Full text of "The Journal of speculative philosophy"

THE JOURNAL

O F

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

VOLUME XVII.

EDITED BY WM. T. HARRIS

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

ILONDON : Trtibner and Company.

1883.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by

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

CONTENTS.

PAiiB

Beautiful, The, H'. //. KimbaU, 94

Blow, Susan E. (Tr.), Goeschel on the Immortality of the Soul, 154, 246

Books Received, List of, 104 224 325

Burns-Gibson, J. (book notices), 446

Centennial of the Critique of Pure Reason, The, By Kuno Fischer (Tr.),

Benjamin Rand, 225
Champlin, Virginia, Notice of " La Revue Philosophique," 324

" " (Tr.), Nicolo D'Alfonso on Bertrando Spavcnta, 444

Channing, William Ellery, Selected Sentences in Prose and Verse, 96

" " " " • Selections from the " Gulshan Raz," 436

Christianity and Philosophy, Lectures on. Syllabus, .... By G. S. 3forris, 215

Christian Philosophy Quarterly, The (noticed), ". 101

Cognition, Sources and Faeuhies of, E. Trentowski (Tr.), . . /. Podbielski, 163, 356

Concord Summer School of Philosophy, 1883, Programme, 213

" " " " " Reports of the Lectures at, 317

Conversations on Philosophy by Jliss Handley (noticed), . By /. Bums-Gibson, 446

D' Alfonso, Nicolo, on Bertrando Spaventa (Tr.), V. Champlin, 444

Delff, n. K. H., On Faith and Knowledge (Tr.), A. R Krocfjer, 45

Dewey, John, Knowledge and the Relativity of Feeling, 56

Edwards, Jonathan, and Puritanic Philosophy, F. B. Sanborn, 402

Evolution, D. A. Wasson on, 318

Facts of Consciousness, Translated from J. G. Fichte, . . By ^. E. Krocger, 130, 263

Faith and Knowledge, by H. K. H. Delff (Tr.), A. E. Kroegcr, 45

Fichte's Facts of Consciousness (Tr.), A. E. Krocger, 130, 263

Fischer, Kuno, The Centennial of rhe Critique of Pure Reason (Tr.), . B. Band, 225

Garrigues, Gertrude, Goethe's " Das Miirchen," 383

German Philosophy, Recent, Some Aspects of, By G. H. Hoirison, 1

Germany, Philosophy in, its Present State and Prospects, Letter from C. L. Jliciie-

let to G. H. Howison, 222

Goeschel on the Immortality of the Soul (Tr.), Siisan E. Blow, I5i, 246

Goethe's " Das Miirchen," Gertrude Gan-igucs, 383

" GulsLan Raz," Selections from the, By W. E. Chanuing, 436

Halsted, G. B., The Modern Logic at Johns Honkins University, 210

Handley, Miss, Conversations on Philosoi)hy (noticed), . . By •/. Burns-Gibson, 446

Harris, Theodore (Tr.), Praver of Marv, Queen of Scots, 324

Harris, W. T., Philosophy in Outliae, " 296, 337

Hazard, R. G., Man a Creative First Cause, 283

" " Man's Freedom in his Moral Nature, 423

Homer's " Iliad," I). J. Snider, 180,367

Howison, G. H., Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy, 1

" " Letter from Professor C. L. Michelet on the Present State and the

Prospects of German Philosophy, 222

Immortality of the Soul, Goeschel on the (Tr.), Susan E. Blow, 154, 246

iv Contents.

PAGE

James, Ilenrv, and Swedenborg, W. H. Kimhall, 113

Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution : A Ciitical Study, by J. Gould Schur-

man (noticed), By John Watson, 101

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, The Centennial of, by Kuno Fischer (Tr.),

B. Rand, 225

Kimball, W. H., The Beautiful, 94

" " On Swedenborg and Henry James, 113

Knowledge and the Relativity of Feeling ". John Dewey, 56

Kroeger, A. E. (Tr.), H. K. H. Delff's Faith and Knowledge, 45

" " (Tr.), Fichte's Facts of Consciousness, • • • 130, 263

McCosh, James, Programme of a Philosophic Series, 220

Man a Creative First Cause, R- G- Hazard, 283

Man's Freedom in his Moral Nature, R. G. Hazard, 423

Mary, Queen of Scots, Prayer of (Tr.), Theodore Harris, 324

Michelet, C. L., Present State and Prospects of Philosophy in Germany, Letter to

G. H. Howison, 222

Mivart, St. George, Nature and Thought (noticed), . . . .By J. Rums-Gibson, 446

Modern Logic, The, at Johns Hopkins University, .... By G. R. Halsfed, 210

Morris, G. S., Lectures on Philosophy and Christianity, Syllabus, 215

Nature and Thought, by St. George Mivart (noticed), . . By /. Rnrns- Gibson, 446

Object and Reflection, " Richard Randolph, 90

Objects and their Interaction, James Ward, 169

Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, Primeval Man, 10

Philosophic Series by James McCosh, Programme of, 220

Pliilosophv in Outline, W. T. Harris, 296, 33*7

Podbielski, I. (Tr.), Trentowski on the Sources of Knowledge, ..... 163, 856

Political Education, Fragment of, by George Whale (noticed). By /. Burns-Gibson, 446

Primeval JIan, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, 70

Property, on its Nature and its Devolution, J. G. Woerner, 141

Puritanic Philosophy and Jonathan Edwards, F. R. Sanborn, 402

Rand, Benjamin (Tr.), Kuno Fischer on the Centennial of the Critique of Pure

Reason, 225

Randolph, Richard, Object and Reflection, 90

Reports of Lectures at the Concord School, _ 317

"Revue Philosophique de la France et de I'Etranger" (noticed), volumes siii and

xiv, By Virginia Champlin, 324

Sanborn, F. B., Jonathan Edwards and Puritanic Philosophy, 402

Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, Translations from, 323

Schurman, J, Gould, Kantian Ethics and Ethics of Evolution (noticed),

By John Watson, 101

Sentences in Prose and Verse, Selected by W. E. Channinq, 96

Snider, D. J., Homer's " Iliad," 180, 367

Spaventa, Bertrando, by Nicolo D'Alfonso (Tr.), .... Virginia Champhn, 444

Summer School of Philosophy at Concord, Programme for 1883, ' 213

Swedenborg and Henry James, W. H. Kimball, 113

Trentowski, E., on the Sources and Faculties of Cognition (Tr.),

/. Podbielski, 163, 356

Triibner's Translations from Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, 323

Ward, James, Objects and their Interaction, 169

Wasson, D. A., on Evolution, 318

Watson, John, Notice of J. G. Schurman's Kantian Ethics, etc., 101

Whale, George, Fragment of Political Education (noticed), . By J. Burns- Gibsoti, 446

Woerner, J. G., On the Nature of Property and its Devolution, 141

THE JOURNAL

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY

Vol. XYII.] January, 1883. [No. 1.

SOME ASPECTS OF KECENT GEKMAN PHILOSOPHY/

BY G. H. HOWISON.

In another publication ° I have endeavored to present the above-
named topic in its general bearings, showing the situation to be
one of hesitancy and transition, with a remarkable tendency to-
wards a high and even exaggerated estimation of the empirical
methods that distinguish the philosophic school historic in Eng-
land, the rallying-cry of " Back to Kant ! " having been succeeded
by a more adventurous one of '" Beyond Kant ! " and this " beyond,"
mainly under the dominating pressure of the current interest in
the theories of evolution and natural selection, being construed as
lying in the region of that empiricism of which these theories are
the boasted victorious result. In the present article we come to
the details and the personnel of the more prevalent and typical
views. It will be of advantage to consider these under two lead-
ing points of view : first, as operating in German society at large ;
and, secondly, in the phases confined to the universities.

' In substance, a lecture given at the Concord School of Philosophy, July 19, 1882.
"^ See the report of Professor Howison's remarks, in " The Concord Lectures." Cam-
bridge : Moses King, 1883.

XVII— 1

2 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

PHILOSOPHY IN GERMAN SOCIETY GENERALLY.

In the total stream of present German thought tliere are dis-
cernible three main currents — the idealistic, the materialistic, and
the agnostic, or "critical," as its adherents prefer to name it.
This division, however, is not distinctive of the present period,
being merely the continuation of a world-old divergence in doc-
trine. But it is distinctive of the present situation, that, as already
indicated, these several views are now all defended from stand-
points more or less empirical. In the case of materialism, to be
sure, this is natural and in no wise nnexpected ; bnt the occurrence
of it in the case of idealism and of agnosticism, after Kant's day
and in his own land, and among thinkers long given to the study
of his works, is a genuine surprise. That the very principles of
the " Critique of Pure Reason," the historic stronghold of i\\e a pri-
ori^ should suffer the complete transformation of being made to
support empiricism, is a performance truly astonishing. Yet it
has been managed, and constitutes the distinguishing feat of the
so-called Neo-Kantians.

Each of these three main movements has a leading representa-
tive. There are thus three men who challenge our attention, as
in their several ways typical of the dominant intellectual interests
of their day — Eduard von Hartmann, Eugen Diihring, and Fried-
rich Albert Lange. The first stands for such idealism as is now
in vogue, derived in a long line of degeneration from Hegel,
through such self-styled adherents as Strauss and Arnold Ruge,
Bruno Baur and Feuerbach, and from Kant through the distort-
ing medium of Schopenhauer ; the second represents materialism,
with the singular trait of blending with tlie leoitimate line of its
empirical defences certain remarkable elements of a transcendental
logic ; the third represents agnosticism, with the additional and
peculiar interest of being the ^^eo-Kantian j9ar excellence.

llartniann was born in Berlin, in 1842, the son of a general in
the Prussian army, in which he held a commission himself till
disease that left him a permanent cripple turned him aside into the
career of letters. Duhring, also born in Berlin, in 1833, began
his career in the Prussian department^of justice, but was ere long
comi)elled to abandon this, through disease that deprived him of
])is sight. In spite of his blindness, however, he has kept up the

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 3

inost copious production and pnblication.' But, in contrast to
Hartmann, who leads the quiet life of a man of letters well to do,
lie has tasted no little of the bitterness of the human lot. For
many years he won some bread and much reputation as a^^rZ-ya^-
docent at the University of Berlin ; but, in 1877, he was dismissed
from this office on account of his persistent and lutter attacks on
some of the scientific and philosophical performances of certain of
his colleagues, particularly Helmholtz ; and since then he has
picked np a precarious subsistence in private life. Lange, born
near Solingen, in 1828, made his university course chiefly at Bonn,
where his principal interest seenied to be in philology and peda-
gogics, and then passed some years in practical life, partly as
bookseller, partly as secretary of the Duisburg Chamber of Com-
merce. Later, he was made professor of philosophy at Zurich,
where, in his case too, disease left its lasting marks in the effects
of a surgical operation that nearly cost him his life. In 1872 he
was called from Zurich to Marburg, but died there in 1875, after
prolonged sufferings, in the bloom of his intellectual powers, to
the unceasing regret of that large body of his younger countrymen
who were beginning to see in him a philosophic force of far-reach-
ing effect.

Though the three men were so considerably separated in years,
they began to act upon the public almost simultaneously. Lange's
" History of Materialism," so noted in its later form, first ap])eared
in 1865 ; Diihring's first important work, the " Natural Dialectic,"
was published the same year ; while Hartmann's " Philosophy of
the Unconscious" came first from the press in 1868. The main
lines of their several theories we are now to trace, and endeavor
to value.

In opening a study of Hartmann and his large circle of readers,
we come at once upon the sphere of an influence the vastness of
whose reach in the present " Enlightened Public " of Germany it
is impossible to overlook ; I refer, of course, to Schopenhauer.
Hartmann is generally and justly recognized as the mental heir of
Schopenhauer, in direct succession. His so-called system is, how-

' His works already comprise no less than twenty octavo volumes, in the various de-
partments of metaphysics, economics, sociology, mathematics, and criticism.

4 The Journal of Speculatvve Philosophy.

ever, far inferior in intellectual quality to that of his predecessor.
He differs from Schopenhauer in giving to the empirical a great
predominance over the a priori method,' and in his doctrine con-
cerning the nature of the absolute. The former fact expresses his
deference to the "stupendous achievements" of recent science;
the latter, his ambition to frame a system that should blend in a
single higher unity whatever of preceding theory he knew — Scho-
penhauer's pessimism and sundry idealistic fragments, no doubt
also first suggested by Schopenhauer, but in detail borrowed largely
from Schelling and the " left wing " distorters and mutilators of
Hegel.

Schopenhauer, seizing upon Kant's doctrine of the ex mente
origin of nature, and the consequently phenomenal character of
the world, asked the question that cannot but rise upon Kant's
results — What, then, is this " Thing-in-itself," assumed as the
source of the sensations that our a priori reason co-ordinates into
a universe ? He felt the force of Kant's arguments for the limi-
tation of knowledge to the realm of the subject's own experiences
— of the contradictions into which reason was apparently shown to
fall when attempting to apply its categories to a Thing-in-itself
supposed to lie beyond that realm. But he also felt the necessity
of the Thing-in-itself, of an absolute, in order to the relativity that,
according to Kant, was an essential feature of knowledge ; and
seeing, too, the chasm that separated Kant's doctrine of the will
from his view of the intellect, he proposed to remedy both defects
of the Kantian theory at once by the doctrine that reason is only
theoretical, and the will not phenomenal but noumenal : in short,
that the absolute is Will — a darkling, dumb outstriving, in itself
unconscious, whose impulsions, by a perpetual thwarting from
some mysterious Check, give rise to what we call consciousness.
The whole of being was thus reduced to terms of inner or sub-
jective life. There was the dark undertow of the ever-heaving
Desire, and, woven over it, the flashing image-world of Perception :
the universe was Will and Kepresentation. Of this Will we knew
nothing, save that it was insatiable ; the forms of consciousness
were not its expression, but its repression — its negation. Ever the

' Tlic reader will easily recall his significant motto, so taking in these times : " 8pem-
lative raiu'/s by the inductive method of the natural sciences.'"

Some Asj?ects of Tteoent German Philosophy. 5

liiglier these rose in the ascendin_g evolution of nature, in reaction
against its wilder and wilder throbbings, ever the more bitterly
must their necessary finitude thwart the infiuit}^ of its blind de-
sire. Universal life was thus, from its own conditions and essence,
foredoomed to misery : its core was anguish, its outlook was de-
-spair. And all the facts of existence, from wheresoever taken in
the ascending levels of consciousness, confirmed but too darkly
this haggard prophecy of a priori thought: everywhere the over-
plus of pain, every wliere illusion dispelled in disappointment.
There was, and could be, but one avenue of escape — death and
oblivion. On this fact rose the whole structure of ethics ; the
" whole duty of man " was simply this : Suppress the will to live.
All moral feeling was summed up in pity, and all moral action in
ascetic living, that, the tone of life being thus perpetually lowered,
the will might slowly sink into quiescence, and life itself at last
fade out into the repose and silence of annihilation.

Such was the philosophy (which, if at bottoin theoretically hol-
low, has still on its surface a certain tragic fascination) that stimu-
lated Hartmann to attempt a composition of like tone on the an-
cient theme of Man. The philosophic problem, let it be noted in
passing, takes for its leading question, in the minds of Schopen-
hauer and Hartmann, a phase of Kant's " What may I hope for ? "
The all-dominating concern for them is, What is life all worth?
They are both possessed with a profound sense of the misery of
existence.; but while, under Schopenhauer's treatment, the pessi-
mistic strain seems to sound forth only at the close, and to issue
from Lionditions that originally bear solely on the origin of experi-
ence, there can hardly be any doubt that with Hartmann the pes-
simism was first, and the theory of the Unconscious an after-
thought to explain it. His problem has the look of being this:
Given misery as the sum of existence, what must be presupposed
in order to account for it ?

The method and the contents of his solution both show what a
weight empirical evidence has with him in contrast with dialect-
ical. He professes a certain allegiance to the latter, and he makes
frequent resort also to a priori deduction of the most antiquated
sort ; but his general drift to fact, induction, and analogy is the
patent and distinguishing feature of his book. He seizes upon
;a striking but occult class of facts in our psychological history, as

6 The^ Jourrbol of Speeulative Philosophy.

containing the explanation of his problem, and, indeed, of life-
itself. There is given in our very experience, he says, the mani-
fest presence of an unconscious agency. He refers, in this, to the
class of experiences nowadays commonly grouped under the term
"reflex action" — facts of somnambulism, trance, clairvoyance,
and instinctive knowledge ; all those " unconscious modifications,"'
in short, the emphasizing of which formed such a memorable dis-
sonance in the thinking of Sir William Hamilton. The Uncon-
scious is actually here toith us, Hartmann holds; there is a some-
thing beneath our consciousness that performs for us, even when
consciousness is suspended, all that is most characteristic of life,
and that, too, with a swift and infallible surety and precision ;
what less, then, can we do than accept this Unconscious as the
one and absolute reality ? We accept ; and so come by the Phi-
losophy of the Unconscious.

Here, however, Hartmann is confronted by the warning of
Kant, which, on grounds of a critical determination of the nature
and limits of reason, forbids him to undertake the discussion of
an object thus removed from possible experience. This warning,
then, must first of all be silenced. Hartmann consequently ad-
dresses himself to the refutation of the Kantian thesis that knowl-
edge is only of the phenomenal. Here he leaves his favorite basis
of facts, and resorts necessarilj' to hypotheses purely a priori.
He proceeds by showing the self-contradiction, as by Kant's own
terms, of a material Thing-in-itself — a supposed background hid,
as it were, hehiiid the vision-world of experience, this phenome-
non, this apparition, rising thus between the thing and the mind ;
and then proposes, as the remedy, the bringing of this absolute
within the film of the apparition, and, so to speak, between it and
the mind. In short, he makes his Unconscious, as the absolute,
the common source of two parallel streams of appearance — the
one objective, the sensible world itself; the other subjective, the
stream of our conscious perceptions of the world.' These two
streams, as both flowing from the one Unconscious, under identi-
cally corresponding conditions, are in incessant counterpart. Thus,
knowledge, though not a copy of natural objects, is an exact coun-
ter-image to them, engendered from a common source. Con-

' A reminiscence, here, of Spinoza.

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 7

sciousness and nature are both pure show (Schein) ; the world is
an " objective apparition " {ein objective?' /Schein), and perception
is a duplicate "subjective apparition" (ein suhjectiver Schein),
and both are exhaled mist-like from the depths of the Uncon-
scious. Existence is thus doubled throughout ; space, time, and
the causal nexus are duplicated too, as well as the units they con-
tain or connect.

The Kantian doctrine — that space, time, and causation are
merely subjective — beinii^ considered thus disposed of, its corol-
lary of the empirical limitation of knowledge likewise falls away,
and Hartmann may proceed, he thinks, with his metaphysical pro-
gramme. First, however, the method of philosophy must be more
precisely accentuated. How can knowledge of the absolute, which
lies (as the Unconscious) wholly beyond our consciousness, ever
arise? By virtue of two facts, replies Hartmann: our "mystic
sense of union with the Unconscious," and that uniforniity of nat-
ure which forms the basis of induction. The organon of philoso-
phy has thus two factors — Mystic and Induction. From the for-
mer come all the clews of knowledge, the mysterious "sugges-
tions" of the Unconscious itself; from the latter, the verification
of these, as followed out in the complicated system of experience.
It is by the latter alone that philosophy distinguishes itself from
religion : for both flow alike from the mystic of the " suggestions,"
while religion retains in the form of myth those mysterious whis-
perings which philosophy, following the self-revelation of nature
in induction, lays bare in their clear and literal truth.

In the light of this method, now, the Unconscious so far reveals
its real nature that we know it is something infallibly and infinitely
intelligent. Strictly, it is not the C^wconscious, but rather the Snh-
conscious, the Unbeknown {das Unlewusste).' In its infallible infi-
nite-swiftness of perception, however, as experience testifies of it,
there is a transcendent type of the flashing inspirations of genius.
It is thus not ^^//'-conscious ; its intelligence is clairvoyant, and
has no "large discourse of reason," that " sees the end in the
beginning." But, as intelligent energy, it has the two constitu-
ents that we find present in all intelligent activity within experi-
ence — will and representation. And here is the point at which

1 "Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown. '"—Low^zll : The Courtin\

8 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

to correct and complete Scliopenhauer's doctrine of the absolute.
Not will is the absolute; for will as well as representation is part
of conscious experience; will is itself phenomenal. Rather are
will and representation the two co-ordinate primal manifesta-
tions of the one Unconscious. Here, too, is the truth of the
famous Neutrum — the something neither subject nor object — that
Schelling set up for the absolute ; and no longer, thinks Hart-
mann, the target for a Hegel's "the absolute, popping up as if
shot from a pistol," since it is now construed in terms vouched for
by actual experience. Moreover, the conception is here found
that will embosom the vast system of Hegel himself: the all-em-
bracing "Logical Idea" {das logische Idee) HWi, as a mere con-
stituent into the vaster being of the Unconscious ; for what is the
Unconscious, as revealed in experience, but that which works by
the incessant interplay of representation and will? And just as
will in its essence is mere blind struggle, so is representation in its
essence nothing other than luminous idea — the all-embracing log-
ical bond that grasps the vague of sensation into distinct terms,
and these terms again into systems, and these systems at last into
a single organic unitv of thought.' The Unconscious, then, is
primordially will and idea ; and from the necessary interplay of
these arose the twofold world of finitude, pouring forth from the
Unconscious in the counterpart streams of object and subject, of
sensible world and conscious perception.

Hartmann is now at length well ashore on the familiar coasts of
Schopenhauerland. This world-child of clear-eyed virgin Idea
and darkling brutal Will is no product of far-sighted love, en-
dowed with an exhaustless future of joy: it is the oftspring of
chance, and its future carries in its very core the germs of ever-
expanding misery. This gloomy theme Hartmann pursues over
all tlie provinces of experience, seeking to prove that suffering
everywhere outbalances happiness, that " he that increaseth knowl-
edge increaseth sorrow," the pitch of anguish rising ever higher
and higher as nature ascends in the scale of consciousness, and
eppeeially as man enlarges and quickens that intelligence whose
chief result must, from the nature of the case, be the keener ap-
prehension of the deceitfulness of life. Nor, continues Hartmann,

Note the one-sided and superficial construction here put upon Hegel's theory.

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 9

let any one hope to evade this conchision by theories of possible
compensation. Men, to be sure, usually live in one or another of
three stages of illusion in regard to this essential misery of life:
they either think that, even in this world, the sum of joy so far
exceeds the sum of sorrow as to make existence here essentially
good ; or, if sobered out of this by inexorable experience, they take
refuge in the hereafter, in the prospect of an endless opportunity
beyond the grave — a refuge of lies, since the Unconscious is the
sole subject of conscious life, there is no individual self, death is
simply subsidence into the absolute vagueness, and immortality is
therefore a delusion ; or, finally, surrendering both of these dreanis,
they resort to the future, and indulge in the illusion of hope — the
world can yet be made the abode of happiness, and let us make it
so. But, admonishes Hartmann, all these fancies ignore the con-
tradiction that lies in the very heart of existence; there is but one
plain moral in the drama of experience, and that is the utter
worthlessness of life. Ethics consequently sums itself up in the
single precept, Make an end of it! The will being in its essence
ii wild unrest, both metaphysics and experience teach that the
<mly way of escape from the misery inherent in tiie nature of life
la to bring the will to quiescence ; in short, to blot it out of being.
Our sole intelligent desire, won in the bitter school of experience,
is the longing for release from struggling, the wish to be delivered
from this delusive Maya of consciousness and to pass into motion-
less Nirwana. Hasten, then, the day when the pitch of misery
shall have risen to the frenzy of despair, and mankind in united
delirium shall execute a universal auto da fe, and, by final self-
immolation, end the tragedy of existence forever.

Nevertheless, while this is the sum of its theory, ethics may
have the important practical question to settle. How shall we
make an end of thino-s the surest and soonest? There is here iu-
deed no duty ^ there is no such thing as duty: there is simply a
possible satisfaction of the desire for release from misery ; but to
this end there may be an alternative of means. We may each
promote the end by a negative or by a positive agency. By fol-
lowing the traditional standards of virtue, we may advance society
in order, peace, prosperity, and apparent welfare, the real out-
come of which, however, is but the profounder despair ; or we
may, by passion, fraud, and violence, heighten the rising flood of

10 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

misery directly. Which each will do is matter of temperament
and circumstance. Pessimism thus does nothing actively to pro-
mote wliat traditional ethics would brand as immorality ; it merely
leaves the so-called morality or immorality to be dealt witli by the
fate inherent in existence. The interaction of both is the force
that drives the universe assuredly to its desired dissolution.

Moreover, the negative side of pessimist ethics gives rise to
problems of history, of politics, of religion ; for one theory of
these matters, put in practice, may promote the final catastrophe
more surely and swiftly than another. Thus, pessimism has its
philosophy of history, in which history appears as the evolution
of the three stages of illusion mentioned above. The great scene
of the first stage was the pagan world, typical in which was the
Hellenic joj^ in sensuous life, and the Roman glory in conquest and
organization. That of the second is Christendom, so far as it is
untouched by decay of its essential dogma. That of the third is
the modern world of "enlightenment," of "advanced" thinking,
of political and economic reorganization in the interest of "the
good time coming." Following all is the surely predestined dis-
illusion that is to lead to the final dissolution. Pessimism has,
too, its philosophy of politics. Its ideal polity is a "strong gov-
ernment," based on the theory of socialism and administered in
its interest to the remotest detail. Pessimism has, finally, its
philosophy of religion, according to which religion is the conse-
cration in myth and mystery of the meaning that philosophy puts
rationally. Religion, therefore, undergoes an evolution side by
side with the development of philosophy. Accordingly, pessimism
sees all religions arrayed in two successive groups — the religions
of illusion and the religion of disillusion. The former break up
again in accordance with the "three stages." Paganism is the
religion of the first stage ; Christianity, untainted by rationalism,,
that of the second ; " free religion," " liberal Christianity," the
"positive religion," "ethical culture," the "church of humanity"
— all the manifold experiments at making a "religion" wlujse in-
terest is to be centred in this world alone — constitute that of the
third. Over against all these stands Hartmann's "religion of the
future," whose priests are to celebrate the doctrine, solemnize the
rites, and inspire the devotees of the great Nirwana— the eternal
silence and blank.

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 11

These are the main lines of the theory that engages the adher-
ence of that throng of biases sentimentalists who make u]) the body
of Hartmann's admirers. In contrast with the Germany that re-
sponded to the sober and invigorating views of a Kant, a Fichte,
or a Hegel, these people are a curious and disheartening study.
Apart from the revolt that minds of any real moral vigor must
feel at such results, the want of intellectual fibre betrayed in the
acceptance of this mesh of contradictions is a telling evidence of
decline in theoretical tone among the " cultivated classes." Limp
as this " system " hangs, with its preposterous attempt to construe
the absolute by mere pictorial thinking, by adjustments of com-
ponents set side by side, by a temporal antecedence to the world
of nature, in short, by means of categories strictly mechanical,
flung on the screen of space and time — to say nothing of its bald
ignoring of the chasm between consciousness and the Unconscious,
of its absolute at once unconscious and conscious, of its deduction
of the reality of knowledge from the assumed issuance of duj^li-
cate worlds from the Unconscious, and its then using this realit}'
of knowledge to establish this very issuance — flimsy as all this is,
there seems to be a sufllcient multitude to whom it gives a satis-
faction, and who are even willing to do battle, at least on fleld of
paper and under fire of ink, for the high privilege of a general
annihilation in the distant future. It is true, however, and fortu-
nate for Germany, as indeed for the world, that this class of minds
forms only a portion of the public ; that authority gees by weight
and not by numbers ; and that Germans of the higher and more
thorough order of culture have already discerned the bubble, and
have pricked it without pity. It would be unjust, however, to
take leave of Hartmann and Schopenhauer without emphatically
acknowledging the service they have rendered by their complete
unveiling of the pessimism necessarily inherent in every theory
that makes the absolute impersonal.

When we turn now to DiiHRiNG, we find ourselves suddenly in
the opposite extreme of the emotional climate. Diihring is ma-
terialist, but he is optimist still more. Indeed, it seems not un-
likely that he is optimist before he is materialist, just as Hartmann-
is pessimist first and expounder of the Unconscious afterwards. In
taking him as the representative of materialism, I have purposely

12 The Journal of tipeculative Philosophy.

passed by names far more widely known — those of Moleschott,
Biichner, and Carl Vogt, for instance — both because these are all
men of popular rather than of severe methods, having far less
weight in tlie scientific world than he, and because he is a man of
iar more scope, of really great and thorough attainments, of posi-
tive originality, and of a certain delicacy of intellectual perception
ess^ential to a great thinker. ' Haeckel, who, by his extravagant
ardor in advocating atheistic evolution, his vast knowledge of
biological details, and his high repute among his associates in
science, fills so large a place in the minds of readers as a repre-
sentative of materialism, must also here give way to Diihring, on
the ground of not concerning himself seriously with the philo-
sophic foundations of the theory, but only with such of its phe-
nomenal details as belong more especially to organic existence.

Diihring names his system the Philosophy of the Actual. This
title sounds almost like a direct challenge to Hartmann, as much
as to say, " No mystical subconscious or incognizable Background
here ! " And to have this really so is Diihring's first and last
endeavor. The absolute for him is just this world of sense, taken
literally as we find it : briefly and frankly, matter. As we perceive
and think it, so it is — extended, figured, resistant, moving; a
total of separate units collected into a figured whole and into a
uniformity of processes by mechanical causation : in short, a varia-
ble constant. This conception of an indissoluble polar union be-
tween Permanence and Change is, according to Diihring, the vital
nerve of the Actual, and the key to its entire philosophy.^ But
this polar coherence, he thinks, is only possible by the Actual's
consisting of certain primitive elements, definite in size, figure,
and number, subject to definite laws of combination and change of
combination. The permanent in the Actual is thus (1) Atoms,

' A writer more correctly to be compared with Diiliring is Czolbe, of Konigsberg, author
of a naturalistic theory expounded in his " Limits of Human Knowledge on the Basis ot
the Mechanical Principle," who died in 1873. But his views did not, like Diihring's, de-
velop themselves into a comprehensive philosophy, applied to all the provinces of life.
He belonged, too, rather to the previous generation of thinkers than to this, and was
known there as an opponent of Lotze. The latter I have likewise passed by later on,
in the agnostic-idealist reference, in spite of his acknowledged bearing on the position
•of Lange, mainly for reasons similar to those that led me to disregard Czolbe.

^ In this he undoubtedly presents a one-sided reflection from Hegel, with whom
Identity and Difference are the elementary dynamic "moments" of the absolute Idea.

/6'ome Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 113

(2) Types, or the primitive Kinds of the atoms, the orio;in of species
in nature, and (3) Laws, determining the possible combinations of
the types and the order of succession in these combinations. The
variable, on the other baud, is the series of changing combinations
as they actually occur ; these amount simply to a change in tlie
form of the Actual, in its parts and in its whole. Tbe evolution
of this form moves towards a certain result, which, as necessarily
evolved from the primitive conditions and therefore involved in
them, may be regarded, though only in the sense of a mechanical
destination, as the Final Purpose of the World. The Actual, then,
taken in its entire career and being, presents the form of a self-
completing system of relations. In other words, there is a Logic
of Nature, inherent in the world itself. To' reproduce this logic
in the form of our knowledge is the aim and sum of science ; to
reproduce it not only so, but also in disposition and life, is the
sum of philosophy. Philosophy being thus the aim and the dis-
tilled result of all the sciences, its method and organon must be
identical with theirs. The method is hypothesis, verified by ex-
perimental induction and criticised by thought. The organon is
the imagination checked by the understanding, and the under-
standing checked by dialectic : the former gives us the requisite
hypotheses; the latter tests and settles their rival claims, the dia-
lectic purging it from the illusory contradictions into which it
naturally runs when facing the problems of ultimate reality.
These problems all concern the notion of infinity, either in the
form of the infinitely great or the infinitely small ; and the con-
tradictions, seemingly unavoidable, to which they give rise, are in
truth, says Diihring, mere illusions, springing from the lack of a
First Principle that has genuine reality. These contradictions,
he continues, formed the basis of Kant's boasted dialectic, by
which he is thought to have exposed the illusion hiding in our
very facidties : he would have it that they issue from the inmost
nature of the understanding when it presumes to grapi)le with
things as they are ; but their appearance in the form of his famous
"Antinomies" was in fact owing to his imperfect conception of
the origin of knowledge, and his consequent falsification of nature
into a mere phenomenon. With this assertion, Diihring confronts
Kant's standing challenge, " How can you make out that percep-
tions and thoughts are true of the Real, when from the nature of

14 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the case they must be products of our human organization, and
therefore shut in to the perpetual contemphition of — themselves?"
By searching in the right place, he answers in effect, and finding
that '■^common rooV of sense and understanding of which you
yourself, Kant, have more than rarely spoken, but the investiga-
tion of which you have found it so much easier to evade. Wliat
sort of " criticism of reason" is it that stops with thrusting expe-
rience into the limbo of an abstraction called the a py^iori^ and
never asking what the Prius thus implied must be? Man brings
his perceptive and thinking organization into the world with him,
doubtless ; but from whence ? Whence indeed, if not from the
bosom of Nature ? Let us but once think the Actual as the Ac-
tual — as a continuous whole, unfolding towards its Final Purpose —
with man and his conscious organism veritably in it, and the
reality of knowledge becomes intelligible enough. For con-
sciousness is then no longer an imprinted copy of things, as the
truth-cancelling and unthinkable theory of dualism makes it, but
becomes instead a new setting of them, pushed forth from the
same original stock ; man thus inherits the contents and the logi-
cal system of nature by direct transmission, and consciousness,
while remaining self-converse, becomes self -converse in which the
p>roGess of the world is re-enacted. * And we reach in this way not
only the reality of knowledge, but the ground for the occurrence
of contradictions in it, and the principle of a dialectic that will
solve them. This Natural Dialectic — proceeds Diihring, in his
treatise under that title — moves in the followino; manner: Knowl-
edge, though identical with the Actual in contents, differs from it
in form ; it is, in fact, just the translation of those contents from
the form of object into that of subject— from the form of be-
ing into that of knowing. Now, a leading trait of this subjec-
tivity is its sense of possibility — of the power to use the active
synthesis that works in nature, and that now in mind works as
the secret of its thinking, with an indefinite freedom. In short, it
possesses imagination. As a consequence, it falls under the illu-
sion of the false-infinite (Spinoza's infinitum imaginationis), and
assumes that the principles of its logical synthesis — space, time,
and causation — are as infinite in the object-world as they appear

' This reminiscence of Leibnitz's monadology is extremely noteworthy.

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 15

to be in itself. But to suppose causation, time, and space to be
really infinite would strip the Actual of the quality of an absolute,
and thus annul reality- altogether. For, first, causation cannot in
fact run backwards infinitel}^ but must at some time or other have
absolutely begun / and it must break off its retrograde in logic as
well as in time — must cease in respect to " grounds " as well as in
reference to " causes : " for real causation belongs only to events and
change, not to Being and identity, and hence there must come a
point where the questions What caused it and Why are finally
silenced, else there would be nothing absolute ; whereas the xmde-
rived necessity of Being, and of -its elements and lams, is the first
condition for a rational view of the world. Secondly, real time
cannot be infinite : for real time is nothing but the total duration
of causal changes ; and to suppose this infinite would, reckoning
backwards, make the heginning of causation, just established, close
an infinite duration. Finally, real space is simply the extent of
the sum-total of atoms : but this must be finite, because the num-
ber of atoms is necessarily definite ; for, if it were not, the Actual
of perception, as a series of changes hy definite combination, would
be impossible. Objective space, time, and causation are thus all
finite ; the persuasion that they are infinite, with all the conse-
quent array of counterpart propositions contradicting the fore-
going, is an illusion arising from neglect of the difi'erences between
object and subject. Subjective space, time, and causation have,
to be sure, a quasi infinity ; yet our authentic thought, even about
them, dissolves this illusion and agrees with reality as soon as the
understanding brings its dialectic to bear. Here, then, concludes
Diihring, the whole Kantian fog-bank of Antinomies is explained
and scattered : one series of Kant's pairs of counter-judgments is
entirely true ; the other comes from the false-infinite, and is the
work of the imagination, uncritically mistaken by Kant for the
understanding.

From this point onward, then, the metaphysics of the Actual
may freely proceed. The Actual as absolute— as to its veritable
23eing— is eternal : time and causation apply not to its inmost
existence, but only to its processional changes. Nevertheless, this
differentiation is just as necessarily involved in its nature as is its
abiding identity. The system of changes called the sensible world
must accordingly, at some instant or other, have strictly begun.

16 The Joarnal of Speculative Philosophy,

Thenceforward tlie Actual, poured in its entirety into these
changes, moves in a gradually varjMug, many-branching Figure,
whose elementary components are of constant dimensions and
number, but whose shape is undergoing incessant alteration, giving
rise, from epoch to epoch, to forms of existence constantly new.
The series of element-combinations is not recurrent, and the world-
whole moves not in a circuit, but in a continual advance. This
movement is carried forward by the Logic of Nature; conse-
quently, by the combined action of causation, space, and time,
which are its only ultimate principles. Hence real causation is
the transfer of motion by the impact of extended parts, and the
evolution of the world proceeds by the single principle of me-
chanism. Strictly, then, universal logic is simply a Mechanics of
Nature^ This cosmic principle unfolds itself, primarily, in two
auxiliary ones — the Laio of Difference and the Law of Definite
Number. The logic of the universe, bearing onward in obedience
to these, must of necessity move, however, to a definite result —
the above-mentioned Final Purpose of existence ; that logic must
play the forui inherent in it out to its completion : thus the uni-
verse moves to a self-predestined close^ and is, therefore, under a
third and final law — the Lam of the Whole. These three laws,
now, are the key to all philosophy, theoretical or practical. They
are, for instance, the basis of that Natural Dialectic which is to
purge our logic of its subjective illusions : thus, exactly as the
Law of Sufficient Reason '^ must limit itself, as we just now saw,
by the real and higher Law of Causation, so that the universe-
process may strictly hegin.^ so must the other subjective logical
principle, the Law of Contradiction,^ be construed not to exclude
but to include the Law of Natural Antagonism ; otherwise, the
Mechanics of Nature would be impossible. They teach us, too,
not only to recognize the presence of continuity throughout the
whole of existence, but how to interpret it w^ith precision, and
not to obliterate difierence in our anxiety to establish identity.
The Law of Difierence and the Law of Definite Number provide

' niiluinf^'s earliest book of mark was a "Critical History of the General Principles
of Mechanics," a work crowned with the first prize by the University of GiJttingen, and
held, generally, in the highest esteem. It passed to its second edition in 1877.

■■' That every occurrence must have a reason, and a reason sufficient to explain it.

* That no subject can have contradictory predicates.

Some Aspects of Recent German Philmophy. 17

not only for the movement of nature tlirough the determinate
steps of the inorganic and tlie organic, bnt also for the ascent hij
a specijieally new element from the former to the latter, and, with-
in this, from the plant to the animal, and tinally from the animal
to man, with his rational consciousness. The whole, to be sure,
must be developed through the single principle of mechanism, but
the now favorite doctrine of the " Persistence of Force " violates
the essential principle that specific differences — primitive types
— inhere in the primordial being of the Actual, and is therefore
false. So, too, the Darwinian psendo-law of the " Struggle for
Life," with its unsocial corollary of the supreme riglit of the
strongest, must be rejected, not simply as striking at the root of
ethics, but as violating the Law of the WhoU\ Species can arise
neither by the transfer of a dead identity of force, nor by any
number of "survivals" of what merelv is or has been, but must
come from Kinds in the primitive constitution of the Actual.

At this juncture, however, Diihring feels called upon to recon-
cile the fact of ascending difierences with his principle of mechani-
cal continuity, and to explain, moreover, the original transit from
identity to ditlerence — from the primal repose of the Actual to its
unresting career of causation. But, after manifold attempts, which
all imply the unmechanical hypothesis of a conscious primal pur-
pose in his absolute, he finally takes refuge in the " mechanics of
the future," which, surely, is some day to unravel the mystery.
But, at any rate, he goes on, our three laws lead us securely to
the completing term in the theory of the world, by settling the
supreme question of the character and value of life. This question
he discusses in his work entitled " The Worth of Life." He solves
the problem in the optimist sense, and by means of the principle
of compensation : Existence is unquestionably marred by e^al, by
real evil ; but its dominant tone, its resistless tendency, its net re-
sult, is genuinely good. And this solution does not rest on any
merely subjective accidents of temperament, but directly on the
objective principles of existence itself. It is found, in short, in the
Law of Ditference and the Law of the Whole, and in the essential
necessity — the inevitableness — of the being of the Actual. Existence
must be judged, not by the morbid cravings of sentimentalism,
fed on fantasy, but by sound sentiment, which is founded on clear
understanding : when we once see distinctly into the nature of

xyii--2

18 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the world, and adjust our tone and conduct to that, we shall find a
sufficient comfort in life; there is a bracing satisfaction in the dis-
criminating insight into that which must he. Existence has, too,
a oharm — and in itself ; and the seci-et of it lies in that very
variety, or difierence, which constitutes the principle of its move-
ment. Moreover, life mounts in differentiation, and the increased
objective good of the higher levels of consciousness outweighs the
increase of subjective susceptibility to pain. Still further, con-
trast not only heightens pleasure, but is the source of it : the sense
of resistance overcome is the very root of joy ; evil is the necessary
foil for the reaction essential to life. Still profounder elements of
good are contributed by the Law of the Whole : not only does the
ascent of life to higher and higher levels point clearly to the greater
fulness of existence as part of the Final Purpose, and so give play
to the " influence of the ideal " in the encouraging prospect of the
future, but our inseparable union with the Whole, our direct de-
scent from nature, and our reproduction of its life in ours, imparts
to us a certain Cosmic Impulse (Diihring calls it der xmiverselle
Affect), which, pressing upon the foundations of our being, fills us
with a dumb sense of the oneness of nature, and binds us bv forces
coming from beneath consciousness, nay, from the beginnings of
the world, to the totality of existence with an attachment that no
sum of ills can utterly destroy. It is from this " Cosmic Impulse "
that the inborn love of life and the instinct of self-preservation
arise. Our delight in the landscape comes from it; likewise our
delight in art, our capacity for poetry, our bent to science and
philosophy, with which we would figure to ourselves the form of
this treasured All. It is, finally, the source and the reality of the
set of feelings consecrated by the name of religion. To deny the
worth of life is, therefore, to put ourselves in conflict with the ele-
mental forces of our being, which will subdue us in spite of our
struggles.

Nevertheless, Duhring continues, though life is essentially good,
there is real evil in it, and one condition of its good is that we
shall rise to higher good by the spring from overcoming the evil :
the world makes itself better through us as channels. In this fact
we pass from theory to practice, finding in it the basis of ethics.
The first principle of ethics follows from the conception that con-
tributes so much to the excellence of the Actual— the Law of the

Some Asjpects of Recent German PhUosophij. 19

Whole, The hig-hest practical precept is, Act iv'ith supre^ne refer-
ence to the Whole. But inasmuch as we are members not only of
the absolute VVliole, but of the lesser whole called society, we can
only act in and throuj^h that ; accordingly, first in the order of
practical theories comes now Diihring's sociology. His writings
in this field are voluminous, especially in political economy, in
which he adopts and develops the views of our countryman Carey.
Carey, he thinks, has revolutionized this subject. The doctrines
involved in the free-trade view, especially the principle of unre-
stricted competition, he considers- a deification of mean self-inter-
est. They strike at the foundation of rational ethics — the supreme
moral authority of the Whole. Away with t-hera, then, and sub-
stitute instead those of benignant co-operation. This sentiment is
now carried out in a corresponding philosophy of politics, in
which Diihring develops an extreme socialism. That the afore-
said Whole, however, is conceived in the sense of a dominant
atomism, very presently appears : the " Whole " aimed at is simply
a greater force to give effect to the caprices of that order of " en-
lightened individual " who so ignores the mighty Whole of history
as to see in the organic institutions of reason — the family, the
state, the church — nothing but barriers to the career of human-
ity. The end of government, Diihring holds, is " to enhance the
charm of life;" and here, unfortunately, in settling the practical
test of enhancement, he is betrayed into destroying the profound
principle on which he rested his case for the worth of life — that
we must be guided by objective values, and ignore the outcries of
subjective caprice. It appears to him that, down to date, there has
been no considerable political or social wisdom in the world. So-
cial organization, as well as political, ought now to undergo a
complete re-creation, and all in the interest of giving the greatest
possible range for each individual to act according to his views of
what regard for the Whole requires. Thu^, all governments armed
with force are to be done away. In their stead is to come volun-
tary association. Democratic Communes are everywhere to re-
place organic States. There is to be no centralization — no one
great Commune, but numbers of little ones, to suit the convenience
of individual preference. There is to be universal " equality," and
women — a redeeming stroke of justice — are to share in all the vo-
cations, offices, emoluments (and the few burdens) of society

20 The Journal of Sj)eculative Philosophy.

equally with luen. Instead of compulsory wedlock, there is to>
come voluntary union from love, the bond to cease when the pas-
sion ceases. We are now at a long remove from that hostilit^^ to
self-interest that erewhile would prohibit unrestricted competition,
and revolted at the seltishness of free trade. Education is to be
reorganized in behalf of these conceptions, which are further sup-
ported by an appropriate philosophy of history. History is simply
a continuation of the drama of nature ; it tends to life, the varia-
tion of life, and the enhancement of its charm. The test of historic
progress is the heightening of self-consciousness ; but this Diihring
takes to mean the greater and greater accentuation of the indi-
vidual's sense of his validity just as he stands at each instant.
The career of history has, accordingly, three periods — that of the
ancien regime., that of the transitional present, and that of the
free and exhilarating future. This future, however, is to be con-
ducted by tolerably dry logic : much sentiment and refinement are
" aristocratic." A suitable philosophy of religion closes the gen-
eral view: religioi; is really nothing but the "Cosmic Impulse;"
historic religions are only superstitious misconceptions of this pro-
found pulse of the universe ; they are all to disappear, as essen-
tially worthless pseudo-philosophies. The " society of the future"
will neither worship ftor sublimely hope. The Philosophy of the
Actual has dispensed with God, and likewise with immortality.
For, to say nothing of the predestined catastrophe of the universe,
the individual consciousness ceases at death. There is no common
basis of consciousness, each person is a perfectly self-enclosed cir-
cuit ; nor is there any individual basis of it, except the body. An
individual consciousness is merely a definite " situation " — one
specific combination — of the world-atoms ; death is its dissolution,
and is therefore final oblivion.

The system that opened with such a keen vigor of theoretic
purpose, and which exhibits, as contrasted with Hartmann's, so
many points of a higher, firmer-knit, and subtler intelligence, has-
ended in a moral atomism as it began in a physical — in utter so-
cial dissolution. It is, however, only paying the penalty of inade-
quacy in its theoretical principle. Its root of irrationality is iden-
tical with that of Hartmann's theory — the undertaking to construe
the absolute with the categories of the relative, to think the eter-
nal in relations of time and motion. It is a merit in Diihring; that

Some Aspects of Recent German Ph'dosophii. 21

lie himself lays down with great force the principle here implied ;
"but his conception of the absolute forces him fatally to contradict
it. He will have the chain of causation once on a time legin ;
but a beginning is necessarily a point in time, and a point in time
is necessarily related to a before as well as to an after. Diihring
-consequently finds it impossible even to state his beginning of
change without referring it to a supposed rest preceding it; iji no
other way can he make room for a continuous mechanical nexus
in the whole of his Actual. The Actual is thus necessarily brought
wholly under time; time and causation are carried back, whether
or no, into "Being and identity," and Diihring is asserting in one
breath that the absolute is not subject to relative categories, and
jet is so. After his scruples about time and causation, it is re-
markable that he manifests no hesitancy in applying sjmce to his
.absolute ; he proves real space to be finite, and thus annuls his abso-
lute as before : for so, his total Actual has a limited extent ; an ex-
ient, however, like a beginning, must be defined by something
•other than itself — it is unthinkable, except in contrast to a heyond ;
thus the absolute, as really extended, is undeniably relative. The
2;ro mid-scheme of Diihring's system is hence a self-contradiction ;
that is, it is essentially irrational. The insufficiency of his princi-
ple exposes itself still further when he comes to discuss the origin
of consciousness and the reach of knowledge. He makes a fatal
misstep when he seeks the "common root" of sense and under-
standing in a time-and-space prms, ignoring the fact that he has
giv^en no answer but bald denial to the Kantian doctrine of the
ideality of space and time, and that, until the supports of this doc-
trine are removed, there can be no use of these elements to locate
a root of consciousness : to search for the pr ins of something, in a
region still presumably the creation of that something, is an in-
dustry not likely to be largely rewarded. Diihring's entire Dia-
lectic, like his supposed refutation of the Kantian Antinomies,
rests on the assumption, which he does not argue, that there is a
space, a time, and a causal progression, distinct from the thoughts
to which we give those names, an assumption which he may luave
hoped to warrant by establishing afterwards a mechanical transit
from mere vitality to consciousness; from any serious attempt at
the latter, however, his clear insight into the limitation of the Per-
csistence of Force prevented him from making. But it is in the

22 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

practical sphere that the self-contradiction in his principle shows
at its worst. This principle compels him at the outset of his ethics-
to setup the supreme authority of the Whole; but its lack of
ethical substance brings him at the end to bare individualism. At
first we feel as if he had failed to draw from it the high conse-
quences of which it seemed capable. Why, we say, should he sink
from the stern ethics of devotion to the Whole into this wretched
atomism of private caprice ? But we have here the genuine drift of
the system ; for real morality is impossible on a pessimist basis^
and Diihring's principle, in spite of his subtle and imaginative plea
for it, is optimist only by illusion. The very "Whole" that is
the ground and tlie sovereign object of our duty is in truth but a
monstrous Power, whose self-centred "Purpose" is the burial of
moral life, while yet only on its threshold, in a hopeless oblivion.
The yearnings of her ofispring, imparted to them by her " Cosmic
Impulse," Nature does not share; she brings them forth, "to
laugh and weep, to suffer and rejoice," for a season, then to pass
to the Abyss, whereto she also, with her latest and highest, too
surely is speeding. Life under such conditions is essentially
worthless, let it be painted in what sounding terms it may. The
resistless beat of such a theory is either to despair, as in the case
of the frank pessimism of a Hartmann, or else to illusions of re-
constructing the future in behalf of capricious desire. We cannot
hope for the abiding ; let us then turn to the satisfactions of the
hour ! In short, the professed hedonism of Diihring's theory is at
bottom pure egoisui. Covering the horror in the depths of life
with a thin optimistic gloze, Actualism can have no final precept
but the exhortation to cultivate the Whole so far, and only so far,
as it may be means to the greatest sum of individual enjoyment :
" therefore, whatsoever thy hand lindeth to do, do that with thy
might ; for there is neither wisdom nor device nor knowledge in
the grave — and thither thou goest."

In passing now to La.nge, it is not surprising to find him
strongly actuated by the desire to lay a better foundation for eth-
ics than materialism and pseudo-idealism have proved able to
build. His " History of Materialism" is not properly a history,
but a philosophy buttressed by history, in which, by exhibiting
materialism in the utmost possibilities that ages of restatement

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosopin/. 23

have been able to give it, he aims to expose its deficiencies ex-
haustively, and to assign the true weight which its principle and
that ot idealism should respectively have in a rational theory. Tlie
book has made a wide and deep impression on the younger men
at the German universities, and it is perhaps not beyond the facts
to say that his is at present the most decided infiuonee at work
among people of severe and technical training.

There must be sought, begins Lange, some higher 8t:ind-i)uint
than either materialism or current idealism affords; and this, he
is convinced, is to be found in the doctrine of Kant, provided it be
held to with rigid consistency. In his own words : " As a beaten
army looks about for some strong position on wliicli it may hope
to rally, so now, for some time, has been heard on all sides the sig-
nal, Fall lack on Kant! Still, not till recently has this retreat
been really in earnest, and now it is found that his stand-point
could never in strict justice be described as surmounted. To be
sure, misconceptions of his meaning and the ])ressure of the im-
pulse to metaphysical invention did for a while tempt his succes-
sors to endeavor the rupture of tlie strict limits he had drawn to
speculation. But the sobering that has followed this metaphysical
intoxication has compelled a return to the abandoned position;
and all the more, that men see themselves again confronted by
the materialism that once, on Kant's appearance, had fled and
hardly left a trace." He is deeply sensible of the deficiencies of
materialism, but, at the same time, appreciates the truth of a cer-
tain phase in it as against the pretences of what he takes for ideal-
ism. He says : " Materialism lacks for rapports witii the highest
functions of man's intelligence. Contenting itself with the mere
actual, it is, aside from the question of its theoretic inadmis>il>il-
ity, sterile for art and science, indifferent, or else inclined to egoism,
in the relations of man to man." And yet, on the other hand :
" The whole principle of modern philosophy, outside of our Ger-
man 'spell' of romancing loith notions^ involves, with scarce an
exception worth naming, a strictly natural-scientific treatment of
everything given us by sense. . . . Every falsification of fact is
an assault upon the foundations of our intellectual life. As against
metaphysical poetizing, then, that arrogates the power to pene-
trate to the essence of nature, and determine from mere concep-
tions that which experience alone can teach us, materialism as a

24 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

counterpoise is a real benefaction." But, on tlie further contrary,
idealism met a certain want that mere empiricism cannot supply.
" The endeavor," he adds, " is almost as universal to overcome
the one-sidedness of the world-image arising from mere fact. . . .
Man needs a supplementing of this by an ideal world created by
himself, and in such free creations the highest and noblest func-
tions of his mind unite."

In these words Lange's general position already reveals itself.
If Hartmann calls his view the Philosophy of the Uneonsdous,
and Diihring his the Philosophy of the Actual, Lange's might
similarly be named the Philosophy of the Ideal. He prefers,
however, to speak of the Ideal, not as a philosophy, but only as a
stand-point, because he wishes to include in philosophy not only
the means for satisfying the craving after ideality, but that for
closing with the demand for certainty. The aim of philosophy,
he holds, is not a doctrine, but a method ; and it is itself, when
precisely defined, simply the critical determination of the limits
cf the main tendencies in our faculty of consciousness. These
tendencies are two — the investigation of phenomena, and specula-
tion upon assumed realities beyond them. Philosophy has thus
two functions: the one negative., resulting in the critical dissolu-
tion of all the synthetical principles of cognition, and the strip-
ping them of all assumed competence to the absolute, leaving their
outcome purely phenomenal ; the other p)ositive., affirming the
right and the uses of the free exercise of the speculative bent,
when taken no longer as knowledge, but only as poesy.

The supports of this " Stand-point of the Ideal" are sought in a
critique of the " Critique of Pure Reason," or a sort of " JSTew
Critique of Reason," whose ambition is, to bring what Lange takes
as the first principle of Kant's inquiries now for the first time to
a rigorous completion. This principle (with, unfortunately, too
much support from Kant's own declarations in the course of the
discussion over his work) is assumed to be the absolute restriction
of our knowledge to experience: we have a J9/'^c»^'^ " forms " of
cognition, but they become futile when applied beyond phenom-
ena. That Kant himself regarded this as only the principle of
his theoretical view is, to be sure, unquestionable ; but his setting
up the practical reason as in itself absolute was, Lange maintains,
a direct violation of it, and, in fact, was rendered impossible by it.

Some Aspects of Recent German Pkilosophy. 25

Will, like cognition, is for us o\\\y phenomenon ; we cannot, then,
aver with Kant that we must he free, but only that we must think
ourselves free. In this, thouo-h, there is an end to Kant's trround-
mg ot ethics, and we must seek to construct a complete system by
the consistent carrying out of the only certainty with which we
can begin. We must return to the problem of the source and
limits of cognition, where, fortunately, we can assume an a priori
organization as having been established by Kant. The elements,
too, that Kant assigned to this organization — space, time, cause,
and the rest — all belong there; but Kant's attempt to settle a
priori the exact possible number of such " forms" was necessarily
futile : there is no way to determine what the contents of our
a priori endowment are except induction. ' And the gradual
progress of the natural sciences, particularly the modern ph3'siol-
ogy of the senses (in which the primary sensations — light, color,
heat, sound, taste, odor, etc. — have all been reduced to modes of
motion), points clearly to the probable omission of an essential
*' form " from Kant's list : motion should take its place among
the a jpriori " forms" of sense. Indeed, one great aim of our re-
construction of the " Critique of Reason " should be to bring its
doctrine into thorough accord with the results of the latest natural
science. This we shall do by insisting, first, on strict observance
of the limits it assigned to knowledge, and, secondly, on defining
these more exactly, in accordance with the mechanical nature of
sensation. In fact, we here arrive at the true import and value of
materialism : for that the Actual of experience is explicable on
mechanical principles alone, is the clear outcome of the latest sci-
ence, with which it only remains to set our theory of knowledge
into agreement in order at one stroke to give materialism its due,
and yet its quietus as a scheme of the absolute. The Actual of
experience, extended, moving, interacting in all its parts, and
transmitting energy from one part to another under the universal
law of the Persistence of Force, is from beginning to end our
mere representation ( Vorstellung) : the derivation of mind from
actual matter is therefore impossible, as it would involve the ab-
surdity of the object's producing the subject whose testimony is
the sole evidence that there is any object ; and as for a hypotheti-
cal matter — a conjectural substrate beneath the actual — that is
shut out of the question by the nature of the limits of possible

26 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

knowledge. For, once we are certain that our objects are strictly
ours — are but the framing of our sensations in onr a priori
" forms " — we are thenceforth confronted with the limiting notion
called the Thing-in-itself. The doubt, thenceforward ineradicable,
of our power to pass this limit turns into certainty of our impo-
tence to do so, when we Und, as Kant shows us, that the attempt
must cast our reason into systematic contradictions. Our knowl-
edge, then, is confined strictly to the Held of phenomena — to know-
ing, not what is, but only what exists relatively to us — and within
this iield it is further restricted to the tracing of mechanical causa-
tion ; for, again by Kant's showing, its highest category is action
and reaction, and all the terms of its synthesis must be extended
objects of sense: hence Du Bois-Reymond's "Limits of Knowl-
edge in Natural Science " become the limits of all knowledge
whatever. While, then, our philosopiiy thus falls into step with
natural science, it vindicates to materialism the entire province of
nature, but excludes it forever from explaining mind.

But the relativity of our knowledge, continues Lange, with es-
pecial emphasis, reaches wider than Kant suspected, and its con-
tradictions are profounder. The limiting Thing-in-itself Kant
assumed as a reality ; or, at all events, he declined to doubt its
existence ; but, to carry the a priori principle to its proper con-
clusion, we must now recognize the phenomenal nature of this
notion itself. Our all-encompassing distinction between thing and
representation, between noumenon and phenomenon, is itself a
judgment a priori ; in fact, an illusion of that order. It arises
from our constitutional tendency to put the positive pole of the
category of relation — substance, cause, agent — as if it were some-
thing culditional to the system of experience, instead of merely a
term within it. It is thus itself a contradiction, one not simply
functional, but organic, and provokes to endless other contradic-
tions. It is an illusion ; but one which, though we recognize, we
can never dispel, any more than that of the moon's enlargement on
the horizon, of the bending of the stick when thrust into the water,
or of the apparition of the rainbow. But, like these, it will mis-
lead only him who persists in the stolidity of the peasant ; and as
these, when comprehended, not only do not disturb our science, but
continue (and in heightened measure) to quicken the pleasure of
existence by their variety or their beauty, so will this ground-

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 2T

dissonance of our nature, with its whole array of derivative dis-
cords, serve, when once mastered, to enrich the monotone of life
and raise it to orchestral fulness and harmony. The metaphysi-
cal passion, born of this illusion, is indeed worthless for knowl-
edge^ but it is precious for life. In its immature stao;es, it burns
to transcend the limits of experience, in the vain hope of bringino-
back knowledge of that mysterious Beyond ; and so long as it has
continued in this delusion, it has been the bane of the world. But
when once freed from it, it will become, with religion and poetry,
the benign solvent of all the ills of living. It springs from the
same fountain as they, and is, indeed, its strongest and most pre-
cious jet ; for it is the work of imagination, its highest and noblest
function ; and imagination comes from the illusion of the noume-
non, and without it would not exist. While, tlien, for knowledge
we must hold fast by the actual, for all the inspiration of life we
must take refuge in the Ideal. Phenomenal and noumenal, the
actual and the Ideal, together, and only together, make up the
total of experience — of our vital Whole. In not less than this-
Whole are we to live, —

'* Im Ganzen, Guten, Treuen resolut zu leben," —

and the Good and the True are to be sought for in the Ideal ; in the-
Ideal, not only as vaguely rendered in the visions of poetry or the
solemnities of religion, but far more as framed into organic epics
of the mind, and turned with the force of systems upon action, by
metaphysical invention. Nor let it be supposed that our knowl-
edge of the purely poetic character of speculation will paralyze its
power over conduct ; though void of literal truth, its ethical truth
is real ; the conduct that it means is absolutelj' right, " A noble
man," to borrow Lange's own words, "is not the least disturbed
in his zeal for his ideals, though he be and must be told, and tells
himself, that his ideal world, witii all its settings of a God, im-
mortal hopes and eternal truths, is a mere imagination and no
reality : these are all 7'eal hecause they are psychical images ; they
exist in the soid of man, and woe to him who casts doubt upon
their power !"

Having thus cleared up the " Stand-point of the Ideal," Lange
then turns to the view it affords of practical philosophy. He
touches first the question of the worth of life, where his settlement

28 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

is this : Neither pessimism nor optimism is an absolute truth ; the
problem of evil, if we push for its radical solution, belongs to the
transcendent world, of which we can know nothing. Applied,
however, to the world of experience, the doctrine of the Ideal
gives an optimist or pessimist result according as we consider life
in its whole, with the Ideal in it, or only in its part — the part of
actual, stubborn fact. The fact, in itself, must always seem had ;
but it must be remembered that this very badness is the shock of
contrast with the ever-present Ideal ; and the optimist solution
has, after all, to come from moral energy : play into fact with aspi-
ration after the Ideal and enthusiasm for it, with the firm resolve
to transform fact into a semblance of its pattern, and the reward
will come in a gentler tolerance of defect and a calmer content-
ment : "the freer our career in the metaphysical region, the more
is our world-image pervaded by sentiment, and the more optimis-
tic ; but the more ethical, also, is its reaction on our doings and
bent. We are not only to reconstruct the actual after the Ideal,
but to console ourselves for the perception of what actually is by
contemplating what ought to be and might be." The transition
hence to ethics is natural, where the highest maxim is : Serve the
Whole. But the Whole here intended is the entire complex of
experience, with the active Ideal in it. " Work upon fact with
recognition of its stubborn reality, but in the light of the Ideal," is
what the maxim means. We cannot Tcnow that we are free or
immortal, hut we cannot help assuming we are the one, and hop-
ing we may be the other; and, on the other hand, we do know
that in our relation with mechanical nature, in whose domain,
after all, the larger part of our action lies, we are not free ; that
time is exceeding short, and enjoyment is hope deferred. The
lesson of life is chiefly fortitude and resignation. Lange, how-
ever, has no personal drawings towards egoistic ethics, nor to hedo-
nism, even in its most universal form. He announces himself
here as the continuator of Kant : he desires to act, and have men
act, from duty solely; to seek the Ideal, and serve it at all per-
sonal hazard, thougli with due regard to the imperfections of men
and the ol)stinacy of fact. His sociology follows the lines we
should now expect : his doctrine of the Whole lead's him to a
pronounced socialism, but he would have this socialism a real one,
in which organized society is to correct the aberrations of the in-

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosaphij. 2J>

dividual with vicror; he sees, too, like Diihrin^, the import of po-
litical economy in a comprehensive practical philosophy, and some
of his earlier writings were devoted to vigorous discussions in it.
Free trade and Laissez-faire can find no place, of course, in the
practical theory of the moralist of theAYhole. Spontaneous "har-
mony of private interests," and the talk of the Cobden school gen-
erally, is to him mere vagary, springing from a fatuous social
optimism. In many essentials, however, he affiliates with Mill,
while he derides Carey ; whereby he fell into many an acrimoni-
ous dispute with Diihring, for the vitriol of whose sarcasm, too,
he had but little relish. On the religious question, Lange aims at
a purely ethical position : one religion is to him as good as an-
other, provided it does the work of consecrating the Ideal and
giving it practical influence with men. As for " rationalizing"
religion, let it be done, if it must be done, in the interest of
culture and taste, but beware of dreaming that in this way you
are getting at truth ! The Christian religion, for instance, we
may retain in spirit, but in letter, No. Its entire ecclesiastical
Symbol, in fact, whether cultus or creed, may freely stand as long
as it c,3i\\, provided it he xinder stood to mean nothing hit a mode^
strictly symbolic, of enshrining the Ideal in general.

It is impossible not to recognize the seeming higher tone, both
intellectual and moral, of Lange's general view as contrasted \vith
that of either Hartm an n or Diihring. The substitution of forti-
tude for despair on the one hand and for enjoyment on the other,
unquestionably betokens a sounder moral feeling, while the stand-
point of critical agnosticism is at least in so far more intellectual
that it must be radically removed before any doctrinal procedure
can be validly begun. The adroit preservation, too, of the play of
the Ideal in the phenomenal whole is evidence of keen suscepti-
bility to imagination, and to its necessity and value in the conduct
of life. In this respect, Lange reminds us of Mill, though having
far greater fervor of fancy, as the latter appears in his " Three Es-
says on Religion." Like Mill, too, he will prove in the end to
have been a man of feeling rather than of intellect, determined in
his judgments by the wants of his heart even more than by the
lights o1' his head. We cannot long conceal it from ourselves,
that his belief in the ethical energy of the Ideal is without founda-
tion in his theoretic view ; that to talk of d^ity based on what we

30 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Jcnoio to be pure iiction of the fantasy is a hollow mockerv ; that
the sole excuse that agnosticism can put forward for acting under
the Ideal is the anodyne this offers for the otherwise insupport-
able pain of existence : nor are there wanting clear indications that
Lange forebodes the spectral nature of even this excuse — that he
'divines the foregone failure of a remedy applied in defiance of our
knowledge that its essence is illusion. Yaihinger, himself a posi-
tively /(3y agnosticj says truly enough : ' " There breathes through
this view of Lange's a strain of tragic resignation. ... A lofty
moral pathos speaks out in all that Lange teaches, and in his man-
ner of teaching it." Like Carlyle, when gazing upwards at the
silent stars rolling through the solemn and trackless night, and see-
ing there the image and type of all existence, he can only ejacu-
late : " Ech, it's a sad sight, and we maun e'en mak' the best o't ! "
For him, life has reduced itself to the phenomenon of a [)henome-
non, to contradictious born of one fundamental contradiction, and
that an illusion we can never dispel. The professed " critique of
reason " has ended in representing reason as essentially irrational
— the self-harmonious turns out to be a thoroughgoing discord,
our "organization" is disorganization. Nor can all the seeming
glow of the " Ideal " blind us to the outreaching of this contradic-
tion into Lange's doctrine of action. The Ideal is put forward as an
end in itself; but it is in reality only viewed, and by the agnostic
can only be viewed, as a means to the suppression of disgust with
life. Thus Lange proclaims duty, but his principle is actually
pleasure; he denounces egoism, but cannot surmount hedonism ;
he declares for the autonomy of the will, but his doctrine forces a
strict heteronomy. He stands professedly for a stern socialism,
the sovereignty of the Whole as the organization of the Ideal ; but
in his theory there lurks the uttermost atomism : so many indi-
vidual fantasies, so many systems of the Ideal ; and, for each, the
sacred "duty " of meeting the antagonism of the countless other il-
lusions with becoming fortitude and resignation. And, truly, so
long as existence is thus shut in to mere appearance, its ghostli-
ness cannot but betray itself in all its movements. If, with Hart-

' Dr. Hans Vaihinger : " Hartmann, Diihring, und Lange : ein kritischer Essay." Iser-
lohn, 1876. A book full of interest and of acute criticism, though marred by diflfuse-
ness and extravagance. I have found it a valuable aid.

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 31

mann, the universe becomes a colossal and shadowy Blind Tom,
endowed with a clairvoyance whose infallible "intelligence" dis-
plays itself in striking through aeons with fatal precision at its own
existence; and, with Diihring, a gigantic Automaton Ches.s-Player,
matched against itself, and moving with balanced " charm " to
the checkmating of its own game: with Lange, it fades into a
phantom Panorama, in front of which sits Man, a forlorn imbecile
maundering over a Perhaps behind it, and shaking the flimsy rat-
tle of the " Ideal " in the fatuous persuasion that he is stilling the
irrepressible sob in his heart. Let it do its best, agnostic jihiloso-
phy cannot make of life anything but essential delirium— with the
shapes of its phantasmagory distinct enough, to be sure, and with
an all too fatal persistency in the recurrence of its wanderings —
but delirium still. In the wan light of " critical " thinking,

" We are sucli stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

It is, however, no proper refutation of a theory to show its evil
practical results. It is a just retort for all such reproaches, to say :
*' Yes, our fate is heavT and our j^rospects are desperate ; but what
does that do towards disproving the fact ? " It is true enougli that
Lange's ethical structure breaks down, and that the gap between
it and his theory is a discredit to his intellect, but his " critical "
view is not to be displaced except by strictly tlieoretical means :
his procedure must be forced to expose contradictions, or else both
that and its results must be accepted. Should it, however, prove
to be self-contradictory, it will annul itself and its presupposed
principle. And such a contradiction it plainly involves. Its prin-
ciple is that the a priori nature of our cognition prohibits us from
assuming that we can know by means of it things as the}- are.
This is but another way of saying that we are forbidden to as-
sume that it is anything more than a peculiarity of man ; it is an
endowment of humanity, and whether its "forms" are those
of possible other intelligences, or of intelligence universally,
we can never know ; and for the reason that we are shut in
by the " limiting notion " of the Thing-in-itself. This principle,
now, Lange will carry out with unflinching comprehensiveness:
it must be extended to include even the fundamental distinction

32 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

between our phenomenal world of experience and the nouraenal
Thing.

This aim of Lange's comes from a genuine systemic insight ; not
only is it true in the general that a principle, to be such, must
work in its sphere with unlimited universality, but in this particu-
lar case the omission of the contrast between consciousness and
things from the compass of phenomenalism would be fatal to the
claims of the latter as a principle. If the notion of Thing-in-itself
be more than phenomenal, then there is a Thing-in-itself, and in
cognizing the contrast in question, in putting the judgment There
are Things-iii-themselves, we put a judgment of absolute validity^
and see by the light of intelligence as such — with the eye of all
possible intelligences : which would force upon the agnostic the
further perilous question, By which of our merely subjective cate-
gories, then, do we manage this astonishing achievement? The
admission of this one noumenal judgment would open the entire
agnostic mechanism of the a jprioi'i to the inroad of the absolute.
In some way, then, it must be reduced to a mere conjecture: it
will not do to dissipate it wholly, for then, not only would another
absolute judgment arise in its place, namely, There are no Things-
in-themsel'ves, but the validity of this would put an end to phe-
nomenalism forever : if there is no Thing-in-itself, then our cogni-
tion, call it by the name of " subjective" as long as we may, is the
cognition of all that is — the objects that we represent to ourselves
in our normal and in our potential activity are the only objects,
and human intelligence has a universal quality, knowing its ob-
jects as all intelligences must know them.

"With the instinct of self-preservation, then, Lange draws the
mentioned distinction back within the sphere of consciousness;
this, too, he will have us refrain from using as if applicable to the
absolute ; we must treat this also as phenomenal, aiid hence we
cannot be sure that there is, or is not, a Thing-in-itself. But we
now cannot silence the apprehension that there may be one.
Hence, the distinction remains, and Thing-in-itself becomes a lim-
iting notion — the antithetic formula of Me and Not-me becomes
an all-encompassing category (in fact, our fundamental a priori
principle) tl.\at necessarily causes all our cognition to seem merely
subjective, whether it be so in reality or not, and thus compels us
to limit our certainty to phenomena. Its agnostic force is, there-

Some Aspects of Uecent German Philosophy. 33

fore, rather increased than diminished ; we liave now not a sino-le
cognition remaining that can pretend to belong to intelligence as
such.

It cannot now longer be concealed, however, that, in setting oat
upon this path, Lange was moving to a goal that he little sus-
pected and still less desired. He has decided that, to validate the
phenomenal limitation of knowledge, he must make Thing-in-
itself a "form" «^noW. Bat he must be in earnest with this
apriority, and a "form" a priori means a principle from and in
consciousness organically and solely. To say that a notion is a pri-
ori is to say that the thought of it exliausts its existence, possibili-
ties, and essence altogether ; the entire being of it is in a native
energy of consciousness, and this elemental discharge from con-
sciousness is the whole meaning of the corresponding name; thus,
for instance, the pure thoughts corresponding to the words space.,
time., cause., are exactly and utterly what space, time, and cause
respectively are. Anything short of this view would render apri-
ority null ; for, if there were anything wholly extra Tnentem to
which they, even possibly, corresponded, we could then never be
certain that they originated in consciousness at all — we siiould re-
main in a quandary as to whether they did or did not — yet from
consciousness they must originate in order to give them that abso-
lute universality and necessity of application to their objects with
which we incontestably think them : as a genuine Kantian, Lange
must assent to this; and not simply assent, but proceed from it
wholly and thoroughly. To make Thing-in-itself a "form " a pri-
ori is, therefore, to exclude its existence in any other sense. But
this annuls the desired conjecture of its possible absolute exist-
ence ; we have committed ourselves irretrievably, then, to the
judgment. There are no Thing s-in-themselves ; and therewith, as
shown already, an act of absolute cognition enters, and phenome-
nalism falls to the ground. The "critical" procedure has an-
nulled its own principle.

Lange is, however, equal to the emergency ; he has that dogged
and indomitable couras-e which cannot realize its own defeat. The
rally on a new point explains his doctrine that this ground-form
of consciousness, as he considers it — this contrast between con-
sciousness and Thing-in-itself— is an organic contradiction. He
would evade the force of the above conclusion by showing that
XVII— 3

34; The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Thing-in-itself is not the real contents of that a priori notion
which forms the " limiting term " in the relation in question. On
the contrary, that term is an hypostasis — an imaginary " embodi-
ment," a putting as beyond, independent of, or pins consciousness
— of its own system of internal categories appertaining to phe-
nomenal objects ; in short, a putting of the notions of substance,
cause, and interagent, as if they transcended conscious experience,
and existed apart from it as its object and ground. The a priori
category of substance and accident (subject and predicate), which
properly only connects one composite phenomenon (called the
"subje-jt" of a judgment) with anotiier phenomenon so as to com-
pose a new and fuller unity, lends its term substance for this pur-
pose ; the category of cause and effect, which properly connects
one phenomenon with another so as to condition and determine
the latter's occurrence, lends similarly its term cause j and, in like
manner, the category of agent and reagent, which properly con-
nects phenomena into a system of mutual attraction and repulsion,
lends its term agent. Thus, this triune hypostasis is, by some a
jpriori impulse, which Lange does not attempt to explain^ projected
beyond the limits of remaining consciousness, and is thought as
one term of the so-called noumenal relation, while consciousness as
a whole constitutes the complemental term — its " organization " (as
Lange calls it) being viewed as reagent^ and its sum of phenomena
as ef'ect and predicate. By this spontaneous contradiction of the
proper nature of its categorit-al system, our consciousness, con-
founding its own organic notions with the hypostatic notion of a
Tliing-in-itself, sets a bound to its own certainty by an illusion
which, as a priori., it can never dispel.

The justness of this analysis, so far as it goes, is self-evident:
we have doubtless here the correct partial genealogy of the re-
markable notion Thing-in-itself, and the exact genesis of all "criti-
cal " agno-ticism. There is wanting in it, however, the all-impor-
tant fact that it is the co-agency of the otiier a p)riori elements,
space and time, with those actually mentioned, that imparts to
this notion its specific character and chief plausibility. The infin-
ity of thase two elements, in contrast with the necessary tinitude
of all sensuous representations and of the total of sensible experi-
ence, together with our natural tendency to ignore those other ele-
ments in consciousness — the strictly supersensible — and to take

Some Aspects of Becent German Philosophtj. 35

our ease in the more familiar region wliere time and space render
all things plain, makes the inadvertence of supposing an ^^ alun-
dant room'''' for "existence wholly out of consciousness" and, as
we say, "independent" of it, an easy matter; an inadvertence
stimulated by the incessant activity of the other categoric?, but
engendered by a deeper principle, wh'icli Lange's omission to in-
vestigate is the vital defect of his analysis, leaving it a quite inade-
quate account of the nature and function of the notion Noumenon ;
of which, further presently. We thus think the Thing-in-itself as
extended or at least as enduring, even when we view it as the soul
or as God, and this is the source of all that mechanical psychology
and viciously anthropoiuorphic theology which has been, and is
now, the bane of religion, and the constant cause of scepticism
and indifference. With the addition now made, we have the
correct account of that travesty of the Noumenon which we call
Thing-in-itself, and may now attend to the real meaning of Lange's
result.

And this is striking enough. For he has, in fact, unwittingly
completed the demonstration of the absolute quality of human
knowledge ; and, at the same time, that of the necessary falsehood
of materialism — not simply the permanent impossibility of prov-
ing it (which, as we saw, he had already done from his agnostic
standpoint), but its alsolute impossihility ; for he has removed
the basis for even its hypothesis. He has shown now (1) that the
Tliing-in-itself dops not exist; (2) that, as notion, it is a selt-con-
tradiction — something whose sphere is solely loithin consciousness
putting itself as if it were he//ond it; (3) that, in spite of this, wo
continue, and nmst continue, to acciipt this illusion, which com-
pels us to limit our knowledge to experience, and renounce all
claims to its being absolute.

That is to say, then, the sole causj of our doubting the rigorous
vaUditij of our knowledge^and reducing nur cognition to the mere
idiosyncrasy of one species out of an unknown nunther of possible
orders of intelligent heings, is an illusion whose genesis we knou}^
a contradic'.ion that we distinctly detect. Then, beyond all con-
troversy, our discrediting and limitation of our cognitive faculty
is an error, and we are to correct it hy disregarding its cause.

And it is idle to say that we cannot do this, because the iilu-
Bion is organic, and will therefore continue to play ui)on us for-

36 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ever. Now that it is once detected, it is completely in our power,
so far as its affecting our judgment is concerned. The presence
of organic and necessary illusions in the faculty of cognition, espe-
cially in its function as sense, is an unquestionable fact (the multi-
form phenomena of refraction, for instance), but, from the moment
we know them as organic and necessary, they cannot mislead us,
because to know them as such we must trace their origin in the
necessary laws of the function they affect ; we thenceforward
learn to interpret them — as signs, namely, of a complexity in our
system of consciousness far richer and more variuus than we had
at first suspected, — of a harmony of antagonisms far more manifold
and overlapped one within another than we had dreamed of; and
the more wide-embracing their recurrences become, each time
detected and corrected, the more do we gradually rise to the eon
ception of the self-sufficiency of our intelligence. And the power
of detecting and allowing for them comes just from their being
organic, and depends upon that. We are, therefore, now in the
position, by the investigation through which Lange has led us, to
assure ourselves of the reality — the absoluteness in quality — of
our human intelligence. From the Kantian doctrine of the a
priori carried to its genuine completion, as we have now seen it,
we infer that the objects which present themselves in course of
the normal and critical action of human consciousness are all that
objects a8 objects can be ; that beyond or beneath what completed
human reason (nioral, of course, as well as perceptive and reflec-
tive) finds — -finds, I do not '&2,^ fathoms — in objects and their rela-
tions, or will find, there is nothing to he found ; that our universe
is the universe, which exists, so far as we know it, precisely as we
know it, and indeed in and through our knowing it, though not
merely hy that.

The process that has led us to this result, and which may prop-
erly be called a Critique of all Scepticism, yields, morever, the
final impossibility of materialism. We saw, some distance back,
that the actual of sense could by no possibility be the source of
consciousness, being, on the contrary, its mere phenomenon — its
mere externalized presentation (picture-object) originated from
within. But the hypothetical j!?6>fe^i^*aZ of sense, the assumed sub-
sensible substance called matter, we have now seen to be precisely
that self-contradiction called the Thing-in-itself, and it therefore

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 37

disappears from the real universe along with that illusion. We
have also, then, a definitive Critique of all Materialism.

By the path into which Lange has led us, we therefore ascend
from the agnostic-critical stand-point to the higher and invigorat-
ing one of thorough, all-sided, and affirmative idealism. A few
words must suffice to outline its general conception. Our result,
then, is this: Our normal consciousness has the trait of univer-
sality : it puts judgments that, in the same circumstances, every
intelligence, and every order of intelligence, would put ; and the
objects it perceives, and as it perceives them, are the same that,
under the same conditions, all intelligences would perceive; for
objects are themselves but complexes of its judgments, and the
mentioned circumstances and conditions are, indeed, part of the
objects as perceived — not limitations imposed upon consciousness
from without, but particularizations of its own primordial processes.
Or, to put the case inversely : The potential reach of normal hu-
man consciousness is what we mean by universality : intelligence
as such is simply the fulfilment of human intelligence. The at-
tempt to take the universe as beyond or apart from or plus con-
sciousness, has sublated itself into the bringing of the universe
wholly within and conterminous with consciousness ; and the
ancient by-word, Man the measure of all things, comes round
again, but with a new and pregnant meaning. Only, this uni-
verse-consciousness must be thought as it is, without omission or
exaggeration of any of its contents, and, above all, by mastering
the grounds of its existence and the method of its possibility. All
that is, comes within consciousness, and lies open to it — the literal
All, whether " starry heavens without " or " moral law within,"
sensible system of nature with its bond of mechanical causation or
intelligible system of moral agency with its bond of free allegiance
constituting a "Kingdom of Ends"— a world of spirits, with the
Father of Spirits omnipresent in all : consciousness means that.
In being conscious, we are conscious of a universe — wherein each
of us, to put the case in a metaphor (inadequate, of course), is a
single focal point upon which the one ensphering Whole of light
is poured in rays that are reflected back again to its utmost verge,
and thence returned to be again reflected and returned, and so on
without end, each added return bringing rays in greater fulness
from remoter and remoter confines. Consciousness and universe

38 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy.

are in truth but two names for the same single, indissoluble and'
continuous Fact, named in the one case as if from within it, and
in the other as if from without. Not that in every conscious focus
all the contents of this universe are imaged with the same clear-
ness, or reflected forth with the same energy, as in every other;
only that, dim or bright, strong or feeble, confused or distinct,
the same "Whole is in some wise or other always there. And it
is not to be overlooked that, to the fnliilment of this universe-
consciousness, it is essential that it be not simply an individual,,
but a social, an historic, and, in fact, an immortal consciousness.
The grounds for this conception it is not our place to enter upon
here; it is enough to say that the interpretation of the facts of
ordinary consciousness into the rigorous necessity of their imply-
ing this absolute Universal is the business and achievement of a.
genuine Critique of Reason. Of the method and result of this it
need only be added that it proceeds to the adequate explanation
both of the a priori categories, of which we have now heard so
much, and of that residual Noumenon which we saw that Lange
left unexamined ; it finds the explanation of the former, and the
reality of the latter, in a single Conscious Principle, of the abso-
luteness and all-transcending infinity of which the vague notion
Noumenon is only our native confused feeling, while the categories
are merely its modes of manifestation, which, though they seem
so different to our natural view, turn out, on critical investigation,
to be one and the same single Synthetical Energy — simply a
necessary nexus between all possible separate terms of sense..
This Principle, as blending into one, by its ascending retreat
from the categories, the two activities of absolute Subject and
absolute Cause, is the one Creative Unity. The universe-con-
sciousness thus passes from an apparent mere Fact into a pure
Act. And this Act, as determining itself through a system of
conscious subjects — loci or vortices of the categories — into that ut-
termost particulai'ity of consciousness which we name sensible
perce) tion, clasps together in its living process both Subject and
Object, and is thus &iv\Qi]y personal — the Person of persons.

It is plain, of course, that the truth of all this hangs upon the
validity of the doctrine of the a priori. It is a noteworthy fact^
then, that Lange, as agnostic, sees that he must by no means ad-
mit the theory according to which alone the establishment of the

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 39

a priori is possible. To determine that its principles are veritably
underived from its objects, consciousness mu^t, of course, be capable
of an act in which it extricates itself from its world of sensible
objects, and contemplates its cognitive equipment strictly ^^r se—
ail act which thus transcends experience^ and was, consequently and
fitly, named by Kant "transcendental reflection;" an act, more-
ovei', whose execution presupposes the power not only of usiiig the
apparatus of judgment upon elements that are not sensible objects
at all — in short, that the categories can be applied beyond sensu-
ous experience — but also of making judgments of absolute validity,
since the decision that anything is organic in us must be a deci-
sion upon our real nature, as it appears, say, .to the mind of our
Creator. This presupposition is radically at variance with Kant's
subsequent finis to his theoretical critique, and with Lange's ac-
ceptance and development of it. It is in keeping with this, now,
that Lange takes the astonishing ground that the contents of our
a priori endowment can only be determined by induction — a
manifest contradiction, as an induction, despite its formal gen-
erality, is always a particular judgment, while, to establish the
apriority of an element, we must show it to be not only universal,
but necessary. It is plain, then, that Lange has here finally aban-
doned the properly Kantian stand-point, and, without intending it,
has really gone back to that of Locke, where he and his followers
may be left, without further concern, to the thoroughgoing surgery
of Hume.'

PHILOSOPHY IN THE GERMAN UNIVERSniES.

As peculiar to the universities, because of the severe technical
training requisite to the pursuit of the problems involved, the
most novel, and, therefore, most immediately interesting phenom-
enon is that of the men who have frankly abandoned a priori
ground altogether, and are, as they are persuaded, engaged in the
task, patient and humble, but alone truly valuable, of laying in
Blow and careful experiments the foundation for a future empiri-
cal metaphysics that is to take away from that province of thought

» Among the leading Neo-Kantians, after Lange, arc Professors Cohen, of Marburg;
Bona Meyer, of Bonn ; Benno Erdir.ann, of Kiel ; and Dr. Bans Vaihinger, of Stiass-
burg.

40 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

its present reproach, and to give it the dignity of a science. Thej
have thus, with full purpose, taken up the position that Lange has
unintentionally prepared for his followers. Their object is stated
in the same general terms as that of Spencer, and, particularly,
as that of Mill and Bain, but their occupations and methods are
materially different. The Englishmen rely, indeed, upon expe-
rience as the sole basis of evidence ; but they have deemed it
already possible to raise upon it vast and complicated theoretical
superstructures, which have, as they acknowledge, only that " prob-
able" evidence which induction affords. The German party, on
the contrary, hold that results in the form of law and system are
only to be the reward of their remote successors. They refer us to
the fruitful but tedious and long unrewarded labors of the age be-
fore and around Galileo, which ushered in the career of modern
science — labors in the patient and minute measurement of phe-
nomena. The character of exact science can only begin in a body
of knowledge when it has risen to the point of being computable;
and formulas of computation are to be generalized only after long
periods of measuring and remeasuring the phenomena involved.
When varying phenomena can once be connected by some suffi-
ciently simple law of quantitative interdependence, generalizations,
on a great and unexpected scale, may be eff'ected by the compu-
tative apparatus of the calculus.

It is singular, however, that this school really had its origin in
one of the most intense metaphysical movements of the old-fash-
ioned kind that Germany has known ; I say intense purposely, for
the number of its participants has always been small compared
with that of the followers, or professed followers, of Kant, Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel. I refer to the philosophy of Herbart, who
was Kant's successor at Konigsberg, and who, seizing on Kant's
notion of Things-in-themselves, worked out a metaphysical theory
on the hypothesis that, behind all the phenomenal particulars and
genera of experience, there lay a real world of corresponding dis-
tinctions in the Things-in-themselves — a singular new form ot
atomism, not strictly materialistic, however, but somewhat more
akin to the monadology of Leibnitz, these units of reality (or
HeaJs^ as Herbart called them) being some spiritual and others
material. Out of this metaphysics grew up a vigorous school of
psychology, to which Fechner brought, together with fresh and

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 41

often quite mystical speculations, a remarkable body of researches,
aiminij to establish mathematical relations between inward sensa-
tion and its outward conditions. From these came the now noted
formula, called Fechner's Law, in which the principle is stated
that " the intensity of a sensation varies directly as the lojjarithm
of its stimulus." These researches now have attracted all that
class of minds with the requisite trainino; in the exact sciences,
and the requisite eye for broad generalizations, that would other-
wise busy themselves with ordinary inquiries into nature, and
whose bent is to an empirical logic. They are busy at laborious
experiments upon all sorts of mental phenomena tliat can by any
possibility be got into a sensible form capable of measurement,
and their ingenuity of invention and method in these regions is
truly astonishing. Their labors affiliate, of course, with those of
the investigators in physiological psychology; indeed, the two
investigations go usually hand in hand, though the measurement
part belongs properly to what is called psychophysics. The aim
here is suggested by the title — to establish a iricchanics of mental
experience. This is one day to do for psychology the analogue ot
"what physics has done for natural philosoph}' — enable us to pass
to the social, race, and historical laws of human action, as we have
passed to the laws of matter not merely on the earth's surface,
but in the distant celestial regions. When these psychophysical
laws shall have one day reached a sufficient generality, they will
afford, the new school predict, an accurate foundation for specula-
tion and verifiable theorizing on the basis of probability, just as
in the natural world physical principles have done for the correla-
tion of forces, the conservation of energy, the wave theory of light,
and the nehular hypothesis or its possible correction.

This account may not unfitly close with a brief reference to the
philosophic situation at the University of Berlin, as it presented
itself to my own observation in the winter semester of 18Sl-'82.
It may be taken as typical of what is going on in the whole of
•Germany, Berlin being confessedly the German intellectual cen-
tre. All the phases of the present state of transition, as I have
endeavored to describe them,' were reHected there. One notice-

' See the remarks already referred to, in " The Concord Lectures."

42 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

able fact, especially in the light of Professor Wiindt's statement of
five years ago/ was tliat of two courses of lectures on Schopen-
hauer. Tlie drift of these was unfavorable, to be sure, but both
of them betrayed the fact that Schopenhauer's doctrine of the na-
ture of tlie will, apart from his metaphysical and ethical uses of it,
had made an effective impression on the lecturers. Wundt could
Bay, in 1877, that to that date Schopenhauer had met with no
consideration in the universities whatever. But it is now plain
that his doings have taken some root even there, and in directions
that must prolong the present inability to surmount the agnostic
and empirical obstacles. For not only at Berlin did he have a
good hearing, but in several of the other universities too. In
fact, in the whole of Germany, there were some nine or ten courses
then given upon him — a greater amount of attention than any
other single thinker received, excepting only Kant, Plato, and
Aristotle.

But, to resume, Berlin, in 1881-'82, was a fair reflection of the
general conditions I have already depicted. From the venerable
Miehelet — in his eighty-second year, lecturing with astonisiiing
vigor and admirable powers of exposition on " German Philoso-
phy since Kant," and vindicating himself, in this course at least,
from the charge so frequently in past days brought against him,
of belonging to the " left wing" of the Hegelian school — to young
Dr. Ebbinghaus, a representative of the psychophysical empiricists^
pretty much all the phases of the present situation were at hand.
— the vanishing remembrance of the great spirits of the bygone
generation, the transitional uncertainty evinced in the dominant
attention to history, the vivid interest in the agnostic interpreta-
tions of Kant, the fresb and animated attachment to empirical
views, the faith in the great future awaiting the new studies in
psychophysics. Zeller, who began philosophical life as a Hegel-
ian, and may be reckoned the latest, perhaps the last, illustrioua
product of that school, but who wearied of the "Dialectic," and
now seems to find in Spinoza, construed in a Hegelian sense, bet-
ter satisfaction than in any other modern thinker, was almost
wholly occupied, of course, with historical instruction. In his
auditorium the great throng of the philosophice studiosi — ^tive or

' See Wundt on " Philosophy in Germany," in Mind for July, 18Y7.

Some Aspects of Recent German Philosophy. 43-

BIX hundred — was to be found ; there he lectured daily, with
speech fluent and gracious, and with an exhaustiveness and an
ease of learning that were not less than overwhelming. Althaus,.
another of the elder generation, busied himself with psychology
and Aristotle. Paulsen, who, from his vigor of early middlc-ao-e.
his professorial rank, and his already extended reputation, is prob-
ably to be regarded as the rising man in philosophy at Berlin, and
whose audience, next to Zeller's, was much the largest, defended,
on grounds wholly empirical, a frank impersonal pantheism, mak-
ing great use of a peculiar and interesting form of the argument
from history — a striking enrichment and deepening of the old
iproof de consensu gentium; he put it that advancing social and
historical experience is the tribunal of probable truth, that imper-
sonal pantiieism has grown with the growth of this experience,
and thus exhibits all the probability that the approval of this tri-
bunal can afford. His definition of philosophy, too, is in keeping
"with his eirpiricisin ; its essential identity with science is a favor-
ite thesis of his, and he defines it accordingly as the inclusive
whole {Inhegriff) of all sciences.' Of the jprivatdocenten^ Dr.
Lasson lectured on the philosophy of rights — a descendant of Ile-
geVs school, but, like the rest of the younger men in Germany
now, with no decided claim to a truly penetrating insight into the
master's doctrine; he talked of Hegel as "a literary classic" — a
symptom of questionable significance. Dr. Ehbinghaus expounded
Kant in the agnostic and empirislic sense, lectured on Schopen-
hauer, and gave vigorous lessons in psj'cliophysics. Dr. Denssen
lectured on Hindoo philosophy, which had the look of further stir-
rings from Schopenhauer and further foundations tor his influence.
Finally, Dr. Gizycki, an empiricist, principally interested in the
English moralists of the last century, gave courses on Shaftesbury
and on ethics from the stand-point of the development hypothesis.
A mighty purgative for these agnostic and empirical tendencies
would possibly be found, were the Germans to betake themselves

1 Professor Paulsen is the author of a very noticeable work on Kant— the "History
of the Development of Kant's Theoiy of Knowledge "—on wliich his reputation mainly
rests. This has been followed recently by another, with the title " What Kant may bo
for Us." He holds that Kant attained no stand-point essentially higher than Hume's,
and that Hume was not properly a sceptic, but only denied the capacity of reason ta
judge of truths of fact.

44r The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

to a thorough study of Hume, not in the more literary and much
abated form in which he appears in the " Essays," but in his un-
constrained masterpiece, the " Treatise of Human Nature." So
far as I could discover, this work is well-nigh unknown in Ger-
many. Zeller, of course, was well acquainted with it, and, be-
sides, had no need of its cure ; but, excepting him, no one at Ber-
lin seemed to have made any thorough study of it, nor does recent
philosophical literature anywhere in Germany give any signs of
such study. Yet, in the Fourth Part of its First Book, Hume has
himself furnished the key to the destruction of the empirical posi-
tion and its resulting agnosticism. There he is not content to
stop with his ordinary doctrine, that experience can give no more
than the sensation of the present moment ; but goes on to show —
whether of full purpose or not it seems impossible to decide —
that, without presupposing the abiding unity of personal identity,
even that fleeting presentation is impossible. But this permanence
of personal identity he had, by the rigorous logic of empiricism,
already done away with, and all perception — all experience, even
to its simplest term, was thus reduced to illusion. The contradic-
tion between this and the empirical principle, which derives its
whole force from the assumed absoluteness of the single sensation,
is obvious ; and what Hume has really done, then, and quite irre-
futably, is to remove that principle finally. True is it indeed,
that, without the Abiding in us, the transitory and sensible is
impossible. Or, as it has been most forcibly put in a saying that
deserves to become classic, " Our unconditioned universality is
the ground of our existence ; " — its ground / that is, at once its
necessary condition and its Sufficient Reason.

Faith and Knawledge. 45

FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE.

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

In all our knowledge there is something which is controlled not
exclusively and pre-eminently by reflection, but by conditions be-
longing to our personality ; and it is precisely this element which
determines the peculiar direction of our thoughts. If everything
in knowledge were absolutely and solely conditioned by reflections
and arguments of the understanding, it would be possible to con-
vince every person of his errors — at least to a certain degree, cor-
responding to the capacity of his understanding — and to gain him
over to the more correct view. But as matters stand, it would be
impossible to convince, for instance, a Darwinian or Materialist of
the idea of life and of the rationality which pervades nature, by
merely employing arguments, though they were the most pro-
found and acute; just the same' as the Darwinian's scholarship
and power of combination would not be able to convince any one
who feels himself powerfully penetrated by the living and rational
character of nature. And how else can this fact be explained
than by assuming that even in science we operate not merel}- with
the understanding and our power of reflection, but also with per-
sonal'sympathies ? Doubtless it is a [compact, and in itself con-
nected web of arguments, which, taken from psychological and
historical reflection, has been elaborated throughout centuries, and
is put forward to prove that man is of divine and not animal
origin ; and yet nobody, who has more than superficially and care-
lessly considered the Darwinian hypothesis, will be induced there-
by to approve another and utterly different view of the origin
of man than that of the Darwinian theory. On the other hand,
the Darwinian will be equally unsuccessful in his efforts to per-
suade any one who has received tiie highest or deepest conserva-
tions and initiations of philosophy and religion. The reason can
only be this : that this or that person not only examines the proofs
submitted to him with the eyes of the understanding, but also
meets them with a certain vital force of the soul, which, by an
essentially diff'erent quality, energetically repudiates the one or the
other matter, and compels the understanding, which is its servant,

46 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

to oppose real or apparent proofs to those other proofs, in order to
be able to maintain itself in its own Being under all circuin-
stances. It can also be said — speaking from the stand-point of
him who is convinced of the sufficiency of his proofs — that the
other person does not take them to heart. But why not ? Why,
simply because the other's heart clings to quite another mode of
thinking, which repels all heterogeneous processes.

There are certain matters in the scientitic organization of every
person which most decidedly belong to the category of moral con-
victions and only subsequently develop into logical insights ; and
even then always in such a way as to remain dependent upon
their original source. It is through convictions of this kind,
which are in their essence moral, that the peculiar culture of
almost every individual is determined in its principles. Hence,
it is idle work to dispute or argue, with reasons of reflection,
with any one who does not share the presuppositions that move
us — that is, our moral convictions, no matter whether such a dis-
pute turns upon general or special matters. The only hope to
gain over such an opponent rests on our success in shaking his
moral convictions, which again cannot be done by the logical
acuteness of the arguments employed, but only by the moral
power of the soul, which expresses itself forcibly, whether with or
without that logic. For, if those moral convictions are shaken,
our opponent will be able to take our arguments to heart, as the
phrase goes, and to consider them in the face of his conscience. If
they are not so shaken, even the L»gical and empirical compulsory
force of our arguments will not move him effectually; they will
be to him mere empty and voiceless words.

The source of all important certainty and conviction is, there-
fore, to be found in the heart, or, as this word is liable to much,
abuse, let as rather say, the soul. If we consider man not accord-
ing to the abstractions of school-learning, but according to concrete
experience, it is generally known that man is a personality. ]>ut
it is not well thirkable that any activity, hence also man's men-
tal activity, can be excepted from being conditioned by the inner
motive force of every human being, his personal motivation ; as,
indeed, every part, or manifestation, must always assume the char-
acter of its whole, or its sul)ject. Kepre.-entations, conce{)tions,
judgments, conclusions, everything pertaining to the consciousness

Faith and Knowledge. ^

-conditioned bj reflection, is a mediated production of the spirit,
induced by a perception and connected with an objectivation. It
is based essentially on a relation to the things, wherein only their
external side, their appearance to the senses, as we say, is shown,
and has been abstracted from this manifestation and placed before
the objective contemplation of the mind. In this mediated activ-
ity, connected with the external, we see at work an immediate re-
lation, which does not proceed from the periphery of thinjrs, but
endeavors to o;rasp and represent the whole essence of the ohject
immediately in its separate appearance, and which, proceeding
from the inner central and total force of man, his soul, is a pecu-
liar act thereof. This immediate relation, or act, is always co-
posited with and made the basis of that mediated act, and is wliat
we call faith — excluding, of course, every determined — as, for in-
stance, a religious— significance of the word. Thus I also form a
judgment of a person's character, not in the first in^tance by re-
flecting on its utterances, but, above all, by the general impres;^ion
his being as a whole makes upon me immediately. In the same
way every scientific exposition of a peculiar nature is reducible to
certain presuppositions, that remain and are left in part altogether
unproven, and which are accepted in no other manner, and, in
fact, cannot be accepted in any other manner than by faith.
Thus, for instance, it would be clearly ridiculous to maintain that
the truth of the mechanical view of the universe results from the
mechanical construction of the separate phenomena, instead of
saying the reverse — namely, that the truth of these c;)nstructions
is dependent upon the truth of that fundamental view, since they
are altogether impossible without such a presupposition, repre-
eenting, as thej do, only their individual application and develop-
ment. Hence, also, Epicurus spoke of that 'jrp6\r]'^L<i or anticipa-
tion of a spiritual information of a matter, without which, as he
says, nothing can be either understood, or investigated, or dis-
puted.'

Well, these anticipations I have called faith ; and this faith is
accomplished by the soul, the fundamental power of man and ot

• "Cicero de Nat. Deor.," 1, 16. 'Quae est pens, aiit quod genus hominuin, quod
non habeat sine doctrina anticipationem quandam deorum, quani appellat ■Kp6Kriy\,iv
Epicurus, id est anteceptam animo rei quandam informationem, sine qua nee intelligi
quidquam nee quaeri nee disputari potest ? "

48 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

personality. This explains sufficiently what I mean when I say
Boul, not a chaos of blind feelings, bnt a living and free force,
which gains its knowledge through sentiments and represents its
acts in passions. Feeling is blind determinedness; sentiment, on
the other hand, is an inner, free-cognizing, cherishing, and deter-
mining one's self in another, and another in one's self, and includes
a living clearness and evidence — distinct from the mediated
knowledge of reflection, which gathers and combines the sepa-
rated — immediately and directly seizing and appropriating the
whole. That which we call faith, therefore, is not blind, but see-
ing ; not chained down, but free and choosing. For consciousness
and freedom are not chained down to the system of reflection any
more than man's whole being is absorbed in it. That conscious-
ness is only a form of externalizing in regard to the true self and
consciousness of man, and borrows the positive power of his see-
ing and choosing only from this substance, which is its basis. I
should prefer, however, to call this knowledge of faith conscience,
or, as the Greeks named it, avvel'^r](ji<i, which implies a co-knowing.
Conscience is generally taken as meaning a divine law, an dypacfyof
v6fio<;, engraven in the fleshy tablets of the heart. How little
valid, or, rather, in what very limited sense this interpretation is
valid, is evident among other things from this, that the com-
munist, who aspires to overthrow all law and order, also appeals
to his conscience. Hence, conscience signifies that individual
stand-point on which every person rests, and by which he is
moved.

All knowledge, therefore, demands faith, and faith lies at the
basis of all knowledge. All proofs, that extend into the sphere
of moral convictions, derive their convincing power from faith
alone. Without faith all proofs of the existence of God, the im-
mortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, are only jug-
gler's tricks, or a weak reed that breaks in your hand at the least
pressure. This faith, which is postulated by every proof, is
not directed upon the visible components of the proof and their
composition, but on the invisible part of the matter. This faith
is not darkness, but light ; not a weakness, but a strength ; not a
passive subjection, but an act of the purest personality, and none
the less conscious and free because it does not arise in consequence
of a deliberation, reflection, and judgment of the understanding.

Faith and Knowledge. 49

The judgment on which it is based is an immediate judgment,
which does not unfold itself objectively, but enwraps itselt^in the
inwardness of a sentiment.

Hence, when we speak of conviction in the true, significant
sense of the word, it is this personal fundamental act of life from
which everything of that conviction emanates; this act of life
which involves a direct, living connection with the living con-
crete matter itself. Those persons, however, who accept some-
thing merely from hearsay, be they moved by whatever external
grounds, or who leap across the chasm of uncertainty by a salto
mortale with bandaged eyes, may boast neither of conviction nor
of faith, but are to be accounted, in the truest sense of the word,
sermim peciis imitatorum, since they have renounced their per-
sonality as well as their self-thinking and self-willing, and com-
mitted suicide upon their dignity as men.

But faith is, as has already been suggested, and as, indeed,
appears from the nature of the case, individually determined and
diflferent. Thus, for instance, the first immediate impression
which I form and receive of any particular subject, is conditioned
by the original relation of my personality, and the direction in
which its tendencies and inclinations move. In the same wav.
the impression which I first conceive of another person, and in
consequence whereof I form a judgment of him from his several
doings and sayings, is altogether conditioned by my individuality
and its natural relation to that of the other person. Hence there
arises a danger of falling into a state of general indifference and
scepticism, since we seem forced to declare every true personal
conviction valid merely as such, and truth seems determined only
by individuality. This would lead us to the doctrine of the
Sophists : That is true which appears to each one as true. Never-
theless, there is precisely in the region of personality a sphere of
the universally valid which has far greater motive power than
anything in the sphere of mere conception. This is the sphere of
the Moral. Some have tried to represent this as a delusion, by
pointing out how difi*erent notions about the just and proper are
to be found among different people, and how the just and proper
seem, therefore, based only upon tradition and habit. Without
dwelling upon the fact that, nevertheless, certain universal and
common fundamental traits can be recognized amid these differ-
XYII— 4

50 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ences, and remain ineradicable, we shall merely observe that the
true part of this aro;ument is simply this : the moral categories of
consciousness, or of the mind, are certainly dependent upon the
history, or the historical development, of mankind, or of any
particular people. Tiie attainment of a higher degree of culture
is essentially connected with the consciousness of an ideal and
of its unconditioned right in regard to the lower stage, and the
right of this consciousness in regard to morality surely no one
will dispute, who examines at the same time the sphere of Esthet-
ics, and compares, for instance, the Hellenic ideal of beauty with
that of the negro, or even of the Phoenician or Egyptian, and who
considers, further, that the Beautiful and the Good belong neces-
sarily to the same sphere. For surely no one will pretend that
the Beautiful is based on an imitation of nature, and that, in order
to create Beauty, nothing but a correct eye is necessary. Beauty
and Morality — let me say it boldly — resolve themselves finally
into an Unconditioned, and melt together, therefore, with a cer-
tain religiousness, if I may say so. Or, does morality consist in
a naked heroism, a mere energy of the M'ill, which knows how to
carry out a boundless desire in spite of all obstacles, and which,
even in succumbing, does not give up itself? Or, is morality that
which we measure with the barometer of criminal statistics? Or,
do we exhaust its conception by the predicates of honesty and
respectability? Do not these belong rather also to the appear-
ance, whereas morality relates to the motives, which prompt our
acts, or which prompt the personality of those — who otherwise
would be determined only by their education, habits, and tem-
perament — in spite of themselves? Hence, morality is rather a
filling of one's self with the contents of absolute life, a subjugation
of the innermost source of personality to a certain universal, in-
dependent validity and obligation, which is the same for, and
common to, all individual persons, in spite of their individuality ;
and which is, therefore, before and above them, w^ithin itself, and
points to an independent source, to an Absolute, to an absolute
Essence. Hence, in this quite general sense we must expressly
maintain the identity of morality and religiousness, and we can
say now that, when we expressly disi-egard every particular his-
torical form of religion, and every single philosophically thinkable
or historically factical development, and mediating form thereof,

Faith and Knowledge. 51

the validity of a faith is altogetlier determined by its relation to
the Moral — that is, to the universal Religious. But even taking
the Moral by itcelf— and comprehending it less in its innermost
essence — we have already a standard measure for the truth of any
view of the world. And such a view, wherein the result may
certainly be veiled, but which, if carried out actually, would end
in moral inditierence or positive immorality, is unquestionably
condemned by that very fact, no matter how it may bribe by its
probability.

I maintain, therefore, in this sense, that that Gcience has the bet-
ter right, and is entitled to claim it, which is in its spirit the most
religious and can maintain itself in its results before the judgment
of common morality. But when I say " the most religious," I do
not mean a repeating of everything that has been written of and
is generally accepted or ])racticed as religion. On the contrary, I
am of the opinion that the more certain we feel of a niatter, the
more free we are of its accidental appearance. Xor do I mean by
it the worship of a supermundane God, but generally a disposition
to think in the most sublime manner the ground as well as the
becoming and the essence of the world. But if I perchance wor-
ship a supermundane God, I do so — let the other mediations
through which I arrived at this worship be what they may — only
throuo;h faith ; that is, throuijh the before-mentioned conscious and
free life-act of my personality.

The whole natural position of cognition is moved out of place
whenever we try to make reflective knowing the only source of
all certainty and all peculiar cognition. The proof of reflection
always presupposes and includes the inner certitude of faith. But
this faith, this immediate taking hold by means of sensation,
although it contains the subject-matter itself, contains it, after all,
only in its undecided generality. Hence, if we desire to know it
in its particularity and separate moments, we are necessarily
driven into the path of common understanding, and must make
use of it as a means for our purpose. And if we now follow
further that immediate certitude in faith, nothing else will remain
to us within that region to make us certain of the particuhir and
separate moments in our cognition than the conclusive proof in
independent thinking and the agreement of experience. For, as
little as we ought to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth

52 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of a subject b}" mere hearsay or authority, even so little is it
proper for man — and can it result in peculiar and personal cogni-
tion — to accept as something external whatsoever develops itself
particularly or connects itself with that subject in his knowledge
— in his full conviction of the certitude of the subject. In truth,,
the essence of cognition is to be found only when we think out
from one independent beginning the whole particular and sepa-
rate contents of the subject to the end. Here, therefore, and
here alone, the saying is true : credo quia intelligo / not intelligo
quia credo. These maxims have both their full validity, each
in its place. I must believe the subject in order to bo able
to comprehend it ; but what particular and separate moments
it may contain, of that I can believe only so much as I com-
prehend.

Let us consider the contradictory conditions that attach to
knowledge, the one-sidedness of thought, which always sees at one
time only one part of the whole, and is inclined to believe that
part to be the whole, and the mere externality of things, which is
all that the things really present to the examination of knowledge ;
let us consider how the certain results, of which the honest scien-
tific investigator boasted at one time, became tottering again on
the next occasion, or turn out to be only relatively valid and cor-
rect ; let us consider the whole character of knowledge, which i&
that of progress, of approximation, and which — as well on account
of the inexhaustible nature of experience as by reason of the sub-
jective inclination of man, and, finally, also by reason of the mere
mediateness to which knowledge is confined — permits it to arrive
at the subject-matter itself only through a series of conclusions;,
let us consider, further, the infinite possibilities and thinkabilities
which offer themselves as well in the way of an a priori reason as
by the glittering character of the empirical material; and, finally,
let us reflect on the feelings of the proud systematician himself,,
and ask him whether he does not secretly ask himself daily, upon
reviewing his worshipped constructions : After all, are they really
true? I say, let us consider all this, and we shall see the folly of
endeavoring to make abstract, or empirical knowledge the only
basis of life. In these days of ours we run after an ideal, and
persuade ourselves that we can surely attain it, although in truth
it is purely Utopian. By the division of labor, in the face of an

Faith and Knowledge. 53

infinite amount of detail, men expect finally to gain that perfec-
tion and freedom from error which they have missed hitherto so
sorely. But they forget that the detail is really infinite, and,
above all, that it is a matter of subjective apprehension, of which
the relativity of all things human can never get rid. And, after
all, the essential, that is to say, everything, has already been de-
cided, and w^hat remains to be done is only to carry the matter
out to an end in all directions ; and, although this end appears as
yet and for itself ever so far removed, nobody will dream of post-
poning his conviction in regard to the fundamental principles and
their next essential consequences until that time— a clear proof of
the correctness of our assertion that in all great matters it is not
knowledge, but faith, which casts the decisive vote. But, apart
from that, let no one persuade himself that the thinkability and
probability of a view of life is decisive and determinative in re-
gard to a man's mode of thought and general conduct. For, if
such were the case, everything would become uncertain ; all our
supports would totter and break, and man's mind would become a
play of the waves and winds. Even like a rudderless boat, since
the honesty of conviction seems to command us to follow now this
and now the other probability, and to sacrifice the happiest and
most quieting faith for its sake. But life and history also have a
right, and an older right. To us it seems folly and unnatural to
make knowledge the only valid authority, as if only that were
true which some one man thinks.

Even in science the occupying of a particular stand-point from
principle cannot depend alone upon intellectual grounds (grounds
of reflection), and, in point of fact, does not so depend. But let
us look back from the events of to-day upon the course of history,
and witness how the humane character of man has been developed
and cultivated, and, if we shall then become convinced that we
have really made progress, we shall no longer hesitate to adopt
the moral and humane presuppositions, which are the basis of the
•consciousness of the cultured man in his present historical con-
ditionedness, as measures and criteria of our convictions. My
historical remarks have showm me even in Christianity a specific —
and by no means the least— progress of human culture and morals.
In whatever we are spiritually ahead of the ancients, we owe the
advance altogether to Christianity. The humanism at the close

54 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of the last and the beginnino^ of the present century was a well-
justitied reaction ; for the Hellenism, from which it started, is an
essential and independent element of culture, which mankind
must on no account relinquish, though it also surely does not make
Christianity dispensable. But when that tendency of humanism
turned in later times hostile against Christianity, it destroyed the
roots of its own life. For, let folly and bad intentions in church-
dogma and cultus have changed Christianity ever so much for the
worse, we at least cannot refuse to recognize that it is also a
lever of culture; and to oppose it as such must, therefore, neces-
sarily influence the position which the opponent himself occupies
in the s})here of culture. Nor should it be foi'gotten that this
humanism owed Christianity that spicy taste which alone could
make it palatable to our days.

When Herder hears the spirit of harmony, the world-spirit, sing
his song of enchantment which " draws soul close to soul and heart
to heart," and when he closes thus :

" Enchained within one feeling,
We're one perennial All ;
In one chord gathered, pealing,
God's echo we recall" —

he seems to speak pantheistically, Spinoza-like ; but the Christian
idea of love has given to abstract pantheism the living glow and
active nerve. Even the opponents of Christianit}' stand under its
influence and adorn themselves with its gems. Even a Julian
had to adopt the policy of recommending the Christian love of
neighbor to his pagan subjects ; and who does not see that the
Stoic Epictetus and the Neo-platonist Hierokles, in his translation
of the golden sayings of Pythagoras, gathered the perfume of their
morality from Ciiristian education, or from the invisible influences
of Christianity. But let it be well observed that we have here to
deal, not with Christian church-dogmas, nor, indeed, with any
fixed opinions or assertions, but with the religious, moral, and
scientific by-taste, so to speak, which every person, who grows up
in the charmed circle of a Christian-Hellenic world, sucks in
with his mother's milk. This taste, this invisible tincture or fun-
damental tone, or rather this atmosphere of our higher culture^
ought to have some, and, in fact, a predominant, influence on our

Faith and Knowledge. 55

judgment, and point out to us the worth or worthlessness of scien-
tific standpoints in a decisive and directory manner.

Some one has said : '^ La conscience, n^ent elle pas plus que la
science f' Undoubtedly a moral-ideal sentiment— an ideal claim
of the soul of universally valid significance and harmonizing with
the nature of man and of humanity in an immediate manner — is
always to be preferred to an hypothesis of the understanding, so
far. as credibility is concerned. And all certainty in matters of
principle is, after all, reducible to an inner sympathetic feeling,
which even the thinker must always rouse simultaneously with
his deductions if he wants to be sure of the growth and prospering
of his ideas on foreign soil. It requires more to believe in a proof
than merely to find it correct, more to give it credibility than the
quod erat demonstrandum. In the same way the acutest proofs,
the most imposing collections of dates, and their most cunning
combinations, are not able to shake hypotheses, which we assume
on principle, and of the truth of which we have a permanent
conviction in our mind, even though it should involve a modifica-
tion of the special, logical demonstrations thereof. Hypotheses
assumed on principle are independent of reasonings which belong
to logical demonstrations ; such assumptions coincide most closely
with our moral decisions. But they are on that account in no
way blind and wanting motives. It is a very dangerous error to
believe that only the reasoning of our understanding has univer-
sal validity, and that rationality and evidence are manifested only
in logical proof.

Another remark of the profoundest significance which arises
here is this: that it is not things or their outward perceptions
which form the views men have of them, but that it is man with
his universal and particular constitution who makes these views
through the things or their outward perceptions. These are merely
the substance, which receives it form — its specific significance —
from man.

We do not know whether this view was the basis of Kant's
" Critic of Pure Keason ; " at any rate, the consequences of Kant's
work will prove to be too far-reaching and unjustified. For this view
does not necessarily imply the necessity that, with the determining
influence of subjectivity, this subjectivity should lack all ohjectiveli/y
universally valid measure. As we have already shown up for the

56 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

particular individual or personal constitution, sucli universality in.
the religious-moral foundations of consciousness, we shall also
point out the same for the general and common understanding, or
reflection, of man in the categories which condition all intellec-
tual consciousness and all rational perception. On the other hand,
we find that Kant, who does not touch the personal matter at all,
and moves solely in the region of universality and abstraction,
looks upon the categories only as subjective determinations, and
thus repudiates an objective knowing, as not given to man. In
doing this he takes these categories, it is true, not from the uni-
versally accessible nature of consciousness and thinking, but from
the traditionary, artificial schematism of psychology and logic,
and hence they can claim no universal validity in his super-artificial
presentation. He goes no further than their historical existence,
and does not consider at all their natural organization and life-
movement. But this result cannot satisfy us at all ; it is, on the
contrary, as compared with empiricism, the other extreme ; and
this empiricism, which, in its lack of science and untruth, lifts up
its head every day more boldly and prefers every day more tyran-
nical claims, can be considered truly beaten only when we shall
be fortunate enough to find in the two extremes of criticism and
empiricism the happy mean, and discover in the all-determining
subjectivity, at the same time, the paths and transitions that lead
to the objective being of things. Thus, true science must in the
end show itself to be the higher and in itself existing unity of
criticism and empiricism.

KNOWLEDGE AND THE KELATIVITY OF FEELING.

BY JOHN DEWEY.

The doctrine of the Relativity of knowledge is one of the most
characteristic theories of modern thought. To many, indeed, it
seems the sum of all modern wisdom. That we cannot know
Being, but must confine ourselves to sequences among phenom-
ena — this appears to many the greatest achievement of thought:
a discovery M'hose full meaning it was reserved for the Nineteenth

Knowledge and the Relativity of Feeling. S7

Century to penetrate, and one which, if mastered, will put an end
to all the idle speculation M-hich is supposed to have disgraced the
philosophical thouo^ht of the past, and turn intellectual activity
into the fruitful fields of real knowledge.

The doctrine has been reached in at least four different ways,
and held by as many schools. There is the Positivist, who claims
to have reached the doctrine as the result of history, and not from
any system of Metaphysics, and who is among the loudest in pro-
claiming it the panacea for all ills which intellect is heir to.
There is the school who profess to have reached it from a philo-
sophical examination of thought itself, and to have found it in-
volved in " imbecilities " at every attempt to overstep phenomena—
the school whose chief representative is Hamilton, but more lately
given to calling up the greater shade of Kant to conjure by. Then
there is the Associationalfst, who, after Hume had made wreck of
Sensationalism by showing that its methods and presuppositions
left no basis for any objective knowledge — no, nor for objective ex-
istence either — had before him the sorry task of keeping the method
and yet avoiding the result. His instrument was the "association
of ideas," and by it he attempted to reach results compatible with
every-day thought and the established facts of physical science.
But to whatever extent he succeeded (and we are not concerned
with that question at present), he found himself confined within
the limits of his subjective capacity for association, and he, too,
took Relativity for his shibboleth.

But with the development of the theory of evolution arose a
school that wielded a mightier weapon. Here was an established
scientific theory which assumed objective existence, and also, in
one of its highest generalizations, included man, and showed that
he, and presumably his intellect and knowledge, had in the pro-
gress of the cycles been developed from these original existences
and forces. Here, then, is a theory which, in a certain form, may
■deny all creating and constructive thougnt, and consequently be
thoroughly sensationalistic. Furthermore, by extending indefi-
nitely the sphere and time of operations, it bridged the gaps and
strengthened the weak points of former sensationalism ; and, above
all, it postulated objective existence. Here, then, is a theory
which may satisfy the demands of physical science and of "com-
mon-sense" as to existence independent of subjective feeling; pay

58 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

a compliment to the former by adopting its metliods and results^
and at the same time forever silence all who claim that we have
absohite knowledge. For, notice liow this theory is also compelled
to assume the form of Relativity. According to it, in the form
we are considering, all knowledge is, through a nervous organism,
constructed throuo-h evolution from the lowest form of life, or
from matter. Accordingly, it must be conditioned by the state
and quality of the organism, and cannot represent or copy objec-
tive existence. It is therefore relative to the subject. But since,
according to the realistic assumptions of the theory, there is ob-
jective existence, this must remain forever unknown and unknow-
able. To know it would be possible only through the contradic-
tion of a feeling not relative to the subject. This, then, is the
position of that form of the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowl-
edge which is probably most widely influential at present. All
knowledge is derived from feeling ; feeling is conditioned upon
the existence of external objects, and expresses the way in which
the sentient subject is affected by them, and not what they are in
themselves. All knowledge is through feeling, and all feeling i&
relative. Such are its dogmas.

What we intend in this paper is to examine into the theory of
the Relativity of Knowledge in so far as it bases itself upon the
fact of the relativity of feeling to a subject. Were we to examine
it exhaustively in its relations to the theory of evolution, with
which in its fourth form it is connected, it would be necessary to
ask how the scientific theory of evolution, by hypothesis an exact
and correct statement of a universal law, is compatible with any
such supposed origin of knowledge. But we pass over this for
the present, and will inquire simply into the mutual relations of
the two parts of any sensationalistic theory of the relativity of
knowledge.

That we may have the work thoroughly before us, it must be
noticed, first, that Relative here signifies subjective as opposed
to objective, phenomenal as opposed to ontological. It denotes
an imperfection of thought, not its essence. Secondly, this theory
in its present form is not a psychological theory. It does not
simply state certain facts regarding the method in which we get
to know the world, but claims to be a Philosophy, and so gives
epistemological conclusions regarding the knowableness of Being,,

Knowledge a/tid the Relativity of Feeling. 5^

and, therefore, ontological conclusions regarding the nature of
Being, viz., that it is unrelated to Thought.

Plausible as the theory seems at first sight, by reason of its sup-
posed basis in well-established scientific facts, it is impossible, upon
further reflection, to suppress certain questionings. These formu-
late themselves as follows: How is it possible to assume at the
same time the truth of the sensationalist hypothesis and that of
the Relativity of Feeling? Are these two doctrines ultimately
reconcilable ? Does not the possibility of knowing the relativity
of our feelings imply an element in knowledge besides these feel-
ings? Could a merely feeling consciousness ever arrive at the
knowledge that there were objects as referred to which its feelings
were purely relative ? In a word : Can a consciousness made up
exclusively of feelings which are ex hypothesi relative ever tran-
scend this relativity, and make assertions regarding an absolute
object as referred to which alone they could be termed relative?

What I wish to present is some suggestions in answer of this
question ; and incidentally, if possible, to throw some light upon
the ultimate ontological bearings of any theory of the relativity
of feeling.

It is to be noticed, first, that this theory assumes that there ib
an absolute object or objects. There can be no relative except aa
referred to an Absolute. It is only by assuming that there is
something Non-relative that we can know our feelings to be rela-
tive. Relative and absolute are correlate terms, and one without
the other is meaningless, or rather impossible. Were it not
postulated that there is a Non-relative existence as referred to
which our present actual feelings a7'e relative, it is evident that
the feelings themselves would be the ultimate and absolute, thus
contradicting the hypothesis. There is no need to occupy space
in stating these truisms, for, besides their self-evident character,
they are admitted, or rather claimed, by the chief modern repre-
sentative of the doctrine we are examining. Says Mr. Spencer :
" The proposition, that whatever we feel has an existence which is
relative to ourselves only, cannot be proved, nay, cannot even be
intelligibly expressed, without asserting directly, or by implica-
tion, an external existence which is not relative to ourselves."
. . . The hypothesis "that the active antecedents of each primary
feeling exist independently of consciousness is the only thinkable

•60 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

one. It is the one implicitly asserted in the very proposition that
feelings are relative to our own nature, and it is taken for granted
in every step of every argument by which the proposition is
proved" (Spencer, "Principles of Psychology," vol. i, pp. 209,
^10). And, again : " More certain than the relativity of relations,
as we conceive them, is the existence of non-relative forms to
which they refer; since proof of the tirst involves perpetual as-
sumption of the last " (Ibid., p. 227).

It being admitted, then, that knowledge of the relativity of
feeling implies knowledge of a non-relative existence, the question
arises as to the compatibility of this position with the theory it
accompanies, viz., that all knowledge is derived from feeling. Is
it logically possible to hold that all knowledge comes from feeling,
and yet that there is knowledge of the existence of an Absolute?
Rather, does not one position exclude the other? We will put
the case in its simplest form. Either there is knowledge of some-
thing JSTon-relative or there is not. If the latter be the case, then,
as we have already seen, the relativity of feeling could never be
known, nay, the question as to its relativity could never have
occurred to consciousness. The former alternative is the one
adopted. We must admit that there is knowledge of the existence
of an absolute object. But how is this knowledge obtained ? Since
all knowledge comes from feeling, this must also. In other words,
since sensation-knowledge we must have sensation that there is
an absolute existence. But on this theory (that every feeling is
relative) an absolute sensation is a contradiction in terms. We
may give up the sensationalist hypotiiesis, and, admitting that we
have knowledge not derived from feeling (viz., that an Absolute
exists), hold that feeling is relative. Or we may give up the
Relativity theory and hold, so far at least as this point is con-
cerned, that Sensationalism is true. But to attempt to hold them
together is suicidal. If all our knowledge comes from feeling,
since we can never have a feeling of the absolute object, we never
can have knowledge of it ; and we cannot have a feeling of it,
since, by the theory, the absolute is precisely that which is not
conditioned by feeling. Or, on the other hand, if we know that
all feeling is relative, we do know that there is an absolute ob-
ject, and hence have knowledge not derived from sensation. When
these alternatives are once fairly faced, it will be seen that one or

Knowledge and the Relativity of Feeling. 61

the other must be definitely adopted. Both cannot be accepted.
To attempt it is to sliow that neither position is understood.

Such is the fact. The reason for it is not far to seek. Bv the
sensationalist hypothesis, we know only our feelings; accordiinr to
the relativity theory, we must know the relation of our feelhigs
to an object ; this the feelings cannot give, except by transcend-
ing their relativity— except, in short, by ceasing to be feelings.
Hume showed once for all that if the sensationalist presuppositions
be adopted, the "perceptions" themselves were ultimate and final,
and that any supposed reference of them to an object is a fiction
to be accounted for as best may be.

An examination of the method by which Mr. Spencer attempts
to unite with his sensationalism the position that the existence of
an Absolute is known will confirm us in the conclusions just
drawn, for we shall see that the best which he can offer is a vir-
tual surrender. His argument was substantially given in the
passages cited from him, and is similar to that given in the First
Principles for the existence of an absolute object in general.
Briefly, it is as follows : " Tiie existence of a Non-relative is un-
avoidably asserted in every chain of reasoning by which relativity
is proved." This is apparently offered as a serious argument in
proof of the existence of an absolute object ; at least it is all that
is offered. Its worth may be made evident by a parallel example.
To prove A, we must assume B ; by its assumption A is proved.
But B is involved in the proof of A; therefore B is also proved.
It is evident, or ought to be, that we have here no proof of the
existence of either A or B, of the Relative or Non-relative, but
simply that there can be no A without B, no Relative without an
Absolute — an undoubted fact, but one which leaves the existence
of either in as much doubt as before. In truth, it is not a solution
of the difficulty, but a statement of it. It says that unless there
be an absolute object, our feelings cannot be known as relative ;
while the question is precisely how is this absolute object known.
Mr. Spencer's legitimate conclusions from his argument are either
that there is no absolute object, and hence the feelings are not
relative, or we do know they are relative, and hence know that
there is an absolute object, and have knowledge which is not rela-
tive. To attempt, as he does, to prove the existence of one from
the assumed existence of the other is to reason in a circle. It can

62 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy.

not be that we know there is a I^on-relative because we know that
our feelings are relative, for the latter point is just the one in
question, and cannot be proved, as Mr. Spencer himself shows,
without assumption of the former. The knowledge of the exist-
exce of the Relative cannot be made to depend upon the assump-
tion of a Non-relative, and knowledge of the existence of the Non-
relative upon that of the Relative, at one and the same time. But
it is only by this most illogical procedure that Mr, Spencer gets
the Absolute, which, as he recognizes, is necessary to the proof of
the relativity hypothesis.

We conclude, then, that we are justified in reasserting our
original statement. To know that our sensations are relative, we
must know that there is an Absolute, To know that there is an
Absolute is, on the sensationalist hypothesis, to assert the contra-
dictio in adjecto of an absolute feeling, or else to reason in the
wholly illegitimate manner just examined. Hence, the two posi-
tions of Sensationalism and Relativity of sensations are wholly
irreconcilable.

So far we have confined ourselves to the simplest assumption of
these theories as conjoined — the assumption that there is an abso-
lute object or objects. We have not concerned ourselves with the
question. What is this absolute object ? Tiiis, however, can no
longer be kept in the background. Even admitting what we have
seen it impossible to admit on the hypothesis that we have knowl-
edge of the existence of a Non-relative, we have yet to decide
whether the relativity of feeling can be proved without knowing
ivhat this Non-relative is. Tiie sensationalist must hold, of course,
that it can be. To hold that sensations can tell us what an abso-
lute existence is, is a contradiction even greater (if there be de-
grees in contradiction) than the one we have just seen the theory
involved in. And so we find that the absolute object is for Mr.
Sj)encer beyond consciousness, independent of consciousness, un-
knowable. In fact, Absolute and non-relativeness to consciousness
are synonymous terms with him and the Sensationalists generally.
'Our question, therefore, is : Can we prove the relativity of feelings
on the hypothesis that they are relative to an unknown something
by reference of them to something out of and independent of con-
.sciousness ?

In reply, we ask the following questions : 1. Is it possible to

Knoviledge and the Relativity of Feeling. 03

If now that something is, if we have absolutely no knowledge what
that something is ? Can we know that an Absolute is, if we don't
know what Absolute means ? 2. Is it possible to know the exist-
ence of anything which is ex hypothesi out of relation to con-
sciousness, and, further, know that this is the Absolute ? 3. Is it
possible to refer the whole content of consciousness to something
which is beyond consciousness? Since the relative is so only as
referred to an Absolute, can such a ratio between that which is in
consciousness and that which is out of it be discovered as to de-
monstrate the relative character of the former ? All these ques-
tions must, I conceive, be answered in the negative. As to the
first, the predication of existence of an Unknowable seems to he a
psychological impossibility. If there be any meaning in the asser-
tion that X is, I confess I cannot see it. When it is said that
something is, it is meant that something is. The predication must
be of something; it cannot be of a pure Non-entity, like the Un-
knowable, The subject must mean something ^before it can be
said either to be or not to be, or have any other intelligible pro-
position regarding it made. And so, as matter of fact, it is only
as Mr. Spencer identifies his Unknowable with an Absolute, and
thus takes advantage of the popular connotations of the word,
that he is able to say that the Unknowable is ; it is only as he
smuggles some degree of qualification, however slight, into the
subject that he can make it the subject of a proposition.

The question as to the possibility of knowledge of anything be-
jond consciousness, while presenting, since unknowable, the same
difficulties to an affirmative answer as the question just considered,
must, in addition, be answered negatively, on grounds of self-con-
sistency. To say that something beyond consciousness is known
to exist, is merely to say that the same thing is and is not in con-
sciousness. Its special characteristic is to be out of consciousness ;
but, so far as it is known to exist, it is in and for consciousness.
To suppose otherwise is to suppose that consciousness can in some
way get outside of or "beyond" itself, and be conscious of that
which is not in consciousness — a proposition as absurd as that a
man can stand on his own shoulders, or outstrip his shadow.

If we go further and give to the Absolute any positive signifi-
cation, if it becomes anything more than the blank negation of all
•determinate relations, the bare i«, which nevertheless is a qualiti-

64 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

cation by thought, we are only adding further relations to con-
sciousness ; we are only qualifying it further by thought relations^
Can the theory we are examining avoid such determinations ?
This brings us to our third question : Can a mere a?, an absolutely
unrelated object, afford us any ground for asserting the relativity
of specific objects in consciousness as they actually exist ? If the
absolute object is entirely out of relation to consciousness, it cer-
tainly cannot be related to feelings, the supposed content of con-
sciousness. Even were it granted that we could know the exist-
ence of an unknowable object and know that it was absolute, we
should not be justified in saying that our actual feelings were rela-
tive ; to effect this, the Absolute must be brought into specific
relations with specific feelings. As long as its sole characteristic
is unrelatedness to consciousness, it and the content of conscious-
ness have nothing to do with each other ; and to make one the
ground of asserting anything regarding the real nature of the
other is absurd. Indeed, not only must specific relations between
the object and feelings be asserted, but we find as matter of fact
at least one such implicitly posited, viz., that of cause and effect.
The absolute object is the cause, the feeling is the effect. Now,
remember that by this same theory all knowledge comes from
feeling, and then ask how is it possible for the feeling conscious-
ness to know this relation. At most, sensationalism can mean by
causation regular succession of feelings ; but the characteristics of
the supposed cause in this case are precisely' that it is not a feel-
ing, and (since it is unknowable) that the succession has never
been once observed, but it is only by making this self-destructive
assuniption that the theory can get the slightest footing.

We conclude on this point, therefore, that, to prove the Rela-
tivity of Feeling, it must be assumed that there is an absolute
object ; that this object must be in consciousness, and specifically
related to the content of consciousness, and that these relations
cannot be in the way of feeling. We must know that there is
such an object; we must know what it is, and the what must
consist in its relation to thought. Perhaps a method of stating
this conclusion which would appear less formal, though not less
expressive of the difficulty, would be to say that whatever is ex-
plained must be explained by reference to the known and not the
unknown. Even were it admitted, e. g.^ that the cause of our

Knoidedge and the Relativity of Feeling. 65

feelings and that force \\a,VQ some transcendental existence entirely
unrelated to ourselves and eritirely unknown, it would not be by
such unknowns that the relative character of our present feelings
could be shown. To show or to explain is to bring the thing into
relation with something known. Explanation of the unknown by
the known, not of the known by the unknown, is the order of
science.

An examination of the specific feelings which are said to be
relative to the subject will both bring this point into clearer lii^ht,
and reveal in what, positively, their relativity does consist. In a
concrete case : Why is the feeling of color as given in immediate
consciousness said to be relative? Is the knowledge that it is
such obtained by reference to a known or an unknown object ?
The question thus put answers itself. The sensation of color is
said to be relative to ourselves because it is known to be dependent
upon vibrations of ether and the retinal structure of the eye. It is
merely the relation between these two as given in consciousness.
Unless I know that there is such a retinal structure and such
waves, or something corresponding to them, it is absurd to speak
of the feeling of color as relative. It is only because I may know
what light is as objective that I may know that what it seisms to
be in feeling is relative and subjective. And so with sound and
taste. The subjectivit}'^ of taste, e. g., means that in the object
unrelated to a nervous organism there is such and such a physical
or chemical structure, and that the sensation of taste is the relation
between that structure and a corresDCjudins; organic structure.
Clearly, then, our knowledge of subjectivity or relativity depends
upon knowledge of something objective. But it must be especially
noticed that this something objective is not given in feeling, and,
therefore, is not relative to sense. These objects — the waves of
ether, the structure of the retina, etc. — are not themselves feel-
ings, and never have been : were they feel'ngs, there wuuld be no
reason to assert the relative character of the feelings following
upon them. Consequently, if it should be said that these so-called
objects, the vibrations, etc., although not tiiemselves feelings, yet
have meaning attached to them only in so far as they represent
possibilities of feeling — and mean only that under certain con-
ditions they would become feelings, and that even now they
possess signification only as symbolized by actual sensations— the
XVII- 5

6Q The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

answer is ready. But, before giving it, we will state the objection
more fnllj. It may be said that the objects we have supposed, the
vibrations, etc., are, as known, themselves conditioned by the affec-
tion of the nervous oi'ganism through some other objsct, and so on
indeiinitely, so that, after all, our knowledge of them is entirely
relative.

But any such objection, to be of value, must hold that tliis pro-
cess goes on ad infinitum, as otherwise there would be soujething
known not through feeling, and, therefore, not relative. But if it
does go on ad infinitum, it is clear that we fall into our original
difficulty: nothing will ever be known except the immediate feel-
ings, and to refer them to anything existing out of or beyond
themselves will be impossible. The mere fact that one feeling is
the antecedent of another could never give any reason for assert-
ing that that feeling was relative in comparison with an unknown
object. To suppose that it could, is to suppose that a feeling may
transcend its own relativity. Therefore, on this theory of the
infinite regress, it can never be known that there is an absolute
object, and, therefore, immediately present feelings can never be
referred to such an object ; i. e., can never be known to be rela-
tive. They become themselves absolute and absolutely known.

We conclude, therefore, that to prove the relativity of feeling
is impossible without assuming that there are objects which are
knov.-n not through feeling. In short, Sensationalism and the
Kelativiry hj'pothesis again prove themselves utterly incompatible.
The theory of the relativity of feeling, therefore, is so far from
proving the subjectivity of our knowledge that it is impossible,
except upon a theory which assumes that we do have objective
knovvledire.

The removal of a possible migapprehcnsion and an objection are
needed to complete the discussion of this point. It will perhaps
be said that, since the relativity of feeling v,'as known ]o::g before
there was knowledge of what the objects really were, and that
since now it is possible or probable, in some cases, that we do not
really know the objective order, our account cannot be correct.
But it must be noticed that this account does not depend for its
correctness upon the question whether objects are really what we
think they are, but simply upon the question whether the theory
of the Relativity of Feeling does not assume and require that it is

Knowledge and the Relativity of Feeling. 67

possihle to so know them. And this question is implicitly an-
swered in the affirmative in this very objection ; for, if our present
knowledge is incorrect, this can be shown only by reference to an
established objective order to which, by greater knowledge, it shall
be shown that our present theories do not correspond.

Or, again, it may be said our account is incorrect, because the
real reason for calling a feeling relative is not because we have any
knowledge of the object as referred to which it is relative, but sim-
ply because under the same objective conditions different persons
have different sensations, or even the same person at different
times. But nothing is gained by this change in expression, since
it assumes that there are permanent objective conditions, which
must be known. For the two differing feelings are either known
to refer to the same object or they are not. If not, all ground for
calling them relative disappears. But, if they are, of course this
object must be known. By any method of stating the theory, it
wnll be found impossible to avoid reference to a known order ob-
■jectively existing. In this connection it may iiot be without in-
terest to quote Mr. Spencer's summary of the theory as admitting
implicitly, though unconsciously, just this point. He says: "The
quality and the quantity of the sensation produced by a given
amount of a given external force vary not only with the structure
of the organism, specific and individual, as well as the structure
of the part affected, but also with the age, the constitutional state
of the part as modified by temperature, circulation, and previous
use, and even with the relative motion of subject and object."
"What we desire to call attention to are the two admissions or claims
which he makes, all unconscious of their bearing upon his thetny.
(1) That there is objectively " a given amount of a given force; "
and (2) that some nine objectively existing causes of the modifi-
cation of this force as given in feeling can he shown. In short, it
is assum.ed that there is an objective force, the kind and amount
of which is known, and that the causes which produce the varia-
tions of this in immediate feeling can be shown, and, consequently,
eliminated.

So far, our conclusions as to the relation of the theory of Rela-
tivity of Feeling to the theory of knowledge have been negative,
and consisted in pointing out that it was not consistent with Sen-
sationalism. But we are now prepared to draw a positive conclu-

68 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

sion and cay that the real meaning of the theory of Eelativity
of Feeling is that a feeling is a specific determinate relation or
reaction given in consciousness between two bodies, one a sensi-
tive, the other a non-sensitive object. It is possible to hold it,
therefore, only in conjunction with a theory which allows knowl-
edge of these objects ; furthermore, since we have knowledge of
these objective conditions, the knowledge of their relation as given
in feeling, though relative indeed to the subject, is not for that
reason a detraction from our knowledge of objects, but rather an
addition. One certainly cannot see a priori any reason why the
knowledge of the reactions of, say gold, in the presence of an acid
should be an interesting addition to our knowledge of these sub-
stances, while the knowledge of its relation to a sensitive organ-
ism as given in feeling should be a deprivation of real knowledge.
Except upon the theory that the real nature of things is their na-
ture out of relation to everything, knowledge of the mode of re-
lation between an object and an organism is just as much genuine
knowledge as knowledge of its physical and chemical properties,
which in turn are only its relations.

Leaving the subject of feelings, we come to that of relations be-
tween feelings which it has also been attempted to demonstrate to
be purely relative to the subject, giving no knowledge of objective
relations. There is no reason to draw upon the patience of read-
ers to examine this view. It is subject to all the difiiculties which
we have made out against the like theory regarding feelings, besides
laboring under the additional ditiiculty of having to show that
these relations are themselves naught but feelings. Since we have
already shown that the relativity of feelings to the subject cannot
be proved without assuming objective relations, the case stands, a
fortiori^ against any such attempt as the present. There is also a
self-contradiction in the theory so glaring that it might well have
made any one pause who was not so mastered by the presupposi-
tions of his system as to be blind to the rules of ordinary logic.
Sensationalism must and does hold that all relations are reducible
to feelinocs; ai-e themselves, indeed, but kinds of feeling. Bit the
theory of relativity supposes a relation between the subjective
feeling and the unknown object which is the absolute. But, ac-
cording to Sensationalism, this relation must be a feeling. Hence
nothing exists but feelings, and relativity is a myth ! If there be

Knowledge and the Relativity of Feeling. 69

no real relations, there can be no relativity; and, conversely, to
say that feelings are realhj relative is to say that a relation really
and objectively is, and is known. But to say this is to abandon
the position that relation is a kind of feeling, and thereby to aban-
don Sensationalism. Tiie fact that the two positions are so often
held in conjunction is only evidence of how slightly the real mean-
ing of either is grasped.

We summarize our results as follows: The doctrine of the rela-
tivity of feeling is incompatible with Sensationalism, and is so for
two reasons. First, Sensationalism can never give knowledge of
the sine qua nan of the Relativity theory: the existence of an ab-
solute object. For the very reason that sensation is relative to the
subject, it can never transcend that relativity and make assertions
regarding something absolute. Secondly, even if the existence of
the absolute object were assured, feeling qua feeling can never
demonstrate its own relativity. The Absolute here as an unknown
Universal can never be known to be the Absolute which consti-
tutes the relativity of the present content of consciousness. The
feelings must be definitely referred to that absolute object. For
feeling itself to make any such reference assumes that it can tran-
scend its relativity, and know not only an absolute object, but
what it is and what relations subsist between the two.

But if this knowledge of the existence of an absolute object and
of its determinate relations is not given by feeling, we are justi-
fied in saying that it is given l)y a consciousness which by its
relations determines the object. For, as we have shown that these
objects must be related to consciousness, and cannot be related in
the way of feeling, what they can be except as determined and
constituted by relations of this consciousness it is not easy to see.
Since a feeling can be known as relative only when referred to an
object, this object cannot be a feeling, nor constituted by a feeling.
The object must, then, be relative to a tlJnking consciousness.

There are two points which every theory of the Relativity of
Feeling must include and explain : {a) In what does the relative
character of the feelings consist ? {h) What is the nature of the
correlate absolute? The sensationalist hypothesis breaks down, as
we have seen, at both these points. But our present theory, that
relativity consists in a specific ratio between a sensitive and a non-
sensitive object, which are constituted by relations to eelf-con-

70 The Journal of Sjoeculative Philosophy.

sciousness, proves itself, I think, amply adequate. Since relativ-
ity, according to it, consists not in relation to a nervous organism,
but to consciousness, the possibility of knowledge is provided for.
And, on the other hand, since tliis self-consciousness is the ground
and source of relations, it cannot be subject to them. It is itself
the true Absolute, then. This does not mean that it is the Unre-
lated, but that it is not conditioned by those conditions which de-
termine its objects. Thus, we are saved the absurdity of believing
in a relative which has no correlate absolute.

We have thus considered the theory of the Relativity of Knowl-
edge in that form where it unites itself with and bases itself upon
feeling. The reader may see for himself how large a portion
of it would also apply to any theory ot the Relativity of Knowl-
edge. In closing, we must repeat the caution with which we
began : that we are not dealing with the theory of relativity of
feeling as a psychological theory. The correctness of the theory
is undoubted. The philosophical interpretation of it is the point
in question. Its conditions and implications need development,
and we have attempted to show that when they are developed the
theory is compatible neither with Sensationalism, nor with Sub-
jectivism, nor with Agnosticism ; that it is compatible only with
a theory which admits the constitutive power of Thought, as itself
ultimate Being, determining objects.

PRIMEVAL MAN.

BY ELIZABETH PALMER PEABODT.

This paper, the resume of some thirty years of my own studies
into Historical Origins, was written as long ago as 1854 ; before
I had read Bunsen's " Antiquarian Researches," which I found,
waeti 1 did read thein, in 1860, confirmed with astronomical, philo-
logical, and physiological facts, and with the ornamentation of
the most ancient njonumeuts, as well as with collation and criti-
cism of the oldest written documents, the theory of a primeval
civilization, long antedating what had been considered, hitherto,
the beginning of human history.

Primeval Man. Yl

And, of course, it was written prior to the recent ecientific
theories of the " Origin of Species " and " Descent of Man." But
the acceptance of ths theory of the evohition of the human body
ont of star-dnst, through all lower animal forms, till it reached
the human shape (perhaps in the faun, wliich may have been his-
torical !), does not at all invalidate the arguments on which is
founded my theory of the Primeval Man. As a Spirit of Reason,
communing fully with his kind in love, and comprehending na-
ture l)V. intuition, I submit that the " Imao-e of God" is not ma-
terial, and must be sought and found, not by physiological but by
historical research. Of course, man could not appear on earth till
an organization had been developed or evolved adequate to be a
perfect instrumentality of the Spirit. J. J. "Garth Wilkinson, in
his work entitled "The Human Body in its Relation with Man,"
has illustrated by the physiology what I attempt to illustrate by
the history of humanity. For, as Mr. Emerson has sung, even
the fragmentary history that we have is sufficient to show to an
earnest, reflective mind that

"Deep love lietli under
The pictures of time,
That/aofe in the light

Of their meaning sublime.''''

The earliest traditions declare the unity of the human race, not
merely by referring man, bodily, to one progenitor (of M'hich there
is reasonable dispute), but by referring civilization to one law-
givei".

Considering the names of the primeval law-givers, to which each
great race goes back (the Aryan Manu, the Indian Ifetm, the
Egyptian Menes, the Lydian Maeon, the Etruscan Manus, the
German Ma7i, and the radical syllable min, found in declining
the Latin homo, and in Minerva, the name of the Roman goddess
of wisdom), we find the old root, mn (the liquid m expressing the
meetino-, and the n negating the limit, of phenomena). Man, cty-
inologically, means the consciously meaning creature expressing
himself by the symbolic organs of speech, the oldest and character-
istic creation of man being significant articulate speech— and if
the sensuous genius of the Aramaean language named man from
his body {Adam—Fdom—vedi earth), because, characteristically,

72 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

they considered the phenomenon first ; jet his spiritual being was
not left unrepresented in the Hebrew Genesis. For not only in
Chapter First is he declared the conscious sovereign of the earth,
and of all that there is tlierein, but in Chapter Second it is said
that "the Lord God brought to Adam all creatures to be named,
and the name that he gave them was the name thereof" — a state-
ment which can symbolize nothing less than that man, having
appeared on earth in full physical development, unhindered by
inheritance of physical evil (wliich is always the consequence of
moral disorder or negligence), not only received on his healthy
sensorium perfect impressions of nature's particulars, but his un-
spoiled brain was in that perfect state for intuitive perception,
classification, and all other mental action,' of which we have par-
tial example in every great original genius, whose proper action
is always to name correctly sensuous things, and their relations to
the whole, of which he has mystic knowledge in his sense of per-
sonal identity; that the name the primeval man gave to every-
thing brought before him " was the name thereof^'' — -that Ib, it
expressed its nature and attributes; in short, articulate, signifi-
cant language was the first creation of man, and the special wit-
ness of his intellectual entity. Exj)ression was coeval with Im-
pression, or Speech followed hard on Perception.

That man did appear on earth, not only in physical and intel-
lectual power, but morally free to good and evil, is patent, in that
lie was, as we have already said, and as all ancient tradition recog-
nizes, primevally, the law-giver. And in justifying the assertion
that the names of the most ancient law-givers point to, or imply
the first social organism, rather than an individual, it may be in
point to cite the fact that in ancient Egypt all the wisdom gath-
ered in the ages, by whomsoever committed to writing, went to
make one book, called the " Book of Hermes," whence, in process
of time, came the conception of the Egyptian god Hermes, in-
spirer of all wisdom. For that " all scripture came by inspira-
tion of God " was an ancient proverb, expressing not the faitli of
the Hebrews alone, though their characteristic conception oi Law^
as concrete in one H0I3' persona personarum, made their symbol

' See Frances Power Cobbe's " Intuitive Morals," and F. D. Maurice's " Conscience,"
for the later recognition of this truth.

Primeval Man. 73

of the self-revelation of the Divine Spirit always to be human
historj.

The name of the Hebrews' God, Jehovah, was composed of the
three tenses of the verb to le—'' was^ "i?," ''shall Je"— which
happily expresses the idea of Eternity, and, to the moral sense,
means The Promisee. (" As it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be," is the grand intuition of Primeval Humanity, seal-
ing it as the Eternal Son of God.) It is precisely because only
the expression of Truth and Good, which is symbolized by man
in his social unity, can touch the sensibilities of all men, from
zenith to nadir, that the Hebrew scriptures interest the heart and
command the imagination of more varieties of race than do the
sacred books of any other nation.

For only the few of any race or age, by a process of introver-
sion, abstract the idea of Divinity. The mass of men, whether
barbarous or civilized, are interested by nothing less than a story
of social interaction ; and they are so quick to infer a Divine fac-
tor in history, because every man personally realizes the need of
Divine to supply the shortcomings of human Causality and
Ideality.

In short, it is because men, considered in solidarity, can alone
become the image of God, that the adequate form of a Revelation
of God must needs be the total of human history.

It matters not, indeed, whether we consider as an Idea expressed
in apologue merely, or as historical fact, that old tradition which
(whether it appears as the Eden of the Hebrews, the Egyptian
kingdom of Osiris, the Persian kingdom of Ormuzd, the Golden
Age of ancient Europe, or the long reign of gods before men,
lying back of the Chinese and Indian histories) always symbolizes
the one general truth — that the race began as one social organ-
ism ; all variety of human individuality harmonized into Wisdom
and Power, by the recognized rule of a supreme self-conscious
being, infinitely good and wise, in parental relation with it, gen-
eratino;, and educatino: to regenerate it, forevermore.

The etymology of the ^^ox^^just and right (perfect pai-ticiples
of the Latin words for to command and to reign over\ and the
instinctive appropriation of them to the decisions of conscience,
point back to the same original fact of pure Theism as the lirst
religion of the human race, and the lirst principle of all govern-

T4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ment. Every degree of remorse (wliicli every individual feels
more or less, from his earliest days of reflection) implies the same
truth — namely, that man is " created upright," and begins his
career as the image and vicegerent of God/

That all nature is instrumentality for man ; and, to make society
a " communion of the just," his recognized and appointad duty is,
at once, the instinct of the heart, the ultimate truth of Keason,
and the oldest statement of history. (Gen. x, 9-17.)

It is this primeval fact (or Idea) of the Incarnation of God in
man which has had the effect, in Asia, to give any man, in whom
the supreme power is formally vested, the prestige of divinity.
Always, with Asiatics, the " powers that be " are reverenced as
divine. The "Great Emperor" of China, "Grand Lama" of
Thibet, " Indian Rajah," or whatever the title of the Oriental
ruler may be, is not the servant, but an incarnation of God (with
the one exception of the kings of Israel).

The salutation of Brahmin to Brahmin, though it be from aged
father to youthful son, still is, "to the divinity that is in you I do
homage." Even in its ruins, Asiatic society is thoroughly theo-
cratic. Hence the persistence of those majestic forms of social
and political life which lie like a ghastly mask on its shrunken
skeleton.

And it is this not yet entirely dead mysticism, on the borders
of Europe and Asia, upon which the demonic Czar Nicholas
knew how to play, and which gave to his assumption of divine
right by the Ukase a strange power over the Asiatic portion of
his subjects; while, on the other hand, it was simply ludicrous to
the western mind, whose extreme peculiarity is expressed by the
London "Punch"; and it inextricably pnzzled, or more or less
heavily imposed upon those nations, whose culture lies half-way
between tliese extremes, who talk of the divine right of kings
and infallibility of popes.

' Hence the great poet of the Ideal, in his Sphinx song :

" Ask on— thou clothed Eternity !

Time is the false reply."
And—

" Pride ruined the angels —
Their shame them restores ;
And the joy that is sweetest
Lurks in stings of remorse."

Primeval Man. 75

But thfire is another tradition of History, coeval with that of
the incarnation of God in man, wliich testifies to a fact only logi-
cally second to it: this is the Fall of Man from Paradise; the
death of Osiiis, torn to pieces hy the monster Typhoeus ; the in-
vasion of the kingdom of Ormuzd by Ahriman ; the silver, brazen,
and iron ages of ancient Europe that followed the golden age of
Saturn.

Whether these corresponding traditions point to Ideas constitu-
ting the uiiiid of man, or to historical facts on the social and po-
litical plane of the primeval civilization, they equally, with that
of the incarnation, symbolize the truth — that there is a Being of
whom the human race is an intellio;ent creature, endowed with
freedom to become, consciously, one with Him, no less than left
at liberty to rebel against Hiiu within a certain sjjJiere. Other-
wise the mind of man is a material slough, half conscious in de-
spair.

But that it is not the last is symbolized by a third tradition, in-
extricably mixed np with the two others in all their forms. With
i\\id curse and banishment from Paradise is linked, indissolubly,
the immortal hope of E.edem[)tion, which is found to be no less
universal if more or less clear in different civilizations.

It is said to Adam, in Genesis iii, that Eve's seed shall crush
the serpent of evil ; and to Abraham, in Genesis x, "In thy seed
shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Isis, the faithful
wife of Osiris, never ceases to seek the divided body of her be-
loved husband — [which, the fable says, Typhoeus buried all over
the earth] — that, bringing the pieces together, a house of life may
be made, to which he shall return to live and rule forevermore.
The Persian prophecy is, that Ormuzd shall in the end overcome
Ahrim-^n ; and, over Ciiaos, according to the the«)gony of Ilesiod
(whicli is really ill-remembered history), " Love, first born of Im-
mortals, rose."

Indeed, the Greek myths of Kedempiion are multitudinous.
Think of that wonderful story of Jupiter and Semele, where the
finite is destroyed by its irreverent desire to know God otherwise
than by worshipping him, humbly and gratefully— wherefore for
earthly beauty is given ashes, by Jupiter's coming in his unveiled
infinite majesty in answer to the incontinent human desire. But,
according to this fable, the divine spark of life, which the Infinite

76 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

has fathered and the Finite mothered, is saved in the thigh of
Jupiter (which seeins to be the emblem of" the activity of the
spirit in time); and, in due season, the man-child appears — a fiery
God, riding on the panther, and conquering India ; the stroke of
his thyr.sos turning the earth beneath into the grape, whose form
and streaming wine answer to the sun, with its streaming light —
showing that the earth and the heavens are alike symbols of the
one life, whose ineffable nature is YICTOE.Y !

Also, tliink of Prometheus (mind foreseeing), who, " benevo-
lent to man," warns his brother, Epimetheus (mind passive),
against receiving any gift whatever from Jnpiter, who, in that
oldest mythology^ always stands for the god of this world, in oppo-
sition to a sublimer Divinity. But the warning was in vain, for
forgetful Epimetheus "received" the consummate Pandora, who
straightway opened on him her casket, whence, to his dismay,
"flew human ills tlirough earth and air."' But here, also, is
found the Promise ; Hope was left prisoner of man by the quick-
falling cover!

Again, to Prometheus, chained by Jupiter for bringing fire
from heaven to man on eartli, comes at last the deliverer, Her-
cules, the genius of Labor, born of the God-like Will, and the all-
entrancing Beauty of the Grecian land, who brings to an end one
old era, and begins another.

To those who may object to all this, that it is Poetry, and not
History, we reply that we can afford to make the transference,
though we submit that it is a poetic form of History, by which
the Divine meaning of ages of human experimenting is distilled
into a convenient form for transmission and moral use. With
respect to the fact of man's first estate in physical and intellectual
uprightness, the historic fall, and the growing redemption of the.
race (a symbolic trilogy which integrates the triplicity of human
destiny), History is strong with her unquestionable monuments,
and is growing stronger as they are daily explored.

To say nothing of language, in which the early history of the
human mind is fossilized, and whicli at last is being studied sci-
entifically, stones, no more than figures, will lie. When man
builds his life into architectural masses like those of Egypt and

' See Flaxman's " Illustrations of Hesiod — Pandora opening her Box."

Primeval Man. 7Y

India, or moulds it into sculpture, as in the allegoric figures ot
Persia and Assyria, the colossi of Egypt, and the gods and heroes
of Greece and Rome, he makes that which he is-everlastin^ as
the hills : ^

" Earth proudly wears the Parthenon

As the best gem upon her zone ;

And morning opes with haste her lids

To gaze upon the Pyramids."

The monuments of the Elder World testify to what man has
been, known, and done, as cannot be gainsaid. We need but
slightly indicate what volume upon volume of antiquarian re-
search tells, in details which cannot be too considerately explored.
Even monumental architecture shows that, in early anti(piity,
men were organized to labor, and accomplished vast designs ; and
the laborers were not mere artisans, but creative artists, whose
culture (again) implies organized society.

The sculptures of those monuments that Heeren explored in
Egyptj Persia, and India, on which are brought together the in-
habitants of remote regions, prove an immense commerce.' We
see the nomads of Asia and Africa, reciprocally, on the architec-
tures of Egypt and Assyria. Tiiey are walking in processions in
Egypt, bearing tributes; they hold up, as caryatides, the thrones
of the old kings of Persia and Assyria. Costumes and manners
identify some of these figures with the Scythians of the North,
and the Ethiopian and Egytian nomads described by Herodotus;
for it is plain, on comparing his descriptions with accounts mod-
ern travellers give of the Tartaric and African tribes, that nomads
neither deteriorate nor improve in the lapse of -A^e^. Their otfice
seems to be to keep up the wild stock of the human i-ace, with a
protest against that subjection of one class of men to anotiier
which can only take place in any nation by some men's arro-
gating a divine right, which is, in fact, inherent in all, or in none.

On the temple- and palace-walls of Egypt and Assyria are
represented triumphal marches of conquerors, bringing as prison-
ers, at their chariot-wheels, multitudes of nations wiio wers linked
together by religion, politics, or commerce. Thj tributes brought
mingle the silks of China, the commodities of farther and hither

' Heeren's " Researches in Persia, Egypt, and India."

78 Tlie Journal of Sj^eculative Philosophy.

India, with gold and ivory borne on the hands of negroes from
Guinea, even so long ago!

The investigations of Landsecr into a species of monument,
found among the ruins of Babylon, whose architectures and sculp-
tures are destroyed, have poured unexpected light upon the his-
tory of the early ages. Cylinders of precious stone, carved with
more or less artistic skill, are picked up, even to this day, among
the ruins of Babylon, and are occasionally dug up in the Eastern
Continent, in places as distant from each other as Ireland and
China. They are small, but their great numbers can only be
accounted for by recalling the remark of Herodotus — that " every
Babylonian had a signet," They are, in short, horoscopes, wliich
were worn on the top of a staff, or on a string tied round the
neck. The aspects of the heavens are represented on them by
eml^lematic iigure?, which recall the astronomical science that,
as astrological myth, gave form to the popular religion of old
Babylon.

It is only the extensive commerce, which had one of its capitals
on the banks of the Euphrates, and another on the Nile, and em-
braced the isles of the sea, east and west, that can account for the
wide spread of many mythological stories, through which gleam
the sciences of Nature, especially astronomy; but which often
have a historic and metapliysical sense also, as if nations of ditfer-
ent genius had succsssively symbolized their thought, and even
history, by the sam.e figures. For, in process of time, these sig-
nets, being used as seals and pledges of faith in commerce, were
universally diffused in waxen semblances, each nation interpret-
ing the graven images according to its own ideas and traditions.

If, as Landseer seems to prove, these cylinders are referred to
in the Book of Job (xxxvii, 14), were legislated against by Moses
as gmven images,' and were the ground forms of many Gi'ccian
and Roman myths, the testimony they bear to the antiquity of a
general commerce, supporting and supported by an affiliated Pa-
ganism, is remarkable.

The unity of Paganism in its principle (which is the worship of

' It is noteworthy that Moses always says: "Thou shalt not have a graven imago
unto thjaclf^'' which is a perfect description of a Babylonian signet, every horoscope
beiog pecuhar to its owner. Such idols it was easy for Rachel to conceal by sitting on
them.

Primeval Man. 79

the Heavens and the Earth), and the interfusion of its rites and
ceremonies with the activities of commerce, was a widel v extended
fact in antiquity; but many European monuments bear a differ-
ent interpretation. Tliey consist of fragmentary Epics and Lyrics,
pointino; to an action of man antagonistic to religion and union
which the monuments of soutiiern Asia and northeastern Africa'
always presuppose; in short, they are redolent of a more lively
religious sentiment, in the iorm of Hero-worship.

In Europe, as elsewhere, the first rulers of men are said to have
been divine ; and European divinities are always of the human
form, which, instead of being disgraced, as in Asia, by allegoric
monstrosities, such as a hundred breasts, or a multitude of arms
or eyes, becomes, whenever it symbolizes the Divine, of Ideal
beauty.

The worship of human form culminated in Greece, where the
Titans, children of Heaven and Earth, seem to have had earliest
sway. Benjamin Constant shows that the reign of the Titans
represents a sacerdotal government, learned in the arts and
sciences, and by these very means tyrannizing over conquered
masses, foreclosing the freedom of new generations as they " came
upon the shores of being."

Sir William Jones's Dissertation upon "the identity of the
gods of India and Italy " affords a mass of evidence that the
sacerdotal governments of Asia and Africa extended, at an early
age, into Europe also ; else the identity he discovers is only to be
accounted for by supposing that vast emigrations went from some
central point of Asia, carrying their traditions of glory with them
to new localities, where they finally took root, and seemed, to
their posterity, indigenous; so that the ancient Italy was really a
reminiscence of India, and the golden reign of Saturn, perhaps, hut
another statement of the primeval organism of men in society.
For does not Saturn obviously stand for the ancient Time? Think
of his history : so Time devours all that it brings forth. Stupe-
fied into custom, it may at last mistake a stone for a living child,
let the stone only be cunningly swathed by the changeable Khea
(who personifies the flow of circumstance).

But the autocratic genius of political power, the Greek Zeus,
the good father, Eupater, Jupiter, being child of that one of the
Titans who had obtained sway over all the rest (for custom la

80 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

stronger than all other finite principles), when, like the rest of his
brethren, he is condemned to be devoured, indicates his descent
from Uranus (Heaven — this father's fatlier), and under that pro-
tectioi), by his mother Rhea's aid (as Ilesiod has told us), escapes
to Crete, and gets educated by the priests of Cybele. (Everywhere
we find religion, though often, as here, it has gone astray into the
earth for its God.)

In the first force of his youthful genius, Jupiter declares war
against the time-honored custom (political contends with sacer-
dotal power) ; Saturn is compelled to disgorge^ first, the stone,
then the brothers and sisters of the new autocrat, who, in the gen-
erous plenitude of conscious power, seeks the prison-house of his
uncles, the Titans, to set them free also (autocratic power craves
the prestige of the divine association).

What splendid symbulization is this of ages of human activity^
distilled down into a poetic quintessence by the generalizing In-
tellect and creative Fancy! The Genius of Humanity, in some
remarkable person, triumphs over Time; and, taking counsel of
all the powers of Nature, especially of the forecasting wisdom of
man, builds up, on the ruins of an outworn ancient dynasty (which
in its own day had a not unlike history), the 01ym])ian kingdom.

There is a subsequent war between the Titans and the Olympic
gods, and a conquest of the former by the latter, with the lielp of
the hundred-handed giants of the earth and sea. And this is fol-
lowed by the battle of the giants with the victorious gods (for the
conservative multitude, of course, when it has become conscious
of its potency, always rebels against the autocratic power, although
it did help restore it to new vigor !).

The whole story has been reproduced in Europe within fifteen
hundred years.

Let Constantino's Empire stand for Saturn; let the principle of
monarchy, encouraging the popular element till it has gained its
own purpose?, stand for Jui)iter and his allied giants; let Hilde-
brand's struggle of the ecclesiastical against the civil power stand
for the war of the Titans against the Olympic gods — and it will
be seen that the whole fable of tlie war of the Titans was verita-
ble history, which always has words of prophecy for the under-
standing heart. The myth holds good for history, even to the
end ; Jupiter conquers and keeps in bonds the rebel Titans. He

Primeval Man. SI

even nails the immortal Prometheus, his prime ooiinsellor, to tlie
rock of circumstance, by mechanical art and material Force, under
the direction of Mercury (the brain in the hand). Wliv is not
this a probable history of the elder world, since we know that, in
the modern era, the Practical Intellect always has sacrificed to
immediate ends the inspirations of its youth, without which it
would never have risen to its place of power ? '

The monarchical principle grew in Europe — first, by the ("hurch,
which anointed it ; secondly, by the popular element, which gave
it material force. No sooner was it established than it dealt with
both as Jupiter did with the Titans on the one side and the
giants on the other. But there is nothing which has lived that
can entirely die. The mountains that are piled on the giants are
not "firm set earth ; " the buried ones turn, and shake the fium-
dations of the cities built over them ; occasionally their fiery life
bursts forth overwhelming; there is secret, undated community
with the Higher power, " benevolent to man," who brought the
fire to earth;'' and the divine Titan bides his time, and outlives
the vulture of circumstance. The self-regenerating liver may not
be exhausted even through thirty thousand years. Idea foresees
that, however persistent may be any beautiful form, every form
is temporary. As out of the conjunction of the active genius of
Greece, with its beautiful sensibility, sprang a force, personal,
moral, instant ; conditioned by political circumstance, and directed
to specific ends ; constantly renewed and cultivated by the very
labors that were imposed upon it to keep it from the place of
power — so it may be that the legitimate governments of modern
Europe are educating the Hercules that shall unbind the genius
of Humanity for a new Avatar!

Homer celebrated the past glories of the Olympian era. The
fall of Trov is the last event that brought the will of the Pelasgic-
Dodonsean Jupiter about. Apollo, the god of the IIeraclcida3,
took his place in Greece thereafter. If Jupiter survived as a
name, it was vox et j^rceterea nihil.

When, some ages after Homer and Ilesiod, Herodotus took up

See " Biography of Napoleon Bonaparte," as given by Ilazlitt.
« Mr. Longfellow has embodied this idea in his "Euceladus." But I deny any pla-
giarism. This essay was written (1853) long before his sonnet was published, if
written.

XVII— 6

82 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the pen of History, which the epic poets had laid down, the Del-
phic oracle was the sole temple of Eeligion that held any sway
over the people. But its sway was supreme. It is because we
see the details of the Ionian revolt and Grecian resistance to Per-
sia microscopically, that it does not appear to be Apollo's deed,
as obviously as the destruction of the Pythian serpent, and the
building of the temple of Crissa,

The triumph of the age of Pericles was the flowering out, in
national act, of a Religion founded on the worship of Divine In-
tellect, in pure human form.

Karl Ottfried Miiller has interpreted the Dorian conception of
Apollo as " the moral harmony of the universe," broadened first
by the toleration, and then by the absorption, of the tutelary gods
of the other tribes, who severally personified the various human
instincts and faculties which possibly characterized their heroic
founders, and the systems of culture they severally established.
But Miiller's interpretation is not enough to explain the belief in
h.\% personality, which made Apollo the god of the people.

Modern researches have suggested, if they have not proved, that
Apollo was an ancient leader of the Dorian colonization, a Hero
Priest (perhaps the remembrance of one of the " fourteen lives of
Buddha" long prior to Gotama), who led a colony of the atheisti-
cal sect (falsely so called, for its denial of any Divinity existent in
the material universe opened up the way for an apprehension of
God in man, the only known creature of which Love, Wisdom,
and Spiritual power are in any degree attributes).

In the personality of a heroic man, then, is at last found ade-
quate explanation of the effectiveness of the worship of Apollo
over the masses of the Greeks. It is only Personality that will
command a people's worship ; never an abstraction.

The human Apollo must have combined the highest ideas of
the Brahminical piety with the immeasurable self-respect of the
protesting Buddha,' who probably united rare personal gifts with
his complete culture.

Apollo inspires and commends his worshipper to his own Ideal
Beauty.

' The word Buddha, Intelligence, did not originate with Sakyamuni. It heads the
most ancient genealogies of Asia. (See Tod's "History of Rajasthan.")'

Primeval Man. 83

Except the Hebrew, this is the only worsliip that liistory speaks
of which does not subject man to material nature ; and, at the
same time, does not despise, but respects, material nature in its
due place.

Its supreme act is Imagination, which, descendino; from the
calm heaven of Keason, expresses itself in Music, Dance, Science,
and every beautiful art — the equilibrate motion, which is the rest
not of death, but of the two poles of life in equipoise.

Its action in society was the inevitable result of a noble wis-
dom that saw the supreme end of a.state* to be the unfolding of
its constituent members to a perfect individual development, which,
precisely because it was felt by each one to be his own moral cre-
ation, was his highest source and means of enjoyment.

Such a political state was measurably historical with the Do-
rians ; and the only argument against their historian has been
that " such culture is incredible in a wandering tribe of No-
mads,"

But what justifies this ever-i-ecurring preconception of primeval
harbarism^ when it is opposed by facts so stubborn as the Sans-
crit, Zend, and other old tongues, teeming with words applied
to intellectual and moral exercises not named in modern lan-
guages, proving a subtlety of intellect on the one hand, and
a range of nature on the other, without parallel in modern civili-
zation ?

What is to be made of the fossilized science discovered among
the superstitious practices of the Eastern nations? The idle le-
gends, by which those among whom they are found explain these
forms of custom, prove that the science originated with some
more highly educated race who went before.'

It is immeasurably more absurd to suppose that the wonders of
Grecian art and culture, described by Homer, and otherwise indi-
cated in the first ages of Greece, were the imagination of the
poets, than to believe them to be historical facts.

Layard has discovered, in Nineveh, that beneath the relics of
the eighth century before Christ is found another, previously
buried, Nineveh, whose works of art are of an altogether more

* K. 0. Miiller, vol. ii, "History of the Dorians." '

=* See Bailly's "History of Ancient Astronomy," and "L'Origine des Sciences."

84: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

exquisite character, showing the remoter age to have been more
highly cultivated than the later one ! '

Many of the cylinders of Babylon, referred to just now, speci-
mens of which are scattered through the cabinets of Europe,
exhibit the highest taste of art. The shawls of Cashmere, the
steel and the silken webs of Damascus, are older than historical
memory.

All these nations have the tradition that these inventions were
introduced by divine personages. The " social compact " and
the germination of arts and sciences among barbarians are ro-
mances of modern philosophers that have not a solitary historical
veriiication. Joseph de Maistre's idea of savages being the degra-
dation of the human race, not its germs," is far better authenti-
cated by facts than the opposite opinion; and it is no objection
to this view that the nobleness of some savage nations testifies to
the restorative power of an entire removal from the seats of con-
centrated corruption, from which the crimes or the caprices of their
progenitors may originally have driven them ; the promise of Re-
demption is as inherent in man as the Fall and the original sov-
ereignty. The whole trilogy is perpetually reproduced, both in
individuals and in History.

The Yedas of the Aryans, the Desatir of the Persians, the Pu-
ranas, and other sacred books of the Indians, equally show that
the Fallen man was not at once bereft of all tlie glories of the
sovereign.

In that da}', when yet "the whole earth was of one lip," man,
in comparison with later generations,

" above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower."

" High in the midst, exalted as a God, ,
Th' Apostate in his sun-bright chariot sat ;
Idol of majesty divine —
His form not yet had lost
All its original brightness.

' Mariette's discoveries in the most ancient Egypt and the exploration of the Great
Pyramid bring similar evidence.
* " Soirees de Ste. Petersbourg."

Primeval Man. 85

Nor appeared less than

Archangel ruined,

And the excess of glory obscured."

In short, men whose personal gifts and splendor of action are
hardly exa,e:gerated in the myths of the Grecian gods, whose
forms (as Heeren says) Homer and Ilesiod fixed forever in the
hnman imagination by the characterizing strokes of their wonder-
ful genius, might not unreasonably have been believed by ordi-
nary men to have been wholly divine.

A late writer has traced from India, by the names of their set-
tlements, which are found to be but a thinly disguised Sanscrit,
the founders of every Grrecian, as well as many -Syrian and Egyp-
tian states ; and he promises to do the same with respect to Italy
and other nations farther west.'

The earlier of the emigrants were sun-worshippers, who may
naturally have succeeded to worshippers of the abstractions of
the human mind (of which the Heavenly host and the forms of
Earth are emblems), that at last brought about a worship of mate-
rial nature, instead of the Supreme Spi7'it, whose expression they
are; and this, in every instance, at last reduced men to barbar-
ism. If there were various sectaries of this worship of nature
(and how could it be otherwise ?), and if they made various experi-
ments of social life, the recollections of these persons by their de-
scendants, and their histories, seen across the dark ages of Revo-
lution and Barbarism, would account for the variety and contra-
dictions of the myths, which present the greatest difficulties when
it is insisted to harmonize them into one scheme, as Hesiod and
others have tried to do.

But those antiquarians and critics are quite in the wrong who
so earnestl)^ set forth that it was not legitimate for the Grecian
poets to have used these historical facts as the fanciful symboliza-
tion of their ideas. The truth is that tho facts themselves grew
out of the Ideas, which were their final cause of being.'

The genius of Humanity exercises its highest prerogative when

1 See " India in Greece," by E. Pocoke. He has promised it respecting the Kelts ,
who preserved the original Aryan organization of clans in the Scotch Highlands and i
Ireland (Aryaland ?).

" See r. D. Maurice's " Apocalypse."

86 The Journal of Specvlative Philosophy.

it extracts the Idea which a great social movenient, or series of
movements, has expressed, and casts aside the facts, as the gold-
smelter does the ore in which he finds the precious metal embed-
ded. This " mystic harvest " of Time, that the Poet " gathers in
a song," is a corresponding verification of the argument derived
from Philology, for the high condition of Primeval man, which
the Philosopher of History cannot spare.

"We know, indeed, by the Romancers and wandering Minstrels
of the twelfth century, that these transcendental Reapers of the
fields of Time make sad work with the dates and localities ; but,
on this account, we do not cease to be grateful that the middle age
literatures have preserved the grand forms of Charlemagne and
Ms Paladins, and of Arthur and his knights, who were really flesh
and blood, and would never have been represented as the defenders
of innocence, age, and chastity, but for the reality they shared in.
the Christian Life of Love.

That idea of pure Love made them imperishable ; and, when
they passed away personally, all in them that was derived from it
survived as a, power / and, re-embodied in chivalry, and the Chris-
tian poetry, not only educated Milton, as he has gratefully re-
corded, but Christian Europe, so far as it has been educated at
all, which is indeed but partially.

The peculiarity of Greece was not derived from the emigration
of the Solar Tribes, but from the leaders of the Pelaso-ian colonies
of later date, called the Lunar Tribes. These, before they left
Asia, had rejected the theology of the Brahmins, and their whole
social organization, by denying the abstract principle out of which
those doctrines grew, and propounding a theory in favor of the
human will exactly opposite to the old Pantheism.

The first, as well as the last Buddh preached that God was the
evolution of ages, and always came into form at last as a man.

The signature of the developed divinity was the union of all
gifts of genius and fortune which could make human opportunity.
Having traversed all nature, from the lowest moss and animal-
cule up through all vegetable and animal organizations, he at last
found himself the most beautiful, wise, and powerful of men, and
the son of a king.

Choosing five hundred companions, most nearly gifted like
himself, he exercised Saturnian sway ; and, having organized the

Primeval Man. Hf

whole race of men into a perfect society, and established peace
truth, and universal felicity, lie and his live hundred passed into
nir-ioana (which has been strangely interpreted annihilation), for
they had arrived at the consummate flower of Beinc^ !

Such is the oldest Buddhistic Tradition.'

We can plainly see what there was inspiring and commanding
in this myth. What a spark of fire it must have been to kindle
all the personality of genius slumbering in that old Brahminical
world !

If it was a doctrine preached by a man whom fortune had
placed on a pinnacle of political power by his birth, and he could
give his thought aet^ nothing recorded of the triumphs of Buddh-
ism is incredible. Even the last Buddha (Gotama) conquered
Brahminical Sacerdocy for ages, in its old seats.

Alexander and Csesar and the modern " Man of Destiny " came
into similar relation with their respective times, and, with a gauge
of mnch less depth, did a corresponding work on the political
plane.

It is true that Brahmanism always recovered itself in its old
place, when the living Buddh passed out of the flesh ; but this in
the end was an advantage to mankind, for it produced emigration
en masse of those who had ackn owl edited him."

Each leader could believe himself, and be believed bv his fol-
lowers, the coming Buddha, just in proportion to his gifts ; and
would work and inspire others accordingly. Hence the leaders
of the earliest Pelaso-ian and Hellenic colonies.

The river Dor is one of the eastern sources of the Indus, coming
from the mountains of the beautiful Cashmir, wdiere even now
travellers see working in the fields men with forms that recall the
proportions of the Farnese Hercules and the Apollo Belvedere.
From this river the leader of the Dorian emigration to Europe
went, and was ever after idealized and worshipped as Apollo.

The first Buddhists are to be judged by their oldest books, and
the uttermost purity and first energy of their doctrine; not by
the present Buddhism, which dates from Gotama (the last man

' See " Revue Independante," article by Bournouf.

* It is noteworthy that the Pelasgian emigration dates from the victory of the Brah-
minical over the warrior-caste, in India. The warriors were not subdued, but emi-
grated.

88 The Journal of Sj)eoulative Philosophy.

who bore that name, in the fourth century before Christ), and
which is now unquestionably corrupted from its first life.

The caput mortuum of both systems (Brahminism and Buddh-
ism) is all that is left in modern India to-day.

The healthiest results of any doctrine are to be looked for among
the Emigrants, who banish themselves from the opposite conserva-
tisms, and whose activities and hardships in the colonization of
new countries involve contests with nature, and with the older
settlements of their opponents, which keep their intellect and
energy alive for ages.

History has testified to no other Biiddh who can compare with
Apollo, who must have been the apotheosis of a rarely gifted
man.

But even the divine Apollo recognizes a fallen humanity in
his experience. The most remarkable rites in his worship conse-
crated the remembrance of his limitations by ceremonies of ex-
piation and purification, necessitated by his violation of life — the
mystery of mysteries — in his destruction of the Pythian serpent,
which personified, perhaps, some savage fetichism, or the corrup-
tions of the old Brahminism, but which could not be destroyed
without violence.

The infernal deities at Pherge, to whom the expiation was
made, are the " clouds and darkness round about the throne " of
the " Unknown God," whom the Greeks " ignorantly worshipped."
But what is most remarkable and interesting in this myth is that
the expiation Apollo makes is by menial service to man, which
suggests an obscure apprehension of the characteristic doctrine of
Christianit}'.

Karl Ottfried Miiller says there is trace of a myth of the death
of Apollo in the oldest mythology ; and, also, it interchanges
Apollo and Hercules, as if they symbolized the same facts of his-
tory. Both were names of the Smi-God. There was one form
of the story of the restoration of Alcestis from the dead which
made Apollo the Restorer, who, moved by the love he felt for the
king, whom he had once humbled himself to serve, fought with
Orcus. Does not this express the central depth of the Christian
doctrine of redemption ?

Were not Brahminism and Buddhism opposite errors? Brah-
minism despises the life that now is as Maya — Dlusion. Buddhism

Primeval Man. 89

pities Sind despairs of it ; Nirwana is absolute deliverance from
it. Braliniinism lacks the love, Buddhism lacks the dignity, of
human nature, and both, therefore, allow human life to lapse,
instead of glorifying it ; but had they been, in their beginning,
just what these theories are now, and no more, they had never
founded social systems that it has taken so many aces to wear
out. They are among the involuntary witnesses to the truth that
man is created upright, which means in communion with God,
whose Word is the sicm of things, each one of which, and the
order in which they are found, wake echoes in the human mind
(«'. e., loords) which may be used for mutual understanding with
our fellows — as God used the things themselves to converse with
the primeval man before men were driven to hiding themselves
in the trees of the garden, in conscious shame for having let their
birthright lapse, by taking the law from below their proper sphere
of life rather than from abov^e, in that worshipful communion
with the Father of Spirits which realizes the unity of all Life.

The animal as well as his material environment is good in its
place, and it is all right that men should see, name, and enjoy it
as " ver}' good." But let them not rest — but work — in it : " My
Father worketh .hitherto, and I work." The world which science
cognizes is the body which God has prepared for the human spirit
to sojourn in, that men may commune with each other, tossing
the echoes of its particulars from their tongues, to express that
they know themselves as denizens of a heavenly kingdom, and
heirs of its throne, on which they shall sit down, having over-
come this w^orld by knowing and using it in love.

Absorjotioji and nirwana amount to the same thing, leaving
God minus his Son, in whose face, as the old Schoolmen said,
the Father beholds his own Glory. They grow pale before the
Victory of Life Everlasting in Christ Risen. He left nothing in
the grave, because every power constituting mind and body rises
from the plane of nature, and ascends into heaven, by its own
proper action and perfect use, singing "Hallelujah ! the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth {in and by man):' " So it was in the begin-
ning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end."

90 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

OBJECT AND REFLECTION.

A NORMAL LESSON ON THE SIMPLICITY OF TRUTH.

All things pertaining to life and piety are of His divine power, which is given unto
us through the knowledge of Him who hath called us by glory and virtue. — 2 Pet., i, 3.

— Purver's Translation.

Since instructions are many, hold close to those whereon the rest depend. So may
we have all in a few, and the law and the prophets in a rule.

— Sir Thomas Brownk.

Through all the diversities of human experience which necessarily ensue
from the diverse limitations of circuinstances and pursuits, and through all
the ambiguities of human speech which may either inhere in the constitu-
tion of language, or spring from the variety of usage, there is an abiding
unity of all truth, which is indicated and manifested to every enlightened
intelligence, in a growing siraplitication of doctrine, or, so to speak, in a
growing crystallization of law. The multiplicity of rules in all educational,
as in all social and all individual life, so far as it is not uhimately capable
of reduction to the central and comprehensive rule of " God-with-us," must
be a form of practical polytheism, fraught with the distractions and dangers
of a false ffiith. In the following more or less fragmentary suggestions
the writer's desire is to inculcate the universal immanence of the super-
natural in the natural, and to represent the work of education as being but
one of the fields of exercise for that religions faith which moves, more or
less directly, in the van of all living, progressive intelligence.

An "Object" may be simply defined as anything which is perceived or
perceptible ; that is, as anything " cast over against," or placed before, and
so contrasted with, or distinguishable from, while subject to, our individual
power of perceiving. As a secondary meaning, resuhing from the desira-
bility, real or imagined, of things perceptible as means of happiness, the
term is also applied to the pursuit or desire of any such thing, and becomes
nearly or quite synonymous with the terms " Design," " Purpose," " Mo-
tive." But it is so important, for the statement of first principles, to dis-
tinguish that primary meaning as a fact independent of all the variable
moods of individual feeling, that the term " Object" may with advantage-

Notes and Discussions. 9t

be more explicitly defined as somewhat external to men, onto their individ-
ual consciousness, which somewhat, in the Divine ordering and iihiminat-
ing of the perceiving being and the perceived thing, impresses the con-
sciousness of men with a varied distinctness and fulness, according to their
varied sensibility and capacity. Impressions thus received into conscious-
ness, and there more or less definitely retained or secretly commingled,
become, obviously, a sort of secondary objects, and furnish the materials of
memory and " subjects " for reflection.

But while these comparatively internal tacts, or subjects of reflection,
are indeed subjects at will, or proper to us, as compared with those more
impersonal facts which were their external occasion, they must obviously
still be also regarded as external or objective in their relation and attitude
to the secret individual consciousness, or the power of perceiving and re-
flecting, which inheres in the man proper, by virtue of his deeper relation
to God.

The recorded creation of man in the imnge of God is the charter of his
inherent superiority to the laws of inferior creatures, and even suggests the
possible inference that the mention of his being created may be a figura-
tive piece of condescension to that fallen and fragmentary condition in
which he inevitably contemplates himself on the same plane with those
creatures ; and that his real origin in the essential and truly characteristic
part of his constitution is that of an inevitable emanation of the Divine
Substance in its collision with a hostile power, in that underlying conflict
of the ages and the universe, which was presumably antecedent to the crea-
tion, and which is to be coeval, and coeval only, with the duration of tinu'.
But this suggestion it is unnecessary and inexpedient here to follow up
further than to note that original diversity in human experience, of external
fact and internal fact, which led even so profound and exhaustive an intelli-
gence as that of Plato to regard matter as selt-existent and eternal.

Without a deep appreciation of this fundamental contrast we cannot
steadfastly do justice to the ever subtly shifting and seemingly evanescent,
but ever stubbornly recurring, distinction between true Subject aini true
Object, and the consequent relativity and transitoriness of human knowl-
edge ; nor have any firm hold on the reflective power as the main clement,
or, indeed, as any element at all, in the development of that knowledge.
But we must be led, by way of compromise, to designate the intermediate,
transitional stages of a completed consciousness, as at best an indiscriminate
mixture of the two elements, in which the priority of the internal is not
maintained ; and as the policy of concession thus accepted is consistently
pursued or developed, to adopt a spiritless, materialistic faith and philoso-
phy, barren alike of all deep principle and all lofty aspiration. But with

92 TTie Journal of Sjoeculative Philosophy.

that appreciation, the philosophic ground may still be maintained for the
universally obvious duality of Science, and the distinction between the
internal or personal element and the external or impersonal may be rigidly
observed through all the abounding and else inevitable confusion conse-
quent upon the degree of profundity or insight in different observers, or
in the same observer at different stages of inteUigence. Indeed, despite all
the inherent ambiguities of language, and all the perverse quibblings of
scepticism of which those ambiguities are the stronghold, this " Subjec-
tive" and " Objective" duality of worldly and communicable experience
and knowledge may be styled a direct intuition of the healthy soul, and a
self-evident fact to a matured intelligence. But the ambiguities of language
are themselves a result of this pervading duality of experience, and are to
be mastered on the same principle of simplicity and subordination of the
natural to the supernatural.

Howsoever the spiritual or substantial and the physical or phenomenal
may be mediated by the intellectual or metaphysical — whatsoever division
may be made of the various elements of truth, accoi'ding to the stand-point
and method of the observer, into subjective roots and objective branches
of science, it must at least be obvious to all that there are root-sciences and
branch-sciences, and that the science of language, which combines and
connects them all, is justly to be regarded as the trunk of the tree. Al-
though in itself neither a source of strength nor a seat of beauty, it must
pre-eminently represent the principles, whatever they may be, which are
common to all science. Indeed, the whole significance of Language, as a
productive science rather than a wasteful art, consists in the fact that, as
the mediator of the sciences, or the medium of their communicabihty and
prospective fusion, it presents none other than those universal principles ;
and so, as it becomes indeed known to us, represents the essential and
permanent conditions of all phenomena distinct from those accidental and
transient ones which form so large a part of our transitional and pro-
bational experience. As the immediate omnipresence and practical omnipo-
tence of God in nature, and a pervading harmony of nature, where not
obscured without nor interrupted within by avoidable evil, are found to be
the ultimate lessons of every department of knowledge, they are registered
in the constitution of language, and so become the elementary materials of
Grammar. The secret presence of Subjective power in Objective phenome-
na, Avhich Subjective power, whether immediately consisting in the pres-
ent Deity, or whether mediately represented by principles and men, main-
tains its own position and the subordination of nature by a continual
process of creation, or expenditure of itself in new Objective forms, and so
proves that subordination, and not self-preservation, is the universal law

Wotes and Discussions. 93

of nature— this is the great mystery of grammar as of all science. Let the
student of grammar, then, and of all science, begin his stndy with observ.
ing the ever-shifting distinction between internal and external experience,
between power and phexiomena, with a view to learning, in the first place,
the qualities of spirit as distinguished from those of matter; and let him
not dream to build except upon the foundation thus laid, if he would not
have the image of his dream broken and crushed to powder before the
Stone which is even now " cut out of the mountain without hands," and
which is destined to "fill the whole earth."

As the Divine Subjective Power is antecedent to the universal Objective
existence in the work of Creation, we may infer that the work of hanian
investigation, subjective development, must be antecedent to objective in-
telligence. " First the root and then the fruit " must^ver be the order of the
truth that " springs out of the earth " under the beams of the righteousness
that " shines down from heaven " (Ps. Ixxxv, 2). Unconsciously, the soul
of the earnest inquirer imbibes principles with facts, gaining by the process
an increase of intellectual capacity which ensures their subsequent con-
scious discrimination and permanent possession. By the faithful observ-
ance of this just order of experience, man discovers and occupies hi« ap-
pointed place as lord of the outward creation. As his real life is " hid
with Christ in God," all facts furnish principles, which in turn become
recognized as more important facts, and again suggest more important
principles, according to the law of subjective development, until the scheme
of the universe is consistently mirrored in his soul, so far as its details may
be known to him, without diminishing, but, on the contrary, enlarging his
appreciation of liis relations towards God and his fellow-man. His very
knowledge of God, the Supreme Subject, is plaiidy nothing more than a
progress from earlier crude and contracted objective apprehensions to later
refined and enlarged ones, with the extension of his own subjective capacity.

The mind of the individual and that of the race thus enlarging with the
development of principles, the attainments of one age and stage becume
the starting-point of the next, and the primary law of education thus not
only pervades all departments of knowledge, but endures through every
period of progress. So far as the simplification and enlargement of lan-
guage may keep pace with the same tokens of progress in general science,
the teacher will be continually able to adapt his demonstrations of truth to
the simple sense and craving capacity of the unsophisticated learner, never
allowing his necessary practical devotion to the Objective or phenomenal
to prevent that recognition of its immediate dependence on the Subjective
or potential which, as an ever-shifting relationship, is that with which
every learner must begin and end. Whether, therefore, it be regarded as

94 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

a unity or as a trinity, whether as the direct fusion of the subjective and
objective, or as their distinct though harmonious coexistence in an otherwise
*■'■ unknown God," the simplicity of Trnth thus becomes the clew of gram-
mar, and the law of education, so far as the work of education may deserve
its name, by being at once elementary and progressive ; and the bi-oadest
expression or illustration of that simplicity may yet appear in the profound
but universal subordination of true Object to true Subject in the I'ealm of
ideas, and in the analogy, or philosophical identity of the relation existing
between them, Avith those equally universal relationships of physical nat-
ure which are known as Polarity in the inorganic kingdom, and as Sex in
the organic. The typical and far-reaching significance of these outward
principles in the Divine allegory of God's creation, it may be, is only be-
ginning to be broached.'

Richard Randolph.
Philadelphia, Pa., January, 1883.

THE BEAUTIFUL.

Beauty is not a local somewhat, nor is it an abstract quantity. It can-
not be predicated of any scene or condition in itself, independently of hu-
man soul-condition. One's emotions may be aroused in admiration of some
visible scene, and he may thence call upon a companion to observe and
admire with him, but there is no certainty that the companion sees and
admires with him — sees as he does. It is beautiful to the one, exciting
delightful emotions, and is only coldly commonplace to the other. So
beauty, in its merely sensory aspect even, is conditioned upon a unity or
harmony betw^een man and his relations in experience. The world of sense
awakens throbs of delight and admiration only to one whose feelings are
toned up to a becoming pitch of aesthetic sensibility. Mere animal re-
lation with the sensible realms is void of such sensibility. Only human
emotions can fitly respond to or record on life's tablet the element of beauty
tliat is i-e'*ident in the world of sense. Hence, there is sensory aesthetic
experience enlj where there is a vital marriage of beauty of soul with out-
ward conditions. And as the human form is composite in its nature,
and fitted thus for delights — (1) through sensible relation with things;
(2) through supersensible experience in the realm of ideas ; and (3)
through intimate unity and converse with the infinitely Good, True, and

^ The reader, who may incline to pursue this analogy, is referred to the articles
"Subject and Object, or Universal Polarity," Journ. Spec. Phil, vol. viii, p. 97; and
"Polarity iu Character," vol. xi, pp. 320 and 417. The former article he is requested
to correct at p. 104, 1. 22, by inserting "presently" before "external" ; and the latter
at p. 324, 1. 14, by reading " competition " instead of " completiou."

NoUs and Discvssions. 95

Beautiful— the coronet of beauty that human form is authorized to wear
may glow with the gems of highest heaven. So it is puerile and weak for
one to relegate aesthetic experience mainly to sensory elements, and there-
upon indulge oddities of dress and conduct as signs of superior {esthetic
tone. The beautiful in human experience has all the breadth inliort-nt to
the human form. This form lives at once, or may live, in the deliifhts of
sense, the delights of reason, and the delights of wisdom. Come to its
best powers and amplest inheritance, this form shall revel in the matchless
beauty of regained Paradise, so full of the Highest that it shall carry all
of the rational and sensory nature, tinged with the lustre of its divinest
equipage.

The young English poet, Oscar Wilde, who is just now claiming some
attention as, par excellence, the exponent of sestheticism, may be measura-
bly touched with some sense of the beautiful — possibly in all of its degrees
— but he is manifestly at fault in claiming familiarity with aesthetics as a
science. One may have intimate emotional kinship with the beautiful in its
whole scope, and actually be all aglow with poetic radiance or other tJame
of genius in the line of art, and yet his intellect may be so void of any
measuring rules or defining laws thereof as to be wholly wanting in due
scientific appreciation.

The distinctive boundaries of art and science are really very marked,
though nothing is more common than a confused muddling of the two in
thought and speech. Art may very forcibly play in human experience as
intuitional perception and expression of some more or less vital reality, but
science alone scribes the law, rule, or measure that constantly subtends all
order, either of thought or thing. So the former is more akin to the emo-
tional, and the latter to the intellectual, realm of human power.

In proportion as art and science are divorced in their operations is the
product measurably partial and unsatisfactory. Art may inspire, but only
science may duly order activities. But art impulsion is sure to carry with
it a degree of knowledge or science, else it could not take even partial form.
But when one not only cultivates " sestbetics," like this young poet Wilde,
but talks glibly of the theme as " science " that commands his constant adora-
tion, we may rigjtly challenge him to justify his claims; and, unless he
can formulate to the understanding the distinctive principles, laws, or rules
that constitute aesthetics, call upon him to " step down and out." At least
should he merely show the measure of aesthetic activity and intelligence
that speaks through his life, and leave such measure of art and science to
impress others with its own character and value.

Art emotions are not raised simply in behalf of the beautiful, for there
is also an animating spirit in man towards the good and the true. TLc art

96 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

element is the o-enerative or vitalizinof force, while the science element is
the embodying or organizing force. The affections are motived or en-
livened with some sense of the good, true, or beautiful, and the intellect is
moved, in corresponding degree, to give appreciable form, as an effect, to
such affection. In those human conditions that realize only the partial and
fragmentary in experience, neither art nor science can exhibit perfect con-
sistency or maturity of spirit and power; such as must animate and fortify
human euergy under the reign of the unitizing principles that shall finally
prevail. Only the co-ordination of art and science, in creative order at-
tained, will realize the invincible play of ai-t in its supreme degree, as it goes
forth robed in the symmetry and order of supreme science. Till then, very
vital fragments may stimulate and direct humanity in its educational careeer,
but fully comprehensive scientific definition may not be expected of every
adventurer, especially upon a theme so illusive in its character as aesthetics.

It is reported of Mr. AVilde that, when afliirming the universal pres'alence
of beautyi he was asked to name the beauty that was resident in an ele-
vator close by, whereupon he could only beat a hasty retreat under cover
of his hackman. He had not reflected that beauty and deformity are two
requisite poles to experience, at least during the processes of hnman devel-
opment, else he would not have affirmed the present universality of beauty.

But if he were duly schooled in that sense of human lordship that fore-
tells the universal dominion of man in the supreme reign of art and science,
duly conjugated, he could not fail to discern a measure of beauty in every
form of human achievement that tends to such mastery, and in some degree
illustrates it. Human' freedom, realized from the mastery over and subjec-
tion in use of nature's forms and forces, is instinct with beauty, and the
signs of such mastery must in some measure reflect the beauty,

W. H. Kimball.

Concord, N. H., January, 1883.

SENTENCES IN PROSE AND VEBSE.

SELECTED BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

[The first selection in the portion of these " Sentences in Prose and Verse " published
in the July number (J. S. P., vol. xvi., p. 334), should have been credited to R. W. E.
{Conversations). The first sentence in the part published October (p. 444), should be
credited to Thoreau's Journal (unpublished). — Editor.]

VII.

The pilgrim oft
At dead of night, 'mid his oraison, hears.
Aghast, the voice of time disparting towers. — Dyer.

Notes and Discussions. 97

There is no world to those who grieve and love.— Zawrfor.
Where longs to fall yon rifted spire,

As weary of the insulting air;
The poet's thought, the warrior's fire.

The lover's sighs are sleeping there.— Zan^Aorn*.

Death in Life, the days that are no more. — Tennyson.
While man doth ransack man.

And builds on blood, and rises by distress ;
And this Inheritance of desolation leaves
To great expecting Hopes. — Samuel Daniel.
The grief that on ray quiet preys —

That rends my heart — that checks my tongue—

1 fear will last me all my days,

But feel it will not last me long. — J. H. Moore [from Montreuil],
Her voice was on the wind.
And the deaf ocean o'er Salurdad closed. — Southey,
Think of a country where there is but one opinion, where there is no
minority. Fisher Ames was right when he said the best majority was
that where there was but one over. — [ Conversations] Anon.

Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. do really believe that they are very ill ; and I have
no doubt this is very true, for the moment. But let anything occur to
tempt Mrs. A. or B. abroad, and she goes off like a shot. — Ibid.

Our modern Socrateses have not discovered, with that fabulous old one
of Xenophon's, that "They know — they know nothing." — Ibid.

The perception, or idea of light, is not changed for that of darkness in
so small a time as the twinkling of an eye. So that, in this case, the
muscular motion of the eyelid is performed quicker than the perception
of light can be changed for that of darkness. — Erasmus Darwin.

A proper rogue is indispensable in a play, in the cutting of whose
throat the audience may take an unmingled interest. — Coleridge.

The common vineyard snail has 21,000 teeth [Hcecket] — a gnat's wing
beats 8,000 times in a second, so fine are its ra-iscles. — G. H. Lewes.

In order to sleep, the minute blood-vessels, or capillaries of the brain,
contract, and extrude blood from the brain ; if the vessels remain full, the
nervous force continues to act and sleeplessness results. — B. W. Richard-
son [quoted].

It is a mercy your children have got over ye measles so well, but there
is a real duty belongs to you to instruct them in the word of God. — Mrs.
Godwin [ William GodiviJi's mother].

XYII— 7

98 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy.

Your brother Hally is going to send you a turkey. I am, thro' mercy^
better. — Ibid.

A bare crying for mercy at last is a dangerous experiment. We trust
providence, but it's in a wrong way, not in ye way of well doing. Sene-
ca's morals he bostes of is not sufficient. — Ihid.

The tempers of seafaring men are generally like the boisterous Ele-
m ent. — Ibid.

Lay thy stones with fare coulars ; I wish to be desolv'd and be with
Christ, not my will but the will of my God in Xt be done. — Ibid. \cet. 78].

He seems to be poorer for the 1. 44 I have given him than he was
before he had it; he now can't neither board nor cloth Harriot. — Ibid.

For every man is desirous of what is good for him, and shuns what is
evil, and this he doth by a certain impulsion of nature, no less than that
whereby a stone moves downward. — Hobbes.

The organization at birth may greatly influence the motives which
govern the series of our future acts of intelligence, and we may even
possess moral habits acquired during the foetal state. — Nicholson [1797].

Not able to walk ten yards without panting for breath, and continually
falling ; still he is able to ride ten miles every day, and eat and drink
very hearty. His face is quite red, constantly convulsed by ill-humor,
his hair gray and dirty, his beard long, and the clothes he wears not
worth sixpence. — Mrs. Bishop \sister of Mary Woolstonecraft, giving her
an account of their father^.

Here is a strange medley, a farthing candle, or one as thick as my
wrist. They have never been permitted to walk on account of wearing
out shoes. Send me a few wax tapers, for a farthing one often falls to
my share, and we go to bed very early. — Ibid.

My sentiments are French, and French they will be even in the grave,
provided one has sentiments in the grave. — Montcalm,

" The prejudice I can't get rid of, that, in war, God supports the full
regiments." — Frederic the Great.

Human nature is rarely uniform. — Walter Scott.

" As I crawled in " to the lost party in the snow, they cried : " They
had expected me ; they were sure I would come." — Dr. Kane.

She was a person, briefly, who was good and kind, but impossible to
rely upon, and little adapted to social life. — Madame Recamier [of
Madame Chateaubriand^.

Notes and Discussions. 99

Wordsworth, well pleased with himself, cared little for modern or ancient.
His was the moor and the tarn, the recess in the mountain, the woodland
Scattered with trees far and wide — trees never too solemn or lofty,
Never entangled with plants overrunning the villagers' foot-path ;
Equable was he and plain, and tho' wandering a little in wisdom.
Ever was English at heart. If his words were too many ; if Fancy's
Furniture lookt rather scant in a whitewashed apartment ;
If in his rural designs there is sameness and tameness ; if often
Feebleness is there for breadth ;]if his pencil wants rounding and pointing ;
Few of this age or the last stand out in like elevation.
There is a sheepfold he raised which my memory loves to revisit —
Sheepfold whose wall shall endure when there is not a stone of the palace.

Landor.
History always begins not with the union, but with the disunion of a
nation. — Mommsen.

Nay, till you have at least marked, on the top of each page, what
Month and Year it actually is, the Book can not be read at all — except
by an idle creature, doing worse than nothing under the name of reading.
— Carlyle [TFa(/jo^e's George the Second].

Algarotti — one of those half-remembered men, whose books seem to
claim a reading, and do not repay it when given. — Ibid.

Nine had already struck by the old Roman clock, surrounded by ivy,
which shares with the Church of St. Brelade, at Jersey, the peculiarity
of having for its date four ones (1111), used to signify eleven hundred
and eleven. — Victor Hugo,

Philosophy triumphs over past and future ills, but present ills triumph
over her. — La Rochefoucauld.

I am sure a little reading in Seneca, the philosopher, would set you
right in this pitiable wrong. — Godwin [to Parkinson ; ten days later the
latter destroyed himself].

Among the Marghi [West Africa], if a person in old age dies, his death
is esteemed a cause of satisfaction and mirth, while that of a young one
is lamented in tears. — Barth.

I never pluck the rose ; the violet's head

Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank,

And not reproached me ; the ever-sacred cup

Of the pure lily hath, between my hands.

Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold. — Landor.

100 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Amid tlie storms of fate, and throbs of pain,
Wisdom is impotent, and virtue vain. — Ihid.

The imperial dummy — Silentiarius imperialis, the title of the chief of
police, under Justinian. — Victor Hugo.

Like to the sent'nel stars, I watch all night. — Lovelace.

As I beheld a winter's evening air,

Curl'd in her court false-locks of living hair.- — Ibid.

Why shouldst thou sweare I am foresworne,

Since thine I vow'd to be ?

Lady, it is already morn.

And 'twas last night I swore to thee

That fond impossibility.

But O ! the nymph, did you e'er know

Carnation mingled with snow ?

Or have you sene the lightning shrowd,

And straight breake thro' th' opposing cloud ?

So ran her blood ; such was its hue ;

So thro' her vayle her bright hair flew.

And yet its glory did appeare

But thinne, because her eyes were neare. — Ibid.

I am once more going through with the old experiment of planting
potatoes, and do not yet find it convenient to give it up. [Conversa-
tions.] — Anon.

Yes, they [the farmers] were grubs, perchance, once ; but grubs become
butterflies. Insects go through three transformations. To-day they are
in the larva, and to-morrow in the air. Professor T. is the butterfly ; we
need people in all stages. — Ibid.

" Give me the comfort of your society at dinner." [From a note.] — Ibid.

The English have an astonishing degree of productive force, which,
seems to be latent in Americans. — Ibid.

Never had I the least social pleasure with him, though often the best
conversation. — Ibid.

The most poetry is in the ripples [on a pond]. — Ibid.

He bears well the vitriol of solitude. [Said of Hawthorne]. — Ibid.

I have that vanity of the ancient apostle, who used without fail to read
his sermons over to the family after church. So I read again my old dis"
courses up and down. — Ihid.

Book Notices. loi

BOOK NOTICES.

The Christian Pbilosophy Quarterly, October, 18S1. Edited by Rev. Cliaries F. Deems,
D.D. New York: Published for the American Institute of Christian Philosophy.'
Anson D. F, Randolph & Co., 900 Broadway. Two dollars a year; fifty cents a copy.

Contents: (1) Historical. (2) The Cry of the Conflict, by Charles F. Deems. (3)
What we mean by Christian Philosophy, bv Noali Porter. (4) Some Difficulties in
Modern Materialism, by Borden P. Bowne. (5) The Religious Aspect of the American
Scientific Association, by H. S. Trowbridge.

Most of the articles in this number were delivered, it seema^ at the " Summer School
of Christian Philosophy," held at Greenwood Lake. The articles of Dr. Porter and
Professor Bowne, either or both, are of sufficient value to make the reputation of any
journal of philosophy.

Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution ; a Critical Study. By J. Gould Schur-
man, M. A. (Lond.), D. Sc. (Eiinb.). Published by the Hibbjrt Trustees. London and
Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate ; New York: Scribner, 1881.

This book seems to me to be the best contribution to the critical study of the Ethics
of Kant which has so far appeared in English. The discussion of Mr. Spencer's " Data
of Ethics," which forms the second part of the work, also displays great vigor and in-
dependence of thought, but it is hardly equal to the first and larger part. Dr. Schur-
man writes with remarkable ease and grace, and his expositions and criticisms always
exhibit that thorough command of the matter in hand which comes from knowledge
and thought at first hand. I shall not attempt to follow the progress of his close and
searching criticism in all its detail, but I shall rather make one or two remarks on
points in the doctrine of Kant to which he does not, as I think, do perfect justice.

To derive from Kant all that is best in him, it is necessary to keep a watchful eye
on the goal towards which his inquiry is leading, as well as to examine with care
the actual statements he makes at any of the intermediate points in his progress
towards that goal. In his examination of Kant's distinction of the " intelligible " and
" empirical " char.icter in man, which is one of the numerous logical distinctions drawn
by Kant, Dr. Schurman has hardly borne this indispensable rule of fruitful Kantian
criticism sufficiently in mind, and the result is that, valuable as his remarks are in
bringing out the dualism of which Kant never quite got rid, they fail to indicate the
actual advance made by him. " Kant maintains that, though human actions are un-
changeably determined in the empirical character of each individual, they are never-
theless free; for thut empirical character, whence they flow, is itself the freely
originated product of the intelligible character." Of this doctrine " The Detenninism
of Schellingand Schopenhauer is the the logical outcome " (p. 6). " Empirical volitions,
as following in time, constitute a succession, the members of which, according to Kant,
are causally related to the other events in time. Everything that falls in time is caused
by what has already happened in time; volitions occur in time, ergo, volitions are
determined" (p. 12). "Kant sought to turn the edge of such objectioni, and doubtless
succeeded, but only by involving himself in contradiction" (p. 13). He "relegate*

102 Th^ Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

both reality and freedom to a transcendental sphere, which has no conceivable connec-
tion with this actual world in which we believe they both exist, and which can enter
into no connection with it without involving the whole system in hopeless contradic-
tion " (p. 19). " Now, it would be vain to deny that Kant affords sufficient occasion for
the charge which Dr. Schurman with such force brings against him, of simply limiting
freedom to " the night in which all cows are black ; " and from this point of view the
reference to Schelling and Schopenhauer is felicitous, although I must protest against
the half-formed resolution to make Hegel also a finger-post to warn off the unwary.
But neither Schelling's mysticism nor Schopenhnuer's pantheism is really the develop-
ment of what is most characteristic in Kant's theory. In the section criticised by Dr.
Schurman, Kant is engaged in suggesting, in a vague and tentative way, the means of
transition from the mechanical view of dogmatism to the teleological view of idealism.
(Of Hegel's Logik, iii, 213 ff.) The ordinary opposition of freedom and necessity, as
formulated in the third antinomy, is, he seeks to show, no real opposition at all; or,
rather, he points out that there is no absohite reason why we should maintain the me-
chanical and the teleological conceptions of nature to be mutually exclusive. For the
alternative of "necessity or freedom " it is not impossible that we ought to substitute
" necessity and freedom." Natural or necessary causation is certainly justified from
the point of view of sensible experience — the point of view from which in our ordinary
or unspeculative mood we contemplate all things ; nay, it is justified absolutely so far as
knowable reality is viewed only as a phenomenon in space and time. But we must re-
member that phenomena do not necessarily exhaust the universe, and, in particular, that
the invariable sequence of one event on another — which is the sole content of the
natural law of causation — still leaves unresolved the question as to the ultimate
ground of the sequence. So far Kant speaks quite generally, and his reply has in view
as much his future explanation of the world of nature as requiring to be contemplated
teleologically when it is viewed in relation to God, as his ethical doctrine of reason as
originating the moral law and introducing man to a purely intelligible realm. But he
goes on to apply to man's actions the general view just indicated. His explanation of
the compatibility of freedom and natural causation is, as I understand it, briefly this :
In our perception of nature — including, of course, man's volitions as in time — there is
no activity in any proper sense of the term, but simply an invariable sequence. To say
that man's volitions come under the law of natural causation is not to say that they are
compelled, but only that, so long as we look at them from the empirical point of view,
we must find them conditioned like all other phenomena. It is therefore quite pos-
sible that the acts of man should proceed from his reason, and yet that they should
come under the law of natural causation. All acts, whether free or not, must, as
realized in the world of sense, conform to the law of that world. Hence it is that, for
him who limits himself to the world of sense, even free acts, supposing that there are
such, will seem necessitated ; while again, for him who separates a free act from its
manifestation, that act will seem independent of the natural law of causation alto-
gether. But neither of these alternatives need be held if it is only recognized that
phenomena are not absolute realities, but rather the manner in which Reason mani-
fests itself. This, as it seems to me, is the drift of Kant's reasoning, although it is
much obscured, as it must be admitted, by his use of language that is appropriate
only in the mouth of the psychological idealist ; as also by Kant's caution in refusing
to admit that Reason in its theoretical use can possibly establish the reality of freedom.
Dr. Schurman has missed the force of some of Kant's expressions from his preposses-

Book Notices. 103

sion that Kant's "noumenon" mvist necessarily be a mere blank identity, similar to
Scheliing's "absolute indifference" or Spencer's Unknowable.

In the second section of his critique Dr. Schurraan goes on to consider Kant's con-
ception of Freedom. He will confine himself, he tells us, to an examination " into its
validity as a theory of the facts of our moral consciousness," without dealing with "its
compatibility or its incompatibility with any other part of the Kantian system " — a
promise, however, which is very partially kept (see p. 37 ff.). After a lucid sketch of the
whole ethical doctrine of Kant, our author proceeds to raise some objections against
the Kantian doctrine of Will as practical Reason. He finds much ambiguity in Kant's
own statements, but finally he comes to the conclusion that Reason and Will are for
Kant identical — a conclusion which is undoubtedly correct. But this seems to him a
very objectionable position. It takes away the differentia of Will, and makes human
action merely an inexplicable fact. "Kant seems to have regarded it as entirely gra-
tuitous to postulate a faculty standing between the action and the law of reason " (p. 32).
Hence, like Hegel, he makes Will " a peculiar kind of thinking." Now, as " thought
in the Kantian system cannot be peculiar to any individual (though Kant himself may
have conceived it thus) but must be a transcendental self-consciousness, that makes
the individual a universal," it follows that " the individual will has shrivelled into noth-
ingness at the grasp of universal reason." This is an extraordinary leap. Does Dr.
Schurman mean that, if thought were " peculiar to the individual," the will would not
"shrivel into nothingness at the grasp of universal reason"? Surely the affirmation
of the universalizing power of thought does not make the individual the mere medium
of something-not-hin]self. On the contrary, a " thought " that should be " peculiar to
any individual" would be no thought at all, but a mere play of impressions, of which
the individual would be but the passive and unconscious bearer. Nor is it eaiy to see
how the mterpolation of a peculiar faculty called will, distinct at once from action and
the law of reason, should improve the Kantian theory. What meaning does Dr. Schur.
man attach to the term " action " ? If he does not mean by it mere organic movement,
it must be a " peculiar kind of thinking," and this " thinking " cannot be separated
from the " law of reason " without becoming pure caprice. It seems, therefore, to me,
that, in objecting to Kant's identification of Will and Practical Reason, Dr. Schurman
objects to that which constitutes one of Kant's especial claims on our gratitude. By
this very identification Kant destroyed that mechanical conception of volition as a sepa-
rate faculty or "thing" acted upon cxtenially by another faculty or "thing," and at
least prepared the way for the solution of the problem of human freedom. " Will," we
are told, "is no more practical reason than it is practical imagination or practical sen-
sation. It is the faculty of consciously choosing among motives, from whatever source
they come, and of acting upon them." Now, as choice, and acting upon choice, cannot
be two distinct things, and as the act of choice is only a " pecuhar " determination of
■elf-consciousness, the only difference between Kant and his critic, so far as I can see,
is that the former makes Will the expression of a law of reason, while the latter makei
it independent of reason, and therefore irrational.

In the third section Kant's moral Principls is considered, and the familiar objection
to its emptv formalism is stated with great force and clearness. Even this objection
seems to me to be ma.le too much of No doubt the marc form of law will not yield
any definite code of moral duties, but Kant was not wrong in fixing upon the pure idea
of duty as the condition of freedom. Certainly that idea only presents itself in connec-
tion with the choice between alternative courses of conduct ; but, on the other hand.

104 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

unless an act is willed, not because it is simply more pleasurable than another, but
because it " ought" to be done, it has no moral character. In insisting upon the ne-
cessity of determining by reason which of several causes ought to be followed, or is con-
sistent with the pure idea of duty, Kant has at least touched the central point of mo-
rality. It is true that, in separating absolutely between reason and desire, Kant has
made it impossible to deduce specific laws of duty ; but if we assume, as he virtually
does, that the only problem of ethics is to explain the ground of moral obligation, we
must place it where he does — in a universal law of reason. Dr. Schurman, however,
is no doubt right in saying that morality " is not incompatible with a principle that
differs from the formal law, in that it has a content, but agrees with it in that it is of
universal extension" (p. 57); and that "when man no longer follows blindly his selfish
appetites and desires, but acts rationally in accordance with the idea he has of his own
worth and dignity as man, then his will is good, for it is the unhampered service of
, reason " (p. 62).

In the remarks just made, which have been directed mainly to points of difference,
I am conscious of having conveyed a very inadequate idea of the suggestive character
of Dr. Schurman's work ; but enough has perhaps been said to show that his essay is
well worthy of careful study. The second part, containing a searching criticism of Mr.
Spencer's ethical theory, brings out, with great clearness, many of the imperfections
which beset the evolutionist ethics of that philosopher. John Watson.

BOOKS EECEIYED.

The Platonist. Edited and published by Thomas M. Johnson, Osceola, St. Clair
County, Missouri. A monthly periodical devoted to the dissemination of the Platonic
Philosophy in all its phases. Pp. 33-48. Two dollars per annum.

Contents of No. 3. — (1) Pearls of Wisdom gathered from Platonic Sources; (2) Gen-
«ral Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Platon, by Thomas Taylor; (3)
Life of Platon (concluded) ; (4) Commentary of Proklos on the First Alkibiades of
Platon, translated from the original Greek, Introduction; (5) The Last Words of Soc-
rates, by Alexander Wilder ; (6) On the Utility of the Mathematical and Metaphysical
Sciences, by Thomas Taylor. lamblichos : a Treatise on the Mysteries ; a new transla-
tion by Alexander Wilder, Part I. (Y) That Intelligibles are not External to Mind ; and
Concerning the Good (from Plotinus) ; (8) Hipparchos on Tranquillity.

Contents of No. 4- — (1) Pearls of Wisdom gathered from Platonic Sources; (2) The
Best Translation of Platon; (3) On the Utility of the Mathematical and Metaphysical
Sciences, by Thomas Taylor (reprinted from the Introduction to his Tieatise on Theo-
retic Arithmetic) ; (4) General Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Platon,
by Thomas Taylor; (5) A Discourse upon the Mysteries, by lamblichos, translated by
Alexander Wilder, Part I ; (6) On the Necessity of Purification, and the Method by
which it may be Obtained, by Porphyrios, translation by Thomas Taylor ; (7) The Ele-

Books Received. 105

raent3 of Theology, by Prokloa ; (8) The Life and Works of Thomas Taylor, the Pla-
tonist.

Contents of Nos. 5, 6, and 7- — (1) Pearls of Wisdom ; (2) The Eternity of the Soul —
its Pre-existence, by Dr. H. K. Jones ; (3) Manuscripts of Thomas Taylor, the Platon-
ist, a Letter from Thomas Wentworth Iligginson ; (4) On the Necessity of Purification,
and the Method by which it may be Obtuined, by Porphyrios; (5) On the Means and
Grades of Ascent to Absolute Unity, by Proklos ; (6) Life of Hai Ebn Yokdan, the Self-
taught Philosopher, by Abubacer Ibn Tophail, translated from the original Arabic by
Simon Ockley, revised and modernized by W. H. Steele ; (7) The History of Ilai Ebn
Yokdan; (8) Entheasm, by Alexander Wilder; (9) lamblichos: a Treatise on the Mys-
teries, a new translation by Alexander Wilder ; (10) The Plato Club of Jacksonville,
Illinois ; (11) General Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato, by Thomas
Taylor (continued); (12) The Elements of Theology, by Proklos, translated from the
original Greek (continued) ; (13) Platonic Technology : a Glossary of Distinctive Terms
used by Platen and other Philosophers in an Arcane and Peculiar Sense, compiled by
Alexander Wilder ; (14) The Life and Works of Thomas Taylo'r, the Platonist; (15) To
the Rising Sun, by Thomas Taylor (Poem); (16) On Dialectic, or the Threefold Ascent
of the Soul to Absolute Being, translated from the original Greek of Plotinos.

Contents of Nos. 8, 9, and 10. — (1) Pearls of Wisdom gathered from Platonic Sources ;
(2) On the Study of Platonic Philosophy ; (3) Materialism of the Day, by Walter Lewin ;
(4) On Magic, by Proklos, translated from the Latin of Ficinus ; (5) The Education and
Discipline of Man — the Uses of the World we Live in — by Dr. H. K. Jones, a Lecture
delivered at the Concord School of Philosophy in the Summer of 1881 ; (6) The Elements
of Theology, by Proklos, translated from the original Greek ; (7) lamblichos: a Treatise
on the Mysteries, a new translation by Alexander Wilder, Part I (concluded) ; (8) Gen-
eral Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Platon, by Thomas Taylor ; (9) On
the Necessity of Purification, and the Methods by which it may be Obtained, by Por-
phyrios (concluded) ; (10) The Life and Works of Thomas Taylor, the Platonist (con-
tinued); (11) On the Virtues, translated from the original Greek of Plotinos ; (12) The
Dream : an Imitation of the Beginning of' the Eleventh Book of Apuleius, by Thomas
Taylor; (13) The Celebration of the Natal Day of Platon (selected); (14) Platonic Tech-
nology (continued), compiled by Alexander Wilder; (15) Book Notices.

The Legend of St. Olaf 's Kirk. By George Houghton. Boston : Houghton, MifBn
& Co. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1881.

An Essay on the Philosophy of Self-Consciousness, containing an Analysis of Reason
and the Rationale of Love. By P. F. Fitzgerald. London : Printed for the Author by
Truebner & Co. 1882.

Strauss and Renan : An Essay. By E. Zeller. Translated from the German, with
Introductory Remarks by the Translator. London : Truebner & Co. 1866.

Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution. By J. Gould Schurman. Published
by the Hibbert Trustees. Edinburgh : Williams & Norgate. 1881.

A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy, from Thales to Cicero. By Joseph B. :\Iayor, M. A.
Edited for the Syndics of the University Press. Cambridge : At the University Press.
1881.

The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life : Being Conversa-
tions and Letters of Brother Lawrence. Philadelphia : Grant, Faires & Rodgers, 52 and
54 North Sixth Street. 1879.

106 Tke Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The Development from Kant to Hegel, with Chapters on the Philosophy of Religion..
By Andrew Seth, M. A. Published by the Hibbert Trustees. London : Williams &
Norgate. 1882.

The Student's Dream. Published for the Author. Chicago : Jansen, McClurg & Co.
1881.

Usury Laws, their Nature, Expediency, and Influence. Opinions of Jeremy Bentham
and John Calvin, with Review of the Existing Situation and Recent Experience of the
United States. By Richard H. Dana, Jr., David A. Wells, and others. New York :
The Society for Political Education. 1881.

Atomism in Science and Religion. By Francis E. Abbot. Reprinted from the Index
of January 6, 1876. Boston, Mass. : George H. Ellis. 1876.

New Connecticut: An Autobiographical Poem. By A. Bronson Alcott. Boston;
Privately printed. 1881.

L'Heredite Psychologique. Par Th. Ribot. Paris : Librairie Germer Baillifere et Cie.
1882.

The Creed of Science, Religious, Moral, and Social. By William Graham, M. A.
London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1881.

Primer of Logical Analysis : For the Use of Composition Students. By Josiah Royce.
San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co. 1881.

AOrOAOSIA TflN RATA TO IE' ET02 TENOMENnN THO EMMANOYHA APAFOT-
MH nPOEAPOT. EN A0HNAI2 EK TOT TTnOrPA<I>EIOT DAPNASSOT. 1881.

Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Znm hundertjaehrigen jubilaum
derselben herausgegeben von Dr. H. Vaihinger. Erster Band, erste haelfte. Stuttgart ;
Verlag von W. Spemann. 1881.

The Canadian Journal : Proceedings of the Canadian Institute. New Series. Vol. I,
Part 2. Toronto : Copp, Clark & Co. 1881.

Immortality, and Our Employments Hereafter. By J. M. Peebles. Boston : Colby
& Rich. 1880.

Orations and Essays: With selected Parish Sermons. By Rev. J. Lewis Diman, D. D.
A Memorial Volume. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The Riverside Press, Cam-
bridge. 1882.

Grundzuege der Psychologie. Dictate aus den Vorlesungen von Hermann Lotze.
Leipzig : Verlag von S. Hirzel. 1881.

Zur Erinnerung an K. Ch. F. Krause. Festrede gehalten zu Eisenberg am 100.
Geburtstage des Philosophen von Rudolf Eucken. Leipzig : Verlag von Veit & Co. •
1881.

The American Republic : An Address delivered at Parkersburg, West Virginia, July
4, 1867. By M. C. C. Church. Parkersburg, West Virginia.

The Revolutionary Movement in Russia. Reprinted from the " New York Herald,"
with Notes and Preface by Ivan Panin, Cambridge: Moses King. 1881.

A Critical Review of American Politics. By Charles Reemelin. Cincinnati : Robert
Clarke & Co. 1881.

Report upon Public Schools and Education in Rhode Island, October, 1874. By E. R.
Potter, Commissioner of Public Schools. Containing an Appendix upon Religious In-
struction in Schools. Providence. 1855.

Books Received.

107

A Short History of Art. By Julia B. De Forest. New York : Dodd, Mead k. Co.

Sordello : A Story from Robert Browning. By Frederic May Holland. New York :
G, P. Putnam's Sons. 1881.

John Caird's Religionsphilosophie. Von Otto Pfleiderer. (Reprint from " Jahrbuch
fuer Prot. Theologie," viii.)

The Truthseeker. Edited by the Rev. John Page Hopps. October and November,
1881.

Wissenschaftliche Wochenblaetter. Vol. I, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Herausgegeben ron
Chr. Schmidti New York.

John Amos Comeni us, Bishop of the Moravians; His Life and Educational Works.
By S. S. Laurie, A. M. London: Kegan Paul,- Trench & Co. 1881.

Text-book to Kant. The Critique of pure Reason : Esthetic, Categories, Schema-
tism. Translation, Reproduction, Commentary, Index, with Bjographical Sketch. By
J. H. Stirling. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale Court. 1881.

The Philosophical System of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati. Translated, with a Sketch of
the Author's Life, Bibliography, Introduction, and Notes, by Thomas Davidson. London :
Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1882.

Ralph Waldo Emerson : His Life, Writings, and Philosophy. By George Willis
Cooke. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1881.

Kant. By William Wallace. Edinburgh and London : William Blackwood & Sons.
1882.

Metaphysics : A Study in First Principles. By Borden P. Bowne. New York :
Harper & Brothers. 1882.

Seneca and Kant; or, An Exposition of Stoic and Rationalistic Ethics, with a Com-
parison and Criticism of the two systems. By Rev. W. T. Jackson, Ph. D. Dayton,
Ohio: United Brethren Publishing House. 1881.

Empirical Psychology ; or, the Science of Mind from Experience. By Laurens P.
Hickok, revised with the co-operation of Juhus H. Seelye. Boston : Published by Ginn,
Heath & Co. 1882.

L'Esprit de L'Economie Politique. Par Fran9ois Mosser. Naples. 1879.

Thoughts on Theism, with Suggestions towards a Public Religious Service in Harmony
with Modern Science and Philosophy. London : Truebncr & Co., Ludgatc Hill. 1880.

History of the Christian Religion to the Year 200. By Charles B. Waite. Chicago :
C. Y. Waite & Co. 1881.

Biogen : A Speculation on the Origin and Nature of Life. Abridged from a Paper on
the "Possibilities of Protoplasm," read before the Philosophical Society of Washington,
May 6, 1882. By Dr. Elliott Coues. Washington: Judd & Detweiler. 1882.

The Norway Music Album. Edited by Auber Forestier and Rasmus B. Andorson.
Boston: Oliver Ditson & Co.

Sonnets and Canzonets. By A. Bronson Alcott. Boston : Roberts Brothers. 1882.

Platone e I'lmmortalit^ dell' Anima. Per A. Vera. Napoli : Detken e Rocholl, Piazza
del Plebiscito. 1881.

Problema dell' Assoluto. Per A. Vera. Parte IV. Napoli. 1882.

108 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Die Nothwendigkeit und die Moeglichkeit einer Kraeftigeren Zusammenwirkung der
Voelker auf dem Gebiete der Kinder-Erziehung, speciell des Volksschulwesens. Von
Mhan-su-faer. Koeln und Leipzig. 1882.

Le Condizioni Presenti della Filosofia e il Problema della Morale. Dal Giacomo Bar-
zellotti. Milano-Torino.

The Doctrine of the Cross. A Contribution to the Theory of the Christian Life. By
the Rev. E. P. Scrymgour. London: George Bell & Sons. 1882.

The Christian Religion, a series of articles from the " North American Review." By
Robert G. IngersoU, Jeremiah S. Black, Professor George P. Fisher. New York : Pub-
lished by the "North American Review." 1882.

The Social Law of Labor. By William B. Weeden. Boston : Roberts Brothers.
1882.

Logical Symbolism : Sketch of a Method for Representing to the Eye the Operations
of the Mind. By Charles E. Sprague. New York. 1881.

Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In Commemoration of the Centenary of
its First Publication. Translated into English by F. Max Mueller, with an Historical
Introduction by Ludwig Noire. Vols. I. and II. London: Macmillan & Co. 1881.

On some Hegelisms. (Reprinted from "Mind," a Quarterly Journal of Psychology
and Philosophy. No. XXVI.) By William James.

Philosophical Papers. Paul and Plato. By Alexander Wilder.

Grundzuege der Ethik und Rechtsphilosophie. Von Dr. Wilhelm Schuppe. Breslau.
1881.

A Manual of Hindu Pantheism. The Vedantasara translated with Copious Anno-
tations. By Major G. A. Jacob. Truebner's Oriental Series. London : Truebner &
Co. 1881.

The Religions of India. By A. Barth. Authorized Translation. By the Rev. J.
Wood. Truebner's Oriental Series. London: Truebner & Co. 1882.
The Mother's Record. By a Mother. Boston : D. Lothrop & Co.

Schelling's Transcendental Idealism : A Critical Exposition. By John Watson, LL. D.,
T. R. S. C, Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Queen's University, Kingston,
Canada. Chicago : S. C. Griggs & Co. 1882.

A Study of Spinoza. By James Martineau, LL. D., D. D. With a Portrait. London :
Macmillan & Co. 1882.

Report of the Commissioner of Education. 1880.

Philosophy of Landscape Painting. By William M. Bryant. The St. Louis News Co.
St. Louis, Mo. 1882.

Scientific Philosophy : A Theory of Human Knowledge. By Francis Ellingwood Abbot,
M. A., Ph. D. Reprinted from the London " Mind " for October, 1882.

From Whence, What, Where ? By James R. Nichols, M. D., A. M. Boston. 1882.
Optical Illusions of Motion. By H. P. Bowditch, M. D., and by G. Stanley Hall, Ph. D.
Reprinted from the " Journal of Physiology," Vol. Ill, No. 5.

The Man as Doctor : An Oration delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Middlesex
.South District Medical Society, April 19, 1882. By Edward Waldo Emerson, M.D.

Books Received. 109

Printed by vote of the Society. Reprinted from the Boston " Medical and Surgical
Journal" of June 8, 1882. Cambridge : Printed at the Riverside Press. 1882.

Truth Revealed to Men of Lowly Mind. Milwaukee, June, 1882. Concio ad Clerum.
Beaver Dam, Wis. : Burleson Bros. 1882.

Kleine Schriften von Christoph Sigwart, Professor of Philosophy in the University of
Tiibingen. Freiburg and Tiibingen. 1881.

On Mr. Spencer's Unification of Knowledge. By Malcolm Guthrie, Author of " On
Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution." London : Truebner & Co., Ludgate Hill. 1882.

Science and Sentiment, with other Papers, chiefly Philosophical. By Noah Porter
D. D., LL. D., President of Yale College. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1882.

Stories from Browning. By Frederic May Holland, Author of " The Reign of the
Stoics." With an Introduction by Mrs. Sutherland Orr. London : George Bell & Sons,
York Street, Covent Garden. 1882.

The League of the Iroquois, and other Legends. From the " Indian Muse." By Ben-
jamin Hathaway. Chicago : Donnelly, Cassette & Loyd. 1881.

The Growth of English Industry and Commerce. By W. Cunningham, M. A., late
Deputy to the Knightbridge Professor in the University of Cambridge. Cambridge : At
the University Press. 1882.

The Parthenon Frieze and other Essays. By Thomas Davidson. London : Kegan
Paul, Trench & Co., 1 Paternoster Square. 1882

Ideality in the Physical Sciences. By Benjamin Peirce. Boston : Little, Brown & Co.
1881.

The Artist and his Mission : A Study in Jisthetics. By Rev. William M. Reilly, Ph. D.,
Professor of Ancient Languages, Palatinate College. Philadelphia : John E. Potter &
Co., 617 Sansom Street.

Aristotle's Pj'ychology in Greek and English, with Introduction and Notes. By Edwin
Wallace, M. A., Fellow and Tutor of Worcester College, Oxford. Cambridge : At the
University Press. 1882.

A Collegiate Course in the French Language, comprising a Complete Grammar, in Two
Parts. By Jean Gustave Keetels. New York: Clark & Maynard. 1S78.

Commentar zu Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Herausgegeben von Dr. U. Vai-
hinger. Stuttgart: Verlag von W. Spemann. 1882.

The Order of the Sciences : An Essay on the Philosophical Classification and Organi-
zation of Human Knowledge. By Charles W. Shields, Professor in Princeton College.
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1882.

Henry D. Thoreau. By F. B. Sanborn. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1882.

Philosophische Bibliothek. Heft 301-303. Plato's Dialog Parmenides. Uebersetzt
und erljiuetert von J. H. von Kirchmann. Heidelberg: Verlag von Georg Weiss.
1882.

Spinozae Opera Pbilosophica. Vol. IV. Die Unvollendetcn Lateinischen Abhand-
lungen Spinoza's. Mit einer Einleitung herausgegeben von Hugo Ginsberg. Heidelberg:
Georg Weiss. 1882.

110 The Journal of Sj)eculative Philosophy.

The Clue of Faith, in Science and in Life : An Address before the Alumni Asso-
ciation of Haverford College, June 24, 1879. By Professor Nereus Mendenhall, A.M.,
M. D.

Ueber den Satz des Widerspruchs und die Bedeutung der Negation. Von J. J. Bore-
lius. Leipzig: Verlag von Erich Koscbny. 1881.

The Christian Religion. Mistakes of Robert G. IngersoU and his Reviewers. By Dr.
N. J. Cogswell. Silvara, Bradford County, Pa., August, 1882.

Studies in Central American Picture-Writing. By Edward S. Holden, Professor of
Mathematics, U. S. Naval Observatory. (Extracted from the First Annual Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology.) Washington. 1881.

Boston University Year-Book. Edited by the University Council. Vol. IX. Boston,
1882.

In Memoriam: Joseph Earl Sheffield. 'A Commemorative Discourse delivered by
President Porter, June 26, 1882.

Kleine Schriften von Christoph Sigwart. Zweite Reihe, Freiburg und Tubingen
akademische Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. C. B. Mohr.

Celestial Chemistry from the Time of Newton. By T. Sterry Hunt, LL. D., F. R. S.
(From the "American Journal of Science," Vol. XXIII, February, 1882.)

The Domain of Physiology; or. Nature in Thought and Language. By T. Sterry
Hunt, LL. D., F. R. S. Presented to the National Academy of Sciences, and read be-
fore it in Abstract, at Washington, April 18, 1881. Published in the London, Edin-
burgh, and Dublin " Philosophical Magazine " for October, 1881. Boston : S. E. Cassino.
1882.

Political Economy in One Lesson : A Lecture by Alphonse Courtois before the Philo-
techuic Association of Paris. Translated from the " Journal des Economistes " by
Worthington C. Ford. New York: The Society for Political Education. 1882.

Mind, Thought, and Cerebration. By Alexander Wilder.

Delle question! sociali e partigolarmente dei proletarj e del capitale. Libri tre di
Terenzio Mamiani. Roma; Fratelli, Bocca e Comp. 1882.

Programme du cours d'histoire politique du moyen age fait k I'Universite de Bruxelles
par Mart. Philippson. Bruxelles: G. Mayolez, Libraire-Editeur. 1880.

Comparative Ethics : I. Moral Stand-point. (Present Religion, Vol. III.) By Sara S.
Hennell, Author of " Thoughts in Aid of Faith," etc. London : Truebner & Co., Ludgate
HiU. 1882.

Philosophical Papers. Paul and Plato. By Alexander Wilder. No. I.

The Lawyer and the Lawyer's Questions. A Baccalaureate Discourse preached in
Assembly Hall, University of Wisconsin, June 18, 1882, by John Bascom. Mil-
waukee, 1882.

A Synopsis of the Scientific Writings of Sir William Herschel. Prepared by Edward
S. Holden and Charles S. Hastings. (From the Smithsonian Report for 1880.) Wash-
ington. 1881.

Eclaircissements sur quelques Particularites des Langues Tatares et Finnoises, par
F. L. 0. Roehrig. Paris: Chez Theophile Barrois. 1845.

Books Received. Ill

Anti-Kant oder Elemente der Logik, der Physik und der Ethik von Dr. Adolf BoUiger.
Erster Band. Basel, 1882. Verlag von Felix Schneider.

Ideismen. (1) Der Unbewusste Ideismus des Menschen in Versen erlautert. (2)Plu-
losophie, Biidung und Wissenschaft zueinander. Von Karl Weinholtz. Rostock:
Verlag des Verfassers. 1874.

Ideismus. Dritte Abtheilung. Grundmacht und Leitstern der Erziebung und Biidung.
Anhange. (1) Zur ideistischen Methode. (2) Zur ideistischen Tanzkunft. (3) Zur
Philosophirkunst. Von Dr. Karl Weinholtz. Rostock: Vorlag des Verfassers. 1879.

Deutscher Kriegessang, 1870-'71. Von Karl Weinholtz. Verlag des Verfassers
1871.

Der Sinn des Hanachino von K. Weinholtz. Rostock : Verlag des Verfassers. 1864.

Der Hanachino, vierpaariger Zehen-Hacken-Tanz. Gestaltung, tonige Entfaltung
Tind Beschreibung von K. Weinholtz. Rostock: Verlag des Verfassers. 1861.
Freimut. Schauspiel. By the same Author.

Der Alte Weg, die Bestimmungen und Mittel der Wissenschaft in unsrer Zeit. By
the same Author.

Die Erfahrungs-Logik. By the same Author.

Die organische Sprechschrift und Singschrift, zur Foerderung des lautrechten und
sinnvoUen Vortrags, von Karl Weinholtz. Rostock: Hermann Schmidt. 1860.

Bericht uber Entstehung und Fortgang des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart von
dem Praesidenten des Vereins Adelbert von Keller. Tiibingen. 1882.

Plymouth Pulpit: A Weekly Publication of Sermons preached by Henry Ward
Beecher in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn :

No. 1, "The Golden Net," shows the scope of St. Paul's exhortation to fish for men
Tvilh "whatsoever things are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, or of good report;"
and closes with a brief review of Mr. Beecher's own thirty-five years of preaching in
Brooklyn, justifying his general methods as ba.^ed on the apostolic plan, declaring his
independence of sects and councils, and his fealty to Christ.

No. 2, " They Have their Reward," impressively develops the familiar connection be-
tween sowing and reaping, and, while granting that the followers of the lower instincts
"have their reward," such as it is, sets forth the Pauline doctrine of germinal evolu-
tion, and urges sowing to the spirit rather than to the flesh, as the surest beginning of a
Christian manhood.

No, 3, " The Personal Influence of God," is a plea for soul-intercourse with Christ, as
& means of coming under the direct living influence of the Deity — and this not a. vague
discourse of mysticism, but a practical instruction as to reproducing in one's self a spur-
itual likeness to the founder of Christianity, and making the human soul sensitive to the
divine soul.

No. 4, "The Principle of Spiritual Growth," analyzes what Jesus called the "expedi-
ency " of his leaving his disciples, and the earth he had come to save, to their own
efforts, in order that the very absence of the beloved One might develop faith and
strength to " live as seeing Him who is invisible."

No. 5, " The Personal Influence of God." New York : Fords, Howard k Hulbcrt.

The Royal Society of Canada. Inaugural Meeting, held in the City of Ottawa. May
25, 26, and 27, 1882.

112 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

The Maya Chronicles. Edited by Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. Philadelphia: D. G.
Brinton. 1882. The first Volume of Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Lit-
erature.

Monograph of the Central Parts of the Nebula of Orion. By Edward S. Holden,
Professor of Mathematics, U. S. Navy. Washington, Government Printing Office,
1882.

Grundlegung der reinen Logilc. Ein Beitrag zur Loesung der logischen Frage von
Dr. George Neudecker, Privatdozent der Philosophic an der Universitaet Wuerzburg.
Wuerzburg, 1882.

Novissimum Organon. By J. F. Mallinckrodt. St. Louis : Hugh R. Hildreth Print-
ing Co. 1882.

The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics. By J. B. Stallo. New York : D.
Appleton & Company. 1882.

Belief in God : an Examination of some Fundamental Theistic Problems. By M. J.
Savage. To which is added an address on " The Intellectual Basis of Faith." By W.
H. Savage. Boston : George H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. 1881.

Grundzuege der Religionsphilosophie. Dictate aus den Vorlesungen von Hermann
Lotze. Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel. 1882.

The Subjection of Hamlet : An Essay towards an Explanation of the Motives of
Thought and Action of Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark. By William Leighton.
With an Introduction by Joseph Crosby. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott & Co.
1882.

Essays in Philosophical Criticism. Edited by Andrew Seth and H. B. Haldane.
With a Preface by Edward Caird. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1883.

Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Vol. XXIX, Part I. For the Ses-
sion of 1878-;79.

The same. Part II.

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Session 18Y8-'79.

The same. Session 1879-'80.

William Downs Heukle : A Memorial Address. Read at the Thirty-third Annual Meet-
ing of the Ohio Teachers' Association, at Niagara Falls, N. Y., July V, 1882. By W. H.
Venable.

A Visit to Transylvania and the Consistory at Kolozsvar. By the Rev. J. H. Allen..
Boston: George H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. 1881.

A Drama of Creation : A Study of Swedenborg's Work entitled "The Worship and
Love of God." By the Rev. Frank Sewall, A. M. Reprinted from the "New Church
Review," October, 1882.

The Religion of Evolution as against the Religion of Jesus. By Professor W. H.
Wynn, Ph. D. From the " Lutheran Quarterly," January, 1882.

Voluntaryism in Higher Education. By M. B. Anderson, LL. D.

The University of the Nineteenth Century : What it is and what it will cost. Read
before the National Baptist Educational Convention by President M. B. Anderson, of
the Rochester University, New York.

THE JOURNAL

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY

YoL. XVII.] April, 1883. [No. 2.

SWEDENBOKG AND HENRY JAMES.

BY WILLIAM H. KIMBALL (" THERON GKAY ").

That the system of truth involved in the wonderful treatises
of Emanuel Swedenborg covers a true doctrine of Creation, and is
thus fundamental to all that can interest mortal man, is evident
to me, and manifestly not less evident to certain others who have
studied and rightly considered that system. Among those who
have studied the great Seer with duly qualified affection and be-
coming intellectual force, the late Mr. Henry James may be
counted foremost. Indeed, Mr. James has given such devoted
zeal and royal vigor to the expositions he has made of Swedenborg,
that others fall mostly into the shade, in comparison. And it is a
question whether they do not, generally, more obscure than eluci-
date the master they wish to serve. Yet, the great purport of
Swedenborg's thought as a comprehensive s} stem, opening into all
true being, knowing, and doing — opening into " the way, the truth,
and the life " of Divine Mastery — remains almost uncom])rehended
and unsought, and earnest people run to and fro stretching their
weary vision for more light. Why, in view of the broad insight
of the master and the remarkable genius and power of the pupil,
do those commanding truths to which both were so constantly
pledged remain unimpressed upon the intellectual force of to-day,
XYII— 8

114 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

thus leaving thought largely to surge and swelter, concerning
most important problems at least, amid opinional distractions,
when it sliould be anchored in scientific certitude? "Why has
Swedenborg so voluminously written, and James so vigorously
explicated, principles and truths thus vital and necessary, and yet
so few see and understand ? Let us see if we can solve this prob-
lem in some measure, even though limited as we must be on this
occasion.

Mr. James treats of these great problems of Creator and Created
simply as a Christian philosopher. He is so devoted to pliilosophy
as to deem it adequate for every emergency ; hence he persistently
excludes science from all participation in philosophic problems.
To be sure, as a higher form of knowledge or actual science —
actual knowing, to a certain extent — he proclaims truth with
marked emphasis and certainty, even in this supreme realm. But
it is the utterance of philosophy, that is to impress one according
as the affections have first been qualified, and not a formulation
by manifest science, which no intellect can gainsay nor reject
when once understood.

It is the function of science to carry its own force, and compel
assent or conviction per force of manifest knowing and doing.
Science neither cherishes nor depends upon labored arguments.
It is its own argument, in that it actually is and does. It forces
conviction when it appears in its proper form.

Mr. James, with a heart all aglow with central life and an intel-
lect readily responsive, saw and proclaimed truth as " Divine
Philosophy " — most assuring to himself, and more or less impres-
sive upon such of his readers as were spiritually related thereto.
But it will hardly be supposed that he beheld it incarnated, or
embodied as formal science. He could not have apprehended it
as a measured and measuring system, that could be formulated
and defined, and applied to test the value of thought concerning
" the Highest." If he had done this, he would have claimed a
province of Divine Science as well as that of " Divine Philoso-
phy." Failing in this, and letting slip the principle of degrees
wherein aione such science is rooted, we find him relegating sci-
ence exclusively to the realms of rational knowledge, instead of
carrying it to its ultimate as a manifest body — the incarnation of
philosophy. This is emphatically an era of science. Whatever

Swedenhorg and Henry James. 115

the realm of human endeavor, conclusive and abiding results can
only be attained through scientific certitude. And such certitude
is no less needful and available as a ruling method of science in
higliest realms of thouglit than in the lower. Measured and
measuring order of knowledge, as universal science, is as real and
necessary as is such order necessary to the special sciences. Mr,
James seems to have taken little account of Sweden borg's princij)le
of degrees, which Swedenborg himself so fully elaborates. And
Swedenborg failed to give efficient form and best application
thereto, and thus left that principle standing without its true form
and proper force in application. It is designed to make this
appear, though a far more extended assay than we can here make
is requisite to give extensive application and desired force.

" The knowledge of degrees," says Swedenborg, " is, as it were,
the key to open the causes of things, and enter into them; with-
out it, scarcely anything of cause can be known." — D. L. <& W.,
184.

The ruling principle of discrete degrees is this : A 07ie is to be
rightly discriminated under threefold aspect, because every one
is, intrinsically, threefold in its elements. Let us take Society as
the one under view. In its first, involved or indefinite form or de-
gree it is a one of primary elements; simplistic and vague enough
as to any form becoming our present conceptions of society. In
its second degree it is the same one — society — though it is in an
entirely different form or order. It is here hnoion as society —
comes to definite form as such. It is here society in its partial,
broken, fragmentary forms, because, whereas the elementary j)riu„.
ciple of the first degree was that of indefinite involution, that of
the second degree expresses the element of definite evolution,
wherein the utmost diffraction and distraction occur. But under
the order of discrete degrees, as creative law, we shall find this one
— society— emerging from its broken, conflicting, and superficial
forms, and settling into a third and consummating form whose
glory shall fitly illustrate the Divine triunity itself, and whose
radiance shall " pale the light of sun, moon, and stars." For here
the one becomes a reality in its perfect degree — the degree that
composes, associates, Divinely orders all the elements under the
rule of perfect, scientific consociation.

Thus the form of this universal law is trinity-in-unity ; and the

116 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

elements involved are (1) the simplistic (involved). (2) the complex
(evolutionary), (3) the composite (evolved).

Under this conception of scientific order, I find the grand Crea-
tive Series standing;:

1st. Grod the Creator, necessarily indefinitely involving the
natural and the Divine Humanity.

2d. God the Creator definitely evolving the creaturely form in
the natural creation, wherein He wisely ludes Himself till that
form comes to due self-consciousness and self-assertion.

3d. Grod the Creator in creation clearly evolved, whereby Crea-
tor and creature become consciously one in Divine vitality, and
all human conditions become truly responsive to the inspiring-
Presence.

So, primarily, the three creative degrees cover the tohole realm,
and all special applications and analyses must be derived thence
and be kept true to that source in order to prove reliable and satis-
factory in results.

Althouo;h handlino- this law of deo;rees with much effect, I do
not find that Swedenborg clearly announced the elementary prin-
ciples of the degrees, nor do I see that he carried them, in applica-
tion, to best scientific issues.

The law of degrees furnishing, as claimed, a standing scientific
clew, derived from fixed character, or distinctive form inherent to
those degrees, a demand reasonably arises that we either exhibit
its practical form and use, or dismiss the great claim made in its
behalf.

Let us now try to formulate a subordinate or primary analysis,
related to a secondary analysis and definitions that will illustrate
the principle of Creative Triunity, and its method of application as
practical science.

Theme: CREATION, UNDER THE LAW OF TRITJNITY.

i Involving (1) The Simplistic Element (the Indifferent).

Creator- 1 Involving (2) The Complex Element (the Differentiating).

' Involving (3) The Composite Element (the Associating or Unitary).
jj C Evolving (1) The Simplistic Manhood (Common Human Force).

Creating • J Evolving (2) The Complex Manhood (Special Human Force).
' Evolving (3) The Composite Manhood (United Human Force).
TTT f Evolved (1) The Simplistic Manhood realized in Divine Order.

Createp • i Evolved (2) The Complex Manhood realized in Divine Form.

' Evolved (3) The Composite Manhood realized in Divine Order.

Swedenborg and Henry James. 117

Here, accordingly, is an analysis of Creative Elements that
comprehends the whole scope in distinct scientific form. True,
it does not name the physics of creation, for a true conception and
discussion of the great problems of God's true creation have no
direct reference to crude physical constitution, any more than
the art-conception of tlie artist has reference to, or involves,
the constitution of the quarry whence his material is derived.
The creative operation in Humanity is a process that, presup-
posing physical form, applies to the fashioning of Human Form
to Divinest issues, wherein it becomes filled with the glory of
the Lord. Hence, in a true doctrine of creation, the discussion
of i^hysical constitution has no sort of pertinence. Physical
constitution is a primary necessity, to be sure, as crude matter
is basic to art and artisanship that need material form as embody-
ing instrument, or as the material elements are requisite to human
corporeity.

Grod's true creation makes Natural Man the subjective terra,
and God-Man (Godly Man) the objective terra, ail things else
being the various instrumentalities and furnishings, and, finally,
the gorgeous livery of the Divine Humanity, or immaculate
God-Man realized as Creative End. So, let cheap natural science
no more try to nourish the human intellect with protoplastic
pabulum, nor tickle its fancy with visions of " star-dust." Neither
protoplasm, star-dust, nor other corporeal elements are of any direct
account to science in its supreme degree — the degree of Creative
Life, Activity, and Form ; though all 'become^ reflexly, a thousand
times more luminous with the glory of the Highest than they
•can ever appear by the best lumen of mere natural science. Let
us bear in mind, therefore, that the truths of creation, in any
sense that can satisfy the yearning desires of the soul, are not
truths of physics, excepting as physics are subsidiary or j)rovisioiial
to metaphysics. They are truths of God ''s creator and Man as
creature, both subjectively and objectively. Hence any scientific
(formally valid) estimate of the essential nature of the Creator, the
essential order of the creative operations in human nature^ and
the essential order of the Divine Natural Unmanity in creative
ultimate^ will effectually cover the whole theme in its amplest
scope, and leave nothing to do but to conform human states,
thoughts, and activities to the rule of these principles of eternal

118 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

law, thus making Divine and human authority one power in
human affairs.

The case is similar, in very limited or special regards, when a
teacher, professor, or master in his vocation — as, for instance, a
Botanist — conforms his own conduct or authority strictly to the
ruling principles of the science — is wholly one with its immutable
commands — and thus is the powerful instrument to effect Botanic
culture. " It is hard to kick against the pricks." We may work
e2.B\\jwith science, but only amid tumult and painful toils against
it. And this is true in regard to that commanding science which,
definitely comprehending human nature as societary force, is in-
strumental ly available to qualify and order that force into perfect
society. We come, accordingly, to an ampler rendering of the
principles mainly in view, in order to find whether human knowl-
edge may not become perfectly assured as to that which is of
transcendent human interest. We proceed to a more thorough
analysis and fuller definitions of the moments given under the
head " Creating." It is here that interest mainly centres, for
this degree covers the spheres of human development under the
generative operations of Creative Wisdom. When this realm
becomes clearly explored, as to its pervading laws, by the objec-
tive light of the ultimate degree — the degree of composure in
"the way, the truth, and the life" — and the ruling forces in
human affairs are brought into strict conformity with such knowl-
edge, human advance towards Divine order will become astonish-
ingly rapid. For the Kingdom of God in the earth is an evolution
in its procedure, as the Master so constantly taught ; and, when men
conform their ways to the manifest laws of that Kingdom, compara-
tive peace will at once ensue, even before great progress is made
in qualifying conditions. The designs of the Supreme Architect
in human society are perfect. So long as we, the builders, igno-
rantly patch and bungle, putting up disorderly fenders to protect
from heats and chills and storms, as they variously play upon us,
so 'ong do we obstruct and deform the structure. So long, too,
heaven's fierce fiuids will play upon us to tear away the deformi-
ties we project. If a builder were to construct his edifice by
piecemeal in temporary defences against the assaults of the ele-
ments, rather than in intelligent consistency with architectural
designs, his structure would be a horror to sight and a peril to-

Swedenborg and Henry James. 119

life; yet we, the nnwise builders of the great social structure
God has designed, still boggle and botch, and distrust Divine
Providence, who cannot consent to our blunders, and give us
social security and quiet under them.

But we are not just now so intent upon applying principles, as
laws of social conduct, as we are to exhibit the nature and scope
of a commanding system, and thus to discover whatever short-
comings may appear in Swedenborg's rendering of a principle of
matchless power and worth.

As already intimated, we hold that Swedenborg failed to give
a practical definition of the distinctive nature of discrete degrees,
and thus inevitably failed to carry them, in application, to their
commanding issues. For such reasons, it is believed, he did not
fulfil the demands of science in its supreme realm ^ however
forcibly he may have promulgated its leading principle, and
given a true base for philosophic estimates of the great problems
of Life and Being.

Let us, then, turn to our full analysis of the secondary degree
of the creative series (" Creating"), and try to find what our law
of discrete degrees, as already defined, will do to exhibit the ele-
ments of human nature and the order of those elements in the scale
of human development. We are surveying Human Nature as
Divinely vitalized at its very core, and, therefore, one unbroken
power that carries every individual of the race, in varied states
of culture and utmost contrariety of personal experience. But
from the very form of the individual mind as a threefold power,
with wisdom as ground of Divine Eevelation, or Logostic per-
ception ; reason as a ground of distinctive human appreciation, or
analogic perception of the Highest by proper illumination ; and
the lower degree, of sense^ as a ground of symbologic perception
of highest realities when duly reflected from above ; the whole
realm of the mind cannot be duly appealed to, excepting through
methods that will embody eternal truth to lower and lowest hu-
man faculty; concrete it, as it were, into adamantine firmness.
It is thus that lowest human powers, rightly disposed, may come
to ready participation in sublimest realities. So we not only
desire to make a logical statement of the primary factors of crea-
tive law, and, to some extent, a rational expose analogically, but

120

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

also to symbolize to the eye by a formulation tliat will effectually
embody the whole truth " in ultimates.^'' The formal embodi-

Swedenhorg and Henry James. 121

raent, and through that practical uses, is the '' ultimate "as formal
science of creative elements. The diagrams of Creative Order
(illustrative symbol), presented on opposite page, were projected
many years ago, in order to aid the author's own thought and hold
It conclusively fixed upon the creative elements duly analyzed and
synthetized, and it is thought that they cannot fail to aid others who
may be interested in these matters, discussed by Swedenhorg and
Mr. James— matters so important to consider and so difficult to com.
prehend as science. The first one— with the light centre of four
triangular forms and three shaded external hemispheres consisting
of nine triangular forms— is presented as*a symbol of the order ot
the Creative Operations (" Creating "). It is designed, in the first
place, to represent the constant intimacy of the Divine and Hu-
man elements in creation, under all the varying states of the crea-
turely form as real to consciousness, and also in that indefinite
form prior to distinct human consciousness. The light spaces in
the centre (0, I, II, III) symbolize Creative Being as constantly
the inmost life to creaturely form, and the dark external hemi-
spheres (1-9) represent the threefold order of the human form in
development— the order of creaturely development corresponding
to the essential order of the human form as a triunity of character
already defined. This diagram is designed, in the second pi ace
to represent the threefold order, in development, of the threefold
elementary forms of creaturely constitution — the simplistic, com-
plex, and composite, in human nature. And this analysis relates
to the subject as a trine form of mind, a trine form of thought as
the productive, versatile activity of mind, and to the trine order
of visible activities and uses in the course of such development.
The first shaded hemisphere (1, 2, 3 :) stands for the developing
states of consciousness in the general or common human nature :
or, more truly, it is the degree of actual human unconsciousness.
For, a creaturely state of life does not become an intelligent expe-
rience, real to consciousness, until it becon.es woven into the con-
sciousness through an educational process not comprehensible in
itself. Creation is from highest to lowest — from God to Man —
hence any distinctive form of creaturely life must be Divinely
given, and thence humanly appropriated by a toilsome process of
subjective energy, before the subject can become duly conscious
thereof. God is not an impostor ; He does not impose the goods

122 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

He confers upon the creaturely form as if that form were a dead
machine, but makes it a living subject, freely receptive and ap-
propriating the Divine providences, " as of self," as Swedenborg
significantly phrases it. Both Swedenborg and Mr, James very
distinctly emphasize this important truth.

Proceeding, then, in our definition, we come to say : the second
shaded hemisphere (4, 5, 6 :) stands for the developing states
of consciousness in special or particular human personality real-
ized in " selfhood ; " and the third (7, 8, 9 :) stands for the de-
veloping states of consciousness in the associate or unitary human
form.

As already seen, these various forms are creatively real or
Divinely implanted in human nature at the very initial of each
degree. A form is ingenerated in Creative Life, is thence gen-
erated in natural form as seed-form or planting there, and thence
regenerated in natural realms, where, at the end of the regen-
erative process, the matter becomes a full fruition to experience,
and thus invested with full significance to the creaturely form.
Whence it may clearly appear that Creative Fruition — Divine
Man — must be an initial reality in creaturely realms — a Divine
Incarnation — at the transition point from complex development
to composite development — the transition point from ripest self-
hood, as pharisaically illustrated, to societary " seed " given in
Jesus Christ as a planting for societary fruition. And it may
further appear that no proper understanding of the nature and
significance of this Incarnation — this natural planting of a Divinest
reality — could by any possibility be realized by natural man in
his then immature states. The immediate disciple, instructed by
the intimate Divine presence, must have had some vital sense of
the reality, but he could have had no full knowledge. The hus-
bandman, with faith in some promise of important results, might
plant an unknown seed and have a tolerable sense of the seed
itself, in its outward form, at least ; but he must come to the har-
vest, and convert it in experience — in actual uses — in order to
fully comprehend it. And, unless he had experienced the general
order of development from fruit to fruit again duly multiplied,
he would naturally get discouraged and distrust the promise,
when he found the given form as a planting had totally disap-
peared, and only rank stock remained visible. So, the Divine

Swedenlorg and Henry James. 123-

Seed, implanted in Human Nature at tlie initial point of that na-
ture's fruitional degree of evolution, must have been, at best, only
ver}'- partially comprehended at the time, and quite lost to those
who, coming after, beheld only the obscuring hmks — the external
formal vesture of the inworking Spirit. And at last, when, like
the ripening husk of the grain, old forms give token of departing
life, and interior realities as a fruition to God's creating presence
and power in human affiiirs are mostly unknown, as also unseen,
the decline of faith becomes inevitable, and reckless human self-
assertion, in manifold forms, comes largely to the front in expe-
rience.

But we must not permit extended diversion from leading de-
signs. Discussion proper to a periodical publication forbids an
extended explication of the numerous aspects of thought and
activities naturally transpiring during the processes of the creative
unfoldings of the human form or creaturely nature ; yet there are
points that must not be overlooked at this time. A commanding
one is this: In all states of the distinctive human consciousness
(1-9) the Divine and Human are in such constant intimacy in
reality that the inmost human state is always vital with Divine
Life. So, this human form has actually fully rounded dimensions,
however one-sided it may seem. That is, it has a conscious hemi-
sphere in the beclouded realm of the natural experience, and an
unconscious hemisphere in the luminous realm of inmost Being.
This is imaged by the diagram first in view, thus : When the
creaturely form is naturally conscious in lowest hemisphere or ex-
treme simplism (1, 2, 3 :), his unconscious heing is in Creative Being
to the extent of the hemisphere of light represented by spaces 0,
I, II. When, likewise, he is in the degree of natural conscious-
ness represented by the shaded hemisphere 4, 5, 6 :, his unconscious
heing is in God to the extent of the luminous hemisphere 0, H,
III. And when he is self-conscious in the degree represented by
hemisphere 7, 8, 9:, his unconscious heing is in the lumen of the
hemisphere 0, III, I. Whence is sensibly illustrated the impor-
tant truth that "in God we live, move, and have a being"— that
Creator and creature are vitally one in actual Being constantly,
and only alienated to creaturely consciousness during the tumultu-
ous states of existential development.

Another point that has already been measurably touched, but i*

124 TTie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

jet of such impressive import that it may well be urged anew,
is this : the essential form of a degree or human state is not an
intelligent reality or full experience to creaturely form during the
unfolding process of that degree. It only becomes such .during
the operations of the next degree. Thus the common (simplex)
human form, in development, has its root in the unal element (I)
of eternal Being ; germinates in " 1 " of the first developing hemi-
sphere (as vegetable germ quickens to life in the seed buried in
earth) ; mediately unfolds in " 2 " of that hemisphere (as in the
germinal vegetable process the old seed-form tends to dissolution
and the new form tends to subjective distinction); and grows to
fruition of its form in " 3 " of that hemisphere (as vegetable germ
comes to full germinal form and breaks its earthy barriers for a
new career amid heavenly airs and sunshine). Thence the next
degree, as shaded hemisphere 4, 5, 6 :, illustrating complex develop-
ment — development in specific selfhood — is rooted in the dual
element of Being (II), quickens in conscious human selfhood in
" 4," unfolds more forcibly in that selfhood in " 5," and conclu-
sively forms or matures in that selfhood in " 6 " of that hemisphere.
This series corresponds with stock-growth in the plant.

The consummating form of human development is illustrated
by the shaded hemisphere 7, 8, 9 :, and is grounded in the com-
posite element of Being (the trine) represented by Roman numer-
als, III. This form quickens in associate or fraternal vitality in
" 7," more definitely unfolds in composite power in " 8," and
thence ripens in that majestic order in " 9." Here development
ends in full composite power duly ordered, fitly symbolized by
numeric " 10," where, as a symbol of this numeric power, the
primary term (0), previously unknown as embodying power, be-
comes an instrumental form equivalent to the whole power of the
series 1-9 : this ninefoldness being extended indefinitely in higher
associations.

If we still hold the vegetable form as the corresponding symbol,
this process — conclusion at " 9 " and transition into " 10 " — is for-
cibly illustrated by the ripened grain that throws off the husk
(now dead), that before obscured the intrinsic treasures beneath
imposing exterior, and. displays "the golden grain" in all its ob-
jective glory. Thus it is that ear-blade, ear-growth, and ear-ripe-
ness make a fit symbol, in the mouth of the Divinely Revealed

Swedenborg and Henry James. 125

God-Man, of the initial, unfolding, and unfolded order of God's
Kingdom iu the earth. And thus it is that the fully composite,
associate, or unitary order planted in human nature, as the Di-
vine Incarnation, works as Holy Spirit (spirit of wholeness) in the
serene depths central to all our human jars and painful strug-
gles, and points clearly to the glory of a new era of Creative
Fruition, when it may be said : "The kingdoms of this world are
become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ."

It is seen ' now, we trust, that a scientific formulation and ex-
plication of the great principle of creative law, announced and
partially defined and elaborated by Swedenborg — even thougii
our rendering is necessarily very brief — verifies the essential reali-
ties presented to the vision of that remarkable Seer, and, as we
are persuaded, gives every earnest mind an infallible clew both to
the Master and his most worthy expositor, Mr. James.

Swedenborg's system of thought, when logically constructed,
works a complete revolution in current ideas of Creation. It ex-
plodes the old notion of an arbitrary creation wrought by God as
an outside force and terminating in physics humanly animated in
primitive or merely natural man. It maintains that the creature's
vital substance is constantly the Creator, as his inmost being.
And althouo-h it seems to aifirm creative " ultimate" as occurring
in the primitive or Adamic nature, thence making a re-creation
necessary to carry the creature up to Divine conjunction in true
felicity of life, yet a proper rendering of the law of discrete de-
grees, by a consistent unitary principle, will hold the matter firmly,
(1) as Creative Insistence in Ahsohite Being ; (2) Creative Exist-
ence in human appearing ; (3) Creative Suhsistence in Divine
Htiman appearing and being as one — this being Creative End.
Swedenborg variously formulates the order of the degrees, verbally,
with a constancy becoming his supreme devotion to highest truth ;
though not, we are confident, in a way compatible with tlie full
demands of science.

' " It is seen," we say, because our essay presupposes a knowledge, on the part of
the reader, of Swedenborg's intellectual attitude concerning tlie principles under dis-
cussion. And, as it is not practicable to quote here sufficiently to give a syetcmatic
view of his thought, we can only recommend to the interested reader a perusal of his
treatises, especially upon this subject of discrete degrees. His little work, known as
" Divine Love and Wisdom," will be found sufficient for this purpose.

1^6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

As a system of creative philosophy, somewhat involved, and also
a system of science in form still more involved, his thought gets
forcible and extended enunciation under his hand, and more spe-
cific elaboration as a philosophic system under the cogent hand-
ling of Mr, James. And it seemed only to need a more distinct
showing of the elementary nature of the creative degrees, and
strict scientific thesis, analysis, and synthesis accordingly, to make
the whole as comprehensive and commanding, practically, as could
be desired.

In order to see, by his own expression, how his thought bears
upon the problem of Creation, let us briefly quote him :

" In the created universe, both in its greatest and in its least
parts, these three — end, cause, and efiect — exist, because they exist
in God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity." — D. L. cfe
W., 169.

"... the end is all in the cause and all in the effect ; hence it
is that end, cause, and effect are called the first end, the middle
end, and the ultimate end." — Id., 168.

" The universal end, which is the end of all things in creation,
is, that there may be an eternal conjunction of the Creator with
the created universe ; and this is impossible unless there be sub-
jects in which His Divine may be as in Himself, consequently in
which it may dwell and remain, which subjects, in order that they
may be His habitations and mansions, must be recipients of His
love and wisdom as from themselves." — Id., 170.

" That end, cause, and effect are in all and singular the things
of creation, is evident when it is considered that all effects, or ulti-
mate ends, become anew first ends, in a continual series from the
Lord the Creator, who is the first, to the conjunction of man with
Him, which is the last."— /c?., 1Y2.

" It is to be observed that every degree is distinguished from
another by its proper coverings, and all the degrees together are
distinguished by their common covering; and that the common
covering communicates with the inner and inmost in their order."
—Id., 194.

"... the prior degrees are in their fulness in their ultimate."
Id., 217.

These must suffice as hints of the order of his thought concern-
ing the law of degrees as a principle of universal order. His con-

Swedenborg and Henry James. 127

ception of the principles of " successive order " and "simultaneous
order," as pertaining to these degrees, is quite equally important.
In the diagrams already presented, these principles are very clearly
illustrated. The first one, with shaded degrees illustrating the
human form in order of creative development, very distinctly
typifies "successive order." The other diagram, with its three
circular forms firmly united in the Centre, thus representing tlie
full-orbed and fully illumined consciousness in creative fruition
realized, well depicts the principle of "simultaneous order."
This symbol is easily understood by one who has understandingly
followed our exposition of the laws of creative development. The
threefold elements of human nature are never lost or dismissed in
their successive operations. In " the ultimate" they are simply
perfected. Divinely qualified, associated and actuated in ways ever
new and fresh with new inspirations ; like the opening day of the
Springtime, or the movement of musical harmonies and the re-
sponsive bounds of young life in the orderly combinations and
transitions of " the merry dance." Indeed, were it not for this
great play of human life in the Divine-Human Order of the
future, all these simple shadows, that so thrill our poor life of
to-day with their flashy tinsel, would be without living soul, and
speedily perish with the moving, natural personalities that oper-
ate them. The whole natural world would collapse for want of
vital fibre.

This second diagram represents the threefold elements of human
nature in triune order, in the full light and life of Creative End.
In the Divine Natural Manhood, conje to conscious experience in
mind, thought, and outward conditions truly ordered, there is no
darkness in any sphere. The previous darkened half-spheres of
consciousness become here luminous whole spheres, all vital with
immortal vigor and playing in Divine accordance, because all are
duly conscious of the Eternal Centre wherein they are formed and
united, and where they realize the great law of Harmony in the
Life and Light of Creative Triunity. When, too, the external or
natural mind becomes thus Divinely illumined and consciously
one with its inspiring Centre, it is found that all forms of the ex-
ternal are firmly united in each other, and this unity is firmly
fixed in the Central Life itself. " Each in all and all in each " is
the law of full organic composition— every one in the universal

128 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

■end the universal in every one as a constant living experience.
This second diagram distinctly illustrates this perfected degree of
consciousness: a state i\\?it 7'ealizes to human form yA\2X is ever
true — namely, the constant presence of Creative Life in the crea-
turely nature.

In virtue of the Living Word inherent to the Human Form —
the "Life that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" —
there is a monition to the cojnmon sense which forbids that the
natural life shall re*^ or remain in thegrossness of its mere animal
proclivities. The same monitor is a perpetual spur to the culti-
vated or special sense — the moral sense — forbidding that the indi-
vidual life remain and rest in the antag-onisms and conflicts native
to the mere human selfhood. So, too, there is the same, as Divinest
monition to the cesthetic sense, that forbids any rest to man —
whether in individual or collective regards — short of full partici-
pation in infinite Goodness and Truth, with all the Divine Har-
monies they involve. The rn\& oi physical force^ adapted to the
lowest developing conditions ; of ethical force proper to the higher
conditions; and of msthetic force as suited to highest conditions
of culture — will all be found duly instrumental in effecting progress
to desired results ; and, when they are employed scientifically, the
morning of the New Day will begin to dawn upon us.

There is no question but Mr. James is right in maintaining that
Swedenborg's books form the base of a new intellectual system of
immense importance, yet Mr. James himself seemed well aware
that the great promise of the work, as a system, was not fulfilled
by the labors so faithfully devoted thereto in the treatises of the
great Seer. A system, to be clear and commanding as such, must
be brought to its "ultimate." It must attain embodiment — come
to perfect form as positive science. In no other way can it be the
ready instrument to cleave the fossilated ages of error and super-
stition, and give the human intellect the Divine Mastery to which
it rightly aspires. There are occasionally men of exceptional
genius, like Mr. James, who gather the truth from first principles,
and dispense it thence in generous measure to the few who, with
qualified philosophical insight, come to ready sympathy and fellow-
ship in the treasures thus disclosed. But the majority of intellects,
of a sturdy practical nature, cannot be reached by doctrines and

Swedenhorg and Henry James. 129

theories logically explicated, especially when those doctrines and
theories concern problems of our human origin and destiny. There
was probably never greater interest and more earnest quest con-
cerning highest realities ; but such interest and search need help
that logic and philosophy cannot give till they culminate in science
in its highest form. A large class of active intellects demand
demonstration by positive methods, and scorn or deride what tliey
regard as mere personal opinion or airy speculation. And these
are not generally much impressed by Swedenborg's system ; for,
although he clearly sounded the key-note to science in its ultimate
form, he did not fully delineate and define the elements, and formu-
late a tangible system as comprehensive creative law. lie saw
clear enough that "all things are in human form," and that " the
laws of the human mind are the laws of the universe," yet it was
one thing to see this and make it the base of a wonderful elabora-
tion of most vital truths, and quite another thing to analyz'e and
synthetize his theme, and give his logic the formal lineaments of
exact science — a science that, clearly appearing in its own form,
would thence steadily explore the problems of mind, though*^
and experience, and leave no uncertain sounds to confuse and
bewilder.

It is hoped that the outlines that have been here briefly traced
may be found serviceable as an index to amplest scientific certi-
tude. Surely the threefold elements, as defined, are so necessary
and sufficient to Creative Order that there were no possible con-
sistency short of the three, and nothing beyond imaginable to add
to the fulness. As elements of Creative Being, without which
actual creation could never occur, they are as indispensable as, in
G-eometry, axe point, line, and curve; or as to comprehending
thought are thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. But, beyond strict
classification and definition, application in use as universal law is
requisite to give the proper practical test of the real value and
power inherent to the system. Manifestly a sufficient criterion of
highest realities must be adduced in order to realize a science of
the Highest. Swedenborg's and James's logic and i)hilosophy,
rightly rendered as science, assuredly furnish this criterion.

All scientific discrimination will constantly take strict account
of the difi'erence between developed and developing conditions.
Developing process involves a career amid various complications
XVII- 9

W& The Journal of Speculati/oe Philosophy.

^nid appearances that more or less misrepresent or obscure devel-
oped results. Developed conditions reveal and explain all previ-
•o«B tl*roes, however toilsome and distressing.

FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.'

TBANSLATBD VBOU THB OBBHAN OF J. O. FICHTB BT A. E. KBOEOIB.

BooE Second. — Facts of Conscioiisness in Regard to the Prac^

cal Faculty.

Chapter V.

NATURE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

At this insight, that the material world is merely absolute limi-
tation of the productive power of the imagination, one question
still remains in part unanswered, namely: What is that which
limits in this limitation ?

The question might be put : 1. What is , the ground why life
limits itself at all ? To this the answer is, Because it represents
itself in an image, and an image is always limited and determined.

Or, 2. Why is life limited in this particular manner? This
question has already been answered, in part, as follows : Because
the original and absolute power of imagination is limited ; and
hence originates extension, quality generally, and externality out-
side of the Ego, all of which constitute the mere empty form of
external contemplation, which has no inner significance at all. But
we have already shown that the real Inner Essence of the world,

' [Various reasons have compelled us to discontinue, for a time, the publication of
Fichte's "Facts of Consciousness." We shall now take it up again and continue it
to the end. The work deserves careful study, as the first part of it constitutes an ad-
mirable introduction to the Science of Knowledge, while the second part is a clear
exposition of the religious aspect of the Science of Knowledge, as developed by Fichte
in the later period of his life. For convenience of reference to the former portion of
this book, the reader may note that the parts already published are to be found in
the following places : Vol. v, " Jour. Spec. Phil," pp. 63, 1 30, 226, 338 ; vol. vi, pp.
42, 120^ 332 ; vol. vii, Jan., p. 86.— En.]

Facts of Consciousness. 131

as a resistance to the power of free life, must be something quite
different, must be, in fact, itself a j?ow;er — a pure noumenon^ which
no external contemplation can reach. This power or force is in-
deed the world, and, as such, the world is posited and altogether
determined.

Whence does this determination or limitation arise as the only
genuine, true, and original limitation ? Evidently through original
thinking itself, and in the following way :

The world, even in its inner character, as a force, and as a re-
sisting force, is to be object of the. causality of the one common
Ego ; and the force or power of this world is to be overcome by
the power of that one common life. In this subjugation a certain
determined power of life, peculiarly and essentially belonging to
it, will, no doubt, make itself visible to universal contemplation.
Now, since by the law of our science we never start from a pre-
sumptive world in itself, but always from life alone, how would it
be if that resistance, the real inner power or force of the world,
were originally posited and thought only as pure resistance and as
nothing else, hence as that wherein the power of life and in oppo-
sition to which the power of life made itself visible ?

The matter now stands thus :

Life represents itself in its unity. Being life, it is a power — a
determined, peculiar power; and, moreover — since we know it to
be a principle — an infinite power within its determinedness. We
did not say that life represented itself in its unity internally, in
the thinking heretofore described — indeed, our whole previous in-
ternal representation was not one of unity, but merely a partial
one — but that life represented itself externally and in external
contemplation. Hence, it cannot represent its power — in its es-
sence, of course, for its formal condition we have already discov-
ered in an internal but individual contemplation — as something
altogether internal in this form; and the power remains in the
described thinking, precisely because it is a self-externalizing,
utterly unseen and invisible. Hence, if this power must never-
theless be represented in such a thinking — and, since it is a life
which is to be represented, it cannot well be represented other-
■wise — it can be represented only in a resisting object— that is,
we must add and think together with it a somewhat, which
would be fullv annihilated if the power of life were completely

132 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

developed. Now, if such a somewhat is added and posited —
and such a somewhat is, according to us, that very internal
world, which we may now, having properly raised it to its rank as
a nouraenon, call Nature — the inner power of life, although kept
invisible, would yet be its real determining master, since this na-
ture would contain only that which the power of life itself con-
tained, but in its very opposite. And if we called the thinking of
such an opposite limited — i. ^., limited to precisely such a thinking,
the invisible limiting part of this thinking — the hidden premise of
its contents would be the very being of the power of life itself.
Now, suppose that the power of life developed itself actually with-
in this thinking, then this same power, which was at first and
without this thinkins; of a resistance alto^-ether invisible, would
become visible in this its being developed through contact with
the resistance for a form of contemplation, which contemplates
only in opposition, and hence beholds everything only as limited
by its opposite. The power, thus developing itself, would hence-
forth always appear as limited by the resistance posited in ad-
vance by thinking, and would be visible only in a form of con-
templation, thus constituted.

RemarTis. — The Science of Knowledge holds Nature to be noth-
ing else than the opposite, which absolute thinking has formed, to
the absolute power of free and spiritual life, and which that think-
ing has thus formed necessarily in order to make that power visible,
it being in itself invisible.

Now, when you tell this to a " Natural Philosopher," and say to
him that Nature is merely a limit, merely a negative, and nothing
positive at all, he gets angry, and cries out aloud about the out-
rage committed on Nature. But that is all he does. For to enter
upon the arguments of the Science of Knowledge, and to refute
them by proving the opposite of what has just been advanced,
would require a faculty of acute and logical thinking, of following
a very extensive series of thoughts, and of employing a more than
usual degree of dialectical art.

But what dim feeling is it, really, which so excites their wrath,
and which certainly must have some weighty ground ? It is scarcely
to be expected that we shall ever learn it from them ; hence we
must try to put speech into their mouths. The matter is this :

The conception of an Absolute Being, altogether of itself, through

Facts of Consciousness. 133

itself and in itself, is ineradicablj impressed upon consciousness;
and just as ineradicablj there is impressed upon consciousness the
impossibility of transferring this conception to itself (to the Ego)
and of positing itself in any way as the Absolute. Now, those phi-
losophers, together with all their contemporaries, have believed the
Science of Knowledge to make the Ego that Absolute, in violation
of the ineradicable consciousness before mentioned. Believing this,
they, of course, were forced to improve on such a system. But this
improvement turned out to be an unhappy one, since they made
Nature the Absolute, after it had resulted, of course, that the
Ego could not well be the Absolute. They argued : Either the Ego
or Nature ; there is no third ; for their range of vision reached
only these two. Their wrath is excited, really, because they think
that, since we will not let Nature pass for the Absolute, we must
necessarily make the Ego the Absolute. But in this they are mis-
taken ; we draw no such consequence ; for our more extensive
range of vision embraces something more than those two factors.

Nature remains for us a mere limit, subordinated to the Ego, its
pure product, namelyj as one life. An Absolute outside of the
Ego and of Nature, extending to the former, and by its means
also to the latter, their proper point of support, we shall learn to
obtain in another way.

Let no one here hasten to put in the mediation of those ever-
ready peacemakers, who would say that the whole matter is proba-
bly a mere word- dispute. True, we know, as cannot well be
otherwise, and we are sorry for it, that, in thus making Nature
the Absolute, they, at the same time, constitute Nature their God ;
and we know also very well that they do not really represent the
separate objects of Nature as being such God, but transfer this
their conception of God to a common World-soul or internal Force
of Nature underlying all phenomena of Nature, which Force of
Nature, indeed, if matters turn out well, and if a proper height of
sublimity is attained, is said to project itself in some phenomena
of Nature as self -consciousness. (If they were at all habituated to
thinking closely whatever they think instead of indulging in super-
ficial phantasies, they would comprehend, at this very place in
their system, that there is no thinkable transition whatever from
a force of Nature, simply manifesting itself, to a return of such
force into itself in a duality and form of reflection 1) But we

134 The Jov/rnal of Speculative Philosophy.

see clearly that every principle, which is to be realiter a prin-
ciple of sensuous appearance, is itself sensuous, and cannot be at
all thought as supersensuous and spiritual ; not even as an Ego,
much less as God ; and that hence only two ways are open to-
them. Either they should confess that they lack insight into the
unity and connection of the appearance, seizing it only separately
and scattered about as it presents itself, and that hence they are
no philosophers ; or, if they will lay claim to this title, and thus ad-
mit a supersensuous and spiritual as real, they must utterly drop
their reality of the sensuous, since it is absolutely impossible ta
connect the two ; and they must learn to comprehend the whole
sensuousness as mere form of contemplation of the supersensuouSy
even as the Science of Knowledge comprehends it.

According to all that we have said before, the sensuous world
is no more an object of experience than the previously established
parts of the self-representation of life in its unity, but is altogether
a something a priori. It is not a foreign something, which enters
into contemplation and thinking, but is necessarily grounded in
them. Its universal, external form, materiality and quality in
general, originates in the peculiar form of the power of imagina-
tion ; hence it does not belong to itself, but to the latter, and is
formed in opposition to it. As we said before : The limitation of
the power of imagination makes an object visible — so now we may
say : The object makes visible the power of imagination, and its in-
ternal determinedness — for instance, of infinity. Moreover, since
consciousness must begin somewhere, and must begin precisely at
this point, the power of imagination here becomes first partially
visible ; and this its form here first enters the range of vision. It
is true that, in order to recognize this form as form of the power
of imagination, and as an absolute form, we need something else —
namely, free reflection, which itself, however, is possible only un-
der the condition of that immediate contemplation of the object.
Thus matters stand in regard to the external form. But the in-
ternal part of the sensuous world is, as we have described it just
now, the expression of the real, final, and original power of life
by its opposite. It is, therefore, formed through the real power,,
just as matter, etc., is formed through the power of imagination..
This inner sensuous world is determined by that power of life^
and nothing can arise in it except its opposite and annihilating^

Facts of Consciousness. 1I8&

power be in that power of life. Tlie sensuous world is thus
nothing but an image by means of the opposite of the power of
life according to the two chief forms of the latter, imaginative and
real power; it is, therefore, absolutely determined a priori, and
not accidental. (There is positively nothiug in it but the compo-
nent parts of this image; take them away, and nothing remains,
no residuum, no unknown something = x.)

We have shown above that the sensuous world is not posited by
the individual as such, but as one life ; and this also appears from
the mere analysis of the thinking of a sensuous object. That
which is individual is perceived simply because the Ego in its
inner contemplation perceives itself as the principle of that indi-
vidual ; hence, it is visible, and exists only as the result of that
principle, as we have seen above in the instances of the freely pro-
duced conception of a purpose of reproduction, etc. But, as such,
it ceases the moment that the Ego ceases to hold it fixed by imme-
diate production. Hence, a fixed, independent existence, indepen-
dent of free representation, does not pertain to it. Now, if we
produced objects in this manner we should regard them as repre-
sentations, which would drop away as soon as we should cease to
represent them. (Idealism is often described as assuming this to
be the case, but it is a complete misapprehension.) But we ascribe
to them an independent being, as a sign that we give them an
image of a being, which we, as individuals, cannot take away
from them again, and which does not depend upon our inner con-
templable freedom : namely, an image of the One. They are not
representations ; hence, they are things themselves immediately.
We do not have and possess these things in our immediate con-
templation through representatives, but we possess themselves in
their immediate essence, since, in reality, they are, after all, noth-
ing but appearances, and the appearances which we (the uni-
versal Ego) possess ourselves. This extremely important and
altogether misapprehended point of our Idealism must be strin-
gently insisted upon. There are systems, for instance, according to
which things do not appear as they are in themselves, but are
changed in a manifold manner by our representations. The
fundamental error lies here, in the circumstance that another
being than the being of their appearance is attributed to them.
According to us, the things appear absolutely as they are, for they

136 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

are nothing else than their appearance. They are throughout and
throughout appearance, to use an expression which was formed, as
it seems, to terrify us, but which we quietly appropriate to our own
advantage.

Besides — to prove our proposition by another side of the analy-
sis — the objects of the sensuous world are posited immediately as
absolutely valid for others as soon as we reflect upon such objects
and gather them up in the act of objective thinking, a sure proof
that all we have now described is a single synthetical thinking
period, through which the whole external world arises for us.

Chapter VI.

GENERAL REMARKS.

We review all the preceding in order to attach to it some
general remarks.

Result of the Whole. — The presupposed life of consciousness
represents itself in its unity immediately through itself. The ob-
jective views of the world hitherto established are those represen-
tations. It is true that that life of consciousness is broken, which
means that it is repeatable many times as the same life — for, as
yet, we have not noticed any real iimer distinctions of the indi-
viduals, but have considered them all as the same.

1. Now, how did we arrive at this result ? Evidently without
any argumentation and proof, and merely by the free maxim of
our science to regard consciousness as a particular phenomenon
of itself, without any foreign mixture ; hence, by mere scientific
form. In this, therefore, all philosophy, which claims to be a
science for itself, ought to agree with us. But the philosophers
opposed to us in this have not even allowed consciousness to pass
for an appearance standing on its own feet. Our treatment finds
its first discoverer in Kant. Such a treatment of consciousness is
justly called Idealism, and all philosophy must, therefore, accord-
ing to us, be Idealism from the first start and in its beginning. It
might become something else by an exposition of the ground of
consciousness. But this question is not raised until we have com-
pleted the list of facts, and meanwhile we explain the phenomenon
out of itself, so long as we can do it at all.

Facta of Consciousness. 137

2. We see here, clearly, the distinction of our system from that
which assumes sensuous things existing in themselves and makes
them the basis of consciousness — a system which we will not
call by the ambiguous name dogmatism, but plainly materialism,
to which name it can raise no objection if it is logical. This
system says: In all hitherto established objective views of the
world, the sensuous world represents itself; but our system says:
It is the life of consciousness which represents itself in them. We
agree, however, in this, that it represents itself in the same form
of an altogether determined and necessary thinking. The differ-
ence between both expressions is apparent ; the only question is,
What is the real point of the dispute ? It is this : Materialism
posits the things as the ground of the life of consciousness. Xow,
this we contradict. At least, in the described consciousness it is
life that represents, and life represents itself in it. Another and
higher question is: Does it not also represent a something else,
outside of itself, while it thus represents itself and in its self-
representation ? It is possible, and it will turn out to be so. This
is the inquiry after the ground. But materialism makes use of
this proposition from the very start, without any necessity, and in
an altogether unsatisfactory manner. According to materialism,
consciousness represents the sensuous world in itself. The mate-
rialist says : Things exist. This we also say, and say it as
emphatically as he may desire. But he also says : Hence, the
things are at the same time the ground of our representations of
them. Here we perceive a whole tissue of fictions. Of course,
they exist ; but how do you know that they are at the same time
such ground ? You furthermore assert that we have only repre-
sentations of them, which is in direct contradiction to an accurate
observation of self-consciousness. Finally, you connect these two
fictions by a relation, which is also purely fictitious, in making
one of them the ground of the other — a fiction which is, moreover,
completely unintelligible, for you have never yet uttered, nor will
you ever be able to utter, a sensible word concerning the manner
in which a thing can change into an image essentially different
from the thing, and in another power separated from the thing
and also essentially diflerent.

3. We also remark the difference between our system and every
kind of speculative Individualism, but especially idealistic Indi-

138 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

vidualism. Every philosophical system intends to explain con-
sciousness; which is perfectly right. But all previous philosophi-
cal systems, without exception, rose no higher in this undertaking
than to explain the consciousness of a single individual subject,
which naturally meant the individual subject just then philoso-
phizing. The consciousness that was to be explained has never
been thought as the consciousness of one life, embracing and can-
celling all individuality. The Science of Knowledge is the iirst
system that has done this, and has done it in such a manner that
no one has observed it, but imagined that Science to be also an
individualism. One good result, however, was the consequence :
people began to perceive that it ought not to be thus.

It is true that the materialist, by silently presupposing a num-
ber of Egos — for otherwise he cannot arrive at them — can explain
the harmony in their representations of the sensuous world by
basing himself on the thing in itself and the impressions which it
makes in accordance with its being. But — apart from his in-
ability to explain himself as a representing being — he can never
explain the representation — his own, for instance — of other rational
creatures outside of himself. For I should like to know what sort
of an impression of a sensuous object that would be by means of
which the image of an altogether supersensuous Ego would arise,
and what sort of an activity that would be through which the
image of an inactive and altogether in itself locked-up and sepa-
rated principle would be produced.

Idealistic individualism, indeed, loses its deduction at the very
first point. Space is the form of my contemplation ; hence, what-
ever is in space will easily follow as being also my contemplation.
But who, then, is this Ego ? I do not desire the answer, which
you would like to give me, impelled thereto by a dim feeling, but
I want the answer, which you must give me logically. How do
you know, then, that space is the form of contemplation ? Surely,
only through immediate inner self-contemplation, which is indi-
vidual. Now, unless you have higher principles in your Specula-
tion, this self-contemplation can have validity only for itself, for
the individual. Space is form of your individual contemplation ;
this is what your self-contemplation states. But how are you now
going to draw the consequence, in violation of all rules of reason-
ing, that space is also the form of contemplation of other indi-

Facts of Consciousness. 189

viduals (if you, indeed, are able to posit them), since you ought
rather to conclude the opposite ?

Remark. — Kant, it is true, answers the problem just proposed
in a different manner. He sajs : For us men., space is the form of
contemplation. But let us ask, first, what is the word men to
signify here, and what can it signify at all? If it signifies the
opposite to irrationality, then it is equivalent to rational beings,
and the expression ought always to have been so understood.
But if it is intended to signify more, then an opposition between
rational beings themselves ought to have been indicated ; a clasei-
fication in their general sphere between rational and irrational men.
In which case I ask : So far as thinking is concerned, can you
think other rational beings than those that are contained in the
general form of reason of the Ego ? The question is not merely
whether you can think otherwise, but whether such another think-
ing would not be an absolute contradiction, and whether that
form of reason is not the only possible one. Hence, on the field
of thinking, no such opposition is possible. Or do you, perhaps,
behold such other rational beings, in which case the opposition
would be transferred to the sphere of contemplation ? You will
not be able to prove such contemplation, however much you may
imagine other bodily forms of rational beings. But, on the field
of contemplation, you are limited to the reality of contemplation,
and your imaginations are phantasms which you would do wisely
to avoid. I should like to know whether Kant would seriously
state that any kind of rational beings might not have the contem-
plation of space, but something else in its place.

Kant, therefore, ought to have said, and intended to say, that
Space is the form of contemplation for all rational beings. But
where is there any trace of a proof of this in his system ? He has
not demonstrated that the evidence, which, in point of fact, ema-
nates evidently from his own individuality, has universal vah'dity
for all subjects, although, in point of fact, he applies it, and doea
not even mention that he does so. But does he not speak of the
validity of the categorical imperative for all men ? True, but not
otherwise than he has spoken already in the Introduction to the
" Critic of Pure Reason" of Extension as the form of coutemi)lu-
tion for us men. If it were his speculative system which spoke
thus, he would have to show up this categorical imperative as the

140 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

determining ground of some particular consciousness (as we have
pointed out, the power of life as the determining ground of the In-
ternal of nature), and, moreover, of that consciousness through
which many and all are posited. He would have to show up the
many and the all as the form of contemplation of a categorical
imperative, precisely as we have represented the sensuous world
as the form of contemplation of the development of the living
power, and as will probably, indeed, appear to be the fact. Hence,
he lias neither deduced that consciousness of the unity of life in
the many — though we have, also, not done this as yet — nor has he
expressly stated it to be a fact of consciousness — which we have
done in the preceding — but he has simply presupposed it, quietly,
driven thereto by common sense. Hence, if the tendency of his
mind, his common sense, was not individualistic, his system was
at any rate ; but then common sense, from time to time, corrected
his system.

4. This insight into the self-representation of the unity is also
the only means by which to explain the validity of everything
a priori for every rational subject, as well as the claim of each
such being to this validity. The universal validity for the whole
sphere of objects, of which we have spoken just now, and which
must carefully be distinguished from the former, has already been
explained. If I see that the object is produced through me, as the
principle, and that I am limited by my faculty to produce it only
in this particular manner, then I comprehend clearly that the
object cannot be produced by me differently in all eternity, and
that, hence, it also cannot be differently for me. The question is
now, what this principle is. For if it is my Ego as individual,
then that objective validity holds good only for me the individual,
and we cannot understand how any one else can be presumed to
acknowledge it. But if that principle is absolutely the one and
universal life of reason, and if it is immediately posited as such
unmistakable, then it becomes evident that the universal validity
must hold good for this life of reason, and for every one in whom
it manifests itself, and that each one who comprehends this is
entitled to presume that every one else will admit it.

Remarh. — But, in order that such a universally valid somewhat
should be actually valid for a given individual, it is necessary,
firstly, that the individual should give attention. This attention

On the Nature of Property and its Devolution. 141

is an act by wliicli the individual makes itself the One Life, with
abstraction from its own inner imaging and contemplating.

Now, since that universally valid somewhat is valid for the
One Life, it is evident that every individual for whom it is to be
valid must make himself that One Life. But this attention pre-
supposes, secondly, that it should be possible in the way required
by the character of that valid somewhat. For instance, to see a
visible somewhat we must look — that is, attend ; but this can be
required only from those who have eyes. It is the same with the
inner insight. For although we cannot presuppose absolute blind-
ness on this field, the faculty of thinking, after all, develops itself
only gradually and by exercise to its higher degrees, and thus it
may well happen that a universally valid truthinay not be valid
for somebody, in spite of all his attempted attention and good-
will to comprehend it, simply because his faculty of thinking has
not yet been developed in the region wherein that truth lies.

ON THE NATURE OF PROPERTY AND ITS

DEVOLUTION.'

BY J. G. WOERNER.

Analysis.— I. Of the nature of property ; its acquisition, use,
and alienation. §§ 1-3.

IL Devolution of property on the death of its owner ; rights
of the family. §§ 4r-8.

III. Administration ; officers and courts having charge of the

same. §§ 9-11.

§ 1. The Acquisition of Property.''
My property is that which is mine. That only is mine which
I acquire, hold, and dispose of by my will. It is my toill which de-

1 [This article forms the introductory chapter to a forthcoming work on Probate Law,

by Judge Woerner. — Ed.] . a > i

« The definition of property has been attempted upon various theories. An able
writer, Mr. U. M. Rose, has publUhed, in the "Southern Law Review" (vol. », N. b.,

142 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

termines the acquisition of a thing by me, wliether originally, by
reducing to possession, and thus making my property that which

p. 1 et seq.), a series of articles, entitled " Controversies of Modern Continental Jurists,"
in which he comments upon the most celebrated theories concerning the derivation of
rights, and dwells with approbation upon Kant's System, which he styles the Possi-
bility of Coexistence (as to Kant's definition of property, see his Rechtslehre, pub-
lished in the Philosophische Bibliolhek, voL xxix, Berlin, 1870), and Rosmini's theory,
from whose work {Delia Natura del Diritto, Naples, 1837) he quotes to some extent,
and, accepting him as a guide to Kant's profound study, condenses his theory as fol-
lows : " The sum of the property of a person may be regarded as a sphere, of which
that person is the centre. Within this sphere the action of a person is free and inde-
pendent, and is protected by the moral law against all aggression or restrictions. The
person has the moral right to oppose force against any attempt to intrude into this
sphere, or to usurp any part of it. The spheres of difierent personalities exclude each
•other reciprocally, and serve as mutual limitations to each other. For whatever
remains outside of these spheres, each person preserves a complete liberty of action,
and no one has a right to arrest its action and expansion within this free and unoccu-
pied space ; and in this free space there is a large room for rivalry and competition.
Every one has the right of pursuit, but no one can have a right to any object until he
has apprehended it, and has annexed it, as it were, to his person, in the manner already
stated. A transfer or conveyance of property is an abandonment of it in favor
of another determinate person, or a number of such. If the person to whom the
transfer is made neglects or refuses to accept the property, it does not fall to the
first occupant, as it would do if the abandonment were general ; because the owner,
having a right of complete disposal of it, may dispose of it conditionally if he sees fit ;
and in such case, on a failure of the condition of acceptance on which the right should
be transmitted to another, the property will revert to him who had conditionally aban-
doned it. A contract which produces an obligation is only an abandonment in favor
of another of a portion of one's personal activities. A man may barter his personal
services, his skill, his future ability to control and dispose of a sum of money, and the
manner of its disposal, just as he may sell and deliver — that is, abandon to another — a
chattel, the only diSierence being that in the former case his obligation is active, while
in the latter it is, or may be, only passive, the duty in the one case relating to acta,
and in the other to forbearances. Rights may also be transmitted by general abandon-
ment. Where property is unconditionally abandoned, it devolves on the first taker or
occupant, who apprehends it physically, intending to make it his own, doing thereby
no undeserved injury to any human being. Abandonment of whatever kind extin-
guishes, either conditionally or absolutely, the right of the owner or proprietor to the
subject of the right, by causing the intellectual bond which binds it to him to disap-
pear. Words are merely one class of symbols from which the intentions of men are
inferred. In large cities people are to be found who earn a livelihood by collecting
articles of small value, which are thrown in the streets. In such cases the abandon-
ment is implied and not expressed, '^n the same way come titles by prescription or
limitation. From long non-user an abandonment of a right is presumed ; the intel-
lectual bond is supposed to have been withdrawn ; and therefore the right passes to
>the first taker. In the case of a contract importing an obligation, the abandonment

On the Nature of Property and its Devolution. 143

was no one's property before ; or by contract, by which a thing
becomes mine through the concurrence of my will with that of its
former owner. Since I cannot rightfully acquire the property of
another without his consent— that is, without his free will— it is
obvious that the will of the original owner is a necessary element
in my ownership, and in the ownership of any one who may law-
fully acquire it after me, and remains operative until the property
has lost its character as such by voluntary abandoimient. By my
own free will I may abandon my property, whereupon it ceases
to be such, and relapses into the condition of res nullius — subject
to become,' property by the sole will of any person who acquires it.

§ 2. Tenure and Use of Property lost hy Non-User.

I hold or use a thing which is mine, at will. Matter is unfree —
i. «., it has no will, it does not belong to itself. Neither right nor
duty can be predicated of a mere thing; its quality is to offer
resistance; it is, therefore, negative to my will: my will, in real-
izing itself, overcomes this resistance and subjects the thing to its
purposes — changing its form, destroying, consuming it. That
which is mine is thus a part of my personality, of me, in so far as
its end and purpose of existence is the satisfaction, the realization
of my will, and to serve it for its purposes as my bodily limbs serve
me. "Will, then, is the essence of property ; without it there is
none. Hence, that from which I have withdrawn ray will, which
I have abandoned, ceases to be my property, and becomes, as we
have seen, res nullius, the appropriation of which by another is
no violation of my right, because it is no collision with my will.
K, then, I wish to preserve my property, or, which is the same in
effect, ray right to it, I must indicate, in some way perceptible to

necessarily inures to the benefit of the person on whom the obligation rested, and
therefore amounts to a voluntary discharge of the obligation." — Southern L. R., vol. i,
N. S., p. \1 et seq.

The reader will notice how near these views approach those given in the text, which
follow the exposition of Hegel in his Philosophic dcs Bechts, §§ 40-70. No trans-
lation into the English tongue of this truly exhaustive and masterly treatise on the law
has, as yet, it is beUeved, appeared ; but in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy
(vol iv, p. 155) was published the " Outlines of the Science of Rights, Morals, and
Religion," which is a translation cf Hcgers Philo.iophisehe Propaedculik; cnriclied by
explanatory notes elucidating Hegel's terminology and abstruse reasoning, and which
contains a full synopsis of his greater work.

144 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

others, that it is still subject to ray will ; otherwise I may be un-
derstood as having abandoned it. To avoid collisions arising out
of a misinterpretation of my relation to a thing, a definite period
is fixed by custom or law, within which my will is presumed to
attach to it ; if I permit this period to expire without using the
thing, or indicating in some tangible way that it continues to be
mine (keeping it in possession, laying it up, or in some way exer-
cising ownership over it), its abandonment is presumed and my
right to it is lost hy prescription, my ownership barred by limita-
tion.

§ 3. Aliendbility of Property.

In like manner I may relinquish my property to another, either
by freely giving it, or exchanging it for other property. We have
already seen that property acquired from another can become
such only by the will of the former owner. My donee as well as
my vendee holds the property given or sold by the concurrence of
my will with his own ; it must be my will that the donee shall
take, and his that he will receive, the thing which he acquires
from me by gift ; and my will to relinquish and that the vendee
shall hold the property I sell or barter, and his to relinquish and
that I shall hold the property I get in exchange therefor. Prop-
erty so relinquished does not cease to be property when it ceases
to be mine, lor it is my will that my donee or vendee shall hold
it. The alienation of property constitutes one of the forms in
which I use it, in which it serves my purposes, and in which I
realize my will. This phase or quality of property constitutes the
sphere of contract. Alienability is of the essence of property ; an
infringement of my right or power to alienate my property is
therefore a limitation upon my free will, and to that extent a vio-
lation of my personal liberty, because my free will finds realiza-
tion in property. The infraction of my personal freedom is pre-
cisely the same if a limitation is put upon my power to alienate
property as if I were prevented from acquiring, or from holding
or using it. The limitation would in either case deprive me of
my power to contract, and thus destroy my liberty.'

* Intellectual or manual skill, sciences, arts, even religious functions (sermons, masses,
prayers, etc.), as well as services to be rendered for another at or for a given period, are
all included in the sphere of contract. It might appear, on a superficial view, that such

On the Nature of Property a/nd its Devolution. 145
§ 4. Will of Owner operative in Property after his Death.

Property, then, is the realization of the free will of a person,
the external sphere of his freedom. As such, it partakes of, and
is clothed with, the dignity and inviolability of the psreon. The
thinpjs which constitute property can have no rights, for they have
no will ; and will alone, or the person in which it has its abode and
vehicle, can be the subject of right aiid of its correlative, duty.
The law recognizes and deals with property only in so far as it
recognizes and deals with the will of the owner, realized or exter-
nalized therein. For the sphere of the law is the Spiritual ; it
operates upon and through the will alone." Thus the law recoo--
nizes in the property of a deceased person his free will ; that is,
his rational will, and enforces it. The faihire of such recognition
would destroy the property, which can be such only throngji the
will of its owner. If this has been adequately expressed, the dis-
position of the property is enforced accordingly; if not, the law
itself supplies the omission by imparting to the property the uni-
versal will, which is the free will of rational persons.

§ 5. Free and Capricious Will. Caprice ignored hy the Law.

The distinction between truly free or rational will and ca-
price, unfree or irrational will, lies in the content which the will
gives itself, or the object which it pursuco. Universal will (as
distinguished from personal, individual, or subjective will) is the

skill, or functions, or services cannot be classed as tJdngs, and do not, therefore, con-
stitute property, being themselves emanations of free will, and qualities or attributes of
the mind. But it is within the province of my mind or will to externalize a limited share
of my activity, to give to another an interest in it, and thus to reduce it to the condition
of an external thing, which I may alienate for his use — not the whole of my labor, skill,
or services — the totality of my activity or productions — for that would be to alivnate my
own personality, to destroy my free will, which are inalit lablc. The servant or l.i borer
for hire realizes his will by exchanging his services or productions for his wajres, and
thus enters into a lawful contract ; but the slave gives up or is deprived of his free will,
to the destruction of his pei-sonality, which can neither be relinquished nor ac(iuired as
property by another.— Hkgel, Fhil d. if., §^ 43, 66, 6Y, and culdanla.

' The will is free; freedom is its substance and essential quality in like manner as
the substance and essential quality of matter is gravity. Gravity is not an accidental
predicate of matter, but matter itself; so with freedom and will: freedom is will. Will
without freedom is a word void of meaning ; freedom exists only aa will.— Ukou-'b
Philosophic des Rechts, § 4, and addendum.

xvn— 10

146 The Journal of Speculative Philosojphy.

will as embodied in the law, in morality, ethics, religion. "With-
out universal will there could be no laws, nor anything obligatory
upon us all. Each one would act according to his own caprice or
pleasure, without respecting the caprice or pleasure of others. In
so far, then, as the will of the individual has for its content or
object the universal will, it is rational and free.' Caprice, arbi-
trary or limited will, has for its object or content the gratification
of some impulse or appetite, which may or may not be rational,
i. e., in consonance with the universal or absolute will.* It follows
that the law can recognize and enforce only true or rational will,
and must ignore and cancel that which is capricious and arbi-
trary.

§ 6. Property in Relation to the Family.

The ethical relation between the sexes demands their union in
matrimony, from which the family results as a spontaneous natu-
ral (social union) society, whose members are united by the bonds
of mutual affection, implicit trust, and voluntary obedience {pie-
tas). The family is an organic totality, whose constituent ele-
ments have their true existence not in their individuality, but in
their relation to each other through the totality, lacking indepen-
dence when separated from it ; they have no separate interests to
seek, but only one common interest for the whole. Hence, there
dwells in the family but one will — namely, that of the head of the
family, who represents it in its legal relations to others.^ In

' " The absolute will has only itself for object, while the relative will has something
limited." — Hegel, Propaedeutic^ § 20 ; Jour. Sp. Ph., vol. iv, p. 57. See also Hegel,
Encyclopaedie, §§ 483-486.

" Caprice (arbitrariness) is formal, but not true freedom. Since I may elect to de-
termine, or not to determine, this or that, I possess what is ordinarily called freedom.
My choice consists in the faculty of the will to make this or the other thing mine. Be-
ing a particular content, this thing is not adequate to me — I am not identical with it ; I
am simply the potentiality to make it mine. Hence, the choice lies in the indetermi-
nateness of the Ego and the determinateness of the content; being determined (limited)
by this content, the will is not free — i. e., has not itself (universal will) for its content.
Whether the content (object) of the capricious will be rational (conforming to the uni-
versal will) or not, depends upon accident : my dependence upon the content constitutes
the inconsistency of caprice. Men usually believe themselves free when allowed to
act arbitrarily, but true freedom has no contingent content ; it alone is not contingent.
— Hegel, PJdl. d. R, § 15 ; Jour. Sp. Ph., iv., pp. 56-58.

s Jour. Sp. Ph., p. 167, § 23.

On the Nature of Property and its Devolution. J 47

j-ecognizing the trne nature and validity of the family, the law
accords to it and secures it in the enioynieut of the necessary
means to its existence — property; and this in a higher sense and
in a more efficient degree than it secures the property of indi-
viduals. The existence of the family as an aggregate person re-
quires a permanent estate, adequate not only to the capricious
purposes and desires of an individual, but to the common collec-
tive wants of all its members.' In this estate or property no one
member of the family has an exclusive interest or right of posses-
sion, but each his undivided interest in the common fund.'
Nevertheless, the property is usually held by the head of the
family, and in his name. It devolves chiefly upon him to pro-
vide for it the means of subsistence and of satisfying their various
wants. He controls, manages, and disposes of the property or
estate, limited in his absolute dominion over it, aside from his
moral obligations, only by the affirmative provisions of the law.
Upon the dissolution of the family, through the development of
its ethical purpose — i. e., upon the attainment of majority of the
children — who then separate from it as persons sui Juris, capable
of holding property of their own and becoming founders of new
families, their interest in the familv estate is modified accord-
ingly ; the authority of the father, as well as his liability to sup-
port such children, is no longer recognized in law, but becomes
of ethical or moral force only.'

§ 7. Testamentary Disposition of Property.
From the nature of property, in its relation to the individual as
well as to the family, springs the principle of its devolution upon
the death of the owner. The power to dispose of property by last
ivill or testament results strictly from its essential quality of alien-
ability by the owner,* and is, like gifts or contracts inter vivos,
limited only by the policy of the law.' The restraint placed upon

> Hence the provisions in the statutes of the severa. States securing to the widow
■and orphans of a deceased person the homestead, year's support, etc., as aguinst credit-
ors ; the homestead acts, liability of a father for the support and education of his
minor children, the wife's right to dower, etc.

« Hegel, Phil. d. R., %% 168, 170; Encycl, § 520.

3 Hegel, Phil. d. P., § 177. * See ante, % 3.

s But, from the stand-point of ethics and morality, the unlimited tcatatory power is
not justifiable. If the testator die after his children have reached majority, there may

148 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

a testator is no greater than that which exists in cases of aliena-
tion of property inter vivos i the wife's dower, the provisions,,
clothing, year's support, household furniture, etc., of which a testa-
tor cannot deprive his family, are similarly protected against
creditors, and, in many cases, against improvident alienation by
the living head of the family. A fruitful source of litigation is
found in the capricious and arbitrary dispositions often made in
wills to the grievance and unjust deprivation of heirs-at-law ; and
the readiness with which juries seize upon slight pretexts, ilimsy
proof of' undue influence," etc., to set aside such unjust wills, is
indicative of a deep-seated ethical aversion to the power of arbi-
trarily diverting the natural channel of the devolution of property..

§ 8. Course of Descent at Law.

Upon the natural dissolution of the family by the death of tho
parents, or more particularly of the husband or father, the prop-
erty of the family descends to the heirs. It is quite apparent that,
in the case of ^a family in the most restricted, natural sense (con-
sisting of parents and childrtin), there is in this process no sub-
stantial, but only a formal change of ownership : the property

be some ground for voluntary discrimination between his natural heirs. Unless, how-
ever, this is resorted to in a very limited measure, and for valid reasons, it will be in
violation of the logical and ethical basis of the family. Nor can the testatory power be
deduced from the arbitrary will of the testator against the substantial rights of the
family unless the kinship be remote. The arbitrary power of the father to disinherit
his children is one of the immoral provisions of the Roman laws, according to which he
might also kill or sell his son ; and the wife (even if not in the relation of a slave to
her husband, in manum comeniret, in mancipio csset, but as a matron) was a member,
not of the family of which she was the mother, but of that of which she was a descend-
ant, inheriting from the latter, and the latter inheriting from her. — Hegel, Fhil. d. R.y
§§ 179, 180.

The power of testamentary disposition of property is nowhere so unlimited as under
the modern statutes of England and the American States. The common law of Eng-
land, at least the custom in particular places, did not allow a man to dispose of the
whole of bis personal estate by will unless he died without either wife or issue, but re-
quired him to leave one third to his wife and one third to his children, if he lelt both
wife and children ; or one half to his wife or children, if he left either (see 1 Perk.
Williams on Exec, 1 et scq.). Under the codes of most of the continental countries of
Europe the riglit to disinherit one's own children is allowed only for certain causes
pointed out by the law, which are required to be recited in the instrument, the truth
of which may be traversed and the will_6et aside if not sustained at the trial.

On the Nature of Property and its Devolution. 149

held by them in common, or by the head of the family for them,'
now passes to them directly. In the absence of a testamentary
division, the property vests by the law of descent, paseinj^ from
the husband and father to the wife and children, that being the
natural, substantial, and rational course; such, in the absence of
a contrary disposition, is the rational, substantial will of the
•deceased to which the law gives eifect. In default of wife and
children, the parents, brothers, and sisters, or other more distant
relatives, constitute the heirs; the family bond is looser as the
kinship is more remote and the relatives belong to other families
of their own. In the same ratio in which the reason demandintr
the heirship between members of the same family loses force with
the remoteness of kinship, the propriety and justice of testament-
■ ary disposition of property becomes more apparent.' The disposi-
tion of property in anticipation of death {donatio causa mortis) is
properly subsumable under the law of contracts.

-§ 9. The Law supplies the Will Element in the Property of

Deceased Persons.

It is self-evident that the claims of creditors of a deceased per-
son constitute a title to the property left by him superior to that
of heirs, whether testamentary or at law. A debt constitutes
property of the creditor remaining in the possession of the debtor,
which, by the concurrent will of both, is, at some period subse-
•quent to the creation of the debt (arising out of an express or im-
plied contract), to pass into the possession of the creditor. The
debtor, then, has only a qualified property in the thing (usually
the price for goods sold or services rendered) which constitutes

' See anle, § 6.

* The institution of primogeniture is deducible from tlie political necessity of the
State, which seeks to increase its stability by creating a -lass of persons independent

: alike of the favor of the government and of the public at large, and protected even
against their own imprudence and caprice by the entail of their estates, relieving them
from the distracting cares of obtaining the means of support and the vicissitudes of
fortune, thus enabling them to devote their undivided energies to the service of the

: State. Primogeniture and entail are violative of the true principle of property, destroy-
ing both its alienability and natural course of descent ; hence, they are utterly inde-
fensible and immoral where no political necessity exists for them (Hegel, Phil. d. R.,

-^% 306, 180). In America they are generally inhibited by the constitutions or
statutes of the several States.

150 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

the debt — namely, the right of possession for a period of time
which may be definite, or depend upon the forbearance of the
creditor. The substantial property — the right to the thing — with
a present or future right to the possession also, is already in the
creditor; for this reason it cannot go to the debtor's heirs, or it
goes to them to the extent only in which he had an interest there-
in. To secure the rights of creditors in the estates of deceased
persons against the heirs as well as against strangers, and to secure
justice to and between the heirs themselves — in other words, to
enforce the rational will of the decedent, which can be no other
than that upon his death his property shall pass to his creditors
and testamentary or legal heirs — the law itself performs the office
of the deceased owner, substituting for, or supplying as, his will
its own universal will.'

From this theory, it is apparent that the true reason of the law
of descent, of the recognition of the validity of testaments, and of
the authority assumed by the law over the estates of deceased per-
sons, is to be found in tlie necessity of restoring the essential
quality of property which has lost the will-element by the death
of the owner. Some text-writers look upon the property left by
deceased persons as res nullius, which might be seized and appro-
priated by the first comer or bystander, and hold that the laws of
descent and of distribution are simply wise and necessary precau-
tionary measures to prevent strife and violence at the death-bed.
That such is the efiect of these laws is evident enough, as also

^ " The character of this estate, together with the variety of individuals who may be
interested in it, as creditors, legatees, or distributees, seems to demand that it also
should be vested by law in some common agent, who shall preserve it from waste and
dispose of it to those entitled to receive it, according to the provisions of that la;w
which has undertaken to provide for the discharge of the duties omitted by the intes-
tate. The creation of this agent the law wisely leaves to the discretion of the ancestor^
if he chooses to exercise it; he may make his own will instead of leaving it to the law
to make one for him, and he may appoint his own agent or executor instead of confid-
ing this duty to the probate court under the authority of the law. If the ancestor, by
will, appoint his own agent or executor, he thereby becomes vested with the title to
the property in a fiduciary charactci-. But, if, either designedly or otherwise, the an-
cestor die without executing his power of testamentary disposition, the law, as in case
of real estate, assumes itself the duty of appointment, and vests this title and author-
ity over the personal estate in a common agent for the parties in interest, who is culled
an administrator." — Harris, J., delivering the dissenting opinion in Evans vs. Fisher,,
40 Miss., 643, 679 et seq., citing from 1 TncK. Lect., pt. 2, pp. 397, 398.

On the Nature of Property and its Devolution. 151

their wisdom and validity; but to place the reason of their enact-
ment on this ground is to ignore the true nature of the family as
well as the trne nature of property."

§10. Administration; Functions of Executors and Admhds-

trators.

The purpose of the law in this respect is accomjilished in a
simple and efficient manner by its officers or ministers, vested with
powers and duties commensurate .with the exigencies requiring
their intervention. The sum of their activity is called admlnis-
tration, which, in its narrowest legal sense, is the collection,
management, and distribution, under legal authority, of the estate
ot an intestate by an officer known && administrator ; or of the
estate of a testator having no competent execn.tor, by an adminis-
trator with the will annexed. The person charged with the man-
agement and disposition of the estate of a testator is an executor,
and his office is called executorship., because he executes the testa-
tor's will, but his official acts are also called administration.''
The functions of these officers are in many respects similar to those
of trustees as known in chancery. Text-writers iind it convenient
to subsume them under the same class when discussing the powers,
rights, duties, and liabilities of trustees. But there is an obvious
and essential distinction between administrators and ordinary
trustees: while the latter derive their powers from the voluntary
creators of the trust, the authority of the former tluws directly
from the law itself. Their functions constitute an essential ele-
ment of the law, and are exercised M'ith entire independence of
the personal views, desires, and intentions of the parties concerneil.
They are in the full sense officers of the law and of courts organ-
ized and having jurisdiction for the especial purpose of aiding and

' Hegel, Phil. d. R., § 178.

' The term adminislraiion, in its primary signification and general sense equivalent to
conduct, manaffement, distribution, etc. (Webster), is also applicable to the management
of the estates of minors, persons of unsound mind, drunkards, spendthrifts, etc., by
officers known as guardians, curators, tutors, committees, etc. Persons who are incom-
petent to manage their affairs have not free will, without which, as previously set forih
in the text, there can be no property ; hence, as in the case of deceased persond, the
law vindicates its character as such by supplying it with the content of ita own unirer-
sal will, through the intervention'of guardians, etc.

162 The Journal of Speculative Philosopky.

controlling them. They are clothed with authority to act in all
matters connected with the disposition of the decedent's estate
precisely as he himself would rationally have done, and it is the
office of these courts to compel such action and to cancel all capri-
cious, wilful acts inconsistent with justice and the legal rights of
creditors and distributees.

§ 11. Elements and Nature of Probate Courts.

The organization of courts having exclusive jurisdiction over
matters pertaining to the administration of the estates of deceased
persons and of minors, and persons incapable of managing their
affairs, has undoubtedly proved exceedingly useful and convenient
to the public. But while to this circumstance may be ascribed
their historical development and the modern growth and increased
extent of their jurisdiction, yet the true distinction between thera
and the courts of ordinary plenary jurisdiction is not found in
their usefulness or convenience, but is based upon the more pro-
found principle underlying their origin, the logical diremption ot
the functions peculiar to the two classes of courts, which a briet
examination of these functions will readily disclose.

The division of the powers of government into their constituent
elements results, in all modern free states, in the three co-ordinate
departments, confided to separate magistracies, known as the legis-
lative, judicial, and executive. It is sulficient for the present pur-
pose to bear in mind that it is the office of the judiciary to
interpret and apply the law established by the legislative branch
to cases arising out of collision, whether actual or imaginary, with
the law, leaving it to the executive branch to carry out the judg-
ments of the courts. Thus the judge is seen to act as the organ or
mouth-piece of the law, announcing, in each case brought to his
oflScial knowledge, whether the alleged collision between the will
of an individual, as objectified in an outward act (for will which
is undetermined, not become external by accomplishment of its
purpose, is beyond the realm of the law, which deals only with
the actual '), is real or imaginary. In the exercise of this function,
the judge, with a directness peculiar to this branch of sovereign
power, accomplishes the great office and end of the state and of

' Hegel, Phil. d. /?.,§§ 113, 13.

On the Nature of Property and its Devolution. 153

all government, the accomplishment of justice, the realization of
will ; securing to the rational will of the individual its legitimate
fruition, and holding the irrational, capricious, or negative will
to its own logical result (reparation and punishment for wrong and
crime).

But we have seen that all property subject to administration is
deficient in that element which alone can be the basis of a colli-
sion between the individual will and the law ; it is the province
of the court having jurisdiction over executors and administrators
to supply the individual will lacking in property, to fill the
vacuum created by the death of the owner with the content of the
universal will — that is, to secure the disposition of property under
administration as the owner, acting rationally, would have dis-
posed of it if living. The functions involved in this office' have a
ministerial element superadded to their judicial quality, which, if
they occurred in ordinary courts of law or equity, would require
the intervention of adjuncts — commissioners, auditors, referees,
etc. — involving, aside from the question of inconvenience, delay,
and cost, an incongruity in the duties of the office.'

Such being the logical basis and scope of courts having control
of executors and administrators, their historical development in
England, but more particularly in the United States, has been a
gradual but steady separation from the common law and chancery
courts, and has resulted in a practical recognition of probate juris-
diction as a distinct and independent branch of the law, destined
to achieve for itself a sphere sid generis^ based upon and deter-
mined by its own inherent principles.

' Such as the appointment of administrators, granting probate of wills in non-con-
tentious cases, qualifying executors, fixing the amount and passing upon the sufficicncT
of bonds and sureties, receiving inventories, settlements, reports, etc., fixing the diri-
^ends to be paid to creditors, etc.

' Jurisdiction of Probate Courts : South. L. R., vol. iii, pp. 264-267.

154 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CARL FRIEDRICH GOESCHEL BY SUSAN E. BLOW.

Chapter II.'

Personality., or the Immanent Development of the Soul and its

lonmortality .

As the crowning result of the labor of all previous periods,
philosophy has at last discovered its true method, and therein
attained the one form adequate to its content. It is true that the
critical philosopliy arraigned the dogmatic procedure, and exposed
its inadequacy, yet this same critical philosophy fell into the
dogmatism it denounced, and the doofmatic method of demonstra-
tion (in part under the altered name of construction) prevailed
until philosophy attained insight into the genetic development of
the idea. Even now the speculative method is grossly misunder-
stood ; it is still to many an insoluble enigma that the content
should be developed from the concept — " from the concept " mean-
ing to them just as much as^ and not one whit more than, the old
a priori. In the worst case of all, however, are those who, under-
standing the open secret quite as little as others, yet insist upon
their own comprehension. The philosophy which has not only
recognized the inadequacy of a method based upon the dualism
between Being and Thought, but has also substituted for it the
progressive development of the concept or notion growing out of
and moving towards the identit}^ of subject and object, is, by
such as these, harangued and tutored, and condescendingly urged
to consider the wonderful fact that a formal or subjective logic is
not adequate to objective reality and true conviction, and that
this subjective logic must, therefore, be supplemented by objec-
tive experience. Thereupon this experience is interpolated ex-
tempore instead of being included as method in the identity of
Being and Thought, and developed and mediated in the develop-
ment of the concept or notion. The object is not something

' [The introduction and first chapter of this work were translated by Mr. T. R. Vick-
roy, and published in volume xi (pages 66, 177, 372) of this journal. — En.]

The Immortality of the Soul. 155

diflPerent from its concept or notion, but one with it ; hence, the
object develops in and throui^h itself, and through tiiis devel-
opment comes to its experience. Methodically i)ursuin<r and
following the object, we experience it in ourselves. II. )w this
may be more detinitelj understood— how the self-developing, pro-
gressive movement from the concept identical with its object, or
from the object identical with its concept, whicli the subject looks
upon and follows, reveals itself as the most vital experience — we
shall learn in the progress of the t^sk which we have set our^elves,
and we shall also see clearly how this movement differs in the
sharpest manner from the dogmatic method of proof of which
dualism is the root, and which (whether interposed a priori or a
posteriori), being transcendental, is necessarily external.

Critical philosophy reproached dogmatism for ])resupposing
without proof the agreement of thought and its object, and this
reproach was deserved. It then sought to show that this agree-
ment could not be proved ; the attempt was, however, an utter
failure, and the proposition that the unity of Thought and Being
could not be demonstrated proved to be itself undemonstrable.
It is most remarkable that this critical philosophy, while challeng-
ing and censuring the presupposition of the as yet unproved iden-
tity of Being and Thought, itself presupposes, without demonstra-
ting, the duality of subject and object. With the recognition of
this defect, progressive philosophy learns to presuppose nothing,
neither to assume anything nor to accept anything as already
settled, but to investigate and discover how everything given
immediately develops and mediates itself. In this manner we see
Being develop itself logically out of Nothing, through Becoming,
to the Notion or Comprehension and the Absolute Idea, and
then conversely find these several steps, moments, or categoriea
outside of and beside each other in whatever is immediately
given. This done, we are at home everywhere in general, for we
have learned to complete the circle from any given point of its
circumference. It may be objected that, in the Logic, Thought
immediately presupposes and postulates itself; we answer that
thought is immediate only in so far as it is its own mediation.
Therefore, it is the beginning which realizes and confirms itself
in its development, and in itself it both finds and surmounts
being. That thought is its own mediation is no ground for rec-

156 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ognizing something diiferent from thought as prior to thought,
hut, on the contrary, this self-mediation forces us to recognize
thought as the true beginning from which Being develops itself
into Comprehension — herewith proving, also, that being pertains
to Comprehension.

This general course of development once mastered, any special
experience in any sphere of the real world will reveal itself as a
necessary internal development of the thought of the given object,
and with ever new astonishment we shall be confirmed in the
recognition that in whatever is immediate may be found, though
in manifold and varied forms, the same moments or categories
which revealed themselves on the plane of pure thought.

The given object in our present investigation is the human soul.
It is given as Thought, and can, therefore, still less than other given
objects, withdraw itself from tlie categories of Thought. We shall,
however, not make even this presupposition, but shall simpl}' ob-
serve how the soul develops in itself. We shall take the soul as it
is — abstracting nothing from it — imputing to it no foreign or exter-
nal element. The command laid upon Philosophy, says a great
master, is like the Saviour's command to the rich youth, who, hear-
ing it, went away sorrowful. Pure philosophy thrives only under
poverty and restraint ; like the nun, it is bound by the three mo-
nastic vows.

If, then, the soul develops according to its own essential nature,
and, in obedience to its own laws, moves forward to its immortality,
it cannot be reproached with having borrowed help from something
external whose accord with its nature must be demonstrated. The
critical consideration whether the categories, as subjective forms,
can be held valid in the object has certainly no validity in the
psychological sphere, because here the subject is unquestionably
its own object. The more rigorously, therefore, in this sphere
must the demand be insisted upon that there shall be no transition
as in a demonstration from one to the other in order to bind to-
gether in thought things which exist as separate ; but that, on the
contrary, the one shall produce in and out of itself its own deter-
minations.

The question whether the soul persists presupposes the progres-
sive development of the soul. For, if the soul does not progress
neither can it perish; it remains as it is and what it is: having

The Immortality of the Soul. 157

permanence, can it lack continuance? If, on the contrary, tl)e
soul progresses, it does not remain as it is, and, tlierefbre,'it be-
hooves us to see if it remains what it is— that is to say, whether,
under changes in its modes of manifestation, its essence remains
unchano-ed.

Evidently all turns upon the mediatorial question of how the
soul develops or progresses. In the answer to tliis, the immediate
questions of whether or not the soul progresses, and whether or
not it persists, are also answered. Just on this account we must
postpone these immediate questions which insist on fixing, in
advance, the end of an untravelled road, and confine ourselves to
the concrete question of how the soul develops and unfolds. We
shall follow the soul in its own path ; thus^ following, we shall
learn whither the path tends.

Herewith we are directed into the path of experience. As we
know the soul first under the form of its immediate existence, so
we can follow its progressive development and note the various
phases of its manifestation. There is no ground for presupposing
a difference between Being and its experience ; rather the experi-
ence develops itself out of I3eing as Being develops itself out of
thought. We might, however, move from Thought as our stait-
ing-point, in order therein to recognize the same categories. No
matter how we begin, whether we move from the accidental and
immediate — i. e., from a given object — or whether we start with
the Universal — i.e., with Thought — everywhere, in the must dis-
tinct and varied spheres, we shall find the same progressive move-
ment. The universal particularizes itself in differences which
then again mediate themselves in wmiy. The comprehension or
concept dirempts itself in itself into subject and object in order to
annul this separation in their identification. The subjective con-
cept divides itself in judgments that it may reunite with itstlt in
the syllogism. The first phase is the immediate unity and total-
ity ; the second, the self-diremption of this totaliiy into being and
essence, outward and inward ; the third is the transfiguration of
the difference into unity. Thus man, too, is first a single and
undivided essence ; but he dirempts himself into outward and in-
ward, body and soul, and this diremption occurs not only in thought
through reflection, but also in fact through death. The final phase
would be tiie transfigured unity of soul and body ; this is the res-

158 The Journal of 8j)eculative Philosojphy.

urrection in the Spirit. Upon this insight rests the trichotomy
of the JSTew Testament, which ascribes to man body, soul, and
spirit, and to the Godhead ascribes three persons.

In our present inquiry, liowever, the starting-point is not man ;
he has served us only as the example of a universal law of de-
velopment. Not man in his totality is our starting-point, but a
part of man, itself first abstracted through reflection — namely, the
soul of man — but the entire soul. Neither is resurrection our
goal, for we must seek our goal, not assume it. Nevertheless, as
resurrection is the ultimate truth and goal of the soul, it is obvi-
ous that from the beginning of our inquiry some kind of persist-
ency conformable to the essence of the soul must be presupposed.
It is obvious, also, that in the idea of resuiTection there is im-
plied, as a necessary condition, the perpetuity of the body in a
manner corresponding to its conception or notion, which is that
of externality or otherness. Thus much, therefore, may be pre-
supposed; namely, tliat the immortality of the human soul has
for its starting-point the soul itself, while the resurrection of the
body, as well as its reunion with the soul, has for its starting-point
the total man.

The human soul, then, is our initial point. Let us ask, first,
whether in the soul, considered as a totality, may be discerned
progress through the ever-recurring moments of unity, self-separa-
tion, and self-identification. As a totality, the soul, in its imme-
diacy, is homogeneous and undivided, but just from this it follows
that the soul sunders, distinguishes, separates itself from itself, in
■ order to realize its unity. As Thought, the soul, in its immediacy,
is blank, potential thought — thought without distinction and with-
out reflection. In the second stage or moment, thought distin-
guishes itself from being ; thought and being are opposed to each
other until thought becomes conscious of being. As Being, the
soul, in its immediacy, is Thought sunk in the Material, and the
Material is Being in which thought lies concealed and undeveloped.
In this immediacy, the soul has unity only because it is unconscious
and undeveloped, and, in this indifference and unconsciousness, it
contradicts its own essential nature. In the second phase, this
unconscious heing of the soul having, as individual, completed the
spheres of being, develops itself into consciousness in that Being :
since as individual it reflects itself after its self-separatioii both in

The Immortality of the Soul. 159

itself and in its other it falls into self- difference ; Consciousness is
this difference itself, for self-consciousness necessarily implies con-
sciousness of all that through self-separation is made other than
self. The third phase demands that this divided consciousness
annul its tension, therein realizing a mediated unit3' ; in so far as it
recognizes itself not only in itself, but in its other, it attains unity
with its other, and therein realizes itself as Spirit.

The progressive movement of the soul can, accordingly, he indi-
cated in three vfords — Soul, Consciousness, and Sp'irit or Indi-
vidual — Subject and Identity of the Subject with the Object.
But the question arises. What have we thereby gained ? Can we
abstract the meaning of our formulated statement ? Are we able
to show how the content of these several moments is self-unlold-
ing and self-revealing ?

Primarily, it may be mentioned that in this division the Aristo-
telian doctrine of three souls seems to be realized in its underlving
truth. The lirst is the nutritive Soul {r} dpeirrtKr) yfrvxh)-, found in
and identical with the life of the plant. The second is the life of
the animal or the sensitive Soul {rj aladriTiKr] "^v^v) 5 this sen-
sitive Soul in human life comes to consciousness through reflect-
ing itself in itself, and thus finding the internal in itself. The
third is the rational Soul {rj vorjTtKr) yfruxh), which rises out of
human consciousness, and, identifying itself with its object realizes
itself as Spirit. (Aristot., " De Anima," ii, 2, 3, 4; iii, 12, 13.)

As man develops himself in body, soul, and spirit, so the soul,
abstracted from its sensible, tangible body, passes through ])hases
of development corresponding to body, soul, and spirit. That is
to say, the soul in its first phase is an immediate totality; in its
second phase it estranges itself from itself, making itself its own
object ; in its third phase it penetrates to the identity of sub-
ject and object. Thus the soul is first its own body or its own
foundation ; it serves itself without distinguishing itself from the
body. With the act of distinguishing comes also synthesis ; this
is the soul which, distinguishing and uniting, holds sway over
body and spirit. The third is the actually mediated unity, which,
rising above body and soul, includes and transfigures both.

To this trichotomy is related that into which Plato analyzed
both the individual Soul and the State. First is the body— that
which obeys and serves— the basis of all further development, to

160 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

eTrLOvixrjTLKov rj ;)^p77/iaTtcrTtAcoi' ; the second, or the mean between the
first and last, is the Soul, or that which simultaneously sunders and
reunites, called to 6v/jlikov r) Ovfxo-ethh and iiriKovpiKov ; the third
is the spirit, or the mean above the first and second, the unity of
both, or Reason, to XoyiariKov, 6 Nov^. In so far as the soul is
thought as abstracted from its external body, its body subsists
through its (soul's) individuality ; its soul is its self-consciousness,
with which are necessarily bound up the consciousness of its ob-
ject and its owm distinction, therefrom ; the third is Reason, or
the Spirit which takes up into itself and mediates both the pre-
ceding phases of development. The first is Hypothesis, the sec-
ond Antithesis and Synthesis, the third Thesis: or, 1, Soul; 2,
Consciousness as distinguishing and uniting; B, Spirit or Reason.

The development of the soul into consciousness, and of conscious-
ness into spirit, is experimentally confirmed : it is in general rep-
resented as an awakening. Even the rudest empirical theories
of the soul teach something of this awakening ; but the truth of
this phenomenon, the content of this observation, is not brought
to light. To us, however, this progress of the soul, through its own
self-diremption into inner and outer and conscious mediation, has
revealed and vindicated itself as the universal dialectic of imme-
diacy.

That the soul in its progressive movement develops from itself,
receiving into itself nothing foreign and external, is proved in the
end by the f^ict that the soul, in its highest perfection as spirit,
has no other content than before. The nature of the soul, after
as before its development, consists in the identity of thought
and the object of thought. The perfection of the soul is simply
the mediation of this unity and its elevation into consciousness.
The child longs for and tries to grasp tl\e moon, because he feels
it as his object, and dependent on himself; this is the soul's im-
mediate unity with its other. The youth recognizes the differ-
ence from and the elevation above himself of what seemed before
one with him and subject to him ; finally, the man comprehends
that the star which the child tried to seize with his hands is but a
single moment in the totality of spirit.

Through this same organic process of estrangement, and its re-
moval, the immediate unity of love comes to its rational media-
tion or idea. The realized idea of love is marriage. Parallels

The Immortality of tJie /Soul. 161

and symbols of marriage are found tbrougliout the splieres of
spirit. Unity is followed by separation, separation by reunion,
betrothal, marriage. We discern these organic moments in the
tender and significant myth which closes the old world and opens
the new ; this myth belongs essentially to the history of the doc-
trine of immortality. In it we see how Psyche, the king's dauirh-
ter, outgrows her origin and breaks loose from it ; how, like Iphi-
genia, she is exposed by her own parents ; how she is rescued and
borne away by Ze))hyr, and transplanted immediately into imme-
diate relation or spontaneous union with the all-unifying Spirit of
love. She rests in love, in inmost oneness with the unseen and
invisible God. But there comes a moment of temptation— temp-
tation which she does not resist. She is enticed by the longing to
know. She steps out of innocence and unconsciousness not only
into knowledge, but into alienation. She feels the misery and
degradation of estrangement ; she knows the bitterness of slavery,
and in the sweat of her face performs her cruel tasks. But she
has also the hope of deliverance; she struggles to cancel differ-
ence and annul separation, thus reuniting herself with the alien-
ated Spirit of love. He, in the distance, is still near her; in the
supreme moments of trial, he sustains her. At last she is con-
scious of reconciliation and deliverance ; the bridegroom comes ;
love realizes itself in marriage; the marriage is ratified in heaven,
and the bride receives immortality, for immortality consists in
this marriao-e of the mortal and the divine.

In this ancient myth, the development of the soul through its
successive grades is embodied and illustrated: but the content of
the soul is not disclosed ; the determinations remain abstract ; the
result unmediated. For logical development, we have compounded
•with a poetic myth ; immortality does not seem to develoj) itself,
but to be bestowed from without. We have followed the course
of development in time, and seen it attain its crowning result.
The soul is at the goal of the race; and tnis may involve the de-
struction of the soul. As the soul has risen out of immediate
unconscious unity, shall it not complete the circle of its life by
return into the same? Is this final rest the reconciliation which
follows the long and weary struggle?

So it appears: the soul's movement, which we have traced
empiricallv, does not necessitate the iimnortality of the soul.
XVII— 11

162 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Completing itself in time, it needs no eternal continuance. This
appearance will, however, at once negate itself, for it is based upon
the outward course of development, and has taken no cognizance
of the content of this development. The next step, therefore, is
to consider the various stages of the soul's movement with refer-
ence to their content, and its unfolding, in order to determine if
anything further follows from it.

To exhibit the nature of the soul involves, according to Plato,
a long and divine investigation. This investigation is, however,
nothing external, but consists in the immanent self- development
of the soul into Spirit, which is the realized idea of the soul. The
investigation is a long one, because it implies this internal realiza-
tion; and, if the soul is immortal, its immortality consists in its
development into spirit, in its exhibition of the idea of the soul
through making explicit all that this idea implies. This develop-
ment can only be called " divine " in so far as the Godhead is its
beginning and its end. To experience its length, we must travel
again, with slow and carefully considered steps, the road over
which we have already rapidly passed. We often gain more by
repeating a journey than in making it for the first time. With
reference to our beginning, m'c must at first place it in the soul,
for it belongs to the thought of immanent development that noth-
ing shall be given from without ; the initial question must, there-
fore, be what the soul can find in itself. The end of the course in
which the soul moves we may name, in advance, the Spirit ; but
we must inquire, definitely what is the Spirit, and how, follow-
ing the movement of the soul, we can find its beginning and its
end in God.

The Sources and Faculties of Cognitim. 103

THE SOURCES AND FACULTIES OF COGNITION.

TRANSLATED PROM THB POLISH OF E. TBENTOWSKI > (FROM THE FIRST VOLUME OF H18 " LOOIC")

BY I. rODBIELBKI.

{Continued from the October Number.)

We pass now to the regions of the complete selfhood, the verj
soul, that is, to the cognition, in wliich our selfliood measures
itself with the core of all existence, with God's Word (Logos), in
the creation with God himself, and' also perceives itself, with its
great and holy object, in the philosophical difference in itiditier-
ence or in the union of harmonious compromise.'

Attention {attentio, die Aufmerksamkeit) is the iirst power of
our complete selfhood, of the very selfhood, of the true selfhood,
or the soul. There is a correspondence between man's divine
nature and the senses in the external man, or the iujagiiiation in
man's internality ; it corresponds also with the senses and imagi-
nation. Within it the senses and imagination come to tiieir piiilo-
sophical difference in indifference, or unity in compromise. And
truly without the senses and imagination, attention is an utter
impossibility. Concentrating our attention upon something, we
concentrate also our senses, together with their comnion percep.
tion ; besides, we let loose the reins of our imagination, that it
may seize upon the object and change its multiplicity into a unity.

We can turn our attention towards the objects of the material

' "Next to Cieszkowski is Stanislaus Ferdinand Trentowski, who lived at Freiburg »
long time in exile [banished in 1830, on occasion of revolution in Poland — he was born
in 1808], and gave lectures there. His ' Grundlage der Universellen Philosophie '
(Carlsr., 1837) and ' Wissenschaft der Natur' (1840) attempt to proceed beyond llegel.
He combines the Cartesian principle, ' cogito ergo sum,' with the sensualistic ' scntio
ergo res est ' — just as had been done before by all true and whole philosophers, although
only in individual insights, and he crowns tliis work c*" combination with the prin-
ciple, 'Therefore I perceive God is.* This concrete philosophy he divides into essen-
tial, formal, and essential-formal philosophy, and each of these again into three disci-
plines. The first contains the three disciplines : (a) Philosophy of Nature ; (6) of
Spirit; (c) of God manifesting Himself. The second includes (a) Grammar; (6) Logic
and Mathesis ; (c) .(Esthetic. The third includes (a) Criticism of Experience ; (6) Rea-
son ; (c) Perception. The pedagogical writings of Trentowski, written in the Polish
language, are very much prized by his countrymen." — [J'raii.'ilutrd from Erdmann'*
*' Grundriss der Gcschichte der Phil.,'' % 346, 15.]

164 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

world as well as towards those of the immaterial world. All this-
proves that attention is quite as much of an empirical as of a-
speculative nature, or of a philosophical nature; therefore it is
not the power of our body nor of our spirit, but of our very self-
hood, our very soul.

Attention is the mother of scientific observation {ohservationes i
die Beobachtungen). The child has the qualities of its mother..
Because observations can be both physical and psychical, they be-
long especially to the objects of life; in this realm they are the
creation of our complete selfhood. Although attention is already
the power of the complete selfhood or the soul, still it is only the
first degree and the lowest one. It seizes upon the essence of
things, but in an external manner, only like a little child. It is
the philosophical mind in its infancy.

Reflection {deUheratio^ animadversio intuitus, comMnatio, etc.,
Anschauen, Schauen, Ueherlegen, etc.) is the second power of
our proper selfhood. It is the mature and cultivated attention,
or it is the youthful stage of the comprehending mind. Reflection
obtains mastery over the complete truth, but as yet only with re-
gard to the form, and therefore it constitutes the source of mathe-
matics. Its nature is to deliberate between the substance and the
form, but to seize upon the form and to reject the substance.
Yet the form which it gives us is quite as much of empirical as
of speculative nature. And so, for instance, geometry proves its
theorems a priori^ but, drawing its figures on the blackboard, it can
represent its thoughts a posteriori. Arithmetic also is a product
of spirit, but the writing of numbers makes it visible. It is a
proof that reflection unites sensuousness and rationality, and that
it is of a philosophical nature. Taking the thing accurately, the
memory and judgment find their philosophical difference in in-
difference, or their union in harmonious compromise, in the reflec-
tion. If you deliberate upon something, you must have in your
memory all that preceded, and you must discern whether that
which follows has any connection with the premises. It is the
mathematical thinking. Therefore memory is a body, and judg-
ment is a spirit ; but reflection is the selfhood and soul of these
two beings. Reflection, as the faculty of seizing the form, gives
us axioms. The geometrical elements, for instance, are these
axioms, or self-evident truths. The material and intellectual evi-

The Sources and Faculties of Cognition. 105

dence is their attribute. But reflection, as well as attention, is
not yet the source of philosophical cognition, for while the latter
touches its object externally, reflection seizes upon it only by the
formal side. Neither of them penetrates into the very essence.

The comprehensive Mind (Myst, in Polish, having no corre-
sponding word in any other language— not even in Greek, and
in German only the approximate expression, wahrnehmendex
Gemilth—h the foundation of the Polish-Slavonian philosophy)
is the third and the last faculty of the recognizing selfhood, the
Soul itself It is reflection in its second potence, and attention in
its third potence. The comprehensive inind does not touch truth
and knowledge externally, like attention ; nor does it seize upon
them by the formal side, neglecting the substance, like reflection ;
but it forces itself into the depth of their essence. The under-
standing and reason attain in the comprehensive mind to their
philosophical difference in indifference, or their eternal imion, in
the complete reconciliation and harmony. As the understandino-
IS the highest empirical, and reason the highest metaphysical, so
the comprehensive mind is the highest philosophical power of
cognition. Since the comprehensive mind forces itself into the
essence of truth and knowledge, it is the most certain source of
cognition.

On this account it deserves our fuller consideration. The com-
prehensive mind is the father, principle, and source of the senses,
as well as of reason. Sense is what is outside of our comprehen-
sive mind, or what is found by our mind — its externality, its body ;
but reason is what is through mind, or what is in mind — the inter-
nality of mind, its spirit. Properly speaking, there are neither
senses nor reason, but mind only, under one of its aspects external,
under another internal, and under a third essential or proper.
This constitution of the comprehensive mind makes it the chief
source of cognition, which has the two tirst sources — to wit : the
■senses and reason — for its factors. The comprehensive mind, then,
is our total selfhood in its philosophical fulness, and, opening itself
towards the fulness of all existence, it is the fundamental truth
and knowledge in us, or it is God's breath within us {notio) look-
ing up to deity and God ; it is the eye of our actuality, seeing
around itself actuality. The comprehensive mind, as the senses
and reason, and, secondly, as our passivity and activity, fused into

166 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

one, is energy ; and, if developed sufficiently in its divine nature^
it is spontaneity. Hence, it has all theoretical categories that be-
long to energy and spontaneity for its predicates, and it consti-
tntes within us, and also perceives without us, these things, namely :
totality, omnipresence, singleness, liberty, actuality, limitation,,
congruity, essence, majesty, independence, selfhood, and dignity.
As living spontaneity, and possessed of the feeling of self and self-
hood, it is the temporary focus of all spontaneity, of all feeling of
self and selfhood in the creation. But as God alone is sponta-
neity, feeling of self and selfhood in the creation, therefore the
comprehensive mind is the mirror in which God perceives Him-
self, and comes to his Word in time. Our full selfhood or the
soul is on the one side, God on the other, the comprehensive mind
constituting the nodus or bond of difference in indifference be-
tween these two polar axes. It is, if I may say so, the conductor
between our selfhood and God. Over this conductor God flows
into our breast, and our selfhood or the Soul to God. Without
the comprehensive mind, we could not even meet with the thought
that God exists ; without it we should not be acquainted with our
Father and Lord ; without it we should not have self-respect, feel-
ing of self; we should not believe in truth, beauty, and virtue ;
without it conscience would be impossibility, and godliness a
chimera! It is the power of living deity within us ; it assures us
that liberty and immortality are qualities of our being; that even
in prison we can deserve honors, because we have not succumbed
to the evil around us, and have not stained our pure selfhood or
the Soul. It breatlies into us the omnipotence of God, which
nothing can resist, and it clothes us with the purple robes of char-
acter. As the senses have sensuonsness, and reason has rational
things or ideas, so the comprehensive mind has the things of mind
for its object. The comprehensive mind sees truly matter andi
spirit ; the divine, however, is everywhere, the end of its search.
As the expression of the self-conscious selfhood, it conquers self-
consciousness. Its cognition lies within the difference in indiffer-
ence expressed by self-consciousness = self-consciousness. Because
the self-conscious is everywhere the object and subject in one
fusion, the difference in indifference of mind's cognition may be
expressed as follows : the object-subjectivity in us is equal to the
object-subjectivity out of us. It is the true object-subjectivity

The Sources and Faculties of Cognition. 167

wliich is the foundation of the Polish-Slavonian philosophy. The
Germans have sought for this a lono; time, but hitherto in vain.

The comprehensive mind, being the nnity of the understanding
and reason, compreliends all that belongs to these two faculties; it
is, therefore, sense-perception, memory and understanding, iniagi-
nation, judgment, and reason ; besides, it is attention and reflec-
tion, for these are mind itself, but on a lower degree of develop-
ment.

By this, all faculties of our full selfhood fuse together and
make it the chief monarch in the region of cognition. It may be
said that it is only one faculty of our selfhood, but assuming more
and more a special form, because the senses — perception, memory,
imagination, and attention— are only the expression of the com-
prehensive mind.

As the senses produce empiricism, and reason speculation, so
the comprehensive mind produces philosophy. As mind is the
common focus of the senses and reason, so philosophy is the com-
mon focus of empiricism and speculation, l^ot only God Himself,
but every word of God, penetrates through our mind into our self-
hood or the soul, and changes there into man's word. Therefore,
man's word is the true word of divine wisdom, though this word
expresses eternity in time only, and therefore is transient. The
comprehensive mind, being the unity of the senses and reason, or
that of the faculty of our existence and of our nothingness, is the
faculty of our living in time and of our divine state, or of our bio-
sophism and our theosophism. Hence, it is twofold — the temporal
and the eternal. The temporal mind has for its object the temporal
divine life, and prevails in the fields of political life ; but the eter-
nal mind is occupied with the eternal truth, and stands forth in
philosophy. Mind creates comprehensions {acroamata).

As the comprehensive mind is the focus of all faculties of our
selfhood, so within acroamata or comprehensions melt impres-
sions, representations, recollections, conceptions ; ideals, judg-
ments, ideas ; observations, and axioms or mathematical truths.
Comprehension is the dome of the sky set around \vith all these
stars. For the examples of comprehension provide for all total,
perfect actualities which our logic has introduced, to wit:
essence, existence, essence in existence ; biosophism, theosophism,
congruity, self - consciousness, being, God, selfhood, miud, etc.

168 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

The comprehensive mind is the last and highest power of our self-
hood ; hence, this analysis of the sources and faculties of cognition
finishes with it.

Remark I.

The human soul, as selfhood, the true image of God, may be
compared to the mathematical point, which expands into a globe;
or it is a totality within the totality ; if. is the centrum of man and
man himself. It is the perfect organism, from which no one link
can be removed without a general injury. The same thing is true
in regard to the faculties of cognition, being the qualities of our
selfhood. On this account, the senses — perception, memory, and
the understanding; imagination, judgment, and reason ; attention,
reflection, and the comprehensive mind — every faculty taken sepa-
rately, is an empty abstraction ; and it is the true actuality only
when it embraces in itself the full mind and the total selfhood.

On this account, pure sense-perception, pure reason, pure reflec-
tion, and even pure mind, are absurd impossibilities. As in the
selfhood, so in the cognition ; totality lives in every point; there-
fore, the entire man lives in the senses, in the reason, and in the
mind. What is true of the sources of cognition, the same is true
of the streams that flow therefrom. There is, accordingly, no
pure empiricism, no pure speculation ; but in both is to be found
the philosophy in which either reality or ideality prevails.

In the three sources of cognition we have the entire analysis of
truth and knowledge. Sense is: existence, wholeness, substance,
simultaneity, necessity, usefulness, etc. Reason, again, is : noth-
ingness, negation, unity, causality, sequence, legality, nobleness,
etc. Mind is : biosophism, theosophism, totality, harmony, liberty,
goodness, etc. The sensuous cognition is called a posteriori ^ the
rational, a priori ^ but that of the comprehensive mind is called
a posteriori and a priori; together, that is a totali. The first
cognition is practical, the second is theoretical ; the third is practi-
cal and theoretical together — that is, synthetical. Analyzing
truth, knowledge, and cognition according to our three different
faculties, we could find more than two hundred thousand cate-
gorical principles of philosophy lying in the things and in our
selfhood, and hence as many philosophical systems. We mention
this in order to call attention to the fact that one general philoso-
phy is an impossibility on the earth, and equally impossible is one

Ohjeots and their Interaction. K)!)

creed ; and that it is the duty of every man to develop, by his own
thinking, his individual conviction. This he will do if he knows
how to appreciate sntticiently the deity within his breast.

One God, one philosophy, or one creed is to be found only in
heaven; on the earth are millions of Selfhoods or Souls, and,
hence, millions of spontaneous convictions. Some great aim —
for example, the fighting for native land, or for virtue, liberty,
light, and progress — happens to be, in this world, the common tie
among them. In such cases, all men, truly cultivated and free,
become as one man.

(To be concluded in tJie next number.)

OBJECTS AND THEIR INTERACTION.

BY JAMES WARD.

We may come eventually to doubt the possibility of isolated
simple objects as the psychical atoms, so to put it, of which our
mature perceptions and intuitions are built up ; still it will be best
to let this conception pass unchallenged for the present. But in
any case we can have no direct acquaintance with them. For the
simple object is to be conceived without relations to other objects,
either temporal, spatial, substantial or causal : it is presented to a
subject and has Position in this sense, and that is all. Those defi-
nitions of it, therefore, which involve a reference to the body are
psychologically manifestly faulty. And even when brought into
relation with other objects, it does not admit of classification, for
it has not qualities, but only a quality, whereas classification is only
possible where there is both agreement and difference, or, in logical
language, both genus and difl'erentia. Thus, since quality implies
classification, we ought, perhaps, when exact, to speak of the con-
tent rather than of the quality of a simple object. The concep-
tion of an object or sensation pure and simple is, in fact, a limit

• [Discussed at the Moral Science Club, at the rooms of Mr. James Ward, M. A., Fel-
low of Trinity College, Cambridge University, England. Printed in this journal by per-
mission of the author. — Ed.]

170 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

we never reach, and never can reach, bj real analysis. But we-
know directly — i. e., by actual decomposition — that many, nay
most, of the objects we ordinarily take to be homogeneous and sin-
gle are really heterogeneous and compound ;' and we have indirect
evidence that such complexity exists even further than we can
directly trace it." Hence, though we cannot reach a demonstrably
simple object, it is often assumed that there are sucli, and, in
attempting to give a constructive or synthetic account of mind^
psychologists, such as Spencer, Lewes, and others, start from this
ideal limit.' And it is evident that in such a conception we have
reached in one direction the " utmost verge " of psychology, if we
have not even gone beyond it.

But whatever grounds we may have for regarding our ordinary
sensations as complex, we are certainly not warranted in attribut-
ing this complexity to association as we know it. Between the
complexity of the sensation of purple, and the complexity of the
perception of an orange, there is a twofold difference : (1) the
elements of the former, when separately presented, do not revive
each other, whereas the sensations associated in the latter do ; and
(2) the complex in the latter case is, but in the former is not, the
sum of its constituents and directly analyzable. It is quite possi-
ble both modes of composition have something in common at bot-
tom ; but however this may be, distinct terms are necessary to
prevent them from being confused. Without attaching any im-
portance to Mill's conception of mental chemistry, we shall, I
think, do well to speak of the complexity of our ordinary sensa-
tions as due to combination.

There is one fact about the relation of these ordinary sensations
to each other which, though well known to physicists, is scarcely
recognized by psychologists ; ^ and that is that in several cases,

' The clearest case is Helmholtz's discovery of the composite character of musical
notes, vowel sounds, etc. ; next come mixed colors, the combination of taste and aroma,
taste or smell, and pungency ; the touch of a wet surface, etc., etc. Cf . on this point
Helmholtz, " Lshre von den Tonempfindungen," Abt. i, § 4 fin.

' In the case, e. g., of musical tones ; in the variations of quality in colors, and even
in sounds, as the intensity is varied ; in similar variations depending upon the extent
of surface stimulated, etc.

3 Cf. esp. Spencer's chapter on the Substance of Mind, " Psychology," vol. i.

* Wundt is the one conspicuous exception, and he apparently only because he treats
of physiological optics, acoustics, etc.

Objects and their Interaction. 171

perhaps in all, they constitute groups of continua. A musical
tone or the color of the sky does not admit of classification any
more than the position of London does ; but as this belongs to tliat
continuum we call the surface of the globe, so do they to a con-
tinuum of tones and colors respectively. But by a continuum
here I mean a series of objects such that between any two a series
of others may be, or may be conceived to be, interposed so as to
differ the less the more they approximate in the series. We may
represent the form of a continuum spatially so long as the kinds
of difference do not exceed three. When one of these differences
is intensity, we find very strikingly in some cases, but more or less
in all, that continuous change of intensity involves continuous
change of quality too.' Among motor objects we find groups of
continua of two kinds — (1) what 1 have called motor objects
proper, the feelings of innervation, effort or resistance of psycholo-
gists, and (2) auxilio-motor objects, i. e., those muscular sensations
by which we come, to know the position of our limbs. Of the last
there are, of course, several groups,'and the constituent objects are
manifestly complex. Under normal circumstances motor objects
are always accompanied by auxilio-motor, but in disease or passive
movements they are separated, and their distinctness thus made
manifest. In motor objects, qualitative differences are at a mini-
mum, the continuum consisting almost wholly of gradations of in-
tensity. We shall have to return to these in analyzing our space
perception ; at present I want to bring into one view still more
elementary facts.

The first of these is as important as it is obvious : the fact, viz.,
that there are some objects the presentation of which is an abso-
Inte bar to the simultaneous presentation of others. Now, we shall
find that such incopresentable objects are those which are members
of the same class, or rather continuum. Any color may be pre-
sented with any sound, or taste, or temperature. But one color
inhibits another: and one taste or touch another in like manner.
Still, many things are parti-colored, and we may feel hot on one

' The most striking case being that of color, all colors alike approximating to white
or black as the illumination increases or decreases. Musical notes become harsh when
too loud, though pure tones, I believe, do not. In these facts we have, as already men-
tioned, evidence of the complexity of color and notes. In temperature the chief varia-
lion is iu intensity, the qualitative variation being small.

172 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

side and cold on the other. Thus, we have here a new complication,
and jone which it may be thought can only be explained by the
help of space. But space is not the only j9rmc«ji?m^ individua-
tionis, fur several tones may be presented simultaneously, between
which there is no spatial relation. But then they must all be dif-
ferent, whereas several colors or touches, apparently identical, can
be presented together. We are thus brought to recognize a fact
commonly overlooked — what Mr. Bain calls the mass or volume
of a sensation. It is, however, worth while trying to give a more
precise account of it than Mr. Bain does. The Held of sight or
the irritation of a mustard plaster are instances of a mass of sensa-
tion. Of such we cannot, I think, say that they consist of a num-
ber of objects identical in quality and intensity, but distinguished
by difference of place. For, although this fact of massiveness as
distinct from intensity is an essential element in our perception of
space, it is evidently not the whole of it. In this experience of
massive sensation alone it is impossible to find other elements
which an analysis of spatial intuition yields. But we may say
that the constituent objects in question are not really identical
in quality, but that each is a combination of one of a number of
qualitatively identical objects with one of a continuum. To such
continuum we may, if we choose, give the name of " spatial qua-
lia" or "local signs,"' provided we regard it as merely a con-
tinuum of objects, and not as a space. The simultaneous pre-
sentation of two different objects is a fact for which we do not
feel bound to seek a reason, but for the simultaneous presentation
of two apparently identical objects we do.

If we can justify this hypothesis of continua of local signs, we
can give a more exact expression to the incopresentability of cer-
tain objects. Thus, in any given continuum, we should say that
the same local sign cannot at the same time be united with more
than one object out of a series, all of which may be successively
united with it, and any of which may be simultaneously united
with other local signs in the same continuum. We may represent
this symbolically. Thus, M A . . . B . . . C . . . D be the continuum
of colors, r, r, ^3 r^. . . the continuum of local signs with which

' For an exposition of this brilliant speculation of Lotze's, see his " Metaphysik," B.
iii, ch. iv.

OhjecU and their Interaction. 173

color is combined, then Ar^ Ar, Ar, or Ar, Rr^ Cr^ is possible
simultaneously, but not ABr^ BCr^, though Ar^ Br^ may be fol-
lowed by Br^ Cr^, and so on.' But even this statement that Ar^
may be followed by Br, is too general. That there is some law,
even in the succession of sensations, is shown by the existence of
complementary after-sensations, or after-images, as they are less
exactly called."

The intensity and extensity {sit venia verho) of compound pre-
sentations of tlie same group are not independent. An increase
of intensity in any given object involves the simultaneous presenta-
tion of others in the same continuum. To this corresponds
Lewes's Law of Irradiation, though I fear there are no f}\cts to
justify the wide range he gives it. The conditions of irradiation
are, however, very different in diflPerent senses, irradiation being
least in the highest senses, ?'.«?., where voluntary attention is most
excited. Again, an increase in the volume of a sensation is so far
equivalent to an increase in intensity that objects which do not
otherwise rise above " the threshold of consciousness " secure
attention by such increased extensity. Thus, in determining the
minimum sensibile, both quantities have to be taken into account.

The above are some out of a number of facts which have been
supposed to lie outside the pale of psychology. Let us now pass
to those interactions of objects commonly allowed to be psycho-
logical, where tliese discarded facts may be found to help us. A
preliminary question meets us here, viz., as it is ordinarily
worded, whether we can be conscious of, or attend to, more than
one thing at a time. Unless an affirmative answer can be given
to this question, psychologists who discuss the interaction of
objects must be much deluded men. But, in fact, the whole

' The sense of hearing, however— so far, at least, as tones go— seems an exception,
or rather a special case. For it is doubtful, I think, whether volume of sound, as dis-
tinct from intensity, is possible. If so, we cannot have Jr, Aft Arj.. ., hut only
Ari Bvi Ci'a

* Of these, the most striking instances are furnished by sight. If we stare at a
bright spot on a dark ground, and then look away, we see a dark spot on bright
ground. If we dip a hand into warm quicksilver, the hand feels cold on withdrawing
it; if into cold, it feels warm on being withdrawn. After carrying a weight, and ex-
periencing the effect of gravitation, we come for a while to believe in " levitation."
There exists at present no general investigation of this subject, though Bering's specu-
lations make it one of great interest.

174 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

question is due to a confusion between voluntary concentration of
attention and that non-voluntary attention which mere presenta-
tion determines. It is true that attention cannot have two foci,
but it is not all focus. As in tbe special case of sight, we see
much more than we look at, so we must admit, in the general
case, a field as well as a focus of attention.' Subject then only
to the law of incopresentability objects of every sort and kind
may be presented together, and, being so presented, become
" associated." Of this association we have not, I think, any evi-
dence at the time it may be supposed to have taken place : it is
not till some one or more of the objects is presented again that
the association becomes manifest. We tind that the association is
more complete the more intense and the more frequent the pre-
sentation. But what is the fact itself, our ignorance of which we
cover by this simile of association ? Do objects really stick or
fuse together when they are simultaneously presented often
enough and at the requisite intensity, as Mr. Bain's " adhesion by
contiguity " might seem to imply ? Or are they bound by hidden
links, by which they drag each other on and off the stage of con-
sciousness in accordance with Herbart's psycho-dynamics ? Lotze
is of opinion that any investigation into the nature of association
must be fruitless.' But, if so, association should be a hrst prin-
ciple, and ought to admit of such a statement as shall remove the
need for inquiry. So long, however, as we are asked to conceive
presentations, originally distinct and isolated, becoming eventually
linked together, we shall, I think, feel the need of some explana-
tion of the process. For neither the isolation nor the links are
clear. Not the isolation, for we can only conceive two presenta-
tions separated by other presentations intervening in a continuum
or a series of presentations; nor the links, unless these also are
objects, and then the difficulty recurs. But if for contiguity we
substitute continuity, and suppose the " associated " objects to be
parts, not isolated wholes, we shall have to ask first, not how the
distinct and originally disconnected objects, ABC, are converted
into a unity, A B 6", but how an originally undifi^erentiated
presentation, or mass of presentations {ABC\ ditotum ohjectivum^

' Wuiidt's " Blickfeld und Blickpunkt des Bewusstseins."
' " Metaphyaik," s. 526.

Objects and their Interaction. ITS

as it were, becomes separated into partially distinct o]>jects.
Against this view it cannot be urged that such differentiation
involves, at bottom, the same inconceivability as the commonly
assumed process of integration. We cannot conceive the homo-
geneous becoming heterogeneous, it is true, but we can suppose
differences, which were obscure before, to become distinct throunrh
changes in the intensity of presentation or attention. And we are
by no means without evidence in support of this supposition. The
question has been canvassed in part already in discussions concern-
ing the primum, cognitum: ' that attention proceeds in the main
analytically, is first extensive and -general, then concentrated and
intensive, there can be no doubt. The increased sensibility of
sight, touch, hearing, and even of taste and smell, consequent on
practice, can be represented as due to a restriction of intensity to
a particular object in a continuum over which the intensity was
irradiated before. It is quite impossible now to imagine the effects
of years of experience removed, and to picture the character of our
infantile presentations before our own movements had enabled us
to localize or project them, and before our interest had led us,
habitually, to concentrate attention on some and to ignore others,
whose intensity thus diminished as that of the former increased.
In place of the many things we can now see and hear there would
then be not merely a confused presentation of the whole field of
vision and of a mass of indistinguishable sounds, but even the
continua of sounds and sights themselves would be without their
present distinctness. Thus, the farther we go back the nearer we
approach to a total presentation which had the character of one
general continuum in which differences were latent. Even if
there were no other grounds for assuming the existence of such a
continuum, the facts of association would almost justify it; for in
what other way can we represent to ourselves the connection
between one presentation and another? And, after all, what else
do psychologists mean by the unity of consciousness at any mo-
ment ?

But, even if we see grounds for rejecting the current conception
of isolated objects, we shall find, I think, yet other difficulties in
the conceptions of Ke-Presentation commonly received. We shall,

' Cf. HamUton, " Metaphysics," ii, pp. 327 AT.

176 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

I -presume, agree at once to reject as extra-psychological everj
attempt to explain this fact by the properties of nerve-substance.
From the days of Descartes onwards such explanations have been
in vogue, and yet it is evident at once that they involve terms
that are psychologically^ unmeaning. It may be that re-presenta-
tion is psychologically inexplicable, although its physiological
counterpart is known and admits of explanation ; but we cannot
make this explanation do duty for a psychological one any more
than we can tie a knot in a ring with our fingers, because the-
problem is analytically feasible in space of higher dimensions.
But what do we mean by Re-presentation ? Postponing for a
while the inquiry into the differences between presentations and
re-presentations in the sense of impressions and images, let us con-
sider simply what we understand by the re-presentation after an
interval of some particular image. To this end, we must take a
case in which there is not merely re presentation, but memory.
A certain idea (m,) occurs to us, and we say we recognize it as
identical with (m,), which occurred some time ago. But now
there cannot be two images here, or we could not, with any exact-
ness, speak of identity or re presentation, and yet there must be
somethino; to iustifv the distinction of "now" and "then." In
other words, there can be no classification of m^ and m, as two
images identical in kind; there can only be a single presentation
(w) complicated ' with certain other presentations, making the total
to be 7?i,,2. Actual observation will, I feel confident, show this to
be in fact the case. What, then, is true, when only we can Tcnow
that we are dealing with i-e-presentation, forms, or ought to form^
part of our conception of re-presentation. Wherever we talk of
re-presentation there is so far one identical image as the kernel
complicated with certain others; and these may, on occasion, con^
stitute the whole into a memory-image. If so, there is something
distinctly misleading in Mr. Spencer's exposition of what he calls
" the Associability of Feelings." The following is what he gives
as the " most general statement " of it : " Be there, or be there
not, any other kind of association, the primary and essential asso-
ciation is between each ieeling and the class, order, genus, species,.

' This is a term that calls for explanation, which,^ I trust, will be forthcoming
by and by.

Objects and their Interaction. 177

and variety of preceding feelings like itself." ' Not to quarrel
just now with this unusual use of the term Association— though
it is singular that a form of association to which Mr. Spencer de-
votes two long chapters, recognizing no other, is set aside by Pro-
fessor Bain, in a single sentence, as unimportant' — M'hat I wish to
call in question at this point is simply the idea of a series of
images, ^j, »„ a^ . . . which sort themselves, and are ever accu-
mulating, like spirits on the banks of the Styx. If I see a certain
color or a certain thing a hundred times, I have not a hundred
images, but one image : each succeeding presentation adds certain
environing complications, some of which may be more intensified
at one time, some at another.

What, now, do we know concerning this central image in the
intervals when it is not consciously presented ? Manifestly our
knowledge in this case can only be inferential at the best. But
there are two facts, the importance of which Herbart was the first
to see, from which we may learn something : I refer to what he
calls the rising and falling of presentations. All presentations
having more than a liminal intensity rise gradually to a maximum
and gradually decline ; and when they have fallen below the
threshold of consciousness altogether, the process seems to con-
tinue, for the longer the time that elapses before their " revival,"
the fainter they appear when revived, and the more slowly they
rise. This evanescence is most rapid at first, becoming lefes as the
intensity of the presentation diminishes. It is too much to say
that this holds with mathematical accuracy, although Ilerbart has
gone this length. Still, it is true enough to suggest the notion
that an object, even when it is no longer able to influence attention,
continues to be presented, though with ever less and less absolute
intensity, till at length its intensity declines to an almost dead level
just above zero. So far as the rising or sinking of an object is due
to attention or to the interaction of other objects, we may attempt
a psychological explanation of it; but where it is due directly to
the object itself, no psychological account of the fact seems possi-
ble.^

1 "Psychology," i, § 115, p. 256.
" Mental Science," II, ii, 2, p. 128.

* So far from agreeing with Hamilton and his obscure German, Schmid (Hamilton,
"Lectures," ii, pp. 211-216), that this fact is incapable of physiological interpretation, I

XYII— 12

178 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

To sura up, then, as to Re-presentation : the account I would
give of this conception is as follows : In the first place, regarding
only the single object — such an object is presented. This primary
presentation (or impression) is psychologically an ultimate fact, if
it is not indeed an hypothesis to which our facts drive us. We
have no experience of such a beginning, and yet must postulate
one somewhere. Such presentation, once begun, continues indefi-
nitely long. It may have an end as it had a beginning : oblivion
is possible, but obliviscence seems the rule. What we call re-pre-
sentation is due to an increase in the intensity of such a persisting
object, whereby it is sufiiciently raised above the level of the gen-
eral obscurity to form part of " the field of consciousness." But
then, secondly, such object is only partially single ; at the first it
is actually part of a continuum of objects in such way connected
with it that its further rise above the threshold of consciousness
entails the rise of the adjacent parts of the continuum. When
represented, however, it is found to be thus complicated with parts
of other elementary con tin ua to form a new continuum. We must
be able to give some account of this new continuum if we are to
explain the Association of Ideas.

The only association that can properly be called such is, so far
as I can see, the so-called Association by Contiguity. At all events,
it is with this only that I propose to deal now. Under contiguous
association are included both the association of objects simulta-
neously presented, and that of objects presented in immediate
succession. The last is, I think, the simpler ; let us take it first.
And here again the facts are clearest in the case of those objects
over whose intensity the subject has most complete control — i. «.,
in the case of movements. In such a series of associated objects,
ABODE, etc., we find that each member recalls its successor,
but not its predecessor. Familiar as this fact is, it is not very easy
to see any reason for it. Since C is associated both with B and

would rather say that it is incapable of any other. These writers first regard the image
as " an energy of the self-active power of a subject, one and indivisible," and then
maintain that it cannot " be abolished without a laceration of the vital unity of the
mind as a subject one and indivisible." The evanescence they explain by the finitenesa
of attention. But if this were the sole cause, why in reminiscence do we not find the
object resume its former vividness ? I know nothing more transparently feeble than
this metaphysical psychology which Hamilton has contrived to appropriate.

Objects and their Interaction. 179

D, and apparently as intimately associated with the one as with
the other, why does it revive the latter only and not the former?
B recalls C, why does not C recall B ? If we consider the intensi-
ties of B C and D at the moment when attention is abont to be
fixed upon D, it is evident that the intensity of B will be less than
that of C, and waning, while the intensity of D will be as great or
greater, and waxing. Thus, association in this case appears to de-
pend upon comparative intensity. The same will, I think, be
found true of sensory objects, though here the complication is
much greater. Interest apart, attention — ^. e., to say non-voluntary
attention — passes from the less to"the more intense objects. And
where interest or expectation is great, objects presented in one
order are often attended to in another. In both cases, I think, it
will be found that the order of representation is the order of atten-
tion — the order, i. e., in which the objects occupied " the focus of
consciousness."

The next question is whether the association of objects simulta-
neously presented can be resolved into an association of objects
successively attended to. When we try to recall a room we saw
but for a moment, there are always a few things that recur dis-
tinctly, the rest being blurred and vague, instead of the whole
being revived in equal distinctness or indistinctness. In a second
presentation, our attention is apt to be secured primarily by the
things unnoticed before, as these have the advantage of novelty,
and so on till we have " lived ourselves into " the wiiole, when the
whole admits of simultaneous recall. In such a case we have sub-
stantially what Herbart would have called eitie Ve7'wehung von
Eeihen. Professor Bain takes the trouble to admit something
very like this in a single sentence, but not the least trouble to
square his exposition with it.*

1 "Mental Science " (on Successions), p. 112.

180 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy.

HOMEK'S "ILIAD."

BY D. J. SNIDER.

It will be denied by few that the first great literary product of
the world is the poems of Homer. They are the beginning of
what we call Letters: a fact of the very highest import to those
who look to that branch of hnman endeavor, not for entertain-
ment merely, but for a guiding light of life. Homer is the cre-
ative book of Literature ; all books of that sort look back to him
as parent, particnlnrly the poetical books, which are the best. It
may be said that every age, as its literary effect deepens, will find
a deeper signiticance in him, and must have a new comment upon
his works. So it is and must continue to be not only with Homer
but with everv srreat book ; the new time will reveal in it the
new Tueaning; it unfolds with the ages.

The important question, therefore, must come up to the earnest
student. What is it to know truly the Homeric Poems ? Their
variety of suggestion is great and fascinating, and has called forth
many special departments of learning ; erudition has burrowed
into them, and constructed vast underground labyrinths, in whichi
one is always in danger of getting lost. These labyrinthine pas-
sages have, in the first place, no end : a lifetime will not suffice to
explore them ; in the next place, they have no light, being always
in caverns out of the path of the sun. Every new spiritual time
must avoid them and reveal the old poems afresh for its own be-
hoof; not in the darkness of erudition, but in the sunlight of the
poet must the true seeker take up his abode.

Assuredly the matter of first import is comprehension of the
thing in hand ; one most penetrate to the spiritual principle of
the work, reach down into the very soid of its maker and com-
mune with the same. We have not grasped any product till we
become a sharer in the creative activity which made it, and so
pass with it into its being. This deep intimacy with the Poet is
his revelation to us ; before our eyes we must behold his world
rise up from the deep and take on form. Let us enter his work-
shop and follow the generative thought as it bursts into reality,
and thrills and throbs into harmonious utterance. In such man-

Homer's '•'' Iliad P 181

ner we seek to realize this old song, to make it our own, till it
becomes an instructive part of our nature, singing through us into
our own daily life. Tiien we may be said to recognize the soul
of Homer, being transformed into some image of him ourselves;
we have entered into kinship with him ; we fraternize joyfully with
his strangest shapes, and look through his remotest glimpses.

Doubtless the rarest kind of knowledge always is to know what
true knowledge is. It is so often mistaken for Opinion, Con-
jecture, Information, Learning, and other uncertain and impure
forms of human brain-work, that one is inclined to turn away
from every new word, particularly if it be on an old theme. Only
too frequently is such distrust justified. A mountain of commen-
tary has been heaped around all the great works of Literature,
till their light seems to go out in the darkness of illustration.
"We often know so much about the thing that we do not know the
thing itself, cannot know it ; erudition has svvathed it in such
dense, obscure folds that ignorance seems a blessing — indeed, a
veritable illumination. Around and about the matter, never
directly to the heart of it, do our learned guides keep us straying
so long that we have at last to dismiss them and go on by our-
selves as best we can. Knowledge, if this be such, is certainly
getting into great straits, so encompassed with uncertain phan-
tasms that she scarce knows herself, being in deep doubt whether
she be not a phantasm too.

Thus we often hear men speak in wrath and desperation, thus
we may sometimes speak ourselves ; still, wrath is hasty, and
complaint is weakness. With all his shortcomings, we cannot do
without our Interpreter; he is truly a priest in that mighty Liter-
ary Hierarchy which arose with the first great book of Letters,
this Homer, and has extended its spiritual sway down to our pres-
ent age with an ever-increasing power and blessing. The Inter-
preter has a function, too, in this time of ours, indispensable; it
may be very humble, or very elevated ; he may be erudite merely,
wiiich is something; but his highest destiny is to be a spiritual
guide, leading us back to those perennial well-heads of human
culture called Literary Bibles, and teaching us to be again what
their authors, the best and deepest souls of our race, have been,
and thus to be truly ourselves the heirs of Time. The Interpret-
er, then, has his parish, if not his church; a word, weighty, even

182 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

beautiful, is given him to speak — the word of connection between
what is disconnected ; the word of light where there is darkness ;
the word of harmony where, on the surface at least, are seen only
inconsistency, contradiction, confusion. A golden word, uniting
ever where otherwise is separation, it makes head, heart, and
even voice into an instrument upon which the old Poet seems to
be playing again, yet attuned to a modern key-note.

Such is a hint of the ideal Interpreter, from whom the real
one is likely to be quite different. If we now turn to the Iliad,
we must first seek for its creative thought, and thought can be
attained in one way only, by thinking. We shall have to wrestle
with an idea, and, furthermore, witness that idea unfolding into
the members of the poem. This brings us to the organism, the
work, which is to be carefully analyzed, and then re-combined
into unity. Thus we get its structure, or architectonic relations,
which is the framework upon which its life hangs and moves to
its end. This life of the poem comes through individuals whose
characters are to be penetrated and brought into harmonious
relation with one another, and with the entire work. Thought,
organization, characters, must be first separated by reflection, then
re-united into the Whole, which is thereafter to sink into our
feelings, into our life, and become a part of our instinct. Thus
the Homeric world is ours, not through the head alone, but
through the heart, and we have passed into our complete Greek
inheritance.

I. The Iliad is a series of dualisms, beginning with that deepest
one of all, the dualism between the human and divine. But it is-
also a series of reconciliations : it masters its conflicts, and trans-
forms them to harmony. Mark the Gods ; they are infinite, yet
forever dropping down into the finite, which is the image of the
poem, and of the entire Greek consciousness. But, on the other
hand, through this finite side of the Gods we get a glance into
their infinite nature ; this glance is the all-important gift in the
student which he is to bring with him if he is to look into the
old poet's world. It peeps through the divine limitations into
the illimitable ; it sees beyond the quarrels and struggles of Olym-
pus, and beholds the reconciling element of the divinities; the
poetic glance it is which the Homeric man must have had by
nature as the birthright of his age, but which requires some train-

Homer's "■ Iliads 183

ing to recover on onr part. To it the Gods become transparent ;
their strife, passions, jealousies, shortcomings, are but the outer
shell, through which the divine image must be' seen ; this glance
is the flash which spans with a bridge of light the chasm of
Homer's dualisms.

The first and most important of these dualisms is that between
Men and Gods. There is an Upper World, the realm of divinity ;
there is a. Lower World, the home of human action. Everywhere
in Homer these two worlds are seen moving alongside of each
otlier, intermingling, separating; through every Greek soul a
terrestrial and a heavenly streani is pouring, often in conflict and
rage, but finally in placidity and peace.

The main insight is that both these worlds, though distinct to
the outer eye, are one to true vision, to that poetic glance which
beholds harmonies. The Gods must be seen to be in man, other-
wise he is a mere puppet in the hands of external powers, whereby
he loses his freedom. But the Gods must be seen to be outside
of man just as well, otherwise they lose their divinity, being mere-
ly some thought or caprice of an individual. The poem is a poem
of freedom, such has been the faith of the genuine reader in all
ages ; yet it is also a poem of providence, which providence per-
petually hovers over it, and directs it. But its providence fits
into freedom, such is its deepest harmony ; the Gods are both in
the man and in the world ; they are the true essence of the human
soul on the one hand, and the true reality of existence on the
other. Thus the mighty dualism between Men and Gods van-
ishes ; the two opposing sides of it pass into one supreme harmony
in this grand Homeric Hymn of the Universe.

It may be truly afiirmed that the highest test of the apprecia-
tion of Homer is to see this unity of the Upper and Lowei- Worlds
as they stand in his books. Still further, it is necessary to see
out of the finite manifestations of the Gods, out of their follies
and weaknesses, into their universal significance. Xor must this
be grasped as an esoteric doctrine in Homer, as some learned men
have done ; it is simply the natural meaning which, however, re-
quires the poetic vision in order to be truly beheld. Without the
connecting glimpse, Homer remains a dualism— indeed, a chaos of
Gods and Men capriciously tumbling amid one another.

II. We may now pass to consider this Lower World, in which

184 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

there is transpiriug a conflict of prodigious significance — the con-
flict between the Greeks and Trojans. These two peoples are
much alike, with the same customs mainly, with the same religion
and language ; it is clear that thej belong to the same stock : both
are Hellenic. Yet, in this unity of the two, a decided difierence
has set in ; their tendencies are, in fact, quite opposite ; the
Greeks are Hellenes with face turned towards the West, the Tro-
jans are Hellenes with face turned towards the East. We behold
the primitive differentiation of the Hellenic race, and the struggle
of the two sides ; it is the first record of that struggle which is the
soul of the Greek world : Occident versus Orient. The spiritual
separation of Hellas from the East, passing into complete opposi-
tion, is the key-note which Homer strikes in the Iliad ; it is the
great fountain of Greek legend, and the inspiring principle of
Greek history. Nay, this conflict is, perhaps, the chief epoch of
the World's History, exhibiting the transition out of the East to
the West ; and the old poem is the earliest bugle-call of war to
the peoples of Europe for the preservation of the European heri-
tage.

But what is the principle at stake in this long, desperate con-
test? An adequate answer to this question involves much: in-
deed, a new translation of Homer; not, however, of the Greek
tongue into English, but of the Greek soul into English. The
Poet has often stated the object of the war to be the recovery of
Helen, who was the most beautiful of Greek women, also the wife
of a Greek king, Menelaus. She has been taken from country
and home by a Trojan, who will not give her back to Hellas. The
entire Greek world of the West at once arms itself for her restora-
tion, which, after ten years' struggle, they accomplish. Nor is it
to be forgotten that they were more united upon the Trojan War
than upon the Persian War, or any other deed of their history. ■
In their own judgment, as revealed by this act, their very destiny
depended upon the recovery of Helen.

So different is the Greek view from our way of regarding such
a woman that we are forced to ask, What does it all mean?
What does Helen stand for to the Greeks? That she represents
something deep within them, the very deepest, is indicated by the
great sacrifice which they made for her sake. She must be their
principle, their very heart ; her story is the story, already hinted,

Home's '■''Iliads 185

of the Occident against the Orient. The fight before Troy for
her possession is the fight of the Greeks for the very soul of "their
existence; indeed, the matter goes much deeper, as we here can
see who look back over the tract of Time ; it is the fight for the
future inheritance of the race, the question therein propounded
being, Which of these two contestants, Greek or Asiatic, shall be
the bearer of civilization to that new European world now being
born ? The Greek claimed it, and won it, both in legend and in
history, valiantly defending it both at Troy and at Marathon.

It is true that there is a much easier way of looking at this
afiPair of Helen. We may regard it merely as a story which
Homer employed to amuse his listeners, and to get his bread ; he
intended it as a pretty tale and nothing more, and we must not
go beyond his consciousness. All of which simply destroys the
poet, as the maker of a Literary Bible, who must also be a seer,
and build wiser than he knows. Again, the fact of the abduc-
tion of Helen may be taken as literal ; women were often stolen
in early times, as we gather from other testimony than Homer;
in mythical ages it was a common event, often celebrated in le-
gend and song. But the difficulty remains. How is it that this
stoiy has lived, and still lives, after millions of more entertaining
stories have sunk out of sight ? i^'ay, how is it that this story
still puts forth new flowers and bears new fruit, like the tree of
Time itself? But yesterday a new book, a new poem, came out
upon Helen of Troy ; to-morrow there will be another. There
<3an only be one reason : it has the most permanent, universal
theme ; it has within it not merely the heart of Greece throbbing
itself into deepest seductive harmonies, but of Europe, of the
whole West. This universality of its theme must be grasped if
we are to understand the poem.

Some men of learnino- and insiccht have thought that the storv
of Helen may be confined to the Greek cities of Asia Minor,
which stood, as it were, on the battle-lii^ e, and were always en-
gaged in a struggle with Oriental powers. There was a vast
settlement of Greek colonies along the eastern shore of the Archi-
pelago, which had this question perpetually before them : Shall
we remain Hellenic or become Oriental ? Shall our Helen be
Greek or Trojan ? Throughout the history of Greece this same
problem runs, with deep, heroic heart-beats: How shall we free

186 The Journal of Speoulatwe Philosophy.

Greeks restore to liberty our enslaved brothers in Asia? This
enfranchisement of the Asiatic Greek was the object of the
Athenian League, the ambition of Agesilaus, the pretext of Alex-
ander. Well may it be said that the first thing in Greek legend,
the last thing in Greek history, is this story of Helen.

Much, indeed, she meant to the Greek cities of Asia Minor,
where the Trojan battle was perpetually fought over anew ; still
she has a far wider, in fact, a universal meaning. The great
sacred word connected with her name is restoration ; she must be
restored to country and family — that is, to a true, institutional life
out of that ambiguous Trojan condition. One may well see in
this fact a hint of the redemption of the woman from her Ori-
ental state, and of her elevation into a worthy life in the family,
which belongs to the West. Nor is the hint of morality left out,
which is the subjection of the sensuous nature of man to the
rational ; wherein Helen's career shows both the error and the
correction. Paris must perish, Troy must be destroyed ; both
have violated the great moral injunction. Finally, after the
Trojan struggle, Helen became the image of the new world,
which sprang from it, in which the senses are filled with the
spiritual life of Greece, and represent the same ; it is the realm
of beauty in which Helen is the ideal of Art, which embodies the
preceding principles and conflicts of Greek existence to the vision.
This new European world of Institutions, Morals, and Art is the
deep-hidden foundation of Helen's story, which foundation we
must excavate in thought and bring to sunlight, like the buried
walls of Troy and Mycenae, if we are truly to comprehend the
matter.

Assuredly it would be the greatest absurdity to sacrifice thou-
sands of human beings for one merely, unless that one in some
way represented what was truest and best in the thousands. Many
wives, we may suppose, lost their all for that one wife Helen.
But she is what they all are ; the loss of her is the loss of every
Greek woman, and man too. Her restoration is their restora-
tion : so the Greeks feel throughout this poem ; they must take
Troy and restore Helen, else they are not Greeks. Prosaic mod-
ern peoples fight for their flag ; thus they too have their symbol
for which they die. But the Greek flag was Helen, most beau-
tiful of symbok — indeed, just the symbol of beauty. We also

Homer's ^^ Iliad.'''' 187

stake thousands of lives for the life of one citizen who has been
wronged by a foreign nation. In the one we have to see the
all ; if not see, then feel it in the most practical sort of manner.

Helen, therefore, is the image of Hellenic spirit, of all that
Greece means to mankind and to itself. She is the soul of tlie
Greek world, and the form of it too ; botli in her are blended
into one supreme beautiful vision of the ideal. Her restoration
is, consequently, the most important of terrestrial matters ; it
means civilization, freedom, the home ; it means, too, Art, which
now springs into existence in every direction — in sculpture, paint-
ing, poetry ; springs just out of this Iliad, and the return of
Helen which is the theme of it. But we must turn to the Odijs-
sey for the outcome ; there we see Helen restored ; hence in
this, as well as in many other respects, it is the complemfent of
the Iliad. Most deeply we must make this feeling ours ; if
Helen had not been restored, there could have been no Homer,
no Homeric theme of song, no Homeric soul to sing ; indeed, no
Greek world.

So our Aryan race upon the plain of Troy has split again as
it once split in the highlands of Armenia, long antecedent to
History, upon this same question. Orient or Occident, in its earli-
est germ. Tlie one party stayed behind in the Orient, became
Oriental, and there they are yet ; the other party set tlieir face
toward the West, advanced slowly to the boundary of the seas,
doubtless with many wanderings, dissensions, and separations.
But tliis Western party, or a fragment of it, has a second great
separation, far more important than the first, and far more deci-
sive ; at the crossing into Europe it is our Hellenic branch which
appears and divides within itself; it too has to settle anew that
primeval question. Orient or Occident, right on the line of the
transition into the West. This transition is a physical one, but
also a spiritual one, which is the chief fact of it ; it has, more-
over, got a voice now, most wonderful, melodious, sounding down
to this day. That first struggle in the heart of Asia remained
inarticulate, or at most a wild, confused murmur of dim vocables;
but this second struggle on the borderland bursts into splendid
articulation of heroic song, as the separation is made forever
from the Asiatic world. Listen to the Iliad singing the first
and clearest note of the conflict which lasted wlrile Greece lasted.

188 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

lasts to this day. Paris of legend, Xerxes of history, came
against the West ; Agamemnon of legend, Alexander of history,
went against the East ; it is all one theme, making a world-epos,
one in Universal History, one in the human heart. Here, as
elsewhere, the heart-beat and the world-beat make one music,
heard still in all true poetry, heard most distinctly, if not most
profoundly, in this earliest Book of Literature.

in. Such is the great external conflict, as we may call it, the
parties to which are the Greeks and Trojans. But this outer
struggle strikes into the heart of each contending host, and there
becomes an internal conflict ; each side thus finds within itself a
separation into two parties. In Troy we catch repeated glimpses
of the two sides, in wrangling and bitter opposition ; in the Greek
camp the strife within stands quite on a par with the fighting
without. Both are alike ; in both there is the same source of
trouble ; the grand external conflict is transformed to an internal
one, as is certain to happen in a time of war; passing into each of
the opposing sides, it becomes the moving principle of all their
factions and partisanship. Thus the great struggle, which is the
soul of the war, renews itself in each of the opposing forces, imaging
itself in inner dissension as well as in outer war. This double scis-
sion we may trace a little in detail.

First, let us consider the Trojans. At once we see them to be
divided into two parties, vehement, even rancorous, which may be
called the peace party and the war party. They meet repeatedly
and deliberate; the vital question is: Shall Helen be restored?
The Trojans are by no means a unit upon the matter; the one
side will keep the beautiful woman, will sunder wife from hus-
band, will defy the Greeks and their principle ; this is the war
party, headed by Paris, connived at, if not supported by Priam,
the king; it is clearly the controlling influence in Troy. They
are opposed by the peace party, led by Hector and Antenor, who
favor the surrender of Helen to the Greeks, and thus hope to get
rid of the war. But this party does not, and cannot prevail ; it
is the Greek element in Troy, really maintaining a Greek view
against the oriental tendency of the Trojans. Thus we behold an
inner reflection of the great external conflict within the walls, in
fact, within the hearts of the hostile people ; each Trojan man, to
whichever party he belongs, must have some dim struggle in him-

Homer'' s ^'■Iliad.''^ 189

self, whereof the outer real picture is the combat of heroes before
the gates of the city. The wrong of Helen has gone within, and
there makes a war also — a war in every Trojan heart.

We may next turn to the internal troubles of the Greeks, who
are also divided into two parties. They are all agreed that Helen
must be restored by ten years' war if need be ; but a new differ-
ence has arisen peculiar to the Hellenic character. The Heroic
Individual, Achilles, has been dishonored by the man in power,
the supreme commander, Agamemnon ; heroism is distained by
authority. What can heroism do but retire in anger from all par-
ticipation in combat, and let the Gi'eeks see what they are without
their hero ? This scission gives the theme of the lliad^ which is
the wrath of Achilles ; out of such material the poem can be made,
out of the wrath of the best man, which, indeed, must be overcome
before Troy or any other city can be taken. Tiiat is, the Hero,
the Great Man, must be conciliated and restored to his place of su-
preme honor; he is altogether the stoutest link in the whole chain
of the Greek enterprise ; indeed, his is always the first place in the
World's History. So, in this earliest literary book, there must
spring up the question about the significance of the Hero; with
him dishonored it is not worth while to restore Helen, not worth
while for Greece to be. Such is the decree of Zeus the Highest,
written in red letters of battle: first, give back honor due to the
heroic man, then you can recover tlie beautiful woman through
his heroism ; but what is the value of possessing her with him de-
graded ?

The cause of Achilles is, therefore, at bottom, the cause of
Helen ; he, the first of Greek men, striving to restore the first of
Greek women, is injured in his honor by a wanton act of author-
ity ; the wrong done by the Trojans to the woman now finds its
parallel in the wrong done by the Greeks to the man. Indeed,
this injury goes to the very heart of the conflict ; the special form
of the wrong, the taking of Briseis, is like in character to the
taking of Helen; the Greek commander is thus seen to commit
the very offence for which he and his Greek armament are seek-
ing to punish the Trojans. In his own deed must be read his pen-
alty ; the Greek cause, too, is now at war with itself, which is just
the ground of this internal strife ; the Captain ujakes all the Greeks
sharers to a degree in the wrong which they have come to avenge.

190 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Such is the inner contradiction which has arisen in the Greek
camp, and which Zeus must eliminate before Helen can be saved,
being at complete variance with her restoration. This dissonance,
which lies deep in the Greek soul, must be brought back to har-
mony ; the instrumentality is the wrath of Achilles, the theme of
the poem ; this wrath, also, is a dissonance which must be got rid
of, when the discordant Greeks, made harmonious once more, will
have victory.

In such manner we behold that first great dualism repeating
itself, perpetuating itself in deeds on both sides, imaging itself in
all hearts, Greek and Trojan. The Rape of Helen was that which
originated the external war between Greeks and Trojans ; it di-
vided the Trojans into two hostile parties; it was the same cause
essentially which produced the quarrel in the Greek camp between
Achilles and Agamemnon. The conflict is, indeed, in every soul
on both sides ; it is the miglity dissonance of the age, which it is
just the duty of these valiant Greek warriors to harmonize, inter-
nally as well as externally. It is the problem of the whole Hel-
lenic people ; the story of Helen is the representation of it ; each
Greek before Troy is, in reality, fighting this dualism in himself,
in his own side, in his race. A double, indeed a triple conflict,
therefore ; all phases of which we see come out with intense glow
in the grand embodiment of the nation, the Hero Achilles.

IV. The inner Greek scission has been mentioned : namely, the
quarrel between the two leading men ; it is this which produces
the Iliad with its special theme and its special line of events as
distinguished from the entire Trojan War, whereof the poem oc-
cupies but a few days. This inner scission must be healed, then
the external conflict will end in the fall of Troy ; the Greek Hero
will lay aside his wrath and be reconciled with his own people ;
then he will slay the Trojan Hero, after which there will follow a
second reconciliation, now with the enemy. But ere all these
things transpire there is to be a grand experience, which the
world may well ponder. The Greek people are to wrestle with
this problem : Can we do without our Hero and take Troy ? No,
we cannot, is the thousandfold answer echoing from many fierce
battles on the Trojan plain ; we cannot do without our Achilles ;
there can be no real conquest of Troy unless he be present and in
honor. Such is the one side of this experience, bitter, sanguinary,

Homer's '•''Iliads 191

spelling out in blood its deep lesson to mortal men. But the
other side is not wanting ; the Hero is to find out somewhat too.
Can he do without his people, without his cause in wliich he can
be heroic ? By no means ; he is Hero only as he takes his place
and fights in the desperate front rank of battle ; out of his place,
sulking in his tent, he is not Hero, in fact is a nobody ; much
less than a mediocre man who still fights, though in mediocre
fashion. Thus even the Hero reduces himself with great celerity
to zero.

But he is the person upon whom the eye rests ; the central fig-
ure of the poem is this Heroic Man, who is to teach so much and
to be taught so much. The problem of Individuality it may be
called ; each human being may see himself in this portraiture ;
he too miist find out that only as he takes his place in the ranks
and fights is he anything in the world ; for, if he persists in get-
ting along without the world, the world will persist in getting
along without him. It is better to be reconciled, far better ; take
the example of Achilles, the toughest, most unyielding granitic
character that was ever portrayed ; still he yielded, yielded twice,
to the astonishment, perhaps, but certainly to the deep edification
of all mankind. This, then, is the theme which calls the Iliad
into being : the Heroic Individual in his double Wrath and double
Reconciliation.

Therewith the entire organism of the poem is suggested, to
which we may now give a little study. The first Wrath and Rec-
onciliation embraces what was above called the internal conflict
of the Greek army, the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles,
till the two are reconciled (Books 1-19). The Hero is dishonored
by having his prize in war taken from him, his beloved prize, the
maid Briseis, whom he intended to make his wedded wife, equal
in rank with Helen. In such manner is his heroic personality dis-
graced ; wrath is his response to the insult, and not till he sees
that his wrath destroys his heroship, and ^hat he, the Great Man,
is no longer reflected in the deeds of the Greeks, does he cease
from anger, changing internally, and restoring his broken relations
with his people. Such is the first grand division of the lliad^ of
which we must clearly make two subdivisions if we would see
the whole poem in its organic structure. These subdivisions we
may call Achilles in the Right (Books 1-9) and Achilles in the

190 The Journal of Sjoeoulative Philosophy.

In such manner we behold that first great dualism repeating
itself, perpetuating itself in deeds on both sides, imaging itself in
all hearts, Greek and Trojan. The Rape of Helen was that which
originated the external war between Greeks and Trojans; it di-
vided the Trojans into two hostile parties ; it was the same cause
essentially which produced the quarrel in the Greek camp between
Achilles and Agamemnon. The conflict is, indeed, in every soul
on both sides ; it is the mighty dissonance of the age, which it is
just the duty of these valiant Greek warriors to harmonize, inter-
nally as well as externally. It is the problem of the whole Hel-
lenic people ; the story of Helen is the representation of it ; each
Greek before Troy is, in reality, fighting this dualism in himself,
in his own side, in his race. A double, indeed a triple conflict,
therefore ; all phases of which we see come out with intense glow
in the grand embodiment of the nation, the Hero Achilles.

IV. The inner Greek scission has been mentioned : namely, the
quarrel between the two leading men ; it is this which produces
the Iliad with its special theme and its special line of events as
distinguished from the entire Trojan War, whereof the poem oc-
cupies but a few days. This inner scission must be healed, then
the external conflict will end in the fall of Troy ; the Greek Hero
will lay aside his wrath and be reconciled with his own people ;
then he will slay the Trojan Hero, after which there will follow a
second reconciliation, now with the enemy. But ere all these
things transpire there is to be a grand experience, which the
world may well ponder. The Greek people are to wrestle with
this problem : Can we do without our Hero and take Troy ? JS^o,
we cannot, is the thousandfold answer echoing from many fierce
battles on the Trojan plain ; we cannot do without our Achilles ;
there can be no real conquest of Troy unless he be present and in
honor. Such is the one side of this experience, bitter, sanguinary,

Homer's '•'■lliadP 191

spelling out in blood its deep lesson to mortal men. But the
other side is not wanting ; the Hero is to find out somewliat too.
Can he do without his people, without his cause in which he can
be heroic ? By no means ; he is Hero only as he takes his place
and fights in the desperate front rank of battle ; out of his place,
sulking in his tent, he is not Hero, in fact is a nobody ; much
less than a mediocre man who still fights, though in mediocre
fashion. Thus even the Hero reduces himself with great celerity
to zero.

But he is the person upon whom the eye rests ; the central fig-
ure of the poem is this Heroic Man, who is to teach so much and
to be taught so much. The problem of Individuality it may be
called ; each human being may see himself in this portraiture ;
he too must find out that only as he takes his place in the ranks
and fights is he anything in the world ; for, if he persists in get-
ting along without the world, the world will persist in getting
along without him. It is better to be reconciled, far better; take
the example of Achilles, the toughest, most unyielding granitic
character that was ever portrayed ; still he yielded, yielded twice,
to the astonishment, perhaps, but certainly to the deep edification
of all mankind. This, then, is the theme which calls the Iliad
into being : the Heroic Individual in his double Wrath and double
Reconciliation.

Therewith the entire organism of the poem is suggested, to
which we may now give a little study. The first Wrath and Rec-
onciliation embraces what was above called the internal conflict
of the Greek army, the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles,
till the two are reconciled (Books 1-19). The Hero is dishonored
by having his prize in war taken from him, his beloved prize, the
maid Briseis, whom he intended to make his wedded wife, equal
in rank witb Helen. In such manner is his heroic personality dis-
graced ; wrath is his response to the insult, and not till he sees
that his wrath destroys his heroship, and *hat he, the Great Man,
is no longer reflected in the deeds of the Greeks, does he cease
from anger, changing internally, and restoring his broken relations
with his people. Such is the first grand division of the lliad^ of
which we must clearly make two subdivisions if we would see
the whole poem in its organic structure. These subdivisions we
may call Achilles in the Right (Books 1-9) and Achilles in the

192 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

Wrong (Books 10-19), designating them from the attitude of the
Hero towards his people.

The first subdivision shows Achilles as the injured one, and the
attempt of the Greeks to get along without him, their best man.
They begin the battle afresh ; they bring forward all the lesser
men, who are the valiant warriors after Achilles ; they speak
boldly and fight bravely. But it is of no avail ; their very soul has
gone out of them in the absence of their Hero ; him they must
bring back at all hazards. Accordingly, the embassy is sent to the
wrathful chieftain, ample restitution is offered, and the grand apol-
ogy ; he is fully acknowledged Hero. Thus honor is satisfied, but,
in spite of everything, there remains the wrath, the heroic wrath,
but now empty, devoid of all just ground. Henceforward he is
the implacable sore-head ; he refuses to fit himself into the order
of the world by being reconciled with authority, for even the
Gods, as Phoenix says, are placable.

Here our second subdivision of this First Part begins, showing
Achilles in the wrong, for his right is now turned to a wrong.
He permits the great Hellenic cause, of which he is the Hero, to
be defeated ; he, the grand protector of his friends, allows those
friends to perish, whereof the culmination is reached in the death
of Patroclus, his dearest friend. It is clear that thus he is no
longer the Hero ; his honor has turned to dishonor ; wrath, seek-
ing to vindicate the worth of the individual, has destroyed it.
Then comes his insight into the bitter truth of his conduct, fol-
lowed by passionate repentance ; he is now ready for reconcilia-
tion with the Greeks and Agamemnon. Such is the mighty
change in the "Hero; an internal change it is, and means a trans-
formation of the man, indicating what true heroism is ; there is an
enemy within more defiant than any enemy without, and there is
here a conquest greater than that of Troy — the conquest of him-
self. Hector was easily vanquished by Achilles, but Achilles van-
quished by Achilles is the grandest spectacle of the Iliad ; it is
the turning-point of the poem ; henceforth we may pronounce him
a new man. Yet not complete ; another Wrath rises within him,
which must also be reconciled ; it now turns against the Trojans,
passing from the internal to the external enemy.

This introduces us to the Second Wrath and Reconciliation of
the Hero, constituting the second grand division of the Iliad. It

Homer^s ''''Iliads I93

is the Trojans who have brought disgrace and sorrow upon him
through the loss of his friends. He used Hector and Troy as tlie
instruments of his First Wrath ; but his new insight is that such
a course ends in undoing himself. Achilles brought calamity
upon the Greeks for the sake of honor, but just this calauiity has
in a deeper sense come home to him also as the chief Greek man,
and has dishonored him with a new dishonor. This second dis-
honor calls forth a second wrath ; not yet has he risen above anger
into the realm of harmony. So he has learned much, but is now to
learn more still ; true to his character, he will march forth against
the foe, as he previously withdrew to his tent. Again, too, he
carries his just wrath against an external enemy into the realms
of wrong; he may kill Hector, but not maltreat his dead body;
thus he violates the ordinance of the Gods, at least of Zeus the
Highest, who is ultimately over both Greeks and Trojans. This
he is to see ; it is his second great insight and conquest of implaca-
ble wrath.

So we have the Second Reconciliation, not with the Greek, but
with the Trojan ; a deeper note seems touched therein than in
the First Reconciliation. Achilles must destroy the destroyer of
his friend and of his people ; then his honor is satisfied, and he is
again the supreme Hero when Hector is slain. He has now
reached the culmination of his fighting; he has brought Hector
to lie in death with Patroclus, the friend. Still he rages; it is,
however, an empty rage, being against a corpse, which can be no
longer a foe; it is a wrath without reason, like that continued
wrath after the Embassy, whereby honor turned to dishonor.
But he changes a second time within, and is placable towards the
foe; it is his highest harmony to place himself in accord with the
Gods, who decree the restoration of Hector's body. It is the last
and supreme deed of the Hero, a new self-conquest, wherewith the
Iliad ends.

But the war is not ended, nor can It end at such a point.
Achilles cannot take Troy ; the principle of the great conflict is
not his so much as his own heroic individuality. He can bring
matters to the highest point of heroism, he can destroy the heroic
man of the enemy, but those walls before him he cannot scale ;
the Trojan War, involving the principle of Orient against Occi-
dent, he cannot end. Such is the limit of the Hero. But that

xvn— 13

196 The Journal of SpeGulative Philosojpky.

Y. The characters of the Iliad constitute a living gallery ot
human beings, whose existence we never question, whose identity
we recognize as distinctly as that of our next neighbor. We may
say that the poem gives the first great lesson in characterization ;
it is not an abstraction, but a living deed — the whole of it, from
beginning to end. To image men afresh, not in outward shape,,
but in their inward soul, is a great idea, the greatest in Literature,
perhaps; it is a new creation of man to a degree, showing him
spiritually transparent to all eyes that can see. Such a feat per-
formed successfully makes the essence of a Literary Book, reveal-
ing the inner springs of human conduct as they break forth into
action. The idea of character in its true development seems to
have been given to us by Homer; from this Iliad we may build
a world, and fill it with typical men, such as must always be in
every phase of society. In this, as in other mentionable cases,
Literature has followed in the ancient Homeric path ; indeed, it
must remain in the same, to be at all.

The Poet has clearly the fundamental distinction into men of
thought and men of action; those best in the council, and those
best in the field. Indeed, according to his conception, the com-
plete man unites the two qualities, wisdom and the deed. lie has
thus seen and drawn that deepest line of the human soul between
Intelligence and Will, on one side or other of which all character
fluctuatcLi. In the Trojan as well as Greek camp we notice both
kinds of men, carefully classified ; the wise man is distinct from
the man of deeds, yet not wholly distinct ; each shares in the gift
of the other, though one trait predominates; Homer produces liv-
ing realities of men, not abstract phantasms.

Onr first question is, Can we find any common principle upon
which to string these characters so that we may behold the spirit-
ual bond which unites them? For some such unity we must
search, as being that which holds Trojans or Greeks together, and
makes a common cause possible. We shall find this fundamental
ground of character in the principle about which the two parties
collide, and for which they offer their lives. The conflict enters
every soul and forms the basis of its action. In each human breast
is a picture of the universal struggle, with fainter or intenser col-
ors ; the relation of the man to that struggle makes him what he
is in such trying periods.

Homer's '■'■IliadP I97

If we first turn to the Trojans we find them dividing upon the
restoration of Helen, the source of the war ; tlieir characters may
be ranged according to the ethical principle involved in that act.
We may select three typical persons. Hector may be called the
Greek in Troy ; he favors the return of Helen, and his character
corresponds to such a view. He is the domestic man first, true to
one wife, with the deepest instinct of the Family ; he appears as
father and husband in the most tender of human relations. Very
beautiful is this phase of Hector, winning for him all hearts; lie
clearly ranges himself on the side of the Greeks in regard to the
justice of their claim ; he is the ethical man in Troy. But his
country is assailed ; he, the Hero, must defend it, though he be-
lieves it to be in the wrong, and has the gloomiest forebodings for
its fate in consequence. Such is the dissonance in Hector ; still
he remains loyal, in every way noble, faithfully subordinating
family to country. Paris, on the other hand, is the Oriental man
in Troy, the favorite of Venus, the abductor of Helen; sensual,
unheroic, the man who cannot sacrifice his passion for the true
life either of the family or the country. He is thus made the con-
trast to his brother Hector. Priam, the ruler, father of the two
differentiated sons, is a sort of compromise between them; he will
not restore Helen, nor does he exactly refuse ; on the whole, his
leaning seems to be to the side of Paris. His domestic relation,
too, is a sort of barbarous compromise between East and West,
between polygamy and monogamy, with a tendency to the former.
He has a family, yet it borders upon a harem ; not based upon
violence, yet consistent with Oriental notions.

Troy has not the internal Greek problem which springs from
the Heroic Individual, nor could it well have, with its face turned
towards the East. In the person of Hector, both hero and au-
thority are combined, which fact gives him his prominence in
the poem, since he does more fighting than Achilles. Still, he is
not its hero by any means, as some have said ; he has not the
grand problem of Acliilles which makes the poem. The Heroic
Individual must be seen wrestling with authority, the outcome
of such a struggle must be shown for both sides, then the poem
means something for the Greek, for the world. Hector has no
such difficulty, because he has no such towering strength in him,
no sucii unbending heart of oak; his pattern is evidently too

198 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

small for such a conflict. In comparison, he is a sweet, amiable
man whom we admire, and we regret that inner dissonance
which comes from having to defend a country whose cause he
believes to be wrong.

We may now glance at the Greek characters ; in like manner
we shall find them dividing upon the line of their essential prin-
ciple : heroship in conflict with authority. Such is the internal
problem for all the Greeks, not for the one merely, being ingrown
into their whole spiritual existence. For upon the Trojan prob-
lem, the restoration of Helen, they are a unit; just that is the
object of their expedition against Troy, and is the unquestioned
ground of their character. Hence domestic life does not need to
appear in the Greek camp, being wholly presupposed by the
purpose of the enterprise. Even the captive woman Briseis is to
be elevated into an ethical life in the familj^ by the Greek Hero
who captured her, thus showing the destiny of the captive
woman also is to become the wife. We have already spoken
sufficiently of Achilles, as one side of this inner Greek conflict.
Ajax and Diomed seem to have his possibilities of character;,
they are the heroes next to him, great warriors, men of action,
with strong individualities. They still cling to authority, though
we see that they too might fall off; the germ of tlie same trouble
is in them. On the other hand, the wise men of the Greeks,
Ulysses and Nestor, stand by Agamemnon, the leader, without
faltering, though they reprove his rash act ; he must be sustained
against the Hero, for the sake of the all-governing principle at
stake in the war ; such is the true mark of wisdom : if they must
choose, they prefer the victory of their cause to the honor of the
individual.

Such are the main lines of distinction among the men on both
sides ; but the poem has a very strong feminine element, which
must also be considered. Troy alone can have female characters
of any signiiicance ; in it they can be at home, and in it is their
problem. Troy retains Helen, and thus disrupts domestic life, the
deepest principle of woman ; just this is the conflict, or one phase
of it, between Trojans and Greeks, for the latter are seeking her
restoration, while the former are divided upon the matter. Three
female characters will be found in the city who express the
various shades of the domestic relation of woman as it plays into

Homer's ''Iliad:' I9i)

the great conflict between East and West. Andromache, spouse
of Hector, corresponds to her husband ; she is the Greek wife in
Troy — the faithful, devoted Greek wife ; she is quite absorbed in
her family ties ; country lies beyond her vision, llecuba is the
Oriental wife and mother, or indicates that tendency ; certainly
she seems in no protest with her polygamous household. The
favorite wife of the harem, perhaps the only one in the old age
of Priam, we may see in her a hint of what the Trojan "War
meant for the redemption of woman as well as of man. Thirdly,
there is Helen, the alienated Greek wife, most interesting of all
of her sex; deeply fallen, but now 'repentant, full of self-reproach,
longing to return out of her Trojan condition to her Greek do-
mestic lite. This longrino- of their most beautiful woman the
Greeks must make real, such is their greatest enterprise; indeed,
with a little deeper glance, we can see it to be their wdiole destiny',
the grand sum of their spiritual endeavor. In Troy we behold
her now, in a state of scission, inner and outer ; separated physi-
cally and morally from her own, yet sighing for restoration. It
has been seen how she represents tiie entire struggle ; the grand
external war between Greek and Trojan is a war within her,
burnt into her very soul, tearing her life into bleeding shreds.
Yet her strongest aspiration is, to be redeemed from her fallen
lot, which redemption the Greeks must accomplish, for it is just
that which makes them Greeks.

VI. But there must be not merely the return of the woman, but
also of the man, from Troy and from the Trojan alienation. This
brings us to the last grand scission of our Homeric theme, the scis-
sion into two poems, the Iliad and the Odysseij. There are, then,
two books upon the Trojan occurrence ; this dual fact and its im-
port are to be noted and studied. Troy is not taken at the end
of the Iliad, which sings of the wrath of the Hero ; the wrong
which caused the war remains; Helen is not restored, though her
restoration is everywhere implied. In the second poem, the Odys-
sey, she appears in her old Spartan home, the reinstated wife and
queen. But her life and return cannot be made the theme of this
second poem, which must take up a new theme, yet in a harmoni-
ous completeness with the first; our new, yet accordant theme, is
the restoration of the man to family and country. It is the story
of the wise Ulysses, of his many wanderings, physical and spiritual,

200 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

till he returns to peace and to his home. The whole book is one
of the deepest looks into the abysses of liinnan existence and its
tireless movement ; struo;gle, desperate, long-continued, ending in
victory which brings forth a new struggle which ends again in
victory. The question is : How can the man who takes Troy, or
performs other great action through his intelligence, be restored
through intelligence from the alienation which is born of his very
deed? This present alienation is of the profoundest ; the Trojan
War has caused the Greek Heroes to live separated from family and
state for so many years ; it is not an easy matter to get back, the
separation having gone so deeply into their lives and their souls.

But the work must be done, and that, too, by the wisest Greek,
wherein he is to give the last and highest manifestation of wisdom,
the final, fairest bloom of the Homeric world. Ulysses is the man
whose skill is the chief instrumentality in taking Troy and restor-
ing Helen ; now he has the same problem of restoration for himself
— which he proceeds to solve, must solve, in his spiritual strength.
No army will help him, no thousand ships, no one hundred thousand
heroes; nought can help him but his own mighty, much-enduring
heart. He is, therefore, the ethical hero, and the intellectual one
too ; greater than even Achilles, who could not take Troy and re-
lease the beautiful woman, whose mission ends with killing Hector,
who has not the gift of wisdom, nor the ethical purpose of the whole
war so much as the idea of personal honor. We shall not dispar-
age Achilles, but put him in his place ; it is Ulysses who first enters
the Trojan walls, through intelligence, and then returns to his wife,
prudent Penelope. Both are the deeds of wisdom ; the capture of
the hostile city is a great action, but the second conquest, which im-
plies self-restoration, is a far greater.

It will be further observed that the primitive dualism of the
human mind, its diremption into Will and Intelligence, is now
seen to have taken on an outward form in two poems, and in their
two heroes. The one of the poems is action, the other wisdom.
The one sinss of the Wrath of the Heroic Man and his reconcilia-
tion through honor, the other sings of the Wise Man, returning to
an institutional life and mental harmony after the great Trojan
separation. This last is a sea-voyage, boisterous, full of tempests
and hostility of the Gods; a soul-voyage, too, we must never for-
get through our absorption in the external incidents. Both poems

Homer's '■'■IliadP 201

€ncl in reconciliation, as they must, but they are in other respects
■different, if not opposite. The reconciliation of Wruth in personal
honor is personal, but tlie reconciliation of man with institutions
after his lapse is the highest harraonj of life, is universal. Still,
we must not leave out of mind that last act of Achilles, plat-iiiir
himself in unity with Zeus, the supreme ruler; yet even thus liis
personal feelincrs must be touched through the prayers of the aged
Priam. But Ulysses is the Achilles who finds his honor in the
ethical world, whose whole aspiration and endeavor are for a re-
turn to it, who has seen beyond the limits of the individual life
into the universal one. The iirst is the youtig Hero, the second
is the older one. Achilles is fated to die early with work undone,
Ulysses lives to the end and completes his work; in fact, he is
the completion of Achilles's life.

VII. From this Lower World we now pass to the Upper
World, that of the Gods, which is the primal principle control-
ling Homer's Universe ; the Divine is perennially over it and starts
it into being. Homer has faith in the Gods, a joyous, buoyant
faith, yet deeply genuine ; he insists upon the overruling ])rovi-
dence in the world, but he does not therein destroy the freedom
of the individual, if he be read aright. The deities are in the man
as well as outside of the man. Let it never be forgotten that
these two sides, so strongly antagonistic in the upper currents of
human action, are at bottom in unity; the Homeric poems rest
upon this ultimate foundation, and the poetic vision is that which
beholds the two streams, terrestrial and celestial, flowing har-
moniously together. Tlie Divine is the deepest, strongest instinct
of the Poet ; he dwells often oa this lower earth, but lie seems to
•dwell here unwillingly; he is never so happy, so free, so tran-
scendently poetic as when he rises in one grand flight to Olym-
pus, and tells what is going on there. In the company of the
Gods he is always at his best; he often gets dull when he has to
describe the combats of mortals ; soon h3 throws ofl" his mundane
chains and mounts to the society of his deities, whereby his song
seems to flow at once into a new life and vig(;r. In this upper
realm he sees that all human action is governed by divine action ;
yet he sees, too, that man must be free and in harmony with the
Gods.

We shall notice in the Upper World quite the same manifesta-

202 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

tions as in the Lower ; there is the same separation, the same
unity — indeed, the same social and political organization. For the
terrestrial is but the adumbration of the divine, the reflection of
the clear heavens above in the earthly waters below. Homer
feels in every throb of his heart, he shows in every line of his
work, that this real world of ours, this appearance of things to our
senses, is but the bearer of a divine impress ; without such impress
it has no signifl.cance, would indeed fall into chaos. The Divine
stamps its image upon the waxen material of Time ; this is wliat
he is forever recalling to us by his interventions of the Gods in
temporal matters, as if he were saying : Only in so far as thou
makest thyself the agent of divinity, and becomest godlike tliyself,
hast thou, O Hero ! truly significance in the Trojan or any war.

In the Upper World we shall find, therefore, quite the same
scissions as in the Lower ; we have already observed that this
Lower World gets its division and organization from above, from
the hands of the Gods. The first division here is into the upper
God, Zeus the Highest, who has supreme authority, as against the
lower Gods, who have to be subordinated. So we see in Olympus
a phase of that same disruption which we noticed below on
Earth. Still further these inferior Gods are divided among them,
selves into two parties, just upon the merits of the Trojan conflict,
as the people in the Lower World are divided into Greeks and
Trojans upon the same issue. Thus our grand theme, the strug-
gle between Orient and Occident, is truly Olympian, divine ; each
side of the conflict finds its representatives among the Gods ; the
dualism of the time is found both on earth and in heaven.

Zeus is the supreme God, and the divine movement of the
Iliad turns upon his three chief attitudes towards the struggle.
First, he is for the Hero against the Greeks, who, according to his
decree, must reconcile their Great Man before they can win. Sec-
ondly, he is for the Greeks, when the Hero is reconciled, against
the Trojans ; he is the highest embodiment of the Greek principle
in its conflict with the East. Thirdly, he is for the unity of the
Greeks and the Trojans against the Hero when the latter collides
with the Providence of the poem by insulting the fallen enemy^
and must be subordinated. Achilles yields, the Hero and the
God are then in accord; this is the final and highest reconcilia-
tion. Thus, we see that there is a movement in Zeus, from his

Homer's ^^Hiad.'" 20a

favoring the Heroic Individual at first, till bis final subordination
of tbe latter. He is tbe grand movement of tbe world in its
relation to the activity of tbe man ; tbe movement of liistory, or
of its idea, in contrast with individual development seen in
Achilles.

It was said that Zeus is the supreme divinity, hut in one phase
this statement has been at times questioned. Tbe issue may be
put in this form : Does the Zeus of the Iliad control, or is be
controlled by Fate ? We cannot now enter upon tbe discussion
of this subject, which seems to have divided tbe students of tbe
poet from the beginning. As in all such questions, there is the
superficial view, which sees the dualism, hears the discord ; it
may persist in dwelling upon these dissonances, of which no one
doubts the existence. But there is the deeper view, which sees
the reconciliation ; our object is to attain tins, if it be attainable.
Tbe emphatic answer may be given ; there is always in Homer,
as the central, moving principle, a personal God — Zeus ; on tbe
surface of the events, and on tbe surface of tbe language. Fate
introduces sometimes a contradiction more or less grave, which,
however, is swallowed up in the general harmony. Assuredly an
impersonal Destiny does not rule the Homeric poems ; consciously
or unconsciously in the mind of the poet, a self-active personality
is always behind them. Tbe doubtful expressions upon tbis
point, quite frequent if torn from their connection, must be inter-
preted, in view of the total conception of the movement of the
poem ; thus, Fate will be seen not only to vanish as tbe supreme
Homeric principle, but in reality to confirm divine as well as
human freedom as the spiritual foundation of Homer's work.

The character of Zeus has given great difiiculty in its moral
aspects. How could he, the supreme God, bearer of all that is
highest in the Greek world, be endowed with such monstrous
passions? How could such a being find worship among men?
But we must consider that the Greek conceived of his divinity as
human ; to him the God was not tbe abstraction of some virtue or
power, but an actual man in flesh and blood ; moreover, a total
man, with the sensuous as well as the spiritual element. Tbe
mightier the God, the mightier tbe passions; indeed, Zeus was
magnified in his lower nature in proportion to bis bigber nature;
if be had supreme power and intelligence, be had supreme senses

204 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

to correspond. He had to be a colossal lover, and hater too, just
as he was the God of colossal might and mind. Mentally and
physically there must be a correspondence ; so lie is a reality, not
a shadowy ideal simply. Thus, the Divine was manifested in a
sensuous torm, which is the Greek standpoint.

YIII. We may now turn to the Inferior Gods, who are divided
among themselves, and take sides in this Trojan conflict. Thus,
they become finite, struggling persons, snch as we saw below in
the plains of Troy among mortals. We ask. Why this doubling of
the strife? why thrust it into the Upper World when there is a
Lower World given over to it entirely ? This is the grand peculi-
arity of Homer ; he furnishes a double reflection of the struggle.
The Gods, too, make war ; they stand for the ideal forms of the
principles in collision; they signify that the conflict below on
earth is a spiritual conflict; it is not a mere test of brawn, not a
wild, barbarous rage of fighting mortals, seeking to devom- one
another like beasts of the forest. Driving the arras of the heroes
is an unseen principle ; it, too, must have its representation apart
from tlie visible world of combat before Troy ; it is the higher,
stronger ; without it the heroes would be little or nothing. This
spiritual realm Homer makes the abode of the Gods, above the
mortal contestants yet controlling them ; he always insists upon
this divine element in human affairs, which he organizes as a dis-
tinct world.

But there is a spiritual principle on both sides : there is the
Greek and the Trojan principle ; hence the Gods, the representa-
tives and executors of the spiritual world, divide into two contend-
ing parties on Olympus. Troy has its right, so has Greece ; the
dualism is reflected in divine partisans. In the earlier portions of
the Iliad they confine themselves to deliberating with one an-
other, and to aiding their favorite mortals ; but in the latter parts
of the poem they enter the conflict and fight one another. Thus
the poet never lets us forget that there is a spiritual principle at
work in this Trojan struggle, always hovering above it and de-
termining it. What that principle is, has already been unfolded ;
ours is the modern prosaic way of stating what Homer reveals in
a poetic way by means of his divinities. We, too, demand that a
war have its principle, and that the historian declare it ; Homer
introduces an Upper World, just to show the ideal side in the

limner's ^'■IliadP 205

grand conflict between Orient and Occident. This is his enduring
glory, and it is this chiefly which makes his books to be bibles in
the Literary Hierarchy; he shows that the worthy human deed is
not a capricious, but a divine thing.

The Greek partisans are Juno, Minerva, Neptune, standing in
most intimate relation to Zeus, but often in opposition to him.
The Trojan partisans are Venus, Mars, Apollo, who manifestly
represent the Oriental side of Olympus. Tiirougb sucii strife,
through such limitations placed upon one another, the Gods are
finite, though at the same time supposed to be infinite. Thus a
contradiction ai'ises in the conception of the Gods, of which
Homer himself seems to be partially conscious. The finitude of
the Divine — that is, the finitude of the Infinite — is a self-contra-
dicting statement which in a naive way suggests humor ; the Gods,
so divine, yet so human, have always a tendency to be humorous.
They are a blessed company, happy, joyful, loving the laugh;
still the poet is a believer, sincere, even pious. The humor of his
divinities belongs in the heart of his religion ; it is not the laugh
of indifi'erence, still less the sneer of skepticism. Nothing gloomy
clings to his faith ; he can sport with his Gods ; the happy man
can worship earnestly and at the same time smile at his deities.
To us it seems an almost impossible state of mind ; but the poet
venerates the beings with whom he plays ; his is a loving devotion,
not by any means the sarcasm of the scoffer. The limitations of
the Gods, their foibles, weaknesses, he takes as belonging to them ;
he can throw a touch of humor into his deepest faith, so free he
is in his treatment of his Gods, yet so sincere and full of love ;
indeed, all true humor rests upon love — love of the object about
which one is humorous. The unconscious humor of Homer rests
upon his love of the Gods ; he loves them because they are finite,
and become humorous. Like some children, they must not be
too perfect; otherwise they cease to be children, or cease to be

Gods.

IX. But above all the differences of the Gods is their unity \\\
Zeus, which is the chief fact of Olympus or the Upper World.
Zeus is the providence of the poem ; he stands over and l)ridge8
the two parties among men, the two parties among Gods also;
he unifies the Upper^and Lower Worlds. All dualism ends at
last in him, the Highest ; through him the great thought of a

206 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

controlling Power, of a world-moving Intelligence, breaks every-
where out of these poems. Between the Iliad and Odyssey there
is no difference in this respect ; the one supreme deity is above
and rnles. Yet in another respect we see an important differ-
ence. The Odyssey has essentially but one grand interference of
Zeus, which starts the poem and propels it to the end ; he is the
beginning ; the action of the poem rolls from one fillip of his
finger, and keeps rolling. But in the Iliad this interference is
oft-repeated ; it continues to drop into the action from the heav-
ens above all the time. The deeds of this Lower World must be
shown to depend directly upon the Upper World and its decrees,
which can never be allowed to sink out of view. This distinction
between the two poems is almost the distinction between the
universal and the special Providence.

This unity in Zeus, lying back of Greek polytheism, has given
rise to no little speculation. It has been supposed to be a rem-
nant of the true faith, which, monotheistic at first, was corrupted
into a multitudinous idolatry. Thus the Greek religion is con-
sidered a faint reflection of that true revelation originally given
by God to man, from which the latter has fallen off. A theory
quite the reverse has also been given — a theory, not of a fall, but
of a rise of man. This takes the Greek polytheism as an inter-
mediate step in the move out of a pantheistic worship of Nature
toward monotheism, of which the supremacy of Zeus is the first
early appearance.

But these theories need trouble us no further at present ; it is
sufficient to know that the Poet brings us to a realm above all
conflict, where there reigns the divine harmony of the Universe;
he is seen to rise out of all dualism on Earth and on Olympus to
the oneness of Zeus. Yet not without conflict; the price of
Olympian repose is the terrestrial struggle. This supreme unity
above is to be brought down into the world below, where it is to
abide and take on form in visible things ; thus it becomes reality,
indeed, the great reality in all earthly matters. What is discord-
ant, it harmonizes ; what is wrathful, it reconciles. The world,
with all its vast goings and comings, is transformed into an eter-
nally tuneful sphere, into one great piece of music wiiich starts
into song of its own accord, and sings itself finally into an Iliad
whose whole movement is out of dissonance into reconciliation.

Homer'' 8 ''''IliadP 207

Our poem takes as its theme the profoundest conflict of History,
that between the East and the West ; it touches the deepest strug-
gle of the Imman soul, the problem of the Individual ; tlie world
without and the man within are attuned to one note; both find
their ultimate harmony in the common God. In such a strain
have the multiplex scissions come to an end.

Homer has, therefore, bridged, in his way, that profoundest of
all chasms — the chasm between the Beyoud and the Here, between
Earth and Olympus ; it seems to be his chief striving to make
some path across the enormous gap which separates the Lower
and Upper Worlds. It is no easy task for us to-day ; indeed, the
sum total of our whole effort runs parallel to Homer in a certain
manner. We also seek an unseen Upper World in some form.
Can we reach the invisible soul of our time, and make ourselves
at home therewith? Can we stand face to face with that spiritual
power which uses Time as its material, and man as its instrument ?
1^0 modern book, not even religious book, recognizes more deeply
than Homer that this outer world is but wax for the seal stamped
by the Gods. Earth and Olympus are indeed twain, but, in the
truer meaning, they are one — each is the image of the other, reflect-
ing the discord, yet beneath all discord reflecting the reconcilement.

It was said that this harmony, springing from the conquest of
fierce strife and dissonance, becomes a song ; now the man ap-
pears who vibrates to this deep attunement of things, and wlio
can make human speech vibrate in accord with the same, giving
to words the rapture and the rhythmical swell of an ocean flow
ing out of tempest to tranquillity. The Poet steps forth with his
strains, singing this unity in Zeus as the key-note of his song : a
most marvellous, adorable man. His utterance thrills with the
secret harmony of the God, harmony now revealed ; all men thrill
with him, being transmuted into the movement of his song.
Olympus, with its scissions, moves into unity, and we see rise up
an organized society of the Gods ; we behold, too, the poem which
utters and images the same. The bard is truly the voice of Zeus,
the Highest, whose daughters, the Muses, tell liim the true word,
which he again tells to man. But it is the bard alone who can
hear the voice of the Muses, not every man ; indeed, tiiat is just
his gift, his genius— to be able to hear the voice of the Muses.

Critics have, indeed, denied the unity of the Iliad in manifold

208 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

argumentation; they have pointed ont its discords, its disagree-
ments, its uncertainties. It has this side ; whoever wishes to
dwell in it can do so and find much confusion, war, and rumors
of war; in fact, he can pertinaciously affirm that nothing else
exists in it, except to the eye of the visionary. But the true
Homeric faith is in the unity of the poem, its harmony ; without
such qualities it could never have been a Literary Bible, Recon-
ciliation is its divine word, the word of a Bible ; most deep and
true is its unity, that of Olympus itself. We must reach up into
this une soul of the Iliad for its inspiring draughts ; much dis-
ordered material floats on the surface of it as on the surface of
the sun ; still, these refractory masses are smelted into one brill-
iant flowing stream when we once see them touched by the cen-
tral fires underneath. The genuine Homeric scholar has his
creed, M'hich he will repeat, after reading some hostile book, with
tenfold emphasis : I believe in the unity of Homer, in the unity
of the Upper World, in the unity of the Lower World, in the
unity of the two together, and supremely in the unity of the
poem which images all these unities.

Thus it will be seen and felt that the poem is one and in accord
— its men as well as its Gods ; these are harmonious parts of a
Whole representing the concord of the divine and the terrestrial;
man is transformed to a musical being after all his struggles, since
he is in perfect agreement with his divinities. Woe be unto him
when he falls out with his Gods, as Hesiod does, deeming provi-
dential Zeus to be a jealous tyrant over mankind. Then the happy
Homeric unity will be rent asunder, and human life will become
tragic ; the Upper and the Lower Worlds will be two discordant
notes, whose dissonance teai's mankind to pieces. The Gods are
•our enemies ; what, then, are we? Such is the Hesiodic man, evi-
dently a fallen soul, in torture; but the Homeric man feels the
divine powers to be in tune with himself, nay, to be in truth him-
self, his own spiritual essence ; therefore he utters their harmony.

The poem must consequently have a musical end, not merely in
ver.<e, but in spirit. It retuses to conclude in the destruction of
the city ; that would be a disastrous, discordant end ; in reconcili-
ation only can the song cease worthily, although conflict may arise
again afterwards. It cannot terminate in the wrath of the Hero,
but in his external and internal harmony, in that lull of his soul

Homer's ^''lliadP 209

when be has reached up and participated in the unity of Zeus, fit-
ting himself into the supreme, %vorld£,overning plan. This is the
finality and true completion of the hero; his mission is concluded,
not in wrath, but in atonement; no iurther height is by him at-
tainable,

A short synoptical table may aid in keeping before the memory
what has been said above, ^s well as in showing the organism of
the poem.

I. Scission into the two worlds, Lower and Upper.

A. — The Lower World.

II. Scission of the Lower World into two conflicting nations,
Greeks and Trojans.

III. Internal scission in both Greeks and Trojans ; each side
has two opposing parties.

lY. The internal Greek scission producing the Iliad .^ with its
double Wrath and double Reconciliation.

Y. Scission of the character of the poem into two sete.
YL Scission of the Trojan theme into two poems.

B. — The Upper World.

YII. Scission of the Upper World into Zeus and the Inferior
Gods.

YIIL Scission of the Inferior Gods into two parties, one favor-
ing the Trojans, the other the Greeks.

IX. The unity of all these scissions, both of men and Gods, in
Zeus.

XYII— 14

210 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

THE MODERN LOGIC.

The Johns Hopkins University, that prolific young mother of science,
has lately put forth a little book called " Studies in Logic." It is the
newest fruit of that wonderful Symbolic Logic which, though at times
curiously anticipated, really sprang into lasting life only in 1847, cre-
ated by George Boole.

Perhaps the most interesting essay in the present volume, " On the
Algebra of Logic," by Miss Christine Ladd, makes use of the two simple
relations which I think most naturally suggest themselves to any one who
exhaustively examines the whole question of syllogistic inference from the
modern point of view. This mode of dealing with deduction was stated
by Leibnitz, and, as a specimen of Boole's Logical Method, I contributed
to the " Journal of Speculative Philosophy " for October, 1878, a paper
called " Statement and Reduction of Syllogism," which, strictly following
Boole, and the suggestion in a two-page note by Cayley on Boole, by
means of a relation of total exclusion, and a relation of partial inclusion,
reduced all syllogism to one form, and gave perfectly general criteria for
inference from any two premises.

As Miss Ladd uses the same two relations to do this same thing, I have
thought it might most easily familiarize your readers with her notation
to state it side by side with the older.

For the relation of partial inclusion, some x's are y's, or some y's are
x's, Venn writes xy = v ; Cayley suggested xy > o ; Miss Ladd writes xy
v. For the relation of total exclusion, no x's are y's, or no y's are x''s,
Boole and his followers have written xy = o ; Miss Ladd writes xy v,
using Boole's negative sign, a minus written over the thing to be nega-
tived.

Now, noting symmetry, using the complementary classes, and observ-
ing that, whether we have x or x, the symmetry of relation is not al-
tered, it is easy to see that all logical propositions can be brought under
these two forms.

Thus, all X is y, becomes xy v, while xy v means some x is not y.

Notes and Discussions. 211

Propositions with a universal subject or predicate take the first form ;
the remaining propositions fall under the second form. Syllotrisms are
inferences with elimination, the ordinary object being to eliminate a
single term which occurs in two premises. The premises of every syllo-
gism are two propositions having a common term. Taking x and z for
the extremes, and y for the mid-term, writing all propositions in the above
two forms, and going over all the possible combinations of premises, there
are only two which give rise to a conclusion or relation between the ex-
treme terms. These were written in the old notation

xy = o, zy = o .•. xz = o, and
xy = 0, zy > o .*. xz > o.
In the new notation they are

xy V, zy V .'. xz v, and
xy V, zy v .*. xz v.
Boole's equation, x-f-x = 1, meaning everything is either x or non-x, gave
a general symbolic proof of the validity of these conclusions.

For, whatever xz may be, we know xz = xzy + xzy ; but in the first
syllogism above a factor of xyz, namely, xy, is equal to nought, and a
factor of xyz, namely, zy, is equal to nought ; therefore, xz =i: o -|- o = o.
Again, y = xy-}-xy always ; but in the other syllogism above, since xy
=: o .•. y = xy. But also we are given zy >o, therefore substituting, we
have zxy > o .*. xz > o. This may illustrate what is meant by working
with an algebra which assigns the expression of the quantity of proposi-
tions to the copula, and so has two copulas.

Miss Ladd proves the first of the above as follows : " The premises are
X (z + z) y V ; (x + x) yzv ;
and together they affirm that

xz (y + y) + xzy -|- xyz v, or
xz -f- xyz -f- xyz v.
Dropping the information concerning y, there remains xz v."
For the second she says : " The second premise is

zy (xy + xy) v,
which becomes, since there is no xy,

zy (^ + y) V, or
zyx v.
Dropping the information concerning y, there remains zx v." This last
use of H- , which puts xy = x -|- y, is the extension of Boole's + , used by
Jevons in 1864, and since by nearly all workers in modern logic.

It is evident that this reduction enables us to give very clear and com-
pendious rules for the validity of syllogism ; and for the case last proved
—namely, the universal-particular syllogism— the test, adapted to Bc^olc's

212 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

way of writing xy = o as y = vx, was stated on page 426 of the jour-
nal as follows :

" When but one of the four terms is universal, a conclusion can be
reached in all cases [and in those only) where the universal terra is the
middle term in one of the premises, and the middle term in the other
premise is of the same quality."

Adapted directly to the new notation, this is given on page 39 of the
" Studies in Logic " thus :

" All the rules for the validity of the universal-particular syllogism are
contained in these :

" (1) The middle term must have the same sign in both premises.

" (2) The other term of the universal premise only has its sign
changed in the conclusion."

A convention that the universal proposition is taken as not implying
the existence of its terms excludes syllogisms in which a particular con-
clusion is drawn from two universal premises. Apart from this we may
say that if, when expressed in Boole's affirmative notation, two or more of
the four terms contained in the two premises are universal, a conclusion
can always be reached. When referring directly to the new notation for
the doubly universal syllogism —

" (1) The middle term must have unlike signs in the two premises.

*' (2) The other terms have the same sign in the conclusion as in the
premises."

Still further, these two forms, to which all valid syllogisms may be re-
duced, coalesce into one, which the simple consideration, that two premi-
ses are inconsistent with the contradictory of their valid conclusion, will
throw into the form

(a b v) (b c v) (c a v) v
given by Miss Ladd, which itself is only a special case of a still more
general theorem given by Leibnitz {specimen demonstrandi, Erdmann,
p. 99).

Perhaps the fundamental point in the system is the choice of two copu-
las both perfectly symmetrical, as against the old copula of inclusion, which
is an unsymmetric relation. As bearing on the naturalness of the choice,
I may call attention to the fact that these two symmetric relations are the
ones chosen for the algebraic notation used by Dr. Reyce, of Harvard, in
his excellent work on " Logical Analysis " (San Francisco, 1881), which was
designed as the simplest presentation of the subject for his own scholars.

The person who has made the most telling advances in logic since
Boole is Schroder, some of whose marvellous simplifications Mr. Venn
does not seem to have fully appreciated.

Notes and Discussions. 213

That the system under consideration has assimilated Schroder's re-
sults gives it a delightfal facility in the solution of the most complicated
questions, and lends it additional value to any American not reading
German.

Now that the syllogism may be so readily disposed of, why should
not every college teach some modern method of power commensurate
with that here found under the head of Resolution of Problems ?

George Bruce Halsted.
Princeton', N. J.

THE CONCORD SUMMER SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY.

The Concord Summer School will opea for a fifth term on Wednesday, July 18, 1883,
at 9 A. M., and will continue four weeks. Ths lectures in each week will be ten ; they
will be given morning and evening, except Saturdays, on the secular days (in the morn-
ing at 9 o'clock, and in the evening at 7.30), at the Hillside Chapel, near the Orchard
House.

The terms will be |;4 for each full week ; for the course, $15. Board may be obtained
in the village at from %^ to $12 a week, so that students may estimate their necessary
expenses for the whole term at $45. Single tickets, at 50 cents each, will be issued for
the convenience of visitors, and these may be bought at the shop of H. L. Whitcomb,
in Concord, after July 10, 1883. Any to whom this circular is sent can now engage
course tickets by making application, and sending $5 as a guarantee. For those who
make this deposit, tickets will be reserved till the tenth day of July, 1883, and can then
be obtained by payment of the balance due. They entitle the holder to reserved seats.

All students should be registered on or before July 10, 1883, at the office of the
Secretary, in Concord. No preliminary examinations are required, and no limitation
of age, sex, or residence in Concord will be prescribed; but it is recommended that
persons under eighteen years should not present themselves as students, and that those
who take all the courses should reside in the town during the term. The Concord Pub-
lic Library of 17,500 volumes will be open every day for the use of residents. Students
coming and going daily during the term may reach Concord from Boston by the Fitch-
burg Railroad, or the Middlesex Central : ' from Lowell, Andover, etc., by the Lowell
and Framingham Railroad ; from Southern Middlesex and Worcester Counties by the
same road. The Orchard Hou^e stands on the Lexington road, east of Concord village,
adjoining the Wayside estate, formerly the residence of Mr. Hawthorne. For fuller
information concerning the town and the school, we would refer applicants and visitors
to the "Concord Guide Book" of Mr. George B. Bartlett.

Lodgings with board may be obtained at the following houses in Concord village :
Miss E. Barrett, Monument Street. Mrs. Kent, Main Street.

Mrs. O'Brien, Monument Square. Mrs. GoonNOW, Main Street.

Mrs. CtiTTER, Sudbury Street. Mrs. N. Dkrby, Walden Street.

Mrs. B. F. Wheeler, Belknap Street. Mrs. How, Hubbard Street.

> Express train from Boston leaves Fitchburu depot at 8 a. m., and nrrlves at Concord in lime
for the morning session. On Thursdays, train for Boston by Fitcliburj,' Itailroad leaves Concord
at 9.40 P.M. ; and on Wednesdays, train for Boston by Middlesex Central loaves at 9.38 p. m., giv-
ing opportunity to attend the evening session and return to Boiston after the lecture.

214 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Lodgings without board can be obtained in the neighborhood of each of the above-
named houses. Students and visitors will make their own arrangements without con-
sulting the undersigned.

A. BRONSON ALOOTT, Bean.
S. H. EMERY, Jr., Director.
F. B. SANBORN, Secretary.
CoNCOBD, April SO, 1883.

LECTURERS AND SUBJECTS.

Mb. a. Bronson Alcott, Dean of the Faculty, is not expected to deliver^the Salutatory iorlto.
converse on special subjects, but it is hoped he can be present.

Db. Jonbs will not lecture this year.

The Courses will be as follows :
Prof. W. T. Harris.— Poar Lectures on Man's Immortality in the Light of Philosophy and]Re-
ligion ; and Four Lectures constituting a Course of Elementary Lessons in Philosophy.
The latter will be

1. July 18th, 9 a.m.— Space and Time Considered; Basis of Kantian Philosophy, Ground of

Certainty deeper than Scepticism or Agnosticism.

2. July 20tb, T.m f.m.— Causality and Self-cause ; Force Transient and Persistent ; Self -existent

Energy underlying all Change.

3. August Ist, 9 a.m.— i^a«« and Freedom; Individuality ; Distinction of Reality and^Poten-

tialityfrom True Actuality, of Phenomenon from Substance.

4. August 3d, 7.30 p. m.—Laws of Thought, the Principles of Identity, Contradiction and Ex-

cluded Middle ; Categories of Being, Ensence, Cause, and Personality.

Prof. Harris's special subjects will be :

1. July 25th.— ^As Absolute a Personal Reason. Discussion of Plato's insight {Tenth Book of the

Laivs) and Aristotle's ( the Eighth Book of his Physics and the Eleventh Book of his Metaphysics)

2. July 21th.— Triune Nature of God.— St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm— Justice

and Grace in the Divine Nature.

3. August dih.—The World as Revelation of the Divine First Cause— Nature and Man: the Doc-

trine of Evolution ; the Orders of Being as Progressive Revelation-fif the Divine.

4. hvQvsT Uh.— Immortality of the Individual Man in the Light of Psychology— in the Light of

the Christian Religion ; the Vocation of Man in the Future Life.
Prop. George H. Howison, LL.D.— Four Lectures on Hume and Kant and the Merits of the Issue
between them.
Prof. Howison's subjects wiU be :

1. Hume's Aim and Method ; the Problem, as handed over to Kant.

2. KanVs Mode of Dealing with this Problem.

3. The Strength and Weakness of KanVs Methods and Results.

4. Attempts by Subsequent T?iinkers to supply Kant's Defects ; (he Desiderata still remaining.
Prof. William James, of Harvard University.- Three Lectures on Psychology*

Mr. Denton J. Snider.— Four Lectures on Homer and the Greek Religion.

1. Literary Bibles— Homer.

2. The Iliad.

3. The Odyssey.

4. The Gods.

Bkv. K. a. Holland, S. T. D., will not lecture this year. In place of his lectures, as advertissd.

Prof. Harris will give four Lectures on Elementary Insights in Philosophy.
Bev. J. B. Kednby, D. D.— Two Lectures on Art Appreciation and the Higher Criticism.
Mr. F. B. Sanborn.— Four Lectures on The'JIistory of Philosophy in America.

1. The Puritanic Philosophy : Jonathan Edwards.

2. The Philanthropic Philosophy : Benjamin Franklin.

3. The Negation of Philosophy.

4. The Ideal and Vital Pliilosophy : R. W. Emerson.

N^otes and Discussions.

215

Mh. John Albee.— Two Lectures. The Norman Influences in FngH$h Language and Literature
Eev. Dr. Bartol.— a Lecture on Optimism and J'essimimi—a Pemonal Equation.
Miss E. P. Peabodt.— A Lecture on Milton''e Paradise Lost.
Mrs. E. D. Chenet.— A Lecture. A Study of Nirvana.
President Porter.— A Lecture on KanVs Categorical Imperative.
Mrs. J. W. Howe. — A Conversation.
Mr. Julian Hawthorne.— A Lecture on Novels.

Mr. David A. Wasson.— A Lecture. Herbert Spencer's Causal Law Qf Evolution.
Mr. Lewis J. Block. A Lecture on Platoniem and its Relation to Modem Thought.
, Headings from the Thoreau Manuscripts will occupy one evening, as usual.

PROGRAMME OF LECTURES.

August, 1883.

Prof. Harris. let, 9 a.m.

Prof. James. 7.30 P. M.

Dr. Kedney. 2d, 9 a. m.

Prof. Howison. 7.30 p. m.

Prof. James. 3d,",9 a.,m.

Prof. Harris. 17.30 p.m.

Prof. James. 6th, 9 a.'m.

Prof. Howison. 7.30 P. M.

Dr. Kedney. 7th, 9 A.m.

Dr. Bartol. 7.30 P. M.

Prof. Harris. 8th, 9 a.m.

Mr. Snider. 7.30 p. m.

Mr. Sanborn. 9th, 9 a. m.

Prof. Howison. 7.30 p. m.

Prof. Harris. 10th, 9 A. m.

Mr. Sanborn. 7.30 p. m.
Mr. Wasson-
Prof. Howison.
Mr. Hawthorne.
Mr. Snider.

the above programme may hereafter be made, and other names
list of lecturers.

Prof Harris.

Mrs. Howe.

Miss Peabody.

Mr. Snider.

Mr. Sanborn.

Prof. Harris.

Mr. Albee.

Prof. Harris.

Mrs. Cheney.

Mr. Albee.

Prof. Harris.

Mr. Snider.

Pres. Porter.

Mr. Block.

Mr. Sanborn.

Readings from Thoreau.

July, 1883.
18th, 9 A. M.

7.30 p. M.
19th, 9 A. M.

7.30 p. M.
30th, 9 A.M.

7.30 p. M.
23d, 9 A.M.

7.30 P. M.
24th, 9 A. M.

7.30 P. M.
25th, 9 A. M.

7.30 p. M.

26th, 9 A.M.

17.30 P.M.

27th, 9 A.M.

7.30 p. M.
30th, 9 A. M.

7.30 P.|M.

3l8t, 9 A. M.

J.30 P. M.

Slight changes in
may be added to the

PROFESSOR MORRIS'S LECTURES ON PHILOSOPHY AND

CHRISTIANITY.

[The following Syllabus of a Course of Eight Lectures, delivered at the
Union Theological Seminary, in New York City, on the "Ely Founda-
tion," in January, 1883 (every Thursday and Friday evening, begin-
ning January 4th), by George S. Morris, Ph. D., Professor of Eth-
ics, History of Philosophy, and Logic, in the University of Michigan,
and Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, contains
an analysis of the subject so suggestive and thorough that we print it

entire. — Ed.I ,.,„„

PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIAMTY.

Lectore L
Religion and Intelligence.
The main object of this course of lectures, to show that intelligence, as Bucb, is the
true bulwark, and not the enemy, of religion.

216 The Journal of Speculaiive Philosophy.

Religion cannot — sven if it would — withdraw itself from the liability of being made
a subject of scientific or philosophic inquirj'.

First, the phenomena of religion, without any reference to their absolute significance,
may be made the subject of a comparative, inductive study, and the result is the "Sci-
ence of Religions."

Or, secondly, inquiry may be directed to the absolute significance and justification
of the phenomena in question, and the result is the Philosophy of Religion.

Importance of this latter inquiry for religion.

Modern "Agnosticism," which results from a misapplication and misinterpretation
of the method and conclusions of purely physical science, has the form of knowledge,
without its substance; from it religion has nothing to fear before the forum of absolute
intelligence.

The history of English Deism as partially illustrating the truth of the last statement^

Against Agnosticism, philosophy and religion have a common cause. In this nega-
tive sense the two certainly agree.

The more important question is, whether philosophy — which is, properly, nothing
but the unbiassed recognition and comprahension of experience on all its sides — con-
firms or invalidates the positive, theoretical prjsjppositions of religion.

For religion — and above all, Christianity — is, in form and substance, of and for in-
telligence. It presupposes and requires knowledge of the Absolute. And philosophy
aim-; to achieve the same knowledge by the way of experimental demonstration.

Philosophy and Christianity alike imply (1) a process of intelligence (Theory of
Knowledge), by which (2) the absolute object of intelligence is reached (Theory or Sci-
ence of Being).

Lecture II.

The Philosophic Theory of Knowledge.

The philosophic theory of knowledge is, in id2al, nothing but the science of intelli-
gence as such, or of experience in the fullest sense of this term.

This science not contained in For.nal Logic. Nor is it contained in Empirical Psy-
chology : witn3S3, the results of British psychological speculation.

The "science of intelligence as such" is the necessiry correlate and condition of the
science of being as such; in other, words, it is an organic part of Philosophy, and is
found, in more or less completely developed form, wherever philosophy is found.

Intelligence comparable to a light.

Intelligence is an activity, vsrsics the old sensational theory that the mind in knowl-
edge is passive, and like a "piece of white paper."

The activity of intelligence is not a moda of motion. The relation of subject and ■
object in knowledge is not purely mechanical, or sensible.

The activity in question is synthetic. (Incidental discussion of space and time as
forms of syntliesis for intelligence.)

It is living and organic. It involves, in particular, the ideal continuity and unity of
subject and object, ivith'm the sphere of knowledge, and not (as sensational agnosticism
assumes) their mechanical separation and opposition outside the realm of all knowledge.

Hence, (I) the forms of the "subject" are the forms of the "object," and vice versa.

(2) Knowledge is a unifying process. It finds unity in the midst of apparent multi-
plicity. It sees the universal in the particular. Its object is thus the concrete univer-
sal, or the universal which subsists through and by very means of the particular, and

Ifotes and Discussions. 217

not the abstract universal, which excludes the particular and is never an object of real
knowledge at all, but only of a supposititious iiDagination.

Intelligence is itself a concrete universal, for it is an organism. Every natural organ-
ism is a direct illustration of the one subsisting only in and throuiili the many, the one
life in and through the many members. The "members" of intelligence are the forms
or fundamental categories of knowledge, the framework of all our conscious intelligence-
The " one life " stands self-revealed in self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness is the " light " of intelligence. It is a pure, ideal, and spontaneous
activity.

Self-consciousness is the active and relatively independent condition of objective
consciousness.

But objective consciousness, on the other hand, is also the (relatively passive) con-
dition of self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness in man, while it is the organic bead, or the " light " of all human
consciousness whatsoever, turns out, upon examination, to be a borrowed light, and
itself dependent on an Absolute Self-consciousness.

The philosophic science of knowledge confirms St. Paul's denial " that we are suffi-
cient of ourselves to think anything as of our [purely individual) selves," and finds, in
further agreement with the Apostle, that, in the absolute and final sense, " our suffi-
ciency is of God."

Lecture III.

The Absolute Object of Intelligence ; or, the Philosophic Theory of Reality.

The question as to " what being really is," not a " tyro's question." Its practical
importance.

The unity of Being is expressly or implicitly presupposed by all science.

Physical science seeks, not an absolute unity, but only a relative one.

The " universal," to which physical science leads us, is consequently abstract, not
concrete. Its picture of the universe is monochromatic. And pantheism, in the odious
sense of this terra, consists, essentially, in adopting the highest generalizations of
mathematico-physical inquiry as the final results of philosophic science, and interpret,
ing the unity of being, accordingly, as abstract, dead and mechanical, rather than as
concrete, living, and organic.

The terms being (or reality) and intelligence are correlative. The predicate being is
applied to the object of intelligence. Tiiat most truly is which is most truly known or
knowable. The real is the intelligible.

The sensible, as such (or as sensible), is not intelligible. It is " phenomenal."

The science of knowledge demonstrates the organic unity of " subject" and " object,"
or of intelligence and being.

Hence (1) the distinction made between intelligence and being is a purely formal or
^' logical " one, not real. Being, in other words, includes intelligence.

(2) The nature of being, therefore, is not made known to intelligence by revelation
from without, but from within, or from the inner depths of the nature of intelligence
itself.

(3) The revelation of being in intelligence necessarily takes the form of self-intelligence,
self-knowledge, or self consciousness. Being is thus primarily revealed as spiritual.

(4) " Substance is Action " (Leibnitz). Or, Beiug is Activity, is Doing. It is activity
of spirit. But the activity of spirit is Life (Aristotle). Absolute being, aa such, is
therefore absolutely living. No being whatsoever without " potency of life."

218 The Journal of Speculative PMlosojyliy.

Space, time, and matter are dependent modes of absolute spiritual existence. Mate-
rialism, in holding the contrary, errs, among other things, against the first principles of
thought and of being (Unity of Being and Unity of Knowledge). The proximate root
of matter is found in force ; and force is a purely spiritual category. The law of the
motions of matter is identical in kind with the law of the activity of intelligence.

Man, as man, is spirit.

The philosophic doctrine that the unity of being is the unity of Absolute Spirit, is
the doctrine of Theism.

The unity of Absolute Spirit rests on a unity of self-consciousness, of personality.

Groundlessness of the common objections raised against the conception of God aa

personal.

Lecture IV.

The Biblical Theory of Knowledge.

Peculiar reasons why the theological student ig obliged to inquire after the final re-
sults of philosophic science.

He is entitled to have these results correctly reported to him.

Specific difference of philosophy and religion.

Christianity is a spiritual life, which the Scriptures represent as conditioned upon the
knowledge of God.

According to the Scriptures, (1) knowledge that, in form and substance, is purely in-
dividual, is relatively empty, and, when carried to its final issues, " cometh to nought."
The scriptural estimate of sensible knowledge.

(2) Knowledge proper is a spiritual process. Thia truth, which philosophic science
expresses by saying that science is of and through the universal, is more concretely ex-
pressed — but without change of sense — by the Christian scriptures in the declaration
that our sufficiency to think is of God, or that true understanding is due to the inspi-
ration of the Almighty.

" Perfect freedom " the attribute only of that " thought" which is " begun, continued,
and ended " in God.

The Christian theory of knowledge implies a God " near at hand."

All knowledge is, in a sense, of the nature of " revelation."

No merely mechanical revelation possible.

Revelation, as a process of knowledge, is a spiritual process. Its essential form is
that of self-revelation, or of the Spirit to the spirit, and it is rendered possible only
through the organic oneness of the recipient with the divine Spirit.

The content of revelation cannot be out of essential relation to intelligence.

Lecture V.

Biblical Ontology — The Absolute.

The Absolute omnipresent in the relative, and yet distinct from the latter.

The Absolute for religion, as for philosophy, is Spirit, and is God.

God as the creative condition of space and time, and of " force."

The Infinite as known, or knowable, in and by the finite.

The Scriptures find in the personality of a transcendent Man the true revelation and
perfect exemplification of the nature of the absolute and everlasting God.

The true understanding of Christ is a " spiritual understanding."

Absolute Being, or Spirit, exhibited in the Scriptures under the attributes of intelli-
gence, life, and love.

Notes and Discussions. 219

The triune God.

Importance of the doctrine of the Trinity.

"Trinity" does not simply mean " threencss." The conception of trinity not a nen-
sible, or phenomenal, but a spiritual conception. It is, accordingly, incapable of being
sensibly illustrated.

Trinity is concrete unity.

Intelligence, Life, and Love — each a triune process.

This process, in finite beings, subject to temporal limitations, from which, in God, the
Absolute, it is free.

The Son and, through him, the world, as the object of the divine intelligence.

The Holy Spirit, as at once name of the third person in the divine Trinity and altso
the concrete and perfect name of the Absolute, or of God.

Brief defence of the expression, " Three persons in one God."

Lecture VI.
Biblical Ontology — the World.

Philosophy of Nature and "Pure Physical Science" distinguished.
Philosophic Agnosticism and Mechanism as perversions of pure physical science.
Religion presupposes, not a system of pure physical science, but a philosophy of nature.
Brief resume of the philosophy of nature.
Biblical conceptions ;

(a) The world dependent for its existence on divine power.

(b) Creation not the result of a casual impulse or of an arbitrary determination on
the part of the Creator.

(d) The world full of divine riches.

(e) Knowledge of the world to be " sought out."

(f ) Vanity and corruptibility of the world apart from God.

(g) Christ the creator of the world, and

(h) Also its redeemer. Redemption included in the definition or conception of creation.

( i ) The rationale of creation founded in the doctrine of the Trinity. The Second
perBon of the Trinity as the " first-born of every creature."

(j) Christ the "image of the invisible God" only as he is creator and redeemer of
the world.

(k) No limits of time placed on the divine work.

The foregoing conceptions opposed to pantheism.

False antithesis of "nature" and "the supernatural."

Lecture VII.
Biblical OiUology — Man.
The Christian conception of man, on the two sides of his identity with nature, and
of his distinction from and above nature.

Christian ethics is the theory of the " perfect man."

The experimental character of this theory ; together with comments on a modern
demand that "morals" should be "secularized" and "humanized."
Christian conceptions :

(a) The world and the natural man (or "the flesh") regarded as, respectively, the
place and the instrumental condition of the realization of the perfect man.

(b) The birth of the spirit is the birth of the true man.

220 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

(d) This activity is conditioned upon knowledge.

(e) The object of this knowledge is " the will of God," which itself is nothing other
than the law of absolute or perfected being, or of the most perfect realization of the
spiritual nature.

(f) Man's activity supported by the activity of God himself; man, therefore, a co-
laborer with God.

(g) Man finds the " dwelling-place" of his true self in God.

(h) That will alone is free which wills the true self, or which wills itself in God.
(i) Man is "saved," or made "perfect man," "iw Christ Jesus," and not merely by
him. His redemption is a spiritual, and not a merely mechanical process.
Christian ethics not quietistic.

Lecture VIII.
Comparative Philosophic Content of Christianity.

Religion " of and for intelligence."

In what sense the like is true in regard to the works of artistic and political genius.

Religion as the living apprehension of that which philosophy aims to comprehend.

Faith as " abbreviated knowledge."

Indispensable value, for philosophy, of the data contained in the " Christian con-
sciousness ; " together with remarks on the question whether philosophy can exist
without the data which religion furnishes.

" Self-consciousness " as the principle or standard of measurement for the " philosophic
content" of all "religions."

Christianity as the absolute religion.

DR. McCOSH'S PROGRAMME OF A PEILOSOPHIO SERIES.

[The following circular, issued by Messrs. Scribner's Sons, of New York,
announces a series of valuable contributions to Philosophy. Their scope
is defined by Dr, McCosh in what follows. — Ed.]

For the last thirty years I have been taking my part in the philosophic
discussions of the age. I have a few things yet to say before I willingly
leave the arena. These have long occupied my thoughts, and they relate to
thrilling topics of the d:iy on which many are anxious to have light thrown.
In order to bring my views before the thinking public, I start A Philo--
Sophie Series, to consist of small volumes of about sixty pages each, in
stout paper, at fifty cents per voluiue, and issued quarterly, and each em-
bracing an exposition complete in itself of one theme. I begin with

I. The Criteria of .Diverse Kinds of Truth as opposed to Agnosticism,
being a Treatise of Applied Logic. — This will confront me with the leading
philosophic heresy of the day, which is working secretly where it does
not appear above ground, and undermining some of our inost precious
faiths. It has been shown again and again that Agnosticism is suicidal.
It is an evident contradiction to affirm that we know that we can know

Notes and Discumons. 221

nothing. But when we have done all this we have only strengthened the
position of Agnosticism which holds that all truth is contradictory.
Without entering into a wrestling-match with a spectre, I have sot before
the mind the truth which is seen in its own light. It has again and again
been shown that we have no one absolute criterion of all trutli. I iiave
allowed this and approached the subject in a diflEerent way, and I show
that we have now satisfactory criteria of the diverse kinds of truth which
we are required to believe. The little treatise, which can be road in a few
hours, is intended to give assurance to thinking minds, especially young
men, in this age of unsettled opinion. It may also be used as a tcxtr
book in our upper schools. It may be followed by

II. 071 the Nature of Causation in Relation to the lately discovered Doc-
trine of the Conservation of Energy or the Persistence of Force. — It is a fact
that most scientific men now acknowledge that they do not know what to
make of the doctrine of Causation. The old doctrine is as true as ever that
every effect implies a cause, but it requires to be modified and explained
anew in conformity with recent science.

III. On what Development can do and what it cannot do. — Religious
people in the present day do not very well know what to make of Devel-
opment. Irreligious people are turning it to the worst of purposes, mak-
ing it supersede the power of God. Surely some good may be done by
explaining what is meant by Development, which is just a form of causa-
tion, which can do much, but cannot do everything.

IV. A Criticism of the Philosophy of Kant, specifying its Truths and
its Errors. — Kantisra is the most influential philosophy of the day both
in Europe and America. Kant has established a body of most important
philosophic truth, i)ut, without meaning it, he has allowed principles which
are fitted to undermine our knowledge and the reality of things.

V. A Criticism of Herbert Spencer's Philosophy as culminated in his
Ethics. — Mr. Spencer is the most powerful speculative thinker of our day,
and we now see the full philosophic and practical issue of the principles
which he has been developing for many years in eight or ten volumes. It
is surely desirable to have these principles thoroughly sifted.

But I have proposed enough till such time as I find that my project is
to be countenanced by the friends of a sober plulosophy.

Jamks McCosh.

*^* NOTICE.— Orders for THE CRITERIA OF DIVERSE
KINDS OF TRUTH [ready Oct. 12, 1882), and subscriptions for the

entire series, will be received by

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,

743 and 745 Broadway, New York.

222 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS OF PHILOSOPHY IN

GERMANY.

A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR C. L. MICHELET.

[The following very interesting letter on tlie above topic, from the
hand of Professor Michelet, of Berlin — who, though now in his eighty-
third year, exhibits the animation of a seemingly quenchless youth — has
recently been received by Professor Howison, in acknowledgment of the
printed report of the latter's two lectures on the same subject at the Con-
cord School of Philosophy in July, 1882. We print the translation by
permission. — Ed,]

[translation.]

Berlin, April 25, 188S.

" Honored Friend : You have very accurately, and in burning colors,
depicted the doleful decline into which the mass of our philosophic
thinkers have fallen. Young Germany, you say, has, with great precipi-
tancy, thrown away not only the results, but the method, of its past, to
plunge headlong into the English School. You hold a mirror up before
us, to show us with reproach to what a pass we have come. And your
* Present Aspects of Philosophy in Germany ' bears witness to the ex-
ceeding thoroughness of the brush with which you paint.

" In it you rightly set out from Kant's critical system, as the germ of
the entire development — the system which, ' waxing rather than waning,'
would to-day, in Neo-Kantianism, be glad to dominate Germany once
more, and carry it back to that unintelligible Negation, the Thing-in-
itself — the system which has started no end of misgoings, and which
affects to disdain Kant's three great successors as dreamers. Still, you
do not doubt of the final victory of true philosophy in a people which,
now that it has ceased to be the Scrub of Europe — now that it has so
gloriously wrestled to its political regeneration — you hold is in the future
to bring the Science of Reason to its finished consummation, in continu-
ance of the affirmative systems of those Heroes of philosophy.

" This trust I share completely, and hope to live to see its fulfilment
yet, in the frail decline of my life. And now permit me to add to your
exposition a few particulars, which may be regarded as supports of this
hope.

" Many of the German philosophers who are now throwing them-
selves into the arms of empiricism do not adhere to the simple, pure em-
piricism of Locke ; but what they call experience is always more or less
permeated by apriorist elements. In like manner, Kant's ' Experience,' in

Notes and Discussions. 223

Ms demanding how synthetic judgments are possible a priori, has ah-eady
taken up a metaphysical element into itself, through the Categories, and
through Space and Time. For after Hume, with * the besom of Nemesis,'
as you very well express it, had thoroughly swept away Locke's naked
empiricism, which fancied it could soar out of itself into universality and
necessity, there could not well be any return to that. The universality
and necessity which Hume abjured for experience, Kant transferred to
the a priori conceptions and perceptions of his idealism. And if the
Germans have gone to school to the English, the English have also come
■over the channel to us. At any rate, Spencar is desirous of a combina-
tion of induction and deduction, of the a posteriori and the a priori,
makes manifold use of dialectic, and, even in systematic results, is in
harmony, through his evolutionary theory of the universe, with the
Hegelian world-process, albeit he still ostensibly - adheres to the Canon of
Kant.

" Hegel himself, while praising Aristotle for a thorough experimen-
talist as well as a profound thinker, adds : Experience in its totality is
Speculation itself. Zeller, however, with all his polemics against the
Hegelian dialectic, cannot, even with the best intentions, keep up the
stand by bare experience. If, in his speech on ' The Present Position
and Problem of German Philosophy " (in the weekly Im ncuen Deutschen
Beiche, No. 50, pp. 921-928, 1872), he begins with: *We need to re-
turn to experience,' he yet concludes with the words : ' But experience
only furnishes us with phenomena; the essence of things, philosophic
truths, can only be found by active thought.' And therefore I too, in
my ' System of Philosophy,' in five volumes, have only been able to see
' Exact Science ' in the combination of both methods.

" In view of the existing philosophic situation in Germany, the Ber-
lin Philosophical Society, which originally consisted exclusively of He-
gelians, but which, in the course of events, has admitted many members
inclining to empiricism, has, in the Third Head of its Prize Problem, set
for the competitors the question : ' Does Hegel's dialectic method fulfil
the requirements that must be made of philosophic method, or not ? '
" With best greetings from household to household,
"In sincere fri -ndship,

"Wholly yours,

" MiCHELET.

"Professor G. H. Howison."

22i The Journal of Speculative Philosoj)hy.

BOOKS EECEIVED.

Notes on Matter, Force, and Motion. By Andrew Leslie. St. Louis, Mo., 1882.

Sketch of the Life of Professor Chester Dewey, D. D., LL. D., late Professor of Chem-
istry and Natural History in the University of Rochester. By M. B. Anderson, LL, D.,
President of the University of Rochester.

The Moral Lack of Higher Education of To-day : An Oration delivered at the Forty-
Bev'?nth Annual Convention of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity, at Providence, Rhode
Island. October 20, 1881. By Professor E. B. Andrews.

The New Ethics : An Essay on the Moral Law of Use. By Frank Sewall. New York i
G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1881.

Three Phases of Modern Theology : Calvinism, Unitarianism, Liberalism. By Joseph
Henry Allen, A. M. Boston : George H. Ellis. 1880.

Job. Friedr. Herbart's Saemmtliche Werke. In Chronologischer Reihenfolge Hcraus-
gegeben von Karl Kehrbach. Erster Band. Mit einer Lithographirten Tafel. Leipzig :
Verlag von Veit und Coinp. 1882.

Life Beyond the Ocean : Sketches of Religious, Social, and Political Life in the
United States of America. By A. P. Lopuchin, St. Petersburg. 1882.

Contents: I. On the Way to America. (1) From St. Petersburg to Vienna; (2) Zurich ;
(3) Geneva ; (4) Paris ; (5) London ; (6) Ten Days ou the Ocean.

II. Beyond the Ocean. (1) New York City; (2) The Merry Christmas ; (3) Carnival
and Lent ; (4) Ea«ter in America ; (5) Religion in the United States ; (6) The Land of
Positive Science ; C?) The Bible in America ; (8) The Kingdom of the Mighty Dollar
and Preaching; (9) A Camp-meeting; (10) The Knights of Mystery (Masons).

III. RussHcn Echoes. (1) A Russian Festival beyond the Ocean; (2) A Russian Sorrow
(Death of the Czar) ; (3) The Rui^sian Chapel in New York ; (4) Americans at the Rus-
sian Chapel.

IV. Social and Political Notes. (1) Our Transatlantic Friends; (2) Immigration; (3)
The Land of Milk and Honey; (4) American Husbandry; (5) A Fasting Doctor; (6)
Mania for Competitive Trials ; (7) On the Sea-shore.

V. The Presidential Campaign of 1S80. (1) Opening of the Campaign ; (2) The Demo-
crats; (3) The Greenbackers and Woman's Rights; (+) On the Battle-field ; (5) In the
Democratic Camp; (6) Curiosities of the Presidential Campaign; (7) Decision of the
People.

VI. Return from America. (1) Across the Ocean; (2) From Bremen to St. Peters-
burg ; (3) Home Again. [Title and contents are here translated from the original Rus-
sian.]

THE JOURNAL

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY

YoL. XYII.] July, 1883. [No.

THE CENTENNIAL OF THE ''CRITIQUE OF PURE

REASON."

By Kcno Fischer,
translatkd from the german by benjamin rand.

The appearance of Kant's " Critique of the Reason " marks the
turning-point which separates the tirst from the second period in
the history of modern philosophy, the former of which had its
beginning in England and France, and came to its close in Ger-
many, while the latter is of German origin, and issued from Prus-
sia. The birth of such works dates from the time when they are
first published — that is, when they have emerged from the obscu-
rity of the workshop into the full light of the world. The " Cri-
tique of Pure Reason" was published in midsummer of the year
1781, simultaneously with Schiller's first tragedy. Kant dedi-
cated his work to the Prussian Minister Von Zedlitz, who had
proved himself favorably disposed toward him and his work. He
signed the dedication on March 29, 1781, and probably wrote
also at the same time the (not dated) Introduction. The larger
portion only of the work was then printed, and some montlis
elapsed before the entire publication was completed. It is there-
XVII— 15

226 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

fore wrong to regard, as is repeatedly done, the date of the dedi-
cation as the birthday of the " Critique of the Reason," since this
work was written previously, but had not yet been published. It
appears from the letters which were written at this time by J. G.
Hamann, of Konigsberg, to Hartknoch and to Herder, that Ha-
niann, to whom (simultaneously with Kant) the proof-sheets were
forwarded, could not finish reading the text before the last week
in June, and not until four weeks later did he receive a complete
copy, sent from the hand of the author. He wrote a notice of the
work on July 1, 1781, for the Konigsberg " Times," but which
for certain reasons he left unpublished. Its concluding words
read as follows : " The fortune of an author consists in being
praised by some and known by all — and what the reviewer re-
gards still as the acme of genuine authorship and criticism — to be
understood by a very few." Events verified this saying. The
first public criticism came from the philosopher Chr. Garve, of
Breslau, and made on Kant the worst possible impression. It ap-
peared in an extra of the Gottingen "Literary Advertiser" on
January 19, 1782. The publication of the " Critique of Pure
Reason " falls, therefore, in the middle, and its first distribution in
the second half of the year 1781.

II.

Before we attempt to realize the importance of this epoch-mak-
ing work we will direct a hasty glance at its origin, so far as
knowledge of this has come to us from the study of the philoso-
pher. Kant, after fifteen years waiting as privat docent, was
made a professor when forty-six years of age. It was necessary
for him to make the customary defence of a printed discourse be-
fore entering upon his professorship of Logic and Metaphysics.
This took place on August 21, 1770, The theme of the Latin
inaugural dissertation was, " The Forms and Principles of the
Sensible and Intelligible World." His respondent was Marcus
Herz, a young physician of Jewish descent, with whom Kant had
intercourse as teacher and friend, and whom he assured that his
ideas had been searched by him (Herz) to their very depths. M.
Herz went to Berlin immediately after the disputation, and was
there daily a welcomed guest in the house of Mendelssohn. He
acquired in time a very creditable position both as physician and

Tlie Centennial of the ''Critique of Pure Reason:' 227

philosopher, and became, through his conversations, and later by
lectures before a mixed audience, the first expounder of the Kant-
ian philosophy in the Prussian capital. After his marriage with
the daughter of a Portuguese Jewish physician, who was° famed
for her beauty, intellect, and grace of manners, it was the attrac-
tive power of Henrietta Herz which made his house between
1779 and 1803 one of the most frequented literary centres in
Berlin. The letters of Kant to M. Herz are most interesting, and
are likewise the only letters which give us an accurate insight into
the origin of the " Critique of the Keason."

The .problems of the Critique, and, indeed, the first of its funda-
mental discoveries — the new doctrine of Space and Time — were
contained in the inaugural dissertation. It is easy to see that the
question as to the " Form and Principles of the Sensible and In-
telligible World" coincides with the question as to the funda-
mental forms and limits of the faculties of Sense and Intellect ;
for the Sense-world comprises the objects as they afiect our faculty
■of Sense {Sinnlichkeit)^ while the intelligible world comprises the
Presentations ( Yorstellungen) as they are in themselves indepen-
dently of the corresponding sensible phenomena and of the nature
of our faculty of Sense, and as they can be grasped only by the
intellect. The philosopher, therefore, must at once undertake
the task of setting forth in a large work " The Limits of the
Sense and Reason." But the domain of the reason in its whole
extent embraced the principles of Natural Science, of Morals, and
of -Esthetics, or, otherwise expressed, " The Metaphysics of Na-
ture, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Esthetics." Kant intended
at this time to present as soon as possible the entire content of
the critical philosophy in one complete work. The tasks, however,
divided themselves, and a succession of fundamental critical ques-
tions arose, each of which demanded for itself a separate work.
Twenty years (1770-'90) elapsed before the plan was realized
which Kant had marked out in a letter of June 7, 1771, to Plerz
as his project.

One of these tasks pressed immediately to the foreground the
metaphysical problem, or the question concerning the knowledge
of things both theoretical and practical. The solution of this
problem the philosopher called a •' Critique of the Pure Reason."
Its plan and limits were yet much too widely applied. The cri-

228 The Journal of Specxdatwe Philosophy.

tique of the pure reason must be limited to the theoretical science
of cognition, the establishment of our knowledge of things through
the Sense and Keason. Kant hoped to publish such a work within
three months ; so he wrote on February 21, 1772. The three
months grew into nine years. Again and again during this
long period he sees the end nearer at hand than it is, again and
again it removes to a distance ; in vain he hopes to be able to
reach it in the summer of 1777 ; the next winter, the folio wing^
summer pass by, and still his hopes, like unfulfilled promises,
abide ; and even at Christmas of 1779 this hoped-for end is not yet
reached. After the difficulties of the research are conquered, the
presentation and explanation follow, far greater difficulties than
Kant had imagined. " What I call the ' Critique of the Reason,' " he
writes on the 20tli of August, 1777, " lies like a rock in the way..
What retards me is nothing more than the endeavor to make
everything appearing therein perfectly intelligible." Genuine
clearness demands that one unite amplification and perspicuity
with brevity. Brevity at the expensfe of clearness costs the reader
a useless sacrifice of time, and it is also time for which the author
is responsible. Kant has taken well to heart the striking words
of the Abbe Terrasson : " Many a book would be far shorter if it
were not so short." But there exists also a breadth of amplifica-
tion at the expense of perspicuity if therebj'^ the whole is to us
only obscured. " Many a book," Kant has said in order to com-
plete the saying of Terrasson in a no less striking way, " would
have been much clearer if it had not been intended to be so very
clear." To give an exemplary style of clearness to the most diffi-
cult of all books was the mark which was before the eye of the
philosopher in his " Critique of the Reason," but which he was
unable to reach to perfection at the first throw.

The work had finally so far prospered that Kant, after having
first deeply meditated on the whole, then having sketched the
single portions in writing, and arranged them in their connection,
could now put his hand for the last time to the task and attend
to the composition and copy for the press. This occupied between
four and five months of the year 1780. In October, Hartknoch, of
Riga, offered to publish the work, and before the end of the year
the printing began. The three months wxre nine years, and the
promised " little work of a few pages " had become a corpulent

The Centennial of the ^^ Critique of Pure Beamyir 229

work, the number of whose sheets exceeded two alplmbets, and
of which Hamann jestingly said : "It does not correspond with the
stature of the author."

On the 1st of May, 1T81, Kant wrote to his pupil and friend in
Berlin : " A book will be published by me during the Easter fair
under the title ' Critique of Pure Keason.' It will be printed for
Hartknoch's Publication by Grunert in Ilalle." " This book con-
tains the result of all the manifold researches which began with
the ideas over which we disputed under the title of mundi sensi-
hilis et intelligibilis. It is to me an important matter to sub-
mit the entire result of my efforts to the review of the man who
possessed such insight as to deem my ideas worthy of considera-
tion, and who was so sagacious as to search them to their depths."

III.

A century has passed since the birth of this work, one of the
most difhcult and most mature which has ever appeared, and to-
day the sense of the Kantian teaching is under discussion as if it
were of yesterday, and as if the succession of systems which pro-
ceeded from it belonged not to the fruit by which the tree is
known ; as if only now a " philological " interpretation of his
phrases could lead to an understanding of the philosopher, which
;a century moved and filled by the ideas of Kant failed to obtain.
The single portions, however, of the work of a great thinker can
only rightly be understood when the problem and innermost
thought of the whole are evident to us. We will therefore attempt
to render the fundamental ideas so clear that our readers shall be
spared those difiiculties which obscm*ity in expression and fulness
of detail occasion. Wherein lay the necessity of a new epoch in
philosophy, the task which Kant undertook, and in the original
comprehension of which he perceived the newness, as likewise the
distinguishing characteristics, of his work ?

All the speculation before his time pxetended to be an explana-
tion of the thing. Each one strove in his own way after a system
of the universe, and made a more or less perfected scheme which
embraced the all-of-things. So long as there yet existed by the
side of such a universal knowledge no special science which
branched into the particular domain of things, philosophy reigned
without a powerful opposition, and had undisputed possession

230 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of a large kingdom. But as soon as the special sciences ap-
peared, and these provinces were cultivated, opponents arose in
an ever-increasing number, who disputed the authority and even
the right to existence of philosophy. In antiquity, metaphysics,,
and, in the middle ages, that which took its place, theology, had
easy reception, for the experimental sciences were as yet immature
and infant children. They grew up through the discoveries which
made the modern epoch and changed our views of the world in
all departments ; special research increased, and, in the same pro-
portion as the territorial dominion of human knowledge enlarged,
the imperial authority of philosophy declined. Were the king-
dom not to perish, as of old the Rom an- Germanic empire, it must
take possession of a new and permanent position, which would be
recognized and uncontested on the part of the experimental
sciences.

It was sujperfluous if it only repeated what the experimental
sciences had discovered and announced ; it was of evil if it should
search into the same objects independent of all experience and
oppose trustworthy results with uncertain or false speculations. It
must avoid experience, and yet never dared lose sight of it. It
must, in the first place, leave the field of empirical facts, the do-
main of the knowledge of things, and take for its problem the
possibility of experience itself, the possibility of a cognition of
things in general, the solution of which was to give a new view
of the world. This was the only possible expedient which re-
mained for philosophy ; it was likewise a necessary task, de-^
manded by the adaptation of the intellect to the acquisition of
knowledge.

The fundamental question was not now, How are things and
their phenomena possible, the data, whose sum we call nature or
reality % but it was, How is the fact of experience and the cognition
of things themselves possible? It is evident that this question
cannot be solved by experience, for this is not and cannot be its^
own object.

A scientific research is therefore demanded which will he dis-
tinct from and yet persistently directed ujpon experience. The
position must be found from which one can behold for himself the
entire domain of experience, or the knowledge of things in generaL
Kant placed philosophy upon this point and made the egg easily

The Centennial of the ''Critiqxie of Pure Reason.'' 231

enough stand on its end, althoiigli so many hands had attempted
this before his time, but unsuccessfully.

The question concerning the possibility of knowledge was as
such not new, for there had been very many theories of knowledge
in the history of philosophy. The ])roblem had often enough
been asked and investigated in the ancient as well as in the modern
period before Kant, but had always been answered in this way :
that, viewed strictly, the conditions upon which the fact of cog-
nition depends are themselves^ indeed, the entire fact of hiowledge,
although in its simplest form. Thus, the fact in question was not
explained, but presupposed, no matter whether these presupposi-
tions consisted in the affirmation of innate ideas or in the sensu-
ously given and united impressions, whether this connection was
called causal connection or succession in time. The philosophers
before Kant explained cognition by a kind of knowledge-substance,
just as once the physicists explained the phenomena of heat by
a heat-substance, or combustion by the phlogiston. Thus the fact
of human knowledge remained unexplained ; and since the assump-
tions made were not accidental, but followed necessarily from the
nature and trend of their systems, it also remained inexplicable :
it was regarded as a dogma, which sceptics themselves, in spite of
every denial, allowed to continue and even employed.

Kant probed this dogmatic position of all the philosophy which
preceded him, and brought it to an end with the very simple and
obvious claim, that the conditions of knowledge and experience
could not themselves indeed be knowledge or experience, but must
precede them, as the factors the product, and the cause the eftect.
There is a great difference between that which goes beyond or
surpasses (transcends) our knowledge and that which precedes it,
and by Kant is designated with the word a priori, or " transcen-
dental." The former lies beyond the horizon of our knowledge,
the latter on this side. It was to these latter a priori conditions
of our knowledge and experience that Kant directed his inquiry.
His research is in this respect new, and distinct from all previous
philosophy : it deals with the conditions of human knowledge, not
presupposing, but investigating, testing, sifting �� that is, it is not
dogmatic, but critical. The objects of the critical examination are
the factors of knowledge, i.e., our faculties of reason; hence the
name " Critique of the Reason " for the Kantian investigation. But

232 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

it asks how tlie reason originates experience, and not how it comes
forth from the latter filled with manifold empirical intuitions : it
treats, to speak Kantian, about the reason a priori — the pure reason
as the sum-total of the transcendental faculties ; hence Kant called
his work the " Critique of Pure Reason." The word " transcen-
dental " signifies with him both the conditions which precede ex-
perience and the inquiry directed into these; it is, in the first
case, equivalent to a priori, and in the second synonymous with
" critical " ; hence the critical philosophy is called also the " Tran-
scendental Philosophy " ; and the " Critique of the Reason " heads
each of its divisions and each of its inquiries with the title of a
" transcendental." It is well to explain the sense of this term,
since it is customary to present all sorts of mists and reveries under
this word, which is either misunderstood or not understood at all.
Kant's epoch-making achievement lies in the critical direction
which he has allotted to and pioneered for philosophy.

lY.

In order correctly to estimate the importance and extent of
this epoch, we must make clear lohat is called critical thinhing.

Objects can be held either dogmatically or critically : dogmati-
cally, if one takes the objects as given and perceives only their at-
tributes; critically, if one searches into the conditions from which
they and their attributes proceed — that is, investigates their origin
and follows the circumstances of their evolution. The origin and
development of objects are the problems of the critical thinking ;
the presentation of the historical development of things is its labor
and result. If we accept a system of the universe as given and
completed, and seek to discover the laws of its present organiza-
tion, we treat it dogmatically ; on the contrary, critically, when
we ask the question, How has the universe originated, and by
what changes has its present state gradually arisen ? It is pre-
cisely the same with the contemplation of the earth and all terres-
trial life in the entire diversity of its forms and kinds, with the
contemplation of mankind and its races, people, and languages,
religions and religious records, poetry and the fine arts ; in a word,
with the whole world of nature and art. I need only mention the
names Kant and Laplace, Lamarck and Darwin, Fr. A. Wolfi'and
G. Niebuhr, D. Fr. Strauss and F. Chr. Baur, in order to evoke

the Centennial of the ''Critique of Pure Reason:' 233

the record of a century wliicli, upon all sides, seeks for its view of
the world's historical development by means of critical research.
I do not epeak of this or that product of investigation, but of the
critical tendency of mind in which even opponents must share in
order to combat those conclusions to which they are averse. Any
one of our great literary men, since the days of Lessing, could be
brought forward as an example to show the position one occupies
in the critical knowledge of things ; but above them all stands
Kant, hecause he applied the critical method to knowledge itself
and thereby became the founder of a period which has, with good
reason, been styled the critical. The last century is called the
period of Clearing-up {Aifklaerung) ; ours is the period of Criti-
cism. It is in this fact that we discover the -bearing and signifi-
cance of the Kantian epoch.

From a conception of the Kantian problem we obtain at once
an idea of its extent, M'hich is found to far exceed that of all pre-
vious theories of knowledge. It is the neglect or ignorance of
this fact which prevents an insight into the spirit of the Kantian
teaching. The factors of knowledge must be discovered, and from
these the possibility of experience must be explained. This was the
task to be accomplished. Now, it is evident that, without the pos-
sibility of experience, there exist no objects oi possible experience,
no objects of the same, no sum-total of the same, which latter is
called in German the " Siunenwelt" (Sense-world). The question,
therefore, concerning the possibility of experience, concerning the
origin of knowledge, must coincide in a certain sense with the ques-
tion concerning the origin of the Sense-world. The Kantian phi-
losophy, from the way in which it has conceived its task, must de-
mand and lay hold of a point of view in which the Sense-world
appears no longer as something given, but as something which
issued forth by virtue of the reason ; a point of view in M-hich
there is made evident the origin of the Sense-world from out of
the conditions of reason and its activity.

Here the whole chasm between the dogmatical and critical way
of thinking opens up, and we perceive the extraordinary eflfort of
mind which is necessary both in the discoveries of tiie Critique
and in its understanding. The difficulties which have to be over-
come in new conditions of life and of knowledge are always jis
great as the interval between these and the accustomed course of

234 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

life and consciousness, and they appear in their most obstinate
strength when we are compelled to give up the natural, and, as it
were, the rooted point of view of our presentations. Thus it is
with the critical way of thinking as opposed to the dogmatical. I
will endeavor to explain the difficulties with which it deals by a
comparison which has a deeper than a mere figurative relationship
to the subject in hand. From the natural point of view which we
here occupy, the universe appears to us as an actually given object,
as a sphere in whose centre rests the earth, around which sky and
sun, moon and planets describe their orbits in various periods of
time. The ancient astronomy was founded on the view which re-
quired an artificial apparatus for the explication of the given phe-
nomena of the common and special revolutions of celestial bodies,
and a Ptolemaic assumption of epicycles for the explanation of the
apparently confused courses of the planets. Copernicus saw that
the position of the ancient astronomy was untenable, and that the
root of its error lay in the geocentric view. In order to understand
the planetary universe, the natural view arising from the first im-
mediate sensuous beholding must be abandoned, and the heliocen-
tric view must be adopted, in which the human spirit conceives of
the earth as in its horizon, discovers it among the planets, and looks
down upon its terrestrial habitat. Now, it is evident that the
dweller upon the earth does not observe the rotation of its axis or
the central movement of his own world ; and that from this lack
of observation, this ignorance of his own movement, proceeds that
necessary illusion which causes us to perceive a daily rotation of
the firmament, a yearly movement of the sun around the earth,
and the anomalies in the movements of the planets which revolve
around the same centre as the earth. The Co])ernican system re-
futes and destroys the Ptolemaic. It recognizes the fundamental
error of the latter, and explains, from the geocentric standpoint, all
those apparent movements which this considers and must consider
as incontestable facts ; it substitutes the simplest of solutions, and
one most in conformity to nature, for an artificial and insuffi-
cient hypothesis. Just as the Copernican system is related to the
Ptolemaic in Astronomy, and as the heliocentric standpoint is
related to the geocentric in the view of the planetary world, so in
general is the critical way of contemplation related to the dogmati-
cal and the transcendental point of view to the natural.

The Centennial of the ^'-Critique of Pure Reason.'''' 235

The example and teaching of Copernicus give us invohintarily
an important guide. As it is with our view of the material world
in general, and of the planetary system in particular, so likewise
it may be and is with the Sense-world. It is to be anticipated
that similar fundamental errors will produce similar results ; that
we, unconscious of our own intellectual activity in the formation
of our entire world of sensuous presentations, will regard this latter
as a given object, and take our own doing for the state and prop-
erties of things external to us; just as in the universe we perceive
the movements and the conditions of movements of heavenly bodies
other than the earth, because we do not observe the motion of our
own world. A self-deception similar to that which the geocentric
standpoint causes controls our entire idea of the world, and re-
quires, in order to be made evident, and its power destroyed, re-
flection and knowledge on our part ; except that here the basis is
far more extensive and much more concealed, and for tliat reason
more difficult to discover than the source of the geocentric error
which pertains to our cosmical abode. In order to perceive the
order of the planetary world, and in it the movement of the earth,
Copernicus must introduce into Astronomy the heliocentric point
of view. In order to discern the order of the Sense-world, and in
it the activity of our reason, the philosopher must rise to the criti-
cal (transcendental) point of view, from which the world of phe-
nomena is seen in Space and Time. The heliocentric view stands
in the same relation to the human abode as the critical view to
the human reason : the horizon of knowledge of the one extends as
far as the region of the heavenly bodies, that of the other as far as
Space and Time, or as the Reason and its boundaries. Kant became
the Copernicus of philosophy, and would he it. Our comparison is
one after Kant's own heart, and was employed by him, for he has
willingly and repeatedly compared his work to that of Copernicus,
as Bacon has his to that of Columbus.

We have just expressed the difference between the dogmatical
and critical way of thinking by saying that in the former the ob-
jects are assumed to be given, while, on the contrary, in the latter
it is asked, How have they originated ? Now, it is evident that no
object can appear or be realized in our reason without tlie aid of

236 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

our own creating activity. The view according to which things
are given us from without is therefore only possible when one
do3S not perceive, or does not know, or forgets the activity of his
own mind. This state of unconsciousness or self-forgetfulness
characterizes the dogmatic way of thinking. Not to know what
one does., and for that reason to regard our own work as an alien
product, is the very substance and explanation of the dogmatic
state. If this activity has its source deeper than our conscious-
ness, or, what amounts to the same, if it precedes the latter, then
it acts unconsciously, and the dogmatic view of objects becomes
the most natural thing in the world ; it is the first and immediate
way of Presentation, the refutation of which is possible only when
the unconscious production is revealed and raised into conscious-
ness. In this consists one of the most difficult tasks of the critical
thinking. If the creating activity is a conscious one, it can only
fall into oblivion through entire lack of reflection on our part ; but
the result will be the same, since in such a state of forgetfulness
we would regard our own work as a foreign product, only that here
the folly of the dogmatic notion comes immediately into view.
No one thinks the geocentric view of the world foolish until its fals-
ity has been perceived, but every one laughs at the man who was
greatly astonished that it had been discovered what the stars were
named! And yet the first error is just as dogmatic as the sec-
ond ; for they both follow necessarily from ignorance of our own
doings, only we cannot perceive the movement of the earth, but
are well aware that all nomenclature is a work of human inven-
tion. To one who does not know or forgets the latter fact, the
names of the heavenly bodies must appear like labels placed upon
them from without, which belong to them as signs to public
houses, and then it is certainly right to wonder at their telescopic
discovery.

Ignorance of one's own action is the innermost source of all
dogmatic bearing, of all the self-deception, blindness, and folly
exhibited in the choice of our aim and opinions in life. Knowl-
edge of our own action, or self-knowledge and self-refiection as
applied to the aims of a true science and to a philosophy of life, is
throughout the task of the critical thought. Kant has justly been
compared with Socrates. The point of agreement lies in the last-
mentioned characteristics. Self-knowledge, knowledge of one's

The Centennial of the ^^Criiiqxie of Pure Reason^ 237

own action as applied to the true human purposes of lite, was the
theme by which Socrates in the ancient and Kant in the modern
period made epochs in philosophy. They agreed in the manner
of statement of the problem, but entirely disagreed in the method
of its solution.

Our idea of the world has arisen unconsciously, and is therefore
by birth dogmatic. The natural consciousness continues to hold
firmly to the dogmatic position. The dogmatic philosophy rests
upon this fundamental view, and must have developed and ex-
hausted its systems in all possible directions before the critical
revolution could take place. It is therefore not surprising that
the epoch of the latter was not realized until more than 2,000
years had elapsed in the succession of human ideas. The dogmat-
ic philosophy is the historically developed presupposition of the
critical, as the Ptolemaic system is of the Copernican.

There exists in the course of development of every man, and
even of those who are called to the highest scientific discoveries,
a state of mind in which tlie dogmatic bearing is alone in conform-
ity to nature, and the critical is utterly impossible. One must
have knowledge of a multitude of objects, and have acquired a
wealth of presentations, before one can take an interest in their
production, and can ask the question. How have these objects
originated i One must possess Presentations before one can ask.
Whence do they come ?

When a story is related to a child, and he listens with eager-
ness and the closest attention in order to satisfy the wants of his
imagination, it never occurs to him to inquire, Where did this
story have its origin? Who is its authority and voucher? He
asks, indeed, whether the story is true, but not from any desire
for knowledge, but because heiuishes it to be true, since an actual
occurrence makes an entirely different and far stronger impression
upon the fancy of a child than an invented story.

Hence, he is easily and readily contented if he is assured the
account is true. For the same reasons, the simple popuhir belief
demands in religious things the actuality of the entire sacred his-
tory, and receives any dhninution of the historic reality, -or any
mythologic method of explanation, as a weakening of the sublime
impression and an unsettling of belief.

When pictures are shown to a child, his attention is entirely

238 The Journal of Speculative Philosojphy.

taken up with the objects presented. He breaks forth in ex-
clamations over the picture, and wants to know what is rep-
resented, but does not ask by whom ? If we tell him the woman
in this painting is Mary with the Child Jesus upon her arm, he
is fully contented. That the painter is named Raphael signifies
nothing to him. He will not ask, Is it genuine or spurious? Copy
or original ? Such questions cannot enter his mind, for they pre-
suppose Presentations which the child has not and cannot have.
One sees how necessary and indispensable is the dogmatic way
in the enlargeiyient of our world of presentations, and how incon-
sistent and ridiculous would be the demand to think critically
from the commencement. Just as the dogmatic philosophy is
necessary and indispensable in the progress of human ideas, so
likewise is the critical philosophy impossible in the beginning
of a philosophic contemplation of the world.

IS^ot merely the presupposition but the object of the Critique
is our knowledge of things in their inborn dogmatic condition.
Clearly, the fact of knowledge must exist before ; and, in order
that its possibility and legitimacy can be investigated, it must be
given, or originated, in uncritical ways apart from reflection, in
order to call forth the question. How is it given ? The critical phi-
losophy stands, therefore, to our natural (dogmatic) knowledge of
things (the latter being taken in its widest signification, which in-
cludes also the dogmatic philosophy) as physiology to life, optics to
seeing, acoustics to hearing, grammar to speech. By a false rever-
sion of this relation one can easily ascribe to the critical philoso-
phy a folly which would be as nonsensical as if it meant or must
mean that a knowledge of things must be delayed until we have
grounded it by explanation and proof; that one must first fathom
how one knows before one can venture with the faculties of
cognition into the stream of things. Truly, Kant would then, as
Hegel has sarcastically suggested, be like that man who would
not go into the water until he had learned how to swim. To
hold to our comparison of the natural knowing with the swim-
ming, Kant is to the one what Archimedes, who discovered the
laws of swimming, is to the other. When we heed well the
succession of our perceptions and cognitions, they are obvious
enough : first the natural seeing, then the optics, then the dis-
ciplined, tested, critical seeing whereby we are made conscious of

The Centennial of the '•'■ Critique of Pure Reason.'' 239

all the unavoidable optical illusions, and of all the phantoms of

appearance. The natural seeing is the subject of optics, the critical

is the result. Entirely similar is the succession of stages in the

development of philosophy : first the natural knowing and the

dogmatic systems, then the critique of the reason, and from this

proceeds a trained, instructed, and regulated knowledge, which

pierces the self-illusions of the reason or the dogmatic phantoms,

and avoids . all systems and artifices of knowledge founded upon

them. "When Kant, in this sense, cried Halt to the continued

working and experimenting of a certain metaphysics, he would

not, to use once more the foregoing figure, warn against the

swimming in the water, but against a neck -breaking flight through

the air.

YI.

The problems of the " Critique of the Keason " must have con-
formed to the age from which it proceeded, and it is, therefore,
befitting for us at its Centennial to realize its historic character
and the course of the inquiry wdiich this has determined. For
this purpose, let us inquire into the state of philosophic knowledge
■which Kant saw before him. I refer to the dogmatic systems,
which the modern era since the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury had produced. They are founded entirely upon the require-
ments of the natural knowdedge, and are understood through the
latter without a learned prolixity.

The natural reason, with confidence in its powers, demands a
cognition of things by one's own impartial and unprejudiced re-
search. This point of departure is true for the whole of modern
philosophy. That it goes courageously to work with good faith
in the natural light of reason, gives it its dogmatic and natural-
istic character.^ But in this way a controversy arises Avhich
necessitates a separation into opposing directions in the course of
development of philosophy. The only way of knowledge as
Tiewed by the one is a sensuous and rightly guided experience
and observation, and, by the other, clear and distinct thought
independent of the sensuous perception. We name the first kmd
of philosophy Empiricism, the second nationalism. The legiti-
macy of empiricism is self-evident; that of rationalism is, that
through sensuous perception we perceive things only as they ap-
pear in our organs of sense, and not as they are in reality, or in

240 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy/.

themselves independent of these organs. The clear and distinct —
that is, self-evident — thought consists in a constantly progressing
series of proofs and deductions after the example of mathematics, .
and must therefore be based upon immediate and certain axioms
or principles, from which all the rest follow. Such a teaching of
principles is called Metaphysics; and hence Rationalism is devel-
oped in a series of metaphysical systems. The entire contro-
versy of modern philosophy, accordingly, oscillates between Meta-
physics and Experience, and Kant would be the judge that in-
vestigates and settles this suit in his " Critique of the Reason."

Bacon had founded Empiricism in two epoch-making works —
" De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum " (1605), and his " Novum
Organ um " (1620). He described the way of experience, the induc-
tive method, which leads from the perception of facts to the
knowledge of causes, but did not investigate the elements in which
experience itself consists. This problem Locke solved in one of
the weightiest and most potent works in modern philosophy, his
" Essay concerning the Human Understanding " (1690). He
established the position of Sensualism, which is, that all experi-
ence is perception, external and internal (sensation and reflection),
and all objects of perception are ideas or impressions of the outer
and inner sense. But, it will be asked. What are impressions ?
Here arises a new contrast within Sensualism ; impressions are
either only perceptions (presentations), and then all our objects
of cognition are ideas, and there are, in reality, only the perceiv-
ing and perceived existence, only spirits and ideas; or they have
a purely material nature, are changes in matter, and then there
exist, in fact, only matter and movement. The first view is
called Idealism, and the word ought, in the first place, to designate
only this standpoint, which Berkeley established (1Y10-'13) ; the
second view is called Materialism, which the French Philosophy
worked out in the last century, and completed in the " Systeme
de la nature " (1770). There is still a third inference. If all the
objects of conception are only impressions, they are composed of
single phenomena, without a universal and necessary bond ; then
every sort of connection is made by ourselves and strengthened
by habit, and thus without the objective and valid worth of
knowledge. There exists, then, after all, no true knowledge.
This is the standpoint of Scepticism, which David Hume, one

The Centennial of the '-^Critique of Pure ReasonP 241

of the most sagacious of the men who spranf^ from the phih)so-
phv of experienc?, set forth in his " Treatise on Human
Nature" (1739), and his "Enquiry concerninor Human Under-
standing" (1748). Of all the earlier investigations, these liave
exercised upon Kant the greatest influence. Hume proved that
a true knowledge of things was nnexplained, inexplicahle, and
impossible, hy all the previously made presuppositions of philoso-
phy, and thus he caused the question to he more profoundly and
searchingly made than heretofore: How is the fact of knowledge
possible?. First the scepticism, then the criticism ; first the great
Bophists of antiquity, then Socrates! "Without Berkeley, no
Hume; without Hume, no Kant," said Haraann ; and Kant has
himself affirmed that Hume was one of the weightiest of his prede-
cessors, if not the weightiest. The first reviewer of the " Critique of
the Reason" did not know how to discriminate correctly between
Berkeley and Kant. When Kant wrote the '* Prolegomena," for
the explanation and defence of his "Critique of Pure Reason," he
wrote in the Introduction: "I frei'ly acknowledire tliat it was
a suggestion made by David Hume which niany years ago first
awoke me from the dogmatic slumber, and gave to my researches
in the field of speculative philosophy an entirely different direc-
tion."

If, then, the philosophy of experience has led, in the way here
described, to scepticism, whither has rationalism tended on the
opposite side? I will answer briefly, and allow the diffei'ent meta-
physical systems which have here been set up to so come under
the natural light of reason that their theme wnll immediately
be made evident. There are three principal systems, each ruled
by a fundamental view, which the state of the world forces upon
the unprejudiced mind with all the strength of natural truths.
These truths are : 1. The opposition between conscious and uncon-
scious being, betv/een spirit and matter; 2. Tiie necessary and uni-
versal connection of all things, in spite of that opposition ; 3. The
continuous gradation which suffers no break in the nature of
things, and adjusts all dissimilitudes by gradual transitions. The
first idea filled and controlled the teaching of Descartes; the
second, the system of Spinoza; the third, that of Leihnitz.
These are, as it were, the three words of the natural istically con-
ceived metaphysics before Kant. There exists no fourth. Now,
XVII— 16

242 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

since each of these primitive truths comes to the natural under-
standing, it will strive involuntarily to unite all three, and to
avoid only those conclusions which are in opposition to it and its
experience; it affirms, with Descartes, the absolute distinction of
soul and body, but without reasoning that then all bodies must be
powerless, and all beasts sensationless ; it affirms, with Spinoza,
the universal causal connection of things, but without disavowing
the value of aims and powers that conform to purposes in the
world ; it affirms, with Leibnitz, the continuity of things, but the
principle upon which his teaching rests — that all existence con-
sists of representative units of power (monads)— appears to it
paradoxical and contrary to experience.

The outcome of all this is evident. A combination of meta-
physical systems will be striven after, which will harmonize with
and stand the test of experience — a universal system which satis-
fies the requirements of cognition and settles all controversies,
not barely the strife between the metaphysicians, but also that
between rationalism and empiricism, between metaphysics and
experience. This system of the demanded eclectic kind, matured
with the amplest clearness, composed methodically, and set forth
in pure German, is the undeniable and weighty service which
Christian Wolff has performed for the philosophy and culture of
his time as of his people. He founded the school from which the
Oerman professors of philosophy of the last century went forth,
among them the first teachers of Kant.

The effect of the Wolffian teaching, however, extended farther
than school and chair. What lay at its foundation and formed
the peculiar active force of this system, which was methodically
set forth, was by no means a philosophic profoundness, that dis-
covers concealed truths and works them out regardless of conse-
quences, and unconcerned as to what experience and the common
consciousness say thereto ; but it was this very common con-
sciousness with its experience, the so called " common sense,"
which feels itself secure in the possession of its natural truths,
and does not sacrifice any one of these, for the sake of consistency,
for a philosophic fancy of the school, or for any artificial system
of thought. Nothing was, therefore, more natural than that the
eclectic mind, together with that of the " common sense," should
seize the rudder of philosophy, should strip off the chains of

The Centennial of the ''Critique of Pure Reason^' 243

the Wolffian system, which the master had worn witli so much
^randezza, and should now appear as a popular philosophy,
as a philosophy for the world, in opposition to the school.
Such was the character of the German " Clearing-up," whicli was
in sympathy with Kousseau and the Scotch school, and which
belonged to the second half of the last century, tluis immediately
preceding the critical epoch. Kant has always taken this popular
philosophy, into consideration.

The outcome of the philosophy of experience was the Scepti-
cism of Hume. This called forth, in opposition to itself, the Scot-
tish school, in the philosophy of " common sense " introduced by
Thomas Reid (1764). The outcome of Rationalism and of Meta-
physics was Eclecticism. This made and dissolved the system of
Wolff. From it also proceeded the German Clearing-up, which
harmonized in spirit with the Scotch school. This kinship of spirit
was made known by the noble Christian Garve, one of the most
influential thinkers and authors of the German Aufklaerung^ in
his translation and exposition of " Ferguson's Moral Philosophy "
(1772), and also of the celebrated standard work of Adam
Smith. His "Ferguson" was highly stimulating to Schiller, then
a pupil in the ducal military academy, and exercised a remark-
able influence on the formation of his early philosophical ideas.
The representatives of the German Clearing - up held all oppo-
sition to the sound common sense as absurd, and all discord be-
tween head and heart as a sign of mental wandering. The elu-
cidation of natural truths is their theme, the diffusion of this light
is their mission, the popularizing and beauty of instructive speech
is their task. It must be acknowledged that men like Moses
Mendelssohn, who was, in his time, the most celebrated among the
philosophers of the German " Auf klaerung " ; like the gifted but
early deceased Thomas Abbt, who began to employ, with great
success, the style of the essayist, after the example of the French
and English, and in conformity to the tasie of the age; and like
John Jacob Engel, who was the contemporary and friend of Garve,
and the polite literary leader of the common sense— have recognized
and fultilled these functions. Over against the extremes of philoso-
phy, these contrasts between Dogmatism and Scepticism, between
Rationalism and Empiricism, between Idealism and Materialism,
stands the German Clearing-up, in the same relation as in Engel's

244 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy .

"Philosoph fur die Welt" Mr. Tobias Witt stands to the ex-
tremists in his neighborhood, who ruined their cause every time, in
that they always, by their method of speech and action, became
extravagant in opposite directions. "I, who have always lived
midway between two modes of speech," says Tobias Witt, '' I have
taken notice of both modes, and now I speak, according to the
time and occasion, sometimes as Mr. Grell, and at other times as

Mr. Tomm."

VII.

There is no doubt but tliat the so-called common sense, with
its natural truths, has an actual influence, and rules the world ia
spite of all systems and doubts of philosophers. The full impor-
tance and recognition of this fact can no longer be doubted. But
certainly the question upon the decision of which the advance
of philosophy depends is, whether, in the recognition of common,
sense, its own establishing is precluded, or is not, rather, demanded ?
Whether our common consciousness ought to be the last of all
foundations, or not, rather, the iirst of all problems in philosophy?
The men of the Scottish school, as of the German Clearing-up,
took "common sense" for a basis, and asserted its truths to be
the fundamental facts and the guide in all philosopliizing. They
desired to return to the point which preceded, in the origin of
modern philosophy, the schism between Empiricism and Ration-
alism. Such a retrogression of things is, however, always impos-
sible, and, when striven after, appears only as a forced and un-
successful attempt. The next advance of philosophy demands
that the common sense, with its so-called natural knowledge, this
presupposition of dogmatic cognition, cease to be regarded as
the basis of philosophy, and be made into the tirst of its problems
— into the object of its investigation.

This Kant has done. How is the fact of our common or natural
consciousness possible ? The fundamental fact of the dogmatic
becomes the fundamental question of the critical philosophy. An
advance more simple or more in accordance with the law of intel-
lectual development could not be conceived. The dogmatic phi-
losophy with all its marked contrasts and the eclectically conducted
Clearing-up with its labored adjustments indicate, in the clearest
manner ))ossible, the task of the " Critique of the Reason " and the
aim of its research. The systems of knowledge independent of

The. Centennial of the '-Critique of Pure Reason:'' 245

and in conflict with experience havino; failed, the cognition of
things in full harmony with experience ia the end sought, the
problem to be solved, and the thing to be explained. If those
conditions in the organization of our reason are disc:)vered and
pointed out which create exp-jrience in its universal and scientitic
validity, but which cannot produce any other kind of knowledge,
then the aim is attained, and the problem is solved which Kant saw
before him. The general theme of the " Critique of the Keason "
lies, therefore, in the question. How and under what conditions is
knowledge in conformity with experience? how is experience as
science, methodically arranged experience, possible? Since, now,
all experience consists in the uniting of the objects of our percep-
tion or of phenomena, the theme of the " Critique of Pure Reason "
divides itself into three main problems : 1. How can sensations give
rise to Phenomena? 2. How can phenomena give rise to Experi-
ence? 3. How can the truths of experience give rise to Science or
a methodically arranged knowledge of the phenomenal world
which unceasingly progresses, ever widens its sphere, and con-
stantly strives after the unity of a totality, althougli it never attains
to the perfection of the finished whole? These originations are
the creation or work of the reason, and are produced, in the first
instance, through the intuitive, in the second through the thinking ;
in the third through the ideal-giving faculty. Manifestly these
powers and doings are so related to one another that they together
gradually produce knowledge in conformity with experience. The
intuitive reason (Space and Time) transforms our impressions into
phenomena, and thus furnishes the material which the under-
standing (through its power of uniting concepts) changes into
truths of experience, which latter again offers the material for the
reason to transform into Science or to systematically employ in its
strivings after an arranged and perfected unity. This is not the
place to discuss at length the solution of these three ])roblem?, the
second of which proved the most difiicuit; but we have ])lainly
enough before us, as in the whole issue of the " Critique of the Rea-
son," the development of the Reason, or the unfolding and intensi-
fying of our faculties of cognition as impelled by the desire for
knowledge.

246 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUL AND ITS IMMOE-

TALITY.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CARL FRIEDRICH GOESCHEL's " PROOFS OP THE IMMOR-

Chapter II — {Continued).

Personality, or the Immanent Development of the Soul and its

Immortality.

1. At the very first the soul is seized as fortuitous, ungrounded
unity, placed in the outward world, immersed in its own outer
body ; consciousness is apprehended as the distinction or direrap-
tion into inward and outward, the Ego and the non-Ego, the
knowing of self and its other; spirit is seized as the mediated
necessary unity of the Ego and the non-Ego developed out of the-
double consciousness and grounded in itself. The task to which
we now address ourselves is to learn more definitely the content
of these different stages, and simultaneously to search out, step by
step, what occurs in the progressive unfolding of the soul, and how
in this unfolding the content of the soul is revealed.

2. It is not a brilliant paradox, but the simple truth, that the
immortality of the soul demands the death of the soul. The
soul, as soul — i. e., the soul in its immediate undeveloped phase —
must die like the body; as soul, the soul cannot persist. The
soul must not love its life, but give up its life, in order to win it
again as thought in Reason. Its life is the naivete of immediate
unity, which, having no consciousness of otherness, neither knows
nor fears anything external to itself. Its death is the resurrec-
tion of consciousness; henceforth it is burdened with its other;
unity is shattered, opposition is given with object; upon the one
side is the Ego, upon the other the non-Ego ; thus consciousness is
itself double and contradictory ; consciousness of itself and con-
sciousness of its other. Herewith, however, consciousness transfig"
ures itself. For in hiowing the other it cancels its separation from
the other; the other of which it is conscious belongs to it quite
as well as the self of which it is conscious. Through insight inta
the Identity or Continuity of subject and object the conflict of

The Development of the Soul and its Iminortality. 24T

consciousness is overcome, and the death of consciousness is the
birth of the spirit. Spirit is the transfiguration of consciousness;
the reconciliation of subject and object. In the spirit, soul and
consciousness are born again, and this new birth is a translbrnia-
tion in which the self-consciousness in consciousness is both posi-
tively and negatively cancelled.

3. In exact accord with this double-dying is the famous, hat
grossly misunderstood, distinction of Aristotle between the mortal
-\|rL»^r; and the immortal vov^ ; for the voii^ is realized only as the
external existence of the '^vxn is annulled. Its reality is thought ;
this reality is immortality, for death lies not before it, but be-
hind it.

4. It is worthy of remark that the oldest Greek fathers, Jus-
tin Martyr, Tatianus, and Theophilus, in accord with the scrip-
tural trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit, promulgated the identi-
cal doctrine of the soul which we have been defending, and
recognized the same categories, though they seized them under
the form of sensuous representation. They taught nwrialem ent
anirnam / notwithstanding, they rightly opposed the heathen, whor
seeming to propound the same doctrine, meant the annihilation of
the spirit and denied the persistence of self-consciousness. There-
fore the fathers added, " but the soul (-f ux^) shall rise again with
a mortal body, for the spirit is imperishable and gives life " iirvevfia

d<j>dapTOl> ^COOTTOLOVV).

5. Throughout it is the spirit which, first in the phase of exist-
ence, and then in that of consciousness, invisibly rules the soul
until finally it realizes itself and manifests itself in its own j.roper
image. First it appears as said in and with the body, hence as
individual: this is the anthropological sphere. In the second
sphere, that of phenomenology, it appears as sul)ject, hence as
consciousness. The subject is distinguished from the simple indi-
vidual in that the latter only reproduces the species, while the
former is subject only in so far as it is a self. But is not the
subject, like the individual, subordinate to the otherness to which
it opposes itself ? We behold it die as the soul enters its third
phase ; the onlv question is, what elements of the previous phases
does this third phase take up into itself? At first we reeognizo
in the soul's progress and transition only this much, that in the
third or psychological sphere the sv)irit appears in its own i.n.i>er

2i8 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

image, for it has transcended the external, which stood opposed to
it, and has reconciled and taken up its object into itself. There-
fore it can have lost nothing of its essential nature ; it must have
saved out of its firc-t period its individuality, out of the second
period its self-consciousness; it has mediated both individuality
and self-consciousness, and added to them all that they Lacked.
Thus as Spirit it is all in all ; the realized form of the Universal, it
is conscious at last of the wealtli it has always possessed.

6. We have now attained a point of view from which, in accord
with the content of the Spirit, we can pursue our inquiry into the
further destiny of the Spirit. Its beginning was immediate; that
is to say, it came to the knowledge of itself and of its other with-
out knowing how it came ; whence it came it knows not even yet.
Although it has found a beginning in itself as individual, yet this
y&c^ beginning, through its contingency and immediacy, points to
an origin outside of itself. As this contingent beginning led to
thought, it must have come out of thou2;ht. Consciousness can-
not rise out of the unconscious. Because the spirit is thinking
activitv, it is able to trace itself back to its immediate orisrln.
And conversely this immediate origin points necessarily to an ul-
timate origin in thought. It is worthy of remark also that the
Individual does not make his beginning; he ox\\j finds it in him-
self; this beginning points, therefore, to a higher origin. But
this is as yet not found, nay, rather, it is found in the Result.

Y. As realized in spirit, the soul has cancelled the opposition of
subject and object. It has mediated itself through its other —
taken up its other into itself. The end it has thus attained is,
however, only a relative, and corresponding to the relative begin-
nine; from which it moved. Its tinal end and ultimate origin
must lie in this other through which it has mediated itself. For
obviously this other, considered relatively to the spirit, is either
subordinate to it or equal with it (in both of which cases opposi-
tion cannot be cancelled in identity and the beginning remains
unfound) ; or finally it is that in which the spirit (which up to
this point has progressively developed itself before us), moving
backward, finds its origin — moving forward, finds its goal

8. If the spirit is a mediated somewhat, and has become con-
scious of this mediation, it must recognize itself more definitely as
finite spirit, and its other, through which it is mediated, as Abso-

The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 249

lute Spirit. It cannot really recognize itself as spirit without
recognizing itself as finite spirit: as finite spirit its nature is its
relationship to Absoluts Spirit, in which it tiucls its condition jind
its truth— that without which it could not be and that toward
which it endlessly strives.

9. The soul is now spirit, i. e., it has developed itself into Con-
scious Unity with God and the World ; it is, however, finite spirit,
for it finds its beginning as something given, and has its bejrin-
ning in time. The Absolute Spirit posits itself from eternity ;
the finite spirit is through the Absolute Spirit.

10. Wo took the soul as we found it for our initial point. We
found that the soul had a beginning in its own nature and de-
veloped itself out of itself. This nature of the soul was, however,
fiomething given ; thus really we plunged at once in mcdias res ;
we had not the ultimate or primitive origin of the soul : this ulti-
mate origin can only be the frnal result, which, moving from our
given starling point, we shall attain. Beholding the soul deter-
mine itself successively as Individual, as Subject, and as Spirit,
we are led to the ultimate Ground or Origin which we presup-
posed in the earlier stage of our inquiry.

11. Just because the ultimate ground of finite being is Absolute
Being, we must, froiii any given starting-point, reach Absolute
Bsing. The soul does not develop arbitrarily into something dif-
ferent from itself, but moves from its finite beginnintr toward the
Absolute Ber!:inning, which is also its oriojin and goal. The im-
plicit idea of the finite spirit is Mediation, i. e., identity with and
through the Absolute Spirit ; to make this implicit idea explicit
is the soul's development. The finite spirit is in the Absolute
Spirit, and the x^bsolute Spirit in the finite.

12. The ground of the finite spirit is the Absolute Si)irit, and
the Absolute Spirit is the spirit which has its ground in itself.
That which is its own ground must be also the ground of the finite
or dependent, whence it follows that tli3 finite spirit piirtakes of
the Infinite Spirit.

13. The recognition of God as Absolute Spirit, or Causa Sui, is
not simply a formal postulate — i. <?., it is not a postulate which
lacks reality and with which we try to satisfy ourselves merely
because we can go no farther. It is not a fiction of the mind set
up as a tranquillizing conclusion to the endless, restless series of

250 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Thought. Rather has our inquiry yielded the result that in the
finite spirit God realized himself, for the developinent of finite
spirit ends with the recognition of God as the Absolute Spirit^
whose presupposition is necessary to its own being as spirit,

14. The spirit is that which is Causa Sui — i. e.^ the spirit can
have its presupposition only in spirit. The presupposition of finite
spirit is therefore necessarily Absolute Spirit. It follows that the
Absolute Spirit produces itself in itself in the same manner in
which the spirit made in its image develops itself.

15. The deeper insight is this, that from eternity to eternity
God produces himself in Himself, in that out of the Universal
through the Particular he becomes Individual. The Individual
is so entirely the truth of the Universal and the Particular that
they both become Individual through an individualizing or de-
termining process. For both Universal and Particular are limited,
determined, or individualized by the limit which separates them
from the Individual, or rather from eternity to eternity they de-
termine themselves through this limit as individual. Secondly,
the individual is Spirit by means of union with subjectivity from
everlasting to everlasting : for Spirit is the truth of individuality
and subjectivity in the sense that these latter are complete only in
their union as Spirit. Thirdly, Spirit as such is not only a Total-
ity complete in itself, but it is reflected as a totality in each of the
Moments of its Self-determininoj activitv. Each of the Moments
of the Total is therefore itself a totality penetrated by and mir-
roring the whole. Through this reflection the spirit realizes itself
or determines itself as personality. To recapitulate : The finite
depends upon and implies the Infinite. The Infinite has the
form of self-relation 'or Universality. The Universal is the true
Individual. The Individual has the form of self-conscious Spirit.
The realization of self-conscious spirit is Absolute Personality.
Personality is inclusiveness — transparency — that which penetrates
all and is penetrated by all.

16. Thus the ternary process of life develops itself three times
within the essence of God, therein cancelling numerical differ-
ence. In its first phase it appears as Universal, Particular, and
Individual ; in its second phase, as Individual, Subject, and Per-
son ; in the third and final phase, as that which determines itself
in itself — as that which is determined by itself, and as selt'-com-

The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 251

municating person proceeding again out of this determination.
Herein God realizes himself as Absolute Spirit, which is its own
object, and which realizes this object through itself.

17. Consequently the Absolute Spirit not only engenders him-
self within himself, but also creates outside of himself iiis complete
image. This image, through the force of his absolute personality,
he penetrates and concretely realizes. This perfect image is the
finite spirit.

18. The finite spirit is also spirit; it is essentially spirit ; con-
sequently it proceeds from spirit — i.e., from the Absolute Spirit.
It is the. created image of God. The finite spirit, as spirit, par-
takes of the Absolute Spirit ; it diff*er3 from the latter in that it is
created and finite. Like the Creator, it is a self — but a created
self. This implies that its destiny is to realize itself through a
progressive self-unfolding. To this end the first requisite is per-
sonality, or the flowing union of the finite with the Infinite Spirit.
This personality is seized as the Unity of Thought or Spirit —
Spirit is one j that is to say, first. Spirit is the only reality;
outside of it there is nothing real. Second. Spirit itself is Unity ;.
for, as there is nothing outside of spirit, spirit cannot be outside
of itself. Spirit is not a number, to be distinguished from a pre-
ceding or following number; so it is contradictory to speak of a
plurality of spirits coexistent or successive. As personal, spirit
is always emphatically one and the same. Upon this insight rests
the philosophy of Aristotle, and upon the gross misapprehension
of this insight rests the absurd accusation brought against him,
that he attributed to the whole of humanity a single soul, con-
ceived as existing external to ail men, and yet the common prop-
erty of all.

19. As, in accordance with the foregoing, the finite spirit is pro-
gressively united with the Absolute Spirit, which is its ground, it
necessarily ascribes to itself pre-existencc, or, rather, an essence
prior to existence. Through this essence it must have developed
out of the Universal, through the particular into the Individual,
before beginning the individual development which up to this
point we have considered.

20. Held under the form of sensuous representation, pre-exist-
ence involves the contradiction of existing before existence. Tlio
speculative content of the doctrine, however, is, that pre-existence

252 The Journal of Sjyeculative Philosophy.

refers to the essence back of manifestation, the pure being back
of existence — the existence which underlies self-recognizing Being.
The truth of pre-existence is therefore essence, or ratlier poten-
tiality in God. Hence a procession out of God, which as proces-
sion is existence, or the eternally spoken Word. This procession
may be indicated as follows : Moving from God it manifests itself
first as Universal or the undetermined unity of Being and Naught
— thence it passer? through the particular, which is Becoming, into
Existence. God thinks it, and it is done ! The next step is, that
Existence should become Conscious Being, or, in other words, that
phenomenal existence should move forward into actuality.

21. Creation is essentially that which is brought forth out of
what is not, or pure being ; more adequately grasped. Creation is
Been to be divine in its orio;in. Creation must, however, not bo
identified with God ; it is rather the negation of the divine essence,
the contradiction of himself which God produces out of himself.
Just on this account, however, it is not the abstract contradiction
(?/, but the immanent contradiction in God. Inasmuch as Crea-
tion is essentially the externalization of God, his revelation of
himself outside of himself, it follows that, as existence, it is not
eternal, for only God is eternal in his existence. Consequently,
the contradiction of the divine essence must exist under the form
of time, although this contradiction as immanent essence is itself
eternal. It is therefore as essential to creation to have a begin-
ning in time as it is essential to God to have realized himself from
all eternity.

22. From this it follows that the soul of man, being ^w^^l3 spirit,
and belonging to creation, has as phenomenon its beginning in time.
As essence, however, before its Manifestation in time it was inherent
potentiality in God.

23. From this insight follows still another result. If the soul,
as phenomenon, had its beginning in time, it must, as phenomenal
and external, have its end in time. So much follows logically
from our premise (and nothing more); and, though this result was
limited in a former stage of our inquiry, it is our duty to re-state
it herein the light of the deeper insight and more adequate deter-
mination to which we have now attained. Only the phenomenal
existence of the soul has an end, and it has this end only in time,
for only time ends; as the beginning of this existence in time finds

The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 253

its origin backward in eternity, so its end in time flows forward
and melts into eternity. Its origin in eternity was pure being and
essence ; the end of the soul as phenomenal existence must, on the
contrary, be the content which it has developed out of its essence
and existence.

24. All turns, therefore, upon the question whether the devel-
oped content of the soul is identical with the pure being in which,
before existence, it originated. Pure being is, however, nothing
but undeveloped being: therefore, the end of the soul is the nega-
tion of this beginning, for Soul realized is being developed into
Self-conscious Spirit. We must therefore say that what the soul
receives /rom- eternity undevel.)ped it takes back developed into
eternity. Time, whicli lies between, is the' developing proce.^.s,
and this development follows necessarily from the idea of created
being — which has defined itself a^ being externalized or projected
in time.

25. It has now become more glaringly evident that the immor-
tality of the soul depends upon the content it develops and reveals
in time. This renews the question, In what does this content con-
sist ? The cogency of this questicm is now definitely apprehended :
we must therefore study it more closely, and we are able to do this
because we have found in G^jd's self-revealing process the same
categories through wiiich the content of tlie soul develops itself.

26. Tile implicit being of the soul first realizes and reveals itself
as Individuality. To us, therefore, the soul appears first under
the form of Individuality; we recognize it first as Being which
is for itself. The content of this first determination is as follows :
As being for self, the soul, like every other object, is an individual ;
as soul it is the individual, the principle or essence of all individu-
ality, the germ of individualization or determination, the indivisi-
ble itself, simplicity and unity. This is the first relationship of
the soul— its relationship to the world. Tlie soul is to the world
as unity to the manifold— rather it is the unity which includes this
manifold in itself.

27. Through this reflection of the individual by the world is
tested whether the soul has its own true being in itself; i.e.,
whether it also reflects itself in itself. The soul meets the test by
developing itself into consciousness: the Individual becomes Sub-
ject. As subject, it is conscious not only of itself, but of its other ;

254: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

it knows this other as other, and therefore knows the difference
between itself and the other. As result of this first contradiction,
it becomes conscious of contradiction in each of the moments of
the contradiction, separating itself first into body and soul, and
secondly distinguishing in its other subject and object. Thus con-
sciousness finds itself in its other, and its other in itself. The
subject not only finds the object in itself, but also finds the sub-
ject outside of itself, and the truth or outcome of this subject in.
the highest or Absolute Subject. Thus self-consciousness culmi-
nates in the consciousness of God ; herewith the soul enters into its
relationship to God. But this relationship is still burdened with
alien elements ; consciousness is still divided against itself and the
contradiction unsolved.

28. Inasmuch as consciousness holds in itself not only ^f?//" but
the other of self, herein uniting the contradictory, inasmuch as it
finds the other in itself, and itself in the other, thus identifying the
opposites, inasmuch as finally it finds the Source and the outcome
of itself in the other, viz., in the Absolute Consciousness thus tran-
scending the contradiction, its process is one in which the contra-
diction posited is progressively annulled. The subject itself is
finally penetrated by the Absolute Spirit to which originally it
opposed itself; thus it rises into personality which must verify it-
self as penetrability. Thus the subject as person attains to partici-
pation with that which was formerly opposed it ; thus the soul
develops itself through consciousness into spirit which is essentially
tohe for the Spirit. Spirit as such is subject and object ; it has
no subject and no object but itself. There remains, therefore,
nothing but Spirit. What is not Spirit is not actual, but only a
moment of actuality, a vanishing element in the total self-mani-
festation of Spirit. Herein lies the distinction between Nature
and the Spirit. Nature manifests in isolation and fragmentariness
that which Spirit holds in indivisible Unity. Spirit is one ; it
grasps even Nature as a totality, which Nature itself can never do.

29. Through this identity of the human Spirit, the original
identity within the Absolute Spirit is realized or brought to con-
sciousness. On the other hand, the difference out of which spirit
proceeded is both negatively and positively cancelled. Both these
results are mediated through Personality, which, sounding forth
from God, rings through the Universe, and, resounding from the

The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 255

^finite Spirit, penetrated by the Spirit of God, echoes through all
the Spheres of Creation.

30. The soul is created by God ; that is, it is externalized—
posited as existence. This is its first phase. It is, however,
created to be Spirit, or, in other words, deternnned to be self-de-
termining. Therefore, it develops itself out of the conditions of
creature, out of the passive determination of existence, more exactly
out of being for self, or individuality, to consciousness ; out of con-
sciousness into Spirit, or Being in and for itself. This path which
moves from creation, which in its turn moves from God, leads
necessarily back to God, for, as God is Spirit, the goal of Creation
must be also Spirit. Herein this path of the soul's development
is seized as a Hegi^essus or return into God. ■ It is, however, also,
80 far as its content is concerned, a progress, for the soul does not
return into the essence under the form of which it was from eter-
nity in God, neither does it return to the form of its own imme-
diate existence in time, but it returns to God as the coni])letc reali-
zation of what it was created to be, in that, through this return into
God, it comprehends its own idea, and progressively unfolds it
without losing, in any phase of its development, a single element
of its realization.

31. The development of the soul is therefore not concluded with
its return as Spirit into God ; rather, it is essential to the idea of
Spirit that, through its individuality, it is and remains distinct
from God and from all creation ; that, through its subjectivity, it
is and remains conscious of itself, of God, and of all being ; finally,
through its personality it annuls its limitations, and, without detri-
ment to its finitude, persists and progresses into the infinite. The
persistence of individuality and subjectivity is also demanded by
the very idea of personality, which, as inclusiveness, implies, not
only the negative cancelling of finitude, but the taking up of fini-
tude into itself.

32. In the light of our attained insight we are now able to de-
fine more adequately the diflerence between the immediate unity
of the soul in its first appearance, and the mediated unity which
the finite spirit in its complete development proves itself to be.
The immediate unity of the Soul is not pure immediateness, for
the former implies at least the soul, while the latter is utterly de-
void of any determination. Pure immediateness is the uncon-

256 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

6cions abstraction from all distinction or determination ; it is the
undetermined void. When, however, tlie soul is seized in its im-
mediate unity, this unity may be more adequately defined as the
simplicity attributed to the soul, in so far as the soul remains after
all manii'oldness recognized as externality has been consciously
abstracted. To this simplicity we are led by the abstraction from
othernsss, which necessarily grows out of the recognition of other-
ness. For, when otherness emerges, we can at first transcend it
only by abstracting from it, thus conquering a footing outside of
it through which we secure ourselves against it.' Simplicity,
therefore, is attributed to the soul in consequence of a previous
abstraction from otherness based upon an antecedent recognition
of otiierness. Hence it is a mediated immediateness, and we
understand by simplicity that final inwardness which remains after
all that is outward has been abstracted, the last retreat into which
the soul as essence retires. Mediated unity, on the contrary, does
not abstract from otherness in order to preserve itself, but it pene-
trates and includes its other as it is itself penetrated and included.
The innnediate unity of the soul is itself still something external,
for it is that contradiction of the external which still feels the pres-
sure of externality ; the mediated unity, on the contrary, is imma-
nent, for the outward belongs to it.

33. Thus far, in speaking of the other with which the individual
spirit identities itself, we have referred to essential being as mani-
fested in Nature, in the world of spirits and in G-jd. We must,
however, also include otherness in the individual spirit itself.
This other, which belongs immediately to the individual spirit, is
the body. Spirit, in this aspect, is the identity of body and soul.

34. In speaking of the body of the soul we must again distin-
guish between the external body, from which the soul can separate
itself, and the internal body, from which the soul, being simple,
cannot separate itself, because it is immanent in the soul. It is
through this body that the soul is for itsef, and distinguishes it-
self from others. This body is also the soul's mediation, for with-
out an individuality of its own it could not ascend through con-
sciousness to that identity of subject and object in which it com-
pletes and reveals itself as spirit.

' A(is fjioi irov ffru.

The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 257

35. Through tlie abstraction of all that was bodily we attributed
to the sonl, in the first moment of its movement, individuality, or
rather the principle of all individuality. Tliie individuality' ig,
as it were, the protection of the soul's identity throughout the
difierent phases of the soul's self-external ization. As mentioned,
we seized individuality first by abstracting the body. In the
final phase of development, on the contrary, it is the body which
realizes and protects individuality and distinguishes one essential
being from another. For the body is otherness ' or negation, and,
as result of the identity of the inward and outward negation is
sliown to be implicit in the soul.

36. We have now a more adequate knowledge of the content
which has developed itself in and from the soul. It is the spirit.
And spirit consists, on the one hand, in the identity of the soul
with its body, and, on the other, in the identity of the spirit itself
with its object. It is through the identity of tlie soul with its
body that the soul preserves its individuality and its subjectivity
in its persona]it3^ It is through the identity of the spirit with
its object that the spirit preserves its personality in its freedom.

This result must be comprehended word by word, and in the
exact definition of each particular word ; only thus will it be rec-
ognized not as a formal result, but as the organic content both of
that original development whose course we have retraced, and of
the new development whose goal we have anticipated in intro-
ducing the element of freedom into the idea of Spirit. For the
moment, however, we must concentrate our attention on the dif-
ference between the identity of the soul with its negation and the
identity of the spirit with its negation. The former is the Spirit
in itself, the latter the Spirit outside of itself. In itself and out of
itself it is, however, always the same spirit.

37. It has been said that from the personality of the finite spirit
follows its freedom. To distinguish personality from the individu-
ality and subjectivity included in it, we have defined it as pene-
trability. Penetrability is that quality through which the finite
spirit enters into inward union and vital interaction with the

1 The German word Aridersseyn has been rendered " otherness " in this translation.
The reader will gather the import of the term from the context. The object in con-
sciousness is the otherness or other-being of the subject ; Nature is otherness to God.

XYII— 17

258 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Absolute Spirit, and tlirough this Absolute Spirit into union and
interaction with the whole created universe. Thus, nothing re-
mains external, or rather alien, to the spirit. Through personali-
ty, matter itself is penetrated by the spirit, which in the disjecta
membra of the material world recognizes itself. By virtue of this
personality, therefore, the finite spirit is seized as the totality of
all its moments which in Nature lie outside of each other, and are
united only in spirit. The spirit recognizes in its object itself as
other, herein cancelling alienation and revealing the nature of the
object. The spii-it penetrates all because it is itself penetrated
by the Absolute Spirit, Personality is, therefore, the outcome
of continuity or stability, the transfiguration of identity, and
the cancelling of contradiction in both a negative and positive
sense.

38. The essence of freedom is, therefore, identical with personali-
ty ; freedom is included in and conditioned by \\\q person. Freedom
of the spirit may be defined negatively as the negation of any
limiting or determining power alien to the spirit ; positively con-
ceived, it is the power of self-determination. Through personality
freedom is mediated in the finite spirit. For, though the finite
spirit is determined by the Highest Spirit, which herein manifests
itself as highest, yet this determining spirit relatively to the deter-
mined spirit is not an external, objective, alien force, but, only
through its personality, Absolute Spirit. Personality belongs to
the Absolute Spirit and to the finite Spirit. In the former it
is immediately active, in the latter, in its first phase, it is passive.
Hence, conformably to the essence of personality, there follow
reciprocal action and reaction. Consequently, it is no alien force
which acts upon the finite spirit.

39. The possession of freedom is the guarantee of immortality;
this is the logical result of the process of development. The in-
dividuality of the soul and the consciousness of the suhject are
preserved in the personality of the finite spirit through the free-
dom demanded by per.^onality. On the negative side, freedom
implies the disappearance of the negative power which threatened
per.-istence ; on the positive side, it iuiplies that the soul, as finite
spirit, is self-determinino', because determined by spirit. The con-
tinuous action of the Absi)lute Spirit upon the finite spirit must
make the latter increasingly self-determining. The complete

The Development oj the Soul and its Immortality. 259

penetration of the finite spirit by the Absolute Spirit would be
the Unite spirit's complete self-determination.

40. While, therefore, personality is secure from destruction and
certain of persistence through the freedom which belon<^8 to its
idea, it also guards and maintains within itself individuality, or
indivisibility, and consciousness. For it is implied in personality
that the moments out of which it emerges (Individuality and
Consciousness) shall each be included in their essence, though
transfigured in their form, just as the idea of spirit includes essen-
tially these same moments apprehended as soul and subject. The
indivisible has become penetrable, the individual has become per-
son, but that which penetrates through and through is not some-
thing alien and inimical to the individual ; consequently, it is
not destructive of individuality. In other words, individuality
could only be submerged in its abstract opposite; but this enemy
has disappeared, for what is is individual. So consciousness
could lose itself only in its opposite, abstract being, but conscious-
ness has emerged from being ; it is developed being — the truth or
outcome of being; it is penetrated by being; it has coalesced
indissolubly with being; therefore, consciousness can go over
only into universal consciousness, and in this it becomes clearer
and purer, like color in the light.

41. The persistence of the human soul has proved itself to be
essentially personal persistence — i. e.^ the finite spirit, as pene-
trating and penetrated, is in both active and passive union with its
other or the Absolute Spirit. The activity of the finite spirit is,
therefore, one of Erinnerung } Eecollection is twofold : it looks
backward and moves forward; it presupposes a source which it
remembers and demands— a goal toward which all its activity
shall tend. It is, therefore, both the internal principle of the
developing soul and the ultimate result of this development, viz.,
immortality itself. There is no point of time in which the soul
cannot remember a preceding point; hereupon rests the Platonic
psychology. There is, likewise, no point of time in which the
soul attafns to perfect and complete recollection. Such a point
would be the temporal end of the soul ; this temporal end would.

' Erinncrung means recollectioo, and in this place also a deepening of the soul in
self-knowledse— it is a sort of descent into one's self.

260 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

however, be eternity, i. e., the totality of all moments as acta-
ality. The reason that much seems accidental to the understand-
ing is one and the same with the reason that so much slips out of
the memory. Contingency is negated only through the appre-
hension of continuity, and things forgotten come again to the
recollection only when all things are seen in connection, as
moments in an inclusive process. From time to time there seems
to float before us, out of a primeval past, vague visions of things
known and unknown ; try as we may, we cannot make the vision
definite. Much of the past, which once was near and vivid, melts
into unconsciousness; much of the future, which tried to come to
us and could not, recedes into the invisible distance; but it' we
have forever lost the one, shall we never grasp the other?

42. It is worthy of remark, for it will aid us to orient ourselves,
that freedom, immortality, and Erinnerung are the more exact
determinations of personality which develop themselves out of
its contents and exhibit the relations of the finite spirit with itself,
and to all that is other than itself Thus, too, the prophetic long-
ing of feeling to njeet its loved ones beyond the grave, the hope
guaranteed by faith of conscious reunion before the throne of God,
determines itself in personality as a mediated concept. As faith
is not ashamed of the Gospel, so philosophy is not ashamed of the
childish representation of this reunion, but, in face of the sneer
and jeer of pantheism, seeks its ideal development. This childish
representation is one stage of the development, though a low
stage. The spirit transcends it as it learns to distinguish the false
from the true selfhood.

43. But in mortality there is not complete penetration, for the
body unj)enetrated by spirit decays. This is one side of death ;
the other is, that penetration becomes complete in the resurrection,
which is nothing else than the penetration of the body, the filial
cancelling of contingency, and the transition to an eternally pro-
gressive reflection and reciprocal penetration.

44. The resurrection is the consummation of the soul's beatitude,
for it leaves nothing foreign and impenetrable to the soul standing
over against the soul. The last enemy has been destroyed.
Herein, however, blessedness is only negatively defined. Posi-
tively defined, blessedness is not the pure light, but the fulness of
colors in the light and their reciprocal interpenetration ; in

The Development of the Soul and its Immortal Itij. 201

other words, the transfiguration of the body with the soul in the
spirit. There shall come a time, and it shall be for all time, when
one person shall, literally, be within another ; when each one of
US shall read in the other the hidden secret which, as yet, we
know not even in ourselves. All shall be transparent. Now, the
soul is clearer than the body — mens notior corpore ; the soul is
transparent, the body opaque. But the time shall come when
the body shall be completely penetrated, and one with the Soul
in the Spirit.

45. As the spirit, in the process of self-development and self-
realization, moves through three spheres, and only in the third
sphere attains its adequate form, so in each sphere it moves
through three phases, the third of which always includes the other
two, and therein develops (though always within the limits of
the special sphere) the enduring germ of immortality.

That what has been said may grow clearer, we must now again
(as demanded by the spirally progressive movement of the idea)
circle around our course from its remote beginning, thus develop-
ing a fresh content and a further completeness.

46. In the Anthropological Sphere the soul moves through its
natural existence or corporeality, and through its yet dreaming
internality, to its actuality which is attained when internality
comes to itself in the body. This Actuality is the unity and
individuality of the soul, manifested ^& feeling. Feeling is, there-
fore, the imperishable basis of " being in and by self."

In the sphere of phenomenology, the subjectivity which results
from feeling dirempts itself into the double consciousness, whose
unity is the Eeason of the Subject. Keason is thus the persist-
ence of beingyb?" self.

In the psychological sphere, the Spirit, which is the Concrete
realization of Reason, moves through its theoretical spliere in
which the object acts upon it, and through its practical sphere in
which it acts upon the object, to its tru.h or actuality, which
proves itself to be Personality, Personality consists in the active
and passive participation of the soul with the body in tiic Spirit,
and also in the communion of the finite Spirit witli the Absolute
Spirit, and with all other Spirits.

47. "With Personality is bound up, on the one side, Erinnerung,
-as the outcome of Feeling, and, on the other side, Freedom, as the

262 The Journal of 8peculative Philosophy .

outcome of Reason. The outcome of feeling is the unity of the
soul with its body in the Spirit, whence follows Immortality ; the
outcome of Reason is the participation of the Spirit in the cor-
poreal externality of Creation in which consists the Resurrection.
Both presuppose the Absolute Personality, and, consequently,
imply the beatitude of the soul as the corporeality of the Spirit
in the service of God.

48. The destiny of man, conformabl}^ to the idea of Creation
and its preservation, is essentially 'personal — i. e., man is called to
communion with God and with Creation. In so far as he, being
created, is not yet thoroughly participative, he is, neverthelcos,
capable of participation or Person in the process of becoming.
He loses the power of participation only in so far as he, in virtue
of the indwelling freedom of the Person, opposes himself to it,
falls away J^rom it, and obdurately persists in this fallen condition.

49. Obdurate persistence in isolation is evil; it is the opposite
of participation, which is good. It is defined more accurately as
" the flesh " — i. e., the relationship of the body to the soul has been
reversed; the body rules instead of serving; it hardens and
obscures the soul, instead of allowing itself to be penetrated by
the soul.

It has been stated that in Personality the unity of the soul
with the body in the Spirit is bound up as Erlnnerung^ and the
unity of the spirit with creation in the Creator is bound up as free-
dom, whence flow the immortality of the soul and the resurrection
of the body. Conversely, there is bound up with obdurate isola-
tion, on the one side, the rejection or expulsion of the soul from
participation, or, in other words, conflict between the soul and
body in the flesh ; and, on the other side, slavery and disobedience,
or conflict between the flesh and the spirit. From the enduring
discord between body and soul follow the progressive mortality
and impenetrability of the soul; from persistent alienation or
isolation results an endless future, already begun, of damnation in
slavery and disobedience. It is the "flesh" or the rebellious and
obdurate body which, reversing the relationship between soul
and body, darkens and degrades both ; the servant, to his own
shame, makes himself master ; the master falls into disgraceful
slavery, until the Redeeming Personality, descending in tlie form
of grace, ultimately lightens even this darkness and penetrates

Facts of Consciousness. 263

even this impenetrability, and restores to the soul blessedness, to
the body true corporeality, i. e., the freedom of obedience. For
corporeality is obedience, and, when the body has become one
with the soul in personality, obedience is converted, through par-
ticipation with God and creation, into freedom.

FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

•TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF J. G. FICHTE BT A. E. KROEQER.

Part Second. — Concerning the Praciical Faculty.

Chapter YII.
communication between free individuals as such. — the moral

LAW.

We have elaborated three main parts of the objective representa-
tion of the world : a system of Egos, a system of organized bodies
of these Egos, and a sensuous world. But our previous assertions
involved still another, fourth, poiTit. We have stated that not only
the body of a rational being, but also the product of its activity,
must be perceivable, and perceivable as such, by all other rational
beings ; and this absolute perception of the products of free beings,
as such, belongs to the objective representations of the world.
This perceptibility of the products, etc., we have established as a
mere naked fact of consciousness.

We have, thus, the prol)lem left us : to explain the possibility of
this fact from the totality of consciousness, and thereby to make
it a part of the system of that consciousness, since we do not
conceive consciousness as a mere collection of separate phenomena,
but as one in itself connected phenomenon.

1. Let us first determine the fact still cioser.

The individual does not, in point of fact, act as au individual,
but as the one life; his self-determination to act is, as we have
seen, a renunciation of his individuality, which rests upon the
mere free conception, and a self-abandonment to the objective
external power, which is the power of the one Life. Hence it is
not the individual, but the one life, which acts.

264 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

If this activity, or one of its products, is to be perceived,
the attention of the perceiving individual is requisite. But this
attention is also a renunciation of the individual as such and
a surrendering of itself to the objective thinking, as the one life.
Hence, it is also not the individual, but the one life, which per-
ceives.

In the above established fact, therefore, the one life acts upon
itself; and thus it seems fully explained and made comprehensi-
ble how it, as the life of consciousness, not only can but must be
conscious of itself in its activity ; precisely as individual life
becomes conscious of its individual freedom. The problem seems
solved,

2. Strict as this argumentation appears to be, and although not
every one might be able to point out its defect, I still hope that no
one will be satisfied with it. Indeed, I have made use of it only to
make the real point in issue more prominent. The defect in it is
this : It is quite true that the individuality is altogether pushed
back into the inner sphere of contemplation, and that it does not
occur at all on the field of objective world-contemplation, where
only the unity occurs. But what sort of a unity is this? It is
simply Sameness, but by no means a numerical unity. It is true
that the many are altogether the same, without any qualitative
distinction ; but they are not one in point of number. On the
contrary, rather, that Sameness is repeated many times, and this
manifoldness rather constitutes a separation. From this it fol-
lows that the established fact involves the following assertion :
One of those many individuals is to suspend the original Sameness
by absolute freedom ; it is to determine itself by actual activity
beyond that Sameness, which inner further determination will
probably image itself also upon a material product. But this
change is not onlj'' to effect the one individual, which actually
acts, but likewise at the same time all the repetitions of that indi-
vidual, separated as they are by numbers. That change, since it
is to be perceived by them all, is to alter the world-contemplation
of them all in the same manner as it has changed that of the free
originator of the change, in whom the change might be explained
from the contemplation of his inner freedom. The matter to be
made clear, therefore, is, how the inner absolute freedom of one
individual can change and bind the contemplation of all. It

Facts of Coiuciouftness. 2 OS

appears at once that the question is important ; and it can lie
seen why the question can be solved only by showing up a con-
necting link here, through which the numerical separation would
be suspended in the same way as the objective self-representation
of life suspended the qualitative separation, and by means of
which the life would be comprehended as numerically one, pre-
cisely as it has been comprehended previously as qualitatively one.
Kot until that link has been shown up can we justly say what we
prematurely attempted to say before — namely: that it is the one
life of consciousness, which acts upon itself, and that hence it must
necessarily be conscious of itself in this its activity. It is there-
fore our next task to find that link, since it alone can solve the
problem placed before us in the established fact.

This link will, of course, show itself to be a new fact of conscious-
ness, to which we must assign its place in the comprehension of
the totality of our phenomenon.

3. In order to fix the real point in dispute still more concisely,
and thereby, of course, to bring theclearnessof the solution nearer
to us, we shall compare it with the preceding point as follows :
We cannot proceed here as we did previously, nor can we hope to
deduce the link required here from the foregoing. Previously
thinking represented the reposing and dead power of life ; the
mere fixed being of that power; and the image of that power in
contemplation was nature. Hence, nature is as unchangeable as
its prototype; and not only is it not involved in, but it is down-
right contradictory to, the conception of nature to think in it a
change, a deviation from its eternal law, a new creation. Any-
thing like_this is altogether excluded by that thinking of a nature,
and is impossible. If, nevertheless, it should occur, it would be
possible only through a completely new principle of thinking,
utterly opposed to all previous thinking.

But this is precisely what our fact involves. Absolute freedom
of life is to make something real eveii down in the sqnsuous
world. Hence, something utterly new is certainly to be created in
that world. This follows neither from nature itself, nor from its
contemplation ; indeed, it is downright contradictory to nature.
Hence, the contemplation of this new creature must also be a ticw^
creature by an absolute hiatus, without any gradual transition of
the fixed contemplation of nature; not only not corresponding to

266 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and not explainable from the development of this contemplation
of nature, but in direct contradiction to it.

Still, in so far as this product is nevertheless to be visible within
the sphere of sensuous contemplation, this sphere itself will dirempt
into an unchangeable sphere, as the expression of the first think-
ing, and into a sphere changeahle through freedom.

(This, though in itself important and to be well pondered, is
for onr ])resent investigation merely collateral.)

4. Now, where do we propose to connect this altogether new
contemplation ?

We are well aware that we cannot proceed here as the material-
ist does, who is ready with the reply : " Why, these products of
freedom are simply in themselves" — how difficult he would find
it to defend this if he considered what he were saying! — "and
make impressions upon us, therefore, according to what they are ! "
The way of the materialist proceeds from the outward to the in-
ward ; ours proceeds from the inward. We must show up an in-
ward, which is contemplated in those products. Now, this inward
does not lie concealed, as we have seen just now, in the thinking
of the power, but in a new and higher, though perhaps not really
actual thinking, which enters consciousness. We shall call it for
the present X. This X is, in this series, the absolute first, and it is,,
like the previously pointed out thinking of the power in general^
represented in a sensuous world, and in contemplation represented
in a product of this sensuous world, as a new creation within it,

5. What kind of a thinking is this ? This product of the ra-
tional being outside of us is to appear as one of absolute origin, as
a new creation within fixed and established nature. Hence the
thinking which lies at its basis is also to appear as a new thinking,,
not proceeding from the series of preceding thinking, as the se-
quence proceeds from the ground, but as a thinking which is
absolute in comparison with all previous thinking. Furthermore,,
that product is not to appear as product oimy freedom — of mine,
the thinking individual. But now there is no immediate object
of inner contemplation at all except freedom ; hence it must be
freedom, which is determined by that i-equired thinking = X.
And, since it is not my own determination of freedom, it must be
a foreign determination ; hence a limitation of freedom.

Thus far we are clear; the only question is. What kind of a

Facts of Consciousness. 267

limitation of freedom is this? The power in general is altogetlier
determined; it is One ; it is altogether a totality, and the same in
every repetition ; and as such it is posited as existing ah-eady
through the previous thinking, and engrafted upon unchangeable
nature. But so far as that power extends, so far the freedom of
every repetition extends. The new tiiinking = X cannot be in
contradiction to this flunking; it cannot cancel a freedom posited
by the latter, in so far as it is thus lyosited through the latter. Hence
the thinking X is certainly not a limitation of freedom, in so far as
it can do something — in which respect alone freedom is posited
through the lirst thinking. Each repetition can do everything in-
volved in the power by virtue of the first thinking. Hence there
remains for the thinking X only a limitation of freedom through
freedom itself; X must renounce that freedom. The thinking X
would thus be a law addressed to freedom to limit itself throuirh
itself. Although freedom can do something by virtue of the first
thinking, it shall not (must not, ought not to) do what it can. X
is a prohibition of the use of a certain, undoubtedly existing, free-
dom. This absolute prohibition, as an inwardness — and made
manifest in the external contemplation precisely as the one power
of life was manifested previously — would produce in that contem-
plation a product of the freedom of a rational being outside of me,
just as that power of life produced in contemplation a nature with-
out any freedom at all.

6. Let us first express clearly the new discovery we have made.
Previously we said : Life, as one, has its determined power, and
can develop that power altogether and without any drawback in
every numerical repetition of itself. Now, however, we say : That
is true; but, nevertheless, there occur in the absolute thinking of
that life prohibitions to make use of that freedom in certain cases.
I add these words purposely, since I do not speak at all, as yet, of
the law in its unity, but merely of its single, transitory, and, as it
were, psychological utterances.

This prohibition occurs in the one life, and hence in all its
numerical repetitions.

We said above that the explanation of the fact under discussion
would force upon us the assumption of another fact. This new
fact has just been found. It is the appearance of a moral law—
though for the present manifested only in the form of proliibitiuns

268 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of certain utterances of freedom. This at the same time leads us
at once into a new chief division of our whole subject. We may
properly characterize the contents of that division as a higher
faculty ^'va. i-elation to M'hich the faculty treated of in our two first
divisions, both in its theoretical and in its practical form, is a
lower faculty.

Part Thikd. — Concerning the Higher Faculty.

Chapter I.

THE MORAL TIE BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS.

We have asserted this thinking of being able to do something —
which yet we are prohibited from doing — precisely as we have
previously asserted the thinking of the power represented in exter-
nal contemplation ; and as we posited the latter as a fixed world
of nature, so we posited the former as the product of the freedom
of free beings outside of the contemplating individual. We liave
shown how that thinking of a prohibition occurs internally, and how,
precisely on that account, the appearance of such a product of free-
dom occurs externally. We have further shown how that limita-
tion of freedom through the law does not need to enter into clear
consciousness, and that it does not enter consciousness in original
construction any more than tlie power of life did in the original
construction of nature, being merely the invisible ground of de-
termination of such a limitation of the productive power of
imagination, through which there arises for us the appearance of
a product of freedom of a free being.

But I say still more. We have actually deduced fixed nature
from an inner and higher principle; the existing power of life is
the ground of its existence and its determination. Have we de-
duced in the same way the system of Egos and their organized
bodies ? As a fact, we have established it also ; and we have, fur-
thermore, added the general deduction that, in this representation
of life, its unity, which was broken off in the individuality, is re-
stored. After that we closed with the general reflection that this
sum of Egos is infinite in its possibility, but ended and determined
in actuality. This last expression shows us what is lacking : the
determining ground of this objective contemplation of a system of

Facts of Consciousness. 2fi9

Egos outside of us, aud the principle, which limits tlie infinity of
such an image, have not yet been pointed out. The just dis-
covered thinking of a prohibition has furnished us this' lacking
principle. Whenever a proliibition makes itself felt witliin us-
er would make itself felt if we were to make the feeliufr clear to
our consciousness — not to act, because an expression ot freedom
outside of us is to be expected, there we posit a free being; and
wherever, together with the proliibition, that expression itself
appears to us, we posit a product of that free being.

"We have discovered that the use of freedom (the actual develop-
ment of the existing power of life) is subordinated to a higher law
addressed to inner freedom itself, in consequence of which the
latter is to determine itself through itself; Whether this law
appears in that unity and universality in which we have announced
it just at present, or whether it is, perhaps, in this its formal unity,
merely a conception produced by ourselves, does not concern us
here at all. We speak here merely of its single, tactically occur-
ring utterances of the single, determined prohibitions.

Concerning these we have found the following : The one life,
which is qualitatively one and the same, is separated into many
numerically different repetitions, each of which is possessed of the
entire One power of life. Let us assume that one of these repe-
titions should exercise a part of that one common power of life;
then there arises — immediately, absolutely, and as a new creation
— a prohibition, w^ithin all the other numerical repetitions, to
work against that exercise of power; a prohibition which, al-
though it does not necessarily enter consciousness, can, neverthe-
less, be always raised into consciousness by reflection, and which,
moreover, at any rate, exists in the inwardness of life and mani-
fests itself as principle in an external contemplation (of course,
only for him who attends, who transplants himself from out of
his own individuality into the sphere of unity). I say it is a
prohibition, not impotence. The individual can well enough, but
he shall not, must not do it. lie can do it physically, but he
cannot do it morally. Hence we certainly do maintain that the
freedom of the one individual does determine and form imme-
diately the freedom of all ; not immediately in a physical way,
however, but mediately, through the uprising prohibition, in a
moral way. Thus, then, the numerical separation has been can-

2Y0 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

celled, as was required, and the gulf, which remained between the
many sensuously, has been filled up morally, not by a physical,
but by a moral connection.

JS'evertheless, it is necessary, in order to throw full clearness on
the preceding, that we should first definitely establish the distinc-
tion between the physical and the moral nexus.

A physical nexus exists where a cause, immediately through
its eflPect upon itself, is also eflect upon another, where self-de-
termination, tiierefore, is at the same time determination of an-
other, and where this effect upon self, or self-determination, and
effect upon another, or detei-mination of another, are in their na-
ture one and the same. A material body, for instance, moving in
space, moves itself, of course, first of all ; and is, in so far, only
self-determination. But immediately through that self-movement
it pro])els everything, which resists it with less power, out cf that
space, which it enters. Its self-movement and its movement of
another aie absolutely one and the same, and there is no mediating
link. (In the same manner we regard our own free action upon
the material world. Our hand, for instance, propels something
immediately in accordance with a law, by moving itself according
to a law.)

A moral nexus, however, is one where another middle link
enters between the self-determination of the cause and the deter-
mination of another, which middle link, since it cannot be a
Being — whereby all nexus would be cancelled — must be a con-
sciousness; an immediate consciousness of that self-determination
of the cause in the other. Now, this consciousness of the self-
determination, and by no means the self-determination imme-
diately, as in the physical nexus, is to determine and limit the
other. How can this be possible? Is not consciousness freedom,
and determined consciousness freedom from that of which we are
conscious? As sure, therefore, as the other is conscious of the
self-determination of the cause, he himself must soar freely and
indifferently above it. He is limited by it must mean, therefore,
that he is called upon, on account of that consciousness, to limit
his undoubtedly existing freedom by his own freedom.

Now, such a moral nexus is the one which we have asserted —
one individual act which is a self-determination and remains as
such altogether and wholly in him. But immediately united with

Facts of Consciousness. 271

this self-dctevmination there arises an altogether general conscious-
ness for all individuals, which is accompanied immediately by a
limiting prohibition; and thus, then, as we intended, moral con-
nection has been establisiied between them all. Although their
separation in the physical world remains, nay, is rather only now
really confirmed, they are nevertheless all within the moral One,
and encircled by the law, which i)rohibits to all the same exercise
of freedom.

To speak popularly, this is the /i^a-t^s— evident to all, and
manifesting itself in the lowest consciousness — between free and
rational beings. In their physical nexus they are not to tread on
each other, treat each other as matter by pushing, knocking, or
beating each other. They are not to place thetnselves in imme-
■diate continuity, but to put consciousness and tiiought between
them and thus act upon each other. As representatives of this
reciprocal action we point out in the sensuous world light and
air^' which separate the immediate continuity, and make possible
mutual visibility and communication of thoughts through words.
JBoth are half-spiritual elements in comparison with solid matter,
which our body has not at all for other individuals, but solely
for the solid matter outside of us.

I said that the multiplicity of individuals are one through the
moral nexus, however separate they may remain in the sensuous
world. Nevertheless, an important question lemains unanswered
here which we shall by no means conceal. Our statement was,
that when one of the numerical repetitions of the one life acts free,
there arises absolutely a consciousness for all others, which pro-
hibits them to use their freedom adversely to that act. If this
transition is admitted, everything else that we have said follows
of itself according to our previous principles. But how is it with
the transition itself? How can the free self-determination of the
one effect and cause a consciousness in all the others? This surely
is the real point of the question. The present standpoint of our
investigation, therefore, is this: It is true that we have talcen life
from out of the sensuous into the moral world, and we have also
indicated the characteristic point of distinction between both; but
we still lack their connecting link.

' Compare Fichte's " Science of Rights " with this and all the preceding deduction of
individuality.

272 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Chapter II.

FULLER EXPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALITY.

1. Let US posit in advance of all possible utterance of freedom
an objective contemplation of the power of life generally, as a
manifestation in the contemplation of the world. That objective
contemplation must be in all regards one. There is no subject in
it at all, for that contemplation does not reiiect itself, but is a
mere objective existence of such a contemplation, a mere pouring^
out and a pure externality, without any inner essence.

Let us assume that an actual utterance of the power thus
expressed in contemplation is to be arrived at; how would this
be possible? Contemplation is scattered over the manifold and
opposite; its very essence consists in this. But the actual ac-
tivity of freedom is conditioned, according to what we said above^
by beginning in a simple point and moving onward from it,
according to the law of particular conditionedness. If an activity
is to be attained, therefore, the one life must first contract itself
from out tliat universality and scatteredness into a single point ;
and this it must do, of course, with absolute freedom.

Now, if such a contraction were to take place, what would be
the contracting factor? Evidently the one life; for nothing
exists outside of it. But what would be the result of the contrac-
tion ? It would be a limitation to the one point in the universal,
with abstraction from all other points; it would be that which
contracts itself precisely in this point ; which did not exist in the
general contemplation, but first arose into being through the
abs(^lute act of contraction, and which is thus enabled to become a
subject of reflection. It would be the possibility to reflect upon
the point thus given through the contraction, and to calculate^
according to the law of conditionedness, the causality which may
now emanate from it. In short, the result of such a contraction
would be that it would only make possible another contemplation,
based upon the first original fact of freedom, which contempla-
tion is the same we described above as internal, and as the
property of the individual. Hence, it originates the individual
itself, and the self-contraction of the One is the original actus
indiv id uationis.

FacU of Consciousness. 273

What is it, then, which makes and produces the individual?
Evidently the one life, by the contraction of itself. And what is
it, really, in the contemplation conditioned by and presupposing
the determined contraction, which contemplates and is con-
templated ; or, what is the Ego which occurs in it? It is the one
life, now entered into this form, however, and abandoning the
general form of externally gazing contemplation. Can the one
life return immediately from out of this form of contraction to
the general one of scatteredness ? Undoubtedly. The individual,
therefore, is not at all a special Being of Life, but a mere form of
it — and a. form, moreover, of its absolute freedom. The forms
exclude each other mutually; the life cannot be in one form and
in the same undivided act in another form ; but it can pass
from one into the other with the same one freedom, and remain
one and the same by means of that freedom. The one absolute
life changes itself into an individual without thereby losing its
freedom.

The individual is not a particular being, but an accidental
form. Hence the main proposition which we are trying to solve
— that the individuals, either as such, or, at least, as in their form
of existence separate numerical repetitions of the oneHife, repre-
sent just so many separated worlds, and that thus there is a gulf
between them which we must try to fill up ; this proposition is
now done away with altogether, and hence the whole difficulty is
removed. The immediate tie between individuality and univer-
sality is absolute, and remains always in the freedom of the life to
form itself either into the one or the other.

I add here, at once, the highly important general proposition,
that it is conditionedly necessary that the life should assume indi-
vidual form, the condition being — if it is to act. No acting
except in the individual form, since only thus does life concen-
trate itself into the point of unity, from which all acting must pro-
ceed. It is only in the individual form that the life is a practical
principle. But it is never necessary— I mean physically necessary
—that it should act, since it always acts with absolute freedom ;
and hence I say that the necessity is conditioned. It may be
different under the moral legislation, and it may there become
necessary to attribute to the individual form another than the
merely conditioned necessity.
XVII— 18

274 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

2. We have hitherto described the life in the individual form
as limited to the one point only in contemplation, and as sketch-
ing an image of its acting from out of this point. Let us assume,
now, that it determines itself to act, and acts really ; in virtue of
which of its two forms does it do this ? The life has power only
in its unity ; hence, as we have already remarked in the proper
place, it acts only as unity and only in this form. Again, a real
exercise of the power occurs only from out of a point of unity, and
by passing through a series of conditions. Life can comprehend
both only in its form of individuality. Life, therefore, acts in
virtue of both of its forms, both being intimately united. The
universal form furnishes the power in general ; the individual form
furnishes its determinateness, without which a factical utterance
of the power could never take place. The individual form is, in
reality, only the power of the conception and of a contemplation
in accordance with the conception ; in itself, it is not at all really
active. But since the spiritual life can be active only in accord
ance with a conception — for this is involved in the contraction
into the one point, as the last decisive proof — the individual form
is that form through which it must necessarily pass in order to
arrive from the all-encircling contemplation at a real act. The
one which is not absorbed in the various and opposite forms
of itself, but remains the same in all changes, is the really, for
itself, existing element of life. Whether it is, on that account,
absolute, I do not propose to say. For us it is at present only the
absolute element of Life, in opposition to life's mere appearances.
It itself is unchangeable in this its being ; for itself is absorbed
in none of these changes. These, its changes, certainly exclude
each other mutually in time, and time itself is nothing but the
form of contemplation of those changes themselves as nevertheless
belonging to One. But the unchangeable itself is absolutely
beyond all time ; for, although it changes in time, these changes
do not affect its real being. If these modifications are, further-
more, put into a fixed and permanent form, which form they
have, of course, only for the connecting contemplation, then this
occurs in the form of contemplation of space. Since life itself
thus soars over its modifications, it soars all the more over the
fixed determining contemplation of them ; it is even less in space
than it is in time. It is a mere power — a pure power without

Facts of Consciousness. 276

substrate, a power which does not at all appear immediately, and
hence is not contemplated, and which, therefore, is also not
contemplated in any of the possible forms of contemplation.
Here, therefore, we hit npon a thinking, which by its very
content excludes all contemplability, and hence every form of
possible contemplation. Its thought involves positively no appear-
ance but that which is at the basis of all possible appearance.
Wherever an appearance is, there itself is no longer ; but there
it is one of its appearances. I say only one, for it is not totally
absorbed in any of its appearances; and, in order to substantiate
this, it appears in many forms, remaining one and the same in the
transition. That which is altogether no object of contemplation
is called, not sensuous, supersensuous, spiritual, all of these
terms being negative modes of determination taken from our con-
templation. Spiritual, however, signifies that, the content itself
of which precludes sensuous interference, as is the case here.

It is easier to comprehend in a certain case — as, for instance,
in the present one — that we ought to act in accordance with this
insight, than do so really, and to keep sensuous interference actu-
ally aloof. This happens, because all of us have first developed
our consciousness within the sphere of sensuous contemplation,
and have passed a good part of our life in it, and because sensu-
ous contemplation has thus become, through habit, almost a
second nature with us. Even if any one succeeds so far as to be
able to keep that sensuous admixture aloof so long as he is atten-
tive to himself, he still is, nevertheless, very easily surprised by the
old habit whenever he has to reason, and when he can, therefore,
no longer keep his attention fixed npon himself "Without being
conscious of it, his reasoning assumes a sensuous form. It is thus
in our case. We have said, that it is the one life, which assumes
the form of individuality, because it can appear as a i)ractical
faculty only in that form; in all individual forms tiie same
one life, and in all those forms in its totality. Kow, if somebody
were to find it difficult to comprehend this, what could possibly
be the reason ? Perhaps, without being quite conscious of it, he
argues as follows : The one life is, therefore, in me in all its to-
tality ; at the same time, it is in my neighbor; at the same time,
perhaps, also in America; perhaps even in Sirius ; but how can
it be at the same time in so many places? Such a man would,

2Y6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

therefore, have conceived the spiritual life in the form of external
contemplation, and tied it to conditions of space — which is pre-
cisely what he should not have done.

According to the above, the self-determination of the one life
to engage in real activity — which determination can never occur
otherwise than in individual form — results necessarily in a con-
sciousness of this its activity on the part of life, which conscious-
ness is universal, and hence must occur in the same manner in
each individual form, which life has assumed. What kind of con-
sciousness is this ? The general contemplation of the power, sim-
ply as such power, remains ; for it is an unchangeable, fundamen-
tal form of life ; the view of the fixed and unchangeable nature,
which is expressed in that contemplation, remains also, and life can
always resume its place therein, through an exercise of its freedom.
But the individual form gives rise to a consciousness of a deter-
mined activity, which no longer exists as a merely pure and for-
mal power, but is used up as such, and which must therefore be
subtracted from the sum of the original power given in general
contemplation ; which subtraction, and by its means the whole
required consciousness, would not be possible if the first fixed
contemplation did not remain unaltered. The former is the con-
templation of an unchangeable ; but this contemplation views a
sphere perpetually changeable by new creations, and in no man-
ner following fixed laws in its changes. The former deals with a
world, which, being unchangeable, obeys a law ; the latter deals
with facts as such, facts that have no connection at all, at least
none through a physical law. It is evident that the latter is con-
ditioned by the former, that freedom can be regarded only as a
further modification of the universal power and of its opposite
image, nature ; and that it can be measured only by the degree in
which it modifies nature. We comprehend a product of freedom
only as the cancellation of a development of nature, and we meas-
ure it only by ascertaining how far the power of nature has been
annihilated by it ; consequently, by restoring nature in thought
to its previous condition. We must, therefore, be able to restore
it, and hence possess it in our universal contemplation. The con-
templation of freedom is, therefore, conditioned by the contem-
plation of fixed nature, and is possible only by presupposing the
latter.

Facts of Consciousness. 277

Thus far in regard to the external form of this consciousness;
and now let us consider its inner content. By acting in individual
form the one life has used up and cancelled a certain portion of
its power as mere power. Hence, after the act there arises the
physical impossibility of a certain manifestation of freedom, which
was quite possible before the act. This is the first, immediate
effect of that manifestation of freedom upon the one and universal
life. It must, consequently, enter all the individual forms of that
life, since they all have the same consciousness. Each individual
form must become conscious that it absolutely cannot do now
what it could well have done before that act : namely, that it can-
not put to use the power which has been already used up and can-
celled in the universal life. Whatever is done is done, and cannot
again be made undone, either by its author or by anybody else ;
for, if it were possible to undo it, nature would have to be restored
to its previous condition, which, however, has been absolutely can-
celled by the manifestation of freedom. We can destroy ; but that
does not cancel the deed or act, since we do not restore the life of
nature to its former condition, but produce dead ruins.

Hence this immediate consciousness of not having the power to
do something because a certain tactical manifestation of freedom
has gone before, this necessary recognition of factical Being, is the
link in consciousness, with which the contemplation of the prod-
ucts of all freedom, whether our own or that of others, connects ;
and only now our problem has been completely solved.

3. We have seen that, if the one life is to realize actually a
manifestation of its j)Ower, it must concentrate itself from out of
the general contemplation into a single point of that power. This
concentration gives rise to the individual form, and must itself be
thought as actus individuationis i^ri'marue et originarice. This is,
as 1 believe, evident; but it remains useless for application, unless
we view and accompany the further determination of the indi-
vidual form by this actus jprimarius.

That concentration within a point of unity — although we regard
it at present merely as ideal, just as we established it at first — has
caused something to occur in life, which cannot be made undone.
That point has appeared in the conception, and has given rise to
an infinitely continuable line of freedom and action, which was
not possible before the occurrence of the concentration. The life

278 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

has been clianged in its original condition, and an altogether new
and permanent faculty — namely, of continuing that line of free-
dom — has entered it.

Now, it is true, that the life can drop and need not reassume
that form, by means of the absolute freedom, with which it soars
between the two fundamental forms of general contemplation and
individuality ; in which case that individual form, which was once
one of the series of life's appearances, disappears altogether. But
by means of that same form it can also connect again with tliat
point, since the point is a fixed determination of life itself, and
can further determine its determinedness in that individual form
which it first assumed.

Let us suppose, now, that it does this, and continues the individu-
ality once begun ; in what manner will it proceed to do so ? Let
me explain here, in order to increase intelligibility by opposi-
tion, that in the original actus concentrationis, which is precisely
the actus individtiationis, there is absolutely no self-consciousness,
neither of the universal life — which, although it concentrates it-
self, does not reflect upon its concentration, as it would have to
do in order to think itself as the cause thereof — nor still less of the
individual, for by this act individuality comes to exist.

(In immediate facticity this is manifested by the circumstance
that we all are brought into life without knowing about it, not
finding ourselves till we are in the middle of it.)

But I say, further, that, in the continuance of the individual
form, self-consciousness arises necessarily. For a new point of
unity = B has been taken hold of by the conception, and the prob
lem now is to find, how its realization from out of A is possible
and possible under the condition, that A has been realized
Hence, in the conception of B, according to this rule, A is pre
supposed as already conceived, as conceived in the same life
which immediately contemplates itself and remains accessible to
itself ; hence by the same one principle, the Ego. The necessary
union and relation of these two conceptions to each other necessa-
rily produce self-consciousness.

"What is this Ego ? It is a comprehending principle, the unity of
different acts of comprehension ; hence, it bears the individual form,
and is the individual as such. And what is the final and the true
element in this comprehending? Evidently the one life itself.

Facts of Consciousness. 279

Can we, therefore, saj strictly that the individual becomes con-
scious of itself ? By no means, for the individual is not at all ;
how, then, can it become anything? We must say, rather: life
becomes conscious of itself in the individual form, and as indi-
vidual. I say as an individual, for the consciousness deduced by us
expresses nothing further. To make this individual conscious of
itself, and at the same time, in this individual form, conscious of
itself as one life, is precisely what we endeavor to accomplish by
our philosophy, and it costs some exertion to bring this about ;
a sure proof that it is not involved in the original fact of con-
sciousness, which, on the contrary, leads every individual to con-
sider himself an absolute in itself.

We append here a consequence. Life, in the form of universal
contemplation, is not at all capable of selfconsciousness. It is
only in the individual form, and, let it be observed, only in the
continuation of that form, that it can become self-conscious; just
as, according to the above, it can be a practical principle only in
this form. Hence, it is natural that life, in so far as it is self-con-
sciousness and practical principle, represents itself not at all in ita
unity, but as a world of individuals.

This explains also why those persons who, when they hear
knowledge spoken of as independent life, cannot understand it
otherwise than as self-consciousness and can never penetrate, owing
to the necessary laws of thinking itself, beyond individuality to
the thinkino; of life in its unity. From the concentration of life
in one point onward, which itself is an absolute fact, everything
is factical. But the natural man is merely a historical intelli-
gence, who can very well take hold of facts, re-image them in his
reproductive power of imagination, substitute and exchange one
for the other, but has also in this the limit of his range of vision.
Whenever the problem is no longer merely to exchange facts tor
facts, but to rise beyond all facticity in its absolute form to its
absolute ground by pure thinking, the facalty of the natural man
is at an end; he must die, and a new one must be bom in his
place. This limit is here, where the problem is to rise beyoud
individuality as the absolute seat of facticity, and to comprehend
the one spiritual life as merely appearing in it.

Now, such an individual form can be continued iniinitely by the
life, but must always be so continued according to the same rule,

280 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

so that in the new unity-conception C the conception B is ah^eady
presupposed, the one individual Ego always remaining as the
last basis of consciousness. Hence, the one life can either remain
in its universality and undeterminedness, or form new individuals,
or continue individual series already begun. The latter are de-
termined in it by the previous, with which the connection must
be made ; hence there is no fear that life might make a mistake
some time in this business.

Now, if life in this way continues an individual series, where
does it take the new point from % Evidently from the universal as
yet untouched power ; it is something new, never yet manifested
in life, for otherwise it would not be included in the universal
power. ^^ what rule, then, does it choose the point, or what law
determines it in making its choice? So far as we know, as yet no
law at all ; it takes that point with absolute freedom from out of
the universal, absolutely creating it into the sphere of actuality.
It is only at its realization that Life becomes subject to condi-
tionedness through the former; this, however, does not in any
way limit the purpose, but merel}^ indicates the manner of its
execution.

Hence, the continuation of the individual series is just like the
absolute actus individuationis, an absolute creation from out of
the one life. The life creates the individual anew in every point,
or — if we will speak somewhat loosely of the permanent form of
the life in this individual as a logical subject — the individual
creates itself anew with absolute freedom at every moment. It is
true that its former being, now deposited in the region of facts,
determines its accomplishment of a purpose, but by no means the
purpose itself, which it determines with absolute freedom. Since
this purpose is necessarily within the sphere of the universal
power, it is attainable. Again, since this universal power is an
absolutely connected whole, wherein there is a line of conditions
from each point to every other, that purpose is also attainable by
every individual — provided, let it be understood, that the indi-
vidual takes time enough to pass through the middle links of the
conditions. "Whatever is possible, or whatever lies within the
power of the universal power, is also absolutely possible for every
individual. The series of conditions are, of course, very different
for different individuals.

Facts of Co7isciou8nes8. 281

4. Life has power, and develops it tbrouo;]! concentration into
an individual form and by virtue of that form. For what puriHJse ?
According to the preceding, we cannot answer otherwise than
thus: For no purpose except to manifest tliat power; tlie end ot
the development of the power is that development itself.
^ Now let us suppose, which is at present an arbitrary assump-
tion, that life did not develop its power generally, merely for tlie
sake of developing it, but that it developed it for a definite end,
in order to realize by the development a purpose assigned to life ;
then it is clear, firstly, that, as it can be a practical principle gen-
erally only in the individual form, it can also be a practical prin-
ciple acting for a specific purpose only in that form.

All the factors hitherto considered, the concentration into the
unity of the point, the formation of a conception of the activity,
and the self-determination, according to the rule of that concep-
tion, made activity completely possible. Freedom of action was
realized complete and wholly. Now, if that freedom, which had
no purpose outside of itself, is to have a further determination to
effect a specific end, then this would be clearly a limitation of
freedom, as such — of physical ability, which here is able to do
everything that is contained in the conception of a purpose — to
the more limited sphere of that part of it which lies within the
conception of the externally assigned purpose. It would, there-
fore, be a purpose of the kind which we have called above moral,
and the requirement addressed to the free activity to realize that
end would be a moral law, and in this instance a positive law — a
commandment, namely, to realize the end. This is tlie second
point.

The commandment is, therefore, accepted as part of the end to
be attained, with absolute freedom, and, furthermore, of the high-
er freedom, of freedom within and above freedom. Hence con-
sciousness of its having been accepted is possible only within the
immediate contemplation of freedom itself, which is the inner
contemplation. The external, universal contemplation of all life
receives, according to the above, the product of such a conception
of an end to be attained immediately through the consciousness of
an inability to do something ; but on no account does the mere
inner consciousness of freedom itself receive it. The question,
therefore, is, whether that product shows in any way, and whether

282 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

that immediate consciousness involves any determination to in-
dicate that the moral law has or has not been accepted and in-
fluenced by it. In a general way the question cannot be prop-
erly answered as yet ; but we can indicate here already a particu-
lar instance in which the product does not show it : namely, in
cases where this product itself is only a conditioning middle link
to arrive at the moral purpose, which as yet is merely thought in
the consciousness of its originator. In this case the product cer-
tainly does not immediately express anything moral, since the
moral conception has not been immediately influenced by it. It
remains possible, of course, that the product has not been even
thought as a means for a moral purpose, but is the result of a
blind and purposeless outbreak of the mere power as such. The
mere external consciousness does not indicate which of these is
true, but remains dubious until perhaps some future and continued
manifestations of that individual form occur.

The fact, therefore, whether the moral law has determined the
conception of an end or not, appears immediately and categorically
only in the immediate, inner contemplation, and hence only in
the individual form of life, in which alone, indeed, the moral law
can be gathered up in the conception of an end, so as to influence
it ; but it never appears immediately in external contemplation.

5. I have inserted this proposition, which will not find its gen-
eral application till hereafter, in this place in order to explain
thereby a former link and to connect with it.

A moral consciousness of not heing permitted to do something —
namely, to destroy the product of freedom — connects immediately,
and is synthetically united with the consciousness through which
an utterance of freedom, that has occurred in any individual form
of life, arises in the consciousness of all other individual forms — a
consciousness oi physical inability to do something which is abso-
lutely universal for the originator as well as for all others. The
question arises whether that moral consciousness is just as much
the same for all individuals as the former was found to be ? I
say it is the same for all individuals except the originator. We
meet here the distinction in the relation, which was pointed out
in the previous links of the contemplation of the world.

For the originator the following cases are possible :

1, He may not have reflected at all upon the moral law in rela-

Man a Creative First Cause. 28$

tion to his act, and may not reflect upon it in this relation here-
after, in which case a commandment of the moral law concern-
ing tlie product of that act does not occur for him at all ; and
whether he will create that product or not depends altogether
upon his arbitrariness — that is, upon his blind and aimless utter-
ance of power.

2. He may not have reflected upon the moral law in advance
of the act, but may reflect upon it in that relation afterward, and
discover that the product of his act is a hindrance to and contra-
dictory of the moral purposes commanded of him ; in which case
he not only may, but is bound to destroy it.

3. He may really have allowed the moral law to influence his
conception of a purpose, and the product may be a link on his
path to a moral end ; in which case the same prohibition, not to
destroy it, is addressed to him that is addressed to all the others,
but from a different reason.

Whence, now, this distinction? The originator can know
whether he acts morally or not ; the others cannot know it.
Hence the prohibition addressed to the others presupposes that
the moral end is the end of all development of freedom, and that
for the sake of this end no development of freedom nmst be
disturbed, of which it may be presupposed that that end has in-
spired it.

MAN A CKEATIVE FIRST CAUSE.

(a NKW work* by dr. ROWLAND 0. HAZARD.)

[In this small volume we have a concise statement of Dr. Uazard's now
famous arguments on the freedom of the will which have heen con.sidored,
in this country and in Europe, as a complete answer to the fatalistic posi-
tions of Jonathan Edwards and others. The two papers which form the
bulk of this volume were read at the Concord School of l'hilosoi)hy in tli«
summer of 1882.

What in our view gives the greatest value to the book is tlie deep in-

1 " Man a Creative First Cause." By Rowland G. Hazard, LL. I)., A.iil.or of " Free-
dom of Mind in Willing," two letters on Causation to John Stu.i.t Mill, .■te. Boston :
Houghton, Mifiain & Co., 1883.

284 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosoj)hy .

sight whicli its author evinces into the necessity of self-determined being
as the pre-condition of finite or dependent being, and his recognition of
self-determination in the conscious will of man. Writers who start out
with the assumption that all conceivable manifestation of force or energy
is only the manifestation of derived energy, refuse to admit self-deter-
mination or self-activity as a necessary principle. " Everything is deter-
mined and made what it is by the totality of conditions," is their princi-
ple. Inasmuch as a dependent or fated being cannot be a totality, it
follows that, if consistent, they refuse to think any totality.

We quote the following passages from the first essay to illustrate the
author's clear and logical style of setting forth this insight. — Ed.]

[The Will the Ground of our Knowledge of Matter.']

Through its only active faculty of will — its eflEort — the intelligent being
strives to produce change, of which, when effected, it is the cause.

Our own individual effort is the only cause of which we are directly
conscious, but we are directly conscious of changes in our own sensations,
for some of which we have, and others we have not, made effort. From
some of these sensations we infer objective material changes, some of
which we have, and others we have not, caused. From some of these we
also infer the existence of other intelligent beings, like ourselves, to whose
action we attribute many of these changes in our sensational, or in objec-
tive phenomena, which we have not ourselves produced. But, as some of
these changes require a power beyond any indicated in ourselves or in
our fellow-beings, we infer the existence of a superior intelligent power
adequate to their production. We thus come to know ourselves, our fel-
low-beings, and God as cause.

Of the existence of matter or of its properties we are not directly con-
scious. We know nothing of it except by the sensations which we
impute to its agency, and as these sensations can exist in the mind in the
absence of the external material forms or forces to which we impute them —
e.g., in dreams — the sensations are not conclusive evidence of any such,
external existence. All our sensations which we attribute to matter are
as fully accounted for by the hypothesis that they are the thought, the
imagery of the mind of God directly imparted or made palpable to our
finite minds, as by that of a distinct external substance in which He has
■embodied this thought and imagery.

In either case it is but the expression of his thoughts and conceptions.
In either case, too, it is to us equally real, the sensations by which alone
"we apprehend these, to us external phenomena, being the same.

In either case, too, matter and spirit are still antithetically distin-

Man a Creathe First Cause. 285

guished, the one having the properties of knowledge, feeling, and volition,
while the other is unintelligent, senseless, and inert.

[^The Hypothesis of Idealism.]

The hypothesis that the material phenomena are but the thought and
imagery of the mind of God immediately impressed upon us is the more
simple of the two, and makes creative attributes more nearly acc-oni with
powers which we are ourselves conscious of exercising.

We can ourselves by effort create such imagery, and, to some extent,
make it durable and palpable to others.

We, however, find no rudiment of force or causative energy in these
creations of our own. We can no more attribute inherent power to them
than we can to an image in a mirror, and there seems no reason to sup-
pose that any increase of power in the creator of such imagery could
imbue it with causative energy.

On the other hand, if the existence of matter, as a distinct, independ-
ent, objective entity, is conceded, it may still be urged that it can, within
itself, have no causative power. If wholly quiescent, it could exert no
power to change itself, for all change in matter is by its motion in masses
or in atoms ; and matter cannot move itself.

Even if it could be imbued with motive power, it could have no induce-
ment, no tendency, or means to determine its motion in one direction
rather than another ; and a tendency or power of self-movement which is
equal in all directions is a nullity.

Its quiescent existence might be a fact perceived by intelligent beings as
among the conditions for them to act upon, but any change thus wrought
in such being is the result of its own perception, or its own action on the
quiescent matter. Clay may be moulded, it cannot mould.

But it does not appear to be claimed that matter, except when in mo-
tion, can be regarded as a power. It is inert, and has no self-active pmver
by which it can begin motion in itself without being first acted upon, nor
can it determine the direction of its own motion. This beginning and de-
termination must, therefore, be by the only other possible cause— by in-
telligent being — and that which thus begins and directs the motion is
properly the cause of all the effects which follow, and matter is only an
inert instrument which intelligence uses to produce these effects.

[The JJntenahility of 3riWs Theory of Causation.]

Another and a very popular notion of cause, adopted by many eminent
philosophers, is that all events or successive phenomena are connected in

■286 The Journal of Sjyeculative PMlosophy.

a chain of whicli each, successive link is the effect of all that preceded it.
These also hold, as an essential adjunct to their theory, that the same
causes necessarily produce the same effects, and hence that each of these
successive events is necessitated by those which precede it. J. Stuart
Mill, one of the able advocates of these views, says (" System of Logic,"
Book 3d, Chap, v, § 3) : " The real cause is the whole of these antece-
dents ; " and again : " The cause .... is the sum total of the conditions
positive and negative taken together ; the whole of the contingencies,
which being realized, the consequent invariably follows."

On these and other similar positions of Mill, and the materialistic school
generally, I will remark that they do not distinguish between those ante-
cedents which are merely passive conditions to be acted upon and changed,
and those which act upon and change them ; do not distinguish what/>ro-
duces from what merely precedes change. Life is a prerequisite to death,
but cannot properly be regarded as a cause of it.

Again, if the cause is the whole of the antecedents, then as at each in-
stant the whole of the antecedents is everywhere the same, the effect would
everywhere be the same ; and throughout the universe there could be only
one and the same effect at the same time.

It is also obvious that on this theory of the *' whole antecedents " there
can be no possible application of the law of uniformity that " the same
causes produce the same effects," for the moment the cause — the whole of
the antecedents — has once acted, its action and its effect are added to
and permanently change it, and the same cause can never act a second
time. The advocates of this theory — that " the whole antecedents are the
cause," and of the asserted law that " the same causes must produce the
same effects " — also very generally hold that we get all our knowledge from
experience. But it is clear that, if the theory is true, there can be no ex-
perience as to the law, and hence no knowledge to justify them in assert-
ing it.

\No Way of avoiding the Hypothesis of a Free Will or Creative Energy

as the Origin of Change.^

However difficult the conception, there seems to be no way to avoid
the necessity of this constant exercise of creatiye energy to begin change,
and produce uniformity in the results, or to escape the conclusion that
every particle that floats in the breeze or undulates in the wave, every atom
that changes its position in the uniform modes of electrical attraction and
repulsion, or of chemical affinities, is moved, not by the energizing, but by
the energetic will of an Omnipresent Intelligence.

3fan a Creative First Cause. 287

[Definition of the Will.]

In the first place, the will has sometimes been treated as a distinct entity.
This finds expression in the phrase " fi-ecdom of the will," and opens the
way for the argument that, if this distinct entity can be controlled by some
power extraneous to it, even though by the being of which it is an attri-
bute, then the zvill is not free.

Such reasoning is wholly precluded when we regard the will as simply the
faculty or ability of the mind to make effort, and an act of will as simply
an effort of the mind to do, and, in accord with this view, speak of the
freedom of the mind in willing, instead of the freedom of the will. Ed-
wards, in his celebrated argument for necessity, defines will to be " that
by which the mind chooses anything" and, says " an act of the will is the
same as an act of choosing or choice."

In my view, the will is that by which the mind does any and every thing
that it does at all, or in the accomplishing of which it has any active
agency. Limiting its function to the phenomena of choice seems to me
peculiarly unfortunate. Our choice is merely the knoioledge that one of
two or more things suits us best : and, as we have just shown, knowledge
cannot be determined by the will. We may, as in other cases, by effort
— by comparing the respective advantages of the several objects of choice
— bring about the conditions essential to our knowing which suits us best.
The object of the comparative act is to get this knowledge ; but the knowl-
edge as to what suits us best — the choice — is itself a fact found, not made
or done by us. It is an immediate perception to which the previous
efforts, comparative or otherwise, may have been necessary.

[Definition of Freedom.']

Edwards also says: "The obvious meaning of the word freedom, in
common speech, is power or opportunity of doing as one wills." But as
applied to willing— the willing being then the doing— ihi?, is merely say-
ing that freedom is the power to do as one does, or to will as one wills,
or, if the doing (as we will) applies to the realization of the object of our
effort, then it makes our freedom in making the effort depend on the sub-
sequent event, which is absurd. It makes our freedom to try to do
dependent on our power to do. But we may freely make effort— try— to
do what the event proves we have not power to do.

In this popular use of the word freedom, it applies only to the doing,
which comes after the williiig, and is but a synonym for power. Freedom,
in its more comprehensive sense, and as apjilicd to intelligent being, is
simply SELF-CONTROL. Freedom in willing does not imply that the mmd'e

288 The Journal of Speculative Philo8oj)hy.

effort is not controlled and directed, but that it is controlled and directed
by the being tbat makes the effort, and is not controlled or coerced by
extraneous power.

The consequences of these defective definitions of ■will and freedom
upon the argument are obvious — e. g., Edwards makes choice and prefer-
ence identical, and also says " to tvill and to choose are the same thing."
He will have no difficulty in proving that our choice or preference is not
a matter which we can control, that wa cannot, per se, prefer pain to
pleasure, and hence are not free in choosing, and then, if choosing is the
same as willing, logically infer that we are not free in willing.

If we may properly define will as but a faculty to make effort, and an act
of will as simply an effort, and discard the assumption that will and choice
are the same, these arguments for necessity are eliminated. Leaving for
the present the consideration of other arguments for necessity, we will
turn to some of the sequences of the foregoing premises.

And, first, it is evident that no power can change the past, and that the
object of every intelligent effort must be to make the future different from
what but for such effort it would be.

This is the only conceivable motive to effort. Now, intelligent being,
constituted as before stated, has through its feelings an inducement to
make efforts to so mould the future as to obtain an increase of those feel-
ings which are pleasurable and avoid or lessen those which are painful ;
and by means of its knowledge it can distinguish and judge, more or less
wisely, between these feelings, and also determine by what efforts it will
seek to thus mould the future.

Such a being is in itself self-active, requiring no extrinsic agency to
put it in action, or to sustain or direct its activity.

[Z%e Relation of Knowledge to Will.^

In conformity with these views we find the fact to be, that whenever
we would infiuence the willing of another, we always try to do it by
changing his knowledge. We may seek to do this by simple presenta- .
tion of existing facts, or by argument upon them ; or we may exert our-
selves to change the facts — the conditions upon which he is to act — e. g.,
we may interpose insuperable obstacles to his intended action, or we may
directly produce or change the feelings which prompt his action. But, as
any such actual change of the conditions is wholly ineffective till it makes
a part of his knowledge, these apparently two modes are really only one,
and it comes to this, that our only mode of influencing the willing of
another is to change the knowledge by which he controls and directs his
own willing, and it is evident that this mode is effective only upon the

Man a Creative First Cause. 289

condition tliat this otlier does direct and control his own willing and con-
forms it to his own knowledge.

It would be absurd to suppose that the conforming of the act of will
to the knowledge of the being that wills is by an extrinsic power.

It comes, then, to this, that the only conceivable mode of influencing
the will of another is by changing his knowledge, and that this mode is
wholly unavailing if this other does not direct his own action by means
of his own knowledge — i. e., if he does not will freely.

From these premises it follows that our willing not only may be, but
must be, free. From these, too, it follows that every being that wills is a
creative first cause, an independent power in the universe, freely exerting
its individual energies to make the future different from what it other-
wise would be.

[The Divine Foreknowledge does not impair Human Freedom.]

This equal and perfect freedom of all does not impair the sovereignty
of the Supreme Intelligence.

Edwards argues that, if the Supreme Intelligence did not foreknow
human volitions, he would be continually liable to be frustrated in his
plans. But Omniscience could at once perceive what action was most
wise, or, even if prevision was essential, could search out and be prepared
for every possible contingence. It is conceivable that a man could do this
in the game of chess, and there are games which, though inexplicable to
the uninitiated, may practically be so investigated that the best move in
every possible contingence will be ascertained, and with the advantage as
to the first move success will be certain to one having this superior knowl-
edge, though he may not foreknow a single move of his opponent.

[^Instinct not Incompatible icith Free-WillJ\

The phenomena of instinct have been very generally deemed exceji-
tional. Our own conscious agency in them is so slight that it escapes
ordinary observation.

The well-ascertained fact that animals at their birth perform instinc-
tive actions without previous instruction or experience, furnishes a clew to
the solution which brings these phenomena into harmony with all other
voluntary actions. It indicates not that the will, the voluntary effort, is
absent, but that the knowledge by which we direct it is innate.

In every; intelligent conative being the knowledge that by effort it can

move its muscles must be innate. There is no conceivable way in which

the being could itself acquire this knowledge. Xo movement of its own

muscles, without self-effort, could suggest the idea, and it would never

XYII— 19

290 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

discover any connection between the movement of the muscles of another
with effort. No such experience or observation of the phenomena of mus-
cular movement has any tendency to elicit or suggest the idea of effort.

But, so far as our observation goes, every animal, man included, is born
with this and some additional knowledge which is essential to the pres-
ervation of its life. The kid, the moment it is born, can rise upon its feet
and go directly to the source of food which its mother supplies, and it or
the human infant would die of hunger before it could empirically learn
the complicated muscular movements and the order of their succession
which are required to avail itself of its food.

If there is any self-activity prior to birth, it still more strongly indicates
that the knowledge of some of the modes by which we subsequently act
is innate. . . .

The instinctive actions are of the same character in all grades of being ;
and in regard to rational actions I see no distinction in kind, but only in
degree, between those of man and the lower animals. Descending in the
scale of intelligence, we will probably reach a grade of beings which do
not seek to add to their innate knowledge, nor invent or form new plans
to meet new occasions for effort.

The actions of such must be wholly instinctive ; but I have seen dogs
and horses draw inferences and work out ingenious plans of action adapted
to conditions so unnatural and improbable to them as to preclude the
Assumption that they had been specially provided by nature, through
hereditary transmission or otherwise, with the knowledge of the plan
they adopted for such exigency.

[Like Causes, like Effects, do not preclude the Existence of Free Causes.l

But the argument from cause and effect seems to be most relied upon
by necessarians.

I adopt a statement of it which has the assent of one of its most dis-
tinguished advocates, viz. : If all the circumstances in a thousand cases
are alike,> and the conditions of the mind also the same, then the willing
will be the same, and this uniformity indicates necessity.

This assumes as the basis of the argument that the same causes must
produce the same effects.

In the first place, I would remark that an intelligent self-active cause
is under no necessity upon a recurrence of the same circumstances to
repeat its action, but having in the first case increased its knowledge, it
may act differently in the second.

It may with reason be said that with this increase of knowledge the
conditions of the mind are different, but, if this difference is not tacitly

Man a Creative First Cause. 291

excepted, the hypothesis of a thousand like cases is inconceivable— there
would not even be two such.

But, giving the argument all that is intended by those who urge it, and
granting their assumption, that the same causes do of necessity produce
the same effects, let us suppose the circumstances in one thousand cases
to be alike, and the conditions of the mind at each recurrence of thera to
be the same, and that one of these conditions of the mind is that of
necessity, then, the same causes of necessity producing the same effects,
the same action follows.

Again, suppose the circumstances in another one thousand cases lo Ite
alike, and the conditions of the mind again the same in each case, but
that in these one of the conditions of the mind, instead of being neces-
sity, is freedom, then, the same causes of necessity producing the same
effects, the same action follows.

Now, the result, being in both cases the same, cannot possibly indicate
whether it is necessity or freedom that is among the conditions, and
proves nothing. One phase of this argument from cause and effect is
that all the present events, including volitions, are necessary consequences
of their antecedents. I have already treated of this asserted dependence
of the present on the past, and will now only add that intelligent action
is always wholly upon the present conditions, and has reference solely to
an effect in the future, and it is not material to such action how or when
either the active being, as he is, or the conditions for him to act upon,
came to be, or how connected with the past, nor whether they had any
past. If, however, by the force of past events themselves, or by any
causes whatever, there is established a certain flow of events having a
tendency to extend into the future, such flow in its effect upon our free-
dom in willing does not differ from that flow which is the composite
result of conative efforts, which T have already considered. Our indi-
vidual action is always to interrupt or modify such flow. We decide iis
to our own actions by our preconceptions, our prescience — more or less
reliable — of what the future will be with, and what without, our own
efforts.

The influence of present external conditions is also much relied upon
by the advocates of necessity, but I trust it is already obvious that we
may vary our free action with the circumstances, that we act as freely
upon one set of them as upon any other, and that such action, being self-
conformed, is perfectly free.

The influence of internal phenomena, as the moral character, knowl-
edge, disposition, inclination, desires, wants, habits, etc., which make up
the attributes and conditions of the mind that wills, is also much relied

292 The Journal of Speculative Pldlosoplnj.

upon, and necessarians have been at much pains to show that the willing
is always in conformity to these. But in view of the fact that freedom,
in the act of willing, consists in the action being self-controlled and di-
rected, it would have served the purposes of their argument much better
to have proved that the action was counter to or diverse from the char-
acter. They seem to have been especially unfortunate in making success-
ful efforts to prove that our actions are always in agreement Avith our
prevailing choice, or, which is very nearly the same thing, with our
strongest motive. The moral character of the being is indicated and rep-
resented by its efforts, but this manifestation through the efforts does not
effect its freedom in making them. A demon is as free as an angel.

^Conformity to Character does not destroy Freedom?^

The advocates of necessity often ask if a man could will the contrary
of what he does will. I would say that he could if he so decided; but it
would be a contradictory and absurd idea of freedom, which for its reali-
zation would require that one might try to do what he had determined
not to try to do. In short, all these arguments of the necessarians, that
our acts of will are not free because they must conform to our own char-
acter, our own views and decisions, virtually assert that one is not free
because he must be free ; or, in other words, being of necessity free, he
is constrained to be free, and hence is not free.

[Foreknowledge based on Two Conditions.^

Edwards and other theologians ag-rceino; with him have regarded the
argument from prescience of volitions, which they hold to be perfect in
deity, as very conclusive. They assume not only that a volition which is
infallibly foreknown must of necessity happen, but that it must happen
by restraint or coercion of the willing agent. This is not a logical infer-
ence. Whether a free volition ever can be infallibly foreknown may be
doubted. I think I have already shown that such foreknowledge is not
requisite to the supreme sovereignty of the universe. But some philoso-
phers, who in their inquiries exclude theology and revelation, also argue
that the imperfect prescience, which must be an element in the decision
of all our efforts to influence the future, also indicates necessity. Both
hold that the possibility of prediction involves necessity as to the volition.
But if, as I hope to demonstrate, a free act is as easily foreknown and
predicted as one that is not free, this argument is wholly unavailing. If
some being by its power controls a future event, it of course can foreknow
and predict it, but such control of the volition of another, for reasons
already stated, I hold to be impossible, involving a contradiction which

Man a Creative First Cause. 293

power cannot reconcile. Aside from tliis conclusion, the difference be-
tween a volition which is free and one which is not free is that the former
is controlled and directed by the being in which it is manifested, and the
latter by some extrinsic power. Our principal means of foreknowing
what the self-directed, the free, act of an intelligent being will be is it«
conformity to the known character, habits, etc., of the actor; and if it is
admitted that the external power which controls and directs the action
which is not self-directed always conforms the act to the character of the
being in which the action is manifested, then the probabilities of forming
a correct judgment of what the action or effort will be are in this respect
just equal. But the admission that this conforming of the action to the
character, of the actor is by an extrinsic power and not by the actor him-
self is an unwarrantable, I might perhaps say an absurd, assumption. In
stating it, one can hardly avoid a solecism, for the character which is thus
presented to us by the actions is not that of the being apparently acting,
but of the power or powers which determine the actions. The actions in
such case might represent as consistent character, for to the outside ob-
server the actions make the character; but it would be the character, not
of the being apparently acting, which we perceive or know, but of the
being or power extrinsic to it which we do not know. x\ll our knowl-
edge of beings as individuals, and even of species, would thus be annihi-
lated. The hypothesis of such extrinsic agency in conforming the action
to the character of the actor is, in various aspects of it, a gratuitous and
inadmissible assumption.

If it still be urged that the act may be controlled by an extrinsic power
that does not conform the action to the character of the apparent actor,
then, if we do not know this extrinsic power, we wholly lose our principal
means of predicting what the action will be ; and if we do it, and know
it without any effort, we still have to meet the same difficulties, some-
what more complicated by this extrinsic agency, to ascertain what this
extrinsic power would determine this unfree act of another to be, as we
would to solve the question as to what the more direct and simple, self-
determined free act of this other would be ; so that on any admissible
hypothesis the free act of will is more easily foreknown and predicted
than one that is not free ; and, if this argument from the susceptibility to
prediction has any weight, it is in favor of freedom, and u.>( <•<' t' •'•^itv.

[Idealistic or Materialistic Theories of Knowledge do not affect the Ques-
tion of Freedom of WilLI

We have already alluded to the two different hypotheses— the one re-
garding material phenomena as forms of a distinct entity, called matter;

294 The Journal of Sj)eculative Philosophy.

the other regarding it as but the thought and imagery of the mind of
God immediately impressed upon and made palpable to our finite minds^
without any intermediate vehicle in the process.

In either case the sensations, by which alone we know, or which, per-
haps, are all there is, of the phenomena, are equally real, and are, in fact^
identically the same on the one hypothesis as upon the other. If as a
result or corollary of our arguments in regard to cause, or otherwise,
the material universe is regarded as the work of an intelligent Creator,
working with design to produce a certain effect, then, upon either of
these hypotheses, it is the presentation and expression of a conception ex-
isting as thought and imagery in his mind before he gave it palpable tan-
gible existence in ours, and the only question as between the two hypo-
theses is whether, in making it palpable to us, he transfers this thought
and imagery directly to our minds, or does this by painting, carving, or
moulding, in a distinct material substance.

I have already intimated my leaning to the ideal hypothesis as being
more simple and equally competent to embrace and explain all material
phenomena.

I will here remark that the adopting of one or the other of these two'
hypotheses has very little, if any, bearing upon the views which I am pre-
senting : whether the Supreme Intelligence found the matter, in which he
expresses and makes his thoughts permanent and tangible, ready-made,
or made it himself, either as a distinct entity, or as mere imagery of his
mind, has in most respects no more significance than the question whether
Milton and Shakespeare and Bacon found existing materials for express-
ing and making their thoughts palpable and permanent, or contrived and
made tbe pen, ink, and paper which they used for this purpose. In either
case we get the thougbts of the author, and can use the same means to
express our own, including even, in some measure, the visible creations in
which the Author of all has communicated his thoughts.

Another consideration in favor of the ideal hypothesis is, that under
it creating becomes more conceivable to us : we can any of us conceive
or imagine a landscape and vary its features at will ; this is an incipient
creation, which by effort we make more or less perfect.

Such creations of our own we for the time being locate outside of our-
selves, and, while we are wholly absorbed in contemplating them, they are
to us perfect external material creations.

To make them such to others requires that we should in some way im-
press our conceptions upon their minds and make the imagery of our
own palpable to theirs. Though our faculty of doing this, as compared
with that of creating the imagery, seems to be very limited, we are none

Man a Creative First Cause. 205

of us wholly devoid of it. Landscape ..orardencrs, architects, sculptors,
painters, and more especially poets, have it in marked degree. In all these
it is effected by slow, tentative processes, though in the latter it often
appears as a genuine spontaneity, a fiat of creative genius.

We, then, already have, and habitually exercise, all the faculties essen-
tial to material creation, and, with the requisite increase in that of im-
pressing others, we could design and give palpable persistent existence to
a universe varying to any extent from that which now environs us, which
would be objectively as real and material to tlie vision, even, of others, as
the heavens and the earth they now look out upon.

Though these creations of our own are mostly evanescent, and the per-
sistent reality which, with great labor and pains, we give to some of them
is very limited, and the presentation even of these very imperfect, still
they show that we have within us the rudiments of all the faculties which,
on the ideal hypothesis, are essential to creating. This hypothesis is fur-
ther commended to us by the consideration that man, having in a finite
degree all the' other powers usually attributed to the Supreme Intelli-
gence, lacks under the material theory that of creating matter. Corre-
sponding to his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, man has
finite power and finite knowledge, and can make all the ideas and objects
of his knowledge palpably present, which is equivalent to, and, under the
ideal hypothesis, is identical with, a finite prescience, limited, like our
other attributes, to the sphere of our knowledge. The ideal hypothesis
then rounds out our ideas of creative intelligence, relieving us of the
anomaly of the creation of matter as a distinct entity, for which we have
in ourselves no conscious rudiment of power and cannot conceive, and
finding little if any relief in the alternative of its having always existed
without having been created.

A legitimate inference from the foregoing premises seems to be that,
if from any cause one's own incipient creation of objective phenomena
should become so fixed in his mind that he could not change it at will, it
would become to him a permanent external reality, and this inference is
empirically confirmed by the fact that this sometimes happens in abnor-
mal conditions of the mind.

However conscious we may be of our o\;n agency in the formative
process as to the formations themselves, this subjection to our own will
seems to be the only element by which we distinguish our own ideal
creations from objective phenomena.

This strono-lv suo-o-ests that the difference between the creative pow-
ers of man and those of the Supreme Intelligence is mainly, it not
wholly, in degree and not in kind, and that even in this the disparity,

296 The Journal of Sjjeculative Philosophy.

vast as it is, is still not so incomprehensible as has been generally supposed.
This gives warrant to the logic in which, by short steps, we attribute
all creations and all changes which we regard as beyond our own power
and beyond that of other embodied intelligences known to us, to a supe-
rior intelligence with the same powers which we possess and use to create
and change, increased, we need not say infinitely, but to a degree corre-
sponding to the effects which we cognize and ascribe to them.

PHILOSOPHY IN OUTLINE.

BY W. T. HARRIS.

" Philosophy can bake no bread ; but she can procure for us God, freedom, and im-
mortality." — Carlyle's tramlation from Novalis.

Chapter I.
Introduction.

Philosophy is not a science of things in general, but a science that investigates the pre-
suppositions of experience and discovers the nature of the first principle.

§ 1. Philosophy does not set up the extravagant pretension to
know all things. It does not " take all knowledge for its province "
any more than geology, or astronomy, or logic does. Geology
aspires to know the entire structure of this globe ; astronomy, to
know all the stars ; logic, to know the structure of the reasoning
process. Philosophy attempts to find the necessary a priori ele-
ments or factors in experience, and arrange them into a system by
deducing them from a first principle. Not the forms of reasoning
alone, but the forms of sense-perception, of reflection, of specu-
lative knowing, and the very forms which condition being or exist-
ence itself, are to be investigated.

§ 2. The science of necessary forms is a very special science,
because it does not concern itself with collecting and arranging
the infinite multitude of particular objects in the world and iden-
tifying their species and genera, as the particular sciences do. It
investigates the presupposed conditions and ascends to the one
supreme condition. It therefore turns its back on the multitude

Philosophy in Outline. 297

of particular things and seizes them in the unity of their " ascent
and cause," as George Herbert names it. The particular sciences
and departments of knowledge collect and classify and explain
phenomena. Philosophy collects and classifies and explains their
explanations. Its province is much more narrow and si)ecial than
theirs. If to explain meant to find the many, the dilierent, the
particular examples or specimens, philosophy would have to take
all knowledge for its province if it aspired to explain the explana-
tions offered in the several sciences. But that is not its meanin*'-
— to explain means to find the common, the generic principle in
the particular. This is just the opposite of that other process
which would take all knowledge in its infinite details for its prov-
ince. To explain all knowled2;e is not to know all thin<rs.

§ 3. To illustrate Philosophic Knowing, and at the same time
to enter its province and begin philosophizing, we shall take up
at once a consideration of three ideas — Space, Time, and Cause.
Space and Time — as the conditions of nature or the world, as the
necessary presuppositions of extension and multitude — will furnish
us occasion to consider the infinite and the possibility of knowing
it. The idea of Cause will lead us to the fundamental insight on
which true philosophy rests.

Chapter II.
Space and Time as Presuppositions of Experience.

§ 4. In all experience we deal with sensible objects and their
chano;es. The universal condition of the existence of sensible
objects is Space. Each object is limited or finite, but the univer-
sal condition of the existence of objects is self-limited or infinite.
An object of the senses possesses extension and limits, and, conse-
quently, has an environment. A^e find ourselves necessitated to
think an environment in order to think the object as a limited

object.

§ 5. Here we have, first the object, and secondly the environ-
ment as mutually limiting and excluding, and as correlatives.
But the ground "or condition of both the object and its environ-
ment is Space. Space makes both possible.

§ 6. Space is a necessary idea. We may think this particular
object or not— it may exist or it may not. So, too, this particular

298 The Journal of Speculative . Philosophy .

environment may exist or not, although some environment is neces-
sary. But Space must exist, whether this particular object or en-
vironment exists or not. Here we have three steps toward abso-
lute necessity : (1) The object which is not necessary, but may or
may not exist — may exist now, but cease after an interval ; (2) the
environment which must exist in some form if the object exists —
a hypothetical necessity ; (3) the logical condition of the object
and its environment, which must, as Space, exist, whether the ob-
ject exist or not.

§ 7. Again, note the fact that the object ceases where the envi-
ronment begins. But space does not cease with the object nor
with the environment ; it is continued or affirmed by each. The
space in which the object exists is continued by the space in which
its environment exists. Space is infinite.

Let us consider how we know the infinitude of space, for this is
a very important concern in philosophy. The doctrine is current
that we cannot know the infinite, that we can form no conception
of it. Hence the word infinite would be to us without any mean-
ing except a negative one.'

§ 8. Space is both divisible (discrete) and continuous. It is
composed of parts, each part being again composed of parts. But
each part of space is not limited by something else ; it is limited
only by space. The environment of any finite portion of space is
and must be necessarily other portions of space.

§ 9. But if any limited space has space for its environment, it is
not limited by it, but continued by it. Any possible limited or
finite space is continued by an environment of space, and the
whole of space is infinite.

§ 10. This insight into the constitution of Space is a positive
knowledge of and an adequate conception of its infinitude, but it
is not a mental image or picture of infinite space. Conception in
that sense would contradict the infinitude of space, for an image
or picture necessarily has limits or environment. But the concep-
tion of the infinitude of space is adequate and exhaustive, because
it enables us to answer questions relative to the conditions of

' The argument here given I used in 1860 to refute Sir William Hamilton's "Law of
the Conditioned." I printed it first as part of a series of philosophical articles in the
"Boston Commonwealth" for December 18, 1863. See, also, "Jour. Spec. Phil.,'*
Tol. iv, p. 279.

Philosophy in Outline. 209

existence in space— as the science of mathematics shows. A finite
object could not exist were it not for this ground or condition
which is its own environment. Self-environment is the character-
istic of the infinite. The idea of infinite space is therefore the
condition of the mental image or picture.

§ 11. That which is continued by its environment might be still
finite if it could ever arrive at an environment of adifterent kind,
and which, therefore, did not continue it. So Space might be
finite were it to encounter an environment that was not space.
But such is clearly seen to be impossible by the direct insight
which we .have into the nature of Space. There can be no object
or finite space which does not imply space as the condition of the
existence of what is beyond it.

§12. As a condition of all change, motion, development, and
manifestation. Time is likewise necessary. The object in time is
called an event. The event is limited or finite, and has its envi-
ronment in the form of antecedent and subsequent. The event
begins or ends in some other event. But a limited time begins in
a time and ends in a time, so that Time is its own environment,
and consequently infinite. It is not made finite, but continued by
its limits because it is self-limited.

§ 13. Whatever we find to belong to the nature of Time and
Space we shall find to have correspondences and correlatives in tiie
laws of things and events in the world, because things and events
are conditioned by Space and Time. Hence mathematics, based
on this insight into Time and Space, gives us, a priori, certain prin-
ciples which govern things and events.

§ 14. Experience is thus a complex afiair, made up of two ele-
ments — one element being that furnished by the senses, and the
other by the mind itself. Time and Space, as conditions of all ex-
istence in the world, and of all experience, cannot be learned
from experience. AVe cannot obtain a knowledge of what is uni-
versal and necessary from ex]3erience, because experience can in-
form us only that something is, but not that it must be. We ac-
tually know Time and Space as infinites, and this knowledge is
positive or affirmative, and not negative. Just as surely as an
object is made finite by its limit, just so surely is there a groujid
or condition underlying the object and its limit, and making both
possible ; this ground is infinite.

300 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

§ 15. The scepticism in vogue, called " Agnosticism," rests on
the denial of the capacity of the mind to conceive the infinite ;
and, strange to say, this very example of the infinite which we
find in Space and Time is brought forward to support the doctrine.
*'I can conceive only finite spaces and times, but not space or
time as a whole, because as wholes they contain all finite spaces
and times." But agnosticism bases its very doctrine on a true
knowledge of the infinity of time and space. For, unless it knew
that the environing space was necessarily a repetition of the same
space over and over again forever, how could it affirm the impos-
sibility of completing it by successive additions of the environ-
ment to the limited space? It says in effect: "We cannot know
Space, because (we know that) its nature implies infinite extent,
and cannot be reached by successive syntheses."

Chapter III.
Three Stages of Knowing.

§ 16. Space and Time have been considered as the presupposi-
tions or preconditions in all experience. Three grades of Know-
ing have been found by analyzing experience. First, there was
knowledge of the object ; secondly, of the environment ; and,
thirdly, of the ground or logical condition which rendered the
object and its environment possible. There was the thing in
space ; secondly, its relation to an environment of things in space ;
and, thirdly, there was space. There was likewise the event ; and
its environment of antecedent and subsequent events, and then
the underlying logical condition of time.

§ IT. The first stage of Knowing concentrates its attention upon
the object, the second upon its relations, and the third on the
necessary and infinite conditions of its existence. The first stage
of knowing belongs to the surface of experience, and is very shal-
low. It regards things as isolated and independent of each other.
The second stage of experience is much deeper, and takes note of
the essential dependence of things. They are seen to exist only
in relation to others upon which they depend. This second stage
of experience discovers unity and unities in discovering depend-
ence of one upon another. The third stage of experience discov-
ers independence and self-relation underlying all dependence and

Philosophy in Outline. 301

relativity. The infinite, or the self- related, underlies the finite and
relative or dependent.

§ 18. These three stages of Knowing found in considering the re-
lation of experience to Time and Space — ol^ject, environment, and
logical condition — these elements are in every act of experience,
although the environment is not a very clear and distinct element
in the least cultured knowing, and space and time are still more
obscure. But philosophy, as a higher, special form of reflection,
investigates the presuppositions or logical conditions of the objects
and environments of our experience, and makes the third stage of
experience clear and distinct — far more clear and distinct than tlie
first or second stages, because they relate to contingent and change-
able objects, while the insight into the unchanging nature of Time
and Space sees the necessary and universal conditions of the exist-
ence of all phenomena. The third element of experience which
furnishes these logical conditions is the basis of universal, neces-
sary, and exhaustive cognitions.

§ 19. The most rudimentary form of human experience, as it is
to be found in the case of the child or the savage, contains these
logical presuppositions, although not as a distinct object of atten-
tion. Even the lowest human consciousness contains all the ele-
ments which the philosopher, by special attention, develops and
systematizes into a body of absolute truth.

§20. Every act of experience contains within it not only a
knowledge of what is limited and definite, but also a cognition of
the total possible, or the exhaustive conditions implied or presup-
posed by the finite object. Hence those vast ideas which we name
World, Mature, Universe, Eternity, and the like, instead of being
mere artificial ideas, or "factitious" ideas, as they have been
called,' are positive and adequate ideas in so far as they relate to
the general structure of the whole. We know, or may know, the
logical conditions of the existence of the world far better tlian we
know its details.

All our general ideas, all our concepts, with which we group
together the multitude of phenomena and cognize them, arise
from this third stage of experience. It is the partial conscious-
ness of the logical conditions of phenomena which enter as condi-

1 See "Jour. Spec. Phil.," vol. xvi, p. 386.

302 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

tions of our experience that enables us to rise out of the details
of the world and grasp them together, and preserv^e them in bun-
dles or unities, which we know as classes, species, genera, pro-
cesses, and relations. These classes and processes we name by
words. Language is impossible to an animal that cannot analyze
the complex of his experience so far as to become to some degree
conscious of the third element in his experience, the a priori ele-
ment of logical conditions.

§ 21. Another most important point to notice is that these
a priori conditions of experience are both subjective and objective,
both conditions of experience, and likewise conditions of the
existence of phenomena. The due consideration of this astonish-
ing fact leads us to see that, whatever be the things and processes
of the world, we know that mind as revealed in its a priori nature
is related to the world as the condition of its existence. All con-
scious beings in the possession of the conditions of experience — in
being rational, in short — participate in the principle that gives
existence to the world, and that principle is reason. Time and
space condition the existence of the world ; time and space we
find a priori in the constitution of mind or reason. This sur-
prising insight which comes upon us as we consider time and space
is confirmed by all our subsequent philosophical studies. We shall
find a new confirmation of it in the next chapter, in our study ot
Causality.

Chapter IY.

Cause and Self-Cause.

§ 22. Let us return to our study of experience and take account
of another presupposition which is necessary to make experience
possible, and which is an element far subtler and more potent
than Space and Time, because it is their logical condition also.
This deeper principle is Causality.

(1.) We regard a thing or object as related to its environment as
an external existing limit, in which case the ground or logical con-
dition is Space ; or (2) we regard the object as an event or process
which consists of a series of successive moments with an environ-
ment of antecedent and subsequent moments ; its ground or presup-
position is Time ; or (3) we may look upon an object as the recipi-

Philosophy in Outline. 303

ent of influences from its environment, or as itself imparting
influences to its environment. This is Causality.

§ 23. The environment and the object relate to each other as
eff'ect or cause. The environment causes some change in the ob-
ject, which change is its effect ; or the object as cause reacts on
the environment and produces some modification in tiiat as its
effect. The effect is a joint product of this interaction between
the so-called active and passive factors or coefficients. For both
are active, although one is relatively passive to the other.

§ 24. The principle of causality implies both Time and Space.
In order that a cause shall send a stream of influence toward an
effect, there must be time for the influence to pass from the one
to the other. Also the idea of effect implies the existence of an
object external to the cause, or the utterance of influence, and in
this space is presupposed. Space and time are in a certain sense
included in causality as a higher unity.

§ 25. This principle of causality is so deep a logical condition
of experience that it conditions even space and time themselves.
For the externality of the parts of space or the moments of time
are conditioned upon mutual exclusion. Each now excludes all
other nows, and is excluded by them. Each part of space
excludes all other parts of space, and is excluded by them. Any
portion of space is composed of parts of space, and it is the mutual
exclusion of these parts that produces and measures the including
whole. Suppose, for instance, that one of the parts of space al-
lowed another part to become identical with it, penetrate it, and
did not exclude it ; then, at once, the portion of space to which
these two parts belonged would shrink by just that amount of
space which had admitted the other. The portion of space and
all portions of space are what they are through this exclusion, and
this exclusion is a pure form of causality, or an utterance of influ-
ence upon an environment. (This seemingly strange conclusion
will become more intelligible when the presupposition "of cause
and effect is investigated ) Time itself is another example of the
same exclusion. The present excludes the past, and is excluded
by it. Eoth present and past exclude the future, and are ex-
cluded by it. Suppose one of these to include the other, then time
is destroyed ; but, as time is the condition of all manifestation and
expression, the thought of such mutual inclusion of moments of

304 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

time is impossible. The same implication of causality is found
in time as in space.

§ 26. Now, if we examine Causality, we shall see that it again
presupposes a ground deeper than itself — deeper than itself as
realized in a cause and an effect separated into independent objects.
This is the most essential insight to obtain in all philosophy.

(1.) In order that a cause shall send a stream of influence over
to an effect, it must first separate that portion of influence from
itself. ,

(2.) Self-separation is, then, the fundamental presupposition of
the action of causality. Unless the cause is a self -separating
energy, it cannot be conceived as acting on another. The action
of causality is based on self-activity.

(3.) Self -activity is called Causa sui to express the fact of its
relation to causality. It is the infinite form of causality in which
the cause is its own environment — just as space is the infinite
condition underlying extended things, and time the infinite condi-
tion underlying events. Self -activity as Causa sui has the form
of self-relation, and it is self-relation that characterizes the affirma-
tive form of the infinite. Self-relation is independence, while
relation-to-others is dependence.

§ 2T. Causa sui, or self-cause, is, properly speaking, the princi-
ple, par excellence, of philosophy. It is the principle of life, of
thought, of mind — the idea of a creative activity, and hence also
the basis of theology as well as of philosophy.

Causa sui, spontaneous origination of activity, or spontaneous
energy, is the ultimate presupposition underlying all objects, and
each object of experience.

§ 28. We have now before us three of the logical conditions or
presuppositions of existence and experience.
I. Object — Environment — Space.
II. Event — Environment — Time.

III. Effect — Cause — Causa sui.

Chapter Y.

The Absolute a Personal Reason.

§ 29. Having defined philosophy as the science of the a priori
factors or elements of experience, which are necessary conditions of

Philosophy in Outline. 3((5

existence as well as of experience ; having discussed Space, Time,
and Causality, and thereby proved and illustrated the realitv of
this kind of knowledge, whose special object is the logical presup-
positions to be found in all other kinds of knowing, no matter how
elementary and crude they may be, it is necessary now to consider
the bearing of these a priori ideas upon the question of the exist-
ence of God,

We must ask whether it is not possible to have a world in time
and space without a Creator ; whether we cannot conceive the
Creator, if there is one, as a blind force.

§ 30. To experience, the objects of the world are endlassly di-
verse. Particularity reigns. Each existence is in some way dif-
ferent from all else. But to philosophy, looking at the a prioH
conditions of experience, there is unity underlying all this diver-
sity. Space conditions the existence of matter, and every physical
body must rigidly comply with the geometric laws of space. So,
too, all movement and all activity of force must conform to the
laws of time. Here we have unity of fundamental condition.
In causality there is absolute unity — self-cause being the source of
both matter and form in the world. Self-activity is an a 2>rioH
condition, not only of all changes, but also of time and space
themselves. The very conception of externality and mutual ex-
clusion involves the act of repulsion or of self-separation such as
forms the ultimate element of the idea of cause.

§ 31. The unity of space as the logical condition of matter, and
of time as the logical condition of all change and manifestation,
prove the unity of the world. The mathematical laws which
formulate the nature of space and time condition the existence of
all the phenomena in the world, and make them all parts of one
system, and thus give us the right to speak of the aggregate of
existence under such names as "world" or '• univei*se."

This question of the existence of an absolute as Creator or as
Kuler of the universe hinges on the question of the validity ot
such comprehensive unities as " world " and " uni%"erse." If such
ideas are derived from experience, it is argued that they are ficti-
tious unities,' and do not express positive knowledge, but only
our ignorance, " our failure to discover, invent, or conceive." For

1 "Jour. Spec. Phil.," vol. xvi, p. 386.

XYII— 20

306 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

we certainly have not made any complete inventory that we may
call "the universe."

§ 32. Only because we are able to know the logical conditions
of experience are we able to speak of the totality of all possible
experience, and to name it "world" and "universe." Finding
unity in these logical conditions, we predicate it of all particular
existence, being perfectly assured that nothing will ever exist
which does not conform to these logical conditions. !No extended
objects will exist or change except according to the conditions of
space and time. No relations between phenomena will arise ex-
cept through causality, and all causality will originate in Causa
sui, or self-activity.

All co-ordination is based on identity of species, or genera.
The Homogeneity of space and time rests on this sort of identity,
and ultimately all identity of species is based on the identity in-
volved in Causa sui, or self-cause.

§ 33. Self-cause, or eternal energy, is the ultimate presupposition
of all things and events. Here is the necessary ground of the idea
of God. It is the presupposition of all experience and of all pos-
sible existence. By the study of the presuppositions of experience
one becomes certain of the existence of One eternal Energy which
creates and governs the world.

How does one know that things are not self-existent already, and
therefore in no need of a creator ? If this question still remains
in the mind, it must be answered again and again by referring to
the necessary unity in the nature of the conditions of existence —
space, time, and causal influence, based on self- cause. The unity
of space and the dependence of all matter upon it preclude the
self-existence of any material body. Each is a part, and depends
on all the rest. Presuppositions of experience can only be seen
by reflection upon the conditions of experience. The feeble-
minded, who cannot analyze their experience nor give careful at-
tention to its factors, cannot see this necessity. Indeed, few strong
minds can see these necessary presuppositions at first. But all,
even the most feeble in intellect, have these presuppositions as an
element of their experience, whether able to abstract them and
see them as special objects or not.

§ 34. Let us vary the mode and manner of expressing this in-
sight for the sake of additional clearness. First, let us ask what is

Philosophy in Outline. 307

the nature of self-existent being— of independent beings, wbetlier
there be one or more.

(1.) It is clear that all beings are dependent or independent, or
else have, in some way, phases to which both predicates may apply.

(2.) The dependent being is clearly not a whole or totality ; it
implies something else— some other being on Mdiich it depends.
It cannot depend on a dependent being, although it may stand in
relation to another dependent being as another link of its depend-
ence. All dependence implies the independent being as the source
of support. Take away the independent being, and you remove
the logical condition of the dependent being, because without
something to depend upon there can be no dependent being. If
one suggests a mutual relation of dependent beings, then still the
whole is independent, and this independence furnishes the ground
of the dependent parts.

(3.) The dependent being, or links of being, no matter liovv nu-
merous they are, make up one being with the being on which they
depend and belong to it.

(4.) All being is, therefore, either independent, or forms a part
of an independent being. Dependent being can be explained only
by the independent being from which it receives its nature.

(5.) The nature or determinations of any being, its marks, prop-
erties, qualities, or attributes, arise through its own activity, or
through the activity of another being.

(6.) If its nature is derived from another, it is a dependent
being. The independent being is therefore determined only
through its own activity — it is self-determined.

(7.) The nature of self-existent beings, whether one or many, is
therefore self-determination. This result we see is identical with
that which we found in our investigation of the underlying pre-
supposition of influence or causal relation. There must be seJf-
separation, or else no influence can pass over to another object.
The cause must first act in itself before its energy causes an
effect in something else. It must therefore be essentially cau?e
and effect in itself, or Causa sui, meaning self-cause or self-effect.

§ 35. (8.) Our conviction, at this stage of the investigation, is,
therefore, that each and every existence is a self-determined being,
or else some phase or phenomenon dependent on self-determined
being. Here we have our principle with which to examine the

308 Ths Journal of Sjpeculatwe Philosophy.

world and judge concerning its beings. Whatever depends on
space and time, and possesses external existence, in the form of an
object conditioned by environment, has not the form of self-exist-
ence, but is necessarily a phase or manifestation of the self-deter-
mination of some other being. If we are able to discover beings
in the world that manifest self-activity, we shall know that they
are in possession of independence, at least in degree; or, in other
words, that they manifest self-existence. When we have found
the entire compass of any being in the world, we are certain that
we have within it the form of self-activity as its essence.

§ 36. (9.) We should note particularly that self-activity, or self-
determination, which we have found as the original form of all
beings, is not a simple, empty form of existence, devoid of all
particularity, but that it involves three important distinctions :
Self- antithesis of determiner and determined, or of self-active and
self-passive, or of self as subject of activity and self as object of ac-
tivity. These distinctions may be otherwise expressed : (a) As the
primordial form of all particularity ; ih) the subject, or self-active,
or determiner, regarded by itself, is the possibility of any and all
determination, and is thus the generic or universal and the primor-
dial form of all that is general or universal ; hence the presupposi-
tion of all classification ; {o) the unity of these two phases of
universality and particularity constitutes individuality, and is the
primordial form of all individuality.

§ 37. (10.) There is here an error of reflection very prevalent
in our time, which does not identify these distinctions of universal,
particular, and individual in the absolute existence, but calls this
absolute or self-existent being " the unconditioned." It thinks it
as entirely devoid of conditions, as simply the negation of the
finite. Hence, it regards the absolute as entirely devoid of dis-
tinctions. Since there is nothing to think in that which has no
distinctions, such an absolute is pronounced " unthinkable," incon-
ceivable, or unknowable. The error in this form of reflection lies
in the confusion which it makes between the environment and the
underlying presupposition. It thinks the antithesis of object and
environment, of object and cause, but fails to ascend to self-limit
and Causa sui as the ultimate presupposition and logical condition
of object and environment.

§ 38. (11.) Plato, in the tenth book of his " Laws," asks, in view

Philomphij ill Outline. 309

of this self-activity which he calls " self-movenie!it " : " If we were
to see this power (self-movement) existing in any earthy, watery,
or fiery substance — simple or compound—what shouhl we call it T'
and answers : " I should call the self-moving power Life." Life is
the name which we give to such manifestations of self-determina-
tion. Aristotle, who is careful not to call this energy " self-move-
ment," but considers it to be " that which moves others, but is
unmoved itself," defines it likewise as the principle of life. The
tenth book of Plato's " Laws " has, perhaps, been the suggestive
source of most of the thinking on the necessity of the divine as the
presupposition of the things of the world. Aristotle has treated
the thought again and again ; but the seventh and eiglith books
of his " Physics " and the celebrated seventh chapter of the elev-
enth book of his "Metaphysics" have furnished theology the most
logical form of the intellectual view of this necessity. Aristotle
in the latter passage gives his grounds for recognizing in this pure
activity of self-determination God " as an eternal and the best liv-
ing Being." " He possesses the activity of Reason, of jiure think-
ing and of eternal life, and is always his own object."

§ 39. The ground of Aristotle's identification of self-determina-
tion, or of energy which moves but is not moved, with Reason or
thinking being, becomes clear when we consider that this self-dis-
tinction which constitutes the nature of self-determination or
Causa-sui is subject and its own object, and this in its perfect
form must be self-consciousness, while any lower manifestation of
self-activity will be recognized as life — that of the plant or of the
animal. In the plant there is manifestation of life wherein the
individual seed develops out of itself into a plant and arrives
again at seeds, but not at the same seed — only at seeds of the same
species. So the individual plant does not include self-determina-
tion, but only manifests it as the moving principle of the entire
process. The mere animal as brute animal manifests self-deter-
mination more adequately than the plan*-,, for he has feeling and
locomotion, besides nutrition and reproduction. Put as mere ani-
mal he does not make himself his own object, and hence the
Causa sui which is manifested in him is not included within his
consciousness, but is manifested only as species. Man can make
his feeling in its entirety his object by becoming conscious, not
only of time, space, and the other presuppositions, but especially

810 TTie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of self-activity or original first cause, and in this he arrives at the
knowledge of the Ego and becomes self-conscious. The presup-
position of man as a developing individuality is the perfect indi-
viduality of the Absolute Reason, or God.

Chaptek yi.

Philosophy, Theology, and Religion.

§ 40. Philosophy is not religion, nor a substitute for religion,
any more than it is art, or a substitute for art. There is a distinc-
tion, also, between philosophy and theology, although philosophy
is a necessary constituent of theology. While theology must ne-
cessarily contain a historical and biographical element, and en-
deavor to find in that element the manifestation of necessary and
universal principles, philosophy, on the other hand, devotes itself
exclusively to the consideration of those universal and necessary
conditions of existence which are found to exist in experience,
not as furnished by experience, but as logical, a 'priori conditions
of experience itself.

§ 41. Philosophy finds Time, Space, Causality, Self-activity,
and it arrives, in the consideration of self-activity as the only pos-
sible basis of time, space, and dynamic influence, at the idea of
God as a necessary being. The ideas of time and space, which
all conscious beings find as a priori factors of experience, justify
such general ideas as are expressed by the words " World," " Uni-
verse," " Nature," " History," " Society," etc., which are regarded
as factitious or artificial by those who have not noticed that all
experience possesses, in addition to finite, sensuously present ob-
jects, also the universal and logical conditions of that experience.
The idea of self-activity is the deepest of these presuppositions
which make experience possible, and which make the existence of
the world possible.

§ 42. The idea of self-activity is the source of our thought ot
God. If one lacked this idea of self-activity and could not attain
it, all attempts to teach him theology, or even to reveal to him
divine truth, would be futile. He could not form in his mind, if
he could be said to have a mind, the essential characteristic idea
of God ; he could not think God as a Creator of the world, or as
Self-Existent apart from the world. If the doctrine were revealed

Philomphy in Outline.

;ni

and taught to him, and lie learned to repeat the words in whieli it
is expressed, yet in his consciousness he would conceive only a
limited effect, a dead result, and no living God. But the hy-
pothesis of a consciousness without the idea of self-activity im-
plicit in it as the presupposition of all its knowing, and especially
of its self-consciousness, is a mere hypothesis, without possibility
of being a fact.

§ 43, A pre-condition of divine revelation is the creation of be-
ings who can think the idea of self -activity. The idea must be
involved in knowing as logical condition, although it need not
become explicit without special reflection. Philosophy is a spe-
cial investigation directed to theolos-ical conditions of existence
and experience, and so likewise theology and religion are special
occupations of the soul. The soul must find within itself the idea
of the divine before it can recognize the divine in any manifesta-
tion in the external world.

§44. In discovering and defining the a priori ideas in the
mind, philosophy renders essential service to religion, because it
brings about certain conviction in regard to the objects which
relio;ion holds as divine, and conceives as transcendino; the world
although it has not yet learned their logical necessity. It imagines,
perhaps, that the mind can have experience without presu[)pos-
ino; in its constitution the divine doctrines which it has received
through tradition. But philosophy may arrive at certainty in
regard to the first principle, and the origin and destiny of the
world and man, without making man religious. He must receive
the doctrine into his heart— that is the special function of religion.
To know the doctrine is necessary— that is philosophy and the-
ology ; to receive it into the heart and make it one's life is religion.

§ 45. Philosophy has suffered under the imputation of being
too ambitious— aspiring to "take all knowledge for its province,"
or to usurp the place of religion and destroy the Church. We
have seen that the mind possesses a priori logical conditions whieli
enter experience and render it possible ; we have seen, likewise,
that the mind, in its first stages of consciousness, does not separate
these from experience and reflect on them as special objects. It
does not perceive their regal aspect, nor recognize them as funda-
mental conditions of existence. Nevertheless, it sees what it sees
by their means, and may, by special reflection, become conscious

312 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

of their essential relation. But this hio-her form of reflection is
preceded by many stages of spiritual education, in which partial
insight into these a priori ideas is attained. Special phases, par-
ticular aspects of them, are perceived. In the acquirement and use
of language, in the formation of ethical habits, in the creation and
appreciation of poetry and art, in the pursuit of science, and es-
pecially in the experience of the religious life, these a priori pre-
suppositions appear again and again as essential objects under
various guises — a sort of masquerade, in which these "Lords of
Life," as Emerson ' calls them, pass before the soul.

§ 46. The knowledge of these a priori elements in experience,
although a special one, is the most difficult of acquirement. It is
not a iield that can be exhausted an}' more than the field of mathe-
matics, or the field of natural science, or that of social science.
New acquisitions are new tools for greater and greater acquisition.
We must expect, therefore, that the idea of Self-activity, which we
have found as the first principle, will yield us new insights into
the being and destiny of nature and man, so long as we devote
ourselves to its contemplation.

Chapter YII.
The Triune Nature of God.

§ 47. The conclusion reached in our time, that the theological
doctrine of the Trinity is a useless subtlety, may be found alto-
gether rash, and unwarranted by philosophy. It is true that, while
it makes distinctions in the divine essence, Theology has often dis-
claimed the ability to conceive or think them, but it has never
proved that they were unthinkable. Theology has tried to find
all of its dogmas in the intellect, and to base them on the nature
of Reason. Some have been thoroughly demonstrated, others
have been only partially expounded. In the history of the de-
velopment of Christian dogmas one will find all the phases and
aspects of the speculation by which the intellectual insight into
the Triune nature of God has become a possession of the Church.

§ 48. In philosophy we shall find that this distinction forms the

' See Emerson's sublime essay on " Experience," in ^which he describes the soul's
ascent through five stages of insight.

Philosophy in Outline. 3i;j

basis of the true theory of the existence of the world, aiul of
man's freedom and immortality. Without independence of per-
sons, and oneness of the persons of God, there could n<.t be finite
temporary existence nor immortal individuals.

Leaving this dogmatic statement of results and relations, let us
consider the necessary inferences involved in the thought of self-
acti vity .

§49. Self-activity has been distinguished into determining and
determined, or active and passive, subject and object of activity.
We identiiied the subject as universal, the antithesis between sub-
ject and object as the particular or special, and the total as indi-
vidual. These were seen as the primordial forms of the catego-
ries of Reason — the universal, the 2Mrticula/'ya.u<l i\\Q individual.

§ 50. (1.) The self-determined as self is pure active. The self-
active is vital and living and thinking, and essentially self-
knowing.

§ 51. (2.) It is not adequately expressed as self-active or self-
knowing, because this involves an activity that makes itself pas-
sive, and a knowing that knows itself not as subject, but as
object.

§ 52. (3.) To act simply to produce passivity within itself is the
act of self-annihilation, or of self-contradiction. To know one's
self as object and not as subject, is also not to know one's self
truly, but to know what one's self is not. We see, therefore, that
the explication of self-activity, or self-knowledge, or pure, absolute
self-consciousness, demands that the self-active shall determine
itself as self-active, or that the self-conscious shall know itself as
self-conscious, and that the free shall know itself as a free being.

§ 53. (4.) It follows, therefore, that independence of persons arises
in the primordial self-active one. In order to be self-active and self-
knowing, it is creative, and creates another which is the same as
itself. In our finite knowing, our thoughts and fancies exist for us,
but only subjectively. In the Absolute, their existence as thoughts
is absolute existence. Hence, knowing and willing are one in God.
Tliis, indeed, is the ground of explanation used again and again in
Christian Theology in treating the Trinity.'

1 Aquinas, Summa Tlieol, i, q. xxvii, art. iii. : " In Deo sit idem voluntas ct intcllec-
tus." Also, Summa Contra Gentiles, lib. iv, cap. xix : " Una res sint in Deo intcllcctus ot
voluntas." This is treated fully and explicitly by St. Thomas Aquinas, inasmuch as

314 TJie Journal of tijpeculative Philosophy.

§ 54. (5.) A fii'st absolute self-activity begets a second indepen-
dent, free, perfect self-activity. The second, too, is creative — liis
will and knowing are one. In knowing himself, he creates a third
equal in all respects to himself.

§ 55. But the second is begotten, while the lirst person is unbe-
gotten. In knowing himself, therefore, the second person makes
an object of himself not only as he is, but he makes an object also
of his relation to the first, which is that of being begotten, or de-
rived from the first.

§ 56. In the idea of derivation and begetting there is the idea of
passivity. If the second were only derived and begotten, he were
only passive. But he has made himself self-active from all eternity.
The passivity which is implied in derivation has been eternally an-
nulled, but it is, nevertheless, an element in the self-knowledge of
the Son, and as an object known comes to exist as created, because
his knowing is creating.

§ 57. In thinking his relation to the first person, he therefore
creates a world of finite beings, extending from the most passive
up to the most active. It is a world in which all is process or evo-
lution — no finite existing absolutely, but only relatively to the
development of a higher being. All below man pass away and do
not retain individuality. Man is self-determining as individual,
and hence includes his own development within himself as indi-
vidual, and hence is immortal and free.

§ 58. (6.) It is the thought of a becoming from passivity to per-
fect activity that is involved in the recognition of the derivation of
the second from the first person, and this thought is the basis of
the creation of the world. All stages of finitude are passed through
on the way to the creation of man,

§ 59. The thought of what is merely object — the thought of the
mere passivity — is the thought of simple externality or Space.
Space is the thought of one point outside of every other — no par-
ticipation — simple exclusion — mere objects outside the subject.
Space is the first thought of the creation, the lowest thought in
the self-knowing of the divine second person. (The mechanical,

Christian Theology rests on it. There could be no creation unless intellect and will were
one in God. Self-knowledge is the origin, first,'of the eternally begotten Word, and,
secondly, of the Holy Spirit.

Philosophy in Outline. 315

chemical, and organic phases of nature we shall discuss in another
chapter.)

§ 60. (7.) The Second Person knows himself as eternally ele-
vated above all iinitude and passivity, although his derivation im-
plies passivity as a logically prior condition. And as he known
his perfection as having this logical ])rior condition, he knows his
perfect self as existing as the consununation and summit of Crea-
tion. Theology calls this a procession, or a double jn-ocession. If
the Second Person could not know the evolution or process out of
the passive into the active— out of the finite and imperfect into
the infinite and perfect — then he could not know his derivation
from the First Person. Then, too, there could be no such eleva-
tion of the world, no salvation of any of its'creatures.

§ 61. Because the First Person knoM^s the Second Person as
self-knowing, he knows the self-knowing of the Second, and recog-
nizes in the perfection of the Second his own perfection ; also, in
the creation of the Third perfect person by the self-knowing of tlie
Second Person, the First Person recognizes his ow^n perfection, so
that the Third Person proceeds not only from the Second Person,
but also from the First Person.

§ 62. The Third perfect Personality is the Holy Spirit that lives
in the Invisible Church. It is the archetype of all institutions.
We recognize a sort of personality in institutions. The State, for
example, has deliberative, executive, and administrative functions
— an intellect and a will. What is imperfectly realized in histori-
cal institutions is perfectly realized in the Eternal and Invisible
Church, which is composed of innumerable souls, collected from
innumerable worlds, and all united, not by temporary devices of
written compacts, or immemorial usages and formalities, but by
the bond of love or the spirit of Divine Charity and self-sacrifice,
for the true good of others. The Spirit of this infinite and Eter-
nal Church is the Holy Spirit—" a procession but not a begotten,"
because it arises or is an eternal involution from the manifold of
Creation through the Self-Knowledge of the First and Second

Persons.

§63. Man as individual progresses or develops by social com-
bination with his fellow-men, and thence arise institutions of Civ-
ilization—the family, civil society, the State, the Church. IJie-
torical institutions, being finite and having limitations incident to

316 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

organization, are perishable, but tlieir archetype is the invisible
Church, into which go, or may go, all souls after death. The
principle of social combination or co-operation is altruism. Charity,
or Love, the principle which sacrifices self for one's fellow-men.
In that principle alone can perfect organization exist. The Spirit
of the Invisible Church, the archetype of the Visible Church, and
of all other institutions of Civilization, is the Third Person of the
Divine Being, the Spirit of Love and Co-operation organized into
the greatest reality of the universe. For it includes all souls that
have lived in the universe from the timeless beginning of the
consciousness of the Eternal Word. From this view we find the
world to be the process of evolution of souls, so that this is the
present, past, or future purpose of each and all stellar bodies.

§ 64. (9) The first self-active being in its self-knowledge knows
no passivity, no imperfection, and hence no finite being. The
world is not to be explained from his self-knowledge except by
mediation of the Second Person, called the Eternal Word. The
relation of the First Person is, or may be, expressed, therefore, by
Justice. Justice returns the deed upon the individual and gives
each its due. The due of a finite or negative being, whose indi-
viduality exists through separation and exclusion and negation of
others, is therefore self-annihilation, and such is the fate of all
finitude in the thought of pure self-activity, except it is saved
through the intervention of the thought of the Second Person,
who thinks his relation to the first as derivation or sonship. But
the Eternal Word thinks his origination from God eternally as an
annulment of passivity and isolated material existence, and a rising
into the perfect unity of the Church. Here we have the form of
perfect Grace. A perfect being, whose entire activity brings up
from nothing finite beings and gives them existence and progres-
sion in order to culminate in man, who can carry out this develop-
ment by uniting with his fellow-men in social union and ascend
into the Invisible Church.

N'oUs and Discussions. 317

N(3TES AND DISCUSSIONS.

REPORTS OF THE LECTURES AT THE CONCORD SCHOOL.

[We reprint the following notice of the volume of " Concord Lec-
tures " published last fall by Moses King, Cambridge, Mass., of whom
copies may still be obtained at the prices named. — Ed.]

" The Concord Lectures on Philosophy " will be issued in a short time
from the publishing house of Moses King, at Harvard Square, in Cam-
bridge. In way of co-operation of the faculty and lecturers of the Con-
cord School of Philosophy, the book will have the benefit of all that could
be desired. Every lecturer has revised the abstracts of his own lectures,
and the statements of doctrine and argument are made briefly and clearly,
so that the reader can grasp readily, without reading the full lectures, the
peculiarities of any lecturer or of the school which he represents. One
lecture will be printed in full — that of Professor Garman, of Amherst Col-
lege, who is President Seelye's assistant in the department of mental and
moral philosophy. This is a concise review of the reasoning by which
Dr. L. P. Hickok meets the materialistic agnostics on their own ground,
and has been approved by that veteran metaphysician. A special feature
is made of the Emerson commemoration ; abstracts of all the papers and
addresses will be given. All the poems read at the school — includiug Mr.
Alcott's monody on Mr, Emerson, entitled " Ion," and Mr. Sanborn's open-
ing poem — will be. published in full. The volume will also contitin a
brief historical sketch of the school, with complete programmes of the
first three years of its existence. As foot-notes to the names of the
lecturers will be given brief biographical notices, in which the chief facts
of the life and the writings of each one will be mentioned. Whatever
may be the history of philosophy in this country, however murli the
Concord school may be outdone hereafter, the fact of the attempt will
compel it to be recognized in all faithful histories in coming years, and in
this fact will lie a part of the value of this first authorized publication
of the proceedings. Among the lecturers whose lectures are given in
this volume are Dr. W. T. Harris, Dr. H. K. Jones, Mr. F. B. San Lorn,
Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, Professor John Wataon, Mr. George P. Lathrop,

318 The Journal of Sjpeculative PhilosopTiy.

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Professor Charles E. Garman, Miss Elizabeth P.
Peabody, the Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol, the Rev. R. A. Holland, Mrs. Ednah
D. Cheney, Mr. Rowland G. Hazard, Professor George H. Howison, and
Mr. John Albee.

The volume will contain nearly 200 pages, royal octavo. It will be
printed from large-faced, new type, on fine quality of calendered paper.
It will be bound in two styles, cloth and paper. The price per copy, post-
paid, will be $1.75 for cloth binding, and $1.25 for paper binding.

A good part of the edition is already subscribed for. A limited edition

of only one thousand copies will be printed. No plates are made, and the

type is distributed as soon as the forms are printed, so that, to make,

certain of obtaining a copy, the order should be sent to the publisher

without delay.

MR. WASaON ON EVOLUTION.

[We reprint the following very able letter by Mr. Wasson from the
columns of "The Index" (for November 9, 1882). It is a part of a dis-
cussion between Mr. Wasson and Mr. B. F. Underwood. — Ed.]

My dear Sir : You say with good warrant that I am an evolutionist.
I had said as much to you, and should have said it in " The Index," in
order to correct some misapprehensions, had I found occasion to do so
without coming forward for that express purpose. You have now spoken
for me, and I am glad of it. But, so much being said, I am under obliga-
tion to say more. For I believe in evolution without accepting as suffi-
cient any philosophical explanation of the fact hitherto offered — an evo-
lutionist holding out for more adequate explanations ; and I shrewdly
suspect that the case is not much otherwise with Colonel Higginson, little
as he may be satisfied with the system and methods of Herbert Spencer.
But to some of your readers, with whom the fact of evolution and Mr.
Spencer's explanation of it are one and the same, and no more to be sepa-
rated than the fact of gravitation and the law of gravitation as discovered
by Newton, such a declaration of position will not be intelligible. I must
therefore try to render it intelligible, and beg leave to do so in the form
of a letter to yourself, as if in continuance of a conversation which passed
between us one evening, and of which I retain a pleasant recollection.

Evolution means continuity in the process of nature, or of the known
universe. The contrary notion is that of a natural process interrupted at
times by obtrusions or injections of power from without, which power
may thereafter either run in the channels of nature to give them a new
content, or run side by side with them as a distinct supernatural current,
or it may but briefly suspend the effect of natural law, and then be with-

Notes and Discussions. 319

drawn, leaving all to go on as before. Now, the former conception was
that of the new school of thought in New England, commonly known as
the transcendental school, before Herbert Spencer was hoard of. Kmerson
had announced it as indubitable truth in "Nature," his earliest work.
Parker had applied it to one great province or principle of human history
in his " Discourse of Religion." Iligginson and Johnson, the two adher-
ents of the school whom I first encountered upon coming to Massachusetts
in 1851, were younger men, and not in the same way before the public,
nor do I recall any express private declaration from either of them upon
the point ; but they were certainly on the same line of thought. So ex-
tended indeed was this manner of thinking that it had reached me in
eastern Maine, and in a general way determined finally my point of view,
while I was yet a student there in an orthodox theological seminary,
therefore between the years 1848 and 1851. " Development " was the
word then, and quite as good a word as evolution, save that the latter is
in some respects more convenient. This term came into vogue, displac-
ing the older one, along with a particular explanation of the world-pro-
cess, as being but the blind movement of forces purely physical or physico-
chemical ; and now it is the persuasion of many that the idea of continuous
universal development was born into the world from the womb of this
particular theory ; and that one can be an evolutionist in no other form.
But the idea has been abroad for a century or more. During no less a
period it has been generating theories and hypotheses designed to cover
some part of the great world-process, if not the whole. And familiar to
American transcendentalism, though in a sense not very precisely defined,
it was taken up by Hegel and worked out methodically with a thorough-
ness and in a way that excited the vast admiration of one age, and now
excites the half-contemptuous astonishment of another.

Hegel was an evolutionist of the strictest sort. I hazard nothing in
saying this, though far from being an Hegelian scholar, for a slight ac-
quaintance with his manner of thinking makes the fact obvious. Take,
for example, his " Philosophy of History," his most exoteric work. He
there represents history as a logically ordered succession of steps, whose
result is a freedom self-contained and self-governed. The whole process
is presumed in the first step, and in the last all the preceding ones arc
subsumed. But here we are to make a distinction of much importance ;
we are to distinguish between two very different conceptions of evolution.
The first step in Hegel's historical evolution is represented by China, the
second by India, another by Greece, and so on. Now, according to one
style of thought, the phenomenal fact, China, should have evolved itself to
become India; the phenomenal fact, India, have evolved itself to become

320 The Joivrnal of 8j)eculative Philosophy.

Greece ; and so to the end. This would imply that what had actually
come to the surface in China was sufficient to produce, and of necessity
must produce, the whole course and result of history. It would imply^
not simply that the actual morals, institutions, laws, and manners of China
sprang from productive principles in the human spirit which would else-
where go further and give themselves a higher manifestation, but that
these morals, institutions, laws, and manners would transform themselves
into others of a more advanced type, and these again into others ; thus,
that the first phenomenal result, considered as quite cut off from any un-
apparent resource, is in and of itself the source and principle of all subse-
quent evolution. Hegel thought quite differently. What he speaks of is
the self-evolution of spirit, or of the human spirit. This, following an
order inherent in itself, unfolds its content, and gives itself an outward
representation in doing so ; China representing the primary degree of this
unfoldincf, India the next, and so on. Here the evolution and the con-
tinuity are spiritual, and spiritual only. In the outward representation
we observe indeed an order of succession, but no outward line of produc-
tion running from one degree to the next, say from China to India. The
succession is like that of the steps in a stairway, where there is indeed
aregular ascending order, but no production of one step by the next
lower.

But it will now be prudent for me to get away from Hegel, and make
a safe retreat. I really do not know how far the evolution of existence,
as traced in his " Logic " should be understood as a movement taking place
in time ; I am only sure that the thought-process, which according to him
is the veritable world-process, is evolutionary, and in the most vigorous
sense. But what is here said of him is simply preparatory to a statement
which might have been made without reference to him, though the prepa-
ration is not superfluous. The statement is that evolution may be, and
has been, conceived of in two quite opposite ways. On the one hand, it
is conceived of as proceeding from within outward, from unapparent reality
to apparent form significant and representative of the reality ; which rep-'
resentation is in and of itself, or apart from its producing principle, noth-
ing. This, I suppose, was — approximately at least — the earlier thought
of Emerson and of the American transcendentalists generally. Take for
illustration some well-known lines from "The Problem."

" These temples grew as grows the grass ;
Art might obey, but not surpass ;
The passive master lent his hand
To the Tast soul that o'er him planned."

NoUs and Discus-nons. 321

The master is passive, and it is the vast soul which plans in the growth
of grass and temples, dewdrops and worlds. Art is true art only when
inspired and guided by conceiving Nature, the supreme and eternal artist.
Spiritual Nature imagines, and the world-picture lies before us, we our-
selves a part of it; she thinks, and her thoughts are the laws of structure
and motion in the universe. She is not, meanwhile, apart from her mani-
festation, but ever present in it and one with it. Instinct with her life,
the stone is " conscious; " instinct with her purpose, the worm is " striv-
ing to be man." Now, one may represent the fact to himself in this wav,
and yet be no evolutionist, even though he admit an ascending course of
phenomenal manifestation. To illustrate, let us suppose that a Phidias or
Michel Angelo has come to the perfect maturity of his genius, and is fully
qualified to plan a Parthenon or St. Peter's, but that he chooses, one can-
not say why, to begin with a hut, then to build something a little finer,
and so through a succession of approximations, to bring forth at last the
glorious structure which was in his mind from the first. This were not
evolution. On the other hand, suppose a great artistic genius in course
of development; it is Turner, for example, that we are thinking of. In
principle and promise the genius is fully there at the beginning of his
career, but, as realized and productive power, it is daily arriving, and it
goes on increasing during a period of some five-and-thirty years. Moan-
time, it is of the nature of this genius to be productive, to give itself an
outward and visible expression. Always it brings forth its best, but its
best of to-day will be bettered another day, for its power grows. Review-
ing Turner's works, we can trace the stages of his artistic growth ; from
point to point we can see that his apprehension becomes more alive, his
insight more delicate and penetrating, his imagination freer, larger, and
more subtile. Here is a real development, but, though represented out-
wardly, it takes place only in the g.mius of the artist. The productive
principle is there, and there too is the principle of continuity. Between
the picture of one year and that of another there is a connection, but they
are connected only through the producing genius. Now, universal evolu-
tion has been conceived of in a manner somewhat similar, thougli not
strictly the same. The productive power and the principle of continuity
are in Nature with the capital initial— Nature as spiritual, self-active, for-
mative, and not in the outward representation, though she is not apart
from her product, like the painter from the picture. This. I should say,
was Emerson's way of thinking. He is indeed a hard man to corner, for
he not onlv spoke but thought poetically, and can never be bound to a
theory strictly defined. But I should say that his thought ran in the
direction indicated.

xyn— 21

322 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Let us now turn to the opposite conception. Here physical force, as
apparent in the forms and motions of material things, is the be-all and
end-all. It is purely phenomenal in the sense of existing only relatively
to us, as we only relatively to it. Behind it is a nondescript somewhat
which exists absolutely, but of which nothing can be known, since it is in no
mode of relation either with ourselves or with the world around us. Quite
independently of this, in which there is no evolution, and out of which
there is none, the phenomenal or physical evolves itself, passing ever from
simpler to more complex forms. Its principle of continuity is the law,
newly discovered, of the conservation of physical energy, or persistence
of force. Its productive principle is perhaps gravitation, since this seems
to be indicated as the one primordial mode of force, out of which all other
modes may or must have come ; though on this head a degree of reserve
is maintained. The whole movement is from without inward. At the
outset there is but a gas or nebulous matter, uniform in character, uni-
formly diffused through the infinitude of space, and drawn equally in
every direction. This matter is all and only surface ; it has no within,
but is extension without intensiion. But it concentrates itself in masses,
rounds itself into globes, and now has an inner and an outer, though only
in the spatial sense. But again it proceeds, and, in the complexities of
chemical differentiation and affinity, acquires a positive interior content.
Then it develops life, and in this arrives at a far intenser mode of relation ;
then through the ever-deepening subtleties and mysteries of vital being
increases incessantly the proportion of content to surface. At length,
though itself mindless, it evolves conscious mind or spirit, which has no
surface, but is intension without extension. And while, according to the
former conception, the physical world is in and of itself nothing, but
might be called a function of spirit, so here we have the precise contrary ;
spirit is evolved, but it is only a function of matter, and has in itself no
being.

Such are the opposed conceptions, as rapidly and roughly sketched.
My own persuasion is that a true and entire theory of evolution, should it
one day come, will comprise both and conform to neither. I believe that
the real evolution is polaric, spiritual-physical ; that on both sides there is
a line of continuity, and productive power in their unity. An analogy
will render it fairly clear what these words mean ; but this letter is
already too long, and I must crave leave to continue the subject and
conclude the present statement in another.

Yours very truly,

D. A. Wasson.

Notes and Discussions, 323

TRANSLA riONS FROM S CHOP EN HA UER AND VON HA RTMA NN.

[The following announcement from Messrs. Triibner & Co., of Lon-
don, conveys the welcome intelligence that the long-expected tn'mslations
of "The World as Will and Idea" ("Die Welt als Wille und V..rste]-
luDg"), by Arthur Schopenhauer, and "The Philosophy of the Uncon-
scious " (" Die Philosophic des Unbewussten "), by Edward von Ilartinann,
will appear at an early date. There are no works on philosophy which
have attained to greater popularity in this generation than the two works
here oifered to the public. — Ed.]

" The World as Will and Idea," by Arthur Schopenhauer. Translated from the Ger-
man. (In October, 188:^.) In Three Volumes, post Svo.

It is now fully sixty years since Schopenhauer's "Opus Miignum"— destined to work
a revolution in the philosophical speculation of the century— made its first appearance.
Still, such was the indifference exhibited towards this work by the author's contem-
poraries occupying the chairs of philosophy at the different German universitior', that,
a few years after its appearance, the greater part of the edition found its way into the
paper-maker's tub It was only towards the close of the first half of the present cen-
tury that a reaction set in, and that the work, hitherto unaccountably neglected, com-
menced to assert its claims to the attention of the public. Since then, edition has fol-
lowed edition in rapid succession.

It must be said, to the credit of an Englishman (John Oxenford), that to an article
of his in the " Westminster Review," which created quite a sensation at the time, and
which reacted powerfully on German opinion, the tardy recognition of the great phi-
losopher is in some measure due. A translation of the work has long been needed,
but the difficulties were great, and several efforts in that direction were killed in the
bud.

The present translation has been undertaken by two gentlemen, trained in German
philosophical thought at German universities, and prej)ared for the task by an intimate
acquaintance with the principles of Schopenhauer's philosophy.

" The Philosophy of the Unconscious,'" by Edward von Hartmann. Translated from
the German by W. C. Coupland. (In December, 1883.) In Three Volumes, post iSvo.

There must necessarily be a close alliance between true merit and success — cl'^e iho
unexampled success of Hartmanu's " Philosophy of the Unconscious" would bnffle all
reasonable explanation. But its cause is, perhaps, not far to seek ; the author of the
work is one of the most gifted, yet independent, disciples of Schopenhauer, whce sys-
tem of philosophy he exhibits in a masterly way, attempting at the same time to har-
monize it with those of Hegel and Schelling. As he is, moreover, master of a lucid
and elegant style, a larger number of general readers has been attracted by and fa.sci-
nated with the work than is, as a rule, the case with works on meUphysical subjecta.
The outcome has been the sale of ten editions of t'le German original since its fir.tt
appearance. It could not be otherwise than that a lively desire sliould hive arisen in
England, as well as in the United States, for the appearance of a faithful tran.-lnlion ;
and it is surprising that it has not been attempted before. Probal)ly the cxtraordinarj
difficulties of the task have hitherto deterred intending translators. But howen-r that

324 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosophy.

may be, it is believed that the present translator — an ardent student of German phi-
losophy — has successfully coped with the difficulties of the task, and that his translation
will satisfy all reasonable expectations.

London: Triibner & Co., 57 and 59 Ludgate Hill.

PRAYER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

[rOUND IN HEB BOOK OP DEVOTIONS. PEOBABLT WRITTEN A SHOBT TIME BEFORE HER

EXECUTION.]

Domine Deus ! speravi in te ;
care mi Jesu ! nunc libera me :
In dura catena, in misera poena,

Desidero te.
Languendo, geinendo, et genuflectendo,

Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me.

TRANSLATION.

Blessed Redeemer ! my hope lies in thee ;

Jesus, Beloved ! now liberate me :

In fetters I languish, and in my soul's anguish,

I supplicate thee.
Heart-rending sighs sending, on knee lowly bending,

I adore, and implore thee to liberate me.

Theodore Harris.
CoNCOBD, Mass.

I300K NOTICES.

La Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger. Edited by Th. Ribot.
[The contents of Volumes VIII to XII of this valuable philosophical journal will be
published in a future number of this journal. The contents of Vols. I to VII will
be found in Jour. Spec. Phil., x, p. 109, and xiii, p. 44. — En.]

January, 1882:

This number is devoted to: (1) "Musical .(Esthetics in France. I. Psychology of
Vocal Music," by Ch. Leveque. The author states that " the philosophy of the beau-
tiful and of art, or general aesthetics, has developed more slowly, and produced fewer
works, in France than in Germany. France has not lacked eminent critics on these
subjects, but they have not gone deeply into the philosophy of the art. This is espe-
cially true of music. Those uncultured in it are not tempted to write of it psychologi-
cally. J. J. Rousseau, and a few other noted writers, advanced the study of music'by
method, but not until within twenty years has a complete treatise been met with."
M. Levfique analyzes " The Philosophy of Music," by M. Charles Beauquier, as a sam-

Book Notices. 325

pie of the progress of musical ajsthetice, and acknowledges it to be a truly philo-
sophical work.

(2) " The Principle of Morals," by Ch. Secr6tan. First article. " Each spring delights
our eyes with flowers like those of the year before, and each generation of men agi-
tales the problems that their fathers flattered themselves they had solved. Incontes-
table in the domain of mathematics, of sensible experience and indii.-itry, the law of
progress does not seem to extend its empire to the study of the deepest causes— those
of our origin and destiny. Men for centuries have universally <iuestioned themselves
on the law of their activity without having found an answer sufficiently evident to
unite them in the same conviction." M. Secr^tan pursues his subject at icn<'tli under
the heads of: 1. Obligation. Herein he maintains that all moral doctrine revolves upon
duty and supposes liberty. The question, " What ought I to do?" would have no
meaning if there were not several courses possible to follow, of which only one is that
of duty. Thus, free-will and the sentiment of obligation form the conditions of moral
thought, because they are the very conditions of practical activity. 2. Liberii/. M.
Secretan argues that the conception of obUgation includes ii conception of liber;y and
that one cannot be obliged by duty to follow one course, and be rigorously determined
by nature to follow another; the fatality which sometimes draws one to recognize evil
is relative and secondary. 3. Duti/ in Empiricism. The highest logic is found only
in morals. Recipiocally, morals are founded on logic, the indispensable preliminaries
of which are obligation and liberty. A consistent empiricism will never venture to
formulate a moral, for this act implies an ideal universally required of thought — or, in
other words, an obligation. A logical mind does not regard obligation as other than
the feeling of being obliged. 4. Duty in Rationalism. However rationalists mav iden-
tify themselves with science, they have not obtained philosophy unless they can explain
what knowledge is in itself The pre-eminence of practical reason, the superiority of
virtue over science, of the will over the understanding, demonstrate themselves to who-
ever asks, " What am I?" The superiority of virtue over science is defined within ita
just limits to him who asks, " What ought I to do ? " The question confesses that
study is a duty, and that science is a virtue necessary to all others. Kunt and Fichte
so understood it. 5. Experience and the a priori in Morals. This argument is based
on the relations of morals to metaphysics, in which the author continues to define the
idea of duty and the conception of the ideal. The subject of morals is exhaustively
treated by him under the divisions heroin mentioned, and the nature and beliefs of
man are minutely defined, and his relations to spiritual influence argued with earnest-
ness and faith.

(3; " Monism in Germany." First article, by D. Nolen. The writer says that the
systems that have sprung up in Germany from the awakening of philosophic specula-
tion within fifteen years seem to have united to avenge the name and defend the prin-
ciples of monism. The word is ascribed to the invention of Wolff. " The moni.sts of
the present," this article affirms, "place science beure metaphysics, and the prob-
lems heretofore belonging to the latter are now solved by science, in which truth alone
can be found. M. Nolen considers monism from the scientific standpoint, and outlines
its history.

(4) The Book Notices in this number include:

(a) " Discourses on the History of Religions," by A. Rdville. Paris : G. Fisch-
bacher, 1881. This volume contains the course of lectures given by M. R^villc on the
history of religions, and are, according to his critic, James Darmcsteler, a model of

326 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

philosophic impartiality. Several chapters are devoted to the discussion of the old'
theories on primitive revelation and primitive tradition, worship, and symbols, and
many interesting questions, and the author is proclaimed a master in the art of fine
writing. (6) "An Historical Study on the Philosophy of the Renaissance in Italy""
(Cesare Cremonini), by Mabilleau. Paris: Hachette. This history is a kind of unique
monograph of a condensed memoir on the school of Padua. Cremonini was great in
the eyes of his contemporaries, and is unknown to-day. M. Mabilleau, with designed
impartiality in exposing his deficiencies, leads the reader to be partial through charity,
the critic, M. Georges Lyon, states. In his opinion, the most interesting portion of the
work is that which relates to the relations of the Paduan to the Jesuits and the Inqui-
sition, (c) " Our Duties and our Rights," by M. Ferraz (Paris : Didier), comprises a
course delivered before the Faculty of Letters at Lyons, recommended by the critic, F.
B., to masters and pupils, as very instructive and clearly written, {d) " The History
of Psychology," by Dr. Herm. Siebeok. Gotha: Perthes, 1880. This history differs
from others, says the critic, Edmond Colsenet, in giving the beginning and development
of the sciences particularly relating to man, physiology, and medicine. The first part
treats of the beginning of psychology before Socrates and the sophists. The second
part, " The Constitution 'if Psychology as a Philosophic Science," by Socrates and Plato,
in the sense of dualism, (e) " Literary Polemics in the J^ourth Century before Jesus
Christ," by Gustav Teichmiiller. Breslau: William Koebner, ISSl. Paul Tannery ana-
lyzes this work. In his opinion, no more important one on philosophy has been issued
for a long while. The author throws new light on the dialogues of Plato. Under
Bibliographical Notices, Henri Marion reviews a work on Bacon by Thomas Fowler.
London: Sampson & Low. "A strong and substantial work." " Hartley and James
Mill," by G. Spencer Bower. Loudon : Sampson & Low. The first part is devoted to
biographies, the second to philosophic opinions and systems, and the third examines
the value and influence of their doctrines. According to Th. Ribot, this volume is
the best resume of the doctrines of Hartley and Mill.

(5) Review of Foreign Italian Periodicals.

(a) " Rivista di Filosofia Scientifica " for July ; (6) " La Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane "
for April, June, and August.

February Number :

(1) "The System of Spinoza in France," by P. Janet. "The history of Spinoza's
system in France may be divided into three periods. In the seventeenth century Spi-
noza was an object of curiosity to some strong minds, and of execration and horror to
believers who saw in him only a ' monster.' In the eighteenth century, with some few
exceptions, he was scorned and neglected as obscure, barbarous, indecipherable. In the
nineteenth century, owing chiefly to the German influence, he is restored to honor,
finds new disciples, and is treated with respect even by his adversaries." These three
phases the author of this article chooses for the basis of a very exact study, both
critical and biographical, with a synopsis of the estimates of the various adversaries of
Spinoza. In Paul Janet's belief, the noble and superior qualities of Spinoza's system
are such as might be appropriated by Spiritualism, leaving the lesser ones to its op-
ponents. Spinoza could be divided into halves, one being claimed by the followers of
Descartes, the other by those of Diderot.

(2) "The Faculties of the Child at the Period of Birth," by B. Perez, is a semi-physi-
cal, semi-psychological treatise, which evinces an excellent understanding of the mental
power of infants.

Booh Notices. 327

(3) " Monism in Germany," by Nolen, is concluded in a lengthy analyeis of Hart-
mann, and has varied and interesting philosophical features.

(4) "The Seven Enigmas of the World" is the title of a speech delivered before the
Academy of Berlin, July 8, 1880, in honor of its founder, Leibnitz, by M. Dul)ois-Rey.
mond. "The seven enigmas "are: 1. The intimate nature of matter and force; 2. The
origin of movement ; 3. The origin of life ; 4. The apparent finality in nature ; 6.
The origin of sensation ; 6. The origin of reflected thought and language ; 7. Free-
will. If M. Reymond has not solved these enigmas, he seems to have compared and
studied them with profound insight, if we may judge by the presentation of " C. S.,"
who oifers little comment.

(5) The Book Notices are :

(rt) "Positivism and Experimental Science," by the Abb6 De Broglie. Paris: Victor
Palme. According to his critic, Ch. Secrelan, De Broglie is a clear, fertile, exact
writer, agreeable and eloquent, and courageous in his opinions. His work is destined
to arrest the progress of error, and is "thoroughly polemic." (6) "On the Circulation
of the Blood in the Brain of Man," by Angelo Mosso, Salviucci, Rome, 1880. The im-
portant question considered in this work is the circulation in the brain during mental
work and during sleep, and what are the physical conditions of Conscience. The sub-
ject is ably treated, and an excellent idea of the work is given by " Y.. G." (o) " Berke-
ley," by A. Campbell Eraser, LL. D. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and
London, The biographical portion of this book contains a correspondence between
Berkeley and Sir John Percival, reviewed by A. Penjon. {d) "Studies on the History
of Primitive Institutions," by Sir Henry Sumner Maine, translated from English into
French by M. Leyritz. Paris : Thorin. All Europe has saluted the author as a master
in the science of origins, and any work by him, says his critic, Henri Marion, should
be called to the attention of the thinking public, (e) " Habit, and its Influence on
Education," by Dr. Paul Radestock, A Psychological-Pedagogical Study. Berlin, 18S2,
R. Appelius. (/) "The Analysis," by H. Schmidt, proves this work to be of great
merit in mental development and education, (^r) "The Geometric Number of Plato,"
a new interpretation, by J. Dupuis. Paris : Hachette, 1881. The critic, Paul Tannery,
does not always agree with the writer in numericals, but thinks his interpretation the
most " plausible " of any that has appeared or will appear, (h) " History of the Sci-
ences in Belgium," by Ch. Lagrange, E. Lagrange, A. Gilkinet. Four volumes com-
prise this history, and present the intellectual development of Belgium since 1830.

(6) Review of Foreign Periodicals.

(«) "Experimental Review of Freniatria and Legal Medicine." (b) "Archivio de
Psichiatria, and Criminal Anthropology."

March Number :

(1) " The Stages of the Religious Idea in Humanity," based on a new book by Edu-
ard von Hartmann, by M. Vernes. " Whoever regards religion as an illusion," sayB
M. Hartmann, " must also regard as illusion the apparent development (progression) to
which this illusion gives place; but he who has the conviction that there is a real de-
velopment in religious matters cannot maintain that the object of this development is
a pure illusion." This thesis is discussed on every point by M. Vernes. M. Hartmann
attempts to trace religion to the animal origin of man, questioning if animals have or
have had a religion. He adopts the term used by the famous Max Muller, a sav-.m in
matters relating to India-henotheism-which M. Vernes defines as the common ongia
of abstract monism, polytheism, or monotheism. Henotheism is based upon a con-

328 The Journal of Speculative PMlosojphy.

tradiction. Man seeks divinity and finds gods ; he addresses each of these gods in turn
as if they were the divinity, and confers upon each predicates which bring into question
the divinity of other gods, and, by addressing diflferent demands to each, he uncon-
sciously denies their natural divinity. M. Vernes does not thinit that the fact that the
premises of M. Hartmann are approved by the eminent Max Miiller renders them less
open to discussion. In this belief he considers religion in all its forms and to remote
•ages, and tests M. Hartmann's arguments by comparison with historical facts, the result
of which is an instructive and interesting view of religious origin and division.

(2) "Musical .^Esthetics in France," second article. "The Psychology of Instru-
ments," by Ch. Leveque. M. Leveque compares the various musical instruments in
their physical effect upon the voice. Stringed instruments, being capable of producing
sustained notes, harmonize with the voice, and the piano changes the natural tones of
the voice, since the latter is in subjection to it. The more musical an instrument, the
more it is the voice, which is the greatest of all instruments, and upon which musical
thought, the expression of the soul, can be impressed and conveyed in musical language
to others, as if this unlimited natural instrument, the voice, were passive material. With
this statement the author discusses the expressive power of various instruments, and the
capability as well as the usual misunderstanding of the voice.

(3) " The Principle of Morals,'' second article, by Ch. Secretan. The continuance
of this subject is a wider examination of the principles given in the beginning of the
argument previously published. The divisions under which it is herein presented are :

The a priori element of principle.

The a priori in the conception of the world.

The empiric element of principle in nature.

Moral Unity — Discussion of the Objections to Unity.

(4; Under Book Reviews are mentioned :

(a) "Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy," by F. Pollock. London: C. Kegan Paul &
Co., 1880. Reviewed by Jules Lagneau, who pronounces the work to be produced in
leisure with great thought and a conscientious care amounting to piety, and with a pa-
tience and candid reasoning with which Spinoza would have his works studied. The
synopsis of M. Lagneau forms a clear and connected resume of Spinoza's principles as
understood by M. Pollock, and his enthusiasm for the latter is easily allowed when con-
sidering the interesting matter he has found for approval. (6) " History of the New
Philosophy," second volume, by Windelband. Reviewed by Henri Marion. This his-
tory treats of philosophy before Kant, Kantian philosophy, and philosophy after Kant.
The second volume treats exclusively of Kant and his German successors. The author
treats the subject with ardor, and his views are very comprehensive ; but there are de-
fects in the arrangement of matter, and a lack of titles where needed, according to the
estimate of his critic, (e) " Inductive Knowledge," by Th. Jacob. TJnger, Berlin, 1881.
Reviewed by A. Debon. Three interesting questions form the object of what this critic
calls a " curious study " : 1. How is the understanding of conception to be defined — that
is to say, its signification and scientific value ? 2. In what consists the demonstrating
link of the attributes of conception in all kinds of reasoning, either mathematical or ex-
perimental deduction? 3. On what is based induction itself, understood in the common
sense of the word, that is, the extension of right or law demonstrated, in all time and in
all places in the same conditions, {d) " Saint Catherine of Sienna ; Psycho-pathologi-
cal Observations," by Alfonso Asturaro. Naples: Morano, 1881. This brochure is a
sketch, and not a complete life. The author speaks respectfully of Catherine, but re-

Book Notices. 329

gards her as influenced by hysteria springing from physical causes, and from tliis con-
•dition arose her visions and ecstasies.

(6) Review of Foreign Periodicals.

April Number :

(1) "Psychological Methods and Experimental Psycholofzy," from the recent works
of M. Wuiidt, by G. Seailles. An account of the personal labors of M. Wundt and hi.s
pupils in the laboratory of the university at Leipzig.

(2) "Psychology of Great Men," first article, by H. .Toly. The author says that it is
more difficult to study the superior than the degenerate forms of humiin intolligence.
The mail of genius, in the accredited opinion, is more occupied in doing than in nskmg
how he does ; he bears with him, it is generally asserted, the secret of his creation. As
for ordinary minds, it is, unfortunately, easier for them to grasp what they arc thomsplves,
and to understand the weaknesses of every nature against which they dailv defend
themselves, -than to penetrate the conditions of existence and to measure the heights of
those sublime faculties whose development has been so quickly arrested in themselves.
Works on madness and crime abound, but those which treat of genius are not onlv rare,
but are almost always devoted to depreciating their subject, to bringing out the vices
or weaknesses of great characters, and discovering in them the germs of physical or
mental maladies, which so often form the greater part of the inheritance on which their
posterity can count. A genius M. Joly defines as having had his head higher than the
majority of men, and his feet, perhaps, as low as the smallest child, or even beast. lie
may be a genius in some attributes only. In this first article he analyzes intuition,
inspiration, and inheritance, and presents many striking thoughts.

(3) M. Secretan concludes his subject, " The Principles of Morals," discussing it further
under the heads : " i^eswme of the Deduction. Impossibility of Subjective Morals: Re-
ligious Morals — Personal Interest — Individual Perfection — Charity — Justice."

(4) Book Notices :

(a) "Inward Speech," an essay on Descriptive Psychology, by Victor Egger. Paris :
"Germer Bailliere, 1881. " Inward speech," says the author, " is something well known
bat greatly ignored, especially by philosophers." The analysis which Victor Brochard
gives of this book fills several pages. He pronounces M. E::ger a pure psychologist,
presenting his subject without reference to physiology. His style is remarkably finished,
his thoughts carefully elaborated, and his work one of great distinction. (A) " Probity
and Moral Law; Ethical and Teleological," by Mme. Clemence Rover. Paris: Guillau-
min & Co., 1881. This author has written many important philosophical works, and
this one her critic pronounces the boldest expression of evolutionism in morals, even
going beyond the conclusions of H. Spencer in his " Data of Ethics " ; for it embraces
in a vast synthesis the totality of beings, organic and inorganic. " A work of serious
merit, always suggestive and frequently profound." (c) "J. Salvador, His Life, Works,
and Criticisms," by Colonel Gabriel Salvador. Paris: Calmann Levy. Joseph Salvador
was one of the first and boldest initiators of religious criticism in the ninetcei>th cen-
tury. Since 1822 he has, as M. Renan avers, thrown a new and " audacious " light upon
the origin of religion, {d) " The Power of Sound," by Edmund Gurncy. London :
Smith, Elder & Co. A fine treatise on musical aesthetics.

(5) Foreign Periodicals.

May Number:

(1) "Determinism and Liberty," "Liberty demonstrated by Mechanics," by J. DeV^
bceuf. " If there is a problem which inspires, and at the same time leads to despair,"

330 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

says this author, " it is that of liberty. Since the day that man began to reflect on his
own nature he has not ceased to put this question to himself, ' Am I free ? ' The an-
swer varies according to his stand-point. If a legislator or judge, free-will is to him a
dogma ; if a priest or believer, he lays it as a sacrifice at the feet of divinity ; if a philo-
sophical moralist, he finds in his inmost being the irrefragable proof of the indepen-
dence of his conscious thought ; if a philosopher in natural philosophy, the laws of na-
ture, universal and immutable, prevent him from granting to any being whatsoever the
privilege of escaping from it." The author, under the first division of his subject —
I. " Ordinary arguments for and against free-will " — continues : " If an inexorable fatalism
rulss our thoughts and actions, there is no longer truth or science ; error is legitimate,
and there is no longer error; the wise man and fool are both in the right, and there are
no longer fools or wise men. All opinions, even tho.^e qualified as absurd, are only
what they must be ; the determinist who torments himself to defend his cause is only
a puppet in the hands of destiny, which at a given moment draws him from behind the
scenes and makes him speak and gesticulate on the stage before other puppets, his
spectators.

" Here the adversaries of fatalism triumph, but it is a mere victory of words. These
unassailable consequences the determinist accepts without the least repugnance. It
must be thus," he says. " We can do nothing about it. Each plays the part assigned
to him for all eternity, and plays it conscientiously, with the persuasion, more or less
profound, that he is the author of it."

II. " Can free-will be an illusion ? "

The deterniiuists answer the moralists that the idea of freedom and faith in free-wilt
is an illusion. The author examines the premises of both believers. The determinists
confess that they believe themselves free, although science assures them they are not.
The author studies the opposition between faith and science.

III. Can there exist forces capable of modifying their intensity, their direction, or
their point of application ?

IV. " Of the pretended necessity of a directing principle to regulate cases of inde-
terminate movement."

This subject M. Delboeuf acknowleges to belong to geometricians rather than to phi-
losophers, but he gives the views of noted mathematicians.

V. "To determine a movement, can a force that is null suffice in certain cases? "

VI. " If there are free actions, they cannot imply a creation of force."

Whatever the opinion in regard to the origin of human activity, man stands towards
nature as a master to a slave.

(2) " The Renaissance of Materialism," by F. Paulhan. This article is a brief history
of the conditions giving rise in France to materialism, and an account of its growth. One
of the most obscure points of materialism M. Paulhau declares to be the conception
of matter itself, and the materialists cannot answer what matter is. Materialism and
positivism he asserts are enemies. The prevailing opinion is that experimental philoso-
phy is a genus of which positivism and materialism are two species.

(3) " Anaximander of Miletus; The Infinite, and Evolution and Revolution (Entro-
pie)," by P. Tannery.

This article is a kind of critical synopsis of historical information given by Gustav
Teichmiiller regarding Anaximander. M. Tannery states that, in the grave question
of the origin and destiny of the world, philosophy, since its birth, has been hovering
between the thesis of Anaximander and the antithesis of Xenophanes.

331

,. . Book Notices.

June h umber :

(1) "Sociologic Studies in France. I. Animal Colonies," by A Espinaa

The history of individuality begins for M. Perrier. according to the staten.ent of M
Espinas, with that of organization and life; something hke an an: ouncemcnt of this i.
found in what is poetically called the personality of the atom. The character of the
atom and evolution occupy a great portion of this analvpis bv M. Er-pinas

(2) " Determinism and Liberty," by M. Delboeuf, continued from the Mar number of
"La Revue." "Determinism, as a doctrine, is as ancient as human thought." The
continuance of this subject is divided into: Proof of the Existence of Liberty.

I. Fxpose of mechanism.

n. Law of the fixation of force. Neither this force nor that of the conservation of
energy is in contradiction to free-will.

III. Free beings might dispense with time. Distinction between real and abstract
uniform time.

IV. There exist discontinued movements.

V. Discontinued movements are explained only by liberty.

(3) " The Variations of Personality in the Normal State," by F. Paulhan.

" 1. The variations of personality, analogous to those revealed by ihe morbid condi-
tions described by various authors, are very frequent in the normal state. 2. It man
can be said to have a certain unity, this unity has its basis in the body, and not in the
Boul, and in the lower rather thtin the higher functions of the brain. 3. Man has not a
completed unity ; it seems to be only in progress of formation." From this thesis the
author gives at length views of pathological phenomena.

July Number :

(1) "The Sense of Locality and its Organs in Animals and Man," by C. Viguier.

In the words ot an unknown writer, from whom M. Viguier quotes, "Natural history
has been haunted by a phantom known by the name of instinct, which is invoked in all
difficult cases, as was the term phlogistic by the chemists of the last century. Lewes
regards instinct only as degenerated intelligence. The wonderful faculty that animals
possess of returning to places from which they have been taken, shut up in boxes from
■which they saw nothing, M. Viguier attributes to the sense of smell. The animal
perceives a succession of odor? along his route, and by them traces his way back, no
matter how manv turns there may be. With man the hand is closely connected with
the power of vision; an animal, not having this member, has a keener scent to act with
vision. Animals have hereditary aversion.- and fears, and their object becomes known
to them by their sense of smell. The chief facts of this article are presented to provs
a distinct sense of locality in man analogous to the sense of smell in animals.

(2) "The Psychology of Great Men," by U. Joly. The continuation of this subject
by M. Joly treats of Heredity in Families, and its efl'ect in the perpetuation of talent.

(3) " Will as Power of Judgment, and Adaptation," by Th. Ribot. In this study the
author proposes to study anomalies, and to draw conclusions upon the nonnal state.
The fundamental principle which dominates the psychology of the will, in the healthy
as in the morbid state, is that every state of consciousness has a lendency to express
itself by a movement or act. Activity in the animal is not a beginning, but an end;
not a cause, but a result. This is the essential point which should not be lost sight
of, and alone explains the physiology and pathology of will.

August Xumbcr :

(!) " The Philosophy of F. Glisson," by H. Marion. This author sUtes that philoso-
phers have questioned whether Leibnitz has not been influenced by the English physi-

332 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

cian, Francis Gliason. Little is known of the life of Gliaaon excepting facts relating
to his ancestry. The object of M. Marion's study is a work of Glisson's, entitled, " The
Energetic Nature of Substance, or of the Life of Nature," which was published in
Glisson's seventy-fifth year, and which he spent ten years in writing. This work had
little reputation when produced, and is now very rare. M. Marion compares Leibnitz
and Glisson, and undertakes to prove how much his works were studied by Leibnitz.

(2) " Determinism and Liberty," by Delboeuf, is concluded.

I. Liberty demonstrated by mechanics. Mechanical evaluation of the motive power
of will.

II. Psychical origin of the free nexus of forces.

III. The action of free nexi of forces.

IV. The future of free beings.

(3) "The Psychology of Great Men," by H. Joly. "The Great Man and Contem-
poraries." The author quotes at length the views of the " distinguished American phi-
losopher," Mr. William James, as published in "The Atlantic." M. Marion devotes
several pages to the consideration of Mr. James's beliefs, but does not agree with him
in attributing genius more or less to chance.

September Number:

(1) "The Right and Action," by Ch. Secretan. M. Secr6tan suggests goodness as
the word to express moral activity. He discusses : L The problems of evil. 2. Pure
and applied morals. 3. Theodicy.

(2) " The Common Features of Nature and History," by G. Tarde. The writer asks
why social science is still to be born, or why it is born so late among its adult and
vigorous sisters. He enters upon the study of history to aid him in his examination
of the question. One thesis that he maintains is that all similarities are due to repeti-
tions. 1. All similarities observed in the chemical, physical, and astronomical world
have for their only explanation and possible cause periodical and principally vibratory
movements. 2. All similarities of the world result from hereditary transmission. 3. All
similarities that are remarked in the social world are the direct or indirect fruit of imi-
tation in all its forms.

(3) "Syllogism and Knowledge," by E. Pannier. Between the classic thesis of syllo-
gism, " which engenders science," and the modern system, which contests the reality of
syllogism, there is less difference than there seems to be. In both, the fundamental
idea is the same ; syllogism ought to be demonstrative ; it is or is not a method of
acquiring knowledge. The error common to the two schools consists in a false appre-
ciation of the function of reasoning. The conclusions which M. Pannier arrives at
in his study are that " reasoning is not an instrument of knowledge, but an operation
of analysis and classification, effected by the means of verbal substitutions, and which,
having nothing to reveal to us outside of the premises given, reposes neither on a cate-
gorical form of the mind, nor on an axiomatic truth, nor on any principle of transcend-
ence whatsoever. We conclude because we define, and our definitions have no other
object than to create the whole substance of our reasoning."

October Number :

(1) "Sociologic Studies in France. II. Social Contemporary Science," by A. Espi-
nas. "If the individual is the product of an association, the logical result is that every
association can be individualized. It would indeed be strange if Nature, so faithful to
herself in the development of her works, nature which is one like mind, because mind

Book Notices. .S.-^^

is either a nameless monstrosity or a part of nature-fhnt nature, we repent an.-r hav-
ing, by a persevering process, constructed all living beings on one plan, should renounce
this plan and adopt wholly new principles, when it was a question of constructing socie-
ties with these same individuals as elements." M. Espinas further considere his subject
from the stand points of art and science.

(2) "A Precursor of Maine de Biran," by Paul Janet, of the Institute. Maine de
Biran in his writings has quoted a work that is little known, and which was written by
a physician of Montpellier, named Rey Regis. The title is " Natural History of the
Soul," which should not be confounded with one of the same name by Dr. Charp. of
London. From this work Maine de Biran extracts a curious physiological fact, which
has become classic in psychology. It refers to a paralytic who had lost movement
without the sense of feeling, but who, when touched beneath a coverlet, without seeing
the spot, was incapable of locating it. He had lost the faculty of localization in losing
a sense of mDvement, a remarkable fact which supported a theory dear to Maine de
Biran, that movement or voluntary will is the true cause of the localization of percep-
tions. This work Rey of Regis, M. Janet thinks, has never- been quoted or used by
any philosopher, and Biran quoted it only for the above passage. Neverthele.'iS, he>
in M. Janet's belief, was more or less influenced in his ideas by this work. Key Regis
defends against the Cartesians, and especially against Malchranche, the direct and
ruling power of the soul upon the body ; the indication of original and investigating
thought. M. Janet gives somewhat of a history of the Cartesians, and a lull analy-
sis of Rey Regis. The second portion of the work relates to the union of the soul and
the body, and he thinks is less original than the first part.

(3) " The Weaknesses of Will," by Th. Ribot. Irresolution, which is a beginning of
a morbid state, has inward causes which pathology will make clear to us ; it comes
from the weakness of incitations or their ephemeral action. Among irresolute charac-
ters, a few — the number is small — are so through a wealth of ideas. Tlic comparison
of motives, reasoning, calculation of consequences, constitute an extremely complex
cerebral state, in which tendencies to action impede eath other. Rut this wealth of
ideas is not in itself a sufficient cause for irresolution ; it is only an assisting cause.
The true cause here, as everywhere, is in the character. Among the irresolute who
lack ideas it is more evident. If they act, it is always where there is less action or less
resistance required. Deliberation with difficulty ends in choice, and choice with more
difficulty in action. The author discusses and compares morbid conditions as results
and causes.

November Number :

(1) "Psychology of Great Men," by H. Joly. "Genius and Inspiration " is the con-
cluding article of the interesting series of M. Joly. He questions whether it was chance,
as popularly believed, that led Columbus to discover America; and in treating of the
great geniuses of the world he discusses the conditions outside of themselves which
brought into action natural tendencies awaiting such causes. The reasoning of the
writer and the many points which he considers invest his subject with uuu.-ual interest.
heightened by a charming style.

(2) " Sociologic Studies in France. II. Social Contemporary Science " (the conclu-
sion), by A. Espinas. The writer begins his concluding article boldly by slating that if
a liberal should venture to declare, in any political assembly whatsoever in France, that
the declaration of the rights of men, the whole "revolutionary religion," is only an im-
mense postulate, he would rouse the general indignation and be regarded as a renegade.

334 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

To distinguish between faith and science, practice and speculation form the starting-
points in the discussion of M. Espinas, which is earnest, instructive, and spirited.

December Number:

(l)"The New Expedients in Favor of Free-Will," by A. Fouillee. "Among the
moralists," says the writer, " those particularly attached to spiritualism or criticism, a
kind of anti-scientific reaction in the interests of morals has been observed for some
time." The arguments of MM. Secretan and Renouvier and others, who have devoted
themselves to the subject of free-will, are minutely analyzed (y il. Fouillee.

(2) "History of the Conception of the Infinite in the Sixth Century before Jesus
Christ," by P. Tannery. This is an article of rare historical value to which no synopsis
could do justice, as it is replete with facts in point of history and philosophy, which are
considered very carefully from many stand-points by the writer. As in a preceding
article, he studies the premises of Gustav Teichmiiller.

(3) " The Conditions of Happiness and Human Evolution," by F. Paulhan. " Pes-
simism is a fashionable problem. People are greatly occupied with it, either in the way
of defence or attack." The author asserts that he shall examine only a few points: 1.
What gives value to life ? Generally speaking, happiness. 2. Do the blessings of life
exceed the ills ? Pessimism often comes from the indignation we feel when deprived of
happiness — our supposed right. The adaptation of an organization to its surroundmgs
constitutes the conditions of happiness. Evolution, development, and the education of
the people the writer discusses as causes of happiness. He concludes by saying that
if pessimism were perfectly established, and it were proved that life is and will be an
evil, then general suicide would be the best practical good, and a duty, man ending his
own suffering and sparing future generations.

January (1883) Number :

(1) " Musical ^stheti'js in France. III. Psychology of the Orchestra and Symphony,"
by Ch. Levuque. The author discusses rhythm, the expression of various instruments,
and states many interesting facts relating to music in general.

'. (2) "Contemporary Philosophers: M. J. Lachelier," by G. Seailles. " M. Lachelier,"
the writer affirms, " has taken great pains not to make himself known. Like De.«cartes,
he did not like notoriety. He has, nevertheless, exerted a great influence upon French
philosophy. He taught in the Normal School, and. did not write much, but his teach-
ings were very powerful."

(S) "The Criminal Statistics of the Last Half-Century," by G. Tarde. "What are
properly called crimes have diminished nearly one half within the last half-century, and
simple offences have more than trebled. Some say it is owing to inuieased education
and refinement, or equalizing society. The small offences arise from the increased
wants of the people, excited by their intellectual development. The writer throws a
great deal of light upon his subject, and his statistics are of an interesting nature.

Virginia Champlin.

Books Received. 335

BOOKS RECEIVED.

The Platonist, St. Louis, Mo. Contents of 11 and 12, Decembor-January, 1882: 1.
Pearls of Wisdom (Gathered from Platonic Sources). 2. Special Notice. 3. Lifcof Ilai
Ebn Yokdan, the Self-taught Philosopher. By Abubacer, Ibn Tophail. (Translati-d from
the original Arabic by Simon Ockley. Revised and modernized by W. II. Steele.) (Con-
tinued.) 4. On the Beautiful. Lib. VI, Enn. I. (Translated from the orifrinal Greek
ofPlotinos. Taylor's Version Revised.) 5. lamblichos : a Treatise on the Mysteries. A
New Translation, by Alexander Wilder. Part II. — 6. On the Virtues. Enn. I, Lib. II.
^Translated from the original Greek of Plotinos.) (Concluded.) 7. Selections from Ibn-
Badja. (Translated for The Platonist by Alexander Wilder and Mile. A. Peoni^.) 8.
The Life and Works of Thomas Taylor, the Platonist. (Concluded.) 9. The Rienients
of Theology. By Proklos. (Translated from the original Greek.) 10. Platonic Tech-
nology : A Glossary of Distinctive Terms used by Platon and other Philosophers in an
Arcane and Peculiar Sense. Compiled by Alexander Wilder. 11. Book Review.'*.

[The reader will be very sorry to learn that this unique and serviceable journal is in
danger of being discontinued. In the last number of the first volume the following
special notice appears.]

"SPECIAL NOTICE.

" The ' Platonist ' having failed to pay the expenses of publication, will be discontinued
as a monthly with this issue, which completes volume first.

"In this connection we desire to return our sincere thanks to the kind friends who
have aided us in our arduous work by subscriptions or otherwise. The many generous
words of encouragement and appreciation sent us have been, we tru.'^t, fully valued.

" The ' Platonist ' will be continued as a quarterly publication of fifty pages a number,
at the price of $5 per annum, provided that subscriptions to an amount sufficient to
pay the expenses of publication for one year are received within three months from
date. In case an adequate sum is not received within the specified time, the money
that may have been sent will be returned.

" The ' Platonist ' can be continued only in the manner indicated. It is absolutely
necessary that the expenses of publication be guaranteed."

Prospectus of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Pi.litical Sci-
ence. H. B. Adams, Editor.

These Studies relate almost exclusively to the growth of institutions in the various
American settlements and colonies, and are indispensable to the student of tiie history
of our country. They are either ready for the press or in active preparation. Some of
them will be published in the first instance by the University. Others will be reprints
from the proceedings of learned societies, magazines, etc., where they appear in some
cases under titles slightly different from those here adopted. The Studies will be pub-

336 The Journal of Speculative Philosophi/,

lished at convenient intervals, and will bring together, in numbered monographs, kin-
dred contributions to Historical and Political Science.

All business communications and questions touching exchanges should be addressed
to Publication Agency (N. Murray), Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. ; all
scientific communications to the Editor.

Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, Vol. I, Fasciculus No. 3. Toronto : Copp,
Clark & Co. 1882.

A Short Sketch of Modern Philosophies and of his own System, by Antonio Rosniini-
Serbati. With a few words of Introduction by Father Lockhart. London : Burns &
Gates, Orchard Street, W. 1882.

Thomas Jefferson as a Philologist. H. E. Shepherd. (Reprint from the " American
Journal of Philology," Vol. Ill, No. 10.)

An Address on the Temperance Cause, and the best methods of its Advancement, by
W. G. Eliot, Chancellor of Washington University.

The Philosophy of Kant in Extracts. Selected by John Watson, LL. D., Professor of
Mental and Moral Philosophy in Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. Kingston :
William Bailie, Printer. 1882.

The Logos. By Thomas Hill. (Reprinted from the New York " Independent " of
August 3, 1882.)

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Session 1880-'81.

The Tides. A paper read before the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and
Letters, at December meeting of 1879, at Madison, Wis., by John Nader, C. E.

Evolution, Objective and Subjective; No Supersensible Matter ; Scientific Philosophy.
By WilHam I. Gill. (Reprinted from the " Index.")

Science. Vol. I, No. 2. Mo,^es King, Cambridge, Mass.

A Year's Legislation. Opening Address by Henry Hitchcock, Esq., the President of
the Missouri Bar Association at its Second Annual Meeting, December 27, 1882. (Re-
printed from the Proceedings of the Association.) St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing
Co. 1883.

The Christian Religion. Mistakes of Robert G. Ingersoll and his Reviewers. By Dr.
N. J. Cogswell.

Ueber den Weg, zam Wissen und zur Gewissheit zu gelangeu. Eine Confession von
Hugo Delff. Leipzig: Verlag von Fr. W. Grunow. 1882.

Revision der Hauptpunkte der Psychophysik von Gustav Theodor Fecbner. Leip-
zig : Druck und Verlag von Breitkopf und Ilartel. 1882.

Die Grundprobleme der Logik. Von Dr. Jul. Bergmann. Berlin : Ernst Siegfried
Mittler und Sohn. 1882.

Mind. A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy. Contents for April,
1883 : I. Psychological Principles, I., by James Ward ; II. Reaction-time and Atten-
tion in the Hypnotic State, by Prof. G. Stanley Hall ; 111. On Some Fundamental Prob-
lems in Logic, by M. Maitin ; IV. "Natural Religion," by Edmund Gurney ; V. Ethics
and Sociology, by Prof. W. Wallace; VI. Notes and Discussions; VII. Critical No-
tices ; VIII. New Books ; IX. Miscellaueous. London : Williams & Norgate.

THE JOURNAL

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPnY

YoL. XYII.] October, 1883. [No. 4.

PHILOSOPHY IN OUTLINE.

BY W. T. HARRIS.

Chapter YIII.
The True Infinite is Free Energy.

§ 65. "We have already discussed many of the aspects of Expe-
rience, and have found three distinctions prevailing: (1) object,
(2) environment, and (3) ground. Experience may be infinite as
regards the multii^licity of objects which it may learn, or as re-
gards the continuance of its observations, but there never can be
an experience of any object that will contradict the logical con-
ditions of experience. Whatever we may know in regard to the
ground or logical conditions is necessarily true of all existence.

§ ^^. This threefold distinction may be found in the categories
of thought. The first of these is Being. Of course, it is impos-
sible to seize upon words, in any language, which have always the
same consistent definition to all minds. Only technical terms or
special symbols can be kept true to one definition. Any general
word in the language will have one meaning to minds in the first
stage of consciousness which considers only objects without rela-
tions ; another meaning to the second stage of consciousness which
XYII— 22

338 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

considers objects only in an environment of relations and depend-
ence; a third meaning to the stage of consciousness that considers
the logical conditions underlying both object and environment.

§ 67. Being thus has three distinct aspects, according to the
stage of consciousness whicli thinks it. But common to all the
meanings or senses in which it is used it has the acceptation of a
category of the greatest extent and least content of experience;
it applies to all objects of experience, but expresses none of the
distinctions of one object from another. Technically, therefore,
in philosophy, it may be employed to denote the category of the
first stao;e of consciousness. The shallowest thinking is least able
to discriminate distinctions and differences. The most immature
mind thinks all objects as having being. All objects to it are co-
ordinate and of equal validity in this respect. The moment we
begin to observe relations, this co-ordination vanishes and we make
the terms of experience unequal. This object depends upon that
object in some respect, and therefore is not co-ordinate, but subor-
dinate to it. This belongs to that, and is only a manifestation of
that object's energy or sphere of influence. Here we come to the
categories of Essence and Cause.

§ 68. Essence and Cause imply the second stage of conscious-
ness, in that they express a dualism of object and environment.
Essence is technically used to express the being on which another
being depends. Cause expresses still more clearly the same thought
of dependence. When we regard an object as modified through
its environment, we think the energy which imparts the impulse
as the essence and the modification effected by it as the manifes-
tation or phenomenon.

§ 69. But, underlying the idea of Cause, as origination of influ-
ence, there is the idea of self-activity. Causa sui, or personality, as
the presupposition of all. These categories — being, essence, and
personality — reveal to us again, therefore, the three stages of the
development of consciousness.

§ YO. Modern Natural Science sets up the doctrine of the cor-
relation of forces and the " persistence of force." In the case of
individual forces — heat, light, electricity, magnetism, attraction ol
gravitation, and cohesion — there is finitude, each force manifest-
ing itself only when in process of transition into another form of
force. But there is a ground to all these forces, which is an energy.

Philosophy in Outline. 339

The "persistent force" is the energy of each force witliout the
particular quality of each force. But it is that which originates
each special force, and that wliich likewise causes it to lose its
individuality and pass over into another force. The " persistent
force" is not a special force, like light, heat, etc., for the special
forces are in a state of tension against each other, or are merely
names for different stages of the same energy. The " pei-sist-
ent force " is an energy that acts, not on another, but only on it-
self In all changes and loss of individuality on the part of par-
ticular forces the "persistent force" abides tlie same, continually
emerging from its successive disguises under the mask of particu-
lar forces.

§ 71, Persistent force can not, like a special force, act on some-
thing else, because it is the totality of all forces. All things are
mere equilibria of forces, and hence things, too, are manifestations
of the self-activity of " persistent force." Thus natural science
does not find itself able to avoid thinking self-activity as tiie
ground of things and forces. Pure self-activity is mind or con-
scious being. Any form of Knowing or consciousness differs from
the relation that particular forces or particular things have to
each other in the fact that Knowing is an activit}' which forms
within itself its other by its own energy. A self-active has duality
— the self as subject and the self as object. The self as subject is
out of time and space. The Ego as Ego likewise transcend.-; time
and space. If it were in time it would change, and could not be
the unity of the manifold in consciousness. So, too, were it in
space it would be a multiplicitv of points, each external to the
rest, and hence without unity. The Ego, like the subject of self-
activity, transcends time and space, and is therefore no mere ob-
ject of nature.

§ 72. The science of formal Logic states three laws of thought
which correspond to these three stages of consciousness, although
they may be looked upon as three statements of the same princi-
ple. These are the so-called principles of identity, contradiction,
and excluded middle. A is A, or an ohject is self-identical, is the
formula for the principle of identity, and it is very clear that it
expresses the point of view of the category of Being, or of the
first stage of consciousness. It ignores all distinction, all rcl.i-
tion, and hence all environment.

34:0 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

§ T3. The principle of contradiction states the environment ex-
plicitly. Its formula is, Hot- A is not identical with ^, or it is
impossible that the same thing can at once be and not be, or what
is contradictory is unthinkable. Here we add in thought to the
concept of A its contradictory, not-A. We distinguish them, but
make one of them the limit of the other. We, moreover, assert
mutual exclusion, and hence the finitude of both. Not-A is the
formula for the relative or dependent, because it is expressed only
in terms of something else — something else limited or negated.
Change A, and you change the extent or compass of not-A. In
the principle of identity the finitude of the object is not expressed,
but in the principle of contradiction two mutually limiting spheres
of being are defined.

§ 74. The formula for the principle of Excluded Middle tells u&
that A either is or is not, or that of two mutual contradictories we
can affirm existence of only one. This principle adds the concept
of totality to that of identity and contradiction, and therefore re-
lates to the idea of Ground or Logical condition, the third stage
of consciousness. Looking upon the total sphere, we can reason
from the existence or non-existence of a part to the existence or
non-existence of the other parts. It is the principle of the dis-
junctive judgment.

§ 75. The principle of sufficient reason, which is added as a
fourth law of thought to the three already named, if admitted to
this rank of laws of thought, expresses not only a ground of
knowledge, but also a ground of being. It means not only that
we must have a ground for affirming the existence of any being,
but that there must be a real ground or reason for the existence o±
any being. Understood in this sense, it is the positive statement
of the principle by which w^e cognize the logical condition under-
lying object and environment. " Excluded Middle " is the negative
statement of this principle, while " Sufficient Reason " is the posi-
tive statement of it. The former states that "either, or" is true,
while the latter states that the one is through the other, or that the
totality is one unity. By it we perceive the necessity of Causa sui,
or self-activity, as the sufficient reason for any causal action what-
ever. By it we affirm the truth that all being is grounded in
energy, or that dynamic existence is the basis of static existence.'

1 C. C. Everett's " Science of Thought," p. 236.

Philosophy in Outline.

341

§ Y6. We observe in these principles the importance of tlie idea
of the negative as the basis of the idea of relation. AVc can call
the second stage of consciousness the negative stage, because it
makes so much of the relative. The environment is the negative
of the object, and its formula is not-A. It is of the utmost impor-
tance in philosophy to recognize the negative in all forms that it
assumes. It is the principle of limit, of specialty and jiarticularity,
hence of all distinction and difference ; it is likewise the principle
of all contrariety, and hence of essence, force, cause, potentiality,
and substance. What is most wonderful is that it is the principle
of life and thinking, only that in these realms it appears as self-
• related. It sounds absurd, or at least pedantic, to hear one speak
of self-negativity as the principle of mind. But really there is no
insight possible into self-activity, and the logical conditions of
experience, without some recognition of the self-negative. Self-
distinction, as self-negation, is also affirmative, because it is identity
as well as distinction.

§ TT. We must see that the categories of experience and the
world are not based on Being, or even on Essence, but that being
and essence are based on this negative process of self-relation
which we recognize as pure energy. Causa sui, or personality.
This alone is the root of individuality, independence, and free-
dom. The idea of God is the unfolding of its complete, posi-
tive import.

§ 78. The true Infinite is Freedom. An infinite is defined as
that which is its own other or environment. But if this separation
of self from environment is static or passive, the unity is imperfect,
and must be supplemented by another. Space is supplemented
by Time, because its unity is imperfect, a unity in kind, or species,
of all parts of space, but not a unity of energy in which each part
is the whole.

§ 79. In Freedom the self is its own other or environment, in-
finitely continued or affirmed by itself, xts other, too, is activity
or energy, and is free, and hence infinite. Therefore it exists for
itself But a part of space, although continued by its environ-
ment, exists not for itself, but for the unity of all space, which
alone is infinite. Space is infinite, but it does not consist of
parts that are also self-existent and infinite. Hence the unity of
all space is not perfect, as before stated.

342 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy,

Chapter IX.
Freedom, Fate, Individuality.

§ 80. The problems of philosophy are perennial. Each indi-
vidual must solve them for himself when he comes to the age of
reflection. ^No number of philosophers can ever "settle" philo-
sophic questions so that it will not be necessary for each individual
to think out solutions for himself. Questions of mere fact in
nature can be " settled " by investigation, so that a mere statement
suffices to convey the result to a schoolboy. But it is not possible
to " settle " matters of insight just as we settle matters of fact. A
truth that requires for its comprehension a certain degree of cult-
ured power of thought cannot by any possibility be taught as a
matter of fact to a youth who has not yet arrived at the neces-
sary stage of thinking.

§ 81. We recognize this quite readily in the acquirement of
mathematical truth. Such truth cannot be conveyed to minds
that will not or cannot grasp the elementary conceptions and make
the combinations necessary. Only by intellectual energy can
those truths be seen, and even mathematics has not " settled " any-
thing for people who have no insight into its demonstrations.
Philosophic knowing is knowing of presuppositions of existence —
a knowing of logical conditions of being and experience. It is-
therefore a special kind of knowing that arises from reflection.
These logical conditions of existence are invisible to the one who
does not specially reflect upon them. When one sees them at all
he sees that they are necessary elements of experience. It is a
third stage of knowing, this knowing of logical presuppositions,
and its insights cannot be seen from the first or second stage of
knowing. Truths that are " settled " in philosophy may yet seem
to be impossibilities to the one whose intellectual view is on the
second stao-e of knowinoj.

§ 82. The truth of freedom or free-will cannot be seen from the
second stage of knowing, which gets no farther in its conscious-
ness than the thought of environment. To it, therefore. Fate i&
the highest principle. Again, to the first stage of knowing, what
seems very clear to the second stage may be a dark enigma. The
idea of fate is to it inconceivable, because it does not think objects

Philosophy in Outline.

^\'.\

as in a state of relativity to their environment. Although all ex-
perience contains the three elements already pointed oiU— object,
environment, and logical presupposition— yet the firtit stage of
knowing is distinctly conscious only of the object ; the second stsigc
notes chiefly the environment, and thinks thino-s as conditioned by
necessary relations of dependence, while the third stage of know-
ing looks especially to the logical presupposition.

§ 83. Notwithstanding these radically different views of the
world and its existences, it is not difficult to pass from a lower
stage to a higher. Any one, whose point of view is so elementary
as to include the immediate object as the most essential item, may
be led up to the insight that the environment is most essential by
calling his attention, step by step, to the essential relations which
condition the existence of the object. He will soon come to see
that the object depends on the environment, and will concede that
the totality of conditions makes that object to be what it is, and
prevents it from being anything else. This is the standpoint
of fate : External constraint in the form of the " totality ot
conditions" environs all objects in the world, and makes them
to be what they are. Any one habituated to observe the essen-
tial relations or environment of an objectgwill adopt this as a
final principle until he gets the third point of view — that of
totality. The underlying logical condition, which is i)rci:uj)i)0sed
both by the object and its environment, is not a dependent being,
nor a mere correlative of dependence. It is a totality, and self-
determined.

§ 84. The conviction held by those in the first stage of knowing
is that objects all possess self-existence in their immediateness, and
that all relations are accidental and not essential. The conviction
of those in the second stage is the relativity of all existence, and
the omnipotence of fate. The third stage of knowing is the con-
templation of the form of totality, which, being self-determined,
is free. Its utterance therefore is : All beings are free beings, or
else parts or products of free being.

§ 85. In the previous chapters of this outline we have consid-
ered Time and Space as grounds of existence of material things.
We have considered the principle of Causality as the form in
which all experience is rendered possible. Looking at its presup-
position, we have seen that self-activity, or Caxvsa 8w\ alone makes

344 The Journal of Speculative Philoso_phy.

possible any and all influence of one thing upon another. There
must be self-separation of energy or influence as a condition of its
transference from the environment to the object, or from any one
object to another. This self-separation, or self-activity, is the basis
of causality, and hence the basis of all things and phenomena in
the world.

§ 86. Self-activity is freedom. Dependence on another and
passive recipiency of influences from without signify fate and
necessity. Tliere can be no real individuality except in the form
of self-activity or self-determination. That which belongs to some-
thing else, and exists tlirough the activity of that other being, is
only a manifestation or phenomenon. All that it is reveals the
nature of the energy of that other. With only the idea of fate
or external constraint, and no consciousness of self-activity as the
ultimate presupposition, the mind is obliged to deny individuality
even to human beings, and to regard all beings as phenomena.
Phenomena are syntheses of effects, manifestations of energy, or
influence, that has originated in some source lying beyond the
sphere of manifestation. But just as the thought of influence or
causality involves self-separation or self-activity, so, as a matter of
course, every special instance of it has the same implication. A
phenomenon as a manifestation posits or presupposes the exist-
ence of the pure energy or self-activity whose manifestation it is.
Dependence, or any form of essential relation, presupposes self-
existence as that on v;hich the object depends and as that whose
energy it manifests.

§ 87, It is impossible, therefore, to think fate or external ne-
cessity as a finality, or, in fact, as existing, except as a result of
freedom. " All things are necessitated by the totality of condi-
tions " is the principle of fate ; but its logical condition or presup-
position is that the totality of conditions is self-conditioned. If
the totality of conditions contains energy, that energy must be
self-determining or free.

§ 88. Necessity or fate presupposes freedom as its ground or
condition. Hence, if there is anything there is individuality.
But whether we shall find many individuals in the world, or
whether the world as a totality forms only one individual, is not
evident from this principle alone. Being assured of the necessary
existence of individuality or free self-determination as the form of

Philosophy in Outline.

345

all totalities,' we may now look for individualities that shall cor-
respond to its definition. But with the principle of fate as a final-
ity we should be ob%ed to deny freedom to all individualities,
and explain persons as somehow products of fate. "

§89. The fundamental truth is that the first princii)le is free,
and that whatever is a totality ' is free. It is clear that the first
principle can reveal or manifest itself only in free bein<rs. It
would follow, too, that creation exists for the development or evo-
lution of free beings, and that free beings can exist in a state of
development.

§90. There is change ; change implies that what is real does not
cover all the possibilities of being. Water, for example, is liquid at
this moment ; at another moment it may be solid, as ice ; or an elas-
tic fluid, as steam. It is only one of these states at a time ; one state
is real and the other two are potential. Were it possible to regard
the total existence of water as exhausted in these three states, we
might say that water is only one third real at any given instant
of time. Were all possibilities or potentialities real at the same
instant, there could be no change. Here we arrive at the concep-
tion of actuality or total being, including all potentialities, whether
real or otherwise.*

One can get but little ways into the discussion of the great
question of individuality without making this distinction between
beings which are part real and part potential and those whose
potentialities are all real. Self-activities are those which are all
real ; they are self-realizing beings. Their real side exists through
their will. But it seems strange at first that there should be two
kinds of self-activity — the one a perfect Creator, God, and the

' Totality as here used does not mean quantitative totality, but qualitative— i. e., inde-
pendent being.

- Rowland G. Hazard, in his book on " The Freedom of the Mind in Willing," con-
cludes that " every being that wills is a creative first cause." He showa that self-
activity is an essential presupposition of a conscious being possessing will. He baa
very acutely perceived that it is spontaneity or automatism that is denied by the faUl-
ists, and that they ignore a most obvious fact of consciousness and observation.
p., * Totality, or independent whole.

* It is important to get this thought, but it is not essential to describe it in the words
I use. Aristotle uses for the idea here called " actuality " tbc words energy and en-
telechy, and sometimes other expressions. Plato used the word idea, and Hegel used
the words Wirklichkeit and Bcgriff.

346 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

other an imperfect self-realizing being. Actuality is individual,
while reality may be only a phenomenal manifestation of an indi-
viduality. The individuality, as self-active, exists as wholly real,
and gives existence to a product of his will which forms a second
sphere of reality. This second sphere of reality may be a progres-
sive realization, and it is here that we have the distinction be-
tween God and Man, God being perfect also in the second sphere
of realization, while man is only progressively so. It is man's
vocation to make himself objective in a second sphere of reality —
the external world. When he has accomplished this, then he is
both subject and object the same.

§91. To this distinction of reality from actuality we may give
other names, as, for exa.vap\e, phenomeno7i and substance. Phe-
nomenon is the reality which is subject to change through the
activity of the totality of the process. The phenomenon manifests
the nature of the energy which makes the process, that energy be-
ing always a self-activity. Substance is another name given to
self-activity to express the phase of abiding and continuance that
it has.

§ 92. Freedom is the essential form of the total or self-activity
because it is independent. But in its self-realization it makes a
second sphere of reality, the products of its acts.' In what we
call the actual there is the entire potency which is manifested
in the fragmentary realities not only in their creation, but also
in their destruction. Hence it has been said, " What is actual is
rational," because the actual is a process that annuls all partial
realities. The more potentialities that are real the nearer is the
existence to a true individuality. A being in which the entire
circle of possibilities is realized is an actuality or energy and a

> It has been asserted by those who insist on thinliing all under the form of a thing
conditioned by its environment that the will is constrained by the strongest motive —
that motives render freedom impossible. These fatalists, however, fail to notice the
distinction between reality and potentiality, and do not consider that motives are
potentialities and not realities. Only the mind can see a potentiality ; it creates the
idea of it in itself. A reality is not a motive — a motive is the conception of a desirable
possibility. After creating the conception, the will may realize it by destroying some
phase of reality by changing it into the conceived possibility. Here the mind creates
the motive, and then creates its correspondent reality, and is thus doubly creative in-
stead of a mere agent or transmitter of the causality of the motive to the deed. Were a
motive to constrain the wiU, it would be a case of something that acted before it existed.

Philosophy in Outline. 347

complete individuality. When but few of its potentiulities are
real, it possesses little individuality; for when new potentialities
are realized the being is changed so much that it becomes an-
other. A being with one of its potentialities real would be as
unstable of individuality as a pyramid on its apex is unstable of
position ; a being with all real would be initiiortal, thougli it were
ever so undeveloped and lacking in education and culture. Be-
fore actuality a being progresses through evolution in which its
individualities are continually lost. After actuality, permanent
individuality is attained, and it can progress only through self-
determination, which shall make for itself a sphere of externality
identical with its own actuality. In one sense we speak of the
uncultured man (child or savage) as having unrealized potentiali-
ties. These potentialities belong to his sphere of second reality,
which he must create for himself.

Chapter X.

The World of Nature and Evolution.

§ 93. "We will now consider the orders of being in nature in the
light of the idea of creation already developed. Science in our
time interprets the phases of nature in the light of the principle
of Evolution. In the " struggle for existence " one order develops
into another. When we have seen how a species has arisen from
a lower one, and how a higher has ascended from it in this strug-
gle, we have explained it in the spirit of science in our day. Let
us notice that this " struggle for existence " is a manifestation of
self-determination. The adoption of this point of view marks the
arrival at an epoch in which the orders of being will be seen as a
progressive revelation of the divine." How does this idea of Evo-
lution agree with the idea of creation as we have found it in con-
sidering°what follows from Self-activity as the First Principle \

% 94. The self-active is self-determining and self-knowing, sub-

1 " A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings;

And striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form .
This is Emerson's statement of the doctrine in 183C.

348 The Journal of Speculative Philosopmj.

ject and object. But as object it is also self-knowing and self-de-
termining. In this we can find as yet no necessity for creation of
finite beings. The All-perfect knows Himself as all-perfect, and
His knowing is creating, because will and knowing are one in the
Absolute, and knowing Himself he creates what is self-knowing,
self-willing, and hence pure self-activity like Himself a Creator.
But the second self-activity, in knowing itself, knows its relation
to the first — a relation of derivation, and, in knowing it, creates it.
(See §§ 66 and 57.)

§ 95. It is in this contemplation by the Second of His deriva-
tion from the First that we find the ground of creation of a world
of finite beings. The Second knows himself as pure self-activity,
but as having made Himself such from a state of mere passivity
implied in derivation. The state of passivity has been transcended,
must have been transcended, ever since the First came to self-
knowledge. But as absolute self-knowledge is necessary in the
first principle, the same has been attained by the second from all
eternity.

§ 96. Hence the passivity involved in a derivation from the
First is only a logical presupposition, and not chronological. It
being necessary that this logically prior state of passivity should
be known by the Second Person in recognizing his derivation
from the First, it follows that He creates a Third, not simply like
Himself, but as eternally proceeding from the depths of passivity.

§ 97. The perfect, which is a procession, is eternally perfect, but
the passive is an ascending series of orders of being in a state of
becoming — an evolution from passivity to self-activity. The be-
coming or evolution has necessarily the form of time, because
there are change and decay. It has the form of Space, because
passivity involves externality or exclusion ; for it (passivity) arises
only in what is self-active, but is its o])posite, and hence excludes
it. But as this Evolution is as eternal as the self-knowledge of the
Second Person, the world in time and space is eternal, although
of necessity its individuals exist only in a state of transition and
loss of individuality.

§ 98. Suns and planets have their youth and old age just as
animals and plants. But just as sure as there is a realm of perish-
able individuals the end of whose existence is evolution, just so
sure there must be a realm of immortal individuals ascending out

Philosophy in Outline.

349

of the lower realm of evolution and belonging to a realm wherein
self-evolution or Education prevails.'

§ 99. Vanishing beings, such as belong to the realm of evolution,
form together what may be called an " Appearance," or manifesta-
tion of a process. The theory of Evolution interprets the history
of the individuals by the law of the process which is that of the
struggle for existence or the struggle for freedom and self-deter-
mination. This struggle is the school of development of individu-
ality. There is no individuality where there is no self-activitv.
Individuality rises higher in the scale as it approaches the form of
knowledge and will.

§ 100. A compendious survey shows us three orders of being :
{a) inorganic nature, (5) life realized in plant and animal, {c) self-
conscious intelligence realized in Man.

§ 101. There are three principles in the first of these realms,
progressively realized. The first is Mechanism^ or externality
which is void of an internal bond of unity — space and time, mere
materiality, mere exclusion and impenetrability in so far as they
appear in nature, characterize this realm of mechanism.

§ 102. In so far as there appears dependence of one being on
another we have a principle which attains its typical form in
chemical nnity. Each manifests another. Gravitation, even, is
such a manifestation. One body attracted toward another at-
tracts that other body in turn. Hence it gains weight and gives
weight in turn. But in the chemical aspect of being each being
shows some special relation to complementary beings with which
it enters into combination in order to realize an ideal unity. An
acid or a base, for example, has an ideal unity in a salt, and its
combination with its opposite realizes this ideal unity. In so far
as one beins: makes another the means by which it realizes itself
there is a manifestation of teleology.

§ 103. Teleology is the third phase of the inorganic, and points
toward life as its presupposition. Life is that in which every
part is alike the means and the end for all the other parts— such
is Kant's definition. Life manifests the phases of universal, par-
ticular, and individual— in a process in which there are species

1 Says Emerson : " It is a sufficient account of that appearance we call the vrorld
that God will teach a human mind."

350 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and individual, and self-determination is manifested. In the
plant the species, only, manifests self-determination, each step
being the evolution of a new individual out of the old one. But
in animal life there come feeling and locomotion. On the scale
of feeling there develops sense-perception as well as representa-
tion in its two phases of recollection and fancy.

"When the animal progresses beyond recollection and fancy to
generalization, he becomes immortal as an individual,

§ 104, Evolution prevails in nature, but it is not evolution of
the lower to the higher through the nnaided might of the lower.
There is no such unaided might of the lower. The lower order of
being exists only in the process of evolution into the higher. It
exists only in transitu, and its individuality is fleeting. The
Divine Thought of eternal derivation and eternal annulment of
derivation creates a world of finite beings existing not absolutely,
but only in a process of evolution. Hence each thing has phe-
nomenal existence, and not absolute existence ; it is relative and
dependent, and manifests its dependence by change.

§ 105. If one conceives evolution even as growth of a living
being, or, still higher, as the process of education of a conscious
being, still the development does not take place unaided. Only
the perfect or completely developed can exist in perfect indepen-
dence. All growing individuals and all finite things exist because
created and sustained by a Perfect Being, The question that has
seemed insoluble is, How can a Perfect Being create an imperfect
one, and for what purpose would he create and sustain such a
being ? It is answered by showing that the second Divine Prin-
ciple recognizes his relation to the First as a begotten, a derivation
which, in so far as it involves passivity, He has eternally annulled,
so that He is equal to the First by his own Might of Self-activity.

§ 106. Creation is a free act, though necessary. It is not com-
pelled by any external necessity. It is only a logical necessity,
and not an external necessity. It is a logical necessity that the
first principle should be Self-active or Self-determining, and hence
free intelligence. But such logical necessity does not imply or
involve fate or external constraint. This is a dialectic circle :
(1) The First is necessarily free, (2) but is therefore necessitated
and is not free ; (3) hence not being free, it is not necessitated to
be free, (4) and hence is free in spite of (2), {Logical necessity

Philosophy mi Outline. 351

is spoken of in (1); fatalistic necessity in (2) and (3); (2) and (3)
cancel each other and leave (1) or (4).)

Chapter XI,
The World of Man and Immortality.

§ 107. We come now to consider the question of the individual
immortality of man in the light of the principles which we have
discussed in the previous chapters. Our subject has two phases:
First, we must inquire what are the conditions of immortalitj,
nad what beings in the world, if any, possess such conditions.
Secondly, we must consider the question in the light of the first
principle of the world, as we have found it revealed as the supreme
condition of existence and experience.

§ 108. How is it possible that in this world of perishable beings
there can exist an immortal and ever-progressing being? Without
the personality of God it would be impossible, because an uncon-
scious first principle would be incapable of producing conscious
beings, or, if they were produced, it would overcome them as in-
congruous and inharmonious elements in its world. It would
finally draw all back into its image and reduce conscious indi-
viduality to unconsciousness. In our investigation of the presup-
positions of experience, we have found Causa sui, or self-activity,
as the ultimate principle, and we find in the human intellect and
will what is harmonious with that principle. Let us note that
Science, in teaching the doctrine of evolution and that of the
struggle for existence, favors the doctrine that intelligence and
will are the surviving and permanent substance. For intelligence
and will triumph in the struggle for existence, and prove them-
selves the goal to which the creation moves.

§ 109, Space and time and inorganic matter are pervaded by
the principles of mechanism and chemism. Organic being, whether
plant or animal, manifests self-activity in ;arious degrees.

§ 110. The plant possesses assimilation, or the nutritive process.
It reacts on its environment. It is a real manifestation of indi-
viduality. Perhaps one would say that the rock, or the waves, or
the wind has individuality and reacts on its environment. Cer-
tainly the plant possesses individuality in a less questionable form.
The action of water, air, and mineral does not avail to assimilate

352 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

other substances into its own form. The plant takes up some
portion of its environment into itself and stamps on it its own
form, making it a vegetable cell, and adding it to its own struct-
ure. It strives to become indnite by absorbing its environment
into itself. But it cannot conquer all of its environment in this
way ; it would have to become some world-tree (Yggdrasil) to
succeed in conquering all of its environment. The infinite, the
absolute, the self-active, must be its own environment.

§ 111. The plant form of existence cannot realize self-activity
except to a limited degree. The portions of its environment which
it takes up and assimilates, moreover, produce growth or expansion
in space. This expansion implies separation of parts. The indi-
viduality of plants is rather of the species than of the particular
plant. The individuality is in transition, being manifested by the
growth of new limbs, twigs, leaves, or fruit, sprouting out from the
old as the first did from the earth. Because the plant is a con-
stant transition from one individual to another it cannot manifest
identity except in the species.

§ 112. In the animal we have feeling and locomotion, and the
unity is found in the particular animal as well as in the species.
Feeling implies self activity, not only in reaction on the environ-
ment as in the case of nutrition, but in reproducing the impression
made by the environment within the soul of the animal. Unless
the animal reproduces for himself the limitation caused by the
environment there is no perception. The reproduction is accom-
panied by an unconscious judgment or inference that transfers the
occasion of the feeling to an external world. Thus, time, space,
and causality, function in feeling or sense-perception, but the sub-
ject is unconscious of them. The animal sees, hears, tastes, smells^
or touches the objects of his environment, unconscious that he
does this by reproducing within himself the shocks made upon his
senses by them.

§ 113. This activity of reproduction (sense-perception) is only
in the presence of the objects. But there is a higher order of re-
production which is free from the presence of impressions on the
senses ; this is called representation .^ and is in two forms — {p) recol-
lection of former perceptions, and (J) free fancy, in which the soul
causes to arise within itself by limitation new combinations of
perceptions recalled, or entirely new objects. Although the ac-

Philosophy In Outline. 35;;

tivity of representation is a liiglier form of manifestation of indi-
viduality, and seems to be quite free from time and place, because
any former perception may be recalled at pleasure, yet it is still
inadequate, because the object is a particular imai^e, just as much
as the perception of any particular object in the world.

§ Hi. The being which perceives or feels is a self activity in a
higher sense than is manifested in plant life, but it is not its own
object in the forms of mere feeling, or sense-perception, or recollec-
tion, or fancy. Individuality is persistence under change, self-
preservation in the presence of alien forces, and self-objectivity.
It is self-determination, or free causal energy, Caum sui. To have
as object a particular thing, therefore, is not to be conscious of
individuality, either of one's own or of another s. An individuali-
ty that does not exist for itself has no personal identity, and hence
is indifferent to immortality. When the self-activity in re]>roduc-
ing an impression perceives at the same time its own freedom or
causal energy, then it becomes conscious of self This takes place
in the recognition of objects as belonging to classes or species.
Here begins the immortality of the individual, Not before this,
because the individual is and can be only a self-activity, and can-
not know himself except as generic. An individual that does not
recognize individuality is not for itself, and its continuance of ex-
istence is only for the species and not for its particular self. But
with the recognition of species and genera there is the recognition
of self as persistent, although, at first, only in the form of recog-
nizing the objects of the world as being specimens of classes and
genera.

§ 115. Here begins immortality of the individual, with the rec-
ognition of individuality in the form of species, and directly it
manifests itself in the formation of language or the adoption of
conventional signs to represent classes, processes, and species. If
anv of the hio-her animals shall be discovered to accompany the
act of sense-perception by recognition of the objects as examples
of classes, and to possess conventional means of expressing, not
particular objects, but general processes and species, then it will
become necessary to admit the immortality of such individiml

animals.

§ 116, Above this first form of recognition of species the con-
scious mind rises to the stage of reflection and tlie stage of in-
XYII— 23

354 The Journal of Sj>eGulatwe Pliilosophy.

sight. We have already discussed these stadia as (a) the percep-
tion of objects, (5) their environment, and (c) their underlying
presuppositions. It is only in tliis latter species of knowing that
the soul comes to recognize itself in its true nature, and it cele-
brates this fact first in religion as a knowledge of God as Creator
and Redeemer of the woi'ld.

§ 117. In our study of the idea of self-activity as the highest
principle we found the explanation of the world and its destiny,
and this explanation is the necessary complement to the psycho-
logical investigation of the question of immortality. The Divine
Self-activity in whom knowing and willing are identical, so that
His knowing is at the same time a creating of His object, knows
Himself, but this knowing does not create directly a world of
finite beings. He knows only Himself and creates or begets His
own likeness, a perfect being equal to himself, the Second Self-
activity or Person.

§ 118. The Second Person, equal in knowing and willing to the
First, creates a Third equal to Himself, but also creates a world of
finite creatures in a process of evolution. Because the Second
knows his own derivation from the First, which is only a logical
precondition and not an event in time antedating his perfection
(for He is eternally-begotten), in knowing it he creates it, and it
appears as a stream of creation rising in a scale of beings from
pure passivity up to pure activity.

§ 119. The inorganic nature, the plant, and the animal do not
attain true individuality, but man does. Man makes his environ-
ment into the image of his true self when he puts on the form of
the divine Second Person, as the One who gives Himself freely to
lift up imperfect beings. As that form is the elevation of the
finite into participation with Himself, so man's spiritual function
is the realization of higher selves through institutions — the In-
visible Church, which is formed of all the intellio-ent beings col-

? or?

lected from all worlds in the universe. The social combination
of man with man is thus the means of realizing the divine.

§ 120. The principle of the absolute institution which we call
the Invisible Church is called divine charity or love. It is the
missionary spirit, or the spirit of self-sacrifice for the good of
others. This is the realization in man of the occupation of the
Creator, and is, therefore, the eternal vocation of man.

Philosojjky in Outline. 355

§ 121. If man were not immortal there would be a break in the
chain of beings that reaches from the pure external and passive up
to the pure active, and hence the eternal elevation of the Second
Person into equality with the First Person would be impossible,
and, therefore, the First Person would not know Himself in the
Second, and hence there would be no self-activity at all, and con-
sequently, also, there would be no derivative or finite being. But
this is impossible. The immortality of man and the necessitv of
intelligent beings on all worlds at some stage of their process is
manifest from this.

§ 122. The First divine knowing creates or begets the Second,
and sees in it the world of evolution and alsp the Third divine
unity of blessed spirits in the Invisible Church as the Holy Spirit.
The creation of the world is the result of the knowing of the rela-
tion of the Second to the First Person ; and as all this is within
the self-knowing of the First, its origin is called a "double proces-
sion." It is not a genesis like that of the Second which is that of
one person from another ; but a procession inasmuch as it proceeds
from the free union of infinitely numerous blessed^spirits assuming
the form of the divine life of the Second Person.

§ 123. Let one remember that even our finite temporal institu-
tions possess in some sort a Personality — deliberative and e.xecu-
tive functions. It could be said that the State possesses a higher
personality than the individual citizen, for it is not subject to his
vicissitudes of sleeping and waking, youth and old age, sex, etc.
But the Invisible Church is the Perfect Archetype of Institutions,
eternal in duration and infinite in extent, and comjdete and abso-
lute in its personality. Space and matter exist only that worlds
may become theati'es for the birth and probation of souls.

§ 121. The social life of man as it is realized in institutions —
family, civil society. State, and especially in the Church— is his
higher spiritual life. Were not human souls immortal as indi-
viduals, however, there could be no perfection resulting from the
creation of the World, and hence the Second Divine Person could
not contemplate in creation his own logical precondition of rising
from passivity to pure activity ; or, what is the same thing. He
could not recognize His own derivation from the First ; and this
would involve also the impossibility of His own ascent to equality
with the First; and this, too, the impossibility of the perfect self-

356 Jlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

knowledge or self-determination of the First; and this the denial
of independent being, and of any being whatsoever. Again, if
we apply the principle of creation — self-knowing of the Absolute
is creating — we may say that a world of imperfect beings implies
the self-recognition of passivity or derivation on the part of the
Creator. If there were actual present passivity and derivation,
He could not be a Creator by reason of imperfection which would
appear as a separation of Will from Intellect, as in Man. But Ilis
logical precondition of derivation and passivit_y would imply a
First Person. Again, these two would imply a perfect final cause
or end for the creation of imperfect beings which could only be
reached by the tuition and education of these into a perfect insti-
tution possessing perfect personality, and through immortal life.

THE SOUECES AND FACULTIES OF COGNITION.

TRANSLATED FROM THE POLISH OF E. TRENTOWSKI (fROM THE FIRST VOLUME OF HIS

"logic") by I. PODBIELSKI.

( Concluded.)

Remark II.

We will devote here some space to the certitude of cognition
and its immediateness.

Truth and knowledge are the essence of God in Heaven, and
likewise of the universe; so, too, they are the essence of man, the
highest being on the earth. They unite in God and stand forth as
the living God's idea {notio). They unite also in man, and mani-
fest themselves as cognition. Truth and knowledge in God is one,
the same as truth and knowledge in man, because there can be
neither two different truths nor two different knowledges.

God's living idea and man's cognition in potentia are identi-
cally the same, because cognition is both the divine breath within
us and God's living idea {notio). Since, then, man manifests his
own truth and knowledo;e in his cognition, he makes all truth and
knowledge a temporal expression in the word. When he expresses
his own idea {notio) in his cognition, he gives utterance to the
living idea {notio) of God himself.

The Sources and Faculties of Cognition.

357

When a man has learned to know himself, he knows God, he
knows all the creation, becanse truth, knowledge, and God's idea
{notio) are everywhere the same. Cuc^nition, thereft)re, this V(jice
of truth, knowledge, and the living God's idea {miio), this voice
of God himself in time, are immediately one. We, too, receive
it from no external source; we draw it out with l)uckets, from no
miraculous well ; but developing what is innate witliin us— what
lies in us and constitutes our being — we draw it out of ourselves,
ty our own activity. The true cognition, and such only is the
free cognition, is not, if you wish for a precise expression, an
acquired thing, but derived from ourselves.

Potentia — that is, our ability, God's breath in us — becomes actu-
ality in the true cognition ; our cognition in potentia becomes,
our cognition in actu. Cognition is essence, the very self hood
unfolding itself into its own verbum, expressing its perception, its
consciousness, and its selfhood. It is, if I may say so, tlje self-
uttering immediateness of our God's breath {notio) within us. If
our cognition in general is immediate, then much more so must be
the three sources of our cognition — the senses, reason, and mind.

Some one will say here, perhaps : " I concede what you have
said, if restricted to the case in which man recognizes himself.
But if he make God, nature, or anything in general his object,
does he recognize immediately ? Certain]}', the object here is not
in him, but out of him, and through this his cognition becomes
mediate. Without the aid of an object, man would not attain to
its cognition." Even then we answer, man gets cognition imme-
diately. Because truth, knowledge, and God's idea (notio), or
God's word realized in an object, are not only different, but also
identical with truth, knowledge, and God's idea {notio), or God's
word in man. God has breathed into us His living idea {notio\
and thus all truth and knowledge. Whatsoever is in God, in
nature and spirit, in the past, the present, and the future world,
is in us ah-eady, before our birtli. All on/ art consists iti drawing
out of ourselves, or in acquiring this great living idea of God {notw).
In acquiring the cognition of the object, which lies outside u?, in
acquiring the cognition of God, nature, of all things, we get the
cognition of ourselves too. As the cognition of ourselves is the
cognition of all existence, so, reciprocally, the cognition of all
existence is the cognition of ourselves. Besides, who could enter

358 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

into immediate contact with the external object if the selfhood
could not? To look around anything, would it stead us to borrow
the eyes of an angel or a devil ? Could we think through the
head of another?

If, then, all cognition is immediate, so much more immediate
are its sources.

Sense-perception lies dormant already in universal matter. It
develops gradually, and comes into bloom finally in the animal,
and more especially in the human senses. Sensuous contact with
the thing of the external world is the same as contact with our
own body. Sense is not merely our sense, but also the sense of
the touched thing. Had it (potential sense) not been in this thing
we could not touch it. If the sun had not been potentially in the
pupil of our eye, we could not see the sun. If the sun were not
outside us, it also would not be in us. In such cases the senses
could not be the bond between the diiference and indifference —
between the empirical selfhood and the thing. This is God's law,
and the holy dogma : What is within us, that is also outside us,
and vice versa.

What we said of the senses is true of the comprehensive reason
and of the comprehensive mind. Reason sleeps in the spirit of
nature and awakes in man's spirit ; mind dreams in every verbum
of God and comes to the manifestation in the human selfhood.
This philosophical difference in indifference, or the union of our
beins with the beino-s of the universe and with God himself, is
the cause why our cognition is immediateness, and can be only
that.

We are composed of body, spirit, and the soul, as St. Paul says
also (I Thess., v, 23) ; or we are senses, reason, and mind. Body
and spirit, senses and reason, are abstractions, bur, the soul or
selfhood and the comprehensive mind are actuality. Therefore
we obtain cognition, not by the body or the spirit, not by sense or
reason, but always by our selfhood and comprehensive mind, and
hence by our personality or immediately. The senses do not see,
do not touch, but the selfhood, their substratum ; likewise reason
does not think, but our selfhood thinks. Moreover, we do not
say our body, or our senses touch ; nor our spirit or our reason
thinks ; but I touch, I think ! And is it not the most manifest
immediateness? We repeat, then, once more : if every cognition

The Sources and Faculties of Cognitlou.

r>.r.o

is immediate, so mucli more its sources are immediate. For the
reason that our selfhood acquires cognition neither by any miracu-
lous rod, nor by any magic spectacles; nor by the divining wand
discovering riches buried under the earth, but by itself or^imme-
diately ; therefore it is entirely certain that it possesses immediate
cognition ; hence the infallibility or certitude of our cognition.
The three sources of cognition are our inheritance ; each of them
has immediate certitude for itself, and rests upon the sure princi-
pal judgment, imi)ossible to be denied. Hence, there are three
immediate certitudes of cognition. To enter upon our subject
more in detail :

The immediate certitude of sensuous cognition, upon which are
based all experience and empiricism rich in useful sciences, is the
immediate certitude of cognition first affirmed. The empirical
selfhood takes a thing in its hand, and is sure of it immedi-
ately, and knows that this thing is, and that it holds it on the
palm of its hand ; and it knows that it is itself also, reality. By
reality it means material, sensuous, tangible being.

It knows that itself is reality, for the reason that matter alone
can touch matter, and enter into contact with it. The thing
before me is, if I may say so, the southern pole, the emjiirical
selfhood, the northern pole in the needle of real cognition, and the
sense is the point of their difference in indifference; all three
create the one whole, coming to its consciousness and to its ver-
bum. The empirical selfhood says, therefore : Sentio, ergo, res
est, atque res sum ! Behold the first axiom, the empirical certi-
tude, upon which experience builds up its palaces and temples.
The empirical selfhood and the thing which it holds in its hand
constitute the absolute unity in the moment of cognition, and the
selfhood knows it immediately, or it is absolutely certain that it
touches the thing. No assurance from any one else is needed to
certify it of this perception ; it knows this by itself. If any one
dares deny this immediate certitude, it wi.'l resent the denial
is mere sophistry to deny the objects touched with one's fin
and to treat one's fingers as though they were dead sticks.
Whosoever lives and is not a stick has senses with which to j)cr-
ceive objects and to know them inmiediately. My selfhood can-
not touch and feel with the fingers of another. Its contact with
external objects is immediate. Mediation is iiere an utter impos-

. It
irers.

360 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

^sibility. The infallible certitude of empirical cognition follows
from its immediateness.

But not everything can be taken in the hand and touclied.
Therefore, the empirical selfhood has other senses. It tastes,
smells, hears, and sees things. By these modes it gets cognition
on various sides, and nearer, but always immediately. Certainly
I convince myself, not with the tongue of another, but with my
-own, that pepper is hot, honey sweet, and vinegar sour. The
-eye is the farthest reaching sense, and perceives, in some sort, the
infiniteness of nature. Where its power stops, it may be assisted
with telescopes and microscopes. Yet these instruments have
their limits, though nature is without limits. We come to this
result, transferring ourselves, for instance, to another part of the
world, and observing the stars ; or, by the aid of the microscope,
looking into small objects.

Therefore, the empirical selfhood expresses : Sentio^ ergo natura
est, atque natura sum !

It is the same certitude which we have known above, but
api)lied to the generality of things. On this standpoint of cog-
nition man is the sensuous or empirical selfhood, and comes to
the physical feeling of himself and that of things.

The congruence of perception here makes its appearance. Man
dissolves himself into sensation, he becomes sensation, and matter
alone exists for him. Behold the source of Realism. The empirical
selfhood, being a passive body, can have nothing else for its object
than the corporeal. Whoever denies the immediateness of this cog-
nition, whoever asserts that this immediateness is not the complete
certitude, that we do not know whether we touch or not when we
touch — in a word, who on this held plays the sceptic is weak and
foolish. Diogenes cured one of these crazy men by beating him
with a stick, and crying out, " Do you not feel ? " And there is no
better medicine for this disease. Whoever says that on touching
a thing he does not feel this touching, must be convinced of his
error by making him feel pain.

Every immediate certitude, therefore, and that which denotes
sensuous cognition, cannot be proved. Every proof contains a
certain mediation; and immediateness, by its very nature, does
not know nor require mediation. Whoever wishes for mediation
in immediateness does not himself know what he wishes for. To

The Sources and Faculties of Cognition. :ii'.l

prove to him who has shut his eyes tliat he holds in his liaiid a
green, red, or white paper, let him open his eyes, and, if he be not
blind, he will convince himself. Tlie co<]jnition of the senses has
infallible certitude, and its axiom is the strongest pillar in the
regions of cognition. For the general cognition rests upon it—
vox populi, consensus gentium.

The immediate certitude of cognition which reason is possessed
of is the second and negative, immediate cognition. The human
spirit is the activity, internal movement or energy of our being;
it is the invisible world, which enkindles itself in the body and
moves it with its rays; it is spirit, thinking. The thinking self-
hood knows bv itself alone, and is immediately certain that it
thinks ; therefore it says : Cogito, ergo mens sti?n, atque mens est.
It is the second axiom or certitude of cognition. The thinking
selfhood is as certain that it thinks as the sensuous self iiood is
certain that it touches. It is one and the same infallible certi-
tude of the selfhood, but regarded at one time from the external,
and at another from the internal side. Mens means not only
thought, but also spirit and the spiritual selfhood, or Soul. The
thinking selfhood, then, comes to the supernatural, speculative,
self-feeling, or to the consciousness, and that in every moment of
thinking. It dissolves itself here entirely into the rational ; it is
reason within itself and out of itself; an idea, a pure thought
alone exists for it. Thought can have thought alone for its
object, because it is impossible to touch the sensuous things
with a thought. Spirit can enter into contact with spirit alone,
and constitutes the speculative difference in indifference of cog-
nition. The immediate certitude of rational cognition has l)eea
known to the world for centuries. The school of the Eleatics in
ancient Greece built their system upon it. Descartes expressed
it in the well-known sentence : Cogito, ergo sum. No German
metaphysician, nor any thinking man, ever denied it. The scep-
tic who renounces thinking and doubts t>e same is found in con-
tradiction with himself, and does not know what lie says. To
think and to deny thinking, is to be and not to be at the same
time. It is an obvious logical contradiction. It is impossd)le,
also, to prove to anybody the rational certitude of cognition,
because it possesses immediateness. How to prove to him, who
does not think and is an automaton, an artificial machine, that he

362 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy .

thinks? As jou alone know tliat you think, so he alone can
know that he thinks. Whoever does not know that he thinks, or
that he has God's thought in himself, is not a human selfhood,
but a mere thing. Metaphysics and speculation rest upon the
rational certitude of thinking. It is quite as strong, however, as
the empirical certitude. The particular science builds itself upon
it : vox uniusGujusque scientifici vatis.

The immediate certitude of cognition being the inheritance of
the philosophical mind is the third, and tlie last, or the limiting
certitude of cognition. It is the proper and fullest and most
important certitude of cognition, superior to the two which pre-
ceded. As the senses and reason unite in mind, so the sensu-
ous and rational certitudes of cognition unite in that of the
philosophical mind, forming the organic and living completeness
or totality. The immediate sensuous certitude of cognition is
affirmation ; the rational one is negation ; that of the compre-
hensive mind is limitation ; all three form the one great infallible
certitude which must be trusted ; the full dogma placed in our
selfhood or the soul ; the holy book given us directly by God.

For the reason that in every third degree of truth the lirst two
are contained as reality and ideality are contained in actuality,
or as necessity and legality in liberty, as the useful and noble in
the good, so also the immediate certitude of the comprehensive
mind contains in itself both the sensuous and the rational certi-
tude. Hence this full certitude is called the entire immediate
certitude of cognition. The certitude of cognition of the compre-
hensive mind is the most immediate and the most infallible. For
in the sensuous certitude of coo-nition our selfhood offers itself as

sensuousne?s only ; in the rational certitude of cognition it pre-
sents itself as rationalism alone, but in that of the comprehensive
mind it is both together, or the total and full mind. It is mani-'
fest that in the last the entire Selfhood or soul acts, therefore its
cognition stamps itself with the greatest immediateness and infal-
libility.

The full selfhood or soul, having developed its mind adequately,
arrives at its own self-feeling, self-sense, or selfhood, and knows
immediately that it is divine. Then it says : Su7n numen, erga
Deus est. It is the third axiom or certitude of cos-nition, beine:
the most precious gift, that we have obtained from heaven. Be-

The Sources and Faculties of Cognition. ^<"J^

cause in the divine all qualities are implicitly contained, and may
be immediately deduced from it, the just mentioned axiom of
cognition of the comprehensive mind leads to the secondary oneg:
namely, su77i libei'tas, ergo est lihertas ; sum eteriivs, ergo est vita.
eterna ; sum verum, jpulchrum et honestam, est igitur rerum^
pulchrum et honestum ; est in me conscientia, est igitur virtus.

The full selfhood or soul is in its basis a deity, and stands with
God in absolute unity, and is able to enter into close communion
with him ; it can then say of itself as God himself : Sum qui sum.
And this sum qui sum, creative and created, opens and closes
each of the philosophical investigations. The axiom, or certitude
of the comprehensive mind, attaining cognition, is as immediate
and infallible as the sensuous and rational certitude, but the for-
mer is richer and fuller than both these latter. That T am I
know immediately and certainly, as much as I know that I touch
something, and that I think. I know immediately and certainly
that I have conscience, that I love truth, beauty, virtue ; that I
am free and immortal. I know, then, equally, immediately, and
certainly, that there are conscience, truth, beauty, virtue, liberty,
and immortality. Tiiese immediate truths cannot be proved to
anybody who does not find them in his own breast. Whoever
remains here a sceptic is not a man, but a brute. I know imme-
diately that I am a spark of God, a deity, and hence tliat (rod
exists. The existence of God cannot be proved to him who luis
expelled God from his soul or selfliood. Whoever denies God
denies also himself, and says in eifect : "I am a skull without
brain, and a breast without a heart. I am nought, the greatest
cipher, the cipher of ciphers. Evil is the negation of good."
Therefore, whoever loses God has torn asunder his own mind,
and has sunk either into sensuousness or rationalism, lleiice it
follows that no philosopher, but only an empiric or a nietaphysician,
can be an atheist. We know that the comprehensive mind is
twofold— the temporal and the eternal In both cases it i^ays :
Sum numen ! The temporal mind, however, develops the divine
nature of man in the age in which we live, and places some genius
on a throne, or in earthly power, in office, in splendor. It is, for
instance, the mind of Hildebrand, of Voltaire, Talleyrand, Napo-

leon, etc.

But the eternal mind calls all that Mammon, and. leading us

364 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

before the throne of the goddess of wisdom, anoints us with the
balsam of philosophy, and makes us philosophers. In philosophy
lies the highest form of sacritice and the most honorable form of
priesthood. It is necessary at first to be born a philosopher, and
afterward to be made the priest of philosophy by one's own eiibrts.

This doctrine of immediateness of cognition, and its axioms or
certitudes, will certainly astonish many a thinker, especially those
who know German speculation. For German speculation teaches
here entirely the contrary, and Hegel's system has proclaimed
aloud hitherto as follows : " The cognition having the most me-
diation is the most perfect; the most certain." What brought
Hegel and German philosophy to such a conviction? It is the
subjectivity falsely seized, and the lack of insight into the nature
of the true selfhood. We know that the selfhood acquiring cog-
nition is what the Germans conceive as subject, and the thing that
is the aim of cognition is the German object, and the internal
speculative selfhood or thinking, pure thought alone is the total
German selfhood or Soul. This being the case, it was natural
that the thiiis; that is the aim of cognition must find its inime-
diateness in tliinking, or the object must be mediated in tiie sub-
ject till the cognition takes place ; therefore every cognition needs
mediation.

We have a different theory of this relation between the self-
hood acquiring cognition and the thing tliat is to be known, hence
we have another, and, as we hope, better conviction.

Our selfhood and its object constitute the difference in indif-
ference, or unity A=A. The faculty of cognition is here the con-
necting link belonging equally to both sides and leading to the
immediate contact with each other. Hegel is the most obstinate
enemy of immediateness in cognition, and it is for this reason that
he did not understand it thoroughly. He says: "If immediate
knowledge is to be the criterion of truth, it will follow that it is
necessary to defend every superstition and idolatry for truth, also
to recognize as holy the most immoral and foolish substance of
will, for instance the caprice that worships a cow or a monkey.
Bralima and the Lama are deities to the Hindoo or Buddhist, not
by knowledge, as the consequence of mediation — that is, not by
the understanding or reason — but merely because he believes it
immediately." This is surprising. Do we not understand, and

The Sources and Faculties of Cognition. 305

do we not reason by our head only — that is, immediately? Does
not every belief depend upon a mediation and even a miraculous
one? What, then, Hegel says against the immediateness of cogni-
tion can avail only against his mediatenes?.

But the mediate cognition is an equally important truth, «^fteii
even more important than the immediate one. Such is the medi-
ate cognition that we obtain through the intermediation of other
men or other books. Our entire learning in schools, in universi-
ties, and in after-life — the entire wisdom to which we come by a
diligent reading — all that is the sweet fruit of mediate cognition.
In truth, immediate cognition created our sciences, and even to-
day by immediate cognition we acquire new observations and
progress, and we learn new philosophical systems, and all that is
original and carries us forward. But, in order to learn what men
know already, what genius has discovered and descrihed, to mas-
ter the substance of our libraries, mediate cognition is absolntely
necessary to us. To-day sciences stand in great repute and diffuse
themselves everywhere. How can one become a physician, a law-
yer, a clergyman, a chemist, a politician, and even a philosopher,
without studying these for these objects, in universities, or with-
out mediate cognition ?

A young man, before entering cultivated society, must study
much and long, in order that he may learn what is required of one
of its members. The more he studies the more positively he will
be able to stand independently. To day, then, mediate cognition
goes before immediate, and is its chief foundation. Not in vain
does religion preach to us of the God-man and his absolute imme-
diateness'! We ought, however, to understand this thing quite
otherwise than in the monkish spirit.

Nevertheless, it is the destiny of every mediate cognition to
serve in our youth for the nourishment of spirit, to enlighten us,
to make us spontaneous, and to carry us on to the i.nmediate cog-
nition ! The mediate cognition is onl.. the mother's breast, or
education in the school to prepare us for the immediate one. AVo
acquire the former as passive beings, and we derive the latter Ironi
ourselves, as God drew from himself the whole worM, and rus every
divine being is obliged to do. The first cognition makes us learned,
the second makes us inventive, both together make us cultivated
and accomplished men. Although mediate cognition ha. an im-

366 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

mense value, although it is true that without it it is impossible
to-day for the greatest man — even for a person of genius — to acquit
himself in science worthily of himself and of his century yet with-
out mediate cognition, one can be only a semi-rude and ridiculous
" self-made" man, a shallow " natural talent." Yet mediate know-
ing is not the end of our learning, but only the means to the end.

The learned man who has nothing but learning remains always
in the state of spiritual childhood. His spontaneous selfhood has
never been awakened, and, having been fed continually upon medi-
ation, has been unable to assimilate it and convert it into immedi-
ate cognition. Not mediate, but immediate cognition is the golden
fleece after which the Argonauts of learning have made their voy-
ages for centuries ! Mediate cognition makes us students, follow-
ers, parrots of the words of others, school-boys ; immediate cog-
nition makes us masters, idols of the world, worthy brethren ot
Socrates, Plato, Leibnitz, Hegel, and even of the Saviour himself!
He only can be a son of God, and a God-man, who has come to
immediate cognition, and who, in his character, principles, and
actions, represents God himself. Not mediate, but immediate
cos'nition is holv, is the manifestation of God's word. The me-
diate gives us wisdom, revealed by men, and the immediate cogni-
tion gives the wisdom which God himself breathed into our being;
the former is human wisdom, the latter is God's wisdom. The
immediate cognition is the criterion of the mediate one. "If I
investigate myself only and know truth immediately, I may be
convinced, how much is right in this or that philosophy, in this or
that religion ; in a word, in any given theory, and, besides, how
much it is worthy of my esteem. The mediate cognition is the
earth upon which I am to build the temple for the immediate
one ; it is the food of my spirit, it is the medium, but not the end
of my exertions." So reasons every selfhood which is possessed
of its own self-feeling and sense, and which is conscious of its di-
vine nature. It is not here our purpose to underrate the mediate
cognition, the high value and necessity of which we recognize;
we wish only to represent its subordination, and also its relation,
to the immediate cognition. The axiom or certitude of cognition
of the comprehensive mind relies upon the word / am. From
this word the logical Analysis begins, and ends at the same lam.

I am that I am = Sum qui sum !

A Study of the ''Iliads 307

A STUDY OF THE "ILIAD."

BY D. J. SNIDER.

First of all, let it be declared that there is no intention of sav-
ing much about the Homeric controversy. Proliably the must
ardent disputant on either side would not afSrni that the Woltian
theory, in all its redactions and modifications, had brought out the
really vital questions of the Homeric poems. It lias {jenerated an
innumerable offspring of probabilities, conjectures, dispututions;
of doubts chiefly it has been prolific, but seems to be unable to
unfold any deep inner necessity of that marvellous song. It fails,
somehow, to reach down to the soul of tlie poet, but is occupied
with external matters, interesting enough, but quite dispensable in
presence of weightier things. Certainly the question of author-
ship is not the supreme fact in those works called the poems of
Homer; for do they not remain the same, and offer us their prol>
lem, whatever be the way we spell the author's name? Indeed,
ought not this dispute to be forever settled in the answer once
given by the puzzled pupil to his professor? " Tiie poems of
Homer were not written by Homer himself, but by another man
of the same name." More important, yet not all-important, is
the question of Homeric writing. Still, if this matter were set-
tled beyond a doubt, it could not induct us into any true com-
prehension of Homer.

Let us, then, relegate such a discussion to the halls of learned
leisure, and take up another question which must always remain
the leading one with the true-hearted student. Here before me
are two books which the world always has declared, and does
still declare, to be of its very greatest. Do I know them, and do
I know why they are so great ? Some phases of the Homeric dis-
pute have sought to make us believe that we have no Homer ;
but we turn away, and see indubitably Ins twin books lying before
us upon our table; so we take them up, assured once more of their
reality and begin anew to find out what they contain that lasts so
long, so fresh, and so beautiful. With boldness we may a.lvance
to a new attack through long shelves of commentaries e.xtending
back to ancient Alexandria and Athens, provided we liold contmu-

368 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ally before iis this question, "What vitally true thing do these old
poems tell us, even at this late day ? An answer to such a ques-
tion the sincere reader will seek in them, and will, in time, find.
A little conference with another person engaged in the same pur-
suit may help him ; hence, O reader ! 1 give thee here my notes ;
perchance hereafter I may get some of thine. For a genuine
attempt of a modern human soul struggling to make Homer and
Homer's world profound reality unto itself is not only interesting,
but teaches much. But if I find thee working merely in some
ramification of the Woltian argument with possible additions of
thine own, cutting up the poems into ballads large or small,
according to some new scheme, w^ith fresh hypotheses as to their
authors, defending or refuting a long string of conjectures from
the beginning down, mere bubbles which have long since ex-
ploded of themselves, displaying thy erudition by citations from
German sources or other vast mole-fields of learning, or in any
manner reducing back to gold-dust and dirt the gathered and
minted treasures of Homer, without manifesting the least ap-
preciation of them, as they rest in sun like radiance before thine
eyes — I warn thee, I shall burn thy document without further
reading.

Other kinds of notes — such as philological, textual, historical,
ethnological — we shall, in the main, eschew; very necessary in
their place, they belong not here. Even literary notes, in the
common acceptation of the term, whereby beautiful passages are
pointed out, fine comparisons are dwelt upon, ofi'ences against
taste are duly scored, must not be expected. But, in the higher
meaning of literature as the very portrait of the human soul and
as the very visage of human history, there is much to be found in
Homer which has hardly yet been said, or, if so, can well be said
again. "What is the significance of these poems to man — what do
they mean, interpreted into the language and methods of thought
of our day ? An interpretative criticism, which takes these poems
as mighty facts thrown up by our race in its development, and
seeks to grasp the import of them in their relation to all culture,
must be employed ; such a criticism will regard Homer as the great
revealer of his epoch, and will unfold, as its foundation, the poet's
conception of the government of the world. The Gods, their in-
terference in human affairs, their strange characters; the many

A Studij of the ''lliadr .Sfio

myths, and tlieir many forms ; the Homeric man, too— are all piiaaes
of that period long passed away, Avhich demand some translation
into our own life and expression whereby we may connect them
with ourselves, and thus make them into a link of" ,,nr (.\vn inner
as well as of our race's outer history.

Another question will also come up for an answer: IIow does
Homer build his materials into a poem ? The structure of these
Homeric books is their chief wonder, though not their chief great-
ness, perhaps ; everywhere i» seen the profound instinct of t.lie
builder who puts his work together, not only in the most beauti-
ful, but.in the most lasting way. This architectonic soul is what
has preserved them so long, and has helped to make them the crea-
tive principle of literature; most succeeding poetic books have
been built after their structural type. One may well say that as
detached fragments, however excellent in themselves, they had
long since perished ; but, wrought into a temple, they attain their
perfect beauty and duration.

Homer is, therefore, the builder; according to one derivation of
his name, he is the man who fits together. Many materials were
given him to work into his structure; one asks. In what condition
did he find them ? In a disjointed, floating mass, doubtless, just as
they were thrown off by the people and handed down in tradition ;
they were fragments of a national life, and of its expression, im-
pure, uncertain, but genuine, and coming from the hearts of men.
The Poet takes them, fuses them, and makes them into a com|)lete
expression. From time immemorial there had been a great conflict
with the East — a long series of conflicts, which culminated in one
grand struggle ; all the essence of this deep wrestle of nations was
gathered into a song.

Many such fragments of antecedent conflicts we can discern in
the "Iliad," where they take the form of some ancient tale or
legend; there are hints of migrations; there are mythical notices
of great revolutions, national and religious; such as the story oi
Dionysns's flight, the fable of Briareus, the tale of Ikdlerophon.
A great poem resumes the whole Fast into itself; the " Iliad " hiis
united into one brilliant legend the legendary stores of the Greek
race, and smelted them into one pure-flowing strain. Still more
plainly has the Poet gathered the local legends of the Trojan War;
each little community had its hero and its lay in his honor, which
XYII— 24

370 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJnj.

recounted what he did and suffered at Troy in the o;reat national
enterprise. All these lays are not merely to be collected, but to
be fused together into the national song; for is not each town a
part of the nation ? Such is the work of the Poet, such the ma-
terials out of which he is to build his edifice.

So much was furnished to Homer by his people, so much must
be furnished to every great book. The mythns is made and given
him by his nation or race ; faint and disjointed it lies, but has the
germ, the deep hint of their destiny, which the Poet seizes and
unfolds to light. It is but the crude material of song, the scat-
tered nuggets which he must gather and fling into his poetic fur-
nace, melting them and casting away the dross, and stamping the
pure gold with his seal, whereby it becomes current ever afterward,
the literary coin of mankind. Hidden deep in mother earth, even
nuggets are valueless, though they be gold, being unmerchantable,
and, indeed, unrecognizable to most eyes.

So much, then, is given to the Poet from without b}^ his people,
yet it must not be forgotten that he too is one of ,tlie people — in-
deed, one of their typical men. He is also a myth-maker — he not
only receives, but gives ; these legendary treasures are his in the
deepest sense. Moreover, he, of all men, feels most profoundly
what lies in his people ; he shares most strongly in their struggle,
in their suffering, in their victor3^ Not simply, then, has the ma-
terial been given him, but his heart has helped to make it ; indeed,
he is the sensitive throbbing heart of his whole people, and their
voice too.

Even to-day Greece shows certain phases of the pre-Homeric
epos. There has been a long conflict with the Turk, extending
over hundreds of years; it is still a struggle with the Oriental
man, as it was upon the plains of Troy and of Marathon. Every
village has taken part in the conflict, has had its hero, and still'
celebrates him in song. The fragments of a great national poem
are floating scattered through the villages, but there is now no
Homer to throw them into the crucible and refine them, and
work them into a great organic Whole. ISTought do we see there
now but the compiler ; collections of these single melodious
heart-beats we may find, but they are merely a fitful breath of
music here and there, and then dying away to a wail or momentary
]*oy. Perhaps the time is not come for the second Homer; when

A Study of the ''Iliad:' 371

the second Troy is taken and destroyed, he may be called forth hy
the shout of triumph.

But it is time to return to our task ; we shall now attempt to
contemplate these ancient poems in their true place at the foun-
tain-head of Universal Literature. It is not too much to say that
such is their relation to other Great Books ; they are the beginiiinjr
of the literary stream, and still give to it form and scope. This is
quite the most significant fact about them ; they belong not to a
nation simply, though they be national in the highest degree;
they rise and participate in that spiritual current running above
nations, which hang therefrom as from their mother's breast. In
that universal life they share, and image it, too; we must reach
to the very highest consideration of them, which is to regard them
among the Great Books of our race, to be called Literary Bibles,
several of which our European peoples have created as they dropped
down the stream of Time.

In examining the structure of the " Iliad " in the previous essay
upon the poem (" Jour. Spec. Phil,," April, 1883), it was seen to
divide into two very distinct Parts, each of which contained a
Wrath and Reconciliation of the Hero, iirst with the Greeks, sec-
ondly with the Trojans — this division being most emphatically
marked in the Nineteenth Book. Each of these two Parts was
further subdivided, by the attitude of the Hero, into a justifiable
and an unjustifiable Wrath, the latter continuing till he beheld
his error and was appeased. Somehow thus the entire organism
of the "Iliad" will rest in the mind:

I. First Wrath and Reconciliation (with the Greeks).

a. Achilles in the Right.
h. Achilles in the Wrong.

II. Second Wrath and Reconciliation (with the Trojans).

a. Achilles in the Right.

1). Achilles in the Wrong,
Such is the general structure of the poem as a Whole, as it rises
out of its thought into one great edifice. To this view we are
now to add the special structure of each Book, as it too rises out
of its thought and joints itself into the total work.

A word upon the Invocation (the fir>t seven lines), which,
though short, is deserving of a long thought. This little preface
is clearlf intended for the whole " Iliad " ; here we find stated the

372 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

essence of the poem in its twofold nature, in its primitive dualism..
Both points are to be carefully noted as showing the ultimate
thought of the Poet. The first point is the wrath of the Hero
and its consequences; the Greeks suiier woes unnumbered, and
many souls are sent to Hades ; such is the result to the people
when their Great Man is dishonored. But the second point is the
other great fact of the poem : the will of Zeus was accomplished
from the beginning. He is the Highest, and it is by such colli-
sions as this Greek one that he brings forth the world's divine
movement. A conception of Universal History lurks therein, and
the course of the poem unfolds it. Reconciliation, which plays so
important a part in the action, is not otherwise spoken of in this
short passage, but here is the hint of it and its realm ; Providence
is over all conflict, fulfilling his purpose, and bringing forth har-
mony. The antithesis of the " Iliad," in fact of the Universe, is
just this one here indicated: an Upper and a Lower World ; an
Individual on one side, the Deity or the Universal on the other;
the question being. How sliall this mighty man, as independent,
even as wrathful, recalcitrant, free-agent, be made to fit harmoni-
ously into the world's order, and to contribute his share thereto ?
Such is the problem of the " Iliad " ; it is yours too, and mine ;
wherefore both of us may study the old Poet's solution of it with
profit. Such a meaning looms out of this Invocation when seen,
not by the first glance, but by the last glance, sent backward from
the end of the poem.

One other thing the reader will delight to dwell upon : the
Muse is invoked to sing this song; she is to the singer a veritable
reality, not a juggle, or at most a fanciful play, as at present. The
Poet, though he be called the Maker, knows that not he alone has
made this wonderful lay ; much has been given him, among other
gifts a voice ; it is indeed the Muse who sings through him. Thus
he figures to himself his poetic process — a figure which has re-
mained to this day, though too often merely as a figure, not as a
soul with a divinity in it.

Book First.

The First Book of the " Iliad " is worthy of careful study as a
typical book of the poem. It has its own distinct organism, yet
it tits most exactly into the organism of the entire work. Twa

A Study of the '^lUad:' :>.T3

questions we are to ask concerning the formation of all lliese
Books: What is their separate structure, taking each Book as a
poem with its own architecture? and What is the relation of each
Book to the entire " Iliad " ? We shall, therefore, look at the First
Book as a whole by itself lirst, then as a part of the total epical
liiovement.

It divides naturally into two portions : the Conflict in the Lower
World before Troy, and the Conflict in the Upper World on Olym-
pus. This division introduces as the organic ground-work of the
Book the grand Homeric dualism, the human and divine realms.
In each, too, we notice a disturbance — in fact, essentially the same
disturbance ; the Olympian household is the image of what is
taking place on earth, but it shows in addition the solution of the
trouble, wdiich is its divine function. Thus we behold at once an
adumbration of the whole poem in this First Book.

I. We may now proceed to take up the Conflict in the Lower
World, the first part of the Book, and seek the purport of the
same. At once the Poet introduces us to the heart of the matter ;
Ave behold two men in strife, each of whom is the grand personal
embodiment of a principle. These two princijjles at war we may
state as Authority against Ileroship. Agamemnon is commander,
and has the right of authority ; but he dishonors and wrongs
Achilles, the Heroic Man, who retires in wrath from the combat
and stays in his tent. It will be seen that Authority on the one
hand and Heroship on the other are disjoined ; they exist in differ-
ent individuals who now are hostile. Thus the two strongest and
deepest forces of the State, which ought to work in harmony,
have become antagonistic, and we are to witness the consequences.
Such is the famous quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon,
the essence indeed of many quarrels that since have been and are
hereafter to be.

Which is right, and which wrong? The quarrel has its origin
in a violation done by Agamemnon — >e refuses to ransom the
captive daughter of Chryses, the priest. It is manifest that ho
ought to have permitted the ransom according to tiie Greek etlii-
caT instinct of the time; all the Greeks applauded the demand
and said: Revere the priest and receive the ransom. But the
leader refuses with passion ; the result is a divine transgression,
Tvhich is punished by the plague in the Greek camp. Moreover,

374 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy.

tlie act of Agamemnon cuts deeper ; the restoration of Helen, alsa
a stolen woman, is the matter for which the Greeks are fighting
before Troy ; the commander is thus violating the very principle
for whose infringement he is seeking to punish the Trojans, And
yet deeper does his action cut : he goes and commits a second
deed of violence ; he takes from Achilles Briseis, the Hero's prize
in war and intended spouse; steals, as it were, another Helen.
Thus Agamemnon substantially plays the part of Paris in the
Greek camp, and contradicts the whole purpose of the expedition..
He, the man of supreme authority in that expedition, does so ;
the Poet places him emphatically in the wrong, for he has denied
in his deed his own cause, the cause of the whole Hellenic world.

It was true that Briseis was also a captive woman in the tent ot
Achilles. But she had never been demanded back, as was the
case with Chryseis, and Helen too ; nay, we learn that the Hero
intended to elevate her from captive to wife. The Greek con-
sciousness in this matter seems to have been : Women may be
stolen, but must be restored when demanded back with ransom.
Achilles therefore is seen to be in harmony with the Greek ethical
feeling ; he is here the patriot who seeks the cause of divine wrath,
and then tries to remove it when found. Whereby he collides
with the man in authority, Agamemnon.

The character of Agamemnon as revealed in these outlines has
in it two striking traits: insolence toward the Gods, and arbitrari-
ness toward man. Both are indeed the same trait, at one time
directed to those above, at another to those below. JSTote how he
abuses Calchas, the priest, for telling the source of the Greek
trouble. The leader quarrels with the eternal fact — the very
worst trait in a leader. Yet it is the disease of all authority,,
whose danger is to regard its own caprice as one with the reality,
and to punish the honest speaker of the truth as an enemy of the
cause. Listen to that first line addressed to the priest, and mark
what lurks therein : " Never yet hast thou told me the thing that
is pleasant." Clearly the head of the army, who ought always to
keep his eye fixed upon the great general purpose, has lost sight
of the same in his individual whim and passion. The vice of his
station it appears to be, which he must get rid of or destroy his
own expedition.

A third trait here peeps forth, which will help him out in the

A Study of the ''Iliads 375

end. Agamemnon is flexible, and can be reconciled ; lie yields to
a better view when hi? ire is calmed. At once he gives np his in-
solence toward the God, and restores the maid with duo i)enance;
but his arbitrariness to the Hero he at present persists in ; he drives
off his Best Man, for which conduct hereafter he will cxporiciice
bitter repentance. Thus we must place to his account a redecMn-
ing trait : he is placable ; the man in authority can be appeased,
and made to recall his deed. Herein, again, he is in strong con-
trast with the Hero.

The fundamental lines of the character of Achilles also aro
brought out in these sharp disputes. He supports the Greek cause
with body and mind ; just. now he is seeking to find and to get rid
of the divine obstacle. But, when his honor is touched, he with-
draws from the conflict and lets the cause go to ruin ; he will not
subsume his personality under a commander. He, too, has a dis-
ease — the disease of Heroship ; he feels that he is not sutticieiitly
honored by the Greek leader and the Greek army. We observe in
his few first words that he is in a strained mood toward Agamem-
non, which the latter reciprocates ; it has long been a smouldering
fire, for the whole ten years perchance, which now breaks forth in
consuming flames. Indeed, he rather invites Agamemnon to come
and take Briseis, that he may have a good pretext for sulking.
The feeling of greatness unappreciated, long pent np in the brood-
ing soul, bursts out of his speech everywhere; the Hero is ])resont
and in action, but is not recognized ; he will bring both leader
and people to a comprehension of his place in the world. Thus
the disease of Authority on the one hand and the disease of He-
roship on the other are the two maladies in tiie Hellenic cump
and in the Hellenic soul ; the twin principles, which must work
together to produce a great harmonious national action, have fallen
inio strife and profoundest discord. That pestilence of Ap(.llo,
God of Light, which first struck the Greek camp and shrivelled
the bodies of beasts and men, has now gone within ; this u the

real pestilence.

Such is the scission in the Greek enterprise— a scission which
produces the First Part of the whole " Hiad," extending to the re-
conciliation of the two men in the Nineteenth Book. But Iltp
upon the spot we have two attempts at reconciliation, a <iivmc and
human attempt. The first, that of Pallas, is merely to prevent

376 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

bloodshed, and succeeds thus far ; the second, that of Nestor, is to
liarmouize the strife, and does not and cannot succeed ; this mat-
ter is too deep-seated without an appeal to the final judgment over
mortal men — the judgment uttered by the consequences of a deed.
Let us scan this iirst divine appearance found in the " Iliad," and
see what it means ; for just these connecting points between the
Upper and Lower Worlds are the pillars of the .Homeric temple.
The heart of Achilles " within his shaggy breast was divided in
counsel whether to draw the keen blade from his side and slay
Atrides, or assuage his anger and curb his soul." This is a plain
statement of his internal condition. But while he was doubting,
and even laid his hand upon his weapon, Pallas came from heaven,
to him alone visible, and caught him by his golden hair and for-
bade him to draw his sword. Such is this striking passage in which
the human internal state directly fuses with the divine external
interference, a rise, as it were, from earth to heaven ; also there is
seen the transition from plain common speech — prosaic, we might
say, for the contrast — into the mythologic tongue of Homer. While
Achilles deliberates, though in passion, Pallas, the Goddess of
Wisdom, appears to him only, and reveals to him his second sober
thought. But if this be his own internal act, why introduce the
God to declare it to him ? Because it is the voice of the situation,
too, of the Greek cause ; it is not merely his inner suggestion, but
that of the outer reality as well. He must rise out of himself,
out of his own passion, and hear the whisper of Pallas; she and
her commands exist not simply in the man, but outside of him as
well ; she is a voice coming from the world, which speaks in his
own soul. Therefore is she divine, because a reality and not a
subjective thought alone. A double error must herein be avoided :
Do not interpret the God into a mere internal state of a man, thus
the distinctively divine element is lost ; do not, on the other hand,'
interpret the God into a mere external power driving the man
from without, thus the human element of freedom is lost. Achilles
is about to ruin the great enterprise against Troy by slaying the
man of authority ; so Pallas interferes, sent by Juno, who is the
supreme guardian of the Greek cause, next to the throne of Zeus.
But Pallas does not try to heal the breach ; she rather urges the
Hero to continue his railing at the Leader. Before Helen can be
restored by the capture of Troy, it is clear that another question

A Study of th,^ ''Jlhvir

i< (

must be settled— tlie honor of the Hero. In such manner, all
through Homer, the two worlds, the Upper and Lower, or the
Inner and Outer, touch and kiss in a divine rai)ture, then sepa-
rate — the Gods flying off to their home on Olympus, the men re-
suming the bloody conflict before Troy.

Such is the divine mediation ; now comes the human mediation.
An aged man appears, respected by both parties, with far more
experience of life and war than either, with a tongue dr<>pi)ing
words sweeter than honey to smooth over the dithculties of he-
roes : it is the wise Nestor. He sees the conHict, and decides it
aright; he is the voice of justice heard amid those tumultuous
passions; indeed, we may take Nestor's speech to be the vuice of
the Poet himself regarding the merits of the' quarrel. Listen to
his word, for it speaks the reason of the situation : Thuu, Aga-
mennion, take not the maid, the prize of him, Goddess-born, and
Best Man of all the Greeks ; and thou, Achilles, strive not with
the King, the sceptred Man, to whom Zeus has granted rule. The
wise old man, with, that clear understanding of his, probes the
difticulty to the core, and gives the best advice; indeed, he quite
states the collision as it has been hitherto unfolded — individual
heroism versus institutional authority.

But the word of reconciliation is now fruitless ; each side charges
the other with transgression against its right; each side does a
wrong: the Leader violates the Hero's honor, the Hero refuses
obedience to the Leader, The twin princii)les, whose perfect in-
terfusion and agreement make the very soul of the (ireek enter-
prise, have separated and turned with violence upon each other.
What is to be the outcome? lor one thing, this " Iliad " before
us, whose whole course is now to show us through what disasters
and punishments the two discordant principles must work back to
unity and harmony, for together they must live according to the
World's order, the voice of which we are now to hear— it is the

voice of Zeus.

II, We are now to be borne to the Upper World, to the very
highest pinnacle of the Upper World, whence we are given a
lance over the future sweep of the poem. The appeal must be
made to the final divine authority to settle this question ol
human authority. Mark again, it is a matter upon winch the
highest earthly powers, the Hero and the Leader, are at variance ;

378 The Journal of Speculative Philosojjhy.

what will the supreme power of the world say to it ? Hence the
introduction of the world-governing power, the Highest God ; the
solution of the conflict is out of the reach of man below on the
plains of Troy. This brings us to the Second Part of the First
Book, which is ushered in by the prayer of Achilles to his mother
Thetis, wherein the mortal Hero, in affliction and dishonor, rises
up and communes with his ijnmortal portion.

For Achilles has a mortal and an immortal parent ; both have
given him their endowment. A mortal and immortal strand runs
through him ; both are interwoven into his being and make him
the Hero. He, the mortal part, prays to his mother who is a God-
dess and immortal, but who is in himself too. As mortal, he is
fated to die early ; but as immortal he will obtain everlasting
glory. Now that glory is stained by Agamemnon the Leader,
who dishonors him. So he calls upon his divine mother to inter-
cede with Zeus that the latter may grant victory to the Trojan
enemy till the Greek restore him to his honor; that is, till he be
recognized fully for his heroic worth, and thus get his immortal
meed. In such manner this question is brought before the high-
est tribunal, and the grievance of Achilles is elevated from a per-
sonal niatter into a universal question, in whose decision Hellas
and all mankind have an interest.

What does Zeus decree, what must he decree in such an emer-
gency ? For the necessity of his judgment is the main insight; it
is the Reason of the World uttering itself upon this question of
Heroship. Zeus as the supreme divinity is above both Greeks
and Trojans, and above the other Gods ; in him we must see the
highest movement of the poem, its true and final tliought. This
thought which now comes before the divine judgment-seat is that
the Heroic Individual must be restored to his place in the Greek
host and in the Greek mind ; not till then can the Greeks con-
quer, or ought they to conquer. They are to be scourged into
their own true destiny by the God ; the Trojans must, therefore,,
be victorious till Achilles be restored to honor. We see it to be
not an arbitrary command of some external power, but truly a
divine decree resting upon the very essence of the conflict. So
Zeus grants the prayer of Thetis, must grant it in order to be
Zeus ; the Greeks must perish till they be brought to understand
what the Hero is, and take him up anew into their hearts.

A Study of the ''IVadr ;{7«»

AH these things the Poet expresses not in our way, hut his own
way, which we must compreliend. He has a poetic form iutr-xhic-
ing a varied play of the Gods, who often seem capricious enough ;
yet in this very play he is deeply in earnest ; in fact, it is his genu-
ine and only manner of expression. He is seeking to give utter-
ance to his profoundest thought ; it is not a conscious employniont
of mythologic shapes which are blown into the air like soap-l.uh-
bles for their momentary iridescence, but it is his final sincercst
expression of what he deems truth. Homer's age was not a time
of abstract thought, but of poetic thought ; the latter was the only
way of thinking. So completely has this naive manner lieeu edu-
cated out of us that we have to educate ourselves back into it ;
the Poet's images we have to translate into our abstractions in
order to understand them. But with him it is the first spontajie-
ous expression of a view of the AVorld and its government ; this
primitive, unworn look out upon the Universe is his charm and
his value for us. Through comprehending in our way what he
means, we get back into his way ; nature and life bloom again with
their original freshness, seen through the eyes of the old Poet.

Thus we must reach down to the heart of this sportive jilay of
the Gods. They have a personal, capricious side ; but we must
see through this side as a transparent outer covering and beiiold
the rational necessity lying underneath. Zeus is Zeus, not because
of his whimsicalities, but because he is the voice of the divine order
of the world. So it is with the Gods generally ; their finite hu-
man element is but a transparent body revealing the divine soul
or some phase thereof; our vision, in reading Homer, must i)e
trained to look through this external hull; such is the j»oetic
glance wdiich beholds in the image the reality.

We have now placed before us the first attitude of Zeus in the
poem, with whom we cast a long look over what is to be. The
question left unsettled below is answered above ; the people and
the Leader are to learn to honor the Hero. But Zeus must not be
considered as hostile to the Greek cause; only a strong partii^an
like Juno can thus regard him. His present attitude is, in the
long run, for the good of the Greeks ; as other peoples known in
histm-y, thev must be defeated in order to win. When they have
learned their lesson this first attitude of Zeus will change, where-
upon we shall enter a new phase of the poem.

•380 The Journal of Speculatwe PTiilosojphy.

But tlie matter is not yet fully settled upon Olympus ; even
against this supreme decree of Zens there rises the protest. For
the Gods are many, and they take sides in the struggle on earth
below between Greeks and Trojans. The opposition is voiced by
Juno, the zealous partisan of the Greeks ; in favor of her people
she proposes to interfere with the world-ordering plan of Zeus.
The two are man and wife, heads of the Olympian family ; hence
tlie division between them assumes the form of domestic jealousy.
It is natural; against the complete outlook which takes in all
things is always the view of the partisan who sees but a part.
Indeed, there has from time immemorial been this scission on
Olympus between Zeus and the Lower Gods, who have conspired
against supreme power ; witness the ancient story of Briareus the
Hundred-Handed, who was called to Olympus once to maintain
the divine authority of Zeus. So Thetis tells the legend to him
now, reminding him of his former deed, with a hint to assert his
supremacy in regard to the Hero. And Zeus does it, must
<io it ; the result is that there is wrath among the Gods too at
their leader ; as the earth below was disturbed, so is the divine
harmony of Olympus stirred up to discord. It is all on account
of mortals and their conflict between Hero and Leader ; indeed,
we behold quite the same conflict among the Gods — authority in
a struggle with insubordination. Thus the earthly scission images
itself above ; yet it lasts but a moment ; against divine authority
there can be no real struo-gle.

Such is the difficulty, now we must have the mediation on Olym-
pus, corresponding with the earthly movement of the poem. As
Nestor sought to reconcile the two confiictino; Greeks, so Vulcan
undertakes to restore good feeling between his conflicting father
and mother among the Gods. His solution is doubtless the true
one : " Mother, be patient and submit, lest I may behold thee
beaten with stripes." Which, though not an act of conjugal ten-
derness, is what happens to those who strive against the world-
order ; they are scourged and ground till they submit. Yulcan
k;nows by his own experience; once before he interfered against
the will of the supreme parent ; the result is, he is now lame, and
a blacksmith among Gods. In the Olympian economy he is what
the Greek artist was in mundane society — indispensable, partak-
ing of divinity by his genius, but socially in disesteem.

A Studij of the '^Illadr

381

Yulcan effects his purpose and restores the happy mood ; even
inextins^uishable lau<?liter arises among the blessed Gods 'at his
divine interference. He is a comic figure, and liis solution of the
difficulty is comic, for the situation admits of no other solution.
He is a little Part putting himself above the great Whole, and
trying to reconcile the same ; Zeus as supreme God can have no
genuine collision ; it is a mere feint or show of seriousness, wliic-ii
vanishes suddenly in laughter, as here. Such is the true outcome
of opposition to the highest movement of the spiritual world— a
comedy. Looked at through the honest vision of the Poet, this
scene is iK)t degrading to Gods or Men, but is a simple though
light-hearted representation of the fact.

So we have reached concord again, even mei-riment ui)on Olvm-
pus ; a fresh festival begins with harp and song of the Must-s, who
evidently are to sing just this conflict and its roconciliati(»n.
Herein we have another ideal reflection of Greek life, full of music
and joy, yet not without struggle. In honor of whom do the
Gods feast? In honor of themselves. In honor of whom do men
feast ? In honor of the Gods — that is, ultimatelv in honor of them-
selves, imaged in their ideal world. Olympus is now concordant ;
the conflict there is harmonized, being in fact but a passing shadow
over the Olympian heights. Zeus is supreme, such is the trumjiet-
voiced announcement from above; we may henceforth expect that
his will, with some protest, and possible counter-plotting on the
part of certain Gods, will be triumphant.

This First Book now lies before us in its organism and idea ; an
important Book we shall say — a sort of image of the entire poem
held up in advance, an Introduction to the " Iliad," yet an integral
part of it. We shall note its beautiful symmetry ; it naturally
divides into the two Worlds of Homer, Upper and Lower ; then
we behold the same conflict in each of these Worlds, with the
mediation in each. Both Parts of this Book fit together harmoni-
ously—tit, as it were, one upon the other. The thought builds
the structure, from the structure shines forth the thought; both
thought and structure are one process, which must be separated in
an analytic criticism, but are always to be reunited in the poetic
vision. Yet the great ditierence between the two Worlds is not
to be passed over ; in the Lower is the grand conflict, but un-
reconciled ; in the Upper, the decision of the problem is stated,

382 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

which decision, from the lips of supreme authority, runs : Honor
jour Heroic Man, for I, the Highest, am the avenger of his wrong.
A decree which holds good to-day, and will hold good forever ;
not an arbitrary caprice of Zeus, but the voice .of the World-Spirit
uttering one of its laws. Thus the potentate above decides
against the potentate below because of the latter's violation ; the
first duty of the Leader is to reconcile himself to the Hero, else he
is nought ; both are nought.

In such manner we have a second portraiture of the conflict
which is thrown up among the Gods. Such is Homer's way ; he
does not rest content with giving us a simple terrestrial account of
wars and combats, but he draws over the earth an Olympian
world which is the divine image of the struggle, together with its
solution. This is the most glorious fact of Homeric song — this
01)'mpian light breaking in upon it from above and revealing the
reality in the appearance of things. Two portraitures run through
the Poet's book : the one below, ambiguous, a struggle of brawn
apparently, often tiresome; the other above, determinate, a strug-
gle of spirit, never drooping in interest. We in these days say,
too, that a war has its principle which drives the arm of the com-
batants, and often we state the principle abstractly ; but Homer
creates a distinct world to indicate this very matter, and thus
makes it the emphatic part of the war.

Our modern substitute for the ancient Epos, the I^ovel, has no
such Upper World whereby to give the spiritual side of its con-
flict. It could portray the quarrel between Achilles and Aga-
memnon, the struggle between heroship and authority in the
present phase of such a problem, but it would have no divine in-
terference. The conflict would have to work of its own energy
through to the end ; the characters would unfold and change by
the experience of their own deeds, without the express oversight '
of Zeus. Homer has this internal development of character too,
as we shall see ; but he has, in addition, an external world-move-
ment into which his personages fit, and which is the true reality of
all their heroic actions.

Goethe's ^^Daa Mdrchen:^ 383

GOETHE'S DAS MARCllEN.

BY GERTRUDE GARRIOrES.

" The German Emigrants," of which the tale (" Das Miirchen ")
is a part, describes the adventures and entertainments of a taiiiilv
of distinction which has been forced, by the encroachments of the
French, to leave its estates and seek safety beyond the Rhine. Its
members reach the right side of that river without further injury,
and settle themselves, for the time, upon a small property, there
to await, with such patience as they may, the return of niore
peaceful times.

The first part of the novel is occupied with a description of the
different personages; their adventures, and the disputes — growing
out of the distracted state of the times — in which they eiiirajre.
They find their chief pleasure, the author tells us, in describing
the follies of two great nations, in finding the Germans as a])>urd
as the French, and in representing, first one and then the other,
as Jacobins and Radicals. This diversion finally leads to a fracas
which results in several of the party separating themselves from
the others. This is regarded, by those who remain, as so great a
calamity that they resolve henceforth to banish politics, and all
other subjects not likely to prove generally interesting, from their
conversation when together. It is further agreed that, as nearly
as possible, each one of the fugitives shall return to the interests
and occupations which engaged him before his flight, and seek,
at all times, so far as his powers permit him, to afford his part to
the common entertainment in a courteous and ingenuous way.

The Clergyman— a typical Goethean character, by the way-
offers, on his part, as dessert, a series of narratives which he does
not promise shall be strictly authentic, yet which he, at the ?ame
time, insists no one shall have the pri"ilege of doubting. IIo
keeps his word, and each day the party is amused and instructed
by one or more of his anecdotes. The first evening is devoted to
the study of the connection between what is commonly cnllcd the
natural and the supernatural, and of the difficulty of judging of
events which are called marvellous, yet which, if properly consid-
ered, may be found to admit of a natural explanation. The other

384 The Journal of Speculative rJiilosophy .

tales teach the lessons of renunciation, of self-sacrifice, of self-
restraint — that " man possesses within himself the same power to
subdue his inclinations which may be called out by the persua-
sions of another."

Finally Karl, the young man whose precipitation had caused
the dismemberment of the party, inquires of the clergyman wheth-
er he knows a fairy tale. " The Imagination," he observes, " is a
tine faculty, yet I like not when she works on what has actually
happened. The airy forms she creates are welcome as things of
their own kind; but, uniting with Truth, she produces oftenest
nothing but monsters, and seems to me, in such cases, to fly into
direct variance with reason and common sense. She ought, you
might say, to hang upon no object, to force no object on us ; she
must, if she is to produce works of art, play like a sort of music
upon us; move us within ourselves, and this in such a way
that we forget there is anything without us producing the move-
ment."

"Proceed no farther," said the old man, "with your condition-
ings ! To enjoy a product of imagination, this also is a condition,
that we enjoy it unconditionally, for Imagination herself cannot
condition and bargain ; she must wait what shall be given her.
She forms no plans, prescribes for herself no path, but is borne
and guided by her own pinions ; and, hovering hither and thither,
marks out the strangest courses, which in their direction are ever
altering. Let me but on my evening walk call up again to life
within me some wondrous figures I was wont to play with in ear
lier years. This night I promise you a tale which shall remind
you of nothing and of all."

Then follows the tale which, at first sight, appears to be some-
thing entirely apart from the rest of the narrative, having no con-
nection with or dependence upon anything that precedes it. A
more careful scrutiny, however, convinces us that all the other
matters considered are mere preparations for and indexes to this
most marvellous work of all — mere points for its argument. What
Goethe himself said of another production of his (Novelle) may
be fitly quoted in this connection : " To find a simile for this
novel, imagine a green plant shooting up from its root, thrusting
forth strong green leaves from the sides of its sturdy stem, and at
last terminating in a flower. The flower is unexpected and start-

Goethe's ''Das 2farcJienr ;{Sr>

ling, but come it must— nay, the whole foliage has existed only for
the sake of the flower, and would be worthle63 without it."

To be able, even in the smallest measure, to seize the import of
the work, it is needful to bear in mind the fact that all of (Joethe's
productions are biographical— parts of his life, as it were, and ex-
pressions of the various experiences he underwent. It was written
in the years between 1793 and 1795, while Goethe was still at
work upon "Meister's Apprenticeship," shortly after the judjlica-
tion of the ''Theory of Colors"; and when, after his return from
Italy, he was again passionately pursuing his scientific studies at
Weimar. He had passed through the wild, stormful, but fervid
and high-aspiring Werther period, and had attained a nuiture
serenity without losing anything of his youthful enthusiasm. His
religious doubts wei-e all solved, his views of art matured, his aim
in life defined. All the anarchy and unrest of his earlv life had
broadened and deepened into a calm, self-suiiicing, self-decisive
manhood, of the height and depth, the strength and puwer of
which he was at last fully conscious.

Having reached this point, with a mind like his, the first desire
was to crystallize the impression, to give it form, " to execute some
poetical task wherein all that he had thought, felt, and dreamed
on this weighty business might be spoken forth.'" Such a task
we believe he found in the tale. It is the shell of the chrysalis;
it epitomizes the stage of development which he had himself
reached, and to which, in the enthusiasm of production, he be-
lieved the world had also attained.

From the full, beautifully free, abundant nature-life of the
classic world, man, during the middle ages, had gone over to the
intense spirituab existence of Christianity. The mediivval Chriss-
tian despised the body, and looked upon Nature herself as some-
thing hateful and impure. This world was regarded as the domain
of the senses, and whatever was of it pronounced worthless. This
life was considered as having value solely as a preparation for the
life to come, and all spiritual things had their place in a beyond
which was only to be approached by a renunciation of existence —
by death.

The ideal of the classic world was the i)ei-fect identification of
idea and form of a spiritual individuality with a natural form ;
the Christian ideal tore these two elements lu^under and placed
XVII— 25

oS6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

them in irreconcilable enmity. In the classic world it was in the
natural that spirit sought an Absolute, and hence it conceived the
natural as in itself divine. The faith of the middle ages for the
first time enabled spirit to penetrate into its own internalitj, in
the process of which it at first esteemed the flesh — Kature and the
natural in 2;eneral — as something false or nugatory, notwithstand-
ing the spiritual and absolute had been able to make its appear-
ance only in this element. But the spiritual tendency, however
strong, was, of course, incapable, even when most dominant, of
overruling entirely the realism which made men cling fast to
nature and to sensuous pleasures, as is evidenced by the pomp and
parade, the rich animal life, which grew more and more a charac-
teristic of the middle ages as the first faith slowly weakened.

The fact that this, his dearest, was, at the same time, his dead-
liest sin, was calculated to make man restless and miserable. He
found it impossible to live in the mere hope of a beyond, and his
faith taught him that to grasp this impossibility was his only sal-
vation. Glad to escape by any means, if only for a moment, from
the consideration of this direful dilemma, he willingly turned his
attention to whatever new was offered. The Renaissance brought
into Europe revelations of the matchless art of antiquity, and, for
the time, all Europe turned Pagan. The Reformation, though
apparently opposite in its tendency, through its appeal to the
natural judgment of man's soul, was another move in the same
direction. The eighteenth century — with its protest against all
authority and its steady cry for a return to nature, though unli-
censed, and, through its bloody agent, the French Revolution, by
which it carried the war from religion into politics, thus translat-
ing freedom of thought into liberty of act, forever to be shuddered
at — was the grand culmination in which the external and secular
learned how more and more to secure recognition, until, at last,
the modern world proclaims as its ideal — the Human. "The
depth and height of the human soul as such, the universally Hu-
man in its joys and sorrows, its struggles, its deeds, and its des-
tinies."

In a novel that openly taVes for its scene localities made deso-
late by the French Revolution it is natural, perhaps, that men
should look for some expression of political opinion from its au-
thor ; but those who have done so here — as in his other works

Goethe^s ^^Das Mdrcheny 387

dealing with tliat time— luive met only with disappcintnifut.
This, no doubt, has led to the assertion, made as often almost hy
his friends as his foes, that Goethe had no political faitli. '' He
was utterly without interest in political matters. He dis^liked the
Ee volution as he disliked the Reformation, because they both
thwarted the peaceful progress of develo])ment. In it (tlio French
Revolution) Goethe only saw the temporal aspect; his want of his-
torical philosophy prevented him from sreing the eternal aspect."
(G. H. Lewes.)

It would be hardly possible to draw a lamer conclusion or make
a more erroneous statement than this. No man ever possessed
a wider view, a quicker or surer power of, generalization, or :i
truer, deeper sympathy for anything and everything which couhl,
even in the smallest degree, affect humanity. It is true, he left to
others the discussion of the purely political problem, while he gave
his time to the purely human and individual interest. His whole
life was spent in calling upon men to be free, to make themselves so
against all odds ; but by freedom he meant " the comj)lete healthy
development of their own natures," not a change of political con-
stitutions. The French Revolution was to him then what it has
grown now to be to most : only one of tlie crimes — a great and fear-
ful one, we must admit — in that grand movement by which the
negativity of the middle ages M^as being forced to give way be-
fore the more positive element of the modern time. Another
turn in the spiral through which the liberation of spirit is to be
accomplished.

Goethe animated the universe with God; he saw in Nature the
incarnation of Spirit. Morality was to him the high and harmoni-
ous action of all human tendencies, and art the highest represen-
tation of life. In his own words : " To discuss God apart from
^N'ature is both difficult and perilous; it is as if we separated the
soul from the body. We know the soul only through the mediuui
of the body, and God only through Nature.'' Hence the problem
of the tale, as we take it, is one with the problem of his century
and ours— the reconciliation of spirit and matter, soul and bi.(ly.

After the first shock received at the hands of the Reformation,
the mediieval Church, foreseeing its final downfall, but unwilling
or unable to submit at once to the omnipotent process of Spirit,
drew its coils more firmly about its adherents, remorselessly seek-

388 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

ing to crnsli out all further progress. It was at this moment, " the
middle of tlie night," when the darkness of the middle ages seemed
intensiiied by the fact that men's minds had been, for a time, il-
luminated — if never so slightly — by the rising beam of Freedom, of
which the Reformation was the morning star, only to be darkened
again by the sable pall which the Church had hastened to let down
over all things, that the so-called French Philosophy (Will-o'-wisps)
arose. This Philosophy, although almost wholly sceptical, con-
tained the positive element of a strong desire to impart informa-
tion (Gold), to spread abroad a knowledge of things as they were,
and so let light in upon old abuses.

The Church, at first, as foster-mother of all learning, received the
new workers kindly, and, as nothing could come into the material
from the spiritual world without her assistance, or, in other words,
as this was the most direct avenue to their public, the French
Philosophers gladly accepted the good offices of the priesthood
(the Ferryman) to ferry them into notice. They repaid the ser-
vice in the only coin they possessed — information upon various
matters, both simple and abstruse, a variety of knowledge for
whose jingle the priesthood had always had an abhorrence. The
minds of men (the River), it had always felt convinced, would rise
up in horror at the daring scrutiny that such as Diderot, Voltaire,
D'Alembert, and their fellows, threw upon all things, sacred as
well as profane.

The priesthood, therefore, when it came really to understand
their bent, refused to accept their gold, and demanded of them
instead a recognition of its authority. They must repay the Church,
or its representative, not in glittering generalities or sparkling
speech, but by the practice of meek and lowly virtues, by humili-
ty, obedience, patience, prudence, moderation, silence, and the
like (Fruits of the earth). These, naturally enough, considering
their characters, and the epoch of which they were the product,
they did not have at their instant command ; but were ready
enough to promise all things in regard to them. The story tells
us that the Ferryman gathered up the gold very carefully, and
liastened to place it where he thought it could do no further mis-
chief. Few of the French Philosophers but were advertised, as
well as complimented, now and then, in those days, by a solemn
clerico-leo;al burnina: of their works.

Goethe's ^'Das Jfai-c/icny MS9

" Now, in this chasm," M'here the jrold was thrown, '' hiy tlie
iair, green Snake, wlio was roused from lier sleep by the '^oU\
coming clinking down." When Goethe went to Welmsir, Sciem-e,
as we understand thei word, in its many-sided manifoldness, did
not exist; but at the time the tale was written it was already
growing into a great and powerful engine of progre?s— to the pnv
phetic, love-inspired eye of Goethe, the greatest and most p..\ver-
fuL In nothing was the eighteenth century more remarkable than
in the impetus which it gave to scientific investigation, and it is
to the encyclopedists that this was largely due. It was the infor-
mation in regard to things— simple and minor largely, but often
great, and vastly important — gathered from all (piarters and on
every side by its contributors, and then flung carelessly and at
random into the voluminous pages of B Encydoptdle, which did
more than anything else to arouse Science (Snake) from her long
sleep of the middle ages, to fill her with new energy, and with
glad hopes of the future.

The Snake and the Will-o'-wisps expect much of each other.
Their relationship is clear, their difference Goethe makes even
clearer. The Will-o'-wisps are "gentlemen of the vertical line."'
*' Since ever was a Jack-o'-lantern in the world, no one of them
has either sat or lain," The encyclopedists were full enough of
theory, of suggestion ; they had plenty of these to give, and they
gave freely and generously ; but they would never have been con-
tented to dig and delve laboriously, pile fact upon fact, experiment
upon experiment, as she "of the horizontal line" is compelled
to do.

What the Snake wants of the Will-o'-wisps is their gold ; they
wijh to know of her where the fair Lily dwells. She knows, slie
can tell them, she can even carry them over the River herself—
but it must be at high noon. It has been only at high n(»on — at
illuminated periods of the world's liistory— that science, correct
thinking or knowing, could so dominate the minds of men as to
span the distance between, and bring in close contact the sensuous
and the supersensuous, the seen and the unseen. True to its creed,
the Church, through its priesthood, could admit no possibility of
the natural holding converse with the spiritual ; but Superstition
(the Giant's shadow)— what Goethe calls the " dark Extraordinary "
could w^ith his dark shadow measure the space, and lay like an

390 The Journal of Si^eculati've Philosophy .

incubus over the River, whicli swept shudderino-lj and fearsomelj
beneath, as it hekl fast tlie two countries together.

The Snake is not sorry to lose sight of her relatives for a space.
Having fed so well, she requires time for assimilation and investi-
gation. This investigation is conducted in a diiferent direction
from the one we should have supposed ; but Goethe's idea of sci-
ence was, that it was all-embracing, all-pervading. It was not
merely an investigation of physical phenomena — although there
he gave it its full meed — but it led also to the understanding of
all of the phenomena of existence, intellectual and spiritual, as
well as the merely natural. " Without my attempts in natural
science," he says, " I should never have learned to know mankind
such as it is. In nothing else can we so clearly approach pure con-
templation and thought, so clearly observe the errors of the senses
and of the understanding, the weak and the strong points of char-
acter."

In the dark chasm where she had lain so long, the Snake had
found small opportunity for investigation into other than the sim-
plest natural substances. Alchemy and its earliest offspring,
Chemistry, had represented, all that there was of physical science ;.
and of history, political economy, the science of government, all
that owes its genesis to " the shaping hand of man," there was
only the merest inkling in the minds of a few of the more illu-
minated. Goethe, through his kings — which may also be consid-
ered as symbolizing different epochs — for instance, the gold king
might represent the genius of biblical or Hebrew supremacy ; the
silver king, the classic period ; the brazen, the power (especially
the secular-feudal) of the middle ages — shows us that the world
has at all times been governed by one of three forces — wisdom, ap-
pearance, strength ; but for a just and true balance of power all three
should hold equal sway, and reign each in his own unmixed purity.

The three kings greet gladly the light which the Snake throws
upon them, and the golden one inquires, immediately upon seeing
her, "Whence comest thou?" and when answered, " From the
chasms where the gold dwells," inquires again, "What is grander
than gold " (knowledge) % " Light " (insight, the power to com-
bine and arrange, to perceive the universal in the particular).
" What is more refreshing than light ? " " Speech " (the power to.
make use of this insight — to apply it).

Goethe s ''Das I/arc/un.'' .S91

Things are growing clearer; science luia (.[.ciuhI tiie way a littlf,
and now poetical activity, with its ^till hut f^tndig insight (the
Man with the Lamp), appears. " Why couieit thou, since we liavo
light?" asks the golden king. "You know I may not enlighten
what is dark." Poetry is never found amonir the savajre and
rude; but the moment the cloud lifts a little, the moment there h
the slightest striving toward knowledge or civihzation, she ii>
there. "Will my kingdom end ?" asks the silver king. It was
the question, n6 doubt, which he had intended asking of the Snako
when he was interrupted by the coming of the Man with tiie
Lamp. Now he asks it, more properly, of poetical insight, " Late
or never," is the answer. Appearance, beauty, art and its accom-
paniments, will hold sway over man, we mutit believe, so long as
life lasts. The brazen king now makes himself heard: "When
shall I arise ? " "Soon." "With whom shall I combine?" (Here
is Goethe's idea of combination : "in himself, the individual is lit-
tle or nothing ; combined with his fellow-men, he is all.") " With
thy elder brothers." "What will the youngest do?" '' He will
sit down ? " "I am not tired," cried the fourth, with a rough, fal-
terino- voice. This is the first mention we have had of the c-«>m-
posite king. It will be observed that he has taken no j)art in the
above conversation, and is only aroused to interest when he hears
himself mentioned. We may suppose him to represent the era at
which the tale opens, and of which Goethe wrote : " Our pre.-cnt
time is retrograde, for it is subjective. All eras in a state of de-
cline are subjective; on the other hand, all progressive eras have
an objective tendency."

Meanwhile, the golden king— wisdom, the natural si)okesMian ol
the other two— is asking of the man : " How many secrets kn..west
thou? " " Three," replied the man. " Which is the must im])ur-
tant ? " said the silver king. " The ojyen one "—that '^ the Tniverse
is full of goodness, and whatever has being has soul "— rei)lied the
other. "Wilt thou open it to us also?" asks the brass kmg.
"When I know the fourth," replied the man. " What care W
o-rumbled the composite king in an undertone. "1 know the
fourth "—renunciation, man must leave hold of the particular .n
order to grasp the universal-hissed the Snake. AimI well she
knows it, and will hereafter prove her knowUMige ot it. " Ihe
time is at hand "-when nature and spirit should no long.r b.. es-

1392 The Journal of Speculative Philosopfiij.

trano-ed — cries the old man, in a strong voice. It is enougli ; he
hurries away in one direction, the Snake in another. As he passes,
the light wliicb he carries — pure poetical insight — changes every-
thing which it falls upon into sonaethiug brighter, purer, greater,
lovelier, holier.

The scene now shifts to the cottage of tlie old man. He enters,
and finds his wife — practical activity — in tears. Our old friends,
the Will-o'-wisps, have been there before him. They have been
playing off upon her some of their usual pranks, and she is now
almost in despair. This is another view of the estimation in which
Ooethe held the encyclopedists. Though recognizing and gladly
proclaiming the services they had rendered the arts and sciences,
he deprecated the evil influence they had exercised by their con-
tinual vociferations in favor of a false and pernicious freedom — a
freedom wdiich, as they taught it, really amounted to unlimited
license. " Whatever frees the intellect, without at the same time
giving us command over ourselves, is pernicious. Only within
-the circle of Law can there be true freedom ; we are not free when
we acknowledge no higher power, but when we acknowledge it,
:and in reverence raise ourselves by proving that a Higher lives
within ua."

The method which the Will-o'-wisps used toward the old woman
■was rude, but it was probably the only one suited to the time.
'They first licked away the old poetical ceremonials and rites,
which were all that had made beautiful the rough stones which
sheltered her, and then, with the new gold shaken from them-
selves, dealt death to the Faith (Mops) which had been alike her
plaything, her sorrow, and her joy. Poetical insight can clothe
again the bare walls with new lustre and beauty, and change this
>dead Faith into something more enduring ; but unless his help-
■mate, practical activity — the people, humanity at large — in her
•own person (the Basket) carries this Faith, as well as the homelier
'yiitues for which the Will-o'-wisps have made her responsible, thus
freezing themselves, it can never be restored to a true spiritual
existence.

The old woman departs upon her errand. The basket weighs
lieavily upon her, but it is not the onyx : it is the vegetables that
^burden her. It is easy to carry a high faith, a noble purpose ; an
ansDu-ed feelino; exalts, it hovers above our heads and we can

scarcely hold it to us ; it is tlie exercise of the simple, lowly vir-
tues of daily life that weary and distract.

Walking along and musing in sullen fashion, she suddcidy lin<U
herself confronted with the (Giant's shadow (Snpcrstitiun'). IK-
soon robs her of part of her burden. Not of the onvx, whit-h she
could not rid herself of if she would and would not" if she could,
but of part of the debt due to the Ferryman, lie, when she pre-
sents herself before him, is enraged to iind only a part where he
had looked for the whole ; and is ready at once with the plea
which had been used by his Church since ever it was establi>hed.
It is not he, it is not the Church, it is the minds of men that mu^t
first be satisfied and assuaged. She must bind herself to the time-
river, to public opinion, for the further payment of her debt. She
finds this a heavy business. Her hand, the very soul of labor, is
blackened and shrivelled, if not rendered useless ; the activity of
labor remains, but its influence, its power, ends when it ceases to
be other than for itself.

There is one hope left, however : she will re])ay her debt and so
rescue the noble member. She hurries away with eagerness and
speed. And now her basket is no longer a burden ; it hovers free
iibove her in the air.

One of the delicately line points of the tale is now to apj)ear.
Thinkinof of Goethe in the bVlit in which we love him l)est. as
poet and seer, we should have supposed, yu'obably, that it would
have been to poetical activity, ins])iration, that he would have
<3onfided the task of first introducins: the Prince to the fair Lilv —
of bringino; the natural side of luan face to face with the spiritual.
But no, he has given us a subtler touch. It is to practical activity
that the task of leading him across the River is intrusted. Goethe
believed firmly in the dignitv of labor; but it must be labor with
:an object, an ideal, not dull, lifeless toil. " Godlike energy is seen
•onlv in action : what we can do wo, are ; our strength is measured
by our plastic power."

And now, behold ! on the other side of the Kiver— over whicli
one of the party has made of her body a bridge, by means of which
the others have crossed — are assembled the Snake, the two Will-
o'-wisps, the Old Woman, and the Prince. AH bound upon the
same quest, all seeking to gaze upon the beautitid face of tlie fair
Lily. Merely to gaze, they will not dare to toucl) ; the very glance

394 The Journal of SpeGulative Philosophy.

of her eye carries with it a heavy penalty. And yet they must
seek her. All thought, all effort, all desire, all being must find its
centre in spirit. The middle ages, we have said, had placed her
in a beyond where she might be gazed upon but never touched ;
the problem of the modern time is to carry her over the lliver, a
willing captive, and make her to reign a sweet household goddess
— here.

The old woman, laden with the basket containing the memorial
sent by her husband to the fair Lily, approaches her first. She
finds her seated in a beautiful grove and singing sweetly to the
music of her harp, but she is not happy. If the material side of
man wandei'S about restless, useless, and unhappy, because sepa-
rated from the spiritual, that spiritual part itself suffers no less
from the estrangement, and probably suffers more ; for it is only
through the material that it can find existence and a field of ac-
tion. The first result of the strong desire of man (Hawk) to attain
spiritual insight and communion is to rouse the soul to conscious-
ness, and to kill the happy ignorance (Canary) with which it has
hitherto found solace. But there is no afiliction possible to man
which his divine side is not capable of elevating itself above, and
the fair Lily, though bemoaning her favorite, recognizes in his
death one of the signs which combine to teach her hope.

She enlivens the onyx and rouses him into a half-life, with which
she finds some small pleasure. Still she knows that he can never
be a living, real presence again until he returns to a life upon
earth — until the individual is able to realize a religion apart from
its forms. " Each has his own religion ; must have it as an indi-
vidual possession ; let each see that he be true to it, which is
far more eflficacious than trying to accommodate himself to an-
other's ! "

The Snake now arrives, full of eagerness and hope. " The
prophecy of the bridge is fulfilled." Lily is doubtful : "The lofty
arch of your bridge can still but admit foot-passengers ; and it is
promised us that horses and carriages, and travellers of every sort,
shall, at the same moment, cross this bridge in both directions" — -
for science to reach its full developnient, to accomplish its full
mission, it must cease to be the speculation of a few and become
the minister of the many. " Is there not something said, too,
about pillars, which are to arise of themselves from the waters of

Goethe's ''Dan Mdrcheny 805

the river?" it is not enough that public opinion sliall <^\'u\k in-
different to the so-called " conflict " between religion and Pcience ;
it must proclaim that there is no conflict. The Snake is deter.
mined to be hopeful " However it may be," she says, " tlie tem-
ple "—of the future, in which wisdom, beauty, and heroic 8trcn<;th
shall hold equal sway — " is built."

When Lily hears, for the second time that day, the blessed ti-
dings, " the time is at hand," she is almost ready to believe ; and
her attendant virtues— hope, faith, and charity, or love— are
aroused.

Now is the time for her Prince to ai)pear. He is weary and
despondent, his desire is shrunk and drooping. He has reached
his " darkest horn-."

That soul and body may become one, that the material i»art of
man may be tilled and permeated by the breath of God, true spirit-
ual existence, it may not be necessary — as the faith of the middle
ages taught — that man should die, physically ; but it is necessary,
it must always be necessary, that he shall make a renunciation ot
his merely natural existence. Spirit will not come down to lead
a merely sensuous life with matter; but matter must raise itself
— through the destruction of its sensuousness — to a spiritual life
with her. It is only in the " regenerated man " that soul and
body can be one. Goethe understood this well, and it was only
when he had experienced this truth, when he had passed through
the "Mystic Bath " himself, and had come out pure "(iold," that
he could have written the tale, which symbolizes that ])roce8S.

To most men at some moment of their career — alas, and for-
ever alas, for him to whom it never comes ! — there comes a time
when they are confronted by their limitations. The intellect, in
her search after knowledge, may be defeated ; the aflections may
be broken and prostrated by the loss of objects dear to then» ; tlie
conscience may be violated, the will may be thrown back upon
itself. It matters not how the conflict bei,in8, it must aid by a rec-
ognition of the utter inability and insufliciency of man in his own
unaided person to reinstate peace in his own soul. This is the cru-
cial test for all mankind. Every human soul must cry : " Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;"' but oidy the elect
can say: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Thct^e
accept their limitations as a divine a])pointment, and bow in total

896 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and absolute submission to the power of God — not conceived as
blind force, but as divine intelligence — and, in so doing, pass, by
that fact, into a higher state.

In some form or other, the birth of the soul involves the death
of the body ; that is, the birth of the higher grows out of the.
negation or denial of the lower principles. So the Prince, in the
act of casting himself up on the bosom of Lily, instantly expires.
The fair Lily herself is overcome with grief and horror ; the
higher principles themselves for a moment are shaken, for the
whole man must share in this passionate conflict.

The Snake at once bestirs herself, and places this process under
the form of eternity, thus typifying its universal truth. The fair
Lily rouses herself, and faith shows her in a mirror the reflection
of herself — what she is to hope for in the future. But now there
is need of action. The Snake calls faintly for the Man with the
Lamp ; the sensuousness of man once abandoned, the understand-
ing can not support him long unless assisted by reason or divine
inspiration. To attain this, practical activity is necessary. "No
grief of the soul that can be conquered except through action."
The Woman with the basket is wild with fear for herself; but
the Snake bids her forget her own care and do what she can to
help the Prince ; she may find it the best way to help herself.
■" Man lives for man, and only in so far as he is working for
Humanity can his efforts bring permanent happiness,"

All effort to obtain the Man with the Lamp is useless until the
Prince's Hawk is seen soarino- ao-ain into the air. When the desire
of man for the higher life rouses itself again to action, reason
needs no bridge on which to cross to him. Insight impels, and
man's own desire is conductor.

The old man has already announced to the fair Lily that " her
greatest misfortune she may look upon as her greatest happiness,"
and he now sets about, in the true spirit of poetic activity, to
make of his prophecy a surety. Lily's little canary, too, under
tlie genial influence of his lamp, is to share in the general rehabili-
tation — the happy innocence, or ignorance, of spirit is to be born
anew as virtue. The Flames, also, are to play their part ; scepti-
cism is a necessary factor in all development. They enter and
devote themselves to Lily, thus diverting her mind from what
■would otherwise have been a too heaw burden.

Goethe s ''iJas Jld/r/ien:' ;',97

Midni^-ht lias now arrived, and tlie old man, looking at the stars,
begins speakinp;: "We are assembled at the i>roi)itions horn-; let
each perform his task, let each do his duty ; and a universal hap-
piness will swallow up our individual sorrows, as a universal grief
consumes individual jovs."' Each is willing to do his duty, and
has a duty to perform, excepting the three attendants, who at this
supreme moment are fast asleep; hut they, too, are to be awak-
ened and informed with new power from the reflection which the
Prince's Hawk will throw upon them. The procession ic.rms and
moves slowly toward the Kiver ; the truths which are known to a
few are now to be laid open to all. Each person, and every object,
now emits a mild light of his own, even the basket — the Ixidy
itself — and Lily's veil. " All things have power to teach him who
has the power to learn." Most marvellous of all, when they reach
the Eiver they find it spanned by a strong and noble liridge — the
Snake at midnight/ Well might the Ferryman gaze with aston-
ishment at the gleaming arch, and the many lights which were
passing over it.

When they have all reached the other side, the Snake resumes
her old form for the last time, and once more surrounds the basket
with her circle. The old man asks her : " What hast thou resolved
on?" " To sacrifice myself rather than to be sacrificed ; promise
me thou wilt leave no stone on shore." " Wir eiitsagen inilsst'n^^^
we must learn to limit ourselves to the Possible. In this first re-
straint lies the germ of self-sacrifice ; in the giving up of claims
too high for attainment, we learn to give up claims for the sake of
others. Science may not pierce the clouds and light up the awlul
mystery of the Absolute; but she may, and does, make life valu-
able and the rolling years endurable.

At the old man's command, Lily touches the Snake with one
hand, her lover with the other. The Prince is at once aroused,
and, assisted by the old man, stands erect, the canary fluttering
upon his shoulder. There is life in both, but the spirit has not
yet returned. The conflict is over, but it has left the man weak
and nerveless. Some work must be found for him to do— a field
which his " activity may till." The sphere of individual efi'ort
for the Snake is now exhausted, and she yields herself up a will-
ing sacrifice for man. To the first touch of practical activity—
the first call from the many— she shows herself willing to respond.

398 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

and lies a heap of glittering jewels ready to be thrown into the
stream of time.

The old man now addresses himself to the Will-o'- wisps, and
his tone, we are told, is respectful — to the inspired eye of reason
the work of the Literati of the eighteenth century seemed worthy
of all respect — and tells them of a service which none but they
can accomplish. The procession is again formed, and proceeds
slowly forward until it reaches a large brazen door, bolted with a
massive golden lock — the old regime^ cemented and held fast by
long usage — which he requests the Lights to eat away. They re-
quire small entreaty, and make short work of the business. This
was their mission : to open, tear down, and destroy ; it was for
others to rebuild.

The clanging doors open and introduce our friends into the
sanctuary — the temple of the future, guarded by the Kings. The
Lights fall upon each king in turn, and, finding nothing to sat-
isfy them in either of the others, attach themselves to the com-
posite one. For the third time the old man announces : " The
time is at hand ! " Lily throws herself upon him in thankfulness,
and clasps him still closer as the temple begins to move. The old
woman and the Prince hold by each other also.

Strange to say, the temple makes its way straight up through
the Hut of the Ferryman, which falls through, covering the old
man and the youth with its debris. This occurrence causes the
temple to rock fearfully, and fills Lily and the old woman Math
alarm. But they need not have suffered any concern. Wander-
ing around it in the dawn, they find that insight — the virtue of
the Lamp — has recognized its necessity as an institution, and has
converted it, from the inside to the outside, into solid silver. The
Ferryman, too, is not forgotten, but comes out of this new tem-
ple within a temple in the guise of a Pilot or Helmsman.

The old woman is in despair. " Among so many miracles, can
there be nothing done to save my hand ?" Her husband bids her
bathe in the River, and, on her demurring, continues: "Go and
do as I advise thee ; all debts are now paid." In this new, happy
reign of reason, even labor will be exonerated from the burden
laid upon her by others.

As the rising sun appeared upon the rim of the dome, the old
man stepped between Lily and the Prince, and cried, with a loud

Goethe's ^'Das J/arc/wn."' .•V.>9

voice: "There are three wliicli rule on earth : Wisdom, Appejir-
ance, and Strength." At the first word the ^'ohl kinjr arose; at
the second, the silver; and at the third, the hrazen, while the
mixed king " very awkwardly plumped down ; " in the new tem-
ple of the futnre sham and fraud shall find no place; they will
have no power to exercise fear, but will excite oidy amusement or
disgust. The Man with the Lamp leads the youth to each of the
three kings in turn. The first girds him with his sword ; the
second hands him his sceptre ; the third presses an oaken garland
upon his brow, with the words: "Understand what is highest."
At this his features kindle, his eyes glean), and his first word is —
*'Lily! " At last the true meaning of life lies open before him,
and body and soul are one.

" Oh, my friend," he says, turning to the old man, " glorious and
secure is the kingdom of our fathers; but thou hast forgotten the
fourth power, which rules the worhl earlier, more universally,
more certainly — the power of love." The old man answers, with
a smile : " Love does not rule ; but it trains, and that is more" —
it is the spirit of love, of grace, the feminine element in humanity,
that aids the individual to progress and development, and it is the
same principle that actuates modern society and tends to local self-
government.

The new-birth of the individual accomplished, the attention is
naturally directed outward, and it is seen at once that the process
may also be a general one. The prophecy of the bridge has been
fulfilled, and a stately structure, upon which people of every sta-
tion and under every variety of circumstances are seen to be safely
and pleasantly employed, appears. "Remember the Snake in
honor," said the Man with the Lamp ; "thou owest her thy life ;
thy people owe her the bridge, by which those neighboi-ing banks
are now animated and combined into one land. Those swimming
and shining jewels, the remains of her sacrificed body, are the piers
of this royai bridge; upon these she has built and will maintain

herself."

Four lovely maidens now enter the temple. Three of them we
recognize as "^Lily's attendants, who have now returned to her; iu
her moments of activity, spirit needs no adjuncts, but in her qui-
escent state they serve as indexes to her. The fourth hastens to
the Man with the Lamp, who greets her as his wife, but tells hei

400 The Journal of Sjoeculative Philosophy.

she is free to choose another linsband, if she desires. She will not
hear of any other, but tells him that he too is grown younger.
And so poetical and practical activity — Keason and Endeavor-
are joined again in the truest of all marriages.

The final catastrophe draws near. The Giant is seen stum-
bling and blundering over the bridge. His presence does not harm,
but his shadow causes deadly mischief. The new king involunta-
rily grasps his sword ; but a moment's reflection convinces him
of its powerlessness, and he looks calmly at his sceptre, then at
the lamp and rudder of his attendants. " I guess thy thought,"
said the Man with the Lamp, " but we and our gifts are powerless
against this powerful monster." Superstition is only to be cured
by natural means, and, fortunately, those means are near at hand.
" The natural sciences," says Goethe, " are so human, so true, that
I wish every one luck who occupies himself with them. They
teach us that the greatest, the most mysterious phenomena, take
place openly, orderly, and simply, unmagically ; they must finally
quench the thirst of poor ignorant man for the dark Extraordinary
by showing him that the Extraordinary lies so near, so clear, so
familiar, and so determinately true."

Now the Hawk, with the mirror, soaring aloft above the dome,
catches the light of the sun and reflects it upon the group which
is standing on the altar ; through the knowledge gained of the
Highest, which his own desire has reflected upon him, man, sur-
rounded as he is now, and ever should be, by all the good and
gracious influences which he has drawn to himself, finds his best
life in a life lived for others. This life may often, must often, be
lived in solitude — the king and his followers proceed by secret
passages into his palace — but its beneficence shall none the less
be spread abroad and serve to illuminate all mankind.

The retiring Flames, wishing to have a little sport before they
leave, scatter a few gold pieces upon the marble flags as they pass,
and the people press eagerly forward to catch them. There are
still those who find food for thought in the scriptures of the last
century, but the time of their greatest usefulness is past,

" Behold the prophecy !" There have always been individuals
for whom it was true ; for the race — ? " The bridge is swarm-
ing with travellers, and the temple is the most frequented of the
whole earth."

The Puritanic PUlosophij and Jonathan Edward . -l-ol

THE PURITANIC PHILOSOPHY AND JONATHAN

EDWARDS.'

BY F. B. SANBORN.

In speaking of philosophy in America, I should hardly be called
on to present any " History of Philosophy " at all, since there is
nothing that can be distinctively recognized from the intellectual
side as American philosophy — using the term as we do when we
speak of the Indian, the Greek, the German, or the English phi-
losophy. Our countrymen have been the followers of many sys-
tems, the inventors of none ; for not even the transcendentalism of
New England can be considered as a distinct American philoso-
phy, though it comes nearer to that designation than any other.

Nevertheless, I find it convenient, and even, in a high sense, very
appropriate, to speak of philosophy in America as passing through
certain unique and varied historical phases ; only I use the broad
and noble term Philosophy as indicating the guide of life, the ex-
ponent and directress of national existence, rather than a certain
metaphysical insight, fruitful of speculation even when barren of
results ; such as was censured of old in the Athenians, later in the
Schoolmen, and, less than a hundred years ago, in the Germans.
There was a time when Wordsworth could say, and with a mel-
ancholy portion of truth —

Alas ! what boots the long laborious quest

Of moral prudence sought through good and ill ?

What is it but a vain and curious skill,
If sapient Germany must lie deprest
Beneath the brutal sword ? Her haughty Schools
Shall blush ; and may not we with sorrow say,
A few strong instincts and a fcw plain rules
Among the herdsmen of the Alps have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy da