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THE JOURNAL 



O F 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



VOLUME XXII. 



EDITED BY WM. T. HARRIS 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 

LONDON : Kegan Paul, Triibner and Company. 

1893. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1894, by 

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



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Aristotle's Metaphysics. Eleventh Book. (Translation), . . Thomas Davidson, 225 

" Doctrine of Reason, W. T. Harris, 411 

Bauragart's Interpretation of Goethe's Milrchen. (Translation), 

Isaac N. Judson, 280, 33V 
Bernays, Thekla, Scartazzina's Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's 

Inferno, 21 

Boole Notices : Mind ; A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, the con- 
tents of the first eleven volumes, 332 

Books Received, 223, 441 

Bullinger, Anthou, Hegel's Doctrine of Contradiction (Tr.), . . Alice A. Graves, 118 

Chubb, Percival, Thomas Hill Green's Philosophical and Religious Teaching, . . 1 

Clark, Gordon, The Secret of Kant, 368 

Dante's Inferno, The Congruence of Sins and Punishments in, by J. A. Scartazzini, 

(Translation), TJieMa Bernays 21 

Davidson, Thomas, Aristotle's Metaphysics (Tr.), 225 

" " Dionysius Areopagita, Mystic Theology (Tr.), 395 

Dionysius Areopagita, Mystic Theology (Translation), . . . Thomas Davidson, 395 

Dyde, S. W., Dr. Martineau's Idiopsychological Ethics, 138 

Economics, Can it furnish an Objective Standard for Morality ? Simon N. Patten, 322 

Friendship, Leonora B. Hahted, 400 

Goethe's Marchen, Baumgart's Interpretation (Tr.), . . . . I. K. Judson, 280, 337 

Graves, Alice A. (Tr.), Bullinger on Hegel's Doctrine of Contradiction, .... 118 

Green's, Thomas Hill, Philosophical and Religious Teaching, . Percival Chubb, 1 

Halsted, Leonora B., Friendship, 400 

Harris, W. T., Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas, 94 

" " Aristotle's Doctrine of Reason, 411 

Hegel's Doctrine of Contradiction, by Anthon Bullinger (Translation), 

Alice A. Graves, 118 

Hegel on the Religion of the Old Testament (Translation), . J. Macbride Sterrett, 253 

Homer's Iliad, D. J. Snider, 84 

Immortality as a Belief and as a Knowledge, W. Lutoslaivski, 436 

Judson, Isaac N. (Tr.), Baumgart's Interpretation of Goethe's Marchen, . . 280, 337 

Kant, the Secret of, Gordon Clark, 368 

Langley, A. G., Leibnitz's Critique of Locke 1 70 



iv Contents. 

PAGE 

Leibnitz's Critique of Locke (Translation), Alfred O. Langley, 170 

Locke, Critique of, bv Leibnitz (Tr.), Mfred G. Lanyley, 170 

Lutoslawski, W., Immortality as Belief and Knowledge, 436 

Martineau's Idiopsychological Ethics, S. W. Dyde, 138 

Mind, a (Quarterly Review ; contents of first eleven volumes, 332 

Mitchell, Ellen M., The Platonic Dialectic, 212 

Patten, Simon N., Can Economics furnish an Objective Standard for Morality ? . 322 

Plato, A Glimpse into, Florence James Williams, 426 

Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas, W. T. Harris, 94 

Platonic Dialectic, The, Mien M. Mitchell, 212 

Scartazzini, J. A., Congruence of Sins and Punishments, Dante's Inferno (Tr.), 

Thekla Bernays, 21 

Sensations, The Spectrum Spread of Our, Payton Spence, 191 

Snider, Denton J., Homer's Iliad, 84 

Spence, Payton, Spectrum Spread of Sensations, 191 

Sterrett, J. Macbride (Tr.), Hegel on Religion of Old Testament, 253 

Williams, Florence James, A Glimose into Plato, 426 



THE JOURNAL 



OF 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



Vol. XXII.] January, April, 1888. [Nos. 1 and 2. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THOMAS HILL GREEN'S 
PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHING.^ 

BY PERCIVAL CHUBB. 

The assertion that we live in a revolutionary age is now com- 
monplace enough not to excite feelings of consternation among 
educated people. "We most of us admit the fact, and, except at 
moments when social disturbances make it especially evident, it 
has ceased to disquiet us. Occasionally some persons whose recol- 
lection reaches back to the " good old days " are startled into a 
new sense of the change that is coming over things, or slumbering 
orthodoxy is awakened to the fact that beneath the surface of 
society there is at work a powerful leaven of skepticism and of 
revolt against "the established fact" in religion, science, art, and 
social life, a leaven of new ideas and new aspirations. Thus, 
when "Robert Elsmere" was published, a fresh fit of dismay 
seized the hosts who walk in the beaten paths of dogmatic Chris- 
tianity, although the doubts which turned the hero of that novel 
from his first faith have long been current coin among think- 
ing people, and are quite familiar in the literature of the age. 
The novel only expressed, in a way to arrest popular attention, 
what is taking place all around us — the dissolution and rejection of 
the old view of the world. The old conception of the universe, 



' This was one of a series of three lectures on T. H. Green's life and teaching. It was 
delivered to a mixed audience, and written with such an audience in view. 

XXII— 1 



2 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

wliich gave a unity to common thought and life, is breaking up ; 
the old sanctions of right and duty are ceasing to bind ; the old 
order of society is called in question — ay, is openly rebelled 
against — by masses of people driven by discontent born of a new 
vague feeling of injustice and of hope. The evidences of this 
change (especially of the social change) may be less obvious, and 
the sense of it less acute, in America than in Europe, where the 
signs of upheaval are frequent and unmistakable; but there are 
clearly marked signs here, too — signs visible from Europe ; which 
is indeed only to be expected, seeing that America now forms part 
of that close confederation of nations which share in the influences 
of a single Time-Spirit. 

The truth is, then, if we come to realize our situation, that our 
lives are cast in a momentous epoch of the world's history. As 
Mrs. Lynn Linton wrote a year or two ago : " We are in the 
midst of one of the great revolutions of the world. The old faiths 
are losing their hold and the new are not yet rooted ; the old or- 
ganization of society is crumbling to pieces, and we have not even 
founded, still less created, the new." If that is true, a great task 
is imposed upon us, the task of building a new world ; of flnding 
a new faith and establishing a new social order. 

If we ask ourselves what is the flrst and the main work to be 
undertaken in the pursuit of this end, we shall find, I think, that 
it is an intellectual work. If the world is to be once more for us 
what it was to those of old, a cosmos, a divine unity ; if life is to 
have a rational meaning which gives it deep significance and worth ; 
we must go in quest of a new philosophy which shall satisfy the 
modern mind's requirements, and with them the requirements of 
the heart and imagination. As a matter of fact, we find numbers 
of people who recognize that this is the task of the age. Some 
stand appalled before it, not knowing where to turn for help. 
Others seem to get a certain satisfaction either in Agnosticism or 
in a gospel of Culture which counsels them to seek consolation 
and delight in a nosegay of ideas (if I may be allowed the phrase) 
culled from "the best that has been thought and said in the 
world." There is a strenuous and sincere Agnosticism which com- 
mands all our respect and requires our consideration. It is, in the 
view of the present writer, the consequence of taking a wrong 
turn iti the road of thought and getting into a cul-de-sac. But 



Green'' s Philosophical and Religious Teaching. 3 

the cul-de-sac is genuine, and we sympathize with tlie baffled pil- 
grim. There is, liowever, another and more prevalent kind of 
Agnosticism which is the mere outcome of intellectual indolence ; 
and that is simply deplorable. As for Culture, its nosegay may 
be pretty, but the flowers are separate and are apt to fall to pieces 
at any moment ; moreover, plucked from the shrubs which bore 
them, they are without the sap of life and must, sooner or later, 
fade and droop. 

Now, no man has felt the stern necessity for a sound and 
thorough philosophy as the basis of a worthy life and a means of 
deliverance from our present dangers, more than the late Professor 
Green. No one has appreciated more keenly than he the evils 
that result from contentment with that fortuitous concourse of 
ideas, miscalled Culture, which affects to do duty for a philosophy. 
No one has seen more clearly the hopelessness and, as he believed, 
the error of the modern Agnosticism which results in an intel- 
lectual deadlock. It seemed to him that, without some rational— 
i. e., consistent — view of the world and of human life, men tended 
more and more to be ruled by personal taste and inclination, and 
to be driven by the pressure of circumstances, instead of resisting 
circumstances with a will that is firm in its allegiance to principle. 
In this tendency he saw the seeds of modern decadence ; and he 
attributed to it the disappointing results of so many originally 
hopeful movements of reform in the past. For him the only 
safety lay in the domination of our spiritual life by our intellect, 
in the subjection of feeling and impulse to reason and will. It is 
a notable saying of his that — 

" It is the true Nemesis of human life that any spiritual im- 
pulse not accompanied by clear and comprehensive thought is 
enslaved by its own realization." 

This saying gives the key to his work as a philosopher; and it 
will be readily seen how unsatisfactory to him were some of the 
most marked tendencies of modern life. The fashionable rejection 
of philosophy seemed to him disastrous. In his earliest essays we 
find him tilting against the great enemies of integrity in our per- 
sonal and national life — divided, unharmonized knowledge and 
detached thinking. He says: 

" To be free, to understand, to enjoy, is the claim of the mod- 
ern spirit. It is a claim which is constantly becoming more 



4 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

articulate and conscious of itself. At the same time it is constant- 
ly tindiiioj expression in practical contradictions of thought, which 
rhetoric, itself the child of the claim, is always at hand to manipu- 
late, to entangle, to weave into the feelings and interests of men. 
The result is the diffusion over society of a state of mind analo- 
gous to that which we sometimes experience when discussion has 
carried us a long way from our principles and we lind ourselves 
maintaining inconsistent propositions." 

Similarly, in the Introduction to his latest work, the " Pro- 
legomena to Ethics," we find him, with the Culture gospel of 
Matthew Arnold in his mind, insisting on the unsatisfactoriness 
of the position in which men allow certain ideas, derived from 
poetry and philosophy, " to a joint lodgment in their minds, with 
inferences from popularized science, which do not admit of being 
reconciled with these deeper convictions in any logical system of 
beliefs." 

In this way it is Green's immediate significance as a phi- 
losopher that his philosophy is brought into close relation with the 
needs and insufficiencies of the age. The preceding quotations 
make his position clear. On the one hand he sees that a mind, 
divided against itself because it has no co-ordinating creed or 
philosophy is necessarily weak and ineffectual. On the other 
hand, he sees that, so far as there is a popular philosophy — the 
philosophy of scientific Materialism and Agnosticism, of which 
Mr. Herbert Spencer is the most distinguished exponent — it is a 
very slough of despond and confusion. It is this philosophy that 
he has constantly in his mind, and that acts as a foil to his own 
views. The further value of Green's philosophical teaching, in 
relation to that work of reconstruction Avhich lies before us, is 
that it branches out, as by a natural growth, to the domains of 
religion, ethics, and politics. These are all co-ordinated in one 
organic view of life. I venture to think, then, that Green is one 
of the men who has a message for the new time, and that he will 
be found to be one of our deliverers in this present intellectual 
and moral crisis. 

In order to understand Green's philosophical work, it will be 
necessary to take a short survey of the development of English 
thought during the last two centuries. This is all the more 
necessary, because his own work was based on a minute inquiry 



Green's Philosophical and Religious Teaching. 5 

into the ancestry of latter-day thought in England. He went 
back to the first founders of modern speculation, Locke and 
Berkeley and Hume ; and his earliest important production was 
his lengthy Introduction to the works of Hume — perhaps the most 
subtile piece of criticism which has appeared in recent times. 
Here he discovered the ])arentage of our modern errors. He 
found that our philosophy was, as to its first principles, just 
where Hume had left it. The wave of philosophical thought 
which had gathered in Germany had for the most part gone over 
its head. Worse still, our English thinkers did not seem to see 
what Kant saw watli alarm— that with Hume philosophy had 
been brought to an hnpasse. That was just the reason why it 
had made no further step forward in England ; it had accepted 
Hume's — which are Locke's — postulates, and had necessarily been 
barren of any noteworthy progeny. 

At the beginning of this century Carlyle, touched with the 
emancipating spirit of" German thought, which had extricated itself 
somewhat from the Humean coils, found philosophy in England a 
" mud-philosophy " ; and poured his fierce but necessarily ineffectual 
anathemas upon it — ineffectual, that is, except in so far as they kept 
alive the stubborn but unreasoning spirit of revolt against the 
mud-philosophers. His rebellion typifies the history of spiritual 
life in England since Hume, which has been largely one of oppo- 
sition between professional philosophy and some of the chief forces 
in literature. \i we call over the roll of philosophers we shall see 
that for the most part tliey have been the descendants of Hume — 
all with a marked family likeness. Scotland has produced a few 
recalcitrants — Reid, Stewart, Hamilton ; but they were not big 
enough to turn the current, and indeed had not " the root of the 
matter in them," to use a favorite expression of Green's. Tracing 
the main line of descent in England, we find that Hume begat 
Hartley, Hartley begat James Mill and Bentham, who begat John 
Stuart Mill ; but here the type undergoes a little modification 
through alliance with another family — the physical scientists. 
Darwin and the Evolutionists appear and prove immensely attract- 
ive to the philosophers. The union produces the full-fledged sci- 
entific, materialistic philosophy of Lewes and Spencer and their 
adjutants. Thanks to the wonderful clew to history which evolu- 
tion has undoubtedly supplied, the marvellous vistas of time and 



6 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

space and change which science has disclosed, and even more to 
the materialistic, commercial tendencies of the age — thanks to 
these, I say, the philosophy of evolution, as it is styled, has carried 
all before it, and Herbert Spencer is now the ruling light in the 
philosophic firmament. But already his beams hav^e begun to pale 
by the rising of a new and larger light. 

We must note, however, before passing on to investigate this 
new and hopeful illuminant, that the philosophers have not, as I 
suggested, had it all their own way. Arrayed against them all 
along has been a line of poets and writers whose teachings have 
been the negation of the ruling philosophy. At the end of last 
century and the beginning of this, we have Wordsworth and Cole- 
ridge and Shelley giving song to the old faith in a spiritual world 
and a spiritual presence in the heart of man and nature. Grerman 
influcTices. although they do not touch the hard-hearted philoso- 
phers, touch the litterateurs. Kant and Fichte and Schelling and 
Goethe and Schiller have their disciples in Coleridge, De Quincey, 
Maurice, Carlyle, and others. There are frequent revolts and re- 
actions. The finer spirits at Oxford get comfort in the peace and 
charm of Catholicism, and give us the Tractarian Movement. 
Maurice and Kingsley rebel in the Church. Emerson conveys 
across the ocean the message of Transcendentalism. Tennyson 
and Browning hand on the lire of the former faith in God and 
the future. A fierce Protestantism against Materialism in 
thought and life utters its voice in Ruskin. Still, all these in- 
fluences have been overborne to a dangerous degree by the dead 
weight of modern materialistic civilization, which naturally finds 
congenial sustenance in a materialistic philosophy. That philoso- 
phy is separatistic and disintegrating in its influence; and, as I 
have remarked, has not, in Green's opinion, any power of recon- 
struction in it. We must replace it by a new philosophy and a 
new attitude toward the facts of life — an attitude similar to that 
of the poets and religious teachers, but backed by a clearly rea- 
soned and consistent creed. 

The main lines of this new philosophy Green finds marked out 
by Kant and the post-Kantians. And I should have noticed, as 
one of the saving influences at work in our midst, the ascendency 
which this philosophy lias already gained here and there — in Scot- 
land, for instance, where Kant and Fichte and Hegel have found 



Greenes Philosophical and Religious Teaching. 7 

champions like Dr. Stirling and Dr. Smith the translator of Fichte. 
Bnt the growth of this influence has really been contemporaneous 
with, and not anterior to, Green's career. Green, then, builds on 
Kant and his successors, Fichte and Hegel ; but he revises their 
results, goes back once more to the main line of English develop- 
ment, and gives his work an English impress and a modern ap- 
plication. 

We are now in a position to pass in review the leading tenets of 
Green's philosophy. It will be convenient if in our attempt to 
do so we set out, as he himself does, by showing the inadequacy 
and inconsistency of that which now prevails among us in England. 
This philosophy is, as I have just observed, a combination of the 
sensationalism of Hume and the naturalism of the scientitic evolu- 
tionists. The one supplies an answer to the question, What is 
experience? or What is involved in knowledge? The other pro- 
fesses to answer the questions, AVhat is man ? What is his relation 
to Nature? How has he come to be what he is? 

Now Hume, carrying with unerring logic the premises of 
Locke to their last conclusion, had arrived at the result that all 
knowledge is reducible to sensations. He said that all the simple 
elements of knowledge come to us through the senses, and all 
that we know consists in combinations and recombinations of these 
elements of sense. These combinations and recombinations, con- 
stituting ideas of varying complexity, are not the work of an ar- 
ranging mind, but result from the tendency of the sensations to 
recur in their original order and to cohere in certain groups. The 
original sensations were called impressions; their reproductions — 
fainter than the originals — were called ideas. The idea of a 
horse, for example, is nothing but a reasserablage or faint repro- 
duction in the mind of the complex of sensations which have con- 
stituted our manifold experiences of that animal. The sensaticms 
which in their union constitute its mane, associate themselves with 
the sensations which in their union constitute its tail; and so on 
with the rest of the beast. It all comes of ideas having an inex- 
plicable habit of forming regular ass(jciations- That is all we can 
say of them. They do not inhere in anything, and may upset our 
expectations at any moment. Thus cause and effect are reducible 
to that orderliness of sequence in which certain sensations usually 
follow one another. 



8 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

This doctrine of the association of ideas is a wonderful solvent; 
it not only dissolves cause and effect, but it dissolves the idea of a 
mind, an Esro, an external world. If ideas make their associations 
on tiieir own responsibility, there is obviously no need of a master 
of ceremonies, a director, or a referee. If a thing and a sensation 
are one and the same, then we may dispense with the unnecessary 
assumption of an external world. The curious tendency of these 
assumptions of cause and effect, of a self, of an external world, 
to form themselves, Hume never explained. In short, the whole 
philosophy is a felo de se. For, let us observe, the very initial 
distinction of an original sensation from its reproduction necessi- 
tates a distinguishing and recognizing mind ; it implies memory ; 
it implies judgment. The idea of orderliness in association or in 
sequence implies the same. Nevertheless, it is a fact that this con- 
tradictory pliilosophy has been good enough for the bulk of Eng- 
lish philosophers since Hume ; and the same sensationalism and the 
same associationism survive in the materialistic philosophy advo- 
cated by men of no less eminence than Mr. Herbert Spencer. The 
theory of evolution has made the way much clearer for them. It did 
seem not a little difficult to account for the elaboration through a 
single person's experience of such a wonderfully complex system 
of associations as that which the man of to-day possesses. Evolu- 
tion explains that it is not the work of the individual, but has been 
the work of ages. Man had a considerable number of associations 
stored up when he first appeared on the earth ; his sub-human an- 
cestors, possessed of the power of hereditary transmission, left them 
as their legacy to him. In short, the slowly accumulated effects 
of experience have been handed on from generation to generation 
through a purely physical agency — the moditication of bodily 
structure ; and so we no longer need to assume a priori forms of 
thought to account for elementary conceptions. Mr. Spencer has 
a more elaborate argument in support of his sensationalism ; but 
it is at bottom the same old contention that the edifice of thought 
is built up of bricks of sensation, cemented by the tendency to 
association. The only difference is that the flux of the mind's 
thouirhts and sensations is stvled a series of states of consciousness 5 
but it is still a straggling, disorderly procession with no spectator 
to view it, or know it as a procession. 

But with Spencer we have something which Hume had not — 



Green\s Philosophical and Religious Teaching. 9 

Nature, an external world. This is clearly necessary as a basis for 
the thesis that man is a product of Nature, and the latest phase in 
a process of animal or physical development. How does Mr. 
Spencer ojet his Nature, his external world '( He assumes the re- 
ality of an external order and an elementary consciousness of it. 
He professes to prove the existence of such a reality, and its 
power of determining thought ; but observe the flaw in the proof. 
He starts, as he must, from the conception of knowledge as involv- 
ing a relation between a subject and an object. But he then pro- 
ceeds to assign to one of the terms of this relation an independent, 
superior existence — in sbort, he destroys the correlation. The ob- 
ject, only known, to start with, in relation to a subject, is known 
also (by what is now said to be a deliverance of consciousness) 
as existing out of relation to it — i. e., an object is supposed to be 
known after we have cancelled the knowing subject. Nay, more, 
the object is actually claimed to be the cause and determinant of 
the subject. The result is, in other words, that the objects of 
thougbt, while these are objects only by reason of there being a 
subject, are illogically supposed to be the cause of the subject 
which is the condition of their appearance. There is, of course, a 
great parade of demonstration in the " Principles of Psychology " ; 
but that is, in brief, the sum of the argument. It is thus that we 
get the cause of thought and of man as external Nature. The 
way is clear for a natural history of man by the application of the 
evolution hypothesis. 

Now let us see what Green — apart from the foregoing criticism 
which is really a rough epitome of his own arguments — has to 
say with regard to these views, and what is the truth which he 
opposes to them. In the lirst place, he aflirms that of mere sensa- 
tion we know, and therefore can say, nothing; it is an abstraction. 
Clearly, of sensation in general we can know nothing; we only 
know particular sensations. Let us take one. What is implied 
when we affirm the experience of a sensation of redness^ Simply 
the fact that the mind has been at work distinguishing the sensation 
as one of redness from other sensations that are of different colors. 
Its reality is constituted for us by its relations to other colors — its 
place in the color scale. The greater the number of relations we 
are able to place it in, the fuller is the reality which it has for us. 
If we are uncultivated, these relations will be few ; if we are sci- 



10 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

entific specialists, thev will be very numerous. Reality, " a fact," 
is not therefore sensation, but relation. An object of thought — 
and all objects are objects of or for tliou^ht — is what it is by rea- 
son of its place in that system of relations which constitutes the 
world as it exists for us — as known bv us. If we are asked to 
give an account of an object, we shall tell what we know about 
it; and this statement will be in terms of its relation toother 
objects that we know. Our account will be true if it iits into 
the body of knowledge ; if it is not in harmonious relation, 
if it does not square with other facts, it is false. Error, illusion, 
unreality is false relation. This is Green's first dissent and his 
first afl&rmation. Knowledge is 7iot of sensations, but it is of re- 
lations. 

But what is implied in relation t Firstly, two terms, and the 
affirmation of a connection between them — subject and object ; we 
have a subject which cognizes itself as knowing {i. e., is self-con- 
scious), and a series or world of relations as known, from which it 
distinguishes itself. But we can say more than this. To know 
these as related we must be able to hold them together ; we must 
discern them on comparison as distinct and different ; and this 
power of comparison is possible only by seeing things together 
and simultaneously before the mind. In other words, the mind 
must be present at once to all the elements distinguished and 
compared. For instance, we are asked to pronounce as to which 
is the most brilliant of a number of colors arranged in a row. 
How do we decide? Only by carrying the recollection of each 
color with us as we pass from it to the next, and at the end of 
our survey holding the whole of them simultaneously in our mind 
for a decision. We are taken, let us suppose, to a color apart 
from these, and are asked whether we think it brighter than they. 
Our decision can be made only by holding our past experience of 
the many colors — which the mind has the power of recalling — and 
comparing it with the present experience of the one color. What 
does this signify 1 It signifies that the mind can grasp a past and 
a present at once ; that it can comprehend more than one moment 
in time and more than one point of space. In fact, we see 
that we are obliged to postulate as a condition of experience or of 
judgment a mind that is fixed amidst the succession and change 
which we call experience. This is, I think, clear; but it is a very 



Green's Philosophical and Religious Teaching. 11 

important point in Green's philosophy, and we must be in no 
doubt about it. Let us put it in another way. 

The mind is conscious of a succession of things in time, or, 
to make use of Spencer's phrase, a succession of states of con- 
sciousness. But it could not know succession unless it were not 
itself out of and apart from the succession. To use our former 
figure, we should not know a Drocession as such unless we were 
outside of it. One separate state of consciousness in a stream of 
such states could not know itself as a part of such stream without 
knowing itself as related to a before and an after in a process. 
Similarly with change. Change could not know itself as change 
unless it were something that remained unchanged amidst change. 
The conclusion is, then, that we must postulate as a condition of 
knowledge a mind or spirit out of time, therefore eternal ; and out 
of space, therefore immovable, infinite or unbounded ; and self- 
conscious — that is, distinguishing itself from a world of fact, which 
is, as we have seen, a world of relations. 

Now we must ask. What is this world of relations present to 
consciousness, and what is the relation of consciousness to it ? In 
the first place, let us note that consciousness does not make this 
world ; it does not establish the relations, and it does not make them 
a system. The angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, 
fire burns, the sun warms, quite apart from any will or any individ- 
ual preferences of ours. (Hence the absurdity of the assertion made 
against the idealist — that the individual makes the world.) In the 
next place, observe that we only discover the relations as thej' ex- 
ist in a unity or " cosmos of experience." That there is a unity, 
a law of things, a cosmos, is an axiom of the mind ; thought, and 
even doubt itself, are meaningless without such an axiom. What, 
we proceed to ask, must we understand as implied by such a system 
of relations ? We must conceive it as a unity in difiPerence — that is, 
a number of distinct things held together in a harmony, each indi- 
vidual thing being what it is because of its place in the whole. 
Take the case of a house. The house is a unity composed of a 
number of distinct stones, and each stone has a meaning and a func- 
tion derived from its relation to the whole structure. Now, the 
only way in which we can comprehend such a cosmos of relations — 
the oidy idea we can form of a difterentiated unity or a unified 
differentiation — is in terms of mind. When we speak of a unity 



12 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

we mean, first, a totality which has a unity for thought, and, sec- 
ondly, that thought has gone to the making of this totality. That 
which requires thought for its comprehension implies thought in 
the constitution of it. It is only thought that can constitute a 
unity for thought. Wherever we come upon design we are 
obliged to postulate thought behind it. We assume a designer, or 
rather a designing mind. That is the very meaning of design — 
thought-relation. The relation is not in the separate things ; it 
is in the idea or the thought that presides over the whole of which 
the things are constituent parts. This may be otherwise expressed 
by saying that the world as a related whole is essentially a 
rational world, or an embodiment of reason. 

The conclusion to which we are brought by the foregoing argu- 
ment is that mau, as knowing a cosmos or rational world, is mind 
knowing and discovering mind. The human mind, defective in 
knowledge and power, confronts the universal mind expressed in 
the manifold of experience. This universal mind man only 
partially apprehends; and, because he only knows it in part and 
finds it difficult to piece the parts together, he labors under a 
sense of incompleteness. He forever seeks to widen his knowledge 
and harmonize its elements by exploring the heights and depths 
of the world of Nature and Man, which are equally the home of 
the Cosmic Mind. In other language, one Mind expresses itself 
in Man and, through Nature, to Man ; and our mental growth is, 
in fact, our progressive assimilation of the Cosmic Mind, or the 
Cosmic Mind becoming more and more articulate in us. The self 
in us finds its enlargement and the possibility of its completion by 
its comprehension and assimilation of the not-self. We realize 
our imperfection because we dimly apprehend perfection ; because 
the germ of the perfect is in us, and, in the longing for more 
knowledge and deeper life, stirs us to strive after the perfect. If 
we call the Universal Mind or Spirit, God, we shall, from Green's 
point of view, say that man has his being in and through God, 
and that God has his being — though not his whole being — in and 
through man. The selfhood of God is none other than the self- 
hood of man. 

It will now be obvious enougli wherein (ireen dissents from the 
evolution philosophy. The latter says that man is the product of 
Nature, in the sense that he is but tiie latest outcome of a j)roce88 



Greenes Philosophical and Religious Teaching. 13 

of natural or material development — a child of matter and motion. 
He is merely a last link in a chain of cause and effect. But, as 
Green, in effect, would urge, to know himself as a link in a chain, 
man must know the chain. To know the chain, he must unlink 
himself, so to speak, and survey the long line of his fellow-links 
before and after— in short, he must cease to be a part of the chain. 
If, then, man were merely a product of Nature, he could not know 
himself as such, for he could not know Nature as a producing 
agency without standing apart from her. But he does know Na- 
ture, and, what is more to the point, he knows that he knows her. 
He knows himself as her spectator and interrogator. He stands 
Urm amid her passing shows, noting her changes, remembering 
her history, comparing her past and present. 

Man, according to Green, is not a piece of material Nature, nor 
is Nature herself mere matter and motion. She is traversed with 
the currents of thought — is, indeed, only the symbolic language of 
thought ; known and knowable by man only because she speaks 
to him in his own speech. Man, instead of being a transient be- 
ing in a transient world, is an eternal, spiritual being in an eter- 
nal, spiritual world. That perfect world he sees only a part of at 
a time, and probably can never see it in its entirety. He knows it 
now under the limitations of his animal organism and under the 
forms of time and space. But he knows that it is entire ; he 
knows that his imperfection implies its perfection. 

So far I have given merely a rough sketch of the basic elements 
of Green's thought or those features of it which separate him 
fundamentally from the naturalists or evolutionists. These are, 
after all, the main and important features. If we accept these, 
we have turned our backs upon a universe which is blind and 
speechless, and upon a humanity which is its pitiful sport and 
victim. We have gained a universe which is, as it were, the eye 
and tongue of an infinite perfection. We have exchanged a perish 
able and meaningless chaos for an eternal and purposeful cosmos. 

But here I am already leaving philosophy, which should be a 
calm statement of ultimate truths, for religion, which is the re- 
sponse of the mind, heart, and imagination, in the contemplation 
of these truths. Without this response philosophy is barren and 
unprofitable ; it fails in the purpose of its quest. For that quest. 



14 The Journal of Speculatvve Philosophy. 

the aim of wliich is to discover our true relations to the world, is 
made in the interests of our whole nature. Now, our nature is 
tripartite: we are beings of thought, feeling, and will, and find 
the fullest satisfaction only in harmonious thinking and feeling 
and acting. Religion is, I take it, at once the bond and the in- 
spiration of this harmonious life. Its object is to keep us whole, 
so that the central energy and fire of life may circulate tlirough 
us fully, and fuse us into a singleness of being. Keligion takes 
philosophy for granted — not, of course, a dogmatic, finally fixed 
philosophy, but a philosophy which holds itself subject to correc- 
tion and enlargement. It is the result of the union of the truths 
of philosophy with the impulsions of the heart. 

Philosophy, as Green conceived it, gave us an incomplete self 
in a complete world, from which it could gain completeness. It 
prescribed as the aim of life the harmony or the fullest and closest 
union of the microcosm with the macrocosm. We may state this, 
in other words, as the perfection of character, which is the highest 
realization of our own powers in and through a true life in the 
world. We have two things implied here — a harmony within us 
in accord with a harmony without us. The outer or objective 
world is composed of Nature and Humanity. Nature has to be 
subjected to our uses; it has to be explored by Science, and 
ordered to the ends of beauty by Art. In the case of Humanity 
we are in a world of wills and personalities like our own, and our 
task is to harmonize these wills so that they may not confiict, but 
may mutually assist one another in the pursuit of a common good. 
This is the work of Ethics, Politics, and Education, with their 
subordinate sciences. 

With this glance at the view of the world given us by philoso- 
phy, let us return to the place and function of religion. Relig- 
ion, Matthew Arnold has said, is morality touched with emotion ; 
but it is surely a larger and more fruitful description if we say that 
it is philosophy touched with emotion — that is, an emotional ap- 
prehension not only of the moral law, but of the world as a whole. 
The mood of religion is the mood in which the heart seizes upon 
the truths of philosophy, sublimates them, and gives them impas- 
sioned utterance in Hymbol and allegory. The spiritual presence 
which philosophy has discovered in Nature and in Man religion 
calls God, and, to aid its grasp and assimilation of this presence, 



Greenes Philosophical and Religious Teaching. 15 

invests God with the idealized attributes of Man. Nature, as the 
conjoint seat and revelation of this divine presence, becomes a 
parable and a song. Before this now poetically or imaginatively 
clothed universe man falls down in wonder and worship, and 
strives through art and by noble conduct to express the depth of 
his passion and the beauty of his vision. He is impelled to find 
an outlet for this heightened thought and feeling and desire in 
great actions and in beautiful works. Thus for religion the web 
of common life is everywhere shot through with threads of loveli- 
ness. It sees the actual in the light of the ideal, man pregnant 
with divine possibilities, and nature full of deity. 

" Nothing's small ! 
No lily-raufHed hum of a summer bee 
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars; 
No pebble at your foot but proves a sphere ; 
No chaffinch but implies the cherubim. 

. . . Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God." 

This, expressed somewhat popularly and emotionally, is the 
view Green took, and it finds frequent expression in his writings. 
It was his sense of the spiritual in Nature and Man that attracted 
him to the poetry of Wordsworth. His own nature was akin to 
Wordsworth's in that he was given to the same " impassioned con- 
templation " ; only, in place of the lyrical utterance of the poet, we 
have the more sober speech of the philosopher, as though the bare, 
ungarnished statement of the truth were all-sufticing for the mind's 
nutrition. It was not so much through the beauty of the world, 
as with the artist or poet, or its interest and intricacy, as with the 
scientist, that the power of religion laid hold upon Green ; but in 
the intellectual vision of the divine unity of the world and the 
mystical sense of the communion between the individual and the 
universal spirit. Whereas Wordsworth found the divine presence 
chiefly in JS'ature, Green found it equally — nay, more — in the his- 
torj', experiences, and institutions of man. He saw everywhere 
traces of man's consciousness of an ideal which man did not realize, 
but always in some wa_y or other sought to approach ; and all human 
institutions were tor him instances of man's effort tQ express this 
ideal. Out of this perception came his eager desire to forward the 



16 The Journal of Speculative PhUosophy. 

political movements of his time. Reform was for him the removal 
of those obstacles which stood in the way of the fuller and ever 
fuller expression of tliis ideal tendenc)^ in the heart of man. 

But while Green was aware that in the religious life man 
gained the fulness of peace and joy, he was also keenly conscious 
of the impediments which thwarted^the attainment of this religious 
life — the barriers of circumstance, the allurements of the senses, 
the incubus of doubt, the indolence of hopelessness and despair. 
The Christian sense of sin in the world and of morality as a hard 
struggle, was very strong in him ; and it was this sense which 
invested the Christian scriptures of the New Testament — and 
especially the writings of St. Paul — with immense value and sig- 
nificance. He says in one place : 

" Man knows that it is his littleness, not his greatness, that 
separates him from the divine ; that not intellectual pride, not 
spiritual self-assertion, but the meanness of his ordinary desires, 
the degradation of his higher nature to the pursuit of animal ends, 
keep him under the curse." 

This gives us Green's conception of sin as partiality, defect, 
negation. It follows naturally from his view of the world. He 
has expressed himself more precisel}' in another place, where he says 
that, whilst "intellectual error consists in regarding the relations 
under which, at any given time, an object is presented to us, and 
which through the limitations of sense are necessarily partial, as 
the totality of its relations"; so "sin consists in the individual's 
making his own self his object, not in the possible expansion in 
which it becomes that true will of humanity, which is also God's, 
but under the limitation of momentary appetite or interest." 

He thought that no writer had given such telling expression of 
this conviction — of this sense of a war between the law in the 
members and the law of the spirit — as Paul. It was a matter of 
regret to him that the spiritual meaning of the Pauline writings 
had been obscured by the literal dogmatic interpretation in vogue 
among the orthodox. The two lay sermons of his, " The Witness 
of God " and " Faith," are devoted to an attempt to bring out the 
real import and value of Paul's teaching; and in this he was do- 
ing very much the sort of work that Matthew Arnold did in " St. 
Paul and Protestantism." He considered that great harm was 
inflicted on religion by making its truth and reality depend on 



Greenes Philosophical mid Religious Teaching. IT 

tlie truth of certain historical occurrences in connection with 
the life of Jesus Christ. The witness of God to man is not in 
any outward events, or si^ns, or wonders — if such were possible, 
which is not to be granted — but in the heart of man, and in the 
order and harmony of the world. The gift of the spirit is not a 
miraculous revelation through the utterances and acts of certain 
men, but " that recognition of an eternal relationship between God 
and man which carries with it a new insight into the things of 
God, and a new energy of love." The importance of Christ to us 
lies not in his supposed advent as a Messiah, or his supernatural 
place in a scheme of redemption ; but, as it lay for his apostle Paul, 
in the power of his spirit and example. The statement that he 
died and rose again the third day is of itself unimportant for 
spiritual ends, and tends to materialize them ; whereas the sym- 
bolized fact, which is as the marrow of Paul's teaching, that he 
died unto sin and rose into the higher life, is of central impor- 
tance to us. The conception of a death into life puts the problem 
of the moral life in a striking and helpful manner, as even a man 
like Goethe saw. True faith is not faith in material resurrection, 
or in any other miraculous event ; but faith in the higher leadings 
of the spirit that moveth in us, faith that all things work together 
for our good if we follow these. Everywhere around us we find 
religion mischievously identified with belief in miracle, and its su- 
premacy assailed because miracles are no longer credited. Becom- 
ing aware that the religion so founded cannot stand, the skeptic 
disowns religion altogether. Surely no greater service can be done 
than to disengage religion from the clutches of such a foe. 

Doubtless some will feel that Green shows too exclusive a pref- 
erence for Christianity and too eager a desire to reinstate it, and 
it only, as the religion of the future. Many believe that what 
we have to look forward to is the foundation of a great world- 
religion, of which Christianity is a factor — may be even the most 
important factor — but still only a factor. And yet we must all 
recognize that this religion of the future will probably come 
through such an expansion of Christian teaching as Green was 
anxious to promote. One thing, at any rate, seems certain, that 
no religion can thoroughly serve us which does not include just 
that particular element which Green prized in Christianity — 
the keen sense of shortcoming in ourselves, and of the weight of 
XXII— 2 



18 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

sill in the world, issuing in tliat einbracinoj sympathy which is 
found in tlie case of the irian of sorrows, acquainted with grief, 
the friend and uplifter of the guilty and helpless and outcast. 
Without this unshrinking syn-ipathy with weakness and suffering 
and disease and failure, life becomes superficial and trivial. Bright 
and joyous and fair it may be for a time and for a few, as in the 
pleasurable days of pagan Greece and Kome, but it can never be 
founded on a solid and enduring basis, never reach down to the 
heart of things. The retention of this element is especially impor- 
tant in view of that work of social reformation which lies before 
us. It must be a great element in any worthy democracy. 

So far I have been trying to express, mainly in my own words, 
the sense and gist of Green's religious views. It is well that he 
should be allowed to speak to us in his ov,^n words. Let us hear 
him. His ideal of life he described as that of " Christian Citizen- 
ship " — that is to say, a citizenship deriving its conception of the 
state and of civic virtue from Greece, but enlarged and consecrated 
by the Christian temper of brotherliness. Let us then see what 
Green's conception of Cliristianity was. 

"The divine mind touches, modifies, becomes the mind of man, 
through a process of which mere intellectual conception is only 
the beginning, but of which the gradual complement is an unex- 
hausted series of spiritual discipline through all the agencies of 
social life. In the nations outside Christendom, as a matter of his- 
tory, this complement has not been vouchsafed, or only in the 
most limited and elementary way. Hence the idea of death into 
life, wliich is the seed of the divine in man, has there lain barren." 

This idea is, he considers, the central idea of Christianity; and 
the test of its truth is in the life which it inspires. That is the 
only possible test of the truth of a practical idea. 

" As the primary Ciiristian idea is that of a moral death into 
life, as wrought for us and in us by God, so its realization, which 
is the evidence of its truth, lies in Christian love — a realization 
never complete, because forever embracing new matter, yet con- 
stantly gaining in fulness. All other evidence is fleeting and 
accidental, but this abides. Tongues cease, phophecies fail, knowl- 
edge — the mere unrealized idea — vanisheth away ; but charity 
never faileth, and, in the higher life of the Christian society, we 
may recognize it and make it our own." 



Greeri's PhilowpldGol and Religious Teaching. 19 

Hence religion consists not in word only, bnt in power; not in 
passive virtue, but in active righteousness. Its end and justitica- 
tion are in a pure, helpful, and self-denying life and in the forma- 
tion of a character simple, sincere, and sympathetic. 

"The least experienced among us must know that it is not in 
the outward cast of a life, but in the way of living it that the spirit 
of a man is shown ; and that there are those about him in whose 
character, though with no outward mark of distinction, and per- 
haps under a surface of yet unconquered weaknesses, the love of 
God and the brethren is the ruling power. All he has to do is to 
share in the higher spirit of such men." 

The refreshing touch of simplicity which there is in this pas- 
sage meets us constantly in Green's writings on religion — the trait 
which made him an influence in Oxford. How rare and how 
inspiring it is to come upon a man who, besides being a subtile 
thinker and a power in the world of thought, retains this feeling 
for simple goodness and rightness of heart ! The more so because 
it is this simplicity that we stand in danger of losing nowadays, 
hedged about as we are by the pretentiousness of modern life, 
with its polite artifices, its veneered manners, its little insincerities 
of intercourse, its smallness and triviality. The great preserva- 
tive against these is the faith that helps us to keep a sort of child- 
like attitude of heart. 

"If we are honest with ourselves we shall admit that something 
best called faith, a prevailing conviction of our presence to God 
and his to us, of his gracious mind toward us, working in and with 
and through us, of our duty to our fellow-men as our brethren in 
him, has been the source of whatever has been best in us and of 
our deeds. . . . Faith of this sort is the salt of the earth." 

With one more short quotation, in which Green puts his finger 
upon the salient danger which besets the cause of religion among 
us, let us leave him : 

" The enemy which religion, i. <?., a God-seeking morality, 
has now to fear, is not a passionate atheism. Such atheism is 
often a religion which misunderstands itself. . . . Not from it is 
our danger, but from the slow sap of an undermining indifl'erence 
which does not deny God and duty, but ignores them ; which does 
not care to trouble itself about them, and finds in our acknowl- 
edged inability to know them, as we know matters of fact, a new 



20 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

excuse for putting them aside. It is this which takes oflF the na- 
tive beauty from the fair forehead of a child-like faith, and leaves, 
not the scars of a much-questioning and often-failing but still 
believing search after God, whom so to seek is to find, but the 
vacancy of contented worldliness or the sneer of the baffled pleas- 
ure-seeker." 

If, then, we think, as the great souls of all time have thought, 
that religion is the power that binds man to what is best and high- 
est, we shall be on the alert against this " undermining indiffer- 
ence" and this "vacancy of contented worldliness" of which 
Green speaks. Is it not too true that modern civilization, with its 
sense of security, its comfort and luxury, and the ignoble greed of 
gain which the attractiveness of these has bred, tends to produce 
such an undermining indifference and contented worldliness? 
These, the enemies of religion, are the hindrances to that renascence 
of our social life of which I spoke in the opening of my paper. 
The first work in the promotion of that renascence is, I said, to 
gain a new philosophy — that is, a new view of the world, which 
shall give life unity and import. But it is a difficult task to induce 
men, prone to this indifference and worldliness and sorely tempted 
by it, to make the effort to think out a new philosophy of life. 
How are they to be braced to make it ? What can we do to 
counteract the tendencies of the time? We cannot, of course, do 
anything until we ourselves have gained a new philosophy; and, 
having gained it, we must express it by word and deed. If we 
are bent on trying to find the philosophy, we cannot do better than 
go to Green. There is every indication that it is along the lines of 
his thought that advance will be made. 

If, further, we pass from philosophy to religion, here again 
we shall find in Green a helpful ally. We may not get entire sat- 
isfaction from the form in which he would cast religion ; but in 
the spirit of the religion which he upholds we cannot steep our, 
selves too deep. And one point upon which he insists, as we 
have already gathered, we can not pay too much heed to — that, if 
we wish to bear witness for religion, we must do so through our 
lives. Nothing promotes skepticism so much as disloyalty ; it 
gives the skeptic, the cynic, and the indifferentist their chance and 
excuse. It is an undoubted fact that what, more tiian anything 
else, is bringing Christianity, and with it all religion, into disrepute 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Daniel's Inferno. 21 

is the disloyalty of Cliristendom to the lofty professions of its creed. 
It is futile to profess to believe that all men are brethren, if we 
treat them as enemies on the mart and in the store. It is useless 
professing to believe that it is difficult for a rich man to enter into 
the Kingdom of Heaven, if we devote a life to getting rich. It is 
a mockery to declare adhesion to the principle that human great- 
ness is won by service, if we despise those who serve, and strive 
for a worldly position in which we are the masters of many ser- 
vants. If we follow Green's teaching, we must believe that the 
first condition upon which the revolution now in progress may 
be a change for the better, lies in our making our lives eloquent 
with the spirit of unswerving devotion to our ideal. 



ON" THE CONGEUEKCE OF SINS AND PUNISHMENTS 

IN DANTE'S INFEENO. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF DR. J. A. SCARTAZZINI (" JAHRBUCH DER DEUTSCHEN 
DANTE-GESELLSCHAFT," TOL. IV, 1877) BY THEKLA BERNAYS. 

According to Christian popular belief, an almost absolute trans- 
formation takes place in man at the moment of death. The life 
hereafter is not, in the first instance, the direct continuation of 
the psychic spiritual earth-life of the individual, but rather, ac- 
cording to current Christian notions, an entirely new life, with 
scarcely a resemblance to earth-life, and connected with this lat- 
ter only inasmuch as in its immense variety it is conditioned by it 
(earth-life) for each individual. More clearly expressed, it de- 
pends upon the conduct of man while on earth — whether he will 
reach the abode of infinite blessedness or the regions of indescriba- 
ble torture. But when once the narrow bridge is passed which 
forms the mysterious crossing between this world and the here- 
after, then is fulfilled in its absolute sense the word : " The old is 
vanished ; see, all has become new ! " According to this concep- 
tion, even the most individual thing in man, his consciousness, is 
subjected to a mighty change. The consciousness of one and the 
same individual changes in part as to its contents as soon as the 
journey through the dark valley is completed. The Christian who 



22 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

starts upon his upward journey relies upon receiving in the river 
of death the magic drink of Lethe, which will wash away out of 
his consciousness everything that could in any way dim his feel- 
ing of absolute beatitude. According to the same Christian, how- 
ever, he who is condemned to take the opposite route must in the 
selfsame river of death drink of Lethe, which, on the contrary, 
extinguishes from his consciousness whatever might shed a ray of 
light into the unending dark night of his eternal life. But the 
regions of the worlds bevond have onlv too great a resemblance 
to those here below. The colors in which pious fancy paints the 
abodes of eternity are taken throughout from temporal life. Here 
a world of iniinite enjoyment and delight, there a world of iniinite 
torture and privation ; both, however — enjoyment and privation, 
delight and torture — are more sensual than spiritual, more external 
than internal ; a world similar to the one here below — only its in- 
habitants are quite different. 

This is the common popular belief, these are the current no- 
tions. We will not here investigate the question in how far this 
belief and its conceptions may be based upon the Scriptures. 
Even if we were forced to admit such a basis, this would only 
prove that the Bible is, as to origin and purpose, a true people's 
book, and not a compendium of metaphysics. Purified modern 
philosophical thought, to be sure, as far as it does not believe 
itself in duty bound to deny the hereafter, forms conceptions of 
it which essentially diifer fi-om those mentioned. A world wholly 
different from this, because purely spiritual, yet the people who 
inhabit it, inasmuch as they are spiritual beings, are the same ones 
that once walked tliis earth. Consciousness is the same, infi- 
nitely developing in a straight line. Ko Lethe is to be found either 
in the one direction or in the other, but in the hereafter a 
further development of that which had begun here below to 
germinate and to unfold. In this application the reference to the 
analogy l)etween birth and death was very appropriate. As the 
new-born child is the same that it was before birth, so too the hu- 
man being who yonder reawakens to consciousness will be the 
same he was before he threw off this mortal frame. Here, as there, 
is found simple development, though upon a wholly different ter- 
ritory. Hence heaven and hell are nothing external, but purely 
internal; not merely in the future, but already in the present — be- 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 23 

ginnino; here, reaching there to completion. In the hereafter 
take place the disclosure, development, and heightening of that 
which existed here below, but which man is often able to hide 
from himself and others bv means of the senses and the sensual. 

The more complete following out of this thought does not belong 
to the province of the investigation and study of Dante, but must 
be left to metaphysics and philosophical dogmatics. Occasion 
will offer in the course of this disquisition to mention whatever of 
this is indispensable to the understanding of the problem under 
discussion. 

Standing upon the boundary-line separating two epochs, Dante 
intones his song. His poem is a requiem, and at the same time a 
cradle-song. With one foot he stands upon the territory of the 
middle ages, with the other he is already upon that of modern 
times. As in all other, so too in his eschatological ideas, he is a 
child of his time ; but he is, besides this, the prophet who with deep 
and far-reaching presage hastens on in advance of his time. Dan- 
te's conception of the hereafter is based not upon mediaeval belief 
alone, but in part too upon deeper metaphysico-psychological 
cognition. He has transferred much that is sensual from the tem- 
poral into eternity, driven perhaps in part by the necessity of 
painting a picture which should clearly show to man, cleaving as 
yet to the sensual, the purely spiritual, and that which is but fore- 
shadowed in his mind. The ])unishments and expiations of his 
Inferno and Mount of Purification partake as much of a sensual 
as of a spiritual nature — perhaps more of the former than of the 
latter. But if sometimes the internal connection seems often miss- 
ing between sin and punishment — such a connection that the one 
appears as the unavoidable result of the other — this connection 
must always be presupposed in Dante, and the more so with him, 
as it is clearly apparent in many instances. If, owing to the guid- 
ance of scriptural passages like Job, xxi, 7-26, Psalms, Ixxiii, 2-14, 
the inclination has been but too great heretofore to relegate the 
punishment following sin entirely to the hereafter, making bless- 
edness here to be followed by misery there, and misery here by 
blessedness yonder, in Dante, on the contrary, the realms of the 
hereafter are realized none the less in the present life. Poeta agit 
de inferno isto in quo peregrinando mereri et demereri possumus. 
These words do not originate with Dante ; they are a saying of 



24 The Journal of Speculative Philomjyhy. 

ancient times, bnt it is nevertheless a saying which undoubtedly 
gives the poet's meaning a clear and universally intelligible ex- 
pression. 

Whoever engages more deeply in the study of the " sacred 
poem " does not to-day doubt the truth of the position that this 
poem proposes to hold up for contemplation not only the revealed 
truth of the hereafter, but also the revealed truth of the inner self, 
and that its contents are not merely of a metaphysical, but fully 
as much of an ethical nature ; the revealed truth of the inner 
self also^ but not this alone. Those who deny the reference to 
the hereafter in the Divina Commedia err no less than those who 
deny its reference to earth-life. Both references are inseparably, 
organically united. Whatever was prepared here below is there 
completed ; what there becomes visible to the prophetic eye of the 
poet has been already felt here below in the bosom of the indi- 
vidual. Punishment and bliss are the fruit maturing in the tem- 
poral, on toward eternity. Both damnation and blessedness, weal 
and woe, are not something imposed from without, but rather 
something developing out of the inner being. 

In accordance with this, the punishments of the Inferno in 
Dante — and this disquisition is for the present limited to these, to 
the exclusion of the expiations of the Mount of Purification and 
the delights of Paradise — these punishments must be developed 
from the corresponding sins, and it must be possible to show how 
they are their product, how they spring from them by an inner 
necessity. It is by no means claimed that this is a new thought ; 
it is one which has, on the contrary, often found expression. But 
the relation, the inner connection between sin and punishment, 
has not hitherto been deemed worthy of a thorough investigation ; 
and yet such an investigation might prove of greater value than 
the numerous and sometimes very prolix ones upon difficulties of 
a very inferior nature, such as on the Pie ferino^ on Plutus's un- 
intelligible words, or Ugolino's alleged eating of his children. 

The centre of the universe is the lowest region of Dante's In- 
ferno, and at the same time that spot in the universe which is 
farthest removed from God. Now, as it is sin which estranges 
man from God, as the difference, the chasm between man and God 
must be wider in proportion as the sin to whose service man had 
devoted himself is heavier, the gradation from above downward 



Congruence of /Shis and Punishments m Dante's Inferno. 25 

which we meet in Dante results. Sin is a burden which man im- 
poses upon himself and the centre of the universe, 

" 11 punto, 
Al qual si traggon d'ognl parte 1 pesl," 

which is to be understood not only in the physical but in the 
moral sense as well. The heavier the burden of sin, the deeper is 
man dragged down by it. Without metaphor, the more depraved 
man, the greater his estrangement from God, and that in time no 
less than in eternity. God and the devil, the prince of light and 
the prince of darkness, are the two extreme antagonistic princi- 
ples, the latter therefore held exactly in the centre of the universe 
by his own heaviness. Between these two extremes man, accord- 
ing to the path he chooses, approaches the one or the other. The 
approach will be the greater the more decidedly and recklessly he 
pursues the path once chosen ; but if man remains standing, unde- 
cided between the two, then in all eternity he will be in suspense. 
His condition is the faithful mirror of his mode of thinking and 
acting and its necessary consequence. A popular legend tells of 
men so depraved that even the devil refuses them admission to his 
realm, and they are forced to wander about after death without 
finding rest. As if man were capable of becoming more corrupt 
than devils ! The poet, too, knows of such as are excluded both 
from heaven and from hell. These, however, are not in his estima- 
tion the most depraved of villains; they are the lukewarm ones, sin- 
ners, whose guilt in the opinion of the world is simply weakness 
of character, not sin. P^or these the poet has created a separate 
resrion. Their habitation is on this side of the circles of hell — in- 
deed, this side of Limbo. 

With a few strokes of the brush the guilt of the inhabitants of 
Limbo is depicted. Wretched souls, passing their life without 
blame and without praise, lacking the resolution, the vigor of 
mind, and the energy to do either good or evil. Like the angels 
of the legend, they did not take sides in the war of the Titans, but 
remained indolently gazing on the eternal conflict between light 
and darkness — vulgar souls, unable to take an interest in this 
struggle for higher blessings. Their life is no animated life, but 
simply the existence of a plant — turning as the wind blows, 
only to avoid being disturbed in that comfortable repose which 



26 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

thej strive for as the highest blessedness; following any standard, 
because in their ejes principles, opinions, and convictions are 
nothing but fine words, empty phrases. Lukewarm — neither cold 
nor warm, neither good nor bad ; cowards, men of pleasure. 

And now their punishment ! The inner indecision is visibly 
represented by the suspense between heaven and hell, by the 
exclusion from both places. But they are placed in the entrance 
to hell — that is, infinitely nearer hell than heaven. Their state of 
suspense is eternal; they can never escape from it — non hanno 
speranza di tnorte. This, too, in a double sense : eternal their 
inner indecision, eternal their hanging between heaven and hell, 
as it were. And this suspense is their worst torture, for, as their 
disposition and conduct are unnatural, so also is their condition 
unnatural. It is in the nature of man tiiat he must decide, but 
the desire is also in his nature to exist in stable and fixed situa- 
tions. More tormenting far than the suffering caused by niisfor- 
fortune that has actually come to pass is the suspense of fearful 
and uncertain expectation. Therefore do these wretches feel en- 
vious of every other lot. Better to be a whole than only a half. 
The coward is apt to envy any one who, be it in the one direction 
or in the other, shows decision. But his very slothfulness and 
cowardice are the hindrances to his ever becoming more resolute. 
They fear to miss that sweet repose which is the ideal of their 
aspiration if they should emerge from their indecision. This is 
their low-mindedness, which will not struggle, or fight, or exert 
itself, or sacrifice aught. And the low-mindedness is low life 
also — vita bassa. What is within them is here made externally 
visible. As the baseness of their disposition, so also the falseness 
of their calculation. The very thing which they seek — comfort- 
able*repose — they do not find, because in their blindness — cieca 
vita — they pursue a wrong course to reach true repose. He only 
can attain repose who, braving the wind, stands firm as a tower, 
whose spire does not tremble though the winds rage ever so 
wildly (" Purgatorio," v, 14, 15). Those wretches, however, too 
indolent to brave the wind, out of baseness acconmiodate them- 
selves to and turn with the wind ; they follow any standard. But, 
as the wind is subject to constant change, they are forced, instead 
of enjoying repose, ever restlessly to turn in a circle, ever to fol- 
low the standard as it moves round in a circle. Such natures 



Congruence of Sins and PunUhiaenta in Da)de\s Inferno. '21 

flee and avoid, of course, as far as possible, heavy cares and great 
suffering. But baseness, too, and cowardice have their sufferings 
and cares — small ones, to be sure, only gadflies and wasps ; but 
for these people they are no less atflicting than great and heavy 
ones for strong, determined natures. Much more keenly do the 
iiiliabitants of Limbo feel the sting of the gadflies and wasps than 
the high-minded Farinato the fire of his coffin. In base and 
paltr}' cares their energy is consumed; the stings of the insects 
cause their faces to driji with blood. How great their cowardice 
is clear from the fact that the slight pain of the sting of the gad- 
fly is sulficient to make them dissolve in tears. The loathsome 
worms at last, which suck up the blood mixed with tears, are an 
image at once of the l)ase creature and his base objects, upon 
which are wasted his vitality, symbolized by the blood — and his 
cares — of which his tears are the emblem. 

Too much has, perhaps, been said about tliese sinners, of whom 
Dante's guide says: " N^ot a word of these; look and pass." 
Nevertheless, the poet himself, after hearing this admonition, em- 
ploys six triplets in speaking of them. 

Beyond, on the opposite shore of Acheron, in the first circle 
of hell, we meet nobler beings than those we leave here. Ciiil- 
dren, women, wise men, poets, heroes — human beings who have 
no other fault than that they have not heard of Christ, not be- 
lieved in him, which is the only way that leads to God. Even 
though they have gained merit, this does not suffice, for " No one 
can come to the Father except through the Son." Their life is a 
constant longing. In the temporal state it is a longing with hope, 
but in eternity it is a longing without hope. The presumption is 
here, on the one hand, that the innate longing of man for the in- 
finite cannot be satisfied by ethical means alone, but that there 
must be resort to religion ; on the other hand, that he who has 
not found salvation in the temporal state through scorn of honest 
search will not find it in all eternity. And here the influence of 
the dogmatics of his church and of his time upon our poet is 
unmistakable. JVot to sin (Inf., iv, 31) and to he lost, never- 
theless (Inf., iv, 41), is an idea which has in truth been 
worked out by the too exclusive dogmatics of the Church, but 
which correct thinking finds it impossible to follow. Here is a 
point where it might be difficult to trace the revelation of the 



28 The Jou7'nal of Speculative Philosophy. 

true spiritual meaning of the future life on the part of our poet, 
and it is easy to underetand that a restoration of the dwellers in 
this circle has been thought of, in spite of the decided senza speme 
(iv, 42). Tlie inner state of this class of human beings is indeed 
appropriately depicted. An eternal search for something un- 
known ; a sighing for something to allay the thirst of the human 
heart. No sunlight, but at best the dim light of a fire. The first, 
as is known, comes from above ; the latter, however, only lights a 
hemisphere of darkness, and that from below. Therefore the 
first is the appropriate symhol of revelation, the latter the sym- 
bol of the natural light of reason. On the whole, they have 
quite an agreeable place of abode ; these inhabitants of Limbo 
rejoice in fresh, green meadows, a noble castle, a light, and the 
choicest of society. Still the abode is in hell. One thing they 
lack — blessedness. We repeat, if we accept the Christian pre- 
mise, that the thirst for God is innate in the human soul, and 
that the soul can only become happy in God, the inner state of 
these beings is appropriately described. On the other hand, we 
can hardly admit that here too the unalterable life of eternity 
is meant. The moral law postulates that the honest seeker shall 
find — shall find hereafter — if the proper opportunity was not given 
him on earth. And the philosophical belief in immortality also 
implies infinite development in the hereafter — not stagnant life. 

With the inhabitants of the second circle (Inf., v) the relation 
between sin and punishment is only too apparent. Sensual pas- 
sion, to whose service man is addicted, becomes a mighty storm, 
which seizes the souls, throws them hither and thither in torment, 
and dashes them together. The throwing hither and thither a 
symbol of the inconstancy of the voluptuous, the dashing against 
each other a symbol of jealousy — which so easily makes its ap- 
pearance in people of this stamp, and so easily causes them to col- 
lide. No light in their unquiet habitation, for these " wicked 
sonls" will not i)e lighted up either by the light of revelation or 
by the natural light of reason. Desire obeying no law but that 
of its own will — il talento — to which they have subjected reason, 
has made them the will-less sport of their own arbitrariness. It is 
a significant touch, furthermore, that the storm is hushed the 
moment our poet addresses two of the sinners (v, 96), for the 
storm of passion, too, may be temporarily silenced by the presence 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 29 

and the speech of an earnest man. Nor mnst we overlook the 
fact that this circle of hell is by no means an abode of unalloyed 
torment ; on the contrary, it harbors joys for its inhabitants within 
its pale. To these souls is granted the highest wish of those who 
truly and fervidly love — to be forever united with the object of 
their love, never to suffer separation. Francesca and Paolo are 
united in eternal embrace (v, 135). To be sure, their joy is not 
untroubled, such as that which the inhabitants of heaven enjoy. 
An infinitely bitter drop is mingled with it. For, though the 
lover desires most fervently to be united with his beloved, he de- 
sires no less that the beloved shall enjoy blessedness, shall partake 
of eternal happiness. But here the sight of the beloved tortured, 
suffering, forever unhappy, is continually before him, and that 
sight reproaches him, inasmuch as he is forced to say to himself 
that he is in part the cause of the unhappiness and the suffering 
of the beloved one. So even the joy of eternal union bears the 
character of hellish torment. Silvio Pellico has most strikingly, 
in my opinion, expressed the two sides of this situation when he 
puts in dying Francesca's mouth the lament : 

" Eternal torments, 
Alas ! await us below there ! " 

while Paolo expires with the consolation : 

" Eternal, 
Too, will be our love." 

The congruence in the case of the inhabitants of the third circle 
is not so obvious, but does not present any particular difficulties. 
Here we have to do with the gluttons, with people " whose God 
is their belly, and who glory in their shame, who mind earthly 
things" (Philipp. iii, 19). The type of these sinners is the monster 
Cerberus, the guardian of their circle. He has three mouths, for 
one does not suffice to still his insatiable appetite. So, too, are the 
people who are guarded by him — beings whose most valuable and 
precious organ is their throat, who would like to be all gullet, that 
they might the better pander to their insatiable greed — human 
beings who would divest themselves of their humanity to clothe 
themselves with the purely animal nature, as it appears especially 
in the dog. For this reason they are guarded by the three-throated 



30 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

belMiound, and the lamentations which cross their lips sound like 
the howling of dogs, and are drowned in the barking of dogs. Tiie 
abode thev are in is itself a torment to them. The air is gloomy, 
the ground filthy, and the atmosphere is filled with stench — a 
picture, no doubt, of the grossness in which people of this kind 
dwell. But could not a still better application be found? Have 
we not before us an exact image of the low pot-houses and taverns 
in which such sinners sojourn longest and oftenest? Their bodily 
condition is as loathsome and vexatious as the ])lace where they 
are. From vi, 92 and 93, as well as 37, it is obvious that they 
only appear to be human, while they are in reality beasts lying 
on their bellies, their faces wallowing in filth ; for they only fix 
their gaze upon that wherewith they hope to fill their bellies. 
Here in the light of eternity these objects of their longing appear 
in their true form, divested of all delusive coloring — as filth! 
But as filth is used in the Scriptures as a sym])ol of contempt and 
of a contemptible state (I Sam. ii, 8; Psalms, cxiii, T; Lam. 
iii, 45), so we must recognize in this wallowing in filth the symbol 
of that contempt which necessarily falls to such vulgar souls. 
But here, too, a still closer relation involuntarily is suggested to 
us. We seem to see them bodily before us, these carnal beings, 
as they lie on the ground like cattle and wallow in their dung 
after they have pandered to their gluttony until they have been 
deprived of the use of their reasoning powers ! Such a sight 
probably as often presented itself to the poet in his wanderings as 
it presents itself to the observer of to-day who travels through 
Italy — and not through Italy alone. It will not do to object that 
these traits and correspondences are taken from the life of the 
people of the present, for, as regards sin — especially the sin of 
gluttony (and drunkenness) — humanity was and is ever the same. 
No profound knowledge of the people's life in the middle ages is 
required to persuade one's self that in respect of gluttony that 
time was like the present. In the punishments even which are 
inflicted upon these souls by their type and guardian Cerberus, I 
am forced to perceive the same close relation. With his claws he 
scratches, flays, and lacerates them. This is a punishment which 
men often suft'er here on earth. When they sit together the long 
hours of day and night to serve their (lod, how often are Cer- 
beruses found among them who handle them no better than that 



Congruerice of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 31 

Cerberus in the third circle of liell ! How often are they barked 
at no more gently than in the eternal re2;ions! But as the s(juls, 
arrived at their posts, lie still, and of Ciacco, after having again 
fallen upon the ground, it is expressly remarked that he will not 
awake until the last trumpet sounds, the meaning seems to be that 
these spirits do not repeatedly receive such treatment at the hands 
of Cerberus, but once only upon their entrance into the third circle 
of hell, whereupon, scratched, flayed, and lacerated, they seek 
their posts. It may be permissible to interpret this circuuistance 
in the following manner : That it does indeed sometimes fall to 
the lot of such men to seek their homes after such treatment, but 
that, having once reached their homes, no further molestation is 
to be feared. Finally, the hail, the siiow, and the cold rain are 
to be considered, by which also the spirits of this circle are tor- 
mented. This is all, besides filth. Hail and snow may be taken 
as the symbols of food, rain as the symbol of drink. But food 
and drink represent the highest good which this class of people 
know. To eat and to drink well is to them paradise and eternal 
bliss. Here they have what they covet in abundance. But, of 
course, these things are divested of their delusive semblance, and 
appear as what they are in reality. Therefore they no longer 
tend to satisfy their animal appetites, but only serve to increase 
their torment. For this reason they are to them no longer a good 
which they desire and strive for, but rather a plague, which they 
seek to ward oif as well as they are able (vi, 19, 20). 

To be sure, it has been assumed in the above remarks that the 
inhabitants of this circle of hell are not recruited from the higher 
and cultured, but from the lower and more vulgar classes. It 
lies in the nature of the case that this presumption is correct. 
But this is not to be understood as if rioting and gluttony were 
sins unknown to the higher classes of society. The reveller and 
glutton in the Gospel (Luke, xvi), on the contrary, belongs to the 
higher class. But these vices are practised more clandestinely by 
that class, and where they do exist it is not in so ugly and beastly 
a form as among the lower classes. Furthermore, we do not lack 
allusions coming from the poet himself, which seem to support 
this assumption. As a comparison, the dog — an image of voracity 
to be sure, but also of the base and vulgar — is repeatedly used. 
The only sinner, too, who is called by name, seems to prove by 



32 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

his very name (Ciacco = pioj), to our satisfactioji, that he was not 
wont to move in the more refined circles while on earth. The 
chief point remains, as the precedins: details seek to illustrate, 
that the whole description of the condition and suifering of these 
people paints for us a vivid picture of the life and doings of the 
gluttons of this lowest type. That people of the lower classes 
are not the only ones who people this circle of hell is, however, 
self-evident, and the meaning to be conveyed is merely this : that 
these are in the majority and that the poet has taken the colors 
for his picture from their life and doings. And that justly ; for 
whoever panders to these low vices sinks to the level of the most 
vulgar class of men, even though by virtue of rank, riches, or cul- 
ture he occupy a privileged position in society. 

On the misers and spendthrifts (fourth circle. Inf., vii, 22-26) a 
few short remarks will suffice, which are added only for the sake of 
completeness, as their relation has been justly recognized and 
duly mentioned above. It is well known that the reason that 
these two are mentioned together and suffer the same punishment 
is that, according to Aristotle, every [?] virtue is a mean between 
too much and too little, and misers and spendthrifts both are unable 
to iind this golden mean. Their opposite sins spring from a wrong 
estimation of the true value of earthly goods. The one overrates, 
the other underrates them. Both sins have for their inseparable 
companion a ceaseless inner unrest, and for that reason these souls 
appear ceaselessly fatiguing and harassing one another, the heavy 
masses of stone which they roll toward each other from opposite 
directions symbolizing the lumps of gold upon which they have 
spent all their efforts, all their meditations and speculations. The 
lump is now no longer an agreeable and desired burden, for the gold 
has lost its captivating glitter and appears as that which it is in 
reality — a heavy, barren mass, the burden of which oppresses the 
soul at first in the temporal state, afterward in eternity also. 
The affronts which they put upon one another echo on, as bitter 
reproaches, from eternity to eternity. And here, as everywhere 
else, the poet has transferred the temporal state of the soul to 
eternity. The lack of desire for rest becomes incapacity for rest, 
the voluntary toil and weariness have now become an enforced 
state, their lack of insight a disfigured countenance whicii ob- 
scures them from all recognition. 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 33 

As regards the sinners who people the fifth circle of hell, it is, 
to begin with, indispensable to decide the question wherein the 
sin of one half of them consists. They are all condeinned to the 
same punishment ; they lie in the far-extended, dark, grayish-red 
swamp which is formed by the waters of the Styx. But they 
differ in this that the ones in the swamp rise above its surface and 
storm against one another like animals, whilst the others are under 
water and, instead of beating and hacking at each other, scream 
out miserable lamentations in a gurgling tone and only make 
known their existence through the bubbles on the surface of the 
water. According to the oldest and thus far most generally 
accepted view, two classes of sinners are punished in this circle, 
which have sinned by opposite vices — namely, the angry and the 
indolent. In support of this view it is urged, in the first place, 
that those who are under the water themselves confess : " Portam- 
mo dentro accidioso fummo" (vii, 123). 

But as the sense of these words is obscure and doubtful, they 
prove absolutely nothing in themselves, but must be explained 
according to the context. The above-mentioned Aristotelian the- 
ory, holding virtue to be a mean between two extremes, which our 
poet adopted (" Convito," iv, 17), has also been appealed to. How- 
ever, it is but too plain that Dante in his classification of sins by 
no means followed this theory. Had he done so, we should meet 
in every circle of hell the spirits of those who sinned by opposite 
vices, which, however, can only be said with absolute certainty of 
tiie fourth circle. But the reason for grouping spendthrifts and 
misers together is not solely' the Aristotelian theory, but also the 
circumstance that misers and spendthrifts appear to work into 
each other's hands here below, which could be symbolically repre- 
sented only by making them occupy the same circle in hell. If 
now the grounds which are cited in support of this view are by no 
means stringent, there exist, on the other hand, reasons of no 
trifling importance which speak against it. It is true that the 
souls of this circle invite comparison with those of another — not 
of the fourth, but rather with those of the first division of the 
seventh. In truth, the punishments which the violent suffer bear 
a striking resemblance to those of the fifth circle, and there, as 
here, is a gradation — the sinners being immersed the deeper in the 
stream of boiling- blood the more heinous the crimes they have 
XXII— 3 



34 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

committed. Now, analogy would seem absolutely to demand 
that here too the immersion more or less deeply in the mire 
should be determined by the greater or less degree in which the 
respective sinners had pandered to the one vice. But why, if in- 
deed the indolent must be mentioned here, they should stick in 
the mire deeper than the angry, can by no means be divined or 
made to seem reasonable. And then have we not met the indo- 
lent before? Or do not the cowards whom we saw in the en- 
trance to hell belong to the family of the indolent ? This view 
(which I too formerly held and have retained in my commentary), 
furthermore, seems to be at variance with a subsequent passage of 
the poem. From xi, 70, and the following, it appears that in the 
second, third, fourth, and fifth circle the sins of Incontinentia 
are punished. Now, it is difficult to understand how the sin of 
sloth could be classed under those of Incontinentia. If we take 
into account, besides, that the passage (vii, 115, 116) seems to refer 
to all the sinners of this circle, we shall be obliged to see the 
angry in the Tristi also, who, because they harbor in their breast 
accidioso fummo^ are under water and — by the analogy of Inf., 
xii, 103-116 et seq.^ 121 et seq.., 125, 130 et seq. — such as have 
sinned more heinously than those which project above the water. 
To examine more closely the relation between the two classes of 
the angry cannot enter into the present disquisition. It suffices 
if we know in general with what kind of sinners we have to 
deal. 

The punishment which they suffer is, for one half of them at 
least, a double one. In the first place they are immersed in the 
marsh, covered with mud ; in the second they are striking, beating, 
biting, and lacerating one another. This second punishment is 
simply a continuation of their sin, for it is in storming and raging 
against others that anger seeks to find vent. Herein the angry 
one strives to satisfv his passion, for to storm and to rage is, it 
seems, a pleasure to him. It only seems so, however. To him 
who regards not only the external, but also penetrates into the 
depths of the soul, the matter wears a somewhat different aspect. 
The giving vent to rage is not a satisfaction but a torment, a hell 
which he who allows anger to get the mastery over himself car- 
ries in his own bosom — a hell which he neither \\\\\ nor dare 
shake off when he wanders across into the life hereafter, a hell 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 35 

whose torments there grow even keener, more intense, and tnore 
horrible. To this is added another element which must not be 
overlooked. These sinners not only rage against others, but they 
are exposed also to the outbreaks of fury on the part of others. 
They must thus suffer the very thing that they have inflicted on 
others, and upon them is fulfllled in its literal sense the word of 
the Scriptures (Matt, vii, 2) : " For with what judgment ye judge, 
ye shall be judged ; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be 
measured to you again." As regards the stream wherein they are 
immersed, we must look upon it as the sensual image of passion. 
As passion disfigures man not only in his innermost soul, but also 
in his outwardly visible features, so the Styx disfigures these spir- 
its by covering them with its loathsome mire. As anger sur- 
rounds man with a mist, depriving him of the proper use of his 
powers of understanding, so the spirits of the angry are corre- 
spondingly enveloped in mist by the dark and gloomy stream. 
Man is even hindered in the use of his organs of sense by passion, 
the spirits of this circle by the mire beneath which they utter their 
sighs. They cannot fully express their lament ; they can only con- 
vey it by a rattling sound of the throat. As anger blinds man, 
so these spirits are deprived of all light. The poet, it is true, does 
not especially dwell upon this point; but this was by no means 
necessary. It is self-evident that those who sigh under the water 
can have positively no use for their organs of sight, the more so- 
as the mournful stream is described as dark — indeed, is simply 
called the black marsh — belletta negra. 

So far the finding of relations between sins and punishments 
has presented no serious difficulties. This changes, however, as 
soon as, at the hand of our poet, we pass the threshold of Dis, the 
city of hell ! In the sixth circle we meet with the heretics (Inf., 
ix, X, xi), whose punishment consists in lying in sepulchres aglow 
with fire, the lids of which are raised until the day of judgment, 
but thenceforward to be closed for all eternity. Now, what 
have these sepulchres to do with heresy % And what relation lies 
in the circumstance so significantly dwelt upon that the tombs 
are open as long as time endures, but shall be closed when time 
shall be no more? The interpreters, so far as I can see, have not 
propounded this second question at all, or, if it did present itself 
to their minds, they have passed it over in silence. As regards 



36 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the first question, the fact has been quite generally noted that 
punishment by lire was in the middle ages considered as the most 
appropriate for the sin of heresj ; but clearly this observation, 
which betrays no great profundity, does not in the least serve our 
purpose, for in our poet we have not to do with the stake whereon 
the heretic was burned, but with tombs. And that Dante was not 
thinking of the usual manner of punishing heretics is not only 
clear from the circumstance that punishment by tire occurs in 
other parts of his poem, but also because tire seems to play an 
even more important part in the punishment of other sinners than 
in that of the heretics. It is quite possible, of course, that the 
poet had in his mind the j)unishment of heretics common in his 
time; but this circumstance would not explain to us the relations 
between heresy and the torment the heretics are made to suffer 
in his hell. 

If we proceed from the position that, according to the biblical 
principle, " Wherewith thou sinnest thereby shalt thou be pun- 
ished," the punishments in Dante's hell are a continuation of the 
inner state of the sinner on earth, we must, in order to discover 
the relations between sin and punishinent, inquire into the inner 
state of the heretic as pictured in the poet's mind. I think I have 
found the key to the solution of this question in passage x, 13-15. 
According to this, heresy consists in the main in the denial of im- 
mortality in the belief that the soul ceases to exist at the same 
time with the body ; but if herein lies the real gravity of their sin, 
it is easy to discern its relation to the punishment which such 
souls are subjected to. They have in a certain sense found in the 
hereafter exactly what they expected to find. Life, according to 
them, ceases with the tomb, the church-yard, the grave; and, in 
truth, a tomb, a church-yard, a grave, have become the end and 
goal of their existence. The tomb, according to them, the last 
goal of all development of the spirit longing for eternity, receives 
them and forever holds them prisoner. They could not direct 
their glance beyond church-yard and grave ; now church-yard and 
grave have become their eternal habitation ; but, of course, they 
have not found the repose of no longer existing, of no longer feel- 
ing. The tt>mb wherein they lie is red-hot — no abode of rest, a 
place of bitter torment rather, for it is a mistake to l)elieve that 
the denier of eternitv finds rest in the thouy-ht that his existence 



n 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 37 

will have ceased when once he lies in his tomb. This idea, in- 
deed, regarded in its true light, is neither more nor less than the 
red-hot tomb of Dante's hell, whose fire consumes all strangth and 
enthusiasm and oppresses the soul, burdening it with pressure as 
of hundred-pound weights ; and so the punishment to which the 
poet condemns his sinners appears as a well calculated and happily 
accomplished disclosure of the condition of their inmost soul. 
The second of the questions above propounded is also easily an- 
swered from this point of view. Being, seeing, and knowledge are 
possible, according to the deniers of eternity, only as long as the 
world perceptible to the senses exists;. but if the world should 
some time fall to pieces, then all being ceases, for no one will be 
there to say, I am. All seeing ceases, for extinguished is every 
material eye, which alone, as they opine, can see. All knowledge 
ceases, for those who would know are no more. According to 
this view, the universe is nothing but an immense church-yard full 
of graves which hold both soul and body. Therefore the poet 
closes their tombs forever from the moment when the world of 
sense reaches its end. Their knowledge ceases in its absolute 
sense from this moment, as does also their vision (Inf., x, 106). 
They lie, then, in their tombs with body and soul as they de- 
sired. Desired because the proposition that man most readily he- 
lieves what he most ardently desires is scarce anvwhere as fullv 
verified as in this instance. 

Considering this, the punishment appears no less clear and ap- 
propriate in this circle than in the preceding ones. According as 
the ])assage from which we proceeded is interpreted, the objection 
might be raised that only one class of heretics is here spoken of, 
and the presumption that the poet considers every heresy at bot- 
tom a denial of immortality might be deemed erroneous. We 
have to say against this that the poet, in spite of the grande avello 
(xi, 7), only speaks of heretics, " che Tanima col corpo morta fan- 
no," and that this passage must be made to refer to all the heretics 
of Dante's hell — a position which, to be sure, can only be main- 
tained by fully disproving any counter-objection. The observa- 
tion is here to be added that the expression da questa parte (x, 13) 
must be applied to the whole of the sixth circle, and not merely to 
a part of it. 

In the " Purgatorio " (xii, 56) Dante had in mind the legend 



38 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

mentioned by Herodotus and Justin of the Scythian queen Tomy- 
ris, who is said to have ordered the head of Cyrus to be thrown 
into a vessel full of human blood, and to have exclaimed : " After 
blood thou didst thirst ; I will fill thee with blood ! " The author 
of the Revelation of John writes : " For they have shed the blood 
of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink ! " 
We therefore find the shedders of blood in Dante's hell in a stream 
of blood, in which they are immersed more or less deeply, accord- 
ing to the quantity of blood which they have shed upon earth. 
It seems as if the blood that was shed flowed down to hell, there 
to await the arrival of the shedder for the purpose of avenging 
itself upon him. And if we seek this hell in the bosoms of the 
murderers and tj'rants themselves, Shakespeare's 3facbeth, for 
instance, furnishes the commentary to this sort of punishment. 
The unlawfully shed blood cleaves to the sinner ; he cannot wash 
it off ; he is doomed to his torture ever to see it before him. The 
murderer in all probability will not fail to make efforts to escape 
from the tormenting thoughts, from the harassing view of blood. 
But vain are all his pains, for divine justice has placed guards in 
the persons of the Centaurs, who circle round the damned pool, 
checking with their shafts each one who emerges farther than his 
guilt permits (Inf , xii, 73). Boccaccio sees in the Centaurs the 
images of the warriors, the myrmidons and the assassins whom 
the tyrants and the violent are wont to employ for the execution 
of their plans. In support of this conception it might be observed 
that the mere view of the instrument which has served him re- 
awakens in the soul of the murderer thoughts of the blood he has 
shed. However, there seems to be neither a necessity nor an in- 
dication for seeing in the mythological figures which the poet 
emploj-s in his hell concrete embodiments of earth-life. We 
shall have to regard them rather as the abstract symbols partly 
of the sin in question, partly of the instruments of divine 
vengeance. So the Minotaur is here in its double nature the 
abstract symbol of cruelty and violence, which owe their ori- 
gin to sin against nature, and partake as well of bestiality as 
of humanity. And so the strong and fleet-footed Centaurs must 
be regarded as the abstract symbols of the instruments by 
which divine penal justice causes its vengeance to be wreaked 
ui)on the sinner. Perhaps the poet may have had it in his mind 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 39 

to hold up these brutal bloody-minded Centaurs before the ty- 
rants and the violent as a mirror wherein they might recognize 
their own image. 

A dismally sombre but inimitably true soul-painting is displayed 
to us when we enter the second division of the seventh circle. A 
soul-painting we call it, for it is the subjective world of the de- 
spairing which has here become objective. The view of external 
nature which Ulls the poet with rapture and makes him intonate 
the song that is wont ever to refresh and revive the human heart 
and make it forget its vulgar earthly sorrows — this view does not 
have a cheering influence upon the darkened soul, for such a soul 
only perceives the night side of nature and of human life, and 
wherever it turns its gaze the image of its own interior presents 
itself. When the world and all earthly things cease to have a 
charm for man — when he is able to perceive only pain and sor- 
row on all sides — when every hope is dead in liis heart and the 
last spark of faith in God has disappeared — then he forcibly severs 
the tie that connects him with the terrestrial world, then the be- 
nighted soul plunges into eternity of its own accord. A thicket 
without a path, without an exit — so the world appears to such a 
soul. The green which refreshes the eye does not exist for it, but 
has been transformed to a sombre color {color fosco, Inf., xiii, 4). 
The branches of the tree seem gnarled and matted, its fruit poison- 
bearing thorns ; monsters only, hideous harpies, inhabit such a 
horrible world ; howling and lamentation, and not songs of joy, 
are heard there. Thus the world appears to the suicide, and thus 
the poet paints to us the world where the suicides dwell in eternity. 
Here we readily perceive that in Dante's hell we have to do pri- 
marily with the unfolding of inner life, and that that hell is to be 
sought for not only in eternity, but already in time. The same 
is true of those other sinners of this circle who have not, it is true, 
laid hand upon themselves, but who have squandered their earthly 
possessions and have then, like Lano of Sienna, sought and found 
death. They are " naked," for they have squandered all — down 
to their very clothing — torn with briers, for they are exposed to 
all kinds of necessity and privation ; they are persecuted by raven- 
ous black female dogs, which are probably the symbol of their 
persecuting creditors. Here, therefore, is a punishment in hell 
which is already accomplished in this world — a punishment in 



40' The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

hell which is nothing else than the necessary consequence of the 
sin in question. 

But these consequences of sin are not only temporal, but eternal 
as well. Surely it is not unintentional that in this circle the in- 
cidents of the last judgment are again referred to. Precisely 
because his description seems to wear the character of earth-life 
the poet, no doubt, desired by this express mention to admonish 
the reader not to remain stationary and content here below, but 
to fix his gaze, upon the hereafter. And here, too, the punishment 
in the hereafter appears as a continuation and an involution of the 
earthly condition of the soul. Yonder the benighted soul sees 
itself surrounded by a world which exactly corresponds to the 
shape with which it had here invested the beautiful world of 
God. Yonder that soul is a slave of chance (xiii, 97); here it 
imagined that blind chance alone reigned. Yonder it hangs its 
body for all eternity, as here below it hung it temporarily only. 
In a word, that moment in which the soul, being utterly benighted, 
despaired of everything and forcibly tore itself asunder from life 
and its earthly vesture — that moment continues through all 

eternity. 

" Andiani, chh la via lunga ne sospigne ! " 

The third round of the seventh circle is inhabited by the vio- 
lent against God, which are divided into three classes — blasphem- 
ers, Sodomites, and usurers. They all dwell in an arid desert, 
which is deluged with a rain of fire from above. The blasphem- 
ers lie stretched upon their backs, the usurers are seated in a 
crouching attitude, and the Sodomites run ceaselessly to and fro 
upon the burning soil. The idea of the punishment which these sin- 
ners suffer is taken from Biblical passages. According to Jewish 
mythology, God "• rained brimstone and fire from the Lord out of 
heaven " upon the Sodomites (Genesis, xix, 24), which the author 
of the pseudonymous epistle of Jude (5, 7) enlarges upon, so that, 
according to him, the Sodomites are " suffering the vengeance of 
eternal fire." As, furthermore, all these sinners in question are 
such as " offer violence unto God " (Inf., xi, 46) — unto that God 
which th.e Scriptures now and then call a " consuming fire " (Deu- 
teronomy, iv, 24 ; Hebrews, xii, 29, etc.)— the poet may have taken 
this for an indication that the fire of divine anger rains down 
upon them, and that the soil whereupon they stand " is devoured 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 41 

bj the fire of his jealousy " (Zephan. i, 18). It is to be observed, 
moreover, that the sin of tliese souls is essentially sin against na- 
ture. That this is the case is obvious as regards the Sodomites, 
and as regards the usurers the poet has made the same assertion 
before (Inf., xi, 94). But blasphemy also is an unnatural sin, a 
sin contrary to Nature — Nature herself teaching man to love, 
praise, and glorifj' Him, who is the first cause and the author of 
all good, " for in him we live and move and have our being" 
(Acts, xvii, 28). Therefore Graul, who, in spite of some extrava- 
gant ideas, is very profound and has been too much disregarded, 
calls the blasphemers, not without good reason, " the most unnat- 
ural of the unnatural." If, accordingly, the sin of the inhabitants 
of this circle consists essentially in unnaturalness, here again it 
happens that " whereby they have sinned, thereby shall they be 
punished." The fiery rain is the counterpart of the natural rain 
which revives and refreshes the fields ; the arid and burning 
desert, the counterpart of the natural soil of earth. Here too the 
condition of the sinner's soul is made objective. We gaze into a 
soul which looks like an arid desert, upon which the tire of divine 
anger is incessantly raining — which is barren of every good work 
whatever. We see at the same time in the eternal punishment 
imposed upon such a soul a continuation again and a higher 
potency of its internal state in this world. 

If, then, the relations between sin and punishment are here dis- 
closed to us in general, we are struck, on closer inspection of the 
single classes of sinners, by the authentic expression of the fact 
that the punishment of the damned consists really and essentially 
in the continuation of their ancient state of sin. On the one hand, 
Capaneus continues to blaspheme in hell and boast, " Such as I 
was when living, such now I am dead " (Inf., xiv, 51). On the 
other hand, Dante's guide confronts him with the significant 

words (Inf., xiv, 63-66) : 

" Capaneus ! 
Thou art punish'd, in that this thy pride 
Lives yet unquench'd ; no torrent save thy rage 
Were to thy fury pain proportion'd full." 

It is not then in the external infliction of pain that the punish- 
ment of the damned consists, but rather in his having carried over 
into eternity his own self, and in having carried it over in that very 



42 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

condition to which, by virtue of his own free will, he had devel- 
oped and formed it in time. Upon death the account is summed 
up ; this sum represents the net result of a life which the soul car- 
ries with it to the hereafter and retains there forever. 

If the highest degree of unnaturalness is represented by tlie 
region assigned to all the violent against God and nature, the 
position given to the sinners by the poet in this one region marks 
a difference, according to the quality of the sin committed. The 
blasphemers lie outstretched upon their backs on the blazing 
ground. This position illustrates the impotence of man in oppo- 
sition to that God whom in his delusion he believed himself able 
to dethrone. By this position such sinners are forced to gaze 
above, upward, as it were, to that heaven against which they 
have launched so many curses and blasphemies — to that heaven 
where all these now accumulated curses and blasphemies appall- 
ingly present themselves to their sight. Nay, more ! The curses 
and blasphemies fall back upon them from above in the shape of 
fiery flames, that drop down, scorching their souls. The very 
arms which. Titan-like, they had raised with clenched fists toward 
lieaven, accompanying their blasphemies with this gesture, are 
now kept in ceaseless motion by them (xiv, 40, sqq.), to ward off, 
if possible, the blasphemies now falling back upon them. The 
Sodomites suffer a punishment similar to that inflicted upon the 
voluptuous in the second circle. As there the storm of passion 
seizes the spirits and sways them backward and forward in agony, 
so here their unnatural lust gives these spirits no rest, neither by 
day nor by night. Hither and thither they run without respite, 
and that in correspondence with their sin upon a fearfully unnat- 
ural soil and in a constant unnatural rain. The usurers have, like 
Capaneus, remained in death what they were in life. They, who 
never worked themselves, but made others work for them, now sit 
crouching upon the ground. They have taken with them into 
the hereafter their money-bags, on which in life all their 
thoughts and dreams centred. Who they are is only made 
known by the emblem upon their money-bags ; the face does 
not discover them, for it is as devoid of character as their 
actions have ever been. And as the money-bags had absorbed 
all their tlioughts here below and had not left them time to 
think of anything higher, so yonder, also, the money-bags are the 



Congruence of Shis arid Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 48 

only delight of their eyes. To be sure they cannot now lay their 
hands quietly in their laps, but must keep them in ceaseless 
motion to shield themselves from the fire falling down upon them. 
*^ Base through and through," as the above-mentioned Graul ap- 
propriately remarks, " these high-born usurers know no other con- 
versation than malicious gossip about other usurers of their native 
cities, thus in reality maligning themselves, and in doing this they 
make dog-like noises and stick out their tongues like oxen." In 
their low, beastly behavior (xvii, 49 sq. 74, sq^ the intei'ior of a 
soul is mirrored, having neither interest nor taste for the ideal 
good of mankind — for them there is nothing more sublime, neither 
in heaven nor upon earth, than their dear money-bag and its con- 
tents. Whatever more refined manners they tnay have assumed 
are but an outside garment, which vanishes in the light of etern- 
ity and before the eye of the poet. 

As soon as we reach the sinners of the first chasm (" Bolgia ") 
we notice a certain resemblance between them and those of the 
fourth circle. As there, so here, they are separated into two 
troops ; as there, so here, they move in opposite directions. 
The panders might be likened to the spendthrifts, the seducers 
to the avaricious, inasmuch as the latter onlv seek their own 
interest or pleasure, the former that of others also. In assign- 
ing to the seducers a place nearer the centre (xviii, 26, 2Y), 
the poet pronounces a sentence directly opposed to the general 
verdict. In the eyes of the world seduction is far less disgrace- 
ful than the trade of a pander. Dante considers panders and 
seducers alike guilty, and, in case a difference of degree is 
assumed to exist in their guilt, the latter more so than the for- 
mer. As regards the nature of their sin, it is here again baseness 
that we have before us, but a baseness which is inseparably linked 
to infamy. The honor of another has absolutely no value for 
these two classes of sinners; they were utterly incapable of re- 
specting it during life. These people unscrupulously sacrificed 
the honor of woman, the one to contemptible interest, the other 
to contemptible lust. And in this their own infamy was re- 
vealed at the same time ; for whoever looks upon the honor of 
another as a mere illusion, as a worthless possession, which may 
be squandered and destroyed at pleasure, proves thereby that 
honor, in general, his own included, is to him but as a phantom, 



4* The Journal of Speculative Philosopky. 

a mere outward, empty illusion. Therefore the damned of this 
ditch, thono;li their position locally qualities them as blacker sin- 
ners than those of former circles, suffer a punishment which seems 
less severe thau most of those before witnessed. Only that this 
apparently lighter punishment is — in exact correspondence with 
their character and with their sin — an infamous one. They them- 
selves are so conscious of their infamy, they know so well that they 
are placed in the pillory, as it were, that here for the first time we 
see sinners who seek to hide their countenance from the searching 
gaze of the poet (xviii, 46, 47). This latter circumstance seems to 
give us the key to the relation between sin and punishment. To 
he sure, we meet not a few sinners of this class, who are impudent 
enough to boast of their vice. Yet in their inmost souls they 
bear the consciousness of their own baseness and infamy. Be- 
fore every earnest eye their own gaze must drop. The whiplashes 
of their own conscience destroy their illusions and call to their 
minds what they are in reality. This is the condition of their 
soul, this the hell, where in time already they dwell, and which 
will pursue them into eternity, there to be fully accomplished. 
Furthermore, it must not be overlooked that this is the only place 
in all the poem where horned devils appear. The correct expla- 
nation of this circumstance Kopisch has given, in so far as time is 
concerned, and Blanc as regards eternity. Kopisch observes : 
" The anger of the betrayed husbands and relations comes into the 
consciousness of these sinners in the shape of horned demons, be- 
fore whose scourges their souls forever flee, as the Sodomites flee 
before the flame-vision of God, against whom they have sinned." 
And Blanc writes : " The poet depicts these demons as horned 
for this reason : that they are ever to remind the condemned, in a 
horrid manner, of the husbands whom they deceived, and in mock- 
ery called hecchi cornutiP 

In the case of the flatterers the congruence is so clear that it is 
scarcely necessary to stop to point it out. They are in Dante's 
hell such as they are in life, and as they appear not only to the 
penetrating eye of the poet, but to every honest man as well : in- 
dividuals wallowing iti tilth. In the poetic hell they continue 
their trade of " lick-spittle." To be sure, the weaknesses, faults, 
and vices which they seek to palliate or even to praise here appear 
as what they are — as filth. In this filth the flatteries themselves. 



Congruence of Sins and PunishTnents in Dimite's Inferno. 45 

wbicli to a frank man present so disgusting an aspect, are perhaps 
supposed to be mirrored. They strike themselves (xviii, 105), for 
with each adulation the flatterer gives himself a blow. Regarding 
the ordure in which they wallow, the poet remarks that it " ap- 
peared to ooze from human privies" (xviii, 114). As the tears 
flow downward and form the rivers of hell, so, as it were, all the 
iilth of earth flows down to fill up the ditch where these miserable 
creatures dwell. Together with the flatterers, in the exact sense 
of the word, we find the courtesans, for the reason, probably, as 
Philalethes observes, because " their shameful trade is also based 
upon flattering, wanton arts and wiles." 

Crossing over to the third chasm, we see, as it were, an inverted 
world opening out before us. The reason is not difficult to guess. 
Perversity is the essence of the sin which takes its name from the 
mythical Simon Magus (Acts, viii, 9, sq.). The Simonist reverses 
the precepts of the Gospel. " But seek ye first the kingdom of 
God and his righteousness" ; thus reads the precept of the Gospel 
(Matt, vi, 33). But the principle according to which the damned 
of this " chasm " (xix, 7) acted and lived reads quite the reverse : 
" But seek ye first money and earthly possessions, and the king- 
dom of God will on occasion be added to you also." The mer- 
chant in the Gospel sold all he had to buy the one precious pearl 
(Matt, xiii, 45, 46). These merchants, on the contrary, sold the 
one precious pearl to purchase instead perishable earthly goods. 
Although it was their sacred vocation to hate evil and love good, 
to seek good and not evil (Amos, v, 14, 15), they have, on the con- 
trary, loved and sought evil, treading the good under foot (Inf., 
xix, 105). Reversing the divine order of the world, they have 
called the bad good and the good bad. They have put darkness 
for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bit- 
ter (Isaiah, v, 20). That which according to Christ's command- 
ment (Matt. X, 8) they ought to have given freely, they have, on 
the contrary, delivered to the highest bidder. They trod into the 
dust the flame of the Holy Ghost which was to have illumined 
their minds and to have made them capable to win souls for the 
kingdom of heaven, and they made it serve the sole purpose of 
amassing worldlv treasures. Their walk should have been as a 
" walk in heaven " (Phil, iii, 20). They, however, did not find 
the strength and enthusiasm to soar upward ; they permitted them- 



46 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

selves to be held and chained by the narrowness of the earth. 
Not in heaven above, in the depths of the earth they sought their 
God and thought to find him (Inf., xix, 112 sq^. Therefore their 
head and trunk are thrust into the earth, whence they stretch 
forth their legs into the air as if they were striving to penetrate 
into the depths of the earth, perchance there to seek precious ore. 
Therefore the gaze upward is now made impossible to them, now 
they cannot gaze there any more, whither they would not gaze be- 
fore. Therefore has this earth of which alone they thought, for 
wliich alone they cared, and above which they could not raise 
themselves, become ever narrower little by little until it is no more 
than a hole into which they are thrust, unable to move. Therefore 
the cloven tongues of fire (Acts, ii, 3, sq^ have become gliding 
flames which consume the soles of those very feet wherewith they 
had been trodden into the dust. The flames which lick the soles of 
the Simonists might also be regarded as the opposite of the aure- 
ola. They were indeed called upon to win the glory of the saints. 
But, as they accounted this glory for nothing and trod it under 
foot, it now clings to their soles and has been transformed from a 
splendid ornament to a horrible torment ; and at last the poet 
makes them sink entirely into the entrails of that earth which 
alone they sought, there forever to remain. This sinking down 
does not, of course, bring with it a diminution of their suifering ; 
on the contrary, it must be regarded as a heightening of their 
torments. 

Before turning from the Simonists another very obvious rela- 
tion must be touched upon. Dante puts into the mouth of Pope 
Nicolas III the words : " My havings in my purse above I stowed 
— and here myself" (su I'avere, e qui me misi in borsa, Inf., xix, 
Y2). It will not be amiss, then, to regard the hole into which the 
condemned one is thrust and which is here called a ''purse," as 
the symbol of the money-bag which contains the " treasure " of 
the Simonist, and consequently, according to an expression of 
Christ (compare Matt, vi, 21, Luke, xii, 34), the " heart " also of 
the Simonist. And now what fearful irony of divine justice! It 
was the highest solicitude of the condemned, their only object in 
life, to fill their money-bag. To attain this object they carried on 
a most shameful traffic with all, even with the most holy things. 
Now, in the third chasm they enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in DanWs Inferno. 47 

purse full — so full that they could not possibly desire it fuller. To 
be sure, it is not filled with gold and silver. They themselves 
have got into the purse, wliere they had placed their heart. Truly, 
not a very dignified treatment of human beings, especially not of 
such eminent gentlemen as we see here, not a very worthy treat- 
ment to be stuffed into a purse, like single pieces of dead metal ! 
Eternal justice here treats them exactly as they treated the spirit- 
ual, the eternal good. Whenever they possibly could, they put 
these eternal goods into their money-bags and thereby pronounced 
their own sentence. 

According to the gospel-legend (Acts, viii, 9), Simon, the pro- 
genitor of the Simonists, had occupied himself with sorcery before 
he was converted to Christianity, and for a long time had be- 
witched the Samaritans with sorceries. Both vices, sorcery and 
simony, in him were united in one person. Indeed, an intimate 
connection between these two sins is not to be denied ; for, to 
quote Graul again, " Whoev^er seeks to obtain the power of im- 
parting the Holy Ghost for money and for the sake of money, he, 
like Simon, sees in this power no more than an act of magic, and, 
unhallowed as he is, will not shrink from abusing the gift bestowed 
upon him to perform miracles, and may in the end even join hands 
with those lying powers, by the assistance of which the sorcerer 
accomplishes his juggling tricks, for from the desecration of the 
Holy Ghost it is but a step to the submission to the evil one." 
Therefore in Dante the sorcerers and soothsayers follow the 
Simonists. The ditch wherein these are located presents, like the 
preceding one, the aspect of inversion, only inversion of a differ- 
ent nature. Each one is reversed from the chin to the beginning 
of the trunk. 

" Each wondrously seem'd to be revers'd 
At the neck-bone, so that the countenance 
Was from the veins averted ; and because 
None might before hira look, they were compell'd 
To advance with backward gait." 

What is the essence of the vice to which these damned ones 
were addicted ? An arbitrary and wicked interference with the 
ways of divine Providence and his government of the world. The 
soothsayer seeks to investigate futurity and the occult — indeed, 



48 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

everything which, according to divine law, sliould remain veiled 
to the human eye. The sorcerer strives, by the aid of supernatural 
forces and powers subservient to himself, spirits subterranean or 
superterrestrial, to limit divine rule by his own positive interfer- 
ence. But we must lay stress on the fact that Dante sums up 
soothsaying and sorcery under the general head of fraud {frode) 
(Inf., xi, 58). This seems to express a strong doubt of the actual- 
ity of soothsayings and wonderworkings by demoniac aid, and to 
regard the doings of this class of sinners as simple fraud calculated 
to deceive the superstitious. If this was, indeed, the purport of 
the poet — which I do not dare positively to assert — we should 
liere have a new and brilliant proof of how high he stood above 
his time and his contemporaries. 

The punishment which these sinners suffer consists in having 
their necks twisted, so that, instead of looking forward, they gaze 
backward, and are forced to walk the crab's walk. So they wan- 
der along, silent and in tears, with slow steps. Graul, whom I 
cite repeatedly, because he of all Dante investigators has expended 
the most care upon the finding of relations between sins and pun- 
ishments, tliinks that God, externally to portray the perversity of 
their doings, worked a penal miracle (Strafwunder) upon them, 
as he did upon the sorcerer and false prophet Ely mas (Acts, xiii, 
8-11). How little apt this observation is, is evident from the fact 
that in other circles, too, we meet with miraculous punishments, 
and such as are greater still than the one here in question. We 
call to mind the suicides, the thieves, the evil counsellors, and the 
schismatics! Upon all of these God has worked greater penal 
miracles than upon the soothsayers and sorcerers. And, further- 
more, we must presuppose here, too, physical punishment to be 
only a symbol of the spiritual condition of the sinner hardened in 
his sin (compare Witte, introduction to his translation of the "Di- 
vina Commedia," p. 12). Even supposing God to have worked 
a penal miracle upon them, we must still ask, How is this miracle 
an emblem of their spiritual state? — a question which in the above 
observation is not touched uj)()n, much less answered. 

If we m<u"e closely inspect the punishment, Dante himself (xx, 
22) calls our attention to that wherein it principally consists. 
What moves him, moves him to tears, is to view "our form dis- 
torted." According to this, it seems that the distortion of the 



Cong7'ueiice of Sins and Punishments in Daniels Inferno. 49 

liuman form constitutes the essence of the punishment. But the 
sin of sorcery and soothsaying may also be traced back to unnat- 
ural distortion and perversity, and that from the modern as well 
as from the ancient stand-point. Proceeding on the ancient view, 
according to which sorcery is accounted more than mere fraud 
and trickery, it (soothsaying as well as miracle-working sorcery) 
appears as distortion and perversity, inasmuch as it transgresses 
and perverts the order established by God, displaces the boundaries 
between the visible and invisible world, and makes man under- 
take to associate with unearthly powers, before which his pure, 
natural human feeling, aside from the fear of God, should cause 
him to flee. Upon this latter circumstance the chief stress is laid. 
It is precisely this perverse and unnatural looking toward the dark 
powers, the seeking aid there, whence only harm and ruin can 
come, which the poet has depicted. At the same time, the pun- 
ishment of these damned ones presents a picture of their power- 
lessness and of their vain endeavors. They who with their gaze 
thought to embrace not only the present and the past, but also the 
future, they cannot now even see the things nearest before them. 
They who were so ready to open their mouths to speak of secrets 
hidden from others are here silent (v, 8). They who were once 
so ready to laugh at the credulity of their fellow-men here weep 
over their own misery. They who were so eager to move forward 
rapidly now walk backward at a slow pace. 

But if, on the other hand, perhaps in accordance with our poet, 
we regard sorcery from the modern stand-point, it consists in the 
perversion and distortion of truth. Looked at from both stand- 
points, the punishment presents itself, on the one hand, as the 
disclosure of the spiritual state of the sinner; on the other hand, 
as a just retribution, corresponding exactly to his sin. The inner 
perversity of the sense, the aridity and barrenness of the heart, 
the consciousness of their own misery, the incapacity to rouse 
themselves from their state of sin and to enter new and separate 
paths — all this is poetically portrayed in the condition in which 
we find the condemned of the fourth chasm. On the other hand, 
what they have done unto others, that has here befallen them. 
As by their fraudulent tricks of legerdemain they have turned 
people's heads, so now their own heads have been turned. As 
they worked with all their might to promote the retrogression of 
XXII— 4 



50 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

morals and culture, so here they must walk backward. As b}' 
their fraud they often wrung tears from those they defrauded, so 
here they shed abundant tears. Accordiiig to the "^'ws talionis^'^ 
like has been requited by like. 

To the harattieri Dante devotes two whole cantos (xxi, xxii). 
In spite of the terror of the punishment as well as the critical 
condition in which the two poets are placed, the description here 
passes from the tragic to the comic ironical style. The poet has 
covered tbe sinners of this chasm with marked scorn (compare 
xxi, 37 sqq.., 46 sq., xxii, 25 «$'., 49 sq.^ 85 «$'.), probably from 
very personal reasons. His enemies had, as is well known, ac- 
cused him of haratterla., and it is for this reason probably that 
Dante pours out the vials of his scorn over the harattieri to prove 
how far he was removed from indulging in a sin he despised from 
the bottom of his heart. The danger, too, into which he and his 
guide fall might be interpreted as a slight allusion to actual dan- 
gers passed through from temptation by venal officers, for while 
reading these two cantos the idea involuntarily obtrudes itself 
upon us that the ill-famed decree of the Cante cW Gabrielli would 
furnish the best commentary to them ; but we will let this ques- 
tion, which does not immediately concern our subject, rest in it- 
self, and we will more closely inspect the sin and ])unishment of 
these condemned. Bribery and office-selling are vices which sneak 
about in the dark and do not step before the public, as do, for in- 
stance, sorcery and soothsaying. Therefore Dante remarks that 
the ditch of the harattieri is exceedingly dark (mirabilmente os- 
cura, xxi, 6), for it is easy to sneak and whisper in the dark. The 
venal one avoids the light. He would like to envelop himself and 
his deeds in eternal darkness. So these sinners are steeped in 
pitch which effectually hides them from the eyes of men. Their 
wish is fulfilled. And yet how painful is their condition ! The 
darkness with which they must surround themselves burns into 
their consciences like the boiling pitch in the fifth chasm. If such 
a being dares to show himself by dRylight he immediately beholds 
the threatening hooks, which force him to dive down again ; but 
those who threaten are devils. Like seeks its like no less in 
Dante's poetic hell than in the world. In the devils, too, we see 
in a certain measure the image of the harattieri. Dante has very 
well illustrated the life and actions of this class of people as well 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante s Inferno. 51 

as their inner state, mutual enmity, pleasure at others' misfor- 
tunes, hatred ; besides this, inner fear and torment. Dante hints 
that he has in mind the doings in life here below by the mocking 
speech he puts into the mouth of the devils (xxi, 53, 54) : " Cov- 
er'd thou must sport thee here. So if thou canst, in secret mayst 
thou filch." It is further to be observed that the poet repeatedly 
uses the verb inviscare (xxi, 18, xxii, 144). The expression has a 
double meaning. In its direct sense it means to rub or paste over 
with bird-lime ; in its figurative sense it signifies to deceive, en- 
trap by fraud, etc. So we can say, " L'arte del barattiere invischia 
gli incauti " — that is, the venal man catches the incautious by his 
tricks. It is characteristic that now the' inviscatori are them- 
selves invisoati. They have themselves fallen into the pit they 
dug for others. Tliis is then an entirely suitable punishment, and 
discloses at the same time the true state of the soul. The poet 
says of one of these harattieri (xxii, 109) that he " fail'd not in 
rich store of nice- wove toils " {aveva lacoiuoli a gran dovizia). 
What is true of this one is true also of all others. Craft is their 
weapon ; but it turns upon themselves. By his craft a Ciampolo 
only succeeds in exchanging one torment for another — the tor- 
ment intended for him by the devils for that in the boiling pitch. 

Griul very aptly remarks : " These swindler-souls who brought 
others into the pitch [a German idiomatic expression, meaning^ 
who brought misery upon others] are now themselves over head 
and ears immersed in the pitch, in which, because it is easy to 
catch fish in muddy water [also a cant phrase in German], they 
dart about to their heart's content. Dante sees only a mass of 
pitch covering all these sinners, who were so fond of getting to- 
gether under one cover [German idiomatic expression, which sig- 
nifies to be in a ring with, to conspire together, make a secret 
agreement]." 

The cantos relating to these sinners are written in a somewhat 
burlesque style, corresponding entirely to the character of the in- 
habitants of the fifth ditch. The appearance of the arrant knave 
is more droll than terrible ; but this comic exterior serves only to 
hide something bitterly earnest. The same is true of the cantos 
dedicated to these rogues. In spite of the burlesque form, cor- 
ruption is most excellently described in all its dangerous power 
and in all its hideousness. We must remember that the devils 



52 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

which here appear represent types of rogues, a fact ah-eady indi- 
cated by their really comical names. To subdue them, Virgil is 
obliged to appeal to them in the name of God (xxi, 78) ; and still 
to a certain degree the poets are made the victims of their craft. 
Here the lie takes the semblance of trutii to ruin them. Even 
Virgil, the type of enlightened human reason, does not see through 
the lie. All these are telling illustrations. It is difficult even for 
the prudent and the cautious to avoid the snares of such rogues. 
Dante himself has had the painful experience. 

Venality blots out and confuses in a horrid manner all traces of 
right and justice among men. But so great and strong is the 
power of right that it infuses respect even into those who in 
their souls are opposed to it. When right itself is missing, men 
seek to retain its semblance at least. Here we have hypocrisy, 
which consists in this : that men strive to appear different on the 
outside from what they are inwardly ; they wish to appear just 
while trampling justice under foot, affectionate while sacrificing 
everything to their selfish pleasures, huinble while placing them- 
selves above all others, fearing God while adoring no God but 
themselves, sincere while harboring deceit and falseness in their 
hearts. 

The hypocrites are most plastically drawn by Dante. He calls 
them a " painted tribe " (gente dipinta). This, of course, does not 
refer to their clothing, but to their faces, which are not shown in 
their natural color, but painted. The painted woman wishes to 
appear more beautiful than she is ; the hypocrite, as before said, 
better, more pious than he is. Therefore Christ calls the hypo- 
critical Pharisees " whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beau- 
tiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all 
uncleanness" (Matt, xxiii, 27), a passage from which doubtless 
our poet has borrowed the term gente dipinta. These whitened 
people " move along at a slow pace " (xxiii, 59) — exactly in the 
manner of hypocrites, whose measured step resembles that of a 
solemn procession, and who seek thereby to make exhibition of a 
seriousness, a collected ness, and a punctilious bearing totally for- 
eign to their inmost nature. In tears these people advance (xxiii, 
60) — the tearful manner being a characteristic of the hypocrite. 
We are familiar with the rolling of eyes and the settled melan- 
choly over the world's woe displayed by those who are of a sad 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Daniels Inferno. 53 

countenance; for thej "disfigure their faces, tliat tliey may 
appear unto men to fast " (Matt, vi, 16). They are " faint in 
appearance and overcome with toil," " nel sembiante stanca e 
vinta" (xxiii, 60), as such people like to play the martyr and 
are fond of narrating the sufferings which they undergo. They 
are often heard to sigh : " it is only God's aid and grace which 
keep them up, else they would break down powerless and fee- 
ble." They wear cowls (xxiii, 61), the garment of the monk, as 
a sign-board of their religious disdain of the world, which hypo- 
crites constantly have at their tongue's end. Besides the cowl 
they wear the hood which covers the eyes (xxiii, 61, 62). This 
serves to give them the appearance of having " made a cove- 
nant with their eyes not to think upon a maid " (Job, xxxi, 1), 
of carefully guarding their eyes to avoid seeing evil. Cowls and 
hoods are gilt on the outside and of dazzling splendor (xxiii, 
64), an appropriate picture of the exterior brilliant semblance 
of virtue and the fear of God, with which such sinners know 
how to endow themselves — at the same time a counterpart of 
the sheep's clothing wherein false prophets walk about, although 
inwardly they are ravenous wolves (Matt, vii, 15). They pace 
along a narrow path because strait is the gate and narrow the way 
which leadeth unto life (Matt, vii, 14), and the hypocrite wants to 
appear as if he were walking along this way. The way, the gait, 
the dress, the mien, the bearing — all about them has the appear- 
ance of holiness and of virtue. That all the sinners mentioned of 
this kind belong to the clergy is probably due to the circumstance, 
as Graul has correctly observed, that this profession offers the 
most temptations to sanctimony ; the worldly-minded priest at 
least wishes to seem what he is not, because he feels that he 
ought to be so, for no man of anv sense of honor likes to be 
caught in an irreconcilable inconsistency of word and deed. It is 
scarcely necessary to call attention to the congruence between sin 
and punishment which we have here. It is so obvious that we 
should have expressly to close our eyes not to see it. The appear- 
ance that the hypocrites wished to give themselves has become a 
terrible reality. The slow and measured step has become dead ear- 
nest; the burden under which they groan is too heavy to permit 
them to hasten their steps. Their whining mien has become dead 
earnest ; their mournful condition continually moves them to bit- 



64: T'ke Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 

ter and painful tears. Dead earnest now is their lassitude and 
their languor ; they not onlj seem^ bat thej are really tired and 
languid, and yet they find no rest nor quiet in all eternity. In 
dead earnest now they wear the cowl ; forever it remains to them a 
load of lead, golden and shining on the outside, which drags them 
to the ground — a garment which now they would like to throw 
off, but which they can no longer throw off. In dead earnest 
now they wear the hoods that cover their eyes ; those eyes, 
which always sought the ground of their own accord, can not any 
longer gaze above, nor to the right, nor to the left ; they are con- 
stantly, incessantly fixed upon the ground. Dead earnest now is 
the narrow way ; painfully and with extreme effort only can they 
pace along it. The}'^ literally reap as they have sown. 

Are we not tempted to exclaim : If there is really a hell, the pun- 
ishments and torments can scarcel}'^ be essentially different from 
those invented by the poet. 

But — Poeta agit de Inferno isto^ in quo peregrinando ut viatores^ 
mereri et demereri possumus. This marginal note, in a Maglia- 
bechian manuscript, on § 8 of Dante's letter to Can Grande (com- 
pare Witte, " Dantis Epistolae," Patavia, 1827, p. 81, note 43), 
certainly corresponds to the intentions of the poet, as we have re- 
marked before, and, although it does not orginate with him, it was 
made in his spirit and in accordance with his thought. Indeed, 
the punishment of the hypocrites is not deferred to the hereafter ; 
like that of the other. sinners, it begins whilst they still walk the 
earth. The torments of hell which Dante so thi'illingly describes 
are borne in their own breast while yet in this life. Only the 
superficial observer is dazzled by the glittering case of gold. 
Whoever penetrates beyond the surface soon sees that the hypo- 
crite is draa-ffed down to the ground bv the fearful burden of his 
thoroughly worldly mind ; that the cloak which this sanctimo- 
nious ])alliator of his own sinful weakness wears is made of heavy 
lead, under which he secretly groans and weeps. AYhat torment, 
to be forced to be forever on the watch, so as not to exhibit the 
inner man outwardly before the eyes of the world ! Like every 
other sin, hypocrisy may little by little l)ecome second nature. 
But, even where it has become so, it remains a heavy burden. No 
hypocrite can be happy, none can feel content. The inner har- 
mony is lacking, and where this is wanting there is hell. " They 



Congruence of Sins and Ptmishments in Dante''s Inferno. 55 

have their reward," says Christ — that is, tliey obtain nothing by 
their sanctimony. Nothing in this life, still less in the hereafter. 
Punishment will not be omitted. In the first place, they are given 
over to contempt and ridicule, as he would appear ridiculous and 
contemptible who would in reality wear the in eterno faticoso 
manto described by the poet. They despise each other, tread 
each other under foot, as, for instance, the inhabitants of the sixth 
ditch tread under foot the archetype of hypocrisy, Caiaphas. They 
are still more despised by others, and dare not look a frank and 
honest man in the face ; they only look at him askance, in silence 
and ashamed (xxiii, 85 sq.). This is their condition, this is their 
inner state, while yet in this life. 

In the hereafter the outer covering drops off. They are there 
exactly the same beings they were here, but they have not the 
sorry consolation, at least, to seem what they are not. They know 
and are known. Here they keenly feel the delusion of hypocrisy, 
and it bears down upon them with an enormous weight ; and 
whoever sees them, notices at once that their cloaks are of heavy 
lead, gilt only on the outside. To sum up, they have the same 
impulses yonder, but any, even the most delusive, satisfaction of 
these impulses is denied them. 

We come to the seventh chasm. It is inhabited by the thieves. 
Wegele (" Dante Alighieri's Life and Work," 2d ed., p. 465) only 
says of them : " The thieves mutually rob each other of their 
only possession, their form." I myself, led by Wegele, repeated 
nearly the same thing in my iirst work on Dante (" Dante Ali- 
ghieri," p. 513). But that is saying very little, and obtaining 
still less. Graul here too was able to speak much better on the 
congruence of sin and punishment. " Dante," he says (p. 239), 
" sees there (in the seventh chasm) enormous quantities of snakes. 
Within these are hidden the wily thieves, who creep up un- 
awares, after the manner of snakes. In the midst of these, some 
of the souls of thieves run about in their natural human shape. 
Here they find no hiding-place from the fraternizing snakes, who 
only inflict upon them what they were wont to inflict upon oth- 
ers : sudden attack, wounds, chains, fire, death. No law here 
protects these lawless ones, who undeservingly enjoyed the bless- 
ing of the law while upon earth; eternal justice shows them 
whither their principle, generally carried out, would lead." And 



56 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 

again (p. 248) : " In the punishment which divine justice causes 
to rain down upon the damned (xxiv, 119, 120), the ultimate power 
of the despised law, which cannot be wholly rejected, is revealed. 
It does not reform the sinner after the lapse of the reprieve, but 
only hardens him, as the rain does not still further ripen the fruit 
which has attained maturity, but at the utmost spoils it. There- 
fore the church-robber, recovering from his torment, vents his 
wrath in blasphemous gestures and words until the snakes throt- 
tle him. This violent murderer and wily robber is chased by the 
Centaur Cacus, the emblem of his twofold sin ; for, as the animal 
half symbolizes brutal force, so the human half, covered with 
snakes, symbolizes fraud, man's own proper sin (xi, 25). As the 
souls, which leave the world more naked than they entered it, 
possess nothing in hell but their airy shape, the souls of the thieves, 
who cannot desist from stealing, mutually purloin from each other 
this, their miserable shape, their last rag, as it were, of property." 
This is all very well and truly said, but it does not suffice to 
solve the problem we have propounded. The question, according 
to what principle and system the different classes of thieves have 
been classified by the poet, can here be omitted, as it has little 
bearing on our theme. But another question, in how far the con- 
dition of the thieves in the seventh chasm is a disclosure of their 
inner state while yet living the life here below, cannot be evaded, 
and has at least not been satisfactorily answered by the above 
observations. Let us follow the description of the poet feature by 
feature. The lirst thing he affirms of the chasm or holgia of thieves 
is that it, like that of the barterers, is extraordinarily dark and 
gloomy (Inf., xxiv, TO). Night, darkness is the element in which 
the thief is wont to practise his trade, and in which he is at his 
best. So the thieves live in a dark region, w^here they never need 
fear that the light of day will enter. Furthermore, the poet lays 
stress o\\ the fact that from the spot he first occupied he could 
hear, but not understand (" i' odo quinci e non intendo," xxiv, 74). 
In their nocturnal dealings thieves are accustomed to whisper; 
during the day they talk to each other in unintelligible thieves' 
Latin. Even he who hears their whispering cannot understand 
it. Both traits exactly tally with the doings of the thieves and 
robbers here below. When he reaches a point I'rom which the 
secrets of the dark deep are revealed to his eye, Dante becomes 



Congruence of Sins and Panishnients in Dante's Inferno. 57 

aware of a hideously wild brood of strange and manifold snakes 
(xxiv, 82). Tlie snakes are— a fact not to be overlooked — the 
souls of thieves which have been changed into snakes. The dif- 
ferent, wonderful, and terrible transformations described by the 
poet prove this to satisfaction, it seems to me. The nature of the 
snake is peculiar to the thief and the robber. Like snakes, they 
sneak about, secretly enter houses, lie in wait for the life and 
property of their neighbor. This, their snake nature, becomes ex- 
ternally apparent in the seventh chasm. There are human beings 
among the snakes, but those who have externally preserved their 
human form are not for a moment sure that they will not lose it 
and be forced to exchange it for the shape of a snake. So, too, 
thieves and robbers, when they show their faces among other 
men, hiding their inner aspect, are not for a moment safe from 
being unmasked. These people run about naked (xxiv, 92). By 
all their stealing they have not been able to scrape together 
enough to cover their nakedness. Lightly come, lightly go, says 
the proverb. IS^o one has become rich for any length of time 
by stealing. Unjust possessions are a tire that consumes even 
what was legitimately earned if it be mixed with them. In spite 
of all his stealing, the thief remains naked. A special kind of 
punishment which these sinners must suffer is the terror and fright 
with which they are constantly tilled and tormented. They run 
about in fear, and no hope ever to be able to escape comforts 
them (xxiv, 92, 93). Their fear and terror is heightened by the 
fact that the thieves themselves are constantly robbing and harm- 
ing each other, and also by the sight of their companions, who 
are being transformed — that is, robbed — or who have already been 
transformed. Indeed, the thief suffers a severe punishment while 
yet here below by the tiear which never forsakes him. He is 
obliged to fear those who are better than he, and also his equals ; 
for he may be unmasked to-day — to-morrow he may be robbed 
in the same way he has robbed others. Their hands are bound 
behind them with serpents (xxiv, 94) ; probably an allusion to the 
manner in which the thief caught in the act is bound and led 
away by the officers of the law. But we might also say that the 
hands which would not be bound by the divine commandment, 
Thou shall not steal, are now bound in a more forcible, painful, 
and disgraceful manner. The shame, too, which seizes upon the 



58 The Journal of Speeulative Philosophy. 

thief as soon as he is discovered and recognized (xxiv, 132) belongs 
more to the life on earth than to that hereafter. The fury against 
God which seizes upon one of them (xxv, 1 sq.) is a picture of 
the impotent rage of the thieves and robbers against divine and 
human laws, against divine and human order. So here again it 
becomes apparent that we have to seek and, alas! are sure to Hnd, 
Dante's hell here below, and that the punishments which the 
criminals suffer hereafter are simply the necessary, natural, and, 
therefore, inevitable consequences of their sins. 

The varied and terrible transformations narrated by the poet 
call for some reflections. The first transformation consists in this, 
that the sinner — in this case Vanni Fucci — upon the bite of a 
snake is consumed and turned to ashes, then regains his original 
shape, only — as we are meant to picture to ourselves — to suffer 
the same terrible punishment again and again from eternity to 
eternity (xxiv, 97-120). This Vanni Fucci is a church-robber, 
his crime theft and, at the same time, sacrilege. Doubtless it was 
the object of the poet to make him the representative of a whole 
class of criminals — viz., the robbers of holy objects. To be sure, 
every thief transgresses a human and, at the same time, a divine 
law. But the sin of all otliers is more a sin against their neighbor 
than against God. The church-robber, however, sins, in the first 
place, against God. He does not rob his fellow-men, but the sanc- 
tuary — God himself, as it were. Therefore he must experience 
the wrath of that God who is called " a consuming fire " (Dent, 
iv, 24; Heb. xii, 29); from eternity to eternity he is ever and 
again consumed to ashes. Furthermore, the church-robber shows 
himself by his crime to be thoroughly corrupt ; the voice of reason, 
of justice, of religion, of the fear of God — all has been silenced in 
him, all is wasted and ruined. The symbol of this inner waste 
and ruin is the external fact of being consumed by flames. In 
the next place, this church-robber had appeared in human society 
as innocent; his crime was laid at the door of others (xxiv, 138, 
139). Therefore his revival, after being consumed to ashes. He 
again assumes his former shape. Finally, even the most hardened 
sinner cannot banish from his heart the fear of that God whom he 
has 80 insolently insulted. After the church-robber has committed 
the crime, a twofold terror seizes upon him — a terror of his fellows- 
men and, at the same time, of God, against whom he has sinned 



Congruence of Sins and Pmiishments in Daniels Inferno. 59 

in the first place. This tear is symbolized by the confused an(i 
blijrlited condition of the sinner reviving: like a Phoenix from out 
of the ashes (xxiv, 112-118). This revival is significantly com- 
pared to the coming back to consciousness of one possessed. Tlie 
chnrch-robber is, indeed, as one possessed, whom the pangs and 
fears of conscience, after having accomplished his crime, bring back 
to consciousness. Here again, then, we have before us the truth 
of the inner soul revealed in poetic garb. 

Quite a different kind of transformation is experienced by Agnel? 
who is, according to the oldest commentators, Agnolo Brunelleschi, 
of Florence (Inf., xxv, 46-78). After transformation he unites 
two natures in himself — the nature of man and that of the 
snake. The transformation consists in this : that human nature 
unites most intimately with the snake-nature and forms a mon- 
ster — so intimately that it is afterward an imagine -perversa, a 
hideous form being neither one nor two. There are thieves who 
are constantly thieves in their inmost soul ; that is, they are con- 
stantly planning theft and robbery, but do not always commit the 
deed. Often they lack the courage. They would gladly do the 
deed, but do not dare. They unite two natures in themselves, as 
it were — the wily, creeping nature of the snake, and that of man. 
Is not Agnel perhaps the representative of these thieves' souls 'I 
This would make it perfectly clear that the poet is depicting by 
this monstrous transformation the image of the inner conscious- 
ness of sinners, who are man and snake at once and yet neither; 
no professional thieves, and still no human beings in the ethical 
sense of the word. It must, however, be remarked that an old in- 
terpreter (compare my commentary to the Inf., xxv, 68) reports 
that this Agnolo Brunelleschi often disguised himself to be able 
to carry out his robberies, and that for this reason Dante thus 
transformed him. If this explanation were correct, it would be 
necessary to assume that all thieves which undergo a transforma- 
tion were in the habit of disguising themselves during earth-life, 
and then the principle according to which Dante proceeded in his 
enumeration of the various transformations would be difficult, if 
not impossible, to divine. 

We have an example of a third kind of transformation in 
Buoso degli Abati and Francesco Cavalcanti (Inf., xxv, 79-151). 
The one has human form, the other the form of the snake. Both 



60 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

exchange with each other ; more correctly speaking, the one robs 
the other of his human shape and leaves him instead his snake- 
shape. Thus we have before us thieves which from human beings 
are changed into snakes, and vice versa. These two also must 
be the representatives of a certain class of thieves. There are 
prudent thieves, who manifest the prudence of the snake by being 
able to retain the semblance of honesty. They watch for the 
favorable opportunity, where there is little or no risk. If such a 
one offers, they steal ; if not, they are quite honest. They are 
snakes when there is a fair inducement to be so, and they assume 
human shape again as soon as the opportunity for stealing has 
passed, or wdien none offers. They also mutually rob each other, 
as Buoso and Cecco rob each other of their shape. They are 
fond of enveloping themselves in the veil of mystery and of 
"throwing sand into the eyes of others"; this is alluded to by the 
vapor surrounding both, which emanates from the wound of the 
one and the mouth of the other (xxv, 88 sq.). The vapor from 
the wound of the one mingles with that from the other's mouth; 
whilst they are robbing each other, they work in common at en- 
veloping themselves in mist — a striking picture of the concord 
existing between this class of people and the assistance they 
mutually offer each other. 

But these are rather suppositions than results of strict exegesis. 
It is certain to us that Dante proceeded with design in depicting 
these various transformations. But the sense he has hidden in 
his verses we can at best only guess at. The simpler explanation 
perhaps is Graul's, who observes concerning the latter two modes 
of transformation : The Hrst case (Agnolo and Cianfa) probably 
pictures the suspension of any marked boundary between mine 
and thine, while the second (Buoso and Cecco) gives the last de- 
cision upon mine and thine, determined by the right of strength. 
Corresponding to this, the first couple slowly walk along in the 
shape of a tangled coil, while the victorious part of the second 
puts the vanquished part to flight ; an excellent image of a state 
composed entirely of a rabble of thieves. 

In the eighth ditch we find the evil counsellors. Invisible and 
enveloped in consuming flames, they wander along as will-o'-the 
wisps. Genovesi (" Filosofia dellaDivinaCommedia") says shortly 
and concisely : " I consiglieri frodolenti sono tra le fiamme in pena 



^hngrtience of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 61 

dell' aver acceso co' loro detti e colle loro insinuazioiii malvagie 
i>;randi incendi di lili e di sventure umane." And Graul — whom 
we must cite again, because he is, as we remarked above, the only 
one of all interpreters who enters more particularly into the ques- 
tion of the congruence of sin and punishment, and whom I also 
like to quote because I desire to draw him forth from the obliv- 
ion into which he has so undeservedly fallen — writes (p. 257) : 
" The pert counsellors, the lumina mundi, these Lucifers, flit 
about all wrapped in fire like glow-worms. They have in a cer- 
tain sense purloined from the God of light the natural light of 
reason which they would not employ in His service ; now they in 
turn are stolen away by it; in childish wantonness they have 
played with the spark of the divine mind ; from this spark a flame 
has blazed up enveloping their heads past help ; they have not re- 
strained their wit by bridle or bit ; now it runs away with them 
(xxvi, 21, 22). They have led others astray ; now they themselves 
flit about as will-o'-the-wisps; as prompters they have thrown out 
from the wings upon the world's stage most fatal words ; now 
they can only speak with extreme effort from out of their hiding- 
places." 

We aoree with him in this on the whole, but cannot see that 
the question is hereby exhausted. First of all, it is to be noted 
that the men who appear in the two cantos here in question (xxvi, 
xxvii) are men who have played an important part upon the 
world's stage, have exerted a mighty influence upon the life of 
nations and states. They are more definitely characterized mili- 
tary men, whose wily counsels are often conducive to kindle the 
torch of war. By their advice Ulysses and Diomede kindled the 
flames which reduced Ilion to ashes; by his wily advice, Guido, 
of Montefeltro, has lighted the tire which was to consume the Co- 
lonna. Whenever a wily counsel is given a consuming tire is 
kindled, whether it be the tire of war between nations or the tire 
of discord between individuals. Therefore their punishment is 
one of tire. But here, too, it is not necessary to think only or 
even in the tirst place of the tire in the hereafter. The tire which 
they ignite upon earth already burns in their hearts while in this life. 
If their tongue wherewith they give the wily counsels " is set on tire 
of hell " (James, iii, 6) it is only a consequence of justice that they 
are themselves consumed by their own tire. x\s flames of tire the 



62 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

souls of the eighth ditch spread light about them, so that the 
region inhabited by them is resplendent round about (tutta ri- 
splendea I'ottava bolgia, xxvi, 31, 32). For the wicked counsellors 
are possessed of intelligence ; they diffuse the light of reason and 
knowledge round about them. Endowed with great minds, they 
sometimes soar so high that when they give counsel it seems as if 
a man had inquired at the oracle of God (II Sam. xvi, 23). The 
spirits dwell invisibly in these tires, each enveloped in the one 
wherewith it is ablaze (xxvi, 47, 48). Dante only sees the flames 
and has to be informed by Yirgil that spirits dwell in them. So 
in life, too, very often only the flames which the wicked counsel- 
lors have kindled are visible, they themselves remaining hidden 
behind the scenes. Only a few of the initiated know that they 
are, as it were, concealed in the blazing Are. In other words, it is 
often unknown to the world for a long time who it was that had 
given the wily counsel ; but in this their torment, their hell, con- 
sists that they are concealed in the flame and that this flame be- 
comes as hell to them. If we descend into the depths of the souls 
of these counsellors, how consumed and tormented by fire do we 
behold them ! If their counsels are not adopted and followed, 
this inner fire of hell may become so unbearable, so terribly tor- 
menting, that the counsellor " puts his household in order and 
hangs himself and dies " (II Sam, xvii, 23). But if their counsels 
are adopted and followed, and success does not attend as they had 
believed, events do not happen as they had hoped, then again tor- 
ment and despair. If their counsels lead to the desired result, 
alas! others often reap the glory thereof. So their intelligence, 
their penetration, their reason, is a brilliant light and at the same 
time the instrument with w^iicli they are tortured. Below there, 
in the eighth holgia^ their tongue is not very ready of speech. The 
flame wherein Ulysses is concealed l)egins to flicker and to hiss as 
if it were battling against the wind, then moves its point to and 
fro as if it were the tongue to speak, and only after these probably 
laborious preparations speech ensues (xxvi, 85). One may well 
call this an allusion to the fact that their tongue, the member bj' 
which they have sinned, is most severely and sorely punished ; 
that the tongue once so much in haste to speak fatal words is 
now paralyzed and can only stammer with pain and effort. But 
is not another relation ])erhaps still more obvious ? Might we not 



Congruence of Sins and Pitnishments in Dante's Inferno. 63 

recognize in this trait the laborious, preparatory digressions and 
twistings and turnings which such counsellors are wout to employ 
before coming out with their real opinion ? An honest man 
speaks out his mind clearly and distinctly without circumlocution. 
But he who meditates evil — he who, like the Count of Montefeltro, 
is preparing to give an evil and craftly counsel — cannot and dares 
not speak out plainly and frankly. He must needs use prepara- 
tory introductions, must needs carefully turn and twist his words, 
so that the malice and hideousness of his advice may not be too 
clearly apparent, for he is well aware that an evil counsel betrays 
an evil cast of mind. And is it not also a bitter torment, a hell- 
ish pain, not to dare to speak out frankly and honestly, this neces- 
sity to search for ways of circumlocution, windings, twistings, and 
the proper wording? Here too, then, the relations lie clear be- 
fore us — the punishments of hell both in this life and in the here- 
after, which develop out of the sin itself, which lie in the sin and 
are inseparable from it. It is sin itself which eft'ects the punish- 
ment — sin is in itself its own punishment. 

Let us cross over to the ninth ditch (xxviii, 1, to xxix, 36). It 
is inhabited by the schismatics. We must first propound the 
question into how many classes these are divided, into how many 
the poet himself divided them. Graul thinks into three classes : 
those which sowed discord in the Church, those which sowed 
discord in the state, and those which were guilty of the same 
crime within the family. We might therefore say religious, po- 
litical, and social schismatics. Graul writes : " At first those 
are presented to us who have sought to divide the body of 
the Christian Church, wdiich is destined to unite the whole 
human race into a single great' divine commonwealth; then those 
who divide the body of the State, in which a nation is to grow 
together to form a single large family ; at last, those who have 
divided the body of the family, the basis of the unity of the 
State." I cannot share this view, although it is adopted by a great 
many ancient and modern commentators. We have rather to dis- 
tinguish /bt^/' classes of schismatics, as we have in the following 
ciiasm four classes of forgers. The analogy would seem to signify 
so much. Discord may be created in the Church, in the State, be- 
tween the single families of a city, and, finally, in the bosom of one 
and the same family. Governed by passion or fanaticism, perhaps 



64 The Journal of Speoulative Philosophy. 

also imbued with the desire to make their names famous, the 
first lacerate the moral and political body of the nations by in- 
venting and spreading new doctrines, by founding new religious 
communities. The rejn-esentatives of this class of schismatics are 
Mohammed, the originator of the greatest religious schism, and 
his son-in-law Ali, who again divided Mohammedanism. Others 
create strife and discord between nations and states. This second 
class of schismatics is represented by Pier, of Medicina, who is said 
to have kindled again and again the strife between the Polentas 
and Malatestas, and by Curio, who, being banished from Home, ex- 
claimed to Csesar, hesitating, at the Rubicon : " Away with delay ! 
Hesitation has ever but harmed men prepared ! " Others create 
strife and discord between the families of one and the same cities, 
which happened frequently enough in the Italian cities in Dante's 
time. He himself was, as is well known, the victim of such dis- 
cord. The representative of this third class of schismatics is Mosca 
Lamberti, who exclaimed the fatal words : " Capo ha cosa fatta ! " 
He gave the advice to kill the faithless Buondelmonte, which 
brought about the disunion of the mighty Florentine families. 
Finally, still others throw the dragon-seed into the sanctuary of 
the family, creating discord between its members, inciting hus- 
bands and wives, parents and children, brothel's and sisters, against 
each other. The representative of this fourth class of schismatics 
is the troubadour Bertrand de Born, who spurred on "the young 
king," Prince Henry, against his own father, Henry the Second of 
England. We have not, then, to distinguish religious, political, 
and social schismatics, but schismatics of Church, of state, of com- 
munities, and of the family. 

But as the sin of these four classes is at bottom identical, the}' 
all dwell together in the same bolgia^ and suffer the same punish- 
ment ; only the degree of the punishment marks some difference. 
But it would not be very easy to say whose wounds are the more 
painful, those of Mohammed or of Bertrand de Born. Those of 
the latter are, like his sin, more utmatural, but that they are also 
more painful is more than we can undertake to assert. 

The sin of all these people may be expressed in a word : they have 
separated what according to divine order should form one; they 
have destroyed the unity of the Church, of the State, of the com- 
munity or of the family. That the punishment which they suffer — 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 65 

their body is split by the sword of discord, so that the limbs and 
members, closely united by nature for mutual service, no longer 
work together (I Cor. xii, 12-27, and Graul, p. 277)— that this 
punishment perfectly corresponds to the special nature of their sin 
stands to reason and does not require further proof. Viewed as 
the punishment of the hereafter., it offers a terribly clear example 
of the literal fultilment of the law : " An eye for an eye, a tooth 
for a tooth." What they have done unto others is requited to 
them upon their own body. But we desired to investigate also 
in what degree the punishments in Dante's hell are inner con- 
ditions of this life, and in how far they are developed from the 
sin itself. But one answer can be given to this question in my 
estimation : The exterior is an image of the interior, the dismem- 
berment and laceration of the body is an image of the inner lace- 
ration of the soul. It is true, every sin destroys the inner har- 
mony of man, effects an inner laceration, and the law reads quite 
generally: "No peace for the wicked " (Isa. Ivii, 21). But the 
inner disharmony, the lack of peace, the laceration of soul, are in 
a still hia;her degree the hei-itao-e of those who plant discord and 
strife outside of themselves. Yea, more ! If we can say of every 
sin that it consummates its own punishment, we can say of this 
one that it consummates its own punishment even before the sin 
has been committed. The pleasure in discord, in schism, in strife, 
presupposes an unsettled state of mind and lack of inner peace. 
Whoever is at peace within himself is also outwardly peaceable. 
Vice versa: Whoever has lost the inner peace, he cannot keep 
peace with others. That is especially obvious in the case of the 
schismatics upon the field of religion and the Churcli. They must 
of necessity be internally at variance with their religion and 
Church before they can think of founding a new one. The one is 
here developed from the other: the punishment from the sin, the 
sin from the punishment. So, in the case of the sinners of this 
region of hell also, we shall have to regard the punishments first 
as pertaining to this life, as its inner conditions. The interpreters 
have repeatedly laid stress upon the great significance of the single 
punishments sufiered by these sinners. Mohammed, who has di- 
vided the Christian Church from end to end, is now torn asun- 
der along his full length — dal tnento insin dove si trulla — so that 
" 'twixt the legs dangling the entrails hung." Ali, who increased 
XXII— 5 



66 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the schism bv aojain dividino; the whole of the Mohammedans, is 
split from the chin to where his jjredecessor Mohammed is still 
whole. Pier da Medicina, who was wont to lend one ear to one, 
the other to another, and to pry into everythino^, goes about with 
one ear lopped off and his nose mutilated ; and because he was 
forever interfering, lie now has his throat pierced. Curio, who (ac- 
cording to the poetic legend) urged Caesar to that decision, so fraught 
with discord for the Roman Empire, to cross the Rubicon, has had 
his persuasive tongue entirely cut out, and he, who was formerly 
so daring that he infused courage into Caesar, now walks along 
quite dispirited, and allows Pier da Medicina to open his mouth 
and place him on exhibition. Mosca, who agreed to Buondel- 
monte's murder, which became the source of discord in Florence, 
has had both his crime-stained hands mutilated. Bertrand de 
Born, who incited the son to war against the author of his exist- 
ence, has had his brain severed from where it springs in the spi- 
nal cord, and he is forced to carry his own head in his hand. 

Before bidding farewell to the ditch it may be permitted to add 
a few remarks about the solemn appeal of the poet to his con- 
science, which occurs here. The passage reads in the original : 

" E vidi cosa ch'io avrei paura, 
Senza piu prova, di contarla solo ; 
Se non che la coscienza mi assicura 
La buona coinpagnia che Tuom francheggia 
Sotto I'osbergo del sentirsi pura." 

What does Dante wish to convey by these words? All inter- 
preters, from the oldest down to the most recent, interpret this 
passage as if the poet had meant to say : " I saw such incredible 
things that I would fear to be thought a liai* if I told them alone, 
without further proof ; but my conscience gives me assurance," 
etc' 



' Nearly all of the very oldest eommentators and those who followed next after them 
(Laneo, Ottimo, Postillatore Cassinese, Petrus Dantis, Falso Boccaccio, Dolce, Volpi), as 
well as some of the more modern ones (Portirelli, the Editori deW Ancora, Wagner, Bru- 
netti, (rioberti, and others), pass over this passiifje in silence. The first one who makes a 
remark about it is the Anonimo Fiorentino, edited by Fanfani, who writes (i, 6(i9): 
" Niuna cosa, dice Seneca rende gli uomini vili quanto la coscienzia della loro repren- 
sibile vita ; et per6 bene dice I'Auttore che la buona coscienzia I'assicurava, ch'era pura 
sotto il, petto." This observation at bottom ixplahix nothing. Still it contains the 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante s Inferno. 67 

Against this conception I have already raised ohjection in my 
commentary (i, 344), and I have since seen with great satisfaction 

germs of the above-given correct explanation of the passage, for the quotation from 
Seneca has some meaning only when it is thus understood, for in that case only a cos- 
cienziapura can be spoken of; but, unfortunately, this hint of the old "Anonymous" 
remained unnoticed. The succeeding commentators took prova in the sense of testi- 
monianza (instead of esperimento) and solo as an adjective = iwn-accompagnato (instead 
of taking it as an adverb = solamente), and explained the passage as above related. So 
Benvenuto Ramhaldi da linola, whose chiosa in the edition of Tamburini (i, 692) gives : 
" Sanza piu prova, col solo testimonio di mia voce." So Francesco da Buti (ed. Gian- 
nini, i, YSO) : " Avrei paura cioe temerei ; sanza piu prova cioe di me ; di contarla solo, 
questo dice I'Autore per fare verisimile la sua fizione." Still clearer Guiniforte Barziza 
(ed. Zacheroni, p. 649) : " Dlco ch'io avrei paura di contarla senza prova, se non che la 
coscienzia mi assicura, perocclie io so ch'essa fe vera." From this time on we find the 
same explanation in all interpreters, and we must suppose that those who pass it over in 
silence agree with this explanation, now grown traditional, and only refrain from re- 
peating it because they consider it as a matter of course. Landino write.< (ed. Burgo- 
franco, 1529, fol. cxv) : " "Vidi cosa ch'io harei paura di contarla sanza testimonio. Im- 
perocche chi narra cose incredibill et non vuole esser tenuto bugiardo, cerca testimoni. 
Qui como ottimo poeta dimostra che conosce e.«ser difficile a persuadere quello che narra ; 
acioche non sia tenuto vano et improvido e dimostrando conoscerlo gl' acquista auto- 
rit^ e fede." Velutello (ed. Marcolini, 1544, to this passage): "Dice, haver veduto 
cosa, ch'egli haveria paura di contarla e dirla solo, senza piu provo, senza altro testimo- 
nio, che quel di lui stesso, temendo, come vuol inferire, che non gli fosse creduta, tanto 
incredibil cosa era, quella che liavea veduto." Vincenzio Buonanni (Discorso, Florence, 
15*72, p. 181) : " Sentza piii pruova di contarla solo cioe contando dirla sentza testimone." 
Bernardino Daniello (ed. da Fino, Venice, 1568, p. 186): "Dice aver veduto cosa che 
contandola egli solo, senza aver altra prova, o testimonio, temeria che creduta non gli 
fosse stata." In the first edition of his commentary (Lucca Cappuri, 1732, i, 219) Ven- 
turi has not taken any notice of our passage ; but we find in the Veronese edition by 
Berno, and in all subsequent editions of Venturi's commentary of Dante, the following : 
" Senza testimonianza da potere addurre, che mi possa conciliare credenza, e farmi tenere 
per veridico ; starei in forse di dirla, per tema d'esser riputato menzognere e d'essere 
smentito." The same is repeated by the later commentators, only in words slightly dif- 
ferent. Lombardi (Rome, 1791, i, 403): "Temerei d'essere tacciato d'impostura — di 
contarla solo, io solamente, io primo et unico senza piu prova, senza aggiungere al mio 
detto maggior prova." Paggiali (Livorno, Masi, 1807-13, iii, 372, of the quarto-edi- 
tion) : " Vidi cosa che io avrei del ribrezzo a raccontarla, come fo, io solo, volendo che 
mi si creda sulla mia parola, senza darne altra pruova, se non che me ne assicura la mia 
coscienza, cioe un intiiiio schietto sentimento della verity di cio che dico." Biagioli (ed. 
Naples, 1858, p. 149) : " Senza aver prova piu forte che quella della mia veduta. E pero 
soggiunse quella che nei suoi pari valer debbe per mille." Costa (Bologna, 1819-'26, i, 
17S, and in all subsequent editions) : " Temerei d'essere tenuto bugiardo narrandola sola- 
mente senza recarne altra prova." Torelli (ed. of Padua i, 615) : " E vidi cosa che te- 
merei di solamenta raccontarla, non avendone altra prova che la mia veduta." The 
Editor! Padovani simply repeat the notes of Lombardi, Biagioli, and Torelli. Cesari 
(Bellezze della Divina Commedia, Verona, 1824, i, 535) : " Solo, cioe se i miei lettori 



68 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

that Gregorio di Siena (Inl., p. 437) had preceded me in this. 
Witte ("Beilage zur Allgemeineii Zeitung," 1875, No. 229, p. 3602) 
pointed out my objection " as one of the passages in which I luid 

dovessero stare a solo il mio detto senza piu." Borghi (Paris, 1844, p. 67) : "Di con- 
tarla solo ; di raccontarla solamente, senza recarne la prova." Tommaseo (Venice, 1837, 
i, 222; Milan, 1865, i, 405; Milan, 1859, i, 330): " Questa protesta non solo tende a 
scusare la singolarit^ della cosa ; ma trattandosi d'uomo famoso e ammirato da Dante, 
tende a mostrare ch' egli a nessuno perdona se turliatore della pubblica pace." Bru- 
none Bianchi (Florence, 1863, p. 193 ; Florence, 1868, p. 198) : " Temerei di essere te- 
nuto bugiardo narrandola solo, cio5 senza testimoui o altre prove che facessero fede al 
mio detto." Fraticelli (Florence, 1865, p. 214; the same in the edition of 1871): 
" Avrei tiraore di passar per bugiardo, raccontandola io solo, senza recarne altra prova." 
Martini (Turin, 1840, i, 176) : " Vi ha non poehe cose che all' umana intelligenza appar- 
iscono impossibili," in this we see that such a trivial remark could be made about the 
poet's verses. Gregoretti (Venice, 1856, p. 220): "Avrei paura di contarla solamente 
senza altra prova che la mia asserzione." Andreoli (Naples, 1863, p. 184 ; Florence, 
1870, p. 94) : " Temerei di esser tenuto bugiardo, narrandola' cosi io solo, senz' al- 
cuna prova di testimonianza altrui." Ti-issino (Milan, 1864, -i, 204): "Temerei d'esser 
tacciato d'impostura, narrandola io solamente, senza aggiungere al mio detto prova mag- 
giore." Bennassuti (Verona, 1864, i, 540): "Prova d'altri testimoni, etc." Camerini 
(Milan, 1868, i, 112): "Temerei d'esser tenuto bugiardo narrandolo solo — senza testi- 
monj o altre prove." De Marzo (Prato, 1873, i, p. 940) : " A fame narrazione da me 
solo, senza ravvalorarla di testimonianza veruna, temerei di non esser creduto." Cappelli 
(Padova, 1875, p. 128): "M'ha tocc^ veder cossa, che paura De contar senza prova 
gavaria." 

I have registered this long list of notes to the verses in question not ouly to prove the 
correctness of the assertion that all the commentators understood and explained them in 
the manner quoted, but also to show for once by an example how the commentators 
often copy each other without thinking and at best try to express the same thought in 
other words. As I am once engaged in this, I will also pass in review a number of 
translators : 

D'Aquino (Naples, 1728, i, 259) : " Non habitura fidem vidi ; memorare nee ausim, 
Redderet audacem nisi me mens conscia veri." Piazza (Leipsic, 1848, p. 109): "Et res 
oblata est, quam me narrare vetaret Ipse timor, nuUo meeo testante ; sed ipsa Conscia 
mens veri ; comes optima, sueta juvare, Auxiliis hominem etc." 

French : Aroux (Paris, 1856, i, 234) : " Et je vis une chose encore dont je craindrais 
D'etre seul i parler, sans autre t6moignage." P. A. Fiorentino (Paris, 1868, i, 146; the 
same, 1872, p. 118) : " Je vis une chose que je n'oserais jamais raconter tout seul, sans 
autre preuve." Brizeux (Paris, 1872, p. 271) : " Je vis ce que je n'oserais confer sans 
autre temoignage." Ratisbonne (Paris, 1870, i, 385); " Quand je vis un spectacle 
etrange, 6pouvantable, Dont point ne parlerais, sans preuve ni temoin." Villain Lami 
(Paris, 1867, p. 204): "A la sincerity de ce que je vais dire, peut-etre le lecteur ne 
voudra pas souscrire." 

English: Longfellow (London, 1867, i, 91): "And saw a thing which I should be 
afraid, without some further proof, even to recount." V. Botta (Dante as a Philosopher, 
etc., New York, 1865, p. 222): "And saw a Thing, such as I may fear without more 
proof, to tell of." W. M. Rossetti (M. F. Rossetti, " A Shadow of Dante," Loudon, 1872, 



Congruence of Sin^ and Ptinishments in Daniels Inferno. 69 

shown difficulties to exist and had been at pains to solve them." 
That did not prevent him, however, from still adhering to the com- 
mon view of this passao;e in the third edition of his excellent 
translation of Dante by translating thus : " And I would fear to 



p. 90) : " And saw a thing which I should be in fear, without inore proof of telling, I 
alone." 

The Spaniard, Aranda y Sanjuan (Barcelona, 1868, p. 90): " Y vi cosas que no me 
atreveria a referir sin otra prueba." 

The Dutchman, Van Mijnden (Haarlem, ISe*/, i, 196): "Op eens outwaar'k een 
schouwspel, dat 'k moet vreezen zoo zonder een getuige te verhalen." 

We come to the Germans. As I am not about to write an inventory, I only quote 
according to the latest editions. It will not, I think, be necessary to give the title and 
number of the page. 

Friedrich Diez ("Leben und Werke der Troubadours," p. 189) : 
" leh aber blieb, die andern anzuschauen 
Und was ich sah, ich wiirde schiichtern sein, 
Es unvprbiirgt dem Liede zu vertrauen." 
Kannegieser : 

" Ich aber blieb, zu sehauen das Gedriinge, 
Und sah ein Ding, den Muth wiird'ich vermissen 
Dass ohne Zeugniss ich allein es sange." 



Streckfuss : 



So also in the 
Philalethes : 



Ouseck : 



Kopisch : 



Oraul , 



Juliris Braun . 



"Ich aber blieb die andern anzuschauen 
Und was ich sah, so furchtbar und so neu, 
Nicht wagt ich's unverbiirgt euch zu vertrauen." 
newest edition by PJleiderei: 

" Doch ich verblieb, die Schaar noch zu betrachten 
Und sah Etwas, das ich mich scheuen wiirde 
Allein ohn' anderen Beweis zu melden." 

" Ich aber blieb, die Schaaren dort zu zahlen 
Und sah, was ich allein mich wiirde scheuen 
Hatt' ich nicht aud're Prolien zu erzahlen." 

" Allein ich blieb, die Rotte zu betrachten, 
Und sah etwas, das ich mich scheuen wiirde 
Ohn' andere Beweise zu erzahlen." 

"Noch hatt' ich auf die Must'rung nicht verzichtet 
Und sah etwas, das haett' ich ohne Zeugen 
So ganz allein, wohl nimmermehr berichtet." 

' Ich aber blieb, den Haufen anzusehn 
Und sah etwas, und nimmer wiird' ich's sfigen 
So ohne Buergschaft, zeugend mir allein." 



70 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

tell what I have seen had I no other proof than my own word." 
So, too, the latest translator, Bartsch (who, moreover, does not seem 
to know the Leipsie edition), translates : "And something I did 
see which I would tremble to narrate were not further proof at 

Blanc : 

" Ich blieb Zuriick, den Haufen zu betrachten, 
Und sah ein Ding, das auch nur zu erzahlen 
Ich fiirchten wiirde ohne mehr Beweis." 
Witte's translation is given in the text above. 
Eitner : 

" Ich aber blieb, den Schwann mir zu betrachten 
Und sah — darob ohn' anderen Beweis, 
Der Muth mir fehlen wiirde zu berichten." 



Tanner . 



Von Hoffiitger 



BaroTi 



" Ich aber blieb, den Rudel anzuschauen ; 
Und sah, was ich, da sonst Beweise fehleu 
So ganz allein wohl kaum zu nielden wagte." 

" Ich aber l)lieb, den Schwarm noch anzuschauen, 
Und sah Etwas, das ich allein dem Wort 
So unverbiirgt nocht wagte zu vertrauen." 



" Ich aV)er verweilte 
Noch zu beschauen die Schaar, und sahe ein Ding das ich fiirchten 
Wiirde ohn' weiteren Beweis allein zu erzahlen." 
Krigar : 

" Doch ich behielt die Schaaren im Gesichte ; 
Da sah ich, was ich fiirchtete zu sagen, 
Hatt' ich nicht Zeugnis mehr, als was ich dichte." 
Notter : 

" Ich aber blieb, dass mehr des Volks ich siihe, 
Und sah Etwas, von dessen grausem Bild 
Nie hatt' ich nur mein Wort, Meldung geschahe." 
Bartsch's translation is given above in the text. 

I think this list is long enough. This perfect conformity of interpreters and transla- 
tors might make it appear hazardous to try to make a new interpretation prevail. When 
writing the commentary to my Leipsie edition of the " Divina Commedia," I believed 
that I stood quite alone with my view of the passage. Strange to say, however, Grego- 
rio di Siena had preceded me in this view, as I have stated above. He says (" Comme- 
dia di Dante Alighieri," Naples, 1870, p. 441): " Vidi cosa che avrei paura, ciofe teme- 
rei, senza piu pruova, nonche di fame nuova esperienza o vederla di nuovo, ma di con- 
tarla solo, ma di pur narrarla. Se non che ecc. Ma io di ritrarla punto non temo 
perchfe il non sentirmi I'animo rimorso dalla colpa ond' e punito Bcltramo, mi francheggia, 
mi fa franco e ardito a mostrare al mondo in che guisa dalla divina Giustizia vien punita 
laggiii. E cosi la coscienza pura presta al Poeta franchezza a flugcllare il vizio, non 
mica argomento a far credere altrui le proprie visioni." The new, and surely the only 
correct, version seems to be gaining partisans, at least among the Itahan Dante investi- 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 71 

hand." In the first place, it is to be observed that the interpreters 
here forget that, after all, Dante neither cites nor can cite any 
other testimon}' than his own word, any other witness than him- 
self alone. He is made to speak then of other witnesses and testi- 
monies, which he has not and which simply do not and cannot 
exist. Then why at all this solemn appeal to his conscience? 
Has he not narrated things in plenty, which were certainly in no 
wise less incredible than what he is preparing to tell of Bertrand 
de Born ? And w^hat, furthermore, would this solemn appeal to 
the testimony of his conscience signify here ? This certainly ex- 
ceeds the bounds of poetic license ! Who in all the world would 
appeal to his conscience for the trutli of a poetic fiction ? That 
would be ridiculous, if it were not blasphem\\ It is said that (in 
xvi, 127) Dante also swears, per le note di questa Commedia, that 
he really saw Geryon ascend out of the dee[), as he describes. 
Yes, of course ! Only it must not be forgotten that to swear by 
one's own poem is simply to toy poetically, while an appeal to 
one's conscience is an ethical action. The interpreters and trans- 
lators, without wishing to do so, and often without even knowing 
that they do this, here accuse our poet of a piece of frivolity car- 
ried rather far, of which they certainly d.j not think him guilty. 
But the whole thing was so simple ! For j)r ova means proof, and 
solo, alone. Then the verse must read: " Without further proof 
alone to recount." Not " must " read so, but "â–  might " read so 
if this made any sense ; but it simply makes no sense, for we vainly 
look round for the piu prove — i. e., further proofs. It must not be 



gators. Francesia is to be numbered among them ; his note (" Divina Coramedia," 
Turin, 1873, i, 241) : " La coscienza (quella buona compagnia, che affidata nella propria 
innocenza rende I'uomo franco) mi assicura," permits of no other interpretation ; also 
Jacearino, who translates (Naples, 18T1, i, 128): 

" Vedenno cosa eh' avarria paura 

De cont^ sulo, tanto m'ha stonato 

Si non che la coscienzia m'assicura 

La bona compagnia de I'ommo franco, 

Che se sente 'nnocente e sta sicura." 
The very latest interpreter, Luiffi de Biase, has decidedly adopted our explanation 
He writes (" Divina Commedia," Naples, 187(5, i, 161) : "Vide cosa sJ orribile, che sente 
ribrezzo a rimembrarla. . . . Pero non prova repugnanza veruna a narrarla, ch^ la sua 
coscienza non lo fruga, ne rimorde e flagella per quella colpa ond' k punito il nuovo pec. 
catore, ch' ei vede." 

So truth, once recognized, after all, gradually makes its way. 



Y2 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiy. 

forgotten that jjrova mav mean something besides ^roo/' — namely, 
experience ; and solo something besides alone — namely, onhj. It 
must not be forgotten, furthermore, that verses 113 and 114 admit 
of the construction : Yidi cosa ch' io avrei paura sol di contarla, 
senza piii prova — i. e., " I saw such things that I would fear even 
to narrate them — without further experiencing them — did not my 
conscience reassure me." Far from appealing to his conscience to 
prove the objective truth of a poetic fiction, Dante here ap- 
peals to his good conscience to prove his innocence. And if the 
motive for this solemn protestation of his innocence is asked for, 
here, where the schismatics are spoken of, the answer simply is 
this : Because his enemies and opposers might easily have thrown 
up to him Mutato nomine de tefabula narratur. For indeed it 
did not require much to accuse the poet of being a schismatic ; in- 
deed, an accusation of this kind is easily to be read, so it seems to 
me, between the lines of those line sentences of Messere Cante de 
Gabrielli and his accomplices. It did not require any particular 
penetration to take from the essay on monarchy and from some 
of the poet's letters the plausible proof that he too incited the 
children against the mother — on the one hand the Christians 
against the Church, on the other the Florentines against their na- 
tive city. Against such accusations, which might be made and 
perhaps were really made against him, Dante solemnly protests 
his innocence in this passage. It is accordingly to be understood 
thus: " I saw things which I would fear — so terrible were they — 
merely to narrate — not to mention having any further experience 
of them, if, namely, I myself had been guilty of such sins." It 
will be found, I think, that this conception is more consistent 
with the sense of the passage and more worthy of the poet, and I 
dare hope that I shall never again come across the nonsense of mak- 
ing the poet first speak of further proof, which he neither adduces 
nor can adduce ; secondly, of making him appeal to the testimony 
of his conscience for the truth of a poetic fiction ; I dare hope, I 
repeat, never again to meet with this nonsense in a German trans- 
lation and commentary of the "Divina Commedia," or I should 
really be obliged to think of a passage in Schiller, which tells 
against what power even the gods battle in vain. 

My readers will pardon this rather lengthy diirression. I was 
at some pains to call attention to a false and, at bottom, ridicu- 



Con(jruenGe of Sins and Punishments i?i- Daniels Inferno. 73 

loiis conception, which, like an old disease, was being inherited 
from generation to generation by the interpreters. We will now 
return to our own proper subject. 

In the tenth and last chasm we find the forgers. They, like 
the schismatics, are divided into four classes : forgers of uncoined 
metal, or alchemists ; forgers of person ; forgers of coined metal, or 
counterfeiters ; and, finally, forgers of words (xxix, 37, to xxx, 
148). As regards the first class, or alchemists, we first observe 
that Dante, in condemning them all, without exception, to hell, dif- 
fers from his teacher, Thomas of Aquino, wdiom he usually follows. 
The latter really believed that alchemy, which was then accounted 
a science, might succeed in making good, pure gold, which it 
would not be wrong to circulate. He says (" Summa theologiae," 
P. II, 2a. qu., Ixxvii, art. 2) : " Aurum et argentum non solum chara 
sunt propter utilitatem vasorum quae ex eis fabricantur, aut alior- 
um hujusmodi, sed etiam propter dignitatem et puritatem sub- 
stantiae ipsorum. Et ideo si aurum vel argentum ab alchimicis 
factum veram speciem non habeat auri et argenti, est fraudolenta 
et injusta venditio, praesertim cum sint aliquae utilitates auri et 
argenti veri, secundum naturalem operationem ipsorum, quae non 
conveniunt auro per alchimiam sophisticato, sicut quod habet pro- 
prietatem laetificandi, et contra quasdam infirmates medicinaliter 
juvat, frequentius etiam potest poni in operatione. et diutius in 
sua puritate permanet aurum verum quam aurum sophisticatum. 
Si autem per alchimiam fieret aurum verum, non esset illicitum 
ipsum pro vero vendere, quia nihil prohibet artem uti aliquibus 
naturalibus causis ad producendos naturales et veros efiectus, sicut 
Augustinus dicit in 3 de Trin., cap. 8, de his quae arte daemonum 
fiunt." Thus the saint of Aquino. We see Dante was somewhat 
more enlightened and less superstitious in certain things than his 
great master. 

The sin of the forger is essentially lying. He gives things, per- 
sons, and words a false shape and a false external appearance. 
Concerning the intimate relation which here exists between sin 
and punishment, I will again give Graul's words first. " The lie," 
he writes (p. 286), " fastens itself upon truth like a parasite, 
and absorbs all the healthy sap, as it were ; it has a perverting, 
destructive, decomposing eifect. Very ingeniously the liars (in 
the full as well as in the restricted sense of the word) are supposed 



74 The Journal of Speculative Philosophj. 

by the poet, as if thev were in an immense hospital, to be afflicted 
with all kinds of diseases, the putrid odor of which fills the whole 
valley. The alchemists who sought to get gold from base metals 
have their pure humors changed to impure ones ; their whole skin 
is covered with a disgusting scab, which, tormented by itching, 
they are ceaseless!}- scratching and rubbing, as during lifetime, 
driven thereto by a secret tickling; they were forever handling 
and working upon base lead — leprous gold. The alchemist seeks 
to heal the fault of Nature, and to get precious gold from the 
base lead which Aristotle calls "leprous gold." As leprosy in the 
ore springs from vitiated and rotten substances, so the leprosy of 
the skin is the consequence of tainted and corrupt humors (p. 
291). And of the forgers of persons he says (p. 295): "Because 
they have outraged the highest good of humanity — for personality 
is, as it were, the patent of nobility of all free-born beings — they 
begin to doubt their own personalit}' as well as that of others. 
Like unclean swine, they run about as if possessed, and tear down 
without reason or consideration everything in their way. Myrrha, 
timid by nature, as women are, losing herself in the madness of 
her heart, Hits hurriedly by. But Schiechi, man-like, is less timid 
by nature, and lays violent hands on Capocchio, who in this wise 
suffers violence, and has no one to help him. The counterfeiters 
suffer from the dropsy. By mixing inferior ingredients with it, 
they had, as it were, swelled the metal, so that the passing looker- 
on uiight think it of full weight ; now their body is swollen M'ith 
ill-digested humors, so that they appear at first sight to be in ])er- 
fect health, while in reality their inside is parching. The falsifiers 
of words are tormented by burning fevers. Lying fever fancies 
flit round their brain, in which truth and fiction were wont to 
cross each other in a motley mixture; it seems as if the whole 
body of these liars (German slang, Ditnstmacher, literally 'manu- 
facturers of vapor') was about to dissolve in empty vapor." 

We have but little to add to these comments of Graul's. The 
first observation which the poet makes in this region of hell is, 
that horrid, heartrending screams assail him, so that he covers 
his ears with his hands (xxix, 43). Laments then, cries of sorrow 
and woe — that is the harvest which the forgers have reaped ! 
They have caused others to lament and cry with woe by deceiving 
them with their forgeries ; now these sighs, these lamentations, are 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 75 

required from them. And how often before while yet in life ! 
Not only when they were discovered and unmasked, but also 
when they had succeeded in hiding their crime. They are all 
atflicted with diss-ustino; diseases, and diffuse a horrid stench round 
about. Their own self is not natural, but has been falsified, as it 
were. Here, too, the bodily disease is an image of tiie spiritual, 
the exterior an image of the interior. They are shunned as one 
seeks to shun bad odors. Their natural position, too, is falsified : 
they lie piled upon each other in horrid confusion (xxix, 67-69). 
The confusion they had brouo-ht about in life is now for them. 
Two of them prop themselves up against each other (xxix, 73), as 
they had helped each other during life and had together worked 
at their dark trade. Their body is afiiicted with such an itching 
that they are constantly busy with their hands, tearing ofit" the 
scabs with their nails, lacerating themselves with their own fingers 
(xxix, 76-90). The love of gold which inspires the alchemists 
fills them with a restlessness, a haste, which forms their torment. 
Their scratching does them little good, the means which they de- 
vise have not the power to give them rest. The counterfeiter 
who would not check his love of riches, whose ideal was a bag 
full of money, is bloated with foul water, while his tongue lan- 
guishes for a drop of water (xxx, 64). The dropsy is an image of 
those desires which seem to bloat him, as it were, while his thirst 
is the image of that insatiety which consecrates the heart to Mam- 
mon. In another place ('' Convito," tr., iv, c, 12) Dante, speaking 
of riches, says : '* Promettono le false traditrici di torre ogni sete 
e ogni mancanza, e apportar saziamento e bastanza. E questo 
fanno nel principio a ciascuno uomo, questa promissione in certa 
quantita di loro accrescimento aff'ermando ; e poiche quivi sono 
adunate, in loco di saziamento e di refrigerio, danno e recauo sete 
di esse cov.fehhre intollerahile : e in loco di bastanza, recano nuovo 
termine, cioe maggior (juantita di desiderio, e con questo paura e 
solleciiudine grandeP The whole chapter relating to this in the 
" Convito " ought to be read ; it forms an excellent commentary to 
the " miseria del maestro Adamo " in hell, and again demonstrates 
that the poet poetically described a hell which he had really seen 
— in this world. 

The giants in the abyss (XXXI) are the representatives of that 
insolent. Titanic strength which presumes by heaping mountain 



76 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

upon mountain to storm heaven itself. Apj)earing as towers of de- 
fence, the}' present an imposing appearance. The mere sight of 
tliem tills the poet with terror (verse 39), And still they stand 
there powerless, a vivid picture of the impotence of inan when his 
strength attempts to rebel against the higher powers. Fulfilled 
npon them is the word: "But thou, O God ! shall bring them 
down into the pit of destruction" (Psalms, Iv, 28), as well as: 
"To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of 
iron " (Psalms, cxlix, 8). They still rage and storm, as they used 
to do; but only to their own torment. Their rage is impotent, so 
that it only makes them subject to mockery (xxxi, 70-75), which 
again reminds us of the word : " He tliat sitteth in the heavens 
shall laugh ; the Lord shall have them in derision "' (Psalms, ii, 4). 
Amongst those which are especially mentioned, one — Nimrod — 
belongs to Scripture legend, three to mythology : Ephialtes, 
Briareus, and Antseus, The latter three are antediluvian ; 
Nimrod is the onlv one of those named who lived after the 
deluge. Thomas of Aquino had expressed the opinion (" Sum- 
ma theologiae," P. I, qu. lii, art. 3) : " Neque enim omnes 
gigantes fuerunt, sed multo plures ante diluvium quam post." 
Dante seems to follow his authority here. According to a very 
ancient (Josephus " Antiquitates," 1, 2, 4) and very general (com- 
pare Augustinus " De civitate Dei," xvi, 4; Brunetto Latini, 
Tesoro, i, 25) acceptation, the idea of building the tower of Babel 
originated with Nimrod, consequently the chief fault of the con- 
fusion of tongues upon earth lies with him (xxxi, 76). Now he 
is himself all confused and distraught, an anima sciocca^ who 
speaks a jargon which no one can understand and he is unable 
himself to understand the language of men (79-81). Ephialtes, 
who once raised his arras against the Most High, now carries 
the one tied up in front, the other on his back. In vain he 
shakes himself and seeks to rid himself of his chains by force. 
Although inwai'dly unsubdued and consumed by defiant rage, 
he is forced to feel that in opposition to a higher power he 
is nothing. In this — that they wish, but are not able to do — 
lies their punishment ; that they want to speak with all their 
might and can utter no intelligible sounds; that they desire to 
ffet rid of their chains with all their mio-ht and yet cannot free 
their arms. These giants have remained exactly as they once 



Cong)'H€7iGe of iSin-s and Punish) aeiits in Dante's inferno. 77 

were, only that their impotence is apparent now with terrible dis- 
tinctness. Or ratlier these giants are the bodily impersonations 
of 'those insolent Titanic men, teeming with strength, which seek 
to storm heaven and yet are reminded every moment that they 
have reached the limits of their power and that these limits are 
very closely drawn. 

As the passions in Dante's hell are no other than those of real 
earth-life, and as the wish to be something — not to die and leave 
no vestige of having existed, but to leave a name, if possible, an 
eternal memory of one's self in the world — is a general one, in- 
herent, as it were, in the nature of man, we easily understand 
how, according to the poet's description, the promise to revive 
their memory upon earth, to proclaim their fame now and then, 
moves the souls of the condemned to grant the wish of the wan- 
derers in making themselves known or otherwise doing their pleas- 
ure. Anta?us, too, the lion-tamer, who, because he has taken no 
active }»art in the rebellion against divine omnipotence, has, unlike 
Nimrod and Ephialtes, retained both his tongue for intelligent 
conversation and liis arm for a kind service, allows himself to be 
won by the prospect of new glory ; and, yielding to Yirgil's pray- 
ers, stoops and, " dumb as treachery itself " (Graul), puts the two 
poets down at the desired place. But here the scene changes. As 
all else, so this natural-human feelins; also is benumbed and ex- 
tinct in the inhabitants of the ninth and last circle of hell. In 
vHin Dante holds out to the traitor Bocca degli Abati the pros- 
pect of fame to induce him to tell his name. " The contrary of 
what I covet most, thou tender'st ; hence nor vex me more. Ill 
knowest thou to flatter in this vale." This is the answer he receives 
(xxxii, 94). A single feeling remains to these souls — the feeling 
of hatred and revenge. All else is benumbed, inside of them as 
well as round about them. The region which they inhabit is the 
distinct image of the heartless, unfeeling, icy soul of the traitor. 
" I traditori sono nel gelo o nella ghiacca, il die signiiica essere il 
tradimento la forza, che congela il cuore essenzialmente ; perche 
e il contrario assoluta della carita " (Genovesi). 

Dante has divided the traitors into four classes (Cantos xxxii, 
xxxiii)— traitors to blood-relations, traitors to their native country, 
traitors to friends, and traitors to benefactors. Type of the first 
class is Cain, the first fratricide. He has given his name to the 



78 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

first division of this circle — " Caina." Type of the second class is 
that Trojan who assisted the Greeks to rob the Palladium and 
advised the stratagem of the wooden horse. His division is there- 
fore called Antenora. Type of the third class is that Ptolemj-, 
son of Abobi, who hosj)itably received his friend and father-in- 
law, Simon, and his sons, and then treacherously murdered them 
(I Maccab. xvi, 11-16). From him the third division takes the 
name of Ptolemoia. Type of the fourth and blackest class of 
traitors is Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of the Saviour of the world. 
Judeoca is therefore the name of that lowest division of hell, 
where dwells the extreme depravity, the very dregs of hell, as it 
were. The betrayers of benefactors are nearest to Satan ; in fact, 
the three most prominent ones are in the very mouths of Satan, 
come into the most immediate contact with him, are united, so to 
speak, into one terrible organism with him. 

Treachery is cold, treachery is numb. Not a spark of warm 
feeling, not a breath of warm and life-giving love, dwells in the 
traitor's heart. Even the tear congeals in his eyes. He who can 
weep is not yet fully hardened. Obdurate, entirely hardened sin- 
ners cannot even shed tears. No more feeling, no more love, no 
more pity. An icy breath, arising from Satan's storming, makes 
everything in and about them congeal. They are therefore im- 
mersed in a horrid sea of ice, more or less deeply according to 
the gravity of their crime. Graul aptly remarks : " Man is born 
into the two relations against which the betraj'ers of blood-rela- 
tions and of their country offend, the former of which is a nar- 
row sphere, the latter a wider one ; the two other relations against 
which the betrayers of friends and benefactors sin are based upon 
choice, and in the one the natural, in the other the ethical ele- 
ment of choice prevails. As choice stands higher than accident, 
we find the latter two kinds more wicked ones, nearer to Satan ; 
and as, furthermore, amplification is more than restriction, as the 
ethical relation is more important than the natural, the traitors to 
blood-relations are followed by the traitors to ciiuntry, the traitors 
to friends by the traitors to benefactors " (p. 313). 

The close connection, the intimate relation, between sin and 
punishment is clearly apparent in this last region of Dante's hell. 
It is equally clear that the punishments which the souls of the 
traitors suffer is the emblem of their inner state dnrinu; earth-life. 



Congruence of Sins and P anlshments in Dante'' s Inferno. 79 

It seems as if we entered a vast assembly, consisting entirely of 
traitors, and watched the life and actions of its members. It 
seems almost snperfluous, therefore, to tarry longer in this region. 
But we will accompany onr poets awhile longer. The betrayers 
of blood-relations are immersed in ice, tnsin Id dove ajjpar ver- 
gogna (xxxii, 34) — that is, up to the face. It is not in vain that 
Dante uses this paraphrase. Their face is free only, that they 
may eternally exhibit their confusion. But thougli their face be 
free, tliej' dare not raise it, but all hold it downward in the con- 
sciousness of their depravity. The spiteful thoughts of their souls, 
the treachery over which they brood in their hearts, reveals itself 
externally in their pale lips, in the false eyes full of frozen tears, 
which congealed upon their very lids. Being questioned, they do 
not answer, for they know too well that they could only give a 
name covered with infamy (xxxii, 43), Placed in close proximity 
to each other, they mutually accumulate and increase each other's 
tortures, striking their foreheads against each other, like goats. 
If it was a certain consolation to Francesca and Paolo to be eter- 
nally united in infinite love, though it were in hell, because they 
had sinned out of love with each other and against each other, it 
is a torture to the two counts of Mangona to he forever chained 
together contrary to their will, as they had sinned against each 
other out of hatred. If they seek to hide and conceal their name, 
they are betrayed by their companions (xxxii, 52, etc., 106 and 
112), for they all meditate nothing but revenge and treason against 
one another. And the traitor at last betrays himself (xxxii, 67), 
as he knows only too well that the betrayed would betray him 
(xxxii, 112), and he begrudges them that pleasure — the pleasure 
of revenge. A deep psychological truth lies in this trait. On 
the whole, the character of these sinners is depicted true to life. 
Bocca, who at first demeans himself so defiantly, all at once be- 
comes quite tame and complaisant out of revenge; after seeing 
himself betrayed, he gives the poet all the information possible 
about his companions in sin and misery — only to be practicing his 
trade. There is only one feeling left — the pleasure of revenge. 
Dante soon perceives this himself and tries to loosen Ugoli no's 
tongue, who is filled with beastly rage, and to induce him to give 
his name by holding out the prospect of reviving the disgrace of 
his enemy, and he thus actually gains his end. It is true, in Ugo- 



80 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy. 

lino's touchino; narrative the most glowing paternal love finds 
expression beside the most furious hate of his enemies. But it 
must be observed that Ugolino, in a certain sense, forms an excep- 
tion in this region. In Dante's poem he is the hetrayed, placed 
next to the traitor, rather than the traitor himself. Then this 
placing next to each other the most terril)le hatred and the most 
touching paternal love is psychologically most true. Love is so 
essentially a part of human nature that one woukl have to be 
wholly a devil to banish it entirely from his heart. In Ugoli- 
no this last remnant of love seems to be wholly concentrated 
upon his sons. Or perhaps Graul is right in calling to mind 
(p. 322) the passage of St. Luke, vi, 32-35 : " For if ye love them 
which love ye, what thanks have ye? for sinners also love those 
that love them. . . . But love ye your enemies," etc. However that 
that may be, we repeat, the figure of Ugolino here forms an ex- 
ception ; in the midst of the region where icy cold, hatred, trea- 
son, rage only dwell, he is the only one from whose lips words of 
love issue. 

Chilliness, indifference, hatred, rage — yes, this hellish region is 
also to be found ujion earth. Here too it is sin which consum- 
mates its own punishment. The poet of the " Com media " has not 
only sung the other world of eternity, but he has also removed 
from the soul the wrappings of delusive appearance, and has dis- 
closed to us the truth of the inner life of man. 

Here we jjause. AVe might, it is true, follow the poet in his 
wandeiings through the other two realms of eternity, and we 
might investigate, if we are not to see in the torments of the land 
of expiation the inner struggles of those who seek to conquer sin, 
to free themselves from it — if we are not to see in the joys of para- 
dise the inner peace, the iimer beatitude of those who have be- 
come reconciled to God, and therefore to the world and to them- 
selves. But we desire here to limit ourselves to hell. May 
others better fitted for the task be at the pains to solve in a satis- 
factory manner the problem here alluded to. 

" The descrii)tion of the condition of the departed souls is only 
the outer shell. Dante himself says : The theme of the poem ia 
man, who, doing either good or evil, in consequence of the freedom 
of his will, is subject either to punishing or to recompensing 



Congruence of Sins and Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 81 

justice. If, then, the loords speak of the eternal lite, the true 
meaning applies to the life upon earth. The physical punishment, 
the infliction of pain, however variousi)' the fancy of the poet 
may have graded it, is, after all, l)iit an emblem for the condition 
of soul of the sinner hardened in his sin. It is easily seen in many 
instances how the punishment which the poet assigns to a sin is 
only an expression of this sin." Thus wrote Witte, the chief of 
Dante students, in the introduction to his translation of the " Di- 
vina Coinmedia." But neither Witte, nor other investigators in 
this field, have undertaken to give the proof in each separate in- 
stance that the punishments are developed from the respective 
sins themselves, and are, so to speak, the expression of these sins. 
A few examples, in which the congruence was, of course, easy to 
recognize, were made to sutfice, and it was perhaps stated that 
this congruence must, according to the poet's intention, be present 
also in other instances, where we can no longer trace and recognize 
it. The present disquisition has, as far as the limits placed per- 
mitted, followed the poet step by step and grade by grade, seek- 
ing to establish the intimate relation between sin and punishment. 
It cannot and will not claim to have found the right thing in 
every instance, but would be content if it had succeeded in prov- 
ing that it is 'possible.^ by dint of meditation, to find the rela- 
tion, or, as we have called it, the congruence. If it has succeeded 
in this, though it may need correction, deepening, amplitication, 
modification in particular instances, it has attained one of the 
objects it had in view. 

But only one. Another object was in our mind — namely, to 
utter, though perhaps not to establish, the thought that Dante's 

ESCHATOLOGICAL VIEWS AND IDEAS WERE FAR IN ADVANCE OF THE 
VIEWS AND IDEAS OF HIS TIME. 

Herewith we return to the beginning, to the idea with which 
w^e started out. It was there designated as an error to see no 
more in the "Divina Commedia" than a mere picture of the 
internal and external life upon earth. I cannot assent to the 
words of Witte, above quoted, if their meaning should be that the 
punishments which the poet assigns to the sins are to be regarded 
as merely of this world, or, as Witte expresses it, that " they are 
only an emblem of the condition of soul of the sinner hardened 
in his sin." They are that to be sure. That they are this has 
XXII— 6 



82 The Journal of tipeculative Philosophy. 

often enough been dwelt upon and proved in this disquisition. 
But they are not that only^ but something else besides. Quite in 
tbe beffinnino; we said that the " Diviiia Comniedia" contained not 
only the revealed truth of the soul, but also the revealed truth of 
the hereafter, and these two in organic connection. To deny this 
would be to make of the poet of the Poema sacro one of those Epi- 
cura^ans die Taniina col corpo morta fanno, or a materialist of the 
nineteenth century. A Christian poet, whose poein is, first of all, 
a description of the condition of the departed souls in the here- 
after very likely reflected, if he believed at all \\\ a hereafter, in 
immortality, in life of the spirit after the death of the body — very 
likely reflected, I say, on that condition of the departed souls in 
the hereafter which he was about to describe, and his description 
probably contains the result of his reflections. Or did Dante, 
perhaps, describe the condition of the departed souls without seri- 
ously reflecting thereupon ? Or did he describe it quite diflt'er- 
ently from the manner in which he reallv imajj-ined it to be? To 
assume this would be folly. 

No, Dante imagined that world as he describes it in his ])oem. 
This must not, however, be misunderstood. We do not here 
speak of the topography of eternity, nor of the geography and 
architectonic construction of the three realms of the hereafter. 
All that does not concern our problem in the least. We have 
only to do with the condition of the souls in the hereafter, with 
the question: ''Wherein, according to Dante's view, did damna- 
tion, wherein did eternal bliss, consist ? " And to this our asser- 
tion applies, that Dante, without doubt, thought 2indi believed eter- 
nity to be as he described it in his poem. 

And how has he depicted it ? The life hereafter is represented 
as the continuation in a straight line, as an uninterrupted con- 
tinuation, of this life. It is the completion of what was prepared 
in this life; the blossoming out of what here existed in the bud, 
the fulfilment of that which was threatened or promised here 
below. The false lustre has vanished, the wrappings have dropped, 
the dross has fallen down, the chafl:'has flown to the winds. The 
pure light of truth, which was here fettered, as it were, by the 
dense atmosphere of the earth and could not penetrate the coarse 
sense of earth, there shines like the bright sun of noonday, and 
either warms the unclothed souls with love or l)urns like fire into 



Congruence of Sins mid Punishments in Dante's Inferno. 83 

their wounds. That Dante, a child of the middle ages, was able 
to lift himself to this pure and lofty view — this makes him truly 
great, and in this he stands alone in his age. 

Dante's age imagined eternity as the common belief of the peo- 
ple, or, let us rather say, as superstition still conceives it to-day. 
In the moment of death the proceedings are fully closed. Yonder 
the one awakens — and finds himself in heaven. He has become a 
different person from what he was before his last slumber. His 
passions, his thoughts, his inclinations, his impulses have died 
with his body and are forgotten. He sits up yonder and thinks 
of nothing but siuging hallelujah. "The ecclesiastic idea," says 
Hase very aptly ('^Gnosis," 2d ed., ii, 4:3-l-), " of a constant singing 
of praises, praying, and hearing sermons, hardly gives promise of a 
very intellectual life." Another, awaking beyond from the slum- 
ber of death, finds himself in hell. He, too, has at bottom be- 
come quite a different person. He has only a feeling of pain, 
perhaps of repentance, left. Fancy has been at pains to depict 
th(! torments of hell as terribly and fearfully as possihle. and lit- 
erature is full of such descri})tions, which are as fantastic as they 
are horrible. Researches have been made from time to time to 
see if Dante did not imitate such an one. But take in hand 
whatever one you will — ibr instance, the vision of Frate Alberico 
— what a difi'erence ! Yivid colorings of torments, which, how- 
ever, for the most part, have no couTiection, or only a very slight ex- 
ternal one, with the sins ! In Dante, on the contrary, the departed 
souls are what they were in earth-lite ; the punishments are devel- 
oped directly and with logical consistency out of the sin itself; the 
hereafter is the direct continuation of the life on earth. He does 
not describe punishments for the purpose of heating the fancy and 
inspiring fear, but onl}' as the natural fruit of sin. That was his 
deed. To an age which had the most absurd views of the lite 
hereafter he, as the first and only one, proclaimed : " Heaven and 
liell are only the poetry of the belief in immortalit}' — yon, O 
human beings, carry either in your breast ! In the hereafter only 
that will be continued and completed which was begun and pre- 
pared here below. There is but one bliss — Godliness ^ but one 
damn ation — Godlessness^ 



84 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 



HOMEE'S ILIAD. 

BY D. J. SXIDEK. 

Book Seventh. 

Eacli of the preceding Books has been marked by some special 
cliaracteristic ; the Seventh Book also has its particular quality. 
The main fact which it brings into strong relief is the present 
equipoise between the two sides. The Greeks and the Trojans 
are placed in the hovering balance, as it v/ere ; the scales sway up 
and down without any decision. This is also the ethical situation 
just now; in Troy the wrong of Helen, in the Greek camp the 
wrong of Achilles, are equally hateful to Zeus, the supreme gov- 
ernor. It is true that the reader has long since known the jnir- 
pose of the highest God : he intends to give victory to the Trojans 
in order to destroy them; but first the Greek side is to be disci- 
plined out of its wrong by the victory of Troy. At present, how- 
ever, the equipoise is sustained, though in the following Book Zeus 
will weio-h the Fates of the two armies, and that of Trov for the 
time will triumph. The equality is, hence, but tem))orary, a phase 
of the great struggle, the quivering point of supreme uncertainty, 
which has its counterpart in most wars and battles. 

The connection with the preceding Book is direct, both in the 
outer circumstances and the inner motives. Hector arrives with 
Paris at the Trojan camp; the leader tinds his people quite as 
they were when he left them to go to the city. Equally close is 
the connection in thought. In the preceding Book Pallas was not 
conciliated ; she cannot be. Accordingly, when the struggle opens 
anew she appears almost at the beginning to aid her side, the 
Greek. But Diomed the individual was conciliated with a Tro- 
jan hero, and will not fight him. The result is, Diomed passes 
decidedly into the background, and another hero, Ajax, is the 
central fi";ure. Still, Diomed is not fors-otten ; he does no famous 
deed, but he makes a famous speech, which is iin])lacable to ex- 
cess ; he will not now accept even Helen as a peace-offering from 
the Trojans. Still, he is not the former Diomed in action, what- 
ever he may be as speech-maker. 

There is also a general connection with the entire movement of 



Homer's Iliad. 85 

the poem hitherto, both in events and motives. We iind a pointed 
alhision to the wratli of Achilles, which must refer back to the 
First Book. Moreover, the statement is emphatically made that the 
Greeks have other heroes besides Achilles, and will go on tightino; 
without him — a fact shown in the Second and following Books. 
Diomed, in the Fifth Book, was one of those heroes ; Ajax, in the 
present Book, is another. In like manner the Trojan side, since 
the withdrawal of Achillas, has developed a hero, Hector, who, 
though not a new man in the war, has been rising more and more 
into prominence since the Third Book. The two heroes, Greek 
and Trojan, sifted ont by the changed circumstances of the war, 
are now to be tested, one by the other, in single combat. These 
are Ajax and Hector. 

In correspondence with the two terrestrial heroes, two Gods 
are shown in equipoise, and their selection follows from the pre- 
ceding Books. The Trojan deities. Mars and Yen us, Diomed 
conquered, but he could not put Apollo down ; there is, then, one 
unconquered God on the side of Troy, and he now appears. On 
the Greek side, Pallas has been the most active arjtagonist of 
Apollo's etforts, especially in the Fifth Book. Each of these di- 
vine energies has counteracted the other ; both are now shown 
suspended in the balance. Thus many small, delicate threads 
knit the present Book with the Books that have gone before ; the 
little fibres remain quite unnoticed till, through some attempted 
dislocation, the whole poem begins to limp. The main fact just 
at this point of the struggle, we must repeat, is the equality of the 
two sides, which equality is set forth in a pair of divine and in 
a pair of human representatives, and unfolds through them into 
the structure of the Book. 

This structure, with its divisions and subdivisions, is as fol- 
lows : 

I. The divine and human equipoise of the conflict showni in 
Gods and men. 

a. The divine side shown in the mutual counteraction between 
Apollo and Pallas. 

b. The human side shown in the drawn combat between Hector 
and Ajax. 

II. The effect of this equipoise, made visible by the drawn com- 
bat, upon both sides. 



86 The Journal of Speculative Philomphij. 

a. Upon the side of the Trojans, who debate anew the proposi- 
tion to restore Helen, which results in nothing. 

h. Upon the side of the Greeks, who build now a wall, concern- 
in<r which a divine decree is uttered. 

The whole sweep of the Book, then, is the equipoise and its 
consequences. It is manifest that both sides are startled — indeed, 
friglitened — and reach out for the readiest means of protection. 
We cannot fail to see again how the Upper and Lower Worlds — 
the grand Ilumeric dualism — plaj most deeply into the poetic 
organism, and how they reflect each other, casting a donble image 
of what is one in thought. We may now turn to the details, and 
observe whether they fit harmoniously into the form which has 
been given. 



The Trojans have a turn of luck with the coming back of Hec- 
tor and Paris from the city ; three Greeks, of no great fame a])- 
parently, are slain without hurting their Trojan antagonists. This 
beginning resembles that of the preceding Book, when the Greeks 
had their spurt of good fortune. The present success of the Tro- 
jans is but an eddy in the great river of events, and merely coun- 
tervails the former success of the Greeks; each side neutralizes 
the other ; equilibrium is the result, which is now to be set before 
our eyes in the divine and the human order. 

a. First comes Pallas flitting down from Olympus when she 
beholds her Greeks perishing in battle. Opposed to her, Apollo 
darts from Pergamus, " wishing to give victory to the Trojans." 
Here we might expect a divine duel, a battle of the Gods, such as 
will occur in a later Book, but Apollo speaks a peaceful word : 
" Let us cause the war to stop to-day." To this Pallas assents; 
she had tlie same thought in mind. Then the two Gods hatch 
the scheme whereby Hector is to send a challenge to the Greeks. 
But we note that even A})ollo implies that Troy is to be destroyed 
in the conflict hereafter. Thus the two divine partisans counter- 
balance, and come to rest, while they throw the decision of the 
struggle down to earth, to be fought out by mortal men. 

In this passage we must again aj)[tly the fundamental j)rinciple 
of Homeric theology: the Gods are both objective and subjective, 
in the world and in tlie man. Apollo and Pallas are deities of 



Homer s Iliad. 87 

wisdom ; tliey reflect the present situation in its divine or spiritual 
sense; the side oF Greece with its wrong and the side of Troy 
witli its wrong quite balance each other ; there is an ethical equi- 
librium just at present, though Apollo foresees and states the end 
of Troy. The two Gods assume the form of birds — vultures — 
and sit upon the beech-tree as spectators of the duel; they do not 
assail each other, and do not participate in the conflict ; we wit- 
ness a divine image of the equipoise. JSTot only an image, but an 
omen is shown by the Gods in the shape of birds; here the birds, 
tliough vultures, do not tear each otlier, as they do sometimes in 
Homer; they are in a balance. All Greek augury implies this 
divine possession of the feathery tribe; and Ilelenus, " the very 
best augur of the Trojans," perceived the purpose of the Gods, 
and at once set about bringing it down among men. 

On the other hand, this same equipoise is the present uncon- 
scious state of feeling in both Greek and Trojan. Achilles hav- 
ing withdrawn, is there any hero able to cope with Hector? Or is 
Hector now able to meet the best Greek in the field ? Thus both 
sides are in the condition of uncertainty, and are ready to look 
upon the duel between the two grand protagonists for some omen 
or hint of future tendency. It is clear that the Upper and Lower 
Worlds image one supreme fact ; there is a balance of Gods and 
men, of principles and parties. Helenus, the divine interpreter, 
finds his human audience ready ; he voices their dumb instinct. 

h. The duel is proposed by the Trojans, and the essential ques- 
tion is, Which side Jjas the best man after Achilles'^ Without the 
heroic individual the Hellenic spirit is helpless, has no embodi- 
ment, has no living, plastic shape of what is godlike upon earth, 
Si<rnificant to the last degree is this search for the hero ; he must 
be found before any great work can be done. In fact, is not that 
just the great work of the Trojan or other conflict — to reveal the 
divine in action through the deeds of the hero ? The present 
duel, then, is the competitive trial for heroship, and is wholly dif- 
ferent from the duel between Menelaus and Paris, in the Third 
Book. Then it was a personal encounter between the injured 
husband and injnrer ; now it is the representatives of two nations, 
of two continents, who are to enter the combat, not for an indi- 
vidual grievance, but for a cause which has become not only na- 
tional, but world-historical. Paris may fight for the personal 



88 The Journal of Speculative PhilosopJiij . 

detention of Helen, but Hector cannot, for he does not believe in 
it; still he must light for his country, though it refuse to restore 
Helen. 

The Trojans are going to keep the Greek woman, and have 
already broken the compact for her restoration — '' Zeus did not 
ratify it," says Hector apologetically. Troy has made the deed of 
Paris its own, which is its fatality ; the wrong of the individual 
has become national, and the national hero has to appear, though 
Destiny is getting her shears ready for him. In like manner, on 
the Greek side^ the personal injury done to Menelaus has been 
made national. Accordingly, nation must light nation as wholes 
or in their heroes. It will be observed that the restoration of 
Helen is not spoken of now — a very skilful silence on the part of 
the old poet; the Greeks would hardly have faith in any new 
contract. But they are challenged to tight in single combat ; as 
men of courage and military honor, they must accept, and send 
forth their hero. The duel undecided is not so much the end as 
the beginning of battles. 

Still we shall witness a touch of the personal side of the wrong. 
When the Greeks hesitate to accept the challenge of Hector, 
Menelaus steps forward, and, with sharp rebuke of his country- 
men, offers to tight the Trojan hero. This striking passage indi- 
cates that the sting of private wrong is sharper in him than in 
any other Greek, though his disposition be humane, as we see by 
his sparing Adrastus. But Menelaus may meet Paris, not Hec- 
tor. The poet thereby intimates that this duel is different from 
that of the Third Book, and introduces Menelaus expressly to set 
him aside, in contrast with the former case. The personal phase 
has risen to the national, whose representative must, in one way 
or other, be produced. 

But he is not forthcoming ; he does not report of himself, nor 
is he so easy to find in the absence of Achilles. Then Nestor, the 
aged man of wisdom, has to make him show hirnself tiirough 
stinging words of reproach. Nestor is the orator, using his 
weapon at the right moment in the right manner. His argi.ment 
is that of shame : ye, present race of (xreek chieftains, are degen- 
erate ; see what your fathers did! Then he weaves a bit of his 
own life into a cunning legend, which reflects the present situa- 
tion, and suggests what is to be done. How well the old orator 



IIomer''8 Iliad. 89 

knew liis audience ! Not by abstract reasoning, but by a mythi- 
cal exploit does he rouse these children of the imagination ; they 
know what to do when they see the fabulous example. Not one, 
but nine respond, and a new selection has to be made — this time 
by lot. Surely it is not easy to find the hero. Then we note that 
the Greeks in their prayer select three, not one, though Ajax is 
mentioned first, while Dionied is second. They are not so very 
certain who is the hero after Achilles. But the lots, under the 
discreet management of Nestor, call for the right man — ^Ajax. 
Chance in some way was controlled by Wisdom in that G-reek 
camp ; sad would it be, then and to-day, if she were not thus con- 
trolled. Still we affirm Nestor did not stuif the ballot-box. 

The main point in the description of the duel, which is a mar- 
vel of clearness and rapidity, is the equality between the two com- 
batants. Each throws two spears, yet both men esca])e ; next each 
hurls a stone; finally each seizes his sword in exact counterpart, 
when they are separated by heralds from both Greeks and Tro- 
jans. " Cease, Zeus loves you both " ; you are quite equal in the 
supreme eye. " Night has come ; obey the night." Such is the 
decree of the spectators on both sides — a mutual recognition of 
the equipoise, which is not broken by the duel, but confirmed. 

Yet we observe a slight leaning of the balance to one side, in 
favor of Ajax ; not sufficient to change the result, but noticeable. 
The Greek hero wounded Hector slightly with his spear, draws 
the first blood, then crushes him to earth with a stone, " but at 
once Apollo raised him up." Here, too, the God is inside the 
man, whose hurt is not so severe that he could not keep his shield 
and get up again. Divine grit the poet may well call it. The 
two antagonists exchange compliments and presents, like Diomed 
and Glaucus ; but, unlike these, Plector speaks of renewing the 
contest at another time, and of fighting till the God shall decide 
for one or the other. 

This duel is remarkable in another respect: it has a decided 
tinge of chivalry. There is so much knightly feeling and such a 
lofty utterance of courtesy between the combatants that we seem 
to feel the first breath of the Middle Ages. The Greek hero says 
to his enemy, "Begin your battle" — throw the first spear. Hec- 
tor replies by telling him to get ready — " I shall not smite thee 
by stealth, but openly." Is not this the chivalrous spirit of a 



90 The Journal of Speculatlm Philosophy . 

Bayard ? Then in their speeches when tliey have ceased to fio;ht 
there is the same high tone of personal honor and courtesy, l^ot 
without the deep suggeition from the elder poet has Shakespeare 
introduced the manners of chivalry into his " Troilus and Cres- 
sida," which is based upon the tale of Troy. 

Each hero returns to his own side, and is received with joy. 
Yet there is anxiety for the future among botli Greeks and Tro- 
jans. It was a drawm battle, with some odds possibly in favor of 
Ajax. That fateful equilibrium has brought new care. It is 
manife-t that Achilles must come back to insure victory to the 
Greeks. The case of the Trojans is even more doubtful ; they 
cannot drive the enemy from their territory if the Greeks still 
have, after the withdrawal of Achilles, the equal of Hector. 
Sorrow will sharpen care, for the dead are now to be obtained 
under truce and to meet wnth funeral rites. But when the war is 
renewed, what then ? 

II. 

We are now to see the more permanent consequences of the 
duel to both Greeks and Trojans. First we beheld joy at the es- 
cape of each hero, then sorrow for the fallen ; but the main result 
is a settled anxiety, which leads to the two last actions of the 
Book — the building of the wall by the (irreeks, and the new propo- 
sition to restore Helen by the Trojans. 

a. Nestor, the man of experience an.d forethonglit, voices this 
anxiety on the Greek side, and, at the same time, suggests the 
means of ])rotection. He tells the princes in council that while 
they are making a tomb they should turn it into an earthwork, 
with entrance, towers, ditch, palisade, " to be a bulwark for our 
shij)s and ourselves." His last words show his solicitude, "lest 
the war overwhelm us." All the princes assented; it is plain 
they do not feel certain of the field with Ajax. For ten years no 
fortification was needed ; Achilles was the wall ; even when he was 
absent on a foraging expedition, his name was a sufficient terror 
to keep the Trojans inside the city. But now they know of his 
wrath ; they come forth, and the Greeks have to bnild a wall in 
the greatest haste, taking advantage of the day of truce, and c<jn- 
verting even tlie tomb into a part of the fortified line. Very 
timely and subtle was the advice of Nestor. The Trojans could 



Homer s Iliad. 91 

now prevent the construction of the wall, hut tliey naturally sup- 
pose that their enemies are merely building a monument to the 
dead. So they keep the truce, and attend to their own funeral 
duties. But the Greeks had good reason to be anxious ; hence 
their hurry, and, as we thiidc, their stratagem, to get the Avork 
done. 

Xow we are to iiave a very curious utterance — nothing less than 
a divine judgment concerning this work. All the Gods admired it 
but Neptune, who was jealous, fearing lest men would forget the 
wall built by the Gods — by himself and Apollo — namely, the wall 
of Troy. So he makes an appeal to Zeus in regard to the work of 
the Greeks. To the Hellenic consciousness there were two kinds of 
walls, the everlasting and the transitory. The first kind was 
reared by the Gods to contain the Gods and their temples, along 
with the political organization of the city. Such walls, built of 
enormous blocks of stone, were- eternal, and those of Troy, as well 
as of Mycena" and of many other Greek cities, have outlasted the 
Gods themselves. A wall to hold institutions must be enduring; 
so w^e may feel a genuine though rugged piety in the huge Cyclo- 
pean structures of primeval Hellas. But the present earthwork is 
but temporary and for a temporary purpose, raised " without 
hecatombs to the Gods." 

Hear, then, tlie decree of Zeus: When the Greeks have gone 
home, do thou break down the wall, and carry it into the sea, and 
hide ao-ain the great shore with sand. This wall is indeed transi- 
tory, compared to that of Troy, built by the Gods. Some authors 
have seen in this passage an attempt of the poet to account for 
the condition of the Trojan plain in his day. He is supposed to 
have visited the scene of the war, and found that the earthwork, 
so fainous in tradition, had vanished. Its disappearance rises be- 
fore his imao-ination into a leg-end and unconscious svmbol: it was 
not a divine wall, built to protect a city ; it was rather built to 
destroy a city, and then to be abandoned. Another question 
comes up: How long after the destruction of Troy was it till 
Homer made his visit ? Impossible to tell ; say one hundred years, 
and drop the conjecture. 

In another respect, the Greeks are now reduced to an equality 
with the Trojans. If they have the advantage, they have also the 
disadvantage, of a wall ; they are liable to be penned up, as the 



92 The Jour not of Speculative PJdlosopht/. 

Trojans have been for so many years ; in fact, this is just what 
is about to happen. There is but one relief — the hero, Achilles, 
who has the wall in his right arm, must return, 

h. While the anxious Greek princes in council had resolved to 
build the wall, the Trojans in equal anxiety were holding an as- 
sembly in the acropolis of Troy. Antenor comes forward with 
his proposition to restore Helen and all her wealth ; the reason he 
gives is the broken treaty of the Fourth Book. Thus the Trojans 
have again the opportunity to fulfil their pledge and to do justice ; 
they can now make undone their acceptance of Pandar's faithless- 
ness, and even of the primal wrong of Paris. It is another test ot 
the ethical tendency of Troy, which has been repeatedly shown, 
and which is the ground of her fate. 

Paris is present and speaks, lie refuses directly to give up the 
Greek woman ; he is defiant, even contemptuous ; he well knows 
that he has the power on his side. That power is twofold : First, 
he doubtless has a majority of the people, though many hate him 
and curse him. More than once the Trojans have made his wrong 
their own ; in fact, that wroncr is their consciousness. Paris would 
long since have been compelled to leave the city if the greater por- 
tion of the inhabitants had l)een hostile to him. Indeed, Troy 
would not perish did it not share in the guilt of Paris. In the 
second place, the ])ower of the throne is with him. Hear now 
King Priatn; he simply commands that what Paris proposes be 
made known to the Greeks by the herald. We are compelled to 
think that Pi'iam leans to the side of Paris. 

Thus we see that there are two parties in Troy, which divide 
upon this question of the restoration of Helen. Hector and An- 
tenor are leaders of the minority, who wish to give back the Spar- 
tan woman to her nation and husband ; this is the Greek party in 
Troy, the Hellenic counter-current to the Oriental tendency of the 
city. Paris, evidently a political leader and representative of his 
time and people, has on his side not merely the majority, but his 
fatlier the king. It is true that we read of many outbursts against 
Paris as the cause of the war; still, he is the typical Trojan, the 
embodiment of Troy's spirit far more than Hector. 

The proposition of Paris, which was to restore, not Helen, but 
the treasures stolen with Helen, and add wealth of his own, is re- 
jected by the Greeks; they are not to be bought off, even in the 



Homer's Iliad. 93 

present uncertainty, wherein they show that they have a principle 
at stake, and will not surrender it. Both sides end their labors 
and sorrows in a banquet ; the Greeks purchased their wine evi- 
dently from the neighboring islanders, with "brass, iron, slaves, 
cattle, and hides" ; a statement which suggests a lively picture of 
trading in the Greek camp, as well as the absence of any general 
circulating medium. 

We see that the equipoise is at present complete, even estab- 
lished by the new work of the Greeks. Two walls now balance 
each other, as it were; but the war must go on; neither party 
will compromise, though both are anxious concerning the result. 
But, hark ! through all the night Zeus thunders terribly ; the 
equipoise is about to be disturbed, whereof the following Book 
will give an account. 

The main object of the preceding observations has been to bring 
to light the motives which connect the various portions of the 
Book. These motives are not always brought to the surface by the 
poet, but constitute an undercurrent which flows unconsciously 
through the reader, who listens in deep sympathy to the story. 
For instance, the building of the wall is not openly connected 
with the drawn combat between Ajax and Hector, nor is the new 
Trojan proposition concerning Helen ; still both are the unexpect- 
ed consequence thereof, which breaks forth without warning and 
without premeditation. The reader is surprised at the sudden 
change, till he thinks; then he finds that the Greeks and Trojans 
were also surprised at the result, but had to meet it with some 
plan of action. Homer makes the same leap in his characters ; 
compare Diouied of the Fifth with Dioujed of the Sixth Book. 

Xow, it is just at these points of transition that the negative 
critic, unable to hnd the connecting motive, or bent in advance 
upon tearing the one garment into many shreds, cries out: Here 
l^egins a new song; this is the hand of another poet. He com- 
plains that the wall has no connection with the duel ; is built in a 
^reat hurry ; and asks triumphantly, Why was it not thought of 
beft)re, during the ten-years' stay of the Greeks? All of which is 
siniply a failure to see the motives which lie im])edded in the 
poet's story. The critic prefers two Diomeds, two or a dozen 
Homers, two or many fragments of anybody or anything to one 
entirety. The poetic instinct feels these connecting motives al- 



94 The Journal of SpeGulative Philosophij. 

ways; but, when the poetic instinct is dim or lost, tliese motives 
must be raised from their unconscious realm into tlie clear, con- 
scious daylight of thought. 

Moreover, these sudden leaps in motivation (if the word be 
allowed) are found in all the great poets. We see Shakespeare 
springing at a bound from his real to his ideal world, and the con- 
necting link must be poetically felt or consciously supplied ; in 
fact, it is better to liave both ways. Similar leaps in his charac- 
ters can be often noticed. How different the Cordelia of the First 
Act of "Kino- Lear" is from the Cordelia of the Fourth Act! 
Yet it is one character when we reach down to the connecting 
motives ; there are not two Cordelias, nor twc» Shakespeares. But 
the poem of earth-defying leaps is " Faust." For this reason many 
German critics are inclined to dissolve it into a series of scenes, 
with little outer and no inner coimection, and to gaze upon it as 
so much star-dust scattered through the heavenly spaces. Still 
we must think there is one " Faust" and one Goethe. 



PLATO'S DIALECTIC AND DOCTRmE OF IDEAS.' 



BY W. T. HARRIS. 



In the dream of John Bunyan, Christian and Hopeful in the 
eighth stage of their pilgrimage came to the Delectable Moun- 
tains, "' which mountains," he tells us, " belong to the Lord of the 
hill. So they went up to the mountains to behold the gardens 
and orchards and vineyards and fountains of water; when they 
also drank and wasbed themselves, and did freelv eat of the vine- 
yards. And they walked together with the shepherds of those 
mountains, and frtun the top of a high hill called 'Clear,' by the 
aid of a perspective glass, lovingly tendered them, they obtained 
a glimpse of the Celestial City." 

For more than two thousand years earnest thinkers, bent on 
solving the Sphinx-Riddles of life by the light of the intellect, have 



' Read at the Concord Scliool of I'ldlosopliv, July, 1S86. 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 95 

ascended the Delectable Mountains of Philosophy — -not, however, 
without great toil and the utmost requirements of patient perse- 
verance. 

Although philosophy is one vast upheaval of the stratum of 
human knowledge, jet at various heights there jut out separate 
peaks, and at the highest elevation there is a twin peak called 
" Plato and Aristotle." Of these two summits, that of Aristotle 
is broader and less steep, while that of Plato is more picturesque 
and beautiful. They rise to an equal heiglit ; and from either one 
can obtain, in all seasons of the year, a line view of the city of 
Eternal Verities, which is, as you know, always lighted up by its 
own light, and never shrouded in clouds or mists of any sort. On 
many of the lower summits of the Delectable Mountains of Phi- 
losophy there are very fine views of the Eternal City, but often 
intermittent, because of fogs and mists that prevail more and more 
as one descends below the regions that lie perennially above the 
line of atmospheric chaiiges. 

All most serious-minded thinkers prefer to toil on from lieight to 
height until they reach the twin peak which I have mentioned, and 
guide-lxtoks as to the best roads and paths to be followed by pil- 
grims are always in some small demand. It is in fact the object 
of this paper to furnish a. few of the particulars of a survey under- 
taken by the writer on what he believes to be one of the most ac- 
cessible routes open in our time. 

If anything can be done to make clearer and more comprehen- 
sible the Platonic Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas, all will admit 
that the ascent to the Platonic vision of the Eternal Verities is 
thereby essentially aided. The Platonic dialogues set forth ev^ery- 
wliere as culminating doctrine the distinction between what is 
changing and variable, subject to growth and decay, and wdiat 
is permanent and abiding, above vicissitudes of time and place. 
To this permanent and abiding belong, first, such practical con- 
cerns of human life as virtue and the moral notions; and, secondly, 
such theoretical notions as furnish the logical framework of think- 
ing and knowing. Plato calls the permanent and abiding beings 
IDEAS, Moral ideas make possible human practical life, the insti- 
tutions of civilization; theoretical or logical ideas make possible 
any thinking or knowing wdiatever. But this is oidy to define 
ideas subjectively. These ideas are permanent and abiding, not 



96 The Journal of Speculative P/dlosophy. 

merely as subjective laws of human conduct and knowledge, but 
also as the very logical conditions of all existence whatever. They 
are laws of the world-order. Tliey are more than laws ; they are 
conditions and causes of the world-order. 

A number of the dialogues, mostly known or supposed to he the 
work of his first ten years after the death of Socrates, have j)re- 
dominantly in view the exhibition of the character and necessity 
of moral idea?. The CJtarmides^ for instance, shows the idea of 
temj)erance; the Lysis^ that of friendship ; the Laches^ fortitude; 
the Hippias Minoi\ intentional wrong-doing; the First Alcihia- 
des^ what intellectual and moral qualifications are needed by a 
statesman ; the Protago7'as^ what the moral consequences are that 
fiow from the denial of universal and necessary moral ideas by the 
Sophists; the Gorgias^ how to distinguish the idea of virtue from 
that of the feeling of pleasure, and that of the good from that of 
the feeling of the agreeable. By some it is supposed that the 
three great dialogues which have for development the doctrine of 
theoretic ideas and their dialectic belong to the second ten years, 
to his period of travel and study of other philosophies. These are 
the TJieaitetus, the Sophist, and the Parmenides. The great w^orks 
of the Academy after his return to Athens are the Phcedrus. the 
Banquet, the Phmdo, the Pepuhlic, the Philebus, the Timceus, 
and the Laws. In these treatises he has used the highest philo- 
sophic insight and applied it in various provinces. Besides these 
there are great works like the Meno, the Statesman, and others, 
making nearly forty in all. For the purposes of this paper, chief 
use will be made of the Sophist and the Laws. 

The chief object of investigation will of course be the doctrine 
of Ideas, and an inquiry into what we are to understand by idea 
in the Platonic sense. Ideas are described in Plato as eternal 
archetypes of all existence; as the essences of phenomenal beings; 
as independent and self-existent ; as the divine, the immutable, 
the reasonable, the self-active, the self moved, the selt-identical, the 
unity, that which is in-and-for-itself. The highest Idea is said to 
be the Good. It is also called God. 

Again these eternal archetypes or ideas are said to be not of an 
abstract nature, not of such a character as to exclude all distinc- 
tions, attributes, qualities, modes, and determinations. They are 
not empty absolutes devoid of difierence and distinction, like pure 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 97 

being, which is reached by abstraction from all particularity. For 
as such they would be lifeless creations of thought. They are 
powers or energies of living forces, active causes which produce 
the world of change or birth and decay. If one wishes to form a 
provisional notion of a Platonic idea, let him consider a process of 
nature. It is a series of phases existing in succession, one phase 
following another. A plant is at first a seed, then a root and 
stem ; it puts forth branches, leaves, flowers ; finally it produces 
seed again, making the cycle complete. It began with seed and 
ended with seed. Observing this process and combining all into 
one, man gives it a general name — oak, corn, or something else. 
The observer sees that all the phases of growth belong to one unity 
and that each phase is essential to the rest, while all are essential 
to each. The whole grasped together under the general name is 
the idea. The actual plant was not the whole idea at once, be- 
cause it passed through the pliases in succession, one after another. 
All the phases belong to the idea as so many potentialities. The 
reality in time and space makes real one or a few phases at a time, 
the others being potential. The total round of reality is the idea, 
but any given plant does not realize all its reality at once, but only 
some of its possibilities. Here we have an illustration of an idea, 
and of what Plato called participation or communion in an idea 
(yu.e^e^t<?). The plant participates in an idea because it realizes at 
any given moment only some of the phases of the idea. On ac- 
count of its incapacity to realize all the phases of the idea at once, 
it changes ; some of the phases which it has give place to others 
which it has not as yet — i. e.^ it grows. 

Water is either liquid, fluid, or vapor, but only one of these 
things at a time. Hence it might be said that water participates 
in its idea only one third at a time — two thirds of its idea being 
potential, while one third is realized. 

All things in nature are found upon examination to be phases 
in large cycles of process. These things are changing, more or less 
rapidly realizing their total spheres of possibility, which constitute 
their ideas or archetypes. Real existence, as we see it before our 
senses, is thus whirling round in a circle of possibilities, just as 
Dante's heavens were moving, impelled by desire. For they de- 
sired to realize all the potentialities — i. e.^ to be in contact with 
the Empyrean at all points. As they could not do this all at 
XXII— Y 



98 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

once, they moved so as to accomplish the desired result succes- 
sively in time. 

Again, consider one of the most important of all points. It is 
evident enough that the plant — the oak, the corn, or the mush- 
room — which passed through those cycles of change, was a verita- 
ble power or energy. It was able to react on the environment of 
earth and air and build for itself a body of roots, stem, and leaves, 
and reproduce itself in seed again, Tiie idea is an energy, there- 
fore, and it is an energy of a universal character. It is called uni- 
versal because it remains ^vhile its phases begin and cease. As 
energy it is one whether it produces seed, leaves, stem, or root — 
all flow from its power. The idea is the cause. There was a 
something which was the energy that produced the visible phases 
of growth, by reacting on its environment of air and earth. 

This is only an illustration. The mind, unused to think on this 
plane, meets with many difficulties, because it has not yet seen 
the ontological necessity there is for all things in the universe to 
be in the form of an idea — that is to say, in the form of an indi- 
vidual energy which has the power of realizing itself in a complete 
cycle of process. When one gains this insight, he is sure that 
every phase of existence in the world is a part of a process, which, 
as a whole, is a self-active being or idea. 

But there are self-active beings, which are contained within 
larger processes of self-activity. And Plato takes pains to show 
that ideas can have communion with each other, so that one idea 
is contained within another, and likewise has subordinate ideas 
within itself. The doctrine of the community of ideas we will 
consider further under the topic of dialectic. For this community 
makes possible what he calls dialectic. 

It must be kept in mind, however, that nothing is an idea unless 
it has the form of a self-active energy. Things exist in the world 
which are not such energies, but no things exist or can exist in the 
universe unless they are phases of processes caused by ideas. To 
say otherwise is to say that things exist entirely out of relation, 
and that they can have changes without any causes of those 
changes. 

Since self-active energies or ideas may contain or be contained, 
it follows that there may be a sumrnum gemis^ or highest idea 
which contains all others and causes them — and this idea Plato 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 99 

calls God, or the idea of the Good. It is evident that an idea that 
contains other ideas does not constrain their activity, but acts 
throuffh their freedom ; otherwise it would reduce them from ideas 
to mere things and destroy their self-active energies. 

Now% in order to rest from this thought before it becomes too 
complex, take a fresh start with another train of thought. It is 
true that every point in a system of philosophy may be reached 
from every other point, but it requires the greatest effort and skill 
of thought to pass tlms directly from one point to another. Hence 
philosophic thinking is easier when it makes a new beginning at 
frequent intervals, and unphilosophic thinking absolutely requires 
a new beginning at every step, because it cannot follow a train of 
reasoning at alb 

Let us ask ourselves now what is the iniinite, and whether we 
can know it ? Let us do this with a view to Plato's doctrine, that 
ideas are immutable and eternal, and yet are not empty of all 
qualities, but are self-active energies. 

1. Can we know what is infinite? Let us address ourselves at 
once to the consideration of the question of the infinite. Can we 
know the infinite ? Can we know anything that is infinite ? Can 
we understand the meaning of the word " infinite " as applied to 
any object that we know to be infinite ? By careful thinking we 
may answer all these questions in the affirmative. This will be 
for us an ascent of at least one steep grade on our road to the 
philosophic heights. 

As the fundamental condition of the existence of things, we 
know that space exists. It also exists whether occupied by things 
or not. Let us consider space, because it is our idea of space that 
causes our primary difficulty in thinking the infinite, by throwing 
us off the track. The modern mind can best learn its first lesson 
by investigating the thought of space, as regards its attribute of 
infinitude. r 

Things as objects of experience are limited. In their limits they 
cease to be and something else begins. Hence we think them all 
as finite; that is to say, as having environments which they ex- 
clude and by which they are in turn excluded. But the finite 
thing implies or presupposes space to exist in, and so likewise 
does its environment. Is space finite ? Let us see. Think of any 
finite or limited space, and we see at once that its environment is 



100 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

space too. An object is finite because it is limited by something 
else. But a finite space is limited by other space, and hence space 
itself is continued and not limited by its environment. Pass from 
one limited space to another and we are still in space; and hence 
the limited spaces are only parts of space: all spaces make one 
space. The important insight here is this : Space has such a na- 
ture that it is and must be its own environment — its own other or 
limit. Hence it is continued even b}' its limit, and is not finite, 
but infinite. 

Attempt to think of space as limited or bounded. We see at 
once that its limits or bounds or environment requires space to 
exist in, and hence demonstrate the existence of space beyond 
space. Thus we make clear to ourselves the fact that space is in- 
finite. But is this a positive knowledge, or only a negative knowl- 
edge ? Does it rest on our incapacity to conceive it, or do we 
think it through our positive capacity to know the difference be- 
tween the finite and the infinite and to recognize the nature of 
both ? 

Undoubtedly it is our positive capacity here that enables us to 
think space as infinite, for we see that it is in its nature to be 
its own environment, and hence to be always affirmed by its limit, 
and never negated or bounded by something else than space. It 
is a complete thought. 

On the contrary, the thought of the finite or limited is not a 
complete thought, but rather the thought of something dependent 
on something else — namely, dependent on its environment. Hence 
we cannot think of a finite object without having the dim con- 
sciousness of another thought — namely, its environment. And if 
we were to make our thought of the finite object clear, we should 
at once pei'ceive the thought of environment involved. More than 
this, we should perceive the mutual relation of the object and its 
environment, and we should see that a third idea underlies both 
as fundamental condition of their existence, and this third idea is 
the idea of space, upon which they both depend. 

Let us notice, too, the nature of these ideas. The first idea, of 
a finite object, is a sort of mental picture or image in the mind, 
or at least is accompanied by such a picture or image. The second 
idea, that of the environment, is likewise partly an image or pict- 
ure, but its essential part is not a picture, but a thought of a rela- 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 101 

tion. We think the idea of the environment by a rule, as it were ; 
it is the something else lying beyond the object. The third idea, 
that of space, as the underlying condition is still further removed 
from a mental picture or image. An image has boundaries; a 
picture has a frame, as it were ; but the thought of space ])asses 
beyond, or transcends, all pictures and images, because it thinks 
that which includes all bounds and limits within it but is not 
bounded or limited. 

It is most important to notice here that there are elements in 
our thoughts which we are not conscious of except by reflection. 
The thouy^ht of the environment is a necessary element to everv 
thought of an object of experience, but in ordinary states of mind 
we do not observe this fact. Again, the idea of space as the funda- 
mental condition is and must be present in all experience, and, 
althouijli we seldom notice it, it is an essential element without 
which no object of experience could be conceived at all. 

Thus we tind ourselves in possession of knowledge which enters 
experience as an element of it, but is not derived from experience, 
but is of a higher order because it makes experience possible, and 
not only this, but it makes possible the objects of experience. 

The thought of space differs essentially from the thought of an 
object of experience, because it is a thought of what is essentially 
inhnite — infinite in its nature. Hence we arrive at this astonish- 
ing result : The knowledge of what is infinite underlies and makes 
possible our knowledge derived from experience, and the infinite 
makes possible the existence of what is finite. We may find all 
of these results by considering the nature of Time. While space 
is the condition of the existence of things, time is the condition of 
the existence of all events or changes. If there is a change, it 
demands time for its existence ; if there is an event, it demands 
time for its occurrence. 

Again, time is infinite. Any finite time or duration presup- 
poses other time to have existed before it and after it. A limited 
time presupposes an environment of time before and after it, and 
is thus continued by the very time that limits it. If we suppose 
all time to be finite, we see at once that time contradicts this sup- 
position, because if finite it must have begun, and to begin im- 
plies a time before it in which it was not. But such a time before 
it does not limit it, but affirms its existence beyond the boundary 



102 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

that we had placed to it. Time is of such a nature that its limits 
or environments all presuppose, posit, or affirm it. Thus time is 
infinite, and yet it is the condition necessary to the existence of 
events and chanofes. 

But we cannot image or picture to ourselves time any more 
thai) we can imagine space. We think it clearly as the condition 
of the existence of images and pictures, but not itself as a picture 
or image. 

Now, it is important to stop here and notice that our thoughts 
of space and time are not baffled thoughts — thoughts that attempt 
to think something, and fail to grasp it. We think the infinitude 
of space and time with perfect clearness. The infinitude is seen 
by the fact that there is self-limit involved — that is to say, space is 
only limited by space, and is therefore only continued. If space 
were limited by something else, then it would be finite. But we 
see that as it can have only itself as its other it is infinite. 

•Here, too, we reach another important idea of Plato : it is the 
idea of quality. Everything that is limited by another is quality 
— not a quality, but qualitative being. All quality is essentially 
finite, but it is also essentially a phase of the infinite, as we may 
see by and by. 

Now, our ordinar}' common-sense mode of thinking is done in 
the category of quality. Hence our first thoughts about truly 
infinite objects seem confusing and baffling. The thoughts of 
time and space, however, do not lead up to the Platonic Idea, 
although they lead toward it. Let us take a new start, and con- 
sider another item of our commonest every-day experience. 

Recalling what we observed while investigating space, we shall 
observe three attitudes of the mind : a. It contemplates the object, 
without specially attending to the environment; h. It contem- 
plates the environment as related to the object; g. It contemplates 
the underlying condition of both object and environment. Thus 
we had thing or event as object ; the first, or feeblest activity of 
cognition (mere perception), regarded it as independent and self- 
sufficient, and did not specially note its relativity to the environ- 
ment. The second stage of cognition (reflecting perception) 
noted its relations to and dependencies on the environment, and 
said : " All objects dci)end on their environment ; each thing re- 
ceives modifying influences from other things, and each event has 



Plato's Dialectic mid Doctrine of Ideas. 103 

its conditions prepared for it by antecedent events." The third 
stage of cognition (philosophical perception) noted the underlying 
gronnd or condition, space or time, necessary for its existence. 
Thus we have : {a) thing, its environment of other things, and 
space, which is tiie logical condition of both ; {h) event, its envi- 
ronment of events antecedent and subsequent, and time, the logi- 
cal condition of both. 

Now we may look upon the object in the second and more im- 
portant aspect. It receives influences from its environment, and 
is affected or modified by them. Here we reach the conception of 
cause and effect. The environment causes some clianges in the 
object (thing or event), and these changes are its effect. The object 
may react on the environment, and cause, likewise, changes in the 
latter. In this case the chano;es in the environment are the effect 
of tlie object as cause. 

We notice that causality implies a combination of two objects. 
We tliink the cause as resident in one thing, and the effect as 
resident in another thing. But the effect is the modification 
produced by the causal energy. This causal energy has by its 
action transferred something from itself to another, which we call 
effect. 

Here is, therefore, the vital underlying idea, which our ordina- 
ry notion of cause and effect presupposes. In order that there 
may be causal action of one thing upon another, there must be a 
self-separation take place in the energy which we call the cause — 
in fact, this very energy consists of self-separation. Gro over this 
thought carefully again and again, until it becomes clear, for it is 
the most important thouglit in all philosophy. 

When we think of cause and effect, there hover before the mind 
two objects — the one from which energy has proceeded, and a 
second object, in which a modification has taken place through 
the action of the energy. It is important to note that our mental 
image is not the idea or conception of causality, as we think it. 
Our idea — i. e., conception — is rather a rule or definition, accord- 
ing to which we construct the mental pictures or images. But 
the images conceal for us the essential thought. They conceal 
the self-activity of the energy, because images show only dead 
results and not living activities. It is necessary to remember this 
fact in order to overcome the difficulty in the way of thinking 



lOi The Journal of Speculative FhUosophy. 

self-activity as the basis of the idea of cause. Self-activity is a 
word necessary to be used in explaining Plato, or indeed Aris- 
totle. Plato uses the expression " self-moved," as we shall see ; 
but as motion is in space and time, and nothing within space and 
time could be self-moved, the expression is not happy. It brought 
to him the opposition of Aristotle to his doctrine of ideas. We 
must not be troubled at our ditticulty in imagining self-activity. 
Strictly speaking, we cannot imagine activity of any kind or mo- 
tion of any kind. We can think of an object as here and again as 
there, but we do not picture it as moving. The ancient skeptics 
expressed this fact by denying motion altogether. 

"A thing," said they, " cannot move where it is, and of course 
it caimot move wdiere it is not ; hence it cannot move at all." 
The unwary listener who supposes that he is thinking the elements 
of the problem of motion when he imagines a thing first in one 
place and then in another, tinds himself drawn into a logical con- 
clusion that contradicts all his experience, and, in fact, makes ex- 
perience impossible. Take all motion out of the world and there 
could be no experience, for experience involves motion in the sub- 
ject that perceives or in the object perceived, one or both. And 
yet we cannot form a mental image of motion or of change. We 
picture different states or conditions of an object in a process of 
change, and different positions occupied by a moving thing. But 
the element of change and motion we do not picture. Hence it 
is not surprising that we cannot form for ourselves a mental pict- 
ure of self-activity, being, as we are, unable to picture any sort of 
activity, motion, or change. But we find the thought of motion 
and change and activity necessary in order to explain the world 
of experience — nay, even to perceive or observe it. So, too, the 
thought of self-activity is necessary in order to explain motion, 
change, and activity. That which moves, moves either because it 
is impelled to move by another or because it impels itself to move. 
In the latter case, that of self-impulsion, we have self-activity at 
once. In the former case, that of impulsion through another, we 
have self-activity implied, although indirectly. For if the object 
moves because impelled by another, this happens either because 
the other which impels it to move is the originating source of the 
movement — i. «., is self-active; or else because the other which 
impels it to move receives and transmits the energy causing the 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 105 

motion, from another source either directly or through a longer or 
shorter series of links. 

Kant, Sir William Hamilton, and others have tried to show 
that we stop short of reaching an originating cause because tiie 
series may be infinite in extent. But this, like Zono's paradoxical 
refutation of motion, is also ap appeal to the imagination and not 
to the thinkino; reason. It is true, we cannot form a mental imas:e 
of an infinite series of eftects or causes. But this does not matter ; 
it would not help to understand the question involved if we could 
make a mental image of an infinite series. The question, reduced 
to its lowest terras, is simply this : the object before me is modi- 
fied through some cause not itself. Being assured of this fact, I 
am equally sure that the true cause, wherever it is, originated the 
influence and is self-active, no matter how long the series of links 
may be down which it transmits the causal influence. It does not 
aifect this certainty to stop me and say : " This effect is caused by 
that object which is in turn caused by another object, and so on 
forever." For it is easy for me to reply : " If neither the other 
object nor any of the preceding objects in the series of objects of 
causation originate any energy, then they all transmit it ; the 
whole infinite series of links or terms only receive and transmit 
energy and do not originate it, either individually or as a whole. 
Therefore, the object and the infinite series of causes are all one 
effect, and there is no origination of energy in it. What then % 
It follows that it is no effect unless there is an actual efficient 
cause lying b.eyond the series. For an effect implies reception of 
energy from sometliing else ; where there is no reception there is 
no effect. 

Hence we must acknowledge that every effect implies true cau- 
sality — that is to say, actual origination and transmission of ener- 
gy. We must acknowledge, too, that every true cause is a self- 
activity, although we have not yet investigated whether there is 
one supreme cause only or more than one cause in the world. 
Because we very seldom turn our attention to the essential char- 
acter of causality, we shall find this thought of self-activity — self- 
separation of energy — a strange and perhaps absurd conclusion. 
But if we reject it we are left entirely without a cause, and yet 
we find ourselves attempting to hold on to an infinite series of 
effects ! If we reject self-activity, then we must reject effects 



106 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

too, and, to be consistent, must deny the existence of energy or in- 
fluence as well as of dependence. Hence, too, we must deny all 
beginnino;, ceasing, and change, for these presuppose the transfer- 
ence of influence or energy. 

Tliis thought of self-activity is the root of our religious idea of 
God, and this explains how readily Plato's system lent itself to 
Christian Theology. We see that an infinite that has no proper- 
ties or qualities is the same as nothing. It is only another way of 
naming what we call nothing. The absolute idea of ideas is not 
formless, but self-determined or self-active ; in other words, it is an 
energy that originates its particulars by its own action. 

Again let us stop and ask ourselves what is a universal term ? 
What is genus, species? We acknowledge that oak is universal, 
in the sense that it includes as species all the oaks tliat ever were, 
all that are now, and all that ever will be. It is a general name 
for an idea of species that includes an infinite number of examples. 
Examining; the individual oaks one after the other and findino; 
them all alike in such important characteristics, we should natu- 
rally think of a common cause. Without the idea of common 
cause we should have only a dead empty idea of species founded 
on classification. Identity of cause alone makes a true idea such 
as Plato means, for the idea is a cause and not merely an efiicient 
cause, but also a final cause, and, above all, a formal cause. Look- 
ing not at the vast range of individual oaks, but studying a par- 
ticular oak alone by itself, we see again a cause that is more ex- 
tensive than the effect, and does not exhaust itself in the effect. 
It puts forth its energy systematically, step by step, and realizes in 
existence just what is a means for its next ste}). Each step is end 
for the previous means, and likewise means for an end that will 
follow it. This cause that does not exhaust itself in the individual 
oak comes to produce a crop of acorns from which it may take a 
new start and develop a forest of oaks. Thus such a cause demon- 
strates itself a universal because the activity of its energy produces 
a multiplicity of individuals all of them images or exemplars of 
the idea oak, and all participating in it, although not exhausting it. 

Let us now discuss a passage from Plato's Laws^ in which he 
rises to the idea of self-activity, or self-movement, and note care- 



Laws," Book X. 



Plato s Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 107 

fully the interesting way in which he illustrates the meaning of 
self-activity by life, soul, thought, etc. 

Kleinias, a Cretan (hinting of Crete as founded by Minos, the 
law-giver), talks about the divine origin of laws with Megillos, a 
Lacedemonian (representing the country of Lycurgus, the law- 
giver), and with an Athenian Stranger (from the country of Solon, 
the law-giver). The discussion of earthly laws and legislation 
points back to the foundation of Law in the divine (the rational 
constitution or the divine grounds of human society). Divine form 
grounds the form of human institutions. (So formlessness in the 
divine would ground anarchy. Hence this necessity here in the 
tenth book to consider divine form or Idea as the basis of law.) 

Those who lind fire and water and earth to be tlie first principles 
of the universe (as the Ionic philosophers, Thales, Anaximander 
and Heracleitos did) consider the soul to be derivative from mat- 
ter of course. Then matter, and not self-activity, is the first — and 
they who hold this are impious because our Greek religion holds 
that the o-ods are the source of all : and the ffods are immortal 
living (self-active) beings. 

Let us, says the Athenian stranger, discuss the argument of 
those philosophers who invert the true order of the universe and 
make the self-active soul the last of things — the eifect and not the 
cause — and make that which is last — to wit, inert matter — the 
first, the generator and destroyer of all that is. They have by 
this inversion come to deny the gods. They are ignorant, you 
see, regarding the nature of the Soul and her origin. They do not 
see that the soul is presupposed as existing before material bodies 
and as the author of the formation and transformation of bodies. 
The properties of soul — i. <?., its activities — will precede motion 
and change in matter. 

Not natural things, but the soul is the first creative power. As 
you, Kleinias and Megillos, are not skilled in dialectic and might 
be unable to answer my questions, I will both ask and answer the 
questions necessary to probe this subject to the bottom. 

1. Are all things at rest, or all in motion, or some in rest and 
some in motion % It is clear to me that some are in rest and others 
in motion. There are both rest and motion in the world. 

2. Those things that move, move in place, and those things that 
rest, rest in place. Some move in one place — that is, they revolve, 



108 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

and others move from one place to another. [Here are (1) revo- 
lution and (2) locomotion — mere mechanical motion.] 

3. In revolution the greatest motion is at the circumference, and 
near the centre the least motion, while at the centre there is rest 
altogether. This is wonderful, that swiftness, slowness, and rest 
should be conjoined in one moving body. 

4. And bodies that have locomotion and move from place to 
place sometimes have one centre and sometimes several in succes- 
sion. They also sometimes impinge on each other and are broken 
to pieces by the shock, and sometimes they unite with other bodies 
with which they come in contact. [Here are more categories of 
motion, (3) division, (4) conglomeration or aggregation by impact 
(quantitative change). Also there is (5) increase or growth and 
(6) decrease or decay.] 

5. All changing and moving is in process of generation, and 
there is in tliis process a continual succession of things arising and 
a constant stream of dissolution of things going on — one thing 
taking the place of another. The thing is the point of rest in the 
moving process of generation — [its static equilibrium, so to speak]. 
[Here are two more categories of motion, viz. : (7) generation and 
(8) dissolution or death (or individualizing into things and disso- 
lution of individuality — qualitative change).] 

6. Now we have named eight species of motion — but there are 
two others : motion that moves others but not itself, and motion 
that moves itself and also other things. [(9) Causal motion and 
(10) self-activity or causa sui.'] The self-motion works in itself — 
and then in other things; assuming the forms of composition and 
decom})osition, increase and diminution, generation and destruc- 
tion. So that self-motion is the principle of all other motions and 
explains them as well as every form of action and passivity, and 
is the true principle of all that truly exists. 

7. Now which of these ten species of motion is the mightiest 
and most efficient? Will you not say that the tenth one, or the 
one that can move itself, is superior i [Kleinias the Cretan sees 
the point and says that self-motion is ten thousand times — a 
" myriad times" superior.] 

8. But, says the Athenian Stranger, we ought not to call self- 
motion the tenth, but the first, because it alone is the generator; 
then the ninth, or the motion which moves others, is the second. 



Plato' a Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 109 

If you start with something tliat is moved by another and proceed 
from it to the other that moves it, and then to a third that moves 
the second, and thence to a fourth that moves the third, and so on 
forever, do you ever reach a true source of motion ? Of course 
not ; you never reach a first mover, but always find only a motion 
that is derived from some other \i,. e., you begin vvitli a deriva- 
tive and end with a derivative]. 

9. But if, on the other hand, you begin with a self-moved and 
proceed to another that it moves, and thence to a third, a fourth, 
and a fifth, and so on to tens and thousands of bodies that are set 
in motion, you still have with you the first mover as the expla- 
nation of all : it is a self-moving principle that is the true first 
beginning. 

10. And if you suppose, like the Materialists, that all things 
were at rest in one mass, it is clear enough that if any motion ever 
sprang up in the mass it must originate in the self-moving. 

11. Self-moving is, therefore, the cause of motion in things at 
rest and in things in motion, and is the oldest and mightiest prin- 
ciple of change, all change being secondary to it and an effect 
of it. 

12. J^ow, at this stage of the argument, let me ask what name 
we give to self-movement when we see it existing in nature — say, 
in any earthy substance or in moist or warm substances, whether 
simple or compound? Your answer is that we call that self- 
moving power LIFE. Any being that originates motion in itself 
is a living being. 

13. Moreover, we must admit that we name this principle of 
self-movement SOUL. The definition of soul will be found to 
contain this idea of self-mov^ement as its essential part. The soul 
is identified wath the origin of all movement, change and genera- 
tion in the universe. 

14. Since body as composed of matter is not self-moved, but 
has its source of motion in something else, body must be consid- 
ered inferior to soul, and it should obey soul as its ruler. 

15. It is, moreover, true that what appertains to the soul is 
prior to that which appertains to the body — as, for example, think- 
ing and willing and memory and desire are superior to length and 
breadth, softness and hardness, strength and elasticity, and such 
like properties that we find in matter. 



110 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

16. The soul, too, is the cause of good and evil, of base and 
honorable, just and unjust, and all other pairs of opposites, since 
she is the cause of all. 

17. And the soul iniiabits all things moving, and consequentlv 
she orders the movements of the stars. 

18. The soul directs and orders everything in heaven and earth 
by her movements, which are such movements as we call will, 
consideration, etc., and these become secondary movements in 
bodies and guide all things to growth and decay, composition 
and decomposition, and to the <|ualities that accompany them, 
such as heat and cold, hardness and softness, blackness and 
whiteness. 

19. The principle of wisdom and virtue alone is that principle 
that can produce uniformity in nature. An evil soul acting with 
folly could not produce harmony. Hence we say that a soul of 
the highest degree of goodness takes care of the world and guides 
it along the good path. 

20. Of what nature is the movement of mind ^ The answer to 
this question will be found by looking among the species of mo- 
tion, and inquiring which among them most resembles mind in its 
movement. Now there was motioTi from one place to another, 
and revolution about a fixed centre like a top. It seems that 
revolution about a fixed centre is more like the circular move- 
ment of mind (which continually returns to itself). Both mind 
and the motion of revolution, in like manner, move about one 
point, in relation to it and according to law and order. But 
motion of the other kind, which does not relate to one point, nor 
in the same manner, nor after the same order, nor according to 
rule or proportion — such motion as this seems to be unlike mind 
and reason, l)ut to be much like that which lacks mind — to wit : 
folly and unreason. 

21. Hence we conclude that the orderly movement of the 
heavens is effected by a soul, and not by an evil soul but by a 
good soul. 

THE DIALECTIC. 

How many, and what are the ideas? Plato answers an in- 
definite number, for ideas are productive, generative, self-multi- 
plying, as one sees in the case of an oak. But we must not forget 
that all genera and species of nature only participate in ideas, and 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. Ill 

are not pure ideas. Hence the oak as a plant nii^lit perish from 
the earth in the sense that all individual oaks mit^ht perish. But 
there can be no perishing except through the energy of a higher 
idea in which a subordinate idea is included. Hence neither the 
oaks, the grains, the mushrooms — nor any other plant — no other 
thing could perish except through the self-determination of its 
including idea; and this idea could generate them again upon 
occasion. 

Plato names among the ideas :^being and non-being; likeness 
and unlikeness ; sameness and difference; unity and multiplicity; 
straight and crooked; quality and quantity; al)solute and rela- 
tive ; in and for itself ; substance and phenomenon ; unlimited 
and limited ; active and passive; rest and motion ; subject know- 
ing and object known. 

He describes things of sense as many, divisible, unlimited, inde- 
terminate, measureless, the becoming, relative, great and small, 
and as non-being. 

An insight into the nature of an idea is always an insight into 
its essential distinction or self-determination, and hence into its 
causal energy to produce distinction ; just as an insight into any 
physical force whatever is an insight into its causal energy to pro- 
duce effects or distinctions. For example, an insight into the 
nature of fire is an insight into its power to burn combustible 
things; so an insight into a universal is an insight into its power 
to produce individuals : hence the idea of logical division, in a 
general term, is a feeble illustration of this. 

But this insight is therefore an insight into the genesis of sub- 
ordinate ideas in communion and also in participation with it. 
Moreover, by presupposition an idea discovers its co-ordinate an- 
tithetic species, and thence reveals the underlying higher idea. 
Thus one can rise from the subordinate idea by presupposition to 
the highest idea, the summum genus, as Plato tells us in The Re- 
public. 

In Book VII, Chapter xiii, he says : " The dialectic method of 
pure science, annulling one by one its hypothetical categories or 
elements borrowed from experience, goes back to its first principle 
which it presupposes, while geometry and kindred sciences use 
axioms and fixed hypotheses, and are not able to deduce them all 
from a first principle." 



112 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

While the dialectic of Zeno merely demonstrated its propositions 
by showing contradictions in the opposite view, it did not show 
that contradictions were not inherent in its own thesis. The true 
dialectic is not only able to overthrow the opposite to its thesis, 
but to show at the same time that that opposite itself presupposes 
the affirmative thesis as its own lop^ical condition, 

I now quote and summarize a celebrated passage from Plato's 
Sophist^ in which he demonstrates by the Dialectic Method that 
ideas have energy or power, and that they participate in one an- 
other : 

IDEAS HAVE ENERGY AND THEY PARTICIPATE IN ONE ANOTHER. 

The dialogue called The Sophist is between an Eleatic Stranger 
and Theaetetus. 

1. The Eleatic Stranger discourses on the definition of true be- 
ing, and suggests that the aboriginal savages would assert that 
nothing which they cannot hold in their hands has any existence. 
But if it is admitted that tliere is any incorporeal existence what- 
ever, they can be asked to state what there is common to corporeal 
and incorporeal existence which renders it possible to affirm exist- 
ence of both. 

2. He then investigates what this common element of existence 
can possibly be. He suggests that anything which possesses any 
sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, has 
real existence. To exist, then, means power to affect. 

3. Now the doctrine of ideas first distinguishes essence, or the 
eternal, from generation, or the perishable. The body is gener- 
ated and is perishable, while the soul perceives essence, which ia 
the same and immutable. Hence thought participates in essence 
which it perceives. 

4. Partici{)ation is an active or ])assive energy which takes 
place between elements. But the doctrine of ideas as held by the 
Eleatic philosophers denies that ideas have the power of doing or 
suffering, and holds that activity of this kind appertains only to 
generated things. Plato here wishes to refute such a doctrine of 
ideas, and to show that ideas have self-movement or self-activity. 
So he replies that, since they hold the doctrine that the soul knows 
and that being or essence is known, they imply that soul is active 
in knowing, while being is passive in being known. Hence they 



Plato's DialeGtic and Doctrine of Ideas. 113 

must hold that being as' passive excludes the active, or the soul, 
and vice versa / hence they are obliged to deny life and soul and 
mind to absolute being as known by the soul, and this is a terrible 
result to reach. For being in that case would be " devoid of life 
and mind, and remain in awful unmeaningnes? and everlasting 
fixture." This cannot be, and we must admit that being has mind 
and life, and also motion. [The Eleatic, as above mentioned, de- 
nied movement of being.] If there is no motion there can be no 
mind. But, on the other hand, there must be rest as well as mo- 
tion. 

5. There can be no mind if all is in motion, because there can be 
no sameness and permanence and relation to the same unless there 
is rest, for all these are attributes of rest. Surely an argument is 
out of place on the part of a man who asserts that mind does not 
exist — his argument is ineiiective just in proportion to its mental 
power and to its effect on other minds. 

6. Therefore the philosopher will not believe those who say that 
the totality is at rest or wholly in motion, because he sees that 
both are necessary. 

On the communion of ideas he says : 

1. In case you deny all participation of things, then you cannot 
affirm one of another — vou cannot affirm beins; of motion nor be- 
ing of rest, and hence they cannot exist. No predication of being 
is possible unless ideas participate. 

2. On the other hand it will not do to affirm communion of all 
with all, because in that case rest could be predicated of motion, 
and motion of rest, which would be absurd. It follows that there 
is communion of some things and exclusion on the part of others. 

3. Selecting a few ideas to test this principle of communion 
upon, he proceeds : The most important of all genera are being, 
rest, and motion. Rest and motion are incapable of communion, 
but being is common to both. 

4. But each of these is different from the others and is identical 
with itself. Here are two new categories, same and other, the 
categories of identity and difference. So here are two new genera 
holding communion with the categories of heing, rest^ and motion^ 
the three already considered ; and hence we have five genera, un- 
less same and other are already included in the first three. 

5. But sa^me and other are not rest and motion^ because that 

XXII— 8 



114 The Journal of Speculative Philomphy . 

would make each one the opposite of what it is. Nor can same 
and other be eitlier of them heing / because then heing could not 
be predicated oi rest and mMion. For then it would follow that 
rest and motion are being and the same. 

But, nevertheless, there is participation between the same and 
the other. 

6. But " other " is always relative of" other," and hence " oth- 
er " cannot be identical with " being," because " being " is not 
opposed to another, but is identical in both, the same and the other. 
Being is a common predicate to all opposites — all opposites exist. 
Therefore " other " is to be added to our four categories as a fifth 
category. 

7. [But the category " other " is what we call the category of 
quality — not a quality, but qualitative heing — finite being — thing 
and its environment — each the other of the other.] Qtialitative 
heing or the category of " other " pervades all classes ; for each 
category — (being, rest, motion, sameness) — is different from every 
other — hence participates in the idea of " other." 

8. The Eleatic Stranger proceeds to show that " motion " as an 
idea is opposite or " other " to rest.^ and yet is also identical with 
rest in so far as they both are are alike heing. Both motion and 
rest participate in other and in heing. " Motion " likewise par- 
ticipates in the " same " and also in " not the same " or in the 
" other." Motion is then other than heing / or, in other words, 
participates in non-heing. 

9. [It is a very important point that the Eleatic Stranger points 
out here that non-being or negation enters all the other categories 
except heing, because they all participate in the category of the 
" other." He sees that qualitative being or finite being partici- 
pates in both being and non-being.] 

" Every class of existences or of ideas has plurality of being and 
infinity of non-being," says be ; or, in other words, it has many 
aspects i7i which heing may be affirmed of it, and likewise an end- 
less variety of aspects in which it is different from other beings. 

10. The conclusion is that Being differs from every existence of 
which it may be predicated, and that in general it is the nature of 
classes, species, ideas, or universals to participate in one another 
and thus render possible this dialectical journey from one to an- 
other through common predicates. 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 115 

[The dialectic is the process of discovering the self-definitions of 
Pure Reason. Reason is the absolute first Principle, called the 
Good by Plato, or the \0709 by the Platonists, or the NoO? Yioi7)r- 
iKo<i by Aristotle. The definition of absolute Reason furnishes 
the Laws of the natural, the human, and the divine worlds.] 

In conclusion, allow me to repeat the demonstration of the exist- 
ence of what is immutable, demonstrating the same dialectically 
from the idea of mutable things after the manner of presupposi- 
tion as described by Plato. 

1. All beings are particularized or individualized by means of 
marks or attributes, variously called qualities, properties, distinc- 
tions, difi'erences, characteristics, or determinations. We may say, 
therefore, that any existence is what it is through these character- 
istics or determinations. Now we can see clearly that all things 
get their characteristics or determinations either from some foreign 
source, or else they originate them themselves. 

2. Again, if the characteristics or determinations are derived 
from a foreign source, the being to which they belong is a depend- 
ent being. Dependent beings derive their determinations from 
others, while independent beings, if there are any, must originate 
their own determinations. All beings are dependent or independ- 
ent ; if dependent, they imply other beings upon which they de- 
pend for the determinations that constitute their existence. A 
dependent being does not constitute a separate individuality, but 
forms a part of the being on which it depends. So, too, if a being 
depends on another dependent being, or on a series of dependent 
beings, what it derives from the other, or from the series, is trans- 
mitted to it from some independent being on which all these de- 
pend. 

3. If there were several mutually dependent beings, the whole 
would make one independent being. But in such a case the inde- 
pendent whole would form a unity above the existence of the 
component parts, just as the mutual dependence of acid and alkali 
forms a salt — a unity in which the acid and alkali have lost their 
individuality. 

4. All independent being must be self-determined. Here is the 
important conclusion. If independent, it must originate its char- 
acteristics, qualities, and determinations through its own self-activ- 



116 The Journal of SpeGulative Pkifotsophy. 

ity. Here we arrive at self-activity again as the source of all 
being. Our logical ladder to this conclusion has three rounds. 
(1) All dependent beings belong to others, and with them make 
up wholes or totalities. (2) All wholes or totalities of being must 
be independent. (3) All independent being must be self-active, 
and originate its own qualities, distinctions, or attributes. 

5. If there are real effects, there are real causes ; if there are 
dependent beings, there must be independent beings on which 
they depend. True causes and really independent beings are self- 
active or self-determined. All limited existence is either self-lim- 
ited or limited through others, and for this reason dependent. 
Self-existent being is self-active and self-determined. This result 
is substantially tlie same thought as that found by analyzing caus- 
ality. There must be self-separation, or else no influence can pass 
over to another object. There must be self-distinction, or else no 
characteristics or determinations can arise. The cause must first 
act in itself before its energy causes an effect in something else 
Hence the true cause must have within itself both phases, and be 
effect of itself as well as cause of itself. 

6. We must notice another very important consequence of this 
investigation of presuppositions of experience. It follows that all 
self-existent beings are unities, and yet not abstract unities. Self- 
activity implies active subject and passive object in one. It is 
self-active and self-passsive, determiner and determined. As sub- 
ject or determiner it is not yet any particular characteristic or dis- 
tinction, but the possibility of all distinctions and characteristics. 
As determined it is particularized and special. Hence we see 
that any independent or self-existent being is a self-distinguishing 
being and not a mere empty " unconditioned," without attributes 
or qualities. (This is so much in favor of theism and against pan- 
theism.) For theism upholds a "living," self-active God, against 
pantheism, which holds to a transcendental unity, which pervades 
all, and yet is nothing special, but only a void in which all char- 
acteristics are annulled. 

It is, moreover, presumptive in favor of Christian theism, be- 
cause the latter lays stress on the personality of God. Self-activ- 
ity is self-distinction, and has many stages or degrees of realiza- 
tion. It may be ^i/I?, as in the plant or animal; or feeling and 
locomotion^ as in animals ; ov reason^ as in man ; or, finally. Absolute 



Plato's Dialectic and Doctrine of Ideas. 117 

Personality^ as in God. In the plant we have reaction against 
environment ; the plant takes up its nourishment from without, 
and transmutes it into vegetable cells and adds them to its sub- 
stance. In feeling^ the animal exhibits a higher form of self- 
activity, inasmuch as it reproduces within itself au impression of 
its environment, while in locomotion it determines for itself its 
own space. In tldnking reason^ man reaches a still higher form 
of self-activity, the pure internality which makes for itself an en- 
vironment of ideas and institutions. But in these realms of 
experience we do not iind pure self-activity in its complete devel- 
opment. 

Philosophy looks beyond for an ultimate presupposition, and 
finds the perfect self-activity presupposed as the Personal God. 

As a fitting conclusion to a discussion of the doctrine of Ideas, 
I quote from the great Platonic hymn of Wordsworth : 

Oh joy ! that in our embers 

Is something that doth live, 
That nature yet remembers 

What was so fugitive ! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 

Perpetual benediction : not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest: 

Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest. 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast — 

Not for these I raise 

The song of thanks and praise ; 
But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things. 
Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
Blank misgivings of a Creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized, 
High instincts before which our mortal nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised ; 

But for those first aifections, 

Those shadowy recollections 

Which, be they what they may, 
Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing ; 
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal Silence ; truths that wake, 

To perish never ; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 



118 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 



Nor Man nor Boy, 

Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 

Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 

Hence in a season of calm weather 
Though inland far we be, 

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither, 

Can in a moment travel thither. 

And see the children sport upon the shore, 

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 



HEGEL'S DOCTRINE OF CONTRADICTION. 

TRANSLATED FROM ANTHON BULLINGER, BY ALICE A. GRAVES. 

I. 

Who has not heard it said, when the Hegelian philosophy has 
been under discussion, that Hegel has invalidated the so-called 
fundamental Law of Contradiction and its associated Law of Ex- 
cluded Middle, and, in consequence of this capital crime against 
logic, has given his system a wholly illogical basis ? The number 
of those who declare this is legion. It will be sufficient, however, 
as we here enter the lists in behalf of the Hegelian doctrine, to 
consider the arguments b}-^ which two chief representatives ot 
logic attempt to protect it against this outrage, and confute the 
sore offender, Hegel. I refer to Trendelenburg in his " Logische 
Untersuchungen," and ITeberweg in his " System der Logik." The 
other antagonists of the category of Contradiction bring forward 
nothing further that is pertinent, and can very excusably be left 
out of consideration. 

It is certainly true that this category is a constituent element 
in the Hegelian system ; that Hegel conceived it as something 
actual, something freely given in objective thought and reality, as 
an immanent characteristic of things themselves. He has a very 
high opinion of this Contradiction, which is, according to him, not 
to be avoided. " Identity," says he, in the fourth volume of his 
'•■■ Werke," p. 68, " in distinction from Contradiction, is only the 
characteristic of the simple immediate, of dead Being. Contra- 



HegeVs Doctrine of Contradiction. 119 

diction, on the other liand, is the source of all activity and life ; 
only so far as anything has in itself contradiction is it vital, does 
it show tendency and activity. 

It is likewise true that Hegel has not accepted as a genuine 
law of thought the principle of Excluded Middle, as given in the 
following formula : " Of two opposed predicates, only one can be 
assigned to anything ; there can be no third." But in that con- 
tradiction, which, according to Hegel, is an element of all reality, 
and in the principle of Excluded Middle which he rejects, are the 
contradictorily opposed judgments of the logicians — a la Trendel- 
enburg and Ueberweg — under consideration ? At all events, in the 
rejected principle, what is spoken of is " two opposed predicates," 
not two contradictorily opposed predicates. Hegel says elsewhere : 
" The principle of Excluded Middle is the principle of the definite 
understanding, which tries to avoid contradiction, but in so doing 
falls into it. A must be either -{-a, or — a. But in the very 
statement itself there is already the third «, which is neither plus 
nor minus, but may be either. If -|- 1^ means six miles to the 
West, and — TFsix miles to the East, and plus and minus cancel 
one another, the six miles of distance remains the same, with or 
without their opposition. Even the mere plus and minus of ab- 
stract distance, or number, have, if you like, zero for a third." 
We see by this, first of all, that Hegel is not considering contra- 
dictory, but contrary propositions, as the illustrations he gives 
plainly indicate. Ueberweg also makes this plain in referring to 
Kant ("System der Logik," p. 211:), as, for example, the contra- 
dictory opposite, the "logical negation" — to use Trendelenburg's 
expression — of the mathematical -{-a is by no means — a, but 
not -(- a. Indeed, in the very passage quoted — " The principle of 
Excluded Middle is the principle of the definite Understanding," 
etc., — it is further seen that the contradiction designated by Hegel 
would not be simple subjective contradiction, " pure logical nega- 
tion," but that he is thinking of contrary propositions and their 
relations. The coexistence of essentially opposite characteristics 
in one object, or conception, is what Hegel calls Contradiction. 
He expressly gives this definition in the note to § 89 of his " En- 
cyclopaedia." 

In § 119 of the " Encyclopaedia," and in the two notes to the 
same, cited by Trendelenburg and Ueberweg, Hegel gives the fol- 



120 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

lowing examples of Contradiction : Middle and circumference of a 
circle, polarity in physics, north and south pole of the magnet, 
positive and negative electricity, organic and inorganic nature, 
nature and spirit, colors as regarded in polar opposition to one 
another, acid and base. Further, he calls the principle under 
discussion the principle of " Opposition,'' according to vvhich 
Difference ' has not an other in general, but its other set in op[)0- 
sition to it. He speaks, in passing, with appropriate contempt of 
the inanity of the opposition between the so-called contradictory 
notions and the nonsense perpetrated in Logic concerning them — 
for instance, of blue and not-blue, the latter not to be taken as an 
aflSrmative, something yellow, but only as an abstract negation. 
In the same sense, we might consistently say mind is either yel- 
low or not-yellow. 

In general, the categories of the Hegelian Logic must be con- 
ceived, not as subjectively formal, but as the constituent elements 
of objective thought, as the true, rational relations of Reality, in- 
cluding, of course, the categories of " Essential Difference," " Op- 
position," and " Contradiction." From all this it is clear that the 
Contradiction discussed in § 119 of the " Encyclopsedia " is not 
the so-called Contradiction of subjective judgment, but should be 
conceived in the sense of Essential Difference, of Opposition, with 
which expressions it is interchangeable. 

What the loo;icians have in mind in their defence of the so- 
called Law of Contradiction is not touched upon generally in the 
Hegelian Logic. Least of all is it referred to in these passages, 
where are developed the logical (logico-metaphysical) determina- 
tions of the objective, actual relations of Essence to (immediate) 
Existence. There is no allusion to subjective notions, and their 
possible misconceptions of innnediate reality. Hegel has no inter- 
est in those wise and subtle teachings, to the effect that one can 
not at the same time both name a horse and deny that the animal 
named is a horse ; or that if the exact definition of a horse is 
given, in case of the question whether one has a horse l)efore him 
or not, the question must be answered only with Yes or No, and 
not by any means with "neither Yes nor No." These fine points 



' The editor allows a profuse use of capitals in this article, most of the words used 
as categories being thus indicated. — Er. 



HegePs Doctrine of Contradiction. 121 

Hegel leaves to the professional logicians, along with Barbara, 
Celarent, etc., and much other " precious material." He himself 
has something better and more important to do. 

II. 

What constitutes for many the difficulty of comprehending the 
development of the Hegelian conceptions generally, and in par- 
ticular Hegel's critique of the so-called Laws of Thought, and his 
own notions of the essential relations of Identity and Difference 
(contradiction), is the standpoint of abstract thought which they 
assume. Such thought, according to Hegel, is, indeed, an element 
of true rational thinking. Ideal differences are, indeed, to be 
delinitely grasped and distinguished from one another. But this 
is not all that is necessary. To that iirst element of thought a 
second and third must be added. The thing itself, the content of 
the object, does not consist in abstract differences, but is in itself 
a living unity. The differences which the understanding fastens 
upon can not be in truth primitive and Hnal. They must rather 
proceed from one another as the elements of a systematic whole — 
that is, from the dialectical unfolding of the whole. This is the 
dialectic element which develops Opposition, to which the specula- 
tive element is then added, thereby first making thought posi- 
tively rational, and bringing it to the recognition of Opposition in 
Unity — i. 6., of the fact that the opposed elements are in truth one. 
In rational thinking, the opposition of subjectivity and objec- 
tivity, like all other oppositions, is absorbed or cancelled. The 
Hegelian Logic is not concerned with human thought in abstrac- 

or? " 

tion from our spiritual Being, our conscious Ego, conceived as 
holding a merely subjective, formal relation to its object. It is 
Concerned with the actual, living notion of the thing — the notion 
which is actual and living, both within us and without us, which is 
the Essence, the Soul of the Thing. It has its pure conscious ex- 
istence in intelligent Spirit, and, consequently, so far as we really 
think in ourselves. It is here Spirit itself, in its innermost ac- 
tivity as that thinking Ego, which, as Aristotle of old recognized, 
is, before it thinks, all things in potentiality, and by its actual 
thinking of them becomes, in a higher spiritual manner, all things 
in reality. The Logic is concerned with the ideas which lie at 
the basis of all reality conceived by thought, and recognized by the 



122 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Spirit. Spirit, conscious of its kinship to all that is in heaven or 
earth, knowing itself as the truth, the quintessence, the soul, of all 
outer reality — which is nothing else than externalized Spirit — 
finds these ideas in itself, and cognizes them as ideas universal 
both in nature and in application, to which nothing stands ab- 
stractly out of relation, or in indissoluble opposition. It knows 
them as the elements of a concrete, living unity, which is the 
notion, or considered as notion that at once manifests its objective 
reality, and is at the same time conscious of itself, is the Idea. 

The so-called law of thought concerning the nature of Identity 
says : " Everything is identical with itself." All things are re- 
lated, the bond of Identity interlaces itself tlirough the whole 
Universe. The Essence, which is the basis of all Appearance, is 
a Unity, comprehends in itself all diversity of definite Being, all 
differences. It is a unity, despite all Difference, despite all Op- 
position, which, with the equal value of a so-called law of thought, 
of an essential relation of all reality, stands opposed to Identity, 
and is a universal fact. What is true of the Universe, holds also 
of the individual. Everything — that is, each individual object — 
is, despite its relation to something else, independently self-identi- 
cal, has in its relation to others its relation to itself. 

But the Understanding does not comprehend Identity in this 
sense. To it Identity is not a Unity which encompasses Differ- 
erence — a concrete Identity. If it were, then Understanding 
would no longer be abstract Understanding, but speculative 
Reason, and would regard both Identity and Difference as inclu- 
sive of one another and existing together. The Understanding 
applies the principle of Identity only in a trivial sense, as, for 
instance, " The sun is the sun," " Air is air," " The soul is the 
soul," " The body is the body." In reference to this, Hegel justly 
says that the Understanding, while it speaks of Identity, is al- 
ready considering Difference — the Difference which appertains 
to entirely external comparisons, and does not proceed beyond 
these merely external differences in things having no relation to 
one another. 

But if each thing is explicitly only identical with itself, and 
Difference is something external to it, belonging to a third, used 
as a comparative, then Difference belongs neither to " something" 
nor to " all." It constitutes no essential characteristic of this sub- 



HegeVs Doctrine of Contradiction. 123 

ject, and it can then not be said that everythinjy contains Ditfer- 
ence, which the Understanding persistently says. According- to 
Hegel, one thing is distinguished from another, and thereby re- 
lated to that other through its own specific character. It is at 
once related to self (self-identity), and related to another (opposi- 
tion). This, according to Hegel, is the Contradiction given in the 
thing itself, and the exact contrary to that which the so-called 
law of Excluded Middle asserts. 

After Hegel has pointed out that his category of " Contradic- 
tion " does not deal with contradictory terms, and that he differs 
from those logicians in his understanding of the principle of Ex- 
cluded Middle, it is not fair for them to raise these objections. 
As they themselves best know, they do not agree among them- 
selves as to the meaning of them, and, with the exceptions, per- 
haps, of Trendelenburg and Ueberweg, are not clear concerning 

them. 

HI. 

The principle of Excluded Middle, as Hegel understood and re- 
jected it, regards Difference not as difference in Identity, not as 
the opposition of Identity to itself, but as abstract, external Dif- 
ference. Things different are regarded as independent of one 
another. Here it is indeed true that, of two opposed predicates, 
only one can be attributed to a subject ; the other has nothing to 
do with it, and is external and indifferent, an abstract Identity 
without relation. In place of this principle of the abstract under- 
standing, Hegel puts the rational principle of essential Difference. 
According to this principle, a thing does not have an other in gen- 
eral, but its other, set in opposition to it. Difference is the oppo- 
sition within itself, of a thing as an identical whole, which, in 
contradiction to the principle of Excluded Middle, unites in itself 
opposite and contrary predicates. 

Kant in his time did not overlook the necessity of contrary 
propositions concerning the same subject — the World, his so-called 
"Antinomies." He satisfied himself, in his own way, by absolv- 
ing Heal ity from Contradiction, as " thing-iii-itself." While pre- 
Kantian metaphysics and formal logic generally present, in expla- 
nation, their metaphysical view of things, Kant maintains that 
there can always be opposed, with equal authoritj' and necessity, 
other assertions of a contrary nature. This inevitable Thesis and 



124 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

antithesis, this " Antinomy," which Kant recognized, is Hegel's 
" Contradiction." Ilegel perceived not only the four particular 
cases of antinomy that Kant specified as having their source in 
the cosniological Idea, namely, the world as both limited and un- 
limited by space and time ; matter as both infinitely divisible and 
not infinitely divisible; all things in the world conditioned by 
cause, and yet having Freedom and an absolute beginning of 
action ; the world as having and not having a cause. Hegel sees 
this contradiction in all objects of whatever kind, in all concep- 
tions, notions, ideas. According to him, this contradiction is in 
the thing itself, and does not arise from an illusion of the Reason. 
On the contrary, it is necessary, genuine, and authoritative, the 
source of all motion and vitality. As Difierence which is absorbed 
wnthin itself, it is the origin of individuality, the principle of self- 
activity. So far from being an illusion of Reason, it is reason 
itself that everywhere points to a reconciliation of the opposed 
and contradictory elements into a higher unity, instead of remain- 
ing involved in Contradiction as an insoluble ditticulty. 

Anything is essentially different, has its own detinite character- 
istics which separate it from another, onl}' as this difference im- 
plies its very dependence upon that other ; as, on the other hand, 
the latter only separates itself from the former, is its negation, in 
80 far as it depends upon it. Each has in the other its antithesis, 
as spirit has its antithesis in nature, the north pole of the magnet 
in the south pole; positive electricity in negative, and vice verm. 
Each is thus referred to the other, has an essential, inner relation 
to the other, is identical with the other. Thus essential Difference 
is the contradiction of two forms of thought: Identity (with 
another) and Difference (from another). The abstract understand- 
ing abstracts from Identity when it considers Difference. It does 
not conceive it as a difference which implies difference, as the 
dialectic of two opposed characteristics (categories) bound up into 
unity. The understanding does not comprehend that the same 
subject may unite within itself two opposed, contradictory ele- 
ments, as celestial mechanism unites the centripetal and centrifugal 
forces. It does not concern itself with such conceptions. To it, 
centripetal force is centripetal force — that is, is identical with it- 
self. And the centrifugal force has the same self -identity, the two 
coming into only external, chance relations. According to this 



HegeVs Doctrine of ('ontnidiction. 125 

conception, the celestial bodies would all rush to the centre if it 
were not that some hand or other had given them an impulse out- 
ward. Absolute mechanism, which sustains itself through its con- 
tradictory elements, does not exist to the understanding, just as the 
latter does not comprehend the dialectic of the one and the many. 
One is to the understanding simply one, and the many simply 
many. The understanding remains in this attitude of abstraction. 
But we can not consistently maintain this attitude. That any- 
thing in likeness to self is at the same time in opposition to self, is 
just as true as that there is no contradiction if there is only self- 
relation. It is not simply one thing distinguished from another 
thing, but it contains within itself difference, opposition, contra- 
diction. The absolute unity of divine spirit posits itself as two- 
fold, and so is the negation of itself its own contradiction. It does 
this in the double sense that God absolutely, from all eternity, as 
pure Thought, as pure spiritual Reality, is in objective relation to 
Himself, discloses the element of Difference from self. At the 
same time, out of His very unity (God's power belongs to God, to 
the absolute spiritual unity, which is God) the creation of definite 
Being appears as Difference. Thus, also, finite, subjective spirit 
is not a simple unit}', but, notwithstanding its self-identity, is 
manifold in powers and capabilities, and, without losing its indi- 
viduality, its pure ideality, manifests itself in an endless diversity 
of ideas and notions, of Difference posited in its very simplicity. 
In the same way the unity of the animal life manifests itself as a 
manifold diversity of members and organs, which is still reflected 
in the Unity, continually returns into it, and is continually new- 
created from it. This Unity of animal life, the soul, is funda- 
mental!}^ the same as Spirit, is implicit spirit, which in man first 
becomes explicit. . . . Spirit still involved in the processes of 
Nature, dependent on its bodily manifestations, as yet having no 
comprehension of itself, is Natural Spirit — immediate, made known 
through nature. -If any one takes exceptions to this characteriza- 
tion, and, referring to Hegel's definition of Nature as the Other- 
Being of Spirit, would object that Natural Spirit is unspiritualized 
spirit, it would only be one proof more that the opposers of Hegel's 
category of Contradiction are not in a position to understand what 
he says regarding it, because they attach more importance to the 
mere analytical understanding than to Reason. This abstract 



126 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

understanding conceives that Other-Being' as something absolute, 
excluding all Identity ; it places spirit and nature, soul and body, 
in opposition as absolutely self-dependent, witliout reflecting that 
on this presumption their reciprocal relations, and the elements 
which they actually have in common, would not only be incom- 
prehensible, but also impossible. This is not what Hegel means 
when he calls Nature the Other-Being of Spirit. Spirit does not 
act independently of nature, but freely as to Nature. It has 
absorbed Nature in itself, and Nature is not an abstract some- 
thing else, absolutely separated from Spirit, It is rather Spirit 
external to itself. Nature is the Other-Being of Spirit, in the 
sense that Spirit itself has a twofold nature. It is within itself 
another, external, and alien to itself as pnre and absolute Spirit. 
This Other-Being is not to be understood as other-being generally, 
but as the Other-Being of Spirit. Nature as opposed to Spirit 
is not something else existing for itself independently. Rather 
Nature has its being from Spirit, is only spirit externalized. In 
the relation of spirit to nature, soul to body, we have only the 
opposition of what is in itself identical. The soul in its relation 
to the body is not to be regarded as a separate abstract element, 
but as the Essence, which, notwithstanding its unity w^ith the 
body, is yet distinguished from it, and rises above the sphere of 
its external expression to pure spiritual existence. 

From what has been said, it should be clear that it is no "con- 
tradiction in terms " when Hegel designates soul as immediate, 
natural spirit. The " contradiction in terms " lies rather with the 
abstract understanding itself, meeting everything with "contra- 
diction in terms ! " It brings on its own dead abstractions, and 
believes that through them it will be able to comprehend this 
concrete, living Reality, and criticise rational conceptions of it. 
This concrete, living Reality has in itself Contradiction, and is in 
proportion concrete and living — admitting, however, that it 
undergoes and conquers contradiction, and out of it returns to 
unity with itself. 

Says Hegel ("Encyc," § 119, note 2): " Instead of speaking 
according to the principle of Excluded Middle, we should rather 
say 'Everything is in opposition."' There is, in fact, nowhere in 
Heaven or Earth, in the spiritual or in the natural world, an 
abstract 'Either-or' such as the understanding asserts. What- 



HegeVs Doctrine of Contradiction. 127 

ever is, is coucrete, with DiiFerence and Opposition in itself. Tiie 
finitude of tliino-s consists in this: that their immediate Beino- does 
not correspond with what they implicitly are. For example : in 
the inori^anic world an acid is at the same time a base; that is, 
its Being is plainly in reference to its other, a base. The acid 
does not remain in a qniet, inert opposition, but is always striving 
to realize what it is implicitly. Contradiction is what moves the 
world, and it is absurd to say that it is inconceivable. What can 
be correctly asserted is just this : that ( 'Ontradiction can not end 
the matter, but through itself cancels itself. Even then this can- 
celled Contradiction is not abstract Identity, for this is itself only 
one side of the opposition." 

Is not this comprehensible ? And when Hegel thus explains 
Contradiction as a logico-metaphysical category, and cites such 
examples of it as he does, must we necessarily think of anything 
so nonsensical as " wooden iron," " iron which is not iron," " a 
donkey which is not a donkey," and the like? It certainly is not 
necessary, and the logicians have only half considered what Hegel 
wished to say, and really has said very plainly. 

Ueberweg admits : " These teachings of Hegel (concerning the 
Laws of Thought) are, so far as contrary propositions are con- 
cerned, not without truth. The conception (or insight into the 
fact) that the separation of indifferent elements in opposition and 
their mediation to a higher unity is the form of all development 
in the life of Nature and Spirit, must be considered as a perma- 
nent result of Hegel's and Sclielling's speculation " (" System der 
Logik," p. 204-218). Yet Ueberweg believed (p. 204) that " the 
application of this doctrine to the relation of contradictory proposi- 
tions rests upon a confusion of logical negation with real opposi- 
tion. Trendelenburg has proved this so clearly in his 'Logische 
Untersuchungen ' that I here need only to refer to his work." 

The "proof" of which Ueberweg speaks is merely imaginary. 
Trendelenburg has not once made the attempt to demonstrate 
such a confusion on Hegel's part. But to Hegel's Dialectic, be- 
ginning with pure Being and proceeding, " via negationis," to 
the more comprehensive logical categories, he has opposed the 
purely supposititious dilemma that the negation conditioning their 
development must be eitlier " pure logical negation " or " real 
opposition " (" Log. Unters.," i, p. 43). But logical negation 



128 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

'' which originates so entirely in thought alone that it nowhere 
really discloses itself in Nature, could not condition any such de- 
velopment of thought as that a new conception should arise, in 
which there would be positively united a negation and affirmation 
reciprocally related, for there can be no third, neither between 
nor beyond the members" (in logical negation). " Therefore it 
follows," he goes on to say, "that it is emphatically declared to be 
a misunderstanding when the Dialectic Negation is taken for 
contradictory negation " (44) ; and he can and will raise so little 
objection to it that he even makes the following additional obser- 
vation : Hegel says (" Encyc," § 81) : " The Dialectic element is 
the self-annulling element belonging to these categories, by which 
they pass into their opposites (thus opposition, not mere negation)." 
That it was not Trendelenburg's intention to give that " proof " 
of which Ueberweg dreamed, appears from another remark on the 
same page, where he says : " If Dialectic should also attack the 
' principle of Excluded Middle between two contradictories,' we 
could find nowhere else a principle upon which to rest indi- 
rect proof. Geometry, which has so often employed it, wonld 
have to mourn a delusion of two thousand years' duration." "If 
it should attack!" So Trendelenburg is not certain whether 
Hegel intended such a "crimen laesse logices" or not; and he con- 
cedes in the passages cited that Dialectic Negation is not contra- 
dictory negation, but "real opposition." But further on he actu- 
ally wants to prove that Dialectic thought reaches this opposition 
only by means of suppositions and conceptions borrowed from 
experience. This is an accusation which leads us to remark that 
Trendelenburg entirely misconceived the " freedom from pre- 
suppositions " which Hegel required in the derivation of the cate- 
gories from the Immanence of pure thought. Thought which 
does not comprehend the absolute notion, which goes outside of 
all experience, is aimlessly looking into mere vacancy, cannot 
develop the categories of Logic. The Hegelian " freedom from 
presuppositions" is not thought of in this sense. 

The philosophers who represent the subjective attitude natu- 
rally presuppose the acceptance of all possible experience in con- 
sciousness, and the psychologico-logical interpretation of the same. 
In the same sense Hegel presupposes all — the complete Notion, 
the Idea, Absolute Spirit ; he does not begin with it. But in 



HegeVs Doctrine of Contradiction. 129 

objective relation there can be no presupposition made in the 
presentation if the categories of the Notion are not arbitrary, but 
to be developed with logico-dialectic necessity. In methodical 
development the categories proceed from the simple and universal 
to the particular and concrete. Whatever is made the beginning 
must be comprehensible in itself, and all that follows is explained 
through the development of the Notion in proper order. Should 
I begin with the " Notion," or " Ego," or " God," there would 
be implied in such a beginning a multitude of presuppositions — 
namelj, whatever constitutes the Notion, Ego, or God. I must 
begin the dev^elopment with an element of the Notion which pre- 
supposes nothing, and is given as absolutely intelligible to every 
thinking person ; and since this, and all the following elements, 
are dialecticallv absorbed in their higher truth and become in- 
tegral elements of the Notion as a whole, nothing must be omitted ; 
the process of development must be by degrees. In this sense 
alone would the Hegelian Dialectic of the Notion be " free from 
presuppositions." It is not based on magic. 

It is only the systematic presentation of philosophy that begins 
with the pure thought of the Logic, and its starting-point of pure 
Being. The subjective consciousness of the individual, however, 
must first work its way up from the immediacy of sensible per- 
ception through the different stages of phenomena to pure Thought 
and comprehending knowledge. It must assimilate the substance 
of truth, let it gradually reveal itself, and, in the process of get- 
ting rid of these incomplete attitudes of thought, it must place 
itself subjectively in sympathy with them, in order to gain the 
adequate Notion of the Thing and its development, its own Dia- 
lectic, and the negativity given in it. With this idea in mind, 
Hegel refers, in the Introduction to Logic, to his phenomenology 
of Spirit as explaining the beginning of philosophic knowledge. 
God and the World, then, could not be brought forth by magic, 
by one incapable of thought, out of hypothetic, abstract Being. 
Here the presupposition is Thought, a thinking Ego, with an ex- 
perience of Reality, for which this Reality, in the sphere of phe- 
nomena and appearance, is transformed into pure Thought in the 
innermost Spirit, as in the region of fully revealed Essence and 
Truth. From such pure Thought the philosopher makes his de- 
ductions; he lets the complete Notion unfold itself through its own 
XXII— 9 



130 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

immanent Dialectic. Dialectic thouc<;lit needs to resort to no sup- 
positions, needs no outside borrowing from experience. The No- 
tion has affected a spiritual transformation of experience, is noth- 
ing else than experience fully grasped. So the Notion has the 
approving consciousness of having only taken possession of its 
own, and not in any sense of having committed robbery. 

This external Reality of experience itself, indeed, depends upon 
thought, is only comprehended as proceeding from Spirit, from 
the eternally real and absolute thought of explicit Being, which, 
before and above all external experience, is in God. That em- 
pirical consciousness which rises through the process of phe- 
nomena to pure thought is indeed at bottom thought, only 
thought involved in an incomplete phase of its life of appear- 
ance, out of which it works its way upward at last to its true 
complete absolute existence — to pure thought. Dialectic Nega- 
tion can — without subterfuge and without robbery — be " real Op- 
position " ; and this it is, and by no means the " logical negation " 
of Trendelenburg. With such, Hegel's Logic has nothing to do. 
It does not deal with merely formal thought separated from its 
object. It is at the same time Ontology and Metaphysics, and 
the categories of the Logic are the categories of objective thought, 
characteristics of Reality conceived by thinking Spirit. " My 
thought is nothing separated from its object, and the object is 
nothing separated from my thought," writes Hegel in a letter to 
PfafiP. Hegel's Logic, then, deals only with real Opposition, pro- 
ceeding from the thing itself, and not with the " contradiction " 
of the logicians. 

Opposition in its abstract aspect as Being and Nought (as pre- 
sented in the lirst part of the Logic) is real Opposition, in which 
Difference is not yet determined, is not yet specific difference. 
It is real Oj)position, and not that Nought which by a merely sub- 
jective conception is placed in contrast with objectively given 
Being, as a merely formal negation. Pure Being posits itself as 
Nought, in opposition to itself; it shows itself, on a nearer view, to 
coincide with Nought, and, vice versa, Nought is changed to Being, 
as can be analyzed out of the notion of Becoming by any one. 
The transition from Nought to Being — Becoming — is a phase of 
the Absolute, without the Absolute itself ever being transformed 
into mere Becoming. The immediacy of pure Being — which, ab- 



Hegel's Doctrine of Contradiction. 131 

stracting in tliought from all specific character, we comprehend 
through thinking Spirit — is, as indeterminate Being, identical with 
Nought in God, and from him proceeds as definite, finite Being — 
BO far as God is really Creator of the World. 

This is the Becoming from Nought which Alexander von Hum- 
boldt could not comprehend ("Kosmos," 1, p. 8Y), but it was only 
because he, like so many others, falsely conceived it. " Out of 
nothing comes nothing"; certainly a "nothing" posited by my 
subjective thought, imagined by me, is nothing, and nothing will 
come from it. The Nought from which the world proceeds is the 
abstraction of Being given in divine thought, through which God 
manifests, the fulness of his kingdom in finite existence. 

lY. 

There is so much clearly proved : that our two logicians, when 
Hegel claimed actuality, reality for his Contradiction, had a strong 
misgiving that he could not have duly considered their Contradic- 
tion, their negation, which has its origin in subjective thought 
alone. So Hegel must be properly instructed. We shall see how 
they succeed in doing it. 

Contradiction, so the logicians dictate, is the contradictory 
opposition given in " pure logical negation." A thing is either 
blue or not-blue. The logicians appeal to Aristotle, the Father 
of Logic, who in his time had accurately formulated the Law of 
Contradiction, and that of Excluded Middle as well. Now, what 
Aristotle says, it is well known, was asserted in opposition to 
the " flux of all things," of Heracleitus. Contrary to him, Aris- 
totle, in the first place, emphasized, as Plato did before him, that 
there is a sphere of the eternal exalted above all temporary 
beginnings and endings, above all transition ; and, in the second 
place, he emphasized (referring to what is mutable) that something 
actually existing in reality could not at the same time be man 
and not-man, blue and not-blue. That it might have contradic- 
tion within itself, as potentiality, that by such potentiality it 
might unite within itself the opposition of Being and not-Being, 
he did not deny ; he even emphatically stated as much (" Metaph.," 
iv, 5, 1009, a 33, 88). On this point Aristotle, as well as Tren- 
delenburg, agrees with Hegel. Trendelenburg knows too that 
' the principle of Contradiction (of formal logic) cannot be ap- 



132 The Journal of SSpeculative Philosophy. 

plied to the dynamic force which conditions and produces the 
objects of its application " (" Logisch. Unters.," ii, 154). But, says 
Trendelenburg, so soon as anything has once hecome, the Law of 
Contradiction comes into play. Ueberweg naturally says the 
same, and does not see the concession to Hegel's Contradiction 
which Trendelenburg has made in the passage cited. They both 
believed they had said something against Hegel. 

Now, what did Hegel believe ? Is a man — who certainly in his 
essence unites the self-contradictory elements of soul and body, 
nature and spirit, at the same time — to him — not a man? Or 
is acid, as actually existing acid, at the same time not an acid? 
That would indeed be mere nonsense. It is not the negation of 
itself as to its external, transient reality, but as to its inner poten- 
tiality, its essence. So long as a substance is in reality an acid, it 
is not in reality at the same time not an acid. If I should declare 
it not to be an acid, this contradiction would be in my subjective 
thought, and would, of course, have no objective value. To such a 
contradiction belongs the famous principle of Excluded Middle. 
Such a contradiction is indeed to be excluded, and the logicians 
may insist upon it as often as necessary. Hegel entirely agrees 
with them. 

Let us now consider the subject of such a merely subjective 
judgment and contradiction, not simply taking a superficial view 
of its momentary existence, its external, transient reality, and its 
accidental properties, but also considering the Essence lying as the 
basis of its appearance, of its external reality. Let us reflect upon 
its inner nature, its soul, through which its external, definite Being 
is mediated, thus considering the subject fundamentally with its 
very root. We can certainly say that it is more than it appeared to 
be from a first superficial view. Acid is now no longer merely 
acid. It is merely acid for the apothecary, who sells it as such at 
a certain price. It is now, for us, according to its inner, essential 
nature, the negation of itself as acid, implicitly related to, depend- 
ent upon a base, and identical with it. Eacli has implicitly an 
identical Essence, now this, now that characteristic predominating. 
Each phase of existence is itself an opposition and difference, the 
contradiction being one that actually exists in the reality presented, 
not merely postulated in subjective thought. Each is so related 
to the other that they mutually embody one another, and are es- 



HegeVs Doctrine of Contradiction. 133 

sentiallj inseparable. The north pole of the magnet can not be 
so separated from the south pole that there is no longer any oppo- 
sition in the divided parts. As any one can see how far each pole 
of the magnet extends after this division, so it is very easily com- 
prehended that, when an acid and base come into contact and 
mutually absorb one another in a higher, more complete mode of 
existence, these two elements, though externally distinguished as 
two different phenomena, are yet essentially never set free from 
one another. They have such a reciprocal affinity that each, even 
at the time of external separation, was its own opposite. 

This opposition, this contradiction, develops these finite exist- 
ences whose immediate reality does not correspond to their Notion, 
to what they implicitly are. It carries them beyond themselves 
to a higher unity, in which Contradiction disappears ; and what 
they were implicitly, they explicitly become. The latent Con- 
tradiction, veiled as it were in immediate existence, manifests itself 
under given conditions. An activity begins in which the form of 
immediate existence as such is sacrificed, but as to its implicit na- 
ture its essence is preserved, and finds its summation in a higher 
aspect of Reality — as, for example, an acid and base are absorbed 
in a salt. 

Trendelenburg discerns that in this transition, this process of 
Becoming, Contradiction appears as objective and actual, and that 
the so-called Law of Contradiction has nothing to do with this ac- 
tivity. He and Hegel can shake hands so soon as Trendelenburg 
concedes, what indeed he must concede — namely, that this Contra- 
diction, vindicating itself in activity, has been implicit and latent 
in that which was changed before its transition. There must 
have been present already the elements of variance, as the very 
notion of transition implies. 

"When Trendelenburg reflects that in that part of Hegel's 
Logic where he discusses the categories of Identity, Essential Dif- 
ference, and the Ground, he is dealing with the relation of Es- 
sence to immediate existence, and not with directions for reckon- 
ing up and schematizing outer, immediate Reality — as in the so- 
called Laws of Thought ; when he considers, further, that Hegel 
accepts these Laws of Thought in their proper place — that is, in 
their application to Unite relations and immediate, external 
Reality ; when Trendelenburg reflects on all this, he can, at least 



134 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosojyhy. 

so far as " Contradiction " is concerned, desist from his contradic- 
tion of Hegel. We are not yet through with Ueberweg, however. 
He believes also, as concerns motion and transition, that if the 
higher Reality is to be attained, the appearance of Contradiction 
must tirst be removed. To this end " there must first be deter- 
mined through exact definition a fixed line of limit." " For 
example " (in opposition to Hegel's assumption that at the instant 
of the transition from night to day, day and night both are and 
are not), " that instant toward daybreak when the mathemati- 
cal centre of the apparent disk of the sun passes over the horizon 
can be taken for the boundary or limit of day " (" Syst. der 
Logik," p. 191). " This point of limit, since its extension must be 
called the same as nothing, is a nought of time, and therefore no 
positive predicate can be given it with logical justice. In reality, 
the middle point of the sun's disk which has passed the horizon 
follows the point which has not passed immediately, without any 
interval of time whatever. It would be a mere fiction if this 
point of limit should be assumed as something having Being, or 
as a real interval of time." But are not this " mathematical cen- 
tre" and this " nought of time," taken as point of limit, much 
more fictions of the understanding, by means of which Ueberweg 
jumps over from a point not passed to a point passed without 
passing it ? At any rate, the real middle of the sun's disk does 
cross the horizon at an actual instant of time, and at this instant 
of time, as well as shortly before and after, day and night are 
involved together, are in a strife with one another, from which day 
at last comes out victorious. Ueberweg has, as we see, turned the 
question we are considering upon exclusively quantitative exter- 
nal relations, and has abstracted entirely from qualitative differ- 
ences and their transition, their absorption in one another. Tren- 
delenburg, however, does not mean by " Motion " merely a 
change of position and a quantitative addition and subtraction. 
He has in mind also a qualitative transition and a " substan- 
tial" beginning and ceasing. The ideas of causality, produc- 
'tion, creation, belong to the " Motion " of Trendelenburg, as to 
Aristotle's /cii/T^crt?. When through this " motion " a new object 
is " produced " according to Trendelenburg, how is it possible to 
determine the mathematical measure of the point of limit, as 
Ueberweg would do in the transition from day to night? The 



HegeVs Doctrine of Conti^adiction. 135 

transition is here not external, but in Essence, in the Notion, 
and this transition — Becoming — is the union of Being and 
Nought, is objective and actual Contradiction. It is not some- 
thing postulated by subjective thought simply. This contradic- 
tion of Beino; and Nought in Becomino; is an element of the Ko- 
tion of all Reality, even of the Notion of Absolute Spirit. In 
livinor oro-anisms it is a continual transition and transformation of 
the constituent elements and organs out of one another and into 
one another. Life, superior as such to the process, overcomes the 
contradiction given in it for a certain length of time only. Only 
spirit is superior to transition. Spirit endures the contradiction 
posited in it, and comes back to unity with itself out of its con- 
stituent diifereuces. Human spirit, having arrived as spirit at 
self-consciousness, at independent existence, has its eternal home 
in absolute spirit, where, after laying aside the sensuous nature in 
which it abides as soul, it finds itself in the region of its own 
truth and freedom. Absolute spirit, the eternal and absolute 
Ego, returns out of the transitory world, as infinitely multiplied 
Ego, to itself. Absolute spirit, as God, is absolutely superior to 
Becoming as the abstract unity of Being and Nought ; it is Be- 
coming in its highest aspect as the activity of spirit in itself, 
which determines itself, and absorbs within itself again its own 
determinations. In God, Being is the totality of the Notion, 
and Nought in God is the freedom of self-determination as Ne- 
gativity which to the highest degree absorbs ' itself, and absolute 
self-afSrmation, self-manifestation, which, according to Aristotle, is 
v6r]aL<^ vorjaew^, and according to Christian doctrine is the triune 
process of life, is Becoming, in God as God. God does not " be- 
come " in the sense of not having existed before ; yet this ele- 
ment of abstract Becoming, through which that becomes which was 
not before, is given in the Absolute (God and his efficient power). 
God as creator of the world posits this Becoming, and thereby 
this contradiction of determinate Being, which does not corre- 
spond to what it implicitly is, to its Notion. Temporal Being is 
the actual contradiction of an inner force externalized, a spiritual 
force existing as sensible Being. 



' The word absorbs is used in this article as a translation of aufhebt^ signifying the 



reduction to an element of a higher unit. — Ed. 



136 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

V. 

.... An objector to the Hegelian categor}' of Contradiction 
saj's, in allusion to Lotze's " Geschichte der ^sthetik " : " The 
Notion itself does not change with things, but only its applicability 
to a definite sphere of existence. The same Notion continues true 
only as it is related to a thing, depends upon it, changes with it." 
Certainl}^ such a notion of the understanding as is ready-made, 
fixed, unchangeable. Only it is a pity that in Reality (not 
abstract, dead Reality, but concrete and living) there is nothing 
to correspond to it ; it is not the real, living Notion of the 
Thing. Another objector to Contradiction wrote in 18Y7: "No 
one doubts that every concrete thing is made up of different ele- 
ments. But it is to be just as little disputed that the thinking 
subject must accept the object of thought as it is presented in the 
outset of the thought-process. The real object is subject to change 
and development, but the logical subject must be accepted at one 
time the same as at another." This amounts to saying that 
thought must hold fast to what was in the past, in a vanished 
moment of time, yet which was there not as a complete existence, 
but only half-way developed. Hegel, however, has nothing to say 
about the permanence in thought of a Reality which is itself not 
permanent. Tlie Hegelian Notion is the Notion of the Thing, 
takes the Thing as it is and trusts to its own dialectic. " If the 
Thing changes, if the real object is subject to transition and de- 
velopment," then this constituent activity of the real object 
must be included in the Notion, if it is to be the concrete Notion 
of a concrete object. But what causes this continuing diversity in 
objects is Contradiction, which in its abstract aspect is the passing 
from Being to Nought, and vice versa — that is. Becoming. This 
abstract Contradiction is an element of the Notion of all concrete, 
living Reality. The logicians concede that contrary propositions 
can be united, and thereby — unless they wish to be guilty them- 
selves of their own logical contradiction — they concede as a fact 
the Contradiction of (qualitative) Being and not-Being. The Dif- 
ference of Being and Nought is the ground of all Differences. 
. . . The unity of Being and Nought, and their immediate pas- 
sage into Becoming as is set forth in the beginning of the Logic, 
should not be conceived as concrete. It is not that the Being of 



HegeVs Doctrine of Contradiction. 137 

this concrete thing is immediately the not-Being of the same, as 
though it were continually destroyed and continually recreated ; 
but that in it, so far as it is living, Being is continually passing 
into not-Being, and vice versa. The object holds out through 
this activity of Being and not-Being for a certain length of time, 
and at last its immediate sensible existence falls asunder and dis- 
appears in the current of Becoming. Only Spirit is superior to 
this current ; in Spirit only is Reality adequate to the Notion. 

" All must fall into Nought if it would continue in Being" — 
that is, in finite Being, which is indebted to Contradiction for its 
existence, and through the dialectic of which it is further devel- 
oped. 

Nevertheless, despite the sway of Contradiction and Negation, 
all is preserved, the preservation of which Aristotle wished to be 
assured. . . . Blue remains always blue. Flower, ox, cow, man 
himself — all these phases of existence remain always the same, 
are not destroyed by Contradiction, though many individuals 
among them fall into Nought. " Everything is transitory, but a 
cow's tail is always long," I hear a famous man often say. In 
other words, the intelligible world of (Platonic) Ideas, or, what is 
the same thing, the all-ruling Dialectic of the Notion, is untouched 
by destruction. The Absolute, with its Contradiction always 
arising and always overcome, does not contradict itself. . . . 

In order to be more certain of at last effectino; a reconcilia- 
tion between Hegel and the logicians, and to be able to ask 
the opposers of Contradiction to allow the " Father of Life " to 
live, I make a final concession. It is this : that when we are deal- 
ing with purely external relations, with the abstractions of exter- 
nality, direction in space, and the limitations in time of historical 
facts, according to Hegel himself, we are to apply the logic of the 
understanding, divested of dialectic and rational features, with its 
finite limitations, and especially with its Laws of Contradiction and 
Excluded Middle. . . . Trendelenburg need, have no fear for 
Geometry, for Hegel, in the preface to " Phenomenology of Spirit," 
has explained his position in detail. He states, in substance, that, 
by reason of its content, the methods of analytic and synthetic 
cognition are pre-eminently adapted to Geometry, as in it the 
inflexible categories of the understanding and their applications 
of formal Identity are entirely in place. 



138 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

So there need be no apprehension that the dialectic method 
will infringe upon the rights of the finite. We leave to Geome- 
try its categories of the understanding, and to Michel his two Gro- 
schen — so long as he can keep them together — and admit that his 
reckoning must be based on these much-famed laws of logic. To 
the question whether Csesar died on the Ides of March, 44 b. c, 
we certainly cannot answer Yes and No at the same time, nor can 
we say " neither Yes nor No " ; the logicians are in the right here. 
This is either a shilling or else it is not a shilling ; I have either 
paid my shoe-bill or I have not paid it ; in all these cases the funda- 
mental laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle must be ap- 
pealed to. Only such logic should modestly keep within its sphere, 
and not try to deal with subjects not to be measured by its stand- 
ards. It should not announce its finite categories and abstrac- 
tions as though they were all-inclusive, and hence infinite and 
absolute. 



MARTIXEAU'S IDIOPSYCHOLOGICAL ETHICS.' 



BY S. W. DYDE. 



The subject-matter of this article is included under two heads : 
I, a statement in Mr. Martineau's own language of his ethical views ; 
and II, a criticism of two of his fundamental conceptions — namely, 
his understanding of what is meant by a spring of action, and his 
view of volition. An estimate of his conception of volition must 
embrace some reference to his theory of conscience. Indirectly I 
aim to show that the difference between Utilitarian ethics on the 
one hand and on the other hand the ethics of intuition, as repre- 
sented by Mr. Martineau's " Idiopsychological Ethics," is not really 
radical, and that a possible reconciliation between these two con- 
flicting theories is indicated now and then by Mr. Martineau him- 
self. Although I dwell perforce upon the views of Mr. Martineau, 
w^ith which I cannot completely agree, I do so in order to emplia- 



1 " Types of Ethical Theory," by James Martineau, D. D., LL. D., Principal of Manchester 
New College, London. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885. The theory discussed in this ar- 
ticle covers pp. 1-279 of vol. ii. The references are to the first edition. 



MartineaiCs Idiopsychological Ethics. 139 

size those features of his theory which seem to me to point to bet- 
ter things. Indeed, it may be I only direct attention to another 
aspect of the basal principle of ethics, and try to show that this 
second aspect, united with the aspect rendered prominent by Mr. 
Martineau, makes the true foundation of moral science. 

I. What is the essence of a psychological method? (1) It not 
only assumes reflective self-knowledge to be possible, but gives it 
precedence in ethical relations over other knowledge, and proceeds 
thence into the scene around ; and (2) it not only begins from the 
self-conscious man, as the better known, and treats the phenomena 
so found as genuine phenomena, but accepts also whatever these 
phenomena carry ; and if they imply in their very nature certain 
objective assumptions, these reports, as contained within the 
known phenomena, it trusts as knowledge ; in other words, it be- 
lieves in the inner experiences not simply as appearances within us, 
but where they offer testimony as witnesses of realities without 
us. Both these positions require to be emphasized. An egoistic 
doctrine such as Fichte's Idealism misses the true ethical condi- 
tions, as it reduces moral obligation to a mere modification of Self. 
Without objective conditions the idea of Duty involves a contradic- 
tion. Conscience does not frame tlie law ; it simply reveals the 
law that holds us ; and to make everything of the disclosure and 
nothing of the thing disclosed is to afiirm and to deny the reve- 
lation in the same breath. Further, our psychology must be dual- 
istic in its results, recognizing, as in its doctrine of perception, so 
in its doctrine of conscience, a Self and an other than self. In 
perception it is Self and Nature ; in morals it is Self and God. 
Psychological 5d//*-knowledge is possible, for, as we are continually 
telling our own thoughts and feelings and purposes, is it not ridic- 
ulous to assert that we can not hnoio them f Moreover, of these 
phenomena of the mind there must be an inner mental order, 
legible to the same eye that deciphers the mental classes. We 
psychologically know more than ourselves, for the first function of 
intelligence is to construe not itself, but the scene in which it is 
placed. Yet subjective knowledge and objective are correlative. 
On the simple testimony of our perceptive faculty we believe in 
both the perceived object and the perceiving self. To the implicit 
beliefs secreted within our moral consciousness let precisely so 
much be conceded as we readil}' grant to the testimony of percep- 



140 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

tion, and it will appear that, in learning ourselves, we discover 
also what is beyond and above ourselves. 

The fundamental ethical fact is this : that we have an irresist- 
ible tendency to approve and disapprove^ to pass judgments of 
right and wrong. What is it that we judge? Self-evidently it is 
persons and not things. The approbation or disapprobation 
which we feel toward human actions is directed upon them ?iQ per- 
sonal phenomena. Consequently we always judge the inner 
spring of an act, as distinguished from its outward operation- 
For, whatever else may be implied in the fact that an act is a 
personal phenomenon, this at least is involved : that it is issued by 
the mind, and has its dynamic source there. Accepting James 
Mill's analysis of an act into (1) the sentiment whence it springs, 
(2) the muscular movement in which it visibly consists, and (3) 
the consequences in which it issues, if we cut off the first, then 
the other two lose all their moral quality, but, though we cut off 
the other two, the moral quality is wholly preserved in the first. 
The personal record contains a new act, if only the inner mandate 
has been issued, and the moment which completes the mental an- 
tecedents touches the character with a clearer purity or a fresh 
stain. 

Whom do we first judge? Contrary to the verdict of the great 
majority of English moralists, the answer must be made that we 
judge ourselves first, and others only second. The inner spring of 
action is not apprehensible by external observation, but can be 
known in the first instance only by internal self-consciousness. 
This does not mean that a solitary human being could be possessed 
of moral estimates, for doubtless the presence of others is indis- 
pensable to the development of this part of our nature, not less 
than external physical objects are requisite to the unfolding of 
our perceptive power. Without material things around us we 
should not detect the Ego of Sense, nor, without human persons 
before us, the Ego of Conscience. But in perception the two dis- 
coveries — (i'( ourselves and of our objects — are simultaneous, while in 
the moral case there is a difference which gives a clear preponder- 
ance to the subjective side. In perception the seusations of the 
self and the properties of the body are heterogeneous / it is other- 
wise when I learn my own moral or human affection in the mirror 
of a kindred nature. 



MartineaxCs l(H()j)sychologicAil Ethics. 141 

But, to return to the inner spring of action, it is conceivable 
that we might be self-conscious of snch a spring without ability to 
judge it. If it were a mere spontaneity., wholly occupying us and 
propelling us upon some activity, we might pronounce upon it no 
sentence of estimation, for a force, even a vital force, simply as 
such, is no moral object at all. Accordingly we never judge our 
spontaneities., but only our volitions. The spontaneous state dif- 
fers from the voluntary, in this at least, that in the former a sin- 
gle impulse is present, but in the latter not less than two. The 
conditions of the former are fulfilled by any sort of inner propul- 
sion from behind urging the living being forward on a track of 
which he has no foresight. Volition, on the other hand, implies an 
end in view, which cannot be contemplated except in relation to 
other ends in view. That there may be volition there must be 
comparison, and comparison is impossible without a plurality 
of impulses. Our mind could attach no attribute to a spring 
of action did we not see it side by side with something dis- 
similar, which is nothing else than some other spring of action. 
It needs to be observed that these impulses or springs of ac- 
tion must be simultaneous inter se, for, did they not present 
themselves together, the first to enter would have a clear stage 
and take eifect at once ; that it hangs fire is because another claim- 
ant tries to seize the match, and nothing can be done till some 
superior decides which piece has the best directed aim. It must 
also be observed that these impulses must be possible to us. We 
must not conceive ourselves to be the arena on which these incom- 
patible phenomena of suggestion try their strength, but must feel 
conscious of being their master, and of having them at otir bar. 
We evidently feel the solicitations which visit us to be mere phe- 
nomena, brought before a personality that is more than a phe- 
nomenon or than any string of phenomena — a free and judicial 
Ego. Moral judgment, then, postulates moral freedom ; and by 
this we mean not the absence of foreign constraint, but the pres- 
ence of personal power of preference in relation to the inner 
suggestions and springs of action that present their claims. The 
objects of moral judgment are, originally, our own inner principles 
of self-conscious action as freely preferred or excluded by our will. 
In the discussion of the objects of moral judgment tacit refer- 
ence has been made to the mode of moral judgment. The one 



142 The Jour'nal of SjJeculative Philosophy. 

great coiTdition whicli raises the spontaneous into the self-conscious 
life is the simultaneous presence and collision of the forces which 
check and exclude each other. Without the encounter of bodies, 
the dream of sensation would not wake into perception. With- 
out the answering face of other men, the sense of personal ex- 
istence would remain dim. And without the appearance in us 
of two incompatible impulses at once, or the interruption of one 
by the invasion of the other, the moral self-consciousness would 
sleep. It is not difference only ; it is the difference which amounts 
to strife that completes the passage from spontaneity to self- 
consciousness. But the moment this condition is realized we 
are sensible of a contrast between the impulses which is other 
than that of mere intensity or of qualitative variety, and is 
expressed in the statement that one impulse is higher than the 
other. This apprehension is no mediate discovery of ours, 
of which we can give an account, but a revelation insepara- 
ble from the appearance of the principles side by side. It is in 
virtue of a sense of Duty or a feeling of Moral Worth, excited in 
us by the presence of these springs of action, that we are able to 
pronounce them higher and lower ; and this sense or feeling is 
excited in us because the springs of action are possessed of the 
unique and unanalyzable quality of moral worth. When the cycle 
of original experience has completed itself, when all the natural 
springs of action have had their mutual play, there will be mate- 
rial for forming an entire ethical scale of principles. Owing to 
modifications in the constitution of the individual and to the ma- 
turing of society, this scale cannot be looked upon as finished, but 
it, so far as it is finished, coincides with the systematic code of 
Divine law. The whole ground of ethical procedure consists in 
this : that we are sensible of '^graduated scale of excellence among 
our natural principles quite distinct from the order of their inten- 
sity and irrespective of the range of their external eflects. The 
sensibility of the mind to the gradations of this scale — a sensibility 
which varies greatly in difi'erent individuals — is precisely what we 
call Conscience. The fact that different persons, as they have had 
different experiences and been surrounded by different circum- 
stances, have had before them, in consequence, different sections 
of this moral scale, accounts for the fact that these persons 
differ in their moral estimates. 



Martineau's Idiopsychological Ethics. 143 

For the sake of greater clearness, moral judgment may bfe briefly 
contrasted with prudential. While the objects of moral preference 
are the springs of action within us, the objects oi prudential }n(^g- 
vaewt Qxe the effects of actio ti upon us. In the counsels of pru- 
dence is sought, not the affection it is good to start from., but the 
result it is pleasant to tend to ; in other words, it is sentient good 
which in this case attracts the eye and directs the will. Prudence 
is therefore an affair oi foresight ; moral judgment, of insight. 
For want of experience we may blunder, but not sin. The man's 
diity consists in acting; from the right affection, about which he is 
never left in doubt ; it is his wisdom only that consists in pursu- 
ing the right end ', and this perhaps grows none the less for the 
discipline of a few painful but guiltless errors. The effects of action, 
in the foresight of which Prudence consists, are of two kinds. 
First, there is the direct gratification of the impulse whence the 
action proceeds ; and, secondly, there are the indirect and collat- 
eral consequences reflected back upon us from the world around 
on which the act is thrown, and where it sets new agencies at 
work. The first of these, being tlie direct fruit of our own nature, 
is constant and inevitable, repeating itself each time that the same 
spring of action has its way. Of what kind the gratification will 
be we do not know beforehand. It is the characteristic of impulse 
to drive us hlindly forward on what it is commissioned to obtain ; 
and the thirst that first sends us to the draught gives no prescience 
of the water's taste and feel. As the gratification is the more 
keen, the more intense is the impulse ; Prudence is self-surrender 
to the strongest impulse, whereas Duty is self-surrender to the 
highest. But the advantage of yielding to a vehement impulse 
may be dearly purchased at the cost of the second class, of exter- 
nal and ulterior effects — the consequences entailed by the order 
of the world and the sentiments of mankind, including our own. 
These corrective consequences of precipitate action turn out to be 
no mere phenomena of our natural history, but creations, direct or 
indirect, of our moral constitution. These secondary results may, 
for example, consist in anguish or self-contempt, indignation of 
our fellow-men, or loss of fortune or health. 

Where the order of strength among the springs of action is at 
variance with the order of their excellence, inclination will often 
stand in the way of duty. The vehemence of the temptation will 



144 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

be proportioned to the extent of discrepancy between the two 
scales. As the force of temptation operates to relieve the shade 
of guilt, the life of widest visible aberration from a Divine stand- 
ard of perfection is not necessarily the most wicked. The meas- 
ure of our repugnance to low character is different from the meas- 
ure of our moral condemnation ; we recoil from it, as we sh(juld 
from any deformity, in proportion to its visible departure from 
our ideal of humanity; we condemn it in proportion as it has" 
arisen in full sight of what is higher, and taken onlj' paltry bribes 
from suborning interests or passions. Where the discrepancy is 
greatest between the moral and the prudential order of principles 
the guilt is least ; and where the discrepancy is least the sin is 
greatest. But the two scales may agree. If, when this agree- 
ment takes place, the prudential order becomes paramount, the 
individual gives way more and more easily to the uppermost 
desire, till the autocracy of inclination becomes complete. When 
this occurs, the human element has disappeared, and there remains 
either hruie or devil. When the moral order becomes paramount, 
a perfect harmony ensues in the end between the order of strength 
and the gradations of excellence. This is the true saints' rest and 
the ultimate reconciliation between our personality and God's. 
To God the idea of the sinful course of conduct cannot be denied 
without a limitation of His view of possibilities; but He freely 
prefers the right. Yet, since to him we cannot attribute conflict, 
it is possible for all conflict finally to cease for a human being 
likewise. 

It may be well to consider here some inadequate interpretations 
of the simple feeling of authority. (1) Bentham denounces all 
appeals to a moral faculty as sheer " ipse dixitism " ; but the fact 
that the feeling of authority is a constant characteristic of human 
nature tells against any such view. 1 cannot accept the infer- 
ence that, because the authority first turns up in ray own con- 
sciousness, it carries no weight but that of personal whim, for 
consciousness distinctly announces a law over me not of my own 
making. The power that creates law is adequate to alter law ; 
yet we can pretend to no such prerogative with respect to the 
claims of the moral consciousness. It may, however, be con- 
tended that the authority which I feel is binding on myself, 
but that it must have no application in the estimate of others. 



Martineaii's Idiop^chological Ethics. 145 

But no one who feels the authority at all can at the same time 
believe that it is an egoistic peculiarity. Mr. Sidgwick speaks 
of the " cognition of objective rightness as the cognition of a 
dictate of Reason." I would venture a little further than this 
" impersonal conception " and assert that the cognition of an au- 
thority higher than we means the cognition of a personal authority, 
for " higher than I " no " thing " assuredly — no mere phenomenon 
— can be. (2) Paley denies that conscience has any authority 
even over the individual, for the individual may set it at defiance. 
Paley would fall back on the proclamation of future punishment 
and reward. This view involves a contradiction, for Paley first 
supposes a man to have a moral sense, and then supposes him to 
put up with the stings of conscience as so much sentient uneasi- 
ness — a thing possible only on condition of his having no moral 
sense. The truth underlying Paley's view is that without the 
aioard of retributory happiness and suffering the authority of 
the moral law would be curtailed of its adequate supports. With 
our reflective knowledo;e of the better and the worse are connected 
secret auguries of joy and anguish, the failure and falsehood of 
which would throw discredit on the whole announcement of the 
inner oracle. 

The nature of obligation may be looked at from two points of 
view — from the point of view of man's relation to God, and from 
the point of view of man's relation toman. God's claim upon 
us is not determined by His personal and absolute ideal, but by 
His communicated and relative ideal. But, inasmuch as the 
specks and films of many an unfaithfulness have injured our 
moral eyesight, our own image of right cannot be even that pure 
and full-proportioned vision which God had rendered possible. 
So we have a third or actual ideal, some removes from the com- 
municated ideal. This fact at once takes away from man all 
ground of self-reliance in his dealings with God. But when, on 
the other hand, man deals with man, the measure of duty is the 
m,utually understood ideal., which cannot in all cases be accu- 
rately determined. "With regard to the claims of God, it is true 
that even the man who is strenuously conscientious cannot be said 
to have obtained a complete peace, but he may have entirely 
satisfied himself with regard to the claims of man. Moral author- 
itv extends over the prudential system, for we consider rashness 
XXII— 10 



146 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

or recklessness as wrong, even though no interests are visibly 
affected but the offenders own. This result arises from the fact 
that this world is not a hedonist world, but a world in which the 
constitution of things includes a higher law and a divine rule. 

As the fundamental principles 'of the theory have now been 
examined, there remains to be discussed the nature of the various 
springs of action. These impelling principles may be distin- 
guished into two sets — the Primary springs of action, which urge 
a man, in the way of unreflecting instinct, to apj)ropriate objects 
or natural expression ; and the Secondary, which supervene upon 
self-knowledge and ex])erience, and in which the preconception is 
present of an end gratifying to some recognized feeling. These 
secondary feelings are not something entirely new, but the pri- 
mary over again, metamorphosed by the operation of self-con scion s- 
ness. The distinction between primary and secondary principles 
is based upon the fact that man is conscious before he is self-con- 
scious, and has active tendencies in both stages. A portion of 
human action is due to instinctive impulses, putting us in the 
right way for natural but unexperienced ends. Man is distin- 
guished from the lower animals, not by having a different mode 
of action throughout his whole nature and entire life, but by 
having a self with additional functions which act by laws of their 
own, and modify, during the maturer periods of his existence, 
the results of his instinctive powers. Instinctive impulse is that 
which spontaneously institutes means to an end not preconceived. 
The primary impulses may be divided into four classes, each of 
which, again, may be subdivided into three. Thus there are (1) 
the Propensions — namely, the organic appetites relative to food 
and sex, and Animal Spontaneity ; (2) the Passions : Antipathy, 
Fear, and Anger; (3) the Affections: Parental, Social, and Com- 
passionate ; and (4) the Sentiments : Wonder, Admiration, and 
Reverence. Objection may be taken to placing the Sentiments 
among the primary springs, on the ground that we cannot ad- 
mire or revere unless we distinguish ourselves from the object of 
admiration or reverence, and so must have a knowledge of our- 
selves. Chronologically, this is perfectly true ; but, in the exer- 
cise of these sentiments, the Self which had been discovered is 
again lost; they carry us into self-forgetfulness, though they are 
posterior to our self-knowledge. The Propensions bear the char- 



MartineaiCs Idiopsychological Ethics. 147 

acter of subjective appetency. They are not unrelated to external 
objects, but require from them the minimutn of importunity to 
move response. They carry us simply out of ourselves, we know 
not whither ; the Passions repel from us our uncongenials, be they 
things or persons ; the Affections draw us to our congenials, who 
can be only persons, unequal or equal ; the Sentiments pass out 
by aspiration to what is higher than ourselves, whether recog- 
nized as personal or not. Thus the psychological order of the 
primary impulses may be based upon the nature of the object to 
which each is related. 

But these twelve Primary principles play their part on the 
theatre of a self-conscious nature, and each of them, in the attain- 
ment of its end, yields us a distinct kind of satisfaction. These 
satisfactions mav themselves become ends, a taste for realizincj 
which will constitute new springs of action, added on to the 
former, variously mingling with them, often quite ascendent over 
them. These are the Secondary principles, characterized by their 
interested nature or invariable aim to produce certain states of 
ourselves. These Secondary principles are but the self-conscious 
counterpart of the primary, Tlius, in arranging the Secondary 
principles, we may adopt in the main the method of classification 
made use of in connection with the primary impulses. We have, 
consequently, (1) Secondary Propensions : Love of Pleasure, Love 
of Money, Love of Power ; (2) Secondary Passions : Malice, Yin- 
dictiveness. Suspiciousness ; (3) Secondary Affection : Sentimen- 
tality ; and (4) Secondary Sentiments : Self-culture, ^stheticism, 
Interest in Religion. In addition to the preceding simple springs 
of action there are several compound principles, such as Emula- 
tion, Love of Praise, etc. It is plain that Prudence is confined in 
its judicial function to the Secondary principles, while Conscience 
has a discriminating voice over the whole. 

A consideration of the moral value of the principles of action, 
both primary and secondary, will result in the following table : 

Lowest. 

1. Secondary Passions : Censoriousness, Yindictiveness, Sus- 
piciousness. 

2. Secondary Organic Propensions : Love of Ease and Sensual 
Pleasure. 



148 The Journal of Speculative PkUosojyhy. 

3. Primary Organic Propensions : Appetites. 

4. Primary Animal Propension : Spontaneous Activity (iin- 
selective). 

5. Love of Gain (reflective, derivative from appetite). 

6. Secondary Afl'ections (sentimental indulgence of sympathetic 
feelings). 

7. Primary Passions: Antipathy, Fear, Resentment. 

8. Causal Energy: Love of Power, or Ambition; Love of 
Liberty. 

9. Secondary Sentiments: Love of Culture. 

10. Primary Sentiments of Wonder and Admiration. 

11. Primary Affections, Parental and Social, with (approxi- 
mately) Generosity and Gratitude. 

12. Primary Affection of Compassion. 

13. Primary Sentiment of Reverence. 

Highest. 

In the moral scale the Secondary Passions, which constitute in 
us a truly diabolic element, are alone inadmissible. All others 
have a relative moral value; these only are bad without qualifica- 
tion. The lowest of the remaining — namely, the love of ease and 
pleasure — may present itself at a time when the field is fairly dis- 
engaged, and then it may have innocent way. But it must yield 
the palm to even the primary organic propensions, for it is surely 
meaner to eat for the palate's sake than to appease the simple 
hunger. The third primary propension. Vital Spontaneity, which 
is a paroxysm of unselecting movement, is lower than the Love of 
Gain. This in turn, implying a certain gravitation toward ease 
and pleasure, is lower than the Love of Power. Nothing is more 
difiicult than to determine the controversy of the claims of the 
love of gain and the Primary Passions. As for Antipathy, it 
seems plain that we would look with aversion upon the man who, 
though having an intense horror of blood, entered upon the busi- 
ness of butcher; Fear, again, cannot be appraised without refer- 
ence to the wortli of the object feared, and so has no definite place 
in the moral scale ; while, in the third place, we would think a 
boy who controlled his resentment for the sake of money had 
given way to the less noble impulse. Consequently the love of 
gain must, on the whole, occupy a place inferior to the primary 



Martineait's Idiopschological Ethics. 149 

passions. In the next place, as true sympathy is spoiled by an- 
tipathy ; secondly, as it is guilty and degrading to drown legitimate 
fear in ghastly festivities ; thirdly, as it is impossible to do away 
with an injury because it is unpleasant to deal with it — the Sec- 
ondary Affections also must give way before the primary passions. 
Still, where an injury is not a wrong, and springs from no malig- 
nity, the amiable temper rises above natural resentment. Finally, 
though energy is /j>e/' se morally neutral, yet, as the Love of Power 
is the expression of a strong and capacious nature, which implies 
a prompt understanding and a versatile sympathy with men, it is 
consequently essentially active, and so superior to the passions, 
which are essentially passive. There are, however, abuses of the. 
love of power, though, when it is duly subordinated, it has a 
legitimate sphere neither narrow nor ignoble. This may be seen 
more clearly if it be considered that the love of power is the es- 
sence of the Love of Liberty — a resistance of power that is in the 
name of power that ought to he. But as the liberal-minded man 
would rather teach his fellow men than 7Hde them, the Love of 
Culture should be placed above the love of power. Since per- 
sonality is beyond doubt the culminating fact of the world, crown- 
ing the universe and transcending it, the impulses which imply 
personality — viz., the Affections — must be supreme amongst the 
springs of action. As for the Sentiments of Wonder and Admira- 
tion, there seems no reason for assigning to either an authority 
superior to that of the other, though they may have different 
places relative to their value to mankind. With regard to the 
Primary Affections, it is clear that if I am a father I have no 
right to beggar my children for the sake of a friend ; so that at- 
tachment is lower than parental affection. As parental affection 
is limited in time, it must during its season be more imperative 
than Compassion ; but Compassion must, on the whole, be granted 
the higher place owing to its keenness and universal scope. The 
highest position is occupied by Reverence toward goodness, which, 
when adequately interpreted, proves to be identical with devotion 
to God. 

A spring of action may be considered from the point of view 
either of its binding force or of its goodness. He who estimates 
springs of action from the point of view of their binding force may 
be said to be of that type of mind known as dry conscientious- 



150 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

uess, the conclusions of which are governed by the catalogue of 
the external contents of life. But when two springs conflict, one 
is not simply right relatively to the other, but the right is also 
the dictate of perfect mind. To actualize a tendency, not merely 
because it is right, but rather because it is the expression of a 
perfect character, adds to the act a fresh glory and a new light — 
call it poetic, or call it Divine. Those who actualize an impulse 
because it is the dictate of perfect mind are they who realize the 
spring of Reverence. If it be objected that I have distributed 
the sentiment of reverence all along the gradations of worth, and 
yet retained it as one of the gradations, the reply is that ?k, feeling 
— unlike a localized physical object — may be in two psychologic- 
al places at once. In the incipient stage of ethical life I have 
assumed no more than the co-presence of two competing impulses 
with an unnamed feeling or simple consciousness that one is better 
than the other. Not till these cases and others like them have 
been repeated do they organize themselves into a conscience. 
Similarly, at first, when choice is made the preference of the 
better may be properly referred to the love of right or virtue. 
But this love of right is as yet only a simple feeling. Not until 
later do we become conscious of it, and so make it a conception 
which in turn may become the basis for a new feeling — viz., 
Reverence. 

Besides these simple impulses there are various compound ones, 
whose moral nature depends upon the moral value of their ele- 
ments. In the consideration of these I admit that it is not possi- 
ble 80 plainly to keep on the line of intuition, for, as many of the 
composite incentives involve general conceptions, our first esti- 
mate of these incentives is subject to reflective correction in a 
way which is not observable with the simpler impulses. Yet there 
is a quasi-intuitive consciousness attending even the compound 
springs. Of these, one of the most familiar appears under the 
names of Vanity^ Love of Praise^ Love of Fame (or Glory). 
This incentive has a great latitude according as it is more or less 
qualified by social aftection. It can scarcely be recognized as the 
same feeling in the aesthetic fop and the saintly recluse, but it 
readily discloses its place in its broadest forms. Generosity^ 
again, is rather a certain intensity in the primary social affection 
— Attachment — than a new compound, yet, owing to its iudefi- 



MartineaiCs Idio^schological Ethics. 151 

niteness, it cannot be given an invariable moral value. Gratitude 
is a variety of generosity .^ or rather generosity made definite. 
The Zo-y^ of Justice., or the j9r^^r^nC(g for vjorth., is a higher 
figure of the original sense of right, and might be called the 
enthusiasm of conscience for its oion estimation of character. 
Lastly, whoever commits a breach of Veracity has spoken against 
the nature of things and the course of the vrorld. Yeracitv, 
therefore, wields the authority of reverence as well as of social 
affection. But it is not, as a consequence, unconditionally obli- 
gatory ; for it is binding only toward those who are within the 
" common understanding." Outside this region plainly lie rob- 
bers, madmen, and armed enemies. But the permissible cases 
of resort to falsehood cannot be determined without careful atten- 
tion to the canon of consequences. Though I feel an unutterable 
repugnance to telling a deliberate lie, I should probably act, at one 
of the crises demanding such, rather as I think than as I feel, 
without, however, being able to escape the secret wound of a long 
humiliation. 

The moral scale exhibits the duty of the agent at each crisis. 
It requires to be further observed that the agent, who is aware of 
the worth of a spring of action, can, to some extent, determine 
whether it should or should not present itself ; but his power de- 
pends upon his usually limited command of favoring circum- 
stances and surroundings. An exact definition of Right and 
Wrong will consequently assume this form : Every action is 
RIGHT which, in presence of a lower principle, follows a higher / 
every action is w^kong which, in presence of a higher principle, 
follows a lower. 

II. It is necessary at the outset to understand what Mr. Mar- 
tineau means by a spring of action. A spring of action is firstly 
a personal phenomenon. Spinoza has remarked that toward a 
being supposed to be free, affection is far more intense than to- 
ward one under necessity. Commenting upon this remark, IMr. 
Martineau says that " a being supposed to be free " he would des- 
ignate as a person. In this statement he implies that, as it was 
merely Spinoza's rigid determinism which caused him to make 
use of the phrase " supposed to be," free agency is, from the prac- 
tical point of view, the essence of personality. Consequently a 
spring of action is a phenomenon of a free agent ; in other words. 



152 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

it is " issued by the mind, and lias its dynamic source there." 
But, secondly, we might be aware of a spring of action without 
being able to assign to it any moral value. Such a spring would 
be simply an " inner propulsion from behind " urging the living 
being forward on a track of which he had no foresight. A living 
thing is blindly propelled whenever a spring of action, of what- 
ever nature it may be, is present alone in the individual. This 
solitary spring is a mere spontaneity the nature of which does not 
require treatment in a work devoted to ethics. As an animal or a 
lunatic may be actuated by a mere spontaneity, such a spring of 
action is not necessarily a phenomenon of a free agent. Again, in 
contrast with the spontaneous state stands the volitional, in which 
there are always found two or more springs of action. As a voli- 
tion consists in the choice of one spring of action and the rejec- 
tion of the others, a spring of action cannot be a volition. While 
there could be no volition without a spring of action, there can be 
a spring of action without volition. Finally, any of the following 
terms may be applied to a single spring of action, namely : " im- 
pulse,-' " tendency," " incentive," " impelling principle," " inner 
propulsion," or " inner suggestion," in addition to which Mr. Mar- 
tineau has on several occasions made use of the term " motive." 

It is manifest that the above statements contain two very differ- 
ent accounts of a spring of action. While, on the one hand, as a 
personal phenomenon it must be the expression of a free agent, on 
the other hand, as a mere spontaneity common to man, with ani- 
mals it need not be the expression of a free agent. Although 
these accounts appear to be flatly contradictory of each other, 
there is a sense in which each is true. It may be true, e. g.^ that 
an animal is urged by a mere spontaneity in a direction unknown 
to itself— ^. e., an animal does not act as a free agent acts. It may 
be true, further, that man, even the mature man, is actuated at 
times by such a spontaneity. At the same time it is true that not 
until we have an act as the product of a free agent do we enter 
the field of ethical discussion. Until a free act is analyzed no 
content can be found for the fact that we approve or disapprove, 
nor can it be said that the causality has been " not with the 
springs of action, to do with us according to their dynamics, but 
with us to express by their just suboi'dination the symmetry and 
energy of our will." Consequently, to obliterate the distinction 



Martineau''s Idiopsychological Ethics. 153 

between a spring of action from the standpoint of a free agent and 
a spring of action from the standpoint of a mere animal is to 
make ethics a branch of pliysiology, and would be false to the 
" idiopsychological " point of view. 

On the other hand, while these seemingly contradictory esti- 
mates of a spring of action may both be true, as viewed from the 
side of the history of the individual or the race, both cannot be 
correct descriptions of a spring of action for the self-conscious 
agent ; for the spring of action for a self-conscious agent has its 
dynamic source in the agent's mind or will, and is therefore the 
free identification of himself with any possibility of an act. Not- 
withstanding this fact, Mr. Martineau, throughout his presenta- 
tion of his own ethical views, considers a spring of action for a 
free agent to be at one time a mere spontaneity and at another 
time the outcome of free will, and by means of these opposing 
principles is able to conceal from himself the fact that his theory 
is not an organic union, but simply a combination of two oppo- 
site ethical positions. It will presently be seen that these contra- 
dictory accounts of a spring of action may be reconciled if they 
are taken to be descriptions of aspects of a single spring of action 
and not descriptions of different springs. But nowhere does Mr. 
Martineau effect that reconciliation. Afterward it will be pointed 
out that the dualism which he establishes between the theory of 
Conscience and the theory of Prudence, and again between Pri- 
mary and Secondary springs of action, rests upon the conception 
that the above conflicting views of a spring of action are both 
ethically sound. 

In the introduction to the second volume Mr. Martineau, 
speaking of the different faculties of man's nature, says that by 
them he does not mean any separate agents, though he is unavoid- 
ably led at times into language of personification, and so attrib- 
utes to them " conflict," " strife," and '' authority." This lan- 
guage, nevertheless, he applies not only to faculties but to springs 
of action also, as when, for example, he says that " two incompati- 
ble impulses appear in our consciousness and contest the field." 
But this current coin of the ordinary sermon needs to be rung on 
the counter of a purely ethical discussion. Manifestly, if the Ian. 
guage of personification is not in the strictest sense accurate, it 
should not be used, and, further, if it continues to be used after it 



154 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

is admitted to be unequal to its place, any confession of its inca- 
pacity must come from the lips and not from the heart. Conse- 
quently it is not a surprise to find that Mr. Martineau generalizes 
the figure contained in the terms "contest," "strife," etc., and 
permits himself to speak of the impulses as " forces," and of the 
" dynamics " of a spring of action. But it has been already no- 
ticed that for him each spring of action has its dynamic source in 
the mind of the agent. So that underneath this figurative lan- 
guage he is able to speak of will as the source of moral action, 
and again of the spring of action as the moral source. When he 
is thus able to transfer the essence of an act from the spring of 
action, as in indissoluble union with the mind to the spring of action 
as it is in itself, he can easily ignore the fact that the essence of 
an act of a free agent consists in the identification of himself 
with a preconceiv^ed end or, in Mr. Martineau's language, with a 
particular spring of action. As a result, he is led to consider as 
the act of a moral agent that occurrence in which a single impulse 
has undisputed right, and with which the agent has no more to do 
than to watch its progress as an interested spectator. Once more, 
therefore, it is evident that the above figurative language conceals 
the radical distinction between a spring of action as the identitica- 
tion of a free agent with a certain tendency and a spring of action 
as simply that tendency. If a man does not identify himself with 
a certain course of conduct, no movements made because of his 
muscular and nervous organization can be called moral acts. 
I^"or are they made moral acts by the supposition that the individ- 
ual has the capacity to observe their nature and register their 
effects. 

The same oversight on the part of Mr. Martineau is found in a 
note at the foot of page 156, where he remarks that " the one condi- 
tion under which felt action may take place without self-appropria- 
tion of it by the subject is where it is put forth by a solitary instinct 
running an unimpeded course." Here may be found two different 
conceptions of the nature of action depending on the two different 
conceptions of the nature of a spring of action. If a single im- 
pulse or a solitary instinct be called a spring of action, the changes 
in the individual, which are the result of the operation of the im- 
pulse, must be considered as acts, and the subject of the infiuences 
must be an agent. But, on the other hand, if the spring of action 



MartlneaiCs Idiopsychological Ethics. 155 

receives its real content only when it is appropriated by the agent, 
then only that can be considered as a true act which includes an 
effort of will on the part of the agent. If the solitary instinct be 
a spring of action, we have the startling consequence that the so- 
called agent has nothing to do with its workings except that it has 
chosen him as the arena for its gymnastics. It is surely absurd to 
call that being an agent who has no part in the formation of the 
act. The difficulty is not met by the assertion that such a state of 
affairs is found only in the most rudimentary humanity. The 
trouble lies in the view that the physical or mental changes of 
these rudimentary human beings, however much or little these 
changes may be " felt," are acts in the same sense in which that is 
an act which consists in a free agent's appropriation of a possible 
course of conduct. 

Thus Mr. Martineau, magnifying the fact that both animals and 
men have instincts, and partially ignoring the fact that for a free 
agent any act must be the identification of himself with such in- 
stinct, is able to transport into his ethical theory a view of a 
spring of action which could be true only of those beings not 
strictly entitled to the name of agents. So he states that the na- 
tures of men and animals proceed for some distance in company, 
and again that in man are found certain impulses which are truly 
instinctive and in no wise distinguished from the instincts of ani- 
mals. It does not need to be repeated that, though this be granted, 
such instinctive portion of man's nature must fall outside of the 
province of ethics, unless we are to deny Mr. Martineau's propo- 
sition that the fundamental fact is that we approve and disapprove. 
"We cannot approve a mere instinct in at all the same way as we 
approve the conduct of a free agent. 

Although Mr. Martineau holds that a solitary instinct runs an 
unimpeded course in only the most rudimentary humanity, he has 
given what he believes to be fair examples of impulses which, 
when sole occupants, carry the person unreflectingly and unreluc- 
tantly to their end : a child, not above the seductions of the jam 
closet, finding himself alone in that too trying place, makes hurried 
inroads upon the sweetmeats within tempting reach ; a passionate 
boy splits his unsuccessful peg-top ; the thirsty traveller seizes in- 
stinctively and without thought the draught from the spring he has 
found at last. The first illustration condemns itself, for the words 



156 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

" trying" and " tempting " can have no meaning except for one to 
whom are possible two courses of conduct. In the second case, if 
a boy is passionate he, to speak popularly, usually gives way to his 
temper, and so is capable of acting from habit. But " habit " is a 
term without signification from the point of view of a being aifected 
by a solitary instinct. Such a being may frequently go tb.rough 
the same movements, but cannot be said really to act. A giving 
way to passion has no meaning if it excludes the operation of will. 
The third case gains some credit from the fact that when a man 
is thirsty he does not usually need to consider any reason to ab- 
stain from drinking. But it is surely likely that if two men found 
themselves at the spring at the same time, the first to reach the 
cup would pass it to the other before drinking himself. Yet such 
an ordinary act of courtesy is not the same with the uninterrupted 
course of a social instinct. A customary act cannot be intuitive, 
for it is implied in the meaning of custom that the act was origi- 
nally done voluntarily and has been repeated voluntarily. 

Mr. Martineau, following James Mill, divides an act into (1) the 
sentiments whence it springs, (2) the muscular movements in 
which it visibly consists, and (3) the consequences in which it is- 
sues. In this connection Mr. Martineau says of an act that the 
first stir of origination takes place in the agent's mind. This can- 
not mean simply that the initial step in action consists in the ex- 
amination of a number of springs, because it is impossible to re- 
flect on several springs of action without the adoption of any one of 
them. The first stir of origination must mean the actual adoption 
of a particular spring. If so, then no doubt such voluntary adop- 
tion has a moral quality, even though the act is never realized in 
the external world. But, on the other hand, if the sentiment 
whence an act springs be taken to mean simply any single spring 
of action or solitary instinct, then no process of examination will 
detect in it a moral qualit}'^, as there is nothing in it to show that 
it need be the expression of a personality. Nevertheless, in the 
subsequent expansion of his theory, Mr. Martineau makes the sen- 
timent whence an act proceeds, which is here said to originate in 
the mind of the agent, equal in all respects to a spring of action 
which may be found full-grown as well in the mere animal as in 
man. 

Let us then understand that there are two ways of looking at 



Martineau''s Idiopsychological Ethics. 157 

incentives. We may consider an incentive on the one band from 
the standpoint of its origin and history, and on the other hand 
from the point of view of its nature as found in a free agent, 
for it is plainly one matter to estimate the value of tendencies 
which are found either in all living things, including plants, or in 
all animals, or in all or many men, and totally another matter 
to esthnate the value of a tendency as adopted and carried into 
act by a conscious agent. The difference between these two in- 
quiries is as wide as the difference between biology or sociology 
and ethics. It is clear that there is no question of responsibility 
or duty, or right and wrong, or approval and disapproval in the 
fact that men and plants need food and water, any more than in 
the fact that material particles are attracted toward one another 
at a definite rate. The possibility of right and wrong is intro- 
duced only when between the movements, which constitute the 
entrance of the natural tendency, and the subsequent movements 
there has arisen before the agent a more or less clearly defined 
ideal into which is fitted the acceptance or the dismissal of the 
present possibility of an act. And it is only because of this ideal 
that these subsequent and, in a sense, consequent movements can 
be treated as component elements in an act. The use of the word 
" ideal " entails one other distinction. It is necessary to notice 
that the recognition of the nature of any tendency, as compared 
with other tendencies systematically united, is not of equal length 
and breadth with the adoption of that tendency. A creature 
may or may not exist, I do not know, to whom may come a ten- 
dency and in whom may be the capacity to estimate the tendency, 
without at the same time his being able freely either to accept or 
reject it. Such a creature would not be a plant or a normal 
human being. At any rate, ignoring this creature, we may safely 
say that in the life-size act of a rational being it is possible to 
distino-uish between the intellectual investiture of the ideal and 
the determined realization of it. Therefore, between the entrance 
of a tendency and the identification of the agent with his ideal 
there is distinguishable an intermediate step — namely, the recogni- 
tion of the tendency's character. It is not to our purpose to insist 
that the first of these three stages may actually exist independ- 
ently of the others, or that the first and second may exist inde- 
pendently of the third. It is enough to maintain that the first 



158 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

does not involve the second any more than it does the third, and 
that the fundamental problem of ethics is the explanation of 
that which incorporates all three — namely, the full-formed act of a 
conscious agent. That is to say, if ethics is to be limited to the 
investigation of right conduct, a radical separation must be made 
between a mere tendency, incentive, spontaneity, or spring of ac- 
tion, and an adopted spring of action or motive. 

It is one of the decisive merits of Mr. Martineau's theory that 
he does recognize the difference between mere spontaneity and 
consciously adopted spontaneity. But, instead of relegating the 
mere spontaneities to pre-ethical or sub-ethical positions, he gives 
to them an inordinate prominence. Now it is palpable that what 
he calls a mere drift of nature, physical, mental, or moral, cannot 
as such claim valid recognition in a theory which must firstly 
and all through discuss the signiiicance of conduct. Thus it is 
that he is unconsciously led to insert into the drift of nature all 
the characteristics of a complete motive. In the same breath he 
both makes the distinction between spontaneity and motive and 
does away with it ; and it is this skilful right-about-face which 
enables him to make so hard and fast a distinction between 
primary and secondary springs of action. 

As Mr. Martineau's view of primary and secondary impulses 
may be found in the detailed analysis which made the first por- 
tion of this article, there need now be given only the briefest 
summary. The primary springs of action are said to urge a man 
in the way of unreflecting instinct, the secondary to supervene 
upon self-knowledge and experience, and to imply a conception 
of an end gratifying to some recognized feeling. Further, the 
secondary feelings are characterized by their interested nature 
and invariable aim to produce states of ou7'selves. The distinction 
between these two sets of impelling principles is based upon the 
fact that man is conscious before he is self-conscious. 

That the real distinction between primary and secondary im- 
pelling principles is not where Mr. Martineau is most inclined to 
place it may be understood by reference to his discussion of two 
of these principles — the need of food and the instinct of fear. 
First of all he describes the state of hunger as bearing in the 
highest degree the character of subjective appetency and mere 
drift of nature, and therefore as found in plants as well as ani- 



Martineau^s Idiojjsychological Ethics. 159 

mals.' Evidently the occurrence of such a tendency cannot im- 
ply a knowledge of its nature. But again he considers this 
mere drift of nature to be identical with a desire for food. He 
says that a liungr}- child should beware of fancying that it wants 
because it likes i " and thus he properly distinguishes between the 
desire to satisfy hunger and the desire for the pleasures of taste. 
Yet the want or desire to satisfy hunger is here considered to be 
the mere bodily condition or, in Mr. Martineau's own language, 
the primary propension with reference to food. But if the mere 
appetency is equivalent to a desire for food, then of course the 
occurrence of the appetency implies not only a knowledge of its 
nature and a knowledge of its having reference to food, but also 
a knowledge of one's self as distinct from the tendency and a con- 
scious appropriation of that tendency. In that case it is impossible 
that it should be common to man, animals, and plants. Thus Mr. 
Martineau, when treating of the primary springs of action, looks 
upon the incentive of hunger as a mere tendency of man as 
physical, and when treating of the opposition between primary 
and secondary springs of action, looks upon it as a full-formed 
desire ; and this desire has been shown to imply a knowledge of 
the nature of the objects in which the tendency finds its natural 
fulfilment. He therefore makes the objective aspect of a mo- 
tive equivalent to a motive in its concrete completeness. 

If we turn now to the primary impulse of fear, we shall find it 
first of all declared by Mr. Martineau that instinctive fear obvi- 
ously goes before any experimental knowledge of harmful or dis- 
agreeable things. Immediately afterward it is declared that this 
instinct is, in its rudimentary stage, " a truly prophetic premo- 
nition of danger not clearly in view." This means that he who 
fears may not know the exact nature of the danger, but is aware 
at least that there is danger ; so Mr. Martineau maintains' that 
fear as a true instinct " arises from some real evil apparently im- 
pending." Further, a landsman is said to have this instinct who 
has the kind of dread of the sea that prevails in some tribes ; * so 
that the instinct is here made to embrace within it a knowledge 
that the sea is a place of danger. While, again, when in a plague- 
tainted city panic-stricken men and women herd together to drive 

' P. 130. '- P 180. 3 p ig3^ 4 p_ 184. 



160 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

away terror bj drunken carousal and ribald song, not only is the 
true instinct of fear made in this instance to involve a knowledo;e 
of its nature, knowledge of the danger of a plague, and knowl- 
edge of the objects to actualize which will affect the removal of 
the fear, but is also made identical with a desire to effect that 
removal through carousal and song. Quite generally, therefore, 
such fear is considered by Mr. Martineau to be identical with a 
desire for its removal, and a knowledge of the means toelfect that 
removal. Thus the instinct, which is at first said to be in all 
respects the same in animals and man, is finally placed on the 
same level with its appropriation by the individual or a desire for 
self-protection. Once more, then, along with an instinct taken 
to be a mere spontaneity, propelling the individual along an 
unknown path, is introduced a knowledge of its nature, a knowl- 
edge which can come only from the forewarning of others, or his 
own experience of its actualization. And once more the blind 
instinct is said to be at par with an open-eyed desire. 

Mr. Martineau has said that his distinction between primary 
and secondary springs of action rests upon the fact that " man is 
conscious before he is self-conscious, and has active tendencies in 
both stages." The question turns upon the significance in the 
above quotation of the word " man." If it is meant by " man " 
that which is at one time only potentially existent and then suc- 
cessively an embryo, an infant, a youth, and a mature man, Mr. 
Martineau is undoubtedly correct. An examination into these 
different states might result in a history of the most highly or- 
ganized mammal ; a discussion of its physical and mental states 
would be but a portion of that history, and would comprise the 
physiology and psychology of the mammal. Further, an interest- 
ing object of inquiry would be the connection between these 
physical and mental states. The result of the examination would 
be summed up in a classification of the relations between inter- 
nal and external conditions. As both sets of conditions are con- 
tinually changing, though changing most markedly at particular 
times, different tables of relations would need to be drawn up for 
different periods. There would require to be a table of embry- 
onic principles and tendencies, of the principles of infancy, youth, 
and manhood. The whole work would be composed of observed 
facts and deductions from these facts, and would differ funda- 



Martineau's Idiopsychological Ethics. 161 

mentally from no other special science. But such a work would 
have little or nothint^ to do with the province of ethics, for ethics 
is based not upon the history of the individual but upon self- 
consciousness. The foundation stone of ethics is the fact of the 
self as acting — that is, as freely willing certain ends, or, in a word, 
the fact of motive. Now, Mr. Martineau confuses between these 
two very different points of view the psychological and the ethi- 
cal. At one moment he occupies the point of view of a scientific 
observer, and is engaged in chronicling what he believes, and 
probably rightly believes, to be scientific facts — e. g.^ that man is 
conscious before he is self-conscious ; at another time he is ex- 
amining into the nature of man as possessed of purpose. While, 
therefore, the statement that man is conscious before he is self- 
conscious is in one aspect true, it is not true of man as a self- 
conscious agent, and so not true from the standpoint of ethics. Con- 
sequently the distinction between primary and secondary springs 
ot" action is one which falls outside of and not within the sphere 
of moral science. 

But Mr. Martineau has something else to say regarding these 
two sets of impelling principles. After having made the unquali- 
fied statement that the differences between primary and second- 
ary tendencies were based upon the fact that man is conscious 
before he is self-conscious, he has no hesitation in saying that the 
primary equally with the secondary impulses have to do with self- 
consciousness, and that the only real difl'erence between them is a 
difference merely in the extent of our knowledge or experience in 
each case. He says : " The self-consciousness which distinguishes 
the secondary springs of action is limited to the knowledge of 
what they do to us, of what experience they bring in their train. 
I am far from saying that it is reserved for them to give us the 
first idea of a Self To this, 1 conceive, the Primaries are compe- 
tent Bo soon as ever a plurality of them compete for our activ- 
ity ; the7i we cannot but be aware of them as objects, and of our- 
selves as subjects, of more or less attentive thought; only, what 
we know about them is their immediate relative intensity and 
relative worth, and not their future sensible effects, if indulged." ' 
In this statement Mr. Martineau has admitted too much and too 



1 P. 156, note. 

XXII— 11 



162 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

little, for a knowledge of the intensity and moral value of a spring 
of action can mean nothing but the conception which the individ- 
ual has of the results of its actualization. If a man knows he is 
being driven by the impulse of love, he knows he is being driven 
toward a beloved object. If he knows he is being driven by the 
desire for food, he surely knows that food will satisfy his hunger. 
In line, if Mr. Martineau admits sufficient experience to distin- 
guish tendencies, he also tacitly admits an experience of their 
complementary objects. Of course it is true that the individual's 
conception of the consequences of an act does not coincide wholly 
with the real consequences, for the actual consequences are infi- 
nite. Even after frequently experiencing what a tendency does 
with him, his knowledge of the consequences is far from complete. 
Yet he has obtained a clear conception of the leading and perti- 
nent consequences in contrast with the numerous consequences of 
inferior moment, and it is just that conception which Mr. Marti- 
neau incloses within the knowledge of any particular tendency. 
So his absolute contrast between the two sets of impulses has 
sunk into a contrast between greater and less experience. It is 
clear that this difference, although it may be valid, is too slight a 
basis on which to build two distinct kinds of impulses. Any table 
of impulses applicable for one time would fail of valid application 
at another time. 

We have quoted one sentence of Mr. Martineau 's to which we 
would like to refer again. In comparing primary witii secondary 
springs of action he said that what we know about primary 
springs of action is their relative intensity and relative worth, but 
not their future sensible effects. This comparison implies that it 
is possible for an agent to know the " intensity " and " worth " of 
a certain spring of action without knowing also the results of his 
adoption of it. No allusion is made to a single spontaneity, for, as 
we have seen, the characteristics of a mere spontaneity is that it 
carries the living being along a track of which he has no fore- 
sight. This limitation Mr. Martineau would himself make, as he 
affirms that no knowledge of the intensitv or moral worth of a 
spring of action can be gained unless two springs compete for our 
activity. He has further said that we reach the ethical region 
not when considering spontaneities, but only when considering 
volitions. If, then, we are to count as ethically relevant the dis- 



Martineau's Idiopsychological Ethics. 163 

cussion of the difference between primary and secondary sprins^s 
of action, we ranst plainly treat of them as of motives or voli- 
tions, not as of mere tendencies. And, as a matter of fact, Mr. 
Martineau, througliont his analysis of the moral value of the prin- 
ciples of action, has looked upon them as embodiments of the 
agent's will. This is manifest from his account of the appetite of 
hunger and the instinct of fear — two principles whose treatment 
by Mr. Martineau we selected for examination. Thus a primary 
spring of action must be the adoption by the agent of a certain 
natural tendency. Now, there are, says Mr. Martineau, two main 
features of motive or volition — namely, that it involves the simul- 
taneous presence of two mere impulses, and that it implies an end 
in view. The first of these, asserting the necessity in volition for 
a mental combat between two impulses, we shall return to soon. 
Our question as to the relation between the character of the im- 
pulse and the nature of its " future sensible effects " has to do 
with the second — namely, that volition is essentially purposive. 

What is meant by an act being purposive or an agent's having an 
end in view \ This, at least, is involved, that the agent conceives be- 
forehand of consequences which seem to him necessarily to follow 
from his intended act, and conceives of them as good. The end 
in view is the attainment of a state of things looked upon as de- 
sirable, in contrast with another possible, though less desirable, or 
even undesirable, state of things. The words of the foregoing 
statement are chosen because of their generality, as I am anxious 
that no cross-scent should prevent our keeping before ourselves 
only one thing at a time. This one thing is that the phrase " an 
end in view" becomes meaningless if deprived of all reference to 
conceived consequences of an act. It is doubtless true that the 
agent may be mistaken in his view of the consequences through a 
more or less remediable ignorance. It is also true that, since con- 
sequences ramify from the initial consequence, as branches of a 
tree ramify from the stem, and twigs from the branches, he could 
not be aware of all the consequences of an act. Yet there are 
consequences which may be called leading or definitive — those, for 
instance, which move amongst conscious beings, rather than those 
which affect material things. These essential results of volition 
come in time to be regarded as really involved in the nature of 
the mere tendency of the individual. And Mr. Martineau, when 



16 J: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

he speaks of actualizing a tendency, though he believes himself to 
be shutting the doors against all possible results, has unconsciously 
given welcome to all the results which have any reasonable claim 
to kinship with the tendency. 

Gradually, therefore, Mr. Martineau has been passing, though 
perhaps not quite consciously, from a rigid and narrow to a fluent 
and broad estimate of a motive or true spring of action. If 
springs of action are mere natural tendencies, the language of 
moral science is alien to them. If the being who is the subject 
of these tendencies has a knowledge of their nature, he knows also 
what will be the result if the tendency makes its w^ay across or 
through its sphere of existence. When the tendencies are said to 
compete, conflict, or strive with one another, it is meant that the 
being, who is their arena, is no longer merely conscious of them, 
but is an agent who decides upon the tendency which he shall 
adopt. If the agent in acting voluntarily is admittedly striving 
to attain a preconceived end, then free identiflcation with a ten- 
dency coincides with the desire to bring to pass certain results. 

All these inferences come naturally from one aspect of Mr. 
Martineau's theory, and the}' lead inevitably toward establishing 
a harmony between intuitional and utilitarian ethics. It would 
therefore be almost a surprise to the reader, who was not already 
familiar with the explicit statements contained in the " Types of 
Ethical Theory," to discover the depth of the dualism made by Mr. 
Martineau between his theory of morals and the view called by 
him the theory of prudence. The objects of moral preference are, 
in his own words, the springs of action within us, and moral prefer- 
ence is opposed to ])rudential judgment whose objects are the 
effects of action upon us. In the counsels of prudence are sought 
not the affection it is good to start from, but the result it is 
pleasant to tend to. The man's duty consists in his acting from 
the right affection about which he is never left in doubt ; it is his 
wisdom only that consists in pursuing the right end. The gult 
flxed by Mr. Martineau between these two views cannot be better 
bridged than by showing what is involved in the higher elements 
of his own theory. 

Our attention has hitherto been directed to the fact that volition 
implies an end in view ; but now we turn for a moment to what 
Mr. Martineau thinks to be the main feature of volition — namely, 



MartineaiCs Idiopsychological Ethics. 165 

that it involves the competition of two hostile impulses. Already 
the observation has been made that, if the impulses are mere 
spontaneities, ethics can have nothing to do with them, whether 
they are disposed to be friends or enemies of each other. Indeed, 
it must be admitted that there is no cause why impulses should 
compete rather tlian enter into partnership. But setting aside 
the fact that the idea underlying the term " competition " or 
" strife" is one which fails of application in ethics, we must raise 
a second objection, just as fatal as the lirst, to the view that an act 
is reached only after two tendencies have had a conflict. This 
objection is that even though the word " conflict " be denuded of 
its metaphorical dress and be taken to mean only that an act is in 
some sense a choice, yet the full signification of motive is not 
gained unless it be remembered that the agent before acting 
reckons how the contemplated act is to aff"ect his life. Whether 
the agent decides to adopt or not to adopt a certain tendency, he 
decides because the adoption of the tendency is or is not in keep- 
ing with what he conceives to be for him the best life. No ten- 
dency is rejected or received in naked isolation. It is taken up 
and set into a more or less clearly defined scheme. If it fits well 
with this scheme, it is welcomed ; if it does not fit with the scheme, 
it is set aside. More is implied in an act than any comparison of 
alternatives. In every act is to be found a more or less clear 
conception of what is meant by a good life. Consequently we do 
not reach the last essential of motive if we describe tendencies as 
necessarily conflicting. Every tendency has its place lowly or 
lofty in the agent's scheme. 

This criticism, again, is only a turning of Mr. Martineau's 
artillery upon his own ranks. He, however, gets beyond the com- 
petition of impulses by supposing that, wlien two springs of action 
strive, there always arises a third — namely, the incentive of rever- 
ence. This incentive of reverence is in his hands made to com- 
prehend the form of a graduated scale of impulses or the articulated 
conception of a complete life. This view contains nearly all that 
is wanted in any system of moral science, but it is not given its 
due dignity by Mr. Martineau. If the incentive of reverence 
were, as he thinks it to be, only another spring of action, the com- 
petition of springs would merely assume larger proportions. He 
asserts that the spring of reverence is unlike any other incentive 



166 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

in this, that reverence occupies two psychological places, while all 
others must be satisfied with one place. Reverence has a unique 
place as the crowning impulse of human nature, while also it ap- 
pears in the background when any two springs of action " contest 
the field," The statement that reverence can occupy two psyclio- 
logical places is almost calculated to provoke a smile. If Mr. 
Martineau would but severely analyze what his ethical breadth 
has enabled him to admit, he would see that the truth underlying 
the omnipresence of reverence does away with the view that strife 
of springs of action is a cardinal point in a theory of moral worth. 
First of all, tendencies cannot confl^ict ; secondly, if they could 
conflict, they would not in that way reveal their nature. It is 
only when impulses are, in Mrs. Browning's fine words, " driven 
past themselves " and given their place in a conscious purpose or 
ideal, that their value is disclosed. 

Perhaps it may not be quite useless to refer briefly to a view to 
which Mr. Martineau, in spite of the higher elements of his theory, 
has lent his sanction — namely, the intuitionist's conception of con- 
science. So soon, we have already been apprised, as two incom- 
patible impulses appear in our consciousness and contest the field, 
we are sensible of the fact that one is higher or worthier than the 
other. This fact is no mediate discovery of ours, of which we 
can give an account, but a revelation inseparable from the ap- 
pearance of the impulses side by side. The sensibility of the 
mind to the gradations of the moral scale is Conscience. Con- 
science, the Introduction says,' does not frame, but simply reveals 
the law ; it is the critical perception of the relative authority of 
the principles of action.'' This authority is none other than a sim- 
ple feeling, admitting of little analysis or explanation.' 

It is perhaps only a verbal criticism that, if authority is a simple 
" unanalyzable feeling," and conscience is the sensibility of the 
mind to such feeling, conscience is a feeling of a feeling. Con- 
science would thus be subjective with a vengeance. But Mr. 
Martineau does not mean that authority is a mere feeling, but that 
the sense of authority or conscience is a mere feeling. Now as, 
according to him, every one has been more or less unfaithful to 
his ideal, so every one must have a conscience more or less pervert- 
ed. The result is that everv one will have a feeling, more or less 

' P. 4. 2 p_ 50. 3 p_ 92. 



Martineau's Idiopsychologlcal Mhics. 167 

different from the feelings of others, upon every question of right 
and wrong. Manifestly no person's simple feeling can be consid- 
ered as yielding a standard of action for any other person, for in 
that case every one would have as many standards as there were 
different feelings. The standards would be as numerous as the in- 
dividuals, which is absurd. Any other man's conception of right 
and wrong must be as important to the individual as his own. The 
only rule would be, in the words of bibulous King Stephano, 
'' Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for him- 
self, for all is but fortune." Not only so, but, as each person is sub-- 
ject to fluctuations in feeling, he would have, though limited to 
himself, as many standards of action as changes in his sensitive 
nature; and this is equally absurd. 

But in another place ' Mr. Martineau, not satisfied with calling 
conscience a mere feeling, gives it a judicial function, which enables 
it to pronounce upon the moral value of every spring of action, 
primary or secondary. Yet, even so, the subjective nature of con- 
science is admitted by him in the explanation "^ of how it happens 
that men, though of uniform moral nature, do actually differ in 
their moral judgments. The explanation of this intuitional anom- 
aly is that different individuals have different natures, and have 
had different experiences, and so have before them a different sec- 
tion of the scale of inner principles. Further, Mr. Martineau affirms 
that had we all the same segment of the series under our coo:ni- 
zance, we w^ould be everywhere and always unanimous in our moral 
estimates. But this assertion means simply that if men were iden- 
tical in all their inherited tendencies — physical, mental, and moral, 
and also in all their circumstances — they would decide alike upon 
moral questions. In other words, if men were all the same, there 
would be no differences. Yet, inasmuch as there must be wide he- 
reditary differences, and wide differences in circumstances, differ- 
ences in the verdicts on the question of right and wrong are neces- 
sary. In that case it is inevitable that one man may think to be 
right what another may think to be wrong. The Indian, e. g., held 
revenge to be a duty. We read in the annals of the ancient He- 
brews of the avenger of blood. Green, in his " A Short History of 
the English People," writes of the social life of the early English- 
men that " Justice had to spring from each man's personal action ; 

' P. 173. 2 p_ 56. 



168 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

and every freeman was his own avenger." On the confines of civil- 
ization there still prevails the custom of lynch-law. If each man's 
conscience reveals the law, then the Indian, the early Hebrew or 
Englishman, and the rough-and-ready pioneer must be as transparent 
mediums for the divine light as the most pious saint or profound 
moral philosopher. It is palpably beside the mark to urge that the 
Indian is not as capable of judging as is the cultured European, for 
that would be giving to the revelation of the man of culture a privi- 
lege denied to the revelation of the man of the woods. To make 
tliat statement would be the same as saying that the Indian's con- 
science did not reveal the true law ; and this would be contrary to 
the assumption of the mtuitionist that each man judges infallibly 
concerning right and wrong. The fence is not overleaped by the 
declaration that the Indian's conscience must be his judge while 
the white man's conscience must be ^*5 judge, for that is equiva- 
lent to the assertion that no universal moral law is possible. It is 
the admission of inherent weakness to reply that these men would 
announce the same law had they been in the same circumstances, 
for that can mean only that a moral law is the height of absurdity. 
It is a mere subterfuge to hold, as some moralists have held, that 
all differences and mistakes must be laid at the door of judgment 
and not of conscience. That theory saves conscience by cutting off 
its head. If judgment decides what is right and what is wrong, it 
must, in deciding, reveal the decision ; if conscience is still thought 
to reveal the decision, it only feebly seconds what has been done by 
judgment. One may well exclaim with Socrates in the "Eutliy- 
demus" : " Why, here is iteration." If it be objected that the dif- 
ference between the savas-e and the civilized man isonlv a differ- 
ence of less and greater experience, then once more conscience is 
limited in its judicial function to that which has already been 
judged. And again the duty of judging is in every point twice 
done, and then done double. The only reply which Mr. Martineau 
has made to the above is that " no man who feels the authority at 
all can at the same time believe that it is an egoistic peculiarity." ' 
This simply means that no man can believe in a bald and logical 
intuitionism. 

Perhaps another reply is intended in the following statement : 
"In the incipient stage of the ethical life I have assumed no more 

' P. 95. 



Martinemi's Idiopsychologlcal Ethics. 169 

than the co-presence of some two competing impulses, with a 
simple consciousness of one as better than the other ; and not till 
these cases, repeated with variation of the terms coinpared, gather 
together fresh judgments in adequate number, do they organize 
themselves into a conscience, able to reflect upon moral relations 
as a system under the one idea of obligation or right." ' If by this 
is meant that the wider is our moral experience the more complete 
is the supervision of conscience, conscience must be considered as 
waiting upon experience. But if Mr. Martineau means that the 
" simple consciousness" of one spring of action as better than the 
other is not a verdict of conscience, since conscience is as yet non- 
existent, then he gets rid of the difficulty by an absolute denial 
of his theory. If this "simple consciousness " is not conscience, it 
is possible atone and the same time to know the morally higher 
and lower, and yet to be without a conscience ; and that means 
that conscience does not reveal the distinction between the more 
and less worthy spring of action. If it is meant that a free agent is 
capable, before any experience whatever, of deciding upon the right 
course of conduct, it is not conceivable, for, as a free agent must, 
in acting, have an end in view, he must likewise be conscious of 
the results of his act. This is the solution of the difficulty. The 
mystery which pervades the intuitional doctrine of conscience is 
explained away when a knowledge of the more or less worthy in- 
centive is seen to be a knowledo-e of the better or worse results 
which accrue upon the actualization of the incentive. And this 
more exc/ellent way also may be traced in Mr. Martineau's ethical 
views. 

We have been taking a long journey. Yet we are only now at 
the open door of ethics. Almost wholly unanswered is the ques- 
tion " What is implied in an end in view 'i " We have said that 
it implies a knowledge of results. But when the end is gained, is 
all gained ? Or are other acts to be done ? What is a true end ? 
What is a systematized ideal ? Or, as those of old times would 
have asked, what is the good ? It may be ill-advised in a critic to 
confess ignorance of anything, yet I ought to confess that to that 
question I cannot give an answer such as I would like to be able 
to give. Even an inadequate answer would carry us beyond the 
limits of this review. 

1 P. 211. 



170 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 



LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY ALFRED G. LANGLET. 

NEW ESSAYS ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 

Book II. — Idsas. 
Chapter IV. 

Of Solidity. 

§ 1. Philalethes. You will doubtless agree that the idea of 
solidity is caused by the resistance we find in a body to the en- 
trance of another body into the place it occupies until it has left it. 
That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies when they 
are moved one toward another I call solidity. If any one finds it 
more to the purpose to call it impenetT ability ., I give my consent. 
But I believe that the term solidity bears a more positive charac- 
ter. This idea seems most essential and most intimately connected 
with body, and can be found only in matter. 

Theophiliis. It is true that we find resistance in touch when 
another body reluctantly gives place to our own, and it is also true 
that bodies dislike to occupy the same place. Many, however, 
doubt whether tiiis repugnance is invincible, and it is well also to 
consider that the resistance which is found in matter is, moreover, 
derived in a way and by means of reasons quite different. A 
body resists another either when it should leave the place which 
it has ah'eady occupied, or when it fails to enter the place where 
it should enter, because the other tries to enter also, in which case 
it may happen tiiat, the one not yielding to the other, they stop 
or mutually repel each other. Resistance is seen in the change 
of that (body) to which resistance is offered, whether it loses its 
force, changes its direction, or both happen at once. Now you 
can say in general that this resistance arises from that repugnance 
which two bodies have of being in the same place, called impene- 
trability. Thus when one (body) makes an effort to enter, it at 
the same time forces the other to attempt to leave or to prevent 
its entrance. But that kind of incompatibility which makes one 
or the other, or both together, yield, being once assumed, there 
are several reasons besides the one named which make one body 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 171 

resist another which endeavors to compel its departure. Thej 
are either in it or in the neighboring bodies. There are two 
which are in itself ; one is passive and constant, the other active 
and variable. The first is what I call inertia,' after Kepler and 
Descartes, which impels matter to resist motion, and which it is 
necessary to destroy by force in order to move a body, supposing 
that there were neither gravity nor adhesion. Thus a body which 
undertakes to drive forward another, experiences for the time 
being this resistance. The other cause, which is active and varia- 
ble, consists in the impetuosity of the body itself, which does not 
yield without resistance when its own impetuosity carries it into 
a place. The same reasons reappear in the neighboring bodies 
when the body which resists is unable to yield without causing 
the others to yield also. But here comes in a new consideration 
— viz. : compactness {fermetS) or the adhesion of one body to 
another. This adhesion ^ makes it impossible to move one body 
without at the same time moving the other to which it adheres, 
which causes a kind of traction in reference to this other. This 
adhesion so acts that, even should you put aside inertia and 
manifest impetuosity, there would be resistance; for if space is 
conceived as filled with matter perfectly fluid, and if a single 
hard body were placed within it, this hard body (supposing 
there were in the fluid neither inertia nor impetuosity) will 
be moved without finding any resistance ; but if space be full 
of little cubes, the resistance which the hard body would find, 
should it be moved among the cubes, would come from the 
fact that the little hard cubes, on account of their hardness or 
because of the adhesion of their parts one to another, would with 
difficulty be divided so long as it were necessary to make a circu- 
lar movement, and to fill up the place of the body moved at the 
moment it departs. But if two bodies should enter at the same 
time by the two ends into an open tube from two sides, and should 
fill it to its capacity, the matter in this tube, be it fluid or any- 
thing else, would resist by its impenetrability alone. Thus, in the 
resistance of which we are here treating, we have to consider im- 
penetrability of bodies, inertia, impetuosity, and adhesion. It is 

' Gerhardt reads incertie ; evidently a slip of the pen in the original MS., or a typo- 
graphical error of the printer. — Tr. 

' Erdmann and Jacques add souvent, often. — Tr. 



172 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

true that, in my opinion, this adhesion of bodies arises from a more 
subtile motion of one body toward another ; but, as this is a point 
which may be disputed, it should not be assumed at lirst. And for 
the same reason we should only assume at first an original, essential 
solidity, which makes the place always equal to the body — i. <?., the 
incompatibility, or, to speak more accurately, the non-consistence^ 
of bodies in the same place is a perfect impenetrability which 
receives neither more nor less, since many maintain that sensible 
solidity can arise from a repugnance on the part of bodies to be 
found in the same place, but which will not prove to be an invin- 
cible repugnance. For all the ordinary Peripatetics and many 
others believe that the same matter can fill more or less space, 
which phenomenon they call rarefaction or condensation, not in 
appearance only (as when water is squeezed from a sponge), but 
rigorously, like the Scholastic conception of the air, I am not of 
this opinion ; but 1 do not think that I ought at first to assume the 
opposite opinion, the senses, apart from the reasoning faculty, not 
sufficing to establish this perfect impenetrability, which I hold to 
be true in the order of nature, but which is not learned by sensa- 
tion alone. And some one may claim that the resistance of bodies 
to compression arises from an effort of the parts to s])read them- 
selves when they have not their entire liberty. For the rest the 
eyes aid greatly in proving these qualities, coming to the assistance 
of touch. And at bottom solidity, so long as it presents a distinct 
idea, is conceived by pure reason, although the senses furnish the 
reasoning faculty with the proof of it contained in nature. 

§ 4. Ph. We are at least agreed that the solidity of a body 
carries with it the filling of the space it occupies in such a way 
as absolutely to exclude every other body [if a space can be found 
in which there was none before], while hai'dness [or the consistence 
rather, which some call compactness {ferm.ete)'], is a strong union 
of certain portions of matter, which make up masses of a sensible 
size, so that the whole mass does not easily change its form. 

Th. [This consistence, as 1 have already remarked, is what 
makes it difficult to move one part of a body without the other, 

' Leibnitz's word is " i'inconsistence," and, as it is apparently teclinical, I have de- 
cided to transfer it, merely changing the form of the negative in- to non- to avoid 
ambiguity of meaning, rather than translate by a paraphrase, which would otherwise be 
necessary, as there seems to be no single equivalent English word or phrase. — Tk. 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 173 

so that when one part is pushed, the other, which is not pushed, 
and which does not fall within the line of tendency, is neverthe- 
less induced to go from that side by a kind of traction ; and, fur- 
ther, if this last part finds any obstacle which holds or pushes it 
back, it draws it along, or holds back, also, the first part ; and 
this action is always reciprocal. The same thing sometimes hap- 
pens in the case of two bodies which do not touch and which do 
not form a continuous body whose parts are contiguous. How- 
ever, the one pushed compels the other to go without pushing it, 
so far as the senses can give us knowledge. Of this the animant,' 
electrical attraction, and that which is sometimes ascribed to the 
fear of a vacuum, turnish examples.] 

Ph. It seems that, in general, hard and soft are names which 
we give to things solely as related to the particular constitution 
of our bodies. 

Th. [But then many philosophers would not ascribe hardness to 
their atoms. The notion of hardness does not depend upon the 
senses, and its possibility can be conceived by the reason, although 
we are further convinced by the senses that it is actually found 
in nature. I should, however, prefer the word compactness— fer- 
metS (if I were allowed to use the word in this sense) — to that of 
hardness, for there is some compactness even in soft bodies. I 
seek even a more suitable and general term, like consistence or co- 
hesion. Thus I would oppose hard to soft, solid to fluid, for wax 
is soft, but, unless melted by heat, it is not fluid and preserves its 



1 See Krauth-Fleming, "Vocab. Philos. Sciences," pp. 28, 29, and 5*71, edition of 
1877. Sheldon & Co., New York, 1883. Tiie a?i/ma?i< = that which possesses and im- 
parts life. Together with its cognates animality, animalish, animalist, used frequently 
by Cudworth. See "Intell. Syst.," 514, Ut sit Animans, that it be Animant, or endued 
with Life, Sense, and Understanding." Jbid., 198. "But no Atheist ever acknowledged 
conscious animality to be a first principle in the universe ; nor that the whole was gov- 
erned by any animalist, sentient, and understanding nature, presiding over it as the head 
of it." The term being technical, and, with its cognates, more or less current in the 
seventeenth century, it seemed best to retain it, defining and illustrating as above. Its 
meaning is, I think, sufficiently evident. It is to be noticed, however, that Erdmann, in 
his " Errors Typographici," prefixed to his edition, reads aimant instead of animant^ 
Jacques's text also has aimant. The translation would then be : The loadstone or mag. 
net. As I translate on the basis of Gerhardt's text I retain his reading and its transla- 
tion, with the note explaining the term, although at the present writing the reading of 
Erdmann and Jacques seems more congruous with the context, and so more likely to be 
the true one. — Tr. 



174 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

bounds ; and in fluids even there is ordinarily cohesion, as is 
shown in drops of water and of mercury. I am also of opinion 
that all bodies have some deijree of cohesion.^ as I also believe 
that there are none which do not have QomQ fluidity, and whose 
cohesion is not capable of being overcome ; so that, in my opinion, 
the atoms of Epicurus, whose hardness is supposed to be invin- 
cible, cannot have any more authority than the subtile, perfectly 
fluid matter of the Cartesians. But this is not the place to justify 
this opinion or to explain the rationale of cohesion. 

Ph. The perfect solidity of bodies seems to be justified by ex- 
periment. For example, water incapable of yielding, passed 
through the pores of a hollow globe of gold, in which it was shut 
up, when this globe was put under pressure in Florence. 

Th. [There is something to be said as to the inference which 
you have drawn from this experiment, and from what happened 
in the case of the water. The air as well as the water is a body, 
which is compressible at least ad sensum, and those who would 
maintain a complete rarefaction and condensation will say that 
water is already too compressed to yield to our machines, as air 
very much compressed would resist also a further compression. I 
admit, however, on the other hand, that if any slight change 
should be noticed in the volume of the water, it might be ascribed 
to the air which is enclosed in it. Without entering now into the 
discussion whether pure water is not itself compressible, as it is 
found that it is dilatable when it evaporates, I am, nevertheless, 
decidedly of the opinion of those who believe that bodies are per- 
fectly impenetrable, and that there is, save in appearance, neither 
condensation nor rarefaction. But this kind of experiment is as 
little capable of proving this as the tube of Torricelli or the 
machine of Gherike are suflicient to prove a perfect vacuum. 

§ 5. Ph. If the body were strictly capable of rarefaction and 
compression, it might change in volume or extension, but, that not 
being so, it will be always equal to the same space ; and, more- 
over, its extension will be always distinct from that of space. 

Th. [The body might have its own extension, but it does not 
thereby follow that it will be always determined or equal to the 
same space. However, although it may be true that in the con- 
ception of body something besides space is conceived of, it does 
not thereby follow that there are two extensions — that of space 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 175 

and that of body ; for it is as when in conceiving several things 
at once, one conceives something besides the number, viz. : 7'es 
numeratas ,' and, moreover, there are not two mnltitudes, the one 
abstract — i. e., that of number; the other concrete — i. e,, that of 
the things enumerated. Likewise one can say that it is not neces- 
sary to think of two extensions — the one abstract, of space, the 
other concrete, of body, the concrete existing as such only through 
the abstract. And as bodies pass from one part of space to an- 
other — L (3., change order among themselves — things also pass from 
one part of the order or of a number to the other, when, for ex- 
ample, the iirst becomes the second and the second the third, etc. 
In fact, time and space are only kinds of order, and in these 
orders the vacant place (which in relation to space is called 
vacuum), if there were any, would show the possibility only of 
that which is lacking together with its relation to the actual. 

Ph. I am nevertheless very glad that you agree with me that 
matter does not change in volume. But you seem to go too far, 
Sir, in not recognizing two extensions, and you resemble the Car- 
tesians, who do not distinguish space from matter. JSTow it seems 
to me that if a class is found who, not having these distinct ideas 
(of space and of solidity which fills it), blends them and makes of 
the two one only, we cannot see how these persons can converse 
with others. They are in that condition of a blind man with respect 
to another man who should speak to him of scarlet, whilst this 
blind man would believe that it resembles the sound of a trumpet. 

Th. [But I hold at the same time that the ideas of extension 
and solidity, like that of scarlet-color, do not consist in a 1 hriow 
not what.^ I distinguish extension and matter, contrary to the 



' Leibnitz's expression is '• un je ne say quoi.'''' It seems to be equivalent to an in- 
definite somewhat wiiich is the ultimate essence of things, and which is the cause of, 
and by diiferentiation becomes, the particular. Leibnitz, then, means to say that the 
ideas of extension and solidity are distinct. Cf. " Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the 
Human Understanding. A Critical Exposition." By John Dewey, Ph. D., Chicago : S. 
C. Griggs & Co., 1888, p. 134. As applied to personal beings, it seems to be equivalent 
to the " unconscious representations " — i. e., " the dark side of the soul-life," " the 
proper basis of Individuality." " (Jenius, disposition, feeling, are the terms by which a 
later time has designated what Leibnitz calls the je ne sals qnoi, whereby every one is 
preformed by Nature to something Particular" (" Ganz wie bei dem blossen Monaden 
ilire individuelle Beschaffenheit in dem Momente der Schranke, der materia prima, lag, 
ganz so werden hier diese unbewussten Yorstellungen, d. h. wird die dunkle Seite des 



176 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

view of the Cartesians. Still I do not believe that there are two 
extensions ; and since those w4io dispute over the difference be- 
tween extension and solidity are agreed on several truths upon 
this subject and have some distinct notions, they can find therein 
the means of extricating themselves from their disagreement ; 
thus the assumed difference upon ideas ought not to serve as a 
pretext for eternal disputes, although I know that certain Carte- 
sians, otherwise very able, are accustomed to intrench themselves 
in the ideas which they pretend to have. But if they would avail 
themselves of the means which I have before given for recogniz- 
ing ideas true and false, and of which we shall speak also in the 
sequel, they would retire from a position which is not tenable. 

Chapter Y. 
Of Sim/pie Ideas which come hy Different Senses. 

Ph. The ideas, the perception of w^hich comes to us from more 
than one sense, are those of Space, or Extension, or B^igure, of 
Motion and Rest. 

Th. [The ideas which are said to come from more than one sense, 
like those of space, figure, motion, rest, are rather from common- 
sense — i. 6., from the mind itself, for they are ideas of pure under- 
standing, but related to externality, and of wiiich the senses make 
us conscious ; they are also capable of definition and demonstra- 
tion.] 

Chapter YI. 

Of Simple Ideas which come hy lieflection. 

Ph. The simple ideas which come by reflection are the ideas of 
the understanding and of the will [for we ourselves are conscious 
of them in reflecting upon ourselves.] 

Th. [It is doubtful if all these ideas are simple, for it is clear^ 
for example, that the idea of the will includes that of the under- 
standing, and the idea of motion contains that of flgure. 



Seelenlebens, als der cigentliche Grund der Individualitat bestimmt. Genius, Gemiitli, 
Gefiihl sind die Worte, mit denen eine spatere Zeit das bezeichiiet hat, was Leibvitz 
das je lie savi quoi neniit, wodurcli Jeder von Natur zu etwas Besoudereni praformlrt 
ist." Erdmann, "Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Pliilos.," 3te. Auflage 2te. Bd. s. 161. Berlin, 
1878.) Cf. also Leibnitz, " Xouveaux Essais," Preface, pp. 46 sq. Geibardt; 197, a, Erd- 
mann ; Book II, Cli. I, § 15. Th., sq., and Erdmann's e-\i)o.*ition of the same, op. cit., s. 
160, 161. Also Prof. Dewey's most excellent work cited above. — Tr. 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 177 

Chapter YII. 
Of Ideas which come hy Sensation and Reflection. 

§ 1. I*h. There are some simple ideas which make themselves 
perceived in the mind by all the avenues of sensation and by reflec- 
tion also — viz.: pleasure, pain, power, existence, unity. 

T?i. [It seems that the senses cannot convince us of the existence 
of sensible thino-s without tlie aid of the reason. Thus I should 
think that the idea' of existence comes from reflection. That of 
power also and of unity come from the same source, and are of a 
wholly different nature from the perceptions of pleasure aud pain.] 

Chapter YIII. 
Other Considerations ujyon Simple Ideas. 

§ 2. Ph. "What shall we say of ideas of privative qualities ? It 
seems to me that the ideas of rest, darkness, and cold are as posi- 
tive as those of motion, light, and heat. However, in proposing 
these privations as the causes of privative ideas I follow the com- 
mon view ; but in the main it will be difficult to determine 
whether there is really any idea which arises from a privative 
cause until it has been determined whether rest any more than 
motion is a privation. 

Th. [I have never believed that you could have reason to doubt 
the privative nature of rest. It suffices it to deny motion in the 
body, but it does not suffice for motion to deny rest, and it is 
necessary to add something more to determine the degree of mo- 
tion, since it receives materially more or less, while all rest is equal. 
It is another thing when you speak of the cause of rest, which 
should be positive in the second matter or mass. I should further- 
more regard the idea itself of rest as privative — i. e., that it consists 
only in negation. It is true tliat the act of denial is positive.] 

§ 9. Ph. The qualities of things being the faculties they have 
of producing in us perception of ideas, it is well to distinguish 
tliese qualities. They are primary and secondary. Extension, 
solidity, figure, number, mobility, are the original qualities insep- 
arable from body which I call primary. § 10. But I call second- 

^ French is " la consideratiou de I'existence." 

XXII— 12 



178 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

ary qualities the faculties or powers of bodies to produce certaii) 
sensations in us, or certain effects in other Ijodies, as the fire, for 
example, produces some effect in the wax when melting it. 

Th. [I think you can say that when the power is intelligible, 
and can be distinctly explained, it should be reckoned among the 
primary qualities ; but when it is only sensed and gives only a 
confused idea, it should be put among the secondary qualities.] 

§ 11. Ph. These primary qualities show how bodies act upon 
one another. Now, bodies act only by impulse, at least so far as 
we can conceive the process, for it is impossible to understand 
how bodies can act upon what they do not touch, which is equiva- 
lent to iniagining that they can act where they are not. 

Th. [I am also of the opinion that bodies act only by impulse. 
However, there is some difficulty in proving what I have just 
heard ; for attraction is not always without contact, and you can 
touch and draw without any visible impulse, as I have shown 
above in speaking of hardness. In the case of the atoms of 
Epicurus, the one part pushed would draw the other with it, 
and would touch it in putting it in motion without impulse. And 
in the case of attraction betw^een contiguous things you cannot 
say that the one which draws with itself acts where it is not. This 
reason would militate only against attractions from a distance, as 
would be the case in reference to what are called vires centripetas^ 
advanced by some scholars.] 

§ 13. Ph. Now, certain particles, striking our organs in a cer- 
tain way, cause in us certain sensations of colors or tastes or other 
secondary qualities which have the power of producing these sen- 
sations. And it is no more difficult to conceive that God can 
attach such ideas (as that of heat) to motions, with which these 
have no resemblance, than it is difficult to conceive that he has 
attached the idea of pain to the motion of a piece of iron which 
divides our flesh ; which motion the pain in no manner resembles. 

Th. [It is not necessary to suppose that ideas like those of color 
or of pain are arbitrary and without relation or natural connec- 
tion with their causes ; it is not the custom of God to act with so 
little order and reason. I should rather say that there is a kind 
of resemblance, not complete and, so to speak, in terminis, but 
expressive, or a kind of orderly relation, as an ellipse, and even a 
parabola or hyperbola resemble in some sense a circle of which 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 179 

they are a projection upon a plane, since there is a certain exact 
and natural relation between what is projected and the projection 
which is made, each point of the one corresponding by a certain 
relation to each point of the other. This the Cartesians do not 
sufficiently consider, and for once you have deferred to them more 
than has been customary with you, and without reason for so 
doing,] 

§ 15. Ph. I tell you how it appears to me, and the appearances 
are that the ideas of the primary qualities of bodies resemble these 
qualities, but the ideas produced in us by the secondary qualities 
resemble them in no way. 

T?i. [1 have just shown how there is resemblance or exact rela- 
tion in respect to the secondary as well as the primary qualities. 
It is certainly reasonable that the effect correspond to its cause ; 
and how assert the contrary, since you know distinctly neither the 
sensation of blue (for example) nor the motions which produce it? 
It is true that pain does not resemble the motion of a pin, but it 
may very well resemble the motions which this pin causes in our 
body, and represent these motions in the soul, as I have no doubt 
it does. It is also on that account that we say that the pain is in 
our body and not that it is in the pin ; but we say that the light is 
the fire, because there are in the fire motions which are not dis- 
tinctly sensible apart from it, but whose confusion or conjunction 
becomes sensible, and is represented to us by the idea of light. 

§ 21. Ph. But if the relation between the object and the sen- 
sation be natural, how can it be, as we notice in fact, that the 
same water may appear warm to one hand and cold to the other? 
which show^s that the heat is no more in the water than the pain 
is in the pin. 

Th. [That proves all the more that heat is not a quality of 
sense or power of making itself felt absolutely all at once, but that 
it is relative to the suitable organs ; for a motion proper in the 
hand may be there mixed and change in appearance. Light, fur- 
thermore, does not make itself evident to badly constituted eyes, 
and when they are themselves filled with a great light, a less is 
not sensed by them. Even the primary qualities (according to 
our classification) — for example, unity and number — may not ap- 
pear as they should ; for, as Descartes has already stated, a globe 
touched by the fingers in a certain way appears double, and mir- 



180 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

rors or glasses cut in facets multiply the object. It does not then 
follow that what does not always appear tlie same is not a quality 
of the object, and that its image does not resemble it. And as 
for the heat, when our hand is very warm, the medium heat of 
the water does not make itself felt, and modifies rather that of the 
hand, and consequently the water appears to us cold ; as the salt 
water of the Baltic Sea mixed with the water of the Sea of Portu- 
gal would lessen its specific saline quality, although the former 
would be itself salt. Thus, in any case, you can say that the heat 
belongs to the water of a bath, although it may appear cold to 
any one, as honey is called absolutely sweet, and silver white, 
although the one appears bitter, the other yellow to some diseased 
persons, for the classification is made upon the basis of the most 
common (conditions) ; and it remains true, however, that, when 
the organ and the medium are constituted as they should be, tlie 
internal motions and the ideas which represent them to the soul 
resemble the motions of the object which cause color, heat, pain, 
etc., or, what is the same thing, the experience by raeans of a rela- 
tion sufficiently exact, although this relation does not distinctly 
appear to us, because we cannot disentangle this multitude of 
small impressions either in our soul or our body or in what is 
without. 

§ 24. Ph. We consider the qualities which the sun has of blanch- 
ing or melting wax or hardening mud only as simple powers, 
without thinking of anything in the sun corresponding to this 
blanching, softness, or hardness ; but heat and light are commonly 
regarded as real qualities of the sun. Properly considered, how- 
ever, these qualities of light and heat which in me are perceptions 
are not in the sun in an}^ other manner than the changes produced 
in the wax when it is blanched or melted. 

Th. [Some have pushed this doctrine so far that they have de- 
sired to persuade us that if any one could touch the sun he would 
find there no heat. The imitated sun which makes itself felt in 
the focus of a mirror or a burnino'-crlass mav disabuse us of this no- 
tion. But as to the comparison between the power of heating 
and that of melting, I dare affirm that if the melted or blanched 
wax had feeling, it would feel something similar to what we feel 
when the sun warms us, and would say, if it could, that the sun 
is warm, not because its whiteness resembles the sun — for when 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 181 

faces are tanned in tlie sun their brown color should likewise resem- 
ble it — but because there are in the wax motions which are 
related to those in the sun which cause them ; its whiteness may- 
come from another cause, but not the motions which it has had 
in receiving it (whiteness) from the sun. 

Chapter IX, 

Of Perception. 

§ 1. Ph. Come we now to the ideas of Reflection in particular. 
Perception is the first faculty of the soul which is occupied with 
our ideas. It is also the first and simplest idea which we receive 
by Reflection. Thought signifies often the mind's working upon 
its own ideas, when it acts and considers a thing with a certain 
degree of voluntary attention : but in what we call perception 
the mind is ordinarily purely passive, not being able to avoid per- 
ceiving what it actually perceives. 

Th. [You might perhaps add that the animals have perception, 
and that it is not necessary that they have thought — i. e., that they 
have reflection or what raa}^ be its object. We also have little 
perceptions in ourselves of which we are not conscious in our pres- 
ent state. It is true that we might very well perceive them in 
ourselves, and reflect upon them, if we were not hindered by their 
multitude, w^hich divides our mind, or if they were not efi'aced, or 
rather obscured, by greater ones. 

§ 4. Ph. I admit that when the mind is strongly occupied in 
contemplating certain objects it does not perceive in any way the 
impression which certain bodies make upon the organ of hearing, 
although the impression may be quite strong ; but no perception 
arises thei'efi'om if the soul takes no cognizance thereof. 

Th. [I prefer to distinguish between perception and conscious- 
ness.' The perception of light and color, for example, of which 
we are conscious, is composed of a quantity of small perceptions, 
of which we are not conscious ; and a noise which we perceive, but 
of which we take no notice, becomes a matter of consciousness by 
a little addition or increase; for if what precedes made no impres- 
sion upon the soul, this little addition would make no more, and 



1 Krauth-Fleming, " Vocab. Philos.," pp. 38, 3Y4, SOV.— Tr. 



182 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the whole would make none either. I have already touched upon 
this point (Ch. II ' of this book, §§ 11, 12, 15, etc.)]. 

§ 8. Ph. It is proper to remark here that the ideas which arise 
from sensation are often altered by the mental judgment of grown 
persons without their perceiving the fact. The idea of a globe of 
uniform color represents a flat circle with various light and shade. 
But, as we are accustomed to distinguish the images of bodies and 
the changes of the reflections of lio-ht accordino; to the figures of 
their surfaces, we put in the place of what appears to us the 
cause the image itself, and confuse the judgment with the ap- 
pearance. 

Th. !Xothing is truer, and this it is which gives to painting the 
means of deceiving us by the artifice of a very extended perspect- 
ive. When bodies have flat surfaces, they can be represented 
without employing shadows by giving only their contours and by 
simply making pictures after the fashion of the Chinese, but bet- 
ter proportioned than theirs. The same custom is observed in de- 
signing medals, in order that the draughtsman may be less likely 
to depart from the precise form of the antique. But you could 
not distinguish exactly by means of the design the interior of a 
circle from the interior of a spherical surface bounded by this circle 
without the aid of shadows, the interior of each having neither 
points distinguished nor distinguishing features, although there is, 
however, a great diflerence which ought to be indicated. Des 
Argues has accordingly given precepts upon the force of tints and 
shades. When, then, a painting deceives us there is a double 
error in our judgments ; for first we put the cause for the effect, 
and think we see immediately the cause of the image, in which 
we resemble a little a dog who barks at a mirror ; for, properly 
speaking, we see only the image, and we are aflected only by the 
rays of light. And since the rays of light require time (however 
little it be), it is possible for the object to be destroyed in this in- 
terval, and for it no longer to exist when the ray reaches the eye, 
and that which no longer exists cannot be the object present to 
the sight. In the second place, we further deceive ourselves 
when we put one cause for another, and think that what comes 
only from a flat picture is derived from a body, so that in this 



' This should be Chap. I, I think.— Tn. 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 183 

case there is in our judgments all at once a metonymy and a meta- 
phor ; for even the figures of Rhetoric pass into sophisms when 
they impose on us. This confusion of the effect with the cause, 
whether true or false, often enters into our judgments, moreover, 
from other causes. Thus it is that we feel our bodies, or what 
touches them, and that we move our arms by means of an imme- 
diate physical influence, which we think constitutes the connec- 
tion of the soul with the body, while in truth we do not feel and 
do not change in that way what is in us. 

PA, I will at this time propose to you a problem which the 
learned Mr. Molineux, who employs so profitably his excellent 
genius in the promotion of the sciences, communicated to the 
illustrious Mr. Locke. Here it is nearly in his own terms: Sup- 
pose a man blind from birth, now grown up, who has learned to 
distinguish by touch a cube from a globe of the same metal, and 
almost of the same size, so that when he touches the one or the 
other he can tell which is the cube and which the globe. Sup- 
pose that the cube and the globe being placed upon the table, this 
blind man comes to enjoy his sight. The question is, if in seeing 
them without touching them he could distinguish them, and tell 
which is the cube and which the globe. I pray you, Sir, tell me 
what is your opinion upon the matter. 

Th. I ought to give some time to thought upon this question, 
which appears to me quite curious : but since you press me for an 
immediate reply, I would venture to say between ourselves that I 
think that supposing the blind man knows that these two figures 
which he sees are those of the cube and the globe, he could distin- 
guish them and say, without touching, This one is the globe, this 
the cube. 

Ph. I fear lest it may be necessary to put you in the crowd of 
those who have failed to answer Mr. Molineux ; for he sent word in 
the letter which contained this question, that, having proposed it 
upon the occasion of Mr. Locke's " Essay upon Understanding" to 
diiferent persons of very penetrating minds, he had found scarcely 
one among them who at once gave such a reply upon that point 
as be thinks should be made, although they were convinced of 
their error after having heard his reasons. The reply of this 
penetrating and judicious author is negative ; for (he adds) while 
this blind man has learned by experience of some kind the globe 



184 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

and tlie cube as they affect his touch, he does not, however, yet 
know that what affects the touch in such or such manner ought to 
strike the eyes in sucli or such manner, nor that the projecting 
angle of the cube, which presses his hand in an unequal manner, 
ought to appear to his eyes as it appears in the cube. The author 
of the essay declares himself at once of the same opinion. 

Th. Perhaps Mr. Molineux and the author of the essay are not 
so far from m}' opinion as at first appears, and the reasons for their 
view, contained apparently in the letter of the former, which have 
been used with success in convincing men of their error have 
been expressly left out by the second in order to give the reader's 
mind more exercise. If you wish to weigh my reply, you will 
find. Sir, that I have placed there a condition which can be con- 
sidered as comprised in the question — viz. : that the question is 
not that of distinguishing alone, and that the blind man knows 
that the two figured bodies, which he should distinguish, are 
there, and that thus each of the appearances which he sees is that 
of the cube or the globe. In this case it appears to me indubi- 
table that the blind man who has just ceased to be such can dis- 
tinguish them by the principles of reason, united with that sense- 
knowledge wdtli which touch has before furnished him. For I do 
not speak of that which he will do in fact and immediately, 
dazzled and confused by the novelty, or from some other cause 
little accustomed to draw inferences. The basis of my view is 
that in the globe there are no points distinguished by the side of 
the globe itself, the whole being even (smooth) and without angles, 
while in the cube there are eight points distinguised from all the 
others. If there were not this means of discerning figures, a 
blind man could not learn the rudiments of geometry by touch. 
But we see that those born blind are capable of learning geometry, 
and have indeed always certain rudiments of a natural geometry, 
and that most often geometry is learned by sight alone, without 
the use of touch, as indeell could and should be the case with a 
paralytic or other person to whom touch was almost forbidden. 
And these two geometries — that of the blind man and that of the 
paralytic — meet and agree, and indeed recur to the same ideas, 
although there are no common images. It further becomes evi- 
dent how necessary it is to distinguish images from exact ideas, 
which consist in definitions. It would really be very curious and 



Leihiitz^s Critique of Locke. 185 

instructive to make a complete examination of the ideas of a man 
born blind, to understand the descriptions he makes of figures. 
For he may happen upon, and he may even understand, optical 
doctrine, so far as it is dependent upon distinct and mathematical 
ideas, although he might not attain to the conception of clair- 
confus — i. e., the image of light and colors. This is why a cer- 
tain one born blind, after having attended lessons in optics, which 
he appeared fully to understand, replied to some one who asked 
him what he thought light was, that he thought it was something 
pleasant like sugar. It would likewise be very important to ex- 
amine the ideas which a man born deaf and dumb may have of 
things not figured, whose description we usually have in words, 
and which he must have in a manner wholly different from 
though it may be equivalent to ours, as Chinese writing is in 
fact equivalent to our alphabet, although it may be infinitely dif- 
ferent, and might appear to have been invented by a deaf man. 
I learn, by the favor of a great prince, of one born deaf and dumb 
in Paris, whose ears have at last attained to the performance of 
their function, that he has now learned the French language (for 
it is from the court of France that he was summoned not long 
since), and that he could say very curious things about the con- 
ceptions he had of his former condition and about the change of 
his ideas when he commenced to exercise the sense of hearing. 
These persons born deaf and dumb can go farther than you think. 
There was one in Oldenburg in the time of the last Count who 
became a good painter, and showed himself very rational in other 
respects. A very learned man, Breton by nation, told me that 
at Blainville, about ten leagues from Nantes, belonging to the 
Duke of Kohan, there was, about 1690, a poor man, who lived in 
a hut near the castle outside of the town, who was born deaf and 
dumb, and who carried letters and other things to the town and 
found the houses, following some signs which the persons accus- 
tomed to employ him made him. Finally the poor man became 
blind also, but did not give up rendering some service and carry- 
ing letters into the town to whatever place they indicated to him 
by touch. He had a board in his hut which, extending from the 
door to the place where his feet were, informed him by its motion 
when any one entered his house. Men are very negligent in tak- 
ing exact knowledge of the modes of thought of such persons. If 



186 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

he no longer lives, there is probably some one in the vicinity who 
could still give some information respecting him, and make us 
understand how they showed him the things he was to do. But 
to return to what the man born blind, who begins to see, would 
think of the globe and the cube, seeing them without touching 
them, I reply that he will distinguish them, as I have just said, 
if any one informs him that the one or the other of the appear- 
ances or perceptions which he will have belongs to the cube or to 
the globe ; but, without this previous instruction, I admit that he 
will not at first venture to think that the kinds of pictures which 
they will make of themselves in the depths of his eyes, and which 
might come from a flat picture upon the table, represent the 
bodies, until touch convinces him of the fact, or until, by force of 
reasoning upon the rays of light according to optics, he understands 
by the lights and shades that there is a something which arrests 
these rays of light, and that it is exactly what remains for him in 
touch, which result he will finally reach when he sees this globe 
and this cube revolve, and change the shadows and the appearances 
in accordance with the motion, or even when, these two bodies 
remaining at rest, the light which illumines them changes its 
place, or his eyes change their position. For these are about the 
means we have of distinguishing from afar a picture or a perspect- 
ive, which represents a body, from the body itself. 

§11. Ph. [Let us return to perception in general.] It dis- 
tinguishes animals from inferior beings. 

Th. [I am inclined to the belief that there is some perception 
and appetition also in the plants, because of the great analogy 
which exists between plants and animals; and if, as is commonly 
supposed, there is a vegetable soul, it of necessity has perception. 
Moreover, I do not allow myself to attribute to mechanism all 
that is done in the bodies of plants and animals, excepting their 
first formation. Tiius I agree that the motion of the plant which 
is called sensitive arises from mechanism, and I do not approve 
of the recourse to the soul when the question is that of explaining 
the detail of the phenomena of plants and animals]. 

§ 14. Ph. It i8.,true that for myself, indeed, I cannot help be- 
lieving that even in those kinds of animals which are like the oys- 
ters and mussels there is not some feeble perception ; for quick 
sensations would serve only to discommode an animal which is 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke, 187 

constrained to live aways in the place where chance has pnt it, 
where it is watered with water, cold or warm, pure or salt, accord- 
ing as it comes to it. 

Th. [Yery well, I also believe that you can say almost as much 
of plants ; but in man's case, his perceptions are accompanied with 
the power of reflection, which passes to the act when there is any. 
But when he is reduced to a state where he is as it were in a leth- 
argy and almost without feeling, reflection and consciousness cease, 
and he does not think of universal truths. But the faculties and 
the dispositions, innate and acquired, and even the impressions 
which one receives in this state of confusion, do not cease on that 
account, and are not effaced, though they are forgotten. The_y will 
indeed have their turn one day in contributing to some notable 
result, for nothing is useless in nature ; all confusion must develop 
itself. The animals themselves, having attained to a condition of 
stupidity, ought some day to return to perceptions more elevated, 
and, since simple substances always endure, it is not necessary to 
judge of eternity by a few years. 

Chapter X. 
Of Retention. 

§§ 1, 2. Ph. The other faculty of the mind, by which it ad- 
vances toward the knowledge of things more than by simple 
perception, is that which I call Retention, which conserves the 
knowledge received by the senses or by reflection. Retention 
works in two ways : in actually conserving the present idea, which 
I call Contemplation ; and in preserving the power to bring them 
again before the mind, and this is what is called Memory. 

Th. [One retains also and contemplates innate knowledge, and 
very often one cannot distinguish the innate from the acquired. 
There is also a perception of images — either those which have 
already existed for some time, or those which are formed anew in 
us.] 

§ 2. Ph. But you believe with us that these images or ideas 
cease to be anything as soon as they are not actually matters of 
consciousness ; and that to say that there are ideas reserved in the 
memory means at bottom only that the soul has in some instances 
the power of reviving the perceptions it has already had with a 



188 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

feeling which at the same time convinces it that it has previously 
had these kinds of perceptions. 

Th. [If ideas were only forms or modes of thoughts, they would 
cease with them ; but you have yourself admitted, Sir, that they 
are internal objects, and in this way can subsist. And I am 
astonished that you can always be satisfied with these powers 
or naked faculties, which you would apparently reject in the 
Scholastic philosophers. It would be necessary to explain a little 
more distinctly in what this faculty consists and how it is exer- 
cised ; and that would make you know that there are dispositions 
which are the remains of past impressions in the soul as well as in 
the body, but of which we are conscious only when the memory 
finds some occasion for them. And if nothing restored past 
thoughts, as soon as you no longer think of them, it would be im- 
possible to explain how the memory can preserve them ; and to 
recur for this purpose to this naked faculty is to speak nowise 
intelligibly. 

Chapter XI. 

Of Discernment or the Faculty of distinguishing Ideas. 

§ 1. Ph. Upon the faculty of distinguishing ideas depends the 
evidence and certainty of several propositions which pass for in- 
nate truths. 

Th. I admit that to think of these innate truths and to unravel 
them discernment is necessary ; but they do not on that account 
cease to be innate.] 

§ 2. Ph. Now, vivacity of mind consists in recalling promptly 
ideas; but judgment in representing them clearly and distinguish- 
ing them exactly. 

Th. [Perhaps each is vivacity of imagination, and judgment 
consists in the examination of propositions according to reason.] 

Ph. [I am not averse to this distinction of mind and judgment. 
And sometimes there is judgment in not employing it too much. 
For exam|»le : to examine certain witty thoughts by the severe 
rules of truth and good reasoning is in a certain sense an insult. 

Th. [This remark is a good one; it is necessary that witty 
thoughts have at least some apparent foundation in reason, biit it 
is not necessary to examine them minutely with too much scrupu- 
lousness, as it is not necessary to look at a picture from a position 



Leibnitz's Critique of Locke. 189 

too near it. It is in this, it seems to me, that P. Bouhonrs fails 
more than once in his " Art de penser dans les ouvrages d' esprit," ' 
as when he despises this sally of Lucan ^ : Yictrix causa diis placuit, 
sed victa Catoni. 

§ 4. Ph. Another operation of the mind in respect to its ideas 
is the comparison which it makes of one idea with another as re- 
gards extension, degrees, time, place, or some other circumstance; 
it is upon this that the great number of ideas comprised under the 
term Relation depends. 

Th. [According to my view, Relation is more general than com- 
parison, for relations are either of comparison or of concurrence. 
The first concern the congruity or incongruity (I take these terms 
in a less extended sense) which comprises resemblance, equality, 
inequality, etc. The second comprise some connection, as that of 
cause and effect, of whole and parts, of position and order, etc.] 

§ 6. Ph. The composition of simple ideas, for the purpose of 
making complex ideas, is also an operation of our mind. You 
can refer to this faculty the extension of ideas by uniting those 
of the same kind, as in forming a dozen from several units. 

TJi. [The one is doubtless as much composition as the other; 
but composition of similar ideas is simpler than that of different 
ideas.] 

§ Y. Ph. A dog will nurse young foxes, will play with them, 
and will have for them the same fondness as for her own puppies, 
if they can be made to suck her so long as is needful for the milk 
to spread through their entire body. And it does not appear that 
animals, who have a large number of young at once, have any 
knowledge of their number, 

Th. [The love of animals arises from a pleasure which is in- 
creased by habit. But as for the precise multitude, men even can 
know the numbers of things only by some skill, as in nsing nu- 
merical names in order to count, or figural arrangements which 
make them know at once without counting if anj'thing is wanting.] 

§ 10. Ph. Animals do not form abstract thoughts. 

Th. [I agree. They apparently recognize whiteness, and notice 



' Gerhardt's text. Erdmann has " Manifere de bien penser dans les ouvrages d'esprit." 
Which is the correct title I have no means of ascertaining. — Tk. 
2 1 : 128. 



190 2%e Journal of Speculative Philosoj^hy. 

it in the chalk or the snow ; but this is not yet abstraction, for 
that demands a consideration of the common (attribute), separated 
from the particular (case), and consequently there enters into it 
the knowledge of universal truths, which is not given to the ani- 
mals. It is well said also that the animals which speak do not 
use words to express general ideas, and that men deprived of the 
use of speech and of words do not cease to make use of other gen- 
eral signs. And I am pleased to see that you here and elsewhere 
so well observe the advantages of human nature.] 

§ 11. Ph. If animals have some ideas, and are not pure ma- 
chines, as some maintain, we cannot deny that they have reaons 
in a certain degree, and, for myself, it appears as evident that they 
reason as that they feel. But it is only upon particular ideas that 
they reason according as their senses represent these ideas to them. 

Th. [Animals pass from one idea to another by the connection 
which they sometimes feel ; for example, when his master takes a 
stick, the dog fears a whipping. And in a multitude of instances 
children with the rest of mankind proceed nowise differently in 
their passages from thought to thought. One might call that con- 
sequence and reasoning in a very broad sense. But I prefer to 
conform to the received usages in consecrating these terms to man 
and in limiting them to the knowledge of some reason of the con- 
nection of perceptions, which sensations alone cannot give, their 
effect being only to cause you to attend at another time to this 
same connection which you have noticed before, although perhaps 
the reasons are no longer the same, which fact often deceives 
those who are governed only by the senses.] 

§ 13. Ph. Idiots lack vivacity, activity, and movement in the 
intellectual faculties, whence they are deprived of the use of rea- 
son. Madmen seem to be at the opposite extreme, for it does not 
appear to me that these latter have lost the power to reason, 
but having wrongly united certain ideas, they take them for 
truths, and deceive themselves in the same way as those who rea- 
son justly upon false principles. Thus you will see a madman 
who thinks he is king maintaining by a jnst consequence tluit he 
should be served, honored, and obeyed according to his rank. 

Th. Idiots do not exercise reason, and they differ from some 
stupid persons who have good judgment, but, not having prompt 
conception, they are despised and disturbed as he would be who 



The Spectrum-spread of our Sensations. 191 

wished to play ombre with persons of distinction and thought 
too long and too often of the part he must take. I remember a 
learned man who, having lost his memory by the use of certain 
drugs, was reduced to this condition, but his judgment always 
appeared. A man wholly mad lacks judgment on nearly every 
occasion; but the vivacity of his imagination may make him 
agreeable. But there are particular madmen who make a false 
supposition at an important point in their lives, and reason justly 
thereupon, as you have well said. There is such a man, well 
known at a certain court, who believes himself destined to redress 
the affairs of the Protestants and to bring France to reason, for 
which purpose God caused the greatest personages to pass 
througli his body in order to ennoble it ; he desires to marry all 
the princesses which he sees to be marriageable, but, after hav- 
ing made them holy in order to have a holy progeny who should 
rule the land, he attributes all the misfortunes of war to the little 
deference he had for their advice. In speaking with a certain 
sovereign, he took every necessary measure not to lower his dig- 
nity. And when they began to reason with him, he defended 
himself so well that I have doubted more than once whether his 
madness is not a feint, for he is not uncomfortable on account of 
it. However, those who know him more intimately assure me 
that his madness is whollv genuine.! 



THE SPECTRUM-SPKEAD OF OUR SENSATIONS. 



BY PATTON SPENCE. 



The white light of the sunbeam is apparently simple and homo- 
geneous, although it is, in reality, a compound of many colors. 
Each color of which it is composed occupies the whole of the 
beam, and hence no one of them has position in the beam ; and 
therefore the colors themselves have no relative positions to each 
other. Each color, occupying the whole of the beam, has a modi- 
fying effect upon all the others, and all the others have a modi- 
fying effect upon it ; consequently they are all equally modified 



192 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

giving us, as a result, homogeneous white light, in which no one 
of its separate colors is recognized or suspected. \^y means of a 
prism we decompose tlie sunbeam, so that the elementary colors 
which constitute it, and which, in it, have neither positions nor 
relative positions, are spread apart and given positions and relative 
positions in the solar spectrum upon the screen. This simple 
illustration is introduced here, in the outset, not as a proof of any- 
thing, but merely as an illustration which, if kept before the mind, 
will enable the reader to understand more readily than he might 
otherwise do the nature of those relations of sensations to each 
other and to external objects, which it is our purpose to try to ex- 
plain in this article. 

Consciousness is non-extended ; and as every state of conscious- 
ness occupies the whole of consciousness just as every color of 
the sunbeam occupies the whole of the beam, it has therefore 
neither position nor extension in consciousness. J^ow, if a state 
of consciousness has no position in consciousness, states of con- 
sciousness can have no relative positions to each other, for their 
mere relation to each other cannot give them that which, in 
their essential nature, they have not — namely, position. Hence, 
in speaking of states of consciousness, we cannot say that one is 
to the right or to the left of another, above or below another, or 
that one is in the centre and another in the circumference. All 
that we can say of related states of consciousness is that each one 
occupies the whole of consciousness either simultaneously or in 
succession with the others. But succession must somehow become 
converted into, or be interpreted by, simultaneousness, or else it 
has no meaning to the mind. In simple succession, when one 
state has come the other has gone ; and consciousness holding only 
one at a time, they are in no way consciously related to each other 
even as being in succession. For instance, if two states of con- 
sciousness arise one after the other, and if the first one has wholly 
vanished (so that it cannot be recalled or reproduced) before the 
second one appears, they can have no effect upon each other ; they 
cannot' modify each other; they are as nothing to each other, the 
second simply existing as though the first had not existed, and 
vice versa. But if the second one appears before the first one 
has entirely vanished, or if the first one is reproduced while the 
second one endures, then to that extent they are simultaneous, and 



The Spectrum- spread of our Sensations. 1§3 

overlap, or rather interpenetrate, each other; and only by such 
mutual, simultaneous interpenetration can they at all modify each 
other, and to that extent be consciously related to each other even 
as being in succession the one to the other.' 

It is no part of my present purpose, however, to explain how 
successive states of consciousness are known to us as successive 
only by being made simultaneous. I simply call attention to the 
very obvious fact that such is the case ; and that, therefore, to 
that extent, all related states of consciousness are simultaneous so 
far as related ; and, as the relation of states of consciousness is but 
another name for their mutual, simultaneous interpenetration, 
such interpenetration is seen to be the very sine qua non of the 
connected continuity of all conscious life and of personal identity, 
the interpreter of that unity of apperception over which the illus- 
trious Kant so writhes and agonizes, and a clew to the labyrinths 
of memory and the intricacies of the association of ideas. 

IS^ow, suppose that two sensations are somehow awakened 
simultaneously in my consciousness, what must happen to them 
if we consider them, in their essential nature, as simple states of 
consciousness, disreo;ardin2: or abstractino; from all the effects of 
our past experience upon them, and the intrusion (by spontaneous 
reproduction or otherwise) of foreign elements that would confuse 
and complicate a result which otherwise might be quite simple? 
My two sensations, being simultaneous, and each one occupying 
the whole of consciousness, cannot appear to me as two distinct 
states ; but the two are blended into one, and seem to be a single, 
simple, homogeneous sensation — as simple and as homogeneous as 
the white light of the sunbeam. Let this state endure ever so 
long, it cannot analyze itself or sort out the different elements that 
compose it. And this must be the case even if the two sensa- 
tions are ever so different from each other — as, for instance, those 
of a color and a sound. Of course, what is true of two simulta- 
neous sensations must be equally true of any number. Were 
there a hundred such, they would be known to consciousness only 
as an apparently single, homogeneous sensation — the result of the 



' The conclusion which I here reach — that states of consciousness can only be related 
to each other by mutually interpenetrating each other — I also reached by a somewhat 
different process of reasoning in my " New Theory of Consciousness."' See " Journal of 
Spec. Phil," July, 1880. 

XXII— 13 



194 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

modification of each one upon all the rest, and all the rest upon 
each one. So much for mere sensations and merely related sen- 
sations. They can do nothing more for us. They can modify 
eacli other, but they can never lift us out of the sphere of mere 
sensation— ^«?^Zm^ — into that (A lyercejjtion. 

On the other hand, I look out upon the external world, and what 
do I perceive f Did I perceive nothing but my sensations, noth- 
ing but colors, sounds, tastes, smells, feels, I could not be said to 
perceive at all, for I would still only be able to feel related, simul- 
taneous sensations ; and that very simultaneous relation would, as 
already shown, fuse them into an apparently single, homogeneous 
sensation, varying in character according to the variety of the 
actual and reproduced impressions that are simultaneously made 
upon me. 1 have but to open my senses, however, to perceive all 
around, above, and beneath me this vast spectrum-spread of my 
sensations, seemingly projected, painted, and panoramaed every- 
where upon the whole external world, like the rainbow colors that 
are spread by the prism upon the screen, which is there expressly 
to receive and reveal them, and without which they could neither 
be received nor revealed. 

Then, on the one hand, we have consciousness whose sensa- 
tions — feelings — can have neither positions nor relative positions, 
and in which, consequently, one color, one feel, one sound cannot 
be either to the right or to the left of another, above or below an- 
other, in front of or behind another, or in the centre of another 
which occupies the circumference. On the other hand, we have 
before us that vast panorama called the external w^orld, in which 
those very sensations — colors, feels, sounds, etc. — seem to occupy 
the very positions and relative positions which, as we have seen, 
consciousness alone cannot give them, any more than the sunbeam 
can unfold itself from a state of unity and homogeneous whiteness 
and spread its component colors — red, blue, green, etc. — in posi- 
tions and relative positions upon the screen. In the case of the 
sunbeam, however, we know that it is a foreign element — the 
prism — which decomposes its white light, throws its elements 
apart, and gives them their spectrum-spread upon the screen. But, 
in the case of a compound though homogeneous sensation, what 
element is there, or can there be, which can at all be related to it, 
and so related to it as to decompose it into its elements, throw them 



The Spectrum-sjpread of our Sensations. 195 

apart, and, projecting them upon the external world as upon a 
screen, give them that spectrum-spread which they undoubtedly 
have, whether we can explain it or not? Consciousness alone can- 
not do that. On the contrary, consciousness is the very thing that 
fuses our sensations into unity and homogeneity, and therefore 
we cannot expect it to turn upon its own work and undo that 
which it is its special province and function to do. Consequently, 
as in the case of the sunbeam, so here, in the case of that unity 
and homogeneity of our sensations, we must look for something 
foreign to — outside of consciousness, but, nevertheless, related to 
it — If we wish to ascertain what it is that undoes the work which 
it is the function of consciousness to do, and always to do. 

It may be thought, however, that I have been hasty and incon- 
siderate in saying that only something which is foreign to, and 
outside of, consciousness can give our sensations that spectrum- 
spread which is so manifest a fact in our every-day experience. 
The followers of Kant will remind me of that subjective element, 
space, that a priori form which, they say, is wholly in conscious- 
ness, and is there for the express purpose of doing what I have 
said can only be done by something foreign to consciousness. I 
have not overlooked this claim of Kant's, however, but have care- 
fully considered it, and find myself compelled to reject it as invalid, 
because I find space utterly incompetent to do the work assigned it, 
even admitting, which I do not, that it exists a priori in the mind. 

Space as a subjective form is but a collapsed potentiality until 
filled with the matter of which it is a mere form. It cannot be 
realized, even as a form, until actual sensation has entered it and 
given it meaning. In other words, it is indeterminate until deter- 
mined by sensation. Now, if, as we have shown, our sensations in 
their essential nature have neither positions nor relative positions 
in consciousness, how can they enter a mere collapsed potentiality 
and expand or determine it into an actuality that shall have both 
positions and relative positions? and how shall those very posi- 
tions and relative positions, thus realized in space through sensa- 
tions which have neither, then reflect themselves back upon those 
sensations and thus impart to them the very positions and rela- 
tive positions which they (the sensations) imparted to space with- 
out really having them to impart ? That would be as though one 
mirror, without having the image of an apple in it, nevertheless 



196 The Journal of Speculative PJdlomphy. 

reflects an apple into a second mirror, and tlien the second mirror 
reflects the apple into the first, and now both mirrors have the 
image of an apple in them. This would be creation, not the real- 
ization or determination of form bv matter and matter bv form. 
But this point will receive further consideration as we progress. 

It may be said, however, that a priori space does already, from 
the very outset, contain positions and relative positions, not 
merely potentially, but actually ; and that these are thrown into 
or reflected upon our sensations as soon as they arise in conscious- 
ness. It is immaterial to me, at present^ whether this be a cor- 
rect intery)retation of Kant or not; and, inasmuch as there are 
differences of opinion as to what his a priori space really is, I am 
perfectly willing that the reader shall substitute his own interpre- 
tation of Kant on this point for the one which I have given ; and, 
furthermore, if the reader is of the opinion that «J9^'^o/'^' space is 
really different from that which any, even the most elastic and 
pliable, interpretation of Kant can make of it, I am also perfectly 
willing that he shall substitute his own conception of it for that of 
Kant. The reader may thus fortify himself with his own intei- 
pretation of Kant's a priori space ; or with his own conception 
of a ijriori space, if it differs from that of Kant; or with every 
and all conceptions and interpretations of it; so that if, in his 
hour of need, one fails him, he can fall back upon another, simply 
remembering all the while that what I shall now undertake to 
show is, that a priori space, even if admitted to contain actual 
positions and relative positions from the first, is not the element, 
the mental prism, which does, or can, decompose our compound, 
homogeneous sensations, and give them that spectrum-spread of 
which we are seeking an explanation ; and that the same will be 
found to be true of any other kind of a priori space that the 
reader may prefer ; and indeed of any other kind of subjective 
space, and, I will say, objective space also, to which the reader 
may choose to apply our facts and reasonings. 

All the elements which Kant claims for the production of ex- 
ternal perception are sense, time, space, and categories. The 
- thing-in-itself is entirely foreign to his machinery,' which engen- 

' This word machinery, or machine, I shall have occasion to use very often, not In 
derision, however, but because, as a single word, it is more easily handled than the three 
or four words which it standa for. 



The Spectnim-spread of our Sensations. 197 

ders cognitions only — the cognitions of sense and tlie cognitions of 
the understanding — with wliieh mere speculations and conjectural 
inferences about the thing-in-itself can in no wise co-operate. 
Such speculations and inferences are neither wheels, nor cogs, nor 
shafts, nor even grease to the axles. Sensation, as it arises in the 
mind, no matter what its source may be, whether something in- 
ternal or something external, brings with it no knoidedge of that 
source, and no knowledge even that it has a source. It is freighted 
with itself only; and it itself, in co-operation with time, space, 
and categories, is not, and cannot be, converted into anything 
other than its simple self. Consequently the outcome of the 
workings of Kant's machinery — that is, the results which it pro- 
duces — are produced by the mutual relations and interactions of 
sensation, time, space, and categories, in which the thing-in-itself 
takes no more part than if it did not exist ; consequently those 
results cannot be, and must not be supposed to be, either tinctured, 
modified, defined, shaped, or determined by anything pertaining 
to the thing-in-itself, or by any cognition or supposed cognition of 
the thing-in-itself. Hence, if the machinery alone does not oper- 
ate, or, if operating, does not produce the results which it should 
produce and for the very production of which it was invented, 
then its friends have no right to call to its assistance either the 
thino^-in-itself or the faintest, feeblest shadow of a reflection or 
epigenesis from the thing-in-self, for the purpose of modifying 
those results so as to make them conform to such as are perceived 
in our every-day experience. To Kant's machinery, then, the 
thing-in-itself is wholly and iovevQY transcendent ; and any appeal 
for help, by him, actually or impliedly made to the thing-in-itself, 
or to any influence, somehow or in any way supposed to be im- 
parted by the thing-in-itself, to either sensation, time, space, or 
category, while it might be, and undoubtedly would be, an appeal 
to the right source for help, yet to grant such help to him would 
be to grant him that which he himself expressly repudiates, and 
which, if granted, could not be used by his machinery ; and which, 
furthermore, if granted, would be found, as we shall see, fully 
competent to produce, without his machinery, those very results 
for which his machinery is supposed to be absolutely necessary 
and fully competent. Any appeal, then, by Kant, to anything 
outside of his machinery, is an acknowledgment of its incompe- 



198 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 

tency ; and as the only thing outside of his machinery to which 
he can appeal is the thing-in-itself, we have here, in the outset — at 
a greater length, perhaps, than was necessary — endeavored to show 
that such an appeal can in no wise be granted. Nevertheless, 
while thus emphasizing the fact that Kant is hopelessly and for- 
ever cut off from the thing-in-itself, it is our main purpose in this 
article to show that the thing-in-itself is the foreign element — the 
prism — which gives our sensations that spectrum-spread which 
stands so much in need of an explanation. 

If we follow Kant himself in his vague and indefinite way of 
presenting the structure, claims, and workings of his machinery, 
and if we are satisfied with a merely general, hazy view of it, we 
are apt to be deluded into the admission that its elements contain 
the possibility of doing all that the actualities of experience re- 
quire it to do. For instance, in reference to the matter before us 
• — the spectrum-spread of our sensations — if we merely take a gen- 
eral view of the subject, we are apt to say to ourselves : " Yes, it 
matters very little whether space is outside or inside of us, pro- 
vided only that it be really space — that is, provided we grant it 
just the properties and appearances of this our every-day space 
with which we are familiar. And that much we can readily grant 
to a priori space; and then, if we project our sensations into such 
space, it is easy enough to imagine how each sensation assumes, 
on entering it, a definite form and size, a definite place, and a defi- 
nite relation to other sensations." But, by and by, we become sur- 
feited with vagueness and generalities, and suspicious of the con- 
clusions to which they have led us, and, taking the machinery of 
Kant into our own hands, we subject it to an actual practical test; 
and, now, we are amazed to find that it is utterly incompetent to 
do the simplest things that are required of it. In putting it to 
such a practical test, all that we have to do is to give it all the 
mechanism that is claimed for it — sense, time, space, categories — 
and all the materials, sensations, which it can get to work upon, 
and then see whether it can produce the results that are accredited 
to it, and that it must produce, or be pronounced a failure. This 
I shall now do. 

I now have before me one of Kant's psychical machines, perfect 
in all its parts, and all its parts — sense, time, space, categories — 
duly adjusted to each other. It is entirely new and untried; and. 



The Spectrum- spread of our Sensations. 199 

having had no previous experience, none of the results of experi- 
ence have been caught up into it or entangled with it, so as to 
assist or oppose it in its vs^orkings, or in any way influence or 
modify, mar or improve the results which it may produce. It has 
everything to learn, I lay before it a sheet of white paper on 
whicli there are a round blue spot and a round red spot, six inches 
apart — the blue spot, which is to the right, being one inch in di- 
ameter, and the red spot, which is to the left, being two inches in 
diameter. Now, what will Kant's machinery make out of all 
that? 

But stop a moment. I now see that I was hasty in giving all 
those materials, or any part of them, to Kant's machine to be 
worked up into results or products. Those materials are already 
products — products of my psychical machinery, working on crude 
materials — and therefore I must not hand over to Kant's ma- 
chine the very products which it is its business to produce also. 
I must simply give it the crude materials themselves, and see if it 
can work them up into the self-same products. If Kant's machine 
were a brick-machine, I would not feed it with bricks to see if it 
can make bricks, for in that case no machinery would be neces- 
sary. I would simply feed it with shapeless clay, and if it 
worked that up into bricks, I would admit that it is a brick-ma- 
chine, and accomplishes what it was made for, Now, that red 
spot, with a radius of two inches and a well-defined circumference, 
with positions and relative positions and with the red spread all 
over its surface, is already a finished brick — is already a finished 
product — a perception. The same is true of the blue spot, and of 
the very paper upon whicli they are drawn. Therefore I must 
not hand these products over to Kant's machine, but I must feed 
it with crude, amorphous, shapeless sensations, and see whether it 
can work them up into such definite red and blue spots, six inches 
apart, upon a sheet of white paper. With this justification of 
what I shall do, I remove the white paper, spots and all, from be- 
fore the machine where I had thoughtlessly placed them ; and I, 
moreover, remove everything else from before it, including the 
things-in-themselves. 

Perhaps Kant would say : " Then how is my machine to get its 
materials, its sensations, if you remove their very source or cause ? " 
To which I reply : " It is of no consequence to you how it gets 



200 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

them, particiilarlv as you do not really Tcnow how it gets them, or 
whence it gets them. And, if you did know, that knowledge, as 
you admit, can in no wise, either in whole or in part, be ingrafted 
upon those sensations so as to produce the faintest, feeblest shadow 
of a difference in the ultimate products into which they are worked 
up by your machinery. I have, however, been talking wide of the 
mark, and not at all to the point; but I have done so for the very 
purpose of isolating the point, when I do present it, from all sub- 
terfuges, shams, and mists that might otherwise obscure it. You 
yourself do claim, if not to hnoio, at least to strongly suspect that 
you know the whence of those sensations — namely, that they are 
caused by the things-in-themselves ; and you yourself do claitn to 
know, because you claim to have actually demonstrated (by, as you 
say, the only demonstration which is possible), the existence of the 
tliings-in-themselves. But the question now is, not what you know, 
or suspect that you know, about anything, but whether any or all 
of the elements (sense, time, space, and categories) which you have 
allowed your machine, do know or can know anything about the 
things-in-themselves, or their relations to sensations. And to that 
.question you are compelled to answer with me that they know 
nothing — absolutely and forever nothing — about them. Then you 
must admit that it will be just as well if I myself furnish your 
machine {grant your machine), as I shall presently do, all the 
crude, amorphous, shapeless sensations that the case requires, so 
that you need give yourself no further worry upon that point; and 
if this leaves you any other cause of worry (as it undoubtedly will), 
it is not my fault, but the fault of your machinery, as we shall 
presently see." 

Then, to begin with, I give (grant) Kant's machine, which is 
before me, a sensation, called blue, of a given intensity. Now, as 
a priori space is, according to Kant, the " necessary" and "in- 
variable" form of our sensations, that blue, the moment it is 
awakened in consciousness, at once enters space, and, taking on 
that necessary and invariable form, determines it, and is deter- 
mined by it. But how are that entrance and that determination 
effected ? The blue, as a sensation, occupying the whole of con- 
sciousness, has neither position nor relative positions in it, and, 
therefore, neither length, breadth, nor thickness. Thus situated 
and constituted, what position does it, or can it, assume in space? 



The Spectrum-spread of our Sensations. 201 

Where is it in space ? Space — the collapsed, unrealized space of 
our new and untried macliine — has as yet neither centre nor cir- 
cumference ; and, thei'efore, a sensation which is merely in it is 
really nowhere in it — in no determinate position in it — is neither 
in the centre nor the circumference, neither on the right hand nor 
the left, neither up nor down, neither north, south, east, nor west. 
Space, simply with the blue in it, is just as indeterminate as it 
was before the blue entered it ; and the blue, after entering it, is 
just as indeterminate — shapeless, formless, positionless — as it was 
before its entrance ; hence they have not determined each other, 
and therefore space is not yet consciously realized in any of its 
positions or dimensions. If space is related to the blue, conscious- 
ness does not yet know it ; or if space is something different 
from the blue, consciousness is not yet aware of it. So far as the 
blue is concerned, it might just as well be out of space as to be 
thus in it. The relation, therefore, of the blue to space and of 
space to the blue is null and void ; and we are utterly without 
any reason for saying that they are related, or even for saying that 
there is such a thing as space. And were space objective, as I be- 
lieve it to be, we would be no better situated with regard to it. 
Then the blue has not got into, and cannot get into, our a priori 
space, but is simply supposably in it, thougli consciousness is not 
aware of it ; and the blue is in no wise influenced, modified, de- 
fined, or determined by its "necessary" and "invariable" form — 
space — but is still the same crude, shapeless, positionless, non-ex- 
tended feeling that it was in the beginning when I fed it to Kant's 
machine. 

It is very obvious that, whether we regard a priori space as 
having either actual or potential positions and relative positions 
already in it, from the first, the blue cannot enter any one of 
them rather than another, and cannot fill or occupy any number 
of them definitely related into a particular form and size, rather 
than a diiferent number definitely related into a difi'erent form 
and size. There is nothing in the nature of the shapeless, position- 
less sensation that can determine it to occupy any particular posi- 
tion, or any number of related positions, that shall mould it into 
any particular form and size rather than another, or into any form 
and size whatever ; nor is there anything in the nature of space 
itself, even granting it positions and relative positions, that can 



202 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

determine such matters for the sensation ; and hence did we 
imagine it to determine them, such determination could onl}^ be 
an arbitrary one, wholly without reason, cause, or rule ; and there- 
fore the same sensation, similarly situated, could never be deter- 
mined twice alike — could never have the same form and size 
which it once had except b}' accident. But that blue which Kant's 
machinery is so incompetent to handle, and which, in fact, can- 
not even be got into his machinery, is the very same sensation 
which my psychical machinery has somehow spread apart and de- 
termined into a round spot one inch in diameter. How this is 
done it is not necessary for me to say now. It is sufficient for us 
to know that my psychical machiner}' — every one's psychical ma- 
chinery — can work that crude, shapeless feeling into that tinished 
product, while Kant's does not and cannot. 

The addition of one or more sensations to the one already given 
cannot make any difference in the result. If now I give (grant) 
the machine another sensation, say a red color, its relations to a 
priori space cannot be any dift'erent from those of the blue ; nor 
can their relations to each other, which would still leave them 
positionless and shapeless — make any difference in the result. The 
i"ed has neither position nor relative positions in consciousness, 
nor can it acquire them from any conceivable natural relation to 
space. There is no reason, cause, or rule why the red, in entering 
space, should take on any particular form or size rather than an- 
other, or even any form or size whatever ; nor is there any reason, 
cause, or rule why the red should part from the blue and assume 
any relative position either to the right or to the left of it, above 
or below it. Yet my psychical macliinery, whatever it may be, 
has done what Kant's cannot do, having placed the red six inches 
to the riglit of the blue, given it a detinite form, and spread it 
over a surface two inches in diameter. 

It may be said that my psychical machinery, whatever it may 
be, has different materials to operate upon from those (sensations 
only) which I have allowed Kant's ; and hence the difference in 
the results. This will be found to be true in a certain sense ; but 
it will also be found that those different materials, while they 
cause the very great difference in the results obtained, neverthe- 
less cannot possibly be granted to Kant's machine, and are ex- 
pressly repudiated and rejected by him as something which, not 



The Spectrum-spread of our Sensations. 203 

only cannot be obtained or granted, but, if granted or obtained, 
cannot possibly be used by his machine. It cannot be said by 
Kant, without a surrender of his a priori space and of the whole 
question under discussion, that sensations, though wholly sub- 
jective and mere shapeless, positionless feelings, yet, as they are 
caused by the things-in-themselves, must be freighted, branded, 
marked, or stamped somehow, with something, by the things-in- 
themselves, which something causes the sensations, when projected 
into space, to assume each its own special position and its own 
peculiar form, size, and relation of parts. 

Dr. Stirling, in endeavoring to help Kant out of the very diffi- 
culty here under discussion, finds himself necessitated to assume 
for him the very defence which, as above stated, and, as heretofore 
and hereafter shown, cannot be allowed him, and from which he 
is forever hopelessly cut off. Dr. Stirling says : " In asserting, 
too, that all objects of aposteriori knowledge must submit them- 
selves to these forms " (time and space), " it does not follow that 
the special form of each individual object is also to be considered 
as so due. How it is that a mountain has this shape, and a tree 
that one, does not depend on space, for example, but on the object- 
in-itself. That object-in-itself, however, we never can know ; we 
only know that, be its special form what it may, or, in obedience to 
its own transcendent or absolute nature (and transcendent is easily 
seen to be capable of being allowably replaced there by transcen- 
dental)^ let the special form it produces in us be what it may, that 
special form must still present itself as in subjection to the gen- 
eral laws of space. It is no objection, then, to say, This brick 
and that stone have each a shape of its own, which shape they 
cannot receive from space, for the answer is easy. We do not say 
that the special empirical form is due to space ; there is something 
in the object-in-itself which says the empirical form shall be this 
only, angl not another. Still, the special empirical production 
must obey the universal conditions of space and become — but only 
in its own way — spatial " (Text-book to Kant, pp. 45, 46). This 
defence, which is perhaps the only one that can be made for Kant, 
is by no means admitted by Dr. Stirling to be valid, but, on the 
contrary, is rejected by him as insufficient. And I believe that 
no one but an incorrigible Kantist, determined to hold on to a 
hopeless case, can ever be quieted while there rests upon his con- 



204 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

science the responsibility of adjusting that defence to the defence- 
less and indefensible position occupied by Kant. 

What has already been said in the course of this article is a 
sufficient reply to the above defence of Kant. Kant's objects, 
whether categorized or uncategorized, are, after all, only bundles 
of sensations, which, as we have seen, have neither position, form, 
nor size ; and hence his objects can have no " special form," no 
"empirical form" whatever. But, waiving this consideration for 
the present, I take it for granted that Kant must either accept Dr. 
Stirling's defence of him, or let the case go by default. If he 
accepts it, however, he must admit either (1) that the thing-in-itself 
is endowed^ or (2) that it is not endowed., with a special position, 
form, and size — to each of which admissions I shall devote a few 
words. 

1. If Kant admits that the thing-in-itself «s en<^6'^^)e^ with posi- 
tion, form, and size, then he must say that it somehow imparts or 
stamps them upon our sensations, thus blocking the latter out in 
consciousness as feelings having position, form, and size — exten- 
sion — and then the explanation of extension would be reduced to 
the naive explanation of Hamilton — namely, that we just open 
our eyes and see it — thus giving us extension independentl}' of 
a priori space, and therefore jeopardizing Kant's a priori space 
and with it his whole a priori system; and then also extension, 
in the realistic sense, is actually admitted into consciousness //'6»m 
without., and consciousness becomes an extended something. To 
this point, however, I shall presently return, although I have al- 
ready said enough, j^erhaps, to show that this first admission of 
Kant's lands him in the same quagmire as that from which Hamil- 
ton struggled in vain to extricate himself while carrying two 
kinds of space at the same time — that is, liis own objective, real- 
istic space, and the subjective, a priori space of Kant. One kind 
of space, however, is more than the most of us can handle. 

2. If Kant admits that the thing-in-itself is not endowed with 
position, form, and size, then he must say that it only awakens, 
in some mysterious and unknown way, a special position, form, 
and size for each sensation, just as it awakens the sensation itself 
in an equally mysterious and unknown way. But to say that the 
thing-in-itself has neither position, form, nor size would be simply 
a saying without a shadow of possible proof or pretence of proof; 



The Specttnim-spread of otir Sensations. i>05 

whereas I show that such position, form, and size are, in every 
act of perception, actually demonstrated to pertain to the thing- 
in-itself. And to saj that the thino;-in-itself does, in some myste- 
rious way, give each sensation a special position, form, and size is 
the same as to say that lie himself cannot explain that which, if 
true, gives us extension independently of a jjriori s\)nce, and thus 
again jeopardizes his a priori space, and with it his entire apriori 
system ; and which, moreover, if true, most needs an explanation 
at all risks and hazards ; but, as it is not true, the mystery is in- 
troduced to account for what is not a fact; for, as I have shown, 
it is not a fact that our sensations have, in reality, any such attri- 
butes. But the moment we get form and size — extension — as 
something outside of consciousness by the first admission, or fro7n 
something outside of consciousness, by the second admission, and 
hence, in both cases, independently of apriori space: or the mo- 
ment we get sensation with extension stamped upon it by the thing- 
in-itself, and hence also independently of a priori space, our a 
priori space becomes a useless appendage, a mere make-believe, 
which, instead of being the very condition of the possibility of our 
sensations, is itself derivable fi'om the very extension which the 
things-in-them selves have stamped upon those sensations. 

Moreover, whether Kant admits that the thing-in-itself is or is 
not endowed with position, form, and size, I think that I conclu- 
sively show in this article that he ought to admit that it is so en- 
dowed. The thing-in-itself, then, really having such attributes, the 
only way in which we can know them, according to Kant (and 
many others who are not Kantists), would be by intuition, just as 
we know our sensations. Now, if we know a thing by intuition, 
we know it just as it is — that is, it lies directly and immediately 
upon consciousness, with nothing interposed between it and con- 
sciousness. Hence, if the thing-in-itself is really extended, and if 
we know its extension by intuition, we know it just as it is, and it — 
the extension — lies directly and immediately upon consciousness, 
and consciousness must be an extended something. On the con- 
trary, if we do not know such extension of the thing-in-itself ^*w<s^ 
as it is, then we do not know it by intuition, but only know some- 
thing that is not like it — something, therefore, which is not it — 
and hence we do not know it at all. 

Finally, Kant's situation is rendered still more embarrassing by 



206 Ihe Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the fact that he is, as we have already shown in the outset of this 
discussion, and as he himself admits, wholly and forever cut off 
from all the fore<!;oing trafficking with the thing-in-itself, no matter 
what he may believe or disbelieve, admit or not admit, with regard 
to its attributes or properties. To Kant, then, every position is 
untenable, with quicksands and quagmires all around him. 

The foregoing facts and inferences of this article, if applied to 
any kind of subjective space, or even to any kind of objective space 
mei^ely, will show that space alone, whether subjective or objective, 
cannot be the element, the prism, which gives our sensations that 
spectrum-spread of our every-day perceptions ; and the reason, in 
brief, is because sensations and mere space can have no natural re- 
lation to each other, but only an arbitrarily assumed relation, 
which is really no relation at all. 

I think, therefore, that I have said enough to warrant the con- 
clusion that Kant's a priori space is a pillar of sand which the 
slightest breath levels to the ground, and, with it, the entire a 
priori edifice of transcendental idealism that rests upon it, tum- 
bles into ruins. 

It may finally be said in Kant's defence that, while his theory 
caimot account for that spectrum-spread of our sensations which 
is so obvious a fact in our every-day experience, and which all 
theories, therefore, must admit, yet, as no theory can explain it 
any better than his, they and his are upon a par with each other 
in that respect ; and therefore their relative value must be deter- 
mined by their relative merits in all other respects. It may be 
said, for instance, that, if the extension, real or apparent, of our 
sensations cannot be imparted to them by a priori space or any- 
thing subjective, then it must be imparted to them by something 
outside of consciousness, and hence by the things-in-themselves, 
which must be supposed to have extension to impart, else they 
could not impart it ; but if a priori space, even when granted 
positions and relative positions — extension — cannot possibly be so 
related or adjusted to sensations as to impart to them such posi- 
tions and relative positions, how can the things-in-themselves, even 
granting them also positions and relative positions, impart such to 
our sensations? To this I make the following reply, which will 
at the same time contain my own views of external perception so 
far as they pertain to the matter under discussion. 



The Spectrum-spread of our Sensations. 207 

The question, in brief, is this : Granting that space has posi- 
tions and relative positions, and granting the same to the thing- 
in-itself, how can the latter, which is apparently no better equipped 
for the task than space, nevertheless do what space evidently can- 
not do — namely, give sensations, positions, and relative positions, 
real or apparent ? Sensation, of course, must ever remain what it 
really is — namely, shapeless, positionless, non-extended feeling, 
which, consequently, neither space nor the thing-in-itself can ever 
really change into a thing of position and extension, form and 
size. Then, in this respect, space and the thing-in-itself are on a 
par — both being equally impotent. ^Neither of them, therefore, 
can be called upon for the genesis of anything but an apparent 
position, form, and size of our sensations. 

"We have already shown that a priori space cannot account for 
such apparent extension of our sensations, owing to the fact that 
there can be no natural relation between the two — space and sen- 
sations — but only an arbitrarily assumed relation for which there 
can be found, not only no cause or reason, but for which there 
actually is none ; and hence there is no rule which will enable 
us to say that the relation which is now assumed to exist will 
ever exist again even under similar circumstances, unless we again 
arbitrarily assume it to exist. In other words, a given sensation — 
say a red color — having no natural relation to any part of space 
more than to another, or to any particular length or breadth of 
space more than to another, it can occupy a definite position in 
space and a particular length and breadth in space only by our 
arbitrarily assuming that it so does, although we not only do 
not know how or why, but although we do know that there is 
no how or why about it except our bare assumption that it does. 
Yet the very failure to give that how and why is a confession of 
the failure oi a priori space to explain that which most needs an 
explanation, and which no other element or elements of Kant's 
machinery can explain, , 

On the other hand, as we shall presently show, a natural rela- 
tion is, in the act of perception, demonstrated ' (not intuited or 
felt) to exist between a sensation, say a red color, and a certain 

' I use the term " demonstrated " in its mathematical sense ; and in that sense I de- 
fine demonstration to be a process of obtaining, by means of two or more intuitions, 
knowledge which cannot be obtained by one intuition alone. 



208 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

part as well as a certain extent — length and breadth — of a thing- 
in-itself, an object ; and, as a result of that demonstrated rela- 
tion, the red assumes unavoidably the position, length and breadth 
of those parts of the thing-in-itself to which it is related, and 
thus determines and makes ]jerceivable such position, length and 
breadth of the thing-in-itself ; and at the same time the red, which 
is only shapeless, positionless, indeterminate, and non-perceivable 
feeling, by assuming the position, length and breadth of the thing- 
in-itself to which it is related, is also thus determined by them, 
and becomes perceivable with them ; and now the two — the sen- 
sation and the thing-in-itself — are perceived as a red, extended 
object. 

For instance, I now have a sensation called red — a mere amor- 
phous, shapeless feeling — which, occupying, as it does, the whole 
of consciousness, has neither position nor relative positions. That 
it exists as it is I know by intuition. This much I know there- 
fore. But, even if it has its source or origin in a thing-in-itself, I 
do not know it, and it itself — the sensation — can never tell me. 
And, more than that, it can never cause me to imagine, suspect, 
or conjecture that it has such a relation, or any relation whatever, 
to a thing-in-itself. Moreover, if it did cause that, such imagina- 
tion, suspicion, or conjecture could never be so incorporated with 
the sensation as to cause either the sensation or the thing-in-itself 
to be perceived in the way that they are perceived in our every- 
day experience. Such imagined, suspected, or conjectured rela- 
tion to a thing-in-itself would be as helpless, in that respect, as we 
have shown the relation of space and sensation to be. It would 
not be a known (either intuited or demonstrated) relation, but 
merely a suspected one, no better than an arbitrarily assumed one, 
which would be as helpless and as useless as we have shown such 
to be in the case of space. 

Now, with my positionless and shapeless red feeling in con- 
sciousness, I, with my hand, trace it to definite relations (not arbi- 
trarily assumed ones), to something upon which both sight and 
touch — both the red and the touch — are converged — something to 
which they are both related at the same time that they are related 
to each other — something without which they could not he related 
to each other in the manner in which they are unless they were 
also related to it in the manner in which they are. With my 



The Spectrum-spread of otir Sensations. 209 

touch and my feeling of red in this double relation, the demonstra- 
tion is obvious to me that they are related to something ; and also 
that they are related to a definite part of that something — a part 
which has a definite size and shape, or, in other words, which is 
round and two inches in diameter. I thus get by means of two 
intuitions (as in geometry) what I could not get by means of one 
alone — namely, demonstrated hnoivledge — demonstrated knowl- 
edge of the relation of my red feeling to definite positions of that 
something, a definite part of that something — object — and hence 
my red feeling seems round, like the portion of the object to which 
it is related ; two inches in diameter — that is, as large as the extent 
of that relation ; and spread upon the surface of the object to 
which it is related ; and now the red is known to me as some- 
thing perceived^ whereas before it was only known to me as 
something felt. 

The whole difficulty is centred right at this point of the double 
relation of the sensations of two or more of the senses to each 
other, and to the ohject ; and, when we see our way clearly out of 
this difficulty, we have solved the great problem of our perception 
— our demonstrated knowledge — of the existence and the exten- 
sion of objects, and, of course, of the positions and the extension — 
the spectrum-spread — of our sensations. At the risk, therefore, 
of being somewhat tedious, I beg leave to say a word or two more 
in further detail, although it is, perhaps, unnecessary. Let us now 
suppose that our red and our blue sensations are simultaneously in 
consciousness, and are, as a consequence, blended into one homo- 
geneous sensation. How is consciousness ever to know either the 
red or the blue, how distinguish them as difiering from each 
other, and how perceive them as separated from each other and 
as having each a particular position, form, and size ? Only through 
the help of the object and by the aid of another sense — that of 
touch, for instance, with which I trace the red, not to a relation 
to the whole surface of the paper, but to a limited part of it, which 
is round and two inches in diameter; and with which I similarly 
trace the blue, not to a relation to the whole surface of the paper, 
but to a limited part of it, which is round and one inch in diame- 
ter ; and also with which I trace the red to a position, or a part 
of the paper, which is to the right of, and six inches distant from, 
that part to which I trace the blue. 
XXII— 14 



210 The Journal of SpeGulative Philosophy. 

So far, then, as our sensations do take on the appearance of ex- 
tension and position, tliey owe such appearance, not to space, but 
to the object — the matter — to whose extension and positions they 
are related. Consequently, space has been handicapped with more 
than it can carry, both by those philosophers who regard it as sub- 
jectiv^e and those who regard it as objective, our ideas of exten- 
sion and position being primarily derived neither from sensation 
nor from space, subjective or objective, but from matter ; and 
hence space has extension and positions only because it is the nega- 
tion of matter. 

It is evident, from what has already been said, that the spectrum- 
spread of our sensations, whether it be real or apparent, is not only 
fatal to the Transcendental Idealism of Kant, as already shown, 
but is also equally fatal to all other forms of idealism under what- 
ever name known, as well as to every other attempted or con- 
ceivable explanation of what is called the external world, which 
either denies, or evades, or merely postulates the existence of a 
real external world, and which, moreover, does not admit and 
prove that that external world is in fact known to us by a method 
as valid and as irresistibly convincing as that of intuition, and 
which, finally, does not admit and prove that that external world 
is really perceived, and is, together with our sensations, actually 
combined into an object perceived and known in the manner 
which I have more fully explained in an article entitled " The 
Facts about External Perception," in the " Journal of Specula- 
tive Philosophy," October, 1885. 

In this and in my previous discussion of external perception 
in the " Journal of Speculative Philosophy " I have not attempted 
to give more than a skeleton outline of the subject, trusting to the 
reader to fill up the details. This I have done for the reason that 
I have had but one single object in view, which I did not wish to 
mix up or complicate with the discussion of other matters inci- 
dentally connected with it, the discussion of which might divert 
the reader's attention from the single point to which I wished to 
hold it. That point is this — namely, that the existence of the ex- 
ternal object as an extended something outside of consciousness is 
demonstrated to us, in the mathematical sense of the term, by the 
simultaneous convergence upon it of the sensations of two or more 
of the senses, such demonstration making us just as certain of the 



The S2)ectrum-spread of our Sensatio7is. 211 

existence of the extended object as we would be did we know it 
by intuition. If I have gained that point, I can well afford to let 
everything else that I have said go for naught ; and if I have 
failed to gain that point, all that I have written in the attempt 
must necessarily go for naught. It is for this reason that I have 
not gone into the details of the genesis of the ideas bf extension of 
space, and of the outward projection of objects. It is for this 
reason also that, in my illustrations of the demonstration of the 
extended object, I have endeavored to get along with the con- 
vergence of only two sensations upon the object. If, however, 
the reader thinks that more than two are required, I shall not op- 
pose him at present in his opinion ; for the main question which 
I desire settled now is this : Does convergence do the business — 
does the simultaneous convergence of two or more sensations upon 
the external object demonstrate its existence and its extension f 
If this question is settled in the negative, I need say no more upon 
the subject. If, however, it is decided in the affirmative, it will 
be time enough then to take up minor questions that may arise in 
connection with it — such as the question whether the demonstra- 
tion of the extended object requires the convergence of two, or of 
three, or of more sensations upon it. Hence, in my law of the 
object, I did not pretend to determine that matter, but left it 
open by saying " the convergence of two or more sensations." 

It may seem like an unnecessary reference to a very obvious 
truth if I remind the reader tliat we explain the unknown by the 
known; and that, therefore, correct classification is correct ex- 
planation. Now, the question is: How do we know the external, 
extended object of our perception ? My explanation is that we 
know it by the simultaneous convergence of two or more sensa- 
tions upon it. Then the further question arises : Since our sensa- 
tions alone give us no knowledge of the object, but only an intui- 
tive knowledge of themselves, how can we be any better off with 
two or more such subjective intuitions than with one? Of course, 
two or more such intuitions are not necessarily any better than 
one in helping us to a knowledge of the extended object. And 
did we pry and peer into such intuitions for any other intuitive 
knowledge than that which each one of them gives us, whether it 
be isolated or in relation to others, we should pry and peer for- 
ever in vain. But when I show that, in perception, two or more 



212 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

sensations are so related to each other and to the external ohject 
as to giv^e us, not a new, or a better, or a different intuition., but 
another method of knowing the object — namely, a demonstration — 
then I classify our hitherto unknown, unexplained process of per- 
ceiving extended objects with a known process called demonstra- 
tion. So far, "then, I have explained the unknown by the known ; 
and if, in classifying the process by which we perceive extended 
objects with the process of demonstration, I have classified it cor- 
rectly, then I have correctly explained it. 



THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 

BY MRS. ELLEN M. MITCHELL. 

Dialectic, in the higher sense of the word, is the science of true 
Being, the inquiry into Ideas. The Idea for Plato is the true 
Universal, the essence of things — that which abides uniform and 
self-identical amid all finite changes and contradictions. It is ap- 
prehended not by the senses, but by reason alone. All that the 
senses perceive is constantly changing, becoming ; no single mate- 
rial thing exists truly, for it depends on another and is self contra- 
dictory ; the true is not the sensible, but the intelligible world. 
" There are two sorts of things," says the TimcBus — " one tliat 
always is and becomes not, and one that always becomes and never 
is. The former — that, namely, which is always in the same state — 
is apprehended through reflection, by means of reason ; the other, 
again, which comes to be and ceases to be, but properly never is, 
is apprehended through opinion by means of perception, and 
without reason." One is the archetypal Idea, the other is its im- 
perfect copy. We are led to the first when we look for the ulti- 
mate end of the second ; that which is fair and good in the finite 
world can only become so through participation in Infinite Beauty 
and Goodness. This particular rose wuth its bloom and fragrance 
is a transitory image of the universal rose that never fades. Every- 
thing points to the Idea as the cause of its existence; the Ideal is 
the onlv Peal. 



The Platonic Dialectio. 213 

Hegel distinguishes between the higher form of dialectic em- 
ployed by Plato and that which he used in common with Socrates 
and the Sophists. In some of the dialogues dialectic is apparently 
an art of proceeding against the common notions of men by show- 
ing what contradictions they contain, and how inadequate they 
are as scientific knov/ledge. Its purpose is to direct men to search 
for what is instead of what appears / but its result is negative 
and destructive. That Plato appreciated the danger involved in 
this use of dialectic is evident from the advice given in the Re- 
jnihlic^ that citizens should not be initiated into the art before 
they had completed their thirtieth year. But there is a positive 
side even to this form of dialectic, which consists in bringing to 
consciousness the Universal bv a classification of the notions an- 
alyzed under one general view. Plato frequently seems a little 
tedious to modern thought in this procedure, because the abstrac- 
tions at which he arrives are part of our intellectual inherit- 
ance. " The dialectic as speculative is the Platonic dialectic 
proper," says Hegel, as translated by a recent writer ; " it does not 
end with a negative result, but presents the union of antithetic 
sides which have annulled each other. . . . What Plato seeks in 
the dialectic is the pure thought of the reason, from which he 
very carefully discriminates the understanding. One can have 
thought concerning many things if he has thought at all ; but 
Plato does not mean this sort of thoughts. The true speculative 
greatness of Plato — that through which he makes an epoch in the 
history of philosophy, and consequently in the world-history in 
general — is the more definite comprehension of the Idea; an in- 
sight which some centuries later constitutes the fundamental ele- 
ment in the ferment of the world-history and in the new organic 
form of the human spirit." 

Plato's dialectic starts from that of Socrates, but he unites in 
his thought all the principles of the earlier philosophers, dissolving 
their contradictions by means of that higher insight into truth 
contained in his theory of Ideas. He derives from Heraclitus 
the doctrine that sensuous things are perpetually changing ; to the 
Eleatics he owes the conception of absolute being ; from Socrates 
he learns to seek the universal in the determination of concepts, 
and comes to the conclusion, as Aristotle says, that this procedure 
must refer to something different from sense, " for sensible things 



214: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

being always liable to change, cannot be universally defined." 
That which exists absolutely and which is alone the object of 
knowledge he calls Ideas. The sensuous manifold which we per- 
ceive is what it is by virtue of participation in Ideas. The visible 
is but an adumbration of the invisible ; sense reflects imperfectly 
the reality of thought. Ideas are the eternal prototypes of Being ; 
from them all other things are copied. They belong to the spirit- 
ual and not to the material world ; they are accessible to reason 
alone, and can neither be seen nor apprehended by sense and un- 
derstanding. In the Symposium Plato defines the Idea of the 
Beautiful, and shows how one may be guided from the love of its 
imperfect copies in the world of sense, on and on, with increasing 
apprehension of the truth, until at last, purified of earthly leaven, 
he sees what the essence of Beauty is, and beholds its divine Idea, 
the Infinite Cause of all that is fair and lovely in earth or heaven. 
" But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty — the divine 
beauty I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with 
the pollutions of mortality, and all the colors and vanities of hu- 
man life — thither looking, and holding converse with the true 
beauty divine and simple, and bringing into being and educating 
true creations of virtue and not idols only ? Do you not see that 
in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the 
mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but 
realities ; for he has hold not of an image, but of a reality, and 
bringing forth and educating true virtue to become the friend of 
God and be immortal, if mortal man may ?" 

Ideas are present in the mind of every individual, but few are 
aware of their existence or know anything of their nature and 
character. The special function of dialectic is to make us con- 
scious of their presence, and to purify our thinking by directing it 
toward the true aim of human activity — the spiritual rather than 
the material. Education is not only useful information, but an 
illumination and purification of the soul. 

In the Second Book of the " Republic " Plato explains the nature 
of dialectic, and the training that is necessary to draw the soul up- 
ward. Arithmetic and geometry prepare the mind for true sci- 
ence by teaching it how to deal with abstractions apart from sen- 
sible objects. Yet mathematics is but a dream and an hypothesis, 
never analyzing its own principles in order to attain true knowl- 



The Platonic Dialectic. 215 

edge. Dialectic, and dialectic alone, is the only science which 
does away with hypothesis in order to establish them, and teaches 
the eye of the soul, buried in the slough of ignorance, to look up- 
ward, using as handmaids in the work of conversion the other 
sciences. Dialectic may be further defined as the science which 
explains the essence of each thing, which distinguishes and abstracts 
the conception of the good, and is ready to disprove all objections, 
not by appeals to opinion, but to true existence. This is the sci- 
ence without which man apprehends only shadows, and, dreaming 
and slumbering in this life, reaches its end before he is well 
awake. 

To become conscious that one can not think a sensation with- 
out passing beyond it to the Idea which lies at its basis, is a dis- 
covery that summons the human intellect to put forth its utmost 
capacities. To think is to pass from the singular or particular to 
the Idea or the Universal. Before me lie a rose and a lily, and I 
apprehend that each is like and unlike the other. But whence 
comes this apprehension ? Can resemblance and difference be seen 
or touched or perceived by any of the senses ? Are they not uni- 
versal relations which can only be apprehended by the intellect ? 
Are they not laws of thought without which intelligence could not 
operate % Can we think at all except under the condition of re- 
semblance and difterence, of genus and species? Can we know 
anything of a world that is not constructed in conformity with 
these Ideas? Are not the laws of thought objective as well as 
subjective ; are they not universal, necessary ? 

Absolute and universal truth, according to Plato, must address 
itself to all intellect, and he therefore argues that Ideas are the 
truest realities, because they are the principles without which there 
could be neither intelligence nor the object of intelligence. The 
world of thought is the actual world itself ; it alone exists truly, 
and is capable of being known. It does not lie outside of reality, 
it is not beyond in heaven or elsewhere, it is here and now, eternal 
and divine in its nature. To become conscious of its presence we 
have only to develop our inner capacities, to see with the eye of 
the mind. " Ideas are to be reached only in and through scientitic 
cognition," says Hegel ; " they are immediate intuitions only in so 
far as they consist of the simple results which scientific cognition 
arrives at by its processes." 



216 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Science, the knowledge of that which is in truth, is, therefore, 
distinguished from opinion. Plato, in the Republic, says that 
opinion is the middle ground between ignorance and know^ledge, 
and that its content is a mingling of being and nought. The 
subject-matter of opinion is the world of sensuous objects, the 
individual which at the same time is and is not, since it only par- 
ticipates in Ideas, and reflects tliera imperfectly. Can we say of 
any finite thing that it is absolutely large or small, light or heavy ? 
It is not merely one of these opposites, but also the other ; as, for 
instance, in the " Phsedo " Simmias is large in comparison with Soc- 
rates, small in comparison with Phaedo. But the idea of large- 
ness remains what it is permanently, and is never at the same time 
identical with smallness. Only the idea can be known ; for of 
that which is constantly changing we may have opinion, but not 
knowledge. Opinion refers to the material, knowledge to the im- 
material. To assume that the two are identical is to become a ma- 
terialist; to distinguish betw^een them is to acknowledge the exist- 
ence of Ideas, unchangeable and imperishable. 

The nature of knowledge, as opposed to perception and opinion, 
is considered at length in the " Theaetetus." The definition that 
" knowledge is sensible perception " is first analyzed. This is 
soon identified with the saying of Protagoras, that " Man is the 
measure of all things." " Things are to me as they appear to me, 
and to you as they appear to you." Suppose the same wind blow- 
ing in our faces ; it is hot or cold, according to your feeling or to 
mine. Feeling, perception, appearance, are identical with being 
and knowledge. But if truth is only sensation, and one man's 
discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own 
judge, and everything that he judges is right and true, why should 
we go for instruction to Protagoras, or know less than he, or refuse 
to believe the contradictory proposition, that " Every man is not the 
measure of all things?" Would not Protagoras have to contra- 
dict himself, and admit the truth of what his opponents advance, 
if every man perceives and feels correctly ? How could there be 
anj' difference in the judgments of men about the future? Yet 
we admit practically that only the wise man knows what is expe- 
dient for the future. The farmer is a better judge of the prospect- 
ive harvest than the man who knows nothing of farming. Pro- 
tagoras himself is a better judge of the probable eflect of a speech 



The Platonic Dialectic. 217 

than an indiiferent person. Finally, if the objects of sensation are 
constantly moving and changing, as Protagoras asserts, how is it 
possible to fix them even for an instant? Is not perception itself 
annihilated? "What can be predicated of that which is in a per- 
petual flux ? 

It has been said that Plato interprets Protagoras one-sidedly, but 
the truth remains that knowledge is something more than sensible 
perception, or, in Plato's own words, " Knowledge does not con- 
sist in impressions of sense, but in reasoning about them; in that 
only, and not in the mere impression, truth and being can be 
attained." We cannot apprehend, either through hearing or 
through sight, that which they have in common. To compare one 
sensation with another implies a principle which is above sensa- 
tion. To combine sensations in the unity of self-consciousness is 
a purely intellectual act. Through what organ of the body 
would one perceive mathematical and other abstractions, unity 
and multiplicity, sameness and difference, likeness and nnlikeness, 
and the most universal of all being? We know a thing to be 
hard or soft by the touch, but the essential being of hardness or 
softness, their opposition to each other and the nature of the 
opposition, is slowly learned by reflection and experience. 

Knowledge, then, is not perception, and must be sought else- 
where ; is it correct opinion ? The Greek word for opinion {hbl^a)^ 
like the German Meinung'iiU^ Yorstellung ^ is diflicult to translate. 
It is used in various senses by Plato, and is explained by one com- 
mentator as crude conception, feeling, instinctive conviction. 
But these terms do not exhaust its meaning, as is evident from the 
following passage : " The Soul when thinking appears to me to be 
just talking — asking questions of herself and answering them, 
aflirming and denying. And when she has arrived at a decision, 
either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has at last agreed, 
and does not doubt, this is called her opinion." Plato, however, 
proves that opinion is not knowledge, and the dialogue ends with- 
out reaching the definition sought. But the light thrown on the 
subject, though indirect, is none the less valuable. 

The work begun in the ThecBtetus is continued in the Sophist, 
where Plato investigates the ideas of motion and rest, of being 
and non-being. The Sophist is the imaginary representative of 
false opinion. But falsehood is that which is not, and therefore 



218 The Journal of Speculative PJdlosophy. 

has no existence. If we admit that falsehood exists, we presuppose 
the conception of non-being; for only that opinion can be named 
false " which asserts the non-existence of things which are, and the 
existence of things which are not." The same difficulty occurs if 
we define the Sophist as the imitator of appearance and not of 
reality. How can he imitate that which is not ? The argument 
again asserts the existence of non-being, which is positively de- 
nied by Farmenides and the Eleatics. 

Parmenides affirms that all things are one, that we cannot per- 
ceive the many because the many are not, that plurality and 
change, space and time, are merely illusions of the senses. Plato, 
on the other hand, seeks to establish the reality of non-being, ex- 
plaining it as the other of being, both of which belong to all 
things. Non-being is negation, and is essential to any distinction. 
It becomes, as it were, positive in relation to that to which it is 
opposed. The not-large is as real as the large, darkness is as real 
as light, cold as heat. In relation to itself, light is ; in relation to 
darkness, is not ; to know what it is we must know what it is not ; 
negation is as necessary as affirmation. True being contains dif- 
ference as well as identity, being for others as well as for self. 
The being of the Eleatics is altogether exclusive ; the being of 
Plato is altoojether inclusive. 

In opposition to the Eleatics, the Sophists hold fast to non- 
being, which is the standpoint of sensation, or the many. This 
view leads to materialism, to the belief of those who, according to 
Plato, " are dragging down all things from heaven and from the 
unseen to Earth, and seem determined to grasp in their hands rocks 
and oaks ; of these they lay hold, and are obstinate in maintain- 
ino; that the thino^s only which can be touched or handled have 
being or essence, because they define being and body as one ; and 
if any one says that what is not a body exists, they altogether 
despise him, and will hear of nothing but body." Plato repre- 
sents their opponents as " cautiously defending themselves from 
above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that true es- 
sence consists of certain intelligible incorporeal ideas ; the bodies 
which the materialists maintain to be the very truth, they break 
up into little bits by arguments, and afiirm them to be generation 
and not essence." These " friends of ideas," as Plato terms them, 
assert that neither motion, nor life, nor soul, nor mind, are pres- 



The Platonic DlaleGtiG. 219 

ent with absolute being ; that to it belongs neither activity nor 
passivity. But Plato argues forcibly against this doctrine of an 
" everlasting fixtui-e in awful nnmeaningness," that the Divine 
Reason could exist nowhere, nor in any one, if it were unmoved, 
and had neither life, nor soul, nor thought. If we are to partici- 
pate in being, we must act upon it, or be acted upon by it ; if we 
are to know being, a capacity for becoming known must corre- 
spond to our facult}^ of knowledge. It is as difficult to conceive 
being as non-being, if the two are held in utter isolation. Non- 
being is the principle of the other which runs through all things. 
In spite of Parmenides, who says " ISTon-being never is, and do 
thou keep thy thoughts from this way of inquiry," Plato proves 
that there is " a communion of classes, and that being, and dif- 
ference or other, traverse all things, and mutually interpenetrate, 
so that the other partakes of being, and is, by reason of this par- 
ticipation, and yet is not that of which it partakes, but other, and 
being other than being, is clearly and manifestly not-being. And 
again being, through pai'taking of the other, becomes a class other 
than the remaining classes, and being other than all of them, is 
not each one of them, and is not all the rest, so that there are 
thousands and thousands of cases in which being is not as well as 
is, and all other things, whether regarded individually or collect- 
ively, in many respects are, and in many respects are not." The 
concept of motion, for instance, excludes that of rest, but both 
participate in being. Each is identical with itself, but the other 
of the other. So far as concepts are alike, the being denoted by 
one belongs to the other ; so far as they are different, the con- 
trary is the case, and the being of the one is the non-being of the 
other. The concept, man, for instance, includes all those con- 
cepts which distinguish him as an animal, and those also which 
separate him from other animals, but it excludes an infinite num- 
ber of concepts which are other and different from man. Thus, 
in every being there is also a non-being — the difference. He 'u 
the master of true dialectic who sees clearly the reciprocal rela- 
tion of concepts, and knows what classes have and have not com- 
munion with one another. But he who is always bringing for- 
ward oppositions in argument has got but a little way in the in- 
vestigation of truth. The attempt at universal separation is the 
annihilation of reason, for thought consists in the uniting of ideas. 



220 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

The identity of being and non-being, established in the Sophist, 
constitutes, according to Hegel, the true point of interest in Pla- 
tonic philosophy. " As for the imagination," he says (in the men- 
tioned translation), " it is well enough to arouse it and animate it 
with representations of the Beautiful and the Good ; but the think- 
ing cognition asks after a definite statement regarding the nature 
of this Eternal and Divine. And the nature of this Eternal and 
Divine is, essentially, free determination alone, and the being 
determined does not in any way interfere with its universality — a 
limitation (for every determination is limitation) which, neverthe- 
less, leaves the Universal in its infinitude free ])y itself. Freedom 
exists only in the Return-into-itself ; the undistinguished is life- 
less ; the active, living, concrete Universal is, therefore, that which 
distinguishes itself within itself, but remains free in this process. 
This determinateness consists only in this : that the One is self- 
identical in its other, in the Many, in the Different." 

The Par7nenides,h J a more abstract and elaborate dialectic, at- 
tains the same result as the Soj)hist. Parmenides is the chief 
speaker, and his conclusion that the One is not thinkable without 
the Many, nor the Many without the One, is opposed to the Ele- 
atic doctrine. But Plato may have regarded his theory of Ideas 
as a development of the Eleatic conception of Beings, and a con- 
ciliation of its contradictory elements. In the first part of the 
discussion, where Parmenides assails the theory, Plato anticipates 
in the most wonderful way the criticism of after-ages, and touches 
on the deepest problem of philosophy, the connection between the 
Ideas in us and the Absolute Idea, between the human and the 
divine. Concerning the unity of the One and the Many, Socra- 
tes says : " I should be surprised to hear that the genera and spe- 
cies had opposite qualities in themselves ; but if a person wanted 
to prove to me that I was many and one, there would be no mar- 
vel in that. When he wanted to show that I was mau}^ he would 
say that I have a right and a left side, and a front and a back, 
and an upper and a lower half, for I cannot deny that I partake 
of multitude; when, on the other hand, he wants to prove that I 
am one, he will say that we who are here assembled are seven, 
and that I am one and partake of the one, and in saying both he 
speaks truly. ... If, however, as I was suggesting just now, we 
were to make an abstraction, I mean of like, unlike, one, many. 



The Platonic Dialectic. 221 

rest, motion, and similar ideas, and then to show that these in 
their abstract form admit of admixture and separation, I should 
greatly wonder at that." Parmenides admires the noble and 
divine ardor with which the youthful Socrates pursues philoso- 
phy, not holding fast to the sensuous, but to concepts which are 
seized by thought alone. But he advises Socrates to practise dia- 
lectic, and to consider not only what follows from assuming a 
determination, but what follows from assuming its opposite. 
This leads to the second and most important part of the dialogue — 
the dialectical treatment of the One and the Many by Parmeni- 
des himself. It is first proved that the One that cannot be 
Many is not even One, that it is " neither named, nor uttered, nor 
conceived, nor known," and that the reality of the Many, apart 
from the One, is also unthinkable. The hypothesis that " The 
One is not " is equally impossible to thought, and the conclusion 
is reached that " whether One is or is not. One and the Others in 
relation to themselves and one another, all of them in every way, 
are and are not, and appear and appear not." " Tiie One is the 
Totality— All that 18 — Being and Non-Being — One and Many," 
to quote the words of Mr. S. li. Emery, in his able exposition 
of the Parmenides.^ published in the " Journal of Speculative 
Philosophy." 

" The negative series of propositions contains the first negation 
of a negation," says Professor Jowett. " Two minus signs in 
arithmetic or algebra make a plus. Two negations destroy each 
other. This subtle notion is the foundation of the Hegelian 
logic. The mind must not only admit that determination is nega- 
tion, but must get through negation into affirmation. . . . That 
Plato and the most subtle philosopher of the nineteenth century 
should have lighted upon the same notion is a singular coinci- 
dence of ancient and modern thought." 

True being must be defined as a unity which includes in itself 
multiplicity. All things draw their existence from the One and 
Many, and contain the Finite and Infinite as a part of their na- 
ture. The phenomenal world derives its reality from that which 
shines into it — Ideas. Plato does not deny, but explains actual 
existence. The plurality of the phenomenon is sustained and 
comprehended in the unity of the Idea. 

In the Philehus Plato distinguishes four determinations of 



222 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

existence — the infinite, or unlimited, tbe limited, the union of the 
two, and the cause of the union. To the cause he ascribes reason 
and wisdom ; it is the Divine Providence, everywhere adapting 
means to ends ; the Absolute, comprehending in itself the finite 
and infinite. " The distinction of the absolute and relative 
forms the logical groundwork of Plato's whole system," says 
Zeller; "for tlie Idea exists in and for itself ; the phenomenon, 
and to the fullest extent matter, only in relation to something 
else." 

But, in bridging the chasm between thought and sense, between 
Ideas and phenomena, Plato is not always consistent with him- 
self. At one time he describes the outward world as if it w^ere 
mere subjective appearance ; at another he demands that the 
meanest material existence shall not be left without an Idea. He 
struggles against this dualism, but does not overcome it wholly. 
That the essence of things is the same as the divine essence is im- 
plied in his speculations, although in the Timceus^ as Hegel says, 
"the two appear distinct from each other — God AND the es- 
sence of things." 

Plato also expressed the union of the One and tlie Many by 
describing the Ideas as numbers. That Ideas are nothing: but 
numbers is a view ascribed to Plato by Aristotle, but not found 
in the dialogues, and therefore unsubstantiated. 

The Platonic Ideas are so related as to form a graduated series 
and organism, combining, excluding, or participating in one 
another in all conceivable ways. The lower presuppose the high- 
er, and the highest of all, without presupposition, is the Idea of 
the Good, which gives to everything whatever worth it possesses. 
As the sun in tiie visible world enlightens the eye and reveals 
things seen, everywhere causing growth and increase, so in the in- 
visible w^orld the Good is the source of truth and of knowledge. 
It is represented as the goal of human activity, the ultimate end 
of the world, the source of reality and reason. It is higher than 
the Idea of Being; everything that is and is knowable has re- 
ceived from God its existence and its ability to be known. Plato 
clearly asserts in the Philebus that the Divine Reason is none 
other than the Good, and identifies it in the ThncBus with 
the Creator and World-builder. But God as a person is not 
separated in his thought from the Idea of the Good. To attribute 



Boolis Received. 223 

to an Idea the highest active energy and reason is more incon- 
ceivable to modern than to ancient thought. 

Plato identifies religion with philosoplij ; God, in an absolute 
sense, is not distinct from the highest of the Ideas. He recog- 
nizes the gods of the popular religion, but places above them One 
who is all-wise and all-powerful, creating the world because he is 
good, and ruling it b}' the supremacy of his reason. From his 
goodness he deduces his unchangeableness ; for that which is per- 
fect can neither be changed by another, nor alter in itself. God 
is wanting in nothing that is fair and excellent ; he is able to do 
whatever can be done at all ; his wisdom is seen in the perfect 
adaptation of means to ends ; he is absolute goodness and justice. 
To worship God is to seek to be like him, to create in ourselves 
his image. Philosophy is not mere abstract speculation ; it is 
love and life, the filling of the soul with the true and Infinite. 
Dialectic, the development of the method by which truth is ascer- 
tained, is inseparably united with moral culture. Plato teaches 
us to open the inward eye and see that which is in reality, turn- 
ing awa}' the thought and inclination from the sensible to the in- 
telligible world. The discipline of dialectic is moral as well as 
intellectual : the hig-hest insight that it enables us to attain is the 

7 ~ CD 

object of religion as well as of philosophy, the Idea of God as Ab- 
solute Goodness. 



BOOKS EECEIYED. 



Scientific Religion, or Higher Possibilities of Life and Practice through the Operation 
of Natural Forces. By Laurence Oliphant. AVith an Appendix by a Clergyman of the 
Church of England. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1888. 

The Philosophy of Kant, as Contained in Extracts from his Own Writings. Selected 
and translated by John Watson, LL. D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Univer- 
sity of Queen's College, Kingston, Canada, Author of " Kant and his English Critics." 
Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons, Publishers to the University. 1888. New York: 
Macmillan & Co. 

Studies in the Out-lying Fields of Psychic Science. By Hudson Tuttle. Author of 
" Arcana of Nature," " Origin and Development of Man," etc. New York : M. L. Hol- 
brook & Co. 



22i The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. By Margaret 0. W. Oliphant. Boston: Rob- 
erts Brothers. 1889. 

Principles of the Economic Philosophy of Society, Government, and Industry. By 
Van Buren Denslow, LL. D. Cassell & Company, Limited, 104 & 106 Fourth Avenue. 
New York. 

Harmony of Natural Law and Frce-Will. Dissertation on the Philosophy of Kant, 
By Alfred Cook, Ph. D. Bloomington, 111. 1888. 

Plays : Sibyl. Telemachus. ^Eneas. By Charles Gildehaus. St. Louis : John L. 
Boland Book and Stationary Co. 1888. 

The Anointed Seraph. "The Last Made First." By G. H. Pollock. Volume I. 
John F. Sheiry, Printer and Publisher, 623 D St., X. W., Washington. 1888. 

Leibnitz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding. A Critical Exposition. 
By John Dewey, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the University of Michi- 
gan and Professor (Elect) of Mental and Moral Philosophy in the University of Minne- 
sota. Griggs's " Philosophical Classics." Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Company. 1888. 

The Evolution of Immortality, or Suggestions of an Individual Immortality based 
upon our Organic and Life History. By C. T. Stockwell. Chicago : Charles H. Kerr & 
Company. 1887. 

Poetry, Comedy, and Duty. By C. C. Everett, D. D., Bussey Professor of Theology 
in Harvard University. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Company. The 
Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1888. 

Logic, or the Morphology of Knowledge. By Bernard Bosanquet, M. A., formerly 
Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford. In Two Volumes. Oxford : At the 
Clarendon Press. 1888. 

Elements of Mental Science. Being a Comprehensive Exposition of the Phenomena 
of the Human Mind considered in its General Characteristics, in its Particular Func- 
tional Activities, and as an Organic Whole. By Henry N. Day, Author of " Psychology," 
" Esthetics," " Logic," " Ethics," " Philosophy of Thought and Being," " English Lit- 
erature," " Art of Discourse," etc. Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Company, Publishers, 
New York and Chicago. 

Eating for Strength ; or. Food and Diet in their Relation to Health and Work, to. 
gether with Several Hundred Recipes for Wholesome Foods and Drinks. By M. L. 
Holbrook, M. D. New York : M. L. Holbrook & Co. 

Le phenomene esquisse de philosophic generale. Par J. J. Gourd, Professeur ^ 
I'universite de Geneve. Paris: Felix Alean, Editeur, 108, Boulevard Saint-Germain. 
1888. 

Esquisse d'une philosophic de Tetre. Par J.-E. Alaux, Professeur de philosophic a 
I'Ecole des lettres d' Alger. Paris : Felix Alcan, Editeur, 108, Boulevard Saint-Germain. 
1888. 

L'idealisme en angleterre an xviii si^cle. Par Georges Lyon, Ancien el^ve de I'Ecole 
normale superieure, Agrege de philosophic, Professeur an lycee Henri IV, Docteur Ss 
lettres. Paris: Felix Alcan, I?lditeur, 108, Boulevard Saint-Germain. 1888. 

The Practical Bearing of Speculative Philosophy. An Address delivered before the 
Aristotelian Society, October 10, 1881. By Shadworth H. Hodgson, Hon. LL. D. Edin,, 
President. 1881. 



THE JOURNAL 



OF 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 



\^oL. XXII. I^To. 3.] [Whole No. 87. 

AKISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. 

A TRANSLATION OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK, BY THOMAS DAVIDSON. 

Pkefatoky Note. 

The eleventh book of the Metaphysics forms a treatise by itself, 
and contains the profoundest doctrines of Aristotle's philosophy — 
doctrines which have exercised, and are still exercisino-, an untold 
intiuence upon the world. In the following translation, which 
forms part of a lirst draft of a complete version of the Metaphys- 
ics — soon, I hope, to be published— I have sought to make the 
writer's meaning as clear as I could, without converting ray work 
into a paraphrase. Instead of accompanying it with the commen- 
tary, which will necessarily be very extensive, I have added, for 
the benetit of those not familiar with Aristotle's language, a brief 
vocabulary, arranged alphabetically, of the more important techni- 
cal terms occurring in this b(^ok. Although, in translating, I have 
had before me two Latin and two German versions, and several 
commentaries, including those of Alexander of Aphrodisias, 
Bonitz, and Schwegler, I am well aware how imperfect my work 
is, and I shall be tliankful to any student of Aristotle who will 
suggest corrections, or better forms of expression than those I 
have used- 

XXII— 15 



226 TJ^e Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Chapter I. 

The subject of theory [or speculative science] is essence. In it 
are in\'estigated the princii)les and causes of essences. 

The truth is, if the All be regarded as a whole, essence is its 
first [or highest] part. Also, if we consider the natural order of 
the categories, essence stands at the head of the list ; then comes 
quality ; then quantity. It is true that the other categories, 
such as qualities and movements, are not in any absolute sense 
at all, and the same is true of [negatives, such as] not-white or 
not-straight. Nevertheless, we use such expressions as: "Not- 
white is." 

Moreover, no one of the other categories is separable [or inde- 
pendent]. This is attested by the procedure of the older philoso- 
phers ; for it was the principles, elements, and causes of essence 
that were the object of their investigations. The thinkers of the 
present day, to be sure, are rather inclined to consider universals 
as essences. For genera are universals, and tliese they hold to 
be princi]jles and essences, mainly because their mode of investi- 
gation is a logical one. The older philosophers, on the other 
hand, considered particular things to be essences — e. g., fire and 
earth, not body in general. 

There are three essences. Two of these are sensible, one being 
eternal and the other transient. The latter is obvious to all, 
in the forms of plants and animals; with regard to the former, 
there is room for discussion, as to whether its elements are one or 
many. The third, differing from the other two, is immutable and 
is maintained by certain persons to be separable. Some make 
two divisions of it, whereas others class together, as of one nature, 
ideas and mathematical entities, and others, again, admit only the 
latter. The first two essences belong to physical science, for they 
are subject to change ; the last belongs to another science, if 
there is no ])i-inciple common to all. 

Chapter II. 

Sensible essence is mutable [or changeable]. If, then, change 
is between opposites or intermediates, though not between all 
opposites indiscriminately (for sound is not-white), but between 
contraries [in the same genus], there must be an underlying 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. ''2'^T 

something that changes into contrariety, for the contraries 
themselves do not change. Further, this underlying something 
persists in the change, whereas the opposite does not persist. 
Besides the opposites, therefore, there is a tliird something — 
matter. 

If, as we have maintained, there are four^sorts of changes — in 
quiddity, quality, quantity, and locality — and if change in quid- 
dity is simple birth and decay ; change in quality, mutation ; change 
in quantity, growth, and decay, and change in locality, locomotion, 
changes will take place into the respective opposites. But if any 
such change is to take place, the matter must be capable of as- 
suming the opposite attributes. 

Since being is twofold, eyery change is a change from poten- 
tial being to actual being—*?, j/., from potential white to actual 
white, and the same is true of growth and decay. Hence, not 
only may the accidental spring from non-being, but [from another 
point of view] all generation is from being — potential being, how- 
ever, and not actual being. And this [potential being] is the One 
of Anaxagoras (better than his " all things together ") and the 
" mixture " of Empedocles and Anaximander. And, as Democritus 
says, " all things were together in their dynamic, but not in their 
actual state." Hence these philosophers had risen to a conception 
of matter. Everything that changes has matter, though all things 
not have the same matter. The same is true of thtise eternal 
things which, though ungenerated, have locomotion ; nevertheless, 
their matter is not generated, but is conditioned by whence and 
whether. 

One might be in doubt about what sort of non-being it is from 
which generation takes place; for the phrase " non-being" may 
be used in three senses. When we say that a thing is potentially, 
we do not mean that each potentiality is all potentiality. Nor is 
it proper to say "All things were together." For things differ in 
their nuitter; for how otherwise should they have become bound- 
less in number, and not one ? For the Intelligence is one, and if 
the matter were also one, the result would have i)een in actuality 
what the matter was potentially. Three, then, are the causes 
and three the principles ; two of them form opposition — namely, 
the idea or form and the privation ; and the third is matter. 



228 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Chapter III. 

We must next show that neither form nor matter (I mean the 
primal ones) is generated. All change is of something, by some- 
thing, to something. That by which change is effected is the 
Prime Mover ; that which is clianged is matter ; that into wliich 
it is changed is form. For we should have to go on to inlinitv, if 
not onlv the bronze became round, but the round or the bronze 
also became, or were generated. We must certainly stop some- 
where. 

iN^ext, we must show that every essence is generated by an 
agency bearing the same appellation as itself. For example, 
natural essences are due to nature [artificial essences to art], and 
so on. For essences are due either to art or nature, or else to 
chance and spontaneity. Art is principle in another; nature is 
principle in itself. For man begets men. The other causes are 
privations of these. 

There are three essences — (1) matter, which is a this [is indi- 
vidualized] by appearing; for the things wliich exist by mere con- 
tact and not by concretion are matter and substance ; (2) nature, 
which is also a this, into which things pass, and a sort of having; 
(3) the result of those, the individual essence, as Callias or Soc- 
rates. In the case of some things there is no this, or individual, 
besides the composite essence; for example, there is no form for a 
house except that due to art. Nor is there any generation or de- 
cay in the case of these, but the matterless house, and health, and 
everything due to art have another mode of being and not-being 
[than that of things due to nature]. Hence, if there be [any 
separate forms], they are forms of things due to nature. For this 
reason, Plato was not far wrong, when he maintained that forms 
are as numerous as natural products, since indeed it is clear that 
there are different forms for these things, such as fire, flesh, head. 
For all these are matter, and the last is the matter of that which 
is in the highest degree essence. Moving causes, therefore, are 
like pre-existent entities, whereas the others are like the idea {\6'yo<i), 
which implies no temporal priority. For example, when a man 
is in health, then health exists, and the form of the brazen sphere 
coexists with [but does not precede] the sphere itself. 

Whether forms survive [their conjunction with matter] is some- 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 229 

liinij; demandino: consideration. In the case of certain forms 
there is nothing' to prevent this. An example ma}' be tlie soul — 
not the whole of it, but the Intellect ; for it is impossible that the 
whole should survive. From this it follows that there is no need 
for ideas. For man generates man, the individual the particular. 
The same thing is true in the case of the arts; for example, the 
physician's art is the rationale or form of health. 

Chapter 1Y. 

In one respect different things have different causes and prin- 
ciples, and in another respect, if we are speaking universally and 
analogically, all things have the same. It would be a proper sub- 
ject for inquiry whether essences and relations have the same 
principles and elements, and so in the case of tlie other categories. 
But it would be strange if all had the same; for then essences 
and relations would have the same elements. If this were the case, 
what could that common element be ? For, besides essence and the 
other categories, there is nothing that is couimon ; and an element 
is prior to that of which it is an element. But, again, neither is 
essence an element of relation, nor relation of essence. How, then, 
is it possible that all things should have the same elements, since 
it is impossible that any element should be identical with that 
which is composed of elements — e. g., B or A with BA^. Xor can 
any intelligible entity be an element, such as One or Being. For 
these belong to individual things, even to such as are composite. 
None of them, therefore, can l>e either an essence or a relation, and 
this w^ould be necessary [if they were elements]. It follows that 
all things have not the same elements. Or, as we have said, they 
have in one sense the same elements, and in another sense they 
have not. For example, in the case of sensible bodies, warmth is, 
in a sense, a form, and, in another way, the privation of it is 
cold, while the matter is that which in itself was potentially both 
these, and essences are these, as well as the things composed of 
these as principles, and whatever out of warm and cold becomes 
one — e. g., flesh or bone. For that which arises from these must 
necessarily be something different from these. Of these things, 
then, such are the elements and principles : some of them have 
one set, some another; we cannot say absolutely that all things 



230 TJie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

liave the same principles, but only by analogy ; and in this way 
we corae to say that there are three principles — form, privation, 
matter. But each of these is different in the different jjenera — 
e. g., in color we have white, black, surface; light, darkness, air; 
and from these arise day and night. But, since not only indwell- 
ing things are causes, but also external things — e. g.^ that which 
imparts motion — it is evident that there is a difference between prin- 
ciple and element, although both are causes. And this gives the 
division of principles [into internal and external]. That which 
plays the part of inducing motion or rest is a principle and es- 
sence. Hence elements, according to analogy, are three, while 
•causes and principles are four. Different causes are in different 
things, and the first cause, the source of motion, is different for 
different things. Health, disease, body are three of the princi- 
ples ; the active principle is medical science. Form, the special 
disorder, bricks ; the moving principle is architecture. But since 
in physical men the moving principle is man, but in ideal men [or 
men in the abstract], the form or the opposite, in a certain sense 
there w^ill be three causes, whereas in the particular case we have 
four. For in a certain sense, medical science is health, and archi- 
tecture the form of the house, and man generates man ; but, fur- 
ther, over and above these is the prime mover of all. 

Chapter V. 

If we adopt the criterion of separateness and inseparateness^ 
separable things will be essences. For this reason they are the 
causes of all things, that without essences there would be neither 
affections nor movements. From this point of view our essences 
will be soul and body, or intellect, appetite, and body. 

From another point of view still, and speaking analogically, 
i[all] principles are the same — viz., act and potence. But even 
these are different for different things, and exist in different ways. 
In some things, indeed, the same thing is at one time in act, in 
another in ])otence, as wine, flesh, man. But even these fall 
under the causes named. For the form, if it is separable, is in 
act, and so is the compound of form and matter (privation is like 
darkness or sickness), whereas the matter is in potence; for this is 
what has the power to become both. The difference between act 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 231 



and potence is different in the case of thiii^-s whose matter is not 
the same, from what it is in the case of things whose form is not the 
same but another ; for example, the material cause of man is the 
elements, tire and earth, whereas his form is his particular [char- 
acter], and that [yet unnamed] exterior cause — namelj', his father 
— and, besides this, the sun and the ecliptic, all of which are 
neither matter, nor form, nor privation, nor similar, but motors. 

Again, we must see that some things must be called universal, 
others not. Thus, the lirst principles of all things are (1) the 
first actual this^ and (2) something else which exists in potence. 
The former is not universal. For the particular is the principle 
of particulars. Man in general, to be sure, is the principle of 
man ; but the truth is, there is no man in general. Peleus is the 
principle of Achilleus, your father is your principle, this particu- 
lar B is a principle of this BA. At the same time B in general 
is a principle of BA in general. From this point of view the 
elements of essences are forms. But, as has been said, different 
things have different causes and elements, [I mean] things not in 
the same genus — as colors, sounds, essences, qualities — unless, in- 
deed, we are speaking analogically. And even for things in the 
same species, there are different causes and elements, different, 
not, indeed, in species, but because of their individuality — e. g., 
your matter and moving cause and form are different from mine, 
although in their general concepts they are the same. If we in- 
quire what are the {)rinciples or elements of essences and relations 
and qualities, whether they be the same or different, it is ob- 
vious that, if we consider the different significations in which the 
terms are used, they are the same for all ; but, if we distinguish 
the significations, they are not the same but different, and only in 
a certain sense the same for all. By " in a certain sense the 
same," I mean by analogy : matter, form, privation, motor, and, 
in a certain sense, even the causes of essences are the causes of 
all things, since all things would be annihilated if they were an- 
nihilated. Moreover, that which is first is in complete actuality. 
In another sense the opposites are other firsts, which are neither 
predicated as genera nor used in different significations, and the 
same thing is true of matters. 

Such, then, are the principles of sensible things, their number 
•and the manner of their identities and their differences. 



232 â–  The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Chapter YI. 

Since tliere are, as we have seen, three essences — two physical 
and one immovable — we must now speak of the last, and show that 
there must exist some eternal substance that is immovable. Es- 
sences are the first among existences, and if thej are all perishable, 
all things are perishable. But it is impossible that motion should 
either be generated or destroyed, for it was always. And the 
same is true of time, since it is impossible that there should be 
any fore or after without time. I^ay, more: motion is continuous 
in the same way as time; for time is either the same thing as 
motion, or an affection of it [something to which motion is sub- 
ject]. But no motion is continuous save the local, and of it the 
circular. If, however, there be something endowed with power 
of imparting movement or creative activity, but if it be not in act, 
then there is no movement. For it is possible for that which has 
potence not to be in act. It would therefore be of no avail, even 
if we assume eternal essences, like the ideas which certain philoso- 
phers have assumed, unless they contained some principle capable 
of inducing change. Nay, even this would not be sufficient, nor 
would any essence alongside the ideas; for, unless the essence were 
in actual energy, there would be no motion. Yet more, even if 
it were in actual energy, the result would not follow, if the essence 
of it were potence ; that is. there would be no eternal motion. For 
that which exists only in ])otence may conceivably not be. It fol- 
lows from all this that there must be a principle such that its 
[very] essence is activity. Such essences, moreover, must be with- 
out matter. For, if there is anything at all eternal, these must be 
so. They must, therefore, be actual. 

But here there arises a difficulty. It is generally assumed that, 
while all the actual is potential, not all the potential is actual ; 
from which it would follow that potence was prior to act. But if 
this were true, there would be no real existence; for it is possible 
for a thing to be in potence, and not yet to be. To be sure, if 
we follow the theologians, who tell us that everything was pro- 
duced from Night, or the physical philosophers, who tell us that 
all things were [originally] together [undistinguished], we shall 
run into the same impossibility. For how shall the movement 
[from potence to act] begin, unless there be some cause in act. 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 23?/ 

Tor the matter of a house does not move itself, but has to wait for 
the architect's art, and the same is true of the menses, and the 
earth, which liave to wait, respectively, for semen and seeds. Cer- 
tain philosophers, therefore, assume an everlasting activity — e, g.y 
Leucippus and Plato, maintaining that there is always motion. 
But why motion exists, what motion it is, how it takes place in 
each particular instance, and what is its cause, they do not inform 
us. The truth is that there is no such thing as motion by chance. 
Every motion must have something behind it; in other words, as 
we see, some things are moved in a particular way by nature, 
others in another way by force, by intellect, or by something 
else. 

Then thei*e comes up the question : What is the primal motion ? 
a question of the utmost moment. Even in the case of Plato, it 
is impossible to tell, in some instances, which principle he con- 
siders the self-mover to be ; for, as he says, the soul is both subse- 
quent to, and coeval with, the heavens. 

The view which places potence before act is in one sense cor- 
rect, in another incorrect ; how this is, has been explained above. 
But that act is prior, is maintained by Anaxagoras (tor his Nous 
is in act); by Empedocles, with his love and hate ; and by those 
who, like Leucippus, assume the eternity of motion. It follows 
from this that we must reject the notion of a Chaos or Night, 
existing through indefinite time, and maintain that the present 
things always existed, either in a state of revolution or in some 
other way, if it be true that act precedes potence. But, if the 
same thing is always in a state of revolution, there must be some- 
thing always abiding which similarly exerts the action of revolu- 
tion. In like manner, if there is any such thing as production and 
decay, there must be something which exerts the difiterent actions 
manifested in all the stages of these processes. It must, therefore, 
exert tlds particular action with reference to itself on the one 
hand, and, on the other, tJds particular action with reference to 
something else ; in other words, therefore, either in reference to a 
third or in reference to the first. Of necessity in reference to the 
latter ; for this again is cause to itself and the other. Wherefore, 
the first is superior ; for it was the cause of the eternally uniform 
motion, whereas the other was the cause of diflerent motion. Ta 
the fact that this difference is eternal, both plainly contribute. In. 



234 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

a similar relation to each other stand the different movements. 
Why then seek for any other principles? 

Chapter VII, 

Since, now, this is a possil)le explanation, and there is no other 
alternative but that all things have sprung from Night, and indis- 
tinction, and non-being, we are forced to this conclusion that there 
is something which alwa^^s moves with a ceaseless motion, and 
that this motion is circular. This result becomes plain not only 
from reasoning, but also from observation. It follows that the 
tii'st heaven is eternal. It follows also that there is something 
which imparts movement [or, which it moves]. But, inasmuch as 
that which moves and imparts motion is a middle [something], it 
follows that there must be [a beginning], something which im- 
parts motion without itself having motion imparted to it, and this 
will be eternal, an essence and an act. But [in the sensible world] 
the object of desire imparts motion in this way, and in the intel- 
lectual world, the intelligible imparts motion without itself being 
moved. These are at bottom the same ; for the object of desire is 
that which seems beautiful ; the object of will is that which is 
beautiful. It is more correct to say that we desire things because 
they seem beautiful, than that they seem beautiful because we 
desire them. For the intellectual act is the principle. The in- 
tellect is moved by the intelligible, and self-intelligible is the one 
series [the positive] ; in this series, the first essence, and in the first 
essence, that which is simple and actual. But we must beware of 
thinking that the one and the simple are the same. The one sig- 
nifies measure, while the simple signifies a kind of self-relation or 
quality. 

But both the beautiful and the self-el io-ible are in the same 
series ; and the first is either the best or analogous to the best. 
Moreover, that the aim is one of the immovables is shown by the 
process of division. (For there are two kinds of aim, a " for which " 
and an " in which." Of these, one is, and the other is not.) The 
immovable aim moves as a beloved object, and that which is moved 
moves all other things. If, then, there is something moved, it may 
be otherwise than it is. It follows that, if the first act be motion, 
the thing may be otherwise in so far as it is moved — that is, it may 
be locally, if not essentially, otherwise. But since the [prime] 



Aristotle 8 MetajjIiysiGS. 235 

mover is itself an immovable entity, being in act, tliis cannot in 
any respect be otherwise. For the first of changes is locomotion, 
and, indeed, circular motion. And the prime mover imparts this 
motion. It is therefore necessarily existent, and in so far as it 
necessarily exists, it exists well, and in so far it is also a principle. 
(The term " necessity " is used in several senses : (1) as that which 
happens violently, as contrary to natural tendency ; (2) as that 
which is the essential condition of the good ; (3) that which can- 
not exist otherwise, but is absolnte.) On such a principle, then, 
depends the whole of heaven and nature. Ai>d its free life is alto- 
gether equal to our brief best moments. For this is its normal 
condition (whereas this is impossible for us), because its energy is 
at the same time joy. It is for this reason that waking, percep- 
tion, and intellectual activity are the sweetest thing ; and hopes 
and memories on account of these. But thought in itself is thought 
of that vvhich is in itself, and the supreme thought is thought of 
the su])reme existence [or that which in the highest degree is]. 
But the intellect thinks itself in seizing the intelligible. For it 
becomes intelligible by touching and thinking, so that intellect and 
intellio;ible are the same thino-. For intellect is that which is re- 
ceptive of the intelligible and of essence. And it is actual through 
the possession of these. And it is this actuality, rather than the in- 
telligible, that seems to be the divine element in the intellect. And 
the vision of the divine is the sweetest and best. If, then, God is 
always as well as we are sometimes, it is wonderful ; and if he is 
more so, it is still more wonderful. And this is what is true. x\nd 
life is his attribute ; for the energy of intellect is .life, and he is 
that energy. And his self-energy [self- act] is lite, best and eternal. 
We say that God is living, eternal, best, so that life, and uniform 
and eternal existence belong to God ; for God is this. 

Those thinkers, like the Pythagoreans and Speusippus, who 
maintain that the fairest and best is not in the principle, because, 
while the principles of plants and animals are causes, the beautiful 
and perfect belongs to what springs from them, do not think 
correctly. For the seed comes from previous plants and animals 
which are perfect, and the first is not the seed, but the perfect. 
For example, we might say that the man is prior to the seed, not 
the man that comes from the seed, but the man from whom the 
seed comes. 



236 The Journal of ^peiyulatlve Philosophy. 

It is cleai% then, from what has been said, that tliere exists an es- 
sence, eternal, immovable, and separate from sensible things. It 
has been further shown that the essence cannot have any bulk, but 
that it is without parts or divisions. For it imparts motion throiio-h 
infinite time, and nothing finite has infinite powxr. Since, now, 
every magnitude is either infinite or finite, for the reason given 
it cannot have a finite magnitude ; and it cannot have an infinite 
magnitude, because such a magnitude has no existence. 

It has been still further shown that it is exempt from all affec- 
tion and qualitative change. The reason is that all other move- 
ments are subsequent to local movement. How tliese things are 
as they are, is now clear. 

Chapter VIII. 

Whether we are to assume one or more such essences, and, if 
more, how many, is a question that must not be left unsettled. 
We must even call to mind the statements of other philosophers, 
observing that they have laid down nothing definite on the sub- 
ject of the nunil)er of essences. In the first place, the Doctrine 
of Ideas contains no special inquiry into this subject. The ad- 
herents of this doctrine call their ideas numbers, indeed ; but they 
speak of these numbers sometimes as if they were infinite, at other 
times as if they were limited to ten ; but for wdiat I'eason the 
number of numbers is just this, they do not show with any apodic- 
tic cogency. AYe, on the contrary, must determine this from the 
foundations and definitions already laid down. 

The principle and the first of beings is immovable, both in 
itself and in its accidents [both absolutely and relatively], moving 
[imparting] the first eternal and one motion. But, since that 
which is in motion must be moved by something, and the prime 
mover must be in itself immovable, and the eternal motion must 
be due to an Eternal, and the one motion to a One, we find, along- 
side the one simple motion of the All, which vve hold to be due 
to the first and immovable essence, that there 'are other eternal 
motions — namely, those of the planets (for the body that moves 
in a circle is eternal and unresting, as has been proved in the 
Pkysica) — it follows of necessity that each of these motions is due 
to an essence in itself immovable and eternal. For, inasmuch as 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 237 

the nature of the stars is an eternal essence, and that which moves 
must be eternal and prior to that which is moved, and that which 
is prior to an essence must be itself an essence, it follows that such 
essences must exist — eternal, and in themselves immovable and 
without bulk — and this for the cause assigned above. It is thus 
plain that there are [these] essences, and which is the first, and 
which the second among them, in an order corresponding to the 
movements of the stars. As regards the number of these move- 
ments, we must have recourse to that mathematical science which 
it most akin to philosophy — namely, astrology, whose aim it is to 
construct a theory in regard to that essence which is at once sen- 
sible and eternal. The other mathematical sciences — e. g., arith- 
metic and geometry —deal with no essence. That the motions of 
moving bodies, then, are several, must be clear even to those who 
have but a moderate grasp of the subject ; for every one of the 
wandering stars moves with more than one motion. 

How many these movements are, is a question in regard to which 
we shall now state the views of certain mathematicians, for the 
sake of affording a basis on which, by reasoning, to arrive at a 
definite number. At the same time, we must investigate some 
matters ourselves, and draw information with regard to otliers 
from other inquirers ; and, if specialists in these matters arrive at 
conclusions different from ours, we must love both parties, but fol- 
low the more accurate. 

Eudoxus laid it down that the motion of the sun and moon are 
each in three spheres. The first of these, he says, is that of the 
fixed stars, the second passes through the middle of the zodiac, 
and the third passes obliquely across the breadth of the zodiac. 
He further says that the path of the moon passes across the 
breadth of the zodiac more obliquely than that of the sun. With 
regard to the planets, he says that the motion of each is in four 
spheres, and that the first and second of these motions are the 
same as those of the sun and moon, the sphere of these being that 
which carries all the others, and the one which conies next in or- 
der to it and passes through the middle of the zodiac being com- 
mon to all. With respect to the third motion, he says that the 
poles of all the planets lie in the diameter of the zodiac, and that 
the motion of the fourth sphere is in a circle inclined obliquely 
to the centre of the third sphere. In the case of the third spiiere. 



238 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

while each of the other planets has its own poles distinct, Venus 
and Mars have the same poles. 

Callippus laid down the same arrangement of the spheres as 
Eudoxus — that is, the order of their distances — and assigned to 
Jupiter and Saturn the same number of spheres, whereas he 
thought that, in the case of the sun and moon, two more spheres 
had to be added, if the phenomena were to be explained, and one 
to each of the other planets. 

The fact is, if all the spheres put together are to explain the 
phenomena, there must for each of the planets be other spheres, 
fewer in number by one, to roll back and restore to its [original] 
position the first sphere of the planet which in each case is next 
in order below it. Only in this way is it possible for the entire 
motion of the planets to take place. Since, then, the spheres in 
which the planets move are eight and twenty-five, and among 
these those alone do not require to be brought back in whicii the 
lowest planet is moved, those that roll back the spheres of the iirst 
two will be six, and those that roll back those of the other four 
will be sixteen, and thus the number of all the spheres taken to- 
gether, both of those that bear forward and those that roll back, 
will be fifty-five. If, however, those movements of which we have 
spoken be not added to the sun and moon, the whole number of 
the spheres will be forty -seven. 

Admitting, then, that the number of the spheres is so great, it 
will be fair to assume that the essences and principles which are 
at once immovable and yet sensible are of the same number. 
The task of showing the necessity of this, we will leave to stronger 
men. And, if it is impossible that there should be any motion 
which does not tend toward the motion of a star (constellation), 
and if, further, we are forced to think that every nature and 
every essence which is free from afiection and self-existent has 
attained the highest end, there can be no other nature besides 
these, but this must be the number of the essences. For, if there 
were others besides these, they would have to impart motion, as 
being ends of motion. But it is impossible that there should be 
any motions besides those mentioned ; this truth we may derive 
from the consideration of moving bodies. For, if every mover 
exists for the sake of that which is moved, and everv motion im- 
plies a something that is moved, there can be no motion which 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 239 

exists for its own sake or for the sake of another motion, but all 
must exist for the sake of the stars. For, if one motion existed 
for the sake of another, that other would exist for the sake of a 
third, and so on. But, since it is impossible that there should be 
any regressus in infinitum^ the end of all motion must be some 
one of the divine bodies which move in the heaven. 

That there is but one heaven, is obvious. For, if there were 
several heavens, in the same sense that there are several men, the 
principle connected w^ith each would be one in form and many in 
number. But whatever is many in number has matter; for the 
concept of many things — e.g., the, concept man — is the same, but 
Socrates is one. But the primal self-realizing idea has no matter^ 
for it is self-end. Hence the prime immovable mover is one in 
concept and one in number ; that, likewise, which is moved always 
and continuously is but one. It follows that there is but one 
heaven. 

There has been handed down to us a tradition from our fore- 
fathers and from men of primitive ages, in the form of a myth, 
that the movers are gods, and that the divine embraces the whole 
of nature. The remaining stories about them have been added 
in subsequent times, in the form of myths, for the management of 
the multitude, and for the sake of law and expediency. Human 
forms and forms of other living things are ascribed to them, and 
so likewise other things following from these, and similar to these. 
If, now, we separate the first assertion from the rest, and take it by 
itself — namely, that the primal essences are gods — we must con- 
sider this statement divinely made, and, inasmuch as it is probable 
that every art and every science has been, to the extent possible 
at a given time, repeatedly discovered and again been lost, we 
must look upon these views as remnants of those that have sur- 
vived to the present time. To this extent only is the opinion of 
our fathers and of the primeval world obvious to us. 

Chapter IX. 

With regard to the Intellect certain questions arise. It is in- 
deed usually held to be the divinest of phenomena ; but what this 
implies with regard to its nature, is a question that presents some 
difficulties. For, if it thinks nothing, but is in the condition of 



240 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

one who sleeps, what dignity can it hav^e? If, on the otlier hand, 
it thinks, and this thinkinij; is conditioned bv something else be- 
sides itself (in which case that whicli is its essence will not be 
thinking, but the power of thinking), then it will not be the best 
essence, for its dignity comes to it through tliinking. Further, 
granting tliat its essence is intellect or intelligence, what is the ob- 
ject of that intelligence ? Its object must either be itself or some- 
thing else. And if it is something else, it must be either always 
the same, or it must be different. Does it, then, make any or no 
difference whether it thinks the beautiful, or anything indifferent- 
ly? Is it not rather an absurdity to say that it thinks discursively 
about a plurality of things? It is clear, therefore, that it thinks 
that which is most divine and worthy, and that it does not change ; 
for chano-e would be a cliani>-e to worse, and such a thing would be 
already a motion. 

In the first place, then, if intellect is not thought, but the power 
of tliought, it is intelligible enough that the continuity of thought 
should be painful to it. Further, it is clear that there would be 
something else worthier than the intellect — viz., the object of 
thought. For intellect and the act of intellect would belong to 
him who thinks that even which is lowest. Hence, if the worst 
is to be avoided (and it is better not to see some things than to see 
them), thought would not be the best thing. It follows from this 
that the intellect, if it is to think the noblest thing, thinks itself, 
and thus thought is a thought of thought. Science, on the other 
hand, and perception, and opinion, and reasoning seem always to 
have an object different from themselves, and to have themselves 
only as a kind of accessory. 

Again, if to think and to be thought are different, to which of 
the two does the intellect owe its worth? It is plain, indeed, that 
thinking-ness and being-thought-ness are not the same. The fact 
is, that in some cases science and the thing known are the same. 
In the case of tlie creative sciences, the essence and tlie self-realizing 
end, without the matter, are the object ; in that of the theoretic 
^sciences, the object and the thinking. Since, then, in all things 
that have no matter there is no difference between the object of 
the intellect and the intellect itself, the two must be the same, 
and tliinking is one with its object. 

Finally, there remains one other difficulty, as to whether the 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 24-1 

object of tlionglit is compound. If it were, then change from part 
to part of the whole might take phice. But the fact is that every- 
thing which has no matter is indivisible. For, just as the human 
intellect, which is an intelligence of compound things, is related 
to a certain time (for it has not its good in this or that particular 
time, but its best in a whole time, which good is something dif- 
ferent from itself), so likewise this self-intelligence is related to the 
whole of eternity. 

Chapter X. 

"We must now consider in which of the two (possible) ways tlie 
nature of the universe contains the Good and the Best, whether 
as something separate (transcendent) and self-existent, or as order. 
The answer is, it must possess it in both ways, as an army does. 
The truth is, that in an army the Good lies in order and in the 
general, and more in the latter than in the former. For the 
general is not due to the order, but the order to the general. But 
all things are ordered together in a certain way, but not all in the 
same way — fishes, birds, plants — and the arrangement is not such 
that one has no relation to anotlier, but there is some relation. 
For all things are ordered with reference to one. But, just as in 
a household the free members are least permitted to do as they 
please, their sphere of action being completely or nearly systema- 
tized, whereas the slaves and domestic animals have but a small 
share in the system, and a great deal is left to their individual 
pleasure (for their nature is just such an individual principle — I 
mean a principle such as must segregate each of them from other 
things in all ways), so there are some things in which all things 
share, in order to constitute a whole. 

We must now pass on to consider the impossibilities and ab- 
surdities in which those involve themselves w4io profess dilFer- 
ent views — first, those who put forward somewdiat specious argu- 
ments, and, second, those who involve themselves in the lesser 
difficulties. 

All [these men of divergent views] construct all things out of 
â– contraries. But [they fail in three respects] : they neither define 
the term " all things," nor the phrase " out of contraries" correctly, 
nor do they tell us just in what things contraries exist, nor do thej 
define the manner in which things arise from contraries. The 
XXII— 16 



242 The Journal of Speculative Pliilosophy. 

truth is tliat contraries are not affected by each other. This diffi- 
culty we get over successt'ull_y by positing a third something. 
Some philosophers [hold that this third thing is unnecessary and] 
make one of the contraries matter [to the other] — e. g., the uneven 
to the even, the many to the one. But this objection is answered 
in the same way. The one [primal] matter has no contrary; and 
furthermore [if all things were composed of contraires], everything 
would share in the evil, except the one. For the evil, as such, is 
one of the elements. The others hold that the good and evil are 
not principles; nevertheless, in all things the good is a principle 
more truly than anything else. Others, again, admit correctly 
that the Good is a principle, but do not tell us how it is so, 
w^iether it be final, efiicient, or formal. The view of Empedocles 
is also al)surd, for he makes the good to be friendship. And it is 
a principle both as moving (for it brings things together), and as 
matter (for it is a part of the mixture). But even if it does hap- 
pen that the same thing is a principle both as matter and as mov- 
ing, still their ideal essence is not the same. In which respect, 
then, is it friendship ? Absurd, furthermore, is the notion that 
sti'ife should be incorruptible; for it is this very thing that is the 
nature of the evil, 

Anaxagoras sets down the good as principle in the sense of a 
moving power. The intellect [he says] imparts motion ; but it 
does so for the sake of something, and this is, therefore, something 
different from it — unless he holds the same view that we do ; for 
the art of medicine is, in a certain sense, health. It is a;bsurd, 
however, to have assumed no contrary to the Good and to Intellect. 

But all those thinkers who assume contraries as first principles 
neglect to make use of these contraries, unless they are reminded 
of them. And why some things are corruptible, and others incor- 
ruptible, none of them informs us, for they make all things that 
are out of the same principles. 

There is still another class of thinkers that make all existent 
things out of the non-existent; while others, in order that they 
may not be forced to do this, make all things one. 

Again, why generation is eternal, and what is the cause of gen- 
eration, no one tells us. And for those who assume two princi- 
ples, it is necessary to admit that one of these is superior to the 
other, and for those who assume ideas, to ])lace another principle 



Aristotle's Meta2)hysics. â–  243 

above them. Otlierwise, liow is it that things did or do partici- 
pate in tlieni ? The others also are forced to admit that to wisdom 
and the noblest science there must be some contrary, while we are 
forced to no such admission. For there is nothing contrary to tbe 
First. For all contraries have matter, and exist as potentialities. 
Hence ignorance, which is a contrary [to wisdom], goes over into 
its contrary. But to the iirst there is no opposite. 

If, now, there exist nothing else beside the things of sense, there 
will be neither principle, nor order, nor generation, nor heavenly 
things, but every principle will have another principle behind it, 
as is the belief of all the theologians and physical philosophers. 
And, even if the existence of ideas or numbers be admitted, they 
will not be the causes of anything, or, at all events, not of motion. 

Further still, how out of unextended elements can we get the 
extended and the continuous? For number will produce nothing- 
continuous, either as moving or as formal principle. But the same 
thing is true of opposites, even if we grant them formative and 
moving power ; for they might possibly not be. It is not neces- 
sary to remark that action is subsequent to power. According to 
this, existences would not be eternal ; but they are. One of these 
must therefore be cancelled. The manner of this has been already 
stated. 

Furthermore, no one tells us whereby the numbers are one, 
why the soul is one with the body, and, generally, why the form 
is one with the thing ; and, indeed, it is impossible to tell, without 
holding, as we do, that the moving cause is form-giving. Those, 
however, who lay down mathematical number as their first prin- 
ciple, and thus have one essence always following another, and 
different principles for each, make the essence of the whole epi- 
sodic (for the one exerts no influence upon the other, either by 
its existence or non-existence), and the principles many. But 
the commonwealth of existences refuses to be misgoverned : 

" Xever a good is the rule of the many ; let One be the ruler ! " 

VOCABULAEY. 

Cause {clXtlov, alrla). — " By cause is meant : (1) That internal 
(matter) of which anything is made. For example, bronze is the 
cause of the statue. ... (2) The form and the model. And this 
is the concept of the self-realizing end and all its genera. For ex- 



24J: The Journal of Specxilatlve Philosophy. 

ample, the cause of the octave is the relation of 2 to 1. . . . (3) 
The first principle of chancre or rest. For example, the man who 
gives counsel is a cause ; the father is t)ie cause of the child. . . . 
(4) The end or aim. And this is the purpose for which anything 
is done. For example, the purpose of walking is health." These 
causes are called, respectively, (1) Material {vXt]^ to i^ ov) ; (2) 
FoR^M AL (et8o9, TO 64? o) ; (3) Efficient {oOev r) ap-^r) ttj^^ Ktv7]creoi<i, to 
KLvovv, TO u(j) ov) \ (4) FiNAL {to aiyaOov, to ov eveKa). In God, the 
last three are one. Fie is the Form of forms, the Prime Mover, 
and the Good, and all three in the same sense. (Of. Metaph.^ iv, 
[J] 2.) See Principle. 

"By Contraries {ivavTia) is meant (1) the things different in 
genus which catmot coexist in the same subject; (2) the things 
most widely different in the same genus ; (3) the things most 
widely different in the same receptive subject ; (4) the things most 
widely different under the same potentiality ; (5) the things whose 
difference is greatest, either absolutely, or in genus, or in species; 
(6) of other things (a) some are said to be contraries because they 
contain these, (h) others because they are capable of admitting 
them, (c) others because' they are capable of making or undergo- 
ing them, [d) others because they do make or undergo them, (e) 
others because they are losings or gainings, possessions or priva- 
tions of them ; (7) since One and Being are used in many senses, 
it necessarily follows that the same must be true of what is used 
in reference to them, as 'same,' ' other,' contrary ; so that each 
of these must be different for each category." (Jlelaph., iv, 10). 
Cf. Opposites. 

By Essence {ova la) is meant — • 

" (1) The simple bodies, as lire, earth, water, and the like, and, 
generally, bodies and their compounds — animals, demons, and the 
parts of these. 

" (2) "Whatever is the cause of being, because immanent in such 
things as are not predicated of a subject; e.g.,i\\Q soul is the 
essence of the living thing. 

" (8) Those immanent parts of such things which define them 
and mark them as individuals, and whose removal removes the 
whole. For example, as some say, the solid (body) is the essence 
of the surface, and the surface of the line. And, indeed, number 
generally is held by some to be an essence in this sense. 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 245 

"(4) The self-realizinoj end, the concept of whicli is the defini- 
tion, and tliis is called the essence of the individual. 

" It thus appears that essence is used in two senses («) as the 
ultimate substratum, which is not predicated of anything else, and 
(J) as that which is individual and separable, such as are the form 
and species of the particular." {Metavh., iv, 8.) 

Eternal (a/Sto?). — Synonyms of this word are Immovable, Im- 
mutable {aKiVT)ro(;), Separable or Separate {')((opiaT6<i)^ Ungen- 
ERATED (ayevrjro^), and Indissoluble (a(f)6apTo<i). Aristotle distin- 
guishes two kinds of eternal things: (1) Those which are purely 
intellectual (voTjrd) and which are entirely independent of time ; 
(2) those which are sensible {alaOrjTa) and whose action measures 
time. They might be distinguished as the Sempiternal and the 
Everlasting. To the former belongs God, and to it all intellects 
tend ; to the latter belong the stars or movers of the ditferent 
heavens, whose number he estimates at 47 (see chapter viii). 
God does not move, though he is the cause of all motion ; the stars 
move, but with a perfectly changeless motion, which the circular 
is. Though these may be said to have matter, it is different from 
all other matter, being subject to no change save locomotion 
{TToOev TTol), which, when perfectly uniform, may be called cliange- 
less. The opposite of eternal is, of course, Transient (/ctz/T^To?). 

Form and Matter (etSo9 kuI v\r]). — These terms may be con- 
sidered together, since they are, for the most part, correlatives. 
Matter never exists without form, and, in sensible things, form 
never exists without matter. Indeed, matter, taken as a whole, 
contains potentially all forms (except one, as we shall see), al- 
though in any particular case only a minimum of them may be 
actualized. At the sauie time it is not true that every portion of 
matter contains every form. Aristotle is so well aware of the 
qualitative difference between matter and matter that he makes 
matter the principle of individuation. (See chapter iii, ad Jin. 
Of. Dante, Parad.., i, 109, siiq^. Form is the principle of all the 
phenomena that distinguish one material thing from another. It is 
actuality and, therefore, something divine. Thomas Aquinas says : 
"Forma nihil aliud est quam divina similitudo participata in re- 
bus." {Contra Gent.., i, 3, 97.) Matter is the same thing, only in 
potentiality. Thus matter is related to form as potentiality to 
actuality. Matter cannot actualize its own forms, but must wait 



246 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

for the action of some essence already actualized. This, in the 
first instance, is God, the Prime Mover; but when he has actual- 
ized one such essence, it can actualize others like it. " Man be- 
gets man." This doctrine furnishes Aristotle with his chief argu- 
ment for the existence of a Prime Mover in complete actuality, 
and supports the dogma of the Incarnation. The doctrine that 
forms are originally immanent in matter,. and inseparable from it, 
is diametrically opposed to that of Plato, as Aristotle well knows. 
Plato holds that unindividualized forms have a separate existence, 
and are imparted to matter, like external spirits, by God. This 
view Aristotle vigorously combats, except in the case of one form 
— namely, the intellect {vovi)^ which he admits to be altogether 
external to matter. (See Intellect.) It is needless to say that 
both Form and Matter are ungenerated. (See Generation.) 

For a clear discussion of Form and Matter, see Knauer, Grund- 
linien der aristotelisch-thomistischen PhUosophie (Wien, 18S5). 
Curiously enough, Zeller has entirely misunderstood Aristotle's 
doctrine with regard to them, and so quite gratuitously charged 
him with self-contradiction. {Philos. der G'riechen, Bd. iii, S. 802, 
sq.). There is not the shadow of truth in the assertion that Aris- 
totle " places form and matter, as originally different, in opposi- 
tion to each other, without deriving them from a common ground ; 
in more nearly determining these two principles he involves him- 
self in a contradiction by maintaining, on the one hand, that form 
is the essence and substance (! !) of things, and, on the other, that 
it is at the same time a universal, while the ground of the particu- 
lar, and therefore also of substantiality, must lie in the matter." 
It is sufficient to say that all forms are potentially immanent in 
matter from its origin. It is from matter that the Prime Mover 
educes them. (Compare Genesis^ i.) 

Generation, Generx^ble, or Generated (yeveaL<f, yevqro^), and 
their contraries. Dissolution and Dissoluble {(pdopd, (f}0apT6<i), are 
applied to those things whose forms may pass from potentiality to 
actuality and from actuality to potentiality. TevecrL'i never means 
Creation, (f)6opd never means Annihilation. These are processes 
of which Aristotle knows nothing. Form and Matter being eter- 
nal, all Generation is Evolution, all Dissolution the opposite. The 
terms Ungenerated and Indissoluble [dyivrjTo^;, d^dapro'i) are ap- 
plied to those things which underlie Generation and Dissolution, 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 247 

viz. : (1) Matter, (2) Form, (3) Intellect. These cannot be gener- 
ated, becanse they are the conditions of Generation. If it be asked 
in what relation the Intellect stands to Form and Matter, we may 
fairly answer that it is the source of both, though not in a tem- 
poral sense. Inasmuch as matter cannot exist without a certain 
minimum of actualized form, and all actuality is due to the Intel- 
lect or Prime Mover, this conclusion follows directly. (See Dante, 
Parad., xxix, 16, sqq.) Matter and Form are dependent, and de- 
termined from without ; Intellect alone is self-determined {^(optcr- 
To?). If it be asked whether Intellect could annihilate Form and 
Matter, the answer must be. No. And the reason is that Intel- 
lect, being essentially in actuality {ivepyela), by that very fact holds 
them in being. Aristotle, as is well known, held the world to be 
eternal. See the subtle way in which Thomas Aquinas tries to 
reconcile this with the Christian view of a creation in time. {Sum. 
Theol., i, 46, 1 .) 

Intellect or Intelligence, Intellective, Intelligible (wO*?, 
vo7]tck6<;^ vor]T6<i). — To discuss fully the " Intellect " of Aristotle, 
which carries us into the deepest deeps of his thought, would re- 
quire a volume, and, indeed, more than one volume have been writ- 
ten on it. Only the barest and most necessary explanation can be 
given here. 

In the universe things exist in two conditions^one potential 
(SwdfieL), the other actual {ivepyeio). As potential, they are mat- 
ter {v\r]) ; as actual, they are form (fclSo?). Xothing can ever be 
purely potential or material ; bnt things may be purely actnal. 
This is the case with the Supreme Intellect, the Prime Mover. He 
is essentially actual and Act, and it is his Act that holds the uni- 
verse i!i being (see chap, vii, e'/c Toiavr7]<i dp')(^rj'i i]pT7]Tai 6 ovpavo<; 
Kol rj (f)V(7L<i). His Intellect is the Form of forms (etSo? elBcov), the 
Form which combines into a unity all other forms, and makes them 
a system. It is God, in whom all forms are actual, and who is 
therefore Separate or Independent or Self-determining (%cwpto-- 
r6<i). But what is actual in God is more or less potential in the 
world ; and the Act of God utters itself in raising what is poten- 
tial to actuality. It does so as a beloved object acts upon a lover 
(see chap. vii). This process, which, as such, takes place in the 
potential, is Motion {q. y.), which is always a mark of imperfec- 
tion. The forms which exist potentially in matter are actualized, 



248 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

first into the forms of sense, then into the forms of fancy, and 
finally, it may be, into pure forms. The first are still conlined to 
particular kinds of matter ; the second to matter in general, and 
the third are independent of matter (^wptcrra). This independ- 
ence must not to be taken, in any Platonic sense, to mean tliat 
pure forms stand unrelated to matter. It means only that they 
stand in a relation of pure activity (excludiiio: passivity) to it — a 
relation of freedom and self-determination. This is a cardinal doc- 
trine with Aristotle. So long as forms are not com]>letely actual- 
ized — that is, actualized in their purity — they are still liable to re- 
vert to potentiality, as we see in the case of ))lants and animals 
(" which live in fancies and memories," Bk. i, 1). No sooner, how- 
ever, do they become so actualized than they are a self-determin- 
ing Intelligence (ivepyei 8t avrov, De A7i., iii, 4). This is the way 
in which the lower intelligences come into actualitv. So long as 
forms are in either of the lower stages of actuality, they can pass 
from matter to matter, so to speak, and this explains the genera- 
tion of the animal soul. But the full}" actualized form, the Intel- 
lect, being no longer bound to matter, cannot be so transmitted. 
Hence every intellect owes its actuality directly to the Prime 
Mover, and therefore, as actual, is rightly said to come from with- 
out {XeiTrerat tov vovv ixovov OvpaOev eTrecaievai, De Gen. An., ii, 3). 
Before it is actual, it is not at all {ovOev icrriv evepyeia twv ovtojv 
irplv voelv, De An., iii, 4), for the reason that its being is Act, im- 
manent act, not transient activity, wdiich is a very different thing. 
AVhen an intellect is first actualized, as such, when it '* energizes 
through itself," it is still in a sense potential. It can, indeed, 
" think itself," which is what is meant by self-determination, but 
it does so only formally, abstractly, ideally. The forms whose ac- 
tualized unity compose it have still to l)e filled, through actual ex- 
perience, with the fullness which belongs to them. This experi- 
ence it gains, not through passivity (Trda^^eiv) Ijut through action 
{ivepyelv), in wdiich it " becomes individual things " [eKacrra, De 
An., iii, 4), that is, descends more and nmre into the actual es- 
sences {ovdiai) which are implicit in its universal forms. Such an 
intellect " when separated, is only that which is and this alone is 
immortal and eternal. And we have no memory, because this is 
impassive, whereas the passive {i. e., sensitive) intellect is dissolu- 
ble, and without this thinks nothing" {De An., iii, 5 ad Jin.). In 



Aristotle's Metaphysics. 249 

other words, the imperfect wLich moves and is sensible (see Sense) 
is cognized by an intellect which moves and is sensitive, whereas 
the eternal and immovable, of which there can be no memory, is 
cognized by something that is eternal ; or, we may say, the eter- 
nal cognizes itself, and this self-cognition is " that which is." 
Dante has paraphrased this passage : 

" By reason that, approaching its desire, 
Our intellect so dives into itself 
That after it the memory cannot go." 

Parad., i, 7, sqq. 

We can thns see why Aristotle holds the divine energy to be a 
thinhino; of thinkino', and the hio-hest life to consist in the vision 
of divine things {dewpia, see chap. vii). 

Motion or Movement {KLvr}cn<i). — To explain all that is meant 
by this word would require a small volume. Space permits only 
a bare outline. Motion, in its most general sense, is the action 
{ivepyeia, ivreXex^ia) of the potential, as such. Such action is in- 
complete (areX?;?), and belongs to what is incomplete. All motion 
expresses a tendency away from potentiality and incompleteness, 
to actuality and completeness. It implies two things : (1) an actual 
by which the motion is aroused, and which is always an individ- 
ual and complete (TeXeiov) ; (3) a potential which, as such, is capa- 
ble of being actualized. The former puts forth an act (ivepyeLo), 
which results as motion in the latter. The potential and imper- 
fect by itself is incapable of action, and can only be roused to im- 
perfect action (KLwrja-is:) by an actual. It follows that the mover 
and the moved {to klvovv koI to Kivovfievov) can never be one being ; 
in other words, that nothing can move itself, except accidentally, 
as a rower rows himself in a boat. It follows, further, that the 
Prime Mover (to irpoiTov klvovv) cannot be in motion. The power 
to exert energy and cause motion is the mark of the perfect being. 
A condition of all motion is contact between the mover and the 
moved. Even the Prime Mover is in contact with the world. 
That which moves may be regarded as form (eZSo?), that which is 
moved as matter {v\r}) ; and, since the two are eternal {alhio) and 
in contact, motion is eternal. Hence the world is eternal. Motion 
and rest are the characteristics of the physical, just as immobility 



250 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy. 

is characteristic of the metaphysical. In enumerating the kinds 
of motion, Aristotle is not always consistent with himself. Some- 
times he makes motion synonymous witii cliange (/iera/SoA,?;), some- 
times he gives the latter the wider signification. In the former 
case he admits four kinds of motion : (1) essential {t) Kar ovcriav or 
Kara to tI), origination and destruction ; (2) quantitative (r) Kara 
TO /jbeje9o<; or to ttoctov), increase and diminution ; (3) qualitative 
7] KaTCL TO irdOo^ or to ttolov), transmutation ; (4) local {-q kutcl top) 
TOTTov or to ttov), locomotion. In the latter case he omits the first 
of these, and calls it change, of which he admits three kinds : (1) 
from an existent to an existent, (2) from an existent to a non-ex- 
existent, (3) from a non-existent to an existent {vTroKet/nevov). The 
primitive form of motion is the local, from which all the others, 
except, to some extent, the first, are derivative. The perfect local 
motion is the circular, because it is uniform and com])]ete, that is, 
it returns upon itself. We might sum up Aristotle's view of mo- 
tion thus : All movement is evolution. 

" Nature (^uo-i?), in its primal and proper signitication, is the 
essence of things which have in themselves a principle of move- 
ment, as being what they are. The material is called nature, be- 
cause it is receptive of this essence, while developments and growth 
are so called because they are movements proceeding from it. And 
this is the principle of movement in all natural products, being 
somehow immanent in them, either potentially or actually (eVre- 
A,e;^eia) [Metajj., iv, 4). Aristotle distinguishes five meanings of 
nature : (1) the development of things that grow ((^{/crt?) ; (2) the 
first immanent matter out of which that which grows grows; (3) 
the first moving cause in any individual product of nature, in so 
far as it is what it is ; (4) that first something out of which any 
product of nature is made, and which is incapable of being shaped 
or changed by any power of its own ; (5) the essence of natural 
products." {Ibid.) 

'' Opposites {avTLKeiixeva) is used to mean : (1) Contradiction 
{dvTL<f)aac<i), (2) contraries {evavTta), (3) correlatives (jd Trpo? tc), 
(4) privation and possession {a-Teprjat^i Kai e^i<i), (5) the ultimate 
From-what and To-what of certain processes — «?. ^., generation and 
dissolution, (6) things that cannot coexist in a subject capable of 
admitting either by itself. Not only these are said to be opposites, 
but also the things from which they are. White and gray cannot 



Aristotle's Metafhysics. 251 

coexist in the same tliinoj, hence the things from which thej are 
are opposites." {Metaph., iv [J], 10.) 

Peinciple, Beginning, Authority (a/o%j;). — " By ' principle,' 
etc., is meant (1) that part of a thing- from which one would set 
out to move along it. . . . (2) That from which any particular 
thing can best arise. Even in the case of learning, for example, 
we have sometimes to begin, not with what is first and with the 
beginning of the subject, but with that from which we can most 
easily acquire knowledge. (3) The internal groundwork upon 
which anything is built up — e. g., the keel of a ship. ... (-1) 
That external source from wliich a thino; first derives its orio-in, 
and from which motion and change naturally first begin. Father 
and mother stand in this relation to their child, and so does insult 
to battle. (5) That according to whose choice the things that 
move move, and the things that change change — as, for example, 
in states the authorities {apj(ai). ... (6) That from which a thing- 
is first known . . . for example, the presuppositions upon which 
demonstrations are based. The term ' cause ' is used in all the 
above significations; for all causes are principles. The common 
element in all principles is that they are the first source from which 
anything is, becomes, or is known. Some of them are internal, 
others external. Hence nature is a principle, and so are element, 
thought, choice, essence, and aim. In many cases, indeed, the 
Good and the Beautiful are the principles of knowing and mov- 
ing." {Metaph., iv [J], 1.) 

Sense or Sensation, Sensitive, Sensible (a'io-O-qat'i, alaOrjTLKo^;, 
ala-drjTOfi). — Sense stands opposed to Intellect, as the Transient 
does to the Eternal. It is conversant with what is in motion or 
change, and is itself essentially movable and changeable. And, 
just as Intellect is essentially active (TrotT^Tt/co?, ivepyeLa), so Sense 
is essentially passive {iraOrjTiKrj, SvvdfMet) — passive to the sensible. 
All sensation consists of particulars, not particular things (ovo-lac), 
but particular affections. These are felt by different organs, and 
meet in a common Sensorium {alcrdTjrrjpLov), where, to use a mod- 
ern expression, they form a " cluster," This cluster Aristotle calls 
once the- passive or possible Intellect (i^oO? Tra^T^Tt/co?, vov'i hvvdfiet), 
meaning that it is that which, when actualized and '' separated " by 
the act of the Divine Intellect, becomes an intellect proper (i/oO? 
ivepyela). Until this takes place, the intellect " thinks nothing " 



252 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

(ouBev voel) — tliat is, knows no universal — by which it can rise 
above time and place. (As to the limits of Sense, see chap, x, 
third paragraph from the end.) 

Theory (decopLo) is used in two senses by Aristotle : (1) as inves- 
ti2;ation, inquiry, in whicii case it is always followed by a limiting 
genitive or its equivalent {rj irepl t/}<? uXrjOela'i decopia, etc.). Cf. 
Bonitz, Metaph. ii, 127 ; Trendelenburg, Elemeiita Log. Arisiot., 
)). 82 ; (2) in its literal sense, as the vision of divine things (to 
opav TO, dela, Alex.), and then has no limiting word or words. It 
is used in this sense in chap, vii of this book, and in Mh. JVicom., 
X, 8, and in both cases is identitied with the supreme happiness. 
That Aristotle held this happiness to consist in the contemplation 
of essences, there can be no doubt. It is somewhat ditRcult to say 
which meaning it bears in the opening words of this book, and I 
know that, in rendering it as I have done, I am departing from the 
opinion of Bonitz, Schwegler, and others. I think the context 
justities my version. 

Universal (to kuOoXov). — " I mean by ' universal ' that which is 
capable of being predicated of more than one; by particular 
that which is not — e.g., man is a universal; Callias, a particular" 
{De Interp., vi). According to Aristotle, universals have no sepa- 
rate existence ; they are always combined with matter and par- 
ticularized by it. Only lirst essences have a separate existence, 
universals (genera and species) are second essences (hevTepat 
ovaiat, Categ., v). God, of course, is the farthest of all beings 
from being universal, as well as from being particular (kuO^ 
eKaa-Tov). He is the source of both universality and particularity. 
Zeller (Die PhilosopMe der Griechen, Bd. iii, S. 309, sqq., 802, 
sqq.) seems to me to have entirely misunderstood Aristotle's doc- 
trine ot the relation of the universal to the particular, when he 
thinks that Aristotle contradicts himself in maintaining that all 
actual existence is particular, and yet all knowledge of the univer- 
sal. The statements are entirely compatible, and, indeed, are both 
true. The universal, as universal — that is, as something capable 
of being predicated of many particulars — exists oidy in the mind, 
and is by it used as a means oi knowing. Outside theinind it 
exists only as particular, as which it is an ohject of knowing. 
There is no contradiction in saying that particulars are known by 
a means which is universal, that the quo cognosoimus differs from 



The ReUgioii of the Old Testament. 25^ 

the q%iod cognoscimus. Of course, Aristotle holds that the first 
to us is the universal, while the first in nature (and last known to 
us) is the particular, which is aireipov. 



THE EELIGIOK OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF G. Vf . F. HEGEl'S " PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION " BY J. 

MACBRIDE STERRETT.* 

Ths ReligiGn of Sublimity. 

There is one element which this religion has in common with 
the religion of the Beautiful [that of Greece]. That is, the subjec- 
tion of the merely natural to the spiritual. Mere nature is ideal- 
ized, deprived of its merely quantitative or external valuation, and 
considered the rather as plastic material for the divine artificer or 
artist. In both these religions God is known as free Spirit, as Spirit 
with rational and ethical attributes. In the religion of the Beau- 
tiful, however, God does not appear in full independent absolute 
Being. He is manifested as having definite limited content. The 
beautiful, in which this divine manifestation is made, in which 
the ethical and. spiritual attributes of the Divine appear, is that 
of sensuous material and form. At most, the plane. on which this 
manifestation is made is that of pictorial thought, of imagination, 
and fantasy. The idealization of the natural is thus not yet com- 
plete. This can only take place where the ground of the Divine 
revelation is spiritual thought. 

The delightful, friendly forms of the Greek deities lacked that 
absolute and independent character which is essential to the eter- 
nal Divine existence. Eeligion must rise to sublimer conceptions. 
These specialized forms of the Div-ine must be seen to be phases 
of the One Divine life. An absolute spiritual unity is the ulti- 
matum for thought. This the Greeks did not reach, but the Jews 
did. Such a unity, too, must be fully concrete, containing all 
particular ethical and si^iritual forms in itself. It is only thus 

* The translator freciuently resorts to paraphrasing in order to avoid the continuous 
abstruse technique of the original. 



254 The Journal of Speculative Philosojyhy. 

concrete subjectivity. Tiiis is really attained only in the Chris- 
tian relio'ion. It is held by the Jews in an abstract form. This 
in turn is mediated by the specialized forms of the Divine in the 
Greek religion, an apostasy which is to be reconciled in the abso- 
lute religion. 

The plane upon which the revelation of the Divine unity can 
alone be made is that of thought freed from all sensuous and pic- 
torial elements. Thus we have its first abstract form of pure in- 
dependent subjective unity in pure thought. Here we Iiave this 
pure subjectivity entirely free from all elements of the merely 
natural in the form of either sensuous or mental representation. 
Here for the first time is reached the conception which is worthy 
of the name of God. 

This subjective unity is far more than substance. It is absolute 
power, before which the natural appears in its true light as some- 
thing created {Gesetztes) and not independent. It finds its con- 
genial instrument of revelation not in nature but in thought. 

Absolute power, however, is not its only characteristic. That is 
also found in the East Indian religion. The chief point here is that 
it is characterized as concrete and not as abstract power. Hence 
it is absolute wisdom. The rational characteristics of freedom 
unite in this one — that is, in an end or aim. Hence holiness is 
the chief characteristic of this subjective unity. 

The higher truth of the subjectivity of God is not to be found 
in the characteristic of beauty, where the absolute content is scat- 
tered in particular forms, but it is found in this characteristic of 
holiness. The difi'erence between the two is like that between 
animals and man. Animals have particular characters, while the 
character of universality is human. The truest subjectivity is 
that of self-characterization as rational freedom. This is wisdom 
and holiness. The Grecian gods were not holy, because they were 
limited and separate. 

A. The Oeneral Characteristic of the Idea {Begriff). 

God as the absolute is characterized as the One ]>ure subjec- 
tivity, and hence as universal. Or, to put it the other way, this 
suljjectivity which is in itself universal, is absolutely only One. It 
is not enough that bare unity be shown as the ground, as in the 
Indian and Chinese religions. In these God is not posited as infinite 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 255 

subjectivity, since His unity is only implicit and is not explicitly 
known as subjectivity. In these pantheistic forms of religion God 
is known only as a neutral unconscious one. In the religion of 
sublimity He is known as The personal One. All merely natural 
forms vanish, even that of light, in which the Persian religion 
placed Him. Here God is form-less, as to external form, and 
image-less, as to picturable conception. He is only for thought. 
Infinite subjectivity is tlie activity of thought, and hence it exists 
only for thought. 

{a) God is characterized as the absolute power which is wis- 
dom. Power as wisdom is primarily reflected into itself as subject. 
Hence it is abstract. It is through this undifterentiated subjec- 
tivity that God is characterized as the One. All particularity is 
suppressed. Hence before it all natural things lose their imme- 
diate independence and validity. Only One is independent ; all 
else is dependent upon Him. 

(J) The next is the characteristic of His aim. On the one hand, 
He is his own end and aim. He is wisdom. The primary de- 
mand is only that this wisdom be equal to the power. 

ic) But the aim of God must also pass from mere idea into con- 
crete universality. At first the aim is limited. It is directed to 
one man, one family, and at length to one nation. 

We are so accustomed to the conception of God as One that we 
cannot a])preciate the weighty significance of its first apprehen- 
sion. Even though the conception among the Jews was formal 
and limited, it was yet infinitely weighty and is the root of all 
subjectivity, of the intellectual world, and the road to all truth. 
It is the beginning of truth as truth, needing only development 
out of its abstract form of unity. The One is pure power, before 
which everything particular and finite appears as uncongenial and 
unworthy. All the natural forms of this power that we see in the 
Nature-religions as Light, the Sky, Ocean, etc., are here far sur- 
passed, ISTo natural object nor mental picture is adequate to 
represent it. Only thought, spirit, can apprehend it. 

But it is onlv the root, the beginning of the full concrete self- 

./ 7 

consciousness. For it does not matter how many spiritual predi- 
cates (as goodness, mercy, etc.) be ascribed to the One. It is 
what He does and what He really is that reveals Him. If the 
activity is not yet of the kind to reveal^the nature of spirit, we 



256 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

may have a pictiire-tbought of spirit, but not yet true spirit. The 
activity whose fundamental characteristic is power does not yield 
full formative reality, but rather only a negative sort of relation 
to other things. 

B. The Concrete Conception ( Vorstellung). 

(a) The character of the Divine self-separation (Ijesonderung). 

First Characteristic. — In the assertion that God is wisdom is 
contained His self-determination, His self-separation, His act of 
creation. Spirit is that which is absolutely self-mediating. It is 
pure self-activity. This activity is one of self-separation. The 
world is something posited externally by spirit, made out of its 
nothingness. But the nef;;ative of the world is the affirmative, 
the Creator. In Him the natural is the nothins;. In its nothing- 
ness the world arises out of the absolute fulness of the power of 
the good. It is created out of the nothingness of itself — that is, 
out of God. Wisdom contains its own aim, and is self-determin- 
ing. But, as this subjectivit}^ is primarily abstract, the self-sepa- 
ration in the Divine takes primarily the form of an immediate ex- 
ternal other. The higher conception is that of the Actus Purus, 
where the creation is within God bimself, so that the beginning 
and the end, and consequently the phase of movement which is 
there posited as external, is within His own being. 

If wisdom should cease to be abstract and become concrete and 
God become self-determining of himself, containing within him- 
self his own creation as his Son, then would He be known as con- 
crete God or as true Spirit. 

But as, at this stage, wisdom is yet abstract, the separation takes 
the form of a posited external existence. Still, it has only the 
form of existence, for God has created it out of nothing. He 
alone is the existent, the positive. But He contains at the same 
time the setting forth of His power. It is this necessity of God's 
manifesting his power that is the birthplace of all creating. This 
necessity is the material out of which God creates. This is God 
himself, hence he creates out of nothing material. He is not a 
One as opposed to another something already present. But this 
other is Himself as his self-determination. But as He is yet the 
abstract one, this determination falls without Himself as his nega- 
tive activity. The positing of Nature occurs necessarily in the 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 257 

conception of spiritual life, but is, as it were, the lall of intelli- 
gence into sleep. Since power is pictured as primarily absolute 
negativity, before which all else vanishes, the essence — I. e., that 
which is identical with itself — appears to be eternal stillness and 
reserve. But then this solitariness is only a part, not the whole 
of power. Power includes at the same time negative relation to 
itself. And this setting aside of abstract identity is the positing 
of ditference of determination — i. e., the creation of the world. 
But the nothing out of which the world is created is the identity 
where power was thought as the essence. The material is the 
formless, the essence the power identical with itself. But this is 
only a phase of the essence, and therefore another than the abso- 
lute power or what is called matter. The creation of the world 
therefore signifies the negative relation of the power to itself, in 
so far as it is primarily characterized as self-identical. 

This conception of God's creating is utterly different from that 
of emanation. The fundamental category in all other cosmogonies 
is that of procession or emanation, not of creation. The gods 
emanate from Brahm. In the cosmogonies of the Greeks, the 
highest and most spiritual gods are the last of the emanations. 

But here this category of emanation vanishes, for the Good as the 
absolute power is the subject. 

In emanation, that which has emanated is the existent, the 
actual, while the ground whence it emanated becomes null and 
unessential. Thus, too, that which has emanated is less depend- 
ent than that which has been created. 

This, then, is the form of the divine self-determination or sepa- 
ration. It cannot fail, for wisdom is necessarily in the Idea. As 
yet it is not, however, a self-separation of God within Himself. 
For then God would be known as concrete spirit as He is in 
Christianity. But here the separation falls without, because God 
is as yet One. This separation is primarily the divine determina 
tion, and thus the creation. This is not merely transitory, though 
it retains the character of dependent existence. It has stamped 
upon it, as its fundamental characteristic, the lack of independ- 
ence because God is the one infinite power. 

Second Characteristic. — This is that God is presupposed as a 
subject. Otherwise creation would be an indefinite conception, 
reminding one of the handicraft of men. God's creating is eter- 
XXII— 17 



258 Tlte JoxLrnal of Speculative Pkilosopluj. 

nal creating. In it He is not the result, but the cause. When 
the higher conception of God as concrete (Triune) spirit is reached, 
we have the eternal creation going on within the depths of the 
Divine being, instead of falling outside of it, as it does in the 
Jewish conception of His unity. Here creation ditfers from the 
work of human artisans, working with external material given at 
hand. The worker and the thing worked upon are two distinct 
things. But God creates absolute!}' out of nothing — that is, noth- 
ing besides Himself. 

The creation, then, in which He is subject is infinite contempla- 
tive activity. When the artisan produces something, he has an 
aim and also materials. He thus stands in relation to an external 
other, whereas in intuitive creation, creation comes rather under 
the category of life. It is an inner activity and not activity upon 
a given object. It is life eternall}' begetting nature, a something 
that falls outside of itself, while life remains the eternal cause. 
God is forever related to his total creation as the Subject, which 
is always the absolute First. It was otherwise with the most 
spiritual gods of the Greeks. They appear as the last result of a 
long procession, and hence are conditioned bj' finiteness. 

Third Characteristic of God, His Relation to the World. — This 
concerns what we term the attributes of God. These are his 
character, proceeding indeed out of his relation to the world he 
has created. It is false to say that we know only this relation of 
(lod to the world and do not know Him himself. His relation to 
the world is an essential one and reveals his attributes. 

It is only according to external sensuous conceptions that we 
speak of anything being for itself, and thus distinguished from its 
relations to others or its qualities. In truth, it is these that really 
constitute its peculiar nature. It is the nature of man to relate 
himself to his fellows. It is the nature of the acid to relate itself 
to the base. Without such relation it is nothing. So our knowl- 
edge of the relation of objects to ourselves is a knowledge of the 
objects themselves. Thus, too, the relation of God to the world 
expresses his real nature. His attributes reveal his being. His 
absolute might and wisdom are immanent distinctions, and of these 
goodness and righteousness are phases. It is of goodness that the 
world exists. Being does not belong to it, except as borrowed from 
its creator. This separation or self-sacrifice of God is the eternal 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 259 

goodness of God. The world has no right to exist. It is outside 
of the One, a manifold, limited finite thing whose vocation is not 
to be. That it does exist, hoM'ever, comes from the goodness of 
Clod. Being, true actuality is God. Any being outside of God 
has no title. 

God can be creator in the truest sense only as He is infinite 
subjectivity. Thus only is He free, and only the free can create 
the free. 

The being of the world, however, is only the being of the divine 
power. In relation to this power the world must be represented 
as something shattered. 

The manifestation of the nothingness, of the ideality of the 
finite world — that is, of its non-independence — this manifestation 
as power is justice or righteousness. Goodness and justice are not 
to be found in substance as a first principle. Here, however, we 
have the unity not as substance but as the personal One, or as 
Subject. Here we have the characteristic of purpose, the peculiar 
character of the idea. The world must be. So, too, it must 
change and vanish away. In this we have justice as the charac- 
teristic of the Subject. 

Creation, preservation, and passing away — these three phases of 
the world are represented as quite distinct. But in the idea they 
are essentially only the phases of a process — that is, of the process 
of power. The self-identity of the power is the nothing out 
of which the world is created, and is also the verv subsistence 
of the world and the abrogation of this subsistence. In good- 
ness the world is justified only as not being independent, and 
hence, as containing its own death warrant, which is posited in 
justice. 

These characteristics all belong to the idea^ and yet do not be- 
long to the essential nature of the absolute Being as conceived in 
the Jewish religion. God is still conceived as independent of 
them. If they were essential attributes we should have the 
fulfilled form of such religion — that is, Christianity. But in the 
Jewish religion these chai'acteristics of goodness and justice are 
not apprehended as eternal and necessary elements of the one 
power. This still remains absolutely undetermined — at least as hav- 
ing arbitrary power to change goodness and justice, which are op- 
posites, into each other. They are attributes which depend upon his 



260 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

relation to the world — economical rather than immanent essential 
attributes. 

(b) The form of the world. 

The world to us of to-day is a veiy prosaic affair, a mere col- 
lection of things in an external unity. In the Orient, and espe- 
cially in Greece, the brightness and cheerfulness of life was largely 
enhanced by the consciousness that in relating themselves to nature 
men were holding communion with the Divine. The divine 
generosity ensouled and spiritualized nature. 

Such an unity of the Divine and the natural, an identity of the 
ideal and the real, however, is quite an abstract one of easy acqui- 
sition. But the true identity is that which is only found in in- 
finite subjectivity, which is apprehended not as a mere neutrali- 
zation of contradictories, but as that which itself creates the dif- 
ferences, and lets them go freely forth from itself, as non-inde- 
pendent, and hence not divine, but merely objects of nature. 

The highest of the Greek gods, which were essentially ethical, 
had only formal independence, because they had only particular 
limited content. Hence, the categories of the understanding are 
aj^plicable to them. Quality, quantity, measure, bause and effect 
— these are the categories we apply to the world of prosaic things. 

In the Jewish religion nature is undeilied. All natural objects 
are viewed as subordinate, and all the Divine is Mholly in the One. 
It may seem a pity that in a religion nature should be thus un- 
deified and receive the character of prot'aneness. We hear many 
sentimentalists praise the days when nature was looked upon as 
divine, and a god peeped out from every object. This identity 
of the ideal and the real, however, is only to be found within the 
being of the Idea, of the self-determining God. To find it else- 
where is to cheapen, degrade, and nidlify it. Natural things are 
really opposed to the Spirit. Even the Spirit as finite, as external 
life, is opposed to the Spirit. Not only external life, but also the 
abstract seU'-consciousnessof man is finite, and thus opposed to the 
Spirit. The whole circle of finite things is within the category of 
externality. When thus considered under tiiis measure of ex- 
ternality they are set in their proper place, according to the idea. 
Those who complain of this place being assigned to nature must 
at least grant that the beautiful unity of nature and God can be 
held only by the imagination, not by reason. They may complain 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 2(51 

of the undeifying of nature, and yet they would find it impossible 
themselves to worship the Ganges, a cow, an ass, or the ocean as 
God. The view of nature of which they complain is the only one 
which affords a basis for an intelligent observation of nature and its 
unity. It is not here the place to note further the theoretical culti- 
vation of this standpoint, resulting, as it does, in natural science. 
This requires a concrete interest in objects of nature which looks 
bej^ond their common essence to their particular characteristics. 
When the regnant conception is that of abstract wisdom, and 
when purpose is restricted to the One, there can no such develop- 
ment of science take place. 

In the phase of religion which we have characterized as that of 
sublimity, the act of God relating himself to the world takes the 
form of His immediate appearance in an individual form for a 
definite purpose within a limited sphere. With this comes mira- 
cles. In previous religions there were no miracles. In the Indian 
religion everything in nature is in thorough disorder. A miracle 
demands a fixed order of nature as a background. This order 
need not be scientifically formulated. Only a general conscious- 
ness of the connection of natural objects is requisite. 

The most real miracle in nature is the appearance of spirit, 
and the truest appearance of spirit is in the profound form of the 
spirit of man and his consciousness of the rationality of nature. 
In the Jewish religion, however, the world appears as a complex 
of natural things, which react upon each other in a natural way. 
The need of miracle is felt so long as this intelligible connection 
of things is not taken as the objective nature of things — that is, so 
long as the laws of nature are not looked upon as the eternal and 
universal laws set by God Himself. But, even with the Jews, 
miracles were looked upon as casual manifestations of God, while 
His universal absolute relation to the world is that of transcendent 
eminence. Holy rather than sublime is the characteristic that 
man attributes to God. Sublimity rather expresses his relation to 
the external world, transcending it and yet lending it some re- 
flected worth. Sublimity is thus the chief characteristic of God's 
manifestation in the world. In the religion of Beauty there is a 
reconciliation of the thine; sio-nified with the sensuous material. 
The outer sensuous form reveals the inner spiritual significance. 
In the Jewish religion even the most sublime aspects of nature 



262 The Journal of Speeulatlve Philosophy. 

only point to something far transcending their capacity to reveal. 
Their incapacity is expi'essly known. For sublimity it is not suf- 
ficient that the content be higher than the form, but it must mani- 
fest itself as transcendent power over the form. In the Indian 
relio-ion the imao-es are measureless but not sublime. Thev are 
distortions ; or, where they are not distorted, as in the image of 
the cow or tlie ass, they express merely natural powers. Even 
here incongruity between the form and the thing signified is the 
chief characteristic. Religion demands at least that the power 
over all such sensuous forms be transcendent. 

Our consciousness may be filled with natural objects, but our 
spirit is above their measure. To look upon things around us does 
not awaken the emotion of the sublime. That demands the uf)- 
ward glance to the heavens. God's relation to all natural things 
is especially that of tlie sublime. The Scriptures of the Old 
Testament are renowned for this element. " God said. Let there 
be liofht, and there was lig-ht." This is one of the most sublime of 
human utterances. The word is the lightest of all things. This 
breath is here at the same time the light, the world of light, the 
infinite outpouring of light, which, however, is humbled to so 
transitory a thing as a word. God is further represented as mak- 
ing the wind and the lightning his servants, so obedient is nature. 
"He maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings 
of tlie wind.'' x\ll powers of nature and beasts of the field come 
into being at the breath of His word. " Thou openest thine hand, 
and they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, and they 
are troubled; thou takest away their breath, and they die and 
return to the dust." (Psalm, civ.) This is sublimity, where na- 
ture is so wholly subjected and represented as transitory. 

(c) God's design tor the world. 

l^irst Characteristic, — The essential characteristic of design here 
is that God is wise, and primarily that He is wise iu nature. jS^a- 
ture is his creation, and He vouchsafes to make his power recog- 
nized in it, and not only his power, but also his wisdom. This is 
made know^n in the products of nature through their designed 
arrangement. Nor is this design merely indefinite, superficial, and 
external. " Thou givest to the beasts their food." The truest end 
and its realization, however, do not occur in nature as such, but in 
consciousness. God manifests himself in nature, but his essential 



The Rel\(j'ion of the Old Testament. 263 

epiphany is in consciousness as the reflection of Himself; thus it 
appears in His self-consciousness that this is his purpo?e. 

The first conception of power is that of sublimity, not of pur- 
pose. This purpose cannot really be a single one. The purpose 
of God can only be Himself. His idea must become objective, and 
He And Himself in its realization. This constitutes the o-eneric 
idea of purpose. As rei^ards the world or nature from the Jewish 
standpoint, however, the purpose of God seems primarily to mani- 
fest only his powder, while wisdom sits quite apart from it. If we 
speak of a design, however, it must have a further characteristic 
than that of power. The phice where it can occur is in spirit in 
general. As God is in spirit as consciousness, in created spirit as 
His reflection, it is in flnite spirit as such that design is present 
and is recognized. God has here flnite spirit as his reflection 
which is not yet returned absolutely back to Him. Finite spirit 
is essentially consciousness. God must, therefore, be the object of 
consciousness as its essence. He thus recognizes that He will be 
glorifled. The glory or honor of God is His priujary aim. ['"The 
chief end of man is to glorify God."] Full knowledge of God, 
however, is not to be looked for in this phase. That requires the 
more concrete conception of self-begotten and self-contained dif- 
ference, as stated in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Purpose 
is of the essence of religion. God must be known in self- 
consciousness, as having aflirmative relation to Himself. As 
God, He is infinite power and subjectivity. But it is also 
essential for religion that He appear essentially in other spirits. 
It is thus that the reverence of God appears. This honor is 
universal. Not only the Jews, but all nations must praise the 
Lord. This purpose, however, is primarily only theoretical. 
The further determination of it is the practical, the peculiarly 
real purpose which is realized in the world — that is, in the hearts 
of men. 

Second Characteristic. — This essential purpose is ethical. What- 
ever man does he must have the lawful, the right before his eyes. 
This right is divine, and so far as it finds entrance into finite con- 
sciousness it is a law of God. 

God is the universal. The man who determines himself in ac- 
cordance with this universal is free, not following his own will, 
but the universal will. Rio-ht-doina; is here the fundamental 



26i The Jovrnal of SpeoMlative Philosophy. 

thing-, the walking befoi'e the Lord, the freedom from self-seeking 
aims, righteousness which avails before God. 

Man does this riirht on account of his relation to God, for the 
honor of God. This right has its seat in the innermost being of 
man — in his will. Over against this will, willing God's will 
stand the natural conditions of temporal existence — the secular 
life. Here we find an opposition to be overcome similar to that 
between God and nature. On the one hand is the rig-ht as such, 
on the other is the natural side of man's life. This latter is to 
be subjected by the Sjnritual activity of the will as nature is to 
God. 

The natural conditions of man's life are placed in relation to the 
inner condition of will. If this will be pure and his activity be 
right-doing, then the external conditions mnst correspond with it. 
Good must come to man only according to his deed. He must 
always act in an ethical manner, let come what will. And yet 
with this imperative there enters also the demand that he who 
does the right also fares well. 

The demand is that external conditions correspond and be sub- 
jected to the inner condition — to right. This follows from the 
supreme relation of God to these conditions of nature. There is 
heie a purpose which must be fulfilled. Harmony must ensue 
upon this discord, so that the natural conditions of man's life be 
seen to be ruled by essentially spiritual conditions. 

In this way the temporal well-being of man becomes sacred. 
But it has this title only so far as it is conformable to the ethical, 
divine law. This is the bond of necessity which is no longer 
blind as in other religions. There it was an empty, indeterminate 
necessity devoid of ethical significance, and yet sul)jecting even 
the gods to its blind will. In this religion, however, necessity is 
concrete. It gives an absolute law, wills tiie right wliieh has, as 
a result, a correspondent affirmative in well-being. Temporal 
well-being is the necessary consequent of right doing in the relig- 
ion of the Jews. This is the harmony which man has reached in 
this sphere. 

That it will — nay, must — go well with the Israelite alone is 
founded upon the purpose of God. lie knows that God i8 the 
bond of necessity, the unity which j(fins well-being with well- 
doing. This confidence, this fundamental conviction of the Jew- 



The Religion of the Old Tedament. 265 

ish people, is a most wonderful trait. The Old Testament script- 
ures, especially tlie Psalms, are full of it. 

This is also the trend of the whole book of Job. Job boasts of 
his innocence, and complains of his fortune as being unjust. His 
consciousness of rectitude, which is absolute, and his incommensu- 
rate fortune, is an enipjina to him. He knows that it is God's pur- 
pose that it shall go well with the righteous. 

The denouement is that this discontent be changed into pure 
confidence. 

Job cries out : "What reward does God give from on high? 
Shall not the unjust be cast down ? " His friends turn his ques- 
tion upon himself, saying that because he is unfortunate he must 
be unrighteous, and needs God's affliction to preserve him from 
arrogance. Finally God Himself speaks : " Who is this that 
darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Where wast 
thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?"' Then follows a 
grand description of God's power. Job finally acknowledges that 
he is the man without understanding. Submission follows. This 
resignation following upon his recognition of the power of the 
Lord brings to him again his former good fortune. It is, however, 
recognized that man shall not demand this from God as a right. 
This confidence, this consciousness of the harmony between the 
power and the wisdom and justice of God, is founded in the rec- 
ognition of purpose in God. 

It remains to note the inner spiritual process to this result. 
Man must do right. That is the categorical imperative. Right- 
doing has its seat in the will. Man is thereby turned inward 
upon himself, and must busy himself with introspective questions 
as to whether his will is really good or not. 

This self-scrutiny and the grief on account of unrighteousness, 
this crying of the soul after God, this humbling of one's self in 
the depths of the spirit, this longing of the soul after righteous- 
ness, after conformity to the will of God, is a most wonderful 
characteristic of the Jewish religion. 

But now we have to note the limitation of this purpose of God 
that men know Him and do whatever they do for his honor's sake. 
Where, then, does its limitation come in ? Is it in the idea or 
conception of God, producing itself in the consciousness of men? 
Certainly it does not belong to the absolute Idea^ to the being of 



266 The Journal of Sjyeculative Philosophij. 

God as revealed in Christianity. But it comes from the undevel- 
oped form of his wisdom as revealed in the Jewish religion. 
AA^isdora and purpose are still general and abstract, lacking the 
concrete development seen in the Christian religion, where God is 
fully revealed. The Idea, God, as known in the Jewish religion, 
lacks the element of eternal self-diiferentiation in the process of 
His unity. So the attribute of wisdom is an undeveloped attri- 
bute. It is general and abstract. So, too, of ])urpose. Purpose 
in man implies unity. Man must be an individual, and know and 
maintain himself as a unit to be free. This consciousness of free- 
individuality is the first form of purpose. The ethical life developed 
from this therefore concerns the individual, his family, his con- 
nections. Thus it takes the form of exclusiveness. Thus, too, the 
primary form of the divine purpose as known by man is limited, 
when it passes out of its abstract form into the realm of |>ractical 
details. 

On the one hand God is the Lord of heaven and earth, and on 
the other hand His purpose is limited to one family, one people. 
All peoples, indeed, must recognize Him, but yet He is practically 
only the God of Abi'aham, of Isaac, and Jacob, the God who 
has led Israel out of Egypt. From the conception of the abstract 
unity of God springs the conception of His being with one family. 
The religion is at first patriarchal. The family widens into the 
nation, a natural distinction in humanity. And so God's purpose 
is still limited by natural conditions. 

The five books of Moses begin with the creation of the world. 
Then comes the fall of man, which refers to generic man. But 
these universal conceptions seem to have no influence upon the 
Jewish religion. The people of Israel never seemed to compre- 
hend these universal elements. God is the God of Israel, not of 
all men. This limitation of the universal purpose of God may be 
illustrated in pictorial way by the manner in which man special- 
izes and limits his pure good-will to some petty wilful course of ac- 
tion. Universal good-will and purpose contain all particulars. But, 
when it enters the sphere of external action, some definite one of 
the particulars must be singled out. All at once is beyond man's 
power ; at best he can take only one after another. Thus the 
particular is wrenched, abstracted from the concrete total of good 
purpose, and becomes unconsecrated because it is thus abstracted. 



The Rdiglon of tlie Old Testament. 267 

Tlius in politics, when universal laws are to be re2;naut, we find 
the rule turn into the supremacy, or the arbitrary despotism of 
one man. It is thus that universal law first particularizes itself 
in the reahn of practical reality. 

Thus other people are excluded from the Divine purpose in the 
Jewish relii>-ion. Connection with this people, and consequently 
relation with God, depends upon the natural relation of birth. 
Hence, too, the necessity for a particular polity, laws, and cult. 

This exclusiveness is further developed so as to demand the pos- 
session of a particular promised land, to be parcelled out to par- 
ticular tribes for inalienable possession. However, this exclusive- 
ness is not at first polemical. It is rather the steadfast holding 
on to an assured possession of an immediate relation to an all- 
powerful and an all-wise God. ]^o denial is made that other peo- 
ple can be brought into the same relation, to this honoring of the 
Lord. All nations must magnify the Lord, but only in an indefi- 
nite sort of a way. The divine purpose does not seem to really em- 
brace more than the Jewish people in demanding this uncondi- 
tional reverence. Such it becomes first with Mohammedanism, 
where this special purpose is applied in an abstract way to all na- 
tions. Hence the fanaticism of Moliammedan Deism. 

Fanaticism is also to be found among the Jews, but only where 
their possessions or their religion is attacked. Both their posses- 
sions and their religion are peculiar and exclusive, permitting of 
no intercourse witli others. Pro arts etfocis they were fiercely 
fanatical. 

Thv/'d Characteristic. — Of all the creation, man is the most 
sublime. He is the intelligent, thinking part of it. He is the 
image of God in a far higher sense than this can be asserted of 
nature. What is found in this religion is God who is spirit, and 
only in spirit can He be reverenced. In the religion of the Parsees 
we have found a dualism. We have this opposition, too, in the 
Jewish religion, but it is found in man, not in God. God is spirit, 
and His creation is also in a sense spiritual, in so far as He finds 
himself his reflection in it. But finitude implies that all difiference 
is discord. God is at home in His creation. It is good, for the 
nothing out of which He made it is his own absolute self. Tbe 
opposition occurs, then, in other finite spirits. This is the battle- 
field of good and evil, the place where this battle must be fought 



268 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophi/. 

out. All these characteristics sprint out of the nature of the 
idea. This conflict is a most difficult point, for it constitutes 
the contradiction. The good is nev^er self-contradictory, but the 
contradiction comes only through the evil. But the question oc- 
curs : How has evil entered the world ? In the Parsee religion this 
question raises no difficulty, for both evil and good are postulated 
as characteristics of the indefinite absolute. But here, where we 
have God as the one power and subject from whom all creation 
proceeds, evil is a contradiction, tor God is wholly good. Tlie 
Bible preserves for us an old conception of the fall of man. This 
representation of the way in which evil entered the world is in 
the form of a myth or parable. When we seek the speculative 
truth in this figurative narrative, we And some incongruous ele- 
ments. In the same way Plato mingles incongruous traits in his 
attempted description of ideas in sensuous form. 

The narrative informs us that, after the creation of Adam and 
Eve, God forbade them to eat of the fruit of a certain tree of the 
garden. The serpent, however, seduced them, saying : " Ye shall 
become as gods." God punishes them severely, but says : "Adam 
is become as one of us, to know good and evil." Thus we have 
God's word for it that man has become god-like in this respect, 
though He drives him out of Paradise. 

This simple narrative may be understood in the following way : 
God gave a command to man, which he disobeyed, being incited 
by an infinite haughty ambition to become as God, this thought, 
however, coming to him from without. For this pitiable, foolish 
presumption he is severely punished. God gave him the formal 
prohibition in order to test his obedience. God, at least, forbade 
the evil. His command was quite other than a forbidding to eat 
the literal fruit of a tree. The command is given so that man 
cannot complain that he is punished for the fault of another per- 
son. In the whole narrative there is a profound speculative mean- 
ino;. It is Adam, or (generic human nature, that fii>;ures in this 
story. The tree, moreover, is called the tree of the knowledge of 
good and evil, thus stripping it of literal childish import. Man 
eats of it, and comes to a knowledge of good and evil which he 
did not have before. The difficulty, however, is that God is said 
to have forbidden this knowledge to man, for it is this which con- 
stitutes the character of spirit. Spirit is only spirit through con- 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 269' 

sciousness, and the highest form of consciousness is this knowledge 
of good and evil. How, then, could it be forbidden to man ? 
Knowledge is indeed a double-sided and perilous thing. The spirit 
is free. This freedom leaves one with choice between good and 
evil. Thus it contains the possible phase of wilfulness to choose 
the evil. The story represents man as at first in a state of inno- 
cence. But this is the general condition of natural consciousness, 
which must be abrogated with the entrance into spiritual con- 
sciousness. This is the eternal history and nature of man — rising 
out of mere nature into the spiritual. Man is first natural and 
innocent, incapable of responsibility. There is no freedom in 
childhood, and yet it is the destiny of man to attain again to inno- 
cence. What is thus man's ultimate attainment — harmon}^ with 
the good — is here represented as his primitive condition. This is 
the defect in the biblical picture, that this harmony is an imme- 
diate condition given, not attained. This immediate condition of 
naturalness has to be transcended, but the discord thus arising is 
to be harmonized again. The narrative represents this harmony 
as a primitive condition which ought not to be left. Thus in the 
whole representation there is a mingling of the sensuous and the- 
spiritual, of necessary and of accidental elements. The serpent 
promises Adam that he shall become as a god, and God confirms 
this view that knowledge constitutes Godlike-ness. This pro- 
found truth is firmly imbedded in the wdiole story. 

But, further, punishment follows the acquisition of this knowl- 
edge. Man is driven out of Paradise, and God says : " Cursed is 
the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days 
of thy life ; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and 
thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread until thou return unto the ground; for out of it 
wast thou taken ; for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou re- 
turn." 

We have to recognize that this condition is the consequence of 
finitude. But, on the other hand, the very nobility of man comes 
from his thus gaining his bread, from his toil, and his understand- 
ing the art of living. Nature gives the beasts their food at hand.. 
What is nature to them, man elevates into an art. But the art of 
living is not the highest phase of his freedom. The art of living 
well, of knowing and w^illiug the good — this is the highest. How- 



:2T0 The Journal of Speculatwe PJiilosophy. 

ever, these two phases of man's free activity are closely knit together. 
The sweat of his brow is an essential element in all his spiritual 
acquisitions. Taken by itself, this natural side seems sad enough. 
To him who does not know the higher destiny of the spirit, it is 
a sad thought that man must thus toil and die. Bnt the destinv of 
man as spirit is immortality. However, this lofty destination is 
not contained in the narrative, for it is written : " God said and 
now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life 
and eat and live forever " ; and, further : " Till thon return nuto the 
ground . . . for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." 

Throughout this narrative of the fall of man we find these in- 
congruous elements present. The necessity of passing out of the 
natural state of innocence in order to know good and evil is clear- 
ly shown. But tlie fault of the narrative is that it presents no 
consolation in view of death. The fundamental thought, how- 
ever, is that man should not remain a merely natural creature. 
This implies what has alwa_ys been maintained, by profound the- 
oloo-v — that man is bv nature evil. Evil is the remaininij: in this 
condition of mere natural, animal life. Man must pass out of it 
through freedom, through intelligent will. But, further, man 
must overcome the discord arising from this step. His spirit must 
attain to reconciliation, to absolute unity with itself or harmony 
• with the good. This is the full content of man's real freedom. 
But this phase is lacking here. The discord is not shown as abro- 
gated in God's own nature. The abstraction of evil is not yet 
overcome. 

It is noteworthy that this narrative slumbered, as it were, in the 
Jewish literature, and receive no further development. Only in 
the later apocryphal books do we find some allusions to it. In 
Christianity it is taken up again and receives its true significance. 
Yet we do iind this conflict of man with himself an element of the 
religious consciousness of the Jews. But it is not grasped by them 
in its speculative significance of the necessity of the birth-throes 
of the spiritual man out of the natural man. It is presented 
rather in the practical form of individuals striving against sin. 
Along with this is given the conception of the righteous man — 
one who does God's will and remains in the service of Jehovah 
by observing the ethical laws of his people, both ritual and civil. 
Yet the inner conflict of man with himself constantly appears, 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 271 

especially in the Psalms. Out of the depths of his soul the Psalm- 
ist cries out against the i)ain of the consciousness of sin and be- 
seeches pardon and reconciliation. But this depth of sorrow for 
sin appears as the experience of individuals, and is not known as 
an eternal phase in the life of spirit. 

These are the chief characteristics of the religion of The One 
so far as relates to the creative self-separation and purpose of The 
One. This last characteristic of purpose leads us to the cidtus 
of the relio-ion. 

C. The Cultus. 

â– ^^ The relation which God has to self-consciousness is a very essen- 
tial one. It is onh' within the province of self-consciousness that 
he can reveal his purpose. Nature must be superseded by the 
spirit in man before this manifestation can be made. Let us now 
note the religious state of mind in this self-consciousness. It is a 
mediating activity, bringing out into objective manifestation the 
relation with God already implicit in it. It is a manifestation of 
the innermost heart of self-consciousness. 

(1) The primary phase of this self-conscious relation to The One 
is that of intuition or the pure thought of the pure essence — of 
that which is pure power shrivelling up all before it. This, too, 
is the primary phase of freedom, devoid as yet of all concrete con- 
tent. This self-consciousness is thus distinguished from empirical 
consciousness, which has always definite objects before it. But 
this phase of self-consciousness has not yet taken up into itself all 
the concrete qualities of the natural and the spiritual life. All 
this real part of life falls as yet outside of it. And thus this 
secular side of consciousness does not yet gain its due and appear 
as rational and sacred. 

As pure thinking, then, self-consciousness lacks an object, and 
thus lacks the deliniteness which belono;s to consciousness. It is 
simply the Ego in immediate unity with itself, or the abstract in- 
dividual. Such self-consciousness is God considered as abstract 
power. There is no definite existence with which it can essen- 
tially relate itself. It is all as yet undeveloped in the abstract 
One, as mere almighty power. On the other hand, the self-con- 
sciousness of man in relation to this abstract Power is also form- 
less and empty, and thus ^easily perverted into absolute un-free- 



272 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

doin. His self-consciousness becomes that of the slave before his 
master. The "fear of the Lord" thus becomes tiie fundamental 
characteristic or his religious disposition in relation to The One. 
Fear is that state of consciousness which comes from the concep- 
tion of a transcendent Power, which annihilates all my worth, 
â– whether this consists of internal or external possessions. I am 
fearless when, in possession of inalienable freedom, I do not mind 
that power and am conscious of being so strong that it cannot 
overcome me. But I am also fearless when I do not care for 
those things which the power is able to destroy. My crown and 
throne may perish, and vet, if I have not set my heart upon 
them, I may remain fearless and uninjured. But the fear which 
we have to do with here is not that of iinite power. Mere ex- 
ternal finite power is an accidental thing, which, without fear, 
may come and destroy me. But fear here is that of tlie invisible 
and absolute, of an infinite which is opposed to me as a finite 
self. In the consciousness of such a Power all earthly power 
and existence vanishes as smoke. Such an annihilating fear as 
this it is which raises one into the pure thought of the absolute 
power of The One. And this " fear of the Lord is the begin- 
ning of wisdom," which consists in refusing to esteem any par- 
ticular finite thing as independent. Everything that can stand 
before it can do so only as a phase of the unitary organism, 
which is the abrogation of everything finite. Such fear is really 
an essential moment of freedom. This consists in freeing one's 
self from all accidental and temporal interests, in the conscious- 
ness that man is more than all his conditions and possessions. 
Such fear frees one from fear. It is not merely the feeling of de- 
pendence, but rather the stripping free from everything depend- 
ent — the pure exaltation of self unto the absolute Self, before 
which and in which the empirical self vanishes away like mist. 

But in this process there is also an affirmative element at work. 
This self-renunciation contains self-exaltation. In this way fear is 
transformed into absolute confidence, infinite faith. But this 
form differs from that of Stoical independence or freedom in bonds. 
For it lacks this phase of Stoical subjectivity. It has rather 
to lose itself in the One to attain its self-confidence. It does at- 
tain to this self-justification through this relation to the One. 
And thus the slavish consciousness rests obstinately upon his 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 273 

own individuality because it has been taken up into union with 
the One. Thus it becomes exclusive, and God becomes — 

(2) The exclusive Lord God of the Jewish people. It can 
cause no surprise to find an oriental people thus limiting religion 
to itself. This is the common characteristic of all oriental peoples. 
The Greeks and Romans were the first people to have foreign 
gods. With the Romans all religions came to be accepted, and 
thus deprived of their exclusive national character. The Chinese 
and the Persians had their exclusive national religions. In India 
the caste and the relation of every individual was determined by 
birth. There was no demand that others should accept their re- 
ligion. Howevei", this exclusiveness is more surprising in the 
Jewish religion, for it contradicts their conception that God can 
only be apprehended in universal thought and not in any particu- 
lar definite form. Among the Persians God is the Good. This 
is also a universal attribute ; but with the Persiaus it is as yet ab- 
stract, and hence is identified with light — a particular empirical 
thing. The Jewish God, however, is only for thought, for the 
universal which abrogates all particularity. Hence the contra- 
diction of its exclusiveness. It is true that in many places we 
find its consciousness transcending this contradiction. Tiie Psalm- 
ist exclaims : " Praise the Lord, all ye nations ; praise him, all ye 
people, for his merciful kindness is great toward us and the truth 
of the Lord endureth from everlasting to everlasting." Rever- 
ence for God is looked for among all people. Especially with 
the later prophets do we find this elevation to an appreciation 
of the universal character of their religion. God declares 
through the mouth of Jeremiah : " I will make priests and 
Levites of the heatlien wdio honor my name " ; " He that feareth 
God and does the right among all people shall be acceptable to 
me." But all this belongs to a later period. According to the 
prevailing idea, the Jewish people are the elect of God, and thus 
His universality is reduced to a particular form. We have previ- 
ously noted, in the development of the divine purpose, how its 
limitation lies in the abstract self-determination of God. Here 
-we have noted it on its subjective side, as it springs from the 
slavish self-consciousness in the presence of absolute power. To 
these slaves this recognition and this honoring of Jehovah seem 
to be peculiarly their own. This is also connected with the his- 
XXII— 18 



274 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

torj of the Jewish people. Tlie God of the Jews is the God of 
Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob, who led them out of Egypt. There 
does not seem to be any suspicion that God has been similarly re- 
lated to any other people. This exclusiveness also enters from 
this subjective side into the cult. God is the Lord of those who 
honor Him as the Jews alone do. There are some traces of a 
perversion of this idea in the way in which Jehovah is sometimes 
referred to as being more powerful than other gods, as if there 
were also other gods. At most, however, they were to the Jews 
false gods. 

God is known as Creator of the heavens and the earth, giving 
to all things and all men their peculiar nature and their definite 
limits and rights. He is the giver of all laws to liis chosen peo- 
ple. The Ten Commandments, which are universal and ethical 
principles of all civil and moral life, are given, not as laws of rea- 
son, but are prescribed by the Lord. Moses is called the Law- 
giver of the Jews. But it was in a very different way from what 
Solon and Lycurgus were law-givers to the Greeks. These men 
gave their own human laws. But Moses gave God's laws. Je- 
hovah himself wrote them on tables of stone, " Thus saith the 
Lord " stands before even the most insignificant details of the 
ceremonial law. All their laws were ordained by divine statute, 
and thus had a formal absolute authority. The details of their 
civil code were not developed from the general purpose of the 
polity. Nothing was left to man's judgment. Human caprice 
and reason alike were interdicted by the transcendent divine 
Unity, and any political change was looked upon as an apostasy 
from God, while the most trifling detail as given by God was con- 
sidered to be eternally obligatory, being thus placed upon the 
same plane as the moral law^s. This forms a strong contrast with 
the conception which we have of God. The Jewish cultus is the 
service of the Lord. The o-ood, ri^'hteous man is the one who 
observes the ceremonial as well as the moral laws enjoined upon 
his people. 

This people of God is accepted through a bond and covenant. 
This Is a great advance upon Nature-religions, in which there is 
only a superficial distinction between the natural and the Divine. 
But here we have the Divine as absolutely transcending the natu- 
i-al, and so coming into relation with man only so far as he has 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 275 

renounced his Unite empirical self. Here the relation of man's 
self-conscionsness is that to his absolute essence. Yet it is not the 
universal-human, or man as man, that is brouglit into this relation- 
ship. Hence the feature of exclusiveness in the cultus. Nor is 
this communion an original essential one. Neither does it spring 
from the love of God. But it is established in an external form 
through a compact. In the Christian religion we find this crude 
form completed in the doctrine of redemption and reconciliation. 

This adoption of the Jews implies, on the other hand, that they 
have given tliemselves unreservedly to God's service. They held 
to this adoption with a wonderful inflexibility of conviction. This 
took the form of the fanaticism of stiff-neckedness, while that of 
the Mohammedans, which was freed from natural limits and rec- 
ognized belief as the bond of unity, took the form of fanatical zeal 
for proselyting. Only an occasional wavering appears, when there 
is a conflict of interest or various courses open for choice. But 
even here the authority of the One absolute power forbids the use 
of human judgment. There is no freedom of choice before this ab- 
solute authority. While the Greeks esteemed certain of their insti- 
tutions divine, they at the same time recognized their human ori- 
gin. But the Jews made no distinction between the divine and 
the human elements in their polity and cult. All alike was or- 
dained by God. It was this lack of freedom that caused their want 
of belief in immortality. The slight traces of this belief that ap- 
pears in their literature had no practical influence upon their moral 
and religious life. The highest duty is the service of Jehovah. 
Temporal possessions are the reward of this service of Jehovah, 
and a man's highest aim is that he and his family may live long 
in the enjoyment of them. Soul-consciousness was not yet awak- 
ened. Man had no inner room, no inner extension of soul, which 
could draw back upon itself for satisfaction. The great realit3"for 
him was always in some form of temporal welfare. According to 
the law, each family received a piece of ground which he dared not 
alienate from his family. His aim in life was to keep this and 
thus preserve the existence of his family. Thus the possession of 
land was connected with his consciousness of God. Thus was the 
absolute surrender of the Jew to the absolute power changed back 
into assured temporal existence and possessions. This people and 
this possession were inseparable. God's people were given the land 



276 The Journal of Speculative P/dlosophy. 

of Canaan. God had made a covenant with Abraham one of whose 
stipulations was tliis temporal possession. Tliis possession was 
essential to their faith and piety. It thus had an absolute divine 
guarantee. It was not held as a civil right or as property. Pro|> 
erty implies j)ersonality (legal) and freedom of the individual. 
Man is essentially a proprietor in so far as he is a legal person. 
Just what possessions he may hold is a matter of indifference so 
long as he is recognized as a proprietor in virtue of his legal per- 
sonality. 

With the Jews, however, the possession was the chief thing. It 
was divinely guaranteed them, and thus lacked the characteristics 
of property as such. All discretion as to parting with it was also 
taken away. At most there could be only a temporary alienation 
of it, restoration following in the year of Jubilee. 

So much for the positive side of this covenant. The negative 
side corresponds with it. The express recognition of the power 
which guarantees them this possession is also expressed in definite 
external particulars. The land is bound to this people, but it is 
also bound to God. This latter is inwoven with the domestic and 
social laws of the people. These have a real ethical content, but 
are observed not on this account but solely on account of the di- 
vine command. This accounts for the many trivial forms which 
these laws assume. God being Absolute Power, any external ac- 
tions may be arbitrarily characterized as lioly. Lofty or trivial as 
they may be, obedience to them is the condition of the existence 
and the preservation of this people. Deviation from these com- 
mands is possible to individuals and to the whole people, but does 
not affect the original covenant. The punishment threatened for 
such disobedience is not absolute, but only external misfortune — 
the loss or the diminishing of their possession. As the obedience 
is not of an ethical kind, but rather that of blind compliance, so 
also is the punishment of an external rather than of an ethical sort. 
These punishments are threatened with fearful imprecations. The 
proficiency of this people in cursing is noteworthy. Yet their com- 
minations refer to external rather than to internal ethical concerns. 
In the 26th chapter of the Book of Leviticus it is written : " But if 
ye will not do all my commandments but break my covenant, I will 
visit you with terror, consumption, and the burning ague that shall 
consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart; and ye shall sow your 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 27 Y 

seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. Tliey that hate you 
shall reign over you, aud ye shall flee when none pursueth you. 
And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, then will I pun- 
ish you seven times more for your sins. I will make your heaven 
as iron and your earth as brass ; and your strength shall be spent 
in vain, for your land shall not yield her increase nor your trees 
their fruit. And if ye walk contrary unto me and will not hearken 
unto me, I will bring sevenfold more plagues upon you according 
to your sins. 1 will send wild beasts among you which shall rob 
you of your children and destroy your cattle and make you few 
in number ; and your highways shall be desolate. And if ye will 
not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary to 
me, I will walk contrary to you and will punish you yet seven- 
fold more for your sins. I will bring an avenging sword upon you. 
I will send pestilence among you in your cities and ye shall be 
delivered into the hand of your enemy. Ten women shall bake 
your bread in one oven. . . . Ye shall eat and not be satisfied. 
And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, I will walk con- 
trary to you in fury. I, even I, will chastise you sevenfold more 
for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh 
of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places 
and cnt down your images and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses 
of your idols and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your 
cities waste and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will 
not smell the savor of your sweet odors. And I will bring the land 
into desolation ; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be aston- 
ished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen and will 
draw out a sword after you." 

"We have already noted that with the Jews evil occurs in the 
subjective spirit and the Lord punishes it, but is not in conflict 
with it as in the Persian religion. God punishes the evil as that 
which ought not to be. Only the good — that which the Lord 
commands — ought to be. There is no freedom granted to inquire 
after what is good. The demands of the good, which are cer- 
tainly those of reason, have here only the form of external divine 
commands. Their transgression is visited with the wrath of their 
divine Law-giver. In this relation to the Lord there is only a 
" mustP What he commands is law, and must be done. Retribu- 
tive justice belongs to the Lord. The battle of good and evil be. 



5 

a. 



278 The Journal of Speculative Philosopky. 

longs to the finite subject. Thus there is a conflict within liiin, 
and there comes the crushing pain of knowing that tlie good is 
only a " niustr 

(3) The third side of the cultus is the atonement. It can con- 
cern properly only the particular sins of individuals, and is made 
through sacrifices. The sacrifice has here the significance of man's 
acknowledgment of the Lord, of a declaration of fear of Him 
and, finally, of thereby redeeming what he had already forfeite 
Everything must be, as it were, purchased from the Lord. One 
tenth of all the increase is off'ered to the Lord, and the first- 
born of every family is ransomed from Him, The expiation for 
sins takes ])lace under the conception that the deserved punish- 
ment can be transferred to the offered victim. This is the sacri- 
fice proper. The individual thus manifests his own worthlessness, 
but finds his worth, his righteousness, restored through. God's recog- 
nition of his sacrifice. Punishment is conceived, not as being a 
moral purification, but a saving from damage. Blood must be 
shed and sprinkled upon the altar. For life is the highest of all 
possessions, and the sacrifice of that of the animal returns as a 
bonus to the one who offers it. The blood of the victim is es- 
teemed sacred, and cannot even be tasted. Man has not the con- 
sciousness of his freedom, in comparison to which the blood of 
animals is entirely a subordinate thing. 

Transition to the next Stage — that of the Religion of Beauty. 

In the religion of sublimity we are in the sphere of free sub- 
jectivity. God is the free subject. But the element of power is 
made the transcendent one. Creation proceeds from the self-sepa- 
ration of this power, but it then becomes a subordinate vassal and 
does not fully refiect the divine image. Further advance is now 
to be made by conceiving creation as going freely forth from God 
and becominiy free, so that God is the God of men who are free 
even in their obedience. Abstractly considered, this sphere con- 
tains the following phases: God is free absolute spirit, and mani- 
fests only Himself in all that he does. His creation is his image. 
Only as He recognizes Himself in His creation is He free. But 
this implies that the creature be no longer merely a servant, but 
that in this service he finds his real freedom. 

This phase of freedom appears first in the creature, while God 



The Religion of the Old Testament. 279 

seems to remain unchanged. The entrance of freedom liere im- 
plies that in finite spirits all contradiction to God is annulled 
and thus transmnted into the divine. Renunciation and fli(j^ht are 
merely the negative side of freedom, leading to its positive char- 
acteristic, to that of transcendence over the merely natnral. Such 
transcendence implies that the finite spirit is free. " God is the 
God of free men." Freedom thus appears first in man. But the 
development occurs also in the conception of God. God can be 
the God of free men only in so far as He finds himself, his image 
in his creatures. But this implies that humanity is an essential 
element in God. Man, recognizing this, is free in his relation to 
God. For that to which he relates himself is his own essence, or at 
least contains it as an element. Generic human nature is con- 
ceived as something divine. All that is of highest worth in hnnicin 
life is looked upon as having divine significance. Man creates 
God in his own spiritual image. Self-consciousness recognizes 
these spiritual powers of man as its own ol)ject, and hence is free in 
relation to them. But it is not these powers of any one subjective 
individual which is tlius recognized. The ratlier it is, tliat of 
generic man — of the universal human. This elevates the self- 
consciousness above the care for any immediate subjective aims, 
and finds its essential satisfaction in substantial objective spheres, 
of social morals and institutions. These are the generic-rational 
forms of human activity. And the freedom of the individual con- 
sists in his harmony with this ethical environment. The sum and 
substance of the conception in this phase of religion is that God 
is conceived as being Himself the mediation between Himself and 
his creation. It is the human element in God which constitutes 
the mediation. Man as man knows himself as in God, and God and 
man mutually say of each other: "He is spirit of my spirit," 
Man is spirit like God. He is, it is true, environed with finite 
limitations, but in his religion he transcends them all. 

We thus come to the religion of humanity and freedom. But 
the first form of this religion (that of the Greeks) is still weighted 
down with a load of sensuous natural elements. Thus the human 
element in God still takes the form of natural objects. Hence 
this religion, as to its fundamental basis, belongs yet to the class 
of finite religions. Like all others, it can find its fulfilment only 
in the fully revealed religion of Christianity. But yet it deserves 



280 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

the name of a religion of spirituality, as it represents the syn- 
thetic totality of previous stages out of nature into tbe human in 
relio^ion. 



GOETHE'S MARCHEX:- 

A POLITICO-NATIONAL CONFESSION OF FAITH OF THE POET. 

BY DR. HERMANN" BACMGART. 
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY ISAAC N. JUD80N. 

Chaptek I. 

Goethe composed the Milrchen in the latter part of the summer 
of 1795, and it was published in the August and September num- 
bers of the first issue of the " Horen." 

Immediately upon its first appearance, in spite of the disturbed 
condition of the times, it not only aroused great interest, but was 
subjected to manifold interpretations. 

" In matters of this sort, the imagination itself does not invent 
so much as the folly of men discovers ; and I am convinced that 
the interpretations already at hand will surpass all expectation," 
writes Schiller to Goethe on December 25th. To this the latter 
answers : " I thank you for your contribution to the interpretation 
of the Miirchen ; we will wait a little longer, however. I still 
hope for a favorable turn in my aflFairs, so as to be able to have 
such fun as I choose over it in the ' Unterhaltungen.' " 

Of this intended continuation Goethe writes on November 21st : 
" The new Marchen can scarcely be ready in December ; indeed, 
I do not venture to pass on to it till I have said something in one 
way or another about the meaning of the first. If I can oflfer some- 



* From " The Diversions (Unteihaltungen) of German Emigrants " (see translation 
in Bohn's Library). These emigrants were the French nobility (emigres) fleeing from 
the French Revolution. The reader of this Journal will remember the interpretation of 
this Mart'hen (" The Story of the Snake ") by Roscnkranz, puljlished in Volume V, and 
will welcome this explanation of Baumgart, which seems to hit the very thoughts of 
Goethe himself. Of course every one has read the marvellous rendering of " The Tale," 
by Thomas Carlyle. It is one of those literary works which should be read once a year, 
through life. — Editor. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 281 

thing neat of this kind in December, I shall be o-lad to take part 
in this waj in the first number of the new year." 

Aojain in Februarj', 1797, and still again in February, 1798, 
Goethe mentions tliis purpose of a continuation of the '' Unter- 
haltungen" in a series of projected Marchen ; but he did not carry 
it out. 

lie therefore failed to leave a definite hint for the interpreta- 
tion of the Marchen ; also from Schiller we learn nothino; of the 
kind, and are thus thrown upon our own conjectures and upon a 
few chance and not very clear hints. From that time on a great 
many attempts at interpretation have been made, especially in the 
thirties and forties and even later, which are all to a greater or 
less degree inconsistent wnth one another, and no one of which has 
stood before criticism. In this one point all the later editors and 
commentators are agreed, but in every other respect their opinions 
are divided. Some consider the matter as not yet settled, and still 
look for the solution of the question under different conditions ; 
others think that a satisfactory interpretation is altogether impos- 
sible. One of our most meritorious historians of literature, Carl 
Goedeke, in his recently published book, " Goethe's Life and Writ- 
ings," concludes the paragraph upon the Marchen in the following 
manner : " In view of the praiseworthy habit of learned men, to 
seek for method even in madness, there is no doubt that there will 
still be no lack of attempts at interpretation, some of a ver}^ bold 
nature." He is of the opinion that the Marchen is merely designed 
to provoke the interpreter with its " motley and droll " inven- 
tions. 

Opposed to this opinion stand the extraordinary praise and the 
great interest that the Marchen has aroused from its first appear- 
ance to the present day. William von Humboldt, as well as 
Korner, felt himself attracted not only by the form, but especially 
by the thoughtful and soul-satisfying contents; and Schiller, after 
reading the first half, expressed the opinion that Goethe had laid 
upon himself the obligation to make the whole symbolic. 

He finds the idea of the Marchen expressed in the Marchen it- 
self, and the majority of commentators also have followed him in 
this opinion ; he finds it in the help which the faculties render one 
another and in their mutual dependence. 

An individual helps not," says the man with the lamp, " but 



u 



282 The Journal of Speculative Philosop/iy. 

he who combines with many at the right time," and shortly after : 
" We are assembled at the propitious hour ; let each perform his 
task, let each do his duty ; and a universal happiness will swallow 
up individual sorrows, as a universal grief consumes individual 
joys." 

There is no doubt that the idea of the Miirchen, which becomes 
clearer as the narrative advances, is to be sought for in this direc- 
tion ; bnt the working out of the idea is mnch too general and is 
thoroughly obscure. It must be remembered, however, that Goethe 
was by no means the man to talk about " forces," " ideas," " de- 
velopments," etc., in general (let alone to enter thus upon a de- 
tailed treatment), without thinking oX particular, concrete forces, 
without starting out from actual conditions, or at least from con- 
ditions which are present to his conception ; or to base abstraction 
upon these general ideas, to think of them in reciprocal action and 
then deduce from them his observations and conclusions. I think 
that I do not mistake when I saj' that precisely to this fact is owing 
the truth, attained by no other, and the vigor of his shortest ex- 
pressions as well as of his greatest creations. And is it possible 
that he thought of nothing further than the general ideas of wis- 
dom, force, the whole, and the educating love, which by their joint 
influence make possible a salutary sovereignty ? It requii'es no 
effort to answer this question. Goethe no more sought in his 
poems, be it in the long or the short ones, to bring to view a single 
so-called " idea," than did Homer, Sophocles, and Shakespeare. 
On the other hand, his poems are so constructed (as is true of all 
true poetry) that, while they contain a concentrated view of life 
and present it in higher truth, so in each part and at each step 
quickening and determining ideas spring to light. Thus each of 
his poems contains a wealth of ideas, each of which by itself is 
capable of further development. Thus life ju-esents itself to the 
spiritual ol)server, and thus the artist copies it in his works. And 
further : Is it possible that the other numerous and important char- 
acters of the Miirchen are without real participation in the setting 
forth of these " ideas " \ are invented solely for the amusement of 
a tlioroughly arbitrary, playful fancy \ are designed to provoke 
and lead astray the lovers of riddles { This would be the work of 
a mediocre poet, or rather of a dull mind ; it may not be charged 
atjainst a Goethe. 



Goethe's Jldichen. 283 

Let us consider the nature and scope of a Milrchen. No doubt 
the objection will quickly be raised that with the nature of the 
genuine Yolksraarcheii men were not yet acquainted at that time; 
that the Miirchen of Goethe is a " manufactured " affair, imitated 
from a French example. Very true ! But how manufactured ? 
So that it fascinated the greatest and finest minds, and still to-day 
charms every one by its grace. Compare it w^itli the best produc- 
tions of the romantic school, and its true Miirchen-character is 
recoo-nized by an unmistakable siijn in contrast with the false and 
corrupt character of the romantic Miirchen. The imagination 
which creates in a thoroughly arbitrary manner, confusing all con- 
trasts, and harassing the mind like a bad dream, as it prevails, for 
example, in the Phantasus-Marchen, or, indeed, the strange spectre 
of Iloff'mann's inventions, releases tiie reader the more deeply af- 
fected with a stifling sensation of depression and bewilderment 
according as he has the more completely surrendered himself to 
its influence. On the other hand, the Marchen of Goethe (in this 
altogether like the true Marchen) possesses not only a pleasing 
grace, but also a sound pragmatism, which, without detriment to 
the many wonder-working powers, even in the Marchen world, has 
its unassailable rights. 

The question how this has come about, upon what this influence 
rests, I might answer in genei'al by another question, which sug- 
gests itself at the same time. It is this : How can an altogether 
allegorical Marchen stand before gesthetic criticism ? By the rules 
of art, is not allegory excluded from tlie realm of art, and by no 
less a critic than Lessing himself l The answer is. Yes, and very 
rightly ; yet, in spite of this unassailable judgment of Lessing, it 
has happened more than once that poems of the highest rank, 
which satisfy the demands of the highest aesthetic criticisni, have 
been considered altogether allegorical, and been made dependent 
in every detail upon an allegorical interpretation. The truth is, 
that Lessing pronounces judgment against nothing but the abuse 
of allegory, against a cold, repellent " AUegoristerei," and against 
this especially in so far as it has done harm in the art of painting. 
True allegory, on the other hand, is in the highest degree poetic. 
The allegorical manner of representation causes that which it 
wishes to present to be recognized by the presentation of another, 
Bimilar thing. Thus it does nothing more than every figurative 



28i The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

method of expression does. However, it does not content itself 
(as its name would indicate, meaning a narrative method of pres- 
entation) with puttino; a similar, concrete thing to represent a 
single idea; but it understands how to present the relations and 
mutual influences of ideas by means of objects and beings set in 
action. In this manner of treatment two very serious faults can 
be committed in opposite ways, and they have been regularly 
committed by minds of the lesser order as soon as they have ven- 
tured upon allegory. It is well known to be a very troublesome 
matter to employ good figures in speech, but the carrying out of 
good figures in allegory is infinitely more difficult, for a close re- 
semblance has here to be kept up ; and so the majority of writers 
have attained to a half resemblance only, or to a resemblance cor- 
responding in position merely, and in consequence have become 
unintelligible — that is, the means employed come into conflict 
with the abstract aim, and thus the result is inartistic. But it 
happens more frequently that writers allow the meaning which 
they wish to present to so dominate the concrete means of presen- 
tation that the characters and objects which make the action lose 
their freedom — that is, do not speak, act, and conduct themselves 
according to their nature and the conditions in which they are 
placed, but as is dictated by a law lying entirely outside them- 
selves : namely, that of the abstract purpose which exists in the 
poet's intention. For this reason this whole class of poems is 
completely shut out from the sphere of art. The beautiful arises 
only in the realm of perfect freedom and of the highest internal 
justice and truth. The discordant^ heterogeneous intention of 
the would-be poet rules everywhere in these faulty allegories. 

It is evident, however, that there remains a third case : it is 
when figure and meaning always completely conceal themselves 
in the details and in the whole l)y means of a perfect resemblance. 
The poet so chooses or invents his objects and beings and their 
chanires, which make the action, that they are and continue to be 
in perfect harmony with themselves and with one another, and, 
what is more, that they are beautiful in themselves, or at least 
that the reader attains to a perception of the beautiful through 
what is brought to pass by them. What the poet ofiEers must in 
itself completely satisfy in form and content all the demands of 
art. There is, moreover, a second point to be noticed. At every 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 285 

point and at every forward step of the action there lias moved be- 
fore him a parallel, but hio;lier, ideal thing. The close resem- 
blance which is everywhere present cannot but immediately dis- 
close itself to the reader, so that henceforth he enjoys a double 
pleasure; he is delighted with the grace of the objects presented, 
and at the same time with an ever-growing sympathy ; he be- 
comes conscious in a truly poetic manner — that is, through the 
observing perception of an inner connection with a signilicant 
series of thoughts. I say that the highest aim of poetry is thus 
reached when in the beauty of objects which appear to the senses 
we recognize in easy riddles the higher order of the spiritual 
world. 

The distinction might be expressed thus : The allegory which is 
forhidden in art, according to the explanation of Quinctillian 
and Lessing, does not say what the loords seem to say, hut some- 
tJiing lohich is similar ^ on the other ho^ndi, the artistic allegory 
says he/ore all what the words hnply, hut hy means of a perfect 
resemhlance lets another general and thus higher thing he recog- 
nized in them. Goethe seems to me to have had precisely this in 
mind in one of his prose sayings, but he uses the word allegory in 
the narrow sense of the faidty allegory. " It makes a great dif- 
ference," he says, " whether the poet seeks the particular for the 
sake of the general, or sees the general in the particular. Out of 
the former springs allegory, in which the particular is merely the 
type and illustration of the general ; but the latter is truly the 
nature of poetry ; it expresses tlie particular without thinking of 
or referring to the general ; but he who really grasps this par- 
ticular, at the same time, without being aware of it, obtains the 
general also, or at least he obtains it subsequently." 

What I have here sought to unfold is nothing hypothetical, but 
may be easily read in a great number of the most beautiful poems 
of our greatest poets. 

Let us call to mind, in the first place, Lessing's splendid para- 
ble of the palace with its many entrances and the guards, who, in 
the supposed danger of fire, think only of the ground plan of the 
palace. Here is that perfect resemblance in every point, even in 
what seems to be the most unessential word of the narrative, for 
no word is superfluous or chosen for mere ornament. 

But the narrator, with his fine perceptions and unerring judg- 



286 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

inent, did well to give us this composition in unpretentious prose, 
since the external incident had not in itself enough significance 
and sensuous beauty to present itself as a work of art. But let us 
open Goethe. What a beautiful and perfect composition is that 
majestic picture of the river from its source to the ocean in " Ma- 
homed's Gesang," or that picture of the brave sailor from the first 
bright mornino; of his settino- sail to his struggle M^ith the unfet- 
tered storm in the " Seetahrt " ! I omit to point out in detail how 
what was said above is here carried out in every particular, how 
the fascination with which we follow the birth and growth of the 
young stream increases with every word, if we recognize ever 
more clearly and surely therein the noble and eloquent image of 
the spirit who is born to be the leader of humanity ; or if the 
" Seefahrt " lets us behold, in a figure surpassingly beautiful and 
full of meaning, the poet himself in his days of storm and stress. 
Such truly artistic creations have this characteristic : that they 
are not satisfied with the mere setting forth of a more or less 
strained resemblance ; but their wealth, like that of all true 
beauty, is inexhaustible. At every step they lead us to new and 
wider views on all sides into the realm of the spirit; therefore 
their charm is indestructible. 

In Schiller, also, we find many poems of a similar character. 
With their perfect freedom they can also assume the tone of humor 
and satire, as the " Theilung der Erde " and " Pegasus im Joche." 
I mention, further, Uhland's " Marchen vom Dornroschen," which 
unfolds in a most graceful manner an allegorical presentation of 
the development of German poetry. 

No end could be found, should one wish to recount the exam- 
ples of such true and successful allegories in our best poets. And 
now let us put the question again in a diff^srent form: How far 
is allegory a defensible and artistic maimer of representation f 
The law may be simply stated : In so far as a sensuously beauti- 
ful treatment^ by means of a I'^rfeet resemblance of its separate 
parts and of the lohole to certain ideas and their connection in 
a series, brings these ideas and their connection before the observing 
consciotisness. All myths and leo;end&, in so far as they owe their 
origin and form to ethical or any other logical perceptions (and of 
such there is a great number), are in no wise difterent. However, 
it is here to be observed and carefully distinguished how far an 



Goethe 8 Mdrchen. 287 

invention, fasTiioning itself freely and unconsciously upon the 
foundation of a given resemblance to special sensible forms, has 
in its details departed from this foundation. It is here impor- 
tant to restrict one's self in interpretation with a delicate sense of 
discrimination, and not to fall into the same faults in expounding 
as do unskilful writers of allegory in composing. 

After all this exposition, who does not see that no kind of com- 
position aUows freer scope to artistic allegory than the Marchen ? 
For, if the writer can seldom make so happy a choice from objects 
in the actual world that, while they remain fully themselves, they 
still lend themselves readily to his higher intentions, the Marchen 
allows him to broaden infinitely this circle of objects through his 
own free invention. And now I have reached the point where I 
am able to answer that first question : How does the Art-Milrchen 
contrive to become like the Volksmarchen, and how does it lose 
this excellence % 

The genuine Marchen is everywhere most closely connected 
with the earliest traditions of a people, with its myths and legends, 
and penetrates them in many ways. Thus the Grecian and the 
German mythologies abound in Marchen features, and the same 
is true of the Grecian and the German heroic legends. It is pre- 
cisely these Marchen features that remain firmly implanted in the 
memory of the people, if other circunjstances are favorable, after 
the decay of the real body of the myth, and furnish the motives 
for manifold and varied narratives. These bear the same relation 
to the myth as the fable about animal to the original animal-legend. 
So, therefore, the way in which in these narratives the limitations 
of nature are broken through depends by no means upon arbitrary 
invention (and this is true also of the miraculous in the Marchen) ; 
but it owes its origin and existence everywhere to those primitive 
ideas in accordance with which a naive time attributes the appear- 
ances and impressions of nature to the power of supernatural be- 
ings — such as water sprites and elfs, giants and dwarfs, mount- 
ain spirits and goblins — or gives a palpable form to its wishes 
and longings, to its observations, and even to its reflections, w^iich 
concern ordinary life, so as to isolate them and condense them, so 
to speak, in marvellous forms and incidents. These last, as soon 
as simple faith is lost on account of their contrast with reality, 
easily assume an ironical, sometimes an intensely satirical, charac- 



288 The Journal of Spectdative Philosojyhy. 

ter. The stories of the " Island of the Blest," of the " Lotus-Eat- 
ers," or of the "Magic Garden of Circe," had they belonged to the 
Germans, would have certainly received this coloring in after-time, 
as the stories of " Tischchen deck' dich," of " Scharaifenland," of 
" Gliickssechel," of " Wiinschelruthe," and so many others have 
done. In this latter sphere the future will still be fruitful through 
imitation and modification. Since, now, the miraculous enters 
into the Volksmarchen only to open the way to a clear, uninter- 
rupted viey), but otherwise the usual order of things is observed, 
the miraculous may thus be sometimes entirely omitted, and its ab- 
sence compensated for by means of a corresponding play of arbi- 
trary chance. The unusual then performs the same service as the 
miraculous. Here, on the outermost limit, stand the Marchen, in 
which the miraculous is employed with intentional irony, as in 
that of the man who wished to learn how to fear, in that of the 
bold little tailor, or that of the seven Swabians. If, therefore, 
giants and dragons, dwarfs and elfs play a part, if animals speak 
and stones and plants are endowed with miraculous powers, if the 
ideas of time and space are broken through at pleasure, and if 
evil sorcerers and good fays are busy — all these things are intro- 
duced to bring ideal energies to view; and I do not hesitate to 
class them, onutatis mutandis, with the figures of the Grecian my- 
thology. With these exceptions, the Marchen comprehends per- 
fect reality and the whole wealth of the world of nature ; but, 
within the fixed limits thus marked out, it allows the imagination 
full liberty to display its most graceful fancies. 

But to invent such Marchen is as impossible as to compose le- 
gends; at best a happy imitation only can be attained. Success 
is only possible in that later-formed border-land where the Mar- 
chen has already begun to be ironical. Andersen has succeeded 
in this sphere, and sometimes Hauff also. 

Where they have sought to treat the Marchen earnestly — that 
is, naively — both have failed, though they keep much nearer to 
the character of the Marchen than the writers of the romantic 
school and their imitators. The impossibility of adding newly 
invented Marchen to the genuine ones is owing to this fact : that 
the greatest poetical power succeeds, it is true, in forming pictures 
somewhat analogous to the Marchen wonders, but no genius is able 
to attain in original inventions to the simplicity of those primitive 



Goethe's Marchen. 289 

conditions amidst which those figures first took shape. I will not 
speak of the writers of the romantic school, of whom Rosenkranz 
says so pertinently that many of them seemed to seek for the 
Miirchen spirit by dishonoring and debasing natnre ; in all of 
them the imaginative deo-enerates into the fantastic, and, since 
they were not willing to recognize a law governing the imagina- 
tion, nothing could be more acceptable to them than the theory 
of a kind of poetry whose character rests upon the fact that the 
imagination is without law. The better modern writers of Mar- 
chen also have fallen into two faults, which are, I think, insepara- 
ble from such attempts : their serious Marchen are q\\\iq.v fantastic 
or sentimental. They become fantastic — that is, arbitrary, and 
therefore inartistic — as soon as they connect the miraculous with 
tlie conditions of daily modern life ; and when every now and then 
they break through well-known and familiar relations they put 
their entire consistency in question. The more earnestly they per- 
sist in this, so much the more do they produce disagreeable and 
offensive impressions. Sentimentality results in them as soon as 
they apply modern modes of thought and feeling to objects in 
nature, which Andersen understands how to do so skilfully ; they 
arouse then afeeling of sadness, which is also foreign to the Volks- 
marchen. In either case, they are for no class of readers less 
suitable than for children. If both faults are avoided, there re- 
mains only the direct imitation and repetition of the old motives, 
or the Marchen must open up for itself an entirely new region; 
and good modern Marchen, even those of the above-mentioned 
writers, have, in fact, done this. Tlie imagination nnist accept the 
law indispensable to it, which leads it through a definite connec- 
tion of ideas ; this the writer brings to view with the abundant 
means which the imagination offers; in a word, the Art-Mdrchen 
attains artistic jperfection in its hind only in so far as it is in a 
strict sense allegorical. 

Some one will ask : How about Goethe's tale for boys and his 
"New Melusina"? The latter is simple imitation, while the 
former falls into precisely the same fault as Tieck's "Elfen," in 
that it permits a rioting imagination to break into real life. It 
rests upon the charm of boyish dreaming, which beguiles the un- 
deiined longing for pleasure with a highly colored and richly em- 
bodied satisfaction. Although the Marchen of the " New Paris " 
XXII— 19 



290 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

is always counted among the works of the poet's later acquired 
art, according to my opinion, Goethe is to be believed when he 
gives it out as a work of his early boyhood. 

As has been said already, it is absolutely impossible to put new 
inventions of like art and equal birth by the side of those pictures 
which the faith of a people in its years of childhood has fashioned 
for itself m and out of life ; the ground on which tliey can rest 
will always fail them. But in the intinitely wide realm which the 
modern world has acquired as its possession the poet may display 
to us the creative power of his imagination : he may not become 
weary in presenting to the senses in character and action the 
thousand-fold relations of thought, and in thus bringing them be- 
fore the consciousness. Surely he will most often employ the 
simplest means to bring to view the ideas which govern life or 
which should serve as its guides — by the imitation of life itself. 
If, however, it should occur to him to seek for a connection of 
ideas from a higher standpoint than is afforded by the observation 
and representation of actual life, where everything proceeds step 
by step, if he should present to himself from any point of view 
whatsoever the development of things to the present time in a few 
great strokes, and upon this foundation build for himself a per- 
spective reaching out into the distant future — should he not then 
venture to allow his enkindled imagination to give body and form to 
the spiritual jiowers, which show themselves to him in activity and 
reciprocal relation, to furnish them with corresponding qualities, 
and set them together in action, if only he is sure that this fruit- 
ful imagination of his will bear him l^eauties and not changelings? 
Here, then, he may deal with time and space according to his 
pleasure, he may place himself as master with miraculous power 
over all the laws of nature ; and if he otherwise enjoys commun- 
ion with the Muses, so much more successful will he be in creating 
as an individual as peoples have created, and in combining the 
beautiful with the momentous. Or he may turn back to the nar- 
row circle of actual life ; but it may please him to exhibit the 
spiritual powers which govern life not in the individuality of the 
separate instance^ hut in the typical universality of the law : why 
should he not in the same way eml)od\^ these and make them per- 
form their functions as living beings in action? In both cases the 
thoughts which determined the imaffination to invent these forms 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 291 

and set them in activity do not prevent it from communicating to 
them all the objective reality and truth of poetry and the full vigor 
of the poetic spirit, which belong to all true art ; rather will a 
graceful freshness and a wealth of objective relations stream upon 
the narrative from the animating purport of the characters. 

Even that unrestrained invention must have within it an im- 
pelling motive. 

This is also the reason why in modern Marchen-literature, next 
to the allegorical, the satirical Marchen claim the first place. A 
careful examination of Andersen's stories will, I think, confirm 
this statement. Moreover, antiquity has also examples of allegori- 
cal Marchen to show, as, for example, the story of Amor and 
Psyche ; and if many of the Socratic-Platonic fictions, as those 
in the PhEedrus and the Symposium, cannot be regarded as sucli 
in the strictest sense — as is true also of Lessing's narrative of the 
three rings in " Nathan " — it is owing to the fact that these stories 
are episodic and not independent, and for this reason renounce 
epical fulness for the sake of a more striking illustration of the 
thoughts. The allegorical Marchen proceeds differently: when it 
has firmly fixed its characters, their principal relations to one 
another, and their developments in accordance with the leading 
ideas, then it creates for them a special world, in which tliey move 
freely, living, working, and creating, not so much as mere ideal 
functions, bvit with the serene grace and fulness of the whole poeti- 
cal apparatus which poetry everywhere employs. 

Goethe's Marchen in the " Unterhaltungen " seems to me the 
most perfect example of the class thus described. And therefore I 
think that it must be laid down as a determining test by which a 
correct interpretation of the same would have to establish itself — 
that its special Marchen charm must not be destroyed by the in- 
terpretation, that the least strain in interpretation must be avoided, 
that motives must be given for the existence of each character and 
his principal sayings, and, above all, that the poetic pleasure that 
the Marchen in itself affords in so high degree be enhanced by the 
right interpretation, both as regards the whole and each separate 
part. 

Chapter II. 

If none of the existing interpretations satisfies the requirements 
thus laid down, it is, in my opinion, owing to the fact that they all 



292 The Journal of Speculative Fldlosophy. 

alike err in the one point on which they are all to a greater or less 
extent agreed : namely, that they make the Miirciien refer to the 
French Revolution, with which even tliose^who find in it no politi- 
cal idea at least indirectly connect it. This view has seemed rele- 
vant from the circumstances of the time as well as from the in- 
troduction of the " Unterlialtungen." 

If we wish to understand the state of mind in which Goethe 
faced the upheaval of those days, there is no better means to this 
end than the persual of the writings in which, three years later to 
be sure, but still from notes taken at the time, he presents his ex- 
periences ot it: namely, '"Die Campagne in Frankreich " and 
" Die Belagerung von Mainz." The preliminary sketch of the 
" Unterhaltungen," wdiich, as is well known, was begun as early 
as 1793, dates from the time in which these journals were written. 

The subject of Goethe's lack of patriotism has been discussed 
ad nauseam. Of what aspersions and misconstructions in this 
respect he has been made the victim ! To be sure, this no longer 
happens with the bitterness bordering on fanaticism which was 
displayed toward him in the thirties and forties by the prominent 
literary men of young Germany. Borne furnishes the most 
amusing illustrations of this. 

A Viennese scholar had written to him of Goethe : " This man 
is a model of iniquity. . . . Goethe is as much worse than Vol- 
taire as Kousseau is neater than Schiller, . . . This Goethe is a 
cancer on the German body, and the worst of it is that everybody 
regards the disease as the most exuberant health, puts Mephis- 
topheles on the altar, and names him prince of poets. Rather 
would he be rightly called poet of princes and despots." In 
regard to this Borne makes the following remarks: 

"How true, how true is all this! and how salutary it would 
be not to spread this opinion abroad — it is spread widely 
enough already — but to spread the courage to express it, that 
Goethe is the king of his people ; cast him dowm, and how 
easily the people might be brought to reason ! This man of 
a century has an immense power to obstruct ; he is a gray 
cataract on the German eye, less nothing, a little piece of horn, 
but let it be removed, and a world is thrown open. . . . Since I 
began to feel, I have hated Goethe ; since I began to think, I 
have known the reason." And in another place: " Goethe, who, 



Goethe's Marchen. 293 

more timid than a mouse, dives into the eartli at the slightest 
noise, and gives up everything — air, light, freedom, yea, the ful- 
ness of life, for which even inanimate stones yearn, that he may be 
able to gnaw at the stolen scrap of bacon, undisturbed in his 
hole," Scherr and "Wolfg, Menzel, in order to proclaim their 
own love of freedom, sometimes speak of Goethe in a similar tone. 
The former, for example, calls " Tasso " an offensively servile pro- 
duction, the Solomon's Song of Grerman sycophancy ; and in the 
" Buchlein von Goethe" the following language is used: "Let 
twenty or thirty years pass over the land, let all the fermenting 
elements be sundered and held apart, let us Germans attain still 
more to the consciousness of our being, and then see whose 
favorite he still is, and what one of his forty volumes is still 
read." 

The prophecy has not been fulfilled ; but a large part of the 
German public, and even of the learned, still take pleasure in 
censuring Goethe's political course. There is, firstly, his lack of 
enthusiasm for the ideas of 1Y89 ; secondly, his acknowledgment of 
Napoleon ; and, thirdly (the most serious reproach of all), his in- 
difference during the war for freedom. Even Schiller does not 
escape these carpers ; but from him the German people has a 
number of patriotic verses which are fitted to arouse and enkindle, 
and to be the decorations of the banner of the national movement, 
while in Goethe one seeks in vain for such pathetic summons to 
patriotic enthusiasm. It is true, they are not found ; but if he 
be read, I will not say with piety, which he deserves, but only 
without prejudice, another thing which is more than a compensa- 
tion will be found in abundance. 

Before all, Goethe was not, like Schiller, of an emotional nature, 
and yet he makes out enthusiasm to be the basis of his character. 
From him comes the saying: "The best thing we learn from 
history is enthusiasm." But while with Schiller the declamatory 
pathos of his youth was with advancing years continually giving 
place to the calm serenity of a superior contemplation of the 
world, by Goethe the maturity requisite to this serenity was 
attained at a surprisingly early age. His natural disposition and 
his education, as well as the circumstances of his life, co-operated 
to this end. Schiller retained, even in his latest years, the tend- 
ency, whose exaggerated predominance is the fault of the work 



294 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

of his youth, to let liimself be carried away, when directly kindled 
with ardor for ideals abstractly conceived, and thus to give them 
the expression which could lay hold of them best precisely in so 
far as it was one-sided. 

It is well known with what resistance Goethe, at the beginning 
of his intimate correspondence with Schiller, consented to acknowl- 
edge that he too could not do with speculative ideas ; but he al- 
ways returned anew to observation and experience. " Your 
observing gaze, which rests upon objects so quietly and clearly, 
never puts you in danger of going astray in the by-paths in wliich 
both speculation and arbitrary imagination, obeying itself alone, 
so willino-ly lose themselves," wrote Schiller in that celebrated 
letter to his new-made friend. To such a nature, what modern 
liberalism styles '''"politische GesinnimgsiuchtigTceit ''"' (political 
sentimentalism) must have been extremely odious, both in its 
spirit and in all its manifestations, especially as he was himself a 
practical and energetic statesman ; that the sphere of his activity 
was a circumscribed one does not alter the case in the least. I 
mean that he held the mere sentimental longing for ideals of 
freedom and the angry strife over political theories to be of no 
value ; rather did he deem them harmful in so far as they arouse 
the semblance of an effectual agency, which still accomplishes 
nothing. He once remarked against Chancellor von Miiller that 
every opposition which did not aim at some immediate and 
positive result seemed to him absurd. He valued only the 
effectual activity. Nothing was worse to him than " to go roving 
about in the dark circle of endless censure of the existing order." 
He laid down against the Chancellor a formal theory of discon- 
tent: " What we nourish in ourselves grows; this is an eternal 
law of nature. There is in us an organ of ill-will and discontent, 
as there is one of opposition and scepticism. The more we 
nourish and exercise it, the greater it becomes, until at last it 
changes from an organ into a diseased tumor, and destroys and 
devours what is near it. Then, if repentance, reproach, and other 
absurd feelings ensue, we become unjust to others and to ourselves. 
Happiness in our own and others' achievements and success is 
lost ; in despair we seek at last the cause of all evil outside our- 
selves, instead of finding it in our own perverseness. We should 
regard all men and all events in their true significance : we should 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 295 

go out of ourselves in order that we may so much the more freely 
return to ourselves." 

Naturally, therefore, we do not find in his writinjjjs philijjpics 
a2;ainst tyrants and declamation in praise of freedom, and least of 
all do we find summons to action in matters which do not lie 
within the sphere of his own worh. l^evertheless, he was in the 
highest sense a politician, not only on account of his quiet wori? 
in the management of the State of Weimar, but because, with the 
powerful means at his command^ he devoted himself incessantly 
and unweariedly to the immediate organic development and im- 
provement of the existing order. His means, however, as well as 
his work, were of a spiritual character. " When a poet wislies to 
work in politics," he says to Eckermann, " he must surrender him- 
self to a party, and wlien he does that he is lost as a poet ; he 
must say farewell to a free spirit and an unbiased judgment, and 
draw down over his ears the cap of prejudice and blind hate." 

" The poet will love his fatherland as a man and a citizen ,• 
but the fatherland of his poetic powers and work is the good, the 
noble, and the beautiful, which are restricted to no particular 
province and no particular land, and which he grasps and fashions 
wherever he finds them. In this lie is like the eagle which hovers 
over the earth with free gaze, and to which it is all the same if 
the hare upon which he swoops down is running in Prussia or in 
Saxony^ From this quotation it is clear that Goethe meant 
nothing else by the narrow patriotism of which he disapproves 
than what we in like manner condemn under the name of 
" particularismus." 

" And what is the meaning," he continues, '' of loving one's 
fatherland and of working for one's country % If a poet were to 
make it his lifelong care to fight against harmful prejudices, to 
remove narrow views, to reline the spirit of the people, to purify 
its tastes, and to ennoble its ways of feeling and thinking, how 
could he be better employed ? How could he work more patri 
otically ? To make demands on a poet so improper and so incon- 
ceivable would be like requiring of the commander of a regiment 
that, in order to be a true patriot, he must involve himself in 
political innovations, and thereby neglect his proper occupation. 
The fatherland of the commander of a regiment is his regiment, 
and he will be a thoroughly good patriot if he gives no care to 



296 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

political affairs, except so far as the}' concern himself; and if, on 
the other hand, he devotes all his thought and care to the 
battalions intrusted to him, and seeks to exercise them and keep 
them in good order and discipline, so that, if the fatherland come 
into danger, thej may play their part as capable men." 

"I hate all dabbling as a sin, especially dabbling in tlie affairs 
of state, from which notiiing l)nt harm results to thousands and 
millions." 

In another passage, in which lie proclaims himself a friend of 
the estahlished order, but only so far as it is excellent, good, and 
just, he says : " Only that is good for a nation which has come 
forth out of its own heart and its own general need, without 
mimicking another. . . . All attempts to introduce any foreign 
innovations whatsoever, for which there is not a deeply rooted need 
in the nation^ s own heart, are therefore foolish, and all proposed 
revolutions of this sort are without success ;/br they are without 
God, who holds himself aloof from such bungling. If, however, 
there is present in a nation the genuine need of a great reform, 
God is with it, and it succeeds. He was plainly with Christ and 
his first followers ; for the appearance of the new Gospel of Love 
was a need of the nations. He was plainly with Luther also, for 
the purification of this Gospel, which had been corrupted by 
priestcraft, was no less a need. Both of these great movements, 
however, were unfriendly to the existing order ; both were eagerly 
pushed through, that the old leaven might be thrown away and that 
falsehood, injustice, and imperfection might be able no longer to 
remain and grow." 

He expresses himself against Kanzler in regard to the re- 
actionary movements of the twenties as follows : " In the principle 
of maintaining the present order and preventing revolutions, 1 
am in perfect agreement with you ; in the means to this end I 
am not ; for you call to aid stupidity and darkness; I, reason and 
light." 

And so he finds Germany's hopes for a realization of union in 
efforts to i)romote commerce and economic union. He finds its 
greatness and its hope " in the wonderful popular culture ( Volks- 
cultu7') which has penetrated uniformly all parts of the Empire." 
. Tlierefore he consecrated his whole life to the promotion of this 
culture. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 297 

Thus bis patriotism was to serve the fatherland with his abili- 
ties as poet. The passionless calm which enabled him to view 
with wonderful serenity the disturbed spectacle around him came 
to him early in life, and it arose from this : that from his early 
youth he had sunk the iirm roots of his strength deep down in the 
fruitful soil of a genuine activity, consecrated to the fatherland. 
Not that he lacked loving enthusiasm (who was richer in it 
than he?), but the peculiar endowment of his nature, and the 
peculiar strength and patience with which he develo|)ed it, enabled 
him to look, with gaze directed into the future, beyond the pas- 
sionate arguments of the restricted strife of the day, and to pre- 
serve his equipoise in the justice of his feeling and thinking. 
Thus there grew up in him the nobly superior and truly impartial 
temper with which he dared to face the world-events. 

Is this an easy, self-indulgent remissness, a haughty withdrawal 
from the duties of a citizen ? Thus forsooth it has been styled by 
those modei-n prophets of freedom whose power has its beginning 
and end in frothy phrases. Let him who does not find the refuta- 
tion in each of his works consider the daily, laborious activity of 
the man ; let him regard him when before Mayence he throws 
himself into the midst of an excited mob and saves from it the 
victims ordained to certain death. 

That calm in view of the events of the time, which appears in 
the " Campagne in Frankreich," in the " Belagerung von Mainz," 
and in so many of his other works, and which procured for him 
bitter enemies, is not the calm of remissness, but that of power, 
which may have been for him very often the fruit of severe inter- 
nal conflict. He thus expresses himself at the close of the " Cam- 
pagne" in the unpretentious manner peculiar to him: " Moreover, 
let it here be remarked that, in all important political events, those 
spectators who side with a party are always best off: what is 
really favorable to them they seize upon with joy ; the unfavor- 
able they ignore, set aside, or interpret altogether to their ad- 
vantage. But the poet, who in accordance with his nature must 
continue to be neutral, seeks to thoroughly understand the circum- 
stances of both contending parties, in which position he must 
make up his mind to end tragically, if mediation is impossible. 
And with what a cycle of tragedies did we see ourselves threatened 
by that raging commotion of the world ! " 



298 The Journal of Speculative Pldlosophy. 

And thus he stood in relation to the events in France : '' That 
which busied me inwardly always appeared to me in dramatic 
form ; and as the story of the necklace struck me as a melancholy 
prophecy, so did the Revolution itself much more strike me as a 
most frightful fultilment; I saw the throne pulled down and 
dashed to pieces, first a great nation, and, after our unfortunate 
campaign, plainly the world itself pushed from its grooves. 

" While all this was oppressing and harassing my mind, I was 
grieved to see that in the fatherland men were amusing themselves 
with ideas which prepared for us a similar fate. 

" I knew men of very noble nature who gave themselves up in 
imagination to certain opinions and hopes without comprehending 
either themselves or the facts, while thoroughly bad persons were 
endeavoring to arouse, increase, and take advantage of a bitter 
depression." 

And further : " The portrayal of the state of public feeling con- 
tinued to be to me a kind of gently consoling occupation. ' Die 
Unterhaltuugen deutscher Ausgewanderten,' a fragmentary effort, 
the unfinished sketch, ' Die Aufgeregten,' are confessions of what 
was then going on in my bosom ; as also later ' Hermann und 
Dorothea' flowed from the same source, which then at last 
dried up." 

That neutral standpoint of the poet is shown in a conspicuous 
manner in tlie " Unterhaltungen." A German family of the 
Transrhenane aristocracy, driven into exile by the wars of the 
Revolution, enters into social relations on assured German soil with 
the heavy manners of the fatherland. The many different opin- 
ions entertained of the Revolution and its meaning for the world 
are given an expression, and by mutual provocation the company 
become more and more discourteous in their remarks, so that at 
last an intercourse which was desired by all, and which in the dis- 
turbed state of the times seemed to be doubly demanded through 
mutual forbearance and assistance, is irreparably broken off. No 
more favorable situation could have been found to bring into clear 
view the ground-principle of Goethe's political ideas ; the strife of 
words impedes and destroys ; only unselfish action brings growth 
and advancement. The Baroness thus expresses herself in the 
very beginning : " As the travelling Englishman is never without 
his tea-kettle in the four quarters of the globe, so is the rest of 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 299 

mankind everywhere attended with proud pretences, vanity, un- 
reasonableness, impatience, obstinacy, perverseness in judgment, 
and the desire to do their neighbors some injury, . . . How sel- 
dom do we see a man of pure virtue who is impelled to live and 
sacrifice himself for others ! " It does not check the disposition to 
hector one another that the privy-chancellor joins the circle : " A 
man to whom the business engaged in from youth had become a 
need, who deserved and possessed the conti dence of his prince. He 
held strenuously to principles and had his peculiar ways of think- 
ing on many matters. He was exact in speech and act, and de- 
manded the same from others. Consistency in action seemed to 
him the highest virtue. His prince, the land, and he himself 
had suffered much from the invasion of the French. He had 
learned the capriciousness of the nation which only talked of 
law, he had learned the tyranny of those who always had the 
word freedom on the tongue ; he had seen that even in this 
case the great multitude remained true to themselves, and took 
the word for the deed, the appearance for the possession, with 
the greatest ardor." 

Opposed to him is Carl, the nephew of the Baroness, an en- 
thusiastic friend of the new French, " whose sentiments he judged 
from the public speech and expressions of individuals," and 
greeted with indiscriminate praise. The strife rages with the 
greatest vehemence in passing judgment on the clubs of May- 
ence, for the attempt to transfer the innovations to German soil 
is here in question. The discussion takes the same course that 
Goethe had so often, to his great disgust, seen it take about 
him — the course to which, as if in accordance with an inherent 
law of nature, political controversies are at all times exposed, 
though circumstances may be only approximately related ; it ends 
in violent dissension. 

The unpleasantness which takes possession of the disturbed 
circle is gradually removed by the wise and potent influence of 
the Baroness, who pleads eloquently for an intercourse ennobled 
by spiritual culture and maintained by self-control. They hit 
upon the expedient of confining the necessary expression of 
warmly cherished opinions to the restricted intercourse with those 
of like opinions, while the conversation of the larger social circle 
shall consist of pleasant interchange of ideas upon what is worthy 



300 The Journal of Sjyeculative Philosophy. 

of knowledge, upon the beautiful, and upon subjects interesting 
to mankind in general. Thus the introduction to the " Unter- 
haltiing" does much more than merely make the frame for the 
following stories ; l)y the excellent way in which it presents 
Goethe's opinion upon the unendurableness of so-called " politi- 
cal" discussion and upon the worth of real and genuine conversa- 
tion, it permits us to recognize in a decisive manner his attitude 
toward the French Revolution. Through what has reason in the 
fiery language of Carl, he pays full recognition to the just im- 
pulses and demands of the Revolution, while at the same time 
its errors are pointed out in the clearest manner in the arguments 
of the privy-counsellor, and the attempts to transplant to Germany 
the Revolution which had become unavoidable in France are 
most emphatically condemned. 

Now, after the ghost stories and the fictitious narratives with 
which the old man entertains the company, follows the Miirchen, 
the unmistakably political features of which have led the com- 
mentators to the conclusion that Goethe has in a droll fashion 
introduced anew the subject of the Revolution, which had been 
particularly forbidden. I think that they are right who will not 
impute to Goethe such an act, as not being in good taste. More- 
over, I am convinced that Goethe was as heartilv disgusted with 
this subject as were the characters of his imaginary conversations* 
But if disagreeable discussion of the burning topics of the day 
had been forbidden, where is it written in the introduction to the 
" Unterhaltungeu " that all reflections upon the great historical 
events of ancient and modern times, of their own country and of 
foreign lands, were also interdicted? On the other hand, should 
not these, in so far as they did not stir up passionate strife, be 
regarded as included among the most desirable subjects of a lively 
and agreeable conversation? This is precisely what the Baroness 
says: " How long it is, dear Carl, since you have told us anything 
of distant lands and kingdoms, of whose condition, inhabitants, 
manners, and customs you have such interesting information ! 
How long it is (she addresses the chancellor) since you ceased to 
speak of ancient and modern history, comparing century with 
century, individual with individual! " 

Again, just before the beginning of the Miirchen, when the 
clergyman introduces this rule of life as containing the moral of 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 301 

the preceding narrative : " Truly, every one should vow to prac- 
tise, not always, but at the proper time, both abstinence as regards 
himself and obedience to others," the Baroness answers with the 
following general political observation : " Thus in a state also 
everything should depend upon the executive power ; let the legis- 
lative power be as wise as you will, it profits the state nothing 
if the executive is not strong." 

To speak briefly, a careful examination of the whole subject, 
and especially of the Marchen, has led me to this conclusion : that 
the Marchen has nothing whatever to do with the Revolution, but 
that it is political through and through ; it is concerned with the 
German fatherland ^ it represents how, amidst the unsatisfactory 
and hopeless conditions of the Empire, the forces of the nation, 
awakened by movements of the highest consequence, begin to 
arouse themselves to an ever increasingly significant activity ; 
how, with a consciousness which continually becomes clearer, they 
all in unison devote themselves ever more earnestly to a great 
task ; in a truly prophetic vision it makes all these forces by their 
united action bring the work of the redemption and new birth of 
the nation to a glorious consummation. 

When the bridge is built and the temple stands at the river, 
then will the nation be established in internal union and exter- 
nally armed strength. The following expression of Goethe's, in 
his letter to Schiller of September 25, 1795, has also for me this 
meaning: "Blessed are they who write Marchen, for Marchen are 
the order of the day. The Landgrave of Darmstadt has arrived 
in Eisenach with two hundred horse, and the exiles there threaten 
to move their quarters thither. The Elector of Aschafienburg is 
expected in Erfurth. 

" Ah, why does not the temple stand at the river ? 
Ah, why is the bridge not built ? 

" In the mean time, since we continue to be men and authors in 
spite of all, I hope that my new production may not displease you. 
I have this time experienced again how serious every trifle be- 
comes when it is handled according to the rules of art. I hope 
that the eighteen figures of this drama will be welcome to the 
lovers of riddles as so many riddles." 

This is the only time that Goethe lifts the veil. 

It was the time when, after the treaty of Basel, the Empire was 



3u2 The Journal of Speeulative Philosophy. 

torn asunder through the efforts of Prussia to bring the individual 
states to separate treaties of peace, and of Austria to hold them' 
in her policy. But when, at the reopening of the campaign, the 
Frencli pushed over the Rhine in swift advance, disorder reached 
its heio-ht. When the victors themselves were seen to take ref uo;e 
in timid anxiety behind the protecting neutral line, when now it 
became evident to all the world that the Empire had ceased to 
exist even in name, then Goethe wrote those resigned lines. In 
accordance with his cliaracter, it was only for a moment that he 
permitted his inward feelings in regard to the world's events to be 
seen ; his connection with the Duke had made his firm self-sup- 
pression from the first in these matters a habit not to be broken. 
In his correspondence with his friend he returns immediately to 
aesthetic interests. But it is not to be misunderstood when pre- 
cisely in this connection he designates the characters of his 
Miirchen as riddles. 

The one expression of Schiller's which permits us to draw a 
conclusion as to his opinion of the Marchen shows that he also 
gave to it a political m.eaning: "Bj^your manner of treatment 
you have laid upon yourself the obligation to make the whole 
symbolic. One cannot help looking for a meaning in every point," 
he writes on August 29th. And on October 16th : '' It is indeed 
a pleasure to me to know that you are far from the affairs on the 
Maine. The shadow of the Giant might easilj' touch tiiem some- 
what roughly. It often strikes me as strange, when I think of 
you as thus cast out into the world, while I sit between my paper 
window-panes and have only paper before me, and that we can 
still be near each other and understand each other," 

It seems to me unquestionable that Schiller explained to him- 
self the other figures of the Miirclien also in a political sense. 
However, I am convinced that Goethe never gave to him or to 
any other a connected explanation ; no, he is very willing to be his 
own interpreter, and least of all may the poet undertake this office 
with regard to the pictures of his own imagination. 

Everybody might try to understand it, and he who did not un- 
derstand it might take it for a meaningless play of the imagina- 
tion. Very often may Goethe have entrenched himself behind 
such a position in view of pressing questions and friendly insinua- 
tions. Or is it to be taken as the truth rather than as a clever 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 303 

and delicately ironical evasion, when he writes to W. von Hum- 
boldt: "It was a really hard task to express myself at once in a 
significant and in an insignificant manner"? An intended mys- 
tification, then, treated, as he says to Schiller, earnestly and 
according to the rules of art ! I would not believe it even if I did 
not see in the Marchen itself the clear proof to the contrary. The 
following sentences of Goethe's to Riemer, in 1809, also speak to 
the contrary : " Tlie Marchen seems to me precisely like the Reve- 
lation of Saint John, which is still made to refer to Napoleon. 
Everybody feels that there is something contained in it, but knows 
not what." 

Surely there was no course open to him but to renounce inter 
pretation, arid the fact that he had composed no ordinary allegory, 
hut a Mdrchen, enabled him to do this and provided him with a 
justification sufficient for all time. Thus is the Xenion to be 
understood : 

"More than twenty characters take pail in the Marchen, 
'And what, then, do they all make? ' 
' The Marchen, my friend ! ' " 

The play of the artistic imagination cannot dispense with an 
earnest significance, but the rational meaning must be so completely 
melted in the fire of beauty that it dwells in the characters of the 
narrative as their own spirit ; the extraneous spirit of the poet 
must not from the outside and in a distinct manner determine 
them. Goethe wrote to Schiller on February 4, 1797, with pre- 
cisely this idea in mind: "Perhaps the idea which has come to 
me will develop into a Marchen. It is now altogether too rational 
and distinct ; therefore it does not quite please me ; but if I can 
drive the little boat around well on the ocean of the imagination, 
there will still perhaps result an indifferent composition, which 
will please people more than if it were better." And just so I 
understand the above-mentioned letter to Humboldt, in which 
with the finest irony he deduces precisely what he (Humboldt) 
had not been able to find in the Marchen. " It is truly a difficult 
task to be at the same time significant and i^Tisignificant. I have 
another Marchen in mind, which, however, will become entirely 
allegorical when taken inversely; it would therefore have to be a 
very subordinate work of art if I did hope by a very lively treat- 
ment to banish at each moment the thought of allegory." Finally, 



304 The Journal of Speculative Philosopht/. 

I find precisely the same thouglit in the words of the " Unter- 
haltungen" which immediately precedes the Marchen. "The 
imagination," says Carl to the old man, "is a fine faculty; yet I 
like not when she works on what has actually happened; the airy 
forms she creates are welcome as things of their own kind ; but, 
uniting with truth, she produces oftenest nothing but monsters, 
and seems to me, in such cases, to fly into direct variance with 
reason and common sense. She ought, you might say, to hang 
upon no object, to force no object upon us ; she must, if she is to 
produce works of art, play like a sort of music upon us ; move us 
within ourselves, and this in such a way that we forget that there 
is anything without us producing the movement." 

This extreme view, which Goethe puts into the mouth of one of 
his characters — the same which the writers of the romantic 
school subsequently seized upon — he modifies in the reply of the 
old man. 

" Proceed no further with your conditionings ! To enjoy a 
product of the imagination, this also is a condition, that we enjoy 
it unconditionally ; for Imagination cannot condition and bargain ; 
she must await what shall be given her. She forms no plans, pre- 
scribes for herself no path, but is borne and guided by her own 
pinions; and, hovering hither and thither, marks out the strangest 
courses, which in their direction are ever altering. Let me but 
on my evening walk call up again to life within me some won- 
drous figures I was wont to play with in earlier years. This 
night I promise you a tale which shall remind you of nothing 
and of all." 

And now I have reached the point where I may announce my 
conclusion. 

Goethe's production is a ti'ue Marchen', his characters act as 
real beings, endowed with individual^ independent life, and 
])laced in effectual activity by an unfettered imagination. What 
Schlegel says of the Marchen is perfectly true : " A series of the 
most lovely pictures lead us on ; sometimes they display an 
amusing and then again a serious character. Never was grief 
more touching than that of the fair Lily ; indeed, she arouses a 
sensation as when one breathes the frasirance of the flower whose 
name she bears." 

Though the tale is a true Marchen, its figures, however, are not 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 305 

the result of mere caprice, but are fashioned upon the basis of 
reality by the niHgic power of the imagination ; and, even so, 
their unconstrained acts and movements are no motley " play of 
flourishes and arabesques," but are imperceptibly governed by the 
same law that breathed life into them. Nevertheless, it is alle- 
gorical through and throuo-h, for these fio-ures in their acts and 
movements permit us to recognize a grand series of thoughts in 
most significant connection. Since, however, these ideas and 
figures always conceal themselves perfectly by means of perfect 
resemblance, this allegory becomes a perfect poem, as every truly 
artistic allegory becomes a true work of art, 

Goethe could find no more wholesome means to counteract suc- 
cessfully the harassing influence of the unavoidable events of the 
time than, perceiving the distress of the fatherland, to turn his 
gaze upon the powerful forces which had been already long en- 
gaged in strife, but which promised to him in the far-off glorious 
future a sure and beautiful victory. 

The Marchen contains the prediction of this future, which rests 
upon the success of the worh to which Goethe devoted the best 
part of his powers. 

Precisely for this reason mention of the redemption could never 
come from him. 

The open secret was closed for the people of that time, and it 
concealed itself also from those who came after, until the partial 
fulfilment of that vision made it easier to lift the veil. 

But the question whether the interpretation which I shall seek 
to carry out on the foundation specified is correct when taken as 
a whole, and also satisfactory in its details, must be answered by 
another question, whether it meets the demands laid down by me 
above — viz., " that the Marchen charm must not be destroyed by 
the interpretation, that all strained explanations must be avoided, 
and, above all, that the poetic pleasure must become richer, deeper, 
and more lively as regards the whole and the separate parts." 

Chapter III, 

When, four years ago, through the mighty events of the war, 
the dream of the German people had become a reality with won- 
derful quickness, one might say over night, then, however, in the 
midst of the immeasurable rejoicing of those days men began very 
XXII— 20 



306 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

soon to look backward with the question : How did so great a 
result become ])ossible? How is the unprecedented to be under- 
stood ? And though the wonder of so great blessings cannot be 
reckoned and explained, still the survey of the past throws a 
clearer light upon the present, and if by this means success is 
attained in understanding present relations with clearer conscious- 
ness, it opens also a wider and surer view into the future. 

Amono; the many voices which were then raised to remind our 
people of the duty of self-examination, a work of Hermann Baum- 
garten, " How we have again become a People,'" justly won 
especial attention and general acceptance, on account of the depth 
of the thoughts, the clearness and fervor of the style, and the high 
and wide sweep of its national enthusiasm. 

The forces to whose divided but still incessantly working 
activity the author herein attributes the maintenance and regen- 
eration of our national existence, to whose final union and insep- 
arable fellowship he ascribes the victory and the hope of the 
future — these are precisely the forces, as I think, which disclosed 
themselves to the inward-gazing eye of Goethe in the main feat- 
ures of their being and activity — the powers whose disconnected 
development and final union he symbolically represented in the 
fictions of the Marchen, which at iirst seemed so singular. The 
resemblance is so exact as to extend sometimes in the details even, 
I might say, to the verbal expression. 

The writer of this essay starts out with the assertion that we 
Germans, who may be the most learned people in the most dif- 
ferent branches of knowledge, know less of our own history than 
most civilized nations. After the Staufen-time there yawns a 
broad chasm. "Luther would be a man in whom the knowledge 
and sympathy of the Germans might meet again, if it had not 
been written in the book of our fate that the same great move- 
ment which should first disclose the superiority of the Germans 
in those characteristics which most lend to nations the condition 
of permanence — viz. : conscientiousness, earnest recognition of the 
truth, unselfish submission to the pure forces of the inward life — 
that even this reformatory movement should separate us more 
widely than any earlier dissension had done." 

Two forces were needed to raise the German people out of the 
abyss of weakness, incapacity, and self-contempt in which they 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 307 

were sunk in the seventeenth century ; besides that spirit-buihUn«j 
there was needed a state-biiikUng force. " We liad to be saved 
from that miserable ruin which was called the German Empire; 
from the demoralizing', land-destroying im]:>osture of the decayed 
institutions of the Empire." " We had to win again what till then 
had been a matter of course for all nations, since it alone makes 
. national existence possible — viz., the political organism which holds 
together the limbs of the nation, which orders, educates, and 
protects." 

The author then shows how against the injurious influence of 
the Jesuitical-Ultramontane policy of the Hapsburger and Wit- 
telsbacher houses, and also, on the other hand, against the narrow 
zeal of ultra-Lutheranism, the first savior arose in the Branden- 
burger-Prnssian state, which had become strong in long and hard 
strifes: it was Frederick William, the great Elector. How a cent- 
ury later all Germany greeted with joy the Great Frederick, 
" who with a mighty impulse threw open for us the long-closed 
doors of national power." "Even then our whole existence came 
under the determining influence of the Pj'ussian leadership. The 
example set by Frederick of a statesmanship enlightened, con- 
scientious, absolutely free from all dependence upon the confes- 
sional, and yet warmed by the breath of religion, carried forward 
with it everything that among ns was capable of life. First Aus- 
tria felt the salutary necessity, in the presence of such an enemy, 
of casting off the stupid traditions of the good old Jesuit times 
and of striving after something of Prussian order and activity in 
finances, military affairs, and education. In the IS^orth and the 
South the small German states were irresistibly pushed into the 
Prussian path, which, indeed, to a certain extent, all Europe was 
obliged to follow. It hecame clear among us ! " 

When thus the state-forming germs began to develop so mightily, 
the spirit-forming forces were engaged in a similar development, 
which was rich in results. But they still stood almost without 
touching each other, almost, like enemies, opposed to each other. 
" This German people, which in its youth had given itself so un- 
reservedly to the ideals of mediiBval life that in them it completely 
forgot its national needs; which afterward, at the coming of the 
new time, embraced with an altogether similar idealism the most 
bigoted features of the Reformation, the world- forgetting life of 



308 The Journal of Speculative Philosophij. 

faith ; this people, in fine, which liati been bitterly tried bj the 
weakness of the state's autliority, but was only so much the more 
accustomed to the charms of a cosmopolitan individuality — could 
be brought again only by degrees to the rigid discipline and the 
practical rigor of political existence. It might be said that the 
genuine German temper had become liostile to the state." The 
great German kino; and the ffreat German literature of the eio-ht- 
eenth century were strangers to each other, and so much the 
more so as the former avowed himself a pupil of the French litera- 
ture of enlightenment, against whi(di our German criticism, though 
greatly indebted to it, had immediately declared war. 

" He was travelling the rough, stony way of his 'great policy, 
while we were langnishing in the first love of youth for all that 
was beautiful, ennobling, and moving, and were abiding in the 
tearful ecstasy of a people awakened out of tedious, commonplace 
prose to the first presentiments of poetry."" '' At such a time the 
German spirit naturally took its boldest flight into the pure realm 
of eternal trutii and beauty, and utterly despised what it con- 
sidered the restricted efforts of statesmen, wlio are always tied 
down to a given work, and have scarcely in the dark background 
of their endeavors the sublime aims of humanity." 

Moreover, our great literature did not spring from an impulse 
of the united forces of the nation, as the literature of most peoples 
has done, but its development was internal, independent, and re- 
stricted to itself. " The whole foundation of this spii-itual build- 
ing was laid in arduous and preponderantly learned labor. Our 
poetry of the last century proceeded in its beginnings not from 
joyous observation, but in a preponderant degree from study ; not 
from large experience of life, but from careful investigations or 
internal reflection. This characteristic of it was first pushed into 
the background with the appearance of Goethe. But even in 
him, and still more in Schiller, the realm of ideas was a source of 
poetical inspiration." "As this literature had worked its way up- 
ward independently of all national activity, so it continued to keep 
in view the highest ideal sphere, the purely human." "The 
realm of ideas in which they lived and labored lay too high above 
small earthly affairs." 

But at this point I must turn aside somewhat from the presenta- 
tion which I have followed so long. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 309 

The author a;oes on to say in greater detail tliat, though the 
nation had never seen such an abundance of genial forces ac- 
tive in the spiritual realm, it still could not escape the great 
humiliation under the yoke of Napoleon. He makes it a re- 
proach against those great masters in tlie domain of the spirit, 
even against a Goethe, though in the mildest way, that they did 
not recognize " that a harmonious human culture cannot be 
won without political activity." That striving after the beauti- 
ful, great and rich in results as it was, that aesthetic culture 
was too exclusive, too aristocratic. " The great majorit}' of 
mankind receive the most important ideas in religious form, 
and their most powerful incentives through a soundly developed 
popular and national life." That is, indeed, a true and pro- 
found remark ; and what follows is also true — viz., that the sword 
must speak in order to make certain facts and certain ideas in- 
telligible to the nations, that it is a fatal error of the idea to 
trust in its own independent excellence, that it only becomes 
powerful in the actual world when it conquers the moral sphere 
of self-sacrificing action. This is undoubtedly true, and in the 
presentation under consideration altogether in place ; but I do 
object to the reproach that is here made against our poets and 
thinkers who sought for exact justice in what they did, and also 
attained to it. Before all Goethe. I have said before that the 
fatherland was by no means a matter of indifference to him, 
which he thought he could do without; that, on the contrary, he 
had a deep conviction that all his work was bound up with the 
fatherland and conditioned upon it. But an individual is of no 
avail ; he must combine with manv at the rig-ht time. Let each 
do his duty in the widest and fullest sense, and complete success 
cannot fail to be the result. 

That which was still wanting to our people to enable it to 
attain to a worthy national life could no more be procured for it 
by a glorious spiritual culture for itself alone than this end could 
be gained without this culture. But while the leaders of the 
spiritual movement were going as far in science and art as their 
powers reached, they were providing in the best wa,y that, when 
the great moment should come, it would find a great generation. 
So the author is just when he says of German science that later, 
paying no attention to the weak beginnings of political life in the 



310 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Soiith-Gerraan Chambers, it continued to dig in the deepest mine 
of trnth. I consider what follows untrue: "As Lessing, Goethe, 
and Schiller confined us altogether to purely spiritual interests, 
they certainly helped to prepare the wretched calamity of 1806." 
I believe that this calamity had an entirely different cause, and 
those who were to blame for it were not afflicted with great 
idealism. And for this reason every one will the more readily 
agree to the following sentences: "Did not the German mind, 
instructed by them, become gloriously open in the national work 
of Stein, Gneisenau, Fichte, and Schleiermacher ?" And further: 
" For it was really only a question of time when the capacity for 
truth and scientific work, steeled in purely spiritual matters, 
should be capable of political tasks also." 

I am of the opinion that precisely this view of things comes to 
light in the few passages from Goethe cited above ; and I have here 
presented this whole circle of ideas in connection, because within 
it the fig-ures and events of the Miirchen seem to me to move. 

Not that I find in the Marchen a special pi-ediction of Prussia's 
calling and future greatness, or even of the French war. Nor do 
I see in it a polemic against Jesuitism and the Ultramontane 
policy which have done so great harm to the cause of Germany. 
In the first place, Goethe was very far from conceiving a union of 
Germany under the leadership of Prussia (he incidentallj- ex- 
presses himself against Eckermann very plainly upon this point) ; 
and then a connection of imagination with reality going so info 
particulars would naturally have resulted in those frightful mon- 
strosities of which the immediate introduction to the Marchen 
speaks. More than this : all polemical negation lies far from him ; 
he leaves the strife of already existing parties and the question of 
the practical shaping of the future untouched. On the other 
hand., his gaze falls iijyon all the positive forces that exist in the 
nation' it lets him survey the v^ork done hy them, and s/iows him 
how they, developing together, attain to the goal desired hy all ; it 
shows him that the spiritual forces only attain to their full strength 
in union with the political, that the latter are fii'st unfettered by 
the formei", and that through their joint influence the redemption 
of all is accomplished. 

I cannot refrain from iiitroducini>: here a remarkable testimony 
of how far men now living were from anticipating, forty years 



Goethe's Marohen. 311 

ago, the developiaent of German affairs as it has now come about. 
In an article in his historical periodical, in 1832, tlius immediately 
after the death of Goethe, Leopold Ranke thus discusses the 
question ''Of the Separation and Union of Germany": "Al- 
though those fanciful expectations — of an hereditary Emperor and 
a German King at his side, of a Chamber of Peers of the German 
Princes and a lower House of Commoners ; or of a President of 
the union holding office for a term of years, with a Senate of 
Princes and a House with its members chosen from the separate 
states — have often been proposed and have never accomplished 
anything, men are not yet weary of repeating them ; and even if 
these expectations were fulUlled, they would satisfy those who 
entertain them least of all." 

" If our ancestors ventured to speak of things so far reaching, 
they clothed them in the cloak of plays of the imagination." 
The author of the Quixotic " Simplicissimus " is then mentioned 
as the first to speak of a German Parliament. 

" He treats the idea in a jesting spirit," adds Ranke, " but with 
ns similar thoughts, which launcii out even more widely, are ex- 
pressed in manifold forms, with earnestness, pathos, and apparent 
hope." 

" Those visionary wishes are nothing but the reaction from an 
unsatisfactory condition." " A natural, sound condition is recog- 
nized in this, that idea and reality lose themselves in one another, 
the ideal working in things themselves, fashioning and giving 
life." While the author considers only the possibilities of a 
union of Germany, in order not to fall into the error which pre- 
cludes all success — viz., that of striving after the impossible and of 
seeking for the desirable beyond the limits of the attainable — 
having examined into tlie separating forces, he sets forth the 
positive forces which permit a final union to be hoped for. He 
finds them in the development of three joint affairs — the military 
system, the press, and commerce — which concern security, spiritual 
development, and material well-being. He puts in the highest 
place the strong development of the means of defence ; the next 
in importance is " the great possession which the German nation 
acquired in the last century — our literature. It has become one of 
the most potent forces of our union ; in it we first became really 
conscious again of union. It now creates the atmosphere in 



312 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

wliich our childhood grows, .our yonth breathes, which animates 
all the arteries of our being with original vitality. Let it be 
acknowledged that no Grerman would be what he is without it." 
Finally, the third force is the fostering of trade and commerce — 
economic union. 

One sees that these are the same causes which afterward, in 
reality, showed themselves to be accomplishing the union, the in- 
liuences of which, coming to the front by turns and in the end 
united, Baumgarten, looking backward, brings clearly to our per- 
ception. But if even the historian, when he brings to view the 
politics of the future, confines himself so wisely to a general con- 
sideration of ideal forces, and carefully avoids prescribing for them 
a definitely formalized development, how much more should we 
expect the same from the poet, to whom the dream of a union of 
his nation presents itself as a poetic vision ! 

And now to the Marchen itself. When we consider how in the 
mind of the poet all those great forces which constitute the life of 
the nation — viz., science, religion, art, literature, and even beauty 
and truth — present themselves united in joint activity, and yet not 
in an abstract and general way, but as they exist and work in Ger- 
many, and in a definite time and manner make a part of its pro- 
gressive history, and as they come into relation with the political 
forces of tiie people, is it possible to cast a glance into the inner 
workshoj) of the poetical imagination and to conjecture how it 
happens that such ideas take shape '( Surely we may believe that 
even chance outward impressions have an influence in this process; 
and the following communication, which we receive from C. 
Schonborn, is worthy of thanks: "While wandering up and 
down in the ' Paradies,' a pleasure-walk along the bank of the 
Saale, near Jena, (iroethe saw on the other side of the river, in a 
shady and blooming meadow, a beautiful woman (probably the 
wife of Prof. Schiitz), whom nature had gifted with a splendid 
voice, clad in a white dress and i^right-colored hat, strolling about 
with other ladies; and he heard her song over the water. Near 
the park lived an old man, who for a small fare would carry over 
to the other bank in a little skiff any one who wished it. When 
twilight was coming on there came a party of students to the 
bank, who with the help of the old man crossed the river, laugh- 
ing, and rocking the boat. That evening aw(»ke in (-roctho, as he 



Goethe' s Mdrchen. 313 

once said, the thought of tlie Miirchen with the green snake." 
However real sncli impressions may be for giving the impulse to 
the invention of this or that situation, they are always only the 
impulse which gives shape to already existing material. It seems 
to me possible to pusli forward at least a few steps farther into the 
interior of the workshop. I mean that language itself has hidden 
within it a multitude of germs and suggestions for the presentation 
of the spiritual world under bodily forms, and that the poet who 
lets these germs develop and bloom in a self -created magic garden 
is even thus maintaining a connection with the poetizing soul of 
the people. Let us consider only the series of metaphors that we 
iind in the Miirchen. There is the still-illumining l)ut wonder- 
working light of science ; and scattered gold, meaning the results 
and catch-w^ords of a new and enlightening education of the spirit, 
spread everywhere in popular form. (Grolden grains of corn is a 
common figure for significant thoughts.) We speak of the current 
of the time, of the stream of events, or of history, of the ferryman 
who steers his boat through it, w4iether it be the bark of his own 
fate, or that he makes the passage in the service and interest of 
others. We speak of golden wisdom and brazen power, of the 
brightness and splendor of majesty, of the realm of ideas. We 
speak of Truth as an inapproachable Urania in her crown of rays, 
who, gracefully decked with the veil of poetry, becomes visible as 
Beauty to mortal eyes. So language speaks also of the consum- 
ing thirst for truth, of crippling reflection, and of the pallor of 
thought ; and language likes also to invert the figure, and speaks 
of those who stand blinded and condemned to inactivity at the 
sight of a supernatural glory, as chained by the power of an eye 
on whose gaze they hang. One pays the necessary tribute to his 
time by submitting to the conditions under which alone it allows 
etKciency to become possible. If, on the one hand, the supersti- 
tions of the people extend like shadows into the world of ideas, on 
the other hand, though they are unsubstantial and without in- 
dwelling, conscious will, they are capable, being encompassed by 
mighty giant-forces, of causing decay and destruction. Within 
such a circle of living motives, then, it may also be allowed the 
poet, freely inventing, to add new figures analogous to these well- 
known ones, provided that the most prominent are able to ap- 
proach the reader familiarly. 



314 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

I consider tlie Will-o'-the-wisps especially as such happily chosen 
figures. 

Of Wekhrlin, one of the most prominent political writers of the 
eighteenth century, one of his contemporaries, Schlozer, who is re- 
lated to him in many ways, says that " he shot over Germany 
like a comet." It is a similar figure and one often employed to 
compare those restless spirits who are now here, now there, always 
ready and clever in speech, incessantly busy in taking up ideas and 
spreading them abroad, seldom themselves of a great and deep na- 
ture, but constantly the bearers of significant thoughts — to com- 
pare such men as Schnbart, Wekhrlin, Schlozer, Huber, Gorres, 
and so many others to Will-o'-the-wisps scattering gold ; for though 
they perform great and indispensable services, they cause error 
also, and lead many a one astray, " When the political writer 
spreads new, true, and important ideas among his readers," says 
Schlozer in his letters to Eichstedt, " they examine them, and 
take steps accordingly. When he collects and copies the im- 
portant ideas of others for hundreds of thousands — that is, has 
them printed — hundreds of thousands, surely, learn something 
important, which before perhaps not a hundred knew, and take 
steps accordingly. That is, the writer works in his readers. In 
this way the English have maintained their charter, and through 
this infiuence, if God is willing, in fifty years there will no 
longer be a serf in Germany. Political writers have brought 
about the restriction of torture ; they have made it possible for 
an honorable German woman to grow old with honor, and with- 
out fear of being burned as a witch." Even as late as 1782 such 
a trial for witchcraft had occasioned Wekhrlitrs celebrated con- 
tention with the magistrate of the Canton of Glarus. How much 
infiuence the journals of this man gained, which he edited in 
the following order — "Die Chronologen," "Das Graue Unge- 
heuer," " Hyperboraische Briefe," " Die Paragraphen " — may be 
judged from the fact that a great number of prominent men of 
all lanks assisted him with contributions. Of these are mentioned 
Duke Carl von Sachsen-Meiningen, Beck, Burger, Dohm, Forster, 
Merck, J. von Miiller, Planck, Salzmann, Schlozer, Thiimmel, and 
^ven Reinhold. This whole movement, however, was dependent 
in the highest degree upon French literature. Rousseau, Mon- 
tesquieu, the encyclopRHiists, and, above all, Voltaire, were their 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 315 

heroes ; of the last of whom Carljle says that " if he and his 
work were struck out of the history of the eighteenth century, 
it would make a greater difference in the present condition of 
affairs than could be said of any other man of the last century." 
Many of these political writers owed a substantial part of their 
training to social intercourse in Parisian salons, and in lan- 
guage and character showed the influence of the French na- 
ture. According to the spirit of the time, they contended, in the 
first place, in the province of religion, and only in a subordinate 
degree for political and social interests ; in this latter field even 
such a man as Justus Moser ranks with them, though the spirit of 
his writings was very different. 

Having made the necessary introduction, I think I may now 
bring forward the Will-o'-the-wisps as somewhat more familiar 
personalities. In the midst of the night they awaken the old man 
with loud cries. While he is carrying them over the river, they 
hiss together in a very rapid tongue, and every now and then 
break out into loud laughter, hopping back and forth upon the 
sides of the boat. They laugh still more at the warning to lie 
seated, boasting of their superiority to the snake that no one of 
their race has ever " sat." The French traits of lightness, liveli- 
ness, and sometimes of frivolity, but always a certain ready clever- 
ness, characterize them tliroughout the whole Miirchen, as in their 
behavior to the Lily, before whom they conduct themselves very 
politely. " They said quite ordinary things with the greatest 
assurance and much emphasis." Moreover, a busy, tireless unrest 
characterizes them; they incessantly scatter their gold, and know 
how to take it up again everywhere with the greatest dexterity. 

They seek the fair Lil}^, but, without knowing it, come from the 
bank on which she has her abode; however, having come to the 
other bank, they begin even thei-e their activity rich in good re- 
sults for all ; indeed, by this roundabout way they attain their 
goal and gain the desired meeting with the fair Lily and her at- 
tendants ; and it is they who alone at last are able to unlock the 
temple. 

Unsatisfactory circumstances, an incomplete present, and an 
unfulfilled longing lay a feeling of deep resignation upon all the 
characters of the Marchen. Only the Man with the Lamp looks 
calmly into the future, though by himself he is not able to help; 



316 TJie Journal of Speculative PhilosojjJty. 

but tlie noble youth has fallen into hopeless discouragement ; and 
even the fair Lily, " removed from sweet, human enjoyment," 
leads only a half-existence. With the entrance of the Will-o'' 
the-wisps a new life begins to stir in this magic circle. Here and 
there, without purpose and unconscious of the consequences, they 
give impulse and incitement, which, falling upon momentous 
forces, lead to most important events. These forces, now endowed 
with life before our eyes, come forth into an activity which 
mounts continually higher, becoming ever more joyous with hope; 
the carelessly scattered gold becomes through them an illuminat- 
ing, wonder-working light, which proves itself equally effectual 
for bringing to view what had hitherto been longed for, indeed, 
but never yet beheld, for the maintenance of what had been en- 
dangered, and for the upbuilding of the future. 

The forces thus upraised and working in ever-increasing har- 
mony are not able to avert the catastrophe which the ill-omened 
helplessness of the youth has enabled us long since to anticipate; 
after the misfortune has happened we see the Lights busy with 
quiet but redoubled activity, guarding and upholding the endan- 
gered forces of life, and opening the path to final perfect salva- 
tion and completion. 

The condition of German affairs in the eighteenth century is 
represented in bold and general strokes. A peo|)le in whom tlie 
noblest spiritual forces are efficaciously working, finds itself, 
nevertheless, in the condition of a crippled existence, for all politi- 
cal institutions are wanting to it. Science, religion, literature, 
and art can, indeed, furnish it with ideas and theories, with hun- 
dred-fold salutary forces, but there is lacking the substantial edifice 
of great and serviceable state-forms, by which, on the one hand, 
the capacity of the people can be unfettered, and, on the other 
hand, its noblest spiritual efforts can receive at last the proper 
sanction. The temple does not stand at the river — that is, the 
organic, efficient political establishment, which according to its 
nature must be at once great and beautiful, has not vet become a 
reality, has not been set up in the course of events, close to the 
banks which hem in the rushing stream of history. The hridge 
is not yet huilt — that is, the mass of the people are still cut off 
from the land which lies for them on the further side of the river 
of life; only a few may cross by various means to the other side. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 317 

That other bank is tlie realm of the spirit, the land of ideas, where 
Beanty and Truth reign united in one person. This is the august 
goddess, as Schiller represents her in the " Kiinstlerin," and 
Goethe in imperishable beauty in the "Zueignung," the heavenly 
Muse who was guide and friend to both ; she who reached to 
Goethe the veil — 

" Aus Morgendnft g'ewebt und Sonnenklarheit, 
Der Dichtung Schleier aiis der Hand der Wahrheit "; 

who appeared to tlie former as " the awfully glorious Urania " ; 
who, seen only by purer spirits, moves over the stars, destroying as 
she goes, and who, having laid aside her crown of rays, reveals lier. 
self as Beauty to mortal eyes. 

And now that noble youth, of kingly stature, still clad in the 
purple, but deprived of his sword, who in deep sorrow walks com- 
posedly with naked feet over the hot sand, banished by the blue 
eyes of the fair Lily, for whose sake he has given up and lost 
everything ! He is the genius of the German nation, which, when 
it was a question of choosing between truth and power, let its 
kingly authority crumble to dust, and followed witli searching, 
longing eyes the footprints of truth and beauty, until the strength 
of its noble limbs was maimed, until it seemed to sink into torpor 
and death. The apprehension of the struggle for the ideal is 
wonderfully discerning; and it may be said that Goethe tliereby 
answered beforehand all those charges of his having failed to rec- 
ognize the perniciousness of a too festhetical education. " So fatal 
is the power of her beautiful blue eyes that they deprive all living 
beings of strength, and that those whom the touch of her hand 
does not slay feel themselves changed into the condition of shad- 
ows wandering alive." When an individual or a society devotes 
itself to spiritual and aesthetic interests with an exclusiveness 
which is so indifferent to everything else that it pays but little 
attention to the affairs of real life, it does injury to its whole 
nature, and works to its own destruction, for as the highest well- 
being of the individual depends upon an harmonious bodily and 
spiritual development, so is the welfare of the state conditioned 
ui)on the uniform working together of the spirit-forming and state- 
forming forces. Indeed, whole peoples have sunk into decay who, 
in obstinately eager searching for truth, or in inunoderate devo- 



318 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

tion to the ideal of beauty, thought tliat they coukl neglect care 
for their political existence. Thus the Jewish and the Greek 
nations passed away, but straightway tliere grew up upon their 
graves a mighty forest, which makes known their memory to later 
jieoples. Thus Beauty and Truth rewards services rendered to 
her. Iler rich garden still bears no fruits, and all this domain of 
true perceptions and beautiful forms only becomes useful and 
nutritious to the living when they have heen brought over upon the 
securely huilt bridge from the realmn of ideas into the world of 
actual working life. "No plant in my garden," laments the fair 
Lily, "bears either flowers or fruit; but every twig that I break 
and plant upon the grave of a favorite grows green straightway, 
and shoots up in fair bouglis. All these groups, these bushes, 
these groves, my hard destiny has so raised around me. These 
pines stretching out like parasols, these obelisks of cypresses, these 
colossal oaks and beeches, were all little twigs planted by my 
hand, as mournful memorials in a soil that is otherwise barren." 

A beautiful and striking figure has in it something infinite; it 
cannot be expressed how the mind is always aroused by it anew. 
Let us call to mind all that is great and momentous in what the 
foremost spirits in the service of truth and beauty have accom- 
plished since the awakening of the German nation. lier thought- 
ful poets, her bold, tireless thinkers — how many of them have 
passed away, after having spent their lives in pursuing their ideals, 
without even a small part of what tliey have labored and strug- 
gled for becoming a real possession of our people ! How much less 
have their labors produced life-giving and gladdening nourish- 
ment for the daily and enduring happiness of all ! Thus they, 
then, have found their graves in the realm of ideas, and upon 
their graves have grown those groups of many kinds of trees, the 
memorials of their work, in the quiet shade of which a few favored 
ones who gain admittance there, find refreshment and strength. 

At any tim.e when it pleases him the Man with the Lamp, glid- 
ing noiselessly back and forth over the river, is here a trusted guest, 
and is even called hither by the spirit of his lamp, if he is needed ; 
above all is Science at home among these memorials of the past in 
the garden of the fair Lily; its voice and help count for much 
even in the realm of the beautiful, and, although its own work is 
self-directed and independent of the power of the ideal of beauty. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 319 

still its hio;hest achievement is onlv reached tlirouo-h union with 
beauty, just as beauty throuo:;h it alone becomes capable of its 
freest creations, But^ hoicever, in their close intercourse with 
each other ^ hath lead a restricted life, feeling that they fail of their 
fullest activity so long as, turned to a narrow self-sujficiency, 
they are cut off from active, enduring, and reciprocal association 
'with all the forces of the nation. Art and science flourish per- 
fectly only in the state, though they may iiave accomplished some- 
thing great without it through their own powers. 

However, though the nation maj' lack the sound and necessary 
organs by which it attains to complete life, though the masses may 
be cut off from the light of truth and the charm of beauty as 
well as from political power, still there are several ways by which 
that obstructed intercourse is kept up in quiet passing back and 
forth, but only for individual travellers. The Marchen gives us the 
old Ferryman, but he is only permitted to carry passengers from 
the bank on which the fair Lily dwells; he can bring no one in 
the opposite direction. In order to afford a passage from the 
bank where the masses of the nation dwell, who are scarcely aware 
of the opposite bank and its glories, or gaze over to it in unsatis- 
tied longing — to afford a passage from this bank to the bank of 
the fair Lily, are given the Snake, who at mid-day curves herself 
over the river, and the shadow of the Giant, who has his greatest 
strength at morning and evening. The wife of the old man has 
often crossed in both ways ; she is well known in the garden of 
Lil}^, and is on good terms with Lily herself. 

The anticipation of the true and beautiful and the need of pic- 
turing it to itself never die in a nation bo long as it is still capable 
of life. Before Science takes up its abode in a nation, before the 
light of knowledge shines for it, it makes for itself in fable, myth, 
and the forms of religious worship the pictures of these anticipa- 
tory conceptions, and they who cannot yet see the light of knowl- 
edge are continually being carried over to the ideal through the 
power of this unconscious and involuntary imagining. Where 
and how arise these mighty births of faith and anticipation ? Who 
showed them the way ? Who ever forced them into a plan % Who 
was ever able to lead or to constrain and master them % They 
belong to the whole broad body of the nation ; they arise of them- 
selves, and are purposeless and incalculable ; with conscious ef- 



320 The Journal of SpecAilative Philosophy. 

fort they could effect nothing, but they are ever accomplishing a 
mighty result when they are in constant, even though unconscious, 
union with the highest ; on the other hand, it is possible for them 
just as unconsciously to occasion mischief and corruption. Here 
we have the great Giant, " who with his body has no power ; his 
hands cannot lift a straw, his shoulders could not bear a fagot of 
twigs ; but with his shadow he has power over mnch — nay, all. 
Pie is strongest, therefore, at sunrise and sunset." How true ! In 
the youth of a people myth is everything to it ; moreover, this 
myth-making power never dies in the mass of the people ; but it 
expresses itself in a thousand-fold different ways, and, when exist- 
ing forms of culture decline, how powerful in good and ill do these 
illusions of the masses show themselves to be, who, seeking with 
an unerrino; instinct for a iustice the lack of which is felt, are not 
warned by an indwelling law and sense of proportion from the 
most frightful errors ! A typical and altogether objective symbol 
of all religious, political, and social disorders that have ever shaken 
the world. 

Again, at mid-day, when the Sun, standing high in the heavens, 
now spreads his light everywhere, the green Snake, vaulted to form 
a bridge, can make a way into the realm of the fair Lily for in- 
dividual travellers who desire it. 

The questions, what is intended by this Snake, and what the 
enigmatical Ferryman means, demand a reference to the conci'ete 
action of the Marchen ; for I would here retnind the reader that 
the Marchen does not treat symbolically^ of the relation of general 
ideas and forces to one another, but that it refers allegorically to 
the circumstances of the German people at a definite time, and to 
how they may shape themselves in the future. 

I spoke above of the condition of German affaii-s in the eight- 
eenth century. The deep feeling of insufficiency and inade- 
quacy aroused then for the first time a movement in science and 
literature which was rich in results. It was confined, how- 
ever, to a relatively narrow circle ; the mass of the German peo- 
ple still turned, to gratify its spiritual needs, to what was of- 
fered by religious forms and manifold popular fancies, some 
inherited, and some newly shaping themselves. For the help 
and comfort of those who sought them, the treasures of the 
ancient world again offered themselves, which science as well as 



Goethe's Marchen. 321 

art eagerly sought to appropriate. Moreover, men turned their 
eves to nature, and the literature of that time besjan to devote 
itself witli care and love to the observation and description of 
natural objects. Not only did the great characteristics of tlie 
universe become the theme of its representations, but it dwelt with 
greater love on the observation of landscape pictures which were 
narrowly restricted, and sought to paint them with the utmost 
care even to the smallest details. 

The literature of this epoch has many beauties of a high order 
to show, and its aim is everywhere seen to be directed to the 
noble and spiritual, though it could not free itself from a certain 
dullness and formal pedantry, which impeded its higher movement 
and held it down to earth, as it were. There breathes in it a 
strong breath of patriotic enthusiasm, though it was far from pre- 
senting to itself the past and future of the fatherland in clearly de- 
fined forms, and vague feelings still stood in place of distinct and 
clearly conceived ideas. 

This was, on the whole, the position of our beautiful literature 
in the lirst half of the last century. In thinking upon Lessing, we 
are accustomed to bring the great development of the second half 
of the century prominently into connection with his struggle against 
the deformities which imitation of the French brought with it. 
ISTevertheless, the influence which tlie literary stars of France ex- 
ercised at that time upon the very best spirits of our people is a 
very powerful one — indeed, it is incalculable. JSTot only did they 
rule almost like sovereigns the whole of what is called polite so- 
ciety ; not only under their influence was Wieland able to clothe 
the German language with the lightness and grace which alone en- 
abled it to gain the victory in those circles over its foreign rival ; 
but who will estimate what part the reading of Rousseau, Dide- 
rot, and Yoltaire played in the spiritual development of Lessing, 
Goethe, and Schiller ? 

Think, moreover, of Frederick the Great and the immense in- 
fluence of the whole French philosophy of enlightenment in the 
religious and the political spheres ! It was precisely the French 
lightness, coupled on the one hand with remarkable clearness and 
pointedness, on the other with some narrowness and often with 
frivolous superficiality, J'^-at obtained for these new ideas their wide 
dissemination and popularity, through which they brought light 
XXII— 21 



322 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

to all civilized Europe. From it German literature received au 
impulse most rich in results on a side on which it most needed to 
be aroused. For while it now took to itself that lio-htness and 
grace, that verve and animated precision, while it replenished itself 
with those ideas which enkindle the people and exert an immedi- 
ate and practical influence, it still remained true to itself, it knew 
how to melt that gold in its veins, it cleansed it fi-om those ele- 
ments which were foreign to itself, and a light was enkindled in it 
which has ever since lighted the nation on all its paths with an 
ever-i ncreasing brightness. 

The figure of the green Snake, which Goethe chose to represent 
this stage of German literature, seems to me a very happy inven- 
tion. Let one read the first part of theMarchen and see if, when 
the meaning which I have given is accepted, the most manifold 
relations do not everywhere spring into view, carrying along 
the characterization, now in an earnest and again in a satirical 
and ironical spirit. 

I will return to this point again at the proper place. Let us 
now follow the action of the Marchen fnim the beginning, 

{To he concluded.) 



CAN ECONOMICS FURNISH AN OBJECTIVE 
STANDARD FOR MORALITY? 



BY SIMON X. PATTEN. 



It is afiirmed by Mr. Herbert S])encer, in his Data of Ethics, 
that all current methods of ethics have one general defect — they 
neglect ultimate causal connections. Now that he has added 
another method of ethics to those we previously possessed, cer- 
tainly it is not out of place to examine whether he has neglected 
any of those ultimate causal connections which were overlooked 
by previous moralists. It must be conceded that he has brought 
out many causal connections by which a much clearer view of 
ethics can now be had than was formerly possible ; but that he 
has clearly enumerated or even consciously recognized those uiti- 



Economics cind Morality. 823 

mate causal connections which lie at the basis of the true ethical 
system must be doubted even if we accept those general principles 
from which he proceeds. Mr. Spencer affirms that it is the busi- 
ness of Moral Science to deduce from the laws of life and the con- 
ditions of existence what kinds of actions tend to produce happi- 
ness and what kinds to produce unhappiness. An examination of 
his books, however, will reveal that he has deduced most of his 
conclusions from the laws of life alone. A reader is left in com- 
plete darkness as to what those ultimate conditions of existence 
are to which humanity must ultimately conform to obtain the 
highest type of existence. When I endeavor to determine these 
ultimate conditions and seek aid from Mr. Spencer's writings, I 
find that he, as well as his predecessors, has an inadequate idea of 
causation, and at some points he seems to have no idea of causa- 
tion at all. To be specific, I would say that Mr. Spencer asserts 
that on our planet an evolution is taking place in wliich the fittest 
tend to survive and through which the surplus of our pleasures 
above our pains is constantly increased. Novv, if sucli an evolu- 
tion is taking place, it must be due to the peculiar natural condi- 
tions of our planet. Whoever asserts that a progressive evolution 
must take place on Mars, Jupiter, or any other planet regardless 
of their peculiar natural conditions, certainly lacks an adequate 
idea of causation. The same would be true of any one who 
asserted that a progressive evolution would take place on our 
planet if all the soils and climates were like that of Greenland, 
Sahara, or many other places. Evolution can be progressive only 
under peculiar natural conditions, and only when all these condi- 
tions are present can we expect a progressive evolution. 

Mr. Spencer, however, asserts more than that we have a pro- 
gressive evolution. He also asserts that this evolution has a given 
goal — an ideal social state where pleasure is unalloyed with pain 
anywhere. In asserting the possibility of an ideal state where all 
right conduct has no necessary painful consequences, he either has 
an inadequate idea of causation or he means to attirm merely that 
the natural conditions on our planet are such as to allow an ideal 
social state. 

Supposing that in his two main propositions we have a pro- 
gressive evolution and that an ideal social state is for us possible, 
he means only that these two propositions are true of the natural 



324: The Journal of ^Speculative Philosophy. 

conditions of our planet, there is still need to examine the natural 
conditions which each of these propositions presupposes to see if 
they harmonize enough so that both of them could be true of one 
planet. If the natural conditions needed for an ideal social state 
where pleasure is unalloyed with pain are anywhere different from 
those which a progressive evolution demands, then an ethical sys- 
tem which endeavors to ground itself on both of these proposi- 
tions lacks consistency, and one or the other proposition must be 
given up so as to harmonize our ethical ideal with natural condi- 
tions. 

If Mr. Spencer wished to show that his idea of causation was 
more developed than that of his predecessors, he should have 
shown that these two fundamental points of his system harmonize. 
He has, however, avoided all discussion of the necessary condi 
tions of existence and has sought only to elucidate the laws of 
life ; yet these laws are not ultimate, but depend on the external 
conditions of existence. 

I wish to discuss in detail the external conditions upon which 
these two propositions depend, and think it can be made clear that 
they require for their realization radically difi'erent natural condi- 
tions — so difterent that it is impossible for one planet to have all 
the natural conditions necessary to make both of these ends possi- 
ble. I shall endeavor to determine what natural conditions a 
progressive evolution demands, and then these natural conditions 
can be compared with those which Mr. Spencer's ideal social state 
presupposes. 

The evolution of life, we are told, is a continual adjustment of 
internal relations to external conditions. We thus have two dis- 
tinct problems to investigate — the fixed external conditions and the 
internal relations which must adjust themselves to the external con- 
ditions. To the second of these })roblems evolutionists have de- 
voted their entire attention, bringing in the external conditions in 
a casual way. They presuppose such a set of external conditions 
as would make a progressive evolution possible and then investi- 
gate the changes in the internal relations which take place as 
these relations gradually adjust themselves more and more to ex- 
ternal conditions. 

What, then, are the external conditions which favor a progress- 
ive evolution? To answer this question we must first determine 



Economics and Morality. 325 

what are the external conditions upon which we are dependent 
and to wliich we must adjust ourselves. There is no great diffi- 
culty in determining these conditions, since they mainly lie in the 
conditions determining the food-supply. It is true that we need 
water and air and a few other things outside of the food-supply ; 
but as these are found in abundance where any food can be ob- 
tained, we can overlook these factors and give our attention solely 
to the conditions of the food-supply. To adjust ourselves to natu- 
ral conditions is, when stated specifically, to adjust ourselves to 
the food-supply, and to say that we are surrounded by natural con- 
ditions favorable to a progressive evolution is to say that the food- 
supply enlarges as the intelligence of those who consume it in- 
creases. To illustrate this proposition let us take an extreme case. 
Suppose a world so situated that the sun shone on every part alike, 
thus causing an equal temperature everywhere, and that there 
were no mountains or hills, no differences of soil or climate, nor 
any other difference by which one locality would have an advan- 
tage over any other locality. Upon such a world, if a suitable 
plant were introduced, it would spread until it covered the whole 
world. But would it tend to evolve into many varieties and cover 
the earth with as many kinds of plants as we now have? Sup- 
pose, further, some low class of animals to be introduced, would 
they tend to form varieties and create a progressive evolution ? 

On the other hand, let us suppose a world which has many dif- 
ferent climates and soils, many hills and mountains, swamps and 
deserts, and all that variety in other particulars which would be 
sure to arise from such a diversity of fundamental conditions. If 
upon such a world first a plant and then a low class of animals 
were introduced, what would be their tendencies to form varieties 
and to evolve into higher forms of life? 

If we examine the writings of our leading evolutionists to de- 
termine which of these worlds would have the conditions favorable 
to a progressive evolution, it will be found that all their proof 
presupposes a world where there is a great variety of soil and 
climate and would not apply to such a world as was supposed in 
our first illustration. A given animal or plant spreads over a lim- 
ited territory where external conditions are favorable. When these 
limits are reached a new variety is ev^olved suitable to an adjacent 
region with somewhat different external conditions, and when this 



326 The Journal of Sjyeoulative Philosophy. 

region is filled another variety arises suitable to still other external 
conditions which other regions possess. When all the world is 
once tilled with simple organisms, complex organisms are evolved 
with enough intelligence to utilize those portions of the food- 
supply which are not accessible to lower organisms. 

Certainly such arguments take for granted that we live in a 
world of frost and heat, of mountains and valleys, and of all those 
other changes to which we as a race are subjected. Examine these 
arguments from the objective side and they show that low organ- 
isms can exist only under simple conditions, and all the food-sup- 
ply cannot be utilized by such organisms wherever there is a great 
variety of soil and climate. Room and food are thus left for 
higher organisms to evolve under those complex conditions from 
which the simpler organisms are excluded, and a progressive evo- 
lution can continue so long as still higher organisms obtain sup- 
port through a greater utilization of the food-supply. In other 
words, a progressive evolution is possible when but a portion of the 
whole food-supply is available to low organisms, and the more 
the intelligence of an organism is increased the greater is the por- 
tion of the food-supply which it can acquire. The food-supply, 
however, can be small to low organisms and enlarge to higher or- 
ganisms only in a world of great variety of soil and climate, and 
only in such a world can we expect to find a progressive evolution. 
In a world without change or variety of any kind a complex or- 
ganism would have no advantage over a more simple one. All 
the food-supply could be obtained by simple organisms and there 
would be no unoccupied regions over which higher organisms 
could spread. 

It may be said that in such a world, organisms would still tend 
to adjust themselves to Nature. Certainly ; but under these con- 
ditions low organisms would be completely adjusted to Nature. 
What, for instance, can be better adjusted to Nature than a grass- 
hopper on a warm summer day when the whole surrounding world 
is covered with grain and grass upon which he may feed ? If we 
contrast him with the ant, who works to lay by a store for winter, 
he is much better adjusted to present external conditions. It is 
not the lack of adjustment to present conditions that ])roves the 
superiority of the ant over the grasshopper. The grasshopper 
can adjust himself to the summer heat and plenty, but the damp- 



Economics and Morality. 327 

iiess aiul frost of tlie comino: autumn find liim unprepared. It is 
only because we live in a world of change where one extreme 
follows the other in rapid succession that the adjustment of the 
ant to Nature is better than that of the grasshopper. In a world 
of deadening uniformity the grasshopper would have the advan- 
tage over more complex organisms and could displace them. 

A world of change would be a world of intelligence, but it 
would not be a world of pleasure unalloyed with pain anywhere. 
To be free from pain it would bo necessary to migrate to another 
world where there is a complete uniformity, and where wind and 
hail and frost and other disagreeable results of changing climate 
cannot interrupt a life of pure pleasure. Must we not therefore 
conclude that the external conditions needed for an ideal state of 
pure pleasure are radically different from those which a progressive 
evolution presupposes ? When Mr. Spencer assumes that all our 
pains arise from an incongruity between the natures which men 
inherit from the present social state and the requirements of social 
life he overlooks the fact that many of our pains arise from those 
changing external conditions over which we have no control. 
Certainly, if there were a complete adjustment of internal relations 
to external conditions, there would be no pain, but it should be 
kept in mind that there can be no complete adjustment when the 
external conditions are variable. If the axis of the earth did not 
iiicline to the sun so as to cause changes of seasons, and if our 
mountains were levelled and our soils made of equal fertility, then 
we might adjust ourselves so completely to Nature that we should 
have no pain. So long, however, as our external conditions re- 
rnain as they are, our adjustment to it must always be incomplete, 
and there must be many pains and diseases which arise purely 
from necessary external conditions. Our moral ideas, therefore, 
must be very different from what they would be if we were sur- 
rouuded by a different external condition. 

Even Mr. Spencer has affirmed that moral principles must 
conform to physical necessities ; but when he lays down the con- 
dition of absolute ethics he overlooks all the physical necessities 
of our planet and adopts a moral standard which may be a very 
good one on Mars or Jupiter, but certainly is not fitted for our 
world. If the law of absolute right can take no cognizance of 
pain, it certainly can take no cognizance of our planet; and when 



828 Tim Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Mr. Spencer considers an ideal man as existing in an ideal social 
state, he clearly shows that his ideal presn))poses a world without 
change and not such a one as that in which we live. While be- 
lieving in a progressive evolution, he takes away the very condi- 
tions which make a progressive evolution jjossible in order that he 
may predicate an ideal state without pain as a possibility for us. 

Mr. Spencer tells us that the best examples of absolutely right 
actions are those arising where the nature and its requirements 
have been moulded to one another before social evolution beg-an. 
!N^ow, for two things to become moulded to one another their ex- 
ternal conditions must be constant and not variable, and, as our 
external conditions are variable, we cannot ever become com- 
pletely moulded to them. Were all our relations between man 
and man, this moulding might become complete ; but our most im- 
portant relations are not those betwesn man and man, but be- 
tween man and Nature. In giving its natural food to the child the 
mother receives pleasure; but can the mother get her food from 
Nature without pain? To my mind, the chief source of the 
mother's pleasure would arise from the fact that she can exempt 
her child from all those pains to which every one must submit 
who acquires his food direct from the hand of Nature. The ex- 
ternal conditions surrounding the food-supply must determine 
what are the highest types of moral action, and so long as one 
man, by bearing more than his share of the pains necessary to 
procure food, can exempt his family or his friends from their 
pains, or can reduce their pains more than his pains are increased, 
so long will such actions be regarded as of a higher type than are 
those which bring less pleasure but no pain to all concerned. We 
admire the warrior who sacrifices his life for his country, because 
;such actions are typical of those which every one must perform in 
every-day life. If we did not have to light with Nature for food, 
we should not think of fio-htino- with one another, and then Mr. 
Spencer's absolutely right actions might become models. So long, 
however, as most of us must live in unhealthy climates, plough the 
land in April rains, harvest wheat in August heat, husk corn in 
November frosts, and feed our stock in December snows, we shall 
admire acts of self-sacrifice by which the few suffer more that the 
many may suffer less. 

It is at this point where Mr. Spencer has made a great mis- 



Economics and Moralitu. 329 

take. He discarded the utilitarian doctrine because in its cur- 
rent form this morality is merely empirical, and utilitarians do 
uot deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence 
what kinds of actions tend to produce nuhappiuess. But does 
this deficient method of procedure justify Mr. S])encer in over- 
looking the external conditions of existence so that he can set up 
a life without pain as a inodel for imitation ? 

A moral doctrine can be deduced from the external conditions 
of existence, and thus Mr. Spencer's objection can be avoided. 
To conform to Nature is, as I have said, to conform to the con- 
ditions of the food-supply, and as the amount of the food-supply 
depends largely on the actions of men, those actions which permit 
an increase of tlie food-supply or economize its use are moral 
actions. The number of persons who can exist in our world by 
hunting and tishing are small, and as each person must have many 
hundred acres to support himself, he excludes many beings from 
the possibilities of a happy existence. When men resort to agri- 
culture they decrease the number of acres which each one must 
have to procure his food, and thus allow many possible beings to 
become actual participants of a happy existence. The food-supply 
is further augmented when men use wheat, beef, and other articles 
of which Nature is least productive in relatively less quantities 
and consume relatively more of rye, potatoes, rice, and similar 
articles of which Nature is most productive. A proper rotation 
of crops and a right use of commerce allow the food-supply again 
to be greatly increased, and greatly decrease the number of acres 
which each man must have to provide himself with food. The 
economy of the food-supply is of no less importance than are the 
methods by which we produce our food. At the present time 
almost every one consumes two or three times the amount of food 
needed for his health simply for the pleasure which its consump- 
tion affords. So long as each one eats enough to maintain health, 
and then in liquor and tobacco consumes the produce of enough 
more land to support another man, half of the possible beings to 
whom this world might afford a happy existence are excluded, 
and the gross sum of human happiness is greatly reduced. 

There is yet another condition to happiness which must be 
considered before we can determine what is the gross sum of hap- 
piness which this world can afford to human beings. The mental 



330 The Journal of Speculative PJdlosophy. 

qualities inherent in man which have been developed in increas- 
ing the food supj3ly determine how many sources of pleasure the 
members of a society can enjoy. The man whose vocation calls 
into activity but one quality has few sources of pleasure other 
than eating and drinking. If the production of rice or potatoes 
or of cloth or shoes requires of the laborer but little skill, those 
who produce these articles will have their faculties but par- 
tially developed, and will thus be cut off from most of those 
pleasures which are most enjoyable to fully developed beings. 
The greater the number of qualities which are developed in 
any man, the more sources of pleasure will he have which are 
not derived from a mere consumption of food. The inexclusive 
pleasures of fully developed beings do not draw largely on the 
food-supply,^ and hence these enjoyments do not exclude others 
from the possibilities of a happy existence. 

Each individual through his actions and demand for food creates 
a demand for land. Some one individual needs but five average 
acres to supply his wants, a second ten, a third twenty, a fourth 
one hundred, a lifth live hundred, and still others need one thou- 
sand acres or even more. We must, of course, count in each one's 
share the number of acres which his conduct, considered as a whole, 
causes to be unoccupied or partially used. If a people have such 
habits that they cannot live near together, or if they are so war- 
like that they prevent a large portion of the earth from being occu- 
pied, the unoccupied or partially used land must be credited to 
them. 

All our conduct influences our demand for land, and that con- 
duct is, in an objective sense, the most moral which enables us to 
exercise all our faculties on the least land. We can, therefore, 
judge of the conduct of individuals or of nations by their demand 
for land. It is not necessary to know the subjective feelings of all 
individuals or how they increase their own happiness. We can 
judge of their conduct from what they desire for consump- 
tion and from how much of a demand for land this consump- 
tion creates. Those pleasures or habits which create a large 
demand for land are less moral than are those which require the 
exclusive use of fewer acres of land. The greatest happiness for 



' Patten, Premises of Political Economy, Chap. II, 



Economics and Morality. 331 

the greatest number cannot be attained without the greatest 
economy of the food-supply and the use of all the land in the most 
productive manner. Only that conduct can be absolutely right 
which allows both of these ends to be fulfilled. Upon our planet 
at least all the food-supply cannot be utilized unless some persons 
are willing to endure pain. By harmonious actions we can greatly 
increase the surplus sum of our happiness above our pains, and also 
the number of those who can participate in our pleasures. Yet 
some pains must be endured, and that conduct, however painful it 
may be, which reduces the gross sum of the pains which humanity 
must endure, must serve as a type of perfect action. Suppose two 
planets with external conditions like our earth. On one of these 
the people admired those acts whicli involve no pain, while on the 
other a life of self-sacrifice furnished a model for imitation. On 
the first of these worlds only a mere fraction of the food-supply 
could be utilized and the population would be small. A few 
islands or small valleys in favored localities might be found where 
frosts, storms, and disease were so rare that a life without pain 
could be enjoyed. These localities would be isolated, since com- 
merce cannot be carried on without pain, and as a result the 
inhabitants would be deprived of many sources of enjoyment. 

On the second of these worlds, where the thought of pain would 
not deter any one from action, the outcome would be very differ- 
ent. Every climate could be utilized, even though many of them 
might be unhealthy, and all kinds of food could be produced. 
Every productive act could be carried on at the point where the 
least labor would be required, while commerce could distribute all 
the produce of industry even though a few sailors froze their 
fingers furling the sails or perished in a shipwreck. The second 
world would have many times the population of the first world 
and many more sources of enjoyment. 

Suppose, now, a third world of complete uniformity, where 
storms and frosts never come and where disease never arises ex- 
cept through filth and ignorance. Here Mr. Spencer's ideal man 
might exist, since he would be in complete harmony wnth sur- 
rounding nature. In such a world as ours, however, he could 
not exist. He needs not only an ideal social state, but an ideal 
world. For each world there is an ideal man and a correspond- 
ing social state, and the ideal man in a world of change must 



332 The Journal of Speoulative Pidlosopluj. 

be different from that of a world of complete uniformity. A 
world of change cannot offer a life without pain, but it can offer a 
life with many intense pleasures and but few pains. Such a life 
forms an economic ideal, and it certainly corresponds to the possi- 
bilities of the world in which we live. The greatest happiness for 
the greatest number can be attained by us without any modifica- 
tion of external Nature, and if evolution tears down ideals formed 
by partially evolved subjective feelings and replaces them with 
other ideals which can be realized, we must expect that the eco- 
nomic ideal of morality will gradually displace those ideals which 
can be realized only on worlds with other external conditions. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



" MIND. " 

The English Philosophical Journal, "Mind," has received notice or a record of the 
contents of certain numbers in " The .Journal of Speculative Philosophy," as fol- 
lows : Vol. X, Xo. 1, January, 1876, contents of the first number, January, 1876, with 
the Prospectus; Vol. X, Xo. 4, October, 1879, notice of Vols. I-III, by W. M. Bryant, 
and contents of the numbers for January and April, 1879, with brief remark by the 
Editor ; Vol. XV, Xo. 4, October, 1881, contents of Jaimary and April, 1831. " Mind " 
is the most ably edited of all journals devoted to philosophy, and as we shall from time 
to time publish in this Journal a record of its contents, it has been thought advisaljle to 
present the entire contents from the beginning in connection with the following notice 
of Vols. XII and XIII : 

Editor. 
Contents of " Mind," Vols. I-XI, Xos. 1-44. 

1876-1886. 

January, 1876, Vol. I, Xo. 1.— Editor,' Prefatory Words; H. Spencer, The Compara- 
tive Psychology of Man ; J. Sully, Phy,<iological Psychology in Germany ; J. Venn, 
Consistency and Real Inference ; H. Sidgwick, The Theory of Evolution in its Appli- 
cation to Practice ; S. H. Hodgson, Philosophy and Science (I) ; Rector ' of Lincoln 
College, Philosophy at Oxford ; Prof. Bain, Early Life of James Mill (I) ; Critical No- 
tices, Reports, Notes, New Books, Xews. 

April, 1876, No. 2.— G. H. Lewes, What is Sensation ? Prof. W. Wundt, Central In- 
nervation and Consciousness ; A. Bain, Mr. Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics ; H. Calder- 



' Prof. George Croom Robertson. ^ Maik Pattison. 



Book Notices. 333 

wood, Mr. Sidgwick on Intuitionalism ; Editor, Mr. Jevous's Formal Logic ; S. H. 
Hodgson, Philosophy and Science (II) ; H. Sidgwick, Philosophy at Cambridge ; J. F. 
Payne, James Ilinton; Critical Notices, Repoits, Notes, Correspondence, New Books, 
News. 

July, 1876, No. 3. — H. Helmholtz, The Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms ; R. 
Flint, Associationism and the Origin of Moral Ideas ; F. Pollock, Evolution and 
Ethics ; F. Max Midler, The Original Intention of Collective and Abstract Terms ; 
S. H. Hodgson, Philosophy and Science (III, concluded) ; T. M. Lindsay, Hermann 
Lotze ; W. H. S. Monck, Philosophy at Dublin ; Critical Notices, Reports, Notes, 
Correspondence, New Books, News. 

October, 1876, No. 4. — J. A. Stewart, Psychologj- — a Science or a Method; J. Ward, 
An Attempt to interpret Fechner's Law ; J. Sully, Art and Psychology ; J. Venn, 
Boole's Logical System ; R. Adamson, Schopenhauer's Philosophy ; A. Bain, The 
Life of James Mill (11) ; Editor, Philosophy in London ; Critical Notices, Reports, 
Notes, Correspondence, New Books, News. 

January, 1877, Vol. II, No. 5. — A. Bain, Education as a Science ; H. Travis, An Intro- 
spective Investigation ; H. Sidgwick, Hedonism and Ultimate Good ; J. P. N. Laud, 
Kant's Space and Modern Mathematics ; J. J. Murphy, Fundamental Logic ; J. S. 
Henderson, Lord Amberley's Metaphysics ; W. G. Daviss, The Veracity of Conscious- 
ness ; J. Veitch, Philosophy in the Scottish L'niversities ; Critical Notices, Reports, 
Notes and Discussions, New Books, News. 

April, 1877, No. 6. — E. B. Tylor, Mr. Spencer's Principles of Sociology; G. H. Lewes, 
Consciousness and Unconsciousness ; A. Barratt, The " Suppression " of Egoism ; J. G. 
Macvicar, The so-called Antinomy of Reason ; W. S. Jevons, " Cram " ; J. Veitch, 
Philosophy in the Scottish Universities ; Critical Notices, Reports, Notes, New Books, 
News. 

July, 1877, No. 7. — C. Darwin, Biographical Sketch of an Infant ; A. Bain, Educa- 
tion as a Science (II) ; D. G. Thompson, Knowledge and Belief; C. Read, On some 
Principles of Logic; Editor, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century; Th. 
Ribot, Philosophy in France ; Critical Notices, Notes, Correspondence, New Books, 
News. 

October, 1877, No. 8. — R. Verdon, Forgetfulness ; A. Barratt, Ethics and Politics ; T. 
M. Lindsay, Recent Hegelian Contributions to English Philosophy ; W. Wundt, 
Philosophy in Germany ; A. Bain, The Life of James Mill (III, concluded) ; Critical 
Notices, Reports, Notes and Discussions, New Books, News. 

January, 1878, Vol. Ill, No. 9. — J. Sully, The Question of Visual Perception in Ger- 
many (I) ; Editor, The Physical Basis of Mind ; J. Venn, The Use of Hypotheses ; 
Prof. W. K. Clifford, On the Nature of Things-in-Themselves ; A. J. Balfour, The 
Philosophy of Ethics ; Prof. J. P. N. Laud, Philosophy in the Dutch Universities. 
Critical Notices, Notes and Discussions, New Books, News. 

April, 1878, No. 10. — G. Allen, Note-Deafness; J. Sully, The Question of Visual Per- 
ception in Germany (II); F. Pollock, Notes on the Philosophy of Spinoza; H. Helm- 
holtz, On the Origin and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms (II). Philosophy in 
Education (I), J. A. Stewart; (II), Editor; Critical Notices, Reports, Notes and Dis- 
cussions, New Books, News. 

July, 1878, No. 11. — G. J. Romanes, Consciousness of Time; Prof. Bain, Education as 
a Science (III) ; G. Allen, The Origin of the Sublime ; D. G. Thompson, Intuition 
and Inference (I) ; A. Sidgwick, The Negative Character of Logic ; Prof. W. H. S. 



334 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Monck, Butler's Ethical System ; Rev. W. Cunningham, Political Economy as a 
Moral Science ; Critical Notices, Reports, Notes and Discussions, New Books, 
News. 

October, 18Y8, No. 12. — G. S. Hall, The Muscular Perception of Space; Prof. Bain; 
Education as a Science (IV) ; D. G. Thompson, Intuition and Inference (II) ; A. J. 
Balfour, Transcendentalism; G. Barzellotti, Philosophy in Italy; Critical Notices, 
Reports, Notes and Discussions, New Books, News. 

January, 18V9, Vol. IV, No. 13. — W. James, Are we Automata? E. Gurney, On Dis- 
cord ; J. Venn, The Difficulties of Material Logic ; F. Pollock, Marcus Aurelius and 
the Stoic Philosophy ; 0. Plumacher, Pessimism ; G. S. Hall, Philosophy in the 
United States ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

April, 1879, No. 14. — G. S. Hall, Laura Bridgman; J. Sully, Harmony of Colors; Rev. 
R. Harley, F. R. S., The Stanhope Demonstrator; Prof. Bain, John Stuart Mill (I) ; 
A. Sidgwick, Definiti(m Be Jure and De Facto ; L. S. Bevington, The Personal 
Aspect of Responsibility ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, 
Miscellaneous. 

July, 1879, No. 15.— G. Allen, The Origin of the Sense of Symmetry; W. James, The 
Sentiment of Rationality ; C. Read, Kuno Fischer on English Philosophy ; J. N. 
Keynes, On the Position of Formal Logic; Prof. Bain, John Stuart Mill (II); F. Y. 
Edgeworth, The Hedonical Calculus ; Notes, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscel- 
laneous. 

October, 1879, No. 16. — A. Lang, Mr. Max Miiller and Fetishism; G. A. Simcox, An 
Empirical Theory of Free Will; E. Gurney, Relations of Reason to Beauty; S. H. 
Hodgson, On Causation ; Prof. Bain, John Stuart Mill (III) ; Notes and Discussions, 
Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

January, 1880, Vol. V, No. 17. — E. Montgomery, The Dependence of Quality on Specific 
Energies; L. S. Bevington, Determinism and Duty; H. ilcColl, Symbolical Reason- 
ing ; C. Read, The Philosophy of Reflection ; Prof. Bain, John Stuart Mill (con- 
cluded) ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

April, 1880, No. 18. — L. Stephen, Philosophic Doubt ; J. Sully, Pleasure of Visual 
Form ; G. Allen, Pain and Death ; H. Sidgwick, Mr. Spencer's Ethical System ; S. H. 
Hodgson, Dr. Ward on Free Will; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New 
Books, Miscellaneous. 

July, 1880, No. 19.— F. Galton, F. R. S., Statistics of Mental Imagery; E. Montgomery, 
The Unity of the Organic Individual ; J. Venn, On the Forms of Logical Proposition ; 
T. Thornely, Perfection as an Ethical End ; AV. R. Sorley, Jewish :Me(liajval Phi- 
losophy and Spinoza ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscel- 
laneous. 

October, 1880, No. 20. — G. Allen, Esthetic Evolution in Man; E. Montgomery, The 
Unity of the Organic Individual (concluded) ; A. W. Benn, Another View of Mr. 
Spencer's Ethics ; W. L. Davidson, Botanical Classification ; J. Watson, The Method 
of Kant ; Critical Notices, Notes and Discussions, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

January, 1881, Vol. VI, No. 21. — J. Sully, Illusions of Introspection; J. Venn, Our 
Control of Space and Time; S. H. Hodgson, M. Renouvier's Philosophy — Logic; D. 
G. Thompson, The Suiniuum Bonum ; II. Spencer, Replies to Criticisms on Tin Data 
of Ethics ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

April, 1881, No. 22.— E. Gurney, Monism ; S. H. Hodgson, M. Renouvier's Philosojihy- 
Psychology; Rev. W. L. Davidson, The Logic of Dictionary-defining; A. W. Benn, 



Book Notices. 385 

Buckle and the Economics of Knowledge ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Xotices, 
New Books, Miscellaneous. 

July, 1881, No. 23.— Prof. J. Earle, The History of the Word " Mind " ; E. Montgomery, 
The Substantiality of Life; J. T. Punnett, Efficiency as a Proximate End in Morals ; 
Prof. J. Royce, "Mind-stuff" and Reality; J. Sully, George Eliot's Art ; Notes and 
Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

October, 1881, No. 24.— G. Allen, Sight and Smell in Vertebrates; C. F. Keary, The 
Homeric Words for " Soul " ; C. Read, G. H. Lewes's Posthumous Volumes ; T. 
Whitiaker, " Mind-stuff " from the Historical Point of View; A. Seth, Hegel: an 
Exposition and Criticism ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Mis- 
cellaneous. 

January, 1882, Vol. VII, No. 25. — Prof. T. H. Green, Can there be a Natural Science 
of Man ? (I) ; Prof. J. Royce, Mind and Reality ; A. Sidgwick, The Localization of 
Fallacy ; A. W. Benn, The Relation of Greek Philosophy to Modern Thought (I) ; 
Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

April, 1882, No. 26.— Prof. T. H. Green, Can there be a Natural Science of Man ? (II) ; 
Prof. W. James, On some Hegelisms ; E. Montgomery, Causation and its Organic 
Conditions (I) ; A. W. Benn, The Relation of Greek Philosophy to Modern Thought 
(II) ; Critical Notices, Notes and Discussions, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

July, 1882, No. 2'7.— Prof. T. H. Green, Can there be a Natural Science of Man ? (Ill) ; 

E. Gurney, The Utilitarian " Ought " ; J. Sully, Versatility ; E. Montgomery, Causa- 
tion and its Organic Conditions (II ') ; Critical Notices, Notes and Discussions, New 
Books, Miscellaneous. 

October, 1882, No. 28.— F. E. Abbot, Scientific Philosophy: a Theory of Human 
Knowledge ; T. Davidson, Perception ; E. Montgomery, Causation and its Organic 
Conditions (IV ^) ; H. Sidgwick, Incoherence of Empirical Philosophy ; Notes and 
Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

January, 1883, Vol. VIII, No. 29.— Editor, Psychology and Philosophy; A. Sidgwick, 
Propositions with a View to Proof ; Prof. Bain, On Some Points in Ethics ; H. 
Sidgwick, A Criticism of the Critical Philosophy (I) ; Notes and Discussions, Critical 
Notices, New Books, Correspondence, Miscellaneous. 

April, 1883, No. 30.— J. Ward, Psychological Principles (1) ; Prof. G. S. Hall, Reaction- 
time and Attention in the Hypnotic State ; M. Martin, On some Fundamental Prob- 
lems in Logic ; E. Gurney, " Natural Religion " ; Prof. W. Wallace, Ethics and 
Sociology ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

July, 1883, No. 31.— H. Sidgwick, A Criticism of the Critical Philosophy (II); K. 
Pearson, Maimonides and Spinoza ; F. W. Maitland, Mr. Herbert Spencer's Theory of 
Society (I); Father Harper, S. J., The Word; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, 
New Books, Miscellaneous. 

October, 1883, No. 32.— J. AVard, Psychological Principles (II); G. Allen, Idiosyncrasy; 

F. W. Maitland, Mr. Herbert Spencer'.s Theory of Society (II) ; Dr. J. H. Stirling, 
The Question of Idealism in Kant : the Two Editions ; Prof. E. Caird, Prof. Green's 
Last Work ; Notes and Discussions, Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

January, 1884, Vol. IX, No. 33. — Prof. W. James, On some Omissions of Introspective 
Psychology ; J. S. Haldane, Life and Mechanism ; S. H. Hodgson, The Metaphysical 



^ II. Instalment in " Mind," but III. Division of Discussion. 
^ IV. Division of Discussion, III. Instalment in " Mind." 



386 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Method in Philosophy ; A. J. Balfour, M. P. Green's Metaphysics of Knowledfe ; 
Kesearch and Discussion, Critical Notices, New Books, Correspondence, Miscel- 
laneous. 

April, 1884, Xo. 34.— H. Sidgwick, Green's Ethics; Prof. W. James, What is an 
Emotion ? A. Binet, La rectification des illusions par I'appel aux sens ; F. Y. Edge- 
worth, The Philosophy of Chance ; T. Whittaker, Giordano Bruno ; Discussion, 
Critical Notices, New Books, Correspondence, Miscellaneous. 

July, 1884, No. 35. — C. Mercier, A Classification of Feelings ; E. Montgomery, The 
Object of Knowledge ; H. H. Ellis, Hinton's Later Thought ; Research and Discussion, 
Critical Notices, New Books, Miscellaneous. 

October, 1884, No. 36. — E. Gurney, The Problems of Hypnotism; C. Mercier, A Classi- 
fication of Feelings (II); Dr. J. H. Stirling, Kant has not answered Hume (I); Dis- 
cussion, Critical Notices, New Books, Correspondence, Miscellaneous. 

January, 1885, Vol. X, No. 37. — C. Mercier, A Classification of Feelings (III) ; Prof. 
W. James, On the Function of Cognition ; Dr. J. H. Stirling, Kant has iiot answered 
Hume {II); Prof. H. Calderwood, Another View of Green's Last Work; J. T. Pun- 
nett. Ethical Alternatives; Critical Notices, New Books, Notes, and Correspondence. 

April, 1885, Xo. 38. — E. Gurney, Hallucinations ; Rev. H. Rashdall, Prof. Sidgwick's 
Utilitarianism ; Dr. E. Montgomery, Space and Touch (I) ; Discussion, Critical Xo- 
tices, X'ew Books, Xotes, and Correspondence. 

July, 1885, Xo. 39.— R. Hodgson, The Consciousness of E.xternal Reality ; E. H. Rhodes, 
The Scientific Measurement of Time ; J. M. Macdouald, The Science of History ; Dr. 
E. Montgomery, Space and Touch (II) ; Research, Discussion, Critical Notices, Xew 
Books, Xotes, and Correspondence. 

October, 1885, Xo. 40. — J. Sully, Comparison; Dr. E. Montgomery, Space and Toucli 
(III) ; S. H. Hodgson, Free-Will and Compulsory Determinism ; Research, Critical 
X'^otices, Xew Books, Xotes, and Correspondence. 

January, 1886, Vol. XI, Xo. 41. — J. Dewey, The Psychological Standpoint; Prof. K. 
Pearson, Meister Eckhart, the Mystic; W. Mitchell, Moral Obligation; J. Jacobs, 
The Xeed of a Society for Expeiimental Psychology ; Research, Discussion, Critical 
Xotices, Xew Books, Xotes, and Correspondence. 
Note. — This number contains a General Index to Vols. I-X (ISVB-'Sd). 

April, 1886, No. 42. — J. Dewey, Psychology as Philosophic Method ; Prof. C. Lloyd 
Morgan, On the Study of Animal Intelligence ; Prof. G. S. Fullerton, Conceivability 
and the Infinite ; Prof. H. Sidgwick, The Historical Method ; Research, Discussion, 
Critical Xotices, Xew Books, Xotes, and Correspondence. 

July, 1886, Xo. 43. — F. H. Bradley, Is there any special Activity of Attention ? S. 
Coit, Ph. D., The Final Aim of Moral Action ; D. G. Ritchie, On Plato's Phcedo ; 
Research, Discussion, Critical Xotices, Xew Books, Xotes, and Correspondence. 

October, 1886, No. 44.— Prof. A. Bain, Mr. James Ward's "Psychology"; S. II. 
Hodgson, Illusory Psychology ; S. Alexander, Hegel's Conception of Nature ; Re- 
search, Discussion, Critical Notices, New Books, Notes, and Correspondence. 

A. G. Langley. 



THE JOURNAL 

OF 

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

Yo-L. XXII. 1^0. 4.] [Whole No. 88. 

GOETHE'S MlRCHEN:^ 

A POLITICO-NATIONAL CONFESSION OF FAITH OF THE POET. 

BY DR. HERMANN BAUMGART. 
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY ISAAC N. JTJDSON. 

(Conchtded.) 

Chapter IY. 

The river over which the Ferryman carries the Will-o'-wisps is 
swollen to overflowing. 

More unfavorable than formerly, the events of the time flow by 
and separate the nation by a broad obstruction from the goal of 
its best internal strivine-s. Althouo-h the established forms of 
government, I might say the existing provisional government 
(Nothstaat), are still so estranged from these strivings and needs, 
and so utterly indifierent to them, nevertheless, in so far as they 



' From " The Diversions (Unterhaltungen) of German Emigrants " (see translation 
in Bohn's Library). These emigrants were the French nobility (emigres) fleeing from 
the French Revolution. The reader of this Journal will remember the interpretation of 
this Marchen ("The Story of the Snake") by Rosenkranz, published in Volume V, and 
will welcome this explanation of Baumgart, which seems to hit the very thoughts of 
Goethe himself. Of course every one has read the marvellous rendering of " The Tale," 
by Thomas Carlyle. It is one of those literary works which should be read once a year, 
through life. — Editor. 

XXII— 22 



338 Tlie Joxirnal of Speculative Philosophy . 

maintain intercourse and the connection of the whole, they further 
their interests, even if they do so involuntarily and unwillingly. 
And so the state even promotes intercourse with that hank on 
which the fair Lily is ; however, as it is serviceable in spreading 
ideas only in a mechanical way, it cannot bring over any one 
from the opposite bank ; of itself it cannot create new thoughts, 
and is not interested in the least degree in arousing them. 

But the Ferryman does not carry the Will-o'- wisps over the 
river to the bank where thev begin their eager work without the 
fare which is due him. At this point Goethe has introduced a 
deep, fine, and still very simple reference. The Will-o'-wisps — 
who during the passage have behaved in a very restless manner, 
so that the old man begins to fear that the boat may capsize — in 
order to reward him, shake down into the wet boat a mass of glit- 
tering gold pieces. 

" ' For Heaven's sake, what are you about?' cried the old man ; 
' you will ruin me forever ! Had a single piece got into the water, 
the stream, which cannot sulfer gold, would have risen in horrid 
waves and swallowed both my skiff and me ; and who knows how 
it might have fared witli you in that case ? Here, take back your 
gold.' 

" ' We can take nothino; back which we have once shaken from 
us,' answer the Lights. 

" ' Then you give me the trouble,' said the old man, ' of raking 
them together and carrying them ashore and burving them.' " 
Is an explanation required here? 

The literature of enlightenment, which so misleads the vulgar, 
lightly shaking down and carelessly spreading everywhere its 
shining and blinding thoughts, and which makes the old stewards 
of the ship of state so greatly to fear lest the boat capsize, and lest 
the times may not endure the poisonous food ! And so they take 
the trouble to carefully guard the dangerous new thoughts and to 
lock them up — so far, indeed, as it is possible for them to do so. 

Although the AVill-o'- wisps are on the other bank, they cannot 
go on their way till they have paid the fare which they owe. 
" ' You must know that I am only to be paid with truits of the 
earth.' ' With fruits of the earth ? We despise them and have 
never tasted them.' The Lights were making off with jests; but 
they felt themselves, in some inexplicable manner, fastened to the 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 339 

ground ; it was the most unpleasant feeling they had ever had. 
They engaged to pay him his demand as soon as possible; lie let 
them go and pushed away." 

The meaning seems to me very plain and pertinent. 

Every new thought that is brought into circulation is practically 
dead and ineffectual so long as it cannot satisfy an actual want 
of the time; so long as it does not afford immediate nourishment 
to the masses of the nation it does not exist for them, and is 
chained to the ground. It is, in truth, one of the most unpleasant 
feelings for the originators of such ideas, especially if political influ- 
ence is their sole aim : Science can endure it, and is even relieved 
from paying the toll. The new ideas of enlightenment, also, are 
not immediately concerned about their efficiency; still they are 
not for this reason exempt from the fare. First of all they are 
concerned only for themselves, and have a great longing for the 
fair Lily; it is characteristic that they have come from the bank 
where she dwells without knowing it, and that they imagine her 
to be on the opposite shore. We shall see later how they pay 
their debt. 

In the chasm in which the old man seeks to conceal the gold of 
the Will-o'-wisps the fair green Snake takes possession of it. It 
melts in her inwards and spreads through her whole body ; from 
it she becomes luminous ; long ago she had been told that this 
was possible. Everything appears to her more beautiful and en- 
chanting through her own graceful light. "Every leaf seemed 
of emerald, every flower was dyed with new glory." She is now 
for the first time impelled to leave the lonely mountain-places in 
which she had hitherto remained, and to venture forth to find the 
source of the new light. 

" The toil of crawling through bog and reeds gave her little 
thought ; for though she liked best to live in dry, grassy spots of 
the mountains, among the clefts of rocks, and for the most part 
fed on spicy herbs, and slaked her thirst with mild dew and fresh 
spring-water, yet, for the sake of this dear gold and in the hope of 
this glorious light, she would have undertaken anything you could 
propose to her," 

Let me here remind the reader of what I said before of the 
condition of German literature at the middle of the last century, 
and of its peculiar devotion to descriptions of nature, which, how- 



3i0 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

ever, at first lacked intrinsic beauty. The general elevation and 
refinement of taste which are brought about by external influ- 
ences profited it also, and it now at last succeeded in freely fol- 
lowing its natural bias toward an observation of nature, which 
was poetically glorified, artistically perfected, and at the same 
time deeply genuine. Even before a striving after the noble and 
spiritual was characteristic of it, and many a beauty was familiar 
to it, it moved about in an ideal, abstract world, like the Snake 
" who slaked her thirst with mild dew and spring-water." She 
now left the grassy spots of the mountains in the hope of the 
glorious liglit, and minded not the toil of crawling through bog 
and reeds : in this picture is pointed out that movement of the 
German popular literature when, aroused by the ideas of the new 
enlightenment, which worked immediately and practically, it now 
abandoned the sphere of abstract reverie, and was no longer blind 
to the fact that the goal of truth and beauty can only be attained 
in the toilsome mastery of the objects and tasks of real life. 

Now comes the conversation with the Will-o'-w^isps, the pride 
•of "the gentlemen of the vertical line," and the discomfiture of 
the Snake, for '" let her hold her head as high as possible, she 
found she must bend it to earth again would she stir from the 
spot " ; then the mischievous generosity of the Lights, by which 
the Snake profits so well ("her splendor began visibly increasing; 
she was really shining beautifully, while the Lights in the mean- 
time had grown rather lean and short") ; finally the circ^imstance 
that it is the Snake who shows the Will-o'-wisi)s the way to the 
fair Lily and makes the bridge for them. It is not possible to 
touch upon all the hundred-fold references which lie here in every 
word. But is it too much to say that there is here a perfect re- 
semblance to the course of the development of our literature, 
which was described above? How, under the influence of the 
spirit of enlightenment of the century, which aflects it so power- 
fully, it leaves the regions of abstract theory and sentiment, in 
which it had so long moved about, lonely and exclusive, self-suffi- 
cient but somewhat heavy, already of noticeable beauty, but not 
yet transparent and luminous; and minds not the difficulty of 
turning to real life ; and how the ])romi8e that the time is at hand 
is at last fulfilled in it, and how, through the unfolding of its own 
glorious inner nature, it becomes capable of performing the great- 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 341 

est tasks. Is it incorrect to say that tlie true, artistic allesjory 
here completely meets that hig-h demand which was laid down 
above; that, while figures and thoughts mutuilly throw light npon 
each other, the latter should stand forth in ever greater distinct- 
ness, and the former in ever greater beauty ? It requires here a 
great effort to restrict one's self in interpretation. 

The Mjirchen, being developed entirely from the nature of the 
characters, moves forward in the manuer of an epic i)oem, the 
significance of its contents becoming at the same time continually 
greater. 

As literature had now attained to an ever-increasing internal 
beauty and clearness, it straightway felt in itself the earnest desire 
to turn its attention to the greatest tasks of the nation, of which 
before it had dimly felt many an anticipation, but of which it 
had had as yet no clear and open view. 

"She now believed herself capable of illuminating these things 
by her own light, and hoped to get acquainted with them at 
once." She hastens by the usual way to the subterranean temple 
with the images of the kings. 

The meaning cannot be doubtful to one who yields assent to 
what has been already said ; the happily chosen figure, by con- 
tinually bringing to view new phases of the resemblance, is con- 
firmed in the best manner. 

Literature, seeking its way gropingly, first turns its attention in 
poetical anticipation to patriotic and historical ideas, and becomes 
acquainted with their venerable outlines; then, aroused by the 
political movement of the age, it undertakes to bring a clear light 
upon these things for itself. Is it necessary to remind the reader 
how in the seventies and eighties of the last century such a union 
and mutual penetration of poetical and historical endowments was 
exhibited in one man of the nation ; how powerful an influence the 
poems of Herder had upon the development of historical knowl- 
edge, while, on the other hand, his historical works moved so com- 
pletely in the aesthetic and poetical direction of those days ; how 
the vaguely dreaming patriotism of a Klopstock and of the whole 
choir of bards now began to bear fruit, while men were no longer 
content to sing of Hermann the Cherusker, but rather began to 
direct their efforts to lighting up the dark regions of former times 
and to scrutinizing the events of the past in the light of the pres- 



342 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

ent? It was, however, precisely the holy soil which had once 
witnessed the great battles of the Homans which now produced 
the first investigator who united to a sympathetic and imagina- 
tive perception of the German past the exact labor of the experi. 
enced man of business and the scholar — Jiistus M^oser. 

Thus it was pertinent to represent in a sensible figure this pro- 
cess, how the history of the past begins to be exhibited in litera- 
ture in synoptical grouping and in definite form. However, there 
is still another thing which necessarily exercised a vital influence 
upon this representation. 

Those beginnings of political and historical investigation were 
far removed from a strictly scientific objectivity. On the other 
hand, as they had been aroused and influenced by the question of 
the best form of government, they continually pursued this aim, to 
find immediately in the study of the past the solution of the rid- 
dle of the present. It might be said that the time worked itself 
with all its might into the error of thinking that the happiness of 
nations could be established if the question of the best form of 
government were successfully answered. Let us now accompany 
the Snake into the temple; then all riddles will solve themselves. 

Here sit enthroned in their niches the four Kings, the ty]>es of 
German kingship, following and at the same time supplementing 
one another ; for, indeed, it need not be said that the separation 
of these conceptions exists only in the representation. The 
Marchen gives the names of the first three: they are Wisdom, 
Appearance, and Strength; the fourth is an inorganic mixture of 
these three. Now, it is evident that in the true monarchy these 
three principles must be intimately and inseparably united, and, 
further, that at no step in the development t)f monarchy can one 
of them be thought altogether ^vanting ; however, in difierent 
phases of the kingship they predominate in difierent pro])or- 
tions. 

The golden king — the royal dignity in its oldest and most ven- 
erable form, the patriarchal kingship — "In size beyond the stat- 
ure of a man, but by its shape the likeness of a little rather than a 
tall person." The Snake points out light to liim as the grandest 
thing and speech as the most refreshing: by this is meant that 
with this monarch the means of gentle persuasion and of enlight- 
enino; instruction stand hio'hest. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 34:3 

The Snake then turns to the silver kintr, whom the Miirchen 
names Appearance: here we have the majesty which is conse- 
crated by a lono- duration of legitimate tradition, whose power 
rests upon inherited authority, and which is held within the 
bounds of moderation and justice by the proud consciousness of 
exalted worth. " His shape was long and rather languid ; he was 
covered with a decorated robe; crown, girdle, and sceptre were 
adorned with precious stones; the cheerfulness of pride was in his 
countenance ; he seemed about to speak, when a vein, which ran 
dimly colored over the marble wall, on a sudden became bright 
and diffused a cheerful light throughout the whole temple. By 
this light the Snake perceived a thii'd king made of brass, and sit- 
ting mighty in shape, leaning on his club, adorned with a laurel 
garland, and more like a rock than a man." 

Out of the opened wall enters the Man with the Lamp, who 
stands for the idea of Science. It is noticeable that he lirst enters 
with the still flame of his lamp when the silver king is being scru- 
tinized. I take the meaning to be as follows : Long before in the 
popular literature the picture of the antiquity of the German peo- 
ple had arisen in golden light ; in poetical transfiguration and in a 
certain sort of a priori construction, which was peculiar to those 
times, men had by degrees formed for themselves deiinite concep- 
tions of the earliest history of our nation. On the soil thus pre- 
pared historical investigation then arose, which for later times 
could not be dispensed with. 

" ' Why comest thou, since we have light ? ' asked the golden 
king of the old man. 'You know that I may not enlighten what 
is dark,' was the answer," which is intelligible enough. Still, 
poetry has everyv?^here cleared the way for knowledge. 

'' ' Will my kingdom end ? ' asked the silver king. ' Late or 
never,' answered the old man," It was a golden age when Wis- 
dom reigned, reverenced for itself ; later generations needed the 
outward splendor of majesty, which, as a visible sign, must cause 
thein to see the necessity of valuing internal greatness. Late or 
never will the time come when the conscious recognition of moral 
and intellectual superiority will make the outward signs and at- 
tributes of majesty unnecessary. "With a strong voice the bra- 
zen king began to ask, ' When shall I arise ? ' ' Soon,' answered 
the old man." The last question touches directly upon what take 



344 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

place in the Marchen. Power had slept too long in the German 
Empire. Since the nation's consciousness of its own existence is 
becoming ever stronger in the anticipations of poetry and in the 
results of investigation, since the lights of both unite to thoroughly 
illuminate for it the temple of its history, the time cannot be far 
distant when, armed in brass, it will go forth to laurel-crowned 
victory. 

And with whom shall this crushing power combine? "'With 
thy elder brothers,' answered the old man to the brazen king." 
Wisdom and true majesty^ combined with armed strength — this 
is the promise to the German Empire in regard to its future form 
of government, the fulfilment of which Science was preparing in 
the depths of its workshops. 

" ' What will the youngest do ? ' asked the king. 

" ' He will sit down,' replied the old man. 

" ' I am not tired,' cried the fourth king, with a rough, falter- 
ing voice. He stood leaning on a pillar ; his considerable form 
was heavy rather than beautiful, an inorganic mixture of the 
metals of his brothers, of unpleasant aspect." 

Here is seen a striking picture of the condition of the German 
Empire in its last days: still great in stature, but how heavy ! not 
wanting in gold, silver, and brass in the structure of its limbs, 
but, alas ! not united inwardly, powerfully, and in conformity 
with a cast ; but obstructing, confusing, bound together in unholy 
strife, and still not bound. The old man announces its end, 
which comes to pass in the Marchen in a tragi-comic manner, as 
it did later in reality ; this end, however, it might still have 
averted in spite of its impotent clumsiness. 

The old man speaks to the three kings of three secrets ; the 
most important of these is the open one, which consists in this : 
that all these hidden things have already come to light. Every 
one knows it, but only the superior observer, who bears the light 
of knowledge in his hand, sees already the mighty consequences 
which must follow in the near future. 

"'I know the fourth,' said the Snake, approached the old man, 
and hissed something in his ear. 

" ' The time is at hand ! ' cried the old man with a strong voice. 
The temple reechoed, the metal statues sounded ; and that instant 
the old man sank away to the westward aiid the Snake to the 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 345 

eastward ; and both of them passed away through the clefts of the 
rocks with the greatest speed." 

To the discoveries which Science wins and quietly guards must 
be added the impulse to action, which constrains men to fashion 
them to practical ends. This is precisely the service which popu- 
lar literature and the press have ever had to render in times of 
preparation for great world-events ; this is the means of com- 
munication which makes the bridge from their realm to the other 
bank, where the mass of the people dwell. This is the fourth 
secret, that this literature, moved by a new impulse, has now en- 
tered upon a new phase — to open the eyes of the people. The 
time is ripe ! For the first time the mighty word is spoken by 
scientific knowledge. 

It is in accordance with the epical character of the Miirchen 
that now, during the clash at the mighty close of the conversation, 
the scene correspondingly changes. 

Truly no further word is needed to make clear the significance 
of the old man. "' He was dressed like a peasant, and carried in 
his hand a little lamp, on whose still flame you liked to look, and 
which in a strange manner, without casting any shadow, enlight- 
ened the whole dome." 

It would be a waste of words to carry out the parallels. But 
further: " All the passages through which the old man travelled 
filled themselves, immediately behind him, with gold ; for his 
lamp had the strange property of changing stone into gold, wood 
into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and of annihi- 
lating all metals ; but to display this power it must shine alone. 
If another light were beside it, the lamp only cast from it a pure, 
clear brightness, and all living things were refreshed by it. 

Beautiful and significant ! When Science works for itself alone, 
all objects receive under its treatment a like high value. What 
in life possesses an imaginary worth is destroyed as such, and 
subjected to its decomposing analysis ; on the other hand, what is 
most important in life gains under its hand priceless worth ; the 
stone becomes gold, the wood silver. But the most precious thing 
to Science is the organic body; just when life has passed from it, 
it changes it into precious stone, in which it knows how to dis- 
cover the most wonderful forces. Again, through it all things, 
laying aside their accidental and imperfect forms, assume those 



346 The Journal of Speculative Pldlosoplnj. 

whicb are regular and essential, and thus become beautiful ; at 
the end of the Marchen also this is displayed as the miraculous 
power of the lamp. But how glorious is its failure even ! When 
the lamp shines beside another light — that is, when Science does 
not work exclusively for the fulfilment of its own ends, but joins 
with knowledge arising from other sources, whether from life, 
art, or religion — then it constantly emits a pure, clear brightness, 
and all living things are therebv refreshed. 

I come now to a part of the Marchen in which the form of 
words chosen by Goethe seems at lirst somewhat surprising, 
though the feeling passes away with closer study. I refer to the 
iigure of the old Woman and the part of the narrative which re- 
lates to her. The perplexities which here for the first time pre- 
sent themselves to the exact understanding vanish the more 
readily as the liglitly ironical tone, which here for the first time 
prevails, allows toward the end the deep earnestness and the 
splendid conception of the ground-thought to be more successfully 
developed. 

I said above that it would be shown later how the Will-o'-wisps 
succeeded in paying the fare which they owed the Ferryman. 
The point in question is : In what manner and in what sphere did 
those new ideas, of which the Will-o'-wisjjs appear as bearers, 
succeed in gaining admission into the nation and obtaining a firm 
foothold there, through the actual satisfaction of an immediate, 
practical need ? This was the meaning of the field and garden 
fruits which were demanded as fare for the passage. This time 
let us pass outside of the actual circumstances. To speak briefly : 
While in France the new ideas of the philosophic century became 
effectual in religion and politics at the same time — since abuses 
which had to be attacked had grown up there in both spheres and 
were absolutely inseparable — in Germany, on the other hand, the 
spirit of enlightenment won its first victories, particularly in the 
sphere of the Church, and began afterward to extend its influence 
to political affairs. Religion did, in fact, pay the toll for the 
bringing in of the new ideas into Germany. However, the deep- 
ly felt need of the nation could not be fully satisfied in this 
wise. 

Rather did that movement remain incomplete — and we shall 
find in the Marchen references to this fact of surprising insight 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 3i7 

and depth — and the satisfaction of the wislies of the nation for 
a thorough reform of relig'ion remained thrust into the back- 
ground ; f(»r a new superstition, different in form from the old 
but akin to it in spirit — since it arose from the same shortsighted- 
ness and superficiality — followed fast upon the heels of the new 
philosophical rationalism, and deprived the movement of a part 
of its desired results. It is sufficient to refer in a word to how 
the religions reform of the last century shows itself in so many- 
ways enfeebled and stunted, on the one side by the degeneration 
of the radical rationalism, and on the other by those manifold 
mystical, theosophical, and thoroughly absurd excesses, at the 
appearance of which, here as well as there, thoughtlessness and 
credulity, mania for the miraculous and scepticism, formed their 
old alliance. 

As was said before, the Marchen assumes in this part the tone 
of light irony which Goethe was fond of displaying in matters 
pertaining to the Church in spite of the earnest and deep rever- 
ence of his character. 

It seems to me that the old "Woman, the wife of the Man with 
the Lamp — who, at the end of the Marchen, made young for a thou- 
sand years, enters into the league with him, who is on good terms 
with the Lily, but, above all, is not presented without many signifi- 
cant traits of old age, and many, though excusable, absurdities — is 
the figure which Goethe chose to represent religious ideas as they 
existed in the mass of the people in the last century. That is, 
however, by no means a degrading picture which makes religion 
the wife of knowledge, who, of equal birth with him, possesses by 
feeling and intuition what Science must investigate and prove. To 
be sure, these religious forms appear here needing the rejuvenating 
new birth ; but it was a great and beautiful thought to represent 
this reform as necessarily coincident with the political regenera- 
tion of the nation. 

The old man finds his wife sobbing over the impudence of the 
Will-o'-wisps. She had at first received them with pleasure, but 
afterward they had annoyed her in a shameful manner, even to 
licking up the gold from the walls, the stones of which she had 
not seen in a hundred years. This tasted better to them than 
ordinary gold. It made them broader and brighter, and immedi- 
ately they shook down a pile of gold pieces about themselves; 



348 The Journal of Speculative Piiilosophy. 

and the faithful Mops of the old Woman ate a few of the coins, 
and now, to her great sorrow, lies dead in the chimney. 

The narrative is to be relerred in every particular to the en- 
lic;htenment of the Church, The new ideas, at first most o-ladlv 
welcomed, soon make themselves very obnoxious to the Church ; 
and there is great grief for the gold which is brushed down from 
the old walls. On the other hand, how strikino; it is that the 
spirit of enlightenment, though it lights against religious ideas, 
yet draws from them a great part of its strength, which afterward 
it continues to display in most generous fashion ! But there are 
in the household of the popular Church things which cannot en- 
dure this carelessly scattered food. Once more it sounds at first 
strange, and seems perhaps somewhat sacrilegious to say that 
Goethe meant by the faithful, beloved Mops of the old Woman 
the popular belief in miracles. And yet this idea also wins an 
entirely different and an earnest aspect when we follow the course 
of tlie narrative further. 

The Lamp clianges the dead animal into the most beautiful 
onyx, which the fair Lily endows with life; and he becomes her 
dear playmate ; and, what is more, among the concurrent signs of 
misfortune, which, nevertheless, are shown to point to a near and 
great happiness, he is made especially prominent. Here also the 
interpretation receives full confirmation. 

The faith which perishes in the people becomes as myth a pre- 
cious object in the hands of Science. 

This happened in many waj^s during the last century in connec- 
tion with biblical ideas which became the object of scientific and 
particularly of aesthetic treatment in the same pro))ortion as they 
ceased to be influential as actual beliefs. Let one recall Herder's 
" Geist der ebraischen Poesie " and Goethe's Bible studies. In- 
deed, when the Bible began to be studied from this point of view, 
poetry received on this side a marked enrichment and impulses 
which were rich in results. How simply and significantly is this 
fact brought out in the Miirchen, which makes the lamp send the 
precious stone to the fair Lily, who endows it with life ! — those ideas 
departing from life, fall to Science, who harmoniously orders 
them according to the laws of form inherent in them and then 
hands them over to Art, from whom they now obtain a second 
life. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 3-19 

However, the old man praises liis wife for having promised the 
Will-o'-wisps to pay the fare for them : " Thou mayest do them 
that civility, for they perchance may be of use to us again." 
Filled with great and far-reaching thoughts, he already sees in 
the present supposed misfortune the preparation for the coming 
salvation. Therefore, as he is sending tlie onyx to the fair Lily 
bv his wife, he also sends her word : " She should not mourn : her 
deliverance is near ; the greatest misfortune she may look upon as 
the greatest happiness, for the time is at hand." 

The old Woman sets out with the onyx and the fruits which 
are intended for the river. 

" Whatever lifeless thing she was carrying, she felt not the 
weight of it. On the other hand, the basket in those cases rose 
aloft and hovered along above her head ; but to carry any fresh 
herbage or any little living animal she found exceedingly labori- 
ous." This also is no arbitrary, meaningless invention. The 
organic, living thing and the fruits of the earth are symbolic of a 
force engaged in practical activity and affording immediate nour- 
ishment to the needy. On the other hand, the dead thing which 
makes the basket rise and freely hover along refers to an abstract, 
theoretical possession. It is truly characteristic of Goethe to 
point out that in the Church what really demands effort, and 
therefore merits acceptance, is not found in the dogmatic system, 
but in the smallest living deed. 

To what follows in the Miirchen I alluded when I said that the 
religious renovation was stunted by new vagaries of the imagina- 
tion, which arose in it naturally and necessarily, and so was able 
to make good to the nation only a part of the anticipated results. 
The Giant takes his share from the fruits intended for the Ferry- 
man without the woman's being able to prevent it ; and the Fer- 
ryman accepts the insufficient fare only on condition that she 
pledge herself to the river for what is lacking. Her hand dipped 
in the river becomes black in token of the pledge and begins to 
disappear. The old Woman, greatly distressed on observing this, 
receives the following answer : " For the present it but seems so ; 
if you do not keep your word it may become so in earnest. The 
hand will gradually diminish and at length disappear altogether, 
though you have the use of it as formerly. Everything as usual 
you will be able to perform with it, only nobody will see it." 



350 The Journal of Speculative Pfiilosophy. 

"I had rather that I could not use it and no one could observe 
the want," cried the old Woman. "But what of that? I will 
keep mj word and rid myself of this black skin and all anxieties 
about it." 

The Church is not, indeed, injured in her nature by the recep- 
tion of the enlightening sj)irit (thus the gold which the Will-o'- 
wisps brush down is restored again bj' the lamp), but in her 
anxiety to give what is promised the people by the nev/ ideas she 
is impeded by the irresistible giant power of the old superstition, 
and so remains indebted for that demand of the time and also 
bears outwardly the marks of this debt. It is, moreover, a tinely 
ironical and yet an earnest and thoughtful point that the old 
Woman, the representative of the Church, declares that she finds 
it harder to forget the damage to her beauty than to suffer a real 
loss in her power to work. In reality, however, even if the out- 
ward appearance entirely vanish, the power of the idea which lies 
beneath it cannot perish. 

The narrative now approaches its crisis. The beautiful Youth 
presents himself to the old Woman. " His breast was covered 
with a glittering coat of mail in whose wavings every motion of 
his fair body might be traced." 

" From his shoulders hung a purple cloak, around his uncovered 
head flowed abundant brown hair in beautiful locks ; his graceful 
face and well-formed feet were exposed to the scorching of the 
sun. With bare soles he walked composedly over the hot sand, 
and a deep inward sorrow seetned to blunt him against all external 
things." The sorrowiul Genius of the German nation is meant, 
wliose ability to act is maimed in the search after the ideal of 
truth and beauty. Great events and the concurrence of gi-eat cir- 
cumstances are needed to arouse it to a new life and higher deeds. 
" What is to live forever in song must perish in life," sings the 
poet. This utter ruin would have been the fate of the spirit of 
the German nation if it had become henceforth only a subject for 
Art to remember and celebrate. The death which the touch of the 
fair Lily brings seems almost more desirable to the young man 
than the unsatisfied longing for union with her, which feeling de- 
stroys all other powers. To bring out the meaning no word need 
here be added to the words of the Miirchen. "Behold me," said 
the Youth to the woman ; " at my years, what a miserable fate 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 351 

have I to undergo ! This mail which I have honorably borne in 
war, this purple which I have sought to merit bv a wise reign, 
destiny has left me ; the one as a useless burden, the other as an 
empty ornament. Crown and sceptre and sword are gone, and I 
am as bare and needy as any other son of earth, for so unblessed 
are her bright eyes that they take from every living creature they 
look on its force, and those whom the touch of her hand does not 
kill are changed to the state of shadows wandering alive." 

I have already taken occasion to speak more fully of this figure 
of the crippling and even death-bringing power of the ideal. 
Here let it suffice merely to select from what follows a significant 
passage, which confirms and completes the interpretation which 
I have given above: "He inquired narrowly about the Man with 
the Lamp, about the influence of the sacred light, appearing to ex- 
pect much good from it in his melancholy case." 

With what mighty strides and with what salutary influence 
did Science encroach upon that all too eager solicitude of the Ger- 
man genius, and how much good service did it render in preparing 
the way for the final reconstruction ! 

Both travellers — the old Woman and the Youth — tread now the 
majestic arch of the bridge which the Snake forms over the river. 
They are astonished at the glorious brightness with which it won- 
derfully glitters, illumined by the sun, for they know nothing 
as yet of the change which had taken place in the Snake ; and 
they pass over in awe and silence. The beautiful literature of the 
last century arose upon the path of all the best efforts of the na- 
tion, promising happiness and awakening hope, and brilliantly 
illuminated the path to the highest goal. 

On the other side the Snake follows them, the Will-o'-wisps 
add their presence, and all betake themselves to the park of the 
fair Lily, " For however manj^ people might be in her company, 
they were obliged to enter and depart singly, under pain of suffer- 
ing very hard severities." 

This is again one of the points which would be absurd if it 
meant nothing for the characterization. It is a truth easily 
grasped that the entrance to the ideal of beauty is open to all, but 
that each can gain it only for himi^elf and in the way peculiar to 
himself, and that the society of others is an absolute hindrance in 
entering this Holv of Holies. 



352 Tlie Journal of S])eGulative Philosophy. 

In the park we tread the region of |)iire Beauty, who charms 
all senses at the same time, expressing herself as a force working 
alone, the same in all the arts, and in like manner in all their dif- 
ferent forms. The lovely tones which she sings to the harp show 
themselves first as rings on the surface of the still lake, then as a 
light breath they set the grass and bushes in motion. Still with 
sadness she makes answer to the praises of the old Woman, for 
her canary-bird, which used to accompany her songs most delight- 
fully and was carefully trained not to touch her, frightened by a 
hawk, had taken refuge in her bosom, and in a moment had 
died. 

The signs multiply which point to a general impending catas- 
trophe. To the change which has taken place in literature, to 
the significant events in the sphere of the Church, to the broaden- 
ing of scientific interests, is now added an occurrence which re- 
lates to the realm of the fair Lily, and thus concerns the sphere of 
beauty. I do not hesitate also to lay claim to an interpretation of 
the dead bird and the hawk, and so much the more as the Miir- 
clien keeps both in view to its close and lets them complete their 
roles. The bird is awakened to new life simultaneously with the 
Youth, while the hawk, rising high in the air, with the light of 
the sun reflected from the mirror, awakens the companions of the 
Lily, and spreads heavenly brightness about the young lord. The 
Lily herself, as much as she mourns the death of the bird, sees in 
it a good omen for the future and is confidently strengthened in 
this hope by the Snake, since "the time is at hand." The harm- 
less singer, which Beauty herself had taught, is driven to death by 
a stronger, rougher bird ; and it brings this fate upon itself, for, 
instead of flying about Beauty in joyous sport, fleeing from the 
hawk, it takes refuge in her bosom. 

I remarked above that in these happily chosen symbols and in 
the relations in which they are placed to one another there is 
something inexhaustible which always ])rompts to new thoughts. 
So here Beauty cannot protect her favorites, but rather hastens on 
their destruction, if they do not know how to meet the events, de- 
mands, and dangers which come upon them from without other- 
wise than by a closer adherence to her. Precisely that altogether 
pernicious result which comes of effort directed exclusively to aes- 
thetic ends, a subject upon which so much has since been said, is 



Goethe^s Mdrchen. 353 

here expressed in the plainest manner in the figure of tlie Lily 
whose touch brings death. 

But we have now reached the point where the events prepare 
for the last grievous catastro])he, ai)d here the mind of the poet 
looked into the future with wonderful clearness. All the mani- 
fold forces of the nation intent on earnest and eager activity can- 
not prevent the fatal calamity; death impends even over the 
beautiful Youth ; and as a harbinger of the storm, making known 
the coming disaster, there appears in the realm of the fair Lily 
that bird of prey, which silences the song of her darling. The 
thought of the poet presents itself to me as follows: This nation 
must meet with disaster before it can rise to its full power; but 
afterward the time will come — and this time is near — when, by a 
united effort of all its spiritual forces, it will also win for itself 
outward force, a position of strength, and a well-ordered govern- 
ment, without which the most spiritual people can no more flour- 
ish than can the soul without the body. I do not say that Goethe 
foresaw Jena and the war for freedom. By no means ! Those 
crushing blows went far beyond his expectations. But he had 
before his eyes the dissolution of the Empire in those 3'ears of the 
Kevolution (of this I spoke above), and the times had become 
terribly earnest about him. The peaceful calm of aesthetic labor 
and pleasure was destroyed by other and more difficult cares than 
songs and poems required — by questions which demanded imme- 
diate practical solution. Before these harsh demands it seemed 
that the Muses must be silent, but only to awake again in a more 
beautiful future. This strong patriotic feeling, which silences 
lyrical strains, is the hawk which frightens the beloved singer 
to death. The day arrived when this became a reality for Ger- 
many. Must not the friends of Beauty have mourned over this so 
long as the confidence was still lacking to them with which the 
other tendencies of the national spirit looked forward to the fulfil- 
ment of their common hopes 'I 

Thus the lamentation of the fair Lily, which must otherwise 
seem extremely absurd, becomes perfectly intelligible and most 
significant to me ; and I can thoroughly understand how Goethe 
could quote its closing lines with the greatest earnestness in the 
letter to Schiller which 1 mentioned above : 
XXII— 23 



35-1 The Journal of Sjpeculative Philosophy. 

" What can these many signs avail me ? 

My singer's death, the coal-black hand ? 
This dog of onyx, that can never fail me ? 
And coming at the Lamp's command ? 

" From human joys removed forever, 

With sorrows compassed round I sit : 
Is there a temple at the river ? 

Is there a bridge ? Alas, not yet ! " 

" 'â–  The prophecy of the bridge is fullilled,' cried the Snake ; 
'yon may ask this worthy dame! What formerly was untrans- 
parent jasper, or agate, allowing but a gleam of light to pass by 
its edges, is now become transparent precious stone. No beryl is 
so clear, no emerald so beautiful of hue.' 

" ' I wish you joy of it,' said the Lily ; ' but you M'ill pardon me 
if I regard the prophecy as yet unaccomplished. Tlie lofty arch 
of your bridge can still but admit only foot-passengers; and it is 
promised us that horses and carriages and travellers of every sort 
shall, at the same moment, cross the bridge in both directions. Is 
there not something said, too, about pillar.-^, which are to arise 
themselves from the waters of the river?' " 

Could a picture speak more plainly and eloquently? However 
beautiful and refined literature may become, it cannot satisfy the 
great mass of mankind so long as it is the exclusive possession of 
individuals who are able to reach on its arch the realm of perfect 
ideas. No, it is to become a common good of all, to offer itself to 
all, to become attainable by all. Then will the pillars which 
afford the arch lasting strength and endurance arise of themselves 
out of the earth beneath it ! If the need of tiie new spiritual 
teaching has once fastened its roots in the hearts of the people, 
then will the fruit be renewed forever, and increase a hundred- 
fold. 

It is also a thoroughly consistent carrying out of the picture 
that the fair Lily sends the little dead singer to tlie Man with the 
Lamp, that he may change it into beautiful onyx, and that she 
may then endow it with life again. 

If, amid the more earnest ajid pressing work of the nation upon 
its political up-building, lyrical production suffers a decline, theo- 
retical reflection is so much the more eagerly engaged in holding 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 355 

fast the esthetic treasures that have been won and in making 
them lastingly usetiil. Nevertheless, they can never obtain life 
save from the touch of that feeling for beauty to which in the 
lii-st place they owed their existence. 

The Snake turns the attention of the fair Lily to that political 
work of the future: the temple is built, altliough it still reposes 
in the depths of the earth ; but the words have already resounded 
in it, " The time is at hand." 

A pause occurs in the narrative, as if in expectation of the com- 
ing catastrophe. The attendants of the Lily, beautiful and fascinat- 
ing beyond expression, and yet not to be compared with the Lily 
herself, are busily engaged in serving her. In them we shall later 
on recognize the representatives of the arts; but here, for the 
present, they appear only as proper attendants in suitable service 
about the exalted beauty. Here, as in what follows, in the inno- 
cent play with Mops, now restored to life by her touch, in the 
anger of the Yonth at it, which brings on the catastrophe, for he 
throws himself in despair upon the fair Lily and falls to the earth 
deprived of life by her touch — in all this the narrative moves for- 
ward like a true epic ; and it would be preposterous to seek out 
in all these details the course of the thoughts which lie beneath 
the whole. Only now and then in a proper place a word recalls 
the allegorical meaning. Thus that remark upon the beauty of 
the attendants of the Lily ; thus the circumstance that the Youth 
bears the hawk upon bis hand, calling it the companion of his 
woe, for indeed it also is injured by the look of the fair Lily — the 
vigorous soaring of the political epoch now announcing itself be- 
ing obstructed by the power of aesthetic culture, which still rules 
alone. 

The following scene is beautiful and aiFecting beyond descrip- 
tion. I shall not attempt to accompany each particular with my 
comments, but will let the poem speak for itself. If in itself, 
with each advancing step, it continually moves and elevates the 
soul more deeply, these sensations aftect the reader with much 
greater power, if the perfectly individualized characters of the 
story, w^hich here also unfolds itself in a perfectly individual 
manner, have long since become the familiar svmbols of those 
great all-moving thoughts : 

" The misery had h:ipj)ened. The sweet Lily stood motionless, 



356 The Journal of Sj^eculative Philosophy. 

gazing on the corpse. Her heart seemed to stop in her bosom, 
and her eves were without tears. . . . Her silent despair did not 
look round for help ; sfie hnew not of any helpP 

" On the other hand, the Snake bestirred herself the more ac- 
tively ; she seemed to meditate deliverance ; and in fact her 
strange movements served at least to keep away, for a little, the 
immediate consequences of mischief. With her limber body she 
formed a wide circle around the corpse, and seizing the end of 
her tail with her teeth, she lay quite still." 

The waiting-maids adorned the Lily ; the one winding about 
her a shining veil, the second handing a harp to her, the third 
showing to her her reflection in a clear round mirror. " Sorrow 
heightened her beauty, the veil her charms, the harp her grace ; 
and deeply as you wished to see her mournful situation altered, not 
less deeply did you wish to keep her image, as she now looked, 
forever present with you." 

"With a still look at the mirror she touched the harp; now 
melting tones proceeded from the strings, now her pain seemed 
to mount, and the music in strong notes responded to her woe ; 
sometimes she opened her lii)s to sing, but her voice failed her; 
and ere long her sorrow melted into tears, two maidens caught 
her helpfully in their arms, the harp sank from her bosom ; 
scarcely could the quick servant snatch the instrument and carry 
it aside." 

Could there be a more striking and more moving picture of the 
beauty of grief, illustrating how, in the distress of the fatherland, 
when the joyous and innocent songs of Nature have long since 
been silenced, mourning Art glorifies even her plaints through the 
features of beauty, and continues to give them expression in paint- 
ing, in music, or in the veil of poesy, till deadly fatigue seizes upon 
her also ? 

"Who Itrings us the Man with the Lamp'^" hisses the Snake, 
The maidens look at one another hopelessly, the Lily's tears fall 
faster, and the old Woman with the basket comes back breathless, 
and complaining that she is not able to pay her debt to the Ferrj'- 
man, and fears being maimed forever. 

In the general confusion the Snake gives advice to all. She 
asks the AV'ill-o'- wisps to bring the Man with the Lamp to the 
spot. " Alas the beam of the sinking sun was already gilding 



Goethe's Mdrchen. iJ57 

only tlio highest summits of the trees \w the thicket, and long 
shadows were stretching over lake and meadow ; the Snake 
hitched up and down impatiently, and Lily dissolved in tears." 

I will break off here for a moment, in order to refer to a letter 
of Goethe's which calls vividly to mind this situation of the Mar- 
chen. It is among the letters to Friedrich August "Wolf, which 
Michael Bernays made public, and is dated November 28, 1806. 
In this letter Goethe encourages him, in the bitter distress of 
the fatherland, to maintain his own strength, and thereby that of 
so many others, by so much richer and more spiritual activity. 
In the excellent introduction to these letters Bernays expresses 
himself as follows : 

" When all things about him seemed to have fallen asunder and 
crumbled to pieces, Goethe was chiefly concerned with unshaken 
courage in saving and upholding whatever gave worth to his 
existence. He made use of the first moment wiiich again offered 
a longed-for activity ; for only the man of action makes himself 
master of himself and of the unfavorable influence of the moment. 
As his papers were uninjured, he devoted himself eagerly to the 
continuation of his extensive labors, and busied himself espe- 
cially in collecting and arranging all that he had thought and 
marked out with regard to important problems of natural science. 
And as he himself found strength and consolation in incessant 
work, so he ceased not to exhort others also to similar application. 
Everywhere, as far ns the circle of his activity reached, he exerted 
himself by word and deed to comfort, help, and encourage. He 
wished above all that the spiritual activity of the nation should 
not stagnate. As the political power of Germany seemed to him 
to be ruined, so he wished that the spiritual life of the nation 
should gird itself with greater strength, should arise to the 
noblest and most strenuous efforts, and thereby win recognition 
from the foreign conqueror." 

The author adds a communication of Fernow's, of January 7, 
1807, to Bottinger upon Goethe's opinions and expressions : " Let 
Germany have now only one great and holy purpose — to hold to- 
gether in spirit, and, in the general ruin, at least most zealously 
to guard the as yet uninjured Palladium of our literature." 

At the right moment there appears to the waiting ones the Man 
with the Lamp, impelled by the spirit of the Lamp, '' which 



358 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

sparkles when lie is needed," and guided by the hawk, which, sail- 
ing high in the air, canght the last beams of the setting sun. 
How beantifully does the soaring of patriotism serve as guide to 
science, that it may hasten with help before intolerable corruption 
shall seize upon the prostrate body of the nation ! 

" Whether I can help, I know not," says the old man ; " an in- 
dividual helps not, but he who combines with many at the proper 
hour. We will postpone the evil and keep hoping." 

The sun had set, bnt the darkness was lighted by the Snake 
and the Lamp ; " and also the veil of the Lily gave out a soft light, 
which gracefully tinged, as with a meek dawning red, her pale 
cheeks and her white robe. The party looked at one anotlier 
silently reflecting; care and sorrow were mitigated by a sure 
hope." This also was afterward fulfilled, and in a much more 
glorious manner than Goethe could have then anticipated. Illu- 
minated by the soft light of science, warmed by the life-breath of 
an ideal literature, glorified by the radiance of beauty, thus the 
time travelled in quiet hope to meet the deeds which, after the 
night of humiliation, brought on the morning of national resur- 
rection. 

What follows is also true : if the following time corresponded 
in so many respects to the anticipatory pictures of the Miirchen, 
one must still he on his guard against wishing to find in reality 
a fulfi,lment of them in all their details, a fulfilment in the same 
time and in the same mutual relations. Much came to pass later, 
much we are now in the midst of ', but the Miirchen brings all 
into one view and into one narrative, unfolding itself at one time. 
It must also be remembered that if, on the one hand, the events 
have come to pass in far grander fashion than Goethe could have 
then foreseen, on the other hand, in developments of so lofty a 
nature, long pauses intervene when things are at a standstill. 
Of all these questions of how, when, and how long, such a com- 
position as the Miirchen, from its very nature, can take no notice. 
It suffices it, by means of the poetic imagination, to give bodily 
form to the working forces and their mutual relations, and to 
bring them to view in a free treatment. Thus moving about in 
perfect peace in the regions of intelligible speculation, it gains 
also the freedom of perfect humor, which allows it, amidst the 
deep earnestness of tragic pathos, to maintain a sharpness and 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 359 

clearness of view for tlie sliortcomiiii^s of tliino;s, and, without 
losing a kindly valuation of tlieir worth, to enlighten these short- 
comings with the playfulness of comic contrast. 

At this expectant moment of the narrative the Will-o'-wisps, who 
meantime had become extremely meagre, make their entrance. 
They behave themselves very prettily toward the Lily and her 
attendants; "with great tact and expressiveness they said a mul- 
titude of rather common things." They are especially eloquent 
in praise of the Lily's beauty. The old Woman alone is worried, 
and, in spite of the assurance of her husband 'â– ''that her hand can 
diminish no further while the lamp shines on it^"* she more than 
once declares that if things go on thus, before midnight this 
noble member will have vanished. 

The Man with the Lamp had listened attentively to the con- 
versation of the Lights, and was gratified that the Lily had been 
cheered in some measure and amused by it. 

If a special interpretation is liere demanded, let it be given in 
a few words. The spirit of enlightenment, after having performed 
such important services, devotes itself to an gssthetic philosophy 
wdtli somewhat diminished powers. By a superior criticism, how- 
ever, it is not undervalued in the present and is marked out for im- 
portant services in the future, as the Marchen later on shows. So 
also it is assured the Church by the light of pure knowledge that 
she is indestructible in her legitimate position, though amidst mani- 
fold distresses she be disturbed by grievous cares and give utter- 
ance to her apprehensions all too anxiously. 

At the departure, the old man with solemn words admonishes 
them each to perform his task and his duty on the other side of 
the river, for the hour has now come. Only the three maidens 
remain behind, for they had 'fallen asleep, " and one could not 
blame them, for it was late.'' " ' Take the mirror,' said the old 
man to the hawk ; ' and with the iirst sunbeam illuminate the 
three sleepers and awake them with light reflected from above.' " 
If the arts can take no part in deciding the battle, the patriotic 
spirit awakens them after the victory to a new and mure beauti- 
ful life. 

The place is most curiously illuminated by the many lights of 
the party; and they now pass over the river on the arch of the 
helpful Snake, whicli shines more beautifully than ever before. 



3tj0 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

It is literature that opens the way into the life of the people to 
all these collected and matured spiritual forces of the nation 
and builds the bridge that leads them to the scene of practical 
activity. 

The old Ferryman views with astonishment the i^leaming circle 
and the strange lights which are passing over it. They, in truth, 
are eno-ao-ed in usherino; in a world of which till then the old state 
had had no inkling. 

" The old man stooped toward the Snake and asked her : ' What 
hast thou resolved u[)on ? ' 

" ' To sacrifice myself rather than be sacrificed,' replied the 
Snake; ' promise me that thou wilt leave no stone on shore.'" 

Her body crumbles into thousands and thousands of shining 
jewels, which the old man throws into the river. " Like gleam- 
ing, twinkling stars the stones floated down with the waves ; and 
you could not say whether they lost themselves in the distance or 
sank to the bottom." Out of them arise the pillars of the bridge, 
which builds itself and will evermore connect the shores. The al- 
legory is easily understood. 

None the less what follows : 

" ' Gentlemen,' said he with the lamp in a respectful tone to the 
Lights, ' I will now show you the way and open you the passage; 
but you will do us an essential service if you please unbolt the 
door by which the sanctuary must be opened at present and which 
none but you can unfasten.' With their pointed flames the Lights 
ate both bar and bolt of the brazen doors of the temple so that 
they sprang open with a loud clang, and the figures of the kings 
appeared w^ithin the sanctuary." Thus it is these representatives 
of the restless spiritual movement of the press, incessantly receiv- 
ing the new and unweariedly occupied in bringing it into prac- 
tice, which, attended by Science, bring it to pass that the political 
thoughts which have become familiar to them acquire shape and 
enter into life. 

The temple is opened, but it does not yet stand at the river ! 

" ' Whence come ye ? ' asked the gold king. 

" ' From the world,' said the old man. 

" ' Whither go ye? ' said the silver king. 

"' Into the world,' replied the old man. 

" 'What would ye with us ? ' cried the brazen king. 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 361 

"'Accompany yon,' replied the man. 

" ' Take yourselves away from me, my metal was not made for 
you,' said the golden king to the Lights. Thereupon they turned 
to the silver king and clasped themselves about him ; and his robe 
glittered beautifully in their yellow brightness. 

" ' You are welcome,' said he ; ' but I cannot feed you. Satisfy 
yourselves elsewhere and bring me your light.' " 

Is it too much to say that each word of Goethe's composition is 
signilicantly and thoughtfully chosen ? And do not the thoughts 
which belong to the circle of ideas before mentioned present them- 
selves in completeness in the smallest part of its beautiful struct- 
ure? Sometimes, however, the connecting parts are invented by 
an independent imagination according to the laws of beauty gov- 
erning the representation ; but here, toward the close of the 
Miirchen, almost everything is symbolic in the most pregnant 
sense. 

" The Lights removed, and gliding past the brazen king, who 
did not seem to notice them^ they fixed on the compounded king. 
' Who will govern the world ? ' cried he with a broken voice. 

" ' He who stands upon his feet,' replied the old man. 

" ' I am he ' said the mixed king. 

" ' "VVe shall see,' replied the old man, ' for the time is at 
hand.'" 

It is verv soon shown in regard to the mixed king, that excel- 
lent type of the Holy Roman Empire, that the time is at hand, 
and that he can stand upon his feet no longer, however bitter it 
mav be to him to acknowledge it. 

In the meantime, while the Lily, who is greatly pleased to hear 
the fateful words for the third time, is thanking the old man most 
heartily, the promise is fulfilled in a most wonderful manner ; for 
the temple comes forth from the depths of the earth, passes under 
the river, and mounts up on the other bank, so that at last it 
" stands on the river." 

The dream of a united government, containing in itself the ideal 
good, becomes a reality. 

A peculiar and very significant circumstance at this point of 
the narrative demands a brief comment. 

In its ascent, the temple tears from tlie ground the iiut of the 
old man and takes it within itself, and the hut, as it sinks down. 



362 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

covers the old man and the Youth, By virtue of the Lamp 
locked u]) in it, the hut is converted from the inside to the outside 
into silver; also its forra chancres, and, losing; its accidental shape, 
it spreads out into a noble case of beaten workmanship. " Thus a 
fair little temple stood erected in the middle of the large one; or, 
if you will, an altar worthy of the temple." From within mounts 
aloft the noble Youth, lio^hted by the Man with the Lamp, and a 
man in a white robe with a silver rudder in his hand suj>ports 
him. 

A wonderful passage and thoroughly characteristic of Goethe. 

The existing state is not destroyed in revolutionary manner to 
make way to the state of the future ; a tcibula rasa is not made of 
existing political forms, which still make communication possible 
from the side of ideal forces to the people ; but on the spot where 
in miserable and accidental forms the hut of the old provisional 
government had been built arises the perfect glory of the noble 
temple; and this new state, taking into itself the forms of the old 
order, supplies them with propelling and creative life, which pen- 
etrates them with rejuvenating power, which transfigures them 
and fashions them anew. 

During this time the old "Woman is less affected by these great 
events than she is anxious about her hand, which, in fact, has been 
growing smaller and smaller. 

" 'Am I then to be unhappy after all? ' she cried. ' Among so 
many mii-acles can there be nothing done to save my hand ? ' Her 
husband pointed to the open door and said to her : ' See, the day 
is breaking; haste, bathe th3'self in the river.' 'What an advice ! ' 
she cried ; 'it v/ill make me all black; it will make me vanish al- 
together, for my debt is not yet paid.' ' Go,' said the old man, 
' and do as I advise thee ; all debts are now paid.' " 

It is impossible to approach in words of interpretation the 
beauty and depth of the poetical picture. 

"See, the day is breaking!" cries clearness of perception to the 
old church, which stands still frightened and trembling in the 
presence of the new forms, fearing from them further danger and 
abridgment. 

" Haste, bathe thyself in the river ! All debts are paid ! " In 
tb.e renewed and rejuvenated life of the people, it is promised the 
Church that, if she will become free from faults, she will no longer 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 363 

be in debt to this people, but, herself rejuvenated, will forever be- 
lono; to it. 

By the light of the rising sun the old man stepped up to the 
Youth. " ' Tiiere are three,' he cried, which have rule on earth — 
Wisdom, Appearance, and Strength.' At the first word the gold 
king rose; at the second the silver one : and at the third the brass 
king slowly rose, while the mixed king on a sudden very awk- 
wardly plum])ed down." When the Lights have completel}^ eaten 
up the golden veins in him, he crushes together into an inorganic 
heap. " He was not sitting, he was not lying, he was not leaning, 
but shapelessly sunk together." The type of the old German 
Empire, which, before the rise of New Germany, had fallen mis- 
erably to pieces and become the derision of the whole world. 

Now follows the noble consecration of the king, the beauty of 
vhich I will refrain from marring by a single word of interpre- 
tation. 

"The Man with the Lamp now led the handsome Youth, who 
still kept gazing vacantly before him, down from the altar and 
straight to the brazen king. At the feet of this mighty monarch 
lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The young man girt it round 
him. 

" ' The sword on the left, the right free ! ' cried the strong king. 
The}' next proceeded to the silver king ; he bent his sceptre to the 
Youth ; the latter seized it with the left hand, and the king in a 
pleasing voice said : ' Feed the sheep ! ' On turning to the golden 
king, he stooped with gestures of paternal blessing, and, pressing his 
oaken garland on the young man's head, said : ' Understand what 
is highest ! ' 

" During the progress the old man had carefully observed the 
prince. After girding on the sword, his breast swelled, his arms 
waved, and his feet trod firmer; when he took the sceptre in his 
hand his strength appeared to soften, and by an unspeakable 
charm to become still more subduing; but as the oaken garland 
came to deck his hair, his features kindled, his eyes gleamed 
with inexpressible spirit, and the first word of his mouth was 
' Lily ! ' 

" ' Dearest Lily ! ' cried he, hastening up the silver stairs to her, 
for she had viewed his progress from the pinnacle of the altar — 
'dearest Lily! what n:iore precious can a man, equipped with all 



364 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

desire for himself than innocence and tlie still affection which thj 
bosom brings me ? ' 

"'O my friend !' continued he, turning to the old man and 
looking at the three statues, ' glorious and secure is the kingdom 
of our fathers ; but thou liast forgotten tlie fourth power, which 
rules the world earlier, more universally, more certainly — the power 
of love.' 

" With these words he fell upon the maiden's neck; she had 
cast away her veil, and her cheeks were tinged with the fairest, 
most imperishable red. 

"Here the old man said with a smile: ' Love does not rule, but 
it trains, and that is more.' " 

If any one is surprised that the fair Lily is here called the 
" power of love," since she has hitherto appeared as truth present- 
ing itself in the form of pure beauty, let him call to mind, in order 
to appreciate the full meaning of the passage, Schiller's philosophy 
of beauty, with which Goethe sympathized so completely in those 
years of their intimate friendship ; let him remember that Schil- 
ler's assthetical letters were published in the same issue of the 
" Iloren " in which the Miirchen appeared. When the new mon- 
arch, having wisdom, majesty, and strength, still feels the need in 
his realm of the power which rules the world earlier, more univer- 
sally, and more certainly — that power is meant which, winning the 
affection of men and taking possession of their souls, leads them 
sooner and more immediately to morality and voluntary submis- 
sion to the sway of justice and virtue than the law and the might 
of the state could compel them to such submission. The leading 
thought in the work of Schiller and Goethe might be thus ex- 
pressed : Pure beauty is the truth which, havin g assumed a sensible 
form, through it takes possession of men's souls with quiet but ir- 
resistible power ; if it succeeds in taking up its abode among a 
people, it then allies itself as a mighty companion with those su- 
preme forces which regulate and maintain the whole, enkindling 
love for all that is good, noble, and great — indeed, it is this love. 
Esthetic culture alone cannot compensate for a lack of discipline 
in the state, but to a genuine national government it becomes the 
most glorious ornament and a mighty support : it cannot rule j 
Imt it trains, and that is more. 

It was now broad day, and over the river stretched for all time 



Goethe's Mdrchen. 365 

the strong and beautiful bridge with porches and colonnades, af- 
fording a safe passage to the thousands who flowed like streams 
in both directions without hindering each other. 

" Remember the Snake in honor," said the Man with the Lamp ; 
"thou owest her tliy life; thy people owe her the bridge by which 
these neighboring banks are now animated and combined into one 
land. Those swimming and shining jewels, the remains of her 
sacrificed body, are tlie piers of this royal bridge ; upon these she 
has built and Mall maintain herself." 

Now there enter the temple the Lily's beautiful attendants, 
whom the hawk with the mirror has awakened to new life. 
With them is an unknown one, more beautiful than the other;;, 
who in sisterly sportfuhiess hastens with them through the tem- 
ple and mounts the steps of the altar. Both the Man with the 
Lamp and the old Woman have renewed their youth and taken 
on a noble beauty, and they make anew their compact, tliat united 
they will live together for a thousand years to come. 

We are at the end. 

In union with Wisdom and the venerable principle of revered 
Majesty^ Power has founded a new kingdom. Truth^ transfig- 
ured as Beauty, stands by the side of the new monarch, his most 
trusted helper and companion, and, in imperishable youth, she 
ever urges him to place the strength of his rule upon the founda- 
tion of the culture of a noble morality, which, through the power 
of heautiful and pure love, streams everywhere from the royal 
pair throughout the whole people. Nearest to their throne stands 
the power to which they owe so much — the still-illumining, won- 
der-working Z«^A?! of Science ; in closest union with Science is Be- 
ligio7i ; by means of the all-awakening and life-giving power of 
the ideal national government, which is at last established, both 
are filled with new and youthful vigor for renewed and active 
work, which will extend into far-distant epochs. In high honor 
in the new state is the power which receives the spiritual bless- 
ings thus won, fashions them with creative force, and spreads them 
abroad — namely. Literature j it stands forever now as the strong 
hrldge which furnislies to all an unobstructed passage to these 
blessings. Since its noble powers first turned to the people and 
spread among them, its noble edifice has sprung up from the very 
midst of the people. Also the joyous songs of popular origin, 



306 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

which died away before the breath of the new spirit, are awakened 
to new life with the new birth of the national genius, and the 
blow of the hawk's wing no longer terrifies the harmless little 
singer; and even the hawk is no longer hateful to the fair Lily. 
" Soarinfi his-h aloft above the dome, the hawk cauo-ht the light 
of the sun and reflected it upon the group which was standing 
upon the altar. The king, the queen, and their attendants, in 
the dusty conclave of the temple, seemed illuminated by a heav- 
enly splendor, and the people fell upon their faces." 

Thus, then, the many forces, of whose influence the Marchen 
treats, attain in beautiful union their common goal. Only of 
Mops no further mention is made. The fair Lily, who, to the 
great disgust of the Youth, had played so eagerly with him, had 
at the entrance into the temple taken him upon her arm ; from 
this point we lose sight of him altogether. 

I cannot refrain from expressing here a conjecture which par- 
ticularizes the general meaning of this symbol as given above. 
This Mops with which the fair Lily plays so gracefully and 
which the Youth finds so disgusting — might he not be a humorous 
and satirical reference to the beginnings of romanticism, which 
began plainly to develop about the middle of the nineties of the 
last century ? At least it is certain that this arose from the trans- 
mission of the mysticism of the Churchy which vKts shattered hy 
the spirit of enlightenment, into the cesthetic realm • and this also 
is certain : if Goethe, on the one hand, judged objectively enough 
to assign a certain OBsthetic value to the romantic productions, on 
the other hand he certainly felt toward this movement as the 
Youth did when he saw Mops in the arms of the fair Lily. 

However this may be, in the state now attained to its power 
there is no place for this mystical romanticism. 

With regard to the last figure of which we have to speak — 
would that the course of events might correspond to the optimistic 
way in which the Marchen lets him find his appointed end ! 

The great Giant, who knows nothing of the bridge, stupefied 
with sleep, reels over it, and causes with the shadow of his huge 
fists harm and confusion among the crowds of people who are 
surging back and forth. " The king, as he saw this mischief, 
grasped with an involuntary movement at his sword ; but he be- 
thought himself, and looked calmly at his sceptre, then at the 



Goethe's Miirchen. 367 

lamp and the rudder of his attendants." Against the pernicious 
figure of superstition power can do nothing, and, advised by pru- 
dence, the injured majesty of the state looks back upon historical 
tradition, and so checks the rash movement of his anger. These 
phantoms, restricted to narrow bounds by all the active and salu- 
tary forces of the rejuvenated nation, shall of themselves lose 
their injurious power, and henceforth show themselves serviceable 
and helpful to the whole. 

'" We and our gifts are powerless against this powerless mon- 
ster,' said the Man with the Lamp. 'Becalm! He is doing 
hurt for the last time, and happily his shadow is not turned to 
us.' 

" He was walking straight to the door of the temple, when all 
at once in the middle of the court he halted, and was lixed to 
the ground. He stood there like a strong colossal statue, of red- 
dish glittering stone, and his shadow pointed out the hours, 
which were marked in a circle on the floor around him, not in 
numbers, but in noble and expressive emblems." 

May the day soon come when such an end will overtake the 
phantoms which still cause so much mischief and confusion in our 
national lite ! Impenetrable are they to the rays of knowledge ; 
the sword may not be unsheathed against them ; but the healthy 
forces of the nation may shut them up within limits which shall 
be continually more restricted on all sides, until their power to 
harm is taken awa}' ; and, since they are inextirpably rooted in 
human nature, they may still serve, by the direction in which 
they extend, significantly, like heralds, to call attention to the 
changes and developments which arise and complete themselves in 
the nation's life. 



368 TJie Journal of Speculative Pldlosophy. 



THE SECRET OF KANT/ 

BY GORDON CLARK. 

Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason " was given to the world in 
1781. At the end of a hundred and twelve years it may seem 
rather late to talk about Kant's " secret," as if the real outcome 
of his great book has not yet been adequately grasped and ab- 
sorbed by the human mind. Such, however, is precisely the claim 
here made, and to show the fact is the aim of the present article. 

To waste no words in coming to the point, the secret of Kant 
is the 

ANALYSIS OF PERCEPTION. 

By this analysis of perception Kant also analyzed, once and for 
good, 

MIND AND MATTER, TIME AND SPACE. 

So " the secret of Kant " is pretty nearly the secret of the uni- 
verse. 

But, in the haste to ride general results, the one vital affair in 
the "Critique of Pure Reason" was impatiently skipped over, 
even in Germany, and is not yet truly seen to have been estab- 
lished, although without Kant's analysis of perception the post- 
Kantian philosophy of Fichte, Schelling, and Ilegel would go as 
well for nothing as one of Rip Van Winkle's drinks. In Eng- 
land, not longer ago than the latest edition of Mr. George Henry 
Lewes's " Biographical History of Philosophy," we were directly 
told, in the most innocent way, that Kant had never analvzed 
perception at all. 

"He does not trouble himself" [said Mr. Lewes] "with investigating 
the nature of perception ; he contents himself with the fact that we have 
sensations, and with the fact that we have ideas whose origin is not 
sensuous." '•' 



' As this bit of writing is designed to effect a purjiose, not to display erudition, and 
is partly at least for good readers who may not know German, the quotations from Kant 
are all taken from his " Critique of Pure Reason," as translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn 
(Bohn's Philosophical Lil)rary, edition of 1860). 

'*' Lewes's Biog. History of Philosophy : Kant, g 3, ^ 7. 



The Secret of Kant. 369 

Such a statement as this reminds one of the description of "the 
play of Hamlet with Hatnlet left out." If that fnnny muddle, 
" the history of philosophy," had dealt with Shakespeare, perhaps 
we should have been informed that Hamlet was never, in any cir- 
cumstances, a part of the piece. 

But even the capital offence of Mr. Lewes, as a critic of philoso- 
phy, is hardly so bad as a conclusion lately reached by a philo- 
sophical writer in America, that Kant's work was substantially a 
local German affair, which the rest of the world has now out- 
grown. Our great and good American soldier. General Hancock, 
made no such misfire as this when he counted our national tariff 
another " local affair," of some interest indeed to certain States 
and sections. The truth is that the world has just begun its work 
with Kant, and that Kant himself, from the psychological stand- 
point, was the full result of everything that had preceded him — 
in Greece, in France, in Britain, and in his own country. Tlie 
use he made of Aristotle, of Descartes and Locke, of Leibnitz, 
Berkeley, and Hume, leaves no doubt whatever, in this respect, 
when Kant has once been read with anv real understandino; of 
him. 

First of all, be it said, Kant, both as savant and philosopher, had 
utterly absorbed the information and the conclusions of what may 
be called 

" SCIENTIFIC IDEALISM." ' 

This idealism had been chiefly developed by solid, materialistic 
Britons, though Hobbes and Descartes laid it down at nearly the 

' Hair-splitters can easily play their part here, with some spectacular effect. Kant 
explicitly repudiated idealism of several sorts, and regarded his own idealism as realism 
— a conclusion, too, in which he was perfectly right. Phenomena are real — are sensuous 
objects, material things, in the full extent to which matter can exist. But what are 
"material things" made of? That is the question. According to Kant, every one of 
them is a compound of three elemental factors : First^ the principle of " mind," as 
active " synthetical unity " ; Second, the principle of " sense," as passive " suscepti- 
bility " ; Third, the principle of the ultimate non-ego — the objective background of 
matter, the " noumenon," or, plurally speaking, " things in themselves." The impinge- 
ment of some " noumenon " on " sense " — the composite relation of these two — is con- 
structed a relation by the synthesis of mind in its phase which Kant termed " appre 
hension." It was known and proved before Kant that matter is always a relation 
between its objective background and subjective sense — a relation in which the back- 
ground is transformed into the matter itself. This idealism is what I term " scientific," 
because it is not confined to philosophers, but is held by scientists as well, so far as 

XXII— 2i 



370 The Journal of Speculatwe Philosophy. 

same time. It is merely the knowledge which any one may now 
get from his first lessons in optics, tliat things of matter — the ob- 
jects of onr five senses — are constituted such through the structure 
and action of these senses themselves. That is to say, material 
things — whatever we see or feel, liear, taste or smell — while exist- 
ent and real — while exactly what everybody takes them to be — 
are made so through a principle of 

RELATIVITY, 

Or, as Kant put it, every " phenomenon " is a " re-presentation " — 
that is, some lot of effects on our sensuous nature, bound together 
into a unity of them, the unity thus formed becoming an object of 
apprehension — a percept. Scientific idealism, of course, does not 
question for a moment the given duality of the cosmos, which ap- 
pears to us as what we call " mind and matter." Here are we / 
out there, indubitably apart from us, are other things, involving 
another source. But scientific idealism has found that this source 
is itself quite other than the things we connect with it, and can 
properly be described in this connection only as 

" SOURCE OF IMPACT." 

It has nothing to do with " matter" in the common (and proper) 
acceptation. It enters into matter, as the ultimate non-ego, the 
objective background, of every phenomenon. But in all material 
things the background is transformed by contact witli subjective 
sense (in us or other organisms), and " matter" is really the fusion, 
the compound, the third term, of these two elemental principles. 

This truth appears to have been reached well enough, even in 
the old tenet of India, that " matter is illusion." In Greece, Car- 
neades is said to have understood it in something like our own 
inductive way. But in the maimer of "modern science" it was 
first clearly seen and stated by 

THOMAS HOBBES. 

" Qualities called sensible " [said he] " are, in the object that causeth 
them, but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth 



they have generalized their facts. It was this idealism that Kant took for granted. 
But the relation between subjective sense and the ultimate non-ego he centered with 
mind — showing that sense always contains mind, though the mind of sense is the 
awareness of instinct. 



The Secret of Kant. 371 

our organs diversely." . . . Because the image in vision, consisting 
of color and shape, is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the 
object of that sense, it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this 
opinion, that the same color and shape are the very qualities them- 
selves." 

But, concluded Hobbes : 

" The subject wherein color and image are inherent is not the object 
or thing seen. . . . There is nothing without us (really) which we call an 
image or color. . . . The said image or color is but an apparition unto 
us of the motion, agitation, or alteration, tvhich the object ivorketh in the 
brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of the head. . . . As in vision, 
so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses, the subject of 
their inference is not the object, but the sentient." 

Tbe investigations of 

DESCAKTES 

led him to announce the principle thus : 

" Nothing passes from external objects to the soul except certain mo- 
tions of matter [mouvemens corporels). . . . The ideas of pain, of colors, 
of sounds, and of all similar things must be innate, in order that the 
mind may represent them to itself, on the occasion of certain motions of 
matter ivith tvhich they have no resemblance.'''' ^ 

When 

LOCKE 

began his " Essay," and posited mind in its first estate as a passive 
nonentity — a " blank tablet " — he had no vital conception, it would 
seem, of scientific idealism. But, in the patient thinking of twenty 
years, such a man could not fail to come upon the law ; hence his 
" secondary qualities " of objects, which he affirmed to be " nothing 
in the objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations 
in -MS," though he considered certain "primary qualities" — bulk, 
extension, figure, motion, rest, number — to inhere actually in 
" bodies," without relation to minds or senses. 

But it was seen quickly enough that Hobbes and Descartes had 
been right in making no such distinction as Locke assumed, be- 



1 " Leviathan," John Bohn, 1839, p. 2. " Human Nature," John Bohn, 1839, p. 4. 
^ This translated excerpt is taken from Prof. Huxley's " Hume," 1890, p. 84. 



372 The Journal of Speculative Philosojyhy . 

tween the "primary" and the "secondary" qualities of phenome- 
na. The "first are simply invariable qualities ; the second, vari- 
able. "Primary" qualities present themselves with objects in 
general; "secondary" qualities, with certain objects and not with 
others. But invariability may exist in a principle of relation quite 
as well, to say the least, as in any ultimate objectivity. Besides, 
the "primary qualities of bodies" are, in one crucial aspect, any- 
thing but " primary," as not being immediate, but only inferential. 
We experience no single object of matter, for instance, without 
instinctively experiencing some degree of " bulk," or "solidity"; 
but that all material objects possess "bulk" is a conclusion that 
transcends experience, and is reached only by referring various 
experiences to mind. It is not a perception at all, but a con- 
ception — an inference of relating things to thought. As a gen- 
eral principle, then — a category — the very birth of it depends on 
this relation. 

It was very easy for so acute a man as 

BISHOP BERKELEY 

to place Locke's primary qualities of matter where they belong, and 
to show that nothing in the universe has any actual being, apart 
from a universal element that, wherever it may be posited, can 
alone be called subjectivity. 

Hume's idealism 

is most completely illustrated in a quotation made prominent by 
Prof. Huxley : ' 

" 'Tis not our body we perceive when we regard our limbs and mem- 
bers, but certain impressions which enter by the senses ; so that the 
ascribing a real and corporeal existence to these impressions, or to their 
objects, is an act of the mind difficult to explain." 

Since Berkeley and Hume no philosophical thinker, perhaps, of 
any significance, anywhere in the world, has questioned the "ide- 
ality " of " material things." Even Tleid, as the i)hiloso]iher of 
"common sense," declared that 

" No man can conceive any sensation to resemble any known quality 
of bodies. Nor can any man show, by any good argument, that all our 



' Huxley's " Hume," p. 80. 



The Secret of Kant. --^73 

sensations might not have been as they are, though no body, nor quality 
of body, had ever existed." 

The idealism of the 

RECENT MATERIALISTIC PHILOSOPHERS — 

sucli, say, as Mr. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, and the " Positivists" 
— has been most comprehensively expressed by John Stuart Mill, 
in his statement that "Matter is a Permanent Possibility of 
Sensation.'' 

" If " [said Mr. Mill] " I am asked whether I believe in matter, I ask 
whether the questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe 
in matter ; and so do all Berkeleians. In any other sense than this I do 
not." 

Kow there is no such thing as comprehending Kant's "Critique 
of Pure Reason " — there is no use of touching it at all — until one 
sees that Kant founded himself, utterly and literally, in scientitic 
idealism. He took it wholly for granted before he ever inked a 
quill to begin his great work. It is a pity he neglected to saj^ so, 
in his very first sentence. Still, he was clear and specific enough 
when it so happened that he got ready. At the close of his 
"Transcendental ^Esthetic," under the head of "General Re- 
marks," he set out with this unmistakable declaration : 

" In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the 
first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what our opinion is with 
respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general. 
We have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the 
re-presentation of phenomena ; that the things which we intuite are not 
in themselves the same as our re-presentations of them in intuition, nor 
are their relations so constituted as they appear to us ; and that if we 
take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses 
in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and 
time, but even space and time themselves disappear. . . . What may be the 
nature of objects considered as things in themselves, and without refer- 
ence to the receptivity of our sensibility, is quite unknown to us. We 
know nothing more than our own mode of perceiving them, which is 
peculiar to us, and which, though not of necessity pertaining to every 
animated being, is so to the whole human race. With this alone we have 
to do." ' 



1 " Critique," p. 35. 



374 The JoxLrnal of SpeGulatlve Philosophij. 

This one excerpt from Kant tells in itself the whole story of his 
fundamental idealism. But repeated proof can easily be had, if 
wanted. He closes his dissection of space, for instance, thus : 

" Objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call out- 
ward objects are nothing else but mere re presentations of our sensibility, 
whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not 
known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respectino- 
which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made." 

Once more : 

" The faculty of sensibility not only does not present us with any in- 
distinct and confused cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in 
fact, gives us no knowledge of these at all. On the contrary, as soon as 
we abstract in thought our own subjective nature, the object re-presented, 
with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely disap- 
pears, because it loas only this subjective nature that determined the form of 
the object as a phenomenon." " 

The principle of scientiHc idealism bein<^ once comprehended 
and accepted, and the fact being plain that Kant took it as fully 
established more than a century ago, there is really not much 
further difficulty with his whole industry, except in its maddening 
order and exhausting prolixity. 

THE " CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON " PROPERLY BEGIJfS 

at the end of its first fifty thousand words or so, with what Kant 
designated as his " Transcendental Deduction of tlie Pure Con- 
ceptions of the Understanding," and with the section in which he 
treats " The Possibility ot a Conjunction of the Manifold Re- 
presentations given by Sense." He says : 

"The manifold content in our re- presentations can be given in an in- 
tuition which is merely sensuous — in other words, is nothing but suscepti- 
bility ; and the form of this intuition can exist a priori in our faculty of 
representation, without being anything else but the mode in which the 
subject is affected. But the conjunction [conjunctio) of a manifold in in- 
tuition never can be given by the senses ; it cannot therefore be contained 
in the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous act of the 
faculty of representation. And as we must, to distinguish it from sensi- 



' " Critique," p. 37. 



The Secret of Kant 375 

bility, entitle tliis faculty understanding, so all conjunction, whether con- 
scious or unconscious, be it of the manifold in intuition, sensuous or non- 
sensuous, or of several conceptions, is an act of the understanding. To 
this act we shall give the general appellation of synthesis, thereby to indi- 
cate, at the same time, that we cannot represent anything as conjoined in 
the object without having previously conjoined it ourselves.''^ 

It is hardly too much to say that the whole secret, with pretty 
nearly the whole substance of Kant, is packed in those few words. 
They declare simply that, without an ultimate, a priori \^nnc\\Ae, 
to be entitled ^^ understanding ^^^ there can be no possibility of 
existence for any objective thing, whether material phenomenon 
or mental conception. They declare that, without 

THE UNITY OF A SUBJECTIVE ELEMENT 

in the universe, there can be no objective unit whatever — no 
space, no time, no monad, either perceptible or thinkable. And 
such is the case if scientific idealism be true. Let us see : 

Tlie "manifold content" of an "intuition" may be merely 
" sensuous" : that is to say, the various properties of the intuition 
called a stone — take the stone that Dr. Johnson kicked to disprove 
idealism — are " effects on the senses." The color, the texture, the 
weight, the size — every one of all such " material " attributes — 
exist, as they are, solely by relation to 7ne, or to some other being 
in whom is oro-anized the element of " sense." Matter is made of 
impact — impact between its objective background ("the noume- 
non " or " noumena ") and some sort or degree of subjectivity. 
Without these two terms, their product of interaction, their third 
term, matter, is not. So " the manifold content " of a " re-presen- 
tation " — or, wliat is the same thing, the properties of a material 
object — are " nothing but susceptibility "■ — effects on sense. By 

" THE FORM OF INTUITION " 

Kant meant, as he repeatedly explained, the 'plural quality of 
space and time. Space is made of spaces ; time of times; and 
the plural contents (always such) of matter can only exist under 
the plural contents of space and time — that is, in sections of space 
and sequences of time, these sections and sequences being the in- 
trinsic character, the divisible quality, the essential " form " of 
space and time as total units or completed things. 



376 Hie Journal of Speculative PJdlosophy . 

" But," says Kant, " all conjunction " is " an act of the under- 
standing," and "can not be contained in the pure form of sensu- 
ous intuition," by which he means that time could never be a 
conjunct of times, space a conjunct of spaces, nor a stone the 
conjunct of its properties — each a "synthesis" ot a "manifold 
content " — unless made so by the synthetical unity of a priori 
mind. 

In our quotation Kant attributes " unconscious " action to the 
" understanding " — the unconscious action of " conjunction " or 
"synthesis." His phrase has been a perpetual stumbling-block to 
his critics, but he meant exactly what he said. Unconscious men- 
tal synthesis is what he afterward designated as 

"the synthesis of apprehension," 
as distinguislied from 

"the synthesis of apperception," 
when he said : 

" I premise that bv the term synthesis of apj)rehension I understand 
the combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby per- 
ception, that is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as phenomenon), 
is possible." ' 

In illustrating the category of quantity, Kant talks of " making 
the empirical intuition of a house into a perception, by api)rehen- 
sion of the manifold contained therein," and says that " the neces- 
sary unity of space and of my external sensuous iiituition lies at 
the foundation of this act." 'â– ' Here is suggested the whole dissec- 
tion of phenomena, tlie whole analysis of perception, but, unfor- 
tunately, without details, a few of which, at this point, M'ould 
have made tlie whole basis of his work jierfectly clear. The 
"manifold" contained in an "empirical intuithm " — take the 
stone we have used for an example — is simply the diversity of 
" properties," constituting the object — the color, texture, size, 
weight, and the rest of them ; and these properties are " effects 
of sense." Every one of them is a relation to subjectivity, a re- 
sult of impact on subjectivity, and is in the ohject only as retlect- 



1 " Critique," p. 98. 
•^ " Criticiue," p. i»9. 



The Secret of Kant. 377 

ing or re-presentini^ there the sensuous nature of a subject. But 
these various " effects on various senses," these merely subjective 
separates — how do they get united into one thing ? What consti- 
tutes the unity of sensuous manifolds? Every phenomenon being 
an essential plurality — a lot of " sense-effects " — what closes to- 
gether the various effects on various human senses, called the 
properties of a stone, into the one phenomenal object, the stone 
itself ? To this end there must be some common subjective 
ground of those subjective things, " effects on sense." There 
must be some subjective unity in which those subjective plurali- 
ties all merge, for only as mer^ged do they get to be an object. 
Now, a common subjective ground of various effects on various 
senses can only be a common awareness of them — a 

" SYNTHETICAL UNITY OF APPREHENSION," 

or just instinctive, automatic consciousness in the germ. This 
must be common to all the senses together, and to each sense 
separately. What, for example, is seeing, but the simple aware- 
ness of sight ? What is touch, but the simple awareness of feel- 
ing? What is any "intuition," which means any taking-in of 
any phenomenon, but a common awareness, however rudimental 
or developed, of some conjoined diversity of effects on sense ? 

And it must be added here, as vital to the full comprehension 
of Kant, that not only every material object, like our example, the 
stone, is made of essential plurality of sense-effects, but that 

EVERY SEPARATE PROPERTY 

of an object is also made of like plurality. No object, and no 
property of an object, is, or can be, single, unal, or, in other words, 
any thing, until constructed so, in sense, by the " unconscious under- 
standing " thereof — the synthetical unity of instinctive, automatic 
" apprehension." To realize this fact, it is only necessary to 
remember that every property of anything, say the hardness of a 
stone, is a compound relation between the impact of some ulti- 
mate non-ego on the sense of touch, and the peculiar nature of the 
sense itself : so the property of hardness must contain essential 
diversity, something from each of two fundamental sou7xes. As 
Aristotle, from his ontological investigations, found that matter, 
if regarded as an absolute independence — an unrelated thing in 



3(8 The Journal of Speculative PJiilosopJiy. 

itself — is no thing, but onlj cliaotic indeterininateness — formless 
"potentiality" — so Kant, from liis psychological in(]^uiry — his dis- 
section of phenomena as existent through perceptio^^ — found the 
same truth in a deeper significance. The 

ENTIKE PKINCIPLE OF UNITY, 

whether in a feeling, a thought, a material object, or the universe 
as a whole, can alone exist through 

THE PRINCIPLE OF MIND. 

This is the very bottom of the secret of Kant. 

But we have seen that mind, in its lowest state, is what Kant, 
" to distinguish it from sensibility," entitled " unconscious under- 
standing." There used to be an old saw in jjhilosophy — still, 
indeed, at work — to the effect that " there is nothing in the mind 
that was not first in sense." Leibnitz, adding a piece to the saw, 
said : "Except mind itself." Leiljnitz affirmed, that is, that sense 
always contains mind — that mind is in sense as a component of 
it, and that without mind there is no sense at all. What Leib- 
nitz perceived and asserted, Kant proved by " observation and 
induction " — bv analvzing phenomena under the law of scientific 
idealism. 

MIND IN SENSE 

— the mind of sense — is just automatic, animal awareness, just 
simple 

" APPKEHENSION," 

undeveloped, and in the lowest animal life not to be developed, 
into 

" APPERCEPTION," 

the ''^ conscious ^^ stage of "understanding," capable of forming a 
concept. 

Well, in the genesis of a stone, or other material object, certain 
effects on sense are merged in the unit they compose, by recep- 
tion into the " sj'nthetical unity of ap])rehension." The stone is 
created m this way. Its own objective unity— its wholeness, or 
''''form'''' as a stone — is thus the derivation, the manufactured 
product, of 



The Secret of Kant. 379 

SUBJECTIVITY, AS A COSMIC ELEMENT, 

an element a lyriori to the existence of any possible phenomenon. 
The stone, however, ^5 objective — is just the ])alpable thing that 
everybody takes it to be, out there in space. This is a given/ac^ 
of perception — something, as Kant said, "' never questioned in ex- 
perience." As such fact^ how can it be ac(;ounted for, when we 
know, at the same time, that the stone is nothing but a plexus of 
subjective states ? How does the bunch of internal impressions 
get externalized f What is the cause of this reflex, this " re- 
presentation " ? It must be something inherent in the principle 
of apprehension itself^ or the plexus of impressions would neces- 
sarily stay within us. Being wrought internally, it would remain 
internal. Hence, this " apprehension " — this element of instinct- 
ive synthetical awareness — must be in its nature a double — an 
entity which reproduces, or throws out before itself, whatever 
lot of sense-effects it receptively synthesizes, or binds together 
in a sheaf, known as some object. But all this, summed up, means 
only that mind, ev^en in its lowest form of "unconscious under- 
standing" — the simple automatic apprehension which shuts to- 
o:ether certain effects on sense into a totalitv of them — must, as 
heing apprehension^ necessarily, though instinctively, apprehend 
its ov,'n product. Here is the full explanation of the amusing, 
iron-clad conception of Hobbes, that an *' image," or a " color," is 
but an apparition unto us of " motioTi, agitation, or alteration " 
in some " internal substance of the head." 

THE SELF-BEFLEXIVENESS OF APPKEHENSION, 

in the manufacture of phenomena, was named by Kant 

"the TRANSCENDENTAL SYNTHESIS OF IMAGINATION," 

the word " imao'ination " standino; on its roots, and meanino- the 
image- making faculty. Phenomena, as reflex-conjuncts of sense- 
effects, are "produced" — put out — by this second function of 
apprehension ; so Kant said he sometimes called it " productive 
imagination." It is that function of pure elemental, or a priori 
awareness, which " ^-e-presents " itself in the constitution of every 
object, as its xmity, but a unity shaped according to some object's 
filling of sense-effects. Hence Kant savs : 



380 The Journal of SpeGidative Philosophij. 

" This synthesis of tlie manifold of sensuous intuition, which is possi- 
ble and necessary a priori, may be called figurative synthesis [synthesis 
speciosa) .^'' 

Thus Kant found mind in sense, " unconscious understanding," 
the instiiictive awareness of animal susceptibility, as it existed in 
himself, to be tlie literal objective basis of all phenomena — the 
first " material" unity of every '' material thing." And he found 
this elemental source of all unity to be an innate 

SELF-ACTIVITY 

— a self-seeing mirror, as it were — a double of receptiveness and 
reflectiveness. Here, at last, was the actual, liviiig thing, of whicli 
Locke's "blank-tablet" had long been the still-born, stone figure. 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his i-emarkable investigation of "The 
Principles of Psychology," posits "mind" as alwaj^s implied in 
sentiency, and as necessary to the genesis of any phenomenon, 
even the " first nervous shock " of a sensitive beinii;. Ivecosnizinar 
the law of scientific idealism, he has seen, too, that our objective 
world is made up, at the perceptional outset, of such shocks. 
Again, he has proved, with great detail, that the action of mind 
is always of one general nature, whether in the lowest animal in- 
stinct or the highest conscious reason. But back at the first 
nervous shock, Mr. Spencer dops with mind, and says that at the 
next regress it becomes " unknowable." Yet nearly a hundred 
years before this investigation Kant showed precisely what this 
so-called "unknowable" is. He showed that mind, in all stages 
and states — 

MIND IN ITSELF 

— is a synthetical unity of awareness. In germ, as " unconscious 
understanding" — as the mind of sense — its function is to be sim- 
ply apprehensive of, and thus to conjoin in its instinctive cogni- 
zance, some " manifold " contained in a " nervous shock," or in 
various sense-effects, into some unity i which then, as itself appre- 
hended, or made a refle,v, becomes an impression, an image, an 
object. 

Such is the base of Kant's analysis of perception, and so of mat- 
ter as always nothing but a relation to sense. At the beginning 
of his work, however, he conflned his attention to 



The Secret of Kant. 381 

SPACE AND TIME, 



â– ") 



and in sucli a way as to confound his i-eaders from that day to 
this. Still, at the opening of his "Esthetic," he implies, if only 
in one remark, all that has been explained here : 

" If I take " [says Kant] " from our representation of a body, all tliat 
the understanding thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, divisi- 
bility, and also whatever belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hard- 
ness, color, there is still something left us from this empirical intuition, 
namely, extension and shajie. These belong to pure intuition, which 
exists a â– priori in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and without 
any real object of the senses or any sensation." 

Students of Kant, in general, know well enough why he attrib- 
utes " extension " to " bodies," as derived by them from a 'priori 
mind. Space is so derived ; hence all things in space, which is 
the "form," the "condition" of their existence, must partake of 
its nature, which is pure extension, pure " given quantity," as he 
designates it. But why does the shape of a material body belong 
to "pure intuition," and come froTn mind? Simply because the 
shape (let it be of a stone) is merely the objected ^' st/nthesis of 
apprehension,''^ in which the properties of the stone, as impressions 
of sense, are unified, but in accordance with their special variety. 
The shape is their " figurative synthesis," their " synthesis spe- 
ciosaP JSTow, in the meaning of Kant, and in the nature of the 
case, space is made in precisely the same manner as a stone ; only 
the stone is full of diverse properties — special effects on sense, got 
from some impinging background of matter — some " noumenon " 
— while space has no properties at all, except additions and divi- 
sions of itself — spaces. In other words, the stone is a special re- 
lation between mental synthesis and sensuous susce23tibility, the 
latter being in particular impact with some noumenal non-ego, and 
being definitely ^"/Z^'cZ from it. Space, on the other hand, is a gen- 
eral relation between the same mental synthesis and the same 
sensuous susceptibility, the latter holding no contents from any 
noumenon, yet being recipient to all possibility of noumenal im- 
pact. Hence, space is just " the synthesis of apprehension " itself, 
set in self-reflex, objected, phenomenated. The stone, in its unity, 
its form, its "shape," is this objected synthesis of apprehension, 
filled with certain sensuous effects. The synthesis of apprehen- 



382 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

sion, again, as the condition of any special "shape" into whicli it 
may be stuffed, is of course a priori to tiie stuffed shape ; so space 
is a priori to the stoue in space. Once again, space is the outward 
re-presentation, the very double to the eye, of the synthesis of ap- 
prehension ; for space is just the 

VISIBLE SYNTHESIS OF THE APPREHENDED 

— the transparent base of coexisteuce for all external things. 

It must be remembered that the synthesis of apprehension, as 
the "mind" of "sense," is itself a douljle, containing the pure 
conjunctive unity of "unconscious understanding" as an active 
factor, and susceptibility to impact as a passive factor. In the 
conjoined relation of these two factors every material phenomenon 
gets to exist ; so there must be some relation of space to every 
external object, and to all external objects — which is to say at 
once that space is infinite^ both in extent and divisibility, so far as 
it can apply to objects at all. 

And here, too, is the reason that the contained character, the 
constituent quality, of space — meaning what Kant termed the 
"form of the intuition" — is essentially plural. This constituent 
quality of space is a r^-presentation of mind, as at once active and 
passive, receptive and reflexive — as fundamental a priori self- 
semrateness. But space itself., as a whole., is the synthesis of this 
self-separateness. It is self-unity of self-separateness, materialized. 
Space, made of spaces, is a thing identical in form and contents. 
Kant said : 

"Space re- presented as an object (as geometry really requires it to be) 
contains more than the mere form of the intuition ; namely, a combina- 
tion of the manifold given according to the form of sensibility into a re- 
presentation that can be intuited ; so the form of the intuition gives us 
merely the manifold, but \\\q, formal intuition gives unity of re presenta- 
tion. In the "Esthetic" I regarded this unity as belonging entirely to 
sensibility, for the purpose of indicating that it antecedes all conceptions, 
although it presupposes a synthesis which does not belong to sense, 
through which, however, all our conceptions of space and time are possi- 
ble. . . . By means of this unity alone (the understanding determining 
the sensibility) space and time are given as intuitions." 

It is strange that Kant did not put this explanation, with the 
rest like it, at the beginning of his " Critique," where it belonged, 



The Secret of Kant. 383 

instead of burying it piecemeal in his "Transcendental Logic," ' 
where its vast significance has, to this day, been as good at lost. 
It is easy enough to follow out Kant's 

GENESIS OF TIME, 

in the same way as his genesis of space. The constituent quality 
of space and time is the same in both, and is subject in both to the 
same act of synthesis, in order that the essential plurality of " the 
form of intuition " may be created into the unity of " the formal 
intuition " itself — the single thing, space or time. But time is the 
"form" of "m-ternal sense," as Kant put it, while space is the 
" form " of " 6a;-ternal sense " — sense being to Kant not its physical 
organs (which are matter), but mental suscejptibility as distin- 
guished from mental synthesis? Every phenomenon in space 
and time is made of active subjective-synthesis, passive subjective- 
susceptibility, and noumenal impact. Space and time themselves 
are made of the synthesis and the susceptibility alone. But pure 
synthesis, which means just pure identity of awareness, can have 
no "susceptibility," cannot be occupied, without change of state ; 
and any change of state in a pure general awareness forms succes- 
sion of states, or, as Kant said, " generates time?'' But conjunction, 
again, of synthesis and susceptibility must be the relating of sep- 
arates, with reference to the objective as well as the subjective 
factor. As objecti%'e effect this relation is pure co-existence of 
separates in the same time, through outness from each other — 
space. All objects, impressions, " effects of sense," must take the 
order of time ; but " objects of internal sense " (certain feelings, 
or emotions), having no direct filling from noumena, are not ob- 
jects in space. 

As Kant was so largely a consequence of English psychology, 
it was natural he should take the peculiar method he did to prove 
the subjective origin of the objective percepts, space and time. 
Locke had pretty nearly convinced the thinking world that all 
knowledge comes from " experience," and is " limited " by it ; 
and Hume had shown that this experience is a subjective record, 
good for information at any time, as far as it has gone, but ex- 



• To be found, in this instance, in a note on page 98 of the translation here followed. 
2 Kant's first point in his " Metaphysical Exposition of Space " is to declare " the 
external sense '' a " property of the mind." 



384 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

eluding, by its very nature, all possibility of any universal and 
necessary truth. If all kno\dedge were really confined to experi- 
ence, we could not say that one and one make two, but only that 
one and one have made two, up to date : to-morrow, one one and 
one might make three. Xow, the reason that one and one make 
two, and always must make two, is simply that the human mind 
is a principle of awareness which receives impressions only by 
connecting them according to its own unity. There every record 
begins ; thence every order proceeds ; and number is the order 
imposed by consciousness on its receptions, or experiences. The 
statement that " one and one make two " is what Kant called " a 
synthetical judgment a priori^'' because the predicate of the 
judgment contains something more than the putting together of 
two experiences — all that is directly involved in the subject — and 
adds the implication of universal and necessary order in the con- 
junction. Scrutinizing space and time, Kant saw at once that, 
while objective things.^ these two objects are universal and neces- 
sary to perception — are its a prioi'i vistas. But, if so, they could 
not belike the objects in them, contingent on some ultimate non- 
ego, but must be reflexes of mind in relation to sense. By taking 
this method of proof, Kant cornered Locke and Hume on their 
own ground ; and, by showing that established sciences, like math- 
ematics and physics, would be impossible under any "objective" 
derivation ot space and time, he rendered himself unanswerable. 
If he had explained his idealism., however, by dissecting any one 
phenomenon in space and time, his whole work woukl have been 
made clear, and would long ago have been understood. 

We have seen that the secret of Kant lies, first of all, in his 
phrase " the synthesis of apprehension," or " the transcendental 
synthesis of the image-making faculty." 

" It is an operation " [he says] " of the understanding on sensibility, 
and the first application of the understanding to objects of possible in- 
tuition, and at the same time the basis for the exercise of the other func- 
tions of that faculty.'''' ' 

But having duly emphasized this point, it must now be said 
that the synthesis of apprehension alone is altogether inadequate 
to give form to an 

' " Critique," p. ^>3. 



The Secret of Kant. 385 

OBJECT, 



'? 



in the full import of that word. For an object is something held 
distinct by itself, in connection with another object, or with vari- 
ous objects. ^'â– Unconscious understanding" cannot form such 
connection and distinction, but can only blindly manufacture 
single intuitions, affording at most what Kant termed " a rhap. 
sody of perceptions," in which no one would be first or last, or 
anything at all when past. A fish-worm, perhaps, has such a 
" rhapsody of perceptions" for its objective world. In the world 
of man the a priori element of intelligence which shapes it must 
be objected in the phase of 

CONSCIOUSNESS PROPER, 

or " apperception." 

In noting the difference between the synthesis of apprehension 
and the synthesis of apperception, Kant said : 

" It is one and the same spontaneity which, at one time under the 
name of imagination, at another under that of understanding, produces 
conjunction in the manifold of intuition." ' 

Apperception is simply 

MIND ADEQUATE TO CONCEPTION. 

That there can be a stone, as known to a human heing, there 
must be a synthesis of sense-efi'ects (its properties), in which they 
are distinguished among themselves, and in which objects as 
wholes are distinguished from each other. A synthesis of this 
kind presupposes not merely " unconscious understanding," but 
an understanding that recognizes itself in connecting all things 
else. 

"I am conscious" [said Kant] "of my identical self in relation to all 
the variety of representations given to me in intuition, because I call all 
of them my representations. . . . The thought, ' These representations, 
given in intuition, belong all of them to me,' is just the same as ' I unite 
them in one self-consciousness.' . . . Synthetical unity of the manifold 
in intuition, as given a priori, is therefore the foundation of the identity 
of apperception itself, which antecedes a priori all determinate thought. 
But the conjunction of representations into a conception is not to be 



' P 99, note. 

XXII— 25 



386 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

found in objects themselves, . . . but is, on tbe contrary, an operation 
of the understanding itself, which is nothing more than the faculty of 
conjoining a priori^ and of bringing the variety of given representations 
under the unity of apperception. This principle is the highest in all 
human cognition." 

So, to the existence of any distinguishable object there must 
pre exist the element of mind in the phase of self-consciousness ; 
and when Kant talked of 

THE OBJECTIVE UNITY OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

he meant literally that " the synthetical unity of apperception," 
as well as " the synthetical unity of apprehension," is Tnaterialized 
in all conceivahle things. To form the sense-effects of a stone 
into a single "intuition," they mast be merged in a synthesis of 
apprehension ; but to set the intuition as thus created — to make it 
remain itself in the midst of other's, it must be merged with them 
in a higher synthesis — a common connective consciousness, which, 
distinguishing them in itself, re-presents tliem as distinguished. 
It is here we reach Kant's famous 

" CATEGORIES," 

which are simply conceptions of the pure synthetical unity of 
mind, as forming the unity of all things and of all connection 
among them. 

The principle of mind, beginning, as we have seen, even with 
the instinctive mind of sense, is a spontaneous self-activity, recep- 
tive, reflexive, and resumptive of its doubles. By being the first, 
it unifies any and every manifold of sense-effects; by being the 
second, it /'^-presents the product — throws it out ; by being the 
third, it apprehends the externalization, and a percept is born. 
Mind is thus essentially a triad as well as a unit. But if so, it is a 

QUANTITY 

— a sum of its own phases ; and in these phases it is a Unity, a 
Plurality, and a Totality. 

Mind, again, as just ajpriori principle and basis of all things, is 
manifestly their universal 



The Secret of Kant. 387 

QUALITY. 

But, as self-reflexive, self-resumptive, it is at once a Reality^ a 
Negation., and a Limitation^ which means it is that which, in its 
double, contraposes one state to another, while, as a whole, it is 
the limit of both states. 

It goes without saying that a principle of self-reflex is the 

RELATION 

of its reflexes, and in this relation is a Substance with Depend- 
ence., a Cause with Effect., and a Reciprocity of its separates. 
This short-cut to the Kantian categories ' is certainly no sufficient 
*' deduction " of them ; for they are reflexes of conscious, not 
"•unconscious" understanding; and the structure and action of 
instinctive mind would be nothing hnown, without the structure 
and action of conceptive mind. The synthesis of the latter pro- 
ceeds, not through the formation of sense-effects into units of in- 
tuition, but through the formation of these already-made units 
(objects or their properties) into species, genera, and ultimate 
universals — the pure unity of these groupings, without regard to 
the things grouped, being just the pure a priori unity of self- 
conscious awareness.'' Thus, those ultimate universals, the cate- 
gories, are objective reproductions of pure conceptive synthesis, 
without which there could be no connection of things in thought 
— whicli would amount precisely to 

NO REALIZED OBJECTS 
and NO OBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE. 

But that the categories are implicit in even the mind of sense, and 
that the first form of every phenomenon is the reflex form of this 
stage of mind, shows how literally the bases of thought are the 
u priori bases of all phenomena. Sir William Hamilton fancied 



' Those of Modality are omitted, as not entering into the constituhon of objects, but 
only reflecting the manner of their reception by mind in accordance with their constitu. 
tion. 

^ As usual, Kant puts this exceedingly important part of his dissection of mind — and 
so of its objects — precisely where one finds the most difficulty in getting at it. He treats 
it exhaustively, however, under what is entitled " The Schematism of the Categories." 



388 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

that Aristotle's categories were "genera of real things," while 
Kant's categories were " determinations of thought," and, as mere 
^'' entia rationis,^^ must "be excluded from the Aristotelic list." 
Bat there are no "genera of real things" except as "determina- 
tions of thought " ; and, in making an experimental classification 
of objects, Aristotle found some of the Kantian categories, because 
the synthetical unity of mind had put those categories into the 
objects at the creation of them. To Kant an object meant some- 
thing of which Sir William Hamilton had no boding. 

AVe can barely touch Kant's analysis of mind in its third phase 
— that of 

REASON. 

It is still the same principle of awareness, with the same function of 
synthesis ; but, as reason, it does not apprehend or conceive : it 
concludes or comprehends. Seeing things, and then thinking them 
as such, it ends in asking, " Why? " The pure form of answer, 
apart from all contents, is " hecause^'' — on account o^ cause. Thus 
reason forms its s^^nthesis of comprehension by referring the par- 
ticular to the general for a cause — a process that can never stop 
short of including all things in ultimate unities of cause. It is 
evident that ultimate unities of cause must contain all subordinate 
causes or conditions under them. There can be just three such 
ultimate unities ; for there are just three possible kinds of being 
and conditions that relate to their universals : sul)jective being 
and conditions to subjective unity of them ; objective being and 
conditions to objective unity of them ; and all being and condi- 
tions, both subjective and objective, to the universal unity of being 
and conditions. These final unities, again, as final — as totalities 
of conditions with nonebevond — are tliemselves " unconditioned." 
Reason, then, as an a j^riori synthetical unity, necessarily refers 
all conditions of tilings to their final or absolute unities, which are 
in reality notliing but conceptional reflexes of Reason's own nature 
and action. To he an identity of mind, for instance, to the condi- 
tions of subjectivity, reason must receive them into its unity, which 
"thus becomes their totality. Now what is the objective re-presen- 
tation, the rational conception, of the totality of subjective condi- 
tions? It is simply the " transcendental idea " of pure subjective- 
ness, or Soul. In the same way the totality of objective, phenorae- 



The Secret of Kant. 389 

nal conditions, is the idea of the Universe ; while tlie totality of 
all conditions, both subjective and objective, is the idea of that in 
which all mind and all matter are related as their final cause or 
reason — God. 

The preceding sketch of Kant's great work, " The Critique of 
Pure Reason," is necessarilj' curtailed and imperfect. Still, I 
trust that his central thought — the one thought never out of his 
mind as the foundation of his philosophy — has been duly indi- 
cated. If so, his " secret " is open — a secret which lies in the fact 
that he saw through the principle of relativity, the law of scientific 
idealism, and relaid the whole structure from the corner-stone up. 
Before Kant it was known well enough that " matter," however 
we must all accept it with our hands and eyes, has no standing, 
under the analysis of thought, except as a system of effects on our- 
selves. Hume, we remember, saw all this so clearly that he pro- 
nounced the very organs of sense, " our limbs and members," to 
be " not our body," but "certain impressions " to which the mind 
ascribes " a corporeal existence," Our limbs and members cer- 
tainly are our body — the only body we have — but Hume was right 
in his meaning that our body is a phenomenon which has no exist- 
ence but as a plexus of impressions on a principle of intelligence, 
possessing various modes of reception, named senses. But this 
principle of intelligence itself was, to Hume, not a fact to be 
grasped by " reason," not a principle to be known and described, 
but was to be taken as a " force and vivacity " unknowable beyond 
an instinct of it. Hume's unknowable "force and vivacity" — an 
improved form of Locke's "blank-tablet" — Kant analyzed in the 
light of its products ; namely, those conjiincts of sense-effects called 
intuitions ; those conjuncts of intuitions called objects ; those con- 
juncts of objects called species, genera, and categories; and finally 
those conjuncts of all things and all conditions of things, called 
transcendental ideas. Now, such conjuncts of various "mani- 
folds" actually exist. They are man's percepts and concepts; 
they are his facts, his environment. But as percepts and concepts, 
and always conjuncts of "the manifold," they are formed, organ- 
ized, totalized, through a principle — the principle of perception 
and conception itself. This is Kant's a priori synthetical unit, 
common and necessary to all " things" and to all "experience." 



390 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

In our da}' the last word of any weight as against Kant — though 
not aimed at him in special — has been offered to us. by that excep- 
tionally able man, 

PROFESSOR HUXLEY, 

who is so apt to "hit the nail on the head," if there is any nail 
to hit. Too learned, both as philosoj^her and scientist, to 
question idealism, he admits it as unqualifiedly as did Mr. 
Mill ; but he defends " what is commonly called materialism " 
in this way : ^ 

" If we analyze the proposition that all mental phenomena are the ef- 
fects or products of material phenomena, all that it means amounts to 
this : that whenever those states of consciousness which we call sensation, 
or emotion, or thought, come into existence, complete investigation will 
show good reason for the belief that they are preceded by those other 
phenomena of consciousness to which we give the names of matter and 
motion. All material changes appear, in the long run, to be modes of 
motion ; but our knowledge of motion is nothing but that of a change 
in the place and order of our sensations ; just as our knowledge of 
matter is restricted to those feelings of which we assume it to be the 



cause." 



To this 

LAST POSTURE OF MATERIALISM 

the open secret of Kant is the full reply. It is simply of no con- 
sequence to the case what states of consciousness precede or follow 
what other states of consciousness. Let it be granted (whether 
true or not) that " phenomena of consciousness to which we give 
the names of matter and motion " precede all others. What of 
it % Kant has proved to us that no phenomenon of consciousness — 
no matter, no motion, no sensation — and, beyond all these, no 
time and no space, in which all the rest appear — has, or can have, 
any existence^ except as put into unity, form, and order, by the 
unity, form, and order of mind. If both " the synthesis of appre- 
hension " and " the synthesis of apperception " enter into any state 
of consciousness named matter, to give it hirth^ there is no danger 
of taking the element of intelligence for an afterbirth of the 
process. 



1 " Hume," page 80. 



The Secret of Kant. 391 

Here is 

THE PIVOT OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY, 

on which it all turns. Uproot the pivot who can ? It is said that 
the thought of the world is now returning to Kant. It is sti*aiige 
— a "grim joke," as Carlyle might say — but Herr Professor Kant 
foresaw what a mess of " cerebration " would follow him, and part- 
ly at least by his own fault. He prophesied it. In 1787, closing 
his "Preface" to the second edition of the "Critique of Pure 
Reason," he said : 

" To those deserving men, who so happily combine profundity of view 
with a talent for lucid exposition — a talent which I myself am not con- 
scious of possessing — I leave the task of removing any obscurity which 
may still adhere to the statement of my doctrines. For, in this case, the 
danger is not that of being refuted, but of being misunderstood.''^ 

This was said a hundred and six years ago. Kant has had 
many a critic since, in many a country, and his book has dissolved 
many a head ; but his words, true when written, are true to-day. 
He has never been "refuted""; and while the human mind is a 
perceptive, a conceptive, and a rational unity, the construction of 
it w'ill permit no such aml)itious feat. The thought of Kant has 
been extended ; and the extension we may cheerfully admit to be 
correction. His circumference was larger than he supposed ; but 
be centres the circle of modern science and of modern philosophy. 

Kant's industry, as we have seen, began with the general ac- 
ceptance of what, if designated in a national way, would be 
called British idealism. Mr. Lewes, as biographical historian and 
coroner of philosophy, tells us that, after Locke, " it was consid- 
ered established " that we " could have no knowledge not derived 
from experience," no experience but of " ideas," and consequent- 
ly that we " could never know things in themselves, but only 
things as they affect us." AVhile Kant set out to analyze " ex- 
perience" for the a priori mental factor of it, and to dissect 
"ideas" — to which he gave the better name of "re-presenta- 
tions " (meaning second-presentations, reflexes, doubles) — he in- 
herited from the Lockists their conception of the ultimate non-ego 
— the objective background of matter — and never outgrew that 
conception. Whatever unity and form we, as units of mind, may 
bring to the nature and construction of our objects, the filling of 



392 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

them is not innate in us. It has a source apart. It comes from 
another — saj, sensuously, an out., though it is only this tlirough 
re-presentation in space. But this ultimate non-ego Kant took 
for granted at his first step, and finally, as against Fichte and 
others, believed that he demonstrated. He called it the " noume- 
non," the "real correlate of matter," and pluralized it as "things 
in themselves." Yet he insisted, just as Herbert Spencer does 
to-day, that 'tis " unknown and unknowable." 

In a certain way — vital enough, too — "things in themselves" 
are "unknown and unknowable." Man is a small, dependent, 
limited being. Let us admit at once every old proverb in the 
world, to the eftect that " the finite cannot comprehend the in- 
finite." Sir William Hamilton issued a complete list of such 
proverbs. Let us adopt the whole of it. " The finite cannot 
comprehend the infinite." Tiie very meaning of " things in them- 
selves" is that they are withheld from us in their speciJiG contents. 
But in their general nature they are related and revealed to us ; 
and the revelation is always asserted when we name them "source 
of impact," the "real correlate of matter," "things in them- 
selves," or even "the unknown and unknowable." Is there an 
" unknown and unknowable ? " Yes, there is. But whatever is 
has heiiig — must have being, or not be that which " is." So much 
then we know of " the unknown and unknowable " : it has being ; 
it is Si fact. ^ But we know it negatively, as well as positively. 
We know what it is not, on precisely the same ground that we 
know what it is. Being a "noumenon," it \& not 2i phenome- 
non; being a "thing in itself,'''' it is not what things are to w-*-. 
Being " the real correlate of matter," it is not matter, but is the 
objective background of matter. But Kant had analyzed matter 
and found it to be a relation — a relation between finite subjective 
awareness and this very noumenal background now in view. He 
had found, too, that all matter — every spicule of it — is 

EXHAUSTED IN THE RELATION 

— that out of the relation matter has no existence. By these pres- 
ents, then, we know that the objective background of matter, the 
ultimate non-ego, is not material. 



' Even Mr. Spencer sees this quite clearly in criticising Hamilton and Mansel. 



The Secret of Kant. 393 

But here let us pause and think, for our final step : it is worth 
our M^iile. When reduced to elements, to principles, what is 
there of the universe — the all of things ? Just the subjective and 
the objective, mind and matter. Hence, that which is not matter 
is mind. Nothing else is left for it. 

We may wriggle at this terminus as much as we like, but there 
is no dodging it. It may be said, for instance, that, while we 
T^now and expe7'ience nothmg but mind and matter (including with 
matter its phenomenated vistas, space and time), we can imagine 
something else than either ; and, during the past fifty years, this 
nonsense has found lodgment in many heads. Now I can imagine 
anything, in the meaning that I can arbitrarily produce some 
foolish fancy. I can imagine a white blackbird, with his tail- 
feathers on his head. But I cannot imagine even this self-evident 
contradiction as possessing neither mind nor matter. What is an 
object of imagination ? (of fancy ?) Tt may be empty of matter, 
and so unlike the white blacki)ird. But no object of imagination 
can be empty of mind. Imagination is itself an act of mind : 
hence every possible product of imagination must partake of 
mind. If, therefore, I imagine something apart from mind and 
matter, it must still spring from mind, contain mind, and so 7iot 
be apart from mind. The '■'• rediictio ad absurdum'''' can be had 
cheap and sure, just where it is most needed. 

Reaching the view where noumeua, as impossible to matter, 
are resolved into mind or spirit, it is evident that we have now 
parted company with the good Professor Kant, though merely by 
taking a step beyond him which he himself had made inevita- 
ble. Yery early in his work he had said : 

" There are two sources of human knowledge (which probably spring 
from a common, hut to us unknown root), namely, sense and understand- 
ing. By the former, objects are yiven to us ; by the latter, thouyht.''^ 

Dissecting, with Kant, the nature of " understanding," we have 
discovered in it the unal form of all our re-presentations — of every 
perceptible and conceivable objected fact. Dissecting "sense," 
with the same instructor, we have found it to be certain modes of 
mental susceptibility, its physical organs being nothing but rela- 
tions between susceptible awareness and the noumenal unknown, 
like all the rest of " matter." Led, once more, by our Professor 



394: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

straight up to this noumenal unknown, where he willed to stop 
and turn his back on it, we have only had to look, in order to see 
it collapse into the self-retention of Spirit — spirit out oi us, hut 
still in itself, as the totality of Spiritual Being. We have thus 
found the "one common root" of all knowledge and of all things. 
But we have touched, also, the apex of thought and can now see 
what is meant — really and fully meant — by 

" ABSOLUTE IDEALISM." 

Absolute Idealism is not merely a phrase; it is a magnificent 
fact. Immersed in matter, fooled by our senses, we may insist 
on looking at all sensuous phenomena, as the Rev. John Jasper 
looks at the sun, with honest contempt for Copernicus and New- 
ton. " De earf do not move roun' de sun," exclaimed the sturdy 
colored preacher, " but de bressed sun move roun' de earf. Dere 
she go now : don't I see her wi' dese very eyes ? " Parson Jasper 
does see the sun moving round the earth, and in the same way we 
all see the objects of our senses existing in perfect independence 
of ourselves. Still, as surely as astronomj' has proved the delu- 
sion of taking the sun's movement from the eye, philosophy — and 
indeed "practical science" itself — has proved the delusion of 
taking ol)jective re-presentations as not constructed through sub- 
jective being. The inevitable end of this proof is the dissolution 
of noumena as anything " material," and the inclusion of all 
things in 

UNIVERSAL SPIRIT. 

Of such spirit, finite subjectivity is a function — a necessary par- 
ticipative reflex, through which the Universal Spirit is life, mani- 
festation, self-evolution. But here we must look back, and waive 
our final adieu to Kant. Here at last we must take a new guide, 
named 

HEGEL. 

But Hegel will never be of much use to mankind until the way 
to his starting-point is seen through Kant, and seen as clearly as 
sunlight. When Ilegel sat down to write his " Logic," he knew 
all there was in Kant's idealism, implicit as well as explicit, and 
took \t literally ; just as Kant, when he sat down to write his 
" Critique of Pure Reason," knew all the philosophical and scien- 



Mystic Theology. 395 

tific idealism that had preceded him, and took the general result 
of it literally. But, as a requisite, perhaps, to his microscopic 
analysis of human subjectivity, he closed his eyes to all else. He 
declined to generalize his own discoveries. Hence his trouble 
with " the antinomies," his non-objectiveness for the " transcen- 
dental ideas," and his need of a " moral" ground for intellectual 
truth. Let us not presume to find fault with this need. If ever 
an error was hio;h and holv, it was this one. It was the error of 
a conscience as grand, in a way, as even the master-mind that 
stands, so far, for the analytic capacity of the hnnian race. But 
Kant's synthesis was Hegel. As Kant is the inmost centre of 
modern knowledge, Hegel is as yet the circumference. There has 
been now and then in the world a man who has dreamed of 
antagonizing, and even " refuting," Hegel. There has been now 
and then a man who fancied he could " distil " knowledge out of 
Hegel, without seeing a spark of light beyond Hume ; and there 
was not long ago one man — a very imposing collector of philosoph- 
ical hric-d-hrac — who wondered if Hegel ever really knew what 
he was about — ever " understood himself.'''' When the virtual 
sons of that genial Scotch bachelor, David Hume, arrive in sight 
of Kant, it may be of some use for them to begin a consideration 
of Hegel. 



MYSTIC THEOLOGY. 

BY DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITA. 
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK BY THOMAS DAVIDSON. 

Chapter I. 

The Divine Darkness. 

§ 1. Trinity Superessential, Superdivine, and Superexcellent, 
Guide of Christian Theosoph}'^, direct us to the superunknown, 
supersplendent, and supreme height of mystic oracles, where the 
simple and absolute and unchanging mysteries of theology are re- 
vealed in the superlucent gloom of the Silence that initiates into 



396 The Journal of SpeGulative Philosophy. 

hidden things, mysteries that in the deepest darkness outshine 
the brightest light, and in the altogether intangible and invisible 
overfill the eyeless intellects with superbeautif ul splendors. This 
be my prayer ! 

But thou, O dear Timothy, in thine intense endeavor after mys- 
tic visions, put aside sensible and intellectual acts, and all things 
sensible and intelligible, and all things non-existent and existent, 
and, as far as may be, aspire to the unity of that which is above 
essence and knowing; for by a non-relative and absolute with- 
drawal from thyself and from all things, thou shalt, having put 
off all things, and been released from all things, be borne aloft to 
the superessential ray of divine darkness. 

§ 2. See to it, however, that none of the uninitiated ovei'hear 
these things— such, I mean, as are bound fast in things existent, 
and imagine that nothing exists superessentially above the exist- 
ent, but think that, with their own knowing, they know Him who 
hath made darkness His hiding place. And if initiations into di- 
vine mysteries are above their reach, what shall we say of them 
who are more uninitiated, wdio image the overlying cause of all 
things by the last of existent things, and say that it in no way 
excels the godless, multiform shapes which they fashion ; whereas 
they ought both to affirm of it all the affirmations of things that 
are, as being the cause of all things, and more properly to deny 
them all of it, as superexisting above all, and not to think that 
the negations are opposed to the affirniations, but much rather 
that it is above privations, being above all negation and position. 

§ 3. Hence it is that the divine Bartholomew says that The- 
ology is both great and least, and the Gospal broad and large, and 
yet concise. This seems to me to be a marvellous insight of his, 
that the Good Cause of all things is at once of many words, of few 
words, and of no words, inasmuch as it has neither word nor in- 
telligence, since it superessentially overlies all thing?, and is 
shown forth without veil and truly only to those who pass through 
all things accursed and all things pure, and pass beyond all ascent 
of all holy heights, and leave behind all divine lights and sounds 
and words celestial, and j^ass into the gloom where, as the Oracles 
say, He who is above all truly is. Not in vain, indeed, is the di- 
vine Moses commanded first to purify himself and then to sepa- 
rate himself from those that are not pure ; and after all purifica- 



Mystic Theology. 397 

tion lie hears the many-voiced trumpets, sees many lights forth- 
flashing pure and far-diffused rays ; then he is separated from the 
many and, with chosen priests, attains to the height of divine 
ascents. But even then he is not in the presence of God Him- 
self ; nor doth he behold Ilim (for He is invisible); but only the 
place where He is. This, I think, indicates that the divinest and 
loftiest things of sight and intelligence are certain objective 
Words, objectified by Him who transcends all things — Words 
through which His presence, w^hich is above all thought, is re- 
vealed, standing upon the intelligible heights of His holiest places. 
And then he is set free from the seen things themselves and from 
them that see, and passes into the truly mystical gloom of un- 
knowledge, in which he dies to all cognitive apprehensions, and 
finds himself in the totally intangible and invisible, being alto- 
gether of Him who is above all, belonging to no one, either to 
himself or to another, but being united in its better part to Ilim 
who is altogether unknown, by complete inaction of knowledge, 
and, by knowing nothing, knowing super-intelligently. 

Chapter II. 

Hoio we must he united and ofer Hymns to Him who is the 
Author of all Things and ahove all Things. 

It is in this superlucent darkness that we long to be, and through 
unsight and unknowledge to see and to know that which is above 
sight and knowledge, by very not seeing and not knowing. This, 
indeed, is truly to see and to know and to praise superessentially 
the Superessential by the removal of all existent things; just as 
those who make a statue out of a single block remove all the 
obstacles that impede the pure vision of the hidden one, and dis- 
play, by mere removal, the hidden beauty, itself by itself. And 
we must, I think, praise the removals in a way opposite to the 
positions. The former, indeed, we pnt on, beginning from the 
first and passing down through the middle to the last ; in the lat- 
ter case, making our ascents from the last to the most principal, 
we remove all things, in order that without a veil we may know 
that unknowledge which lies hidden by all known things in all 
things that are, and may see that superessential darkness which is 
hidden by all the light in all the things that are. 



398 Tlie Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

Chapter III. 

Affirmative and Negative Theologies. 

lu our Outlines of Theology we have celebrated the leading 
principles of Affirmative Theology, showing how the Divine and 
Good JS'ature is called One, and how it is called Three ; what 
is the meaning in it of Fatherhood and Sonship, and what is 
the import of the theology of the Spirit; how from the imma- 
terial and individual Good there sprang the embosomed lights of 
goodness, which have remained immanent in the Good itself, in 
themselves and in each other, with an immanence coeternal with 
their propagation ; how the superessential Jesus was essenced 
with truths of human nature; and so on through all those truths 
revealed by the Oracles, which are celebrated in the Outlines of 
Theology. 

In our work On the Divine Names we have shown how God is 
called Good, how Existent, how Life and Wisdom and Power, and 
all the other titles of the intellectual divine naming. In our Sym- 
holic Theology, again, we have shown what are the metonymies 
from sensible to divine things ; what are the divine shapes, the di- 
vine figures and parts and organs, what are the divine places 
and worlds ; what the angers, griefs, wraths ; what the intoxica- 
tions and the nauseas, the oaths and the maledictions ; what the 
sleepings and wakings, and all the other sacredly moulded shapes 
of symbolic divine representation. And I think you have seen 
how the last are more prolix than the first ; for it was nece8- 
sary that the Outlines of Theology and the evolution of the Di- 
vine Names should be briefer than the Symbolic Theology. The 
truth is, the further we carry our nods of negation upward, the 
more our words are contracted by the surveys of intellectual 
things, and so even now, in passing into the darkness that is 
above intellect, we shall find not brevity of speech, but complete 
absence of speech and absence of intelligence. And in the one 
case, speech, going down from the highest to the lowest, widened 
out to an extent proportionate to the amount of the descent; 
whereas, in the present case, mounting from the lowest to the 
highest, it is narrowed in proportion to the ascent, and at the end 
of the entire ascent it will be voiceless altogether, and altogether 



Mystic Theology. 399 

united to the ineffable. " Bnt why," you will say, " do we begin the 
divine positings from the iirst, and then begin the divine removals 
from the last?" Because, in positing that which is above all 
positing, we were obliged to begin positing the suggestive affirma- 
tion from that which is most akin to it ; whereas, in removing 
that which is above all removal, we were obliged to remove it from 
the things that are farthest apart from it. Is not God more truly 
life and goodness than He is air and stone? And is it not more 
true that He does not suffer from intoxication and is not wrathful 
than that He is not named and is not thought ? 

Chapter IY. 

The Sujyreme Cause of all the Sensible is not any Sensible Thing. 

We affirm, therefore, that the Cause of all things, being above 
all things, is neither essenceless, nor lifeless, nor reasonless, nor 
mindless ; nor has it body, or fashion, or form, or quality, or quan- 
tity, or bulk ; nor is it in place, nor is it seen, nor hath it sensible 
contact. It neither feels nor is felt ; nor has it disorder and con- 
fusion, as if excited by material passions ; nor is it powerless, as 
if subject to sensible contingencies ; nor is it in need of light ; 
nor is it or has it either change, or decay, or division, or privation, 
or flux, or any other sensible thing. 

Chapter Y. 

The Supreme Cause of all the Intelligible is not any Intelligible 

Thing. 

Ascending again, we affirm that it is neither soul nor intel- 
lect ; nor has it imagination, or opinion, or reason, or intelligence; 
nor is it reason or intelligence ; nor is it spoken or thought. It 
is neitlier number, uor order, nor magnitude, nor littleness, nor 
equality, nor inequality, nor similarity, nor dissimilarity. It nei- 
ther stands, nor moves, nor rests ; it neither has nor is power or 
light ; it neither lives, nor is life ; it is neither essence, nor eternity, 
nor time. Even intellectual contact does not belong to it. It is 
neither science nor truth. It is not even royalty or wisdom ; not 
one ; not unity ; not divinity or goodness ; nor even spirit as we 
know it. It is neither sonship, nor paternity, nor any other ex- 



400 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

istent tiling known to us or to any other. It is not anything non- 
existent or existent ; nor do things existent know it as it is ; nor 
does it know existent things as existent. There is no speech, or 
name, or knowledge of it. It is neither darkness nor light ; nor 
error, nor truth ; nor is there universal positing or removal of it. 
Nay, when we posit and remove those things that come after it, 
we do not posit or remove it, since the complete and unitary 
cause of all things is above all positing, and beyond all removal 
the transcendence of that which is absolutely abstracted from all 
things and above all things. 



FRIENDSHIP. 



BY LEONORA B. HALSTED. 



Friendship, happily, is nothing new ; but, for that matter, 
neither is life ; yet eacli person linds it quite interesting to live 
and to learn how others have lived ; and so it is with the beauti- 
ful experience of friendship. Homer sings it in the early litera- 
ture and Emerson analyzes it in the late ; the Old Testament 
gives us a beautiful example of it, and the New a higher one ; 
one of the chief works of Plato — " The Banquet " — extolled it, and 
one of the greatest poems of modern times — " In Memoriam " — 
grew from it as an exquisite plant from earth to light. Yet the 
subject is inexhaustible, for individuality has its freest play in 
this relation. Indeed, the friendships we have at the same time 
with different persons differ as much as they do. The relation 
changes and rearranges itself incessantly, for each man has va- 
rious facets to his character ; one friend fits to one, another to 
more than one, but no human being can by any possibility satisfy 
another at every point continuously. 

" We hold our dear ones with a firm, strong clasp, 
We hear their voices, look into their eyes ; 
And yet betwixt us in that clinging clasp 
A distance lies." 



Friendship. 401 

This distance is the mystery of individuality ; and it is curious 
to see how the sense of it has developed through the ages. Plato, 
in his famous conversation on love, gives an illustration of the 
way his age regarded it : 

"If, where two who love are together, Vulcan were to stand 
over them with his tools in his hand and ask them, ' Do ye desire 
to be in the same place with each other, so as never by day or 
night to be apart from each other? for, if ye long for this, I am 
willing to melt you down together and to mould you into the same 
mass, so that you two may live as one person, and, when ye die, 
may remain forever in Hades, one soul instead of two.' On 
hearing this," proceeds Plato, " not a single person would appear 
to wish for anything else, but would in reality conceive he had 
heard that which long ago he wished for, and, being melted with 
his beloved, he would out of two become one." 

But Montaigne does not wish an indistinguishable unity that 
would rob both of the chief joy of love — the joy of giving. " The 
friend," he says, "is sorry he is not treble or quadruple, and that 
he has not many souls and many wills to confer them all upon this 
one object." While, in our own day, individuality has developed 
so far that Emerson linds it necessary to say, " At times, let us 
bid even our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, 
^Who are you? Unhand me; I will be dependent no more.' " 
And in his poem somewhat ironically named " Give all to Love," 
he adjures the lover thus : 

" Keep thee to-day, 
To-morrow, forever, 
Free as an Arab 
Of thy beloved." 

But this is the nomadic spirit defying social life and preferring 
isolation with caprice to freedom attained through the perfect law 
of liberty. 

The true reason for love is the simplest one : " Because it is he ; 
because it is I " ; the spontaneous attraction of two characters 
for each other ; the intense and abiding personal element that is 
as the earth to the plant, that by which it stands firm. But 
friendship is of the earth, earthy, unless it lifts itself into the 
light and grows and blossoms ever higher, bearing the fruit of 
XXII— 26 



402 The Journal of ISpeculative Philosophy. 

years of noble and tender experience in common. It cannot be 
lasting or good while it lasts if its chief strength lies in the em- 
ployment of the senses. If to see, hear, or feel our friends in the 
literal meaning of these words is necessary in order to keep our 
alfection alive, it is of small value. Friendship worthy of the 
name is supersensuous ; it is capable of penetrating distance and 
silence to "coincide in rest" with an absent friend. It sees, 
hears, and feels without the need of bodily organs, for it lives in 
a higher atmosphere than that of the body and can command 
finer forces. 

A close personal affection, however, attracts many dangers, 
cliief of which is the desii'e to enslave. To friendship, on the 
contrary, Ireedom is absolutely essential. It is not, like the con- 
jugal, a relation of one to one. There should be free play of in- 
dividuality not alone of friends toward each other, but of each 
friend toward all others. The greed of exclusive possession is 
fatal. Demands in affection are death blows. The friend who 
asks more than he can command strangles by his clinging em- 
brace. Seek ownership of your friend and you own but yourself, 
for you push him away. "Violence touches not love." Seek 
confidence and you repel it. Await it, content whether it hastens 
or delays, and, unless principle or lack of sympathy prevents, it 
will be yours in due season. What would hasten it is inconsistent 
with true friendsbip. Why should you pry even in thought into 
the hidden recesses of a friend's life ? Do you not trust him, or 
are you unwilling that he should have any unshared thought or 
memory ? It is like asking him what he has eaten in order to 
make that face and form. He, as his life has made him, is your 
friend ; " here took his station and degree, one born to love you." 
Does not this result transcend details ? On the other hand, where 
there is a reason for communicating facts, for telling what kind 
of food went to produce the spiritual muscle and nerve you ad- 
mire in your friend, if he is honest and you are sympathetic, he 
will speak freely. Sympathy has an incalculable power ; it is the 
dynamic force of the world. 

But it is not to be expected that so complex a creature as man 
will find another person with whom he can coalesce in " the sim- 
plicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets 
another." Such unity is not found among animals, nor even 



Friendship. 403 

plants ; each part in every union maintains its identity, and it 
would be retrogression tor man not to maintain his. Friendship 
does not require him to saerilice his individuality, but to enlarge 
it, for it is simply the spontaneous recognition in one nature of 
congeniality in another. Congeniality may exist in one portion 
of the meeting cliaracters and not at all in others. Discrimina- 
tion, the knowledge of when to withhold no less than when to 
give, is as essential to friendship as to love. Only an inexperi- 
enced person expects to throw his whole weight upon any other 
person as a child upon its mother, or the soul upon God. It is a 
childish thought and shows lack of appreciation of the other per- 
sonality. Kowhere are the niceties of life, the delicacy of pene- 
tration, and the tact of usage more necessary than in all forms of 
affection. Without these, friendship is quickly trampled in the 
mire, and, if it exists at all, endures only by maintaining itself at 
a very low level. 

So jealousy should be obliterated from friendship. The more 
friends your friend has, the richer are you, for you share his 
wealth, his added experience. We can possess fully only by par- 
ticipation. We come more into union with each other as we be- 
come more universal. The etymology of this word signifies turning 
all into one. The more that is done, the more there is to share ; 
and the less we go outside of a single friend, a single interest, the 
smaller is our harvest — either to keep or divide. Friendship 
should reach out many hands to grasp the produce of others, giv- 
ing of its own in return, and draw them back to feed and beautify 
those dearest. 

The question of supremacy also should not obtrude itself be- 
tween friends. " You ouglit to love me more than any other be- 
cause I love you more than any other " is a wretched claim. The 
theory of sixpence for sixpence is not suitable to friendship; it 
has no business to demand what it is incapable of winning. If a 
friend can gain and retain affection, so much the better; if not, 
whose fault is it so much as his own ? Moreover, the nature that 
considers itself defrauded if its affection is unreciprocated in de- 
gree has much to learn. In material wealth, whom do we con- 
sider the richer man? the one who can give, or the one who can 
only take % If you have millions to give away, are you not 
wealthier than the pauper who has nothing? And this holds 



404 The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 

good of spiritual matters far more deeply. It is more blessed to 
give than to receive. It is iniinitely better to love than to be 
loved ; to be active than passive; to have energy than inertia. 

Of course, in friendship as elsewhere the ideal is equality. 
" Love without love in return is like a question without an an- 
swer." Reciprocally to give and take is the most perfect condi- 
tion, but the mercantile idea oi quid pro quo should he disclaimed 
by friends as by lovers. Only in the rarest instances can the de- 
gree be tlie same. The desire to be loved is just and right in its 
place, but it must be made to keep its place, not usurp attention. 
The craving for return must be divested of selfishness, must not 
be a centralized y)oint, but enclose a large circumference, in order 
not to injure the finer elements of friendship. A man, however, 
should rejoice in receiving as well as giving. If he does not, he 
cannot be a true friend, for in receiving reluctantly he deprives 
his friend of the very joy he himself most appreciates. 

Montaigne, who, c^nic as he is on some subjects, gross and vul- 
gar in many ways, has yet a wonderfully deep insight into friend- 
ship, tells of an example which he considers " very fully to the 
point." 

"Eudamidas, a Corinthian, had two friends, and, coming to 
die, being poor and his friends rich, made his will after this man- 
ner: 'I bequeath to Aretheus the maintenance of my mother, to 
support and provide for her in her old age ; and to Charixenus I 
bequeath the care of marrying my daughter, and to give her as 
good a portion as he is able ; and in case one of these chances to 
die, I hereby substitute the other in his place.' They who lirst 
saw this will made themselves verj^ merry at the contents, but the 
heirs accepted the legacies with verj' great content, and Charixe- 
nus dying within live days after, Aretheus nourished the old 
woman with great care and tenderness ; and of live talents he had, 
gave two and a half in marriage with an only daughter, and two 
and a half in marriage with the daughter of Eudamidas, and on 
the same day solemnized both their nuptials. Eudamidas," Mon- 
taigne remarks further on, "as a bounty and favor bequeaths to 
his friends a legacy of employing themselves in his service, and 
doubtless the force of friendshi]) is more eminently apparent in 
this act of his than in that of Aretheus." 

This is the true point of view. In friendship the receiver shows 



Friendship. 405 

even a greater generosity tlian the giver doe.~, for bis feeling is 
liable to misconstruction, wliereas the material generosity is plain 
to the dullest sense. But the friendships are rare in which one 
can ffive or receive material benefit and not strain the relation. 
Silver and gold are heavy loads for the shoulders of friends to 
carry ; they are apt to bend under the burden and we lose the 
frje carriage our friends liked in us. Where a person feels he is 
under an obligation to another, if it be only for a dollar, the rela- 
tion of friendship is disturbed. Love alone is true gratitude and 
removes all sense of obligation. 

" This it was that made me move 
As light as carrier birds in air : 
I loved the weight I had to bear, 
Because it needed help of love." 

The finest gratitude does not ask for opportunity to return the 
aid or favor received to the person from whom it came, but ap- 
preciates it so keenly that it seeks with eagerness opportunities 
of passing the good deed on. Thus it transcends the particular 
instance and broadens into " the general deed of man." 

Emerson scathes the commonplace which enters into our friend- 
ships, but it would seem more just to look upon it as the clothing 
of modesty. The heart must not unveil itself before an imperfect 
sympathy, and our ordinary remarks on meeting a friend are like 
the prelude that attunes the singer and his audience before the ex- 
quisite melody begins. Or a touch may be all that is necessary 
for this prelude — a touch on the key-note — so vital is deep emo- 
tion, I meet a friend after long years of absence, or a few hours 
in which much has occurred. We clasp hands, we look in each 
other's eyes, and the prelude is done; speech can begin with per- 
fect security of comprehension. And to be understood ! to under- 
stand ! this is the chief glory of friendship. That which can be 
safely left unsj)oken is the main portion of any heartfelt speech. 
Words are but indications, buoys in the ocean of the unuttered. 
If one sees only the buoy, how impossible to convey to him a sense 
of the infinite sea ! " Songs without w^ords," writes a friend ; " a 
love-letter without words ; any one can write a love-letter with 
words, but I can write and you can read a love-letter without 



406 The Journal of Speoulatwe Philosophy. 

words." Ay, there it is ; the harmony of feelino;, tlie assurance 
of" coinpreliension, the free ebb and flow of the tides of love out 
of and into one's beino-. 

These caresses of friendship make the lyre of love vibrate as 
deeply and sweetly as the other touches of thouglit and unsensu- 
ous feeling. The harmony is tlie riclier for every added chord. 
Emerson does not appreciate tliis ; he is afraid of being familiar 
with his friends. He wants to keep them in the highest and most 
rarefied air. He will talk with them only on the mountain tops. 
" It would indeed giv^e me a certain household joy,'* he acknowl- 
edges, " to quit tliis lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy, and 
come down to warm sympathies with you ; but then I know well 
I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods." 

He forgets that God himself is love, and manifests himself to 
the lowly in heart, the childlike in spirit. He is terribly afraid of 
his friends ; they are very breakable idols. He goes into the 
sanctuary only on rare occasions, when by fasting and solitude he 
has made himself worthy; he walks on tiptoe, he dares hardly 
breathe for fear the precious piece of rare porcelain will fall and he 
be left mourning among the fragments. But perfect love casteth 
out fear. It sweeps aside these brittle gods and walks out into the 
world accompanied, as by the breath of life, with the living, lov- 
ing, bending, uplifting friend. Nothing is small to such a friend ; 
a touch of the hand is a heart thrill ; a sense of his presence 
creates an atmosphere of joy ; a thought heard together echoes 
deeply and returns in a musical chord ; an idea flashing simultane- 
ously into two minds is like a touch of the Holy Spirit, for friend- 
ship as well as religion has its Pentecost. 

You are not afraid of your friend's idealizing you ; you want 
him to idealize you to the utmost reach of his capacity ; for far from 
weighting you, it helps you to soar. In the eons of eternity you 
may become what he thinks you, and in the mean time he inspires 
you to persevere toward this glorious goal. AVhen you are 
tempted to fall backward, his ideal holds you firm and helps you 
forward. Even if you fail him, as yourself, egregiously, you know 
that his love will take on the form of compassion, and will rescue 
you if rescue be possible. So you are not afraid of him. While 
a false note jars with hateful dissonance on the harmony of your 
affection, yet you rejoice in the thought that your friend's love 



Friendship. 407 

will aid you to less imperfect tnitb, and that, under his modulat- 
ing touch, discords will at last blend into music. 

It is ditiicult to tell what best evidences friendship. Love is the 
solvent of all things ; it holds in solution, as it were, every possi- 
bility of devotion, tenderness, helpfulness ; some event occurs and 
the possibility is precipitated into an act, a word, a silence. A 
slight thing may convey more meaning tlian a much greater 
thing. It is not quantity so much as quality that is precious. 
Deeds, however great, are not the stuff of which friendship is 
made, any more than food is the stuff out of which genius is 
made: all can eat, few can be geniuses or frieiids. But we can- 
not be either unless, when occasion demands, the food and deeds 
are ready. Yet if we fail even at the crucial moment, friendship 
should trust us, if we repent, beyond that failure. Where is there 
a greater instance of supreme coniidence in a friend than Christ 
gave to Peter when, after Peter had denied him thrice, he gave 
him the opportunity to obliterate these denials by calling forth 
thrice the reassurance of his love and, moreover, taught him 
how to prove it ? 

Christ said a man cannot do more than to give up his life for 
his friend, yet how many have died for those they knew not ! 
Witness the nurses and physicians who flock to a plague-stricken 
district. But by giving up one's life Christ may have meant, not 
death, but a living sacrifice. This indeed is a supreme test of 
friendship, for it is constantly recurring, never ending, and puts 
one's whole self to the proof. It is comparatively easy to die and 
be done with it, as the phrase goes, but to live day after day, 
week after week, year after year, and respond triumphantly to 
every test friendship can put upon one — this is to be a friend 
indeed. 

But if few can be heroes, we can at least try to be genuine so 
far as we go, and this is the essential element of greatness. To be 
true, " never to relent, never to give one's self the lie," is the chief 

point. 

" Being true unto thine own self, 
Thou art faithful, too, to me." 

'' Gracchus and Blosius," we are told, " were more friends than 
citizens. Having absolutely given up themselves to one another, 



408 The Journal of Speculative Phllosoplnj. 

each held absolutely the reins of the other's inclinations." Bnt 
no one has a right to give himself np to another so absolutely as 
to be governed by that other. History shows us in large exam- 
ples how such surrender eventuates. Give up your conscience 
and will to the cliurcli, and you become a priest-pulled puppet ; 
give them up to the state, and you become a slave ; give them up 
to society, and it scorns while using you ; give them up in the 
family, and you are trodden underfoot. A man must stand like 
Coriolanus, " as if he were author of himself and knew no other kin." 
Then, from this attitude of self-possession the gift of himself be- 
comes royal ; his friendship is of more worth to one happy enough 
to secure it than diamonds or crowns ; it has no measure but its 
own — spiritual life. 

To me, the illustrations of deepest friendship are these : A 
woman of sensitive conscience, unsparing self-condemnation, and 
an intense reserve, when confessing a sin to another said, " I 
would as soon you knew it as to know it myself." What surety 
of comprehension this betokens ! It reminds one of Tennyson's 
adjuration to his dead friend, to be near hira through all the 
throes of life ; but then comes the doubt whether really he does 
wish his friend to see " the inner vileness " and "the hidden 
shame." Yet love trium])hs. 

" There must be wisdom with great Death ; 
The dead shall look me through and tlirough." 

What makes the other instance greater is the fact that both 
were living, and the living have not the " larger, other eyes, to 
make allowance for us all." 

To receive a confidence and shut it away so sacredly that its re- 
flection may never be seen peering ghost-like from the mirrors of 
memory, even by the sensitive eye of the person who confided it, 
is a delicacy of friendship essential to its relinement. The dead 
indeed can be trusted not to remind us of our sins, but the living 
may make life a torture thereby, and confidence an unutterably 
bitter regret. 

The second illustration is this: Two women were about to part 
for an indefinite period. One of them was in very unhappy cir- 
cumstances and of a tempestuous nature. " Suppose," said she, 
" you should return five years hence and find me in a house ot ill- 



Friendship. 409 

fame, what would you do ? " " Go and bring you out," was the 
instant reply. It contains a great lesson, for such is the love that 
casteth out fear, and the faith that can move mountains. 

The tliird exauiple is of two men, one of whom alone was a 
true friend. It is told in " Sebastian Strome." Strome had led 
an evil life under the mask of goodness; he had committed 
crime, but at last became thoroughly ashamed of it. On the point 
of doing what he could to expiate it, he revealed himself in all his 
vileness to the friend who had revered him as a demigod, regard- 
ing himself as worthless in comparison. Overwhelmed by the 
revelation, Smillet's love broke out in the cry, " I'd rather have 
done it myself ! " As a spontaneous expression of deep friend- 
ship it would be hard to find anything its superior. 

All of these instances may seem as of small consequence com- 
pared to the action of Aretheus, but to me they indicate a far 
higher reach of personal friendship. They indicate ; that is all. 
The weather-vane tells the way of the wind better than something 
less sensitive. The compass is insignificant compared to the 
waste of waters in mid-ocean, but it indicates where lies the har- 
bor and safety. 

And this brings us to the duties of friendship, for to be a com- 
pass in troubled waters is one of the chief offices of friendship. 

Duties are based on principles. No matter how stately the 
superstructure may be, nor how fair the Palace of Delight, noth- 
ing truly human has its foundation elsewhere than on principle. 
The animal is beneath principle because unconscious of it (alas, 
that man has so much of the animal in him yet!); the divine 
may seem to transcend it ; but this is only seeming. The divine 
weds principle to love and so makes principled action, spontane- 
ous action — the perfect law of liberty, the truth that maketh free. 

The ethics of friendship, then, are sincerity, fidelity, regard for 
the other's welfare, and trust. 

Caprice and insincerity between friends cut both ways, for it 
would be more just to blame one's self, at least partly, for the mis- 
take made in the choice of the friend and the ensuing disappoint- 
ment, than to blame wholly the fickle or false person. Intelligent 
perception is quite as essential as devotion. How can one expect 
seed to take root where there is noeai'th? If we sow our seed, 



â– ilO I'he Journal of Speculative Philosophy . 

no matter how plentifully, on barren rocks, who is to blame that 
it does not spring up and bear fruit % 

As to fidelity, while the close relationship of friends endures, it 
is easy to be true. But let a strain come and our ])rinciple3 are 
tested. If a friend falls away from one's esteem and respect, and 
all efforts to recall him prove useless, what then % It is some- 
times the highest office of friendship to end it. If a man palters 
with his own soul, shall his friend palter with it also? Shall he 
not rather uphold the soul, having faith in its survival of this 
degradation, and refuse to recognize the evil mask as the true 
man % " You are as though dead to me," are bitter w'ords to say, 
but they may be the precursor of resurrection ; the reviving 
trumpet-call to one indeed dead in trespasses and sins. Then how 
gladly will the grave-clothes be stripped off, and the man clothed 
in rich raiment and seated at the friend's right hand or held in 
his close embrace ! 

Just in which way friendship can be best served, however — 
whether by withdrawal or ceaseless endeavor to reform — is a ques- 
tion only the friend can decide. One must have great faith in 
the power affection gives him to say to another involved in sin, 
" I will come and take you out." For if he fails and still tries to 
maintain the attitude of friendship he confirms the man in his 
evil. Forgiveness to anything less than heartfelt repentance evi- 
denced by action is encouragement of sin. If a man belies his 
own sense of right until it ceases to have any influence over his 
acts, and his intimates, becoming aware of his wrong-doing, put 
up with him as he does with himself, not demanding amendment 
of life as a condition of continued friendship, they have done 
what they can to harden his heart. "It is not so bad after all," 
he tells himself. "My friends know it and yet are my friends all 
the same." 

Such persons have much to answer for. The world reflects the 
image a man casts therein ; but if the mirror is defective he gets a 
distorted view of himself and his judgment cannot help but err. 
It is of vital importance to everybody what others think of him, 
for each one is dependent on his fellows and each is responsible 
for his relations to others. 

Let us then be not too ready to drop our friends ; let us do so 
only when we must. Let us remember that hope is a virtue as 



Friendship. 411 

well as faitli and cLarity, and s^'ive him not only one opportunity 
but many to reinstate himself. Peter should be a great comfort to 
all of us, because he proved how repentance and trust can redeem 
the man. Two months after he had denied Christ thrice he stood 
on the temple steps and proclaimed him to the world. But we 
can hardly look for a quick Peter-like conversion in our faithless 
friend ; there is not the merit in us to create it ; let us then give 
him time, give him all the time there is, which is eternity, and in 
some part of it our trust will be justified. 

Strome's friend gave utterance to an expression of the purest 
unselfishness and his cry is echoed down the ages. " Would I 
had died for thee, Absolom, mv son ! " And this is what the son 
of man and of God did. Vicarious life is the moving power of 
the universe. In God the personal and universal are united. 
" The strangest fact in the history of the world," says Prof. 
Davidson, " is the extraordinary personal love that Jesus excited 
in those who came in contact with him. They felt that in loving 
him they were loving the infinite God." This personal love was 
the center from which the vast circumference of Christianity, with 
its immeasurable superiority to all other developments in religion 
or culture, drew its life, and will forever. Man and God have be- 
come friends. We need not be servants unless we choose, though 
those " who will not ride in his chariot must drag in his chains." 
But we are offered the divine prerogative of friendship, and " so 
great a thing as friendship let us carry with what grandeur of soul 
we may." 



AKISTOTLE'S DOCTKINE OF REASON. 



BY W. T. HARRIS. 



There are two points of view from which the human mind may 
contemplate the world. The first is the view of the world from 
the standpoint of sense-perception ; the second, the view from the 
standpoint of the Reason or speculative insight. Sense-percep- 
tion views the world as a congeries of particular things, each one 
an independent existence having its own being by itself, apart 



412 Tlte Journal of Sjyeculative PliUoaophy. 

from the rest of the universe and in complete repose so far as its 
essence is concerned. All its relations to other beings are acci- 
dental and do not concern its essence. All its activities— move- 
ments, changes — too, are accidental, and do not affect its essential 
nature. 

Such a view of the world is properly called materialistic. It 
looks upon the real and substantial as matter Avhich fills space and 
is composed of hard particles, each excluding the others. Each 
material particle is an atom, or composed of atoms. These atonis 
are unchangeable and devoid of motion witliin themselves. This 
is the theory made to fit sense-perception. Sense-perception does 
not form a theory for itself of the universe, but reflection discovers 
the atomic theory as adapted to this sense-view of the world. 

The reason in its view of the world, on the other hand, takes 
its stand on the theory of self-activity as the truly existent. Ac- 
cording to it each thing in the universe is either a self-activity or 
dependent on a self-activity for all its qualities and attributes —all 
its properties and manifestations. 

Thus our two views of the world stand in contrast. The sense- 
view supposes the essential to be quiescent matter without move- 
ment except what it receives from outside itself. The reason-view 
holds the theory that essence is self-activity, and that all quiescent 
matter or material things are phenomenal. By phenomenal it 
means dependent being — not self-contained and essential, but only 
the manifestation of an essence which is self-active. 

To the sense-point of view nothing seems so absurd as the theory 
that makes self-activity the basis of existence. To the reason it 
is utterly impossible to hold any other theory than that of a self- 
active basis for phenomena. Sense-perception does not see the 
necessity for self-activity ; in fact, it regards self-activity as incon- 
ceivable. Our minds can imagine a thing — a quiescent being, a 
form, a shape, but how can vve imagine or envisage an activity — a 
self-activity? Sense-[)erception knows things, and things only. 
But reason knows things too, and it explains them through self- 
activity. Sense-perception explains things through things — great 
things through little things or particles of matter, and little things 
through less things; and all things through least things or material 
atoms. Thus, to sense-perception, the impoi-tant category or prin- 
ciple of explanation is composition or combination. Analysis and 



Aristotle's Doctrine of R-eason. 413 

synthesis explain the composition of each thing oat of other things. 
But composition is an activity ; it implies change and motion. 
How do things get compounded — how does composition happen % 
On this topic sense-perception has not reflected. It has no theory 
of composition or decomposition, nor of any sort of activity in 
short ; for it cannot image or picture an activity, and therefore 
ignores it altogether, or what is the same thing, refers it to the 
category of accident or ciiance : " Things happen to get composed 
or joined together." 

From the fact that sense-perception regards things as the only 
essential beings and neglects activity, it explains all movement 
and change as something which has an external origin to the thing. 
Things get moved by the action of other things. The explanation 
of the movement of any one thing is thus avoided : " This thing 
moves because other things have impinged upon it and caused it 
to move." But why did those things impinge upon this thing? 
Why did they move and cause it to move? They moved, replies 
sense-perception, because other things impinged upon them and 
caused them to move, and still other things moved and caused 
those things to move. And so the origin of motion is pushed off 
ad injinitum / it is always from beyond the things. 

It would seem as though sense-perception had a vague notion 
that the question of the whence of motion would somehow settle 
itself if it could be pushed off or postponed from present considera- 
tion. It says in effect : this thing is not the origin of motion ; nor 
is that thing, nor any other thing. All motion that we see in 
things is derivative: "it cometh from afar." It is not derived 
from things. Sense-perception by this admission has brought 
itself into a dilemma. For it attempted to explain the world by 
matter — by great things and little things — by masses and mole- 
cules. But it was obliged to use the category of composition and 
decomposition, a category of activity and not of matter. All the 
differences in the universe arise from composition and decomposi- 
tion ; all the appearances, all the phenomena, all the things, in 
short, take on their present forms through this kind of activity 
known to sense-perception as composition and decomposition. 
Hence it would seem that activity is the essential principle of ex- 
planation after all. Take away composition and you have left 
only atoms. But atoms are invisible. We cannot see or perceive 



414 The Journal of Speculative Philosopliij . 

them except in the vast aggregates which compose things. Yisi- 
bilitj is then the effect of activity or composition. Inasmuch as 
atoms are invisible tliej are mere fictions of thought set up by 
theory in order to exphiin sense-perception. 

Sense-perception explains things by composition, and ultimate 
things should be fixed elements or atoms. The dilemma into 
which this theory has run is this : all of reality should be in the 
form of ultimate things ; but in point of fact all of reality per- 
ceptible by the senses is a result of activity. Because activity 
is the origin of visible form. The senses perceive only forms and 
shapes, but never perceive the forms and shapes of the ultimate 
elements. All objects of sense-perception are then perceivable 
only in so far as they are products of activity. Hence it is evi- 
dent that the one essential problem before the common sense of 
the world is to explain composition and decomposition, motion 
and change, activity and passivity. But this problem it has 
avoided and ignored. It has acted like the osti'ich when pursued 
by the hunters: it has hidden its head in the sands (atoms) in 
order to avoid the pursuing questions regarding composition and 
activity. It has ignored the question of origin of motion, but in 
doing so it has been obliged to deny its origin in things. All 
motion comes to things from without and there is no origination 
of motion on the part of things. If sense-perception or reflection 
said anything else than this — if it adniitted, for example, that 
motion could originate in a thing, it would admit self-activity. 

Reason sees this dilemma, and sees moreover that there is no 
escape from the admission of self-activity. Its reasoning is this : 

{a) Shapes and forms, positions and relations, composition and 
decomposition, arise by movement and change. 

{}j) Change is either derived from some external source, or else 
it originates in self-activity within. 

(c) But if it originates from some external source there must be 
self-activity in that external source. If it is asserted that the ex- 
ternal source also receives its change from some other external 
source, reason replies effectively thus : 

{d) Let this thing and all external things be devoid of self- 
activity ; let each thing in the universe be moved only by external 
causes, and it follows that all things are derivative and dependent 
on motion which comes from without; it follows then that motion 



Aristotle's Doctrine of Reason. 415 

originates in itself ; or if it does not originate, but is self-existent, 
then of course its influence on things (producing composition and 
decomposition in them) is only the manifestation of motion as self- 
activity or essential energy. Motion, or the source of motion, 
existing apart from things, eternally giving rise to formation and 
transformation — causing worlds to aggregate and mineral strata 
to deposit ; floods to disintegrate and frosts to fix ; plants to grow ; 
animals to manifest selfhood ; races of men to seek to explain the 
world and themselves — such source of such motion is self-activity. 
The world shows a gr