Full text of "The Journal of speculative philosophy"

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THE JOURNAL

O F

SPECULATIYE PHILOSOPHY.

VOLUME XVI.

EDITED BY WM. T. HAREIS

NEW TOEK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

ST. LOUIS : George I. Jones and Company ; LONDON : Trflbner and Company.

1882.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by

WILLIAM T. HARRIS,
In the OflBce of the Librarian of Con^rese, at Washington.

CONTENTS.

PAQK

Agnosticism, Philosophy in Kelation to it and to Religion, By R. A. Holland, 15*7
Albee, John, Stoic and Anti-Stoic, 106

" " Three Ages, 214

Alcott, A. B., Sonnet on Childhood, 95

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant (Tr.), A. K Kroeger, 47, 395

Beauty, Use, Reason, Meeds Tuthill, 122, 296

Beeson, Sue V., The Gospel of Pain, 426

Bulkeley, B. R., Stages, 214

Burns-Gibson, J., Notice of T. W. Rhys Davids' "Hibbert Lectures, 1881," . . 107

" " On Some Idols or Factitious Unities, 386

Caird, Edward, The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time, 27

Chaldean Oracle? (reprint), Alexander Wilder, 285

Channing, W. E., Sentences in Prose and Verse, Selected by, . . 97, 218, 334, 444

Childhood, Sonnet on, A. Bronson Alcott, 95

Cognition, Trentowski on the Sources and Faculties of, Tr. by /. Podbielski, 244, 413
Dante's Epochs of Culture, H. K. Hugo DelfiF, . Translated by A. E. Kroeger, 142
Delfif, H. K. Hugo, Dante's Epochs of Culture, . Translated by ^. ^. ^roeyer, 142
Dewey, John, The Metaphysical Assumption of Materialism, ....... 208

'' " The Pantheism of Spinoza, 249

Dial, Reprint of The, 329

Domenichino's St. Jerome, or The Gospel of Pain, Sue V. Beeson, 426

Fate and Freedom, W. H. Kimball, 337

Garrigues, Gsrtrude, The Hero as Artist, 84

Green, Professor T. H., Obituary, 331

Harris, W. T., Hegel's Four Paradoxes, 113

" " Notice of Stirling's Text-Book to Kant, 218

" " Notice of A. E. Kroeger, 433

Harris, Tlieodore, The Golden Rule, 215

Hathaway, Mrs., Obituary, 215

Hegel on the Absolute Religion (Tr.), F. Louis Soldan, ^2, 111, ^m

Hegel's Dialectic Method, Prize Essay on, 95

" Four Paradoxes, By W. T. Harris, 113

" Philosophy of the State (Tr.) Edwin D. Mead, 71,194

Hero as Artist, The, Oerlrude Garrigues, 84

Hodgson, S. H., Philosophy in its Relation to History, 225

Holland, R. A., The Philosophy of the Real Presence, 1

" " Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion, .... 157

iv Contents.

PAGE

Home, The Idea of the, May Wright Sewall, 2H

' Idols and Factitious Unities," By J. Burns- Gibson, 386

Jackson's, W. T., "Seneca and Kant," Noticed by John Watsoji, 106

Johns Hopkins University, I,ectiiros on Philosophy at, 430

Jones, 11. K., The Philosophy of Prayer and the Prayer Gauge 16.

Kant, Immanuel, Anthropology of (Tr.), A. E. Kroegcr, i1, 39^

Kimball, W. H., Fate and Freedom, 33Y

Kroeger, A. E., Anthropology of Immanuel Kant (Tr.), 47 395,

" (Tr.), D:«nte's Epochs of Culture by H. K. Hugo Delft' . . . .142

" Obituary, 433

Lackland, Caroline Eliot, Mephistopheles, 320

Lotze's, Hermann, Works, 216

Materialism, The Metaphysical Assumption of, John Dewey 208

Mead, Edwin D., Hegel's Philosophy of the State (Tr.), 71 194.

Mepliistopheles, Caroline Eliot Lackland, 320

Mind, A General Analysis of, James Ward, 36'7

Oracles, The Chaldean (reprint), Alexander Wilder, 285

Pain, The Gospel of, Sue V. Becson, 424

Philosophy at the Present Time, The Problem of, Edward Caird, 21

Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion, ... E. A. Holland, 15T

Philosophy in its Relation to History, S. H. Hodgson, 225

Podbif-lski, I., Trentowski on the Sources and Faculties of Cognition (Tr.), . 244, 413

Prayer Gauge, The Philosophy of Prayer and the, H. K Jones, 16

Real Presence, The Philosophy of the, B. A. Holland, 1

Reason, Use, Beauty, Meeds Tuthill, 122, 296

Religion, Absolute, Hegel on the (Tr.), F. Louis Soldan, 52, 171, 258, 343

Religion, Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to, . . By R. A. Holland, 15Y
Rhys Davids'" Hibbert Lectures, 1881," . . . . l^oima A hy J. Burns- Gibson, 107

" Seneca and Kant," W. T. Jackson's, Noticed by John Watson, 106

Sentences in Prose and Verse, . . . Selected by W. E. Channing, 97, 318, 334, 444

Sewall, May Wright, The Idea of the Home, 274

Snider, D. J., " A Walk in Hellas " (noticed), 96

Soldan, F. L., Hegel on the Absolute Religion (Tr.), 52,171,258,343

Spinoza, Pantheism of, John Dewey, 249

State, Hegel's Philosophy of the (Tr.), Edwin D. Mead, 11, \U

Stirling, Dr. J. H., "Text-Eook to Kant," JHoiicedihy W. T. Harris, 218

Stirling, Dr. J. Hutchison, of Edinburgh, Article on, 423

Stoic and Anti-Stoic, /o/m Albee, 106

Trentowski on the Sources and Faculties of Cognition (Tr.), . . /. Podbiclski, 244, 413

Tuthill, Meeds, Use, Beauty, Reason, 122, 296

Use, Beauty, Reason, Meeds Tuthill, 122, 296

Vera, Professor A., of Naples, 439

VVa:d, James, A General Analysis of Mind, 367

Watson, John, Notice of W. T. Jackson's "Seneca and Kant," 106

Wilder, Alexander, The Chaldean Oiacles, 286

THE JOURNAL

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY

YoL. XVI.] January, 1882. [No. 1.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE REAL PRESENCE.'

In speaking of the philosophy of the Real Presence, it is not my
aim to prove that Christ ever used the exact words of its alleged
institution, or that the words which are attributed to him must be
taken in their literal sense, or that, when taken in their literal
sense, they imply transubstantiation or consubstantiation, or any
other theory as to how He is bodily present in the appearance of
bread and wine. These are questions of criticism and theology
rather than of philosophy. Philosophy deals only with univer-
sal and necessary principles, and it is by them I wish to try the
doctrine which has been philosophically objected to on the ground
that it contradicts the pure spirituality of the Infinite in present-
ing Him for worship in a material form and at a definite point of
space. And, if I am not mistaken, it will appear at the end of
my argument that the grounds which the objection urges against
the Real Presence are the strongest of all reasons for believing in
it as accordant with the very essence of religion, the nature of
God, and the constitution of man.

1. As accordant with the essence of religion, which neither af-

' A lecture delivered before the Philosophical Society of Chicago by Rev. R. A.
Holland.

XYI— 1

2 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

iirins nor denies the Intinite as intiiiite and only knows Him in
linite conceptions. It is aware that these conceptions do not con-
tain the whole truth, that while they reveal much they also con-
ceal much; but they are the truest form of truth to the religious
man, who must feel as well as think God in order to worship him ;
and truer hy far than any so-called philosophic idea which would
find llim at the end of a series of abstract postulates and leave
Ilim a mere empty abstract definition. Such definition may give
a correct intellectual form of God, and yet lack all of his concrete,
living fulness, and the form without the filling would be as untrue
as the most indefinite filling without the proper form. Philoso-
phy is only philosophy as it explains the world of nature and man
witiiout explaining it away.

The world is, and is what it is. Whether right or wrong, good
or bad, it at least is real, and philosophy must first accept its real-
ity and then seek the ideas involved in it. ISTow, in this real world
of humanity we find religion, not as an accident, exceptional and
temporary, but as one of its universal and permanent principles.
From the fetish-worshipping savage to the Christian saint, however
sundered by impassable oceans or supposably diverse in origin,
whether in Africa or Asia or Europe or America or the South Sea
Islands, all peoples have a religion which grows with their growth
in civilization, and which for the same degrees of civilization has
a broad similarity of type in creed and ritual, so that the history
of the race as a race is simply the history of its religions and of
their influence on the manners, customs, laws, and speculations of
its various nations.

Now, it is absurd to say that a phase of human nature so univer-
sal and constant is a trick or device or scheme or plot of a certain
class to gain and keep power over their kind. Such a conspiracy
might happen and succeed here or there, but not everywhere
without possibility of collusion, unless it were the very norm ot
human nature so to deceive and be deceived. And if deceit be
the root and pith of humanity, that which humanity must unfold
in its development, the sooner we stop talking against it the soon-
er shall we get into line with our destiny, and the more rapidly
ripen toward the perfect manhood of mendacity. No, religion,
like morality, like art, is the manifestation of a constitutive ele-
ment of man's nature. It is not the business of philosophy, then,

The Philosophy of the Meal Presence. 3

to create religion or to take its place any more than it is to create
or take the place of the world. Here religion is — a great world-
fact, and philosophy has nothing to do but to account for it. If
Philosophy cannot do this, it may be a good dreamer of what the
world might have been or ought to be, and of what religion might
have been or ought to be in such a visionary orb ; but it can
never be a philosophy of the world that really is, and of the relig-
ion that is no less really one of the world's prime, essential prin-
ciples.

Now, religion, as I have said, conceives absolute truth in finite,
pictorial, and suggestive, rather than in logical and definitive
forms. Religion is akin to art. Indeed, art is her offspring. In
the divinities of sculpture and painting she saw and touched with
outward sense, which made them seem more real, the truths which
were already imaged in her mind. Art, in its first and highest
significance, is simply the art of religion. Its masterpieces, which
are as young to-day, with promise of immortal beanty, as they were
when they first came from the artist's hand, centuries ago — the
statued gods of its classic era, and the " Ecce-Homos," " Transfig-
urations," and "Madonnas" of its romantic maturity — were not,
as some superficial writers on aesthetics have declared, created for
amusement, but for worship. Their immortal beauty comes from
their religious inspiration. God was as truly in the hand that
wrouglit them as in the mind of the prophet who described His
glory in some mental image, as a King of nations, with crown and
trailing robe, or as a Captain of hosts, riding forth to battle in his
chariot of clouds. The image is equally an image whether it be
sensuous, as in art; or intellectual, as in religion; or both sensu-
ous and intellectual, as when religion employs art in her worship.

It were just as rational, therefore, for philosophy to complain of
plastic art that it is not chemistry as to find fault with religion
because she does not worship God in the formlessness and time-
lessness and spacelessness of a purely speculative and unworshipful
definition. Her thought of Him may be only an image, but it is
a true image of His truth. In a word, her language is poetry, not
prose.

With these prefatory remarks, which are necessary to guard
what I have to say against possible misinterpretation, I now sub-
mit that religion, if she worship at all, must worship the God who

4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Ib out oi time, as in time ; who is out of space, as in space ; who
is pure spirit without body, parts, and passions, as having all three
— ]>assions such as she ascribes to Him in speaking of His anger
and veuixeauce. His pity and love; a body vvitli parts or members
such as she gives Him in the thought of His sitting on a throne,
bowiuix down His ear to hear, stretching forth His hand to help,
smelHng tlie sweet savor of prayers, having eyes to see the right-
eous and a countenance to be seen by them in beatific vision.
Thus in time He is the God of historic revelation ; in space He has
a celestial capital where He dwells, whence He sends His angels
and His son, and whither His saints shall go to be near Him when
thev quit the eartli. Whatever, tlien, He may be in speculative
definition, to religion He is necessarily a temporal, spatial, and
corporeal God. Every objection, therefore, to the doctrine of the
Real Presence as presenting Him for worship in material form
and local site bears as strongly against the whole mode of religious
conception — indeed, against the nature of religion itself. If we
cannot regard Him in the forms of bread and wine because they
are sensuous, neither can we speak of Him in any such sensuous
relation as that of a father who has begotten a son. The sensuous
image is equally sensuous whether outside or inside the mind.

\i God is not to be worshipped as present on an altar, because
the altar fixes his presence within a spatial limit, neither can he
be worshipped as in the no less spatial fixity of a seat in heaven.
So far as there is any difference between these representations,
the altar gives the mere spiritual idea of the manner of His pres-
ence. For it brings Him down to earth and makes Him accessi-
ble to men not only hereafter but now, localizing Him in so many
places at once and for spiritual discernment under such elementary
forms, as must be spiritualized to have any significance whatever,
that its very localization displays the ubiquity of his presence,
even as the light that is seen in a diamond's sparkle shows the
unseen light that tills all the air.

And without such a placing and visible sign of Deity, there can
be no consistent act of worship. Men may adore Him as a thought
by some inner rapture of thinking, but they, cannot make their
adoration an external act without implying some external object
to which it is paid. The same principle that forbids a sensuous
object of devotion forbids a sensuous ceremony. Ritual, elaborate

The Philosoj)hy of the Real Pi^esence. 5

or simple, has no reason except in the faith of a Real Presence.
Why go to church to meet a God who is not there? Why build
the lofty minster, with its sky-like nave and pillared aisles and
"storied windows richly dight," and mural decorations of emblem
and of imasre, and solemn chancel towards which all the min-
ster's other architecture and ornament lead eye and foot, except
as the palace of a God who dwells within it ? Why kneel down
before an absent God, or sing choral anthems to an unsensuous
God who has no delight in sound ?

Is all this a mere make-believe ? Do you build the church for
your own pride of sight ? When you go there, is it with the
thought that you might as well have met the Omnipresent in your
sitting-room ? When you kneel and stand, utter aloud your
prayer and praise, are you only feigning physical worship for the
effect it will have on your religious feeling ? Then not God but
yourself is the real object of your devotions. You are the end
which He serves as a humble means and instrument. You call
and dismiss Him with a beck, and consciously falsify His nature
that the deceit of outward devotion to a counterfeit divinity may
make your religion more sincere and spiritually-minded. And
thus in the effort to get rid of an enshrined and visible Beity, and
at the same time keep your religion, you have ended by deifying
yourself. For if He be the means and you the end of your wor-
ship, surely that worship sets you above Him, and renders you
your own supreme god. And such a god ! So utterly dependent
on local surroundings and ceremonial gymnastics of bone and lung
that he may come to a consciousness of that absolute self-stultifica-
tion which constitutes his godhead.

" So be it," you say, " but the argument proves too much. By
demonstrating that the Real Presence is as true as any other truth
of religion, it has simply demonstrated that all religion is as absurd
as the Real Presence. I, for one, shall be consistent and stay at
home, and think the Infinite not as He seems in finite symbols,
but as He is in His infinite verity — a pure spirit unconfined by
space, untainted with a touch of matter."

Yery well, my honest friend, essay the thought, get the exact
prose of Jehovah, and when you have got it give it to the deluded
souls who only know Him now in religious tropes.

" Pure spirit," you say, " He is, without finite form or taint of

6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

matter." But, if so, He cannot be the Creator, for as Creator he
is only known in creation. All of His nature that is not mani-
fested in creation is uncreative. And creation is material, or re-
veals whatever of spirit it contains in material moulds.

Neither can your Infinite be providence, for as providence He
must appear in the events of history, the most important of which
have been brought to pass, in a measure, not only by the bodies,
but also by the bodily passions of men — the drunkenness of an
Alexander, the brutal timidity of a Pilate, the lust of a Henry
YHI. Evidently your pure infinite spirit is not in the universe^
and, if He exi>t at all, must be outside of it. But there is no
room for His infinitude outside the universe. The universe would
bound His outer being ; where the universe begins He would have
to end ; all that the universe is He could not possibly be. He
would thus fall a whole universe short of that infinitude which
you deem essential to any true conception of His divinity. Tour
attempt to escape finite images of God has brought you to a god
more finite than any image of Him ; a God thinned down to a
negation of everything you know. Nothing is all that is left of
Him. Nothing is the only name you can call Him by — the pure,
imageless, shrineless, formless, spaceless, unpicturable, unadorable,
utterly immaterial, perfectly spiritual, divinely prosaic, scientifi-
cally exact, infinitely finite nothing ; or, as the same idea or rather
no idea of Him is sometimes euphemistically entitled by modern
doubt, " the absolutelv unknown and unknowable." And abso-
lutely unknown and unknowable He is, simply because there is
nothing of Him to be known. All that He could be known by
has been taken away with the universe of knowledge. What re-
mains is the ghost of an absurd definition. For if scientific knowl-
edge means definition, and definition means de-finite-ing, and the
infinite be defined as the not finite, or in-definite. He is prevented
by the very terms of His definition from ever being defined or
known. Such an infinite simply means the meaningless, and it is
not science but buffoonery to use a meaningless word as if its im-
port were too mysterious rather than too nonsensical to be under-
stood.

The truth is, there can be no positive infinite that is not also
finite. An infinite not finite would, as I have said, be limited and
estopped by the finite, and so made only another finite. The true

Tlie Philosophy of the Real Presence. T

infinite, instead of being mere indefinite or blank negation of the
finite, is both infinite and finite, an infinite that tinites itself and
appears in its self-finitings — a living whole, whose members are its
own self-difiierentiations, and preserve the very unity they seem to
break — an absolute mind which is distinct from all its thoughts
and yet is only as it thinks, and in thinking manifests while it
maintains its essential activity. Such an infinite, such an organic
whole, such an absolute mind is God.

2. And this brings me to my second plea for the reasonableness
of the Real Presence — namely, that it accords with the nature of
God, who, as infinite, must eternally become finite, as organic whole
must develop His unity into differences, as absolute mind must
think Himself in thoughts which, because they are the thoughts
of an absolute mind, are not merely thoughts but things. God
cannot exist without the visible universe anymore than the visible
universe can exist without God. The universe is His symbol of
Himself, a symbol identified with the truth it types, and therefore
a sacrament — the outward and visible sign of His inward and
spiritual presence. It is as such that science regards it, if science
only knew the import of her own knowledge ; for what is science
but the recognition of reason or spirit, in nature by reason or
spirit in man ? So, too, art sees and worships it ; for what is
beauty but the soul's glimpse of its archetjq^e and idea], half hidden
and half revealed in the noon twilight of deep woods, or just van-
ishing where valleys bend into secret mountain folds, or standing
tip-toe on the crest of some breaking sea- wave, veiled from head to
foot in its spray, or coming down from heaven to earth in far-off
inaccessible pomp of sunset clouds ?

Why, then, should religion be despised for her simple faith in a
sacramental presence which science discovers and art lives to por-
tra,y. If she worship God in symbol, she worsliips Him as He
reveals Himself. It is He that creates the symbol ; she only hails
it as translucent with His inner glory. Unless, in His necessary
and universal self-symbolization. He falsifies Himself, her symbolic
knowledge of Him is not untrue nor true only in an accommodated
and equivocal sense, but one of His own essential forms of truth.
He is by His very nature a sacramental God.

" Perhaps," remarks the scientific mind, " the universe, as a
whole, might be taken as an adequate symbol of God, since it is

8 The Journal of Speoulative Philosophy.

the sum of all our finite knowledge, and, therefore, the nearest ap-
proach of our thought to the infinite. Thus symbolized, however,
we should conceive Ilim as cosmic force rather than any particular
thing such as religion represents Ilim in her sacred wafer and
wine.

''Science has long ago got beyond things, and knows that they
are not the final realities they seem, but only semblances — vanish-
ing sparks made by the meeting of forces. Let, then, the universe
be our type of the infinite, and force, our definition of the universe.
And because the universe as a whole is unseen and the forces
which distribute its universal potency are unseen, we shall bow
down to no visible fetish like ignorant savages, but worship God
subjectively in our growing knowledge of the secrets of nature."

But religion, with its fetish, proves to be more scientific than the
science which fancies that forces are any more real without things
than things are without forces. For though things be only the
meeting-points and centres of forces, the truth still remains that
the forces are unknown except as they meet and centre in things.
Heat is known only in the heated thing, light in the luminous
thing, motion in the moving thing, magnetism in the magnetic
thing; and so only do they exist, for, by the law of their cor-
relation, none of them acts except as it is acted upon, and hence
cannot exist (since forces are naught but activities) except at the
points of intersection, which are things. Thus science, no less
than religion, is fetichistic. That divine light which fills nature
does not appear in it as the white lustre of one smooth-surfaced
abstraction, but broken as by a lantern of prismatic lenses into the
many hues of things. And you cannot know one of these things,
the least and simplest of them, without knowing the whole uni-
verse and God.

See that bunch of grapes hanging among the broad leaves of
its vine, a mere handful of perishing fruit. Yet transmuted into
its tiny globules are a soil which it took glaciers millions of years
to grind off primeval mountain-sides ; a climate which nothing
less than the exact configuration of the earth as it is with its
mountains and plains, continents and oceans, could make genial
enough for their delicate life, and a daily bath of dew or rain
drawn from distant seas and brought by winds that search for their
little nurslings from equator to poles and back again. Notice

The Philosophy of the Real Presence. 9

how their stem bends with their weight, which is nothing less than
the weight of the world that draws them down, and how the great
sun glows in their purple, which is not theirs, but his, who, though
far awaj, has, by strange magic, stolen near and condensed him-
self into each of their pretty orblets. And yet to know that they
are soil and air and ocean, and the sliape and weight of earth
and the solar fire, is to know only the surface and beginning of
their nature, which could not be fully understood until the moun-
tains had told whence came their granite, and the seas whence
their water, and the atmosphere whence its gases, and the earth
whence its gravitation, and the sun whence its perpetual flame —
not until all the other worlds and suns which these recitals would
introduce had accounted for their being bv the introduction of
still remoter relations, and the whole universe at last had owned
itself really present in the little cluster of grapes. Change the
gravity of Sirius but an ounce, and the change will be felt in their
fragile stem. Let the faintest breeze stir in Alcyone's air, and
the commotion will quicken their sanguine pulse. I speak of
them as if they had some substance of their own which was re-
lated to all the universe besides. But they have not. Their sub-
stance is simply the conjunction of these universal relations, the
knot and sphere which these relations form in their present place
and proportion. The grapes are nothing but so much vitalized
earth, air, and sunshine ; and sunshine, air, and earth are nothing
but the self-same cosmic relations grouped in a diflFerent order
and degree. You need only watch them to discover for yourself
what they are. The grapes, if unplucked, will fall away from the
vine and wither, and fade into the gases that have conglobed
themselves into their form for a little while, even as for a little
longer while they have gathered — so the spectroscope tells us —
into the larger clusters of suns and planets. And these gases —
what are they? "Manifestations of a force," science answers,
and we are not inclined to dispute her latest word. " Manifesta-
tions of one force — which, whether in its various modes as relative
forces like heat, light, electricity, or in the forms of atoms, which
are only moving points of balanced attraction and repulsion — still
remains one and the same force everywhere, and, therefore, the
one and only substance of the universe." This one force, this
solitary substance which the universe, in all its special phenomena

10 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

manifests, is God. As such, Tennyson, our great philosopher-
poet, recognizes it in liis hymn to the wall-flower :

Flower ill the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand.
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

Do you ask the reason for calling the absolute force God ? I
answer tliat force, as the term is generally used by science, de-
notes an activity which moves only as it is moved by outward
inducement — the effect of some external cause. Heat canses elec-
tricity, electricity magnetism, magnetism motion, motion heat
asrain : but none of these causes itself, and the term " force," as
applied to them, never signifies a self-causing, self-inducing, self-
deteruiining activity. But the one force which includes all forces
must be just such an activity. For being itself all, it leaves none
outside itself or other than itself to move it, cause it, act upon it.
It transcends the scientific laws of inei'tia, cause and effect, and
correlation. It moves itself, causes itself, and through all changes
abides within itself. Certainly, then, we must give it some other
name than the misleading one of force that denotes the very
properties which this total activity contradicts while taking them
up into its own transcendent unity. Now, what can we find in
the range of our empirical knowledge that so resembles this total
activity, or seems to resemble or comes, near enough resembling it,
as to be its best analogon and worthy to lend it a veridical name ?
What but mind — mind which, in every act of self-consciousness,
is both active and passive, because both knowing as subject and
known as object, and which, because it is essentially self-conscious,
exists only as this contradiction and its reconcilement. Mind or
thought has the form of totality. Thought can think nothing
alien to itself. For should it try to think aught as alien to
thought, the alien to thought would still be its thought, and,
therefore, not alien to thought. It can make no distinction which
does not remain within its own unity. Matter itself, though in a
certain sense opposed to mind, cannot be thought except as a
thought or mode of mind — mind, perhaps, utterly objective to it-

The Philosophy of the Real Presence. 11

self, but, because objective, existent still in implicit relation to the
subject knowing, and wbose act of knowledge must always bring
both together in the identity of self-consciousness.

Mind, then, absolute mind, or God, is the true name for the
one self-related force and omnipresent substance of the uni-
verse and of its phenomena. Not only, then, are the clustered
grapes a possible symbol of God, but, when rightly known, they
prove to be nothing else than his symbol, as he is their sole sub-
stance.

Press out their juices now, and pour their sweet red fermenta-
tion into a silver chalice, and tell me what that chalice contains.
" Wine," says the vintner, promptly ; and he speaks the truth, for
wine it certainly is. " Money," says the merchant; and he, too,
speaks the truth, for the wine is a commodity, and, as such, repre-
sents money. " Fermented juice of a certain species of plant
called Yitis viiiifera,-'' says the botanist ; and he, likewise, de-
scribes it truly, for so its vine is designated in botanic classitica-
tion. " A certain fluid stage and state of protoplasm, a puff of
cosmic gas, a little whirlpool in a universal ocean of atoms, a
fleeting phase of an unknown force which is known, however, to
be one, and to persist through many phases which fleet," says the
nature-philosopher, who thinks nothing can be known outside the
categories of nature ; and he also tells the truth, for it is true that
the wine may be relatively described as protoplasm, or condensa-
tion of gas, or eddy of atoms, or a phase of that total force which
the nature-philosopher does not know, and can never know, in
categories that refer only to dead mechanical parts that lie out-
side of each other as if they had no mutual involution through
one all-containing, all-animating whole. But the priest elevates
the chalice of wine above these lower meanings of sense, and
merchandise, and vegetable classilication, and external relation to
other symbols, which have no more substance than its own, ele-
vates it to its sole substantial truth, and, with words that conse-
crate it to the divine import they reveal, names it " The Blood of
God."

Which, I ask you, men of candid thought, is the wine's truest
truth — the truth of taste, or the truth of merchandise, or the
truth of vegetable species, or the truth of phenomenal identity
with phenomenal nature, or the one substantial truth of religion

12 The Jouf'nal of Speculative Philosophy.

— blood being the sign of life and the universe, an organism
whose only and all-pervasive life is God?

And, surely, if there be idolatry in any religious view of the
consecrated cup, the idolatry is not the Avorshipper's, who scarcely
sees the symbol in his rapt contemplation of the divine presence
it so transparently symbolizes to his faith, but the unworshipper's,
who is so anti-materialistic in his conception of worship that he
sees the symbol as a mere opaque material thing, apart from the
spiritual substance it stands for, as if it, too, were substantial and
stood bv itself, an end to thouo;ht ratlier than thono-ht's medium of
intercoui-se with the Mind which is in all matter — a separate, in-
dependent entity other than God, and, therefore, another God.
This latter, I submit, with all his protestings against idolatry, is
an idolater of the very worst type, for ordinary idolaters behold
God in the object that images him, but this protester against idola-
try fancies that there can be an object to image God independ-
ent of the God it images — which fancy invests that object with a
separate self-sufficiency that makes it no longer a mere symbol of
a divine substance, but itself divinely substantial and very God.

" But," interposes the sceptic, and, perhaps, even the church-
man jealous of the peculiar sanctity of his eucharistic worship,
" does not your view of the Real Presence render it very common ?
Are not all things else — rocks, weeds, insects, reptiles, beasts —
just as true exhibitions of it as the wine in the chalice ? Why,
then, a supreme and unique sacrament ? " No better reason could
be desired, it seems to me, than the one stated in the question
itself — namely, that God's presence is in all things. For a truth
so universal and so universally glorious needs some special mark
and token to impress it on minds which are prone like ours to
see things as animals see them, to whom they are naught but
objects of sense and appetite, or which, if they see further, still
regard things as the first and surest realities, and ideas as mere
abstractioiis from tliem, God being the last and most shadowy
abstraction of ideas ; or which, if tliey recognize God in tliem
at all, recognize him only in the rare, the strange, the astonishing,
the miraculous, and not in familiar scenes and every-day occur-
rences. Secular genius had watched man many centuries before
Goethe discovered that his character was not complete, nay, that
his education was not rightly begun, until he had learned the

Ihe Philosophy of the Real Presence. 13

three reverences — reverence not only for what is above and what
is within, but also for what is beneath him ; and Poetry had
grown quite old and lost the freshness of her voice when in
Wordsworth her youth was renewed by the divination that the
meanest flower that blows could give " thoughts which do often
lie too deep for tears." And yet, week by week, and day by day,
for a thousand years and more, religion had been lifting up
before the eyes of worldly wisdom and poetic vision man's home-
liest fare of bread and wine as her holiest types of a presence
which hallows the very ground whence they grow, and should
hallow all man's life upon it. Thus, while the Real Presence
could not be divine unless universal, the disposition of the natu-
ral man to ignore or neolect it for mere sensuous pleasures re-
quires that it should be emphasized to sense itself by some singular
memento and type which shall have all the magnificent meaning,
and all the solemnity, and all the adoration of the divinely uni-
versal and universally divine fact it brings to mind and typifies ;
even as the fact that all the days of the week are sacred renders
it meet that we should set apart a certain day among them to
celebrate, and inspire us to observe their common sanctity as alike
days of the Lord — which otherwise we might forget in the hurrj
and distraction of selfish cares and enjoyments.

3. And this reminds me that I have already reached my third
and final plea for the reasonableness of God's presence in a sensi-
ble form for worship — namely, that it accords with the constitu-
tion of man. Man is mind manifest in matter. His spirit exists
in and by a body which it cannot shed as a cocoon, and fly away
from in naked, formless independence, but which belongs to the
spirit as the condition of its selfhood. By his body man is indi-
vidualized and distinguished Irom its fellows. By his body man
enters into communion with the universe which is the means, if
not the object, of all his knowledge. By his body man qualifies
himself to receive that revelation of God which is given in the
analogies of sense ; and by his body he becomes conscious that he
has a mind, or even exists, for it is only in relation to a world
which is not self that he has any knowledge of self. This body
may be always changing, as it is from infancy to age; may cast
ofi" its earthly casing by tiie completion of an inner and celestial
shape, as the expanding blossom bursts and casts away the rough

14 The Journal of Sj^ecidative Philosophy.

burr that encloses it ; still body of some kind, and that a right
human kind, the spirit must have, in order that it may be a spirit,
individual and self-conscious.

More than this, the body is not, as we are accustomed to repre-
sent it, altoij^ether outside the spirit; its apparent outsideness is
only apparent; it is within as well as about the spirit — the
spirit's own efflorescence and extiguration. For while man may
think as if he were nauo;ht but mind, and feel as if the mind
were dormant and the body alone awake, yet his sublimest
thoughts are those which he feels as well as thinks, and his
mightiest feelings those which glow seraph-like with the inner
flame of thought. That revelation, then, will be most perfect
which is given to his whole nature — to both sense and intellect as
as they co-exist in the sacramental unity of sentiment. Such a
revelation must have a sacramental form — must display its infin-
ite spirit in some finite and corporeal sign. Addressed to man's
intellect alone, it would be no revelation, but a vague, impotent
definition — a mere wind of metaphysical words whistling through
a hollow skull ; addressed to his sense alone, it would be a dead,
unmeaning fetish. But addressed to the intellect in his senses
•and to the senses in his intellect, his whole manhood vibrates with
it into music of adoration, as Memnon with the dawn.

Moreover, the man who cannot understand all that the symbol
signifies will feel a mystery beyond his understanding which will
invest his defective knowledge with the awe of worship ; while he
who thinks he knows the reason of the symbol will know it all
the more clearly and vividly because presented to his thought in
visible picture. Indeed, the sacramental is the only universal
form of revelation — the form which is adapted to all sorts and
conditions of men — to the illiterate hod-carrier, who has little wit
beyond his senses, and who, if he has any idea of God, conceives
him as in some way an object of sense; and to the philosopher,
who regards all sensible things as but vanishing glints of God's
eternal splendor. Side by side, they can kneel before the same
eucharistic symbol, as at once the divinity of simplest faith and
most comprehensive reason.*

' Goethe, an impartial observer of the educating power of religions, and certainly
one » ithout sacraraentarian bias, says :

"The sacraments are the highest part of religion, the symbols to our senses of an

TJie Philosophy of the Real Presence. 15

This we might infer from the evident popularity and power of
secular sacraments. Love, even the most spiritual, is not content
that the loved one should dwell across the sea to be spiritually
thought about and communed with as a pure and excellent char-
acter, but because the cliaracter is so 23ure and excellent, wishes its
near and palpable presence in its typical beauty of flesh. And
while the flesh is absent, some keepsake of photograph, or pressed
flower, or lock of hair, which its warm life lias touched and ani-
mated, must take its place as the token of that spiritual presence
which the token makes more real to thought than any unaided
meditation can. Indeed, the truest, holiest expression of love is
the sacramental embrace of wedlock wherefrom man himself, the
perfect sacrament of soul and body, is born.

This same sacramentality he evinces in his national character.
The nation must have its flag, in whose colors all its wealth, power,
law, watchfulness, beneficence, and aspiration become concrete and
visible. Where that flag is planted the whole strength of the na-
tion gathers for defence and protection. Whither it leads the way,
the whole valor of the nation follows for conquest. When its
folds are unfurled in battle, the arms that tight beneath them smite
with more than individual strength, and there the slain fall in
thickest heaps, while the living rush to take their places as if the
shadow of their ensign were the shield of eternal grace. Call it
a painted rag if you will, still the painted rag has more spiritual
force, more direct sway over the thoughts and passions and wills
of men than all the wisdom of your statesmen, and eloquence of
your orators, and songs of your poets, unaided by its spell. For

extraordinary divine favor and grace. In the Lord's Supper earthly lips are to receive
a divine being embodied, and partake of a heavenly under the form of an earthly
nourishment. This sense is just the same in all Christian churches, whether the sac-
rament is taken with more or less submission to the mystery, with more or less accom-
modation as to that which is intelligible ; it always remains a great holy thing, which
in reality takes the place of the possible or the impossible, the place of that which man
can neither attain nor do without. But such a sacrament should not stand alone. No
Chrifstian can partake of it with the true joy for which it is given, if the symbolical or
sacramental seyise is not fostered ivithin him. He must be accustomed to regard the inner
religion of the heart and that of the external church as perfectly one, as the great univer-
sal sacrament, which again divides itself into so many others and communicates to these
parts its holiness, indestructibleness, and eternity." — " Autobiography," vol. i, p. 245,
Bohn's edition.

16 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

it is the nation's sacrament, the real presence of her otherwise dif-
fuse, abstract, undiscernible majesty.

And what love were without embodiment or keepsake, what
the nation were witliout ensign, that the church would be without
the sacramental presence of her Lord, which, though recognized
and cherished by faith, is yet b}' reason proved to be in perfect
harmony alike with the essence of religion, the nature of God,
and the constitution of man.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAYER AND THE "PRAYER

GAUGE." '

BT HIRAM K. JONES.

All men pray. The totality of the affections and desires in the
AYill-spirit is the prayer of the man. The Will-spirit in man is
self motive and self-determining, and hence the will is free, and
freely turns itself towards good or towards evil. And if the total-
ity of the affections and desires in the Will-spirit be selfish and
depraved, then must the prayer be for what is evil and impious.

When the Will-spirit is determined in ambition and pride and
covetousness and avarice and envy and malice and hatred and
revenge and sensuality, such must be the spirit and the nature
and. the aim of the prayer ; and how shall such an one not pray
for evil things, as surely as the body is determined to earth by
gravity ?

Whereas, on the other hand, when the soul is exalted in its af-
fections and thoughts and aims to what is honorable and just and
pure and true and beautiful and good, think we not that the to-
tality of these affections in the Will-spirit, the Prayer-spirit, will
surely ask for things honorable and good ? Nor will it then ask
God, or any one else, to do for it anything that it can do and ought
to do for itself, with the use of its own faculties and powers in the
resources of its sphere of existence.

Now, the spirit of the Will, the spirit of prayer, is the receptiv-

' Delivered at the Concord School of Philosophy, July, 1881.

The Philosophy of Prayer and the " Prayer GaugeP IT

ity of the soul ; and this voluntary receptivity is the only condi-
tion of benedictions or of imprecations in answer to prayer. The
heavens are as near to the soul as the soul is to the body, and the
only good influent into all intelligent natures is not far away, but
is more immediate in the soul than the soul is in the body ; and
in the deep silence even knocketh at the door of the dwelling-
place of the soul, but always waits upon its Will-spirit. The Au-
thor of its existence will not violate its freedom to turn it towards
good or towards evil.

And if the human nature be quickened and alive with that spirit
which is the life-quality of the angelic and Dcific natures, that
life and its good will as surely flow into its prayer receptivity as
the life of the sun enters into the opening bud, and the flower,
and the fruit ; while if the human nature turn not this way in the
spirit of its will and deeds, but towards the evil, and its life and
delights and appetencies and habits be such as the Devils have,
then must it be receptive of the life and the fortunes which the
Devils have. We cannot here serve two masters. We shall ask
for that and we shall receive that, and we shall assimilate that,
and we shall go to our own in ihat^ to which we are freely self-
determined.

And if, out of the love of righteousness and truth and holiness
in the soul, the prayer ascendeth to God, he will surely give good
gifts to them that ask him ; and if out of ungodly and selfish and
vain ambitions and greed, and grovelling desires, the soul shall seek,
it may find abundance of tyranny and avarice and sensuality ; and
60, as has been said, Sir Isaac Newton receives knowledges of the
stars, and Sir Isaac's dog receives plenty of dog's bread.

The philosophy of any age is the highest thought of the age
adequate to the solution of its soul problems. It effects the le-
gitimating of the institutions of society by establishing them in
their fountains and Divine reasons, even in the Oracles and the
Forms of the Faith. Philosophy comes not, therefore, as an un-
sympathetic critic, but as the loving friend of the principles and
powers of the particular Faith of which it is a philosophy.

The Christian dispensation, therefore, must, in this sense and idea

of it, realize a philosophy, and its appellation must be Christian

Philosophy. Its business must be the dissipating of the mists and

fog of sense, and the discovering in the very fountains and streams

XVI— 2

18 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of our life Divine enero;ies and powers of the God of the genera-
tion, who now sitteth enthroned above. He is not dead nor ab-
sent. This triitli is ere long to be revived in the thought and in
the heart of this age, and to become the thought that shall lead
the social Genesis to marvellous fulfilments of reverence and obe-
dience and faith beyond the present fruitions.

The subject of ])rayer and the offices of prayer are of the most
common and practical interest, involving more or less problematic-
al experiences, with which every one must sooner or later engage.
They may be mistaken who are able for a term of life to imagine
themselves to be independent of this resource; it is probable that
Jonah had but little thought or foresight of the very practical
uses of prayer until he got into a great calamity in which he real-
ized its necessity and availability.

It is hoped, therefore, that the attempt to review and identify
the idsa of prayer may not be deemed foreign and unrelated to
the practical life, nor a trenching upon grounds not properly philo-
sophical.

" What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? and what
proiit should we have if we pray unto Him? " This is a question
always new, and always old, in the generations of man.

True religion comprehends knowledge of the Supreme Being,
and of subsisting relations between God and the soul. And this
knowledge embraces as mediate instrumentality the worlds of na-
ture and of the spirit.

This knowledge to every generation is of the wisdom which de-
scends from above. Every historic faith is archetyped in heaven,
and is thence the thought and the will of God. And so He giveth
and subsisteth all Faiths and their "Works, individually and col-
lectively.

And therefore every great historic movement in the world is
recorded as fountained and shaped in a distinct form of oracular,
authoritative dispensation from on high. And in every historic
generation this descent has realized itselfin the social institutions.
And prior among these, as pillar and ground, and custodian, and
witness and irradiation of the truth and the life, is the Church, in
order that these forms may, through a local habitation and home
and name, also be endowed with permanency and perpetuity
among mankind.

The Philosophy of Prayer and the " Prayer Gauge!''' 19

On account of man's acknowledged finitude, with the prepon-
derant determinations of his self-hood, his self-will and sensuous
consciousness, and sublunary intelligence, and ignorant self-suffi-
ciency in the terrestial Genesis — on these accounts the common
tendency and disposition in the practical working of affairs and
interests of the world are to the sophistication and corruption of
the claims, and the witness, and the authority, and the presence
of Divinity in the institutions of society, and in the motions and
maintenance of its life.

Accordingly, the faculty of apprehending and loving the truth
— the available and indispensable element of human nature unto
its moral and redemptive purification — becomes weakened and
subordinated. And so the poorer nature which is in us is ever
disarming and distorting and adapting to its own limited concep-
tions and pusillanimities the higher and better thought of Divine
natures and Divine interests, and even the higher doctrines and
spirit of the God spell.

And hence it is that the nearer we approach, historically, the
sources of a faith, the Diviner and the more heroic are the age
and the manhood. Humanity in the terrestial Genesis gendereth
downward and outward spiritually, and the savage is the remnant
of exhausted systems of society. And, accordingly, the renewal of
the race is not from the fountain of a savage stock, but by means
of a new seed, a new dispensation from the heavens, a new seed
from the hand of the Sower falling into new and good ground,
whose generation is a new age — new in its forms of thought and
manners and sciences and arts. And this is the reason why we
cannot convert the savage races back to a constituency of a new
civilization. We cannot make a new man — a young man — out of
an old one.

In the processes of the social Genesis, therefore, the perpetual
tendencies towards immersion in the Kosmos, and oblivion to the
Logos, towards a science and a literature of abstract^ sensible cogni-
tions., with the loss of the sciences of intelligible and Divine na-
tures, gendereth individually and socially unto the outer dark-
ness, to the " wailing and gnashing of teeth," the grim despair
and the mere rattle of the dry bones of skeleton systems.

If it be a possible realization, it must be the reproach of a men-
tal age, when the current thought — thought exalted to the place of

20 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the had of the social life — shall have discarded the ideal as scien-
titically invalid, the ideal sphere^ the ideal forms, the immutable
part of the universe, pre-existing in logical order, and producing
matter, and the actual circles of the sense sphere — the celestial
Hyparxis — the substance and establishment of the historic faiths
and philosopliies of all the great ages, m this fatuous light and
witness, indicted, refuted, and discarded as phantasy! And the
inventory of this achievement of science and wisdom exultinglj
proclaimed to be the repudiation of all knowledge not exclusively
derived from the senses as cogTiition of sensibles — at its top and
best a mere abstract physical realism, and so only agnostic. And
80, verily, the despair of knowing — " the outer darkness and the-
gnashing of teeth."

Let us imagine — but, indeed, we are not left to the imagination
— we see the instance — a brawny, stalwart fellow, with his broad
back up against the lieavens, and his eyes and face and hands and
muckrake in abstract things, senously crying aloud: "Nowcon-
viTice me who can that / see anything else than these husks of
time and sense; and so where else is God than down there; and
what else is God than down there — natural law ? and what is thai
else than dead mathematical, chemical, mechanical fixture — a
fated Au^fatitig externality? Let us pray, and see whether that
will move him ! " My friend, rather let us tarry awhile at Jeri-
cho, till our beard shall grow.

The source and substance and sustenance of the soul is not
beheld in that outlook. It is not approximated in that cogni-
tion. The soul Cometh not hither from that bourne. Nature is-
the nature of somethinsr else than itself. It is the Nature of mind.
It is born (natus =: born). It is not a parentage of the soul.
Nature is related to man. Humanity is planted in Nature —
immured in the earth. Humanity is life conditioned tempo-
rally in the earth and in her physics. And when we pray, our
face and our eyes and our hands must be uplifted unto another
outlook — another source ; and in this contemplation Humanity
and Nature and Deity are distinguislied.

Whatsoever a man offers on the altar of his heart is the con-
fession of his devotions. And his offering is either of the fruits-
of the ground, or of the firstlings of the living creatures. He
will love and pursue as an end either that which is earthly, or

The Philosophy of Prayer and the '^Prayer Gauge.'''' 21

that which is heavenly. Every one who devotes himself goes to
that which he desires ; that which genders in the soul grows by
assimilating its kind — the lesser or the greater good alike, and
BO his prayers are answered.

"He that devoteth himself to the Devatas, goeth to the Deva-
tas, and he that devoteth himself to the Supreme Good, goeth to
the Supreme Good^'' says the Purana. " Whatsoever a man
fioweth that shall he also reap." " Men do not gather grapes of
thorns, nor tigs of thistles." Of the end he pursues in the ruling
love of his heart, man makes himself worthy, and this is his
Worthship (Worship), and this also is his prayer. In this Worth-
ship he deserves to know and to receive — whether of poverty and
dearth, or of life everlasting; whether of the false or of the true
Riclies.

And it may be fairly questioned, if, indeed, it be questionable,
whether our characteristic and boasted empirical corpuscularian
physico-real philosophizings have not too much engrossed the
public mind and the public interest, some portion of which it
might have usefully engaged ; and whether this speculative lead,
principal among conceiving causes, has not borne downward our
liigher faculties, even unto a fearful degree of debasement and
stupefaction : which down-grade must continue so long as the
public mind rests in the conviction that the measure of Truth and
Being is in sense, and in the experience of Animal Life. Yerily,
" if we be devoted to the Devatas, we shall go to the Devatas,
and if we be devoted to the Supreme Good, we shall go to the
Supreme Good.^''

Says the Yeda, " What the sun and light are to this visible
world, that, are the Supreme Good and Truth to the intellectual
and invisible world ; and as our corporeal eyes have a distinct
perception of objects enlightened by the sun, thus our souls ac-
quire certain knowledge by meditating on the light of Truth which
emanates from the Being of Beings : that is the light by which
alone our minds can he directed in the path to Beatitude."
Therefore, " Let us adore the supremacy of that Divine Sun — the
God-head who illuminates ^all, who recreates all, from whom all
proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our
Bouls aright in our progress toward His holy seat."

The soul instant in this meditation will behold this light; and

22 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

if it desire good gifts, this is tlie light of The Good ; and in tliis-
contemplation it will love this light, it will seek this light, it will
walk in this light, it will assimilate the influences of this light,
and it will g^row unto the likeness of the source of this lio-ht.
This desire and this contemplation are its Prayer, and this as-
similation and growth are the answer to its Prayer.

Wherefore, "Ask, and it shall he given you; seek, and ye
shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you : For every
one that asketh recciveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to
him that knocketh it shall be opened."

" Or, What man is there of you whom if his son ask bread
will he give him a stone ? Or, if he ask a fish, will he give hira a
serpent ?

" If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall 3'our Father which is in Heaven
give good things to them that ask Him ? "

" But without Faith it is impossible that thou be well-come, for
it is necessary that he that cometh to God must believe that He
is, and He becomes in them who diligently seek Him a bestower
of reward."

And again : "And this is the confidence tliat we have in Him,
that if we ask anything according to His Will, He heareth us;
And if we know that He hear us, whatever we ask, we know
that we have the petitions that we desired of Him."

The trust in this wisdom and efiicacy of this prayer of Faith
is declared in the idiom of the Greek, incidentally, in many and
such as the following instances :

Says Plato, " It is for you, then. Oh, TimsBus, to begin the dis-
course, having first of all invoked the gods, according to the usual
custom."

Timseus, "Well, Socrates, this at any rate is true — that those
who have even the least share of wisdom always invoke the Deity
on entering every undertaking, whether small or great ; and so
we, likewise, who are now about to speak concerning the Uni-
verse, whether it be generated or without generation, shall (if we
be not very unwise) make it our first duty to invoke the gods and
goddesses, and pray that what we speak may be first of all pleas-
ing to them, and also in consistence with ourselves. And a8>
respects the invocation of the gods, so have I acted for myselC"

The Philosophy of Prayer and the ^'■Prayer Gauged 23

And, again, we hear Socrates praying in private petition :
" Grant me to become beautiful in the inner man, and that what-
ever outward things I have may be at peace with those within.
May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion
of gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or employ."

And, again, " O Zeus, Fatlier, King ! give us good things,
whether we pray or pray not for them ; but withhold evil things
from us, though we should pray never so earnestly for them."

Soc. " Are you going, Alcibiades, to pray to the Deity ? "

Ale. " Just so, Socrates."

Soc. " You appear to have a serious look, and to be directing
yom* eyes to the ground, as if thinking upon something."

Ale. " Of what should a person be thinking, Socrates? "

Soc. " Of things, Alcibiades, of the greatest moment, as it seems
to myself, at least. . . . Does it not seem to you that there is much
need of forethought in order that a person may not unconsciously
pray for great evils for himself, while thinking he is praying for
good ; and, on the other hand, that the gods may not happen to
be in such a disposition as to grant whatever he happens to be
praying for ? . . . You see of our own fellow-citizens, of such as
longed for and obtained the command of an army, some are even
now exiles from the city ; and others have ended their lives. . . .
And with respect to children, you will find in the very same man-
ner how that some persons, after having prayed for them to be
born, have, when they are born, come into the greatest calami-
ties and sorrows. For some, whose children have been thoroughly
wicked, have passed the whole of their lives in sorrow; and some,
whose children were well behaved, have met with the misfortune
to be deprived of them, and have come into calamities in no re-
spect less than the others, and, like them, have wished rather that
their children had never been born." . . . " Nor would the major-
ity refrain from absolute power, if offered them, or the command
of an army, or many other things, which, when present, do more
harm than good ; but they would, on the contrary, pray for their
possession." . . . "And again, after waiting a little time, they
sometimes recant and pray the very reverse of what they prayed
before. I have, therefore, my doubts that men do in reality ac-
cuse the gods unjustly in saying that their evils come from them,

" Should the god, then, to whom you happen to be going, ap-

24 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

pear to you oven now, and ask yon, before yon had prayed for
anytliinp^ whatever, whether it wonld be sufficient for you if any
ot those t]iin2;3 tirst mentioned were given, or should he leave it
to yourself to make a request, how, think you, could you avail
yourself of the opportunity ? "

Ale. " Now, by the gods, Socrates, I should not know what to
say in such a case."

Sac. " The Lacedaemonians, therefore, having tliemselves con-
sidered the matter, put up on every occasion, in private and in
public^ a prayer, requesting tlie gods to grant them ever — ' Things
Good, and Things Honorable ; ' and no one has ever heard them
pray for anything more. Accordingly, up to the passing time,
they have been fortunate less than none others."

Man immersed in Nature — an alien realm, drawn by desire and
urged by ambition, and, for the most part, ignorant of the nature
of the soul and of its chief good, and of the fruits of all various
experiences — cannot previde and provide his own way ; he cannot,
therefore, ]>rudently and safely assume to know of himself what
particulars — what things do, and what things do not, make for
his good. But he may, and with profit, pray for things honorable
and good, leaving it for the Divine Wisdom to decide as to the
form of the gift. Wherefore the injunction, " Wlien ye pray, use
not vain repetitions as the heathen ; for they think tliat they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye, therefore, like unto
them ; for your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have
need of before ye ask him. After this manner, therefore, pray
ye." Instead of Things, let us ask for Godliness within the soul,
for unto this shall all good things be added.

Says Plato : " Some of the Greeks are wont — after placing by
the altar oxen with gilded horns, and others presenting the gods
witli offerings to be hung up in the temples — to pray for whatever
the}' happen to desire, whether it be good or evil. The gods,
therefore, on hearing their impious addresses, accept not their
costly ])rocessions and sacrifices ; so that there is much need of
caution and consideration as to wliat is to be spoken and not.
For the Divine Nature, I conceive, is not such as to be seduced
by presents, like a knavish judge. But we are giving a silly
reason if we think to get the better of the Lacedaemonians in
this way. For it would be a dreadful thing, indeed, if the gods

The Philosopliy of rraycr and the ^^ Prayer GuageP 25

looked to gifts and sacrifices, and not to the soul, whether the
person happen to be holy and just."

"Do yon remember, then, saying that you were much at a loss
lest you should unconsciously be praying for evil things, fancying
them to be good ? ... It seems to me, therefore, that it is best
to keep quiet. For through your high spirit — for that is the fair-
est of names for folly (that is, through pride and vanity) — I
think you would not be willing to make use of the Lacedaemonian
prayer." That is, you will fall into the fashion of the heathenish
mind of praying on the street-corners and' the house-tops, to be
seen and heard of men — making long, heathenish stump speeches
to be reported in the newspapers.

" It is necessary, therefore," says Socrates, in this case, when
pride and worldly vanity get into the place of prayer, " for a
man to wait until he has learned how he ought to conduct himself
towards gods and men."

Ale. " But when, Socrates, will that time be ? and who is he
that will instruct me? for I should be very glad, I think, to see
who he is."

SoG. " It is he of whose care you are the object. But it seems
to me, as Homer says of Minerva, that she removed the mist from
before the eyes of Diomede

' That he might clearly see both gods and men.'

So must he, in the first place, remove from your soul the mist that
now happens to be present there, and apply those things through
which you will be about to know both good and evil ; for now
you seem to be unable to do so."

Ale. "Let him, then, remove the mist, or anything else that he
pleases, as I am prepared not to fly from anything ordered by
him, whoever he may be, if I am about to become a better man."

Soc. " And he also has a very wonderful yearning in your he-
half"

Ale. " Till that time, then, it seems to me to be best to put off
my sacrifice."

Soc. " And rightly it seems so to you, for it is safer than to run
so great a risk."

" Tiiere is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty
giveth him understanding," and most and highest of all, the spirit

26 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and wisdom of prayer descendeth from above ; and so the Apostle

Paul — ''Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : For we

know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit

itself maketh intercession for us with yearning that cannot be

uttered."

" The Lord is in his holy Temple

In the pure and holy mind,

In the reverent heart and simple,

In the soul from sense refined."

The mists of sense and ambition, and pride and vanity, "must
be dissipated ere the soul may stand in this Divine realization ;
and for this office, both in the Greek and Christian Idiom, there
Btandeth One who makcth this intercession for us with yearnings
unutterable; and without this, man "knoweth not what he should
pray for as he ought."

Now, the most noxious of these mists are the low forms of
knowing. One has wisely said of this cause of Mephitis in the
soul, that, " To acquire knowledge merely to know is low curi-
osity. To acquire knowledge merely to be known as knowing is
low vanity. To acquire knowledge merely to profit by it is low
venality. To acquire knowledge in order to build up is charity.
To acquire knowledge in order to be built up is wisdom. And
onlv the two latter do not pervert knowledge and corrupt the
soul."

Loio curiosity and low vanity and low venality assail society
and the individual alike ; and it is a great public calamity when
a nation and a generation of people have grown wise above their
own oracles. The Institutions of Religious Custom are deter-
mined from Super-Natural Influence^ and are Divine Forms
adapted to the wants of their age such as man could not previde
nor provide. They include, as the primary aims, the doctrines of
life and death, affording suggestion and instruction unto true opin-
ion and belief respecting the Living and the Dead.

The Divine Mediatorship is a universal. Neither the origin
nor the subsistence of the order of human souls, in the alien order
of Physics and Matter, is effected without this Divine Providence.
And the uplifting and salvation of Human nature, individually
and collectively, proceeds from the Influence from that higher
Nature which is introduced into it from above.

The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 2T

The Mediatorship is the Link which binds humanity with
Divinity, from which humanity mnst be perpetually begotten
and quickened and sustained and born again unto Eternal Life.
And thus the Christ, the Lord of the dispensation, as Mediator,
is the Living Way. He does not represent Mediatorship. He is
Mediator. And tliis is "the Door." This is "the Way, the
Truth, and the Life." Here must we enter ; from hence must
our prayer ascend. He that is purified from selfish and vain-
glorious ambitions and pride, and dishonorable debasements of
sensuality, and loves truth and virtue and holiness and justice
and wisdom, has found the " Prayer Gauge."

"For if a man love Me, he will keep my words ; and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode
with him." And, " Yerily, verily, I say unto you. Whatsoever
ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." From
this fountain descendeth every good and every perfect gift. And,
"A man can receive nothing except it be given him from Heaven."
And thither must our prayer ascend ; and so, and only so, the
"prayer of the righteous availeth much." And so has Plato well
said : " This at any rate is true — that those who have even the
least share of wisdom always invoke the Deity on entering every
undertaking, whether small or great."

THE PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY- AT THE PRESEJ^T

TIME.'

BY EDWARD CAIRD.

In complying with the request which you have done me the
honor to make, to deliver the introductory address to this Society,
I think that, instead of treating of any special philosophical sub-
ject, it will be more profitable to make some general remarks on
the nature and objects of the study to which the Society is de-
voted. I propose, therefore, to say something as to the general

' An introductory address delivered to the Philosophical Society of the University
of EdinburKh.

S8 The Journal of Sjpeculatwe Philosophy.

problem of philosophy, and the special forms which that problem
Las taken in recent times. In doing so, it will not be possible for
me to avoid an appearance of dogmatism, as I must make some
assertions which are much disputed, the objections to which I
shall not have time to discuss. But, instead of interpolating weak-
ening phrases, such as " it humbly appears to me," and the like, I
venture simply to make this apology once for all, and to ask you to
adopt, for the time, a point of view which may not be your own.
Afterwards you can avenge yourselves for this temporary submis-
sion by subjecting my words to what criticism you think fit. A
philosophic temper is shown, above all things, in the power of en-
tering into the views of another, and taking them for the moment
almost as if they were your own, without prejudice to the subse-
quent critical reaction, which will be effective just in proportion
to the degree of your previous sympathetic appreciation of the
ideas criticised.

What, then, is the task of philosophy ? What is its task in gen-
eral, and how is that task modified by the circumstances of the
present time ? To the first of these questions, I answer that, stated
in very general terms, the task of philosophy is to gain, or rather
perhaps to regain, such a view of things as shall reconcile us to the
world and to ourselves. The need for philosophy arises out of the
broken harmony of a spiritual life, the different elements or fac-
tors of which seem to be set in irreconcilable opposition to each
other ; in which, for example, the religious consciousness, the con-
sciousness of the infinite, is at war with the secular consciousness,
the consciousness of the finite; or, again, the consciousness of the
self, with the consciousness of the external world. It is easy to
see this, if we reflect on the nature of the controversies wliich most
trouble us at present. They all, directly or indirectly, turn upon
the diflBculty of reconciling the three great terms of thought — the
w^orld, self, and God: the ditficulty of carrying out to their legiti-
mate consequences what seem to be our most firmly based convic-
tions as to any one of these factors in our intellectual life, without
rejecting in whole or in part the claims of the others. Thus, forex-
aniple, many writers in the present time find it impossible to ad-
mit the truth and solidity of the principles and methods of physi-
cal science in relation to the material world without extending
their application beyond that world. Yot, if we make this exten-

The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 29

sion, and treat these methods and principles as universal, we in-
evitably reduce consciousness, thought, and will, to the level of
physical phenomena, and make even their existence an insoluble
problem. 'Others, again, find it difficult to assert the truth, that
the consciousness of self enters into all our experience, without
reducing that experience to a series of states of the individual souL
And others, like Mr. Spencer and Professor Huxley, poised be-
tween these two conflicting currents of thought, have adopted the
odd, and we might even say irrational, expedient of telling us that
we may regard the world either as a collection of the phenomena
of mind, or as a collection of the phenomena of matter, but that
we can never bring these two ways of looking at things together —
a view which supposes man to be afflicted with a kind of intellec-
tual strabismus, so that he can never see with one of his mental
eyes without shutting the other. Again, looking beyond this con-
flict of materialism and subjective idealism, the intellectual unity
of our life is disturbed by the opposition of the consciousness of
the infinite to the consciousness of the tinite. To many of our sci-
entific men it seems axiomatic that all our real knowledge is of that
which belongs to the context of a finite experience, and that all
religious and metaphysical efforts to reach beyond the finite are
attempts to think the unknown and unknowable. Yet such men
often feel strongly the need, and, from their point of view, the
extreme difficulty, of finding anything to give to the moral life of
man that support which was once found in the belief that these
dreams are realities. On the other hand, there are not a few men
in our day — like the hero of that remarkable little book called
"Mark Kutherford " — men whose very life is in religious ideas,
yet who have imbibed from the literature of the time a conviction
that such ideas must be illusory, and who therefore dwell, as it
were, in a world of eclipse and paralysis, neither able to find a
faith nor to do without one, sitting

" by the broken springs of life,
Waitincr for the morrow that shall free them from the strife."

Now, it is impossible, so long as our ultimate thought of the
world is thus in discord with itself, that our lives can be what hu-
man lives have sometimes been — impossible that we can rise to
that energy of undivided will and affection, that free play of con-

oO The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

centrated intelliiience, that sense of tlie infinite resources of the
spirit thiit moves us, out of whicli the highest achievements of men
at all times have sprung. Nor, after the unity of our first instinct-
ive faith has been broken by difiiculties such as those I have men
tioned, is it possible entirely to recover it, except by some kind-
of philosophical reflection. Bacon said that in the last period of
ancient civilization philosophy took the place of religion, and the
same is to some extent true now. In face of the modern spirit of
criticism, it is rarely possible for educated men, and for students
of philosophy impossible, to rest for the entire support of their
spiritual life upon the simple intuitions of faith. For them the
age of unconsciousness is past, and they must call in the aid of
reflection, if it were only to heal the wounds of reflection itself.
As the buildei's of the second Temple had to work with arms by
their side, so, in our day, those who seek either to maintain, or to
replace, the old Christian synthesis of life, must provide themselves
with the weapons of philosophy. It is not of our own choice that
we have been born in an age of criticism ; but, being here, and
being by our education brought face to face with all the prevalent
currents of thought, we have only two alternatives before us : we
must face our difficulties, or we must suppress them. To suppress
them — we see often enough what kind of mor^l temper comes of
that — the fevered fanatical spirit that founds its faith on the im-
possibility of knowing anything, and determines to believe, be-
cause it dare not do otherwise. Yet, if we are not content with
such faith, Ave must seek the reconciliation of the contradictory
elements of our consciousness in some new reflective synthesis ; in
other words, in philosophy.

The task of philosophy, then, I repeat, is to rise to such a gen-
eral view of things as shall reconcile us, or enable us to reconcile
ourselves, to the world and to ourselves. This vague statement,
however, might easily be admitted by many who will be startled
and repelled when we draw out its meaning. For it means no
less than this, that philosophy, by the very condition of its life, is
forced to attempt what Comtists have called an "objective," or
wliat perhaps might more properly be termed an "absolute" syn-
thesis. It is true that many philosophers, and even great philoso-
phers, have tried to evade this nocfssity, and to narrow the prob-
lem of iihilosophy within limits which made its solution seem

The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 31

easier. Especially in times of transition, when social bonds have
become relaxed, and religious faith has been weakened or de-
stroyed, philosophy also has generally lowered its claims, and has
been content to abandon the great world to chaos, if only it conld
secure some little cosmos of its own. To these causes of diffi-
dence in philosophy others in recent times have been added ; for
our very widening knowledge of the universe has thrown a shadow
of suspicion upon tlie attempt to measure it, and has inclined us
to narrow our views to a solution of the problem of human life,
and to disconnect it from the problem of the unity of all things.
Can we not, it is natural to ask, find a meaning in our own lives
without spelling out the secret of the universe? Can we not
build our fragile houses of mortality on something less than an
eternal foundation ? With the growth of our knowledge grows
also the consciousness of our ignorance, and more and more the
latter seems to reduce the former into something merely relative
and transitional. Looking out upon the wide sea of knowledge,
with some measure of appreciation of its extent, it seemed but
reasonable for one like Comte to say that an "objective synthe-
sis," a systematic view of the world as a whole, was beyond the
reach of man ; and that, if his life was to be brought into harmo-
ny with itself on a basis of knowledge, he must content himself
with a " subjective synthesis," a synthesis which leaves out all
speculation in relation to the greater whole of the universe, and
attempts only to gather knowledge to a focus in the interests of
man. In taking up this position, Comte, it has been urged by his
followers, showed a true insight into our needs as rational beings,
who must desire to bring our lives into harmony and unity with
themselves, and to found that harmony and unity upon an intelli-
gent view of the facts of our condition ; and he showed at the
same time an intelligent appreciation of the limits which are set
around us as finite creatures, standing in the face of a universe,
the ultimate meaning of which is hidden from us by the weakness
of our mental capacity and the narrowness of our opportunities.
Comte's view of things is thus based upon two incontrovertible
facts — the limitation of man's powers, and the imperative wants
of his moral being. The old aspiring religious and philosophical
synthesis, he argues, has been discredited forever by our knowl-
edge of the immensity of the universe and of our own feebleness.

32 The Journal of Specxilative Philosophy.

It is inipossiblo! for the creature of a day to see tbinojs suh specie
ceU'rnitalis^ for a finite mind to carry back the infinity of the uni-
verse to its central principle, to view it as a harmonious system,
anil, like a god, to pronounce it " very good." But yet there re-
mains the inextinguishable requirement of a rational and moral
nature to rise above chance impulses and energies and to find
some one guiding principle of thought and action which shall make
his life harmonious with itself. And this principle, since we can-
not find it in an Absolute, whom we do not know, we must find in
man — man individual, or man social — whom we do know. Re-
nouncing, therefore, all questions as to the system of the universe,
even the question whether it is a system, we can still draw hack
upon oui'selves and find and produce system and harmony in our
own lives. Or, if this is impossible for us as regards the frag-
mentary existence of the individual, we may yet detect in the his-
tor}' of the human race a tendency towards unity and organization
to which all the great and good of the past have contributed, and
we may give value and completeness to our individual lives by
making them the instruments of this "increasing purpose."

The question which Comte thus brings home to us is, as I have
already indicated, not a new one. It is the question whether it is
possible to have a religion — i. e.^ " a free convergence of all man's
affections and energies " to one object — without a God ; and a phi-
losophy — i. e., a syntliesis or gathering to one focus of all knowl-
edge — without an Absolute.' Aud this is a question that has been
raised more or less distinctly in every era of transition, when the
" native hue " of human resolution has been "sicklied o'er with a
pale cast of thought," and when men have been fain to gather up
the fragments that remained in the shipwreck of their greater
faiths and hopes. The individualism of the stoics, epicureans,
and sceptics, for example, corresponding as it did with the decay
of ancient religion and social morality, was in great measure a
result of such a temper of mind. As men gave up the hope of
organizing their own social relations, and of understanding the
world as an intelligible order, they fell back upon the idea of an
inner life, which might maintain harmony with itself in the face

' Cf. Tlu Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrine, by J. H. Bridges. London : Triibner
& Co., 1866.

The Problem of PJiilosophy at the Present Time. 33

even of* an outward chaos. Philosophy, it began to be said, is
needed, not to penetrate into the secret of tlie world, which is im-
penetrable, but to teach us our limits and to make us content with
tliem. Tecum habita et noris quam sit tihi curta supellex. Yet
that curta supellex is enough ; the peace of inward unity may be
attained, even if we know nothing and can do nothing in the
world without. Sure cf nothing else, the individual may be sure
of himself, and, in the strength of a mind centred and at rest in
itself, may ceas3 to concern himself with things that can only
touch the outward life.

Sifractus illahatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinoe.

Now, I need not dwell on the self-contradiction of this extreme
of " subjective " synthesis, in which all that is without h aban-
doned to chaos or uncertainty, in order that the integrity of the
inner life may be preserved. It is a commonplace of philosophy
that we cannot thus withdraw into ourselves and leave the world
to wander its own wise or unwise way, inasmuch as the two terms
thus separated by abstraction are essentially united, and our ex-
perience of the world is our experience of ourselves. The life of
reason or consciousness is essentially a life that goes bevond itself,
and in which the inward cannot be absolutely fenced off from the
outward without itself ceasing to have any meaning or content.
It is a life of knowledge, in which we can know ourselves only as
we know the universe of which, as individuals, we form a part.
It is a life of action, in which we can realize ourselves only by
becoming the servants of an end which is being realized in the
world. Concentrate consciousness entirely upon itself, and its un-
reflected light will cease to shine. The world without and the
World within are not two separate worlds, but necessary counter-
parts of each other ; and, just in the extent to which we succeed
in withdra A'ing from the world without, we narrow the wurld
within. The attitude, therefore, of the stoic or sceptic who turns
away from a world which he surrenders to chaos and unreason, or
in which, at least, he gives up the hope of seeing or producing any
rational order, and who seeks thus to find all truth and happiness
within, is essentially irrational. He is striving to realize in isola-
tion a life whose essential characteristic is community. He is
XYI— 3

34 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

seekino; to save the life of the seed, which must be cast into the
groniid and die, that it may live, by keeping it shut up from all
external intlncnees. For the Christian law of self-sacrifice, " he
that woiild save his life must lose it," is nothing more than the
transcription into terms of morality of that which is the general
law of spiritual life — a life whose riches are always for the indi-
vidual exactly measured by the extent to which he breaks down
the limits of a self centred individuality, to find himself again in
lai^r existence of the whole.

But if this be the case, and if it is impossible to solve the
problem of the inner life without solving the apparently wider
problem of the outer life, or to base on a purely subjective syn-
thesis a reconciliation of the spirit with itself, such as was for-
merly based on the objective synthesis of religion or philoso-
phy, equally impossible is it to draw any other absolute line of
division, such, for example, as that between the life of the na-
tion and the life of humanity, or, again, between the life of hu-
manity and the course of nature. In every similar division we
are separating elements so correlated that the meaning of each
one of them begins to evaporate so soon as we realize what we
have done in separating it from the rest. To make such an ab-
straction must introduce a fatal discord between the practical life
of man and the facts upon which we pretend to base it. And,
indeed, as I think can be shown in the case of Comte, such an
attempt involves the self-deception of treating that as absolute
and divine which we at the same time admit to be uncertain and
transitory.' How, for example, can we make a God out of hu-
manity if we think of mankind as a race of beings which is not
really organic, but in which there is only a general tendency to
organization — a tendency which again is subjected to an immeas-
urable external contingency. Comte's attempt to escape the
great difticulties which confessedly beset an optimistic creed — the
creed -that in some way all things work together for good — by
thus falling back from the assertion of system in the universe to
the assertion of system only in the life of man, like most com-

• I have attempted to show this in a series of articles on " The Social Philosophy
and Religion of Comte," which appeared in the Contemporary Review m May, June,
July, and September, 18V9. _^ ^

The Prohlem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 35

promises, unites all the difficulties of both extremes it would
avoid ; the difficulties of an absolute philosophy which seems to
go bej'ond the limits of human knowledge, and the difficulties ol
a scepticism which leaves the moral and intellectual life of man
without a principle of unity. The Stoic or Sceptic who bids us
concentrate ourselves on our own soul, and the Positivist, who
bids us worship humanity, are equally bidding us treat a part,
which we can know and understand only as a part, as if it were
the whole. They are attempting to break in one place only the
indivisible unity of the intelligence and the intelligible world ; but
if that unity be broken in one place it is wholly destroyed. Fal-
sus in uno, falsus in omnibus. For it is a unity which is not
like a particular hypothesis, that may be asserted or denied with-
out detriment to the rest of our knowledge, but it is the hypothe-
sis, if we may so call it, which is implied in all knowledge what-
ever, the hypothesis which constitutes our rational being. Hence
Kant showed a true sense of the conditions of philosophical
synthesis when he said that, if it could be shown that there was
one metaphysical problem with which his Critique of Pure
Reason was incompetent to deal, it must be regarded as an entire
failure. If philosophy is incapable of a universal synthesis, it
cannot make any synthesis at all. If it admit any absolute divi-
sion, whether between the ego and the non-ego, or between man
and nature, or even between the finite and the infinite, it is driven
of necessity into scepticism. Unless it reconciles us with the
universe, it cannot even reconcile us with ourselves. The present
is a time in which there are many voices to echo the well-known
saying of Pope —

" Know well thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man ; "

but the simple, yet demonstrable, answer to such partial Agnosti-
cism is, that, if we cannot, in the sense I have indicated, know
God, we cannot know anything.

But if this be so, if we cannot give up the idea of a universal
synthesis without practically giving up philosophy altogether, we
must not hide from ourselves the enormous difficulties with which
philosophy has to contend — difficulties which seem to grow every
day with our increasing knowledge of man and of the world in

36 The Journal of Speculative Philosophij.

which he lives. For all this knowledge seems to be making wider
and wider the division between the individual and the universal,
between short-sighted, changeable creatures such as men seem to
be, and the all-embracing whole. These difficulties, however,
though they by no means disappear, yet somewhat change their
character, when we consider that the work of philosophy is not in
the lirst instance constructive, but rather critical and reconstruc-
tive; that its business is not to seek for something transcendent,
some hypothesis as to things hitherto unknown and alien to our
experience, but rather to bring to light the hypothesis, if we
choo?e to call it so, on which o:ir rational being is founded. Phi-
losophy must necessarily seem to be something extravagant and
wildly ambitious to any one who does not discern that the })rob-
lem it would solve is not one which aibitrarily, or as a matter
merely of curiosity, we choose to solve, but one which we have in
some way been solving, (vc of which we have been presupposing
tlie solution, at every moment of our lives. To rise from the
finite to the intinitc were impossible unless the consciousness of
the infinite were already involved in the consciousness of the finite,
and developed along with it. Philosophy is not a tirst venture
into a new field o^ thouo;ht, but a re thinkins^ of a secular and
religious consciousness which has been developed, in the main,
independently of philosophy. It was the great w^ork of Kant to
show that experience itself io {jossible only tii rough the necessity'
and universality of thought. But in thus proving the relativity
of the finite objects of experience to the intelligence (which is not
itself such an object), he really showed — though without himself
being fully conscious of it, and almost, we might say, against his
will — that we cannot admit the validity of the empirical con-
sciousness without adu)itting the validity of the consciousness of
that which, in ti)e narrower sense of the word, is beyond experi-
ence. Hence, to one who follows out the Kantian principles to
their legitimate result, it becomes impossible to treat the objective
synthesis of religion as the illusion of a finite mir.d trying to
Btretcii itself beyond its proper limits. Tlie religious takes its
place beside the secular consciousness — the consciousness of the
infinite beside the ccnsciousne-s of the finite world — as the con-
sciousness of a real object, or rather of the ultimate reality upon
which everything else rests. And philosophy, in dealing with

The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 37

one as with the other, is discharged from the absurd and impossi-
ble feat of finding its way into a transcendent region beyond all
consciousness and experience. In botli cases, in relation to the
infinite as in relation to the finite world, the work of philosophy
goes be_yond the primary unreflected consciousness of man, only
in this aspect, that it brings that consciousness to a deeper under-
standing of itself. In both we have a right to begin our task
of criticism and reconstruction with a faith in the great work
achieved in and by the spirit of man in the past; and we ought
to begin it with the consciousness that our criticism and recon-
struction can have value only as a continuation of that work.
Por it is this consciousness that alone can juctitiably raise us above
the feeling of our own weakness for the task which is laid upon
philosophy in our time, and can save us from the intruding sus-
picion that in his religions and his philosophies man has been
perpetually renewing the history of Babel — attempting to build a
tower that shall reach to heaven, only to find the work again and
again stopped by the confusion of languages among the builders.
If, therefore, philosophy may be described as a critical reconstruc-
tion of belief, we must recollect that this reconstruction, from a
higher point of view, is merely development; or, to put it more
simply, we must remember that, in philosophy as in other things,
the hope of mankind for the future must be a vain illusion, unless
it can reasonably be based on a deep reverence for the past.

In the "Faust" of Goethe, the poet who of all others has most
deeply fathomed and expressed the conflict of the modern spirit
with itself — though it may perhaps be said that, like a physician
strong in diagnosis but not in therapeutics, he often stops at the
description of the disease, and fisds his own poetic deliverance
from it simply in thus describing it ' — we find some words that
may be applied to the work of philosophy. When Faust utters
all his despair of life in that comprehensive curse in which he dis-

1 " Physician of the iron age,

Goethe has done his pilgrimage.

He took the KuflFering human race,

He read each wound, each weakness clear,

And struck his finger on the place.

And said : Thou ailest here, and here ! "

Arnold's Poems, vol. ii, p. 223.

38 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

owns cverv faith, and even every illusion that has hitherto sup-
ported mankind, the chorus of spirits breaks in with a song, in
which lament over what has been lost is mingled with a far-off
hint of the only possible restoration —

" Woe, woe, thou hast destroyed it,
The beautiful world,
With mighty blow ;
It trembles, it falls to ruins.
A Demigod hath broken it down.
We bear awav the ruins into nothino-ness,
And lament over the lost beauty."

And then the sonsj woes on —

" Mighty One
Of the sons of earth,
AVith greater majesty
Build it up.

In thine own soul build it up again ;
A new course of life
Begin,

With fresh unclouded sense.
And let new songs rise
In place of those that are silenced."

" In thine own soul build it up again " — this is the ever-repeated
call to philosophy at all times, such as the present, when the first
unity of faith and reason is disturbed. But the task has become^
if in some respects a harder, yet in other respects a more hopeful
one in modern times. That this is so may be shown by a short
comparison of the form in which the problem presented itself to
Plato and Aristotle with the form in wdiich it presents itself to
US. In Plato's " Republic " we find an attempt to " build up again
in the soul" of the philosopher the falling edifice of Greek civili-
zation, to restore its religious and political life, by going back to-
the ideal principle on which it rested. But the difficulty of such
restoration lay in this, that the first intuitive synthesis of Greece
■was a synthesis of the imagination, in which that which was essen-
tially limited and national was treated as unlimited and univei*sal.
Greek morality did not look beyond the boundary of the nation,
seldom even beyond the boundary of the civic state. Greek re-

The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 39

ligion, as it was an apotheosis of the special gifts of the Greek
genius, was in some measure a consecration of the national spirit
of exclusion. Hence, neither religion nor morality could offer an
effective resistance to the disintegrating power of reflection. As
it was the poetic imagination mainly which had peopled Oljrapus
with the fair humanities of the gods, the power of Greek religion
disappeared almost as soon as the people became capable of dis-
tinguishing poetry from prose. And, as, in the ethical life of the
Greek state, the local and temporal was rather confused than
reconciled with that wliich is universal, it fell an easy prey to the
casuistry of the Sophists. On the other hand, the scepticism of
the Sophists remained superficial and rhetorical, just because it
found so little power of resistance in the institutions which it at-
tacked. When, therefore, philosophy in Plato and Aristotle set
itself to the task of reconstructing the synthesis upon which the
moral and intellectual life of Greece was founded, and restoring
the broken harmonv of faith and reason, its reconciliation was
necessarily imperfect, because of the imperfection of the positive
and negative elements which it sought to reconcile. It tried to
combine the freedom of thought which had shown itself in the
Sophistic movement with the substantial contents of Greek life,
morality, and religion, which Sophistry had rejected. But the
freedom and universality of thought were in essential conflict with
the limited character of the contents ; and even to Plato himself a
merely imaginative religion could not be more than a " noble lie,"
i. d., a truth veiled under an inadequate sensuous form. The ele-
ment of philosophy in which the reconciliation was attempted
was itself fatal to the reconciliation aimed at. Hence, already in
Plato we find the beginning of that withdrawal into the inner life
from an unideal world, which was carried out in subsequent phi-
losophy, and which of necessity ended in the self-contradiction of
scepticism.

The modern movement from faith to reason bears a striking
analogv to the movement of ancient thought. Yet there are im-
portant differences, which make the struggle of tendencies in
modern times harder -and more obstinate, but which also for that
very reason enable us to anticipate a more satisfactory result.
Here, too, we have a system of religion apprehended by the in-
tuitive consciousness of faith, and manifesting itself in definite

40 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

forms of intellectual and social lite. Here, too, we have the spirit
of reflection after a time awaking and subjscting the whole re-
Hirious system, as well as all the institutions founded upon it, to a
searching, and often a destructive criticism. And here, too, we
find philosophy attempting to restore the broken harmony of
man's consciousness of himself and of the world by separating
the permanent from the transitory elements of his earlier faith.
But beneath this general similarity of development there are
many points of contrast — which we may roughly sum up by say-
ing that the first synthesis of Christendom took the form of
a religion which was not national, but universal, and that the
negative movement against it has been not merely analytic and
sophistic, but also scientific, and, therefore, within certain limits,
constructive. Hence, also, just because of the deeper spiritual
meaning and fuller development of the two seemingly opposed
powers that divide our life, we have some reason to think that it
may be possible to combine what is good in both, and to attain to
a philosophical synthesis, which may be not merely provisional,
but of permanent value for mankind. Let me say a few more
words on each of these points.

The religion of Greece was, as I have said, national, not uni-
versal, and for that very reason it was essentially a religion of the
artistic imagination ; for it is the imagination which lifts the part
into a whole, and makes a particular into a substitute for the uni-
versal. It has been called an anthropomorphic religion ; but, as
Hegel has remarked, in the higher sense it was not anthropmor-
phic enough — it lifted some human qualities into the divine, but
not humanity itself as such. Its gods were ideal figures, human-
ized, rather than liuman — fixed like statues in the eternal repose
of beauty, and lifted above all the narrowing conditions of human
life. Christianity, on the other hand, brought down the divine
into the form of an individual life lived under those conditions,
struggling v/ith the wants and pains of mortality and the opposi-
tion of fellow-mortals, and undergoing and accepting the common
lot of renunciation, sorrow, and death. It thus idealized, not
choice specimens of intelligence and valor, but humanity itself, in
its simplest and humblest form of life. It taught the world not
to regard the ideal as something which a few elect spirits might
reach, by escaping from the commonplace of existence, but to

Tiie Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 41

find it in the commonplace itself ; to make the limits of mortal-
ity the means of i'reedom, and to turn pain, death, and even evil,
into forms of the manifestation of good. Now, this optimism on
the very basis of pessimism, whose Christ has " descended into hell,"
this idealization of ordinary reality as it stands without selection
or change, just because it was this, was no religion of phantasy,
of art, of the poetic imagination merely. It did not flinch from
the facts of life, however dark and threatening, or seek to turn its
eyes to some earthly paradise lifted above the clouds and the
winds. Art in it was secondary, not primary ; in its poetry truth
was burstino; throns-h the sensuous veih And from this it neces-
sarily follows that it is not a dream that vanishes with a waking
of the prosaic consciousness in either of its shapes, either as the
distinct common-sense apprehension of fact, or as the reflective
analysis of thought. Whatever changes of form, therefore, it has
been and may yet be subjected to (and I do not say that these
will be small), the Christian view of the world in its essence
is based upon such a simple acknowledgment of the truth and
reality of things, that it need not fear overthrow, either from our
widening knowledge of the facts of life, or from the deeper self-
consciousness to which reflection is gradually bringing us. In
the midst even of apparent rejection its ideals have maintained
and increased their hold over the emancipated intelligence of
Europe, and its fundamental conception of life penetrates and
moulds the social and religious speculations of those who, like
Comte, seem to have most thoroughly renounced it.

On the other hand, if the first intuitional basis of modern life
is thus strong in itsslf, strong, too, it must be acknowledged, are
the powers that assail it. The sophistic culture that undermined
the old beliefs of Greece, and the morality founded upon them,
was but a feeble solvent, compared with the disintegrating force
of negative reflection and scientific criticism to which our faiths
are subjected. The boldness of the ancient sceptic was chilled by
a sense of the weakness of his own position. He might set the
human against the divine, the individual against the State, the
finite and relative against the infinite and absolute ; but he was
paralyzed by the negative character of his own teaching, by the
consciousness that his emancipation of the intellect was a process
whereby it was emptied of all contents, and that his liberation of

42 The Journal of Speculati've Philosophy.

the individual from limited social bonds could lead to nothins;
better than anarchy. In modern times, on the other hand, it has
ceased to be so. The world of finite interests and objects has
rounded itself, as it were, into a separate whole, within which the
mind of man can fortify itself, and live securus adversus decs, in
independence of the infinite. In the sphere of thought^ there has
been forming itself an ever-increasing body of science, which,
tracing out the relation of finite things to finite things, never
finds it necessary to seek for a beginning or an end to its infinite
series of phenomena, and which meets the claims of theology with
the saying of the astronomer, " I do not need that hypothesis."
In the sphere of action^ again, the complexity of modern life pre-
sents a thousand isolated interests, crossing each other in ways too
subtle to trace out — interests commercial, social, and political — in
pursuing one or otber of which the individual may find ample
occupation for his existence, without ever feeling the need of any
return upon himself, or seeing any reason to ask himself v/hether
this endless striving has any meaning or object beyond itself.
Nor need we wonder that the prevailing school of philosophy is
one which renounces all such questions as vain, and bids us be
content to know that we know nothing. The very wealth of
modern life and science, both because it makes the ultimate syn-
thesis more difficult, and because it supplies us with such a fulness
of interests independent of that synthesis, tends to drive us back
to the old, simple Agnostic philosophy of the Persian poet, Omar
Khayyam :

" Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and sage, and heard great argument
About it and about, but evermore
Came out by the same door that in I went.

" With them the seed of wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow ;
And this was all the harvest that I reaped ;
I came like water, and like wind I go.

" There was a door to which I found no key,
There was a veil through which I could not see.
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was : and then no more of Thee and Me."

The Problem of Philosophy at the Present Time. 43

The Agnosticism and Secularism of these latter days, however,
has a far deeper meaning than that which we can attribute to the
verses of Omar Khayyam, or to any similar phase of opinion in
past time. It is like in expression — as, indeed, in the first aspect
of them, all negations seem to be much alike. But just as the
ordinary commonplaces about the sorrows and trials of life have a
greater significance when they fall from the lips of age and experi-
ence than when they are merely the utterance of the first dawn-
ing thoughtfulness of youth, so our modern Agnosticism implies
a deeper consciousness of the problem of human existence than
could possibly have been obtained by Omar Kiiayyam. For it is
based, not on a mere Epicurean concentration upon the individual
life, nor on the materialism of passion, but on our knowledge of
the greatness of the universe, and on the complexity of finite inter-
ests, both practical and scientific, which seem to stand on their
own merits, and to need no reference to anything higher, in order
to recommend them as sufficient objects of our lives.

A consideration of these two main elements of modern thought
enables us to understand why the straggle of positive and negative
tendencies — of the consciousness of the infinite with the conscious-
ness of the finite, of the religious with the secular spirit — should
be so much more violent and protracted than the analogous con-
flict in earlier times. A religion which is universal and not merely-
imaginative, and a reflection which is scientific and not merely
analytic or destructive, are each of them charged with interests
vital to man ; and, so long as they are opposed as enemies, they
are necessarily involved in a contest which is incapable of being
decided by any final victory on one side or the other. Man, as he
has an understanding, cannot but acknowledge the facts of his
finite life, and, in view of them, he must sooner or later withdraw
his allegiance from every ideal that does not prove itself to be
real, and renounce every belief which is found inconsistent with
the laws of thought or the nature of experience. Yet, on the other
hand, as he is a self-conscious being, who knows the world in rela-
tion to the self, and who, therefore, cannot but realize more or less
distinctly the unity of all things and of the mind that knows them,
he must equally reject any attempt to confine him to tlie finite
world. Nor, however he may seek, in accordance with imperfect
theories of knowledge, to limit himself to that world, can he ever

44: The Joui'nal of Speculative Philoso^^hy.

really succeed in confinino; Lis thoughts within it. All our knowl-
cdtre of the things of time is, so to speak, on a background of
eternity itself. Ti)c scientific impulse itself presupposes the pres-
ence in our minds of an idea of truth as the ultimate unity of being
and knowing, which in all our inquiries into the laws of the uni-
verse we can only develop and verify. For it is just because we
are obscurely conscious, even from the beginning of this unity,
that we regard every apparent discord of things with each other
as a mystery and a problem, and so are continually seeking law
and unity — in other words, seeking thought, in things, with the
confidence that ultimately it must be found there. In like man-
ner the practical itn])uls9, whenever it goes beyond, as in every
conscious being it must somewhat go beyond, a craving for the
satisfaction of immediate sensuous wants, implies the presence in
our minds of an idea of absolute good, which is at once the realiza-
tion of the self and of a divine purpose in the world. What, in-
deed, could we possibly hope from our feeble efforts after a good,
which is only gradually defining itself before us as we advance, if
we did not believe that they unite themselves with the great stream
of tendency which is independent of us? How could we think. to
attain our "being's end and aim" if we did not regard it ulti-
mately identical with the "divine event to which the whole crea-
tion moves ? " Hence a sober philosophy, admitting to the full all
that can be said by the Agnostic about the feebleness of the pow-
ers of men as individuals, and the greatness of the universe, can
3'et reject the Agnostic conclusion from these premises, and can
maintain that an absolute or objective synthesis is no mere dream
of the childhood of the human race, when the distinction between
the possible and the impossible had not yet been made, but rather
that it is a task forced upon us by our rational nature, and which,
as rational bcings,we cannot but attempt, with more or less distinct-
ness of consciousness, to fulfil. All thought and action, all moral
and intellectual life, presupposes in us the jDower of looking at
things, not from the point of view of our own individuality, but
in ord'me ad universum ; and whatever presumption there is in
the idea of a universal synthesis is already involved in our exist-
ence as rational or self-conscious beings. Philosophy may, there-
fore, begin its work by a vindication of the religious consciousness
— the consciousness of the infinite — as presupposed in that very

The Problem of Philosoj^hy at the Present Time. 45

consciousness of the finite which at present often claims to ex-
clude it altogether, or to reduce it to an empty apotheosis of the
unknown and unknowable. And having thus taught us to regard
the consciousness of the infinite as no mere illusion, but as the
consciousness of a real object, an Absolute, a God, who has been
revealing himself in and to man in all ages, philosophy must go
on to consider the history of religion, and indeed the whole history
of man as founded on religion, as the progressive development of
this consciousness. Nor can it fail to discover that the idea on
which the higher life of man is founded — the idea of the unity of
man as spiritual with an absolute spirit — has in Christianity
been brought to light and made in a manner apprehensible by alL
"Whatever, therefore, may be the change of form to which this
idea may have to submit in being applied to our ever-widening
knowledge of nature and man, and whatever developments of it
may be necessary ere it can solve the difficulties suggested by this
increasing knowledge, we have good reason to be contident that
we have in it a principle of universal synthesis which is adequate
to the task.

On the other side, while this is true, it is also true that philoso-
phy cannot conclusively meet the attacks of scientific criticism,
except by coming into closer relation with the work of finite sci-
ence than it has ever hitherto done ; for tlie only true answer to
Bucb attacks is to show that the facto and laws upon which they
rest are capable of a higher interpretation than that which has
been drawn from them by those who have attended to these facts
and laws alone. Philosophy, therefore, in face of the increasing
complexity of modern life, has a harder task laid upon it than
ever was laid upon it before. It must emerge from the region of
abstract principles and show that it can deal with the manifold re-
sults of empirical science, giving to each of them its proper place
and value. If it ever could sit " upon a hill remote " to reason of
"fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," it may not do so now.
Within, as without, the special province of philosophy, the times
are past when, to give spiritual help to men, it was sufficient to
have a deep intuitive apprchensinn of a few great principles of
spiritual life, and to denounce the representatives of empirical
knowledge and finite interests as sophists, "• apostles of the dismal
science," and " apes of the Dead Sea." We may be thankful to

46 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

our Carljles and Rnskins, as we are in higher measure to the great
men of their type in earlier time — men who utter in powerful
language the primary truths of morality and religion — even when
thej express these truths in a one-sided and intolerant way, refus-
ing to pay due regard to the achievements of finite science, and
treating with contempt every improvement that does not involve
a fundamental change of man's moral being. But it is, after all,
a mark of weakness to address the modern world with the un-
guarded utterances of an ancient prophet. To repeat against men
like Mill and Darwin the old watch-words with which Plato at-
tacked the sophists is, to say the least of it, an anachronisui ; for
it is to refuse to recognize how far such men are from being soph-
ists, and how much of the spirit of Plato they have imbibed.
And it is to forget, on the other hand, that philosophy has a difter-
ent task from that which it had in the days of Plato, that it has
abandoned the Greek dualism of form and matter, and thereby
accepted the task of idealizing interests and objects from which
Plato might have been excused for turning away. He who would
further the philosophical work of the future must renounce once
for all this questionable luxury of contempt, which in this, as in-
deed in almost all cases, is the mortal enemy of insight. For the
speculative labor of the future is one that requires the patient
consideration of every partial truth, and the persistent effort to
give it its due place in the whole, as well as a firm apprehension
of the principles that underlie all truth. And the practical labor
of the future is not merely by a shock to awaken men to the re-
ality of spiritual things, but to follow out the spiritual principle
in its application to all the details of our physical, economical, and
social condition, till we have seen how the life of each human be-
ing, and every part of that life, may be made worth living for
itself. Plato speaks of an " old quarrel between the poet and the
philosopher," which is to be reconciled only if poetry can be
shown to be truth, or truth, in its highest aspect, to be poetry. In
like manner, we may say of this almost equally " old quarrel " be-
tween the prophet and the man of science, that it can be healed
only by carrying back our scattered knowledge of the facts and
laws of nature to the principle upon which they rest, and, on the
other hand, by developing that principle so as to fill all the details
of knowledge with a significance which they cannot have in them-
selves, but only as seen sub specie ceternitaUs.

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 4:7

ANTHROPOLOGY OF IMMANUEL KANT.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY A. E. KROEGER.

Part First. — Anthropological didactic.

Concerning the Manner in which to cognize the Internal as well as the External

of Man.

Book First. — Concerndtg the Power of Cognition.

§ 45. Mental Diversion {distractio) is tlie condition of a turn-
ing off of attention {abstraotio) from certain dominant representa-
tions, by distributing them among others of a dissimilar kind. If
it occurs purposely, it is called dissipation ; if involuntary, it is
termed absence of mind (absentia).

One of the weaknesses of the human mind is this : to be nailed
to some representation or another to which we have applied great
or permanent attention, and from which we are now not able to
relieve ourselves — that is, not able to again make our power of
imagination free. "When this defect becomes a habit, and is al-
ways directed to one and the same object, it may turn into insan-
ity. To be absent-minded in society is impolite, frequently also
ridiculous. Women are generally subject to this infirmity, unless
they have turned their attention to study. A servant who is ab-
sent-minded when attending at the table has generally something
evil in his mind — either some evil of which he fears the conse-
quences, or some evil which he purposes to do. ,

But to divert our mind — that is, to give a diversion to our in-
voluntary reproductive power of imagination — for instance, when
a clergyman, having fitiished his memorized sermon, desires to
prevent its afterward haunting his mind — this is a necessary, and
in part also artificial, proceeding for the taking care of the health
of our minds. A protracted pondering upon one and the same ob-
ect leaves behind an echo, as it were, even as the music of a dance,
if long continued, still keeps humming in the ears of those who
return from their revels ; or as in the case of children who inces-
santly repeat one and the same bon mot of their fancy, especially
if it sounds rhythmical — an echo, which annoys the mind and can
be stopped only by diverting and directing the attention to other
objects, such, for instance, as the reading of newspapers.

4:8 Tlie Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy.

The regathering of onr faculties {collectio animi)^ so as to be
prepared for every new business, is a restoration of the balance of
power of our mental forces, which promotes the health of the mind.
Social entertainments and amusements of varied character are, like
games, the most wholesome means for this purpose. But such
entertainments must not skip abruptly from one thing to another
against the natural association of ideas; for, in that case, the so-
cial party disperses in a condition of distraction of mind — the hun-
dredth being mixed with the thousandth, unity of conversation
lacking altogether, and the mind thus finding itself utterly con-
fused and in need of a new diversion wherewith to disperse the
former.

From this it appears that there must be an art (not a common
art) for busy people to diet their minds in order to gain new
strength. But when we have gathered onr thoughts together —
that is, have prepared ourselves to do with them as it pleases us —
we cannot, on that account, call any one who intentionally gives
way to his thougiita in an improper place, or improperly in his
business relations to another person — taking no notice of such
place or relations — distrait, but only absent-minded, to be which
in society is certainly impolite.

Hence it is not a common art to divert ourselves without ever
becoming distrait, which latter condition, if it become habitual,
gives to the man sul)ject to this intirmity the appearance of a
dreamer and makes him useless for society, since he follows his
own imagination in its free play, uncontrolled by reason.

The reading of novels^ has — among many other disturbances
of the mind — also this result: that it makes a habit of mental di-
version. Foi", although by sketching characters, which can actu-
ally be found among men (though they be son.ewhat exaggerated),
it gives a connection to thought, as if the novel were a real his-
tory — which must always be told in a certain systematic manner
— it nevertheless allows the mind, while i-eading, to switch off, as
it were; that is, to insert etill other events as fictions, whereby
the mental operation becomes fragmentary^ and we permit our
representations of one and the same object to play in our mind

' In these days of cheap novels, and inveterate novel reading, it may be not out of
season to dirict special attention to this paragraph. — Tr.

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 49

disjointedly {sparsim) and not connectedly {conjunctim), or accord-
ing to the unity of our understanding. Tlie teacher in the pulpit
or in the academic lecture-room, likewise the prosecuting attorney
or the lawyer in the court-room, must exhibit three kinds of atten-
tion : firstly, as to what he says now., so that he may express it
clearly ; secondly, as to what he has said ,' and thirdly, as to what
he is going to say. For, if he omits to attend to any one of these
things — that is, to arrange them in this precise order — he distracts
his own mind as well as that of his hearers or readers ; and an
otherwise good enough mind can, under such circumstances, not
escape the charge of being in a state of confused ness.

§46. An itself healthy understanding — one that has no mental
weaknesses — may, nevertheless, be accompanied with weaknesses
in regard to its application, which necessitate either postponement
until it attains proper ripeness by growth, or the being represent-
ed by another person in regard to his business matters which are
of a civil character. The natural or legal incapacitj' of an other-
wise healthy man to use his own understanding in civil affairs
is called Unmuendigkeit ; ' if it is founded on unripeness of age
it is called minority ; but, if it is founded on legal institutions for
the transaction of public business, it may be called the legal or civil
JJnmuendigkeit. Children are naturally unmuendig, and their
parents are their natural guardians. Married women are held
civilly unmuendig at any age, the husband being the natural
curator. But it is different when a wife holds property apart from
her husband. For, although a woman has, by virtue of the nature
of her sex, sufficient mouth-tools to represent herself and her hus-
band before court, so far as talk is concerned, in all cases relative
to the mine and thine, and hence might be considered even ueber-
muendig^ in this respect, still, as little as it becomes woman's sex
to enter the army ranks, even so little does it become her to de-

' There is no equivalent for this word in the English language. It means literally
"moutlilessness " — that is, without a mouth, a voice, in court, or at the polls. For such
a condition, when owing to want of the necessary age, the English language has the
■word minority ; but for the other cases it has only roundabout expressions. I have,
therefore, thought it best to use the German word. — Tr.

"^ Uebermuendigkeit = mouth-superfluity. Kant indulges here in one of his bachelor
jokes. He means to say that in money and property matters women have more mouth-
tools (tongue, etc.) than enough to take care of themselves aud husbands, though the
law declares them mouthless — unmuendig — even for themselves alone. — Tr.

XYI— 4

50 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

fend her rights in person and carry on legal business for lierself.
She needs a representative for this purpose ; and this legal U7i-
mnendigli'eit in regard to public transactions gives her all the
more })o\ver in regard to household afiairs, wherein the right of
the iceaker parti/ becomes a factor, to revere and defend which the
male sex feels itself bound by its very nature.

Still, however degrading, it is very comfortable to make one's
self unmuendig — to be under tutelage — and, of course, there is no
lack of leaders, who make use of this pliancy of the large masses —
that are not like to unite of their own accord — and who know how
to represent to them that it is dangerous to use one's own under-
standing without the leadership of another; nay, that this danger
is great, and probably fatal. The head of a State calls him-
self the father of his country, because he knows better than his
subjects how to make them happy ; but the people are, for their
own benefit, condemned to perpetual tutelage ; and when Adam
Smttii says improperly of the rulers, " that they themselves are,
without exception, the greatest spendthrifts of all," he is, never-
theless, powerfully refuted by the (wise?) laws regulating luxury
passed in many countries.

The clergy keep the laymen strictly and persistently in their
tutelage. The people have no voice and no judgment in regard
to the path which they have to take in order to reach heaven.
It needs not man's own eyes to reach that place ; they will guide
him sure enough ; and though they put holy writings in his hands,
so that he may see with his own eyes, he is, at the same time,
warned by his leaders " not to find anything else than what they
assure him they have already discovered in them." Everywhere
the mechanical direction of men under the rule of others is con-
sidered the surest means to make them follow a legal order.

Scholars love, as a rule, to remain under the tutelage of their
wives in regard to household afi'airs. A scholar, buried among
his books, on hearing a servant cry " There's fire in one of the
rooms I " replied : " You know that those matters belong to my
wife ! "

Finally, a man may become unmuendig again after having
been muendig : for instance, when he has turned out a spend-
thrift, or when, after having acquired legal majority, he exhibits
a weakness of the mind in the ^administration of his property,

Anthropology of Immarmel Kant. 51 '

which stamps him a child or idiot. But the consideration of this
matter lies beyond the field of anthropology.

§ 47. Dull {hehes), like an nnsharpened knife or axe, we call any
one whom we cannot teach anything, who is incapable of learn-
ing. A person who is capable only of imitating is called a sim-
jpletonj whereas he who can himself originate products of the
mind, or of art, is called a genius. Quite different from both is
siinj)licity — in opposition to artificiality, of which latter quality
we say that " perfect art again becomes nature," and which quality
we attain only at a late period of our lives. This simplicity is a
faculty to attain the same object by an economy of means; that
is, without circumlocution. He who possesses this gift — the wise
man — is, with all his simplicity, not at all a simpleton.

Stupid we call pre-eminently any one who cannot be used for
business purposes, because he possesses no power of judgment.

K fool is a person who sacrifices things that are valuable to
objects that have no value; for instance, his home-happiness to
outside show. Foolishness, when it becomes offensive, is called
folly. You may call a man foolish without offending him ; nay,
he may confess himself to be a fool ; but to be called fool, as
signifying to be the tool of knaves (in Pope's use of the word),
no one can bear quietly.'

Haughtiness is folly ; for, firstly, it is foolish to ask of oth-
ers that they should esteem themselves little in comparison
with me; and hence my requests result only in neglect. But
such a request involves also ofi'ence, and this effects deserved
hate. Tlie word fool, when applied to a woman, has not that
harsh significance, since a man does not believe that he can be
offended by the vain presumption of a woman. Hence the word
folly seems to be applicable only to the conception of a man's
haughtiness.

When we call a person who has injured himself — for time
or for all eternity — a fool, and when we thus mix contempt with
hatred of him, although he has not offended us, we must consider

' When we say to a person in reply to his jokes and tricks : " You have no scn^e ! "
this is a somewhat flat expression for " You are joking ! " or '-Are you not smart? "
A smart person is one who judges correctly and practically, but without art. Expeii-
ence can make a smart man a sensible man — that is, enable him to use his understand-
ing with art, but nature alone can make a man smart.

52 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the offence as one committed as^ainst all mankind, and hence as
committed against another person. lie who acts directly con-
trary to his own legal advantages is also often called a fool,
thougli he hurts only himself. Arouet., the father of Voltaire,
told some one who congratulated him on his celebrated sons: "I
have two fools for sons ; the one is a fool in ])rose, the other a
fool in verse." (One, having embraced Jansenism, was per-
secuted ; and the other had to atone for his satires in the Bastile).
As a general thing, the fool places the greater value in things,
whereas the man of folly places a greater value on himself than
he rationally ouglit to do.

"When we call a man a gaioh or ^ fop^ we take as our basis
the conception of their want of sense., or foolishness. The former
is a young, the latter is an old fool. Both are misguided by
knaves or rascals; and, though the former still claims pity, the
latter draws upon himself only our bitter ridicule. A witty Ger-
man philosopher and poet expounds the French words fat and
sot (under the generic name Oii fou) as follows : " The former is a
young German who goes to see Paris; the latter is the same
young man when he returns from Paris."

That total weakness of the mind, which either suffices not even
for the animal use of the vital forces (as in the case of cretins)., or
suffices at the utmost for the merely mechanical imitation of ex-
ternal acts, such as even animals can jierform — as, for instance,
to saw, to dig, etc. — is called idiocy., and cannot well be called a
disease of the mind, since it is rather an utter deficiency of mind.

GOD AS THE ETERNALLY BEGOTTEN SON.

Hegel's " philosophy of religion." third part, " the absolute religion," II, 3.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY F. LOUIS SOLDAN.

3. This requires that we should remember and define what the
nature and definition of man is, how it is to be considered, how
man ouglit to consider it, and what he ought to know of himself.
Here we arrive at once at

(1.) The two opposite definitions: Man is good by nature; he

Ood as the Eternally Begotten Son. 53

is not divided in himself, but his essence and concept is, that he
is good by nature and that he is in harmony and peace with him-
self ; on the other side [we find] : man is bad by nature.

The first definition is, therefore : Man is good by nature ; his
universal, substantial essence is good ; opposed to this is the sec-
ond. These are the contrasts for ourselves, for external contem-
plation, in the first place ; the further consideration is that it is
not only a view, a speculation which we form and create for our-
selves, but that man naturally possesses self-knowledge, that he
knows how he is constituted and what his determination is.

In the first place, the one proposition — man is good by nature —
is the undirempted, undivided [phase] ; on this standpoint he has
no feeling of the need of atonement. If he needs no atonement
this process and the whole matter considered here are superfluous.

To say that man is good by nature means, essentially, man is
spirit in himself, rationality ; he is created with and after the image
of God ; God is the Good, and man as spirit is the mirror reflect-
ing God; he is the Good in himself [or potentially]. The possi-
bility of his reconciliation can be based only on this very sentence ;
the difiBculty and ambiguity, however, lie in the Potentiality.

The fact that man is good in himself \i. e., potentially] does
not express everything ; for it is just the potentiality [_dies An-
sicK] which is one-sidedness. Man is good in himself [potentially],
i. e., he is so only in an internal manner, according to his concept,
and, therefore, not according to his reality. Since man is spirit,
whatever he is truly he must be actually, for himself ; physical
nature remains in the Phase of potentiality {heim AnsicK] ; it is
the potential concept, and in it the concept does not attain to ac-
tualized existence. The point, that man is good potentially only,
this very Potentiality [diess AnsicK] contains this deficiency.

The potentiality [das Ansich, in-itself] of nature means the
laws of nature, Nature remains true to its laws ; it does not step
outside of them, and herein lies its substantial element by which
it is surrounded with Necessity. The other side is that man should
be in actuality also [filr sich, for-himself] that which he is poten-
tially [an sieh, in-himself] ; he must become this for-himself.

Whatever is good by nature is so immediately ; it is the nature
of spirit not to be something natural and immediate, but man as
spirit has the characteristic that he steps out of naturalness and

54: The Joxirnal of Speculative PhUosojyhy.

passes over to the separation of his ideal and his immediate ex-
istence. This separation of an individual from its law, which is its
substantial being, does not occur in physical nature, for the reason
that the individual is not free. Man has for his essence that he
places himself over against his nature and against his potentiality,
and that he enters into this separation.

The other proposition arises immediately from what has been
said : that man must not remain as he is immediately, but must
transcend his immediateness ; this is the idea of spirit. This over-
stepping of his naturalness, of his potentiality, constitutes the first
ground for the diremption, and is that by which the diremption
is immediately posited.

This diremption is the transgression, or the overstepping, of
this naturalness and immediateness ; but this must not be taken
as if this overstepping were in itself the Evil, for this transgress-
ing is contained already in naturalness itself. Potentiality and
^Naturalness are the immediate ; but we are here speaking of spirit,
and the latter in its immediateness oversteps its immediateness,
and is thus the falling oJ5 from its immediateness or potentiality.

In this is contained the second proposition : man is bad by nat-
ure ; his potential being, or his naturalness, is the Evil. In this
his naturalness, his deficiency is contained at the outset ; for, since
he is spirit, he is different from naturalness ; he is in a state of di-
remption, One-sidedness is immediately contained in this natural-
ness. If man is according to nature only, he is bad.

Natural man is he who is good in himself, according to the
idea ; in a concrete sense, however, that man is natural who fol-
lows his passions and impulses, who is hedged in by his desire, and
to whom his natural immediateness is law.

He is natural, but in this state of naturalness he is also a willing
being, and he is bad ; his impulse and inclination form the sole
content of his will. Considering the form — that is to say, consid-
ering that he is a will-ing being — he is no longer an animal ; but the
content, the aims of his volition, are as yet the [merely] natural.
So far this standpoint ; this higher standpoint is, that, if man is
bad by nature, he is bad because he is a natural being.

That state, which is represented as the first state and one of in-
of innocence, is the state of naturalness, or that of the animal.
Man's guilt must be imputable to him ; in so far as he is good, he

«l

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 55

should be so, not in the manner in which a natural thing is good,
but it should be his merit, his will ; it should be imputable to him.
Guilt [and merit] imply imputability \i. e., responsibility].

A good man is so with and by his will ; it is his own merit
[Schuld]. Guiltlessness or innocence \_JJnschuld^ means, to be
without will, to have nothing in one's composition that is bad, and,
therefore, it means also to have nothing that is good. Natural
things, for instance animals, are all good, but such goodness can-
not be attributed to man ; in whatever respect he is good he is
necessarily so with his will.

The absolute demand is that man should not remain a [merely]
natural being ; his should not be a [merely] natural will. It is
true that man has consciousness, but he nevertheless, even as man,
remains a merely natural being, when Natural constitutes the
[whole] aim and end, content, and characteristic of his will.

More stress must be laid on the following characteristic : Man
is man as subject ; and, as a natural subject, he is a special, single
subject ; his will is a special, single will, and his volition is filled
with the content of this special singularity. In other words, natu-
ral man is selfish.

From a man who is called good we demand that he be at least
guided by general considerations, and act according to laws.
Naturalness of will is properly selfishness of will ; it is different
from universality of w^ill, and opposed to the rationality of that
will which has been raised to universalitv. This bad element, or
Evil personified in a general way, is the devil. The latter, as the
negativity which wills itself, is in this respect identity with itself,
and must, therefore, also have some kind of affirmation. Such is
the case in Milton's work, where the devil in his characteristic
energy is better than some of the angels.

But by the circumstance that man is bad, inasmuch as he is
natural will, the other side, that he is good in himself, is not
annulled ; according to this idea, he always remains good. But
man is consciousness ; this implies that he is distinct, that he is
a reality, a special man \ei71 Dieser], a subject ; he is distinct from
his idea, and, since this subject exists immediately only as distinct
from its idea, having not yet returned to the unity of its subjec-
tivity with its idea, its reality is, therefore, the natural reality, and
this is selfishness.

56 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The being bad presupposes at once the relation of reality to
the idea ; there is nothing posited in it but the contradiction of
potentiality, of the idea, of singularity, of Good and Evil. It is a
mistake to ask, '' Is man good by nature, or not ? " It is a wrong
position ; it is just as superficial to say that he is good as well as
bad.

As regards, in particular, the point that will is arbitrariness,
since it may will the good or the bad, such arbitrariness is cer-
tainly not will. Will exists only when it has determined itself ;
as long as either one thing or anotlier is willed, it is not yet prop-
erly will. Xatural will is the will of desire, of that inclination
which wills the immediate, that does not yet will any special thing
[" diess^^\ for the latter would require rational will — will which is
cognizant of the fact that Law is Eationality. It is enjoined upon
man not to exist as natural will, not to be what he is by nature. The
idea of will is another matter ; as long as man exists therein [in
natural will], or remains in it, it is only potential will, and not yet
real will, nor as yet will as spirit. This is the universal ; the par-
ticular must be eliminated. What belongs to the defined sphere
of morality can only be considered as concerning a special condi-
tion ; it does not relate to the nature of spirit.

On the other hand, when we say that the will is bad, it is evi-
dent that we speak of will when we consider man concretely ;
and this concrete and real object cannot be merely negative.
The bad will, however, is posited as mere negative volition, and
this is an abstraction only ; for when man, according to his nature,
is not what he ought to be, he is nevertheless rational in himself,
since he is spirit. This is the aflSrmative element in him, and the
circumstance that he is not by nature as he ought to be concerns
the form of the will simply : the essential is that man is potentially
spirit. That which is potential abides when natural will is relin-
quished — it is the idea, the abiding and self-producing element.
When we say, however, that will is bad by nature, it is only nega-
tive will which has this quality ; and in this, therefore, we have
the concrete before us, of which this abstraction is a contradiction.
This has so wide an application, that when, for instance, the
existence of the devil is asserted, it is necessary to show what
affirmative element there is in him — strength of character, energy,
consistency. In the concrete, the affirmative predicates are at once

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 6T

emphasized. We forget in all this, when we speak of men, that
they are men educated by customs, manners, laws, etc. We are
told, " Men are not so bad, after all ; just look about you." But
then they are already, ethically and morally, educated men, who
are in the phase of reconstruction and conciliation. The principal
thing is to know that we must not think of such states as that of
the child when we speak of religion ; the fact is rather that in
the representation of truth there is essentially placed before us
the successively unfolded history of that which man is. The con-
templation here is a speculative one ; the abstract differences of the
idea are here presented as occurring successively, in time. If
educated man is to be considered, we must find in him the change,
the reconstruction, the discipline, through which he has passed ;
he must exhibit the transition from natural to true will, and his
immediate, natural will must appear as annulled in this.

(2.) If the first attribute is that man immediately is not what
he ought to be, we must remember that man should also recog-
nize himself as immediately imperfect ; thus, his being bad or
evil becomes the subject of contemplation. This might easily be
interpreted to mean that man is assumed to be bad in and by
contemplation only, so that this contemplation is looked upon as
a kind of external injunction or condition ; and that if he were not
to contemplate himself thus, the other attribute — that of his being
bad — would also disappear.

Since this contemplation is made a duty, it might be imagined
that the contemplation is the essential point, and that without it
no content existed. The nature of contemplation is also regarded
as if it were contemplation or cognition which made man bad,
or as if contemplation were bad, and that [therefore] there ought
to be none, since it is the source of evil. This image-concept
implies the connection of evil and cognition. This is an essential
point.

The more particular manner in which this representation of this
Evil is conceived is, that man becomes bad by knowledge, or, as
the Bible represents it, that he eats of the tree of knowledge. In
this way cognition, intelligence, the theoretical principle, and the
will, enter upon a closer relationship to each other, and the nature
of Evil is more closely considered. It should be remarked here
that it is, indeed, cognition which is the source of all Evil, for cog-

58 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

nition or consciousness is the act which posits the separation, the
negative, the primal division into subject and object, and the di-
reniption of the several categories of potentiality. Man's nature
is not what it ought to be. and it is cognition which discloses this
to him, and which produces [the idea of] the Being which he ought
not to be. [The ideal of] what he ought to be is the idea under-
Ivins: man. and the knowledge that he is not this arises from the
separation only ; it arises from the comparison with that which he
is in-and-for-himself. Through cognition only is the antithesis
posited in which Evil has existence. The animal, the rock, the
plant, are not bad ; Evil exists within the circle of cognition only.
It is the consciousness of Being-for-itself in contrast with anoth-
er, but also in contrast with the object which is potentially uni-
versal, in the sense of the idea, of rational wilL By this sep-
aration alone I am for myself, and in tliis the Evil is implied. To
be bad, means abstractly to isolate one's self, the isolation or separa-
tion which has severed itself from the universal — which is the
rational, the law, the categories of spirit. But with this separa-
tion arises [on the one hand] Being-for-itself and [on the other]
the universal spiritual element, the law that ought to be.

This must not be understood as if a Contemplation or Cogni-
tion had any external relation to Evil, but Contemplation itself is
the Evil. Man, since he is spirit, must proceed to this self-apposi-
tion ; he must be for-bimself, so that he has his antithesis before
him as an object, [namely] that which is for him, the Good, the
Universal, his Destiny. The Spirit is free, and freedom has the
essential phase of this sej^aration in itself. Being-for-itseK is pos-
ited by such separation ; in it the Evil has its abode ; here is the
fountain-head of the Evil, but it is also the point where atone-
ment has its ultimate source. It is the cause of the disease and the
fountain of health. AVe cannot show here more in particular
how this comes about in the history of the Fall.

Sin is described in the account which tells that man ate from
the Tree of Knowledge, etc. Thereby arise knowledge, diremp-
tion, ssparation, and with them the Good begins to exist for
man — but, in consequence. Evil as well. It is represented as
forbidden to eat thereof, and thus Evil or sin is represented, for-
mally, as a transgression of a divine command, no matter what
the content of the latter might have been. Here the command

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 59

has essentially this knowledge or cognition for its content. The
rise of consciousness is posited by this, and, at the same time,
it must be conceived as a standpoint on which one must not re-
main, which must be annulled; for it is not proper to rem.ain in
the diremption of Being-for-itself. The serpent says, furthermore,
that by eating man will be like God, and thus appeals to the pride
of man. God says to himself : Adam is become as one of us. The
serpent, tlierefore, did not lie ; God confirms what it said. Great
labor has been devoted to the explanation of this passage, and
some have gone so far as to assume that it was meant ironically.
The higher explanation, however, is, that by this Adam the sec-
ond Adam, or Christ, is meant. Knowledge or cognition is the
principle of spirituality, which, as has been said, is also the prin-
ciple which heals the wound of separation. In this principle
of cognition there is also posited, indeed, the divine principle
which, by further harmonization, must attain its conciliation and
truth. In other words, it implies the promise and assurance of
the recovery of the position of being an image [of God]. This
prophecy is also found expressed metaphorically in what God says
to the serpent, "I will put enmity," etc. Since by the serpent
there is represented the principle of cognition as existing inde-
pendently and externally to Adam, it is quite consistent that man
(who is concrete cognition) should contain in himself the other side
of the return movement and of reflection, and that this other side
" shall bruise the head " of the former. [In the German Bible, as
quoted by Hegel, " shall crush the head," etc.]

It is stated that first man did this ; this is again the sensuous
mode of expression. According to the logical meaning, " first
man" signifies man as man, not any special, arbitrary one, not one
out of many, but The First Man absolutely — man according to his
idea. Man as such is consciousness, and with this he enters into
this state of diremption — consciousness which, in its further deter-
mination, is cognition.

Since universal man is represented as " first " man, the question
arises. Since it is only he that did this, how can it affect others ?
Here, then, we have the image-concept of Original Sin {Erhsuende^
lit, Inherited sin] ; by it the deficiency is corrected that man as
such is represented as a first man.

The diremption lies in the idea of man in general ; the one-

60 The Journal of ISpeculative Pliilosoj)hy .

sided conception bv which it is represented as the deed of an
individual is sii})plcinented by the conception of Original Sin.

Labor is mentioned as the punislinient of sin, etc. ; this is, in
general, a necessary consequence.

The animal does not work ; it works only when forced, not
naturally. It does not eat its bread in the sweat of its brow. It
does not produce its food ; it finds all its wants immediately sup-
plied by Nature. The human being finds the material for all his
wants [in Nature], but it may be said that the material is the least
important element for man. The unceasing mediation of supply-
ing his wants is carried on by work only.

Labor in the sweat of the brow, physical labor, and also mental
work — which is harder even than the other — stand in immediate
connection with the knowing of good and evil. That man must
fashion himself to be what he is — that he eats his bread in the
sweat of his brow — that he himself must produce what he is — all
these belong to the essence, to the characteristics, of man, and they
are necessarily connected with knowing good and evil.

It is said, furthermore, that the Tree of Life stood in the midst
of it ; this is the language of simple and childlike image-concep-
tion. There are two gifts for the wishes of man. The one is,
to live in undisturbed happiness, in harmony with one's self and
external nature ; the animal remains in this unity, but man must
transcend it. The other wish, perhaps, is, to live forever. Ac-
cording to these wishes the image-concept is made. If we look
upon this more closely, it shows itself to be nothing but a childlike
image-concept. Man as an individual living being, his individual
life, his naturalness, must die ; but when the narration is examined
more closely, this appears to be the wonderful, the self-contradic-
tory, element in it.

In this conti'adiction man is defined as Being-for-himself. Being-
for-itself, as consciousness, self-consciousness, or infinite self-con-
sciousness, is abstractly infinite ; man's infinite self-consciousness
is that he is conscious of his freedom, of his quite abstract
freedom ; this had not thus been brought to consciousness by
former religions, in whicli the contrast never proceeded as far
as this absoluteness, as far as this depth. By the fact that it is
done here, the dignity of man is raised to a much higher stand-
point. The subject has .thereby received absolute importance, and

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 61

has become the essential object of God's interest, for it is self-con-
sciousness, being-for-itself. It is pure self-certitude in one's self,
and the point of infinite subjectivity exists in it. It is true that
it is abstract, but it is abstract being in-and-for-itself. The form
of expression for this is, that man, as spirit, is immortal, that he is
the object of God's interest, that he is superior to finitude, depend-
ence, and external conditions, and that he has the freedom of
abstracting from everything, and it is implied therein that he is
removed from mortality. In religion, because its contrast is
infinite, the immortality of the soul is the principal phase.

That which may die is mortal, but whatever is capable of attain-
ing a state in which there is no death is immortal. [When we
speak of] combustible and incombustible, combustion is simply a
possibility which approaches the object from without. The cate-
gory of being, however, is no such possibility, but an afiirmatively
predicated quality which the object has already in itself.

Thus the immortality of the soul must not be conceived as some-
thing which wiU have reality only at some future time, but as a
present quality. Spirit is eternal, and it is, therefore, present now.
Spirit in its freedom is not within the circle of limitation. The
thinking, purely cognizing spirit has the universal for its object,
and this is eternity which is not merely duration — as the mountains
endure — but it is cognition, or knowing. Here the eternity of
spirit is brought to our consciousness by this cognition, by this
separation itself, which has attained Being-for-itself, and is no
longer entangled with the natural, contingent, and external. This
eternity of spirit in itself is, that spirit, in the first place, is poten-
tial ; the next standpoint is that spirit is not to remain as it is
as natural spirit, but that it is to become what it is in-and-for-itself.
The spirit must contemplate itself, and with this step the diremp-
tion arises. Spirit must not remain on this standpoint on which
it is not as it is potentially ; it must become adequate to its idea,
and be universal spirit. From the standpoint of diremption the
spirit looks upon its potentiaUty as Another, an Alien, and spirit
itseK is natural will ; it is dirempted in itself. This diremption
is in this respect the spirit's feeling or consciousness of the con-
tradiction, and with this there is posited the need of an annul-
ment of this contradiction.

On the one hand, it is said : Man in Paradise without sin is

62 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

immortal — terrestrial immortality and the immortality of tlie soul
are not distino-aished in this account — man will live forever. If
this external death is to be merely a conseqnence of sin, man
would be potentially immortal. On the other hand, the represen-
tation is also, that, if man ate of the Tree of Life, he would live
forever.

The gist of the matter is this : Maii is immortal by cognition,
since only because he is a thinking being he is no longer a mortal
animal soul, and thus only is he a free and pure soul. Cognition
or thinking is the root of man's life and immortality, as a totality
in itself. Animal soul is corporeity [materiality], but spirit is
totality in itself.

The next step is, that this view, which we have formed in
thought, should be made real in man — that, is to say, that man
should be made to arrive at the infinity of the contrast in himseK ;
this contrast is that of Good and Evil, and that man should know
himself, as a natural being, to be bad, and should become conscious
•of this contrast not only in a general way, but as existing within
himself. He should know that it is he who is bad, in order that
there may be aroused in him the injunction to be good, and with
it the consciousness of the direraption and the grief about the con-
tradiction and the contrast within him.

We have met with the form of Contrast in all religions ; but the
antithesis with the power of nature, the moral law, moral will, the
ethical principle, fate — all these are subordinate contrasts, and con-
tain a contrast to a particular only.

Man who transgresses a commandment is bad ; but he is bad in
this particular case only, in contrast with or in opposition to the
particular commandment alone. Good and Evil appeared in gen-
eral opposition to each other in the Persian religion ; there the
contrast is outside of the human being, and man is outside of it ; it
is not this abstract contrast within himself.

The injunction that man, having this contrast within himself,
should conquer it, does, therefore, not mean that he disobeys some
commandment or other, but that he is bad in-himself, that he is bad
in general, strictly bad, bad in his innermost heart, and that this
category of Evil is a category of his idea — and of this he must be-
come conscious.

(3.) This depth is important. Depth means the abstraction of

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 63

the contrast, or its pure generalization, so that its two sides attain
this very general determinateness toward each other.

This contrast has two forms : On the one side it is the contrast
of Evil as such, [the feeling] that it is he* himself that is bad ; this
is the contrast to God, On the other side there is the contrast
with the world. He feels that he is at variance with the world ;
this is the origin of unhappiness or misery, which is the diremption
on the other side.

In order that the need of universal atonement, and with it the
divine atonement, or absolute atonement, may exist in man, it is
necessary that the contrast attain this infinity, so that this univer-
sality comprehend the innermost soul, and that there be nothing not
encompassed by this contrast, and the contrast is no longer a partic-
ular [but general or universal]. This is the profoundest depth.

a. AVe first consider the diremption in relation to one extreme :
God. Man carries the consciousness within himself that he him-
self is, in his innermost heart, this contradiction ; and this is the
infinite sorrow for himself. Sorrow or pain exists only in con-
trast to [the idea of] what ought to be [the condition of man] in
contrast to an afiirmation. That which contains no longer any-
thing affirmative, no longer contains any contradiction or pain.
Pain is nothing but negativity in the affirmative, since the affirma-
tive is thus in itself self-contradictory and torn.

This pain is only one phase of the Evil. Evil, merely for-itself,
is an abstraction, and exists only in contrast to the Good. And
since it is within the unity of the subject, the contrast to this di-
remption is the Infinite Pain. If there did not thus exist in the
subject the consciousness of the Good, if there were not in his
deepest soul the injunction to be good, there would be no pain,
and badness and Evil would be empty nothing ; they exist only
in this contrast.

Evil and this pain can be infinite only because the Good, or
God, is known as One God, as a pure spiritual God. It can be
infinite only because the good is this pure unity, and when there
is a belief in One God. Only in relation to the latter can and
must the negative proceed to the category of the Bad or Evil, and
the negation proceed to this universality.

One side of this diremption thus exists through man's elevation
to the pure spiritual unity of God. This pain and this conscious-

64 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ness is man's absorption in the depth within him [die Vertiefung-
des Menschen in sieh'\, and with this his absorption in the negative
phase of diremption, of Evih

This is the negative internal absorption ( Vertiefung) in Ev^il ;
the internal absorption, affirmatively, is the absorption in the pure
Unity of God. At this point we see that I, as natural man, am
inadequate to that which is the True, and that I am hemmed in
by many natural particularities ; but the truth of the One Good is
just as unshakably firm within me, and thus this inadequacy ex-
hibits itself as that which ouo-ht not to be.

The task and the injunction are infinite. One might say: Since
I am a natural man, I have, on one side, consciousness of myself ;
but naturalness consists in the absence of consciousness in regard
to myself and the absence of will ; I am a being which acts accord-
ing to its nature, and, as is often said, I am without sin or guilt, be-
cause I have no consciousness of what I am doing, and because I
have no will in the proper sense ; I, therefore, am acting without
inclination, and am taken by surprise by impulses.

But this guiltlessness disappears in this contrast. For it is this
natural, unconscious, will-lacking Being of man which ought not
to be, and which has, therefore, the predicate of Evil, in the light
of the pure Unity, of the perfect Purity which I know to be the
True and the Absolute. It is implied in what has been said, that,
at this point, the Unconscious, the will-lacking state, must in itself
essentially be considered the Evil.

But the contradiction still remains, no matter how we turn it ;
since this so-called guiltlessness determines itself as the Evil or
Bad, there remains inadequacy of myself compared with the abso-
lute or with my essence, and in one direction or the other I know
myself to be that which I ought not to be.

This is the relation to the one extreme, and the result or more
definite mode of this pain is that it is my self-humiliation ; it is
the contrition involved in the feeling that it is pain caused by
myself, because I, as a natural being, am inadequate to that which
I know myself [to be my ideal self], and which both knowledge
and will tell me I ought to be.

h. As regards the relation to the other extreme, the separation
there appears as unhappiness : man cannot find satisfaction in the
world. His satisfaction, his natural neods, form neither a right

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 65

nor a claim. As a natural being, man is related to others, and
others are related to him as powers ; and, so considered, he is as
contingent as the others.

Bat his demands in ethical respects, his higher ethical demands,
are postulates and categories of freedom. Since these postulates,
legitimate in themselves, and based on his idea (lie has a knowl-
edge of the Good, and the Good is in him), cannot find satisfac-
tion in life, in the external world, he is unhappy.

It is unhappiness which drives and impels man back into himself ;
and since this fixed injunction of the rationality of the world
dwells within him, he renounces the world and seeks happiness
and contentment in himself through the harmony and accordance
of his afiirmative side with himself. In order to attain this, he
renounces the external world, places his happiness in himself, and
thus finds in himself satisfaction.

Of this command and of this unhappiness, we have mentioned
these two forms : We saw that pain which proceeds from the uni-
versal, from above, in [the history of] the Jewish people, there the
infinite postulate of absolute purity remains in the individual's
naturalness, in his empirical knowing and willing. The other, the
retrogressive movement out of misery within, is the standpoint
where the Roman world suffered its downfall — this universal un-
happiness of the world.

We have looked upon this formal inwardness [Subjectivity]
which finds satisfaction in the world, upon rule and empire, upon
God's purpose, which is represented, known, and understood as
worldly dominion. Both sides have their one-sided features : the
first may be said to be the feeling of humiliation ; the other is the
abstract elevation of man in himself ; it is man who concentrates
himself within. It is thus Stoicism and Scepticism.

The Stoic, Sceptic philosopher was thrown upon himself ; he
had to find satisfaction in himself alone, and in this self-con-
tained independence and rigidity he was to attain happiness and
harmony with himself; his abstract, ever-present, self-conscious
inwardness was to be his basis.

In this separation, or diremption, we have said, the subject de-
fines and conceives itself to be the extreme of abstract Beingf-for-
itself and of abstract freedom ; the soul sinks into its own depth,
its whole abyss. This soul is the undeveloped Monad, the naked
XYI— 5

66 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Monad, the empty, content-lacking soul ; but since the soul is in
itself the Idea and the Concrete, this emptiness and abstraction is
contradictory to the soul's predicate of being concrete.

This, then, is the Universal, that in this separation, which is
developed as an infinite contradiction, this abstraction is to be
annulled. This abstract Ego is in itself also a Will ; it is concrete,
but its immediate potential content is the natural "Will. Thp soul
finds naught in itself at first but appetites, selfishness, and the like
and this is one of the forms of the antithesis that the Ego, the soul
in its depth, is therein distinguished from the side of reality ; that
the side of reality is not one which is constituted adequately to
its idea and brought back to it, but that it finds, on the contrary,
only natural Will in itself.

The antithesis to which the side of reality develops itself is
that of the AVorld ; in contrast to the unity of the idea, there is,
thus, a universality of the natural will, whose principle is selfish-
ness and egotism, and which appears in its realization as corrup-
tion, brutality, etc. The objectivity which this pure Ego possesses,
and which belongs to it because it is adequate to it, is not its natu-
ral will, neither is it the world ; its adequate objectivity is the
universal Being alone, which it [the Ego] does not possess as its
[natural or original] content, and which has the whole content, the
world, for its antithesis.

The consciousness of this contrast, of this separation of the Ego
and the natural will, is that of an infinite contradiction. The Ego
stands in an immediate relation to the natural will, or the world,
and is at the same time repelled by it. This is the infinite pain,
the world-sorrow. The conciliation which we have thus far found
on this standpoint is only a partial one, and it is, therefore, insuffi-
cient. The congruity and consonance of the Ego within itself,
which the Ego attains in the Stoic philosophy, where it knows
itself as the thinking agent, and its object is the Thought-thing
[das Gedachte'] or universal — (and where the Ego looks upon all
this strictly as the All, the Totality, as the true essence, and where,
therefore, all this appears to it as a Though t-thing, as something
of which the subject knows that it itself has posited it) — is a
merely abstract atonement, for this Thought-thing is deprived of
all determination ; it is only formal self -identity. From this abso-
lute standpoint there cannot and there should not be such an ab-

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 67

stract atonement; neither can the natural Will find satisfaction
in itself, for it and the state of the world do not contain sufficient
satisfaction for the man who has comprehended his infinity. Tlie
abstract depth of the antithesis necessitates the infinite sorrow and
suffering of the soul, and with it an expiation which is just as
perfect.

These are the highest and most abstract phases ; the contrast
is the liighest. Both sides form the contrast in its greatest univer-
sality, in its deepest inwardness, in the universal itself ; they are
the contrasts in their greatest depth. Both phases, however, are
one sided : the first contains this pain, this abstract humiliation ;
and there the highest [element] is simply this inadeqilacy of the
subject to the universal, and the separation and diremption which
has not been abridged or annulled ; it is the standpoint of the con-
trast of the Infinite on one side, and of a fixed Finitude on the
other. This finitude is abstract finitude, and what belongs to me
as mine in this, is thus the Evil only.

This abstraction finds its complement in the other, which is
Thinking in itself, which is my self-adequacy, that I am satis-
fied within myself, that I can be satisfied within myself. But, by
itself, this second phase is just as one-sided ; it is only the affirma-
tive, or self-affirmation within myself. The first phase — that of
contrition — is negative only, without affirmation within itself ; the
second is to be this self-affirmation, this self-satisfaction within.
But this satisfaction of myself within myself is only an abstract
satisfaction by means of [an abnegation of or] flight from the
world through inactivity and quiescence. Since this is a flight
from reality, it is also a flight from my reality — not from external
reality, but from the reality of my will.

The reality of my will, or the Ego as a special subject or will
that is filled with a content, does not abide with me, but there re-
mains for me the immediateness of my self-consciousness. It is
true that this self-consciousness is a perfectly abstract one, but it
contains the profoundest depth, and I am preserved in it.

This abstraction of my abstract reality does not exist within
myself or in my immediate self-consciousness ; it is not found in
the immediateness of my self-consciousness.' On one side, there-

' The contrast whicli Hegel here speaks about is that of dependence and independ-
ence. In the former the soul feels its inadequacy to the injunctions of the higher

68 The Journal of Speculative Philosoj)hy.

fore, the affirination, free from that negation of the one-sidedness
of i mined lateness, preponderates. There the negation is the one-
sided element.

From these two phases the feeling of the need of a transition
arises. The idea of the preceding reh'gions has purged and cleared
itself, nntil this antithesis was attained ; and the fact that this an-
tithesis has shown itself as an existing need has been thus ex-
pressed : '• When the time was fulfilled," etc. — which means, that
the spirit, the need of the spirit, exists which contains the recon-
ciliation.

c. The atonement. The most profound need of the spirit lies in
this : that the antithesis has been pushed in the subject to its most
universal — that is to say, its most abstract — extremes. This is the
direm])tion spohen of, the pain. Since these two sides are not
separated, but exist as a contradiction in one [individual], the sub-
ject proves itself to be the infinite power of Unity ; it can endure
and outlive this contradiction. This is the formal, abstract, but,
at the same time, infinite energy of the unity which the subject
possesses.

That by which the need is supplied and satisfied is the con-
sciousness of the expiation and of the cancellation and nugatori-
ness of the contradiction ; it is the consciousness that this con-
trast is not tlie truth, but that its meaning is, that the Unity can
be attained only by the negation of this antithesis. What is
needed is peace and conciliation. The subject feels the need of

principle which it recognizes, and the subjective result is sorrow and suffering ; the
feeling of inadequacy is a negative feeling. The other pole of this antithesis is the
standpoint which Hegel illustrates by an allusion to the Stoics. In it there is self-
sufficiency and the feeling of independence. It is not real independence, but the ignor-
ing of dependence. 5Ian, as it were, considers the nutshell of his existence absolute
space. It is the principle of abnegation which turns away from the activity of life,
and, therefore, Hegel calls it a desertion of reality, an abnegation of real will.
But the fact that this standpoint is an abnegation of reality, of a dependence which
after all exists, is one of which the K-toic is not conscious himself. He does not tear
himself away from dependence and combat it ; he simply does not know of any ; he 13
sufficient unto himself. Since this standpoint is, therefore, unconscious of any negative
element, of any dependence, Hegel may well call it an affirmation, and say of it that
the consciousness of the one-sided character of such seeming independence is lacking,
and that "the abstraction of such abstract reality docs not exist in man's immediate
BeLf-consciou.snc3s as long as he occupies this standpoint." — Translator's Note.

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 69

■conciliation, and it lias this need, because it [the subject] is infi-
nitely One and self-identical.

The annulment of the antithesis has two sides.

The subject mnst attain the consciousness that this contrast has
no existence in itself, and that the truth and the inner meaning is
the cancellation of this contrast. And by this means, since the
contrast is annulled in itself, according to its truth, the subject as
such in its Being-for-itself may attain the annulment of this an-
tithesis, and peace and conciliation.

(1.) The annulment of the antithesis in-itself constitutes the
condition, the presupposition, the possibility of the power of the
subject to annul it also for-itself. For this reason it is said that
the subject does not attain conciliation by its own power, not of
itself as a special subject, nor by its own individual deeds and
doings. It is not by its acts and relation as that of a subject that
the conciliation is brought about, or can be brought about.

This is the nature of the need, as regards the question how it
may be satisfied. The conciliation can be brought about only
"when the need finds the separation annulled, and when the antithe-
sis, whose extremes seem to flee each other, is null and void, and
when the divine truth appears to this need as the annulled con-
trast in which both extremes have divested themselves of their
mutual abstraction.

The former question arises, therefore, in this place once more :
Cannot the subject bring about this conciliation of itself, through
its own power, by making its heart worthy of the divine idea
with piety and prayer, and by expressing this through its ac-
tions ? And, if the single subject cannot do this, cannot at least
all men who will the right receive into themselves the divine law,
so that there would be a heaven on earth, and the spirit with its
grace would be living and present, and would possess reality ? The
question is whether the subject, as subject, could not bring this
about through itself. It is a common opinion that it could do
this. We must remember and keep before our minds that we
speak of the subject which rests on an extreme, which is for itself.
Subjectivity has for its category that the positing [which is under-
taken] is done by myself. This positing, doing, etc., is my own work,
no matter what the content may be, and the Producing is, there-
iore, but a determination, one-sided in itself, and the product is

To The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

simply posited, and it remains for this reason in abstract freedom
only. The question means, therefore, whether the subject cannot
produce this by its [act of] positing. This positing must essen-
tially be a presupposition, so that that which is posited is also in-
itself. The unity of subjectivity and objectivity, this divine
unity, must be as a presupposition for my Positing; then only can
the latter have a content ; the content is spirit, substance [^GehaW]
— otherwise it would be subjective and formal — and thus only it
receives a true, substantial content. With the determination of
this presupposition, and according to the significance of such pre-
supposition, it deprives itself of this presupposition and loses it.
Kant and Fichte say that man can do good only in the pre-
supposition of a moral world-principle ; he cannot know whether
it will grow and thrive ; he acts simply with the presupposition
that the Good possesses growth and success in itself and for itself,
and is not merely something that is posited, but is objective ac-
cording to its nature. The presupposition is an essential deter-
mination.

- The harmony of this contradiction must, therefore, be represented
as a presupposition for the subject. As soon as the idea cognizes
the divine unity, it also cognizes that God is in-and-for-himself,
and with this it attains the cognition that the activity of the sub-
ject is nothing by itself, and that it exists and endures only under
that presupposition. To the subject the truth therefore must
appear as a presupposition, and the question is, in what shape truth
can appear on the standpoint on which we are ; it is the infinite
pain, this pure depth of the soul, and for this pain there shall be a
cancellation of the contradiction. The latter is necessary, in the
first place, as a presupposition, because it is this one-sided ex-
treme.

The subject's activity and attitude is, therefore, that of positing-
activity on the one side only ; the other is the substantial side, and
the basis which contains the possibility. The latter is that this
contrast in-itself does not exist. More explicitly expressed, it is,
that this contrast eternally arises, and in the same way eternally
annuls itself, and is likewise eternal conciliation.

AVe have seen that this is the truth, in the eternally divine idea;
it is the nature of God as living Spirit to distinguish himself from
himself, to posit Another and to remain in it identical with him-

UegeVs Philosophy of the State. 71

self, and to possess in this Otlier the identity of himself with him-
self.

This is the truth, and this truth must constitute one side of what
must obtain in the consciousness of man — namely, the substantial,
potential side.

More explicitly this may be thus expressed : The contrast is sim-
ply Inadequacy. The contrast, the Evil, is the naturalness of
human being and willing ; it is immediateness ; such is naturalness,.
and with immediateness there is posited also finitude, and this-
finitude and naturalness are inadequate to the universality of God,,
which is the strictly free, self-contained, infinite, eternal idea.

This inadequacy is the starting-point which constitutes the feel-
ing of need. It is not a better definition to say that for our con-
sciousness the inadequacy disappears on both sides. The inade-
quacy is ; it is implied in spirituality. Spirit is that which distin-
guishes and differentiates itself ; it is the positing of distinctions.

Since they are differentiated, they are, according to this phase,
distinguished and not the same : they are different from and in-
adequate to each other. This inadequacy cannot disappear ; if it
did, the primal attribute of spirit [to be subject and object], its
ever-active life, would vanish, and it would cease to be spirit.

HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE STATE.

TRANSLATED FROM HEGEL'S " PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRIT," BY EDWIN D. IfEAD.

[The numbers of the paragraphs of the original are inserted for con-
venience of reference. — Editor.]

535. The State is the self-conscious ethical Substance — the
union of the principle of the Family and of Civil Society. This
same unitv exists in the Familv as the feeling; of love, and is its
essence; and this receives, at the same time, the fortn of self-
conscious Universality through the second principle named, viz.,
the princii)le of knowledge and self-active Will. This has for its
content intelligent subjectivity, inasmuch as its characteristics
unfold into cognition ; and this is its absolute purpose, so that it
will come to exist as rational for itself.

72 . Ths Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

536. The State is (a), in the first place, its own formative pro-
cess as self-related development — the internal system of political
regulations {Staatsrecht), or the form of its Constitution (written
and unwritten) {Yerfassung). It is (/3) particular individual State
standing in relation to other individual States — its foreign rela-
tions {auessere Staatsrecht). (7) These particular States or nations
(national spirits — ^^ Geiste?'") form constituent elements in the
process of development of humanity — tlie development of the
World-history {Entwickelung cler allgemeinen Idee des Geistes in
seiner Wirklichl'eit).

A. The Internal System of Political Pegulations.

537. The essence of tlie State is the Universal in and for itself,
the reasonable forms of the Will — as self-knowinor and actino;,
pure subjectivity, and, as reality, one individual. Its worh in
general, in reference to the extreme of particularity, as the multi-
tude of individuals, is twofold — first, to protect the individuals
as persons, consequently to make the law necessary reality; and
next, to promote their welfare, the primary object of the eflforts
of the individual, but which has a universal side, to guard the
Family and to guide Civil Society. Secondly, however, the State
must lead back both these and the entire feeling and activity
of the individual, inasmuch as the individual strives to be a cen-
tre for himself, into the life of the universal Substance, and, in
this sense, as free power, rid itself of those spheres subordinate
to the universal Substance, and hold them in substantial imma-
nence.

538. The Laws express the determinations of the content of
objective Freedom. In the first place, they are limits for the
immediate subject, for his independent arbitrary will and particu-
lar interest. In the second place, liowever, they are absolute
object and end and the common ])roduct of all, and are thus pro-
duced by the functions of the various social classes, which, rising
from the general division, specialize themselves further, and by
all the activity and private care of individuals ', and, thirdly,
they are the substance of their Will, which is therein free, and of
their disposition, and are thus represented as validly determining
usage*

539. The State exists, as living Spint, only as an organ-

HegeVs Philosophy of the State. 73

ized whole, differentiated into the particular activities, which,
proceeding from the one Notion {Begriff) of the rational Will
(if not directly known as Notion), continually produce this as
their result. The Constitution is this clear expression of the
power of the State. It contains the determinations of the way
in which the rational Will, so far as it is in the individuals only
in itself the universal, comes, on the one hand, to consciousness
:and understanding of itself, and is found, and, on the other,
through the operation of the government and its several branch-
es, becomes realized, and is maintained in reality, and is thus
protected as well from the accidental subjectivity of the govern-
ment as from that of the individuals. It is the existing justice
as the reality of freedom in the development of all its rational de-
terminations.

Freedom and Equality are the simple categories which fully
sum up that which should constitute the fundamental principle
and the final aim and result of the Constitution. True as this is,
it is as true that these principles are defective, in the first place, in
being entirely abstract; maintained in this form of abstraction,
they are what prevent or destroy the concrete — i. e., an articula-
tion into classes within the State, i. e., a Constitution and govern-
ment in general. With the State appears inequality, the distinc-
tion of the governing and the governed, authorities, magistrates,
directors, etc. The logical principle of Equality rejects all dis-
tinctions, and does not allow the existence of any sort of differ-
ence of rank. These [ideas of freedom and equality] are, indeed,
fundamental in this sphere, but, as the most abstract, they are the
most superficial, and so the most liable to run away with men ;
it will, therefore, be interesting to consider them somewhat more
closely. As concerns Equality, in the first place — the popular
idea, that all men are hi/ nature equal — contains the mistake of
confounding the natural with the Notion [or the ideal of man] ;
it must rather be said that hy nature men are only unequal. But
the Notion [ideal] of Freedom, as it exists, in the first place, as
such, without further determination and development, is abstract
subjectivity ^L^i^erson, competent to possess property; this single
abstract determination of personality constitutes the real Equal-
ity of men. That this Equality exists, however — that it is man
(and not, as in Greece, Rome, etc., some men only) who is ac-

74 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

knowledged as person and has legal worth — this is not hy nature^.
but it is rather onlj^ the product and result of the consciousness
of the deepest princi[)le of Spirit and of the universality and
perfection of this consciousness. The proposition that citizens
are equal hefore the law contains a high truth, but, so expressed,
it is tautology ; for only the lawful condition in general, the fact
that the laws rule, is tlius expressed. But in reference to the
concrete, citizens, aside from personality, are equal before the
law onl}' in that in which they are equal otherwise, outside the
law. C)nly the otherwise accidentally existing equality of for-
tune, age, physical strength, talent, cleverness, or of crime, etc.,
however brought about, can and will mfdce possible, in the con-
crete, an equal treatment before the law — in reference to taxes,
military duty, admission to civil offices, etc. — punishment, etc.
The laws themselves, save in so far as they concern that narrow
circle of personality, presuppose unequal conditions, and define the
unequal legal conditions and duties arising from them.

As to Freedom, in the next place — this is taken partly in the
negative sense, as opposed to the arbitrariness of others, and
illegal dealing, partly in the affirmative sense of subjective Free-
dom ; great breadth is given to this Freedom, as well in regard
to individual arbitrariness and activity for one's particular purpose
as with reference to the claim of individual insight, participation,
and activity in general affairs. Formerly the legally determined
rights, as well private rights as the public rights of a nation, city^
etc., were called the freedoms of the same. In reality every true
law is a freedom, because it contains a rational determination of
objective Spirit, consequently a content of freedom. Nothing, how-
ever, has been commoner than the idea that the freedom of each
individual must be limited in relation to the freedom of others,
and that the State is the condition of this mutual limitation, and
the laws are the limits. In such conceptions, Freedom appears
only as accidental choice or arbitrariness. It has thus been said^
also, that Equality is possible only in modern nations, or Equal-
ity more than Freedom, and this on no other ground than be-
cause it was impossible, with an accepted definition of Freedom
(chiefly, the participation of all in the affairs and the business of
the State), to deal rightly with the reality, which is more ra-
tional and at the same time more powerful than abstract pre-

HegeVs Philosophy of the State. 75

suppositions. On the contrar}', it is to be said that the high
development and perfection of modern States produce in reality
the greatest concrete inequality of individuals, yet, by the deeper
rationality of the laws and the strengthening of the legal con-
dition, make Freedom so much the greater and securer, and
can permit and endure it. Even the superficial distinction which
lies in the words freedom and equality indicates that the first
has a reference to inequality i yet the current, popular Notions
of Freedom, on the contrary, lead back only to Equality. But
the more Freedom, as the security of property, as the possibility
of developing and making available one's talents and good quali-
ties, etc., is strengthened, the more it seems to be a matter of
course ; the consciousness and the prizing of Freedom are directed
to it chiefly in the subjective sense. This subjective Freedom,
the Freedom of activity, testing itself on all sides and work-
ing according to its own pleasure for particular and for uni-
versal, spiritual interests — the independence of individual particu-
larity, as the inner Freedom, in which the citizen has principles,
individual insight, and conviction, by which he wins moral in-
dependence — contains for itself, on the one hand, the highest
development of the specialty of that in which men are unequal,
and, through this culture, make themselven still more unequal,
and, on the other hand, it grows up only under the condition
of that objective Freedom, and has grown and could grow to
this height only in the modern States. If with this cultivation
of specialty and detail, the multitude of wants, and the difficulty
of satisfying them, the popular discussion and discontent, with
their unsatisfied conceit, extend themselves indefinitely, this per-
tains to the exclusive particularity, for which it remains to give
itself up to the production in its sphere of all possible complica-
tions and to satisfv itself with them. This sphere is, indeed,
at the same time, the field of limitations, since Freedom is bur-
ied in naturalness, caprice, and arbitrariness, and thus has to limit
itself, and this, indeed, according to the naturalness, the plea-
sure, and the arbitrariness of others, but chiefly and essentially
according to rational Freedom.

QoncQTmng political Freedom, however — that is, in the sense of
a formal participation of the will in the public affairs of the State
and the activity of those individuals who otherwise make the

^6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

special purposes and business of Civil Society their principal
vocation — it lias become somewhat usual to call the Constitu-
tion only that side of the State which concerns such a participa-
tion of those individuals in public afEairs, and to regard a State
in which this does not formally have place as a State without a
Constitution. Concerning this understanding of it, there is, in the
first place, onl}^ this to be said, that under the term Constitution
the definition of the laws — i. e., the freedoms in general, and the
organization of the means of realization of these — are to be under-
stood, and political Freedom can in any case constitute only a por-
tion of the same; of this the following sections will treat:

540. The guaranty of a Constitution — i. e., the necessity that
the laws be reasonable and their realization secured — lies in the
Spirit of the people as a whole in the defiiiiteness with which it
has self-consciousness of its Reason (Religion is this conscious-
ness in its absolute substantiality) — and, secondly, in the real or-
ganization conformable to it, as development of that principle.
The Constitution presupposes this consciousness of the Spirit, and,
mce versa^ the S{)irit the Constitution, for the actual Spirit itself
has the definite consciousness of its principles only so far as they
are present to it as existing.

The question to whom, to what authority, and how organized,
the power belongs to make a Constitution, is the same as the ques-
tion who has to make the Spirit of a people. Such a separation
of the conception of a Constitution from that of the Spirit, as
though this Spirit of the peoj)le exists or has existed without pos-
sessing a Constitution suitable to it, only proves the superficiality
of the thought concerning the connection of the Spirit and of
its consciousness of itself with its reality. What is in this way
called making a Constitution has never, on account of this in-
separableness, occurred in history, just as little as the making of a
law-code; a Constitution has only developed itself from the na-
tional Spirit coincident with its own development, and with it
gone through the degrees of formation and alteration which the
Notion [ideal] made necessary. It is the indwelling Spirit and
History — and History, indeed, is only its History — by whom Con-
stitutions have been made and are made.

541. The living totality, the maintenance — i. e., the continuous
creation and preservation of the State in general and of its

HegeVs Philosophy of the State. 77

Constitution — is the Government. The naturally necessary or-
ganization is the origin of the Family and of the social classes
of Civil Society. The Government is the universal part of the
Constitution — i. e., that which has for its object the maintenance
of Family and Civil Society, but at the same time comprehends
and exercises the universal purposes of the whole, which are above
the spheres of the Family and of Civil Society. Tlie organiza-
tion of the Government consists, likewise, in the distribution of
its powers, and their functions are determined by the Notion,'
but interpenetrate each other, in the Notion's subjectivity, and
form real unity.

Since the most immediate categories of the Notion are those of
universality and individuality, and their relation is that of the
subsumption of individuality under universality, it has happened
that the legislative and executive powers have arisen in the State,
and have become so distributed that the former exists for itself as
the supreme; the latter divides itself again mto governmental or
administrative power and judicial power, according to the appli-
cation of the laws, whether to general or private affairs. The
distribution of these powers has been regarded as the essential
correlation, but preserving their independence of one another in
existence, and with the connection mentioned of the subsumption
of the powers of the particular under the power of the univer-
sal. The elements of the Notion are to be recognized in these
determinations, but they are connected by the understanding in a
relation of unreason instead of to the self-uniting-with-self of liv-
ing Spirit. That the affairs of the universal interests of the State,
in their necessary distinction, are organized also in separation
from one another — this division is the one absolute monjent of
the depth and reality of Freedom ; for Freedom has depth only as
it has developed into its distinctions and secured their existence.

' [Notion = Begriff = generic process, involvine; universality, particularity, and in-
dividuality. Hence, to be " fletermined by tlie notion " means to assume the piinses of
universal, particular, and individual. In the following paragraph this thought is devel-
oped :

The Function of Universality is the law-making or legislative power. It makes
laws for all. The Function of particularity is the Judicial power. It applies the law
in particular exigencies. The Function of Individuality is the executive or administra-
tive power, which sees that the laws and judicial decisions are carried out. — Editor.]

78 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

But to make the work of legislation (and tins entirely with such
an idea as that a Constitution and the fundamental laws were ever
first to he made — in a condition where an already existing devel-
opment of distinctions is supposed) into an indepsndent power,
and, indeed, the^7'S^ power, with the further provision of the par-
ticipation of all in it, and the governmental power dependent upon
thiif, only its executive — this presupposes the lack of the knowledge
that the true Idea, and with it tlie living and spiritual reality, is
the Notion, uniting itself witli itself, and, consequently, suhjectiv-
itt/, which contains universality as only one of its tnornents. In-
dividuality is the first and the highest determination pervading in
the organization of the State. Only through the governmental
power, and because this includes in itself the special offices (to
which also the special, for itself ahstract office of legislation it-
self belongs), is the State one. Thus, here, as everywhere, the es
sentially and only true is the rational relation of the logical, as
opposed to the external relation of the understanding, which only
comes to the subsuniption of the individual and particular under
the universal. That which disorganizes the unity of the logical
and rational likewise disorganizes reality.

54:2. In the Government as organic totality there exists (a) sub-
jectivity^ as the infinite unity of the Notion with itself in de-
velopment, the all-supporting, decreeing "Will of the State, the
highest point of the same, the all-penetrating unity, the princely
governmental power. In the j^erfect form of the State, in which
all moments of tiie Notion have attained their free existence, this
subjectivity is not a so-called moral person, or a decree proceeding
from a majority — forms in which the unity of the decreeing Will
has not a real existence, but exists as real individuality, the will
of one decreeing individual — Monarchy. The Monarchical Con-
stitution i:J, therefore, the Constitution of the developed .Reason ;
all other Constitutions belong to lower grades of the development
and realization of reason.

The uniting of all concrete State-powers into one existence —
as in the Patriarchal condition or, as in the Democratic Constitu-
tution, the participation of all in all affairs — is opposed in itself to
the principle of the distribution of powers — ^. e., to the developed
freedom of the moments of the Idea. But just so surely must
-the division, the perfection of the moments which had advanced to

HegeVs Philosophy of the State. 79

free totality, be l)roiio;ht back to ideal unity — i. e., to suhjeotivity.
The complete imfoldiiiiy, the realization of the Idea, contains
cpsentiallj this, viz., that this subjectivity as real moment has
risen to actual existence, and this acttiality is only the individual-
ity of tlie monarch — the subjectivity of the abstract, final de-
cision, present in one person. To all those forms of a common
decreeing and willing which proceed from the atomism of par-
ticular wills, democratically or aristocratically, pertains the un-
reality of an abstraction. All depends on the two determina-
tions, necessity of a moment of the Notion and the form of its
reality. The nature of the speculative Notion alone can give a
true explanation of the matter. The mentioned subjectivity,
since it is the moment of abstract decision in general, on the one
hand, causes the name of the monarch to appear as the external
bond and the sanction under which generally everything in the
government occurs, and, on the other, that it has, as simple rela-
tion to self, the determination of ivnmediateness, and thus a natu-
ral one, wherewith the providing of the individuals for the dig-
nity of princely power, through heredity, is fixed.'

543. {h) In the special governmental power there is, on the
one hand, the division of the work of the State into its otherwise
determined branches, the legislative power, the maintenance of
justice or the judicial power, the police, etc., and the consequent
allotment of these powers to special authorities, who, instructed

' This conclusion will not greatly commend itself to the American mind, and the
course of reasoning which leads to it must impress most thinkers as crooked and
forced. The principle of the division of powers is, indeed, the characteristic of the
developed State, but that the division should be determined and maintained by various,
independent forces, is opposed to the spirit of Hegel's own admirable remarks, on
a subsequent page, upon the collision of the legislative and administrative depart-
ments — a collision, I submit, least likely to occur in the State whose legislature and
executive are determined by one Will, acting in one way. The Law of Spirit is Free-
dom, and the Law of Nature is Necessity — and it must strike most unpr-juaiced
minds as incongruous, that Freedom should be most perfect in the State which gains
through keeping the Law of Nature — here Hcrtdity — in place of its own self-con-
scious determination. The development, in Reason and Morality, of the State of which
this is true, is certainly not the highest development. Is not this, too, the lesson of
History ? Has not the Monarchy always succeeded the Republic because of a decline,
not a higher development, of the State's Reason and Morality ? And has not the
development of the State's Reason and Morality been always accompanied by the
decline of Heredity and the growth of — " formal Freedom," if you will ? — Tr.

80 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

bj the laws concerninoj their work, are, moreover, and for that
reason as well, independent in their operation, as at the same
time snbject to higher supervision ; on the other hand is seen
the participation of many individuals in the work of the State,
who constitute together the class devoted to the common interest,
so far as they make work for the common interest the essential
vocation of their particular life.

544. {c) The authority which represents the classes of society
has to do with a participation of all such as belong to Civil
Society in general, and are in so far private persons, in the ad-
ministration, and, indeed, in legislation, i. «., in the universal
phase of interests which do not concern the action of the State
as an individual (as in war and peace), and so do not belong
exclusively to the nature of the princely power. In virtue of this
participation, the subjective freedom and conceit and their gen-
eral meaning can show themselves in actual efficacy and enjoy
the satisfaction of having influence.

The division of Constitutions into Democracy, Aristocracy, and
Monarchy indicates most accurately their ditference in relation to
administration. They must be regarded, at the same time, as
necessary forms in the course of development, consequently in the
history of the State. It is, for this reason, superficial and foolish
to represent thetn as objects of choice. The pure forms of their
necessity are connected partly, so far as they are finite and transi-
tory, with forms of their degeneration, mobocracy, etc., partly
with earlier forms of development — neither of which is to be
confounded with those true forms. Thus, because of the common
fact that the will of one individual stands at the head of the
State, Oriental Despotism is included under the vague term Mon-
archy, as is also Feudal Monarchy, to which latter, indeed, the
favourite title of Constitutional Monarchy cannot be denied. The
real distinction of these forms from the true Monarchy rests in
the content of the valid principles of law, which have their reality
and guaranty in the administration. These principles are those
developed in previous spheres, of the freedom of property and of
personal freedom, of civil society, its industry and religious bodies^
and the regulated, lawful operation of the special authorities.

The question which attracts most attention is as to the sense in
which the participation o^ private persons in State aflfairs is to-be

Hegel '5 Philosojyhy of the State. 81

conceived. For 2^^ private jpersons the members of Assemblies
or Parliaments are, in the first place, to be considered, they ap-
pear as individuals for themselves, or serve as representatives of
inany^ or of the people. It is customary to call the aggregate of
private persons the people ', as such an aggi'egate, however, it is
vulgus, wot populus : and, in reference to this, it is the chief ob-
ject of the State not to let a people, as such an aggregate, come to
existence, to power, and control. Such a condition of a people is
the condition of injustice, immorality, unreason in general; the
people would be, in such a condition, only a deformed, wild, blind
power, like that of the agitated, elemental sea, which still does
not destroy itself, as the people, or a spiritual element, would do.
We have often heard such a condition represented as that of true
Freedom. In order that a people have understanding, that it be
admitted to the question of the participation of private persons
in universal aiFairs, the unreasonable must not be presupposed, but
an already organized people — i.e., one in which an administration
exists. The interest of such participation, however, is to be placed
neither in the superiority of special insight which the private per-
sons possess above the State officials — the contrary is necessarily
the case — nor in superiority of the good-will for what is universally
best; the members of Civil Society are much rather such as make
their particular interest and (as especially in the feudal condition)
the interest of their privileged corporation their regular business.
Consider Eng-land, for instance. Its Constitution is regarded
the freest, because private persons have a preponderating parti-
cipation in State affairs; but experience shows that that country,
in civil and criminal legislation, in the right and freedom of pi'op-
erty, in institutions for art and science, etc., is, compared with the
other civilized States of Europe, the farthest behind, and object-
ive freedom — i. e., reasonable right — is much more sacrificed to
formal Freedom and particular private interest (this even in the in-
stitutions and possessions said to be devoted to Religion). The in-
terest of a participation of private persons in public aftairs lies
partly in the concreter and, therefore, more pressing sense of uni-
versal needs, essentially, however, in the right that the common
Spirit also attain the appearance of an externally universal Will in
an orderly and express influence in public affairs, and, through this
satisfaction, receive inspiration for itself, such. as sways the admin-
XYI— 6

82 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

istrative authorities, to whose consciousness it is thus ever kept
present, that, while they have strictly to exact duties, they have
just as essentially to respect rigiits. The citizens are in the State
the disproportionately greater mass, and a mass of such as are ac-
knowledged as persons. The existence of the willing Reason is,
therefore, represented in them as plurality of the free or as univer-
sality of reflection, to which reality is guaranteed by participation in
the State power. It has, however, already been noticed,' as a mo-
ment of Civil Society, that the individuals r"&,ise themselves from
the external to the substantial universality — i. e., as partiGular
species — ranJiS ^ and it is not in the inorganic form of individuals
as such (by the democimtic mode of choice), but as organic mo-
ments, as ranks, that they enter into that participation ; a power
or activity in the State must never appear and act in shapeless,
inorganic form — i. e., from the principle of multitude and mass.

For this reason Parliaments have wrongly been described as
the law-giving power., since they constitute only one branch of
that power, in which the special administrative authorities essen-
tially participate and the princely authority has the absolute
power of final decision. Legislation, moreover, in a civilized
State, can only be a perfecting of the existing laws, and so-called
new laws can only be extremes of detail and particulars, whose
content has already been prepared, or, indeed, previously settled,
by the practice of the courts. The so-called Financial Law., so
far as it comes to the joint detei-mination of the various ranks, is
essentially an affair of the government ', it is called a law only
figuratively, in the general sense that it covers a wide, indeed, the
entire, extent of the external means of government. The finances
concern, if indeed the entire State, still, according to their nature,
only the particular^ varying needs, which are ever producing
themselves anew. Were the chief component — that of need —
viewed as a constant element — as it indeed is — the provision for
it would have more the nature of a law ; but, in order to l)e a law,
it would have to be given once for all, and not yearly, or every
few years, anew. That which varies according to time and cir-
cumstances concerns, in fact, the smallest part of the sum total,
and the provision for it has so much the le£S the character of a law ;

• In previous sections of the " Philosophy of Spirit."

HegeVs PhiloscypTiy of the State. 83

and yet it is and can be only this unimportant, variable part
which is disputable and can be subjected to a variable, yearly
determination, which, therefore, falsely bears the liigh-sounding
title of the Granting of the Budget — L e., of the whole of the
finances. A law given yearly and for one year is clearly incon-
gruous, even to the common sense, which distinguishes the iu-and-
for-self universal, as the content of a true law, from a universal
of reflection, which only outwardly covers what, according to its
nature, is a manifold. The title of a law for the yearly settlement
of the financial needs only serves, in the presupposed separation
of the legislative from the administrative power, to support the
delusion that this separation really exists, and to conceal the fact
that the legislative power really has to do with government affairs
proper, since it settles concerning the finances. The interest,
however, which is attached to the power of ever fixing anew the
financial conditions, viz., that the Parliament possesses in this a
means of coercing the government, and thus a guaranty against
injustice and violence — this interest is, on the one hand, a super-
ficial illusion, since the ordering of the finances necessary for the
existences of the State cannot be conditioned by any other cir-
cumstances whatever, nor the existence of the State be placed in
yearly doubt; as little as the government could allow and arrange
the administration of justice, for instance, always for a limited
time only, in order, by the threat of suspending the working of
such an institution, and by the fear of a resulting condition of
violence, to keep to itself a means of coeicing private persons.
On the other hand, however, ideas of a relation in whicli it could
be useful and necessary to have means of coercion at hand
rest partly on the false conception of a contract between gov-
ernment and people, partly presuppose the possibility of such a
divergence of the minds of the two as would make it impossible
to think further of Constitution and Government at all. If one
places before one's self the bare possibility of helping things
through such coercive means as existing — such help were much
rather the ruin and dissolution of the State, in which there would
be no longer government, but only parties, and for which force
and the suppres.^ion of one party by the other would be the only
remedy. The regulation of the State as a mere Constitution of
the understanding — i.e., as the mechanism of a balance of powers

84 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

mntually exclusive internally — is opjiosed to the ground idea of
that which constitutes a State.

545. The State has finally the side of the immediate reality of
a particular and naturally limited people. As particular in-
dividual its position towards other individuals of the same kind is
exclusive. In their relation to each other arhitrariness and casu-
alty find place, since the universal of the law, on account of the
autonomic totality of these persons, is only an ideal between
them, which really is not. This independence makes the strife
between them a relation of force, a condition of war, for which
the nobility determines itself to the special work of maintaining
the independence of the State — i. e., to bravery.

546. This condition shows the substance of the State in its
individuality proceeding to abstract negativity, as the power in
which the particular independence of the individuals and the
condition of their submersion in the external existence of property
and in the natural life is felt as a nullity, and which effects the
maintenance of the universal substance through the sacrifice of
this natural and particular existence, which occurs in the feeling
of the sanje, through the bringing to naught of interfering trifles.

THE HERO AS ARTIST.

BY GERTRUDE GARRIGUES.

"Man's strength lies in resigned obedience to God." In re-
signed obedience ! This resignation which, in its essence, is the
only escape from the bonds of necessity ; which is, in fact, victory
over necessity ; and hence freedom is the content of the Christian
religion, Christian philosophy, and Christian art. In it is in-
volved the regeneration of man, that new-birth, which is in reality
a life-long process from natural to spiritual life. The individ-
ual who, in his own person, attains this freedom, and who has the
ability to, and does, either in his works or through his life, com-
municate the process, is a world benefactor, a world-great hero
and he possesses an inalienable right to the worship of his fellow-
man. In this sense we can point to many heroes of religion, and

The Hero as Artist. 85

to not a few heroes of philosophy ; there is but one hero of art —
Michel An gel 0.

Like Goethe, Michel Angelo gave to the world a life which was
a work of art. His mission among men was to exhibit, under
sensuous forms, the only possible method by which "human will
shall conquer fate." He lived to accomplish this victory himself,
and his works are the biography of his soul. Each of these works
has for its basis a universal thought, and it is by viewing them as
a whole that we descry the hero in the man.

We have no desire, even were it possible in so small a space, to
consider all his productions ; it will suit our purpose better to
divide them into groups, and to treat each group as in itself a
totality, not depending upon, but developing into, the succeeding
one. The first group includes the works of his youth, which are
chiefly sculptures; of these the " Moses "is the most characteristic,
as it is immeasurably the greatest example. It is true that this
statue remained in his atelier for forty years, but its conception
and modelling belonged to the period of his early vigor ; the forty
years merely finished and elaborated it. The most prominent
members of the second group are the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
and the Medician Tombs ; to the third and last period belong
*' The Last Judgment " and the Dome of St. Peter's. This, as
we hope to prove, is no mere formal classification arrived at by
external analysis, but is rather a vital exposition of the process
by which this great character developed.

Michel Angelo's was a thoroughly plastic nature. Art was his
proper atmosphere, and he uttered himself in all its modes. Sculp-
ture, painting, and architecture served him at his call ; or, if either
of these arts ever failed him, it was in his power, at every moment
of his life, to pour the whole force of his fiery soul into verse. In
his effort to attain personality, his spirit, in order to become
completely reconciled with itself, made use of every form of art ;
but he was essentially a sculptor. His intense temperament led
Iiira to compress the whole cumulative force of an emotion into
a single moment of time, and then to represent this moment.
This is what gives such a sculpturesque appearance to bis paint-
ings. In them there is no slightest hint of progression ; each
particular work, and each part of each particular work, represents
Si single given phase of activity.

86 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

^Ve all know how early the boy discovered his vocation ; how
swift and unerring was his instinct to find, how tenacious his will
to hold it. Friends and relatives used their every influence to
make of liim a merchant, a manufacturer, to turn him from his
"idle whim ; " but the twelve-year-old lad knew better than they
what was good for him — for, that it was good despite all the mis-
ery, the weary struggle of liis life, who shall doubt ? His own
words liave left us no room for question as to which he would have
preferred — trutli or repose.

" "Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains,
Against his exile coupled with his good
I'd gladly change the world's best heritage ! " *

" He would be an artist ; that was settled finally. A year
later the generic choice was succeeded by the particular one; he
would be a sculptor, and a sculptor he was, and always remained,
even when they forced the painter's brush and architect's compass
between his unwilling fingers.

The first step planted upon the pathway toward fame, his on-
ward journey was sure and swift. Obstacles disappeared before
his arrogant and almost omnipotent will. His choice of a voca-
tion was his first victory, his admission to the Gardens of San
Marco and to the palace of the Medici the second. At six-and-
twenty he willingly undertook a commission from which all other
sculptors had shrunk ; he engaged to convert Florence's unwieldy
block of marble into a statue, and the " David " was the result. At
nine-and-twenty he eagerly sought a trial, on his own ground^
with the foremost painter of his time, Leonardo da Yinci, and
triumphed. But, in doing so, he laid a pitfall for his own feet.
The cartoon of the " Battle of Pisa!' established the possibility of
his being great in fresco. The following year he was invited to
E.orae hy Julius II.

And now the summit of his ambition was reached. Inflexible,
and relying unfalteringly upon himself, he had gone resolutely
onward until now he felt that fame — the recognition due to his
greatness — lay within his grasp. We can imagine his overmaster-
ing exultation, his sense of power — for it was to himself alone-
that he owed his advancement — when the order for the Mauso-

* From poem on Dante by Michel Angelo.

TJie Hero as Artist. 87

leum, a work of such extent and grandeur that it would serve to
establish his reputation and perpetuate it forev^er, was placed in
his liand. He at once set about fulfilling the commission. He
drew all the plans and made some of the models ; he even blocked
ont in marble several of the figures. To this period belong the
conception and partial execution of the "Moses," and this figure of
the sovereign prophet and law-giver was a fitting symbol of what
was then in the artist's mind.

The statue of " Moses " is the absolute incarnation of unreflected
will — personal force. There is something divine in this assump-
tion of independent individuality ; there is a reminiscence of the
antique demigod in this marble ! We have heard much of the
wrath of Achilles, the petulant rage of the boy whose individual-
ity has been invaded ; we behold here the wrath of the man, quiet
but deadly. His command — the command of Jehovah, with
whom he, as chosen instrument, feels himself one — has Jjeen dis-
obeyed ; and, in the full reliance that Ms will is unquestionable,
he thunders forth : " Put every man his sword by his side and go
in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every
man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man
his neio'hbor."

We are told that the "Moses" was, of all his works, the one
which gave Michel Angelo the greatest satisfaction ; and we may
well believe it, for it was probably the last entirely spontaneous
one. It is the adequate reflection of the unconquerable will
which was the master-key of his whole character, and, in its im-
mediacy, its predominating youthful principle.

It is quite common to compare Michel Angelo with Raphael
and Da Vinci, and, from the circumstances under which they
entered art, deduce their subsequent development. There is much
truth in this procedure ; the circumstances among which a man is
placed must have undoubted influence upon his life, his circum-
stances united to his tem])erament almost every influence. Raphael
was an artist, a painter, by birth and education ; painting with
him was both an art and a trade ; it expressed him, but never over-
mastered, never drove him. He could paint a " Transfiguration,"
in which his whole soul seemed fused and which should be the
crowning effort of romantic plastic art, and at the same time
employ and direct an army of workmen who, under his leadership,

88 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

produced masterpieces, but without liiiii could produce only mere
daubs. And all this with healthy, happy ease. lla})hael's life
was filled with the repose of unconsciousness ; there is no incident
of his history, no slightest indication in his works, to show that
ho had ever been at war with himself ; there is no appearance
anywhere of a collision with fate. lie was a thoroughly happy
man ; he '' found his condition suited to his special character, will,
and fancy, and so enjoyed himself in that condition."

liaphael's whole life corresponds to the first period of Michel
Angelo's. It is true Raphael was born to his art, and Michel
Angelo was obliged to force his way to his ; but, allowing for this
and for the difference in their temperaments, their works exhibit
the same spontaneity, the same self-identification with a pursuit
— with this distinction : what is undeveloped will in Michel Angelo
is heavenly sensibility in Raphael.

Da Vinci \vas negative from the beginning, and all the acces-
sories of his life served to foster his proud rebellion. Rich, and
admired from his birth, possessed of a commanding intellect, of
which he was fully conscious, his tastes drew him with almost
equal force toward both science and art. He was at all periods
of his life irresolute, and utterly unable, with all his subtlety, to
fathom his own wants. His doubting temper led him to discredit
his own opinions and question his own success, no matter what
pains he may have taken in forming the one or compassing the
other. He was able from his position to despise alike the praise
or blame of men, but even this fact was an additional element of
discord. The artist's characteristic is dependence ; sympathy and
recognition are necessities to him. Da Yinci all his life warred
with, but was at the same time under the absolute dominion of,
fate, and all his works of art display the fact ; they are all marked
by a sad though brilliant restlessness. The " Cenacola," his master-
piece, and in many respects the greatest psychological picture ever
painted, is the complete embodiment of unrest and disquiet. He
took one step farther than Raphael, to his sorrow, for far better
is it to remain forever unconscious than to be roused and not
tranquillized ; to be roused to struggle but unable to conquer.

To the conflict that never ended for Da Vinci, Michel Angelo
was about to be called. The time had come when he was to lose
hold on reality and descend into the depths of his own soul ; the

The Artist as Hero. 89

discipline, by means of which liis uncontrolled natural will was to
be rendered subservient to a univ^ersal principle, was about to
begin. In receiving the order for the Mausoleum, he was at the
point of accomplishing his highest hopes; his particular indepen-
dence was about to be realized, his free-will acknowledged. This
is the point at which necessity always appears. Man must learn
his iinitude. In the full tide of success, in the moment of frui-
tion, an insurmountable obstacle appears. With Michel Angelo it
is the will of Pope Julius. Ilis Mausoleum may wait. Instead,
Michel Angelo may paint for him the Sistine Chapel. The artist
resists, bitterly and fiercely ; he is a sculptor, he cannot paint.
But that is all nonsense; cannot paint? For what, then, was the
cartoon at Florence prepared ? He seeks to save himself by flight.
In vain. Fate, in the person of Julius II, had issued its mandate :
^' Hitherto, and no farther." He was now himself to feel the
force which he had deified ; he was now to bow to a will as haughty
and despotic, and, from its position, mightier than his own.

This was only the beginning of the end. Julius II was worthy
to be the patron of Michel Angelo. He denied him his will, it is
true, but he gave him glorious compensation. As much cannot be
said of all of the line of popes whom Fate set successively to break
the will of this masterful but noble soul. The employment of
Michel Angelo, during four of the best years of his life, in the
quarries of Carrara and Seravezza, is a stain upon the pontificate
of Leo X which, all its glory cannot cleanse away.

Michel Angelo had pursued his aim with a passionate and un-
swerving consistency. He had lived alone for his purpose. He
desired to achieve fame for his own particular and personal satis-
faction, with no thought of connecting his views or his aims with
any universal sentiment. His independence was mere self-asser-
tion, his freedom arbitrary. Such freedom is of a low and limited
order, and, when it continues to exist, must necessarily develop
into tyranny; for, that the one individual is entirely free to ex-
ercise his will in every particular instance presupposes the most
abject slavery on the part of those who must be the ministers or
the victims of his caprice. Such enormity is never suffered long.
The eternal process of Spirit — call it necessity, or what we will —
moves on, slowly perhaps, but inevitably, and the self-interest and
self-seeking of man are buried beneath its resistless march. " There

90 The Juurnal of Speculative Pliiloiiopliy .

is a soul at the centre of nature, and over the will of every raaUy
so that none of us can wrong the universe."

Had Michel Angelo been able to compass his desire, even
though he had produced scores of statues to rival the "Moses,"
he would have portrayed but one phase of the process the whole
course of which he was born to represent — and that phase the one
in which Raphael far surpassed him — the immediate positive.
Michel Angelo was born to exhibit humanity in its universality;
to round, sensuously, the whole circle of culture. He and Da Yinci
were the only artists possessed of sufficient intellect to accomplish
this, and Da Yinci lacked the will. He could depict the second
stage; he advanced to mediation, but remained there. We have
already said he \vas negative from the first. For Michel Angelo
alone was it possible to mediate this mediation and arrive at the
absolute positive. And with this great mission ordained him, of
what moment was it what he as an individual suffered \ In the
fatality wliich deprived him of his particular aims, who now fails
to perceive the highest justice, as well to liimself as to the world ?
It was his greatest glory, as it was his highest happiness, before
the close of his long life, himself to recognize the truth.

But before that blissful consummation, what years of agony, of
bitter, burning revolt, of useless conflict with tlie inevitable, lay
before him ! His obdurate heart was hard to subdue. Youth
and prime had passed, and old age pressed hard upon him before
the lesson of his life was conned ; before he yielded to the truth —
of which he had often caught a glimp>e — that it is only through
the renunciation of the unessential, arbitrary will that true free-
dom can be realized.

Nothing could better illustrate the poverty of the natural will
than the fact that it is only valid so long as it is all-powerful ; it
must always have an object outside of itself upon which to exer-
cise itself. This object removed, or grown more powerful than
it, the will is turned back upon and preys upon self, wlience dis-
content, doubt, and internal contradiction. At the time Michel
Angelo painted the roof of the Sistine he was suffering all the
pain and agony of nothingness, the torment of baffled endeavor ;
and it needs no biographer of his to tell us that this lonely vault
was the scene of a mighty though impotent contest with Fate.
He has covered every inch of available space with figures whose

The Hero as Artist. 91

writhing muscles betray now the activity of protest, and now the
stillness of despair.

The compartments of the ceiling were, in a measure, mapped
out for him ; he only lent them his terrihilitd ; but in the general
ornamentation, and in the Prophets and Sibyls, he had an oppor-
tunity of expressing his own thought, of exercising his own imagi-
nation. So great was this thought, so overwhelming this fantasy,
that nothing less grand than the human form could possibly ex-
press it. And in all this restless company there is no single cen-^
tre of repose, nothing to form a central unity, a fixed point ;
each figure is lost in ^eZ/'-contemplation or in seJf-iiQ.iW\iy ; no one
has any connection with or interest in another. The only com-
mon link is the thought which engages them ; they are all either
combating to the utmost, or sinking beneath, the conviction that
Christ upon the cross is the symbol of and index to renunciation.

When Michel Angelo came out of the Sistine Chapel he had
learned the lesson of passive if not of active obedience. To the
work of erecting the fagade of San Lorenzo — which involved
what he himself called the " very great ignominy " of his life, his
employment as quarryman and road-builder — which was forced
upon him, he yielded, merely saying : " Yerily, there is need of
patience." But when the same pope, Leo X, who had insulted
him with this commission, placed in his hand the contract for the
Medician Tombs, thus allowing him to return to his favorite pur-
suit, though divorcing him from the object upon which he would
have preferred to exercise it — the Mausoleum — he found vent for
all the deep bitterness of his soul in that wonderful but woful
statue of " Night."

The figure of "JSTight" is that of a being held down and tram-
pled upon by Fate. With power radiating from every lineament
of her face and form, she is yet helpless and despairing. Hating
and cursing life and her own thought, yet unable to lay down
the one or rise above the other, she is the image of the soul of
her creator when he wrote : " My brain turns when I think of
these things."

When he sculptured "Night," " The Dawn," and " Lorenzo the
Thoughtful " — which were all produced in the same spirit and
under the same pressure of circumstances, and have almost the
same content — Michel Angelo had reached the crisis of his life

92 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

without knowinp; it ; tlie bow could have been bent no farther.
If his conteniphition of self had continued longer, his reason would
indeed have tottered. It was at his moment of deepest suffering
that the event occurred which turned his attention outward.
When the news of the sack of Rome reached Florence the anti-
Medici party arose. Michel Angelo, always at heart a Republican,
eagerly joined the Liberalists, and, in the absorbing interest with
which he threw himself into the defence of his country, for a time
forgot himself.

It was not long before, partly through treachery, but still more
through tlieir own folly and want of unity, the Liberalists were
constrained to surrender; and the Medici, not unwelcomed, en-
tered Florence. TJien Michel Angelo yielded everything — the
hope of seeing his country free, the hope of ever being able to
control his own outer life. But, at the same time that he began
to recognize the fact that the freedom which he had desired for
Florence was not what really suited hei', the perception must have
dawned upon him that perhaps he was equally mistaken as to
what was best for himself. Plis biographers tell us that, "having
seen the hopelessness of the Florentine cause, Michel Angelo sub-
mitted to the inevitable." He did more ; he accepted -and acqui-
esced in the inevitable as best and right, as just. He had always
submitted. How could he do otherwise? We must all submit,
whether we wish or no ; it is the spirit in which we yield that
counts. Whether, freely and uncomplainingly, as if it were our
own will — thus making it our own — or, bound hand and foot, and
crying out against the universe, we are dragged onward to our
fate. This had been Michel Angelo's submission heretofore ; he
now rose to the heroism of obedience.

The instant of renunciation is at the same time the beginning
of a new life. Three months after the capituhxtion of Florence,
Michel Angelo was again at work upon the tombs in San Lorenzo ;
and, as in the statue of " Night " he portrayed his deepest misery,
in that of " Day," which he now commenced, he sought to com-
memorate his latest victory — the conquest of himself. This marble
is instinct with the repose of conscious power, and fervent with
mighty resolve. A great thought — a thought which it must have
forever remained incapable of articulating — was striving to extri-
cate itself from the massive stone when Michel Angelo was called

The Hero as Artist. 93

away from it to tlie supreme effort of his life — the representation,
upon the wall of the Sistine, of " The Last Judgment."

Nearly thirty years intervened between his lirst work in tlie
Sistine Chapel and his last, and in that time he had never touched
brush to fresco. Yet we are told that in all this immense compo-
sition there is no slightest trace of hesitation or embarrassment ;
the thought itself was so stupendous that it broke over all bar-
riers, and was king of mechanism. Alone, in the presence of his
own handiwork, he lived over again the whole tremendous con-
flict, and, mindful how he had himself solved the problem, he
painted its solution here. The "Moses," as we have said, repre-
sents unreflected will ; his works of the second period display the
will thrown back upon itself, and finally, conscious that its error
has been to suppose that its act had any right to extend beyond
itself, " The Last Judgment " was now to represent the final re-
turn of the will into and reconciliation with itself, the conscious-
ness that " the deed returns upon the doer," that the will has power
over the individual alone.

The principal figure of " The Last Judgment," its central point,
is the Christ foretold upon the ceiling above it. The same and
not the same. That sorrow-stricken Renunciant has conquered
Death. Christ appears here as spirit triumphant — spirit which,
through the cancellation of its finitude, has become reconciled
with God — as God himself. Symbolizing as He does the whole
process of spirit, He appears now as the exemplar by which each
man is called upon to judge his own life. In His countenance
there is no promise of clemency. " Eternal justice may involve
infinite love, but no mercy ; " still less can it know malice. That
wounded side, those passion-marked hands and feet, are not exhib-
ited to threaten or condemn, but as a summons for each man to
confess to himself in how far he has reflected the divine process as
presented to him in the history of Christ. In how far he has cru-
cified self, and, by so doing, arisen to the consciousness of a new
gelf_a life in God. To those who have brought their lives into
conformity with His, He is a vivifying power which raises them
to equal heights with Himself; to the wicked He is a consuming
fire into which their own deeds plunge them.

In this picture Michel Angelo displays his conviction that, for
good or ill, man is his own creator. That it is only by making

94 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

himself" one with Gocl, by subjecting his will to His, that he can
obtain blessedness ; it is only thus that the agony of expiring
personality can be changed into a return to self, into happiness,
satisfaction, and tranquillity.

"When a man has reached the point of view at which he dis-
cerns that all things are governed by immutable, irresistible law —
" law which executes itself," which is in reality universal justice ;
when he feels that, in obedience to this law, no thing and no
pei'son can work him harm save only himself — he has reached a
summit of repose far above and beyond the vicissitudes of earthly
lite. At the time he Avas called upon to endure the two great
sorrows of bis life, the loss of father and of friend, Michel An-
gelo had attained this elevation, and, though he suffered deeply
and mourned sincerely, he was not overwhelmed. He could even
write of Vittoria Colonna :

" Not love, nor thy transcendent face,
Nor cruelty, nor fortune, nor disdain,
Cause my mischance, nor fate, nor destiny.
Since in thy heart thou earnest deatii and grace
Inclosed tojrether, and ray worthless brain

Can draw forth only death to feed on me."

His latest work — the one which rounded the circle of his
achievements in art and proclaimed him as great in architecture
as he had already proved himself to be in sculpture and in paint-
ing — was the crowning symbol of his life. The Dome of St. Peter's
is alike the emblem of a faith which, leaving behind the formal
universality of medi?evalism, has — through the mediation of
Protestantism — attained to the possibility of a higher universality
which recognizes and admits of individual freedom ; and of the
soul of Michel Angelo, which, through the heroism of its'submis-
sion to a divine principle, had found its reconciliation within
itself.

Notes and Discussions. 95

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

CHILDHOOD.

Not Wordsworth's genius, Pestalozzi's love,

The stream have sounded of clear infancy.

Baptismal waters from the Head above

These babes I foster daily are to me.

I dip my pitcher in these living springs

And draw, from depths below, sincerity.

Unsealed, mine eyes behold all outward things

Arrayed in splendors of divinity.

What mount of vision can with- mine compare ?

Not Roman Jove, nor yet Olympian Zeus

Darted from loftier ether through bright air

One spark of holier fire for human use —

Glad tidings thence these angels downward bring.

And at their birth the heavenly choirs do sing.

A. Bronson Alcott.
'Concord, Mass., September^ 1881.

HEQEV8 DIALECTIC METHOD— A PRIZE ESSAY.

The Berlin Philosophical Society, founded in 1843, by the disciples of
Hegel, but now numbering among its members men of the most various
philosophical creeds, has applied the surplus of funds recently collected
for a monument in memory of Hegel to the foundation of a Hegel
Institution, the object of which is the furtherance of philosophical re-
search. The society has just issued the following prize theme : 'A crit-
ical and historical account of the dialectical method of Hegel."

No. 1. The development of Hegel's Method, as shown in his writings.
How his dialectic is related to his logic and metaphysics.

No. 2. Comparison of Hegel's Method with the methods of his prede-
cessors. Is his method derived from them ?

96 The Journal of Speculative Philosoj)hij.

No. 3. The sio;nifieeiice and value of Hegel's Method. Does it fulfil
the requirements of a philosophical method or not ?

The treatises may be in German, French, English, or Italian. They
must be sent in by December 31, 1883, to the secretary of the society —
either to Prof. Dr. C. L. Michelct (Biilow Strasse, 28, S. W. Berlin), or
to Stadtgerichtsrath a. D. Meineke (Kurfuersten Strasse, 56, W. Berlin).

Each essay must be headed by a motto and accompanied with a sealed
envelope containing the motto and the name of the writer and his ad-
dress. The envelopes with the unsuccessful essays will be burned. The
manuscript of the successful essay will remain the property of the society,
the right of publication remaining with the author.

The prize of 450 "Reichsmark" (about 110 dollars in our money)
will be paid on the first of July, 1884.

A copy of the programme can be obtained, on application, from the
librarian of the University of Berlin, Dr. F. Ascherson.

(Dated) Berlin, June 25, 1881. (Signed by the two secretaries above
mentioned.)

D. J. SXIDERS "^ WALK IK BELLAS:'

Mr. D. J. Snider, whose profound studies into the composition of
Shakespeare's dramas were, some of them, printed in this journal (vol-
umes V to xi),* has brought out a volume of studies upon the scenery
and population of the part of Greece lying between Athens and Par-
nassus. The title is "A Walk in Hellas, or The Old in the New ; " " pri-
vately printed " (but can be had, at the price of two dollars, of the au-
thor; address, St. Louis, Mo.). He divides the book into twelve "Talks,"
whose subjects are as follows: (1) From Athens to Pentelicus ; (2) From
Pentelicus to Parnes ; (3) From Parnes to Marathon ; (4) Marathon ;
(5) From Marathon to Marcopoulo ; (6) Rainy Day at Marcopoulo ; (7)
From Marcopoulo to Aulis ; (8) Aulis and Chalkis ; (9) From Aulis to
Thebes; (10) Thebes and Platsea ; (11) From Thebes to Lebadea; (12)
Stop at Lebadea.

The author has charmingly woven reminiscences of the ancient events
in Greece with the scenery he finds now, and no book of travels has given
us so vivid a realization of the old Greece in the new as this one does.
Mr. Snider is a student of the philosophy of history, and, almost as a
consequence, an enthusiast for ancient Greece. He endeavors to find,
everywhere, traces left that indicate the Greek of classic times. In the

* Published in two volumes, under the title of " The System of Shakespeare's
Dramas," by George I. Jones & Co., St. Louis.

Notes and Discussions. 97

course of his walk over that small, but most significant portion of the
globe, he makes entertaining and instructive reflections on the meaning
of the Greek principle in civilization and on the movements celebrated in
history and poetry, that have their beginning or end in this region.
There is a vein of humor that enlivens the book, although it is written in
a style so intensely personal that it does not need other attractions. One
can almost make the tour from Athens to Lebadea vicariously, through
Mr. Snider's description, especially if he is already familiar with Mr.
Snider's previous writings. W. T. H.

SENTENCES IN PROSE AND VERSE.

SELECTED BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

IV.

But t'other young maiden looked sly at me,

And from her seat she ris'n ;
Let's you and I go our own way,

And we'll let she yo shisn. — Berkshire Ditty.

Then old age and experience, hand in hand,

Lead him to death, and make him understand.

After a search so painful and so long,

That all his life he has been in the wrong. — Anon.

Tommy Linn is a Scotchman born.

His head is bald, and his beard is shorn ;

He had a cap made of a bear-skin,

An elder man is Tommy Linn.

Tommy Linn, and his wife, and his wife's mother.

They all fell into the fire together ;

They that lay undermost got a hot skin ;

We are not enough ! said Tommy Linn. — Ritson.
She never was aware that more can be said in one minute than can
be forgotten in a whole lifetime. — Landor.

Slight those who say, amidst their sickly healths, thou livest by rule.
What doth not so, but man ?

Houses are built by rule, and commonwealths.

Entice the hasty sun, if but you can,

From his ecliptic line : beckon the sky !

Who lives by rule then, keeps good company. — Anon ?
XVI— 7

98 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Not a monodrame, but a monologue, not at all dramatic [Manfred].
— Macready.

Bring the year's expenditures and receipts to a balance, for which I
have great reason to be grateful to Almighty God. — Ibid,

Walked into the fields taking the two puppies with me, returned to
the subject of myself and my destinies. — Ibid.

. Acted particularly well, the audience felt it ; I spoke in my own manly
voice, and took time to discriminate ; I was much pleased. — Ibid.

I mean discrimination, not in one's own mind, but made palpable to
and impressed on an audience. — Ibid.

Acted Lear — how ? certainly not well, crude, fictitious voice, no point ;
in short, a failure. — Ibid.

The use and the end of life, what is it all worth ? — Ibid.
The other old woman talked of the florid Gothic style of architecture,
preceding the Roman. — Ibid.

My course seems near its close [1842 — he died 187.3]. — Ibid.

One sees the warm and transparent tints of Claude in it, and hears the
sound of the leaping rill [Horace's Fons Bandusioe]. — Ibid.

Hard students are commonly troubled with all such diseases as come
by over-much sitting ; they are most part lean, dry, ill-colored, and all
through immoderate pains and extraordinary studies. If you will not
believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus, and Thomas Aquinas's
works, and tell me whether these men took pains ! — Burton.

That noble and passionate grief, which protests against the illimitable
torture of all creation, and the terrible silence of the creator. — Ouida.

In all the list of the world's deadly errors, there is no mistake so

deadly as age. — Ibid.

All that remains of thee these plaits unfold,

Calm hair meandering in pellucid gold. [Lucretia Borgia's hair.]

— Lander.
Nor ever had the veil-hung pine outspread

O'er Tethys then her wandering leafless shade. — Ibid.

Whether where Castro from surrounding vines
Hears the hoarse ocean roar among his caves,
And, thro' the fissure in the green churchyard,
The wind wail loud the calmest summer day ;
Or where Santona leans against the hill.
Hidden from sea and land by groves and bowers. — Ibid.

Notes and Discussions. 99

My hopes retire ; my wishes as before
Struggle to find their resting-place in vain ;
The ebbing sea thus beats against the shore ;
The shore repels it ; it returns again. — Ibid.

As oftentimes an eagle, ere the sun

Throws o'er the varying earth his early ray,

Stands solitary, stands immovable

Upon some highest cliff, and rolls his eye,

Clear, constant, unobservant, unabased.

In the cold light above the dews of morn. — Ibid.

Come from dark ages forth, come Drimacos ! — Ihid.

He ( Wilkie) could no more have painted Christ than he could have
raised Lazarus. — Haydon.

" Poor Mrs. Burgess died in childbed, poor Tom Burgess much af-
flicted; wind W. N. W." — Haydon^ s father'' s journal.

Marriage prevents a man's mind eating him up, which is the case in
too much solitude. — Haydon.

Came home, took out our Savior, and tried him walking in the garden.
He would not do, so put him in again sitting and reposing. — Ihid.

Impulse is but a quicker perception of reasons that prove the truth. —
Ibid.

Let any man reflect that on the loss of a beautiful infant we were
obliged to pawn our winter things to bury her. . . . that on the night
of my most brilliant success [as a lecturer] I took my coat out of pawn,
and had the torture of being obliged to return it next day. — Ibid.

Sent the tea-urn off the table and got 10s. for the day. — Ibid.

Festina lente ; celerity should be contempered with cunctation. — Sir
Thos. Browne.

It is, I confess, the common Fate of Men of singular Gifts of Mind, to
be destitute of those of Fortune; which does not ary way deject the
Spirits of wiser Judgments, who thoroughly understand the Justice of
this Proceeding ; and being enriched with higher Donatives, cast a more
careless Eye on those vulgar parts of Felicity, — Ibid.

Yet should there hover in their restless heads

One thought, one grace, one wonder at the best

Which into words, no virtue can digest. — Marlowe \on his mistress^

Enough that she alone has looked at him

With eyes that, large or small, have won his soul. — Mrs. Browning.

100 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Mid the blue fields of starlight, thou art sailing —

Adelaida ! — Ballad.

Still lives the song, tho' Rcgnar dies. — John Sterling.

" In niz heguzared^'' This too will pass away. [The motto on the
cabin-wall of the Austrian Arctic ship " Tegethoff."] — Payer.

The single-nostriled animals, monorrhina, originated during the pri-
meval period out of the skulless animals, by the anterior end of the dorsal
marrow developing into the brain, and the anterior end of the dorsal
chord into the skull. Man is descended from the catarrhini, or narrow-
nosed apes. This is the twenty-first special stage in man's development.
— Haeckel.

"What," said Amelia, "have you never been in love, Thomas?"
" Yes, forsooth," replied the valet ; " sometimes, of a morning." — Fielding.

The poets wrote the best prose, Milton excepted ; it is more extravagant
than his verse, as if written in ridicule of the latter. — C. J. Fox.

Good humor is too often confounded with good nature, which has a
much less servile character. — Burke.

In India I never undressed, and for many years in the Peninsula I
undressed very seldom ; never for the first four years. — Duke of Welling-
ton.

The divine greyhound, Sarama, who guards for the Lord of heaven
the golden herd of stars and sunbeams, and for him collects the nourish-
ing rain-clouds as the cows of heaven to the milking, and who, moreover,
faithfully conducts the pious dead into the world of the blessed, becomes,
in the hands of the Greeks, the son of Sarama, Hermeias. — Mommsen.

I was so wet, and everything was so wet, every table and chair was so
wrecked, that it was impossible to touch a pen or paper. — John Adams
\o.t sea'].

Michael Angelo is a strong low character, rather than exalted or great.
He could do nothing pure or grand in beauty. His characters are often
as if they had been studied from deformity or beggary. Coarse strength
and reality are his power. — David Scott [copying Last Judgment].

Melt the handle off my teapot, burn my fingers, break the lid, knock it
over, and put out the fire. — Ibid. [Bachelor Housekeeping],

Whose dust the solemn antiquarian turns.
And thence, in broken sculptures, casts abroad.
Like Sibyls' leaves ; collects the builder's name,
Rejoic'd, and the green medals frequent found.
Doom Caracalla to perpetual fame. — Dyer.

Notes and Discussions. 101

To mark o'er ocean the thick, rising isles ; ...

Woody Chaetta, Birter rough with rocks,

Green-rising Barniur, Mincoy's purple hills,

And the minute Maldivias, as a swarm

Of bees in summer, on a poplar's trunk,

Clustering innumerable. — Ibid.

The fluctuating world of waters wide,

In boundless magnitude, around them swells ;

O'er whose imaginary brim, nor towns,

Nor woods, nor mountain-tops, nor aught appears,

But Phoebus's orb, refulgent lamp of light,

Millions of leagues aloft : heaven's azure vault

Bends overhead, majestic, to its base.

Uninterrupted clear circumference. — Ibid.

Seek the sacred rests
Of Maro's humble tenement ; a low, plain wall
Eemains ; a little sun-gilt heap,
Grotesque and wild ; the gourd and olive brown
Weave the light roof; the gourd and olive fan
Their amorous foliage, mingling with the vine
Who drops her purple clusters thro' the green.
Here let me lie, with pleasing fancy soothed ;
Here flow'd his fountain ; here his laurels grew.
Here oft the meek, good man, the lofty bard,
Fram'd the celestial song, or social walk'd

With Horace. — Ibid.

He that will serve men must not promise himself that he shall not
anger them. — De Foe. *

What ! a river that wriggles at right angles through a stone gutter,
with two tansy puddings that were dug out of it, and three or four beds
in a row, by a corner of the wall, with samples of grass, corn, and of en
friche (waste land), like a tailor's paper of patterns. — H. Walpole [^BoutirCs
garden],

I am slow to feel — slow, I suppose, to comprehend, and like the
anaconda. — Hawthorne.

Its aspect disappointed me [Abbotsford], but so does everything. —
Ibid.

Not often one sees a homelier set of features than this ; no elevation,
no dignity ; the bridge of the nose depressed, and the end turned up,

102 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosoph]/.

and no chin whatever, or hardly any [Walter Scott's mask]. The last
record there is of Scott's personality, and conveying such a wretched and
unworthy idea of it. — Ibid.

A wide-mouthed, long-chinned, uncomely visage, with a triangular
English nose in the very centre [Cromwell's cast]. — Ibid.

Southport is as stupid a place as I ever lived in ; our life here has been
a blank. — Ibid.

All this praise and more, gave me the idea of an intolerably irreproach-
able person [Lady Byron]. — Ibid.

When the cathedral had sufficiently oppressed us by its beauty, we
returned to sublunary matters. — Ibid.

" I have been bullied by an usurper, I have been neglected by a court,
but I won't be dictated to by a subject: yotcr man shanH stand.'''' — Ann
Dorset [to Williamson^.

Words of daily use, which have the chance of remaining on the sur-
face, even in so porous a state of society as that of nomadic hordes. —
Bunsen.

The Algonkin god of sleep is Weeng, whose ministers beat with little
clubs on the foreheads of men, producing slumber. — Dunlop.

Rising from this task and going away again, I just pointed to that
obscurity, which appeared so mystical and so sacred, where are deposited,
in disorder and dismemberment, the spiced abortions of an illusory mere-
tricious philosophy. — Landor \^Platonisni\.

I never court the vulgar. Perhaps about thirty people may be ex-
cepted, and never more at a time. — Ib'id.

He is among the many poets who never make us laugh or weep ;
among the many whom we take into the hand like petty insects, turn
them over, look at them for a moment, and toss them into the grass
again. — Ibid.

The loud, clear challenge, the firm, unstealthy step, of an erect, broad-
breasted soldier [^schylus]. — Ibid.

I walk out in all weathers six miles a day at least [aet. 70], read gener-
ally from 7 to 12 or 1 in the evening; I sleep twenty minutes after din-
ner, and nearly four hours at night ; I rise at nine, breakfast at ten, and
dine at five. — Ibid.

God alone is great enough for me to ask anything of twice. — Ibid.

All the winter I pass five days in the week without walking out, and
fiit often by the fireside till seven in the evening. When I do go out»

Notes and Discussions. 103

whatever the weather is, I go with both glasses of the coach down, and
so I do at midniglit, out of the hottest room. I have not had a single
cold, however slight, these tAvo years. — Horace Walpole.

He [Percival, the poet] had three rooms. His library and minerals
were in one, his study in another, his bedroom in another. His bed was
simply a cot with mattress above. There were no sheets, and a block of
wood placed under the mattress served for a pillow. There were two
woollen blankets on the bed very dirty. Places at the foot showed he
had lain down with his shoes on, and it was evident he had often slept
in his clothes. The rooms were very untidy, and probably never swept.
There were perhaps two inches of rolling lint on the floor. There was a
beaten path from his bed to his stove, to his writing-table, to his library,
and to the door. — Pliny Jewett.

Varius Sucronensis ait, vEmilius Scaurus negat ; utri creditis Quirites f

— Vol. Maximus.

The third of the Kettle Sipahi, or chief men of Bokhara, is the Per-
vanedji, the hutterjiy-man, who is sent on important errands by the emir.

— Vambery.

Here lies Prince Fred, Had it been his Sister,

Who was alive, and is dead ! There's no one would have missed her ;

Had it been his Father, Had it been his whole generation,

I had much rather ; Best of all for the nation :

Had it been his Brother But since 'tis only Fred,

Sooner than any other; There's no more to be said.

Epitaph on Prince Fred \by himself, 1751].
I say, 'tis as like Shakespeare as a glass of peppermint water is to a
bottle of the finest French brandy. — Mrs. Piozzi. [Walter Scott com-
pared with Shakespeare.]

The color of the wind — the tint of the storm. — Ibid.
Only two books in Weston-supra-mare, a Bible and a Paradise Lost ; I
bought them both. — Ibid.

I have a great deal more prudence than people suspect me for ; they
think I act by chance, while I am doing nothing in the world unintention-
ally, and have never, I dare say, in these last fifteen years, uttered a
word to husband, or child, or servant, or friend, without being careful
what it should be ! — Ibid.

I used to walk incessantly, squeezing the flag-stones of our South
Parade [at Bath] with my feet, in order to obtain relief for my head. —
Ibid.

104 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

My fearlessness in the water attracts the women to the rocks, where it
seems such fine sport to see Mrs. Piozzi swim [act. 78j.

When the house of his [Thralc's] favorite sister was on fire, and we
were all alarmed with the account of it in the night, I well remember
that he never rose, but bidding the servant who called us go to her assist-
ance, quietly turned about, and slept to his usual hour. — Ibid.

Women bear crosses better than men do, but they bear surprises
worse. — Ihid.

"But 1 forgot to tell you how one of my great casks [1,000 hogsheads]
is burst, and all the beer run out " [after talking of a thousand trifles, a
remark by Thrale]. — Ibid.

We must not ridicule a passion which he who never felt never was
happy, and he who laughs at never deserves to feel — a passion which has
caused the change of empires and the loss of worlds — a passion which has
inspired heroism and subdued avarice [love]. — Dr. Johnson.

" The king spoke : sage ! since thou dost not count a thousand miles
far to come, wilt thou not, too, have brought somethino- for the weal of
my realm ? " [in the Chinese idiom] " King spoke : Sage, not far thousand
mile and come, also will have use gain me realm, hey ? " — Schleicher \lan-
guage.~\

Dry general truths are a sort of algebra acquired by the mind slowly
and after much trouble, against our native inclination to observe outward
things. — Taine.

This curtailed deity [the Eighteenth Century god] is but a residuum
at the bottom of the crucible. The reasoners of that time, havinor no
metaphysical inventiveness, kept him in their system to stop a gap, like
an Alexandrine. — Ibid.

But I have waited long indeed to hear

These rivers break in song, or bluely dark.

Behold these mountains rank in rolling verse,

Or our red forests light the landscape's line. — E. G. Tuckerman.

Yet one had loveliness which the spirit wins
To other worlds — eyes, forehead, smile, and all,
More softly serious than the twilight's fall. — Ibid.

How shall I aiTay my love ?
How should I arrange my fair ?
Leave her standinsr white and silent
In the richness of her hair ?

Notes and Discussions. 105

Motion silent, beauty bare,

In the glory of her hair ? — Ibid.

A weather-cock in the waving weed,
A clock-face in the sky. — Ibid.

The meadow with the herd in its green heart. — Ibid.

My Anna ! tho' thine earthly steps arc done ;

Nor in the garden, nor beside the door.

Shall I behold thee standing any more —

What tho' beside my feet no other one

May set her own, to walk the forward way ? — Ibid.

The fall in few, the statelier in the less. — Ibid.

That courageous soldiers, led on by a courageous Wooden Pole with
Cocked-hat on it, will do very well. — Carlyle.

This big glaring geometrical bully in red wig [Maupertuis]. — Ibid.

The happy man, a duke of Montenero, ill-built Neapolitan, complexion
rhubarb, and face consisting much of nose. — Ibid.

Transcendent self-conceit, intrinsically insane ! — Ibid.

In life, as on railways at certain points, whether you know it or not,
there is but an inch this way or that into what tram you are shunted,
but try to get out of it again. — Ibid.

Worldly, my dear — so is the world — worldly ; and we must serve it as
it serves us, and give it nothing for nothing. — Thackeray.

Our favorite birch-tree, it was yielding to the gust of wind with all its
tender twigs. The sun shone upon it, and it glanced in the breeze like
a flying sunshiny shower. It was a tree in shape with stem and branches,
but it was like a spirit of water. — Dorothy Wordsworth.

I told him that I used in my childhood to chase butterflies, but was
afraid of brushinof the dust ofE their wings. — Ibid.

I never saw dajSodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy
stones about them. Some rested their heads on these stones as on a
pillow. The others tossed, and reeled, and danced, and seemed as if they
verily laughed with the wind, they looked so gay and glancing. — Ibid.

Far off in the west, the coast of England like a cloud, crested with
Dover Castle, the evening star and the glory of the sky. The reflections
in the water were more beautiful than the sky itself — purple waves
brighter than precious stones forever melting away upon the sands, — Ibid.

106 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Where'er my footsteps turned
Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang ;
The thought of her was like a flash of light
Or an unseen companionship. — Wordsworth \of his sister\

Wordsworth and his exquisite sister are with me. Iler information
various ; her eye watchful in minutest observation of Nature ; her taste
a perfect electrometer. — Coleridge.

THE STOIC.
Fearless, regretless, invincible, impassive,

Unwoanded with wounds, and in sickness still whole,
At large when in prison, more free when a captive,

The gods cannot break his adamantean soul.

ANTI-STOIC.
Soft, sensitive, wayward, full of hopes and regrets,

Cast down with a look, only strong with caresses,
Changeable as water, save when love him besets,
Wine, the Muses, and women he life-long blesses.

J. Albee.

BOOK NOTICES.

Seneca and Kant; or, an Exposition of Stoic and Rationalistic Ethics, with a
Comparison of the Two Systems. By Rev. W. T. Jackson, Ph. D., late Professor
of Modern Languages in Indiana University, Dayton, Ohio. United Brethren Pub-
lishing House, 1881.

This essay is an extension of a. thesis originally prepared for the degree of Ph. D. in
Michigan University. It contains a short but clear statement of the historical origin of
Btoicism, and of the ethical doctrines of stoicism, and especially of the stoicism of Seneca,
as well as of the ethical .'system of Kant, and a comparison and criticism of the systems
of Seneca and Kant. The most .iriginal part of the essay is umioubtedly the presenta-
tion of the views of Seneca, as based upon an examination at first hand of that writer's
De Providentia, De Tranquillitate Aniini, De Brevitate Vitce, De Vita Beata, and Epis-
iolce. This part of the treatise is worthy of high commendation, although, perhaps,
the dialectical movement by which the purely negative side of stoicism developed into
the positive doctrine of cosmopolitanism might have been more clearly brougiit out.
The corresponding statement of Kant's ethical system, while it rests upon the Ground-
work of the Metapht/sic of Ethics, and is very clear so far as it goe*, cannot be regarded
as adding much to our knowledge of his rather complex and by no means self-consist-

Booh Notices. 107

ent theory. The truth is that it is impossible to do justice to Kant without a com-
prehensive study of his three preat Critiques of Pure Reason, Practical Reason, and
Judgment, and an exhibition of their mutual relations ; and it may be doubted if Dr.
Jackson has done wisely in severing them from one another. Tlie distinction of nou-
mcna and phenomena^ which plays so important a part in the Critical Philosophy, can-
not be presented, except in its more superficial aspects, unless a careful distmction is
drawn between the thing in itself in the vulgar sense of a mere unknown something
lying beyond the boundaries of knowled-ie, and in the high sense of that which, while
beyond sense-exporience, is yet within the grasp of reason. That both of these con-
ceptions are implied in Kant's doctrine is beyond qr.estion, and the expounder of his
ethical theory must perforce enquire how far he consciously distinguished them, and
whether tlie rejection of the former is incompatible «lth the acceptance in sotnc sense
of the latter. In making these reservations I should not wish to be understood as
denying the value, to students of Kant's ethical theoty, of Dr. Jackson's clear and precise
statement of the purely ethical part of it, but only as indicating a region of enquiry
•which it might be profitable to follow out, and the fallowing out of which would lead
to most important results.

The analogy of stoical and Kintian ethics is one that cannot escape the observation
of any thoughtful student of botti systems. In the "autonomy of reason and the sub-
jection of passion," as Dr. Jackson points out, Kant and the stoics are at one ; to which
might be added the assertion of the negative and non-sensuous character of what Kant
calls "reverence for the moral law." But it soon nppears that the points of divergence
are even mere numerous. It is, perhaps, somewhat beneath the dignity of the subject
to insist on distinction in literary style and intellectual capacity — things which are out-
side of the subject proper. Nor do I think that Seneca's philosophy of nature can
quite ju.stly be called "inextricable fatalism," while Kant's distinciion oinoumena and
plienomena " leaves man a sphere of freedom." Fatalism is not identical with con-
scious subordination to law, and Kant's 7ioumenon, literally interpreted, as indeed Dr.
Jackson himself suggests, admits of no freedom but that which consists in willing
nothing in particular. The criticisms of Kant's ethics, however, while some of th<m
are not exactly new, and while others have a slight savour of theological dogmatism
which should be avoided in a purely philosophical treatise, are on the whole stimulating
and suggestive. John Watson.

The Hibbeet Lectures, 1881. On the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated
by some Points in the Hiitory of Indian Buddhism. By T. W. Ruts Davids. Lon-
don : WiUiams & Norgate. Pp. 262.

Mr. Rhys Davids has not fillen behind the lecturers of former years in power to
interpst and edify. He has the merit of a sympathetic perspicacity, that, not encum-
bered or deflected by the detail.* and niceties of his scholarship, goes straight to the
heart of his subject. And his intuition is not more sure than his expression of it is
clear and vivid. These lectures have the distinction and intensity of religious ilis-
course. And it is no disparagement of Mr. Davids' part in this effect on the reader
to say that his happy choice of passages from the Buddhist sacred writings in no small
degree contributes to it. These Scripture readings almost invariably lead to eloquent
comment. Yet, perhaps, the essential note of the book is the judicial comprehensive-
ness of his comparative vie.v of Buddhism and Christianity. There is in it no special
pleading for either one or the other ; and out of this imparti.<l consideration of their
difference and agreement Mr. Davids brings away much that is instructive, and throws

108 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

light on what it is tlie business of a Hibbert lecturer to elucidate — the origin and
growth of Religion in general.

A careful perusal will make it evident that a first principle of his treatment is, that
Religion issues from the licart of man, and Revelation comes from within ; and, accord-
ingly, that no church can claim the prerozative of a unique and preternatural origin
and consequent exemption from a criticism and comparison that ought to be perfectly
free amid its rever.^nce for what is in every case so eminently human. That a re-
ligion may be prima inter pares is enough. In venturing to attribute these latent
convictions to Mi'. Davids, no wrong will be done him, if Religion in its inwardness is
carefully discriminated from its after-growth and shell of creed and ceremony, however
natural and inevitable these may be seen to have been as vehicle — like as you must
carry precious perfume in a vase. This distinction is another undercurrent that rules
his thought throughout. Again, while he claims that a right use of the comparative
study of religion leads to the discovery of "general tendencies," he holds out no
present hop;^ of finding " laws " of religious development and decay in any sense that
would establish "a sci"nce of religion."

In the first lecture, his just sense of perspective recognizes Buddhism to be com-
paratively in the foreground of religious development as we ought to picture it; and
he gives a rapid but none the less effective sketch of the beliefs and ideas that led up
to it through the long dim foretime. When Buddhism arose, universal Animism had,
by selection and promotion of fittest "ghosts," given issue to the polytheism of the
Veda, while still itself surviving as manifold superstition in the popular mind and the
Atharva-Veda, which may be called the book of the lesser spirits or souls. When
Gotama came, he found these ghosts or spirits inside everything. Nothing was inani-
mate. The " internal spirit " of every one iiai existed in other bodies or things before,
and would do so again. Further, even a single act of carelessness consigned the
noblest and purest ghost to a degraded and miserable tenement on his current lease
expiring, and so on without hope of end. Such was the doctrine of the Transmigra-
tion of Souls, which Mr. Davids thinks must have at times engendered in most men " a
vague feeling of helplessness and hopelessness." There may have been a feeling more
than usually strong in Gotama's time that the Sankhya and Ycdanta had broken
down ; and the saying, that " there is always a metaphysical shipwreck connected
•with the rise of such great sorrows," may have a share of truth, and help to account
for the conception of Buddhism in the mind of Gotama; just as the post-Kantian
Absolutisms, first received with enthusiasm and implicitly trusted, but afterwards found
wanting and forsaken, may be fairly taken to have provided in great part the emotional
motive of German pessimism. What Buddha did for the world-weary, heavy-laden
toilers of life was to effect a change of front for them along the whole line. He swept
away the entire soul-theory, from the grossest animism up to Deism, with all its dog-
mas and rites. This absolutely new departure is the central and signal fact in Buddh-
ism. Yet, unfortunately, he dealt wirdi Animism "as some Broadchurchmen deal with
beliefs accepted now." " He endeavored to bring it into harmony with his new ideas
by putting new meanings into the old phrases " — the new wine into the old bottles ;
and such compromise, Mr. Davids thinks, has been one of the main causes of the practi-
cal failure of Buddhism, as well as Stoicism, Christianity, Comtism, and Confucianism,
in the sense that they " have so far disappointed tiie hopes of their founders and of their
earliest disciples." "Each is the natural outcome of an immeasurable past," and, un-
able to shake off its inheritance, has naturally preserved many of the old phrases, and so

Book Notices. 109

left a soil for the old weeds to flourish in and choke the Word. Gotama retained the
doctrine that whatsoever a man reapeth that hath he sown. Karma took the place of
souls. Karma is the aggregate or resultant of an infinite series of lives. It is "per-
sistent force." The same continuous Karma makes identical and continuous the indi-
vidual links in each chain of lives, and so the sense of injustice excited by the ine(iuali-
ties of life is appeased. The transmission of Karma prefigures " the conservation of
energy" from an ethical point of view and with ethical motive. But what determines
the same Karma, presently embodied in any given individual, to perpetuate itself in a
particular series of individuals ? Gotama gives a similar answer to Plato in the
Phcedo. It is the weak, craving thirst for further life in the creature flickering out
that brings the Karma to a focus in the birth of a new creature. Otherwise, it would
disintegrate and disperse. There is some obscurity about the author's exposition here.
But it does not appear that Gotama contemplated the destruction of Karma, but only
of its extrinsic principle of individuation. The Arhal, or perfect man, having traversed
the noble Eightfold Path, has ceased from all base craving from the lust of the flesh,
the lust of life, and the pride of life, and from " the inward fires of lust, hatred, and
delusion," and has so attained Nirvana, Rest. The Kingdom of Heaven is within him,
and the peace that passeth understanding. This peace is no annihilation of a soul that
never was, nor extinction of any desire that is not l)ase, nor even, it would appear, of
Karma, but only its dispersion, and that merely by the way. Nirvana is its own reward
and end, the summum bonum ; and not to be thought of or aimed at as a means. To
obtain Nirvana, one need not accept the Karma- theory. To aim at it is not hedon-
istic self-seeking, but at the same time it is not intentionally an altruistic endeavor to
prevent a new person from falling heir to the accumulated Karma. It never occurred
to the early Buddhist teachers any moi'e than to the early Christians to inculcate a
duty towards the beings that vvill exist in the ages to come. It is a "modern concep-
tion," though the Nirvana of the Arhat included a " heart of love, far-reaching,
grown great, and beyond measure." " It is only the evil desires, the grasping, selfish
aims, which the Arhat has to overcome." This he does by "insight." In the Book
of the Great Decease, " Insight " is assigned as important a function as t6 <ppoveiv in
the Philcbus. The wicked man who breaks faith for the sake of worldly advantage is
a^fool, and his hungry eyes glare restlessly under a straitened forehead. Yet " insight "
is not the privilege of the learned or shrewd. It rather appertains to the childlike and
poor in spirit, and resembles the justifying faith of St. Paul. The first two insights are
into "impermanency and non-individuality."

" Transient are all component things !
Growth their nature and decay :
They are produced, they are dissolved again :
And then is best — when they have sunk to rest !"

This refrain, ever-recurring in Buddhist literature, i^ the Xiivra. pel of Heraclitus at once
aflirmed and resolved. There is no immortal soul, nothing abides, but the Arhat
finds in Nirvana an intensively eternal life, stable amid the flux in its indifference to
it. He has reached a haven outside of the realm of death.

It has been impossible to do more than touch some salient features of Mr. Davids'
portraiture of early Buddhism. In his lecture on the Buddhist Biographies he con-
cludes that " the Cakka-vatti Buddha was to the early Buddhists what the Messiah
Logos was to the early Christians." Cakka-vatti was the pre-Buddhist ideal king of
Righteousness; Buddha the ideal perfectly wise man, or personification of wisdom.

110 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

*' And it is the Cakka-vatti Buddha circle of ideas in the one case, just as the Messiah
Logos in the other, that has liad the principal influence in determining the opinions of
the eaily disciples as to tlie person of their master." So " Buddhism may be found as
useful for the true appreciation of early Christianity as the Vedas are useful for the
true appreciation of classical mythology."

It is the inculcation of such principles for use in the study of Religion in general
that makes this book most valuable ; and it will be esteemed by the student as a dis-
cipline, even more than as a store of information. J. Burns-Gibson, M. A.

BOOKS EECEIVED.

Elements of DniversoloETV. An Introduction to the Mastery of Philosophy and the
Sciences (with Special Reference to tlie Science of Music). By Stephen Pearl Andrews,
Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, etc. New York: S. P. Lath-
rop k Co. 1881.

Ideological Etymology; or, A New Method in the Study of Words. By Stephen
Pearl Andrews, Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, etc. New
York : S. P. Lathrop & Co.

An Analy.'^is of Relationships. By A. Macfarlane, M. A., D. Sc, F. R. S. E. (Being
a reprint from " The Philosophical Magazine" for June, 1881.)

Algebra of Relationship. Part II. By A. Macfarlane, M. A., etc. (Being a reprint
from " The Proceedings of the Royal S jciety of Edinburgh," and in continuation of an
article in vol. x, p. 224, of those proceedings.)

Platotie e I'lmmortalit^ dell' Aniraa. Per A. Vera, Professore di FilosoSa nella Uni-
versity di Napoli, gia Professore di Filosofia nella University di Francia. Napoli; Det-
ken e Rocholl, Piazza del Plebiscito. 1881.

Modern Agnosticism. By Dr. W. D. Wilson. A reprint from " The Church Eclec-
tic." Pp. 1-lY.

On the Modern Science of Economics. A Paper read before the Banker's Institute,
March 16, 18S1. By Henry D\inning Macleod, E^q., M. A., of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, and tlie Inner Temple, Barrister at Law. Reprint from "The Journal of the
Institute of Bankers." Pp. 1-17.

Ueber die Principien der aristotelischen Philosophie und die Bedeutung der Phanta-
flie in derselben. Von J. Frohschammer, Professor der Philosophic in Muenchen.
Muenchen, 1881. Adolf Ackermann. Pp. 1-143.

M. Littre et Auguste Comte par Andre Poey. Paris: Librairie Garraer Baillifere et
Cie. 1879.

Der Heliocentrische Standpunct der Weltbetrachtung. Von Dr. Alfons Bilharz.
Stuttgart : Verlag der J. G. Cottaschen Buchhandlung. 1879.

Books Received. Ill

Stages of Faith ; or, Traces of Divine Mediation in Human Intelligence : A Tract for
Christians on the Transitional Nature of Imperfect Knowledge. By Richard Randolph.
Philadelphia: Central News Company. 1879.

Liten-.ry Studies from the Great British Authors. By H. H. Morgan. St. Louis: G.
I. Jones & Co. 1880.

Neue Studien von Karl Rosenkranz. Vierter Band. Zur Literaturgeschichte.
Leipzig, 1878: Erich Koschny.

Neue Studien von Karl Rosenkranz. Dritter Band. Studien zur Literatur und Cul-
turgeschichte. Leipzig, 1877: Erich Koschny.

Neue Studien von Karl Rosenkranz. Erster Band : Studien zur Culturgeschichte.
ZweilerBand: Studien zur Literaturgeschichte. Leipzig, 1875.

The Complete Works of the Hon. Job Durfee, LL. D., late Chief Justice of Rhode
Island ; with a Memoir of the Author. Edited by his Son. Providence : Gladding &
Proud. 1849.

Die Philosophic seit Kant von Dr. Friedrich Harms. Berlin : Verlag von Theobald
Grieben. 1876.

SubstantiaUsm ; or. Philosophy of Knowledge. By Jean Story. Boston : Franklin
Press, Rand, Avery & Co. 1879.

Ueber den Intelligiblen Character. Zur Kritik der Kantischen Freiheitslehre. Von
Dr. Richard Falckenberg. Halle ; C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1879.

Der Realismus der Modernen Naturwissenschaft im Lichte der von Berkeley und
Kant angebahnten Erkenntnis?kritik. Kritische Streifziige von Dr. Anton von Ledair.
Prag, 1879 : Veilag von F. Tempsky.

Phrenology Vindicated : Being a Reply to the Article by Dr. Andrew Wilson, enti-
tled, " The Old Phrenology and the New." By A. L. Vago.

Key to the Universe; or, a New Theory of its Mechanism. By Orson Pratt, Sen.
Published by the Autlior, and for sale at the Historian's Office, Salt Lake City.

The Method, Meditations, and Selections from the I'rinciples of Descartes. Trans-
lated from the Original Texts, with a new Introductory Essay, Historical and Critical.
By John Veitch. Edinburgh and London : William Blackwood & Sons. 1879.

A Defense of Philosophic Doubt: Being an Essay on the Foundations of Belief.
By Arthur James Balfour. London: Macmillan & Co. 1879.

Short History of German Literature. By James K. Hosmer. St. Louis: G. I. Jones
& Co. 1879.

Reine Loglk von Dr. J. Bergmann. Berlin, 1879 : Ernst Siegfried Mittler und
Sohn.

Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit. Philoaophiscbe Untersuchungen von Otto Liebmann.
Strassburg: Verlag von Karl J. Triibner. 1876.

Etudes sur la Theorie de I'Evolution aux Points de Vue Psychologique, Religieux et
Moral. Par L. Carrau. Paris : Librairic Hachette et Cie. 1879.

On the Transformation of Giavity. By James Croll. Edinburgh.

Comparativism shown as furnishing a Religious Basis to Morality. By Sara S. Hen-
nell. London : Truebner & Co. 1878.
Unity. Chicago. March 1, 1879.

112 The Journal of Speculative Philosophij.

La Reliiione della Natura e dell' Ideale. Kisultato di Stndi siille Relative Opera dlJ.
Stuart Mill, D. F. Strauss, J. G. Fichte, ed altri. Per Luigi Polacco. Fiume. IS'FO.

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und Kiimpfc. Von Moritz Miiller. Leipzig: Hermann Foitz. 18'79.

Monaden und Weltphantasie. Vou J. Frobschammer. Muenchen : Theodor Acker-
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Modern Pliilosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann. By Francis
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Hand-Book to Lectures on the Theory, History, and Practice of Education. By
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Ethic?, or Moral Philosophy. By Rev. Walter H. Hill, S. J. Baltimore : published
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THE JOUBNAL

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

YoL. XYI.] April, 1882. [No. 2

HEGEL'S FOUE PARADOXES.

Hegel has chosen to express many of his doctrines in the form
of paradoxes. According to him, all highest philosophical truth
is paradoxical to the nnphilosophical consciousness. He finds,
quite naturally, all other philosophers, also, paradoxical when
writing truths of speculative depth.

Take the basis of any philosophy — and all philosophic systems
set np a First Principle through which to explain all things — and
it will be found that this states some ultimate fact as the explana-
tion of all particular facts. All particular facts, when seen in
their truth or reality, are only modifications of the one fundamental
fact. Any statement of this ultimate fact or principle is para-
doxical to one who cannot see its genesis. To Thales, water is
the ultimate fact ; Anaximenes thinks that it is air. Common
consciousness sees various forms of matter besides water and air,
and thus finds these doctrines paradoxical. So, too, the doctrine
that matter alone is the explanation of all things is paradoxical
to common consciousness, because the latter perceives also motion
and force. Any explanation whatever involves paradox, because
it attempts to substitute one fact for two or more. What was
previously seen as disparate, isolated data, is, by explanation, made
XYI— 8

114 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

into one, all the differences being accounted for by modifications
of one fact. Strictl_y speaking, the paradox disappears through
the potency of the explanation. This incongruity between ap-
pearance and nltimate fact is so much a relative matter that any
explanation, no matter how simple, will propound a paradox to
all orders of intelligence too feeble to understand it. " To that
Dutch King of Siam," says Carlyle, " an icicle had been a mira-
cle; whoso had carried with him an air-pump and phial of
vitriolic ether might have worked a miracle. To my horse again,
who unhappily is still more unscientific, do not I work a miracle
and magical 'open sesame' every time I please to pay twopence
and open for him an impassable Schlagbaum or shut turnpike?"

Paradox being a relative affair, and incident to all generaliza-
tion, or, what is the same thing, to all exercise of thought or
reason, it is clear that Hegel has not overstated the case when he
makes it co-extensive with the results of speculative thinking.

It is very important to see that paradox arises when a higher
generalization unites into one, what had before appeared to be
many irreducible facts. The paradox exists only for the intellect
too feeble to grasp the synthesis involved, and not for him who is
capable of seeing the mediation which constitutes the generaliza-
tion.

Generalization is the process of discovering what is involved in
a fact or thing — what its existence implies. By this investigation
we always discover that the object under consideration is a part
of a larger whole that includes it as one of its phases or results.
We thus explain the particular characteristics of the objects by
finding them to be products or effects of a common cause. The
same cause that produces these characteristics produces also
many others, and no one of them can be seen properly or truly
except in this synthesis with the cause. Sense-perception sees
what is present before it as a " this " — or that which is here and
now — and, consequently, what is essentially fragmentary. For
eyery " This " is a member of a series in time, and is connected
by a relation of dependence with a line of antecedents and con-
sequents. It is, moreover, related on all sides to an environment
extending indefinitely, and constituting a system of dependence
resolvable into chains of relation, in every one of which the
" This " is a dependent link. It is impossible to analyze the

HegeVs Four Paradoxes. 115

"This" so minutely as to find an ultimate simple or atomic
" This " sundered from its environment. The minutest result of
analysis always finds a synthesis of two terms — the somewhat and
its environment. Any fact is, therefore, a relative synthesis — it
is contingent on the seeing mind. It contains more or less, ac-
cording to the grasp of insight. The fact of the fall of the apple
meant one thing to the swine who ran to devour it, and an im-
measurably greater fact to the mind of Isaac Newton, who saw in
it also universal gravitation. In generalization we subsume a
particular " This " under the larger fact which includes it as one
of its incidents. According to this view, all thinking is essen-
tially of one character, and identical with the simplest act of per-
ception — being in all cases a distinction of something from its
environment, and a uniting, a synthesis, or an identification of
the two. What thought has already done becomes for it a dead
result, and it assumes it as a natural product, simple and irresolv-
able, and, starting with it for the first term, makes its new act of
thought a new synthesis with the environment.

But thought is distinguished into discrete stages by a further
principle— the principle of reflection. Superadded to the primary
or fundamental synthesis which forms the substance of all think-
ing, there transpire acts of reflection. Reflection is, in all cases,
directed to the form of activity. The substantial thinking is an
act of synthesis, and the accompanying act of reflection is a per-
ception that all thinking presupposes the relativity of things —
that dependence is essential and necessary to each : in other
words, that every " This " is a fragment of a larger " This." JSTow,
this stage of thinking, as thus modified by reflection, is the
stage of thinking known as the Understanding or Intellect. Its
fundamental distinction consists in the perception of relativity
or dependence, this perception of dependence arising from reflec-
tion upon the fact of synthesis which it discovers to underlie all
thin kino;.

Another stage of thought is distinguished from that of the un-
derstanding by the fact that it arises through a new reflection,
whose object includes both the previous reflection and its object.
It sees the general form of relativity — and hence the form of
totality. This is consequently a higher or highest form of reflec-
tion, and is called, or may be called, the Reason as distinguished

110 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

from Understanding, and insight or intuition as distinguished from
discursive intellect.

The discrimination of the reason from the understanding is the
most important, although the most difficult, part of psychology.
The first stage of reflection (understanding) sees relativity as the
general form or condition of all thinking or knowing. It sees
this, moreover, as an objective condition — the condition of par-
ticular existence. The second stage of reflection sees that relativ-
ity itself is fragmentary, being a phase of correlativity. Correla-
tivity taken as a whole is independence. From the insight of first
reflection arise a series of categories which express the nature of
finitude, or the characteristics of what is fragmentary and depend-
ent. From the second reflection arise a series of ideas which state
the nature of the totality or the independent.

The understanding considers a thing or fact as a cause or effect,
a force or its manifestation, a thing or its properties, a potential-
ity or reality, etc., or in respect to its quantity or quality, etc.
The reason, in the technical sense, always deals with the totality
and W'ith the predicates which it implies. For example, the total-
ity is not the effect of something else, nor the cause of something
else, because such relation would connect it with something else
beyond itself or with an environment, and, therefore, make it a
fragment instead of a totality. The totality is causa sui. The
totality does not have quality through another, and through this
become subject to change ; but it produces its own quality — it is
self-determined. The totality is self-related ; it is its own other ;
it ends in itself, and is therefore infinite.

In the case of finite or dependent beings, all determinations or
characteristics arise through an energy or process from beyond
their limits — they depend on others. The independent being is
an energy itself ; it is self-determined. Self-determination is the
fundamental characteristic of the totality ; reason cognizes as true
and ultimate only what is consistent with self-determination.
"Whatever is dependent is a fragment of an independent being.
"Whatever is determined or modified through another is a frag-
ment of a total that is self-determined.

In self-determination there are two phases — the determining or
active, the determined or passive. The determining is the uni-
versal as opposed to the particular, which is the determined. The

JSegeVs Four Paradoxes. 117

two phases universal and particular belong to one process of self-
determination. The determining energy of the universal origin-
ates distinctions or particularity ; the nature and quality of its
energy are manifested and revealed through this determination of
particularity ; but the self -determining energy acts persistently,
and by new determinations modifies or changes the particularity
already caused. The annulment of particular determinations is a
second and further revelation of the self-determining universal.
The realm of particularity is in its creation and annulment a com-
plete manifestation or revelation of the universal or self-determin-
ing-

The stand-point of reason — the principle of totality — explains all

facts and things as fragments of a great process of creation — the
self -revelation of a Creator. Reason sees that a totality must be
self-determined, and that there must be a realm of manifestation
or revelation wherein change and finitude exist as well as pure
self-determining activity.

Again, the conditions of the totality imply that the self-deter-
mined, the realm of particularity, is a realm of progress or evolu-
tion wherein the finite things are annulled, because of their in-
adequateness to reveal or manifest self-determining. The finite
changes or passes away through external influence, because it did
not already possess that external influence within itself. It per-
ishes through the addition of what it lacked. But it perishes,
losing its individuality in a higher individuality. Or rather it is
the process that abides, while the particular realization or individ-
uality disappears. All particularity is to some degree the revela-
tion of the universal, and hence to that extent individuality (for
individuality is particularity that is universal). Abiding individ-
uality is reached when the power of self-determination is attained ;
for then all change is self-change and manifestation of the self,
and hence a development or growth rather than decease.

Self-determination, moreover, implies mind — that is to say,
consciousness and thinking furnish us the only beings that we
know which correspond in attributes to the deflnition of the self-
determined being. Consciousness has a subject which is self-de-
termining, inasmuch as it freely forms its ideas, creating in them
distinctions for itself. Its further acts of distinction modify its
thoughts, and cause to arise new particulars in the place of the

118 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

old. Consciousness realizes in every act its own power to annul
the distinctions that it has made, and thus its activity is returned
to itself, and objectivity is only its self-determination. Only that
which is determined can be in space and time ; the subject of self-
determination transcends time and space.

Consciousness and freedom belong to self-determination ; hence
reason, because it sees the totality, sees everywhere the manifesta-
tion of consciousness and freedom, although it may be in a frag-
mentary manner. Perhaps it may not trace out the entire media-
tion which connects a dependent thing or fact with the independ-
ent whole ; but it is assured that the form of the whole is and
must be that of self-determination, and that it admits only of such
finite phases as originate in its energy and pass away through the
same. It is not at all necessary that the individual fact shall be
traced up to the ultimate fact in order to demonstrate to us its
origin in mind, provided we have reached the insight into the pre
suppositions of the finite and dependent, and know that their pre-
conditions are the self-determining being, and that this is mind.

In the foregoing considerations I have chosen to consider the
first stage of thinking as unaccompanied by reflection. The sec-
ond and third stages of thinking are then to be designated as the
first and second stages of reflection respectively. This is not
strictly correct, inasmuch as the fundamental synthesis of think-
ino; is in itself an act of reflection. This is evident, if we consider
that it fixes the object in time and space, or, what is the same
thing, perceives the general forms of sense-perception or of mate-
rial existence..

In the foregoing sketch of the stages of knowing I have indi-
cated the grounds for the existence of paradoxes. The conclusions
reached in the second stage of knowing are paradoxes to minds in
the first stage; so likewise the conclusions in the third stage are
paradoxes to minds in the second stage. To men who have not
attained the perception of the necessity of dependence, all the con-
clusions based upon that stand-point seem contrary to reason.
How, for instance, can one thing have its being in another? How
can tlie destruction of one thing afifect another ? How is it possi-
ble to think that the facts of our perception are merely phenome-
nal ? The first stage persists in denying relativity to things.

The second stage of thinking, as we all know, finds the conclu-

HegeVs Four Paradoxes. 119

eions made on the stand-point of the third stage of thinking para-
doxical. All assertions regarding the totality seem utterly un-
warranted. Predications based on the nature of the absolute seem,
to contradict the necessary inferences of reflection and observation.

The most celebrated paradox of Hegel states that thought and
being are one. This, together with another — " whatever is, m
rational" — relates to the third view of the world above discussed.
Two other paradoxes — the denial of the principle of contradiction,
and the assertion that being and nothing are the same — relate to
the second stage of thinking, and do not require any deep specu-
lative insight to justify them.

Paradox I. — Thought and heing are one.

It is not true that mere fancy and existence are one. Thought,
here, does not mean fancy, and being does not mean existence.
There is no identity between mere reflection and being. Thought
and being are one in the sense that the divine thinking is also the
creative act. The third stage of thinking finds mind to be the
absolute, and, in the absolute, thinking and willing are one. Re-
flection upon the totality discovers self-determination, and careful
identification of the characteristics of self determination reaches the
conclusion that mind is the absolute. Plato and Aristotle, and all
the greatest thinkers of the world, have reached this result. It is
no specially Hegelian doctrine. If one understands by thought
mere images in the mind, mere personal convictions and opinions,
the doctrine sounds absurd to him. If any one understands by
the term " being " the immediate existence of things as he sees
them, then, too, the doctrine is absurd. By "being" a person
might mean the persistence of force — the ultimate energy in whose
process the things of the world arise and perish. Evanescent
things could be identical only with evanescent ideas. If the true
being is self-determination, it is identical with thought, if the self-
determination of absolute mind is absolute thinking.

Paeadox II. — Whatever is, is rational.

It will be observed that the solution of this paradox is identical
with that of the first. All depends upon the answer to the ques-
tion, What is ? Hegel finds that the true being, the moving pur-
pose of the world, is reason. If absolute mind is the creator ot
the world as its own revelation, the world must be, at bottom,
rational. As in the case of the previous paradox, if one takes the

120 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

facts of sense-perception for what is, it is the height of absurdity
to say that whatever is, is rational.

This paradox and the previous one turn on the distinction be-
tween " true being " and the being known to sense-perception ;
also upon the distinction between thought or reason, as found in
the third stage of knowing, and the same in the first and second
stages.

" Being," in the paradox "Being and nothing are the same,"
does not signify " true being" in the sense just explained. Still
less does it refer to the being of sense-perception.

Paradox III. — Being and Nothing are the same.

This does not mean that existence and nothing are the same —
that existing things are all nothing. Hegel has in mind Spinoza's
<3ictum — omnis determinatio est negatio — and means to say that if
every determination that makes anything specific or particular is
a negation, then pure being, without any tinge of negation, must
be thought as devoid of all particularity, and, consequently, as
devoid of all distino-uishino- attributes, because distinsruishing' at-
tributes are determinations, and belong to negation and not to
being.

Thus pure being would have to be defined as having no distinc-
tions, and thus as indistinguishable from nothing.

If the mind holds back its assent from this proposition, and
affirms that there is a distinction from nothing, it affirms being as
determined, and therefore as possessing negativity, and therefore
as not pure being.

But this affirmation of distinction of being from nothing falls
on another less desirable horn of the dilemma. It denies the
possibility of analysis ; it asserts that marks and attributes cannot
be separated in thought from their ground. Hence, too, it aflSrms
the identity of the particular being with the universal ; it denies
the possibility of process and activity, whereby accidents originate
and pass away (and thus are separated from their ground and an-
nulled).

It does not matter about the words in which this idea is de-
scribed. One may use the word " Substance" for "being." Or
he may use the term " Thing," or " Thing-in-itself." Essence,
JSToumenon, Identity, Infinity, Matter — such expressions may be
used for the same idea — i. «., as a result of abstraction from all de-

HegeVs Four Paradoxes. 121

termination or particularity. But the result is the same identity
with nothing.

The second figure of the syllogism has been employed to state
this conclusion :

Being is undetermined ;

Nothing is undetermined ;

Hence being and nothing are the same, or hence nothing is
being.

Here the figure of the syllogism will not permit a conclusion
that is affirmative, because the predicate or middle term is not
" distributed " or exhausted quantitatively by the subjects, re-
spectively the major and minor.

If the undetermined as a class includes two species, being and
nothing, then, of course, " to be undetermined " does not warrant
complete identity, but only identity as far as the predicate " un-
determined " is concerned.

We could say " being and nothing are the same so far as they
are ' undetermined.' "

But the fact is, that here we do not have any syllogism of the
second figure at all. 'Eov do we have any syllogism in which the
terms of the Notion appear : there is no relation of universal,
particular, and individual. Each of the terms is individual or
singular. Beino; is all of the class "undetermined" — it is the
whole of it, because there is no distinction within " undetermined "
that admits of sub-genera. So, likewise, Nothing is all of unde-
termined, because Nothing possesses no sub-genera, and " unde-
termined" has no sub-genera, and each is a universal negation,
each is a denial of all differences and distinctions. To suppose
any distinctions in the "undetermined" is to contradict its defini-
tion. It cannot have any provinces — say one province containing
being, and another containing nothing, for such provinces would
be determinations within it. It is the form of the mathematical
syllogism, if it be syllogistic at all. A is A ; and A is A ; and
hence A is A. We find that we have two or more words for the
same idea. That is all.

Once we used the term " nothing " for the thought, but, on
reaching the thought by the road of abstraction or generalization,
we call it being.

Nevertheless, it will be found that there is contradiction even

122 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

in this view of tlie matter. For the careful exclusion of all dis-
tinctions is just as well a preservation of distinction. It becomes
the distinction of simplicity from diversity — of the one from the
many. To put the indeterminate in the form of a judgment is to
put it in the form of contrast, and hence to make it one term of a
distinction.
- Paradox IV. — The Principles of Contradiction and Excluded
Middle are not absolute laws of thought or of existence.

This paradox justifies itself by showing that whatever is finite
is a vanishing phase in some process ; hence it is not perfectly
self-identical, but only a becoming. The becoming is not exclu-
sively being, nor not-being ; it is not the somewhat that is ap-
proaching, nor entirely the somewhat it is developing out of. It
is identical, not as a static, but as a movement or evolution. This
means that it has its identity in its universality, and not in its par-
ticularity. Again, when we speak of the total, the principles of
contradiction or of excluded middle do not exhaust the statement
of it. It is identical, but only as a process of difierentiation. The
generic process is self-determining — which means that its iden-
tity does not exclude self-difierence.

It is seen that these so-called laws of thought are not practical.
All thought has the implication of a totality in which these prin-
ciples are not absolute but subordinate.

USE, BEAUTY, REASON;

OR, SCIENCE, ART, RELIGION.

BY MEEDS TUTHILL.

" I desire not to seek the deep-hidden Reason of Beanty,
Lest it should vaoisb like haze when it is sought to be grasped."

Snideb's "Delphic Days."

Use, Beauty, and Eeason : each of these is a ruler of men.
But Use rules by a sort of Exterior Necessity, which at first
seems tyrannical, since no justification, or reason, for it is found,

TJse^ Beauty^ Beaso7i. 123

except in the useful result. Beauty, on the contrary, enthralls us
by an interior Necessity, not known as Reason, hence mysterious.
But, since it is pleasing, and not irksome, like the Necessity of Use,
we yield ourselves to its dominion cheerfully ; and, like the poet
quoted above, we dechare, in the spirit of the Greek, that we wish
not to seek the mysterious Reason of this Beautiful tyrannj'-, lest
its mystery be profaned, and it vanish from our eyes.

But Reason, also, is a ruler of us ; and in it there is an Abso-
lute Necessity. Tlie Necessity here is a known necessity, both as
external and internal. There is no waiting for experiment or for
result to test it, as in the case of Use ; for the Reason shows
itself, at once, as necessarily developing, of itself, into manifold
results. Nor is it mysterious, as in the case of Beauty, but clear
as crsytal, and unperturbed by doubt or fear. Its enjoyment,
therefore, is rather a peace than a joy ; it is not an excitement, a
stimulant, but a calm repose,' where one is sure of his object."
For it is the Necessity of the thing in itself which is here regarded.
This is, to be sure, a felt Necessity, as in the case of Beauty ; but
it is also a seen Necessity, as in the case of Use ; for here the
Reason develops itself Objectively into its results; the Idea, of
itself, creates infinitely, and this with an absolute Certainty. Yet
this is true only of the last Reason — the ultimate, Divine Reason,
which is both in us and without us. So that this Reason, thus
taken as no longer mysterious as in Art, nor merely proximate as
in Science, can be found only in Religion, as the Divine Relation,
the communion of Man with God.

Yet this Reason develops itself gradually, though covertly,
through all the preceding phases of Science, Art, and Philosophy ;
and, in each of these, takes its threefold form of Use, Beauty,
and Religious Act. To trace this development or transformation
may be worth an hour's attention. For this development is not
only patent in historical form as that of Mankind in general, but
is also the manifest, and even necessary, course of development

^ /. e., Beauty, in Motion ; Reason, in Rest ; Use, in hoth.

" Certainty of the universal, as against senSe-eertainty of \\iQ. particular. Yet neither
of these can give the other's form of certainty ? As Stavolo answers his query, whether
he can know his dead wife's presence, or whether she seen him now : " Je le crow, mais
je n'en suis pas sur." Here, to see or touch would have made him "sure." (See Stallo
V. Mill.)

12i The Journal of Speculative Philosojphy.

for everj individual, iu his progression through the life and death
of Nature, into the eternal lite of the Spirit.

1. — The Use,

1. We may saj, in general, that the Reason of every thing* is
in its use. This is a " World of Uses," says Swedenborg. And
it is true that, when we, look only to proximate reasons, the best
reason we can give for a thing is its Use.'' For in the Use the
Reason shows itself as Cause : it is there closed together with and
in its Effect ; so that it is really and veritably Cause, final, and
not proximate. In other words, Cause is there no longer, merely
" Succession," as Hume and Mill call it ; nor is it mere condition ;
but it is realized as Cause in its Effect. Hence Science, considered
merely as Inductive — as seekine; for conditions which result in
eft'ects, and thus show a concrete instead of an abstract Cause — is
a Useful Science — but only a useful one. This kind of Science is
completed in finding the particular Use. The result justifies the
Use of the means, and the Use is the Reason of the process fol-
lowed. Such a Science, then, is only knowledge of an Art — of a
way or method to produce particular results.

But this is only a particular Science — not a universal one. Its
"reasons" are only proximate reasons, because its Uses are only
particular uses. This is very clear when we notice that what is
useful for one purpose may be either useless, or destructive, for
another. The Yishnu becomes Siva, and vice versa. It is very
narrow-minded, then, to ask merely for the Use, if meaning only
the particular Use — some use to me, some use to the body, some
use that can be seen with the eyes (which to some seems the only
" demonstration ") — for uses are innumerable. This fact does not
show Use to be an Unreasonable ; but, on the contrary, is just
what demonstrates it to be Reasonable — not finitely, however, but
■infinitely. The Scientist finds this out by discovering that there
is none of his particular means for use, around which (however he
seeks to isolate it) does not concentre itself this Infinite Without
as a necessary factor in the Effect ; that is to say, the Absolute
Whole, Outer and Inner, must be there in order to produce even

' /. c, as thing, as particular ?

" The most " visionary " of men sees all as Use.

Use, Beauty, Reason. 125

the least thing. The Use, in general — as generic — is the Heasoist
Itself, just because it is thus Infinite, and thus self-con tradictorj
when thrown into finite form, or when deemed particular only.
No one form suffices for it ; it demands infinity of forms and hence
contradictory ones ; for this name of " Use " does not suffice for it,
does not measure what it is. In any particular form, it shows
itself both as Useful and as Useless, both as beneficial and destruc-
tive. The farmer observes that the birds destroy some of his
grain, yet that they preserve it, on the whole, by devouring the
insects and worms. But does he suppose that the bird is itself
designed only to be useful to him in this way, and is only taking
its pay for work done, though not on his pay-list, and without any
design to benefit him ? Perhaps he does think so, when in a pious
mood and sees dimly the One Cause working in all this, and for
him only, and gives thanks. For in the first instance we look
only to present use and proximate cause. And if we go beyond
this to find final Use, then this infinity of forms which Use takes
on quite confuses us, and compels our return to the present Use —
so long as we regard only the Useful.

" What is the use of this ?" is, therefore, a proper question to
ask. But it is not answered by saying : " Z don't see any use of
it." Such an answer only declares our own ignorance, our in-
ability to see the Reason of it. Everything that exists has its
raison d^etre, or it would not exist. Its conditions for being are
its being, and its right to be, so long as these conditions exist.
These conditions are used to create it; and if we knew these,
and could control them, we also could create the thing ; just as
now, by knowing them to some extent, we can modify or destroy
it.' But since we perceive but a small part of the infinite rela-
tions which enter into this creating, as the absolute conditions for
the existence of any, the least thing, we have to content ourselves
with changing and modifying what is created, according as we
learn the means therefor. We accept, or destroy, or modify, ac-
cording as we find, or deem, useful to us. Thus we take things
only on their useful side. This is for us their reasonable side.

1 Man cannot, it seems, control the life-process ; his power ends in the chemical
sphere, and is scant there. It does not enter the vital realm, but seems quite un-
limited in the inorganic or abstractly mechanical.

126 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The other side of them, seeming to us useless, seems also ucrea-
sonable.

2. But, since we consider only the use to us, this, also, is an
unreasonable side. For it is not reasonable to suppose all made
for Man's use, especially in the way in which lie here first re-
gards it, as for his bodily use — his food, drink, and shelter. For
infinitely more things are outside of these uses than are within
them. And, besides, the final use of everything is in itself, and
is for all, as is shown at once in the fact that there are number-
less persons seeking for it there ; and whose " rights " of use con-
test with each other, and go into an endless conflict, as particular
only.' There seems to be no Reason whatever, then, in this point
of view, of mere Utility, when taken thus as only particular use,
or as egoistic use, my use only. This resolves it wholly into self-
contradiction and universal conflict. My use is another man's
injury ; my gain is his loss. If I first find and eat, another
starves. The " reason " is here lost in utter irrationality. " It is
not Reason," we argue, "that makes things useful ; but it is Use,
only, that makes them reasonable. Thus we try to deny the real-
ity of any Absolute Reason, because, as we say, if that existed it
would make things harmonious. So we resort to Utility, and
declare it to be " absolutely the Only Reason," not in so far as
it is infinitelv Relative and so trulv absolute, but in so far as it
is finite, and particular utility — my use only. But we see that this
Utility, as " Absolutely Only Reason," turns itself into just that
conflict which we declare to be inconsistent with Reason. After
all, then, we have to worship this Utility, not as Reason, but as
Use only, when we take it in this particular way, and declare that

' And are at war witb them; and this is all that makes them merely "useful;" so
that they really find their Reason in their destroyers, their opposites. Abolish that
and they cease to be merely useful, and must take some other aspect, such as " pleas-
ant," " beautiful," etc. Here is the dialectic finding of the third term by which one
proceeds from & first unity of opposites to a new form of the notion. The "pleasant"
is the next sensuous result. And this at once parts itself into infinite relativity again
in a witch's dance with the unpleasant, so that there is no peace for the Pleasure-Tphi-
losophers, either as a more or less of pleasure, nor as a zero between + and — , where
the sum total is either a nothing or an unknowable. But this Peace shows itself, after
all, as the only possible unity of Feeling as both pleasure and pain ; it is a Rational,
Divine peace, which must necessarily be lost in every finite form and be found there
only as a more or less of io'^, promising to be peace in its Infinite form.

TJse^ Beauty^ Reason. 127

utility is the only reasonable tiling, or motive, or Worship. For
the god also must show himself useful to this utilitarian spirit ;
and so the Chinaman trounces his gods when they fail to answer
Lis paper prayers, or serve him to his notion. (And John China-
man is not the only " utilitarian " [or " John "] who likes to see
" the god " draw well, and judges of him accordingly.)*

Hence, this is the state of mind out of which spring the " Use-
ful Arts." Man's Art comes in liere to modify the conditions of
his existence. He has found Nature stepmotherly, driving him
to his own inventions, in proportion as he rises above mere Na-
ture's wants. She makes nothing for his ideal wants ; he must
himself make what he finds needful to satisfy them.^ Thus she,
too, is wholly unreasonable, for she treats him only as an animal,
good to him as a baby, bad to him as a man. Nature abhors this
spirit in the man — the Spirit that overlooks her, pierces through
and beyond her ; and, with a poetic discontent, is ever seeking
to mould her Universal forms into something exclusively his
own, for himself alone, and in which she has no share. Thus
phe is " a jealous god." And he, looking upon her as unreason-
able, undertakes to put his Keason into her, and make her ra-
tional.

But at first this is all mere dreaming — anything but useful,
apparently. And yet it is the first beginning of Science. Science
begins in the Useful Arts ; and these Arts begin as an imitation
of Nature. If some one had not dreamed or fancied there was
some connection between the seed which fell from the tree and
the new tree which sprang from it, where would have been our
sowing and reaping ? Yet the man who first planted a seed must
have wondered whether it would be a success, and also whether
he had not committed a sacrilege. For who, pray, even now, can
give any reason why the seed should become a plant, other than

* For one of these men with an eye so open for use, it must be a right cunning god
that can pass bis critical inspection.

* And if it be true that she develops him from the gorilla, so also it seems to be true
that, like the gorilla, who loses his youthful intelligence when his grou'th gives him a
strength which no longer needs it, so Nature makes this ancestral taint cling to the man :
for when he has learned the '■Haws of Nature," and grown strong thereby, he suddenly
becomes " agnostic " — "knows nothing!" Such is the secret malice of Nature for
him. Her love is one that would always keep him at the' breast ; her law, one that
would nullify his spirit.

128 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosoj>hy.

tliat it has been tried and found so ? And would not the first ex-
perimenter be more sensible of this mystery of Life by far than we
Moderns, grown callous in our habitual handling of these inmost
laws, so that we have lost the finer tact, ceased to feel the heart-
beat of " the God " in them ? We have come to reojard them as
abstractions, and no longer as a deity who acts. That first in-
stinct, f;?sight, of the primitive man is, then, the truer one, after
all, for it goes beyond all our proximate causes, and Useful
Reasons, to the Divine Cause, the Absolute Reason of the thing.
The Divine reveals itself here — wiwardly, to the mind, as the
Reason of this thing; and ow?!wardly, in the object, as Useful. It
is a narrow view, to be sure ; yet it may compare favorably with
any Modern Science which aspires to find the Divine wholly as an
abstract Law, and system of laws, and so be able to turn it wholly
into Use, and destitute of Reason, except such relative Reason as
Man himself puts into it. For since Man here looks upon his
own Reason as a Nothing, the Divine is thus made a JSTothing,
and as Use, only a material Use — a machine ; and Man himself
will be thus found to be only material, and God as only his idea.
The wonder then will be, how the Man can contrive to thus
know how to use the whole Universe, if there is not already a
Divine Knowing of it, and an Absolute Reason in it, which he
can use for this purpose ! *

3. But this Inductive Science, as we have seen, proceeds only
by experiment, since it seeks only the Use, the result, or the
thing, in a particular form. And so, also, with the Useful Arts,
so long as they aim only at the present use. The reason for doing
thus or so is only that thus the thing has been done aforetime.
In this way the Useful Arts may descend from generation to
generation ; but in this way they make no progress ; and this fact

* The Schellingistic (and perhaps Boehmian) error here seems to be that it uses him
to know itself, to become self-conscious. Thus the Divine is originally an i7riConscious,
and its development a mechanical one. But the truth rather is that he (Man) uses it
to know what is, and it uses him to know what is not (this reverse side of itself which
is not, can never he, but only unconsciously appear as a Creation of the mind). Thus
the act is made reciprocal ; not arbitrary, but necessary relation of the two terms ; the
one a knowing of the Appearance as Finite, the other a knowing of the Reality as In-
finite. Tor Knowing is not something which can he developed, but must develop itself.
As finite its relation is to the Unconscious as what it as particular is not. But as In-
finite its relation is to the finite in general as what is not — not /as Divine.

Use, Beauty y Reason. 129

shows they are still without Reason, mysterious. Since the only
reason given for them is experiment, no change or progress can
he made except by experiment.' There is a certain truth in this ;
for experiment alone can show objectively the last Reason in its
actual operation in the effect. But it is not yet suspected that
this ^Hast Reason" also resides (as the first Reason) in the
Thought of the inventor, and has been used by him in forming
his idea before he threw it into objective realization. All " dem-
onstration," then, must be actual — to the eyes. "Your idea may
be good, but we don't understand it ; let us see the thing ; I find
it useful after our way of thinking." When a Frenchman first
introduced the potato (planted from 'peelings) into a district
where, yearly, people died of starvation, there was rather an anx-
iety to have him fail than succeed. For the vanity of prophe-
sying failure was strongly interested ; and its taunts nearly drove
the poor man frantic before his potatoes showed their heads and
promised plenty hereafter to his starving tormentors. Such is the
folly of human nature while it can see no Reason, except out-
wardly. For such people " there is no use " of doing a thing new
until it is done ; and as for thinking, no use at all of that.' " Let
others think for us, and tell us what to do." And obviously this
is the necessity of the situation in primitive times ; a few must
think for the many, teach them the Ai-t only, since they cannot,
or worse, will not, learn the Science. After all, then, there seems
to be a natural need of " revelators," and a " natural selection " of
" supei'stitions ; " and what fathers them is precisely this induc-
tive way of thinking, this seeing nothing except outwardly, and
as present Use.

Science, Art, and Religion are all very tenacious of this first
form of Utility, the particular and present Use. Yery loth and
slow are they to break away from any such form once found and
tested. They may even hold it sacred ; and rightly : for the
Divine is indeed formally actualized in everything really useful.

^ This shows how Buckle, who charges the hindrance wholly to " mpersiition " (which
is indeed its first form, since the Art is held to be " revealed," and hence sacrcd\ him-
self ends by making a mpersiition of experiment ; the inductive process has become
sacred, a sort of fetich which no man must dare to even speak against, or question its
infallibility !

2 That " butters no parsnips ! "

XYI— 9

130 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophij.

But if they consider this Use as of Divine authority in its form,'
which is tixed, rather than its Idea, which is self-transforniing,
then do tliej become fairly crystallized, as in China. And just
so far as there is failure to recognize that (before-mentioned) in-
liuite transformability which Utility has in respect to form, so
far is there a stagnation of invention, or a halting and suspected
progress of it. As, for example, in England, where there is no
authority except in trying the thing, and yet to get it tried is like
pulling teeth, since it is " against all custom ! " and hence shocks
the very moral sense of Great Britain! Now, this view of things
is certainly the safest, as well as the only one for those who regard
ideas with suspicion, and consider deductions from them danger-
ous, and induction from " facts " the only real Science. But it is
clear that, with such a view, every advance must be an Art be-
fore it can become a Science, must be known practically before
it is theorized, must be seen Objectively before its inner idea gets
any official recognition. Thus Idea, though supposed to be in us
(if anywhere), is really made to stand without," " knocking at the
door," as the Great Master represents himself, petitioning to be
let in " to sup with us," and illumine us with a new and Divine
Light. Yet we, wedded to some mere form, encrusted in a crys-
tallization of prejudice, reject the Divine Revealer, and say to
him : '' At another time (may be) I will let thee in. I fear and
distrust thy Lordly tread, thy infinite, soul-dissolving flights ! "
Or, we meanly say to ourselves : " First show thyself useful !
Beautii'ul thou mayest be, lovely as the Sons of the Morning!
But w^hat Use have I for Beauty ? This stern Necessity shuts me
up to the Useful."

Yet Death is not Beauty ; and just because it seems not so, we
shun it. And all our present " Uses" have, more or less, this aim
to put out of sight, or out of mind, this unbeautiful Death. Thus,
negatively at least, our worship of Use is a worship of the Beau-
tiful, as a hate of the Ugly.

But so also does Empirical Science find the Beautiful lurking

^ True, also, of forma or methods of thinking — philosophic forms, etc., etc.

' This is the phase of " Being" — the Idea beheld as Outer only. Then in " Essence "
it seems Inner only — Reflective. Lastly, in "Notion " it recognizes just this necessity
of showing itself in the real Outer act and not merely in the Apparent act, which as
JEssence it posits in the merely ^?-^object.

Tlse^ Beauty^ Reason. 131

in all its forms, at least tryiug to be, in a positive way- Even in
the cold crystal which seems Death itself it works a radiant trans-
formation. And in the Useful Arts, as Science progresses, it is
found that the shape most perfect theoretically — least wasteful,
since every part is made to serve, and not to drag by excess — and
hence the most useful shape {e. g.^ in a tool, or a bridge), is also a
beautiful form/ There is no waste of material, no loss of
strength, no crude and useless disproportion in Beauty. And so
Beauty issues from the tossing waves of Utility, like the ancient
Goddess of Love, riding on their crested spray.

II. — Beauty.

1. But, though Beauty seems to be thus bom of Use, or of Utili-
ties, yet it seems, also, to be something quite independent thereof.^
We may say it rises away from Use, like the bouquet from a wine,
or the odor of a rose, and floats in the ether as a being apart and
different — the soul of a thing which disdains its mere body — the
spirit which shakes itself free, and would be by itself.

To express this fact in a form less seemingly fanciful, and to
show its necessity, in what may be deemed a more " practical " as-
pect of it. may not be easy to do in a general or universal way.
But it is not very difficult to do this in respect to those proximate
reasons with which most people readily content themselves. For
here we have found Beauty issuing from Use, and purely in a
formal way. For example, the shape of a tool or a column has
been determined by Science, with view only to Use ; and the most
economic and strongest form has been found to be a beautiful
one. JSTow, this is a mere matter of Form, apparently, quite inde-
pendent in its effect as Beauty, of its effect as practical Use.
The tool is to work with ; the column is to sustain a weight ; but
the Beauty is only for the eye — a "joy forever "for the spirit.

' So also in the human form it has been observed that, though the rude line,
straight line, may give the impression of physical strength, yet the strongest has always
the curved line ; and the great man — the spiritually strong (see the faces of Csesar,
Napoleon, Goethe, Dante, Shakespeare) — has always the feminine mark upon its form
and features. Thus sex shows itself as a unity when it realizes itself in the Spirit again
as Strength and Beauty, Use and An.

^ Like Quantity, merely as relation, independent of the particular Being, or like
Essence, merely as Inner relation, independent of the Outer relation.

135 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

This form, then, may be taken merely for its Beauty. A model
of the Parthenon, or of other Beauty realized from Use, may give
the same sense of Beauty. Hence copies of such Use-objects be-
come Art-objects for the mind alone. This Outer Beauty seems
to thus transform itself into something Universal, and to address
itself to something Universal and Inner — within us. And so, if
there be any Use in this Beauty, it is an Infinite Use, for these
Forms go down the ages forever, and they are not for one, but for
all.

And, in like manner, Natural objects are severed from their uses,
and even pictured, so that they may be seen and prized for their
Beauty alone. This is as much as to say that the Beautiful in
!Nature is something that can be severed from her, and from her
mere usefulness ; and that it is the only thing worth keeping, or
that can be kept ; all the rest is mortal ; this is immortal. Thus
it is tliat Beauty, though derived from the Useful, though neces-
sarv to the best form for Use and so hinting that Man's best Use
must be always found in the Beautiful, and that Nature would be
all Darkness and only Death to him but for this Beautiful in it,
necessary to him as a spirit, though needless to him as a body;
thus it is that this Beauty seems of itself to be Form only, and, as
such, to be wholly separated from the Use, both in the Outer ob
ject and also in the inner conception of it.

In short, Beauty, of itself, is thus made useless, apparently. It
is wholly severed from the outer or finite use. It is no longer a
Use, but a luxury — not necessary. Its use is only for itself alone ;
it does not perish in the using, but lives in the thought which alone
can use it. As Objective Form, it justifies itself by only seeming
Beautiful ; and if it do this, its particular use is no longer regarded
— is lost to view. Hence its Use, as Beautiful, becomes Universal ;
it is for all ; and no one's use of it interferes with another's ; it
divides itself, like the spiritual loaf, into a miraculous feast, whereas
a particular use is only for him who uses the object, and, in using,
destroys it ; here the Object is wholly for each, and is also inde-
structible. "What can it be ? There is a mystery here. But it is
evident that, even when we fix our eyes upon some particular ob-
ject and find this Beauty possessing it, it is the very fact that every
particular Use has disappeared from it, and ceased to limit it, that
gives it this Universal Use of Beauty. Just what makes it Beauti-

TJse^ Beauty^ Reason. 133

ful is, that it is for all. It is even impertinent to seek for its finite
use. It is destructive of its Beauty to try to find anything partic-
ularly useful in it as object ; that belongs to the object itself, and
brings us at once to Earth. The Beauty, as for all, is independent
of this object. It is mine ; it is thine; yet it is neither mine nor
thine. It stands for itself in a sort of Infinitude, that makes one
dream rather than think in this finite and particular way, which
looks only (like the animal) to present use, or my use. Such is
the conclusion which Kant arrives at respecting Beauty. The
Judgment of Beaut}^, he says, is one for which we can assign no
reason {i. e., no particular reason), and yet we feel it to be an
apodictic one — a Universal Judgment. It is a Judgment in
which all must feel the same inner necessity to affirm the Beauty,
he thinks, without our being able to give any reason why. It is
not to be explained how Beauty thus imposes itself upon us. It is
like the vital spark, in that all finite reasons fail to account for
it. It shows itself, without Reason,* then ; or, if there be any
Reason for it, it must be the Infinite Reason, which man can only
feel, but not utter — can recognize in its Outer forms, but not
within him. And so Snider, echoing the Greek spirit, which
revelled in this sense of External Beauty, says :

" Not any origin wish I to seek of the beautiful object ;
Not any Use shall I ask when it before me doth lie ;
Simply I try to surrender myself to its waters of beauty,
There unconsciously float, while I am rocked to repose."

2. Now, in this mood. Beauty seems to be for us a mere passive
enjoyment.^ And this Beauty, which reveals itself as a Necessity
in us,' has come upon the man, we may say, by a sort of accident.
In his search for the most useful, most scientific form, he has kept
paring away the wood, the iron, or the marble, till, unsuspectingly,
he has^ reached this Beautiful Form. The form of "the god"

' Thus, in Nature, Beauty is the /rrational, if viewed on merely Inductive principles.

* We reach the form of "Pleasure" here instead of Use; but since we are dealing
■with Reflective- or Thought-forms, rather than S£«se-form, we reach this "pleasure" in
its highest form, the Infinite joy of Beauty, which will show itself as involving also an
Infinite Suffering.

* Just as Use enforces itself by External Necessity.

* Same " accident " in Nature's chancing upon Beauty. It is not chosen by her ; but
as a merely mechanical process Nature finds Beauty necessary for greatest /orce. The

134 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

stands revealed to him. This Divine Form of Beauty lifts him
out of himself into infinite dreams. He is no longer himself, but
^V^s-self; and he feels himself transforming with it into infinite
forms all of this one and same Beauty, yet all difierent — an in-
finite variety. Or, this same revealing, and its consequent inner
transformation, comes to him from his regardino; Nature's own
forms with an eye lifted above mere present Use, not clouded nor
preoccupied with mere egotistic desire, but free and clear in a mo-
ment of spiritual vision. And then, too, all without seems to
have a spirit in it. The elf, the sprite, disport in the waters
and in the air, the naiads in the fountains, the nymphs in the
forests, the gods in the heavens — the Infinite One, in all.

But this is a mere seeing, mere outlooking — a mere passion ' of
enjoyment. And just because it is an infinite outgoing of the
soul, and takes the man wholly out of himself, it is an Experience
which returns, reacts upon himself with an awakening shock.
He has experienced the Infinite. He would fain be no longer
himself. His spirit, when steeped in these celestial dews of Beau-
ty, seems veritably dissolved therein, and afloat on an infinite
ocean of joy. No longer any cares annoy, nor needs besiege this
being of his which no longer seems to him finite. But, alas ! this
new, this Infinite life has been, after all, a deathful exchange for
him ! He has lost sight of his finite want only to find an infinite
need.^ This Beauty is what is necessary for him. Without its
infinite delights he shall henceforth find nothing Useful to him.
Nothing else is worth the possessing, still less worth the pains of
getting. His spirit is revealed to him as a something which truly
lives, only in this Beautiful ; all else is death for it.

Thus the joy of Beauty comes back into a cutting pain. It is a
two-edged sword that cleaves the spirit asunder from its Object,
and hence from itself, since without that Object it is no longer

Infinite of Power and Beauty meet in the same point as generative centre. But neither
Nature nor man need choose Beauty ; it is only the Best, not the only form of power.
Were it the only, there could be no choice.

' Because an Exhaustion of one's self in this supposed reaching out, wnconseious that
the process is a development within ? Or because a mere resistance to the pulsing of
outer motion-form growing infinitely concentrated and rapid?

^ This is the first w/iconscious Religious Experience — not yet recognized as Religious^
but only as Sentiment.

Use^ Beauty^ Reason. 135

itself — its new-found self — no longer spirit, in this free and in-
finite way. The sense of this fact is what renders the mind,
through its suffering, perceptive of its own self as active, and no
longer as a merely passive recipient. Out of this intense craving *
for Beauty comes the irresistible impulse to create it. Since it has
vanished into this inner blackness — this suffering of the spirit — that
shall be its birth-pangs. The spirit shall say to this Darkness :
" Let there be Light ! " And Light shall be : First playing, like
an aurora, on this background of Darkness, and, finally, struggling
into Divine sunrise for the soul, glorying in its own self-made Day.
This is a Day that will endure ; for it is not this Nature's finite
day, with its sunrise and sunset, but that Spiritual Day which the
Spirit Divine has wrought in the Spirit Human, as this latter's
own struggle into full consciousness — a consciousness of what is
not this or that, or here or there, but of what Eternally and Infi-
nitely is — the Beautiful and Divine.

3. Thus the spirit of Beauty, by its necessary operation in the
mind,^ proclaims itself as creative. It makes its own objects. It
does this, at first, inwardly, in Idea. But then it wishes also to
externalize them, as if it sought to make them creative also — at
least seemingly so ; for do not they also seem to create, since they,
at least, suggest this same idea of their Maker, and thus recreate
it in others as Idea ? Thus they are Words," Words of Life to
others. They speak of this Beautiful life, which is the only true
life, since it is Eternal. Thus they illumine the Darkness : they
shed the light of Spiritual life. Nay, then, there seems to be a

^ It would seem that the Divine can give us only hungers, and the means to feed
them, so far as this is a matter of mere sensibility. But we can create only the finite
food for these, though infinitely, whereas the Divine can create only the Infinite,
though _y??n7c?y, as Creation.

^ As its Absolute Essence, or its Infinity of Inner Relation, where it joins on to the
Infinity of Outer Relation, which is mere Quantitative Relation of Form, as different
and separable from the Relation of Idea, though not from essence merely as Force, but
one with that.

3 / e., the External Form is Middle Term ; yet, like Words, mere means arbitrarily
posited, and to be learned only by experience as sign. This does not destroy the actual-
ity of the symbol, yet shows its meaning can be got only by Inner purely Ideal compari-
son and Reflection. Thus the necessity of the Inductive Method is shown as well as
that of the Deductive, and their necessary unity, in respect to the Outer, while the De-
ductive is independent in respect to the Inner, the purely Spiritual Relation.

J36 The Journal of Speculative Philosophij.

etill deeper Reason for their production thus outwardly, instead
of being kept within as mine alone. They are not mine ; they be-
long to all, they are for all. They would not be, completely, there-
fore, unless thus presented to all. But still this is not the final
Reason for externalizing them. It is only a proximate or " a suf-
ficient " reason why an Artist should create for others. May he
not also create for himself alone, since he can see no reason why
his creations should suggest anything at all to others? He learns
that fact only by experience, and an experience not always affirm-
ing it. And so in Xature we may say that the Divine Creator has
revealed himseK in the Useful, only as finite and hence contradic-
tory ; but in Beauty as an Infinite. Yet this Revelation in Beau-
ty, as we have noted, is, just because it is Infinite, rather a cruel
than a loving one, since it seems to appeal to sensibility only, and
thus divides itself, for the sense, into a mere Infinite Appearing
and Yanishing— a life and death of finite forms. Thus, instead of
a joy only, it is rather a Cupid's shaft of suffering — the sight of a
God who flees — elusive and Unknowable, though no longer Un-
known. This is only making of Man a lantalus. So the Reason
of Beauty is still to seek beyond the Beauty as Outer and Formal '
only ; and this Outering of it is still a mystery, although it seems
to reveal. Mayhap we shall fall upon that elusive final Reason
by tracing the course of Akt, and noting whither its tendency
points, or where its infinite development centres itself at every
step, as always, essentially, a one and same Relation.

(a.) As for Use, so for Beauty, Man begins his creative efforts
by imitation.* As in the case of Use he saw no reason in doing

' So with the Reason of "Essence" merely as inner Beauty of Outer Form, for this,
after all, can be only the Infinite Form as Form — the Form of the whole as External —
not the Idea which creates it.

^ Imitation is instinctive, because, in fact, a necessity for sensible knowing; it is the
mode of sensibility as a knowing. Imitate a motion, and you know what it signifies.
Yet this meaning is also casual, accidental, like the motion, and hence open to an arbi-
trary choice of meanings SlB finite relations; only in its infinite relation is this motion
fully rationalized as lied, and its meaning made to begin as definite relation of Outer
form correspondent to the relations of Idea. Thus Motion is first imposed upon us as
a trial — an experience in finite relations of the Infinite whole. To imitate these is to
learn only a part and a falsity. Yet the impulse to know urges on. And this gives a
joy even to the sufiering. So much so that even the malign, the diabolic, is imitated
in order to know it. The fatal nature of this imitative instinct when habitual, and its

TJse^ Beauty^ Reason. 137

thus or so, except in the result, so he finds no reason why this
I^atural object is beautiful, except that he so feels it to be. It
seems safest, therefore, to imitate, to reproduce exactly. " For (he
reasons) the same effect will follow the same cause." Here he is
not aware that both cause and effect must be in himself, if it is
only a matter of his feeling. JSTor does he consider that if the
cause is really external, as he argues, then his reproduction can-
not possibly be the same cause, and hence cannot have the same
effect. Nevertheless, his reasoning is practically correct, that an
exact imitation is the surest way to reach the desired result, so
long as he recognizes no other reason for this result than a mere
external object. That is, he must obey an outer teacher till he
finds an inner one.

(b.) Hence the Rules of Art, in respect to the Beautiful as well
as the Useful, are at first rules of experience. There is no science
of it except that of experiment. The artist tries his " causes," and
tries again. Thus he ventures beyond the road of mere imitation.
What he can try, as means, is infinite. In this way, then, he
gains a certain freedom. He at least breaks loose from Nature
and is thrown upon his own invention.* And now, if he reflects,
he must soon see that the very fact that this way of trying by
mere experiment is endless, renders it childish and arbitrary. Its
necessity turns itself into chance. Since he has an infinite choice,
it is no choice, but only haphazard. No credit to him if he suc-
ceeds ; it is only a chance stroke, like. that which an old painter,
in a fit of anger, gave to his woi'k to spoil it, and thereby happily
perfected it.

nature not recognized as merely Emotional, is seen in the disposition to jump from
Table Rock, e.g., in accord with the falling waters of Niagara. To know only what
seems, we must he it in the form of motion.

' /. e., finds that Quantitative Relation as Formal is quite separable from the Outer
ihing as of other qualities ; but does not yet see that his own ideal activity in inven-
tion is also equally and as absolutely separable from all Externality taken as a Created
Whole. That is of one Form only essentially from bottom to top — merely repeated —
iterated eternally from centre to circumference, while he is ideally a capacity for in-
finite variety of forms all qualitatively different, yet independent of quantity ; and it is
these which he seeks to put in outer forms because he seems to see them in outer forms,
although they are not and cannot be there. He tests this fact by his Art-Creations.
These have the same seeming, the same conductive power as those of Nature. But the
qualities cannot be attributed to these, since they lack motion, which imposes our delu-
sions on us through the senses.

138 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Hence, here comes again that reaction into the self, before
described — a reaction into what seems a total inner Darkness, out
of the very infinity of the supposed external " causes." If one is
to " try " all these possible causes, where is the end of it ? The
very impossibility of this shows the Artist that, in so doing, he is
working without Reason. Then he reflects : " Is this Beauty,
then, irrational ? Pray, why do I try these causes or means ?
Merely to see if the effect follows. But where is this effect ?
Why, in myself: there alone I find it. When this effect is pro-
duced in me, I know it, though I know no reason for it."

Evidently he is speaking of some particular reason, and is
still looking for that without. Hence he does not, even yet, con-
clude that the cause must also be in him, if the effect is. He only
recognizes himself free as to means, and left to his own sensibility
to judge of their results. Thus he makes of himself not yet a
creator, but only a Judgment ; not yet an Artist, but only a critic.
Yet he becomes, in a sort, unconscious of his means. It seems
rather an inspiration, than a reasoning, that guides his hand.
Hence the Rules of Art now become imitation of " Masters," of
men, instead of imitation of jSTature. The Reason is thus taken
from ISTature, and given to Man — but not yet as his, or rather
only as his, as a particular man.' The " master-pieces" are taken
as models. Their forms, colors, arrangement, are studied. These
methods have been found successful — that is, the " Reason " for
them.

(c.) But this is only a finite reason, only a reason for imitating
them. These works, as Man's own, seem nearer the creative
source than I^ature's, or more specially adapted as models for
Man's Art. So this is only a change of base from the Outer form
to the Inner, ideal form, as what is to be imitated, and its process
of forming divined, if possible, by imitating it. Man has this
instinctive sense, that in imitating a sensible motion he will catch
the meaning of it ; and in imitating an ideal process, he will see
at least the Reason in it, even if he cannot express it as a particu-
lar " reason."

' Hence as a particular Reason it is still an Unknowable, even to the man himself;
since it is self-contradictory that Reason in general should be a particular reason only,
or that what is for all can be thus monopolized.

Use, Beauty, Reason. 139

So here. Beyond all these mere means — these colors, forms, and
their proportions — is the reason why the " Master " chose these
out of an infinite number. But he can give no reason except that
he felt their success, or that he divined them by a sort of imagina-
tion which he cannot describe as a method. And here it is noticed
that diflerent Masters equally succeed, though by different means/
Hence each has his own " style,'''' in respect to which " tastes "
may differ as our nervous motions, or sensibilities, to them do ;
yet judgments must agree that each is Beautiful in its way. Thus
this Infinite Beauty particularizes itself in Man's Art, as it does
in Nature ; yet each particular form suggests the Whole, the One
and indivisible Beauty.

No wonder, then, that this final Reason for it cannot be grasped,
since it shows itself in forms infinitely various. This Outer form
of it is then really indifferent to it in itself ; it cannot be tied to
any one of them ; it can leave them all and exist only in the
mind. In fact, it does thus disclaim them all, as mere means —
mere wax in its hands— of which even an arbitrary use may be
made, and Beauty spring therefrom, like the spray of a wave in
Nature, or as Conventional Beauty in Man's Art (as, for exam-
ple, in fashions, which are beautiful only because they are chang-
ing).'' Thus Beauty's only real form is in the Mind — ideal,
infinite. This important fact is apparent from the inherent self-
transform ability which every Outer form must seem to possess
as Form, of course, not as Outer thing before it can seem Beau-
tiful. As before noted, the Beauty of it must seem to be some-
thing which severs itself from every particular Use of the object,
as merely Form, and at first as its form. But, thus° freed from

^ I. e,, Beauty as ideal begins to show itself wholly dependent on ideal form, and the
outer form is mere wax in its hands, a mere arbitrary material which has no meaning
save what is pu( into it ; and this varies with the idea which forms it.

* " Because they change and can change." Tyrants, jetpojjular tyrants, chosen des-
pots.

' This is analogous to the escape of " Essence "-form from " Being "-form in its^rs^
aspect as " Reflection," and its third phase as latent Idea. But the second phase of the
Essence is only a change from Form as Passive in Quantity to Form as Active in Force,
and the view of it is still as an Outer and the relations of it still spatially formal. This
represents only the means of Creation of Outer Form Being as Inner Force. But this
is all external, and as a whole Being-Essence is posited absolutely by and as opposite
to the Idea.

140 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the merely passive phase of the outer object, no longer dominated
by the fixedness of that, this Form of Beauty seems to us to live
and speak ; it has become spiritual, and there is no limit to the
variety in -which it a})pears to us, or to the suggestion it awakens
in us. Thus, instead of passive form, it becomes Form as Active.
The infinite self-transformability of this specific form demon-
strates its origin in, its generation by, the Infinite (Active) Form.
In other words, this particular Form, wlien thus idealized, shows
its ancestor to be the Universal — the active Creator of all forms.
That must be why all can recognize it.

But this infinite transformation evidently goes on only in idea,
and can exist only there. It is not possible in fixed outer form ;
it can exist there only relatively ; it is not for the sense in itself.
Hence, as outer representation approaches to it, the Art takes
higher grade, as in dramatic poetrj'', or dramatic music, or in
panoramic or dissolving views, which may be called dramatic
vision. But it is this inner transformation of the outer form, by
and in our idea, which alone can approach the infinite. This it is,
then, which gives the sense of Beauty as both a joy and a pain,
just as a nerve-motion, when excessive, lingers on the summit of a
wave which touches Heaven yet looks into a 3''awning Hell. But
in the Idea, alone by itself, this Beauty may part from the sense;
and then it is the Infinite Beauty indeed, serene and peaceful,
because Divine. '• Grant me this Absolute Beauty," said So-
crates, " and I will prove the immortality of the soul." Well
said ; for if the soul cannot part from this mere sense of Beauty,
then it can have no idea of it, nor dwell with it in its Eternal
nature.

In fact, however, it is this constant self-transformation of the
idea of Beauty within us which alone gives the impulse and the
power to create it. For this is the very process which goes on in
the mind of the Artist himself while creating. Hence it is no
marvel that he finds it difficult — nay, even sad — painful in a moral
sense, also — to fix this being of life in a form which must appar-
ently be only death for it — a veritable crucifixion. Only they
who shall look upon this crucified of his with the same love which
he had for its inner Beauty can resurrect it, restore its life, see in
it again its Infinity. For the Artist is impelled to this Outer
Creation of Beauty only by his love for it, and its fixed form is

Use, Beauty, Reason. 141

only a necessity of his material.' ]N"o one can thus really create
the Beautiful except out of his love for it. That is what con-
ceives it. That is what guides the hand in forming it, and divines
what form best befits it. Tliat is the ultimate Reason, both of
its being and of its way of being. And, after all, the created ob-
ject is only a mere seeming, an Appearance only ; and its finitude
and fixity belie the Infinite transformability which it represents.
Hence, it is purely arbitrary ; it must be seen as he sees it, and
then it will disappear as object and become idea only so far as it
is Beauty. This is but saying that its Reason is an Infinite Rea-
son ; it is in him and all others who can behold Beauty, for that
has shown itself to be an Infinite in itself. It is also saying that
this Infinite Reason only seems to be in these fixed forms — does
not dwell in them, but in the mind, where alone it really appears,
since there it appears as Infinite. It is not, then, his reason for
creating, not his love of Beauty as a particular love. For, since
this Love, as his only,^ really crucifies its Idea, it seems the most
unreasonable of all things.

Thus the Reason, as such, is not found in Art, regarded as
only Subjective — as my Art, my Creation. As a One Love, it
calls for many loves, as we have seen, or it is not really created as
Beauty. Hence its Objects cannot be passive ones, as in Man's
Art, and merely seeming, but must be active and spiritually real.
There is a mystery here which only Religion can solve. For this
creation of Beauty, merely as Art, shuts itself up in the Idea, and
belongs to the Idea as contemplative only, since it returns into
that as result. The Outer object is a sheer sacrifice ; ' and it must
be insensate to justify this crucifixion, which for it is a parting
it from its Use. Its particular glory is in its own use ; and even

' This, as spatial necessity of fixed form, of course, reflects itself (by motion as unity
of space and time) into a necessity for sense also, which is in Time-form taken abstractly^
and hence can really be nothing save in unity with Space-form through Motion.

* I. e., Love also as a particular proves self-contradictory — demands the Many, and
cannot be isolated in the One. Cannot hmve passive objects, as it seenis from the point
of view of a merely Subjective Art.

* So with the resolution of " Essence " as merely active Outer Creation, Yet the
Art-Work still stands without in its own " material " — an arbitrary one, etc.

The outer object ceases to have any 2ise when turned to the infinite Use of Beauty, in
Art merely ; but in Religion, the Use, being made Infinite and Divine Use, also be-
comes beautiful ; and so Use and Beauty go together in the final Reason.

142 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

thougli this Art-Object is a light and glory in the world, or a star
in the heavens, -what is that to it? it knows not of it; just as
the Man, wedded to his finite use, see5 no infinite, or Religious,
relation which gives him the Beautiful glory of an infinite Use.

And so, also, is there necessity for sacrifice in our resurrecting
of this Beautv from that outer form in which it is fixed and dead.
This restoring to its ideal being can take place only in other
minds than that of the Artist, and, after all, must be also a pains-
taking.' The thought must go down upon this Outer object, con-
centrate in it, and recreate that Beauty which it only suggests.
And then this Beauty wings itself away from it, like a spirit, and
the object itself is again left to its cold and lifeless existence.
Thus Subjective Art stands ever isolated from its Object, if this
be taken as either a finite or as an Outer object. The Artist's
love in creating it is only a self-love, which for it is hate, were it
at all sensible to either love or hate.

DANTE'S EPOCHS OF CULTURE, AND THE RELA-
TION OF THE "CONYITO" TO THE "DIYINA
COMMEDIA."

BY H. K. HUGO DELFF. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY A. E. KROEGER.

Let me be permitted to give in advance a general sketch of my
views, preliminary to illustrations and proofs. I distinguish three
periods in the development of the poet's mind and character.
The first period is the time of his youth, characterized by the re-
lation to an earthly love, and recorded in the Yita Nuova. It is
Dante's love for Beatrice, which is here to be taken in the sense of
the Old German adoration of woman, in which, according to
Tacitus, the present numen is worshipped; for we behold devel-

' /. e., as to sensibility — sense-knowing ; for this Outer Art-Object must be resolved
through that. The same may perhaps be said of objects of historical representation,
at least in part, since there is to some extent a necessity, and, still more, a disposition,
to see them as sensible objects.

Daniels Epochs of Culture. 143

oped in woman, so far as we look upon her in her ideal, that
which is so holy in the childlikeness of the child and in childlike
innocence: the immediate unity with the divine roots of individu-
ality, from which the energetic will of man separates or dirempts
itself in decided individualization. Dante conceives Beatrice as a
revelation of the Infinite ; in his love-ardor for the earthly beloved
he was with and in her, at the same time, in an unconscious man-
ner One with the Infinite, even as he, in ardor for her, was at the
same time in ardor for the Divine, the Infinite. This was la di-
ritta via of the first song of the Divine Comedy — the direct way ;
that is, the iramediateness for the reflection, which enters here and
purposely loses itself in the current of the Divine ; this was the
innocence to which the opposition had not yet disclosed nor con-
tradiction yet opposed itself, and which, therefore, followed the
drift of her nature, which, according to Dante, is the drift of
God, the instinct of the soul, which carried her upward on its
wings. In regard to scientific investigation, we shall still find in-
dependent thinking slumbering ; and, politically, the poet seems to
have been either indifierent, or else following his Guelphic fam-
ily traditions.

The perturbation caused by the death of the Beloved soon
ripened his manly independence ; and we see the poet enter upon
the second period of his life. In regard to mental development,
this epoch is characterized by the abstract, reflecting understand-
ing — the scientific phase whereof was at that time the Oriental
Arabic Philosophy and the begetter of the Scholasticism of
Thomas Aquinas and Dun Scotus, whereas its ethical phase was
Liberalism. We find both sides of this epoch recorded in the
Convito.

This second period led Dante into his third, partly by reason of
the fruitless endeavors of abstract and formalistic science — fruit-
less, because they could not be brought into connection with the
vital issues of the day — and partly by reason of the painful expe-
rience resulting from the consequences of his liberal principles ;
that is, from the demagogy of the Guelphic nobility in Florence,
as well as from the general selfishness of parties, that took the
marrow out of all the good and great enterprises of that time.
This third period is characterized, in its intellectual aspect, by
intellectual contemplation, by Dante's concentration on that same

l-iJ: The Jouimal of Speculative PMlosopJiy.

contemplation with the living, divine truth — Mysticism. This is,
in its etliical or political respect, a sentiment which one might call
conservatism, provided that this word be not taken in a partisan
sense ; a sentiment which insists that all the figurations of the
"World and of History are ordered by God — that is, by the idea of
a universal and independent principle of organization. Dante
characterizes this third epocli as a retiLrn to the diritta via of the
fii-st, and, hence, as a restitution of the immediate unity with the
Infinite of the time of youthful innocence, now accomplished by
reflection and purpose, and, penetrating contradiction, also going
beyond it. The second epoch, on the other hand, is to him a
wandering in the desert, in the selva eri'onea of this life. The
literary records of this epoch are the Divine Comedy, and, I be-
lieve, also the book De Monarchia. The letters of Dante's later
life, as well as some sonnets and canzonets, might be added.

This division of Dante's periods of culture and literary epochs
may perhaps meet approbation on this account : that it bears the
impress of universally typical, generally human, traits, and that, if
not every man, at least the most of men, develop in the same man-
ner (that is, they learn wisdom by knocking themselves against
the wall), and that the whole race of man passes through the same
process.

It is known from the History of Philosophy that after an epoch
of abstract philosophy has passed away, and has been either para-
lyzed by the combination of scholasticism with mysticism, or pre-
viously overcome by mysticism (on the one side take Hugo of St.
Victor, on the other side take Richard of St. Victor and Bernard
of Clairvaux), the publication of the Aristotelian writings and
their Arabian commentators, which was accomplished by the exer-
tions of Frederic II von Hohenstauffen, created a new epoch,
which was by no means altogether thrust aside by the masters of
scholastic theology, and to which, on the contrary, scholastic the-
ology became again serviceable, by dissolving altogether in logical
ratiocination and arbitrary casuistries, after the death of those
masters, and, notably, of Thomas Aquinas.

It is also well known that Mysticism placed itself in decided
opposition as well to that philosophy as to that theological scholas-
ticism. iSTow, Dante in his second epoch was such a philosopher
and scholastic theologian, and the product and recorded document

Dante's Epochs of Culture. 145

of this tendency of liis mind is the Convito. Hence the Convito
stands, as it were, in opposition to the Divina Commedia.

The fact that Dante had to complain of an intellectual aberra-
tion he himself confesses in the Divine Comedy ; but at the same
time he indicates this aberration unmistakably. When he asks
Beatrice {Purg. XXXIII, 82) why her words flow so much higher
than his comprehension that he seems to lose them in proportion
as he seeks to gather them, she replies :

" Perclie conoschi . . . quella scuola,
C/i' hai seffuitata, e veggi sua dottrina,
Come puo seguitar la mia parola . . ."

How far finite science, seized in the finite understanding and in its
abstractness and eccentricity, is removed from the wisdom which
is concentric with the Infinite —

" E veggi vostra via dalla divina
Distar cotanto, quanto si discorda
Da terra il ciel, che piu alto festina . . ."

He sees the opposition of both — that is, of Scholasticism and Mys-
ticism, which is like that of Heaven and Earth, the Finite and the
Infinite, Nature and God, Transcendence, etc.
Again, Par. Ill, 28, 29, Beatrice says :

" Ti rivolve, come suole, a voto,
Vere sustanzie sono . . ."

The opposition cannot be more sharply expressed than by the
rivolversi a voto and the vere sustanzie. In the same manner I
look upon Beatrice's reproach, Purg. XXXI, 58 :

" Non ti dovean gravar le penue in giuso
— Ad aspettar piii colpi — o pargoletta,
O altra vanita con si breve uso."

Pargoletta is philosophy ; the donna gentile becomes pargoletta,
with other vanities. Bonaventura counts pretended Wisdom
among vanities in his Soliloquia. Beatrice is not the earthly
beloved, who lives merely in memory ; she is the Bride of God
— that is, the Platonic World of Ideas, the World of God, which
XYI— 10

146 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

contains the root of all created worlds and orders of the world,
and hence is at the same time the Mother of True Wisdom.

It is, therefore, heyond a doubt that Dante had to repent ol
intellectual sins, and that these sins lay in the direction of the
philosophy and scholasticism — in other words, of the Aristotelism
— of his time. We liave no definite expressions in regard to his
political sins, though repentance on that score is by no means ex-
cluded. Beatrice's reproaches, preceding the passage just quoted,
are quite general. She says, Purg. XXX, 126 :

" Questi si tolse a me, e diessi altrui — "

that is, to other Gods, but not to other women, for Beatrice is here
a potentiality of the Godhead.' In this sense she continues, 130 :

" E volse i passi suoi per via non vera
Immagini di ben seguendo false,
Che nulla promission rendon intera " —

Iminagini di hen, in the sense of Par. V, 7, as is also made imme-
diately manifest by the opposition, XXXI, 22 :

"... perentro i miei desiri,
Che ti menavano ad amar lo bene,
Di la dal qual non e a che si aspiri."

Dante answers quite as generally, V, SJf.:

". . . le present! cose
Col falso lor piacer volser miei passi,
Tosto che il vostro \'iso si nascose."

The sensual presence, the sensual and finite relations, had impris-
oned him. But I believe that this general framework includes
especially Dante's political activity. For Dante's picture in his-
tory has only two important aspects, the one philosophical and
the other political. Nay, the poet introduces himself, not in his

^ This is not to be taken as a denial of the fact, repeatedly substantiated (for in-
stance, in the letters), that Dante was not in love once or many times. But this is,
after all, no crime, unless it exceeds in sensual consequence the sixth consequence, or
is permanently and recklessly absorbing, which is not to be assumed in Dante's case.
There was no occasion to make of this a separate chapter in the Divine Comedy ; in-
deed, it would have been downright ridiculous to have done so.

Dante's Epochs of Culture. 147

private relations — compare the principle expressed in Conmto /,
^ ; " nella camera de' suoi pensier se medesimo riprendere dee e
pian^ere li suoi difetti e non palese " — but, in so far as he was a
public person, as philosopher, author, and politician.

But we find a direct allusion to his political change of views in
De Monarclda^m. the well-known phrase ^?oj9w/2^ vana meditantes^
ut ipse solebain. The political sentiments of this work are alto-
gether in the manner of the Divina Commedia. Tlie funda-
mental principle of the Empire is here complemented by reverence
for history, the recognition of the historical element, and the sig-
nificance of hereditary nobility. The special attention devoted to
the religious ends of mankind and the affairs of the Church is
altogether in the vein of the Mystic. I would therefore believe
that this book belongs to the third period. I^ow, in that confes-
sion I see it stated that there was a period in Dante's life when
freedom was also to him a bride — that is, when he was enraptured
with that " false freedom " whose regulative principle is unbridled
" desire," the she-wolf of the Inferno, and whereof Dante speaks
in his letters to Henry VII, to the Italian Cardinals, to the Flor-
entines, and in many passages of the Divina Commedia. This
freedom, or liberty, is followed by equality. This is generally
understood by intelligent people, as we know, in this way, that
not external historical rights, but internal rights, or otherwise
merit (labor, acquirement, etc.), deserve advancement. Taken in
this sense, this equality is the fundamental principle of the indus-
trial faction of a nation, and the basis of a monetary nobility, of a
patriciate or optimate. In the year 1295 or 1296 — five or six
years after the death of Beatrice — Dante became a member of the
" societies," and therewith began his political activity. It is my
opinion that this step, as indeed it could not have been otherwise
expected, was not a means to an end, but a conviction. In the
conflict between the Donati and the Cerchi, he embraced the latter
cause. The former were unquestionably the degenerate nobles or
feudal lords, who attempted to obtain supreme rule at any price —
the very reason why we find them subsequently leagued together
with the lower populace as true demagogues. The latter, on the
other hand, were the wealthy descendants of the money nobility,
the representatives of the bourgeois class. The former gained the
victory, and the latter, after their banishment, naturally sought a

14S The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

support in the party of order — that is, in the Imperialists, the
Ghibellines, In doing so, they abandoned liberty in the sense of
the Florentine Democracy, but not equality in their own inter-
pretation. For this was their vital element, and, abandoning this,
thev would have had to abandon themselves. Whatsoever man
acquired and made his own, for the sake of his own and of general
existence, w^as, after all, a token of his validity. Dante partici-
pated in this change, and the record of it is the fourth book of his
Convito. In this book Dante is a Ghibelline, an Imperialist, but
also an embittered enemy of rank privileges, and an inspired ad-
vocate of the principle of universal claim to distinction through
personal merit.

He goes even so far as to say that his reply to the demand that
nobility should be based only on historical claims would be a
reply not in words, but " by the knife." Thus it turns out that in
the Divina Comraedia his own party becomes a "malicious and
stupid set," of whose bestiality its passing away will furnish the
proof. He separates from them altogether, and becomes a party
unto himself; nay, it is even known that he violently condemns
the industrial greed of gain as well as the arrogance and ambition
resulting therefrom, a state of things wherein no one remains any
longer within his order, but each individual and each class en-
deavors to equal, if not to rise above, the other ; and that he long-
ingly looks back upon the old times of simple ancestral morals,
when the old gifted families (since broken up by adventurers)
were the rulers. Indeed, we see how, in evident opposition to his
Convito^ he glories in the historical continuity of his family even
in heaven — a matter upon w^hich he does not neglect to lay stress.

In the second part of the Convito., Chapter xiii, Dante reports
that after the death of his beloved, nothing was at first capable of
giving him comfort.

Soon afterward, dopo alquanto tempo, when he began to think
of a cure, he hit upon the celebrated book of Boethius, De con-
solatione philosophicB^ and Cicero's Lcelius. And " as it happens
that one who seeks silver may find gold," so he not only found
here comfort, but was also led to the studv of other authors and
scientific works, reflecting on which he finally came to the con-
clusion that philosophy was the Donna, the object of adoration,
of those authors, and, consequently, the very highest matter.

Dante s Epochs of Culture. 149

Hence, from that time he began to hunt up the places where " she
shows herself truthfully," le scuole de^ religiosi e le disputazioni
de^ filosofanti. We know from the History of Philosophy what
those " schools " and " disputations " signified.

A new passion, nuovo amore, took, therefore, hold of Dante.
In conformity with the language and the spirit of that time, he
represented this new love, philosophy, to himself as a donna, bend-
ing down upon him, the abandoned one, in an act of pity. This
donna gentile is held to be the same one who is also mentioned
towards the close of the Vita Nuova. But in the Vita the new
passion has already been conquered again by the old one, and,
since the composition of the Yita Nuova belongs to a much earlier
period than that of the Convito, it may, after all, be possible that
Dante was in a state of self-deception, and that the donna gentile
of the Vita Nuova is a real person. This, it is urged, fits also
more with Beatrice, who there also appears as a real person. But,
after all, it is not exact. Even the Vita Nuova is in so far alle-
gorical and symbolic, as Beatrice is unquestionably more to the
poet than the daughter of Portinari — namely, a revelation of the
Infinite. Hence, I believe that the victory of the old love, re-
counted in the Vita Nuova, was only a preliminary victory. A
fight was necessary, and then victor}^ wavered. At one time, when
Dante closed his elegy to the beloved, he thought that the whole
matter was decided. But the new principle pressed itself forward
anew, and finally the poet himself was compelled to submit to it
altogether.

When Dante says, in the first chapter of the first part of the
Convito, that he does not intend thereby to disavow the Vita
Nuova, but rather to supplement it, he does not mean to say that
both works have one and the same theme — namely, the rights of
the Empire. What he does wish to say is this : that both works
have the same object in view — the Divine ; but that this object is
represented differently in each work, according to the status of
internal development within him. For, as he expresses it directly
afterwards, one must speak and act differently at different periods
of life.

Thus we have arrived at the point from which to illustrate the
contrast between the Convito and the Divina Commedia. In the
very first chapter we read :

150 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

" Ciascuna cosa, da providenzia di propria natura impinta, e in-
cliuabile alia sua perfezione; onde, accioehe la scienza e 1' ultima
pertezioue della nostra anima, uelle quale sta la nostra ultima fe-
licita, tutti naturalinente al suo desiderio siamo suoo-etti."

jSTow, compare with this, for instance, tlie XXXIII Canto of the
Paradiso. Here we have Grod (v. 46), and the union with God, il
fine di tutti i disli, and hence also that, wherein sta la nostra ul-
tima felicitd, outside of it everything is imperfect (v. 106), within
it all is perfection. But this unity with God in the transcendence
(the trasumanar, Par. /, 6Ji) is also, as we shall see, the express
negation of the Scienza, or of that principle, from which Dante in
the Convito causes the final blessedness and perfection to emanate.
The distinction is not to be mistaken ; here science, there unity
with God in actual contemplation. But this distinction is one of
the opposition.

The next words — " Per li miseri alcuna cosa ho reservata, la
quale agli occhi loro gia e piu tempo ho dimostrata" — I also
relate to the canzonets. For these, as we know, were composed by
Dante as early as his residence in Florence, and in the first glow
of his new passion. Subsequently political activity took hold
of him, interrupting for a while his scientific studies. They
were resumed in the leisure which he found in exile, and the
fruit of that new return was the commentary to the canzonets, the
Convito.

It remained unfinished, when that great revolution in the poet's
mind and mode of thinking began to break forth, which has its
expression in the Divina Cornmedia.

In that same chapter we find science still called " il pane degli
angeli. O beati quel pochi, che seggono a quella mensa ove il
pane degli angeli si mangia, e miseri quelli, che colle pecore hanno
commune cibo." The angel is of an intellectual nature, and God
himself is only the actus purissirnus of conceptions (of A,o7ot —
that is, the conceptions of the understanding, wliich are abstract ;
that is, externally formal, and in themselves separate and apart in
contradistinction to the ideas of reason, which are truly concrete ;
that is, wherein thought and essence are identical). In the Divina
Cornmedia, on the contrary, God himself is this angel's bread,
whereof the souls feed without ever being satiated {Par. II, 11).
Simplicity has equal share with high intelligence in this bread,

Daniels Epochs of Culture. 151

and only vulgar pride of learning could think of ranking this sim-
plicity with the faculties of the brute creation.

In the Second Tract, in the sixth chapter, tlie mode of deducing
the system of angelic hierarchies from the trinity is characterized
as empty, scholastic phantastry of the same kind, which is so ener-
getically condemned, for instance, Par. XIII, 91.

In the third chapter Dante says that, although we can have
no sufficiently sure knowledge of the arrangement of heaven,
there is in the speculations of reason (of the understanding, della
ragione) an independent interest of their own, which exceeds in
value likewise the certainty of sensuous cognition. I should think
this ought to characterize sufficiently the one-sided theoretical
stand-point of the Convito.

In the fifth chapter we read : " Li movitori sono sustanze sepa-
rate di materia, cioe intelligenze le quali la volgare genie chiama
angeli." Theological phraseology is here, therefore, lowered to a
level with vulgar mode of expression in an unmistakably con-
temptuous way.

In the eighth chapter Dante says that the highest nobility of
man consists in the understanding (la ragione)^ and that the pecul-
iar act of the ratio is thinking. This is further explained {III,
2) as follows :

"II Filosofo nel secondo 'dell' Anima' partendo le potenze di
qaella, dice che 1' anima 'principalmente ha tre potenze, cioe vi-
vere, sentire e ragionare . . . E quella anima, che tutte queste
potenze comprende, e perfettissima di tutte 1' altre. E 1' anima
umana, la qual e colla nobilita della jpotenza ultima cioe ragione,
participa della divina natura a guisa di sempiterna intelligenza ;
perocche 1' anima e tanto in quella sovrana potenzia nobiiitata e
dinudata da materia, che la divina luce raggia in quella ; e pero e
1' uomo divino animale da' tilosofi chiamato. In questa nobilis-
sima parte dell' anima sono piu virtii . . . E tutte queste nohilis-
sime virtu si chiama insieme con questo vocabolo, cioe mente.^''

It results from this, that on the stand-point of the Convito
Dante regards ratio, or the understanding, the organ of abstract
philosophy, of "panlogism," as the highest intellectual capacity
of man, and as in itself concentric with the Divine intellect, and
that he in no way distinguishes from it the faculty of reason, the
mens or intellectus. This is a natural consequence, indeed, of the

152 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Aristotelian point of view, which looks upon God also as only the
aches purissiirmsoi the rationes or \6yoL. But this view is in de-
cided contradiction to that of the Divina Commedia.

For the latter work distinguishes reason, as the organ of the
infinite, from the understanding, which belongs to the finite, and
holds that the latter, having no direct relation whatever to the
Divine, ought to be transcended, as I have shown elsewhere. The
understanding, as the intellectual activity in the sphere of the
finite, is simply the organ of the pagan or extra-Christian philoso-
phy, which never measures the endless path, but in its unquenched
yearning remains excluded from the heights of absolute truth.
To unlock this organ of the Infinite was the great achievement of
the Redeemer.

In the Convito, on the contrary, the ratio is excluded from
the contemplation of the Divine only in an accidental way —
namely, by its connection with matter. This exclusion is a con-
sequence of the human constitution in this earthly life, and a con-
sequence which neither can be removed, nor is desired to be got
rid of in this life. We shall recur to it again.

Referring to the words, //, 9 : " Sara bello terminare lo parlare
di quella viva Beatrice beata, della quale piii parlare in questo
libro non intendo," Fraticelli observes: "Non intende piii par-
lare della Beatrice, vera donna 'in carne e in ossa e colle sue
giunture,' percbe vuol parlare della Beatrice allegorica, cioe della
sapienza." Here the Divine has assumed another form of rep-
resentation — that is, the garb of philosophy.

This form is (//, 16) the hetter donna, for whose sake he leaves
Beatrice with honest regrets. We must also regard as conclusive
the solemn assurance in the same place: '"'' Dico e affernio, che la
donna di cui io innamorai appresso lo primo amore fu la bellis-
sima e onestissima figlia dello imperadore dell' uni verso, cioe la
filosofia." What more can one do than to swear on the honor of
a man that what one says is true ? It would be rather superwise
to charge him with self-deception.

In the same place we find these significant words : " Questa
donna e la filosofia; . . . gli occlii di questa donna sono le sue
dimostrazioni, le quali dritte negli occhi dello 'ntelletto innamo-
rano 1' aninia, liberata nelle condizioni. Oh dolcissimi ed ineffa-
bili sembianti e rubatori subitani della mente umana, che nelle

Daniels Epochs of Culture. 153

dimostrazioni apparite, veraraente in voi e la salute, per la quale
si fa beato, chi vi guarda, e salvo dalla morte della ignoranzia."

Let the reader here compare the following verses from the
Divina Commedia :

Par.II,J^O:

" Accender ne dovria piu 11 dislo
Di veder quell' essenzia, Id che si vede,
Come nostra natura e Die s' unio.
Li si vedra cio, che tenem per fede,
Non dimostrato, ma fia per se note
A guisa del ver primo che 1' uom crede.

"... la larga ploia
Dello spirito santo, ch' 6 diffusa
In su le vecchie e 'n su le nuove cuoia
jE* sillogisnio, che la m' ha conchiusa
Acutamente si, che 'ti verso d^ ella
Ogni dimostrazion mi pare ottusa.

Here we hear of a Tnorte delV ignoranzia^ just as {III^ <5) of a
fango della stoltezza, and (/F, ^4-) of the selva erronea di questa
'Vita. By comparing parallel passages from the Inferno., it will be
found that death, the morass, and the labyrinth are not ignorance,
simplicity, and error, but sin — that is, pursuit of finite matters
and interests, be they of an intellectual, moral, or political char-
acter.

According to ///, 11, knowledge, il sajpere, is its own purposes.
Dante despises the practical man, who desires knowledge only for
a utilitarian purpose.

In the last chapter of the Third Tract the author declares again
in the most unmistakable manner the divergence of his ideal in
the Convito from that of the Divina Commedia. Salvation through
union with God can be attained by all, the simple as well as the
wise. This is not the case with la idtima felicitd of the Convito.
He says: ^'' Se tutti al suo cospetto venire non potete, onorate lei
ne' suoi amici."

We now touch, in conclusion, those numerous passages wherein
the nature of the science praised by Dante is conclusively de-
scribed. In //, 15, he says that the ultimate principles of knowl-

154 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

edge and being are attainable to us, so long as the soul is en-
chained by the body, only tlirough a reflex, just as a vague gleam
of light penetrates the closed eyelid, or a ray enters into the pupil
of a bat. Those principles are not directly accessible to us ; we
are onlv able to draw conclusions from their effects. According^
to III, 18, and IV, 33, we can act or meditate on them only
according to their effects ; we can approach them (///, IS) only in
the way of negation — that is, of the abstraction of finite and sen-
suous predicates, which is far removed from a positive determina-
tion, giving iiint thereof only in nebulous outlines, as it were.
But he does not (///, 5) find this limitedness of human knowledge
regretable, since it is God's own arrangement, He having had the
fixed will to deprive us in this life of transcendent light. This
must suflice us. But in that same place, in the fifteenth chapter,
he holds that, since desire does not go beyond the limits of natu-
ral possibility, man cannot naturalW be desirous to cognize those
highest principles of life and science.

Now, these concise explanations are as much in direct contradic-
tion with the views of the Divina Commedia as they abundantly
illustrate the scientific stand-point of the Convito. In thQ Divina
Commedia the limitedness of commoji human knowledge is, in
truth, a fact for which man himself is to blame. It is the conse-
quence of man's lapse from God, and the real hei'editary sinful-
ness, which is, indeed, nothing but man's isolation from finity and
sensuousness, and is not God's arrangement, but the fault of man
himself. It was Christ's work to eradicate this original sin ; his
divine human nature forms the bridge on which the finite man
returns to the Infinite {Pa7\ YII, 35; Purg. Ill, 3Jf., etc.). Again :
According to the Divina Commedia, man is by nature desirous to
become One with the infinite in immediate contemplation. Even
the noblest productions of science and art cannot satisfy him.
The limbo is the play of eternally unstilled siglis and painful
resignation. In Christ this desire finds fulMlment. See the
words. Par. IV, 124-. Dante soon sees that there is no rest except
in God. Arrogant science, like all " other vanities, con si hreve
uso " — that is, which have value and validity only for this short
span of time — can, after all, give no true inner satisfaction :

" lo veggio ben, che giamraai non si sazia
Nostro intelletto, se '1 ver non lo illustra,

Dante's Epochs of Culture. 155

Di fuor dal qual nessun vero si spazia.
Posasi in esso come fera in lustra,
Tosto che giunto 1' ha : e giunger puollo ;
Se non, ciascun disio sarebbe frustra."

Here, therefore, the spirit is no longer an externality to truth,
but absolute truth lives internally in the spirit, and, absorbing it
in its own movement, gives it by that means the internal light,
wherein the spirit recognizes the truth of all things. This is the
true end of all investigation {nasce appie del vero il dubbio), and
can be absolutely attained, in this life as well as in the next. In hac
vita., says Dante, in his letter of dedication to the Can Grande,
man can attain contemplation.

On the other side, we well recognize Dante's stand-point in the
Convito. It is the Aristotelianism of that time, as it must form
itself, when combined with pious reverence for faith and the
dogma, a well-known mixture of empiricism and abstract logicism,
which is now joined, in an external sort of way, by limiting tra-
ditional faith. In the words, //Z, 15 : " Cioe Iddio, e la prima
materia, che certissimamente non si veggono, e con tutta fede si
credono essere.^''

This Aristotelianism is the inspiring element — that is, it is what
the author has at heart, while faith is to him only a matter of
respect, of learned knowledge. This can be readily felt. I will
mention only one thing. At //, io, we read : " Noi siamo gia nell'
ultima etade del secolo e attendemo veracemente la consumazione
del celestiale movimento." Evidently we have here a general
theological-physical opinion set forth as a scholarly note. Compare
with it PurglxXIY, 79 :

" . . . il luogo u' fui a viver posto,
Di giorno in giorno pitl di ben si spolpa,
Ed a trista ruina par disposto."

We might also refer to Convito III, 7, where we read that faith
is based chieiiy on the miracles of Christ and his successors, while
Par. XXIX, 100^ seems to lay stress on the internal miracle, by
means of which Christ is born in us. At any rate, this is the
meaning conveyed all through the Divina Commedia.

The spirit of Dante's philosophizing in the Convito is altogether
Aristotelian. Its principles have all an Aristotelian sense. The

15(3 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

preference of a theoretical life, as divine and angelic, over a prac-
tical life, and, above all, the sense and meaning of such a theo-
rizing as abstractly comprehensible, is altogether Aristotelian.
"We iind Aristotelian citations everywhere ; and by the side of
them Arabian commentaries. We also meet Thomas Aquinas,
but under far other titles than those which he wears in the Divina
4Jominedla, and which make him appear, in the Convito, not as a
piously faithful theologian, but as the philosopher and exponent
of THE Philosopher, and as a Scholastic. The other sides of the
man, and hence, also, the sympathies which he always has for
mysticism, are fully revealed only in the Divina Commedia. But
on this Aristotelian basis I fancy that I perceive several impor-
tant corner-stones of Platonism, which probably are taken from the
Aristotelian New Platonism of Proclus and lamblichus. It is
well known that the book De Causis, which is ascribed to Proclus,
and which Dante cites in the dedicatory letter to the Can Grande,
and of which Philalethes has given us a luminous extract, was
very current in the Middle Ages. It is Platonic when we are
told (//, 5) that the effect has no proportion to its cause ; Platonic
is the thought (///, 7) of the continuous sequence of all Beings
from out and towards God ; Platonic is (///, J2) the marriage
which philosophy (as the world of ideas) is said to have con-
cluded with God ; and Platonic is (/T^, ^9) the thought that the
nature of man is nobler than that of the angels, since it unfolds
its effects and fruits in a manifoldness which the simple nature of
the angels does not possess. According to Plotinus and the Kab-
bala, this is the mission of man. Finally, we cannot misconceive
the Platonic character of the thouglit in III, 12, where it is said :
^' God, contemplating Himself, beholds all things together, but in
so far as He also has in Himself the difference of things (in the
ideas as causae primordiales), he beholds also all things in their
differences. The doctrine of ideas in the sixth chapter gives a
further confirmation.

Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. 157

PHILOSOPHY IN KELATION TO AGNOSTICISM AND

TO EELIGION.

BY R. A. HOLLAND.

It is alike the boast of those who doubt, and the lamentation of
those who believe, that our age is sceptical. Its scepticism is not
confined to philosophy, but pervades literature and household
thought. As its philosophy is without certitude, so its poetry is
a dispute of two voices, or,

" An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the hght,
And with no language but a cry ; "

while its popular mood seems to be one of indifference, though
not so indifferent as it seems, to all absolute aims, destitute of
which it tries, but vainly tries, to find a law of right in utility, and
a test of utility in pleasure. Nor is religion exempt from the pre-
valent scepticism. Religion is not only doubted by the unreligi-
ous, but, if I may use such an expression, doubts itself. It has
lost the simple faith that never asked for proofs. It is dissatisfied
with the proofs which, at a later period, when faith had begun to
fear, were suflicient to tranquillize and confirm it ; and, though still
holding the creed of early days as the staff its very life leans on,
holds it with an uneasy clutch rather thau with a calm grasp of
assurance. For Religion, like receot Philosophy, is suspicious of
Reason, and tends to ao-nosticisra. And which kind of ao;nosti-
cism is the worse it would be hard to tell — that of Philosophy,
which quits the search for God, or that of Religion, which despairs
of finding Him otherwise than by accident of outward authority
or by blind brute-like feeling. I say " accident of outward au-
thority," because all authorities as such are equally authoritative,
and he, who does not by reason choose which among them he will
submit to as the most rational, submits to accident. I say "blind
brute-like feeling," because feeling as such knows not the character
of its object, whereas it is the divineness of this character — which
reason, comparing it with the low and gross, alone can recognize

loS The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

— tliat distinguislies the feelings it excites as religious rather than
animal. For feelings as feelings have no distinction among them-
selves except that of greater or less intensity ; and hence, inas-
much as an error may be as intensely felt as a truth, fanaticism
would be the only sign of true religion. Not that Religion is to
be unfelt any more than authority is to be despised, but that both
its feeling and its submission to authority imply rational discrimi-
nation. It cannot shun Reason even if it would. Had it never
doubted, it might have lived on in primitive simplicity of faith,
l)ut the doubt, once excited, can be allayed only by reason. If
bidden not to reason, Religion must have a reason for not reason-
ing. Distrust of the Reason it would renounce is trust in the
Reason that prompts the renunciation. Its very flight to Feeling
and Authority seeks them as a vaove reasonahle way of knowing
God than the way of Reason itself. German folk-lore tells of a
hare who fancied he could easily outrun a clumsy hedgehog.
The hedgehog having stationed his wife, " who was exactly like
himself," at one end of the course, he and the hare started from
the other with a dense hedge between them all the way. When
nearing the end of the course, the hare, who thought his competitor
far behind, was surprised by a voice in advance, which said, " Here
I am before you." Meanwhile, his competitor, who had rnn but a
little way and then retired to the starting-point, was awaiting the
returning race ; and, when the hare came flying back, greeted him
with the same salute — " Here I am before you." Again and again
the challenge was renewed, but whether the hare ran back or
forth, the hedgehog's voice was always before him. The story is
a fable of Faith, whose efforts to outrun Reason alwaj^s meet Rea-
son at the end of the race.

Religion, then, cannot deny the jurisdiction of Philosophy with-
out denying its own right to exist. Its problem is the problem of
Philosophy, its destiny the destiny of Philosophy. And this re-
fjuirement that Religion should become philosophic, and Philoso-
phy religious, is the import of modern Scepticism, whose wide ex-
tent and radical questioning are its most hopeful signs. For, if it
were the doubt of a few individuals, or of a school of thought, it
might be attributed to caprice or to chance of association, and
would have no rational significance. But the doubt of an Age,
expressed alike in its philosophy, religion, and common life, must

PMlosojphy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. 159

have some reason for its existence in the mind of man as man.
ISTow, all rational doubt is relative. It marks the transition of the
general mind from a less to a more perfect comprehension of truth.
It is the necessary motion and growth of Thought, which never
leaves wonted beliefs except for ideas that transcend them, and in
whose transcendency they are found again, as it were, risen from
the dead and glorified. It comes to fulfil, not to destroy. Seeing
that the reason of the Present is born of the reason of the Past, it
regards the Past with filial reverence. The principle of heredity
■does not lead it to expect wisdom as the most probable offspring
of a pedigree of folly. Progress, it knows, is by preservation as
well as by acquisition. As tlie shell-fish outgrows its shell only
to enlarge it with new and wider whorls, so, if rational, the doubt
that leaves old forms of faith leaves them only to add new and
grander forms in one consistent development of truth. Moreover,
the radical reach of the doubt gauges the importance of the faith
it anticipates.

The questions of the ages are a Kilometer that marks the depth
of Tliought's current through time, and its promise of an overflow
that shall fertilize all barren places of the mind. In these ques-
tions the reason of the race has uttered its sense of contradiction
between an implicit standard of truth and customary beliefs. So
much as any age assumed, so much did it leave outside of thought,
and, consequently, outside of knowledge. Only by taking it up
and transforming it into thought can the mind know whether
what seems to be knowledge is true or false, is knowledge or igno-
rance.

Now, all the ages of Christian civilization before ours, whatever
else they may have doubted, have assumed the Absolute. They
have questioned neither an absolute object of knowledge, nor that
such an object could be absolutely known. Individual thinkers
may have puzzled over this problem, but the popular mind did
not. It has come, however, into the consciousness of our time, and,
with its coming, brought the fear that what the Past had taken as
absolute was indeed relative and finite. Hence the depth of that
sense of contradiction v/hich does not merely array against each
other certain truths, like faith and works, grace and freedom, au-
thority and private judgment, but goes to the veiy bottom of
knowledge, cleaving it asunder as with a Ginunga-gap. How can

160 The Journal of S_peculatwe Philosophy.

knowledge exist, it cries, in such utter self-opposition ? Plow can
antagonistic truths be equally ti'ue ? How can the infinite be in
finite and not finite wlien, if not finite, it is set over against the
finite as that which limits it, and so proves it finite after all?
Plow can the mind, which knows only its own states, know that
there is a real world beyond them ? How can freedom exist in an
order of necessary causation, or necessary causation in a universe
which as a whole can have no cause beyond itself, and yet cannot
be thouirht as altogether causeless? How can there be a self
simple, permanent, and substantial when all that is known is
known in complex relations? Is knowledge possible? Is there
any self that knows ? Or am I and my knowing alike illusory —
the dreams of a dream ? Do I know that I know ? What is know-
ing — the knowing of knowing ?

This is the multiform question of our time. First given philo-
sophic utterance by Hume and Kant, it was repeated by Goethe
with a great shout of poetry that caught the ear of the world.
Then other strong voices took it up — Comte and Mansel with dif-
fering accents in religion, and Herbert Spencer in Physical Sci-
ence, until at last colleges heard it, and novels and newspapers
made it multitudinous, and now the cry is a clamor — a clamor
that expresses the deepest longing of humanity, none the less a
longing because its expression has a tone of despair. For the very
despair of absolute knowledge implies an absolute in knowledge.
Only by comparison with an absolute can any knowledge be
known as not absolute. The mind must have an absolute standard
in order to judge that any truth falls short of absoluteness. If
this standard be false, its judgments must be false, and, therefore,
are not to be credited when they pronounce any system of knowl-
edge merely relative. But this standard cannot be pronounced
false without assuming some other standard of absoluteness where-
by to test it, and so asserting, in endless retrogression, the very
truth it would deny.

Thus, in every act of declaring the Absolute unknowable, Agnos-
ticism declares it already known. Its confusion comes from the
fact that it has not brought into clear consciousness the hidden
implications of its own thought. Its fault is not that it denies too
much, but too little. It will find the Absohite it denies, whenever
it makes its denial absolute. For such a denial denies itself. If

Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. 161

absolute knowledge be impossible, how can there be an absolute
knowledge of its impossibility ? Knowledge must itself be abso-
lute in order to know that any of its special objects are only rela-
tive. In judging them relative, it simply asserts that they are
partial or particular tln-ough lack of its own total form. Their an-
tinomies are nothing but the failures of a part to include the Whole
— of any single category of intelligence to equal intelligence itself.
Thus, Space is a category of parts that are outside each other,
and therefore it cannot apply to the Whole, which, as the Whole,
can have nothing outside it. Time is a category of parts that
succeed each other, and therefore it cannot apply to the Whole,
which, as the Whole, has nothing else to precede or follow it.
Cause and effect is a category of parts which change into each
other, so that, given one, another must follow as its next phase by
constraint of the whole — a law that evidently cannot govern the
Whole itself, which cannot become other than it is, and has no
higher Whole to constrain it. Instead, then, of accepting these
categories as final, modern doubt must be thorough enough to
doubt them. They, too, no less than the truths they bring into
contradiction, are contradictory. Why should absolute knowledge
be criticised by canons of Space and Time and Causation, and
they left entirely unquestioned, as if each of them were an inde-
pendent and well-known Absolute ? What is this but the supersti-
tion of Agnosticism ? To deny one god it has to .assert many
gods. It vacates Heaven for Olympus. But even Olympus has a
Jove, and perhaps among these categorical Absolutes one may be
found of Jovian rank. Which is it ? Can Space account for
Time, or Time for Space, or both for Causation, or Causation for
either or both of them ? Is Space or Time a cause, or can Causa-
tion work out of Space and before Time to produce either or both
of them? And if they confess ignorance of each other, what
right have they to sit in judgment on the very nature of knowl-
edge? Does not their mutual ignorance prove their need of some
generative principle higher than they, to relate them to each other,
and give them the co-ordination and unity of knowledge ? For
they are certainly one in that they are known. Knowledge has
somewhere a law for their being — a heat that can melt their stiff,
hard, dogmatic forms, and make them flow together. They can-
not stand the test of absoluteness. Try any of them by that test,
XYI— 11

102 The Journal of Speculative Philosojyhy.

and forthwith the flow begins of one category into others, and
finds no rest except in the oceanic fulness of Thought itself.
Make Space absohite, and it changes into Time ; for Space is pure
externality, and absolute externality would be external to itself,
and, therefore, pure internality, which is what it is only by this
l>rocess of self-negation, so that its outer or static being ceases as
fast as it begins. And what is this blank abstraction of Becoming
but Time — the Saturn who lives by eating up his own offspring?
Make Time absolute or whole, and it changes into Eternity. For
a whole of Time must contain at once all times, having no beyond
whence the Future can come into the Present, or whither the
Present can go out as the Past ; Past and Future must be alwa^^s
present within it; it is their eternal Now. So, too, with Cause
and EtFect, which are but this necessar}' transition of Space into
Time, of co-existence into succession through things. Make
Causation absolute, and it must cause itself, and so be its own
effect — an effect that is the cause of its own causing. But this is
only possible when a final cause or conscious end precedes and
prompts its own realization, or, more completely, as self-conscious-
ness, which is the absolute form of thought. Test it and see.

Think, if you can, of a space beyond the reach of Thought ; as
soon as you thi7ih it, the space beyond thought is a thought.
Think, if you can, of a time when Thought was not born, or
when it shall have died ; as soon as you thinlc it, it is a time of
Thought which stands thus ever ready to play midwife at its own
birth and sexton of its own burial. Think, if you can, a noume-
non or thing in itself apart from its appearance to thought; as
soon as you think it, the thing that was to be in itself, and out of
Thought, comes out of itself into Thought. So, too, Matter, which
is by some supposed to be the source of Mind, cannot be thought
as other than a thought. All feelings, intuitions, imaginings,
volitions, loves, must be regarded as modes of thought which can
only think them as among its many kinds of action. Nor is the
thinker himself excepted ; he too is Thought — Thought come full
circle, and containing all possible phases within its perfect orb.
How can he think himself except as the very self of Thought ?
Thought is the absolute, the all.

And this is St. Anselm's proof of the existence of God. God,
lie says, is that being than whom no greater can be thought. But

Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. 163

if that being than whom no greater can be thought lack reality,
then a being can be thought greater than it by the addition of
existence in reality to mere existence in the mind. In other
words, absolute Thought must contain reality, which cannot be
conceived as out of Thought ; for even there it would be still
within the thought that thinks it as out of Thought. And this
absolute Thought which contains all reality within itself is God.
To object to this argument that the conception of a hundred dol-
lars in the pocket does not put them there is to confuse a finite
conception, which, because finite, is contingent, and may or may
not have outward reality, with a universal and necessary idea,
whose universality and necessity constitute objective existence.
For objectivity simply means that which all minds think and
must think, or do violence to the very nature of Thought. One
does not need to compare a triangle within the mind to a triangle
without the mind to discover that everywhere in the universe, and
no matter what its shape, its angles are equal, really as well as
ideally, to two right angles.

Do you call this Idealism ? I answer that if you cannot think
any reality which is not brought within Thought by the very act
of thinking it, this Idealism is just as much Realism. Do you
charge that it violates Common-Sense? I answer, So does the
motion of the earth about the sun ; so do the hues of the land-
scape which are not in the landscape, but in the light that pal-
pitates against your eye ; so, indeed, does all Science, for Common-
Sense is but another name for unscientific sense.

Thought, then, is all and infinite. And this is precisely what
the Agnostics confess unawares when they say they know that the
Infinite is without knowing what it is : whereby they mean that
none of the particular determinations of knowledge equal its uni-
versal activity. If they would look a little deeper into the nature
of this knowledge, they would see that to know that the Infinite
is implies, at least, the knowledge of infinite Being / that infinite
Being in knowledge, which has no further determinations, is sim-
ply the Being of Knowledge itself ; that, if Knowledge alone be
infinite, it can have no infinite object but itself, and that, in hav-
ing itself for object, its determination does not limit or narrow
its activity — in a word, that self-knowledge or self-consciousness is
the infinite characterization of any Infinite that can be known to

164 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

le. But infinite self-consciousness means infinite personality, or
God.

Such a God cannot be the formless identity or substance of
Pantheism. He is only as He knows liimself, and His self-know-
ing generates distinction within His identity. As knowing, He
is active ; as known, passive : as knowing, essence ; as known,
existence: as knowing, idea ; as known, image: as knowing,
spirit ; as known, Nature : for the self that is known gives to its
entire content the note of Otherness that marks its relation to the
knowing self, which in knowing keeps the subjective form of iden-
titv : and this note of Otherness is the characteristic of Nature.
Nature has no inherent being. Its stablest things are transient.
They never pause in any one condition. They cease while they
begin, and their ceasing is the beginning of other ceasings like
their own. And whether we view them as the ceasing of those
things from which they begin, or the beginning of those things
into which they cease, their existence is elsewhere than in them-
selves. They are but the wing-beats of a restless flight that says
at every point it passes, " Not here, nor here, nor here ; my
destiny is the Elsewhere, which I am always reaching, yet can
never reach." They shift and melt into each other like the colors
of sunset. Colors they are — the perpetual after-glow of a sun
that shines below the horizon of sense. That sun is the whole
of Nature's process, which, while changing its phases or pheno-
mena, keeps in them ever equal to itself, and abides. And this
whole is the other self of God, whose law is change, because its
being is to be other • w'hose changes remain within its unity, be-
cause, though other, it is still a self ; and whose order of changing
is from the utmost otherness and evanescence of finitude towards
the divine form of an all-containing, and hence permanent, unity,
because it is the other self of God. As sang Synesius, the Pla-
tonic bishop of the Early Church :

Thou art the begetting

And the begotten.

Thou art the illumining

And the illumined.

Thou art the manifest

And the hidden — hid by Thy glories

One and yet all things, Thou.

Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. 165

One in Thyself alone,

And throughout all things, One/

X" Towards this summit imity — all things certainly do aspire, from
the mud of subsident oceans to man, who, born of Nature, yet has
Nature's wholeness in his knowledge, who knows himself, and in
such cognition has the image of God ; yea, more, who apprehends
God, and thereby reveals that in man, as the perfection, total
significance, and Christ of Nature, God apprehends the self of
God. Says Meister Eckhart, meaning by / not an exceptional
Ego, but every Ego that has been, is, or shall be : " God and / are
one in knowing. God's essence is His knowing, and God's know-
ing makes me to know Him. Therefore is His knowing my
knowing. The eye whereby I see God is the same eye whereby
He seeth me. Mine eye and the eye of God are one eye, one
vision, one knowledge, and one love." And a greater than Eck-
hart says : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by
Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
... In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. . . .
This is the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into
the world."

For God cannot know Himself correctly unless the self known
is in every respect the same as the self that knows — intelligent as
well as intelligible, essence as well as existence. Reason as well as
Word. Hence, the complete form of His consciousness is no longer
as object against subject, but as subject-object, no longer as self
other to self, but as a self whose very selfhood is knowledge of
self. And neither the first nor the second self could have sub-
sisted unless from eternity each of them had been subject-object
or personality like that third which brings them together ; while

' 2o tJ> tIktov e(pvs

2u rb \afjLn6fi(yoy
2v rh (paiv6fiivov
Su rb Kpvm6iJ.ivov
'iSm^s apyous
' Ev Koi Tzavra
"Ev KoSf' eavrh
Kol 5tot irdvTuv.

166 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

all three personalities exist as such only in one and the same act
of eternal self-consciousness. Wherefore there can be no Absolute
that is not tri-personal, no God except a Trinity, knowing as
Father, known as Son, and recognition in the Holy Ghost. Be
careful to note that this divine Intelligence is not by successive
stages, as if in Time. Time is change, and change is the fate of
Unite things which do not include all their possibilities in their
individual forms, and must perish to realize them ; the swamp-
fern perishing to become peat, the peat perishing to become flame,
and the flame losing its entity in the air. But divine Intelligence
is always, and by the same act, distinction and unity of distinction
— a total process that forever returns to itself, that ends in its
beginning, and begins in its ending, like a whirlpool whose waters
rise as they descend, and coil to their centre while rounding out
to their rim ; or, better still, like the rainbow Dante saw as the
highest glory of Heaven. " Witliin," he tells us,

" the deep and kiminous subsistence
Of the High Light appeared to me three circles
Of threefold color and of one dimension,
And by the second seemed the first reflected,
As Iris is by Iris, and the third
Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed.
O Light eterne ! sole in thyself that dwellest,
Sole knowest thyself and known unto thyself,
And knowing, lovest and smilest on thyself.
That circulation, which being thus conceived,
Appeared in thee as a reflected light,
When somewhat contemplated by mine eyes,
Within itself of its own very color
Seemed painted with our effigy."

Here, then, Philosophy and Eeligion meet. Within the triple
rainbow of Religion, Philosophy sees the efiigy of Reason. And
the Agnostic also might see it but for a mental squint caused by
using two distinct and contrary meanings of Relativity as one
and the same. For Knowledge may be considered relative as
related to an Absolute beyond its reach — in whicli sense it would
be relative only because imperfect ; or it may be considered rela-
tive as involving relation in its very nature. Now, the latter con-

Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. 167

ception is true. It is true that knowing is essentially relating^
the discovery of ditferenee in identity and of identit}'' in differ-
ence; and, consequently, that all knowledge, the most perfect
knowledge, must be a knowledge of relations. But, if perfect
knowledge be a knowing of relations, knowledge cannot be called,
as the Agnostic calls it, relative in the sense of imperfection be-
cause it does not know the unrelated. As well call it relative
because it cannot understand the false to be the true. It is the
perfection, not the imperfection, of Reason that it cannot think
what contradicts its nature, and by such contradiction is proved
absurd. The unthinkable is the absurd, not the absolute, unless
the latter be absolute absurdity. But even the mock Absolute of
the Agnostic is not quite so relationless as he conjectures. Though
out of knowledge, it still stands in some relation to knowledge ;
for out is a relation as well as Mi, and to be known as out of
knowledge is to fall within the relations of that knowing which
knows it to be out of knowledge. And within these relations it
is easily and well understood as Nonsense — an abstraction blown
out to illimitable bulk by the gas of its utter deadness. Its name-
less Kame is Nothing. Ko wonder that the worship of its votaries
is chiefly of the silent sort.

But though an Absolute of no-relation can only be understood as
the Nothing which it is, the Absolute of Self-relation fills and satis-
fies alike the mind of Religion and Philosophy. True, they behold
its glory with distinct visions — Religion ^t first sight, Philosophy
only after inferring its existence as a reflection of divine thouglit,
and then looking for its triple reciprocity of radiance ; but neither
vision will be perfect until it sees through the other's eyes, and
Religion becomes philosophic, while Philosophy grows devout.
Nor need Religion fear that philosophic analysis will take aught
of reality or beauty from her imaginative beholding of Truth.
As the earthly rainbow does not lose, but gains reality and beauty
by having its woof of sunbeams unravelled and rewoven by sci-
ence in a manner that shows the fine art of the sun in its ethereal
tapestry, so the reflection of divine truth appears not less, but
more divine and true when the Mind which it reflects evinces
itself as mind to mind, and by this self-evincing proves the corre-
spondence of the image with its rational archetype. It is not
Philosophy, but philosophic blindness, that abandons the image of

168 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

divine truth in seeking an imageless light behind it. No doubt
it is the light that makes the image, yet but for the image with its
many colors there would be no manifestation of the lig^ht. God
is not rightly known unless known in every degree of his self-
revelation — in feeling, in imagination, and in the concepts of the
understanding as well as in pure reason. Indeed, that reason
alone is })ure which thinks liim in the cntireness of His commun-
ion with man's entire character.

What Religion has to fear, then, is not so much that Philosophy
will fail to think her creed, as that, through ignorance of Philoso-
phy, she will fail to let her creed be thought. If, mistaking her
symbols for ultimate definitions, she attempts to formulate them
into a logical system, she will defeat her own end, and cause doubt
rather than conviction. Symbols reveal, but do not define, God —
as rocks, hills,, rivers, clouds, landscapes, reveal, but do not define,
the soul of Nature. Symbols are for worshijD, not for argument.
Worship sees God through them, but argument takes them as
God's very self, and, by thus making their finite and mediate
forms infinite, encounters hopeless contradiction. And just in
this sorry posture you will find what are called the evidences of
Christianity. For want of a philosophy of religion they are con-
founding symbolic with rational truth, and trying to demonstrate
the existence of Infinite Spirit by categories of Sense that neces-
sarily finitize Him into a mere phenomenon. Tiien, in order to
save at least an appearance of infinitude in this utter finitizing
of his nature, the phenomenon is magnified without bounds so as
to seem an infinite phenomenon, which is only another name for
infinite absurdity.

Thus Apologists, who never dream of taking creation literally
as a series of explosions of divine breath in Hebrew sounds, will
argue, as if pleading for the life of religion, that there are tokens
of design in Nature which prove the existence of an all-wise
Designer — an argument that 2'egards Nature as some waste, un-
manageable stuff, which only marvellous cunning could turn to
account. For if tlie stuff liad been alive with an interior aim
which it was to evolve as the seed evolves the tree, it would have
needed no external designer to shape it to some strange end. But
if not alive with its own organic purpose — if only dead matter
that needed rare ingenuity to overcome its stubbornness and util-

Philosophy in Relation to Agnosticism and to Religion. 169

ize its waste — the question arises, " Who created it so? The God
whose wisdom is displayed in adapting it as a means to an ulterior
end?" Then his wisdom must consist in repairing the blunder
of his first creation. For the wisdom of design is measured by
the difficulties it overcomes. If to overcome them shows infinite
wisdom, to have created them shows infinite folly ; and thus the
argument of Design only proves God to be all-wise by first proving
Him to be all-foolish.

Moreover, the very conception of Creation, while good as a sym-
bol of the truth that Nature has no existence independent of God,
likewise leads to contradiction as soon as it is employed as an
exact and final explanation of Nature's becoming. It pictures
God as existing in Time before Nature, as if He were subject to
change, and had spent countless ages in indolence or sleep, or
some other mood of virtual nonentity, before He began to do any-
thing that would denote divine activity, and then, w^hen He began
to act. His action created a universe that was outside of Him, and
bounded Him, and so put a cage over that infinitude which He
had enjoyed during His long solitary pre-creation slumber ; that is
to say, He ceased to be God as soon as He became creator.

Equally sad are the attempts to demonstrate, in evidence of
Christianity, that God is the great First Cause, as if in a chain of
causes which are each the effect of some previous cause, any one
eff'ect rather than another could be arbitrarily seized as causeless,
and called First Cause, or as if the God who were truly First Cause
were not also second and third and thirteen-thousandth. All finite
representations of the Infinite as cause, or as subject to change,
like a thing, bring him under the categories of Physical Science,
and Physical Science speaks the exact truth when it says that
Nature has no place for such a fictitious God — not a crack broad
as the edge of a knife-blade, between phenomenon and phenome-
non, in which he might by any possibility lie hidden. God be-
longs to a higher category than any that controls the thinking of
things. He is absolute Mind itself — the Mind which thinks all
categories, as well as the things which are known under their
laws. He is not a designer external to Nature, because Nature is
nothing but His thought. He is not a creator who begins in Time
to make worlds, because his eternal thinking has been eternallv
manifest in thoughts which constitute the Universe. He is not

170 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

first cause, because he is also last effect ; Himself the effect of His

own causing.

" Thou seekest Iliiii in globe and galaxy,
lie hides in pure transparency ;
Thou askest in fountains and in fires.
He is the Essence that inquires."

And it is only as Essential Reason, without as well as within
the reason which inquires — that He can ever be rationally dem-
onstrated ; for any other idea of Him, however attractive in
picturing His relation to l^ature or Man, must prove unequal
to his Godhead. By what method, then, shall this demonstration
proceed ? Surely not by deduction from finite Nature, according
to the fashion which our modern evidences of Christianity have bor-
rowed from the Science of Things. For by such deduction God
would not be self-grounded, but would have the ground of his be-
ing in things. He would depend on them, not they on Him. They
would be the supreme reality. He the sentimental inference.

There is another method of demonstration. The Church fol-
lowed it, though with steps that often halted or strayed, in the
Middle Ages, when her theologians had such names as Scotus Eri-
gena and Bonaventura, Anselm and Albertus Magnus, Thomas
of Aquin and Eckhart — saints of the intellect as well as of the
heart. It is the method of philosophy which post-Kantian think-
ers have opened through to its end, so that demonstration need
not halt nor stray in it any more. It shows, by a dialectic which
carries on each partial thought to what it lacks of complete-
ness, that thino-s have no substantial beino; of their own — that
they are fugitive appearances of a Whole which is not merely their
sum, but an organic unity present in them everywhere, and abid-
ing through all their swift transitions ; that this organic unity or
Whole, which, as the Whole, has naught beyond it to determine it,
must be self-determining, and, if self-determining, then infinite
Reason — since Reason is the sole self-determining power known
to man, or within the possibility of thought ; that, hence, all nat-
ural appearances are appearances or revelations of this infinite
Reason, which reveals itself not only in Nature but in Man, who
grows with the gradual revelation through a crescent order of
religions culminating in Christianity, for Christianity comprehends

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 171

all their scattered and imperfect symbols in its one perfect sym-
bol — perfect, because both symbol and the essential truth sym-
bolized, identifying, as it does, the divine with the human mind
in its God-man, the Christ.

Until Christianity is thus demonstrated, men who demand the
reason of faith will continue to doubt its absolute claims. But
whenever this demonstration shall be made popular — as it may
be, by press and pulpit, to a public intelligence, which, meanwhile,
however, will have to learn other than empirical modes of
thought —then our epoch of doubt shall give way to an epoch of
holier faith than the world has yet seen — a faith that shall be
knowledge, knowledge of the Most High Reason by reason, leav-
ing naught in the universe alien to man, bringing his Heaven
down to earth and making every moment of his time eternal with
the eternal truths and principles that fill it, rebuilding the Church,
now half in ruins, on the firmer foundation, and under the serener
sky of his own spirit, with an architecture of thought more ornate
and aspiring than was ever typed by cathedral of stone, and for a
worship whose silences shall be full of harmony, and whose songa
shall seem audible echoes of the voice of God.

GOD AS THE ETERNALLY BEGOTTEN SON.

HEGEL's " PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION." THIRD PART, " THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION," II, 3.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY F. LOUIS SOLDAN.

2. The next point is, that the two are identical, this inade-
quacy (incompatibility) notwithstanding, and that the alienation,
the weakness, and frailty of human nature, cannot detract from
that unity which is the substantial element in the reconciliation.

"We have recognized all this in the divine idea : for the son is
other than the father, and this Otherness or Alienation is difier-
ence, or it could not be spirit. But the Other is God, and has all
the fulness of divine nature in it, and the attribute of alienation
does not detract from the fact that this Other is the son of God,,

172 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosoj)hy.

and tlierefore God ; nor does it detract, if the Other has the form
of human nature.

This Alienation is eternally annulling itself, eternally positing
itself, [and again] eternally annulling itself, and this self-positing
and self-annulling of Alienation is Love, is Spirit. The Evil has
heen defined abstractly to be only what is Alien, the finite and
negative, while God, as the good and true, was placed in contrast
to it. But this Other, this Alien, contains in itself also the affir-
mation, and the consciousness must arise in finite being, that the
principle of affirmation is contained therein, and that within the
principle of affirmation there is implied the principle of identity
with the other side. God, as the True, is not only abstract iden-
tity with himself, but has the Other, the negation, the positing of
himself as an Alien for his own essential category ; and these are
the peculiar attributes of spirit.

The possibility of Reconciliation lies in the knowledge of the
potential unity of the divine and human natures — this is the
necessary basis. Through it man may know himself received
into God, since God is not Alien to him, and he does not stand
in the relation of something external and accidental to God, but
can be received into God according to his freedom and subjec-
tivity ; this is only possible because in God himself there is this
subjectivity of human nature.

The infinite pain must become conscious of this potentiality,
and see in it the potential unity of the divine and human natures
which, however, exists only as potentiality, as substantiality, so
that this weakness, finitude, and alienation do not detract from
this substantial unity of the two.

The unity of the divine and human natures, or man in his uni-
versality, is the tliought of man, and is the in-and-for-itself-existing
Idea of Absolute spirit. In the process by which the alienation
annuls itself, the idea and objectivity of God are potentially real ;
they are so, immediately, in all men : " Out of the cup of the
entire spirit realm there foams for him infinitude." The pain
which the finite feels, in this its cancellation, does not pain, since
it rises thereby to a phase of the Divine.

" Can that pain torment or pain us which increases e'er our

joy?"

Here, on this stand-point, however, the question is not as to the

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 173

thoughts of man. ^or can we stop with the category of particu-
larity in general, which is itself universal and belongs to abstract
thinking as such.

3. If the consciousness of the unity of the divine and human
natures, or man's determination as man, is to be conveyed at all
to man, or if this cognition is to enter into his consciousness of
his finitude like a ray of eternal light, shining to him through
finitude, this cognition must reach him as man in general — that is
to say, without presupposing culture and higher education in
him, but it must rather reach him as immediate man, and it must
be universal for the immediate consciousness.

The consciousness of the absolute idea which we possess in
thinking must be produced not for the stand-point of philosophical
speculation or speculative thought, but for mankind in general, in
the form of certitude. Men do not possess this idea in the form
of thinking, or as a cognition and knowledge of the necessity of
this idea, but the essential point is that it shall become a certainty
for them, or, in other words, that this idea, the unity of the divine
and human natures, shall become a certainty, that it shall assume
for them the form of immediate sense-perception or external exist-
ence ; in short, that this idea shall appear in the world, and be
seen and experienced. Therefore, this unity must exhibit itself
to consciousness in an entirely temporal and perfectly common
phenomenon of reality in a special man — in a special man who is
at the same time known as the divine idea, not simply as a supe-
rior being, but as the highest, the absolute idea, as the son of
God.

Divine and human natures contained in One is a hard and difti-
cult expression ; the image-concept usually connected with it
should be ignored, however, and we should think of the spiritual
essence ; in the unity of the divine and human natures everything
that belongs to the external particularization, and everything that
is finite, has disappeared.

It is the substantial element of the unity of the divine and
human natures which enters into the consciousness of man, so that
man appears to him as God, and God as man. This substantial
unity is the potentiality of man ; but, since it is for man, it is
above or beyond the immediate consciousness, common conscious-
ness, and knowledge; this removes it from the subjective con-

174 Ths Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

sciousness, wliieb is the same as common consciousness, and has
the same determinations.

This is the reason why this [unity of the divine and human
nature] must appear to the others as single, exchisive, man. It
appears not in all men singly, but in One from whom they are
excluded, but in whom it is no longer a potentiality which re-
mains removed and beyond them, but as a singularity on the
plane of sensuous certainty.

It is this sensuous certainty and this appearance appealing to
sense-perception which is the salient point, and not merely the
divine teacher (who, it should be remembered, was not simply a
teacher of morality) ; neither is the salient point merely that there
was once a teacher of this idea, nor is it the image-concept, or the
conviction, which is of importance, but the immediate presence
and sensuous certainty of the divine are the points in which we
are chiefly concerned. For the immediate sensuous certainty of
the Presence in time is the infinite form and manner by which
the "Is" exists for natural consciousness. This "Is" destroys
every vestige of mediation ; it is the highest point, the last touch
of light which is added to the picture. This " Is " is found in
none of the mediations by the feelings, by image-concepts and
reasons, and is found only in philosophical cognition through the
idea and in the element of universality.

The Divine should not be understood as if it were only a universal
thought, or as if it existed only as potentiality ; the objectification
of the Divine must not be understood as one which is in every
man, for in this way it would be conceived as the general multi-
plicity of the spiritual only. The development which the absolute
spirit has in itself, and which must proceed until it attains the
form of the " Is," of immediateness, is not contained in that.

The One of the Jewish religion exists in thought, and not in
sense-perception, and for this reason he has not attained com-
pletion and perfection in the form of spirit. Perfection to [the
form of] spirit means the subjectivity which objectifies itself infi-
nitely and, from the absolute antithesis, from the extreme point of
phenomenality, returns to itself.

Although the principle of individuality had already existed in
the Greek ideal, it lacked there that infinity which is in-and-for-
itself universal; the universal posited as a universal exists only

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 176

in the subjectivity of consciousness ; this alone is the infinite
movement in itself in which all determinateness of existence is
dissolved, and which is at the same time found in the most finite
existence.

The individual, then, which is for others the phenomenal mani-
festation of this idea, is this Single One [this special individual
Christ], not several, for with Several the divinity would become
an abstraction. Several would be a bad excess of reflection — an
excess because it is opposed to the idea of the individual subjec-
tivity. Once, in the idea, is all times, and the subject must turn
without choice towards One Subjectivity. In the eternal idea
there is but One sou, and thus there is but One, to the exclusion
of all others, in which the absolute idea appears. This perfection
of reality to immediate singularity is the most beautiful feature
of the Christian religion, and the absolute transfiguration of fini-
tude is made in it an object of sense-perception.

The doctrine that God must become man, in order that the
£nite spirit may have the consciousness of God even in finitude,
is the most difficult phase of religion. According to a common
image-concept, which we find especially among the ancients, the
spirit or soul has been cast out into this world as into something
foreign to it : its abode in the body and its specialization in an
individuality were considered a degradation (lapse) of spirit.
There is implied in this the doctrine of the untruth of the merely
material side of immediate existence. But, on the other side,
immediate existence is at the same time essential, and is the
highest culmination of the spirit in its subjectivity. Man has
spiritual interests, and is spiritually active ; he may feel hampered
in it by the feeling of physical dependence, for he must toil for
his food, etc., and he is turned away from his spiritual interests
by his dependence on nature. The phase of immediate existence
is, however, contained in spirit itself. It is the attribute of spirit
to unfold into this phase. Naturalness is not merely external
necessity, but spirit, as a subject, in its infinite relation to itself,
has the attribute of immediateness in itself. Therefore, since it
is to be revealed to man what the nature of spirit is, and the
nature of God is to become manifest in the entire evolution of the
idea, also this form must appear in it, and it is the form of fini-
tude. The divine must appear in the form of immediateness.

176 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy^

This immediate presence in time is nanglit but the presence of
spirit in the spiritual shape, and that is the human one. In no
other form is this appearance, or manifestation, a true one — not,
for example, tlie appearance of God in the fierj bush, nor the
like manifestations. God appears as single person, and with
such immediateness all physical wants and frailties are connected.
In the pantheism of the Hindoos innumerable incarnations occur ;
there tlie subjectivity, or existence in human shape, is only an
accidental form. In God, it is a mask, which Substance assumes
and changes at its pleasure accidentally. But God as spirit con-
tains in himself the phase of subjectivity and singularity ; his
phenomenal appearance can, therefore, be but a single one, and it
can occur but once.

Christ has been called by the Church the God-man ; it is this
monstrous combination which is contradictory to the understand-
ing ; but in it man is made conscious and certain of the unity ol
the divine and human natures, and he sees how the alienation, or,
as it may be called, the finitude, weakness or frailty, of human
nature is not incompatible with this unity ; he is told that in the
eternal idea alienation does not detract from the unity, which is
God.

This is tlie monstrous [conception] whose necessity we have
seen. It is taken for granted therewith that the divine and hu-
man natures do not differ in themselves. God [is] in human form.
The truth of it is that there is only One reason, One spirit, and
that spirit, as finite, has no true existence.

The essence of the form of phenomenal appearance has been
explained. Since it is the phenomenality of God, the phenome-
nalitv is essential for the Church. Phenomenality is existence for
another, and this other is the Chm*ch.

This historical phenomenon may again be considered in two
ways. First, as man, according to his external condition, as an
ordinary man as he appears to irreligious minds. And then it
may be considered in spirit, and with spirit penetrating to its
truth, because spirit has in it this infinite diremption, this pain,
which wills truth, which will and must have the need of truth
and its certainty. This is the true mode of contemplation in re-
ligion. These two sides must here be distinguished — the imme-
diate contemplation, and that through faith.

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 177

Through faith this individual is known to be of divine nature,
and with it God is no longer merely something above and beyond
—the infinite separation is removed. If Christ is looked upon
as "we look upon Socrates, he is considered as an ordinary man.
In this way the Mohammedans look upon Christ as a messenger
of God, and in this way all great men are messengers of God. If
a person does not assert more of Christ than that he is a teacher
of mankind and a martyr of truth, he does not stand on the
Christian stand-point, and not on that of true religion.

The one side is this human side ; it is his phenomenality as a
living man. An immediate man lives within the limits of every
external contingency ; he is influenced by all the temporal rela-
tions and conditions ; he is born, and as a human being he has
all the needs and wants of other men. The only diff'erence is that
he [Christ] does not become involved in the corruption, the pas-
sions, and the special inclinations of other men, nor in the special
interests of worldly affairs (although in them also probity and
the discipline of instruction may find a place), but he lives ex-
clusively for truth, and to proclaim the truth ; his mission is simply
to give a content to the higher consciousness of man.

To this human side belongs, in the first place, Christ's doctrine.
The question is. How can this doctrine be— how is it constituted?
The first doctrine cannot be identical with the doctrine of the
Church afterwards ; it must have peculiarities which necessarily
receive another definition in the Church, or in some cases are en-
tirely set aside. Christ's doctrine, in so far as it is an immediate
one, cannot be Christian dogmatics, cannot be the doctrine of
the Church. When the Church has become established, and tlie
kingdom of God has achieved its realization and existence, this
doctrine can no longer have the same shape as before.

The principal content of this doctrine can only be universal and
abstract. "When something new — a new world, anew religion, a
new idea of God — is to be given within the world of image-con-
ception, the first thing must be the universal basis, the second the
special, definite, and concrete. The image-conceiving world, in
its thinking, thinks abstractly only— it thinks only the universal ;
for comprehending spirit it is reserved to know from the universal
the particular, and to make the particular rise through itself out
of the idea. For the image-conceiving world, the basis of the
XYI-12

178 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

universal thought and particularity and development are sepa-
rated. This universal basis for the true idea of God can, therefore,
be set forth through the doctrine [taught in the Church].

Since the aim is a new consciousness of men, a new religion, it
takes the form of the consciousness of absolute reconciliation ;
with it is conditioned a new world, a new religion, a new reality,
a new state of the world, for external being or existence has re-
ligion for its substance.

This is the negative polemic side in the consciousness and faith
of man against remaining in this externality. The new religion
proclaims itself as a new consciousiiess — consciousness of the
reconciliation of man with God ; this reconciliation expressed as
a state is the kingdom of God, eternity as a home for the spirit,
reality in which God reigns. The spirits, the hearts, are recon-
ciled to him, and it is God who has become king. This, there-
fore, is the universal basis.

This kingdom of God, the new religion bears in it potentially
as a negation of the existing world ; this is the revolutionary side
of the doctrine which partly casts aside existing things, and partly
annihilates and subverts them. All mortal, worldly things are dis-
carded as valueless, and are pronounced as such. That which has
been, now changes ; the previous relations and conditions, the
state of religion and the world, cannot remain as before. The
aim is to draw man, in whom consciousness of conciliation is to
be roused, away from the world, and enjoin upon him this ab-
straction from the existing reality.

This new religion is as yet concentrated, and does not exist as
church, l)ut as the energy which constitutes the sole interest of
man, who is struggling and striving to preserve it for himself, be-
cause it has not yet been reduced to harmony with the state of
the world, and not yet in connection with the world-consciousness.

This first appearance contains, therefore, the polemic side, the
injunction of an abnegation of worldly things : it is enjoined that
man should rouse himself to the infinite energy with which the
universal demands itself to be grasped, and compared with which
all other ties must become indifferent to him, and to which all
other things otherwise ethical and right must yield.

" Who is my mother or my brethren ? " " Let the dead bury
their dead." " Ko man having put his hand to the 2)lough, and

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 179

looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." " I came not to
send peace, but a sword."

We see expressed in this the polemic struggle with the ethical
conditions. " Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow." " Go
and sell that thou hast and give to the poor."

All these relations referring to property disappear ; but, on
the other hand, they bear in themselves their own annulment ; if
everything is given to the poor, then there are no longer any poor
people. These are doctrines, statements, all of which belong to
the first beginning, where the new religion is the sole [remaining]
interest of which man must apprehend the loss, and when, as a
doctrine, it appeals to men that have done with the world, and
with whom the world in its turn has nothing more to do. The
one side is this renunciation ; this forsaking and slighting of all
essential interest, and of all ethical ties, forms an essential phase,
the concentrated phenomenal appearance of truth, but which at a
later time, when truth has secure and firm existence, loses part
of its importance. I^ay, when this beginning of the suff'ering
shows itself towards the external world only as suffering, resigning
itself and offering its neck, its inner energy, by the time it has
grown to strength, will culminate in violence just as extreme
towards the external.

The next step on the aflimiative side is the annunciation of the
kingdom of God : into it, as the kingdom of love to God, man
must place himself by casting himself immediately into this truth.
This is expressed with the uttermost freedom of speech at the be-
ginning of the sermon on the mount, for instance : Blessed are the
pure in heart : for they shall see God. Such words belong to the
greatest ever spoken ; they form a final central point which an-
nuls all superstition and all that is unfree in man. It is of infinite
importance that through Luther's translation of the Bible a peo-
l^le's book has been put into the hands of all, in which both heart
and spirit can find satisfaction in the highest (even in an infinite)
manner. In Catholic countries there is a great defect in this re-
spect. In the former [in Germany] the Bible is the means of sal-
vation from all the thraldom of spirit.

Ko mediation is spoken of [as necessary] for this elevation, or
for producing it in man ; there is posited therewith, on the contra-
ry, this immediate being, this immediate self -translation into the

180 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

kiugdom of God. It is the intellectual, spiritual world, tlie king-
dom of God, to which man must belong, and it is will and dis-
position alone which give worth to him — not abstract disposition,
not any particular sentiment or intention, but the absolute dis-
position which has its basis in the kingdom of God. In this ap-
peared for the first time the infinite value and worth of the inner
nature of man.

This is proclaimed in the language of enthusiasm and inspira-
tion, in those thrilling tones which stir the soul and draw it out
of the body, as did Mercury, the conductor of souls, leading it
from the temporal sphere to the eternal home. " Seek ye first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness ! "

There are contained everywhere, in this elevation and total ab-
straction from all that the world considers great, the melancholy
and grief which were felt at the debasement of his people and of
man in general. Jesus appeared when the Jewish people, in
consequence of the danger to which their form of worship had
been exposed, clung to it all the more tenaciously, and were in
despair as regards realitj^, since it had come into contact with a
universality of mankind whose existence it could no longer deny,
and which, on the other hand, was as yet in itself entirely devoid
of spirit ; in short, he appeared at a time when the feeling of
helplessness and despondency prevailed among the common peo-
ple : " I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes."

This substantial, this universal, divine heaven, in more definite
reflection, leads to moral commands which are the application of
that universal to special relations and situations. These com-
mands partly contain only limited spheres, and partly are of no
extraordinary value for this stage which concerns itself with ab-
solute truth, or they are contained already in other religions and
in the Jewish one. These commandments are all comprised in
their centre, the commandment of Love, which has for its aim not
the rights, but the welfare of others, and therefore relates to their
particularity. " Love thy neighbor as thyself." Taken in the
abstract and more extended sense of its scope, as love to man in
general, this commandment requires love to all human beings.
But thus it is made an abstraction. The human beings whom

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 181

we can love, and towards whom love becomes real, are a few par-
ticular ones ; the heart which is ready to enclose all mankind is
naught but an empty inflation into a mere image-concept, which
is the opposite of real love.

Love in the sense of Christ is, in the first place, moral love to
our neighbor in the special relation in which we stand towards
him; above all things, love was to be the relation of his disciples
and their successors — the tie through which they are One. And
it must. not be taken here in the sense that each was to have his
special business, interests, and conditions in life, and, in addition
to these, was to exercise love, but, in the exclusive, abstracting
sense, love was to be the centre in which they lived — their busi-
ness. They were to love each other — nothing but that — and
therefore they were not to have any aim and purpose of particu-
larity, no aims of the family, no political aims, no love for the
sake of these particular aims. Love is rather the abstract per-
sonality, and the identity of the same in One consciousness where
there remains no possil)ility for particular aims and ends. Be-
sides this love there is, therefore, here, no other objective aim and
end. This love, independent and made a central point, becomes,
finally, the higher divine love itself.

At first this love, since it is still without any objective aim, is
as yet directed polemically against all that exists, and especially
against the Jewish existing world. All the actions commanded
by the law which men otherwise thought of the highest value
to themselves, and which had nothing in common with love, were
characterized as dead, vain, and empty activity, and Christ him-
self heals the sick on the Sabbath day.

In these teachings there appears presently this phase also — this
distinction — which, since it is immediately expressed and enjoinod
in this wise : " Seek ye the kingdom of God," sink yourself in
the truth, appears as if it were expressed subjectively, so to speak,
and for this reason the Person [or personality] comes in consid-
eration.

In this relation Christ does not speak merely as the teacher
who presents what is his subjective view, and who has the con-
sciousness of his productivity and activity, but rather as a prophet.
He is himself immediate, as this injunction is ; he speaks thia
immediately from God, and God speaks this through him.

182 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

That tlie life of spirit is contained in the truth, that it is with-
out mediation, is expressed prophetically in the fact that it is
God who says this. The principal element in this is that it is the
absolute, divine truth which has being in and for itself; the
proclamation of this truth and the will tending in the direction
of this truth — which is in and for itself — are represented as the
act of God, it is the consciousness of the real unity of the divine
will, of its harmony with it. In this elevation of his spirit, and
in the certainty of his unity with God, Christ says : Woman, thy
sins are forgiven. There that tremondous majesty speaks through
him which can make everything undone and thus ordains such
events.

This form of expressing it lays the main stress on the fact that
he who says this is at the same time essentially man, that it i&
the son of man who expresses this, and in whom this expression
and actualization of self-existent Being, this activity of God, are
essentially as in a human being and in whom it does not exist as
something superhuman, as something which appears in the form
of an external revelation. This divine presence is essentially
identical with the human element.

Christ calls himself the son of God and the son of man : this
must be taken literally. The Arabs spoke of each other mutually
as sons of a certain tribe, kin, or clan ; Christ belonged to man-
kind : this is his kin. Christ is also the son of God : the true
sense of this expression, the truth of the idea which Christ was
for his church, and the idea of the truth which was in him in his
church, might be explained away. It might be said : all the sons
of man are children of God, or they should render themselves
children of God, and so forth.

Since the doctrine of Christ for itself alone appeals only to the
image-conception, to the inner feeling and the heart, it iinds a
complement in the representation of the divine idea as expressed
by his life and fate. The kingdom of God, as constituting the
contents of the doctrine, is as yet the universal idea in the form
of an image-concept, but through this individual it steps into
reality, so that those who wish to attain to that kingdom can do
80 only through that One individual.

There is, first, the abstract compatibility of the doing, acting,
and suffering of this teacher in relation to his own doctrine, the

God as the Eternalhj Begotten Son. 183

fact that his life was entirely devoted to it, that he did not tear
death, and by his death gave testimony of his faith. That Christ
became a martyr of truth stands, therefore, in close connection
with this course. Since the founding of the kingdom of God is
in a complete contradiction to the existing political state which
is based on another mode and determination of religion, the
doom (speaking frora the human stand-point) of being a martyr
of truth stands in connection with his course.

These are the principal points connected with Christ's appear-
ance in human form. This teacher collected friends about him.
Christ, since his doctrines were revolutionary, was tried and cru-
citied, and by his death he has thus borne evidence of the truth
of his doctrine. So far even unbelief accepts this story ; it is
quite similar to that of Socrates, but in a different country.
Socrates, too, made the consciousness of man realize its inward
depths. His hai^oviov has no other sense than that. He taught
also that man should not be satisfied with the commonly accepted
authority, but should gain a conviction of its truth personally,
and should act according to his conviction. These are similar
individualities and similar fates. The internality of Socrates
was incompatible with the religious belief of his people and with
the constitution of the state, and for this reason he was executed ;
he, too, died for truth.

Christ lived among a different people, and his doctrine has in
this respect another tone, but the kingdom of heaven and the
purity of heart contain, nevertheless, an in finitely greater depth
than the internality of Socrates. This is the external history of
Christ which appears to unbelief in the light in which the his-
tory of Socrates appears to us.

With the death of Christ the return-movement of consciousness
begins. The death of Christ is the centre round which it turns ;
in the conception of it lies the difference between external con-
ception and faith; i. e., of contemplation with the spirit, from a
spirit of truth, from the holy spirit. According to that compari-
son, Christ is a human being like Socrates, a teacher who lived
virtuously during his life, and who made man conscious of what
constitutes the True in general, and what should form the basis
for man's consciousness. The higher view, however, is, that in
Christ was revealed the Divine nature. This consciousness is

184 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

reflected in the general expressions that tlie Son knows the
Father, etc. — expressions which have in the first place a certain
universality of their own, and which exegesis can drag over into
the field of general consideration, but which faith, by its concep-
tion of Christ's death, receives in its truth ; for faith is essentially
the consciousness of absolute truth, of what God is in-and-for-
hiniself. We have seen, however, what God is in-and-for-himself :
he is this liistory of a life, this Trinity, in which the universal
places itself over against itself, and is therein identical with itself.
In this element of eternity, God is self-concatenation, the linking
together of himself with himself. Faith alone has the conscious-
ness, and conceives tliat in Christ this in-and-for-liimself existing
truth is viewed in its process, and that by him alone this truth
has been revealed.

It is only with this contemplation that the religious element, as
such, arises, in which the divine itself is an essential phase. In
the friends, acquaintances who had [thus] been taught, there
arise a foreboding, an image-concept of and a desire for the new
kingdom, for a wqw heaven and a new earth; this hope, this cer-
tainty, has cut its way through the reality of their hearts, and in
the reality of their hearts it has taken root.

The suffering of Christ, however, his death, has annulled the
human relationship of Christ, and it is in this death that the
transition to the religious side appears ; everything depends there
on the meaning, on the manner of looking upon this death. On
the one side it is the natural death, caused through injustice,
hatred, and violence. Bat it is already established in the hearts
and minds that the relevant point is not morality in general, not
the thinking and willing of the subject within and without, but
that the interest lies in an infinite relation to God — to the God
who is present ; it is the sensuous certainty of the kingdom of
God, a satisfaction, not on the moral nor the ethical side, nor in
•conscience, but a satisfaction besides which nothing that is higher
exists, and which is absolute relation to God himself.

All other modes of satisfaction imply that they exist according
to some determination of a subordinate kind, so that the relation
to God remains a something that lies beyond and above, some-
thing distant, or perhaps something that does not exist at all.
The fundamental determination of this kingdom of God is the

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 185

presence of God, and thus to the people of this kingdom not only
love to man is recommended, but they are conscious also that Grod
is Love.

In this it is expressed that God is present, and that this must
exist as one's own feeling, as self-feeling. The kingdom of God,
the presence of God, is this determination. For this determina-
tion the certainty of the presence of God is necessary. Since the
subject has, on the one side, a need or a feeling, it must, on the
other side, distinguish itself from the latter ; it must distinguish
from itself this presence of God, but in such a way that this pres-
ence of God is manifest to it. This manifest certainty can exist
here only in the mode of sensuously appearing phenomenality.

The nature of the eternal idea itself is to exhibit the determi-
nation of subjectivity immediately as a real one, distinguished
from a mere thought. On the other side, it is the faith arising
out of the sorrow of the world, and resting on the evidence of
faith, which in this explains to itself the life of Christ. His doc-
trine, his miracles, are conceived and understood in this evidence
of faith. The story of Christ has also been related by those upon
whom the Holy Ghost had descended. The miracles are conceived
and related in that spirit, and the death of Christ has been com-
prehended in it in its truth to mean, that, in Christ, God and the
unity of divine and human natures have been revealed. Death
is, then, the touchstone, so to speak, on which the value of faith is
tested, since it shows how faith essentially understands the mean-
ing of the pheiiomenality of Christ. The death has in the next
place the meaning that Christ was God-man, the God who had
also human nature, even unto death. It is the fate of human
finiteness that it must die ; thus death is the highest proof of
humanity, of absolute finiteness ; and, moreover, Christ died the
intensified death of the criminal ; not only natural death, but
even the death of shame and dishonor, on the cross ; humanity
appeared in him even to the extreme point.

As regards this death, stress must be laid, in the first place, on
a particular aspect, namely, its polemic side towards the external.
Not only the renunciation of natural will is therein placed before
us, but with it all peculiarity, all interests and aims towards which
the natural will may tend, all eminence and whatever the world
esteems — all these are lowered therewith into the tomb of the

186 The Journal of Speculatii)e Philosophy.

spirit. This is tlie revolutionar}^ element bj which an entirely
different form is given to the world. But in the renunciation of
the natural will this finite element, the alienation, is at the same
time gloritied and transfigured. For alienation has a wider scope
besides that of immediate naturalness and a further determina-
tion. It is an essential attribute of the existence of the subject
that it should be for others also ; the subject is not merely for
itself, but it also exists as the image-conception of others ; it
exists, and is valid and objective, just in the measure in which it
can make itself felt by others and valued by them. Its validity
is the conception of the others, and rests on the comparison with
what they esteem, and with what is valued by them, as its essen-
tial nature. Since death, besides being natural death, is also the
death of the felon, the ignominious death on the cross, there i&
not only natural death in it, but also the social dishonoi', the dis-
grace l^efore the world ; the cross is transfigured ; that which is
the lowest in conception, that which the state intends for a dis-
grace, is raised to the highest position. Death is natural; every
man must die. AYhen the cross has been elevated so as to become
a standard — a standard whose positive content is at the same time
the kingdom of God — then the innermost disposition of the mind,
the heart, is withdrawn in 'its deepest recesses from the life of
society and state, and their substantial basis is removed, so that
the whole structure is no longer a reality, but an empty phenome-
non which will soon crash and .tumble into ruin, and which must
in its existence also manifest the fact that it has no longer any
essential being in it. The imperial power, for its part, dishonored
everything that enjoyed respect and autliority among men. The
life of each individual was subject to the caprice of the emperor,
which was limited by nothing externally or internally. But, be-
sides life, all virtue, dignity, age, position, sex. everything — was
thoroughly dishonored. The slave was the highest power after
the emperor, or perhaps had more power than even he ; the
senate dishonored itself in the same way in which it was dis
honored by the emperor. Thus the majesty of worldly govern-
ment, as well as all virtue, right, dignity of institutions and rela-
tions, the majesty of everything that has validity for the world,
was dragged into the mire. Thus the worldly ruler of the earth,
on his part, degraded the highest to the lowest, and radically per-

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 187

verted man's disposition, so that there was nothing within to he
opposed to the new reh'gion, which, on its part, had for its stand-
ard the change of what was in greatest contempt to the highest
position. All that was fixed, ethical — all that was establislied in
public opinion as valid and powerful — was destroyed, and, for the
existing world against which the new religion turned, nothing
was left but death — the quite external, cold force, which the dis-
graced Life, feeling itself infinite within, then indeed no more
dreaded.

Here a new consideration appears. God has died, God is dead
— the most dreadful thought is that nothing that is eternal,
nothing that is true, has existence, that negation exists in God
himself; the highest pain, the feeling of the perfectly helpless
despair, the renunciation of all higher principle, is connected w^ith
it. The process, however, does not end here, and now the return
movement begins; for God maintains and preserves himself in
this process, and the latter is but the death of death. God arises
again to life ; there is, therefore, a change to the opposite.' The
resurrection thus essentially belongs to faith : Christ appeared
after his resurrection only to his friends; this is not external his-
tory for unbelief, but this apparition is for faith alone. The re-
surrection is followed by the transfiguration [ascension] of Christ,
and the triumph of the elevation to the right hand of God closes
this history, which, conceived in this way, is the self-explication
of the divine nature. If in the lirst sphere we conceived God in
pure thought, this second sphere begins with the immediateness
which exists for sense-perception and for sensuous representation.
The nature of the process here is that the immediate individuality

' This refers to the resurrection and the ascension of Christ. In the same way in
which all the rest, so far, has become a [sensuous] phenomenon for the immediate
consciousness, in the manner of [objective] reality, this elevation takes this form as
well : " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to
see corruption." In this way there exists for sense-perception this death of death, the
victory over the grave, the triumph over the negative, and this elevation to heaven.
The subjection of the negative is not a mere stripping off of human nature, but its
highest proof and vindication even in death and in the highest love. Spirit is spirit
only as the negation of the negative, which therefore contains the negative in itself
Hence, since the Son of Man sits at the right hand of the Father, there is placed before
the spiritual eye in this elevation of human nature, in the most marked way, the dignity
and worth of the same, and its identity with the divine nature. — (From the manuscript
of the lectures of 1821, written by Hegel himself.)

188 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

is annulled : in the same manner in which, in the first sphere, the
self-seclusion of God ceased and his first immediateness, as abstract
universality, according to which he is the essence of all beings,
was cancelled, there is in this sphere the abstraction of [his] hu-
manity annulled, the immediateness of existing individuality, and
this is done by death ; the death of Christ, however, is the death
of death itself, the negation of the negation. We have found the
same course and process of the explication of God in the realm of
the father ; here, however, it is found in so far as it is the object
of consciousness. For there existed the natural desire for per-
ceiving the divine nature through sense-perception. Finally, in
the death of Christ the phase should be emphasized that it is God
who has killed death by passing through it and coming out of it ;
with all this finitnde, humanity and humiliation are posited as an
alien element in Christ, since he is strictly God : it becomes evi-
dent that finitude is foreign to him and assumed from another ;
this other is the human beings who stand over against the divine
process. It is their finitude which Christ has assumed — this fini-
tude in all its forms, and which in its extreme point is the evil or
bad. This humanity, w^hich in itself is a phase in the divine life,
is now determined as an alien, as something not belonging to
God. But this finitude, in its being for itself in relation to God,
is the evil — it is something alien to him ; but he has assumed it
to put an end to it through. his death. The ignominious death,
as the ofig-antic union of these absolute extremes, is in this at the
same time infinite love.

Infinite love is manifested in that God has posited himself iden-
tical with what is alien to him in order to put it to death. This
is the signification of the death of Christ. Christ has borne the
sins of the world, has reconciled it to God, so we are told.

This death is not only extreme finitude, but also the annulment
of natural finitude, of immediate existence, and of alienation — it
is the removal of constraint. This annulment of the natural must
be essentially conceived in the [category of] spirit to be the move-
ment of spirit by which it comprehends itself, and to ascend to
the natural by death. It is therefore the abstraction from imme-
diate will and immediate consciousness, and it is the sinking of
the Ego into its own self, and out of this mine it brings forth only
its determination, its true being, and its own absolute universality.

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 189

What is valid for spirit, what is of value, it can realize only in
this annulment of its natural being and will. The suftering and
the grief of this death that contains this element of reconciliation
of the spirit with itself and with what spirit is in itself, this nega-
tive element which belongs only to spirit as such, is the inner
conversion and transformation. But death is here not represented
in this concrete signification ; it is represented as natural death,
for, when joined to the divine idea, the negation in question can
have no other representation. If the eternal history of spirit is
represented externally in the natural, then the evil which is actu-
alized in the divine idea takes on the form of the natural, and its
subversion appears only as natural death. The divine idea can
proceed no further than to this realm of the natural. This death,
however, although a natural one, is the death of God, and thus it
is satisfaction and atonement for us since it represents the abso-
lute history of the divine idea, that which happened in itself, and
which eternally happens.

In order that individual man may be able to do, achieve, or ac-
complish anything, it is necessary that the thing be in accordance
with its idea. The fact, for instance, that a certain criminal can
be punished by the judge, and the fact that this punishment is the
execution of and atonement to the law, is not owing to the judge,
nor to the criminal suflFering his punishment as a particular external
occurrence, but it is due to the nature of the thing, the necessity
of its idea. Thus we have this process in a twofold form before us :
Once in thoug'.it, in the representation of the law, or in the idea,
and, secondly, in a particular case, and in this particular case the
process is as the nature of the thing causes it to be ; and with-
out the latter neither the action of the judge, nor the suffering
of the criminal, would be the punishment and the satisfaction of
the law. The ground, the substantial element, is the nature of
the tiling.

Such is also the case with that atonement for ourselves ; i. e.,
the principle which underlies it is, that this atonement took place
in and for itself : not a foreign sacrifice or victim has been oflered,
not another has been punished, in order that there should be some
punishment. Every man must out of his own subjectivity or guilt
be that or do that which he is commanded or destined to be ; but
what he is thus for himself must not be contingent and acciden-

190 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

tal, not bis arbitrary will, but it must, on tbe contrary, be a truth.
If be therefore produces this conversion and the renunciation of
his natural will in himself, and is within [the commandment of]
love, then this is the thing in and for itself. His subjective cer-
tainty and feelinsf is truth ; it is the truth and the nature of spirit.
That history [of Christ] is therefore the ground of redemption, for
it is the thing in-and-for-itself ; it is not an accidental, individual
deed or event, but it exists in truth and perfection. The confirma-
tion of its truth lies in the fact that that history [of Christ] pre-
sents itself in a form which can be grasped by the senses, and
through which the individual can comprehend the merit of Christ.
It is not the history of an individual, but it is God who brings
this to pass ; i. ^., it is the sense-intuition or sense-perception of
the fact that this is universal history — history existing-for-itself.

Other forms, as, for instance, that of the expiatory death, with
which the idea is connected that God is a tyrant calling for vic-
tims or sacrilices, reduce themselves to what has been said, and are
set right by it. Sacrifice means: to annul the naturalness of
alienation. It is further said : Christ has died for all ; this is
not an individual thing, but the divine, eternal history. It means,
likewise, that all have died in him. In the nature of God this too
is a phase ; it has taken place in God himself. God cannot be
satisfied through another, but only through himself. This death
is love itself, posited as a phase of God, and this death is recon-
ciliation. In it absolute love is seen through sense-perception. It
is the identity of the divine and the human, since God is in the
finite in himself, and this finite, even in death, is a determination
of God. God has reconciled the world by death, and reconciles it
eternally with himself. This return out of estrangement is his
return into himself; by this he is spirit, and the third is therefore
that Christ has arisen from the dead. The negation is conquered
thereby, and the negation of the negation is thus a phase of the
divine nature.

Suffering and dying in this sense is contrary to the doctrine of
moral imputation according to which every individual is for him-
self, and each is the doer of his deeds. The fate of Christ seems
to contradict this imputation ; but the latter has a place onh^ in
the scope of finitude, where the subject stands as an individual
person, and not in the scope of the free spirit. On the plane of

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 191

fiiiitude it is a principle that everybody remains what he is; if
he has done what is bad, he is bad : wickedness is in hira as his
quality. But in morality, and still more in the sphere of religion,
the spirit is known to be free and to be affirmative in itself, so
that the constraint in him to do evil and wickedness is null and
void for the iniiuity of spirit : spirit can make undone what was
done ; the deed remains in recollection, it is true, but the spirit
washes the sinner clean. Imputation, therefore, does not extend
to this sphere. In the death of Christ the finitude of man has
been put to death as far as the true consciousness of spirit is con-
cerned. This death of the natural has thus general significance :
the finite, evil, is annihilated in general. The world has in this
way been reconciled, and its evil in itself has been taken from the
world by this death. There enters in this way in the true under-
standing of death the relation of the subject as such. The mere
contemplation of history here ceases ; the subject itself is drawn
into the process ; it feels the pain of evil and of its own estrange-
ment, which Christ has taken upon himself by assuming human-
ity, and which by his death he has annihilated.

This relation of the content is the religious side, and in this
"begins the origin of the Church : this content is identical wuth
what has been called the pouring out of the holy spirit. It is the
spirit which has revealed this ; the relation to mere man changes
into a relation which is changed and transformed by spirit, so that
the nature of God discloses itself therein in the way that this
truth receives immediate certainty and the form of phenomenal
manifestation.

He who in the first place was considered teacher, friend, and
martyr of truth, assumes through this an entirely different posi-
tion. So far it is only a beginning, wdiich will be led by spirit to
the result, to the end, to truth. Christ's death is, on the one side,
the death of a man, of a friend who died through violence ; but it
is this death which, if spiritually understood, becomes salvation,
and becomes the centre of reconciliation.

It was only after the death of Christ that it was disclosed to
his friends that they had had before their eyes the sense-percep-
tion of the nature of spirit, and that they had looked with their
senses upon the satisfaction of the needs of spirit. The conviction,
therefore, which they could have derived from his life was not yet

192 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

the exact truth, but tliis was to be obtaiued only through the
spirit.

Previous to his death he was among them as an individual
perceptible to their senses. The proper solution was given to
them bj that spirit of which Christ said that it would guide them
to all truth. " Wlien he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide
you into all truth."

"With this his death becomes in this respect that death which
forms the transition to glory and glorification, which, however, is
naught but the rehabilitation of the original glory. Death, the
negative, is the mediation by which the original glory is posited
as attained. With this begins the history of the ascension of
Christ and his elevation to the right hand of God, the point where
this history begins to be spiritually conceived.

With this, then, it came to pass that the little Church had re-
ceived sensuous confirmation that God is manifested as man ; this
humanity in God, and the most abstract form of it, the greatest
dependence, the greatest weakness, the extreme stage of frailty —
this is what natural death means.

''God himself is dead," runs that Lutheran hymn; this con-
sciousness expresses that the human, the finite, the frail element,
the weakness and negation, are themselves phases of the divine,
that they are in God himself ; that the alienation, the finite, the
negative, is not outside of God ; that, as alienation, it does not pre-
vent the union with God. Alienation, or negation, is known as a
phase of the divine nature itself! The highest cognition of the
nature of the idea of spirit is contained therein.

This external negative element changes in this wise to an in-
ternal one. Death, on the one side, has this signification and
meaning, that with it humanity is stripped ofi" and the divine
glory appears again. But death is at the same time the negative,
the last extreme of what man, as natural existence, and, conse-
quently, God, is subject to.

Through this whole process men have arrived at the conscious-
ness — and this is the truth which they have attained — that the
idea of God has received sensuous confirmation for them that the
Human is the immediate, present God, and, more particularly,^
that in this history, as the spirit conceives it, there is contained
the representation of the process of what man is and what spirit

God as the Eternally Begotten Son. 193

is. God in himself and dead, this mediation by which the human
is stripped off; and, on the other side, Being-in-itself returns to
itself, and thus only becomes spirit.

The consciousness of the Church, which thus makes the tran-
sition from mere man to God-man, to [tlie idea addressed to] sense-
perception, to consciousness, to the sensuous confirmation of the
unity and union of the divine and human natures — this is wliat
the Church begins with, and what constitutes the truth upon
which the Church is based.

The explication of the reconciliation is, then, that God is recon-
ciled with the world, or, rather, that God has shown himself as
being reconciled with the world, and that the Human is not some-
thing alien to him. but that this alienation or differentiation, the
finitude, as it has been expressed, is a phase within himself. It
is true that it is but a vanishing phase, but in this phase he sliowed
himself and revealed himself to the Cliurch.

This is, for the Church, the history of the manifestation of God ;
this history is the divine history, by which man has become con-
scious of truth. From it the consciousness, the knowledge arose
that God is the triune.

The reconciliation, which is implied in the belief in Christ, has
no meaning, if God is not known as the triune, if it is not cognized
that he IS, but that he is also as the other, as self-differentiation,
as the alien, and in such a manner that this alien is God himself,
that it has in it divine nature in itself, and that the annulment of
this difference, of this alienation, that this return, this love, is the
spirit.

In this consciousness it is contained that faith is not the relation
to something alien, but that it is relation to God himself. These
are the phases which are of importance here, that man arrives at
the consciousness of the eternal history, the eternal movement,
which is God himself.

This is the exposition of the second idea, as the idea in its
phenomenal manifestation, of the exposition of the manner in
which the eternal idea has arisen for the immediate sensuous
certainty of man ; or, in other words, how it became manifested.
The certainty to which it attains for man is necessarily sensuous
certainty, but a sensuous certainty which at the same time makes
the transition to spiritual consciousness, and which is also coq-
XYI— 13

194 The Journal of Speculative PMloBophy.

verted into immediate sensuousness, but in such a n.anner that
there can be seen in it the movement and history of God, the life
which is God himself.

HEGEL ON THE STATE.

TRANSLATED FROM HEGEL'S " PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRIT," BY E. D. MEAD.

B. The Foreign Relations of the State.

54Y. By war, the independence of the State is put in jeopardy.
But the mutual acl<nowledgment of free individual nations is
effected (by war) and through treaties of peace, which are to be
lasting, this general acknowledgment, as well as the special rights
of peoples in their mutual relations, is established. The foreign
relations of the State are governed partly by these positive trac-
tates, containing, however, in so far, only laws which lack true
actuality ; partly by the so-called rights of nations, whose general
principle is the presupposed acknowledgment of the States, and
which, therefore, sets such bounds to their otherwise unrestrained
dealings with each other that the possibility of peace remains ; it
also distinguishes individuals as private persons from the state ;
and it rests in general on established usage.

C. The World-History.

548. The particular national spirit, since it is real, and its free-
dom exists as nature [unconscious usage], has, through this natural
side, the moment of geographical and climatic influences; it is in
time, and has, according to the content, essentially a special princi-
ple, and must pass through a development of its consciousness, and
of its reality, determined by that principle ; it has a history of its
own. As circumscribed spirit, its independence is a subordinate
one ; it passes over into the general world-history [i. e., it loses it-
self in the process of the World-History], whose events represent
the dialectic of the special national spirits, the judgment of the
world [i. e., the verdict of History on the validity of what is con-
tributed by each nation].

Hegel on the State. 195

549. This movement is tlie course of the emancipation of the
spiritual substance, the act throuo-h which the absolute design and
purpose of the world is fulfilled in the world, through which spirit,
first existing only in itself [potentially], comes to consciousness
and self-consciousness, and so to manifestation and reality of its
in-and-for-itselt-existing essence, and becomes also externally uni-
versal, world-spirit. Since this development is in time and exist-
ence, and is thus history, its particular moments and stadia are the
national spirits ; each, as particular and natural in a qualitative
determinateness [a qualitative determinateness is a portion of a
function allotted to a single agency], is fitted only to the working
■out of one stage, the fulfilment of one function in the whole work.

The presupposition in history of an in-and-for-itself-existing pur-
pose, and of determinations developing themselves out of it accord-
ing to the notion, is called an a priori consideration of history, and
the charge of a priori writing of history has been made against
philosophy. Concerning this charge, and concerning the writing
of history in general, we will make some, more definite, observa-
tions. That a final purpose in-and-for-itself lies at the basis of
history, and has been and will be actually realized in it — the plan
of providence — that, in general, reason is in history, must be deter-
mined for itself philosophically, and therefore as in-and-for-itself
necessary. To presuppose arbitrary conceptions or thoughts, and
to try to find and to represent events and deeds in conformity
with these, deserve only censure. Of such an a priori method of
procedure, however, those are to-day guilty who pretend to wish
to be pure historians and at the same time take occasion expressly
to declare themselves opposed to philosophizing — partly in gen-
eral, partly in history. Philosophy is a troublesome neighbor to
them, because it is opposed to what is arbitrary and capricious.
Such a priori writing of history has sometimes prevailed where
we should least expect it — viz., in philological quarters, and in Ger-
many more than in France and England, where historical writing
has risen to a stronger and riper character. To write fictions — •
about an original condition and an original people which possessed
the true knowledge of God and all sciences ; about nations of
priests; or more specially about a Roman e])os^ which has been
the origin of all narratives which pass for historical concerning
the earliest history of Eome, etc. — this has taken the place of ex-

196 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

planatioTis of history on psycliological grounds and connections,
and it seems to be regarded in a large circle as the requisite of a
learned and clever historian who draws from the sources, to hatch
out such hollow representations, and to combine them daringly
with remote external circumstances derived from an erudite sweep-
ing, in defiance of the most authentic history.

If we set aside tliis subjective treatment of history, the strictly
opposed demand that history shall not be considered aecordinii: to>
an objective purpose is equivalent on the whole to that v;hich
seems more fully justified — viz., that the historian pi-oceed with im-
partiality. It is very common to make this demand upon the his-
tory of philosophy as something in which no inclination to any
conception or opinion ought to show itself — as a judge is to have
a s])ecial interest for neither of two opposing parties. At the
same time, it is held of a judge that he would administer his office
pettily and poorly if he had not an interest — indeed, exclusive in-
terest — for justice, if he had not this for his aim, and bis sole aim,
and if he abstained from exercising judgment. This requisite in
the judge we can call partiality for justice, and we are very well
able to distinguish between this and a subjective partiality. But
in the impartiality demanded of the histoiian this distinction is,
in the juiceless, self-conceited talk, obliterated, and both kinds of
interest are thrown away when it is demanded that the historian
shall bring to his work no definite pui'pose and view according to
which he shall separate, regulate, and estimate affairs, but sliall
narrate them precisely in the accidental fashion in which he finds
them in their unrelated and thoughtless particularity. That a
history must have a subject — for instance, Rome, its fate, or the
decline ot the greatness of the Roman empire — is conceded. Little
deliberation is necessary to comprehend that tiiis is the presup-
posed purpose which lies at the ground of the events themselves,
as well as of the judgments concerning them which have for the
history an importance — i. e., nearer or remoter relation to the sub-
ject. A history without such purpose and without such judgment
were only a weak series of representations — not even a child's fairy-
tale ; for even the children demand in stories an interest — i. «., at
least, the hinted aim, and the relation of events and treatment to it.
In the existence of a people, the substantial purpose is to be a
State, and to maintain itself as such ; a people without political

Hegel on the State. 197

organization (a nation as such) has properly no history, as the peo-
ples that now constitute the great States existed before their politi-
cal organization, and others still exist as uncivilized nations. That
which happens to a people and proceeds within it has its essential
significance in relation to the State ; mere particulars concerning
individuals are the farthest removed from the real subject of his-
tory. If the universal spirit of a time imprints itself on the char-
acter of the distinguished individualities of the time, and their
peculiarities are also the remoter and dimmer mediums, in which
it plays in weakened hues, and if even the particulars of a small
event, or a word, often express not a subjective particularity, but a
time, a people, a civilization, with striking perspicuity and power
(the selection of such points being only the work of an able his-
torian) ; on the other hand, the mass of other particulars is super-
fluous, and, by the faithful gathering of these, the subjects wortliy
of history are oppressed and darkened — the essential characteristic
of the spirit and its time is contained in the great events. A cor-
rect sense has led to the banishment of such picturing of particu-
lars and selection of special features to the field of romance (for
instance, the works of Walter Scott, and the like) ; it is in good
taste to unite pictures of unessential particular life with an unes-
sential matter, such as the romance takes from private events and
subjective passions. But to weave individual trifles of events and
persons into the representation of universal interests, in the name
and for the sake of what is called truth, is not only contrary to
judgment and taste, but contrary to the conception of objective
truth in the sense of which only the substantial is true, not the
emptiness of external existences and accidents. It is perfectly in-
different whether such insignificant matters are formally authenti-
cated or, as in romance, characteristically invented to meet the
necessities of characterization, and names and circumstances as-
cribed to this or that. The interest of Biography, which may be
referred to in this connection, seems to stand directly opposed to
a universal purpose; it, however, has indeed the historical world as
the background with which the individual is complicated ; the
subjectively original, the humorous, etc., reflect themselves upon
that world, and enhance their interest by it. But the simple agree-
able or temperamental has another ground and interest than his-
tory.

198 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The demand for impartiality in the history of philosophy, as
also in tlie history of religion, partly general, partly church his-
tory, usually contains the yet more express exclusion of the pre-
supposition of an objective purpose. As previously the State was
named as that to which the judgment had to refer events in po-
litical history, so here the truth must be the subject to which the^
particular acts and affairs of spirit were to be referred. The con-
trary presupposition, however, is much rather made, that these
histories shall have only subjective aims — ^. €., only opinions and
conceptions, not thein-and-for-itself-existing object, the truth — for
their content, and this, indeed, on the simple ground that there is
no truth. According to this acceptation, the interest for the
truth appears likewise only as partiality in the ordinary sense —
viz., for opinions and conceptions which, equally empty, are
counted altogether indifferent. Histoj'ical truth itself has, conse-
quently, only the sense of accuracy, an exact account of the exter-
nal, and with no other judgment than concerning this accuracy
itself — to whicb simply qualitative and quantitative judgments are
admissible no judgments of necessity and the notion. In fact, how-
ever, if, in political historj^, Rome or the German Empire, etc., is a.
real and true object, and the purpose to which the phenomena are
to be related, and according to which they are to be judged, so in
universal history is the universal spirit, its consciousness, and its
essence, still more a real and true object, content and aim, which
in and for itself all other phenomena serve as even their existence
through relation to it — i. e., the judgment through which they are
subsumed under it and it inherits them. That in the course of
spirit (and it is spirit, which not only moves upon the face of
history as it did upon the face of the waters, but it weaves within
it, and is alone the moving power) freedom — that is, the develop-
ment determined by its notion is the determining, and its notion
is its aim — i. e., the truth since spirit is consciousness — or, in
other words, that reason is in history — will be partially, at least, a
plausible belief; partially, however, it is knowledge of philosophy.

550. This emancipation of spirit in which it comes to itself and
realizes its truth, and the work of this emancipation, constitute
the highest and absolute right. The self-consciousness of a par-
ticular people bears in its existence the stage of the development
of the universal spirit at the time, and the objective reality into

Hegel on the State. 19&

which it puts its will. Against this absolute will the will of other
particular national spirits has no riglit; that people rules the
world. But the absolute will steps beyond its temporary abiding-
place as a particular stage, and gives it over to the tribunal for
judgment.

551. Since such process of realization appears as action, and
therefore as a work of individuals, these are, in reference to the
substantial content of their work, tools, and their subjectivity,
which is that peculiar to them, is the empty form of activity.
That, therefore, which they have attained for themselves through
the individual participation in the substantial work prepared and
determined independently of them, is a formal universality of sub-
jective conception — fame, which is their reward.

552. The national spirit contains natural necessity, and has
external existence; and in this its in-itself infinite moral sub-
stance is for itself particular and limited, and its subjective side
is exposed to accident, and becomes unconscious custom, and con-
sciousness of its content as temporally present and related to an
external nature and world. But it is spirit thinking in the form
of morality which annuls in it the finiteness which it has as
national spirit in its state and the State's temporary interests, in
the system of laws and customs, and lifts it to knowledge of itself
in its essentiality. This is a knowledge which still itself has the
imminent narrowness of the national spirit. The thinking spirit
of the world-history, however, since it, at the same time, tears off
those limitations of the particular national spirits and its own
worldliness, comprehends its concrete universality and raises itself
to the knowledge of absolute spirit, as the eternally real truth in
which the knowing reason is free for itself, and necessity, nature,
and history only serve for its manifestation, and as vessels of its
honor.

Of the formal process involved in the elevation of spirit to God
I have spoken in the introduction to ray logic. In regard to the
starting-point of this elevation, Kant's conception is in general
most correct in so far as he considers faith in God as proceeding
from the practical reason. For the starting-point contains im-
plicitly the content or matter w^iicli constitutes the content of the
notion of God. The true concrete matter is, however, neither
Being (as in the cosmological proof), nor mere teleological activity

200 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

(as in the pliysico-theological proof), but Spirit whose true nature
is the working Reason — i. e., the self-determining and realizing
Notion itself — Freedom. In the Kantian representation of the
elevation of the subjective Spirit to God, which takes place in this
conception of the true nature of man as freedom, this conception ,
is reduced to a postulate, to an ideal [that is, to be striven after,
but never reached]. This is the immediate restoration to truth
and validity [of the human reason] out of the previously [in the
" Critique of Pure Reason"] discussed impotence, the [immersion
in the] antithesis of liuiteness ; and the annulling of this impotence
is itself that elevation to truth.

Of the mediation which the elevation to God constitutes, it has
previously been pointed out that the moment of negation through
which the essential content of the starting-jioint is purged of its
finiteness, and through this becomes free, is especially to be con-
sidered. This moment, which in the logical form is abstract, has
now attained its most concrete significance. The finite, which is
here the point of departure, is the real moral self-consciousness.
The negation through which it raises its spirit to its truth is the
purification of its knowledge from subjective opinion and the
emancipation of its will from the selfishness of appetite, which
are really accomplished in the moral world. True religion and
true religiousness proceed from morality, and are morality in its
thinking activity — i. e., becoming conscious of the free universal-
ity of its concrete essence. Only from morality, and proceeding
from morality, is the idea of God as free spirit known ; it is, there-
fore, vain to seek for true religion and religiousness outside of the
moral spirit.

But this proceeding takes at the same time this meaning — as
occurs everywhere in the speculative ��� viz., that that which in the
first place is posited as consequent and derived is much rather the
absolute prius of that through which it appears to be mediated,
and is also known here in spirit as the truth of spirit.

This, therefore, is the place to enter more closely upon the rela-
tion of the state and religion, and in that connection to examine
catesories which are here commonly current. The immediate
consequence of what has been said is that morality is the state in
its substantial intei'nal being ; the State is the development and
realization of morality ; the substantiality of morality itself, how-

Hegel on the State. 201

ever, and of the State, is religion. Tlie State rests, according to
this relation, on the moral sentiment, and tiiis in turn upon the
religious sentiment. Since religion is the consciousness of the
absolute truth, that which is to avail as right and justice, as duty
and law — i. e., as true in the world of free-will — can avail only so
far as it partakes of that truth, is subsumed by it, and follows as a
<3onsequence from it. But, in order that the true moral be the
consequence of religion, it is requisite that religion have the true
content — i. e., that the conscious idea of God in it be the true
one. Morality is the divine spirit, as immanent in self-conscious-
ness in the real existence of this as a people and the individuals
composing it; this self-consciousness, proceeding from an empiri-
cal reality into itself, and bringing its truth into consciousness,
has in its faith and in its conscience only that which it has in the
certainty of itself in its spiritual reality. The two are insepara-
ble. There cannot be two kinds of conscience — one religious and
another one that is moral, different from the former in worth
and content. According to form, however, i. <?., for thought and
knowledge — and religion and morality belong to intelligence, and
are a thinking and knowing — the religious content, as the pure
in-and-for-itself existing, therefore the highest truth, gives its sanc-
tion to the morality which obtains empirical reality. Thus, religion
is for self-consciousness the basis of moral it_y and of the state. It has
been the monstrous error of our time to try to regard these insep-
arable things as separable from one another ; indeed, as mutually
indifferent. The relation of religion to the state has been viewed
as though the state already existed on its own account through
some power or other, and the religion, as the subjective of the in-
<3ividuals, as something desirable merely to strengthen the state, had
been added, as it were, or were indifferent even, and the morality
of the state — i. e., rational law and constitution — stood lirmly for
itself on its own ground. In connection with the declared insepar-
ablenessof the two sides, it is interesting to consider the separation
as it a])pears from the side of religion. It concerns, in the first
place, the form — i. e., the relation — of self-consciousness to the
content of the truth. Since this is the substance in its reality, as
Spirit dwelling in self-consciousness, self-consciousness has thus
immediate assurance of itself in this connection, and is free in it.
The state of non-freedom cm exist, however, according to the

202 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophij.

form, although the in-itself-existing content of religion is absolute
spirit. This great distinction is to be found within the Christian
religion itself, in which the element of Nature does not constitute
the content of God, nor does such enter into the sphere of the
same as a moment ; but God, who is known in spirit and in truth,
is the content. And yet this spirit is in reality, in the Catholic
religion, set rigidly over against the self-conscious spirit. In the
first place, God is ])resented in the host as an external tiling for re-
ligious worship, whereas in the Lutheran Church the host as such
is first consecrated and elevated to the present God, and only by
inner appropriation — i. e., in the annulling of its externality and
in faith — i. <?., in the spirit at the same time free and self-know-
ing. Out of that first and highest relation of externality flow all
the other external, and therefore unfree, unspiritual, and supersti-
tious relations, particularly a laity which receives the knowledge
of divine truth, as well as the direction of the will and the con-
science, from without — i. e., from another order which does not
itself come to the possession of that knowledge purely in a spirit-
ual way, but requires for it essentially an external consecration.
Further, the praying that is mere moving of the lips : that is un-
spiritual, because the subject renounces direct access to God and
prays others to pray ; the direction of devotion to wonder-working-
images, indeed, to bones, and the expectation of miracles from
them ; in general, the justification through outward works, merit
that is to be earned through actions that may indeed be trans-
ferred to others, etc. — all this binds the spiritual under an outward-
ness-to-itselfj through which its notion is misapprehended and per-
verted in the innermost, and right and justice, morality and con-
science, the sense of responsibility and duty, are corrupted at the
roots.

To such a principle and to this development of the unfreedom
of spirit in the religious, only a legislation and constitution of
legal and ethical unfreedom and a condition of injustice and
immorality in the real state correspond. The Catholic religion
has more logically been and is still often, praised so loudly as that
by which the permanence of government is insured ; in fact, of
such governments as are joined with institutions which base
themselves on the servitude of the spirit, that should be lawfully
and morally free — i. e., on institutions of injustice and a condition

Hegel on the State. 203

of moral corruption and barbarism. These governments do not
know, however, that their fearful power lies in a fanaticism which
does not step forth hostilely against them only so long as, and
under the condition that, it remains enslaved under the bondage
of injustice and immorality. But yet another power is present in
spirit ; in opposition to that existence out-of-itself, and its broken
condition, consciousness collects itself into its inner free reality ;
it awakens the World- Wisdom in the spirit of governments and
peoples — i. e.^ wisdom concerning that which in reality, in and for
itself, is right and reasonable. The production of thought, and,
more definitely, philosophy, has been justly called World-Wisdom
[or secular wisdom] ; for thought gives actuality to the truth of
spirit and introduces it into the world, and thus frees it in its
reality and to itself

The content takes with this an entirely different shape. The
consequence for the moral content of the want of freedom of the
form — i. e.^ of knowledge and subjectivity — is that self-conscious-
ness is represented to it as not immanent, that it is represented as
removed from self-consciousness ; so that it is to have true exist-
ence only as a negative to the reality of self-consciousness. In this
untruth the moral content is called holy. But the self-introduc-
tion of the divine spirit into reality through the emancipation of
reality into it, that which is said to be holiness in the world, is
supplanted by morality. Instead of the vow of chastity, mar-
riage now first passes for the moral, and, consequently, the family,
as the highest institution in this human aspect. Instead of the
vow of poverty (to which, involving itself in contradiction, corre-
sponds the merit of giving away possessions to the poor, that is
to say, enriching them), the activity of personal earning through
intelligence and industry asserts itself with probity in this ex-
change and use of property — morality in civil society. Instead of
the vow of blind obedience stands obedience to the law and law-
ful regulations, which obedience is itself true freedom, because
the state is properly self-realizing reason — morality in the state.
In this way only can justice and morality come to exist. It is
not enough that religion first commands, " Render unto Csesar
the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are
God's," for it remains necessary to determine what Caesar is, i. e.y
what belongs to the temporal government ; and it is well enough

204 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

known how the temporal government has arbitrarily arrogated
ev'ervthing to itself, as the spiritual government has also done on
its side. The divine Spirit must immanently permeate the secular ;
thus is wisdom concretely in the secular, and its title to itself
determined. That concrete indwelling is, however, constituted
by the forms of morality referred to — the morality of marriage as
opposed to the sanctity of the unmarried state, the morality of
the activity of property and gain as opposed to the holiness of
poverty and indolence, the morality of obedience to the law of
the State as opposed to the sanctity of obedience devoid of right
and dutv, the bondage of conscience. With the need of law and
morality, and the insight into the free nature of spirit, appears
the struggle between these and the religion of unfreedom. It is
of no avail that thelaws and the ordinances of the state have been
brought up to the standard of rational organization, if the prin-
ciple of unfreedom in religion is not given up. The two are
incompatible with each other; it is a foolish notion to wish to
assign separate provinces to the State and religion, with the opin-
ion that their difference will exercise a peaceful influence on
them and prevent contradiction and strife. Principles of lawful
freedom can only be abstract and superficial, and the state institu-
tions derived from them must of themselves be untenable if the
wisdom which gave birth to those principles understands religion
so poorly as not to know that the principles of the reason of real-
ity have their final and highest guarantee in the religions con-
science in the subsumption under consciousness of the absolute
truth. If, no matter how it happens — a priori, so to speak — a
legislation which had the principles of reason for its foundation
came into contradiction with the popular religion based on prin-
ciples of spiritual servitude, the test and actualization of the
legislation lies with the individuals of the government as such, and
the entire administration branching out through all classes, and
it were only an abstract empty notion that it were possible that
the individuals would act only according to the sense or the letter
of the laws, and not according to the spirit of their religion, in
which their innermost conscience and highest obligation lie. The
laws appear, in this opposition to that which is declared holy by
religion, as something made by man ; they could maintain, even
if they were sanctioned and practically introduced, no lasting op-

Ilegel on the State. 205

position to the contradiction and the assault of the religious spirit.
Such laws, even if their content is true, are wrecked upon the
conscience whose spirit is different from the spirit of the laws and
does not sanction them. It is a fully of modern times to alter a
system of corrupt morality, the constitution, and legislation, with-
out a change in religion ; to effect a revolution without a reforma-
tion ; to suppose that a constitution opposed to the old religion
and its sanctities can have rest and harmony, and that stahih'ty
can be given to the laws through external guarantees, for instance,
so-called Chambers, and the power given them to determine the
finances, etc. We can only regard as a last resource the endeav-
or to separate justice and the laws from religion, in case there
exists an incapacity to descend into the depths of the religious
spirit and elevate it to its truth. Those guarantees are rotten sup-
ports against the consciences of the subjects who are to administer
the laws (and to these belong the guarantees themselves). This
it is, much rather, which is the highest, unholiest contradiction,
the attempt to bind and subject the religious conscience to the
worldly legislation which it counts unholy.

Plato had a more definite understanding of the break wliich
had come about in his time between the existing religion and the
constitution on the one hand, and, on the other, the deep demand
whicli freedom, now becoming consciousness of its inward being,
made on religion and the political condition. Plato grasps the
thought that the true constitution and life of the state are
grounded more deeply on the idea, or on the in-and-for-itself
universal and true principles of eternal justice. To know and
recognize these is certainly the vocation and business of Phi-
losophy. This is the point of view which Plato occupies in the
place where he lets Socrates very emphatically declare that phi-
losophy and political power must be united, the Idea must rule if
the misfortunes of the nations are to have an end. Plato had in
this the definite conception that the Idea, which in itself is in
truth the free self-determining thought, can also come to con-
sciousness only in the form of thought; as a content which, in
order to be true, must be raised to universality, and in the most
abstract forn) of universality be brought to consciousness.

In order to compare the Platonic stand-point more precisely with
the point of view in which the State is here considered in reference

206 The Journal of Speculat'we Philosophy.

to religion, it is necessary to be reminded of the distinctions in tlie
notion [these are universal, particular, and singular] which have been
esseutiall}' indicated in the foregoing. The first distinction is that,
in natural things, the substance of the same, the genus or species, is
different from its existence in which the substance or species exists
as subject. This subjective existence of the genus, however, is
further distinguished from that which the species or the universal
in general obtains in the image-making thinking, which makes of
the universal an abstraction. This deeper individuality, the
ground of the free existence of the universal substance, is the self
of the thinking spirit [this individuality arises from the self-deter-
mining universal, which produces within itself its own particu-
larity]. Natural things do not receive the form of universality
and essentiality through themselves ; and their individuality is
not itself form, which is alone the subjective thought for itself,
which in philosophy gives to that universality existence for itself.
The human being, on the contrary, is the free spirit itself, and
comes to existence in its self-consciousness. This absoluteness,
which is the concrete Spirit in itself, is precisely that which has the
form, the thinking activity itself, for its content. To the height of
thinking consciousness of this principle, Aristotle raised himself
in his conception of the entelechy of thought, which is voijac^
ri]<; vo/j(T€o)<;, above the Platonic Idea (the species, the substantial).
Thought in general, however, contains, and this indeed for the
sake of the specified determination itself, also the immediate
being-for-self of subjectivity as universality. And the true idea
of spirit in itself concrete exists just as essentially in the one of
its determinations — the subjective consciousness — as in the other
— universality — and is the same substantial content in the one as
in tlie other. To the first form, however, belong feeling, contem-
plation, representation, and it is much more necessary that con-
sciousness of the absolute idea be grasped first in order of time in
this form, and be present in its immediate reality earlier as reli-
gion than as philosophy. Philosophy develops itself only from
this basis, as the Greek philosophy is later than the Greek reli-
gion, and it has attained its perfection only in seizing and compre-
hending in its complete definite essence the principle of Spirit
which first manifested itself in the religion. But the Greek phi-
losophy could only take a position opposed to the religion, the

Hegel on the State. 207

unity of thought; and the substantiality of the idea could only
sustain a hostile relation to the polytheism of fantasy, the glad
and frivolous sportiveness of that poetry.

The form in its finite truth, the subjectivity of Spirit, now first
broke forth as subjective free thought, which was not yet identical
with the substantiality itself, so that this was not yet conceived
as Absolute Spirit. Religion could thus first become purified
only through the abstract for-itself-existing thought, through phi-
losophy ; but the form immanent to the substantial, which philoso-
phy fought and overcame, was that poetic fantasy. The State,
which in like manner, but earlier than philosophy, develops itself
out of religion, represents in reality as corruption the one-sided-
ness which its in-itself true Idea has in it. Plato, in common
with all his thoughtful contemporaries, recognizing this corruption
of democracy and the real defectiveness of its principle, empha-
sized the substantial, but was unable to impart to his idea of the
State the infinite form of subjectivity which was still hidden from
his spirit. His State is to himself, on this account, without sub-
jective freedom. The truth which should dwell in the State, regu-
late and rule it, he conceived, therefore, only in the form of truth,
in conscious thought — philosophy — and so pronounced that judg-
ment. So long as philosophers do not rule in States — or those who
are now called kings and rulers do not profoundly and compre-
hensively philosophize — so long will there be no emancipation of
the State or of the human race from the evils which exist; so
long can the idea of this constitution not arrive at possibility, not
see the light of the sun. It was not possible for Plato to proceed
to say that so long as the true religion does not appear in the
world, and does not rule in States, the true principle of the State
has not come into reality. So long, however, it was impossible for
this principle to come into thought, the true idea of the State to
be conceived from this — the idea of substantial morality with
which the freedom of the for-itself-existing self-consciousness is
identical. Only in the principle of spirit, knowing its essence in
itself absolutely free, and having its reality in the activity of its
liberation, exist the absolute possibilitj'^ and necessity that the
power of the state, religion, and the principles of philosophy fall
together in one ; that the reconciliation of reality in general with
spirit, the State with the religious conscience, likewise with philo-

208 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

sopliical knowledge, be accomplished. Since the for-itself-existing
sultjectivity is ahsolutely identical with the substantial universal-
ity, religion as such, and also the State as such — as forms in which
the principle exists — contains the absolute truth, so that this, since
it exists as philosophy, exists ouh* in one of its forms. But since
religion in its own development develops also the distinctions
contained in the idea, so being can appear in its first immediate —
i. e., one-sided — form, and the existence of religion become cor-
rupted to sensual externality, and, consequently, further, to the
oppression of the freedom of the spirit and the perversion of
political life. But the principle contains the infinite elasticity of
the absolute form to overcome this corruption of its determination
of form, and. by this means, of the content, and to effect the recon-
ciliation of spirit in itself. Thus, at last, the principle of the reli-
gious and the moral conscience becomes one and the same in
the Protestant conscience, the free spirit knowing itself in its
reasonableness and truth. The constitution and legislation, like
their ^vorking and trial, have for their content the principle
and the development of morality, which proceeds, and only can
proceed, from the truth of religion restored to its original princi-
ple, and thus first, as such, real. The morality of the state and the
religious spirituality of the state are thus the state's reciprocal
and sure guarantees.

THE METAPHYSICAL ASSUMPTIONS OF MATE-
RIALISM.

BY JOHN DEWEY.

Discussions regarding materialism have been, for the most part,
confined to the physiological and psychological aspects of it. Its
supporters and opponents have been content to adduce arguments
pro or con, as the facts of physical and mental life bear upon the
case in hand. It is the object of the present paper to discuss its
metaphysical phases.

Hume suggested that possibly one might escape from the nihil,
istic consequences of his philosophy by means of " the sceptical

The Metaphysical Assumptions of Materialism. 209

solution of sceptical doubts." In a somewhat analogous manner
we would attempt to render explicit the metaphysical assumptions
{i. 6., assumptions regarding the real nature of things) latent in all
materialism, and, by showing the relation of these fundamental
assumptions to materialism itself, show the self-destructive char-
acter of every scheme of this kind — whether actual or possible.

What is materialism ? It is that theory which declares that
matter and its forces adequately account for all phenomena — those
of the material world, commonly so called, and those of life, mind,
and society. It declares that not only the content of mind, but
that which we call mind itself, is determined by matter. We
notice first, then, that it is absolutely monistic. But one substance
exists — matter. All phenomena of mind are really phenomena
of matter. The intellect is a function of the brain and its subor-
dinate nervous organs. The laws of matter are therefore the laws
of mind. Mental phenomena are expressible in terms of material.
And since all material phenomena are expressible in terms of the
atom and molecule (or whatever names be given to the ultimate
forms of matter), therefore all mental are similarly expressible.
The ultimate form of matter contains, then, implicitly, all phenom-
ena of mind and society. In short, the coarsest form of matter
with which you can beo;in, as well as the his-hest ors-anism with
which you end, must contain all emotion, volition, and knowledge,
the knowing subject and its relations. Beginning, then, with a
strictly monistic theory, and keeping directly in the line of ma-
terialistic reasonino;, we have ended v/ith the conclusion that the
ultimate form of matter has dualistic "mind" and "matter"
properties. Nor is there any escape from this conclnsion on a
materialistic basis. Therefore on its physical or constructive side
we find such a theory suicidal.

To be sure, a materialist might reply that ultimately the " mat-
ter "-molecular-property accounted for and caused the " mind "-
molecular-property, but proof, or suggestion of proof, or sugges-
tion as to method of finding proof, all are equally absent. If a
materialist were to say that this double-sided substance is what
he means by matter, we could only reply that he is playing with
words — that it is just as much mind as it is matter.

We have now to consider the strictly metaphysical assumptions
of materialism.
XYI— 14

210 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

First, it assumes the possibility of ontological knowledge, by
which we mean knowledge of being or substance apart from a
mere succession of phenomena. The substance wliich is so known
is matter. ]^ow, since it is this statement that a belief in the pos-
sibility of ontological knowledge is an inherent necessity in all
materialistic reasoning, which is the basis of our criticism, the
statement must be examined more fully. Suppose for the mo-
ment that it is not such an inherent necessity — that it is possible
to found materialism on something besides an ontological basis.
If there be no knowledge of substance as such, there is either only
knowledge of phenomena produced by the activity of the Ego
(pure subjective idealism), or of phenomena entirely unrelated to
any substance whatever (Humian scepticism), or of those related
only to objective spirit (Berkeleian idealism), or of those related to
an unknown and unknowable substance (H. Spencer), or of those
brought into unity bv tlie forms of knowledo;e which the mind
necessarily imposes on all phenomena given in consciousness (as
Kant), j^ow, since none of these can afford a sufficient basis for
a theory, which posits matter as the universal underlying unity,
we must admit that materialism exists on the basis of a belief in
the possibility of ontological knowledge of such objective reality.
If a materialist, who still believes that we have no knowledge of
substance as such, replies that while we have knowledge of phe-
nomena only, yet we know them as the effects of matter, the an-
swer is obviouo. Either we know this substance, matter, which is
the cause of them, or we do not. If we do, it is ontological knowl-
edge. If we do not, then it is as much assumption to claim that
it is matter as it would be to name it mind. We must conclude,
therefore, that a knowledge transcending phenomena is the sole
thinkable basis for materialism.

Starting from this, we have to consider the relation of such,
knowledge to materialism. What is involved in knowledge of
matter as substance?

To know, requires something which knows. To know material
phenomena, are required mental phenomena. A thing is for the
mind non-existent until it is an idea or phenomenon of the mind.
To know substance, matter, is required substance, mind. If ma-
terialism merely posited knowledge of material phenomena, there
would be required to give it validity only mental phenomena,

The Metaphysical Assumptions of Materialism. 211

which do, on everv theory, exist. A theory, however, which
posits knowledge of a substance besides, must also posit something
more than phenomena in order to know this substance. If there
be no substance, mind, then there are only series of mental states
or successions of mental phenomena. But it is a mere truism to
say that phenomena cannot go beyond phenomena. Successions
of consciousnesses irrelated, or related only in time, can but give
knowledge of phenomena similarly related. Undoubtedly the
former may be but subjective, while the latter are objective, but
that does not constitute knowledge of substance. To have real
knowledge of real being, there must be something which abides
through the successive states, and which perceives their relations
to that being and to itself. To say that the mind, if itself a mere
phenomenon or group of phenomena, can transcend phenomena
and obtain a knowledge of that reality which accounts both for
other phenomena and for itself, is absurd. But there is no need
to multiply words to show what is, after all, self-evident — that
phenomenal knowledge is ])henomenal, and that to transcend phe-
nomena there must be something besides a phenomenon. We find
materialism, then, in this position. To prove that mind is a phe-
nomenon of matter, it is obliged to assume the possibility of onto-
logical knowledge — a'. 6., real knowledge of real being; but in that
real knowledge is necessarily involved a subject which knows.
To prove that mind is a phenomenon, it is obliged to implicitly
assume that it is a substance. Could there be anvthino; more self,
destructive?

Secondly, it assumes the reality of the causal nexus, and the
possibility of knowledge of real causation. In declaring that
matter causes mind, it declares tliat the relation is one of effi-
ciency and dependency, and not one of succession — antecedent
and consequent. For, if it be the latter, then there are only suc-
cession and conjunction of material and mental phenomena, irre-
lated or related only in time, in which case it would be absurd to
say that matter caused mind.

We have therefore to consider what is involved in real causa-
tion, and the knowledge of it as such, and what relation the in-
volved facts bear to the theory of materialism.

How, on a materialistic hypothesis, can the knowledge of a
real causal nexus be obtained ? It cannot be a primary, necessary

212 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

intuition of the human mind, nor yet a universal mode of view-
ing things, for both of these imply the reality of substantial mind.
Nor can it be a concept obtained from experience, and generalized
by unconscious habit. For, in the first place, such a concept is-
necessarily subjective, and belongs only to the mind which framed
it. It may or may not obtain as an objective relation among ob-
jective things. Tliere is no ground for positing objective validity of
any mental conception, except by a py^iori mind necessity, which a.
materialistic theory must reject. But, secondly, and chiefly, such
a theory as to the origin of a knowledge of the causal n-exus con-
tains a petitio p?''incipii — i. e., it presupposes real causation to
account for our knowledge of real causation. For tliis generalized
belief, being a result of experience, is itself an effect of the phe-
nomena given in experience. To ensure, therefore, that it is a^
true concept — i. ^., one holding good objectively — we must assume
that it was produced by a true causal nexus, which in turn is the
thing to be accounted for. It certainly is begging the question to
say that our knowledge that causation is real is a result of experi-
ence, when to prove that experience can produce a correct result
we have to assume that very reality of causation which is to be
proved. Nothing can be more illogical than to deduce knowledge
of real causation from that which has for its own basis that same
reality. After accounting for the one, the other still remains to
be accounted for, which can be done only by reasoning in a cir-
cle. There is yet available one resource to materialism — to claim
that, although our knowledge of true causation is not generalized
from a series of experiences, it is obtained directly from the
knowledge of phenomena — that in any two or more phenomena
there is also given the causal nexus and the knowledge of it,
Now, we might object to this, that it approached the position of
the strictest intuitionalist, and that, as mere phenomena, there is
in them nothing but the relation of co-existence and succession.
Objective phenomena are not labelled " this is the cause of that ; "
and, therefore, if the mind thinks it finds in them such a relation,
that relation must be brought to the phenomena by the mind
itself. Or we might also say that, if a series of experiences is
incompetent (as we have seen it is) to give a knowledge of causa-
tion, on a materialistic hypothesis, a fortiori, a single experience
is. But waiving these, we have to see what is contained in this

The Metaphysical Assumptions of Materialism. 213

theory, granting the truth of materialism. According to it, the
knowledge of these objects, and that of the causal nexus between
them, is the result of matter, and therefore is a dependent "efiect "
— the first effect in the perfect blank, which is to change that
blank into what we call mind and its content. {T\\e first, because
by the theory the knowledge of causation, not being derived from
experiences, must be contained in the first two phenomena given
in consciousness.) But as an effect it is, of course, a phenomenon,
and for a phenomenon to transcend phenomena, and attain the
reality behind them, is, as before shown, impossible. Ontological
knowledge is not possible to the mind when the mind is consid-
ered as a phenomenal effect. Knowledge of causation cannot be
reached, then, on a materialistic theory, either through experi-
ences or a single experience without intuitional or ontological
knowledge. Only one way remains — that it should be reached
through the activity of the Ego itself. The mind is a true cause,
and gives knowledge of true causation. So, to prove mind an
effect, materialism would have to postulate it as a cause. It is
again suicidal.

To sum up : To prove a strict monism, materialism has to as-
sume an original irresolvable dualism. To prove the mind a phe-
nomenon of matter, it is obliged to assume a substance to give
knowledge of that matter. To prove that it is an effect of mat-
ter, it is obliged to assume either an intuitional power of mind, or
that mind is itself a cause, both equally destructive of materialism.

"We conclude, therefore, tliat as a philosophical theory materi-
alism has proved itself a complete felo-de-se. To afford itself a
thinkable basis, it assumes things which thoroughly destroy the
theory.

214 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

THREE AGES.

'Twa? morn, and oVn- my little window ledp;e
Flew many a wild bird of plumage bright;
They sang sweet songs, and left the truest pledge
, Oflove, of love and truth, by day and night.

'Twas afternoon, and through my stately door,
In soberer dress, stepped the too tame birds,

Calling our former tlicmes so vain and poor,
Twittering now in philcsopliic words.

It is night now ; life, love, and thought are done;

What is it comes and sets my heart aglow?
Of all the wise and learned tongues not one —

Oaly the foolish songs of long ago.

STAGES.

John Albee.

Once life was joy, not joyous service done —

Quick days of selfish rapture, broad, not deep;
The world was like a picture, and the sun

Rose for the gilding of a dreamy sleep.

II.

We woke: and life was labor; naught of glee
Was left, for deepest-rooted toil remained ;
And us we delved no end was there to see,
' And suns but glimmered on the dross we g lined.

III.

But now, or in the perfect time, we know,

The joy returns while labor yet abides ;
Life's round and fair, and, delving deep below,

We fiud the joy that early pleasure hides.

Benjamin R. Bulkeley^

CoKCORD, Mass.

Notes and Discussions. 215

TEE OLDEN RULE.

Is there one word, Master! Tsze-Kung said,
By wliich through life one may be wisely led ?

ConfuciuH thus replied : I say to thee
That such a word is Reciprocity.

For what would give thee pain in word or deed.
That thou dost not to others do, take heed.

Theodore Harris.

OBITUARY.— MRS. HATHA WA Y.

Chicago Philosophical Society.
Editor Journal of Speculative Philosophy :

Dear Sir : In accordance with the request of the Philosophical Society
of Chicago, I transmit to you a copy of the resolutions unanimously
adopted at the last meeting of the Society, before which she had spoken
so many of her best thoughts, and by the members of which she was so
much respected and beloved.

Respectfully yours,

JOSIAH H. BiSSKLL,

Corresponding Secretary, Chicago Philosophical Society.
Chicago, January 14, 1882.

To ike Philosophical Society of Chicago :

Your cominittee on (he death of Mrs. Hathaway present the following preamble and
resolutions for your action :

" Whereas, The Philosophical Society of Chicago has with sorrow learned of the death
of Mrs. Amalie Jolins Hathaway, wife of Mr. Benjamin Hathaway ;

" And Whereas, That lady gave her earliest lectures upon philosophical topics to this
body, and the Society has since been a delighted witness of her rise in power and
reputation ;

" AticI Whereas, further. The Society desires to bear public testimony to its estimation
of her distinguished ability and high moral worth ;

" Therefore, Resolved, (1) That the Philosophical Society of Chicago deplores the un-
timely death of Mrs. Amalie Johns Hathaway as a loss to philosophical culture in Amer-
ica; as the loss of one whom native power and spjecial study liad fitted for eminence in
that department of investigation, and who possessed rare skill in presenting to common
audiences the results of her ripe scholarship and deep thought.

^''Resolved, (2) That we recognize in Mrs. Hathaway a woman of noble type ; a woman
BO simple and modest that no success could destroy the fine balance of her mind, and
no praise intoxicate her ; a woman of sweet, unostentatious philanthropy and broad
■views ; a woman genial in society, dear to her friends, and full of the patience, hope,
and strength that can alike adorn a home and vivify social life.

^* Resolved, (3) That we offer assurances of our earnest sympathy with the bereaved
husband of this lady in the heavy affliction that has befallen him.

216 The Journal of Specul<vtive Philosophy.

"Resolved, (4) That copies of these proceedings be sent to Mr. Hathaway, to the
'Journal of Speculative Philosophy,' and to the city press.

" Respectfully submitted,

" Samuel Willard,
"Julia Holmes Smith,
" Helen Doty Compton."

HERMANN LOTZE'S WORKS.

We have received a circular from the publisher, S. Hirzel, of Leipzig,
announcing an edition of the works of the distinguished philosopher
named at the head of this article. This edition contains the works col-
lected, partly from manuscript and partly from the notes taken at the
courses of lectures by the pupils or students. It makes a series of small
volumes. The first volume, the " Grundzuege der Psychologic," which
was sent out to try the public demand, proved so much of a success that
the publisher is encouraged to continue, and now comes out with the
" Grundzuege der Praktischen Philosophic — dictate aus den Vorlesungen
von Hermann Lotze." This will be followed by the outlines of six other
expositions of Lotze : Those of the Philosophy of Religion, of the Es-
thetic, of the History of Philosophy since Kant, of the Philosophy of
Nature, of Logic and the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, and of Metaphys-
ics. These will appear during the present year.

There will, of course, be an eager inquiry after these outlines, and we
believe that they will prove much more useful than the heavier works of
the same author — his " Mikrokosmos " and " System der Philosophic,"
and other works published during his life — as is suggested by the circular
before us. [Ed.

SENTENCES IN PROSE AND VERSE.

SELECTED BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

Facts unably related .... may prove the worst sort of deceit ; and
mere lies, judiciously composed, can teach us the truth of things beyond
any manner. But to amuse ourselves Avith such authors as neither know
how to lye, nor tell the truth, discovers a taste which methinks no one
should be apt to envy. — Shaftesbury.

If God acts for an end or purpose, he necessarily desires something
which he is without. — Spinoza.

Men deceive themselves in the conceit of their free-will from this:

Notes and Discussions. 217

because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of their
causes. — Ihid.

The dark background of neglected duty. — Arthur Helps.

Those subtle portions of our frames, those tiny filaments — the nerves —
require more repose than perhaps any other part of the body ; and they
are very silent creatures. — Ihid.

What is wanting cannot be numbered. — //. Martineau's Life.

New works of solid and enriching character, but of long replacement
of capital consumed, are the very raw material of a (financial) crisis. —
Bonamy Price.

This, too, is probable, according to that saying of Agathon : " It is a
part of probability that many improbable things will happen." — Aris-
totle.

As neutral as an alligator. — Mrs. Lewes [^George Eliot'].

The beginning of an acquaintance, whether with persons or things, is
to get a definite outline for our ignorance. — Ibid.

In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure
of human affections [young girls]. — Ihid.

The desire to conquer is itself a kind of subjection. — Ibid.

She was one of those satisfactory creatures whose intercourse has the
charm of discovery, whose integrity of faculty and expression begets a
wish to know what they will say on all subjects, or how they will per-
form what they undertake, so that they end by raising not only a con-
tinual expectation, but a continual sense of fulfilment. — Ibid.

What construction of another's mind is not strong wishing equal to ? —
Ibid.

Genius consisting — in a power to make or do, not anything in general,
but something in particular. — Ibid.

Self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very hard to
find depreciated. — Ibid.

The word of all work — love. — Ihid.

That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency. — Ihid.

We gain a clear notion of instinct by admitting that animals have, in
their sensorium, imasres or constant sensations which determine their
actions. It is a species of dream which haunts them constantly, and, as
regards their instinct, animals may be regarded as a kind of somnambulists.
— Cuvier.

218 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

BOOK NOTICES.

Text-Book to Kant. The Criliqus of Pure Reason : /Esthetic, Categories, Schema-
tism. Transladon, reproiluction, commentary, index. With biographical sketch. By
James Hutchison Stirling, LL. D., Foreign Member of the Philosophical Society of Ber-
lin. Elinbnrgh: Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale Court. London: Slmpkin, Marshall & Co.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISSl.

Tliis work is called a text-book to Kant because it exliibits what is pecuHarly con-
stitutive of Kant's doctrines with the fullest details, and in a threefold form. It con-
tains a translation, a commentary, and a repi'oduction. Of the 548 pages octavo which
the body of the work contains, (he reproduction occupies 111; the translation, 226
pages; the comraentarv, 100 pages. A biographical sketch occupies 14 pages in
smaller type. Dr. Stirling's great power of biographical characterization reappears in
this sketch, and, short as it is, it pictures for us all the essential traits of the man. The
publication of this work, most of which was written long since by its author, is a con-
tribution to the centennial anniversary of the appearance in Germany of the great
" Kritik der reinen Vernunft." It forms, unqupstionably, the most important contri-
bution to the exposition of Kant's theoretical doctrines that has appeared during the
hr.ndred years. The fact of the renewed study of Kant's works — "The Return to
Kant," as it is called — gives it additional importance at the present time. In American,
colli'ges and universities the study of Kant continues to grow upon the attention of the
ethical and philosophical faculties, and it is American students especially that are to be
congratulated upon the appearance of the long-needed text book on this difficult sub-
ject. It is more and more, every year, coming to be the practice with instructors in
mental and moral philosophy to rally and concentrate the best forces of their students
upon the mastery of the thoughts of Kant. It is becommg the conviction that phi-
losophy is not to be learned by memorizing names and dates, anecdotes and bon motSy
with abstract dogmatical summaiies of doctrines delivered in the style of "views,"
"opinions," or "curiosities of human thinking," but rather by the mastery on the part
of the student of a higher power of reflection, a closer and deeper habit of thinking.
Sense-perception is not philosophy ; its feeble power can grasp only isolated facts or
items. Ordinary reflection is not philosophy ; its power of generalization, though
amply sufiBcient for the discovery of scientific truths, and for the details of relations
and dependencies that exist between things or phenomena, is not adequate to the grasp
of a single principle as the unity of all. For philosophy is distinguished from special
sciences and from desultory thinking by its demand for a fiist principle — an explana-
tion of all phenomena — while other thinking seeks only subordinate or relative unities.
Whenever a thinker stops in his act of subordinating or co-ordinating his discovered
principle to others, and entertains the thought, that this principle is supreme, and the
final explanation of all phenomena of mind or matter, he has entered the thii'd stage
of knowing, and is properly a philosopher, no matter how absurd or inadequate his first
principle may be in fact. His thought concerns the totality — it is a transcendental
unity. Whether this first principle be air or water, matter or mind, it is, as a fii-st
principle, the source of all things, and therefore an activity ; a self-activity because it
is the first and ultimate; self-determining, creative, self-revealing in its manifestations
or its phenomena because its activity is necessarily the revelation and manifestation of
its own power. The law of the finite is that of relativity to something else beyond it.

Book Notices. 219

The law of the infinite or the totality is that of self-relation. It is as easy to name the
general conditions of the infinite as of the finite. The correlative of the finite always
lies beyond or outside of it; the infinite always contains its correlative within it. The
finite presupposes the infinite, while the infinite does not presuppose but posits the finite.
The third stage of thinking implies, lo;;ically, as its premise, the principle of self-
detfrmination as the highest. But the majority of systems of philosophy do not realize
what they imply, and thus are inconsistent.

Be-sides such philosophical thinkers as set up a first principle that is inadequate be-
cause it lacks self-determination, there is a large class who are philosophers, although
they deny in a sense the possibility of philosophy. Those who assert that all our
knowledge is relative and concerning the relative seem to deny the possibility of the
third species of knowing. In fact, however, their assertion relates to the totality of
knowledge, and more than this, strange as it may seem, to the totality of things. It
looks beyond all unities of generalization, all conditioned principles, and lays down an
ultimate principle. The individual transcends his own knowledge, and predicates con-
cerning the knowledge of his i-ace. He looks at the nature of knowing as he finds it
within himself, and makes an unconditional afiirmation that knowledge is relative. All
things known and knowable are relative — that is to say, they are not independent and
self- sufficient, but dependent and correlative. The thought of the dependent and cor-
relative is the thought of an existence that forms an element of a totality that includes
it with that on which it depends and to which it relates. A thing is relative and depend-
ent just in so far as it exists, not in itself, but in another. It is likewise known to be
independent and relative only in so far as its totality is known to transcend it. By this
assertion of universal relativity, therefore, relation is posited in the totality. Moreover,
by the distinction made between our knowledge and a possibility of an existence of
things in themselves beyond our knowledge, the idea of a totahty makes its appearance
again. Certainly, the subjective, and all that is opposed to it as objective, both the
knowable and the unknowabk-, constitute together a totality. And just as the law of
the finite is the law of relativity or dependence, so the law of the totality is self-relativity
and independence. In setting up the universal law of relativity there was implied
unconsciously the self-relative totality as the ground of relativity, and including it.

Hence all theories of knowledge in general, whether sceptical or otherwise, are philo-
sophical in their nature, and they imply a positive knowledge of the totality and self-
conditioned, just as much as do the dogmatic systems of philosophy.

To Kant belongs the immortal honor of having set forth with exhaustiveness the
conditions of sceptical philosophizing. The ten old tropes, and their completer state-
ment iu the five new ones, as given by the most able of the ancients in this Echool of
thought — Sextus Empiricus — form a fragmentary and unsystematic exposition of the
basis of scepticism. The Kantian Critiques do not accomplish everything that can be
desired, but they open the true road to insight into philosophic method, and in doing
this lay bare the cauces and occasions of all scepticism. For scepticism arises only
from partial, incomplete insight into method. Mathod relates to the connection between
the first principle and the world of things that proceed from it. It concerns, therefore,
the genesis of the world.

Besides the methods inductive and deductive, so called, we may discriminate other
forms as subjective and objective methods. The method by which the individual passes
from opinion to truth — from immediate certainty to the cognition of universality and
necessity — the passage from crude first views of a subject to an exhaustive comprehen-
sion of it in its totality— this is subjective method. The method by which an object

220 The Journal of Speoulative Philosophy.

develops in time the possibilities of its being — the process by which it. realizes its
several pliases in time — in short, its historic evolution — the exposition of this is the
objective method of treating a subject. If development or evolution is from the simple
to the complex, it is obvious that the method of development may correspond to the
subjective method, which also would appear to begin with what is simple and pro-
ceed to the complex. Moreover, the subjective method proceeds from partial, acci-
dental phases of opinion to a knowing of the totality and necessity. Hence the sub-
jective proceeds towards a knowing of universal forms, or logical conditions of exist-
ences. It results in the discovery of how we must know the objects of the world.

The Kantian Critique isolatts this problem of the subjective method, and investigates
it more profoundly than any previous system of philosophy lias done. All philosophy
previous to Kant was constructed on the foundation of Aristotle — Induction itself being
no new system of philosophizing, but rather a process of collecting data from nature
for the purpose of classification and explanation much after the manner used by
Aristotle in conducting his own investigations. His was essentially an objective method.
The ancient sceptics impinged on difficulties of subjective origin, and possible of solu-
tion only through an exhaustive investigation of subjective method. After the sceptics,
the scholastics discover the same difficulty, discussing it in the terms of nominalism
and realism. Do universals — that is to say, the ideas of genera and species — exist
solely in the mind formed for subjective purposes of classification, or do they subsist
objectively — are they corporeal or incorporeal — in brief, are universals ante rem, in
re, ov post rem, one or all of these? Scholasticism, it is said, found its historical occa-
sion in a passage of the " Isagoge " of Porphyry, as translated by Boethius : " Mox
de generibus et speciebus illud quidem sive subsistant sive in soils nudis intel-
lectibus posita sint, sive subsistentia corporalia sint an incorporalia et utrum sepa-
rata a sensilibus an ia sensilibus posita et circa haec consistentia, dicere recusabo.
(Almost the only logical writings known to the Middle Ages up to the twelfth century
were the translations from Aristotle and Porphyry by Boethius.) This question of the
objectivity of universals is fundamental in modern philosophy, and it is singular that
the Baconian induction takes for granted the doctrine that universals exist in nature,
and may be discovered by empirical investigation, while almost all writers on psychology
from the same school of philosophizing hold tenaciously that universals are subjective
■creations.

The very culmination of the difficulty involved in this problem is reached by David
Hume's statement of it. Dr. Stirling summarizes the chief points as developed by
Hume (Enquiry): 1. Sensation is the source of all elements of knowledge. 2. There is
internal as well as external sensation. 3. Sensation externally is not more product of a
eense than sensation internally. 4. What to us are the ideas of our thoughts are, in
reality, only copies of our sensible impressions. To these we may add : 5. That, for
knowledge, we are shut into our own subjective state of affection or impression:
" nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception — this house and
that tree are nothing but perceptions in the mind." Impressions of sense, according
to Hume, are our more lively perceptions, and all our ideas, including universals as
well as recollections of particular sense-impressions, are the less lively perceptions
derived from the former by reflecting upon tbem. With this doctrine we are left
entirely without a bridge over which we may pass from subjectivity to objectivity.
With this result the scope of philosophy is a narrow one, and a tolerably complete
exposition of its positive doctrines may be written in a single chapter. But the ne^a-
iiive bearings of this view may require more books than can be counted. For the

Book Notices. 221

philosopher is called upon to explam the genesis of all ideas of species and genera, of
all views of the world, or of departments of the world, or of all relations between
objects perceived, or, what is more fundamental, explain how the mind erects a world
of objects existing in space from the mateiial given to it as feelings or impressions
within itself, and existing only in time. To these themes for philosophic treatment
may be added the explauation of the history of philosophic systems that shall account
for the almost universal prevalence of error in human thinking.

Here it is, with Hume's clear statement of the question, that Kant takes up the en-
quiry. He finds in every state of consciousness, not alone particular impressions which
noay be elaborated into universale (but whicii are not accompanied by universals of
equal or superior validity) ; he finds, on the contrary, both universals and particulars
in every state of consciousness, the universals being the forms and logical conditions
of the very existence of the particulars, or, rather, the conditions of our perception and
thinking of those particulars. The mind, therefore, docs not and cannot derive all
general ideas from particular ideas. Its own activity must furnish all those general
ideas that make experience of particular objects possible. Kant finds Time and Space,
for instance, to be necessary as general ideas, in order that any sense-perception may
be possible. Without Time and Space experience would remain mere impressions
■without unity either as objects or as events. He finds, further, the categories of quan-
tity, quality, relation, and mode, and chief of these the category of relation which is
called causality, as likewise indispensable to all experience, and, accordingly, as unde-
rivable from experience. The exposition of this doctrine is the immortal service of
Kant. There are further conclusions which Kant thinks necessary to draw from his
doctrine — one, a negative one, unfolded in his treatise on tlie antinomies of pure rea-
son, and another, his doctrine of the basis of morality, found in his "Critique ot" Prac-
tical Reason," considered by many to be the best fruit of all his thinking. The validity
of his "Critique" of the antinomies is seriously questioned by later philosophy, and is,
perhaps, only valuable as a stimulus to speculative enquiry. Dr. Stirling's translation
and reproduction omit all consideration of the antinomies, and close with the second
book of the first division just before the transition to the transcendental dialectic or
discussion of the antinomies, -which is found in the chapter on the ground of distinc-
tion of all objects in general into plienomcna and noumeua. In his pre'ace he remarks,
touching the part here translated, ''It is all that, properly and peculiarly, is constiiu-
Hve either of or with Kant (anything else, unless the categorical imperative, being
either only negative and regulative, or simply a corollary)."

The reproduction here given amounts to a rewriting of the treatise, giving its essen-
tial thread of connection in a style equally remarkable for clearness, brevity, and com-
pleteness. The thought is faithfully reproduced, even with Kant's peculiar side reflec-
tions and transitions. It should be said, however, that tliis reproduction is not the entire
work of Dr. Stirling, but only extracts from his entire work as it exists in manuscript.

It is in the translation that we discover best the great powers of the translator to
perfectly grasp the difiicuU Gorman of Kant, and express it again with faitlilul accu-
racy in pure English. No philosophic writer of our lime is master of a style that so
well deserves the rubric which Fichte placed at tlie beginning of one of his minor
treatises : " A sun-clear statement to the public at large ... an attempt to force the
reader to an understanding."

This text-book to Kani, therefore, we conceive to be what its ti'.le implies — precisely
the book needed by the students of philosoph)', whether found in colleges and universi-
ties, or pursuing their investigations by themselves. W. T. H.

222 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

BOOKS EECEIVED.

The Future of the Russian Church. By the Rev. Father [Cajsarius Tondini. New
York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876.

Anglicanism, Old Catholicism, and the Union of the Christian Episcopal Churches :
An Essay im the Religious Question of Russia. By the Rev. Caesarius Tondini. Lon-
don: Basil Montagu Pickering. 1875.

Appendix to First Piinciples, dealing with Criticisms, By Herbert Spencer. Lon-
don: Williams & Norgate. 1880.

Jewish ^[ftdiffival Philosophy and Spinoza. By W. R. Sorley, M. A. Reprinted
from "Mind," July, ISSO.

The Newest Atheism. By Noah Porter.

Bolctin de la Institucion Libre de Ensenanza. Numbers 80 and 81. Madrid: June
and July, 1880.

Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle. Compiled by Edwin Wallace. Oxford and
London: James Parker & Co. 1880.

The Association of Ideas. By William James. Reprinted from "The Popular
Science Monthly," March, 1880.

America's Great Peril. By Zim. Tod, A. M.

The Berkeley Quarterly : A Journal of Social Science. January, 1880. Published
by the Fortnightly Club, Berkeley, California.

President M;igoun's Sermon before the American Board of Commissioners for For-
eign Missions, at the Seventieth Annual Meeting, held in Syracuse, New York, October
7, 1879.

Dis Schulwesen mit besonderer Beziehung auf die Zukunft Pforzhfims. Von Moritz
Miillcr, Sr. Leipzig: Veilag von Otto Wigand. 1880.

Scparat-abdruck aus dem archiv fiir Anatomic und Physiologic. Uerausgegeben von
His u. Braune und von E. Du Bois-Rcymond. Leipzig : Veilag von Veit & Comp.
Physiologische Abtheilung, 1879. Inhalt : Uober die Abhangigkeit der Reactionszei-
teu vom Oit dcs Reizes. Von G. S. Hall und J. von Kries. Die willkurliche Muskel-
action. Von Hugo Kronecker und G. Stanley Hall.

An Tnquirv into the Origin of Fever: Being a Contribution toward the Study of the
Rational Life of Man. By R. T. Colburn, Rochester, N. Y.

Ueber Bilder und Glelchnisse in dir Philosophie. Eine Festschrift von Rudolf
Eucken. Leipzig : Verlag von Veit & Comp. 1880.

Johns Hopkins University Circulars. Baltimore. February, 1880.

How the Geometrical Lines have their Counterparts in Music. By Isaac L. Rice.
New York: Asa K. Butts. 1880.

Books Received. 223

Metaphysics: A Lecture by S. S. Laws, May 10, 1879, Columbia, Missouri.

Government. An Essay. By Charles Moran. New York : Asa K. Butts. 1879.

Genesis I-II : An E^^say on the Bible Narrative of Creation. By Augustus R. Grote.
New York: Asa K. Butts. 1S80.

Zwei AbhancUungen iiber die .Vristotclische Theoric dos Drama. Von Jacob Ber-
nays. Berlin : Vciiag von Wilhclra Hertz. 18S0.

Grunddragen af Emanuel Hvalgren's Filosofiska System. Gi3teborg. 1879.

Mctaphysische Anfangsgrundedermathematischen Wissenschaften. Auf Grundlage
der helioceatrischen Philosophic dar^estellt von Alfons Bilharz und Portus Danneger.
Sigmaringen. 1680.

L'esprit de I'economie politique par Frangois Mosser. Naples. 1879.

AOrOAOSIA TON KATA TO AEKATON TETAPTON ET02.
TENOMENON THO EMMANOTHA APAFOMAI HPOEAPOT.
Athens. 1880.

II Progresso. Torino. April 15, 1880.

Giacomo Barzellotti. La niiova scuola del Kant e la filosofia scientifica contempo-
ranea in Germania. Roma. 1880.

Love or Fame ; and other Poems. By Fanny Isabelle Sherrick. St Louis : W. S.
Bryan. 1880.

Preadamites ; or a Demonstration of the Existence of Men before Adam; together
with a Study of their Condition, Antiquity, Racial Affinities, and Progressive Dispersion
■over the Earth. By Alexander Wiachell. Chicago : S. C. Griggs & Co. 1880.

The Free School System of the United States. By Francis Adams. London : Chap-
man & Hall. 1875.

The Verdendorps : A Novel. By Basil Verdendorp. Chicago : Charles M. Hertig.
1880.

Ideality in the Physical Sciences. By Benjamin Peirce. Boston : Little, Brown &
Co. 1881.

Gleanings in the Fields of Art. By Ednah D. Cheney. Boston : Lee & Shepard.
1881,

Progress and Poverty : An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions, and of
Increase of Want witli Increase of Wealth. The Remedy. By Henry George. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. 1880.

Dr. Appleton : His Life and Literary Relics. By John H. Appleton and A. H.
Saycc. London; Triibner & Co. 1881.

Contributions to the History of the Development of the Human Race. Lectures
and Dissertations. By Lazarus Geiger. Translated from the second German edition
by David Asher. London : Triibner & Co. 1880.

English Literature in the Eighteenth Century. By A. H. Welsh. With an Introduc-
tion by R. G. Hutcbius. Columbus, 0. : G. J. Brand & Co. 1880.

The Schoolmaster — Past and Future. A Lecture. By the Rev. R. H. Quick. Cam-
bridge. 1879.

224 The Journal of Speculaiive Philosophy/.

The Influence of Lansruagc on Thought. Bv Prof. Wm. D. Wilson, of Cornell
University. (From the Proceedings of the University Convocation of the State of New-
York, July S-10, 1870.)

Interpretation of Greek Mythology. St. Louis : G. I. Jones & Co. 1880.

Dante Alighieri ueber die Monarchic. Uebersetzt und mit einer Einleitung versehen
von Dr. Oskar Hubatsch. Berlin. 1872.

On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution as an Exhaustive Statement of the Changes
of the Universe. By Malcolm Gutlnie. Followed by a resume of the most Important
Criticisms of Spencer's " First Principles." London : Trubner & Co. 1879.

The Fundamental Concepts of MoJern Philosophic Thought, Critically and Histor-
ically Considered. By Rudolph Euckcn. Tianslatcd by M. Stuart Phelps, with Addi-
tions and Corrections by the Author, and an Introduction by Noah Porter. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. 1880.

Theory of Music. By H. R. Palmer. Cincinnati : John Church & Co. 1876.

British Thought and Thinkers : Introductory Studies, Critical, Biographical, and
Philosophical. By George S. Morris. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 1880.

How to Secure and Retain Attention. By James L. Hughes. Toronto, Canada :
W. J. Gage & Co.

Some Thoughts concerning Education. By John Locke. With Introduction and
Notes by the Rev. R. H. Quick, M. A. Cimbridge. 1880.

Exile : A Dramatic Episode. By Lewis J. Block. St. Louis : G. I. Jones & Co.
1880.

Through Rome on: A Memoir of Christian and extra-Christian Experience. By
Nathaniel Rumsay Waters. New York : Charles P. Somerby. 1877. Fciffc 4: ''The
conclusions reached by me aud published now . . . are the fruit of long, dili-
gent, and conscientious study." Page 5: "More than thirty -five years ago I began
to seek for truth ani peace in religion. . . . My search showed me that the
dogmatic foundations of Protestant Christianity rest on sand, and brought me to
acceptance of ihc Roman Catholic religion as the embodiment of Divine Revela-
tion. . . . After eight years in the belief and practice of Catholicism, I found
myself in early manhood arrived, by the inevitable working of my intellectual and
moral constitution, at the rejection of the premise of the Infallible Oracle, on which all
dogmatic Chri>tians build their systems of faith. From this renunciation of the under-
lying assumption of all the creeds, my progress was rapid to the views and state of
mind set forth in the later pages of this volume."

The Children of Light. By Rev. Wni. W. Faris. Boston : Roberts Brothers. 1877.
The Fletcher Prize Essay for 1877. Contents: Lights and Shadows, a Survey; Part
First, Coming to Light; Part Second, Mistaking Darkness for Light; Part Third,
Standing in the Light ; Part Fourth, Walking in the Light ; Part Fifth, Working in
the Light.

Ethik Oder Wissenschaft von Seinsollenden. Neu Begriindet und im Umrisse Ausge-
fiihrt von Dr. Phil. Rudolf Seydel, A. 0. Prof, der Phil., Univ. Leipzig. [Pages 58 to
67 contain a hitherto unpublished treatise of C. H. Weisse, on " The Principle of
Ethics," written in the summer of 1864.]

THE JOURNAL

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY

YoL. XYI.] July, 1882. [Ko. 3.

PHILOSOPHY m EELATIOX TO ITS HISTOPY.'

It has occurred to me that no topic could be more usefully or
appropriately dwelt upon, at the opening of the present session of
the Aristotelian Society, than the relations which obtain between
the History of Philosophy and Philosophy itself, the light which
they reciprocally throw upon each other, and the assistance which
the study of each may derive from the study of its complementary
member. The Society wisely determined to begin its labors with
an outline of the History of Pliilosophy ; and this was carried in
our former session down to the end of the Greek or classical
period. I venture to say wisely, because the method imposed
upon us by our circumstances being that of self-instruction, and
therefore tentative, and not dogmatic, the very first outlines of
the subject-matter of philosophy itself are best learnt from its his-
tory by seeing what sorts of questions have occupied the attention
of philosophers, or those reputed to be such, and not from any
manual or general view of the problems of philosophy, or of the
distinction of its various branches.

We are now, in the present session, about to enter upon a simi-

' An address delivered before the Aristotelian Society of London, October 11, 1880,
by Shadworth H. Hodgson, Hon. LL. D. Edin., President.

XYI— 15

226 The Journal of SpeculaUm Philosophy.

lar outline of tlie reinaininij part of the history of philosophy ;
and the occasion seems opportune for hringini^ forward into dis-
tinct consciousness what sort of assistance we may expect, what
sort of information we ma}' derive, what sort of questions, rela-
tively to philosophy itself, we may look to have raised, and how
far these questions arc to he answered, hy a general conspectus of
the course which jihilosophical speculation and philosophical inves-
tigation liave followed down to our own times.

Taking these points, then, as the text of the following remarks,
we must, in the very first place, hegin by asking ourselves what,
in the most general and provisional manner, is our conception of
philosophy ; what is that subject-matter the history of which we
are to trace ; in short, of what is it the history ? I say, in the
most general and provisional manner we must answer this ques-
tion, because a more definite answer would trench upon contro-
verted ground, and would, in fact, involve some theory or other
about the nature of pl]ilosophy, wliich is among those very ques-
tions which we are going to the history of philosophy to get light
thrown upon.

Is^ow, I think we may best avoid dogmatic assumptions if we
imitate the method of our great Eponymus^ Aristotle, in setting
out on an inquiry, at the very origin of it, by asking what we
ourselves, and reasonable men in general, tnean by the term in
question. If we ask what we, and reasonable people in general,
mean by the term philosophy, I apprehend we shall find it some-
thing of this kind. In any subject whatever, great or small, we
come to the philosophy of that subject when we come to explain
to ourselves the facts or the conceptions which lie at the root of
the laws governing it, or at the root of the axioms, if any, upon
which its laws depend ; facts or conceptions, therefore, which con-
nect that subject with higher or larger subjects, at the same time
that they are presupposed by the laws and by the axioms which
are appropriate to the subject itself. The axioms and the laws
of that subject are its science, the connection of its axioms and laws
with a higher or larger field of thought is \i% philosophy, showing
whence it comes and whither it tends. In order to have the
philosophy of a subject, it is not enough to have an intelligent
knowledge of the facts and laws and method of the subject itself;
it is requisite also to have its rationale — that is, its connection with

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 227

other subjects, and its place and title to its place in the order of
nature.

For instance, a man may be a thorough master of the art of
brick-making, he may know what bricks are, what sort of clay is
the best, and what are the best methods of making them ; but he
does not possess the philosophy of brick-making until he connects
brick-making with architecture.

So in verse-making; a man ma}" have a perfect knowledge of
metres and rhythms, of sounds long and short, rough and smooth ;
but he does not possess the philosophy of verse-making until he
connects it with poetry, until he sees the place which verse-making
holds in the greater art of conveying and enforcing imaginative
pleasure by means of the articulate sounds of language.

Again, in mathematic, a man may be an excellent mathematician
if he possesses the axioms, the definitions, the methods, and the
practice of calculation founded on them ; but he does not possess
the philosophy of mathematic until he connects the axioms, defi-
nitions, and methods with certain most elementary and ineradica-
ble notions of the human mind, and with the more general method
of logical thin kin Of.

Every subject, from the least to the greatest, both in practice
and speculation, has its rationale — that is, its philosophy — or, in
other words, its rational connection with a larger whole, a whole
of greater comprehensiveness, of more elementary conceptions, of
simpler, fewer, and, at the same time, more fundamental and more
univei'sal facts. Every special branch of knowledge thus leads up,
by its philosophy, to a sphere of knowledge wider and more gen-
eral than itself; and since this is the case with every special branch
of knowledge, while the branches together constitute our picture
or conception of the universe at large, and this universe is neces-
sarily seen by us, w^ho look at it mentally from within, as one
single universe and not several (which indeed is expressed by the
name universe)^ therefore it happens that philosophy J9«r excellence
is the highest and largest rationale we can frame to our minds of
the facts which the universe contains, and of the connection be-
tween its parts ; and also points forward to a higher and larger
rationale still, which is ex hypothesi beyond our reach, but which
also ex hypothesi would, if we could reach it, contain the rationale
of that rationale^ and be the philosophy of our philosophy, what

228 TJkc JoMimal of Speculative Philosophy.

ever the heig;bt or larfjeness of comprehensiveness our philosophy
may at any time have reached, or may yet reach in the future.

1 feel myself, 2;entlemen, to be here verging on controverted
gromid, and therefore I shall say no more on this point. I mean
that the nature, scope, and powers of philosophy, of our human
philosophy, are matters of great debate and contention, especially
■whether we are or are not justiiied in taking into account, in any
way, the possible existence of a knowledge beyond our human
philosophy ; that is to say, whether our human philosophy has
anything whatever to do with the possibility of an existence be-
yond its own reach ; or, again, in other words, whether that infinity,.
which is apparently involved in the conception of ever-widening
spheres of knowledge, is or is not an illusion to which it may be
pernicious to attend.

This is one of the questions which are to be answered, if at all^
only by a thorough investigation of pliilosophy itself. For what-
ever may be the answer, it is clear that philosophy has no otJier
branch of knowledge beyond or larger than itself. Its rationale
can be given at any rate only by itself; or, in oilier words, philos-
ophy and the rationale of philosophy are one and the same thing
in point of kind. I say no more, therefore, on this point. But I
would sugorest — and this brinci^s me back to the more immediate
subject of the present address — that this question should be kept
present to the mind in studying the History of Philosophy as we
are about to do in the present session. I mean that it will form
a useful clew or light, in reading any philosophical author, to
keep asking ourselves, from time to time, how bis views bear on
what I may perhaps call the (juestion of the infinite or finite char-
acter of philosophical truth.

In taking, then, the History of Philosophy as our subject, we
are really taking the series of those writers who have made it
their aim to discover what I have described as the Rationale of
the Universe. This aim it is wliich constitutes them 'philosophers,
and the series of their theories the history of philosophy ; for it is
the history of the progress made towards a satisfactory rationale of
the universe, as mentally visible from a human centre.

Now, two things in this progress seem to call for special remark.
The first is, that there is a definite progress in it, and a definite
direction ; there is a main higluvay, and there are side-ways

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 229

branchino- out from it, consisting either of subsidiary and auxiliary-
inquiries, or it may be of false routes struck into and followed
from time to time, which seemed or seem promising, but in reality
do not lead to the satisfactory rationale which is the final aim.
This, then, is another question wliich ought to be present to the
mind in reading the history of philosophy: Is the work or the
theory before us in the highway of philosophy, or is it a subsidi-
ary inquiry, or is it a false start %

The second thing to be noticed is the essential and inevitable
anthropomorphism of all philosophical theories. It is not only in
theology that anthropomorphism is found, but in all philosophical
speculation also. Everything comes to man through the medium
of his faculties, through modes of his sense-perceptions, through
the mode in which he thinks, or his logical faculty, and also through
the modes of his more inward sensibility, his sensibility to emo-
tions, as well as to the various kinds of pleasure and pain both of
emotion and of sense, and, most important, perhaps, of all in its
influence on philosophy, through his moral sensibility or percep-
tion of what is morally right and wrong.

It is mainly by noting the consequences of this latter circum-
stance that we can trace a progress in a definite direction in the
history and distinguish the character of the various theories in the
series. The aim of a Rationale of the Universe was at first per-
ceived but diudy ; I mean that what it involved was not clearly
perceived at first. But the conception expanded, and disclosed
differences from within, in proportion as thought was fixed upon
it, and as former theories supplied a starting-point and pabulum
for new speculations.

We have at the beginning the physical theories of the Ionic
school. Even these were anthropomorphic in the sense that cer-
tain constructions of the sense-faculties of man, I mean material
substances, were taken as realities which were considered, at any
rate tentatively and provisionally, as ultimate realities. The an-
thropomorphism of the theories was not the less real because it
was naive and unsuspected by the theorists.

It was a step in advance when moral conceptions, such as love
and hate, were brought in to complete the materialism of the ear-
liest theories, notwithstanding that these conceptions were derived
directly from the innate mythological and imaginative tendency

230 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of the mind, and, when combined with the materialistic theories,,
robbed them of their strictly scientific character. The moral ele-
ment thus introduced save the theories a more comprehensive and,
therefore, a more philosophical scope, separated them from theo-
ries which were scientitic only, and sent the streams of science and
philosophy to tlow thenceforth and forever in different but con-
nected channels.

It was again a great advance when logical conceptions were
brought in, as they were by the Eleatic school, the conceptions of
the One and the Many, the Permanent and the Changeable, and
real existence sought for only in the former. This was logical
anthropomorphism.

Moral considerations of a higher order were made the staple of
philosophy by Socrates ; and by Plato these were combined with
speculative considerations, in his theories I'egarding Ideas, depend-
ing on the one supreme Idea, ro eu, which was also rb aya^ov.
This may be called the issue, result, and transfiguration of the
lower and cruder forms of love and hate. Moral Good, accord-
ing to Plato, had originally ordered and continued to rule the
universe.

Aristotle presents us with a further elaboration of these concep-
tions. His definite distinction of four kinds of causes — the mate-
rial, the efficient, the formal, and the final ; the conceptions of
substance and attributes; his great distinction between potential-
ity and actuality, as, respectively, the terminus a quo and the ter-
minus ad quern of every strictly natural process ; and the full sep-
arate treatment which he gave to so many branches of the world
of thought — mark the culminating point of Greek philosophy.

Systems there were, also, which made moral considerations the
centre of speculative theories ; such were Stoicism and Epicurean-
ism. This was a transposition of the speculative centre of gravity,
which marks, as it seems to me, a side-way of philosophy, leading
to no final rationale of the universe. I do not wish to dogmatize
on the point. I would merely suggest, on the occasion of men-
tioning these two great schools, the question which they seem
to raise for students of the history of philosophy — the question
whether a practical principle can be made the centre, pivot, or
basis of a theory of the universe, which, as something far trans-
cending man's minute powers of affecting it, is to an enormous.

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 231

extent removed from the practical application of that principle^
though remaining always the object of theoretical inquiry.

In Neo-platonism we have an attempt to combine theology and
morals with philosophical speculation in one comprehensive theory
based upon Plato's ro ayaBov. What are we to think of a system
of this kind ? I know not whether I am right, but two things
occur to me which seem to militate against its sufficiency. In the
first place, it was already ruined beforehand in its base, inasmuch
as Plato's own theory had been already transcended by Aristotle's
analysis. The theory that Ideas were efficient forces was no longer
tenable ; the realistic doctrine, as it was afterwards called, namely,
that universals were real things, real forces, was no longer tenable.
It was one thing to say with Aristotle that the real thing was to
be apprehended by way of definition — that is, by the intersection
of two universals — and quite another thing to say with the Realists
that a single universal could express a single reality.

In the next place, Neo-platonism, supposing itself to be the
true philosophy, aspired to make this philosophy into a religion,
to exhibit it as the truth of mythology and of cultus, from what-
ever origin they might have sprang, whether Greek or Oriental.
Now, it is one thing, having a religion to begin with, to formulate
it in philosophical language, to clothe it with a philosophical
creed ; and it is quite another thing to formulate first a philo-
sophical system, and then to bring religion into it and make it
serve as a creed. Religion will not be at home in a dwelling so
fashioned. These things seem, in my eyes at least, to be flaws
which mark Neo-platonism as a by-way, leading away from any
final rationale. The first affects it in its character of a philosophy
the second in its character of a religion.

We are now at the point reached by the Society in its former
session. And we stand also at the threshold of a renovation in
philosophy from a totally different source. We have traced it in
its Greek stream ; and we have traced it to its glorious result, the
elaboration not merely of a theory, but of a system of theories, a
philosophical system of many theories, some strictly and solely
scientific, others strictly philosophic, but all connected into a great
philosophical whole, the work of our own £pony77ius, Aristotle.
In Aristotle we find a system of various branches. First, there
are his Physics, then his Astronomy, then his Natural History,

232 The Journal of Speculative Fhilosophy.

tiicii his Psycbology ; this series begins with matter and ends with
mind ; then we have another series which begins with mind and
ends with tiie nniverse ; first, the Organon, that is to saj, the
theory of Logical Thought, and the theory of its application to the
discovery of the Laws of JN^ature ; then we have the practical sci-
ences of Eihic and Politic, and the subsidiary science of literature
in the Rhetoric and Poetic ; and firuilly we have the crown of the
edifice in the unfinished treatises of the Metaphysic, or First
Philosophy, or, as Aristotle also named it, Theology.

We have in Aristotle's system the very type and mould of all
genuinely philosophical speculation. But was this system final, in
the sense that it required only iilling up of its outlines, and cor-
rection of details by fuller knowledge and further discoveries ?
Did it so take in all human knowleds^e as to be secure from being
overturned in its principles ? I put these questions not as being
about to suggest an answer to them, but, on the contrary, to re-
mark that, in my opinion, the true answer is yet to be given by
the course of philosophical history which is to us at the present
^Qsj future. We have not yet seen, mankind has yet to see, what
the result upon the main princij)le3 of Aristotle's philosophical
system, as a system not of science but of philosophy, what the
final result will be, of the introduction into human life and
thought of that moral and emotional principle, of that spiritual
power, which is designated by the word Christianity. It may
be that the Aristotelian outlines will expand to contain it ; it
may be that a new system of conceptions will be demanded for
the purpose.

That principle of spiritual life which we call Christianity had
its own battle to fight, with internal or at least intimately con-
nected foes; in struggling against which it was compelled to cast
itself into the mould of a philosophical creed or theological phi-
losophy, in which form it was, when reached, that it imposed itself
upon the nations composing modern Europe, after the breaking up
of the Roman Empire. The struggle which resulted in its being
constituted as a theological philosophy, the battle fought by the
Christian principle of spiritual life, was fought against Gnosticism,
and such heresies, as they were called, of the first few centuriesj
as were more or less of a Gnostic character. Gnosticism also was
a theological philosophy, and had its home in the East, on the

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 233

border-land between the Greek and the Semitic intellect, a terri-
tory which was long debated between it and Christianity.
• The nature of this struggle you may read vividly depicted by
one who was himself involved in it, in its later stage, by St. Au-
gustine (a. d. 354 to 430) in that part of his Confessions which
relates his inner struggle with, and final conversion from, Mani-
chaeanism. This little book, the Confessions of Augustine, ought
to be familiar to every student of philosophy. Besides the deep
personal interest of it, and besides its historical interest, the direct
and searching philosophical analysis which it contains on many
points, the theory of Memory and Association of Ideas, for in-
stance, renders it most instructive.

By St. Augustine's time the battle had really been won. Chris-
tianity had in the course of it invested itself in the panoply of a
theological philosophy, which in later times was destined possibly
to be more of an encumbrance than a help, when the enemies of
the spiritual life which is its essence were of a totally different
order. But such as it was, it was a system which was capable of
harmonizing with the Aristotelian system, or at least with a par-
ticular reading of that system, which by the fusion of the two
became fixed and authorized as the true one. The system wdiich
arose from the union of the Aristotelian and Church philosophies
is that system M'hich is known as Scholasticism ; the great philo-
sophical construction which employed the intellectual energies of
the Middle Ages, and which still looks down upon us like a vast
cathedral of thought, promising itself a duration even longer than
the material cathedrals which are its coevals and its counterparts.

Here I w^ill pause for a moment to remark that the title by
which the new spiritual life of Christianity conies into philosophy
lies in its containing new facts in human nature. There were
certain phenomena in human nature which were developed in the
consciousness of the Hebrew nation, and were all but unknown to
the Greeks, all but unknown to the Komans. These phenomena
are generally summed up in the word Revelation. But it makes
no difference, for the present purpose, whether we call them a
revelation from God or not; they are at any x^Xo, facts in human
nature and human character. And facts in human nature and
character are as much facts upon which philosophy is to be built
as are facts in the physical constitution of the material world.

234: The Journal of Sj)eculative PhUosophy .

Man as well as nature, or, in other words, nature in all its
branches — inorganic, organic, and consciously or^^anic — is the sub-
ject-matter of philosophy, which aims at a rationale of the "uni"*
verse. It would be the />/rty of Hamlet without i\\Q part of Ham-
let to omit them. That is not only why we have a theology in
place of a philot^ophy in modern Europe, but also why we cannot
contest the right of this theology to be really a philosophy. Phi-
losophy must make room within itself for a religious philosophy
just as much as it must make room for a philosophy of morals, or
for a philosophy of poetry and poetical imagination.

I will mention one of the most cardinal of the facts which I
have spoken of as developed in the consciousness of the Hebrew
nation, and necessitating a renovation of philosophy. It is that
sense of standing in immediate relation to an Infinite and Om-
niscient Power, a sense which made humility appear as the true
attitude of man, the creature of a day, a finite and imperfect
Being, in the hand of a Being infinite and perfect. Plumility
towards God became thus a distinguishing mark of Christianity,
and, regarded as a virtue, was a virtue unknown to Greek ethic.
And the change thus \vrought extended not only to man's rela-
tions with the Divine ; it modified also the whole aspect of his
relations to his fellow-men. But it was not in the character of an
ethical theory that this sense of the Divine Infinity necessitated
the renovation of philosophy ; it was in the character of ^ifact in
human nature which had to be accounted for and made room for
in speculative theories. Human nature was a different thing, in
respect of this fact, from what it had been conceived to be by
Greek philosophei*s. The question was. What was the origin,
what the permanence, what the bearing on other facts, of this pro-
found sense of a personal relation to the Divine Infinity ? This
was one of the new ingredients which entered into Christian phi-
losophy, and finally combined with Aristotelianism in the great
system of Scholasticism. -

The question concerning Scholasticism is not whether it is a
philosopliy ; for its aim and scope of being a rationale of the uni-
verse guarantees this, just as the same scope guarantees the same
title to Hegelianism, or to Agnosticism, or even to Comtian Posi-
tivism : though with regard to this last it must be remembered
that, since Comte expressly repudiates the attempt to deal with

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 235

the universe, and substitutes the expression world, as the proper
object of pliilosophj, we can only bring Comte's system under our
present hii-ge deiinition of ])hilosophy by adding a limitation and
defining it, say, as a rationale of the universe so far as such a ra-
tionale is projliahly to be sought for — a limitation whereby a prac-
tical consideration is made the pivot upon which that philosophi-
cal system turns. The question, I say, with regard to Scholasti-
cism is not whether it is a philosophy ; the question is simply this
— and this ought to be present to our minds in considering it&
history — whether its rationale of the universe is a true and suffi-
cient one.

Its claims are actually present claims. We are too apt to for-
get, in Protestant countries, that it survived the Kenaissance ; sur-
vived it not only in Roman Catholic countries, where it is still
taught officially, but in Protestant countries also, our own for in-
stance, where the ordinary notions current on philosophical topics
being derived from Church teaching, are all of a Scholastic char-
acter, fragments, so to speak, of Scholasticism, though we have
forgotten out of what rock it is that they are hewn. Every one
at the present day who has, or rather thinks he has, no philosophy
at all, and does not aim at having one, not being at the same time
a pronounced sceptic, is really an adherent of Scholasticism. And
hence also in some cases it is, that those who reject either Scholas-
ticism, or the previous theological philosophy on which it was
partly based, are sometimes taxed by their adherents, not with
philosophical error only, but also with the religious error of infi-
delity. The term infidelity is an easily discharged missile, but
one that is rarely discharged b}' artillery of precision, for it is an
ambiguous term, meaning both disloyalty to God and disbelief of
a creed concerning him. It is a fact which throws much light on
the present situation, that every religion, the moment that it
clothes itself with a creed, clothes itself with a philosophy, and ta
that extent becomes amenable to philosophical criticism. Now,
the line between a religion and its creed is a line not easy to
draw.

The history of philosophy entered on another phase at the time
of the Renaissance, alono- with all other branches of knowledo;e.
and culture. Partly the general development of thought, partly
the new acquaintance made with classical antiquity, partly the

236 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

new progress made in scientific invention and discovery, gave a
new impulse and direction to pliilosophical speculation also. Vari-
ous currents arose and crossed or blended with each other. The
activity of thought was immense. The reaction against Aristotle
■which was so prominent a feature in the turmoil, in Giordano
Bruno, for instance, and in l^acon, was at bottom far less a reac-
tion against Aristotle than against Scholasticism, with which his
great name had been identified. Thus was opened the modern
€ra in philosoj)hy — an era of mental activity recalling, and indeed
repeating, on a higher and more complex stage, with new ingredi-
ents in philosophical qnestions, ingredients more especially of a
spiritual or religious character, the philosophical activity of Greece
before Aristotle.

In reading this part of pliilosophical history it will be well to
keep the question constantly before the mind, In what precise
ways these three, or other similar causes, operated to change or
broaden the current of philosophical ideas, I mean Religion, Greek
Literature, and Scientific Progress. What were the relations of
the Reformation to philosophy^ What those of general culture?
What those of science ? The effect of the last seems to have been,
and still to continue in our own days, most marked and definite.
Everj'where, in instance after instance, in explaining the proper-
ties of things, the scientific conception of relations took the place
of the Scholastic conception of c^w^es— causes which were inherent
in the nature of substances and destined for the production of
their specific effects. Gravity, for instance, was no longer regarded
as a specific propert}', iniierent by nature in heavy matter, causing
it to fall ; but the j)henomena of rising and falling bodies were
shown to be resolvable into the relative composition of volumes or
masses of matter and the relative movements of their parts ac-
cording to certain laws. Everywhere the short and easy solution
apparently offered by occult causes, inherent in the nature of par-
ticular classes of things, was shown to be delusive. And while in
this way our apparent knowledge vanished and our real knowl-
edge grew, the prospect of an ultimate solution became ever more
and more remote ; the philosophical horizon receded, and the
philosophical problem had to be restated.

A rationale of the universe was still the problem before the
philosophers of every school and every tendency. In this point

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 23T

the modern philosophy differed not from the Greek. But was
there not some general and pervading difference between the two,
common to all the modern schools, and differentiating them all
alike from the ancient, besides the difference of the higher stage
of scientific knowledge on which they stand, and besides the pos-
session of the new religious ingredients in the problem ?

The general difference between ancient and modern philosophy
is a question well worthy of being kept before the mind in reading
its history. How does a modern differ from an ancient in his
way of viewing philosophical questions ; or is there no other differ-
ence besides those I have mentioned? It has been often sug-
gested, and I think correctly, that an increased predominance of
suhjectivity is the general mark distinctive of modern philosophy ;
by which is meant, that we moderns approach philosophical ques-
tions not so much by asking what the things are into which we
inquire, as by asking what we know about them, and what they
appear to us as being. Here, as it seems to me, is the distinctive
and general mark of modern philosophy.

Observe where and at what point, or rather at what period, in
the history of philosophy the distinction assumes reality and
manifests itself as operative. It was during the period of the
Renaissance, it was when men's minds assumed the attitude of
self-guided inquirers, tentatively learning to see and read the book
of nature and of man, instead of the attitude of developing a dog-
matic system from principles supposed to be beyond the reach of
doubt. It was, in other words, during the period when men
turned away from the elaborate system of Scholasticism, based
upon the Aristotelian conception of Suhstajices, and asked them-
selves what in fact either they, or Aristotle himself, knew about
substances ; asked, in short, not what substances were, but what
they were known to them as heing.

The importance of this change of attitude, as bearing on the
history of philosophy, consisted in this, that it turned men's atten-
tion inwards, to the analysis of the mind's endowments and modes
of operation. It turned men's attention to what is sometimes
called psychology as distinguished from Tnetaphysic. It sent them
to look at the facts of consciousness as such ; instead of deducing
endless strings of conclusions from the definitions of the various
entities, or substances, their attributes, accidents, and relations. It

238 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

sent tliem again to facts, and tliis time more especially to 8ul)jective
facts. I do not myself adopt the terms, psychology ixw^ metaphysic
in the meanings I have just assigned to them. But that is matter of
nomenclature. The facts indicated are, I think, indisputable; the
study of the definitions of abstract entities, treated as realities, was
neglected for the study of the facts of consciousness as they laj
open to introspective analysis.

The connection of tiiis analysis with physiology was another
step in the same direction. And this is a branch in which, as I
need hardly remind yon, the most significant discoveries are being
made by modern research at the present time. Physiological psy-
chology is an indispensable auxiliary of philosophy proper. It is
not by itself philosophy, for its purpose is not to find a rationale
of the universe; but as controlling the speculations which are
directed to that end, by showing what the material and organic
conditions are upon which all feeling and thought depend, it fur-
nishes an aid to philosophy which is daily and yearly becoming
more considerable and more definite.

From Descartes downwards, through all the series of philoso-
phers of the seventeenth and the greater part of the eighteenth cen-
tury — in Gassendi, in Spinoza, in Ilobbes, in Malebranche, in Leib-
nitz, in Locke, in Berkeley, in Hume, in Wolf, in Mendelssohn —
the problem which chiefly occupied attention, and upon which the
rest were made to hinge, was the large and complex one of the
Relation between the Soul and the Body. It was a vast proldem,
including many subordinate ones, which presented various faces
for examination, and gave rise to various theories, as, for instance,
those of "physical influence," of "occasional causes," of "pre-
established harmony," of " innate ideas," of the " ideality of mat-
ter." I do not mean that this problem was taken as the whole of
])hilosophy, but that it was tliat part of philosoph}" upon wliich
men's minds were predominantly engaged. Not only the subjec-
tive, but more particularly the psychological, side of philosophy
was therein uppermost.

But the most decisive step in the direction of subjective analysis,
and away from the method of deduction from definitions of enti-
ties, was taken at the end of the last century by Kant. The time
was ripe, and the man appeared. I will not dwell upon what he
did for philosophy, or how he did it. We shall no doubt have

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 239

this well discussed when his turn arrives, in the course of the
present session. I will content myself with remarking that, so
closely do we still stand under the shadow of Kant's great theory
of the nature and mode of knowledge, for us the study of phi-
losophy and the study of its history almost coincide in the study
of Kant.

Kant, we may say, brought entities to the surface, made the
irreducible, insoluble, foreign matter in the body of knowledge
show itself in its true colors ; but he did not himself expel it from
the system. I allude, of course, to the Dinge-an-sich, Things-in-
themselves, of which he gave us the subjective theory in his " Critic
of Pure Reason." From that time to this, what we have had in
philosophy is either attempts at systems or rationales of the uni-
verse constructed without Thing s-in-tJiemselves^ or attempts at
bringing in Things-in-themselves again by systems of an openly
or covertly Scholastic character.

I do not know that it is needful to enumerate the principal
philosophies which are urging their claims at the present day ;
nevertheless, for the sake of precision and definiteness, it may be
advisable to do so. First, there is Scholasticism, of which we have
already spoken ; then there are the two German systems, Ilegeli-
anism on one side, Schopenhauer's system, and Schopenhauer's
system as modified by Yon Hartmann, on the other ; then there is
Comtian Positivism ; then there is what may be called Philosoph-
ical Phenomenism, of which M. Renouvier is the chief exponent;
then there is Mr. Herbert Spencer's system, which, having " The
Unknowable " for its basis, may fairly, I suppose, be called Agnos-
ticism. All these aim at some rationale of the universe, and
therefore come within the description of Philosophies / the ques-
tion, of course, being reserved, how far any of them is a true or
sufficient rationale, or capable of being developed into one.

Besides these there are numerous philosophical theories or sys-
tems, which it would be impossible to enumerate here, even if I
could do it, associated with the names of distinguished writers,
and founded some mainly upon Leibnitzian, some upon Spinozistic,
others upon Kantian or upon post-Kantian ideas, and striking out
lines and methods of inquiry more or less important and original.
The post-Kantian epoch, to which we belong, has been, and has
not yet ceased to be, fruitful in speculations, the issue of which is

240 Th< Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

not at present visible ; it is comparable, in complexity at least, to
tlie Renaissance period in pbilosopliy.

Finally, there oiio-ht to be mentioned, to make onr sketch com-
plete, two tendencies rather than systems of philosophy, always at
least latent in the world, and sometimes prominent; I mean, first,
philosophical Scepticism, whicli denies the possibility of any ten-
able philosophical theory at all; and, secondly, philosophical Ma-
terialism, whicih regards solid resisting matter as the be-all and
end-all of existence.

Such is a brief, necessarily a very brief, sketch of the chief
features in the philosophical world in which we live. Such is the
last and now present stage of that course of the history of philoso-
phy which we either have traced in our former session, or have
now to trace in the present one. I have made no mention of the
philosophies or philosophers of other times or countries than those
which are our own immediate forerunners; have said nothing of
the systems of China, or of ancient India, or of ancient Persia.
Not that these are not of extreme interest in many ways, or that
they do not throw great light on our own philosophical history ;
but that I think it is of prime importance to realize this great
fact, namely, that philosoph}' itself, at cmy stage, and therefore
our own ]»hilosophy at the present day, is the outcome and the
product of its own previous history, and that this history at every
stage has been influenced and conditioned by the social and po-
litical circumstances surrounding the men who devoted themselves
to philosopliical study.

Just as in any other branch of history, just as in social and
political history at large, so also in the history of philosophy, the
past is the parent of the present, and both together of the future.
Students of philosophy, those who labor either at discovering some
new fact which may be built into a rationale of the universe, or
at removing some old error or dispelling some old obscurity, are
in fact helping to make philosophical history as well as to make
philosophy ; are making philosophical history in the same sense
as those are making political and social history who take part in
political and social life with the view of promoting some distinct
line of policy. Let no one think that he is not philosophizing un-
less he produces a system of philosophy. Every step made towards
clear and distinct thinking, on any subject, and on any point how-

Philosophy in Relation to its History. 241

ever minute, if made with a view towards a philosophy or rationale
of the whole of knowledge (for that is the important point), has a
true philosophical value, and may help others as well as ourselves.

The study of philosophical history is, therefore, chiefly impor-
tant for this, for the light it throws upon the state of philosophy
itself at the present time ; it shows us the signiticance and the
drift of philosophical questions, just as the history of a nation is
important as throwing light upon the significance and the drift
of institutions, laws, and political measures. That is the main
and immediate use of the History of Philosophy ; that is the
main service which it renders to the students of philosophy itself.
And this it is, this point of view it is, which it is important before
all things to keep in mind while studying the history. The his-
tory serves as a lantern to show us where we are going, and what
we are doing, in philosophy.

We may learn much, no doubt, from the writings of philoso-
phers, from their controversies, from the method in which they
handle philosophical questions. But in so using them we are
using them oiot as history but as philosophy, we are taking them
not on their historical but on their philosophical side. The works
of the great masters, Plato, for instance, or Aristotle, or Kant,
are in this respect imperishable and indispensable sources of in-
struction. They form the mind for philosophy, and are as fresh
and living now as they were when they first saw light. The sys-
tems perish, the methods remain :

"The form remains, the function never dies."

But, I repeat, there is a wide difference between studying the
works of those who have made a name and a place for them-
selves in the history of philosophy, as works of philosophy, and
studying them as parts of the history. In the former case we
are really studying, not the history of philosophy, but philosophy
itself.

Such is the true connection, gentlemen, in my opinion, between
philosophy and its history. But before concluding I will briefly
contrast this with two other ways of studying the history, which
will bring out my meaning perhaps more clearly. In the first
place, the history of philosophy being, as we have seen, a part or
branch of the general history of mankind, we may study it in that
XYI— 16

24:3 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

character. We may study it, I mean, not so much in connection
with its subject-matter, philosopliy, as in connection with other
brandies of oreneral history, and in order to throw lio-ht on the
general history rather than on philosophical problems. This
woukl be treating it as a portion of general mental development,
and in this way it is part of the general lield to be trodden by the
historian of mankind. It is then studied without any express
reference to the triitli or error, the sufficiency or insufficiency, of
the rationales of the universe which are or have been proposed
from time to time in the course of the history, but solely with
regard to the fact that such and sucli theories have been pro-
posed. It is not needful to a student of this kind to have any
interest in philosophy as such; to him a philosophical system may
have the interest which a rare plant or animal, or a curious fossil
in some geological formation, has to the mere amateur in zoology
or geology. But tliough this way of studying the history of phi-
losophy is not only perfectly legitimate, but also has a great value
and interest to the student of the general history of mankind, I
question much whether a real and true understanding of any part
of philosophical history is attainable in this way; I mean without
the interest which springs from the subject of philosophy itself.
Just in the same way I should be inclined to distrust the depth
and accuracy of a history, say, of Literature or of Poetry, which
was written by one who took no direct and immediate interest of
his own in the beauty of a literary or poetical style. I should
think him apt to be a Dryasdust.

The second way of treating the history of philosophy which I
will mention is the very opposite of this. It consists in treating
philosophy as already attained, the true rationale of the universe
as already known, and from that height contemplating the prog-
ress made by the history as a progress up to the attainment of the
true philosophy, and looking forward to its future history as a
further development of the same theory. This way of looking at
the history of philosophy is, of course, only possible to those who
think that they have attained, at least to some considerable ex-
tent, a grasp of the true and final and sufficient theory of the
universe. Their philosophical theory, their rationale of the uni-
verse, then furnishes them with a clew to the history; they judge
every event and every stage in it, attribute importance or unim-

Philosophy in Belation to its History. 243

portance, look on it with favor or disfavor, according as it leads
up to or away from the establishment of that philosophical posi-
tion on which they have taken their stand.

This way of looking at the history of philosophy must be more
or less, in greater or less degree, adopted by every one who be-
lieves himself, I do not say in possession of, but even on the high
road to, a true theory of philosophy. In proportion as he is con-
vinced of his theory, and in proportion as that theory is a com-
plete one, will he be led by it into a dogmatic treatment of the
history of philosophy. Any knowledge really attained becomes
the stepping-stone to further knowledge — that is, becomes the basis
from which you start, as an a priori foundation ; that is, originates
a method to some extent dogmatic.

Extreme instances of this way of treating the history of phi-
losophy are those of Hegel and of the Scholastics. The latter
make all history centre round the doctrines and discipline of the
Church, and judge every theory and every event in history by its
leading either up to or away from that central system. The for-
mer sees in all the history of philosophy, as in every other branch
of history also, the development of the Logical Concept, Begriff,
in its three stages, his theory being that the development of the
Logical Concept is the true rationale of the universe.

Similar to these in some degree, but by no means so strictly or
minutely dogmatic, is Corate's reading of the history of philosophy
by the light of his " Law of the Three States," which supposes
that the final stage of thought — that of positivism without meta-
physic — has been reached and is possessed by the true leaders of
thought, and will be finally taken possession of, with fuller knowl-
edge, by mankind at large, who are to follow in their steps. But
this law is not originally due to a theorem in philosophy itself,
like those of Hegel and the Scholastics ; it was in the study of the
history of philosophy that it came to light, and, what is more im-
portant, not in the study of the history of philosophy as such, but
in the study of it as a branch of general human history. On the
one hand, therefore, it does not prescribe so minutely as the other
two theories the course which philosophy has taken or is to take
in the future ; but then, on the other hand, it is not like them a
law founded on a theorem of philosophy itself. It thus stands
midway between the two modes of dealing with the history of

24:4: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

philosophy, which 1 have signalized, and draws some of its char-
acteristics from the one and some of them from the other.

I think, gentlemen, that neither of these two ways will recom-
mend itself to us for practical adoption in the present session. As
to the dogmatic method, we are not yet, as a Society, in a position
to accept any philosophical theory sufficiently complete to afibrd
us the necessary vantage ground. And as to the other method,
that of treating the history of philosophy as merely a part of the
general history of civilization, we are, I presume, bent, as a So-
ciety, to trace out and to use the history of philosophy with the
aim, and for the end, of deriving from it light upon the great sub-
ject of our study, philosophy itself. jS^o other ultimate aim than
this is expressed by tlie name which the Society has adopted.
Our purpose, I apprehend, is to make out, and by combining our
efibrts to help each other to make out, whether any Rationale of
the Universe is attainable ; to what degree, whether of compre-
hensiveness or of minuteness, such a rationale can be carried ; and
what system or set of principles has the best claim to be such a
rationale in both respects ; I mean, in respect both of the com-
prehensiveness of its range, and of the thoroughness and stability
of its principles of explanation. Adopting, then, the position and
aims of inquirers in this whole matter, and keeping this position
and aim in view, let us proceed to the study of the efibrts of
former laborers in the same field, to gather from them what help
we can towards the attainment of the one common aim, theirs and
ours, a complete and true philosophy, so far as it is attainable by
human powers.

THE SOURCES AXD FACULTIES OF COGNITION.

TRANSLATED FROM THI POLISH OF E. TREXTOWSKI (the firSt VolumC of his Logic) BY

I. PODBIELSKI.

Analysis of the sources and faculties of our cognition, together
with its certitude and iramediateness.

God, as the source of all things, is essence ; the world is exist-
ence ; and man is essence and existence in union. For the reason
that in man essence and existence are [united, it follows that in

TTie Sources and JFaouUies of Cognition. 245

man are found both godliness and worldliness [a divine element
and a secular element].

Man, as essence, as godliness, stands in absolute unity with
God. As worldliness, he stands in absolute unitv with the world.
This absolute unity makes possible to him the cognition of God
and that of the world, and hence the cognition of the universe,
or cognition in general. Without it he would not be capable of
cognition.

We can demonstrate this in another way. God, the world, and
man, have alike truth and knowledge for the factors of their be-
ing. Truth and knowledge unite in God and constitute His idea
(notio). God is the first [primordial] focus [radiant-point] of the
universe, or he is its perception, consciousness, and its own feeling
of self, on the bosom of eternity, for this reason solely, that he is
absolute idea (notio), that in Plim truth and knowledge melt to-
gether and constitute God's selfhood or I am. Truth and knowl-
edge, in the realm of nature, give rise to a Dualism. Truth is
here, in nature, and knowledge is there, in God. Truth and
knowledge do not unite here in the temporal nature's cognition
{notio), and for that reason nature has no consciousness, nor its
own feeling of self, its selfiiood. God's creation was imperfect,
because it did not have its own focus [or unity of consciousness].
God, wishing to complete it, breathed His essence into the most
perfect of natural beings, or into the last being that he had cre-
ated he breathed truth and knowledge by means of His idea
{notio). And hence arose man as the being capable of cognition.

Man attains to cognition, and by this means realizes God's
breath {notio). He is the second focus of the universe, or he is its
perception, consciousness, and its own feeling of self, only because
he has in himself the breath of God — that is, God's idea {notio) —
because in him truth and knowledge melt together and constitute
his selfhood or / am, and make him the image of God. Man,
then, is capable of cognition, because he is an essence and exist-
ence ; and, therefore, he constitutes the absolute unity of the uni-
versal essence and existence. Moreover, he is enabled, by the
breath of God, to become the focus of his own and of all other
truth and knowledge. Cognition is the specific attribute of man,
it has its foundation in man, and its perfect development in the
world and in God. It is, in general, like a plant striking its roots

24:6 The Journal of Sj)eauJative Philosophj.

into the earth and lifting its crown and summit toward heaven,
Coii'nition is the bond unitinii; man with the creation and with its
Creator — it is the end of existence returnino- into its beginning.

We know that man is perception, consciousness, and his own
feeling of self, or that he is the focus and consciousness of the
univei*se in time. We know also why he is so, and must be so;
we know, finally, that this, and nothing else, makes him capable of
cognition.

Now arises the question, upon what basis in him does this per-
ception, this consciousness, and this feeling of self rest ? On the
answer to this question depends the discovery of the sources of
cognition. Perception, consciousness, and feeling of self or self-
hood, being the breath of God, God's idea {notio) in man, consti-
tute man's being. What is this being? It is a created deity, a
selfhood, or the soul. It follows that the soul or selfhood is only
in man, or in the [only] being ca])able of cognition. Perception
is of an empirical nature, consciousness of a speculative, and per-
sonality of a philosophical nature. Our selfhood is also triple :
empirical, speculative, and philosophical. Perception, then, is the
special attribute of empirical selfhood, consciousness of speculative,
and personality of philosophical selfhood. What is the empirical
selfhood ? It is a body. But body is only an abstraction, a dead
reality. It is a living body, or a body regarded as a total self-
hood, in its external aspect. In such a body only is found the
capability of perception. Upon what does this capability rest?
Upon the passivity of body, upon its susceptibility and its feelings :
upon the fact that it can be the looking-glass of the external
world — i. e., by means of the senses.

The senses, therefore, are the substratum, bearer, vehicle of
perception, and, therefore, the first source of cognition. They are
the eye of the selfhood, seeing the external form of all truth and
knowledge.

What is the speculative selfhood ? It is a spirit. But spirit is
only an abstraction, a dead ideality. It is a living spirit, or a
spirit regarded as the total selfhood, viewed in its internal aspect.
Only in such a spirit \_i. e., as viewed internally] lives conscious-
ness. Upon what does this consciousness rest ? Upon the fact
that spirit thinks, and knows that it thinks, that it is thinking.
What is the foundation of this thinking in spirit, or what is the

The Sonrces and Faculties of Cognition. 247

faculty of pure thinking — thinking a priori? It is Reason.
Reason, then, is the total ground of consciousness, and, therefore, it
is the second source of cognition. It is tlie eye of the selfhood
seeing the internalitj of all truth and knowledge.

Finally, what is the philosophical selfhood ? It is the soul, as
selfhood itself in itself; that is, God's breath in ns, the focus of
body and spirit, the core of personality, a deity. Personality,
or the feeling of self, is the quality of this philosophical selfhood.
And no wonder a deity, feeling itself to be deity, conies to its
own feeling of self or personality. Upon what does this person-
ality rest in the philosophical selfhood ? Upon the capacity for
its own feeling of self, or upon the all-including mind. All-in-
cluding mind, then, is the foundation of personality, and, there-
fore, is the third source of cognition. It is the eye of the soul,
as total selfhood seeing the basis of all truth and knowledge,
seeing God's word, deity, God Himself. Therefore, only because
we have the senses, reason, and the all-including mind, are we ca-
pable of perception, consciousness, and our own feeling of self or
personality, and also of cognition. The senses and reason have
the all-including mind for their principle and organic unity. The
all-including mind is God's breath in us, or the capacity for cog-
nition given us by God. It makes us the temporary focus of the
universe and the image of God. We have, then, three sources of
cognition — senses, reason, and all-including mind.

These three sources of cognition constitute relative diiierence,
absolute indifference, and philosophical diiference in indifference.
It is properly the one and the same source of cognition, but re-
garded, first, from its external, secondly, from its internal, and,
thirdly, from its fundamental side. From these sources How cer-
tain streams, which are their powers, and are called the faculties
of our selfhood. As there are three sources of cognition, so
there are three classes of these faculties. Each of these classes
is a system in itself, and all three together create one organic sys-
tem. To the domain of the senses belong perception, memory,
and the understanding (their higher powers) ; to the reason, judg-
ment and imagination ; and to the all-including mind, reflection
and attention, as its lower powers, or precedent and dawning ac-
tivities.

Wishing to facilitate the subsequent exposition of these sources

248

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and faculties of coiinition, we present tlieiu here in a systematic
arranijenieut. There is a sacred tree growing up in our selfhood,
making it the mirror of all truth aud knowledge, and forming
also the substratum of its capacity for cognition.

+ Body. Ptrcaptive Conscloiuness.

± Selfhood = the Soul, Personality =
Feeling of Self.

— Spirit, Conicioiuuess.

a. Senses, the first source o. c. .^-
nitioD, aud their internal
focus, perception.

c. Attention, the principle- ci
mind.

b. Imai;ination, the principle
of all reasonings.

a". Memort/.

c^. Reflection.

b^. Judgment.

a'. Understanding (Intellect).

c'. All-inclnding Mind, the
third source of Cognition.

b''. Reason, the second source
of Cognition.

We will describe these sources and faculties of cognition in the
most concise manner possible.

Sense (Latin, sensus ; German, Sinn^ Smnlichkeii) is our total
selfhood standing forth in its empirical externality, and opening
itself to the external world of existence ; it is our selfhood per-
vading the body, and enkindling therein physical feeling for the
world surrounding us; it is a corporeal truth and knowledge,
entering into contact with the universal corporeal truth and
knowledge ; it is our real knowing (notio) seeking for our real
cognition.

Sense is passivity, with all that appertains to it ; it is also a
means of reaching wholeness, iniinitude, universality, necessity,
reality, affirmation, extension in space, substance, objectivity,
egotism, co-existence, and perception. As the living passivity,
and gifted with perception, it is the temporary mirror in which
all nature sees itseK, finds also its focus, its image, and its word.
The empirical selfhood is on the one side, and the external truth
and knowledge, belonging to all existence, on the other. These
are two poles, on one great magnetic needle. Sense is the bond
of the difference in indifference, or union, between the empirical
selfhood and the external world existence; it is the central point
in that magnetic needle. Without senses, external truth and
knowledge within us would not be able to enter into contact with
external truth and knowledge outside of us ; these two truths and
knowledges would not be able to become conscious either of their

The Pantheism of Spinoza. 249

relative difference, or of their absolute indifference, or of their
philosophical difference in indifference — that is, of their harmony
or mediated union.

{To be continued.)

THE PANTHEISM OF SPINOZA.

BY JOHN DEWEY.

The problem of philosophy is to determine the meaning of
things as we find them, or of the actual. Since these things may
be gathered under three heads, the problem becomes : to determine
the meaning of Thought, Nature, and God, and the relations of
one to another. The first stage of thought being Dogmatism, the
first philosophy will be that of the common uneducated mind —
Natural Realism. God, self, and the world are three independent
realities, and the meaning of each is just what it seems to be. If,
however, they are independent realities, how can they relate to
each other ? This question gives rise to the second stage of Dog-
matic Philosophy, which, according to the mind of the holder,
takes either the direction of Dogmatic Idealism or a Dualism
with God as the Deus ex Machina, like that of Descartes. The
reconciliation of the elements here involved leads to the third
stage, where God becomes the Absolute, and Nature and Self are
but his manifestations. This is Pantheism, and the view-point of
Spinoza. Thought and being become one ; the order of thought
is the order of existence. Now a final unity seems obtained, and
real knowledge possible.

O J.

The problem of philosophy being to determine the meaning ot
the Actual, its final test must be the completeness with which its
answer agrees with and accounts for the Actual. By this we do
not mean, of course, that its interpretation must agree with the
common interpretation. There is certainly no shadow of reason
for supposing that the metaphysic of the uneducated mind is the
final one to which all metaphysic must conform. But every phi-
losophy must answer this question : Does it provide the factors
which in their development account for the Actual as it is inter-

250 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosojihy.

preted by that theory, and for other interpretations also ? In
short, it must account not only for things as they are, but also a&
they seem to be. To stop at the first point is simply to beg the
question. The best answer to any question is the one which
enables you to understand and to account for all other possible
answers.

Has Spinoza done this ? It must be confessed that to many
minds he seems to have done so. That we may attempt to see
whether he has or not, let us state the problem again. It is to
reconcile the Infinite, and the apparent finite, by the hypothesis of
the Infinite alone ; to show the unity between the Absolute and
the seeming relative by the hypothesis of the Absolute alone. A
hard task ; but in reading the Ethics of Spinoza, we seem to find
it accomplished, and the two elements, side by side, deduced from
a common principle. To aid tlie mind to determine whether this
accomplishment is only seeming, or is real, is our object now.

We shall endeavor to show that the solution of the problem by
Spinoza, the reconciliation of the two elements, is brought about
only by the assumption of contradictory elements in his premises,
and the surreptitious bringing in of new ones as he proceeds. As
we begin, we can do so witii no better thought than that of Kant.
A system which proceeds geometrically, like S})inoza's, must either
draw synthetic or analytic conclusions, the analytic being con-
clusions which simply unfold wiiat was already contained in the
given conceptions, the synthetic being those which go beyond the
given ones and add something to them. If the former, then, unless
you would beg the whole question, you must show the validity
and reality of your definitions; if the latter, you must show
whence you obtain your material for going outside of the given
conceptions. We shall endeavor to show the existence of contra-
dictory elements in Spinoza's premises, not by a direct examina-
tion of them, but indirectly by drawing from them conclusions in
plainest contradiction to those which he draws.

The object of the First Part of Spinoza's Ethics, "De Deo," is
to demonstrate the existence of one substance infinite in infinite
attributes, and to show the relation of this substance to finite
things — viz., that they are but its accidents. That our exposition
may be as clear as possible, we shall for the occasion adopt Spino-
za's method, and, taking his axioms and definitions as our prera-

TJie Pantheism of Spinoza. 251

ises, draw conclusions from them in geometrical form. To dis-
tinguish, om' propositions will be designated by Arabic, and
Spinoza's by Roman numerals.

Definit. I. By that which is the cause of itself I understand
that whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature can
only be conceived as existent.

II. That thing is said to be finite in its kind which can be
limited by another of the same nature.

III. By substance I understand that which is in itself, and is
conceived through itself — i. 6,, whose conception does not need any
other conception by which it must be formed,

IV. By attribute I understand that which the mind perceives,
in substance, as constituting its essence.

Y. By mode I understand the accidents of substance, or that
which is in something else, by means of which also it is con-
ceived.

YI. By God I understand the being absolutely infinite — i. e.,
the substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which ex-
presses an eternal and infinite essence.

YII. That is called free which exists by the sole necessity of
its own nature, and is determined to action by itself alone.

YIII. By eternity I understand existence itself, in so far as it
is conceived to follow necessarily from the definition alone of the
eternal thing.

Axiom I. All things which are, are in themselves, or in some-
thing else.

II. That wdiich cannot be conceived by means of another
must be conceived through itself.

III. From a given determined cause an effect follow^s neces-
sarily, and, on the other hand, if there be no determined cause,
an effect cannot follow.

lY. The knowledge of an effect depends upon and involves
the knowledge of the cause.

Y. Whatever things have nothing in common with each other
cannot be understood by means of each other, or the conception
of one does not involve that of the other.

YI. A true idea nmst agree with the object represented.

YII. The essence of whatever can be conceived as non-existent
does not involve existence.

252 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosoj>hy.

Prop. 1. All attribute must be conceived through itself, and
throuixh itself alone.

Deui. An attribute is that which the intellect perceives to con-
stitute the essence of substance (Def. 4), and hence must be con-
ceived through itself (Def. 3), which was the first point ; and
through itself alone ; for if an attribute could be conceived through
something else, since it constitutes the essence of substance, a sub-
stance could be also thus conceived, w^hich is absurd (Def. 3).
Therefore, etc.

Prop. 2. No attribute can possess a mode,

Dem. A mode, if it exist, is an accident of substance or (since
attribute constitutes the essence of substance) of attribute, or that
which is in something else, by whose means it must be conceived
(Def. 5). But an attribute must be conceived through itself alone
(Prop. 1), and hence cannot possess a mode. Q. E. D.

Prop. 3. Nothing exists but attributes and modes.

Dem. For all things can be conceived only through themselves
or through something else. But that which is conceived through
itself is an attribute (Defs. 4 and 3, or Prop. 1), and that which is
conceived throuo;h somethino; else is a mode. Therefore, etc.

Cor. 1. Nothing exists but attributes. If not, suppose some-
thing else exists, which (by preceding Prop.) must be a mode.
But since a mode (Def. 5) cannot be in itself alone, it must be in
something else (Ax. 1), which can only be an attribute, since noth-
ing else exists. But this is absurd, since (Prop. 2) no attribute
can possess a mode. Therefore, etc.

Cor. 2. Things can be distinguished only by their attributes.
For nothing else exists.

Cor. 3. Two or more attributes of the same nature cannot be
given. For since things (preceding Cor.) can be distinguished
only by their attributes, if there were two of the same nature they
could not be distinguished — i. e., would be one and the same (Ax.
4), Therefore, etc.

Prop. 4. Every attribute is infinite.

Dem. For if Unite it must be limited by an attribute (Cor. 1,
Prop. 3) of the same nature (Def. 2), which is impossible (Cor. 3,
Prop. 3). Therefore, etc.

Cor. There are no finite thinsrs. For nothinoj exists but attri-
butes (Cor. 1, Prop. 3), and they are all infinite.

The Pantheism of Spinoza. 253

Scholium. It will now be immediately seen that we have ar-
rived at a denial of one of Spinoza's fundamental conclusions — viz.,
the existence of finite things as modes or accidents of God. It has
not been sufficiently pointed out, I think, how surreptitiously Spi-
noza introduces this conception. It will be found in Prop. XXYIII,
where he states that any particular thing which is finite, and has a
determined existence, cannot exist or be determined to action
except it be so determined by another finite object similarly de-
termined, and so on infinitely. But it will be noticed that this is
a conditional judgment, stating only that if there are finite things,
they are so determined. But the very question is : are there
such finite objects? and Spinoza only assumes that. He has made
his sj'nthetic judgment only by smuggling in one of the very
things to be accounted for. The question as to how finite objects
are determined possesses no relevancy or validity until it is shown
that finite objects can exist at all. But Spinoza proceeds as if his
conditional judgment possessed validity not only in its conclusion,
but also with regard to its predicate — the existence of finite
things. In short, he begs the whole question, and the greater
part of his second book rests ultimately on this petitio. An ex-
amination of the demonstration of this 28th Prop, will show what
conclusion Spinoza ought to have arrived at regarding the exist-
ence of the predicate of his major premise. He first shows, by
reference to previous propositions, that whatever has been deter-
mined has been so determined by God, and that a finite thing
cannot be produced from the absolute nature of any attribute of
God, nor from any attribute modified with a modification which
is eternal and infinite. Hence., he concludes, it must be produced
by some modification which is finite. In other words, the condi-
tion of a finite thing is a finite thing, and so regressively in an
infinite series. In other words, again, the existence of finite things
is not accounted for at all ; it is only assumed. The conclusion
he should have drawn is the following : A finite thing, if it exist,
must depend upon another finite, and so on forever. Hence God,
since he is infinite, could never cause a finite thing; but since he
is the cause of everything, no finite thing could be caused at all,
or have existence. Hence the hypothesis is false. That Spinoza
did not see that this was the only conclusion to be logically drawn
from his arguments, shows how completely his mind was preoccu-

554 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

pied witli the realistic assumptions which lie had unconsciously
derived from previous systems. In a similar way we may dem-
onstrate that the hypothesis regard inii; determination to action or
change must be false if we admit the previous conclusions. For
they show that no attribute can change, or produce change, since
it is eternal and immutable (Cor. 2, Prop. XX). And if a mode
can change, the change must depend upon a change in some otlier
mode, and so on in an infinite regression. That is, God could not
produce the first change, which is absurd. Therefore, the hypothe-
sis of change is absurd.

Prop. 5. One attribute cannot be produced by another.

Dem. r^or since they have nothing in common (Cor. 3, Prop, 3)
they cannot be conceived through each other (Ax. 5), and, accord-
ingly, one cannot be the cause of another (Ax. 4). Q. E. D.

Prop. 6. It belongs to the nature of attributes to exist.

For since one cannot be the cause of another (preceding Prop.),
it must be its own cause — ^. e. (Def. 1), it belongs to its nature to
exist.

Cor. Attributes are eternal (preceding Prop, and Def. 8).

Prop. 7. An infinite number of attributes exist.

Dem. If you deny it, imagine, if you can, that there is not an
infinite number. Then the essence of each will not include exist-
ence, which is absurd (Prop. 6). Therefore, the hypothesis is ab-
surd, and an infinite number, etc.

Scholium. The reader will observe that this is precisely the argu-
ment of Spinoza in Prop. XXI regarding the existence of God.

Prop. 8. An infinite number of substances exist.

Dem. Proved like the previous proposition, or

Aliter. Since an infinite number of attributes exist, each of
which constitutes the essence of substance (Def. 4), an infinite
number of substances must exist.

Cor. God, or one substance with an infinite number of attri-
butes, does not exist.

Scholium. Tiie reader who may have been prepared for the
demonstration that the existence of finite things was contradic-
tory to the remainder of Spinoza's philosophy, will perhaps be
surprised to see tiiis denial of God's existence, and think that it
may depend upon some trickery of words, and not be logically in-
volved in Spinoza's premises. But that it is, may be shown, I think.

The Pantheism of Spinoza. 255

In Prop. XI, where he attempts to prove the existence of onhj
one substance of infinite attributes, he really proves only the exist-
ence of an infinite number of substances, or of an infinite number
of attributes. The subsumption of these latter under unity is en-
tirely unjustified by anything in the proposition. In scholium of
Prop. X he seems to realize the difficulty of having an infinity of
attributes belonging to one and the same substance, but attempts
to escape from it by saying that nothing could be clearer than
that the more reality or being anything has, the more attributes it
must have, and hence a being absolutely infinite must have an
infinity of attributes. This would be true if he had before proved
that for substance, as he defines it, to have such a number was
possible, or implied no contradiction. But he has not done this,
and it may be shown in the following that he cannot. An attri-
bute is that which constitutes the essence of substance. Hence,
if there are two or more attributes {a fortiori, if an infinity) in the
same substance, they must either constitute different essences,
which is absurd, or the same essence, in which case they will be
one and the same attribute. Two things only are possible to
Spinoza. He may have either an infinite number of attributes
existing in entire independence of each other, hence constituting
an infinite number of substances ; or one infinite substance, with
one infinite attribute. But to unite the two conceptions involves
contradiction, as before shown. Yet this is what he does practi-
cally, using either, as the exigencies of the case require.

We now see Spinoza as a magician, supplied with his conjuring
material. With two infinites — one the very negation of the finite,
the other existing only in relation to the finite ; with two sub-
stances — one with a number of attributes, the other with but one
— he can proceed by dexterous substitutions to produce any re-
quired results before our astonished eyes.

This concludes our examination of Part First. We hope that
our original statement regarding the existence of contradictions in
the premises, and the introduction of new conceptions from with-
out, will be seen to be justified. The contradiction is now seen to
be this : In definitions three and four a substance is posited which
can be conceived only, and, consequently, can exist only in itself,
constituted by attributes necessarily existing in the same manner.
But in the fifth we have the idea of something which can exist in

t?5() The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

something else. If the tliird and fourth are accepted, this latter
must be necessaVily denied, unless we hold that there exists some-
thinfi: besides substance and mode, which is contradictory to the
first and second axioms. The similar contradiction between the
two former and the sixth has been sufficiently brought out in the
scholium to our last proposition.

It would not be much better than a waste of time to follow
Spinoza through his other Parts and show that in every cuse his
apparent reconciliation of the finite and the infinite is brought
about either by the introduction of the thing to be accounted for,
or that it is contradictory to some other part of his system, or both.
The clew is now in the possession of the reader, and any one who
wishes to, may develop it at length.

"We wish, however, to simply direct attention to a few points in
Part Second, " De Mente." Axiom fifth of this book, upon which
he relies for his proof that the object of the idea which constitutes
the real existence of the Imman mind is the body (see Prop. XIII,
Pt. 2), declares that we neither feel, nor perceive, any particular
objects except bodies and modes of thought. But Prop. XVI, Pt.
1, declares that infinite things in infinite modes must exist, from
each of which (Prop. XXXVI, Pt. 1) some effect must necessarily
follow, which effect must involve the knowledge of its cause (Ax.
4, Pt. 1). Again, as the first book attempted to explain finite
things as accidents of substance, so the second attempts to explain
error as nothing positive, but simply inadequacy or privation.
To do this he is obliged to assume three kinds of Gods. First,
God in so far as he is infinite (Prop. XI, Cor. : quatenus infinitus
est), in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind
{ihid. : quatenus humanm Mentis essentiam constituit), and in so
far as he is considered as aflfected with the idea of a particular
object actually existing (Prop. IX, quatenus rei singularis actu
existentis idea affectus consideratur). It is needless to say that
these diflferent notions are cither meaningless or else contradic-
tory to each other, and brought in as the exigencies of the case
happen to require one rather than the other. But the reader can
easily demonstrate for himself, that error, even in the sense of
privation or inadequate knowledge, is impossible by using the
propositions of the first book. Another contradiction may be
shown as follows : In the scholium to Prop. XV he shows that

The Pantheism, of Spinoza. 257

matter can be regarded as divisible, or composed of parts, only
in so far as it relates to the imagination ; but in the second book,^
when he comes to account for the imagination, he is obliged to as-
sume these same parts for an adequate explanation (see the Pos-
tulates, and Props. XY, XVI, XYII, with Cor, and scholium, of
Pt. 2).

In truth, Spinoza is a juggler who keeps in stock two Gods — one
the perfect intiiiite and absolute being, the other the mere sum of
the universe with all its defects as they appear to us. When he
wishes to show God as the adequate cause of all, to explain truth,
inculcate morality, his legerdemain, brings the First before us; when
finite things, change, error, etc., are to be accounted for, his Second
appears — the God who does things not in so far as he is Infinite,
and who is afiected with the idea of finite things.

We might have known, a priori, that such contradictions must
occur in a pantheistic system like Spinoza's. It rests upon the
basis that the only real knowledge is immediate knowledge. In
this case the Absolute becomes mere Being, an Abstract Universal,
possessed with no determinations whatever, for determinations are
negations. Such, when Spinoza is truly logical, is his God. But,
in this case, he cannot account for particular concrete objects.
The two elements are necessarily irreconcilable from such a stand-
point as Spinoza's regarding knowledge.

Two logical pantheistic systems are possible. One must start
with the conception of an Absolute Perfect Being in whom are all
things, but this theory cannot account for things as we find them.
It must deny that they are what they seem to be, and elevate them
into the Divine. But the rock on which every such theory must
split is the problem : If, then, all things are divine, how, then, do
they appear to us otherwise ? Here is where Spinoza failed. The
other theory must start from the conception of things as they seem
to be, and produce its Pantheism, not by elevating them into God,
but by bringing God down to them. Such a theory, of course,
can never arrive at the conception of the Absolute, the Perfect, and
the Infinite. Strictly speaking, it is not Pantheism at all ; it is
Pancosmism. But this is not a solution ; it is merely an assump-
tion of all that is to be explained.
XVI- 17

258 The Jcnirnal of Speculative Philosophy.

THE ABSOLUTE EELIGION.

TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND VOLUME OF HEGEL's "PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION*' BY

F. L. SOLDAN.

III. — The Idea in the Element of the Church,^ or the Realm of

the Spirit.

The first ptnnt considered was the idea of this stand-point for
consciousness; the second, wliich is taken for granted on this
stand-point, was that which exists for the Church ; the third is the
transition to the Church itself.

This third spliere is the idea in its determination as individual-
ity, l)ut in the first phice only the representation of the One Indi-
vid nal, the divine, the universal individuaHty, of individuality as
it is in-and-for-itseif. One is in this way all; once is all times, in
itself, according to the idea, a simple determinateness. But the
individuality, as being for-itself, is the emancipating of the differ-
entiated phases into free immediateness, and is exclusive. It is
the nature of individuality to be at the same time empirical indi-
viduality.

Tiiis individuality, being exclusive, is immediateness for others,
and is the return from the other into itself. The individuality of
the divine idea, the divine idea as one man, completes itself really
only by having in the first place for its opposite the many individ-
uals, and by leading them back to the unity of spirit, to the Church,
and by existing in this as real, universal self-consciousness.

When thus the transition of the idea has been developed to the
point of sensuous embodiment, the distinctive characteristic of the
religion of the spirit shows itself in the fact that all the phases
are developed to their extreme determinateness and completeness.
Even in this extreme antithesis spirit is sure of itself as absolute
truth, and thei'efore it has no fear of anything, not even of sensu-
ous embodiment. It is the cowardice of abstract thought to fear

' The German word is " Gemcinde," literally community, congregation ; but these
English tenns are not wide enouf^li for the meaning which Hegel attaches to the Ger-
man word. We shall therefore translate it by Church, which is the sense in which Hegel
uses the word " Gemcinde " in most instances.

The Ahsolute Religion. 259

and shun the sensuous embodiment, after the manner of monks ;
modern abstraction shows this disgustino; affectation of superiority
over the phase of sensuous embodiment.

On tlie individuals in the Church the demand is made to wor-
ship the divine idea in the form of individuality, and to become
like it. This is easy for the tender, loving mind — for woman ; but
the other side is, on the contrary, that the subject to which thia
demand of love is addressed is absolutely free, and has seized the
substantiality of his self-consciousness; for the independent idea,
therefore, for man, this demand is an iniinitely hard one. Against
this union of the human and divine implied in the worship of a
single, sensuous individual, as God, the liberty of the subject re-
bels. The Oriental does not refuse it, but he is nothing; he is in
himself cast away, without having cast himself away — i. e., with-
out havino; the consciousness of inlinite freedom within himself.
But this love, this recognition, is the very opposite of that Oriental
feeling, and this is the highest miracle, which then, indeed, is spirit
itself.

This sphere is the realm of spirit for the reason that the indi-
vidual has infinite value in himself, knows himself as absolute
freedom, possesses in himself the most rigid firmness and consis-
tency, and gives up this consistency and preserves himself in what
is strictly an other; love harmonizes everything, even this abso-
lute antithesis of dependence and independence.

The object of contemplation in this religion requires the renun-
ciation of all other sensible objects, of everything which otherwise
has value; it is the perfect ideality, which opposes polemically all
the splendor of the world ; in this single person (of Christ), in this
present immediate individual in which the divine idea appears, all
worldliness has been sunk, so that he is the only sensuous presence
which has value. I'his individuality is therefore strictly univer-
sal. In ordinary love this infinite abstraction from all worldliness
is also found, and the lover places his whole satisfaction in a spe-
cial individual ; but this satisfaction still belongs to particularity
it is the particular contingency and the sentiment which is in con-
trast to the universal, and which tries to become objective to itself
in this manner.

This particular, on the other hand, in the form of which I will
the divine idea, is strictly universal, and it is therefore, and at the

260 The Journal of Speculative Philosojyhy.

same time, removed from the observation of senses ; it passes away ;
it becomes past history. This sensuous mode must disappear, and
must elevate itself to the sphere of image-conception. The forma-
tion of the Church has for its content the fact that the sensuous
forn] passes over into a spiritual element. Tiiis purification from
the immediate being still retains the sensuous element, but as
passing away ; this is the negation in the way in which it is ])os-
ited, and appears in a sensuous special form of existence as such
{am srnnlichcn Diesen). This object of contemplation is given
only in an individual instance ; it is no heirloom, nor is it capable
of a renewal like that of the substance in the Lama. It cannot
be of that nature, because sensuous phenomenality, according to
its nature, is l)ut transitory; it is to be spiritualized, and it is
therefore essentially a past phenomenon, and is elevated to the
sphere of thought.

There is also another stand-point possible, where the Son and
his appearance remain permanent. Such is Catholicism, where
Mary and the saints are added to tlie mediating and reconciling
power of the Son, and where the spirit exists in the Church as a
hierarchy only, and not in the Cliurch as a con<>;regation and com-
m unity. But in this way the second element in the determination
of the idea remains an image-concept instead of becoming spirit-
ualized. In other words, the spirit is not known objectively, but
rather in a subjective manner only, such as the Church has in its
immediateness, or which lives in tradition.

Spirit in this form of reality (i. <?., the Church) is, as it were,
the third person.

For that stage of development which stands in need of it, the
sensuous embodiment can be continually reproduced by pictures;
not by pictures as works of art, but miracle-working pictures, or,
in short, in any sensuous aspect. And then, also, it is not only
the corporeity and the body of Christ which can satisfy the sen-
suous need and want, but it is the sensuous element found in his
bodily presence in general — the cross, the places where he dwelt.
To this, relics, etc., may be a<lded. Where there is a need tliere
is no Jack of such mediations. But for the spiritual Church the
immediate ejnbodiment and the now (of Christ's mortal life) have
passed away. The sensuous image-conception supplements the
past, which it finds to be a one-sided phase, since the present in-

The Absolute Religion. 261

eludes as its phases the past and the future. Thus the sensuous
image-concept supplies the idea of the second coming (of Christ),
but the essentially absolute return is the turning from externality
to the internal ; it is a comforter who cannot come before the sen-
suous history, as such is past.

This, then, is the point of the formation of the Church, or it is
the third point ; it is the spirit. It is the transition from the ex-
ternal to the internal. The important element in it is the certi-
tude of the individual subject of its own infinite, uusensuous es-
sence, knowing itself to be infinite, eternal, and immortal.

The retrogressive impulse towards the internal self-conscious-
ness which is contained in this return movement is not that of
the Stoics, which, through thinking, has received value by the
strength of its own spirit, that seeks the reality of thinking in na-
ture in natural thino;s, and in the comprehension of the same, and
which, therefore, is without the Infinite Pain, and at the same
time stands in a thoroughly positive relation to the world. It is
rather that self-consciousness which renounces without end its
particularity and individuality, and has innnite value in that love
only which is contained in the infinite pain and arises out of it.
All immediateness in which man might possess value is cast away,
and it is mediation alone through which such value — although it
is an infinite one here — is attributable to him, and in it subjectiv-
ity becomes truly infinite and self-existing. Man exists by this
mediation only ; he is not immediate, and therefore at first he is
merely capable of having that value; but this capability and pos-
sibility is his pfjsitive, absolute destiny.

In this determination lies the reason for the fact that the im-
mortality of the soul becomes a definite doctrine in the Christian
religion. The soul or individual subjectivity has the infinite eter-
nal destiny to become a citizen in the kingdom of God. This is
a destiny and a life which is removed from time and transitori-
ness, and, since it is opposed to these limited spheres, this eternal
destiny determines itself at the same time as a future. The eter-
nal postulate — to view God, that is to say, to become conscious in
spirit of his truth as a present one — does not yet find satisfaction
in this temporal present, so far as that consciousness which is im-
age-consciousness is concerned.

When subjectivity has apprehended its infinite value, it relin-

262 The Journal of Sjyeculative Pldlosophy.

quislies with this all distinctions of dominion, power, position, and
even that of sex; before God all men are equal. In the nes;;ation
of the infinite pain of love alone lies the possibility and root of
the true universal rights — the realization of freedom. The for-
mal Roman legality starts from the positive stand point and from
the understanding, and has in it no principle for the absolute test
of the legal stand-point; it is altogether secular.

The purity of this subjectivity, which mediates itself in love
out of infinite pain, exists by that mediation only which finds its
objective shape and existence for contemplation in the suflfering,
the death, and the ascension of Christ. On tlie other side, this
subjectivity has at the same time in itself this mode of reality : it
is a multitude of subjects and individuals ; but, since it is in itself
universal, and not mutually excluding individuals, the multitude
of individuals must be posited to bo notiiing but a seeming, and
the very fact that it posits itself in itself as this seeming is the
unity of faith, in the thought of fiiith, and therefore contained in
this third element. This is the love of the Church which seems ta
consist of many subjects, a multiplicity which, however, is a seem-
ing only.

This love is neither human love, nor philanthropy, nor sexual
love, nor friendship. People have often wondered wh}^ such a
noble relation as that of friendship is not among the duties which
Christ commends. Friendship is a relation to which particularity
attaches, and men are friends not so ranch directly as Oi)jectively
in some substantial connecting link, in a third element, in certain
principles, in studies, in science; in short, the tie is an objective
content, and not attachment as such, as that of man to woman as
a special personality. But this love of the Church is mediated at
the same time by the worthlessness of all particularity. The love
of man to woman, and friendship, may well take place, but they
are essentiallv determined as subordinate; thev are determined ta
be something imperfect, not as evil, not as indifferent, but as
something which is not permanent, since they are themselves sac-
rificed, and must not be an obstacle to that absolute direction and
unity.

The unity in this infinite love, arising out of infinite pain, is,
therefore, strictly not a sensuous, worldly union, not a union ex-
isting between still valid and remaining particularity and natural-

The Absolute Religion. 263

ness, but unity in spirit strictly ; this love is the very idea of the
spirit itself. It is object to itself in Christ, as the centre of taith,
in whom it appears to itself in infinite, distant majesty. But this
majesty is for the subject at the same time infinite nearness, and
kinship, and its own peculiar possession, and what thus as a third
element connects the individuals is at the same time that which
constitutes their true self-consuiousness — their innermost and most
characteristic life. Thus this love is spirit as such — tiie holy spirit.
The spirit is in them, and they are, and constitute, the universal
Christian Church, the communion and congregation of the saints.
The spirit is the infinite return into itself, the infinite subjectivity,
not as an image concept, but as the real, present divinity, and
therefore it is not the substantial potentiality {^Ansic1i\ of the Fa-
ther, not the Truth in the objective form of the Son, but the sub-
jective {i. e., self-conscious) presence and reality, which is just as
much subjectively {i. e., self-consciously) present as it is the exter-
nal manifestation in the form of an objective presentation of love
and of its infinite pain, and as the return in that mediation. Tiiis
is the spirit of God, or God as present, real spirit, God dwelling
in his church. Thus Christ savs : " Where two or three are gath-
ered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,"
"I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

In this absolute significance of spirit, in this deep sense of abso-
lute truth, the Christian religion is the religion of spirit, but not
in the trivial sense of a spiritual religion. The true determina-
tion of the nature of spirit, the union of the infinite contrast —
God and the world, the Ego, this Ilomimcio — these form the con-
tent of the Christian religion, and make it the religion of spirit;
this content exists in it for the ordinary untrained consciousness
also. All men are called to blessedness; this is the highest, and
the only highest, principle. For this reason Christ says: "All
manner of sin . . . shall be forgiven, . . . but the blasphemy
against the holy ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." The
offence against absolute truth, ao;ainst the idea of that union of
the infinite contrast, is pronounced thereby to be the greatest
wrong. People have at times been perplexed by the question as
to what constitutes a sin against the holy ghost, and have in many
ways made this definition shallow, in order to ignore it altogether.
Everything may be annihilated in the infinite pain of love, but

2tU The Journal of Speculative PMlosopliy.

this annihilation existt^ only as the internal, present spirit. What
is withont spirit seems, in the first place, to be no sin, but to be
innocent ; but this is the innocence wliich has been judged and
found wanting in itself".

The sphere of the Church is, therefore, the peculiar region of
the spirit. The holy ghost was poured out over the disciples : it
became their immanent life; from that moment on they have
gone forth as a church, and they went joyfully into the world, in
order to elevate it to a universal church, and to spread the king-
dom of God.

We must consider, therefore, (a) the origin of the Church, or its
idea ; (b) its existence and preservation — that is, the realization of
its idea ; and (c) the transition of" faith to science — the change, trans-
formation of faith into philosophy.

(a) The idea of the Church.

The Church is formed by the subjects, the individual, empirical
subjects, who are in the spirit of God, but from whom this content-
this history, the truth, is distinguished, and to whom it is opposed.
The belief in tliis history, in this reconciliation, is on one side an
immediate knowledge, a faith. In the next place the nature of
spirit is in itself this process wliich has been considered in the uni-
versal idea, and in the idea as phenomenality, and the conscious
subject is spirit, and becomes a citizen of the kingdom of God
only because he passes through this process in himself The other,
which exists for the conscious subjects, is, therefore, in this divine
spectacle, objective to them in the same sense in which the spec-
tator finds himself objectified in the chorus.

The subject, the human subject, man, in whom it is revealed
what through spirit becomes for man the certitude of reconcilia-
tion, has been defined in the iirst place as the individual or singu-
lar, as that whi(rh excludes the other and is different from it.
Thus, the representation of the divine history for other subjects is
an objective one for them. They also must, therefore, pass through
this history, this process, in themselves.

For this purj)ose it is necessary that the}^ presuppose that Rec-
onciliation is possible, or, to speak more definitely, this reconcilia-
tion has come to pass in-and-for-itself, and is a certainty.

This is in-and-for-itself the universal idea of God, but its cer-
tainty for man, the fact that this truth exists for him not merely

The Ahsohite Religion. 2G5

throngli speculative thinking, but is a certainty, this is the other
presupposition, namely this : it is certain that the reconciliation is
accomplished — i. e., it must be represented as a historical fact, as
•one that has been brought about on earth, in phenomenality. For
there is no other mode of what is called certainty. This is the
presupposition in which we believe in the first place.

1. The origin of the Church is described as the ponring out of
the Holy Ghost. The source of faith is in the tirst place a man, a
human, sensuous phenomenon, and in the second place the spirit-
ual conception [of it], the consciousness of the spiritual: it is
spiritual content, the transmutation of the immediate into spiritual
determinateness. The testimony is spiritual ; it is not contained
in the sensuous; it cannot be brought about in an immediate, sen-
suous mode; it is therefore always possible to raise some objection
or other to the sensuous facts.

As regards the empirical manner, the Church is right when it
declines inquiries like the one into the nature of the apparition of
Christ after his death, for such inquiries take the view that impor-
tance should be attached to the sensuous element in the phenom-
enon, as if in such narrations of what is represented by image-
conception as a historical event, in a historical w^ay, there could
be found the proof and evidence of spirit and of its truth. The
latter, however, stands for itself, independently, although it has
such an origin.

This transition is the pouring out of the holy ghost, which could
happen only after Christ was removed from the flesh and the sen-
suous, immediate presence had ceased. Then the spirit comes
forth ; for then the whole history is completed, and the Mdiole
image of spirit stands before sense-perception. What the spirit
produces now is another, has another form.

The question as to the truth of the Christian religion divides
itself, immediately, into two questions : (1) Is it really true that
God is not, without the son, and has sent him into the world ? and
(2) is this man, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son, the son of
God, the Christ?

These two questions are usually mixed together, as though, if
this particular individual had not been the son sent by God, and
if this could not be proved of him, then his mission would amount
to nothing. In that case, it is further said that either we should

266 The JoiD'^tial of Sjyeculative Philosophy.

have to w;n't for another, if another were to be expected, either
tlirouijh prophecy or because necessary in and for itselt, in the
idea. Or since the truth of the idea is made dependent on the
proof of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, then, that being dis-
proved, nothins: more is to be expected.

But we shoidd ask, first, is such a phenomenon true in-and-for-
itself ? It is so, because God as spirit is the triune. He is this
manifestation, this objectification, and this remaining identical
with liimself in this objectification, he is eternal love. Tliis ob-
jectification is the development completed to tlie extremes — to
the universality of God and to finitude, to death — and this return
into itself in the cancellation of the rigor of this contrast — love
within infinite pain, whicli at the same time is healed in it.

This truth in and for itself, that God is not an abstraction, but
something concrete, is made explicit by philosophy, and it is mod-
ern philosophy alone wliich has arrived at tiiis depth of the idea.
It is useless to discuss this matter wlien we have unphilosophical
shallowness for our opponent, and its contradiction is without any
value, and senseless in and for itself.

But this idea shouhl exist not only as contained in philosophy
alone; it is an idea true not in itself only ; it is, on the contrary,
the function of philosophy to comprehend that which is, that
which has antecedent, real existence for itself. All truth begins
with its phenomenality, ^. e., with existence in the form of imme-
diateness. The idea must therefore exist in the self-consciousness
of man, in spirit in itself; the world spirit must have conceived
itself in this way. Self-conception, in this manner, is necessity a&
the process of spirit, which represented itself in the previous stages
of religion, in the Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman religions,
and which had for its result the idea of the absolute unity of the
divine and human natures, and the reality of God — i. e., his ob-
jectification of himself as his truth. Thus the history of the world
is the representation of this truth as a result in the immediate
consciousness of spirit.

In this, God is represented as the God of free men, but viewed
as yet in subjective and narrow national conceptions, and in the
acci<lental form of phantasy; there is also the pain of the world
after the destruction of these nations. This pain was the birth-
place of the impulse of spirit, to seek to know God as spirit in a.

The Absolute Religion. 267

general form, stripped of finiteness. This need was created by the
progression of history, and by tlie development of the world spirit.
This i(nmediate impulse, this longing which wills and demands a
deiinite matter, and which, so to speak, is the instinct of spirit
which is impelled towards snch aim, has required such manifesta-
tion of God as intinite spirit in the shape of a real man.

"But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his
Son," i. e., when the spirit had penetrated its own depth so as to
know its infinity, and to comprehend the substantial in the sub-
jectivity of immediate self-consciousness, but a subjectivity which
is at the same time intinite negativity, and is therefore absolutely
universal.

The proof, however, that this is the Christ is different from this;
it relates only to the determination that it is this special person
and not another person, but it does not relate to the question
whether the idea has an existence at all. Christ said: "Neither
shall they say, Lo here, or Lo there! for behold the kingdom of
God is within you." Many others among the Jews and the Gen-
tiles have been revered as divine messengers, or gods. John the
Baptist preceded Jesus ; among the Greeks statues were erected,
to Demetrius Poliorketes, for instance, as to a god, and the Roman
emperor was worshipped like a god, Apollonius of Tyana, and
many others, were looked upon as workers of miracles, and Her-
cules was for the Greeks a human being who, by his deeds, which
were at the same time deeds of obedience simply, had risen to the
gods and had become a god, not to speak of the number of incarna-
tions, and of the deification mentioned in the elevation to Braiima
in the religion of the Hindoos. But the idea, when it was ripe
and the fulness of the time was come, could only connect itself
with Christ and see itself realized in him. In the deeds of Her-
cules the nature of spirit is as yet but imperfectly expressed. But
the history of Christ is history for the Church, since it is strictly
in accordance with the idea, while the principle wdiich is to be
recognized in those former embodiments, and which underlies
them, is but the struggle of spirit in the direction of this determi-
nation of the potential unity of the divine and the human. This
is the essential point, this is the evidence, the absolute proof; this
is what is meant by the testimony of spirit : it is the spirit, the
inherent idea which has given evidence of the mission of Christ,

268 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and this is the confirmation for those who believed, and for us, in
its developed idea. This is, moreover, the confirmation which is a
power ^ipirituall3', and not an external power, like the Church deal-
ins; with the heretics.

This, then, (2) is the knowledi>;e, or the faith, for faith is knowl-
edge, but in a peculiar form. This is to be considered.

We have said that the divine content is posited as self-conscious
knowledge of it in the element of consciousness, or of internality.
On the one hand it is held that the content is the truth, and that
it is the truth of the infinite spirit in general — i. e., its knowledge,
so that it has its freedom in this knowledge, and is itself the pro-
cess of shaking off its sj)ecial individuality and of making itself
free in this content.

But the content exists, in the first place, for the immediate con-
sciousness, and the truth might have appeared for it in a variety of
sensuous ways, for the idea retains its unity in all things; it is
universal necessity, and reality can be nothing but a mirror of the
idea ; the consciousness of the idea may therefore spring from
anything, for there is ever the idea in this multitude of drops, in
each of which the idea sparkles, and by each of which it is reflected.
Tlie idea is represented, known, foretold, in the seed which is the
fruit; tlie fruit all perishes in the earth, and out of this negation
only does the plant spring forth. Such history, visible existence,
representation, phenomenon, may be raised by spirit to a univer-
sal, and thus the history of the seed, or of the sun, becomes the
symbol of the idea ; but it is a symbol only ; they are forms which,
according to their proper content, their special quality, are not
adequate to the idea. That which is known in them lies out-
side of them ; their significance does not exist in them as signifi-
cance. That object which exists in itself as the idea is tlie spirit-
ual subjectivity, it is man. He is significance in himself; it does
not lie outside of him ; he can think all, he can know all, he is not
a symbol. On the contrary, his subjectivity, his inner form, his
Self, are essentially this history itself, and thus the history of the
spiritual element is not lodged in an existence which is inadequate
to the idea, but it Is in its own proper element. Thus it is neces-
sary for the Church that the thought, the idea, should become ob-
jective. But this idea exists, in the first place, in an individual, an
object perceptible by the senses ; this must be stripped off, and the

The Absolute Religion. 26^

significance, the eternally true essence, must be brouc^ht out. Tliis
is the faith of the incipient Church. It begins with the faith in the
individual; the individual man is transformed by the Church and
becomes known as God, and, moreover, that he is the Son of God,
involved in all the finitude which belongs to subjectivity as such
in its development; but as subjectivity he is distinguished from
substantiality. The sensuous phenomenon is then changed into a
knowledge of a spiritual element. Thus the Church begins with
faith ; on the other side this is also produced spiritually. The
different meanings of faith, and of its confirmation, must be con-
sidered.

Since faith begins in a sensuous form, it contemplates a history
in time; what it takes to be true is external, ordinary event, and
the evidence is the ordinary, historical, or legal one which is used
in establishing a fact ; it is sensuous certitude. The representation
of the basis of this implies, also, the testimony of other persons
in regard to certain sensuous facts for its basis, and connects other
things with it.

The history of Christ's life is thus the external evidence, but
faith changes its signification ; for the important point is not merely
faith as a belief in this external history, but in the doctrine that
this man was the Son of God. There the sensuous content be
conies quite a different one ; it is changed into another, and the de-
mand or postulate is, that it should be proved by evidence. The
subject is changed completely ; from a sensuously, empirically ex-
isting subject it becomes a divine one, an essentially highest phase
of God himself. This content is no longer sensuous ; when, there,
fore, the demand is made to prove it in the former sensuous man-
ner, this mode is inadequate, to begin with, since the subject is of
an entirely different nature.

Miracles, which are asserted to contain the immediate proof, are
in and for themselves only relative proofs, or an evidence of subor-
dinate nature only. Christ says, by way of reproof: "Except ye
see sio;ns and wonders ve will not believe." "Then will many
come to me and say : Have we not in thy name done many won-
derful works ? And then I will profess unto them, I never kn ew
you ; depart from me." What interest is there left here for this
working of miracles? The relative element could have interest
for those only who stood outside, for the instruction of the Jews

270 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and Gentiles, so to speak. But the Church, when once formed,
needs this no lonjrer; it has in itself the spirit which guides to all
truth, and which bv its truth as spirit is the true power over spirit,
i. e., a power in wliich its entire freedom is preserved for spirit.
The miracle is a power over natural relations only, and therefore
a power over that spirit merely which is limited within the con-
sciousness of these limited relations. How could the eternal idea
itself enter into our consciousness by the representation of such a
power ?

If the content is conceived in such a manner that the miracles
of Christ were themselves sensuous phenomena, which can be
proved historically, and his resurrection and asci-nsion are consid-
ered in the san)e h\i?ht, the relevant point in regard to the sensuous
element is no longer the sensuous proof of these phenomena. The
point raised is not that the miracles of Christ, his resurrection,
ascension, even as external phenomena and sensuous events, have
no adequate proof, but the inquiry deals with the relation of both
the sensuous verification and the events themselves to the S[)irit,
to the spiritual content. Xo matter what content the proof of the
sensuous may have, and whether it is brought in the form of evi-
dence or by personal inspection, as eye witness, it remains subject
to infinite objt^ctions, because it has the sensuous and external for
its basis, and the latter remains an alien, an other for the spirit.
Here consciousness and object are separated, and this fundamental
separation prevails, and involves the possibility of error, illusion,
lack of ability to perceive a fact properly. It is, therefore, possi-
ble that an individual may doubt, and may look upon the holy
scriptures, as far as regards the merely external and historical part
of it, as mere profane writinofs, without distrusting in the least
the good-will of those who give the evidence. The sensuous con-
tent is not certain in itself, because it does not exist through the
spirit as such, because it has a different basis, and is not posited
by the idea. It might be supposed that the matter could be set-
tled by the comparison of all the evidence and the circumstances,
or sufficient reasons might be found for some points or others, but
this whole mode of proof, and the sensuous content as such, must
be ranked as unimportant and subordinate, when the need and
want of spirit is considered. Whatever is to be a truth for the
spirit, whatever spirit is to believe, must not remain a matter of

The Absolute Religion. 271

sensuous credence ; what is true for spirit is that whose sensuous
phenomenality has been subordinated. Inasmuch as spirit starts
from the sensuous, and attains what is more worthy of itself, its
attitude towards the sensuous is at the same time a negative atti-
tude. Tliis is one of its principal characteristics.

There remains, nevertheless, the curiosity wliich asks how the
miracles should be looked upon, how they are to be comprehended
and understood — that is to say, understood in the sense that they
were no real miracles, but natural effects. Such inquiries presup-
pose, however, doubt and disbelief, and seek a plausible pretence
to save the moral virtue and truth of the participating- persons.
In that case, they assume that it was unintentional — /. e., that
there was no fraud — and they are so kind and considerate as to
allow Christ and his friends to remain honest people. The shortest
course, in that case, would be to reject the miracles altogether; if
one does not believe in miracles, and finds tliem contrary to
reason, it is of no avail if they are proved. They are said to rest
on sensuous perception, but it is an irrepressible and unconquerable
tendency in man not to consider valid that whose sole proof is of
this kind. For here all proofs are but possibilities and probabili-
ties — i. <e., only subjective and Unite reasons.

Or the advice might be given : Do not entertain these doubts,
and then they are solved. But I am compelled to have them; I
cannot put them aside; and the necessity of answering them rests
upon the necessity of having them. Reflection makes these claims
absolute: it clings firmly to these finite reasons ; but in piety, in
true faith, these finite reasons and the finite understanding have
lung been set aside. Such curiosity in itself arises from absence
of faith ; faith rests on the evidence of spirit, not in regard to the
miracles, but on its evidence of the absolute rruth, of the eternal
idea, and, therefore, on the true content. On that stand-point the
miracles have but a minor interest, and may either be mentioned
in a passing way as subjective reasons, or they may be negl(?cted
altogether. On account of this it is that miracles, if they are to
prove anything, must themselves first be proved. That which is
to be proved by them, however, is the idea, which does not need
them, and, therefore, does not need to prove them.

Moreover, the following must be said : Miracles in general are
successful on account of the power of the spirit over the natural

272

The Journal of Sj)eculatiDe Philosophy.

order of things ; they are an interference with the eternal laws of
nature. But spirit is this miracle in general, this absolute inter-
ference. Life in itself interferes with these so-called eternal laws
of nature, it destroys, e. g., tlie eternal laws of mechanism and
chemistry. Still greater is the elFect of the power of spirit and of
its weakness upon life. Terror can produce death ; grief, sickness ;
and, in the same way, infinite faith has at all times made the crip-
ple able to walk, the deaf able to hear, and so forth. The basis of
modein unbelief in such results is the superstition concerning the
so-called power of nature, and its independence in relation to
spirit.

But this evidence touches only the first contingent form of
faith. The ti'ue faith rests on the spirit of truth. That evidence
concerns only a relation to the sensuous, immediate presence ; true
faith is spiritual, and in spirit the truth has the idea for its basis ;
and since the idea is at the same time in sense-perception, in a
temporal and finite mode, found in the particular individual, it
can appear realized in this individual only after his death, and
after his removal from temporal existence, when the process of
phenomenality has itself been completed to a spiritual totality.
That is to say, that the belief in Jesus implies that such faith has
no longer the sensuous phenomenon as such before it, whose
sensuous percei)tion would otherwise constitute the evidence.

It is the same with all cognition which concerns a universal.
Kepler, as is well known, discovered the laws of the heavens.
They have a double validity for us; they are the universal. The
beginning was made with some individual cases; some motions
were reduced to laws ; but these are individual cases only, and
one might think that there were a million times as many cases in
which bodies did not fall in this manner; and in this way, even
when applied to the heavenly bodies, it is no general law. It is
true that induction has thus led to these laws; but it is the inter-
est of spirit that such a law should be true in and for itself, i. «.,
that reason should have in it its image or reflection, in which case
it could recognize it as true in and for itself. Compared with this,
that sensuous cognition recedes and loses prominence ; it is a
starting-point, a beginning which should be acknowledged grate-
fully. But such a law stands for itself, and thus it has other evi-
dence and proof; it is the idea, and the sensuous existence is now

The Absolute Religion. 273

reduced to a dream of earthly existence, above which there exists
a higher region with peculiar and fixed content.

The same relation takes place in the proofs of the existence ot
God wl'.ich beo'in with the finite; the defect in them is that the
finite is defined in an afifirmative manner onlv, but that the tran-
sition from the finite to the infinite is made by leaving the ground
of finitnde, and by lowering it to a subordinate position, to a dis-
tant image which exists only in the past and in recollection, but
which does not exist in spirit, which is strictly real in the present
moment, which has left that starting-point and stands on a ground
of much hio^her dio;nitv. Piety finds thus occasion everywhere to
edify itself; this, then, is tlie starting-point. It has been proved
that several of Christ's quotations from the Old Testament are
incorrect, so that what is to be conveyed by these expressions can-
not be found in the direct meanins; of the words. The word, in-
deed, must remain fixed, but spirit makes of it that which is the
truth. Thus, the sensuous history is the starting-point for the
spirit, for faith, and these two deterniinations must be distin-
guished ; but it is the return of the spirit into itself, the spiritual
consciousness, which is the salient point.

It is clear from this that the Church produces the content of
this faith, and that, so to speak, it is not produced by the words of
the Bible, but by the Church. Not the sensuous presence, more-
over, but the spirit, teaches the Church that Christ is the Son
of God, and that he eternally sitteth at the right hand of the
Father in Heaven ! This is the interpretation, the evidence, the
decree of spirit. Grateful nations raise their benefactors to the
stars; spirit acknowledges subjectivity as an absolute phase of
divine nature. The person of Christ has been declared by the
Church to be God's Son, In this we d.> not enter upon the con-
sideration of the empirical manner, the definitions of the Church,
the councils, etc. The question considered is the nature of the
content in and for itself. The true Christian content of faith is
to be justified here by philoso'ihy, and not by history. What the
spirit does is not history ; it is concerned with that only which is
in and for itself ; not with the past, but with what is strictly
present.

XYI— 18

274 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

THE IDEA OF THE HOME.

DY MAY -WRIGHT SEWALL.

The phrase Ideal IJonie is often on our lij)s in these late days,
and of the Ideal Home the world has heard much withhi the last
century. Yet this institution — neither defined in dictionary, ex-
plained in cyclop[edia, nor as yet elaborated by any school of
metaphysicians — is apparently not dependent on latitude, longi-
tude, or situation, is equally indifterent to size, surroundinajs, and
interior equipments, and is not less variable in its occupants than
in its furnishings. Is bewilderment not indeed justiiiable? And
may not one well inquire. What, after all, is an Ideal Home?

The home may, perhaps, be defined the meeting-place of the
family, the form or sphere under which these abstract relations
exist and manifest themselves. An ideal used, as in this instance,
synonymously with model, means the perfect realization of an idea,
or the idea itself embodied in tangible form. So, to study the
ideas which together constitute the home, and to discover the cen-
tral idea which dominates it, we must discover the ideas under-
lying the family relations.

To us here and now the family, in its germinal form, means
one man and one Avoman leagued together — indissolubly leagued
for life — against the world. But it is certain that to penetrate to
the idea of the family we must study it^ earlier and less perfect
incorporations ; for even now the idea of the family germ above
mentioned is realized but among a fractional part of the earth's
inhabitants.

. Unthinking people are accustomed to assume that the patri-
archal form of government was the first form, and that this origi-
nated in, and was an extension and continuance of, the family.
This assumption is based upon another assumption : viz., That the
family is itself an immediate creation. But all tradition, archoeo.
logical and prehistoric research, as well as the philosophical
analysis of History, tend to show that Humanity was created not
in institutions, but with a capacity for forming institutions, and
that the germinal family as we know it, far from being the initia.

The Idea of the Home. 275

tive institution of humanity, is rather the condition of its develop-
ment, and also its linal, its finest, and yet unripeued fruit.

The historical review of the form is necessary to the analysis
'Of the idea of the family ; but the reviesv sliall here be very brief.
The must palpal^le olgect of the family, and the first, indeed, the
only one recognized bv Oriental peoples, was reproduction. Tliis
result was capable of being secured through any mingling of the
sexes; and historical testimony establishes the following as the
order in which various modes have followed one another: 1. Pro-
miscuity. 2. Polvandry and Polyganiy (or Polygynv), each unlim-
ited. 3. Polva,ndrv and Pol vo-amv, each under certain limitations.
4. Monogamy. The first form rests on a basis of simple animal-
ism, aiid has existed only when and where Imiuanity has not devel-
oped a consciousness of conti?med identitj', and the consequent
idea of permanence, in individual relations. This has nevtr been
practiced by any race sufficiently developed to assign reasons for
its customs. Polyandry, which is that form of family based on
plurality of husbands, has obtained among many peoples, and has
endured over gieat periods of time. Si»me of the most cultivated
branches of the Aryan race, including the Greek, admit the form
to have prevniled among tliem in their earlier historic stage. It
was not unknown among the eaily Egyptians, the Basques, the
Britons, the Malays, the Hindoos, and the American Indians, and
it yet remains the established Ibrm of family life among tin'rty
millions of the inhabitants of Central Asia, and is not limited to
these Thibetans. Among ancient authors, Aristotle and Herodotus
inform us of the system of Polyandry. Among modern writers,
those who have treated this subject with most intelligence and.
calmness are Mr. Herbert Spencer, in " Principles of Sociology " ;
Lecky, in his '' History of European Morals"; Mr. McLennan, in
" Primitive Marriao-e " ; and Mr. Wilson, in his " Lands of Snow."

This, which, next to promiscuity, is the most revolting form of
family existence, finds detenders only among nations so imma-
ture as not to have developed a belief in possible female chastity ;
it is a form ahvays attsnded by a manlio >d submerged in unnatu-
ral crimes. Polyandry explains, and tries to justify itself, on two
grounds: First, on the necessary uncertainty of latherhood, which
renders it unsafe to calculate descent in the male line, and on the
equally necessary certainty of maternity, and the consequent in-

276 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

fallible accuracy with which ancestry, throno:h the female line,
can be traced. As a second excuse it asserts that the creative
function is that in whicli resides the most, and the most intensely,
seltish form of affection; and that a positive knowledge of their
real offspring would unlit men tor their duties, which, it must be
remembered, in the semi-civilized life which permits Polyandry
are always attended by danger, and often rewarded by violent
death. Even thus debased, we see the human heart prophesies the
intensity of paternal tenderness, and fears that it would be too
much softened for its duties should its sweet flavor once be tasted
in its entirety through a knowledge of its real object. Under
Polyandry, woman is the mistress — the head of the family ; it is
her family name that is transmitted; the female children are the
inheritors, and the male children are but moderately portioned.
These odd facts are an overwhelming refutation of the plausible
statement so frequently made — that the civilization of a people
may be measured by the relative place of woman. This is one of
those o-eneralities whose glitter blinds the eve to its untruth. In
the degree to which individual freedom is recognized, and to
which justice and equality regulate material relations, does civiliza-
tion exist. Polygamy (or Polygymy), the reverse of Polyandry,
unlike the latter, is a practice characterizing southern countries,
and maintained by sensual rather than by stoical peoples. With
its introduction came the demand for female chastity and an un-
limited permit to male indulgence. This form of the family is
accompanied by male supremacy in the household ; by a con-
tinuance of the father's name, and of that only, in the male
line. Where Polygamy exists in its purity, female children do
not take any second or family name, and have no share in the
inheritance.

Polygamy among the peoples first practicing it was maintained
on the assumption that the mother had no essential relation to the
child ; that qualities were not transmitted through female ances-
try, nor continued in the female line; that parenthood was an ex-
clusive unshared function of men, and that women are, as a quaint
old author expresses it, " parents but by courtesy." This idea
rested upon the belief, universal among some early peoples, and
finding defenders in the English tongue as late as the last century,
that the seed of the race is with man alone ; that woman is no

The Idea of the Home. 277

more than a repository provided for it during its period of secret
development. She is but the soil, contributins: no more and no
differently to the character of the child born of her, no more de-
termitiino: that character, than the earth contributes to or deter-
mines the different natures of oak, maple, strawberry, and bean
which spring from seeds sown upon its soil. In Polyandry we
see that a conviction of woman's inevitable frailty and a stoical
desire to escape the pain and burdens incident to natm'al affection,
and a cognition of its legitimate objects, and in Polygamy that
a sensual temperament and a false science, continued, if indeed
they did not originate, these revolting forms of family existence.
But, even under these tbrms, the unfolding spirit of man, strug-
gling with the coarser instincts which acted as a check, and yet,
without doubt, as a salutary check upon its development, was un-
consciously striving to realize these underlying ideas of family
and home which it had not yet recognized.

I have invited momentary attention to this outline of the
forms of family life preceding that form with which we are ac-
quainted, in order to prepare our minds for regarding the home as
susceptible of modiiications, and for the labor of separating that
which in the idea of the home is transitory from that which in its
idea is essential, and therefore abiding. As humanity recognized
permanence a requisite element of power, the desire for perma-
nence of family ties grew, and finally upon this condition of per-
manence the monogamic family arose. But the idea of family
permanence cannot be grasoed until the imagination has anti;;i-
pated the fact, later established by scientitic observation — viz.,
that the qualities of both lines of ancestry are alike transmitted to
offspring. As corollaries of this discovery, Law proclaims that in-
heritance shall l)e reckoned in both maternal and paternal lines ;
and Society says that she will hold parents responsible lor their
children until they shall have reached the age of individual ac-
•Countability,

So we shall say that permanence is one factor in the complex
idea of the home; it is, however, a factor recognized by many
minds before there is any intellectual perception of its tremen-
dous consequences. At this stage the common interests of the
family, recognized as conditioned upon permanence, are chiefly
material : viz., common interest in food and in shelter. This

278 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

may be called the Gaelic stage of development, since the two
Gaelic names tor family signify, first, the persons who eat to-
gether ; second, the persons having a common residence. The
njonogamic family \vas established in leading nations prior to
Christianity; but Christianity, l»y changing what had hitherto
been a vague fancy, or an intermittent hope of immortality, into
a conviction of its certainty and its universality, confirmed the
monogamic iorm of family life, and dignitied inestimably the as-
pect of parenthood. Anotlier infiiience of the Christianity of
the Middle Ages upon the home will be discussed later. So soon
as a people, or a single family group, have readied that degree
of civilization and consequent possession in which their whole
strength and their whole time are no longer consumed in main-
taining the shelter above their heads and ])rocuring necessary food
— then, if the familv relations are to continue, the familv must
grow into a deeper significance. The Gaelic definition no longer
suffices. The family must now mean those persons who, besides
eating together the bread that perisheth, eat also toffeiher the
divine manna; those persons who, besides sharing together the
common shelter of thatch and sliingle, also consciously share the
protection of the Spirit's dome. Shall we then add to permanence^
as another underlying idea of the home, a consciousness on the
part of its inmates that they are all related by sympathy and
efibrt to common interests ? Emerson says : " Any other affec-
tion between men than this geometric one of relation to the same
thing is a mere mush of materialism." This fine, clear phrase
enables us to name the relations existing in many nominal homes,
which will prevent them from ever being homes after the spirit
of that sweet term. In homes where the wives regard their hus-
bands simply as "good providers," and where the husbands value
the wives only as " notable housekeepers," where " bed and board "
are the only meeting-grounds, there is indeed a mere, a pitiful
"mush of materialism." We all know such homes; and in the
modern family, where, to maintain the complicated style of living,
every one is cumbered with much serving, in order to resist this
tendency towards mere materialism, we must be willing to recog-
nize and to name the danger. We would not, however, speak
with contempt of the material appointments of a home. "Bed
and board" are, indeed, important factors, since the health of its.

The Idea of the ITome. 279

inmates must always be one element in the ideal home, and this is
preserved, if not indeed originally secured, by tlie rule of a wise,
chaste, and vigilant temperance in the material relations.

The participation of all members of a family in immaterial
interests is made possible only by an approximately equal culture
of its heads, and by a culture of both extraneous to their respec-
tive lines of work. If we can imagine a blacksmith, for instance,
who has absolutely no knowledge concerning anything outside his
shop, with a wife who knows nothing but how to scrub, cook, and
nurse ; when said blacksmith returns, after his day's work, to his
home, I see no alternative, if any communication take place be-
tween them, but for husband and wife to exchange the day's labors ;
when each has imparted a rehearsal of his labors and their re-
sults, interflow of thought is at an end, and both must have be-
come doubly wearied.

Do we not know families whose home conversation is almost
limited to categorical question and answer concerning the per-
formance of their separate tasks ? Yet one idea at the root of the
home is, that its inmates shall reciprocally vitalize one another's
intellects, and expand one another's vision. Kot long ago a lady
said to me, in substance, the following: As matters are accounted
in this world, our family has seen a great deal of trouble ; but
I cannot remember, and indeed I do not believe, that w^e ever
sat down at table, not even when we were little children, that
my mother did not suggest some great world subject, or, at least,
some quite impersonal topic, and lead us all into talking about
it. With the liiother of this friend my acquaintance is slight ;
but I never shall think of her without reverence — the deep rever-
ence due a woman who has not misused the hours when families
sit at meat — precious hours which often aiford the best, and some-
times the only, opportunity for the intellects of all to approach
one another; the deep reverence due a woman who has not de-
based such hours to personal gossip, to fretful complaints con-
cerning her domestic cares ; to an enumeration of tradesmen's
blunders and a repetition of servants' impertinences ; to querulous
questionings of a husband's affairs; to a rehearsal of children's
mishaps, or to the reproval of their errors. Shall we not then add
to the ideas of permanence, and the consciousness on the part of
each member that all are related to common material interests,

280 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the third idea that one function of the family is to quicken intel-
lect and to direct it to problems of universal moment ?

So soon as we admit intellectual viijor and growth to be one
factor in the idea of tamily life, another element proclaims itself
necessary. The sole condition of unwarped intellectual vitality
is freedom. As we recall the historic <i::rowth of the family, our
fii*st impulse is to reject freedom from our conception of domestic
life ; we are inclined to say : " Instead of freedom's being essen-
tial to the idea of the family, the freedom of one individual is
formally relinquished, and that of the other tacitly compromised
when the family is formed.'" True, the family is a bondage of
mutual obligations, but, also, it is true that the perfection with
which each obligation is performed is (other things being equal)
proportional to the degree to whicii individual liberty is observed,
nourished, and reverenced. At this date all enlightened peoples
begin to perceive that the tyranny based on physical strength and
religious assumptions, formerly exercised by husbands, defeated
the very ends that husbands most desired ; and to-day, among
Aryan peoples, this form of tyranny in domestic life is exerted
cliiefly by husbands in the poorer and lower classes of society,
while a more refined, but not less paralyzing, tyranny is in polite
circles exercised by wives ; the latter form is now in our country
hardly less common than the former, and is as much more danger-
ous as redress from it is more difficult. The wife of a brutal
coal-heaver can take into court her bruised arms, broken clavicle,
and black eye, as proofs of her husband's tyranny ; but the busi-
ness and professional man, forced into a style of living which ex-
ceeds his means and violates his tastes, forced into an external
conformity to creeds which he inwardly disavows, perhaps ab-
hors, forced to yield the guidance and discipline of his children to
systems with which he has no sympathy, forced to these sacritices
l)y the relentless will of an elegant wife — the sufferer can testify
only by his sullen humor, gloomy countenance, and generally
downcast and dispirited air, to the tyranny of which he is the
hopeless victim. However, that both these forms of domestic
tyranny are yet widespread does not dis[)rove that freedom in-
heres in the idea of the family. How does freedom in the home
affect intellectual vitality ? As the exhausted receiver of an air-
pump to plant-life, so is the atmosphere of suspicion, hyper-

The Idea of the Home. 281

■criticism, and restraint to intellectual. It is in the free home
only tliat children unconsciously grow into possession of them-
selves — that real self-possession in which the unfolding, the appli-
cation, and the enjoyment of their powers is possible. It is in the
free home only that grown- up people use their faculties with ease.
In the free home people utter their best word with no fear that it
will be called an affectation ; and such utterance of one's best
word gives rise to a better thought. There only is the unpre-
meditated witticism spoken without terror lest it be distorted into
bitterness. There only are mild philosophical generalizations
stated with no danger of their being warped into mean, personal
applications. Some of the laws governing intellectual activity
are so subtle as to defy analysis, yet I believe it safe to assert that
while occasionally an intellect is piqued into high effort by unbe-
lief and criticism, as a rule mind is s[)urred to best endeavor and
finest achievement by generous expectation. Under the comfort-
able consciousness that no cavil bickers about its boundaries, and
that no ridicule awaits its flights, it will explore widely and soar
high. I know a few young people who always talk their best and
brightest before their parents (T am sorry to say I know very few
who do this). I have two or tiiree intimate friends among intel-
lectual women who are always most brilliant in the presence of
their husbands. Under the stimulus of a home atmospbere, and
in the strengtli imparted by the confidence of friends, faculties
work without effort and without friction. To analyze, explain,
and illustrate the idea of freedom in a home, I should need to
<:levote an entire paper to this branch of my subject. Attempting
no such full discussion, I assume we all a2;ree that freedoni enters
into the idea at the basis of family life. It must be added that
^reat freedom in a home is made possil)le only by the accompani-
ment of great reserves. The home is not alone the place for the
freest meeting of mind, for the frankest, sineerest, and the most
unrestrained intercourse, but it provides for the strictest privacy
and retirement of eacb individual. This provision is indeed the
home's final seal of its respect for individual liberty.

Tiie poetical substitutes for the word Home, haven,, retreat^ ref-
uge., all figure another of the elemental ideas at the foundation
of the family — viz.. Repose. This idea, like that of privacy, is
also conditioned on the idea of freedom. " Home is where a

2S2 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

man':* washing and mending are done," says the modern conrt^
" Home is where a man linds habitual lod<reinent,'' savs the formal
eighteenth ceiitm'y essayist. "•Home is the sacred refuge of my
soul,'' sings the religious poet. In these statements jurist, critic^
and rhapsodist alike assert as inhering in the home the ideas of
repose and refreshment. Tliere, protected by privacy in freedom,
one may lounge from one easv-chair to another, inditferent to pos-
ture and attitude. There one may stretch, yawn, shake off, phiy
away, or sleep out fatigue. In the spiritual conditions of a real
home similar repose for the soul will be provided. The harrying
worries of the world drop at its threshold. There the tension of
timidity, emulatii)n, ambition, anxiety — of a hundred conflicting
emotions and exhausting conditions — is reujoved, and the relaxed
faculties in the attitude of unuse, or through conscious, fearless,
rising to the limit of their bent, And rsfreshment.

The true solvent for all the ideas thus far enumerated, for the
recognition of common interests and the reverence for individual
freedom, for intellectual stimulus, and for repose, the sentiment
which secures and unites all these ideas, and which is also the
guarantee of permanence, that idea which we have to underlie the
monogamic family — this solvent is affection. The quality of that
affection which justifies the establishment of a new family, the
signs of its existence, the modes of its manifestation in family life,,
have been a matter of varying opinion and of warm discussion
since the world first recognized love as the true sponsor of mar-
riage. Here I have not time for even the briefest reviews of
these theories, but, without proof or citation, will state what the
world has discovered this affection is not. It is not sensual
abandon ; it is not instinctive passion ; it is not maudlin sentimen-
tality. Rationalitj' and the purest morality enter into it ; with-
out discussing these or other of its elements, I will name that which,
it seems to me most needs emphasis.

The affection that can give stability to family life, that can
cement its members into a unit which shall permit diversity and
insist upon freedom — the affection that can do this has in it the
quality of exaction.

Viewing one set of relations and their correspondent duties, we
are wont to say that, in the ideal family, forgiveness, forbearance,
conciliation, is the habitual attitude of each to each. This is the

The Idea of the Home. 28a

stand-point occupied by the poet when he sings : " My darling can-
not sin beyond my love." Viewing the relations of the family
to certain eternal principles of purity and growth, we say the
members of a family forgive nothing to each other — i. e., tliey for-
give in one another no abatement of allegianc3 to these principles.
Occupying this stand-point, the German poet exclaims :

" Liebling, nie kannst du erreichen
Die Befehle meiner Liebe ;
Was mein Ehrgeiz fur dich hofft
Das ist holier als dein Muth."

I believe that the deterioration in this respect, in the idea of
aifecticn, is one of the commonest soui'ces of weakness, selfishness,
and corruptness of character. Such enervated affection permits
the indulgence of the lowest and most unworthy desires of its ob-
jects, instead of demanding from them a life on the highest plane
of their possii>ilities. This kind of love betrays itself in the com-
monest as well as the loftiest affairs of domestic life. This kind of
love leads mothers to say, " I know so much candy, chewing-gum,
and cigarettes are bad for Johnny, but I love him so I can't bear
to cross him by prohibiting their use. I know her present asso-
ciations are making Nellie vain and idle, but I love her so I can't
bear to hurt her feelings about it." This kind of love fills the heart
of the maiden who, acknowledging the defective character an<l the
dangerous practices of her lover, adds : " Well, I can't help it —
and I love him so that, so long as he loves me, I don't care what
he does." This kind of love causes husbands to humor petu-
lance, obstinacy, and unreason in their wives, and causes wives
to ignore, or tacitly encourage, little vices in their husbands, both
justifying their course on the ground of their great tondness.
This is not the quality of love I mean when I speak of affection
as the paramount idea in the home. According to the height of
one's affection is the depth of one's care for its object, the suscep-
tibility to offence, the capacity for clear-sighted inspection, the
duty of deliberate, honest criticism, the demand of noble being
and generous doing.

A stranger's defects are matters of indifference to me ; an ene-
my's evil or ignoble act may fill me with complacency, if not a
sort of gloating pleasure (because such acts prove him unfit to be

284 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

my friend, and reconcile nie to his enmity). But what the man,
woman, or chihi of ray love, of my closest kin, may do, this is my
concern, and my affection i>; their severest critic. This is the
health, this the virtue, and the power of family affejtion, that it
raises an exalted standard of character for its objects, and helps
them to attain it by the mere force of its exactino; expectations.
The counterpart of exaction in the idea of family affection is gen-
erosity. Through this quality the home becomes the centre of
friendships. That is no ideal home where the husband's friends
are not welcomed by the wife and enjoyed by her, where the
wife's friends are not greeted by the husband, and where the
affections cannot widen for a real inclusion of these new objects.
You remember how Charles Sumner's heart was gladdened and
surprised by the discovery that the wives of his two most intimate
friends (whose marriage he had been at tirst inclined to regard with
a sort of melancholy jealousy) had also, like their husban(is, the
capacity for (intellectual) genuine friendship. Too often affection
in the family is limited to its own members, and the home devoted
only to their uses. This type of selfishness is figured in the order
for a new carriage given by a young man who stipulated that it
was to be just large enough for " me, my wife, and my baby/'

The affection in the idea of the home has its necessary quality
of exclusion, yet its infiuence is to increase sympathy with all
humanitv outside one's home. The familv is not an insulated in-
stitution, nor can it be insulated without vitiatino; its character
and decreasing its power. The scene of the most intensely per-
sonal interests, the arena for personal qualities to meet and grow;
it is, however, founded on universal ideas by virtue of which it
continues. All currents of motive have access to it, ;ind its life
'issues into all channels of activity. The attempt to live unto itself
is fatal to the single family ; it is fatal to the family as an institu-
tion.

The affection that warrants permanence to family life is of the
quality that lifts for the entrance of new persons, new relations,
new interests. It is this quality in family affection which makes
possible all the sweet uses of hospitality; not merely the hospi-
tality of lunches, dinners, and lodgings, delightful as these are,
but the hospitality which welcomes new ideas and foreign opinions
to a sympathetic consideration.

The Oracles of Zoroaster. 285

In this brief and neces?arilj sketchy analysis I have attempted
no details. If true principles are once recoo;nized, the details will
follow. When the sun shines we do not have to count the candles
and be careful about their placing. Once can we perceive the
fundamental principles of home life, and act in harmony with
them, and the doilies will be of exactly the riijht size and pattern,,
pictures will be hung at just the right height, curtains will be
draped at precisely the proper curve and angle ; all externals will
conform to the laws of beauty so soon as all internals have sub-
mitted to the laws of health, justice, freedom, activity, and love.

When humanity shall have become so generous, so pure, and so
true as to be capable ot an affection altogether exacting, which
warrants permanence; altogether generous, which secures common
interests, yet grants personal freedom and expands to friendship;
altogether inspiring, which compels intellectual activity ; altogether
provident, which guards repo.-e and privacy — then the idea of the
home will beo-in to be realized, and ideal homes will become as
common as they now are rare.

THE ORACLES OF ZOROASTEE.^

TIUNSLATED BY THOMAS STANLEY, AUTHOR OF " LIVES OF THE PHILOSOPHERS." *

I. — The Monad, Duad, and Triad.

. . . Where the Paternal Monad is. The Monad is enlarged, . . .
and generates Two, tor the Duad sits by him, and glitters with in-
tellectual sections — both to govern all things and to order every-

- Ta ToS ZwpodffTpo'j Adyta. Known also as TJie Chaldcean Oracles. A few of them
were first published iiy Ludovicus Tdetanus at Paris, with the Commentaiies of PlethOn,
to which were subsequcntlv adJed those of rsellcs. The rest were collected by Fraa-
ciscus Patricias from the works of PioUlos, Herinias, Simplikios, Damaskios, S^nesios,
OlympioJoros, Nikcphoros, and Arnobios, and published, together with the "Hermetic
Books," at the end of liis Nova Philosophia.

lamblicho:^ has remarked that it was the custom in Egypt to ascribe all sacred writ-
ings to Hermes. It would seem that the Assyrian sacerdotal writers were in the prac-
tice of crediting their religious compositions to Zoroaster. Hermippos says that there
were two million verses, or gathas, of this character, which, it is conjectured, were de-

286 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

tliino- not ordered. For m the whole world shineth tlie Triad,
•over wliich the Monad rules.'

Tliis Order is the beo;iinniio; of all section." For the Mind of
the Father said that all tliini>;3 be cut into tliree ; whose will as-
seuted, aud then all thino-s were divided.

For the Mind of the Eternal Father said : All thinos into three,
governing all thino;s bv the Mind. And there appeared in it [the
Trind] virtue aud wisdom and multiscieut Verity.

This way floweth the t^hM])e of the Tri;id, being pre-existent —
not the iirst [essence], but where they are measured. For thou
must conceive that all things serve these three principles. . .

. . . The first is the Sacred Course; hut in tha middle, Air;
the third, the other wlii(;h cherisheth the earth in fire.

Tiie foiiniain of fountains, and . . . of all fountains. The
matrix containing all things. Thence abundantly springs forth

^troyed by Alexander at Persepnlis, and by the Partliians who succeeded to his dominion.
Thus much is cettain, that Zoroaster and Zoroastiian writings are of conjectural genu-
ineness. Whether the personage of the Avcata aud Yasna was an actual individual,
or the titular high-priest, and wlietliei' he was Arvan, " Turanian," or Semite, are mat-
ters of curious stuily. It is certain that the Lof/la liere copied differ widely in style
and purport froui the Gathas of the Yasna, which are more according to the tenor of
the Vcdas, wherea- the Oracles arc Kabenn.

Passages, it will be observed, are often iiicoir.plete, as well as not coherent. — A. W.

* Tins transl.ilion has been edited fur this reprint l)y Dr. Alexander Wilder, at my
request. Proclus, the greatest and must learned ol Neo-Platonic philosophers, used to
declare that he wished that nothing had come down from antiquity except the Timasus
-of Pldto and these ('haldean Oracles. — En.]

' Proposed Version : '■ The Sole Unity is extended ; . . . the Two generate ; for the
Duad abides with the One, and glows "ith spiritual potencies : fJnis is effected the di-
jecting of all things, and the arranging of everything that is not in its proper order.
Por the Trine, which the Sole One precedes, shineiii in all the Uuiverse." — A. W.

2 I sugicst the fo'lowing reading of this passage. — A. W.

" The origin of every separation of e^seTice is Order. The Father-mind proposed
that everything should be divided tlireefold ; his will confiinied this, and already all
■were divided. The Mind, the Father Eternal proposed the division into trines, directing
•all by intelligence.

"In tlds way the figure of the Triad issued forth, before it had existed; not the figure
of the First Es.-ence, but of Ihat whx'h they miasure. For understand : everythius is
subservient to the three principles. . . . First i- tiie Sacred Road ; then between is the
Dark .\ir ; and third, the other which warms the cartli with fire. TJds is the source
of fountains, even of the fountains of all things — it is the womb containing all things.
Carried on high, there issuss from it the creation of diversified matter ; thence the
trailing Flame, flower of the Daik Fire, pcnetr.ites into the cavities of worlds. Thence
all extend downwards their wonderful radiations."'

The Oracles of Zoroaster. 287

the generation of multifarions Matter. Thence extracted a Pres-
ter ' the tlame of glowing Fire, flashing into the cavities of the
world : for all things from thence begin to extend down^vards their
admirable beams.

II. — The Father and Mind.

The Father hath snatched away himself ; neither hath He shut
up his own fire in his intellectual power.

For nothing unfinished proceedeth from the Father*s rule {apyj]).
For the Father perfected all things, and delivered them over to the
Second Mind, which the whole race of men call the First : Light
begotten of the Father, he alone having cropped the flower of
the Mind from the Father's vigor.

For the Paternal self-begotten Mind understanding [iiis] work,
sowed in all the flery bond of Love, that all things might continue
loving forever.

Neither those things which are intellectually context in the
Light of the Father in all things : that being elements of the
World they might persist in love.

For by understanding he hath the power to instil the Paternal
Mind into all fountains and beginnings. For it is the bound of
the Paternal Depth {3d9o<i), and the fountain of the intellectuals.

Neither went he t(;rth, but abode in the Paternal Depth, and
in tlie Adytum according to divinely-nourished Silence. For the
Fire once above shutteth not his power into Matter by actions,
but by the Mind.

For the Paternal Mind hath sowed symbols through the world.
Which understandeth intelligibles and beautifleth inefl'ables —
wholly division and indivisible.

By Mind he contains the intelligibles, but introduceth Sense
into the worlds.

By Mind he contains the intelligibles, but introduceth Soul
into the worlds.

III. — Mind, Intelligibles, and Intellectuals.

(NoCs, coTjTa, Kal yoepa.)

And of the one Mind, the Intelligible (Mind). For the Mind
is not without the Intelligible; it exists not without it.

' Prester, a flame, a serpent, or tongue oi nre. — A. W.

288 The Journal of SpeGulative Philosojphy.

These are Intellectuals and Intellii!:ibles, wliicli, being under-
stood, understand. For the Intelligible is the aliment of the
Intellig-ent.

Learn the Tntelliiiible, since it exists beyond the Mind ; and of
the Mind which moves the empjreal heaven. For the framer
{r€xi'i'ri]<i) of the Fiery World is the Mind of the Mind.

Yon M'ho know certainly the supermundane paternal depth

The Intelligible is predominant over all section.

There is somethino; InteUiij-ible which it behooves thee to un-
dcrstand with the flower of the Mind. For if thon inch'nest thy
mind thou slialt understand this also. Yet understanding some-
thing (of it), thou shalt not understand this wholly ; for it is a
power of eircumlucid strength, glittering with intellectual sections
(rays); bnt it behooves not to consider this Intelligible with vehe-
mence of Intellection, but with the ample flame of the ample
Mind, which measureth all things except this Intelligible. But
it behooves thee to understand this; for if thou inclinest thy
mind, thou shalt understand this also; not fixedly, but havino; a
pure turning eye (thou must) extend the empty mind of thy Soul
toward the Intelligible — that thou mayest learn the Inteiliijible;
for it exists beyond the Mind. But every mind understands this
God ; for the Mind (vov^) is not without the Intelligible {vo-qrov)^
neither is {virdp-^ei^ existeih) the Intelligible without the Mind.

To the intellectual Presters of the intellectual Fire all things
by yielding are subservient, to the persuasive counsel of the
Father, and [both] to understand and always to remain in a rest-
less whirling: fountains and principles, to turn, and always to
remain in a restless whirling — by insinuating into worlds (Koa-fMotf)
the Venerable Name in a sleepless whirling, by reason of the
terrible menace of the Father.

Under two Minds the life-generating fountain of the Souls is con-
tained. And the Maker who, self-operating, framed the world.
Who S])rung first out of the Mind. Clothing fire with tire, binding
them together to mingle the fountainous craters, preserving the
flower of his own fire. He glittei-eth with Intellectual Sections/

' By sections Mr. Stanley appears to understand rai/s. I opine that the word de-
notPs the interior substance, correspondiug with the nobler intestines of the body. —
A. W.

The Oracles of Zoroaster. 289

and filleth all things with love. That things nnfashioned may be
fashioned. Like swarms they are carried, being broken about
the bodies of the world.

"What the Mind speaks it speaks by understanding (t&j vouv).
Power is with them (e'/cetyot?). Mind is from her {eKeivov).

lY. — Itnges/ Ideas, and Principles.

("Ivryes, 'I5«ai, 'Apxal.)

These being many, ascend into the lucid worlds ; springing
into them, and in which are three tops (aKpoTr)Te<;). Beneath
them lies the chief of Immaterials.

Principles, which have understood the intelligible works of the
Father, disclosed them in sensible works, as in bodies; being (as
it were) the ferrymen betwixt the Father and matter, and pro-
ducing manifest images of unmanifest things ; and inscribing the
unmanifest in the manifest frame of the world (Koo-fioTroid).

The Mind of the Father made a jarring noise, understanding by
vigorous counsel Omniform ideas : and flying out of one fountain
they sprung forth : for from the Father was the counsel and end,
by which they are connected with the Father by alternate life
from several vehicles. But they were divided, being by intellect-
ual fire distributed into other Intellectuals; for the King did set
before the multiform world an intellectual multiform pattern,
the print of whose form He promoted through the world, accord-
ing to which the world appeared beautified with all kinds of
Ideas, of which there is one fountain ; out of which come rushing
forth others undistributed, being broken about the bodies of the
world ; which through the vast recesses, like swarms^ are carried
round about every way. Intellectual notions from the paternal
fountain cropping the flower of Fire in the point of sleepless time
of this primigenous Idea, the first self-budding fountain of the
Father budded. Intelligent lynges do (themselves) also under-
Btand from the Father by unspeakable counsels, being moved so
as to understand.

' lynx, the torquilla, or wryneck, a bird having a singular power of rotating its
head and neck. It would seem in this connection to have some relation to the 3fihr or
genius in the wheel, the cherub. — A. W.

XYI— 19

290 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Y. — Hekate, Synoches, and Teletarchs.

For out of Him spring all implacable thunders, and the proster-
receiving cavities of the entirely lucid strength of Father-begotten
Hakate. And he who begirds — ?'. ^., the Hower of Fire and the
strong spirit of the poles, fiery above — he gave to his Presters
that they should guard the tops, mingling the power of his own
strength in the Synoches.

O how the world hath intellectual guides inflexible! because she
is the operatrix, because she is the dispensatrix of tire-giving life.
Because, also, it Alls the life-producing bosom of Ilekate, and in-
stils in the Synoches the enlivening strength of potent tire. But
they are guardians of the works of the Father. For He assimi-
lates Himself, professing to be clothed with the print of the
images.

The Teletarchs are comprehended with the Synoches. To these
intellectual Presters of intellectual fire all thino^s are subservient.
But as many as serve the material Synoches, having put on the
completely-armed vigor of resounding Light; with triple strength
fortifying the Soul and the Mind to put into the mind the symbol
of variety, and not to walk dispersedly on the empyreal channels,
but firmly; these frame indivisibles (aro/ia), and sensibles, and cor-
poriforms, and things destined to Matter.

VI. — Soul, Nature.

The Soul being a bright fire, by the power of the Father, re-
mains immortal, and is mistress of all life, and possesseth many
complexions of the cavities of the world {/cuct/mov iroWd TrX/jpco/xaTa
Kokircdv). For it is an imitation {^ifiiqfjia) of the mind ; but that
which is born hath something of the body. The channels being
intermixed, she ])erforms the part of incorruptible tire.

jSText the paternal conception (hidvoia) I, the Soul, dwell;
warmth heating all things, for He did put the mind (wO?) in the
soul, the soul in the dull body.

Of us the Father of gods and men interposed. Abundantly
animating Light, Fire, ^ther, World:;. For natural works co-
exist with the intellectual lio-ht of the Father. For the Soul which
adorned the great heaven, and adorning with the Father. But

The Oracles of Zoroaster. 291

Tier horns [rays ?] are fixed above ; but about the shoulders of the
goddess, immense N^ature is exalted.

Again indefatigable Nature commands the worlds and works ;
that Heaven, drawing an eternal course, might run, aud the swift
Sun might come about the centre as he useth.

Look not into the Fatal Name of this Nature.

VII.— The World.

(K<J(r;uoi.)

The Maker who, operating by Himself, framed the world. And
there was another bulk of Fire, self-operating all things, that the
body of the world might be perfected. That the world might be
manifest, and not seem membranous. The whole world of fire and
water and earth, and all-nourishing sether.

The inexpressible and expressible watchwords of the world.
One life with another, from the distributed channels. Passing
from above through the opposite part through the centre of the
earth ; and another fifth the middle.' Another fiery channel,
where it descends to the material {liKaLcov) channels. Life-bringing
fire. Stirring himself up witii the goad of resounding light. An-
other fountainous, which guides the empyreal world. The centre
from Vt'hich all (lines) which way soever are equal.

For the Paternal Mind sowed symbols through the World.

For the centre of every one is carried betwixt the Fathers.

For it is an imitaticni of the Mind ; but that which is born hath
something of the body.

VIII. — Heaven.

(OvpOLvhs.)

For the Father congregated seven firmaments (a-Tepeco/xaTo) of
the world, circumscribing heaven in a round figure, and fixed a

^ The strong temptation to make new versions of these disjointed, obscure, and in-
definite pissagcs, is held in checli by the consciousness that they liave been collated
from several \^orks and places, and thrown together, perhaps foituitously ; so that
their connection to each other is uncertain, if not improbable. At the risk of deserv-
ing criticism, the emendation of this paragiaph is offered :

"The arcane and the published passwords of the universe. One and another form
■of life from the distributing channels. From above proceeding [ffcnilive easel ^^^^
through the centre of the earth, even the fifth medium, another vehicle of fire de-
scendeth thence, to the channels of material substance, a life-bearing fire." — A. W.

The Journal of Speculative Philosop)hy.

great, company of inerratic stars. And He constituted a Septen-
ary of erratic animals/ placing earth in the middle, and water in-
tiie middle of the earth ; the air above these.

He fixed a great company of inerratic stars, to be carried, not
by laborious and troublesome tension, but by a settlement which
hath no error {TrXdvr}). He fixed a great company of inerratic
{cnrkavdov) stars, forcing fire to fire ; to be carried by a settlement
which hath no error. lie constituted them six, casting into the
midst the the seventh fire of the Sun ; suspending their disorder
in well-ordered zones (or orbits). For the Goddess brings forth
the srreat Sun and the brio;ht Moon.

O ^Ether. Sun, Spirit of the Moon, guides of the Air, and of
the solar circles, and of the lunar clashings, and of the aerial re-
cesses ! The melody of the aether and of the passages of the Sun
and Moon, and of the Air. And the wide air, and the lunar
course, and the pole of the sun, it collects it, receiving the melody
of the JEther, and of the Sun, and of the Moon, and of all things
that are contained in the Air.

His hair pointed is seen by his native light. Hence Kronos.
The Sun-Assessor beholding the pure pole, and the aethereal course,
and the vast motion of the Moon, and the serial fluxions; and the
great Sun, and the bright Moon.

IX.— Time.

{Xp6vos.)

The mundane god, eternal, infinite. Young and old, and of
a spiral form, and another fountainous, who guides the empyreal
heavens.

X. — Soul, Body, Man.

It behooves thee to hasten to the Li^ht, and to the beams of the
Father, from whence was sent to thee a soul clothed with much
mind. These things the Father conceived, and so the mortal was
animated. For the Paternal Mind sowed symbols in souls, re-
plenishing the soul with profound love. For the Father of Gods
and men placed the mind in the Soul ; and in the body he estab-

' i. e., the seven planets which were bdieved to be ensouled.^ — A, W.

The Oracles of Zoroaster.

lished you (re). For all divine things are incorporeal, but bodies
are bound in them for your sakes, incorporeals not being able to
contain the bodies by reason of the corporeal nature in which you
are concentrated.

And they are in God, attracting strong flames. Descending
from the Father, from which descending the soul crops of empy-
real fruits the soul-nourishing flower. And therefore conceiving
{vo/]aacrai) the works of the Father, they avoid the audacious
{avai^h) wing of Fatal Destiny. And though you see this soul
manumitted,' yet the Father sends another to make up the num-
ber.

Certainly these souls are superlatively blessed above all souls ;
they are sent forth from heaven to earth. And these rich souls,
which have inexpressible fates as many of them, O King, as pro-
ceed from shining Thee, or from Jove himself, under the strong
power of his thread.^

Let the immortal power of thy soul be predominant ; let thine
eyes extend upwards. Stoop not down to the dark world, be-
neath which continually lies a faithless depth and Hades dark all
over, squalid, delighting in images, unintelligible, precipitous,
craggy, always involving a dark abyss, always espousing an opa-
cous, idle, breathless body. And the light-hating world, and the
winding currents by which many things are swallowed up.

Seek Paradise. Seek thou the way of the Soul, whence and by
what order, having served the body, to the same place from which
thou didst flow^, thou mayst rise up again, joining action to sacred
speech.

Stoop not down, for a precipice lies below the Earth. Drawing
through the Ladder which hath seven steps, beneath which is the
Throne of Necessity.

Enlarge not thy destiny.'

The soul of men (jMepoTrcov) will in a manner clasp God to her-
self; having nothing mortal, she is wholly inebriated from God.
For she boasts harmony, in which the mortal body exists.

If thou extend the tiery mind to the work of piety, thou shalt

' Greek, aTroKardaraffav, restored to its former estate. — A. W.

* Or, " Tliose that sprung from thee resplendent, King, or from Zeus himself, by
the forceful thread of Necessity." — A. W.

^ Or, "Add thou not to that which destiny has allotted."— A. W.

294 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

preserve the fliixible body. There is a room for the image {elhcoXov)
also in the circumhieid phice. '

Every way to the mifashioned Soul stretch the reins of fire.

Tlie fire-o-lowino; co2:itatiou hath the first rank.

For the mortal approaching to the Fire shall have light from
God.

For to the slow mortal the gods are swift.

The Furies are the s^tranglers of men.

The bourgeons even of ill Matter are profitable and good.'

Let fiery Hope nourish thee in the angelic region.

But the Paternal Mind accepts not her will until she go out oi
Oblivion and pronounce the word, inserting the remembrance of
the pure paternal symbol.

To these he gave the docile character of life to be compre-
hended. Those that were asleep he made fruitful by his own
strength.

Defile not the spirit, nor deepen a superficies ; leave not the
dross of Matter on a precipice.

Brino; her not forth, lest goino; forth she have soraethinoj.

The souls of those who quit the body violently are most pure.

The ungirdei's of the soul which give her breathing are easy to
be loosed.'

In the side of Sinister Hekate there is a fountain of virtue,
which remains entire within, not omitting her virginity.

O Man, the machine of boldest Nature ! Subject not to thy
mind the vast measures of the earth, for the plant of Truth is not
upon Earth. Nor measure the measures of the Sun, gathering
together canons ; he is moved by the eternal will of the Father,
not for thy sake. Let alone the swift course of the Moon and the
progression of the stars ; for she runs always by the impulse ot
Isece^sity; and the progression of the stars was not brought forth
for thy sake. The sethereal wide flight of birds is not veracious,
and the dissections of entrails of victims. All these are toys, the-
Bupports of gainful cheats ; fly thou these if thou intendest to open
the sacred paradise of piety, where virtue, wisdom, and equity are

' Or, " Even the germs of Evil Matter are benefits and advantages." — A. W.
' Perhaps this would be better rendered : " The aspirations which impel onward the
eoul are easily relaxed " {evMroi). — A. W.

The Oracles of Zoroaster. 295

assembled. For thj vessel {ar/yeiov) the beasts of the earth shall
inhabit, and the earth bewails them even to their children.

Demons, Rites.

{Aalfioues. TeKerai.)

Nature persuades that there are pure demons.

The bourgeons even of ill Matter are profitable and good.

Bat these things I revolve in the recluse temples of my mind ;
the lire extending sparklingly into the spacious air, or fire unfig-
ured whence a voice issuiuo- forth, or lio-ht abundant — whizzing;
and winding along the earth. But also to see a horse more glit-
tering than light, or a boy on thy shoulders riding on a horse —
fiery or adorned with gold, or divested (of clothing), or shooting,
or standing on thy shoulders.

If thou speahest often to me, thou shalt see absolutely that
which is spoken, for then neither appears the celestial concave
bulk, nor do the stars shine ; the light of the moon is covered, the
earth stands not still, but all things appear in thunders. Invoke
not the self- conspicuous image of Nature, for thou must not be-
hold these before thy body is initiated ; when soothing souls they
always seduce them from these Mysteries. Certainly out of the
cavities of the Earth spring terrestrial dogs, which show no true
sign to mortal man. " Labor about the Hekatic Strophalos." '

' The skilful reader will quickly perceive that the topic of this section is the initia-
tion-scene of the arcane rites. The text is not very clear ; certainly the translation is
obscurer still. I venture, not without trepidation, to suggest the following as more
accurately expressing the meaning cf the original :

"But I will contemplate these matters of thought in the consecrated halls: the fire
rising into the air like a swelling billow, or the formless fire which sends out a voice,
or the bright light trailing on the ground and hissing. But the steed aglow with elec-
tric flume is a worthier spectacle than even the light, or the lad upon thy shoulders,
radiant with fire, adorned with gold or naked, that guides the steed, or even throws a
dart and keeps himself erect upon thy shoulders.

" If thou shouldst speak to me often, thou wouldst find out everything desired ; for
then the concave vault of the sky does not appear, nor do the stai's shine ; the moonlight
is hidden, the earth does not stand still, but everything is seen by the flashes of light-
ning. Thou mayst not invoke the autoptic image of Nature [i. e., the image of Demeter
or Rbea at the Autopsia or Personal Vision] ; for it is not lawful for thee to behold it
before thy person has undergone initiatory rites. When they cast a charm over the
Bouls, they always lead them to the place of initiations. And then upleap from the
bosom of the earth the dogs of the Underworld, exhibiting, perhaps, no real body to
mortal man. They are active in the circuit of Hekatu." — A. W.

296 The Journal of Speoulaiwe Philosophy.

Never change barbarous names, for there are names in every
nation given from God, which have an unspeakable power in
[Mystic] Rites.

"When thou shalt see a Sacred Fire without form, shining flash-
ingly through the depths of the world, hear the voice of Fire.

USE, BEAUTY, REASON;

OR, SCIENCE, AET, RELIGION.

BY MEEDS TUTHILL.

III. — Reason.

The only Reason for Man's Art, then, is his love for it ; which,
after all, is self-love. That is what he judges by in creating it ;
it is "good" when his sensibilltij is pleased.' And his justifica-
tion for it is, that the object he creates is destitute of sensibility.
He is not woi-king in it, but only* on it. It knows not itself
in any way : hence neither does it know or reck aught of hitn
or of his doings. Its sacrifice is, therefore, after all, not a self-
sacrifice ; it is only a passive and barren one. And this cruci-
fixion of his idea in it is onlv an iuias-inary and seemino; one.
We may impute it to the form, find it suggested there, but it is
really not there/ but elsewhere, if at all.

' Thus, to represent the Divine as pronouncing its Creation good to look at is in itself
a promise of v:oc, a foreboding of Evil.

2 A fine ground for arguing both the mortality of all Outer forms and the immor-
tality of all spiritual ones. For that which is worked in can only be transformed;
its sensibility is the means of this its own transformation. But that which is worked
on, i. c, by such external means as impact, contact, external relations in general, can be
only a finite in itself, only a form as force-form, hence ending necessarily in the infinite
.abyss of Porce as Outer Relativity.

2 And so Vera's interpretation of Hegel as making of Nature, as such, a Crucifixioa
of the Idea, i. e., the Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, is a false and mon-
strous conception. It can be only as Spiritual Person, that there can be a Divine Suff
ferinff ; hence not in the insensate nor in the Whole of Nature as a Merciless Force.
That is rather the DiaboHcal, the Arbiti'ary, of which the very interpretation, a,3 mean$
of Kaovfing f/ntcli/, mtist be aSufi'ering, a learning by Experience.

Use, Beauty, Reason. 297

This disposes of the Outer pliase of Art as only an Appear-
ance; but only by making its Reality revert with total and con-
centrated force upon the inner Man. In him, then, is all this
creating, all this suffering of sacrifice, all this crucifixion of the
Idea. For he is not destitute of sensibility. And he it is who
concentrates this Infinite idea of Beauty into some special form,
shapes it into his own " style," and thus seeks a sort of peculiar
possession of it. And since it is there alone, within him, that
it develops and transforms itself, there also must be the final
Reason of it, — the Reason which is both Cause and Effect. But
this Reason of Beauty escapes from all particular forms. No
rules, no Experiences, suffice for it. It rejects all merely proxi-
mate "reasons" as not its Reason. In a word, it shows itself
manifestl}' as Infinite, and hence, as Divine Reason. Hence Art,
•considered in this creative nature and impulse of it in the human
spirit, resolves itself essentially into the Spiritual and the Relig-
ious. In other words, Man's relatiun in that is the Religious
Relation. The Jinal Reason for his Art -Creation must be a relig-
ious Reason.

But what is the Reason of Religion? Evidently it must be
the Divine Reason itself ; * since Religion is a relation which
spiritually unites Human and Divine. Isow Beauty, as we have
seen, seemed at first useless, since not of particular Use ; yet,
for this very reason, as of the highest Use in revealing this In-
finite and Divine relation of the spirit. But Religion differs
from Art, in that Art satisfies itself hy feeling the final Reason
only in one's self; whereas Religion seeks also to find it in the
Object — in every Object. For there is no object finite or isolated
for Religion, which finds all as necessarily related to God. Hence
Religion restores the Use to objects — the highest use — the Beau-
tiful Use. And since this use is now a Divine Use, the Reason
is now, in the Use, no longer as a merel}' proximate reason, but
as a final Reason. For the religious use, strictly speaking,
Means do not exist as means, but are at once transformed into
ends. For example, the Reason of a good act is the act itself, as
good, whether considered as external act or as internal design /
for it is not complete till it is in hoth, each is means for it. And

' Otherwise it is no Reason at alL

298 The Journal of Speculative P/dlosophij.

BO, in general, the Religions process is not a running-on, ad in-
Jinitum, to Jind a Cause ; but the Cause, for it is always the One
Same Infinite, and hence immediate and concentrative at every
step, realizing itself at every point. And such also is the opera-
tion of Reason in its Divine Form. Tiiis is what makes Reason
and Religion identical, wdien considered only as Method ^ and it
is also what makes them dlfe?', when Reason is taken as only a
Knowing^ and Religion as hoth a knowing and a Doing.^ Hence
Religion includes in 2fe Reason both Usean.l Beauty, both Practical
and Theoretical ; whereas Reason, if taken as Knowino; onlv, or as-
Philosophical, includes only the theoretical phases of Science, Art^
and Religion. This is a distinction which will be rendered
clearer, perhaps, by what follows. And it is to be borne in mind
that we are now seeking for ihajinal Reason, hence the Divine
Reason, not the merely human or finite Reason which has found
its way, through Use and Beauty, through Science and Art, up io
the Reli2:iou3 Relation.

1. Art seemed to discard all Use, yet found in Beauty the
highest use, as a Revelation of Man's capacity io feel, and even
to express, an Infinite relation, an Infinite Reason. For this
Reason of Beauty shows itself, in Creative Art, as eventually
discarding all particular "reasons,'" and as concentrating itself
within the Artist himself, as an Inner Reason which impels him
to create, yet tells him hovj only in the act of creating — reveals
itself as Reason only in and by its own operation. But though
Man is thus rendered creative of Beauty in Art, hj an apodictic,
or Necessarj" Reason, and though he is impelled to make Outer
exhibition of his Art, yet is this outer act only o. formal one. It
is not vital in itself, and has no result except to demonstrate in
others, what he feels in himself, that this Reason is only an Inner
one, sul)jective only, or else it is one that no m.an can utter.

{a.) And its first phase is that of mere Sensibility/. The Artist
only " feels " the Reason ; seems, at first, to feel it in the senses,
but finally, only in his love f' for, in its infinite form, this Reason
of Beauty rises above the sense. So in Religion, Man at first only
feels the Divine; but, so long as he mingles sense with it, he

^i. e., the former does not account for Creation at all. It is mere Science, and induc-
tive only necessarily, till through Art it rises to the Religious point of view.

Use, Beauty, Reason. 299

abases the Divine. So, in Science, he on\j feels the Truth with-
out being able to '■'' give^'' that is, express a reason for it; his last
reason, in the form of sensibility (and this rises above sense), is
his love for Truth as harmonious in itself. Novf, in all cases, to
6aj we " can give no reason for it," is to say that our power to
recognize is greater than our power to recreate^ we Q,^\\feel a
Beauty or a Truth which we cannot express. In other words, we
can recreate within, in ideal form (for that is recognition)., what
we cannot recreate in Outer form ^ — this latter will not hold all
there is in Idea — and what we call our sensibility or feeling,
when it takes the form of love for Truth, for Beauty, holds more
than can be expressed by sense. Yet there is, at iirst, also a defect
of sensibility, of power to recognize. The man, as animal, does
not recognize either Truth, or Beauty, or Reason. For these
develop themselves within him as spiritual; and hence only as
lie raises himself out of the animal nature. And when he is able
to posit these for himself in an absolute way, as in Art, or in
necessary Truth, by that act he bids a final farewell to Nature, as
merely Formal and Outer and Arbitrary; separates himself as
Spiritual therefrom, and takes up for himself, as a thinking ac-
tivity, a nature indifferent to all Outerness, and of that fluid
Bort which can penetrate all, and take all forms, yet remain un-
changed.

(J.) However, he does not attain this escape from his Natural
chrysalis at once, nor without a long and weary struggle. And
some seem to pride themselves upon being " sensible " in never
trying to escape from it. So it is no wonder that theories are in
vogue which say Reason is in the senses only. This theory is, in
fact, " sensible," but only sensible. Like the theory of Utility as
only particular use, which goes into a universal contradiction of
uses, so this theory of sense-Reason resolves itself into my sense
as alone reasonable, yet into perpetual irrationality in that, and
into a general conflict of senses. It does not perceive that hahit

^ Same of Divine Creation ; the Outer an inefficient though a coefficient, mcie arbitrary,
medium posited ouly as means of Separation ; external relation, whereby the absolute
relation {triple necessarily) of Outer and Inner Worlds as Knowing and Unknowing may
be realized. In fact, no knowledge can be expressed in this Outer : its meaning is put
into it from the Inner development of relation of Spirit to Spirit; it is only the conven-
tional Word, the mere symbol between them, the wax to be made to mean what one
will.

300 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

is not only " second nature," " and ten times jSFature," as Welling-
ton called it, or that, as Napoleon said, "what repeats itself i^
what takes possession of us," but that, in fact, this repetition, this
hahit is the whole of Xature for us — the whole of our " sensible "
nature. Nature is nothinjy for us except as we habitually view it.
Ilence it has ceased to be for us what it was to the Ancients —
a deity. We form Nature for ourselves in our ideas of it ; and,
since we cling to these notions we have formed, they become for
us fixed forms from which we are loatli to tear ourselves. Thus
the transformation we see in Nature must be really in ourselves
and of ourselves. It is easier here, and so icxr pleasatiter to repeat
than to reform. The senses, being mechanical, prefer repetition :
it is the spiritual alone that does not wish to be " possessed," and
urges to change. And the sensualist theorist forgets, or is un-
aware, that what he calls " sensible " notions are only his first
notions, or habitual notions, which he himself has formed, and in
which he chooses to abide, partly because they are fixed, and thus
seem certain^ and partly because they seem pleasant as easier, or
otherwise accordant with the mechanical senses.

Now, the Reason, as we have seen, the final Keason, as actual
in knowing^ is precisely in this inner, infinite transformdbility^
felt as infinite in its process^ if not in itself. Hence this first
form of mere half-unconscious feeling — of capacity to recognize
the Reason, but not to develop it in ourselves, or to recognize it
in one form and not in another; and this tracing it gradually
throuofh its manv forms, and tearing ourselves loose from the
lower, though habitual and easier, to reach the higher — this is
every man's school of trial and " experience." Here he begins
with his imitative Art and his Inductive Science, both as neces-
sary means for him. Ilis Science is to collate results and reduce
experiments to Rules in other words, he is discovering the
practice of this final Reason, as it appears in the Outer World as
Relation or " Law," and is using this Reason by imitation of its
practice, in respect to ivhat is mechanical. His Art rises to the
realm of inner experience — experience of a Reason necessary and
certain in itself, yet evolving itself in the thought as free for ^V,
and for its ideal uses. And this experience goes so far, in Crea-
tive Art, as to discover the important fact that ''^practice alone
makes perfect." Only using gives use of this final Reason.

TJse^ Beauty^ Reason. 301

This is the first lesson in Religion — tlie perceived necessity of
the True, in order to clearly perceive the Trne. This is not
merely a matter of attention enforced, and observation enlarged,
by constancy of operation. That is part — the outer part, of the
means whereby a man is brought to see the Reason of a Rule
or of a Method given him to work by. But in merely useful arts,
looking only to present or particular use, this may lead to vast
variety of inventions, yet only of the useful, since only proximate
reasons and limited relations are seen in the outer objects. Hence,
though here the Reason develops itself in an infinite diversity, it
is not found as One. But in Beautiful Art, where the man is
thrown back at once upon the final Reason, if he is to find any
at all whereby he can invent — create ab initio^ and for all — this
'practice is essential for quite another purpose, and with quite
another result for the consciousness. The Artist, though he still
judges only by his sensibility, yet feels that the reason appears to
him as developing itself in him whenever he follows the right
practice. To imitate the Perfect is not merely to imitate, but
also to hnow it. For, since this imitation must be an inner and
Spiritual one, it is also to feel and recognize, in this activity of the
Spirit, the Reason itself at work. Thus the Reason is recognized
in its Method^ if this he put into practice. And without this
actual practice the Reason cannot reveal itself; for it is itself an
activity, known by its infinite transforming, and must be so real-
ized, or not at all. How can any one expect to see a Reason with-
out thinMng it ?

{c.) Here, then, is the fundamental Reason for all methods, all
prescriptions in Art or Religion. The Reason is a Spiritual activ-
ity which must be discerned hy and in the practising of it rightly.
Thus the final Reason, the Reason as Divine, lends itself to Use,
and reveals itself only in the using of it. To do the right thing
rightly is to know the Reason of it as revealing itself, at least, to
this primary sensibility of the spiritual nature. The certainty is
felt, though it cannot be stated. And hence, in Religion, as well
as in Art and in Science, it is necessary io first teach the practice,
the rule, the precept. And here, it is necessary for all, and al-
ways : not merely for the child or the tyro, but for all, in all
ages, at all stages of progress, and for evermore. Religion is the
sphere of the " forever," the Eternal : and here the Use again

302 The Journal of Speculative Philosojjhy.

shows itself ns a "Reason in itself, and alioays a Keason, and hence
as liavino- its iniinitj now in Time, in the spiritual sphere, instead
of in spatial forms, as in respect to outer objects. But in this
form, as practice, it will also diversify itself infinitely. And, as
already intimated, it will differ from mere Art-practice in demand-
ing a unity instead of a separation between the inner act and the
outer act, and thus truly and completely imitate the Divine in its
spiritual creativeness. For here, the lieason to be found is the
last Reason — the Divine Reason ; and this can never be learned,
save in doing as well as knowing its will, in acting under its guid-
ance, and \\\\\?> partaking of its activity, its Spirit.

Hence, in this first phase of mere rule and practice, all religions
are prescriptive. The Jewish religion is, however, the only one
proper to note here, since it recognizes the Divine fully as " Spirit,"
and as precisely in that severance of Subject from Object ' — of
God from Man as a ^^ potter's vessel,^' which the Art- intuition
brings about between the Artist and his created object. It con-
fines itself wholly to precept ; as if to say, " You can know the
Reason of this Divine Relation only by obedience to it ; " only
by constant practice of acts whieli, no matter how indifferent
otherwise, yet suggest this relation — keep it in mind. Not to
dwell, or even insist upon, the special aptitude for this purpose of
the Mosaic Law, it must be at least admitted that, in regard to
the Jews as between themselves alone, this law was most wisely
devised. And that the sense of Eternal Right and Justice was in
it, is, perhaps, best illustrated by the manner in which a novelist'
makes a Jewish Rabbi (who had just made a Jew shrink from a
false oath) boast of this law, as sanctioned not merely by a sense
of fear, but also by a sense of Right, which is durable and lovable.
The Rabbi says : " Only reflect a little, how often you [of other
religions] have split up and fought each other for these two thou-
sand years ; how uiany sects and religions you have formed. But

' Natural that this incompleteness of conception should pnrolyzc Fine Art with the
Jews ; since the idea of Beautt] was at once absorbed in that of the Divine which caU'
not be crcateJ, and must not be imaged. But, that this Art-intuition was (lierc in this
locked-ap form, is evident from the present skill and almost precedence of Jews in Art,
especiiilly in that most infinite of Arts — music, c. g., Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, and a
score of others !

« Erckmann-Chatrian, " L'Ami Fritz," p. 219.

TJse^ Beauty^ Reason. 303

we are always the same since Moses — we are ever the Sons of the
Eternal. You are the sons of Time and of Pride; with the
least interest, one makes you change opinion. And we, poor,
wretched — all the universe combined has not been able to make
us abandon a single one of our laws."

The Jewish Religion may, then, be described as wholly a Re-
ligion of Use, and even of present use. For, though all that is
essential to it is durable (such as its prescriptions of Right, Justice,
Obedience to the Divine One as against all particular interests or
eelfish aims), yet are even these limited, for the individual, to the
present life, and have their future interest for him only as one
who hopes for continuity through his descendants. Thus Family
is the essential idea with the Jew. His is not the Church as Uni-
versal Family, but it is the Family as Church. It is Ms Family,
both as State and Church. As he is a " son of God," so would he
be a "father of many." Thus the merely seljisli interest he has
in obedience is lifted above himself and found by him as of an
infinite extent. And so the Use becomes, for his thought, an in-
finite Use, although, for him individually, it is only a present Use.
The infinite of it is not in him, but external to him in others. So,
in like manner, though his religion is inwardly only a religion of
Fear, in respect to God, yet it is o-i^Avardly one of Love for his
descendants. This is the only form in which there can be seen
any Use for immortality, by one who does not recognize the Di-
vine through Love. For we can see that the Divine may have use
for us temporarily only as working-creatures, and even as think-
ing-beings, if we think only the finite. But what use would He
have for us as immortal, unless he loved us? Or of what use
would eternal life be to us, except in such a case ? ' The Jewish
scheme is therefore silent on this point, and only suggestive of im-
mortality. It would be tmreasonable to impose eternal penalties
on a merely formal obedience. So also would it be to awaken

1 This points to where the/7r«; Reason must be found — not in a mere "thinking,"
but in what seems to be conceived in a way by Swedenborg when he says, " The Di-
vine Love and Wisdom are Substance and Form " — [as if to say, " In the Spiritual Sphere
there is a wholly other material as well as other Form'"''']. But, of course, this supposes
theimmortalily. To demonstrate it, the Form as well as the material must be found
to be imperishable. In respect to the Outer material, only one of these bears the test.
In respect to the inner, the difficulty is as to a supposed or imputed /orm^essncss, except
the perishable forms, etc.

304 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

imaginarv ]iopes or terrors wliich would run into superstitions and
thus defeat their own purpose. But the Family U a positive and
real object of foresight. And here is a Creation in the Family of
what we wish to see live. Is not the type very suggestive of im-
mortality for " sons of the eternal " ?

By-the-way, there is a curious resemblance here to the Comtian
"religion," the "Positive Philosophy" which, as Sentiment, wor-
ships Humanity in Love, and God only as an Unknowable. The
logic of this resemhlance is, that each of these religions finds
the External only as an Indefinite, and thus without any union
with the Internal, except as an impulse which drives it out — out
of Eden, we may gay — and keeps it out with a flaming sword. Yet
the difference is world-wide. For the Comtian religion finds Use,
and prescribes practice only for the Scientific reason, the Useful
reason, the Finite : whereas the Jewish practice is an Art-prao-
tice, not of finite art, but of the Infinite Art of " seeing God " al-
ways and eyerywhere. Hence its Art-creation is stilled. The idea
of Beauty is here at once and wholly absorbed in the Divine,
which cannot be created, and must not be debased by image. The
child is the only work of Art, and of a Divine Art — a sensitive
object which seeks, yet fears, its Creator.

Moreover, there is in this Jewish Code another subtle Sugges-
tion of the Truth, and precisely in that part which is merely
formal, and now grown obsolete. For example, the worship is a
formal one, and the forms of it are quite arbitrary,^ and regard-
less of any natural relation of things, as in respect to foods forbid-
den, or to an outer expiation or atonement quite disproportionate
with the supposed shi (ofi'ense), and the sin itself may be a merely
formal one. But this declares that the Outer form is wholly in-
different in itself, and that what is really commanded is the act of
obedience — the inner act of the Spirit, from repetition of which it
may grow into the hahit of referring all things to God. In respect
to this act of the spirit, there should, in fact, be no distinction
made in outer acts or things ; and the most indifferent to present
use or proximate reasons should be selected as precisely the types
to indicate the absolute universality of the Religious relation in

' The material is here again treated as mere means, wholly destitute of any signifi-
cance in itself.

Use, Beauty, lieascn. 305

them — precisely the means to signify tliat it applies to all — so
Jong as this Religious relation is to be recognized only by formal
act of a mind as yet unconscious of its inner relations. It enforces
the truth that the Religious act must be hoth inner and outer.

In like manner, the prescriptions for cleansing of uncleanness,
which now seem abhorrent to delicacy, are but 21. first way of rec-
ognizing the distinction of the spiritual from the animal nature,
and of declaring the soul to be tainted and undeveloped, so long
as it stays willingly or -i^/iwillingly in this Outer Nature. Thus
this also hints at another and immortal nature in the Man,
which must be honored and kept ever cleansed, as though a day
might come when it would be called forth from the body, and
should then be able to appear in a spiritual purity. We should
command these prescriptions, scientifically, as " good for the
health " — to secure the " sana mens in sano corpore^'' (For our
Science has got so far as to recognize the " mind " at least as some-
thing to be Ttept clean !) And so we should prescribe to the Ar-
tist, " Keep your mind pure, if you would realize a Beautiful Crea-
tion ! " Or we should say, philosophically, "Keep hoth mind and
body pure, if you would attain to that 'highest consciousness'
which is a consciousness of the Divine." But this Mosaic law was-
given to men who had no Science, nor Art, nor Philosophy. And
though they came to look for a " Shiloh," to be born some day,
in this manger of the body, yet they had no notion of what we
mean by a birth of the Divine in the religious Consciousness, nor
that this Shiloh was, above all, to be thus born as one who would
recognize himself in Spirit, rather than in his body, as " son of
God." They must have regarded this typical cleansing of the
spirit, therefore, in another light than as a perfecting of its con-
sciousness, or a promise of Divine revelation in it when pure.
For the Jew, all this was covered under the idea that the Divine
eye saw within him — " searched his innermost thoughts, and that
this pure eye alone was what must not be offended." But this,
again, is only a true reference of all to the Divine ; for the immor-
tal can, after all, have its being only in that ; and to suppose, as
does this formal ceremony, that not we, but it alone, can know
what is fitting or necessary for its complete satisfaction, is a form
of surrender to its will which is all the more perfect because it
acts upon a possibility rather than on a certainty. And, when we
XYI— 20

306 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

think of it closely, may we not say that all our acts of obedience
to the Divine are thus really based, not upon a certainty as to the
good character of the outer act, or form of the act, but only upon
a certainty of the good intent, the inner act?' We may be sure
of this intent, but the outer shape to give it may take so much the
form of sheer contingency as to be like " casting bread upon the
waters." So here, in this formal obedience in general, as merely
typical, the intent is all, and is to be formalized only that it may
be Arplicitl_y taught as intent, and made habit as such. To obey
the Rule here, is to recognize the last Reason — that of a Divine
in all to he obeyed in every, the least thing, as the very act of living.
And this is true, albeit this Reason is not, and just hecause it is
not, perceived outwAwWy as Reason, but only as Rule. For, as
Religious act, it has only this inner intent as its Reason, and the
Rule only as conventional outer form for practice. In a larger
sense, of course, which is only hinted at, and not included in this
merely formal practice, an act is Religious, as we have already
seen, only because its Reason is the Iiitinite Reason, which is so
precisely because it overrules all mere proximate reasonings and
sensible perceptions.

But the deep wisdom of the Jewish Law, in these regards, is to
be seen in the fact that for such merely typical purposes, suggestive
purposes, it is precisely the inditferent things which are taken.
There is no violation of any essential relation of Right or Jus-
tice in matters of practical use (otherwise, it would not be still
in vogue, unchanged, according to the Rabbi's boast). This is a
system of Ohedience only, but one in which both the Practical
and Theoretical are embodied in Use. It steks to teach Religion
as an Ai't, that tiie Science may come from tiie practice of it. It
is sought to cstabiic-h certain habits of mind which become a
" second nature," a spiritual n?iture. For who can doubt that the
practice of this law by the Jews, through all their persecutions,
has made of this '' second nature" a far more spiritual nature, and
of the Worship a far more spiritual worship, than in the days of
Moses? And the tenacity with which this system and its liabits
have clunof to the Jewish race coniirms the fundamental idea of

' Another form of rejecting tliis outer material as " immaterial " — not the spiritual
material.

Vse^ Beauty^ Reason. 307

this, and of every true Religion, that Obedience is the first step,
?ind also the necessary means, tlie Way to Religious Life. But its
insufficiency is in not going beyond this first step ; or, rather, in not
developing it into the higher forms which obedience takes, when
the human spirit has become, as a thinking- being, more thor-
oughly conscious of itself and of its relation to the Divine Reason.

2. The second phase of Religion, then, is the Reflective phase,
which develops itself through Science, Art, and Philosopliy, to
attain to the Reason in the Thougld-form. The first phase, just
considered, is an Art-form of Religion, in which there is only a
sentiment of the Divine, oy feeling o^ the Reason as something
hidden, and which is to be learned only hy practice. The second,
or Reflective stage, may be called an effort to state this hidden
Reason — an Effort which culminates in Philosophy. This Hid-
den is at first only/<?Z^ as a Revealed yet unrevealahle, unstatable,
a Jcnown, yet an f//iknowable ; and Reflection only confirms the
intuition of Art that this Divine Reason is knowable only in the
practical Spiritual Act. And the highest Philosophy is only a
teaching of the Art of Religion, as a method of thhiking, whei'eby
one may attain to, and consciously abide in, the Divine Reason as
the Universal thoui>;ht. Thus, at all stasfes, Reliirion must be
taught only as an Art, and its Reason is knowable only in the
practice of this Art. In other words, it cannot be made a merely
theoretic Science, even in the form of Philosophy.

(a.) But in \\\^i first stage, of mere Art, vaevQ formal practice,
it is really implied that the sentiment of the Divine, of the Rea-
son as such, is quite dormant. (And, in fact, when is it not more
or less so? Is it any less dormant with those who now claim to
be "Agnostic," than it was with the Jews?) In this state of the
mind, the necessity for practice is so ahsolute that it must be pre-
scribed by penalty, and this of an 6,»ternal kind, because thej';;"^^-
tice seems to him to be only an external one. (For any pi-actico
of the spirit's activity, even an unconscious one, is better than
none. And the penalty here' still is, that a man thus blind to the

' More generally, this indicates the primary necessity for moulding this arbitrary ex-
ternal material into a symbolic signibcauce before it can have any meaning. In other
words, it is like a language which has no other than a merely conventional meaning such
as the mind comes to attribute to it. Such a means or mediation is mechanical Nature
for the knoioing Spirit.

308 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Divine Reason within Lira shall have nothing except through the
external act. This urges him on to find the Reason without.) The
man is conscious only of the external ; and his dealing with this
is the only means by which to react upon his inner nature, and
render him conscious of that as his real life. The being of his
spirit is, as yet, a being "unknown" to him ; and so, therefore,
does the Divine seem to him an " unknowable" Beine. The Art
of Religion is, here, like the Useful Art ; it promotes an external
knowing of things, and leads to the second phase, where Science
of the external has reacted, through Reflection, upon the inner
man, and shown him the indifference of va^xQ forms to an Infinite
One and same Substance. And it is also like the merely imita-
tive^ Art, which educates the Sentiment, and shows it an infinity
of outer means, from which it 7nxist, necessarily., react into itself
as a choosing being, and thus, also, it leads to this second phase,
where the mind recognizes itself as an activity, and must find its
Reason in itself. In this way. Science becomes Inductive, to rise
toward an " Unknown " last Reason ; and Art becomes Deductive,
from an " Unknown •' first Reason. Science dissects, to find
proximate reasons, and then seeks to farther analyze these, till the
last and One Reason is reached.^ On the other hand. Art synthe-
sises, creates, rationally because successfully,^ yet knows not the
ultimate or first Reason from which this Creation issues. Ob-
viously, this first Reason of synthetic Creative Art and the last
Reason of Analytic Science must be one and the same, though
sought in different directions. Yet, though the one seeks with-
out, through all the Outer Universe, and the other within, in the
profoundest consciousness of the Inner "World, neither finds it,
because each is seeking only in one direction. The one would
find it as Ohject only, the other as Subject only. But it is both,
or, rather, it is neither, in the forms which are attributed to Sub-

' This is the " 2nd act " or react of Aquinas. The finite spirit catches by sympathy
the repulsion of the Infinite Spirit for this external material and thus learns how to
interpret it as non-spiritual, i. e., arbitrary, mechanical, and merely usable, and meaning
■what y<m will. This Repulsion is all that constitutes it in itself as attraction, and for
the spirit as mere means, mere mediation.

^ And since it can reach it only as abstract, this also shows this outer material to be
an arbitrary and absolutely dependent one.

• * Art triumphs over the material — no hindrance in that ; she can make it mean
•what she will.

Use^ Beauty, Reason. 309

ject and Object, the former as a nullity, the latter as a " thing,"
This^r,9^ and last Reason is manifestly what is Oreative, hoth in
Nature and in Art, upon the ?>ame material. It is therefore the
same formative activity, both without and within. Yet, in nei-
ther case can it be this apparent material, nor this wo/i-apparent
Creator. In itself, it must be spiritual, and self-sufficient for all.

(5.) Philosophy seeks to bring this Science-seeking and this Art-
seeking to their aim — the Absolute Reason — by combining their
Inductive and Deductive methods in its own more general and
complete method. Thus it presents an Art of Thinking.

It presents this Art as, so to speak, an Art of thinking the self
out of the Finite, so that one may rise to a point of view where
the Finite shows itself as only a self-diflerentiation of the Absolute
One. This is obviously an essentially religious elevation of the
man as a thinking-being. It is wholly identical with Religion in
the fact that it recognizes the man as existing only in and by the
operation of the Divine being in him — as horn of the Universal
Spirit, and as finding his ahsolute relation to that in his conscious-
ness or recognition of it, as the One Sole Objective Reality, which
includes himself as well as all that really is.

Hence, it wholly discards as " principle " what a merely Induc-
tive Science takes as an axiom, that there is a Finite {e. g., an
atom), which has an independent and exclusive existence of its
own. It nullifies this by showing the obvious fact of the abso-
lute dependeuce which every such supposed finite has upon an-
other, and so on ad infinitum, so that there is a manifest )ie-
cessity for finding the relations of all, in order to find the com-
plete relations of any. In other words, each is in Universal, infir
nite relation — or this Universal Relation is in each, as its only
raison d'etre, its only possibility of being. This Infinite Relation
centres itself at every point as the Infinite Reason — the necessary
only source of all mere proximate reasons. It demonstrates this
negatively, also, by showing the manifest absurdity of seeking for
a whole by going outward for it without end ; the whole must be
where one starts, or not at all. When this "fact" strikes the
scientist, he is precisely in the position of the Artist who finds
liiraself driven in upon his inner invention by the very infinity
^nd consequent essential irrationality or mere outer means. This,
.then, leads him necessarily to deduction, as an " instrument " at

310 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

least, for extending his knowledge, and he finds this inner mean^
to have a wonderfully expansive power, forbidden though it be by
his logic ; and Philosophy follows him and the Artist to this de-
ductive point of view.

The mere "'reasoning" by external relation being thus shown
to be necessarily a finding only oi proximate reasons, and incapa-
ble of reaching the one and only Reason, Philosophy next turns
to this Deductive Method of Art, and shows the insutticiency of
that, so long as it regards the Reason by which it creates as an
Unknown, although it demonstrates itself in its results. The hu-
man spirit can be thus rationally creative, only because it has the
ultimate or first Reason as the very /brmof its activity. A crea-
tive activity is one which goes out of itself and creates what is
external.^ It is not that merely mechanical going-on from one
external thing to another, of which Science vainly seeks to find
an end ; but it operates everywhere as an inner relation, simulta-
neous and infinite in respect to all. Thus the Outer Creation is
self-centred — is equally a Whole — at any or every point. It issues-
from every point. Thus absolute in its relation, it can be ulti-
mately related, as a creation^ a constant creation, not to an atoniy.
Bureiy, nor even to a Force, but only to a Thought Divine. But,
since this Thought Divine is everywhere, it is in man, as a think-
ing-being; and he is its spirit-form, its active form in distinction
from these outer, spatial, mechanical, and passive forms. Hence
it is that in Thought, when he attains to it in this absolute con-
sciousness of it, the man has Universahty — Infinite Relation — aa
a thinkino;-beino;. This Universal Thouo-ht is not his thought
(just as this Beauty is not his Beauty), but is the Divine, substanr
tial, and permanent thought, which is the same for every man, and
unchangeable. And its operation in him, when he breaks loose
from his merely finite and linear thinking in limited forms of
Space and Time, and rests himself upon it in its eternal nature,,
is not an operation of his own, not an inductive forming, nor a
deductive relating of this thought by himself ; but it shows itself

' It is not as creative, a coming-topether — a composition — but an unfolding, as in the-
Rose, or in any vital process ; and tlmt mechanical coming together only presents the
conditions, the outer means for this new creative act. In the chemical, transformation
Becms to be the turning-point from the old to the new, from the mechanical as onlj.
one act to its change into a higlier creation.

Use, Bemity, Reason. 311

to bim as an infinite self-transformation. lie is a mere beholder
cf its process, vet sees it all as Necessary Relation, and therefore
as Reason. And, in thus contemplating its self-evolution, he is
oblivions of ths temporal and spatial, oblivious of himself. Yet
he is not merged; for he is conscious of this Divine Object as
Supremely Beautiful, with a Beauty which does not excite, but
calms the soul — gives not joy, but peace. Thus he has his highest
inner or subjective Consciousness as a thinking-being, in this real-
ization of his religious relations, as an active form, to the Divine
Reason. He is in a communion with the Spirit Divine, under its
Thought-Form; its active form — its spirit-form — as fully con-
scious of itself.

(<?.) Now, this may be called Contemplative Religion — such a
Religion as Plato realized. It is the ultimate product of Reflec-
tion as Philosophic Reason. It is not such a Religion of Beauty
as that of the Greeks in general, who saw Beauty only as Infinite
Proteus in outer forms of Nature, but is rather the resolution of
this, in the form of Sentiment, by Socrates, into the worship of the
Absolute Beauty as Divine. And this was further developed into
the Philosophic, Contemplative Religion, by Plato, the first who
saw Use and Beauty meet, and resolve themselves into the em-
brace of Eternal Reason. And as the question arose with him,
and has been discussed down the ages since — whether Contem-
plation or Action be the higher form — so is the same essential
question proposed when it is asked whether Philosophy or Relig-
ion be the hio-her form, or which is the one that includes the other.
Nov/, it is obvious that, as Theory, Philosophy includes Religion ;
but, as Practice, Religion must also include Philosophy. And the
relations in which we have considered this question, as between
Contemplation and Action, may enable us to see clearly the dif-
ference, as well as the resemblance, between Philosophy and Re-
ligion.

Philosophy, as we have seen, is, after all, as Religious, only the
teaching of an Art. It presents a method of attaining to the
highest Religious thought. It takes the highest Art-form — the
Love of Beauty — out of and beyond its semi-wnconscious state, by
teaching it to be conscious of the operation of the Reason in it.
It abolishes the Artist's conceit that it is his Reason which is ulti-
mate in tliis creative activity within him. Thus it makes his inner

312 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Object a real and Absolute one, and renders him, as Subject, only
a Spiritual beholder, and no longer of a merely finite nature.
This is teaching the Art of beholding the Divine as the Absolute
Beauty, which Socrates calls it, or as the Divine Reason of Plato.*
And it teaches this no longer as something to he judged of hj
what is felt in the process as only my sentiment or artistic " taste,"
but as what is seen and known as an absolutely necessary relation,
wholly independent of myself or 7?ii/ feelings, it is not merely y^^^
by a sensibility above se?ise, but also known by a criterion which
is universal, the Reason of it.

Now, it is obvious that, in this phase of it, as a finding of the
Absolute Reason, Philosophy is religious ; and as teaching a ra-
tional method of arriving at a consciousness of this inmost Reason,
and of its relations to us in our thinking, it is a teaching of Re-
ligion. But a teaching is not a doing, nor is an Art the practice
of the Art. Philosophy, then, may rank as the highest of Arts,
as Method, just as it ranks as the highest of Sciences, as synthesis
of all others. It is one of the Arts of Religion itself, one of its
ways to its Object. But yet it must he practised, in order to even
be religious. And since it can only thus become Religion by its
practice, Religion must include it, and not it that. It enters into
the sphere of Religion, in common with Useful Art and Beautiful
Art, as what we may call the Thinking Art, or ev^en the Absolute
Art, since right thinking includes all the others. But this implies,
of course, that it is, in fact, a perfected and absolute method.

Yet, even if this be so, still its practice will be deficient, will
come short of Religion, if it be taken as merely an Art of Think-
ing. Man is not made for mere contemplation, however pleasing
that may be to him. And to stay in that would be only to make
an idol of himself in this higher, spiritual sensibility, just as the
man who flies not so high makes an idol of his senses. Thus the

' This goes back (with a difference) to the Jewish point of view. That saw the
Divine without, thi3 within ; yet, so far, this is rather a tendency only to Fear of it; and,
though both imply inspiration, there is a disposition to look upon it as mechanical, and
to wait for it. Thus no active Art-Creation would spring from either, thus taken as
merely theoretic. All is regarded as already ordered ; by the Jew (since he looks with-
out) as arbitrarily ordered, and by the Idealist (since he looks within) as " Rationally "
ordered. So there is no use in the former case, and no occasion in the latter case, for
any creative activity — any effort to change what cannot be changed (says the Jew), or
what cannot be bettered, since it is already perfect, says the Idealist.

Use, Beauty, Reason. 313

effort defeats itself, becomes i^/? reasonable, and finds no real Di-
vine, as the experience of ascetics and pietists has amply shown.
For, in fact, this Divine Reason is such that, as a man cannot
abide in, so can he not even reach those serene heights of contem-
plation by any theoretic teaching, nor even by learning the way,
but only by going over the practice of tlie Religious Art, in all
its forms of Use, of Beauty, and of Reason. And of all these the
Philosophic peak is practically the most difficult and most thorny
height to climb. It is above the others only because they must be
scaled hefore it, and are still necessary to it for its own practical
realization. This is indeed affirmed and taught by the true Phi-
losophy itself. The Reason, when found, proves itself to be essen-
tially an Activity — a perpetual self-transformation into Act — so
that it is never complete except in Act. Yet it completes itself
in every, the least act. Hence this Divine " Object " cannot be
taken as a mere Object of interior contemplation — as merely to
be thought about. It is to be realized by us, as also an Outer Ob-
ject to he created by us, in the good act. For it really exists as
Outer only in so far as it is thus created by us. Thus Beauty ex-
ists for us in Nature only as we reach the capacity io put it there
as Outer Object of Contemplation. And Beauty exists in Man's
Art only as he has learned to project his idea of a Divine into
these Outer forms. And, in general, Rationality exists, and will
exist, in this Outer world for Man as spiritual, not as it exists for
him there as merely a mechanical suitable for him as hody merely,
but only as he reforms and ?'(?creates this Outer by his spiritual
energy into forms fit for the use, admirable as the Beauty, and
sacred as the Reason, of the Spirit itself.

3. Not Contemplation, then, but Reciprocal Creative Activity
is what characterizes the Divine Reason, as a Religious relation
between God and Man. It may be called neither Theory, nor
Practice, alone ; but rather a Creative and ^^creative, or mutu-
ally-QveaXiye, Art in act. For let us note the sublime reciprocity
of it as Act. Contemplation may indeed be called a Revelation
of this Divine Reason /br us, within as our Object beheld, and its
Creation of us for that, as its adoring Subject. But so, also, in
the good act, do we actively and with design ;'(3create this Divine
Reason ybr ourselves as Outer Object in many forms ; and it stands
there for us as a regarding and loving Subject contemplative of

314 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the Divine in us, when this Object of our act is a spiritual one, as
iu the case of a fellow-man, for to him we thus reveal the truly
Divine as Love in Act. Let us trace this Creative Relio;ious Act
briefly, ^'^'5^, as inerely formal in the Older (as it was in Fine Art);
&e<iond^ as formal in \X\q Inner., as in Contemplation — the Thinking
Art; and, lastly, as truly Divine and finished Art, in the luring
Act.

(«.) It is sometimes said there is notliino- new., if it is tvue^ and
nothini^ true., ^f^i ^s new. As usual with maxims, this one holds
as to the Substance, but is false as to the Form. The Substance
is necessarily unchang-eab'e, and hence always old: but the Form
is just as necessarily changeable, and always new. It is true that
the True can never be new in itself; for it is Eternal, and never
to be created as The True. But it is equally certain that the
True, the Beautiful — that Divine trinitv of the Reason — is only
a perpetual self-transformation through the finite Use and the
infinite Beautiful into the Absolute Reason. In other words, as
to Form, there is not only the fact, but also the necessity, of a
perpetual change — perpetual renewing. The True, in itself, is
only the Rationally Formal ; ' and, to be exhibited in the Finite^
must take infinite variety of forms.

Now, in the merely Useful Form, just illustrated, as to the
Divine Reason, in the Jewish Religion, the True is only reit-
erated, for the memory, mechanically (just as it is in Outer Na-
ture), as the One, only, True, the Divine. This is the sitnple
Truth, that the True is One in itself, and Eternal ; and, as such,
creates many Forms, but cannot he created. That is how the
True appears, at first, and also at last, when only abstractly re-
garded. This is the ''\-first Reason" of Art, and the "last Rea-
son " of Science, considered as an " Unknowable," though the
basis of all Knowing.

But in the second, or Reflective Stage, just treated, there is
perceived the infinite self-differentiation of this Divinely True,

' 77je Idea^ first seemingly passive, but really active {Being), and in the Beautiful
infinitely active and so seeming to be only active {Essence)^ and finally iu the Reason
{Xotion), found to be necessarily an activity creative of an object which recreates it,
through the means first posited, as merely objective Art, but remoulded from wiihin
by the essentially eternal activity of the first act (Aquiuas) reacting upon itself and
finding subjective centres.

JJse^ Beauty^ Reason. 315

this Necessarily One^ till its Infinite and essential Form is recog-
nized in the Beautiful^ which we love to contemplate only, and
hence project into Nature and into our own Art-Creation. And
the highest Philosophy shows this Infinite and Active Form of
Beauty to be i\\Q first and last Reason of every Truth — its beauti-
ful harmony with itself, We are apt to attribute all our benefits
to mere " UsefuV Science. We do not i-calize our debt to Fine
Art. Without that to make us perpetually certain of an Infinite
Reason in ns, we might easily fall under the sway of Materialism ;
in fact, if we never created Beauty for ourselves, we should never
escape from the thrall of mere sense. And a merely Inductive
Science is very far from including, among its " facts " to be in-
vestigated, this fact of Beauty^ manifest though it is, shining
brighter than the sun, more raultiide than the stars, Tliis " Use-
ful Science" only glances askance at the Artist, and has no
thought even of inquiring into this Infinite Reason of Beauty,

Hence, in this Reflective Stage, even in Religion, there is a
long and painful process before this merely Useful Form issues^
out of all particular form and finds in Beautiful Form its Infinite
Reason, At first, the Reason is here, also, only an inductive Rea-
son as in Science, or a Critical Reason as in Art. Such is the
dogmatic or doctrinal Reason in Theology, which thus leaves to
Philosophy the task of harmonizing all three. For all of these,
Science, Art, Theology as dogmatic, are only a seeking for the
formal outer statement^ which the operation of the inner spirit
wishes to create for itself as useful object, or for a form of the
True which may be a means of practice. Thus Science comes to-
find the Infinite Reason, proximately, as Outer Law, and at once
strives to put this to Use. Art finds it as Inner Reason, and thus
realized in its own act, wliich the Artist uses in order to divine its
method^ by watching its operation,' Theology seeks to express it
in doctrines for the mind now, instead of in forms of practice for
the Outer Worship. It is trying to give the inner man a direct
and spiritual practice, in a thinking of the Reason, In other
words, it seeks to realize the Divine Reason as Truth, in finite

' Thus Hegel got his method by accomplishing that most diflScult of effort?, the
watching of the mind*s own operations, or rather the spirit's operation in it as a law to
its right or necessary thinking. Thus Hegel like Plato finds he must be firet pupil itt
Art before he can be Creative of the True as Outer Statement.

316 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

forms of it, created by the man himself. And these, as " Divine
Truth," he sets before him as sacred objects, wliich he would fain
make unchangeable, because what these seek to express is un-
chanii;eable. lie has thus, in a formal way, recreated the Divine
for himself and others, with a pious intent, but perhaps unmind-
ful that, for the Divine, t\n?, finite form can be in itself only one
of finite Use. And so the real intent of these creed-forms is only
to be useful, and not to be the final, the Beautiful Form of the
True, They are not the Heavenly dogma, such as Dante saw it
reflected like glowing Light upon the uplifted face of Beatrice.
They are only statements of certain relations of thought in which
the Truth seems to reveal itself, or, by reflecting upon which, its
operation in us may be felt.

(b.) All this inner Reflection is evidently only a study and use
of Forms, made external in order to he used. But this intentional
<ireation of them implies that they are also internal, and leads to
a consciousness of that fact. The practice in this stage of Re-
flection has in fact become an inner practice of thinking, and
hence grows more and more disposed to dispense wholly with the
outer form, and even the outer practice, perhaps. For it does not
yet clearly distinguish the difference between the relation wliich
man has, as mere pupil, to those arbitrary forms necessary for him
as iterative, in thQ first stage of Religion, and his relation to these
forms which he creates for himself, and which reflect moral re-
sponsibility for their Beauty upon himself. He may come to dis-
pense with the former, since they are only Art-Objects, separable
from him. But he can never dispense with the latter, for they
are his own Art-Creations, and to cease to thus project himself
into act is to cease to be, like his Creator, Creative. This is the
highest, the essential imitation, by which alone he can realize his
being as spiritual.

But he finds to be evidently, at first, an inner creation, and he
may foolishly say, that suftices, and so withdraw into mere con-
templation. Or, more wisely, he may wish to understand this
fact that he creates first inwardly in idea; and why it is that
there, also, his forms are but clumsy idols when compared to the
Beauty which is alone Divine. Thus he turns psychologist, if he
be still " scientifically " inclined, and supposes that he can find a
proximate reason for Beauty — a reason for Reason itself. Hence

Use, Beauty, Reason. 31T

Science, Art, and Philosophy are here dealing only with ideas,
however unconsciously, and however much they may really sup-
pose themselves to be wholly materialistic and even contemptuous
of ideas.

These ideas, then, as such, must now be analyzed also, till the
ultimate Idea is reached, and springs forth as the final Reason —
the Alpha and Omega in this infinite process. But a merely
critical and discursive method can have no end here, no result. It
must be displaced, or resolved out of its insufiiciency as method,
and its inherent finitude as result. This can be done only by a
true Philosophy, as has been sketched — a Philosophy which finds
the True as Absolute in itself, and not abstract, and hence as in-
finitely Creative of Forms and Beautiful in their harmony. Then
only does tnie creativeness begin for the Spirit when it finds itself
free in the operation of an Absolute Thought. All other creation
is mere patchwork or blind imitation. This discards at once that
vain seeking to bring things as finite entities together from with-
out, and glue them with an empty phrase. It works by inner
and necessary relations, wherefrora the objective form develops, of
itself — grows to its Use like a duty, or to its Beauty like a rose.
For the Reason is in it; and this has Use for its Outer Form, and
Beauty for its Inner Form — the one finite and temporal, the other
separable therefrom and Eternal.

(c.) This Creative Art, therefore, in its Religious form, is three-
fold — because it must be in full Act^ and not merely in outer form, ,
nor in thought alone. The Spiritual Act is not complete, except
as it realizes itself externally. Thus the Divine Creative Act is
not complete, except in the realization of itself in the Spirit of
Man, as not the Divine, yet conscious thereof And so the Relio:-
ious Act — the Divine Act in and through the Man's Spirit — is not
complete as merely outer in form, nor as merely inner in contem-
plation, but as both of these united in an infinite variety.

His religious thought must realize itself, not, as Art does, in a
dead object, but in a living one ; not as mere Beaut}', but also as
Use : not merely as Thought, but as Good-will. Thus his Relio;-
ious Creative Art is one which proceeds from a Divine Love that
realizes itself in an objective good, as well as in a subjective good
as reaction of the act done. In other words, the Love is not a
self-love here, as in the mere Art Creation, but is a love of the;

318 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Divine in othe)'S, pines this Divine Obj?ct is in all others, and,
whatever is done to them, is done to it. This is the subh'me unity
which Love, as creative principle, sjives to its results — that unity,
already mentioned, of reciprocal creation ; for it even inverts the
relation of giver and receiver, as between God and man, and makes
of the Divine itself a waiting pensioner upon man's bounty. "7i5
is in prison," and we visit it ; it is hungering, and we feed it. Such
is tlie tender solicitation of a Divine Creator, whereby He seeks
both to dignify man and to make us know of His nature hj doing
His will. It is in doing such acts that wo veritably feel and know
the reality of a Divine Being, not merely as an Idea, nor as an
Operating Thought, but as a Creative Love, which has Use for us,
not merely as temporal and bodily, but as Spiritual and Immortal.'

Hence this threefold form of Tleligious Art finally t^niV(55 what
at first were apparently severed, since they appear only succes-
sively to a growing consciousness.

(1.) 'Y\\Q first act is that of Obedience: and, at first, to precept,
to outer form and ceremony ; then, to the inner form oi sensihility
which commends itself, or to some other proximate and " suffi-
cient" reason; and, iinally, to the Absolute Reason, to which,
when known. Obedience is no longer felt as a duty nor a pleasure,
but as 2k, peace. As before intimated, the merely formal is indiffer-
ent ill itself, and may therefore seem irksotne. Its efficacy for
suggestion may cease. Yet, after all, this view of it comes rather
from a partial than a complete thinking of its use. Follow the
form, just hecause it is indifferent and may be changed. Tiie
more indifferent it i:^, the more absolutely spiritual must be the
act of obedience in it. " This form," you will say, "cannot con-
tain the Religious relation." i^o, nor can any other outer form.
Only the S})irit itself can contain it. But the Sj)irit itself can con-
tain it only in act, and should do so in all its acts. Hence the very
indifference of this or any other mera Art-form implies that the
Obedience must bo in every act of the S[)irit, and can therefore
show itself and practise itself in every act, even the most indiffer-
ent, the most formal, the most easy. Tluis tlie outer form is essen-

' Here ngain the statement cf tlie Swedish seer seems apt, thus: " The Divine Sub-
stance is Ixiix, and its form is Wisdom " — in the Infinite and Beautiful Form of Reason
as a perpetually Creative Activity. Such is the Spiritual material ; heuce the mutuality
of its creatiTeQe33;^ilca/i7ioi but recreate itself.

Use, Beauty, Reason. 319

tiallj eliminated, and the Spirit is thrown into the Reflective act,
as the essential.

(2.) This second Religious act, the act of Reflection, of inner
"Worship, in so far as it is subjective only, obviously has its highest
realization in the Thought-form ; and, for reaching tiiis, the highest
Philosoi>hy is a teaching of the Art. No mere proximate reasons
can suftice to reach the sphere of pious Feeling, by the way of
Rsflection. Still less can they claim, but rather themselves dls-
claim, the ability to reach the serene heights of Contemplation.
Yet this realization does not depend upon a philosophic knowing
or training, any more than the capacity to behold the Infinite
Beauty depends upon an Artistic training. It must, then, be
attainable by another way. Happily, we are sometimes most con-
scious when we may seem to ourselves unconscious, and so it is in
moments when this Infinite Reason reveals itself to us. Philoso-
phy is, in fact, but the conclusion of an infinite progress towards
a thinking of God, and is so only by resolution of this merely
serial and linear thinking, into its essential wholeness at every
step. It is thus only a beginning to find the Divine in this
Reflective way. But it is not the thinking of Gjd, but the doing
of His Will to which the promise of knowing Him is attached.
Here, therefore, also, there must be Obedience.

(3.) Hence the third Religious act is the act of Love. This is
also an act of Thought, but very different from the contemplative
philosophic act of Thinking. It is the Creative Act, which real-
izes itself, not merely inwardly as possession of its Object ideally,
but also as an Art-impulse to outer creative activity. Its ideal
Object is Divine; but so also is \\.'& practical object to realize the
good externally and infinitely ', for where ends the result of a
good act? Thus it includes the three forms of Use, Beauty, and
Reason ; for to all of these must it give particular form ; and it
can operate only by Obedience to both the Outer and the Inner
law, and hence also by the act ox Reflection, which to it must be
the thorny way, and the cross to be transformed into crown. Yet
the simplest good act done in the s])irit of Love contains the high-
est Philosophy, though its doer be wholly illiterate ; and it reveals
the Divine to him inwardly, and to others outwardly, far more
than all doctrine can reveal or suggest.

320 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

MEPIIISTOPIIELES.

BY CAROLINE ELIOT LACKLAND.

Bayard Taylor says, with regard to his translation of Faust^
that his work grew in clearness as he drew away from the cloudy
atmosphere of interpreters, and that the study of commentators-
led him back to find that the author of Faust is his own best
commentator !

As all religious creeds may be predicated upon the Scriptures,,
from the dogmas of the Church of Rome to the elaborated mysti-
cism of Swedenborg, or the carnal teaching of Brigham Young,
so is it also with this (as Starr King calls it) " bible of literature,"
Faust. From its depths^and resources men have drawn inspiration
or despair, purity or immorality. Yet Goethe simply placed his
own truth there, and left others to discover this by the light they
themselves cast upon it ; it mattered not to him who became the
prey of his devil of doubt or denial, so he himself got rid of him !
Mephistopheles was not Goethe's truth-teller, but a bringer out of
the truth. The exhaustive form of the great Author's showing
forth of his idea required symbols to convey his highest divina-
tions, which were often but the outward sign of their spiritual
grace. Goethe, Faust, and Mephistopheles can never be thought
singly ; to name one is to indicate the others. Thus, given any
note in the musical scale as Tonic, the chord resolves itself through
mediant and dominant, the harmonious three in one, uttered, di-
vided, and reunited in the first all-containing tone. The character
of Mephistopheles has been called an exhausted subject, but those
who thus assert only prove themselves to be the subjects ex-
hausted ! the theme is too vast even yet to have been adequately
grappled with ; it is the giant that escaped, in hugely outlined
form, from the soul struggles of Goethe, and as in the Arabian
tale the Afrite emerged from limited space and took tremendous
shape, so arose the demon companion of Faust before the aston-
ished eyes of men. Another, as mighty in intellectual strength
as he who set the monster free, must arise to reduce to appreciable
limits the power evoked by Goethe ; and he must take to the sub-

Mepli istopheles. 321

ject sufficient light and thought fitly to reveal to himself the
manifold bearings of that wondrous tragedy of which Bayard
Taylor sings to Goethe :

" Und Deine Jiinger sehn in Dir, vcrwundcrt,
Verkorj)ert schon, das werdende Jahrhundert."

For the expression of Mephistopheles, Goethe reached from old-
est Bible lore to Gospel history — from patient Job to agonizing
Paul. From his own complex nature, from Herder's elevating or
depressing influence, and from the cold, dissecting criticisms of
Merck, he gleaned materials that should incorporate his Liebllng-
Teufel^ aiming through this creation to escape himself from the
body of that death which imprisoned him. Far back into the
cold depths of Iceland he penetrated, bidding the giants of tlie
Norse Mythology to do him service. From the fermentations of
the philosophical agitations of his time he gathered what should
subserve his jDiirposa. Forward, towards the iar-off indications of
scientific discovery, he turned his keen prophetic thought, and
from the travail of his restless brain and life experience grew
Faust and Mephistopheles. Who and what is Mephistopheles?
He is " not light loving," he is the spirit of negation, of doubt, of
scepticism, of destruction ; " all is not known to him, but much"
— he is the principle of the understanding —

" Part of that power not understood
Which always wills the bad, and works the good."

He is the troublous law that worketh in the members of the

Saint :

" The whirlpool that, swirling to get above,

Is always shoved, imagining to shove ! "

As universal spirit of finite nature, he first controls, then serves
Faust. Like unpalatable yeast, his activity must leaven the in-
ert mass into the wholesome bread of life. He is the impotent
instrument that men call " Nature " in things material, "' Evil "
in things sniritual. He is the offence that must needs come : but

O 1 7

t6 man is the woe if he is admitted into life as ruling force.
Men once saw in Goethe's '' Prologue in Heaven " only a daring
blasphemy ; now they recognize the broad, free stroke of the
artist, who paints upon a huge canvas colossal outlines of some
XYI— 21

322 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

masterful conception ; berc the delineation presents the grandest
theme, there the most lovely ! Again the grotesque and horrible
obtain, but, in the final accomplishment of the whole, strength and
harmony prevail. In this scene the words of the Lord arc :

" Man's active nature flagging,
Seeks too soon the level —
Unqualified repose he learns to crave —
Whence willingly the comrade him I gave,
"Who ■works, excites, and must create, as Devil."

In the divine announcement " I gave," we hold the solution of
the problem. Nature and evil seem active, and arc wholly pas-
sive. They are linite, do not know themselves, are not self-deter-
mined, and, having served the divine purpose to carry on the divine
plan, they must fall off", are therefore linite. Mephistopheles is
too absurdly impotent to excite divine hatred ; he is an irresponsi-
ble agent, without w^ill. Like powerful, pent-up, controlled steam,
he forces the machinery of life, itself coerced and limited. And
herein consists his awful comicality — his futile struggles against
the " something of this clumsy world " who forces " nothing " to
its self-destruction, negates negation, and to whom the wrath of
man and death of worlds are " infant frowns and bubbles bursted ! "
Just here the Devil must have his due, and Mephistopheles may
teach a lesson, though unwittinglv. In the " Prologue in Heaven "
he finds himself in highest company ; he appreciates the fact, and
is both elated and uncomfortable as he realizes the situation ; but
after his departure he is never known to make capital (so to speak)
of having appeared at court; neither does he betray inferiority or
weakness by unduly boasting of high acquaintance ! In his sub-
lime audacity, on the contrary, he asserts:

" Part of the part am I, once all, in primal night,
Part of the darkness which brought forth the light —
The haughty light, which now disputes the space.
And claims of Mother Night her ancient place."

Goethe was himself an Aristocrat, "to the manner born;" this
may indeed be the underlying reason why even his familiar,
Mephistopheles, omits to say, '■'' My friend., the Lord !" Goethe
had pondered much on the oldest book of the Bible, Job. Herder
had written upon it, and a fine translation of his article can be

MejphistojyJieles. 323

found in the fourth volume of " The Journal of Speculative Phi-
losophy." Herder ploughed the ground in Goethe's mind for the
growth of Mephistopheles, and the critic Mercl: served as Model
for the completed thought. As painters in Rome, who, while
knowing what they wish to portray, still search the Scala di
Spagna for their models, so Goethe held his idea in reserve until
he could fitly set it forth by partial imitation. Merck indicated
Mephistopheles, but fell far short of the Artist's further develop-
ment. Grimm justly says : " Mephistopheles grew far beyond the
seeming intention of Goethe." And this may well be, since the
author placed himself outside of himself, and dealt out the cards
of his game of life to silent partners wdiose hands he knew, and
who moved for or against, as he willed and prompted. As he
himself grew wise to combine subtly, their moves reflected his
plan and purpose. Mephistopheles grows, through companionship
with Faust, into a gentleman-like diplomatist and statesman.
He first presents himself, however, to Faust's consciousness as a
servile poodle. The presence of this animal has been interpreted
to represent, or typify, a finite means to finite ends, evoked by
the thought of Faust to appropriate all avenues to creature enjoy-
ment, to the comprehension of which the Earth Spirit had limited
Faust's mental and spiritual power, finite enjoyment being typi-
fied by an animal becMUse it has a limited activity, a kind of
knowing without insight, yet is without langunge, which is the
form of Spirit ; the streaming trail of fire that followed the dog is
compared to the evanescent glories that worldly honor.-:, wealth,
and sensual delights confer.' In fact, the very achievements that
Faust has already pictured to himself and ardently desired, and
for the reception of which his mind is already prepared. Wagner,
to whom the creature reveals no unusual seeming, regards the
beast with indiflerence, but Faust, recognizing blindly within him-
self a reason for its appearance, falls into profound meditation,
typified possibly by an entry into his study, where in solitude his
troubled soul enters into conflict with itself, and love of God and
man struggle against the unseen Evil at his side. The inventors
of the old Faust legend, who made the frisky animal an unfailing
attendant on their fire and brimstone fiend, might indeed have

1 «

Letters on Faust," "Journal of Speculative Philosophy," vol. i, p. 186.

324 The Journal of Speculative Ph'dosophi/.^

exclaimed in bewilderment as to the appropriation made by Goetbfr
of their favorite famiUar, and would iind it a more difficult prob-
lem to swallow the philosophical demon than din Goethe's mother'
who gave hei'self no concern about his Satanic Majesty. Mephis-
topheles in some of his ])hases is absolutely delightful in his fine
irony — as, for example, when, having revealed himself as the
poodle's real core, he, soundly sweating and panting, emerges from
huge mist proportions behind the stove as Faust's semblance, a
scholar! he has suffered so intolerably in the atmosphere of St.
John's light of revelation, he finds himself so hopelessly entrapped
and barricaded by the " Drudenfuss," and yet this queer Son of
Chaos, at such an instant, gathers his forces and perpetrates a
practical joke. Faust might well say, "the casus is diverting! "
Mephistopheles observes soon after, in expressing his rage at
Creative force :

" And had I not the flame reserved, why, really,
There's nothing- special of my own to show ! "

ITere he writes impotent destructiveness upon his own brow,
and ignorantly admits himself a tool of higher ])ower. But our
demon reveals the diplomatic courtier wlien he says:

" Calture, which smooth the whole world licks,
And also unto the Devil sticks,"

and goes on to teach Faust the valuable lesson —

" Wlien with externals thou art well endowed,
All will around thee flock and flatter."

It is truly difficult to realize that so irrepressible a fiend as the
Spirit of Negation should have no chance at all ! In the com-
pact between Faust and Mephistopheles each holds something in
reserve. The devil is checkmated at tlie first move, althouofh
neither player in the game of life then sees it ! But if the sole
aim and triumpii of the fiend is to prove the worthlessness of all
things finite as fast as he presents them, is not he himself insuring
the impossibility of Faust's exclaiming, with regard to things per-
ishal)le : "Ah, still delay, thou . art so fair!" Mephistopheles
subtly proves that the laws by which sin enters the soul and
those by which sin leaves it differ. It is easier for evil to find
entrance than exit.

Mephistopheles. 325

" For devils and for spectres there is Law ;
The first is free to us, we're governed by the second."

Mephistoplieles, in their varied wanderings, does not take his
companion oftener than necessary to accomplish his evil purpose,
to church ; he pays the highest tribute to religion when he iinda
innocence (Margaret) at tlie door of the sanctuary, and even when
he makes the sacred temple the theatre of liis cruel scourgings of
his trembling Victim with the lash of her own sins. He is ill at
ease with Margaret. In the beginning lie had "no power o'er
souls so green." And at the last he fears her, for her soul has
never consented unto sin. She has no charm for him; her loveli-
ness is not " la beaute du diable ; " her simple goodness is witless
in his eyes, but in her pure presence his gross speech is hushed ;
her happiness shall be Faust's first selfish sacrifice in his onward
career to earthly enjoyment and ambition. Tiie foundation step
to Faust's ladder of fame shall be the crushed heart of the woman
he loves, the only pure, true love of his life, the heart that never
wronged him. But Mephistopheles blindly feels that Margaret's
influence will yet rob him of his prey. He may bar his victims
from the priestly benediction, but there is no putting asunder for
Eternity of those whom God hath joined; finite interest may ob-
tain the priestly benediction, but there is no eternal joining of
that which God hath put asunder! These are the thoughts that
Goethe has shadowed forth in the relations of Mephistopheles,
Faust, and Margaret. Goethe loved to appear incognito ;
so also Mephistopheles. Evil from the days of Adam ap-
proaches in borrowed guise. St. Paul exclaims: " Tlie evil that I
would not, that I do!" Mephistopheles reverses the case: " The
good I would not, that I do ; " he is the " wrath " that " praises
God." Starr King says: " The Faust tragedy, taken altogether,
first and second parts, is the greatest miracle of literature. It is
the serpent 'Thought' trying to swallow the v/orld, and, it must
be conceded, nearly succeeding in the attempt." True, much
baneful venom fell from the jaws of the insatiate serpent, which,
if a necessary accompaniment of such monstrous deglutition, may
yet be deplored. Goethe, however, sought only relief for him-
self, and, rightly considered, the book of Faust is not immoral.
The divine endures, Mephistopheles is put to confusion, the deed

326 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of the individual returns upon himself. Yet Goethe had no wish
to moralize, he was simply workinj^ out his own problem of life.
Neither his mental nor spiritual digestion was disturbed by other
men's deductions; and if people seized despair when he rejected
it, that was their aifair, not his; he cannot be held responsible
for that which he did not intend. And if, in exorcisino- his own
devil of doubt, the latter entered the herd, his personal relief was
what concerned himself, and the herd of swine (the lesser minds)
and their fate were not considered. It was an old-time opinion
that crime is most nearlv allied to the uneducated classes, that the
man of letters and science stands on a plane that lifts him above
all sensual enslavement. Mephistopheles, therefore, is the type
of the progressive and modern Satan, inasmuch as he knew all
that lay within the realm of the understanding. The letter of
Scripture he could quote and teach, and could talk of deity,
althouo-h he could never think the Absolute. Like manv an in-
ferior creature, he was made the vehicle to carry and disseminate
principles of life, although he did it as unwittingly as the black
flies of whom Herodotus wonderinglv writes. He handed the
cocoon of sensual life to Faust, ignorant that through pain and re-
morse it would turn into the Psyche of undying and redeeming
love. Goethe and Shakespeare have been called plagiarists by
those who partially discover the process but cannot appreciate the
re-creative activity. Such persons ignore the sculptor's thought,
and demand the manual chisel labor; they are never satisfied. To
be consistent, they should accuse language of plagiarism, recon-
structed as it ever is from the souls of dead words. Nature is in
this sense a plagiarist, utilizing forever herself for herself! Crea-
tive power is thus a plagiarist, evolving life from death in its eter-
nal circle of destruction and renewal. Appropriation, participa-
tion, are in this sense plagiarism, and so only are tiie Authors of
Mephistopheles and lago '"plagiarists." In the first part of the
Faust tragedy we cannot lose sight of the Author ; tiie individual
(as well as his ideas) is embodied, and forces himself upon us^
When, later, Goethe (so to speak) outgrows himself, the procession
of his emancipated thoughts moves on in a grand triumphal
march ; his style becomes so true that the detail of muscle and
sinew is not needed in order to define his meaning. The Mephis-
topbelian serpent that was coiled about his life falls at his feet^

Mephistopheles. 327

and we see him at the last emancipated, standing erect, bold, and
strong as Apollo. He holds the terrible -Egis turned from liim-
self, and towards the world ; he is master of the deadly weapon;
it no longer paral^'zes him, and men must learn to gaze upon it
and not die! Mephistopheles, not a flesh-broiling, flesh-eating
ogre, is the devil men must face and conquer henceforth. The
Zeus of Phidias was a type of the divine to the Greeks. St. Paul
revealed " the Unknown God," but to the Saint himself the prob-
lem of the origin and otiice of Evil was as a deadly thorn and a
body of death. It is the oflice of Mephist')])heles partially to reveal
to mankind the principle of Evil, the shadow of the Divine, the
companion of Light, the eternally negated ! That in which we
may not abide, past which we are constrained to press, into which
we must enter, through which we arrive at last, from the depth
unto the everlasting height.

We are to deal with Faust's Spirit of Evil in this paper prin-
cipally as he appears in the flrst book of the tragedy. It would
be profitable if we could follow his marvellous outcome in part
second of the play, but one point only can be alluded to — viz.,
the crowning crime prompted by the demon, and the last tempta-
tion of Faust, from the horror and remorse of which the latter
falls into the clutches of relentless Care. The unpardonable sin
against humanity is committed — oppression, cruelty to the Aged.
The innocent youth of Margaret was the denjon's first sacrifice,
but the destruction of the home of Philemon and Baucis, and
their consequent desolation and death, have left no meaner, darker
deed to be enacted, and, as Faust's outward vision is closed by
Nemesis from beholding the sin-bought prospect, the eyes of his
spirit are turned inwardly to read the problem of life aright. For
the last time he has uttered his awful casuistry, " the end justifies
the means," the alienation is completed, the return is sure. In
spite of the demon's utmost skill to prevent it, Faust's soul must
bear the fruit of an unselfish endeavor, and, in uniting with the
divine, evil passes out of sight.

From Magic, from the Mystics, Goethe drew inspiration and
material, as did Thomas Aquinas and Emanuel Swedenborg. But
with regard to Mephistopheles, Goethe seems to have borrowed
much from Norse Mythology. Mephistopheles is Asa-Loke ! TJt-
gard-Loke, or hell-fiend, represents only lowest evil ; but Asa-

828 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

Loke appears first in Asgard with the Gods. He assisted in the
creation, givini^ the senses, passions, fire of the veins. In Nature
he is the eorru[)ting principle of the mio-hty four — Sylph, Undine,
Salamander, Gnome. Like Odin (the divine), he pervades all.

Anderson says: " In no divinity is it more clear than this, that
the idea, proceeding from the visible workings of Nature, enters
into the human heart and mind, and there finds its moral and
ethical reflection." In the beginning Asa-Loke was closely allied
to Odin (Light), then united himself witli Air, later becoming
destructive fire, getting thus farther and farther away from the
divine principle. Odin's union with mind and matter is creative
and beneficent. Loke's is always destructive. In Nature, Loke
brings about terrific throes and convulsions bv land and sea. In
man, he arouses all activities of lying; he is outwardly beautiful,
but is of inconstant mind. Though of the Gods, he shxnders and
blaspliemes them, and departs, Judas-like, from their midst, to
work out his own destruction and their glory.

He is the ever-thwarting principle ; he shortens the hammer
of Thor, and bestows the ring of Andvari. Mepliistopheles so
closely resembles th.is old Norse demon that Goethe may have
regarded and studied him with admiration, and taken him as
Model.

Onlv a true philosophy — that which in itself includes, reconciles,
and transcends all other systems — can solve the problem of Evil,
and give to every man the power to eliminate its destructive ele-
ment from his own being. Compared with this result of pure
thinking, Science, which subjects steam to do her bidding and
bridles and controls electricity, seems puerile. Philosophy, hand
in hand with Religion, declares and defines to man the nature and
limitation of Evil, and reveals to him how he shall erect a temple
within his own soul before whose portal the monster serpent. Sin,
shall lie prone in the dust, felled by the arrows of a light divine.
A recognition of man's power of self-determination is the first
stirring of the infant Hercules to conquer that which threatens
true life. It is a promise and prophecy of strength that grows to
giant proportions in the using, when man awakens from the cra-
dle of purposeless inactivity. Into every human life comes the
possible Eden, the possible Fall, the ])ossible Victory. It is as man
timself chooses, for in determining himself he destroys fate. No

Notes and Discussions. 329

need now to question "Who and what is Mephistoplieles? "
Philosophy and Reh'gion have revealed hitn, and the means to his
subjection. To lay hold on the divine-human as declared in the
incarnate Word, to become self-determined, "to workout his own
salvation '' after this perfect plan and pattern, is man's heritage,
his birthright. The appalling silence no longer endures when
man is confronted with this ])robl8m of Evil, and when the Vala's
awful question, " Understand ye yet — or whatf'' rings solemnly
within his soul. For at length man overcomes the necessary thwart-
ings, which oidy, as he negates them in his return from alienation
less or greater, constitute him truly Man. And as he passes into
*-he image of the Father, numbering himself with the children of
Light, Evil has indeed become liis good, for he has used it to his
soul's discipline, and has conquered that mightiest of foes — him-
self! Himself, remaining Victor.

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

A REPRINT OF " THE DIAL:'

[We publish the following circular on account of its general interest
"to readers of Philosophy. — Ed.]

We propose to reproduce " The Dial," page for page, without abridgment, and witli
4he addition of an index to the whole work, containing a list of the contributions, with
names of the contributors, so far as it is possible to procure them ; to which will be
appended a full historical account of " Tlie Dial," with anecdotes, incidents or gossip,
..that will in any manner illustrate the influence of a work which marks an era in Ameri-
can literature. The additional matter, paged separately, will be prepared by Rev.
George Willis Cooke, author of "Ralph Waldo Emerson, his Life, Writings, and-Phi-
Josophy."

For a long time it has been almost impossible to procure a complete copy of " The
Dial," and the demaDd for it, coming largely from public libraries, has been so constant
«nd growing that we feel warranted in issuing this proposal to reprint it, so soon as
we can be assured of two hundred subscribers, at fifteen dollars each (to non-sub-

330 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

ecribers the price will be twenty dollars). The work will be in four octavo volumeSy
eubstantiallv bound in cloth.

For the convenience of libraries already in possession of the original work, the new
index, with additional matter, will be bound separately in pamphlet form and sold for
one dollar.

Wc respectfully solicit your subscription, for which we annex a blank.

Roberts Brothers, Publishers,

299 Washington Street,
Boston, June 1, 1882.

[The following notice, from the pen of Mr, Cartis, is appended to the-
above circular.]

RALPH WALDO EMERSON AND "THE DIAL."
From " Tlie LUcrary WorW

To speak of The Dial is to reciU one of those products of the "transcendental"'
epoch which seem to those who look back upon them like

golden exhalations of the dawn.

Brook Farm, The Dial, the active interest in German literature and philosophy and
music, Theo lore Parker's preaching, were all signs then, as they are traditions now, of
the general moral and iuteileccual revival to wliich also the impetus of the Anti-Slavery
crusade and of the Woman's Rights agitation belongs. The Dial, while not an organ
of any particular movement, was the litei-ary gazette of the "new spirit," and its natu-
ral editor was Mr. Emerson, whose serene genius and temperament, with his command-
ing and poetic public discourses, and the dignity, simplicity, and purity of his life, had
made him the peculiar representative of " Transcendentalism." It was his only service
as an editor, in the usual sense, and tlie labor was not exclusively his. It was under-
stood that Mr. Emerson and Mis^ Margaret Fuller were the editorial council, and in the
opening address of "The editors to the Reader" Mr. Emerson speaks modestly of
" those who have immediately acted in editing the present number " in a tone which
implies that it was wholly a labor of love.

The fiist number of The Dial was issued forty years ago, in July, 1840, and it is still
a most interesting and remarkable publication. There had been nothing like it in this
country, and if Schiller's Horcn may have aimed as higli, there were not the same favor-
ing circumstances, so that The Dial remains unique in periodical literature. Its pur-
pose was the most various expression of the best, the most cultivated, and the freest
thought of the time, and was addressed to those only who were able to find "entertain-
ment" in such literature. There were no baits for popularity. In the modern familiar
phrase, each number was a symposium of the most accomplished minds in the country.
But its circle both of contributors and of readers was local and small. The first num-
ber was made up of papers by Mr. Emerson and Miss Fuller, Theodore Parker, George
Ripley, William H. Channing, Juhn S. Divight, A. Bronson Alcott, and Dr. Hedge — I
believe — with passages from the journal of Charles Chauncey Emerson, to whose mem-
ory Dr. Holmes paid so beautiful a tribute in his Metrical Essay. The poetry of the
number was supplied by Mr. Emerson, Mr. Cranch, Miss Fuller, Mr. Dwight, Edward
Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Mrs. Hooper. It was almost wholly a " Boston book,"
but it is a part of our literature. Among its memorable contributions was Mr, Emer-

Notes and Discussions, 331

son's poem "The Problem," with its line which is now, like Shakespeare's famous lines,

a universal expression,

He builded better than he knew ;
and his exquisite song,

Oh, fair and stately maid !

to which may be fitly applied his own words in the next number of The Dial, when
speaking of Ellery Channing's poetry, that it " is of such extreme beauty that we do
not remember anything more perfect of its kind. Had the poet been looking over a
book of Raffaellc's drawings, or perchance the villas and temples of Palladio, with the
maiden to whom it was addressed ?"

The Dial was published for four years, and it truly marked the transcendental time
of day. It is ths memorial of an intellectual impulse which the national life has never
lost. " Many readers," as Mr. Emerson said in his preface to the first editicm of Car-
lylc's collected essays, "will here find pages which in the scattered anonymous sheets

of the magazine spoke to their youthful mind with an emphasis that hindered them

from sleep."

The influence of its editor has been noiseless but extraordinary. Many of the most
popular and immediately effective American writers and orators seem to have been
middlemen between Mr. Emerson and the great public. To the young men of the last
generation he spoke with the same deep power with which Dr. Channing affected Mr.
Emerson's own younger generation, and that power he has never lost because he has
always reverenced the dreams of his youtli. Those who have felt throughout their
lives this purifying and elevating and liberalizing power, and who have seen in his
inspiring career the perfect sanity of true genius, can never think without afl'ectionate
reverence of Ralph Waldo Emerson. George William Curtis.

OBITUARY.— PROFESSOR T. H. GREEK

I We reprint the following obituary notice from the London " Acad-
emy" of April 1, 1882. The reader will notice that it is written by the
distino-uished translator of " Hegel's Logic." It is a valuable estimate of
a great man. — Ed.]

The death of Professor T. H. Green, at Oxford, on March 26th, came as a sad surprise
even to those who had noticed his evident ill-health. To many, there as elsewhere, it
was the loss of a friend whom they had long looked up to, sympathized with, and
counted upon. It closed the career of a citizen of Oxford devoted with singular can-
dor to what he believed the highest interests of his adopted city ; and for the intel-
lectual world it brought to what seems a premature termination an inquiry, finely con-
ceived and untiringly pursued, into the questions lying at the very foundation of theory
and practice.

Thomas Hill Green was bom in 1836 ; and, after his school-time at Rugby, came up
to Balliol College, where, in duo time, he was elected to a fellowship. A friend who
used to meet him about this period seems to have been especially struck by the decided
interest he showed in religious questions, particularly on the piactical side. Then, as
always, he was also a keen politician. He was one of the original members of a society
known as the " Old Mortahty," which included the names of Bywater, Dicey, Pater,
Swinburne, and of Professors Bryce, Caird, Holland, Nettleship, Nichol, in its early
and subsequent fraternity. Green's essays were remarkable alike for their power of

■332 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

thought and their distinctive stamp of expression. At the Union Debating Society ho
was a weighty speal:er. A contemporary tells of a speech in which, defending Republi-
can institutions iVom the blame of a slave system, he hiid the guilt on "a slave-hold-
ing, a slave-hunting, and slave-burning oligarchy, en whom the curse of God and
humanity rests."

Shortly after taking his bachelor's degree (in 1S59), he bpgan to study Hegel, and
gave a good ileal of attention to the Tiibingen school, especially Baur, some of whose
works he had thoughts of translating. Among the fruits of these studies were two
cssiiys on the " Development of Dogma," read to the " Old Mortality." But theory
and action were, in his case, never far apart. During this same period he was one of
a small knot of young men who co-operated iu writ.ing on the subject of University
Tests. The volume in which these es?ays were to appear was rendered unnecessary by
the passing of the University Tests Act of 1871. His range of reading during the years
of the Civil War in America was summarized by the late Professor Conington as varying
betrteen Hegel and the "Morning Star" (one of the few British newspapers which es-
poused the side of the Xorlh in thit contest). He was then, as he always was, an ear-
nest, active, and believing member of the party of progress ; and while in later years he
sometimes seamed more disposed to get the best out of existing institutions, such as
the Established Church and the " College System," he was in the beginning of his thir-
ties more distinctly anti-occlesiastical and radical in his Lioer.alism. But in essentials
the aim of his politiclal convictions probably remained the same.

For a short lime he was engaged in a special inspectio i of schools in connection with
the Endowed Schools Act ; but from 1866, as Ethical Lecturer, and subsequently as tu-
tor at Ba!liol, his main function was that of a university teacher. In 1878 he was elected
to the office of Whyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy, and shortly alter resigned
his tutorship. The last sixteen years ot his life possess, therefore, a general uniformity.
His lectures as tutor and as professor could not be styled popular, but they at-
tracted, even from the first, many of the most thoughtful students in a way that few
lectures now do. For those wlio could pass over a want of fluency in delivery, an oc-
casional abstruseness of thought, and a certain unpraclicality (as examinees must
judge it) in his mode of treatment, there Avas a strong fascination in the compact rea-
soning, the high-toned ideas, and evident enthusiasm of the lecturer. At one time it
almost seemed as if he might have formed a school of metnphyjicians ; but there is lit-
tle ri.sk of that in the present day. To those "ho, as college pupils, came into closer
contact with 'nim, he appealed even more memoraldy by the simplicity of his life, his
unaffjcted kindness, and the deep and perfectly unforced religiousness which spoke
from his heart.

During the latter years he was a member of the town council of Oxford. Some
of us, perhaps too selfish or too cynical, sometimes thouglit he was wasting his ener-
gies on the petty disputes of local politics. His own argument for the step was that
it enabled him more effectually to promote social amelioration — particularly in educa-
catlon. The Oxford High School for Boys was largely due 1o his untiling advocacy,
and, it may be added, largely indebted to his liberal hand. It was from the same be-
lief in the efficacy of political power as an organ of progress that he took a leading part
in political struggles, and supported witii all his might the party which miglit be ex-
pected to give speediest effect to schemes of social and economical reform.

To the world outside Oxford he was best known as a philosophical writer. If we ex-
cept his essay on an " Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction ifi

Notes and Discussions. 333

Modem Times," which gained the Chancellor's Prize in 1862, he first appeared as an au-
thor in two essays which were publi.'-hcd about 1866 in the "^North Riilish Review," on
the "Philosophy of Aristotle" and on " Popular Philosophy in its Relations to Life."
His main work followed in ISVl, as part of a new edition of Hume's works by Green and
Grose, in four volumes. The first two volumes, including the "Treatise on Human Nat-
ure," were prefaced by lengthy introductory dissertations . one dealing with the theoreti-
cal philosophy of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume ; the other with the ethical views of these
writers and their contemporaries. The former is a probably unequalled piece of minute
and at the same time comprehensive criticism of the origins of current English phi-
losophy, lu December, 1877, Professor Green began in the '' Conleniporary Review " a
series of papers on " Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. G. H. Lewes : their Application of the
Doctrine of Evolution to Thought." These papers did for the modern representatives
of English psychological method what the Introduction to Hume did for Locke. In
the present year two articles in successive riumbers of " Mind" have entered upon the
discussion of the problem, " Can there be a Natural Science of Man ? " Nor must it be
forgotten that in several short reviews published in the " Academy " he has made con-
tributions of permanent value to the literature of philosophical criticism.

Green, as has been said, began his study of German philosophy with Hegel. To call
him, in the obvious sense of words, a Hegelian would be a mistake. But he leai'ned, as
many others have learned, from Hegel the exceeding breadth and depth of the problem
of philosophy in a Avay which makes it impossible, for any one who has learneil it, ever
again to return to the philosophic caves where psycholo'gy is kept clear of metaphysics,
logic barricaded from theology, and faith forbidden any intercourse with morals. Such
gocd Hegt'l has done to many who have scant sympathy with the rationality of the
actual ; so with the dialectical rappyochcmcnt hetVi^een being and not being. But il
faut rcculer pour micux oauter, and from Hegel Green went back to Kant. The return,
almost always inevitable, has special uses for an Englishman. For Kant, while he
takes up the disputes raised by Hume, supplies results which, when disguised, make
up a considerdble part of the assumptions of the empiricLil metaphysicians. To inter-
pret and supplement Kant was, superficially described, the aim of Green's later teach-
ing.

It would not be going fur astray to say that from his essay en Aristotle to his latest
words in " Mind " he was engaged with the same old question between what the schools
call the sensible and the intelligible world. If in the earlier papers the discussion is
more involved, it is also lighted up by characteristic gleams of picturesque phraseology ;
in the latter, if the style is more monotonous and subdued, the drift of the argument is
more distinct. Not, indeed, that it is ever possible to master the meaning by glancing
rapidly over his pages. His eye was fixed on the main and supreme questions; the
details always retained their subserviency to, and coherence in, the mass; he did not
break truth up into manageable fragments, but kept it whole and indivisible in its
every part. His style, in short, was characteristic of the man. There was the same
weight of centralized purpose in both.

With all his realism, or perhaps because of his honest and u!iembittercd realism, he
was an idealist — one of the few who, now as always, refuse to abandon the cause of
what may, for want of a better name, be called metsphysics. He sought to set before
those who ignore philosophy, or who identify it with one or more of the sciences, the
consi deration that there are a few presuppositions still unanswered and apparently un-
answerable by scientific methods. No doubt empiricism does not much mind what is

334 The Journal of Sjpeculatwe Philosophy.

said of its presuppositions, for prescription has given it smcIi a hold on the mind that,
with or without foundation, it manages to hold well together, and to rear its psyclio-
logical toners into midair, and then asks if the magnificence of the superstructure neod
not excuse from further inquiry into the question of foundations.

In undertaking this discui^sion, Green started from Kant. But whereas the neo-
Kantians usually develop the empirical side of Kant, ho tried to em{)hasize the tenden-
cies which come especially to the front in the Kantian ethics. He sought to complete
the disjecta membra of the critical philosophy by reducing the separation between feel-
ing and understanding to its proper amount in comparison with (he more stupendous
interval between phenomena and noumena. "Every objt'ct we perceive," as he says in
his last published page, " is a congeries of related parts, of which the simplest compo-
nent, no less than the composite whole, requires, in order to its presentation, the action
of a |)rinciplc of consciousness not itself subject to conditions of time." If this be true
of nature in general, then, in reference to physiology of mind, it follows (to quote hia
earlier words) that " we cannot naturalize the 'human mind' without presupposing
that wliicli is neither nature nor natural, though apart from it nature would not be —
that of which the designation as ' mind,' as 'human,' as ' personal,' is of secondary im-
portance, but which is eternal, self-determined, and thinks." W. Wallace.

OXPOUD.

SENTENCES IN PROSE AND VERSE.

SELECTED BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

VI.

I dined Avith our English visitor [Cobden] at tlie Club. He spoke in-
directly, and had the true English way of talking aside about his six per
cents., and interrogatively. I asked him why he did not let them make
an occasion for him to speak, but he said he came over " To keep his
ears open and his mouth shut.'''' — Ibid.

In our walks he takes out his note-book sometimes, and tries to write
as I do, but all in vain. He soon puts it up again, or contents himself
with scrawling some sketch of the landscape. Observing me still scrib-
bling, he will say that he confines himself to the ideal, purely ideal re-
marks ; he leaves the facts to me. Sometimes, too, he will say, a little
petulantly, " I am universal, I have nothing to do with the particular and
the definite." He is the moodiest person, perhaps, I ever saw. As natu-
rally whimsical as a cow is brindled ; both in his tenderness and in his
roughness he belies himself. He can be incredibly selfish, and unex-
pectedly generous. He is conceited, and yet there is in him far more
than usual to ground conceit upon. — Thoreau [journal unpublished^.

How many walks along the brooks I take in the spring ! What shall I
call them — lesser rijMrial excursions — prairial, rivular? — Ibid.

Notes and Discussions. 335

It looks as if it were the blood mantling in the cheeks of the youthful
year, the rosy cheek of its health. Its rude June health ! — Ibid.

Critchicrosses have been edible some time in some places. Galh sug-
gest a union — a connivance of two kingdoms (the animal and vegetable)
to produce. — Ibid.

The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the
river-bottom, and many of its secrets now, exactly as if the water had
been clarified. This is our compensation for a heaven concealed [dog-
days]. — Ibid.

A child asked about the bobolink : " What makes he sing so sweet,
mother ? Do he eat flowers ? " — Ibid.

What poor crack-brains we are ! Easily upset and unable to take care
of ourselves. If there was a precipice at our doors, some would be found
jumping oflE to-day, for fear that if they survived they might jump off to-
morrov/. — Ibid.

A broad leech on a turtle's sternum, apparently going to winter with it.
That peculiar drawling note of a hen, who has this peevish way of express-
ing her content at the sight of bare ground and mild weather. — Ibid.

It is strange they did not make us more intense and emphatic — that
they do not goad us more into action. Generally, with all our desires
and restlessness, we are no more likely to embark in any enterprise than
a tree is to walk to a more favorable locality. You would say there is a
high tariff on thinking and originality. — Ibid.

Here it is standing night [on the Allegash River], and every fir and
spruce you cut down is a plume plucked from night's raven wing. — Ibid.

If my father had been a farmer and had an Indian for his hired man,
how many aboriginal ways we children should have learned from him !
How contagious are boys' games ! — Ibid.

at once hooks himself on to some immovable institution, as a

family — the very rottenest of them all. — Ibid.

So do the seasons revolve, and every chink is filled. While the waves
toss this bright day, the ducks, asleep, are drifting before it across the
ponds. — Ibid.

Why, it is as much as the strongest man can do to decently bury his
friends and relations without making a new world of it ! — Ibid.

I hear this moruino- one Cut-it-Fotter from a Golden Robin. Jacob
Farmer says, they call the Cardinal-flower slink-weed, and that the eating
of it will cause the cows to drop their calves. — Ibid.

336 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The spotless edge of the drift which curves over sharp like the visor of
a cap .... The heel of a bank [of snow]. . . . Who was it — what satyr
— that invented this rustic beetle [made of one piece of wood]. . . . Thus
detect the first approach of spring by finding here and there its scouts
and vanguard, which have been slain by the rear-guard of retreating win-
ter ? — Ibid.

It is well if the writer does not become hardened. He learns how to
bear contempt and to despise himself. He makes, as it were, post-mortem
examinations of himself before he is dead. Such, is art. — Ibid.

Tlie fiddles made by the trees w^hose limbs cross one on another — played
on by the wind. Orpheus and Apollo are certainly there, taking lessons,
—Ibid.

How did these beautiful rainboio tints get into the shell of the fresh-
water clam buried in the mud at the bottom of our dark river ? — Ibid,

BOOKS RECEIVED.

An Elementary Arithmetic, Oral and Written. By George E. Seymour. St. Louia:
G. I. Jones & Co. 1880.

The Light of Asia, or the Great Renunciation. By Edwin Arnold. Boston^: Rob-
erts Brothcr3. 1879.

Che fare per la Russia? Studio sul Socialismo Russo nelle sue Rolazioni colla Re-
ligione e I'ltalia. Pel P. Ces. Tondini dc' Quarenghi. Torino : L. Romano. 1880.

A Scientific Bjsis of Belief in a Future Life, or the Witness borne by Modern Sci-
ence to the Reality and Pre-eminence of the Unseen Universe. By John Page IIopps.
London : Williams & Xorgate.

Recherches philosophiques ct physio'ogiques sur la nature de I'homme et de I'etre
vivant. Par Charles-Alphonse du Pean. Paris : Auguste Ghio, Librairc. 1S80.

Blitzstrahl wider Rom. Die Yerfassung dcr christlichen Kirche und der Geist dea
Christenthums. Aus den Werken i'ranz von Baader's. Mil Vorreden und Anmerkun-
gen von Professor Dr. Franz Hoffmann. Wurzburg: A. Stuber's Buchbandlung. 1871.

The Alienist and Neurologist. A Quarterly Journal of Scientific, Clinical, and Fo-
rensic Psychiatry and Neurology. Edited by C. H. Hughes. St. Louie. Vol. I, No.
2, April, 18S0,

THE JOURNAL

8PECULATIYE PHILOSOPHY.

YoL. XVI.] October, 1882. [No. 4.

FATE AND FEEEDOM. •

BY WILLIAM H. KIMBALL (" Theron Gray ").

Fundamental to all correct thouglit are certain ruling princi-
ples, that, either consciously or unconsciously, come to expression
in efficient results. These principles are inherent to Creation, as
laws of Absolute Being, and are threefold in form. This three-
foldness may be termed the static, genetic, and hypostatic elements
of Being, or Life. As a concept of thought, the first potentially
embraces and holds, as a primary, indefinite Providence, all the
possibilities of creation, and thus stands as the All-containing or
Eternal One. The second, being essential to generative activity
or creative outgoing from the One, involves the element of con-
trariety in the manifold, with all the sharp definitions inherent
thereto. The third, being requisite to consummate creative order
and harmony as a final satisfactory outcome to such activity, in-
volves the element of all manifoldness in composite order — the
one in the many, and the many in the one.

These are essential fundamentals of Being, because they are
distinctly realized as fulfilling factors to creative experience, and
nothing can be evolved to creaturely experience that is not first
involved in creative Being. I mean by creative Being the in-
volved Life or vital Providence that is primarily essential to all
XYI-22

338 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

appearance in material form and uses. Every form of use realized
in our human arts and sciences is first an involved power, and
thus a Providence in eternal Being.

Unity that indefinitely involves all, Diversity that contrari-
oiislj evolves and displays all in immature conditions, and Com-
jpound Unity that harmoniously actualizes all in embodied or
matured result, constitute the essential laws of creation.

In any work of art or artisanship there must first be given artist
or artisan with genius or power equal to the form that is to appear
finally and verify that form. The conception of the artist that
holds the art-form ideally perfected, also liolds in the thought,
whether consciously or not, the material requisite to embody it.
In idealizing the theme, he necessarily thinhs material which
alone can give sensible form thereto. But in this primary degree
both supersensible and sensible form are so indefinite or obscure
to all outward appearance that no sign of art is apparent in the
Teilm of existence. Idea is buried in thought, and material, per-
haps, in the chaotic depths of earthly indifference. Yet there is
heing to the theme in the potentiality of universal Providence,
and more immediate being in the idea of the artist ; but, as yet,
no visible form. It thus essentially is., but does not existentially
appear. ISTor can it appear as a form of art during the labored
processes of development. It thus appears in primary form — in
immature conditions — but not in a way to reveal the conception
of the artist and denote his real power and rank of genius. This
final appearance occurs only when the material has been so
wrought upon by that genius as to stand forth " the image and
likeness thereof; " when material becomes glorified with the glory
of the art-conception, and the conception appears in glory through
material so exalted by genius.

■ There is a certain delight and repose to tbe artist whose genius
has projected and wrought in the mind., as a cherished ideal, an
art-conception. But, inasmuch as genius is essentially social in its
nature, craves sympathy and fellowship in its achievements, it
will not allow its creations to rest in thought — to slumber in the
brain of its possessor. So the is of thought yearns to become ex-
istent in form, and the artist devotes himself to the task of giving
outward appearance to the creation that haunted his mind and
impressed invisible form there.

Fate and Freedom. 339

Now, creation, in its static degi^ee, liolds and carries the princi-
ple of immutable law or method that amounts to fate or absolute
certainty. There can be no deviation from the counsels of Eter-
nal Wisdom, These counsels are manifestly all fixed and con-
stant.

How, then, shall arise human freedom and responsibility?

If man were not invested with a sense of personality throngh
rational discretion and moral freedom, he would be little more
than stock or stone : at least, he would not arise above the animal
plane of existence. Unless he could exercise rational discretion
regarding the good, the true, and the beautiful, he would be no
subject for an intelligent appreciation of "the blessed life" de-
signed for him. Hence he must realize personality and freedom
to this extent. And this freedom will seem to be without a coun-
tervailing power. So the experience of moral freedom delivers
him, to this extent, from the grasp of fate, in order to endow him
with spiritual personality by which alone he can come to the
boundless freedom of Eternal Life. In this ultimate reality, law
and liberty, fate and freedom, become one.

The constant truth is that all the providences of Creative Wis-
dom are in exact accordance with human needs ; but, to become
rightly related in use, they are not to be arbitrarily imposed as if
man were a machine, but comprehended and appropriated by
Lira as a free subject. In order to truly comprehend and appro-
priate, he must be trained, disciplined, educated into amplest man-
bood. During this educational process his freedom will be more
■or less misleading, involving rebuffs and pains. Fate, or the wise
laws of Providence, will assert their rights against the freedom of
ignorance, and thus bring distress ; but it is all in order that sub-
jective science may finally triumph in law and liberty fully accord-
ant.

Fate, then, being understood to be the necessary rule of immuta-
ble law, and controversial freedom being the motions of human
selfhood during its ignorant or uneducated experience, the placid
reign of fate and the delightful reign of perfect freedom are sure
to be realized by man when he becomes perfected in knowledge of
the laws of Providence and heartily co-operates therewith, instead
of mistakenly trying to controvert them. This co-operation and
harmony are assured ; for the truth that the Divine Providence is

340 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ordered in exact accordance with every human need is to be real-
ized in charming experience.

Let rae try to make my thought duly impressive by analogy in
science; for instance, the science of mathematics.

Given : Mathematics, and the pupil who needs to be master of
its powers. While God's providence in mathematics is coeval with
his own Being, the laws and principles that make that providence
potential science are as fixed or immutable as God himself". They
are decreed, fixed, /a^^c^. The law of relation I:)etween the theme
and the pupil is not less august and stern. He must proceed to
supplant his native ignorance or nescience with knowledge or sci-
ence in order to become duly empowered and free. Meantime,
he is free to choose whether he will stumble onward under the
disabilities of ignorance, or intelligently conform to the rule of
fate and partake of the wealth resident thei'ein. He is thus free
to choose ; but one readily sees that this freedom is not absolutely
real. For, unless it carries his choice in the right direction — leads
him to pursue the subject as a devoted student, and thus empowers
him in knowledge — he is hampered and goaded at every turn by
the bonds and shafts of ignorance. Destined, by the good Provi-
dence, to be lord and master, he is not allowed to rest in a choice
that leaves him in slavish ignorance. And this sufficiently illus-
trates the nature and extent of human freedom, under the im-
mutable decrees of Creative Wisdom, in all respects. This quasi
freedom is an essential endowment, for without it man would not
be man. But it can determine no orderly issues in permanent
results, except by leading to intelligent conformity to immutable
law. Then fate and freedom become co-ordinate factors of life.
Then Divine law and human freedom are perfectly reconciled, and
act together as one. For all the providences of that law are ex-
actly accordant with all human needs; as the air we breathe is
fitted to the lungs, whose delightful play is responsive thereto.
So the master in mathematics is free in his vocation, for in this
special instance he has conformed his human power to the rule of
fate, which is only another name for eternal law that rules mathe-
matics. And the truth here is simply a brief outline of the vrhole
truth of Divine and human relation, both during the educational
discipline of Humanity and the consummated power of the Divine
Humanity. Man is a free agent, but in no case is he absolutely or

Fate and Freedom. 341

independently free. He comes to perfect freedom in coming to per-
fect law. His activity liere is charmingly free, because it is found
that the rule of fate or law is full of Divinest providences, escape
from which he would not if he could, and could not if he would.

Man is free to operate chemical forces. If, however, he tries to
operate them without understanding them, he is stung and flayed
for his temerity. His freedom cannot controvert the laws of
chemical fate ; yet, if he will only become a thorough chemist,
thus bringing his action into accordance with those laws, they will
be found full of beneficence, assuring his freedom and supplying
his wants at the same time. The earth, with all its stores and
elements, is given to man to " cultivate and subdue." Earth
without and earth within are equally placed thus at his disposal,
and become surely tributary to his blessedness through intelligent
mastery and scientific alliance.

This being the index of truth in broadest sense, it is seen that
all seeming hindrances and afflictions under Providence are only
friendl}^ remonstrances and hints, designed to prompt us to cast
off the trammels of ignorance and weakness, and become empow-
ered and free in the knowledge of the Highest.

K fate were only a mockery to our freedom, instead of being an
aid and educational stimulus, prayer and all human efforts would
be foolish and vain ; but, as it is, they are emphatically otherwise.
Especially is true prayer potent in helpfulness, for it stimulates a
correct sense of Divine and human relation. It helps to poise the
creature in an attitude of real dependence, and thus to promote
those receptive conditions that are essential to human attainment
in true knowledge and power. Nothing can be more absurd than
to propose specific aims as tests of the efficacy of prayer. While
true prayer can never fail of being answered, the answer may not
come in the way specifically desired. Let a test-aim be proposed,
and the whole Christian world unite in petitions therefor, and
failure as to such aim would in nowise prove the impotence of
prayer. Indeed, any petition whose inspirations were a challenge
of unbelief, and an ambition to confound such unbelief, could
hardly pass as Christian prayer. It would seem more like a pious
throwing of dice with a hope of winning the game. It were ab-
surd to suppose that the infinite Wisdom would bestow its favors
upon prayer-gambling !

3i2 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

There are doubtless conditions of liuman spirit under the swaj
of perfect faith when earnest prayer will literally win a response
in a result tliat would not otherwise take place. But this would
involve no controversion of distinct law. It will doubtless be
found a tenet of eternal law that matter shall be subservient to
mind or spirit rightly disposed or qualified. Divinely qualified^
man is appointed to magisterial sway — to lordly dominion in natu-
ral realms — but he will then know and acknowledge the Source
of his power, nor will he incline to misuse it. The result of
prayer will correspond to the state of the one who utters it.
Formal petition to the Highest is not necessarily prayer, while
informal spiritual aspiration is, essentially, prayer.

There are those who regard the proposed " prayer gauge " as a
shrewd test of spiritual realities, who look upon it as a pertinent
way of determining the value of prayer, but they only thus expose
their own puerile estimates concerning fundamental principles of
creative law. They show how feebly they have touched the prob-
lem of Fate and Freedom, and how poorly they comprehend the
real relation of Divine and Human in experience. It is the more
singular that they thus mistake when, throughout the whole range
of the special sciences, it is seen that man is conditionally free to
pursue — must constantly strive, " knock," or ask, in order to
achieve — and comes finally to achievement, and the positive free-
dom it confers, only by the recognition of law and conformity to
its sway.

Unbelief here is not only confronted and refuted by " Moses
and the Prophets," but by all the realities of Fate and Freedom
as they stand in human experience to-day.

The Ahsolute Religion. 34r3

THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD VOLUME OF HEGEL's "PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION," BY F.

LOUIS SOLDAN.

III. — The Divine Idea in the Church as the Realm of the Holy

Spirit.

3. This [process], however, has also assumed phenomenal exist-
ence ; it stands in relationship to the subject. It exists for the
subject, and its relations to it are no less essential. The subject
is to be a citizen of the kingdom of God.

This [postulate], that the subject is to become himself a child
of God, implies that the reconciliation in and for itself has been
consummated in the divine idea, and that it thereupon has also
appeared [as an external phenomenon], and that truth has become
a certainty to man. This certitude is the phenomenon : it is the
idea as it presents itself to consciousness in the mode of phenome-
nality.

The relation of the subject to this truth is this : the subject
arrives at this conscious unity, it renders itself worthy of it, it
produces it in itself, and is [thus] filled with the divine spirit.

This is accomplished by self-mediation, and this mediation con-
sists in the possession of this faith. For the faith is the truth, the
presupposition that in and for itself the conciliation has surely
been accomplished. Only through the belief that this concilia-
tion has been accomplished in and for itself, surely, the subject
becomes able to, and can, place itself within this unity. This
mediation is absolutely necessary.

In the state of beatitude engendered by this thought, the diffi-
culty is annulled which was immediately inyolved in the fact that
the relation of the Church to this idea is a relation of single, par-
ticular subjects to the idea ; but this difficulty is annulled in this
truth itself.

To state it more explicitly : The difficulty is, that the subject
is different from the diyine spirit ; in this appears the finitude of
the subject. This is annulled, and it is annulled by the circum-
stance that God looks at the heart of man, at the substantial will,

344 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

at the innermost, all-comprehending subjectivity of man, at his
internal, true, and earnest will.

Besides this internal will, and differing from this internal sub-
stantial reality, there is found in man his externality, his defect-
the fact that he may commit errors, that he may exist in a man,
ner which is not adequate to his internal substantial essence, to
this substantial, essential internalitv.

Externality, however — alienation, tinitude, or imperfection as it
particularizes itself further — is reduced to an unessential element,
and is coo-nized as such. For in the idea the alienation of- the
Son is not a true, essential, permanent, absolute, but a transitory,
vanishing phase.

This is the concept of the Church in general. It is the idea
which in this respect is the process of the subject in and for itself,
since the subject has been received into the spirit, and is spiritual
— whereby the spirit of God dwells in it. This, its pure self-con-
sciousness, is at the same time the consciousness of truth, and this
pure self-consciousness, which knows and wills the truth, is indeed
the divine spirit inherent in it. This self-consciousness, moreover,
expressed as faith that rests upon spirit — that is to say, upon a
mediation which annuls all linite mediation — is the faith which is
wrought by God.

(b) The Realization of the Communion [of "Worshippers]. The
realized communion [of worshippers] is what we call in general
the Church. This is no longer the rise of the communion [of
worsliippers], but the existing communion which also sustains
itself.

The existence of the communion consists in its perpetual, eter-
nal Becomino;, which is based on the fact that it is the nature of
spirit to cognize itself eternally, to pour itself out in the finite
spark of individual consciousness, and then to gather itself out of
this finitude and comprehend itself again, since there arises in the
finite consciousness the cognition of its essence, and with it the
divine self-consciousness. Out of the fermentation of finitude,
which wells up in foam and froth, spirit rises like a perfume.

In the existing communion the Church is the general instru-
mentality by means of which the subjects arrive at truth, by
which they acquire the truth. By it the Holy Ghost becomes real
and present, and finds its abode in them, and by it the truth is in

The Absolute Religion. 345

them. By it they are in the enjoyment and the realization of
the truth, of spirit, since as subjects they are the realizing agents
of spirit.

The universal of the Church is, that the truth is here presup-
posed, not as it was at the beginning, when the Holy Ghost had
just been poured out or called forth, but rather that the truth
appears as present and existing truth. This is for the subject a
•different mode of beginnino;.

1. This truth, which is thus presupposed and thus exists, is the
doctrine or the dogma of the Church, the doctrine or dogma of
faith, and this content we know ; in one word, it is the dogma of
reconciliation [of atonement]. The point is no longer that an
individual person is elevated to absolute significance b}' the pour-
ing out of the Holy Ghost and its proclamation, but rather that
this significance is a known and acknowledged one.

It is the absolute capability of the subject to take part in the
truth as well in himself as objectively, to arrive at truth, to be
in the truth, to attain consciousness of the same. This conscious-
ness of the dogma is here presupposed, it exists.

It is clear that a dogma is necessary, and also that in the exist-
ence of a communion of worshippers the dogma is already com-
pleted. It is this dogma which is represented in the form of an
image-concept, and this is a content in which in and for itself
there is consummated and exhibited what shall be produced in
the individual as such.

Thus, as a presupposition which is complete in its elements only,
the Church can find its growth audi development in the communion
of worshippers alone. The spirit which is poured out is but the
beginning, is incipient, is the impulse. The communion [the
Church] is the consciousness of this spirit, is the expression of
what the spirit has found and of what it has been struck with,
namely, of the truth that Christ exists for the spirit. Whether
the communion of worshippers expresses its consciousness on the
basis of a written document or record, or whether it links its selt-
deterininations to tradition, is not an essential difference ; the
principal point is that, by the spirit inherently present in it, it is
infinite power and authority for the continuation and promotion
of its doctrine and dogma. This authorization proves itself in
the two distinct cases to which allusion has just been made. The

316 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

expoundin<>' of a fundamental docnment or writ is in itself cog-
nition, and develops into new determinations ; and, although tradi-
tion begins with something given or presupposed, tradition is irt
its historical growth essentially an establishment [of dogmas].
Thus the dogma or doctrine is essentially produced and developed
in the Church. It is at first a sense-perception, a feeling ; it is an
evidence of spirit that rouses our feelings like a flash of lightning.
But that determination of producing or developing is in itself but
a one-sided determination or predicati(m, for truth has also exist-
ence in itself, and it is presupposed ; the subject is already com-
prised in the content.

The doctrine or dogma has therefore been made essentially in
the Church, and in this process the thinking power, the educated
consciousness, asserts its claims, and all that it has elsewhere gained
for the education of its thoughts and in regard to philosophy it
uses for this thought and in behalf of the truth which is thus
known. It forms the dogma or doctrine out of another content
which is concrete, and still alloyed with impurities.

This existing doctrine must then be preserved in the Church,,
and what exists as a dogma must, of course, be taught. In order
to remove it from the contingencies of opinion and [individual]
judgment, and to preserve it as a trutli which is in and for itself
and fixed, it is laid down in the form of symbols. It Is, exists,
is valid, is acknowledged, is immediate, but not in a sensuous
mode, as if it were to be conceived through the senses as we con-
ceive the world, for instance, which is a presupposition to which,
as to a sensuous thing, we stand in an external relationship.

The spiritual trutii exists only as a known truth ; its mode of
external appearance is that it is taught. The existence of a body
of teachers whose office it is to teach and proclaim this doctrine-
is an essential institution of the Church.

The subject is born into this doctrine ; its beginning is sur-
rounded by this state of valid existing truth, and by the conscious-
ness of the same. This is the subject's relation to this trutli which
exists, and is presupposed in and for itself.

2. The individual thus born into the Church is at the same
time destined to take part — although unconsciously — in this truth,
to be a sharer of its benefits ; the subject is destined for this truth.
The Church expresses this in the sacrament of baptism ; man is-

The Absolute Religion. 34T

within the communion of the Church in which the evil is con-
quered in and for itself, and God is in and for himself reconciled.

Baptism indicates that the child is born in the communion of
the Church, and not in lonely misery ; that he will not Hnd a hos-
tile world, but that the Church is his world, and that he must
grow up in harmony with the communion [of believers] wherein
he is to find his place and condition.

Man must be born twice ; once naturally, and, secondly, spiritu-
ally, like the Brahmin. Spirit has no immediate existence ; it
exists as it gives birth to itself out of itself ; it exists only as the
regenerated.

This regeneration is no longer the infinite sorrow which is tlie
labor and pain at the birth of the communion of worshippers ;
the subject cannot be spared the infinite real pain, but it is alle-
viated. For there still exists the contest of particularity, of the
special interests of passions and selfishness. The natural heart
which still holds sway over man is the enemy against whom he
must struggle, but this is no longer the real struggle out of which
the communion of worshippers arose.

To the special individual the doctrine or dogma stands in the
relation of something external. The child is as yet spirit in itself
only ; he is not yet realized spirit, he is not real as spirit ; he has
but the possibility or power to be spirit, or to realize himself as
spirit. Thus, the truth approaches him first as something presup-
posed, as something recognized and valid ; that is to say, truth
approaches man first in the form of authority.

All truth — (including the sensuous, although it is not truth in
the proper sense) — obtains with man first in that manner. In our
sensuous perception the world thus approaches us in the form of
Authority. It exists, we find it as such, we perceive it as an in-
dependently existing thing, and our attitude towards it is that
towards an independent thing. It is what it is : and as it is, so is-
it valued.

The doctrine, or dogma, which is the spiritual element does not
exist as such a sensuous authority, but must be taught as a valid
truth. Morality, or the ethical element, has permanent validity ; it
is an existing conviction ; but because it is of spiritual nature we
do not say it exists, but it is valid, or is binding. But since it first
appears to us as an Existence — it is — and because it appears to us-

34:8 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy ,

as somethiiiii- that is valid and has swav, we call this manner ol
existence Authority.

Man learns the presence of sensuous things by authority ; since
they are there, since they exist, he must submit to the fact. Thus,
the sun is there, and, since it is there, I must submit to the fact.
Thus [it is] also [with] the doctrine, with the truth ; but the lat-
ter comes to our notice not through sensuous perception, through
the activity of our senses, but we receive it by being taught its
existence; we receive it through authority. Whatever is in the
human spirit — that is to say, what is in his true spirit — appears in
man's consciousness as an objective thing ; or, what is in man's
mind is dev^eloped, so that he knows it as the truth in which he
lives. The important point in such education, practice, training,
and acquisition, is the forming of a habitual attachment to the
Good and the True. The object in this respect is here not the
conquering of the Evil, for the Evil is already conquered in and
for itself The question here is simply that of contingent sub-
jectivity. With that one proposition of faith, that the subject is
not what it ouofht to be, there is connected at the same time the
absolute possibility that it may fulHl its destination and may be
received into the grace of God. This is a matter of faith. The
individual must seize the potential unity of the divine and human
natures, and this unity he seizes in the belief in Christ. God is
then no longer [merely] an externality for them, and the seizing
of this truth is the contradiction of that fundamental proposi-
tion—namely, that the subject is not as he ought to be. The
child, since it is born within the pale of a church, is born in
freedom and for freedom ; there is no longer any absolute alien-
ation for it, since this alienation is posited as overcome and
conquered.

In this process of educational adaptation the aim is not to
allow the Evil — for which there is generally a possibility in man
— to arise in him ; but, since the Evil arises when man does
wrong, the latter exists thereby as something that is nugatory in
itself, and over which spirit has power, in such a manner that
spirit has power to undo the Evil [and cancel it].

The meaning of repentance, atonement, is, that by man's eleva-
tion to the truth crime is cognized as something conquered, which
has no power in itself Tlie deed cannot be made undone in a

The Absolute Religion. 34^

sensuous manner, but spiritually, internally. He is forgiven ;
men know him as one whom the Father has received.

This is the office of the Church, to so accustom man that the
education of the spirit becomes more and more internal, and that
the truth becomes more and more identical -with his Self, with
man's will, and that it may become his own will, his own spirit.
The strug-o-le is over, and the consciousness has arisen that it is
no struggle like the one portrayed in the Persian religion, or in
Kant's philosophy, where it is demanded that the Evil should be
conquered, but where Evil abides eternally in and for itself op-
posed to the Good, and where an infinite progression is the high-
est principle.

Wliere no further progress is made than to reach a " categori-
cal imperative," there the struggle and endeavor are infinite, the
solution of the problem is infinitely deferred.

Here, on the contrary, the problem is solved in itself; the Evil
is cognized in spirit as conquered in and for itself, and, on account
of this conquest, the subject has but to make his will pure and
good, and the Evil, the bad deed, has disappeared.

At this stao^e arises the consciousness that, when the natural
will is given up, there is no sin ^vhich cannot be forgiven — except
the sin against the Holy Ghost, the denial or negation of the
spirit ; for the latter alone is the power which can annul all [Evil].
There are many difficulties in this which arise out of the idea
of Spirit and Freedom ; there is on the one side spirit as universal
spirit, and on the other the existence of independent individual
men. This, then, must be said : it is the divine spirit which
causes that man is born again ; this is divinely free grace, for all
that is divine is free ; it is neither fate nor destiny. Then, again,
the individual existence of the soul is a fixed fact, and in this con-
nection some have tried to discover how much [of this attribute
of freedom] belongs to man. They ascribe to him a Velleitas, a
JVisus, but to look upon this relation as a fixed and final stage
would be in itself unspiritual. The first being, the selfhood, is
the idea potentially, the potential spirit ; and what must be an-
nulled is the form of its immediateness, or its isolated, particular
independence. This self-annulment or return-movement of the
idea is, however, unlimited, universal spirit. Action and life in
the faith of \a potential reconciliation is, on the one side, the

350 The Journal of Sjyeculative Philoso2)fiy.

subject's doing ; but, on the other side, it is the doing of the di-
vine spirit. Faith itt^elt" is the divine spirit which is active in
the subject. Not that the latter is a mere passive vessel ; on
the contrarj^ the Holy Spirit is also the subject's own spirit, in-
asmuch as the subject has faith. In this faith he acts against
his naturalness, and strips it olf'and casts it away.

To explain the antinomy which lies in this path of the sonl,
reference may ])e made to the differences between the three
conceptions that have arisen in regard to it.

(1) The first is the Moral View, which finds its contrast in the
quite external relationship of our self-consciousness (a relation
which, taken by itself, would occupy tlie fourth or first place),
namely, in the Oriental and despotic relation of the annihilation
of the individual's own thinking and volition. This Moral View
places the absolute end and purpose of the spirit, or the essence
of spirit, in a purpose of volition — namely, in volition as his own
volition, so that this subjective side is the principal thing. The
law, the nftiversal, the rational, is my rationality within nie. In
the same way the willing and the realization, which make it
my own and render it my subjective aim and end, are mine ; and
since there enters into this view the idea'^also of something higher,
of the Highest, of God, and of the Divine, these themselves are
but postulates of my reason ; they are what I myself have posited.
It is true, on the other hand, that these should be things that are
not posited, that form the strictly independent power; in this
predicate, " not posited," I do not forget that this " not posited "
is posited by me. It makes no difi:erence whether this is ex-
pressed in the form of a postulate, or whether we express it by
saying. My feeling of dependence, of my need to be saved, is the
first thing ; in either form the objectivity proper to truth is an-
nulled.

(2) From the stand-point of Piety this view is modified by add-
ing, in regard to the determining volition and in regard to the
universal or the law, that all these are [the emanations of] the
divine will, and that the power of a good resolution is in itself
something divine ; and with this general relation it lets the mat-
ter rest.

(3) The mystic view, finally, or that of the Church, defines this
connection of God with the subjective volition more closely, and

The Absolute Religion. ■ 351

establislies a relation between them which is based on the nature
of the Idea. The representations of this in the several churches
are but diverse attempts to solve this antinomy. The Lutheran
conception is, without doubt, the most int^enious, although it, as
well as the others, does not fully attain the form of the idea.

3. The last [principle] in this sphere is the enjoyment of this
assimilation [of the subjective will by the divane and] of the
presence of God. "We have arrived at the stand-point of the con-
scious presence of God, of unity with God, of the unio mystica,
the feeling- of the unity of the self with God.'

This is the sacrament of the Eucharist, in which there is given
to man, in a sensuous, immediate manner, the consciousness of his
reconciliation with God, and of the entrance of the spirit into his
soul, and of its abode there.

Inasmuch as this is a feeling — of which our Self is the object
— it is also a movement; it presupposes the removal of differences
in order to produce this negative unity. While, on the one hand,
the constant preservation of the Church (which is at the same
time the uninterrupted creation of the same) is the perpetual
repetition of the life, sufferings, and resurrection of Christ in the
members of the Church, this repetition is, on the other hand,
explicitly performed in the sacrament of the Eucharist. The
perpetual sacrifice in it is that the absolute content, the unity of
the subject and of the absolute object, is offered to the individual
for his immediate participation and enjoyment, and when the in-
dividual is reconciled, then this perfect reconciliation is the resur-
rection of Christ. For this reason the Eucharist is the central
point of the doctrine of Christianity, and from this point all the
differences in the Christian Church receive their color and distin-
guishing characteristic. Tliere are three conceptions in regard
to it.

1. According to the one concept, the host, this external object,
this sensuous, unspiritual thing, becomes by consecration the pres-
ent God — God [conceived] as a thing, in the manner of an em-
pirical thing, and just as empirically participated in and taken by
man. Thus is God known in the Lord's supper, in this central

' Translator's Note, — The feeling of the connection of man's own deeds with the
spirit in man, and through the latter with God.

352 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

point of the doctrine, as an external thing, and this externality is
the basis of the-wliole of the Catholic religion. Tlius the bondao-e
in thought and action arises, [for] this externality affects all further
developments, since the True is conceived as a lixed and exteraal
thing. Since it thus exists outside of the subject, it may be sub-
jected to the power of others ; the Church holds possession of it
as well as of all the other means of grace. The subject is con-
ceived in every respect as passive and recipient, as not knowing
what is true, right, and good, and as bound, therefore, to receive
and accept it from others.

2. The Lutlieran conception is that the movement begins with
something external, which is an ordinary, common thing ; but
that the participation in and the self-experience of the presence of
God is brought about inasmuch and in so far only as this exter-
nality is consumed, not only physically, but in spirit and faith..
In spirit and faith alone there is the present God. The sensuous
presence, by itself, is nothing, and even the consecration does not
render the host an object of worsliip ; the object exists in the faith
alone, and thus there is in the eating and the annihilation of the
sensuous the union with God, and the consciousness of this union
of the subject with God. Here the grand consciousness has arisen
that outside of the participation and the faith the host is an ordi-
nary, sensuous thing ; in spirit alone the process has its truth.

There is no transubstantiation [in an external sense], yet there
is a transubstantiation indeed [in another sense], but it is one by
which the external is annulled and the presence of God is strictly
a spiritual one, in such a way that the faith of the subject is its
necessary condition.

3. There is [also] the conception that the present God exists in
concept only, in the recollection, and that for this reason recollec-
tion alone can be said to have immediate subjective presence.
This is the conception in the Reformed Church ; Mt is a non-spirit-
ual, but simply vivid, recollection of the past ; it is not divine
presence, no real spirituality. Here the divine, the truth, has
fallen down to the level of prosy rationalism {AufMaerung) and
of the one-sided Understanding ; it is a merely moral relation.

* Translator's Note. — The Reformed Church, " Rcformirte Jurche," is the name
given in Germany to the church which is based on the .views of Calvin and Zwingli.

The Absolute Religion. 353

(c) The actualization of tlie spiritual into universal reality.
This contains at the same time the transformation or the re-forma-
tion of the Church.

Religion is spiritual, and the Church exists first within, in spirit
as such. This internal element, this subjectivity (which is present
to itself and considered as internal, not developed in itself), is
feeling, sentiment ; the Church possesses essentially consciousness,
conception, needs, impulses, worldly existence in general — but
with these separation and differentiation appear: the divine, ob-
jective idea presents itself to consciousness as an Other, as some-
thing alien, which is partly given by authority, and partly is made
man's own by pious worship. Or the phase of participation [of
the Lord's supper] is but a single phase ; that is to say, the divine
idea, the divine content, is not viewed really, but is simply a
matter of image-conception. The moment of communion loses
itself in image-conception and flows over partly into a Beyond, a
heaven beyond, partly in the past, and partly in the future.
Spirit, however, is strictly present to itself, and demands a tilled
and complete presence ; it demands more than simply love and
misty image-conceptions ; it demands that the content itself be
present, or that the feeling, the sensation, be developed and ex-
panded.

Thus, the Church, as kingdom of God, faces an objectivity in
general. Objectivity, as the external, immediate world, is the
heart ; another objectivity is that of Reflection, or of abstract
Thought or Understanding, and the third true objectivity is that
of the idea; it now remains to be considered how spirit realizes
itself in these three elements.

1. In religion in itself the heart is reconciled ; reconciliation is
thus in the heart, and is spiritual — the pure heart which attains
this participation in and enjoyment of the presence of God in
itself, and with it attains reconciliation, the enjoyment or satisfac-
tion of being reconciled. This reconciliation, however, is abstract ;
since the Self, the subject, is at the same time that side of this
spiritual presence in which there is a developed worldliness or ex-
ternality, and the kingdom of God, the Church, has, therefore, a
relation to worldliness.

In order that reconciliation be actual, it is necessary that recon-
ciliation be known in, exist in, and be produced in this develop-
XYI— 23

354 T?i6 Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ment, in this totality. Tlie principles for this worldliness exist in
this spiritnal element.

The Spiritual, to speak more particularly, is the truth \i. <?., its
true purpose] of worldliness, because the subject as such, as the
object of divine grace and mercy, and as a being reconciled with
God, lias infinite value; this is in accordance with its [ideal] des-
tination, whicli finds fulfilment in the Cliurch. According to this
destination, the subject is known as the infinite self-certitude of
spirit, as the eternity of spirit.

The nature of this subject, which is tlius infinite in itself [it is
determined as infinity, and that implies its freedom], is, that it is
a free person, and it therefore stands related to the world and
reality as subjectivity which is in itself, is reconciled within itself,
and is permanent and infinite. This is what is substantial, and
this, its determination, must be the basis of its relation to the
world.

The rationality and freedom of the subject lie in the fact that
it is the subject which has been liberated, which has attained
freedom through religion, and that, according to its religious char-
acteristic or determination, it is essentially free. It is necessary
that this reconciliation should come to pass in the world itself.

(1). The first form of the reconciliation is the immediate, and
for that reason not yet true, mode of reconciliation. The form in
which this reconciliation primarily appears is, that, in the first
place, the Church contains in itself the reconciliation, the spirit-
ual, this reconciliation with God, as an abstraction from the
world ; [in this] the spiritual renounces worldliness, and places
itself in a negative relation to the world, and thereby to itself
also; for the world in the subject is the impulse towards the
natural, towards social life, to art and science.

The concrete element in man's Self, the passions cannot be jus-
tified when confronted with religion by saying that they are natu-
ral ; but the monkish abstraction holds this view: that the heart
should not be developed into this concreteness, should remain an
undeveloped thing; or, that spirituality, reconciliation, and life
for this reconciliation, should be concentrated in itself and unde-
veloped, and remain so. But it is the essence of spirit to develop
itself and to differentiate itself, even unto worldliness.

(2). The second form of this reconciliation is, that the world and

The Absolute Religion. 355

religion are to remain external to each other, and yet to assume
a mutual relationship. The relationship in which the two stand
to each other can therefore be but external, and of such a nature
that the one rules over the other, and reconciliation does not ex-
ist. The religious element must be the ruling, the reconciled fac-
tor ; the Church is to rule over the worldly element that remains
unreconciled.

It is a union with worldliness which is unreconciled ; it is world-
liness crude [^. 6., " carnal," unspiritual] in itself, which, on ac-
count of being crude in itself, is ruled over; but that which is
ruling absorbs this worldliness into itself. All inclinations, all
the passions, and whatever unspiritual worldliness exists, appear
in the Church on account of this dominion and rule, because the
worldly element is not reconciled in and of itself.

This is, then, a dominion and rule posited on account of the un-
spiritual element, in which externality is the principle, and in
which man is in his relationship outside of himself [/. ^., his true
nature, reason, seems an external force constraining him] ; it is
the relation of dependence, of being unfree in general. Into what-
ever is human, into all impulses, into all relations to the family,
icto action and political life, this diremption is introduced, and
the self-alien a tion or self-estrangement of man is the principle.

Man, in all these forms, is in general bondage, and all these
forms are considered nugatory and unholy. Since man is encom-
passed by them, lie is in respect to them essentially in the condi-
tion of iinitiide and diremption ; that which has no abiding value
surrounds him, aim the truly valid is elsev.-here.

This reconciliation with the world presents itself to the heart
of man in such a manner that this reconciliation becomes the
'^^ry opposite. The further examination of this diremption within
reconciliation itself shows it to be that which appears as the cor-
ruption of the Church — the absolute contradiction of the spiritual
within itself.

(3). The third consideration is, that this contradiction is dis-
solved in the idea of Morality, that the idea of freedom has found
its way into reality, and, when the reality is formed according to
the idea, according to reason, to truth, to eternal truth, it is Free-
dom grown concrete, it is rational will.

It is in the organization of the state that the divine forms the

356 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

woof to the warp of reality, where the one is interpenetrated by
the other, and where the worldly element is justified in and for
itself. For the principle of the organization of the state is the
divine will, the law of justice and of freedom. True reconcilia-
tion, by which the divine actualizes itself in the sphere of reality,
is found in the laws and the ethical life of the state; this is the
truly transforn)ing discipline [subaction] of worldliness.

The ethical institutions are divine and holy, not in the sense in
which holy is opposed to the ethical, as celibacy, for instance, is
represented as the holy state when compared with marriage and
the love of family, or when voluntary poverty is contrasted with
active selt-interested thrift or lawful gain ; in the same way blind
obedience is considered a holy and sacred object. But the really
and truly ethical is found in obedience, in freedom, rational will,
obedience of the subject to the ethical. In ethical [life] the
reconciliation of religion with reality or worldliness exists and
is completed.

2. The second is, that the ideal side in tliis now becomes promi-
nent by itself. In this reconciliation of the spirit with itself,
the internal [nature of man] cognizes itself as self-contained, as
being in itself; and this knowledge of being within one's self, or
of being self-contained, is that Tiiinking which is reconciliation,
self-contained being, being-in-peace-with one's self — but this
peace is quite abstract and undeveloped. Thus, there arises the
infinite behest [or postulate] that the content of religion should
stand the test of thought also, and this necessity cannot be ob-
viated.

Thinking is the universal ; it is the activity of the universal, and
Btands in a contrast with the concrete in general as well as with
the external. It is the freedom of reason which has been ob-
tained in religion, and which now knows itself for itself in spirit.
This freedom now turns against the merely spiritless externality,
against bondage; for bondage is directly opposed to the idea of
reconciliation or liberation, and thus the thinking makes its ap-
pearance which defies and destroys externality, no matter in what
form it appears.

This is the negative and formal movement which has been
called in its concrete shape Rationalism {Aufklaerung)^ and in
which thinking turns against externality, and the freedom of the

Ihe Absolute Religion. 357

spirit which lies in reconciliation is asserted. This thinking,
when it first originates, arises as this abstractly Universal, and is
directed against the concrete in general, and therewith, also,
against the idea of God — against the view which holds that God
is not a dead abstraction, but the Trinity ; that he is self-related,
that he is within himself and returns to himself. Abstract think-
ing through its principle of identity attacks this content of the
Church : for that concrete content stands in contradiction to the
principle of identity. In the concrete there are determinations
and distinctions ; since abstract thinking turns against externality
in general, it turns against the difference as such, against the rela-
tion of God to man, against the unity of the two, against divine
grace and human liberty — all these involve the unity of opposite
categories. But the understanding, abstract thinking, takes ab-
stract identity for its highest principle ; this kind of thinking
proceeds to dissolve all that is concrete, all determinations, all
the content which is in God. Thus, reflection has for its last
result nothing but the objectivity of identity itself [or, in other
words], this [view] : that God is naught but the Supreme Being,
without determination, and empty. For every determination ren-
ders a being concrete. He is for cognition a something transcend-
ent [" unknowable "], because cognition ["' the knowable "] means
the knowledge of a concrete content \i. e.^ a being with attri-
butes]. This extreme result of reflection reaches a principle ex-
actly opposite to that of the Christian Church ; by it all that is
concrete in God is cancelled. It may, perhaps, thus be expressed :
It is impossible [to cognize God, for to cognize God means to
know God in his determinations \i. «., to limit him] ; he should re-
main, however, according to the principle of Reflection, pure ab-
straction. In this formalism, it is true, the principle of freedom,
of internality, of religion itself, has been conceived, but as yet
only abstractly.

The other element through which, in this abstraction, deter-
minateness enters into this universality is naught else but what
lies in the natural inclinations and impulses of the subject. From
this stand-point it is then asserted : Man is good by nature.
Since this pure subjectivity or ideality is pure freedom, it ad-
heres to the categor}'^ or determination of the Good, but the Good
itself must also remain here an abstraction.

358 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The Good is determined liere as Arbitrariness, as tlie general
contingency of the subject ; and thus the highest principle of this
subjectivity, or freedom, which renounces the truth, and produces
and knows within itself the development of truth, is, that what
it acknowledges as valid are but its own determinations, and
that it is master over that which is good and evil.

This is an inner moving and stirring, which may just as easily
be hypocrisy or the merest vanity as it may be quiet, noble, and
pious endeavors. It is the world of pious feelings to which
Pietism ' confines and limits itself. Pietism does not recognize
any objective truth, and, although it retains a mediation, a relation
to Christ, it makes this relation remain within the feeling, in the
inner sentiment. There everybody has his God, his Christ, etc.
It is true that [a certain] particularity, in which each person has
his individual religion and view of the world, exists in man ; but
in religion, by the life of the Church, it is consumed, and has no
longer any validity for the truly pious man, and is put aside.

Over against the empty essence of God there stands thus the
finitude wliich is free for itself, and has become self-dependent,
which in itself is considered absolute (as probity of the individu-
als, for instance). The further inference is that not only the ob-
jectivity of God is thus transcendent and inaccessible, and is thus
negated, but that the other determinations also, which are valid
in and for themselves, and which are posited in the world in the
form of rights, etc., disappear and vanish. When the subject
withdraws to the height of his infinity, the Good and the Just
have existence only within himself; it reduces them all to his sub-
jective determination ; tliey are but his thought. The realization
of this Good is then to result from natural arbitrariness, contin-
gency, passion, etc. This subject is then the consciousness
[which imagines] that objectivity is comprehended within the
subject itself, and has no fixed existence ; it considers nothing
valid but the principle of identity alone. This subject is the
abstract one ; it can be filled with any content whatsoever ; it
is capable of subsuming any content which is thus planted in

' Translator's Note. — Pietism is the name given in Germany to a religious view which
began to manifest itself there during the latter part of the seventeenth century ; it at-
tached less importance to doctrinal differences, and more to fervid religious feeling*
and good works.

The Ahsolute Religion. 359

the heart of man. Subjectivity is thus arbitrariness itself, and
the knowledge of its power is strictly that it produces Objectivity
or the Good, and gives to it a content.

The other development of this stand-point is, that the subject,
compared with the unity into which it has poured itself, has no
independent existence, and does not retain its particularity, but
that it gives to itself the determination of sinking itself into
the unity of God. Thus, then, the subject has neither a particular
nor an objective aim and end, except that of the honor of the
One God. This form is religion ; in it there is an affirmative re-
lation to the subject's essence, which is this One, and the subject
relinquishes itself therein. This religion has the same objective
content as the Jewit^h religion, but man's relation is widened ; he
retains no particularity. The Jewish national privilege [as the
chosen people] is here wanting which posits this relation to
One; here there is no limitation; man is related to this One
as pure abstract self-consciousness. This is the attitude of the
Mohammedan religion. In it Christianity finds its opposite, be-
cause the Mohammedan stands in the same sphere [?'. ^., as con-
traries belong to the same unity] with the Christian religion.
Like the Jewish religion, it is spiritual ; but this God exists for
Belf-consciousness in the abstract, cognizing spirit only, and it
stands in so far on the same level with the Christian religion as
there is no particularity retained. Whoever fears God pleases
him, and man has value in so far only as he places his truth in
the cognition that He is the One, the Essence. No barrier of any
kind between the believers and each other, or between them and
God, is acknowledged. Before God, the determinations of the
subject in regard to rank or position are annulled ; the subjects
may be of rank, or they may be slaves ; but this is accidental
only.

The contrast between Christianity and Mohammedanism is,
that in Christ spirituality is concretely developed, and that it is
known as triune, i. <?., as spirit, and that the history of man, the
relation to the One, is concrete history ; that it has its beginning
in natural will, and this natural will is not as it ought to be \i. e.^
it is fallen, corrupt] ; the renunciation of this [natural will], or
that by which it becomes its [real] self, takes place through the
negation of itself for the sake of this its essence. The Moham-

360 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

medan hates and banishes everything concrete. God is the abso-
lutely One, and this implies that man retains for himself no aim
and end, no particularity, no peculiarity. Existing man indeed
particularizes himself in his inclinations, his interests, and these
are here all the more wild and unrestrained because they lack Re-
flection ; but with this the complete contrast is posited as well,
namely, the giving up of everything, indifference to every aim
and end, absolute fatalism, indifi'erence towards life ; no practical
aim has essential validity. But since man is also practical and
active, the aim and end can solely be to produce in all men wor-
ship and reverence of the One ; the Mohammedan religion is
therefore essentially fanatic.

The reflection which we have considered stands on the same
level with Mohammedanism, [since it asserts] that God has no
content, that he is not concrete. God's manifestation in the
flesh, the elevation of Christ as the Son of God, the transfigura-
tion of the finitude of the world and of the self-consciousness
into the infinite self consciousness of God are all wanting here.
Christianity is looked upon [by this abstract view] only as a doc-
trine or dogma, and Christ as a messenger of God, as a divine
teacher — that is to say, as a teacher like Socrates, but of superior
rank, since he was without sin. But this is only a superficial
view. Either Christ was nothing but a man, or he was " the Son
of Man." Of the divine history nothing remains [if this super-
ficial view is adopted], and, if Christ is spoken of in the style of
the Koran, the whole difference between this stage and that of
Mohammedanism is, that the latter — whose view bathes itself in
the ether of the limitless — is the infinite independence which re-
nounces all particularity, all pleasure, rank, all individual knowl-
edge, and all vanity. The stand-point which rationalism, the view
of the understanding, holds is, that God is considered as some-
thing distant, as something transcendent [" jenseits," " beyond,"
i. e.y beyond the limits of the knowable], and as having no aflSrma-
tive relation to the subject. This view, therefore, considers man
as being abstractly for himself, and as having recognized the af-
firmative Universal as far only as it is in him, but that he has it
within himself abstractly only, and therefore bases the accom-
plishment and fulfilment of it on contingency and arbitrariness
only.

The Absolute Beligion, 361

But even in this last form we are able to recognize a reconcili-
ation, and this last phenomenon is therefore equally a realization
of faith. For, since all content, all truth, have been sjtoiled in
this subjectivity (which, knowing itself infinite, is particular), the
consciousness of the principle of subjective freedom arises therein.
That which in the Church is called the Internal is now developed
into completeness in itself; it is not only the internal or conscience,
but it is subjectivity which makes itself subject and object, which
distinguishes itself and is concrete ; it exists as its [own] objec-
tivity, which knows the universal to be in itself and which produces
it out of itself. It is the subjectivity which is for itself and de-
termined in itself; it is the completion by which the subjective
extreme becomes the idea-in-itself. The defect therein is, that it
is formal only, and lacks true objectivity ; it is the last point of
formal culture that still lacks necessity in itself. The true com-
pletion of the idea requires that the objectivity should be set free
[made objectively independent], and that it be the totality of ob-
jectivity in itself!

The result of this objectivity, therefore, is, that in the subject
everything is misty and distorted, without objectivity, without
fixed determinateness, without the development of God. This
last climax of the formal culture of our time is at the same time
the extreme of coarseness [or crudeness of insight], since it pos-
sesses the form only of culture.

In the preceding we have considered scientifically these two
elements in opposition to each other in the development of the
Church. The one was the lack of freedom, bondage of the spirit
[even] in the absolute region of freedom. The other was abstract
subjectivity, subjective freedom without a content.

3. What remains to be considered is, that subjectivity develops
out of itself the content (but in a manner which proceeds accord-
ing to necessity), and knows and acknowledges the content as
necessary, as objective, and as being in-and-lor itself. This is the
stand-point of philosophy, that the content takes refuge in the
idea, and, through thinking, receives its rehabilitation and justifi-
cation.

Thinking is not merely this act of abstracting and determin-
ing according to the law of identity ; this mode of thinking is
itself essentially concrete, and therefore it is comprehension ; its

362 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

nature is, that conception determines itself to its totality, the
idea.

It is self-existing free reason which develops and justifies in
knowledge the content of truth, which acknowledges and cognizes
a truth. The purely subjective stand-point, the evaporation of all
content, the rationalism of the understanding, and [the doctrine of]
Pietism, as well acknowledge no content, and, therefore, no truth.

The idea, however, produces the truth — that is, the subjective
freedom — but it ackno^vledges, at the same time, this content to be
not produced, but to be a truth wliich has existence in and for
itself. This objective stand-point alone is able to pronounce and
give the testimony of spirit in a cultured and thinking manner^
and is contained in the better class of dogmatism of our times.

This stand- point is therefore that of the justification of religion,
especially of the Christian and true religion. It cognizes the
content according to its necessity, according to its reason, and, in
the same way, it cognizes the forms in the development of this
content. We have inspected these forms, namely : the phenome-
nal manifestation of God, this image-conception for the sensuous,
spiritual consciousness which has attained universality or thought,
this complete development of the spirit.

In justifying the content and cognizing the forms, the determi-
nateness of the phenomenon. Thinking also recognizes the limits
of the forms. Rationalism knows naught but the negation, the
limit, the determination as such, and it therefore wrongs the strict
content.

The form, the determination, is not merely finitude, it is not
merely limit, but the form, as totality of form, is itself the idea,
and these forms are necessarv and essential.

Since reflection has broken into religion, thinking or reflection
occupies a hostile position towards image-conception in religion,
and towards the concrete content. Thinking, that has thus com-
menced, never rests ; it persists and renders the heart, heaven, and
the cognizing spirit empty and void, and the religious content
then takes refuge in the idea. Here it must receive its justifica-
tion, and thinking must conceive itself as concrete and free ; it
must hold the differences not simply as posited and given, but it
must let them go free, and thereby recognize the content as objec-
tive.

The Absolute Religion. 363^

Philosophy has for its function to establish the relation to the
two preceding stages. Religion, or the pious impulse of our
nature, may take refuge in emotion instead of in the idea, in the
sentiment which resigns itself to the giving up of the truth, which
renounces the knowledge of the content; so that the holy Church
has thus no longer a communion, and collapses into atoms. For
communion is found in the dogma or doctrine; but each indi-
vidual has his own sentiment, own emotions, and a particular
view of the world. This form does not answer to spirit, which,
wishes to know its position. Thus, philosophy has two contrasts
or antitheses. On the one side it seems to be in contrast with the
Church ; it has this in common with culture, with reflection, that^
when it is in the process of conceiving, it does not stop with the
form of the image-concept, but must conceive in thought, and
must cognize through this the form of image-conception as nec-
essary. But the idea is the higher stage which comprehends the
distinct forms and does justice to them. The second contrast
is that with rationalism [^Aujklaerung], with the indifference of
content, with [the mere] opinion, with the despairing renuncia-
tion of truth. Philosophy has for its aim the cognition of truth,
the cognition of God, for he is the absolute truth ; in this respect
nothing is worth while, compared with God and his explication.
Philosophy cognizes God essentially as concrete, as spiritual and
real universality, which is not envious, but communicates or im-
parts itself to others. Light itself communicates itself, and allows
itself to be shared. Whoever says that God cannot be cognized,
says that God is envious, and he is not in earnest in believing in
God, no matter how much he talks about Him. Rationalism, this
vanity of the understanding, is the most violent opponent of phi-
losophy ; it takes it amiss when philosophy demonstrates the
presence of reason in Christian religion, when it shows that the
testimony of spirit of truth is deposited in religion. In philoso-
phy, which is theology, the whole object is to show reason in
religion.

J5 In philosophy, religion finds its justification from the stand-point
of thinking consciousness. Unsophisticated piety has no need of
this ; it receives truth as authority, and finds satisfaction and rec-
onciliation by means of this truth.

In faith there is already the true content, but it still lacks the

364 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

form of thinking. All forms which we have examined hitherto
— feeling, image-conception — may have the content of truth,, but
thej themselves are not the true form which makes the true con-
tent necessary. Thinking is the absolute judge before whom the
content must prove and justify itself.

Philosophy has been charged with placing itself above religion;
but this is false according to the fact itself, for philosophy has
only this and no other content, but it gives it in the form of think-
ing; in this manner it places itself above the form of faith, but
the content is the same.

The form of the subject — as a feeling individual, etc. — concerns
the subject as an individual; but feeling, as such, is not excluded
from philosophy. The question is only whether the content of
the feeling be the truth, whether it can prove itself as such before
Thought. Philosophy thinks what the subject as such feels, and
leaves it to arrive at an understanding with his feelings. Feeling
is not rejected by philosophy, but the latter gives to it rather the
true content.

But, since thinking begins to place itself in a contrast with the
concrete, the process of thinking must go through this stage of
opposition until it arrives at reconciliation. This reconciliation
is philosophy ; in this respect philosophy is theology ; it repre-
sents the reconciliation of God with himself and with nature ; it
represents that nature, which is alienation, is in-itself divine, and
that the nature of the finite spirit in-itself is, partly, to elevate
itself to this reconciliation, and partly attains this reconciliation
in the course of the history of tiie world.

This religious cognition through the idea is, in consequence ot
its nature, not general ; it is again simply cognition within the
Church, and thus in regard to the kingdom of the spirit three
stages or classes are formed : The first class, that of immediate,
unsophisticated religion and faith ; the second, the class of the
understanding — of the so-called cultured or educated people — that
of reflection and rationalism; and, finally, the third class, the
stage of philosophy.

When, after having considered its rise and existence, we see the
realization of the Church in its spiritual actuality lapse into this
internal conflict and division, this realization appears to us to be
at the same time its decadence. But can we here speak of a

The Absolute Religion. 365

downfall when the realm of God is established forever, and the
Holy Ghost, as such, lives eternally in its communion [of believers
—the Church], and the gates of hell shall not prevail against the
Church ? To speak of decadence would mean to wind up with a
discord.

But what does it avail ? The discord exists in realitv. As it
was at the time of the Roman Empire — when (because the general
unity of religion had disappeared and the Divine was profaned,
and the general political life lacked counsel, action, and confi-
dence) reason took refuge in the forms of civil rights, or, because
that which has existence in and for itself had been given up, the
individual weal was made a purpose and an aim — in the same way
at the present time, when the merely moral view, the individual
opinion and conviction without objective truth, has made itself the
ruling power, the rage for private or individual riglits and pleas-
ure has become the order of the day. When the fulness of time
is come, and the justification through the idea has become a want
and a necessity, then the unity of the internal and the external
no longer exists in immediate consciousness, and in reality, and
then there is nothing in faith that is justified. The rigor of an
objective order, external compulsion, the power of the state, are
here of no avail ; the decay has eaten its way too deep for that.
When the Gospel is no longer preached to the poor, when the salt
has lost its savor, and every fixed foundation has been tacitly re-
moved, then the people — whose understanding always remains
undeveloped, and for whom truth can exist in image-conception
only — no longer know how to satisfy the impulse of their inner
nature. They are least removed from the infinite pain ; but since
the love is perverted to a love or to pleasures which are free from
all pain, the people see themselves forsaken by their teachers;
the latter have helped themselves through reflection, and have
found satisfaction in finitude, in subjectivity and its arts, and
thereby in vanity; but that substantial mass of the people cannot
find its own satisfaction in this.

This discord has been dissolved for us by philosophy, and the
object of these lectures has been to reconcile reason with religion,
to cognize the latter in its various shapes as necessary, and again
to find in revealed religion the Truth and the Idea. But this
reconciliation is itself but a partial one, without external univer-

^6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Balitj ; philosophy is in this respect a secluded sanctuary, and its
servants form an isolated priesthood which cannot walk the paths
of the world, and which must guard the treasure of truth. How
the temporal, empirical present finds its way out of its dividing
quandary, how it will shape its3lf, must be left to it, and is not
the immediately practical cause and concern of philosophy.

[end of the wohk.] , 1

A GENERAL ANALYSIS OF MIND/

BY JAMES WARD.
I.

Many admirable works have been written purporting to furnish
analyses of mind; but almost all of them, in common with other
works on psychology, proceed at once to the examination of spe-
cial facts, such as Sensations, their authors apparently considering
it unnecessary to discuss at any length the relation of the several
elements of mind to each other. While cognitions are under dis-
cussion, emotions are out of view, and volitions in their turn are
treated regardless of both ; so that though the special analyses and
descriptions are excellent, the tout ensemble of inind is never ex-
hibited at all : we lose sight of the wood among the trees. The
reason of this is not far to seek. First, in most states of mind as
■we know them some one aspect or element is prominent, the rest
being obscure or of secondary interest. Hence, in common lan-
guage, and very generally in psychology too, these obvious and
obtrusive differences between one state and another have been re-
garded as concrete mental states, instead of being in reality only
abstractions. "The mind can seldom operate exclusively in one
of these three modes," says Mr. Bain, refei-ring to his own "classi-
fication of mind." " A feeling is apt to be accompanied more or
less by will and by thought."" Sir W. Hamilton is even more
explicit: "In distinguishing the cognitions, feelings, and cona-

' Discussed October 15, 1880, at the Moral Sciences Club, at the rooms of Mr. Jamea
Ward, M. A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University, England.
3 " Mental Science," p. 2.

A General Analysis of Mind. 36T

tions," he says, " it is not to be supposed that these plienomena
are possible independently of each other. In our philosophical
systems, they may stand separately from each other in books and
chapters; in nature they are ever interwoven."' But neither of
these writers can be said to have given any orderlj^ exposition of
nature's weaving. Secondly, the reference of these apparently dis-
tinct facts to distinct faculties diverted attention still more from
their common connections. And, lastly, the obscurity of the term
consciousness rendered any attempt at a general analysis of mind
almost hopeless. For consciousness seemed at one time something
outside those obvious facts of mind which the psychologist could
describe ; at another those fajts seemed themselves the sum total
of consciousness. Thus, to Reid it was a special faculty, while
according to James Mill it was but a "generical mark . . . under
which all the names of- the subordinate classes of the feelings of a
sentient creature are included."' Neither signification was likely
to turn psychologists from the accepted classifications of the sali-
ent facts of mind to a careful analysis of mind as a whole. Ham-
ilton did indeed attempt an analysis of consciousness as " the uni-
versal phenomenon of mind;" and so far with good results that,
whereas James Mill and Bain barely mention the important fact
of attention, Hamilton devotes a couple of lectures to it. Still,
such is the vague and equivocal character of that word Conscious-
ness that Hamilton's venture was in the main a disastrous one.
"We shall do well, therefore, to profit by liis misfortune, and avoid
the term while essaying in like manner to make a general analysis
of mind.

For the sake of clearness, it seems desirable to make as positive
a statement as the case admits of at the outset of the results it is
hoped may be established as our investigation proceeds. In every
concrete "state of mind" (accepting this term for the present
without question)' there is the presentation of an object, or com-
plex of objects, to a subject. Such presentation entails on the part
of the subject (1) non-voluntary attention, and (2) a change of
feeling — i. e., pleasure or pain in some degree, the character and

' "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i, p. 188.
' "Analysis of the Human Mind," i, p. 225,

' Professor Huxley's term psychosis might perhaps be used instead by those who
like it.

368 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

intensity of this change being determined mainly by the intensity
and quality of the object when simple, and also by certain rela-
tions among objects when a complex of these is presented. This
feeling is followed by and determines a second form of attention,
of which there are two varieties — the innervation of movements,
and voluntary attention. Movements may be termed motor ob-
jects, to distinguish them from other simple objects, which may
be called sensory objects. It behooves us now to take up all these
points in turn, and to fix the signification of the terms used.

Wherever the word subject or its derivatives occur in psycholo-
gy we might substitute the word Ego and analogous derivatives,
did such exist. But Subject is almost always the preferable term ;
its impersonal form is an advantage, and it readily recalls its mod-
ern correlative Object. Moreover, Ego has two senses, distin-
guished by Kant as pure and empirical, the former of which is,
of course, an object, while the latter is subject always. By pure
Ego or Subject I should propose to denote the simple fact that
everything mental is referred to a Self: it is not enough to speak
of feeling, for we can only think of feeling as felt by some one,
whether that some one knows itself as such or not. The attempt,
however, has frequently been made, and especially by those who
are adepts at what some one has called " psychogeny," to substi-
tute for this conception of a Subject that of Consciousness or Sen-
tience.' But consciousness implies a conscious subject as much as
heaviness implies matter that is heavy; and none show this more
clearly than these writers themselves, who, under one disguise or
other, employ the obnoxious conception on almost every page."
The head and front of its ofifending are the ontological assump-
tions supposed to underlie it. But now, setting entirely aside any
attempt at a metaphysical discussion of this point, is such an objec-
tion to the term one that can be entertained on the scientific plat-
form ? Even this mere question of method does not properly fall
within the scope of psychology, or even of science at all: it is a
philosophical question pertaining to the general doctrine of method.
Still, inasmuch as its determination logically precedes the problem

' Cf., e.g., Lewes's definition. "Study of Psychology."

" As in the following from Wundt, which is bvit a specimen of many like passages in
his and others' writings: "Die Eigenschaft des Bewusstseins, sich bei alien Wechse
■einer Zustande als das namliche zu erkennen u. s. w." " Psychologie," S. 428.

A General Analysis of Mind. 369

of systematizing special facts, we are perliaps justified in consider-
ing it for a moment. We may distinguish three forms of assump-
tion : (l)'Yalid hypotheses, such, that is, as admit of proof or dis-
proof; (2) what Mill calls Hypothetical Descriptions, and Bain
Representative Fictions, such, e. g., as that of an electric fluid ; and
(3) the so-called Primitive Beliefs or assumptions of common
sense. We may decline to adopt a hypothesis, and may employ
a new representation to colligate our facts, but a biologist who
rejected the Darwinian theory would not employ the terminology
of natural selection, nor an opponent of the undulatory theory
talk of waves of light. But from the time of Hume to the present
the conception of a mind or conscious subject has been assailed
and disowned by psychologists, though no one has been able to
shake it oif, still less to find a substitute for it. Natiiram expellas
furca tamen usque recurrit. But it must be allowed that the
attempt to legitimate this conception as a constituent element of
experience is as much beyond the range of psychology as the at-
tempt to invalidate it even as a formal or regulative conception.
If Hume is wrong on the one side, Reid is equally at fault on the
other ; in fact, we in England seem to be always confusing psy-
chology and philosophy. It might be urged that as the Coperni-
can astronomy corrects certain judgments founded on perception,
so should psychology this conception of common sense. To this,
I think, the fair and final reply would be that astronomy corrects
the inference from one observation by means of others of the same
kind, and so frees itself altogether from the Ptolemaic representa-
tion, while psychology cannot accomplish the parallel task.

The attempt has been made in two ways — the one by subordinat-
ing psychology to biology, and the other (already referred to) by
the supposed disproof of the necessity of the conception of a sub-
ject, which has been based on the possibility of accounting for the
origin of the conception. The former, so far from eliminating the
conception of a subject, has made its necessity more evident than
ever. For, even if the biological exposition should be finally the
clearest, it must be preceded by a systematic treatment of the facts
from a subjective stand-point, a confusion of .the two points of
view, of psychological fact and physiological interpretation — in
any case difiBcult to avoid — being else inevitable. The second
attempt also entails a violation of scientific method ; it confuses
XVI— 24

370 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the stand-point from which the origin of the conception is ex-
pounded with the stand-point at which the conception is acquired.
True, there was a time when X did not know himself, but Z, in
thinking of that time, cannot think of it without conceiving X to
exist. So far as X's knowledge went, the conception of Self re-
sulted, it may be, from certain differentiations and associations
among a chaotic aggregate of presentations, of which, of course,
X was never one ; but Z cannot think of this differentiation of the
presentation except as presented to X — or to some other subject.*
There also was a time when X had no idea of succession ; but we
do not on that account attempt to represent presentations without
time-relations. Both these endeavors to escape the outological
assumptions of the conception of a subject bj eliminating the con-
ception itself are, then, fatally defective in point of method. They
do not, as the astronomers did in the illustrative case, supersede
the objectionable conception by the aid of cognate facts ; but the
one appeals from internal experience to external, and the other
from the universal to the infantile stage of knowledge. The ap-
peal in each case, instead of excUiding the objectionable concep-
tion, only seems to make its necessity more manifest. The truth
thus appears to be that the conception of a subject is one psychol-
ogy cannot transcend nor escape, implicated as it is not in some
only, but in all our conceptions of psychical facts. This being so,
we are far more likely to reach the truth eventually if we make
the relation to a subject as explicit as possible instead of resorting
to all sorts of devious periphrases to hide it. Our psychology'
will in this way be more systematic, and our position, when we at-
tempt the philosophical problems the science confessedly involves,
will be the more hopeful on that account.

The dream of a system of knowledge without assumptions only
results in assumptions which are disconnected, and, in all proba-
bility, opposed. Here we are in mediis rebus, and here we must
begin whether we will or no ; but without assumptions at the out-

■ For I think we might for the present allow the possibility contemplated by Locke
and Kant, that a series of subjects might replace each other without detriment to the
idea of personal identity, since this depends upon a certain relation among the total
of ideas which constitutes personal experience; as we sec by the fact that, whether the
subject changes or not, the idea of personal identity disappears when the other ideas are
sufiBclently " deranged." But so gratuitous a supposition is, of course, valueless, save
« it helps U3 to see what is and what is not necessarily connoted by the term Subject.

A General Analysis of Mind. 371

set we cannot begin at all. The premises of one science may be
established in another, but some assumptions must remain when
the particular sciences are complete. To harmonize these, and, if
possible, to find the final and all-conditioning assumption, is the
problem of philosophy, whether soluble or not. It would be diffi-
cult, probably, to formulate neatly a criterion which should deter-
mine what assumptions concerning its subject-matter a science can
investigate, and what it must receive unquestioned. In the former
we may include hypotheses and hypothetical descriptions, \vhich
have this in common, that they are assumed for the sake of facts
that can be represented without them ; to the latter I should refer
conceptions necessary to the representation of the fact, such, e. g.,
as that of Substance in physics, and perhaps that of Design in bi-
ology. To this latter category belongs also, by general consent,
the psychological conception of a subject, and it is to this category
that we apply the term Common sense.

But, though contending for the explicit recognition of the con-
ception of a subject or pure Ego in psychology, I am by no means
prepared to maintain that this conception strictly connotes so
much as is often supposed. Self and substance,' for instance, are
not manifestly incompatible conceptions, but I think that com-
mon sense keeps the two ideas distinct, although by philosophers
they are often confused. It is not till reflection begins upon the
question, What am I ? that the notion of a soul or spiritual sub-
stance is formed, whereas the conception of self not only obviously
precedes such reflection, but remains distinct throughout it. And
when the term Mind or Soul is understood, as is frequently the
case, to imply that the objects presented to the subject are modifi-
cations of a substance with which the subject is identified, the dis-
tinction between the two terms becomes still more apparent. But
it will, I have no doubt, be contended that this conception, however
difi'erent from that of a subject, is equally a postulate of common
sense, which psychology cannot refuse, and which, if examined at
all, must be examined by the metaphysician. This is a question

1 Taking substance in the Cartesian sense (cf. "Prin. Phil.," i, §§ 51, 52), not in the
Kantian sense of noumenon, i. e., a problematic something = z, of which we obtain a
negative conception by abstracting from our notion of an object the fact of its presenta-
tion to a subject (cf. in the first edition of Kritik the section on the distinction of phe-
nomena and noumena).

372 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

requiring special and careful discussion, but we cannot enter upon
it with advantage at present.

Objects, as I understand the term, in their simplest form, would
be the " qualities " of what are commonly called sensations. For
the best psychologies now distinguish between the quality or con-
tent, the intensity, and the tone or feeling, of a sensation. The
two iirst admit of only ideal separation ; or, to put it otherwise, an
object may vary in intensity, but with an intensity = 0, ceases to
be.' But tlie tone or feeling accompanying a sensation of given
quality and intensity varies, from time to time, independently of
these. Thus, we separate the blue of the sky from the pleasure its
presentation occasions, and while we now, at all events, regard the
former as an object, we still conceive the latter to be subjective.
This, however, is a point we shall have to consider more closely
later on. In those cases in which all agree to use the term object,
we find, on analysis, a complex or manifold of simple objects in my
sense of the term ; that is, our intuition of a thing implies, besides
present sensations, the reproduction of former sensations related to
the present in certain ways, which may be called mental forms,
whether we regard them as a priori forms or not. Thus, what is
by universal consent an object, involves a twofold relation, first
to a subjec^, and, secondly, to the several elements of which it is
the svnthesis. But althouo;h the first is the more fundamental
relation, as on it the very essence of objectivity depends, and
although the constituent elements of the complex presentation
sustain this relation, yet they are almost always either explicitly
or implicitly denied the title objects. This anomaly, for such, at
least, it seems to me, is due, I think, partly to the indifference psy-
chologists have commonly manifested to mere questions of method,
and partly to the confusion which in consequence prevails as to
the relations of psychology to the physical sciences on the one hand^
and to metaphysics on the other. There is a certain wide class of
psychical facts or " states of consciousness," to use for once an
objectionable term, which possess in common the properties of
reproduction and association. It will be an important problem
by and by to determine more precisely the bounds and character-
istics of this class; but it must surely be obvious, at the outset,
that it requires a general class-name, in which no account, of

Cf. Kant's " Anticipations of Perception."

A General Analysis of Mind. 373

■course, shall be taken of specific differences. Such a class was
recognized by Locke in his definition of idea as " whatsoever is the
object of the understanding when a man thinks." ' Kant," again,
and the Herbartians,' use Yorstellung with the same generality.
It is in this sense that, in my opinion, we ought to use the term
Object. Locke's term idea is no longer suitable, since a narrower
signification has been given to it by Wolf, Hume, and others ; and
the English rendering of Yorstellung^ besides its liability to
confusion with Vorstellen, must often be reserved to express the
relation of the object to the subject, for we may, under all circum-
stances, call this presentation. Besides, Object is, I believe, the
proper term ; but to make this good there are, as already hinted,
several objections to be met.

In the first place, it will be urged that sensations are states of
the subject, and that this is a deliverance of common sense if any-
thing is. Now, if by this be meant that sensations are metaphysic-
<illy subjective modifications in an idealistic sense, I should not
venture at this sfage either to assert or deny it. But if the mean-
ing be that sensations are presented as modes of the subject, then
I think it will be easy to show that such a position is only possible so
long as we neglect to distinguish between the subject proper or
pure Ego and that complex presentation or object, ttie empirical,
or, as we might almost call it, the biotic Ego. The relation of this
complex presentation to other presentations is unquestionably one
of the toughest problems psychology has to face, but we need not
wait for its solution to admit the fact that the presentation of a sen-
sation, as my sensation, involves the distinction of subject and object.
But, again, the meaning may be that a subject whose presentations
were all sensations would know nothing of the difference between
subject and object. In this objection the confusion already referred
to recurs between the stand-point of given experience and the
stand-point of its exposition. The true way, surely, to represent the
bare fact of sensation is not to attempt to reproduce an experience
as yet confined to sensations, but to describe such experience as a
scientific psychologist would do if we could imagine him a spec-
tator of it. The infant who is delighted by a bright color does

• Essay I, i, 8. ' Kritik der reinen V, Elementarlehre II, ii, I, § 1. Harts, p. 261.

3 Volkmann, "Lehrbuch," § 25, p. 171.

374 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

not, of course, conceive himself as face to face with an object, but
neither does he conceive the color as a subjective affection. We
are bound to describe his state of mind truthfully, but that is no
reason for abandoning terms which have no counterpart in his
consciousness, when these terms are only used to depict that con-
sciousness to us/ As to the objection that, when all is said and
done, sensations are conceived by common sense as modifications
of self, whether so presented or not, I grant that it appears so at
first blush, but not when common sense is more closely examined.
The fact is, we are here upon what has been called " the margin of
psychology," where our ordinary thinking brings into one view
what science has to be at great pains to keep distinct. Though it
is scientifically a long way round from a fact of mind to the cor-
responding fact of body, yet it is only on careful reflection that
we can distinguish the two in those cases in which our practical
interests have closely associated them. Such a case is that of sen-
sation. The ordinary conception of a sensation coincides, no doubt,
with the definition given by Mansel : "Sensation proper is the
consciousness of certain affections of our body as an animated
organism," * and it is because in ordinary thinking we reckon the
body as part of self that we come to think of sensations as sub-
jective modifications. But when considerations of method ' com-
pel us to eliminate the physiological implications in the ordinary
conception of a sensation, we have no difficulty in distinguishing

' This source of error, which I have endeavored to describe as a confusion of stand-
points, is one to which no other science is liable except psychology, and the sciences
dependent upon it. In all other sciences the facts are distinctly conceived as presented
not to this individual or that, but to a certain normal and universal subject, or, as Kant
has expressed it, as " objective," because not referred to mine or to any other empirical
consciousness, but to a general consciousness. (" Prolegomena," § 20.) Now, the stand-
point of psychology is in this sense of the term equally " objective," or universal, and
equally requires the use of conceptions having " objective " validity. If a science of
physics is impossible with mere "judgments of perception," so, too, is a science of psy-
chology impossible without the aid of conceptions which shall enable us to raise such
judgments into "judgments of experience." And, had Kant by any chance learned ta
distrust the logic of his day more and its psychology less, he would, in all probability,
have added the conceptions of subject and object to his categories of relation, and have
shown that without them a science of mind is impossible.

* " Metaphysics," p. 68.

* The confusion that results from ignoring such considerations is well seen in HamiU
ton's famous note. Dissertations to Reid, pp. 880 b and 881.

A General Analysis of Mind. 375

the conscious subject, and the " affections " of which it is conscious
in this, as clearly as we can distinguish subject and object in other
cases of presentation. On the whole, then, I conclude that there is
nothing, either in the facts or in our necessary conceptions of thera,
to prevent us from representing whatever admits of psychical
reproduction and association, no matter how simple it be, as an
object presented to a subject.

A word as to the meaning of Presentation. Since nothing but
objects are presented, it is safe, and sometimes convenient, to speak
of objects as presentations. But, strictly speaking, presentation
is, I take it, the name for that relation between the object and its
subject which is the indispensable condition of attention, or, as
we usually say, of consciousness. To regard this subject activity
as the only relation between subject and object there is to repre-
sent — which is substantially the case with Leibnitz's conception ot
" windowless monads " — is as much an error on what we may term
the idealistic side as Locke's representation of the subject as a
tahula rasa was an error on the side of realism. Intimately as
the two facts are involved, I think we shall find reason not only
analytically to distinguish them, but to regard them as really sepa-
rate ; in so far, i. e., as what are usually, though not very happily,
termed " the phenomena of unconsciousness " seem to show that,
though presentation is indispensable to attention, the converse is
not true. '

I have here used attention as a generic term in a much wider
sense than is usual. Even when a non-voluntary attention is rec-
ognized, it is supposed to imply a certain intensity of something
which in its lower degrees would not be recognized as attention,
much as height, e. ^., instead of being understood absolutely, is
often taken to imply comparison. And this something I take to be
that which is implicitly recognized even by such terms as recep-
tivity and passivity, which in appearance deny it. Altogether
passive the mind is not even in sensation, as Locke, though only
very incidentally, remarks.'^ This activity is also recognized in
the use of the word " conscious," but the treacherous uncertainty

' The early use of think &t\A penser, and still more the German vorstellen, are on this
account manifestly misleading.
* Essay II, ix, 1.

376 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of this term makes it imperative to keep clear of it as much as
possible.

In FEELmG we have again one of those iroWa'xoi'i Xeyo/jueva
■which are the stumbling-blocks of psychology. We may recog-
nize three distinct uses of the term, as when we talk (1) of a feel-
ing of pleasure or pain ; (2) of a feeling of roughness, chilliness, of
feeling well or ill, and the like; and (3) of a feeling of hope, de-
spair, indecision, etc. The last are instances of complete states of
mind — states, i. e., in which cognitive, aesthetic, and active elements
all occur ; in the second we recognize only attention to presenta-
tions or objects; the first is a distinct and unique psychical fact,
to which, when not otherwise qualified, I would strictly confine
the term. But, unfortunately, the second use of the word, to-
gether with a parallel ambiguity in the word Sensation, has helped
to bring about a confusion between feeling and presentations even
in writers who follow Kant in declaring them generically distinct.
The immediate cause of this ambiguity, however, is to be found
in the difficulty of distinguishing any definite quality in those
" organic sensations " which yet, by their intensity, occasion us
much pleasure or pain. But a distinction between the object, or?
as Mr. Bain says, "the intellectual aspect," and the feeling or
" emotive aspect," though difiicult, is still possible, if we once dis-
engage ourselves from the bad and ready-made psychology of
ordinary language. Yet Mr. Bain goes so far as to say : " Some
sensations are mere pleasure or pain — nothing else : such are the
feelings of organic life, and the sweet and bitter tastes and odors." '
But in this his very words belie him, as does his whole treatment
of these sensations. Thus, in describing tastes, he says : " In the
case of sweetness, for example, not only can we be aft'ected with
the pleasurable feeling or emotion belonging to it, but we can be
distinctly affected by a great many substances possessing the
quality ; we can identify some, and feel a want of identity in
others." ' Surely there is " an intellectual aspect " here, else what
indeed were the point of distinguishing " the pleasurable feeling
belonging to^^ sweetness, if sweetness were "mere pleasure and
nothing else " ? Similarly it will be found that even organic
pleasures and pains have an " intellectual aspect," i. e., a quality

> " Emotions and Will," third ed., p. 558.
' " Sense and Intellect," second ed., p. 160.

A General Analysis of Mind. 377

distinct from the feeling, and admitting both of comparison and
•of association with other qualities. We are accustomed in familiar
language to speak of pains or pleasures, but this can always be
rendered the pain of gout, the pleasure of rest, and so on. Even
when a word for the quality fails, the quality is still there.
Though the two elements are certainly less distinct in such "or-
ganic sensations " than in sensations of sight or hearing, for ex-
ample, yet this is not because of a closer fusion or even identity,
but because the intellectual element itself is less distinct — i. e., is
never so presented as to form those connections wi^^^h other pre-
sentations which make definite intuition possible. Pleasure and
pain, then, it is contended, are not discrete quantities, admitting ot
a plural, but the polar extremes of a continuous quantity which
varies in intensity and sign with the objects presented and attended
to, but is never itself an object among these.

To say that feeling and attention are not presentations will seem
to many an extravagant paradox. If all knowledge consists ot
presentations, it will be said. How come we to know anything of
feeling and attention if they are not presented ? We know of
them indirectly through their effects, not directly in themselves.
This is, perhaps, but a more concrete statement of what philoso-
phers have very widely acknowledged in a more abstract form
since the days of Kant — the impossibility of the subjective qua
subjective being presented. It is in the main clearly put in the
following passage from Hamilton, who, however, has not had the
strength of his convictions in all cases : " The peculiarity of Feel-
ing, therefore, is that there is nothing but what is subjectively
subjective ; there is no object different from self — no objectifica-
tion of any mode of self. We are, indeed, able to constitute our
states of pain and pleasure into objects of reflection, but, in so far
as they are objects of reflection, they are not feelings but only
reflex cognitions of feelings." ' But this last sentence is not, per-
haps, altogether satisfactory. Sir W. Hamilton nowhere tells ns
what he understands by reflection beyond saying that it is " at-
tention directed to the phenomena of the mind."" He cannot
mean that pleasure and pain are, in fact, presented as objects, but
only known by a special concentration of attention, which ensures

1 " Metaphjsics," ii, p. 432. » " Ibid.," i, p. 236.

378 TTie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

to them the requisite intensity.' His meaning must rather be
that, as he has said elsewhere of the " phenomena of conscious-
ness" generally, feeling "can only be studied through its reminis-
cence."'' But this is a position hard to reconcile with the other,
viz., that feeling and cognition are generally distinct. How can
that which was not originally a cognition become such by being
reproduced? To say that feeling is "subjectively subjective,"
that in it "' there is no object diiferent from self," is surely tanta-
mount to saying that it is not presented ; and what is not pre-
sented cannot, of course, be re-presented. Instead, therefore, of
saying that feeling and attention are known by being made objects
of reflection, it seems to me we can only say that we know of
them by their effects, by the changes, i. e., which they produce in
the character and succession of our presentations. If this be what
Hamilton means by " reflex cognition," I agree with him.

But then comes the objection. How can we know the effects
to be thei?' effects if we do not know them f This is an objection
the force of which I fully admit, but which, none the less, can
hardly be profitably discussed till we are in a position to deal with
the whole subject of "self-consciousness." ^

' Cf. " Metaphysics," i, p. 237 fin., 238. "* Ibid.," i, p. 379.

^ Still, the barest possible indication of the answer that might be given may be in-
terpolated here. Granted that attention and feeling do modify the intensity and order
of our presentation, it may be possible to show how we come not only to attend and
feel, but to know of our feeling and attention. As the result of such modification we
have first the perception, and finally the conception of self. If we can imagine psy-
chical hfe at all without feeling, we can see how the body would at length be differ-
entiated from other bodies, if it escaped destruction long enough ; and how it would
become associated with that " flow of ideas " we call the internal life. But without the
" instinct of self-preservation," leading to certain movements of aversion or the oppo-
Bite, to the repression of certain ideas and efforts for the realization of others, this
complex object would not become the centre of those peculiar associations we may call
self-interests. But this instinct being continuously operative, there would at length, on
the occasion of any given change of feeling — say pain — be presented both a certain
change in the field of objects immediately consequent upon it, and along with this
change the re-presentation of " the generic images " due to thousands of similar changes,
with which the new one would at once associate itself. To this spontaneous classifica-
tion it would be possible to attend the moment attention was sufficiently under control,
at least after the habit of such reflective attention was formed. What would then be
presented would be the identity of the change just experienced with a class of changes
characterized by their relation to the perception of self. Mutatis mutandis, a similar
account might be given of our knowledge of attention, the attainment of which, how-
ever, supposes a still higher mental development.

A General Analysis of Mind. 37&

We ought, however, to note tliat the antithesis in this' case is
not really between knowledge and ignorance, but between objects
and attention, or feeling. It is not a fair statement of it to say,
We know the effects but do not know the causes, instead of say-
ing. We attend and may know the effects of our attention ; we
feel and may know the effects of our feeling. I said advisedly
" may know," for feeling and attention are possible without the
subject of both knowing either. A mouse feels, but who will say-
that he knows that he feels ? Our English psychologies are mas-
terpieces of muddling on this point, and largely in consequence
of the continual interchange of the ideas of Consciousness and
Self-consciousness. To feel, and to know that I feel, say Hamilton
and the Mills, are " the same thing considered in different as-
pects." ' But different aspects of the same thing are not the same
thing for psychology, at all events, any more than the obverse
and reverse of a farthing are the same thing in a picture or the
produce of the same die. Not only is it not the same thing to
feel and to know that you feel, but it is a different thing still to
know that you feel and to know that you know that you feel;
there is between the two, in fact, all the difference there is be-
tween self-consciousness and psychological introspection.* The
difficulty of apprehending these facts and keeping them distinct
is due, obviously, to the invariable concomitance of the earlier
with the later ; for we never know that we feel without feeling.
And so, like savages who believe that if they were to lose sight of
their shadow they would lose sight of themselves, we come to
identity consciousness and self consciousness — presentation, and the
presentation of the effects of presentation. Tiiis, perhaps, is one
of the many points in which human psychology will be helped by
the advance of comparative psychology.

We ought also to bear in mind that the effects of attention and
feeling cannot be known without attention and feeling ; to what-
ever stage we advance, we have thus always, in any given " state
of mind," attention and feeling on the one side ; on the other, a
presentation of objects. I have on this ground said above that
the attention and feeling which are elements in such a state can-

» Hamilton, i, pp. 192,/:; Mill's "Examination," pp. 138-141.
' Should any one suggest that at this rate the series may extend indefinitely, I refer
him to those who contend about space of n dimensions.

3S0 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

not be re-presented in a reminiscence of the state because in the
state itself they were not presented. But it may be well to dis-
cuss this possibility of representation iiide])endently. In the cur-
rent psychological language we speak of an act of attention, or a
feeling of pleasure or pain, as states of consciousness,' just as we
speak of sense-impressions or their ideas as states of consciousness.
And from this it seems to have been assumed, almost as a matter
of course, that we have ideas of acts of attention, and ideas of
states of pleasure or pain, which are the residua of the original
states just as the idea of snow-white is the residuum of the im-
pression produced by snow. But now in this last case, about
which we are all agreed, there is a certain individuality : the im-
pression was preceded, accompanied, and followed by other im-
pressions qualitatively different from itself ; there was a beginning
and an end to its conscious presentation. Otherwise it would
surely be a contradiction in terms to speak of its reproduction or
of its association with some objects and not with others. But
now, when we turn to our so-called acts of attention and states of
feeling, we find, I think — as I have already contended in the case
of feeling — that all the individuality there is pertains to the ob-
jects attended to and which are tiie occasions of a change of feel-
ing. Attention and feeling seem thus to be ever present, and not
to admit of a continuous segregation into parts which, having each
a definite position in the past, could be revived along with their
contemporaries.

Mr. Bain has an important chapter on this subject under the
title of '• Ideal Emotion," but, unhappily, he has not thought it
necessary, here or elsewhere, to distinguish with any exactness
between Feeling and Emotion. " Certain it is," he saya, " that
Revivability follows delicacy of discrimination," ^ and in this way
he accounts for the high degree of revivability characteristic of
" the Emotions proper — as Love, Anger, Power, Fine Art." But
an ambiguity lurks in this word Revivability as a psychological

' In an interesting note by Professor Flint ("Mind," vol. ii, p. 113) this language is
the basis of an objection which loses all its force, once we recognize that there is no
state of consciousness which consists wholly of feeling. Feeling is a form of conscious-
ness, says Professor Flint; consciousness inyolves a dualism, therefore feeling is an
object.

» "Emotion and Will," third ed., p. 90.

A General Analysis of Mind. 381

-term. Thus, in speaking of the presentation of objects, we have
to distinguish a second presentation of an object {A^ h'ke one
formerly presented (^,), and the re-presentation or revival of the
last (<2,). Now, if we study Mr. Bain's revived emotions, I think
we should find that the only re-presentation there is in them is of
" intellectual states," i. e., of the objects, whose relations determine
the feeling and emotion. In this sense the old feeling is not re-
vived, but felt anew, and the emotional manifestation is not ideal,
but real. Mr. Bain goes on to say : " Feelings as such — pleasures,
pains, and mental excitement — are always incorporated with intel-
lectual states, and, by that means, are differentiated, held, sus-
tained, and revived." ' Even of the emotions — notwithstanding
that he has already, at the beginning of the chapter, placed them
highest in a scale of sensibilities, arranged according to reviva-
bility — he says later on: "In. their strict character of emotion
proper they have the minimum of revivability, but, being always
incorporated with the sensations of the higher senses, they share
in the superior revivability of sights and sounds." ^ In the chapter
"Of Feeling in General" there is a still stronger statement: " It
is never to be forgotten that an emotion in its pure and perfect
character as feeling is, properly speaking, not revivable at all." *
What, now, are we to understand by this " incorporation " whereby
what is not properly revivable at all comes to head the list of re-
vivables? It can hardly be association. Owing to his fondness
for details, Mr. Bain nowhere discusses association in general, but
his treatment of the subject implies that discrimination is neces-
sary to association, and, therefore, necessary to revivability. Feel-
ing, "as such," in "its pure and perfect character," then, cannot
be associated ; for it is not discriminated ; nay, is in its very nat-
ure opposed to discrimination. When, therefore, Mr. Bain talks
of "Associates with pleasure and pain," * we must suppose him to
refer not to the association of feeling proper with objects, but to
the association of pleasurable or painful objects with other objects.
And the invariable incorporation would appear to amount onl}' to
this : that the presentation under like circumstances of intensity
and combination is accompanied by a like change of feeling,
which is not strictly a revival of a former state of feeling, even

1 p. 91. "^ P. 92. 3 p 16. '' "McDtal Science," p. 102.

382 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

when the objects presented are a revival of objects presented be-
fore.

As to the difficulty of explaining choice or preference, if feel-
ings are not revived, which might, perhaps, be urged, I do not
think there is anything special in it. The decision, so far as we
are at present concerned with it, depends on the ideal persistence
of objective circumstances such as we have just discussed.

Postponing the further discussion of terms, we may now proceed
to consider the several elements of a state of mind in their relation
to each other, beginning with the connection or attention and
OBJECTS, more especially sensory objects.

We are aware in ordinary life that the intensity of any given
sensation depends upon certain physical quantities, varying di-
rectly in some proportion as these vary. Hence, since our habit-
ual stand-point is the physical, not the psychological," we conceive
sensory objects as having an intensity jp^;* se apart from the atten-
tion their presentation secures. From the physical stand-point,
indeed, it is manifest that no other conception is compatible with
a scientific treatment of phenomena. Subjective sources of varia-
tion are supposed to be eliminated : the general mind or subject
implied in the physicist's conception of a phenomenon is a subject
in whom there is no feeling to produce variations of attention, or
to favor aesthetic combinations of objects. Attention is thus as-
sumed constant, and all variations in intensity regarded as objec-
tively determined. But, psychologically, we cannot assume this.
There are a priori three possibilities — intensity may depend on
the object alone, on the subject alone, or on both jointly. The so-
called sensational school of psychologists tacitly adopt the first,
while the second seems to be a logical consequence of idealism.
In any given presentation there is, it must be admitted, no imme-
diate evidence that the intensity of the object is a function of two
variables, (1) what we may, perhaps, call physical or absolute
intensity, and (2) the intensity of attention. Still, there are facts
which justify this conclusion. That the intensity of the presenta-

' Our philosophical terminology is here again wofuUy at fault. Since psychology oc-
xjupies an objective point of view in the Kantian sense quite as truly as physics does,
we cannot without confusion use " objective " to discriminate the two. Moreover, as
we frequently require "objective" as a psychological term, it might, I think, be an ad-
vantage to drop it altogether in its epistemological sense and use " scientific " instead.

A General Analysis of Mind. 383

tion varies with the absohite intensity of the object, attention re-
maining constant, is a proposition not likely to be challenged.
What we are bound to prove is that the intensity of presentations
varies with the attention, the objective intensity remaining con-
stant.

Assuming that voluntary and non-voluntary attention are funda-
mentally the same, this proof amounts to showing (1) that concen-
tration of attention upon some objects diminishes the intensity of
presentation of others in the same field, whether the concentration
be voluntary or non-voluntary, i. e., due to a shock; and (2) that,
though only within narrow limits, increasing attention voluntarily
has the same efiect on the presentation as increasing the objective
intensity. The narrowness of these limits — practically an all-im-
portant fact — is theoretically no objection. It would not be difii-
cult psychologically to account for our inability to concentrate
attention indefinitely; that we can concentrate it at all is enough
to show that there is a subjective as well as an objective factor in
the intensity of a presentation. The further consideration of the
connection between attention and objects must be deferred till we
come to treat of the relation of objects to each other.

As to the CONNECTION OF ATTENTION AND FEELING, it SCCmS clcar

that non-voluntary attention precedes the feeling due to any given
presentation, while voluntary attention follows it. As a rule, the
more intense the non-voluntary attention the more intense the
feeling, and the more intense, too, the voluntary reaction which
follows upon it. Feeling is thus the link between sensation and
movement, or more generally between the receptive and active
states of mind. Perhaps each of these ought to be regarded as a
concrete mental state; for in each there is an object — attention,
and feeling.' But still, since the first is regularly followed by the
second, it seems better to regard them as only ideally separate.

In studying movement, we must, in the first instance, go where
there is most light and observe things as they are now. Two
things are clear : (1) Movements are objects, that is to say, have
a certain quality and individuality, can be associated with other
movements as well as with sensations, and can be revived in idea.
(2) The presentation of these motor objects is — at all events under

' It is from this point of view that we see what truth there is in the old bi-partlte di-
Tision of mind.

384 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

normal circumstances — due to feeling. This is a fact of quite
first-rate importance, wliicli has, so far as I know, been almost
entirely overlooked. But now movements are related to feeling
in two ways : tliej may be purposive movements, or merely emo-
tional or expressional movements. In the expression of the emo-
tions proper there are certain movements, different for different
emotions, which clearly are, or have been, purposive in their char-
acter. Over and above these, which present no difficulty, there
remains the common fact of " diffusion " and certain characteris-
tics distinguishing the expression of pain from that of pleasure.
The problem is to give any tolerable psychological account of
these most elementary facts. In any clear case of voluntary
movement we have (I) the presentation of the movement in idea ;
(2) innervation, of which more anon ; and (3) the presentation of
the movement in reality. The presentation of the idea here in-
volves no difficulty ; association with the pleasurable or painful
object will account for this. The only point to note is that this
idea implies a previous presentation of the reality ; so that volun-
tary movement, it would seem, cannot have been the first thing.
By Innervation I mean the "fiat" on which voluntary movement
depends. The term is not perfect, but is already in use, and en-
ables one to avoid the confusing associations of " Will," which is,
moreover, a wider term. But I do not propose to include under
Innervation the feelings of effort {Inner vations-gefuhle) so easily
and generally confounded with it; such " feelings " are, in fact, but
motor objects. Under normal circumstances the consequence of
innervation is the presentation of the object innervated in greater
intensity, and accompanied by the peculiar marks which distin-
guish impression from ideas.

When we turn to emotional movements we find no preliminary
idea of the movements, and no direct evidence of innervation.
Are we to regard them, then, as so far onl}" sensory objects pre-
sented without anj' subjective intervention or initiation, for this
is what Mr. Bain's doctrine of " Spontaneous Activity " seems to
come to ? '

' There is a plausible double entendre in this phrase, especially in connection with a
theory of volition. But, on reflection, we see that there need be no psychical activity
involved in the physical discharges of over-nourished centres, and that, if there is, we
cannot conceive it as a bare fiat without a,nj faciendum.

A General Analysis of Mind. 385

We can hardly do this, inasmuch as we can voluntarily repress
or sustain these manifestations/ though we are not conscious of
voluntarily initiating them; whereas over "automatic move-
ments," such as convulsions, reflex winking, sneezing, etc., we
have no control at all. This quasi-voluntary character of emo-
tional expression may be taken, I think, as indii*ect evidence of
innervation. But, if so, where is the idea or presentation inner-
vated ? Of this, "internal observation" tells us nothing, though
we are not without materials for at least a conjecture. In the first
place, there is a striking, and, as I think, instructive resemblance
between certain of the obscurer organic sensations, and many of
the movements, expi-essive of pain or pleasure ; and it is a fairly
probable supposition that as the former are always presented as a
vague and massive background of sensory objects, so the latter
form in like manner a continual background of motor objects. Or,
in other words, that what is often called the common sensibility
or sensus vagus consists partly of sensory, partly of motor objects,
the variations of the former being determined apart from those of
the latter directly through a subjective initiative. Such motor
presentations, though impressional and not ideal, would yet admit
of intensification, and in this sense would constitute facienda,
which, through innervation, would hecome facta. "^ But even when
we thus conjecturally extend the range of voluntary or purposive
action to the utmost, we are forced to admit, at some point or other,
of motor impressions not preceded by innervation, and therefore
tantamount to sensory impressions, the subject being in such case
receptive instead of initiating, passive instead of acting. But at
such point there is, it seems to me, a clear breach of continuity
which, therefore, we shall do well to keep outside the facte we at-
tempt to deal with and explain.

' The readiest way to do this, I am aware, is to repress the pleasurable or painful
object, but it is by no means the only way.

* I am by no means sure that we ought not, on theoretical grounds, to go much further.
An absolutely new presentation, whether sensory or motor, impression without idea —
will be found, I think, harder to conceive the longer we reflect upon it. Psychology, it
Beems to me, is at present drifting rapidly to a theory of innate ideas that would have
made even Leibnitz protest.

xyi-25

386 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ON SOME IDOLS OH FACTITIOUS UNITIES.

BY J. BURNS-GIBSON,

Do such words as " Social Organism," " Humanity," and even
" Universe " and " Deity," in a monotheistic or pantheistic sense,
stand for realities or real unities, or are they merely concept
terms, and some of them, perliaps, words for which it is impossi-
ble even to frame a corresponding concept ? If they are not real
unities, but conceptual, ideal, or merely verbal, then it is a sort
of idolatrj' to take tliem for such, and let them command us, and
impose on us a kind of worship and reverence ; and that is what
is meant by calling them idols.

One often hears talk about a " Humanity," of which, as one
may suppose of a living animal body, we are the members, and
about a great human organism or " great human organic whole,"
in which we are said to live and move and have our being, like its
molecules and corpuscles, and to which we owe the most unmiti-
gated respect and duty. This sort of talk is fashionable just now
in educated society.

Every day our ears are assailed by these grand words and
phrases, till we are inclined to stop them with our fingers and
turn away into some private garden of Epicurus, if any could be
found ill these days of solidarity and publicity. It is in vain,
however, that you seek refuge from these terrible forms. They
meet you at the very fireside. The other day I took up one of
that charming series of little books, '' English Men of Letters,"
to pass a leisure hour pleasantly, but had not read far when there
confronted me this appalling formula : " Society is an organism,
living and growing like other organisms, according to special laws
of its own." The author blamed Gibbon for not knowing that !
It was a good thing for his peace of mind that he did not. Bat
how are we, who have the misfortune to live in this century,
when these demoniac forms are stalking abroad and threatening to
take possession of us, to exorcise them ? Perhaps the question
does not appear of much consequence. Yet to some it is becoming
more and more evident that " Humanity " — the formidable appa-
rition just defined — would sooner or later swallow up men and

On Some Idols or Factitious Unities. 387

women, and make of no account individual liberty and happiness ;
and that a single-block " Universe " would render impossible the
very thoupjht of freedom or spontaneity on our part.

The source of these fetiches or factitious unities lies in human
nature. Their motive or emotional source, at least, is indicated
in the '' Novum Organum," where Bacon sajs : " The human under-
standing, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree
of order and equality in things than it really finds ; and, al-
though many things in nature be sui generis and most irregular,
will yet invent parallels and conjugates and relatives where no
such thing is." These idols of ours are, in fact, " idols of the
Tribe." They arise from the desire for unity and simplicity.
We unavoidably seek to accommodate the immense variety of
things to our narrow comprehension. We love our ease, and so
our minds tend to follow the lines of least resistance, and to make
the shortest circuits round their objects. The iniinilo multiplicity
oppresses us. We accordingly discharge multiplicity, discreteness,
difference, from our view, and confine our attention to similarities
and ao;reements and seeminsi: continuity. But even in these we
do not rest, for the current of desire that tends to unity is so
strong that it carries us on to confound similarity with identity,
and harmony or community with single-oneness.

Thus, by judicious neglect, we get things, as we think, within
our grasp ; and that was our instinctive aim from the first. Neg-
lecting exceptions, we get laws ; and we think we have eliminated
what we call chance when we have simply refused to look at ir-
regularities and give them due place and weight.

Yet it may be that there are everywhere, both in men and in
nature, hidden springs and fountains of activities essentially and
absolutely incalculable ; that, in fact, there is such a thing as real
freedom or spontaneity — real, and not merely " phenomenal."
(The " phenomenal freedom " that is offered us, like a stone for
bread, is only the ignorance of impotence and slavery.)

It may be very perplexing ; it may even sometimes seem fit to
put us to utter intellectual confusion, but we must put up with
. the uncertainty, for how can we establii^h that most desirable doc-
trine of the Uniformity of the Course of Nature without omnis-
cience? Yet without an unquestionable doctrine of uniformity
and thoroughgoing determinism you cannot have a grand unitary

388 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Being, " Humanit}'," nor a " social organism," nor a universe
perfectly continuous and all of a piece ; and without such a uni-
verse or all-inclusive objective unity, how can we have any single
and sole, embracing and intimate subjective unity, like the deity
of pantheism or monotheism ?

Besides the emotional source of these factitious unities, there
appears to be a reason for them in our intellectual constitution.
Wiiatever the '' I " may really be, in " I think, I feel, I know,"
for us it appears a single simple something, which resists any at-
tempt of reflection to break it up. So far as human thought and
philosophy have as yet carried their disintegrating and disillu-
sioning operations, they have not, except for a very few subtle
minds, and for these only in occasional metaphysical moods, dis-
possessed the " me," that feels, thinks and knows, of its perma-
nent appearance of unity. It remains, to all intents and purposes,
a real unit; and to it, as to a focus, all things converge and refer
themselves in order to be known. The result is, that this subjec-
tive unity of knowledge tends, when we are off our guard, to
throw a false reflection or glamour of unity over its manifold ob-
jects. But, though the many strings are tied in one knot and held
in one hand, they are not one string.

Again, we can only see or envisage things in what is appar-
ently one and the same continuous Time and Space; and this also
gives a spurious kind of objective unity to the several things seen
or imaged together. But community is not unity ; and because
all things for us share alike in time and space, and perhaps have
some other common property or ground, it does not follow that
they may not be essentially and in themselves disparate and sepa-
rate.

Leaving these very general, and perhaps very elementary, con-
siderations, let us take a few samples of spurious unity. Take
" the social organism " first — and along with it that milder and
vaguer god, " Humanity."

The phrase " social organism " covers an attempt to picture so-
ciety, or the assemblage of men and women, as one gigantic man
or animal, which has its own laws of growth, goes its own way^
and lives its own life. It is further supposed to be under rigid
law, so that all it has done might be accounted for, and all it wiU
do might be calculated on. And, if any one declares himself

On Some Idols or Factitious Unities, 389

unable to get beyond the notion of society at; a collection of in-
dividuals, or simply men and women living together, giving and
taking and interchanging offices, he is told by one sect of phi-
losophers, who are very prominent just now, that he is resting
in what is a mere mechanical conception, and must raise himself
to the level of " the category of organic unity ! " Granting for
the moment that such a conception of society is possible, it has
still to be remembered that it is no reality, and, as a concept, has
no real unity corresponding to it. It is objective, conceptual,
ideal only, and the subjective realities remain as real and as
many as ever. The many men and women cannot be transmuted
by a figure of speech into one huge single organism. But even
as a metaphorical conception, is it just and helpful to speak of
the social organism, that lives and grows, like otlier organisms,
according to special laws of its own — is it founded on any es-
sential and vital resemblance between an animal, or even a plant,
and a society of men ? It may very well be contended that it is
not. There is at least one fatal flaw in the analogy, and that is
enough to make it useless and misleading. It is this : that,
whereas in an animal or real organism of any kind the parts or
members are there for the whole, in society, on the other hand,
the so-called whole is for the so-called parts or members sev-
erally. Men are not for society, but society is for men. It is
constituted by them and for themselves — each of them counting
for one. Any assertion of proper individuality or freedom on
the part of any member of an animal, if persisted in, means, in the
long run, disease, death, corruption ; while any failure to assert
individuality and freedom on the part of a member of society
means, to that extent, an imperfection in the society. Aristotle
appears to have felt that the analogy embodied in the modern
phrase " social organism " had not even three legs to go on when
he expressed a preference for the metaphor " ship of state " over
that of " the body politic." In society we are sailing on a joint
venture, but each for his own good. Is it possible to think of any
conscious being doing anything else ? What every one always and
only seeks is to go on living, and living more and rtiore happily.
"Would not any other tendency in a living thing be sitnply suici-
dal? Altruism, unbalanced and unmitigated, i^ felo-de-se. On
the contrary, self-preservation and self-fulfilment is the law for

390 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

each and every one. The common good that we are told each of
ns ought to pursue is for each one of us reflected back to its focus
in himself, and we cannot conceive ourselves pursuing it, except a&
indirectly our own highest good. It is a roundabout way of get-
ting at our own liappiness. Utilitarianism is, to use a phrase of
the schools, Egoistic Eudaemonism in subiime disguise. Round
both the lesser circles of egotism and altruism there can alwaya
be drawn a wider and enclosing circle of Egoism. When altruism
has been so included, the sting of calumny is withdrawn, and
there is no more occasion for tbe fine hypocrisy of disinterested-
ness and selfforgetfulness and self-sacrifice; though, happily,
these are impossibilities, except in pretence.

But, if we must give up this fascinating and highly scientific
conception of society as an organism, the loss is not witiiout its
consolations. For it is evident that the organism-notion lends
itself much less readily to free, equal, friendly, and brotherly life,
than to despotisms, whether of the Bismarckian kind, or of the
many-headed sort, where the greatest number for its greatest
happiness claims to use us up one by one. When it has been.
settled that society or the state is a great animal, it will not be
difficult for such members or molecules as find themselves hap-
pily situated in the head, or even it may be in the pineal gland, to
justify their claim as monarchs and statesmen to rule and use the
body politic, and every one of its members, according to the
pleasure of their own will, and that without remedy or appeal.
The Leviathan, whether of Cajsar or of the Caucus, might then eat
up any one of us any day, and it is ditficult to see what right the
victim would have to complain "if it were done scientifically and
philosophically in the name of the social organism that lives and
grows and devours and assimilates, like other organisms, accord-
ing to special laws of its own.

The same kind of criticism may be applied to. that milder-eyed
idol, " Humanity." It is a grand conception, without doubt — even
surpassing every other in grandeur — but let it never be forgotten
that it is a mere conception. It is either an abstract noun or a
poun of multitude — either an abstraction or a collection — and in
no sense a real unity. It is not a reality, but an ideal. Taken as
an ideal, which the real individual men and women consent to
dreain of and hope for — the perfect vision infinitely removed of

On Some Idols or Factitious Unities. 391

a harmonious, fully developed, and equipped society — as such it is
good and eminently helpful ; a very valuable and effective kind
of dream.

But as somewhat already realized in any sense, and now here
as a real unitary existent, and more real than the individuals,
"Humanity" is almost, if not quite, as hurtful a delusion as the
social organism.

Though it does not suggest so plainly the same grinding inex-
orable mechanism, it would easily lend itself to the establishment
of a new kind of Papacy or hierarchy, which, in the sacred name
of the god " Humanity," would arrange our lives for us, settle
what we might do and study, and what we might not, and insist
on contentment with our lot and caste. But we, on the other
hand, want to live our own lives and go our own ways. We want
to grow freely. We would be free — " anarchical," if you will
have it so ; and we desire to go on freely experimenting. We
resent the prospect of being clamped together, parcelled, and
pigeon-holed in this doctrinaire fashion. For those who feel like
this, there will be some comfort in the discovery that the august
and " great being " Humanity is only another idol of our own
invention and erection, another tyrannical unity of our own im-
position.

" The Universe," again, is not even an idol that we have in-
vented and set up. We only fancy we have. It is only flatus
vocis, a name or sound which stands for nothing either real or
ideal. It merely marks onv failure to discover, or invent, or con-
ceive. To talk of it as already found or conceived is to assume
omniscience, to claim that we know all that is to be known, or at
least all the kinds of things knowable, that we have summed up
all the infinite many ones, and discovered them to be all alike in
origin, path, and goal ; that there is one principle, one order, neces-
sity, or fate, and one end ; and that so the mighty whole is really
one, the "phenomenal" many are " noumenally " one, and, in
fact, our sino-le-block universe.

Now, the uniformity of nature, and of the course of nature, is a
very good hypothesis for all working purposes — for life and sci-
ence ; but any attempt to make more of it than a maxim of pru-
dence or habit of expectation, that sums up and gives effect to
dur past experience, has always issued in failure. Any attempt

392 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

to ground it on absolute certainty, or find a theoretical justification
^ov it, begs the whole question. Here is one of these sophistical
attempts from a recent number of a philosophical journal. The
uniformity of nature and of the course of nature means, that
*' the same that has happened will happen again under the same
conditions; i. e., A is A, the sum of the conditions is the sum
of the conditions, the universe is the universe, whether taken in
stasis or in flow, and whatever its content, known and unknown,
and at whatever point of time, past or future, we suppose the in-
stant of attention and conceptual arrest to occur."

This is the most palpable begging of the question at issue. To
find the uniformity of nature and its course, in the conclusion,
the writer has put the universe in the premise. But the universe
is just the totality of uniform nature ; or, more precisely, it is an
impossible attempt at naming concretely and in a kind of statu-
esque way the abstract formula, that it is put forward to prove or
justify ; and it presupposes the possibility of summing up the
innumerable individual variants, and of afterwards resolving them
into one sino-le whole,

A double impossibility ! Again, it is a resolution of difference
into identity, and so, Hegelianwise, contradicts the very principle
of identity and non-contradiction (" A is A ") which the demon-
stration claims to found on.

And, further, what has been summed up is therefore finished
and finite ; and if the metaphysician has got something totum
teres atque rotundiim^ then, just because it is what it is, and abso-
lute, it is not infinite, and the endless multifariousness of things
is left outside it. There is no way out of these impassable straits
for absolutists, whether Spencerian, Hegelian, or openly and hon-
estly materialist.

Therefore, in practice and science, men must be content to be
empirical and tentative, feeling their way, and, as Professor Bain
wisely and modestly says, risking the future. In theory and
philosophy, again, they must be content, with Hume and Mill,
to be critical and sceptical, and prepared for surprises and varia-
tions.

Variations are, as Darwin has taught us, a necessary presuppo-
sition of development ; and to eliminate them, or, what is the
same thing, to explain them away by referring them to the sum

On Some Idols or Factitious Unities. 393

of conditions, is to stay evolution and introduce stagnation in the
place of movement, growth, and change.

Casualty and incalculable spontaneity appear to be of the very
essence of variations ; and that Darwin declined to refer them
for explanation to " the sum of the conditions " or a universal
principle or unknowable single-block force, is a wise reserve
and suspense that has the stamp of genius on it. He left it
to others of less cautious, and perhaps of less penetrative, intel-
lect, to attribute their occurrence to an anthropomorphic creator,
or to a pantheism that moves and progresses by turning itself
inside out.

It is unnecessary to dwell long on the last example of factitious
and idolatrous unity — namely, the deity of monotheism or panthe-
ism — as it is obviously nothing but the universe turned outside in.
If there is no single objective unity, then there can be no single
and sole or supreme subjective unity. No universe, no deity —
that is plain enough.

About monotheism, in particular, it may be fairly said that
whenever it attempts to make itself consistent and seat itself se-
curely, it merges in pantheism, and pantheism is simply the out-
side-in of the inside-out.

But if, on the other hand, the monotheist seeks to avoid this
absorption of his deity in an absolutely fatalistic spirit, which is
merely the inner side of its own outside the universe, both equally
under necessity and absolutely determined ; and if to avoid doing
80 he is content to rest in popular and poetical anthropomorphism,
claiming for his supreme entity freedom and spontaneity, after
the fashion of a man — then the opponents of monotheism are at
least quite as much entitled to exercise their constructive imagina-
tion, and poetically postulate, to account for what they iind in man
and nature, millions on millions, beyond numbering, of free enti-
ties, springs of spontaneity, or incalculable activity.

Nor would this conception be exposed to the edge of Occam's
razor. It would not be a case of entities multiplied beyond neces-
sity, for we have the experience of separateuess, difference, con-
trariety, and irregularity ; and each of us may with equal right
claim individuality, freedom, and spontaneity for himself and for
his fellows with the same right that the monotheist claims it for
his ideal, and with better right, for how else is his god framed

394 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy/.

than bv projection of wliat he finds in himself against a screen of
indefinitely great space and time?

Pol_ytheism is quite as reasonable a supposition or fancy, and
more satisfactory, if you must have a theism. Indeed, the mono-
theisms, that have succeeded, have made shift to get along by
means of some kind of subordinate polytheism.

Much more satisfactory — because you then have many unseen
companions and comforters instead of one ; you have stable society
instead of the continual dread of absorption; you have what is
evident and unmistakable poetry instead of pseudo-science; and,
best of all, you have removed the bane of theism when you have
made the gods many, because you have destroyed monarchy in the
unseen world, which is the mainstay of absolute monarchy and all
sorts of despotism in this ; and so you have made it possible to
realize the idea of the republic. Monotheism and monarchy are
for children. If we have grown up, we do not want paternal
government and tutelage, either in the seen or the unseen worlds
We want brothers. And no form of unbrotherliness is more
heartless and mischievous, whether so intended or no, than that
which throws us over, in self-excuse for indolence or indifference,
upon the loving kindness of a very problematical unseen father or
providence.

There is not space to enlarge on the advantages of rejecting
once for all such feticlies as "social organism," "humanity,"
" universe," and " deity." They are endless, and very practical.

Let us get rid of all these false gods, and try, if we must have
poetry, to conceive of what we find in and around us to-day as
the provisional result of the endless, infinitely varied experimenta-
tion of countless free units of beino;.

And, whether we choose to make this imaginative synthesis or
no, we shall at least be rid of the main obstacles to our advance
towards the far-removed ideal harmony and confraternity — that
country which all wayfarers, under various disguises and names,
really seek — the commonwealth and brotherhood of men.

This, one may be permitted to hope, is that far-oflf event towards
which we and all other beings are moving.

It may be an ideal goal that is never to be reached. A final
harmony and friendly community of all beings, wherein all dis-
eords are resolved, is perhaps inconceivable.

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 395'

It may be even a contradiction in terms when taken as perfect,
final, and attained. But attainment does not ranch matter. We
may even console ourselves that, if it could be accomplished, it
would be stagnation.

Continual progress and approach is enough, and best. Melior-
ism is the only possible optimism. Lessing never said anything
more permanently and impressively true than that familiar and
often-quoted saying of his about Truth. And what he said about
truth, one might venture to say about Good and all conceivable
ends ; that they are better unended and unachieved ; tliat the
flight is always better for us than the perch, on which we might
fall asleep forever. In endless seeking and finding of better and
better consist our life, our happiness, our highest good. Perfect
ness would paralyze us. Finality would kill us. Attained unity
and equilibrium of any kind would undo us into nothingness.
The half is always more than the whole.

ANTHROPOLOGY OF IMMANUEL KANT. ^

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY A. E. KROEGER.

Part First. — Anthropological didactic.

Concerning the Manner in which to cognize the Internal as well as the External

of Man.

Book First. — Concerning the Power of CoGNmoN.

{Continued from January number.)
(c) CONCERNING THE DISEASES OF THE MIND.

§ 48. The foremost division is, as has been already observed,
that into crotchetiness {crickets\ or hypochondria, and it, perturbed
mind, or mania. The German word for the former disease — Gril-
len., crickets — is derived from the analogy in listening to the
chirping sound of a cricket in the stillness of the night, which,
disturbs that repose of the mind necessary to induce sleep. (The
English " crotchet " does exactly the same mischief. — Translator.)
Now, the disease of the hypochondriac consists in this : that cer-
tain bodily sensations do not so much indicate a really existing

39 G The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

disease in the body as rather merely excite apprehensions of its
existence ; and human nature is so constituted — a trait which the
animal lacks — that it is able to strengthen or make permanent
local impressions simply by paying attention to them, whereas
an abstraction — whether produced on purpose or by other divert-
ing occupations — lessens those impressions, or even effaces them
altogether.' In this manner hypochondria becomes the cause of
our imagining ourselves inflicted by certain bodily diseases; and
though the patient knows that they are merely imaginary, he yet
cannot refrain from regarding them at times as something real.
And, viceversa^ a real bodily ailment (such as oppressiveness after
having partaken of distending food) produces often imaginations of
divers external events and business cares, that vanish immediately
when completed digestion has dispersed the distention. The hy-
pochondriac is a cricket-catcher — a phantast — of the most mis-
erable description. He is obstinate in opposing all attempts to
disprove his imaginary ailments, and always clings to the doctor,
who has a wretched time with him, and cannot quiet him other-
wise than as a child — by giving him bread-crumb pills instead of
medicines. And if such a patient, who, from being everlastingly
sickly, can never become really sick, looks to medical works for
advice, he grows altogether insupportable, believing, as he does,
that all the diseases of which he reads in the books are to be found
in his body. One of the symptoms of this disease of the imagina-
tion is the uncommon jollity, the lively wit, and the cheerful
laughter to which the patient has often to give way, being thus
the ever-changing play of his whims. A childishly anxious fear
of the thought of death feeds this disease. Whoever cannot look
beyond that death-thought with manly courage will never truly
enjoy life.

A condition of mind still on this side of a perturbed mind is
the sudden change of moods {raptus). An unexpected transition
from one theme to another entirely different theme, which no one
looked for. Sometimes it precedes that perturbation, which it
announces; but often the mind is already so awry that these seiz-

' I have noted in another work of mine that, by turning away our attention from
certain painful sensations, and directing it upon any other object arbitrarily taken hold
of by our thoughts, we can defend ourselves against them so far that they cannot break
out into disease.

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 397

ures of rulelessness become its rule. Suicide is often merely the
effect of a raptus. For the man who cuts his throat in the vio-
lence of his excitement allows the doctor very patiently to sew it
together again.

Profound pondering {inelancholid) may also be a mere imagi-
nation of misery, which the darhly pondering self- tormentor cre-
ates for himself. Though in itself it is not mental perturbation,
it can easily become such. It is, however, a very misplaced,
though often used, expression, to speak of a profoundly pondering
mathematician — for instance, Professor Hausen — when the idea
desired to be conveyed is that of one profoundly thinking.

§ 49. The delirious raving {delirium) of a waking person, in a
feverish condition, is a bodily disease, and needs medical treat-
ment. Only those persons on whom the physician perceives no
such symptoms of disease are called insane, the word pertiirhed
being but a milder expression. Hence, if some one has purposely
caused a disaster, and it is questionable whether he is at all, or in
what degree he is to be, blamed for it, and whether or not he was
insane at the time of the commission of the deed, the court should
not refer him to the medical faculty — the court itself being in-
competent to decide upon such a case — but to the philosophical
faculty. On this ground ' the question whether the accused, in the
commission of his deed, was in possession of all the faculties of his
understanding and judgment, is altogether of a psychological nat-
ure ; and, although bodily crankiness of the soul-organs may be
occasionally the cause of an unnatural violation of the sense of
duty, which inhabits every man, still doctors and physiologists
are not yet so far advanced as to be able to look so deeply into
the machinery of man's bodily organization that they can explain
from it its application to so cruel an act, or — without an anatomy
of the body — foresee it. Hence, medical jurisprudence {medicina
forensis) — when the question arises whether the act of the accused
was one of insanity, or committed in sound mind and upon delib-
erate intention — is an interference with matters foreign to the
science of law, matters of which the judge understands nothing,

1 Translator's Remark. — There is an immense amount of meaning in this somewhat
cumbersome sentence, which on that very account I have translated iu all its cumber.
Bomeness.

398 The Joui'nal of Speculative Philosophy.

and which, at any rate, he should, as not belonging to his own
forum, turn over to another faculty.*

§ 50. It is difficult to apply a systematic division of subjects
into that which is essentially and incurably disorder. Besides,
there is little use in spending one's time on it, since the strength
of the person cannot assist in the cure, as it can in the cure of
bodily diseases. It is only the use of the person's own mental
powers that can accomplish the object desired, and all curative
methods must necessarily be fruitless. Nevertheless, the science
of anthropology — though, in this respect, it can be pragmatical
only in an indirect way, that is to sny, can only insist on nega-
tives — demands that we should attempt, at least, a general sketch
of this deepest, though in its own nature founded, degradation of
mankind. We can divide insanity, in general, into tumultuous^
methodic, and systematic insanity.

1. Craziness {amentia) is the incapacity to put our representa-
tions even into that connection which is necessary for the mere
possibility of experience. In the insane asylums the female sex
is, by reason of its talkativeness, especially subject to this disease ;
that is, to intersperse with their narration so many productions of
their lively imaginations that nobody can understand what they
really wish to say. Tiiis first class of insanity is tumultuous.

2. Madness {dementia) is that perturbation or disorder of the
mind wherein everything which the mad person says — though it
be conformable to the formal laws of thinking necessary for the
possibility of experience — is, nevertheless, the product of purely
self-made representations ; but, by a falsely poetizing power of
imagination, considers the latter to be actual perceptions. To
this class of mad people belong those who imagine that they have
everywhere enemies ; who watch the features, words, and other

' Thus, for instance, a certain judge, having on trial a woman who had been con.
■demned to prison, and on that account had in sheer despair Icilled her child, declared
her insane, and hence exempt from death punishment. "For," argued he, " a person
who draws true conclusions from false premises is insane. No«', that woman has made
it her principle of action that penitentiary punishment is an ineradicable dishonor,
worse than death " (which principle is surely wrong). " And from this premise she
concluded that she would do something to deserve the death penalty. Hence she was
.insane, and, consequently, exempt from the death penalty." But on the basis of such
an argument it would be easy to declare all ciiminals insane — persons whom we might
properly enough pity and cure, but should never punish.

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant, 399

indifferent actions of others, and believe them to be intended for
themselves, and to be traps set for themselves.

Often these persons, in tlieir unfortunate craze, are so sharp-
witted in the interpretation of that which other people do uncon-
cernedly, that we would be forced to pay all possible honor to
their mental acuteness if we could only trust to the truth of their
data.

I have never seen an instance of a cure effected on a person so
diseased, for the disease is a peculiar disposition to rave rationally.
Nevertheless, they must not be counted as belonging to the Hos-
pital-Insane ; for, being anxious only for their own safety, without
putting others into danger, they nesd not be locked up for the sake
of public security.

This second class of insanity is methodical.

3. Insanity {insania) is a disordered, or perturbed, power of
judgment^ whereby the mind is kept in suspense by analogies,
which are confounded with the conce])ti(ms of things similar to
each other, and whereby the power of imagination causes a play
of the connection of dissimilar things, like unto that of the under-
standing, as the real universal under which the latter representa-
tions were subsumed. The thus mentally diseased are usually
very jolly, rave absurdly, and please themselves in the enjoyment
of so extensive a relation of conceptions which, in their opinion,
rhyme together. An insane person of this description is beyond
cure, since he, like poesy in general, is creative, and, by reason of
manifoldness, entertaining. This third class of insanity, though
methodical, is oxAy fragnientary.

4. Crankiness (vesania) is the disease of a perturbed reason.
The mentally diseased patient flies beyond the whole ladder of
experience, and searches after principles which may be utterly
beyond tlie test of experience, and believes that thus he compre-
hends the Incomprehensible. He is able to grasp the invention
of how to square a circle ; he has full hold of the perpetuum
molile ; he can lay open the supernatural forces of nature, and
realize the mystery of the trinity. He is the quietest of all hos-
pital patients, and is, by reason of his in itself secluded specula-
tion, farthest removed from madness, seeing that, in his complete
self-sufficiency, he overlooks all the difficulties of investigation.
This fourth class of insanity might be called systematical.

400 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

For this reason : There is in this latter class of mental aberration
not only disorder and divergence from the rule of the use of reason,
but q\?>o positive unreason — that is, anotlier rule, an entirely differ-
ent stand-point, which the mind is called to occupy, and from which
it looks upon all things differently, finds itself carried away from
the sensorium commune^ which is requisite for the unity of the
life (of the animal) into a far remote place. Hence the word
Yerrueckung (craziness), which signifies to be pushed out of one
place into another entirely different place. Even as a hilly land-
scape, when sketched from a bird's point of view, occasions a judg-
ment quite different from that which you would pass when view-
ing it from the level. True, the soul does not find or see itself in
another place — for the soul cannot perceive itself in its place in
space, since otherwise it would be able to contemplate itself as an
object of its external sense, whereas it can be to itself an object
only of the internal sense — but we thus explain, as well as we
can, the so-called craziness. But it is remarkable that the forces
of a disordered mind thus frame themselves into systematic order,
and that nature tries to bring a connecting link even into un-
reason, in order that the thinking faculty may not remain unoc-
cupied, if not objectively for a true cognition of things, at least
subjectively for the purposes of animal life.

On the other hand, an attempt to observe one's self in a condi-
tion — produced voluntarily by physical means — which approaches
that of insanity, in order thereby to arrive at a better understand-
ing of the involuntary, evidences reason enough to investigate the
causes of the phenomenon. But it is dangerous to make experi-
ments with the mind, and to cause it to become diseased to a cer-
tain degree in order to observe it and investigate its nature by
the phenomena which may there be found.

Thus, Helmont says, that, after having taken a certain dose of
"napell" — a poisonous root — he felt as if he thought in his stom-
ach. Another physician gradually increased his doses of camphor
until it seemed to him as if all things on the street were in a state
of great confusion. Many people have experimented with opium
to such an extent that they finally felt their minds weaken when-
ever thev neglected to use this stimulant of their brain. An ar-
titicially produced state of insanity may very easily become a true
one.

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 401

Desultory Remarks.

§ 51. Together with the development of the germs of propaga-
tion we find the germ of insanity, which also is inheritable. It
is dangerous to marry into families where even one person has>
been so affected. For, no matter how many children a married
couple may have had who have not had this taint — because, for
instance, they took after their father, grandfather, or other pater-
nal ancestors — still, if the mother has had only one insanely
tainted child (no matter how free she is herself from the taint),
she will at one time give birth to a child which, taking after the
mother, as one can see by the bodily resemblance, will show this
inherited trace of insanity.

Often people pretend that they can point out the accidental
cause of this disease, and hence view it not as inherited, but as
acquired. " Love made him crazy," they say of one person ;
^^ Pride made him insane," they say of another; and of a third
they will even say, " He studied too iniLohr

Now, to fall in love with a person of high rank, whom it is the
greatest absurdity to ask in marriage, is not the cause but the effect
of insanity; and, so far as pride is concerned, the presumption of
an insignificant person to require others to bow down to him and
to assume haughty airs towards those others, presupposes an in-
sanity without which he would never have exhibited such conduct.

So far as too much studying ^ is concerned, finally, I think there
is little need of apprehension and of warning young men. In that
matter youth needs spurs rather than reins. Even the most violent
and protracted exertion in this respect — though it may tire out the
mind so as even to make a man detest science — cannot put the
mvnd out unless, indeed, it was previously disordered by finding,
for instance, an attraction in mystical books and revelations that
pass common understanding. This applies also to an inclination
to devote one's self entirely to the reading of books that have re-
ceived a certain holy consecration simply on that account, and

' The overtrading of merchants, which leads them to branch off into extravagant plana
beyond their powers, is a common phenomenon. But anxious parents need have no
fear that the diligence of their children may be over-exerted if their head is otherwise
in a healthy condition. Nature itself has provided against such overstocking of knowl-
edge by causing students to feel a disgust at things over which they have brooded to
excess, and at the same time in vain.

XVI— 26

402 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

without paying attention to their moral teachings ; a tendency
for which a certain author has invented the expression : " He is
scripture mad."

"Whether there is any distinction between general insanity {de-
lirium generale) and the insanity which sticks to a specific object
{delirium circa ohjectum)^ I doubt. Irrationality — which is some-
thing positive, and not mere absence of reason — is just like Ra-
tionality — a simple Form into which objects can be fitted, and
both have, therefore, a character of generality. But when this in-
sane tendency at last hreaks out^ which generally occurs suddenly,
then the insane person thereafter raves especially on whatever
first chances to strike the mind, since the newness of the impres-
sion takes a firmer hold than do the impressions of subsequent
occurrences.

People also say of a man whose head has gone astray : " He
has passed the line! " just as if a person who for the first time
passes the equator were in danger of losing his senses. But this
is a misunderstanding. What those people wish to say is this:
" That snob, who expected to fish gold without much exertion
simply by a voyage to India, sketches out his plans, as a real fool,
even on this side of the line; but during the execution of his
plan the incipient craziness increases, and on his return shows
itself in its full development, even though fortune may have been
kind to him."

Suspicions that there is something the matter with the mind
fall even upon those who talk aloud to themselves, or who are
caught gesticulating when alone in their rooms. This is still more
the case when such persons believe themselves specially favored or
haunted, or admitted into converse with higher beings; but does
not apply when they, perhaps, hold other saintly men open to these
supernatural contemplations, but except themselves, and perhaps
even do not entertain a desire to participate in such a gift.

The only general mark of insanity is the loss of common sense
{sensus comiminis)^ and the logical obstinacy {sensus jprivatui)
which supplants it — as when, for instance, a person sees in broad
daylight a burning candle on his table which no one else sees, or
hears a voice which no one else hears. For it is a subjective, nec-
essary test of the correctness of our judgments in general, and
hence of the health of our understanding, that we should apply

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 403

the same test to the understanding of others, and that we should
therefore not isolate our judgment, and yet at the same time pass
it for public judgment. This is the reason why the prohibiting of
books that are based merely on theoretical opinions (and especially
if they have no influence at all on legal doing or not-doing) of-
fends humanity. For by such prohibition government takes away
from us, if not the only, at least the most extensive and effective
means to correct our own thoughts, which we do promulgate pub-
licly, in order to see whether they agree with the thoughts of
others; since otherwise something purely subjective — for instance,
habit or inclination — might be very easily taken for objective,
which really constitutes the appearance, of which men say that
it cheats, or rather which induces men to cheat themselves in the
application of a rule.

A man who does not bother himself at all in this respect, but
has made up his mind to follow his own private bent of mind
without acknowledojinof the common sense as valid — even though
it should be altogether in an opposite direction — is given over
to a play of thoughts, wherein he acts and judges, not as in a
world common with others, but (as in a dream) in a world of his
own.

Sometimes this may appear only in the expressions, wherewith
an otherwise clear-minded head tries to communicate his external
impressions to others in a manner that they do not conform to the
common sense, but retain his individual notion. For instance,
the talented author of the " Oceana," Mr. Harrington, had the
notion that his exhalations {effluvia) burst from his skin in the
shape of flies. Now, this may well have originated in electric
effects upon a body so surcharged, of which phenomenon, indeed,
people claim to have had some practical experience ; and he may,
therefore, have intended merely to indicate thereby a similarity
between his feeling and that origin, but on no account a perception
of those flies.

Insanity accompanied with raving — (rahies) which is an affec-
tion of anger against a true or imaginary object that makes one
insusceptible against all external impressions — is simply a cross-
breed of a disturbance, which oftener looks more terrible than it
really is in its consequences, and which is not rooted as the parox-
ysm in a feverish sickness, but rather excited by material causes,

404 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and can often be alleviated by the physician through means of a
single dose of medicine.

Concejfiing the Talents Belonging to the Faculty of Cognition.

§ 52. Talent — a natural gift — signifies that pre-eminence of
the Faculty of cognition which does not depend upon teaching,
but upon the natural disposition of the subject. Those talents
are productive wit {ingenimn strictius sc. inaterialiter dictum)^
sagacity, and originality in thinking, or genius.

Wit is either of a comparing character {ingeniwn comparans)
or argumentative {ingeniiim argutans). Wit pairs or assimilates
heterogeneous conceptions, which often lie far apart, according to
the law of the power of imagination (of association). It is a pe-
culiar faculty of assimilating which belongs to the understanding,
as the faculty of cognizing things in general, in so far as it gives
us the objects of our generalizations. Afterwards wit needs the
faculty of judgment in order to subsume the particular under the
general, and to apply the faculty of thinking for the purpose of
cognition. AVe cannot learn to be witty, whether in speech or in
writing, by the mechanism and forcing of schools ; but wit, as a
special talent, belongs to the liberality of our disposition in the
interchange of thoughts {veniam, damns petimusque vicissim), a
quality of the understanding which it is difficult to explain. It
is a sort of affability on the part of the understanding, which con-
trasts with the severity of the faculty of judgment {judicium
discretivum) in the application of the general to the particular —
the conception of the kind to that of the species — which faculty of
judgment retrenches the faculty of assimilation as well as the dis-
position to exercise it.

Concerning the Specif c Distinction hetween Comparing and Ar-
gumentative Wit.

(a) CONCERNING PRODUCTIVE WIT.

§ 53. It is pleasant, popular, and exhilarating to discover simi-
larities between dissimilar subjects and to create subject-matter
for the understanding in order to make its conceptions general,
which is precisely what wit does. The faculty of judgment, on
the contrary, which limits the sphere of conceptions and helps
rather to correct than to extend them, is, to be sure, mentioned

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 405

and recommended with ^reat respect ; but then it is serious, se-
vere, and restrictive in reo;ard to the freedom of thouij:ht. Conse-
quently it is unpopular. The doing or not-doing of comparing
wit is rather play ; but the doing or not-doing of the power of
judgment is business. The former is a flower of youth ; the latter
a mature fruit of age. A person who combines both in one men-
tal product, and in a rather higher degree, is called an ingenious
man {perspicax).

Wit runs after conceits ; judgment works to obtain insights.
Considerateness (watchful care) is a hurgomaster-virtue (a disposi-
tion to protect and govern a city in accordance with law, under
the supreme command of the castle). But the great author of
the " System of JSTature," Buffon, was by his countrymen accred-
ited with holdness {hardl), regardless of the objections that might
be raised by the faculty of judgment, although his daring venture
looks somewhat like immodesty or frivolity. Wit is more in search
after t\\e froth ; judgment after the nutriment beneath. To insti-
tute a chase after witty sayings — hons mots — such as the Abbot
Trublet promulgated in great number, and thereby put wit on the
rack — gives rise to empty minds, but disgusts, in course of time,
the more cultured persons. Such minds are inventive in y«sA-
ions; that is, in accepted rules of conduct, which please only by
their newness ; and before they are brought into general use must
be changed for other forms that are just as transitory.

Wit using puns is shallow ; and mere broodingness {micrology)
of the faculty of judgment is j^&dantic. Humorous wit * signifies a
wit which arises from a tendency of the mind towards the jpara-
doxical. In this case the mien and tone are altoo-ether serious,
and yet you see lurking behind them the roguish intent, whose
only ambition is to make some one — or, mayhap, his own opin-
ion — subject to laughter. This is done by giving undue lauda-
tion to the opposite of what ought to meet approval {Persiflage).
Let me instance Swift's " Art to Crawl in Poetry " or Butler's
" Hudibras." This sort of wit, which endeavors to make the
contemptible still more contemptible by sheer force of contrast, is
very exhilarating by the surprise of the unexpected ; but it is,
after all, simply joZ^y and shallow witticism, like that of Yoltaire ;
whereas that kind of wit which clothes true and important prin-

* Launigkeit.

406 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ciples in tlie garb of a disguise, as Young does in his Satires, may
be called a sledge-hammer wit, since it means business, and excites
more admiration than enjoyment.

A proverb {proverhium) is not a really witty saying {l)on moi)^
for it is a formula which has become general, and expresses a
thought that is perpetuated by imitation, and may have heen
witty enough in the mouth of the first one who uttered it. Hence,,
the speaking by means of proverbs is the language of the com-
mon people, and shows a thorough lack of wit in the intercourse
of the more polite w^orld.

It is very true that profundity is not a matter of wit ; but in
BO far as wit may be a vehicle, or hull, for reason, or for the-
handling of the morally practical ideas of reason, we may well
distinguish between profound and shallow wit. For instance, in
Waller's " Life " we find a specimen of the, as they are called,
remarkable sayings of Samuel Johnson concerning women : " Un-
doubtedly he praised many whom he would have hesitated to
marry, and probably married one whom he would have been
ashamed to praise." The only thing to be admired here is the
playf uhiess of the antithesis ; but reason gains nothing thereby.
But, whenever the problem touched questions of reason, his friend,
BoswELL, could not coax even a single one of those oracular say-
ings out of him — of which he was in constant search — which
might have betrayed the least sign of wit. On the contrary,
everj'thing that he uttered concerning sceptics in point of re-
ligion, or the powers of a government, or human freedom in gen-
eral, turned out — as was to be expected, in view of his naturally
inherent and constantly fostered despotism — to be a clownish
brutality, which his admirers prefer to call grufFness,' but which
really proved his great lack of uniting, in one and the same
thought, wit with profundity. It also seems, indeed, as if the
men of influence, who paid no heed to his friends when they
pushed him for Parliament as an exceptionally fitted person,
were likewise lacking in appreciating his talents. For that sort

* BoswELL tells that, when a certain lord, in his presence, expressed his regret that
JoHKSON had not had a better education, Barktti said : " No, no, my lord ; no matter
what you had done with him, he would always have remained a bear." " Ah, well,
a dancing bear ! " said the other. And a third one, Johnson's friend, who wished ta
soften the dictum, said : " He has nothing of the bear about him but the skin.^'

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 407

of wit which suffices for the composition of the dictionary of a
language does not, on that account, suffice to awaken and revive
those ideas of reason that are necessary for an insight into im-
portant matters of business.

Modesty enters of itself into the soul of any one who feels
himself qualified for such business matters ; and distrust in his own
talents, with a conviction that he ought not to decide for himself,
but also take into consideration the judgment of others — this
was a quality which Johnson never possessed/

(b) CONCERNING SAGACITY, OR THE GIFT OF INVESTIGATION.

§ 54. In order to discover or detect something which lies con-
cealed either in ourselves or otherwliere, we need often a special
talent, which tells us how to investigate properly. It is a natu-
ral gift to judge off-hand (Judioii prcevii) as to where truth
might possibly be found ; to get at the trace of things, and to
make use of the slightest signs of relationship to discover or in-
vent that of which we have been in search. The logic of the
schools teaches us nothing on this point. But Bacon of Verulam
gave us, in his Organon^ a magnificent example of the method by
which we might discover, through experiments, the concealed
quality of the things of nature. Bat even this example does not
suffice, does not give us the needed advice, as to how we ought to
proceed according to fixed laws, and how we ought to manage so
as to investigate luckily ; for we must always in these cases pre-
suppose something, must commence with an hypothesis, from
which we have determined to begin our excursion ; and this must
be done, according to certain indications, in accordance with cer-
tain principles. Now, the great trouble is to find how those prin-
ciples are to be scented out. For it is a very bad way of indicat-
ing the proper mode of investigation by giving advice to " go it
blind," and trusting to good luck to expect to find a mineral mine
wherever sporadic mineral indications are found. And yet there
are people who have a talent of tracing the treasures of knowledge
without having learned how to do so, and just as if they had a

' Translator's Note. — Nearly all German writers of Kant's time express pretty
nearly the same view of Dr. Johnson, holding him to be a very shallow, dictatorially
minded man, with no claim to the reverence of his fellow litterateurs which English
writers generally seem to pay him.

408 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

divining rod in their liands. Hence, of course, they cannot teach
the mode to others. They can only show how they themselves do
it ; it being a natural gift.

OR OF GENIUS.

§ 55. To invent something is a matter quite diflferent from dis-
covering something. For the thing that \ve discover is supposed
to have had previous existence, only that it was not known — as
when Columbus discovered America. But that which some one
invents — as, for instance, gunpowder — was not at all known be-
fore the artist who made the invention.' Either may be a merit.
Again, we majjifid something which we do not seek at all, and
then there is no merit whatever.

Xow, this talent of invention is called genius. Hence, this
name always pertains only to an artist — that is, to one who knows
how to mal:e something, and not to one who merely knows much.
Moreover, it must be an artist who does not merely imitate, but
■who produces his works originally. Finally, it must be an artist
"whose products are models — that is, deserve to be imitated.

Hence, the genius of a man is the " exemplary originality of his
talents" in regard to this or the other kind of products of art.
Hence, also, we sometimes call a mind, which evinces such a dis-
position, a genius, in which case this latter word does not stand
merely for the natural gift of a person, but also for the person
itself.

To be a genius in many branches of art constitutes a vast ge-
nius — for instance, Leonardo da Vinci.

The real field for genius is that of the Power of Imagination ;
for this power is creative, and stands, less than any of our other
faculties, under the comj)ulsion of rule, and is on that very account
the more susceptible to originality.

It is true that the mechanism of instruction is harmful to the
growth of a genius — that is, so far as its originality is concerned —

' Gunpowder was known long before the time of the monk Schwarz, and was used
already in the siege of Algeziras. Its invention seems to belong to the Chinese. Thus
it may be that the German monk, getting hold of some of that powder, sought to ana-
lyze it by extracting the saltpetre, etc., and that he hence merely discovered, but did
not invent it.

Anthropology of Immanuel Kant. 409

since that instruction compels the student to imitate. But each
art needs, after all, certain mechanical fundamental rules, namely,
such as shall make the work of art interpretative of the idea which
it is to express. In other words, art demands trutJi in the repre-
sentation of the object which the artist has in mind. Now, this
must be acquired by studying with all the strictness of a school,
and is certainly an effect of imitation ; and to relieve the artist's
power of imagination also from this compulsion, and to allow him
to let his peculiar talent work even in violation of nature and
against all rules, this may, perchance, result in an original mad-
ness; but it certainly cannot be held up as a model, and can,
therefore, not be classified with genius.

Mind {Geist) is the animating principle in man. In the French
language Mind and Wit bear the same name — Esprit. In the Ger-
man language it is different. We say : a speech, a book, or a lady
in society, etc., is beautiful, but shows no intellect. In such a
case, tlie possession of Wit does not come into consideration ; for
one may get sick of wit, because its effect leaves behind nothing
that is permanent. If any of the above-named subjects or per-
sons are to be called intellectual^ fliey must excite interest^ and
this they must excite by means of ideas. For ideas put the power
of imagination in motion, which perceives a vast sphere for the
e&ercise of such conceptions. How would it do, then, to substi-
tute for the French word genie the German words original intel-
lect f for at present our nation allows itself to be persuaded that
the French have a peculiar word for this special intellectual gift,
which we have not in our own language, but are obliged to borrow
of them, although the French themselves have had to borrow it
from the Latin language {genius), which really signifies nothing
else than original intellect.'

But the reason why this exemplary originality of talent is en-
dowed with that mystical name of genius is that the man, whose
gift it is, cannot explain its outbreaks to himself, nor account to
himself how he came in possession of an art which he had no op-
portunity to acquire. For invisihility (of cause to an effect) is a
necessary adjunct of the conception of a spirit, or intellect (a

' This paragraph can be of interest and understood only by those who are acquainted
with the Gennan language. I thought it best, however, not to strike it out. — Trans-
lator.

410 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

genius, which was adjoined to the so-gifted man even at his birth),
whose inspiration he merely follows, as it were. But in such cases
the mental powere must be moved harmoniously by means of the
power of imagination, since otherwise they would not animate,
but merely cross each other ; and this can be achieved only by
the natuf'al disposition of the so-gifted man. Hence, genius may
also be called the talent " by means of which nature prescribes to
art its rules."

§ 56, We need not stop here to discus