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PRESENTED 

TO 



The University of Toronto 



BY 








THE JOURNAL 



OF 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



YOLUME XII. 



EDITED BY WM. T. HAERIS. 



ST. LOUIS: 
a. I. JONES AND COMPANY. 

1878. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 

WILLIAM T. HARMS, 
In the Oilice of the Librarian of Congi-ess, at Washington. 



1^0^ 



^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Boole's Logical Method, George Bruce Hoisted, 81 

Brute and Human Intellect, William James, 236 

Christianity and the Clearing-up, Francis A. Henry, 171, 337 

Fichte's Criticism of Schelling (Tr.), A. E. Krceger, 160, 316 

Hegel on Symbolic Art (Tr.), William M. Bryant, 18 

Hegel on Classic Art (Tr.), William M. Bryant, 145,277 

Hegel on Romantic Art (Tr.), William M. Bryant, 403 

Jacobi, and the Philosophy of Faith, Robert H. Worthington, 393 

Nation and the Commune, The, Theron Gray, 44 

Schelling on tlie Historical Construction of Chris- 
tianity (Tr.), Ella S. Morgan, 205 

Schiller's Etliical Studies, Josiah Royce, 373 

Science of Education, The (Paraph.), Anna C. Brackett, 67, 297 

Spencer's Definition of Mind, William. James, 1 

Some Considerations on the Notion of Space, J. E. Cabot, 225 

Statement and Reduction of Syllogism, .... George Bruce Halsted, 418 
Von Hartmann on " The True and False in Dar- 
winism" (Tr.), Henry I.D'Arey, 138 

"World as Force, The, John Watson, 1 13 

Notes and Discussions, 92 

(1) Sonnet to the Venus of Milo ; (2) Emanuel Hvalgren's System; 
(3) Notes on Hegel and his Critics ; (4) Sentences in Prose and Verse. 

Notes and Discussions : In Memoriam, 214 

Notes and Discussions, 327 

(1) Sentences in Prose and Verse; (2) Spiritual Epigrams; (3) A 
Fragment of the "Semitic" Philosophy; (4) Dr. Pfleiderer's Philoso , 
phy of Religion ; (5) On the Multiplicity of Conscious Beings ; (6) Poly- 
crates sends Anacreon Five Talents. 

Notes and Discussions, 427 

(1) The Moral Purpose of Tourgueneff; (2) Dr. Parson's Translation 
of Dante's Purgatorio. 

Book Notices, . 108 

(1) The Universe; (2) Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell ; (3) Ueber 
die Aufgabe der Philosophic in der (legenwart ; (4) Municipal Law, and 
its Relations to the Constitution of Man; (5) Life and Mind — Their 
Unity and Materiality; (6) An Essay on Science and Theology; (7) 
The Relation of Philosophy to Science; (8) Neues Fundamental Or- 
ganon der Philosophic, etc.; (9) The Jurisdiction of Probate Courts; 
(10) The Natural Theology of the Doctrine of Forces; (11) Views of 



iv Errata. 

PAGE 

Nature and of the Elements; (12) Outlines of the Religion and Philoso- 
phy of Svvedenborg; (13) Zwei Briefe Ueber Verursachung und 
Freiheitim Wollen; (14) Hartmann, Duehring, and Lange; (15) George 
Stjernhjelm; (Itj) Philosophische Monatshefte ; (17) Verhandlungen der 
Piiilosophischen Gesellsehaft. 

Book Notices, 217 

(1) Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie und Philosophische Kritik; (2) Pro- 
fessor Watson on Science and Religion; (3) Principia or Basis of Social 
Science ; (4) Soul Problems, with other Papers ; (5) A Series of Essays 
on Legal Topics ; (6) Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Re- 
former; (7) Elements de Philosophie Populaire; (8) Inaugural Ad- 
dress, by S. S. Laurie; (9) The Historical Jesus of Nazareth: (10) A 
Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant; (11) Philosophische 
Monatshefte, Leipzig, 1877; (12) Die Phantasie als Grundprincip des 
Welt Processes; (13) Philosophie de la Religion de Hegel; (14) The 
Princeton Review. 

Book Notices, 436 

(1) Krauth's Vocabulary of the Philosophical Sciences ; (2) Stirling's 
Burns in Drama, together with Saved^Leaves ; (3) Pfleiderer's Religions 
Philosophic auf Geschichtlicher Grundlage; (4) Bascom's Compara- 
tive Psychology; (o) Eucken's Geschichte und Kritik der Grundbegrifte 
der Gegenwart; (0) Bascom's Philosophy of Religion; (7) American 
Journal of Mathematics. 



ERRATA 



Page 45, line 28, for such, read each. 

Page 51, line 23—4, for a j^ilain man, read explain now. 

Page 54, line 5, for assuming, read assuring. 

Page 5G, line 19, for Free, read True. 

Page 515, line 28-9, for diction, read dictation. 

Page 57, line 34, for interest, read increase. 

Page 60, line 12, for Uvw-rule, read latv — rule. 

Page 67, line 17, for the reappear, read there appear. 

Page 383, line 21, for sobriatur, read solvitur. 

Page 400, line 11, for on, read or. 

Page 401, line 8, for succeeded, read supei'seded. 

Page 402, line 30, for an, read our. 

Page 402, line 33, for an, read our; for even, read ever. 



THE JOURNAL 



OF 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



Vol. XII.] January, 1878. [No. 1. 



REMARKS ON SPENCER'S DEFINITION OF MIND AS 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

BY WM. JAMES. 

As a rule it may be said that, at a time when readers are so 
overwhehiied with work as they are at the present day, all 
purely critical and destructive writing ought to be reprobated. 
The half-gods generally refuse to go, in spite of the ablest 
criticism, until the gods actually have arrived ; but then, too, 
criticism is hardly needed. But there are cases in which 
every rule may l)e broken. "What!" exclaimed Voltaire, 
when accused of offering no substitute for the Christianity he 
attacked, "^6 vous delivre cVune bete feroce, et vous me cle- 
niandez par quoi je la remplace!'" Without comparing Mr. 
Spencer's definition of Mind either to Christianity or to a 
'''•beteferoce,''^ it may certainly be said to be very far-reaching 
in its consequences, and, according to certain standards, 
noxious ; whilst probably a large proportion of those hard- 
headed readers who subscribe to the Popular Science Monthly 
and Nature, and whose sole philosopher Mr. Spencer is, are 
fascinated by it without beino- in the least aware what its con- 
sequences are. 

The defects of the formula are so olarino- that I am sur- 
prised it should not long ago have been criticalh^ overhauled. 
XII— 1 



2 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

The reader will readily recollect Avhat it is. In part III of his 
Princiides of Psychology, Mr. Spencer, starting from the sup- 
position that the most essential truth concerning mental evolu- 
tion will be that which allies it to the evolution nearest akin 
to it, namely, that of Life, finds that the formula " adjustment 
of inner to outer relations,'" which was the definition of life, 
comprehends also "the entire process of mental evolution." 
In a series of chapters of great apparent thoroughness and 
minuteness he shows how all the different grades of mental 
perfection are expressed by the degree of extension of this 
adjustment, or, as he here calls it, " correspondence," in space, 
time, speciality, generality, and integration. The polyp's 
tentacles contract only to immediately present stimuli, and to 
almost all alike. The mammal will store up food for a day, 
or even for a season ; the bird will start on its migration for a 
goal hundreds of miles away ; the savage will sharpen his 
arrows to hunt next year's game ; while the astronomer will 
proceed, equipped with all his instruments, to a point thousands 
of miles distant, there to watch, at a fixed day, hour, and 
minute, a transit of Venus or an eclipse of the Sun. 

The i)icture drawn is so vast and simple, it includes such a 
multitude of details in its monotonous frame-work, that it is 
no wonder that readers of a passive turn of mind are, usually, 
more impressed by it than ])y any portion of the book. But 
on the slightest scrutiny its solidity begins to disappear. In 
the first place, one asks, what right has one, in a formula 
embracing professedly the "entire process of mental evolu- 
tion," to mention only phenomena of cognition, and to omit 
all sentiments, all aesthetic impulses, all religious emotions and 
personal affections? The ascertainment of outward fact con- 
stitutes only one species of mental activity. The genus con- 
tains, in addition to purely cognitive judgments, or judgments 
of the actual — judgments that things do, as a matter of fact, 
exist so or so — an immense number of emotional judgments : 
judgments of the ideal, judgments that things should exist 
thus and not so. How much of our mental life is occupied 
with this matter of a l)ett('r or a worse? How much of it 
involves i)references or repugnances on our part? AVe cannot 



Spencer'' s Definition of Mind. 3 

laugh at a joke, we cannot go to one theater rather than 
iinother, take more trouble for the sake of our own child than 
our neighbor's ; we cannot long for vacation, show our best 
manners to a foreigner, or pay our pew rent, without involvhig 
in the premises of our action some element which has nothing 
whatever to do with simply cognizing the actual, but which, 
out of alternative possible actuals, selects one and cognizes 
that as the ideal. In a word, " Mind," as we actually find it, 
contains all sorts of laws — those of logic, of fancy, of wit, of 
taste, decorum, beauty, morals, and so forth, as well as of per- 
ception of fact. Common sense estimates mental excellence 
by a combination of all these standards, and yet how few of 
them correspond to anything that actually is — they are laws 
of the Ideal, dictated by subjective interests pure and simple. 
Thus the greater part of Mind, quantitatively considered, 
refuses to have anything to do with Mr. Spencer's definition. 
It is quite true that these ideal judgments are treated by him 
with great ingenuity and felicity at the close of his work — 
indeed, his treatment of them there seems to me to be its most 
admirable portion. But they are there handled as separate 
items having no connection with that extension of the "cor- 
respondence" which is maintained elsewhere to be the all- 
sufficins: law of mental growth. 

Most readers would dislike to admit without coercion that a 
law was adequate which obliged them to erase from literature 
(if by literature were meant anything Avorthy of the title of 
â– "mental product") all works except treatises on natural 
science, history, and statistics. Let us examine the reason 
that Mr. Spencer appears to consider coercive. 

It is this : That, since every process groAvs more and more 
complicated as it develops, more swarmed over by incidental 
and derivative conditions which disguise and adulterate its 
original simplicity, the only way to discover its true and 
essential form is to trace it back to its earliest beginning. 
There it will appear in its genuine character pure and undefiled. 
Religious, aesthetic, and ethical judgments, having grown up in 
the course of evolution, by means that we can very plausibly 
divine, of course may be stripped off from the main stem of 



4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

intelliirence and leave that undisturbed. With a simihir intent 
Mr. Tjlor says: "Whatever throws light on the origin of a. 
conception throws light on its validity." Thus, then, there 
is no resource but to appeal to the polyjo, or whatever shows 
us the form of evolution just before intelligence, and what 
that, and only what that, contains will be the root and heart of 
the matter. 

But no sooner is the reason for the law thus enunciated 
than many objections occur to the reader. In the first place, 
the general principle seems to lead to absurd conclusions. If 
the embryologic line of appeal can alone teach lis the genuine 
essences of things, if the polyp is to dictate our law of mind 
to us because he came first, where are we to stop? He must 
himself be treated in the same way. Back of him lay the 
not-yet-poly p , and, back of all, the universal mother, fire-mist. 
To seek there for the reality, of course would reduce all think- 
ing to nonentity, and, although Mr. Spencer would probably 
not regard this conclusion as a reductio ad absurdum of his 
principle, since it would only be another path to his theory of 
the Unknowable, less systematic thinkers may hesitate. But^ 
waiving for the moment the question of principle, let us 
admit that relatively to our thought, at any rate, the polyp's 
thought is pure and undefiled. Does the study of the polyp 
lead us distinctly to Mr. Spencer's formula of correspondence? 
To begin with, if that formula be meant to include disin- 
terested scientific curiosity, or "correspondence" in the sense 
of cognition, with no ulterior selfish end, the polyp gives it no 
countenance whatever. He is as innocent of scientific as of 
moral and oesthetic enthusiasm ; he is the most narrowly teleo- 
logical of organisms ; reacting, so far as he reacts at all, only 
for self-preservation . 

This leads us to ask what Mr. Spencer exactly means by the 
word correspondence. Without explanation, the word is 
wholly indeterminate. Everything corresponds in some way 
with everything else that co-exists in the same world with it. 
But, as the formula of correspondence was originally derived 
from biology, we shall possiljly find in our author's treatise ou 
that science an exact definition of what he means by it. On 



Spencer's Definition of Mind. 5 

seeking there, we Und nowhere a definition, hut numhers of 
synonyms. The inner relations are " adjusted," " conformed," 
*' fitted," "related," to the outer. They must "meet" or 
^' hahmce " them. There must be "concord " or " liarmony " 
between tliem. Or, again, the organism must "counteract" 
the changes in the environment. But these words, too, are 
wholly indeterminate. The fox is most beautifully "ad- 
justed" to the hounds and huntsmen who pursue him; the 
limestone "meets " molecule by molecule the acid which cor- 
rodes it ; the man is exquisitely " conformed" to the trichina 
which invades him, or to the typhus poison which consumes 
him; and the forests "harmonize" incomparably with the 
:fires that lay them low. Clearly, a further specification is 
required; and, although Mr. Spencer shrinks strangely from 
•enunciating this specification, he everywhere works his formula 
so as to imply it in the clearest manner. 

Influence on physical well-being or survival is his implied 
â– criterion of the rank of mental action. The moth which 
:flies into the candle, instead of away from it, "fails," in 
Spencer's words (vol. I, p. 409), to "correspond" with its 
environment ; but clearly, in this sense, pure cognitive in- 
ference of the existence of heat after a perception of light 
would not suffice to constitute correspondence ; while a moth 
which, on feeling the light, should merely vaguely fear to ap- 
proach it, l)ut have no proper image of the heat, would "cor- 
respond." So that the Spencerian formula, to mean anything 
â– definite at all, must, at least, be re-written as follows : " Right 
or intelligent mental action consists in the establishment, cor- 
responding to outward relations, of such inward relations and 
reactions as will favor the survival of the thinker, or, at least, 
Ms physical well-l)eing." 

Such a definition as this is precise, but at the same time it 
is frankly teleological. It explicitly postulates a distinction 
between mental action pure and simple, and rigid mental 
action ; and, furthermore, it proposes, as criteria of this latter, 
certain ideal ends — those of physical prosperity or survival, 
wdiich are pure suhjective interests on the animal's part, 
brought with it upon the scene and corresponding to no 



6 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

relation already there. ^ No mental action is right or intelli- 
gent which fails to lit this standard. No correspondence can 
pass muster till it shows its subservience to these ends. Cor- 
responding itself to no actual outward thing ; referring merely 
to a future which may be, but which these interests now say 
shall be ; purely ideal, in a word, they judge, dominate, de- 
termine all correspondences between the inner and the outer. 
Which is as much as to say that mere correspondence with the 
outer world is a notion on which it is wholly impossible to base 
a definition of mental action. Mr. Spencer's occult reason 
for leaving unexpressed the most important part of the defini- 
tion he works with probably lies in its apparent implication of 
subjective spontaneity. The mind, according to his philoso- 
phy, should be pure product, absolute derivative from the 
non-mental. To make it dictate conditions, bring independent 
interests into the game which may determine what we shall 
call correspondence, and what not, might, at first sight, appear 
contrary to the notion of evolution .which forbids the introduc- 
tion at any point of an absolutely new factor. In what sense 
the existence of survival interest does postulate such a factor 
we shall hereafter see. I think myself that it is possible to- 
express all its outward results in non-mental terms. But the 
unedifying look of the thing, its simulation of an independent 
mental teleology, seems to have frightened Mr. Spencer here^ 
as elsewhere, away from a serious scrutiny of the facts. But 



^ These interests are the real a -prion element in cognition. By saying that their- 
pleasures and pains have nothing to do with correspondence, I mean simply this: 
To a large number of terms in the environment there may be inward correlatives 
of a neutral sort as regards feeling. The "correspondence" is already there. 
But, now, suppose some to be accented with pleasure, others with pain; that is a 
fact additional to the correspondence, a fact with no outward correlative. But it 
immediately orders the correspondences in this way: that the pleasant or interest- 
ing items are singled out, dwelt upon, developed into their farther connections, 
whilst the unpleasant or insipid ones are ignored or suppressed. The future of 
the Mind's development is thus mapped out in advance by the way in which the 
lines of pleasure and pain run. The interests precede the outer relations noticed. 
Take the utter absence of response of a dog or a savage to the greater mass of 
environing relations. How can you alter it unless you previous!}' awaken an 
interest — t. e., produce a susceptibility to intellectual pleasure in certain modes of 
cognitive exercise? Interests, then, are an all-essential factor which no writer 
pretending to give an account of mental evolution has a right to neglect. 



Spencer's Definition of Mind. 7 

let us be indulgent to his timidity, and assume that survival 
was all the while a "mental reservation" with him, only 
excluded from his formula by reason of the comfortino- sound 
it might have to Philistine ears. 

We should then have, as the embodiment of the hisfhest 
ideal jaerfection of mental development, a creature of superb 
cognitive endowments, from whose piercing perceptions no 
fact was too minute or too remote to escape ; whose all- 
embracing foresight no contingency could find unprepared ; 
whose invincible flexibility of resource no array of outward 
onslaught could overpower ; but in Avhom all these gifts were 
swayed by the single passion of love of life, of survival at 
any price. This determination lilling his whole energetic 
being, consciously realized, intensified by meditation, becomes 
a fixed idea, would use all the other faculties as its means, and, 
if they ever flagged, would by its imperious intensity spur 
them and hound them on to ever fresh exertions and achieve- 
ments. There can be no doubt that, if such an incarnation of 
earthly i)rudence existed, a race of beings in whom this 
monotonously narrow passion for self-preservation were aided 
by every cognitive gift, they would soon be kings of all the 
earth. All known human races would wither before their 
breath, and be as dust beneath their conquering feet. 

But whether any Spencerian would hail with hearty joy 
their advent is another matter. Certainly Mr. Spencer would 
not ; while the common sense of mankind would stand aijhast 
at the thought of them. Why does common opinion abhor 
such a being? Why does it crave greater "richness" of 
nature in its mental ideal? Simply because, to common sense, 
survival is only one out of many interests — primus inter pares ^ 
perhaps, but still in the midst of peers. What are these 
interests ? Most men would reply that they are all that makes 
survival worth securing. The social atiections, all the various 
forms of play, the thrilling intimations of art, the delights 
of philosophic contemplation, the rest of religious emotion, 
the joy of moral self-approbation, the charm of fancy and of 
wit — some or all of these are al)solutely required to make the 
notion of mere existence toleral)le ; and individuals who, by 



8 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

their special powers, satisfy these desires are protected by 
their fellows and enabled to survive, though their mental 
constitution should in other respects be lamentably ill-" ad- 
justed" to the outward world. The story-teller, the musician, 
the theologian, the actor, or even the mere charming fellow, 
have never lacked means of support, however helpless they 
mii>ht iudividuallv have been to conform with those outward 
relations which we know as the powers of nature. The rea- 
son is ver}^ plain. To the individual man, as a social being, 
the interests of his fellow are a part of his environment. If 
his powers correspond to the wants of this social environment, 
he may survive, even though he be ill-adapted to the natural 
or "outer" environment. But these wants are pure sub- 
jective ideals, with nothing outward to correspond to them. 
So that, as far as the individual is concerned, it becomes neces- 
sary to modify Spencer's survival formula still further, by 
introducing into the term environment a reference, not only 
to existent thin<js non-existent, but also to ideal wants. It 
would have to run in some such way as this : "Excellence of 
the individual mind consists in the establishment of inner rela- 
tions more and more extensively conformed to the outward 
facts of nature, and to the ideal wants of the individual's 
fclloAvs, but all of such a character as will promote survival or 
physical prosperity." 

But here, again, common sense will meet us with an objec- 
tion. Mankind desiderate certain qualities in the individual 
which are incompatil)le with his chance of sui'vival being a 
maximum. Why do we all so eulogize and love the heroic, 
recklessly generous, and disinterested type of character? 
These qualities certainly imperil the survival of their possessor. 
The reason is very plain. Even if headlong courage, pride, 
and maityr-si)irit do ruin the individual, they benefit the com- 
munity as a Av'hole whenever they are displayed by one of its 
members against a competing tribe. " It is death to you, but 
fun for us." Our interest in having the hero as he is, plays 
indirectly into the hands of our survival, though not of his. 

This explicit acknowledgment of the survival interests of the 
tribe, as accountinii: for manv interests in the individual which 



Spencer's Dejinition of Mind. 9 

«eeni at first sight eitlier unrelated to survival or at war with 
it, seems, after all, to l)ring back unity and simplicity into the 
Spencerian formula. Why, the Spencerian may ask, may not 
all the luxuriant foliage of ideal interests — sesthetic, philo- 
sophic, theologic, and the rest — which co-exist along with that 
of survival, be present in the tribe and so form part of the 
individual's environment*, merely by virtue of the fact that they 
minister in an indirect way to the survival of the tribe as a 
whole? The disinterested scientific appetite of cognition, the 
sacred philosophic love of consistency, the craving for luxury 
and beauty, the passion for amusement, may all find their 
proper significance as processes of mind, strictly so-called, in 
the incidental utilitarian discoveries which flow from the 
•energy they set in motion. Conscience, thoroughness, puritv, 
love of truth, susceptibility to discipline, eager delight in 
fresh impressions, although none of them are traits of Intelli- 
o^ence in se, mav thus be marks of a o-eneral mental enerffv, 
without which victory over nature and over other human 
competitors would be impossible. And, as victory means 
survival, and survival is the criterion of Intelliirent "Cor- 
respondence," these qualities, though not expressed in tlie 
fundamental law of mind, may yet have been all the while 
understood by Mr. Spencer to form so many secondary con- 
sequences and corollaries of that law. 

But here it is decidedly time to take our stand and refuse 
our aid in propping up Mr. Spencer's definition by anv further 
good-natured translations and supplementar}^ contributions of 
our own. It is palpable at a glance that a mind whose sur- 
vival interest could only be adequately secured by such a 
wasteful array of energy squandered on side issues would be 
immeasurably inferior to one like that which we supposed a 
few pages back, in which the monomania of tribal preservation 
should be the one all-devouring passion. 

Surely there is nothing in the, essence of intelligence which 

should ol)lige it forever to delude itself as to its own ends, 

and to strive towards a o;oal successfullv only at the cost of 

consciously appearing to have far other aspirations in view. 

* A furnace which should produce along with its metal fifty 



10 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

different varieties of ash and slag, a planing-mill whose daily- 
yield in shavings far exceeded that in boards, would rightly be 
pronounced inferior to one of the usual sort, even though more 
energy should be displayed in its working, and at moments some 
of that energy be directly effective. If ministry to survival 
be the sole criterion of mental excellence, then luxury and amuse- 
ment, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Plato, and Marcus Aurelius, 
stellar spectroscopy, diatom markings, and nebular hypotheses 
are by-products on too wasteful a scale. The slag-heap is too 
big — it abstracts more energy than it contributes to the ends 
of the machine ; and every serious evolutionist ought reso- 
lutely to bend his attention henceforward to the reduction in 
number and amount of these outlying interests, and the diver- 
sion of the energy they absorb into purely prudential channels. 

Here, then, is our dilemma : One man may say that the 
law of mental development is dominated solely by the prin- 
ciple of conservation ; another, that richness is the criterion 
of mental evolution ; a third, that pure cognition of the actual 
is the essence of worthy thinking — but who shall pretend to 
decide which is right? The umpire would have to bring a 
standard of his own upon the scene, which would be just a& 
subjective and personal as the standards used by the contest- 
ants. And yet some standard there must be, if we are to 
attempt to define in any way the worth of different mental 
manifestations. 

Is it not already clear to the reader's mind that the whole 
difiiculty in making Mr. Spencer's law work lies in the fact 
that it is not really a constitutive, l)ut a regulative, law of 
thought which he is erecting, and that he does not frankly say 
so? Every law of ^lind must be either a law of the cogitatum 
or a law of the cogitandum. If it be a law in the sense of an 
analysis of what we do think, then it will include error, non- 
sense, the worthless as well as the worthy, metaphysics, and 
mythologies as well as scientific truths which mirror the actual 
environment. But such a law of the cogitatum is already well 
known. It is no other than the association of ideas according 
to their several modes ; or, i-ather, it is this association defini- 
tively perfected by the inclusion of the teleological factor of 



spencer's Definition of Mind. 11 

interest by Mr. Hodgson in the fifth chapter of his masterly 
" Time and Space." 

That Mr. Spencer, in the part of his work wliich we are con- 
sidering, has no such hiw as this in view is evident from the 
fact tliat he has striven to ofive an orio-inal formulation to such 
a hiw in another part of his book, in that cliapter, namely, on 
the associability of relations, in the first volume, where the 
apperception of times and places, and the suppression of asso- 
ciation by similarity, are made to explain the facts in a way 
whose operose ineptitude has puzzled many a simple reader. 

Now, every living man would instantly define right thinking^ 
as thinking in correspondence with reality. But Spencer, in 
saying that right thought is that which conf(jrms to existent 
outward relations, and this exclusively, undertakes to decide 
what the reality is. In other words, under cover of an appar- 
ently^ formal definition he really smuggles in a material defini- 
tion of the most far-reaching import. For the Stoic, to whom 
vivere convenienter naturm was also the law of mind, the 
reality was an archetypal Nature ; for the Christian, whose men- 
tal law is to discover the will of God, and make one's actions 
correspond thereto, that is the reality. In fact, the philosophic 
problem which all the ages have been trying to solve in order 
to make thought in some way correspond with it, and which 
disbelievers in philosophy call insoluble, is just that: What 
is the reality? All the thinking, all the conflict of ideals, going 
on in the world at the present moment is in some way tribu- 
tary to this quest. To attempt, therefore, with Mr. Spencer, 
to decide the matter merely incidentally, to forestall discus- 
sion by a definition — to carry the position by surprise, in a 
word — is a proceeding savoring more of piracy than philoso- 
phy. No, Spencer's definition of what we ought to think can- 
not be suifered to lurk in ambush ; it must stand out explicitly 
with the rest, and expect to be challenged and give an account 
of itself like any other ideal norm of thought. 

We have seen how he seems to vacillate in his determination 
of it. At one time, " scientific" thought, mere passive mir- 
roring of outward nature, purely registrative cognition ; at an- 



12 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

other time, thoiio-ht in the exchisive service of survival, would 
seem to be his ideal. Let us consider the latter ideal first, 
since it has the polyp's authority in its favor: " AVe must 
survive — that end must regulate all our thought." The poor 
man who said to Talleyrand, " // faut Men que je vivef " ex- 
pressed it very well. But criticise this ideal, or transcend it 
as Talleyrand did by his cool reply, "Je 7i^en vois pas la neces- 
site,^^ and it can say nothing more for itself. A priori it is a 
mere brute teleological atfirmation on a par with all others. 
Vainly you should hope to prove it to a person bent on sui- 
cide, who has but the one longing — to escape, to cease. Vainly 
you Avould argue with a Buddhist or a German pessimist, for 
they feel the full imperious strength of the desire, l)ut have an 
equally profound persuasion of its essential wrongness and men- 
dacit3^ Vainly, too, would you talk to a Christian, or even to 
any believer in the simple creed that the deepest meaning of the 
world is moral. For they hold that mere conformity Avith the 
outward — worldly success and survival — is not the absolute 
and exclusive end. In the failures to " adjust" — in the rub- 
bish-heap, according to Spencer — lies, for them, the real key to 
the truth — the sole mission of life beino; to teach that the 
outward actual is not the whole of beinij. 

And, now — if, falling back on the scientific ideal, you say 
that to knovj is the one riXnq of intelligence — not only will 
the inimitable Turkish cadi in Layard's Ninevah praise God in 
your face that he seeks not that which he requires not, and 
ask, " Will much knowledge create thee a double belly?" — not 
only nia}^ I, if it please me, legitimately refuse to stir from 
my fool's paradise of theosophy and mysticism, in spite of all 
your calling (since, after all, your true knowledge and my 
pious feeling have alike nothing to l)ack them save their seem- 
ing good to our respective personalities) — not only this, but to 
the average sense of mankind, whose ideal of mental nature is 
best expressed l)y the word "richness," your statistical and 
cognitive intelligence will seem insufferably narrow, dry, tedi- 
ous, and unacceptable. 

The truth appears to be that ever}^ individual man may, if 



Spencer's Definition of Mind. 15 

it please liim, set up his private catep^orical imperative of what 
rightness or excellence in thought shall consist in, and these 
different ideals, instead of entering upon the scene armed witk 
a warrant — whether derived from the polyp or from a tran- 
scendental source — appear only as so many brute affirmations 
left to fight it out upon the chess-board among themselves. 
They are, at best, postulates, each of which must depend on 
the general consensus of experience as a whole to bear out its 
validity. The formuki which proves to have the most massive 
destiny will be the true one. But this is a point which can 
only be solved amhulando, and not by any a priori detinition. 
The attempt to forestall tlie decision is free to all to make, but 
all make it at their risk. Our respective hypotheses and post- 
ulates help to shape the course of thought, but the only thing 
which we all agree in assuming is, that thought will be coerced 
away from them if the}^ are wrong. If Spencer to-day sa3's> 
"Bow to the actual," whilst Swinburne spurns " compromise 
with the nature of things," I exclaim, '•'■ Fiat justitia, pereat 
Qjmndus," and Mill says, "To hell I will go, rather than 
'adjust' myself to an evil God," whtit umpire can there be 
between us but the future ? The idealists and the empiricists 
confront each other like Guelphs and Ghibellines, but each 
alike waits for adoption, as it were, by the course of events. 

In other words, we are all fated to be, a priori, teleologists 
whether we will or no. Interests which we bring with us, and 
simply posit or take our stand upon, are the very flour out of 
which our mental dough is kneaded. The oroanism of 
thought, from the vague dawn of discomfort or ease in the 
polyp to the intellectual joy of Laplace among his formulas, 
is teleoloo'ical through and through. Not a cognition occurs 
but feeling is there to comment on it, to stamp it as of greater 
or less worth. Spencer and Plato are ejusdem farinm. To 
attempt to hoodwink teleology out of sight by saying nothing 
about it, is the vainest of procedures. Spencer merely takes 
sides with the zikos he happens to prefer, whether it be 
that of physical well-being or that of cognitive registration. 
He represents a particular teleology. Well might teleology 
(had she a voice) exclaim with Emerson's Brahma : 



14 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

"If the red slayer think he slays, 

Or if the slain think he is slain, 

They know not well the subtle ways 

I keep, and pass and turn again. 

********** 

"They reckon ill who leave me out; 
When me they fly, I am the wings ; 
I am the doubter and the doubt," etc. 

But now a scientific man, feeling something uncanny in this 
omnipresence of u teleological factor dictating how the mind 
shall correspond — an interest seemingly tributar}^ to nothing 
non-mental — may ask us what we meant by saying sometime 
back that in one sense it is perfectly possible to express the 
existence of interests in non-mental terms. We meant simply 
this : That the reactions or outward consequences of the inter- 
ests could be so expressed. The interest of survival which 
has hitherto been treated as an ideal shoidd-be, presiding from 
the start and marking out the way in which an animal must 
react, is, from an outward and physical point of view, nothing 
more than an objective future implication of the reaction (if it 
occurs) as an actual fact. If the animal's brain acts fortui- 
tously in the right way, he survives. His young do the same. 
The reference to survival in noway preceded or conditioned the 
intelligent act ; but the fact of survival was merely bound up 
with it as an incidental consequence, and may, therefore, be 
called accidental, rather than instrumental, to the production 
of intelligence. It is the same with all other interests. They 
are pleasures and pains incidental!}^ implied in the workings of 
the nervous mechanism, and, therefore, in their ultimate ori- 
gin, non-mental ; for the idiosyncrasies of our nervous cen- 
ters are mere "spontaneous variations," like any of those 
which form the ultimate data for Darwin's theory. A brain 
which functions so as to insure survival may, therefore, be 
called intelligent in no other sense than a tooth, a limb, or a 
stomach, which should serve the same end — the sense, namely, 
of appropriate ; as when we say " that is an intelligent device," 
meaninof a device fitted to secure a certain end which we as- 
sume. If nirvana were the end, instead of survival, then it 
is true the means would be ditferent, but in l)oth cases alike 



Spencer's Definition of Mind. 15 

the end would not precede the means, or even be coeval with 
them, but depend utterly upon them, and follow them in point 
of time. The fox's cunning and the hare's sjieed are thus 
alike creations of the non-mental. The r^/o? they entail 
is no more an agent in one case than another, since in both 
alike it is a resultant. Spencer, then, seems justified in not 
admitting it to appear as an irreducible ultimate factor of 
Mind, any more than of Body. 

This position is perfectly unassailable so long as one 
describes the phenomena in this manner from without. The 
tHo:; in that case can only be hypothetically, not impera- 
tively, stated : if such and such be the end, then such brain 
functions are the most intelligent, just as such and such 
digestive functions are the most appropriate. But such and 
such cannot be declared as the end, except by the commenting 
mind of an outside spectator. The organs themselves, in their 
working at any instant, cannot but be supposed indifferent as 
to what product they are destined fatally to bring forth, can- 
not be imagined whilst fatally producing one result to have at 
the same time a notion of a different result which should be 
their truer end, but which they are unable to secure. 

Nothing can more strikinglv show, it seems to me, the essen- 
tial difference between the point of view of consciousness and 
that of outward existence. We can describe the latter only in 
teleological terms, hypothetically, or else by the addition of a 
supposed contemplating mind which measures what it sees 
going on by its private teleological standard, and judges it 
intellio-ent. But consciousness itself is not merelv intelliofent 
in this sense. It is intelligent intelligence. It seems both to 
supply the means and the standard by which they are 
measured. It not only serves a ffnal purpose, but brings a 
final purpose — posits, declares it. This purpose is not a mere 
hypothesis — " 2/ survival is to occur, then brain must so 
perform," etc. — but an imperative decree: " Survival s^a/^ 
occur, and, therefore, brain must so perform ! " It seems hope- 
lessly impossible to formulate anything of this sort in non- 
mental terms, and this is why I must still contend that the 
phenomena of subjective "interest," as soon as the animal 



16 Tlte Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy . 

consciously realizes the latter, appears upon the scene as an 
absolutely new factor, which we can only suppose to be latent 
thitherto in the physical environment by crediting the physical 
atoms, etc., each with a consciousness of its own, approving or 
condemning its motions. 

This, then, must be our conclusion : That no law of the cogi- 
tanduyn, no norm-ative receipt for excellence in thinking, can 
be authoritatively promulgated. The only formal canon that 
we can apply to mind which is unassailable is the barren 
truism that it must think rightly. We can express this in 
terms of correspondence by saying that thought must corre- 
spond with truth ; but whether that truth be actual or ideal is 
left undecided. 

We have seen that the invocation of the polyp to decide for 
us that it is actual (apart from the fact that he does not 
decide in that way) is based on a principle which refutes 
itself if consistently carried out. Spencer's formula has 
cruml)led into utter worthlessness in our hands, and we 
have nothing to replace it by except our several individual 
hypotheses, convictions, and beliefs. Far from being vouched 
for by the past, these are verified only by the future. 
They are all of them, in some sense, laws of the ideal. 
They have to keep house together, and the weakest goes 
to the wall. The survivors constitute the right way of 
thinking. While the issue is still undecided, we can only call 
them our prepossessions. But, decided or not, "go in" we 
each must for one set of interests or another. The question 
for each of us in the battle of life is, " Can we come out with 
it?" Some of these interests admit to-day of little dispute. 
Survival, physical well-being, and undistorted cognition of 
what is, will hold their ground. But it is truly strange to see 
writers like Messrs. Huxley and Clifford, who show themselves 
able to call most things in question, unable, when it comes to 
the interest of cognition, to touch it with their solvent doubt. 
They assume some mysterious imperative laid upon the mind, 
declaring that the intiuite ascertainment of facts is its su[)reme 
duty, which he who evades is a blasphemer and child of 
shame. And yet these authors can hardly have failed to 



Spencer's Definition of Mind. 17 

reflect, at some moment or other, that the disinterested love of 
information, and still more the love of consistency in thoiioht 
(that true scientific oestrus), and the ideal fealty to Truth 
(with a capital T), are all so many particular forms of aesthetic 
interest, late in their evolution, arising in conjunction with a. 
vast number of similar aasthetic interests, and bearinir witli 
them no a priori mark of being worthier than these. If we 
nniy doubt one, we may doubt all. How shall I say that 
knowing fact with Messrs. Huxley and Clifford is a better use 
to [)ut my mind to than feeling good with Messrs. Moody and 
Sankey, unless by slowly and painfully finding out that in the 
long run it works best? 

I, for my part, cannot escape the consideration, forced upon 
me at every turn, that the knower is not simply a mirror floating 
with no foot-hold anywhere, and passively reflecting an order 
that he comes upon and finds simply existing. The knower is 
an actor, and co-efficient of the truth on one side, whilst on the 
other he registers the truth which he helps to create. Mental 
interests, hypotheses, postulates, so far as they are bases for 
human action — action which to a great extent transforms the 
world — help to mahe the truth which they declare. In other 
words, there belongs to mind, from its birth upward, a spon- 
taneity, a vote. It is in the game, and not a mere looker-on ; 
and its judgments of the should-he, its ideals, cannot be peeled 
off from the l)ody of the cogitandum as if they were excres- 
cences, or meant, at most, survival. We know so little about 
the ultimate luiture of things, or of ourselves, that it would be 
sheer folly dogmatically to say that an ideal rational order 
may not be real. The only oI)jective criterion of reality is 
coerciveness, in the long run, over thought. Objective facts, 
Spencer's outward relations, are real only because they coerce 
seustition. Any interest which should be coercive on the same 
massive scale would be eodem jure real. By its very essence, 
the reality of a thought is proportionate to the way it grasps 
us. Its intensity, its seriousness — its interest, in a word — 
taking these qualities, not at any given instant, but as shown 
by the total upshot of experience. If judgments of the shoidd- 
be are fated to grasp us in this way, they are what " corre- 
XII— 2 



18 The Journal of Speculative Philosojjhi/. 

spond." The ancients placed the conception of Fate at the 
bottom of things — deeper than the gods themselves. " The 
fate of thought," utterly barren and indeterminate as such a 
formula is, is the only unimpeachable regulative Law of Mind. 



HEGEL ON SYMBOLIC ART. 

[translated from the second FRENCH EDITION OF CHARLES B^NARD'S TRANSLA- 
TION OF THE SECOND PART OF HEGEL'S ESTHETICS.] 

BY WM. M. BRYANT. 

CHAPTER II. — The Symbolic of the Sublime. 

/. The Pantheism of Art. 
1. Indian Poetry. — 2. Mahometan Poetry. — 3. Christian Mysticism. 

The non-enigmatical clearness of spirit, which unfolds itself 
in accordance with its own nature, is the end toward which 
Symbolic Art tends. This clearness can be attained only in 
so far as the meaning comes into consciousness separate and 
apart from the entire phenomenal world. This purification of 
spirit, and this express separation from the sensuous world, we 
must seek first in the sublime, which exalts the absolute above 
all visil)le existence. 

The sublime, as Kant has described it, is the attempt to 
express the infinite in the finite, without finding any sensuous 
form capable of representing it. It is the infinite manifested 
under a form which, causing this opposition to become mani- 
fest, reveals the incommensurable arandeur of the infinite as 
surpassing all representation taken in the finite. 

Now, here are two points of view to be distinguished : 
Either the infinite is the absolute Being conceived by thought 
as the im7nanent substance of beings, or it is the infinite Being 
as distinct from beings of the real world, but elevating itself 
above them by all the distance which separates the infinite 
from the finite ; so that, compared with it, they are but mere 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 19 

â– nothingness. God is thus purified from all contact with, and 
from all participation in, sensuous existence which vanishes 
and is canceled in His presence. 

To the first point of view. Oriental pantheism corresponds. 
Pantheism belongs principally to the Orient, where dominates 
•distinctly the thought of an absolute unity of the Divine, and 
of all things as contained in this unity. 

Thus the divine principle is represented as immanent in the 
most diverse objects — in life and in death, in mountains, the 
sea, etc. This principle is, at the same time, the excellent, 
the superior, in all things. On the other hand, because the 
unity is all — because it is no more this than that, because it is 
found again in all existences — individualities and particulari- 
ties are destroyed or canceled. The One is the collective 
totality of all the individuals which constitute this visible 
whole. 

Such a conception can be expressed only by poetry, and not 
by the figurative arts, because these represent to the eyes, as 
present and permanent, the determinate and individual reality 
which, on the contrary, must disappear in face of the one only 
substance. Hence, where pantheism is pure, it admits no one 
of the figurative arts as its mode of representation. 

1. As the chief example of such pantheistic poetry, we may 
still cite Indian poetr}^, which, apart from its fantastic char- 
acter, offers us a brilliant illustration of this phase. 

The Indians, indeed, as we have already seen, set out from 
universal being and the most abstract unity, which is then de- 
veloped into the determinate gods, the Trimurti, Indva^ etc 
But particular existence cannot maintain itself; it allows itself 
to dissolve anew. The inferior gods are absorbed into the 
superior, and these again into Brahma. Here it is already 
manifest that this universal being constitutes the imnmtable 
and identical basis of all existence. Indeed, the Indians, in 
their poetry, show the double tendency — on the one side, to 
exaggerate the proportions of real form, in order that it may 
appear the better to correspond to the idea of the infinite ; on 
the other, to allow all determinate existence to be canceled in 
presence of the abstract unity of the absolute. Nevertheless, 



20 21ie Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

tve also see the pure form of pantheistic representation appear 
witli them from the point of view of the imagination, which 
consists in causing the immanence of the divine substance tO' 
go forth again in all particular beings. 

We can, without doubt, discover in this conception a marked 
resemblance to the immediate unity of the real with the 
divine, which characterizes the religion of the Parsees ; but 
with the Persians the One — the Supreme Good — is itself a 
physical existence, namely, the Light. With the Indians, on 
the contrary, the One — Brahma — is merely the being without 
forms, which, when it has assumed one, has assumed alL 
Manifested in a nudtiplicity of individual existences, it give& 
pUice to this pantheistic mode of representation. Thus, for 
example, it is said of Krishna (Bhagavad Gita, VIII, 4) r 
*' Earth, water, wind, air, fire, spirit, reason, and personality 
are the eight component elements of my natural power. Yet 
behold in me a liigher essence which vivifies the earth and sus- 
tains the world. In it all beings have their origin. Tlius, be 
assured, I am the origin of tliis universe, and also its destruc- 
tion. Beyond myself there is nothing superior to myself. 
All existing things are attached to me as a row of pearls on a 
thread. I am the vapor in water, the light in the sun and in 
the moon, the mystic word in the holy scriptures, in man the 
virile force, the sweet perfumes in the earth, the brightness of 
the flame, life in all beings, contemplation in the solitary. In 
living beings I am the vital force ; in the wise, wisdom ; 
glory in illustrious men. All real existences, visible or invisi- 
ble, proceed from me. I am not in them, but they are in me. 
The whole universe is dazzled by my attributes, and, know 
well, I am imnmtable. It is true the divine illusion, May^, 
deceives not me myself. It is difficult to surmount it ; it may 
follow me, but I triumph over it." In this passage the unity 
of the universal substance is expressed in the most striking 
manner, as truly immanent in all beings of nature and as ele- 
vating itself above them by its infinite character. 

Similarly, Krishna says of himself that he is, in diverse 
existences, whatever is most excellent. " Anion i>: the stars I 
am the sun which darts his rays ; among the planets, the 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 21 

moon ; among the holy books, the book of Canticles ; among 
the senses, the interior sense : Meru amonir monntains : anions: 
animals, the lion ; among the letters of the alphabet, the 
vowel 'A;' among seasons, the season of flowers, spring- 
time, etc." 

This enumeration of what is best in all, this simple succes- 
sion of forms which must, without ceasing, express the same 
thing, notwithstanding the wealth of imagination which, from 
the first, appears to be displayed in them, is none the less 
monotonous in the highest degree, and, on the whole, empty 
and fatiguing, just for the reason that the idea is always the 
«ame. 

2. Oriental Pantheism was developed in a more elevated, more 
profound, and freer manner in Mahometanism, and in par- 
ticular by the Mahometan Persians. 

Here is presented, chiefly from the poetic side, a peculiar 
â– character. 

Indeed, while the poet seeks to see, and really sees, the 
divine principle in all things, and while he abandons thus his 
•own personality, only so much the more does he feel God 
present in the depths of his soul thus enlarged and rendered 
free. Thereby is born in him that interior serenity, that 
intoxication of happiness and of felicity, peculiar to the 
Oriental, who, in disengaging himself from the bonds of par- 
ticular existence, is absorbed into the eternal and the absolute, 
and recognizes in all things its image or its presence. Such 
a disposition has an affinity with mysticism. In this respect 
we must especially designate Dschelal Eddin JRumi, who fur- 
nishes the finest examples. The love of God (with whom 
man identifies himself by an unlimited resignation, whom 
alone he contemplates in all parts of the universe, with whom 
he connects all, and to whom he traces back all) constitutes 
here, as it were, the center whence radiate all ideas, all senti- 
ments, in the various regions through which the imagination of 
the poet runs. 

In the sublime, properly speaking, the most elevated objects 
and the most perfect forms are employed only as ornaments 
•of Deity ; they serve only to reveal His power and His majesty, 



22 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy . 

since they are placed before our eyes only to celebrate Him as 
Sovereign of all creatures. In pantheism, on the contrary, 
the immanence of God in objects elevates actual existence — 
the world, nature, and man — to a real and independent 
dignity. The life of the spirit, communicated to the phe- 
nomena of nature and to human relations, animates and spiritu- 
alizes all things ; it constitutes a wholly peculiar relation 
between the sensibility and the soul of the poet and the 
objects of which he sings. His heart, penetrated and filled 
with the divine presence, in changeless calm and perfect 
harmony, feels itself dilated, aggrandized. He identifies him- 
self with the soul of things, with the objects of nature which 
impress him by their magnificence, with all that appears to- 
him worthy of commendation and love. He tastes, thus, an 
inward felicity, plunged as he is in ecstasy and ravishment. 
The depth of the romantic sentiment in the Occident shows, it 
is true, the same character of sympathetic union with nature ;; 
but, in the poetry of the North, the soul is more unhappy and 
less free ; it contains more desires and aspirations, or, rather, it 
remains concentrated within itself, occupied wholly with itself; 
it is of a tender sensibility, which everything wounds and 
ii-ritates. Such a concentrated sentimentality is expressed 
especially in the popular songs of barbarous nations. 

On the contrary, a free, joyous devotion is peculiar to the 
Orientals ; chiefly to the Mahometan Persians. These abandon 
completely and cheerfully their personality in order to identify 
themselves with all that is beautiful and worthy of admiration, 
as with God himself; and yet, in the midst of this resignation, 
they know how to preserve their freedom and intei'ual calm,. 
face to face with the world which environs them. Thus, in the 
burning ardor of passion, we see appear the most expansive 
felicity and freedom of expression {la parrhesie) of sentiment 
revealed in an exhaustless wealth of brilliant and pompous 
images. Everywhere resound the accents of joy, of happi- 
ness, and of beautv. In the Orient, if man sufters and is 
unhappy, he accepts this as an irrevocable decree of destiny. 
He rests there, firm in himself, without appearing crushed or 
insensible, and without sadness or melancholy. In the poetry 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 23 

of Hafiz we find many elegiac songs ; but he remains as care- 
less in grief as in happiness. He says, for example, some- 
wiiere : "Offer not thanks because the presence of thy friend 
illumines thee, but burn the taper as in woe, and be content." 
The taper teaches how at once to smile and to weep. It smiles 
through the serene liffht of its flame, even while it dissolves 
in burning tears. This is, indeed, the character of all this 
poetry. 

To give a fcAv images of a more special order ; flowers and 
jewels, especially the rose and nightingale, play an important 
role in the poetry of the Persians. This animation of the rose 
and the love of the niohtino-ale often recur in the verse of 
Hafiz. "Though thou art the sultana of beauty," says he, 
"abstain from scornino; the love of the niohtiuijale." He 
himself speaks of the nightingale of his own heart. AVe, on 
the contrar}', when mention is made in our poetry of the rose, 
of the nightingale, of wine, etc., do so in a wholly different 
and more prosaic sense. The rose is presented only as an 
ornament — "crowned with roses," etc.; or, if we hear the 
nightingale, his song only causes sentiments to awake within 
us. We drink wine, and we sav it chases awav care. But 
with the Persians the rose is not a simple ornament ; it is not 
merely an image, a symbol. It appears to the poet to be 
indeed an animated being ; it is a loved one, an affianced. He 
penetrates, in imagination, to the soul of the rose. The same 
character which reveals a brilliant pantheism manifests itself 
in the most modern Persian poems. 

Goethe, also, in opposition to the melancholy character and 
intense sensibility by which the poems of his youth are dis- 
tinguished, experienced, in his maturer years, this serenity 
full of resignation ; and even in his old age, as if penetrated 
by a sigh of the Orient, his soul filled with an innnense 
felicity, he abandoned himself, in the heat of poetic inspira- 
tion, to this freedom of sentiment which preserves a chai-ming 
carelessness even in polemic. 

The various songs of which he constructed his West-Eastern 
Divan are neither mere plays of fancy nor yet insignificant 
poems for social pastime ; they are inspired by a free senti- 



24 The Journal of Speculative Philofiophy, 

ment, full of o-race and resio-nation. He himself calls them, 
in his song to Suleika, " Poetic pearls, which thy love, like 
waves of the sea, has cast upon the desert shore of my life. 
Gathered by dainty fingers, they have been set with jewels in an 
ornament of gold." " Take them," cries he to his beloved, 
" hang them upon thy neck, upon thy bosom, these dew-drops 
from Allah, matured in a modest shell-fish." 

3. As to the genuine pantheistic unity, Avhich consists in the 
joining of the soul with God, as present in the depth of con- 
sciousness, this subjective form is found in general in mysti- 
cism, as this is developed in the bosom of Christianity. We 
will content ourselves with citing, as examj)le, Aiigelus Silesiiis, 
who has expressed the presence of God in all things — the union 
of the soul with God, that of God with the human soul — with 
an astonishing boldness of ideas, and with great dejith of senti- 
ment. He displays in his images a prodigious power of mystic 
representation. Oriental Pantheism, on the contrary, devel- 
ops rather the conception of a universal substance in all visi- 
ble phenomena, together with the resignation of man, who, 
in the measure that he renounces self, feels his soul asfirran- 
dized, delivered from the constraints of the finite, and who thus 
arrives at a supreme felicity in identifying himself with what- 
ever is grand, beautiful, and divine in the universe. 

//. Art of the Sublime — Hehreic Poetry. 

1. God the Creator and Ruler of the Universe. — 2. The Finite World stripped of 
all Divine Character. — 3. Position of Man face to face with God. 

But the genuine sublime is represented by Hebrew Poetry. 
Here, for the first time, God appears truly as spirit, as the 
invisible Being, in opposition to nature. On the other hand, 
the whole universe, notwithstandino- the wealth and magnifi- 
cence of its phenomena, when compared with the supremely 
great Being, is of itself nothing. A simple creation of God, 
submitted to His power, it exists only to manifest and glorify 
Him. 

Such is the idea Avhich forms the source of this poetry, of 
which the character is the sul)rnne. In the beaiitifuJ, the idea 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 25 

penetrates through the external reality of which it is the sonl, 
and forms with it a harmonious unity. In the suhli7ne, the 
visible reality, through which the Infinite manifests itself, is 
humbled in its presence. This superiority, this imperiousness 
of the Infinite, the immeasurable distance which separates it 
from the finite — this is what the art of the sublime should 
express. It is the religious art, the sacred art par excellence ; 
its sole destination is to celebrate the glory of God. This 
office poetry alone can fulfill. 

1. The dominant idea of Hehreiu Poetry is God as Lord of 
the world ; God in His independent existence and His pure 
•essence, inaccessible to the senses and to all sensuous repi-e- 
sentation, which does not correspond to His greatness. God is 
the creator of the universe. All those o-ross ideas concerning 
the generation of beings give place to that of spiritual crea- 
tion. " Let there be light and there was light." This phrase 
indicates creation by speech, Avhich is itself the expression of 
thouo-ht and will. 

2. Creation assumes then a new aspect: Nature and man 
a,re no longer deified. To the Infinite is distinctly opposed the 
finite, which is no longer confounded with the divine principle, 
as in the symbolic conceptions of other peoples. Situations 
and events take shape with greater clearness. Characters 
take a more fixed, more precise, meaning. These are human 
figures which no longer present anything fantastic and foreign ; 
they are perfectly intelligible, and approach us more nearly. 

3. On the other hand, notwithstanding his impotence and 
his nothingness, man obtains here a freer and more independ- 
ent place than in other religions. The immutable character of 
the divine will causes the idea of law to appear, and to this 
law man must render obedience. His conduct becomes 
enlightened, fixed, regular. The perfect distinction between 
the human and the divine, between the finite and the Infinite, 
brings to light that between good and evil, and permits an 
enlightened choice. Merit and demerit are the consequence. 
To live according to justice in fulfilling the law — this is the 
end of human existence, and it places man in direct relation 
with God. Here is the principle and explanation of his whole 



2(y The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy, 

life, of his happiness, and of his sorrows. The events of life 
are considered as benefits, as recompenses, or as trials and 
chastisements. 

Here, also, the miracle appears. Elsewhere all is of the 
natni-e of prodigy, and, hence, nothing is miraculous. The 
miracle presupposes a regular succession, a constant order, and 
an interruption of this order. But creation itself is altogether 
a perpetual miracle, destined to serve for the praise and the 
glorification of God. 

Such are the ideas which are expressed with so much bril- 
liancy, elevation, and poetry in the Psalms — those classic 
examples of the sublime — in the Prophets, and in the sacred 
books generally. This recognition of the nothingness of things, 
of the greatness and omnipotence of God, of the unworthiness 
of man in His presence, the complaints, the lamentations, the 
cry of the soul toward God, constitute their pathos and sub- 
limity. 

CHAPTER in. — Reflective Symbolism, 

Or that Form of Art of which the Basis is Comparison. 

I. Under the name of Reflective Symholism we are to under- 
stand a form of art Avherein the idea is not only comprised 
within itself, but also expressly posited as distinct from the 
sensuous form by which it is represented. In the sublime the 
idea also appears as independent of this form ; but here the 
relation of these two elements is no longer, as in the preceding 
stage, a relation based upon the very nature of the idea; it is, 
more or less, the result of an accidental combination, which 
depends upon the will of the poet, upon the depth of his spirit, 
upon the fervor of his imagination, or upon his genius for 
invention. He is able to set out either from a sensuous phe- 
nomenon to which he lends a spiritual meaning by taking 
advantage of some analogy ; or from a conception or an idea, 
which he proceeds to clothe with a sensuous form ; or he simply 
places one image in relation to another, because of their resem- 
blance. 

This mode of coml)ination is distinguished, then, from naive 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 27 

symbolism (which has no consciousness of itself ) in this: that 
the artist comprehends perfectly the idea which he wishes to 
develop, as well as the image of which he makes use under the 
form of comparison ; thus it is with reflection and by design 
that he combines the two terms according to the similarity he- 
has found in them. This class differs from the sublime in two 
particulars : 1st. Not only the distinction of the two terms, 
but also the parallel between them, is more or less formally 
expressed : 2d. It is no longer the absolute, but some finite 
object which is the source of representation. Thus, in the 
same way, the contrast which gives birth to the sublime disap- 
pears and is replaced by a relation which, notwithstanding the 
separation of the two terms, approaches rather to that which 
the naive and primitive symbol establishes after its own pecul- 
iar fashion. 

Hence it is no longer the absolute, the infinite Being, which 
these forms express. The ideas represented are borrowed from 
the circle of the finite. In sacred poetry, on the contrary, the 
idea of God is the only one which has a meaning by and for 
itself; created beings are, in His presence, vanishing existences,, 
pure nothingness. 

The idea — in order to find its ftiithful image and proper term 
of comparison in what is essentially limited — finite, must itself 
be of a finite nature. 

Besides, though the image may be foreign to the idea, and 
chosen arbitrarily by the poet, still similitude constitutes a law 
of their relative conformity. There remains, then, in this 
form of art, but a single characteristic of the sublime : It is 
that the image, instead of truly representing the ol)ject or the 
idea in itself and in its reality, must present only a resem- 
blance or coinparison of it. 

Thus this form of art constitutes a class which is inferior^ 
but complete in itself. It attempts no more than to find and 
to describe some sensuous ol)ject, or a prosaic conception, the 
idea of which must be expressly distinguished from the image. 
Further, in works of art which are constructed entirely upon 
one theme, and of which the form presents an undivided whole 
— as, for example, in the noteworthy productions of Classic 



28 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philo!<ophy . 

and of Romantic art — such work of comparison can serve only 
for ornament and as an accessory. 

If, then, we consider this form of art in its collective totality 
as partaking at once of the sublime and of the symbol — of 
the first, because it presents the separation of idea from form ; 
of the second, because the sjanbol presents the combination of 
the two terms united by virtue of their affinity — we are not 
to conclude that it is, therefore, a more elevated form of art ; 
it is rather a mode of conception — clear, it is true, but superfi- 
cial ; which, limited in its object, more or less prosaic in its 
form, departs from the mysterious de[)th of the symbol, and 
from the elevation of the snl^lime, only to sink to the level of 
ordinary thought. 

II. Division. — The mode of division in this sphere is based 
invariably upon an idea, to which is related a sensuous image. 
But, thouoh the idea mav be the chief thins;, still there is 
always a distinction here which must serve as our basis ; and 
this is that sometimes the idea, sometimes the image, serves 
as point of departure. Whence we can establish two principal 
divisions : 

1. In the first, the sensuous image — and this may be a 
natural phenomenon or a circumstance borrowed from human 
life — constitutes at once the point of departure and the 
essential phase of the representation. This image, it is true, 
is presented only because of the general idea ; but comparison 
is not therein expressly announced as the end which the artist 
proposes to himself. It is not a simple decoration in a work 
Avhich mio:ht do without such ornaments ; its ambition is 
rather to constitute a totality complete in itself. In this 
species we may note the following varieties, viz. : The Fahle, 
the Parable, the Apologue, the Proverb, and the Metamor- 
p)Jiosis. 

2. In tlio second division the idea is the first term which 
presents itself to the mind. The image is only accessory; it 
has no independence, and iippears to us entirely subordinated 
to the idea. Thus the ar))itrary will of the artist, who has 
fixed his choice upon this image, and not upon another, never- 
theless appears. It is scarcely possible that this species of 



Hegel on Symbolic Ai't. 2i> 

representation should produce independent works of art ; it 
must be content with incorporating its forms, as simple acces- 
sories, with other productions of art. As its principal 
varieties we can admit : the Enigma, the Metaphor, the 
Image, and the Comparison. 

3. In the third place, finally, we may mention, by way of 
appendix, Didactic Poetry and Descriptive Poetry. 

In the first of these classes of poetry, indeed, the idea is 
developed in itself, in its generality, such as consciousness 
seizes it in its rational clearness. In the second, the repre- 
sentation of objects under their sensuous form is, in itself, 
the end ; whence are found to be completely separated the 
two elements, of which the perfect combination and fusion 
produce genuine works of art. 

Now, the separation of the two elements which constitute a 
work of art entails this consequence : That the different forms 
which find their place in this circle belong almost wholly to 
that art whose mode of expression is speech. Poetry alone, 
mdeed, can express this distinction and this independence of 
the idea from the form ; while it is in the nature of tiie^'(/M?'a- 
tive arts to manifest the idea in its external form as such. 

/. Co?nparisons ivhich Commence with the Sensuous Image. 

1. The Fable. — 2. The Parable, the Proverb, and the Apologue. — 3. Metamor- 
phoses. 

1. The Fahle is a description of a scene from nature, taken 
as a symbol which expresses a general idea, and whence we 
draw a moral lesson, a precept of practical wisdom. It is not 
here, as in the mythological fable, the divine will which mani- 
fests itself to man by natural signs and their religious mean- 
ings ; it is an ordinary succession of phenomena whence may 
be drawn, in a maimer altogether human and rational, a moral 
principle, a warning, a lesson, a rule of prudence, and which, 
for this very reason, is proposed to us and placed before our 
eyes. 

Such is the position which we can here assign to the class of 
fables to which ^-Esop in particular has given his name. 



30 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

The ^sopic ftible, in its original form, presents such a con- 
ception as the foregoing, of a natural relation or phenomenon 
between actual objects of nature generally — for the most part 
between animals, of which the instincts take root in the same 
necessities of life which move living men. This relation or 
phenomenon, therefore, considered only in its general charac- 
teristics, is of such kind that it can also be admitted into the 
â– circle of human life, and it is through this connection that it 
first obtains a real significance for man. 

a. The first condition is, then, that the determinate fact 
which is to furnish the moral should not be imagined at pleas- 
ure, nor, above all, in a sense opposite to that in which such 
incidents actually occur in nature. 

h. The story must relate the fact, not in its generality, but 
with its character of individuality as a real, historical event ; 
which does not prevent its being taken as a type of every 
event of the same class. This primitive form of the fable gives 
to it the greatest naivete, because the didactic aim appears only 
at the close (^tardivement) , and not as if premeditated and 
sought after by design. Thus, among the fal)les attributed to 
^sop, those which offer the greatest attractiveness are such as 
present these characteristics. But it is easy to see that the 
Fahnla docet takes away from the life of the picture and renders 
it dull or obscure, so that often the very opposite doctrine, or 
a much more important one than that presented, might be 
inferred. 

As to yEsop himself, it is said that he was a deformed slave. 
According to accounts given, he lived in Phrygia, in a country 
which forms the transition out of real symbolism — that is to 
say, from the state where man is held in the bonds of nature — 
to a more advanced civilization, where man begins to compre- 
hend and appreciate freedom of spirit. Thus, far from resem- 
bling the Hindus and the Eofvptians, who regard evervthinc; 
that belongs to the animal kingdom, and to nature in general, 
as somethiiiii: divine, the fabulist views all these things with 
prosaic eyes. He sees only phenomena of which the analogy 
with those of the moral world served solely to give light 
respecting the proper conduct of life. Still, his ideas are merely 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 31 

ingenious fancies, without energy of sjoirit, or depth of insight, 
or substantial intuition — Avithout poetry or phik)sophy. His 
reflections and his teachino;s are full of meaning and of wisdom : 
but the}^ are, after all, only serious meditations on minor mat- 
ters. These are not the free creations of a spirit which displays 
itself without constraint, but of one which is restricted to seiz- 
ing, in the facts which nature herself furnishes him — in the 
instincts and propensities of animals in minor daily incidents — 
some phase immediately applicable to human life, ])ecause such 
.spirit dares not openly expose the lesson in itself. It is content 
with veilinir it, with leavino; it to be understood : it is like an 
enigma Avhich must always be accompanied by a solution. 
Prose commences in the mouth of a slave. Similarly the 
class itself is altogether prosaic. 

Nevertheless, these ancient productions of the human spirit 
have extended to almost all ages and all peoples. Whatever 
may be the number of fabulists of whom any nation possessing 
the fable in its literature may boast, these effusions are, for the 
most part, only reproductions of primitive fal)les merely 
translated into the taste of each epoch. Whatever the fabu- 
lists have added to the hereditary stock, or whatever can be 
considered as their invention, must, in the main, be esteemed 
as far inferior to primitive conceptions. 

2. The Parable, the Proverb, and the Ajmlogue. — a. The 
Parable resembles the fable in so far as, like that, it bor- 
rows its examples from common life. It is distinguished 
from it in that it seeks such incidents, not in nature and in the 
animal kingdom, but in the acts and circumstances of human 
life, as these commonly present themselves to all eyes. It 
enlarges the compass of the fact chosen, which seems in itself 
of little importance, extends its meaning to a more general 
interest, and allows a more elevated purpose to appear. 

We might consider the means employed by Cyrus to bring 
about a revolt of the Persians as a paral^le composed with a 
view to an entirely practical end (Herod I. C. cxxvi). He 
wrote them that they should assemble, provided with sickles, 
at a place designated by himself. The first day he made 
them clear a field covered with thorns ; the day following, 



32 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

after having caused them to rest and bathe, he conducted 
them into a meadow where lie entertained them sumptuously. 
The feast terminated, he asked them which day had been the 
more agreeable to them. All cried out in favor of the present 
day, which had brought them nothing but delight. "Very 
well," said Cyrus, " if you will follow me, such days will 
multiply without numl>er ; if not, be assured that you will 
suffer innumerable hardships like those of yesterday." 

There is some analogy between such parables and those 
which we find in the Gospel, though the latter are much more 
profound, and of a higher generality. The parable of the 
Sower, for example, is a story of which the subject is in itself 
insignificant, and which derives importance only from its com- 
parison to the kingdom of heaven. The meaning of this 
parable is a wholly religious idea, to which an incident of 
human life presents some resemblance ; as, in the ^sopic 
fable, human life finds its emblem in the animal kinodom. 

The story of Boccacio, of which Lessing has made use, in 
Natltan the Wise, for his parable of the Three Mings, presents^ 
a meaning of like extent. The story, considered in itself, is 
still altogether ordinary ; but it makes allusion to the most 
important ideas, to the difference and the relative purity of 
the three religions, Jewish, Mahometan, and Christian. It is 
the same — to recall the most recent productions of this class 
— with the parables of Goethe. 

b. The Proverb forms an intermediate class in this circle. 
Indeed, when developed, proverbs change either into parables 
or into apologues. They present some circumstance borrowed 
from whatever is most familiar in human life, but which is 
then to be taken in a universal sense. For example : One hand 
washes tlte other. Let everybody sweep before his own door. 
He who digs a pit for another, falls into it himself. Here also 
belong maxims, of which Goethe has also, in these latter times, 
composed a great number which are of an infinite grace, and 
often full of profound meaning. 

These are not comparisons. The general idea and the con- 
crete lorm are not separated and again brought together. The 
idea is immediately expressed in the image. 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 33 

c. 77^6 Apologue might be considered as a parable which 
serves as an example, not in the manner of a comparison, in 
order to make manifest some oreneral truth, but to introduce 
under such wrappage a maxim which is found to be therein 
expressed. This is really included in the particular fact which,, 
nevertheless, is related simply as such. In this sense The 
God and the Bajadere of Goethe might be styled an apologue. 
We find here the Christian story of the sinful Magdalene 
clothed in the forms of Indian imagination. The bajadere 
shows the same humility, the same power of love and of faith. 
The god subjects her to a proof which she sustains perfectly ; 
she is freed from her faults and returus a^ain to favor throuo;h 
atonement. In the apologue the recital is so conducted that 
the issue itself gives the lesson, without any comparison being- 
necessary; as, for example, in the Treasure- Seeker, "Give 
day to labor, evening to pleasure ; toil through the week, but 
on holiday be merry ; henceforth be this thy motto." 

3. 3Ietamorphoses constitute the third class, forming a con- 
trast with the fable. They present, it is true, the symbolic and 
mythological character ; but, aside from this, they place the 
spirit in opposition to nature, because they represent an object 
of nature — a rock, an animal, a flower, etc. — as an existence 
of the spiritual order degraded by punishment. Philomela^ 
the Pierides, JSFarcissus, Arethusa, are moral persons who, by 
a fault, a passion, a crime, or the like, have merited infinite 
suffering, or have fallen into great sorrow. Bereft of liberty, 
of life, and of spirit, they have entered into the class of natural 
beings. 

Thus the objects of nature are not considered here prosaic- 
ally, as physical beings. These are no longer simply a mount- 
ain, a fountain, a tree ; they represent an act, a circumstance of 
human life. The rock is not merely a stone ; it is Niohe 
weeping for her children. On the other hand, this act is a 
fault, and the transformation must be looked upon as a degra- 
dation from spiritual existence. 

We must, then, carefully distinguish these metamorphoses 
of men and of gods into natural objects from the unconscious 
or irreflective symbolic properly speaking. In Egj'pt, for 
XII— 3 



34 The Journal of Speculative P]iiloso2)hy , 

example, the divine principle is contemplated immediately in 
the mj'sterious depth of animal life. Moreover, the true sym- 
bol is a sensuous object, which represents an idea by its 
analogy with it, yet without expressing it complete!}^, and in 
such manner that this is inseparable from its emljlem ; for 
here spirit cannot disengage itself from the natural form. 
Metamorphoses, on the contrary, constitute the express dis- 
tinction 1)etsveen natural and spiritual existence, and in this 
respect mark the transition from symbolic mythology to 
mj^thology properly speaking. Mythology, as Ave understand 
it, sets out, it is true, from real objects of nature — as the sun 
and the sea, rivers, trees, the fertility of the earth, etc. ; but 
it lifts them out of their mere physical character by individu- 
alizing them as spiritual powers, so as to make of them gods 
having a human soul and the human form. It is thus, for 
example, that Homer and Hesiod first gave to Greece its true 
mytholog}^ ; that is to say, not merely the fables concerning 
the gods, or conceptions, moral, physical, theological and 
metaphysical, under the veil of allegorj^, but the beginning of 
a religion of spirit, with the anthropomophic character. 

//. Co7nparison which Commences with the Idea. 

1. The Enigma. 2. The Allegory. 3. The Metaphor, the Image, and the Com- 
parison. 

1. Hie Enigma is distinguished from the symbol properly 
speaking, first, in this : that it is clearly understood by the 
inventor ; secondl}^ l)ecause the form which envelops the 
idea, and of which the meanins: is to be divined, is chosen 
designedly. Real problems are, first and last, unsolved 
problems. The enigma, on the contrary, is, bv its ver}' 
nature, already solved before being proi)osed ; which caused 
Sancho Panza to say, with nuu.'h reason, that he would greatly 
prefer to be given the word, before the enigma. 

The point whence one takes his departure in the invention 
of an enigma is, then, the meaning which it contains, and of 
which he has perfect consciousness. 

Nevertheless, individual characteristics and specific prop- 



Hegel on Symholic Art. 35 

•erties are borrowed designedly from the external world, and 
are brought together in a manner unequal, and, therefore, 
striking ; just as in nature, and externality generally, they are 
found strewn about in mutual exclusion. Whence there is 
lacking in these elements the close connection which is re- 
marked in a whole of which the parts are strongly bound 
together of themselves ; thus their artificial combination has 
no meaning by itself. Still, from another point of view, they 
express a certain unity, because characteristics in appearance 
the most heterogeneous are brought into connection by means 
of an idea, and thus offer some significance. 

This idea, constituting the subject to which those scattered 
attributes l)elong, is the tvord of the enigma, the solution of 
the problem which must be sought out by guessing at it 
through this obscure and perplexed envelop. In this respect 
the enigma is, in the ordinary sense of the term, the spiritual 
side of the reflective symbol ; it puts to the proof the spirit 
of sagacity and of coml)ination. At the same time, as a 
form of symbolic representation, it destroys itself, since it 
requires to be resolved. 

The enigma belongs mainly to that art of which the mode 
of expression is speech. Still a place can be found for it in 
the fiourative arts, in architecture, in the art of o-n,rdeninof, 
and in painting. It makes its first appearance in poetry in the 
Orient, at that period of transition which separates the old 
Oriental symbolism from reflective knowledge and reason. 
All peoples and all epochs have found their amusement in 
such prolflems. In the middle ages, among the Arabs and the 
Scandinavians, in German poetry — for example, in the poetic 
contests which took place at Marburg — the enigma plaj'ed an 
important part. In our modern times it has fallen from its 
elevated rank. It is no longer anything more than a frivolous 
element of conversation, a freak of Avit, a social pleasantry. 

2. The Allegory. — The opposite of the enigma, in the circle 
wherein we set forth from the idea in its universality, is the 
alleo-orv. True, it seeks faithfully to render the character- 
istics of a general conception manifest by properties analogous 



36 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy. 

with those of sensuous objects ; but, instead of half conceal- 
ing the idea by proposing an enigmatical question, its aim is 
precisely the most perfect clearness. So that, with respect to 
the idea which appears in it, the exterior object made use of 
must be of the most perfect transparency. 

a. Its chief purpose, then, is to represent and to personify^ 
under the form of a real object, universal, abstract conditions- 
or qualities, as well from the human as from the animal 
world; such as justice, glory, war, religion, love, peace, the 
seasons of the year, death, renown, etc. And to personify,, 
we must remember, is to comprehend that which is personified 
as a subject — as a conscious being. Nevertheless, neither 
through the content nor through the outer form is there in 
personification any real, living individuality ; it is always an 
abstract conception, which preserves merely the empty form 
of personality. Hence it can be regarded only as a nominal 
existence. It is in vain that the human form has been ffiven 
to an alleo'orical beina: ; it will never arrive at the concrete and 
living individualit}^ of a Greek divinity, nor of a saint, nor of 
any other real personage, because, in order to render it suit- 
able to the representation of an abstract conception, it is 
necessary to take away just that which constitutes its per- 
sonality and its individuality. It is, then, with justice that the 
allegory has been pronounced cold and pallid. We may add 
that, in respect of invention, because of the abstract charac- 
ter which allegory expresses, it is rather an affair of the 
reason than of the imagination ; it presupposes no lively and 
profound sentiment of the reality. Poets like Virgil are often 
compelled to resort to allegorical beings because they do not 
know how to create gods who rejoice in a genuine personality^ 
like those of Homer. 

h. The idea which the allegory represents, notwithstanding 
its abstract character, is, nevertheless, definite. Otherwise, 
it would ])e iniintclligil)le. And 3'ct the connection be- 
tween this idea and the attributes which explain it is not 
sufficiently close to secure its identification with them. This 
separation of the general idea from the particular ideas which 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 37 

determine it, resembles that of subject and attribute in the 
grammatical proposition ; and this is the second cause (motif ) 
which renders the allegory cold. 

c. To represent the special characteristics of the general 
idea it has been cnstomary to employ emblems, borrowed 
«itlier from external facts or from circumstances attaching to 
manifestation in the real world; or, again, to introduce the 
instruments, the means used for the realization of the idea. 
War is, for example, designated by arms, lances, cannons, 
drums ; spring, summer, autumn, by flowers, fruits, etc. ; 
justice, by l>alances ; death, by an hour-glass and a scythe. 
But as the external forms which serve to represent the abstract 
idea are entirely subordinated to it, and play the part of mere 
attributes, the allegory is thus doubly cold. 1. As personifi- 
cation of an abstract idea, it lacks life and individuality. 2. Its 
-external, determinate form presents only signs, which, taken 
in themselves, have no longer any meaning. The idea which 
«hould be the bond and center of all these attributes is not a 
living unity whicli develops itself freely and manifests itself 
through these special forms. Hence, in the allegory, the real 
existence of personified beings is never taken seriously ; and 
this forbids the g-ivino- an allegorical form to an absolute beinsf. 
The Dike of the Ancients, for example, should not be regarded 
as an allegory. It is the necessity which weighs upon all 
beings ; it is eternal justice, universal power, the absolute 
princiiDle of the laws, which govern nature and human life ; 
while at the same time it is the absolute itself, to which are 
subjected all individual beings, men and gods included. 

3. The Metaphor, Image, and Comparison. — The third 
mode of representation, after the enigma and the allegory, 
is the Figure in general. The enigma, as 3^et, conceals 
the meaning which, on its own account, is known, while the 
form in which it is clothed is of a heterogeneous and far- 
fetched character ; and nevertheless, in its affinity with the 
idea, it appears to be the principal thing. Allegory, on the 
contrary, makes clearness of meaning the essential end, so 
that personification and allegorical attributes appear reduced 
to the level of mere si":ns. The figure combines this clear- 



38 Tlie Journal of Speculative PhiJosoi)hy . 

ness of the allegory with the pleasure which the enigma pro- 
duces in presenting to the spirit an idea under the veil of an 
exterior appearance which has some analogy with it ; and that 
in such manner that, instead of an emblem to decipher, it is 
an image in wiiich the meaning is revealed with great clear- 
ness, and manifested in its true character. 

a. The Metaphor . — In itself the metaphor is a comparison, 
in so far as it clearly expresses an idea by means of a similar 
object. But in comparison, properly speaking, the meaning 
and the image are expressly separated, while in the metaphor 
this separation, although it offers itself to the mind, is not 
directly indicated. Thus Aristotle already distinguishes these 
two figures in saj'ing that in the first comparison we add 
"as " — a term which is wanting in the second. That is to say,. 
the metaphorical expression mentions only one side, viz., the 
image ; but, in the connection in which the image is used, the- 
precise meaning which is intended is so manifest that it is, so 
to speak, given immediately and without express separation 
from the image. If I hear uttered, "the spring-time of his. 
days," or " a river of tears," I know that I must take these 
words, not in their immediate, but in their figurative, sense,, 
which is made apparent by the connection in which the expres- 
sions are used. 

In the symbol and the allegory the relation between the 
idea and the external form is neither so immediate nor neces- 
sary. In the nine steps of an Egyptian stair wa}^ and in a 
thousand other examples, only the initiated, the wise, and the 
learned seek to discover a symbolic meaning. In a word, 
the metaphor can be defined as an abridged comparison. 

The metaphor cannot pretend to the value of an independent 
representation, but only to that of an accessory one. Even 
in its highest degree it can appear only as a simple ornament, 
for a work of art, and its application is found only in spokea 
language. 

b. Tlie Image. — Between the metaphor and the comparison 
is placed the image, which is only a developed meta})hor. 
Notwithstanding its resemblance to the comparison, it differs- 
from it in this : that the idea is not here disengaged and 



Ilegel on Symbolic Art. 39 

expressly developed aside from the sensuous object. It can 
represent a whole series of states, of acts, of modes of exist- 
ence, and can render such series sensuous by a like succession 
of phenomena borrowed from a sphere which is independent, 
but which presents some analogy with the tirst ; and this with- 
out the idea being formally expressed in the development of 
the image itself. The poem of Goethe, entitled 27/ e Song of 
Mahomet, will serve as an example : " A mountain-spring with 
the freshness of youth leaps over rocks into the abyss ; anon 
it reappears in l)ul)l)ling fountains and in rivulets, then flows 
out upon the plain, greets its brother streamlets, gives its 
name to mau}^ lands, sees cities born beneath its feet, until, at 
length, it bears in tumultuous joy its treasures, its brothers, 
and its children into the bosom of the creator who awaits it." 
The title alone tells us that this magniticent image of a tor- 
rent, and of its course, represents to us the flight of Mahomet, 
the rapid propagation of his doctrine, and the combination of 
all peoples blended together in the same faith. 

The Orientals especially show great boldness in the employ- 
ment of this class of flgures. They love to thus construct a 
group of ideas, of wholly difl'crent orders, and make them 
agree. A great number of examples of this are furnished by 
the poetry of Hajiz. 

c. Compainson. — The difterence between the image and the 
comparison consists in this : that what the image represents 
under a figurative form appears in the comparison as abstract 
thought. Here the idea and the image proceed side by side. 

The two terms are entirely separated, each l)eing repre- 
sented on its own account, after which they are, for the first 
time, exhil)ited in presence of one another because of their 
resemblance. 

Comparison, like the image and the metaphor, expresses the 
boldness of the imagination, which, having an ol)ject in view, 
shows in pausing before it the power it possesses of com- 
pletely coml^ining by external relations ideas the most widely 
separated, and which, at the same time, knows how to cause 
the principal idea to reduce to its sway a whole w^orld of varied 
phenomena. This power of the imagination, which is revealed 



40 Tlte Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

by the fiiculty of discovering resemblances, of combining 
heterogeneous objects wholly by means of relations full of 
interest and of meaning, is, in general, what constitutes the 
essence of comparison. 

In this connection we must remark a difference between the 
poetry of the East and that of the West. In the Orient, man, 
absorl)ed by external nature, entertains few thoughts concerning 
himself, and knows neither languor nor melancholy. His 
desires are restricted to experiencing an altogether outward 
joy which he finds in the objects of his comparisons and in 
the pleasure of contemplation. He looks about with a free 
heart, seeking, in what environs him — in what he knows and 
loves — an image of that which captivates his senses, and fills 
his spirit. The imagination, disengaged from all internal con- 
centration, free from every malady of the soul, finds its satis- 
faction in a comparative representation of the object which 
interests it, especially if this, because it is compared with 
what is most brilliant and most beautiful in nature, acquires 
greater value, and strikes the eye more vividly. In the 
Occident, on the contrary, man is more occupied with himself, 
more disposed to l)reak forth in complaints and lamentations 
respecting his own sufferings, to allow himself to give way to 
lano:uor and vain desires. 



o 



///. Disappearance of the Symbolic Form of Art. 

1. Didactic Poetry. — When a general idea, of which the 
development presents a systematic whole, is conceived in its 
abstract character by the mind, and when, at the same time, it 
is exhibited under a form and with ornaments borroAved from 
art, then is produced the didactic poem. To speak rigorously, 
didactic poetry ought not to be counted among the forms 
appropriate to art. Indeed, matter and form are here com- 
pletely distinct. 

At first the ideas are comi)rchended in themselves, in their 
abstract and prosaic nature. On the other hand, the artistic 
form can be joined with the subject-matter only by an altogether 
external relation, because the idea is already expressed in the 



Hegel on /Symbolic Art. 41 

mind, with its abstract character. Instruction is addressed, 
iirst of all, to reason and reflection. Thus, its aim being to 
make known a general truth, its essential condition is clear- 
ness. 

Art, then, can be employed in the didactic poem only upon 
what concerns the external part ; the measure, the nobility of 
language, the introduction of episodes, the employmeut of 
images and comparisons, the expression of sentiments, a swifter 
progress, more rapid transitions. All the wrappage of poetic 
forms — which does not touch upon the matter, but is placed 
outside of it — figures only as something accessor}-. More or 
less vivacious and striking, these images enliven a subject 
otherwise serious, and temper the dryness of the lesson. 
What is in itself essentially prosaic cannot be poetically devel- 
oped. It can only be clothed in poetic form. It is thus that 
the art of gardening, for example, is only the external arrange- 
ment of the grounds, of which the general configuration is 
already given by nature, and which can have in itself nothing 
beautiful or picturesque. It is thus, again, that architecture, 
by ornaments and external decorations, gives an agreeable 
aspect to the simple regularity of an edifice constructed merely 
with a view to utility, and of which the destination is wholly 
prosaic. 

It is in this way that Greek philosophy, at its beginning, 
was produced under the form of the didactic poem. Hesiod 
might be taken as an example. Still, conceptions truly prosaic 
are properly developed only when reason renders herself mis- 
tress of her object in imposing upon it her reflections, her 
reasonings, and her classifications ; when, in other words, she 
proposes to teach directly, and, in order to reach her aim, calls 
to her aid elescance, the charms of stvle, and the harmonies of 
poetry. Lucretius, who reproduced in verse the system of 
Epicurus ; Virgil, with his instructions in agriculture, furnish 
us models which, notwithstanding all the al)ility of the poet 
and the perfection of his style, fail to constitute a pure and 
free form of art. In Germany the didactic form has already 
lost favor. At the close of the last century Delille gave to the 
French, besides the Poem of the Gardens, or the Art of 



42 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

Embellishing Landscapes, luid The Man of the Fields, etc.^ 
a didactic poem, in which ho presents a sort of compendium 
of the principles discovered in physics upon magnetism, elec- 
tricity, etc. 

2. Descriptive Poetry is, in one respect, the opposite of 
didactic poetry. The point of departure, indeed, is not the 
idea already presented to the mind ; it is the external reality 
with its sensuous forms, objects of nature or works of art, the 
seasons, the different parts of the day, etc. In the didactic 
poem the idea which constitutes its basis remains, from its^ 
very nature, in its abstract generality. Here, on the contrary, 
they are the sensuous forms of the real world in their })articu- 
larity, which are represented to us, depicted or described, as 
they usually present -themselves to our view. Such a subject 
of representation belongs, absolutely speaking, only to one 
side of art. Now, this side, which is that of external reality, 
has a right to appear in art only as manifestation of spirit, 
or as a theater for its development. Here it does not exist on 
its own account, but is destined merely to receive the char- 
acters, while for itself it is but a simple external reality 
separated from the spiritual element. 

Descriptive poetry affords greater interest when it causes 
its pictures to be accompanied by the expression of sentiments 
which can be excited by nature — the succession of the hours 
of the day and of the seasons of the year, a wood-covered 
hill, a murmuring brook, a cemeterj', a pleasantly-situated 
village, a quiet, thatched cottage. It admits, also, like the 
didactic poem, episodes which give it a more animated form, 
especially when it depicts the sentiments and emotions of the 
soul, a sweet melancholy, or minor incidents borrowed from 
human life as exhibited in the humble degrees of society. 
But this coml)ination of the sentiments of the soul with the 
description of the external forms of nature may still renuiin 
wholly superficial ; for the scenes of nature preserve their 
special and independent existence. Man, in presence of this 
spectacle, experiences, it is true, such or such sentiment ; but, 
though between these objects and his sensil)ility there may be 
sympathy, there is yet no union, no deep penetration. Thus, 



Hegel on Symbolic Art. 45 

when I enjoy a bright moon, when I contemphite the woods, 
the valleys, or the tields, I do not, for all that, imitate the 
enthnsiastic interpreter of nature ; I only feel a vague harmony 
between the interior state into which this spectacle casts me 
and the group of objects which I have before my eyes. 

3. Tlte Ancient Epigram. — The primitive character of the 
epigram is immediately expressed by the word itself ; it is an 
inscription. Without doubt, between the object itself and its 
description there is a difference ; but in the more ancient epi- 
grams, of which Herodotus has preserved us a few, we have 
not the description of an ol)ject formed with a view to accom- 
panying some sentiment of the soul. The thing itself is rep- 
resented in a twofold manner : First, its external existence is 
indicated; then its meaning, its explanation, is given. These 
two elements are closely combined ; they enter deeply into the 
epigram, which expresses the most characteristic and most 
appropriate features of the object. Later, the epigram loses, 
even with the Greeks, its primitive character, and degenerates 
so far (on occasion of special events, of works of art, or of 
personages whom it is desired to designate) as to inscribe fugi- 
tive thoughts, dashes of wit, touching reflections, which be- 
lono- rather to the exclusively personal disposition of the 
author himself in his relation to the object than to the object 
itself. 

The defects of the symbolic form are manifest in what pre- 
cedes, and out of these defects arises the following demand, 
viz, : That the external phenomenon and its meaning, outer 
reality and its spiritual explanation, must not be developed in 
complete separation ; while, on the contrary, the unity of 
these two elements must not continue to be of that type which 
has been offered us in the symbol, in the sublime, and, finally, 
in the reflective or figurative form of art. Genuine artistic 
representation must be sought only where perfect harmony is 
established between the two terms ; that is to say, where the 
sensuous form manifests in itself the spirit which it contains 
and by which it is penetrated ; while, on its side, the spiritual 
principle finds in sensuous reality its most appropriate and 



44 Ihe Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 

most perfect manifestation. But, in order to arrive at the 
perfect solution of this problem, we must take leave of the 
Symbolic Form of Art. 



THE NATION AND THE COMMUNE. 

BY THERON GRAY. 

It is proposed in this paper to make a somewhat earnest 
appeal to the ruling powers of the Nation in behalf of true 
national culture and accordant organization. Because, not- 
withstandiiis^ the increasina" libertinism and disorder in all 
directions, there is no doubt that means are available by which 
to order anew and conduct the Nation on and upward to its 
promised destiny as a people's government. It is desired, in 
behalf of those means, to gain the attention and enlist the 
•effort of those who, by commanding intelligence, genius, and 
wealth, will inevitably rule pu])lic affairs, and, ruling rightly, 
will gradually supplant disorder and strife with order and 
peace. 

The promise of such an effort is most vital to all, but espe- 
cially important to these builders themselves ; for, if they 
build with unfit fragments, without due connections and sup- 
ports, their work will surely fall, and crush them in the ruins. 

So, it is not as mere sentiment that bewails the lot of the 
ignorant and oppressed, and strives to make that lot more tol- 
erable, that best appeal is made, but as political economy, for- 
tified with data firmly rooted as a science of civil conduct, 
more promising to the rich and cultivated, if possible, than to 
the various grades below. Thus promising, because the pres- 
ent practical antagonism of wealth and want tends rapidly to 
make want desperate, and to place wealth in peril before it — as 
the recent communal outbreaks sufficiently show. 

The thousrht that does not meet the whole case and minister 
alike to the behests of wealth, with all its monitions of culture 
and refinement, and to the needs of the weak, ignorant, gross. 



The ISFation and the Commune. 45 

and base of every kind, is not the true thou^^ht of this era of 
commotion and strife between opposing forces. 

As the skillful physician, in searching for the nature and 
remedy of a malignant disease developed in the s^'stem of his 
patient, tries to comprehend the normal and habitual states 
of that system, so, in order to understand the cause and rem- 
edy of communal outbreaks, and other lesser ruptures in our 
national experience, we must come to a good understanding of 
the normal order of the national system itself, and its habitual 
operations. 

While in principle and theory our Nation is distinctly social 
or fraternal in fullest scope, in practice it is found quite the 
reverse. In theory it is thoroughly a people's government, 
without a taint of that inhuman exclusivism developed nor- 
mally in all less mature forms of civil government. This 
theory carries the principle of perfect unity, alliance, and 
cooperation of the whole people. "Each in all and all in 
each ' ' is the necessarv loo;ic of all human activities , and all 
investing methods or institutions under it. This robe of fra- 
ternity is so vital and broad that it enfolds and duly covers 
every person in the whole system, making each perfectly free 
in the bonds of law, and such a bondman or servant in the 
freedom of organized fraternity. 

Alas, for the practice that has come to otfset this theory ! 
It exhibits a sort of freedom, but it is the freedom of a cut- 
throat competition — liberty to combat and undermine the 
neighbor, to circumvent the plans of the fellow-citizen in 
unbridled self-service, providing, only, such endeavor is kept 
literally accordant with statutory law. 

Selfish competition and strife, that breed every form of 
crafty evasion and criminal aggression, take the place of nor- 
mally developed genius and organized power, according to the 
national theory; and remorseless greed, corruption, and base- 
ness of every kind are coming more and more to the front, in 
bold defiance of the threatening and protesting voices of penal 
and moral codes. Hence, while freedom is limited and dis- 
tracting, order is equally partial and delusive, being the order 
of arbitrary authority, and not that of truly organized equal- 
ity inherent in the national system. 



4(3 The Journal of Si^eculative Pliilosopliy . 

This contrast of national theory and practice is snggested 
with no feeling of peevishness or acrimony, but as a reminder of 
dangerous perversion ; mider a firm conviction that such a 
course of national deflection tends, without remedy, to sure 
national ruin ; and, also, that the remedy is simple, and easily 
made available, when the real powers that command are 
reached and duly impressed concerning that remedy. And, 
in order to thus reach and impress, it is designed to give an 
assurance, as we proceed, beyond any merel}^ opinional con- 
ception — an assurance derived solely in manifest science. 

Civil government cannot be less subject to the rule of stern 
law, interpreted as science, than are the numerous special 
domains of physics. In other realms of thought and experi- 
ence, human genius has unfokled and applied the harness of 
science with such fidelity and exactness that mishap and failure 
are no lono-er possible. Civil sfovernmcnt still struo;o-]es amid 
painful commotions and destructive shocks only because, in 
this grandest sphere of human endeavor, actual social science 
is still unknown, and only puerile empiricisjn bears sway. 

We should understand that there is no force in creation that 
is not sul)ject to orderly play, as a ministry to human needs, 
by beins: brouo-ht under the reoimen of underlvino- law devel- 
oped as science. This nnderhnng, unwritten law is immut- 
al)le, and co-existent with God Himself. In order to stand in 
actual service, written law — all rules and authorities affirmed 
by man — must truly represent the unwritten — eternal. 

That form of force known as human power is, when regarded 
in its full scope, the crowning verit}' in creation. Crude, 
undisciplined, and unbridled, it is sure to ravage and destroy. 
Disciplined and moulded through the discovery and institu- 
tional appliance of the unwritten laws of its being, this power 
will become constantly ordered as the crowniuir irlory of crea- 
tion, because it will thus be presented divinely in-formed and 
motived continually. So, while otherwise it were a power full 
of furious i)assion and desolatin<2: rasxe, throujih the composinij; 
methods of ultinnite forms of science it will be found as 
genial, beneficent, and productive as before it were malignant 
and destru(':tive. 

But here we step above the realm of physics in our quest of 



The Nation and the Commune. 47 

science. The human form is a spiritual force — a form of 
creative genius endowed with majesty and power. As such it 
must be known in its essential nature and conditions before we 
can proceed to comprehend and apply investing methods or 
conduits thereto. Hence metaphysics, or the science of mind, 
is sternly fundamental to civic science in institutional methods. 
Exact knowledge of the substance is requisite before we may 
proceed to ally it with its true investiture. And, although an 
elaborate presentation of this science of metaphysics does not 
seem necessary for the purposes of this treatise, its methods 
will be suggested, over and over, by the formulas and discus- 
sions proposed. 

Here another predicate comes in order. It is this : Man 
(mind) is snpremel}^ objective or magisterial in the creative 
scheme, and institutional forms (government) are subjective 
or ministerial. 

This is a truth so fundamental and constant that any human 
system that fails to see in the lowest and basest of human kind 
the foetal or infantile heir to a lordly inheritance in a divinely- 
destined patrimony, and neglects to rear and train its ward 
accordingly, violates its ol^ligations as an authority, and does 
not rule by " divine right." 

Authority, even of an arliitrary nature, is necessar}^ during 
all stages of human development ; but authority that violates 
this fundamental social law of the essential majesty of man, and 
constant servility of all institutions to that august presence, is 
not an authority poised in divine right, and will surely come 
to naught, whether it appears under the I'ule of despotic or 
democratic institutions. 

But, to get our foundation well laid, we must lay it piece b}^ 
piece ; so we proceed : 

THIS HUMAN FORM IS THREEFOLD. 

Basic is the Sensory Economy (animal-human), whose con- 
trolling authority is unreasoning force, represented by penal 
law. 

Mediate is the Rational Economy (human-human), whose 



48 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

authority is educated reason under conscience, represented by 
moral law. 

Supreme is the Sophial Economy (divine-human), whose 
authority is spontaneous life, represented by social law, under 
whose diction, as science, all extremes and diversities become 
reconciled and ordered, freedom constant in immutable law, 
and authority relieved of all pressure through right adjust- 
ment. • 

The lowest degree, being inmiersed in mere sense-conditions, 
cannot, of itself, rise above them. 

The mediate degree carries sense-power up mto distinctive 
human realms of conscience and rational ideas, but cannot, 
unheli^ed, rise above that unsatisfactory state. 

The supreme degree carries sense and reason up into the 
realm of regal greatness, in infinite love, wisdom, and power; 
there disciplines, qualities, and empowers for the order of 
scientific fruition to which the whole form is destined. 

It is essential to impress our thought somewhat with this 
order of degrees as universally prevalent in the human form, 
because by that alone do we come to comprehend the verities 
of human experience and human destiny, and derive a sure 
clew to processes of human culture competent to carry the 
whole body steadily up to its best estate. 

Here is the proper aim of all true thought and endeavor 
to-day : We are not to convert, imtnediately , the principle of 
social law into methods of final organization and ripest uses in 
best social conditions. The material for those conditions is 
mostly wanting, at present. That material is found onlv in 
maturest human character, genius, and power in all personal 
forms. Hence the work of true social science shall consist, 
for the present, in projecting primary institutions, of every 
kind, adapted to the physical, moral, and social nature and 
conditions of the whole people. The principle of the universal 
unity of mankind — amplest fraternity — must steadily vitalize 
and illumine those processes, else they will descend to the 
partial, exclusive, and selfish methods of present ruling, rather 
than remain constantly true to the divinely-human behests of 
social law. 



The Nation and the Commune. 49 

No biiikliiig can be built and adapted to its purposes in use 
till its material shall \va\q been fully wrought out and fitted 
for the structure, according to plan and specifications given. 
Nor can that sublime structure, human society, be reared 
and converted to orderly use till the human material is fully 
wrought into qualified conditions. So, while social law, in a. 
conception of human society, is indispensable to shape, and 
rule constantly all preliminary, qualifying methods, the master- 
builder will never for a moment countenance any rude attempts 
to leap into full occupancy and use of best social conditions, 
wiiile only qualif^'ing or structural processes are in order. 
This must be constantly urged. 

The partial, trifling schemes of social organization that have 
sprung up and failed because of this oversight of primary 
conditions — because of tliis attempt to "take the kingdom of 
heaven by violence," rather than by general qualification for its 
exalted conditions — are apt illustrations of the folly of trying 
to realize the harvest before enterino; into the toils of cultiva- 
tion. No man, nor set of men, has a right to withdraw and 
stand aloof from the toils and burdens of the o-reat race of 
human kind. To rush with headlong zeal for Heaven, and 
leav^e the degraded brotherhood writhing in the pangs of 
Hades, Avere selfish greed so diabolic that Hadean flames were 
sure to overleap their accustomed bounds and torture such 
selfishness with becoming discipline. 

Now, in order to make the rule of the thought I am trying 
to advance more intelligible, as also the thou<>ht itself, let me 
try to represent to the senses the whole system involved — that, 
if there fail to be fullness and consistency in verbal expression, 
wholeness of representation may remedy the short-coming and 
carry full conviction. 

The representative formula here presented is derived in 
unitary principles of creative law, that embrace, not only the 
processes of the productive or generative series, but also 
genetic root as base of development, and generated result as 
crowning fruition thereto. 
XH— 4 



50 TJte Journal of Speculative Pliilosopliy . 

The ordering principle thus presented, let us be careful to 
observe, is simply the law of triplicity, embracing : 

First. Monoplicity ; as subjective power, involved, in indefi- 
nite form, or chaos. 

Second. Duplicity ; as subjective power in transit, through 
evolutionary processes, by toils, struggles, conflicts, and unrest, 
specifically elaborating all particular forms and forces in- 
volved. 

Third. Triplicity ; as subjective power become objective in 
evolved state, and at rest in the inspiring delights of spontane- 
ity, through perfection of powers and conditions. 

Although the human form is thus defined in successive 
order, the three elements of human personality are involved, 
and simultaneouslv active, from the beoinnino;, but are not 
seen and understood in best respects till revealed in the life 
and light of the ultimate degree come to be an actual exjicri- 
ence. Although the ultimate form — perfect manhood — 
cannot be known or comprehended excepting as the human 
affections and intellect are ripened into vital unity with that 
great destiny wherein the race })uts on its royal robes, yet it 
is the only living power in all history, without which the race 
could never rise above the most stolid communal chaos, but 
by virtue of which its destined slory, in the realms of our 
common experience, is surely fixed. 

Let us not be misled by any unreal appearance in the dia- 
gram. It actually presents only three degrees, or moments, 
as a rule of thought. The multiplied divisions of the second 
degree (11) do not add to these three terms, as may at first 
seem. Any seeming of that kind comes from repeated solu- 
tions of that dcirree — extended analyses of the sjenerative 
factor of the scale — made by carrying the same alkahestic 
trine into minor quests in this special realm. 

All develojnng movement is derived in static base, as initial 
form, and tends to crowning result in end achieved. 

End of development, or productive energy, does not imply 
a rest in stagnation or deatli, as sometimes erroneously con- 
ceived. It only implies ol)jective attainment in perfect condi- 
tions of life and uses. This end, in human development, is a 



DIAGRAM OF CREATIVE LAW, REPRESENTING THE SERIAL ORDER 

OF THE HUMAN FORM, AND RELATED ORDER 

OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTITURE, 



II. 



III. 



ENVELOPED 






DEVELOPING FORM. 






DEVELOPED 


FORM. 






FORM. 


INVOLVED 


MONAL 


DUAL 


TRINE 


MONAL, DUAL, 

AND 
TRINE UNITED. 


TRINE. 


DEVELOPMENT. 


DEVELOPMENT. 


DEVELOPMENT. 


0. 


K 


b 

•^4^ 


3. 


4. 


5. 


6. 


7. ! 8. 


9. 


10. 


This space 




^^, 














Tliis space 


represents the 




:'% 


^a 






1 




renresents full 


potential or in- 




% 


'^>^ 


^\ 












scientific frui- 


volved form of 
Mind and 7n- 
stitutio7is, 
whence are de- 
rived three dis- 
crete degrees 




•?, 










K 






tion— H u m a n 
Power full, 
potent, and 
free. Institu- 
tion.s, perfect 
and truly ad- 


in develop- 










M 


.-V 


\% ^^ 




justed, in serv- 


m e n t , and a 
fruition of per- 
fect order in 
scientific or- 


â–  










X' 




^h 


ice continually 


ganization. 














'^X. 




Anarciiy 
(Non-govern- 


Monarchy, or 
Simple 


Duarchy, or 
Complex 


Triarchy, or 
Composite 


Triarchy fully 
organized; or, 
com )lete Hie- 


ment). 


government. 


government. 


government. 


rarchal Order. 



Note. — Monal Development covers, in the Human Series, the conditions of 
infantile groivth; Dual Development relates to youthful f/rowj'/t ,• and Trine De- 
velopment relates to the ripening process of human character — growth in man- 
hood. The unit of human character and power, indicated under III. embraces all 
human excellence, with accordant institutional forms, and thus stands for full, 
perfect manhood and scientific order. 



TJie Nation and the Commune. 51 

promise to man of the attainment of unimaginable genius and 
power ; not in some far-ofi' heaven, but in heaven on earth — 
infinite beauty, harmony, and order in all our common expe- 
rience — to be consummated, finally, through the steady con- 
duct of public afiairs in the spirit and lumen of social law. 

The design at present in view does not so much demand a 
thorough explication of the full trine terms of the diagram 
^I, 11, III), as a symbol of creative law, as it does an exposi- 
tion of the rule of development under the mediate term (II) 
of that series. And our main interest here will center upon 
the third term (trine development) ; for our oAvn national 
order is therein represented, and the Nation will yet verify the 
rule of development there indicated, providing its command- 
ing Avisdom comes to find and employ the clew to actual scien- 
tific national development — to do which it has not hitherto 
been able. 

The three squares of this degree of the diagram (II) are 
designed to represent the three discrete degrees of the human 
form in their unfolding processes (either in the race, the 
nation, or the individual), and also the three related degrees 
•of institutional authority (government). 

The smaller divisions of those three squares indicate a fur- 
ther analysis, under the same principles, not necessary to a 
plain man. The running of the Arabic numerals through the 
full series, thus exhaustively analyzed, gives a hint of the rule 
of the principle in the scale of numeric power, and helps more 
forcibly to illustrate the scope and power of the conception as 
a method of unitary law. 

The transverse line, descending from left to right across the 
three squares, is intended to define between mental power 
(spaces above) and institutional power (spaces beloAv). 

The three terms of these degrees should really be mon-dualy 
duo-dual, and tri-dual develop^nent , because they all partake 
of the duplex or diverse and unsettled factor of the full series, 
beino- all varied forms of that deji'ree. Familiaritv with the 
principle, and its application as a strict solvent, will make tliis 
clear. 

The first degree (mon-dual development; 1, 2, 3), starting 



52 The Journal of Speculative PJiUosophy . 

from anarchical root (" " ), as communal indifterence of mind 
and its conditions, represents human power })eginning at zero, 
with related authority at zenith, or supreme ; the first (human 
power) gradually augmenting, and the latter (authority) 
graduall}^ declining, till, at the point of departure to the next 
degree, mind — human personality — becomes a manifest power,, 
and authority becomes measurably deferential, on human 
account, and slightly yielding. 

This new step in development (the duo-dual, 4, 5, 6) 
initiates and carries on a marked struggle ; on one hand 
(mind), for greater freedom and po^ver ; on the other (author- 
ity), to perpetuate its sway and hold in check the rising tide 
of human personality. 

This is emphatically the specializing or individualizing 
degree of the series. While, therefore, it tends to educate 
and establish personal power, with its normal sense of freedom, 
it is not favorable to united action, alliance, combination of 
such special powers. So the conditions are not here favorable 
to revolution by the masses in their own behalf. This is 
accordant with a wise providence, which does not incline to 
facilitate the assertion of great freedom and power by the 
masses until they are fitted to give the initial to organic order, 
whereby freedom may find its proper mould or body in fitting 
institutions. 

It is as surely the destined lot of the race to grow as it is 
the lot of the individual. Hence this mediate degree of 
development ends in a transit to the next (tri-dual, 7, 8, 9) 
degree — after having projected multiform institutional methods, 
more or less yielding to human needs — under an explicit 
theory of man as master, and institutions as servants to his 
needs, without exception. 

Here we find the organic initial to our own national system 
as a government " of the people, by the people, for the 
people." This order commences in a manhood so majestic 
and true, the clearest intuitions of the ripest human con- 
ditions possible to experience were native to it. That man- 
hood startled the observant nations with proclamations of the 
greatness, power, and inherent rights of man universally ; 



The Nation and the Oommune, 53 

planted the new germ of liberty amid Ijravest toils and 
sacrifices, and ponred copious streams of its most precious 
blood around it to fit it for future OTowth and fruitage. 

Growth and fruitage! But true national growth was im- 
K'omprehended and overlooked, and the promised fruitage 
became only a vague phantom of "glittering generalities." 
The men who came after mistook the situation, and plunged 
the nation into a career adverse to the national theory, adverse 
to its promise as a true republic or people's government, and 
nothing l)ut renewed wisdom, and a new departure in the true 
national spirit and purpose, can avert fiital results. 

Reference to the diagram will show that this third, ripening 
form is still a form of development in human worth and 
power, with corresponding declension in arl)itrar3^ authority, 
till the first attains a supremacy, and the latter a servility, of 
function exactly accordant with the national conception and 
j^romise as announced by the founders. For the nation prac- 
tically reveals its form and verifies its promise only Avhen the 
^hole jjeople shall have become free, orderly, and powerful, 
in a manhood and womanhood of supremest moment, with 
institutional methods adjusted in constancy to every dictate of 
23erfect society, and never the slightest pressure at any point. 
So it is seen that this conception of the declension of institu- 
tions to a point of nihility, as human v/orth and power fulfill 
in character, does not contemplate the lawless parade of the 
latter and the extinction of the former, but simply the 
realization of both terms grandly consummated — man being 
lord and master, and institutions wholly servile to his needs ; 
just as, in any s^Dccial science, mastery of ruling laws, and con- 
formity thereto in practical uses, enfranchises and empowers 
to the utmost extent, without the slightest sense of pressure. 

There is no verity in creation — either as thought or thing — 
that is not subject to a developing or unfolding process just 
proportioned to the magnitude or importance of that verity. 
Who will suppose, therefore, that a national system fraught 
with the promise of ours could be given in experience and 
immediately operated as if it were substantially a matured 



54 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

structure? Such is the iispect practically pre?ieiited. How" 
else may we account for the lavish distrilnition of power and 
privilege before there had been any qualification therefor in 
educated virtue and intelligence, and institutional conduits 
assuming the proper flow of such power and privilege? A 
system that presupposes exalted human worth as a factor of 
government should surely first develop that worth, and truly 
condition its methods of expression, in order to make any 
practical exhibition of itself in its own mature form. How 
perilous the mistake, therefore, that made a broad distribution 
of freedom and authority to the people, according to the 
involved nature of the system, instead of proceeding to con- 
struct and operate methods that would first duly qualify free- 
dom and power in the citizen. 

True, there seems an inconsistency in founding a representa- 
tive government wherein the whole people are to be repre- 
sented, and then withholding the ballot and other forms of 
powder from a large portion of citizens. But do we not knoAV that 
the child in the family is more truly represented by parental 
intelligence and power that comprehend its needs and apply 
the wherewith to fulfill those needs than it could be bv having 
the responsibility thrown upon its ow^n uneducated intelligence 
and power? Under the social dogma of its initial instru- 
ments, what is our nation but a laroer familv — all of w'hose 
children, during their minority, should be faithfully repre- 
sented by a presiding w^isdom comprehensive of their needs 
and carefull}' provident of all their interests? 

With a large portion of the people practically children — 
variously weak, ignorant, gross, or vicious, as they were sure 
to be previous to national fruition according to the national 
ideal — a numeric minority of intelligence and wealth were 
sure to be the governing pow^er, whatever the semblance 
through a universal ballot that is practically little more than a 
fraud. If the ballot really functioned as a representative 
means — as it purports to do — what would it represent, in so 
far as a large section of the most needy and helpless are con- 
cerned? Simply weakness, ignorance, vice, and crime of every 



The Nation and the Commune. 55 

kind. What can avail iov freemen iVistened in these degrading 
toils bnt the governing wisdom of the power above them? 
NothiniT. * 

But liere we face a difficulty. Under the prevalent com- 
petitive strife for distinction in wealth, and other like aggran- 
dizements, intelligence and wealth, as ruling powers, are so 
largely carried in this inhuman self-service that, comparatively, 
little thought or means are given to public service — to a 
service of all, in all, for all. 

But there remains a remedy, even if selfishness still inclines 
to be absorbed in its greedy pursuit. For that mighty under- 
tow of neglected human power — hitherto mostly surging in 
subterranean depths — begins to show on the surface in fear- 
ful breakers. And, if these controlling powers remain fixed 
in narrow devotion to selfish aims, instead of giving heed to 
social law and ruling to fraternal ends — ends that com- 
prehend all interests and provide for all — then will they 
come to be played upon and ravished by those under-currents 
of lust and passion that were suflered to drift recklessly 
onward and augment in characteristic force, when they should 
have been taken in hand and truly directed. Comnmnal 
desolation is the remedy — but a painful remedy. Far wiser 
were it to listen to the monitions of social science, and thereby 
rightly dispose the elements otherwise sure to flay us. 
Remedies by inversion and empirical endeavor are always 
painful and tedious, and only successful at last by compelling 
resort to methods of science in commanding law. The dis- 
tress of our late communal throes will prove thus remedial 
when it prompts the ruling powers to instigate a radical 
search, in the light of civic science, and thence to institute 
remedies accordingly. And it cannot be too forcibly and con- 
stantly urged that this demands a public conduct strictly 
consonant with the terms of social law ; a conduct, conse- 
quently, that shall proceed from a wisdom comprehensive of 
the needs of the whole people, and a power sufficient to 
execute the demands of that wisdom. 

We cannot, in our appeals, get direct access to the eai"s of 
the various communal grades ; nor would it effect any desirable 



56 37^6 Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

result if we could. They cau ravage aud destroy ; or, by for- 
bearauce, cau adjourn the evils of coiupetitiou between capital 
aud labor, but they can do nothiftg directly to inaugurate 
right methods, nor even to avert, filially, the fearful violence 
of uncultured and exasperated human jiower pressed and 
stung beyond endurance. Our only hope is in an appeal — 
through manifest science — to the ears of those few who do 
and Avill, at present, rule the nation — either for the good of 
all or the ruin of all. 

If the competitive system is perpetuated, strength and 
superior craft will continue to despoil the weak and less crafty. 
This will continue to breed reckless and desperate feeling and 
habits. Human nature will react against whatever presses 
aud galls it. In such reaction it will resort to means propor- 
tioned to its conditions. It will be uureasoiuible, vindictive, 
and cruel in proportion as it is uncultured and gross. Hence 
the governing powers have an interest to provide methods of 
culture for all who are uncultured, and to compel a use of 
these methods. Free culture will provide for all the powers 
of man — physical, as well as the intellectual, and higher still. 
Especially does it demand the institution of industrial methods 
of every kind ; not only to train in industrial power, but to 
produce proper supplies for all. To this end all must be pro- 
tected and assured in a just share of the goods they create. 
At no point may the weaker and more dependent be despoiled 
with impunity, else they will come to prey upon, and despoil 
in return, with a ferocity that knows no bounds. 

So completely has Providence put this nation under the dic- 
tion of social law, which regards unity of power and the fruits 
of power in a positive commonwealth, that no violation of that 
law can rule continuously without disaster or ruin. 

United and hap[)y peoples in a united and happy race is the 
ultimate purpose of Divine Wisdom. Hence all petty schemes 
that violate the laws of universal brotherhood must be frauirht 
with evil, especially to the votaries of such schemes. Do we 
ueed more tuition under this head than that which has come to 
us in communal outbreaks and destruction? If so, we will get 
it by extending the reign of strife and competition in behalf 



TJie Nation and the (Jommune. 57 

of self-aoftrrandizement. On the contrarv, if we will organize 
the principle of fraternal good-will, inherent in the national 
system, peace will at once begin to exert her benign sway. 

There are those who say that this competition is essential to 
l)usiness enterprise — that business would flag, and general 
stagnation take the place of present bnsiness energy, if the 
motive to ontshine and excel others in these snperior shows of 
^vealth and power, that practically cripple and destroy the 
brother, were displaced. But it is a shocking reflection npon 
the creative wisdom to suppose it limited to an economy that 
bases energy and enterprise in a system that is fatal to the 
existence of that orderly society which itself has appointed as 
the acme of human greatness. It is impossible. The thought 
is as absurd as it is dishonorable to the divine name. The 
emulative spirit is a beneficent and mighty power ; its true 
expression is accordant with, and productive of, fraternal order 
and peace, rather than of discord and warfare, amongst men. 
Excellence and superiority in all social power and worth ; in 
productive genius, and every kindly ministry to all human 
needs ; in mastery of every obstacle to the welfare of all — 
these, and their like in social significance and tendency, will 
be found ample ministries to the emulative spirit in man. 
They are honorable to both creator and creature, and will 
inspire human energy and enterprise immensely beyond the 
base, cut-throat methods of our present competitive strife. 

In the processes of social regeneration all forms of in- 
dustry and art will become duly honored ; dullness will be 
encouraged, j)rompted, and educated into becoming energy ; 
shirking, dishonored and disciplined ; idleness, treated as a 
species of disgraceful stealth, and its votaiy trained accord- 
ingly ; till, finally, all come into the spirit and power of true 
social order. 

True, with a large development and application of mechan- 
ical powers to production, and the more general interest and 
application of human jjower, productive results would be 
vastly augmeitted, but there would be no danger of a surfeit 
or glut ; for consumption would keep pace with production. 
Being relieved from the stress of monopoly and exclusive 



58 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy/. 

hoarding by being assured in a just share of the proceeds of 
best conditions of production, the masses would become 
generous consumers, as well as producers ; becoming relieved 
from the pinching conditions that now drive them, to madness 
and the rudeness of communal outrage. So, perpetual enter- 
prise and thrift would take the place of revulsions and painful 
stagnation. 

At present we have almost no means of stimulating human 
powers and directing their orderly play. We throw around 
each individual the pressure of legal and moral restraints^ 
and expect conformity and order in the life of each, while yet 
we have given them scarcely a particle of social culture and 
support. How absurd to suppose tlie pressure of the lower 
degrees can apply to regulate the conditions of the higher, 
and produce the coveted order ! 

When men scorn and deride these bari'iers and levers — as 
they are sure to do under the quenchless cravings of their 
social instincts — we apply the vindictive screws of justice, as 
we call it, till they are broken into order or crushed out. 
So we have increasing rebellion and disorder, and multiplied 
thumb-screws of Justice. And, strange to say, few seem to 
distrust prevailing ideas of social economy, or question the 
wisdom of a public conduct bearing fruits of pillage and dis- 
tress on every hand. Rebellious human nature — all unhelped 
and unwashed as it is — seems alone at fault, while we, the 
righteous commanders, feel ourselves jn stifled, and even obli- 
gated, to lash, scourge, and destroy. If, instead, we would 
come to a due sense of social obligations, and concentrate the 
commanding intelligence and power upon means of general 
helpfulness, organizing ways and means for the development 
and proper play of all human power, there would be an imme- 
diate lull to the raging currents of lust and passion, and, in 
good time, perfect equilibrium and peace. 

He whose rule is supreme and cannot be supplanted admon- 
ishes us in a thousand stinging providences that this is an era 
of social forces and laws, and that social conduits must be pro- 
vided for the accumulatinii' fluids if we would not be rent and 
torn by their furious rage. He is daily showing us the impo- 



The JVation and (he Commune. 59 

tence of designed restraints that imprison, chain, strangle, 
and shoot down the unkempt brotherhood, by rearing up bris- 
tling hordes to fill the ranks thus decimated. And He will 
continue thi^s to do until we heed His calls to social law and 
dut}', and proceed to construct systems of social sewerage 
and general reform — to provide that filthiness shall be washed 
awiiy ; the hungry fed ; the wayward and vile recovered to 
usefulness and decency ; the weak made strong ; the infirm, of 
every kind, firm and upright. Not by alms-giving and alms- 
doing, that tend to weaken and debauch, but b}^ scientific recu- 
perative methods that develop and riglitly employ the native 
forces before o;oino; to waste. 

Under the diction of mere sense — with its rule of arbitrary 
force — one may attend mainly to one's oAvn ; and under the 
diction of human reason, even — with its moral barriers and 
stimulants — one comes to little of the sul)lime breadth and 
liberation of true human poise ; but, under the diction of wis- 
dom — with the social barriers and stimulants of universal 
brotherhood — one comes to see clearly that we dwell, con- 
stantly, "each in all and all in each;" that, conse(iuently, 
there can be no full rest and peace for a single soul, short of 
rest and peace for all. So, the genius and power of previous 
culture, that were before absorbed in every lust and scheme 
of self-service, as opposed to common service, come here into 
the broad and o-enial lio-ht of the universal, and devote them- 
selves accordingly mostly to public service. Not, indeed, sac- 
rificing and depleting self by so doing, for this social law is 
so broad and economic that what serves the public best like- 
wise best serves the individual, and vice versa. 

Minus the rule of this principle here, in this nation of its 
own nominal home, and the reign, instead, of every species of 
self-service, the most voracious and inhuman strife were inev- 
itable. As a consequence, social aggressions, repulsions, and 
explosions are rife on every hand. Volumes would not sufiice 
to enumerate the various convulsions thereupon experienced. 
Little can be done here more than to cite in general terms,, 
and point out the relation of, commanding laws ; that thereby 
specific explications and remedial applications maybe prompted.. 



60 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Under a science of ai'cliial order, dictated by social law — 
man being constantly magisterial and objective, with institu- 
tions ministerial and subjective — the progress of the race, 
under whatever prevailing mould or governmental form, would 
be nuide with a steady, peaceful flow, ever true to the growth 
of man in human Avorth and power. Institutions would truly 
conform to such gradual human exaltation ; orderly declension 
of arljitrary methods, and the substitution of social springs 
and levers, would occur, and thus the unfolding volume of 
spontaneous life find its due ministries. 

If rulers everywhere were to become duly informed, and 
thence rule according to these dictates of social law-rule 
socially and humanly, rather than selfishly and inhumanly, 
everv form of authority would become at once ijlorified with 
divine radiance ; for, all authority being based in social knowl- 
edge, and proceeding with social aims, beholding in every 
person an heir of glory, destined lord of lords and king of 
kinr/s, would regard with tenderest deference the nuAvashed 
babes and sucklings of our present mendicant conditions. 
Every appliance of genius and method of wisdom would 1)6 
brought into use to cleanse, cultivate, liberate, and exalt 
human kind universally. The present scarred and deformed 
samples of humanity, ranking, socially, from embryonic to 
more advanced stature, would l)e carefully cherished, nursed, 
trained, and in every way fitted to join the great march and 
keep orderly step of themselves. 

So we constantly see ; social science will not, for the pres- 
ent, ai)ply itself to the organization and operation of ripest 
human character and conditions. It must first be employed 
to eflJbct true social culture, in tlu^ light of such final order. 
At present it has to deal with very crude and base raw mate- 
rial. But the point of supremest moment is to keep the light 
•of man's social destiny steadily in view as the only lutnen 
by which to handle and fasliion this unwrought and badly- 
wrought mat(!rial. Then, formation and re-formation may go 
on together in perf(>ct order. 

The dullness of those invested with the responsibilities of 
authority has suff'ered the accumulation of a fearful amount 



The Nation and the Commune. 61 

of most perverse human power, which must be taken in hand 
and brought into lines of discipline and tutelage that lead up- 
ward towards the desired end. Multitudes hav^e been so born, 
reared in, and saturated with, all forms of diabolisu), that 
well-disposed people look doubtfully, if not with dismay, 
upon the work of reform ; especially upon propositions for 
actual cure. Nor is such distrust surprising ; for the accumu- 
lating composite forces of this social era are so poorly under- 
stood, and even so little known to exist, in their true nature 
and activity, the conditions presented cannot be otherwise 
than disheartening. But those duly conversant with the laws 
of movements, and consequently with the forces at pla}^ and 
the means at hand adapted to the rule of those forces, see 
nothing but the power and glory of the coming of the Son of 
Man on the surrounding clouds — so deep and somber to most 
observers. 

In vieAv of the late communal emeutes, one of the startled 
millionaires of the country, it is said, called for a dictatorship 
to rule the nation, and pronounced for General Grant as 
dictator. That wily intellect is doubtless good for the work 
it has in hand, ^y bulling the stock markets, and variously 
operating tinancial checks and springs, it may continue to 
hoard and monopolize any amount of the wealth produced by 
others ; but, when it thus looks to a scheme of converting this 
government into an instrument to bull the masses into supple 
allegiance to the few great monopolists of the land, it exhib- 
its a stupidity concerning government problems that would 
send the puniest school-boy in political science to the foot of 
his class. 

Monarchy is possible here, but it cannot be pre-arranged 
and doctored after the manner of the tinancial operations of 
the monopolists. The nation must tirst go down in communal 
anarchv ; thence oovernmental authority would surelv arise, 
t and that resurrection woukl exhibit monarchy as a new^ start 
in archial growth. Let the monopolists understand the part 
they are playing in this role, for the anarchy of senile com- 
munism — the communism of this era — is as difierent from that 
of primitive anarchy as the terrible rage of the ocean in the 



62 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJ/T/. 

most violent storm is different from its undisturljcd surface. 
Under the rule of social law they are surely so disordering the 
elements as to produce storm conditions in our social experi- 
ence. 

Only a few decades ago the old United States Bank, oper- 
ating under a capital of $20,000,000, was found to be a 
dangerous money power, because, by methodic inflation and 
contraction, made to reach the circulatinir medium of the 
whole country, it could unsettle the industrial and commercial 
operations of the nation, in behalf of some special scheme, 
and thus spread distress and ruin amongst the whole people. 
As a financial center, that bank was the merest pigmy com- 
pared with numerous aggregations of capital to-day. There 
are many millionaires in the country whose possessions reach 
or come near that sum, and a few whose wealth largely exceeds 
it. It is said that some of our Westerners, owners of bank 
and mining stocks, command an annual income of about 
$20,000,000. The Rothschilds, with a capital of some $200,- 
000,000, and an income of about $10,000,000, must soon fall 
behind some of our own money kings, in power, and yet it is 
thought they can control most of the crowned heads of Euro})e. 
Besides these immense gatherings of wealth and poAver in the 
hands of individual capitalists, the vast sums centralized in 
large railroad and other corporations exhibit fearful powers, 
Avhich, under the present competition of labor and capital, 
tend steadily to debase labor and aggrandize capital. And 
there is a constant tendency to organize and consolidate the 
powers of wealth, while labor combinations are easily played 
off by capital, and workmen become forced to sue for humili- 
ating terms. So, between two stones operated by capital — 
one grinding down labor and the other, b}' making " corners," 
grinding up prices — the laborer has a })oor outlook for relief 
without the introduction of a radical change in the s^'stem. 

Wealth cannot thus centralize and operate in the hands of 
a small numeric minority without directly distressing and 
impoverishing a large numeric majority. But it can, and does, 
make this minority of numbers a mighty majority of power in 
the shaping of public conduct ; so that it is well known to be 



The JSTation and the Commune. 63 

nlmost impossible to carry important legislation in the direct 
interest of the masses against the direct greed of the monopo- 
lists. For these financial l)uUies have got the clew to bulling 
legislation, and the lobby has thus come to be the commanding 
power over the people's tribunals in this country — in this 
government of, by, and for the people ! 

It is often argued that the masses are served by the business 
and enterprise of the country, operated by this wealth, and 
ought to take their wages, economize their means, and keep 
quiet; and even be thankful. Served, indeed, as the dogs are 
served with the crumbs that fall inadvertently from the 
master's table ! They can take the scant pickings and glean- 
ings which wealth is compelled to scatter in its gathering 
operations, and only these. 

In the great aggregate — the game of monoply as a whole — 
-every one knows that wealth settles more and more in few 
hands, and want more and more presses the many. This is 
a truth that cannot be gainsaid, and one of immense signifi- 
cance. 

But how is it all to be remedied? Capital commands the 
situation ; legislation in behalf of the masses, that will curb 
affcrressive monoi)olv and orj^anize those masses in industries, 
and assure them in the just proceeds of their toils, cannot be 
effected, for the monopolists command legislation in behalf 
of their own aims. All appeals in behalf of justice and right 
are of no avail, because moral law has ceased to be a force 
against the aggressive greed of the monopolists no less than 
against the criminal arts of the human under-currents that 
surge to despoil them. So, what can be the remedial resort? 
We must heed the voice of social law, and institute the 
methods of comonon justice — healthy activities and provi- 
dence for all, neglect and spoliation to none. We must 
impress the monopolists in l)ehalf of these social aims ; not by 
appeals on moral grounds — for now is the reign of the social 
-era in human aftairs — but In^ appeals on economic grounds; 
grounds of general production, conservation, and distribution 
of wealth on principles of exact justice, more important to the 
upper strata than to the contemned under-currents fast gather- 



64 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

iiig to carry theni down unless the gathering be rightly 
averted. 

Aggressive wealth is fast educating aggressive want. The 
commune is a normal outgrowth of the galling o^jcrations of 
centralized and centralizino; wealth. Seizino; and exclusive 
hoarding by the arts of avarice, speculation, and traffic stimu- 
late seizing and appropriating by the arts of theft and every 
species of free-booting and piracy. 

Nothing: can save us from the distressing dead-level of com- 
munal dissipation Ijut the speedy initiation of societary meth- 
ods inherent to the national logic. The inhuman greed of 
monopoly that more and more seeks to aggrandize the few at 
the expense of the many must give place to the gracious calls 
of society in behalf of our common human nature. 

If the monopolists will duly consider the pressing needs, 
and take a strong hand in organizing ways and means for all, 
then peace and order will at once begin their benign course. 
If they continue to violate their social opportunities, and still 
grasp and appropriate as heretofore, then let them look for 
grasping and appropriating hy the pinched and starving legions 
in return. Seizing by the few, by virtue of superior craftiness 
or intelligence, is deemed civil practice, and thought to be 
essential to healthy business enterprise and worthj^ attain- 
ments. Seizing by the many, by virtue of mere physical 
force, is criminal aggression and uncivil communism, to remedy 
Avliich bullets and baj'onets are mistakenly' deemed our best 
a])pliances. 

But, although we have barely laid out the grounds for the 
new social structure that, amid all the shakings, can never 
more be moved ; have touched lightly the rickety old, and 
faintly indicated the structural processes of the sublime new, 
we must draw to a close our present treatise. 

Let us now partly retrace our steps, and, with an added 
thought or two, conclude our essay. 

The conception of our national system embraces the princi- 
ple of perfect society — fraternity. The nation can only 
exemplify that principle by first ordering and steadily uufold- 
in<r all the forces of individual character and institutional 



TJie N^ation and the Commune. 65 

investiture, with a clear design to realize such society. The 
nature of the system was perfect from the beoinning. All the 
materials were j90^e7if/«7/'y right. Yet those materials — both 
us to quality of citizenship and institutional forms — Avere far 
too crude, sross, and immature to be convertible to such 
designs throuo;h immediate oroanization and use. So, while 
for a long time it were impossible to operate the nation in 
such complete conformity to the conception as to actualize 
perfect society — brotherhood — it was at once obligated to 
devise and operate systems of public education and training 
perfectly true to the conception ; thus assuring, in the end, 
the actual national embodiment of that conception in perfect 
society. 

Such systems of national culture would be so compulsory 
as to carry every personal factor into line of development and 
use, whatever were the state and personal tendencies of such 
factor. Government, being really an expression of the com- 
manding: intelliii'ence, was obliuated to be so wise and authori- 
tative — so truly government — that no citizen could proceed, 
self-directed, contrary to a puldic direction, towards full social 
harmony and order. 

There being all forms and states of culture in citizenship, 
from lowest up towards the highest (none being, for the time, 
actually in highest conditions), all forms and conditions of 
institutional investiture were indispensable accordingly. But, 
man l^eing constantly the magisterial or regal force involved, 
and institutions the ministerial or servile force, all authority 
must be true to this principle, and, therefore, never in the 
slightest degree tend to despoil the individual. There is no 
other ground of laiv nor rule for freedom under our system. 
Unless the nation can devise methods and direct conduct 
accordantly therewith, it cannot truly build the system it has 
taken in hand, nor hope to realize the sublime end, finally, 
that awaits legitimate national fruitage. 

It is clear, according to the thought advanced, that little of 
true national develophient has really transpired in the nation's 
experience. And this thought is held to be irrefutalde. Dis- 
tinctive national development consists in the unfolding of 
XII— 5 



66 TJie Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy . 

manly worth and power in all citizens, and corresponding pro- 
jection of institutions, both gradually tending npward towards 
the inspiring standard contemplated. Institutions, being the 
instruments or moulds of this advance in human power, must 
fully keep pace therewith. So, it were the true mission of 
conservatism, as a force in our system, not to conserve or 
hold mere forms or instruments perpetual!}^, but to surely 
conserve the commanding principle that ever underlies all 
forms, and thus rightly fashion and hold forms in their true 
order of use ; introducing new when required, dismissing old 
when no longer useful. 

It were also the true mission of radicalism not to war upon 
forms because the}^ seemed inadequate to ultimate ends, but 
to keep true to root principles, see that consistent institutions 
were gradually unfolded and applied as ministries to progress, 
so that immediate, partial ends would be sure to serve ulti- 
mate, perfect ends. 

Thus true science practically reconciles these hitherto con- 
flicting forces, and unites them in vital human endeavors ; 
conservatism beins: the guard and defense, and radicalism 
being the stimulating and provident ministry, of the nation's 
life. But both radical and conservative mostly failed to com- 
prehend the situation. Both practically mistook national 
ilevelopment to consist in the increase of population, with all 
material powers and resources, such as are common to all 
nations, and do not distinguish one from another. But the 
political genius of a nation makes its true form ; and the 
nation is developed and fixed in that form when the logic of its 
political system has been fully embodied in institutions and 
converted in use, and not till then. So, national development, 
in our American system, consists ^in processes of human cul- 
ture and institutional forms that will carry the nation steadily 
throuiih that degree of growth rei^resented in the diagram as 
the last — Tri-dual — term of Development, and flx it in those 
logical issues of glory and power represented in the diagram 
as the ultinnite form of the whole Archial Series — III. 

Men of apparent intelligence — capable, at least, of express- 
ing their ideas with tolcra])le force — have lately advanced the 



TJie Science of Education. 67 

notion that our national system is a failure, and must give 
place to monarchial rule. A most stupid thought ! The 
national system was never tried, in a way to determine its 
value, by this or any other nation. It was never more than 
a mere iuchoation of the true nation. It may, perhaps, be 
regarded as having had 1)irth, though it were a question 
whether mere foetal insemination were not the truer symbol 
of its life. Hence it may yet fail to get practical development 
and oro-anic activitv in its own order — its own normal fullness 
and power. In that case it would exhiljit an incapacity on the 
part of its doctors, wet-nurses, and later tutors and wardens, 
but surely no fault as to the system itself. How can it be 
maintained that a distinct system of nationality has proved a 
failure Avhen it was never matured, nor even approximately 
developed in its own proper form ? As well look for true 
manhood in malformed infancy, and denounce all manliness as 
failure because it did not the reappear. Yet such is the shal- 
low habit of criticism we daily meet. 

Our national system has not proved a failure, nor do we 
believe it will do so. It never can prove itself a failure until 
it has been put on trial in its own true form. It can never 
thus be put upon trial until it shall have been thoroughly 
developed and organized upon that supreme principle of social 
law fundamental to its theory as a government of the people, 
by the people, for the people, without exception. The Lord 
grant that it may thus come to trial. 



THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 

» 



,>C Ui 



A PARAPHRASE OF DR. KARL ROSENKRANZ'S "PEDAGOGICS AS A SYSTEM." 

BY ANNA C. BRACKETT. 

[The translation of "Pedagogics as a System" was prepared and published five 
years ago. The wide demand for it that has made itself known since that time, 
especially in normal schools, has proved the value of such works in the domain of 
•education. At the same time, the difficulty the students have always found in its 
use — a difficulty inseparable from any translation of a German metaphysical 



68 The Journal of Speculative Philosoj^ihy . 

treatise — has led us to the conviction that a paraphrase into a more easily understood 
form is a necessity, if the thought of liosenkranz is to be appropriated by the very 
class who are most in need of it. As was remarked in the preface to the transla- 
tion, we have in English no other work of similar size which contains so much that 
is valuable to those engaged in the work of education. It is no compendium of 
rules or formulas, but rather a sj'stematic, logical treatment of the subject, in which 
the attention is, as it were, concentrated upon the whole problem of education, 
while that problem is allowed to work itself out before us. To paraphrase the- 
text — or, rather, to translate it from the metaphysical language in which it at 
present appears into a language more easy of comprehension — without losing the 
real significance of the statements, is the task which is here undertaken. Free 
illustrations and suggestions have been interwoven to give point and application- 
to the thoughts and principles stated. This translation, or paraphrase, follows the 
paragraphs of the original and of the first translation. The analysis of the whole 
work, as it appeared in the original translation, is appended at the end of the- 
''Introduction," as a guide to the student. — Tr.] 

INTRODUCTION. 

§ 1. The science of Pedagogics may be called a second- 
ary science, inasmuch as it derives its principles from others. 
In this respect it differs from Mathematics, which is independ- 
ent. As it concerns the development of the human intelli- 
sence, it must wait upon Psvcholoov for an understandino; of 
that upon which it is to operate, and, as its means are to be 
sciences and arts, it must wait uj)on them for a knowledge of 
its materials. The science of Medicine, in like manner, ia 
dependent on the sciences of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, 
etc. Moreover, as Medicine may have to deal with a healthy 
or unhealthy body, and may have it for its province to j^re- 
serve or restore health, to assist a natural process (as in the 
case of a broken bone), or to destroy an unnatural one (as in 
the case of the removal of a tumor), the same variety of work 
is imposed upon Education.^ 

§ 2. Since the rules of Pedagogics must be extremely 
flexible, so that they may be adapted to the great variety of 
minds, and since an infinite variety of circumstances may arise 
in their application, Ave find, as we should expect, in all edu- 
cational literature room for widely differing opinions and the 
wildest theories ; these numerous theories, each of which 

1 The parallelism between these two sciences, Medicine and Education, is au 
obvious point, which every student will do well to consider. 



Tlie Science of Education. 69 

may have a strong influence for a season, only to be over- 
thrown and rephiced by others.^ It must be acknowledged 
that educational literature, as such, is not of a high order. 
It has its cant like religious literature. Many of its faults, 
however, are the result of honest effort, on the part of teach- 
ers, to remedy existing defects, and the authors are, therefore, 
not harshly to l)e blamed. It is also to be remembered that 
the habit of giving reproof and advice is one fastened in them 
by the daily necessity of their professional work.^ 

§ 3. As the position of the teacher has ceased to be 
undervalued, there has been an additional impetus given to 
self-glorification on his part,^nd this also — in connection with 
the fact that schools are no longer isolated as of old, Ijut sub- 
ject to constant comparison and competition — leads to much 
careless theorizing among its teachers, especially in the literary 
field. 

§ 4. Pedagogics, because it deals with the human spirit, 
belongs, in a general classification of the sciences, to the 
philosophy of spirit, and in the philosophy of spirit it must be 
classified under the practical, and not the merely theoretical, 
division. For its problem is not merely to comprehend the 
nature of that with which it has to deal, the human spirit — 
its problem is not merely to influence one mind (that of the 
pupil) by another (that of the teacher) — but to influence it 
in such a way as to produce the mental freedom of the pupil. 
The problem is, therefore, not so much to obtain performed 
works as to excite mental activity. A creative process is 
required. The pupil is to 1)e forced to go in certain beaten 
tracks, and yet he is to be so forced to go in these that he shall 
go of his own free will. All teachino^ which does not leave 
the mind of the pupil free is unworthy of the name. It is 
true that the teacher must understand the nature of mind, as 



'^ This will again remind the student of the theories of treatment in medicine 
in diseases which, in the seventeenth centurj', were treated only by bleeding and 
emetics, are now treated by nourishing food, and no medicines, etc. 

â– '* The teacher will do well to consider the probable result of the constant asso- 
ciation with mental inferiors entailed by his work, and also to consider what 
counter-irritant is to be applied to balance, in his character, this unavoidable 
â– tendency. 



70 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy. 

he is to deal with mind, ])ut when he has done this he has still 
his main principle of action unsolved ; for the question is, 
knowing the nature of the mind, How shall he incite it to 
action, already predetermined in his own mind, without- 
depriving the mind of the pupil of its own free action? How 
shall he restrain and guide, and yet not enslave? 

If, in classifying all sciences, as suggested at the beginning 
of this section, we should subdivide the practical division of the 
Philosophy of Spirit, which might be called Ethics, one could 
find a place for Pedagogics under some one of the grades of 
Ethics. The education which the child receives through the 
influence of family life lies at tli« basis of all other teaching, 
and what the child learns of life, its duties, and possibilities, 
in its own home, forms the foundation for all after-work. On 
the life of the family, then, as a presupposition, all systems of 
Education must be built. In other words, the school must 
not attempt to initiate the child into the knowledge of the 
world — it must not assume the care of its first training; that 
it must leave to the family.* But the science of Pedagogics 
does not, as a science, properl}^ concern itself with the family 
education, or Avith that point of the child's life which is domi- 
nated by the family influence. That is education, in a certain 
sense, without doubt, but it does not properly belong to a 
science of Pedao-oirics. But, on the other hand, it must be 
remem])ered that this science, as here expounded, presupposes 
a previous family life in the human being with whom it has to- 
deal. 

§ 5. Education as a science will present the necessary 
and universal principles on which it is based ; Education as 
an art will consist in the practical realization of these in the 
teacher's work in special places, under special circumstances, 
and with special pupils. In the skillful application of the 
principles of the science to the actual dcnumds of the art lies 
the opportunity for the educator to prove himself a creative 
artist ; and it is in the difticulty involved in this practical 



* The age at which the child should be subject to the training of school life, or- 
Education, properly so-called, must vary with different races, nations, and differ- 
ent children. 



The Science of Education. 71 

work that the interest and charm of the educator's work 
consists. 

The teacher must thus adapt himself to the pupil. But, in 
doing so, he must have a care that he do not carry this adapta- 
tion to such a degree as to imply that the pupil is not to 
change ; and he must see to it, also, that the pupil shall always 
be worked upon by the matter which he is considering, and 
not too much by the personal influence of the teacher through 
whom he receives it.^ 

§ 6. The utmost care is necessary lest experiments which 
have proved successful in certain cases should be generalized 
into rules, and a formal, dead creed, so to speak, should be 
adopted. All professional experiences are valuable as mate- 
rial on which to base new conclusions and to make new plans, 
but only for that use. Unless the day's work is, every day, ji 
new creation, a fatal error has been made. 

§ 7. Pedagogics as a science must consider Education — 

( 1 ) In its general idea ; 

( 2 ) In its diflereut phases ; 

(3) In the special systems arising from this general idea, 
acting under special circumstances at special times. ^ 

§ 8. With regard to the First Part, we remark that by Edu- 
cation, in its general idea, we do not mean any mere history of 
Pedagogics, nor can any history of Pedagogics be substituted 
for a systematic exposition of the underlying idea. 

§ 9. The second division considers Education under three 
heads — as physical, intellectual, and moral — and forms, gen- 
erally, the principal part of all pedagogical treatises. 

In this part lies the greatest difficulty as to exact limita- 
tion. The ideas on these divisions are often undeflned and 
apt to be confounded, and the detail of which they are capa- 
ble is almost unlimited, for we might, under this head, speak 



^ The best educator is he who makes his pupils independent of himself. This 
implies on the teacher's part an ability to lose himself in his work, and a desire 
for the real growth of the pupil, independent of any personal fame of his own — 
a disinterestedness which places education on a level with the noblest occupations 
of man. 

* See analysis. 



<z 



The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 



of all kinds of special schools, such as those for Avar, art, 
mininof, etc. 

§ 10. In the Third Part we consider the different realizations 
of the one general idea of Pedagogics as it has developed itself 
inider different circumstances and in different ages of the world. 

The general idea is forced into difierent phases by the 
A"arvin«r phvsical, intellectual, and moral conditions of men. 
The result is the different systems, as shown in the analysis. 
The general idea is one. The view of the end to be obtained 
determines in each case the actualization of this idea. Hence 
the different systems of Education are each determined by the 
stand-point from which the general ideal is viewed. Proceed- 
ing in this manner, it might be possible to construct a history 
of Pedagogics, a priori .^ without reference to actual history, 
since all the possi])le systems might be inferred from the 
possible definite number of points of view. 

Each lower stand-point will lead to a higher, but it will not 
be lost in it. Thus, where Education, for the sake of the 
nation," merges into the Education based on Christianity, the 
form is not thereby destroyed, but, rather, in the transition 
first attains its full realization. The systems of Education 
which were based on the idea of the nation had, in the full- 
ness of time, outa'rown their own limits, and needed a new 
form in order to contain their own true idea. The idea of the 
nation, as the highest principk', gives way for that of Chris- 
tianity. A new life came to the old idea in what at first 
seemed to be its destruction. The idea of the nation was 
born asfain, and not destroyed, in Christianity. 

§ 11. The final system, so far, is that of the present time, 
Avhich thus is itself the fruit of all the past systems, as well as 
the seed of all systems that are to l)e. The science of Pedagog- 
ics, in the consideration of the system of the present, thus again 
finds embodied the general idea of education, and thus returns 
upon itself to the point from whence it set out. In the First 
and Second Parts there is already given the idea Avhch domi- 
nates the system found thus necessarily existing in the present. 



â– ^ Asiatic systems of Education have this basis (see \ 178 of the original). 



The Science of Education. 



73 



FiKST Part, f Its Xntiire. 
In its General < Its Form. 
Idea. I Its Limits. 



Education. â–  



Second Part, f Physic 

In its .Special < Intellectual. 



Elements. 



5ical. 
â– , iiin^lle 
i Moral. 



Third Paijt. 
In its Particii- { 
lar Systems. 



National. 



Passive. 



Active. 



Individual. 



r Family . . China. 
I Caste." . . India. 
[Monkish . Thibet. 

fMilitar}'. . Persia. 
I Priestly. . Egypt. 
[ Industrial . Phoenicia. 

C^Esthetic . Greece. 
J Practical . Rome. 
1 Abstract j Noi'thern 
(.Individual. ( Barbarians 



Theocratic Jews. 

' Monkish. 



Humanita- 
rian. 



Chivalric. 



Tor Special ( .Jesuitic. 
Callings. / Pietistic. 



For Civil Life. { 



To achieve 
an Ideal ot{ 
Culture. 



The Hu- 
manities. 

The Phil- 
anthropic 
Movement. 



.For Free Citizenship. 



FIRST PART. 

The General Idea of Education. 

§ 12. A full treatment of Pedagogies must distinguish- 
( 1 ) The nature of Education ; 

(2) The form of Education ; 

(3) The limits of Education. 



/. — Tlte Nature of Education. 

§ 13. The nature of Education is determined 1)V the nature of 
mind, the distiniruishino: mark of which is that it can be devel- 
oped only from -within, and by its own activity. Mind is es- 
sentially free — i. e., it has the capacity for freedom — but it 
cannot be said to possess freedom till it has obtained it by its 



74 Tlie Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy . 

own voluntary effort. Till then it cannot be truly said to be 
free. Education consists in enabling a human being to take 
possession of, and to develop himself by, his own efforts, and 
the work of the educator cannot be said to be done in any 
sense where this is not accomplished. In general, we may 
say that the work of education consists in leading to a full 
development of all the inherent powers of the mind, and that 
its work is done when, in this way, the mind has attained 
perfect freedom, or the state in Avhich alone it can be said to 
be truly itself.^ 

The isolated human being can never become truly man. If 
such human beings (like the wild girl of the forest of Arden- 
nes) have been found, they have only proved to us that recip- 
rocal action with our fellow beings is necessary for the devel- 
opment of our poAvers. Caspar Hauser, in his subterranean 
prison, will serve as an example of Avhat man would be \vithout 
men. One might say that this fact is typified by the first cry 
of the newly-born child. It is as if the first expression of its 
seemingly independent life were a cry for help from others. 
On the side of nature the human being is at first quite helpless.. 

§ 14. Man is, therefore, the only proper object of education^ 
It is true that we speak of the education of plants and of animals, 
but we instinctively apply other terms when we do so, for w^e 
say "raising" plants, and " training " animals. When we 
*' train " or " l)rcak " an animal, it is true that we do, by pain 
or pleasure, lead him into an exercise of a new activity. But 
the difference between this and Education consists in the fact 
that, though he possessed capacity, yet by no amount of asso- 
ciation Avith his kind would he ever have acquired this new 
development. It is as if we impress upon his })lastic nature 
the imprint of our loftier nature, which imprint he takes 
mechanically, and does not himself recognize it as his own 
internal nature. We train him for our recognition, not for hi& 
own. But, on the contrary, when we educate a human being, 
we only excite him to create for himself, and out of himself. 



'' The Sefinition of freedom here implied is this: Mind is free when it knows 
itself and wills its own laws. 



The Science of Education. 75^ 

that for which he would most earnestly strive had he any 
appreciation of it beforehand, and in proportion as he does 
appreciate it he recognizes it joyfully as a part of himself, as^ 
his own inheritance, which he appropriates with a knowledge 
that it is his, or, rather, is a part of his own nature. He 
who speaks of " raising " human beings uses language which 
belongs only to the slave-dealer, to whom human beings are 
only cattle for labor, and Avhose property increases in value 
\^^th the number. 

Are there no school-rooms Avhere Education has ceased to 
have any meaning, and Avhere ph3'sical pain is made to produce 
its only possible result — a mechanical, external repetition ? The 
school-rooms where the creative word — the only thing which 
can influence the mind — has ceased to ])e used as the means 
are only plantations, where human beings are degraded to the 
position of lower animals. 

§ If). When we speak of the Education of the human 
race, we mean the gradual growth of tlie nations of the earthy 
as a whole, towards the realization of self-conscious freedom. 
Divine Providence is the teacher here. The means by which 
the development is effected are the various circumstances and 
actions of the different races of men, and the pupils are the 
nations. The unfolding of this great Education is generally 
treated of under the head of Philosophy of History. 

§ 16. Education, however, in a more restricted sense,. 
has to do with the shaping of the individual. Each one of us 
is to be educated by the laws of physical nature — by the rela- 
tions into which we come with the national life, in its laws^ 
customs, etc., and by the circumstances which daily surround 
us. By the force of these Ave find our arbitrary will hemmed 
in, modified, and forced to take new channels and forms. We 
are too often immindful of the power with which these forces 
are daily and hourly educating us — i. e., calling out our possi- 
bilities into real existence. If we set up our will in opposition 
to either of these ; if we act in opposition to the laws of nature ; 
if we seriously offend the laws, or even the customs, of 
the people among whom we live ; or if we despise our 
individual lot, we do so only to find ourselves crushed in 



76 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the encounter. We only learn the impotence of the indi- 
vidual aijainst these mighty powers ; and that discovery is, 
of itself, a part of our education. It is sometimes only by 
such severe means that God is revealed to the man who per- 
sistently misunderstands and defies His creation. All suffering 
])rouirht on ourselves bv our own violation of laws, Avhether 
mitural, ethical, or divine, must be, however, thus recognized 
-as the richest blessing. We do not mean to say that it is 
never allowable for a man, in obedience to the highest laws of 
his spiritual being, to break away from the fetters of nature — 
to offend the ethical sense of his own people, or to struggle 
ngainst the might of destiny. Reformers and martyrs 
w^ould be examples of such, and our remarks above do not 
tipply to them, but to the perverse, the frivolous, and the con- 
ceited ; to those Avho are seeking in their action, not the un- 
doubted will of God, but their own individual will or caprice. 

§ 17. But we generally use the word Education in a still 
narrower sense than either of these, for we mean by it the 
%vorking of one individual mind upon or within another in 
some definite and premeditated way, so as to fit the pupil for 
life generally, or for some special pursuit. For this end the 
educator must be relatively finished in his own education, and 
the pupil must possess confidence in him, or docility. He 
must be teachable. That the w^ork be successful, demands the 
very highest degree of talent, knowledge, skill, and pru- 
dence ; and any development is impossible if a well-founded 
tiuthority be wanting in the educator, or docility on the part 
of the pupil. 

Education, in this narrowest and technical sense, is an out- 
growth of city or url)an life. ' As long as men do not congre- 
gate in large cities, the three forces spoken of in § 16 — 
i. 6., the forces of nature, national customs, and circum- 
stances — will l)e left to perform most of the work of Educa- 
tion ; but, in modern city life, the great complication of 
events, the uncertainty in the results — though careful fore- 
thought has been used — the immense development of indi- 
viduality, and the pressing need of various information, break 
the power of custom, and render a dirterent method necessary. 



The Science of Education. 77 

The larger the city is, the more free is the individual in it 
from the restraints of customs, the less subjected to curiou* 
criticism, and the more able is he to give play to his own 
idiosyncrasies. This, however, is a freedom which needs the 
counterpoise of a more exact training in conventionalities, if 
we would not have it dangerous. Hence the rapid multipli- 
cation of educational institutions and systems in modern times 
(one chief characteristic of which is the development of ur 
ban life). The ideal Telemachus of Fenelon differs very 
much from the real Telemachus of history. Fenelon proposed 
an education which trained a youth to reflect, and to guide him- 
self by reason. The Telemachus of the heroic age followed 
the customs ("use and wont") of his times with naive obe- 
dience. The systems of Education once sufiicient do not 
serve the needs of modern life, any more than the defenses, 
once sufficient against hostile armies are sufiicient against the 
new weapons adopted by modern warfare. 

§ 18. The problem with which modern Education has to 
deal may be said, in general terms, to be the development in 
the individual soul of the indwelling Reason, both practical 
(as will) and theoretical (as intellect). To make a child 
good is only a part of Education ; w^e have also to 
develop his intelligence. The sciences of Ethics and Educa- 
tion are not the same. Again, we must not forget that no 
pupil is simply a human being, like every other human 
being ; he is also an individual, and thus differs from every 
other one of the race. This is a point which must never 
be lost sight of by the educator. Human beings may be — nay, 
must be — educated in company, but they cannot be educated 
simply in the mass. 

§ 19. Education is to lead the pupil by a graded series 
of exercises, previously arranged and prescribed by the edu- 
cator, to a definite end. But these exercises must take on u 
peculiar form for each particular pupil under the special cir- 
cumstances present. Hasty and inconsiderate work may, by 
chance, accomplish much ; but no work which is not system- 
atic can advance and fashion him in conformity with his 
nature, and such alone is to be called Education ; for Educa- 



78 The Journal of Speculative PMlosopliy . 

tioii implies both a comprehension of the end to be attained 
and of the means necessary to compass that end. 

§ 20. Cultnre, however, means more and more every 
year ; and, as the sum total of knowledge increases for man- 
kind, it becomes necessary, in order to be a master in any one 
line, to devote one's self almost exclusively to that. Hence 
arises, for the teacher, the difficulty of preserving the unity and 
wholeness which are essential to a complete man. The prin- 
ciple of division of labor conies in. He who is a teacher 
by profession becomes one-sided in his views ; and, as teaching 
divides and subdivides into specialities, this abnormal one- 
sideness tends more and more to appear. Here we find a par- 
allelism in the profession of Medicine, with a corresponding 
danger of narrowness ; for that, too, is in a process of con- 
stant specialization, and the physician who treats nervous dis- 
eases is likely to be of the opinion that all trou])le arises from 
that part of the organism, or, at least, that all remedies should 
be applied there. This tendency to one-sideness is inseparable 
from the progress of civiTization and that of science and arts. 
It contains, nevertheless, a danger of which no teacher should 
be unwarned. An illustration is furnished by the microscope 
or telescope ; a higher power of the instrument implies a nar- 
rower field of view. To concentrate our observ^ation upon one 
point implies the shutting out of others. This difficult}^ with 
the teacher creates one for the pupil. 

In this view one might be inclined to judge that the life of 
the savage as compared with that of civilized man, or that of a 
member of a rural community as compared with that of an 
inhabitant of a city, were the more to be desired. The savage 
has his hut, his family, his cocoa-palm, his weapons, his pas- 
sions ; he fishes, hunts, amuses himself, adorns himself, and 
enjoys the consciousness that he is the center of a little world ; 
while the denizen of a city must often acknowledge that he is, 
so to speak, only one wheel of a gigantic machine. Is the life 
of the savage, therefore, more favorable to human devclo})- 
ment? The characteristic idea of modern civilization is : The 
development of the individual as the end for which the State 
exists. The great empires of Persia, Egypt, and India, 



The Science of Education. 79 

wherein the individual was of vahie only as he ministered to 
the strength of the State, have given way to the modern 
nations, where individual freedom is pushed so far that the 
State seems only an instrument for the good of the individual. 
From being the supreme end of the individual, the State has 
become the means for his advancement into freedom ; and 
with this very exaltation of the value of the mere individual 
over the State, as such, there is inseparably connected the seem- 
ing destruction of the wholeness of the individual man. But 
the union of State and individual, Avhich was in ancient times 
merely mechanical, has now become a living process, in which 
constant interaction gives rise to all the intellectual life of 
modern civilization. 

§ 21. The work of Education being thus necessarily 
split up, we have the distinction between general and special 
schools. The work of the former is to give general develop- 
ment — what is considered essential for all men ; that of the 
latter, to prepare for special callings. The former should 
furnish a basis for the latter — i. e., the College should precede 
the Medical School, etc., and the High School the Normal. 
In the United States, owing to many causes, this is unfortu- 
nately not the case. 

The difference between city and country life is important 
here. The teacher in a country school, and, still more, the 
private tutor or governess, must be able to teach many 
more things than the teacher in a graded school in the city, or 
the professor in a college or university. The danger on the 
one side is of superficiality, on the other of narrowness. 

§ 22. The Education of any individual can be only rela- 
tively finished. His possibilities are infinite. His actual 
realization of those possibilities must always remain far be- 
hind. The latter can only approximate to the former. It can 
never reach them. The term " finishing an education " needs, 
therefore, some definition ; for, as a technical term, it has un- 
doubtedly a meaning. An immortal soul can never complete 
its develoijment ; for, in so doing, it would give the lie to its 
own nature. We cannot speak proi3erly, however, of educat- 
ing an idiot. Such an unfortunate has no poAver of general!- 



80 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

zation, and no conscious personality. We can train him me- 
chanically, but we cannot educate him. This will help to 
illustrate the difference, spoken of in § 14, between Educa- 
tion and Mechanical training. 

We obtain astonishing results, it is true, in our schools for 
idiots, and yet we cannot fail to perceive that, after all, we 
have only an external result. We produce a mechanical per- 
formance of duties, and yet there seems to be no actual mental 
growth. It is an exogenous, and not an endogenous, growth, 
to use the language of Botany.^ Continual repetition, under 
the most gentle patience, renders the movements easy, but, 
after all, they are only automatic, or what the physicians call 
reflex. 

We have the same result produced in a less degree when we 
attempt to teach an intelligent child something which is be- 
yond his active comprehension. A child may be taught to do 
or say almost anything by patient training, but, if what he is 
to say is beyond the power of his mental comprehension, and 
hence of his active assimilation, we are only training him as 
we train an animal (§ 14), and not educating him. We 
call such recitations parrot recitations, and, by our use of the 
word, express exactly in what position the pupils are placed. 
An idiot is only a case of permanently arrested development. 
What in the intelligent child is a passing phase is for the idiot a 
tixed state. We have idiots of all srades, as we have children 
of all ages. 

The above observations must not be taken to mean that 
children should never be taught to i^erform operations in arith- 
metic which they do not, in cant phrase, " perfectly under- 
stand," or to learn poetry whose whole meaning they cannot 
fathom. Into this error many teachers have fallen. 

There can be no more profitable study for a teacher than to 
visit one of these numerous idiot schools. He finds the alpha- 
bet of his professional work there. As the philologist learns 
of the formation and growth of language by examining, not 



" Perhaps, however slow the growth, there is real progress in liberating the 
imprisoned soul (?) 



Boole's Logical Method. 81 

the perfectly formed languages, but the dialects of savage 
tribes, so with the teacher. In like-manner more insight into 
the philosophy of teaching and of the nature of the mind can 
be acquired by teaching a class of chiklren to read than in 
anv other s^rade of work. 



BOOLE'S LOGICAL METHOD. 

BY GEORGE BRUCE HALSTKAD. 

Perhaps the possession of absolute originality cannot be 
better demonstrated than ])v breakino* throuoh the barriers 
inside which men have hitherto worked, pushing boldly into 
what was supposed to be outer void and darkness, and, without 
hint, without help, opening broad roads and showing fertile 
fields for wholly new, unsuspected sciences. This did George 
Boole in more than one direction. 

The vast Invariantive Alixebra, which is now the foundation 
rock of modern advance in mathematics, was started by him. 
Says Salmon (3d ed., p. 103) : " What I have called Modern 
Algebra may be said to have taken its origin from a paper in 
the Caml)ridi>"e Mathematical Journal for NovemI)er, 1841, 
where Dr. Boole established the principles just stated, and 
made some important applications of them." 

Of the same epoch-making character were his extensive 
contributions to the Calculus of Operations. Again, in 18()2, 
Russell said l)efore the British Association, in regard to the 
CalcuUis of Symbols : "It received a fresh impulse from the 
very remarkable memoir of Prof. Boole (on a ' General 
Method in Analysis.' Phil. Trans., 1841), in which an alge- 
bra of non-commutative sj'nd^ols was invented and applied." 
He found mau}^ willing and able to follow on these roads, and 
to settle in the new lands thus laid open ; Ijut when, in 1847, he 
struck the key-note of a generalization of logic, which exhibits 
it as almost a new science, he seems to have advanced too far 
beyond his time, and so was left to carry it on alone, which he 
XII— G 



82 The Journal of Speculative Pldlomiphy . 

did in his great work, " The Laws of Thought," pul)lishcd in 
1<S54:. That this, at the, present moment, instead of being a 
thing of the jiast, is just l)eginning to attract that attention so 
well deserved hv its extraordinary orioinality and suaoestive- 
iiess, carries a plain inference in regard to the character of the 
mind capable of producing it, unaided, a quarter of a century 
ago. 

What, then, was his generalization, and what the method he 
proposed for the solution of the general problem ? ^ 

The problem may be very compactly stated, but we cannot 
guarantee that the reader will be able at once to appreciate its 
full significance. It is: "Given any assertions, to determine 
precisely what they affirm, precisely Avhat they den}'', and pre- 
cisely Avhat they leave in doubt, separately and jointly." 
Or, as Boole himself puts the " statement of the final problem 
of practical logic. Given a set of premises expressing relations 
among certain elements, whether things or propositions ; 
required explicith^ the whole relation consequent among any 
of those elements, under any proposed conditions and in any 
jiroposed form." 

That this is vastly more general than anj^thing ever attempted 
by the old logic, needs no pointing out. Its startling breadth 
makes it seem, at first, absolutely insoluble. To illustrate this, 
suppose Boole had, as many cursory readers have supposed, 
made logic depend on the solution of ordinary algebraic equa- 
tions. With the world of mathematicians to aid him, he could 
never have solved his problem ; for from its very essence it can 
make no restrictions as to the nund)cr or degrees of e(j[uations, 
and mathematicians have never been able to find a general solu- 
tion for even the equation of the fifth degree, while some of 
their greatest have given demonstrations of the impossibility 
of such solution. 

^ The Revue Philosophiqxe for September 1877, contains an article tliirty-thrco 
pages long on "La Logique Algebrique de Boole," by Louis Liard. It is, for the 
most part, siinpl}' a translation of so much of the orii;-inal. bluiulcrs included, into 
French. Number W of Ml/id, October, 187G, contained an article of twelve pages 
on "Boole's Logical System," by J. Venn. This we enthusiastically recommend 
to our readers. We only wish it had been three times as long, and that the 
author had entered somewhat more into detail. 



Boole's Logical Method. 83 

In going on to state how Boole actually did accomplish his 
purpose, we are met at the outset by a difficulty in the shape 
of a familiar word, which, as used by him, has been by promi- 
nent looicians disastrously misconceived. His critics have 
always used the term "mathematics" as dealing essentially 
with quantitative specification, and have drawn their argu- 
ments from the supposition that Boole was using the term in 
that sense. Even his friends have made their fight on this 
assumed line; which accounts for R. Harley's raying "Logic 
is never identified or confounded with mathematics," and for 
Mr. Venn's saying " The prevalent notion a))out Boole prob- 
al)ly is that he regarded logic as a branch of mathematics. 
This is a very natural mistake." 

Boole himself sa3's, p. 11 : " AVhence is it that the ultimate 
laws of logic are mathematical in their form;" and, p. 12, 
says again of logic : " But it is equally certain that its ultimate 
forms and processes are mathematical." The key to the diffi- 
culty is contained in one short sentence, which should have 
been printed in capitals : " It is not of the essence of mathe- 
matics to be conversant with the ideas of number and 
quantity." 

This simply means that Boole felt strongly the need of some 
word broad enough to cover the range of sciences expressible 
by algeln-as, and thought the facts justified his taking the old 
word " mathematics " for such a signification. 

He says, in regard to it : " The predominant idea has been that 
of magnitude, or, more strictly, of numerical ratio." * * * 
" This conclusion is by no means necessary. We might justly 
assign it as the definitive character of a true calculus ; that it 
is a method resting upon the employment of symbols, whose 
laws of combination are known and o;eneral, and whose results 
admit of a consistent interpretation." In this sense he chooses 
to use the word " mathematical," and in this sense his sym- 
bolic logic is as much a branch of mathematics as the ordinary 
algebra of number. 

His broadened use of the word has been accepted by some 
-as meeting a real want, among whom ^ve may mention Profes- 



84 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

sor Benjamin Pierce, who adds: "Qualitative relations can 
be considered by themselves, without regard to quantity. The 
algebra of such enquiries may be called logical alge])ra, of 
Avhich a fine example is given by Boole." By bearing in 
mind this point we may avoid this pit, which seems to have 
rendered dangerous all approach to the work under considera- 
tion, and into which Stanley Jevons was one of the first to 
fall. 

In any algel)ra the laws of com])ination of symbols are all- 
important. Upon these depend its particular character and 
the validity of its processes. So here, in seeking to discover 
the most natural algebra for logic, though we may convene to 
represent by letters, x, y, a, 6, etc., all orcliuary logical classes, 
we must determine how they combiue formally, by care- 
ful consideration of the intellectual operations implied in the 
best use of lan"uao;e as an instrument of reasonino;. All 
thought postulates : I. The law of Identity : x=.x. II. The 
law of Contradiction : It is impossible for any ])eing to possess a 
quality and at the same time not to possess it. III. The law 
of Excluded Middle: Everything is either cc or not .r. Rea- 
soning on classes postulates also the axiom : IV. Whatever is 
predicated of a class may be predicated of the members of 
that class. Had Boole only referred to these openly, instead 
of making use of them unconsciously, he Avould have saved 
himself a vast amount of trouble and some positive error. 

Convening, then, to represent any class by a letter — as, men 
])y a and good things by b — we see that, when these are com- 
bined in thought or language, one acts as a selective adjective, 
and that, whichever this be, the result is the same ; so that 
ha, or "good men," gives us the same collection of individu- 
als as ah, or "human good lacings." Using the sign = as 
meaning, in the most general way, identit}', co-existence, or 
equality, we say ab=^ha. "We are permitted, therefore, to 
employ the symbols x, y, a, h, etc., in the i)lace of sul)stau- 
tives, adjectives, and descriptive i)hrases, subject to the rule 
of interpretation that any expression in which several of these 
symljols are written together shall represent all the objects- 



Boole's Logical Method. 85 

â– or individuals to which their several meanings arc together 
applicable, and to the law that the order in which the sym- 
bols succeed each other is indifferent." 

Again, to form the aggregate conception of a group of 
objects consisting of partial groups, we use the conjunctions 
"and," "or." Convening that the classes so joined are 
quite distinct, so that no individual is added to himself, Ave 
see that these conjunctions hold precisely the same position 
formally as the sign -\- in the ordinary algebra of number, and, 
therefore, are represented by that sign. As the order of ad- 
dition is indifferent, we have x-\-y^y-\-x ; and, from IV, 
z {x-\-y) ^=zx-\-zy. Again, to separate a part from a whole, 
we express in common language by the sign " except" ( — ), as, 
"All men except Asiatics." This is our minus. As it is 
indifferent whether we express excepted cases first or last, we 
have X — y^ — y+^? and, from IV, z {x — y) =zx — zy. 

So we may at once affirm for our logical algel^ra the validity 
of the three o-eneral axioms : 

1. Equals added to equals give equals. 

2. Equals multiplied by equals give equals. 

3. Equals taken from equals give equals. 

Though each of these may be demonstrated for the algebra 
of logic entirely independently of even the existence of any 
such thing as the algebra of number, yet we see it actually 
turns out that, so far, the two algebras a^re formally identical. 
This may lead the reader to wish that this formal identity had 
held throughout, so that he might have interpreted his quanti- 
tative mathematics directly as so much logic, just as the same 
process may, under one scheme of interpretation, represent 
the solution of a question on the properties of numbers, under 
another, that of a geometrical problem, and under a third, 
that of a problem in dynamics or optics. But let me re^Dcat 
that, if no different operative law had manifested itself, the 
algebra of logic, like that of numl)er, would have been stopped 
short at the equation of the fifth degree, and so its general 
problem could never have been solved. 

Just as the algebra of quaternions differs in one funda- 
mental law from the algebra of number, namely, in its multi- 



86 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 



plication being non-commutative, so that aJ) does not equal 
ba, so our algebra of logic differs in a law equally fundamen- 
tal, and from this difference comes the power that, in it, every 
equation can be solved and every solution interpreted. 

The real nature and unavoidable character of this law in our 
new algebra depend upon the general postulates of thought 
which we have given ; but, unfortunately, Boole, groping in the 
darkness of a dawning subject, introduced the matter upside 
down, and so was led into a curious error. He commences 
thus, p. 31: "As the combination of two literal symbols in 
the form xy expresses the whole of that class of objects to 
Avhich the names or qualities represented by x and y are 
together applicable, it follows that, if the two symbols have ex- 
actly the same signification, their combination ex})resses no 
more than either of the symbols taken alone would do. That 
is, xx=x'^=cc. The law which this expresses is practically ex- 
emplified in language. To say ' good good,' in relation to any 
subject, though a cumlu'ous and useless pleonasm, is the same 
as to say 'good.' Thus, 'good good' men is equivalent 
to 'good' men." Only two symbols of number obey this 
formal law. They are and 1. Their natural interpretation 
in the system of logic is Nothing and Universe, which are the 
two limits of class extension. If from the conception of the 
universe, as consisting of "men" and " not-men," we ex- 
clude or subtract the conception of " men," the resulting 
conception is that of the contrary class, " not-men." 
Hence, if x represent men, the class "not-men " will be rep- 
resented by 1 — X. And, in general, whatever class of objects 
is represented by the syml)ol x, the contrary class will l)o 
exi^ressed by 1 — x, which we may write x. Boole now goes 
on to make the blunder referred to, in gravely stating : " Prop. 
IV. That axiom of metaphysicians which is termed the prin- 
ciple of contradiction, and which affirms that it is impossilde 
for any being to possess a quality and at the same time not to 
possess it, is a consequence of the fundamental law of thought, 
whose expression is .r2=x." As Mr. Venn has remarked, this 
*' surely argues a strange inversion of order." Indeed, the 
inversion is so palpable that we are astonished to find Liard 



Boole's Logical Method. 87 

repeating the error on page 292 of his article, Avhere he says, 
^^MaiiUenant il est aise de voir que Vaxiome appele par les 
logicians j^rincipe cle contradiction, et considere par eux comme 
une loi primitive et irreductible de la pensee, est une consequence 
de cette loi anterieure dont V expression est: x^=x.''' 

Bnt while the law X'^x shonld have been introduced as 
rather the effect than the canse of the pi-inciple of contradic- 
tion, yet I believe I am announcing an important discovery 
when I say that it is this law alone which has, so far, rendered 
division impossible in the algebra of logic, which in turn forced 
Boole to introduce the machinerv and all the features which, 
have been objected to in his calculus. I may add, in passing,, 
that, having traced the difficulty to its source, I believe mj^self 
able to overcome it, and hope to publish my solution at no dis- 
tant da} . 

To return to our author, he says, p. 36 : " Suppose it true 
that those meni1)ers of a class, .t, which possess a certain prop- 
erty, z, are identical with those members of a class, y, which 
possess the same property, z ; it does not follow that the mem- 
bers of the class x universally are identical with the members 
of the class y. Hence it cannot be inferred from the equation 
zx^zy that the equation x=y is also true. In other words, 
the axiom of algebraists, that both sides of an equation may 
be divided by the same quantity, has no formal equivalent 
here." He attempts no explanation of this anomaly, but makes 
it analogous to the case Avhere, in the algebra of number, if, in 
the equation zx=zy, z can be 0, we cannot deduce x=y. 
Now, this is an eminently false analogy, only representing the 
case Avhere z is the limiting class "nought," which, combined 
with any class, gives nought. Here the two algebras are com- 
pletely analogous, l)ut this is not at all the point we are con- 
sidering. The special limitation in logical algebra is no^ 
caused by any one special class, like 0, but ap[)lies to every 
class and to all equations, and has nothing in the slightest 
degree analoo-ous to it in the alo;eljra of number. AMien he 
reverts to this matter again, p. 88, we see more conclusively 
that he has been able to think of no logical cause for it, and 
can only fall back on this false quantitative analogy. He says : 



88 The Journal of Spfculative Pldlomj)liy . 



*'If the fi'iu'tion has common factors in its numerator and 

e — e 
denominator, we are not permitted to reject them, unless they 

are mere numerical constants. For the synil)ols a;, ?/, etc., 
regarded as quantitative, may admit of such values, and 1, as 
to cause the common factors to become equal to 0, in which 
case the algebraic rule of reduction fails. This is the case con- 
templated in our remarks on the failure of the algebraic axiom 
of division," p. 36. Now, if there was no cause for the fail- 
ure of the division axiom except the reduction of some factor 
to nouiiht, there would be no cause for calling attention to the 
matter, and we might proceed to use division precisely as we 
do when treating of number, since a zero has precisely the 
same effect in l)oth aljiebras. 

But, in point of fact, Boole cannot use real division at all. 

If he chooses to write ayz=^xz in the form «=^ , he has not 

divided out any factor, and dare not. Even when he is certain 
z is not nono'ht he cannot divide it out, which demonstrates 
instantly the falsity of his analogy. The real cause is the 
existence of the law, xx-=Qt?=x, in the logical algebra, which 
has no counterpart in that of number. That this is the true 
explanation ai)pears very simply, as follows : If M'e have ww 
equation in which a common factor appears in ))oth members, 
as, e. rj., zy^zx, this law renders it impossible for us to know 
how far the class z coincides with ;«, since it may run from 
absolute difference up to complete identity ; so that, in divid- 
ino: out z, we may always l)e leaving some or all of it behind 
in the remaining factor. For example, if all rational white 
men = all white rational animals, and we divide out " ra- 
tional," we have, all white men = all white animals. Now, the 
fact that this is not true, that a white man is not a white 
horse, though l)()th are white animals, does not depend upon 
anything becoming zero, but upon the fact that on one side 
some of the meaniuir of rational has been unavoida1)ly left 
behind in the term "men," Avhile the division succeeded in 
takino- jt all out of the other member of the c(|uation. If we 
.start Avith the simple truth, "All men are all the rational ani- 
mals," that is, m=ra, we may multiply both sides by r audit 



Boole's Logical Method. 89 

remains just as true ; becoming rm=?'?"«=?--ff=^r(7 .-. rm=ra. 
But, it now we attempt to divide out this r we just put in, it 
•draws with it the original r from one member, while leaving it 
hitent in the other member, and we have ni^a, all men are 
nil the animals. 

This shows us why in Boole's system Ave cannot divide ; and 
when, remembering this restriction, we use the fractional form, 
we get expressions which often bear on their face no meaning 
-or interpretation. These Boole transforms, hy what he calls 
development, into forms always strictly interpretable. The 
fact of his conducting his reasoning thus, through mediate 
uninterpretable steps, has been the most serious objection to 
his system, yet he saw no other way to attain a perfectly gen- 
eral solution. 

This development theorem, given on p. 73, Prop. II, " To 
expand or develop a function involving any number of logical 
symbols," contains, and has been made, the basis of Stanley 
Jevons' whole logical system. Utterly misconceiving his 
master's attempt to give a genuine algel)ra of logic, which 
should make it a progressive science like quantitative mathe- 
matics, Mr. Jevons has been entirely content with the general 
method of indirect inference by trials, which is given imme- 
diately by this one theorem of development. We cannot enter 
here into a discussion of the principles involved in this process 
of generalized dichotomy. Merely as a hint at its application, 
we treat the simple proposition we have been using, m=ra. 
To get at Avhat this can tell us about animals we express a as 

a function of m and r: a= Developing, we have a= — z= 

r r 

f_{m.r)=f (1,1) m.r^f (1,0) m.r-^f (0,1) mr+f (0,0) 
7)17'. From this, Avithout trials, Boole proves that all animals 
consist of all men and some irrational things not men. But, 
if he Avould have consented to use trials in referrina; to the 
premises in every particular instance, he Avould not have 
needed the co-efficients of his expansion. Thus, since all men 
are rational, the second term, m.r, strikes out; and, since men 
are all the rational animals, the third term, in.r, strikes out, 
and we are left for animals only mr and mr, as before. This 



90 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

satisfies Jevons. This he has adopted, and, as one instantly 
sees, it may be carried on without saying anj^thing about ex- 
pansion, and without putting the development in the form of 
an equation. For convenience, we ma}^ always use the same 
letters, takino- as many as we need in reo;ular alphabetical 
order, and denoting positive terms by capitals, and their nega- 
tives by small letters. In our example, let A= animal, B = 
man, C= rational, and, instead of developing only with refer- 
ence to two terms, expand with reference to the three, and 
our constituents are eight in number, as follows : 

1, ABC. 

■^5 • • • • • • * -ii JIj C • 

O y , 9 • • • • • • -/d.0 W • 

4, ....... Abe. 

, . , . . . , . .a ij O . 

6, . . . . . . . a Be. 

<,. . . . . . . . au Kj . 

^, ....... ahc 

Making our trial references to our premise, " all men are nil 
the rational animals," 2, 3, 5, 6 strike out, and, selecting the 
terms left containing A, we have for animals only animals, men 
rational, and animals, not-men, not-rational, the same as 
before. If using, with Boole, the principle of quantification of 
the predicate, we exj^ress our premises in these same letters, 
the making of trial-references becomes purely mechanical, and 
thus Boole's theorem gave rise to Jevons' iuterestino; logical 
machine. This, as a result, by the wa}^ is certainly very 
charming, but the end and aim, a genuine satisfactory algebra 
of logic, should l)e kept steadily in view. It is overlooking 
this that makes even such an acute critic as Mr. Venn blame 
Boole for giving to the last process we shall mention, the proc- 
ess of getting rid of any terms we choose from our ccpiations,. 
the name "Elimination." Says Mr. A^enn : "In each case 
no doubt a term disa})i)ears from the result, but the mean- 
ing and consequences of its disappearance are altogether dis- 
tinct." Of course they are, ])ut this is matter of inleipveta- 
tion, and to name the formal processes of a sym])olic algebra ac- 
cording to interpretation Avoukl be in the highest degree unwise* 



Boole's Logical Method. 91 

Here again our law of duality or simplicity, x'=x, comes to 
our aid and makes the problem of elimination resolvable under 
nil circumstances alike. In common algel)ra there exists a 
definite connection between the number of independent equa- 
tions given and the number of symbols of quantity which it 
is possible to eliminate from them ; ])ut, in the algebra of logic, 
from even a single equation an indefinite number of terms may 
be eliminated. 

Here we Avill pause. We are now in position to see how it 
is that Boole's Logical Method can give an absolutely general 
solution to the final problem of practical logic. Its mode of 
application to every possible case is evident from the analogy 
of common algeijra, and we ma}^ refer to the liook itself for 
examples, instead of taking any here of sufficient intricacy to 
give au}^ adequate idea of its astonishing grasp and power. 

We have made no attempt at a complete presentation of the 
system. Our desire has been to call attention to the princi- 
ples which rendered it possil)le, to show where its imperfec- 
tion lies, to throw light on those points where his readers have 
been most apt to go astray, and to heighten the interest 
beginning to be widely shown in a truly Avonderful work. 



S2 The Journal of Sjwculative Pliilosophy . 



NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 



SONNET TO THE VENUS OF MILO. 

O peerless marble ! bold had been the thought, 
When thou in nature's formless grasp didst lie, 
That thou couldst thus breathe forth divinity, 
Olympian glory, grace, and majesty. 

A subtle spirit, he whose touch hath wrought 
Thee into being ; one to whom the sky 
With blue abysses, ocean's symphony, 
Flood, forest, vale, declared harmoniously 

The gladsome reverence which nature felt 
For the great thoughts which pulsed within his soul. 

He was the monarch ; she submissive knelt. 
And knew her glory was her lord's control. 

So must we kneel with reverence in thy sight; 

In thee the finite touched the Infinite I 



Amherst, Mass. 



B. E. S. 



EMANUEL HVALQREN'S SYSTEM. 

[We have received, from the philosopher above named, a syllabus of his lecture 
•on the "Being and Existence of God and the World." In Vol. VIII, p. 285, we have 
noticed his "Theocosmic System." — Ed.] 

A. THE IDEA spirit: THE GODHEAD (ABSOLUTE FREEDOM). 

Arguments for the Existence and Essence of God. 

1. If God is not, lie must have Freedom not to be. God is not; 
therefore He must have Freedom not to be. 

2. If God is, He must have Freedom to be. God is ; therefore 
He must have Freedom to l)e. 

3. From this it follows that Freedom is the ground and condition 
for the non-being, as well as the existence, of God ; and, conse- 
quently, higher than the common notion of God, whether as merely 
an unconscious (ibstractum or as self-consciousness (personality). 



N'otes and Discussio7is. 93 

4. But, as not any notion can be higher than God, and Freedom 
is demonstrated to be the highest notion or principle, Freedom itself 
is God. 

5. These arguments will, therefore, remain valid as long as the 
logical and mathematical laws of thought and nature are valid. And, 
if these should be suspended by a higher law, this, again, must have 
Freedom for its presupposition, and, consequently, be Freedom itself. 

B. SPIRIT : THE WORLD (RELATIVE FREEDOM). 

Arguments for the Existence and Essence of the World. 

These resemble the foregoing, and, consequently, the World is in 
absolute Unity and Identity with Freedom. 

Emanuel Hvalgren. 
Warberg, Sweden, August 15, 1877. 



NOTES ON HEGEL AND HIS CRITICS. 

We cannot help believing in the reality of pure thought, Hegel 
argues, in the Encyclopti^dia, no matter how thoroughly we may have 
schooled ourselves in the Cartesian scepticism. The icill to think 
purel3'is all that is required of the beginner at the outset of the logic. 
Though it prove itself identical with being, pure thought is always the 
logical prms. Because it is first, and because, as any logical begin- 
ning must be, it is immediate, it is best represented as objective — as 
something given, to be observed or sjiecidated, rather than controlled 
or comprehended. Here, as being and as essence, it is the most real 
of all realities ; in short, it is substance itself, in its most self-subsist- 
ent nature. 

In the logic of notion pure thought becomes its own equipollent 
subject, constituting the world in which consciousness lives and 
moves, and hence is the most ideal of all ideas — now not merely 
metaphysical, but transcendent. It is pure thought which is latent 
and determining abstract, in Hegel's sense, through all the stages of 
the Phenomenology, and which becomes articulate and explicit in the 
Logic. Thus, as the Neo-Platonists said of the relation between tlie 
Old and New Testaments, so we may say of the Phenomenology and 
tlie Logic : In the first the last lies concealed ; in the last the first 
stands revealed. 



^4 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

There is no jenseits to the logician who has reached the perfect 
entelecheia of filr sich. The picture is the curtain which seemed to 
hide it. Pure thought, then, which seemed so easy because it is so 
spontaneous and inevitable, proves in the end infinitel}^ hard, because, 
as Michelet explains, not only are all the phenomenal stages of con- 
sciousness presupposed, but because the universal whole of thought 
is involved by the severest logical necessity in its simplest act. Pure 
thought, then, is not so much a dominant category in Hegel's system 
&s the warp, which does not in itself contriljute to form or color, 
although through it all the categories are woven with harmonious and 
determinate sequence into ideal patterns of things. 

Does Hegel's system require us to conceive of thought as pure in 
an improljable sense ? This has been a central question in all Hegel- 
ian discussions. It seems evident that "a presuppositionless begin- 
ning does not require us to forego the use of concrete predicates," or 
" metaphors of sense and understanding," in characterizing it, nor 
forbid us to recognize any of the previous determinations of thought 
as we proceed. Indeed, it is perhaps more necessary for the dialec- 
tic than for the deductive method that it pause and verify at every 
step. Even Rosenkranz insists that the logic needs modifications 
because this was not sufficiently done by Hegel. Indeed, this is 
necessary not merely for the didactic success of any sj'stem, but it is 
perhaps the highest philosophic motive, for no speculation was ever 
truly satisfying to the philosophical impulse, or even very convincing 
as a mere act of first intellection, before it was brought into manifold 
and harmonious relations to common thought and things. But, on 
the other hand, if what claims to be a pure geometry of thought is 
found to be merely description of particular objects of thought — if 
idola fori, or the Zeitgeist, or empirical science are found to have 
furnished centers about which thought has accreted, instead of crys- 
tallizing into its own free forms, then it is impure, in a sense fatal 
to many cherished results of Hegelism. 

Space, in Hegel's system, is derived only in the philosophy of 
nature as the first result of the creative resolve of the absolute idea 
in its pure freedom to become objective to itself. It is thus the other- 
being of spirit, the external as such, and in itself, without fai'ther 
determination. While later, space and time, by their own imminent 
dialectic, become, as sublated, matter. Before this, quantity and 
measure, and even attraction, repulsion, and mechanism, are all chai'ac- 
terized in the logic as non-spacial. It is evident, without discussion, 
that Hegel is no mathematician, and that this description of the ori- 
gin of space is inadequate to the most important of all logical transi- 



JVotes and Discussions. 95 

tions, viz., from the subjeetive-intensive to the objective-extensive. 
This will at least be admitted by those who realize the complexities in 
which this, the central question of all recent psychology, is involved. 
Pure vacuous space — is it something or nothing? We may even 
sa}^ that this is at the same time a real and a logical question. Sub- 
stituting the word "space," first, for "being," then, again, for "noth- 
ing," in the large logic, we have, without a single change in the phrase- 
ology or illustration, a discussion of the above question. Like 
being, space is undetermined ; like only to itself, cannot be 
known by means of any determination or content which can be dis- 
tinguished in it, or out of it. It is, in short, nothing which sense or 
understanding can apprehend. It is perfect emptiness, or self-deter- 
mination, and thus neither more nor less than nothing ; though we can- 
not add of space, as Hegel does of being =nothing, that it is emptj^ 
perception or thought itself. This, especially if we were to accept 
Werder's interpretation that nothing is, as it were, the memory of the 
vanished being, and, therefore, something additional to it, simply shows 
how sublimated and impossible is the thought here postulated. Will 
it be said that space is merely an illustration of pure being? If so, 
as the above are all llie attributes of being and nothing, and as they 
belong to space, have we not a perfect identit}'? Where are the dif- 
ferentia? 

The grounds upon which space is identified with being are far 
more logical than those by which thought and being are identified. 
Hegel's reasoning may be put as follows: Pure being is indetermi- 
nate, simple, immediate. Pure thought is indeterminate, simple, 
immediate. Therefore, thought is being. This violates two princi- 
ples of logic. Two negative premises are made to jield a conclusion ; 
and, secondly, that conclusion is positive when it should be negative, 
because the syllogism is in the second figure. In other words, Hegel 
starts with two tabulm rasce, and, because they are alike in being 
rasce, he infers that the two tabulce are identical. While we insist 
that there is but one conceivable tabula which is absolutely rasa in 
the universe, and that that is simply space, which thought tries to 
apprehend — now positively, as a condition and 2:i?v"?<s of all things ; 
now negativel}', as the absence of all content or determination. 

When we remember how the Eleatics denied the existence of not- 
l)eing, or, as we should say, failing to see the dialectic nature of the 
notion of space, made it more real than its content ; or how the Vedic 
consciousness, abstracting all sensuous content, hypostatized emotional 
factors as its content of unlimited potentiality, the great merit of 
Hegel's characterization must be admitted. We prefer to stand, 



^o^ 



96 The Journal of SiJeculative PMJosopJnj . 

howevej- with C. H. Weise, who, in his metaphysics, breaks with 
Hegelism by arguing that everything that is real and necessary must 
submit to the categories of space. 

If Hegel's being were the mere infinitive of the copula /.s, as Erd- 
mann thought, not only would whatever copulative force it might 
retain still presuppose two terms to be connected, but it is impossi- 
ble to empty the word of all notion of existence. Of course, the 
phrase nothing is must be purely negative here. The is has no 
shadow of substantive quality about it. It has manifestly even less 
meaning than in such a phrase as abracadabra, which has no sort of 
existence, is. The predicate of the phrase being is, on the other 
hand, has, in s[)ite of us, a positive substantive meaning. In char- 
acterizing or thinking being, we cannot escape the subtle connotations 
of the predicative verb; while, in thinking nothing, all reference to 
even its copulative function is, by hypothesis, excluded. We cannot 
escape the conviction that, though no doubt Hegel understood this 
distinction well enough, he has unconsciously ininned upon two words 
which really have nothing in common except form and grammatical 
function. 

Again, we may substitute for being and nothing, in the Hegelian 
equation, space with any homogeneous content, and it "solves and 
proves " quite as well ; for instance, ether — Lucretian atoms luiiformly 
and infinitely diffused, undifferentiated nebula — anj-thing which will 
serve as a background for the cogitable universe, even if it be so 
only in terms of sight and touch, it does quite as well. Are, then, 
intension and extension convertible terms instead of dialectic oppo- 
sites, or have we here only an artificial abstraction from sensation "r 
Hegel is fond of showing us that no more could be seen in pure 
unl)roken light than in darkness, but how shall we explain his denun- 
ciation of Newton as a barbarian, who might as well have said water 
was made of seven kinds of dirt, as light of seven colors? Surel}- 
it was not because Newton had marred a mere metaphor of the Hegel- 
ian logic. 

Leibnitz was the first to say that all science that could be proven 
must be referred to spacial intuitions. Schopenhauer has shown 
that many qualitative relations of thought ma^' l)e best expressed 
diagrammaticall}'. J. H. Fichte argues that space depends on a pecul- 
iar feeling of extension "inseparable from self-consciousness and 
grounded in the objective nature of tlie soul." The mechanical 
logic of Boole, and even that of Ueberweg, are founded upon the idea 
that as inference becomes certain it is best formulated by quantitative 
symbols. F. A. Lange, however, has attempted to show at some 



JVotes and Discussions. 97 

length that, after excluding modality, a spaeial formularization in 
thought is always necessary when we would assign a general validity 
to any particular logical form. Thus, all the true may be best distin- 
guished from all the fallacious forms of the possible s^-llogism by 
means of the spaeial inclusion or exclusion of circles. Although 
syntactical forms furnish the most striking and suggestive illustrations 
of the innateness of these spaeial determinations, was it not upon 
such geometrical references, far more than upon grammatical rela- 
tions, that even Aristotle was led to infer the apodictic nature of 
syllogistic reasoning? 

One interpretation of pure being makes it the same as the simplest 
psychic process. This is precisely what Hegel attempts to describe 
at the lieginning of the Phenomenology. " Mere being," we are there 
told, "is an immediate delivery of sensuous certainty, but as the first 
object of consciousness it is identical with the abstract 7ioiv and here." 
This is precisely the view of recent ps3'chology, and accords with the 
verdict of perhaps most post-Hegelian speculation. ^ Thought," says 
Ueberweg, "must be free from the compulsions of experience, but 
not void of experience." " Thought without presupposition," argues 
Ulrici, "reverses the possibility of things." "Pure abstraction," 
says Schelling, "must always presuppose that from which abstraction 
is made." "Reason," says Schopenhauer, " is of feminine nature. 
She can give only what she has received. Her conceptions are never 
immaculate." " No concept-form " (Begriff), Hodgson urges, "can 
ever grasp the infinite, but can only reach the conviction that there is 
something beyond its power to grasp, and this something we call 
ontological, because, and so far as, we feel that thought does not cor- 
respond to things." In other words, intension, as divorced from 
extension, is inconceivable. Schleiermacher's argument is that dialectic 
reason must always rest u])on the double basis of inner and of outer 
perception, and Kuno Fischer, in his Hegelian period, understood Hegel 
to mean that the shadows of earlier perceptions might enter and deter- 
mine the dialectic process. 

Our conclusion, then, is, not that pure thought is demonstrably 
unknowable or unreal, but only that it was as unknown to Hegel as it 
is to the rest of us thus far ; that what he has characterized is neither 
single, immediate, nor extraneously undetermined. The fact that the 
Idomedian eye — which Reid supposed to exist bj' itself, and to perceive 
the world as it would look if sight were absolutely uniustructed by 
experience or by the sense of touch — was unreal, does not forever 
disprove the possibility of something that we may poetize about as 
pure vision. If we close the eye, we have a dim sense of spaeial 
XII— 7 



98 The Journal of Si^eculative P}dloso]}liy . 

extension, over which tlie retinal darkness is spread — something, as 
Hegel assumes, the mind, emptied of all the products of sensation, 
has a consciousness of being and nothing ; but tlie one feeling as well 
as the other is a mere residuum of experience, and not the undiffer- 
entiated substance out of which experience is made. If color had 
no objective gi-ound, but were, as Schopenhauer argues, only a 
physiological phenomenon, dependent for hue on greater or less quan- 
titative activity of the retina, and for intensity on the amount of its 
undivided residual energy, then we should have something in the 
world at least analogous to Hegel's pure logic of quality. But even 
this is far more demonstrable. 

Pure thought, then, in the sense required by Hegelism, we regard 
as a postulate, or rather an hypothesis, of logic, and not as an 
established verit}', and still less as demonstral)ly identical with being. 

But even this is not the greatest difficulty with the first triad. Thus 
far all is static, motionless. Pure being is as seductive to the rest- 
seeking reason as Nirvana to a Avorld-sick soul. But where comes the 
vital, moving, evolving principle ? Such random categories as matter, 
space, substance, being, are members of a very different order from 
such as cause, force, becoming, and the like. Whether because these 
last are based upon time, as the first upon space, we will not here 
pause to ask. However this may be, it is certain that esse and Jien\ 
stasis and d;/na7nis, are, as it were, the two poles of all thinking. 
Whence, then, comes the last? Logic, at length, has come to ade- 
quately recognize Leibnitz's djaiamic negative as a universal deter- 
minant. But we have still to urge that an absolute nihil j)rivitivn.m is 
not the presence, but the denial, of all possible determination or predi- 
cation. If universal being is in pure thought, or otherwise, then non- 
being is not, else being is relative and finite. However, whatever or 
so far as being is, non-being is not. This is purely logical negation, 
or the mere denial of what the first or aftirmative notion arrested, 
without in any wa^^ implying anything else in its place. Opposition 
is here equivalent to diametrical contradiction, and the application of 
the method of the excluded middle is undoubted. Hegel cannot, then, 
have meant that lieing and nothing are logicalh' opposed, or else 
becoming, as their synthesis, would be forever impossible. But if 
we define real oi)position, with Trendelenburg, as the denial of an 
affirmative notion, by another affirmative notion, so far as they must 
be mutually related, what have we, then, but the obverse side of 
Mill's " associative imjjulse," or a new and somewhat quaint illus- 
tration of the doctrine of relativity. Nothing, like being, is posi- 
tive only ; it is in a new relation, and the dialectic process, instead 



ISfotes and Discussions. 99 

â– of being in any sense genetic, is as capricious and arbitraiy as tlie 
psychological factors of attention. In fact there is no contradiction 
whatever, save in the Herbartian sense of mere difference. 

Trendelenburg's question is still more searching. How does thought 
get from its first aflfirraative term to its second denying affirmation ? 
It can onl}^ be by reflection from sense or understanding. "The 
nothing is attained by comparing the pure being of thought with the 
full heing of sense-perception." 

But we must not forget that being and nothing are not affirmed to 
be absolutel}' identical. We are not required to say both yes and 
no to the same question understood in precisel}^ the same sense, else 
there were no possibility of becoming. If A equals A, it cannot 
become A in any real sense. Everything flows, said Heraclitus, 
because it is and is not at the same time. Only movement is and is 
Jiot at the same point and moment, said Trendelenburg, and so 
movement, understood in the most generic sense, as common to 
thoughts and things, and not becoming, is what is motivated here. 
But motion is an original factor, of a new species. ^ It is, even Tren- 
delenburg admitted, the existing contradiction which formal reason- 
ing easily proves impossible. Thus, contradictions are overcome, 
though all static logic is powerless to tell how. 

If the problem of creation were absolutely indeterminate, if the 
atoms of the Lucretian rain had been infinitely diffused, or had not 
swerved from the straight equidistant lines of their course, "there 
could have been no law, even of gravity, for its existence depends on 
the distribution and collocation of matter." These would have 
eternall}^ remained an infinite equation of possibilities, every element 
perfectly poised and balanced, an infinite here, an eternal now. In 
lanouao-e less mathematical and more familiar, the homogeneous is 
unstable, and must differentiate itself. But why, if purely homoge- 
neous, can it be unstable, and whence comes the must? Formal logic, 
which deals with ready-made ideas, can always prove development 
impossible, for every sort of creation must be regarded as the irrup- 
tion of an extraneous power into the realm of its Saturnian repose. 

Thus it is that the necessity of an empirical principle is demon- 
strated, which must be at the same time simple and universal. Now, 
psychological analysis and ph3'siological investigation concur in 
designating motion as such a principle. Vierordt, and Exner, and 
â– others have shown some reason for believing that the perception of 
motion is the only immediate sensation, and, unlike other rudimentary 
psychic processes, not founded on unconscious inferences of any sort. 
'The sense of motion, it is claimed, is the quickest, the most minute. 



100 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

most primitive sensation of animal life ; out of it all the higher facul- 
ties of the soul are developed, and in many common delusions of 
muscular and other feeling we may still detect its original forms, unin- 
terpreted — indeed, almost forgotten — by adult consciousness. The 
facts upon which these inferences rest are, it need hardly be said, 
far too few to warrant any positive conclusion of this sort. 

But shall we then urge, with Trendelenburg, that movement, in a 
broader sense, is tlie onl}- aspect common to both thought and Ijeing — 
is the j>yi«s and the medium of all experience? Because, he argues, 
the original activity of mind is best described as the counterpart of 
material motion, knowledge of the external world is possible and 
valid, though it is imperfect so far as this analogy fails. 

Because of this common term ideal, a priori categories are possible 
and valid in experience. Time is the internal result, space the exter- 
nal condition, of movement. If we are asked to explain light, heat, 
electricity, chemical change, the laws of ph^^sics or astronomy, the 
mode in which mind acts on matter, or the essence of either, or even 
the wa}' in which the idea of a line, a surface, or a sphere, or a logical 
conception, arises in the mind, we can only reply in terms of move- 
ment in time. Molar is explained by molecular, known by h^^oothet- 
ical motion. Yet movement, which explains all things, is itself unex- 
plained and undefined. By it all things are known. It must be self- 
known. If we try to derive movement, or construe it into non-motive 
terms, we are like a blind optician, who does not realize that sight can 
be undei'stood only by seeing. 

Here we shall at once be met by the objection that movement in 
thought and physical motion have nothing in common but the name. 
We grant at once that succession in consciousness and objective 
sequence are two very different, and perhaps quite inconnnensurate, 
series, but as soon as one psj'chic term follows another in the same 
order, as tlie corresponding objective term follows its antecedent, we 
have, if not as Chauncy Wright argued, the very beginning of con- 
sciousness — at any rate, p?'o liac vice, the truest form of knowledge ; 
for what is causation but the postulation of something in the bond 
that joins two things, that is common with the bond that joins two 
thoughts, or vice versa"? 

We quite agree with Hegel that we may be said to know a thing, 
even the mind itself, (most truly when our thought has followed all its 
changes in time, or has traced all its processes above, but we insist 
that the dialectic method is in no real sense genetic. 

It is easy to conceive the external world as real, or as ideal, but 
impossible to conceive the order of the terms wliich common con- 



JSFotes and Discussions. 101 

sciousness ascribes to it as real, as the reverse of that ascribed to it 
as ideal. Philosophy may still find pleasant pastime in resolving the 
universe into all-object or all-subject, but has she not a higher destiny 
than to amuse herself with this see-saw of reality and ideality, in 
despair of ever getting out of the labyriuth in which the theory' of 
knowledge has entombed her, remote from the common life of men 
and dead to the issues and impulses of science ? Maj' not pure ideal- 
ism read a wholesome warning in the fate of the obsolescent material- 
isms of the past, iufinitel}'^ superior as it is in every way to them? 
Are mind and matter mutually exclusive or contradictory ? Must the 
world be all one or all the other, or is there much that is common to, 
yet more than, both, as yet known? These are the questions which 
psychology has made pertinent, though it is as yet by no means cer- 
tain that it can ever answer them. Its suggestions thus far may be 
briefly epitomized. 

The simplest elements of sensation that common consciousness 
recognizes, and which seem immediate and instantaneous, are yet 
resolvable into a series of yet more ultimate states. The simplest 
act of A'ision, for example, is a whole cosmos of such psychic ele- 
ments. Each of these changes has at some point of the nervous 
system, as a counterpart or background, some demonstrable form of 
molecular or electrical change. Now, if pure sensations may be 
described as an immediate knowledge of physical states ; if aesthetic 
feelings, or pleasure and pain, are conditioned at all by the nutritive 
state of nerve fibres ; if the maiscular sense is an a priori knowledge of 
relative position or motion of parts of the body ; if organic sensa- 
tion, or the feeling of general depression or elation ; and, above all, 
if Wundt's h3-pothesis of the direct consciousness of innervation 
registering accurately every increase or expenditure of nerve force be 
allowed, then, surely, those elements are not unconscious^ but are the 
most innate forms of self-consciousness — the mother-tongues of sen- 
sation — from which all the functions of sense-perception are developed, 
along with the form of sentient organism, by intricate processes of 
extradition and intradition, if the word be allowable. A primitive 
immediacy, or absolute identity of subject and object at some point 
back of all of individual experience, perhaps, is thus postulated. 
That mind and matter may even be proven identical to the under- 
standing, will, of course, seeiu a forlorn hope. It is so ; but is not 
the alternative for philosophy still more forlorn? Of course, to all 
who do not thoroughly prefer the pursuit to the possession of truth, 
the assurance of Hegel that the problem of things is essentially 
solved, or even the confessed nescience of Spencer or the new Kan- 



102 The Journal of Sjjeculative PJdlosojihy . 

tean school will seem far more philosophical than such a mere pro- 
gramme of long investigations j'et to he made — a programme that 
must itself, no doubt, be re-cast again and again with every new dis- 
covery. But does not psychology, as well as the history of philosophy^ 
teach us that the outstanding questions of thought have always 
seemed settled in proportion as men's minds were shut, or as they 
confounded the limits of their own individual development or cul- 
ture with the limits of possible knowledge ? If the truth-loving rea- 
son is not to be satisfied with ever deeper insights, in a ratio corre- 
sponding to its own increasing power — if, as T^ndall intimates, its- 
essential principles of science are all found out — nothing remains but 
to pigeon-hole all the details of knowledge. 

The world in which thought lives and moves is but little better than 
a dead moon, and pessimism, the true devil-worship of philosophy^ 
is inevitable. The apparent achievements of individuals were never 
less, V)ut the real work done in philosophy was never greater or more 
promising, than now. It is for her to ask questions, and rarely,, 
indeed, is it permitted her to answer them, save by other questions, 
broader, more earnest and searching. Philosophy is no longer a 
guild, or even a profession, so much as a spirit of research inspiring 
many specialties. It is because ph3'siological psycholog}^, with true 
Socratic irony, dares to take the attitude of ignorance toward both a 
positive philosophy and a yet more positive science, w^hile it puts the 
same old question of plhlosophy in such new, tangible terms, and with 
such a divine soul of curiosity, that we love its spirit, and hope much 
from its methods. Nothing, since the phenomenology, which seems 
to us to contain the immortal soul of Hegelism, is so fully inspired 
with the true philosophic motive. 

In creating and using a technical language, Hegel is unsurpassed 
throughout the logic. He is a master of illustration and of clearness 
in detail. If the maxim, homis grammaticus, bonus theologus, were 
true of the philosopher, there would be little left to desire. But the 
trouble lies far deeper than style. Numerous as his school has been, 
no two Hegelians understand their master alike. Gabler says Tren- 
delenburg's misunderstanding of him is inconceivable ; while Mich- 
elet says Trendelenburg understands him better than most of his 
followers, 1 )ut that Zeller' s misconceptions are ' ' monstrous. ' ' Stirling 
describes Ilaym's ignorance of Hegel's meaning as strange and 
inconceivable. jNIichelet considers that the greatest error of Krause, 
Ilerbart, and Schopenhauer is in fancying that the}^ are not true- 
Hegelians, while in a recent i)anii)hlet he says — in emulation, per- 
haps, of Hegel's assertion that only animals are not metaphysicians- 



JSTotes and Discussions. 103 

— that all who think must be Hegelians. Gans thinks the dialectic 
method is an instance of pure deduction. Gabler says the idea cre- 
ated being out of itself ; while the young, or left, Hegelians assert 
that the idea is God immanent, not so much in the world-process, or 
the race-consciousness, as in the individual soul. 

But it is not- concerning the logic so much as the philosophy of 
rights, aesthetics, and especially of religion and nature, that Hegelians 
disagree. Yet the impulse he gave to thought in these fields was 
iniprecedented. The philosophy of nature, for instance, of which 
Trendelenburg, more wittily than truly, said that it might claim to be 
a product of pure abstract thinking more justly than the logic, and 
which, when the first editions of his works were sold, was most in 
demand, gave an impulse to natural sciences none the less philo- 
sophical, because, in the ferment which followed, Hegel's views were 
soon outgrown, and his method forgotten. As a mental discipline, 
then, as a wholesome stimulant of every motive of philosophical cul- 
ture, and as the best embodiment of the legitimate aspiration of the 
philosophical sentiment, Ave have gradually come to regard Hegel's 
system as unrivaled and unapproached ; yet, at the same time, as 
fatal as a finality, almost valueless as a method. 



G. Stanley Hall. 



Cambridge, Mass., January, 1878. 



SENTENCES IN PROSE AND VERSE. 
FROM THE SANSCRIT. 

Until he finds a wife, a man is only a half ; the house not occupied 
by children is like a cemetery. 

The housewife is declared to be the house. A house destitute of 
a housewife is regarded as a desert. 

These women are by nature instructed, while the learning of men 
is taught them by books. 

How can the conceit in one's mind be eradicated? The tittibha 
(a bird) sleeps with its feet thrown upwards, fearing that the sky 
may fall. 

The place where the self-subduing man dwells is a hermitage. 

Even when being cut down, the sandal-tree imparts fragrance to 
the edge of the ax. 

Constantly, rising up, a man should reflect : "What real thing have 



104 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

I done to-daj^? The setting sim will cany away with it a portion of 
my life." 

The kinsmen of the poor die away, even when the poor themselves 
continue to live. A stranger turns himself into a relation of the rich. 

He whose time has arrived, if touched only with the point of a 
straw, cannot escape. 

Hari was regarded by cowherds as a cowherd, and by gods as the 
lord of the universe. 

A jar is gradually filled by the falling of water-drops. 

The soul itself is its own witness ; the soul itself is its own refuge. 

Poor King Rantideva bestowed water with a pure mind, and went 
to heaven ; King Uriga gave away thousands of cows, but, l)ecause 
he gave away one of another's, he went to hell. 

Say, say, who are the deafest ? They who will not listen to good 
advice. 

Who is dumb ? He who does not know how to say kind things at 
the proper time. 

I know not if the essence of this world lie ambrosia or poison. 

O lord of the Yadus, and husband of Lakshmi, I ever spend my 
time in doing homage to th}' lotus-feet. 

That jewel, knowledge, which is not plundered by relatives, nor 
carried off by friends, which does not decrease by giving, is great 
store of riches. 

There are many books — Vedas and the like ; there are myriad ob- 
stacles in the way of success. Let a man strive to discover the 
essence, as the swan finds milk in water. 

A son born of one's body, if faithless, is like an eating disease, 
and to be wrongfully deserted b}^ one's children is the torment of 
hell on earth. 

Men wish the fruits of virtue, not virtue. The}' desire not the 
fruits of sin, but practice sin laboriousl}'. 

As a lump of salt is without exterior or interior, but is all a mass 
of flavor, so this soul. 

The seeker of knowledo;e can find no ease. 

Not self-directing, a man yields to some current of evil impulse, 
as a tree which has fallen from a river-liank and has reached the 
middle of the stream. 

FROM THE AlIABIC. 

It is easy to mount a little donke}-. 

If you can add anything to what you possess, it is of value — even 
a rusty nail. 



N'otes and Discussions. 105 

The passage of a single rat is nothing, but it soon becomes a 
thorouglifare. 

The candle shines not upon what is beneath it. 

If you will cook the steak with words, I promise you kegs of 
butter. 

Do good, and then drown yourself ; God may do you justice, if 
the fish cannot. 

One asked of the crow why he stole soap. Says he, "It comes 
naturally." 

We invited him, and he lirought a jackass to dinner. 

If you like to have things look prett}^, look at them in the dark. 

If you buy meat cheap, you will smell what you have saved, when 
it boils. 

The hen drinks, and stares at heaven. 

I said to the ass, "God be with you." He answered: "If m}' 
master be with me, I am well enough with the rest." 

The cock was called up to crow. Said he : " The sun respects my 
time, though it breaks him." 

A tall man gets angry about nothing ; a short one plays tricks. 

Everything Imt Death can be cheapened ; with him you need not 
expect to drive a bargain. 

A man tumbled into a gutter. "Take this rose," said his friend, 
'" and see how sweet it smells." 

You will earn nothing by telling a blind man oil is dear. 

If we are both drivers, which shall hitch the horse? 

A right beginning is the right ending. 

Moonlight and news need not be paid for ; the}^ travel gratis. 

We were in love when parted ; together, we hate. 

E3^es not seen are soon forgot. 

Profit and loss are business partners. 



His friends would praise him, I believed 'em ; 
His foes would blame him, and I scorned 'em. 
His fi'iends, as angels I received 'em, 
His foes — the devil had suborned 'em. 

— Tennyson, 

Le pen que nous croyons, tient au pen, que nous sommes. — Victor 
Hugo. 

With some people everything means everj'thing, and the}' put their 
whole heart's interest into each mouse-trap along the road. — English 
novel. 

The stealthy, steady attraction of the earth is ever telling upon the 



106 The Journal of Speculative Philoso-pliy. 

living body ; we call the force that resists the earth vital. There is- 
no proof that at birth the animal is endowed with a reserved force 
over and above what it obtains from food and air. — H. W. Rich- 
ardson. 

The fierce hyena, frighted from the walls, 
Bristled his rising back, his teeth unsheathed, 
Drew the long growl, and, with slow foot, retired. 

— Landor. 

The goddess Calamity is delicate, and her feet are tender. Her 
feet are soft, for she treads not upon the ground, but makes her 
path upon the heads of men. 

Ov^er men's heads walking aloft, 
"With tender feet, treading so soft. 

—Plato. 

God, if He be good, is not the author of all things. But He is the 
cause of a few things only. — Plato. 

Evils, Theodorus, can never i)eri!sli. There must always remain 
somewhat antagonist to good. — Plato. 

It is well to come out of the city to admire the l)eauty of the 
world. But to be continual]}' here, to be present at the Ijaking of 
the johnnj'-cake, is not as interesting. — Anon. 

I am Autolycus, a peddler ; I go up and down the countr}' with my 
wares [lecturing] . 

Foreign travel is the deadliest cholera Americana. 

I had been in the country, as I thought, and a lady began to talk 
about the Tyrolese Alps — a justice's wife, in a little village. After 
we are too old to travel, you observe, we spend our time railing at 
traveling. 

You can tell me nothing of Pep3's ; I know him by heart. 

He has gi-eat talent, but no root that runs down to the water. 
There is no flight.— i?. B. 

Sleep is wit. 

'Tis a little gilding ; they put a little butter in the spoon [golden- 
rods] . 

The English have astonishing productive force — more fullness, and 
are more complete. We are thin. 

I have already lost her ; I cannot follow. 

Good taste does not consist in magnifying the little, but in the 
selection of good things that can be properly magnified. — George 
Sand's Life. 

Shakespeare is the chief fact in modern iiistor}'. Having this 



N'otes and Discussions. 107 

Saxon, we need not eat grass. There are no names in Europe equal 
to those of a few Englishmen. Shakespeare on one side, and New- 
ton on the other, for ballast. I care not what the character may be 
called — King John or Henry VIII. It is the sentences which tran- 
scend, in their expression, all we know, and that can never be read 
out. Age after age shall descend this golden legacy to the race, im- 
perishably inscribed. 

We have a set of boxes which we may unlock at pleasure in our 
minds. There are those who have not their feelings properly locked 
up in one close box, and their thoughts in another, and so they seem 
to me — a mush. 

I had a visitor yesterday who left this cane behind, but I do not 
think I had a good bargain. 

S did not love to die. He thought this earth a fine place. The 

clergy do not like to treat with ideals. 

I love reading as Avell now as I ever did in my jouth. Give me 
my book and candle and I am grateful to the universe. 

Dr. Kendall became a handsome man in his old age : he was the 
beloved pastor of Plymouth. There is a certain saccharine quality' 
that comes out in some aged people, as the sun sets in gold. 

I know of nobody who says he is afraid of death, now-a-days. This- 
fear was very important to our grandfathers. 

The people are of little use to us. There is our friend , he 

seems full of pins. Why cannot he be sweet and pleasing, when it 
is easy ? What is so cheap as politeness ? 

I think well of Goethe's saying: "If nature has given me such 
faculties, and I have employed them faithfully to the end, she is 
bound yet further to explain the questions which the}^ put. ' ' 

Yes, I know he needs cherishing and care ! Yet who can care and 
cherish ; we are so driven with our errands ? 

It were well if we could prick this monstrous puff-ball, with which 
life begins and is surrounded [egotism] . 

Herrick makes me nervous with the accounts of his lozenges, and 
the sores in his ears. But how excellent he is. He writes so well, 
and he knows it as well. 

Each man has some one thing to do, which comes to perfection in 
him. It is organic from nature, and can onl}' be done by him. 

Wm. Ellery Chanxing.- 
CoNCORD, Mass., October, 1877. 



108 . TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 



BOOK NOTICES. 



'The Universe. By John Paterson, A. M. 

This little pamphlet of twelve pages attempts a deduction of time, space, motion, 
heat, light, etc., on a purely mathematical basis. Its author exhibits subtle inge- 
nuity, as well as grasp of ideas. A. e. k. 

Hkaven and its Wonders, and Hell. From Things Heard and Seen. By 
Emanuel Swedenborg. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1877. 

We can conscientiously recommend this new edition of the great Swedish seer's 
famous work as an excellent translation into English from the Latin original, 
neatly printed and bound, and rendered of more value than other editions by its 
carefully prepared indexes and foot-notes. a. e. k. 

Ueber die Aiifgabe der Philosophie in der Gegenwart. B}'^ W. Wundt. 
Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. 

This is an inaugural dissertation, delivered by Dr. Wundt, at Zuerich, in 1874, 
on the task of philosophy at the present time, which he formulates as the aspira- 
tion after a unitarian, connected comprehension of the universe, which shall sat- 
isfy all the needs of the special sciences, as developed up to the present daj'. 

A. E. K. 

Municipal Law, and its Eelations to the Constitution of Man. By R. S. 

Guernsey, of the New York Bar. New York: McDivitt, Campbell & Co. 

This lecture is altogether too short for the subject of which it purposes to treat. 
But the manner in which the author handles his subject makes us look forward 
with hopes of a more satisfactory treatment to a future work, of which he holds 
out promise. a. e. k. 

Life and Mind ; Their Unity and Materiality. By Robert Lewins, M. D. 
Lewes: Geo. P. Bacon. 1873. 

When a writer begins by telling his readers that "the non-existence of a vital 
-or spiritual principle as an entity apart from the inherent energ}' of the mate- 
rial organism " is " one single, well-established phj-siological canon," it surely is 
useless for the reader to look for further proof of this well-established canon. 
We, therefore, gently close the brochure, and put it modestlj' aside. A. E. K. 

An Essay -on Sctekoe and Theology. By J. M'. Kerr. Dayton, Ohio : United 
Brethren Publishing House. 

One of the many attempts to establish a reconciliation between the Bible and 
physical science, which satisfy neither the believer in the direct inspiration of the 
IJook of Books nor the student of physics. The task is as unprofitable as it is 
useless. It would afford quite as much instruction to prove that the Bible did not 
conflict with the modern theory of national finances, or with the science of 
European cookery. a. e. k. 



Book jVodces. 109 

Thk Relatiox of Philosophy to Sciexck, An inaugural Lecture delivered in , 
the Convention Hall of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, by John Wat- 
son, M. A., Professor of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics. 

In this lecture Professor Watson shows that the relation of the science of 
Philosophy to the other special sciences is not one of opposition ; as, indeed, it 
cannot be, since the special sciences, unless improperly treated, never enter the 
domain of philosophy. The lecture gives signal evidence of scholarship, as well as- 
of original thought. a. e. k.. 

NeUES FtrNDAMENTAL OrGANON DER PhILOSOPHIE UND DIE THATSAECHLICHE 

EiNHEiT VON Freiheit und Nothwendigkeit. Von Dr. W. Braubart. 
Neuwied und Leipzig : J. H. Heuser. 

This is a rather ambitious title, and we question whether the work has effected 
so revolutionary a change in philosophical thought as its author seems to have 
anticipated. The pamphlet opens with a " psychological ground scheme," which 
fits the division of contents of the five styles of literature— e. g., 1. The Sensory — 
description and narration; 2. The Understanding — didactic (style); 3. The 
Reason — incitement and direction. 

Southern Law Review for June -July, 1877. Published Bi-Monthlj^, by 
Gr. I. Jones & Co. St. Louis, Mo. 

We would call particular attention to Judge J. G.Woerner's article in this num- 
ber on the Jurisdiction of Probate Courts. Mr. Woerner, one of the best judges 
that has ever been elected to the Probate Court of St. Louis, is, moreover, a philo- 
sophical student of great industry, and is admirably fitted to speak of what he 
justly says is about to become generally recognized in this country as " an inde- 
pendent branch of the law, destined to achieve for itself a sphere of jurisdiction 
entirely sui generis, and based upon, and determined by, its own inherent princi- 
ples." A. E. K. 

The Natural Theology of the Doctrine of Forces. By Professor Benj. 
K Martin, D. D., L. H. D. University of the City of New York. 

There is one central truth in this lecture, delivered before the University Con- 
vocation, held at Albany, N. Y., August 1st, 2d, and 3d, 1871, to which the pro- 
fessor gives condensed expression, at the conclusion of his address, in these words : 
'' All true science, therefore, involves both the knowledge of nature and the 
knowledge of man; it includes the study of mind as well as of matter." In other 
words, every student of a physical science must necessarily, to become a master of 
his special science, become also a student of the science of speculative philosophy. 

a. e. k. 

Views of Nature and of the Elements. Forces and Phenomena of Nature 
AND OF Mind. By Ezra C. Seaman. New York : Scribner & Co. 

The aim of this brochure is thus stated by the author: "I have endeavored to 
combat as unsound the solar emission theory, as well as the vibratory ether theory 
of heat and light, the chemical theorj' of combustion, the chemico-raechanical 
theory of life and organization, and the material, orchemico-mechanical, theory of 
mind, and have presented, as worthy of consideration, the old material theory of 
caloric, the attraction theory of light, and of the action of caloric, the terrestrial 
theory of the sources of caloric, the calorific theory of ignition and combustion, 
the vital theory of life and organization, and the spiritual (i. e., Christian) theory 
of mind." a. e. k. 



110 TJie Jownial of Speculative Philosophy . 

Outlines of the Religion and Philosophy of Swkdenborg. By Theophilus 
Parsons. Boston : Roberts Brothers. 1876. 

In this work Mr. Parsons attempts to give the outlines of the New Church, or 
Swedenborgian religion and philosophy, in the clearest and simplest manner of 
which the subject admits. To the admirers of Swedenborg, Mr. Parsons has for 
man}^ years been favorably known as the author of "The Infinite and the Finite," 
â– "Deus Homo," and other works, all of which are written with admirable direct- 
ness of purpose and clearness of style. 

In the present work the author goes over the whole sphere of the New Church 
doctrines, which gives it special value to persons who wish to make themselves 
acquainted with all of Swedenborg's religious teachings, and j'et lack patience to 
study them in the original writings. (The book is handsomely printed, of handy 
size, and cheap. Price, $1.25.) a. e. k. 

ZwEi Briefe ueber Verursachung und Freiheit im Wollen. Gerichtet 
AN John Stuart Mill. Mit einem Anhanoe ueber die Existenz des 
Stoffes und Unskre Begriffe dks Unendlichen Raumes. Von Rowland 
Gr. Hazard. New York : B. Westerman & Co. Leipzig : Bernhard Hermann. 

Mr. Hazard's letters to John Stuart Mill, on the freedom of the will, of which 
this work is a translation, are too well known to our readers to need further recom- 
mendation from us. We can say, hov/ever, of the translation, that it is excel- 
lently done, and bespeak for it the attention of such of our German friends as 
prefer to read a work of this character in their own language. The translator is 
quite justified in giving his reason for rendering Mr. Hazard's work into the Ger- 
man language, as follows: "The admiration which Mr. Hazard has won by his 
works, even outside of the circle of his adherents, and which was shared by John 
Stuart Mill in a high degree, suffices to entitle him to a place in the foremost 
ranks of the metaphysical writers of the present day." a. e. k. 

Hartmann, Duehring, und Lange. Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Phi- 
losophie im XIX Jahrhundert. Von Hans Vaihinger. Iserlohn : Verlag 
von J. Baedeker. 1876. 

Mr. Vaihinger is, perhaps, known to our readers as an industrious contributor to the 
Philosophische Monatshefte. The present work is, like his article on the present 
condition of cosmology and that on the three phases of Czolbe's naturalism, the 
result of a series of lectures delivered by him before the Philosophical Society of 
Leipzig. It is a critical essay, in the main intended to elaborate the philosophical 
systems of the three men after whom the work is named, but giving ample chance 
for the representation of the author's own views. Hartmann is the representative 
of the Idealistic Pessimism of these days, Duehring figures as the exponent of 
Realistic Materialism, and Lange as the mediator of Scientific Criticism. The 
latter comes in for the larger share of Mr. Vaihinger's exposition. The work is 
well written, and shows both study and care, though it displays strong, and perhaps 
at times injudicious, partisanship. A. e. k. 

George St.iernhjelm. The Father of Swedish Poetry. By Prof. Bernard 
Moses. Extracted from the Methodist (Quarterly Review for October, 1875. 

"We doubt whether this pamphlet of Professor Moses (now of the University of 
California) will meet appreciation amongst the American students of Swedish 
poetry. There may, however, be another claim to the interest of students, in 
Stjernhjelm's scientific attainments, to which Atterborn ("Siare och Skaldcr") 
gives expression as follows : " He saw in our world, in all its shifting forms, an 



Book JVotices. Ill 

•unbroken symbolical revelation of the Divine ; and even in mathematics a hiero- 
glyphic in which the initiated finds the key to the glory of that higher knowledge, 
that jewel of wisdom — the necklace of Minerva." 

It is well known to all who have studied Swedenborg's works in their entirety 
that his great glory rests in his scientilic works, which his religious followers seem 
persistently to ignore. And it is strange, though characteristic enough of human 
perversity — as Edgar A. Poe would call it — that Stjernhjelm's claims on the recog- 
nition of his fellow-men should be based by his admirers, not on the services he 
rendered to physical science, but on his achievements as the Father of Swedish 
Poetry. A. E, k. 

Philosophische Monatshefte. Leipzig: 1876. Dr. E. Bratuscheck, Editor. 

With this twelfth volume of the Monatshefte, Dr. Bratuscheck, who has been 
the editor for the past four years, and conducted it, under very adverse circum- 
stances, with remarkable success, retires from his post, his successor being Profes- 
sor Schaarschmidt, of Bonn. 

The present volume is full of interesting matter. Among the more important 
articles we may mention : The Significance of Philosophy, by J. H. v. Kirchmann ; 
Mechanism and Teleology, by A. G. Todtenhaupt ; Concerning the First Princi- 
ples, by A. Spir ; Spinoza as Monist, Determinist, and Realist, by Opitz ; Plotinus' 
Doctrine of Beauty, by Dr. H. Mueller ; and Plotinus and Schiller on the Beauti- 
ful, by Dr. H. F. Mueller. Amongst the reviews, we note specially Dr. Wiegand's 
review of Krohn's " The Platonic State," and, above all, a very lengthy review, by 
Dr. Bratuscheck himself, ofV. Stein's "Seven Books in Relation to the History of 
Platonism." This comprehensive — and, at the same time, remarkably concise and 
«lear— essay on one of the most difficult subjects in the historj' of philosophy, leads 
us all the more to regret the retirement of Dr. Bratuscheck from a position which 
he was so eminently qualified to fill. a. e. k. 

Verhandlungen der Philosophischen Gesellschaft. Zu Berlin. Leipzig : 
Erich Koschny. 1875. Hefte I -V. 

This is a record of the more important papers read at the monthly gatherings 
of the Philosophical Society of Berlin. 

The first number has. Prof. Lasson : Causality and Teleology ; Dr. Fred- 
â– ericks : Die Principien des kritischen Idealismus. The second number has. 
Prof. Michelet : Ueber Ideal Realismus ; Dr. A. Vogel : Ueber das Problem der 
Materie. The third number has. Prof. Lasson : Ueber Zwecke im Universum. 
The fifth uumber has. Dr. Otto Vogel: Haeckel und die Monitistische Phi- 
osophie. 

In noticing these several numbers we shall confine our remarks to the writings 
of Professor Lasson, since these have excited unusual attention in the European 
philosophical world, and both of which deal with the often enough discussed, and 
jet singularly misapprehended, question of Teleology, Perhaps the absurd 
terminology oi final cause, instead of purpose — Zweck — has been chiefly instru- 
mental in effecting this misapprehension. Stripping the problem of all verbal 
masquerade, it turns on this question : Is the existence of the world compre- 
hensible as simply a series of occurrences, having need of no other explanation 
than their existence, or must it be regarded as having an end to fulfill ? 

Mr. Lasson, let us say at the beginning, does not pretend to establish the theory 
of Teleology so much as to confine the doctrine of causality to its proper limits. 



112 The Journal of Speculative Philosoplnj . 

In this latter effort he has, we are glad to sa}-, been eminently successful. He- 
starts from the very just supposition that the problem underlying the dispute 
between the categories of causality and teleolog\' is to be found, not in the phe- 
nomena themselves, and the impressions which they make upon us, but in the 
so-called "laws of our thinking." He, therefore, gives full validity to the caus- 
ality doctrine, as the only proper criterion to be applied to the phenomena of 
nature as they appear to us. 

In this Mr. Lasson is in full conformity with the "Science of Knowledge" of J. 
G. Fichte. In that work it is shown that the causality doctrine is one of the- 
primary categories of the human mind, and that without it we can arrive at no- 
knowledge whatever. 

The great trouble with the teleologists at all times has been that they denied 
to the natural-science men the right and propriety to apply the doctrine of caus- 
ality exclusiveh' to the phenomena of nature. Now, Dr. Lasson full}' recog- 
nizes that right and propriety. He repeats, again and again, that the man of 
natural science is bound to regard all phenomena of nature under the category of 
cause and effect, or of mechanism, and hails the firm position on this ground of 
the present school of investigators of nature as a great advance on their former 
vacillating claims. 

But, at the same time, Dr. Lasson tells those men plainly that they have no- 
right to exclude the teleological view from the universe, and insists that the 
phenomena of nature, especially man, cannot be comprehended except under 
a teleological view. He demands, therefore, equal recognition of both views 
from the science of philosophy; the man of natural science to keep on using, 
for his specialty, the categor}' of causality alone ; and all men in general, when 
not investigating matters of special science, to regard the phenomena of nature 
as having an end — namely, the realization of spirit in the world of matter. In 
this he is in full accord with Kant and Leibnitz, the latter of wliom, particularly^ 
has given the most admirable expression to the teleological view in his renowned 
system of the Preestablished Harmony. 

There is, however, one danger which threatens Dr. Lasson, and of which, even 
from this distance, we would warn him. This danger is that of turning the teleo- 
logical doctrine, which he upholds from his present transcendental, to a dog- 
matic, point of view — that is, of maintaining that the universe has been created at 
some point In time for a specific purpose. This is dogmatic theology of the worst 
kind, and which Kant did his best to root out from men's minds. Dr. Lasson, 
to our surprise, saj^s that he is not yet prepared to take a position on this part of 
the question. But he ought not, even for a moment, to entertain a doubt on the 
subject. The rational position of teleology is not that this world was created 
by some outside power, with a view, for instance, to attain utmost perfection, or 
to ripen it to utter damnation ; but it is this : that man — or spirit, or thought, or 
mind — cannot help viewing all the phenomena of the world as adaptable to the 
designs of man, spirit, or thought ; and, since the mind cannot help cherishing 
this view, this view is real and actual, as much so as the phenomena of the world 
themselves are real and actual ; and that, hence, it is quit(; proper to say that a 
purpose or design — namely, the subjection of the world's phenomena to man — 
underlies the existence of the universe. a. k. k. 



THE JOURNAL 

OF 

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

Vol. XII.] April, 1878. [No. 2. 

THE WORLD AS FORCE. 

[with especial reference to the philosophy of MR.. HERBERT SPENCER.] 

BY JOHN WATSON. 

No intelligible theoiy of the universe can possibly be framed 
or put into words which does not avowedly, or by implication, 
rest upon the intelligibility of the universe itself. The denial 
that Nature is the embodiment of Reason carries with it the 
assumption that the world is beyond the comprehension of in- 
telligence, and, therefore, in the strictest sense, unknowable. 
And, as knowledge is necessarily a reduction of particulars to ^^ 
a more or less exhaustive universality, or an exjDression of 
universality through the particular, the assertion that the 
world is known in immediate feeling — the assertion, in other 
words, that the particular alone reveals what is real — destroys 
at once the possibility of knowledge and the intelligible reality 
of things. Of this- necessary interdependence of intelligence 
and reality, the advocates of the correlation of Forces seem to 
have very little comprehension ; and, as a consequence, we 
find them making intelligence one of a series of equivalent and 
convertible forces, unaware, apparently, that this involves the 
absurdity of accounting for intelligence by that which is non- 
intelligent, and of explaining the reality of the universe apart 
from that which makes it real. "Various classes of facts," 
XII — 8 



114 TJie Journal of Speculative Pliilompliy . 

writes Mr. Spencer, " unite to prove that the law of metamor- 
phosis, which hokls among the physical forces, holds equally 
between them and the mental forces. * * * That no idea 
or feeling arises, save as a result of some physical force ex- 
pended in producing it, is fast becoming a commonplace of 
science ; and whoever duly weighs the evidence will see that 
nothing but an overwhelming bias in favor of a preconceived 
theory can explain its non-acceptance." ^ The theory here in- 
dicated is that, as mechanical force is expressible in terms of 
chemical affinity or vital energy, so cither of these is convert- 
ible with consciousness. Such a view seems hardly intelligible 
to those who, believing they can show that consciousness is 
the condition of all reality, claim that it is absurd to place 
consciousness upon the same level as the objects it renders 
possible. Anything like a successful attempt to account for 
the existence and jirevalence of some such theory as that of 
Mr. Spencer, especially among those whose lives have been 
devoted mainly to physical science, ought, therefore, to be of 
some profit. 

Those who have been led to regard the method of empirical 
psychology as the only method which preser\^es the reality of 
things, by preventing the thinker from overriding and destroA'- 
ing the facts of life, minister to their own self-satisfaction by 
tauntino; the speculative thinker with ooino- alono; the " hio-h 
priori road " he has constructed for himself above and beyond 
the real world. The charge can only provoke a smile in those 
who know how wide of the mark it really is. Speculative 
philosophy makes no pretensions to the "construction" of 
reality in the ordinary sense of the word, but only to such an 
explanation of reality as shall account for the facts in their 
completeness. Its problem is : Given the world as it exists 
to common consciousness and to physical science, to point out 
the relation of the ditfercnt elements of it to each other, when 
these are viewed sub specie ceternitatis — i. e., in their connec- 
tion with intelligence. The futile problem at which the empir- 
ical psj'chologist Avorks is to explain the universe independ- 



^ First Principles, p. 217, sec. 71. 



The World as Force. 115 

â– ently of intelligence, to construct an intelligible world out of 
unintellioible elements. The method which this mode of con- 
coption necessitates can get a foundation for its operations only 
Justin so for as it is untrue to itself; it has to assume the 
rationality of the world by putting into irrational feeling what 
should in consistency be excluded ; and to posit as known 
that which it virtually denies to be knowable. The specula- 
tive method endeavors, by an analysis of the known world as 
a whole, to get the elements of reality apart, but it seeks to 
comprehend those elements so accurately as not to leave out 
â– of account that side of them which forms their point of con- 
nection with each other, convinced that any failure of insight 
which leads to the isolation of one element of reality from the 
rest destroys the possibility of the systematic interconnection 
of the elements as a whole. The only presupposition that 
speculative philosophy makes is that the world is an intelli- 
gible system, in which, as in the living organism, each part 
exists only in combination Avith every other part. 

It is not unusual for philosophers to appeal to the common 
consciousness of men in support of their own special theory, 
or of that part of it which is apparently furthest removed from 
popular preconceptions. When the Sensationalist wishes to 
convict the Idealist of a supposed disposition to spin the mii- 
verse out of his own individual consciousness, he appeals to 
the common sense of men to support him in his declaration 
that mere " ideas " can never brino; the mind in contact with 
n real universe, and that it is through the senses the knowl- 
edge of that real universe can alone be obtained. The com- 
mon sense of men eagerly assents. When the modern Materi- 
iilist desires to obviate the unpalatable character of his theory, 
he talks cunningly of the world as a system of law, and of 
the absoluteness of the quantity of matter and of force, and 
appeals to the popular judgment in support of his assertion 
that we have no capacity within ourselves to make or unmake 
a single particle of matter, or to increase or diminish the 
amount of force stored up in the universe. The unphilo- 
sophical man sees at once that the Materialist is right. 
The Idealist, in turn, may appeal to the higher nature of 



116 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

man, in support of his view that, without intelligence, no- 
orderly universe whatever could be shown to exist, and that 
all things must come from the hand of an Infinite Intelligence, 
Avhose work they are. Again the "practical" man is con- 
vinced. Common sense is the authority to which all may con- 
fidently appeal, provided, only, that a popular turn be given to 
the expression of the theory, so as to prevent the awakening 
of a distrustful reflection. Now, surely, the lesson taught by 
this peculiar fact is, not that all philosophical theories are 
equall}^ indorsed by the common consciousness, but rather 
that the appeal to such an authorit}^ is essentially absurd. 
The common sense of men is not to be despised, but the 
attempt to prop up a philosophical theory by an authority that 
is compatible with any system whatever, simply because it 
dwells in a region into Avhich the divisive energy of philo- 
sophical reflection has not as yet made its Avay, is even more 
absurd than for a physicist to appeal to the same authority 
against some view of his brother physicist. We may either 
say that common sense holds in solution all philosophical theo- 
ries, or we may, with equal propriety, say that it lies outside 
of them all ; but, from either point of view, it is valueless as a 
criterion of philosophical truth. 

This view of common sense, as of no authority in the decis- 
ion of philosophical questions, Avill probably be accepted with- 
out much hesitation. More difficulty will be felt in admitting 
that physical science, including physiology, is equally helpless 
to determine any of the controverted questions in regard to 
the nature of the world as a whole, or in regard to the nature 
of knowledge. No assumption is more persistently and tri- 
umphantly paraded before the public than this : that the 
determination of such questions must be sought in the discov- 
eries, and by the method, of the special sciences. Such a claim 
rests upon a confusion between the data for a comprehensive 
philosophy, which must be sought from all the sources of 
human knowledge, and the metaphysical theories of those who 
seek, by formulating the unsifted categories of science, to con- 
struct a philosophical theory of the universe. The fact that, 
to a certain extent, physical science and philosophy deal with 



The World as Force. 117 

"the same data, easily leads to the unjustifiable supposition that 
the latter is merely a branch of the former. But the method" 
and object of each difter completel3^ Science deals with 
space, for example, in concreto — i. e., with points, lines, fig- 
ures, etc. — but not with the question of the relation of space 
to intelligence ; it makes use of conceptions of matter, motion, 
and force, but with these only as they are taken up read}'^- 
made by external reflection. The problem as to the condi- 
tions of reality — or, what is the same thing, as to the relationt/- 
of intelligence and existence — cannot possibly be affected by 
science, as such, simply because science never touches the prob- 
lem at all. 

If this view of the impartiality as regards philosophical 
•questions, maintained by common sense and by ph3'sical sci- 
ence, be correct, much of current speculation upon the nature 
of real existence, and of real knowledge, must be pronounced 
completely beside the mark. When a writer proceeds upon 
the supposition that existence is full-formed independently of 
intelligence, and that the problem of philosophy is to explain 
how individual men, or successive generations of men, 
conceived of as a number of individuals, have gradually ap- 
prehended it, he simply betra3^s that he has not asked the 
initial question, without which no true philosophy can come 
into existence ; for it admits of the most perfect demonstra- 
tion that any account of knowledge that starts from the as-~^' 
sumption that reality is independent of intelligence must end, 
If only it be carried forward to its results, in denying reality 
and destroying the possibility of knowledge. It is this false 
assumption that has led Mr. Spencer to speak of consciousness 
as a force convertible, like other forces, into molecular proc- 
esses, and to put forth a theory of knowledge that is really a 
theory of absolute and irremediable ignorance. In attempting 
to justify this charge in detail I shall, in the present article, 
confine myself mainly to the third chapter of the second part 
of Mr. Spencer's " First Principles," preparatory to a consider- 
ation, at some future time, of his developed view of the " per- 
.sistence of force." 

It does not require very much reflection upon the statements 



118 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy . 

m the chapter in question to make it apparent that, all through,, 
Mr. Spencer assumes that there is a real universe existing in 
:> its completeness in absolute independence of all relation to in- 
telligence. Now, there is no reason to deny that, taking one 
aspect of common sense and of natural science, there seems to 
be the strongest support for this supposition. The ordinary 
attitude of the plain man is that of a spectator who observer 
directly before him certain real things and persons that he 
seems to apprehend as they exist full-formed and complete in 
themselves. His doubts as to reality, if he have any, do not 
concern the possible illusiveness of existing things, but only 
the possibility of misapprehension on his own part. In like 
manner it is a presupposition of the observations and experi- 
ments of the scientific man that the world exists complete in 
itself, and lies there ready for apprehension. He knows that 
effort on his own part is the condition of the knowledge of 
things, but he never supposes that the presence or absence of 
such knowledge has anything to do with the reality of exist- 
ence. A philosopher, therefore, who appeals to common sense 
and to science in support of his assumption that the world is inde- 
pendent of conscious intelligence has the apparent support of 
both. But the support is only apparent. Ask the man of com- 
mon sense, or the scientific man who is innocent of philosoph- 
ical theory, whether the world he regards as real is not, after 
all, a Avorld of mere appearances — a world as it seems, but is 
not — and he can only be made to understand the question by 
a -series of explanations that take him beyond his ordinary 
point of view, and awaken him, as by a shock, to an elemen- 
tary conception of the problem of Philosophy. Prior to this, 
he had taken for granted that knowledge and reality are one^ 
and, hence, it is just as easy to show, by an appeal to common 
sense and science, that reality is bound up with intelligence, 
as to show that it is independent of intelligence. The separa- 
tion of thought and nature — knowledge and reality — does not 
present itself to ordinary consciousness at all ; and, hence, the 
empiricist and the idealist may with equal confidence appeal 
to it, secure of an apparent support. But this simpl}^ shows 
the absurdity of the appeal. Philosophy begins by discerning 



The World as Force. 119 

the possibility of a breach between knowledge and reality, and " 
its task is to show either that they coincide or that they do 
not. It is, therefore, utterly unpardonable in a philosopher to 
begin with the assumption of the non-dependence of reality on ^ 
intelligence, for such an assumption just means that so far he 
has not got to the philosophical point of view. Nor is 
this all, for such a supposition is not only unjustifiable, but 
leads to a perverted view of the relation between knowledge 
and reality, as will appear from an examination of Mr. Spen- 
cer's procedure. 

Between the first view of the world as a congeries of indi- >' 
vidual o])jects connected together by the superficial unity of 
space and time, and the scientific view of that world as a sys- 
tem of forces, there lies a wide interval during which intelli- 
gence has been becoming more and more active — on the one 
hand observing the infinite complexity of the determination of 
things, and on the other hand finding them united by higher 
and closer bonds of unity. But, as the process by which intel- 
ligence develops itself is looked upon by the scientific man, 
not less than by the man of common sense, simply as a proc- 
ess by which the properties and the relations of objects in a 
world independent of consciousness are discovered by the 
individual observer, the correlative evolution of intelligence is 
neglected. Science finds it necessary to systematize its knowl- 
edge by means of the conceptions of matter, motion, and force, i^ 
but these conceptions are looked upon as purely objective, or 
independent of thought. In this assumption, science, as such, 
is perfectly justified, since its task is to point out what are the 
properties and the relations of things to eacli other — not to 
incpiire into the relation of knowledge and reality. But he who 
constructs a philosophical theory may not take up from the spe- 
cial sciences, without criticism, the conceptions they are com- 
pelled to use, and proceed to explain knowledge on the assump- 
tion of the complete determination of objects independently of 
intelligence. This, however, is what Mr. Spencer, in the 
present instance, does. The order his exposition ostensibly 
follows is to treat first of Space and Time, then to go on to 
Matter and Motion, and to end with Force, " the ultimate of 



120 TJie Journal of fSjjecuIcUive Philosophy. 

ultimates," as he calls it. The real order of his thought, 
however, is to start from the conception of Force, next to go 
on to Motion and Matter as presupposed in Force, and finally 
to come to Time and Space as implied in Motion and Matter. 
Now, this just means that he assumes the independent reality 
of the world as it exists for science, and then proceeds by 
analysis to get back to the simplest and most abstract elements 
of that world. The true order is exact!}'' the reverse. The 
w^orld, as absolutel}^ unthinkable apart from intelligence, pre- 
supposes the putting together of more and more concrete ele- 

v> ments, so that, while Space, as the mere abstraction of external 
individuality, is in the order of thought and of the evolution of 
intelligence, the abstractest and simplest element of all. Force, 
as comprehending in a more concrete unity Time, Matter, and 
Motion, is the last and highest conception of all. The proc- 
ess of abstraction or analysis by Avhich Mr. Spencer gets his 
results is merely a process by which the intelligible character 
of the universe is denied, just because it is tacitly assumed. 

The next step of Mr. Spencer is to explain how a world 
already assumed to be known gets into the individual con- 
sciousness. The method of explanation is exceedingly simple. 
It consists in plausibly explaining how a world already known 
communicates itself to the individual through his senses. The 
senses are said immediately to reveal objects as resisting, and 
the feeling of resistance is identified with Force. As the con- 
ception of force already presupposes the whole process by 
which it has been arrived at, we thus get, b}^ an act seemingly 
of the simplest kind, the materials from which Motion, Matter, 
etc., may ])e apparently obtained b}^ analysis, without any 
synthetic activitv of thouo-ht whatever. The derivation of all 
of the elements assumed to constitute reality is thus secured 
beforehand, and we have only to take, at each fresh stage of 
our proii'rcss, as much from the intellijiible world as we find 
convenient, to give a plausible derivation of rcalitj'from imme- 
diate feeling. Thus the dependence of real existence upou 
intelligence is got rid of by the convenient method of assuming 

y beforehand wdiat we pretend to derive by a process of imme- 
diate apprehension. Nothing could be simpler, and nothing 



The World as Force. 121 

more useless aiul delusive, than a method such as this, which 
simply sets forth, as the process by which the knowledge of 
reality is obtained, that Avhich has been tacitly assumed at the 
outset. Before turning directly to Mr. Spencer's account of 
Space and Time, with which he begins his exposition, a few- 
words upon what we conceive to be the true nature of those- 
conceptions may not be out of place. 

When we proceed to examine the world of experience with 
11 view to a reflective comprehension of the elements it con- 
tains, it becomes apparent that the simplest element with 
which we can possibly start involves a sjaithesis of universality 
and particularity in their most attenuated forms. The world 
of experience is a Avorld that is known, and no knowledge is 
thinkable that does not imply the comprehension of differences '' 
by thought. Intelligence and Nature reciprocal!}^ iiiiplj each 
other, so that either is a fiction of abstraction apjirt from the 
other. Now, the simplest form in which the external 
or material universe can be thought of is as a pure self-"^ 
externality, which is yet a unity. This simplest and most 
attenuated form of the unity of universal and particular is 
what must be understood by the world as pure space. Space â–  
is absolute or perfect externality, because every part of space I 
is external to every other, and between the diflerent parts] 
there is no distinction except that they are out of each other. 
But, as the parts are all absolutely alike, the distinction of' 
parts is no distinction ; space is only external to itself. The 
particularity, therefore, is just as much universality. And 
the universality is no less particularity. From the point of 
view of reality, space may be said to be one space uniting 
an infinity of spaces ; from the point of view of intelligence, 
it is the simplest phase of thought, in which universality and 
l^articularity are so attenuated as to be inseparable and indis- 
tinguishable. In other words, the concrete objects known in 
experience are here reduced to their vanishing point, and it is 
found that the barest reality involves the reflection of the par- 
ticular into the universal. 

This view of the matter has important consequences. If the 
poorest and most abstract form in which the external world can 



122 The Journal of Speculative Philosophij . 

be thought at all involves the synthesis of universal and ])[iv~ 
ticular — or, what is the same thhig, from the side of intelli- 
gence, the reflection of immediate feeling into thought — it is 
vain, at any subsequent stage of intelligence, to attempt the 
explanation of reality as the purely individual, or of the knowl- 
edge of reality as built upon simple, unmediated consciousness. 
Any attempt to account for extension as revealed by pure 
feeling, whether it takes the form of Locke's confusion be- 
tween touch as a mere feeling and body as that which is dis- 
tinct from, and yet related to, feeling; or Hume's shuffle 
between "colored points disposed in a certain manner" and 
individual sensations of sight and touch; or Mr. Bain's con- 
fusion between muscular sensations and extended bodies ; or 
Mr. Spencer's identification of feelings of resistance with ob- 
jects that resist — all such attempts involve the inconsistency 
of explaining that which is intelligible by that which is uniu- 
telligiljle. From the mere particularity of feeling the 
universal can by no possibility be extracted ; and, hence, even 
if it be granted that particular feelings might possibly reveal 
a succession of Heres or particular spaces, it would not 
be possible to explain the com])ination of spaces in one space, 
without having recourse to the universalizing power of 
thought. The difiiculty is infinitely increased when it is con- 
sidered that a succession of feelings can never give rise to co- 
existent spaces. Thus, at the very outset, a regard for facts 
> compels us to say that space, as the unity comprehending par- 
ticular spaces, can only l)e known by an intelligence that 
brings the particular within the grasp of its own universalit}'. 
On the other hand, the opposite fault of the abstracting 
intellect — the isolation of the universal from the particular — 
is equally guarded against by the analysis of space just made. 
Kant's concc[)tion of space as a pure form of our sensihility 
commits the mistake of fixing upon the unity of space to the 
exclusion of its particularity ; for, while particular spaces that 
arc completely isolated from each other could never give rise 
to the conception of one world of things in space, pure space, 
as the exclusion of i)articular spaces, is no less an unthinkable 
abstraction. The concrete unity resulting from the reflection 



The World as Force. 123 

of particular spaces into one universal space is just the barest, 
and simplest form in which the material world can be thought 
of at all, and the isolation of either element must result, in 
the lono- run, in the overthrow of real knowledoe. Hence it 
is that, while the Sensationalist's account of space as an im- 
mediate revelation of feeling issues in the denial of all external- 
ity to objects, the Kantean position that space is a bare form 
at length revenges itself in the denial of any knowledge of 
things in themselves. Particular feelings, supposing them to 
exist in consciousness at all, can never take the individual be- 
yond his own subjective states, and the conception of space as 
a mere form does not allow of the apprehension of the world 
and the mind as they really are. ^ 

The above analysis also guards against the supposition that 
Space can, in any proper sense, be a limitation of intelligence. 
The supposed limitation derives its plausibility from the 
assumption that the world, as spacial, is independent of intel- 
ligence. But, as space perse is pure externality, it can only 
exist in relation to a comprehending intelligence, thiit mani- 
fests itself in its simplest form as a self-externality, that is just 
as much self-internality. Space cannot limit thought, be-^ 
cause, without thought, space itself could not be real. Nor, 
again, are spacial relations applicable to intelligence or reality 
in all its modes ; the simplest manifestation of intelligence 
cannot be carried along so as to prevent the elevation of in- 
telliaence into hioher forms. On the contrary, the universaliz- 
ing power of thought must manifest itself by mcreasing its own 
complexity, and, at the same time, the complexity of the world. 
That unity in diversity which meets us in space, rather as a 
prophecy than an accomplished fact, must manifest itself in the 
richer and concreter manifestations of the real world ; and to 
this growing complexity there can be no limit until every ele- 
ment of diflerence has been reduced to a perfect unity. This 



2 For an exhaustive criticism of Kant's view of Space and Time I am happy to 
be able to refer to Professor Caird's " Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant " 
( see, especially, pages 267, 603 ), a remarkable work, that ought to effect a revolu- 
tion in English methods of philosophizing. 



124 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

process is exhibited in germ in the conception of things, as in 
Time. 

As Space is the abstraction of mere externality or individu- 
ality, so Time is the abstraction of pure internality. In the 
one case, things are conceived as iibsolntely out of each other, 
so that the world is regarded solely in its statical aspect ; the 
latter views things as issuing from each other, and, hence, it 
looks upon the world of things in their dynamical aspect. 
Objects that are thought of simply as in space are regarded 
as utterly indifferent to each other, and, hence, change, in any 
form, is excluded ; at the same time, all objects are a totality, 
and this totality is, in its abstract form, space as one space. 

> In the conception of Space as a unity of spaces there is, 
therefore, involved implicitly the connection of things Avith 
each other, and, therefore, the change of one into the other ; 

p. and this notion of change, in its crudest form, is Time. The 
same factors of universality and particularity are here in- 
volved ; pure Time is unthinkable, and, therefore, unreal ; and 
mere times are equally unintelligible. Time is the abstract 
unity of permanence and change. The JSfoio exists only 
relatively to other Nows, and the unity of all Noios is Time 
as relatively concrete. Nature, as changing, is the synthesis 
of permanence and succession. Intelligence, manifesting it- 

- self as Nature, is the synthesis of the abiding universal and 
the changing particular. A merely feeling consciousness, a 
consciousness having no universality in it, could not be con- 
. scious of Time, because the particular is not of itself a possi- 
ble object of thought. Hence the absurdity of attempting to 
accoimt for Time from the changing phases of individual con- 
sciousness. Only the universal or permanent can comprehend 
the particular, and a purely feeling consciousness, which ex 
hypothesi changes as the moments of Time change, could never 
grasp together the different No'ws of Time, and, hence, could 
never become conscious of Time at all. On the other hand, 
as was remarked of Space, Time is not a mere form or ab- 
stract universal, for in that case all distinctions in Time — and, 
therefore. Time itself — would be unknowable. Kant's concep- 



The World as Force. 125 

tion of Time, as pure, unmediated universality, is as faulty as /- 
the sensationalist's assumption that Time is pure particularity. 
Time is neither the one nor the other, but both ; as an expres- 
sion of the nature of intelligence, it is a universal that is xwe-^ 
diated and defined through the particular. It need hardly be 
added that Time, as one of the simplest manifestations of 
thought, is no limitation of thought ; that which is a manifes- 
tation of intelligence cannot frustrate the necessary develop- 
ment of intelligence. Thought must go on from the concep- 
tion of abstract self-evolution to the conception of the world 
as a concrete process of becoming. Having so far negated 
the mere externality of things as to conceive of them as passing ^' 
into each other, and yet abiding by themselves, it must, in 
order to explain the universe as it really is, show that Space 
in itself and Time in itself are but the simplest elements in a 
world that is one, and yet infinitely diverse. 

If the above is anything like a true account of what is im- 
plied in the conception of Nature as spacial and temporal, the 
derivation given by Mr. Spencer of space and time, prepara- 
tory to his reduction of all ])henomena to Force, at least in so 
far as it is self-consistent, is so radically false as completely 
to reverse the relation of Intelligence and Nature. That ex- 
planation is, briefly, as follows : " Of those relations which 
are the form of all thought there are two orders, relations of 
secjuence and relations of co-existence, the former being 
original and the latter derivative. The relation of sequence - 
is given in every change of consciousness. The relation of 
co-existence, which cannot be originally given in a conscious- 
ness of wdiicli the states are serial, becomes distinguished 
only when it is found that certain relations of sequence have 
their terms presented in consciousness in either order with 
equal facility ; while the others are presented only in one 
order. Relations of which the terms are not reversible be- 
come recognized as sequences proper, while relations of 
which the terms occur indifterently in both directions become 
recognized as co-existences. By endless experiences an ab- 
stract conception of each is generated. The abstract of all 
sequences is Time. The abstract of all co-existences is Space. 



126 The Journal of Speculative Philosoj)hy. 

Our conceptions of Time and Space, then, are generated, as 
other abstracts are generated from other concretes ; the only 
â– difference being that the organization of experiences has, in 
these cases, been goino; on throusfhout the entire evolution of 
intelligence. The experiences out of "which the abstract of 
<;o-existence has been generated are experiences of individual 
positions as ascertained by touch, and each of such experi- 
ences involves the resistance of an object touched, and the 
muscular tension which measures this resistance. By coimt- 
less unlike muscular adjustments different positions are dis- 
closed ; but since, under other circumstances, the same mus- 
cular adjustments do not produce contact with resisting 
positions, there result the same states of consciousness, minus 
the resistance, and from a building up of these results Space. 
Similarly in regard to Time, the abstract of all sequences."^ 
This passage contains an admirable illustration of that mix- 
ture of common-sense Realism and individualistic Sensational- 
ism which runs through the whole of Mr. Spencer's philosophy, 
and, indeed, through all empirical psychology. It is j-eally 
an attempt to combine two discordant views that are not 
capable of union, and which, therefore, are simply applied to 
each other without being united, as the surfaces of two 
chiseled stones may be brou2:ht into close contact without 
being joined together. In our unreflective experience of the 
world we are as far as possible from supposing that the ob- 
jects we know are resoluble into our own passing feelings ; on 
the contrary, we tacitly assume that the world ?«e know is the 
world as it really is — the world as known by everybody else. 
It is, no doubt, true that we look upon ourselves and others 
as independent individuals, and that this assumption, when 
made explicit, leads to the view of Sensationalism that the 
only way in which things are known is through our subjective 
feelings. We may, therefore, say that common consciousness 
assumes, indifferently, that the known world is objective and 
intelligible, and that it is subjective and sensuous ; unreflective 
consciousness, in short, is, implicitly, at once idealistic and 



■■» First Principles, pp. 163-165, sec. 47. 



The World as Force. 127 

sensationalistic, althougli, explicitly, it is neither the one nor 
the other. ]\Ir. Spencer's procedure is to accept both the Re-^ 
4ilisni — i. e., the tacit Idealism of common sense — and its con- 
tradictory Sensationalism. Accordingly, he does not scruple â–  
to speak of relations of sequence and relations of co-exist-;^ 
ence as if they were given in complete independence of 
intelligence ; and, hence, the only question, as he puts it, is 
how the individual comes gradually to appropriate objects 
through his own particular and perpetually-changing feelings. 
From this way of stating the question the absurdity of trying to 
build up a stable universe out of evanescent sensations is con- 
cealed both from Mr. Spencer himself and from the unwary 
reader; because, having an intelligible universe always before 
their consciousness, it is overlooked that individual feelings, as 
unrelated, are in the most absolute sense unintelligible. It is 
not seen to be a contradiction to identif}'' successive feelings of 
touch and of muscular sensation with " relations of sequence," 
and even with "relations of co-existence," although it seems 
Ijlain enough, the moment it is stated, that feelings, as such,*^ 
â– cannot be "relations" of any kind whatever. Proof of this 
charge of self-contradiction is so important in itself, and has so 
decisive a bearing upon the doctrine of Force as conceived by 
empirical psychologists, that a detailed examination of Mr. 
Spencer's derivation of the conceptions of Space and Time may 
be excused. The " relation of sequence " is primary, because 
" given in every change of consciousness ; " the " relation of 
co-existence " is secondary, because it " cannot be originally 
<>iven in a consciousness of which the states are serial." 
How, then, does the consciousness of co-existence arise? 
From the fact that " certain relations of sequence have their 
terms presented in consciousness, in either order, with equal 
facility, while the others are presented only in one order." 
Here it is quite evident that Mr. Spencer is trying to explain 
how we come to experience a world of co-existent and succes- 
sive objects, conceived in the first place as independent of con- 
sciousness. Now, a world in which events are " presented 
only in one order" is, in other words, a world in which the 
•events are connected in an irreversible or uniform order, i. e.. 



128 The Journal of Speculative Pliilowpliy . 

ill which tlicy are connected together as cause and effect. 
Sucli a world, therefore, is already constituted by universal 
forms of thought, involving, not only intelligence, but intelli- 
gence that has developed itself by very complex relations. 

^ And a necessary and uniform sequence of events is very differ- 
ent from a supposed sequence of feelings, as they occur in " a 
consciousness of which the states are serial." No doubt 
there is a point of view from which it can l)e shown that the 
serial states of consciousness imply a uniform sequence in the 
way of causality, but such a view can only be justified by a 
theory which undertakes to set forth, in systematic order, the 
different elements that conspire to produce a rational universe — 
a universe that, apart from Reason, is nothing ; not by a theory 
that proposes to account for a readj^-made universe which is in- 
dependent of Reason. That Mr. Spencer is committed to the 
latter stand-point is evident even from his attempt to account 
for relations of co-existence by relations of sequence ; and it is 
still more apparent from the fact that co-existence is after- 
wards explained as a compound of feelings of touch and, 
muscular sensation. His method, then, is to identify '' rela- 

.tions of sequence" with the mere sequence of feelings, in a 
" consciousness of which the states can only be serial :" and, 
having thus assumed uniform relations of sequence, the only 
thing requiring explanation seems to be, how these give rise 
to relations of co-existence. But a sequence of feelings con- 
ceived to occur in a purely individual consciousness is as far 
as possible from being identical with the objective sequence of 
real events in an inteiligi])le world. The former is, ex hypo- 

> thesi, not irreversible, but arbitrary; not objective, l)ut sul)- 
jective. The latter is necessary, uniform, and unchanging, and 
involves the actual relation of objects as identical in the 
midst of change, and as necessarily connected with each 
other. The one excludes all relation, the other involves a 
complexity of relations. It is, therefore, utterly impossible 

' to extract from the sequence of states, in a purely individual 
consciousness, any ol)jective order of events ; and there is no 
reason whatever for deriving co-existence from sequence, ex- 
cept the unwarrantable confusion between the causal sequence 



The World as Force. 129 

of events and the arl)itrary sequence of individual feelings. 
And this brings us to remark, secondly, that " relations of 
co-existence ' ' are not separable from ' ' relations of sequence ' ' 
iu the way assumed by Mr. Spencer. We may distinguish 
the causal connection of events from the reciprocal influence "^ 
of co-existing substances upon each other, but the intelligent 
experience of reality involves both. It is not possible to be 
conscious of events as uniformly sequent, without being con- 
scious of substances as reciprocall}' dependent upon and in- 
fluencing eacli other ; or, to take experience at an earlier 
stage, it is not possible to thinlv of events as following upon 
each other in time, apart from the thought of things as co-ex- 
isting in space. The experience of the one implies the expe- 
rience of the other ; and, hence, any attempt to get the one 
without the other is an attempt to apprehend one element of 
the real world apart from another element that is necessary to 
make it real. We may, certainly, ideally distinguish the ele- 
ments, but in our analysis we must be careful to leave room 
for such a synthesis as shall exclude all actual separation. 
That this is not Mr. Spencer's view would be evident even 
from the fact that he makes relations of sequence primary, 
and relations of co-existence secondary — exactly the reverse 
of the true order of connection, as our analysis of Space and 
Time has shown. 

Having plausibly derived relations of co-existence from rela- 
tions of sequence, Mr. Spencer tries to show that Space 
and Time are " o-enerated as other abstracts are o'enerated." 
The same paralogism of Individual feelings and relations of/ 
thought again presents itself. We start from the world as 
given In ordinary consciousness — the world as implicitly 
rational — and ask how, supposing we have a knowledge of 
co-exlstent and successive objects, abstract Space and Time 
are produced? There can be no difiiculty In giving an ap- 
parently satisfactory explanation, because in our datum we 
already have implicitly that which is to be established. Things 
as co-exlstent and successive are spaclal and temporal, and by 
simply analyzing what is contained in our ordinary knowledge, 
and abstracting from all the difierences of objects, we easily get 
XII — 9 



130 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Space and Time as residue. Mr. Spencer, in other words, 
Avhen he speaks here of Space, has before his mind Space as 
the object of the mathematical sciences. Now, mathematics 
does not find it necessary to inquire into the rehition of Space 
to intelligence ; as a special science it is sufficient for it to 
assume its object as ready-made, and to examine the various 
ideal limitations of it from the phenomenal point of view. 
Mr. Spencer, therefore, has, in his conception of space as the 
' ' abstract of all co-existences ' ' — an abstract that is supposed to 
be obtained by mere analysis of apreexistcnt material — a ready 
means of emptying intelligence of its universal relations. 
Just as, Avhen he has to account for co-existent objects, he first 
identifies the mere sequence of feelings with the necessary or 
ol)jective sequence of events, and thus apparently gets into 
feeling the conception of permanent substances ; so here he 
assumes that ol)jects as offering resistance are given in feelings 
of touch, and, hence, easily derives empty space from muscular 
tensions unassociated with feelings of resistance. It is hardly 
necessary to repeat that individual feelings, however numer- 
ous, cannot possibly account for the knowledge of extended 
thiuffs or of extension, since such feelings are assumed to be 
'destitute of that universality which is the condition of au}^ 
knowledge whatever. Mr. Spencer seems to suppose that, by 
throwing the supposed experience back into the haze of the past, 
and imagining a vast period of time to have elapsed, during 
which the race has been accumulating knowledge, the intel- 
lectual elements of experience may be resolved into felt ele- 
ments. But this is an utterly untenable position. The very 
beginning of intelligent experience, whether in the individual 
or in the race, must contain the elements necessary to such 
experience, and these elements cannot l)e reduced to lower 
terms than a synthesis of subject and object, of the universal 
and the particular. A purely feeling consciousness, assumed 
to exist for an infinite period of time, would still be a feeling 
consciousness, and, until it emerged from this unintelligent 
state,- and by a primary act of abstraction separated and united 
the object and the subject, it could have no experience of the 
world at all, and, therefore, no experience of a world as 



The World as Force. 131 

spacial. Mr. Spencer really confuses the unreflective con- 
sciousness, which does not sharply separate subject and object/ 
or things and space, with a merely feeling consciousness which, 
as such, is the negation of that separation. But in the former 
the two terms are really present, and, although their contrast 
is seldom explicity perceived, it is still there, ready to be 
l)rought out by reflectiv^e analysis ; in fact, were it not implicitly 
there, no amount of reflection could extract it. It is, there- 
fore, a manifest hysteron 2^^'oteron to account for Space as due 
to mere feelings of muscular tension. In intelligent experience 
Space and Time are not posterior, but prior, to co-existing and 
successive objects, as undifferentiated Space is prior to posi- 
tions — /. e., limitations of Space. Mr. Spencer first identifies •- 
feelings of muscular tension with co-existing positions — which, 
as involving relations to each other, are more than feelings — 
and next assumes that a synthesis of these positions generates 
Space. But position already involves the rehition of the parts 
of Space to each other, and, hence, cannot account for Space. 
In short, just as existing objects presuppose the relation of 
objects to each other in Space, and, therefore, different posi- 
tions, so position presupposes a universal Space, which is ideally 
limited. Space is not a collection of particular spaces, but a 
universal Space differentiating itself in the particular. 

Having found that Mr. Spencer ostensibly derives Space 
and Time from mere feelings of resistance, which he unwar- 
rantably identifies with the conception of Force, we may be 
sure that in his account of Matter and Motion the same falla- 
cious method will be resorted to. The account of Matter is, 
briefly, as follows: "Our conception of Matter, reduced to 
its simplest shape, is that of co-existent positions that ofier 
resistance. We think of Body as bounded by surfaces that 
resist, and as made up throughout of parts that resist. * * * 
And, since the group of co-existing positions constituting a 
portion of matter is uniformly capable of giving us impres- 
sions of resistance in combination with various muscular ad- 
justments, according as we touch its near, its remote, its 
right or left side, it results that, as different muscular adjust- 
ments habitually indicate diff'erent co-existences, we are obliged 



132 27^6 Journal of Speculative Philosophy/. 

to conceive every portion of matter as containing more than 
one resistant position. * * * 'j^\^q resistance-attribute of 
Matter must 1)6 regarded as primordial, and the space-attri- 
bute as derivative. * * * j^ ^l^^g becomes manifest 
that our experience of force is that out of which the idea of 
Matter is built." ^ 

Here ao-ain we have an illustration of that method of 
accounting for the intelligible world by ignoring intelligence 
which Mr. Spencer carries on with great self-complacency, and 
apparently without the least perception of the real nature of 
his procedure. "Our conception of Matter, reduced to its 
simplest shape," simply means the real world after we have 
eliminated by abstraction those prominent elements in it which 
presuppose an elaborate process of construction by thought. 
The world as it exists for the scientific man, the world as 
composed of objects bound together by the law of gravitation,, 
and manifesting physical, chemical, and vital forces, is stripped 
of all its differentiatino- relations, and reduced to a congeries 
of extended and solid atoms, preparatory to the reverse proc- 
ess by which the relations abstracted from shall be surrep- 
titiously brought back and attributed to independent feelings. 
But, even when thus attenuated to a ghost of its former self, 
the attempted derivation from feeling is easily seen to be inad- 
missible. The passage from individual feelings to " co-exist- 
ent positions that offer resistance," however apparently easy, 
cannot really be made. We are told of "impressions of 
resistance," and of " muscular adjustments." Now, an im- 
pression of resistance is not a mere feeling, but the conception 
of an object as resisting, and such a conception involves a 
construction of reality by relations of thought. Similarly, 
"muscular adjustments" presupposes a knowledge of the 
muscular system, or, at least, of the body as it exists for com- 
mon consciousness, and, hence, relations of thought are incon- 
sistently attrilnited to mere feeling. If we exclude all that is 
involved in the relation of a resisting object to the organism 
as the medium of muscular sensibility, we are reduced to mere 



* First Principles, pp. 166, 167, sec. 48. 



The World as Force. 133 

feelings that by no possibility can give a knowledge of any- 
thing real and external to themselves. Hence the absurdity 
of assuming that mere feeling gives a theory of matter as a 
manifestation of force ; hence, also, the absurdity of regarding 
force as the simplest, instead of the most complex, element of 
the real world as it exists for the scientific man. 

From what has been said it is easy to say why Mr. Spencer 
regards the " resistance-attribute of matter as primordial, the 
space-attril)ute as derivative." It must, at first sight, seem 
strange that "co-existing positions that offer resistance " should 
be held to be prior to " co-existing positions " themselves. In 
the apprehension of resisting positions there is, surely, already 
implied Space. Mr. Spencer, however, identifies his ow^n 
theory, that resistant positions are revealed by muscular sen- 
sations, with the common-sense apprehension of objects, which, 
like all knowdedge, really involves the implicit reduction of 
particulars to the unity of thought. Hence Space, although 
it is involved in the ordinary apprehension of objects in the 
same sense in which resistance is involved in it, is assumed by 
Mr. Spencer not to exist for consciousness at all, because it 
has not yet been made an object of the abstract understand- 
ing. Accordingly, the resistance is abstracted from, and 
there is left, pure Space, as it exists for the mathematician. 
Here the purely analytical procedure of the empirical ps3^cliolo- 
^ist is apparent. The world of objects in Space is supposed 
to be given apart from thought, or rather by means of mere 
" impressions of resistance," and, by a further extension of this 
purely sensible process, the knowledge of Space is supposed 
to be given by feeling, when in reality it is got by a process 
of abstraction that presupposes the manifold relations of intel- 
ligence by which the world has been put together. Mr. Spen- 
cer has not asked himself the proper question of philosophy, 
How is the real world related to intelligence? but, instead, has 
put a question that presupposes a false abstraction of reality 
from intelligence, viz.. How does the individual man apprehend 
by his sensations the real world? The true answer to his 
question is that, by mere sensation, no reality whatever can be 
apprehended, and the illusion of such apprehension simply 



134 TJie Journal of Speculative Pliilosoi:)liy. 

arises from confounding sensation as the first unreflected form 
of knowledge Avith sensation as a mere abstraction of one 
element of knowledge. If it be replied that Mr. Spencer does 
>not base knowledge upon mere feelings, but upon " relations," 
the answer is that the "relations" do not on his view con- 
stitute reality, but are only the modes by which the individual 
consciousness gradually fills itself up with the preexistent 
elements of a supposed real world; and, hence, that, notwith- 
standing the use of terms implying more than feeling, mere 
feelinofs are, after all, assumed to account for realitv. 

Mr, Spencer's account of Motion is similar in nature to the 
account of Space, of Time, and of ]Matter. " The concep- 
tion of Motion, as presented, or represented, in the developed 
consciousness, involves the conceptions of Space, of Time, and 
of Matter. A something that moves ; a series of positions 
united in thouoht with the successive ones — these are the 
constituents of the idea. * * * Movements of diiferent 
parts of the organism in relation to each other are first 
presented in consciousness. These, produced by the action 
of the muscles, necessitate reactions upon consciousness in 
the shape of muscular tension. Consequently, each stretch- 
ing-out or drawing-in of a limb is originally known as a series 
of muscular tensions, varying in intensity as the position of 
the limb changes. * * * Motion, as we know it, is thus 
traceable to experiences of force." ^ 

In treating of Matter, Mr. Spencer betook himself to the 
conception of the world as it exists for the scientific 
man, and, necflectino; the manifold relations which form 
the real wealth of the sciences, he fixed his attention exclu- 
sively upon Body, conceived as extended and resistant. Now, 
he refers again to his scientific conception of the world, and, 
fetching therefrom the conception of Motion, adds it to the ele- 
ments he has thus far sought to explain. In this way he gets 
the credit of explaining the origin of Motion without any syn- 
thetic activity of thought, while in reality he is simply giving 
a distorted view of the supposed origination of that conception 



* First Principles, pp. 167, 168, sec. 49. 



The World as Force. 135 

from feelino:s — a view that recommends itself to the uncritical 
reader merely because he fails to see the assumptions it in- 
volves. 

Motion is to be explained by feeling, and, for the purpose in 
hand, muscular tensions are most easily manipulated. " Move- 
ments of different parts of the organism," we are told, " are 
first presented in consciousness." This is an exceedingly facile 
way of accounting for our knowledge of Motion. The ' ' organ- 
ism " is assumed, and that means that we are already, at the 
beginning of knowledge, supposed to have such a knowledge 
of it as is possessed by the scientific physiologist. Hence the 
manifold relations of real objects to each other, and the dif- 
ferentiation of the human oroanism from other org-anisms, and 
from inorganic bodies, is taken for granted at the very start. 
That being so, there can be no great difiiculty in accounting 
for the movements of the organism, seeing that these are 
already implied in our knowledge of the organism itself. 
These movements, Ave are next informed, "necessitate reac- 
tions upon consciousness." No doubt they do; but the 
question is whether such " reactions " can possibly be known 
by consciousness as reactions, supposing consciousness to be 
identical with feeling. The assumption that this is really the 
case derives its apparent force from confusing the mere feeling 
of muscular tension, which is incapable of giving the knowl- 
edge of any reality whatever, Avith the concejjtion of muscular 
tension as related to a real, intelligible Avorld. Hence it seems 
as if feelings of muscular tension, "known as a series," 
account for motion in the form of " movements of different 
parts of the organism." But "muscular tensions," as feel- 
ings, can only be supposed to give a knoAvledge of the move- 
ments of the organism, because the conception of such move- 
ments, and of motion in general, is taken up Avithout criti- 
cism from the special sciences. When Ave make a real effort 
to explain Motion, Ave find that it is utterly unintelligible, 
apart from the other elements dependent upon an intellectual 
synthesis, to Avhich it is related. 

After Avhat has already been said, it cannot be necessary to 
show at length that " experiences of Force " do not, as Mr. 



136 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Spencer would have us believe, precede experiences of Motion, 
but, on the contrary, presuppose those experiences. It is only 
by unwarrantably confusing mere feelings of muscular tension 
with the muscular tensions themselves, as tliey exist in a real 
world, which is, at the same time, an intelligible world, that 
imy one could fall into the mistake of setting down as primary 
and simple that which involves a long and very complex proc- 
ess of differentiation. Force is, no doubt, presupposed in 
Motion, as Motion is presupposed in Matter, and Matter in 
Time, and Time in Space ; but the implications of the first 
iind simplest form of knowledge are not at first discerned, and, 
hence. Force is the last element in the scientific conception of 
the world which emerges into explicitness. 

And this brings us to Mr. Spencer's concluding remarks 
upon the relation of Force to the other elements he has 
endeavored to account for. Space, Time, Matter, and Motion 
*' are either built up of, or abstracted from, experiences of 
Force," and these " supply at once the materials whence the 
forms of relations are generalized, and the related objects 
built up. * * * Thus all other modes of consciousness 
are derivable from experiences of Force ; but experiences of 
Force are not derivable from anything else." ^ 

It would be tedious to repeat what has been already said as 
to the unwarrantable identification of the conception of Force 
with supposed sensations of Force. In place of this, two 
remarks of a more general character may be made. In the 
first place, there is a sense in which it may be said that ever}'^- 
thing is reducible to " experiences of Force," while these are 
not themselves reducible to anything else. Taking the con- 
ception of Nature as it exists for the scientific man, and ask- 
ing what arc the elements it presupposes in their connection 
with each other, we shall be led to say that the conception of 
Force comprehends under it manifold relations, which it re- 
duces to a higher unity. The conception of Nature, as a 
system of forces, is more perfect than the conception of it as 
a congeries of material things endowed with the cajDacity of 



'' First Principles, p. 169, sec. 50. 



The World as Force. 137 

motion, or than the conception of it as simply a world in 
Space and Time. In this sense it may be said that in Force 
we reach a conception that cannot legitimately be brought un- 
der any other conception. But it must be observed that, in 
this way of looking at the matter. Force, so far from being 
incomprehensible, is the most comprehensible of all. Intelli- 
gence is more at home when it grasps external nature as a 
world in which Force manifests itself in an infinite variety of 
Avays than when it conceives of Nature as arrested in exclusive 
material things, only externally related to each other by the 
superficial bonds of Space and Time, or by the more definite 
bond of Motion. The only way in which Force can seem to 
be more alien to intelligence than nature in its lower forms 
is when we try to conceive of it as a mysterious something 
existing apart from its manifestations, for then it is stripped 
of all the determinations which give it meaning. The true 
definition of Force is to be found in the infinite relations be- 
tween material things which constitute the world as real. 

And this leads us to remark, secondly, that, however per- 
fect the conception of Force or its manifestations may be, as 
a definition of external nature, it is yet but a stage in the 
complete comprehension of the universe as a whole. The 
only category which is adequate to reality in its completeness 
is self-conscious intellijrence. Until intelligence has advanced 
to the comprehension of itself, as the first presupposition of 
all reality, and the last definition of it, it must be afflicted 
and goaded on bv unrest to seek its own realization. The no- 
tion of the world as Force still leaves a distinct trace of the 
independence of Nature and Intelligence, and, until this tacit 
dualism is completely transcended, intelligence cannot be sat- 
isfied that its knowledge is undeniably real. Hence the 
necessity of advancing to a higher stage of thought than that 
which results even from a systematic comprehension of the 
elements of reality involved in the scientific conception of 
Nature. The further development of this thought must, how- 
ever, be left to a future occasion, when we propose to exam- 
ine Mr. Spencer's account of the indestructibility of matter 
and the persistence of force. 



138 The Journal of Speculative PJdlosophy. 



THE TRUE AND THE FALSE IN DARWINISM. 

A CRITICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE THEORY OF ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT. BY- 
EDWARD VON HARTMAN. BERLIN, 1875. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY HENRY I. d'aRCY. 

///. The Theory of Heterogeneous Generation^ and the Theory 

of Transmutation, 

Although we shall not consider any further the other 
instances of ideal relationship in the natural system, but shall 
devote ourselves simply to a consideration of the theory of 
descent, yet we deem it proper to repeat that the theory of 
descent is broader than Darwinism. The latter is a particular 
theory of trausmutation — that is, it assumes that the deriva- 
tion of ever}^ species from another is effected through a grad- 
ual change of type, by means of repeated infinitesimal varia- 
tions. The theory of descent, as such, does not, indeed, 
exclude this principle, but it does not depend upon it, for it 
also allows quite different views as to the manner in which one 
type springs from another. The theoiy of transmutation is not 
even the most natural one, since direct experience furnishes 
no instance of an actual transmutation of one well-defined 
species into another, but rather points to the old doctrine of 
the constancy of species, a doctrine which can ou\y be dis- 
proved by a critical examination of the transitional character 
of the difference (fliissigen Unterschieds) between undevel- 
oped, developed, and overdeveloped {uherreifen) species. 
The most natural supposition is, rather, that the first ovum 
of the species about to be created is produced in the ovary of 
a closely-related species, by a change, at the earliest moment, 
in the tendencies of the embryo. This process by which 
parents of one species produce young of a new species has 
been styled by Kolliker ^ " heterogeneous generation." Here, 



1 Compare Kolliker " Ueber die Darwinsche Schopfungs theorie," Leipzig, 
1864; and " Morphologie und Entwickelungsgcschichte des Pennatulidenstammcs 
nebst allgemeinen Betrachtungen zur Descendenzlehre," Frankfort, 1872. 



The True and False in Darwinism. IS^ 

also, there is a transmutation or change, l)iit the process is 
instant, and not one consisting of numerous short stages ; 
and, of course, tliis sudden change is never visible, but is a 
germ-metamorphosis which leads to the creation of a new 
species. In this form, as "a change of types through germ 
metamorphosis," the theory of descent was maintained in 
Germany by Heinrich Baumgartner - before Darwin or Kol- 
liker. 

This view of course renders hopeless any attempt to explain 
the processes which occur in the embryo and introduce a new 
species merely by the mechanical influence of accidental ex- 
ternal causes, and points steadily to the assumption of an in- 
ternal development according to law, though of but oc- 
casional occurrence. It was, perhaps, this which repelled the 
natural philosophers, who were most wedded to a mechanical 
conception of nature, from this form of the theory of descent, 
and led them to a belief in the exclusive efficacy of the trans- 
mutation theory, in the sense above indicated, in which the 
law of internal development is sought to be, apparently, elimi- 
nated by a subdivision of the process of change into numer- 
ous minute stages. On the other hand, those who ascribe 
considerable importance to this inner law allow themselves, on 
account of the erroneons belief of the Darwinians that they 
have eliminated such law by means of the transmutation 
theory, to be misled into a certain groundless opposition to 
this theory, which, nevertheless, can be easily maintained 
within certain limits — that is, so far as the gradual transmuta- 
tion is regarded as the external medium of the ideal change of 
type, and, therefore, the means used by the principle of de- 
velopment for the attainment of its ends. As the type of 
every species includes within it a greater or lesser number of 
varieties, some particular varieties of the two most closely 
related species must be more closely related to each other 



^The works of Baumgartner are: " Ueber die Nerven unci das Blut," 1830; 
"Lehrbuch der Physiologic," 1853; "Blicke in das All," 1857; "Natur und 
Gott," 1870. The chapters of this work, from the third to the sixth, are particularly 
instructive, but the remainder of it is of a disconnected and dilettante-\\kQ char- 
acter. 



140 TJie Journal of Speculative PhilosopJty . 

than any other two, and even the strongest advocates of the 
constancy of species are obliged to admit (Wigand, page 18) 
that there arc species whose extremities nearly or quite run 
into each other ; at any rate, the most closely related varieties 
of two species form the best bridge for germ-metamorphosis, 
and, in the case of contact of two species, heterogeneous gen- 
eration itself is only a link in the chain of gradual transmuta- 
tion which connects the centers of both species.^ 

It is obvious that heteroo-eneous 2:eneration and irradual 
transmutation are by no means conflicting theories ; the diflfer- 
ence between them is rather one of degree. For we may 
conceive transmutation to be as gradual as we please, yet the 
shortest steps are not, in a mathematical sense, infinitely 
short ; every deviation, be it ever so small, is consequentlj^ in 
the strict sense of the term, a leap of nature, and the ques- 
tion is only whether the leap is longer or shorter. If it passes 
a certain limit, it is called heterogeneous generation ; but 
what this limit is, no one dares to determine. Should we 
seek it at the point where there occurs a change of the type 
of a species, we would forget that in those species whose ex- 
tremities run into each other the deviation may be much less 
than we often see before our own eyes when a new variety 
suddenly appears. On the other hand, we should take care 
when there is a direct descent of one species from another, 
and a considerable difference between their forms, not to infer 
the existence of intermediate varieties, now lost, in order to 
serve as connecting links ; because we have no means of 



* The fact must be by no means overlooked that, in germ-metamorphosis, not 
only the visible type, but also the latent tendencies, must experience a modifica- 
tion ; especially must the transition be effected from the tendency in a border- 
variety {Grenzvanetat) to repeat itself to the tendency to vary itself. The advo- 
cates of the constancy of species may contend that heterogeneous generation is, 
in this, specifically different from transnuitation ; but it should not be forgotten 
that the latent process by which the tendency to repeat is changed into the tendency 
to vary can as easily be divided into a series of mitnite germ-metamorphoses, and 
distributed through several generations, as the process of external change can. It 
is only where an entire organ suddenly appears, or where the numerical relation 
of morphological features suffers a change, that, as we shall soon see, a germ- 
metamorphosis must be recognized which represents a leap (Sprung) in the newly 
thrown-off germ-cell of such organ or feature which, from its nature, cannot be 
divided into minute steps. 



The True and False in Darwinism. 141 

knowing what Icups nature may make in the process of hetero- 
geneous generation ; and it would be entirely premature to 
undertake, without any real data for such a calculation, to 
prescribe limits to nature 's utmost stretch in germ-metamor- 
phosis. Heterogeneous generation and gradual transmuta- 
tion have each a place in the process of organic development, 
and it is as one-sided to exclude, with Darwin, the former in 
favor of the latter as it is to exclude, with Wigand, the latter 
in favor of the former. These are hypotheses in a domain 
where all empirical certainty fails, and where we should be 
rejoiced to secure even what promises to be an instrument for 
the removal of the many existing difficulties. 

As we were forced to complain, in a former chapter, because 
Darwinism regards every proof of an ideal relationship of 
species as a proof of their genealogical relationship, so we 
must now, in like manner, characterize as a second error the 
claim that every possibility of an actual genealogical connec- 
tion is an additional support to the theory of transmutation. 
For the same reason as that which led us before to consider 
the facts that favored an ideal, to the exclusion of a o-enealoo- 
ical relationship, we now deem it prudent, in correction of the 
second error of Darwinism, just mentioned, to consider the 
facts which, in many cases, seem to weaken the theory of 
gradual transmutation, and to support that of heterogeneous 
generation. 

The phenomena of alternate generation ( Generations- 
wechsel), and of dimorphism, are generally relied upon to 
establish the fact that the production of a type entirely differ- 
ent from that of the parents is by no means uncommon in 
nature. But both comparisons are deficient in this, that the 
offspring is different from the parents only in its external 
attributes, while it retains the powder inherited from them of 
reproducing the ancestral type. Each of these two phenomena 
appears, from this stand-point, as a process analogous to that 
of the metamorphosis of insects and amphibious creatures, 
with the exception that in metamorphosis the phases of devel- 
opment which the type of the species undergoes are included 
in the life of one individual, whereas, in dimorphism they are 



142 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

separated in space, and in alternate generation they are sepa- 
rated in time, and distriljuted among diifcrent individuals. 
These processes would onl}^ lead to the origin of new species 
if an inner change of tendency were added to the outer change 
of form — that is, if the butterfly should deposit eggs out of 
which would come, not caterpillars, but butterflies ; or if, from 
the two dimorphous types of one species, one or both should 
cease to reproduce both types jointly, and should only repro- 
duce offspring of one type ; or, finally, if the two or more 
occurring in alternate generation should cease to alternate, 
and should reproduce each its second type ( Soiideriyp)iis . ) 

It is by no means impossible that such processes may have 
led to the origin of new species ; indeed, perhaps it was chiefly 
by these, or processes similar to them, that the advance was 
effected from lower to higher orders in the animal kingdom, 
A'iz., from worms to insects, or from fishes to amphibious ani- 
mals ; and Darwinism itself, depending upon such occurrences 
as the exceptional change of the axolotl into an animal like a 
salamander, or the issuance of perfectly formed frogs from 
spawn, in those ishmds where there is no fresh water, inclines 
to such conjectures, though, of course, admitting that they are 
entirely without proof. But, if these conjectures were well 
founded, these phenomena would be strong evidence against 
gradual transmutation, and in favor of heterogeneous genera- 
tion. We should find in all these cases a peculiar division of 
the process of heterogeneous generation into two germ-meta- 
morphoses, separated from each other by, perhaps, very long 
intervals of time, one of which produced the change of tj'pe 
relatively to the outer form, and the other the change in the 
procreative tendency. The latter must, naturally, be a sud- 
den and abrupt change, and must, therefore, utterly exclude 
all gradual transmutation. The former may, under some cir- 
eumstanccs (for instance, in the case of dimorphism), be pro- 
duced by gradual transmutation ; but, generally (in meta- 
morphosis, and in alternate generation probably always, and 
in dimorphism proba])ly as a rule), it must be regarded as a 
sudden spring of the new type out of the old, which still, in 
some way, retains its characteristics. This certainly must be 



The True and False in Darwinism. 143 

Tegarded as alone probable in all those cases where both types 
are distinguished from each other, not only by different colors 
and b}^ the different shape of their respective morphological 
structures (as generally happens in dimorphism), but where 
the morphological type which appears is of a higher order, 
and passes per saltum from a lower to a higher grade of or- 
ganization. 

The new science of comparative embryolog}^ which, indeed, 
frequently fails to answer our most pressing questions, but 
must yet, when it speaks, be regarded as the safest guide 
through the lal)3a-inth of descent, and the best criterion of the 
alternative, "ideal or genealogical relationship," leaves us, 
from the nature of the case, completely in the dark with 
reo^ard to the other alternative, " transmutation, or heteroge- 
neous generation." For, whatever may have ])een the ad- 
vances in the direct ancestral line of a particular embryo, the 
abbreviation of the phylogenetic development which is pre- 
sented in the ontogenetic is too great to warrant inference as 
to the mode of transition from one plane to the next. It is 
only in relation to the morphological changes of types that 
embryology gives valuable aid in showing that all the more 
important organs are developed by throwing out cells at a 
very early period of the individual's life ; and the fact is well 
utilized by Baumgartner (" Natur und Gott," 4 Abschnitt) 
against the theory of Transmutation, and in favor of Germ- 
Metamorphosis. For, no matter how far back in the line of 
progenitors we may go, a morphologically distinct organ 
always points to an origin in the germ-cells of the embryo, and 
never to actual acquisition by a particular animal during its 
life. Only the latter, however, would enable the transmuta- 
tion theory to account for morphological changes, while the 
former represents the first appearance of the germ-cell of a 
new organ, in the embryo of a species which did not before 
possess such organ, as a new occurrence taking place suddenly 
at a particular period of the phylogenetic development, by 
which occurrence is at once effected the morphological change 
of the type in its perfect state. So embryology affords no 
support to the transmutation theory, while it decidedly favors 



144 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 

heterogeneous genenition, in accordance with internal hiws of 
development. 

The same is true of palajontology, although it is just here 
that the Transmutation theory, on account of the rapid dis- 
covery of intermediate forms, claims its greatest triumphs. 
But it is quite clear that only such intermediate forms can 
strengthen the Transmutation theory as, in the first place, 
are only separated from the forms which they connect by ex- 
ceedingly small intervals ; and, in the second place, demon- 
strably constitute, not merely systematic, but genealogical, links 
between such forms ; both conditions must co-exist, or the evi- 
dence fails. 

Darwinism, however, is very far from requiring these con- 
ditions in the materials gathered by it in the support of the 
Transmutation theory ; it treats all intermediate forms, at once, 
as going to establish that theory. On close inspection, how- 
ever, it is manifest that where the first condition probably ex- 
ists the second is wanting, and where the second exists the 
first is wanting. As to the filling-up of the large gaps in the 
natural system where discovered forms represent, not only 
species, but lost orders and families, we can often conclude, 
with reasonable probability, that we have found a type which 
genealogically connects types of a higher and of a lower order 
very widely separated ; but just in such cases the materials for 
the filling-up of these gaps are relatively so few that we must 
presume that phylogenetic development, with the help of 
heterogeneous generation, has made considerable leaps be- 
tween species, which, perhaps, are still to be inserted in the 
intervals left by the types already discovered. For, if we 
should su})pose that such great gaps have been filled up by 
gradual transmutation, such long periods of time and such 
an enormous number of individuals would, according to 
Darwin's own views, be required for the pur[)ose that the 
extraordinary scarcity of palaiontological materials from 
these numberless generations, in comparison with the rich 
funds secured from other domains of Flora and Fauna, seems 
scarcely explicable. Should we, however, regard the periods 
of change as short, relatively to the periods of unchanged ex- 



Hegel on Classic Art. 145 

istence (Ph. d. Unbru., 8ter Aiisg., cap. 10, Schliiss), the 
scarcity of palwontological forms is, indeed, exphiined, and 
the hope of further discovery still left open, but the prospect 
of ever filling up such gaps with continuous series of tran- 
sitional forms is gone forever. 

When, on the other hand, the continuity of the form-line is 
preserved, the necessary evidence that such line is really a 
genealogical, and not merely a systematic, one (see the distinc- 
tion between these in the preceding chapter) is entirely 
wanting. The existence of a genealogical series would be 
only probable, though l)y no means certain, if geology 
showed that the horizontal strata contained types of a very 
different kind, and that these types formed a continuous scale 
in a vertical direction, and developed themselves perpendicu- 
larly, or by means of bifurcations, and did not, as it were, in 
cyclic fashion return to themselves. 

But, as a matter of fact, this state of things is not found, 
and, when closely examined, the facts which are most tri- 
umphantly advanced in favor of the transmutation theory op- 
pose it, and support heterogeneous generation, as regards the 
transition from a variety of one species to that of another. 



HEGEL ON CLASSIC AET. 

[translated from the second FRENCH EDITION OF CHARLES B^NARD'S TRANSLA- 
TION OF THE SECOND PART OF HEGEL'S ESTHETICS.] 

BY WM. M. BRYANT, 
PART II. 

CHAPTER v. — Or the Classic Form of Art. 

1. Unity of Idea and Form as the Fundamental Characteristic of the Classic. — 2. 
Of Greek Art as Realization of the Classic. — 3. Position of the Artist in this 
new Form of Art. 

The intimate union of matter or content with form — the 
mutual adaptation of these elements together with their 
XII— 10 



14(3 The Journal of Sj^ecxiiative Philosophy. 

perfect harmony — constitutes the central point of art. This 
realization of the idea of the beautiful, to which symbolic art 
vainly strives to attain, is accomplished for the first time in 
Classic Art. 

AYe have already seen what is here to be understood by the 
Classic. Its characteristics are summed up in the ideal. This 
perfect mode of representation fulfills the condition which is 
the very end of art. 

But, in order that this condition might be accomplished, 
there was need of all the particular moments or elements which 
appear in symbolic art. For the basis of classic beauty is not 
a vague and obscure conception ; it is the free idea, which is 
its own significance, and which, therefore, manifests itself on 
its own account — in a word, it is spirit, which seizes itself as 
its own object. In thus presenting itself to itself as an object 
of contemplation, it assumes an external form ; and this, iden- 
tical with the matter which it manifests, becomes its faithful, 
adequate expression. The consciousness which it possesses of 
itself permits it to reveal itself clearly. 

This is what Symbolic Art, with that species of unity which 
constitutes the symbol, has been able to present us. Now it is 
nature with its blind forces which forms the source of its rej)- 
resentations ; again, it is the spiritual Being which it conceives 
in a vague manner, and which it personifies in gross divinities. 
Between idea and form there is revealed a simple aflinit}'^, an 
external correspondence. The attempt to conciliate them, 
under their opposition, is still more striking; or art, as in 
Egypt, in wishing to give expression to spirit, creates only 
obscure enigmas. Above all, there is betrayed the absence of 
true personality and freedom ; for these can unfold only with 
the evolution of complete self-consciousness on the part of the 
spirit. 

We have, it is true, encountered this idea of the nature of 
spirit as opposed to the sensuous world, clearlj'' expressed in 
the religion and the poetry of the Hebrew people. But that 
which is born of this opposition is not beauty ; it is the sub- 
lime. A lively sentiment of personality manifests itself also 
with the Arab race. But with them this is only a superficial 



Hegel on Classic Art. 147 

side, stripped of depth and of generality ; it is not true person- 
ality fixed upon a solid basis, upon the knowledge of spirit and 
of the moral nature. 

All these elements, therefore, whether separated or combined, 
cannot present us the ideal. They are antecedents, conditions, 
and materials. Their collective totality presents nothing which 
â– corresponds to the idea of real beauty. This ideal beauty we 
have found realized for the first time in Classic Art, which 
â– endeavors to give it a more precise characterization. 

T. In classic art, spirit does not appear under its infinite 
form. It is not the thought wdiich thinks itself, the absolute 
which reveals itself to itself as the universal. It manifests 
itself still in an immediate, natural, and sensuous existence. 
But at least the idea, in so far as it is free, chooses for itself in 
art its appropriate form, and possesses within itself the prin- 
ciple of its external manifestation. It must then return to 
nature, but only to become its master. Those forms which 
it borrows from nature, instead of being simply material, 
lose their independent value in order to become exclusively 
the expression of spirit. Such is the identification, con- 
formable to spirit itself, of the two elements, spiritual and 
sensuous. In place of being neutralized the one by the other, 
the two elements rise to a higher harmony which consists in 
each being preserved in the other ; in idealizing and spiritual- 
izing nature. This unity is the basis of Classic Art. 

By virtue of this identification of significance with sensuous 
form, no separation can take place, and thus there is no inter- 
ruption of their perfect union. Thus, too, the inner principle 
cannot retire into itself as pure spirit and abandon corporeal 
existence. Besides, as the objective and outer element in 
which spirit manifests itself is entirely definite and particular, 
the free spirit, such as art exhibits it, can only be the equally 
definite and independent spiritual individuality in its natural 
f(n-m. Hence man constitutes the true center of classic beauty. 

It is clear, also, that this intimate union of the spiritual Avith 
the sensuous element can be no other than the human form. 
For, though this participates especially in the animal type, it is 
none the less the sole manifestation of spirit. There is ia 



148 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

it the inanimate, the ugly ; but the task of art is to cause to 
disappear from it this opposition between matter and spirit, 
to embellish the body, to render this form more perfect, to 
animate it, to spiritualize it. 

As classic art represents free spirituality under the human, 
individual, and corporeal form, it has often been reproached 
with anthropomorphism. With the Greeks, Xenophanes had 
already attacked the popular religion in saying that, if lions had 
had sculptors among them, they would have given to their gods 
the form of lions. The French have in this sense a witty say- 
ing, that " God created man in His image, and men have shown 
their appreciation by providing themselves with gods in human 
form." But it is to be remarked that, if classic beauty is, 
in one respect, imperfect when compared with the romantic 
ideal, the imperfection does not reside in anthropomorphism 
as such. Far from this, we must admit that, if Classic Art is 
sufficiently anthropomorphic for art, it is too little so relatively 
to a more advanced religion. Christianity has pushed anthro- 
jjomorphism much further ; for, in the Christian doctrine, God 
is not merely a divine personification under the human form ; 
He is at once very God and very Man. He passed through 
every phase of human existence. He was born, He suffered, 
and died. In Classic Art, sensuous nature does not die, but 
neither is it resuscitated. Thus this religion does not wholly 
satisfy the human soul. The Greek ideal has for its basis an 
unchangeable harmony between spirit and sensuous form — the 
unalterable serenitv of the immortal gods ; but this calm has 
about it something cold and inanimate. Chissic Art has not 
comprehended the true essence of the divine nature, nor pene- 
trated to the depths of the soul. It has not known how to 
develop its inmost powers in their oi)position, and again 
to reestablish their harmony. All this phase of existence, the 
evil, the sinful, the unhai)py, moral suffering, the revolt of the 
will, remorse, and the agonies of the soul, are unknoAvn to it. 
Classic art does not pass beyond the proper domain of the 
veritable ideal. 

II. As to its realization in history, it is scarcely necessary to 
say that we must seek it among the Greeks. Classic beauty. 



Hegel on Classic Art. 149 

with the infinite wealth of ideas and forms which compose its 
domain, has been allotted to the Greek people, and we ought 
to render homao-e to them for havino- raised art to its hiejhest 
vitality. The Greeks, to consider their history only from the 
external side, lived in the happy medium of self-conscious, 
subjective freedom and moral substantiality. They were not 
enchained in the immobile unity of the Orient, of which the 
result is political and religious despotism, where the person- 
ality of the individual is absorbed and annulled in the uni- 
versal substance, and has thence neither rights nor moral 
character. On the other hand, they proceed no further than 
to that stajje where man concentrates himself within himself; 
separates himself from society, and from the world which envi- 
rons him, in order to live retired within himself. Hence they 
connect their conduct with real interests onlv in turning toward 
a purely spiritual world. In the moral life of the Greek 
people the individual was, it is true, independent and free, 
yet without being able to isolate himself from the general 
interests of the State, or to separate his freedom from that of 
the city of which he formed a part. In Greek life the senti- 
ment of general order as basis of morality remains in change- 
less harmony with that of personal freedom. 

At the epoch when this principle reigned in all its purity, 
the opposition between political and moral law which is revealed 
by the moral consciousness was not yet manifest. The citi- 
zens were still penetrated by the spirit which constitutes the 
basis of pul^lic customs. They sought their own freedom only 
in the triumph of the general interest. 

The sentiment of this happy harmony penetrates through all 
the productions in which Greek freedom has become conscious 
of itself. So that this epoch is the medium in which beauty 
begins its true life, and enters into full possession of its serene 
domain. It is the medium of free vitality — which is not here 
merel}'^ a product of nature, but a creation of spirit — and by 
this right it receives its manifestation in art ; it is a mingling 
of spontaneity and reflection, "where the individual is not iso- 
lated, but where also he cannot connect his faith, his suffer- 
ings, and his destiny with a more elevated principle, and 



150 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosoj)]iy. 

knows not how to reestablish harmony within himself. This 
moment, like human life in general, was only a transition ; but 
in this instant, so brief, art attains to the culminating point of 
beauty under the form of plastic individuality. Its develop- 
ment was so rich and so full of genius that all the colors, all 
the tones, are there combined. At the same time, it is true, 
all that has appeared in the past finds its place here no longer 
as something absolute and independent, but as elements which 
are subordinate and accessory. Whence, also, the Greek 
people has revealed to itself its own spirit, in a sensuous and 
visible manner, in its o-ods. It has given them in art a form 
perfectly in accord with the ideas which they represent. 
Thanks to this perfect accord, Avhich reigns as well in Greek 
art as in Greek mj^thology, this was, in Greece, the highest 
expression of the absolute ; and the Greek religion is the very 
religion of art ; while, at a later epoch. Romantic Art, though 
it may be as truly art, still gives intimation of a higher form 
of consciousness than Art is capable of representing. 

III. Art here appears, not as a production of nature, but as 
a creation of the individual spirit. It is the work of a free 
spirit which has consciousness of itself, which possesses itsell, 
which has nothino; vao-ue or obscure in thouoht, and finds itself 
arrested by no technical difiiculty. 

This new position of the Greek artist is manifested at once 
in respect of matter, of form, and of technical ability. 

1. In that which concerns the matter or the ideas which are 
to be represented — in opposition to Symbolic Art, where the 
spirit gropes about, seeks, without being able to arrive at, a 
clear notion — the artist here finds those ideas already pro- 
vided in dogma, in popular faith ; and of these he renders a 
clear account to himself. Nevertheless, he is not subservient 
to it; he accepts it, l)ut reproduces it freely. Greek artists 
received their subjects from the popular religion ; this was an 
idea originallj^ transmitted b}'' the Orient, but which was 
already transformed in the consciousness of the people. They 
transformed it, in their turn, in the sense of the beautiful; 
they reproduced and created at the same time. 

2. But it is, above all, in the form, that their free activity is 



Hegel on Classic Art. 151 

concentratetl and exercised. While Symbolic Art exhausts 
itself in search of a thousand extraordinary forms in order to 
transmit its ideas, having neither measure nor fixed rule, the 
Greek artist confined himself within his subject and respected 
its limits. Thus he also established a perfect accord between 
matter and form. In thus working out the form, he perfected 
the matter, or content, also. He disen«aoed them both from 
useless accessories, so as to adapt the one to the other. 
Whence he did not pause with an immobile and traditional 
type ; he perfected the whole, for matter and form are insep- 
arable ; he developed both the one and the other in all the 
serenity of inspiration. 

3. As to the technical element, to the classic artist belong, 
in the highest degree, ability combined with inspiration. 
Kothing either arrested or constrained him. Here were no 
impediments, as in a stationary religion where forms are con- 
secrated by usage — as, for example, in Egypt. And this 
ability continued always increasing. Progress in the methods 
of art is necessary to the realization of pure beauty, and to 
the perfect execution of works of genius. 

Division. — This must be sought only in the degrees of 
development which spring from the conception of the classic 
ideal. 

1. The fundamental point which here constitutes all prog- 
ress is the advent of genuine personality, which, in order to 
express itself, can no long^i- make use of forms borrowed from 
inorganic or animal nature, nor of gross personifications where 
the human form is mingled with preceding forms. This suc- 
cessive transformation by which classic beauty is engendered 
of itself is, then, the first point to examine. 

2. After having spanned this interval, we have attained to 
the true ideal of Classic Art. What constitutes here the cen- 
tral point is the Greek Olympus, the new world of the gods 
of Greece, the beautiful creations of art. These we must 
characterize. 

3. But in the idea of Classic Art is contained the principle 
of its destruction, which must conduct us into a mightier 
world — the Komantic world. This will constitute the subject 
of a third chapter. 



152 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

CHAPTER I. — Development of Classic Art. 

/. Degradation of the Animal Kingdom. 

1. Sacrifices of Animals. — 2. Hunts of Wild Beasts. — 3. Metamorphoses. 

The first improvement consists in a reaction against the 
Symbolic Form, which the new spirit busies itself in destroy- 
ino;. The Greek sods came from the Orient ; the Greeks bor- 
rowed their divinities from foreign religions. We might say, 
on the contrary, that the}^ invented them ; for invention does 
not exclude borrowing. They transformed ideas contained in 
ancient traditions. Now, upon Avhat was this transformation 
based? This is the history of polytheism, and of antique art 
which pursues a parallel course and is inseparable from it. 

The Greek divinities are, first of all, moral persons clothed 
with the human form. The first develo[)ment, then, consists 
in rejecting those gross symbols which, in Oriental naturalism, 
constitute the objects of worship, and which disfigure the 
representations of art. This progress is marked by the degra- 
dation of the animal kingdom. It is clearly indicated in a 
great number of the ceremonies and fables of polytheism : 
1. By Animal Sacrifices. 2. By Sacred Hunts; by many of 
the exploits attributed to heroes — in particular, the Labors of 
Hercules. Some of the fables of ^JEsop have the same mean- 
ing. 3d. The metamorphoses described by Ovid are also dis- 
figured myths, or fables become burlesque, but of which the 
basis, remaining intact and easy to be recognized, contains the 
same idea. 

This is the opposite of the manner in which the Egyptians 
considered animals. Nature here, instead of being venerated 
and adored, is reduced and degraded. To assume an animal 
form is no longer a deification — it is the chastisement of a 
monstrous crime. This form is made a disirrace to the gods 
themselves, and they assume it only to satisfy the passions of 
a sensual nature. Such is the meaning of many of the fables 
of Jupiter, as those of Danae, of Europa, of Leda, of Gany- 



Hegel on Classic Art. 153 

mede . The representation of the generative principle in nature, 
which constitutes the source of ancient mythologies, is here 
changed into a series of tales, wherein the father of gods and 
men ijlavs a role little edifvina' and often ridiculous. Finally, 
all this part of religion which relates to the sensual desires of 
the animal nature is crowded into the background and repre- 
sented bv subordinate divinities : Circe, who chan2;es men into 
swine, Pan, Silenus, the Satyrs, and the Fauns. Still the 
human form predominates, the animal form being indicated by 
the ears, small horns, etc. 

Among these mixed forms it is necessary also to class the 
Centaurs, in which the sensual, passionate side of nature 
dominates, and where the spiritual side permits itself to be 
suppressed. Chiron alone, an able physician and the pre- 
<3eptor of Achilles, has a noble character, but his subaltern 
functions of pedagogue, which do not rise above human ability 
and wisdom, prevent his admission to the circle of the gods. 
In this fashion the character which the animal form presents 
in Classic Art is found to be changed in all respects ; it is 
employed to designate the evil — that which is in itself bad 
or reprehensible : the forms of nature inferior to spirit ; while 
elsewhere it is the expression of the Good and of the Abso- 
lute. 

//. Conflict Between the Old and the New Gods. 

1. Oracles. — 2. Distinction between the Ancient and the New Divinities. — • 
3. Overthrow of the Ancient Gods. 

After this degradation of the animal kingdom a progress 
of a higher order causes itself to be felt. It consists in this : 
that the real gods of Classic Art, of whom the essential 
characteristics are freedom and personality, manifest them- 
selves with the attributes of consciousness and will as spiritual 
powers. And here it is under the human form that they 
appear. As the animal kingdom has been degraded and 
abased, so the powers of nature are also abased and degraded. 
In opposition to these, spirit occupies a more elevated rank. 



154 Tlie Journal of Speculative Pldlosophy . 

Then, instead of simple personification, it is true personality 
which constitutes the chief element. Still, the gods of Classic 
Art do not cease to be forces of nature, because God ciould 
not here be represented as the free and absolute S[)irit — such 
as he appears in Judaism and in Christianity. God is neither 
the creator nor the lord of nature ; nor is He any more the 
absolute being whose essence is spirituality. This contrast 
between the Divinity and created things deprived of the divine 
character gives place to a harmonious accord, wherein results 
beauty. The universal and the individual — nature and spirit — 
combine without losing their respective rights, and without 
altering their purity in the representations of Greek art. 

Classic Art does not, then, immediately attain to its ideal. 
Thus the manner in which these gross, deformed, bizarre ele- 
ments borrowed from nature are modified and perfected 
ought especially to excite interest in Greek mythology. With- 
out entering into the detail of traditions and myths (which is 
not our subject), we would call attention to the chief points in 
this progress, as follows : 1. The Oracles. 2. The distinction 
between the Old and the New Gods. 3. The overthrow of the 
Ancient Divinities. 

1. In the oracles the phenomena of nature are no longer 
objects of adoration and of worship, as they are with the Per- 
sians or the Egyptians. Here the gods themselves reveal 
their wisdom to man ; the very names lose their sacred char- 
acter. The Oracle of Dodona makes response in this sense. 
The signs by which the gods manifest their will are very 
simple : the rustling and whispering of sacred oaks, the mur- 
mur of fountains, the clang of brazen vessels which the wind 
causes to resound. So, also, at Delos rustled the laurel ; and at 
Delphi the wind upon the brazen tripod w^as a distinct, defini- 
tive element. But, beyond such immediate natural sounds, 
man himself was an enunciator of the oracle in so far as, out 
of the wakino- thouo-htfulness of the understanding, he was 
dazed and frenzied into a naturalism of inspiration or ecstasy. 
Thus the Pythias renders oracles. Another characteristic is 
that the oracle is obscure and ambiguous. God, it is true, is 



n 



Hegel on Classic Art. 155 

considered as possessing a knowledge of the future ; but the 
form under which He reveals it remains vague, indefinite ; the 
idea needs to be intev'preted , so that man who receives the 
response is obliged to explain it, to mingle his reason with it ; 
and, if he thus takes part in the delivery of the oracle, he alsa 
assumes a part of the responsibility. In dramatic art, for ex- 
ample, man does not yet act entirely on his own account ; he 
consults the gods, and obeys their will ; but his will is fused 
with theirs. A part is performed by his freedom. 

2. The distinction between the old and the new divinities 
marks still more clearly this progress of moral freedom. 

Among the first, which personify the powers of nature, 
there is already established a gradation : First, the savage and 
subterranean powers. Chaos, Tartarus, Erebus ; then, Uranus, 
Gsea, the Giants and Titans ; in a still higher degree, Prome- 
theus, the friend of the new gods, the benefactor of man, 
afterward punished for this apparent benefit — an inconsequence 
which is explained by the fact that, if Prometheus taught men 
industry, he created a cause of discord and dissension in not 
joining a higher instruction, namely, that of morality, the 
science of government, guarantees of property. Such is the 
profound meaning of this myth which Plato explains thus in 
his Protagoras. 

Another class of divinities, equally ancient but already 
moral, though they still recall the fatality of ph3^sical laws, 
are the Eumenides, Dice, the Erinyes. Here Ave see appear 
the ideas oi right and oi justice; but of right that is exclusive, 
absolute, narrow, unintelligent, under the form of an impla- 
cable vengeance ; or, like the ancient Nemesis, of a power that 
brings down all that is elevated ; establishes equality by level- 
ing — a procedure quite opposed to true justice. 

3. Finally, this development of the Classic Ideal is revealed 
most clearly in the theogony and the genealogy of the gods ; 
in their birth and their succession ; by the abasement of the 
divinities of earlier races ; again, in the hostility which 
breaks out between them, in the revolution which has de- 
prived them of sovereignty in order to place it in the hands of 



156 21ie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

new divinities. The distinction is pronounced at the point 
where the conflict arises, and this conflict becomes the chief 
•element of mythology. 

This is, indeed, the conflict between iVa^wre and Spirit, and 
it is the law of the world. Under the historical form it is the 
perfecting of human nature, the successive conquest of the 
rights of property, the amelioration of laws, of the political 
constitution. In religious representations it is the triumph of 
moral divinities over the powers of nature. 

This conflict announces itself as the greatest catastrophe in 
the history of the world ; so that it is not the theme of a par- 
ticular myth ; it is the principal, decisive fact which forms the 
center of all this mvtholoofv. 

The conclusion relative to the histor}^ of art, and to the de- 
velopment of the ideal, is that art, lilvc m3'thology, must 
reject, as unworthy of it, all that is confused, fantastic, ob- 
scure ; all gross mingling of the natural with the spiritual. 
All these creations of an ill-reoulated imagination no loncrer 
find their place here ; they must vanish before the light of 
spirit. Art purifies itself from all that may be styled caprice, 
fantasy, symbolic accessory — from every vague and confused 
idea. 

At the same time the new gods form an organized and estab- 
11 shed world. This unity is affirmed and perfected still further 
in the ulterior developments of plastic art and poetry. 

///. Conservation of the Ancient Elements in the New Myth- 
ological Representations. 

f 

1. The Mysteries. — 2. Conservation of the Ancient Divinities. — 3. Physical Ele- 
ments of the Ancient Gods. 

Notwithstanding the victor}^ of the new gods, the ancient 
divinities preserve their place in Classic Art. They are ven- 
erated in part under their primitive form, in part changed 
and modified. 

1. The first form under which we find the ancient myths 
preserved among the Greeks is that of the Mysteries. 



Hegel on Classic Art. 157 

The Greek mysteries possessed no secret, if by this word we 
understand that the Greeks did not know what was the basis of 
them. The greater part of the Athenians, together with a mul- 
titude of foreigners, were initiated into the Eleiisinian mysteries ; 
only they would not reveal what the initiation had taught them» 
Now, it does not appear that any very lofty secret was concealed 
in the mysteries, nor that their content was much more elevated 
than that of the public religion. They preserved the ancient 
traditions. The form was symbolic, as was appropriate to the 
ancient telluric, astronomic, and Titanic elements. In the sym- 
bol, indeed, the meaning remains obscure ; it contains some- 
thing else than what is revealed under the external form. The 
mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus have, it is true, a rational 
explanation, and hence a profound meaning ; but, the form 
under which this matter was presented remaining foreign to 
it, nothing clear could arise from it. Thus the mysteries ex- 
ercised little influence upon the development of art. For 
example, it is related of ^schylus that he had revealed de- 
signedly the mysteries of Ceres. The impiety was restricted 
to having said that Artemis was the daughter of Ceres ; and this 
does not seem a very profound idea. 

2. The worship and the conservation of the ancient gods 
appear more clearl}' in the artistic representations themselves. 
Thus Prometheus is flrst punished and chastised as a Titan ; 
but, again, we see him delivered ; permanent honors are ren- 
dered him. He was venerated in the Academy, with Minerva, 
as Vulcan himself. According to Lysimacliides, Vulcan and 
Prometheus were distinct ; the latter Avas represented as prior 
and the more ancient. The two had a common altar upon the 
same pedestal. According to the myth, Prometheus was not 
long compelled to suft'er his punishment, and was delivered 
from his chains by Hercules. We have another example in 
the Eumenides of ^schylus. The discussion between Apollo 
and the Eumenides is judged by the Areopagus, presided over 
by Minerva — that is to say, by the living spirit of the Athenian 
people. The voices are equally divided; the white stone of 
Minerva terminates the dispute. The angry Eumenides raise 



158 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

jin outcry ; ])iit Pallas appeases them by according to them 
divine honors in the sacred wood of Colonus. 

3. The ancient gods do not merely preserve their place 
beside the new ; what imports most, even in the new gods, is 
the preserved ancient element which belongs to nature. As it 
is very easily conciliated with the spiritual individuality of the 
Classic Ideal, it is reflected in them, and its worship is thus 
found to be perpetuated. 

The Greek gods, notwithstanding this human form, are not, 
then, as has often been said, simple allegories of the elements 
of nature. They say truly that i^pollo is the god of the sun ; 
Diana, the goddess of the moon ; Neptune, the god of the 
sea; but the separation of the two terms (the physical ele- 
ment and its personification), as in the divine government of 
the world in the sense of the Bible, cannot apply to Greek 
Mythology. Moreover, the Greeks did not deify the objects 
of nature ; they thought, on the contrary, that nature is not 
divine. To deify the existences of nature is the characteristic 
of the earlier myths. Thus, in the Egyptian religion, Isis and 
Osiris represent the sun and moon. But Plutarch thinks it 
would be unworthy to wish to explain them in this way. But 
all that in the sun, in the earth, etc., is ill-regulated or in 
disorder is, with the Greeks, attributed to physical forces. 
The Good — order and regularity — these are the work of the 
gods. The essence of the gods is the spiritual side — reason — 
the koyoz^ the principle of law or of order. With this mode 
of viewing the spiritual nature of the gods, the particular ele- 
ments of nature are distinn-uished from the new 2:()ds. We 
have the habit of associating the sun with Apollo ; the moon 
with Diana. But with Homer these divinities are indeiDendent 
of the stars which they represent. 

Still there remains in the new gods an echo of the })owcrs 
of nature. We have already seen the principle of this com- 
bination of the spiritual with the natural in the Classic Ideal ; 
to illustrate Avhich a few examples Avill here suffice : Neptune 
represents the sea, the ocean, of which the waves embrace the 
earth ; but his power and his activity extend still further. It 



Hegel on Classic Art, 159 

w!is he who built the walls of Ilium ; he was a tutelary divin- 
ity of Athens. A])ollo, the new god, is the light of science, 
the god who renders oracles ; he preserves, nevertheless, an 
analogy with the sun and with physical light. It is disputed 
whether Apollo ought or ought not to signify the sun. He is 
at once both the sun and not the sun, for he is not limited to 
this merelv material significance, but has come to have a mean- 
ing which is truly spiritual. There is a real and profound 
analoo'v between intellectual light and the liglit which renders 
bodies visible. Thus, in Apollo as god of intelligence, we find 
also an allusion to the light of the sun. Similarly his deadly 
arrows have a symbolic relation to the rays of that luminary. 
Hence, in external representation, there must be a clear indi- 
cation of the outer attributes which show in which sense the 
divinity is to be taken. 

In the history of the birth of the new gods we recognize the 
natural element which the gods of the Classic Ideal preserve. 
Thus, in Jupiter, there are characteristics which indicate the 
Sim ; the twelve Labors of Hercules have a relation to the sun 
and to the months of the year. By her numerous breasts the 
Diana of Ephesus expresses fecundit3^ On the contrary, in 
Artemis the huntress, who slays ferocious beasts, with her 
beautiful human form — that of a young girl — the physical side 
is concealed; though the crescent, together with the arrows, 
still recalls the moon. It is the same with Venus Aphrodite ; 
the further we ascend toward her origin in Asia, the more she 
is a power of nature. When she arrives in Greece, properly 
speaking, there appears the side more spiritual and more in- 
dividual, of the beauty of the body, of grace, of love, which is 
added to the physical and sensuous side. The muses origin- 
ally represented the murmur of fountains. Jupiter himself is 
first adored as thunder, though in Homer the lightning flash is 
-idready a sign of his will ; it is an omen, a connection with 
intelligence. Juno also presents a reflex of nature ; she re- 
calls the celestial vault, and the atmosphere in which the gods 
move. 

Similarly with the forms of the animal kingdom. Hereto- 
fore degraded, they resume a positive place. But the sym- 



160 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosopliy . 

bolic sense is lost ; the animal form has no riijht to mingle with 
tiie human form — a monstrous mixture which art rejects. It 
presents itself then as a simple attribute or indicative sign : the 
Eagle near Jupiter, the Peacock by the side of Juno ; Doves 
accompany Venus ; the dog Anubis becomes the guardian of 
the lower world. If, then, there is still something symbolic 
contained m the ideal of the Greek gods, the primitive sense 
is no longer api3arent ; the physical side, heretofore the essen- 
tial, no longer remains, except as a vestige or external pecul- 
iarity. Further, the essence of these divinities being human 
nature, the purely external side appears no longer, except as a 
thing accidental — a human passion or foible. Such are the 
amours of Jupiter, which primarily related to the generative 
force of nature, and which, having lost their sj'nibolic mean- 
ing, assume the character of licentious stories, which the poets 
have invented at will. 

This realization of the gods as moral persons conducts us to 
the Ideal of Classic Art, properly speaking. 



FICHTE'S CRITICISM OF SCHELLING. 

[translated from the GERMAN OF J. G. FICHTE.] 

BY A. E. KROEGER. 

[Note. — The following was written hy Fichte in 1806, though not published till 
after his death, as an exhaustive exposition of the distinction between the Science 
of Knowledge and Schelling's so-called Nature-Philosophy, just then all tiie rage 
in Germany. The polemical part of this article has been retained for the sake of 
completeness. — Tr.] 

/. Concerning the Significance of tlie Science of Knoivledge. 

If to man's cognition of truth this obstacle should be found 
to oppose itself — that, in the natural and unartilicial state of 
man's mind, his cognition forms itself according to inner and 
perennially concealed laws, and communicates this, its own 
form, to the truth which is to be cognized without man's 



Ficlde's Criticism of Schelling. 161 

becomino; aware of the communication, thus ever remaininor 
its own obstacle, entering between itself and pure truth — then 
truth could never be arrived at ; and, if this self-modification of 
cognition should turn out to be changeable, and in its various 
formations dependent upon blind chance, then a lasting unity 
and certainty in cognition or knowledge could never be attained. 
This defect, and the necessary consequences thereof, could be 
remedied in no other manner than by a full deduction of those 
inner self-moditications from the own laws of knowledge, and 
by abstracting their products from the cognized truth, after 
which abstraction pure truth would constitute the remainder. 
Such is, indeed, the case ; and this is the reason why all 
thinkers and workers on the field of science, until the days of 
Kant, have been dragged hither and thither by the concealed 
current of this inner modification of knowdedge, and have been 
placed in opposition to themselves and others. Kant was the 
first who happily discovered this source of all errors and con- 
tradictions, and formed the resolution to stop it up by the only 
possible scientific process — namely, by a systematic deduction 
of all those modifications, or by, as he called it, a survey of 
the whole field of Reason. The execution of his plan, how- 
ever, did not come up to the conception of it, since in it knowl- 
edge was not represented in its absolute unity, but as in itself 
divided into several branches ; for instance, theoretical, prac- 
tical, and judging Reason. Moreover, the laws of these several 
branches were rather empirically gathered up, and proved by 
induction as laws of Reason, than by a true deduction from 
their orio-inal source in their essence. Under these circum- 
stances the Science of Knowledge took hold of the problem pro- 
pounded by Kant's discovery, and showed what Science is in 
its unity ; perfectly certain that from this unity the several 
branches would separate of themselves and characterize them- 
selves. 

We are not inclined to deny that some persons have, to a 
certain degree, understood this Science of Knowledge, and his- 
torically apprehended its object ; particularly as several have 
confessed that the Science of Knowledge has shown up the 
absolute nothingness of all productions of the fundamental law 
XII— 11 



162 TJte Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy . 

of kiiowledije — reflection. But, iinfortunatelv, from this dis- 
covery of the result of that philosophy the conclusion was 
drawn that the result proved the falseness of the Science of 
Knowledge : for a reality, it was argued, surely did exist ; 
and this reality, it was argued, could not be taken hold of 
otherAvise (because the individual who argued thus could not 
get hold of it otherwise) than within the sphere of the law of 
reflection. This erroneous presupposition, moreover, necessa- 
rily led them to represent the Science of Knowledge in a wrong 
light ; for, never doubtiug that an objective Being must be 
posited, and that the Science of Knowledge also would be sub- 
ject to this universal fate of mortality, tliey began to entertain 
the opinion that the error of its philosophy consisted in presup- 
posing a subjective and an objective Being — a real and con- 
cretely existing Ego, as thing in itself — ivliich error they now 
believed tliey coidd get rid of, as far as they were concerned, 
hy presupposing instead of it an objective-subjective 
Being, which they honored with the name of The Abso- 
lute. 

True, the Science of Knowledge has not hesitated, in the 
face of the presupposition ascribed to it, to protest in the 
most various ways against it ; but they insist — as, indeed, they 
cannot well do otherwise — that they know, better than the 
author of the Science of Knowledge , what he really intended to 
teach. In regard to their own improvement on the system, it 
is sun-clear, and, if ever a little sense should come to be the 
order of the day, every child must see that this their Absolute 
is not only objective, which objectivity is the first product of the 
standing form of reflection, but is, also, as Absolute deter- 
mined by its opposite of a Non-Absolute, which entire ^re/bW- 
ness, toii'ether with the Infiniteness contained in the Non- 
Absolute, lies in that operation of theirs, grown together with 
the Absolute and their phantasy ; and thus their Absolute is, 
therefore, not a possible thought at all, but a mere dark pro- 
duction of their unbridled imagination, invented for the pur- 
pose of explaining that empirical reality, in the belief whereof 
they have grown up and are rooted forever. 

Against these charges they believe that they can defend 



Fichte's Criticism of ScJielUng. 163 

themselves in the followins: mannei' : The Science of Knowled2:e 
has proposed to them — of course, onlj as a temporary expe- 
dient and a useful medicine for those to whom a state of calm 
considerateness has not yet become natural, and in whom this 
state alternates with a state of inconsiderateness — that, in pro- 
ducing any of these products of the standing form of reflection, 
they shoukl always well consider that they think the thought. 
Now, they, well knowing that by so doing their beloved 
deception would vanish, and that which they would so ghidly 
regard as the true Reality manifest and show itself up to be a 
mere thought, insist that at this point we ought never to call 
upon them to reflect, and assert that, by carrying out such an 
al)surd maxim, the Science of Knowledo'c resolves itself into a 
mere empty reflection-S3'stem, and the whole form of reflec- 
tion into a mere nothing (which is, indeed, the case) ; and they 
assure us that it is the great art, of which the Science of 
Knowledge has remained ignorant, at the right place to close 
the eyes and open the hands in order to grasp reality. It 
escapes them utterly that the act of thinking — utterly inde- 
pendent of their reflecting or not reflecting upon it — remains in 
itself what it is, and as it necessarily shapes itself by the form 
of the limitation, with which they produce that act ; and that it 
is a very poor remedy against blindness to close the eyes to the 
existence of blindness. Thus, in the present case, their Abso- 
lute, of which they cannot think otherwise than that it is, remains 
always an Objective, projected from out of the Seeing (think- 
ing), and opposed to it in itself by virtue of its essence and 
through its essence, no matter whether they expressly posit 
this its opposite. Seeing, or not ; and, if they have not realized 
more than this objectivating, they have thought onl}^ Being gen- 
erally, but not, as they claim, the Absolute, Or, if they insist 
on having thought the Absolute, they have within Being gener- 
ally, through a second antithesis to a not-absolute Being, realized 
a further Determination ; and then their Absolute is a particu- 
lar Beino; within the o:eneral Beino;, and their thinkins: is in a 
-determined manner analytical-synthetical, because only through 
such a thinking can that conception which they pretend to 
have be produced, whether they recognize it or not. 



164 TJie Journal of Speculative PJdlosophy . 

All this bus been repeated to them again and again during 
the last thirteen years and in the most varied forms, and they 
have heard it well enough. But they do not want to hear it 
any longer, and hope, because we have been silent for a few 
years, that they are rid of it forever, and are now in undis- 
turbed possession of that wisdom which pleases them so well. 

But this their unwillingness to hear is not altogether a free 
one ; it is, on the contrary, necessarily produced hy the state 
of their spiritual nature. They have not the power to do 
what we ask of them, nor to be as we wish them to l)e. 
Hence, unless they are willing to give up all Being and sink 
into complete annihilation, they must plant themselves upon 
the only Being at which it is possible for them to get, and 
endeavor to uphold it Avith all their power. 

The above-instanced analytical-synthetical thinking is a. 
function of the imagination, and mixes reality with the 
schemes (pictures) created by it; but we ask them to 
realize the pure and simple thinking or contemplation, by 
which alone they can attain reality in its unity and purity. 
They are utterly incapable of this, and are, therefore, most 
certainly forced — unless they want to give up thinking 
altogether — to abandon themselves entirely to the rule of 
their dark and confused imagination. However they may 
move hither and thither with their spirit, they will be driven 
only towards other forms of imagination, but will never get 
beyond imagination. The form of imagination is alwaj'S tear- 
ing asunder the one ; they never approach the matter but with 
a mind torn asunder, and thus the one can never get at them, 
because they themselves never are the one. 

Hence, also, all preaching loses its effect upon them ; for, in 
order to get to them, it must tirst pass through their organism, 
and, in this passing through, it loses its own form and as- 
sumes the form of their organism. If one speaks to them, for 
instance, of the Ego as the ground-form of all knowledge, they 
find it impossible to get this E(jo into their mind otherwise than 
as an objective E(jo, determined by another objective Being op- 
posed to it ; because this latter form is the ground-form of 
imagination. Hence it is very natural and necessary that they 



Fichte's Criticism of ScheUing, 165 

should understand the Science of Knowled2:e iii the manner in 
which the German public has understood it ; and, hence, also, 
it is very clear that the Science of Knowledge cannot get at 
them at all. In its stead they get hold only of a very wrong 
sj'-stem, which they seek to correct again by the opposite error. 

Simple thinking is the inner Seeing ; imagining, on the con- 
trary, is a blind groping, the ground of which always remains 
concealed to the groper. The Science of Knowledge was a 
painting calculated for light and eyes, and was submitted to 
the public on the presupposition that such things as light and 
eyes did exist. Several years were spent in groping all over 
the painting, and a few were found polite enough to aver that 
they did feel the figures (assumed to be painted) with their 
lingers. Others, who had more courasce, confessed that thev 
â– did not feel anything, which tended to do away with the 
timidity and ftilse shame of the former, who, therefore, retracted 
their previous statement. One person was found, however, 
who took pity on the general distress, and who, from a collec- 
tion of old refuse, kneaded a dough, which he offered to the 
public. Ever since then everybody who has fingers studies the 
science of the touch, and a day of public thanksgiving has been 
ordered because the Absolute has at last become touchable. 

Where the real point of the contest, which the Science of 
Knowdedge carries on against them, lies, not a single one 
amongst all our pretendedly philosophical German writers 
knows. I say, considerately, not a single one, and shall this 
time admit of no exceptions. Not a doul^t is ever expressed by 
any one but that this system also holds the touch to be the only 
inner sense, and that it also is a groping and touching only some- 
what different from theirs, and a little more wonderful. They, 
moreover, are very sure that the whole dispute is about object- 
ive truths, and that our system merely denies some things which 
they hold ; whilst our system is in reality rather a fight against 
their whole spiritual Being and Life, and requires, above all 
things, cJecwness from them, after which truth is pretty sure to 
follow of itself. In addressing them the Science of Knowl- 
edge would tell them : " It matters little what you think ; for 
your whole thinking is already necessarily error, and whether 



1(36 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy , 

jou err the one way or the other is very immaterial. But it 
does matter what you are inwardly and spiritually. Be the 
true, and you will also think the true ; live spiritually the One^ 
and you will also see it." 

But the former is not so very easy, and we have no reason 
to assume that at present there is more disposition amongst 
the Germans to do it than has been manifested by them during 
the last thirteen years, or, if we count in Kant — from whom 
the same thing might have been learned with onl}' a little more 
exercise of individual ingenuity — during the last twenty-five 
years. Nevertheless, we will once more agitate this subject, 
regardless as to whether our effort again turns out fruitless or 
not. 

But, in order to determine, above all things, the real point of 
dispute between the Science of Knowledge and the public, and 
the point wherein both parties agree, and thus to determine 
our present true object, let us premise : 

The public desires — we, at present, accept its language 
until we throw it aside again further on — the public desires 
reality ; we desire the same, and thus far we are agreed. 

On the other hand, the Science of Knowledge has produced 
the proof that the form of reflection Avhich can be seized in 
its absolute unity, and has thus been seized by the Science of 
Knowledge, has no reality at all, but is merely an empty 
scheme, forming, from out of itself, Ijy its inner divisions — 
which, also, can be seized and deduced from one principle — a 
system of equally empty schemes and shadows ; and this 
]3roposition the Science of Knowledge is determined to insist 
upon forever. 

The public, which knows not how to arise, with its spiritual 
life, above this form of reflection, nor how to loosen it and 
contemplate it with freedom, has, without knowing it, its 
reality only in this form ; and, since it must have reality, it is 
inclined to consider the proof of the Science of Knowledge 
faulty because that proof destroys the reality which the public 
cannot help considering the only possil)le reality. 

Now, if, under this condition of aff'airs, we assume for a 
moment that the public could be relieved, and made to 



Fichte's Criticism of Schelling. 1G7 

understand us, such a relief could be brought about only thus : 
We must, in common with the public, and before its eyes, 
shell off the form in which it always remains imprisoned, and 
show again that, although its reality is certainly destroyed, not 
all reality is thereby destroyed ; but that in the background of 
the form, and only after its destruction, true reality appears. 
Now, this is the very problem which I propose to attempt, at the 
proper time, by a new and utterly free realization of the Science 
of Knowledge in its first and profoundest fundamental principles. 

If any oue so chooses, he may consider such a work also as 
a fulfillment of an old promise to produce a new representation 
of the Science of Knowledge ; though I have long since con- 
sidered myself absolved from that promise, being clearly 
convinced that the old representation of the Science of Knowl- 
edge is good and, as yet, sufficient. Public allusions to this 
promised new Avork have shown me that it was looked for 
chiefly in the hope that the study of this science might be 
made easier by it ; but to this hope I never had, nor have I 
now, great ability or inclination to respond. 

As I have just now pronounced the old representation of the 
Science of Knowledge ^ to be good and correct, it follows that 
no other doctrine is ever to be expected from me. The essence 
of that Science of Knowledge consisted, first, in the assertion 
that the Ego-Fovm, or the Absolute form of reflection is the 
ground and root of all knowledge, and that only out of it 
everything arises that ever enters knowledge, and in the shape 
in which it is found in knowledge ; and, second, in the analyt- 
ical-synthetical exhaustion of this form from the central point 
of a reciprocal determination between absolute substantiality 
and absolute causality ; and this character the reader will again 
find in all our present and future representations of the Science 
of Knowledge. 

Now, if any one has arrived at the insight that Being — I 
must start, in order to begin, from this conception, which I 
shall shortly cancel again — can be only One, and not at all 

1 This is the Science of Knowledge published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. — Tr. 



168 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

two — an in itself complete and perfect one, an identity — bnt 
on no account a manifold, then it may reasonably be asked from 
such a one that he should act according; to this insight, and 
not act the very next minute in opposition to it ; and that, 
"unless he wishes to posit such a Being- merely problematically, 
he should accept it positively and affirmatively, and posit it, 
true to his principle, only in positive Being or life, as that 
wdiich, living immediately, can approve itself only in imme- 
diate living, and in no other manner. If he wishes to call this 
life Absolute — as he may, provided he does not desire thereby 
to express a distinction "which would be opposed to the 
accepted Unity of Being — he must assume that the Absolute 
is of itself, and through itself, in this only possible inner life, 
and can be in no other manner ; that the Absolute is only in 
immediate life, and that outside of immediate life there is no 
other Being ; that all Being can, therefore, only be lived, but 
not realized in any other manner. 

Now, although such a person cannot well deny that in this 
operation he nevertheless thinks life, and places it objectively 
before himself, he need only understand himself correctly in 
order to see at once that he does not mean this thought of his 
life, which is the product of his thinking, since he pretends 
to have thought life out and of itself, but not out of his think- 
ing — his thinking ])eing thus canceled by this ver}" thought ; 
and the substance of this thought, indeed, as the only possible 
true thouijht, canceling all thinking as claimins: to have a 
significance in itself. But it "would be utterly opposed to the 
presupposition if a person were to posit Being, and, since 
Being is the absolute, to posit the Absolute, not in a Unity, 
but in a manifold and in a visil^le creation and product of 
another outside of him. Such, however, is the conception of 
that Being from which we started. It is not of itself, but of 
thinking, and this Being is in itself dead, as it cannot, indeed, 
bo otherwise, since its creator, thinking, is in itself dead, and 
proves itself thus dead in the only true thought — the thought 
of life. Moreover, this Being shows itself to be dead in its 
application, since it does not move from its place by itself, and 
can be eternally repeated only in speech, until thiidving, by a 



Fichte^s Criticism of Schelling. 169 

second position, grants it life and movement as accidental 
predicate. But all these predicates, afterwards assigned to 
Beino-, are necessarily arbitrary inventions ; since, if thinking 
is to a'ive us a credible characteristic of life, life must first 
enter thinking, and therein testify of itself immediately. But 
the thinking of a Being alluded to excludes, at the very begin- 
nino-, life from it, and places itself out of all immediate contact 
with life. Hence it cannot report credibly, but can only 
invent — the possibility of which invention requires, moreover, 
still an explanation for itself. 

If, nevertheless, it were maintained — in a certain respect, 
which we shall define more closely hereafter — that we are, or, 
which is the same, that consciousness is, this would have to 
be understood, from the above fundamental basis, as follows: 
That the one absolute life is our own, and ours the absolute 
life, since there cannot be two lives, but only one life ; and 
that the Absolute can also be in us only immediately living, 
and can be only in life, and in no other manner; and, again, 
that the Absolute lives only in us, since it lives at all in us, 
and since it cannot live twice. But, now, in so far as we more- 
over assume that we are not merely the one life, but are, at 
the same time, We, or Consciousness, it also follows that the 
One life enters, in so far, the form of the Fgo. If, again, as 
w^e may well presume, this Ugo form should be penetrable, 
we could arrive at a clear insight as to what eft'ects that form 
alone must have upon us and our consciousness ; and, hence, as 
to ivhat is not pure, but formal, life. If, then, we deducted 
this formal life from our total life, we should see what would 
remain to us as pure and absolute life — that which is commonly 
called the Real. A Science of Knowledge would arise which 
would at the same time be the only possible Science of Life 
(Doctrine of Living). 

Now, so far as the firstly posited dead Being is concerned, 
it a[)pears clearly that this is not at all the Absolute, but 
merely the ultimate production of the true absolute life, which 
has entered the Ego form in us ; the ultimate, 1 say, and hence 
that in which, in this form, life has finished itself — died out 
and expired — and which is thus without any further reality. It 



170 TJie Journal of Speculative Plillosophy. 

appears clearl}^ that a truly living philosophy must proceed 
from life to Being, and that the way from Being to life must 
be utterly wrong, and must produce an utterly erroneous 
system, and that those who posit the Absolute as a Being 
have utterly eradicated it out of themselves. Even in the 
Science of Knowledge the Absolute cannot be contemplated 
by you outside of yourself, but you must be and live the 
Absolute in your own person. 

I add the following two remarks : Firstly, the result just 
established declares every philosophy, except the philosophy of 
Kant and the Science of Knowledge, to be utterly wrong and 
absurd ; secondly, however clear and self-evident the above 
statements may be, it is possible that there are readers who do 
not tind it easy to submit to them. The reason is that it 
requires some exertion to realize the logical consec^uences 
which we insist upon, and to get them under free and consid- 
erate control, they being opposed to the natural tendency of 
mankind to think objectively. Nevertheless, we must insist on 
the realization of those consequences, as otherwise we remainr 
in a state of blind groping, and arrive at no seeing ; the whole 
instruction thus losing its effect for want of a proper organ to 
receive it. 

Finally, we have insisted on proceeding from life to Being,, 
and not from Being to life, merely to remove the chief cause 
of all error ; but on no account to cut off the possibility, 
in case it should be necessary to go bej^ond even life, and to 
represent this also as not a 8im[)le and the First, l)ut as the 
production of a clearly-to-be-shown-up synthesis, though surely 
not a production of Being. 



Christianity and the Clearing -u]) . 171 

CHRISTIANITY AND THE CLEARING-UP. 

BY FRANCIS A. HENRY. 

/. Causes in the Past. 

Fifteen liiindred years ago the Christian world was con- 
vulsed by a bitter controversy, which turned on the question 
whether the Divine Son was of the same or of like substance 
with the Father ; and, more than a thousand years later, it 
was rent into fragments by dissensions on such points as the 
commutation of spiritual punishment to a pecuniary tine, the 
sufficiency of Scripture independent of tradition, and the 
claims of the Bishop of Rome to universal supremacy. 

In our day, religious speculation takes a very different 
course. Society has lost interest in such theological distinc- 
tions as were once topics of absorbing interest in the streets 
and shops of Constantinople, and no longer cares to argue 
such points of doctrine or practice as once divided all classes 
of the people of Europe. The questions which now beset the 
minds of many thinking men are no longer such as presuppose 
a belief in Christianity. These men have reopened a discus- 
sion which, in the view of the earlier Christian ages, was 
closed by faith forever. They have brought up again those 
deep problems of the human condition which were supposed 
to be settled forever by the creeds. They call in question the 
being of a God, the immortality of the soul, the reality of 
anything beyond the jDhenomena of Nature. As to these 
matters, the world was once content to accept the dicta of re- 
ligious dogmatism, without a dream of asking proof, or 
doubting for an instant its infallibility. But now, in their 
consideration, free inquiry pays little heed to what religion 
has to say, for it holds her teaching to be only the conventional 
tradition of a "faith once delivered," and her arguments 
only one enormous petitio principii. And so, with an indiffer- 
ence to religious orthodoxy always genuine and often contempt- 
uous, men turn to look at the absolute and infinite with their 



172 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

own eyes ; unci, as their mental vision is apt to be " limited," 
it commonly follows that the object of consideration is pro- 
nounced non-existent, or at least unknowable. Thus, free- 
thinkers become "advanced" thinkers. Beginning with in- 
sisting that all questions leading beyond the bounds of time 
and sense shall be discussed in the light or license of inde- 
pendent reason, they end by refusing to entertain any such 
questions at all. Beginning with scant respect for religious 
authority in contemplation of the mysterious fiicts of life, 
they end by concluding everything mysterious a fiction, and 
all religion the product of instincts and tendencies of the un- 
developed mind — a superfetation of the mythic consciousness. 
Under the influence of a so-called " science " of physical phe- 
nomena, and a so-called "philosophy" of nescience, they 
compare all supramundane concerns to " the politics of the 
inhabitants of the moon," as being matters about which no 
one knows or cares to know; and "conceive that thc}^ only 
show a proper regard for the economy of time when they de- 
cline to trouble themselves about them at all." ^ Thus, phi- 
losophy has an equal share with religion in their sweeping 
contempt ; for they rightly feel that religion and philosoplw 
are one in spirit, have the same message to proclaim and the 
same interests at heart. They are pleased to tell us that 
' metaphysicians are a class of thinkers which, happily, is rap- 
idly diminishing;"- and, again: "All 3'our Platos and 
Aristotles but fill the world with long beards and long 
words." " Speculations touching the divine attributes, the 
origin of evil, and the foundation of moral obligation are, in 
a peculiar degree, the delight of intelligent children and half- 
civilized men." To which " enlightened " statements of Ma- 
caulay we may oppose a remark of Bishop Berkeley: "He 
who hath not nuu-li meditated upon God, the human mind, 
and the sumnnim honum, may possibly make a thriving earth- 
worm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a 
sorry statesman." It is a well-known saying of Novalis that 



i 



' Huxley. 
^ Froude. 



Christianity and the Clearing-u]). 173 

"Philosophy can bake no hread, but she gives us God, free- 
dom, and immortality." But the extreme result of our " ad- 
vanced " thought is the discovery that these are puzzles for 
chiklren ; that the civilized man is to check within himself the 
larse discourse that looks before and after, and, like a 
shrewder beaver, turn his whole attention to the world of the 
five senses. All quest of iusight into the mysteries within us 
and the mysteries without ; into the inner of this strange uni- 
verse in which, we know not how, we find ourselves — of this 
strange life wdiich each of us is, somehow, living without 
memory of its beginning or foresight of its end ; all eagerness of 
the mind, oppressed with the burden of its unknown being, to 
learn the answer to those still-recurring questions : What am 
I? Why am I? Whence? Whither? — all this, our newest 
wisdom tells us, is only the griping of a mental emptiness, a 
grasp at shadows, and a waste of time. Yet, surely, if these 
questions are not of essential interest to men, it is hard to see 
what questions can be. If these be called " essentially ques- 
tions of lunar politics," it is hard to see what questions may be 
thought to concern the inhabitants of earth. But, indeed, it 
is vain trying to suppress them with a nickname ; they are too 
deeply and too intensely human, nor know we any other inter- 
ests for men wdiich are not themselves but lunar politics in 
their comparison. In the answer to these mighty questions, 
and the finding of the truth we seek, lies all that gives to 
human life its meaning or its worth ; and that answer religion 
and philosophy undertake to give. 

But these have fallen now on evil days, and for the first, at 
least, they are embittered by that memory of happier things 
which the poets deem the crown of sorrows. For time was 
when theology sat upon the throne of intellectual despotism ; 
when Faith reduced to servitude her equal ally, Thought, and 
fettered her with formulas and churchly rule, until her onward 
movement was turned into an idle round, and her only action 
became a ]3lay of empty logic and the barren dialectic of the 
Schools ; when religion held that all that was not with her 
was against her, and physical science had to hide her face and 
work in holes and corners, and free thought was brought to 



174 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy. 

the scaffold and the stake. Now, therefore, that theology 
wanders unregarded and uncared for, if she come to see that 
her own tyranny over men provoked their rebellion and ex- 
plains their dislike — that an even-handed justice has made 
free thought her enemy, because she would not have it her 
friend — adversity will not be without its uses ; and when she 
shall acknowledge that perfect liberty is due to thought, and 
pure charity to honest error, she may regain, for she will then 
deserve, her old ascendency. 

Meantime, for us who have at heart the interests of religion 
jind philosophy, it is best not to groan over changed times 
and the loss of faith, but to see how the change has come 
about, what is the reason for it — for reason there must be — 
and what the remedy. I know no better way to open this 
inquiry than to make a brief study of the organic movement, 
or evolution of Thought, and then to follow this as it shapes 
the progress of history. 

There are three planes of intellectual culture, or three 
phases of intellectual life, which I will name, respectiveh^ 
those of belief, of understanding, and of reason. The first of 
these mental principles may be defined as a persuasion of the 
mind as to the truth of anything suggested to it. This is wide 
€nou2:h to cover, at the same time, religious faith and sense- 
perception ; for, while these differ from each other in that one 
is of the seen and the other of the unseen, belief, in the 
sense of the above definition, is the common principle of both. 

We say that we see a horse or a tree, but how do we hnoio 
that these are real objects and not the bodiless creation of our 
minds? In Ferrier's phrase, we never see the object alone, by 
itself, but always the object 7necum. All that we know of the 
matter is what passes within us — the internal phenomena of 
consciousness. But we are at once persuaded of the existence 
of an external ol)ject, and so promote our sensations to the 
rank and title of perceptions. It is, then, of the nature of 
Belief that the grounds of its action lie wholly within the mind 
itself, and lie below its consciousness. When we have pro- 
ducible grounds, we do not believe — we infer. For example : 
A friend is accused of a crime ; the case against him is very 



Christianity and the Clearing~up. 175 

strono", but we "believe" in his innocence, in spite of the 
evidence. This belief, however, is not without a reason ; it 
springs from our estimate of his character, and that from our 
acquaintance with the man. A very improbable statement is 
offered in defense, which is generally rejected as a fabrication, 
but we accept it because, to our judgment, any solution of 
the difficulty is less unlikely than that our friend should be 
guilty. Now, it is plain that this process of the mind is not 
belief in its strict and simple sense. It is, in fact, a kind of 
rapid and half-conscious reasoning, which is producible in log- 
ical form. As thus : A man who has hitherto lived a blameless 
life, and displayed an upright character, is one, in the highest 
deo"ree, unlikely to be guilty of such a crime. But this man 
we know for such a one ; therefore he is, in the highest 
degree, unlikely to be guilty of this crime. This is Barbara, 
the most regular form of the syllogism. Belief is essentially 
a different thing from this. It is a spontaneous act of the 
mind — immediate, and unconditioned by external influence. 
The mind believes simply because it is its nature to. It is 
constituted with this primordial faculty of apprehension as the 
body is gifted with the organ of vision. 

Our view of Belief will become clearer by noting the con- 
trast it presents with the second mental principle. Under- 
standing. 

This may l>e defined as the faculty ivhich establishes the 
truth of a jjrojjositioji by showing its necessary consequence 
upon another proposition already accepted as true. Here is 
the exact converse of Belief. That is immediate and simple ; 
ii direct grasp of an object without process or method, inde- 
pendent of support or warrant. Understanding, on the con- 
trary, is nothing else than process, method, mediation, 
weighing of evidence, and evolution of proof. In the ordinary 
view this contrast marks Understanding as a faculty that 
ranks higher than Belief in the mental scale. It is supposed 
that convictions reached by reasoning are of more value, 
because of greater certainty, than those grasped by Belief; 
that the former are matter of positive knowledge, and the 
latter only of probable supposition. For, it is argued, the 



176 TJie Journal of Speculative PJiilosoplty . 

action of Belief is not reducible to scientific form, or capable 
of scientific valuation. It seeks no proof and offers none. It 
is a leap in the dark, which has no means of substantiating the 
results it reaches, nor any way of showing how it reaches 
theui. Men even believe what at the same time they confess^ 
themselves unable to conij)relicnd. On the other hand, Un- 
derstanding demands proof for every proposition it admits, 
and offers proof for every one it asserts. It welds link to link 
in a strong chain of reasoning. It walks on firm ground to 
the point it aims for, and every step it takes is sure. 

This comparative estimate fancies it acquires a scientific 
basis in the statement that Belief is a " subjective " principle, 
and Understanding an " oljjective" one; a statement explained 
somewhat thus : The action of Understandins: in loi>:ical or 
mathematical reasoning is impersonal in its character. It is 
wholly regulated by the " laws of thought." It is that of a 
spectator who notes and registers, but does not control or 
shape, the movement of necessary relations. Consequently, 
the truths of demonstration are recognized as existing " object- 
ively," or, of their own necessity, independently of the mind 
survejnng them. The square of the hypotiienuse of a right- 
angled triangle is eternally equal to the squares of its other two 
sides, whether or not Euclid or any human being discover the 
fact. With Belief the case is quite opposite. It is determined 
by an internal impulse ; it begins with an antecedent prepos- 
session ; it lives not in the dry light of passive observation, but 
amid the color and cldaroscuro of the mind's own atmosphere ; 
its conclusions are gained by its own reaching toward them — 
it spins them out of itself as the spider spins his web. Formed 
under these personal or " subjective " conditions, the mind's 
beliefs cannot claim absolute authority — can have no weight 
except for the mind that holds them. All this assumes as 
unquestionable that, in so far as mental action is subjective, it 
is unreliable. Granting this assumption for argument's sake, 
it will be sufficient to meet the statement of fact with a direct 
contradiction: it is Belief that is objective, and Understanding 
that is subjective. For, just because Belief springs from an 
internal impulse is a reaching forward of the mind itself, or 



Christianity and the Clearing-up. 177 

a spinning of its own fibers, it follows that it belongs, not to the 
subjective or personal side of mind, but to the objective or 
impersonal. The su])jective principle is the intelligent and 
voluntary activity. To this Belief does not belong. Belief is 
the mind's spontaneous act; it "docs itself;" it is simply 
mental vision. On this plane of Belief the thinking with 
intelligence and purpose — subjective thinking — has not yet ap- 
peared. It enters with understanding, and is called reflection — 
the hending back of mind for a second look at the affirmations 
of Belief. If, then, objectivity be any guaranty of certainty. 
Belief, and not Understanding, is the principle to be relied upon. 

But apart from this there is a fatal flaw in the claims of 
Understandino: to merit o-reater confidence than Belief, al- 
thouo^h the claim is commonlv admitted. For, retrace the 
reasoning process to its beginning, and it is plain that the 
original flrst proposition, from which all the others are de- 
duced, and by that deduction proved to be true, itself has not 
been, and cannot be, established by this process ; because, 
being the first, there is no other before it to derive it from or 
explain it by. There is no demonstration but is built on that 
which has not been, and cannot be, demonstrated. Conse- 
quently demonstration, as such, cannot guarantee certainty. 
Consequently, again, to refuse certainty to what cannot be 
demonstrated is to strike away the foundation of demonstra- 
tion itself. The action of Understanding depends upon first 
principles, which must first be supplied to it. These data, it 
calls "self-evident" truths, because it is unable to find anv 
proof of them, and in regard to them it occupies precisely the 
position of Belief — that is, it simply recognizes them and 
accepts them. 

The true result, then, of this comparison is that Belief, and 
not Understanding, is the faculty that supplies the ground of 
certitude. It is upon the spontaneous activity of intelligence 
that all its reflective achievement is o-rounded. I sav achieve- 
ment, for, granting that Understanding is dependent on another 
faculty, and all its labored fabric of mediation built on imme- 
diate insight, it does not follow that its careful, methodical 
procedure, therefore, comes to nothing or counts for nothing; 
XII — 12 



178 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy . 

nor that Uiiderstaiiding has not nsefiil and quite indispensable 
capacities, and a certain superiority over Belief to compensate 
for the inferiority we have noted. Belief apprehends the Ab- 
solute ; Understanding comprehends the Rehitive. Tlie one 
grasps principles, the other evolves consequents. The one 
gains view of the underlying generality, the other connects 
and coordinates particulars, assigning to each its relation to 
the others, and, by methods of its own, reducing the manifold 
to systematic unity. Belief gives an indefinite knowledge ; 
Understanding, an exact knowledge. Belief knows, but Under- 
standing knows that it knows, because it knows Jiow it knows. 
And this subjective insight of Understanding, not the object- 
ive apprehension of Belief, is "knowing" in the only 
com[)lete sense of the term. In this lies the claim of Under- 
standins; to the title of scientific intelligence, for intuition is 
no more science than the acorn is the oak. 

Now, since, on the one hand, Belief supplies to Understand- 
ing a point of departure which it could not find for itself, and 
without which it could not move ; and since, on the other 
hand, Understanding advances from that starting-point by a 
method of its own which Belief does not possess ; since that 
is, each has what the other lacks and lacks what the other has — 
Belief and Understanding are seen to be, not antagonistic, but 
complementary, principles. The one has matter ; the other has 
form. By itself each is incomplete, fragmentary, but together 
they are momenta, dynamic factors, of the principle which 
covers the concrete totality of mental action — the speculative 
reason. On this plane of intellect, matter and form are not 
sundered and held a[)art, but their mutual mediation has disclosed 
their essential unity, and in this unity the mind lives. Truth 
is seen as a unity of essential distinctions, and that insight 
neither denies the unity nor neglects the distinction. The 
iictual is found not in the abstract universal, nor in the abstract 
purticular, ])ut in the concrete singular ; not in the conditioned, 
nor in the unconditioned, but in the self-conditioning ; not in 
mere plienomcna and not in mere essence, but in essence as 
phenomenally self-revealed ; not in the positive alone nor in 
the negative alone, but in the positive as constituted by the 



Christianity/ and the Clearing-up. 179 

negative. It is the function of the Specuhitive Reason to es- 
tablish those first principles which Belief only asserts, and 
which Understanding declares to be beyond the reach of the 
scientific mind. To this reason, therefore, and to this reason 
only, the Absolute and Infinite are not something believed nor 
something disbelieved, but something known ; for it thinks 
itself loose from the hold of Understanding, which would shut 
thought in with " limits " and keep it down with " laws." It 
finds its way out of those abstract categories which involve 
the mind in hopeless antinomies, and advances by principles 
as concrete as truth itself. It holds in the Dialectic the key 
to all wonders and the legible translation of the secret of the 
universe. 

Now, it is important to see that these three mental princi- 
jiles do not lie side by side, each l)y itself, as independent 
faculties, though, for convenience, our analysis has treated them 
as if they did ; for mind is one in its faculties, and one in the 
stages of its growth. As faculties of mind, they reside in an 
or2:anic unitv — thev hold an oro:anic relation to each other, and 
develop according to an organic law. Thus the logical life of 
thought is self-evolution through this three-phased process ; 
beginning with the intuition of Belief, it proceeds through the 
rcasonnig of Understanding, and arrives at the pure thinking 
of Reason. First is the apprehension of the immediate unity ; 
next the discernment of the mediating distinctions ; and, finally, 
the inclusion of the distinctions in the self-mediating unity. 
Or, at briefest : First, the Thesis ; next, the Antithesis ; 
lastly, the Synthesis. 

Such is the necessary movement of Thought through its 
constitutive principles. , It now remains for us to see that this 
movement underlies and guides the general course of history. 
As much as this lies, indeed, in the very idea of history ; that is, 
history is nothing else than the actualization of thought — 
the exjjUciter of that imjyiiciter ; for history is the continuity 
of human action. But what is human action ? There is no action 
of any individual man but has a motive and a meaning ; it is the 
execution of a purpose. "We assume that there is a reason for 



180 Tlie Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy. 

it. As, then, every particular action is the expression of a 
thoiio-ht, and for every action there is some reason, so action 
in general is the expression of thought in general, and for 
action as such, there is reason as such. Action that is, ia 
the action of reason, or reason in action. The action of man 
must be the action of mind. If, then, thought is the material 
of human action, or history, the general process of thought 
will be reproduced in the general progress of history. 

It would be interesting to illustrate this point by reference 
to universal history. We should find that as thought begins 
with Belief, so the story of primitive culture has nothing ear- 
lier than religions and mythologies. It tells of intuition taken 
for inspiration ; of poets, prophets, priests ; of kings, vice- 
gerents of a divine supremacy, and of heroes descended from 
the gods. Again, as in the process of thought. Belief leads to 
understanding, so in history the twilight time of mystery and 
marvel, of oracle and hierophant, is followed by the broad noon 
of practical sense and useful knowledge. The golden haze that 
swam before the eye of mental infancy settles into focus for a 
clearer, but narrower, vision. The various elements of civili- 
zation, held in solution in the religious consciousness, are 
precipitated into distinctness. Faith yields to science ; poetry 
to prose; theocratic despotism to civil freedom. Wealth 
accumulates, bringing with it luxury and poverty, social 
refinement and social corruption. Life becomes complex, 
selfish, materialized. Lastly, as thought's final movement 
is to the speculative reason, so even this has an historic 
appearance in the Socratic philosophy, and a practical reali- 
zation, when Aristotle's brilliant pupil achieved his vast 
desioii to Hellenize the \^ orld. 

But I nmst confine myself to a rapid survey of the past life 
of modern nations, since it is with their present life, resulting 
from that past, that we are concerned. When Goths, Lom- 
bards, Burgundians, and Franks were settled in their new 
homes, and civilization again became possible, the first step to 
it had to be taken Avithin the sphere of a twofold influence — 
that of the Empire and that of the Church. The imperial 
system furnished the /brms of social and civil order, but the 



Christianity and the Clearing-up. 181 

<:ontent of the world's thought and life was given to it m 
CJhristianity. Now, what was given and how was it received? 
The Christian revehition centers in the person of Christ. 
The single personality of a God who is man — a man who is 
God — declares that essential identity of Divine and human 
nature whicli was implied in the Hebrew conception of a 
]3ersonal God. The Incarnation is possible only through the 
essential homogeneity of all spiritual being, and in that lies 
the only ground of a spiritual reconciliation and reunion of 
God and man. But the unity of Divine and human, taken as 
immediate, is only the Serpent's " Ye shall be as gods. " It 
is only the assertion of man's subjective independence — his 
abstract free will — which is precisely Evil . Man enters into the 
Divine — enters fullv into his own nature — onl v in so far as he 
renounces his merely natural being and his merely willful will. 
Thus the Incarnation, in which the Word becomes not a man, 
but " tlesli, " is the recreation of humanit3^ It is " in Christ " 
that man returns to the Divine from the alienation of a false 
independence ; and thus he finds his infinite or Divine being 
comprehended in the specific conception of the son. The 
distinctive principle of Christianity is, therefore, the principle of 
JNIediation. Man realizes his spiritual essence by renouncing 
the merely natural, for that is the unspiritual. The precedent 
condition of his elevation above nature must, then, be the 
consciousness of his spiritualitv. That consciousness is nothins: 
else than the recoo-nition of his unity with the Divine, and it is 
the intuition of this unity that is given to men in Christ. 
Christ is ideal manhood, and, as such, the one Mediator 
between God and men. Hence the individual holds his new 
relation to God through his essential Jiumanity . But that is 
the element of the identity of all individuals. All men hold 
the same relation ; and, if it is held by man as man, it is held in 
common. Thus the spiritual life is not an isolation, but a 
communion of individuals. The Kingdom of God, a present 
life in the spirit of Christ, is the Christian Brotherhood — the 
Church. Thus the content of the Christian Religion is specu- 
lative in its significance. Its truth is this concrete oneness of 
subject and object, "Ye in me and I in you, "this singularizing 



182 Tlie Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy . 

of particuliirs through their universality, " We, being many, are 
one Body in Clirist." 

Now, from this specuhitive or absolute character of Christian 
truth — from its being a miity of essential distinctions — it 
results that it cannot all at once be apprehended. It is learned 
only by a slow process in the world-training of the ages. At 
first the truth appears to men only in its immediate aspect, as 
purely objective — that is, not essentially 7'elated to their own 
being. As such it is apprehended by Faith. This is the 
Christian method and secret, and so the Christian world begins 
with that principle of Belief which we have found to be the 
logical beginnino; of thought. But thus to seize one-half of 
the truth and miss the other half is at once to base Christianity 
upon that infinite falsity which ruled the destinies of the 
Middle Ages ; for, since the Christian God is /Spirit, the 
revelation of the Divine contains, as an integral element, 
man's relation to the Divine. But, now, while Christianity is 
received as the absolute truth of thought and life, in that 
cognition is not o-iven the recoonition of self. And so the 
revelation of the infinite unity of Divine and human, seized 
only in its objective phase, appears rather as the declaration 
of their infinite difference. The Spirit in wldch man is not 
mirrored to Idmself stands over against him as alien to his 
being. The world throws itself in an agony of self-abasement 
at the feet of tlie Divine, and a gulf opens between the finite 
and the infinite — between God and man. 

What becomes, then, of the heart of the Christian Religion 
— the i)rinciple of Mediation l)etween them? This: ]Man, 
being mere finite, is incapable of sustaining any direct relation 
to the Divine. But, if this be so, Christ has really effected no 
reconciliation, no spiritual result. There is no meaning in the 
Scripture words: "Having, then, l)oldness to enter into the 
holiest bv a new and livius; wav, let us draw near in full assur- 
ance of faith." If man in Christ is in no sense Divine, Christ 
is in no sense human ; and so as men ceased to see themselves ^ 
m Christ, and Christ in tiiemselves. He melted into the general 
conception of the Divine, and, as Christ, was set aside. Hence 
came the fundamental hcres}'' of the^NIiddle Ages — the rejection 



Christianity and the Clearing-up. 183 

of Mediation through Christ alone ; for, since there was no 
common nature of God and man to form an internal element 
of Mediation, that was sought in an element external — the 
oro-anization of the Church. Now, when it became a system 
of Mediation, the Church suffered a change, and assumed a 
new shape. Here it is important to see clearl3^ It is no 
fault of a spiritual institution that it takes on a temporal 
organization, for that is a necessity if it will hold a place in 
the life of the world. But in every organized institution the 
internal element is what is vital ; the external only exists for 
its sake. When the organization forgets that, as such, it is the 
shrine of a sacredness not its OAvn, and assumes to stand alone, 
as in itself sacred, then the life of its internal spirit begins to 
faint and sicken. And this — the usurpation l)y the external, 
or temporal, of the place of the internal, or spiritual — was 
the fault of the Medieval Church. Gradually the spiritual 
kino-dom, froveruino; from within, was changed into an ecclesias- 
tical kingdom, governing from without. The free community 
of Apostolic times became a despotic hierarchy, in Avhich the 
spiritual equality of Christians, their intercommunion in the 
common life of the Spirit, faded into a dream. Hence arose 
what we may call the fn-caxt schism in the Church ; not that 
later one of pope against pope, but the early separation of 
the Clergy from the Lait3^ To the Clergy is given all spirit- 
ual insiijht and knowledo'c of divine thino;s ; the Laity can 
stand in no direct relation to the divine. But thus they are 
cut off from the Chnrcli ; and, in effect, that term becomes 
synonomous with the Clergy. The Church, in this new sense, 
claims supreme authority in faith and morals. The truth is 
presented to men in a dogmatic system, shaped by Councils 
and Fathers of the Church. The development of this doc- 
trine belonofs exclusivelv to the Church. It determines ; the 
Laity has simply to receive on faith — faith without insight. 
Thus, faith ])ecomes a matter of external legislation, and 
thence results compulsion and the stake. Again, the layman, 
in his absolute finitude, can hold no direct communicatiou 
with the Divine Being. His prayers must be offered through 
mediators — the perfect dead ; and so comes saint-worship and 



184 The Journal of Sj^eculative Philosophy. 

all the strange growth of a new mythology. With this, Christ 
assumes more definitely the character of the Judge. The 
Savior of men and Friend of sinners becomes the Ilex tre- 
mendi 3Iajestatis of the Dies Irae, and the Virgin Mother is 
specially invoked to appease the wrath of her Son. From the 
same principle, the finitnde of consciousness, arises the per- 
version of the Eucharist. That is, in truth, the sacrament of 
the unity of man with God through Christ ; it is the highest 
spiritual act, in that therein man lays hold on the conscious- 
ness of this spiritual communion. But such a view would 
â– overthrow the whole structure of MediiBval Christianity, and 
so the Host is declared the present Christ, apart from recep- 
tion by the faithful. They have but to fall down before this 
mere thing, held up for their adoration in the hands of others ; 
for the Clergy chiim the ownership of this highest of human 
blessings. Again, in conduct the layman must not presume 
to judge for himself, for that would imply personal knowledge 
of the right. In confession he is bound to expose to the 
Cliurch all particulars of his life and actions, and then is di- 
rected what to do. This, according to the general principle, can- 
not be moral amendment. His dano-er is not the internal death 
of sinfulness, but the external penalty of damnation. The 
terrors of hell are vividly painted to drive him to seek escape 
from them throuoh the " means of onice" — an arcanum m. 
possession of the Church. He is directed, then, to outward, 
not to inward, actions ; mechanical prayers, mechanical pen- 
ances ; directions so avowedly unspiritual that they even may 
be vicariously performed : or, better still, the wealthy sinner 
nuiy 1)U3^ imnmnity in a draft on the merits of the Saints, laid 
up in the Church treasury. Thus subjective spirit goes to 
sleep, handing intellect over to an Ecclesia Docens and con- 
science to priestly authority. Faith becomes passive accept- 
ance ; moral life, i)assive obedience. The Church becomes on 
the one hand an initiated ruling caste, and on the other a ^yro- 
fanuni vuhjus reduced to spiritual slavery. 

If, within the Church, Christianity issued in this self-contra- 
diction, wc may expect to find the relation of religion to social 
life not less hopelessly perverted. In fact, social moralit}^ was 



C hristiamtij and the Clearing-iip. 185 

renounced in its three most essential features. Marriage is, 
indeed, reckoned a sacrament, but it is none the less degraded 
by the Church estimate of Celibacy as the holier state. Again, 
labor for one's own support, and the laying up the surplus, is, 
in truth, alike the basis of personal independence and of the 
common welfare, but, in contravention of this. Pauperism is 
regarded as the nobler life, and mendicancy claims a superior 
sanctity. Lastl}-, the morality, which in truth alone can form 
ii social bond, is that of the heart and conscience — of mind and 
will as well as of deed ; but this is neither souglit nor would 
it find allowance. What is demanded is blind compliance 
with the commandments of men, a docile walking in the lead- 
ing: strinos of the Church. In this wav the three vows of the 
religious life — Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience — turn out 
the complete perversion at once of Christian principles and of 
social order. 

Thus the Mediaeval Church appears in history as simply a 
reaction aoainstthe secular life of the time, and as such it sub- 
jects, but does not reform. The most energetic phase of this 
reaction is seen in Monachism. As concerns social morality, 
that institution, at its best, was an error and an evil, for it 
disregarded equally the claims of social duty, the teachings of 
the Gospel, and all rational instincts of human nature. The 
scheme of monastic life centered in the false principle of Oriental 
Dualism, that taught the inherent evilness of matter, and the 
consequent sinfulness of everything corporeal ; and the extreme 
to which ascetic frenzy carried the principle remains recorded 
for our reading in all its painful and disgusting details. But 
a false principle of action refutes itself when it is put in prac- 
tice, and the monasteries, having long fostered fraud, avarice, 
and cruelty, at length sank into the fleshly vices they espe- 
<iially sought to escape, and became notorious for gluttony, 
drunkenness, and debauchery.^ 



1 The testimony to this fact is overwhehning. As early as the year 1400 C16- 
mangis could write as follows in his Declamatio de corrupto Ecclesice statu, and 
Cl^mangis, be it remembered, was no heresiarch, but an orthodox churchman : 
" Si quis hodie desidiosus est, si quis a laboTe abhorrens, s% qias in otio luxuriari 
voLens, ad sacerdotium convolat, quo adepto, statl/n se caetcris sacerdotibus volup- 



186 The Journal of Speadative Philosophy . 

The general fact here to which all MecliEeval history bears 
witness is this : that religion, as it was practically defined by 
the Church, was completely divorced from morality. Whether, 
on the whole, religion had " passed the point where it becomes 
more injurious to public morals than would be its entire 
absence," is a question which the judicious and temi)erate 
Halhim considers a "very complex" one, although he is not 
prepared to pronounce an affirmative decision. Bnt it had 
reached the point where crimes could be commended, wiien 
the perpetrators were zealous for the faith or duly considerate 
of priestly interests. A monkish chronicler tells, with high 
approbation, how a bishop made a nobleman drunk in order 
to cheat him out of an estate. And even Gregory of Tonrs, 
after relatiu"; the atrocious deed of Clovis, in the murder of a^ 
prince whom he had previously instigated to parricide, con- 
cludes : "For God daily subdned his enemies to his hand, 
because he walked before Him in uprightness, and did 
what was pleasing in His eyes." An incident related of 
Kobert of France ilhistrates the prevalent confusion of moral 
perceptions. The king, concerned at the frequenc}'^ of perjury 
by witnesses who swore upon the sacred relics, secretly emp- 
tied the reliquary, in the belief that this would prevent those 
who took oath in future from incurring the guilt of their in- 
tended crime. Such a story shows how the relation of religion 
to life, which the Apostles made internal and vital, had 1)c- 
come purely external and mechanical, and explains how the 
world, for the first ten centuries, remained, on the whole, a 
heathen world — men, when they were ill, thinking of religion 
with terror, and, when they were in health, not thinking of it 
at all. 

In its own life, too, that world reflects the contradiction 
between principle and practice in which we find the Church 



taturn, sectatoribus adjungit, qui magis secundum EpieuTnim quam secundum 
Christum, viventes, et cauponulas seduli frequentantes, potando, commessando, 
pransitando, convioando cum tesseris et pilu ludendo tempora iota consumuut. 
* * * Quid aliud aunt hoc tem.pore puellarum vionasteria nisi qucedam non 
dico Dei sanctuaiia, sed Venej-is execranda prostihula, sed lasciuorum et impiidi- 
corum juvenum ad libidines explendas receptacula? ut idem sit /iodic puella)n. 
velare quod et jiublice ad sco/'tandum exponere." 



Christianity and the Clearing-np. 187 

involved. An imperial dignity: in theory, organically united 
with the Church — in fact, divided from it by the long contest 
of Guelf and Ghibelline : in theory, the center of order for the 
Christian world — in fact, an empty title. A Feudal System 
whose theoretic bond, Fidelity, is a rope of sand, while un- 
bridled selfishness lifts every man's hand against his neigh- 
bor, and lordship means license to plunder and oppress. A 
social character, the barbarous play of impulse, and a medley 
of wildest inconsistencies — lavish and rapacious, devout and 
dissolute, o-enerous and cruel — now plun£rin<r into savajje 
crime, now prostrate in extravagant self-loathing, now clutch- 
ing with frantic aspirations at a superhuman sanctity. A 
social condition so distracted in its delirium of passion that 
the history of the whole period reads like " a tale told bj'^ an 
idiot — full of sound and fur}^ signifying nothing," 

Finally, if we turn to the political relations of the Church 
and the world, we are met by the whole strange story of the 
rise of ecclesiastical power. During the first 500 years 
that followed the recoo-nition of Christianity bv Constantine 
no principle could seem more indisputably established than that 
of the subordination of the Church to the State, alike under the 
sway of Roman Emperor, of barliarian chief, and of the 
Frankish rulers of the empire restored. But when the impe- 
rial arm was withdrawn that alone could sustain the fabric of 
a settled order, in the anarchy of civil strife that followed the 
eager and aml>itious churchmen saw their opportunity. In a 
time of ignorance and barbarism, when men lived from day to 
day without memory of the past or foresight of the future, 
it was possible for a class which monopolized all learning to 
put forth claims and pretensions before unheard of, and to 
found them on forged precedents at variance with every fact 
of history. 

The False Decretals and the Donation of Constantine were 
the engine bv which the ecclesiastics, takino; advantao-e of the 
readiness of the suffering people to welcome a change of 
masters, effected the great revolution of the ninth century, and 
reversed the relative position of the Church and the State. 
The twofold object of these able and unscrupulous men was ta 



188 The Journal of Speculative PJtilosojphy . 

assert the supremacy of the ecclesiastical over the secular power, 
and the supremacy of the papacy over the Church, "When 
the occasion came to enforce the principles of the Forgeries, 
the man was not wanting to the hour, and the double victory 
of Nichohis I. laid the foundation of papal omnipotence 
within the Church, and established the principle (which 
Gregory and Innocent afterward carried to its extreme length) 
that from the pope is derived the jurisdiction of secular 
princes, who arc l:)ound to execute his decrees — a principle 
ivhich restored to Rome all the terror of her ancient name, 
when kings were her vassals and her word was the law of the 
world. 

But hand in hand with her material advancement went her 
moral decline. From the days of Constantine the greed of 
worldly wealth had been the characteristic vice of churchmen ; 
and when Gregory passionately besought Charles Martel to 
save, not religion, but church lands, from the Lombard 
invader, he Avas not the first to show a areater solicitude for 
her temporal possessions than for spiritual interests. Thence- 
forth, more than ever, the Church seemed bent on heaping up 
riches, and less than ever seemed to care by what means they 
were acquired. The reckless rapacity, the cynical venality, 
the tide of corruption, that surged from the Roman Court 
throuofh every channel of the church system mioht now and 
again stir a man like Grosteste to a protest of indignant sor- 
sow : but, in general, contemporary writers relate the infa- 
mous transactions of their time with a naivete that evidently 
views them as matters of course. By such means the Church 
amassed the enormous wealth Avhich became the bulwark of 
her political power and the instrument of her jiolitical 
intrigue, and which made her injunction, not to lay up treas- 
ures upon earth and not to put trust in riches, the cant of a 
trans[)arent ll}'pocris3^ 

It had been a chief o])ject with the builders of ecclesiastical 
power, first, to gain immunity from secular jurisdiction, and 
then, by ever Ijolder pretensions, to usurp almost the whole 
administration of justice. To combine this with their priestly 
])o\vers was to control the life of every man both here and 



Christianity and the Clearing-up. 189 

hereafter ; and when the text, " He that is spiritual judgeth 
all things, but himself is judged of no man," was made the 
maxim of a working S3^stem, and the pope was recognized as 
the fountain of justice, temporal and spiritual, it was found 
that no ensrine could be more effective to the construction of 
ecclesiastical absolutism, nor any source more fruitful of the 
all-pervading corruption that was eating out the life of tlie 
Church . 

So it was that spiritual powers became the basis of temporal 
power. By the sj-stem of Confession the clergy were made 
at once a government and a police, while every one was bound 
to inform against himself. By their power to grant or with- 
hold Absolution and the Sacraments they held in their hands 
the keys of heaven and hell ; and by the power of Excommu- 
nication and Interdict thev obtained, to borrow Drvden's 
figure, wdiat Archimedes wanted — another world on which to 
rest their engines, so as to move this one at their pleasure. 
Thus it was not strano-e that, in her reaction aaainst the 
secular world, the Church herself became secularized. In 
right of their vast temporal possessions the ecclesiastical body 
took stand as feudal lords, and the bishops and abbots were 
also counts and princes, maintaining all the rank and power 
of this secular dignity. In virtue of their monopoly of edu- 
cation, ecclesiastics entered the courts and councils of princes, 
and became the power behind the throne. They were law- 
yers, ambassadors, prime ministers ; and, holding nearly every 
civil function, held the reins of State in every court of Europe, 
while every thread in the net-work of their policy ran direct 
to Rome, The kinodom of Christ's Vicar was a kinadom of 
this world. Men saw it busied w^ith worldly aims and work- 
ing for Avorldly interests, and its power over their hearts began 
to wane, Tlie halo of its early sanctity, as now it traveled 
daily further from the East, began to fade into the light of 
common day, and the hour of her triumph wrote Ichahod 
upon the walls of Christian Rome, 

Such, then, were the results of taking Belief for the ruling 
principle of human action. To this the w^orld was brought — 
a hierarchic tyranny which cast a blight alike on personal 



190 The Journal of Siieculative Philosophy . 

religion, social virtue, and civil freedom. I pass to the causes 
and results of the entrance of the second mental principle — 
Understanding — upon the historic stage. 

The internal transition from the mediieval to the modern 
world took place through the Crusades. It lies on the surface 
to see in those holy wars the occasion of intellectual advance 
and the incitement to a various activity, but they have a 
deeper significance in the answer they gave to the religious 
spirit that prompted them. The ecclesiastical system had 
done its best to crush out the free spirit of man, but that could 
not be utterly destroyed, and out of the bosom of church life 
arose at leno:th a dissatisfied restlessness and the eager craving 
for some closer hold on the Divine. It turns blindly to 
Christ, if haply it may feel after Ilim and find Ilim. There 
is the Host — a definite present existence ; but the Host is 
found in every church, and this particular existence wears, 
after all, a character of vaguest generality. His human per- 
sonality has disappeared, as regards time, but, as regards 
place, His life was limited to a particular spot, and there, in 
association at least, He seems to have a certain mundane per- 
manence. Hence the pilgrimages to the Holy Land. But 
the holy places are in the hands of infidels, and Christendom 
arms to win possession of them for the Church. It gains the 
City and the Sepulcher. But at the Grave all the vanity of 
the sensuous appears, and men learn at last their long mis- 
take. They find an empty tomb, and hear again the words 
there spoken : " Why seek ye the Living among the Dead? 
He is not here, but is risen." Sadder and wiser they return, 
bidding farewell to a cherished fancy. The enthusiasm dies 
out, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem is lost again to the Turk. 

From this neijative result dates the introversion of the 
western mind. Spirit falls back upon itself. The subjective 
principle at last comes forth in a new spirit of free inquiry 
and self-reliant action. As such the new spirit is distinctly 
hostile to the ecclesiastical order, since that demands the pas- 
sive submission of the individual, and so it contains the neces- 
sity of rupture with mcdiieval institutions. The profound. 



Christianity and the CJearing-up. 191 

though silent, revolution grudually effected during the next 
three centuries demands close and careful study ; I can only 
sketch its outline. The new movement mav he traced as, 
first, within the ecclesiastical system; then without it ; and, 
finally, against it. Under the first he;id we note as the marked 
manifestations of its activity, first, the reform and exten- 
sion of the monastic orders under Dominic, Francis, and Ber- 
nard, who, not content with the mere profession of the relig- 
ious life, sought to make it a reality ; secondl}^ the institution 
of the religious orders of Knighthood — those of the Temple, 
the Hospital, and others ; thirdly, the rise of the so-called 
Gothic architecture, distinguished from the earlier Romanesque 
l)_y its freedom and boldness of inventive conception, its exu- 
berance of fancy, its Oriental profusion of ornament ; and, 
lastlv, the i>-rowtli of scholastic divinitv, throuoh which the 
mind attains complete master^^ of the abstract forms of 
thought, although philosophy remains the "hand-maid of the 
faith," little material progress was to be made. But, since the 
church system necessarily retained the principle upon which it 
was built, the sul)jective movement within its sphere M^as a 
necessary failure. The monastic orders sank into torpor ; the 
military orders, into corruption ; architecture lost its creative 
spirit in elaboration of mechanical skill ; and scholasticism 
fell into a vain wrangle over empty distinctions. 

And so, secondly, the movement sought a new direction in 
secular life. We see it in the development of Feudal barbar- 
ism into the nobler life of Chivalry. The prime motive in the 
-chivalric character, the sentiment of personal honor, is nothing 
«lse than the intuition of the infiniteness of subjectivity ; and 
this is a product so impossible to extract from mediaivalism 
that we cannot be surj^rised when we trace its origin directly 
to intercourse with the free-spirited Saracens of Spain and the 
East. The young knights found no truer model of the chival- 
ric character than was displayed in their enemy Saladin, and 
the lofty soul of the great Cid was nurtured in the school of 
Moorish example. 

A more important step was taken in the rapid rise of the 
Towns, and thence of that middle class which was to form the 



192 TJie Journal of Speculative Philof^oplty. 

material of a new societ3^ The Crusades gave a powerful 
stimulus to commerce; commerce stimulated mamitactures, 
since the town must export that would import ; both led to 
wealth, and wealth to power. The cities formed leagues for 
the furtherance of common interests, and municipal freedom 
was fouud not easy to extino-uish when it could ])uihl fortifica- 
tions to defy a siege, and levy such armies as mustered under 
the standards of Venice or Genoa ; when, above all, the first fire- 
arm had given the death-blow to the ancient art of war. The 
growiug importance of the burghers, thus maintained by mili- 
tary strength, gained them a jjolitical existence, when in the 
thirteenth century the}'^ entered the English Parliament and the 
French States-General, the Spanish Cortes and the Imperial 
Diet. The towns were the birth-place of popular independ- 
ence, which first appeared as a mere reaction against Feudal- 
ism, but soon evolved two institutions to serve as the posi- 
tive basis of a new civil order. Wiien the Italian cities 
acquired the right of determining controversies by a magis- 
tracy of their own election, a strong impulse was given to the 
study of jurisprudence. Bologna was the first to begin the 
teaching of the new-found code of Justinian, and soon all 
Europe was brought under the authority of a uniform system 
of civil law. Again, the progress of the commonalty brought 
with it the growth of the national spirit and the rise of 
national monarchy. No longer a Feudal suzerain, the king 
became the holder of a political power that rested on the sup- 
port of the people, and, as chief of the State, reduced the law- 
less violence of the noble to the sway of ro3^al authority. 

Along with this advance in practical life there went an intel- 
lectual advance ; and this brings us back to a topic already 
touched upon. Nothing is more im[)ortant to the student oi 
the intellectual development of Europe than the history of" 
Scholasticism, though it has long been the fashion to mention 
it only with ridicule. It was the attempt of its founders to 
s:ive the doijmas of the faith the form of a scientific svstem. 
Thus it was, as I have said, distinctly a product of the new 
subjective impulse, for it was an attempt to conciliate faith 
and reason by showing the rationality of the faith. "When 



Ohristianity and the Olearing-up. 193 

dogma passed from the Church to the School, it left the posi- 
tion of an unquestionable authority, external to consciousness, 
and 3'ielded to the claim of thought that it should become 
intelligible. At first, indeed, the only desire was to compre- 
hend revealed truth ; there was no disposition to question or 
dispute the teachings of the Church. Abelard's revolt against 
spiritual despotism was premature, and, hence, was summarily 
crushed ; for the twelfth century was not prepared to sympa- 
thize with one who asserted that a knowledo-e of divine things 
lay within the capacity of reason, or one who taught a morality 
of the conscience and heart. But thought is nothino- if not free ; 
and, the door of theology once opened to her, it was impossible 
to keep her in subjection. When the rival schools of Aquinas 
and Scotus respectively set up as first principles the intellect 
and the will, this antithesis of theoretical and practical allowed 
Scotus to transfer the whole prol^lem of theology to the prac- 
tical sphere, and reduce faith to a principle of action; thus 
freeing philosophy from theology and breaking that implicit 
unity of reason and faith which was the foundation of the 
whole Scholastic enterprise. The way was thus opened for 
the revival of a deeper antithesis than that between intellect 
and will ; one more fatal to the authority of the faith, the 
antithesis, namely, between thought and reality. Nominalism 
denied the substantiality of the generic, and declared that uni- 
versals had no reality, but were only empty names in a world 
of individual existences. Realism, the converse doctrine, 
placed the reality of the individual thing in its ideal universal. 
The dispute arose from a failure to distinguish between being 
and existence. Universals have being, but, as universah, no 
existence ; their existence is only through that of individual 
things. Again, individual things have existence, but, as indi- 
viduals, no being ; their being is only in that of universals. 
Since each party identified being and existence, it is plain that 
both were in some degree rioht, and both on the whole wrono-. 
But it is also plain that the one doctrine could consist with 
religion and the other could not ; for the one, with all its 
blindness and crudeness, was idealism, while the other, with- 
out knowing it or meaning it, was materialism. When nomi- 
XII— 13 



194 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

iialism averred that uiiiversals were simply mental conceptions, 
destitute, not only of existence in the phenomenal world, l)ut 
of any objective reality whatever, it cut asunder thought and 
being, and so, in principle at least, struck the ground from 
under all infinite and spiritual truths. The Church felt her 
danger. Roscelinus, the father of the doctrine, was condemned 
by a council ; Abelard, who gave it a qualitied adherence, was 
effectually silenced, and for nearly two centuries Realism 
reigned unchallenged as the philosophy of the orthodox. But 
the opening of the fourteenth centurj^ found a revolutionary 
spirit abroad among men that could look on unmoved at the 
strange spectacle of a pope defied, resisted, and defeated; 
and when Ockham, the successor of Scotus to the leadership of 
the Franciscans, began to teach boldly the extremest Nomi- 
nalism, he could number among his disciples, not only the 
secret adherents of a proscribed philosophy and the converts 
of his subtle reasoning, but all the young and ardent spirits, 
who, caring little for abstract dialectics, were ready to welcome 
any doctrine that represented rationalizing tendencies and 
opposition to traditional orthodoxy. Thus it was that Scho- 
lasticism cut its own throat, and, setting out to establish by 
argument the authority of faith, ended in establishing the 
iiuthorit}^ of reason. 

The secularization of intellect thus attained is generally visi- 
l)le. We see it in the eaijerness for secular learning that 
crowded the universities, now established in all parts of 
Europe, and knit together by the bonds of constant inter- 
course ;' and, further, in the commencement of vernacular lit- 
eratures and a general cultivation of letters and art, the suc- 
cess of Avhich we may estimate by its leading representatives, 
Dante, Chaucer, Gower, James of Scotland, Petrarch, Boccac- 
cio, Giotto, Orcagna, and Froissart. 



' The incessant journeyings of the "poor clerks," or "begging scholars," from 
one to another academic seat promoted a general free-masonry of learning, and at 
the same time helped to throw a new tliought anywliere originating at once into 
the common stock. AVe find Wycliffe's teaching in the possession of Huss and 
Jerome, of Prngiie, so soon after its beginning at Oxford that it might seem a bird 
of the air had carried the matter. 



Christianity and the Clearing-up . 195 

The century that follows these great men ushers in what is 
commonlv called the Renaissance. Such a term is rather con- 
A'enient than accurate. The scholar knows that in history 
there is nothins: isolated. No sino-le age can be severed from 
its filial relation to the past and labeled with so large a name 
as new birth or revival. The whole movement of the human 
mind from the Crusades to the Reformation, in the unity and 
continuity of its various development, is the true Renaissance. 
Before the revival of learning there had to be, as Mr. Bryce 
acutely says, a revival of zeal for learning. In art, too, the 
sudden flower bloomed on a plant of steady growth, and the 
days that knew no Raphael had their brave men who lived be- 
fore that Agamemnon. Undoubtedly, however, when Mahomet 
II. forced the gates of Constantinople and drove the Greeks 
to Italy, he labored better than he knew in the cause of Euro- 
pean civilization. Two centuries earlier the Latin conquest 
and the long possession of that city had come and passed, liar- 
ren of results ; but now the time was fully ripe for the influ- 
ence of Greek art and letters that quickened tenfold the pulse 
of intellectual life — and the invention of printing at the same 
moment gave the new learning a rapidity of diffusion before 
undreamed of. And now, while the inward world was thus ex- 
jianding to the growing mind, the outward world suddenly 
widened before the mental eye through the discovery of Amer- 
ica and the passage of the Cape. 

Thus, in secular life, or without the Church, the sulijective 
movement was successful and won for itself a field of action. 
Bnt that which was not with the Church was necessarily 
against her, and every step of the secular advance was bring- 
ing it to the point where the ecclesiastical system barred the 
way, and where collision Mnth it was inevitable. It is to l)e 
noticed that art and letters in their ver}^ natures transcended 
the Church principle. The thought of the artist transfuses his 
sensuous material, and transforms it into a reflection of the 
spiritual. Before the master-works of art, rich in idea and 
sentiment, soul holds converse with soul. But such spiritual 
elevation was at variance with that sense of dependence and 
bondage unto fear which the Church called piety. The 



196 TJie Journal of Speculative' Philosophy. 

coarser and more graceless the sensuous image, the better it 
served the ecclesiastical purpose ; and the priest more willingly 
saw the people prostrate before a winking Madonna than rising 
into conscious sympathy with the Divine before a Madonna of 
Raphael.^ And so with letters ; classic literature held up new 
standards of judgment, and quite other ideals, and a different 
view of human character, from those which mediiBval life had 
made familiiir. The spirit of the old Greek life seemed to 
many — as iu many points it w^as — a truer and higher spirit 
than was found in the Christianity of the day ; and the 
thoughts of men were widened W'ith a sense of their boundless 
capacities, as they pondered the story of ancient freedom. 
The Church might not perceive this alien influence in the new 
learning she tolerated or patronized, but warnings more dis- 
tinct of the impending struggle had not ])een Avithheld. From 
the twelfth century onward, a succession of heretical sects 
had arisen in all parts of Europe, springing from the common 
impulse of reaction against ecclesiasticism, and all seeking the 
same general objects — freedom of faith and conscience, sim- 
plicity of doctrine, and purity of life. And, while persecution 
was continually active against them, and the argument of fire 
and sword readily invoked, it was plain that the spirit of 
revolt against the hierarchy, far from being extinguished, was 



^ Mr. Browning's "Fra Lippo Lippi" illustrates forcibly the collision between 
art and ecclesiasticism, as in the following : 

" Have you noticed, now, 
Your cullion's hanging face ? A bit of chalk. 
And, trust me, but you should, thouijjh ! How much more 
If I drew higher things with the siinie truth ! 
That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 
Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, oh, 
It makes me mad to see what men shall do. 
And we in our graves ! This world's no blot for us, 
Nor blank — it means intensely, and means good ; 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 
' Aj-e, but you don't so instigate to prayer,' 
Strikes in the Prior ; ' when your meaning's plain, 
It does not say to folks, remember matins. 
Or, mind you fast next Friday.' Why, for this i 

What need of art at all ? A skull and bones. 
Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best, 
A bell to chime the hour with, does as well." 



Christianity and the Clearing-up. 197 

gathering strength, and wider spread. In the twelfth century 
the Church could crush the revolutionist of Brescia as she 
had silenced his nuister, Abelard ; but in the fourteenth, when 
freethinker and demagogue were united in the person of 
Ockham, she could lind no second Bernard to champion her 
cause. The bold Wycliffe could preach, unharmed, doctrines 
that struck at the root of the hierarchical system ; doctrines 
not to be suppressed by the execution of an Oldcastle, and 
only rising in new strength from the ashes of the murdered 
Huss to inspire the fierce energy of the Bohemian war. The 
popular, or rather national, support given to Philip the Fair, 
in his contest with the Holy See, had marked the loss of the 
early spirit of sulmiission to the Church, and little was left of 
the reverence she once inspired, to those who witnessed the 
scandals that followed, wdien Christendom w^as torn l)etween 
the rival popes and contending factions of Pisa, Constance, 
and Basle. In the assertion of conciliar supremacy that broke 
the long tradition of papal autocracy : in the l)old action and 
burning w^ords of such men as Gerson, Hallani, Clemangis ; 
in the dangerous spirit of innovation, the unsparing denunci- 
ation of abuses, and the cry "Reform," ever more widely 
echoed ; and now in the fiery ardor of Savonarola, the inde- 
pendent enero-y of Colet, the biting raillery of Erasmus — in 
all this the Church might have read, without a Daniel, or a 
handwriting upon the wall. But in blindness it went its 
iiccustomed way — an Innocent selling to the brigands license 
to pillage, Borgia and Medici staining the papal robe with 
wine and blood, until the peddler of indulgences reached the 
market-place of Wittenl)erg, and the mine was fired that 
overthrew the structure of ecclesiastical powder. 

Ecclesiasticism in its every part had been based on objec- 
tivit}^ alone ; Protestantism was simply the revolt of the sub- 
jective principle and its struggle for independence. Thus the 
Protestant Reformation is more properly a revolution. At 
every point its attitude is destructive, not reformatory. Pri- 
vate judgment and justification by faith mean insight and con- 
science — freedom, intellectual and moral. The spiritual pres- 
ence in the Eucharist, or the immediate relation of man to 



198 The Journal of Sx>eculaiive PJdlosopJi y . 

God, means denial of their essential d.itference. That faith i» 
not passive acceptance of an outward, but active assurance of 
an inward, means rejection of external mediation. That it is 
the gift of the Holy Spirit to all, or a consciousness grounded in 
common human nature, means abrogation of the essential dis- 
tinction between priesthood and laity. To place the Bible in the 
hands of the people means destruction of the authority of 
church tradition. Under the old system, religion centered in 
church-membership ; now all religious life was concentrated iu 
the individual soul. And the Reformation, breaking from the 
actual organization of the church, broke also with the church 
idea. Thus the religious freedom attained Avas the emancipa- 
tion of the individual, not the emancipation of the Christian 
communion. It was an abstract liberty that made each sepa- 
rate soul an independent and isolated unit. Hence the com- 
munion of Christians was based merely on the agreement of 
individuals, and thus there were soon as many sects as there 
were different shades of opinion, and as many shades gf opin- 
ion as there were leading minds capable of forming original 
views. One result of this relio'ious individualism was a curious 
superstition. The religious life had become an affair of sub- 
jective consciousness. Here, and not on the altar, is the di- 
vine presence, and the requirement is that this fact be realized 
in consciousness; in modern phrase, that religion be "expe- 
rienced;" that his spiritual state, in its every modification, 
be constantly perceptible to the individual himself. This 
painful introspection reveals the presence of v\\\ iu the soul, 
and its obstinate persistence suggests to the tortured con- 
sciousness a new view of the power of the Evil One and his 
malign dominion over the human soul ; and with this new promi- 
nence of the personal Devil in the creed of Protestantisu) arose 
that belief in diabolic possession which raged like a pestilence 
among the nations in the sixteenth century, and inspired the 
cruelty of terror that made the imputation of witchcraft a sen- 
tence of death. 

Thus amid noise, and dust, and confusion the great battle 
was fought out. The reformers had their share of ignorance, 
prejudice, and passion. Enlightened men of comprehensive- 



Christianity and the Clearing-up. 199 

and discriminating* views, such as Erasmus, Colet, and More, 
could not obtain the leadership of a popular uprising. But, if 
we must regret the errors and excesses of more violent lead- 
ers, we must remember that they were inevitable. For, to re- 
peat, the Reformation was, in its genesis, a reaction. It set up 
the subjective principle against the objective. But this subject- 
ive antithesis is simply the otJier half of the concrete truth of 
religion, and, consequently, its historic development was nec- 
essarily marked with the same exclusive self-regard, the same 
intolerance of the opposite, the same tendency to the extreme, 
which had marked the development of the earlier principle — 
the first half of the Christian truth. Meantime, however, an 
institution so deeply rooted as the medi{\?val Church was not 
to be destroyed at a blow. It stereotyped its system at Trent, 
with partial revisions. It came to a dead stop ; severed itself 
from the advancing secular world ; declared aaainst free 
thought and learning, and handed education over to the Jesuits. 
In the main the Romanic nations continued in its obedience, 
while the Teutonic embraced the reformed religion. But this 
latter is heresy, and to be suppressed ; and so Protestantism 
is forced into war for an independence which is acknowledged 
at the peace of Westphalia, and henceforth two rival religious 
systems divide the world. 

We follow from this point the secular development of the 
Protestant principle, a movement named by the Germans The 
Clearing-up. When the Reformers threw oft' the authority 
of the Church, they transferred their allegiance to Scripture, 
the direct word of God. But the assertion that Scripture 
" shines by its own light" was found too bold; the meaning 
of the written word was often far from clear ; intelligence had 
to be called in to interpret and expound, and so what was lost 
by the Church was ultimately gained by Reason. Thus Prot- 
estantism brouo'ht the world face to face with thouolit. 
Thought is the pure abstraction of spirit. In this infinitude 
it is at once essential inwardness and essential outwardness, 
and so in it alone is the assurance of truth. In this implicit 
consciousness and implicit confidence is the soul of the 



200 The Journal of Sjjeculative Pinlosophy . 

Clearing-up. All goes in into thought. Descartes begins 
with it as the ultimate, irreducible residuum of analysis, and, 
therefore, i\\e principum of synthesis. From it he educes his 
own existence and the existence of God. Again, the out- 
ward world is challenged to exhil)it that reason which the Ego 
possesses. Bacon proposes to Physics the study of efficient 
causes, and to Metaphysics the study of final causes. Before 
this insight of the rational the shades of superstition vanish 
exorcised. Astrology becomes astronomy ; alchem}^ chem- 
istry : and the art of medicine l)02;ins Avith the discardino; of 
amulets asrainst disease. It mio-ht seem, indeed, to contem- 
poraries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, that moon and 
stars, plants and animals, were now but just created, so 
wholly new is the interest which the self-recognition of Reason 
lends the contemplation of the universe. Nor is thought less 
active in the moral world. The subjective principle claims to 
determine the relation of the existent to the right. All 
received opinions and sanctioned institutions are brought to 
its bar for decision on their merits. International right is 
made, by Grotius, an induction from the social instinct, and 
commends itself to the sense of the just implanted in the 
minds of men. In like manner all law and government must 
find their new ground in natural law or the nature of man. 
Thus, Understanding becomes the absolute criterion, and 
takes the place of divine right. Protestantism was a clearing- 
iip within Religion. In its war on the old Church there was 
no antagonism to Christian truth, but rather its appropriation ; 
the subject made that objective his own. But private judg- 
ment, the individual's freedom of thought and conscience, is 
a first principle which may lead a long way — as far in the 
new direction as obedience to authority had led before. 
Luther l)rought in the truth that man's spiritual life must be 
wrought out in himself by himself, and cannot bo a transac- 
tion ctiected for iiini and apart from him. He claimed the 
spirit's freedom of action ; but the content of its action, the 
course of its life, he took for granted as a datum to faith. 
Now, it was insisted that this objective content of thought and 
life must also submit to the judgment of Understanding ; 



Christianity and the Clearing-up. 201 

must be analyzed by its abstract laAvs, and become intelligible ; 
or else must take its place among the discarded superstitions 
• of the past. For to this abstract culture Religion is indiffer- 
ent, since Religion is the form in which truth exists for non- 
al^stract consciousness. The so-called age of Reason requires 
that the results of thousfht be definite ; but to this o-i-vde of 
intellect the definite can only be the finite. The infinite, the 
divine, are not reducible to the grasp of Understanding : and, 
hence, all spiritual truth is rejected as the invention of priest- 
craft. Thus the movement which beo'an b^^ attackinof the 
Mediaeval Church went on to attack Christianity, and a lineal 
descent leads from the intensely religious Luther to the utterly 
irreligious Voltaire. 

The movement took a different course under the different 
religions. In Protestant countries it went quietly on, spread- 
ing a leavening influence, encountering no opposition to its 
principle ; in the Eng'lish Deistic controversy, for example, 
the orthodox, as well as their opponents, make their ultimate 
appeal to Reason. Consequently we find no Reformers roused 
to excited aggressiveness. Men were patient in the instinctive 
confidence that, the principle of religious liberty once estab- 
lished, civil and social liberty must soon follow. Indeed, it 
was already^ evident that the entire compass of secular rela- 
tions was imdero-oino: a chano-e for the better. The German 
Clearing-up takes the direction of egoistic culture. All 
things have value only in proportion as they concern the in- 
dividual and subserve his ends. In religion, the one topic of 
discussion is personal immortality ; in ethics, self-interest is 
the supreme principle; in social affairs, utility ; art is a min- 
istry to refined pleasure ; in letters, the prevalent form of 
composition is autobiography, in which every man is his own 
Boswell, and lingers fondly over "confessions" of his own 
sentiments and experience. For each man the world is an 
orange, and the end of life is to suck thereout the greatest 
advantage to the various faculties of the soul. Readers of 
"NVilhelm Meister will remember how this genial individualism 
appears in the group of Illuminati there introduced. In 
England the movement wears more the aspect of a social tone. 



202 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosopliy . 

" Enlightenineiit " affects a polite superioritj to old-fashioned 
notions. It adopts the loose-fitting creed of Deism, and 
amuses itself with satirizing the whole brood of jjriests of- 
all religions. Its tone of light indifierence to the super- 
sensible, of easy Epicureanism in morals, is heard throughout 
all the literature that reflects the course and frivolous life of 
the age. 

Far other was the course of things in Catholic France. 
When Henry IV. abjured his heresy, and the Reformation 
was overthrown in its hour of seeming victory, the ancient 
order entrenched itself, through the alliance of the Church 
and State, in all the irresponsibility of resistless power. The 
monarchy became a soulless tyranny, the court a sty of ani- 
malism, and the Church a naked mockery of faith and holiness 
that no longer cared to veil itself with a decent hypocrisy. 
Outside the gilded halls of Versailles all the earth was full of 
darkness and cruel habitations. To the people, despoiled and 
enslaved, the gift of life was made a curse; and those who 
are familiar with the picture of the time, in all its sickening 
details, must wonder, not at the fury that broke out in the 
Revolution, but at the patience that delaj/ed the outbreak so 
long. It had its beginning in the sphere of abstract thought. 
The empiricism of Locke was carried out to its ultimate con- 
sequences in the sensualism — intellectual and moral — of 
Condillac and Helvetius. In these writers abstract thought 
gained a popular hearing, and the new philosophy met with 
enormous success. A mindless and heartless society was de- 
lighted to find in outspoken materialism a logical basis for its 
life of sensuality. But, when the ground is struck from under 
the spiritual and substantial, the traditional and positive are 
left without support. If man was just an animal, what was 
all social order but what it plainly enough appeared to be in 
France — a tja-anny of the strong and cunning few over the 
weak and simple many? And so the philosophy of material- 
ism was im[)licitly the philoso[)hy of Revolution, and the 
clearing-up went on to rouse a dee]) sentiment against 
the constituted absolutism in Church and State. Of all who 
took part in this work, Voltaire was the most influential and 



Christianity a7id the Cleai'ing-up . 20 



o 



conspicuous. Upon all classes and orders, all prescriptions 
and usages, that helped to sustain the existing order, he waged 
incessant and relentless war. Dexterous and tireless, he 
used now argument, now wit ; attacking now in front, now in 
flank ; now beating down with passionate invective, now 
stinoino- to death with more terrible ridicule. The vocation 
of the "philosophers" was to destroy, and they accom- 
plished it. Intellectually, they laid the Church and State in 
ruins. 

But this result was wholly negative, and, this reached, the 
movement went on to construct a new social system in harmony 
with its principle. In the inevitable failure of this attempt 
appears the total inadequacy of an abstract principle to any 
concrete demand. As regards institutions, subjectivity can 
hold none but a neirative attitude, for Understandino; is not a 
faculty of the material, but purely of the formal, and, there- 
fore, is simply a solvent of the concrete. It can create or 
sustain nothing. It is strictly the skeptical faculty, and, if 
taken for the supreme exercise of mind, the logical result is 
Pyrrhonism, Between this abstract thinking of Understand- 
ing and the concrete thinking of Reason there is an immeas- 
urable chasm. The one may be compared to the motion of 
mill machinery, taken by itself, apart from the power which 
starts it and the grain it acts upon ; the other, to the working 
of the mill in the unity of all its constituent elements — the 
power, the motion, the full hoppers, the production of the 
flour. The attempt in France was to turn out a superior 
flour by rapid working of an empty mill. The man who took 
the lead in this attempt was Rousseau. He took Voltaire's 
negative for his positive. In accordance with the abstract po- 
sition generally attained, subjective will was made the absolute 
basis of social right. The State was no substantial unity, but 
an ao-gregate of individuals. The volitional atoms were made 
the starting-point, and the will of the State was voided of all 
intrinsic validity. To found the authority of law upon indi- 
vidual acquiescence, and the State upon an assumed contract 
of sovereign individuals ; to seek the sources of civilization in 
the primitive instincts of a mythical state of nature, and to 



204 The Journal of Speculative Phitosoplnj. 

represent simple savagery as the golden age of man — these 
Avere the chief features of the new gospel of political senti- 
mentalism, whose latest preachers are Louis Blanc, Karl 
Marx, and the leaders of the Paris Commune ; and whose 
practical eft'ect can be nothing but the dissolution of all social 
and civil order. Yet, distinctly negative as was the individual- 
ism of Rousseau, it was hailed universally as a positive prin- 
ciple by men who were seeking a guiding-light for action. 
Voltaire had urged escape from the present social system, ])ut 
whither was not declared until Rousseau reared the baseless 
ftibric of his vision as the goal of the exodus. And then what 
an outburst of jubilant enthusiasm thrilled the land ! Man 
was to shake off the bitter su])jection of his minority, and 
now, for the first time since the sun had stood in the heavens, 
enter upon his full inheritance. The mountain-tops of aspira- 
tion glowed with the promise of a new day when all reality 
should be remodeled on a glorious ideal. Rousseau was 
courted, feasted, idolized as no man, except, perhiips, Ma- 
homet, ever was before. We know the result. Paper con- 
stitutions were found rootless plants that would not grow, 
and Liberty, Equality, Fraternity turned in men's hands to 
Suspicion, Terror, and Death. The principles of Rousseau 
could only perpetuate revolution, and for eighty years French 
history has been only the back and forth of its obverse and 
reverse, anarchy and despotism. 

With its defeat at Waterloo the revolutionary spirit through- 
out Europe received a check. In France the Bourbons were 
restored by foreign arms. In Italy, Hungar}'-, and Belgium 
the revolution dived under ground and hid itself. In England 
a reaction against the Clearing-up set in, showing itself nearly 
at once in politics, religion, letters, and art. A conservative 
reaction under the government of Wellington ; an ecclesias- 
tical reaction in the Oxford movement; an artistic one in 
Pugin and the Pre-Raphaelites ; a literarj^one in Scott, Words- 
worth, Coleridge, and Carlyle. But mere reaction could not 
be pernninent. The Tory government fell before the Lil)- 
erals ; tlie Tractarians were driven into the position of a 
Romanizing clique ; and Romanticism in art and letters went 



ITistorical Construction of Christianity . 205 

out of fashion. On all sides there was a o-eneral revulsion 
to the Clearing-up. The reaction of Scottish philosophy 
against Hume ran out, and Hume has been continued in 
Hamilton, Mansel, Spencer, Bain, Lewes, and INIill. Natural 
science under Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and others in Englancl ; 
Comte and his school in France ; Helmholtz, Buechner, Haeckel, 
and others in Germany have gone back to D'Holbach's 
materialism, "What we know by our senses alone has real- 
ity," and to Laplace's atheism, " Nature has no need of the 
hypothesis of a God." In morals the same negative move- 
ment is carried ou by Grote, Mill, Lecky, and Buckle ; and in 
religion by Baur, Feuerbach, Strauss, Renan, Colenso, and 
Matthew Arnold. The foregoing names are taken at random 
as having a certain prominence, but the spirit of the Clearing- 
up saturates modern writers of all classes ; we noted at the 
outset its distinct expression in Macaulay. 



THE HISTOEICAL CONSTRUCTION OF CHRIS- 
TIANITY. 

[translated from the GERMAN OF F. TV. J. VON SCHELLING ; BEING THE 
EIGHTH LECTURE " ON THE METHOD OF UNIVERSITY STUDY " (aKADEMISCHEN 

studium).] 

BY ELLA S. MORGAN. 

The real sciences, in general, can be separated or particular- 
ized from the absolute or ideal sciences only by the historical 
element in them. But Theology, besides this general relation 
to history, has still another, which is altogether peculiar to it, 
and belongs specially to the nature of theology. 

Since it, as the true center of the objective realization of 
philosophy, deals chiefly in speculative ideas, it is also the 
highest synthesis of philosophical and historical knowing ; 
and to demonstrate this is the chief object of the following 
remarks. 

I base the historical relation of Theology not alone upon 



206 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

this : that the tirst origin of all religion, as of every other 
knowledge and culture, is conceivable only as derived from 
the instruction of superior personages — hence all religion in 
its first form was tradition : for, as regards the other current 
modes of explanation, some of Avhich make the first idea of 
Ood or gods arise from fear, gratitude, or some other emotion, 
while others make them originate through a crafty invention 
of the first law-givers. However, it may l)e that the former 
conceive the idea of God only as a psychological phenomenon, 
and the latter neither explain how it ever occurred to any one 
to make himself the law-giver of a people, nor how he came to 
use religion, in particular, as a means of exciting fear without 
having already received the idea from some other source. 
Foremost among the multitude of false, senseless attempts of 
modern times are the so-called histories of mankind, which 
take their conceptions of the primitive condition of the race 
from descriptions compiled b}^ travelers of the rude traits of 
barbarous nations, which, consequently, play a distinguished 
part in such histories. There is no condition of ])arbarism 
which has not come from the ruins of a former civilization. It 
is reserved to the future eff'orts of history to show how even 
those peoples, who live in a condition of barbarism, are 
peoples torn from their relation with the rest of the world by 
revolutions, and are partly remnants of nations, who, deprived 
of communication and the means of culture alread}^ attained, 
have fallen back into their present state. I consider the civil- 
ized condition undoubtedly the first condition of the human 
race, and the first establishment of states, science, religion, and 
the arts as simultaneous, or, rather, as one and the same ; so 
that they were not really separated, but Avere in most perfect 
interpenetration, as they Avill be again in the final perfection of 
the race. 

Neither is the historical relation of theology alone depend- 
ent on the fact that the particular forms of Christianity, in 
which religion exists with us, can only be known historically. 

The absolute relation of theology is that in Christianity the 
•world is looked upon as history, as the realm of morals, and 
that this general intuition constitutes its fundamental character. 



Historical Construction of Christianity. 207 

This is seen most coinpletely in contrast with tlie religion of 
ancient Greece. If I do not mention the older relio-ions, 
especially the Indian, it is because, in this relation, it forms 
no contrast — without, however, in my opinion, being in unity 
with it. The necessary limits of the present investigation do 
not allow a complete exposition of this view, hence we shall 
only mention or allude to it incidentally. The mythology of 
the Greeks Avas a perfect world of symbols of ideas, which 
can be perceived realistically only as gods. Pure limitation on 
the one side, and undivided absoluteness on the other, is the 
determining law of each particular divinit}^ as well as of the 
world of gods as a whole. The intinite was seen only in the 
finite, and in this manner even subordinated to the finite. The 
gods were creatures of a higher nature, abiding, unchangeable 
shapes. Very different is the condition of a religion which is 
concerned immediately with the infinite itself, in which the 
finite is not conceived as symbol of the infinite, and at the 
same time for its own sake, Init is conceived only as an 
allegory of the infinite, and in perfect subordination to it. 
The whole, in which the ideas of such a religion become 
objective, is necessarily itself an infinite, not a world finished 
and limited on all sides ; the shapes are not abiding, but 
transitory ; not eternal beings of nature, but historic forms 
in Avhich the divine nature is only revealed transitorily, and 
whose fleeting appearance can only be held fast by faith, but 
can never become transformed into an absolute presence. 

Where the infinite itself can become finite, there it can also 
become many ; there poh'theism is possible. Where the 
infinite is only expressed in the finite, it remains necessarily 
one, and no polytheism is possible except a co-existence of 
divine forms. Polytheism arises from a synthesis of absolute- 
ness with limitation, so that in the same neither al)soluteness, 
according to form, nor limitation is canceled. In a religion 
like Christianity this cannot be taken from nature, for it does 
not conceive the finite as symbol of the infinite, and with inde- 
pendent significance. Consequently, Christianity can be taken 
only from what falls in time — that is, from historj- ; and, 
hence, Christianity is, in the highest sense and in its innermost 



208 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

spirit, historical. Every particular moment of time is a reve- 
lation of a particular side of God, in each of which He is 
absolute : that which the Greek religion had as co-existent, 
Christianit}' has as a succession, although the time for the sepa- 
ration of the manifestations, and with it of receivino- definite 
shape, is not yet come. 

It has been already pointed out that nature and history are 
related as the real and ideal unities ; and in the same way the 
Greek and the Christian reliiiions are related — in the latter of 
which the divine principle has ceased to reveal itself in nature, 
and is recognized only in history. Nature is, in general, the 
sphere of potentiality of things, in which, by virtue of the 
reflection of the infinite into tlie finite, things, as symbols of 
ideas, have also a life independent of their significance. Hence 
God, in nature, becomes exoteric — the ideal appears through 
another than itself, through a being ; but only in so far as this 
being is taken for the essence, the symbol independent of the 
idea, is the divine truly exoteric, but according to the idea it is 
esoteric. In the ideal world — hence in history particularly — 
the divine unveils itself and is the open mystery of the divine 
kin axiom. 

As in the sensuous images of nature, the intellectual world 
of Greek poetry lay as if imprisoned in a bud, obscure in its 
object and inarticulate in sul)ject. 

Christianity, on the contrary, is the revealed mystery, and 
is in its nature esoteric, as heathenism is in its nature exoteric. 

Hence the whole relation of Nature and the ideal world had 
to be changed, and, as Nature, was revealed in Heathenism, 
while the ideal world, in Christianity, was Avithdrawn to the 
realm of mystery ; and, in proportion as the ideal world became 
revealed. Nature recedes and becomes a secret. To the Greeks, 
Nature was in itself divine, for even their gods were not be- 
yond or above Nature. To the modern world. Nature was a 
secret, for it did not comprehend Nature in and for itself, but 
only as the visible image of the unseen and spiritual world. 
The most active phenomena of Nature — as for instance, those 
of electricity and of bodies in a state of chemical change — were 
scarcely known to the ancients, or at least excited none of the 



Historical Construction of Christianity . 209' 

enthusiasm with which thev are reo-ardcd in the modern world. 
The highest religions feeling, expressed in Christian mysticism, 
holds the secret of Nature and the incarnation of God for one 
and the same. 

In the system of transcendental idealism I have already 
shown that we must accept three periods of history, that of 
Nature, of Fate, and of Providence. These three ideas ex- 
press the same identity, but in different ways. Fate is also 
providence, as recognized in the world of real things ; so also 
providence is fate, but seen in ideal things. The eternal ne- 
cessity reveals itself in Time in identity with it as Nature, 
where the conflict between the infinite and the finite still re- 
mains concealed in the common germ of the finite. This was 
the case in the most flour! sliing time of Greek relio-ion and 
poetry. With the revolt from Nature the eternal necessity 
was manifested in fate, thus entering on the real conflict with 
Freedom. This was the'close of the ancient world, whose 
history, therefore, may be considered, on the whole, as the 
tragic period. The modern world begins with a universal 
" Fall of Man," a revolt of man from Nature, This identifi- 
cation with Nature is not sin so long as it is unconscious of 
the contrary ; it may rather be called " the Golden Age." 
Consciousness of it destroys innocence, and, hence, immediately 
demands reconciliation and voluntary submission, in which 
Freedom comes out of the battle both conqueror and con- 
quered. This conscious reconciliation — which takes the place 
of unconscious identity with Nature and of the conflict with 
Fate, and restores unity on a higher plane — is expressed in the 
idea of Providence. Hence Christianity, in history, intro- 
duces this period of Providence as the prevailing mode of 
viewing the world — a mode which looks upon the world as his- 
tory and as ruled by Providence. 

This is the great historical tendency of Christianity ; this is 
the reason that the science of religion, in Christianity, is insepa- 
rable from history — is, indeed, one and the same with it. 
This synthesis with history, without which Theology itself 
cannot even be conceived, presupposes, on the other hand, the 
higher Christian view of history. 
XII— 14 



210 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy , 

The contrast which is commonly drawn between History 
and Philosophy exists only so long as History is conceived as 
a series of accidental occnrrences, or as mere empirical 
necessity. The former is the vulgar theory, to which the 
other is supposed to be superior, but its limitations are equally 
narrow. History also proceeds from an eternal unity, and 
has its roots in the absolute, like Nature or any other object of 
cognition. The contingency of events and actions seems, to 
the common understandino- to be founded on the contingent 
nature of individuals. But, I ask, What, then, is this or that 
individual, but that which has carried out this or that particn- 
lar action? There can be no other conception of the indi- 
vidual ; hence, if the action is necessar}'^, so is the individual. 
That which, even from a low stand-point, is free, and conse- 
quently ol)jective, can appear as accidental in all action — is 
merely that the individual takes for his deed Avhat is already 
determined and necessary ; but for the rest, and as regards the 
consequence, it is, for good or for evil, the instrument of ab- 
solute necessity. 

Empirical necessity is nothing but a device for prolonging 
the reign of chance by infinite postponement of necessity. If 
we allow this kind of necessity in Nature to be valid only for the 
phenomenon, then how much more must it be allowed in his- 
tory? What intelligent person will persuade himself that 
events like the development of Christianity, the migration of 
nations, the crusades, and so many other great events, had their 
real origin in the causes generally assigned to them? And, 
even if these were really the controlling ones, they are in this 
relation again only the instruments of an eternal order of 
things. 

What is true of history in general is specially true of the 
history of religion, namely, that it is founded in an eternal 
necessity, and, hence, that a logical deduction of it is possible, 
by means of which it is closely and intimately one with the 
science of reliirion. 

The historical logical deduction of Christianity can begin 
only from one point — that of the universal view that the world, 
in so far as it is history, necessarily appears to be specialized 



Historical Construction of Christianity. 211 

Irom two sides, and this contrast, which the modern world 
makes against the old, is sufficient to explain the nature and 
all special peculiarities of Christianity. The ancient world is 
in so far the nature side of history as its prevailing unity or 
idea is the beino; of the infinite in the finite. The close of 
ancient and the beginning of modern times, whose dominant 
principle is the infinite, could only be brought about when 
the true infinite came into the finite — not to deify it, but to 
sacrifice God in His own person, and thus to reconcile the finite 
and infinite. Hence the great idea of Christianity is God 
incarnate in man — Clirist as the summit and finality of the 
ancient world of gods. He makes finite in Himself the divine, 
but He does not take on humanity in its highest, but in its 
lowest, estate, and He stands there as the dividing limit of the 
two worlds decreed from eternity, although a transitory 
phenomenon in Time. He Himself returns into the invisible 
realm, promising instead of Himself, not the principle Avhich, 
coming into the finite, remains finite, but the spirit — the 
ideal principle which leads the finite back to the infinite, and 
is thus the light of the modern world. 

All other characteristics of Christianity are connected with 
this first idea. The presentation of the unity of the infinite 
and finite objectively by means of symbols, like the Greek 
religion, is impossible in the ideal tendency of Christianity. 
All symbolism belongs to the sulijectivity ; hence the solution 
of the contradiction which is visil)le internally, not externally, 
remains a mystery, a secret. The everywhere-present anti- 
nomv of the divine and the natural is canceled onlv throuo-h 
the subjective requirement in an incomprehensible manner to 
think both as one. Such a suljjective unity is expressed in 
the definition of a miracle. The origin of every idea, accord- 
ing to this conception, is a miracle, because it arises in time 
without having a relation to time. No miracle can take place 
in a temporal manner; it is the absolute — that is, it is God 
Himself who is revealed in the miracle, and, consequently, the 
idea of revelation is absolutely necessary in Christianity. 

A religion which exists as poetry in the race has as little 
need of an historical basis as nature — always open and 



212 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

revealed — has of religion. Where the divine principle does 
not live m permanent forms, but passes away in fleeting^ 
appearances, it needs some means by which to hold them, and 
needs tradition to perpetuate them. Besides the mysteries 
peculiar to religion, there must be a mythology which is the 
exoteric side of religion, and which is founded on religion, as, 
converselv, the religion of the former kind was foimded on 
mythology. 

The ideas of a religion which is directed to the contemplation 
of the inlinite in the finite must be expressed especially in 
being. Tlie ideas of a religion founded on the perception of 
the finite in the infinite — in which all symbolism belongs only 
to the subject — can become objective alone through action. 
The original type of all contemplation of God as a moral 
agent (durch Handeln) is history, but this is endless, immeas- 
urable ; hence it must be represented by a progressive manifes- 
tation — eternal, and at the same time limited, which, again, is 
not real, like the State, but is ideal, and presents as in the 
immediate present the union of all in spirit w^ith particularized 
existence in an individual as an immediate presence. This 
symbolic perception of God is the Church as a living work of 
art. 

Now, as the moral agency (Handeln), which externally 
expresses the unity of the infinite and the finite, may be called 
symbolic, so the same considered internally, as mystic and 
mysticism, is a subjective sjanbolism. If the utterances of 
this mode of view have at most times met with contradiction 
and persecution in the Church, it is because they attempted to 
make the esoteric of Christianity exoteric ; not because the 
inner spirit of this religion is opposed to the spirit of that 
mode of view. 

If the actions and customs of the Church are to be consid- 
ered as objectively symbolic, whose meaning is to be taken 
mystically, we may at least say that those ideas of Chris- 
tianity which were symbolized in its dogmas have not ceased 
to be of purely speculative importance, their symbols having 
attained none of the life independent of their meaning, which 
the symbols of the Greek mythology had. 



Historical Construction of Christianity. 213 

The reconciliation of the finite as hipsed from God, thorough 
His own birth into finite life, is the first thouo'ht of Christianity, 
and the completion of its whole view of the world and its 
history is stated in the idea of the Trinity, which, for that 
very reason, is simply necessary. It is well known that Less- 
ing, in his " Education of the Human Race," endeavored to 
disclose the philosophic meaning of this doctrine, and what he 
says of it is, perhaps, the deepest speculative of his writings. 
But his theory fails to connect this idea with the historj^ of the 
world, to w^t, in this point : that the eternal Son of God, born 
of the essence of the Father of all things, is the finite itself, 
as it exists in the eternal intuition of God, and which 
appears as a sufi'ering God, subject to the vicissitudes of time ; 
who, at the summit of His manifestation in Christ, closes the 
finite world and reveals the infinite, or the supremacy of the 
Spirit. 

If it were permissible in the present plan to go further into 
the historical deduction of Christianity, we should, in the same 
way, recognize the necessity of all the contrasts between 
Christianity and Heathenism, as well as the predominant ideas 
and subjective symbols of ideas. It is sufficient for me to have 
shown the possibility in general. If Christianity, not only in 
itself, but in its most eminent forms, is historically necessary, 
and if we connect the higher view of history itself as an issue 
from the eternal necessity, then we have given the possibility 
of conceiving Christianity historically as a divine and absolute 
phenomenon, and, consequently, a truly historical science of 
religion or of theology. 



214 The Journal of Speculative Philosoiiluj. 



NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

I. — F. W. LORING. 

The autumn noon hung round us as we passed 
O'er the pale common, the familiar streets. 
We talked of thy new story, genial, frank, 
The wan September air, a falling leaf, 
Touching some points of beauty on the fall — 
The dower of Nature, in her tender mood, 
To earth ( where the red lightning's arrow strikes, 
And carves its cross of death among the flowers ) - 
And still we felt that dream of silentness ; 
Murmurs of music, on the city's road. 
And thou ! Loring, boy of a Koman brow, 
And tragic locks, and that contraction stern. 
Sweet to the salient future. 

Much I prosed 
Of the Ice-king of Weimar and his tale, 
The faint, old, serio-comic tale of Meister, 
As thy thoughts, filled with an earnest life, 
Were not unfolded in that perfectness 
Thy wish enforced — child of such liberal hopes. 
Slowly we mused of the cold city's streets. 
And how one born and bred within her halls 
Should like a pilgrim beg, unloved, unknown. 
While strangers from far regions of the earth 
Are garnered in to steal his alms. 

I said: 
Loring ! life stands before thee ; I am old, 
And yet I can remember some such thoughts. 
Some dream of hope, or intervals of sj)ring. 
'Tis said Time hath a wallet on his back; 
In this, you yet should gather fruit of gold. 
What if the story of your college lads 
Be not all you have hoped for, and you still 
Must in laborious hope rewrite, 
And then once more — rewrite a fading plot? 



JVotes and Discussions. 215 

Sink not too much on plans; build up your verse — 

Songs of a softly swaying tenderness, 

Of queenly loves that dwell upon the heart ; 

Life's melodies, spontaneous as your youth. 

He hastened to the studio where he dwelt. 

All earnest, quick with deeds, and half content 

To be half that he hoped. 

Oft of him I dreamed. 
Alone, of all our youth, or seeming thus, 
He asked a poet's life, resolved to win 
The poet's splendor, cultivate that art, 
Yea, work it for itself — himself forgot. 
Choice in his friends, most certain with their hearts, 
SuiScient and unsacrificed to forms — 
So fared he forth that morn. 

And then, upon those plains ! 

A luring region of unhoarded wealth, 

Wliere golden rivers gleam to golden sands, 

And far in heaven their purple mountains soar ; 

There, where the bright snake glitters thro' the sun, 

(His touch destruction) and the cougar screams 

O'er the salt reaches of earth's aridness. 

The sepulchers unblest of bird and flower, — 

Sunk in some vale, some deep and dismal vale, 

Thy burial vault, that Arizona vale, — 

In thy first youth, thy promise, and soft years, 

Killed, murdered, trampled out, destroyed. 

Loring ! I might have wept thee, hadst thou lived. 

And never won thy poet's wreath ! And now, 

At this, such bitter parting, such recoil. 

Once more I see that wan September noon, 

Those weeping locks, and list thy modest voice, 

A prayer of tender hope to God and man ; 

And hear the murmur of these mournful streets. 

Made lonelier at thy parting, sad to tears. 

And think — this was a world thou loved and sang 

(A world too poor for thee ), and blend my griefs 

With those who loved thee, thou lost Poet-boy. 



n. — "Weep Xot ! 

Weep not for me, not for me, 
Nor dream of the whitening billow 
That shall serve me for a pillow — 
My couch on the lone fast-heaving sea ; 
Weep not, weep not for me ! 



216 The Journal of S])eculative Philoso])liy . 

And a misU' sky sweeps o'er me, 
And the wild surf sways without measure, 
And the white beach that was my pleasure, 
And the beat of the fast-heaving sea 

Says, "SVcep not, weep not for me ! 

"VVe shall die as we lived ; it shall be, 
Dying, as in living — together ; 
Our dirge in the wild misty weather, 
Our death in the fast-heaving sea . 

Farewell, weep not, Aveep not for me ! 



m. — The Magdalen. 

Her ej^es how fixed they seek the skies — 
Was earth so low, was life so vain? 

Was time a wearing sacrifice, 

This hopeless wish, this empty pain? 

" I cannot read the silent skies ; 

Their light is darkness to my heart. 

Life is eternal sacrifice — 

Its livelong houi-s, its lifeless art. 

" Thought cannot mend my breaking hope. 
Heaven will not warm such cold despair — 
I need some other soul to ope 

My doors of steel, and trust my prayer. 

" Speeds there no sail o'er life's dark sea. 

Where weeps some heart whose hope has set, 
"VVlio may uplift this cross from me. 
And both may thus tlieir past forget?" 



IV. — The Eetrospect. 

Why should we mourn the fleeting days, 
Wh^' grieve because the years are still — 
That Grecian art, that modern phrase. 
Like fluttering leaves drop o'er the hill? 

If it may seem that all is gone. 
Which co]or(>d Time like golden flame, 
That lo\e and liope and fame Innc flown, 
Trusting their servant but tlic name! 

Yet in that just alloy of fate 
The sundered plans shall nidiildcd fall, 
A hero's heart, a monarch's state. 
Thy changeful mood to glorj' call. 



AViLLiAM Ellery Channtno. 



Boole Notices. 217 



BOOK NOTICES. 



Zeitschrift puer Philosophie unb Philosophische Kritik. Heraussjege'ben. 
von Dr. I. H. von Fichte, Dr. Hermann Ulrici, und Dr. J. U. Wirth. Btalle : C. 
E. M. PfeflFer. 

We have volumes 67, 68, 69, 70, and 71 of this periodical accmnulated for notice. 
Volume 67 opens with an article, by Dr. Johann H. Loewe, on " The Simultaneity 
of the Genesis of Speech and Thinking;" and Dr. A. Dorner finishes his essay 
" On the Principles of Kant's Etliics. Dr. Steifens begins the discussion of the 
question, " What Advantages can We Derive from the Writings of Aristotle for our 
Knowledge of the History of Greek Philosophy from the Times of Thales to those 
of Plato?" Dr. Franz Hotfmann also has a first article on the subject, "Anti- 
Materialism," having a refutation of Buechner's recent writings in view. Dr. 
Ulrici reviews Brentano's " Psychology from an Empirical Stand-point," and Dr. 
Pfleiderer's "Modern Pessimism." Dr. Fortlage reviews Dr. Ulrici's work, "On 
the Union of the Same or Similar Elements in the Substance of our Representations, 
in Eeference to Body and Soul ;" and Dr. Ulrici improves the occasion to reply to 
some of Dr. Fortlage's strictures. Ulrici lays particular stress on the fact that 
the term " unconscious representations of the mind " is contradictory, illogical, and 
unwarranted by the use of language; the word " Voistellung " (representation) 
being applicable only to contents of our consciousness. 

In volume 68 the article by Dr. iSteffens, above referred to, is continued, and Dr. 
Hoft'mann's concluded. Dr. Rehnisch contributes an article " On the Results of 
Moral Statistics." Dr. Sengler reviews Holder's "Darstellung der Kantischen. 
Erkenntnisstheorie ;" also "Kant's Teleologie," andWitte's " Beitraege zum Ver- 
staendnisse Kant's." Dr. Erdmann reviews Von Hartmann's Transcendental 
Realism; and Ulrici notices Dr. A. L. Kym's Metaphysical Investigations, George 
Henry Lewes' " History of Modern Philosophy," and Dr. McCosh's "Laws of 
Discursive Thought." He has also reviews of Alexander Jung's "Panacee and 
Theodicee," A'olkmar's "Lehrbuch der Psychologie," and "La pena di morte e 
la sua abolizione dichiarate tcoreticamente e storicamente secondo la filosofia Hegel- 
iana per Pasquale d' Ercole, Professore nell' Universita di Pavia." 

Volume 69 closes Dr. Steffens' treatise ; also that of Dr. Rehnisch. Professor 
Arth. Richter contributes "Kant als ^Esthetiker;" Professor Spicker, "Mensch 
vnid Thier ;" and Lorenz Muellner has an article on " Wilhelm Eosenkrantz's Phi- 
losophie." Of reviews we mention: Siebert's "Das Wesen der a^sthetischen An- 
schauung," by Moritz Carriere, and Hermann's "Die JEsthetik in ihrer 
Geschichte," by the same. Ulrici reviews Lotze's "Logik," and Dr. Zeller's His- 
tor}' of German Philosophy since Leibnitz. 

In volume 70, Muellner finishes his essay on Wilhelm Rosenki-antz, and Edward 
Grimm has an article on " Malebranche's Erkenntnisstheorie" in relation to that 
of Descartes. Dr. Schloemilch has some "Philosophical Aphorisms of a Mathe- 
matician." Professor Fichte has a lengthv review of Pertv's excellent work, " The 



218 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy . 

Soul-Life of Animals;" and Ulrici uses R. G. Hazard's letters to Mill as a text for 
a general polemic against Mill's philosophy. Both of these reviews, notably that 
of Fichte, are more in the nature of original and independent articles than of mere 
criticism of another author's work, and deserve special attention. Dr. Schulze has 
an article on Leibnitz's Theodicee ; and Professor Franz Hoft'mann contributes an 
article on Von Baader's Place in the History of German Philosophj'. We have as 
yet received only the first number of volume 71. It is opened by Dr. Ulrici in an arti- 
cle on "How we Arrive at the Kepresentation of the Ditferences of Things ;" which 
is followed by an article from the pen of Professor L H. Fichte commemorating 
the testimony of the great German "Naturforscher," K. E. von Baer — whose 
death, in November, 1876, has called renewed attention to his works — in favor of 
a teleological view of the universe. Theodor von Barnbueler has an article on 
"Analysis and Synthesis." Professor Hoffmann reviews Dr. Wigand's "Darwin- 
ismus;" and also Dr. L. Weis' work on "Idealism and Materialism." M. Car- 
rifere has an article on Fechner's " Vorschule zur Aesthetik;" Dr. Lasson notices 
Paul Janets' "Les Causes Finales;" and I. H. Fichte reviews G. Mehring's work, 
"Die philosophisch Kritischen Grundsaetze der Selbst-VoUendung oder die 
Geschichts-Philosophie." a. e. k. 

The Canadian Monthly and National Review. Toronto : Adam, Stevenson 
&Co. 

"We have received the May number for 1876 of this excellent monthly, with an 
article on "Science and Religion," by John Watson, M. A., Professor of Phi- 
losophy, Queen's University, Kingston. The article is in the; nature of a reply to 
Professor Tyndall, and like other articles of Professor Watson, which our readers 
have seen, is of extraordinary merit. 

Principia or Basis or social Science; being a Survey of the Subject 

FROM THE moral AND THEOLOGICAL, YET LIBERAL AND PROGRESSIVE, 

Stand-point. By R. J. Wright. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott & Co. 

This work is interesting as treating a subject — Socialism — w^hich is engaging so 
much of public attention of late years from a new (7(^rt.si-religious point of view. 
It is, however, also valuable for the information which it affords. a. e. k. 

Soul Problems, wtth other Papers. By Joseph E. Peck. New York: 
Charles P. Somerby. 1875. 

The motto of this pamphlet is : " For every man must, according to the measure 
of his understanding and leisure, speak that which he speaketh, and do that which 
he doeth." — King Alfred. 

A Series of Essays on legal Topics. Bv James Parsons. Professor in the 
Law Department of th