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Full text of "The Journal of speculative philosophy"

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The University of Toronto 



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THE JOURNAL 



OF 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



VOLUME XVIII. 



EDITED BY WM. T. HAREIS 



NEW YOEK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 

LONDON : Trfibner and Company. 

1884. 



Entered, according to Act of Cono:reB», in the year 1885, by 

WILLIAM T. HARKIS, 
In the Oflace of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAOB 

Abbot, Francis Ellingwood, The Moral Creativeness of Man, 188 

Aboriginal American Literature, Dr. Brinton's Prospectus of, 224 

Alcott, A. Bronson, Sonnet on R. W. E., 219 

Anthropology, Problem of, by Ludwig Noire (Tr.), M. B. Bonner, 337 

Antinomies, Mathematical, and their Solution, George S. Fullerto7i, 38 

Berlin Philosophical Society, Prize Essay on Hegelian Dialectic, 444 

Blow, Susan E. (Tr.), C. F. Goeschel on the Immortality of the Soul, 21 

" " Dante's Inferno, 121 

Bonner, M. B., The Problem of Anthropology by Ludwig Noire (Tr.), 33Y 

Boolis Received, List of, 112 

Bradley's Priaciples of Logic, 8. W. Dyde, 28*7, 399 

Brinton, Dr. D. G., Prospectus of Aboriginal American Literature, 224 

Bulkeley, B. R., Two Ways to Teach, 109 

Burns-Gibson, J. (book notice), Ill 

Ghamplin, Virginia, Notice of " La Revue Philosophique," 220 

Channing, W. E., " Gulshan I Raz," 202 

" " Selections in Prose and Verse, .^ I. ■ . ' , . \ . . 439 

Creator and Creature, W. H. Kimball, 214 

Dante's " Inferno," Susan E. Blow, 121 

De Morgan as a Logician, Oeorgc Bruce Halsted, 1 

Descartes, A View of the Philosophy of, jfe'. Hawksley Rhodes, 225 

Dewey, John, Kant and Philosophic Method, 162 

D'Orelli, A., Dr. A. L. Kym's Problem of Evil (noticed), 188 

Dyde, S. W., Bradley's " Principles of Logic," . . . \ 287,399 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, A Poem on, Fannie R. Robinson, 109 

" " " Dialectic Unity in Emerson's Prose, , , W. T. Harris, 195 

" " " R. W. E. (Sonnet), A. Bronson Alcott, 219 

Euripides, Chorus from the Heracles of (Tr.), C. E. 8. 212. 

Evil, Problem of, A. L. Kym's Treatise analyzed by A. D'Orelli, 188 

Fichte's Facts of Consciousness (Tr.), (completed), .... A. E. Kroeger, '^1,1^2 

FuUerton, George S., The Mathematical Antinomies and their Solution, .... 38 

" " Space of Four Dimensions, 113 

" " The Argument from Experience against Idealism, .... 356 

General Ideas, A New Theory of, Payton 8pence, 366 

Goeschel, C. F., on the Immortality of the Soul (Tr.), .... 8man E. Blow, 21 

Gulshan I Raz selections from, versified), . . Bj W. E. Channing, 202 



[y Contents. 

PAGE 

Halsted, George Bruce, De Blorgan as a Logician, 1 

Harris, W. T., Rowland G. Hazard's Works, 71 

" " The Dialectic Unity in Emerson's Prose, 195 

Hazard, Rowland G., Works, W. T. Harris, 71 

Hegelian Dialectic, Prize Essay on, Berlin Philosophical Society, 444 

Hegel's Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law, Walter B. Wines, 9 

Hegel's Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Tr.), . . . F. L. Soldan, 174, 274 

Holland, F. M., Rise of Intellectual Liberty (notice of), 108 

Homer's " Iliad," A Study of, D.J. Snider, 89, 300, 425 

Idealism, Popular Statement of, W. 3L Salter, 246, 383 

Idealism, Argument from Experience against it, George S. Ftdlcrton, 355 

Ideas, General, A New Theory of, Payton. Spence, 366 

Iliad of Homer, D. J. Snider's Study on. (See " ' Homer's Iliad.' ") 

Immortality of the Soul, C. F. Goeschel on (Tr.), Susan E. Blow, 21 

Intellectual Liberty, Rise of, By F. M. Holland, 108 

Kant and Philosophic Method, John Dewey, 162 

Kant's Critique of Judgment, T. B. Viblen, 260 

Kimball, William H., Creator and Creature, 214 

Kroeger, A. E., J. G. Fichte's Facts of Consciousness (Tr.), 47, 152 

Kym's, A. L., Problem of Evil (noticed), A.D'Orelli, 188 

Law, Nature and Sanction of (Hegel's Idea of), Wcdter B. Wines, 9 

Lockhart, Father, Introduction to Rosmini's Sketch, etc., 332 

Loomis, H., Magic or Miracle, Which ? 215 

Magic or Miracle, Which? H. Loomis, 215 

Mathematical Antinomies and their Solution, George S. Fullcrion, 38 

Moral Creativeness of Man, Francis F. Abbot, 138 

Noire, Ludwig, The Problem of Anthropology (Tr.), M. B. Bonner, 337 

Pallen, Conde B., Rosmini's Innate Idea, etc., 311 

Platonist, The (second volume), 107 

Religion, Hegel's Introduction to the Philosophy of (Tr.), . . . F. L. Soldan, 174, 274 
Revue Philosophique, July to December, 1879 (noticed), . . . . V. Champlin, 220 

Rhodes, E. Hawksley, A View of the Philosophy of Descartes, 225 

Robinson, Fannie R., Ralph Waldo Emerson, 109 

Rosmini's Innate Idea, etc., Conde B. Pallen, 311 

" Sketch of Modern Philosophers (noticed), 332 

Salter, Wm. M., A Popular Statement of Idealism, 246, 383 

Selections in Prose and Verse, W. E. Channing, 439 

Snider, Denton J., A Study of the " Iliad," 89, 300, 425 

Soldan, F. L., Hegel's Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Tr.), . . . 174, 274 

Space of Four Dimensions, George S. Fullerton, 113 

Spence Payton, A New Theory of General Ideas, 866 

Theism, Thoughts on (noticed), J.Burns-Gibson, 111 

Two Ways to Teach, B. R. Bulkeley, 109 

Veblen, T B., Kant's Critique of Judgment, 260 

Wines, Walter B., Hegel's Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law, 9 



THE JOTJENAL 



OF 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



YoL. XVIII.] Jaotart, 1884. [Ko. 1. 

DE MORGAN AS LOGICIAN. 

BY GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED. 

Augustus De Morgan was born, in 1806, in India, where his 
father was in the East India Company's service. 

When sixteen years old he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 
to pursue mathematics, gaining, in 1825, a Trinity scholarship, 
and coming out fourth wrangler in 1827. He was prevented 
from taking his M. A. degree, or from obtaining a Fellowship, by 
his conscientious objection to signing the theological tests then 
required at Cambridge. Jevons says : " A strong repugnance to 
any sectarian restraints upon the freedom of opinion was one of 
De Morgan's most marked characteristics throughout life." 

At the age of twenty-two he became professor of mathematics 
in University College, London. As a teacher, De Morgan was 
particularly gifted. A voluminous writer on mathematics, he 
contributed essentially to those expansions of the fundamental 
conceptions which have rendered possible the new algebras, such 
as Quaternions and the Ausdehnungslehre, and have generalized 
the whole idea of a mathematical algorithm or calculus. 

But it is his logical work that will give De Morgan his most 
lasting fame. Here he stands alongside of his immortal contem- 
XYIII— 1 



2 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

porary, Boole. The eternally memorable year in the history of 
Logic -was 1847, in which George Boole issued " The Mathe- 
matical Analysis of Logic, being an Essay toward a Calculus of 
Deductive Reasoning," and De Morgan published his principal 
treatise, called "Formal Logic; or, the Calculus of Inference, 
Necessary and Probable." 

It is much to be regretted that the great memoirs produced in 
1850, 1858, 1860, 1863, by De Morgan, are so comparatively in- 
accessible in the " Cambridge Philosophical Transactions," for it 
seems impossible to adequately convey in short space their value 
to logicians. Certainly, his " Syllabus of a Proposed System of 
Logic," published in 1860, however important, cannot be taken 
to replace even the papers of 1850 and 1858, in which the same 
matters appear, and lacks altogether the charm of the memoirs. 

De Morgan had met in his life an unusual amount of bad loffic. 
His great combination of logical with mathematical learning, and 
his prominent position in London, the great metropolis, made him 
the man to whom resorted all Circle-Squarers, Angle-Trisectors^ 
Perpetual-Motionists, etc. Adding this curious experience to his 
great bibliographical knowledge of what had been attempted in 
that way in the past, he formed a large book, called " A Budget 
of Paradoxes," which is one of the most interesting treatises ever 
written on what may be called extended fallacies. 

From the broad field of his published writings it is our inten- 
tion only to select, first, a few points for special mention, and then 
state some ideas on the general way in which he has influenced 
for good the world of thought. 

De Morgan first gave that thorough treatment of contrary, 
negative, or contradictory terms which has since been so much 
praised. Bain says : " According to the true view of contrariety, 
as given by De Morgan, the negative is a remainder, gained by 
the subtraction of the positive from the universe ; the negative of 
X^vs, JJ—X^ and may be symbolized by a distinct mark, x ', whence 
^and a? are the opposites under a given universe ; not-^is a?, and 
not-a? is X!" It is just in reference to this point as to the term or 
name that De Morgan says : " Next it is clear that a name excludes 
as well as includes : every object of thought is related to man^ for 
instance, as either in the name or out. The logician has always 
excluded the privative name, not-man, for instance, as all but use- 



De Morgan as Logician. 3 

less : a certain practice of his own really makes it so. For he will 
have no tmiverse — or total sphere of thought — except the whole 
universe of possible existence ; or, at narrowest, the whole uni- 
verse of objective reality. 

" He forgets that, more often than not, the universe of the exist- 
ing topic of thought is limited. We are talking of animals, for 
example, and nothing else; then not-man becomes so definitively 
significative that we have a separate name for it, 'brute. 

"Logic ought to give us that command of thought which will 
prevent our mental vision from being obstructed by the casual ab- 
sence of a name." 

Of the separation of logic and mathematic our author says : 
" The effect has been unfortunate. . . . The sciences of which 
we speak may be considered either as disciplines of the mind, or 
as instruments in the investigation of nature and the advancement 
of the arts. 

" In the former point of view their object is to strengthen the 
power of logical deduction by frequent examples; to give a view 
of tlie difference between reasoning on probable premises and on 
certain ones by the construction of a body of results which in no 
case involve any of the uncertainty arising from the previous in- 
troduction of that which may be false ; to establish confidence in 
abstract reasoning by the exhibition of processes whose results may 
be verified in many ways ; to help in enabling the student to ac- 
quire correct notions of generalization ; to give caution in receiv- 
ing that which at first sight appears good reasoning ; to instil a 
correct estimate of the powers of the mind by pointing out the 
enormous extent of the consequences which may be developed out 
of a few of its most fundamental notions; and to give the luxury 
of pursuing a study in which self-interest cannot lay down pre- 
mises nor deduce conclusions. 

" As instruments in the investigation of nature and the advance- 
ment of the arts it is the object of these two sciences to find out 
truth in every matter in which nature is to be investigated, or her 
powers and those of the mind to be applied to the physical prog- 
ress of the human race, or their advancement in the knowledge of 
the material creation." 

Though fond of laughing at metaphysics,'De Morgan did not 
see that it could be entirely gotten rid of. 



4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

^' Right or wrong," he says, "human beings are made to be 
metaphysicians, children most of all, uneducated persons more than 
educated. We know all about can and coAinot from our cradles ; 
we never feel the same assurance about is and is not. A philoso- 
pher, in a dark age, may determine to set out with a knowledge 
of the naturally possible and impossible ; but not even a philoso- 
pher ever pretended to set out with a knowledge of the existent 
and non-existent." 

In our author's system the order of the premises is changed, the 
Minor Premise being written first — e. g. : 

Vinegar is an acid. 

All acids contain hydrogen. 

.'. Vinegar contains hydrogen. 

Thus we see instantly what before was considered very wise in 
Lord Bacon to have observed, that the form of the syllogism re- 
sembles the mathematical axiom — things equal to the same thing 
are equal to each other — for by this arrangement we bring the 
middle terms right together, and see just how the extremes are 
brought into connection through their relation to the same middle 
term. And so we see immediately why every Syllogism must 
have three, and only three, Terms — the Minor, Major, and Middle. 
If there be four terms, either in form or in fact (from the ambigu- 
ity of either of them), the two terms of the conclusion will not 
have been compared with one Middle Term, and the regular con- 
clusion does not follow. 

We have in the same way the following canons for testing the 
validity of Syllogisms : 

1. If the Minor and Major Terms, each being compared with 
the same third or Middle Term, both agree with it, they agree 
with each other. 

This underlies all Affirmative Conclusions. 

2. If the Minor and Major Terms, both being compared with 
the same third term, one agrees and the other disagrees with it, 
they disagree with each other. This is the foundation of negative 
conclusions. 

Further, Aristotle and all the old logicians said that the 
whole of the middle term must be taken in at least one of the 
premises. 

As they put it, the middle term must be distributed at least 



De Morgan as Logician. 5 

once in the premises, otherwise the minor term may be compared 
with one part and the major with another part of it. 
From 

Some men are poets, 

Some men are Indians, 

nothing follows. But the Aristotelians were too broad in their 
generalization, as De Morgan clearly showed in his doctrine of 
Plm*ative Judgments. 

For example, if we have given the premises, 

Most men are uneducated. 
Most men are superstitious, 

according to Aristotle we are not warranted in drawing any con- 
clusion ; for the middle term is men, and in neither premise is any- 
thing said about all men. But, in point of fact, we can draw the 
perfectly valid conclusion, 

Some uneducated men are superstitious. 

Again, Aristotle is contradicted by numerically definite judg- 
ments. In these there is inference when the quantities of the 
middle term in the two premises together exceed the whole quan- 
tity of that term. Lambert first thought of this principle. De 
Morgan, without any knowledge of Lambert, reconceived it and 
extended its use. 

Suppose we grant the premises. 

Two thirds of all human beings are women. The number of 
married w^omen is never greater than the total number of men. 

It follows that half the entire number of women are single. 

Still, easy and certain as such reasoning is, it looks very like an 
example of how difiicult it is, to a logician trained only in the 
traditional logic, that in a Princeton "Manual of Logic " the only 
numerically definite syllogism given was erroneous, and stood so 
for years. I stated this to the author, and. in the latest stereo- 
typed edition it has been changed. The Syllogism he gave was 
as follows : 

" 60 out of every 100 are unreflecting. 

" 60 out of every 100 are restless. 

" Therefore, 20 out of every 100 restless persons are unreflect- 
ing." 



6- The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophij . 

After pointing out to him the fault in what he had been teach- 
ing for years, the following has been substituted : 

" 60 out of this 100 are unreflecting. 

" 60 out of this 100 are restless. 

'' .'. 20 restless persons are unreflecting." 

Anotlier point on which Aristotle and the old logicians laid 
great stress was what they termed the Figure of a syllogism. 
This they treated cumbrously and at indefinite length. De Mor- 
gan has given a much more concise, but at the same time much 
clearer, exposition of it. The Figure of a syllogism depends upon 
the situation of the middle term in the premises. 

There are four figures. In the first figure the middle term is 
the subject of the major and predicate of the minor. In the sec- 
ond, the middle term is the predicate of both, and in the third the 
subject of both. The fourth occurs when the middle term is made 
the predicate of the major and subject of the minor premise. 

De Morgan represents the subject of the conclusion — that is, the 
minor term — by a?, the middle term by y, and the predicate of the 
conclusion — that is, the major term — by s, and says : 

" A Syllogism is the deduction of a relation between two terms 
from the relation of each term to a third. The first figure of the 
logicians is that of direct transition — x related to z through x 
related to y and y to z. 

" The fourth figure is that of inverted transition — x related to z 
through z io y and y to x. 

" The second figure is that of reference to (the middle term) — x 
related to z through a? to y and z to y. 

" The third figure is that of reference from (the middle term) — x 
related to z through y io x and y to z. Thus, when the notion of 
figure is taken into account, its force and meaning are best seen 
by stating the combination of relation in the different figures. 

" So when we say 

" Kings are men, 

" All men are mortals, 

" Therefore, kings are mortals, 
we are saying that kings being a species of men, men in 
turn being a species of mortal beings, therefore, kings are a spe- 
cies of mortals ; and we are speaking in the first figure, for when 
we say that a species of a species is a species of the genus, we 



De Morgan as Logician. 7 

compare the minor with the major by the relation which the 
minor stands in to the middle, and the middle to the major. 

" When we say 

" Common salt contains no hydrogen, 

■" All acids contain hydrogen, 

■" .*. Common salt is not an acid, 
we use the second figure, and compare both major and minor 
with the middle. 

" This is equivalent to saying species and genus of the same 
are species and genus of one another. 

" Again, if we say 

" No tribes are without religion, 

^' Some tribes are cannibals, 

" .•. Some cannibals are not without religion, 
we use the third figure and compare the middle term with 
both major and minor. 

" The fourth figure is simply the first with the concluding rela- 
tion inverted." 

Here we see stress laid upon the consideration of relations, and, 
after all, we feel sure that De Morgan's greatest work was connected 
with his development of the Logic of Relatives, independently dis- 
covered by Leslie Ellis after reading Boole's " Laws of Thought." 
One of De Morgan's last memoirs, in the tenth volume of the 
" Cambridge Transactions " was on the Logic of Relations, which 
is, in the mathematical sense, a far-reaching generalization of the 
old logic. In our modern mathematics everything is generalized 
as far as possible. Thus the notiou of imaginary magnitude in 
analysis, and of imaginary space in geometry, has become funda- 
mental and all-embracing, including the real as a. special case. 
Every study of a generalization or extension gives additional 
power over the particular. We need to go beyond and look back 
from an elevation. 

Any first-rate mathematician working in logic would attempt 
to generalize, and, in fact, Boole generalized, the scholastic logic 
in a manner entirely different from De Morgan. In the " Vier- 
teljahrsschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Philosophic," page 250, the 
celebrated critic, A. Riehl, says : " Das allgemeine, den aristotel- 
ischen Syllogismus als speciellen Fall einer speciellen Methode 
umfassende Problem des Schliessens hat Boole nicht nur gestelltj 



8 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

sondern aueb gelost. Niemand, der sich gegenwartig oder kiinftig 
mit Reform der Logik bescbiiftigt, darf am "Werke Boole's vor- 
beigelien." Boole is obtaining world-wide liomage. Herbert 
Spencer says : " In tlie work by Professor Boole, ' Investigation 
of tlie Laws of Tbougbt,' tbe application to Logic of methods like 
those of matliematics constitutes another step far greater in origi- 
nality and in importance than any taken since Aristotle." 

But let us not forget that De Morgan's generalization, though 
difierent in kind and direction, lias done, perhaps, as much 
toward breaking away the old incrustation that covered the logic 
germs. 

In his view of the subject, the purely formal proposition with 
judgment, wholly void of matter, is seen in " There is the proba- 
bility X that X^is in the relation L to J"." The syllogism is the 
determination of the relation which exists between two objects of 
thought by means of the relation in which each of them stands to 
some third object which is the middle term. 

The pure form of the syllogism, when its premises are abso- 
lutely asserted, is as follows: Xh in the relation L to Y, Y\& 
in the relation Jf to Z ; therefore Xis in the relation '' L of Jlf,'^ 
compounded of L and J/, to Z. In ordinary logic, which admits 
only the relation of identity, the actual composition of the relation 
is made by our consciousness of its transitive character. The 
requisites of the copular relation, in the system of ordinary syllo- 
gism, are convertibility and transitlveness. 

Any relation which possesses these qualities may take the place 
of "is" in the common 'syllogism without impeachment of its 
validity. 

A relation is transitive when, being compounded with itself, it 
reproduces itself; that is, L is transitive when every Z of Z is Z. 
For example, " brother." Thus, from the transitiveness of the con- 
necting relation in ordinary syllogism, ^ is ^ and £ is C gives 
A is C, since, from the convertibility of the terms, A is B gives 
B is A. Here at last we have broken away from that paltry 
narrowness which sickens us with the assertion that our minds in 
pure thinking can use nothing but the relation of identity — the 
Jevons sophism that thought cannot move because all thinking 
is the substitution of identicals. 

So we see that in logic, as in mathematics, we may develop a 



On HegeVs Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law. ^ 

whole system of theorems about symbols which are to be used in 
a given manner ; and then to make this whole system true of a 
desired relation we have only to show that the relation fulfils the 
one or two fundamental principles of the system. De Morgan 
treated of convertible and inconvertible relatives, repeating rela- 
tives, non-repeating relatives, transitive and intransitive relatives, 
and inaugurated a general system. 

On three out of his four pairs of simple propositions three 
separate algebras of logic have been founded. 

Resurrected and revivified, Logic has joined the ranks of the 
on-marching sciences. 



ON HEGEL'S IDEA OF THE NATURE AND SANC- 
TION OF LAW. 



BY WALTER B. WINKS. 



There can be no doubt as to the necessity for the acceptance of 
the inevitable. To accomplish the possible, and to refrain from 
attempting the impossible, are equally wise. From this admitted 
truth, as a major premise, with a minor premise supplied in each 
particular case, a practical age has constructed a prudential syllo- 
gism whose conclusion is that to avoid vain seeking after empty 
knowledge and useless inquiry after that which knowledge cannot 
compass is not less commendable than to know all things know- 
able. It should not, however, be forgotten that prudence, while 
often the soundest worldly wisdom, may sometimes be contempti- 
ble meanness. To the palace built by philosophy, prudence sus- 
tains the relation of a cellar to a house : fundamental, useful, even 
necessary, yet not forming a part of its symmetry, and far beneath 
the apartments above, illumined by the sunlight, and through 
which sweeps the pure upper air. 

The maxim, " Seek not to know what you cannot know," com- 
mends itself in many respects. The proposition that it is possible 
to know only what is capable of knowledge calls for no argument. 
It is not its statement, but its application, that is deleterious. The 



10 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy/. 

crucial test of knowledge is too often the subjective capacity of 
the enunciator of the maxim. " I do not know " may sometimes 
be a creditable admission, but does not the very admission disprove 
the possibility of such a subjective negation affording any ground 
for the predication of knowledge, or the lack of knowledge, in 
others ? 

A statement of these preliminary considerations is not unneces- 
sary. It is common to ridicule what is called the "windy throes 
of metaphysicians," and to compare their speculations to the child- 
ish attempt to grasp the prismatic hues of the rainbow. Time's 
echo, however, will throw back such empty laughter on the heads 
of those who evoke it. Tlie tree which grows upon the mountain- 
top may think itself much higher than the hill on which it grows, 
yet it is seen for only a mile, while the mountain towers into the 
sky — a monument of creation, and a mound and gravestone of 
some dead cataclysm. 

The best way to meet an argument that you cannot answer is to 
call the man who advances it a fool. A shrug will often accom- 
plish more than a demonstration. This appears to be the position 
of many at the present time ; but truth will grow and fructify for 
ages after the slioulders have lost the power to come to the aid of 
the feeble reason. 

The study of law, considered in its breadth and entirety, is 
closely connected with that of mental philosophy. To the layman, 
who perhaps attempts to measure the wisdom of its provisions by 
his own notions of what constitutes " common sense," this propo- 
sition may appear a paradox. And even many members of the 
legal profession may, at first blush, question its truth. Yet it is 
believed to be a fact beyond successful controversion that there is 
a philosophy of law ; in other words, that there is some underlying 
principle which makes so-called justice just. A law which makes 
all law legal is apt to escape the memories or the notice of those 
who receive their law through long generations of precedent, and 
whose thoughts never go deeper in their search for precedent than 
the ordinary habits and customs of the mass of mankind. This 
philosophy is not a philosophy of makeshifts; its principle is not 
a principle of expediency ; its higher law is really a law, and not 
& selfish maxim. 

What is the reason of law ? What makes law possible? What 



On HegeVs Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law. 11 

makes property a fact ? What makes property allowable ? These 
are questions which we would find answers for. If we are told 
that " expediency " is the answer to each, we are still confronted 
with the question : What is the reason of expediency ? It requires 
some sanction, and that can be given only by thought. It is, 
therefore, evident that no satisfactory answer to any of these ques- 
tions can be given until, after an examination of certain prelimi- 
nary points, we have reached some satisfactory conclusion which 
may serve as a basis for a reply. 

All science may, with fairness, be called an explanation. 
When we associate certain phenomena with their causes, we ex- 
plain. The relation of an event is only half perfect unless its 
reason be told. In like manner all science is, in no small degree, 
a sort of natural history of causes and effects. But scientific ex- 
planation is always an explanation within conditions ; the facts to 
be explained are the conditions of the explanation. But these very 
conditions require explanation, and, in order to answer the final 
questions which, spectre-like, haunt humanity — whence? and 
why? and whither? — we must have an explanation of explana- 
tion. But, if what has been already said be true, all explanation is 
conditioned, and if we would have an ultimate explanation, it is 
evident that it must be self-conditioned. Any final explanation 
which will explain the existence of conditions, and therefore exist- 
ence as existence, must bring its own reason for its own self, its 
own necessity, that it is and that it alone is. To put the same 
statement in another and more concise form : All explanation is a 
taking possession of by mind, tlie ultimate explanation is a taking 
possession of, by mind, of all explanations, or, in other words, the 
taking possession of all by mind. This is nothing but self-con- 
sciousness, to understand which is to understand all. Hegel found 
the constitutive process of self-consciousness through the notion. 
That process is the idealization of a particular through a universal 
into a singular. 

This creative effort is, at first, not readily intelligible. It is easy 
to see that two and two make four, but what a void lies before the 
mind when one turns to the question. Why should two and two 
make four f But, though at first it may be difiicult to appreciate 
the notion, it will ultimately be seen to be the radical of thought. 
And it is by the march of this notion, by the continuation and 



12 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

repetition of acts of self-consciousness, tliat tlie ego is developed 
into its categories, which, in their concreteness, are externaliza- 
tion. If this be true, not only do different differences exist be- 
tween subject and object, but at the same time an absolute iden- 
tity. Hence, the reduction of the object to the subject is entirely 
possible, since, in reality, it only reduces itself to itself. This be- 
ing conceded, the transition from the thinking idea to the acting 
idea is not difficult. To theorize is to think about something ex- 
ternal to ourselves. But theory, when complete, converts its ob- 
ject into itself; it has possessed itself of all that the object really 
is ; it has reduced it from externality into subjectivity. 

But what is will? Will is kinematic thought; and thought is 
potential will. 

The great German metaphysicians, Hegel and Kant, sought to 
establish the truth of the freedom of the will. Their pride of 
reason was humiliated by the admission of the notion of necessity. 
To admit compulsion was, in their view, to admit that they were 
things, made after the image of a stone, rather than men made 
after the image of God. They could not rest under the imputa- 
tion of being shuttlecocks between the battledoors of events. 
They were resolute in" the search after better and truer means of 
escape than some so-called advanced thinkers of to-day, who seek 
a rescue from the Fate of knowledge through the Fetish of igno- 
rance.' 

To-day, among certain schools, free-will is laughed at. As long 
ago as the time of Dr. Johnson, even that great man said, "We 
feel that we are free, and that is all about it." And we can im- 
agine the laugh which accompanied such a statement. Yet Dr. 
Johnson's argument is, perhaps, as excellent as any that can be 
urged in favor of free-will, since any philosophy which would com- 
mand respect must guard against being repugnant to common 
sense. The cry of the rabble is not to be accepted as the test of 
true philosophy ; but if, when a truth has been demonstrated and 
brought under the cognizance of ordinary men, they fail to appre- 



' Huxley finds satisfaction in the thought that there are things which we cannot 
know, such as cause, substance, and externality ; and on the strength of this (negative) 
belief he claims to be considered orthodox. Herbert Spencer appears to find a re- 
markable source of joy in feeling that he cannot find any interpretation of the mystery 
of subject and object, and in his inability to understand the power manifested therein. 



On HegeVs Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law. 13 

■ciate it, or find it repugnant to all tlieir conceptions, there is strong 
reason for suspecting the philosophy to be in the wrong. But an 
idea has found lodgment in the brains of a certain class of thinkers 
that " freedom " means " motivelessness." The argument is, that 
because a man cannot act without a motive, he is a slave. But 
what constitutes serfdom ? Is it not true that he who acts from 
motive intelligible to himself acts freely, while all other action is 
the result of necessity ? Surely freedom is to obey one's self rather 
than to yield submission to something external to one's self If this 
be so, a man's motival action is free, because his motives are his 
own, so that there can be no incompatibility between moral neces- 
sity and mental (or moral) freedom. 

In nature, the cause repeats itself in the eflfect ; the spark is 
repeated in the explosion ; the motion of the arm is repeated in 
the motion of the stick. But in the operation of the will the 
motive is not repeated in the act. It is the nature of the agent 
that is repeated in the performance — not the nature of the mo- 
tive. Our language aiFords an incidental corroboration of the 
truth of this statement. With regard to physical nature, we use 
the word cause ; in reference to the will, we employ the term mo- 
tive. But it must not be forgotten that it is only moral necessity 
that is freedom. A man may be the slave of his appetites, and 
then he is not free. It may be argued that, just as a man's higher 
motives are his own, so are one's desires and appetites ; and, if 
obedience to the one be freedom, it is folly to call submission to 
the other slavery. To understand this subject thoroughly, how- 
ever, it is important to distinguish between the two meanings of 
the word " mine.'''' In one sense, subjectivity belongs to the inner 
me ; but is not objectivity doubly mine ? Have I not acquired 
objectivity and reduced it to possession ? Does it not, then, be- 
long to the inmost me ? Is it not of my very essence, even that 
essence realized ? If an affirmative answer be given to these 
questions, it must follow that one is truer to one's self when one is 
true to the universal " mine" than to the particular " mine." 

But the objection may be urged, with plausibility, that the very 
particulars which one obeys are externalized and realized. One's 
desii'es are the outcome of nature and spirit, and what is nature 
but the realized idea ? Such an argument, while plausible, pos- 
sesses no logical weight. We are dealing with free-will, and this 



14 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

can exist only when will wills itself. One feels that one's sensu- 
ous motives have a kind of externality to one's self; but to be 
free one must obey one's own motives ; will must will itself; just 
as the end of reason is reason, so the object of the will is will, and 
therefore it is free. Hence it is that the ordinary opinions of man- 
kind, in reference to the freedom and slavery which a man may 
undergo in himself, have a deep foundation in actual fact. Each 
man feels that he is less a man when he is dragged at the heels 
of his senses, and more a man when he frees himself from that 
democracy and submits himself to the restraint of the monarch 
reason. Each man stands in graceful pride in the freedom of 
that restraint which is imposed by universal reason ; each one lies 
in chains who yields to the natural motives which are the sole 
lights, the sole guides of animals and things. Such lights are like 
the stars, particular and sparse, while the light of reason is like 
the day, universal and wide. It is true freedom, therefore, for 
each man to conform his will to the universal ; in this way only 
can he become in the true sense a man ; in this way only can the 
evolution of nature from thinghood to manhood be effected. 

Now, free-will is the root of law, although (as has been already 
said) at the present time many so-called philosophers scout the 
idea of free-will. Man, they say, is ruled by his organism. This 
organism is a thing, just as is a cabbage, and is influenced only 
by externals. There is nothing but a sequence of events, and 
men are causes only as is the cue that propels a billiard-ball ; but 
the force is not to'be found in the cue, nor in the arm, nor in the 
man, nor in the food, the sun — the conditions that caused his 
growth. " Before Abraham was," this force existed ; it has under- 
gone more curious exigencies in its long day than Caesar's clay. 
About its beginning nothing is known ; it and matter are the twin 
Melchisedecs. 

Does it ever occur to such people to consider what, then, is 
the meaning of law ? Can it have any ? If there is no free-will, 
what justification is there for legislative enactments ? Why 
should there be a penalty for theft, or a right of civil action for 
breach of contract ? Insane persons are held irresponsible for 
their acts and are allowed to escape punishment, because they are 
not free agents — in other words, because they are not under the 
control of reason. But, according to some modern thinkers, na 



On HegeVs Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law. 15 

man so controlled {i. e., no sane man) is free ; why, then, should 
the latter, under this hypothesis, be liable to punishment if the 
former are to be exempt ? 

Men, however, will not believe such advanced thinkers, and 
Dr. Johnson's argument is as good as theirs. We are free ; other- 
wise law has no meaning, and to eliminate free-will is to overturn 
the very foundation of the temple of justice. 

But free-will is, at first, isolated self-identity ; in other words, 
it is primarily abstract. If two components constitute a whole, 
either part, separated from the other and considered in itself, is 
abstract. Free-will, as it at first emerges, has the character of 
singleness or abstractness. It is like one leg of a pair of com- 
passes. In its very singleness, however, and by its very oneness, 
it is constitutive of the person ; it is a person. But the person's 
personality must be realized ; for, because it is thinking will, it has 
in it, implicitly, the notion. The notion is the very concreteness 
of the universal, the particular and the singular. And as realiza- 
tion is always through something other than itself, and as free- 
will, as the person, is an abstract inner, and its immediate other 
must be an abstract outer, it follows that f^ee-will can be realized 
only through an external thing. In this we have property. Here, 
then, we have the notions of person and of property, which Hegel 
calls the abstract self-internal and the abstract self-external. 

It is beyond the scope of the present article to enter upon any 
discussion of the manifestation of the notional evolution into ab- 
stract right, morality, and observance ; in which we again find the 
universal, the particular, and the singular. For the will, which is 
universal in law, passes into a particular phase and becomes inner, 
as conscience, in morality, and finds its true concreteness in observ- 
ance. We must confine our attention to the philosophy of law ; 
and, while these subjects are intimately associated with it, and their 
exposition would admirably illustrate the inner motions of the no- 
tion in the philosophy of abstract right, their consideration would 
require too much time and space to be profitable in this connection. 

Legality, then, or abstract right, divides itself into property, 
contract, and penalty ; and here again we find the singular, the 
particular, and the universal. For in property we find the single 
will, in contract we find several, or particular, wills, and in pen- 
alty we find the will of the whole, or the universal will. 



16 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Fii*st, then, of property. We have already seen that will is 
realized through, or by means of, an abstract self-external, a thing 
without will; and, while will is realized only through this thing, 
it in its turn finds its meaning only in will. From this statement 
certain things evidently follow. A man, being in his nature sin- 
gular, can be possessed only of the singular. That only would be 
liis immediate other. The universal can be the other only to the 
universal, and hence cannot be tlie subject of private property. 
Property, therefore, has its sanction, its meaning, only in nature, 
in the spirit of the person. From the very statement of the na- 
ture of concreteness, it follows that it is a man's duty to possess, 
or be a proprietor, since it is only in this way that his abstract will 
can be realized. A man who possesses nothing still remains ab- 
stract implicitly. But let it not be understood from this state- 
ment that it is a man's duty to be rich. The notion does not dic- 
tate as to how much or how little a man shall own ; all that it 
dictates is its own evolution into the idea, into the objective spirit. 
The man who makes life subservient to a bank account is not 
making humanity an end to itself, but a means to a wretchedly 
trivial end. Such an end, if made a ruler, will misrule. The man 
whose object and aim is a triviality will become trivial. A life 
with an external motive will become an external life, and, there- 
fore (as a sequence from what has been said), will become deformed, 
one-sided. It is only by cherishing noble ends that man can do 
nobly. It was a sentiment of Milton, no less beautiful than true, 
that he who would write an heroic poem must make life an heroic 
poem. The proverb, "Like master, like man," holds true of the 
end (master), and of the means (man) chosen to attain it. The 
meaning of the obligation is not vulgarity, but a fuller life, a 
more complete being, and in this sense it is every man's duty to 
be an owner. But will, even when set in the object, requires 
enunciation, which can be effected only by an act. This is seiz- 
ure, which term is here used as synonymous with occupation. 
The judgment determines that the object seized belongs to the 
party seizing ; in other words, his will has predicated of it, " it is 
mine.'''' The very immediacy of the body to the mind is sufficient 
enunciation of property in that; and any injury done to that in 
which I have set my will is an injury done to my will. Seizure, 
then, is the bringing of a more external into relation to that less 



On HegeVs Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law. 17 

external property, my body. Of course, the mode of seizure, or 
occupation, varies. I may move into a house or hold a coin in my 
hand. Hegel treats the whole subject of possession under three 
heads, and divides seizure itself into bodily seizure, formation, and 
designation. Here, then, is a rise in generalization from indi- 
viduality to universality. Designation Hegel considers the per- 
fection of occupancy. Not only is possession shown by bodily 
seizure, but by formation. Instead of taking a thing into rela- 
tion to his less external property, he can place his less external 
property in it. He who bestows labor upon a thing enunciates 
his possession by formation ; and, lastly, by naming, labelling, or 
the employment of signs, he demonstrates appropriation, or that 
he has set his will in it. 

But even bodily seizure demonstrates proprietorship roughly — ■ 
that is, that one has set one's will in the object ; and even this is 
a kind of designation, for that is only another name for a sign, 
and, as a corollary from what has been already said, all the forms 
of occupancy are only less general instances of the ultimate im- 
port, a less general demonstration of the fact that a thing is willed 
mine. 

Possession itself may be considered under three heads. The 
first of these is, as we have seen, seizure ; the second, use j the 
third, alienation. These are not stereotyped in their separateness ; 
they are known in their transitions. 

The evolution of seizure into use will illustrate what has been 
not unhappily termed the "life-flux" of the notion. All seizure 
is appropriation by will. Will makes the object its own. But 
in this process the will must be regarded as positive, and the 
thing determined as negative. The will, then, being particularly 
determined by the thing, is particular will in a desire, and the 
thing negative, being particularly determined, is only for the will, 
and, consequently, serves it. This is the whole m.eaning of use- 
Hegel defines use thus : " Use is the realization of my desire 
through the abstraction, destruction, consumption of the thing; 
the selfishness of my nature is thus manifested, which, according- 
ly, thus accomplishes its destiny." According to the same author- 
ity, use is the real side of property, and is often employed as an 
argument by those who have wrongfully taken possession. Such 
persons argue, " The thing was of no use to the man from whom 

xyni— 2 



18 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

I took it." Yet, as Hegel justly points out, such an argument is 
bad as against the actual assignment of will. If will be already 
in the object, use can give no title to another whose will is not in 
it ; or, rather, whose seizure is secondary. How, then, originates 
prescription ? From the fact that seizure may become an empty 
symbol, the will which made occupation or designation a force 
may have passed away, and the property is then really without 
an owner; and thus property may be acquired or lost, in lapse of 
time, by prescription. From the very necessity of enunciation 
through bodily seizure, formation, and designation, follows the 
necessity for continued manifestation, and it is in this way that 
prescription has a meaning and a right. 

But, as will may in time lapse for want of enunciation, so it 
can be withdrawn by negation. If a thing become mine when I 
have willed it mine, it is evidently not mine when I have willed 
it not mine. In the latter act consists alienation. And when two 
individual wills meet, one willing alienation and the other pro- 
prietorship, we find what is technically termed in law " consent," 
and therefore what is designated a contract. 

Thus we have arrived at the second moment of the notion of 
abstract right. 

In this connection it may not be out of place to remark that, 
although much of this evolution may seem unfamiliar, much of it 
is sanctioned by man's ordinary experience, and the foregoing ex- 
planation of consent (although closely following Hegel) agrees 
with the definition in use among lawyers.' Philosophy collects 
the drift truth scattered through the world, and constructs, from 
the isolated fragments, a homogeneous whole. 

It is in this unity of different wills that property reaches or ap- 
pears in its highest manifestation ; it is a unity in which difference 
is at the same time negated and affirmed. But the very essence of 
the notion is the identification of differences and the differentiation 
of identity. In this act we see a proprietor (whose will has met 
the will of another, and where " consent " has resulted) at once 
ceasing to be yet remaining and becoming a proprietor ; and from 
this may be deduced the right of cancellation of the contract in 
case of a laesio ultra dimidium vel enormis. 



1 Grotius, " De Juro Belli et Pads," lib. 2, ch. ii, s. 4 ; Story's " Eq. Jur.," sec. 221. 



On HegeVs Idea of the Nature and Sanction of Law. 19 

The historical progress of law, through many of its simplifica- 
tions, through the extinction of many of its symbolisms founded 
purely in sense, and through the actual changes in the signs of 
possession, is an object of interest to the lawyer. The conversion 
of subjectivity into objectivity, which we find in passing from 
property to possession, requires some formalities to eflPect itself; 
for possession is tlie expression of will, and expression is only a 
particular externalization. The history to which we have referred, 
then, must be studied in relation to expression, and its progress 
in time will be found to be regulated by the advance of the possi- 
bilities of expression, or the facility for the passage of the subjective 
into the objective. 

But it will be clear, to any one who has followed us so far, that 
contract is not manifested as will. The act of contract, in that it 
is particular, is a manifestation of wills in community, but not of 
will in universality. How, then, does the element of universality 
attach to contract ? We answer, Only through its sanction or pre- 
scription by the universal will. It is not possible, in this connec- 
tion, to enter into a consideration of the remedies under contract. 
These remedies, as every one knows, fall into one of two classes, 
viz. : the right of civil action, and penalty. 

This leads us to the consideration of the third head under our 
general division, i. e. — Penalty. 

As contract is under the sanction of the universal will, it fol- 
lows that any one who intentionally negates the community of 
wills negates by his act the absolute will, and afiirms in its stead 
his own particular self-will. This, in its essence, is crime. 

What is the remedy ? If crime be a negation of the universal 
will, it can be corrected only by an afiirmation of the universal 
will in the same regard, which affirmation must be a negation of 
the particular will. In this consists penalty. A realized negation 
of the absolute will is force ; hence the criminal, in such negation, 
has resorted to force, and the reaffirmation must be by a negation 
of self-will. Every one knows the effect of a double negative, and 
that will illustrate in some degree the process of thought. The 
criminal must be subsumed under his own law — force. In other 
words, he must be compelled to undo his own compulsion, which 
is evidently to restore him to his own right. But this can be 
efficiently done only by a disinterested representative of right. 



20 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Mere individual counter-assertion would be interminable, hence 
the restoration of the true inmost will of" the criminal can be ef- 
fected only by means of a jndge, who is the representative of the 
universal, because (his feelings being apart from the inquiry) he 
can decide in conformity with the objective standards of right. 
And, since the relation of justice can be made actual only through 
the knowable existent, punishment must relate to either the per- 
son or the property of the criminal. It must not be forgotten tha.t 
punishment has its foundation in the very nature of will. A more 
thorough comprehension of the inexorable facts of thought would 
do much to bring about a better understanding of the true posi- 
tion of the criminal in relation to society. In one sense the ofSce 
of the judge is only to sanction the criminal's conviction of him- 
self. It is the universal that he has outraged ; and, as has been 
shown, that universal is his own in a truer and a deeper sense 
than are the desires and appetites which he hoped to gratify by 
his crime. He has given his consent to the law which punishes 
him. It is his inner self that tries, convicts, and condemns his 
outer self. 

Considered in the light of these reflections, all punishment may 
be regarded as educational. Training is the counteracting of the 
passive force of nature by wise restraint and discipline. It is 
this that constitutes true education of the child. We have got 
"beyond the idea that education comprises only the instruction of 
the child in the " three K's." We have come to see that it is 
elaboration — the elaboration of nature (the chaos) into character 
(the cosmos). True education is the subjection of nature in man, 
the subordination of his senses and appetites. This is possible 
only through the negation of the mechanical necessities of nature 
and a super-position of the universal, from which, as we have seen, 
results freedom of the will. Thus, we find that all punishment is 
educational; the infliction of penalty is not, as some would have 
ns think, a wrong, but a right, which conduces to the true freedom 
of the individual, to the welfare of the community, and to the 
ultimate attainment of justice. 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 21 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUL AKD ITS IM- 

MOETALITY. 

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

(Chapter II — Concluded.) 

Personality, or the Immanent Development of the Soul and its 

Immortality. 

50. Such is the concrete content into which the soul develops 
itself, attaining, through personality, freedom of the Spirit, and 
with this freedom gaining not only immortality, but also the resur- 
rection and transfiguration of the body. We must, however, keep 
in mind that we reach this result only when recognizing the soul 
as a Self. We seek and find the ground and goal of selfhood in the 
Absolute Self. The soul from which the process of development 
immediately moves is itself immediately given. We took the 
soul as we found it, immediately in time, and the Spirit into 
which the soul developed itself was finite, just because it devel- 
oped itself from a given point. The whole course of development 
lacked ground and guarantee ; the individual was without soul — 
consciousness without a subject ; the personality of the finite 
spirit lacked origin and destiny — beginning and end — its Alpha 
and its Omega. We could find both only in a Being who should 
be the Absolute Realization of all the moments which we had dis- 
covered successively in finite and posited forms in the develop- 
ment of the Spirit. That which is given is explained only through 
a Giver who is in Himself and has developed out of Himself all 
that He gives : the given cannot be explained through emanation, 
for the unconscious activity presupposed in emanation cannot pro- 
duce what it has not in itself ; the given is, however, explained 
through Creation, and Creation presupposes the Creator. This 
Creator is the Absolute Spirit, who from eternity to eternity 
determines HimseK from Himself; this self-determination reveals 
itself as the Trinity, in which the Absolute Spirit, apprehended as 
Absolute Personality, mediates itself — in which also the idea of 
Creation finds its truth, and the Created Spirit its interpretation 
and transfiguration. 



22 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

In accordance with this view, the Trinity is the immanent con- 
dition of the absolute self-conditioned personality of God; the 
Absolute Personality of God is the condition of Creation, and 
hence, also, of the created personality of the Unite spirit ; the 
personality of the finite spirit (which herein proves itself the inde- 
pendent reflection of the Absolute) is the condition of the freedom 
of the finite spirit ; the freedom of the finite spirit in the Absolute 
Spirit is the condition of its personal imperishability. 

Notwithstanding this chain of connections and dependences, we 
are able to proceed immediately from the Soul : the Soul develops 
itself into Spirit and points of itself to God. This seeming para- 
dox is solved by the insight that the Soul in its immediacy has in 
itself as its dowry the witness of the Absolute Spirit — that it ex 
ists in communion with this Spirit, draws its nourishment /rom 
this Spirit, and manifests the richness and fulness of this Spirit 
just in proportion as it develops itself. This realization or medi- 
ation is, therefore, itself a proof of the Divine Creation — more 
definitely of the continuously progressive Creation, i. e., the pene- 
trative participation of the Absolute with the finite spirit. In so 
far as this participation has been interrupted on the human side, 
the act of progressive Creation manifests itself as deliverance and 
reconciliation throuo;h the condescension of God to the finite 
spirit which is thus recalled to life in Him after becoming, through 
its fall, subject unto death. Creation has not once been, but it is ; 
it is essentially continuous, progressive, personal, participative ; 
hence it implies preservation, renewal, and communion. 

The crucial insight of Philosophy is the identity of the imma- 
nent movement of the concept with experience. This is the stone 
of stumbling and rock of offence on which the tnany are wrecked, 
or before which they stand paralyzed. This identity grows clear 
only through apprehension of the Personality of Thought, i. e.^ 
through the insight that Thought in all of its moments partici- 
pates in the Absolute Spirit and in all Creation. Only through 
this insight can we explain how, from any given moment of 
Thought, there may develop the empty, accidental, arbitrary, 
intermediate phases of apostasy — for each moment, being pene- 
trative and participative, is in continuous relation with all the 
moments of Being and Thought. 

According to an old fancy — embodied most purely in the great 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 23 

poem of Dante — what man does not yet know he shall learn in 
the vision and recognition of God. In the same sense it is true 
that all is determined in the concursus Dei^ and this conoursus 
Dei, in a fallen world, manifests itself in the Redemption. 

We are now at the end of that process of development which 
has led us from immediate existence to Actuality or Individual 
Totality ; from Being to Thought — from the Individual to the 
Person, and which, moving on from the Person, has borne us up- 
ward and backward to Absolute Personality. Everything, how- 
ever, depends upon seizing that focal point from which flashes at 
once the inmost comprehension, and upon attaining that specula- 
tive insight in which the truth is perfectly mirrored. Nothing, 
therefore, is so imperative as adequate apprehension of the rela- 
tionship between Being and Thought, and correct valuation and 
distinction of the categories which develop themselves in these dif- 
ferent spheres. The main obstacle to Knowledge of God and of 
the Soul lies in the fact that even in Thought we are hampered by 
Being and the categories of Being. Thence it is that we inquire 
so anxiously if Existence necessarily belongs to the Absolute 
Thought which we call God, and doubt whether the Existing 
Thought or Thinking Soul is secure of this existence in the fu- 
ture. On the one hand, Existence as extended in space and time 
is so mighty and overwhelming that, in its infinite dispersion, it 
seems to threaten all consciousness, and, in its infinite expansion, to 
attack all individuality. On the other hand, it is so reliable and 
BO real that, without it, it would seem Thought cannot be. This 
is the magic power wielded over us by Being as opposed to 
Thought. We are all like poor Lenette, who, after listening to 
the Astronomic discourses of her would-be philosophic husband, 
complained that he made the stars seem so large that she could 
not hold them in her little heart and head ; and, when he held 
forth on Pneumatology, declared in her distress that he made 
souls seem so small that she had to stretch them all out of joint 
to have anything left of them. Such witchcraft does Being 
exert over Thought that, though the latter includes and concen- 
trates within itself the whole expanse of Being, it is, nevertheless, 
on the one hand, startled and terrified by Being, and, on the other 
hand, feels itself dependent upon Being. Therefore, it is impera- 



2i The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

tive that we learn to know Thought as well as Being. We have 
already characterized it as the internality and truth of Being, 
and have recognized existence in its externality as only a single 
Moment of Thought, which, in its isolation, is negated in the 
totality of moments — i. e., in Thought itself. 

If only we were able to realize that Thought is the purest 
transfiguration and clearest self-explication of Being — that in it 
Being comes to itself by turning itself inside out, and reflecting 
itself in itself ; if we could become conscious of Thought in its 
height and depth and fulness, we could never question whether 
to this inmost Thought belonged the outwardness of Being. 
^Neither could we, after such a recognition, stumble over the criti- 
cal doubt whether Thought as subjective and Being as objective 
could really coincide. Nor, again, could we ever deny to human 
thought the power to recognize truth, for we should know that 
Thought is One. Consequently, human thought is not simply 
human, but of and from God. And, through Personality or the 
power of participation, mediated in the individual man. 

We have followed the Soul in its upward path ; we have noted 
its immediate origin in Being ; we hav^e seen it rise out of Being 
into Consciousness or subjective thought ; we have rejoiced in 
its culmination as Spirit in total Thought — how can we then still 
anxiously doubt and question whether Thought, in that future 
which it includes within itself, shall still have the existence out 
of whose externality it has ascended, and whose limits it has 
annulled ? How, indeed, unless we resemble the worthy country- 
man, who, gazing thoughtfully at the ascending' Pegasus, mourns 
the plough-horse now forever lost ? 

But not only is the objective validity of thought often made de- 
pendent upon its external existence instead of its immanent idea 
— but the withdrawal from thought of external existence is claimed 
to threaten its subjective validity, and to snatch awa}" the think- 
ing Subject. We reply, simply. He who has learned to think 
Thought as the coming to itself of Being (and what is thought if 
it be not this) can never doubt that the thinking subject belongs 
essentially to and is inseparable from Thought ; without the 
thinking subject. Thought cannot be. 

Yet, even with this insight, we frankly confess that the main 
difficulty is not overcome. This difficulty lies, as has been said, 

\ 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 25 

not in Thought, but in the Crude Being which is blindly and in- 
voluntarily shoved under Thought. It is necessary that this diffi- 
culty, upon which really rests the whole doubt of personal immor- 
tality, be clearly set before the mind, in order that we may read 
its refutation in that progressive development of the Soul which 
has been already traced. 

Herein lies the doubt. Being is and shall forever be ; there 
will always be existence, and this existence will realize and repro- 
duce itself in individuals. It is always the same Being, but that 
which exists is not the same ; out of the infinite womb of Being 
are born forever fresh individuals ; the river of Being flows on 
forever, but never for a moment are its waters the same. So too 
is it with thought. Thought thinks, and shall think forevermore ; 
or, to put it in other words, just as Being develops itself ever 
explicitly in individuals, so does it ever return upon itself implicitly 
in Thought. With this Thought there shall be always a thinker ; 
as the process of Being demands objective individuals, so with 
Thought is bound up the thinking subject. But, as there is 
change in the individual objects which are the bearers of Being, 
so there is change in tlie Subjects which are the bearers of 
Thought. True, the thinking subject is the conditio sine qua non 
of Thought, just as Being demands the object in order to become 
Existence ; but these subjects which emerge from Thought just 
as objects emerge from Being are, no more than the latter, neces- 
sarily persistent. 

What answer can we make to this objection % In how far is 
this doubt which distinguishes between Being and Thought, and 
acknowledges the distinction, open to the charge of being still 
clouded and hampered by the Externality of Being % 

The whole doubt is based upon a supposed analogy between 
Being and Thought : its procedure appears reasonable and just. 
It will concede to Thought y?^^?! as much right as to Beiiig, hut not 
one whit more. 

Our first question, therefore, is whether this analogy is really 
carried out with the intended fairness and justice — whether as 
much has been conceded to Thought and the Thinker as to Being 
and the natural object. 

In the transmutation of material object there is preservation of 
the species, but not of the individual. But what matters this to 



26 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

an object whioli is an element merely and not a self; whicli in 
change changes ox\\j for the subject, and which itself is indifferent 
to change, as it belongs to and is dependent upon the externality 
which changes it. It becomes another for the subject ; for itself 
it is essentially the same as before ; it resembles its earlier form of 
being, as the body of the man resembles the body of the child. 

If, however, a thinking subject changes into another, it loses its 
all in losing its Self. The nature of the thinking subject is to be 
subject — to be self — to be one and the same. The nature of the 
objects of being is, on the contrary, only to be object. If the 
subject is changed, it is destroyed, whereas the change of the 
object is the realization of its nature. To be just, therefore, the 
assumed analogy between Being and Thought must concede to 
the subject that in such process of change as accords with its na- 
ture it sha\\ retnain itself , jast as the object in its own manner 
retains its essential identity under all changes of form. In every 
moditication to which the external object is subjected it remains 
" thing ; " before and after each change it is dependent upon ex- 
ternal conditions ; its nature is stamped upon it from without, and 
it is only a negative element in an inclusive totality. So, in 
every change experienced by the subject, the subject must remain 
itself I it may vary its manifestation, but its essence must be self- 
hood. 

But doubt is not yet silenced, and with renewed energy it now 
directs its attack against the complaining subject. Dare the rich 
man complain of death because it takes from him his wealth, while 
from the miserable wretch who has nothing it takes notliing ? 
The rich and happy man loses much in death which the man who 
is poor and miserable does not lose. Yet who would venture to 
arraign death for equalizing the inequalities of human life ? In 
the beginning men were equal — in the grave they are equal again ! 
The poor man loses less than the rich, but then during life the 
poor man had less than the rich. So death robs the subject of 
consciousness, but cannot take consciousness from the natural ob- 
ject which never had it. Its procedure is not, therefore, unjust, 
and Subject and Individual become equal as they sink back into 
universal Being. 

In vain we reply to Doubt that the rich and the poor, being 
both men, are in their essence alike, while the subject and the 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 27 

natural individual are essentially unlike; consequently, that the 
equalizing process which is just in the one case is unjust in the- 
other. Boldly comes the startling answer that Being is the com- 
mon mother of life and thought — the common source of all indi- 
viduality and all subjectivity. As the rich and the poor, the happy 
and the wretched, are alike men, so nature and spirit, individuality 
and subjectivity, are alike the issue of Being. Being externalizes 
itself in Things which return again into Being as they proceeded 
from it ; Being concentrates and comes to a consciousness of itself 
in subjects, which in like manner emerge from and sink back into 
Being ! 

Making this declaration, scepticism pleads guilty to and is con- 
victed of the error of which we had accused it. Our accusation 
was that scepticism always implies Being as the infinite Substance 
and the ultimate source of all things ; that to the sceptic Being is 
the fountain whence and the bottomless gulf whither all things 
flow — the womb and the grave of life. Thought is, in his appre- 
hension, only a mode of universal Being; out of Being come both 
the natural individual and the conscious subject, and back into 
Being shall each return. This is the plague-spot of doubt — the 
cancer which eats away the life of thought. Its medicine and cure 
is Speculative Philosophy, which, as immanent Logic, recognizes, 
not in Being but in Thought, the ground of all natural objects 
and of all conscious subjects ; which sees that it is Thought from 
whose fulness Being is projected as an isolated radius or single 
moment, and that this single moment comes to its actuality only 
in connection with all the other moments of the inclusive Totality. 
Thus Logic proves to be the Monism of Thought, and culminates 
in concrete Theology, wherein Thought reveals itself as Absolute 
Personality, which, adequately apprehended, is the Trinity. 

Through this insight we strike at the very root of doubt ; we 
storm scepticism in its last intrenchment. But though the sud- 
den revolution by which Thought is posited as the ground of 
Being may paralyze the sceptic who has always instinctively pos- 
ited Being as the ground of thought, the paralysis is only for a 
moment, and thus accepting as a fact the reproach hurled upon 
it, doubt hurls it back upon Speculative Philosophy. The re- 
proach was that scepticism made of Being the Alpha and the 
Omega, or, to state it more concretely, that it deified nature as 



28 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

ultimate source and final goal — that it gave no honor to the Tri- 
une God, into whose Absolute Consciousness finite consciousness 
returns, not only without loss, but accentuated and glorified, while 
this same human consciousness is stifled and drowned by return 
into Being. This is the accusation now hurled back upon Specu- 
lative Philosophy, with the claim that she herself in her Logic 
derived everything from Being, in her Physics derived every- 
thing from Nature, and thus herself thinks Thought as a Mode 
of Being. Paragraphs and pages are pointed out to convince 
her that she derives from Being, becoming, existence, being for 
self, essence and phenomenon, manifestation and reality, and, 
finally, the Idea itself in its subjectivity, objectivity, and absolute 
ness. The Idea which has thus' slowly emerged from the depths 
of Universal Being she then salutes as Spirit, and claims for it 
eternal persistence. But if this Spirit has developed itself out of 
Nature, must it not return into Nature ? Does not Philosophy 
itself demand this circular course in which the end meets the be- 
ginning ? In the process of Philosophy does not everything rise 
out of and sink back into Being ? Have we not ourselves seen 
the soul awake out of an individual existence which was sunk in 
the material — has it not arisen before our eyes out of the state of 
unconscious identity with the all into the freedom and conscious 
unity of the Spirit ? Dare the soul, then, deny its origin % Is 
not this origin denied unless the soul returns into it as its goal ? 

Yainly we remind our antagonist that from our contingent 
■and immediate beginning in Being we were led back to the true, 
Self-Mediated Origin, out of whose Absolute Personality was 
wrested the personality of the finite Spirit in its identity with free- 
dom and immortality. Herein is the reply of scepticism ; you 
abandon and deny the very logic and philosophy which you claim 
thus to further and expand ; it is time that you should recognize 
that this difi'erence between your principle and your result, your 
beginning and your end, is the culmination of a progress devel- 
oped, not, as you assert, out of your principle, but in contradiction 
to it. This is the final word of doubt. It abandons its own prin- 
•ciple, that everything is developed from Being ; but it claims as 
result of the long conflict that it has also forced Speculative Phi- 
losophy to a surrender. 

What shall we say ? Has Speculative Philosophy done her 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 39 

work in the world by bringing to ligbt the Supremacy of Thought, 
and shall she now, blushing and speechless, surrender her assaulted 
principle, and, giving glory to the truth, admit the newly found 
answer to the old enigma to be indeed the Solvent Word ? What 
concerns us all is that truth should prevail. Truth is saved when 
the Supremacy of Thought is vindicated ; why, then, should we 
not rejoice in the new discovery as though it were our own ? 
Why do we still cling to a form over which, in spite of variations. 
Being predominates in the beginning and at the end ? 

The question rises, Is this so ? May not the attack upon that 
Logic which develops itself from Being rest upon a misapprehen- 
sion ? 

The immediate starting-point and principle of Philosophy is 
Being. But, if Philosophy does not misunderstand herself, this 
means nothing else than that to Thought its own being is first, or 
Being is Thought in its first immediacy. Consequently, Thought 
is its ownprius and its own principle, for it is Thought which 
recognizes in Being its own first crude determination. Being is 
that which is first thought by Thought. Consequently, Thought 
as implicit is its own principle. Being is only the first chaotic 
abstract object of Thought, and belongs itself to Thought. From 
Being, or rather from itself through Being, Thought develops 
its richer and fuller determinations until in the concrete self-reali- 
zation of the Idea it concentrates in itself the determinations 
which it has successively developed. Thus Thought is the Identity 
and Totality of all its determinations, of which determinations 
the first and crudest is Being. Thought is not merely the Total- 
ity, but as such also the Identity of its determinations. Thought 
is consequently not the mechanical conglomeration of these sepa- 
rate moments, but it is the unity prismatically reflected in their 
various categories. 

It may, indeed, be urged that in this sense all methods — that of 
Spinoza equally with that of Descartes — have presupposed Thought, 
for, no matter what may be posited as a first principle, it is al- 
ways Thought which posits it. The emphatic difference between 
Philosophy of immanent thought and its predecessors lies in the 
fact that they were not conscious of their fundamental presuppo- 
sition, whereas the Philosophy of Implicit Thought knows itself 
as its own fundamental principle. That the Logic which moves 



30 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

from Being is conscious of Thought as its underlying pregnant 
principle, is proved by its culmination in the Monism of Thought, 
for Spirit is essentially this Being for the Spirit. The history of 
Philosophy is the external confirmation of the insight that all 
methods of philosophy — the crudest as well as the most complete — 
have the same ultimate ground. They fail, however, to recog- 
nize this ground, and therefore wreck themselves upon Being, 
which, as thus apprehended, is isolated in its own exclusiveness, 
whereas, seen in the light of the Idea, it reveals itself as a radius 
of the infinite circle of Thought. 

Scepticism thinks all things under the form of time, hence it 
thinks them as isolated and successive. But, as only Thought really 
^*«, Being cannot be apprehended as isolated and sundered from 
Thought, but only as included in Thought. In the form of Rep- 
resentation, therefore, it may be said that Being will perish but 
Thought shall abide, and with Thought the threefoldness that is 
in Thought, viz. : Body, Soul, and Spirit — Individuality, Subjec- 
tivity, and Personality. In other words. Being shall come to it- 
self; it shall not be simple externality, but shall prove itself to 
belong to the Internal. If, therefore, earlier in the process of de- 
velopment, we defined Thought as the coming to itself of Being, 
this did not imply, as the sceptic claims, that Being was the source 
of Thought, or that Thought originated in the withdrawal of Be- 
ing from externality into the Internal. This were impossible, for 
the outward has no inward ; on the contrary, it is the inward which 
has an outward. The process of development, therefore, demands 
that Thought as^rms shall externalize itself in Being, thus mak- 
ing itself its own^object, and, through this self-separation, returning 
into itself enriched. 

Thus, by an apparently different path, we have attained again 
the same result. The Alpha and Omega is not Being, but 
Thought, more definitely the Absolute, personal consciousness of 
God. From this divine consciousness, as it is revealed to the finite 
consciousness, all thought proceeds, and into this divine conscious- 
ness shall all thought return. The process of the finite conscious- 
ness is to know itself first in identity with being — then to sunder 
itself in soul and body, self and its other — and, finally, as person 
participating in and penetrated by God and creation, to be con- 
scious that it is saved and glorified in the divine life. 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 31 

By the path which we have just traversed we have also attained 
to more adequate apprehension of Being — mere Being is only ex- 
ternal. Positing it as first principle, we learn its dangers ; search- 
ing for its hidden depths, we learn its emptiness. 

It is henceforth clear that this external Being, to which we 
cling so desperately, as though without it we were nothing, is, in 
its abstraction, exactly the negation of the Ego, that which would 
destroy the Ego were it not transcended by the Ego. In this 
transcendence Being vanishes in Thought — i. e., its particularity 
as such is cancelled in the Totality. Therefore, it is evident that 
all denial of immortality in its ultimate analysis is grounded in 
the assumption, consciously or unconsciously expressed or implied, 
that Being has the ascendency over Thought, Nature the suprema- 
cy over Spirit, In a word, all denial of personal immortality is 
denial of Spirit in its essential idea, whether it be in the crude 
form of the famous " System of Nature and of the Natural Laws 
of the Physical and Moral Worlds," or in the more subtile systems 
of thinkers who abhor Holbach, La Grange, and Mirabeau. Just 
as certain is it, on the contrary, that the guarantee of Immortality 
is the Supremacy of Thought, and that only from Thought could 
proceed the development of the Finite Spirit into its Essential 
Content. 

It should not be ignored that the pantheistic - materialistic 
struggle against the persistence of individuality (in its ancient 
as well as in its modern and fashionable forms) rests solely 
upon the presupposed superiority of Being. To set up the einpty 
Category of Being as the first principle of the world is necessarily 
to reduce consciousness to a vanishing mode of Being, to make it 
the transient expression of a blind activity into which it shall be 
reabsorbed. To follow step by step the pantheistic procedure is 
most instructive, as quite unconsciously it testifies to that very 
priority of Thought over Being which it assails. Its result is that 
in the very moment when the subject, in order to escape from the 
empty and evil Self, generously sinks itself in Abstract Being, it, 
nevertheless, thanks to its imperishable persistence, emerges again 
as the conditio sine qua non of the system.' For only Thought 
can be the object of Thought ; to think Being abstracted from 
Thought is as impossible as to think Nothing. 

' Cf. Schelling, Phil. Schrift., I., 168, 169. 



32 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Hence follows a second result. As we cannot think Being 
without implying Thought, so we cannot think Nothing without 
implying Being — for to think nothing is not to be and not to 
think. Thence it follows that those who hold to personal immor- 
tality, whether with prophetic feeling, realized faith, or conscious 
insight, hold on also to Being. Thought rules Being, but Being 
insists upon being included in Thought. This Being is not, how- 
ever, crude external Being, but that inward Being which belongs 
to Thought as the body belongs to the Soul, which finds in the 
Spirit its adequate form, and therein, glorified and transfigured, 
celebrates its realized unity with Thought. 

Here rises before us another cliff upon which the thought of 
immortality is often wrecked. The first rock of danger was 
Being — Abstract Being, presupposed as Origin and End of All. 
Being, thus apprehended, is Nature, Body, the material and finite. 
The other rock is Abstract Thought — Thought empty and non- 
existent; that false infinitude which lacks the finite; which ad- 
mits no Body and no Being, and herein, surrendering the con- 
sciousness which is bound up with the finite, destroys itself. Upon 
the first rock was wrecked Spinoza, though through the mighty 
working of the subject within him he was saved from entire de- 
struction. Upon the second rock Schelling was nearly stranded, 
but with a final effort he called up all his strength and steered 
away to safer shores. His moment of danger was when claiming 
that consciousness could not be thought save in relation to the 
body and to finite conditions generally, and therefore belonged 
to the passing time. He gave his verdict against individual per- 
sistence, which he denounced as prolonged mortality, and appre- 
hended eternity as pure timeless infinitude in God. True eter- 
nity is, however, the fulfilment and realization of the Infinite — 
the Unity of the Infinite and Finite, to which alone belongs Ac- 
tuality. Eternity is not timeless, but the Unity of all the mo- 
ments of time. This Eternity manifests itself in Thought: 
Thought includes and subordinates Being ; the Spirit is neither 
soul nor body, neither infinite nor finite, but the Unity or Actuali- 
ty of these in themselves false and untenable determinations. 

Recently Schelling has recognized anew that the ultimate truth 
is the " subject which, triumphing over all, maintains itself," and 
proposes an empirical development from what is. This is exactly 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 33 

wliat lias been done by Philosophy, following the method of logi- 
cal development and organization. What ^.s, is Thought: this 
Thought begins with Being, and in its progressive development 
carries Beins; in and along with itself. As the categories unfold, 
Thought shines through them more and more clearly as " that all- 
encroaching subjectivity" which claims all that is external as its 
own, and therein conquers and cancels externality; its ultimate 
and adequate form is personality, which consciously includes Body 
and Soul in the Spirit, and realizes itself in a vital, transparent, 
participative Unity. 

Thus Beinar belono-s to Thought as the Body to the Soul. This 
is, however, not limited Being, but the full and complete Being 
which at once has been, is, and shall be. Being only is when it 
exists at once in all of its dimensions. Therefore even La Mettrie 
confesses : " In one sense I cease to be whenever I think that I 
shall not be." He should have added : " In one sense I cease to 
think whenever I think that I shall not think." For it is Thought 
which includes in itself the scattered dimensions of Being, and 
knows that each requires all the others. Hence thought contains 
within itself the witness of its imperishability ; in its essence 
Thought is nothing but imperishability. 

The Soul which thinks, ideally thinks, must also really he. The 
Actuality of Thought expressed in terms of Being is " the Totali- 
ty of all its Moments," but, as realized in the highest category or 
form of Thouo'ht itself, it is Personality. Self-consciousness is not 
extinguished, but accentuated and transfigured in the Conscious- 
ness of God and of Creation. Being ^^ersonal, the Soul is imper 

ishable. 

Pemaek. 

The soul develops itself out of itself into the finite Spirit, which 
only knows itself to be immortal as it realizes itself in Personality 
as this finite Personality is actual and immortal only through 
the Absolute Personality. The Absolute Personality of God is 
the Actuality of Absolute Thought ; it is therefore not only the 
goal in which the finite Spirit, as though having at last found its 
element, comes to itself, but it is also the ground which preceded 
the development that begins with the human soul. Herein the 
genetic principle of Philosophy is indicated as Logic, which Prin- 
ciple, being absolute, must be identical with its Result, As this 
XYin— 3 



34 The. Journal of Speculative Philosophij. 

principle is the focus of all (rue kuowledge, any little cloud which 
darkens or obscures it will project ionj^ and heavy shadows over 
all the developments of Philosophy. Such spots and shadows 
have their sole source in the position usurped by Being relatively 
to Thonn'ht, for it is Being which clouds and obscnres Thought 
until it is wholly penetrated by Thought. The philosophy of" the 
day is widely obscured by these threatening shadows. Therefore 
it were well for us to linger yet awhile by the fundamental prin- 
ciple of Logic : this will also tend to a more complete illumina- 
tion of the question with which we are immediately occupied. 

Thought is the genetic principle, the 2)rms temjyore et dignitate / 
it is not only the goal, but also the origin of all that is. Being, 
on the contrary, is the starting-point of the utideveloped finite; 
consequently, the first phase of the secondary process of develop- 
ment ; more definitely, the beginning of Creation, which itself is 
a result. Being, as such, includes its development which pre- 
ceded Being as absolute in Absolute Thought. Thus, Being, with 
its implicit content, is in creation just as Thought is in Creation ; 
but it has priority only relatively to the thought of the finite 
Spirit, which being its content unfolds from it ; relatively to the 
Absolute Thought, Being is secondary, conditioned, created. Prop- 
erly speaking, even in the first relationship Being, as posited by 
Thought, is itself Thought, though relatively to Realized Thought 
— ^. e.. Thought in its crudest, most immediate form. Thus, Abso- 
lute Thought is the original creative power; as Absolute it is 
realized, consequently precedes the absolute realization of the un 
developed finite which first develops in creation. And as this 
Thought is the ultimate origin, so is it the ultimate goal, hence 
the all in all ; therefore Creation, which, as externalization, begins 
with Being, develops itself in Man (who is the internality of 
Creation), into Thought, and therein unites and transfigures all 
its isolated moments. 

This is the all-leavening, all-generative truth ! Thought is the 
Principle — Being the beginning of the self-externalization of 
Thought, the ground that the Principle posits in Creation, and, 
conformably to its implicit content, develops into Thought. With- 
out this truth there can be no absolute knowledge and no Chris- 
tian consciousness. As absolute, Thought is also absolute in its 
development, or, from all Eternity, Realized Thought, In the 



The Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 35 

beginning, with Thought, was the "Word or Reahzed Thought.— 
John, i, 1. 

Foi' us the presupposition of Spirit is I^ature ; yet Spirit is also 
the reality and outcome of Nature — Spirit is the only truth — the 
one reality. Spirit is the Absolute Prius of Nature. Thought is 
the actuality of Being. 

Consequently, it is only in the sphere of time that Being-with- 
Self precedes Being- for-Self, and Beiiig-for-Self precedes Being- 
with-and-for-Self. As the different moments of Being-with-Self 
and Being-for-Self in truth belong to and penetrate each other, 
and their apparently hxed isolation is attributable only to Nature 
in its exclusiv^eness or space in its discreteness, so the precedence 
and succession of the three essential moments of Thought is only 
the tinite process in time. Tlhe prius of time is the Absolute in 
which the three already named categories do not follow each 
other, but interpenetrate each other. Each, in fact, belongs to the 
Other ; or, more definitely. Each is the Other. 

From this insight is developed the highest Idea as the Light of 
Absolute Personality in its realization, and this is the Trinity. 
According to this view, the Father is not merely Being-with-Self, 
but the Being-with-Self of God, or, in other words, the Being-with- 
Self of the Being-with-and-for-Self ; i. e., Absolute Being with Self. 
So the Son is not exclusively for himself the Being-for-Self, but 
Ahsolute Being-for-Self — the Being-for-Self of God ; hence, the 
Being-for-Self of Being-vvith-and-fcr-Self: finally, the Spirit is not 
simply the realized Being-with-and-for-Self, but inasmuch as Being- 
with-and-for-Self being absolute and conditioned only by itself is 
from Eternity in God, it necessarily from Eternity belongs to the 
Being-with-Self of God in the Father and the Being-for-Self of 
God in the Son, just as in the Spirit it proceeds from the two 
above-named determinations, and this not in time, but from Eter- 
nity. It may, indeed, be said that the first and second persons 
of the Godhead are realized through the Third, but this is onlv 
stating that the Trinity is essential to the Absolute Idea of God 
without therein implying aprius Rnd posterius tempore, or hinting 
of a privative separation. 

The Absolute is, according to its idea, essentially Thought, and, 
as such, personal, penetrating, and penetrated ; hence it is itself 
in each of its moments — i. e., in each of its moments it is abso- 



Ht) ' TJiC Journal of Speculative Philosophu. 

lute, personal, wholly itself, One ! This oneness is, however, when 
adequately ap])rehentled, oneness with its othei', and is therefore 
only explainal)le and realizable throus^h the Idea of Personality. 
On the other hand, the Self-immanence of Absolute Personality is 
only realized in the Trinity, and without this absolute personality 
the idea of Creation, despite all artificial props, sinks inevitably 
into the Conception of Emanation, or an active process, wherein 
forms arise only to vanish. Again, in the idea of Creati(»n, the 
Absolute Personality of God is revealed and contirmed, being 
grounded not in Creation, but in the presupposed Creator, From 
any other standpoint the idea of God is grounded in the created 
human Soul, and the human Soul is grounded in Natural Being. 
Complete this process with the insight that the attained indepen- 
dence of the human Soul can be perpetuated only in personality, 
and the connection is again restored, the circle again rounded to 
a whole. 

It must, of course, be admitted that the finite (hence the hu- 
man) is an essential moment in the immanent unity of the self- 
generation of God ; this immanent humanity of God is, however, 
to be distinguished from the created man ; it is, as eternally self- 
generated, distinguished from its own incarnation in time. 

Likewise the body is an essential moment in the Unity of the 
created finite Spirit; this essential body is, however, to be distin- 
guished from its external, visible, and tangible manifestation, of 
which it, like its own immanent soul, is independent. 

In the light of these results it grows ever clearer that all prog- 
ress in philosophy depends upon insight into the nature of the 
true first Principle. If philosophy sets up Being, as Thales set up 
Water, as the origin and end of all, it swallows up in this empty 
universal all personality, absolute and finite, eternal and immortal ; 
it rises into self-conscious Individuality, which, as a mode of Being, 
is submerged in Universal Bt^ing, and it finds in Water its death. If, 
on the contrary, philosophy finds its Alpha and Omega in Thought, 
which is at once that which posits and that which is posited, the 
active principle of Being whose passivity is within itself, then Being 
subsides into a Moment of Tliought, and Nature into a Moment 
of the Spirit. With Thought is set up as first Principle, instead 
of an Abstract Universal, the Individual m(»re definitely — Per- 
sonality, in which the Individual becomes Universal; hence Abso- 



TTie Development of the Soul and its Immortality. 37 

lute Personality posited by itself. As ultimate Origin and end, 
Thought is Absolute Personality — /. e., Thought thinks itself and 
posits itself in itself; it is, therefore, its own Subject and Sub- 
strate, its own image and object, and its own mirror ; and it is all 
these tliree in one. Beino; is an immanent integral moment of 
Thought and of all the personified forms of Thought — a moment 
whose isolation is neo-ated in the Totality wherein Beino; itself is 
organically preserved. Further, Thought proceeds out of tliis im- 
manence, and brings forth its single moments in succession. This 
is the Creation whose successive phases are described by Moses. 
These moments are externalized that they may develop themselves 
in time, and thus not fall back into Thought as into a gloomy 
grave, but, transfigured and glorified, move forward in Thought 
as their illuminating element ; Creation, which appears first as the 
Contradiction of God, beino; herein transformed into his imao;e — 
i. e., finite personality. 

So much by way of general explanation and indication. We 
have rejected not only the fatal results of pantheism, but also its 
apparently harmless principle. To set this principle clearly in 
the light and exhibit its radical defects has been our main object. 
To this end an open avowal of our own philosophic faith was 
necessary. We have made it frankly, knowing that the more ex- 
plicit the confession the more definite will be the expression of 
opposing views, and the more clearly ditferences are stated the 
sooner will the reconciling truth be found. Our antagonists can 
only gainsay our results by renouncing the principle of Thought, 
throwino; themselves in the arms of Beino; and resting on her 
bosom until, in the fulness of time, they are delivered by the 
truth. 



38 The Journal of SjyeGulative PhilosopJiy. 



THE MATHEMATICAL xVNTINOMIES AND TIIEIK 

SOLUTION. 

BY GEORGE S. FULLERTON. 

If we suppose two parallel strais^lit lines, unlimited in extent, 
and intei'seeted by perpendiculars drawn at equal distances from 
each other, since it is evident that each division upon tiie one line 
is equal to each division upon the other, and that any number of 
divisions upon the one will equal in extent a corresponding num- 
ber upon the other, the question naturally arises whether the 
equation will not hold good when all the divisions are considered. 
Whether the lines may not be regarded as equal in extent, and 
whether the sum of the divisions upon both lines will not be equal 
to twice the sum of the divisions upon either line alone ? That 
is, are we not forced to conclude that one infinite may be equal to, 
less, or greater than another? 

In the correct answer to this question lies the solution of the 
mathematical antinomies, which have their origin in a false con- 
ception of the infinite, and are in no sense contradictions into 
which the reason, legitimately used, must fall. The fallacy con- 
tained in the above reasoning is palpable. It is true that we must 
consider each division on the one line equal to each division on the 
other, and, taking any number of divisions on the one and adding 
them to an equal number on the other, we obtain a sum equal to 
twice the number of given divisions on either. But when we say 
" a?^ the divisions on the one are equal to all the divisions on the 
other," we speak of the lines as quantitative wholes, and intro- 
duce an error with the woi'd all. To conceive of a thing as a 
whole, we must assign to it limits, and in saying " the whole " of any 
object we refer to those limits beyond which there is none of that 
object. In regarding any object as a quantitative whole, we neces- 
sarily think it as finite. When we compare one line with another 
and say that its extent is greater or less than that of the other, we 
mean that, when the one is applied to the other, its limits extend 
beyond or fall within those of the other. In other words, we give 
the difference between the distances included between their re- 
spective limits. Measuring is merely giring the distance between 



The Mathematical Antinomies and their Solution. 39 

limits. To the case of the two infinite lines we have no point to 
measure from, and no point to measure to, and no measurement — 
therefore no comparison is possible. It is a palpable contradic- 
tion to compare (i. <?., give relations of measurement between the 
respective limits of) two infinites {i. e.. things which cannot be 
measured as having no limits). 

The terms longer, shorter, equal, can therefore have no mean- 
ing as applied to intinite lines, and are legitimately used only in 
speaking ot the finite. 

As a line can only be increased by adding to it at its extremi- 
ties, it is manifestly absurd to speak of the sum of the two lines 
mentioued above as greater than either line alone; but there are 
cases in which the error of a wronsi; conclusion is not so irame- 
diately palpable — as, for example, the case of a line limited at but 
one point. May we not here add to the line at its extremity, 
and thus increase its total length ? At first glance it would seem 
so, but when we recollect that the line is limited only at one 
point, and is not, therefore, as a line, defined (for two points are 
necessary to define a line), the impossibility of regarding it as a 
quantitative whole is evident, and the impossibility of increasing 
or diminishing its length as a whole necessarily follows. The 
word "all" cannot be applied to the line either in its original 
state or after it has been added to. The question, therefore, 
whether a line without any limits is not greater than one which is 
limited at one point, is rightly answered by saying that the very 
nature of the conceptions precludes the possibility of the words 
"greater" or "less" being applied to either; that neither of the 
lines can be regarded quantitatively, and that, consequently, the 
question is a meaningless one. 

The reasoning here a]3plied to lines will also apply to surfaces 
and solids. It is unnecessary to multiply instances, as the prin- 
ciple is in all cases the same. In general, wherever the liuiit is 
removed in any one direction, whether in the case of lines, sur- 
faces, or solids, the object can no longer be regarded as finite, and, 
consequently, not as a quantitative whole. 

If we use the word infinite in its strict etymological sense, as 
referring to a total absence of limits, that which has even one 
limit cannot, of course, be called infinite. We And such a use of 
the word in the writings of Sir William Hamilton, who asserts 



40 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

that past time, since it is bounded by the present, cannot be infi- 
nite — " a bounded infinite is a contradiction." ' But arguments 
(b'awn from the etjnio!oo;ical signification of a word are vahieless, 
unless tliat signification expresses the true and wliole content of 
the word. Tliat such is not the case liere is evident. A line 
limited at l)ut one point is certainly not finite, for it cannot be re- 
garded as a whole, cannot be increased, diminished, or compared 
with other lines ; in short, it is not subject to the conditions of the 
finite. If, then, for etymological reasons, we exclude it from the 
class of infinites, we have the infinite, the finite, and a teftium quid.^ 
which is between the two. There is, however, no difficulty in 
classing such a line with tlie infinite, for they are subject to the 
same conditions, and equally distinct from the finite. 

It remains to consider a class of cases of an apparently different 
nature from those we have examined. It is argued that an in- 
finite series of dollars will exceed in value an infinite series of 
cents — that, where the unit differs, the difference will extend 
to the series in its totality. The error of such an assumption 
may be easily shown by showing what the assertion necessarily 
involves. 

Suppose that, instead of counting one cent in the one series to 
each dollar in the other, we vary our mode of procedure by count- 
ing one hundred cents in the one to each dollar in the other. It 
is true that the one series will be exhausted one hundred times as 
rapidly as the other; but, since they are both infinite (will never 
end), we may continue thus forever (to infinity). We may then 
regard the two series as of equal value. And, by successively 
changing the unit, we may make the one series greater than, equal 
to, or less than the other, the value depending merely on the mode 
of reckonino;. If we have a right to make an estimate of the com- 
parative values of the series in the first instance, we have the same 
right in the second, as the error in the two is identical, and con- 
sists in regarding an infinite series as a whole, capable as a whole 
of increase or diminution. An infinite cannot be made one mem- 
ber of an equation, for, having abstracted the quantitative, we have 
abstracted the condition under whicii alone an equation is valid, 
and the form becomes meaningless. 



'Metaph.," Boston, 1859, pp. 527 et seq. 



The MathematiGal Antinomies and their Solution. 41 

The difficulties wbicli will arise from overlooking this important 
fact are well instanced in that agnostic theory which Sir William 
Hamilton developed under the name of the Philosophy of the 
Conditioned, the fundamental principle of which is that " all 
which is conceivable in thought lies between two extremes, which, 
as contradictory of each other, cannot both be true, but of which, 
as mutual contradictories, one must." ^ 

Let us examine his application of this law to our conception of 
space : 

'•We are altogether unable to conceive space as bounded — as 
finite; that is, as a whole, beyond which there is no further space- 
Every one is conscious that tliis is impossible. . . . The one con- 
tradictory is thus found inconceivable ; we cannot conceive space 
as absolutely limited. 

'• On the other hand, we are equally powerless to realize in 
thought the possibility of the opposite contradictory ; we cannot 
conceive space as infinite, as without limits. You may launch out 
in thought beyond the solar walk, you maj^ transcend in fancy 
even the universe of matter, and rise from sphere to sphere in the 
region of empty space, until imagination sinks exhausted ; with 
all this what have you done ? You have never gone beyond the 
finite, you have attained at best only to the indefinite, and the 
indefinite, however expanded, is still always the finite. ..." 

That the former of these contradictories is inconceivable we must 
admit ; but the argument used to prove the latter inconceivable 
is plainly faulty. We may, indeed, " rise from sphere to sphere 
in the region of empty space " without transcending the finite ; 
we cannot arrive at the unlimited while we carry our limits 
with us. Each successive stage simply places the limits farther 
ayjart, and in no respect tends to do away with them altogether. 
This attempt to arrive at the infinite forcibly reminds one of the 
tragical history .of the amusing person in Chamisso's poem, who 
supposed that, by turning quickly around, he could cause his cue 
to hang in front. 

" Er drelit sicli links, er dreht sich rechts, 
Es tbut niclits Gut's, es thut nichts Schlecht's — 
Der Zopf, der hangt ihm hinten." 



Metaph.," Boston, 1859, pp. 527 et seq. 



42 The Journal of SpeGidatlve Philosophy. 

And how aiialoi>:ous would be the condition of one who would 
still seek to reach the infinite by endlessly continuing this hope- 
less journey to that of" the hero as portrayed in the last verse ! 

** TJnd seht, or dreht sich immer noch, 
Und denkt : es hilft am Ende doch — 
Der Zopf, der hangt ihm hinten." 

It is not by adding space to space that we arrive at the idea of 
infinite space. Imagination may well "sink exhausted" in the at- 
tempt to find the end of the limitless. This is an attempt to real- 
ize infinite space as a quantitative whole, and, so considered, it is 
manifestly inconceivable, as containing a contradiction. The anti- 
nomies arising from the consideration of the minimum of space, 
and those which have to do with our idea of time, are equally 
capable of solution by the substitution of the true (qualitative) 
idea of the infinite for the quantitative idea; the error is in all 
cases identical, and the contradiction a gratuitous one. 

It is interesting to notice that that acutest of thinkers, Immanuel 
Kant, although he has based the proof of the thesis of his first anti- 
nomy on a false conception of the infinite, and although, after cor- 
rectly criticising the false conception, he himself lapses into it, 
yet perceived, and in so many words gave expression to the fact, 
that the conception of the infinite is not a quantitative one. 

The thesis of the first antinomy maintains that the world had a 
beginning in time, and is limited with regard to space^both of 
which are denied in the antithesis. The proofs offered in support 
of the antithesis may be passed over as extraneous to the subject; 
those in support of the thesis I will quote, not for the purpose of 
again pointing out their fallacious character, for they are identical 
with the arguments used by Sir William Hamilton, but in order 
that I may give the observations appended to them, which are 
significant in their contextual connection. The proof proceeds by 
assuming the truth of the antithesis, and then proving it to be 
impossible : 

" Granted, that the world has no beginning in time ; up to 
every given moment of time an eternity must have elapsed, and 
therewith passed away an infinite series of successive conditions 
or states of things in the world. Now, the infinity of a series con- 
sists in the fact that it never can be completed by means of a sue- 



The Mathematical AntinoTnies and their Solution. 43 

cessive synthesis. It follows that an infinite series already elapsed 
is impossible, and that, consequently, a beo^inninor of the world is a 
necessary condition of its existence. And this was the first thing 
to be proved. 

"As regards the second, let us take the opposite for granted. 
In this case the world must be an infinite given total of coexistent 
things. I^ow, we cannot cogitate the dimensions of a quantity, 
which is not given within certain limits of an intuition, in any 
other way than by means of a synthesis of its parts, and the total 
of such a quantity only by means of a completed syntliesis, or the 
repeated addition of unity to itself. Accordingly, to cogitate the 
world, which fills all spaces, as a whole, the successive synthesis 
of the parts of an infinite world must be looked upon as com- 
pleted — that is to say, an infinite time must be regarded as having 
elapsed in tlie enumeration of all coexisting things, which is im- 
possible. For this reason an infinite aggregate of actual things 
cannot be considered as a given whole, consequently not as a con- 
temporaneously given whole. The world is, consequently, as re- 
gards extension in space, not infinite, but enclosed in limits. And 
thi"? w^as the second thing to be proved." ' 

It will be noticed that the word completed (vollendet) is used in 
the first part of the proof in a manner to which we may object as 
misleading. When we speak of a series as " completed by means 
of a successive synthesis," we are apt to regard it as a whole, hav- 
ing a beginning as well as an end. The inconsequent nature of 
the reasoning in the latter j)art of the proof it is scarcely necessary 
to point out. The observations on the thesis are the following: 

" In bringing forward these conflicting arguments, I have not 
been on the search for sophisms, for the purpose of availing my. 
self of special pleading, which takes advantage of the carelessness 
of the opposite party, appeals to a misunderstood statute, and 
erects its unrighteous claims upon an unfair interpretation. Both 
proofs originate fairly from the nature of the case, and the advan- 
tage presented by the mistakes of the dogmatists of both parties 
has been completely set aside. 

" The thesis might also have been unfairly demonstrated by the 
introduction of an erroneous conception of the infinity of a given 
quantity. A quantity is infinite if a greater than itself cannot 

1 "Critique." Trans, by Meiklejohn. London, 1876, pp. 266 



44 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

possibly exist. The (juantitj is measured hy tlie number of o;iven 
units — which are taken as a standard — contained in it. Now, no 
nuinl)er can be the greatest, because one or more units can always 
be added. It follows that an infinite given quantity, consequently 
an infinite world (both as regards time and extension), is impos- 
sible. It is therefore limited i"n both respects. In this manner 
I might have conducted my proof; but the conception given in it 
does not agree with the true conception of an infinite whole. In 
this there is no representation of its quantity; it is not said how 
large it is ; consequently, its conception is not the conception of a 
maximuin. We cogitate in it merely its relation to an arbitrarily 
assumed unit, in relation to which it is greater than any number. 
Now, just as the unit which is taken is greater or smaller, the in- 
finite will be greater or smaller; but the infinity, which consists 
merely in the relation to this given unit, must remain always the 
same, although the absolute quantity of the whole is not thereby 
cognized. 

" The true (transcendental) conception of intinity is: that the 
successive synthesis of unity in the measurement of a given quan- 
tum can never be completed. Hence it follows, without possi- 
bility of mistake, that an eternity of actual successive states up to 
a given (the present) moment cannot have elapsed, and that the 
world must, therefore, have a beginning. 

" In regard t.) the second part of the thesis, the difficulty as to an 
infinite and yet elapsed series disappears ; for the manifold of a 
world infinite in extension is contemporaneous!}^ given. But, in 
order to cogitate the total of this manifold, as we cannot have the 
aid of limits constituting by themselves this total in intuition, we 
are obliged to give some account of our conception, whicli in this 
case cannot proceed from the v/hole to the determined quantity 
of the parts, but must demonstrate the possibility of a whole by 
means of a successive synthesis of the parts. But as this synthesis 
must constitute a series that cannot be completed, it is impossible 
for us to cogitate prior to it, and, consequently, not by means of 
it, a totality. For the conception of totality itself is, in the pres- 
ent case, the representation of a completed synthesis of the parts; 
and this completion, and, consequently, its conception, is impossi- 
ble." ' 



1 " Critique," pp. 268 ft". 



The Mathematical Antinomies and their Solution. 45 

We here find a conception of the infinite brought forward as 
false ; a declaration of wherein it differs from the true conception ; 
and a statement of what, according to Kant, the true conception 
really is, "A quantity is infinite if a greater than itself cannot 
possibly exist." We can readily see that such a conception gives 
us, not an infinite, but a finite. ISTot only is the word greater in- 
applicable to infinites, but the very expression '* ^i.- quantity is in- 
finite " is absurd, as involving a contradiction. Kant was too clear 
a thinker not to see that that whicb admits of an addition of 
units, and consequently of increase as a whole, cannot be infinite. 
He declares that this does not agree with the true conception of 
the infinite, in which ''there is no representation of its quantity, 
it is not said how large it is; consequently its conception is not 
the conception of a maximum.''^ This is a clear recognition of the 
fact that the conception cannot be quantitative. 

But it is evident that Kant did not see the full force and the 
logical consequences of this statement. In the sentence imme- 
diately preceding he uses the phrase " an infinite whole," and in 
the sentences immediately following he brings forward a concep- 
tion faulty in precisely the same respect as the one criticised. 
"We cogitate in it merely its relation to an arbitrarily assumed 
unit, in relation to which it is greater than any number. Now, just 
as the unit which is taken is greater or smaller, tlie infinite will 
be greater or smaller ; but the infinity, which consists merely in 
the relation to this given unit, must remain always the same, al- 
though the absolute quantity of the whole is not thereby cognized." 
That is, if we designate the infinite by a, the unit by J, and the in- 
finity (the relation of a to h) by x, we find that a varies as 5, 
but that X remains always the same (and this can only mean nu- 
merically the same). 

The infinity is, in this case, simply an indefinite number, and 
the quantity of the whole can certainly be cognized. The error 
is identical with that in the case just cited, and both parts of the 
proof given in support of the thesis of the first antinomy will fall 
to the ground when this error is rectified. 

It remains to consider a case which apparently militates against 
the theory that an infinite series can never be regarded as a whole. 
In the case of a point moving uniformly along a line, over the 
whole of which it will pass in a given time, we have a descending 



46 The Journal of SpeGulatim Philosophy. 

series which wc may assume to be represented by ^, i, i- . . . 0. 
The point will have moved over one half of the line in half a 
minute, over one foui'tli more in a quarter of a minute, etc., un- 
til, when the minute is completed, the point will have arrived at 
zero. We find here, under a slightly different guise, the old prob- 
lem of Achilles and the Tortoise. Must we not regard the whole 
series as contained between the two limits 1 and 0, and capable 
of completion by a successive synthesis? 

A moment's consideration will reveal the fallacy of such a mode 
of reasoning. The series is not completed at all, but is truly in- 
finite. It is limited at one point by the the highest member, f ; 
but is not limited at another by the zero, since this can only be 
assumed as a limit to the series by breaking the law of the series, 
which is that each term shall be half as great as the term preced- 
inir. We can never, by halvino- sometliins; arrive at nothino: : a 
division of Substance will never ^ive us that which is not sub- 
stance. The 0, since it does not make one in the series, cannot 
limit the series. The error lies in regarding the series as capable 
of completion by passing through all degi'ees of the composite to 
the simple, and from that to as a final term. AVhether we hold 
to the Kantian conception of space, or to the Bsrkeleyan, which 
would deny to any given portion of space an infinite divisibility, 
our conclusions will be the same as to the imposoibility of the 
completion of an infinite series. According to the former, space 
and time are composites. A space is made up of spaces, and never 
by subdividing it could we arrive at that which is not space. The 
point in question passes over the whole line, not by completing 
the descending series until it arrives at the simple, but by the suc- 
cessive addition of spaces, which are composites. A line is not 
made up of points, for a point is possible only as the limit of a 
line. If one point has no extension, a thousand will have no moi'e. 
We cannot, by multiplying points, create in them a property 
which no single point can possess in the slightest degree. " As 
space is not a composite of substances (and not even of real acci- 
dents), if I abstract all composition therein, nothing — not even a 
point — remains; for a point is possible only as the limit of a space 
— consequently, of a composite. Space and time, therefore, do 
not consist of simple parts." ' 



Critique," p. 274. 



Facts of Consciousness. 47 

We cannot, therefore, consider any member of the series nnder 
consideration as the smallest possible, but must regard the series 
as truly endless. We have, then, an infinite series, limited at but 
one point, which cannot be regarded as a sum total, a quantita- 
tive whole, equal as a whole to the given line ; and the apparent 
exception we iind to be not incompatible with the general posi- 
tion we have assumed. 

According to the Berkeleyan theory, which would hold that 
the subdivision of any given portion of space will result in the 
simple, we are compelled to assume that the point in question 
passes over the line by the successive addition of simple parts ; 
but we may still hold the mathematical series to be infinite. The 
negation of an infinite divisibility to space does not imply the 
negation of the infinity of a mathematical series, but simply im- 
plies that mathematical reasonings can be applied to the deter- 
mination of space only within certain limits — those of a possible 
perception. We find, then, that, on either tlieory, this antinomy, 
like all the others, depends upon a misconception, and is capable 
of an easv solution. 



FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF J. G. FICHTE BY A. E. KROEGER. 

Pakt Third. — Concerning the Higher Faculty. 
Chapter III. 

GENERAL REVIEW OF ALL THE PRECEDING. 

Life, as One, is simply because it is; and in this its Being it is 
altogether not an object of contemplation, but an object of think- 
ing ; and, moreover, of pure thinking, or intellectualizing. 

It cannot be contemplated, for contemplation is a being of 
immediate freedom. But life in its pure being is not free at all 
to tear itself loose from that being; it is absolutely tied down to 
that its formal being. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible that 
life should have an immediate contemplation of its being. 

Nevertheless, it is thinkable. It has freedom to manifest itself 



48 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

in its beino-, and in this manifestation it certainly contemplates 
itself; but in none of its manifestations is it altopjetlier absorbed. 
Hence its fundamental manifestation is a double one; it can rise 
above them and comi)rehend itself as that which remains unchange- 
able in the chanif;e. This comprehension of itself is a going beyond 
the contemplation, and hence, according to the above established 
cmu'cption, a thinking generally. But it is, furthermore, as dis- 
tin(;t from the thinking treated of hare, a pure thinking. For, 
although the going beyond a form of contemplation (as in the above- 
mentioned external perception there is a going beyond the inner 
form of contemplation) is a thinking, the entering into another 
form of contemplation (the external form, in the above case) is 
not a pure but a sensuous thinking. Here we are face to face 
with the original manifestation of life, and, therefore, at the 
source of all contemplation. We go beyond it, and hence be- 
yond all contemplation. This thinking is, therefore, a pure 
thinkino;, or an intellectualizing. 

The fundamental manifestation of life is, as I have said, a 
double one. This it is necessarily; for if it were merely simple, 
and if life were thus absorbed in it, the thinking of a something, 
which remained unchangeable in every change, would be impos- 
sible. Hence there must be, at least, a change of forms, a du- 
plicity of the form. The change itself is posited by that thiuka- 
bility, and is, in its fundamental element, nothing else than that 
thinkability. Hence duplicity suffices for it; and hence nothing 
more than duplicity is needed for it. 

It is of a double character. First, an absolute self-alienation, a 
general contemplation ; as yet, however, not contemplating that 
power as power, but merely contemplating its object, the sensuous 
world. Second, an absolute return into itself through concentra- 
tion into one point of that general contemplation, and a consequent 
assumption of individual form, and self-consciousness and free 
activity in that form. 

It is well known, but does not concern us here, that while the 
first fundamental form remains always unchangeably one, life 
can represent itself in this second fundamental form of individu- 
ality in an infinite repetition of that form. But it always remains 
the same one fundamental form ; and this formal unity alone is 
at present considered by us. 



Facts of Consciousness. 49 

In the first form life generally {vita) is viewed as a |)ermanent 
power; a view which certainly does not immediately follow from 
the contemplation, but which we comprehend here as following 
from the general connection. 

In the second view the same life is contemplated as a real living 
(taking the word as a verb, vivere), and hence as an immediate 
moving and being active. We therefore have in both views an 
immediate contemplation of the living of the life. The whole is 
a contemplation of life, and nothing else. 

Why this contemplation of life should dirempt into a duplicity 
of form we have already stated ; the reason given being, that it is 
thinkable, as it must be, only in this manner. But it cannot be 
thinkable without being contemplated, since it is thinkable only 
under the condition of being an object of contemplation, the tact 
of thinking being merely a going beyond contemplation, and 
being, therefore, conditioned by it. Adding thinking to contem- 
plation, the whole would be a revelation of life unto itself. 

It can also be shown why the contemplation of life must have 
separated into that duplicity of form in the exact manner in which 
it did so separate. In the universal form, life is contemplated only 
as a possible living. This is as yet no true living; and hence the 
second form, in which the contemplation of actual living and 
moving becomes possible, must supply the deficiency of content 
of tlie first. In this second form, again, life is never contemplated 
in its totality and in its completed being, but oidy in beginnings, 
which point to an infinite further development. Hence the first 
form must supply the deficiency of extent of this second contem- 
plation. Neither of the forms of contemplation by itself, but 
only both in their union, furnish an expressive contemplation of 
life. 

The whole system of facts of consciousness, therefore, which we 
have hitherto established, has really been deduced from one ground, 
and comprehended as a necessary in itself connected totality. If 
there is life, and if life reveals itself to itself, then there must be 
precisely such a consciousness as we have described ; for only in 
this form can life reveal itself to itself. 

It is well known to us that the first form results in a perma- 
nent sensuous world with all the determinations pointed out in it ; 
and also that the second form results in a system of individuals, 
XYIII— 4 



50 The Journal of Speculative PhiloHophy. 

witli necessary (letenninations ; but we know at the same time 
that the whole is nothing but the necessary form of tlie self-con- 
teniphition of life. We know that this contemplation necessary 
separates into such images, and that, indeed, it dirempts originally 
in order to bo able alone to think itself beyond all contempla- 
tion. Hence we are far from arresting our investis-ation at those 
images, as in themselves essences. 

But how did we arrive at that result? Positively in no other 
way than by following the purel}^ scientific principle to regard 
consciousness as a phenomenon existing for itself, and to explain 
it out of itself. What, then, is the hitherto described conscious- 
ness? It is an exhibition of free activity, and utterance of power, 
merely and solely for the purpose of making power manifest and 
cause freedom to be visible as freedom — an exhibition which has 
no other end than to make the freedom appearing in it to be really 
freedom. 

I should not be at all annoyed if any one were to consider such 
a consciousness a very empty and insignificant exhibition ; or if 
he were to suspect any description of it to be not very profound 
and thorough, and hence to be incorrect. 

But we have often before hinted already that such a view is 
not to be our final result. Hitherto we have regarded life merely 
as life, as absolute freedom and self-activity, and from this pre- 
supposition we have correctly enough arrived at all our previous 
conclusions. 

But supposing the presupposition of our immediately preced- 
ing paragraph should prove true, and that a new law should assign 
to absolute fre3dom a definite aim and end. Supposing that free- 
dom should no longer exist for its own sake, but as the means and 
instrument of this higher law, of the moral law, which is to be 
realized through freedom in the sphere of external contemplation, 
and which, therefore, must be contemplated itself! What would 
be the result then ? 

Precisely as the whole system of consciousness, hitherto deduced, 
was a contemplation of life, so life itself, in its just discovered spirit- 
ual unity, would become a contemplation of the moral law. It 
would, therefore, be contemplated no longer merely for the sake 
of being contemplated, and for the sake of giving rise to an exhi 
bition of freedom. The exhibition would obtain a unitv, a sig; 



Facts of Consciousness. 51 

nifieance, an end : morality. We should have to say that the 
one life of freedom is, in truth, nothing but the form of contem- 
plating morality. It might be that, in our investigation of this 
moral law, it would turn out that here also we should be driven to 
ask : What is it? for what purpose? and whence its origin ? and 
that then we should discover again that the moral law is also 
nothing but the form of contemplating a higher principle, arriv- 
ing at which, no further questions could be asked. In this way 
absolutely everything would change into contemplations and forms 
of contemplation and nothing would remain as a true Being but 
the One absolute principle. Everything within the region of con- 
templation would change into conditioned and conditioning forms 
of contemplation except the absolute contemplation of the One 
absolute principle, which alone would remain as the absolute con- 
templation, having its being for its own sake. 

Lite must be contemplated in order that the moral law may be 
contemplated ; and the moral law must be contemplated in order 
that the absolute may be contemplated : this will be the ascend- 
ing series of our meditations. 



o 



Chaptek IV. 

THE MOKAL LAW AS THE PEDSTCIPLE OF LIFE, AJSTD THE LATTER AS 
THE VISIBILITY OF THE FORMER. 

A. 

Life, it is true, is out of itself, of itself, and through itself in 
form — ^. <?., in its activity. Tliis is an immediate result of its con- 
ception, since otherwise it would not be life. But it is quite a 
different question whether its conceived existence, beyond all 
activity, is also based in itself and absolute. If this question is 
answered in the affirmative, then life and its manifestation, exist 
only for the purpose ot existing, and for no other purpose. 

We have already l^efore, in the course of our investigation, met 
some facts of consciousness according to which this question can 
not be answered in the affirmative. Indeed, the natural aversion 
of every uncorrupted man to consider formal freedom as its own 
end and aim is the most general and telling fact of this kind. 

We have gathered together these facts, and expressed them by 
the supposition that tliere exists some definite or final purpose, 



52 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

which is to bu attained by the activity of this lite ; and tliat, con- 
sequently, life is not merely for its own sake, or for the ?ake of 
maiiifestini:^ itself, but for tlie sake of that definite or final end ; 
in short, that it is merely a tool and means of realizing that end. 
Let ns now further analyze that supposition. 

If Life doe3 not exist for its own sake, then it also does not ex- 
ist through itself; that is, the ground of its existence is not in it- 
self, but in another, namely, in tliat final end. Life, indeed, is 
only thonyht^ as we have seen. Now, if this thinking of lite ex- 
amines itself in order to discover whether it has its ground in 
itself or not, it most certainly finds that it cannot constitute a 
fact the ground of the thouo-lit life, since life is thouo-ht as in 
itself the ground of all facts, and the only ground of facts. If, 
therefore, life cannot be thought as being its own ground, a final 
end can and must be thought as such ground. 

That final end, therefore, which also can only be thought, and 
which must l>e presupposed as existing — and for the present as, at 
least relatively, absolutely existing — is the ground of the formal 
existence of life as well as of its qualitative character. All this 
is involved in our presupposition. 

How this final end can be thought by us as existing — for the 
present such a thinking is absolutely demanded, and we know 
that it is possible. Should any one say that such a thinking were 
impossible for him, we should simply have to decline his participat- 
ing in our investigation ; and what an entirely different sphere of 
being it opens to ns we shall mention afterward, and by that very 
means ascend higher. But, factically, within the sphere of appear- 
ances, that final end has not actual existence, but is to, sliall, have 
actual existence through life. The final end is, where it is, only 
through life. Again : life itself, in its own existence, is only 
through the Being of the final end. It is evident that in tlnse 
two propositions the word is must have a different meaning, 
since otherwise they would contradict and cancel each other. 

The Being of life, therefore, is positively nothing absolute it- 
self. We have discovered its ground : it is the final end which 
creates and determines it. 

Why does the final end need to create a Life outside of itself? 
Since our investigation doubtless seeks the Absolute, and since 
we have now discovered a higher somewhat, which, in comparison 



Facts of Consciousness. 53 

witli life, at least, is absolute — why should we now ao^ain proceed 
from this new discovered Absolute toward life ? Does the con- 
ception of a final end itself, perhaps, involve such a going beyond 
itself again ? Undoubtedly. It needs a somewhat of which it is 
the final end. It wants to be realized, and needs a means for that 
purpose ; and this purpose it furnishes itself, so far as we can now 
perceive, in life. 

It wants to be realized ; but the real and actual can be contem- 
plated. It is to be contemplated ; and hence it needs life. Life, 
therefore, is, in its real essence, the contemplatability or the ap- 
pearance of the final end. 

B. 

Ilavino; obtained this new and higher view of life, it will now 
be our duty to further determine the hitherto final results of our 
investigation ; and this further determination will henceforth be 
our business. 

Firstly, the content of our previous absolute thinking was this : 
Life is. This content has now been changed into this expression : 
The visibility of an absolute final end is — which is the substantial 
part of the expression ; and this visibility is absolutely active, 
pure, and altogether creative — which is its formal part. Every 
one will here perceive a duplicity. The absolute final end is al- 
together and throughout determined by itself. It is what it is 
simply through itself, and this is a determined Somewhat. It is / 
it does not grow to be ; and nothing in it grows to be. Hence it 
is also bevond all life, and as the o-round of the beino- of that life. 
JSTow, this final end assumes here, moreover, the form of an abso- 
lute life and of a freedom, whicii is an absolute creating out of 
nothingness, as we have described it heretofore. 

]S^ow, what can this life create out of nothingness \ Its inner 
content and core, perhaps, and the inner content and core of its 
product? If we take up the former view, where we regarded it 
as purely formal life and freedom, unquestionably. But, accord- 
ing to the present view, which does not concede that it is an abso- 
lutely being and complete final end, in which there is no growth 
and becoming, we can no longer say so. Hence it could create 
only the form ; that is, it creates the final end, which was pre- 
viously merely in the spiritual and altogether invisible world, 
in the visible world, wherein that final end did not previously 



54 The Journal of Speculative Philosophij. 

have existence. It is, therefore, an absolute creator, but only of 
the form, and not of the content, of the linal end. It no more 
creates the latter than it is created by it. 

We furthermore came across the basis of all contemplation — 
namely : the utterance, or manifestation, of that life. And this we 
met in a double form : the universal form, which represents the 
one total life in its mere possibility ; and the individual form, 
which represents it as actually active, but only from out of spe- 
cifa'c points. The duplicity of that form was necessary in order 
to make life something more than merely thinkable. The contem- 
plation was contemplation of the life just as it is, as a mere free 
activity and nothing else. But at present we perceive that life 
is not to be contemplated merely for the sake of being contem- 
plated, but in order that the final end may be contemplated in 
life. Previously we deduced contemplation from the conception 
of the contemplatability of mere life. This, now, is no longer 
sufficient. Life is to be contemplated as at the same time the 
means and the tool of the final end. Thus the contemplatability 
of the final end itself must enter through life at the same time 
in our a priori determination of the general system of contempla- 
tion. By means of this fundamental law we must now further 
determine the determination of contemplation so far as we have 
discovered it at present ; and to do so will be our business now. 

C. 

The duplicity of the fundamental form was the condition of the 
thinkability of life ; but this thinking itself is again, as has ap- 
peared in the course of our investigation, a condition of the 
thinkability of the final end, and hence of its appearance in the 
form of thinking. Hence this disjunction remains, as" well in 
regard to the contemplatability of the final end as of that of life. 
Presupposing it to be valid, we have, therefore, to determine only 
its two single fundamental forms. 

I. The General Form, This is, firstly, contemplation of the 
Power of Life, which comprises an infinite manifold. Now, what 
must be, according to our previous view, the determining ground 
of this manifold — that is to say, as a manifold in its seeming in- 
ner content, in so far as this is a particular content '( The activity, 
in its pure unity, is not contemplatable, but only thinkable; if it 



Facts of Consciovsness. 55 

is to become contemplatable, it must dirempt itself ; and, since it is 
to be intiuitely contemplatable, it must dirempt itself infinitely. 
The ground of the seeming diversity of tlie particular is, there- 
fore, contained altogether in the absolute contemplatability ; and 
this is diverse, because otherwise it would not exist at all ; but the 
true basis is the mere empty freedom, wherein there is nothing dis- 
tinguishable. Thus, then, the manitoldness is a mere semblance; 
an apj)earance simply in order to be an appearance ; and it is 
nothing else. 

According to our present view, the Power exists not only in 
order to cause the appearance of activity, but also in order that it 
may appear as the tool of the final end. Through the command 
of this final end the free activity is limited, within general possi- 
bility, to a fixed sphere. Not all that is possible, but only a part 
of the possible, is to occur. Now let us ask : Does this part, which 
is to occur, occur merely for the sake of making freedom visible ? 
By no means ; but in order to make the final end visible. This 
final end, taken as real, would be this part of the power — ^of the 
real power, or of the power of the real. Now, how is that, which 
is not to occur, related to it ? Tliis opens to ^.is a double view : the 
final end is to be made visible throuo-h life, and hence throuo-h 
freedom. But freedom in the individual form, which alone admits 
of acting, comprises self-limitation. Hence, the visibility of a 
command of a final end involves expressly that there shall be a 
play-ground, as it were, or a more extended sphere, wherein some- 
thing prohibited can be found. So much, for the prer^ent, con- 
cerning the matter of the visibility of the command; its formal 
part we shall meet in proper time. 

Hence, the visibility of the final end most certainly involves 
that, besides the sphere of the acts commanded, there shall also be 
another s[>here of mere possibility; but the final end can involve 
no determination as to what are to be the contents of this other 
sphere, since it is fully exhausted by the sphere of the commanded. 
Thus that inner sphere of mere possibility falls under the rule of 
the above determining law — the law of the contemplatability of 
purely empty and nugatoi-y freedom. All this is no power to 
create the Real, but merely the power to create an Appearance. 

From this it follows, firstly, that it is possible to represent the 
final end through the means of life ; that freedom can absolutely 



56 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

do wliatcver it is bid to do, and that there is no possibility of a 
dispute about these matters. The ori<i;itial power of life is nothing 
else tliiui the ])o\vcr to achieve the final end; nothing else than 
the original self-manifestation of this final end in freedom. The 
totality of the power expresses the final end wholly and com- 
pletely ; nay, it comprises far more ; that is, also, the power not to 
obey ; and the other expression of the final end comprises only the 
narrower sphere. 

Let me add this : We know, from onr investigation, that the gen- 
eral contemplation must be described as a contemplation of power; 
in immediate contemplation, we behold only the object of that 
power — nature. Now, just as life has thus lost its independence 
and absoluteness, so nature, the mere image of that life, also, and 
to a still greater degree, loses its independence and absoluteness 
by that result. Just as the power is in all its determinations 
only the product of the linal end, so nature, the mere contemplata- 
bility of that power, is such a product to a still greater degree. 
Nature is the image of our real power, and hence absolutely con- 
formable to an end; we can achieve in and upon nature all that 
the final end commands us to achieve. The principle of nature is 
absolutely a moral principle, and by no means a natural principle ; 
for, if it were the latter, nature would be absolute. Nature is 
heteronymous, and by no means autonomous. Nature is to be 
explained, partly from its ends, and partly from the visibility of 
those ends ; from both, indeed, as we have shown in the case of 
the power, whose image nature is. If we forget the latter point, 
we shall fall into absurdities. 

Morality, therefore, appears here as the absolute determining 
principle of nature. Nor ought this to surprise us, since it has 
appeared as the principle of life, which again is the principle of 
nature. 

II. In the general unity form of life, as such, we discovered not 
only a contemplation, but also a real power — namely, the power 
to concentrate into a unity-point of the general power, and to cre- 
ate individual forms by that contraction. 

Now, since life, in its truly real acting, is, without exception, the 
expression of the final end, the same applies to those aotibus indi- 
mduationis. Our previous assumption, that life were herein ut- 
terly free and lawless, now drops entirely to the ground. Life, in 



Facts of Consciousness. 57 

this production of individual forms, is deteririined altogether by 
the final end. Each individual, therefoi-e, who comes into exist- 
ence does so come into existence throufrh the final end, and solely 
for the sake of the final end. N^evertheless, he comes into existence 
as an individual ; that is, just as individuation ai)peared formerly 
as the concentration into a unity-point of a possibility of acting;, 
and a connection of a fixed series of possibilities of acting from 
this unity-point, so now it appears as the concentration to a unity- 
point of the Shall, and as the connection of a series of Shalls from 
this unity-point. Just as above the general sphere of a power of 
doing separated into several individual faculties, so here the gen- 
eral problem given to the one life separates into several prob- 
lems ; into parts, through the realization of all of which, if it were 
at all possible in time, the universal final end would be realized, 
each individual having, through his mere existence within the 
sphere of universal lil'e, such a specific problem. Each one is to 
do that which he alone is called to do (or shall do), and which he 
alone can do — since the concentration upon the unity-point of the 
Shall is also a concentration upon the unity-point of the Can — 
which only he, and positively no one else, ie called to do and can 
do, and which, if he does not do it, will be done by no one else, 
at least of this community of individuals. Precisely as w^e dis- 
covered above, that in a physical aspect the individual comes into 
existence without any action or consciousness of his own, and can- 
not change this his Being — this concentration upon or into a unity- 
point — although having the power to determine himself from 
that point with aI)solute freedom, so now", in t)ie world of his 
moral destination, he is to find himself as he is, without any action 
or consciousness of his own, and without any power to change this 
his moral being. But neither must (shall) he, in this his moral 
world, even desire to change it, but must further voluntarily 
develop and determine himself in accordance with that found 
fundamental law of his moral determination. The individual does 
not assign to himself his moral task, for that is assigned to him 
simultaneously with his existence; but he does, at some time of 
his life, assign it to himself consciously. This, however, he can 
do only because it has been originally assigned to him, without his 
consciousness, through his mere existence. The coming into ex- 
istence of an individual is a particular and altogether determined 



58 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

decree of the moral law in general, which expresses itself in full 
only by its decrees to all individuals. 

The one and universal life, in its assumption of individual 
form, is altoo-ether determined throun-h the linal end. In what 
manner? It is true that life is activity, and, moreover, absohite, 
creative activity. But in this, its universal form, it is not con- 
scious of itself, and hence it is not free in the strict sense of the 
word. That is to say, there is no impulse in it which it may fol- 
low or not follow. Hence, it is not determined through the final 
end, as the individual is determined through the command of 
the iinal end, with a freedom to obey or disobey. The final end 
operates upon life in its universal form as a law of nature, and 
life in this form is only the appearance in nature of the final end. 
In and through it such and such iudividuals must result, and they 
do result. 

In this way, therefore, we have been led to a fixed and real na- 
ture, which, in so far as we ascribe reality to the final end alone, 
is not merely the visibility of another, but visibility for itself. 
What is this nature, firstly, in regard to its form ? Not a substrate, 
or anything of that kind, but pure and absolute life and power, 
which creates the merely possible into an actual, the immediate 
fundamental principle of all actuality. The ground of its being, 
as well as the ground which irresistibly and, like a law of nature, 
determines the manifestation of its power, is the final end itself. 
Here we find the al)Solute union and the true conuecting link of 
both worlds, the visible and the invisible. 

Now, which are those original determinations, and the absolute 
creatures of nature? The world of individuals. The individu- 
als, therefore, in consequence of their moral destinations, are the 
only true and actual in nature, and their creation completes nature 
in general. 

Whatsoever exists otherwise, or appears as existing, is product 
of the particular life, or of particular life in individual form ; as, 
for instance, contemplation of nature in the individual itself as 
also a part of nature, a further modification of nature, since in its 
unity-point it is a power of nature. 

This removes all difficulties — which beset other systems, that as- 
sume an in itself absolute, hence immoral, nature — of explaining 
freedom and consciousness in the individual. The individual is 



Facts of Consciousness. 59 

simply moral; and this morality posits absolutely consciousness 
and freedom, since morality is possible only on condition of their 
existence. 

"We add here the following : In the indi^^idual form, as such, the 
real power of life to create individuals is completed and exliausted. 
The individual, when once he exists, is absolutely an individual, and 
can neither annihilate himself nor change into other individuals, 
and thus create individuals outside of himself. If, therefore, uni- 
versal life were to come to an end in the production of one or a 
certain fixed number of individuals, this coming to an end would 
exhaust and annihilate the real power of the one life, and life in 
its universal creative power would become invisible. This can 
never occur, for life must absolutely appear in its totality, because 
the Hnal end must become visible in it. Hence, within the 
sphere of appearances, the world of individuals is never com- 
pleted ; new ones must always arise ; and it is not only necessary 
that there should be many individuals — which we had not proved 
before — but that there should be a continuous, increasing, and, in 
the appearance, never-to-be-completed series of individuals. 

We might say that, according to the above, the final end in its 
totality must be divided among the sum of individuals, and that 
hence, if the final end is a determined and complete Whole, the 
sum of individuals must also be a complete Whole ; and tiiis re- 
mark furnishes us opportunity for an additional statement, which 
opens a wide prospect. For, in so far as the final end is to become 
visible, it must be apportioned among a determined and fixed sum 
of individuals, since it is visible only in the form of individuals. 
And thus the just now demonstrated continuous creation of new 
moral individuals presupposes that a part of the final end is still 
invisible ; namely, the part which is to be made visible by the 
new creation. In this regard, therefore, the appearance of every 
new-world citizen — and there is no other world than the moral 
world — is a revelation of the moral final end from a new and pre- 
viously altogether invisible point of view. It is possible that this 
progressiveness of the manifestation of the final end may be con- 
ditioned by the fulfilment of the problem, which became visible 
previously ; and that, until such fulfilment takes place, time will 
pass on void and empty, merely repeating the unful rilled problem 
in other individuals. Thus, in the moral order of the final end, 



60 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

one a2;e of the world would be conditioned by another ag-e, and 
the sequence of ages wouhl bs tlie gradual unfolding to greater 
clearness of the final end. 

D. 

Let us now jiroceed to delermine the second fundamental form 
of the manifestation of life — the individual form — by ^pply^"» 
the same principle. 

I. Tlie contemplation of the one and nniversal power exists in 
the individuals as such. The totality of the power, or nature, is 
contemplated through them as the focus of knowledge ; and by 
each of them, of course, in the same manner, for in regard to the 
contents of that contemplation thej are not individual, but are 
the one and universal life itself. 

In order to remove all occasion for misapprehension or confu- 
sion, I will here add the followino;: The one universal life — or 
nature — has already, on a previous occasion, been separated into 
two main views : firstly, as real life, in its creation of individuals ; 
and, secondly, as ideal life, in its self-contemplation. It can as- 
sume the latter form, as factical, only in the form of the individu- 
al, since it contemplates itself and becomes conscious of itself 
only in that form — though as one contemplation, and hence, as in 
all individual forms, the same one content. This contemplation 
must comprise all that is comprised in actuality. But actuality 
extends as far as individuation. Hence universal contemplation 
must comprise the contemplation of as many individuals as the 
one life has created ; and the hntnediate universal contemplation 
must extend just so far: namely, to the universal contemplation 
of all individuals from the standpoint of every single individual. 

And here let me make a remark, which I trust will remove 
many a misapprehension of previous propositions of the Science 
of Knowledge. No individual contemplates, or beholds, beings 
of his own kind m A«mS(?Z/' and in his self-contemplation, but in 
the immediate contemplation of the one life. Whatsoever else 
tiiere is in nature — physical force, etc., down to coarse matter — 
is contemplated, of course, by each individual in himself, in 
the immediate contemplation of his universal power. But }>re- 
cisely because this is its universal and not its particularly limited 
power, it is compelled to transfer this contemplation to other 



Facts of Consciousness. 61 

beings of its own kind, which have already appeared to it in the 
tirst contemplation. 

Now, the one life, as nature, is absolutely determined by the 
final end in the production of individuals. It can produce no in- 
dividuals, except with specific moral determinations. This, as an 
absolute determination of that life, must also appear in tlie uni- 
versal contemplation thereof, and, moreover, in its immediate con- 
templation, wherein the individuals appear according to their 
existence, altogether independent of the reflection of the contem- 
plating individual upon his own morality. It must appear in the 
same universality wliich it has in the one life. What is this uni- 
versality, and where is its limit? It is this: that all individuals, 
without an exception, have a special moral destination of their 
own ; and whatever this destination is for every particular indi- 
vidual, lies beyond the limit. The universal contemplation merely 
shows that all individuals have a moral destination, for the sake 
of which their being, and the products of their freedom, must not 
be treated like things of nature, but must be respected ; in short, 
this contemplation involves all that we have previously established 
factically as the source of the conception of the relation of free 
beings to each other — the conception of Law. These conceptions 
we have found — and this is an important matter — to be inde- 
pendent of the morality of the individual himself who entertains 
them ; nay, independent even of the fact of the reflection concern- 
ing his own morality. They are the real mediating and connect- 
ing link between the natural and the moral conceptions, as well 
as of their ground — the determination of the one life through the 
final end. The real central link is found between the two worlds. 

Tliis appears also in actual life. Even the man, wdio is himself 
unjust, and who cannot look upon his act in the form of that con- 
templation, being moved by passionate desire, will judge that act 
to be unjust when committed by another, because he is then calm 
and open to the impressions of his spiritual nature ; just as we 
often find tiie very men demand most of others who are least in- 
clined to help those others when necessary. In their lowest form 
we find these conceptions, not so much as things, which anybody 
is to <?o, as something, which ought to Tje. 

We here obtain, therefore, a new determination of universal 
contemplation, the basis of the Legal Conception, whereby free- 



62 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

dom is turned into nature, as it were, and called upon to oi)erate 
and produce a fixed and permanent Being like au irresistible and 
compulsory law of nature. 

II. The particular, moral determination of each individual, 
which is hh in consequence of his origination from out the uni- 
versal life, does not arise into consciousness in the described uni- 
versal contemplation, but only in the separate and altoo;ether in- 
ternal self-contemplation of the individual as such, since this 
determination is his exclusively own Being. The question is. How 
and in what manner? 

In oi'der to answer this question thoroughly and clearly, let us 
investigate more closely the condition of moral freedom and its 
conteraplatability. We saw above that the mere sensuous indi- 
viduality, even without any appearance of the moral law in con- 
sciousness, makes actual acting completely possible, and real free- 
dom, the possibility of determining one's self to do a specific act, 
in every M'ay perfectible. If the moral law is added, there arises 
a limitation of that determined possibility; at first, of course, 
merely in the conception. It is conceived that the possible free- 
dom of acting must be limited to a determined, limited sphere. 
IS^ow, in consequence of this conception, the free individual, con- 
fined to the described condition, is to limit himself by a free act, 
and this free act is to be visible as such, since the law, as deter- 
mining the life, is to be visible. But the free act, according to a 
previously demonstrated proposition, is visible only when a re- 
sistance occurs ; hence the visibility of the moral determination as 
such posits, first of all, a resistance. The resistance must, there- 
fore, be manifested — just as the visibility manifests itself — abso- 
lutely. And since it is the one life, as nature, which is determined 
by the formal visibility of the moral law, it must be that one life 
which produces such a resistance. 

But, again, where must this resistance appear? Evidently in 
physical freedom itself, for it is this feedom which is to be deter- 
mined, and, moreover, in its individual form, since here we speak 
only of this kind of form. This resistance is not itself an acting. 
For freedom is to be limited in advance of this acting. Hence, it 
must be necessarily a principle, which, without the moral limi- 
tation, would be an acting. In other words, it must be an im- 
pulse, for by that word we have characterized such a principle 
before. It must be, moreover, a positive impulse, and by no 



Facts of Consciousness. 63 

means a mere iiidiiFerence to act without any moral determi- 
nation ; an impulse wbieh, in resisting this determination, must 
be overcome by it, and in the very overcoming of which the moral 
free deed must become visible. It is a necessary consequence of 
individuation tliat such an impulse should appear in the indi- 
vidual ; for it belongs to the individual form, as a form wherein 
the actual causality of the moral law is to become visible. 

It is a positive impulse to act, for the present, without any moral 
law. But for that very reason it aspires to perfect its whole form, 
and til us to be absolute, even though it be against the moral law. 
It wants to abroo;ate the moral law altoo-ether. In our conscious- 
ness it will thus appear as a natural will, given to us through our 
mere sensuous existence. Hence the law, against which it rebels, 
and which, on its account, rebels against it, as a shall, as the nega- 
tion of the will in its function, as a ground of determination. 
Hence this peculiar form of the law, which for that very reason is 
valid also only for this opposition. In determining the one life, 
the final end has not at all the form of the shall, but only the 
form of the must. It rules as a law of nature. The impulse 
itself is its product in so far as it is a law of nature, and exists 
only for the sake of its visibility and in its mere form ; the same 
impulse which, through the same law, as a determining law of 
freedom, is to be annihilated, not so far as its being is concerned, 
which would be a contradiction, but as a determining ground of 

acting. 

Eemakk. 

This impulse is a natural impulse, and, if we follow it, it pro- 
duces an acting according to the law of nature. Hence, in follow- 
ing the impulse, the individual is not at all free, but subservient 
to an irrevocable law ; and in this region life, in its mere form as 
pure life, has no causality whatever. 

But what, then, is the content of this acting in general, and 
generally, of the manyfold in its seeming manifestation of free- 
dom ? We have seen it before : the mere conteniplatability of 
life as such, without any real core ; a mere picturing in order to 
be a picturing; a Nothing, forever to be fui'ther formed. The 
individual who acts in obedience to the impulse acts under the 
law of this further evolution of the Nothing. 

Again, if, on the other hand, the individual determines himself 



64 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

tlirono;li tlie moral law, he also is not free, and life again has no 
causality ; for this is what freedom means* Has he, then, no free- 
dom at all ? Yes, certainly : in the transition, in rising from the 
condition of nature to that of morality. 

This enables us to offer a ready reply to the question pro- 
pounded. Consciousness is the freedom of a Being; determined 
consciousness, freedom of a determined heino-. Whatsoever is to be 
the immediate consciousness of a subject must be immediately the 
actual being of that same subject. If the subject is absorbed l)y 
the natural impulse, his moral determinatedness still remains, of 
course; his being; but only in the background, as it were. His 
immediate, actual being, is that impulse. Hence the impulse 
alone is manifested in consciousness, and it is absolutely impos- 
sible that the moral determinedness should manifest itself in con- 
sciousness — at least so far as its contents are concerned; for, in 
regard to the form., and in so far as that torm is contained in the 
general conception of law, as a part of the universal contempla- 
tion, it may be otherwise. Now, what is the ground of this impos- 
sibility ? The absorption by the impulse. Hence the individual 
must, first of all, get rid of the impulse. Can he do this ? Or, 
in order to give another form to the question : Since such a self- 
ridding of the law of nature on the part of the individual, without 
having determined himself as yet by the moral law, would be the 
just described freedom, the causality of the life through itself, is 
the individual really and in point of fact free? 

Since such a freedom conditions the determinability through 
the moral law, and hence its absolute visibility, does not this 
actual and real freedom belono; to the absolute determinations of 
the individual, as such, which it receives immediately from nature 
under the detei'mination of the tinal end ? 

Three things, therefore, constitute the essence of the individual: 
1. The natural impulse; 2. The moral determination or destina- 
tion ; and 3. Absolute freedom as the mediatino; link between the 
two former. 

Hence the individual must annihilate the impulse, as its imme- 
diately actual being, through this freedom. Does any Being, then, 
still adhere to it? Of course; that is, its moral destination ; and 
this is now its immediate, actual Being. For the present, how- 



Facts of Consciousness. 65 

ever, it is still free in regard to it, since it has not yet determined 
itself in accordance with the laws of that destination. Hence it 
now enters the emptied consciousness necessarily, in consequence 
of the law of consciousness. 

Now, what sort of a consciousness is this? As the immediate 
expression of Being, it is necessarily an immediate contemplation, 
which forms itself under this condition precisely as it is, without 
any freedom on the part of the knowing — such as we meet in 
thinking, which is a going beyond contemplation — and accom- 
panied, as all contemplation is, by immediate evidence. Its con- 
tent has no external ground, and cannot be made a subject of ar- 
gument, like a series of thinking. It simply is, and is what it is; 
that is, it is a consciousness that I am called upon to do this very 
particular thing. 

Result. — The determinatedness of moral consciousness is not 
produced by the freedom of thinking, but absolutely creates itself. 
It is true that freedom co-operates in the process, but somewhat 
differently. By killing the impulse, it puts itself into the condition 
wherein it can realize itself that determined contemplation pro- 
pounds a problem, which the individual can freely make his own, 
and which he ought to and most certainly, according to the above, 
can solve. But the actins; of the individual is an infinite line, 
and, by virtue of that infinity, stands under the moral law. Hence, 
after accomplishing the first problem, a second problem will arise 
for the individual — conditioned by the first one — and so on ad 
infinitum. The moral destination of the individual, which is alto- 
gether completed by his going beyond universal life, as a Being, 
can thus arise to consciousness only in an infinite, never-to-be- 
finished series of separate, determined contemplations, which series 
is connected and remains the same through the law of conditioned- 
ness ; and the determined act, we are called upon and actually 
can do, is valid only for the determined time-moment. 

The impulse, as an essential component part of the individual, 
remains eternal ; hence freedom also remains eternal. If, there- 
fore, the individual had determined himself to realize his deter- 
mined moral problem, he nevertheless would be able to repeal, or 
cancel, this his moral task at any time ; or, even if he did under- 
take the next task, he still might refuse obedience to the following, 
etc., etc. In this condition his infinite life would therefore re- 
XYIII— 5 



6Q The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

main an everlasting selt-determination, a continuous creation of 
free resolves, wliicli, however, might just as well be moral as 
immoral. But in that case the moral law would also not be a 
determinedness of Being, of the fixed, unchangeable unit of indi- 
vidual life, as it proposes to be; but it would exist merely acci- 
dentally, and as a determining ground of some manifestations of 
life without any rule or law whatever. 

These accidental manifestations would be moral, to be sure, but 
the life itself, in its root and basis, would remain immoral. 

That accomplished problem was in contemplation ; hence life 
must be determined by contemplation. But it is to be determined 
by the absolutely invisible and eternal unity of the law. How 
can this determination, as the only true morality of the individual, 
manifest itself? 

Evidently only by the absolute annihilation and canceling of 
the impulse as well as of freedom, since the described opposite 
condition is founded on the latter. Now, neither of them can be 
annihilated as faculties. They must, therefore, be annihilated as 
facts. The individual must have the power to determine himself 
for all eternity never to admit any more as a fact the freedom 
which nevertheless continues as a possibility forever. 

Determination through freedom is called a free Willing — not 
the previously described natural Willing. That determination 
would, therefore, be a resolve henceforth and forever to obey — 
without flinching or considering, and without any separate resolve 
of freedom — the moral law, in whatever form it may present itself 
in our infinite contemplation. 

Of course, freedom would remain as a faculty — a possibility ; 
and hence such a will — for in its continuance we must call it will, 
and not, as in the moment of its origination, resolve — must uphold 
itself eternally through itself, which upholding is precisely the con- 
tinuous annihilation of the always possible real freedom, and will 
manifest itself as such an upholding. But continuous self-deter 
mination,to be moral, is now no longer possible, since this self-de- 
termination has been achieved for all eternity. Now let the moral 
law develop itself internally hereafter in the infinitely continued 
series of contemplations, and you may be sure that its eternal 
life will develop itself precisely in the same manner, since the 
Will, as the mediating agency, is always present. 



Facts of Consciousness. 67 

The act of the creation of an eternal and holy Will in itself is 
the act by which the individual creates itself into being, the im- 
mediate visibility of the final end, and by which it, therefore, 
completes its own peculiar internal life. Henceforth the indi- 
vidual no longer lives himself, but within him lives, as ought 
to live, the final end. The final end, I say, and not the command 
(Categorical Imperative), for only in relation to the impulse and 
freedom is the final end a Shall and a Command ; not for the 
Will, since the will wills nothing but the final end, and is, in 
truth, the Will of that final end. If we therefore still choose to 
look upon that final end as a law, it must be as actually through 
the mediating Will, a law of nature for real life, since a law of 
nature can now, that we have presupposed the existence of the 
Will, be nothing else than a manifestation of the final end. After 
the annihilation of freedom, even individual life changes into 
nature, i. e., the higher and supersensuous nature. 

E. 

Determination of the Universal and Individual Forms in their 
Union through the Final End. 

I. The determination through the final end involves imme- 
diately, not the universal operating power of life, or the sensuous 
world, but only the sum of free individuals. It involves that 
power of life only in form ; that is, in so far as there must be gen- 
erally a play-ground, or a larger sphere, wherein to make visible 
moral freedom in its distinction from natural freedom. 

But the final end itself marks out within that absolutely given 
sphere a narrower field — the field of the productions of morality — 
and this field is divided ofi" among the several individuals. Now, 
whatever we may think in regard to that general world as to its 
infinity or finity, this, at least, is immediately clear : the moral 
problem within it, describing, as it does, a narrower circle, must 
be a finite problem, which can be realized, and will be realized at 
some time by the totality of all the individuals to whom the prob- 
lem is allotted. But, whenever this problem is realized, the reason 
for the existence of the sensuous world, which reason alone keeps 
it in existence, disappears, and hence the sensuous world itself 
vanishes. 



68 The Journal of Speculative Plulosophy. 

II. But in so far as the final end itself is not, as here, an acci- 
dental manifestation, but determined in its absolute Being, it is 
necessarily iniinite, just as life itself is, in this respect, infinite. 
Hence, after the annihilation of this first world, it must produce 
throuo-li life itself as nature — i. e., as universal and eternal nature — 
a second world, altogether in the same form, in wliicli alone it can 
become visible ; that is, in individuals with natural impulses, free- 
dom, and moral determination. 

Of this second world we would have to say the same that we 
said of the first world ; namely : the problem assigned to it will be 
solved at some time ; and thus the second world also will perish. 
But, in order to represent the infinity of the final end, the same 
absolute and fundamental law will necessitate the creation of a 
third world, etc., etc., ad infinitum. The final end can make 
itself visible in life only as an infinite series of consecutive 
worlds. 

III. Nevertheless, there is in this infinite consecutiveness of 
worlds only one life and only one determining final end. But how 
does it remain a unity and connected, and how does it thus become 
visible as a unity? The product of the absolute immediate deter- 
mination of life through the final end we have in the individuals. 
It is only within the individuals, and through the self-contempla- 
tion of their power, that sensuous worlds arise. Those individuals 
are created through life as absolutely one and the same eternal 
nature, and the sensuous worlds are created only by the transit 
through the principle of the visibility of life. Hence, the indi- 
viduals, being produced by the final itself, and not by any special 
manifestation thereof, remain the same. Their individual unity 
extends beyond the infinite series of all worlds; of course, in so 
far as they have determined their existence in actuality by the 
final end, or in so far as they have engendered the will in them- 
selves. By means of this will, which is the immediate Being of 
the final end in them, and which creates worlds only for them and 
for their eternal end, they survive the destruction of all worlds. 
For the real and last appearance of the final end occurs only in 
the form of the individual, and the will alone is the proper medium 
of this appearance, the worlds being merely the spheres for the 
visibility of the individual wills. Those individuals who have not 
<engendered that will in themselves will discontinue to exist. 



Facts of Consciousness. 69 

They are mere appearances in this first world, according to the 
laws thereof, and perish along with that world. 

Hence, the unity of life reposes for all eternity in the unity of 
the self-consciousness of the individuals, which began in this world, 
and in the unity of its contemplations of all its worlds, which, 
on that account, must also remain connected. 

IV. This is the fundamental unity. But how does it connect 
the different worlds and make their series appear as one series ? 
The answer is ready at hand : In regard to its existence, every 
preceding series is the condition of the possibility of the following 
series. Life can progress only by means of its complete develop- 
ment from the first step to the second step, etc., etc. In regard 
to the internal connection, the ideal ground, the determination 
through the final end, each preceding step exists simply because 
the next step is to follow it. The second step, for instance, is the 
expression of the final end, determined in its particular way, be- 
cause the final end is determined in its particular way; but this 
second step cannot be taken until the first step, as the means and 
condition of that expression, has been taken. 

Now, what, then, is that world which is to exist absolutely, and 
which, therefore, is the absolute expression of the final end, and 
after the realization of which the final end will have been alto- 
gether achieved and made visible? Evidently that world wliich 
exists for its own sake, and not for the sake of another world. 
Hence the last or final world. But there is no such final world, 
seeing that the series is infinite. Hence the absolute final end 
itself never becomes visible-; only conditions of it become everlast- 
ingly visible. We can, therefore, never achieve the final end in 
its absolute contents, and must abandon our endeavor to reach in 
this series an absolute, which will become visible as such. 

Remarks and Deductions. 

1. The second world, and, to a still higher degree, the infinite 
series of subsequent worlds, give admittance only to those indi- 
viduals who have in the first world cut themselves ott* from im- 
moral nature and engendered a holy will within themselves. 
Whatsoever remains in this life a mere manifestation of nature, 
perishes with that nature. But as no individuals, even not the 
perishing ones, are without a moral destination, and as the moral 



*T0 The Journal of Speciolative PhUosophy. 

end of this worl(i iiuist be realized in its totality, nature, being 
governed by the determination of the iinal end, is bound to cre- 
ate other individuals in place of those who do not realize their 
destination, and to give to those new individuals the same task 
which tlie perished failed to achieve, 

2. Only those individuals, in whom the will has become a fixed 
and unchangeable Being, progress into future worlds. N^ow, al- 
though the will will have to exert and uphold itself forever also 
in those future worlds, since in those worlds also freedom and im- 
pulse must continue to exist as their absolutely formal conditions, 
it nevertheless may be assumed that individuals, once admitted 
into that series of future worlds, will be able to uphold their will. 
Hence no further perishing of individuals is possible in those 
worlds, though the worlds themselves will perish after the lapse of 
their time, and brino; forth new worlds. 

3. Hence in those future worlds we shall always have tasks and 
labors as we have here ; but we shall always have a holy and good 
will; never a sensuous will. 

Let me add the followins; o-eneral remarks : All individual life 
is, at its beginning, immoral, not in regard to its destination and 
what it ought to achieve, but in actuality. Morality is the prod- 
uct simply of absolute freedom. ISTo individual is engendered a 
moral being, but each must make himself a moral being. 

Again : The sphere for this self making itself moral on the part 
of life is the present world ; it is the place for the culture of the 
will for all future worlds. Hence our present world is absolutely 
the first of the whole series of worlds; and neither it, nor the in- 
dividuals appearing on it, have ever existed before. 

And, finally, in all the future worlds there will appear only old 
individuals, who have existed previously in this present world of 
ours, and in it have arisen to a holy will. Hence no future world 
will produce new individuals. (N^ot to mention that, being new 
individuals, they would necessarily be immoral.) 

It is true that we have previously established the proposition 
that the one life must become visible in its unity as life ; that is, 
as causality, and that thus we have proved that life must produce 
individuals, at least in its primary determination. Now, has this our 
proposition — deduced, as it is, from the eternal law of visibility — 
validity for all eternity ? And if it has, must not the one life in 



Roidand O. Hazard's Works. Tl 

its causality become visible as a Unit in all future worlds? Un- 
questionably. But in that case it has made itself visible as the 
factical principle of the production of a new world, and, accord- 
ingly, of infinite new future worlds, in which character it is not 
at all visible here. 



EOWLAND G. HAZAKD'S WORKS.' 

In previous numbers of this journal we have quoted largely from the 
latest work of Dr. Hazard. To the Anglo-Saxon mind the question of 
self-determination, so important to the philosopher, takes the form of the 
possibility of the freedom of the will. That the ordinary reflection — the 
second stage of knowing, as we have called it in another place ^ — will be 
sure to deny the possibility of freedom in a given instance, we may be 
certain. This is certain, because it does not acknowledge the existence 
of freedom as a possibility in any shape, and, of course, it will not recog- 
nize any special example of the same. Give it the idea of Cause, and, 
though it will admit that one object is modified through another, and that 
the modified object is effect, it will refuse to think the cause as a first 
cause of motion, but will hold : " A given cause is made active by some 
other cause." It thus avoids the issue of the problem, and declines to 



* 1. "Essay on Language, and other Papers." By Rowlaod G. Hazard. Edited by 
E. P. Peabody. Boston : Phillips, Sampson & Co. ISSV. 

2. " Our Resources." New York : Charles Scribner & Co. 1868. 

3. " Finance and Hours of Labor." New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1868. 

4. "Freedom of Mind in Willing; or, Every Being that wills, a Creative First 
Cause." New York : D. Appleton & Co. 1864. 

5. " Two Letters, on Causation, and Freedom in Willing, addressed to John Stuart 
Mill. With an Appendix on the Existence of Matter, and our Notions of Infinite 
Space." By Eowiand G. Hazard. Boston : Lee & Shepard. 1869. 

6. " Zwei Briefe ueber Verursachung und Freiheit im Willcn." Gerichtet an John 
Stuart Mill. Mit einem Anhange ueber die Existence des Stoffes und unsere Begriffe 
des Unendlichen Raumes. Von Rowland G. Hazard. New York : B. Westermann & 
Co. Leipzic: Bernhard Hermann. 

7. "Animals not Automata." By Rowland G. Hazard, Esq. (Reprint from "The 
Popular Science Monthly," vol. vi, p. 405.) 

8. " Man a Creative First Cause." Two Discourses delivered at Concord, Mass., 
July, 1882. By Rowland G. Hazard, LL. D. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
1883. 

2 See October ('83) number "Jour. Spec. Phil." "Philosophy in Outline," Chapter 
ix, § 82. 



72 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy. 

acknowledge the necessity of a true cause as the origin of the influence 
which is separated from the cause by the cause itself, and produces suc- 
cessive moditication on all the links until it reaches the object in question. 
The thought of self-activity as the necessary presupposition of any motion 
or activity is called " inconceivable " by a thinker of this grade. 

Dr. Hazard is gifted with such clear insight that he has never regarded 
the question of free-will as insoluble by reason of the " inconceivability " 
of self-activity. His glance has taken in at once the fact of causal action 
and the necessary presupposition of self-activity as the essence of causality. 
We can predict that it will almost surprise him that many sensible, capa- 
ble, " common-sense " persons will fail to be convinced by his argument 
because they do not consciously admit self-activity as a possible thought.^ 
A candid writer of this class recently reviews '^ the last work above cited, 
and dissents from Dr. Hazard's conclusions quite confidently. He even 
goes so far as to grant self-activity, but it does not seem to occur to him 
that self -activity means the origination of movement ; to him it is entirely 
reasonable to admit self-activity and assert that it is the " product of in- 
numei'able forces," etc. He says, for example : 



' Dr. Hazard's idea is that activity is always stimulated by a want, and he says 
("Letters to Mill," p. 126) : "I have already remarked that the ability of the mind to 
start from a fixed condition of universal passivity into action is, at least, doubtful, and 
that such condition being wholly foreign to our experience, the problerp is not practi- 
cally important." 

His idea, elsewhere stated, is that if the mind should ever itself become wholly pass- 
ive and oblivious, it could be still, through its sensations (which are not dependent on 
its own, but may be excited by extrinsic agencies), aroused, and wants be induced in 
it through the same agencies ; and that, in fact, in such case, such external agency would 
be required to save him from annihilation. In " Freedom of Mind in Willing," chap, 
xiii, p. 13Y, he says: "If we ever become quiescent, we cease to be cause, and this 
want must then become manifest by some change, effected by some active cause without 
us, the effect of which, from the constitution of our being, we may recognize without 
effort of our own ; and the fact is, we can not always prevent such cognition. If our 
mental activity ever entirely ceases, it must then be as if we had no mind, and we 
must be re-minded before we can again become an active cause ; and this, as before 
suggested, may be done by want in us, produced by causes to the action of which our 
own efforts are not essential." 

In another passage (p. 171) he treats of the bountiful provision which has been made 
for the production and recurrence of these wants — spiritual and physical — which are 
thus essential to intelligent activity. He holds that the question of our ability to 
change, of ourselves, from a purely passive to an active condition, is never put to the 
test of actual experience, and that it does not concern the question of man's freedom — 
i. e., the question of his being free — but only the question of hoio he became free, as 
he is with his actual environment. The true question is. Taking man as he is, does he 
will freely ? (See also " Letters to Mill," pp. 101-153.) 

2 In " The Index " for November 8, 1883, p. 221. 



Rowland G. Hazard's Works. Y3 

" The fact that a creature is self-active, that the impelling forces, called 
the will, are a part of its nature, and therefore internal^ does not carry 
with it the implication that the creature is detached from that cosmic 
order in which all things are bound together by the law of causation.' 
And, unless it be so detached, how can the words 'independent' and 
' free ' have, in this case, any logical or philosophical meaning ? It seems 
to us that the libertarian, to prove free agency, must show that a creature 
has the power of deciding and doing differently from what it does decide 
to do ; not simply that the proximate cause of its movements is internal, 
not external, but that this cause is not a related, dependent link in the 
chain of causation ; not simply that the creature can exercise choice and 
will and act in accordance therewith, but that its choice and will are not 
dependent upon and determined by the constitution of its being and the 
nature of its environment ; that, in short, being independent and free, it 
cannot only do as it chooses, but that it can choose to do one thing as 
easily as another." 

Self-determination, according to the fatalist, is not freedom. For it 
moves according to its nature, and is compelled by itself thus to move. 
True to his hampered mode of thinking, which always puts its object into 
the form of conditioned and conditioning, it conceives the self-active in 
the form of a conditioned-by-itself, but regards that as a form of fate. 
And if there is choice present, then it " must choose as it did choose, 
because it is clear that it could not both choose and not choose at the 
same tiine ! " Thus the reviewer suggests : 

" If an individual, under any given circumstances, could have done the 
opposite of what it did do, it foUows that from the same causes opposite 
effects could have resulted, which is an absurdity, or that events may 
occur independently of causation, which is no less ao absurdity.''' 

" ' The advocates of necessity,' says Mr. Hazard, often ask ' if a man 
could will contrary to what he does will. I would say that he could if 
he so decided ; but it would be a contradictory and absurd idea of free- 
dom which, for its realization, would require that one might try to do 
what he had determined not to do.' 

" He 'could will the contrary of what he does will, . . . if he so de- 
cided,' undoubtedly. But this is saying only that he could will contrary 
to what he does will, if he so willed. The question is, Could he so decide? 
The old advocates of free-will would have answered, unhesitatingly. Yes. 
But Mr. Hazard sees that this answer involves a conception that is ' con- 
tradictory and absurd,' and endeavors to avoid it. 



^ As to " that cosmic order in which all things are bound together by the law of 
causation," Dr. Hazard holds that this cosmic order is but the composite result of every 
intelligent will, and that every conative being has the power by his own acts of will to 
vary that order ; and that, in fact, every act of will is intended to change that order, and 
may do it — making the future different from what it would have been but for such act. 

^ As to our power to will or do the opposite, see " Letters to Mill," p. 131. 



74 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

" The question he raises is not whether ' one might try to do what he 
had determined not to try to do,' but wliether he could decide contrary 
to what he does decide, contrary to what his character, views, and circum- 
stances compel him to decide. If he could, according to our view, he is 
a free agent. If he could not, he is not a free agent. It is clear from 
Mr. Hazard's reply that he 'believes he could not, for he sees that the op- 
posite of this belief leads to contradiction and absurdity.'" 



' Dr. Hazard's definition of freedom as applicable to willing must be borne in mind. 
He says ("Freedom of Mind in Willing," p. 19): "The question may arise whether 
that which controls itself is free, or whether the fact of its being controlled, even 
though by itself, renders it not free. This question, in our present inquiry, concerns 
the action of the mind in willing; but we may say, generally, that everything, in mov- 
ing or in acting, in motion or in action, must be directed and controlled in its motion or 
in its action by itself, or by something other than itself ; and that, of these two con- 
ditions of everything moving or acting, or in motion or in action, the term freedom ap- 
plies to the former rather than to the latter ; and, if the term freedom does not apply 
to that condition, it can have no application to the acting, or the action, of anything 
whatever. And hence self-control is but another expression for the freedom of that 
which acts, or of the active agent ; and this is in conformity to the customary use and 
the popular idea of the term freedom." 

He holds that every being with feeling, knowledge, and volition is in its constitution 
self-active. "An act of will, a volition, is but an effort of the being that wills. Free- 
dom in willing or effort is self-control of the effort by the being that wills, as contra- 
distinguished from the idea of an act of will contributed by some extrinsic power. 
Every act of will, every effort of every such being, is incited by its own want (a feeling 
or emotion), and is directed to the gratification of this want by means of its own 
knowledge, including its preconceptions of the future effect of its effort. The object 
of an effort is always to make the future different from what it would otherwise be. 
This, as the being can not change the past, is the only conceivable motive, and the 
being thus acts, and acts as it does, not from any propulsion in the past, but from its 
own present feeling of a want to be gratified, which is its own knowledge of a reason 
for acting. It directs this effort by means of its own perceptions — more or less reliable 
— of the future effect of its effort ("Freedom of Mind in Willing," p. YO). 

" As a conception, poetic or logical, of the effects of any contemplated efforts upon 
the future, is thus essential to the effort, a being with only sensation and a knowledge 
of the past and present would not will. It is only by the God-like power of making 
the future present that intelligence, infinite or finite, in the exercise of its will, becomes 
creative. By means of this power of anticipating its effects, the mind, in willing, is 
influenced by the anticipated creations of its own action, while those creations are still 
in the future, making a very broad distinction between intelligent and any conceivable 
unintelligent cause. 

" It is this fact, that intelligent cause is influenced by its preconceptions of its own 
effects, that fits it for First Cause ; for that which is thus, as it were, drawn forward 
by the future, needs no propulsion from the past; that which is moved by inducements 
before it does not need a motive influence behind it ; that which acts from its own in- 
ternal perception of the effects of its own action upon its own internal, existing want, 
does not require to be first acted upon by extraneous external forces." 

This reduces all motives to one; with the further result reached (in " Letters to Mill," 



Rowland G. Hazm'(Ps Works. 75 

The reviewer elaborates his idea of the fate involved in organism in the 
following language : 

" A statement of two or three of Mr. Hazard's positions will give some 
idea of his views and reasonings. He claims that every being, having 
feeling, knowledge, and power, is ' a creative first cause, an independent 
poAver in the universe, commensurate with its knowledge, freely putting 
forth its efforts to change existing conditions.' Every such being, how- 
ever high or low in the scale of life, within the limits of its power and 
knowledge, is in its action ' as free as if it were omniscient and omnipres- 
ent.' This is as true of the oyster as of man. To those who would limit 
free agency to man, this statement will seem strange ; but it is consistent 
with the general theory of free agency, so far, at least, as free agency is 
consistent with itself. If the power of choosing and willing implies inde- 
pendence and freedom, then there is no escape from the conclusion that 
the worm, within the limits of its knowledge and power, is independent 
and free. With this view of the subject, the question of the evolutionist, 
Where, in the development of life and intelligence, does free agency be- 
gin ? is deprived of its force and rendered irrelevant by a surrender to the 
necessitarian of what hitherto has been defended, and is now generally 
regarded as a stronghold of the doctrine of man's free agency, involving 
a denial, too, of what is commonly believed to be an essential distinction 
between man and all other living creatures on the globe. 

" But when this concession is made, as it is by Mr. Hazard, another 
question immediately arises: If, in the evolutior of life, the condition of 
every period has grown out of pre-existent conditions, how is it possible 
that in this invariable continuity of phenomena creatures appeared en- 
dowed with powers enabling them to sever connection with the converg- 
ing forces and influences that produced them, and to escape reciprocal 
relationships with the environment in which they were formed, so that 



p. 25), that effort is always to move our muscles or increase our knowledge. In all this, 
intelligent being will, of course, conform its action to the existing conditions, the suc- 
cession of which he seeks by his effort to influence. His action will, under one set of 
circumstances, differ from what it would be under another ; but, in view of these condi- 
tions, be they what they may, he must still judge and decide what his action shall be 
to make the future what he wants it to be. This is self-control of his act of will, and 
hence freedom in willing. The change of the condition makes no difference to this 
freedom ; he acts as freely on one set of conditions as on any other, and change in the 
conditions affects him only as it changes the knowledge by which he determines and 
directs his efforts. If the power to move the being to action inhered in the conditions 
or circumstances extrinsic to it, there could be no need of their being known to the 
being that acts. That such power does not inhere in the circumstances, but in the 
mind's own view — its knowledge, its belief in regard to them — is evident from the fact 
that, when by mistake the belief differs from the actual facts, the action is conformed 
to the belief and not to the fact. That his action is so conformed to his own knowledge 
indicates that it is so conformed by himself, and hence is his free act. (For this influ- 
ence of circumstances, see "Freedom of Mind in Willing," p. 80; also p. 327 et seq.; 
and " Letters to Mill," §§ 8 and 9 of Letter I, and §§ 10, 16, 17, 18 of Letter IL) 



76 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

they could be 'independent' and 'free' ? Organisms appeared possess- 
ing sensation and the will and power to move themselves. But was not 
sensation a condition local and circumscribed in its character, determined 
in its nature, its tendencies, its requirements, its expressions, by intiuences 
so universal, so multitudinous, so complex, so subtle, and extending so far 
baclv in the abyss of time as to defy all finite powers of calculation ? The 
oyster wills to move its shell ; but is not its willing, in this case, depend- 
ent upon the possession of a shell, dependent upon an organized structure 
■within the shell with relations between its parts, dependent upon an en- 
vironment with relations between its parts, dependent, too, upon the con- 
nection between these inner and these outer relations, giving rise to cer- 
tain sensations and wants and the power of effort ? Since every creature 
is a product of innumerable forces that have established its medium and 
formed and fashioned it, giving it position and character, is connected by 
myriad threads with the entire universe, and its modes of life and thought, 
its appetites and passions, the air it breathes, the food it eats, the earth 
on which it lives, are determined by the constitution of nature, how can 
we say in truth that it is ' independent ' and ' free ' ? " 

And so when Dr. Hazard defines the holy man, " who has eradicated his 
conflicting wants, and annihilated th^ conditions requisite to his willing 
what is unholy," as being above sin and as incapable of willing what is 
impure and ignoble, the reviewer asks : 

" What is this but a statement of the doctrine of necessity ? The holy 
man must will what he believes right, because his character and disposi- 
tion constrain him so to do." 

If a self-made character, as in the case of holiness, is simply the fixed habit 
of willing only what is in harmony with free-will, it insures persistence 
in freedom. But the fatalist is convinced that this is an example of fate ! 

There are two kinds of necessity — the logical and the fatalistic. The 
necessity involved in a definition is a logical necessity : " A self-deter- 
mined must be free." A fatalistic necessity is involved where something 
is made to be what it is by the action of something else : " This thing is 
determined by the totality of conditions existing in its environment." 
By the fallacy known as quaternio terminorum^ or ambiguous middle, the 
following refutation of the possibility of freedom may be made : (1) A 
self-determined being must be free ; (2) but, if it must be free, it is neces- 
sitated, and (3) therefore is not free. (The refutation of this may be 
easily accomplished by continuing the argument thus :) (4) But, since it 
is not free, it is evident that it was not necessitated to be free, and, there- 
fore, (5) in spite of (2) and (3), it is free. The necessity in (1) is a logical 
one, and in (2) and (3) a fatalistic necessity. The reasoning assumes the 
identity of the two because of the use of an ambiguous word. So, in the 
case of a saint who has, by the energy of his will, formed the habit of 



Rowland G. Hazard's Worlds. 7Y 

choosing the pure and noble, or what conduces to self-determination, the 
incapability of sinning is a logical one, logically resulting from freedom. 

The most important characteristic of Dr. Hazard's writings is his 
clearness and simplicity. He expresses his insights in the language of a 
business man, avoiding almost entirely the conventional technique of the 
schools. The consequence of this is the popularity of his works among 
thoughtful persons who are not large readers in the province of meta- 
physical literature. Almost every notice that has appeared mentions the 
remarkable clearness and conciseness of the work on " Man a Creative 
First Cause," 

The critic that objects to Dr. Hazard's solution of the problem of free- 
will must do so, as we have suggested, on the ground of the general im- 
possibility of self-activity or self-movement. It seems strange that a 
thinker can admit derived movement or activity and yet deny self-move- 
ment and self-activity. He admits derivation, but denies the existence of 
a source of derivation. There is something which is moved, and a chain 
of moved bodies which receive and transmit motion, but no energy that 
originates motion. This is, in fact, the denial of causality. For the cause 
must be regarded as an energy that acts on something else as a modifying 
influence, and therefore must separate from itself, b}' its own activity, a 
portion of its influence or energy in the act of transmitting it to another. 

If the causal action is regarded as a series of links in which each link 
receives causal energy and again transmits it, then the modification which 
we call effect is a modification received by the entire series from beyond 
the series, and the movement of the entire series is efiect without a cause, 
unless the cause exists beyond the series. 

Or, if the series is a circular one, as in the case of correlation of 
forces, then each link may be regarded as the source of the modification 
which it transmits through the series of links round finally to itself, and 
producing a modification in itself as effect. Hence, each link is a self- 
activity, the originator and receiver of the modification transmitted 
through the other link of the series. 

It is clear that the denial of self-activity as the presupposition of causal 
action ends in setting up the theory of the indestructibility of force or 
motion, as well as the theory of the correlation of forces, or of particular 
movements. But the logical conclusion should be that each link in the 
circle of effects is an orig-inatinof cause of its own effect — each is causa sui. 

This implication of self-activity or the origination of motion in the idea 
of cause, and, consequently, its presupposition in the idea of effect, is an 
immediate one, and perfectly self-evident to every clear thinker. It is, 
therefore, perfectly legitimate for Dr. Hazard to presuppose it. But it is 



78 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

to be expected that those persons who have persuaded themselves that 
effects can be produced without the operation of self-active causes will 
refuse to admit such a thing as free will-power. 

It will be seen by the dates of the works referred to that Dr. Hazard 
has been before the public as an author for many years. His work on 
the " Freedom of Mind in Willing," published in 1864, is, if we mistake 
not, used as a reference book in many of the universities of Europe, as 
the work of a specialist and an authority on his theme. Few who read 
the clear and vigorous paragraphs of the most recent work would credit 
what is the fact : that they were written by a business man in his eighty- 
second year, and at intervals snatched from an active management of very 
important and complex affairs. 

" Of the earliest of his published writings, the ' Essay on Language,' 
Channing thus speaks in his lecture on Self-Culture : ' I have known a 
man of vigorous intellect, who had enjoyed few advantages of early edu- 
cation, and whose mind was almost engrossed by the details of an exten- 
sive business, who composed a book, of much original thought, in steam- 
boats and on horseback, while visiting distant customers.' His later 
writings, on topics of finance and philosophy, have elicited strong expres- 
sions of appreciation and respect from one of the most distinguished of 
living authors in the same departments of inquiry — John Stuart Mill." ' 

The relation of our author to the celebrated Dr. Channing is told in a 
recent work : ^ 

" His knowledge of Rowland G. Hazard dated from the anonymous 
publication of 'Language, by a Rhetorician,' which I read to him when it 
first appeared. He immediately recognized a rare metaphysical genius in 
its author, and said : ' I must find out this young man. He is evidently 
young and unpracticed in the literary art, but he thinks originally and 
profoundly ; and I believe that he is the one to answer Edwards " On the 
Will," which has never been answered yet on its own logical ground.' 
The next summer he wrote me from Newport that he had found ' Rhetori- 
cian in a manufacturing firm in Rhode Island ; quite occupied with prac- 
tical business at present, but to be, as I think, a star in the intellectual 
firmament by and by.' " 



1 Quoted from a review of Dr. Hazard's writings in the "North American Review " 
for 1874, by G. P. Fisher, D. D., who speaks of Dr. Hazard as " an American author 
who, without the advantage of a college training, and engaged from early life in an ex- 
tensive manufacturing and mercantile business, which has allowed but limited oppor- 
tunities for reading, has nevertheless written with extraordinary ability upon the grave 
and often perplexing problems of economical and metaphysical science." 

'^ "Reminiscences of William EUery Channing," by Elizabeth P. Peabody, p. 351. 



Rowland G. Hazard's Works. 79 

In a letter from Dr. Hazard in the appendix to Miss Peabody's " Remi- 
niscences of Channing," the story of the origin of the " Freedom of 
Mind in Willing " is told : 

" Once, and I believe only once during that visit, the subject usually 
spoken of as ' the freedom of the w^ill ' came up. Dr. Channing stated his 
own position in regard to it to be that, while upon the testimony of his 
own consciousness he fully believed in freedom — that is, in his own free 
agency — still, all the argument seemed to him to be in favor of necessity ; 
and he went on to state what he regarded as the strongest argument of 
the advocates for necessity ; namely, that, if the same circumstances should 
occur a thousand times over, and the conditions of the mind at each re- 
currence of them should be the same, then the action would be the same. 
And this, he said, seemed to him to argue necessity. I replied, at the 
moment, that this was a particular case of the general law that the same 
causes necessarily produce the same effects ; and I doubted the applica- 
bility of this law to the mind, which was itself a cause. Here, so far as I 
recollect, the discussion of that subject then ended. 

" I met him again, not very long after, at his summer residence near 
Newport, when he recurred to this conversation and the remark I had 
then made touching the like cases ; and I then said to him : ' Admit, for 
the purpose of the argument, that the same causes do of necessity produce 
the same effects, and that this law does apply to mind. Now suppose 
the one thousand cases with all the circumstances the same, and the con- 
ditions of the mind at each recurrence of them also the same, and that 
one of those conditions is that of necessity ; then, the same causes of ne- 
cessity producing the same effects, the same action follows. Again, sup- 
pose another one thousand cases all alike, but that one of these condi- 
tions, instead of that of necessity, is now that of freedom ; then, the same 
causes of necessity producing the same effects, the same action follows. 
Now, as we can change the element of necessity to that of freedom with- 
out changing the result, the result is no indication of which is in and 
which is out.' 

" Dr. Channing, after a short pause, said : ' It looks as if you had 
thrown that argument entirely out of the question ; but I would not like 
to decide it upon so short consideration.' 

" In one of my discussions with John Stuart Mill I narrated what I 
have just written ; and when I had stated Dr. Channing's view as to the 
strongest argument of the necessarians, Mill interrupted me to say : ' That 
is precisely what I rely upon.' When I repeated what I had said upon 
it, I thought he looked perplexed ; and, thinking I had not expressed my- 
self clearly, I began to explain, but he held up his finger and said : ' I see 



80 The Journal of Speculative Ph'dosopluj. 

the point ; I see it. But I will wait till I read tliat in your book.' I was 
struck with the similarity of the effect upon these two distinguished 
thinkers. 

" I cannot now fix the date, hut at one time, Avhen I was about to leave 
for the winter, Dr. Channing wrote to me that he wished to see me be- 
fore I left, but was not well enough to leave home. I, of course, went to 
see him, when he said to me in substance that he had recently re-read 
* Language,' with a higher appreciation of it than before ; that he very 
much desired that the argument of Edwards should be logically refuted, 
and that freedom should be logically established, and he wished I would 
undertake it. I was quite surprised, and expressed the doubt I felt as to 
my ability, and also mentioned the slight knowledge I had of the subject 
— not having even read the argument of Edwards, or given special 
thought to the question generally. But he replied that he thought I had 
advanced farther in it than any other one he knew. Thus encouraged, 
and at the same time very loath to refuse the request of one I so much 
revered, I consented to look farther into the subject and see what I 
could do. 

" My progress in it was slow ; perhaps the slower, because I soon con- 
cluded that all the advocates of freedom had virtually given up the philo- 
sophical argument and fallen back either on revelation or their own con- 
sciousness — which weighed nothing with those who questioned the su- 
preme authority of the Bible, or asserted their consciousness was not that 
they acted freely, but the reverse. Hence I resolved not to read, lest I 
should get into these ruts of thought, which evidently did not lead to the 
point I wished to reach, but would first try to work out the problem in 
my own way. From Edwards I learned what the questions were, and 
began to think about them in my usual desultory way as I was travelling 
about, or in such leisure moments as I could spare from my regular busi- 
ness, and became more and more interested in the pursuit." 

We conclude this notice by quoting what Dr. Fisher says of the second 
of the treatises named above, and by two extracts from the book ad- 
dressed to John Stuart Mill : 

" ' Our Resources ' is a collection of articles published by Mr. Hazard 
during our late war. Early in the struggle there was great apprehension 
that, with the destruction of our foreign credit, our resources would prove 
inadequate to the emergency. These essays were designed to establish 
the faith of the public, here and abroad, in the sufficiency of our means. 
They originally appeared in the newspapers, but were collected into a 
pamphlet, which passed through repeated editions in this country and 
England. Abbreviated translations of them were also circulated on the 



Rowland G. Hazard^'s Works. 81 

Continent. They showed that the spare income of the nation prior to the' 
war was $1,000,000,000 (gold value), and that from the stimulus imparted 
to labor by the war itself, and from the improvement in agricultural ma- 
chinery, there was no reason to fear a diminution of this surplus ; further, 
that from the standard of living prevalent among all classes in this coun- 
try $500,000,000 might be saved without stretching economy to a 
point involving any real hardship. They showed also that, while the 
great expenditures in the war, the prostration of the credit of individuals' 
and of banks, and the withdrawing of coin, required a considerable emis- 
sion of paper currency, yet any expansion beyond the limit of this require- 
ment would increase the cost of the war, and enhance the debt to be 
subsequently paid in gold, with no counterbalancing advantages, since the 
increase in the volume of paper money would add nothing to its aggregate 
value or purchasing-power. The warning which was given in these able 
papers it would have been well to heed. One of the essays, entitled 
' Compensation to Slaveholders,' undertakes to demonstrate that the 
value of land alone in a free State is equal to the combined value of land 
and of the slaves required to cultivate it in a slave State. This argument 
yields a picture full of encouragement to the South, since facts already 
indicate that it will be verified by the practical test. 

" The last article of this series appeared at a very critical epoch in the 
financial affairs of the country. The treasury was depleted ; gold was at 
280 ; money was scarce, and the bonds of the Government unsalable. The 
incoming Secretary of the Treasury was ad^'ised in advance by bankers 
and financiers that his only resource was to issue more currency, that 
there might be a plentiful supply of money whereAvith to buy the bonds. 
Mr. Hazard in this paper asserted — what in the light of subsequent expe- 
rience is now obvious — that the course recommended to the Secretary 
would lead directly and speedily to national bankruptcy, and that it 
would, if adopted, produce a depreciation of the currency which it would 
be impossible to arrest, and that our financial fate would be the same as 
that which befell the Southern Confederacy. This article of Mi\ Hazard 
was entitled ' Expansion and Contraction.' It explained how the effect 
of expansion must be to make money scarce and prevent the sale of the 
bonds ; while the policy of contraction, if avowed, and adhered to, Avould 
restore confidence, and release money from the uses of trade and the 
appliances of speculation, to be invested in Government securities, and at 
the same time increase its purchasing power. The proposition was gen- 
erally regarded as preposterous, but the arguments by which it was sup- 
ported were found, on examination, convincing, and the doctrines of this 
brief essay are now among the recognized truths of political economy 
XYIII— 6 



82 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

The Secretary of the Treasury was fortunately convinced that these posi- 
tions were well taken ; and, if the policy of contraction, which the author 
advised, was not pursued, no further expansion was attempted. The 
public are not generally aware how near we were, at that time, to meas- 
ures which would have inevitably brought upon us financial ruin." 

THE DEFINITION OF CAUSE} 

If the whole aggregate antecedents are the Cause of any effect, then, as 
at each instant, the whole antecedents are the same at every point of 
space, the effects should be everywhere the same. To this it may be 
plausibly replied that, the conditions acted upon being different at differ- 
ent places, different results may follow from the action of the same cause. 

In the first place, however, it must be borne in mind that, as these 
various conditions must exist before they can be acted upon, they must 
themselves, in the view we are now considering, be a part of the antece" 
dents which make up the Cause. You explicitly assert that all the con- 
ditions are included in the Cause. The whole past being thus combined 
in one Cause, acting upon a perfectly blank and void and therefore 
homogeneous future, the effect would be the same throughout the whole 
length and breadth of its action. Again, admitting that the same causes, 
acting upon different conditions, may produce different effects, it can 
hardly be asserted by the advocates of the rule that the same causes 
necessarily produce the same effects, that the action of the same cause can 
itself be different ; for, then, this different action upon the same conditions 
would produce different effects, thus disproving the rule. Now, the 
whole past, being embodied in one Cause, must have one certain specific 
action, and that action either (being sufficient) produces an effect, or 
(being insuflScient) produces no effect. If it produces an effect, then this 
effect is added to the aggregate events of the past, so far changing the 
aggregate Cause ; and a past Cause, which has once acted, never can 
again act as the same Cause, for this additional effect or event must ever 
remain a part of the whole past ; and hence there can be no practical 
application of the rule that the same causes of necessity produce the 
same effect; and, on the other hand, if the action of this one aggregate 
Cause (being insufficient) produces no effect, then, as there can be no 
change in the Cause (and none in the conditions upon which it acted), the 
Cause would, of course, remain the same Cause, and, its action being the 
same and upon the same conditions, the result must be the same — that is, 



1 From Dr. Rowland (x. Hazard's " Two Letters to Mill on Causation," p. 56. The 
criticism on the idea of a totality of antecedents shows clearly that eflScient cause 
must be an intelligent will. 



Rowland G. Hazards WorTcs. 83 

no effect, and there would be an end of all change, and everything would 
remain quiescent in the state in which this insufficiency of Cause found it. 

If it now be said that the failure of this cause to produce any effect 
by its action is such a new event or condition that it can, as a consequence 
of it, act in some other manner, then, there being no change external to 
it, and nothing to change itself except the negative fact of non-effect, 
which can have no influence upon anything not cognizant of it, it follows 
that the Cause must be intelligent, and, as such, capable of devising or 
selecting some new mode of action which will avoid the deficiency of that 
before tried, and found to be ineffective. The Cause already embracing 
the whole past, nothing could be added to it from what already existed : 
being ineffective, no new existence has been added to it ; and if, under 
these conditions, it changes its action, it must be self-directing, accommo- 
dating its action to circumstances which must be known to itself as a pre- 
requisite to such accommodation. It must be iatelligent Cause. 

The whole of the prior state never can occur again, for the present is 
already added to it ; and if, like a circulating series of decimals, the con- 
sequent of this whole past should be to reproduce and continually repeat 
the same series, and even though the observation of this uniformity, in 
the successive order of events, should enable us to predict the whole 
future, still it would not prove that the producing power was in the past 
circumstances. It would only prove the uniformity upon which the pre- 
diction was founded, and not the cause of that uniformity which still- 
might be the uniform action of some intelligent act've agent, who, per- 
ceiving some reason for adhering to this order, and having the present 
power, continually repeated it. Much less could it prove that power not 
free. The mere observed order of succession, uniform or otherwise, would 
not include a knowledge of the power that produced this uniformity, nor 
the manner of its doing it. To find this we should need to compare the 
effects with those of some known power in action, as those of intelligent 
effort or of matter in motion. Nor would this supposed dependence of 
the present on the past be a case of the same causes producing the same 
effects ; for at each repetition of the effect the whole prior state, which is 
assumed to be the Cause, is different, the effect of each " prior state " 
acting as Cause being continually added ; and, if there comes a time when 
there is no effect, then there can be no difference in this " prior state " or 
Cause, and, of course, no variation in the consequent — no effect. 

And if, as you say, " in the general uniformity . . . this collective 
order is made up of particular sequences obtaining invariably among the 
separate parts," then the foregoing positions apply to each of these sepa- 
rate parts or longitudinal sections of the whole. 



84: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 



ON OUR NOTION OF INFINITE SPACE.' 

Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the article referred to in the preceding 
paper ("Mill vs. Hamilton: the Test of Truth"), says: "Here, then, is 
the flaw in Sir William Hamilton's proposition : that space must be in- 
finite or finite are alternatives of which we are not obliged to regard one 
as necessary, seeing that we have no state of consciousness answering to 
either of these words, as applied to the totality of space, and therefore no 
exclusion of two antagonistic states of consciousness by one another," 
But the obvious truth of the general proposition, that everything "must 
be infinite or finite," does not depend upon our having a state of con- 
sciousness answering to the particular thing to which it is applied. 

We assert that all the angles of every plane triangle are equal to two 
right angles ; but we have no state of consciousness corresponding to tri- 
angles in general, or to every plane triangle, and hence, if such conscious- 
ness of the thing to which the general proposition is applied is necessary, 
we could only assert this of the particular triangle in the mind's view at 
the time. But, in demonstrating this geometrical theorem, we perceive 
that we use no elements which do not pertain to every plane triangle, 
whatever its form or size, and hence assert its truth of every plane tri- 
angle. The only condition essential to the demonstration is, that the 
figure shall be bounded by three right lines. So, too, when we assert 
'that a thing is infinite or finite — is or is not bounded — Ave perceive 
that the truth of this proposition does not depend upon any peculiar 
property whatever of the thing to which it is applied, but is as true of a 
thing with one property, or one combination of properties, as of a thing 
with other property, or other combination of properties; and hence, 
whether we do or do not know or conceive of the properties of the par- 
ticular thing to which we apply the proposition, is not material to our 
faith in its universal application to all things whatever. The only ground 
upon which space could be excluded from its application would be to 
assert that space, in itself, is no thing — that it is but our conception of 
nothingness ; but it has the property of, or is in itself, extension — the 
very property or conception to which the idea of being bounded or not 
bounded most palpably applies. 

If I see only a portion of anything, I know that it either is or is not 
bounded. A telegraph wire, of which I cannot see any end, I know 
either has or has not an end in each direction. It may be infinite, and 
every portion of it present the same appearance as that which I now see 



' From the " Two Letters on Causation," etc., p. 274. 



Rowland G. Hazard's Works. 85 

It may mate au entire circle, and tlius, thougli finite, in a common sense 
of the word, liav no end. Even in tliis sense, to deny one of the posi- 
tions asserts the other, both in terms and in thought. 

In regard to space, it is asserted that, in its entirety, we can neither 
comprehend or conceive it as bounded, nor yet as not bounded. The 
first seems to me certain, but I am by no means sure that we cannot and 
do not conceive of space as boundless. That we know it must be either 
bounded or not bounded, taken in connection with our inability to con- 
ceive of it as bounded, seems to indicate that we do, in thought, regard 
and conceive it as boundless. 

The mental process by which we attempt to grasp the idea of infinite 
space is peculiar. We begin with the admitted fact that it can have no 
bound or limit, and yet the next thing we attempt is to find its bound or 
limit, and then, because we cannot find in it that which we know does 
not belong to it, and cannot possibly pertain to it, we conclude that we 
do not comprehend it. This is as if one who had never before seen any 
shot, except those made of lead, should, on looking at some made of sil- 
ver, say these are pure silver shot ; I cannot find any lead in them ; there- 
fore I do not comprehend them. That our conception of anything does 
not embrace in it a property or quality which does not, or cannot, pertain 
to it, is so far proof that our conception of it is not incorrect. As the 
fact that one does not and cannot find any lead in pure silver shot, is so 
far evidence that he has a correct conception of silver shot ; so, too, that 
we do not and cannot find any limit or bound to infinite space, so far in- 
dicates that in this respect we properly conceive it. 

The knowledge or conception of a thing in itself is impossible to us. 
We can only know it by its properties of producing change in ourselves, 
and, if an outward object, the only way in which this can be done is 
through our sensations. The same object may have the property of effect- 
ing a variety of sensations, and we have not a full conception of it till we 
know all these properties, or, rather, all the effects attributed to them, for 
the properties, as distinct from the effects, like the things in themselves, 
are unknowable, and are recognized only by their effects upon us. When 
we name these properties, we only name a cause, the existence of which 
is inferred from the effect. This object may also have the property 
of changing itself, or of changing other objects, and, maybe, of being 
changed by them. The knowledge of all these elements is necessary to 
that full comprehension which is possible. 

We comprehend a thing in itself when we know all its component pai'ts 
and properties, and all the relations of these parts and properties to each 
other. As an entirety, we comprehend a circle whose radius reaches to 



86 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the remotest star. We know that all its properties are the same as those 
of any other circle. We cannot readily divide it into, and particularly 
notice, each of such magnitudes as we have been accustomed to move over, 
or even to clearly apprehend by the eye, for to fix the attention on each 
of such portions would require centuries. These cannot all be the objects 
of real or imaginary sensations. We cannot thus make it up or construct 
a conception of it by the addition of the minor perceptions which our 
senses have supplied. But this does not imply that mentally we do not 
comprehend this vast circle, Avith all its intrinsic properties and condi- 
tions. One must at least have a clear conception of those parts, proper- 
ties, and relations, which he can fully and accurately present, on a smaller 
scale, to the senses. Now, the idea or conception of inlinite space, in 
itself, is the simplest which is possible. Its only property by which it is 
related to or distinguished from anything else is its capacity to contain 
extension or admit other existences into itself ; and for these it is equally 
essential, whether we regard it, with these other existences, as distinct, 
self-subsisting entities, or as mere ideal creations, or imagery of the mind. 
Strictly speaking, perhaps, this capacity of space, to be a receptacle for 
things or for certain mental imagery, is rather a use than a property. Its 
component parts are perfectly homogeneous — nothing but space — and the 
relations of each portion to all the rest are the same, and there is nothing 
external to it to which different portions of it might have different rela- 
tions. 

The idea of a periphery of a circle, considered merely as an isolated 
line, has this same homogeneity : every portion of it is precisely like 
every other equal portion, and has the same geometrical relation to every 
other portion. So, too, of the surface of a sphere ; every portion is like 
every other portion of like dimensions, and each of such portions has the 
same relation to all the rest of the surface. But, in the cases of the circle's 
periphery and the sphere's surface, we always have a difference in the 
relations of the different parts to what is extrinsic to them, as that one 
part is farther from the earth than another, or one part is farther to our 
right than another, which cannot occur in regard to infinite space, to 
which there is nothing without to compare. 

Intelligent being, intrinsic to space, may regard one portion of it as 
to his right, and another as to his left ; but change in his position does 
not change his relation to all the rest of space in this respect. 

If, instead of periphery and surface, we consider the enclosed area of 
the circle, and the enclosed quantity or space in the sphere, then the por- 
tions in each vary in their intrinsic relations to each other ; some are 
nearer the periphery or the surface than others, or some are nearer to the 



Rowland G. Hazard's Works. 87 

centre than others ; but make this sphere infinite, and this variety in the 
intrinsic relations of its parts disappears, for there is then no circumfer- 
ence, consequently no centre, but every point in it is as much a centre 
and as much on or near the circumference as any other point. 

The homogeneity of the isolated periphery of the circle or of the sur- 
face of the sphere is again attained, and the conception is not embarrassed 
or complicated by any difference in the relations of its component parts, 
and has the additional exemption from such embarrassment and complica- 
tion that there is nothing without it with which it can have any relations 
whatever. 

The idea of infinite space is thus simpler than that of a finite homo- 
geneous sphere in which the different /parts stand in different relations to 
each other, and also to surrounding objects. No conception of anything 
can be simpler than of that which is perfectly homogeneous in all its 
parts, and in which every part has the same relation to every other part, 
and nothing outside with which to have varying relations, and in which, 
having only one property, this can, of course, have no relations whatever, 
and, therefore, no diversity of relation to any other of its properties. 

In regard to the surface of the finite sphere, we cannot, in our concep- 
tion of it, take in separately each point and observe its relations to every 
other point, for the number of these points is infinite ; but, knowing that 
each of these points has the same relation to every other point, we are 
justified, after ascertaining this fact, and having observed the relation of 
one point to the rest of the surface, which includes all other points, in 
saying that we comprehend this relation of every point to the whole 
surface. 

So, too, in the case of infinite space, though we cannot consider each 
of the infinity of like finite spaces, of which it is composed, yet, knowing 
that the relation of each one to the whole is the same as that of every 
other, we may in like manner assert that we conceive and know that every 
point or portion has the same relation to the whole which every other 
point or like portion has. It seems, then, that our conception of infinite 
space — which properly extrudes the element of limit or bound, which does 
not belong to it, and which embraces a knowledge of all its component 
parts, and of all the relations of those parts to each other, and of all its 
properties and their relations to each other, and of all its uses — is as full 
and perfect a conception as we have of anything whatever. 

The idea of what is thus homogeneous in all its parts, and in their rela- 
tions to each other, which has but one property or use, and nothing with- 
out it to which it can have varying relations, is the simplest possible con- 
ception of existence, having indeed so few elements of thought in it as, 



88 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

in the last analysis, to raise a doubt as to wlietlier the conception is that 
of existence or of its absence. 

Perhaps the principal difficulty in the case is that of believing that an 
idea, so simple and so limited in its conditions, really fits an object which, 
in its vastness, is illimitable. Hence we seek to add to our conception of 
it, and find tbat in so doing- we immediately come in contact with ideas 
that do not belong to it, showing that on all sides we have reached the 
limit of the conception we are exploring, and have already embraced in 
our survey all that pertains to it. If extension is regarded as its prop- 
erty, this does not generically distinguish it from other things ; for all 
have this property, and the consideration that this is the only real prop- 
erty of space, and that space is necessary to all material existences, 
strengthens my previous suggestion that extension is the nearest approach 
to our notion of a substratum. Mere extension is unoccupied space, and 
is that which always remains when all the other properties of that which 
occupied it are abstracted ; but the extension, in itself, is then reduced to 
a vacuum or nonentity. 

The reduction of our notion of tangible space to an idea of the sim- 
plest character, and eventually to a mere extended vacuum, is not wholly 
an isolated fact, without parallel in other objects of thought. As the 
tangible quantities of an algebraic formula may sometimes be reduced in 
the aggregate to zero, and more especially as the combination of such 
formulas in an equation, sometimes, when reduced to their lowest terms, 
results only in 0^=0, so, too, in subjecting some of our abstract ideas to 
that last analysis, in which they elude further reduction, analysis, or com- 
parison, we get glimpses of relations by which they seem to be neutraliz- 
ing each other, and, in the aggregate, resolving into nothingness, suggest- 
ing as a corollary the converse possibility that from nothingness they may 
have been evolved, and brought into existence by the creative plastic 
power of an Intelligence of a higher order than that which thus by its 
action resolves them again into their original nonentity. 

If, by a fuller kuowledge — a clearer perception — of this resolving 
process, or otherwise, we shall ever come to be able to reverse it, then, 
in connection with the ideal philosophy, the creative power of the finite, 
as of the Infinite Intelligence, will no longer be veiled in a mystery which 
has thus far been impenetrable to mortal vision, and the origin of all ex- 
istence, except that which creates, would be revealed to us. 

"We may, perhaps, even now anticipate, or venture the prediction, 
that the creative power of mind will be found to reside mainly in its 
poetic modes of thought, and its annihilative, mainly in its logical pro- 
saic modes. 



A Study of tJie Iliad. 89 

This would be in harmony with the suggestions I have heretofore 
made : that the representation of the thought and imagery of the mind of 
God in the creations of the material universe is the purest type we know 
of poetry ; that the province of the poet is to create, and to make his 
creations palpable and tangible to others, and that the appliance of the 
logical modes to his productions immediately reduces his creations to 
mere abstractions, with a cessation or revulsion of all the poetic vision 
and emotion which they were fitted to produce. We may thus, by a resort 
to the logical modes, annihilate the creations of the most gifted in our own 
sphere of intelligence, or, at least, reduce them to intangible abstractions. 
We may further note in this connection that mathematics, the purest type 
of the logical processes which thus dissolve or reduce the creations of the 
poet, is only the science of quantity, of simple extension, or mere space ; 
our idea of which, involving the fewest properties and relations, is the 
nearest approach to nothingness of which we have any conception. 

But this power of annihilating is by no means the only characteristic 
of the logical faculty. It is not creative, but it discovers and analyzes 
what already exists, and, in its ability to reduce, to disintegrate, and to 
abstract, it is an important agent in the advancement of our knowledge 
of what already is, often harmoniously co-operating with the poetic modes 
to this end. 



A STUDY OF THE ILIAD.* 

BY D. J. SNIDER. 
III. 

Book Second stands out among the books of the " Iliad " in 
possessing certain qualities of its own. It has, on the whole, the 
subtlest procedure, the most ehisive links of conjunction that can 
be found in the whole poem. The motives are so hard to catch, 
so fleet and riant in their evasiveness, that the drift of opinion 
has usually been to regard the book as patchwork or a caprice, 
with little outer or inner connection. But it has a plan, a pro- 
found plan, and it fits organically into what goes before and what 
comes after. It has, however, a spirit of sportfulness, of playful 
concealment, which must first be reached and sympathized with 
before its true harmony can be felt. 

Regarding it apart from the Catalogue of Ships, we see that 

* Articles I. and II. of this series appeared respectively in the April and the July 
numbers of this Journal for 1883. — Editor. 



90 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

it lias a fundamental comic strand ; it is, indeed, a sort of divine 
comedy, yet looking forward to a great and serious end. A double 
plot we observe in it, or rather a plot within a plot ; we behold 
the astute human stratagem enfolded and carried on in the uni- 
versal divine stratagem ; Zeus, the upper ruler, turns to a come- 
dian of the skies, and Agamemnon, the lower ruler, is to have his 
own Mn'ly, deceptive game played upon himself by the supreme 
God. Yet this play above and below and between is all in fur- 
therance of the deep providential plan of the poem. So it is a 
veritable piece out of real life. Providence cannot help being a 
humorist once in a while ; for has he not to deal with mortals, who, 
in their self-importance, sometimes get to thinking themselves 
a Providence ? It is a hint of the world's comedy, played by its 
two actors, the God above and the man below ; the Aristophanes 
of Olympus, that greatest comedian of all, reveals the mighty 
terrestrial scheme merely as a piece of his colossal divine humor. 

The first point to be noticed is the relation between this and the 
preceding book. Here the subtlety of the treatment must be felt 
and seen, else the connection is lost ; for this connection is not so 
much an external event as an internal, almost unexpressed state 
of feeling. The great fact lying back of this book and joining it 
with the First Book is the wrath and withdrawal of Achilles. 
But this fact is hardly spoken of, and then, as it were, with a 
quick rebound from the subject. Yet it is the matter in the 
minds of all the Greeks, it is the hidden, fearful thing lurking in 
their hearts and causing a deep suppressed anxiety. It is not a 
subject which can be talked about openly ; the deed is done, and 
the Leader is the guilty man. The situation is ; Our Hero has 
left us ; what are we to do now ? It is the masterly skill of the 
Poet in such an emergency to leave the main fact unspoken, yet 
to make it most deeply felt ; this self-suppression one may well 
consider as the most genuine flash of artistic instinct in the whole 
Book — a flash swift and penetrating to the heart of the army. 

That the chief men have the fateful word in their thoughts, but 
are unwilling to speak it out, will be seen by examining their 
utterances. Agamemnon says to the Council of Elders that he 
will try the Greeks and counsel flight; but how this could be a 
trial of them he does not tell, and we at first do not see ; still the 
Eiders seem to have understood him perfectly ; he touched the hid- 



A Study of the Iliad. 91 

den chord in his faint allusion. Again, Ulysses says in his speech 
to the people that the Leader intends to try them ; he explains no 
further, deeming the expression intelligible to all. There is an 
appeal to something underneath, which we must feel out ; it is the 
state of public opinion, as we should call it, like a subterranean 
river flowing dark and voiceless, yet a very decided reality, 
Agamemnon is therefore in doubt concerning this speechless 
monster, and there results the trial, which is to answer this ques- 
tion : Will the Greeks fight without their Hero ? Such is the 
main theme of the present Book, such is its subtle connection with 
the preceding Book ; the withdrawal of Achilles has roused and 
transmitted this dark burden of uncertainty and anxiety, which 
now lies on the hearts of the people, and makes the spoken word 
an intrusion, a crushed, ill-omened sound, altogether to be avoided. 

Still it is not wholly avoided. Twice allusions to the fatal quarrel 
break out, and we are to note both the circumstances and the 
speakers. The first allusion comes from the mouth of Thersites, 
the demagogue wlio tries to be the voice of public discontent ; he 
is the unbridled slanderer of public men, the coiner of calumny. 
Such a character naturally touches the sore spot of the situation 
in hope of popular favor, but he is suppressed by the applause of 
the people, who are in no mood to listen to abuse or to any discus- 
sion of the painful topic. 

The second allusion is made by Agamemnon in his last speech, 
where he confesses the wrong he has done to Achilles, and mani- 
fests repentance. This confession, it is plain, is spoken in defer- 
ence to the feeling which he knows to be in the people, and it puts 
him in harmony with them by coming over to their opinion. 
Doubtless he felt what he said ; but certainly he removed a great 
obstacle by his penitent words ; though they cannot restore the 
Hero, they do restore the Leader to their good-will. He has won 
his point ; the Greeks will fight for the cause without the Hero ; he 
can afford to be generous and confess his own mistake. Such are 
the two allusions in this Book to the quarrel between Hero and 
Leader, which we read in the previous Book ; both presuppose a 
deep though not loud spirit of dismay, if not of discontent, among 
the people, and form the strongest bond of connection between the 
two Books. 

It will be remembered that the First Book leaves us with the 



92 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

two supreme persons of autliority, the one in the Lower "World 
and the other in the Upper World, each of whom has his plan. In 
the Second Book we are to see each carrying out his plan, and to 
see how both plans — that of the man and that of the God — fit into 
and complement each other. Zeus, in sleepless anxiet}^, is turning 
over his scheme which will bring honor to the heroic Individual ; 
this is now the universal principle, the decree of the Highest Clod, 
and must prevail. Moreover, it is one with the Greek conscious- 
ness, not on the surface so much as down in the depths thereof; 
the Greeks, too, believe primarily in the honor of the Hero, and 
are in agreement with Zeus, or soon will be. This divine plan 
will henceforth hover, like a Providence, over the entire movement 
of the poem till the. reconciliation of the Hero with his people. 

On the other hand, Agamemnon, the earthly Leader, has his 
scheme, which is to take Troy in the absence of Achilles. He 
imagines that he can do without the Heroic Man, yet he has a 
lurking doubt ; this doubt is to be resolved by a second scheme, 
which seeks to find out whether the Greeks will fight without 
their Hero. He may well feel a secret questioning upon this mat- 
ter ; the purpose of this Second Book (apart from the Catalogue) 
is to give the answer of the Greeks, which answer is, We shall 
fight. 

These are the two plans above and below, the providential and 
the human ; they start in opposition, then they unite in bringing 
forth the same result, namely, to get the Greeks to fight without 
Achilles. But after this point of union they again separate ; that 
the Greeks will be defeated Zeus knows, that Troy may be taken 
Agamemnon imagines. It is the lesson of the Providence who is 
over all, and sportfully employs even the delusions of men to ful- 
fil its purpose. 

We may now touch upon the organism of the Book. It has two 
parts : first, the Testing of the Greeks, which is to find out whether 
they will fight without Achilles, and, secondlj^, the Calling of 
the Muster Roll when it is ascertained that they will fight. The 
last is usually called the Catalogue, and for us is rather a dreary 
list of names, though it is appropriate where it stands. 

I. We shall now take up the First Part, which is by all means 
the most significant, and is usually meant when the Second Book 
is spoken of. This Part has one essential sub-division which di- 



A /Study of the Iliad. OS 

vides it into two movements, the one toward disruption and aban- 
donment of the Trojan enterprise, the other is the reaction toward 
harmony and a valiant continuance of the struggle. On the track 
of these two movements, each of which is strongly marked by the 
introduction of a divine appearance, we shall follow out the course 
of the action. 

{a) Zeus, in pursuance of his plan of honoring Achilles, sends a 
false dream to Agamemnon, declaring that Troy is now to be 
taken. At once the question springs up. How can the supreme 
deity resort to a deception to accomplish his end? The moral 
feeling is shocked, and at once begins to exclaim about the low 
conception of God among the Greeks. The question is indeed 
fundamental, and must be seen in its true light to understand the 
poet and his age. We have already found the axiom of Homeric 
Theology to be that the Gods are in the man as well as outside of 
him, and we may apply our axiom to the present case. 

Indeed, we must feel that this dream is Agamemnon's own ; he 
dreams that he can take Troy himself, without the Hero. This 
touch has been already given in the First Book, in his character 
there portrayed ; turn back and mark his pride, his vanity, his 
contempt of others. The foundation of his conduct is, he imagines 
that he is self-sufficient alone ; he dreams that he can capture the 
city without the aid of Achilles. Thus we are justified in putting 
this dream inside of Agamemnon. 

But it is outside of him ; Zeus sends it ; this is the difiiculty. Yet 
we need but reflect that this self-delusion of the Leader is a part 
of the plan of Zeus ; the God turns the vain scheme of mortal 
man to his own purpose. It is the way of Providence, who over- 
rules the evil of the world to 'good, as the moralist declares. But 
the Homeric manner of expression is mythical ; that is, the Poet 
makes Zeus the cause, the sender of the delusion. The genuine 
mythical spirit always puts the deity at the centre of every action, 
and the world moves from him and around him. Zeus sends the 
dream, because this dream fits into and is a part of the providen- 
tial plan of Zeus. The divine impulse has now been given, which 
is to bring the Greeks to fight, and by defeat to show them how 
necessary is their Hero. Thus we must see this dream in its 
double significance, the human and the divine ; what it is in the 
man and what it is outside of him. 



94 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Having attended to the Olympian part, we may now look after 
the terrestrial. The dream is working delusively upon Agamem- 
non, yet there lurks in him the suspicion that it is a dream. He 
calls the Council of Elders and tells them his vision ; the wise 
Nestor faintly hints its unreality. Then the people assemble ; he 
advises them to abandon the war and go home, in a spirit contrary 
to the promise of the dream. This is his trial of the Greeks, to 
find out whether they will fight without Achilles. He employs 
the following stratagem : I shall make a discouraging speech, tell 
them to go back to home and country, and see what they will do. 
So as Zeus employ's a deception above, Agamemnon employs a 
deception below, unconsciously requiting the divine ruse by one 
of his own. Yet both have the same purpose — to bring the Greeks 
to battle. 

The Greeks at once respond in the most startling manner to 
those feigned words of the Leader. They clean ont the channels, 
they drag down the ships to the sea, and get ready to start for 
home. A comical yet affecting scene, it is the sudden strong im- 
pulse of Family, which has been suppressed for ten years in those 
enduring hearts, and which now, at the touch of a sympathetic 
word, breaks forth in a vast sea-swell of emotion. It is one deep 
throb of that voiceless popular heart longing to get home, yet 
speaking mute volumes of heroic endurance for their cause. It is 
but one throb, and then comes the reaction which is now to be 
outlined briefly. 

(b) This reaction is begun from above — must begin there, since 
it is a recall of the Greeks to the spiritual principle of the war. 
Juno mentions for the first time the name of Helen ; she is the 
very soul of the Greek cause. If the first divine impulse came 
from Zeus for the sake of Achilles, this second one comes from 
Juno and Minerva, the special guardians and partisans of the 
Greek side, for the sake of Helen. The plan of the Goddesses is 
not interfered with by Zeus, as it fits into his higher plan of hon- 
orino- the Hero and of brinffino; the Greeks to battle. Juno and 
Minerva are partisans ; Zeus is over them. . 

Again there is a divine interference, and again we must see 
this same divine purpose in the hearts of men. The Greeks can 
not go home till they have restored Helen. Such is their strong- 
est aspiration, their profoundest principle. That movement to go 



A /Study of the Iliad. 95 

home was but a transitory outburst of feeling — a noble one too — 
yet they will recover from it and fight again if they be recalled to 
themselves. It looked for a moment as if the ruse of Agamemnon 
would upset the whole enterprise, and therewith the plan of Zeus 
for Achilles ; but the frenzy could not last ; they would not be 
Greeks if they could go home without Helen. 

The resolution above having been shown, we can now look 
below and see its execution. The human instrument is Ulysses, 
altogether the wisest man of the Greeks, whom grief had already 
seized for the loss of the enterprise and prepared for the appear- 
ance of Pallas. When he is ready for her, the Goddess darts down 
in a flash and speaks to him. Why just to him ? He is the man 
to behold her, the 07ily man, just as Agamemnon was the man to 
see the delusive dream. She recalls to him the great object of the 
war, Argive Helen, and bids him restrain the present rush for 
home. It was, too, his own inner command, else he could hardly 
have heard the Goddess. 

In every sense Ulysses proves himself to be the proper man 
for the emergency. He takes from Agamemnon the staff, the 
wonderful staff of authority, always imperishable ; he restrains 
the multitude, employing argument upon the leaders and blows 
upon the populace. He touches the heart of the matter in. his 
famous utterance : Let there be one ruler, the Many cannot all 
be Kings. Obedience to authority is his golden word ; herein he 
shows himself the intellectual enemy of Achilles, who is insubor- 
dinate. 

Moreover, a new phase of opposition develops itself, very differ- 
ent from that of Achilles. Here he comes with his speech ; it is 
the fault-finder Thersites. He too is hostile to authority, not as 
beautiful Hero, but as ugly, cowardly calumniator. All the quali- 
ties of body and mind repugnant to the Homeric spirit are heaped 
upon him, till he is weighed down with diabolic adjectives. Yet 
he belongs to the Homeric world — is indeed a prophecy of the 
Athenian demagogue. His outer ugliness corresponds to his inner 
perversity, a truly Greek method of expression, which makes him 
a sort of plastic Greek devil. He is the man who picks flaws in 
all great deeds and enterprises, and vilifies the men of authority. 
The wise man suppresses him with violence ; the wise man too 
utters the statement : The rule of the Many is not a good thing ; a 



96 The Journal of Speculative Pldlosoplaj . 

voice from Heaven among those beautiful but ever-conflicting in- 
dividualities. 

Yet Tliersites told truths ; he gave in some respects a just criti- 
cism of the Greek leaders ; he v^'as the opposition newspaper in 
the Greek camp. Now comes the strange fact : the people in 
whose behalf he seems to be speaking applaud Ulysses for sup- 
pressing him. Is it a case of popular fickleness and ingratitude? 
No ; the people saw in Thersites the image of their own present 
attitude, their own ugliness, and they at once shrunk back, and 
the beginning was made toward the reaction. Not a loose epi- 
sode is this affair of Thersites, but the turning-point back to their 
rational purpose. 

This return to the grand object of the expedition is made com- 
plete by the three speeches of the three chief men which now fol- 
low. Homeric oratory before the people is here a glorious antici- 
pation of Attic eloquence ; in this instance, and in many others, we 
trace all the germs of later Greek life in tlie old poet. Each of 
these speeches has its own character. That of Ulysses dwells upon 
the national end against the domestic impulse so powerfully 
wrought upon by Agamemnon, and then he recalls the religious 
promise at the beginning of the war ; Nestor follows somewhat in 
the same vein, for the old man is the appreciative spirit, not the 
creative — a difference seized by Shakespeare in " Troilus and Cres. 
sida." Agamemnon, at first' in a tone of penitence, then in a tone 
of triumph, shows that he thinks the Greeks will fight without 
their Hero. The reaction is complete ; the people are arrayed for 
battle. Pallas with her aegis stalks among them ; the war spirit is 
rampant. The supreme end, which we may call national, has sup- 
pressed the feeling for home, and once more the combat is to be 
renewed, now without Achilles. 

The two supremacies, divine and human, Zeus and Agamemnon 
have each attained their purpose. Zeus has brought about war 
through the delusive dream, by which means he intends to honor 
Achilles ; Agamemnon has ascertained that the Greeks will fight, 
though the Hero be absent. In the mean time the chief object of 
the war has been stated — the restoration of Helen ; it was neces- 
sary to recall this purpose to the mind of the Greeks in their dis- 
couragement after the withdrawal of Achilles. It is also shown 
how a Providence hovers over the poem, who employs human 



A Study of the Iliad. 9Y 

agency, and even human delusion, for its end ; the will of Zeus is 
being accomplished. 

After all, the interest of this Book lies in the picture of the peo- 
ple, that uncertain, billowy Demus so famous in Greek history. 
Aristophanes caught the outlines of his portrait in Homer ; a 
comic element plays around this dark, susceptible human mass, 
laughable and laughing. Yet the image is not unfavorable, as is 
sometimes declared; it is true, and sympathetically drawn. The 
people are capable of strong emotions, especially for their distant 
families, assuredly not an ignoble trait ; still more, they are capa- 
ble of being recalled to their great national end when it is for a 
moment lost in an ebullition of feeling for wife and children. 
The deep, unswerving purpose, the strong, underlying will, which 
continued the war for ten years through every manner of hard- 
ship, is revealed. This is not fickleness ; it is the fundamental per- 
sistency through all fluctuations which the Poet brings out. Final- 
ly, though their Hero may abandon them, they will still fight for 
the principle of the war, at its call they will again take their place 
in the ranks — a true and sympathetic picture of the people, I 
think ; it shows forth the eternal and substantial element of their 
character, as well as the temporary and fluctuating, which is their 
comic side. Granite there is here underlying all these foamy 
and dashing waves, and holding them in their limits. In the First 
Book w^e had the Princes and their quarrels, in which selfish or 
personal ends were the chief matter. But in this Second Book 
we see the people and their sacrifice for the supreme object of the 
war, and their devotion to the cause. The contrast is certainly 
not unfavorable to the people. 

All of which is serious enough ; yet the free Homeric sport can- 
not be omitted, this double deception, on the part of both man and 
God. It is the deep look of the Poet into the reality, whereof the 
outward play is this comic capriciousness ; appearance takes on a 
thousand delusive shapes to reveal the eternal — such is the humor 
of existence. I do not find it to be a lie, or even degrading ; it is a 
means of expression, somewhat strange to us, though we have, too, 
in the novel, a fictitious utterance of life. 

One glance forward ought to be made in this connection. The 
stratagem of Agamemnon has succeeded ; he may now chuckle 
over his good luck. But could he behold his scheme, as it lies in 
XVIII— 7 



98 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the supreme plan of Zeus, he would see that his very success is de- 
feat, that the wily deceiver is himself deceived in the deception 
which he has practiced. Tlius Zens plays with the most cunning 
of men in a sort of celestial comedy all to himself, and to the eye 
of the Poet, who must witness it too; he takes delight in turning 
earthly shrewdness back upon itself. Not out of hate, but out of 
love, the divine humorist must let cunning undo itself, mid the 
laughter of the Gods. 

II. The Second Part of the Book begins with the strong address 
to the Muses. It is well to follow the Poet into his own processes 
where we can. This address is not a formal matter, but a faith ; 
the impulse of song is to him a wonderful, a divine thing ; he ad- 
dresses that unreflective genius of his as some existence external 
to himself. He is not selt-conscious, we say ; he does not fully 
grasp his spiritual operations as his own ; he has to employ these 
outer shapes to give utterance to his inner im|)ulse. This process 
is epiJiGation — to deify the spiritual act of man; every mental 
movement, instead of falling into abstract prose as with us, in 
Homer seizes hold of a form and becomes a short poem. And 
with truth is it so; for the poetic process is a vision of the reality, 
and has the divine right to be placed out in the world, where the 
Muses are. 

In the First Part of this Book we saw the principle of the war 
brought out; in the Second Part we have the so-called Catalogue 
which is the muster-roll of both sides, Greeks and Trojans. We 
mark the political organization of these peoples; towns more or 
less independent send leaders quite as independent ; each town 
has its hero, and the culmination is the hero of heroes, Achilles. 
There is a lack of subordination, though a supreme commander be 
recognized ; we see the case of Achilles might become universal. 
And Zeus, the final authority above, does not support the final au- 
thority below, but the hero ; the stress is laid upon the individual 
even by the God, which fact reveals the essence of Greek con- 
sciousness. 

{a) The Greek muster-roll is given not only by countries, but 
by ships, as if the armament might be sailing out of Aulis for 
Troy at the beginning of the war, and not after nearly ten years. 
Whereby conjecture has been much stirred up among the learned, 
but it need not stop us here. We see how every part of western 



A Study of the Iliad. 99 

Greece was roused to share in the war; it was in the strongest 
sense a national enterprise, and brought about a national unity, 
such as was not seen afterward. Those jealous, discordant Greek 
towns all responded to the call for Helen's restoration ; what could 
that have meant to them ? Something deeper than their strifes, 
something stronger than even their ties of family ; what was it ? 

(J) The Trojan muster-roll is introduced by the message of Iris. 
She announces the approaching battle, for which Hector marshals 
the Trojan forces. They have no ships ; the marine element is left 
out. But they, too, will not restore the stolen women ; what do 
they mean, all these Asiatic peoples, by keeping her? 

The nations in conflict divide pretty nearly on a line between 
Europe and Asia, which fact suggests the spiritual struggle be- 
tween the Orient and the West. Yet these various nations seem 
in the main to belong to the one Hellenic race; evidently it is a 
conflict of tendency — the Trojans are Hellenes with face turned 
toward the East, the Greeks are Hellenes with face turned toward 
the West. Thus we may catch the first faint image of meaning 
in this struggle for the possession of Helen, who is to appear in 
the next Book. 

Book Third. 

This, above all other Books of the " Iliad," may be called Helen's 
Book. It contains the essence of her antecedent history ; it has a 
record of her situation and her sorrow ; it shows her beauty, and 
the conflict which always seems to be linked with beauty. Al- 
ready in the previous Book she had been mentioned as the grand 
object of the war; her restoration shone forth as the supreme 
purpose of the Greek expedition. The Greeks will fight without 
their Heroic Man for her sake ; not to honor Achilles, but to biing 
back Helen, they have proclaimed in deepest heart-thrills. Kow 
she is to be brought before us. 

The organism of this Book, quite difi'erent from either of the 
two previous Books, is woven together of two threads running 
parallel and intertwining at two separate times. These threads 
are, first, the external combat between the husbands of Helen ; 
secondly, the internal conflict in the soul of Helen. Mark the 
very intimate relation between these threads, though they be so 
distinct; that duel before the walls of Troy is for the possession 
of Helen, and is the image in real life of what is going on in her 



100 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

spirit. She has a desperate strnofgle between two conflicting 
emotions: Shall I yield to or put down Aphrodite? Her aspi- 
ration is to be restored, which the Greeks are lighting to fulfil ; 
still she seems not fully ready. In such manner she has her indi- 
vidual problem ; but that individual problem is also the problem 
of the Greek world, and it is just now being settled at Troy on 
the boundary of two grand divisions of our globe. Helen bears 
in her the principle of the war, she is its embodiment; in this 
Book we are to see the inner struggle of heart which gives mean- 
ing to the outer struggle of battle. 

I. Let us first consider the external thread, as it is the first one 
touched by the Poet. This is the course of the Duel, which has 
two phases, being dropped once and taken up again in the prog- 
ress of the Book. This external thread we must regard as the 
side of realitv, the real appearance in the world of a spiritual con- 
flict. It naturally comes first, then it deepens to the soul of the 
contendino; elements. 

(a) The muster-roll has been called on both sides ; each is ar- 
rayed for combat in presence of the other. AVho now leap forth ? 
Menelaus and Paris, the two individuals of the two armies most 
directly concerned ; they are the injured and injarer, who have 
their nations also drawn up on their respective sides. Kow the 
feeling runs, if this grievance lies between two individuals, let 
them fight it out by themselves and not spill innocent blood. 
Both armies so incline at present; it is a personal matter; let the 
two persons settle it by arms, and let both sides enforce the con- 
tract. A personal conflict for the personal possession of the wom- 
an and her chattels ; this is what both Trojans and Greeks seem 
just now to see in the war, so eager are they to have it brought to 
a close. They together ratify a contract which, the Poet hints, 
Zeus does not sanction, nor can we. 

This duel very properly opens the fighting of the "Iliad." 
There will follow many other duels ; indeed, the chief strategy of 
the poem consists in personal combat between two antagonists. 
But this first duel reveals the spirit of them all, it lies between 
the injured and the injurer; Helen stands in the background of 
all the individual prowess of the Heroes, and nerves their arms for 
the contest. 

{h) The outcome of the duel is that Paris is defeated by Mene- 



A Study of the Iliad. 101 

laiis, but saved by Aphrodite. She breaks the strap of his helmet 
to foil his enemy, and then carries him off in a cloud. Such is the 
intervention of the Goddess, whicli we must not consider as an 
allegory in which each little incident has its separate meaning, 
but as the broad general image of a spiritual occurrence. Let us 
conceive of Paris quitting the battle-field stealthily, under a cloud, 
If you will. It is Aphrodite who leads him ; his sensuous is far 
stronger than his warlike nature. She leads him out of the com- 
bat ; when there is danger to his dear body, the grand instrument 
of pleasure, she makes him a coward ; for this reason he, as the 
disciple of Aphrodite, receives such bitter reproaches from his 
warlike brother Hector. 

Thus we see what Paris means, what he stands for to the mind 
of the Poet. He is the favorite of Aphrodite, his leading trait is 
that of sensual indulgence, which destroys the heroic character of 
man, and debauches the domestic character of woman. More- 
over, we get a glimpse of what the Trojans think of him, and 
what his standing is in Troy, as in the entire Book we are intro- 
duced to the Trojan view of the world as distinct from the Gre- 
cian. One party, led by his own brother Hector, hates Paris, yet 
the latter has hitherto foiled their attempts to restore Helen. For 
in this Book we learn that she was demanded back by a Greek 
embassy before the war began, of which embassy Menelaus and 
Ulysses were members. Even the Graybeards of Troy, as they 
look at Helen, seem to be in doubt whether a woman so beautiful 
ought to be given up; they, the old men, say with unwillingness: 
Let her go for the sake of our Trojan land and families. It is clear 
that Paris has a strong party supporting him in the city ; it is 
furthermore clear that he cannot be forced to surrender Helen, 
and Troy participates in his guilt. Paris may be said to be a 
truer representative of Trojan spirit than Hector — much truer; 
though in the pinch of war the Trojans now assent to the com- 
pact, yet we nmy mark the word: if it leads to the surrender of 
Helen, they will break the treaty ; that deed is already fore- 
shadowed in their character. 

XL The second thread, that of Helen, may now be picked up 
and carried through the Book, of which it is the very essence and 
inner spirit. We liave already had her name mentioned as the 
object of the Duel, and indeed as the object of the whole war; we 



102 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy. 

are thus prepared for lier appearance — here she steps forth in her 
own person. She comes right out of the duel — is horn of it, we 
may say ; for the question of it is, Shall Helen be restored or con- 
tinue in alienation ? Shall the beautiful woman of the world be 
wife, or be lost to Family ? "VVe feel that the soul of the theme is 
ethical ; back of the question stand the Greek and the Trojan 
armies to decide it. Upon that decision much depends — the whole 
Westeruiworld ; this subject, too, is the beginning of Western Lit- 
erature. Let us scan Helen closely, then, as she appears here, for 
she is not only the object of the conflict, but bears it within her 
own bosom ; nay, she portrays it too. 

She is in Troy, apart from her true husband, in a state of 
estrangement. The Poet introduces her twice in the course of this 
thread of the Book, each time under a different aspect. First, she 
is shown us in her acts and relations in the city without Paris; 
this gives what may be called her artistic phases. Secondly, she is 
shown in her intense conflict with the Goddess Aphrodite and tlie 
mortal representative of the Goddess — namely, Paris. Both times, 
however, she reveals the one mighty struggle of her heart ; both 
times, too, she shows that she had repented, and was torn by per- 
petual self-reproach on account ot her deeds, past and present. 
Deep and sorrowful in every way is this mental anguish of Helen ; 
she is not happy in Troy, estranged from her true life ; she longs 
to be restored, and it is tiiis longing of her heart which corresponds 
to the outward attempt of the Greeks. 

{a) Iris, the messenger of the Gods, comes to Helen in the 
palace under the form of Laodice, fairest of Priam's daughters. 
The occurrence which is thereby brought about is not a mere 
whim, but is divinely sent ; Laodice, the mortal shape, simply tells 
what is going on, but in this mortal shape is hidden Iris, who 
comes from the Gods. This message is a part of the divine plan, 
and the event which takes place in consequence is linked into the 
providence which rules over the poem. Who does not delight in 
the old Poet's recognition of a divine control of the world, into 
which the individual is jointed through his de^d ? Moreover, Iris 
comes from the better Gods, not from Aphrodite, who will appear 
later ; this message tells her of the coming combat, and recalls the 
memory of her absent spouse and kind)'ed, to whom she would 
now fain return. This desire for restoration is the strong emotion 



A Study of the Iliad. 103 

al background of this first phase of Helen, and is the contrast ta 
the resistless command of Aphrodite in the second. 

But let Q8 note what is Helen's occupation in Troy. She is 
making a garment wherein are woven the conflicts of the Greeks 
and Trojans for her sake — a wonderful garment, which, when com- 
pleted, we may call the Iliad itself. For, if she truly represents 
this conflict in her marvellous web, we shall have to call her Poet, 
too, or at least Artist, who has experienced the mighty struggle, 
and then turns around and portrays it. It is a deep, perliaps the 
deepest, element of her character, this self-reflection of Helen in 
Art. In such manner she is busied inside of Troy, the weaver of 
the many woes which she has caused and endured, imaging beauti- 
fully the great conflict, and being herself at the same time the most 
beautiful image of it. In later ages Helen became the type of Art, 
or its Ideal; the suggestion thereof is found in old Homer, who 
makes Helen the self-imaging person, weaving a brilliant robe out 
of the combats for her own sake. The Artist has verily in him 
the struggle and the aspiration of his age, which he must weave 
out of himself into a beautiful garment, if he would make his 
Iliad, Greater or Lesser. 

The divine messensi-er bids her to witness the duel which is to 
decide what she is lo be in the future. What her desire is cannot 
be doubted for a moment ; there comes at once that heart-burst of 
hers aglow with painful recollections of what she has left. It is 
manifest that she longs to pass out of her period of alienation to 
that of return to family ; repentance is the word that cries from 
every line ; heart's sorrow is indeed her companion. Yet coupled 
with the deep distress is her beauty ; the old men of Troy confess 
the war for her possession to be worth the prize, and declare that 
her face is like an immortal Goddess to look upon. Assuredly a 
noble and true definition of beauty ; the Eternal shines through 
her face — that face touched by struggle and contrition, yet looking 
up to restoration. Sorrow and beauty are the twin sisters, insepa- 
rable; under beauty lurks the passionate trial of the soul, till 
it rise up to reconciliation. Such is the face of Helen : not merely 
an outward symmetrical visage, but a living mirror, reflecting all 
her life ; for a mask, though it have the Greek lines and be of 
human flesh, cannot be beautiful ; the soul must be uttered in the 
features. 



104 The Jounial of Sjjeculative Philosophy. 

"We mav now pass with Helen to the eitj wall, and take a look 
with her froiii it. Here ai^ain we behold the artistic phase of 
Helen in a new way. To Priam, who addresses her very kindly, 
she gives a description of the leading Greek Heroes as they 
appear down in the plain ; yet this is coupled with a strong de- 
scription of herself, of her own internal condition. It is another 
word of sorrow bursting up with the wish for deatli. But behold 
Agamemnon, Ulysses, Ajax, but not Achilles ; authority, wisdom, 
strength, but not heroism, are represented in that Greek host. 
Helen, we may well say, is in all this the Artist still, or the Poet ; 
she depicts the essence of the Greek army in the characters of its 
great chieftains as she looks down into them from her high posi- 
tion on the watch-tower. This is a picture of hers too, woven 
now of words ; it may be called the companion-piece to her gar- 
ment woven of threads. Thus has the Poet brought her forward 
in these two passages as the Artiot, at one time picturing the com- 
bats by means of visible farms, at another time showing the char- 
acters of Heroes by means of spoken words ; the one hints of 
scnlpture, the other of poetry, the two great Arts of Greece. Still 
more deeply she has pictured herself the imager and the imaged ; 
her heart is the heart of the whole war, and its portraiture too ; the 
scission in that heart is what we are next to witness when she 
comes before us. 

{h) The second part of Helen's thread — this Book of Homer, in 
its structure, being woven out of threads like Helen's garment — 
shows the actual struggle about which she has previously so bitter- 
ly reproached herself. It is the struggle with the Goddess Aphro- 
dite in person ; these are now the two combatants, and a duel 
takes place far more intense and far more significant than the duel 
which has just taken place before the gates of Troy ; in fact, this 
second duel is that which gives spirit and meaning to the first. 
Aphrodite has just come from Paris, who looks, she says to Helen's 
temptation, not like a returning warrior, but like a blooming dancer 
in the chorus. Helen recognizes the messenger, so diiferent from 
Iris ; indeed, she has become conscious of the presence of the God- 
dess in her own desire ; but she turns ferociously upon Aphro- 
dite and refuses to obey. "We see the desperate effort of the woman, 
smitten by shame and remorse, to free herself of the chains which 
still hold her captive. It is the conflict in her own breast between 



A Study of the Iliad. 105 

sensual love and self-control, one of the thousand inner conflicts 
which for many years Helen has watered with her tears, and then 
has given up again. It is the picture of them all ; the Goddess is 
a Goddess, and responds, M'ith wrath : Beware lest I shall hate thee 
and make Greek and Trojans hate thee, and thou slialt perish 
miserably ! The Goddess threatens to take away Helen's beauty ; 
then indeed will she be lost, being no longer the object of eager 
possession to both Greeks and Trojans — in fact, to the world. 
Helen without the gift of beauty is indeed not Helen ; in awe of 
the Goddess she turns awaj', wrapped in a shining robe, and goes 
into the presence of Paris. 

Here is her second struggle, not now with the Goddess, but with 
the man ; yet both struggles at bottom are of the same kind. She 
turns upon him who has brought her so much woe and who has 
just shown himself such a coward. She knows his unworthiness, 
she knows too her own guiltiness; she casts upon him reproaches, 
very bitter and very true, and then yields again. Paris has his 
excuse, very convenient in Greek polytheism ; he says that Pallas 
won the victory for Men elans, but asserts that there is a God on 
Lis side too, and at once demonstrates the fact. 

Such is Helen's double struo-o-le with the Goddess and her 
mortal counterpart; an intense, furious combat, but ending in 
defeat. Both Paris and Helen are the victims; to Aphrodite they 
have sacrificed both manhood and womanhood. TVe are led back 
to the original wrong ; the island Cranae is hinted ; the history of 
Helen's fall is re-enacted in Troy. This Third Book brings out in 
vivid dramatic interest the beginning, which is repeated before our 
eyes, and thus is a poetic review of the origin and meaning of the 
war. Still Helen is repentant ; Paris is not; he knows no con- 
trition for his act, and thus there is between them a vast differ- 
ence — the whole universe, we might say. He must perish ; she 
must be restored ; Paris, the city of Troy, all that comes between 
her and restoration, will be swept out of the way by the world- 
governing Powers. 

Helen in this Book is seen to be the cause of the war, as the 
statement usually runs. She is certainly the image of it in her- 
self; a deep reflection of it in its ethical purport. She has a great 
throe in her bosom, a massive heaving heart of sorrow and con- 
flict ; she longs for the return to home and country, but the Tro- 



106 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

jans stand in the waj. This is their guilt, their grand interrup- 
tion of the divine order; they must be wiped out ; those one hun- 
dred thousand Greeks are before their gates for that purpose. 
Thus her inner struggle is the outer struggle between Greek and 
Trojan ; she is the soul of the war, its very soul put into a human 
soul. We may call her the ideal, whose life is to be the reality of 
that which is fought for on the Trojan plain. Her cause has taken 
possession of her nation and race ; that cause arms tliem and drives 
them into the battle for her salvation, which is their own salvation 
too. She becomes a type which the Artist reveals, wherein he 
images the nation to itself in its strongest aspiration. 

But Helen in this Book is that Artist too, or is employed in 
artistic work. She is not only the bearer of the struggle, but its 
painter — the image making its own image. Such is the artistic 
nature which has to image what it endures ; the Eternal peers 
through the personal sorrow and transforms it into the expression 
of the Beautiful. In her fall she manifests the possibility of her 
rise, which will overcome her sensuous impulses and find restora- 
tion, even after many relapses. One such rise and relapse, the 
image of them all, we have seen in this Book ; but we feel assured 
that redemption is coming and with it a new world. Such a hint 
there is in this fervid account ; hope is here, and the future har- 
mony and reconciliation. The germ of her recovery we touch 
everywhere; this fact is the most vital one of the story. It is a 
deep glance into the time to come on the part of the old bard ; a 
genuine, prophetic glance which brings back the truest word of 
the ages — restoration of the fallen soul. A comparison with those 
old Greeks rises involuntarily : Would our social order restore 
Helen as readily as they did ? Would her modern sister ever 
acknowledge her as restored ? Would her cause call forth a thou- 
sand ships and a ten years' war? Hardly; but our excuse is at 
hand ; those old Greeks had to settle this question before all 
others; it was then the question of the World's History, which it 
is not now. Thus, however, we may catch a glimpse of the great- 
ness and reality of the theme of which this ancient poem treats. 



Notes and Discussions. lOT 



NOTES AKD DISCUSSIONS. 



'' THE platonist;' second volume. 

["The Platonist," it seems by the following circular, was only tem- 
porarily suspended. It appears again with the beginning of 1884, and 
will continue its work of making accessible rare and valuable Platonic 
writings, together with new and original commentary. We shall notice 
its contents from time to time. — Ed.] 

" THE PLATONIST," VOLUME II. AN EXPONENT OF THE PHILOSOPHIC TRUTH. ESOTERIC 

CHRISTIANITY IS IDENTICAL WITH TRUE PHILOSOPHY. 

The second volume of " The Platonist " is now offered to those who are desirous to be- 
come more familiar with philosophic literature. The favorable reception already accorded 
the work by scholars and thinkers indicates that it was wanted, and that there was no 
publication occupying the same field. The scope of the journal will be extended so as 
to include not only the wisdom-religion of the archaic period, Oriental as well as Occi- 
dental philosophy, but philological investigations, translations, and interpretations of 
the later writers, the various utterances of gifted and enlightened individuals, and, in 
short, every variety of inquiry and speculation relating to the interior life. The pur- 
pose is to discriminate wisely, receiving and welcoming the truth in every form of its 
manifestation. The harmony of the teachings of pure Christianity with the esoteric 
doctrines of the various ancient faiths will be duly expounded. Platonism in its essence 
is Universal Philosophy. Considered merely as a method, its value is inestimable. It 
winnows away the chaff and noxious seeds, in order that all may descry and possess 
only the genuine grain. It places an inferior estimate upon sensuous and lower scien- 
tific knowledge, but seeks to direct the mind to the nobler Theosophy, the evolving of 
a conception of genuine reality, the good and true — everything of essential benefit to 
mankind. It is immortal, because the principles which it unfolds are immortal in the 
human intellect. 

We have been promised the active co-operation of eminent thinkers and specialists, 
both in America and the Eastern continent. It is our belief that there are many pre- 
cious works of the sages of Antiquity still in existence, which have been regarded as 
lost, and that they will be brought to light. Many inedited texts and fragments exist, 
the publication and translation of which will be a rare boon to both the classic and 
philosophic student. We are confident that all such will liberally sustain a journal 
unique in its character, and devoted entirely to their interests. 

Let every friend of our enterprise become an active participant and fellow-laborer 
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paper, presenting an attractive appearance. Price Two Dollars per annum, payable. 



108 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

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INTELLECTUAL LIBER2Y AMONG THE GREEKS. 

Mr. F. M. Holland's " Rise of Intellectual Liberty," soon to be pub- 
lished by Henry Holt & Co., opens by relating how the Ionian philoso- 
phers and their pupils were persecuted by Athens, to her own destruction, 
and how Socrates, Plato, and their contemporaries awakened mental ac- 
tivity. Chapter II describes the conquest of Greek and Roman polythe- 
ism by the speculations of Pyrrho and Epicurus, aided by the science of 
Alexandria. The next two chapters are given to the reaction in favor of 
supernatural religion accomplished by unintentional co-operation of the 
Roman emperors and early Christians. A sketch may here be found of 
the process by which tyranny destroys itself. Western Europe is next 
seen, first in such subjection to the Church that persecution became almost 
unknown, and then in irrepressible agitation, produced partly by the Ca- 
tharists and other popular preachers against the luxury of the clergy, and 
partly by those early rationalists, the Nominalists. Putting down these 
heretics necessitated not only atrocious cruelties, but such reckless reliance 
on the superiority of intuition to reason as stimulated a mighty growth of 
independent mysticism. This was the inspiration of Dolcino, Dante, and 
Rienzi, among whose contemporaries in the fourteenth century were those 
sovereigns of France and Germany' who gave timely checks to papal arro- 
gance. The eighth chapter shows how the authority of the Bible was set 
up by Wycliffe and Huss against the popes, whose supremacy was at the 
same time endangered by the attempts of three great councils to make 
the Church a limited monarch}-. Tben follows a chapter on the " Revival 
of Letters," when classic learning, oceanic discovery, printing, art, and 



Notes and Discussions. 109 

commerce united in developing new habits of thought. Thus, as related 
in Chapter X, it became possible, not only for German mysticism to liber- 
ate the northern nations from the Roman yoke, but for Paracelsus, Franck, 
Gruet, Servetus, and Copernicus to begin still more extensive innovations. 
The concluding chapter urges that mystics, skeptics, liberal Christians, and 
scientists, have all had their places among the champions of freedom, that 
this great cause has been peculiarly indebted to the labors of scholars, and 
that the interests of high culture, biblical criticism, female emancipation, 
tolerance, political liberty, free inquiry, and pure morality, have all been 
found to be identical. 

TWO WAYS TO TEACH. 

There are two ways to teach : the one of man — 
By symbols nice that catch the ready ear. 
Woven with neatest logic, so one can 
Build up an argument of words, nor fear 
His house will fall — till some revealer clear, 
With insight sure, point to the hollow word, 
Which, seeming solid, shuns the glance severe. 
This way is man's, shifting and error-blurred. 
Wrought of the intellect, not living, spirit-btirred. 

The other is of God, a living way. 
Careless of symbol, with the truth made strong, 
Indifferent to the semblance of delay, 
All-utilizing ills and seeming wrong. 
Begetting martyrs ; in the issue long 
Accepting humble hearts to make them see 
Their parts made certain, hear the mighty song 
Sphere-sung, by ages helped and spirits free. 
And e'en unconscious lisped by frail humanity. 

B. R. BULKELEY. 

Concord, Mass. 

RALPE WALDO EMERSOK 

There have been other suns, and still shall be, 

Whose steady radiance draws 

A host obedient to its golden laws, 
Systems that shine and shade responsively. 

This man was hke the Earth, 
Which feeds her strengthening juices everywhere, 

And, dreading naught but dearth, 



110 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Lends to each life that asks of her at need 

That food which swells the seed 

To its especial dower. 
Careless to shape, careful to feed the flower, 
So broad souls drew their liberal life from thee, 
And high souls learned how pure a man could be 

Who worshipped Purity. 

When Death shall bare 
Our unaccustomed spirits of these hands, 

Answering their hourly prayer. 
These eyes and ears whose lordly influence 

Binds thought itself to sense, 
Shall we not walk awhile as in new lands 
With old needs reaching for lost utterance ? 
Thou, Seer, will not stand lonely on that shore 
Where free men wander — thou wast free before. 

The high transparent speech 

That floated out of reach 
Of our air-currents, though we felt its breath 

And knew it knew not death. 
Will find interpretation swift and fair 

In that serener air ; 
A brother's voice alike to old-time Sages, 
And to the child which One set in the midst 

To teach the ages. 

Thy large, wise phrase fell grandly from the Greek, 
And smoother singing has our ears beguiled ; 
What matter ? We shall hsten when you speak, 
Our Plato when you sang — our Poet when you smiled ! 

Fannie R. Robinson. 



Booh Notices. • 111 

EOOK NOTICES. 



Thoughts on Theism, with Suggestions toward a Public Religious Service in Harmony 
with Modern Sciences and Philosophy. London: Triibner. 1880. 

Deanthropomorphization is the fashion of the day with churchmen who are anxiously 
aware of the need of setting their house in order, and perhaps nowhere has such a clean 
sweep been attempted as in this little book, which is an earnest plea for the establish- 
ment of a " New Catholic Church, dedicated to the worship of God and the service of 
Man." This god bears a strong family resemblance to " The Unknowable" of Mr. Spen- 
cer, and, indeed, his (?) genealogy is not left uncertain or disowned, for many quotations 
from that doctor of the new divinity and his school are allowed to witness to it. God 
is "the Formless Infinite," "That which Is," "Pure Ens," "Whom we do not ^wow," 
and yet who is " an intuitional truth or immediate fact of consciousness ! " He " is 
never known -as possessing faculties or properties or qualities," and "This seems to be 
the groundwork of a true theology ! " The authors join hands with the Eev. Canon 
Curteis in allowing us "to accept — if charity so requires — as the common basis for 
theological reunion the agnostic formula, ' Something Is\'" Hitherto theology has 
been taken to be a kind of science, but now it is found to be nescience, and it would 
almost appear that Heine was more than half right when he jestingly claimed the last 
word of Theism to be Atheism. Between the finite and this Infinite, man and god, thus 
j9e>' impossibile conceived, " there is no ratio of likeness, no binding links can make 
them one ; there is nothing common to both except the fact of existence," if, indeed, 
even "existence" — pace Hegel — can be affirmed of Pure Being; and, nevertheless, it 
seems good to our authors to make this the basis of a true Cult! "Thy will be done," 
will be the cry of future saints, calling on the name of the Nameless and addressing 
the characterless Void. This reductio ad absurdum may be recommended to any who are 
tempted to rationalize the historical religions. Religion is concrete, poetic, imaginative ; 
the highest emotions, grouped and impersonated, are its ideals ; its gods are all instinct 
and permeate with humanity ; its nourishment and deUght are Aberglauhe of some kind 
or other, and such genial and naive " superstition " has always abounded in the ages and 
lands of Faith ; and wise reformers, like Comte, following the Catholic tradition, have 
known better than to prune these luxuriances to the quick. Religion refuses to live in 
an artificial vacuum, like the author's. To bring science and philosophy into her house 
is to introduce dynamite unawares to desecrate and destroy ; and that they have a dumb 
feeling of this fact is shown by their book having another side, where we find " Aber- 
glauhe reinvading," symbolical ascription allowed, and so forth. But, best of all, their Re- 
ligion is as thoroughly and literally anthropomorphic as their theology is without form and 
void ; and we find them brought in the end to endorse the truly humanitarian creed of 
Principal Caird, that Religion's paramount aim is "to seek with all our might the highest 
welfare of the world we live in, and the realization of its ideal greatness and nobleness 
and blessedness." It would be ungenerous to expose the rather crude philosophemes — 
on subject and object, fate and free-will, etc. — of a book that ends so nobly and well. 
By way of amen, may I quote one favorite sentence : " God is for man the common- 
place book where he registers his highest feelings and thoughts, the genealogical tree on 
which are entered the names that are dearest and most sacred to him." 

J. Burns-Gibson. 



112 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Empirical and Rational Psychology. Embracing Cognitions, Feelings, and Volitions. 
By A. Schuyler, LL. D., President of Baldwin University, author of " Principles of 
Logic" and a series of mathematical works. Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co., Cincinnati 
and New York. 1883. 

Economic Tracts. No. VIII. (No. 4 of series of 1882.) Caucus System. By Fred- 
erick W. Whitridge. An essay prepared for Vol. I of the " Cycloptedia of Political Sci- 
ence, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States." Edited 
by John J. Lalor. (Issued by permission of the publishers, Messrs. Rand, McNally & 
Co., Chicago.) New York : The Society for Political Education, 4 Morton Street. 
1883. [Pamphlet of 27 pages.] 

A Russian Social-Panslavist Programme, drawn up in London. By C. Tondini de 
Quarenghi. (Reprint from the "Contemporary Review," August, 1881.) London: 
Strahan & Co. (Limited), 34 Paternoster Row. 1881. [Pamphlet of 28 pages.] 

Philosophy and Christianity. A Series of Lectures delivered in New York in 1883 
on the Ely Foundation of the Union Theological Seminary. By George S. Morris,. 
Ph. D., Professor of Ethics, History of Philosophy, and Logic in the University of 
Michigan, and Lecturer on Ethics and the History of Philosophy in the Johns Hopkins 
University, Baltimore. New York : Robert Carter & Brothers, 530 Broadway. 1883. 

Hegel. By Edward Caird, LL. D., Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of 
Glasgow. (A volume of " Philosophical Classics for English Readers," edited by Will- 
iam Knight, LL. D., Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of St. Andrews.) Edin- 
burgh: William Blackwood & Sons. 1883. 

Ueber das Richtige. Eine Eroerterung der ethischen Grundfragen von Dr. Julius 
Bergmann, ord. Prof, der Philosophie an der Universitaet zu Marburg. Berlin, 1883 : 
Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn. Koenigliche Hof Buchhandlung. 

An Examination of the Doctrine of the Natural Evolution of Mind ; or, the Distinc- 
tive Features of Scientific and Spiritual Knowledge. An Address delivered in Man- 
chester New College, London, at the Opening of its Ninety-eighth Session, on Tuesday, 
October 2, 1883. By Charles B. Upton, B. A., B. Sc, Professor of Mental and Moral 
Philosophy. Williams & Norgate, 14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, and 
20 South Frederick Street, Edinburgh. 1883. 

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Street. 1883. 

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ment Printing-office. 1883. ^ 



THE JOUKNAL 



OF 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



YoL. XYIII.] Apkil, 1884. [No. 2. 



ON SPACE OF FOUR DIMENSIONS. 



BY GEORGE S. F0LLEKTON. 



In the "Qiiarterly Journal of Science'" for April, 1878, ap- 
peared an article, by J. C. Friedrich Zollner, Professor of Physical 
Astronomy in the University of Leipsic, " On Space of Four 
Dunensions." The facts which the author thinks prove the actual 
existence of such a space, or at least make its assumption a reason- 
able hypothesis, are given in the first volume of his " Scientific 
Treatises," ' and, after presenting in his article the general argu- 
ment to prove that the possihility of a four-dimensional space is 
not inconceivable, he cites one of these facts to prove it an ac- 
tuality. 

From the fact that Zollner's treatises have excited considera- 
ble interest and some discussion in Germany, and that a leaning 
to the belief in a space of four or more dimensions is by no means 
uncommon, and seems to present a special attraction to those ac- 
customed to mathematical reasonings ; and from the additional 



' Vierteljahrsschrift. 

2 " Wissenschaftliehe Abhandlungen," von Job. Carl Friedrich Zollner, Professor der 
Astrophysik an der Universitat zu Leipzig. Erster Band. Leipzig : L. Staackmann, 
1878. 

XYIII— 8 



114 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

fact that the peculiar misconception which underlies the argument 
presented by Zolluei- is specious and oft-recurring — an error into 
which many have fallen before hiin, and many more are likely to 
fall in the future — an analysis of his argument, and a notice of the 
misconceptions upon which it is based, will not be without interest. 
Omitting certain sections which are unnecessary to an understand- 
ing of the positions taken, his argument, as it stands in the " Quar- 
terly Journal," is as follows: 

" In accordance with Kant, Schopenhauer, and IJelmholtz, the 
author regards the application of the law of causality as a function 
of the human intellect given to man a priori — i. e.^ before all ex- 
perience. The totality of all empirical experience is communi- 
cated to the intellect by the senses — i.e., by organs which commu- 
nicate to the mind all the sensual impressions which are received 
at the surface of our bodies. These impressions are a reality to 
ns, and their sphere is two-dimensional, acting not in our body, 
but only on its surface. 

" We have only attained the conception of a world of objects 
with three dimensions by an intellectual process. What circum- 
stances, we may ask, have compelled our intellect to come to this 
result? If a child contemplates its hand, it is conscious of its 
existence in a double manner: in the first place by its tangibility, 
in the second by its image on the retina of the eye. By repeated 
groping about and touching, the child knows by experience that 
his hand retains the same form and extension throu2;h all the vari- 
ations of distance and positions under which it is observed, not- 
withstanding that the form and extension of the image on the 
retina constantly change with the different position and distance 
of the hand in respect to the eye. The problem is thus set to the 
child's understanding, How to reconcile to its comprehension the 
apparently contradictory facts of the invariahleness of the object, 
and the varidbleness of its appearance. This is only possible 
within space of three dimensions, in which, ow"nig to perspective 
distortions and changes, these variations of projection can be re- 
conciled with the constancy of the form of a body. 

"The moment we observe in three-dimensioned space contradic- 
tory focts — i.e., facts which would force us to ascribe to a body 
two attributes or qualities which hitherto we thought could not 
exist together — the moment, I say, in which we should observe 



On Sjpace of Four Dimensions. 115 

such contradictory facts in a three-dimensioned body, our reason 
would at once be forced to reconcile these contradictions. 

" I now proceed to apply the hiojlier conception of space to the 
theory of twisting a perfectly flexible cord. Let us consider such 
a cord to be represented by a h, showing us, when stretched, a 
development of space in one dimension — 

(«- ^)- 

If the cord is bent so that during this action its parts always 
remain in the same plane, a development of space in two dimen- 
sions will be required for this* operation. The following figure 
may be given to the cord : 

(« Q #) 

and all its parts, if conceived of infinite thinness, may be consid- 
ered as lying in the same plane — i. e., in a development of space 
in two dimensions. If the flexible cord, without being broken, 
has to be brought back into the former figure of a straight line in 
such a manner that during this operation all its parts remain in 
the same plane, this can only be effected by describing with one 
end of the cord a circle of 360°. 

" For beings with only ^i«o-dimensional perceptions these opera- 
tions with the cord would correspond to what we, with our three- 
dimensional perception, call a knot in the cord. ]^ow, if a being, 
limited, on account of its bodily organization, to the conception of 
only two dimensions of space, possessed, nevertheless, the ability 
of executing, by his will, operations with this cord which are only 
possible in the space of three dimensions, such a being would be 
able to undo this two-dimensional knot in a much simpler way. 
Merely the turning over of part of the cord would be required, so 
that after the operation, when all parts again lie in the same 
plane, the cord would have passed through the following posi- 
tions : 



S^ 



" If this consideration, by way of analogy, is transferred to a 
knot in space of three dimensions, it will easily be seen that the 
tying as well as the untying of such a knot can only be efl[ected 



lie The Journal of Speculative Philosojphy. 

bj operations, during wliicb the parts of the cord describe a line 
of double curvature, as shown by this figure : 




We three-dimensional beings can only tie or untie such a knot by 
moving one end of the cord through 360° in a plane which is 
inclined toward that other plane containing the two-dimensional 
part of the knot. But if there were beings among us who were 
able to produce by their will four-dimensional movements of ma- 
terial substances, they could tie and untie such knots in a much 
simpler manner by an operation analogous to that described in 
relation to a two-dimensional knot." 

It will be noticed that the argument here presented by Professor 
Zollner is purely analogical. From the supposed experience of a 
^?/;o-dimensional being, the objects of whose perception are acted 
upon by a ^Are^-dimensional being, he draws an inference to our 
experience should a being inhabiting space oifour dimensions act 
upon the objects which we perceive. Finding, as he thinks, such 
effects,' as one might expect to see under those circumstances, pro- 
duced in the presence of Dr. Henry Slade, a spiritualistic medium, 
he infers the existence of four-dimensional beino;s as agents in 
their production. 

Before taking up the fundamental error in his reasonings, we 
may take exception to his founding an analogical argument upon 
a single term. If we, by acting in space of three dimensions, can 
untie a knot of a certain kind in a manner impossible to one mov- 
ing but on a surface, it does not follow that a knot of a different 
kind may be untied in a manner impossible to us acting in space 
of three dimensions by allowing motion in still another — a fourth 
dimension. If one knot (a), which one man can only untie in one 
way, may be nntied in still another way by another man, it does 
not follow that another and a different knot (5), which the second 
man can untie in only one way, can also be solved in a new way 
by a third person. For all we know to the contrary, the second 
knot may admit of but one solution. 

If it be proved, however, that we, acting in ^A^'^e-dimensional 



' E. g.^ the production of true knots in an endless cord. 



On Space of Four Dimensions. 117 

space, can untie knots which are not to be untied in a space of 
two dimensions, and if it be also proved that in actual experience 
knots are tied or untied, which seem to us incapable of solution 
in a space of three dimensions, we may suppose that it was done 
bj action in the direction of a fourth dimension, thouiyh there 
also remains open to us as alternative the supposition that it was 
done by a hitherto undiscovered mode of manipulation in space 
of three dimensions, or by action in a space of five, six, or any 
other number of dimensions. 

The whole argument lapses, however, when it is shown that the 
supposed experience of two-dimensional beings — the only datum 
for inference to another term — is a supposition without basis, and 
arising out of a misconception. The manner in which we ac- 
quire our conception of space, according to Zollner, is this : " The 
totality of all empirical experience is communicated to the intel- 
lect by the senses, i. e., by organs which communicate to the mind 
all the sensual impressions which are received at the surface of 
our bodies. These impressions are a reality to us, and their sphere 
is two-dimensional, acting not in our body, but only on its sur- 
face.''^ This gives us the idea of a surface. In explaining how 
we arrive at the idea of the third dimension, or distance, Zollner 
follows a similar method to Berkeley, in his " !New Theory of 
Vision," and refers the idea to the experienced connection of the 
variable visual appearance with the constant tangible object. 

Although Zollner has followed Berkeley (to whose essays he re- 
fers in his article), it is evident that he has not understood the 
force of his reasonings. The statement that the impressions of 
sense " act at the surface of onr bodies," and that through them 
we gain the idea of a surface (two-dimensional space) before we 
know space in a third dimension, is a double misunderstanding. 
The impressions of sense, if by this phrase sensations are desig- 
nated, are not felt primarily at the surface of our bodies, and are 
only localized after a long visual and tactual experience of the 
organism — an experience which implies as its outcome a knowl- 
edge of space in its three dimensions. 

The sensations given us by contact with objects would not at 
first have position or coexistence in sjyace^ but only succession, or 
coexistence in time, until after the fixing of the relations of visual 
and tactual sensations — they could be localized. After that they 



118 The Journal of Speeulatwe Philosophy. 

would, of course, suggest the space-idea oi\ being themselves 
awakened — which would be a going back, however, from conclu- 
sion to premises. There is no necessary connection between any 
particular sensation and the part of the body to which we relegate 
it. It is not felt in the part, and all localization of sensation is 
a result of experience and observation. Before the idea of the 
organism, as extended, no sensation could be regarded as spa- 
tially out of another. 

Again. The idea that we know a surface before we know the 
third dimension is untenable. A surface, as we know it, im- 
plies tlie idea of distance — it presupposes the knowledge of a 
third dimension. In the latter part of his essay on " Vision " 
(§§ 155-158) Berkeley speaks of this. In the inquiry concern- 
ing what knowledge a spirit endowed with the power of vision, 
but witliout the sense of touch, would have of geometry, after 
denying that he would have any knowledge of a solid, or quantity 
of three dimensions, he continues: " and, perhaps, upon a nice 
inquiry, it will be found he cannot even have an idea of plane 
figures any more than he can of solids, since some idea of dis- 
tance is necessary to form the idea of a geometrical plane, as will 
appear to whoever shall reflect a little on it." " I must confess it 
seems to be the opinion of some very ingenious men that flat or 
plane figures are immediate objects of sight, though they acknowl- 
edge solids are not; and this opinion of theirs is grounded on 
what is observed in painting, wherein (say they) the ideas imme- 
diately imprinted in the mind are only of planes variously col- 
ored, which, by a sudden act of the judgment, are changed into 
solids; but, with a little attention, we shall find the planes here 
mentioned as the immediate objects of sight are not visible, but 
tangible planes. For when we say that pictures are planes, we 
mean thereby that they appear to the touch smooth and uniform. 
But then this smoothness and uniformity, or, in other words, this 
planeuess of the picture, is not perceived immediately by vision ; 
for it appeareth to the eye various and multiform." A similar 
error to Zollner's was that made bv Sir William Hamilton in his 
lecture on the relations of sio:ht and touch to extension. In in- 
quiring whether extension is the object of sight, he argues as fol- 
lows:^ " All parties are, of course, at one in regard to the fact 

1 " Metaphysics," New York, 1880, p. 385. 



On Space of Four Dimensions. 119 

that we see color. Those who hold that we see extension admit 
that we see it only as colored ; and those who deny us any vision 
of extension make color the exclusive object of sight. In regard 
to the first position, all are, therefore, agreed. Nor are they less 
harmonious in reference to the second — that the power of per- 
ceiving color involves the power of perceiving the differences 
of colors. Bj sight we, therefore, perceive color, and discrimi- 
nate one color — -that is, one colored body — one sensation of color 
from another. This is admitted. A third position will also be 
denied by none — that the colors discriminated in vision are, or 
may be, placed side by side in immediate juxtaposition; or, one 
may limit another by being superinduced partially over it. A 
fourth position is equally indisputable — that the contrasted col- 
ors, thus bounding each other, will form by their meeting a visi- 
ble line, and that, if the superinduced color be surrounded by the 
other, this line will return upon itself, and thus constitute the out- 
line of a visible figure." 

It is evident that, in saying that the colors discriminated in vis- 
ion may be "placed side by side in immediate juxtaposition," Sir 
William is using language which implies a knowledge of distance. 
The planes to which he refers are not purely visual. To vision 
alone we must allow some discrimination between the colors, that 
they may become representative of tactual differences, but what 
that discrimination would be to one who had never enjoyed the 
sense of touch we have no means of knowing. It certainly would 
not be like our present knowledge of the differently colored planes. 
In his "Eeview of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy," Mr. Mill has 
pointed out with clearness the misconceptions in this supposed 
argument of Sir William's, and has justly complained that the 
position, line, and figure of which it treats are not the objects of 
pure vision. 

Our idea of space is not derived from visual sensation alone, 
nor from tactual impressions alone, but is, so to speak, the nearly 
simultaneous representation, by a few visual symbols, of a multi- 
tude of successive tactual ia)pres3ions. The visual symbols, be- 
fore they are interpreted in tactual impressions, can give no true 
idea of space any more than a sight of the letters and words can 
give the ideas contained in a book to one who has not learned to 
read. But the sign and the thing signified may become so closely 



120 The Journal of Speculative Philosojyhy. 

connected by long experience that one may easily fall into error 
as to the share of the whole impression to be attributed to the one 
element and to the other, 

Onr knowledge of a surface, or space of two dimensions, there- 
fore, implies a knowledge of distance, which is necessary to the 
interpretation of the visual symbols, and without which they would 
be meaningless. And we have, consequently, no idea what would 
be the conception of space of a "two-dimensional" being, nor 
how^ he would be affected by a manipulation of the twisted cords. 
Reasoning from our experience of a surface, and the movements 
of cords on a surface, to that of such a being, is unwarrantable. 
We do not know what would be his idea of a line, a surface, or a 
knot — in short, any analogical argument based upon his expe- 
rience is based upon something to us totally unknown and incon- 
ceivable. 

If it be objected that all this relates to a visual knowledge of 
extension and not to a tactual, and that, though the idea of dis- 
tance, or extension in a third dimension, be necessary to the for- 
mer, it may not be to the latter ; I answer that our idea of space 
is a complex of the two, the intepretation by a general formula of 
many particulars, whereby, if we may accept the results of the 
observations of Platner on the blind,' the idea of simultaneity or 
coexistence is substituted for that of succession. 

The idea, therefore, of spatial extension must be very different 
in one who has never enjoyed the sense of sight from what it is 
in one who has, and we could not argue from the experience of 
such to our own. 

Moreover, it is evident that Zollner does not refer at least a 
knowledge of tri-dimensional space to tactual experience alone, 
but refers it to an attempt to reconcile our apparently contradic- 
tory visual and tactual experience, so that our knowledge of the 
third dimension at least would have reference to vision. And if 
it be denied that we can gain any idea of a surface from tactual 
impressions before a localization of sensations, it is incumbent 
upon Zollner to show how they would ever give rise, taken alone, 
to the idea of a surface. 

Bat, even granting that we consider a purely tactual knowledge 



Quoted by Hamilton, "Metaphysics," New York, 1S80, p. 389. 



Dante's '•'■Inferno^ 121 

of space, we have no reason to believe that there could be knovrl- 
edge of a surface prior to a solid, or independently of knowledge 
of extension in a third direction ; though here we are reasoning 
largely in the dark, as we cannot tell what may be the notion of 
direction in the mind of a blind person, or how it compares with 
our own, which has always reference to visual experience. We 
have no idea whatever what would be the conception of space in 
the mind of a blind " two-dimensional " being ; but we may at 
least assume that, whatever might be the nature of his conception, 
it would have little or nothing in common with our idea of a sur- 
face. 

Consequently, the argument from the twisted cords is wide of 
the mark, and the whole analogical argument from the experience 
to two-dimensional beings, the objects of whose perception are 
acted upon by us from the direction of a third dimension, to that 
of three-dimensional beings in their relation to four-dimensional, 
is an analogy drawn in fact from our knowledge of a surface, and 
our knowledge of a solid, to something inconceivable, and shows 
a misconception of the force of the reasoning contained in the 
"New Theorv of Vision." 



DANTE'S "INFERNO." 



BY SUSAN E. BLOW. 



To know how hard the wind is blowins: one must sail ag-ainst 
the wind. To measure the force of a stream one must swim 
against its current. That the tendencies of any given age may 
be comprehended, they must be surveyed from the standpoint of 
an age different in its habits of thought. Drifting with his gen- 
eration, the individual cannot gauge its strength, and sees neither 
the direction in which it moves nor the goal towards which it 
tends. 

We live in an age which is rapidly losing the consciousness of 
sin. Equally alien to our feeling are the physical self-scourgings 
of the mediaeval saint and the spiritual agony of the Puritan. 



122 The Journal of Speculative Philosophn. 

The burden which bore so heavily upon Christian sits very lightly 
upon us. We hear much of the soul of goodness in things evil, 
and, reversing the disguise of Satan as an angel of light, we are 
learning to look on sin as an angel veiled in darkness. The doc- 
trine of the fall of man is interpreted to mean ascent to a more 
conscious plane of existence. "Paradise is a park where only 
brutes, not men, can remain," and it is a rise and not a fall 
which is symbolized in the mythns of the woman, the serpent, 
and the tree. Out of the depth of Donatello's sin is born the con- 
science which converts the faun into the man. Faust fearlessly 
allies himself with the Devil, and makes him the instrument of 
his salvation. The poets with one voice teach that "by ministry 
of evil good is clear," that " evil will bless and ice will burn," 
and that we " rise on stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher 
things." The scientist assures us that " men end by going right 
after trying every imaginable way of going wrong," and the his- 
tory of the world is shown to be a course of practical logic, through 
which man is gradually learning wisdom from his mistakes. Thus 
sin is no more sin, and, instead of groaning with the Apostle, 
" O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body 
of this death ? " we plume ourselves on the secrets wrested from 
conquered wrong, and cheerfully condone the wrong that is yet 
unconquered. 

The thought upon which this view of sin ultimately rests is, 
that man can only learn what he is by finding out what he is not, 
and that the violation of his ideal nature in its reaction reveals 
him to himself. So long as he acted in accord with his nature, 
there could be neither self-consciousness nor spiritual freedom. 
There must be contrast before there can be comprehension, and, 
as we know light through darkness, we can realize good only 
through the ministry of evil. 

Whatever else this theory may or may not be, it is distinctly 
anti-Christian. There can be no sympathy between a philosophy 
which sees in sin the condition of a realized self-consciousness and 
a relio'ion which heralds its founder as " the Lamb of God which 
taketh away the sin of the world." The Christian consciousness 
has always defined sin as rebellion against God, "the act of a 
traitor who aims at the death and overthrow of his sovereign." 
Sin, according to the Christian Church, is that which, had it power 



Dante's ''Inferno:'' 123 

so to do, would dras; God from his throne, and would rejoice could 
He cease to be. It brings forth no good but only evil, and evil 
continually, and, far from rising through it to the heights of vision 
and attainment, man sinks through it to a condition worse than 
that of the unconscious brute. 

To realize how totally the thought of to-day contradicts the 
Christian theory of sin, one needs but to study that theory as ex- 
pounded by the great poet of the Church in his "Divina Comme- 
dia." Nowhere shall we find such vital grappling with the uni- 
versal problem of man as in the utterances of this sternest and 
tenderest of poets. " Behold, therefore, the goodness and the 
severity of God," exclaims the inspired writer. "Behold the in- 
finite love and the infinite rigor of the man taught of God," our 
hearts exclaim as, following Dante, we penetrate to the ultimate 
depths of sin and misery, and learn at last the genesis, the devel- 
opment, and the outcome of evil. 

Dante has been called the voice of ten silent centuries, and cer- 
tain it is that the truths to which he gave immortal expression 
had, dnrino; these asre?, been slowlv crvstallizina; in the conscious- 
ness of the Christian world. His poem is nut individual but uni- 
versal ; he utters not his own thought, but the unformulated creed 
of Christendom. Nay, he reaches beyond Christianity and speaks 
to the universal conscience of humanity — that inward witness 
which is always calling upon man to rejoice in his freedom and 
tremble before the responsibility bound up with it. 

The "Divina Commodia " is the outcome of a profound and ex- 
haustive reflection upon the facts of the moral world. Reflection, 
in all of its forms, involves the reduction of the infinitude of par- 
ticular things to a finitude of classes, and culminates in that philo- 
sophic insight which reduces this flnitude of classes to the unity 
of an inclusive process. Adequate reflection upon the moral 
world should therefore result in the classification of its complicated 
phenomena, and in the ultimate discovery of the genesis and de- 
velopment both of good and evil. 

It is because Dante has traced this genetic development that 
the " Divina Commedia" is an organic whole vitalized tliroughout 
by one all-penetrating thought. This fundamental insight is that, 
as man is a derivative being, the condition of a true development 
must be an uninterrupted connection and communion with hia 



124 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy. 

source. As right relationship to tlie sun solves the secret of the 
planetary system, so right relationship to God solves the secrets of 
life and thought. As a stream cut off from its fountain-head must 
inevitahlj dry up, so the soul which separates itself from God 
destroys itself. It is a dying soul, which can be restored to life 
only by the renewal of its relationship to God. In the substitu- 
tion of self for God lies the germ of all sin. "Because thy heart 
is lifted up, and thou hast said I am God and I sit in the chair of 
God (whereas thou art a man and not God), and hast set thy 
heart as if it were the heart of God, therefore I will bring thee to 
nothinir, and thou slialt not be, and if thou be soui^ht for thou 
shalt not be found any more forever." 

Conformably to this theory, the "Divina Commedia," in its three 
main divisions, treats of the corruption of the will, the purification 
of the will, and the perfection of the will. Tlie "Inferno" traces 
the history of the soul, as, emptied of God, it becomes progres- 
sively filled with self; the "Purgatorio" shows us the gradual emp- 
tying of self, and the "Paradiso" the filling of the soul with God. 
The poem culminates with the rapture of the beatific vision — the 
steadfast, immiOvable, attentive gaze of the soul upon that Light, 
"in whose presence one such becomes 

" That to withdraw therefrom for other prospect 
It is impossible he e'er consent." 

It is a truth which is too generally ignored, that all duties arise 
out of relationships. It is because there are fathers, mothers, 
children, sisters and brothers, that there are paternal, filial, and 
fraternal duties ; it is because a man has a country that he should 
be a patriot ; it is through friends that we learn the sweet obliga- 
tions of friendship ; and it is because the world is full of the aged, 
the poor, the sinful, and the sorrowing, that we are called on to ex- 
ercise reverence, pity, charity, and sympathy. Finally, it is because 
our souls are bound up with a material frame that we struggle 
for the conquest of the flesh by the spirit, and it is because there 
is an infinite God that our souls yearn towards him with aspira- 
tion, and bow before him with awe. Particular relationships are 
the conditions of particular duties, and all particular relationships 
are grounded in the fundamental relationship which makes them 
possible. 



Danteh ^^InfernoP 12i> 

Keeping before us this central thought of the poem, let us now 
study in detail the problem of sin and punishment as dealt with 
by Dante in the "Inferno." Omitting the iirst two Cantos, which 
relate how the poet came to undertake his arduous pilgrimage, 
we find onrselves at the beginning of the Third Canto standing 
before the gate of Hell. Over the gate is this inscription : 

" Through me is the way into the doleful city ; through me 
the way into the eternal pain ; through me the way among the 
people lost. Justice moved my high Maker; Divine Power made 
me, Wisdom Supreme and Primal Love." 

The sense of this inscription is so alien to the sentiment of 
to-day, that it is hard for our minds to grasp. Its implicit argu- 
ment is this : If man is free he is responsible. If he is responsi- 
ble, justice requires tlie return of his deed upon him. To spare 
him the result of his own activity is to insult his ideal nature by 
denying his freedom. Hell is the Creator's final tribute of re- 
spect to the being he made in his own image ; and, as both 
Wisdom and Love imply recognition of the essential nature of 
their object, they concur with Justice in demanding the punish- 
ment of the sinner. 

It is easy to find fault with this view of man's nature and 
responsibilities, but it is hard to substitute for it one which is not 
open to more vital objection. The practical denial of human 
freedom would be the dissolution of organized society, for our 
whole intercourse with each other is based upon a recognition of 
that responsibility which current theories so lightly set aside. It 
is to me a most significant fact that the false philosophy which 
denies man's responsibility culminates in denial of his immortal- 
ity ; and, if it emancipates the sinner from the fear of Hell, it 
destroys for the struggling saint the hope of Heaven. In its out- 
come it is more cruel far than the faith it condemns, for that, at 
least, had eternal happiness as a set-off to everlasting pains, while 
this makes all our hopes a lie, and sinks the evil and the good in 
the same blank annihilation. 

What mainly interferes with our acceptance of the Dantean 
theory of punishment is the unconscious materialism of our 
thought. By the average mind penalty is conceived as some- 
thing external to, and distinct from, the spiritual result of sin. 
It is something done to the sinner, not something which he 



126 Tlie Journal of Speculative Ph'doaophy. 

tliroiigb liis sin does to himself. Dante's view (it would seem to 
me) is that through repeated sinful acts the soul attains a grade 
of pej'maiiencc in sin. Tlie long conflict between good and evil 
comes at last to an end, and the sin in which we have indulored is 
stamj->ed upon the soul as its eternal form. And, as sin is domi- 
nant within, it is universalized without us. The glutton is im- 
mersed in his gluttony, and surrounded by other gluttons; the 
carnal sinners are driven about in the total darkness of their souls 
by the fierce winds of their passions, and are cut off l)y their own 
limitation from compreliension of any other type of character 
than their own. By our own acts we determine ourselves, and 
only what we are can we recognize in others. Our punishment 
is what we ultimately become mirrored to consciousness through 
our surroundings. 

Throughout tlie "Inferno" the varying punishments are simply 
the external symbols of varying phases of sinful consciousness. 
The wrathful are immersed in boiling mud ; the violent in a river 
of blood. The hypocrites, "a painted people," wearing cloaks all 
gilt without, all lead within, are moving round with steps exceed- 
ing slow, and in their looks are " tired and overcome." The 
thieves, whose deed universalized would make it impossible to 
know " whose was whose or what was what," are seen in an eter- 
nal process of transformation into the serj^ents, who aptly symbol- 
ize their creeping stealth. Flatterers are immersed in filth, "for 
those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the 
heart, and they defile a man." Schismatics, who have made 
division where there should be unity, are eternally cleft by a 
sword-bearing devil, and the consuming flame of conscience 
swathes the evil counsellors who have employed God's great gift 
of wisdom to deceive their fellow-men. 

Man is free ! This is the first truth emphasized by our medi- 
eval poet. Pass now with him through the gate of hell, and learn 
how free man makes himself the slave of sin. "Our wills are 
ours to make them thine ; " rational freedom is the soul's voluntary 
choice of the good. We have said that we should trace through 
the " Inferr o *' the progressive filling of the soul with self, and 
lo! the first spirits we meet, as we step upon the starless plain, 
are those who illustrate selfishness in its emptiest and most ab- 
stract form. Dante's description of them is a most scathing one. 



Dante's ^''Inferno^'' 127 

" Thej lived without blame and without praise ; to God they 
were neither faithful nor rebellious. Heaven chased them forth, 
and the deep hell refused to receive them, Mercy and judgment 
disdain them, and report of them the world permits not to exist. 
They have no hope of death, and their blind life is so mean that 
they are envious of every other lot." The description concen- 
trates in the twofold statement that '" they were for self, and that 
they never were alive." They did not deny the truth, they sim- 
ply never thought about it ; they did not rebel against God, they 
only ignored Him ; they did not consciously assert themselves, 
they merely indulged each passing caprice. They are the repre- 
sentatives of that frivolous class who live only in the moment, 
and in the moment think only of themselves. Petty passions 
sting them like wasps and hornets, and, goaded by the capricious 
love of change, they forever chase a whirling ensign which scorns 
all pause. In the stage of immediate impulse they have substi- 
tuted self for God, and indulgence for obligation ; the house is 
empty, swept, and garnished, all too ready for the evil spirits who 
will soon rush in. Is it significant that of these souls there is 
such a long train that scarcely could the poet believe death had 
undone so many ? 

As the return of man's deed upon him is the Creator's recogni- 
tion of the creature's dignity, so the fruit of sin in the soul is the 
denial of personal accountability. The victim of caprice is 
always a fatalist ; he is the slave of his own unconscious self, and 
he projects this inward necessity as external limit. The souls 
who assemble on the joyless strand of Acheron " blaspheme God, 
and their progenitors, the human kind, the place, the time and 
origin of their seed and of their birth." Everything and every 
person in the universe is to blame for their condition except them- 
selves. 

Summing up this introductory Canto, we have, first, recogni- 
tion of the source of punishment in the divine justice; second, 
recognition of the first phase of sin in the blank form of selfish- 
ness ; third, recognition of the outcome of sin in the repudiation 
of personal freedom and responsibilit}'. In the remaining Cantos 
selfishness will realize itself in an infinitude of particular mani- 
festations, and culminate in the concrete unity of selfish form 
and content in the person of Lucifer. 



128 T1ie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

We have seen that duties arise out of relationships, and that all 
Becondarj relationships are grounded in the fundamental relation- 
ship to God. Man draws from God the power to realize himself. 
It follows that the proi^ressive realization of his own ideal nature 
is a progressive approximation to the divine type, and that the 
complete indwelling of God is the perfection of man. Truth and 
goodness are not abstractions — they are the eternal thought and 
will of God. What God thinks is the true; what God wn lis is 
the good — or, rather, as in Him knowing and willing are one, 
truth and goodness are but distinctions in the unity of His Eter- 
nal Act. 

Some degree of insight into the natnre of God is therefore the 
necessary condition of any understanding of what is right or 
wrong, good or evil. If to be good is to be like God, and to be 
•wicked is to be unlike Him, it is of infinite importance tliat we 
know who and what He is. Parallel with the vanishing con- 
sciousness of sin has been the disappearance of all definiteness in 
the conception of the first principle of the world, and the theory 
that God is unknowable has kept even pace with the theory that 
man is irresponsible. The restoration of a divine ideal would be 
also the restoration of our guilty sense of alienation from it. "I 
have heard of Thee," exclaims Job, " by the hearing of the ear, 
but now mine eye seeth Thee, whereforel abhor myself and repent 
in dust and ashes." 

If we try to think the creative principle of the world, we come 
at once face to face with the idea of self-activity. By self-activity 
is meant an activity that acts upon itself : as a creative princi- 
ple logically antedates all creation, it must be self-active, for the 
obvious reason that there is nothing but itself for it to act upon. 
Its activity, therefore, begins from and comes back to itself. It is 
a circular process, and therefore necessarily an eternal process. 
It has been complete from all eternity, and yet repeats itself in 
every moment of time. 

R'ghtly appreliended, a process of self-activity is seen to be ne- 
cessarily a process of thought, for thought alone has the power of 
acting upon itself. All natural objects and forces are results of 
an activity external to themselves. But thought creates itself, 
embodies itself, realizes itself, and defines itself. There can be 
nothing higher, or wider, or deeper than thought, for " it is the 



Dantis ''InfernoP 129 

form of an infinite content " ; there can be nothing back of 
thonght, for, whatever we may set up as prior to thought, thoutjht 
gets back of it through thinking it. In a word, that which exists 
in thought cannot antedate or include thought. 

The reahzed form of thought is self-consciousness, and this in- 
volves the distinction of the self from the self, and the persistent 
identification with self of the self thus distinguished. The eternal 
distinction of the self is the begetting of an eternal object, the 
eternal identification of this object with self is eternal recognition, 
communion, or love. This is the truth revealed to faith in the 
doctrine of the Trinity, and which inspired the rapt utterance of 
Dante when he exclaimed : 

" Light eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest, 
Sole knowest thyself and known unto thyself, 
And knowing lovest and smilest on thyself." 

Self-activity and communion, or spiritual interpenetration, are 
therefore the marks of the divine nature. Hence man, made in 
the image of Grod, develops through active combination with his 
fellows. Throuo-h oro-anization the individual man avails himself 
of the strength, the experience, and the insight of total humanity. 
"Whatever nullifies activity, or strikes at participation, is evil, and 
the final outcome of evil must be stagnation absolute and isolation 
complete. 

This insight enables us to understand the grading of sins in the 
" Inferno." All sin strikes either indirectly or directly at organized 
society. The less heinous sins are those which attack society indi- 
rectly, by destroying in the individual man the qualities through 
which combination is possible. These are the sins punished in 
the circles of Incontinence ; the next degree of sin is that in which 
there is the attack of man upon individual men, as shown in the 
circle of A^iolence, and its final phase is that in which the sinner, 
first by fraud and then by treachery, attacks the social whole. 
That fraud made universal would cause a relapse into savagism is 
symbolized in the primeval giants who stand as sentinels over the 
region of the fraudulent, while the self-exclusion and self-destruc- 
tion brought about by treachery are strikingly imaged in Lucifer 
frozen in the bottom of the pit. 

Having defined sin, and indicated its increasing degrees, our 
xVlII— 9 



130 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

next object must be to seek its origin, and trace its gradual devel- 
opment and expansion within the soul. This can best be done by 
a careful analysis and comparison of the sins punished in the dif- 
ferent circles of the "Inferno." If we can discover in them a prin- 
ciple of evolution, and can show that in the process of sin man's 
essentia] nature is progressivelj^ destro3''ed, we shall have settled 
the question as to whether sin is the instrumentality through 
which man rises out of the condition of unconscious unity into that 
of spiritual fellowship with God. 

Limbo, the outermost circle of the " Inferno," is peopled by souls 
who have perished through defect. Yirgil, who is one of them, 
describes himself as " by not doing, not by doing, lost." Among 
these souls some have attained to heroic virtue and some to philo- 
sophic insight. They have realized the fullness of purely human 
thought, of human love, and of earthly fame. The great poets 
have pleasure in each other, and Aristotle, " father of those that 
know," sits amid a philosophic family, who all regard and do him 
honor. But no finite good can satisfy an infinite craving, and if 
even the highest purely human life be placed under " the form of 
et-ernity " its honors will show themselves empty and its joys de- 
clare themselves vain." " Naught but God can satisfy the soul 
He maketh great." Hence the great souls in Limbo, without tor- 
ment, suffer sadness, and without hope live on in desire. 

Following Limbo are four circles in which are punished the 
souls " who subjected reason to lust," the Gluttons, the Avaricious 
and Prodigal, and the Wrathful and Gloomy. The carnal sinners 
are borne ever onwards in the sweep of a hellish storm ; the glut- 
tons are lying prostrate on the ground ; Cerberus, " emblem of 
their blind voracity," eternally barks at them, and rends them, 
and down upon them pours unceasing a storm of hail, foul water, 
and snow. The avaricious and prodigal, " those who placed their 
happiness in gold, and those who placed their happiness in what 
gold could buy," roll heavy weights and smite them against each 
other. The prodigal cries to the avaricious : " Why boldest thou," 
and the avaricious retorts, " Why thro west thou away ? " Intrin- 
sically their sin is one. Make avarice universal and trade and 
commerce are impossible, the movement of practical life ceases, 
and the social order is destroyed. Universalize prodigality, and 
the result is the same. In the one case no man can get anything, 



Dante's ''InfernoP 131 

and in the other no man has anything. And as this two-fold 
crime is essentially against society, and society rests upon the 
principle of recognition, both miser and spendthrift are made un- 
recognizable. 

" Their undiscerning life which made them vile 
Now makes them unto all discernment dim." 

Sunk in the marshy Styx, naked and muddy, the souls of those 
whom anger overcame stand smiting each other, not with hands 
only, but with head and with chest and with feet, and beneath 
the water and fixed in the slime are the gloomv souls forever 
gurgling in their throats, " Sullen were we in the sweet air that 
is gladdened by the sun, carrying lazy smoke within our hearts : 
now lie we sullen here in the black mire." Profound insio;ht ot 
the poet, to mete one punishment to the wrath which makes man 
his neighbor's enemy, and the melancholy which makes him an 
enemy to himself; and subtle the analysis implied in the lazy 
smoke carried by the gloomy within their breasts, Grod is Self- 
Activity ; man is made in his image : hence, all that is active 
rejoices the soul, and all that is passive palls upon it. Sloth is 
man's denial of himself ; its next phase must be sullen gloom, and 
its final outcome suicide, corresponding to the final outcome ot 
anger, which is murder. 

In the Eleventh Canto of the " Inferno," the four classes of 
sins just described are grouped together under the general head 
of Incontinence, and this Incontinence is said to less ofltend God, 
and to receive less blame, than the malice and mad bestiality met 
with in the lower circles of the "Inferno." As contrasted with 
these deeper sins, the sins of Incontinence are less conscious and 
deliberate, and indicate a less extended corruption of man's moral 
nature. They are sins of feeling rather than sins of thought or 
. will. Their common root is that the man seeks self-gratification. 
Carnal sin, gluttony, and avarice arise from the excessive indul- 
gence of natural appetites, and anger manifests the exaggerated 
self-love of those 

'* Whom injury seems to chafe 
So that it makes them greedy for revenge." 

If it be true that duties arise out of relationships, each special 
duty may be defined as expression of the feeling which should be 



132 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

stimulated by the relationship. The only knowledge presupposed 
is knowledge of the relationship itself. Thus a young child un- 
derstands little of the distinctions between right and wrong, but 
from the very dawn of his conscious life has known himself as 
guarded by a mother's tireless care, and blessed by a mother's 
overflowing love. He should meet this love with love expressed 
in sympathetic obedience. Through obedience to wise commands 
he will himself become wise, for, as goodness is truth in act, doing 
the good must culminate in vision of the true. With compre- 
hension the child becomes self-directing, following the good of 
his own independent choice. Indeed, we may say there has been 
choice from the beginning, but, whereas he first chose the right 
through faith in his mother, he now chooses it because he has come 
to know it as the substantial truth of his own ideal nature. The 
final stage of development is attained when, through repeated 
activity, he has so determined himself in the image of the good 
that he rises above choice, and by a sweet necessity of nature is 
constrained to the right. 

Just as the child shapes himself into goodness through love for 
his mother, so man shapes himself into goodness through love for 
God. In tracing backward the history of n^an, we may arrive at 
a point when his mind is empty of all knowledge except the 
knowledge that he is and that God is. Consciousness of his own 
existence and consciousness of his primal relationship are the 
conditions of his normal development. And as love should be 
awakened in the heart of the child by the love of the mother, 
so love in the heart of man should respond to the love which 
called him into being. We love Him because He first loved us, 
says the Apostle, and no student of Christ's method of training 
can have failed to observe that he grounds all spiritual graces in a 
personal relationship to himself. 

I repeat, therefore, that goodness in man is progressively gener- 
ated from the love of God. In its first phase empty and abstract, 
but concreting and defining itself through particular acts of obedi- 
ence, this love creates in man the image of God. To know God 
we must be like God, for to comprehend a spiritual Being is to 
be in substantial identity with Him. Hence, Christ recognizes 
the attained fellowship of his disciples, by declaring that he will 
call them no more servants but friends, and the yearning soul of 



Daniels ''''InfernoP 133 

the Psalmist refuses to be satisfied until it shall awake in the like- 
ness of God. 

Generalizing our statement, we may say that the starting-point 
of human development lies in feeling. Feeling rushes into act and 
act defines man to himself. By making an external image of him- 
self, and looking at what he has made, man learns what he is. 
Thus through feeling he rises into thought, and finally expresses 
the concrete unity of thought and feeling in the acts of the con- 
scious wilL 

It follows that any interruption or perversion of the course of 
man's normal development must necessarily originate within the 
sphere of feeling. This perverted feeling, rushing into expression, 
makes for man a false iinao-e of himself. Thus his thoujjht is cor- 
rupted, and he sees what is not instead of what is, and this results 
in an activity of the will-, which is in supreme contradiction of his 
ideal nature, and in supreme violation of all his fundamental re- 
lationships. There can be no perversion of the intellect and will 
which does not imply a logically prior perversion of the feelings 
— no stage of conscious and deliberate sin without an ante- 
cedent stage in which the sympathies have become alienated 
from God. 

It is therefore with profound intention that Dante places in the 
outermost circles of the " Inferno " sinners in the unconscious 
stage of alienated love. This alienation of feeling is discerned by 
him as the logical condition of the deeper degrees of sin to be 
punished in the lower hell. Nor does the poet leave us to abstract 
his theory from the content of the poem, but, in the Seventeenth 
Canto of the " Puro-atorio," he himself traces all sin to " the ex- 
cess, defect, or perversion of love." Man has an infinite power of 
loving. Infinite love demands an infinite object. If man loves 
God supremely, he will love all other objects in right degree. It 
he is slack in his love of God, he will love unduly self and finite 
objects. The excessive love of finite objects giving birth to strug- 
gle for their possession, changes into hate the love man should 
bear to his fellow. Such is the genesis of the seven capital sins. 
Sloth is the slack love of God ; lust, gluttony, and covetousness, 
are the excessive love of finite objects; pride is the distorted love 
of self; and envy and anger are distortions of tiie love which 
should exist between man and man. Yiewed from the standpoint 



134 The Journal of l:ipeculative Philosophy. 

that duties arise out of relationships, lust is rebellion against the 
ideal of man in his relationship to the family ; gluttony is perver- 
sion of the relationship bet\Yeen soul and body ; covetousness, 
envy, and anger, are practical denials of the relationship of the 
individual to the social whole; and pride is the supreme negation 
of man's relationship to God. Conceived as a developing process,, 
sin begins in the slackening of love to God, and culminates in the 
supreme love of self. Hence, sloth is the first sin found within 
the "Inferno," and spiritual pride is punished in its lowest depth. 
Conversely, pride is the first sin expiated in Purgatory, because, 
nntil the self ceases to be supreme, there can be no return of the 
soul unto God. 

The first blessing of the Saviour of men is bestowed upon the 
poor in spirit. Humble receptivity is the condition of spiritual 
growth. The first mark of humility is, that it mourns its own de- 
fect ; the second is the meekness which bears lovingly defect in 
others. Out of the recognition of lack is born that hunger and 
thirst after righteousness which is the panting of the soul for its 
God, and mercy is the living sign of the indwelling life of God. 
To have God's life dwelling within us is to be like God, and hence 
able to see God ; and as God is Love, and Love is recognition and 
reconciliation, the vision of God makes the pure in heart the peace- 
makers of the world. 

The atmosphere in the circles of Licontinence is one of simple 
darkness, apt emblem of the soul whose light is darkened and at 
last extinguished by passion. The total darkening of the powers 
of the soul is the signal for the lighting of the flames of hell — 
symbols of a consciousness which through its own act has fixed 
itself in a state of permanent self-contradiction. 

Dante's description of the transition from the circle of the angry 
to the sixth circle, which is that of the heresiarchs, is most vivid. 
" In my ears a lamentation smote me, whereat I bent xn^ eyes in- 
tently forward. And the kind master said : ' ISTow, son, the city 
that is named of Dis draweth nigh, wath the heavy citizens, with 
the great company — ' 

" And I : ' Master, already I discern its mosques, distinctly there 
within the valley, red as if they had come out of a fire.' 

" And to me he said : ' The eternal fire that inward burns them 
shows them red as thou seest in this low hell.' 



Dante's '■'•InfernoP 135 

"And I: 'Master, what are those people who, buried within 
those chests, make themselves heard by their painful sighs? ' 

" And he to me : ' These are the arch-heretics with their follow- 
ers of every sect ; and much more than thou thinkest the tombs 
are laden. Like with like is buried here ; and the monuments 
are more and less hot.' " 

If the sins in the circles of Incontinence may be traced to the 
supremacy of self in the emotions, heresy may be defined as the 
manifestation of self-love in the intellect. Without an undue love 
of self a man cannot become a heretic. The perversion of thought 
is a direct outcome of a perverted state of feeling. It is the rec- 
ognition and assertion by the intellect of the distorted universe 
created out of sinful emotion. The man who persistently yields 
to his fleshly appetites must ultimately lose faith in his own higher 
powers. The man who lives only for the moment practically de- 
nies his immortality, and from the practical to the theoretic denial 
there is but a step. The man who acts as though God were not 
is travelling the high-road towards Atheism. 

The important point to be noticed in this connection is, that be- 
cause heresy is an outcome of sinful feeling it has in itself a sinful 
character. It is impossible to divorce what a man thinks from 
what he is, and it is because we have illogically asserted this sepa- 
ration that we have become as careless and inert in our own thought 
as we are lazily tolerant of the thought of others. Starting with 
the assumption that it makes no difference what we believe, we 
have come to believe in nothing. Ignoring our responsibilities, 
we have drifted into doubt of our power. The saddest sight in a 
sad world is this universal spectacle, of minds enslaved by their 
own ignorance and paralyzed by their own inactivity. The one 
thing in life which to the aroused soul seems worth doing is, to 
waken other souls from their death-like sleep ; and the wail of 
prophet and poet, of saint and Saviour is, that the eyes of mankind 
are blind, and their ears are waxed deaf. 

The circle of the heresiarchs is the transition from the sins of 
feeling to the sins of conscious will. To love self more than God 
is the sin of feeling. To see self instead of God is the sin of intel- 
lect. To create a world like the false self thus seen is the sin of the 
conscious will. Througliout all the spheres of sin, the common 
element is the abstraction of the individual from his relationships. 



136 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Lust is this abstraction in the rep^ion of feelins; ; Pride is this ab- 
straction in the sphere of intelligence. Theretbre the theologians 
teach that lust is the pride of the body, and pride is the lust of the 
soul; and Dante stigmatizes the rebellion of Lucifer as a " proud 
adultery." Finally, covetousness is abstract individualism in its 
relationship to material things ; man wanting all for himself re- 
fuses to recognize the equal claim of others to the good things of 
the earth. Li the very Urst canto of the " Inferno," Dante is con- 
fronted by these sins in the forms of the leopard, the lion, and the 
she-wolf ; and the other so-called cardinal sins, as well as the deeper 
wrongs which arise from their combination, are by him always 
traced directly to these fruitful germs. 

In the circle of the violent is shown man's conscious attempt to 
realize his abstract individualism as against his neighbor, against 
himself, and against his God. 

The violent against man are divided into two classes: those who 
attack life, and those who attack property ; and these two forms 
of violence are traced to their roots in anger and covetousness. 
" Fix thy eyes upon the valley,*' cries Virgil to his follower, " for 
the river of blood draweth nigh, in which boils every one who 
by violence injures others. O blind cupidity ! O foolish anger, 
which so incites us in the short life, and. then in the eternal, steeps 
us so bitterly." 

In tlie second division of the circle of the violent are found sin- 
ners who have done to themselves what those in the first division 
did to their neighbors, i. e., they have wasted their own substance 
and taken their own lives. That prodigality is covetousness 
turned against self has been already shown, and that suicide is the 
outcome of that pride whose first degree is spiritual sloth grows 
evident as we read the graphic recital of the fierce soul which, in 
its disdainful mood, thought to escape disdain by death. 

The sins punished in the third division of the circle of the vio- 
lent are even more obviously traceable to Pride, Lust, and Covet- 
ousnesj. Supine upon the burning sand, Capaneus shows us that 
his pride is still unquenehed ; while Jacopo Rusticucci and the 
unrecognizable usurers reveal to us, without need of comment, the 
genet 13 of their respective sins. 

In oi'der that we may rightly apprehend the nature of the sins 
of violence as well as those of treachery and fraud, we must have 



Dante^s "-Infernor 137 

a clear idea of the relationship of will to feeling and thought. 
"Will is that phase of the mind which objectities — it is the concrete 
unity of feeling and thought — that which at once creates and rec- 
ognizes its image. The corruption of the will is the corruption of 
man's total nature, and. its result must be negative to that activity 
and communion which we have throughout recognized as the 
marks of the divine. Relatively to society, it is the reduction of 
man to the abstract savagism of the Cyclops, " who neither planted 
nor ploughed, who had no laws and met in no councils, who 
dwelt alone in vaulted caves on mountain heights, and each man, 
holding no converse wdth others, devised apart his wicked deeds. 
Relatively to the individual, it is his reduction to the condition of 
Lucifer, a condition of ignorance, impotence, and absolute loneli- 
ness. He may flap his bat-like wings, but the only result of this 
vain activity is to fix him more firmly in his ice. 

In external correspondence to the total corruption of the souls 
in the circle of fraud, pestilence is added to darkness and flame. 
Here all the senses are assailed; the sight by murky air; the ear 
by lamentations " that have arrows shod with pity ; " the smell 
by- stench of putrid limbs ; the touch by hideous scurf ; and the 
taste by thirst that craves one little drop of water. And as we 
are repelled by these symbols of sin, so our souls are repelled from 
the panders and flatterers — the simonists, sorcerers, and peculators 
— the hypocrites, thieves, evil counsellors, schismatics, and falsifi- 
ers, who inhabit Malebolge. We find it hard to analyze their con- 
sciousness, for where corruption has become universal the distinc- 
tions of sin are lost. The root of theft, for instance, is certainly 
covetousness, but before covetousness issues in theft it has allied 
itself with all the other cardinal sins. The poison of sin has so 
spread within the soul that there can be left in it no power of 
normal action. Hence Yirgil blames Dante when he weeps over 
the sorcerers, exclaiming, " Art thou too like the other fools % — 
Who more impious than he that sorrows at God's judgment." 

The imagery of the last circle of the " Inferno " forciblj' suggests 
the selt-destruction which is the final outcome of selfishness. Lust 
has conceived and brought forth sin, and sin being finished brings 
forth death. Out of the sphere of darkness into the sphere of fire 
— out of the region of fire into a region of fire and blood — out of 
this into the loathsome pit of fraud, where pestilence is added to 



138 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 

tlie darkness and the flame, and finally down from the pit of fraud 
towards frozen Cocytus, wherein are fixed the spirits of those who 
have committed the supreme sin of treachery. 

Formed by the union of all the rivers of hell, Cocytns stap;nates 
because there is no lower depth towards which it can flow. Upon 
its frozen surface stand the giants. Nimrod, a dull and confused 
spirit, speaks a language no man can understand, and all other 
languages are incomprehensible to him, Ephialtes " has his right 
arm pinioned down behind and the other before, and a chain holds 
him clasped from the neck downwards." The sinners, immovable 
in the ice, have power only to weep, and as the tears gush from 
their lids they freeze, and this closes their eyes. The only other 
activities mentioned are butting, champing of the teeth, and the 
flapping of Lucifer's wings, which makes the winds that freeze 
Cocytus. 

Sin has done its work ! Made for combination with his fellows, 
each man through sin has isolated himself from all others. Made 
for activity, he has lost all power to act. The indulgence, the as- 
sertion, and the corruption of self, have issued in self-destruction. 
" Lo Dis, and lo the place where it behooves us arm ourselves with 
fortitude." 

It may be asked, if this view of sin be true, what hope can there 
be for sinful man ? If the logical movement of sin is not towards 
good but towards greater evil, how can the efiect of even a single 
sin be undone ? The answer to this question we shall find in the 
study of the " Purgatorio," Meanwhile let us carry from the " In- 
ferno " the assurance that not until the Ethiopian changes his skin 
and the leopard his spots can he do good that is accustomed to do- 
evil. 



THE MORAL CREATIYENESS OF MAK 



BY FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT. 



It is a well-recognized principle, since Kant, that the human 
mind energizes in three fundamentally distinct ways : namely, 
thinking, feeling, and willing. No analysis has yet succeeded in 
reducing these three modes of consciousness to one, or in discov- 



The Moral Creativeness of Man. 139 

ering a more primitive mode of which they are derivatives in 
common. But it by no means follows that they can exist sepa- 
rately. On the contrary, it is more than probable that they can 
only exist in inseparable combination. A " state of conscious- 
ness," instead of being (as is sometimes strangely imagined) a 
simple or ultimate phenomenon, is complex to the last degree — a 
compound of psychical elements so numerous as to baffle all at- 
tempts at exhaustive specification, a resultant of forces so numer- 
ous and so subtile as to extinguish even the hope of exact or 
complete comprehension. It would take the whole past of the 
whole universe to explain fully the most insigniiicant fact of the 
present, even in the physical order of things — much more to ex- 
plain fully a fact of the psychical order, involving, as it must, a 
world of phenomena beyond the range of physical investigation. 
So far is a "state of consciousness " from being a simple fact, that 
the entirety of human knowledge, by the confession of every com- 
petent student, is insufficient to explain it. Only the dogmatic 
sciolist will for a moment imagine the contrary. 

Nevertheless, all the innumerable currents, counter-currents, 
and under-currents, which constitute at any given moment what is 
called the " stream of consciousness," are made up of three great 
classes of elements which, like the so-called elements of chemis- 
try, must be regarded as, at least provisionally, and for us, ulti- 
mate. Every " state of consciousness " is composed, in constantly 
varying proportions, of thoughts, feelings, and volitions ; thought 
may predominate, feeling may predominate, volition may pre- 
dominate, but each of the other two can always be detected by 
close observation and analysis as concurrently active. Each is a 
permanent and constitutive element of human consciousness, and 
the coexistence of the three elements is as essential to conscious- 
ness as the coexistence of three sides is essential to a triano-le. 

To a greater or less degree, therefore, volition enters into every 
conscious state ; and it is owing to this fact that man is, by the 
primal necessities of his nature, a moral being. The provinces of 
volition and of morality are identical, or, at least, coterminous. 
A being purely intelligent, or purely sentient, or intelligent and 
sentient without being also volitional, would be a non-moral be- 
ing; and if man could, at any moment or for any period, be 
purely intelligent, or purely sentient, or intelligent and sentient 



J 40 The Journal of Speoulative Philosophy. 

without being also volitional, he, too, would be, for that moment 
or period, a non-moral being. It is precisely because man's vo- 
litional or moral activity never absolutely ceases or slumbers, so 
long as his consciousness continues, that he can never escape from 
the domain of moral law — that his most secret thonghts and feel- 
ings are accompanied by a volitional activity which stamps upon 
them all a definite moral character. And it is precisely because 
the fact of morality is thus indissolnbly bound up with the fact of 
volition, as a permanent part of human nature, and a permanent 
factor of human consciousness, that philosophy has never escaped, 
and never will escape, the necessity of arriving at some solution of 
the ancient problem of "fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute.'' 

Deeply imbedded in this fact of the indissoluble connection of 
morality and volition lies the reason why mankind never have 
been, nor can be, long satisfied with a purely mechanical philoso- 
phy of human nature. It is the very essence of man to be a vo- 
litional and moral being ; it is the very essence of a machine to 
be non-volitional and non-moral. The two concepts are absolutely 
incompatible, and cannot possibly be united in a seeming syn- 
thesis without a lurking self-contradiction, which inevitably, and 
soon, develops a distinct protest in the philosophical consciousness. 
No amount of ingenuity, subtilty, or genius can long succeed in 
rendering such a synthesis plausible. Precisely in proportion to 
the depth and strength of the moral consciousness in any epoch, 
"and precisely in proportion to the degree in which the philosoph- 
ical consciousness is sutfused and permeated by it, will be the 
strength of the ultimate philosophical reaction against mechanical 
psychology in all its forms. It avails nothing to misrepresent 
this reaction as rooted in, or animated by, the spirit of an obsolete 
theology ; its real root is the fact that mechanical psychology is 
vitiated at the y^x^ core by this unscientific and irreconcilable 
contradiction in its fundamental concepts. It is a proof neither 
of bigotry, nor of superstition, nor of " animism," but rather of 
genuine philosophical acumen, to maintain the utter repugnance 
of two such notions as those of humanity and mechanism ; it is a 
proof of scientific incapacity and obtuseness not to discern the 
necessity of founding psychology on concepts which shall at least 
forbear to devour each other. 

True it is that the speculative tendency of which La Mettrie's 



The Moral Creativeness of Man. 141 

" L'llorame Machine " is perhaps the boldest exponent has as- 
serted itself in recent times with great energy, and may to many 
seem to be acquiring a permanent ascendancy. Such a view of 
the case, however, appears superticial to all who can distinguish 
between the spirit of the age and the spirit of the ages. The 
mechanical psychology is the natural product of a period of 
Avhich the most striking characteristic is the almost miraculous 
growth of the mechanical and physical sciences ; it marks the 
first attempts of scientific method, inevitably crude as they must 
be, to assert its rightful dominion in studies from Avhich it had 
been jealously and arbitrarily excluded by the spirit of ecclesiasti- 
cism, and in which these first crude attempts should be regarded 
as the somewhat noisy precursors of soberer and more valuable 
investigations in the future. Science, in any large or full mean- 
ing of the term, is still in its infancy. It is scarcely too severe to 
describe it, so far as psychology, sociology, and ethics are con- 
cerned, as still beins: in the immature or chaotic stag-e of its ca- 
reer. The corrective of the crudities which now make many 
otherwise able scientific men incline to a mechanical view of 
man's entire nature must and will come, not at all from external 
opposition on the part of theological or other non-scientific an- 
tagonists, but rather from the further development of science 
itself — from a thoroughly scientific discrimination between those 
facts of human nature that can be mechanically explained and 
those facts of human nature that do not admit of mechanical ex- 
planation. 

Darwin has permanently changed the whole course of human 
thought in these matters. That the theory of evolution has come 
to stay, and to constitute the foundation of all future theories of 
the universe, can be doubted by no one who knows the irresistible 
strength of the facts and arguments by which it is established. 
But whether evolution itself is to receive finally a mechanical or 
teleological interpretation is an issue not yet decided. Herbert 
Spencer, and Ernst Haeckel, with a boldness, cogency, and consist- 
ency far superior to Spencer's, advocate the mechanical view of 
evolution ; but multitudes of keen and thoughtful minds are com- 
ing to see that this view overlooks numerous facts of the highest 
importance that refuse to be ignored or crowded out of sight. Un- 
questionably the ancient teleology, as represented by Paley, is 



142 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

outgrown by the modern naind, largely for the very reason that 
it exhibits so fragmentary, artiiicial, and mechanical a character, 
and rests wholly on the old dualism of natural and supernatural ; 
while the monistic teleology, latent in the very concept of evolu- 
tion itself, has not as yet been anywhere adequately developed. 
Meanwhile the necessity of a deeper philosophical reading of the 
facts which pertain to man's moral nature is slowly but surely be- 
coming felt more profoundly every year. The spirit of the age 
may possibly, as is claimed, be satisfied with mechanical psychol- 
ogy ; but the spirit of the ages, which is both older and younger, 
is certain to assert its supremacy once more in the elFort to bring 
all human experience into order, correlation, and harmony with 
this boundless cosmos. The ethical interest survives, undestroyed 
and indestructible ; and every attempt to construct a science of 
■ethics out of mechanical — that is, essentially non-ethical — ^elements 
is from its very inception foredoomed to failure. 

It is a noteworthy fact that the only two Americans who have 
thus far greatly distinguished themselves by a powerful original- 
ity in the field of speculative philosophy — Jonathan Edwards and 
Rowland G. Hazard — have both busied themselves in the main 
with the same great problem of necessity or freedom in volition.^ 
It is another fact, less patent but equally noteworthy, that this 
problem is the speculative side of the great practical struggle 
which has giveu to America its special significance in the history 
of mankind — the struggle to realize the ideal of constitutional lib- 
erty in political institutions, to reconcile individual freedom with 
national unity in a great political society founded on the legal 
recognition of equal individual rights. This is essentially an ethi- 
cal conception, and one of the highest order, Edwards defended 
the doctrine of necessity in ethics, out of devotion to the theologi- 
cal doctrine of the unlimited Divine sovereignty, which from time 
immemorial has been the foundation of political absolutism " by 
the grace of God " ; Dr. Hazard defends the doctrine of freedom 

' Ralph Waldo Emerson, confessedly the greatest name in American literature, is 
not here included, because, though he is often popularly and loosely styled a " philoso- 
pher," that is exactly what he was not. He was litterateur, essayist, moralist, seen 
preacher, poet, prophet — anything but " philosopher," to whom logical concatenation 
systematic construction, and comprehensive unity of form, are the very law of his being 
Unsurpassed as Emerson's writings are in other respects, those are the very qualities 
which are most conspicuously absent in them. 



The Moral Creativeness of Man. 143 

in ethics, out of devotion to the modern doctrine of the limited 
self-sovereigntj of man, which is the only possible foundation of 
instituted political freedom. Freedom in ethics is the thought- 
side of freedom in politics ; the latter logically presupposes the 
former. It is apparent, then, that Dr. Hazard's philosophy is 
rooted in the soil, and interprets his country to the world ; while 
that of Edwards was rooted in Calvinism, and, if politically real- 
ized, would have made his country an impossibility. 

The connection ot ethics and politics, so curiously illustrated in 
this instance, is no fanciful analogy, but a truth abundantly rec- 
ognized in philosophy and exemplified in history. Ethics may be 
defined as the science of self-government by man as an individual, 
and politics as the science of self-government by man as a society 
of individuals ; they are but two subdivisions of one and the 
same future science of human self-government, or anthro'ponoTny^ 
founded throughout on the same principle of individual moral 
freedom under universal moral law. The popular conception and 
practice of politics as the empirical administration of states in the 
interest of partisan or even personal self-aggrandizement reveal 
clearly the small progress yet made in the moral education of the 
race. In the present state of opinion, ethical law and political 
action have little, if anything, to do with each other ; but, if the 
evolution of human society is to continue in the future as it has 
done in the past, the time must yet come when man, as a free 
moral being, will govern himself both individually and politically 
by the ethical idea, and recognize the binding force of justice 
in the action of nations no less than in that of persons. In fact, 
the moral creativeness of man, which Dr. Hazard has so ably 
vindicated with reference to the formation of personal character, 
is just as forcibly illustrated in the institutions, laws, and customs 
of communities as in the characters of individuals. No treatment 
of ethics can be thorough or complete which omits to consider the 
action of the individual as a member of the politico-moral commu- 
nity, or which fails to emphasize the oneness of the law that should 
govern man's conduct both as an individnal and as a social being, 
or which is so narrowed in scope by the spirit of individualism as 
not to teach that customs, laws, and institutions incorporate the 
aggregate conscience of the community, just as indisputably as 
words and deeds incorporate the personal conscience of the indi- 



144: The Journal of Sj)eGulatlve Pliilosophy. 

vidiial. In brief, man is by nature a social being, and politics 
ou<»'lit to mean the ethics of society.^ 

It is from this consideration of the profound identity of ethics 
and politics, and from tlie entire confluence of his ethical specula- 
tions with the deepest currents of American thought, feeling, and 
life, that we regard Dr. Hazard, notvvirhstanding the eminence of 
his great Puritan predecessor, as having laid the ilrst foundations 
of a distinctively American philosophy. The venerable octogena- 
rian thinker himself makes no such pretension and entertains no 
such ambition ; but the " extraordinary ability " and " philosophical 
talents of a very high order " which were recognized in his works 
by the " Korth American Review " of October, 1869, in an elabo- 
rate review of them b}' no less competent a critic than Professor 
George P. Fisher, have not escaped the admiring recognition of 
others, and can scarcely fail to command in time the attention, the 
wide-spread study, and the ultimate inflnence they deserve. Dr. 
Channing, in his lecture on " Self-Culture," thus alludes to Dr. Haz- 
ard's earliest published paper, the " Essay on Language," published 
in 1835, and republished and edited with other papers in 1857, by 
Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody : " I have known a man of vigorous 
intellect, who had enjoyed few advantages of early education, and 
whose mind was almost engrossed by the details of an extensive 
business, who composed a book of much original thought, in steam- 
boats and on horseback, while visiting distant customers." It was, 
in fact, in large measure owing to the urgency of Dr. Channing, 
who greatly desired to see an adequate reply to Edwards's argu- 
ments against freedom, that Dr. Hazard undertook the composi- 
tion of his "Freedom of Mind in Willing," though the completed 
work (D. Appleton & Co., 1864) was not published till many years 
after Dr. Channing's death. The speculations of John Stuart 
Mill, who, though dissenting from his metaphysical views, ex- 
pressed great respect for Dr. Hazard's financial and metaphysical 
writings, occasioned the publication of a later book (Lee & Shep- 
ard, 1869), entitled '' Two Letters on Causation and Freedom in 
Willing, addressed to John Stuart Mill." These two books con- 
tain the fullest and most elaborate statement of Dr. Hazard's 



' How profoundly Dr. Hazard has always recognized this great truth appears con- 
spicuously in his noble lecture on the " Causes of the Decline of Political Morality," as 
contained in his " Essay on Language, and other Papers." Boston, 1857. 



The Moral Creativeness of Man. 145 

system. But he has just published a new book entitled, "Man a 
Creative First Cause" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1883), which 
contains two lectures recently delivered, and presents a general 
summary of his thought in a beautiful, interesting, and winning 
manner. 

It is not our present object either to epitomize, analyze, or criti- 
cise these various writings, but simply to call attention to them, 
in the hope that thoughtful readers may procure and study them 
for themselves, as the most original and remarkable contribution 
to philosophy yet made in this country. Dr. Hazard's want of 
familiarity with the history of philosophy is in many respects a 
disadvantage; yet it is a great advantage, also, in so far as it has 
protected him from the danger of allowing his rare genius to be 
suffocated under a mass of mere erudition, or to be diverted into 
the channel of mere criticism or reproduction. Too much study 
of what other men have written, no less than too little study of it, 
has its own peculiar peril ; excess of discipleship and defect of 
that self-reliance which is the inexorable condition of profound 
original insight have thus far made America a follower, not a 
leader, in philosophy. Equally removed fi-om servile imitation 
and conceited self-assertion, the shining merit of Dr. Hazard's 
thinking is, that he has serenely trusted his own soul — wrestled 
indomitably at first hand with one of the most difficult problems 
of philosophy — meditated, pondered, and mused, with eye lixed 
steadily on his subject rather than on what men have written 
about it ; and finally wrought out results which only flippant in- 
capacity will despise. It is not necessary to accept all these re- 
sults in order to appreciate their value ; we certainly do not accept 
them all : it is enough to recognize the freshness of his point of 
view, the delicacy and subtilty of his analysis, the force and acute- 
ness of his reasoning, the general purity and beauty of his style, 
and, above all, the moral dignity and elevation of his spirit. The 
one central purpose of his thought is the vindication oi freedom^ 
as the essential condition and necessary logical presupposition of 
all morality, whether in theory or in practice ; and it is safe to say 
that mechanical psychology will never permanently establish itself 
as scientifically true until it has first reckoned with Dr. Hazard — ■ 
first understood, and then on the same high plane satisfactorily 
offset, the weighty moral considerations adduced in support of his 
XYIII— I'o 



146 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

position. It is in our opinion ]iii2;lily probable that even his quali- 
fied BerJceleianism Mall fail to receive the sanction of the philoso- 
phy of the future; but this is unnecessary to his main argument, 
as he himself explicitly admits, and wo cannot regard it as other- 
wise than an excrescence upon the ethical theory with which it is 
associated. Waiving this point, however, as unsuitable for dis- 
cussion at present, we quote the following terse summary of his 
doctrine from " Man a Creative First Cause " (pp. 92 et sqq.) : 

" We have now endeavored to show that the only efficient cause, of 
which we have any real knowledge, is mind in action, and that there can- 
not he any unintelligent cause whatever. 

"That every being endowed with knowledge, feeling, and volition is, 
in virtue of these attributes, a self-active, independent power, and, in a 
sphere which is commensurate with its knowledge, a creative tirst cause 
therein, freely exerting its powers to modify the future, and make it differ- 
ent from what it would otherwise be ; and that the future is always the 
composite result of the action of all such intelligent creative beings. 

"That in this process of creating the future, every such conative being, 
from the highest to the lowest, acts with equal and perfect freedom, 
though each one, by its power to change the conditions to be acted upon, 
or rather, by such change of the conditions or otherwise, to change the 
knowledge of all others, may influence the free action of any or all of 
them, and thus cause such free action of others to be different from what, 
but for his own action, it would have been. 

" That every such being has innately the ability to will, i. e., make 
effort, which is self-acting ; and also the knowledge that by effort it can 
put in action the powers by which it produces change within or without 
itself 

" That the only conceivable inducement or motive of such being to 
■effort is, a desire — a want — to modify the future ; for the gratification of 
which it directs its effort by means of its knowledge. 

" That when such being so directs its effort by means of its innate 
knowledge, it is what is called an instinctive effort, but is still a self- 
directed and consequently ?ifree effort. 

" That when the mode or plan of action is devised by itself, by its own 
preliminary effort, it is a rational action. 

" That when, instead of devising a plan for the occasion, we through 
memory adopt one which we have previously formed, we have the distin- 
guishing characteristic of habitual action. 

" In the instinctive and habitual we act promptly from a plan ready- 



TJie Moral Greativeness of Man. 147 

formed in the mind, requiring no premeditation as to the mode or plan of 
action. But in all cases our effort is incited by our want, and directed by- 
means of our knowledge, to the desired end, which, whatever the particu- 
lar exciting want, is always in some way to affect the future. In oar 
efforts to do this in the sphere external to us, which is the common arena 
of all intelligent activity, we are liable to be more or less counteracted or 
frustrated by the efforts of others. In it man is a coworker with God 
and with all other conative beings, and in it can influence the actual flow 
of events only in a degree somewhat proportioned to his limited power 
and knowledge. 

" But that in the sphere of man's own moral nature the effort is itself 
the consummation of his creative conceptions, and hence in this sphere 
man is a supreme creative first cause, limited in the effects he may there 
produce only by that limit of his knowledge by which his creative pre- 
conceptions are circumscribed. 

" And further that, as a man directs his act by means of his knowledge, 
and can morally err only by knowingly willing what is wrong, his knowl- 
edge as to this is infallible ; and, as his willing is his own free act, an act 
which no other being or power can do for him, he is in the sphere of his 
moral nature a sole creative cause, solely responsible for his action in it. 

" His only possible wrong is in his freely willing counter to his knowl- 
edge of right. He must have known the wrong at the time he willed, or 
it would not be a moral wrong. Hence the knowledge by which he di- 
rects his acts of will is here as infallible as that of omniscience ; and, his 
power to will within the limits of his knowledge being unlimited, he can- 
not excuse himself on the ground of his own fallible nature, but is fully 
and solely responsible for all the wrong he intended, or which he foresaw 
and might by right action have prevented. Conversely, a rightful action 
indicates no virtue beyond the knowledge and intent of the actor. The 
failure to make an effort demanded by his convictions of right is in itself 
a wronof. That, in the domain of his own moral nature, man is thus su- 
preme, indicates it as his especial sphere of activity. Ages of successful 
effort in the material has been the preparation for its successful occupa- 
tion, and we may reasonably expect that the advance into the more ethe- 
real realm of the spiritual will be marked by the sublimest efforts of jxire 
and lofty thoughts, and that the results of it will be the crowning glory 
of all utility." 

Dr. Hazard's central position is thus : that freedom is the essen- 
tial prerequisite of man's moral creativeness. "Whatever opinion 
may be held on subordinate points, this central position must re- 
main impregnable so long as man's moral consciousness survives ; 



148 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

that is, so \ox\^ as lie is conscious of being in any degree tlie 
C7'eator of bis own moral character and action, 'i'lie tbeorv of 
evolution cannot possibly expunge this fact from his conscious- 
ness, or destroy the indestructible connection between morality 
and freedom. Neither mechanical philosophy, nor mechanical 
psychology, can ever become scientifically established, as true to 
all the facts of Nature, until it has succeeded in reconciling the 
two irreconcilable concepts of morality and mechanism. Be the 
prevalent opinion of the day what it may, far-seeing philosophers 
will continue to regard it as a mere ephemeral fashion of the time, 
until it shall have effected a genuine rational synthesis of all 
known facts, moral no less than mechanical; and there is no fact 
more certain than the fact that man is, in no merely mechanical 
sense, the real author of his own action. That man's whole being 
has been derived, in an orderly and natural manner, from the uni- 
verse as a whole, it is the great achievement of the evolution 
theory to have established beyond a reasonable doubt; but that, 
in the course of this orderly and natural evolution, he has at last 
attained to a genuine moral freedom, and won the high dignity 
and pi-erogative of a genuine moral creativeness — this is the older 
insight whicli Dr. Hazard has vindicated afresh in an age that 
was in danger of forgetting it. 

In the last analysis, every denial of moral freedom is found to 
rest on a misstatement of the law of cause and effect. Necessa- 
rianism plays many variations, but the theme is ever the same. 
"Every event has a cause; every volition is an event: therefore 
every volition has a cause." Admitted ; but does it follow that 
volition is also not free? There are events and events: the ques- 
tion is whether a volition is an event of the same order as the mo- 
tion of a billiard-ball, and has a cause of the same order. The 
unwarranted assumption that volition and motion are events of the 
same order, and must have causes of the same order, has led to the 
invention of that "question-begging epithet" motive. The meta- 
phor confounds fundamentally unlike and incongruous things. 
Instead of saying, "Every event has a cause," it should rather be 
said, "Every motion has an efficient cause, and every volition has 
a final cause."* To assume that volition has an etficient cause is 



* This idea tliat volition has only a final cause, though expressed in different terms, 
pervades all Dr. Hazard's works upon the subject. It is implied in the title of his first 



The Moral Creativeness of Man. 149 

at once to put it into the category of motion, and to solve the 
gravest problem of anthropology, after the Gordian-knot fashion, 
by begging the question. It is not science that makes this assump- 
tion. Every competent physiologist admits that, be the correla- 
tion of physical and psychical events never so close and constant, 
the real relation of physical motion and psychical chatige has not 
yet been discovered, and that it is mere dogmatism to treat one as the 
efficient cause of the other. Against such a procedure there is 
one objection, grounded on the very correlation of physical forces, 
which has never yet been satisfactorily answered. In every event 
of the physical order, the entirety of antecedent motion is con- 
verted into subsecpient motion ; none of it is lost as motion ; it 
must all be accounted for physically as motion ; no intinitesimal 
fraction of it can be shown to have been converted into psychical 
change. The chain of molar or molecular motions is complete in 
itself and infrangible; no conversion of motion into volition is 
even conceivable, much less demonstrable ; and it cannot be as- 
sumed, without also assuming that that part of the motion which 
has been converted into volition, being subtracted from the total 
antecedent motion, and therefore not appearing in the total subse- 
quent motion, has altogether vanished out of the physical order in 
transitu, and destroyed that quantitative equation of the two mo- 
tions which the theory itself requires. Such an assumption as 
this, therefore, can only be made by violating the principle on 
which it professes to rest. The term motive has, in fact, no prop- 
er place in the discussion of freedom, being irremediably a " ques- 
tion-begging epithet " ; it does not denote a true cause of volition 
in any other sense than that of final cause, purpose, or end ; and 



work, " Freadom of Mind iu Willing, or Every Bsing that Wills a Creative First Cause,' 
and also in his last, " Man a Creative First Cause " — " First Cause " being used by him as 
" a cause which can act without being previously acted upon." 

He holds that intelligence in action is the only efficient cause ; that the mind is not 
moved to action by any propulsion in the past, but by its own perception of a reason for 
making an effort to gratify a recognized existing want. And that it directs its effort to 
this end by means of its own knowledge, including as an essential element its perception 
of the future effect of its effort ; and as we cannot change the past nor make the present 
different from what it already is, the only conceivable object of effort — the only motive 
— is to make the future different from what it otherwise would be. (" Freedom of Will- 
ing," pp. 69, 239, 246, 256, 357 ; " Letters to John Stuart Mill on Causation," etc., pp. 
22, 56, fl, p. 99, 122; "Man a Creative First Cause," gg5 and 6.) 



150 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the law of causation sliould be so construed as to correspond with 
the facts. 

Since, tlien, motion and volition constitute two mutually irre- 
ducible phenomena, two phenomena wliieli are fundamentally 
iinlilvc in kind, it is plainly the worst possible reasoning to con- 
found them under a common term, event, and by the use of it, as 
an "undistributed middle," to infer that volition, no less than 
motion, must have an efficient cause. So put, the law of causa- 
tion is a mere bugbear, a scientific blunder, a half-truth that is 
the vrorst of falsities. " But must not every event have a cause ? " 
Assui'edly ; but not in the same sense. Every motion has an effi- 
cient cause, and every volition has a final cause — that is the law 
of causation so stated as not to lose sight of an ineradicable dis- 
tinction between things that differ, and not to deny a fact as cer- 
tain as the revolution of the earth round the sun — namelv, that 
fact in the world of human experience which Emerson aptly 
named the " sovereignty of ethics." Yolition, to be volition, 
must be free from efficient causation ; it can have no cause but a 
final cause. Such freedom as that is the foundation of all ethical 
distinctions. A volition is the act, or effort to act, of the being 
that wills — an original activity M'ithout which he would cease to 
be a moral being and become a thing. If it is conceived as the 
necessary effect of a chain of antecedent causes stretching back- 
wards into an illimitable past (and it must be so conceived if it is 
efficiently caused), it is then conceived, not as an act of the l»eing 
that wills, but as an act of the universe itself in all its infinitude. 
Under such a conception of volition, there is no place for that of 
personality as given in human experience, above all, in social ex- 
perience. A person is a being that, within certain limits, freely 
governs its own activity by tinal causes, purposes, or ends, and 
that is not governed by efficient causes ; the free formation and 
free execution of purposes is the essential characteristic of per- 
sonality. Society is but a community of persons, whose aggre- 
gate activity is but the resultant of their mutually co-operative or 
mutually neutralizing individual activities. Ethics, politics, polit- 
ical economy, jurisprudence, sociology — these all rtre sciences^ 
every whit as genuine as, though relatively less developed than^ 
the various physical sciences ; yet they all depend unconditionally 
on the existence of persons, as volitional or moral beings. And 



The Moral Creativeness of Man. 151 

the condition of all moral personality is freedom from efficient 
causation. 

!N"otice that it is in the name of science, not in the name of any 
actual or ideal religious system, that the postulate of moral free- 
dom is here treated as established by human experience itself. In 
all its forms, v/hether permanent, obsolescent, or nascent, religion 
is here left out of the account ; the claim now made is that natu- 
ral science, in its higher (though relatively immature) depart- 
ments, is impossible without that postulate. Every science neces- 
sarily starts with certain necessary presuppositions ; and, just as 
geometry starts with the given existence of points, lines, surfaces, 
and solids, ethics must start witli the given existence of persons 
with free volitions. No appeal is here made to the alleged direct 
testimony of individual consciousness to the existence of freedom ; 
the whole case is now I'ested on the moral creativeness of indi- 
vidual and generic man, as an observed objective fact of which 
no scientific explanation can be given unless the fact of free voli- 
tion is conceded. That is no scientific explanation which begins 
by denying the fact to be explained ; and no ethical system has 
any claim to be considered scientific, if it begins by denying or 
ignoring the only ethical quality in human action. It is precisely 
here that the future battle-field between the mechanical and eth- 
ical theories of evolution is unmistakably discernible. Freedom, 
personality, personal responsibility, moral creativeness — these are 
not only the fundamental concepts of ethics, but also the most 
incontestable facts of human life, whether in its individual or so- 
cial aspect. The problem of the evolution philosophy is to show 
how, out of elements which apparently comprised only the imper- 
sonal, the non-moral, the unfree, personality and morality and 
freedom have gradually arisen. The mechanical theory of evolu- 
tion virtually argues that this evolution has not taken place at all, 
and that, since the original elements manifest only mechanical or 
efficient causes, the ultimate product also must be mechanical only ; 
while the ethical theory of evolution argues that, since person- 
ality and morality and freedom are patent in the ultimate product, 
they must have been latent in the original elements, as immanent 
cosmical purpose, end, or final cause. This is the issue yet to be 
decided, now that evolution in some form has become a foregone 
conclusion among all who have followed the course of modern 



152 The Journal of Speculative PliVoKophy. 

tlion.o;lit. Of course, if tlie niecluinical theory is true, it will over- 
ride all opposition in the end ; but among the loijical and nlti- 
matelj historical results of its victory will b^^ the <2;radual extinc- 
tion of all moral ideals based on belief in hiiinan freedom, the 
gradual cessation of all efforts to realize them, the gradual decay 
of all sentiments which they have created, and the gradual for- 
mation of a habit of mind which will contemplate all human 
actions as intrinsically equal in point of ethical quality, since they 
are all alike inevitable effects of irresistible causes. Such a result 
would be the reversal, not the continuation, of the process of 
moral evolution exhibited l»y history; and for that reasiui it 
throws suspicion, to say the least, on the mechanical theory itself. 
Only that theory of evolution can finally prevail which shall faith- 
fully follow out the lin.e of evolution already marked out in the 
history of the past; and this, we be'ieve, will be the theory which 
fully recognizes and explains the supreme fact of all history — the 
moral creativeness of man. 



FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.^ 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OP J. G. FICIITE BY A. E. KROEGER. 

Chapter V. 

THE CONTEMPLATION OF GOD AS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE MORAL LAW, 

OR OF THE FINAL END. 

"We have seen that life, in its form, as a mere inner self-deter- 
mination and self-activity, is by no means absolute, but exists 
for the sake of something else, namely, in order tliat the Hnal 
end may be contemplated. In its essence it is not life in this its 
mere form, but visibility of the final end. As such it appears in 



' This article completes the translation of Fichte's "Facts of Consciousness," long 
since begun in this Journal. It includes tlie lectures given by Fichte at the University 
of Berlin during the winter semester of 1810-11. The entire work is now to be found 
in the "Journal of Speculative Philosophy": Vol. Y, pp. 53, 130, 226, 338 ; Vol. VI, 
pp. 42, 120, 332 ; Vol. VII, January, p. 36 ; Vol. XVII, pp. 130, 263 ; Vol. XVIII, p. 



Facts of Consciousness. 153 

two simultaneously existing and mutually each-otber-conditioning 
forms: in the general form as a nature determined by the linal 
end, which as an eternal nature creates by virtue of that same de- 
termination an infinite series of worlds; and second, in the indi- 
vidual form as absolute freedom determined by the same linal end. 
Hence we find in each individual natural impulses, moral deter- 
ininateness, and — floating between both — absolute freedom, which 
can arise by its own actual annihilation into a Holy Will, through 
means of which Will the individual form in its determinateness — 
that is, the sum of all individuals — survives the destruction of all 
possible worlds. 

Now, we have above expressed a doubt which very readily as- 
sails any attentive thinking, that this final end itself, which we 
have constituted our supreme principle for the present, may also 
not be absolute. Should this suspicion be confirmed, we should 
have to consider factical Being also — in analogy with the previous 
-■ — as being itself only the visibility of another and higher Being, 
of which Being formal life would now also become the visibility, 
namely, mediately and through it as the connecting link. 

Let us, therefore, proceed to investigate whether the final end 
is absolute, or, if it is not absolute, wdiat may be its ground, and 
what may become visible through it. I am inclined to think that 
it will be found to be the Being of formal life itself, and shall first 
explain here the conception of Being as taken here for the first 
time in all its strictness. I call beins: that which never becomes 
and never has become, and of which one can absolutely say nothing 
else than. It is. 

^NTow, I speak here of the Being of Life, that is, of an absolute 
Becoming, a Being which in its formal essence is only a Becoming, 
and never real Being. To connect real Being with such an abso- 
lute Becoming signifies : this Being itself is in all this infinite Be- 
coming. It is, and does not become ; it takes no part at all in the 
change. It is, therefore, that which remains one and the same 
throughout all the change. This unity and immovable perma- 
nence is not its characteristic, in point of fact, as Being, but only 
as the opposite of Change. 

Let it be well noted : I do not say that as Being it carries 
within itself non-permanence and Change, which would be non- 
sense, but simply that without this opposite of a Change the predi- 



154 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

catcs of permanent being and non-cliange would not at all be pos- 
sible — an infinite and on no account a negative proposition. It is 
not Being M'liich follows from the unitv, but the unitv fullows, in 
opposition to the Becoming as a Change, from Being. 

Let us examine this rehition of contemplation quite closely. 
Formal life, we have said, is an absolute Becoming. Now, if you 
try to think such an absolute Becoming, you must give to this Be- 
coming a certain time of duration, however short, in order to irive 
to contemplation its absolutely necessary fixity ; for otherwise the 
Becoming will dissolve before you into nothingness, and you will 
have thouo>ht nothino;. 

But this is already against our agreement and a contradiction; 
for you were called upon to think an absolute Becoming. But 
duration is a stopping of the Becoming, and hence its negation. 
Let us, however, release you from this task, since otherwise the 
thought required would never be reached. 

Now, this Becoming, to which you, in violation of our agree- 
ment, have allowed a moment's duration, is pushed aside and an- 
nihilated by a new absolute Becoming, emer«;ino; altogether out 
of nothingness, and hence having no connection with the former 
Becoming. Under these conditions, however, there is no internal 
unity at all in the presupposed life, and we do not think the Life, 
but infinitely different lives. That which alone brings unity and 
duration into Being is its life; audit appears clearly how, with- 
out this presupposition, life cannot be contemplated at all, either 
in general or as the Life. 

Result; The presupposition of an absolute Being in Life, as we 
have ju?t now described this Being, is condition of the contempla- 
tability of life. 

Now, this just described Being is the same which we have 
heretofore called the final end. 

All Becoming, all manifestation of life, has the duration neces- 
Bary for its mere contemplatability only in so far as it is a Becoming 
of the Being, whether immediately, or throngli mediation, and 
hence, whether in the moral or in the mere sensuous form, makes 
no difference here. This Being is, therefore, the real sulistance of 
ths Becoming, or of the deed in the Acting. But now life is in 
its form an absolute Becoming. Ilence this Being in its manifes- 
tation exists for all eternitv only in the Becomino; and never in 



Facts of Consciousness. 155 

factical Beino;. In factical Beinoj it could appear only at the end 
of all life. But life desires to manifest its Being in every one of 
its manifestations. The fact that this becomes no actual Being is 
explained by the infinitely continuing Becoming, which is required 
by the form of actuality. Being, therefore, as a real being, is the 
purpose and intention of the appearance, and the only, uncondi- 
tioned, and infinite purpo?e : hence the final end. 

Result : The Being of Life, which must be posited as its ground, 
becomes the final end only in its synthesis with the Becoming, as 
the form of life. Outside of this synthesis and beyond that form, 
we cannot even speak of a final end, but only of a Being. The 
final end is, therefore, the manifestation of Being in the Becoming 
■ — in order to make that Being visible ; hence it is mediately visi- 
bility of the Being of Life — precisely what we supposed it to be. 

ItEisrARK : Being of Freedom and Morality are altogether one 
and the same. (We may also say : Being of Life, provided we 
take the word in its most pregnant sense, as signifying absolute 
Being, beyond all Becoming, and provided we do not make it sig- 
nify the mere factical being of the appearance.) 

But the further question is : What is this Being of life, and can 
it be further determined ? I say : Yes ! and in the following man- 
ner: The formal part of life is the mere self-determination to 
he a Becoming. This self-deternnnation, therefore, adds nothing 
more to Being than that which follows from this form: the per- 
ishability of the particular, and the infinite progress. But that 
which really is permanent in the manifestation, and remains per- 
manent throughout the wliole infinite series, is based not on it, 
but on Being itself. Now, it is the faculty of contemplation which 
remains permanent in every manifestation, makes it enduring and 
actually endures throughout the whole inrinite series. Hence this 
contemplation, in its absolute form, does not become, but is; and 
by its form it keeps up the infinite becoming. The fundamental 
Being of life, therefore, is, in its form, a contemplation, which has 
not become, but which is, eternally and unchangeably, the same. 
All activity, which belongs after all only to formal life, is to be 
eliminated from it in thought. Tlie word contemplation se^ms to 
involve this activity in itself. Let us, therefore, substitute for 
it the other expression: tiie Being of Life is a permanent, fixed 
image, or appearance, an in itself completed Being, which, on that 



15G The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

acciiunt, is not again immediately contemplated. This, I say, is 
the absolute Beins; of Life ; hence Life is completed by that Being, 
and is nothing but that Being. 

Absolutely united with this contemplation we discover formal 
life ; or, the contemplation has formal life, is formal life, etc. 
Throuo-h this formal life it manifests itself, when it manifests 
itself in the eternal form of the Becoming. 

That which we have hitherto regarded as Life is, in its absolute 
Being, Contemplation, Image, Appearance. But, Contemplation 
is freedom in regard to a Being; is related to a Being, which is 
contemplated in contemplation; Imaged in the Image, and which 
appears in the Appearance. 

What sort of a Being is this? Not the Being of Life itself, for 
life is merely an image, and ends with being an image ; and, more- 
over, it is the image of another, of an opposite. Evidently it is, 
therefore, a being beyond all Becoming as the image itself is. Bat 
Et)w the contemi)lation is its contemplation, and is therefore 
dependent upon it as well in regard to its Being as in regard to 
its confents. Hence that Being must be the ground as well of 
the formal as of the qualitative existence of the contemplation. 
Hence, although the contemplation is absolutely and does not 
iecome, it is not of itself, out of itself, and through itself, but is 
through that being. It is, therefore, absolute only as a fact, a fact 
of that Being. But that Being is absolutely out of itself, of itself, 
and through itself. It is God. 

Now, nothing else can be said of this Being in this its mere can- 
ceprion — this God — than that it is the absolute, and that it is not 
contemplation, or an_ything else involved in contemplation. But 
this is the mere form of its Being, and merely in opposition to the 
Being ot the Appearance. That which God is really and in Him- 
self appears in the contemplation. That contemplation expi-esses 
Him wholly, and Ha is in it the same as He is internally in Himself. 
But this contemplation is not again contemplated; but manifests 
itself only by the freedom connected with it. Hence, this essence, 
as it is in Himself, manifests itself throughout all eternity primarily 
and immediately in the contemplation of the eternal final end. 
Hence Lite in its real Being is the image of God, as He is abso- 
lutely in Him-elf. But as formal life, as really living and active, 
it is the infinite desire actually to become this image of God ; a 



Facts of Consciousness. 15T 

desire, however, which for the very reason of its bein<>; infinite it 
can never achieve. In real activity, if it is at all ti-ue and does 
not merely seem to be, tliis formal life is always the primary con- 
dition of the Becomini^ of this ima£i:e at a certain time moment. 

And thus we have obtained the final and complete solution of 
the problem of our investigation : Life or Knowledge. (We shall 
see directly how perfectly synonymous those two expressions are.) 
Knowledge is most certainly not a knowledge of itself — in which 
case it would dissolve into nothingness, having no stay or support 
— but it is a knowledge of a Being • that is, of the only true Be- 
ing, God. On no account, however, of a Being outside of God— 
the like of which, apart from the Being of Knowledge itself or of 
the contemplation of God, is not at all possible, and the assump- 
tion of which is sheer nonsense. But that only possible object of 
knowledge does never arise in actual knowledge in its purity ; 
it is always broken by the necessary forms of knowledge, which 
can be shown to be thus necessary. It is the showing up ot these 
forms of knowledge which constitutes philosophy, or the Science 
of Knowledge. 

Chapter YI. 

conclusion. 

Resume. — I. "Whatsoever is outside of God dissolves itself into 
mere contemplation, image or knowledge — as, indeed, being out- 
side of God signifies contemplating God and can signity nothing 
else. There is in this contemplation not a trace or spark of the 
real formal Being, which remains altogether in God. Hence tiie 
theory of the Comprehensible — God being inconjprehensible — can 
be only the theory of Knowledge, or the Science of Knowledge; 
for outside of God nothing exists but knowledge. 

II. It is true that this Knowledge (this appearance) is not a 
dead bnt an absolutely in itself living Knowledge. As such a Life 
it again has no Being, no Materiality, no Quality, bnt is simply a 
Principle, A Principle not of the contemplation (ivnowledge) or 
of its ol)ject, God, for that contemplation is originally, but simply 
of a further determination of that contemplation, and thereby of 
its entrance into the form of Becoming. 

III, Now, this life or principle of the contemplation is an ahso- 



158 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

lute faculty to image or scliematize everytliing that constitutes its 
essence. Originally it is the image of God. Place the principle 
first on this stand-point. Evidently two cases are possible, which 
exclude each other. Either the principle, in being such principle, 
remains what it i^, the image, and then its i)roduct becomes aii in- 
finite series of contemplation. I say, contemplation. Contem- 
plation is everywhere, where the principle, in being a principle, 
involves a Being, that is, a Being which has not been dissolved 
into a scheme by freedom, an unconscious Baing, 

Or, take the second case. The principle remains not this Being 
a principle, but changes it also into a conception, which here is a 
conception of God ; a conception which, if the principle has pro- 
ceeded systematically, as we do here, becomes the conception of 
God as the absolute object of contemplation. This is the gene- 
alogy of all conceptions, and here, especially, of the conception 
of God : Religion, which completes the life of knowledge and is 
its highest summit. 

IV. Let us now return to the contemplation, in which the prin- 
ciple is unconsciously the image of God. Here again there are 
two possible cases. Either freedom is presupposed in the contem- 
plation, and the product of contemplation is viewed in its transit 
through it as the second Unconscious element of tlie principle; 
and then there arises the infinite contemplation of the final end. 
This is the view of the moral world. 

Or, freedom is not presupposed in the contemplation, and hence 
the product of contemplation is not determined by a transit 
through that contemplation ; and then there arises the contempla- 
tion of infinite nature, which nature here itself dissolves into con- 
templation and appears as a form thereof. 

Y. Finally, freedom itself, the principle as such, which in the 
former fundamental contemplation remained concealed — may be 
schematized throuo;h freedom itself and elevated into conscious- 
ness; and then there arises the contemplation of the Ego, as free, 
and free, moreover, in regard to the final end which now becomes 
its law. This results in a double view of the Ego : first, as the 
principle of a moral world ; and, second, as the principle in a 
not moral and hence purely sensuous world. 

YI. These five fundamental forms exhaust all possible forms of 
consciousness for all eternity. The Science of Knowledge treats 



Facts of Consciousness. 159 

of the necessary forms of consciousness, and hence what we have 
just now said is the fundamental sclieme of that science, as the 
necessary conclusion of a complete representation of the Facts of 
Consciousness. 

Final Remarks. — It would be beneficial to every scientific rep- 
resentation, if it were once in a while compelled to strip otf the 
terminology wherein it wraps itself — perhaps necessarily — and 
were requested to speak for once in the words of common lan- 
guage and of common sense, whatever new things it has to say. 
We now propose to extend this service to our own representation. 

Speaking in the ordinary language of life we maintain, and 
have maintained in all soberness, tlie following : 

1. A knowledge exists actually, in fact, and independent ; for 
this knowledge is a free and independent life. 

This must be conceded to us and accepted by all who desire to 
occupy the same stand-point with us of a philosophy which pro- 
ceeds from knowledge as a phenomenon in itself. At the same 
time it is necessary that they must have developed already that 
thinking, and their own faculty of thinking, sufficiently to b3 able 
to think that knowledge, were it only problematically. Thus, no 
one thinks at all our problem if he thinks, for instance, that 
knowledge is a quality, say, of a presupposed substantial human 
being. We never have said, man possesses knowledge; and who- 
ever cannot bring himself to think something else than this in 
listening to our words loses altogether their sense and meaning, 
and excludes himself from the sphere wherein alone they have a 
meaning. We need no bearer of knowledge. Knowledge must 
be considered, at least for the present, as bearing itself. How we 
are going to dispose of man, who certainly does not on any ac- 
count possess knowledge, but whom, with the help of God, knowl- 
edge is going to possess, will appear in due time. For the pres- 
ent, the abstraction of our science requires us to forget him, just as 
the geometrician requires us to foi'get matter. 

2. This life begins in a certain confinedness of its freedom. 

3. Its progress or course of life consists in this, that it must 
liberate itself from this confinedness, probably thereby dropping 
into another, but minor, confinedness, from which again it must 
liberate itself, etc. In short, its course of life is a perpetual eleva- 
tion of its life into a higher freedom. 



1C}0 The Journal of Speculative Philosopliy , 

4. This contiiuious development of life is likely enough gov- 
erned by fixed and determined laws. An exposition of the Fact 
of Consciousness M-oiild therefore be, as it were, a natural history 
of the development of life. 

5. Such a history, being a history of the development of life, 
must begin from the lowest point; from that point wherein life 
is given to itself without any previous development. This point, 
the terminKs a quo of that history, is external perception. 

1 have said, Knowledge is simply because it is ; it has an inde- 
pendent existence, and the only independent existence known to 
us. But that knowledge, in its essence being freedom, it must 
really be freedom, which is independent. I have said further, 
that you must think, at any rate, this, just as I think, and have 
expressed it — though you think it is so merely problematically for 
the present — since such a thinking is the stand-point of philosophy ; 
and tiiat any one, who cannot by any means think knowledge 
otherwise than as a mere accidence of the substrate, man, is quite 
as incapable of ^forming a philosophical thought as a man would 
be to form a geometrical thought Avho could not arise above the 
notion of matter. 

But it is furthermore clear that such a presupposition of a bear- 
er, or substrate, of knowledge, is in itself an absolute contradic- 
tion. We are investigating here the totality of consciousness. 
Now, such a bearer of consciousness can surely not be brought 
near to us except through some consciousness, and his credentials 
will be received only upon the aflSrmation of that consciousness. 
Hence, if we presuppose him simply, we exclude the consciousness 
which introduces him from our investigation, which thus remains 
imperfect, lacking one of the most essential elements. 

Indeed, it has been already sufficiently established how phi- 
losophy is absolutely annihilated by this impotency of thinking. 
Kant, it is true, has not expressed this truth so concisely and 
unconditionally as we have expressed it ; but without a presup- 
position of this truth he has, in fact, said nothing at all, and his 
writings remain a mass of contradictions. The philosophizing 
public generally has not made this presupposition, and hence has 
really found nothing, or else only a mass of contradictions in his 
writiui^s. 

(How, nevertheless, some of them — with their thinking faculty 



Facts of Consciousness. 161 

in such a condition — can find wisdom in that doctrine, and make 
themselves its expounders and apostles, is, of course, a riddle.) 

It is true that the printed Science of Knowledge has told it to 
them, but thej never believed that it was meant seriously ; and 
this is the sole reason why that science has remained a closed book 
to them. In attempting now to lead you to an understanding of 
the Science of Knowledge, I must pray you above all, and as the 
condition of all my other prayers, that you will believe me when 
I say that I am quite serious iu making that assertion in the very 
words in which it is couched; and that you will dare to think that 
thought along with me, though it be only problematically. Surely 
the attempt can do no harm. If in the course of our investigation 
you are not convinced by the grounds adduced of the truth of that 
presupposition, why, you can continue to think just as you have 
been accustomed to think before. And without that presupposi- 
tion you cannot, indeed, understand what I have said to you in 
the course of these lectures, and would give it an utterly false 
meaning. 

I have asserted that that life of knowledge changes itself. In 
my view it, being itself thoroughly in earnest, produces a Beings 
which is also actual and remains in fact, and which, after beings 
cannot be cancelled again ; a Being in itself, since Life is in itself. 
Now this Being expresses itself immediately in a knowledge, since 
such a Being is itself knowledge. How can any one, who enter- 
tains such a view seriously, have a doubt as to the reality of such 
a knowledge, which is, after all, nothing but that Being itself? 
True, if, whenever the word knowledge is spoken, we can think of 
nothing but our idle dreams, and if we can think no other reality 
but that which we can grasp with our hands, then such a doubt 
might be in place. Those who misunderstood the Science of 
Knowledge fell into this error. 

[the end.] 

XVIII— 11 



163 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 



KANT AND PHILOSOPHIC METHOD. 

BY JOHN DEWEY. 

On its subjective side, so far as individuals are concerned, phi- 
losophy comes into existence when men are confronted with prob- 
lems and contradictions which common^ sense and the special 
sciences are able neither to solve nor resolve. There is felt the 
need of going deeper into things, of not being content with hap- 
hazard views or opinions derived from this or that science, but of 
having some principle which, true on its account, may also serve 
to judge the truth of all besides. It is no matter of accident that 
modern philosophy begins, in Descartes, with a method which 
doubts all, that it may find that wherewith to judge all ; nor is it 
meaningless that Kant, the founder of modernest philosophy, com- 
mences his first great work with a similar demand, and " calls upon 
Reason to undertake the most difficult of tasks, self-knowledge, 
and establish a tribunal to decide all questions according to its 
own eternal and unchangeable laws." ' This self-knowledge of 
Reason, then, is the Method and criterion which Kant offers. 

Before we may see what is involved in this, it is necessary 
to see what in gist the previous methods had been, and why they 
had failed. The method of " intellectualism " begun by Descartes 
and presented to Kant through Wolff was (in one word) : Analy- 
sis of conceptions, with the law of identity or non-contradiction for 
criterion. To discover truth is to analyze tlie problem down to 
those simple elements which cannot be thought away, and reach a 
judgment whose predicate may be clearly and distinctly seen to 
be identical with its subject. Analytic thought, proceeding by the 
law of identity, gives the method for philosophic procedure. Now, 
Kant in his pre-critical period ^ had become convinced that analy- 
sis does not explain such a conception as that which we have of 
causation : " How one thing should arise out of another, when it 
is not connected with it, according to the law of identity, this is a 



' See Kant's Werke, Rosenkranz's ed., vol. ii, p. 7. 

^ See especially his essay on attempt to introduce the idea of negative quantity into 
philosophy. Werke, vol. i. 



Kant and Philosophic Method. 163 

thing which I should much like to have explained." ' !Nor again, 
while it may be, and undoubtedly is, the method for pure thought, 
does it give any means for passing from thought to existence. 
This, he would say, is no predicate of anything ; it is part of no 
conception, andean be got by no analysis. Reality is added to our 
notions from without, not evolved from them. But, if logical 
thought is not adequate to such notions as cause, nor able to reach 
existence, it can be no method for discovering Absolute truth. 

So Kant finds himself thrown into the arms of the Empiricists. 
It is experience which shows us the origin of an effect in a cause, 
and experience which adds reality or existence to our thoughts. 
What, then, is the method of "Empiricism"? Beginning with 
Bacon, at first it merely asserted that the mind must be freed 
from all subjective elements, and become a mirror, to reflect the 
world of reality. But this, as criterion, is purely negative, and 
required the positive complement of Locke. This method in a 
word is. Analysis of percejptio?is with agreement as criterion. In 
contrast with the intellectual school, which began with concep- 
tions supposed to be found ready-made in the human mind, it 
begins with the perceptions impressed upon that blank tablet, the 
Mind, by external objects, and finds " knowledge to consist in the 
perception of the connection or agreement or disagreement of 
these ideas." But two questions arise : If truth or knowledge 
consists in perceptions, how, any more than from conceptions, 
shall we get to an external world ? This question was answered 
by Berkeley in showing that, if knowledge were what this theory 
made it to be, the external world was just that whose esse is per- 
cipi. The second question is : What is agreement of perception ? 
Agreement certainly means, as Locke said, "connexion," that is, 
mutual reference, or Synthesis. But how can this synthesis occur ? 
The mind is a blank, a wax tablet, a tahula rasa, whose sole na- 
ture is receptivity, and certainly it can furnish no synthesis. 
Locke had avoided the difficulty by assuming that ideas come to 
us or are "given " more or less conjoined — that one has naturally 
some bond of union with another. But this, of course, cannot be. 
Simple impressions or perceptions are, as Hume stated, such as 
admit of no distinction or separation, and these are the ultimate 



1 Ibid., p. 157. 



164 The Journal of Bpeculatwe Pldlosopliy. 

sensation?. Tliese have no connection with each other, except 
perhaps the accidental one of following or occurring together in 
time, and so it is that " every distinct perception is a separate ex- 
istence." Necessary connection among tliem, therefore, there can 
be none. Sensations are purely contingent, accidental, and exter- 
nal in their relations to each other, with no bonds of union. Any 
agreement is the result of chance or blind custom. Knowledge as 
the necessary connection of perceptions does not exist. 

Kant consequently discovers, by a more thorough study of em- 
piricism, that it too betrays him. It, no more than his former 
guides, can furnish him witli a way of getting to an external world 
nor to knowledge at all. Nay, even self, some ghost of which was 
left him by the other method, has disappeared too. 

What has been the difficulty ? Descartes did not come to a 
stand-still at once, for he had tacitly presupposed the synthetic 
power of thought in itself — had even laid the ground for a theory 
of it in his reference to the Ego, or self-consciousness. But his 
successors, neglecting this, and developing only the analytic aspect 
of thought, had produced a vacuum, where no step to existence or 
actual relations, being synthetic, could be taken. " Conceptions are 
empty." Nor had Locke been estopped immediately, for he pre- 
supposed some synthesis in the objective world ; but it turns out 
that he had no right to it, and world, self, and all actual relations, 
beiTig synthetic, have gone. " Perceptions are blind." The problem, 
then, is clearly before Kant, as is the key to its solution. Synthe- 
sis is the sine qua non. Knowledge is synthesis, and the explana- 
tion of knowledge or truth must be found in the explanation of 
synthesis. Hence the question of Method is now the question : 
How are synthetic judgments a jpriori possible % A priori means 
simply belonging to Reason in its own nature, so the question is, 
How and to what extent is Reason the source of synthesis? 

The case stands thus : Pure thought is purely analytic; experi- 
ence per se gives only a blind rhapsody of particulars, without 
meaning or connection — actual experience, or knowledge involves, 
is synthesis. How shall it be got ? One path remains open. We 
may suppose that while thought in itself h analytic, it is synthetic 
when applied to a material given it, and that from this material, 
by its functions, it forms the objects which it knows. And such, 
in its lowest terms, is the contribution Kant makes. The material, 



Kant and Philosophic Method. 165 

the manifold, the particulars, are furnished by Sense in percep- 
tion ; the conceptions, the synthetic functions from Reason itself, 
and the union of these two elements are required, as well for the 
formation of the object known, as for its knowing. 

To characterize Kant's contribution to Method, it remains to 
briefly examine these two sides of his theory : First, for the part 
played by the synthetic functions or tlie categories. These, in 
first intention, are so many conceptions of the understanding, and, 
as such, subject to analysis according to the law of identity, and 
thus furnish the subject-matter of Logic. But they also have rela- 
tion to objects, and, as such, are synthetic and furnish the subject- 
matter of Transcendental Logic, whose work is to demonstrate and 
explain their objective validity. This is done by showing that 
" the categories make experience and its objects for the first time 
possible." That is to say, Kant, after showing that the principles 
of identity and contradiction, though the highest criteria of logic- 
al thought, can give no aid in determining the truths of actual ex- 
perience, inquires what is the criterion of truth for the latter, or 
what comes to the same thing, of the synthetic use of the catego- 
ries as Transcendental Logic — and the answer he finds to be " pos- 
sible experience" itself. In other words, the categories have ob- 
jective validity or synthetic use because without them no experi- 
ence would be possible. If Hume, for example, asks how we can 
have assurance that the notion of causality has any worth when 
applied to objects, he is answered by showing that without this 
notion experience as an intelligible connected system would not 
exist. By the categories the objects of experience are constituted, 
and hence their objective validity. 

It follows, accordingly, that the system of experience may be 
determined, as to its form, by a completely made out system of 
categories. In thera, as synthetic functions, constituting experi- 
ence, we find the criterion of truth. But they themselves have a 
higher condition. As synthetic functions, they must all be func- 
tions of a higher unity which is subject to none of them. And 
this Kant calls the synthetic unity of Apperception or, in brief, self- 
consciousness. This is the highest condition of experience, and in 
the developed notion of self-consciousness we find the criterion of 
truth. The theory of self -consciousness is Method. 

But this abstract statement must be farther developed. It 



166 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy. 

comes to sayino;, on the one hand, that the criterion of the 
categories is possible experience, and on the other, that tlie cri- 
terion of possible experience is the categories and their supreme 
condition. This is evidently a circle, yet a circle which, Kant 
would say, exists in the case itself, which expresses the very nature 
of knowledije. It but states that in knowledge there is nanglit 
but knowledge which knows or is known — the only judge of 
knowledge, of experience, is experience itself. And experience is 
a system, a real whole made up of real parts. It as a whole is 
necessarily implied in every fact of experience, while it is consti- 
tuted in and throuirh these facts. In other terms, the relation of 
categories to experience is the relation of members of an organism 
to a whole. The criterion of knowledsre is neither anything out- 
side of knowledge, nor a particular conception within the sphere 
of knowledge which is not subject to the system as a whole ; it is 
just this system which is constituted, so far as its form is concerned, 
by the categories. 

Philosophic Method, or the discovering of the criterion of truth, 
will consist, then, in no setting up of a transcendent object as 
the empiricists did, or of an abstract principle after the manner 
of the intellectual school. Since the categories, in and through 
self-consciousness, constitute experience. Method will consist in 
making out a complete table of these categories in all their mutual 
relations, giving each its proper placing, with the full contidence 
that when so placed each will have its proper place in experience, 
i. e., its capacity for expressing reality determined. 

But we have now strayed far from Kant. While having said 
nothing which is not deducible from his Transcendental Logic, we 
have abstracted from the fact that this holds only of the /br/jz of 
our knowledge ; that there is also an (Esthetic, and that thought 
is synthetic, not in itself, but only upon a material supplied to it 
from without. Turning to this, we find the aspect of affairs 
changed. Though the categories make experience, they make it 
out of a foreign material to which they bear a purely external 
relation. They constitute objects, but these objects are not such 
in universal reference, but only to beings of like capacities of 
receptivity as ourselves. They respect not existence in itself, but 
ourselves as affected by that existence. The system of categories 
furnishes the criterion for all the knowledge we have, but this 



Kant and PMlosopTiic Metliod. 167 

turns out to be no real knowledge. It is, Hegel says, as if one 
ascribed correct insight to a person, and then added that he could 
see only into the untruth, not the truth. Nor does the deficiency 
of our method end here. We had previously assumed that the 
categories as a system, or in their organic relation to self-con- 
sciousness, could be known. But it now turns out that nothing 
can be known except that to which this feeling of external matter 
through sensibility is given. To know this subject, or self-con- 
sciousness, is to make an object of it, and every object is sensible, 
that is, has a feeling which tells us how we are affected. But such 
a knowledge is evidently no knowledge of self-consciousness in its 
own nature. Thus, so far as knowledge is concerned, it must re- 
main a bare form of self-identity, of " I = I," into definite organic 
relations with which the categories can never be brought. Hence, 
it appears that our picture of a method was doubly false — false in 
that after all it could not reach truth ; false in that after all no 
such method was in itself possible. Our organic system of cate- 
gories cannot constitute absolute truth — and no such organic sys- 
tem is itself knowable. Criterion and method we are still with- 
out. The golden prize, which seemed just within our hands as 
long as we confined ourselves to the Transcendental Logic, turns 
out to be a tinsel superfluity. 

Yet, none the less, there was the suggestion of a method there, 
which is exactly what we wish. The only question is : Is its ref- 
erence to the Esthetic necessary ? Is the latter a necessary part 
of Kant's theory, or, so far as it concerns the reception of exter- 
nal matter, an excrescence? The question is just here: Previous 
methods failed because they made no allowance for synthesis — 
Kant's because the synthesis can occur only upon matter foreign 
to it. Thought in the previous theories was purely analytic ; in 
Kant's it is purely synthetic, in that it is synthesis of foreign ma- 
terial. "Were thought at once synthetic and analytic, difieren- 
tiating and integrating in its own nature, both affirmative and 
negative, relating to self at the same time that it related to other 
— indeed, through this relation to other — the difficulty would not 
have arisen. 

Is the state of the case as Kant supposes ? Must we say that 
Reason is synthetic only upon condition that material be given it 
to act upon, or, may it be, that while we must say that for the in- 



1<.>S The Journal of Speculative Philosophi/. 

dividual tlie material, nay, the form a^ iiidissolubly connected with, 
tlie material, is i2:iveii, yet, to Eeason itself, nothing is given in 
the sense of beins: forei<>'n to it? 

A slight examination will show us that, at least as far as Kant 
is concerned, the former supposition is but an arbitrary limitation 
or assumption, which Kant imposed upon himself, or received 
without question from previous philosoj)hy. On one side, he had 
learned that ])ure thought is analytic; on tlie other, that the indi- 
vidual is alfected with sensations impressed upon it by external ob- 
jects. x\.t the same time that he corrects both of these doctrines with 
his own deduction of the categories, he formally retains both errors. 

So we have him asking at the very outset, as a matter of course : 
" In what other way is it to be conceived that the knowing power 
can be excited to activity, except by objects which affect our 
senses?" That is to say, he assumes at the outset that there is 
something external to Reason by which it must be excited. He 
perceives, what all admit, that an individual organized in a certain 
specific way with certain senses, and external tilings acting upon 
these senses, are conditions to our knowledge, and then proceeds 
to identify respectively this individual with the subject, and these 
things with the object, in the process of knowledge. But here it 
is that we ask with what right does he make this identification. 
If it is made, then surely the case stands with Reason as he says 
it does — it acts only upon a material foreign to it. Yet this indi- 
vidual and these things are but knowm objects already constituted 
by the categories, and existing only for the synthetic unity of ap- 
perception or self-consciousness. This, then, is the real subject, 
and the so called subject and object are but the forms in which it 
expresses its own activity. In short, the relation of subject and 
object is not a "transcendent" one, but an "immanent," and is 
but the first form in which Reason manifests that it is both syn- 
thetic and analytic ; that it separates itself from itself, that it may 
thereby reach higher unity with itself It is the highest type of 
the law which Reason follows everywhere. The material w^hich 
was supposed to confront Reason as foreign to it is but the mani- 
festation of Reason itself. Such, at least, are the results which 
we reach in tlie Transcendental Deduction, and such are the re- 
sults we consider ourselves justified to keep in opposition to Kant's 
pure assumptions. 



Kant and Philosoj)hio Method. 109 

\ We see the same thing in Kant's theory of phenomenon. Just 
as, concerning the process of knowledge, he assumes that subject 
and object are in external i"elation to each other, and hence Rea- 
son in contact with a foreign material, so here he assumes that 
the character of phenomenality consists in relation to an unknow- 
able noiiraenon. The phenomenon is referred to something outside 
of experience, instead of being defined by its relation within ex- 
perience — in which case it would be seen to be a phenomenon in 
its own nature, in that the categories which constitute it as such 
are not adequate to truth. 

We have but to turn to Kant's derivation of the cateo-ories, to 
be again assured that Kant's theory of Reason as synthetic only 
in reference to foreign material is one purely assumed. As is 
notorious, these he took from the Logic of the School, which he 
held to give a complete table of all the forms of pure thought. 
When we turn to this table we find the highest point reached in 
it to be reciprocity. Now, reciprocity is precisely that external 
relation of two things to each other that we have already found 
existing, in Kant's theory, between subject and object in Knowl- 
edge — the relations of things that are independent of each other 
but mutually act upon each other. So, too, it is but another way 
of stating that Thought, analytic in itself, is synthetic when ap- 
plied to an external material, or that this material, blind and hap- 
hazard in itself, is formed by something acting upon it. When 
Kant tells us, therefore, that the categories are not limited in their 
own nature, but become so when applied, as they must be, to 
determine space and time, we have in our hands the means of 
correcting him. They are limited, and express just the limitation 
of Kant himself. And Kant confesses their insufficiency as soon 
as he takes up the questions of moral and aesthetic experience and 
of life itself. Here we find the categories of freedom determined 
by ends, free production, organism to be everywhere present, 
while all through his "Critiques" is woven in the notion of an 
intuitive understanding w^iich is the ultimate criterion of all 
truth, and this understanding is just what we have already met 
as the organic system of experience or self-consciousness. 

Whether we consider the relations of subject and object, or the 
nature of the categories, we find ourselves forced into the presence 
of the notion of organic relation. The relation between subject 



170 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

ami object is not an external one ; it is one in a lii<^lier unity 
which is itself constituted b}" this relation. The only conception 
adequate to experience as a whole is organism. What is involved 
in the notion of organism ? Wh}', precisely the Idea which we 
had formerly reached of a Reason which is both analytic and syn- 
thetic, a Reason which differentiates itself that it may integrate 
itself into fuller riches, a Reason that denies itself that it mav be- 
come itself. Snch a Reason, and neither an analytic Thought, 
nor an analytic Experience, nor a Reason which is analytic in 
itself, and synthetic for something else, is the ultimate critei'ion 
of truth, and the theory of this Reason is the Philosophic Method. 

The two defects which we found before in Kant's theory now 
vanish. The method is no longer one which can reach untruth 
only, nor is it a method which cannot be made out. The track 
which we were upon in following the course of the Transcendental 
Deduction was the right one. The criterion of experience is the 
system of categories in their organic unity in self-consciousness, 
and the method consists in determining this system and the part 
each plays in constituting it. The method takes the totality of 
experience to pieces, and brings before us its conditions in their 
entirety. The relations of its content, through which alone this 
content has character and meaning, whereby it becomes an intelli- 
gible, connected whole, must be made to appear. 

It was the suggestion of this method, it was the suggestion of 
so many means for its execution, it was the actual carrying of it out 
in so many points that makes Kant's " Philosophy " the critical 
philosophy, and his work the crisis^ the separating, dividing, turn- 
ing-point of modern philosophy, and this hurried sketch would not 
be complete if we did not briefly point out what steps have been 
taken toward the fulfilling of the Ideal. This is found chiefly in 
Hegel and his " Logic." We can only discuss in the light of what 
has already been said why Hegel begins with Logic ; why the 
negative plays so important a part in his philosophy, and what is 
the meaning of Dialectic. (1.) Logic. One of Hegel's repeated 
charo;es asfainst Kant is, that he examines the categories with refer- 
ence to their ohjective character, and not to determine their own 
meaning and worth. At first it might seem as if this were the 
best way to determine their worth, but it ought now to be evident 
that such a procedure is both to presuppose that they are subject- 



Kant and Philosophic Method. 171 

ive in themselves, and that we have a ready-made conception of 
object by which to judge them — in short, it amounts to saying 
that these conceptions are pnrely analytic, and have meaning only 
in relation to an external material. Hence the method must ex- 
amine the categories without any reference to subjective or object- 
ive existences; or, to speak properly, since we now see that there 
are no purely subjective or objective existences, without any rela- 
tion to things and thoughts as two distinct spheres. The antithe- 
sis between them is not to be blinked out of sight, but it must be 
treated as one which exists within Reason, and not one with one 
term in and the other out. The categories which, for the individ- 
ual, determine the nature of the object, and those which state how 
the object is brought into the subjective form of cognition, must 
be deduced from Reason alone. A theory performing this task is 
what Heo;el calls Loo-ic, and is needed not onlv to overcome Kant's 
defects, but is immediately suggested by his positive accomplish- 
ments. In our account of the Transcendental Deduction we saw 
that selt-consciousness was the supreme condition of all the catego- 
ries, and hence can be subject in itself to none of them. When it 
is made subject we have no longer the absolute self-consciousness, 
but the empirical ego, the object of the inner sense. In short, the 
categories constitute the individuals as an object of experience, just 
as much as they do the material known. Hence they are no more 
subjective than objective. We may call them indifferently neither 
or both. The truth is, they belong to a sphere where the antithe- 
sis between subject and object is still potentialj or an sich. It is 
evident, therefore, that logic, in the Hegelian use, is just that cri- 
terion of truth which we thought at first to find in Kant's trans- 
cendental Logic — it is an account of the conceptions or categories 
of Reason which constitute experience, internal and external, sub- 
jective and objective, and an account of them as a system, an 
organic unity in which each has its own place fixed. It is the 
completed Method of Philosophy. 

(2.) The Negative in Hegel. It ought now to be evident that 
any Philosophy which can pretend to be a Method of Truth 
must show Reason as both Analytic aiid Synthetic. If History 
can demonstrate anything, it has demonstrated this, both by its 
successes and its failures. Reason must be that which separates 
itself, which differentiates, goes forth into differences, that it 



172 The Journal of Speculative Philosojyht/. 

nuiv then c-rasi) these difterences into a niiitv of its own. It 
cannot unite unless tliere be ditference; there can be no syn- 
thesis where there is not analysis. On the other hand, the dilt'er- 
enees must remain forever foreioju to Reason unless it brings 
them together; there can be no analysis where there is uot syn- 
thesis, or a unity to be dirempted. If there be uo synthesis in 
Reason, Ave end in the impotence of the former school of intellect- 
nalism, or in the helpless scepticism of Hume; if Reason be syn- 
thetic only upon a foreign material, we end in the contradictions 
of Kant. If there is to be knowledge, Reason must include both 
elements within herself. It is Heo-el's thorono-h recomiition of this 
fact that causes him to lay such emphasis on the negative. Pure 
atiirmation or identity reaches its summit in Spinoza, where all is 
lost in the infinite substance of infinite attributes, as waves in the 
sea. Yet even Spinoza was obliged to introduce the negative, the 
determinations, the modes, though he never could succeed in get- 
ting them by any means from his pure affirmation. In Hume we 
find pure difference or negation, the manifold particularization of 
sensations, but even he is obliged to introduce synthetic piinciples 
in the laws of association, though he never succeeds in legitimately 
deriving them from sensations, for a " consistent sensationalism is 
speechless." Kant had tried a compromise of the principle, syn- 
thesis from within, difference from without. That, too, failed to 
give us knowledge or a criterion of Truth. Hegel comprehends 
the problem, and offers us Reason affirmative and negative, and 
aflirmative only in and through its own negations, as the solution. 
(3.) Dialectic. We have now the notion of Dialectic before us 
in its essential features. We have seen that the desired object is 
a theory of the Conceptions of Reason in an organic system, and 
that Reason is itself both integrating and differentiating. Dia- 
lectic is the constrnction by Reason, tlirough its successive differen- 
tiations and resumptions of these differences into higher unities, 
of just this system. If we take any single category of Reason — 
that is to say, some conception which we find involved in the sys- 
tem of experience — this is one specific form into which Reason has 
unified or " synthesized" itself. Reason itself is immanent in this 
category; but, since Reason is also differentiating or analytic, 
Reason must reveal itself as such in this category, which accord- 
ingly passes, or is reflected, or develops into its opposite, while the 



Kant and Philosophio Method. 1Y3 

two conceptions are then resumed into the higher unity of a more 
concrete conception. 

Since the system of knowledge is implicit in each of its mem- 
bers, each category must judge itself, or ratlier. Reason, in its suc- 
cessive forms, passes judgment on its own inadequacy until the 
adequate is reached — and tliis can be nothing but Reason no longer 
implicit, but developed into its completed system. Reason must 
everywhere, and in all its forms, propose itself as what it is, viz., 
absolute or adequate to the entire truth of experience ; but, since 
at first \isform is still inadequate, it must show what is absolutely 
implicit in it, viz., the entire system. That at first it does, by 
doing what it is the nature of the Reason which it manifests to do^ 
by differencing itself, or passing into its opposite, its other ; but, 
since Reason is also synthetic, grasping together, these differences 
must resolve themselves into a higher unity. Thus, Reason con- 
tinues until it has developed itself into the conception which is in 
form equal to what itself is in content, or, until it has manifested 
all that it is implicitly. A twofold process has occurred. On the 
one hand, each special form of Reason or Category has been placed ; 
that is, its degree of ability to state absolute truth fixed by its place 
in the whole organic system. On the other, the system itself has 
been developed ; that is to say, as Reason goes on manifesting its 
own nature through successive differences and unities, each lower 
category is not destroyed, but retained — but retained at its proper 
value. Each, since it is Reason, has its relative truth ^ but each, 
since Reason is not yet adequately manifested, has only a relative 
truth. The Idea is the completed category, and this has for its 
meaning or content Reason made explicit or manifested ; that is, 
all the stages or types of Reason employed in reaching it. " The 
categories are not errors, which one goes through on the way to 
the truth, but phases of truth. Their completed system in its 
organic wholeness is the Truth." And such a system is at once 
philosophic Method and Criterion ; method, because it shows us 
not only the way to reach truth, but truth itself in construction ; 
criterion, because it gives us the form of experience to which all 
the facts of experience as organic members must conform. 

It will be seen, I hope, that we have not left our subject, " Kant's 
Relation to Philosophic Method ;" for a crisis is nothing in itself. 
It is a crisis only as it is the turning point ; and a turning point is 



174 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the old passiiii^: into the new, and can be understood only as the 
ohl and the new are understood. The criterion of Kant is just this 
turning point; it is the transition of the old abstract thought, the 
old meaningless conception of experience, into the new concrete 
thought, the ever growing, ever rich experience. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

TRANSLATED FBOM HEGEL's " PHIL080PHIE DEK BELIGIOK," [BT F. LOUIS SOLDAN. 

I have deemed it necessary to make religion in itself the object 
of philosophical contemplation, and to contribute this inquiry as 
a special part to the system of philosophy. In order to introduce 
the subject I shall precede it by an exposition of (A) the diremp- 
tion of [or antithesis in] consciousness, which awakens that desire 
whose satisfaction is the task of our science [of religion] ; and I 
shall describe the relation in which this science stands to phi- 
losophy and religion in general, and also to the principles of reli- 
gious consciousness in our own time. Then, after touching upon 
(B) some preliminary questions which result from these relations 
of the science, I shall, finally, give (C) a classification of the latter. 

We must make clear to ourselves, in the first place, what the 
object is which presents itself to us in the philosophy of religion, 
and what our conception of religion is. We know that religion 
removes us from the limits of time, and that it forms for our con- 
sciousness a realm where all the enigmatical problems of the world 
appear solved, where all contradictions found by musing, ponder- 
ing thought appear cleared, and all pangs of feeling stilled ; it 
it is the realm of eternal truth, rest, and peace. Generally speak- 
ing, man is man on account of thought, of concrete thought, or, 
more particularly, on account of being spirit; from man as spirit 
proceed the manifold forms of the sciences and arts, the interests 
of his political life, the relations connected with his Freedom and 
Will. But all these manifold forms, the whole warp and M^oof of 
human relations, activities, joys, everything that man values and 
esteems, and wherein he seeks his happiness, his glory, and his 
pride, — all find in the end their centre in religion, in the thought, 



Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. 175 

consciousness, and feeling of God. God is therefore the begin- 
ning of everything, and the end of everything. From this point 
whatever exists emanates, and it returns into it. He is the cen- 
tre which animates and inspires everything, and wliich, while 
sustaining all these forms in their existence fills them with life. 
By means of religion man places himself in relation to this centre, 
in which all his other relations converge, and he elevates himself 
thereby to the highest level of consciousness, namely, to the realm 
which is free from relation to [and dependence on] other things, 
which is absolutely self-sufficient, unconditioned, free, and which 
is its own end and aim. 

Keligion, being the occupation with this final end and aim, is 
therefore absolutely free, and has its aim in itself. To this final 
aim all other aims lead back, and, although otherwise independ- 
ent, they vanish before it. Ko other aims can maintain them- 
selves in contrast to this final aim ; in it alone they find their 
realization. When the spirit has attained the realm [of religious 
thought] where it occupies itself with this aim and end, it becomes 
treed and unburdened from all that is finite, and obtains its final 
satisfaction and liberation. For here spirit is no longer related 
to something other than itself, to something limited, but to the 
unlimited and infinite, whicli is an infinite relation, a relation of 
Freedom, and no longer one of dependence. Here the spirit's 
consciousness is absolutely free, and is true consciousness indeed, 
for it is consciousness of absolute truth. This relation of freedom, 
on the side of feeling, is the joy which we call beatitude ; on the 
side of activity its sole office is to manifest the honor and to reveal 
the glory of God, so that man in this relation is no longer chiefly 
concerned in himself, in his interests, his vanity, but rather in the 
absolute end and aim. All the nations know that it is in their 
religious consciousness that they possess truth, and they have al- 
ways looked upon religion as their pride and worth, and as the 
" Sunday " [or Sabbath] of their lives. Whatever causes us doubt 
and anxiety, all our sorrows and cares, all the narrow interests of 
finite existence, we leave behind us upon the sands of time, and 
as, when we are standing upon the highest point of a mountain, 
removed from the narrowness of terrestrial sights, we may view 
quietly all the limits of the landscape, and the world, so man, 
lifted above this rigid reality, looks upon it as a semblance, an 



176 Tlic Journal of Speculative Philosophij. 

image only, which this region of purity mirrors, and its shades, 
contrasts, and liglits are softened into eternal rest by the ray of the 
spiritual sun. In these regions flow the streams of oblivion, out of 
which Psyche drinks, into which she sinks all pain. Here the 
dark shades of life are softened into the image of a dream, and are 
transfigured into the darker outline within which the splendor of 
the eternal appears. 

This image of the absolute may oft'er to religious devotion either 
a more or less present animation, assurance, and enjoyment, or it 
may be represented as something to be longed and hoped for, as 
something appertaining to the distant and to the beyond; but it 
remains a certainty in every case, and, since it is a divine object, 
it illumines the times with its rays and engenders the consciousness 
that truth is strong and will prevail, although sorrows may tor- 
ment the soul in the realm of time. Faith recognizes the divine 
as the truth and substance of existing things, and this content of 
devotion is the animating principle of the present world ; it makes 
its activity felt in the life of the individual and rules him in his 
will and deeds. This is the general view of religion, religious 
sentiment, consciousness, or whatever we may call it. It is the ob- 
ject of these lectures to contemplate, examine, and understand its 
nature. 

As regards our aim, we must understand distinctly that it is not 
the task of philosophy to plant religion in a person's mind, for it 
is supposed that it is found in everybody [to whom these lectures 
are addressed]. It is not proposed to put something substan- 
tially new into man ; this would be just as foolish as to attempt 
to put mind into a dog by making him chew a book. He whose 
heart has not outo;:rown the world of the finite, he who in the 
longing for the eternal and in feeling anticipation of it has not at- 
tained his own elevation, he who has never looked into the pure 
ether of the soul, does not possess within himself the material 
whose contemplation and cognition is our present task. 

It may, nevertheless, happen to be the case that religion is en- 
gendered in the mind by philosophical cognition, but such is not 
a necessary consequence ; it is not the intention of philosophy to 
edify, nor is it required from it as a test that it should engender 
religion in this or that person. It is undoubtedly the purpose of 
philosophy to [demonstrate and] develop the necessity of religion in 



Introduction to the Philosophy of Eeligion. 177 

and for itself, and to conceive that the spirit must proceed from all 
other modes of its own volition, conception, and feeling to this 
absolute mode ; but therein philosophy completes the same pro- 
cess which is the universal fate of spirit ; but this is quite different 
from elevating an individual being to that height. The caprice, 
perversity and indifference of the individuals may interfere with 
the necessity of universal spiritual nature, may depart from it and 
attempt to establish a peculiar stand-point of their own and to 
maintain themselves upon it. This possibility of stepping indo- 
lently upon the stand-point of untruth, or, of remaining upon it 
knowingly and willingly, arises from the freedom of the individ- 
ual, while planets, plants, animals, by the necessities of their na- 
tures, cannot deviate from their truth, and they hecome what they 
shall be and must be. But in human liberty is and shall he are 
different things ; it contains the element of caprice ; it has the 
power of separating itself from its necessity, from its own law, and 
of working against its own destination. Therefore, even if cogni- 
tion should see the necessity of the religious stand-point, even if 
volition should learn from reality the futility of its separation from 
it, all this might not prevent a person from persisting in his obsti- 
nacy, and he might still turn away from his necessity and truth. 

The saying that " such or such a person possesses a cognition of 
God and yet keeps away from religion, and has not become reli- 
gious," has been used in the customary shallow manner as an argu- 
ment against [philosophical] cognition. It has never been asserted 
that cognition will lead or ought to lead to religion, but rather 
that it should cognize that religion which is already in the mind; 
it is not the task of [philosophical] cognition to dispense religion 
to this or that person, or to bring about a religious reform in the 
single, empirical individual, if he does not possess any religion in 
himself already, or does not want to possess an3^ 

But in reality there is no man so corrupt, so lost, so bad — and 
we cannot look upon anybody as being so miserable — that he has 
absolutely nothing pertaining to religion in his soul ; he will be 
found to have at least some fear of it, some longing for or hatred 
of it ; even if the latter should be true, his soul has been engaged 
with religion and is entangled in its threads. Since he is a human 
beine, relio-ion is essential to him, and not an alien sensation. But 
much depends here on the relation in which religion stands to a 
XVIII— 12 



178 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

man's general views of the woi-kl and of life ; to them philosophic 
cognition and its inflneiice principally relate. In this relation 
lies the source of the diremption and separation from the original 
impulse of spirit in the direction of religion ; out of this relation 
have grown the most manifold forms of consciousness : the most 
various relations between these forms and the interest of religion 
have sprung from it. Before the philosophy of religion can gather 
itself into its own concept, it is compelled to work its way through 
the whole labyrinth of those interests of the times which have at 
present concentrated themselves in the wide sphere of religion. 
At first the movement of the principles of the time proceeds out- 
side of philosophical cognition ; but their own movement brings 
them into contact and conflict with and antithesis to philosophy, 
and this antithesis and its solution we shall have to consider after 
having examined the first antithesis which as yet lies outside of 
philosophy, and after tracing the confirmation of its development 
to the point where it draws toward itself philosophical cognition. 



Philosophy of Religion as belated to its Presuppositions 
AND to the Principles of the Times. 

1. The Separation {Entzweiung) of Religion from Free, World- 
ly Consciousness. 

a. The relation which religion has in itself, in its immediate- 
ness to the other consciousness of man, contains the germs of di- 
remption, since both sides are in the process of separation. Even 
in their naive relation they constitute two different occupations, 
two realms of consciousness, between which transitions take place 
alternately. Thus man in his actual, w^orldly pursuits has the 
days of the w^eek to busy himself with his worldly atiairs, and with 
providing the necessities of life ; and then he has his Sunday when 
he lays all these aside, when he concentrates his thoughts on him- 
self, and, freed from the absorbing infiuence of finite pursuits, lives 
for himself and the higher elements which he has within, and 
which is his true being. In this separation of the two sides there 
enters, however, at once a double modification. 

a. Let us first look at the religion of a pious man, that is to say, 



Inti'oduction to the Philosophy of Religion. 179 

of one who truly deserves this name. Belief or faith is here as yet 
artless and naive., it is not mingled with reflection, and is without 
antithesis. Belief in God in its simplest form is one thing, but it 
is quite a different matter when, as the result of reflection, and 
with the consciousness that there is something opposed to this be- 
lief, we say, I believe in God ; in the latter there appears already 
the need of justiflcation, of argument, of polemics. The other re- 
ligion, that of the unsophisticated, pious man, is not treated by him 
as a special matter, distinct by itself, which has nothing in com- 
mon with his general life and existence, but it penetrates with its 
breath and flavor all his feelings and actions ; his consciousness 
relates every aim and object of his worldly life to God, as its 
infinite and last source. Every phase of his finite existence and 
course, his sorrows and joys, he raises above his narrow sphere, 
and produces in this elevation the idea and feeling of his eternal 
essence. All the rest of his life forms modes of confidence, of 
ethical conduct, of obedience, of habit ; he is what circumstances 
and nature have made him, and he takes his life, his conditions, 
and his rights, as he has received everything, as an uncompre- 
hended fate : " Such is it ! " Or, in relation to God, he may take 
gratefully, as a gift of free grace, what is his, and in turn is ready 
to offer it to Him as a free sacrifice. His other consciousness is 
thus freely and naturally subjected to this higher realm. 

/3. On the side of the world, the difference appearing in this re- 
lation develops into a contrast. It might seem as if the develop- 
ment of this side involved no detriment to religion, and as if en- 
croachment were avoided, since, according to the expressed profes- 
sion, religion is acknowledged to be supreme. 

In fact, however, it is otherwise, and from the side of the world 
vitiation and diremption creep into religion. The development of 
this difference may be designated in general as the rise of the Un- 
derstanding and of human interests. As the Understanding 
awakens in the life of mankind, and in science, and as reflection 
becomes independent, the human Will sets up absolute aims, as^ 
for instance, legal institutions and the state, both of which are to 
have existence in and for themselves. The inquiring mind cog- 
nizes the laws, the qualities, the order and characteristics of nat- 
ural things and of the activities and creations of spirit. This ex- 
perience and knowledge, as well as the willing of these aims and 



180 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

their realization, are the work of man, of his understaiidini!; and 
volition. In all of them he sees his property his own. Although 
his starting-point is that which is^ that which he finds in exist- 
ence already, he is no longer one who merely possesses the at- 
tribute of knowing, one who enjoys i-ights which he has not 
created himself. What he has wrought through his intellisence 
and will out of the materials found, is his own, his work, and he 
has the consciousness that he has produced it. These productions 
therefore, constitute his honor and his pride, and they constitute a 
vast and infinite wealth; his world of knowledge, of judgment, of 
external possessions, of rights and deeds. 

Thus spirit forms within itself this contrast — as yet naively, 
without knowing it at the beginning. But it soon becomes a con- 
scious one ; for spirit now moves between its two sides, whose con- 
trasts have developed into reality. One side is that wherein it 
knows itself as its own, wherein it is in the midst of its own aims 
and interests, and where it determines itself free and independent- 
ly from within. The other side is that in which spirit recognizes 
a higher power and absolute duties — duties without corresponding 
rights — and where whatever he receives for the fulfillment of his 
duties remains a gift of grace. In the former, the self-dependence 
of spirit is the basis. In the latter it possesses the attributes of 
humility and dependence, and its religion differs from the religion 
of independence in the circumstance that spirit confines cognition 
or science to the worldly side, and assigns the sphere of religion to 
feeling and faith. 

7. But conditionality is involved even in the side of self-depend- 
ence, and Cognition and Will must experience it. Man will at any 
rate demand his right ; whether it will be conceded, does not depend 
on him, and in this respect therefore he depends on something else. 
In matters of cognition he proceeds from the conditions and the 
order of nature as a starting-point ; these data are given to him. 
The content of his science and knowledge is matter extraneous to 
him. Thus the two sides, that of self-dependence and of condi 
tionality, enter into a relationship to each other, and this relation 
leads man to the confession that everything is made by God, 
not only the things which constitute the content of his knowl- 
edge, of which he takes possession, which he uses as a means 
for his ends, but also he himself and the spirit and the intel- 



Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. 181 

lectual faculties, which, as he says, he employs to attain to that 
coojnition. 

But this concession is dead and cold, because in it that concep- 
tion and knowledge are wanting which constitute the life of con- 
sciousness, and in which the latter is bv itself and is self-con- 
sciousness. Whatever is limited \alles hestimmte'] belongs to the 
sphere of cognition and of human, self-created aims and inter- 
ests, and in these there is nothing but the activity of self-con- 
sciousness. This concession is therefore void, because it stops 
with what is abstractly universal, namely, [with the assertion] that 
everything is a work of God ; with the most diverse things (the 
course of the stars and its laws, ant, man) this relation does not 
advance beyond one and the same thing, namely, that God has 
made it. Since this religious relation of the several objects is 
always expressed in the same monotonous statement, it would be- 
come wearisome if it were to be repeated in every individual case. 
The whole matter is therefore considered settled with the one ad- 
mission that God has made all things ; the religious side is thus 
satisfied once for all, and in the development of cognition, and the 
pursuit of interest and aims, no further thought is given to it. It 
looks almost as if that admission were only made to get rid of the 
matter, or, as it were to be safe from attacks from without as 
far as this point is concerned ; in short, one may be in earnest or 
not in earnest with this assertion. 

Piety, whatever it may undertake or experience, never tires of 
lifting its glance to God, although it does this every hour of the 
day in the same way. And yet, as long as piety means [simply] 
pious feeling, it is still in [the phase of] singularity. It is in every 
moment that which it is [without reserve, undivided], entire, be- 
cause it is without reflection and comparing [relation-seeing] con- 
sciousness. Here [on the other stand-point], however, where cog- 
nition and self-determination are the rule, this comparison and 
the consciousness of this uniform sameness are essential, and a uni- 
versal proposition is here asserted once for all. On one side the 
understand in o; holds swav, and on the other it has the relisrious 
feeling of dependence. 

b. Nor does piety escape the fate of diremption. Diremption ex- 
ists in it potentially in the fact already that its real content is but 
a manifold and contingent one. The two relations, that of piety 



182 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

and of the comparing understanding, no matter how much they 
seem to differ, have this in common, that God's relation to the 
other side of consciousness is indefinite and ficeneral. Tlie second 
of these rehxtions finds direct expression in the quoted saying : 
" God has created all things." 

a. The mode of contemplation which is peculiar to piety and 
througli which it lends greater explicitness to its reflection, is that 
it looks upon circumstances and institutions [as if they were to 
subserve some aim or end, that is to say] in the light of a teleologi- 
cal relation, and that it considers all the events of the individual 
life, as well as the great events of history, as proceeding from di- 
vine purposes, or as tending and turning towards them. This 
view no longer confines itself to an acknowledgment of a general 
divine relation, but it makes the latter become a definite relation. 
[Through this] a more explicit content appears, the most diverse 
matters are placed in relation to each other, and God is then 
looked upon as the efficient cause of these relations. The animals 
and their surroundings are thus or thus constituted in order to 
find their food, to nourish their offspring, to be protected against 
injury, to resist the winter, to be able to defend themselves against 
their enemies. It is discovered how in human life, through what 
appears accident or chance — such as some misfortune — man is led 
to happiness either in a worldly or an eternal sense. In short, the 
doing and the will of God are here contemplated in particular 
actions, natural phenomena, events and the like. 

But this content itself, these aims, this finite content, are con- 
tingent, are projected for the moment, and lose themselves in 
inconsistency at once. If, for instance, God's wisdom in regard 
to nature is admired in the weapons which the animals have, 
either to o;ain their food or to defend themselves against their 
enemies, experience will show at once that these weapons are 
of no avail, and that the creatures, considered as aims in them- 
selves [as existing for their own sake], are used by others as 
means. 

It is owing to progressive knowledge that this external teleo- 
logical view has been reduced and superseded. For higher knowl 
edge demands, in the first place, consistency at least, and dis- 
covers that those aims and ends which were considered divine 
purposes are subordinate and finite ends ; they are things which 



Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. 183 

prove themselves to the same experience and observation to be 
void and erroneous, and not objects of the divine will. 

Were this view adopted, and its inconsistency ignored, this in 
itself would prove it to be indefinite and superficial, because any 
and every content — no matter what its nature — might be put 
into it. For nothing could be found, no portion of the order 
of nature, no event, of which a useful trait in some direction or 
other could not be pointed out. Piety, if this view be taken, 
exists no longer as a naive feeling, but is based on the general 
idea of an aim and end, on the idea of the good ; and it argues by 
subsuming the existing things under this general thought. But 
this argument places piety in the embarrassing position of having 
pointed out to it, in this immediate appearance of natural things 
— no matter how much of purpose and use it has previously 
shown to exist in them — just as many indications of absence of 
purpose and defects. What is beneficial to one is harmful to 
another, and consequently lacks purpose. If the protection of life 
and of the interests connected with existence is furthered in one 
case, it is just as much endangered or destroyed in the other. 
Thus there is a diremption in itself implied in elevating, contrary 
to God's eternal mode of activity, finite things to the dignity of 
essential ends and aims. Tliis inconsistency contradicts the idea 
which we have of God, namely, that He and His mode of action 
are universal and necessary. 

Since piety thus considers the external end and aim, or the ex- 
ternality of the thing, by which the latter is useful for something 
else, the natural determination of the object which has formed the 
starting-point seems to be, that it exists for something else. But 
upon closer examination this appears the object's own relation, its 
nature the immanent nature and necessity of that which is related. 
Thus arises for piety the real transition to the other side, which 
has been designated before as the phase of Selfhood [das Moment 
des Selbstischen]. 

/3. Piety is therefore thrown out of its argument, and, after a 
beginning has once been made with thinking and with the rela- 
tions of thought, thinking must seek and demand above all things 
that which is peculiarly its own [characteristic], namely, consist- 
ency and necessity, and oppose them to that stand-point of con- 
tingency. With this step, the principle of selfhood develops com- 



184 The Journal of Speculative -Philosophy. 

pletclj. Since tlie Ego as Thought is simple and universal, it is 
relation in general ; and since I exist for myself, as self-conscious- 
ness, the relations also should exist for myself To the thoughts 
and ideas which I make my own, I lend the determination which 
I am myself. I am this simple point, and that which exists for 
myself I will cognize in this unity. 

In this respect cognition deals with that which is, and with its 
necessity ; it conceives this necessity in the relations of cause and 
effect, reason and inference, force and manifestation, the universal, 
the genus and the individuals, which belong to the sphere of the 
contingent. Cognition and science thus place the most diverse 
matter in reciprocal relationshij) ; they deprive it of the contin- 
gency which it owes to its immediateness ; and, considering the 
relations which the exuberance of finite phenomena possesses, they 
grasp the world of finitude within themselves, and comprehend it 
in a system of the universe. Cognition, therefore, needs for this 
system no presupposition which is extraneous to the same. For 
the knowledge of what an object is, what its essential determina- 
tions are, results from inspection and observation of it. After 
the qualities of objects have been observed, one proceeds to the 
relations in which they stand to other objects, not the contingent, 
but the determinate [and necessary] relations, which point to- 
wards the original thing from which they take their origin. In 
this manner we inquire into the ground and cause of a thing, and 
this inquiry has here the meaning that the special causes are 
sought. It is no longer sufficient to designate God as the cause 
of the lightning, or the downfall of the republican constitution of 
Rome, or of the French Republic ; for it is soon discovered that 
such an explanation is altogether general, and does not give the de- 
sired explanation. When we want to know the cause of a natural 
phenomenon, or of some law as effect or consequence, we want to 
know the cause of just this phenomenon; we do not ask for the 
cause which would apply to everything, but for the one which 
fits this special case and no other. And, therefore, it must be the 
cause of such special phenomena, and must be an immediate one ; 
it must be sought in the finite, and must be finite itself. This 
mode of cognition can, therefore, not progress beyond what is 
finite, and does not want to go beyond it, because it knows every- 
thing, and can do justice to everything in its finite sphere. [Such 



Introduction to the Philosoj)hy of Religion. 185 

a] Science forms a universe of cognition, which for itself does not 
require God, [since] it lies outside of religion, and has no connec- 
tion with it. Cognition enlarges within these limits upon its re- 
lations and connections, and in this it has all the determinate 
material and content on its side, while there is nothing left for the 
other side — the side of the infinite and eternal. 

7, Thus the two sides have completely unfolded themselves in 
their contrast. The feeling mind is, on the side of religion, filled 
with the divine, but it is without freedom, self-consciousness, and 
without consistency in regard to its determinations which have the 
form of contingency. The consistent connection of the determi- 
nations is peculiar to the side of cognition, which, while it is at 
home in what is finite, and moves freely in the logical determina- 
tion of the most diverse connections, is unable to construct any- 
thing better than a system without absolute trustworthiness, with- 
out God. The absolute content, purpose or aim belongs to the 
side of religion, but is found there as something abstractly posi- 
tive only. Cognition has taken possession of all the finite content 
and drawn it within its sphere ; the entire determinate content 
has become its share. Yet, even if it should give to the same a 
necessary connection, it cannot lend absolute connection to it. 
Since science has taken possession of cognition, and is the con- 
sciousness of the necessity of the finite, religion has been deprived 
of cognition, and has shrunk into the simple feeling, into a content- 
lacking elevation of the spiritual to the eternal, but it knows noth- 
ing that it could predicate of the eternal ; for whatever would in- 
volve cognition would be a lowering of the eternal to the level 
and connection of the finite. 

When the two sides have thus developed and enter into a recip- 
rocal relationship they are mutually distrustful. Religious feeling 
distrusts the fiuitude which cognition involves, and charges science 
with vanity and conceit, because in science the subject is self-related 
and self-contained, and because in it the Ego, as the cognizing prin- 
ciple, in its relation to the external, remains for itself. On the other 
side Cognition is distrustful of the Totality to which the Feeling 
confines itself, and in whose unity it sinks all explication and devel- 
opment. Cognition is afraid of losing its freedom if it should yield 
to the demands of the Feeling by acknowledging a truth which it 
does not see clearly and distinctly. And when the religious feel- 



186 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

ing steps forth from its universality, and projects aims and ends for 
itself, and thus makes a transition to determination. Cognition 
can see in this undertaking nought but arbitrary caprice, and it 
would become the play of chance, if it too were to pass into deter- 
minateness in the same way. When developed reflection, there- 
fore, is obliged to betake itself to religion, it finds it unendurable 
there and becomes impatient of all those determinations. 

c. When the development has reached this stage, in which each 
side, at the approach of the other, repels it as its enemy, there arises 
the need of a harmonization through which the infinite may ap- 
pear in the finite, and the finite in the infinite, so that neither shall 
form henceforth a realm by itself. This would result in a concilia- 
tion of the religious, pure feeling with cognition and intelligence. 
In such a conciliation, full satisfaction must be given to the 
highest demands of cognition and of the idea, for these can make 
no concession which would sacrifice aught of their dignity and 
worth. But neither can the absolute content be allowed to suf- 
fer detraction and to be dragged down into finitude ; wdien op- 
posed to it, the finite form of cognition must yield. 

In the Christian religion the need of this conciliation must ne- 
cessaril}^ become more apparent than in the other religions, for the 
reason that — 

a. It itself arises out of absolute diremption and begins with the 
pain, in which it severs the natural unity of the spirit and destroys 
the inner peace. In it man appears naturally bad, and therefore 
bears in his deepest soul a negative relation to himself ; the spirit 
being forced back upon itself, finds itself severed from the infinite 
and absolute being. 

/S. Conciliation, the need of which here reaches its culmination, 
becomes apparent to faith in the first place, but not in such a way 
that the latter can remain in its naive state. For spirit which 
turns within towards its immediate naturalness is sinful, and there- 
fore alienated, removed and estranged from truth. When my Ego 
is placed in this state of separation, I am no longer Truth ; the 
latter is in this case given to conception as an independent content, 
and truth is conceived on the basis of authority. 

7. But although I am put thereby into a world of intelligence, 
in which the nature of God, the determinations and modes of His 
actions, are placed within the reach of cognition, and the question 



Introduction to the Philosojyhy of Religion. 187 

of the truth of all this rests on the observation and testimony ot 
others, I am nevertheless thrown back upon myself at the same 
time, because thinking, cognition, reason, are processes within my 
own self, and because my freedom is placed before my eyes in the 
existence of sin, and in my reflections, in regard to the same. Cog- 
nition is, therefore, an inherent element of the Christian religion 
itself. 

The Christian religion secures to me the maintenance of my 
freedom, or rather its achievement. In the Christian religion, not 
merely the genus, but the individual, the welfare of the soul, the 
salvation of the individual as such, are the essential ends and aims. 
This subjectivity, this selfhood (not selfishness) is in itself the 
principle of cognition. 

Since the Christian religion stands on the principle of cogni- 
tion, it gives development to its content; for the ideas about the 
general subject are either immediately or in themselves thoughts, 
and as such they must unfold themselves. But since the content 
is on the other side essential to the idea, it is separated from im- 
mediate opinion and perception, and passes through such separa- 
tion. In short, subjectivity looks upon it as an absolute, self-exist- 
ent content. The Christian relio-ion itself arrives at the contrast 
of feeling, of immediate perception and of reflection and cognition. 
It contains within it cognition as an essential element, and has 
caused it to develop itself in its whole consistency, as form, and as 
a world of form, and to present thus a contrast to that [other] form 
which contains that content as a given truth. On this rest the 
discords of our time. 

So far we have considered the growth of the contrasts in that 
form in which they have not yet developed into philosophy in the 
proper sense, or where they are still removed from it. The next 
question is : 1. What is the relation of philosophy to religion in 
general ? 2. In what relation does the philosophy of religion 
stand to philosophy ? and, 3. What is the relation of the philo- 
sophical inquiry into religion to positive religion itself ? 

{To he continued.) 



188 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 



THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.' 

BY A. d'ORELLI. 

At a time when evil grows luxuriantly, it may be interesting to 
become acquainted with an investigation from the pen of a well- 
known scientific man, particularly if in the end it should appear 
that strict science is capable of calming the religious-moral con- 
sciousness even in regard to the fact of evil. The author, however, 
departs from the traditional necessity of evil, long since taught by 
the philosophy of Hegel. 

The problem of evil, the author rightly declares, is not unim- 
portant, and is of such a character that it leads us into the centre 
of the system, and can only be made clear from the fundamental 
principles of the same. 

The treatise begins with the question as to the origin of evil, its 
universality and, as it seems, its necessity, as well as its position 
towards God. The greatest difficulty of the problem is in the an- 
swer to the two last questions. As regards the origin of evil, it 
lies in a perverted disposition and volition, not in sensibility, nor 
in the understanding, nor in imperfection, nor in limitation. Not 
in sensibility : the desires, it is true, can influence the direction of 
the ideas, and by that means become determining motives, but the 
human soul, being free, decides independently. 

The individuality, augmented in the passions, being restrained 
and conquered by the moral law, becomes the most powerful organ 
of this latter, and produces first good with its utmost energy. The 
body itself exists in order that the human soul may exercise and 
verify its moral power over its appetites. 

The source of evil does not lie in the understanding either. It 
is true that in evil reflection co-operates ; evil increases in intensity 
in proportion to the education of the intelligence which is at its 
command. 

Nevertheless its root lies in disposition. We do not sin with 
our understanding, which at most produces error, but with our dis- 



^ A metaphysical investigation by A. L. Kym, Professor of Philosophy at the University 
of Ziirich. (Munich, Th. Ackermann, 1878). 



The Problem of Evil. 189 

position. We must, therefore, avoid evil more with our heart 
than with our head. As regards limitation, from which Leibnitz 
derived evil, Kym justly maintains that it lies below the line of 
morality, because the finite was given at the same time as nature. 
Out of limitation, as such, one could understand that weakness 
arose, but by no means evil. 

Evil in the moral world runs parallel with pain in nature. The 
latter comes in contact with the former, in so far as in the latter 
too an idea can be violated or stunted in its execution. There- 
fore, in all cases where an idea reigns, a moral imperative meets 
ns ; already in nature, by no means first in the moral world, al- 
though it certainly attains in this latter its perfection and receives 
its specific stamp. 

Therefore the systems which reject the final causes, e. g., that of 
Spinoza, recognize neither pain nor evil. Spinoza, therefore, true 
to his stand-point, changes the ethical into the physical, throughout. 

All moral conduct presupposes a knowledge of the moral law. 
But — this is the real question — in what relation does it stand to 
this latter ? How do we acquire it ? Does it arise entirely from 
experience, oris it a priori inherent in the mind? Can sensualism 
or rationalism conclusively decide here, and decide for itself alone ? 
Has not rather the insight into the origin of the mOral rule to 
adapt itself at the same time to both ? We consider, savs the au- 
thor, this third possibility the only true one. An accommodation 
between the a priori and the a posteriori must produce also in 
the province of ethics true knowledge. 

The moral law enters the consciousness of the actor directly by 
the action, but the soul creates and completes the idea of the uni- 
versal moral rule out of its own nature. External circumstances 
can, it is true, contribute to the development of the moral law, but 
the root thereof lies nevertheless in the soul itself. 

Here in ethics therefore the limitation of pure empiricism or 
pure induction appears clearly. According to pure empiricism 
alone, ethic knowledge also would have to be obtained through the 
senses. But the moral idea never originates from the senses, and 
is as little to be obtained by simple induction as the idea of the 
absolute. It can only be explained by the nature of the human 
soul itself. 

If, now, the moral rule is to manifest itself, this appears only 



190 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

possible by its excrtiug itself sjnchrononsly in the contrast be- 
tween good and evil, so that one of these antitheses may be as 
necessary and justifiable, and therefore as good, as the other. Is, 
then, evil a necessary factor in moral-human development? 

The author rejects this supposition, which has been made b}^ the 
pantheistic school, e. g., by Hegel. 

The view that evil is necessary is opposed to the healthy moral- 
religious consciousness. It is quite contrary to the nature of 
morality that the moral rule should thus arise, and that man 
should become conscious that he stands towards it in a perverted 
relation. 

It can also be revealed to him by a circumstance in harmony 
with itself, therefore by a good action. 

Only error is unavoidable. Being finite I shall err, but being 
free I can preserve a pure disposition. At the same time evil 
must be sharply defined, and be strictly kept in its specific differ- 
ence, it must be separated from everything crude and undeveloped 
if it is to become clear to us that it is not necessary. 

The further difficult question is, then, this : In wliat relation 
does God stand to evil, and how can the fact of evil be reconciled 
with the goodness and almightiness of God ? 

In answering this question the author directs our attention to 
the different systems of philosophy, to theism and its relation to 
pantheism. Considered as a principle, the ethical interests only 
find their inner possibility and explanation in " monistic theism," 
under which the author understands essentially the organic-theistic 
system. 

For only in this case has man an individual existence, without 
which freedom is impossible. The supposition of independent 
and free beings is not at all in opposition to the absolute. On the 
contrary this latter, fundamentally considered, i. e., from the ethi- 
cal point of view, demands beings relatively independent of itself. 
In the idea of the absolute lies, not the destruction, but the preser- 
vation of the individual. Only in monistic theism does the al- 
mightiness of God not exclude the independence of the creature, 
but the absolute perfection of God reveals itself precisely in the 
fact of his having created beings who are capable of moral good. 

His revelation can have no other meaning than to be known as 
the absolute good. In human freedom is included, it is true, the 



The Problem of Evil. 191 

possibility of an unmoral exercise of the same, but in no case is 
evil executed by God, but by the free decision of men. 

Freedom is in itself good ; its wrong exercise is man's affair. 

Thus evil as regards God is utterly excluded and is by no means 
consonant with His beino-. 

Only in the organic-theistic system, therefore, is evil possible and 
a reality, without any joint origin of the absolute being connected 
with it. Only in it can God be kept apart from every contact 
with evil, and, because this arises from the free creature, only thus 
can it be justified in regard to Him. 

Evil itself draws its power from good ; it reverses the principles 
of the moral process and makes out of the means an end. For 
this reason it is not original but only secondary, i. e., all positivism 
which it has in its power it only received from its relation to good 
and out of this latter. Good, therefore, is in the abstract first and 
before evil, because the latter can only arise in opposition to it by 
the assistance of the power which it has taken from good. As it 
borrows the strength by which it acts from good, though it em- 
ploys it in a perverted manner, it possesses, when considered from 
this point of view, in spite of all the roality and fearful power 
with which it at times appears, no existence of its own. Hence 
its ephemeral duration in some cases is explained. 

For on the one hand evil is continually at war with other evil, 
while on the other hand it has a constant enemy in good. One 
would, then, imagine that the absolute, with its power of conform- 
ing to the end in view, would forthwith create perfection in the 
world. This is so far impossible as in this case we should have a 
completely tranquil existence without any development or genesis. 
All moral good must be self-gained, not given and passively re- 
ceived. Without development, therefore, not only would the finite 
be altogether abolished, but the moral also would be fettered in its 
inmost energy. 

Where there is development there is also imperfection ; it is 
bestowed with the former, and is unavoidable in the sphere of the 
finite. Nor can conformity to the end in view gain the upper 
hand at once, but only by degrees ; for the design (final cause) 
and the idea are much checked by the matter which they have to 
master. Thus misery and imperfection in nature are explained. 
Nevertheless, neither imperfection nor misery annuls final cause 



192 The Journal of Speculative Philosoplnj. 

in the world. And from the existence of deformity we must not 
infer tlmt the world is without design ; for even deformity is rela- 
tively conformable to the end in view, otherwise it could not 
appear at all. For what is entirely without design is not capable 
of existing. 

Since, then, the nature of development is inseparable from imper- 
fection, which consists in the non-realization of design, it is evi- 
dent that God could not have arranged the world better than He 
has done. For the sake of development and gradual progress, im- 
perfection, as well as pain in the physical world, had to be admitted 
as a factor in the conformity of the absolute to the end in view, 
as it is carried out in the world. The welfare of the individual 
must be considered in relation to the whole. 

The design or final cause lies more in the whole than in the in- 
dividual creature. In consideration of the design inherent in the 
whole, the individual creature must relatively sacrifice his welfare. 
Welfare, therefore, is not the exclusive object of the creature. 

We must, therefore, not designate the struggle, which the creat- 
nres carry on among themselves, as an evil, for then we should 
have to blame the Creator for having, e. g., created carnivora. But 
this would be as mnch as blaming the order of gradation in 
nature, and would lead to the suppression and rejection of all 
individuality. 

In what relation, then, does that struggle, which is carried on in 
nature and in human life, stand to the moral system of the world ? 
It is compatible with it and does not by any means exclude it. 

One could, it is true, say with reference to man, that witli his 
liberty the possibility is given that the ethical design in the world 
might not be realized, and it seems, indeed, as if the moral system 
of the world were placed entirely in the hands of man. 

For God cannot extort morality from man, as that would violate 
its inmost essence and annul it. Nevertheless God could place 
such laws in the organism of nature and the ethical world that 
human liberty might be allowed a certain latitude. He even had 
to do this from the organic and ethical point of view. Both prov- 
inces involve this latitude. Thus the laws of nature which can 
never be broken necessitate the exercise of human liberty. Man 
is only free in decision. If this decision has passed into action^ 
and become connected with the laws of the phenomenal world, it 



The Problem of Evil. 193 

can only produce what these laws permit. So far human liberty 
is limited, and no action, however bad, can annul the design of the 
whole, which itself is good. 

Evil breaks itself against the order of the whole, and it cannot 
conquer necessity, which exists in the whole because it is good. 
Evil, therefore, can never obtain universal existence. 

Will evil ever be completely conquered in the ethical evolution 
through which mankind passes ? 

It is not impossible that mankind might reach a state from 
which evil would be entirely excluded, but this is only conceivable 
in some remote period of time ; namely, when not merely the 
individual but the whole race would have fought its way up to 
perfect morality. This would, then, prove that evil existed neither 
at the beginning nor at the end, but only in the middle, of the 
historic-ethical process of mankind. 

The final cause of the world's development as it pervades the 
province of morality is, it is true, the abolition of evil. By the 
moral act above all, the world's development, in its culmination^ 
mankind, returns to God. 

The ethical is, namely, in all entity by far the highest. It stands 
above the theoretic and the aesthetic because in it the specific 
nature of man is the most included. Gradually, even if amid 
manifold error, mankind will, by its moral union with God, expel 
evil. The annihilation of evil by the victory of good is the ideal 
which the history of humanity strives for and seeks to realize. 

This work, whose contents we have here summarized, is certainly 
one of the most able treatises ever composed on this difiicult sub- 
ject. It is, besides, most intimately connected with the " Metaphys- 
ical iTivestigations " ^ published by Professor Kym in the year 1875 
(Munich, Th. Ackermann). In this latter work our author has 
especiall}' produced a very exhaustive dissertation on God and His 
relation to the world (pages 320-383). Pantheism and theism, the 
immanence and transcendence of God, are subjected to a searching 
examination. At the same time the author endeavors in each of 
these stand-points to preserve the authorized balance — momentum 
— and thus to obtain a philosophical system which may reconcile 
the two opposite views. This reconciliation between pantheism and 



^ See our notice of this work, Jour. Spec. Phil, vol. xi., p. 219 (April, IS'/V). — Ed. 

XVIII— 13 



li>4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

theism is, above all, eftected in such a manner that the religious- 
moral interests are secured in their full sig-nificance, and herein 
precisely we see the principal advantage of this work. It con- 
tains, besides, other careful investigations on space and time, mo- 
tion and matter, and especially on human liberty (pages 282-320), 
The treatise on evil is so far connected with the investigations on 
the absolute and on human liberty, as without liberty the ethical 
estimation of the act disappears ; with the investigation on the ab- 
solute as the theology of the author is intended to be examined 
anew in the light of the problem of evil and to be confirmed in its 
accurac}'. 

According to the author's view, only monistic theism (i. e., the 
organic stand-point) explains on the one hand evil as a positive 
power, and yet on the other hand protects God from every contact 
with it. 

Successful as this investigation of the position of God in i-egard 
to evil appears to us, we yet should like to begin our criticism just 
at this point. The author, namely, undertakes almost too boldly 
to fix in an abstract manner what after all belongs to the frontier 
territories of human knowledge. 

In these, according to our view, is included evil. 

Certain it is that evil has its chief source in human liberty. But 
is this its only source? We doubt it. Evil appears to us rather a 
general power, which pervades the whole universe and culminates 
in man alone. At the same time we do not at all conceal from 
ourselves that this view also presents great difficulties ; for it easily 
leads to dualism, as is to be seen in Schelling. 

The author has endeavored to avoid this dualism. Whether he 
has entirely succeeded we do not venture to decide. But, what- 
ever position one may take up with regard to the origin of evil, so 
much is certain, that in the treatise in question, on the problem of 
evil, the difiiculties have not been avoided, but disclosed and for 
the most part solved. 

Being, therefore, perfectly convinced of its excellence, we recom- 
mend all deeper thinkers to study it. 



The Dialectic Unity in Emei'son^s Prose. 195 



THE DIALECTIC UNITY IN EMERSON'S PROSE. 

BT W. T. HARRIS. 

It has often been said that there is no unity in Emerson's prose 
essays, and, that they consist of a vast number of brilliant state- 
ments, loosely connected and bound into paragraphs, with only 
such unity as is given by the lids of the volume. AVe hear it said 
that the experiment has been tried of reading an entire essay, sen- 
tence by sentence, backward from the end, without injury to the 
sense. This lack of order and connection has even been praised 
as giving variety of form and freshness of style. 

While it is true that there is no parading of syllogistic reason- 
ing in Emerson's essays, and no ratiocination, there is quite suffi- 
cient unity of a higher kind if one will but once comprehend the 
thoughts with any degree of clearness. 

In a work of literary art, such as a drama or a novel, we expect 
organic unity as well as logical unity. There must be a beginning, 
in which we form our acquaintance with the persons, their sur- 
roundings, and the peculiarities of character and situation ; then a 
middle, in which character and situation develop into collisions as 
a natural result ; then a solution of the collision by one mode or 
another, restoring the equilibrium in the social whole. 

In the prose essay we caimot expect organic unity, but we may 
expect rhetorical unity and logical unity. 

There need be no formal syllogisms ; the closest unit}' of the 
logical kind is the dialectic unity that begins with the simplest and 
most obvious phase of the subject, and discovers by investigation 
the next phase that naturally follow^s. It is an unfolding of the 
subject according to its natural growth in experience. Starting 
with this view, we shall discover this and that defect, this and 
that necessary correction, and in the end we shall reach a better 
insight, which, of course, will be the second step in our treatise, 
and must be followed out in the same way as before. Such devel- 
opment of a theme exhibits and expounds the genesis of convic- 
tion, and is the farthest removed from mere dogmatism. We pass 
through all shades of opinion, adopting and rejecting them in suc- 
cession, on our way to the true final conclusion. 



196 The Journal of Speculative Philomphy. 

There is no lop^ical method equal to this dialectic one that ex- 
pounds the genesis of the subject. When we have reached the 
conclusion we have exhausted the subject, and seen the necessity 
of our result. Such is the method that Plato describes and in- 
dorses in the seventh book of his "Republic." To be sure, the 
untrained intellect will often get confused amid the labyrinth of 
eontiicting opinions, just as the callow young men did when Soc- 
rates applied his n^iethod to their theories. The reader is apt to 
expect a consistency of opinion from the beginning to the end. 
Difference of views bewilders him. 

Emerson has furnished us many very wonderful examples of 
dialectic treatment of his subject. But he has been very careful 
to avoid the show of ratiocination and the parade of proof-making. 
The object of his writing was to present truth, and to produce in- 
sight, and not to make proselytes. 

The student of literature who wishes to learn the dialectic art, 
and, at the same time, to become acquainted with the genesis of 
Emerson's view of the world, should study the essay on "Expe- 
rience" in the second series of essays. In this wonderful piece of 
writing we have a compend of his insights into life and nature 
arranged in dialectic order. Master his treatment of the topics, 
and you will discover what constitute real steps of progress in ex- 
perience, and at the same time you will learn how the tirst grows 
into the second and that into the next, and so on to the highest 
view of the world that he has attained, or to the final view reached 
by men of deepest insight, called seers. He names these steps or 
stadia in experience, (1) illusion, (2) temperament, (3) succession, 
(4) surface, (5) surprise, (6) reality, and (7) subjectiveness. 

(1) The first phase of experience, according to him, brings us to 
the consciousness of illusion. This is a great step. The naive man 
without culture of any sort has not reflected enough to reach this 
point. He rests in the conviction that all about him is really just 
what he sees it. He does not perceive the relativity of things. 
But at the first start in culture, long since begun even among the 
lowest savages, there appears the conviction that there is more in 
things than appears at first sight. Things are fragments of larger 
things ; facts are fragments of larger facts. Change of the total- 
ity of conditions changes the thing or fact that is before us. Things 
escape us, and thus " dream delivers us to dream, and there is no 



The Dialectic Unity in Emerson'' s Prose. 197 

end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, 
and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many- colored 
lenses whicli paint the world their own hue, and each shows only 
what lies in its focus." 

What experience comes next after this one of illusion? Evi- 
dently the perception of conditioning circumstance, the perception 
of fate or external influence, which may be called temperament. 
(2) Structure or temperament " prevails over everything of time, 
place, and condition, and is inconsumable in the flames of relig- 
ion." When exj)erience has exhausted the view of temperament 
it finds that it has learned the necessity of succession in objects. 
For there is a process underlying things, and we see that what 
made us explain illusion by temperament was the discover^' that 
thinoi;s chans-ed through external influences. ]^ow we see a little 
better, and understand that there is succession — one phase giving 
way to another, and thus exhibiting a series of influences instead 
of one final result. Temperament therefore, is no finality, for it 
produces no ultimate state or condition, but succeeds only in mak- 
ing a transitory impression. 

(3) We pass out of this stadium of experience and enter on the 
theorv of the world that sees chano-e and succession accordino- to 
some law or other. We look now for that law. When we see the 
law we shall understand the order of sequence, and can map out 
the orbit of life and of things. We shall see the true order of 
genesis. 

This view of the necessary order of sequence is no longer a view 
of mere change, but a view of the whole, and hence a view of the 
fixed and stable. The orbit remains though the planet wanders 
perpetually. 

(4) Emerson calls the view of the law of change " surface," as if 
the seeing of a line as a whole were the seeing of a surface. Various 
tadia of opinion there might be on this plane of experience. As 
very narrow orbit or a very wide one might be computed for the 
cycle of succession. The progress of experience will correct the 
narrow view. We think to-day that we have taken in all the 
metamorphoses of the object of investigation, but to-morrow we 
discover new ones and have to enlarge our description. " Sur- 
face " expands and we make new theories of the law. We are, 
however, dealing with the law of cause and effect, and cannot for- 



198 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

mulate the whole under it, for the whole cannot be cause of some- 
thing- eke or the etfect of some other being. 

(5) Emerson calls the next form of experience "surprise," be- 
cause it begins with the insight made in some high moment of life, 
when for the tirst time one gets a glimpse of the form of the whole. 
What must be the form of the whole, you ask 1 The whole does 
not admit of such predicates as we apply to the part or fragment. 
The dependent has one law, and the independent has another. 
The dependent presupposes something, it is a relative existence 
and its being is in another. The independent is self-contained, 
self active, self-determined, causa sui. The first insight is a "sur- 
prise," and so is the second insight ; all of the high moments of 
experience admit us to " surprises," for we see the fountain of pure 
energy and self-determination, in place of the limitations of things, 
and the derivative quality of objects which receive only their al- 
lotted measures of being. The soul opens into the sea of creative 
energy, inexhaustible and ever-imparting. 

By these moments of " surprise," therefore, we ascend to a new 
place of experience, no longer haunted by these dismal spectres 
of illusion, temperament, change, and surface or mechanic fixed 
laws. Things are not fragments of a vast machine, nor are men 
links in a cosmic process that first develops and then crushes 
them. Things do not exist in succession, as it before seemed to 
us, but tlie true, real existence that we liave found is always the 
same. 

(6) We enter through the moments of surprise into the realm 
of insight into reality, hence reality is Emerson's sixth category 
of experience. " By persisting to read or think, this region gives 
further sign of itself, as it were, in flashes of light, in sudden dis- 
coveries of its profound beauty and repose, as if the clouds that 
covered it parted at intervals and showed the approaching trav- 
eller the inland mountains, with the tranquil eternal meadows 
spread at their base, whereon flocks graze and shepherds pipe and 
dance." 

(7) One more step experience takes — it identifies the deepest 
reality as of one nature with itself. The absolute is mind. Em- 
erson names this step of insight subjectiveness, because in it we 
arrive at the conviction that the absolute is subject and not merely 
unconscious law or power. At this highest point of experience 



The Dialectic Unity in Emerson'' s Prose. 199 

we reach the station of the seer, the cuhnination of human expe- 
rience. The seer as philosopher sees tlie highest principle to be 
reason ; tlie poet sees the world to be the expression of reason ; 
the prophet and law-giver sees reason as the authoritative, regula- 
tive principle of life; the hero sees reason as a concrete guiding 
force in society. 

In a certain sense all of Emerson's writings are expansions and 
confirmations of some one of these phases of experience. The 
essay on the " Over-Soul " treats of surprise and reality ; that on 
Circles treats of succession, surface, and reality, under other names ; 
that on Spiritual Laws on reality and subjectiveness ; that on Fate 
treats of temperament and succession ; tliose on Worship, History, 
Gifts, Heroism, Love and such titles, treat of subjectiveness. His 
treatises on concrete themes use these insights perpetually as solv- 
ent principles — but always with fresh statement and new resources 
of poetic expression. 

There is nowhere in all literature such sustained flight toward 
the sun — " a flight," as Plotinus calls it, " of the alone to the 
alone" — as that in the essay on Over-Soul, w^heroin Emerson, 
at great length, unfolds the insights, briefly but inadequately ex- 
plained under the topic of "surprise" in the essay on experi- 
ence. It would seem as if each paragraph stated the idea of 
the whole, and then again that each sentence in each paragraph 
reflected entire the same idea. 

Where there is no genesis there can be no dialectic unity. The 
absolute is not a becoming but a self-identical activity. In those 
essays in which Emerson has celebrated this doctrine of the highest 
reality, and its subjectivity or rational nature, and its revelation to 
us, he writes in a style elevated above dialectic unity. These 
essays do not have dialectic unity only because they have a higher 
form of unity — that of absolute identity. Each is in all and all is 
in each. 

To give one specimen of this I ofler a very short analysis of 
the contents of the essay on " The Over-Soul." He says in sub- 
stance that man has some moments in his life when he sees deeply 
into reality ; what he sees then has authority over the other parts 
of his life. He sees principles of justice, love, freedom, and 
power — attributes of God. This seeing is the common element 
in all minds, and transcendent of the limitations of particular in- 



200 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

dividuals. Just as events flow down from a hidden source, so 
these ideas and insig-hts descend into the mind. He calls this 
the " over-soul," '' a unitv within which everv man's beins; is con- 
tained and made one with overy other. Although we live in 
division and succession, and see the world piece by piece, yet the 
soul is the whole, and this is the highest law." These glimpses of 
the eternal verity come on occasions of conversation, reverie, re- 
morse, dreams, and times of passion. We learn that the soul is 
not an organ, but that which animates all organs; not a faculty, 
but a light, and the master of the intellect and will. Individual 
man is only the organ of the soul. These deeps of the spiritual 
nature are accessible to all men at some time. The sovereignty 
of the over-soul is shown by its independence of all limitation. 
Time, space, and circumstance do not change its attributes. Its 
presence does not make a progress measurable by time, but it 
produces metamorphoses causing us to ascend from one plane of 
experience to the next — as great a change as from egg to worm, 
or from worm to fly. Society and institutions reveal this com- 
mon nature or the higher j^erson, or impersonal one — for, in order 
to prevent the confusion of attributing to the over-soul the pas- 
sions and imperfections of human personality, Emerson sometimes 
speaks of Him as impersonal (using Cousin's expression). Tliis 
revelation of the divine is a disclosure of what is universal, and 
not the telling of fortunes. There is no concealment when in the 
presence of its light ; the reality appears through all its disguises. 
The growth of the intellect as well as of the character obeys the 
same law. The emotion of the sublime accompanies the influx of 
its light. Its presence distinguishes genius and talent. Faith, 
worthy of the name, is faith in these transcendent affirmations of 
the soul. Thus revering the soul, man " will calmly front the 
morrow in the negligency of that trust which carries God with it, 
and so hath already the whole future in the bottom of the heart." 
In his book on "IS^ature," his first published work, Emerson 
developed substantially the same views, with a system of classifi- 
cation much like that in the essay on experience, and showing a 
genesis in the same dialectic form. (1) Nature for use or " com- 
modity," as he calls it, is the first aspect recognized. After food, 
clothing, and shelter comes next nature's service to man in satis- 
fying the spiritual want of the (2) beautiful. Then through this 



The Dialectic Unity in Emerson^ s Prose. 201 

comes the symbolic expression of human nature through its corre- 
spondence with material nature, and thus arises (3) language. 
Fourthly, nature is a (4) discipline, educating understanding and 
the reason, and also the will and conscience. Then the transition to 
(5) idealism is easy. Nature is for the education of man, and this 
lesson is taught us in five distinct ways. Sixthly, we arrive at the 
knowledge of the (6) one spirit that originates both nature and man, 
and reveals its nature in the ethical and intellectual constitution 
of the mind and its correspondences in nature. Thus from nature 
we come to the over-soul, or what was called reality and subject- 
ivity in the essay on experience. The eighth and final chapter 
of J^ature draws practical conclusions, making application of the 
doctrine to life : "The problem of restoring to the world original 
and eternal beauty is solved by the redemption of the soul. The 
ruin or blank that we see when we look at nature is in our own 
eye. The axis of vision is not coincident with the axis of things, 
and so they appear not transparent, but opaque. Build, then, 
your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure 
idea in your mind, the world will unfold its great proportions." 

Emerson looks on the world of nature and man as the revela- 
tion that the over-soul makes to him, and accordingly looks rever- 
ently toward it, and through it, to the great soul of souls, and 
always sees, under whatever guise, some good. He finds help in 
everything. He helps every one, too, most by teaching to them 
the significance of the world as he has found it. 

This thouo;ht of the revelation of the soul in man and nature 
is the idea that forms the unity of all that he has written, whether 
it be in essays like the " Over-Soul," or in historical and critical 
studies like " Enghsh Traits and Representative Men," or in 
poems of nature like "Monadnoc." One will find everywhere, 
though under slightly differing names, the elements of experience 
described in this sublime poem prefixed to the essay on Experi- 
ence: 

" The lords of life, the lords of life, 

I saw them pass 

In their own guise, 

Like and unlike, 

Portly and grim, 

Use and surprise, 



W'l The Journal of Speculative Philosophij . 

Surface and dream, 
Succession swift and spectral wrong 
Temperament without a tongue, 
And the inventor of the game, 
Omnipresent without name ; 
Some to see, some to be guessed, 
The}' marched from east to west : 
Little man, least of all, 
Among the legs of his guardians tall. 
Walked about with puzzled look. 
Him by the hand dear nature took, 
Dearest nature, strong and kind. 
Whispered ' Darling, never mind ! 
To-morrow they will wear another face. 
The founder thou ; these are thy race ! ' 



XOTES ATs^D DISCUSSIONS. 



SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE. 



BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 



[From the Gulshan I Raz, the Mystic Rose-Garden of Sa'd iid din Mahmud Shabistari, 
born, in the year 1250, near Tabriz, — a resume of Mr. Whinfield's rendering.] 

(Concluded from October Number, 1883.) 

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. 

In the name of liim who taught the soul to think. 
And kindled the heart's lamp with the light of soul. 
By Whose light the two worlds were illumined, 
By Whose grace the dust of Adam bloomed with roses, 
That Almighty one who, in the twinkling of an eye. 
From Raf and Nan brought forth the two worlds.' 
What time the Raf of his power breathed on the pen,' 
It cast thousands of pictures on the page of Not-being, 
From that breath proceeded the soul of Adam ; 



' Raf, the material, and Nan, the spiritual, or "world of command." 
' Raf, power, force ; pen, universal reason. 



Notes and Discussions. 20S 

When he beheld him a specific person, 
He thought within himself " What am I ? " 

The world of command and creatures proceeded from one breath, 
And the moment they come forth, they go away again. 
Albeit, here there is no real going and coming, — 
Going, when you consider it, is nought but coming ! 
One becomes many and many few. 
It is but one circular line from first to last, 
Whereon the creatures of the world are journeying. 

From proper arrangement of known conceptions. 
The unknown proposition becomes unfolded. 
The major premise is a father, the minor a mother, 
And the conclusion a son or brother. 
But to learn of what kind this arrangement is, 
Reference must be made to books of logic ; 
Moreover, unless divine guidance aids it, 
Verily, logic is mere b