the latter [to-wit : by the stages of speculation,
where, by suppression of self, aud projection of the faculties into
the object, objectivity becomes conscious embodiment of the pow-
ers of the subject, as far as in activity]. If the acts of attention
concentrated upon objects never unite in the attentiou bestowed
upon the subject, the objects remain disassociated for general
purposes, and the individual is inattentive ; if the objects unite
on account of their relation to the person, but the conscious fac-
tors of personality by which objects have been analyzed is not
exhaustive, and their unity, therefore, weak, though without con-
tradiction of the parts, the individual becomes one-sided. Ethi-
cal self-forgetfulness proceeding with freedom from predilections
X— 12
178 HerbarCs Ideas on Education.
and selfish aims, projects the distinctive particularity in relief.
The progress from one act of objectivation to the next [eomple-
inental of the preceding], is the cause by which the results are
associated, and the reciprocal reproductions arising among the
multitude of associations, are personified as imagination: the
latter [seems to] perceive the complementary relation (schmeckt
= tastes) of every mixture, and ought not to reject anything
[whether real or imaginary] except what is insipid, [the super-
fluous repetition of identity]. The undisturbed concentration
of freedom seeks objective unity ; the undisturbed self-recollec-
tion of freedom seeks the [genetic] relation of the several orders
[and to comprehend] every single thiug as organ located among
the associations according to its intrinsic capacity. The rich or-
ganization of a rich genetic construction is called system. The
upward step of genetic construction is called method; it is by
means of the method that we sweep through the system of
thoughts, in order to produce new constructions, and to watch
over the consistency of its application [when the latter presents
itself with seeming spontaneity].
Building upon such knowledge and such motives of action as
have been prepared by experience and society outside of school,
instruction has now to offer material of importance for the ope-
rations mentioned ; for it is such material [only] that objective
attention has to complement and subjective attention has to sur-
vey. Matter of interest may be divided [by our concern for
things and persons] into matter important to be known aud mat-
ter important to be concerned about [Theilnahme — participation.]
Facts of interest derive their value either from the novel varie-
ties presented by experience, or because they embody laws, or
on account of their resthetical [complementary] correlations;
concern is directed either upou man as individual, or upon the
moral persons of society, or upon the relations of both to the
Absolute Person. Accordingly, there are six chief classifica-
tions for whatever may be of interest or concern : (1) Empirical
interest in specific differences, the mind seizing upon nature in
whatever way it may present itself. (2) Speculative interest as
to the manner in which laws are realized, the mind endeavoring
to discover the [necessar n ] connection between matter and form
in nature. (3) iEsthetical interest in complemental and supple-
mental relations arising from the perception of the objective re-
ality of the beautiful. The stages of "concern' 7 are: (4) Syrn-
Herbarfs Ideas on Education. 179
pathetic concern in humanity as such, reproducing the longings
discovered in human hearts without criticism and in the manner
iu which they are presented by society or the fine arts. (5) Civil,
Political and Social concern [in co-operation by means of co-
ordination and subordination.] (6) Religious concern originating
when the concern for the whole is redistributed among the indi-
viduals by retlex considerations combined with the preceding
stages of concern — both, therefore, interest iu actions, as well as
concern for motives take, in their lowest stage, what nature, so-
ciety, humanity offer; both seem to lose themselves, the one in
empiricism, the other in sympathies [and antipathies]. But the
development of things urges both beyond these limits; empiri-
cism is left behind by the [eternal] marvel (enigma) of creation ;
the free submission of society to law results from the [conviction
that] conflict between might and right, between virtue and happi-
ness, [cannot be settled] by merely sympathetic action. The
spirit of freedom invents laws ; speculation discovers laws. The
whole heart is lifted to the recognition of the law identical in
subject and object by the speculative freedom of sesthetical rela-
tions [in teleological organisms] ; it is lifted by [universal] sym-
pathy, as to the inadequacy between man's aspirations and his
individual capacities, out of its bondage to the spiritual law of
inertia, iuto — [transcendental liberty, into the necessary faith
that man can commence anew upon an ever broader basis of
thought and action, into the recognition of the remedial agency
of the necessarily creative power of the Spirit, intoj — Religion.
Instruction enriches and fecundates desireand ability by means
of the stages of interesting knowledge; it leads, on the other
hand, up to the other aim, to ethical judgment in treating matter
of interest by the stages of concern. This is effected by the gen-
etic reproduction of any work, exhibited in its essential stages of
interest and concern, that is, by means of the construction ot
any systematic result of life presented exhaustively according to
its [antithetical and synthetical] stages, in such a manner that
the ideal correspondence between human freedom and action is
reflected, either directly [by their agreement] or by their con-
trast. It would hardly do to take works of the present age for
illustration; the sphere of the adult in an age of culture is too
complicated and too much limited by conditions of life which we
do not wish the pupil to understand even if we could render
them intelligible. Classical representations of an idealized boy-
180 Herbarfs Ideas on Education.
hood, such as are found iu Honier's poems, especially in the
Odyssey, are proper to begin with. Instruction iu language even
need not commence with Latin, but may begin with Greek, and
proceed as speedily as possible to the study of the Odyssey, we
mean, when the boy is just stepping out of the period iu which
care for his body engrosses the attention — say, at least before he
has finished his tenth year.
[To be more general], the subject matter of instruction [for
any age, whether of the pupil or of the country] has to be selec-
ted with reference to the fact how fully the objective and subjec-
tive unity of the faculties and the subordinate stages of interest
and concern are represented by means of it. Xo factor, indispensa-
bly necessary for the maintaining of freedom at any given histori-
cal stage of the country, no science or art which is systematically
developed and universally recognized should be excluded en-
tirely. Notwithstanding the division of labor required for [the
harmony of] life, talents, and inclinations, the conditions are
offered for, and allowed to, one part of our youth a systematic
culture of philological studies, [to-wit: a consideration of lite-
rary works from all stand-points of society] which may be more
complete and fundamental [than that which is obtainable within
the sphere of any one of the different organizations of society],
while an education predominantly mathematical, and by means
•of the exact sciences, to the postponement of classical studies,
in point of time and duration, is imperatively required for an-
other portion of our young men. Higher schools may, there-
fore, be organized [by means of the method which engrafts the
totality of the stages of any science or art without exhaustive
treatment of the subdivisions] on such a plan that [after the en-
cyclopaedia of philosophy illustrated by means of the results of
exact and historical sciences has been finished by all students]
one set of classes carries to greater perfection the ideal and
sestketical culture of objective unities by means of thorough ap-
plication of the principles of ancient literature; without, there-
fore, completely excluding the modern and realistic foundations
[of inductive experiment], including mathematics and natural
sciences — while the application of exact sciences may preponder-
ate with another portion of students, the culture of ideals being,
nevertheless, nurtured by application of modern languages and
literature, especially by the use of the works of one's own
country.
Herbarfs Ideas on Education. 181
The business and the successive stages [recurring in each and
every branch or topic] of instruction [whether belonging to ex-
act sciences or otherwise] are, to exhibit [definite objectivity]
— to engraft the same upon previous knowledge — to generalize
the predicates separately for the purpose of obtaining their lim-
its, to speculate [i. e., discuss the possibility, reality or necessity
of constructions by means of predicates contradictory or con-
trary to the actual predicates of the thing exhibited].
[Likewise] in matters of ethical concern — to commence with a
case in point — to engraft it upon the ethical functions a priori —
to generalize into objective ethics of society — and to realize
higher possibilities.
[All] instruction, therefore, presents objectivity, and the facts
have to be narrated and pictured [as nearly as possible] in such
a manner that the pupil may seem to see and hear what is only
related and constructed, as if it were actually present. [Then
and only then] should instruction proceed to analysis [and con-
tinue the latter solely] for the purpose of a higher synthesis.
Concerning the sphere of empirical knowledge, analysis teaches
qualities of things and divides into parts by means, and for the
purpose of affixing signs and names — concerning speculation, it
dissects observations to show the connection between purpose
and means ; concerning matters of ethical judgment, analytical
instruction should take care that whatsoever is truly expressive
of the idea be lifted out of its associations with what is immate-
rial, or imposing by physical proportions, or pleasing by changes
without purpose ; the master-pieces of nature offer abundant ma-
terial, not more, however, than the life of man and society, to
contrast what is sublime and good forever, with the reverse qual-
ities; concerning sympathy for man, it should turn to historical
and poetical representations of his [tragical or comical] actions,
to give depth to the distinct emotions of compassion in the heart
of the pupil ; concerning the interest in social freedom, the atten-
tion should be extended to the variety of institutions required
for its safety, and the necessity should be impressed upon the
pupil that men have to adjust themselves and be mutually help-
ful, and that the forms of co-ordination and subordination arising
from that source are not inconsistent with liberty of the individ-
ual [provided the individual lives the life of the whole in per-
forming his duties like part of a machine] ; concerning religion,
humanity's utter dependence has to be shown [upon provisions
182 Herbart'8 Ideas on Education.
of nature without and within t lie individual], and also the weak-
ness and limits [of actions contradictory to nature and right],
and all exclusive reliance upon works, physical or social, own or
foreign, instead of trust upon the purity of method or motive,
has to be distinctly referred to the false and dangerous imagina-
tion of power [in any existence against the sleepless spirit of
dialectic revolution].
The office of synthesis is, to arrange the possible combinations
of the elements of culture [thus obtained].
The general process of synthesis, the mathematical operation
of combination [to-wit : the juxtaposition of varieties and elimi-
nation of identities] corresponds to [the purpose of complement-
ing] empirical observation. We find, among its applications,
grammatical instruction [constructing new sentences by chang-
ing adjective and adverbial relations, tense, mode, voice, &c, into
their opposites] and [the combination of opposite], arithmetical
operations [e. g., "Grube's method"].
Speculative synthesis rests upon the correlation of compre-
hensions [by means of the ideas, according to which the totality
is void when one factor is void] and this instruction [e. g. in the
explanation of the Constitution] presupposes objective or visual
apprehension of the speculative problem [e. g. of organic caus-
ality or teleology in science-lessons] ; concerning sesthetical syn-
thesis, instruction takes for pattern definite masterpieces of the
various forms of art [such, e. g., as are contained in the readers,
and changing the conditions of the persons or things treated of]
combines with them the distinctively pleasing manner of presen-
tation, as far as it can be perceived clearly, or gives and practices
such variations directly, as in the variations of a musical theme,
[or in those of inventive drawing].
Concerning sympathy for [progressive] men, synthetic instruc-
tion leads the pupil to discover in himself the germ of the most
different failings and excellencies of struggling humanity [by
the graphic and sympathetic rehearsal of their adversities and
triumphs] and selects matter from the purest poets and histori-
ans [but above all, from the lives of those who discovered the
facts and laws now taught in school, and who invented the tools
of civilization, in order that, from the appreciation of the sacri-
fices made and the battles fought, the natural desire to go and do
likewise, may gather strength].
As to concern for liberty of society, synthetical instruction
Herburt's Ideas on Education. 183
takes the ideas of co-ordination of men by inalienable rights,
and subordination by corporations for special rights and duties
from the analytical part, and shows that the conflicting [and dis-
connected] powers of societies are appeased and united [in pro-
portion] as a special case of wrong or distress is both general-
ized and individualized [political freedom being the one self-rem-
edial agency of all social ills, while the policy of despots and
their schools, is to keep apart complementary opposites, facul-
ties, people, or organizations].
Synthesis of religious instruction confines itself to the gene-
ralization of such a spirit of the family, as results from the har-
monious co-operation of all ethical ideas ; the family serves as
type for analogies (symbol) concerning the purpose and spirit of
the government of the world, and the explanation of the attri-
butes of the Godhead is taken from the idealized qualities of
parental care.
[A brief review will serve to clear up what follows :
It has been shown that all instruction is the result of three
concurrent operations, namely :
(1) Of discipline, or limitation of one-sided thoughts, which
are relatively too strong.
(2) Of training, or the exercise of complementary knowledge
and skill, which are relatively too weak ; and
(3) Of government, or the joint application of the results of
discipline and training.
To express the inseparable connection of the three operations,
and for the sake of brevity, we may now call them by the term,
under which they are known more widely ; for, from a psycho-
logical point of view, they appear to be essentially identical with
the dialectical process.
To prove the necessity of dialectics for all instruction, it has
been shoAvn, by exhaustive analysis, that there is no kind of at-
tention, and that there is no matter of interest, or concern, which
does not contain the dialectical process, either explicitly or by
implication.
To complete the argument, it is admitted that teaching can do
no more than interfere, aid, or direct the education which the
pupil would acquire without systematic help, but that this indis-
soluble union and reciprocity of interference, aid and direction,
or dialectics, is the fundamental faculty, not only of the teacher,
but of the pupil also, perfecting and uniting the secondary facul-
184 Heruarfs Ideas on Education.
ties, eacb and all, whereas the common faculties of the soul, so-
called, as also the ethical and aesthetical approval of harmonious
opposites are classified results of dialectics applied to matter of
experience, and that therefore neither memory, will, imagination,
&c, nor the sense of rights, love, &c, and the like, can be culti-
vated directly without a more or less conscious application of
dialectics. In other words, it can be shown, that the measure of
success with which any one cultivates the faculties and ideas
mentioned, is attributable to the degree in which 'he is a dialec-
tician by nature, or training, and that any one, using dialectics,
necessarily educates the above faculties and ideas.
The great obstacle to the plan of making every step of instruc-
tion an illustration of dialectics, and of thus developiug truth
and freedom together, is found in the inherited, and otherwise
necessary division and subdivision of studies and lessons, by
means of which different kinds of knowledge and skill are culti-
vated separately, and in such a manner, that, psychologically
speaking, discipline and training preponderate, while govern-
ment does not receive that share of time and attention which
practical life and social freedom demand. The tendency of this
oversight is more especially evident in schools above the grade
of common schools, as tendency to impair directive energy, and
to overtrain the analytical judgment of the understanding, at
the expense of skill in using the knowledge so acquired.
The gist of the remedy proposed by Herbart is, to start from,
and to return to concrete topics.
The topic, whether obtained by observation or by testimony of
others, is the unit of operations, embodying the function of men-
tal concentration.
To start from that unity of the topic, means to analyze the
different parts, qualities, properties, actions, effects, purposes.
The successive attention bestowed upon the grammatical or log-
ical categories, as far as contained in the topic, is training : the
exclusion of every other object and part, is discipline.
To return to the topic is, to find the complementary opposites
embodied in other topics, and to enrich it by such association.
This is termed synthetic instruction, and means composition,
whether it is oral, as in lessons on natural science, or written, or
by other means, as in the constructions of the Kindergarten
and inventive drawing.
The most elementary application of the whole process is ill us-
Herbart's Ideas on Education. 185
trated by the following method : An object is presented and an-
alyzed orally ; the word is then written by teacher and pupil in
full ; next conies the analysis of sounds and practice of the con-
stituent letters. After a few words are fixed, the synthesis of
the elements for new words commences].
Herbart's Pedagogics now proceeds to consider how directive
force may be educated by means of written compositions :
The term [dialectic] training embraces all direct action upon
the disposition of the pupil which is prompted by the intention
to purify and supplement his energies, and to lead him towards
objective liberty. Dialectic training has to deal [with the limita-
tions of the person fixed by way of inheritance or association]
or, in other words, it has to deal with the character of man.
Character manifests itself by individual preferences [and is two-
fold, either objective or subjective. The objective portion or
factor of character consists of] the individual's particular con-
struction of inclinations, indicated by the relative proportion or
percentage of action ; the subjective factor of character consists
in the enjoyment of complementary opposites criticizing the in-
dividual inclinations. The historical conception of both our
objective and subjective character (Site = centre of geometrical
locus) constitutes the totality of actual energy, and this is pro-
duced continuously by means of complementary natural desires
into acts of responsibility. The difference of the causes where-
with persons identify themselves, defines such or another char-
acter. It is, nevertheless, the internal act, as described, whether
purely internal or whether conceived as possibly external, which
produces balanced energy out of the material of desires [in every
species of character].
Faculty, [i. e., power of one of the complementary opposites
which would act independently if it was not restrained and direc-
ted] is, without doubt, the condition of acts of responsibility, and
[adopting this definition of faculty, we see that] every individ-
ual is peculiarly endowed or disposed, according to the physical
constitution of his body, according to the conscious connection of
his personality with his habits of thought, and according to the
relation of these mental habits among each other, character
gradually develops and matures [by suppressing dispositions
which are relatively too strong, and training such complement-
ary inclinations as are relatively too weak.] [Hence we perceive
that] opportunities, influence of the mode of living, influence of
18G Herbart's Ideas on Education.
the sphere of thought, are of essential importance for the cul-
ture of character [though it is quite as evident, that they are of
such importance as m.'ans for developing freedom, but are not to
be regarded as independent or necessary causes of action].
Among psychical actions which develop character, is foremost
" the memory of will" [the knowledge that the higher unity, in fa-
vor of which insubordinate attention, affections, or energies have
suppressed, retains and embodies said energies unimpaired,
though the latter have been disengaged from the objects to
which they were attached originally] ; this kind of will [the
unity of sacrifice and faith] must manifest itself without a pro-
cess of reasoning (or categorically), as often as occasion requires
[that is, as often as any desire exhibits the tendency to throw off
subordination to conscience] if such a conception as character
involves may be realized, [i. e., a perfectly free and perfectly re-
liable person].
One of the following stages of this process is the act of choice,
that is, preference [to unity] and subordination [of preparatory
extremes] : this act of choice settles the gradation of energy, it
imparts organic or systematic construction to the inclinations,
it attaches limited valuation to each separate act, and each sepa-
rate cause of action, rendering the person aware of the relation
between what he ought and ought not to sacrifice, between what
he ought and ought not to own, or, between what he ought and
ought not to do.
Objective freedom [or harmony of the individual will with na-
ture, and with the will of society] by means of the ethico-aes-
thetical judgment appears to be a third stage of the process,
though it [is manifest that the susceptibility and attention for
what is good and beautiful is in reality the reward for rejecting
what appears to be otherwise, and that this act of rejecting]
precedes and determines the act of choice. The act of identify-
ing one's moral self with a cause follows next [or the determina-
tion to stand, fall and rise with said cause] accompanied by the
definite knowledge of the duties, responsibilities and sacrifices
involved, and is succeeded, finally, by self-observation, [or scru-
tiny how far our acts are expressive of moral resolutions, and in
in case of inadequacy] by reaffirmation of the original resolution
against further obstacles.
Tie individual is thus carrying on a policy at once conserva-
tive [the energies not being impaired by suppressing or govern-
Herbarfs Ideas on Education. 1ST
in-- the objects of one-sided tendencies], restorative [in training-
functions weakened by the overgrowth of others], and reforma-
tory [by concentrating the energies thus controlled and trained
upon the right cause] — in fine, the individual is carrying into
effect the true principle of self-education.
An enlightened warmth for acts of objective liberty, unabated
by selfish desires, compatible alike with courage and prudence,
by means whereof the truth of objective liberty becomes an indi-
vidual impersonation, cannot grow out of any root other than
the power of faith, which leads to sacrifice for duty's sake, re-
sulting from ethical application of dialectics.
Distinct measures of dialectical training [to be carried into
effect by the teacher in separate lessons] are required, on
account of faults inherent in all schooling [more particularly in
schooling of a higher order, where the culture of directive energy
by means of composition is not made the leading aim, and the
necessary faults referred to arise from the fact that systematic
excellence in the plan of studies, together with the best possible
standard in the separate lessons, cannot alone, and without aid
from systematic use of knowledge in lessons on composition,
overcome the discrepancy between the claims of practical life
and the one-sided culture of theoretical or abstract judgment,
which results from any division of labor by means of teachers,
subject-matter, time and methods, without adequate and scien-
tific correction].
Measures of dialectical training are also required for realizing
the general purposes of education [to-wit : the perpetuation of
justice and freedom. The future juror should practice the art
of looking at opposite phases of a fact without bias ; the future
citizen might, in some degree, be prepared to give a fair hearing
to opposite views advauced by different papers and parties, with-
out introducing political or religious questions into schools ; and,
why should the future legislator not contract the habit of look-
ing at the consequences of an act from different stand-points,
even in his youth ? Or, how is the foundation of constitutional
liberty to remain intact, if the harmonious co-operation of the
judicial, executive and legislative functions in the individual is
weakened, instead of carefully trained?]
Among measures for dialectical training of an external nature,
we find, first and foremost, the deportment of the teacher to-
wards the pupil, [the balanced harmony of firm self-esteem for
188 Herbart's Ideas on Education.
discipline and kind self-forgetfulness for training, representing,
as well as circumstances permit, the power from which his share
of authority is delegated] ; after that, the degree to which the
teacher permits or refuses [the pupil's individuality and circum-
stances to modify the application of prescribed laws], and, con-
sequently, the consistency with which he aims to produce me-
thodical habits of thought, or to cancel habits* which interfere :
training is, in this last case, [manifestly] combined with disci-
pline [suppression of wrong, or faulty use of faculties], but is
distinguished from the latter by its aim, to apply the faculties,
which have been set free, for the appropriate object. [" Use
your auger for your problem " — said Stonewall Jackson, as pro-
fessor of mathematics].
[Hence it appears that dialectical training, or rather govern-
ment, consists in this: to concentrate different and opposite
knowledge and skill upon imperfect work, for the purpose of
transforming such work until it exhibits conformity with the
ethical ideas. The illustration, most widely accepted, is the solu-
tion of equations, by means of their transformation. But, inas-
much as the ethical ideas of Eight, Equity, Love, Freedom and
Perfection result from, and express the process of dialectics ap-
plied to finite objects, dialectical government may be defined more
briefly, as the aid afforded by the teacher to the scholar to trans-
form imperfect work by means of dialectics.
Dialectic government subserves the following purposes essen-
tial to education :
(a) Dialectic government prepares a proper disposition for
[subsequent] instruction. [Analysis and criticism of imperfect,
one-sided, incomplete work, creates demand for a higher, more
complete and harmonious unity].
(&) Dialectic government gives distinctness and balance to the
scholar's natural aspirations [in presenting and explaining the
harmonious relations of the comparatively perfect work] in such
a manner that the ethical and resthetical conception and approval
is freed from opposing predilections.
(c) Dialectic government affords time for the various germs of
ethical conception to develop according to the individuality of
the scholars [by comparing the different properties of the less
perfect work (a) with the qualities of the higher treatment or
unity (b)] and assists by means of correcting or generalizing the
judgment.
Herbart's Ideas on Education. 189
(d) Dialectic government helps the scholar to cultivate the
" memory of will" [inasmuch as any lesson or composition treat-
ed dialectically, affords an additional illustration of the principle
that nothing is lost by suppressing attachment to one-sided ex-
tremes in favor of a higher unity].
(e) Dialectic government observes, nurtures, cultivates and
directs the spirit of sacrifice, of acquisitiveness, of industry;, and
prompts the pupil to choose [the more concrete conception,
treatment and comprehension, because the higher unity contains
greater possibilities and is in consonance with duty].
(/) Dialectic government regulates [the adjustment of ethical
ideas] when one-sided dispositions of the scholar are formulated
as maxims or principles, and the subjective factor of character
preponderates [by criticism of the one-sided and composition of
the balanced character].
(g) Dialectic government quickens the voice of conscience,
[whenever the might of passion is seen to crush the right of the
complementary opposite, and thus to arrest the dialectic progress
toward higher unity].
(h) Dialectic government aims to fix the system of ethical
doctrines adopted in recognized text-books as a system of actual
freedom with which the scholar may be in hearty accord, and to
bring it about that the culture thereof and its actual realization
may appear to him as the most important concern of his after
life.
[It is not denied that unlimited freedom of inquiry into facts,
and unlimited publication of truth, by means of the press, can-
not be restricted without danger to right, freedom and progress.
Freedom of speech and of science are held sacred for the defense
of truth, right, charity, liberty and progress; that freedom is,
however, not upheld against the ethical ideas named. The ethi-
cal ideas are the acknowledged and constitutional support of the
free press. The support and superstructure contract and ex-
pand together, as a matter of history. It is evident to com-
mon sense that the comparative strength of ethical and sel-
fish tendencies in the individual and the community determines
how far inquiry into the truth of facts will be pushed, and how
soon it will be abandoned. If, then, freedom of the press and
strength of moral freedom in the commuuity stand and fall to-
gether, it is the right and duty of the press, as an act of self-
preservation, to insist that ethical instruction and practice, by
190 Rerbarfs Ideas on Education.
means of composition or otherwise, be introduced into the schools
of the people. But when these ideas of Eight and Equity, of
Love, and Freedom, and Ferfectiou, are shaped into an eye, to
see with, to sift, to complement, to embrace, to recognize experi-
ence, such eye is called Dialectics. It is true, dialectics may
result, without ethics, in sophistry. But let dialectics, regulated
by ethics, be welcomed. For what are ethics, without dialectics,
but a series of commands, which do not impart the ability to
obey ? ]
Finally : (?) Dialectic government fosters grateful acknowl-
edgment of, and glad submission to the necessity of complemen-
tary arrangements in nature and society, without which individ-
ual life could not be sustained, and actions, whether good or bad,
could yield no returns, but it fosters such tendencies solely by
the results of undoubted experience and by matter of instruc-
tion universally recognized, in order to protect [the religious
germ] against that superficiality [which is satisfied with pious
imagery without making use of complementary relations for
better work or broader knowledge] and against that despotic
extravagance [which under cover of some theory, would substi-
tute a mediator between man and the Author of all providential
arrangements, other than the eternal law of mind. Dialectics,
for the same reason, disclaim affinity with physical or dogmati-
cal assumptions which destroy or impair the responsibility of
man. But responsibility is impaired to the extent to which any
belief is strengthened against the axiomatic faith of dialectics,
that everything returns to its author. Dialectic government
harmonizes with true religion, representing such faith, and call-
ing upon men to do as they wish to be done by], it points to
such religion as the condition of virtue and true knowledge.
[The educational value of speculative philosophy since Kant,
results from its systematic effort to separate morality from creeds
and churches, in order to evade the dilemma spoken of; the spe-
cial value of Herbart's Pedagogics consists in the fact that it is
an attempt to demonstrate the necessity and feasibility of mak-
ing morality the aim and end of public education, while he insists
upon a separation of moral principles from dogmas of any and
every kind, in the most uncompromising manner.
Eeading, writing and arithmetic, classics and mathematics,
natural science and history may, do and did serve, not only the
cause of freedom, but all manner of evil. We feel interest in
Herbarfs Ideas on Education. 191
the question, how sciences and arts may best serve the cause of
freedom ; for the discussion of this question elevates the profes-
sion of teaching from the consideration of very trivial matters to
that of a sublime theme, even in case no result of economical
value should be apparent at the outset. The general plan also
of the foundation appears to be quite simple. If we take a free
act to be an act of choice effected in accordance with our inbred
desire for unlimited progress, we exclude wrong, i. e., choice in-
consistent with the general conditions of life ; we exclude what-
ever does not yield an equitable return and also any choice with-
out general validity under like circumstances, or choice without
love. For all such choice limits or- defeats progress. And to ar-
rive at a decision as to what is preferable relatively, it seems that
the preference given must result from quality or quantity, and
that, in either case, that must be preferable which contains and
includes the other. But to exclude such a choice, the general
reflex action of which would be self-destructive, and to include in
the choice the self-limiting extremes is, at once, application of all
the above principles of ethics. But this operation is precisely
what we mean by dialectics : dialectics, therefore, are the method
by means of which ethical principles apply themselves, as it
were. Nothing further is needed, no new set of rules to apply
dialectics. The attempt to educate the will by teaching a system of
moral philosophy would be as ridiculous as the attempt to teach
a foreign language by means of a scientific grammar. Both
things are done, but Herbart is radically opposed to trifling
away time and strength in such a manner. Educate by means of
instruction says : help the scholar to choose, to reject the errors
and mistakes which, happily, make their appearance in pairs, to
seek and present facts which belong together essentially, to find
the harmonious unity, to prefer the more concrete to the more
abstract; it says: cultivate his practical judgment, determine his
choice in accordance with moral principles, enlarge and intensify
freedom by means of dialectics.
We are referred to his psychology for further information.
This information is two-fold. We learn first, that any and every
theory, true or false, may be supported by the theory of inbred
faculties. Let us be miseducated first, and it will be easy to find
the predetermined germ therefor in consciousness. Let us sup-
pose our miseducation and complementary faculties will be de-
veloped by susceptibility for complementary truths. What we
192 Herbart's Ideas on Education.
may be, can be determined only by actual trial, and such trial is
either the categorical assertion of some one-sided abstraction,
faculty and habit, or the exercise of freedom ; the former weak-
ens and its objects fade, as the tediousness of each repetition
increases; the latter is the true progress in infinitum, gathering
strength by every complement of our individuality.
We learn, secondly, as a positive result, that the categories of
being, essence and morality are the true primary faculties ("Psy-
chology based upon Metaphysics") these categories being neces-
sarily involved in the idea of free personality, but that no one
can know their full stretch nor their joint intensity without first
using them separately and jointly. Do, and you will know ; act
first, reflect upon it afterwards; art precedes its theory ; not only
the binomial theorem has been discovered in this manner, but
every valuable generalization has been effected by developing the
possibilities of isolated cases. It would, of course, be utter per-
version to apply this precept to physical as well as to mental
action, or to admit it with reference to the latter when not con-
trolled by moral principles. To act physically without having
used our reason, and to use our reason independently of our con-
science, is the -ery origin of crime and sin, which education
seeks to prevent.
As result of the application of moral principles to our sensu-
ous or immediate conceptions by means of dialectics, we obtain
the theory of attention substantially as follows : Let every con-
ception be analyzed by as many primary faculties or categories
as possible. The object presents the unity of these faculties,
and such apparent analysis is, in fact, synthesis, and culture of
directive energy, but is termed accidental view, because it does
not exhaust the categories. This being done, we have a common
measure ; quantitatively, we may compare one thing and another
by means of the same category; qualitatively, we may compare
one thing or person and another by the number of categories
inhering iu the same, or the exponent of concreteness. We edu-
cate the primary faculties separately by quantitative comparison,
we educate them jointly by qualitative comparison, and educate
self-consciousness by means of both. We commence by concen-
trating our attention upon objects, Ave end by concentrating it
upon the subject: self-application terminates in self-recollection;
instruction in education ; between the original and final synthesis
we have comparison as means.
Rerbarfs Ideas on Education. 193
Synthesis in the object is instruction ; union of categories in
the purpose is moral discipline: comparison by means of meth-
odical review is government.
All interest results from the reciprocal influence existing be-
tween object and purpose by means of thoughts. If change of
objects enlarges or restricts the scope of purpose, we have ses-
thetical interest, if change of purpose increases or diminishes
the sphere of experience, we take empirical interest : the meth-
ods of reflection, by means of which the bouds of reality and
purpose may be loosened or tightened constitute our speculative
interest.
These bonds are, correspondingly, practical judgment, com-
prehension and conclusion. The exercise of each and all of them
depends upon the faculty of faculties, to be able to conceive the
opposite properties, attributes and actions comprised by the
things or persons which we apprehend by senses, thoughts or
conscience. Logic tells that there is no logic without freedom.
To every focus of predicates may correspond a focus of opposite
predicates, and foci containing the means. Truth realizes the
possibilities of freedom, if freedom is the motive power for the
discovery of truth.
But every truth now taught, and every safeguard of freedom
now enforced, is a legacy left to us by men who believed in infi-
nite progress, and, therefore, stepped over the boundaries of the
past. They educated themselves not by ''culture studies," but
by identifying the development of their faculties with the real-
ization of a moral purpose. To teach in their spirit, instruction
and education is inseparable. A general outline of the appl'ca-
bility of this principle is obtained by the reflection that all in-
struction concerns persons or things and their relations, while
faculties are developed by actions. Things may be considered, a
priori, in themselves (natural history), in their relation to each
other (physics), and in their relation to us (geography.) The
knowledge of persons is exhausted, correspondingly, by the
knowledge of their characters, their relations in society, and
their historical stand-point. It has been explained that matter
of instruction, whether relating to things or persons, may be pre-
pared, by means of anilysis and comparison, in such a manner
that an involuntary judgment is elicited from the scholar as to
their comparative value and worth. Xor need we fear to preju-
X— 13
194 The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
dice him, if we confine ourselves to preferences settled by arith-
metic aud the constitution. But it is to be feared that the mere
mass of empirical knowledge, without such aim in view, may
crush instead of developing- the faculty to use it,
On the other hand, reading, writing and arithmetic, spelling,
grammar, and the like exercises of indispensable faculties,
should, it is contended, be joined, as directly as possible, with
the desire to impart useful information. This, we may take to be
the settled conviction of our age. The cry against culture stud-
ies unites the most extreme parties. Many things are being done
in this direction, but nothing will give thorough satisfaction, unless
we unite them by means of composition. Most schools will
discover some useless culture studies, for which composition may
be substituted profitably.
The purpose for which composition is recommended would be
defeated, if form and matter were separated, if the matter were
not elicited by questions, aud the form were empirical analysis,
instead of harmonious s.. nthesis.
Analogies are the gems of diction, the source of mental fertil-
ity, the key to the secret^ how one set of faculties educates an-
other. By analogy we understand the reciprocity or reflex-action
by means of which the correspondence between things or persons
is discovered. To develop a -fruitful analogy is an exercise
which, by its very nature, sets all our faculties, moral, mental
and sensuous, to work; it is competitive comparison; it is the
flower of dialectic discipline. Papers and books teem with excel-
lent analogies ; let us use this wealth in exercises of composition
to educate the desire for progress, freedom and truth].
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEROXA.
By D. J. Snider.
This is no doubt one of the youthful plays of Shakespeare.
Its theme is the passion of youth, fullness and warmth charac-
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 195
terize its descriptions, and at the same time there is a feeling of
resignation to the power of love which amounts to weakness.
The coloring is peculiar and uniform throughout; there is felt
the lassitude of the stricken shepherd; there is seen the com-
plete absorption of the individual in the fancy and emotions. The
mood of the Poet is diffused through the entire work, giving it
the fragrance as well as the languor of early Spring, the season
which in so many ways represents youth. The tone often resem-
bles that of the pastoral romances of Spain and Italy ; it is the
feeling of the lorn lover who has lost himself and wanders around
in a dreamy quest like a shadow. Such is the artistic hue which
colors this drama, and gives its distinctive characteristic ; it is
the true poetic element which no analysis can reach and which
can only be felt. For the poetry, therefore, the reader must go
to the poem ; criticism may unfold the thought which is the con-
trolling principle in every work of art, though it cannot be ex-
pected to take the place of that work.
In the present drama the thought is not so profound, the organic
structure is not so perfect, the characterization is not so rich as
they will hereafter become. But the germs of many of the most
beautiful parts of Shakespeare are to be found here. The reader
is continually reminded of scenes, incidents and motives which
occur in other plays. But the peculiar and striking fact is, that
the Poet now gives the outlines of his most notable literary form,
namely, the special drama together with the introduction of the
idyllic realm to harmonize the conflicts of life. Here it is, though
in an incipient stage ; the outlaws in the forest form a world of
their own, which becomes the great instrumentality for doing-
justice- to the wronged, for inflicting retribution upon the guilty,
and for restoring to society its banished members.
We may now pass to consider the organization of the drama.
There are three movements, though they are not marked with
such precision as in some other plays, nor have they quite the
same order and signification. The first movement exhibits the
two chief male characters as devoted friends on the one hand,
and as devoted lovers on the other. The emotional unity which
cements one individual to another, and makes both as it were a
single person, is here shown in its two most important phases.
Friendship and love, therefore, constitute the theme, the former
existing in its highest and truest manifestation only between
people of the same sex, the latter only between people of differ-
196 The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
ent sexes. The second movement shows the disruption of this
unity in both directions ; through the faithlessness of one person
the friends are separated and the lovers torn asunder. Here
occur the struggles and conflicts which give to the drama its seri-
ous tone and remove it from the realm of pure comedy. The
third movement portrays the return out of this state of disrup-
tion, the restoration of friendship and love, and the harmonious
solution of all the conflicts. The instrumentality is the world of
outlaws.
The two friends are first introduced, who, however, at once
separate ; the one, Valentine, is eager to set out on his travels,
the other, Proteus, remains at home because he is enthralled by
love. Valentine derides the condition of his friend who is so
utterly absorbed by his passion, and then departs. The thread
of which Proteus is the centre may now be followed to its con-
clusion in the first movement. Julia is the name of the loved
one, through her shrewd waiting woman she has received a letter
from Proteus containing a declaration of his affection. After a
pretended resistance and various strange caprices she yields to
the influence of the winged god; the sufficient reason being be-
cause she is loved and must requite the affection unless there is
some good ground for not doing so. Xor is any motive given for
the love of Proteus, except that he loves. Man and woman be-
long together and will come together unless there is some excel-
lent reason for their remaining asunder; the burden of proof lies
on the side of separation, not of union, which can always be ta-
ken for granted. Nature with a whip of scorpions drives the
human being as an isolated individual into his rational existence
in the Family. Love with its unrest is just the manifestation of
insufficiency ; the single person is not adequate to the truest and
happiest life. Proteus and Julia thus in a rapid whirl, love, de--
clare, pledge.
But now comes the painful separation. The father of Proteus
is not yet satisfied with his son's education, he is determined to
send him abroad to see the world and to gain its experience.
Proteus, while reading a missive from the fair Julia, is surprised
by the old man ; the boy fibs stoutly, but thereby falls into his
own trap. Off" he must; the parent will not be trifled with.
There ensues the parting scene between the lovers, and the oaths
of eternal fidelity soon to be broken, with the customarj' accom-
paniment of tears and sighs. Such is the external separation.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 197
The destination of Proteus is the court of Milan, where he will
meet his old friend Valentine.
We shall now go back and pick up Valentine's thread and see
what he has been doing. We beheld him setting out upon his
travels with many a jibe and derisive taunt against love and its
thralls; but retribution has come, and the mighty traveler has
been stopped in his journey at Milan by the eyes of Silvia, the
Duke's beautiful daughter. But the most gratifying news comes
through his knowing servant, Speed : his affection is reciproca-
ted. Indeed, the young lady herself writes a note which con-
veys the same information in a somewhat circuitous yet quite in-
telligible manner. But alack-a-day! the course of true love never
did run smooth, at least in a comedy; the much-employed, time-
honored obstacle rears its front, papa is opposed. Also the old
wealthy suitor, that goblin of youthful lovers and favorite of
parents, puts in his appearance and is of course supported by the
father. Thurio is his name. The conflict is inevitable, it opens
with a few flashing sky-rockets of wit between the combatants,
but it is clear that heavy artillery will be brought in before the
war is over. The principles which collide are, the right of choice
on the part of the daughter agaiust the will of the parent. The
outcome of the struggle is indicated in the mere statement : the
daughter must triumph, her right must be maintained even at
the expense of disobeying and deceiving her father. If he de-
mands conditions which render the Family impossible, the Fam-
ily must set him aside ; such at least is Shakespeare's solution.
Just at this most interesting point of the struggle, Proteus ar-
rives at court, and by his conduct changes the whole attitude of
affairs. Instead of the ordinary two-sided combat, it becomes an
intricate triple fight, with abundance of stratagem and treachery.
This part will be developed in the next movement. We have
bad brought before us the double relation of friendship and love;
there has also been an external separation in each ; still the inter-
nal bond has not been destroyed by absence, fidelity to both
principles remains as yet in the hearts of all.
A word may be said here upon the two clowns and their func-
tion in the play. It will be noticed that both Valentine and Pro-
teus are each provided with such an attendant. The main duty
of the clown is to give a comic reflection of the actions of his
master. The latter is in earnest, employs elevated language,
moves in high life, and the Poet usually puts his words in a met-
198 The Tico Gentlemen of Verona.
rical form ; while the former belongs to low life, deals in coarse
jests, aud speaks the rude slang of the hour. It is the same eon-
tent viewed from the poetic and from the prosaic stand-point,
from refined sensibility aud from gross sensuality. Nr is the
most serious aud even affecting theme to be treated without pre-
senting its ludicrous side. Thus there is always a double reflec-
tion of the action, which makes the work complete. The clowns
seem to be partly imitating and to be partly mocking the manner
and circumstances of their superiors ; the effect is that of a bur-
lesque. Their prototype is to be found in Spanish and Italian
comedy, from which Shakespeare in his earlier plays was in the
habit of freely borrowing. Hereafter he will elevate these some-
what stiff and conventional figures into living beings ; instead of
a clownish and monotonous imitation he will pour into them a
varied and independent comic character, which is connected with
the main theme through itself, aud not through another person
of the play.
Between Launce and Speed a close examination will find a few
but not very important differences. The perplexing fact is that
each is so different from himself at different times. Launce, for
instance, is in one place a stupid fool, while in another place he
manifests the keenest iutelligeuce. The same discrepancy may
be noticed particularly in the case of Valentine. In fact the
characterization in this drama is by no means fine aud consistent
always; it betrays the youthful, uncertain hand. Still the out-
lines are all here; the interest is to trace the development of
these rude features into the most beautiful aud ideal forms.
The second movement which portrays the conflict and dissolu-
tion of the ties just mentioned, is next in the order of explana-
tion. Proteus has come to the court of Milan, is immediately
admitted into the Duke's confidence upon the recommendation of
his friend, who also received him with affection and joy. But he
at once falls in love with Silvia. This sudden change rests in his
susceptible disposition; it requires the presence of the fair object
to keep up his fidelity. He is unable to subordinate emotion to
reason; in his soliloquies he states the true principle of his ac-
tion : love is above duty. The result is, he commits a deed of
triple treachery : he is faithless to friendship, to love, to hospi-
tality. He is truly the victim of passion, the thrall of love,
which drags him from one object to another in hopeless bonds.
Such is emotion without the permanent, rational element, it
drives man into a violation of all honor and virtue.
The Tico Gentlemen of Verona. 199
The conflict of Valentine with the will of the parent, the Duke,
has been already noted. To bring his purpose to a triumphant
conclusion he proposes an elopement, the time and manner of
which he confides to Proteus, who goes at once and tells it to the
father. The Duke, by a very ingenious scheme of dissimulation,
succeeds in making Valentine reveal his plan, and then upon the
spot pronounces his banishment. Thus results another separa-
tion of lovers. Throughout this scene the reader is continually
reminded of Borneo and Juliet, both by the incidents and the
coloring. Proteus now must continue his treachery, he has to
be false to Thurio and the Duke. But his suit is unsuccessful ;
Silvia, whose character is fidelity to love, reproaches him for his
faithlessness to his betrothed, and thrusts home with logical
keenness the nature of his deed : you have been untrue to her,
you will be untrue to me.
The clowns perform their function as before, they give a dis-
torted but comic reflection of the main action. The romantic
love of the high-bred suitors is caricatured in the affair concern-
ing the milk-maid, whose homely qualities show the force of real
life; Launce foreshadows the faithlessness and villainy of his
master; he too has a subordinate, namely, his dog; this relation
is a humorous image of his own relation to those above himself.
Launce makes long speeches, and has more to say than Speed,
who seems to be the more prying and the less clownish charac-
ter. Lucetta, the serving-woman of Julia, ought perhaps to be
placed in the same general category with Speed and Launce,
though she surpasses both in refinement.
The second thread of this movement is the actions and adven-
tures of the two women, Julia and Silvia. The Poet has not
made the separation here implied by these threads except in a
few scenes, but for the convenience of the analysis some such
division may be permitted. Both these characters have the fun-
damental type which is seen in all of Shakespeare's women : de-
votion to the Family. Those whom he wishes to portray as
good, are endowed with this one highest purpose, to which all
their other qualities are subservient. They are depicted with
various degrees of intellectual ability, and with various degrees
of power of will ; but they are all women, and ultimately unite in
the single trait of supreme womanhood. Julia here, so modest
and gentle in her nature, assumes the garments of a page in
order to go to Proteus; her devotion supplies the courage to
200 The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
accomplish such a bold act, though 
